After crossing the beautifully wooded valleys and the chain of hills known as the Ural Mountains, the traveller arrives at Cheliabinsk, situated in the Great Plain, and can scarcely believe that 1,200 miles of railway separate him from Moscow, so striking is the resemblance between the scenery around him and that of Central Russia, notably in the Governments of Tula and Riazan. In the open spaces rise tufts of delicate verdure, beyond which, here and there, appear the gray outlines of some village, consisting of rows of wooden houses surrounded by fields. The only striking difference between the appearance of this country and Central Russia consists in the predominance of the birch between the Ural and the Obi. For nearly 1,200 miles no other tree shades the absolutely flat country. It is the same with the wild flowers, among which I noticed the _Kaborski tchaï_, with its long pink spiral blossoms, which recall those of the digitalis. It is not surprising that a Russian territory bearing such a singular resemblance to the mother country should prove attractive to Russian emigrants. The winter here, however, is undoubtedly both longer and colder; the summer is a little hotter, and the mosquitoes much more troublesome; but, on the other hand, land is freer, and the peasant is no longer confined in the very narrow space granted in the old country to his father at the time of the emancipation of the serfs, and which, at his death, he has been obliged to share with his brothers. If one is surprised to notice during the first few days’ journey by the Trans-Siberian Railway so few villages, the reason is not far to find. The line passes a little to the south of the colonized region, and borders the insufficiently-watered steppes where the Kirghiz graze their cattle. From time to time the traveller perceives in the plain the circular huts and even the tents of these nomads, and not unfrequently at the stations he may meet with a number of them, with their beady black eyes, their yellow complexions, and their closely-shaven heads contrasting picturesquely with the fair locks and long yellow beards of the red-shirted Mujiks. A little to the north, after passing the Obi, the Kirghiz disappear, although the town of Tomsk still possesses a mosque, said to be the most northern in the world.