Let the reader picture the neighbourhood of Aldershot with its undulating pine-clad hills suddenly transplanted into the depths of the black country lying around Newcastle-on-Tyne. For stone buildings let him substitute filthy, tumble-down houses of unpainted wood, almost undistinguishable at a distance from the dark, greasy soil around them. People these villages with dirty, wild-looking men clad in sheepskins and gaudy-coloured rags, and still dirtier, half-naked women. Conceive a sickly smell (peculiar to Asiatic Russia) of old skins, wood, smoke, turpentine, and sewage, and a Siberian landscape is before you. In fine weather a fine grey dust that creeps into your hair, chokes up eyes and nostrils, and renders life almost unbearable; on a wet day thick, greasy, black mud that is everywhere. In the post-house, in the tarantass, there was no keeping it out. I do not know which was worse——the dust or the mud——perhaps the latter, for it smelt abominably, and stained like ink.

We had looked forward to fine scenery in Siberia, lofty, picturesque ranges, wooded valleys, and glorious panoramas of forest and plain, but were grievously disappointed, for the scenery between Irkoutsk and Tomsk is, with one or two exceptions, intolerably monotonous and depressing. My recollections of that weary journey are neither pleasant nor interesting. Eastern Siberia, as I remember it, is simply one long and varying succession of three colours: Dark green, brown, and yellow——pines, mud, and occasional cornfields. Of the fifty odd villages lying between the capitals of Eastern and Western Siberia, not more than a dozen contained over 400 inhabitants. Save in these villages we saw no signs of life but occasional gangs of prisoners, or a stray tarantass or tÉlÉga. The poet’s lines——

fitly describe the country through which we travelled for three weeks after leaving Irkoutsk.

A description of one Siberian village will suffice for all. The houses, for the most part of rough unpainted wood, have an untidy, unfinished appearance, the majority of them being dangerously out of the perpendicular. The effect produced by their appearance was exactly like that of ships rolling and tumbling about in a high sea, some with their sterns high up out of the water, others with their bows buried in the waves. This phenomenon is caused by the depression of the ground in spring, when the snow melts, and when their foundations being very insecure, the houses fall about in all directions. I saw one at Kloutchefskaya, near Kansk, that had sunk to such a degree that the inmates had to enter it on all fours. The entire absence of colour in these villages was fearfully depressing. I do not think I saw a single flower-garden throughout the whole journey. In some of the larger villages faint attempts at decoration were made by cutting down a fir-tree and sticking it (rootless) into the ground on either side of the road; but as this had been done in early summer, the dark green of the firs had usually faded, scorched by the sun into a dirty drab, making the surroundings, if possible, more desolate and cheerless than before. In every Siberian village, however small, are three Government buildings; the church, prison, and post-house; also, situated at one extremity of the place a huge wooden barn, in which a quantity of grain is stored annually by the villagers as a precaution against famine.

We found the post-houses (which are situated at intervals of every twenty or twenty-five versts) vary considerably in comfort and cleanliness, the best being about on a par with a decently kept labourer’s cottage in England. All are built on the same model, and of wood, two black and white pillars at the door, and the Imperial arms over the gateway alone distinguishing this building from the other rough wooden huts. Two rooms, or partitions, each about twenty feet by eighteen feet, are set apart for the use of travellers, a huge brick stove in the wall heating them equally. The floor was invariably carpetless, while the sole furniture consisted of a small table and two hard wooden chairs, sometimes, but not often, an equally hard wooden sofa; and for ornament a few woodcuts from the newspapers, or cheap tawdrily coloured portraits of the Czar and Czarina were pinned on the greasy, whitewashed walls. In one corner on a shelf is kept the “Black Book,” a volume in which travellers are invited to write any complaints, immediately over this a gaudy brass “Ikon,” or picture of the Holy Virgin or Saviour, which no Russian’s room, from Czar to peasant, is ever without. There were usually two windows——double ones——kept hermetically sealed even on the hottest day. Washing appliances were, of course, nil. I should hardly like to own how often I washed my face and hands between Irkoutsk and Tomsk! Ablutions were almost entirely dispensed with except for a handkerchief dipped into a tea-glass from the “Samovar,” and passed over the face and hands. With this “lick and a promise,” one had to be satisfied. The post-houses differed a good deal in comfort and accommodation, some being as clean and well found as those east of Lake Baikal, others little better than human pigstyes. Curiously enough, the dirtiest were invariably situated near the large towns, and while we met with nothing but civility and kindness from officials in the wilder districts, those within forty versts or so of Tomsk and Irkoutsk were as arrogant and extortionate as only a Siberian post-master can be.

The Great Post-Road from Irkoutsk to Tomsk, would scarcely be called a road in any other country. In wet weather it becomes a morass, in dry seasons the thick grey dust is up to the axles, while in early autumn the centre track is often so cut up by caravans as to make wheel traffic quite impossible. The yemstchiks then diverge to the right or left, where, though the going is not so heavy, the numerous tree-stumps, watercourses, felled logs, &c., render it anything but safe. I often wondered our tarantass did not come to pieces altogether long before reaching Tomsk. No European carriage would have stood the work twenty-four hours. A triple telegraph wire runs the entire length of the road, and is carried on eastwards from Irkoutsk to Wladivostok, a town of about 2000 inhabitants, and the headquarters of the Russian Naval Squadron in Siberian waters. There is no telegraph direct to Pekin. I was surprised, at times, to miss the wires altogether for twenty or thirty versts but found, on inquiry, that they are sometimes laid under ground on account of the violent storms that sweep across the steppes, chiefly near Krasnoiarsk and Marinsk. Telegraphing in the Russian Empire is cheap enough in all conscience. A message may be sent from Petersburg to Wladivostok for fifteen kopeks, or about 2½d. a word; from the capital to all parts of European Russia, for a third of that sum.

We dashed along gaily the first two stages out of Irkoutsk, passing, a few versts out, the monastery of St. Innocent, a huge stone building erected at the cost of many million roubles by the gold-merchants of the capital. This saint is supposed to protect travellers, and none of the wealthier mine-owners ever dream of taking a journey without first making a substantial offering at his shrine. Such voyages are necessarily frequent enough, and the sum total at the end of the year is considerable. It was almost like a glimpse of Italy or Southern France to peep in through the open gateway, the priests in their brown and white robes, strolling bareheaded about the sunny, vine-clad gardens, and shady cloisters. The tower at the eastern side of the building, is lofty, and of graceful architecture, but the fine effect is entirely spoilt by a large sham clock, just beneath the steeple, its painted hands pointing eternally to half-past twelve. The Siberians apparently have a mania for these, for I afterwards noticed them on many public and Government buildings at Tomsk, Krasnoiarsk, and Tobolsk.

We reached Bokovskaya, the first post-station out of Irkoutsk, a little after two o’clock, and were lucky enough to obtain horses at once, a circumstance that did not then strike one as out of the way, but we had as yet but little experience of Siberian post-masters and their ways. It was getting dusk as we reached the little village of Tielminskaya, where our first check occurred. Though we had covered but little ground, bright sunshine, a comfortable tarantass, and good horses, made our first day’s posting so pleasant that we began to think the discomforts of Siberian travel had been exaggerated by our Danish friends. To be sure we had only come thirty versts, and over one thousand five hundred lay between us and the good city of Tomsk!

The waiting-room at Tielminskaya had just been vacated by a Siberian family en route for Irkoutsk. Its appearance was, to say the least of it, uninviting, and did not give one a very high opinion of the cleanliness of the Siberian en voyage. No horses were obtainable till four o’clock next morning, so we spread our furs and rugs on the floor, resolving to sleep in the waiting-room, filthy as it was. One might, to use a slang expression, have cut the atmosphere with a knife. Though it had been oppressively warm all day, every window was tightly closed, while a huge fire roared in the brick stove. The dirty, worm-eaten floor, strewn as it was with mud, straw, scraps of paper, fish-bones, egg-shells, and other abominations, was anything but appetizing to look at, to say nothing of the stench of stale cigarette smoke, furs, and salt fish, but we managed to make a good meal notwithstanding, and thoroughly enjoyed the fresh-laid eggs, clotted cream, and preserved berries that the post-master’s wife provided. We little knew then that a time was coming when even eggs and milk would be unobtainable luxuries.

A “Pope” (as priests of the Greek Church are called) made his appearance about ten o’clock, just as we were thinking of turning in——a noisy, bustling fellow, who put further rest out of the question; for he was of a communicative turn of mind, and would talk, whether one answered him or not, so I made the best of a bad job, and got out my dictionary, with a view to picking up a little Russian. The conversation was somewhat laboured, and consisted chiefly of pantomime. Lancaster did not join in, but slumbered away peacefully in a corner. I verily believe he would have slept through an earthquake.

A word constantly made use of by my clerical friend was Katorgi. I do not know whether the reader has ever attempted to look out a Russian word, having but a slight knowledge of the language. If so, it will not surprise him that it took me a considerable time to discover that the word, in English, means “Convicts.” By dint of hard work I managed at the end of an hour to glean that, firstly, the road between Koutoulik and Nijni Udinsk was infested with robbers; secondly, that on no account must we travel at night through these districts; and, thirdly, that a whole family on their way to Irkoutsk from Krasnoiarsk had been murdered by thieves (escaped convicts) but a week previously.

This was scarcely encouraging our first day out. Referring to the Posting-book, I found that Koutoulik lay fifty versts further on, which would probably land us there about 2 p.m. the following day, always supposing there was no delay at Maltinskaya or Polovilnaya, the intervening stations. We were well armed, as I took care to show the clerical stranger, who, for all I knew, might himself be in league with the thieves. Siberia makes one very suspicious. At any rate we resolved to travel as little as possible by night, and when doing so to keep a good look-out, sleeping only one at a time while on the road.

It was past 2 a.m. before the loquacious “Pope” allowed me to snatch a few hours’ rest. The wind had now risen, and the rain, which had threatened at intervals through the day, was pouring down in torrents, and rattling against the window-panes with a force that boded ill for our next day’s journey. Given fine weather and average luck in obtaining horses, I had not the slightest doubt of being able to reach Tomsk in time for the last steamer to Tiumen, but a week of steady rain would upset all our plans, and probably result in our being kept prisoners at Tomsk through the mists and fogs of early autumn, until the roads set for sleighing. To post through Siberia in October is next to impossible.

We had already been two hours on the road when day broke. By eight o’clock the thick woolly clouds had rolled away, and the sun burst forth clear and cloudless, which soon dried our wet, shivering frames, for the tarantass hood leaked badly, and we had been lying in a pool of water all the morning. About mid-day we sighted the Angara for the last time. The river here presents the appearance of a vast lake (so broad is the distance from shore to shore), its blue waters fringed with massive rocks and boulders of grey granite, while further inland a fertile plain of hay and corn fields stretched away to where on the horizon a low dark green line marked the recommencement of forest. Men, women, and children, were working in the fields, and it seemed strange to a European eye to see the peasantry gathering the harvest and making hay at the same time. This part of the country teems with game, wild fowl, and a very large species of hare.

Being detained for five hours at Polovilnaya, we did not reach Koutoulik until nine o’clock p.m. The post-house being fairly comfortable, we resolved to sleep here, and make a start at daybreak next day. We had the place to ourselves till about 11 p.m., when a loud cracking of whips and jingling of collar-bells announced a fresh arrival, and one of no little importance, to judge by the bustle and confusion displayed by the yemstchiks.

“The gospodin will perhaps kindly vacate the bed,” whispered the old post-master. “It is an officer of high degree and his lady.” The “bed” being composed of hard planks and about two feet broad, I took the floor without demur; for there was little difference; and a few moments after the new arrivals entered the waiting-room, one a tall, handsome man in uniform, his companion a pretty little woman of the true Russian type, with violet eyes and finely cut features.

“You are English, the post-master informs me,” said our new acquaintance in French. “Will you do my wife and myself the pleasure of supping with us? I conclude, you, like ourselves, are detained here till to-morrow morning.”

