Another time I should take the opportunity afforded by a pause when changing horses in the night to get a few hours' sleep in the _tarantass_ in the open air, which would, of course, make all the difference, and which would then be quite possible. But if I had done it on this occasion I should have had to lose a Sunday instead of arriving on the Saturday evening. I was well repaid, for though nothing more than a notice was sent quickly round, "The bishop has come, and there will be services at the manager's house to-morrow at half-past ten and at six, and Holy Communion at half-past seven," yet at half-past seven every one of our countrymen was there and received Communion except the wife of one member of the staff ill in bed. The manager's two little boys were there to be present at the first early Anglican celebration of Holy Communion ever taken beyond the Urals. A beautiful _ikon_, flowers, and two lights adorned the temporary altar. Others than our own countrymen attended the other services. It was a glorious day to have, including as it did attendance at the Russian Church in the morning when our own service was over. This great mining property includes Karagandy, where the coal is, and to which I came first; Spassky, where the smelting-works had been set up, some forty miles further on; and Uspensky, where the mine itself is, some fifty miles further still. From Spassky I went to Uspensky by motor-car, and spent three days there with the foreman of the mine and his family. I went down the mine also to make acquaintance with the Kirghiz who are at work there, and knocked off for myself some specimens of the rich ore. The foreman and his family--two girls and two sons of between twenty and thirty--had been in New Zealand, in the Backs, and it was no new thing for them to have a bishop stay and give them services. The wife was a particularly good and devout woman, and in all the years she had been there had never once had the happiness of attending a service of her own Church. The two young men were shy fellows, but the manager having first prepared the way, I took them in hand, and, finding they were ready to come to a decision in life, instructed and confirmed them. On these missions, as with Philip and the eunuch, we cannot lose such opportunities; and I shall not forget the Celebration, early on the day I left, when that whole family received Communion together. I know what a joy, such as she had never expected, it was to that good woman thus to have family unity; and, as she died suddenly before the year was over, I shall always feel that my long journey across the steppes was fully worth while if it were only for the happiness it had brought her in enabling her for once in her life to receive Communion with all the members of her family.