Page:Morgan Philips Price - Siberia (1912).djvu/76

 46 coarse grass were now growing, marking those waste patches distinctly on the hillsides.

It was obvious that the farming was quite primitive. No manure was used, for the soil was a rich, black mould. Who can say, having regard to the vast area of the country, what population such a soil might not support if farmed on a more scientific system?

Measured on the map the day's journey seemed miserably small—no more than the length of one's thumb-nail. We had passed hill after hill, crossed stream after stream, and two rivers of no inconsiderable size, and had seen village after village with its church appear before us and vanish behind us. Yet how much farther were we on our journey? The immensity of the country began to overpower me—it was beyond my conception. I had been struck before with great distances in Canada, but when a journey of thirty miles is practically as nothing on the map, and covers a negligible area of the Yenisei Government, which in turn covers only a fraction of the total area of Siberia, it is enough to stagger anyone who tries to conceive distance. I began to ask myself if we should ever reach the end of our journey. And then I seemed to lose the sense of time—to Oriental travellers a desirable and almost necessary qualification. How can one be happy in the East if one has to fight against time, the old enemy of the West?

The villages which we passed on the way were Russian in every aspect. Streets were wide and full of ruts and slime. The houses had log frames and rough-hewn boards for the roof. They had a clean and well-kept appearance and were surrounded by fences of wooden boards. Through the fence a