Of all the innumerable victims transported during the last century by the Russian government to Siberia, two alone were able to escape from that dreadful place; their names are Beniowski, whose escape we have already related, and M. Piotrowski. If, on one side, the adventures of the Hungarian magnate are as full of interest as any novel, on the other, the simple story of the modest and intrepid Polish soldier inspires one with quite a different feeling. There we have all the emotion excited by a pompous show; here the hidden drama, the laceration of every fibre of a heart tortured by slow and almost secret anguish. Beniowski, as a general and a prisoner of war, was treated according to his rank, and even among exiles was allowed a certain liberty and the privileges of his order. Piotrowski, the veteran warrior of 1831, being only the simple emissary of his exiled countrymen in France, was sent to Siberia, thrown into a convict’s den, and forced to obey the orders of a scoundrel himself condemned for theft. The half-savage population of the country gave the infamous appellation of “Varnak,” as well to the noble Pole transported for patriotism, as to the vilest forger and assassin. Rufin Piotrowski is in fact the Silvio Pellico of Poland. The book of Silvio Pellico raised against Austria the indignation of all civilized nations. Beaten at Solferino, annihilated at Sadowa, the jailors of Spielberg have nowhere met a look of pity. The “Memoirs of a Siberian” are a terrible witness against the jailors of Siberia.

M. Piotrowski being sent to Russia by the Polish Emigration Society, went in 1843 to KamiÉniec, in Podolia, under the supposed name and title of Catharo, an English subject. He had remained there about nine months as a professor of languages, when he was recognised as a Pole, arrested, and condemned to hard labour in Siberia. Transported in 1844 to the place of his exile, he was sent to the distillery of Ekaterininski-Zavod, three hundred kilometres north of Omsk, and for a year was obliged to perform the hardest and most repulsive labour. A word or sign on his part, or only a fit of ill temper on the part of those over him, would have exposed him to the bastinado or the knout; but being resolved on suffering everything rather than be struck, and cherishing always in his heart the hope of escape, he learnt to control himself sufficiently to show great docility, and a constant care to do thoroughly the work imposed on him. He so succeeded by this means in raising himself, that he was allowed to enter the distillery. “My office,” said he, “was the rendezvous for many travellers who came either for the sale of grains or for the purchase of spirits; peasants, townspeople, tradesmen, Russians, Tartars, Jews, and Kirghis. Of passing strangers I inquired with a curiosity that never flagged concerning Siberia. I talked with men who had been, some to Berezov, others to Nertchinsk, to the frontiers of China, to Kamtschatka, among the steppes of Kirghis, and in Bokhara, so that without leaving my office I learned to know Siberia intimately. This acquired knowledge was in the future of immense use to me in my plan of escape. A circumstance that much softened my fate was the permission I obtained from the inspector to leave the barracks; by this means I was able to quit the ordinary dwelling-place of the convicts, and live with two of my countrymen in a house belonging to Siesicki.

“This man had succeeded little by little in building for himself a small wood cabin; thanks to his long stay at Ekaterininski-Zavod, and to the savings made out of his small pay. The house was not yet completed; in fact there was then no roof, but we nevertheless carried in our goods and chattels. The wind entered by every crack, but wood costing very little, we lit a large fire on the hearth every night. In spite of these inconveniences, we felt ourselves at home, and were relieved of the disagreeable companionship of the convicts; the soldiers alone, whom we had to pay, never leaving us. We spent the long winter evenings in thinking about those dear to us, and even in making plans for the future. Ah, if that house still exists, and if it shelters some unfortunate exiled brother, let him remember he is not the first who has wept in it, and invoked his absent country! I had quickly risen from the lowest to the highest degree which a convict of our establishment on the banks of the Irtiche could attain. In 1846, I could almost fancy myself a simple recruit, banished to distant shores, and under an inclement sky. How different was this to that terrible winter of 1844, when I swept out gutters, carried or split wood, and lived under the same roof with the scum of humanity! How many of my brethren, alas! were now groaning in the mines of Nertchinsk! How many even who had been condemned to a less severe punishment than mine, would have thought themselves happy in my position, though I had resolved on flying from it even at the risk of the knout, and the mysterious dungeons of AkatouÏa!

