Through Siberia

The Za-Baikal a natural prison.—“Decembrists” of 1825.—Misapprehensions respecting political prisoners.—The story of Elizabeth.—Vindictive foreign writers.—Palpable misstatements.—Misleading information.—Dostoyeffsky’s “Buried Alive.”—Rosen’s “Russian Conspirators.”—Present condition of political prisoners.—Testimony of Poles.—Treatment of an attempted regicide.—The number of “politicals” exaggerated.—Calculations concerning them.—Their mode of transport.—Paucity of statistics accounted for.

The Trans-Baikal province, east of the “Holy Sea,” was, until within the past 30 years, a cul-de-sac, to which the gravest of political offenders were commonly deported. It lay outside the two great routes of Siberian travel. The traveller to the Pacific, by way of the Lena, left the province on his right; the merchant going to Kiakhta passed it on his left. There was, indeed, a road running through the province, but it might be said to lead to nowhere. It was, moreover, a country from which a prisoner found it difficult to escape. If he went to the north he came to enormous forests, in which, though he might find berries in summer, he could not live in winter. Southwards he was hemmed in by the Mongolian desert. The road eastwards brought him to a river, down which, if he could float 2,000 miles and escape the jealous Chinese, he might reach the Pacific; or, again, if he turned to the west, and rounded or crossed the Baikal lake, he was likely to be caught in the neighbourhood of Irkutsk; and lastly, in whatever direction he went, there was a price on his head that could be claimed by any Buriat who chose to make him his prisoner, and bring him to the authorities either dead or alive.

There was also another reason, which, in the eyes of the Government, made the Za-Baikal a suitable place in which to confine the worst offenders; for the province is rich in silver and gold, and gems are found in its mountains. It provided a place, therefore, where they could segregate disturbing elements of society, exact enforced labour from their convicts, and to some extent mitigate the cost of keeping them by the value of the minerals obtained. Consequently “the silver-mines of Nertchinsk” has long been an expression, at the mention of which the ears of Russians tingle; and so it was with the prisons of Chita and Petrovski,—connected in their minds with political exiles, and especially with certain of them called “Decembrists,” who in December 1825 tried to raise revolt among the soldiers of Nicolas, and deprive him of his throne.

The mines of Nertchinsk and Kara will be treated of in subsequent chapters. I purpose to speak in this, not of political exiles with their families and descendants generally, but of the condition of political prisoners, past and present, and of certain buildings in which some of them have been confined. That there exists a great deal of exaggeration and misapprehension in England, on the Continent, and in America respecting the number, misery, and degradation of Russian political prisoners I am persuaded; nor is this hard to account for if regard be had to the character of the books which profess to give information upon the subject.

Let us begin, for instance, with the touching story of “Elizabeth; or, the Exiles of Siberia,” by Madame de Cottin, to whose work many English persons are indebted for nearly all they know of Siberia. The book so far resembles the truth that, in 1799, a young girl of 18, the only daughter of a Russian exiled officer, Proscovie Lopouloff, formed the project of asking forgiveness for her parents, for which purpose she left Ischim, near Tobolsk, with a few roubles in her pocket, walked in 18 months 2,000 miles to the capital, was presented, and obtained her petition, the real account of which is told by Xavier de Maistre in “La Jeune Sibérienne.” But Madame de Cottin imported a love-match into the story, and produced one of the most popular books of her day, depicting, however, a narrative for which she had to rely largely upon her imagination for many details. She paints a picture of Siberian exile life very different from anything I ever heard, saw, or read of in the country itself. Her mistakes, however, were the mistakes such as any foreign author might easily commit in laying the scene of a story in a country then almost unknown.

