Special character of trade in Siberia—Importance of the tea transport—Kiakhta—The annual arrival of tea at the Irkutsk Customs-house—Road followed by the tea caravan—Dilatory and expensive methods of transport—Comparison between the land road viâ Kiakhta and the sea-route viâ Odessa—Other articles of commerce, exportation of cereals, etc. Commerce is much more important in Siberia than either agriculture or manufacture, and forms the basis of all the great fortunes that have been made in the country. Siberian commerce is mainly concerned with transport, and if we except the traffic in gold by the Government, the only other objects of export are cereals and furs. The importation, on the other hand, is very limited, consisting merely of manufactured articles necessary for the material comfort of a very scanty and primitive population, whose wants are correspondingly few. The commerce of the country would be infinitesimal were it not that nearly all the tea consumed in Russia passes through Siberia.[8] Tea in Russia occupies even a more important position than it does in England. The average Russian takes between a dozen and fifteen cups per day, and he will not travel without his tea, tea-pot, and his sugar, and the _samovar_, a sort of glorified kettle, is never absent from every table in Russia, and is always full of hot water ready to moisten the leaves of the plant that comforts but does not intoxicate. The Russians make their infusion very weak, pouring the boiling water a great many times over the same leaves. The peasantry, unlike the English of the lower classes, who like their tea very strong, use the same leaves over and over again until the decoction ends by being only straw-coloured water. This explains the fact that whilst the Russians drink three times as much tea as the English, the quantity of it imported into Russia is at least two-thirds less than that which China and India send annually to Great Britain.