“In 1845, the Emperor Nicholas had issued a decree, by which the situation of those exiled to Siberia was considerably aggravated. Commissions visited the penitentiary establishments with the object of proposing new measures of severity. The forced residence of all the convicts in the barracks was the first point conceded to the suspicious despotism of the czar. All this necessarily made me persist in a plan conceived long ago.

“During the summer of 1845, I had already made two attempts, rather hasty and thoughtless ones, and both having the same result, though neither, fortunately, creating any suspicions. In the month of June I had noticed a small skiff often left by carelessness on the banks of the river; I had thought of using this skiff to carry me down the river to Tobolsk; but scarcely had I loosed the boat, one dark night, and rowed a little way, when the moon shone out, lighting the country most dangerously, and at the same time I heard from the shore the voice of the inspector who was walking with some employÉs. I landed with as little noise as possible, thinking how fruitless that attempt had proved. The following month I perceived that the same boat had been left in a more advantageous place, on a lake leading, by a canal and the Irtiche, to a rather distant point of our establishment. A phenomenon pretty frequent on the waters of Siberia during this season formed an insurmountable barrier to this second attempt of mine. Caused by the sudden chill of the air at nightfall, there rise from the earth great columns of vapour, so thick as to make even the nearest things quite indistinguishable. It was in vain that I kept pushing my boat in all directions during the long mortal hours of that night of anxiety; the fog prevented my finding the canal which would have led me to the Irtiche. It was only at day-break that I at last discovered the long-sought issue, but it was already too late to proceed, so I returned home, rejoiced to be able to do that without mishap. From that time I gave up all thought of flight by the inclement waves of the Irtiche, and began in earnest to ripen my first plan of escape.”

After long and due meditation on all the different and possible ways of quitting the Russian empire, he resolved on effecting his escape by the north, the Oural Mountains, the steppe of Petchora, and Archangel.

“Slowly and with great difficulty I collected the necessary things for a journey, the first and chief of which was a passport. There are two kinds of passports for the Siberians; one being a sort of pass ticket, granted for a very limited time, and for places not far distant from each other; the other being a much more important document, given by the high authorities on stamped paper. I succeeded in forging both. I managed slowly also to get the clothes and other things necessary for my disguise. I endeavoured to transform myself into a native, ‘a man of Siberia’ (Sibirski tchÈlovieck), as they say in Russia. Ever since my departure from Kiow, I had purposely allowed my beard to grow, and it had then reached quite a respectable and orthodox length. By great perseverance, I also became possessor of a wig,—a Siberian wig, that is a wig made of sheepskin turned inside out. Thanks to these various means, I was pretty sure of not being recognised. I had also 180 roubles (about 200 francs) left, a small enough sum for so long a journey, and which was destined by a fatal accident to become still much smaller. I was in no way blind to the difficulties of my enterprise, nor to the many dangers to which I was exposed at each step. One thing alone sustained me, and while aggravating my situation, at all events eased my conscience: it was the oath I had sworn to myself never to reveal my secret to any one till I was in a free country; to ask neither help, nor protection, nor advice of any living being, so long as I had not passed the limits of the czar’s empire; and rather to give up my own liberty than to endanger any one of my brethren. I might have brought my own sad fate on many of my poor countrymen by my stay at KamiÉniec, when I imagined I was fulfilling a mission of general interest. Now, my own personal safety was the only thing in question, therefore I ought to look to none but myself. God gave me grace to keep this resolution to the last, which after all, was simply an honest one; and who knows that it is not in consideration of this oath, which I swore on the outset of my attempt, that He has always stretched over me His protecting arm!

“About the end of January, 1846, I had finished my preparations, and the opportunity seemed all the more favourable to me from the fact of it being near the time for the large fair of Irbite, at the foot of the Oural Mountains,—one of those fairs only seen in eastern Russia. I thought I should be lost among such a migration of people, and hastened to profit by the occasion.

