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Show TRANS-SIBERIA. 1H An eastern paper gives a graphic account of illfl tho first through first-class passenger train from I v Port Arthur to St. Petersburg. The train left ! H Port Arthur and at Harbin, in Manchuria, con- H nected with tho train from Vladivostok, where Hj out of the two one train was made up and pulled H cut for the long stretch across mountains and H steppes for civilization. It passed Stretinsk, Ir- H kutsk, Tomsk, Umsk, Ufa, Samara, Nijni, Novey- H gorod, Moscow, then to Warsaw, Posen, Berlin, H Paris and Calais, and the last of the passengers H reached London in eighteen days from Port Ar- H thus and Vladivostok. It was an event as signifi- H cant as was the crossing of the first through train H from New York to San Francisco, hut the first was M the greater triumph for except for that, and tho H revelations it made, no road would have heeen H dared across Siberia for fifty years to come. It M was significant because it was a notice that a new Hj great route for commerce had been hewed out, H that the great white Czar now has a rolling fort M all the way from the Baltic to the Pacific, and M that his domination of Northern and Central Asia M cannot be disturbed. M It means, too, that vast revenues will be taken M from the steamers that ply between Europe and B the East Asian coast, and even from the trans- H Pacific steamers for most of the tea for Europe M which now crosses tho Pacific, the United States M and tho Atlantic will seek tho cool route across H Siberia. H The through ticket Is $170. That will divert m the Asian travel from the sea because it is $150 1 less than by steamer and as a rule men prefer M land to sea travel. Boarding the train at Moscow H tho Trans-Siberian Express the traveler be- H gins his journey across the steppes. For seven H and a half days there Is no break. Plain succeeds H plain, waste succeeds waste, but eight large cities H and many towns are passed. Then the train M climbs the western slope of the Caucasus and M descends into Asia. Passengers are transferred j across Lake Baikal in big steamers, but the build- ing of the road around the lake is being pushed with all energy, then it will be continuous rail transportation. At Massovaya the passengers enter en-ter tho second section of tho Trans-Siberian express ex-press and then for another seven and a half days the train sweeps on down grade. Then the train turns south over a level plain to Harbin, on the dividing line of Siberia and Manchuria, and thence to Port Arthur or Vladivostok, as the passenger may please. Tho road is 6,G77 miles long, and cost $400,700,000, and half as much more will be required to make it thoroughly first class. The trains each way leave three times a week. The Trans-Siberian train is juBt as fine as modern Invention In-vention and art can make it. There are parlor, sleeping and dining cars, each train takes along an observation car, carries a piano and a library of Russian, German, French and English books. Every possible convenience is provided and an army of servants to fill orders. The dining car carries the best things that the markets of Europe Eu-rope and Asia can provide. Stop over tickets give every chance to visit the country. The road is but a beginning. A great number of Southern branches are under construction or are projected. project-ed. It means that the Czar has a close grip upon Asia. With this road and making close connections connec-tions the journey around the world is reduced now to fifty-one days. From New York to London seven days, London to Port Arthur eighteen days, Port Arthur via Japan to San Francisco twenty-one twenty-one days, San Francisco to New York six days, total fifty-one days, and that is three days more than is needed on the Pacific with fast ships. The cost of the whole trip first-class fs a trifle over $G00. To round the world that way ought to become a fad in another year or two among the rich. It will no longer be "You have visited Europe, of course?" Rather it will he: "How often have you I crossed Siberia?" I The road is a great triumph for the Czar of !j Russia, but there was not a bit of sentiment in , j its building. The purpose was to direct the trade i i of Northern China across tho continent; to fasten !i an iron grasp on Northern Asia; to settle up mil- j lions and tens of millions of unoccupied acres; fj to open and work a thousand new and old mines, I to push Russia to the front among Old World 111 states. The dream has been fully realized. Rus- l sia can now, in an emergency, land ten thousand will soldiers from Central Europe into Port Arthur in ijl twenty days. So the great collossus is moving fj on, and the other nations of Europe are beginning I to look dwarfed by comparison, all except Greav I Britain. She is performing her miracles in Africa 3 and has a greater empire there than Russia has 1 in Asia. 111! |