I have seldom enjoyed a meal more than that supper in the wilds of Siberia, for, apart from the fact that we had tasted no solid food for two days, our new friends were capital company. Madame had left school in Paris only seven short months before, to marry the gay Cossack, whose military duties called him to the dreary convict settlement of Nertchinsk, in Trans-Baikal. “Un drÔle de voyage de noces, n’est-ce pas, messieurs,” said he, laughing heartily, while his poor little wife, who looked tired to death, tried hard to screw up a smile at the joke. A good supper and two or three glasses of KÜmmel, however, worked wonders, and a merrier party could scarcely be found than we were that night. It was such a relief to meet a fellow-creature with whom one could converse without racking the brain over Reiff’s dictionary and dialogue-book, and we chatted away far into the early hours. While the Cossack enlarged upon Petersburg and its delights to Lancaster, little Madame V. and myself had a long talk over the delights of Paris, the opera, the “Bois,” Sara Bernhardt, and a thousand other subjects connected with the beautiful city so far away. She was a bright, plucky little thing, though worn to a shadow, and haggard from constant travel and fatigue. I could not help wondering now long that pretty face and expression would last in dreary, desolate Nertchinsk.

Madame having retired to rest (tucking up on the hard, cushionless sofa in the most matter-of-fact way), Colonel V. did not attempt to conceal his satisfaction at having come unscathed through the Katorgi infested district. “There have been two more murders since the ones you speak of,” he said in a low tone, on our telling him of my conversation with the priest at Tielminskaya. “One that of a Jew pedlar from Kansk, the other, T., the contractor at Krasnoiarsk, who was found dead in his tarantass two days ago, near Touloung, his throat cut from ear to ear. I saw the body myself, and it was not a pleasant sight, I assure you. His yemstchik and the horses have since disappeared, which proves to me that the drivers have a good deal to do with it. No, well armed though you be, take my advice and travel only by day, till you have left the town of Nijni Udinsk far behind you.”^[12]

“Their mode of attack is simple,” said V., in answer to my inquiry, and pouring himself out a huge tumbler of vodka (his fifth). “Travellers are never molested in the day-time. It is only at night that these blackguards (of whom there are sixty or seventy) attack wayfarers. The most dangerous hours are between 3 and 6 a.m., when travellers who have been on the qui-vive all night, somewhat relax their vigilance. A couple of the thieves are told off to cut the traces, two more to seize and bind the yemstchik (accomplice or not), and three or four others at the same moment to climb over the back of the tarantass, and falling suddenly in front of the hood, despatch the passengers with a blow from a heavy bludgeon. According to report, they have no firearms. Most of the victims are first stunned, and then their throats are cut. In no case of late has a traveller’s life been spared.” But, as V. remarked, it was a significant fact, that not a single yemstchik had lost his life, while no less than twelve travellers had been brutally murdered.

The sun was high in the heavens when we rose the next morning, V.’s entertaining conversation having kept us up till past five o’clock. Yet we woke to find them both gone, for they had left, the post-master informed us, a little after seven o’clock. For staying powers in the sitting-up line, commend me to a Russian Cossack. It is my firm belief that many never sleep at all. Perhaps vodka is the secret.

We were anxious, if possible, to reach Tiretskaya, fifty versts distant, before sundown, and make the latter our sleeping-place. It would not be a difficult task, the post-master said. There was but one relay at Zalarinsk, twenty versts off, and unless we fell in with the mail from Petersburg, then about due, we were sure to be able to get horses without delay. The troika was therefore put in at once, and we were hastily swallowing a couple of glasses of tea, preparatory to a fast of twelve hours, when a shouting and cracking of whips was heard in the village street, and in another minute in galloped the mail, four mud-splashed carts, followed by a tarantass, in which, armed to the teeth and resplendent in green and gold, reclined the courier in charge.

“Lochade scorei” (horses quickly), shouted the latter, as he leapt from the tarantass, and brushed past us into the waiting-room, where a few moments after, we saw him pouring down tumbler after tumbler of scalding tea. To appeal to his finer feelings was, we knew, useless. Sadly we watched, as our troika was ruthlessly taken out and harnessed to a mail-cart, to the evident satisfaction and amusement of the courier, who, having finished his tea, was smoking a cigarette and watching our discomfiture with no little amusement. “Sibiri, gospodin!” he said, as he climbed into his tarantass, and the cortÈge dashed off again on its way to China. It was indeed Siberia! and we realized to the full that patience is a virtue, when the post-master told us that under no circumstances could we hope to get horses till five o’clock that evening.

The long sunny day wore slowly away. There was absolutely nothing to do, or look at, and time hung fearfully heavy on our hands. Towards mid-day we strolled up to the prison, situate as usual about a hundred yards outside the village.

The village prisons, or temporary resting-places for prisoners on the road to the mines, are square or rather oblong wooden buildings, three sides of which form quarters for the convicts and their guards, while the remaining wing, a little detached from the main building, is used for washing and cooking purposes. The open courtyard in the centre of the building is used for exercise. It is rough and unpaved, and in wet weather often knee-deep in mud and slush. This yard is entered by a pair of high gates, the only entrance to the building, the whole being surrounded by a high palisade, at every corner of which is posted, night and day, a sentry with a loaded rifle. This vigilance, however, is only maintained during the summer months. From April to October it is a very different matter; and as the sentries often sleep upon their posts, and the bars and gratings of the windows are so rickety and insecure that a child could dislodge them, escape becomes comparatively easy. An escape or attempted escape does not increase the length of a prisoner’s sentence. There is a chance of a sound flogging with rods if the runaway is brought back, but that is all. Without the connivance of their guards, I doubt if prisoners would ever attempt to break out at all, and were the prison officials more careful, not to say conscientious, in the discharge of their duties, the Siberian roads would be comparatively safe, instead of being, as they now are, infested with thieves and desperadoes of the worst description. There is another and still more powerful reason, which was explained to us by our travelling acquaintance V., and one that clearly demonstrates that the highest as well as the lowest officials connected with Siberian prisons are very far from being sans reproche. The practice I am about to describe, however, takes place only in the remoter districts of Eastern Siberia, whence no whisper of the scandal is ever likely to reach the ears of the Petersburg authorities.

It is marvellously simple. Lieutenant A., of the Imperial Guard, having lived not wisely but too well in the Russian capital, is compelled to exchange, and finds himself transferred in five or six short mouths from the gaiety and gilded salons of Petersburg to some desolate convict settlement in the Trans-Baikal, his only society the Cossacks under his command; his sole occupation, maintaining order among the two or three hundred convicts in his charge. The next station, thirty versts off, is under the command of his friend and brother officer in misfortune, Lieutenant B., who to lighten the long, wintry evenings, makes periodical visits to A. Heavy drinking, high play, and other little amusements, which I need not mention, but which will continue so long as female prisoners exist in Siberia, are the result of these meetings; very frequently, also, one of the guardsmen loses considerably more than he is able to pay. A Russian would sooner die than owe a debt of honour, but the pockets of both these dashing guardsmen are probably sadly deficient of that necessary commodity, “ready money.” There is but one way out of the difficulty. Early in spring, a batch of fifty or sixty convicts are liberated (upon the understanding that they return before the end of September) to get their living as best they can upon the roads. Some have been known to reach Tomsk from Nertchinsk on these summer excursions. Nor do they ever fail to return, for none but a lunatic would ever think twice of escaping outright from Siberia. During the absence of the gang, M. le Lieutenant draws the money for their rations, &c. from Petersburg, and discharges his just debts. “Cela n’est pas plus difficile que cela!”

Though I visited three “ostrogs,” it was only with considerable difficulty and a lavish expenditure of roubles that I succeeded in doing so. It seems strange that the Russian Government should show such a strong dislike to strangers visiting their convict establishments, for I must confess to being most agreeably disappointed by what I saw. Notwithstanding all the blood-curdling and revolting accounts so vividly set forth by the authors of “Called Back,” “The Russians of To-day,” and similar works, I found the prisons of Siberia clean and comfortable, though perhaps not so sweet-smelling as our convict establishments at Chatham or Dartmoor. It would be hard to keep them so, considering that every twenty-four hours brings in a fresh batch of prisoners, each in wet weather, with a pound or so of black, stinking mud on his feet. At one village only (Rasgonnaia) along the whole post-road from Irkoutsk to Tomsk was the ostrog (a very old one) almost uninhabitable. It swarmed with rats, the post-master told us, and convicts, in winter, were sometimes severely bitten; while they were forced to sleep in the daytime, rest at night being rendered impossible by the swarms of vermin. Let me in justice add that this was the only really bad ostrog I heard of or saw during the whole journey, and the authorities were on the point of pulling it down and building a new one. We hear a deal in England of wretched hovels, where convicts are housed together like sheep in a pen, human pigstyes reeking with filth of every description, where not a day passes but a prisoner is carried off by typhus or some other malignant fever. As a matter of fact I have seldom seen neater buildings. But for the black and white sentry boxes, the barred windows, and imperial eagle over the gate, one would never take them for prisons at all, and they were often, with their bright yellow walls, red roof, and neatly kept gardens, the only cheerful-looking building in the squalid villages through which we passed. The ostrog at Koutoulik was empty, but a gang was expected that afternoon, a Cossack told us. Preparations for their arrival were already being made in the shape of cakes, cream, eggs, apples, sweetmeats, and cigarettes spread out on snowy linen cloths for the delectation of lucky convicts who had made a few kopeks on the road.

We strolled back to the post-house after our inspection, and called in sheer desperation for the Samovar. There was literally nothing else to do. Seven long hours must be got through before we could hope to get horses and proceed on our journey. It is this eternal delay, this irksome waiting that makes Siberian travel so monotonous and dispiriting. The fatigue and privation were trifling compared to the long weary days of boredom and inaction. We got into a habit at last of calling mechanically for tea at every station. Fifteen or twenty glasses were, after the first week, our daily allowance, and I verily believe I drank tea enough during the two months I was in Siberia to keep a dozen old maids going for a year.

Koutoulik consists of some eighteen or twenty houses and presented a depressing appearance enough even that bright sunny afternoon, for the village was deserted by all save women, children, dogs, and pigs, the men being busy in the fields getting in the harvest. Under the guidance of the post-master, a Pole who spoke a few words of French, I visited one of the cottages. Most of the women were dirty, bedraggled creatures, but some of the younger girls were good-looking, and the children many of them beautiful, with fair flaxen hair and light blue eyes that made one wonder how such thoroughly northern types of beauty could have been born and reared so far east. The mistress of the cottage we entered (a young and rather pretty woman) apologized for her costume, which consisted simply and solely of a thin and almost transparent muslin nightgown reaching a little below the knee; the only garment worn indoors by peasant women in the brief but tropical Siberian summer. We begged her not to apologize, assuring her that the costume, though scanty, suited her remarkably well.

The interior of the cottage was, though primitive, scrupulously clean. In one corner hung the sacred “Ikon,” or image of the Holy Virgin, a huge brick stove immediately facing it. Half a dozen wooden chairs and a rough pine table comprised the furniture, the flooring of the room was at an angle of about forty-five degrees, which made sitting down a somewhat dangerous experiment. From the centre of the roof hung a Siberian cradle, a kind of linen bag secured by a long rope to a hook in the ceiling, to which our hostess gave a swing every twenty minutes or so, the length of the cord keeping it (and her last born) in motion for quite that length of time.

While we were smoking a cigarette and regaling ourselves with a glass of iced “Quass,”^[13] the pretty housewife, who soon lost her shyness, produced a Russian guitar, and sang to us (in a sweet, clear voice) two or three national airs. One, a Volga boat-song, seems an especial favourite, for we heard it continually the whole way from Kiakhta to Nijni Novgorod, sung by peasants, prisoners, and yemstchiks alike. The Siberian peasantry appear to have a good ear for music, but their airs are nearly all in minor, and intensely depressing, after a time, to a European ear.

