Opening
THROUGH SIBERIA
BY HENRY LANSDELL, D.D., F.R.G.S.
With Illustrations and Maps
FIFTH EDITION
London SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, AND RIVINGTON 188, FLEET STREET
1883
[All Rights Reserved.]
I inscribe these pages
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE
HUGH McCALMONT, EARL CAIRNS, P.C., LL.D.,
CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN, AND LATE
LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND, IN GRATEFUL
APPRECIATION OF OFFICIAL KINDNESS
MORE THAN ONCE ACCORDED ME
IN FURTHERING MY VISITS
TO THE PRISONS OF
EUROPE
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.
Being about to leave England on a projected tour through Russian Central Asia, and the second edition of “Through Siberia” having become nearly exhausted, I find myself called upon to make preparation for a third and cheaper issue. It is only necessary to say that the subject-matter of the third and second editions is alike, the third edition, however, being bound in one volume, and printed on thinner paper, with somewhat fewer illustrations.
H. L.
BLACKHEATH, 21st June, 1882.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
Being unexpectedly but agreeably obliged to prepare a second edition before the day for the public appearance of the first, I can do little more than express my gratitude for the favour with which my book has been received, and repeat what has already been printed. The kind and too favourable reviews that have thus far come under my notice seem to call for little remark but of thanks. One journal, however--the St. James’s Gazette--has stated, on the authority of a Russian informant, that ‘official orders were sent before me to the prisons to make things wear a favourable aspect for my visit.’ I venture therefore here to repeat what I wrote to the Editor (but which he did not think fit to publish), that if his Russian informant, or any other, thinks that I have been duped or misinformed, I am perfectly ready to be questioned, and shall be happy to discuss the question in the public press, provided only that my opponent give facts, dates, names, and places, and do not hide behind general statements and impersonalities. My own conviction is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, at all events, I saw Siberian prison affairs in their normal condition.
With the exception, then, of a corrected note which appeared on page 37, vol. i., a slight re-arrangement of the bibliography and appendices, a few verbal alterations, and a new and improved index, this second edition is the same as the first.
H. L.
THE GROVE, BLACKHEATH, 20th February, 1882.
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.
This book is a traveller’s story, enriched from the writings of others. In San Francisco an American Bishop said to me, “I hope, sir, you will give us your experience, for Siberia is a country of which we know so little.” Accordingly, on my return, two courses presented themselves--either to confine myself to an account of my personal adventures, or to supplement them from published information, and describe the country as a whole. I chose the latter course, and the result is in the reader’s hands. At the end of the work will be found a list of books consulted, to the authors of many of which I must acknowledge myself indebted for much scientific and technical information.
My speciality in Siberia was the visitation of its prisons and penal institutions, considered, however, not so much from an economic or administrative as from a philanthropic and religious point of view. Much has been written concerning them that is very unsatisfactory, and some things that are absolutely false. One author published “My Exile in Siberia” who never went there. “Escapes” and so-called “Revelations” of Siberia have been written by others who were banished only a few days’ journey beyond the Urals; whereas it is only east of the Baikal that the severest forms of exile life begin. None, so far as I know, who have escaped or been released from the mines, have written the tale of what they endured, and very few authors have been in a position even to describe what the penal mines are like.
It has been comparatively easy, therefore, in England for writers to exaggerate on this subject almost as they pleased, because scarcely any one could contradict them. Comparatively few travellers cross Northern Asia to the Amur. I doubt if any English author has preceded me. Probably also I was the first foreigner ever allowed to go through the Siberian prisons and mines. Perhaps none before have asked permission. That I obtained such an authorization astonished my friends, though the open manner in which the letter was granted seemed to show that the authorities had nothing to hide. A master-key was put into my hand that opened every door. I went where I would, and almost when I would; and on no single occasion was admission refused, though often applied for at a moment’s notice. Statistics also were freely given me; but this was “not so writ in the bond.” An afterthought, in Siberia, emboldened me to ask for them in various places, and they were usually furnished then and there. All these are displayed before the reader. I have exaggerated nothing,--kept nothing back.
I speak thus in case I should be thought to have written with a bias; but I had no reason to be other than impartial. Of politics I know next to nothing, and so was not prejudiced in this direction. Nor had I anything to gain by withholding, or to fear from telling, the whole of the truth. I did not travel as the agent or representative of any religious body. Two societies, indeed, at my request, made me grants of books, and a generous friend provided the cost of travel; but the expedition was a private one, and implicated none but myself. I could not, of course, see matters as a prisoner would; but I wish to state that, having visited prisons in nearly every country of Europe, I have given here an unprejudiced statement of what I saw and heard in the prisons and mines of Siberia
That a foreigner, flying across Europe and Asia, as I did, is exceedingly likely to receive false impressions and form erroneous conclusions, is obvious to every one, and I claim no exemption; for though I have journeyed in Russia, from Archangel to Mount Ararat, yet my experience is that of a traveller only, and not of a resident. I do not even speak Russ, but have been dependent on interpreters, or information received in French. I trust, therefore, that no one may be misled by taking my testimony for more than it is worth. I have tried to be accurate, and that is all I can say.
Perhaps I may add, however, that my proof-sheets have been revised by Russian friends among others, and that most of the chapters concerning exile life have been submitted not only to a Russian Inspector of Prisons, but also to released political exiles who have worked in the mines. The latter endorse what I have said, and (with reference to the chapters on “Exiles,” “Political Prisoners,” and the “Mines of Nertchinsk”) the Inspector has done me the compliment to write, “What you say is so perfectly correct that your book may be taken as a standard, even by Russian authorities.” I have good hope, therefore, that in this feature of my work, at all events, I have avoided misrepresentation.
