inferior to those of a fifth-rate
_gargotte_. And this was the best hotel in the "Paris of Siberia," as
enthusiastic Siberians have christened their capital.

Irkutsk now has a population of over 80,000. It stands on a peninsular
formed by the confluence of two rivers, the clear and swiftly-flowing
Angara (which rises in Lake Baikal to join the river Yenisei just below
Yeniseisk), and the small and unimportant Irkut river. It is an
unfinished, slipshod city, a strange mixture of squalor and grandeur,
with tortuous, ill-paved streets, where the wayfarer looks instinctively
for the "No-thoroughfare" board. There is one long straggling main
street with fairly good shops and buildings, but beyond this Irkutsk
remains much the same dull, dreary-looking place that I remember in the
early nineties, before the railway had aroused the town from its slumber
of centuries. Even now, the place is absolutely primitive and
uncivilised, from an European point of view, and the yellow Chinese and
beady-eyed Tartars who throng the business quarters are quite in keeping
with the Oriental filth around, unredeemed by the usual Eastern colour
and romance. On fine mornings the Market Place presents a curious and
interesting appearance, for here you may see the Celestial in flowery
silk elbowing the fur-clad Yakute and Bokhara shaking hands with Japan.
The Irkutsk district is peopled by the Buriates, who originally came
from Trans-Baikalia, but who have now become more Russianised than any
other Siberian race. The Buriat dialect is a kind of _patois_ composed
of Mongolian and Chinese; the religion Buddhism. About every fourth
Buriat becomes a Lama, and takes vows of celibacy. They are thrifty,
industrious people, ordinarily of an honest, hospitable disposition, who
number, perhaps, 300,000 in all. This is probably the most civilised
aboriginal race in Siberia, and many Buriates now wear European dress,
and are employed as Government officials.

The climate of Irkutsk is fairly good; not nearly so cold in winter as
many places on the same latitude; the summers are pleasant and equable;
but the fall of the year is generally unhealthy, dense fogs occasioning
a good deal of pulmonary disease and rheumatism. The city, too, is so
execrably drained that severe epidemics occasionally occur during the
summer months, but in winter the dry cold air acts as a powerful
disinfectant. In spring-time, when the river Angara is swollen by the
break-up of the i