The principal tea caravans do not arrive in the region of the Obi before the beginning of April, the sleighs proceeding very slowly, and the stoppages by the way being frequent. Boats convey the fragrant merchandise between Tomsk, Tura, and Tiumen, terminal stations on the Ural Railway, whence they are conveyed to Perm. Here they are shipped up the river Kama, and finally embarked on the Volga and taken to Nijni-Novgorod, the chief centre of the tea trade in Russia. Thence the railways distribute the merchandise over the empire. The results of the tardier crops arrive at Irkutsk, where they are embarked on the Angara and conveyed by boat to the meeting of that river with the Yenissei, where, as it is impossible to ascend the latter, the rudely-constructed boats in which it has hitherto performed the journey are broken up and sold for firewood. By this road only 330 miles are performed by land to Tomsk. Some of the merchants, in order to avoid as much as possible the overland route, take a much longer one by water viâ Uliasutai, a city in Western Mongolia on the Upper Yenissei. The above will suffice to give the reader an idea of some of the exceptional difficulties which the tea merchants have to encounter in conveying their very perishable freight across Northern Asia into Russia, the journey taking not less than a year from the date of the gathering of the leaves. The following official data, registered in 1893, of the expense incurred in conveying a single pood, or thirty-six pounds (English), of tea from Han-Keou to Nijni-Novgorod will suffice to afford a fair notion of the great cost of transport. £ _s._ _d._ From Han-Keou to Kiakhta viâ Tien-tsin and Urga 0 15 5 Manipulation at Kiakhta and transport to Irkutsk 0 6 4 From Irkutsk to Nijni (by sledge to Tomsk, water to Tiumen, railway to Perm, and thence by water) 0 12 9 Insurance from Tien-tsin to Nijni, 2¼ per cent 0 1 10½ Interest on capital 0 3 2 ———— ———— ———— Total £1 19 6½ ==== ==== ====