On scientific subjects I cannot speak with authority; but I have been allowed to submit the proof-sheets to various friends, who have kindly read them with an eye to their particular studies. My thanks, accordingly, are due to Sir Andrew Ramsay, LL.D., F.R.S., Director-General of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom; to Mr. James Glaisher, F.R.S., formerly of the meteorological department of the Greenwich Observatory; and to Mr. Trelawney Saunders, Geographer to the India Office. Mr. Henry Seebohm, F.L.S., F.Z.S., has read such paragraphs as relate to zoology and ornithology; and Mr. Henry Howorth, F.S.A., author of “The History of the Mongols,” has afforded suggestions from his extensive reading in Siberian ethnology. I am also indebted for information concerning many Sclavonic words, manners, and customs to Mrs. Cattley, formerly of Petersburg, and a great traveller in Russia; and to the Rev. C. Slegg Ward, M.A., Vicar of Wootton St. Lawrence, for literary help. It is difficult to restrain my pen from mentioning others--the scores of friends who gave me introductions, the scores of others who received and honoured them--but if I once begin in this direction, where shall I end? I can only say that, for hospitality to strangers, Siberia carries the palm before every country in which I have travelled, and that from the day I crossed the Russian frontier till I reached the Pacific I met with nothing but kindness.
H. L.
THE GROVE, BLACKHEATH, 20th December, 1881.
Chapter I
INTRODUCTORY.
PAGE
Object of the journey.--Interest in prisons.--Visitation of prisons in 1874.--Distribution of religious literature in Russia.--Tour round Bothnian Gulf, 1876.--To Russo-Turkish war, 1877.--To Archangel, 1878.--Origin of Siberian journey.--Alba Hellman and her correspondence.--The way opened.--Projected efforts of usefulness.--Books to be distributed.--Final resolve 1
Chapter II
ACROSS EUROPE.
Departure for Petersburg.--Official receptions.--Minister of the Interior.--Metropolitan of Moscow.--Introductions.--Books forwarded.--Departure for Moscow.--Nijni Novgorod.--Site of the fair.--Joined by interpreter.--Kasan.--Bulgarian antiquities.--Neighbouring heathen.--Idolatrous objects and practices.--Departure from Kasan.--The Volga and the Kama.--Arrival at Perm 9
Chapter III
THE URALS TO TIUMEN.
A new railway.--The Ural range.--Outlook into Russia in Asia.--Nijni Tagil.--The Demidoff mines and hospital.--May weather.--Russian railways.--Arrival at Ekaterineburg.--An orphanage.--Precious stones.--Orenburg shawls.--Tarantass and luggage.--Departure for Tiumen.--The exiles.--Visits to the authorities 17
Chapter IV
THE EXILES.
Reasons for and history of deportation to Siberia.--Number of exiles.--Their education.--Crimes.--Sentences.--Loss of rights.--Privileges.--Proportion of hard-labour convicts.--Where located.--Release.--Escapes.--Causes and methods of flight.--Transport.--A convoy of exiles.--Moscow charity.--Conveyance to Perm and Tiumen.--Their distribution.--Order of march.--Sea-borne exiles.--Mistakes of English newspapers.--Conveyance of political exiles 31
Chapter V
FROM TIUMEN TO TOBOLSK.
General remarks on Siberia.--Limits.--Area.--Temperature.--Divisions.--Roads.-- Ethnography.--Language.--Posting to Tobolsk.--Floods.--Spring roads.--Villages of Tatars.--Their history.--Characteristics.-- Costume.--Occupation.--Worship.--Language 49
Chapter VI
SIBERIAN PRISONS.
Old Finnish prisons.--Model Petersburg prison.--Officers.--Contraband importations.--Russian prisons of six kinds.--Siberian prisons of three kinds: their number, location, structure, furniture.--Prisoners: their classification.--Kansk statistics.--Method of trial.--Remands.--Exchanging names and punishments 63
Chapter VII
SIBERIAN PRISONS (continued).
Charitable committees.--Prison food.--Clothing.--Work.--Hard labour.--Exercise.--Amusements.--Privileges.--Intercourse with friends.--Punishments.--Capital punishment.--Corporal punishment.--Irons.--Prison discipline.--Flogging.--Exceptional severities 77
Chapter VIII
THE OBI.
Dimensions of river.--Its tributaries.--Province of Tobolsk.--Geographical features.--Population.--Voguls.--Samoyedes.--Intemperance.-- Commercial prospects of Obi.--Siberian produce.--Corn land.--Timber.--Cost of provisions.--Carriage.--Discoveries of Wiggins.--Followed by Nordenskiöld.--Ship-building at Tiumen.--Navigation of Kara Sea.--Books on basin of Obi 96
Chapter IX
TOBOLSK.
Early history of Siberia.--Yermak.--Conquest of the Tatars.--Tobolsk the first capital.--The exiled bell.--Our visit to the Governor.--Hard-labour prisons.--Interior arrangements.--“Travaux forcés.”--Testimony of prisoners.--Books presented 109
Chapter X
FROM TOBOLSK TO TOMSK.
The steamer Beljetchenko.--Fellow-passengers.--Card-playing.--Cost of provisions.--Inspection of convicts’ barge.--An exile fellow-passenger.--Obi navigation.--The Ostjaks.--Their fisheries.--Feats of archery.--Marriage customs 117
Chapter XI
TOMSK.
The province of Tomsk.--The city of Tomsk.--Visit to the Governor.--The prison.--Institution for prisoners’ children.--A Lutheran minister.--Finnish colonies in Siberia.--Their pastoral care.--Dissuaded from visiting Minusinsk.--Distribution of Finnish books.--Détour to Barnaul 127
Chapter XII
SIBERIAN POSTING.
Travelling by post-horses.--The courier, crown, and ordinary podorojna.--The tarantass.--Packing.--Harness.-- Horses.--Roads.--Pains and penalties.--Crossing rivers.--Cost.--Speed.--Post-houses.--Meat and drink 134
Chapter XIII
FROM TOMSK SOUTHWARDS.
Application for horses.--Effect of Petersburg letter.--A false start.--A horse killed.--Attempted cooking.--Siberian weather.--Meteorology.--Scenery.--Trees, plants, and flowers.--An elementary school.--Education in Western Siberia 143
Chapter XIV
BARNAUL.
