The trip across Siberia is exceedingly interesting. One anticipates endless monotony, but only the landscape lacks variety. For days together the train runs along through a country which looks exactly like South Dakota or Nebraska and which is interesting only in its wonderful possibilities. It is one of the world’s open spaces, undeveloped but capable of producing anything. I had always imagined Siberia as a country filled with sadness and I expected it to depress me, but it arouses no such feeling. We met trainload after trainload of happy Russian colonists on their way to the new settlements, and at all the well built stations along the way we saw a great number of sturdy peasant farmers and their families who looked thoroughly comfortable and contented. We whiled away the hours with bridge and books, and, though the train never made more than two or three stops a day, the time passed quickly. Throughout the journey our car was guarded by stalwart Russian soldiers in most picturesque uniforms, stationed on both platforms, and each time the train stopped this guard was changed with considerable ceremony. Also at every station near an army post Mr. Taft was greeted by the Commander of the District with strict military form, all of which added colour and interest to the journey.
Mr. Willard D. Straight, then United States Consul at Mukden, met us at Vladivostok with plans for our reception at Mukden. When we arrived there we were welcomed by a company of Chinese soldiers dressed in the old Mongolian custom, and by a squadron of Cossacks. We were hurried in a carriage behind two fast trotting Orloff horses to a hotel where all the consuls assembled greeted us with cakes, champagne and very short speeches. There was considerable excitement among the consuls with regard to the toasts to be drunk and the order of precedence in which the rulers of the different countries were to be named, but Mr. Straight was diplomatic enough to mention every proper name in right order and the result was a round of congratulation and merriment. In the meantime the leisurely and accommodating train was waiting, so we hurried back to the station at the terrific pace usual to the Russian with his beautiful horses. No people not inherently fine could ever produce the kind of horses one sees in Russia. And the Russians love them. I can think of nothing more pleasing than the picture of a great, shaggy, gruff-voiced Russian coachman on the box of his carriage or droshky, gently urging his well-kept horse on to his best speed in terms of endearment. “On, Little Brother!” says he.
At Moscow we were right royally entertained by the Governor-General of the city who did everything possible to make our visit memorable. We arrived late Saturday night and on Sunday the Kremlin was opened for our especial benefit and we were given full opportunity to see every part of that ancient and interesting home of Russian autocracy with all its collections of priceless treasures. A hurried round of entertainments, which included a special ballet performance at the Opera, ended with a dinner given by the Governor-General, and we left on the midnight train for St. Petersburg. We had not been there more than an hour or so the next morning when we received a telegram announcing that a woman Nihilist had thrown a bomb at the Governor’s sleigh which had exploded under the horses, killing them and the coachman and throwing the Governor and his aide backward into the snow unharmed. As these gentlemen had both been very kind to us it brought home in a startling way the danger that attends high position in Russia.
In St. Petersburg we dined with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Iswolski and Madame Iswolski, and with them received the Diplomatic Corps. Mr. Taft and General Edwards had an audience with the Czar and attended the annual Saint’s day celebration of a famous regiment numbering about 3,200, no man of which measures less than six feet two. They were also present at a luncheon which the Czar gave to the officers of this regiment at the Czar-KoeSelo Palace. In the Czar’s suite there were two or three gentlemen who remembered Mr. Taft’s father as Minister to Russia, so he very greatly enjoyed the experience of meeting them.
Our visit was a hurried one, and after a stay of three days we left for Berlin. Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Root were not disposed to have Mr. Taft visit any of the courts of Europe except at St. Petersburg and that only for the purpose of conveying his grateful acknowledgment of the courtesies shown us in our long trip across Siberia. Nor in the state of his mother’s health, which we knew to be precarious, was he disposed to accept the invitations which he received from the German Emperor, the King of Belgium, the President of France and others, to visit their countries