Less excuse can be made for later writers (some of them escaped or released convicts), who, trading upon the credulity and ignorance of the public, have retailed and garnished accounts of horrible severities, which they neither profess to have witnessed, nor attempt to support by adequate testimony. In one of these books, by Alexander Hertzen, published in 1855, the author naïvely says in the preface that, having written in London a work, entitled “Prison and Exile,” which met with success, he decided to write another volume. He accordingly did so, and had the audacity to call it “My Exile in Siberia”; whereas, on reading the book, we find that he was not exiled to Siberia at all, but simply banished for awhile to Perm, which is in Russia in Europe! Again we have, in De Lagny’s “Knout and the Russians,” published in 1854, a tirade against Russia all through, in which words bad enough can hardly be found to vilify its army, navy, nobility, and clergy; whilst in the following year was published “Recollections of Russia by a German Nobleman,” in which he states that, for prisoners, water was drawn up green from the filthiest canal in Petersburg; and, as if that were too little, he adds that, after being knouted, the prisoners had to drink their own blood!

The books quoted thus far are mostly foreign productions, which have been translated into English; but within the past three years has been published in London a book called “The Russians of To-day,” by the author of “The Member for Paris,” and dedicated to the Duke of Sutherland, which gives the following account of a Russian prison (page 86):—

“A Russian gaol is not built on any wasteful plan of keeping prisoners warm and comfortable. A black, mouldy house, situate in one of the slums of the town, it is guarded by a dozen corp-headed soldiers, and has a painted escutcheon with the Imperial double-headed eagle over the gate. There is a whipping-post in the front yard. Thieves, murderers, boys, lunatics, women, are all huddled together in a room of foul stenches, warmed by a stove, and the only food served out to them is a pound of black bread in the morning, and a mess of rancid soup at mid-day. The sexes are separated at night.”

Now as there will appear to be a great difference between this account and what has been stated in my chapters on Siberian prisons, I think it only right to say that I have visited Russian houses of detention from the White Sea in the north to the Black Sea and the Persian frontier in the south, and from Warsaw in the west to the Pacific in the east, but have never yet seen a Russian prison such as fairly answers to the description given above. My experience would place prisons in the suburbs rather than the “slums” of towns; and as for their atmosphere, I may safely say that the air I breathed in the worst Russian prison was incomparably better than that I had temporarily to endure in some of the peasants’ houses, or which may be inhaled in many of the post-houses. The “one pound of black bread” should be multiplied by two and a half or three, and in some cases four; and as for “the whipping-post,” I have seen such a thing in English and in American prisons, but not in Russia. The “kobyla,” or “mare,” used in flogging with the “plète” in Siberia, will be described further on; and I do not deny that in Russia there may be some instrument to which those to be birched are fastened, but I have never seen one, though I have usually made a point of asking concerning the mode of corporal punishment.

Again, the same author says (page 217):—

“The convicts are forwarded to Siberia in convoys, which start at the commencement of spring, just after the snows have melted and left the ground dry. They perform the whole journey on foot, escorted by mounted Cossacks, who are armed with pistols, lances, and long whips; and behind them jolt a long string of springless tumbrils, to carry those who fall lame or ill on the way. The start is always made in the night, and care is taken that the convoys shall only pass through the towns on their road after dark. Each man is dressed in a grey kaftan, having a brass numbered plate fastened to the breast, knee boots, and a sheepskin bonnet. He carries a rug strapped to his back, a mess-tin, and a wooden spoon at his girdle. The women have black cloaks with hoods, and march in gangs by themselves, with an escort of soldiers like the men, and two or three female warders, who travel in carts.

“In leaving large cities like Petersburg, all the prisoners are chained with their hands behind their backs; but their fetters are removed outside the city, except in the case of men who have been marked as dangerous. These have to wear leg-chains of 4 lbs. weight all the way; and some of the more desperate ones are yoked by threes to a beam of wood, which rests on their shoulders, and is fastened to their necks by iron collars.”

The author then goes on to say that “Nihilist conspirators, patriotic Poles, and young student girls, are all mixed up, and tramp together with the criminals.”