Situation of town.--Cemetery.--Burial of the dead.--The Emperor’s usine.--Visit to Mr. Clark.--Visits to hospital and prison.--A recently-enacted tragedy.--Crime of the district.--Smelting of silver and gold.--Price of land and provisions.--Return to Tomsk 152
Chapter XV
THE SIBERIAN CHURCH.
The Russian Church.--Geographical area.--History, doctrines, schisms.--Ecclesiastical divisions of Siberia.--Church committees.--Russian Church services.--Picture worship.--Vestments.--Liturgy.--Ordination.--Baptism.-- Marriage.--Minor services 161
Chapter XVI
THE SIBERIAN CHURCH (continued).
Parochial clergy.--Their emoluments.--Duties.--Official registers.--Discipline.--Morality.--Status.--Our clerical visits.--Monastic clergy.--The Metropolitan Macarius.--Fasting.--General view of Russian Church.--Compared with Roman.--Teaching respecting Holy Scripture and salvation by faith.--Needs of Russian Church 171
Chapter XVII
FROM TOMSK TO KRASNOIARSK.
Book-distribution in Western Siberia.--Departure from Tomsk.--Postbells.--How to sit in posting.--Sleeping.--Boundary of Western Siberia.--Wild and domesticated animals.--Birds.--Scenery.--Roadside villages.--Peasants’ houses.--Hammering up “the Prodigal Son.”--Siberian towns.--Houses of upper classes.--Misadventures.--A hospitable merchant.--Frontier of Eastern Siberia 183
Chapter XVIII
THE YENESEI.
Sources of the river.--Discoveries of Wiggins and Nordenskiöld.--The Yenesei at Krasnoiarsk.--Current, width, depth.--Breaking up of ice.--The Yeneseisk province.--Geography.--Meteorology.--Forests.--Timber.--Fish of Yenesei.--Birds.--Russian population.--Navigation.--Corn and cattle.--Towns.--A Scoptsi village.--Salubrity of climate.--The aborigines.--Ethnology.--Tunguses.--Fur-bearing animals.--Methods of hunting.--Minerals 196
Chapter XIX
A VISIT TO A GOLD-MINE.
Gold in Siberia.--Where found.--Gold-hunting.--A prospecting party.--Thawing the ground.--Subterranean passages.--Hardships.--Mining calculations.--Building of barracks.--Preparations for our visit.--Costumes.--Road through “the forest primeval.”--Luxuriant vegetation.--Crossing mountains.--Arrival at mine.--Labour of miners.--Gold-washing machine.--Government inspection.--Wages.--Hours of labour.--Miners’ food.--Pay-day.--Drink and its follies.--Miners’ fortunes.--Mines of Eastern Siberia.--Return to Krasnoiarsk 211
Chapter XX
FROM KRASNOIARSK TO ALEXANDREFFSKY.
Situation of Krasnoiarsk.--Our hotel.--Dr. Peacock.--Visit to prison, hospital, and madhouse.--Cathedral.--Drive in “Rotten Row.”--Shoeing horses.--Bible affairs at Krasnoiarsk.--Consignment to Governor for provinces of Yeneseisk and Yakutsk.--Departure from Krasnoiarsk.--Change of scenery.--Kansk Okrug.--Our arrival anticipated.--Visit to Ispravnik.--Statistics of crime.--The Protopope of Kansk.--Parochial information.--Demand for Scriptures.--A travelling companion.--Further posting help.--Butterflies and mosquitoes.--Nijni Udinsk.--Telma factory.--A détour.--Alexandreffsky 227
Chapter XXI
THE ALEXANDREFFSKY CENTRAL PRISON.
Prison wards.--Punishment cells.--Communication with friends.--Nationalities of prisoners.--Their work.--Food.--Distribution of books.--Our reception.--Lunch.--Departure.--Runaway horses.--An accident.--Left alone.--Return to post-house 245
Chapter XXII
A CITY ON FIRE.
Approach to Irkutsk.--The city entered.--Remains of a fire.--A second fire.--Our flight.--Crossing of the Angara.--A refuge.--Inhabitants fleeing.--Salvage.--Firemen’s efforts.--Spread of the catastrophe.--Return to lodging.--A chapel saved.--Spectacle of fire at night.--Reflections 253
Chapter XXIII
IRKUTSK.
Province of Irkutsk.--The capital.--Its markets.--Telegraph officers.--Visit to the Governor.--Ruins of the city.--Attempt to establish a Bible depôt.--Supposed incendiarism.--Benevolent arrangements of authorities.--Wife-beating.--Servility of Russian peasants.--Visit to a rich merchant.--Ecclesiastical affairs.--Visit to the acting Governor-General.--The prisons.--A prisoner’s view of them.--Prison committee.--Distribution of books.--Visit to inspector of schools.--Change of route 264
Chapter XXIV
THE LENA.
History of Russian invasion.--Former travellers to Okhotsk.--Cochrane, Erman, and Hill.--Down the Lena to Yakutsk.--Prevalence of goitre.--The Upper Lena and its tributaries.--The Lower Lena.--Discoveries of mammoths.--New Siberian islands.--Nordenskiöld’s passage 281
Chapter XXV
YAKUTSK.
The province of Yakutsk.--Rivers.--Minerals.--The town of Yakutsk.--Its temperature.--Inhabitants.--The Yukaghirs.--The Yakutes.--Their dwellings.--Food.--Dress.-- Products.--Occupations.--Industries.--Language.--Religion.-- Route from Yakutsk to Okhotsk.--Reindeer riding.--Summer journey.--Treatment of horses 294
Chapter XXVI
ACROSS LAKE BAIKAL TO TROITZKOSAVSK.
Leaving Irkutsk.--The Angara.--Approach to the Baikal: its shores and fish.--Steaming across.--Seizing post-horses.--Arrival at Verchne Udinsk.--Smuggling at the prison.--Arrival at Selenginsk.--English mission to Buriats.--English graves.--Old scholars.--Story of the mission.--Journey to Troitzkosavsk 309
Chapter XXVII
THE SIBERIAN FRONTIER AT KIAKHTA.
