GORNOSTAI BAY

MARCH 13, 1919 There is nothing in the way of news except rumours and stories. Meanwhile of course we know nothing. This much seems assured, that we are going [home] in a month or. six weeks.

1 went out for a walk just now. We went down the valley to the sea and then climbed to the hills overlooking the bay, across which rise the coast mountains to a height of three or four thousand feet. There was a fine view across the valley to the camp and on beyond to the bay. [On] the hills, some of which were still covered with snow, the sun shone through gaps in the cloud and cast wonderful lights everywhere. Really the beauty of the sunsets here is indescribable. Coming out of town last week we emerged from the sordid filthy streets and it was .glorious to plunge down the last hill on the Svyatlanskaya and look up to the wonderful hills beyond, towering 1000 or 1200 feet above the city-bare of vegetation like southern Alberta and bathed in their soft colours of evening-a pink that gradually deepened to heliotrope. To think that so glorious a country is not appreciated.

While the letter below again reflects the prevailing racial attitudes of the time, the keen powers of observation, insight, and objectivity of the scholar are apparent in Stuart's assessment of Siberia and its peoples; the last passage bespeaks his tragic view of the revolution.

GORNOSTAI BAY, MARCH 17, 1919

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