I again break my journey at several places, and always find more of interest and more new material for study than I should have dared to anticipate. Western Siberia is a marvellous territory, and it possesses all that is required to make a country flourishing. I quite understand the great interest which it arouses, and it is natural that the country should invest money lavishly for the furtherance of its progress. They have built up in a comparatively short time some important townships. Petropaulovsk, and especially Omsk, Tobolsk, and Tomsk, are already well-known centres, provided with richly endowed public institutions. The Government maintains some large schools and colleges, and does everything in its power to attract new settlers to the uninhabited regions. [Illustration: A SIBERIAN TOWN "They have built up in a comparatively short time some important townships" To face page 36] The colonization of Siberia is one of the most important national questions--to people thousands and thousands of square miles; to exploit all its resources; to make a country where there is now only surface and space. And the Government knows how to offer attractions. Land is granted under the most favourable conditions; there is no taxation for the first three years, seed is provided on easy terms, and, if required, agricultural implements and machinery are sold on the instalment system. The journey is nearly free, the fare being reduced to a few kopecks per hundreds of miles. Petropaulovsk is bound to become one day the junction of Central Asia, when railway lines will run to the north along the Obi valley and south _via_ Atmolinsk, to Tashkend and Bokhara. All this is well thought out, and already carefully planned. Its accomplishment seems to be a mere question of time, and, as indeed is well known as an historical fact, time has never seemed to be an obstacle to the achievement of any aspiration conceived by Russia. The long line across the vast desert area is marked at intervals by smaller or larger railway stations. For whom, and what for? one might ask, as there is nothing in sight. No town, no village, not even one human habitation. But, we are told, Government will soon build a township. It already has a name, and some of those imaginary cities even have a small Greek basilica, surmounted with glaring green cupolas. Again, some are partly finished, and their wide streets are bordered by a few wooden buildings. At the corners there are commodious shops; on the open square very likely a school; near it store-houses for wheat and temporary lodgings for settlers. It all looks so attractive from the railway station that I wonder if they do it on purpose to make it tempting.