Hospitable reception.--History of Kiakhta.--Treaties between Russians and Chinese.--Early trading.--Decline of commerce.--The tea trade.--Troitzkosavsk church.--Miraculous ikons.--Kiakhta church.--Russian churches in general.--Bells.--Valuable ikons.--Climate of Kiakhta.--Drive to Ust-Keran 322
Chapter XXVIII
THE MONGOLIAN FRONTIER AT MAIMATCHIN.
Outlook into Mongolia.--Town of Maimatchin: without women.--Visit to a Chinese merchant.--Refreshments.--Attendants.--Purchases.--Tea bricks for coin.--The town.--Buddhist temple.--Chinese malefactors.--Their punishments.--Chinese dinner.-Food.--Intoxicating drinks.--Route to Peking.--Travellers.-Modes of conveyance.--Manners of the desert.--Postal service 337
Chapter XXIX
FROM KIAKHTA TO CHITA.
Farewell ceremonies.--Writing home of changed plans.--Caravans.--An iron foundry.--Buriat yemstchiks.--Methods of driving.--Salutations.--Insignificant post-stations.--Visit to a missionary to the Buriats.--Russian missions in Japan.--A remarkable meeting.--The Yablonoi mountains.--Chita.--Visit to the Governor and prison 353
Chapter XXX
THE BURIATS.
Country of the Buriats.--Their physiognomy and costume.--Habitations.--Mongol yourts.--Hospitality.--Fuel.--Possessions in cattle.--Character of Buriats.--Their religions.--Buddhist Buriats.--The soul of Buddha.--The lamas.--Their celibacy, classification, employments, disabilities.--Buddhist doctrines.--A prayer cylinder.--Christian Buriats.--English missions.--Reports of English travellers.--Results of Russian missions.--Distribution of Buriat Scriptures 364
Chapter XXXI
SIBERIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS.
The Za-Baikal, a natural prison.--“Decembrists” of 1825.--Misapprehensions respecting political prisoners.--The “Story of Elizabeth.”--Vindictive foreign writers.--Palpable misstatements.--Misleading information.--Dostoyeffsky’s “Buried Alive.”--Rosen’s “Russian Conspirators.”--Present condition of political prisoners.--Testimony of Poles.--Treatment of an attempted regicide.--The number of “politicals” exaggerated.--Calculations concerning them.--Their mode of transport.--Paucity of statistics accounted for 377
Chapter XXXII
FROM CHITA TO NERTCHINSK.
The Trans-Baikal province.--Books deposited with the Governor--Specimen letter of consignment.--Prisons and hospitals.--Governor’s distribution of books.--Satisfactory results.--Journey from Chita.--Buriat Obos.--Russian emigrants.--Salutations.--Approach to Nertchinsk.--Its mineral treasures 400
Chapter XXXIII
THE SILVER AND (SO-CALLED) QUICKSILVER MINES OF NERTCHINSK.
The supposed quicksilver-mines.--Inadequate evidence of their existence.--Unsupported statements of writers.--Not known to Anglo-Siberians.--Silver-mines, perhaps, intended.--Deleterious fumes a myth.--Questionable allegations regarding silver-mines.--Sensational writers.--Misstatements exposed.--Testimony of Collins and other eye-witnesses.--Accounts of ex-prisoners and Lutheran pastor.--Nertchinsk Zavod and work in the mines.--Condition of affairs in 1866.--Present state of things.--The Nemesis of exaggeration 408
Chapter XXXIV
FROM NERTCHINSK TO STRETINSK.
Nertchinsk.--Its climate and history.--Scene of a Russo-Chinese treaty.--Appearance of the town.--Visit to the authorities.--Dinner with a rich merchant.--Siberian table customs.--Poverty of travelling fare.--Fine arts in Siberia.--Painting and photography.--Journey from Nertchinsk 425
Chapter XXXV
FROM STRETINSK TO UST-KARA.
Arrival at Stretinsk.--Recorded distances from Petersburg.--Taking in a passenger.--Travelling allowance to officers.--Parting with interpreter.--Farewell to tarantass.--Starting to Kara.--The world before me.--Previous writers on the Amur.--Gliding down the Shilka.--Talking by dumb signs.--My Cossack attendant.--Taking an oar.--How Russians sleep.--Arrival at Ust-Kara 436
Chapter XXXVI
THE PENAL COLONY OF KARA.
Evil reputation of Kara.--Testimony from Siberians and exiles.--My own experience.--The Commandant.--Our evening drive.--Hospitable reception.--Statistics respecting prisoners: their crimes, sentences, and settlement as “exiles.”--The Amurski prison.--Cossack barracks.--The upper prison.--Convicts’ food.--Prisoners’ private laws.--Middle Kara prison.--Mohammedan forçats.--Sunday labour.--Convict clothing.--Guard-house.--A genuine political prisoner.--The church.--Lack of preaching.--House of the Commandant 445
Chapter XXXVII
THE CONVICT MINES OF KARA.
Gold-mines not underground.--Hours of labour.--Visit to a mine.--Punishments.--Branding abolished.--Miners marching off.--Statistics respecting runaways.--Women criminals at mines.--A new building for expected politicals.--Superannuated forçats.--The hospitals.--“Birching” and its effects.--Kara in 1859.--Improvements effected by Colonel Kononovitch.--A children’s home.--Return to the gold-mine.--Comparison of Siberian and English convicts.--Distribution of books 462
Chapter XXXVIII
THE SHILKA.
Departure from Kara.--Parting hospitality.--Ust-Kara police-master.--The head waters of the Shilka.--Collins’s descent of Ingoda.--The Onon.--Formation of Shilka.--Scenery below Stretinsk.--Shilkinsk.--Hospitality of police-master.--Non-arrival of steamer.--Efforts at conversation.--Steaming down the river.--Shilka scenery.--Tributaries from north and south.--Arrival at confluence of Shilka and Argun 480
Chapter XXXIX
THE HISTORY OF THE AMUR.