“On the 8th February, I started. I had on three shirts, one of which, a coloured one, was put over the trousers of thick cloth, and over all, a small burnous (armiack) of sheepskin, well greased with tallow, and coming down to my knees. Large riding boots, well tarred, completed my costume. Around my waist I wore a large sash of white, red, and black wool, and on my wig a round cap of red velvet, trimmed with fur, such as is worn by a well-to-do peasant of Siberia on holidays, or by a travelling merchant. I was moreover well wrapped in a large pelisse, the collar of which being turned up and fastened by a handkerchief tied round it, had as much the effect of keeping out the cold as of hiding my face. A small bag which I carried contained a second pair of boots, a fourth shirt, a pair of blue summer trousers, according to the custom of the country, some bread and some dried fish. In the leg of the right boot, I had concealed a large dagger. The money, which was in notes of five or ten roubles, I placed in my waistcoat, and in my hands, which were covered with large skin gloves, with the hair outside, I carried a formidable, knotty stick.

“So rigged out, at night I quitted the establishment of Ekaterininski-Zavod, by a small by-path. It froze very hard, and the flying sleet glistened in the moonbeams. I had soon passed my Rubicon, the Irtiche, and hurrying rapidly forward, I took the road to Tara, a village twelve kilometres distant from my place of detention. ‘Winter nights,’ I thought to myself, ‘are very long in Siberia: how far can I go before day-break, and before my escape is signalled? What will become of me afterwards?’

“I had scarcely passed the Irtiche, when I heard behind me the sound of a sleigh. I shivered, but resolved on waiting for the nocturnal traveller, and, as it has happened to me more than once during my dangerous peregrination, what I most dreaded as a peril, became a quite unexpected means of escape.

“On the peasant asking me where I was going, I replied ‘To Tara.’

“‘Where are you from?’

“‘The village of Zalivina.’

“‘Give me sixty kopeks (ten sous), and I will take you to Tara, where I am going myself.’

“‘No, it’s too much; fifty kopeks if you like.’

“‘Very well; get up at once.’

“I took my place next to him; we started at a gallop, and in half an hour were at Tara. Left alone, I asked, according to the Russian custom, at the first house I saw, if I could get any horses.

“‘Where for?’

“‘For the fair at Irbite.’

“‘There are some.’

“‘A pair?’

“‘Yes, a pair.’

“‘How much the verst?’

“‘Eight kopeks.’

“‘I wont give so much. Six kopeks. What do you say to that?’

“‘Very well, then.’

In a short time the horses were ready and harnessed to the sleigh.

“‘And where are you from?’ was asked of me.

“‘From Tomsk. I am the employÉ of N. (I gave the first name that occurred to me); my master has gone on before me to Irbite. I had to stay behind for some small matters, and am horribly late; I fear he will be angry. If you will take me there quickly, I will give you something more for yourself.’

“The peasant whistled, and the horses started like arrows. All at once the clouds gathered, the snow began to fall thickly, and the peasant lost his way, and after wandering about a good deal, we were obliged to halt, and pass the night in the forest. I pretended to be greatly enraged, and my guide humbly begged my forgiveness. It would be impossible to describe the terrible anxiety of that night, spent in a sleigh in the midst of a snowstorm, scarcely four miles distant from Ekaterininski-Zavod, and expecting every minute to hear the bells of the kibitkas sent in pursuit of me. At last the day began to dawn.

“‘We will return to Tara,’ I said to the peasant, ‘where I shall engage another sleigh. As for you, fool, you may expect nothing. I will take care, moreover, to give you up to the police for making me waste my time.’ The poor peasant, quite ashamed, started to return to Tara, but scarcely had he gone a verst, when he stopped, looked round, and showing the vestige of a pathway under the drifts of snow, said, ‘That is the road we should have taken!’ ‘Follow it then,’ I said, ‘and God speed us.’ He then did his utmost to make up for lost time. A most horrible idea struck me just then; I remembered how our unhappy Colonel Wysocki was, like me, detained in the forest for a whole night, and was given up to the gendarmes by his guide. Vain terrors! The peasant took me to a friend’s house, where I managed to get tea and some fresh horses. So I went on, changing my horses at very moderate prices; when having arrived late one night at a village called SoldatskaÏa, and not having sufficient money to pay my guide, I went with him to an inn filled with a number of drunken wretches. I had taken from under my waistcoat a few notes, intending to have one or two changed by the landlord, when a movement of the crowd, done purposely or not, I cannot tell, pushed me from the table where I had spread my papers, which were quickly seized by some clever hand. In vain I made my loss known: I never could discover the thief, nor seriously think of calling in the gendarmes; so I resigned myself to my misfortune. I was in that manner deprived of forty-five roubles in notes; but what greatly increased my regrets, and even my terror, was the fact that the thief had taken at the same time two papers of the greatest worth to me: a small sheet on which I had inscribed the towns and villages I must pass through on my way to Archangel, and my passport, the one on stamped paper, the making of which had cost me so much pains. Thus at the outset I lost almost a quarter of the modest allowance for my journey, the note that was to have been my guide, and the only paper capable of satisfying any curious people. I was in despair.”

