United States or Moldova ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The country is thinly inhabited, and affords only rude accommodations for the wandering pedestrian who does not confine himself to the regular post-route. The lakes, rivers, and streams, swarm with trout, grayling, and salmon. Strangers visit with more than passing interest the admirable free school for girls, which is established at Bergen.
Your attention is respectfully called to the recommendations made by the Postmaster-General for authority to change the rate of compensation to the main trunk railroad lines for their services in carrying the mails; for having post-route maps executed; for reorganizing and increasing the efficiency of the special-agency service; for increase of the mail service on the Pacific, and for establishing mail service, under the flag of the Union, on the Atlantic; and most especially do I call your attention to his recommendation for the total abolition of the franking privilege.
But in central Asia we found that the Russian bankers and merchants would not handle English paper, and we were therefore compelled to send our letter of credit by mail to Moscow. Thither we had recently sent it on leaving Tashkend, with instructions to remit in currency to Irkutsk, Siberia. We now had to telegraph to that point to re-forward over the Kiakhta post-route to Peking.
Under the treaties of 1858 and 1860 a post-route between the Russian frontier and Kalgan was established, and in spite of the competing railway through Manchuria, a horse-post still crosses the desert three times a month each way. The Mongols who are employed for the work go through from city to city in seven days, galloping all the way, with frequent changes of horses and, less frequent, of men.
Between Okhotsk and Yakutsk, along the line of this post-route, there are seven or eight Tunguse encampments, which vary a little in location, from season to season, with the shifting areas of available pasturage, but which are kept as nearly as possible equidistant from one another in a direct line across the Stanavoi range.
A divergence of seventy-five miles from the regular post-route was made in order to visit Lake Issik Kul, which is probably the largest lake for its elevation in the world, being about ten times larger than Lake Geneva, and at a height of 5300 feet.
The worst and most difficult part of the post-route between Okhotsk and Yakutsk, viz., the mountainous part, is maintained by a half-wild tribe of arctic nomads known to the Russians as Tunguses.
No sooner does one find himself launched upon the comparatively well-travelled post-route than a difference becomes manifest in the character of the people.
Your attention is respectfully called to the recommendations made by the Postmaster-General for authority to change the rate of compensation to the main trunk railroad lines for their services in carrying the mails; for having post-route maps executed; for reorganizing and increasing the efficiency of the special-agency service; for increase of the mail service on the Pacific, and for establishing mail service, under the flag of the Union, on the Atlantic; and most especially do I call your attention to his recommendation for the total abolition of the franking privilege.
Word Of The Day