Divisible into three periods.--Period of Cossack plunder.--Poyarkof.--Khabarof.--Stepanof.--Discovery and occupation of Shilka.--Chernigovsky.--Period of conflict with Chinese.--Russo-Chinese treaty of 1686.--Russian mission at Peking.--Affairs on the Amur during Russian exclusion.--Third historic period from 1847.--Preparatory operations on Lower Amur.--Muravieff’s descent of the river, 1854.--Influence of the Crimean war.--Colonization of Lower Amur.--Further colonization, 1857.--Chinese protests.--Influence of Anglo-Chinese war.--The Sea Coast erected into a Russian province.--Renewed difficulties with China.--Treaty of 1860.--Review of Russian occupation 489
Chapter XL
THE UPPER AMUR.
Formation of the Amur.--Chinese boundary.--Our steamer.--Captain and passengers.--Natives of Upper Amur.--Orochons.--Manyargs.--Their hunting year.--Our journey.--Run aground.--Table provisions.--Notes on cooking.--Scenery.--Albazin.--Cliff of Tsagayan 503
Chapter XLI
BLAGOVESTCHENSK.
Blagovestchensk and Russian missions.--Particulars of orthodox missionary society.--Visit to telegraph station.--Seminary for training priests.--Salaries of Russian clergy.--Blagovestchensk prison.--Leafy barracks.--View of the town.--Molokan inhabitants 518
Chapter XLII
THE MIDDLE AMUR.
Departure from Blagovestchensk.--The Zeya.--Climate.--A bath under difficulties.--Occupation of time.--Russian tea-drinking.--The Bureya river and mountains.--Delightful scenery.--Ekaterino-Nicolsk.--Distribution of books and Scriptures.--Reception and recognition of passengers.--Prairie scenery.--Shooting a dog.--The Sungari.--Chinese exclusiveness.--Course of the river.--The Amur province.--An excise officer.--Remarks on alcohol.--Teetotalism in Russia 531
Chapter XLIII
THE MANCHURIAN FRONTIER.
Manchuria and its aboriginal inhabitants.--Their history.--The Daurians.--The Manchu.--Visit to Sakhalin-Ula-Hotun.--Manchu dress.--Music.--Conveyances.--Articles of commerce.--Treatment of dead.--Boats.--Methods of fishing.--Archery.--Town of Aigun.--Buildings.--Temples.--Difficulties of access 547
Chapter XLIV
THE PRIMORSK OR SEA-COAST PROVINCE.
Fuller treatment of this province.--Boundaries and dimensions.--Mountains, bays, and rivers.--Climate.--Fauna and flora.--Aboriginal and Russian population.--Government.--Food products.--Imports.--Taxes.--Civil government.--Health of the people 560
Chapter XLV
THE LOWER AMUR.
My plans altered.--A serious alternative.--Khabarofka.--Fur trade.--Post-office and bank.--A Siberian garden.--Started for Nikolaefsk.--The Lower Amur.--Its affluents.--Fish.--A Russian advocate.--Goldi Christians.--Sophiisk.--A procureur.--Lake Kizi.--Mariinsk.--Snow mountains.--Mikhailofsky.--Hot-springs of Mukhal.--Beautiful scenery.--Tyr monuments.--The “white village.”--Mouth of the Amur 574
Chapter XLVI
THE GILYAKS.
The Gilyaks perfect heathens.--Their habitat, number, and form.--Diseases, generation, and character.--Habitations.--Living on fish.--Winter and summer clothing.--Methods of fishing.--Dirty habits.--Domestic animals.--Boats.--Marriage customs.--Price of a wife.--Foreign relations.--Fair at Pul.--Manchu merchants.--Conversation with Gilyaks.--Gilyak and Goldi languages.--Education.--Superstitions.--Idols and charms.--Method of bear catching and killing.--Alleged worship of the bear.--Shaman rites.--Gilyak treatment of the dead.--Romanist mission to the Gilyaks.--Martyrdom of the missionary 593
Chapter XLVII
NIKOLAEFSK.
My arrival.--Visit to prisons and hospitals.--Health statistics.--Siberian hospitals in general.--A Sunday service arranged.--Visits to inhabitants.--Russian customs, superstitions, and amusements.--Dancing.--Nikolaefsk town, arsenal, and commerce.--Mr. Emery.--Russian bribery.--Cost of provisions and labour.--Plans for return 614
Chapter XLVIII
KAMCHATKA.
The Upper Primorsk.--History of north-eastern maritime discovery.--Russian navigation of Siberian ocean.--Explorations in the North Pacific.--Wiggins and Nordenskiöld.--Exploration of Siberia by land.--Travellers in Upper Primorsk.--The Sea of Okhotsk and fisheries.--Bush’s journey.--Okhotsk and its natives.--Kamchatka.--Its volcanoes, earthquakes, springs.--Garden produce and animals.--Kamchatdales.--Their number and character.--The Koriaks.--Their warlike spirit.--Houses of settled and wandering Koriaks.--Food.--Herds of deer.--Marriage customs.--Putting sick and aged to death.--The Chukchees.--Their habitat.--Diminution of fur animals.--Vegetation.--Intoxicating plants.--Kennan’s tales of the Chukchees.--Nordenskiöld stranded on Chukchee coast.--Onkelon antiquities 630
Chapter XLIX
THE ISLAND OF SAKHALIN.
Geographical description.--Meteorology.--Flora and fauna.--Population.--Cultivation.--Mineral products.--Coal-mine at Dui and penal settlement.--Prison statistics.--Flogging.--Desperate criminals.--Complaints of prison food.--Prison labour.--Difficulties of escape.--Prison executive and alleged abuses.--General opinion on Siberian prisons.--Comparison of Siberian and English convicts 648
Chapter L
THE USSURI AND SUNGACHA.
Ussuri little known.--From Nikolaefsk to Khabarofka.--Proposal to move the port.--Military forces in the province.--Departure for Kamen Ruiboloff.--The Ussuri.--Visit to a parish priest.--The native Goldi.--Missions of the Russian Church.--Pay of missionaries.--Head waters of Ussuri.--The Sungacha.--Cossacks.--Visit to a Cossack stanitza.--Chinese houses.--Lake Khanka.--Arrival at Kamen Ruiboloff.--Anticipated wedding 665
Chapter LI
LAKE KHANKA TO THE COAST.