Still the fugitive was obliged to go on: each step taken brought him nearer to freedom; but whether he was taken at only a few miles’ distance from the place of his exile, or on the Russian frontier, his fate would be the same. Lost in the immense morass which covered the road to Irbite he did not reach the gates of that town, till the third day of his escape, having travelled, thanks to the celerity of sleigh-riding, 1000 kilometers since his departure from Ekaterininski-Zavod.

“‘Halt, and show your passport!’ shouted the sentinel; fortunately he added in a low tone, ‘Give me twenty kopeks, and be off with you.’ I yielded with great satisfaction to the exigencies of the law so opportunely modified in my favour.”

Having passed one night at Irbite, M. Piotrowski hastened to leave it next morning; but the expenses of his journey, and his losses by theft having reduced his purse to seventy-five roubles (about eighty francs), he could only proceed on foot.

“The winter of 1846 was extremely severe; still on the morning I left Irbite the atmosphere softened, but then the snow fell so thickly that it quite obscured the light. Walking became almost impossible among these white masses, which grew higher and thicker at every step. About midday the sky cleared a little, and my journey grew easier. I generally avoided villages, if possible; but when I found myself obliged to cross one, I went straight along as if I belonged to the neighbourhood, and needed no directions. Only at the last house of a hamlet did I venture sometimes to ask a few questions, and then not until I had great doubt as to which road I was to take. When I felt hungry, I took from my bag a piece of frozen bread, and ate it while walking, or sitting at the foot of a tree in some retired spot in the forest. To appease my thirst I looked eagerly out for the holes made in the ice by the people of the country to water their cattle. I was sometimes obliged to content myself with letting snow melt in my mouth, although that means was far from satisfactory.

“My first day’s march after leaving Irbite was very hard, and at night I found myself quite worn out. The heavy clothes I wore added to my fatigue, and still I did not dare throw them off. At nightfall I ran to the thickest part of the forest and began to prepare my bed. I knew the method used by the Ostiakes to shelter themselves in their deserts of ice; they simply hollow out a deep hole under a great heap of snow, and in that way find a bed—a hard one in truth, but a good warm one. I did the same, and soon found the repose of which I stood greatly in need.”

On the morrow he lost his way, and after wandering about almost the whole of the day, he found himself at nightfall on a road which fortunately happened to be the right one. Seeing a small house not far from a hamlet, he resolved on asking shelter there: it was not denied him. He gave himself out for a workman seeking employment in the iron works of Bohotole, in the Oural. He played his part to the best of his ability, but was thought to be too well clothed and furnished with linen for a workman, and was woke from his first sleep by peasants asking for his passport. With the greatest coolness he showed them the pass ticket, the only one he had left; fortunately the sight of the seal was sufficient for these self-appointed gendarmes, who begged his pardon for having taken him for an escaped convict.

“The rest of the night I spent very quietly, and the next day took leave of those whose hospitality was so near growing fatal to me. This incident carried a sad conviction to my mind that I could never ask shelter for the night of any human being without exposing myself to the greatest risks, and the Ostiake bed must be, until further notice, my only place of repose. I had, in short, to put up with this Ostiake style of sleeping during the whole of the time I was crossing from the Oural mountains to Veliki-Oustioug; that is, from the middle of February to the beginning of April. Three or four times only dared I beg hospitality for the night in some isolated hut, worn out by fifteen or twenty days’ march in the forest, almost exhausted, and scarcely knowing what I did. Every other night I was satisfied with digging out a hole to lie in, and by degrees became accustomed to that way of sleeping. Sometimes at nightfall I even found myself going towards the thick part of the wood, as to a well-known inn; at other times I confess this savage kind of life became intolerable to me. The absence of any

