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431
HOMEWARD THROUGH SIBERIA
Tuesday, October 21. On the following morning wc
crossed the mighty Yenisei again, whose broad water
way extends southward among the mountains and
northward to the boundless plains. At eleven o’clock
wc arrived at Krasnoyarsk, and were met at the station
by Mr. Lied and Mr. Gunnar Christensen, and young
Mr. Gadalov. Here also, Vostrotin joined the tram
and travelled on with us to Petersburg.
The country to the west of Krasnoyarsk is the
same rolling plain that wc went through to the east of
the Yenisei. It is cultivated to some extent, but a far
greater part of it is forest. At Krasnoyarsk the well
known politician and member of the Duma, Rodichev,
also got into the tram. He is one of the best speakers
in the Duma, and one of the most prominent men in
the modem movement for Russian liberty ; one of the
things that have made him famous is that, as a member
of a deputation on the Tsar’s accession, he was the first to
express the desire of a constitutional form of govern
ment. This was looked upon as madness at the time, and
he was exiled, as he has been several times since. He had
now travelled through Siberia for the first time, and had
been as far as Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, but was
disappointed in the country and the people. A desolate,
insufficiently populated country, which would be easily
conquered, and a people without enterprise or initiative ;
these were his impressions. One might drive a plough
through the whole country, from the Ural to the Pacific,
he thought ; but for all that there was mostly uncultivated
land and forest to be seen. Otherwise his observations
agreed exactly with what has struck me throughout
this journey—that the peasants in Siberia ought to go in
more for cattle-raising and dairy-farming, which would
pay them better, and not so much for corn-growing.
Wednesday, October 22. As wc go farther west, the
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