The Siberian peasant cannot be called overtaxed, all that the imperial Government exacts being a poll-tax of seventeen roubles. Those living on the Great Post-Road are exempt from this even, if they breed and provide horses for the postal service, of course receiving a remuneration for the same. The men are cheery, good-tempered fellows enough, with, as a rule, but one vice, drunkenness; when they do take too much, it is done in a good-tempered way, and they become more urbane and benevolent than when sober. I have never once seen a Siberian quarrelsome in his cups, though I met many the worse for vodka in every town we passed through. As regards the women, they are clean, thrifty, and very religious, but at the same time rather lax in their morals, a mixture of qualities not peculiar, I imagine, to Siberia.

It was nearly seven o’clock before we left Koutoulik, so we had to abandon all hopes of getting further than Zalarinsk (the next station, twenty-eight versts distant) that night. We looked to our pistols before starting, and took care to let the yemstchik see we were armed, for it was a desolate, cutthroat-looking road, and the forest so thick, one could hardly see a foot either side of the tarantass, but we kept a bright look-out, with revolvers at half-cock, and had we been attacked, our assailants would have met with a warm reception. About ten o’clock some twinkling lights ahead heralded the approach of Zalarinsk, and by half-past ten we were safe for the night.

The succeeding two days were, as regards weather, perfect, a blue cloudless sky and bright sun, which at mid-day was sometimes too hot to be pleasant; on more than one occasion the thermometer rose to over 90° Fahr., although the instant the sun set it sometimes dropped to only a few degrees above Zero, so rapid are the changes of temperature. On the 26th of August the country became more cultivated, and the thick forest gave place to large clearings of corn, maize, and mustard. This was on the eastern side of Tiretskaya. The latter village passed, the landscape again changed, and we returned to dull, monotonous pine forests, varied by occasional silver-birch-trees or bushes with bright red and white berries. Siberia is noted for the latter. There are no less than twenty different kinds, and in parts of the country they form, with black bread, the staple food of the inhabitants in summer-time. We found most of them insipid, flavourless things, with the exception of the “Brousniki,” a kind of bilberry, which eaten with cream and sugar was delicious. The “Brousniki” is also very efficacious as a febrifuge.

Two large caravans were passed between Zalarinsk and Tiretskaya; one laden with calico, ironmongery, and Manchester goods——the other with tea——the former eastward, the latter westward bound. Each consisted of over two hundred carts, in charge of about eight or ten men, who, till our driver had roused the foremost with a cut of his whip, were fast asleep when we came up to them, the horses rolling about the road from side to side, and threatening every moment to dash the clumsy heavy carts into our tarantass. The tea-caravans travel day and night, only halting five hours out of the twenty-four, from 1 p.m. till 3 p.m., and midnight till three o’clock in the morning. Yet the horses looked sleek and fat, and not in the least out of condition, the reason, perhaps, being that they never exceed a speed of three miles an hour.

We rarely passed more than two or three conveyances in a day, and this is what makes posting in Siberia so irksome and monotonous. Between the villages there is absolutely nothing to look at but the dreary sand-coloured road——the endless vista of dark green forest. A cottage is never found alone in Siberia or outside a village enceinte. Except in the villages, usually twenty to thirty versts apart, one sees no dwelling of any sort or kind. The monotony, after a week or so, becomes absolutely maddening. What must it be to the wretched exiles who sometimes take two years to reach their destination!

We reached Tiretskaya at sunset. A large river just beyond this station was swollen by the rains to a considerable, not to say dangerous, extent. Only that evening the ferry had been carried away and washed down-stream, the Petersburg mail having to wait out in the open, on the river-bank, till it was repaired. This was not pleasant news, but we derived some consolation from the fact that the weather was fine and the glass rising. We had the waiting-room to ourselves till midnight, when a tÉlÉga clattered into the yard, and out clambered an enormously fat man and a small, wizened woman, who informed us, before they had been in the room five minutes, that they were newly married, and had come straight through from Irkoutsk. Divested of their furs, I discovered that the man was clad in a bran-new suit of shining broadcloth, the woman in what had evidently been her bridal array, a white muslin dress, covered with sprays of orange blossom, but terribly soiled and creased by travel and the amorous advances of her bridegroom, to say nothing of the mud and dirty straw of the tÉlÉga. When the partner of his joys and sorrows had retired to rest (on two chairs), the unhappy bridegroom became confidential, and confided to me, in a low tone, that he would much rather have remained quietly in Irkoutsk, that he did not like this sort of thing at all, and was only doing it to amuse his bride! I could not help, like Mr. Pickwick, envying the facility with which the lady was amused. “I shall take her as far as Nijni Udinsk, if her strength holds out,” he said resignedly, “if not, we shall return to Irkoutsk.” What a honeymoon! Next morning, when I woke, they were gone.

I shall never forget my first night in a Siberian post-house. Unless the traveller falls asleep at once, it is long odds against his getting any rest at all, for tarantasses and tÉlÉgas are arriving and leaving at all hours of the night. There is (by order) a lamp kept burning till morning, and the jingle of bells, shouting of yemstchiks and stamping of heavy feet on the carpetless floor, that goes on at intervals through the night, would waken the dead. There is another powerful antidote to sleep in every Siberian post, be it ever so clean——vermin——to say nothing of cockroaches and rats, who subsist on the scraps of food dropped on the floor by travellers, and who run about the floor and over one’s face and body with supreme indifference during the quieter moments of the night. Till I went to Siberia, I had the most unutterable loathing for rats; but now, like the Yankee and the snake, I almost feel lonely without them.

About 2 a.m. the cocks commenced crowing, and were promptly answered by the dogs of the village. Long before daylight the inhabitants of the post-house were astir and bustling about, cleaning up, lighting fires, chopping wood, &c. I usually rose about 4 a.m., and, lighting a cigarette, amused myself by studying the strange types of humanity around me till the samovar made its appearance. They were a strange, motley crew, as a rule. Men and women lying about pell-mell, and looking, in the weird half-light between night and day, like a lot of corpses in a fosse commune. One could always tell at a glance, the new hands at the game; the Russian official’s wife travelling the post-road for the first time in smart, tailor-made gown, beaver toque, and costly furs, or the Siberian with her awkward, ill-cut dress in the fashion of thirty years ago. It was second nature to the latter to remain unwashed for a couple of weeks, and sleep on the filthy floor, with, perhaps, a greasy, ragged Jew pedler for a neighbour, but one could not help pitying the better class,^[14] travelling from St. Petersburg or Moscow to rejoin their husbands in Eastern Siberia or the Amour district, sitting, if they could get them, on the hard, stiff-backed, wooden chairs all through the night, and almost falling off them at times from sheer weariness. The prettiest looked hideous in the early morning hours, with tangled hair, disordered dress, and pale, pasty faces, while their diamond rings only served to show off the blackness of their hands and nails, which they had probably been unable to wash for days. Few women look well, even in England, at six in the morning after a ball. Imagine their appearance after a dozen nights and days of Siberian travel. Many of the post-houses are worse than that I have described, but few are better. I have seen sights in these waiting-rooms that will not bear description. They are better left to the reader’s imagination; for in matters of decency the Siberian, pur et simple, is inferior to the Chinese.

I date the commencement of our mishaps and difficulties from the morning of the 27th of August, when I awoke in the dirty, little waiting-room of Tiretskaya post-house to find the rain pouring down in torrents, the sky one mass of grey, woolly clouds. It had evidently been raining some hours, for the road in front of the post-house was one pool of water, almost half-way up to the axle of our tarantass, on the roof of which the rain was pelting down unmercifully. Instinct told me that the water inside was quite an inch deep by this time. Mentally thanking Providence that we had taken out the mattress, I rolled myself in my furs and went to sleep again. It was hopeless to think of starting with a dangerous river to cross and the next post twenty-five versts distant.

The weather cleared a little towards mid-day, and we resolved, though it was still raining hard, to make a start, and, if possible, reach Listvinskaya, seventy odd versts distant, that evening. The tarantass had to be baled out before we got in. A tarantass for Irkoutsk arrived as we were putting to, and reported the ferry in working order, though the river was rapid and swollen to a dangerous extent. We thanked our informants and set off. The latter were travelling en famille, Monsieur and madame, four children and a nurse, all packed into the same tarantass. I envied them, for they had, at any rate, the advantage of warmth, the weather having suddenly become raw and cold, with, every now and then, blinding showers of sleet.

Although the river Oka is situated only a mile or so from the village of Tiretskaya, it took us nearly an hour to reach the ferry. Parts of the road were entirely submerged, and our yemstchik had to find his way by guesswork. As we knew there was a broad, deep ditch on either side of the road, the work was, to say the least of it, exciting. It was impossible to go out of a walk, and even then it was as much as our five game little horses could do to drag the heavy, clumsy carriage along. We stuck fast twice, and all hands had to get out “to shove her off,” knee-deep in icy cold water. We were wet through by the time the ferry was reached, and shivering with cold, a somewhat unpleasant condition in which to embark on a stage of twenty-five versts, which it would in all probability take us several hours to accomplish, supposing we ever succeeded in reaching Ziminskaia at all. There were, the ferryman said, four bridges to cross before we reached it, and one or two, at least, would probably have been washed away by now, for the floods were worse there.

The appearance of the river Oka was highly picturesque, but not reassuring. A broad, swiftly flowing stream at any time, continuous rains had widened its waters to double the ordinary width, the torrent now being quite a mile across. The rotten and insecure ferry looked as if a touch from one of the snags or tree-trunks which were whirling madly along the surface of the stream would send it to the bottom in a second, and the ferryman was for some time inexorable, but the temptation of a 10r. note was too much for him, and with much muttering about “it would be our own fault if we were drowned,” we got the tarantass and horses aboard, and shoved off for the opposite shore. Scarcely were the chains let go when a loud shout from the bank attracted my attention. The crowd were shouting and gesticulating, running backwards and forwards on the bank like madmen, and pointing to a splashing, indistinct mass in the water which I presently made out to be a man and a horse. The latter had been brought down to water, but the bank, rotten with perpetual rain, gave way, precipitating the animal and its rider into deep water. I have seldom experienced a moment of more intense excitement. It quite took our thoughts away from our own danger——for all this time we were forging slowly ahead. The ferryman dare not stop, nor could we have rendered the poor fellow any help, for the current was rapidly carrying him further and further into the centre of the river. He was evidently a good swimmer, but could, we saw, do nothing against the terrific force of the current. Three times we saw him rise to the surface, when his screams were pitiful to hear, but the third time he was silent, and throwing up both arms, sank for the last time, in full view of us all. He was only twenty——the ferryman told us——a tall, good-looking fellow, who had stood by and given a hand to get our tarantass on board but three or four minutes before he met with his sad fate.

Crossing the river without mishap, we found the road on the other side in better order than the one we had left. At any rate it was not flooded, the yemstchiks could see where they were going, and there was not so much danger of being stranded ten miles from anywhere with a broken wheel or axle. Ziminskaia was reached at 3 p.m., and with a fresh relay of seven horses in (for which we had not to wait more than ten minutes), we continued our journey, hoping to reach Listvinskaya, fifty versts further on, some time that night, or the next morning.

Listvinskaya was reached at 11 p.m. The post-house was full of soldiers, who had been out all day in the rain, searching for prisoners, with no result, and no wonder. It was, indeed, a case of looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, to expect to find fugitives in these thick, impenetrable forests. We were not sorry when they had finished their vodka and departed, leaving us at 2 a.m. to snatch a few hours’ sleep, before again taking the road. The rain had now ceased, and the night was bright and starlit.

Our anticipations of a fine day were not disappointed, for we were awoke by the bright sun streaming into our faces, and the voice of our host inquiring how much longer we were going to sleep. And sure enough, worn out with fatigue and the anxieties of the previous day, we had slumbered on undisturbed by the noise of arrivals and departures, till past mid-day, or at least so the station clock said. But one was never quite sure about the time in Siberia. Every post-master has a time of his own. It seemed strange at first to leave, say, Tirestskaya station at nine in the morning, and arrive at Ziminskaia, twenty versts off, at half-past eight! But we soon got used to it, and after the first week never troubled our heads about the hour. It was but a minor detail.

