over this vast country. The higher one resides at Irkutsk,
the far capital of Eastern Siberia. The River Tchouna separates
the two Siberias.

No rail yet furrows these wide plains, some of which are in reality
extremely fertile. No iron ways lead from those precious mines
which make the Siberian soil far richer below than above its surface.
The traveler journeys in summer in a kibick or telga; in winter,
in a sledge.

An electric telegraph, with a single wire more than eight thousand
versts in length, alone affords communication between the western
and eastern frontiers of Siberia. On issuing from the Ural, it passes
through Ekaterenburg, Kasirnov, Tioumen, Ishim, Omsk, Elamsk, Kolyvan,
Tomsk, Krasnoiarsk, Nijni-Udinsk, Irkutsk, Verkne-Nertschink, Strelink,
Albazine, Blagowstenks, Radde, Orlomskaya, Alexandrowskoe, and Nikolaevsk;
and six roubles and nineteen copecks are paid for every word sent
from one end to the other. From Irkutsk there is a branch to Kiatka,
on the Mongolian frontier; and from thence, for thirty copecks a word,
the post conveys the dispatches to Pekin in a fortnight.

It was this wire, extending from Ekaterenburg to Nikolaevsk,
which had been cut, first beyond Tomsk, and then between
Tomsk and Kolyvan.

This was why the Czar, to the communication made to him for
the second time by General Kissoff, had answered by the words,
"A courier this moment!"

The Czar remained motionless at the window for a few moments,