The words I have italicised (of which there are 23 in 26 lines) involve, in many cases, palpable misstatements. In others they are blunders, or are, at all events, open to serious question. As in the case of Madame de Cottin (only with less innocence), a very free rein has been here given to the imagination. The avoiding of towns by day, the brass plate on the breast (instead of a piece of yellow cloth on the back), the accompanying female warders, and the chaining of men’s hands behind their backs, are blunders utterly inexcusable; and as for the mounted Cossacks with whips, and the “beams of wood” on some of the exiles’ necks—if the Cossacks were mounted, they would naturally have whips as part of their accoutrements, as they do even when riding behind the carriage of the Emperor, but the “beam of wood” is a pure invention. I never saw, heard, or read of such an instrument. Upon these last two points, however, to correct my own opinion if wrong, I spoke to an Englishman living in a town through which pass all the Siberian exiles. He has lived there many years, and has seen exiles from Perm to Kiakhta, and under all conditions. He tells me, however, that he never saw this wooden collar, and never saw soldiers with whips to conduct exiles; and he added, further, that he had never witnessed them using exiles improperly or unfairly. Thus it will be seen that some of the information offered to the public respecting Russian exiles is open to more than suspicion of grave misrepresentation.

But there is yet a third class of books which, in detailing past horrors, leads public opinion astray, not so much by saying what is absolutely untrue, as by omitting to point out that since the horrors they relate were enacted, the law has been altered, and that they are now a thing of the past. Englishmen would think themselves very unfairly dealt with if a foreigner, having seen an old pair of stocks in an English village, appealed to this as proof that persons are still exposed therein; or if he hunted up stories of Tyburn, with accounts of gibbeted felons hung, drawn, and quartered, or pilloried criminals with slit noses and cropped ears, and then represented this as the existing state of things, or left his readers so to infer. This would be very similar to the treatment Russia receives at the hands of prejudiced and careless writers now-a-days, as will be seen more fully hereafter when we speak of the mines.

To keep, however, for the present, to books about prisons, and to mention one more which has appeared in English dress during the present year—namely, Dostoyeffsky’s “Buried Alive; or, Ten Years’ Penal Servitude in Siberia,” to which I naturally turned with interest as it was written by a Russian. I was struck at the outset with the significant fact that the reader is not properly informed as to places and dates. The introduction sets forth that a certain Alexander Petrovitch Goryantchikoff died, after whose death there was found among his papers a bundle of manuscripts, which the editor, Feodor Dostoyeffsky, thought would interest the public. But scarcely a word is dropped to inform the reader when the events referred to took place, and he is left to form the very natural conclusion that he is reading of things as they now exist. My suspicions being aroused, I put on my best critical spectacles to discover, if possible, where the events happened, and when. The writer mentions having been in Tobolsk, and says that his prison was near the banks of the Irtish. Now there was, and perhaps is, a prison on the banks of the Irtish at Tara, the same from which Rufin Pietrowski made his escape; and at first I was disposed to think this was the place of Goryantchikoff’s captivity, but two subsequent allusions gave me additional light: one, that in the prison was a Jew who went out in the town to a synagogue; and another, that on some prisoners running away the Governor-General was told of it. Now, assuming that the Governor-General was living in the town, then the only prison situate on the banks of the Irtish, in a town with a synagogue and the residence of a Governor-General, would be Omsk, and here accordingly I adjudged my man as to his place. Then as for the date. The writer speaks of prisoners’ chains made of “four iron rods, the size of the finger, connected by three rings and worn under the trousers.” I saw none like these. All we saw had small links, and hence I assumed that the chains described must have been of an old-fashioned pattern of former days, and I have since learnt that chains such as the man describes were seen on a prisoner going to the Caucasus in 1842. Next he speaks a good deal of flogging, and mentions the running of a prisoner down “the green lane,” that is, between two rows of soldiers, each of whom gave the culprit a stroke with a stick. But this method of punishment has long been abolished in Russia; and, finally, the writer, when speaking of his conversation with a fellow-prisoner, happens to use this sentence: “I explained to him Napoleon’s position, adding that he might, perhaps, some day become Emperor of the French.” Taking, therefore, these three data, that Napoleon became Emperor in 1851, that the flogging of the description mentioned was abolished not later than 1860, and the old pattern of the chains, I came to the conclusion that the story must represent events at least 30 years old; and I have since heard that it was about as long ago the book appeared in Russia. Now, of course, the translation might not have sold so well had readers been informed that it treats of a state of things more than a quarter of a century old; yet, no doubt, so candid a statement would have prevented many from forming false opinions respecting the present state of Siberian prisons.⁠[1]

But Goryantchikoff’s, it should be remembered, is a picture of a convict prison for criminals, and not for political prisoners, who are treated as a class by themselves,—so much so that they are sent to Siberia, not usually walking, under the charge of Cossacks, but driving furiously under guard of gendarmes; and if they need to lodge at an ordinary prison, they are kept in special rooms, and so jealously watched that frequently I was not allowed to approach the inspection hole so much as to look at them. It may be that when they reach their destination they have, in some cases, to work outdoors in company with criminals. I think I met one case of this at Kara, but even he, in the prison, was kept apart.

