The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-02-09
Copyright, 1897, by Thomas c. Allen.

Copyright, 1897, by Thomas u. Alien,
Jr.)
Allen o, Allen, Get upi It's day
lightp' A sleepy grunt and a still mere
drowsy rs it?" from a pile of cover
lets on the divan-like seat of a Russian
railway carriage betrayed no very live
ly interest on the part of the PROSTATE
figure in the fact announced, While the
heavy, longdrawn breathing Whlcn
soon succeeded this momentary inter-
ruption proved that more active meas
ures would have to be taken to recall
him from the land of dreams. L say,
Alleni Wake up, We're in Siberia!
The magic name, Siberia, appealed to
a stronger feeling than drowsiness,
and raising my head from my air.
cushion pillow, 1 took a sleepy, blink
ing view of. the situation, endeavoring
in feeble way to recollect just where
l was and how l came there. NV
travelling companion was standing
over me with a map in one hand and
a railway guide in the other, both of
which he was brandishing furiously
in order to wake me UP more effect
ually. His frantic gesticulations had
the desired effect. With a vague i'm
preston that L had been suddenly
landed in the midst of a land of ST.
berian koracks and was about to be
sacrificed to the terrible Shaman, 1
sprang up and rubbed my eyes until
l could gather together my scattered
senses.
MORNING IN SIBERIA.
1t was beautiful, clear morning. AL
though only 3 o'clock, the sun was
already above the horizon, illumining
the eastern slopes of the Ural noun
tains, which we had just crossed dur
ing the night, and shedding flood of
golden light over the boundless steppe
before us, whose fiowery surface, like
an interminable sea of red and yellow
petals, was waving in graceful undu-
lations with the morning breeze.
/ thought of the vague conceptions
which L had formed in my boyhood
days of this unknown, mysterious
land of icy mountains and snowy
plains-lonely and forbidding in its
uninhabitable wilderness-and tried to
compare them with the impressions
created by the scene before me; but
the effort was vain. I could not recon
cile those absurd fancies with this
strangely different experience. AL
though vivid then, they had now faded
away in the half-remembered imagery
of a dream, and nothing was real but
the sunlit dew, the vandal railway that
was marring its loveliness, and the
far-away purple mountains.
| was reused from my reverie by the
abrupt entrance of the conductor an
nouncing a change of cars at the next
station, Cheiiabinsk. The through
trains from Moscow, after traversing
a distance of 1850 miles, at an average
rate of 16 miles per hour, stop at this
point as the terminus of the European
railway system, in order to connect
with the present operating portion of
the Trans-Siberian railway.
BY FAVOR OF PRINCE HILLKOFF.
The Trans Siberian railway, ct the
time of my visit, was open to general
traffic only as far as the Oh river, a
distance of 49, miles, Csc miles beyond
the city of Omsk; but with the special
favor of Prince Hillkof, the Russian
minister of WAYS and communications,
1 was able to continue. my railway
journey beyond the OBJ river as far as
ing of this last division TO krasnoyarsk
during the present month Will 1T last
establish a complete railway colnmuni-
cation between st. Petersburg and the
greatest of the Siberian waterways-
the yenisei river.
But in this brief sketch it is not my
intention to deal with the extent or
construction of the trans-S Siberian rail-
way. I only hope to convey some gen
eral idea of the accommodations for
travel and the incipient modus oper-
andi of what is destined to be the great
transcontinental highway of Asia.
AS the intermediate point between
the two great railway systems of Eu-
rope and Asia. we naturally expected
to find at Cheliabinsk a spacious and
commodious station house. In this,
however, we were more than disap-
pointed. A small room, 30x40 feet,
served as buffet, dining room, luggage
room, toilet room and ticket Office all
in one.
DIsCOMFORTS OF TRAVEL.
Lackeys, laden with bundles and
huge pillows. were stumbling over the
indiscriminate piles of luggage on the
floor or scraping elbows with bear
ing walters, and upsetting the hot
beverage down the necks of some pa
tiently waiting guest at the breakfast
table. One victim with remarka bic
equanimity, observed that if he had
known he was going to have his tea
down the outside instead of the inside
of his neck he would have ordered it