human habitation, the want of hot food, and even of frozen bread, my only nourishment for whole days sometimes, made me face in all their terrible reality those two hideous spectres called cold and hunger. In moments like these I dreaded specially the fits of drowsiness that suddenly came over me, for they were evident invitations to death, against which I fought with the little strength I had left. And now and then the craving for hot food became so strong in me, that it was with the greatest difficulty I resisted the temptation of begging in some hut for a few spoonfuls of the root soup of Siberia.”

After slowly climbing the heights of the Ourals, he at last crossed them on a fine night; but his troubles were precisely the same on the western side of the mountains. On one occasion, during a snowstorm he lost his way, passed a horrible night in the agonies of hunger, and at daybreak, while trying to find the path, he fell exhausted at the foot of a tree. The sleep, which in these regions is the forerunner of death, had already fallen on him, when he was saved by a trapper who was crossing the forest. This kind man gave him a little brandy and a few mouthfuls of bread, told him to take heart, pointed out to him a house of refuge, and disappeared in the woods.

“When I saw the house in the distance, my joy was beyond all description; I would have gone to it, I think, even had I known it to be full of gendarmes. I got as far as the door; but no sooner had I crossed the threshold, than I fell down and rolled under a wooden bench.”

After a few minutes of complete insensibility, he came to himself, and not being able to touch the food offered him by his host, he fell into a sleep which lasted twenty-four hours; kindly taken care of all the while by the landlord, who became doubly attentive when he found the traveller to be a pilgrim going to the holy island of the White Sea. That was the character taken by the fugitive; he had transformed himself into a bohomolets (worshipper of God) going to salute the holy images of the convent of Solovetsk, near Archangel. Protected by the respect and sympathy with which this title inspires a Russian peasant, M. Piotrowski managed, without much trouble, to get to Veliki-Oustioug, and was well received there by his brethren the bohomolets, who were waiting in large numbers in that town for the thaw which would permit them to embark on the Dwina for Archangel. After a month’s stay in the midst of them, during which he established his reputation as a good pilgrim by the punctuality with which he performed all his duties, he embarked on one of the many boats collected for that special service, and hired himself to the captain as a rower during the crossing, for the usual sum of fifteen roubles in notes, that sum being exactly what he had spent during his journey from Irbite. About a fortnight after his arrival at Veliki-Oustioug, he landed at Archangel, the point on which all his expectations were centred; for he hoped that in the port, which was much frequented by ships of all nations, he should find one vessel that would bring him over to France or England. Without neglecting the religious duties which the title of pilgrim imposed on him, nor the precautions the neglect of which might endanger him, he sought in vain during two long days for this saviour ship. On the deck of each vessel stood, night and day, a Russian sentinel; and along the whole length of the quays, to be able to cross the line of sentinels, it was necessary to give explanations and papers, a demand which the fugitive could not dream of subjecting himself to. Relinquishing then, not without grief, his long cherished hopes, he took the road to OnÉga, as a pilgrim who having visited the holy images of Solovetsk, was going to Kiow “to salute the sacred bones.” After many adventures, more or less agreeable, he arrived at Vytiegra. He was accosted on the quay by a peasant who asked him where he was going, and proposed to take him in his boat to St. Petersburg. He engaged himself to the man as a rower, and on the passage had occasion to render some services to a poor old peasant woman also going to St. Petersburg. On entering the harbour the unhappy fugitive felt great anxiety as to how he could avoid the police on landing, and where he should lodge, etc. All at once his protÉgÉ, the old peasant woman, said, “Stay near me. My daughter, who knows of my arrival, is coming to meet me, and will find you a good lodging-house.” He landed, and carrying the old woman’s trunk, went to the same inn with her. There still remained the difficulty about the passport and police. He much feared that his hostess would prove exacting on this point; but, on being questioned by him as to the formalities to be gone through, she said, he need not trouble to call on the police for two or three days. Being easy on this score, he went the next day towards the harbour, furtively scanning as he walked,—for a Russian peasant ought not to know how to read,—the advertisements on many steam packets announcing the time of their departure.