We made good way that and the following day, and on the evening of the 29th of August reached the village of Touloung. But alas! good luck as regards weather was not destined to last. Just before sunset, the sky became overcast, and two hours before reaching our destination for the night the rain was falling in torrents. The hood was, as usual, worse than useless, and in a few minutes we were wet through to the skin. There were fortunately no more rivers between us and Nijni Udinsk, which town, all being well, we hoped to reach on the morrow.

Had we known that night that we were destined to be imprisoned in the filthy room in which we slept for two days, I doubt if we should have retired to rest in such good spirits. We had come to the end of our provisions, and should now have to subsist entirely on the meagre fare provided by the post-houses. I could stand everything well enough but the bread. Oh! that Siberian bread. My stomach recoils at the mere recollection of the sour, greasy substance, as black as ink, as heavy as lead, and in consistency so soft and damp, that one could pull it out like a piece of unbaked dough.

Swallowing a glass of tea, we rolled up in our furs, wet through as we were. Such a proceeding in England would probably have resulted in an attack of rheumatic fever, but a special providence seems to watch over one’s health in Siberia, and we never had a day’s sickness, hard though the work, and short the supply of food and (with the exception of tea) drink. We did not get much sleep that night, but lay awake, listening to the howling of the wind and pattering of the rain on the window-panes. About two in the morning I dropped into an uneasy dose, from which I awoke about an hour after, to find the old post-master replenishing the stove. “A terrible night, gospodin,” he muttered, tossing a huge pine log into the flame. “One almost pities the Katorgi, with no roof over their heads. Poor devils, they must be like drowned rats!” Too tired to answer, I was about to turn on my side, when a loud knock startled me into a sitting position, and brought the old man shuffling back from the kitchen in double quick time. It was no tarantass or tÉlÉga. There had been no bells or sound of wheels. Whoever the nightly visitor was, he had come on foot. The old man displayed no desire to open the door, and showed signs of such uneasiness, that then, for the first time, flashed across me the words of our Cossack friend at Koutoulik, “Keep a good look-out about Touloung. They are worse there than anywhere.”

A second knock, louder than the first, cut short my reflections, and induced me to make signs to the Pole that my revolver was loaded, and that Lancaster (who was still slumbering peacefully) had a similar weapon. Apparently reassured, he then went to the door, unbolted it, and let in the mysterious visitor.

A tall, spare man with reddish grey beard and moustache, apparently about sixty years of age, pushed rudely past the Pole and entered the room; and divesting himself of a huge bearskin pelisse, sank into a chair with a sigh of satisfaction. “Enfin!” he muttered in French, adding in Russian sharply, “I thought you were going to keep me out there all night. Why did you not open sooner? Come! quick, the samovar, and some eggs and bread. Don’t stand staring there like a fool.”

That the stranger had no earthly right to order provisions in a Government post-house, without a podarojna, I was well aware. This fact, however, did not seem to occur to the post-master, who slunk away without a word of remonstrance to get the refreshments. In the meantime, being unobserved, I had a good opportunity of taking stock of the new arrival from behind my dacha.

It was not a pleasing or reassuring countenance. One thing especially struck me as curious; he had not removed his cap on entering the room, and had, apparently, no intention of doing so. It is, as I have said, an unwritten law, that on entering an apartment in Russia the head shall be uncovered, more out of respect to the sacred Ikon, which always stands in one corner, than out of politeness to the occupants of the compartment. I had never yet seen the rule departed from, and felt sure that the man had some hidden motive in remaining covered. His dress was unique if not becoming: a pair of grey tweed trousers, surmounted by a Siberian peasant’s caftan, secured by a broad red sash round the waist, and a pair of high-heeled, buttoned boots. Save for a thick wooden cudgel, which lay on the table beside him, the stranger was apparently unarmed. Who could the man be? and where in Heaven’s name had he dropped from this wild stormy night, or rather morning? for I noticed with satisfaction that day was beginning to dawn.

Who he was, must remain a mystery. He left about 5 a.m., as suddenly as he had come, and the old post-master was either too frightened or too lazy to send up to the prison for a couple of Cossacks. One circumstance convinced me that my suspicions were well founded. Having made a hearty meal of tea, black bread, and sardines, he pushed his chair back, and resting both feet on the stove, lit a cigarette. While so doing his cap slipped off, and I distinctly saw that one half of his head was partly shaved, the distinguishing mark of the Siberian convict. That he was a “Katorgi” I do not for a moment doubt. He never once caught sight of me, lying as I was in the shadow of the table; but Lancaster, who slept calmly through the whole business, lay close to him, and my only wonder is that he did not take a fancy to the gold watch-chain lying so temptingly across my friend’s chest. He left the post-house very quietly without paying for his food, nor did the old post-master make any further remarks anent his strange visitor. It might have got him into trouble with the authorities.

The poor wretch had probably been starving for the past two or three days, afraid to show his face in the village near which so many brutal murders had been committed. Judging there would be few travellers abroad a night like this, he had made for the post-house, and seeing, as he thought, its only inmate the old Pole, had summoned up courage to enter. It seemed odd that with the dirty and ragged dress he wore, a large diamond ring, sparkled on the first finger of his left hand. We afterwards heard that the contractor had been robbed of one of unusual size and brilliancy.

Any hopes we had of pushing on to Nijni Udinsk the next day were soon dispelled, for at about ten o’clock the Imperial post clattered in, and every available horse was harnessed to the mail-carts. We were not altogether sorry, for the rain was coming down as hard as ever. Even the dirty, dreary post-house was preferable to a long drive of eighty odd versts, wet to the skin and chilled to the bone, with a filthy post-house and no food at the end of the journey.

What a day that was! I have experienced many miserable hours in the course of my travels but never a day so wretched, and unspeakably depressing as that 30th of August in Touloung post-house. Save the mail, nothing passed the whole livelong day, not even a tÉlÉga. Having read all that the rain had left us of our books, we simply sat down and looked at each other in sheer despair. The situation would have been laughable had it not seemed, at the time, so serious.

The main street of an Eastern Siberian village is not an inspiriting sight, even on a fine and sunny day. I have never looked upon a more dismal spectacle than met the eye from the post-house windows at Touloung. There were four, two looking on to the village street, the others on to a lonely barren stretch of common, at the end of which, through the grey mist, loomed the red roof of the ostrog. It was hard to say which depressed one most, the dirty village street, knee-deep in mud and filth, the dirty dilapidated houses; the only signs of life half a dozen mangy-looking ducks splashing and wallowing in the rain, and a couple of shivering post-horses crouching under shelter of our tarantass;——or the lonely, drab-coloured road, winding away like a great snake over the common, past the prison, and into a green mass of forest just beyond; the tall gaunt telegraph poles and black and white verst posts almost undistinguishable in the dense grey mist, dispelled, ever and anon, by driving showers of rain and sleet. The interior was no better than the look-out. Our amusement became at length reduced to killing the flies, which swarmed in thousands on the dirty walls, and drinking tea, that never-failing solace of the Siberian traveller. There was no food in the house to speak of. The unwelcome visitor of last night had exhausted our old friend’s stock, and reduced the contents of his larder to some salted “omuli” and a couple of loaves (or rather “lumps”) of black bread. This constituted our evening meal. A buxom female, who appeared as if by magic from the innermost recesses of the kitchen, waited on us. We would willingly have dispensed with her services, for she was not only disgustingly dirty, but was afflicted, in addition, with a loathsome skin disease. Nor was it reassuring when our host explained the cause. “Poor girl,” he said pensively, “she has suffered much the last three weeks. You would hardly think, to see her bustling about so cheerfully, that she only rose for the first time to-day from a bad attack of small-pox, caught from one of those beastly tea-caravans from China. Curse them! they spread it all over the country.” Under any other circumstances I should have felt uneasy, but we were becoming so desperate that had violent symptoms developed themselves, I believe we should have taken it quite as a matter of course. For this very reason, perhaps, neither of us caught it, for the fair “Liouba” had undoubtedly arrived at the most infectious stage of the disease.

Towards sunset the rain abated a little. About seven o’clock, some women emerged from the houses opposite, each carrying a basin and slice of black bread, which, having placed under shelter of the eaves, they left and returned within doors. A Siberian woman’s out-door costume on a rainy day is even more peculiar than that in which she receives her guests in summer, for, from the waist downwards, with the exception of a pair of high boots reaching to the knee, there is no attempt at clothing of any description, the linen skirt being fastened apparently round the neck. The appearance of these worthy dames all at once at the gates of their courtyards was curious in the extreme, nor did they appear the least disconcerted when they caught sight of our faces at the window. On inquiry, it is the custom, throughout Siberia, for the peasants of every village and town to place outside each house refreshment of some sort (which usually takes the shape of bread and milk) for the use of any convict that may make his escape. The rule is an old one, nor has it ever been interfered with by the Imperial Government. It is also understood that the bowl and plate holding the provisions shall not be tampered with or taken away, china utensils being rather valuable in Eastern Siberia. Whenever this code of honour has been infringed the next convict who escapes is bound, should he come across him, to kill the thief. A sentence of this kind was carried out near Tomsk while we were staying there. Both convicts had made their escape from the ostrog at Kolinskaya, about ninety versts from Tomsk, the first escaping about three weeks before the second. As usual, both made what they could upon the road, till the latter accidentally heard of the theft committed by the former, and never rested till he had hunted him down, and after a severe struggle beaten him to death with a bludgeon. His body was found in the forest some days later.

But if the day at Touloung had been depressing, the night was infinitely more so. The remains of our scanty meal having been carried away by the small-pox patient, the post-master appeared with two guttering tallow dips, which just sufficed to make darkness visible, and, bidding us good night, retired to the depths of his ill-smelling den, whence, a few moments after, there issued sounds of music in the shape of a groaning, wheezing concertina. We were given the benefit of this inspiriting music from a little past eight o’clock till far into the night. I used to think the Russian National Anthem a fine and stirring composition, but can, even now, scarcely hear it without a shudder. It was the only tune he knew. It was past 1 a.m. when I got to sleep. The howling of the wind, and rattling of the rain and sleet against the window-panes, made one feel thankful one was under shelter, even in such a den as this. A huge grey rat, sitting near on the floor, his eyes gleaming in the semi-darkness, appeared to share my opinion. Two months before, I could not have slept a wink with the knowledge that such an animal was in the room, but I now composed myself to slumber quite unconcernedly, although with the firm conviction that when asleep, he, and probably many others, would be scrambling over my body and face. An excellent school is Siberia for the fastidious, and I know many a youthful London “masher” who would derive incalculable benefit (both physical and and mental) from a short residence at Touloung.

Awakening at five o’clock, I sprang eagerly to the window, to see how the weather was. Alas! it was pouring harder than ever. Still the same sodden grey sky of yesterday, with sooty-coloured clouds driving over it, still the same desolate landscape, dripping houses, and distant forest shrouded in white mist. Another day at Touloung! Cursing Siberia and everything connected with it, I wrapped myself in my pelisse, and lay down again on the filthy worm-eaten floor, nor did I wake again till past ten o’clock, to find a new arrival seated, in front of the hissing samovar, and the rain coming down harder than ever.

The new comer was a Jew, and a very dirty one into the bargain, though evidently a man of means, as his private tarantass and fat podgy hands, covered with enormous diamond rings, testified. Like most of his race, he was as curious as a monkey, and no sooner had I opened my eyes than I was assailed with the usual bevy of questions. “What was my nationality?” “Where had I come from?” “Where was I going?” “What was my income?” and finally, “What had brought me to Siberia?” My answer, “Pleasure,” was invariably met with shouts of laughter on these occasions. Nor, now that I have crossed that dreary country, can I blame my fellow-travellers for what at the time I looked upon as a somewhat rude and unnecessary display of mirth. The Jew spoke a little French, and was a welcome addition to our melancholy party, for besides being a cheery, talkative fellow, full of fun and anecdote, he had a large stock of provisions. We were, almost starving, and accepted with alacrity his invitation to join him in a tin of preserved mutton, washed down by a couple of glasses of vodka. I do not know when I ever enjoyed a meal more. We had not tasted solid food for nearly three days, and the pangs of hunger were beginning to make themselves felt in a most painful and unmistakable manner. We more than once experienced, seriously speaking, the pains of starvation in Siberia: that terrible gnawing sensation at the pit of the stomach which is so hard to describe, but which for sheer mental and physical suffering is unequalled.

