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_This short account of my journey from London to Shanghai by way of the Siberian Railway was at first intended for private circulation only, in order to meet the enquiries of numerous personal friends.
Now, however, that war has broken out between Russia and Japan, and that it may be years before this, the longest railway in the world, is again open to international traffic, I feel that any information, however slight, concerning so stupendous an undertaking, as well as about the remote region which it traverses, may be of interest to the general public.
I wish to emphasize that much of what is herein described was seen only from the windows of a moving train, and must therefore be lacking in that accuracy and detail which closer inspection could alone insure.
_The Russian words on the cover_ КТО ИДЕТЪ _signify “who goes there”?, and the Chinese characters represent my surname. The Russian cross at the end, is that of the original Greek Church.
I left Charing Cross on the _15th October, 1903_, by the 10 a.m. boat-train for Dover. As we glided on I mentally said good-bye to familiar scenes, for I was outward bound, to put in another five years’ service under the dragon flag.
At Dover we went aboard the Belgian _rapide_ “Ville de Douvres” and in ten minutes were streaming at twenty miles an hour through the shipping on our way across Channel.
It was a lovely day with fair wind and smooth sea, and had only the vessel’s bows been pointed in the opposite direction, I should have been perfectly happy, but they were not, so I had to make the best of things, which consisted in watching over the stern Old England’s chalk cliffs, gleaming white in the brilliant sunshine, slowly sink and disappear into the heaving main. . . . . . . Good-bye. Eastward ho!
The Belgian coast was sighted at about 3 p.m., and shortly after 4 we landed at Ostende, and I was soon installed in a first-class coupé of the weekly _Nord-Express_, which was to carry me without change as far as Warsaw.
This _train de luxe_, consisting of an engine and five or six cars, was as replete with comfort and luxury as it was possible to compress within so limited a space.