“All at once my eyes fell on an announcement in large letters placed near the mast of one of the steamers, to the effect that this ship was to leave for Riga the next day. I saw a man walking on the deck with his red shirt worn over his trousers, À la Russe, but not daring to speak to him, I remained satisfied with devouring him with my eyes. In the meantime the sun went down; it was already seven in the evening, when suddenly the man with the red shirt raised his head, and called to me:—

“‘Do you happen to want to go to Riga? If you do, come here.’

“‘I do certainly want to go; but what means has a poor man like me of taking the steamboat? It must cost a great deal, and is not for such as I am.’

“‘And why not come? We won’t ask much from a moujik like you.’

“‘How much?’

“He mentioned some price which I do not quite remember now, but which astonished me—it was so small.

“‘Well, does that suit you? Why do you still hesitate?’

“‘Why, I have only just arrived to-day, and I must have my passport looked to by the police.’

“‘Oh, your police will detain you three days, and the boat starts to-morrow morning.’

“‘What’s to be done?’

“‘Why, start without having it looked at.’

“‘Yes; and if some misfortune happened to me?’

“‘Fool! you, a moujik, teach me what I have to do! Have you got your passport with you? Show it.’

“I pulled from my pocket my pass-ticket, carefully wrapped in a silk handkerchief, after the fashion of all the Russian peasants; but he spared himself the trouble looking at it, and said,—

“‘Come to-morrow morning at seven; and if you don’t see me, wait for me. Now, be off with you.’

“I joyfully returned home, and the next morning was punctual at the rendezvous. The man soon perceived me, but only said, ‘Give me the money!’ He went off, but immediately returned, bringing me a yellow ticket, which of course I pretended not to know anything about: a circumstance which occasioned another gracious observation,—‘Hold your tongue moujik, and don’t trouble yourself.’ The bell rang three times, the passengers crowded together, a rough blow from my companion drove me after them, and the ship was in full motion. I thought I was in a dream.”

From Riga, M. Piotrowski, still travelling on foot, soon reached the frontier without difficulty. He had slightly modified his costume, but still kept the distinct garment of a Russian—the little bornous of sheepskin. He called himself a pork merchant, which allowed of his asking on the road all necessary information. Having once ascertained all the obstacles he could possibly encounter on his way from Russia to Prussia, he succeeded in crossing the frontier in open daylight, in spite of the shots fired at him; and taking refuge in a wood, where he cut off his beard, and transformed his costume, leaving behind him all the signs of a Russian peasant, he arrived at last at Koenigsberg. But when he thought himself all but saved, a circumstance occurred that nearly proved his ruin. He had resolved on journeying by steamer to Elbing, and towards evening he sat down on some ruins, thinking of going at nightfall in the fields to sleep on some hay, while waiting the time for departure; but, quite tired out, he fell asleep, and was woke by a night guard, who, not satisfied with his answers, took him to the first police-station. He at once volunteered the statement that he was a French workman, who had lost his passport, but he was put in prison. A month afterwards he was called again before the police, his statements were proved to be false, and he was clearly allowed to see that the grossest suspicions were afloat concerning him. Tired of concealment, and especially irritated at being taken for a malefactor in hiding, he at last declared himself. A recent treaty between Prussia and Russia obliged these two countries mutually to give up their fugitives. The Prussian authorities on hearing the declaration of M. Piotrowski, were mute with consternation; thinking it quite impossible to elude the convention. But steps were taken by the principal inhabitants of Koenigsberg, and by many persons of high rank, which Government itself evidently shrank from opposing. M. Piotrowski soon after was informed that an order had come from Berlin, enjoining his being given up to the Russians, but that time would be allowed him to escape at his own risk; and by the help of his generous friends, he was next day on his road to Dantzic.

“I had, he says, letters for different people, in all the towns of Germany I had to cross, and everywhere I found the same zeal to render my journey more comfortable. Thanks to all the help, that failed me in no place, I had very quickly crossed the whole of Germany, and on the 22nd September, 1846, I found myself again in that Paris that I had quitted four years ago.”