Congour was the first town of importance, and has an unenviable reputation for its numerous thieves.  They do not molest the post vehicles unless the opportunity is very favorable, their accomplishments being specially exercised upon merchandise trains.  Sometimes when trains pass through Congour the natives manage to steal single vehicles and their loads.  The operation is facilitated by there being only one driver to five or six teams.  This town is also famous for its tanneries, the leather from Congour having a high reputation throughout Russia.  Peter the Great was at much trouble to teach the art of tanning to his subjects.  At present, the Russians have very little to learn from others on that score.  Peter introduced tanning from Holland and Germany, and when the first piece of leather tanned in Russia was brought to him he took it between his teeth and exerted all the strength of his jaws to bite through it.  The leather resisted his efforts, and so delighted the monarch that he decreed a pension to the successful tanner.  The specimen, with the marks of his teeth upon it, is still preserved at St. Petersburg.

While waiting for dinner at Congour, I contemplated some engravings hanging in the public room at the station.  Four of them represented scenes in “Elizabeth, or the exiles of Siberia,” a story which has been translated into most modern languages.  These engravings were made in Moscow several years ago, and illustrated the most prominent incidents in the narrative.

There were many things to remind me I was no longer in Siberia, and especially on the Baraba steppe.  Snows were deeper, and the sky was clearer.  The level country was replaced by a broken one.  Forests of pine and fir displayed regular clearings, and evinced careful attention.  Villages were more numerous, larger and of greater antiquity.  Stations were better kept and had more the air of hotels.  Churches appeared more venerable and less venerated.  Beggars increased in number, and importunity.  In Asia the yemshick was the only man at a station who asked “navodku,” but in Europe the chelavek or starost expected to be remembered.  In Asia, the gratuity was called “Navodku” or whisky money; in Europe, it was “nachi,” tea money.

During the second night, we reached Perm and halted long enough to eat a supper that made me dream of tigers and polar bears during my first sleep.  In entering, we drove along a lighted street with substantial houses on either side, but without meeting man or beast.  This street and the station were all I saw of a city of 25,000 inhabitants.  In summer travelers for Siberia usually leave the steamboat at this point, and begin their land journey, the Kama being navigable thus far in ordinary water.  Perm is an important mining center, and contains several foundries and manufactories on an extensive scale.  The doctor assured me that after the places I had visited in Siberia, there was nothing to be seen there—­and I saw it.