Our Hebrew friend was, it transpired, a bagman “travelling” in gunpowder, and a native of Irkoutsk. He was now on his way to Tashkent, in Central Asia, having come the whole distance from Nicolaievsk, on the Sea of Okhotsk, without a break, save a rest of a couple of days in his native city. Such a voyage as ours paled before the prodigious length of this journey, which must be at least four thousand miles from end to end. The Jew had already done it four times, once in winter, an experiment, he added, he would not care to repeat. “In summer,” said our talkative friend, “it is charming. Like what you English would call one great Picque-Nicque.” How I envied the little man his cheerful disposition!

He made a start by five o’clock, when the weather cleared a little, and by nine o’clock the sky was cloudless and covered with bright stars. Dreading a rainy morrow, we almost decided to have the horses put in and push on at once. The next station could not, at any rate, be worse than Touloung, and might be better; but the post-master begged us not to attempt it. The floods were out in places, and he had but a young and inexperienced yemstchik to give us, who would probably lose his head, should anything go wrong. We were not sorry next day that we had taken the old man’s advice. Morning broke bright and clear, though the roofs of the houses were still wet and gleaming in the sunshine, as with six horses in, we slowly made our way up the miry street, and said good-bye, with a sigh of relief, to the grimy post-house in which we had passed so many dreary, comfortless hours.

A newly steam-ploughed field in the boggiest parts of Cambridgeshire after a week’s steady and incessant rain, but faintly describes the condition in which we found the road. In many places it was entirely submerged, and we had to trust to Providence and the yemstchik’s knowledge of the road for safety. At one place the water was well over the hind wheels. We were not sorry to emerge on dry land again, for we had to cross a broken-down bridge during this aquatic interlude, when a false move to the right or left would have precipitated us into a ditch about ten feet deep and broad in proportion. For the first eighteen versts it was quite impossible to attempt a faster pace than a walk, and several times we stuck altogether. It was anxious work, for a loosened bolt or screw, a broken axle, may, in Siberia, detain one for a week or more. We had not much confidence in our yemstchik, who could not at the most have been more than twelve or thirteen years old, and should have fared badly had we adhered to our original intention and started over-night, for the horses did exactly as they liked. What the little imp lacked in strength, however, he made up in assurance, and waved his whip about, alternately cursing and praising his team after the most approved style. We had a narrow escape of an upset once when the horses, taking fright at a dead horse on the side of the road, made a bolt for it into the forest. Luckily a large hole into which the tarantass dived, brought us up all standing, and saved us from further mishap. During this performance two of the traces broke, and we were detained over an hour repairing them. Three tÉlÉgas and a tarantass having passed us meanwhile, we were detained at the next station (Kourjinskaya) for twenty-four hours.

The utterly inadequate number of horses kept at each station may be said to have been one of our chief drawbacks. Whenever, on the road, one has the misfortune to meet the post, it is impossible, although the mail consists, as a rule, of four or six tarantasses, at the most, to procure horses, and a long weary wait is the result. Sometimes, when we had the post-house to ourselves, it was bearable enough, but on most occasions our sufferings were shared by a number of other travellers. Sitting or standing in a bare, whitewashed room for half a dozen hours together, is not conducive to good temper or conversation, and on these occasions the waiting-room reminded me of nothing so much as a cage of wild beasts, each eyeing the other with envy, hatred, and malice, the women especially looking as if they would like to tear each other’s eyes out. The peculiarities of men too came out at such times, some taking the matter coolly and philosophically, alternately drinking tea and smoking cigarettes, till their horses were ready; others pacing restlessly up and down the room, cursing the post-master, yemstchiks, and everybody connected with the establishment; others, again, subsiding into a state of dull apathy, and staring straight before them for hours together. I often thought at such times of men I know in England, to whom a wait of a couple of hours in a snug waiting-room, surrounded by papers and books, food and drink, is an excuse for a good British grumble. I thought of what they would say to a detention of three days, or so, in one of these post-houses, with nothing but tea for nourishment, nothing to look at but four dirty whitewashed walls, nothing to do but to pace up and down for hours together, to try and keep the circulation going in one’s tired, hungry frame, a thousand-mile journey before them, and probably a dozen such delays ere they reached their final destination!

I will not weary the reader with an account of every stage. Suffice it to say that we reached Nijni Udinsk, after some delay and trouble, on the 31st of August; and with the exception of the desert, I do not think I have ever made a rougher or more uncomfortable journey than that from Touloung to this town. The last stage was a terrible one, and I thought more than once we should have to abandon all hope of reaching Nijni Udinsk that night at any rate. About half-way the horses, of which we had seven in, shied while crossing a rickety wooden bridge, both near wheels went over the edge, and for a few moments things looked ugly. Though the team plunged a good deal, however, no harm was done, and by the aid of two young fir-trees that our yemstchiks cut down, we got the clumsy vehicle hoisted on to terra firma again. Although well broken into jolting and shaking by camel-cart experiences, I do not think I ever made a more fatiguing journey. Our bodies and bones ached for days after.

We were detained some time at the ferry over the River Uda, on which river the town of Nijni Udinsk is situated, for a caravan of over 200 carts was being taken across, and it was quite an hour before we managed to persuade the ferryman to take us on board. In the meantime we amused ourselves watching the busy scene and the frantic efforts made by men and horses to drag the heavy tea-carts up the steep river-bank. Not a hundred yards off, a young and pretty woman was bathing in the stream, stark naked, a proceeding which seemed to amuse not a little the ragged, wild-looking fellows in charge of the caravan. Some, bolder than the rest, ventured to embark in an interchange of chaff with the fair bather, who, far from being dismayed, only laughed and showed her white teeth derisively, giving her assailants back as good as they gave. Siberian women are certainly not troubled with shyness.

It was dusk when we reached the post-house, a large brick building, with a good garden and shady courtyard. The waiting-room was taken possession of by five Japanese youths, who, after a course of study at St. Petersburg, were returning to Japan vi Wladivostok and the Amour. But the innkeeper’s wife (a pretty flaxen-haired Swede), would not hear of our sharing the big room with the Japs, but laid us a table in her own private sitting-room, where, at the open window, looking on to the garden, redolent of sweetbriar and honeysuckle, we enjoyed the first comfortable meal we had made for nearly a fortnight. Our little hostess prepared it with her own hands, and took quite a motherly interest in us, a kindness we could not but repay by visiting and admiring her firstborn (a little chubby-cheeked girl of a few weeks old), the miniature of her mother, that lay asleep in a swinging cradle suspended from the ceiling of her neat, chintz-curtained bedroom. That all post-houses were like this, I thought, as I turned in on a comfortable (and stuffed) sofa. A slight touch of frost in the air made a couple of blankets, that our little friend insisted on giving us, very acceptable, and a last look at the night having shown us a bright moon and cloudless sky, we slept soundly without any fear of rain on the morrow.

Had we consulted our own wishes, we should have stayed at least a couple of days at this friendly oasis, but time would not allow us more than a few hours’ rest, and bidding farewell to our kind little hostess, we had left Nijni Udinsk far behind us ere the sun had fairly risen. The town, is neatly and regularly built, and contains about four thousand inhabitants. Though the pavements are of wood, many of the houses are of whitewashed brick, which, with their bright green roofs and shutters, somewhat relieve the melancholy effect which in every Siberian town is produced by the sombre colour of the roads, and unpainted wooden houses. There were but one or two shops, however, for the sale of stores of all kinds; and the streets, though broad and regular, were unlighted.

All went “merry as a marriage bell” for two days after leaving Nijni Udinsk, the weather, though cold and frosty at nights, remaining bright and fine. The aspect of the country, too, was more picturesque and cheerful than any we had passed through since leaving the Trans-Baikal. The roads were smoother and wider. By the side, wild roses, convolvuli, bluebells, and wild hyacinth grew luxuriantly——while a kind of high, red-leafed fern, common in this district, gave a pleasant and bright relieving spot of colour to the dull, monotonous pine and larch.

As a set-off to these advantages, however, we suffered terribly from mosquitoes, which swarmed by day, but which, as soon as the sun had set, were driven in by the cold. So bad were they, that the peasants we passed on the road or in the cornfields wore black gauze veils, fastened like a mask over their faces, and we had cause to regret not having provided ourselves with these safeguards, for, for the few days they lasted, these plagues gave one no rest for an instant, and one’s blood was in a constant state of fever, from the irritation set up by the poisonous bites. Fortunately they did not trouble us long, and once past Atchinsk disappeared altogether.

Scarcely a day now passed that we did not meet prisoners, in gangs of two to three hundred each, on their way to Irkoutsk, Chita, and other parts of Eastern Siberia. The appearance of our tarantass was invariably the signal for stragglers to fall in, and as we passed through the crowd, the poor wretches pressed in eagerly on either side and begged for kopeks, cigarettes, and food, though, as regarded the latter necessary, we were usually as badly off as they themselves. We noticed that the further west we got, many more of the men wore chains, probably on account of the facilities for escape being easier. Also that, while the ostrogs east of Tomsk are insecure, dilapidated buildings, those to the west are nearly all new and substantial-looking, surrounded by a double guard of Cossacks, and protected in many cases by a brick wall surmounted with high chevaux de frise.

I remember meeting a gang, two days after leaving Nijni Udinsk. It was a wild, desolate bit of road, and though a bright, sunny day, in semi-darkness, for the forest trees, through which we were passing, almost met over our heads. Suddenly, a turn of the road brought us full in view of one of the dismal grey processions with which we had now grown familiar, and as it was a large gang, we ordered the yemstchik to draw up for a few moments while they filed by. Poor wretches! There was but little talking or laughing that day. The heat and thirst had taken all desire for conversation out of them, for it had been a long stage, of nearly thirty versts, from the last ostrog, and they had still seven more to do before resting for the night. Mosquitoes fairly swarmed in this defile, and the Cossacks on guard wore black gauze masks. I noticed, with satisfaction, that one of the brave fellows had taken off his to give to one of the women, who was struggling along with difficulty, two children clinging to her skirts. Seeing we had pulled up, they halted, as if by common consent, as they passed us, and led by one of the men, with a sweet tenor voice, struck up the sad, pathetic air, “Kouda Doroga Sibiri,” we had heard on Lake Baikal. It was an impressive scene, the guard carelessly resting on their rifles, the men with their sunburnt, weary faces, the women in long robes of white, their children clinging to them, and joining with tiny treble in the tune they knew so well. All sang in parts, and correctly, and with over two hundred voices, joining in the sweet melancholy air, the effect may be imagined.

About a mile further on we passed four tÉlÉgas, containing political prisoners. On either side of each cart marched a Cossack with fixed bayonet and loaded rifle. The men, three in number, were in ordinary walking dress, which showed plainly the order to which they had belonged in happier days. It was easy to distinguish the homme du peuple in shabby, greasy garments taken from the scum of Petersburg or Odessa, from the slight, well-built man in the next tÉlÉga, in neat tweed suit, holding a cigarette in his small white hand, evidently a gentleman, who perhaps, but a few short months before had been surrounded with every comfort and luxury. The woman in the last tÉlÉga was neatly clad in a black silk gown, beginning to show slight symptoms of wear, and a red worsted “Tam O’Shanter” hat, a head-dress very popular among lady political exiles in Siberia. Though not pretty, she had a bright, clever face, and returned our bow with a pleasant smile and nod. We afterwards heard that this was Madame B————, who, for an alleged conspiracy against the Government at Odessa, was on her way to the mines of Kara, in the Trans-Baikal provinces, for life.