Probably the best, and, as far as I know, the only book in English which gives the description by an eye-witness of life in a political prison is “Russian Conspirators in Siberia,” by Baron R(osen). He relates his taking part in the attempt to incite the soldiers to revolt on the accession of Nicolas in 1825, and how he was condemned with 120 comrades, large numbers of whom were counts, barons, princes, and some of the very flower of the Russian nobility. About 30 were at once transported to Chita. There they remained until a new prison was built expressly to contain them all at Petrovski, near Verchne Udinsk, at which place are the ironworks already alluded to. In these two places of confinement the Baron spent six years. I do not remember that he ever speaks of one of his comrades being thrashed. The Russian law, even in those days, held exempt from corporal punishments every noble, not only during his trial, but after his condemnation. The wearing of chains was included among corporal punishments, and it was forbidden to put them on nobles going into exile; but the law appears to have been set aside in the case of some of the Decembrists. The Baron describes their labour as that of digging and grinding corn in hand-mills. One of their first occupations was to dig the foundations for their new prison. “Every day,” the Baron writes, “except Sundays and holy days, the non-commissioned officer on guard entered early in the morning with the call of ‘Gentlemen, to work!’ In general we set out with songs on our lips and energy in our hearts; no constraint was used towards us.” He gives likewise a vivid picture of their amusements and their studies. Playing-cards they might have had through the warders, but they wisely passed their word to each other not to allow card-playing, in order to prevent any cause of unpleasantness or dissension. Chess was their sole amusement between the time of work and sleep, and they formed among themselves a company of singers, which cheered many a sad hour. Some of them endeavoured, by study, further to improve their minds. One learnt not only Latin and Greek, but also eight modern languages; and it says much for the high education of the prisoners that this proficient found an instructor in each of the languages among his comrades, one of whom was still living, not many years ago, at Petrovsky Zavod, and lent my informant several books from what was the Decembrist library. They had, too, a room in which they practised the piano, the flute, the flageolet, the violin, and guitar. The most touching part of the book, however, recounts the arrival of some of the prisoners’ wives. Every effort short of absolute denial had been employed to prevent these noble ladies from expatriating themselves. Their heroic determination wrung tears from the eyes of the officials who had in vain dissuaded them. These ladies were compelled to resign their titles, and were warned that they would not be permitted to return. Several of them, notwithstanding, gave up all to be allowed to join their husbands, and in so doing covered their names with undying lustre in the annals of Russian history. They were allowed to live with or near their husbands, and several had children, two of whom—a lady and a gentleman—I have met in Europe. The Baron’s book nowhere stoops to invective or misrepresentation; on the contrary, he acknowledges “there was reason enough for our having been treated thus”; but at the same time he tells a sad story, which is all the more touching because told so calmly, of what he and his comrades suffered. He was at length allowed to return to his home in Esthonia, in 1839, after 14 years’ imprisonment and exile. About 500 non-commissioned officers and soldiers, I am told, were sent to Omsk and different places, where they were by far less well treated than their superior officers under whom they had rebelled.⁠[2]

I have thus spoken of the political or State prison at Petrovski, which, as far as I know, is the only building there has ever been in Siberia that could with propriety be called a State prison for political offenders. It was burnt down many years ago, and has not been rebuilt. Of the prison at Chita, and the accommodation for political prisoners at Kara, mention will be made hereafter. Meanwhile it should be borne in mind we have been speaking of events which happened about half a century ago.