Difficulties in prospect.--Appearance of the country.--Vegetation.--Garden produce.--Medicinal plants.--Ginseng.--Country almost uninhabited.--A serious loss and its recovery.--Remarkable landscape.--Distribution of animals in Siberia.--Little-Russian settlers.--Peasant affairs and taxes.--Travelling by night.--Arrival at Rasdolnoi.--Clerical functions in request.--War in the post-house.--Summary of tract distribution.--Russia as a field for Christian effort.--The Suifun.--Cheap travelling.--Baptizing children.--Arrival at Vladivostock 688
Chapter LII
VLADIVOSTOCK.
Situation of town.--Lodged with Captain de Vries.--Chinese labourers.--Chinese convicts.--Coreans.--Inhabitants of Vladivostock.--Presented at the Governor’s house.--Admiral Erdmann’s improvements.--Visit to barracks.--Boys’ high school.--Education in Russia, its cost and method.--Vladivostock Girls’ Institute; and Free School.--Statistics of crime.--Telegraph companies.--Sunday services.--Protestantism in Siberia.--Village of exiles.--General remarks on exiles.--Preparations for departure 711
Chapter LIII
RUSSIANS AFLOAT.
Reflections on leaving Siberia.--Departure.--The Russian navy.--The Djiguitt.--Seamen’s food, clothing, work.--Relation between officers and men.--Received as captain’s guest.--Progress.--Hospital arrangements.--Arrival at Hakodate.--Divine service.--Religious professions of seamen.--Inspection of ship.--A “strong gale.”--Russian sentiments towards Englishmen.--Cause of dislike.--Misrepresentations by English press.--Russian writings.--Transhipped to American steamer.--Arrivals at San Francisco and London 732
APPENDICES.
A. The History of the Russian Church 751
B. The Doctrines of the Russian, Roman, and English Churches 754
C. The Schisms of the Russian Church 756
D. The Discoveries of Wiggins and Nordenskiöld 761
E. The Early Exploration of Siberia by sea and land 766
F. The Author’s Itinerary round the World 770
G. Bibliography of Siberia, and List of Works consulted 772
INDEX 779
OBSERVANDA.
In proper names the letters should be pronounced as follows:--A as in f_a_ther; e as in th_e_re; i as in rav_i_ne; o as in g_o_; u as in l_u_nar; and the diphthongs ai and ei as in h_i_de. The consonants are pronounced as in English, save that kh is guttural, as in the Scotch lo_ch_.
The dates are given according to the English reckoning, being in advance of the Russian by twelve days.
All temperatures are expressed according to the scale of Fahrenheit.
The ordinary paper rouble is reckoned at two shillings, its value at the time of the Author’s visit; but before the Russo-Turkish war its value was half-a-crown and upwards.
English weights and measures are to be understood unless otherwise stated.
The Russian Arshin equals 28 inches English ” Sajen ” 7 feet ” ” Verst ” ⅔ mile ” ” Pound ” 14.43 ounces ” ” Pud (or Pood) ” 36 lbs. ” ” Rouble (or 100 Kopecks) ” 2 shillings ” ” Silver rouble ” 3 ” ”
THROUGH SIBERIA.
Chapter I
INTRODUCTORY.
Object of the journey.--Interest in prisons.--Visitation of prisons in 1874.--Distribution of religious literature in Russia.--Tour round Bothnian Gulf, 1876.--To Russo-Turkish war, 1877.--To Archangel, 1878.--Origin of Siberian journey.--Alba Hellman and her correspondence.--The way opened.--Projected efforts of usefulness.--Books to be distributed.--Final resolve.
The object that took me through Siberia was of a philanthropic and religious character; and before proceeding to a general description of the country, I should like to acquaint the reader with the circumstances that led me there. My interest in prisons dates from a visit to Newgate jail in 1867, followed by others to prisons at Winchester, Portland, Millbank, Dover, York, Exeter, Geneva, Guernsey, and Edinburgh: but this interest amounted to little more than curiosity. Two years later it took a practical turn. My summer holidays up to that time had been spent on the principle, “Play when you play, and work when you work,”--a proverb that is doubtless true, but which I had not found entirely satisfactory. I was minded, therefore, to test another saying, that “the way to be happy is to be useful,” and in 1874 was casting about as to how the principle could be applied to a tour of five weeks through seven countries, not one of whose tongues I could speak, when the visitation of continental prisons suggested itself, and the distribution therein and elsewhere of suitable literature. The Committee of the Religious Tract Society generously placed a supply at my disposal, and in company with the Rev. J. P. Hobson, then curate of Greenwich, I started for Russia viâ Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, intending to return through Poland, Austria, and Prussia. We saw the prisons of Copenhagen and Stockholm, but they were well supplied with books, and needed not our help; whereas, in the old castles used as prisons at Åbo and Wiborg, our papers were thankfully accepted, and in Russia quite a surprise awaited us. Without reason, I had feared that perhaps the orthodox Russians would decline to receive books from Protestants, as do the Romans. We found, however, that they would accept such books as had been approved by the censor, and accordingly we sent 2,000 pamphlets into the prisons of Petersburg, reserving a third thousand for giving away on the railway to Moscow, not knowing at that time that for such open distribution a permission is needed. I can never forget the surprise of the people and their desire to get the books. The peasants came and kissed our hands; the railway guards directed to us the attention of the station-masters, who came to receive our gifts. Priests took the books, and approved them; and many who offered money in return were puzzled to see it declined. Our stock was soon exhausted, and I determined some day to make a tour in Russia to distribute on a larger scale.
In 1876 my holiday weeks were spent in a journey across Norway and Sweden and round the Gulf of Bothnia. Twelve thousand tracts were distributed, and visits made to prisons and hospitals, those of Finland being found inadequately supplied with both Scriptures and other books. On my return I brought this before the Committee of the Bible Society, and asked for a copy of the Scriptures for every room in every prison, and for each bed in every hospital, in all Finland. This they kindly granted, so far as to offer to bear half the expense with the Finnish Bible Society; and the plan, after some delay, was carried out. Scriptures were also to be provided, at my request, for the Finnish institutions for the deaf and dumb, and for the saloons of the steamers plying on the Scandinavian coasts.