A large and luxurious tarantass brought up the rear of this weird procession. In the vehicle were a Cossack officer, and, seated by his side, a remarkably pretty and well-dressed woman. We had a good look at her, our yemstchiks stopping by mutual consent to have a chat and give the horses breathing-time. She did not look particularly enamoured of her companion, a coarse, red-faced man with bristly grey moustache, bloodshot eyes, and spectacles. Hers was a true Russian face——small regular features, deep blue (almost violet) eyes, and that sweet sad expression rarely seen out of the Czar’s dominions. In reply to my question, as soon as we had resumed our journey, if he knew who the lovely vision was, our yemstchik replied with a wink: “A prisoner’s wife.” The wink spoke volumes, and fully explained the poor woman’s aversion to her travelling companion.

She was, we afterwards heard, the wife of Count L., the young and good-looking prisoner we had met in the tÉlÉga. It must have been somewhat tantalizing to travel on day after day, week after week, within sight of his wife, and yet not be allowed to open his lips; more maddening still to see the advances made by the untutored boor who a very short time before would have deemed it an honour to be allowed even to address her. This is perhaps one of the hardest evils that political exiles have to endure. The wife of a prisoner may by Russian law accompany her husband to his destination at the expense of the Government, on condition that she travels with the prisoners, lives on prison food, sleeps in the ostrogs, and submits to prison discipline. There is but one distinction made between the wife of the political prisoner and the criminal convict, this being that the former is not compelled to walk, but may, if she prefers, travel in a “tÉlÉga,” a vehicle so rough and uncomfortable that walking is infinitely preferable. But should a married woman be young and pretty, heaven help her, especially if, as is frequently the case, the Cossack lieutenant in charge of the party is susceptible to the charms of female beauty. No sooner has the barge arrived at Tomsk than her persecutions commence, nor do they end, as a rule, until the unhappy woman has ceased to resist the advances of her brutal admirer. The commander of a prison-gang is as great a despot in his way as the Czar of all the Russias, for there is no one to check or gainsay him, the whole way from Tomsk to the shores of Okhotsk, and who would take the word of a convict (and especially a political one) against that of an officer of the Czar? In most cases the unfortunate husband is the unconscious means by which the wife is brought to her ruin. Threats of punishment, deprivation of food, and even flogging are made by the human devil in charge, till at length, worn out with repeated insults and ill-treatment, the poor wife too often yields, and is promoted to a place in his tarantass, whence she is forced to submit daily to the silent reproaches of the husband for whose good, in nine cases out of ten, she has fallen.

I heard in Tomsk many sad and heart-breaking narratives, but none perhaps so touching as the case of a young Scotchwoman, Mrs. B., whose husband had in 1879 practised as a physician for some years in the district of Chernigoff, European Russia. Although a liberal, Dr. B. had religiously abstained from openly expressing his views, or meddling in any way with politics, in fact had lived as a peaceful and industrious citizen in every way. In the spring of 1880, however, two young women from St. Petersburg arrived at his house with letters of introduction. They had been studying medicine at the hospitals in the capital, and finished the course of lectures, but wishing to continue their studies, called upon the doctor upon their return to their native town, to ask whether he would receive them as pupils, a proposal to which he at once assented. The girls were then introduced to his wife, who took a fancy to them, and a day seldom passed that one or both did not visit the house.

One morning, about a month after their arrival, the doctor was visited by the police superintendent, who informed him that his young friends were political suspects, and, from information received from Petersburg, were living on forged passports. But the next piece of news fairly staggered him: the women were to be sent at once by administrative process to the village of Verkhoyansk, in the province of Yakoutsk, where in a week’s time he, the doctor was, condemned to follow them for an indefinite number of years!

As is usual in such cases, a guard was put over the house, and Dr. B. forbidden to leave it. To make matters worse, his wife, a young and beautiful woman of twenty-two, was enceinte. But there was no help for it. The day of his departure arrived, when poor B. excused himself on the plea of going for a few days to Petersburg on business. It was only two months later, when her child was born, that Mrs. B. learnt the truth, and within a week had made up her mind to follow her husband, and start on a journey of six thousand miles before she had really recovered from her confinement, under circumstances before which many a strong man would have quailed. Not possessing the necessary means for travelling by steamer and tarantass, Mrs. B. joined a party of exiles at Tomsk, and set out for her long, weary journey. She would, in the ordinary course of affairs, reach her destination in sixteen months, always supposing she was not taken ill on the road. For weeks, months, did her almost superhuman courage and determination sustain her, and enable her to bear the long, weary marches under a burning sun, the insufficient food, the fetid atmosphere of ostrogs, and, worse still, the insults of her male companions. For four months she struggled on, but the tax had been too great on the nervous system, and on arrival at Krasnoiarsk, her mind showed symptoms of wandering. Still the thought that every day, every hour, was bringing her nearer her husband’s arms, gave her courage and additional energy, and put her in better spirits, which, alas! were soon destined to have a terrible fall. It was within three or four stages of Irkoutsk that she heard her death-warrant. “At Irkoutsk,” said the poor woman one fine sunny evening when, the day’s march over, she was sitting out in the prison-yard with her fellow-prisoners, “At Irkoutsk I shall only be one hundred and eighty miles from my husband. Only fancy, in another month I may be at Verkholensk, and with him again.” “Is that the Englishman who was banished from Chernigoff,” asked a “political,” a stranger, who had just come in from Krasnoiarsk, “if so, you will have to go a good deal further than Verkholensk to find him. Do not you know that they have sent him to Verkhoyansk, a Yakout settlement three thousand miles from Irkoutsk, within the Arctic circle?”

Within the Arctic circle! Poor soul! little as she knew Siberia, she knew what that meant; knew that to reach her husband’s place of banishment she must travel weeks and months alone, in dog or reindeer sledges, through the arctic desolation and fever-stricken “Toundras” of North-Eastern Asia. Next morning, however, she resumed her march mechanically, ate and drank nothing, spoke to no one, but seemed dazed and bewildered by the blow. The very evening of the day the gang reached Irkoutsk (the city which throughout the weary pilgrimage had been her haven of hope and rest), she went raving mad, and died in the criminal asylum three days afterwards. Has any writer of fiction ever imagined a more tragic or heart-rending story than this?

We reached Biriousinsk, a town of five thousand inhabitants, about mid-day on the 3rd of September. Gold has lately been discovered near here in large quantities. This event caused some surprise amongst the gold-workers of Tomsk and Irkoutsk, for until just lately this district had been looked upon as almost barren of mineral productions, the richest gold-fields being situated to the north of the province of Yeneseisk, Nertchirsk, in the Trans-Baikal, and Yuz, near the Altai chain, on the borders of China. The whole of Siberia, however, may be said to teem with the precious mineral, and, as a Russian once remarked to me, “Where it has not been found, it has not been looked for!” Silver, copper, and iron, are also found in large quantities in certain districts of Russian Asia, as many as 40,000 lbs. of the first-named metal being annually sent from the district of Barnaul, in South-Western Siberia, to Petersburg. On arrival, the silver is refined, and about three per cent. of gold extracted from it.

The Government gold and silver mines are worked by convicts, who receive no pay for their labour. The private mines are mostly of gold, and are leased by Government to private individuals on certain conditions. The applicant must, however, be a Russian subject. No foreigner, although naturalized, is permitted to rent ground for gold-digging purposes. The land, once allotted, is the property of the lessor, until it has been completely worked out, or has been abandoned. It then reverts to the Crown, or if not worked by the lessor at least one out of every three years, the claim is forfeited to Government, who may let it out to another applicant. All gold must be delivered to the imperial mint at a fixed price, which leaves a good profit to the Government. Many private mines employ as many as two and even three thousand men. The Siberian peasant seldom goes to work at the diggings; he can earn far more by agriculture at home, for Siberia is as rich a country above-ground as below. The workmen employed by the mine owners are generally discharged convicts, who have been sent to Siberia for theft and other minor offences. Bad characters of all sorts——drunkards, vagabonds, the scum of Irkoutsk and Tomsk——are the kind of men who find refuge in the private gold-mines, which, as may be imagined, are perfect pandemoniums when compared with the strict and well-regulated government establishments. The usual pay of a miner is four roubles (about 8s.) a month. On making the contract, however, he is paid a sum of money varying from six to ten English pounds sterling. With this he proceeds solemnly and deliberately to get drunk, nor does he desist till every penny of the “Hand-money,” as it is called, is exhausted. When sufficiently sober, he is sent off with a couple of hundred companions to the diggings. The working season lasts about a hundred and twenty days, and terminates, at latest, by the 15th of September. Work commences at 3 a.m. all weathers, and is seldom finished till eight or nine o’clock at night. The workmen are, therefore, as may be imagined, well fed. Each man gets from 1½ to 2 lbs. of fresh beef per diem, salt, buckwheat, and as much black bread as he can eat. His lodgings, too, are in most cases good, and well ventilated, and every gold-mine owner is bound by Government to keep up a fully-equipped hospital, with a resident surgeon and staff of assistants on the premises. Besides the fixed rations of food, a large stock of “vodka” is also kept for the men, who get a tumbler-full of the spirit once or twice a week, by way of warding off ague, and other malarial attacks. A pound of brick tea is also allowed each man per month. When the season is over, the majority of the gangs find their way to one of the large towns with the balance of their wages, and spend their money in drink and debauchery, till the return of the summer, and this accounts largely for the frequency of crime in Tomsk and Irkoutsk. The idea of saving money or in any way bettering his condition rarely enters the head of a Siberian gold-digger.

We were not detained long at Biriousinsk, and after a substantial breakfast of tea and boiled eggs, took the road again, and by seven o’clock that evening had rolled off nearly fifty versts. At Ilinskaya, however, we were brought to a sudden check. Our off wheel had caught fire, and it was only on discovering this that we remembered that in our eagerness to push on, we had for the last half-dozen stages neglected to oil the axles, an operation that should be performed at the very least every other stage.

We made up our minds therefore to stop the night, and push on to Kansk early the next morning, for clouds gathering to windward looked anything but reassuring. About midnight I was awoke from a delicious dream of home and its comforts, to find a huge, shapeless fur-clad figure standing over me, and in a loud and imperious voice, commanding me to rise and get horses. “Yeshchi lochade,”^[15] it yelled, as I with difficulty made out that my nocturnal visitor was a woman. Vainly I endeavoured to make her understand that I was not the post-master, but all to no purpose. The more I reasoned, the more she stormed, till even Lancaster turned uneasily in his slumbers. “Get me horses,” shrieked the gorgon, “get me horses at once, or,” and here she pointed dramatically to the complaint-book. At last, losing all patience, she knelt down, and seizing my shoulders, shook me with masculine force. Thinking the joke had gone a little too far, I was about to summon the post-master, when that worthy appeared. Then with true Siberian politeness, and without a word of apology, the gorgon turned upon him, a small meek man, who was utterly powerless to compete with this dread vision of the night. Her system seemed to pay, for in less than half an hour the horses were in and we heard her jingle out of the yard, leaving us to our slumbers in peace.

The rain came on a few versts from Ilinskaya with every appearance of settling in for a steady downpour. The landscape to-day was less wooded and more cultivated than any we had passed since leaving Irkoutsk. A couple of post tarantasses passed us a few versts from Kansk, returning to Ilinskaya. Their drivers were fast asleep inside, coiled up out of the rain. Our yemstchik did not attempt to wake them. Although we were on the summit of a steep hill, he gave the horses a cut over the quarters and sent them careering away down the decline full gallop. I did not see what happened. This is thought a good joke in Siberia.

Perhaps the most trying time to a beginner on wheels in Siberia is getting on board the river ferries, when each yemstchik vies with the other who shall gallop the quickest on board and pull up the shortest without going over the other side. As the ferries were invariably approached by a steep road cut down the river-bank, there was no lack of excitement on these occasions. I remember once, just before reaching Krasnoiarsk, our driver, who was somewhat intoxicated, overshot the mark, one of his horses tumbling over the side, and only being got back with great difficulty. Rarely a day passed, that one of our outside horses did not fall, once or twice at least, but no yemstchik ever pulls up for anything under a broken rein or wheel.

