hooded Kírghis horsemen in the streets, the morning and evening cry of the muezzins, and the files of Bactrian camels, which now and then come pacing slowly and solemnly in from the steppe, give to the town the same Oriental appearance that is so noticeable in Semipalátinsk, and that suggests the idea that one is in northern Africa or in Central Asia, rather than in Siberia.
While we were drinking tea in the post station we were surprised by the appearance of Mr. Gross, who had come from Ulbínsk to Ust Kámenogórsk that morning, and had been impatiently awaiting our arrival. He had hardly taken his seat when the wife of the station-master announced that a Russian officer had come to call on us, and before I had time to ask Mr. Gross whether his relations with the Russian authorities were pleasant or unpleasant, the officer, dressed in full uniform, had entered the room. I was embarrassed for an instant by the awkwardness of the situation. I knew nothing of the officer except his name, and it was possible, of course, that upon finding a political exile there he might behave towards the latter in so offensive a manner as to make some decisive action on my part inevitable. I could not permit a gentleman who had called upon us to be offensively treated at our table, even if he was officially regarded as a "criminal" and a "nihilist." Fortunately my apprehensions proved to be groundless. Mr. Shaitánof, the Cossack officer who had come to see us, was a gentleman, as well as a man of tact and good breeding, and whatever he may have thought of the presence of a political exile in our quarters so soon after our arrival, he manifested neither surprise nor annoyance. He bowed courteously when I introduced Mr. Gross to him, and in five minutes they were engaged in an animated discussion of bee-keeping, silk-worm culture, and tobacco-growing. Mr. Shaitánof said that he had been making some experiments near Ust Kámenogórsk with mulberry trees and Virginian and Cuban tobacco, and had been so successful