In 1877 Roumania and the seat of the Russo-Turkish war was chosen for my holiday resort, with a view to being useful in the Russian hospitals. But I was too early, and my vacation too short; so that after visiting, on the outward trip, some of the prisons of Austria and Hungary, I returned, doing the like through Servia, Sclavonia, the Tyrol, Basle, and Paris. The mass of the prisoners were Roman Catholics, for whom I do not remember a single case in which the Scriptures were provided. Some of the authorities, however, said they would accept them if sent, and I therefore asked the Bible Society again for a liberal grant for the prisoners, the sick, and others of the countries through which I had passed. They were willing to make the grant, but the local agents reported many difficulties, and the result fell short of my expectations.
In 1878, therefore, I resolved upon a change of tactics, to take my ammunition with me, and carry out my cherished scheme for Russia. Considerable difficulties, however, lay in the way. An Englishman, unable to speak the language, going into the interior of Russia to distribute books and pamphlets, in the year of the Berlin Congress, towards the close of the war, would certainly not have been safe. No amount of official papers and permissions would have kept him out of the clutches of ignorant officials. It seemed necessary, therefore, to take an interpreter; and as the transport of heavy luggage in Russia is slow, and my books would accompany me as personal baggage, it was clear that the cost would be a great increase to holiday expenses. A generous friend, however, at this juncture, as also subsequently, came to my aid; and in the month of June I trotted out of Petersburg with about two waggonloads of books, a companion, an interpreter, and a sufficiency of official letters. We went by rail through Moscow and Jaroslav to Vologda, and thence by steamer on the Suchona and Dwina to Archangel. We distributed everywhere,--to priests and people, in prisons, hospitals, and monasteries, and created such a stir in some of the small towns that people besieged our rooms by day, and even by night. Our travel was necessarily so quick that we could not always inform the police beforehand of what we were doing, and more than once they came (as was their duty) to arrest us; but our encounters always ended amicably, and we reached home after a happy six weeks’ tour, extending over 5,500 miles, in the course of which we distributed 25,000 Scriptures and tracts. These experiences in some measure prepared me for my longer journey in 1879, the origin of which was somewhat remarkable.
When travelling round the Gulf of Bothnia in 1876, my steamer unexpectedly stayed for a day at a town on the coast of Finland. I was anxious to visit the hospital, and was inquiring about a horse, when a passenger said she had friends in the town, who, she thought, could render assistance. I went with her; and that simple incident may be said to have originated my subsequent tour through the prisons of Siberia; for it was followed by correspondence with a lady member of the family to whom I was introduced, Miss Alba Hellman, who began by modestly asking me, chiefly because I was an Englishman and the only one she knew, whether I could not do something for the welfare of the Siberian exiles. I confess that at first I thought this the most extraordinary request ever put to me, and it seemed too great an undertaking even to be thought of. Already immersed in work, regular and self-imposed, I had no time or means for such an undertaking; and if the money were forthcoming, who would go? Another question, too, arose: Would the Russian Government allow anything to be done?
The case of my Finnish correspondent, however, was a touching one. When in health she had been wont, like Elizabeth Fry, but on a smaller scale, to spend part of her time in visiting prisoners. Now, acute heart disease forbade such visits, and even compelled her to sleep in a sitting posture, so that for 2,068 nights, or nearly seven years, she never went to bed. My coming to Finland, visiting prisons, had awakened memories of her former work, and she set herself, after my departure, to write me a letter in English. She had had only a few lessons in this language when a girl; but, possessing a Swedish and English New Testament in parallel columns, and a dictionary, she set herself, with an industry and patience almost incredible, to find clauses and expressions that conveyed her meaning in Swedish, and then to copy their English equivalents, her letter ending, for example, “Here are many faults, but I pray you have me excused.” The force of her language, however, was unmistakable, thus: “You (English) have sent missionarys round the all world, to China, Persia, Palestina, Africa, the Islands of Sandwich, to many places of the Continent of Europe; but to the great, great Siberia, where so much is to do, you not have sent missionarys. Have you not a Morrison, a Moffatt, for Siberia? Pastor Lansdell, go you yourself to Siberia!”
What, then, could I say to this? To have spoken the real language of my thoughts would have been cruel. So I thought to shelve the question by returning an oracular answer, that “the letter contained much that was interesting, and that I would think the matter over.” My correspondent, however, was not to be discouraged, and wrote another letter, giving further information concerning Siberia, and drawing a gloomy picture of the religious condition of the natives and exiles. Others followed, and at last I began to think that, after all, the project was not quite so unfeasible as it first appeared to be. My generous friend, who had read the letters and was interested, both urged me on and again offered help; and when it was determined that I should leave a clerical appointment I had held for ten easy and happy years, I resolved, in the absence of another suitable post presenting itself, at once to “rough it” for a summer in the wilds of Asiatic Russia.
But what could I do towards the object my friend had at heart? Ignorance of the Russian language and of the Siberian dialects would prevent my speaking to the people. I might, however, visit prisons, hospitals, and mines, and at least provide them with the Scriptures in various languages, and with books, as in previous holidays. When travelling in the Russian interior in 1878, persons were met with who had never seen a complete New Testament, and I reasoned that a general distribution of such books in Siberia, whether by sale or gift, would be doubly useful, besides which I meant to be on the look-out for such other opportunities of usefulness as might present themselves and be allowed me.
But what were the books you were to give away? and how is it that you were allowed to distribute them? are questions that have often been asked with surprise. An answer to the first will prepare the way for the second. The Scriptures included the four Gospels, the Book of Psalms, and the New Testament. These were for the most part in Russian; but there were a few copies in Polish, French, German, and Tatar, with certain portions of the Old Testament for the Buriats in Mongolian, and for the Jews in Hebrew. Besides these Scriptures there were copies of the Rooski Rabotchi, an adapted reprint in Russian of the British Workman, full of pictures, and well suited to the masses; also a large well-executed engraving, with the story written around, of the parable of the Prodigal Son, together with broad-sheets suitable for hospital walls, and thousands of Russian tracts. The Scriptures were printed for the Bible Society by the Holy Synod, and the tracts had passed the censor’s hands. All was therefore in order, and before going to Archangel I had received a permanent legitimation to distribute, duly endorsed by the police.