We now pass from the condition of political prisoners as they were to treat of political prisoners as they are. I shall speak of those with whom I was brought in contact and with whom I conversed, and will put the worst case first. It is that of a Pole, who was concerned in the insurrection of 1863, at which time he was a student for the Roman priesthood, and, under cover of his clerical garb, had busied himself in procuring arms and provisions for the Polish rebels. On the suppression of the insurrection he fled from the country, but was foolish enough to return, six years afterwards, by permission, he said, of the Emperor; and within three days was taken, and, without trial, sent to a prison at Oriel for a year. After this he was sent to Irkutsk, and there learned that he was condemned for eight years to the mines, at which he arrived in 1871, having been a year on the route from Tiumen. He had 20 Polish companion exiles, some of whom were in irons, though his clerical character saved him from this degradation. The Polish party travelled by themselves as far as Tobolsk, beyond which they were sometimes compelled to walk and lodge with criminal prisoners, who robbed my informant of 300 roubles, which his mother had sewn at the back of his coat collar. He complained that some of the prison officers were great despots; in illustration of which he stated how, whilst they were at Nijni Udinsk, some of the prisoners having escaped at night, the governor of the jail procured rods from the neighbouring woods and birched the rest of them, I suppose on the ground of aiding and abetting the escape of the others. The 21 Poles, however, were not in the ward from which the escape was made, and this they urged, but apparently to no purpose, for the governor seemed to have been enraged beyond bounds, and in some cases to have used, not only rods, but the plète and clubs. My informant declared that of the 300 Russians and 21 Poles thus treated, 17 subsequently died, though he could not give me any satisfactory evidence as to how, after leaving the place, he got this information; but the affair must have been serious (though abnormal), for, on arriving at Irkutsk they presented a petition to the governor, an inquiry was instituted (especially as regards the Poles), and the violent prison official was telegraphed for, and himself incarcerated, though how punished my informant did not know. He also complained that one of his companions was badly treated on the road, being lame, and yet made to hurry along.

When, however, the Polish cleric arrived at the mines, he did not appear to have once worked in them, as the chief made him his cook, exchanged his prison allowance for five roubles a month, and fed and lodged him thus for six years, after which the remaining two years were remitted on the score of good conduct. He was afterwards located in a small village in the Za-Baikal, but had obtained permission to live elsewhere, and when I met him he was respectably dressed, and apparently earning a good livelihood. Thus my informant’s gravamina, as regarded himself, were not so heavy as it might have been feared. He said, indeed, that four or five letters reached him at the mines, informing him that money was enclosed, which he never received.

He had more to say of the way in which some of his fellow-prisoners were treated, to which I shall allude when speaking hereafter of the mines.⁠[3]

I did, it is true, meet another Pole who complained, though I do not know whether he was a political or a criminal offender, but I have already referred to him and the information he gave me respecting the prison at Irkutsk. There was a third Pole, also a student, banished after the insurrection of 1863, whom we met in the streets of Atchinsk, who looked very gloomy, and spoke in a very dispirited and dissatisfied manner; but he was free, having his wife and children with him, and he named no one particular cause of complaint. Still, I have mentioned these cases fully, though they seem somewhat opposed to the opinion I have stated, that there exists a great deal of misapprehension respecting the number, misery, and degradation of Russian political prisoners.

The severest case of punishment of a political prisoner I met with was that of, I think, a Nihilist, at Kara, who had daily to go to work in the gold-mines; but, on returning, he had a room to himself, some of his own furniture, fittings, and books, one of which was on political economy. His wife lived in the neighbourhood, and could see him lawfully, and bring him food at frequent intervals; and it was not difficult for her to see him unlawfully, for just in front of his window passed the public road, where she could stand and talk to him with ease.

