to Kuldja, if you have not one from General Kol-
pakovsky.” Accordingly, when one day Mr. Ignatoff
called on us to say that the Governor-General had left
Vierny only the day before, and that, travel as fast as
he would, he could not reach Omsk before the date
on which the steamer was due, I determined to save
the shaking of my bones over that much of post-roads,
and to glide to Omsk on the Irtish. This Mr. Ignatoff
strongly urged, not, as will hereafter be seen, touting
for passengers, nor with an eye to business, but with
desire to perform a generous deed.
Our stay being thus prolonged, we had time to
visit the new commercial school, built at the cost of
Mr. Padaruyeff, the mayor, and in it the museum,
where was a good number of specimens of butterflies,
beetles, bees, and moths, collected locally by Mr.
Slovtsoff, to whom I had an introduction, but who
happened unfortunately to be away. We saw .also a
good deal of the Wardroppers, who had just astonished
the natives with a steamer they had built, of 200 tons
displacement, measuring 170 ft. by 22 ft., a hold 7 ft.
6 in. deep, and drawing only 28 in. of water.*
On the 10th of August we were to leave Tiumen,
and Mr. Ignatoff gave a dinner in my honour, placing
* She had compound condensing engines, cylinder steam jacketed,
and fitted with Corliss gear, which Mr. Edward. Wardropper had seen
in England, though not on steamers, and which he had adapted to that
en(j The high-pressure cylinder was of 21 and the low-pressure 38
inches in diameter, the stroke 48 m ., and the nominal horse power 80.
A ll the working parts were of Bessemer steel, and the boilers made of
Siemens’ steel, worked to a pressure of from 90 tp 100 lbs. The engines
had been made at the Government steel factory, 500 miles away, at
Perm but otherwise the whole was built in Siberia, where, as regards
her fittings of steel and Corliss gear, she was regarded as a novelty,
whilst owner and builders alike were pleased that she could tug against
stream in 2 lighters, 16 tons to each horse power.
me at the head of the table,* and Mr. Sevier opposite;
and when, later on, I went to the ticket office, there
was handed to me a free pass securing, as far as the
steamer could go, a firSt-class cabin with three berths,
free transport of my two vehicles and the whole of my
baggage! This I thought a proof of Mr. Ignatoff’ s
sympathy with my work, and the more observable
because I was told that he was Russian to the backbone,
and hated foreigners; moreover, that he would
probably rather have seen my work in the hands of his
own countrymen, but that as they did not do it, and I
did, he rose above his prejudices and acted in the
handsome manner I have described.
We left Tiumen in the small steamer Kapitan,
that carried us 60 miles down the shallow Tura
to its confluence with the Tobol, where we arrived
on the morning of the following day. We were
then transhipped into the Serapolets, a large, convenient,
and comfortable boat. During the process of
shifting, I observed a man looking steadily at me,
whom I recognized as the captain of the Beljetchenko,
in which I made the voyage three years previously
from Tobolsk to Tomsk. I vjas glad to find he had
not forgotten “ Mr. Missionary,” as he then called me,
I recognized also, among the passengers, the French
master at the Gymnase, whom I had met on my previous
visit to Tobolsk.
The holidays were drawing to a close, and several
masters and more scholars were returning for the opening
term. This gave me an opportunity, which I
embraced on the morrow, to sell some Bibles and tracts,
* The places of honour at the ends of the table do not appear to be
tenaciously reserved in the interior, except at a wedding, when the
ridal pair are placed together at the end, or jn the very middle, of the
table, with the bridesmaids and best men on either side.
VOL. I. 3