The post-horses are game, wiry little beasts, ranging from 14 hands 2 in. to 15 hands. Though rough and ungroomed, they are well fed, and they need be, for a rest of only six hours is allowed between the stages. In busy times, such as, for instance, the great fair of Nijni Novgorod, when traders flock to the World’s Fair from all parts of Asia, many of the poor beasts die from sheer fatigue. The usual number used in a tarantass or tÉlÉga is three, or a “troika,” harnessed abreast. In bad weather, when the roads are deep, four or five are used. We have had as many as seven in, and even with that number failed to progress quicker than at a walk! The harness and reins are of the most primitive description, and made of rope, while the shaft horse wears the high yoke collar, with bells attached, which seems such a useless appendage (except for the look of the thing) in Russian harness.

For cleverness I have never seen the equal of these game, wiry little animals. I recollect on one occasion (when crossing the Yenisei River) the guard-rail running round the ferry boat was quite five feet high. On disembarking, there was a scramble, for the outlet was too narrow to admit of five horses (the number we had in). Our outside horse was consequently jammed up against the rail. With a run it would have been an extraordinary jump to get over, nothing short of a miracle under present circumstances, for the other horses were plunging madly in their endeavours to get once more on to terra firma. But the little beast remained quite cool. Not in the least put out by the row and confusion, he simply reared up, rested his fore-feet on the top of the rail, and sliding over on his stomach, fell heavily in a heap on the other side. In another second he had picked himself up, and we were off again.

I was much struck by the scarcity of bay horses. All are chestnut, grey, or dun, the latter colour predominating. I did not see more than half a dozen bay horses the whole way from Irkoutsk to Tomsk, though from first to last we must have used quite four hundred, and seen four or five times that number.

The yemstchik or driver is a stupid, good-natured creature, addicted to vodka when he can get it. As the drink-money is only fifteen kopeks a stage (and many travellers do not give that), they have not much opportunity of gratifying this penchant, for tobacco runs away with most of their money. I can safely say I do not think I ever saw a yemstchik without a pipe in his mouth. Though kind to a fault to his own horses, he does not show much pity for animal life in the villages. Calves, pigs, poultry, ducks, each had their turn, and we rarely passed through a village without running over and killing something; the bigger the beast, the more pleased the driver. On such occasions, he would turn round and look at us with a smile of satisfaction, regardless of the threats and curses of the infuriated owner as he bore the maimed or defunct one into his cottage. This is another “joke” much in vogue with yemstchiks! Yet, notwithstanding all we were told, we found the Siberian yemstchik a good fellow enough, and, considering the hard work and privation he goes through, far more sober than many men in the same position in more civilized countries. Indeed he need be, for a single accident on the road ensures instant dismissal, be it the fault of the driver or not.

We spent the night at Kansk. A mysterious and speedily dressed individual here begged to be allowed to share our tarantass and expenses as far as Krasnoiarsk, but we declined with thanks. He was a cutthroat-looking villain, and probably up to mischief, for he seemed much less keen about accompanying us on seeing we were well armed. Though we were now past the so-called “robber district,” we did not relax our vigilance when travelling by night, till we reached Tomsk.

Kansk is a neat, well-built town of ten thousand inhabitants. In appearance it is an Irkoutsk in miniature, though there is more attempt at ornamentation here, some of the streets being planted with trees on either side like boulevards. The post-house, too, was comfortable, and there was a sofa therein stuffed with horsehair, an unwonted luxury in Siberia. The night’s rest we looked forward to was, however, somewhat marred by a party going on in the next apartment, and given in honour of his birthday by the post-master; a party which, commencing at 9 p.m., did not break up till nearly eight the next morning, when it was time to think of getting up and being off again. The guests were all more or less intoxicated by midnight, and kept on coming in in relays to look at us, as we lay feigning sleep, throughout the night. They did not break up till about 4 a.m., after obliging us with “Volga,” the boat-song I have mentioned, at the top of their voices, and all in different keys. It was past ten o’clock next morning before the fumes of the vodka had sufficiently evaporated to enable the fuddled post-master to produce a troika. We were not sorry to make a late start, however, for the morning was bitterly cold, and the roads coated with ice, unmistakable sign of the approach of winter, and which made us doubly anxious to push on without delay to Tomsk.

The aspect of the country between Kansk and Atchinsk was, if not so picturesque, much more civilized than any we had as yet passed, the dense, thick forest being superseded by large tracts of cultivated land and fields of corn and mustard. It had frequently been a source of wonder to me that the timber of Siberia is not more largely worked; but I ascertained at Tomsk that this is forbidden by the Imperial Government. Every peasant is at liberty to cut down for his own private use as many pine or fir trees as he likes, but the export or selling of them is strictly forbidden. This seems strange, for a brisk trade might be driven with Mongolia, where wood is invaluable, to say nothing of North China, where it is also so scarce. We passed thousands of trees killed by fires having been lighted at their foot, their trunks charred and blackened to a height of several feet, where peasants had encamped in the woods. In dry weather these occasionally set fire to neighbouring trees, and large tracts of country are devastated by the flames.

We rattled off the two hundred odd versts separating Kansk from Krasnoiarsk with but little delay, being only detained twice on the road, once at Ribinskaya, where, meeting the post, we were delayed for nine hours, and at Balanskaya, our axle having caught fire and worn down to a dangerous extent, without our being aware of the mischief. Had we known the trouble in store for us owing to this apparently trifling incident, we should not have felt so light-hearted as when, having repaired the mischief, we set off again, after a delay of seven hours, on our journey.

At four o’clock, on the afternoon of the 7th September, we caught sight of the blue waters of the Yenisei, winding through a fertile landscape of plain and forest, and beyond it the red cliffs of Krasnoiarsk standing out sharp and clear against the sky-line. We reached the ferry about nine o’clock that evening. The town was brightly illuminated in honour of General Ignatieff, Governor of Eastern Siberia, who was passing through from Petersburg en route to Irkoutsk; and I have seldom seen a prettier spectacle than the illuminations presented, the lights reflected in the dark, swift waters of the Yenisei, as we crossed it. Darkness lent enchantment to the view, however, for as we drove through the slushy, ill lit streets to the filthy hotel, we were almost sorry we had not remained over-night at Botolskaya, and gone right through the following day.

A good scrub in a bucket of water, however, worked wonders, and though the apartment given us was dirty and entirely devoid of furniture, we did ample justice to the supper of cold steret soup, beefsteak, and caviare, and bottle of claret that our host (the dirtiest man, without exception, that I have ever seen) set before us. The luxury of a change of clothes after wearing the same for a fortnight must be experienced to be appreciated. Our bodies were literally covered with bites, and the sensation of a rest for a while from the intolerable itching and irritation of the past ten days, was worth the discomfort and annoyance one had gone through, though it was not till we were well over the Urals, and after repeated applications of carbolic acid soap, that we entirely got rid of that most pertinacious and venomous of insects, the white Siberian bug.

A visitor was announced while we were at supper. This, I may mention, is one of the chief drawbacks of Siberian travel. No matter how late the hour, or how tired he may be, every traveller is bound, by the custom of the country, to receive any one who chooses to call upon him, often enough from idle curiosity. I was told in Moscow, that such persons are often spies, employed by Government. If so, the individual who now made his appearance had a peculiar way of pursuing his calling.

M. Dombrowski was, according to his own account, a Pole, who had been banished to Tomsk for a short period, on account of an article written in a Warsaw paper. He was a tall, pale young man, with washed-out features, clad in a long black cloak about three sizes too large for him, which he wrapped loosely about him in the fashion of a Roman toga. His official cap, with green band and button, proclaimed him a servant of the Russian Government; as we afterwards discovered, a clerk in the court-house at Tomsk.

We were both tired to death, and I felt strongly inclined to get up and kick the stranger down-stairs, when, having taken off his cap, he took his seat at the table without invitation, produced a dialogue-book, and calmly helped himself to a glass of claret. But the cool impudence of the man was amusing, too, so we made the best of it, and ordered up another bottle of wine, and a cutlet for the poor devil, who looked half starved, and as if he had lived on wood shavings for a month or two. The kindness was misplaced, for he utterly declined to leave till about 6 a.m., when we were compelled to eject him by main force, not a very difficult operation after the repeated libations of kÜmmel and vodka of which he had partaken at our expense. Under their influence the wretch confessed that he had never really had an idea of accompanying us to Tomsk; but the news had spread in less than half an hour, that two Englishmen had arrived in Krasnoiarsk, and always having had an intense admiration for the English nation, our friend had determined on making our acquaintance. We had the satisfaction of paying him out and making him feel thoroughly uncomfortable once during the evening, when Lancaster, in answer to his toast of “England,” responded by drinking to the health of “Poland!” “For God’s sake not too loud, gospodin,” said our unwelcome guest. “If those words were heard by the keeper of this hotel, they would give me another year in Siberia. There is no Poland now.”

On leaving the hotel, our strange and now somewhat drunken acquaintance presented us with his card, and by the aid of a dialogue-book, essayed to convey how much he had enjoyed his evening, and morning, for the sun was now high over the house-tops. His card (a half-sheet of note-paper), bore the following inscription scrawled upon it with a lead pencil:——

I did not think it necessary to inquire whether it was customary for Polish noblemen to wear no shirt, eat meat with their fingers, expectorate freely during dinner, and perform various other little feats too numerous to mention. These harmless eccentricities may have been born of exile. The “Grentilhomme Noble” gave one, at any rate, a favourable idea of the capacity of his race for drinking, his share being five bottles of claret, a bottle of kÜmmel, and two of vodka. Bore as he was, I could not help pitying the poor wretch, who was sent to Tomsk nominally for six months, but had already been there nearly two years. His salary was, he told us, 20l. English per annum, and on this he had to live and clothe himself. “The criminals are better off than we, gospodin,” he said, as he took leave of us. “Let them know in England how we are treated in this cursed country. How a murderer who kills his whole family, has a far easier time of it than the unhappy man or woman who ventures to stand up for the people.”

Krasnoiarsk, which stands on a plain fringed by the precipitous cliffs of red earth, from which the town takes its name, is neither picturesque nor interesting. Wooden hovels here, stone palaces there, wooden pavements, oil lamps, open drains by the roadway, deep mud in rainy weather, blinding dust in dry; dirty, greasy men, frowsy, ill-dressed women, Cossack soldiers, and occasional gangs of prisoners; such is the visible population. For one thing only is Krasnoiarsk famous: its fire brigade. There are at least thirty watch-towers in the town, and the stations are models of smartness and cleanliness. Though so frequent at Irkoutsk, Tomsk, and the other smaller towns, a bad fire here is rare.

We paid a visit while at Krasnoiarsk to the Whiteley of Siberia——one, Gadolovitch, in whose establishments at Irkoutsk, Tomsk, Atchisk, Krasnoiarsk, and Tobolsk, almost anything may be purchased, from a Waterbury watch to a ship’s anchor, and, curiously enough, at reasonable prices. I bought a box of revolver cartridges at Krasnoiarsk cheaper than I should have paid for them in London or Paris.

The morning of the 9th of September saw us once more en route. The road, after leaving the town, skirts for some distance the banks of the Yenisei river, that huge volume of water which, rising on the borders of China, traverses half Asia to discharge itself into the Gulf of Yenisei in the Arctic Ocean, its entire length being computed to be something over three thousand miles. It is, of course, unnavigable throughout the winter, though that intrepid explorer, Captain Wiggins, has satisfactorily demonstrated that, during the summer months, water communication between England and Central Siberia is by no means impossible.

Our axle now gave us a good deal of anxiety, for before we were many miles out the tarantass was leaning over at a most uncomfortable angle. The road, too, was worse than it had been since leaving Lake Baikal, and every roll the carriage made gave us the greatest anxiety, for there was no blacksmith procurable nearer than Atchinsk, nearly two hundred versts off. It put us out of our suspense at Kosoulskaya by snapping in two altogether, although we were going at a most gingerly pace, precipitating the yemstchik into the road, where, had it not been for the hood of the tarantass, Lancaster and I should have followed him.