I met in Siberia one political prisoner whose case was more surprising, perhaps, than any I have mentioned. It was that of a man who had been concerned in one of the attempts upon the life of the late Emperor. He was sentenced to the mines, and no doubt popular imagination pictured him chained, and tormented to within an inch of his life; whereas I found him confined indeed, but only to the neighbourhood, and dressed, if I remember rightly, in a tweed suit, looking highly presentable, and engaged in a way that I purposely avoid naming, but which did not necessitate the soiling of his fingers. Again, I had two opportunities of speaking to upper-class prisoners in French, which the authorities accompanying me did not understand; therefore these men had no reason to fear speaking out plainly. One was a political prisoner; concerning the other I am not sure; but I asked them both whether they had any cause of complaint in the prison regimen. The first said the only thing he thought unjust was that he was not allowed to smoke, which one of my exile informants deems incredible, since at Nertchinsk, when, for insubordination, they were deprived of meat, milk, and tea, for weeks, they were still allowed to smoke, as a supposed preventive against scurvy. The man, moreover, in the neighbouring cell—a fat man—a defaulting post-master, a drunkard and a gambler, who would have made an admirable Falstaff, was smoking, and I should not wonder if by this time the grievance is mended. The second man, a doctor, said that he had been taken about from place to place, and did not know his destination, though he thought it would be Irkutsk, but that he had nothing to complain of.

Supposing, then, that these instances throw any light upon the misery and alleged degradation of political prisoners, I have yet to offer some remarks upon their supposed numbers—that is, the average number banished annually at the time of my visit—for I do not profess here to deal with those sent into exile after the Polish insurrection of 1863, with their families and descendants, nor of Nihilists deported since the assassination of the late Emperor. Mr. Whyte, in his “Land Journey from Asia to Europe,” says: “It is calculated that in Eastern Siberia alone there are at least from 30,000 to 40,000 Polish political exiles, but they are kept in different portions for fear of disturbances, a great many having to work in the mines.” Now let us suppose for the moment that these figures are something like the truth, then let us add to this calculation for Eastern Siberia, whither are banished the gravest offenders, at least twice as many for Western Siberia, whither are sent those losing particular rights only; and this will give, say, 120,000 Polish political exiles in the whole country. Let us further suppose that they represent the surviving total of 30 years’ deportations, not including, of course, their families and descendants. Then this gives a yearly influx to Siberia of 4,000 Polish political exiles! Now from statistics given me in Warsaw last autumn, taken from the report sent to the Emperor, it appeared that the total number of Polish criminal prisoners sent to Siberia in the year I passed through (1879) was 898; and last year, up to September, the number, as I had it straight from the prison books, was 270. Supposing, then, the politicals to number one-tenth of the criminals (which I judge far too great a proportion), it would give less than one-fortieth of the numbers quoted by Mr. Whyte respecting Polish political exiles.

I base my opinion, however, mainly upon other calculations, such as these: the prisoners must sometimes be lodged, permanently or temporarily, as they go to their destinations. But it has been already stated that there is now no building in Siberia answering to a State prison, and further that political prisoners, when confined, are kept not only apart from criminals, but as far as possible from one another. I fail to see, then, where all these multitudes are to be properly lodged, as at Tiumen, for instance, whilst they wait for the arrival of the steamer, or at other prisons where they may have to stop, but in none of which we found more than a very few separate chambers—always less, I think, than 20. Again, another difficulty is presented by the possibilities of separate conveyance for so large a number. It is not very long since that 78 political exiles passed through Tiumen, a town where, in summer, from 500 to 700 criminals pass through weekly; but these 78 politicals excited such a commotion that there was a general “turn out” to look at them; and the manager of the steamboat was at his wits’ end to know how properly to convey them; for political prisoners are not now sent, I am informed, in the common prisoners’ barges. To give each man a cabin was impossible; to put two in a cabin was unlawful; and so they compromised the matter by putting husbands and wives together. But, if a batch of 78 made all this commotion, what would the annual passing through of 4,000 politicals do?

Again, Kara, I was told, was a special place for political offenders, and I saw and heard of more there than in any other prison. They had, at the time of my visit, 2,458 prisoners of all sorts, all of whose crimes were given me duly tabulated, with the exception of 73, which came under the heading “various.” Now, supposing all these 73 were political offenders (and I have not the least reason for thinking they were, but) even then the proportion of politicals would be only one-thirtieth of the criminals.

