of  the  Khingan  range  and  descended  again  on  the  far
side  by  a  laborious  zigzag,  taking  an  hour  and  fifty-five
minutes  to  cover  a  distance  of  ten  miles.  No  one  but  a
Russian  engineer  could  ever  have  evolved  so  cumbrous
and  intricate  a  method  of  surmounting  a  mountain-
range,  and  even  he  has  at  last  done  what  any  one  else
would  have  done  at  the  outset — made  a  tunnel  through
it.  Mountains  are  the  bugbear  of  the  Kussian.  He
has  none  to  speak  of  in  his  own  country,  and  he  does
not  understand  them  when  he  comes  across  them  else-
where. It  is  perhaps  fortunate  for  him,  therefore,  that
he  has  not  had  to  make  a  single  tunnel  between  Moscow
and  Irkutsk.
On  the  first  opportunity  I  alighted  to  inspect  the
line  and  compare  it  with  the  Siberian  track.  The  rails
were  certainly  heavier, — perhaps  27  lb.  to  the  foot,  as
compared  with  18  on  the  Siberian  sections,  though  still
merely  spiked  down  to  the.  sleepers,  and  a  powerful
compound  engine  stood  at  the  end  of  the  five  business-
like armoured  carriages — for  east  of  the  Baikal  the  cars
are  protected  with  J-inch  steel  plate,  capable  of  turning
a  bullet — in  place  of  the  light  freight-engines  used  on
the  Siberian  sections.
