Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/18

2 at 20,000,000 rúbles. Traces of this fire were still to be seen in many parts of the city, and even where such traces were not visible the streets and buildings had a raggedness and newness that suggested a rapidly growing frontier mining

town rather than a city founded in 1652. Generally speaking, it seemed to me a much less interesting and attractive place than when I saw it first in 1867. One of the most curious, and apparently one of the oldest, buildings spared by the fire was a massive stone powder-magazine, which stood on the outskirts of the open-air bazar in the midst of the lower half of the city.

Its roof was overgrown with grass and weeds; its sides were incrusted with the barnacle-like stalls and booths of retail traders, and around it, during all the busy hours of the day, surged a throng of Buriáts, Mongols, Cossacks, and Russian peasants, who seemed to be buying or bargaining for all sorts of