Once more: a recent correspondent of the Gaulois for 30th September, 1881, describing the last occasion on which he saw the exiled Tchernichewsky at Kadaya, near Nertchinsk, just after the news had been received of the assassination of President Lincoln, says, “At this time the number of (Russian?) political prisoners was not great; they might easily be counted.... I believe there were not 20 of them; if mistaken, I may certainly affirm there were not 50.” This scrap of information has come to hand very opportunely, for I have reason to believe that it may be relied on, and Nertchinsk was the only other district for political prisoners concerning which, until a few days ago, I did not feel satisfactorily informed.

Lastly, the summer of 1879 was supposed to be a very heavy one for the transport of Nihilists and revolutionary offenders. It was just after one of the attempts on the late Emperor’s life, and Petersburg was put under a military governor. The Daily Telegraph, on the 2nd June, informed its readers, as I have said before, that “a large number of convicts were about to be despatched to Saghalien from Odessa, the service which provides for the ordinary transportation of criminals to Siberia being already overtaxed.” We were therefore traversing Siberia at a time and under circumstances particularly favourable for knowing the real condition of things; and as we went along the only route by which these exiles could possibly travel to Eastern Siberia, it might have been expected that we should see or hear something of them. The numbers, however, with whom we were brought in contact on the outward journey could easily have been counted on our fingers; and if it should seem that, having started early in the season, we had travelled in advance of them, then my interpreter, who returned from the Amur, had the opportunity of meeting them, or hearing of them, as he went back. As a matter of fact, however, he met, between the Amur and the Urals, three special convoys only. The first contained one prisoner, who said he was going to Kara; the next consisted of seven vehicles, each of which contained a soldier on the box, and a gendarme at the side of the prisoner; and the third convoy consisted of 21 vehicles, each filled in like manner. Thus, excepting the 78, or the possible 73 just mentioned, the total number we met or definitely heard of all across Asia, both in going and returning, did not amount, I should think, to 50.

I write, then, under correction, and shall be glad to be set right if I am wrong; but I must now leave it to my readers to judge whether or not the considerations brought forward are such as to justify my opinion respecting the number, degradation, and misery of political prisoners. I have few statistics on the point, from the fact that political offenders are treated as belonging to a special department, and are unconnected with the ordinary sources from which I obtained my figures. This I did not know until I had left European Russia, and hence my inability to give other than general reasons. My impression, therefore, is that the greater number of the political exiles either go to prison only for a short time, or not at all, and are then placed in villages and towns. They are then expected to get their living. (I have recently heard that, at the time of the burning of Krasnoiarsk, there were 40 living free in the town.)

This they do in a variety of ways. Some are teachers of languages, some are tradesmen, and some are photographers. We met, for instance, two exile photographers at Tobolsk. As strangers we had, of course, no means of identifying exiles from other people, though we were sometimes brought into contact with them, from the fact that many of the Poles speak French. Moreover, as the question of prison and exiles was, so to say, my speciality, I was always glad, when opportunity presented itself, to converse with them directly rather than get my information translated. A stranger, however, who believes every exile who calls himself a “political,” may easily be misled. To be a “political” prisoner in Siberia is to be more or less of a gentleman, and many try thus to pass themselves off. Mr. Ashton Dilke, M.P., who travelled some years ago in Southern Siberia, and spoke Russian, has told me that, on asking gangs of convicts if they had any politicals or “gentlemen” prisoners among them, they usually said “No”; and that, in the case of one man who imposed upon him and tried to palm himself off as a “political,” the Governor showed Mr. Dilke the man’s papers, which described him as a criminal, a thief, etc.

In Irkutsk I met an exile who told me he was a captain, and had been banished for a duel, which no doubt he thought a respectable crime; but, upon my repeating it to others who knew the man, they said he was a forger. Looking, however, at the political prisoners I saw in the separate rooms of the various prisons, at those with whom I came into personal contact, those pointed out to me, and those of whom mention was made as living in the towns through which we passed, I think that, if I had been commissioned to give a sovereign to each, 50 coins would have sufficed for the purpose. It is not pretended, of course, that a lover of statistics can or ought to attempt to build anything definite upon this statement; but, until proof is brought to the contrary, it may perhaps tend to modify what I deem the exaggerated and extravagant notions as to the number of Siberian political prisoners, and to show at least that they are not as “plentiful as blackberries.”⁠[4]