to do with gold and silver and other precious things, and in summer many of the officials are absent at the mining establishments in the mountains. The society is similar to that of Irkutsk, and fully as accomplished and hospitable. They told me I was the first American that had ever been in Barnaool, and I was most heartily welcomed and made to feel at home.
"One day a gentleman invited me to call at his house, and said his daughters were under the impression that Americans were black. 'I will not undeceive them,' said he, 'and if they appear astonished when they see you, you will understand it.'
"When I called at the house and was presented to the family, I was immediately surrounded by three or four little girls, and they looked with
SUMMER VIEW NEAR BARNAOOL.
great curiosity at my face. Finally one of them sidled up to her mother and said something, of which I caught the words, 'Nee chorney' ("Not black")."
After Frank and Fred had laughed over this little anecdote, their informant explained that the impression that Americans were black was not confined to the family of this gentleman at the foot of the Altai Mountains. He said he had been told of it on several occasions, not only in Siberia but in European Russia; but it was almost always confined to the
