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THROUGH SIBERIA
guidance of Wourtzel. I could not help admiring
the facility with which he mastered all these proposals,
entirely new to him, and at once saw both their advant
ages and their weaknesses.
But then these negotiations had to be suspended,
since Wourtzel, as engineer-in-chief of railway construc
tion throughout the Russian Empire, had to examine
the line. I must explain that a great extent of the line
we were now travelling on was being entirely relaid.
The curves of the old line were too sharp and trains
could not be run at the desired speed ; besides which
the whole track was being made double. The war
with Japan had shown that a single line was not sufficient
to carry the necessary traffic, at any rate in war time.
After leaving the Correct and the Omul and transferring
ourselves to terra firma, we thought we had left behind
all possibility of wanting a pilot ; but it is a fact that
we had to stop several times here to take a pilot aboard
the train; the ground was treacherous and at times
we had to slow down. In many places here they have
great difficulty in ballasting the line firmly enough ;
the ground is constantly giving way.
Thus after all the changes of our long journey:
first the Norwegian railway and steamer, then the
Correct and the Omul, and then the tarantass on the
high road, we three fellow travellers found ourselves
at last in the express from Petersburg to Vladivostok,
Peking and the Pacific. It has been repeated to trite
ness that nowhere in the world does one travel so
comfortably and well as on the Russian railways
and this express in particular is known for its comfort
and luxury. But I shall not attempt to describe it,
for one excellent reason because I saw very little of
the train, except on the long journey to and from
the dining-car, for those meals which were not served
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