Page:Letter from T.H. Barker to his wife Mary, 3 December 1903.pdf/1

 Tomsk,

3rd December, 1903.

Dear--

I wrote you last from Irkutsk on Monday, posting then 3 letters which I hope will have reached you when you get this. The Russe Bank undertook to post them. Tales get about of letters being intercepted, but as mine are favourable to Russia I do not suppose mine will share that fate.

I travelled here in good company, several English and German people being in the train, but I was charmed with a very nice Belgian who has been for 2 years constructing the Pekin line from the Hankow end, of which there are now 400 kilometres finished, and the extension is going on at the rate of 20 miles per month. He had lived entirely amongst Chinese, in the province of Honan, and gives them a most excellent character in every way. There they do not kill their girls, but have families of a dozen. He likes the Chinese best as Buddists or Confucians and deprecates the efforts to convert them. Before being in China he had been engaged for 6 years in constructing the Congo Line from Boma or Maladi to Leopoldville. He spoke only French, and I had therefore 2 days practice in that language. He stuck to me as I to him, and we had all our meals together, and sat all day in the restaurant saloon, which has easy chairs and couches and every comfort. We were 2½ hours late in reaching Taiga, the junction for Tomsk, and 60 miles away. We got there at 5 a.m., and I had to wait for an hour in the Buffet, but it was very warm. At 5.30, or so, we left for Tomsk, and I was joined in my carriage by a Russian Gurist or lawyer, who has suffered exile for 20 years for political discontent. His name is Mde Karaonloff,