Here was a pretty predicament. Luckily the horses were quiet, and stood still while we scrambled out to ascertain the extent of the damage. Luckier still, we were only four versts from the post-house——the last before Atchinsk. Lopping off a couple of stout fir boughs, our yemstchik prized the carriage up straight, and, mounting one of the horses, galloped off to ChernoyÉchinsk in quest of another axle and pair of wheels, by the aid of which we might, at any rate, reach Atchinsk.

Luckily the day was fine, and though the mosquitoes were troublesome, we had plenty of cigarettes and half a dozen bottles of claret, which we had purchased at Krasnoiarsk, to while away the weary hours. Being a lonely part of the road, we loaded the revolvers, and kept them ready in case of need. Nothing passed us, however, the whole, long, weary day, from eight in the morning, when the accident occurred, till 5 p.m., but a couple of hay-carts and a gang of three hundred prisoners, most of them in chains, followed by six tÉlÉgas with political prisoners, four women and two men, the latter on foot. Two of the women were young and pretty, and laughed heartily, as they passed, at our woe-begone condition, and, indeed, we must have looked somewhat ridiculous, seated in the middle of the road in our tarantass, with the hind-wheels and axle gone, propped up on a couple of fir-trees, solemnly discussing a bottle of claret! A casual observer might have taken the political exiles for a pleasure-party, to judge from the shouts of merry laughter that rang through the forest long before they came in sight. The smart, tweed gowns and Tam-o’-Shanter hats (this seems to be the uniform of Nihilist ladies) looked strangely out of keeping with the rough wooden tÉlÉgas and dirty straw on which they were seated. And yet the youngest and prettiest girl of them all was, we afterwards heard, on her way to Irkoutsk for life. She could not have been more than eighteen, and was as neatly turned out, with gants de SuÉde and neat grey dress, as if she had come from a walk in the Bois de Boulogne or Hyde Park, instead of a long twenty-days’ march from Tomsk. The men, too, were well dressed and respectable looking, though their high spirits were evidently assumed for the occasion, while those of the women were perfectly natural.

The yemstchik returned about four o’clock, accompanied by two villagers carrying an iron axle. It was a clumsy affair enough, having been taken off one of the Post tÉlÉgas; but as it was only a temporary affair, this did not much signify. We arrived at Taoutinsk, the next station to Atchinsk, at ten o’clock that night without further mishap. At times, though, the tarantass wobbled about terribly, and we constantly expected to find ourselves in the old position——feet upwards. The yemstchik who drove us the last stage could not possibly have been more than twelve years old. The stage was only sixteen versts, luckily, and I luckily kept an eye on the proceedings of our youthful jehu; for about half way, being about to descend a long and very steep hill, he got down from his box, and gravely proceeded to put the skid behind the front wheel instead of before the hind one!

Atchinsk is, if not the largest, decidedly the most taking town we saw in Siberia. It has a population of about ten thousand, and is built on the summits of five or six low hills. The grassy hollows between these are used as common land, where cattle, pigs, and geese roam about at will. The cheerful aspect of the place, when compared with other Siberian towns, is partly due to the fact that the soil is of a much lighter colour, and nearly all the wooden buildings are painted white or grey, picked out with bright colours. The immediate neighbourhood of Atchinsk, too, is free of forest. The town stands in the middle of a large grass plain watered by the Chulim river——a plain composed of large enclosed grass meadows, where, as we drove by that bright sunshiny morning, cattle and sheep were browsing, knee deep in rich, luxuriant pasture, and wild flowers. Atchinsk is the one bright spot of that weary journey——an oasis of flowers and sunshine in the dark, dreary desert of gloom and monotony lying between Tomsk and Irkoutsk. The post-house was clean and roomy, the waiting-room boasting a carpet, plenty of chairs, and a sofa, while the snowy, whitewashed walls hung with bright engravings, and the windows filled with flowers, gave a cheerful look to the place that up till now I had thought impossible to find in a Siberian dwelling. We were glad of a rest of twenty-four hours here (the time necessary for the completion of our repairs), and after an excellent breakfast of caviare, fried eggs, and beefsteak, sallied out refreshed in body and mind to find a blacksmith.

The town was en fÊte for some reason or other. Bells were ringing, the houses decorated with flags and evergreens, and people all turned out in their Sunday best. It was not reassuring, on reaching the principal square, to find that all the shops were shut, save the public houses, where crowds of natives were refreshing themselves with vodka and other spirituous liquors, preparatory to the mid-day meal. Some were drinking at the bar, others seated at the little tables by the doorway, others rolling about in the bright sunshine outside, but all, men and women, were even at this early hour——11.30 a.m.——more or less drunk.

The blacksmiths’ quarter was, I found, at the other end of the town, and we had to walk nearly a mile before reaching the forge. Like many oriental towns, each trade in Atchinsk has its own street, and we found a regular colony of smithies, but all, alas! closed, and their owners either inside their houses sleeping off the effects of the previous day’s debauch (the fÊte lasted two days), or laying in a fresh stock of vodka and brandy in the town. We knocked at and entered at least a dozen houses before we found a man sober enough to undertake our job. Nor would he till we had promised to pay him a ridiculously large sum in proportion to the work, and to keep him well provided with liquor till it was finished. We regarded the wheel with some uneasiness for two or three days after, but our friend, drunk as he was, had made a good job of it, and we arrived at Tomsk without further mishap.

Leaving Atchinsk on the morning of the 11th of September, we passed the same day between Bogotolsk and Bolshoi-Kosoul, the two high brick pillars that mark the boundary of Eastern and Western Siberia. We had now entered the Government of Tomsk.

The tedium of the journey now palled on one terribly. No one can thoroughly understand the meaning of the word “monotony,” who has not visited Siberia, and travelled for hour after hour, day after day, week after week, along its dark, pine-girt roads. Along the whole of the post-road from Irkoutsk, distances are marked by wooden posts, painted black and white, placed at every verst, while at every post-station a large board indicates the distance from the chief towns. My heart sank whenever I looked at these and saw the word Petersburg, with the appalling number of oughts under it. The few versts from station to station were bad enough, but when it came to the six thousand odd separating us from Petersburg, one almost gave up all hope of ever seeing Europe again. However bright the sunshine or blue the sky, a sense of depression and loneliness hung over one, impossible to shake off. I have never, even in the depths of a Bornean forest, felt so utterly lonely and cut off from the rest of the civilized world as when crossing Siberia. It is rightly named by Russians, the land of exile and sorrow; and the dreariest days I have ever experienced were those spent in traversing the wild tract of forest and steppe between Irkoutsk and Tomsk. One chafed and fretted at first at the daily difficulties, the hours of delay passed in waiting for relays that never arrived——hours that seemed endless by day, but became maddening by night. After a time, however, one saw the folly of attempting to fight against fate, and fell into a state of reckless apathy, a condition of mind I should recommend any traveller adopting who intends crossing Siberia, I will not say with comfort, but without being positively driven out of his mind. Towards the end of our journey, nothing put us out. I verily believe if the tarantass had stood on its head, or rather hood, we should have taken it quite as a matter of course, and remained quietly seated till it righted itself! Everything after the first week became mechanical. Drinking tea at the stations, going to sleep at a moment’s notice, if there were no horses, harnessing them at once if there were, and returning to the depths of our gloomy vehicle, there to lie hour after hour, day after day, with nothing to look at but the black road and eternal pine-forests, nothing to think of save fair civilized Europe, so far away, but to which one felt with a kind of gloomy satisfaction, every jingle of the collar-bells was bringing us nearer. Even the scenery does not atone for all these drawbacks. The Siberian forests are not grand, but the trees have a dwarfish look produced by the immense plains. Not a bird, not a sound, is heard in these vast solitudes, and when the horses stop and the bells are silent, the stillness becomes almost oppressive.

Two stations after Atchinsk, the weather changed, and the second day out the rain was pouring down in sheets, with the usual result, that of wetting us through and through after the first hour. The post-houses about here were the filthiest we had as yet come across, and saving stale eggs and sour milk, there was absolutely nothing to eat. Yet with all these contretemps, we could not grumble, for rain as it might, we were now safe as regards the steamer, which would soon, we thought with relief, be bearing us out of this cursed country for good and all!

There were no delays to speak of till reaching HaldiÉva. But arriving here at four o’clock on the afternoon of the 14th September, we found all the horses engaged. We were now but some thirty versts from Tomsk, so could afford to wait, and change our soaking garments for dry ones. For two days and a night we had been wet through, and were chilled to the bone.

A roaring fire and three or four glasses of vodka soon put things in a rosier light, and we retired to rest with an assurance from the post-master that at 4 a.m. at latest the horses would be forthcoming, and visions of civilization and a luxurious dÉjeÛner À la fourchette at Tomsk next day, mingled with our dreams, till at about 3 a.m. the sound of wheels and trampling of hoofs brought us back to reality. Looking out into the yard, I descried a confused mass of tÉlÉgas and tarantasses. By-and-by a torch flashed on the gold-laced cap of a courier standing up in a tarantass and superintending the proceedings. It was the mail! “No horses till five to-morrow afternoon, monsieur,” said the old post-master, as he and the courier, a smart stalwart young fellow, armed with a long cavalry sabre and brace of revolvers, sat down to a glass of tea and cigarette while the relays were put in. A quarter of an hour more, and they were away again, leaving us to grumble and curse our ill-luck, as the sound of their collar-bells died away on the clear, frosty air. We did not get away from HaldiÉva till past 5 p.m. the following day. The clear amber light of the setting sun was flooding the dark green forest of fir-trees when we reached Semiloujnaya, the last station before Tomsk. The journey from HaldiÉva had been a hard one, for the country was flooded, and the water in parts well over the axles. The last stage was a long one, twenty-nine versts, but we refused to accede to the post-master’s pressing invitation to stay the night, and proceed next morning. We had good cause to regret our obstinacy ere morning. By six o’clock the relay was in, and a few minutes after we rattled out of the village, as with a loud clashing of bells the wiry little horses tore away on our last stage in Siberia, flinging the mud and stones high in air behind them, as if in derision at the desolate and depressing country we were now (thank Heaven!) fast leaving behind us.

The sky was still grey and lowering, and the wind keen. We had now left the forest altogether, and were traversing the vast plains that encircle the capital of Western Siberia for some thirty miles on every side. There is practically no road here, the yemstchiks taking their own line, and steering for the city in their own fashion; evidently, however, our wretched driver had but a poor eye for locality, for after floundering helplessly about for three or four hours, he calmly pulled up in the middle of a huge lake of water, the overflow from a stream hard by, and confessed that he had lost his way. I looked at my watch; the hands pointed to a quarter before midnight; we had already been six hours on the way, and the horses were dead beat.

I resisted the temptation to pull the idiot off his perch and give him a sound ducking. He richly deserved it, but it would have done but little good in hastening our arrival. So we set about making casts, to use a hunting expression, and after four hours of the coldest and most disagreeable work that has ever fallen to my lot, a thin bright streak appeared on the horizon. We led the horses all this time, be it mentioned, and were as often as not up to our waists in the pools of icy cold water that covered the marshy plain. But the longest lane must have a turning, and by three o’clock we were rolling wearily through the silent and deserted streets of Tomsk.

“Nothing but distance now separates us from England,” I thought as we entered the portals of the comfortable HÔtel d’Europe, “and what is distance when steam is at hand to overcome it!” We turned into a real bed two hours later (with sheets and pillow-cases), and felt, after an excellent supper, contented, not to say triumphant. Trouble, privation, filthy post-houses, “katorgi,” were now things of the past, but as I sank into the deep and dreamless sleep that a man can only know who has passed twenty-two days out in the open, half starved, and wet through the greater part of the time, the thought uppermost in my mind was: “Not for a king’s ransom would I do this journey again.”

List of Post Stations (with Distances, Telegraph Stations, and Rivers), between Irkoutsk and Tomsk, Siberia.

Price of posting: Horses three kopeks, a verst each from Irkoutsk to Bogotolsk. From Bogotolsk to Tomsk, 1½ kopeks a verst.