So far, therefore, things in England looked promising for Siberia, but the way thither was by no means clear. In April, 1879, the plague was said to be raging in Russia, and towards the end of that month came one of the attempts on the late Emperor’s life. This led to Petersburg being placed in a state of siege, and few of my friends felicitated me on my intention to go thither. Some thought I should not obtain the required permissions for Siberia, and advised accordingly. But having always before succeeded through the courtesy of the Russians in getting what I asked, I resolved to be deaf as an adder to everything short of a denial at the capital from the lips of the authorities, and, being thus resolved, I set out on my journey.
Chapter II
ACROSS EUROPE.
Departure for Petersburg.--Official receptions.--Minister of the Interior.--Metropolitan of Moscow.--Introductions.--Books forwarded.--Departure for Moscow.--Nijni Novgorod.--Site of the fair.--Joined by interpreter.--Kasan.--Bulgarian antiquities.--Neighbouring heathen.--Idolatrous objects and practices.--Departure from Kasan.--The Volga and the Kama.--Arrival at Perm.
On Wednesday morning, 30th April, 1879, I left London, and reached Petersburg on the following Saturday evening, to find at my hotel a pleasant welcome in the shape of an invitation to breakfast with Lord Dufferin on the Monday morning. This was due to letters with which I had been favoured from high quarters in England, and one result of which, thanks to the kindness of the British Ambassador, was an introductory letter to M. Makoff, the Minister of the Interior, which I presented to his Excellency on Tuesday. Whilst waiting in the ante-room with other suitors, there was time for cogitation as to what the answer might be. My Petersburg friends gave me small hope of success; on the contrary, one of them, high in authority, who had helped me before, had gone so far as to say, “Why, it is not likely that, with so many political prisoners therein, they will allow him to go through the prisons of Siberia now.” I drew encouragement, however, from the fact that a ministerial letter had been given me the previous year, which I thought would be registered in the archives, and, trusting there was on it nothing against me, I hoped that this would be in my favour. At length, when I was ushered into the Minister’s presence, he scarcely looked at the Ambassador’s letter, but referred to my having had the document the previous year, and said at once that there was no objection to my having another; upon which, flushed with success, I bowed and retired.
This emboldened me to go to another dignitary, and, having a friend to interpret, I went straight from the Minister to the new Metropolitan of Moscow, to present a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury, addressed “To the Metropolitans of the Church of Russia, or others whom it may concern.” His Eminence appeared in a brown silk moiré-antique robe, glittering with jewelled decorations, and wearing as is usual the white crape hat of a metropolitan, with a diamond cross in front. He stood on little ceremony, and, almost before I had made my bow, he shook my hand, gave me a fraternal kiss on either cheek, and motioned me to a seat beside him. He then entered with zest into my scheme for distributing the Scriptures, said that the Russians had not the means to perform all they would, and commended the English for what they were doing. He asked a few questions relative to Church matters in England, regretted that we had no language in common in which we could converse, and then cordially wished me God speed.
I had thus made an excellent beginning. The next thing to be done was to get additional introductions, and this I tried to do so as to find my way amongst various classes of people. A letter from Mr. Glaisher, the aeronaut, and formerly of the Greenwich Observatory, opened the way for me to scientific people, more especially those taking meteorological observations in European and Asiatic Russia; an introduction from a German pastor brought me into contact with the educational world through Mr. Maack, the late General-Inspector of Schools for Eastern Siberia; a third and a fourth introduction procured letters to the Finns and the German pastors throughout Siberia; and a fifth to the telegraph officers, most of whom speak English, French, or German. Messrs. Egerton Hubbard took me under their wing, and kindly arranged to forward money and letters; and I had various mercantile introductions, together with several of a social character, to persons of different standing, from the Governors-General of Siberia downwards. All told, my introductions, as far as Kiakhta, numbered 133. It is, however, a traveller’s axiom that, “Of good introductions, store is no sore,” and many of mine proved to be worth their weight in gold.
My Petersburg friends were delighted at the Minister’s reply, and, as the sun was shining, they determined to make their hay. They urged me to take still more books--5,000 additional pamphlets of one kind, especially suited for schools; and this notwithstanding that upwards of 25,000 of a miscellaneous character had already been forwarded by slow transit to the Urals. My willingness, however, was limited only by my capabilities of carriage, and, accordingly, as many more books were taken as, together with my personal baggage and those gone before, would fill three Russian post waggons; and this I thought would be about as many as, under the circumstances, it was possible for me to take.
After a busy stay of nine days in the Russian capital, I left for Moscow on the afternoon of Monday, the 12th of May, and arrived the following morning. The only business that detained me there was to inquire of some ladies, who devote themselves to work among the prisoners, how many and what books they were distributing among the exiles, so that I might not do their work over again. I found, however, that their labours were directed more especially to the temporal good of the prisoners--looking after their wives, placing out their children, finding them clothes, and such like useful works, rather than seeking directly their spiritual good, though this had to some extent been attempted by lending and occasionally giving them books to read in the prison. Accordingly, I left Moscow by rail on Wednesday evening, to arrive after thirteen hours at Nijni Novgorod, on the Volga.
May is not a good time to see this famous place. The river overflows its banks in spring to a depth of several feet, and covers the site of the wonderful fair, in anticipation of which the lower storeys of the warehouses and buildings are cleared; and to cleanse them before July is one of the first things to be done by the owners, who with their goods arrive yearly from all parts of the world. I was rowed in a boat through the streets (which are called after the names of the merchandise sold therein) to see the Chinese quarter, with pagoda-like buildings; the Persian quarter, the two cathedrals, the theatre, the Governor’s house, etc., all of which are used only during the fair, and were now empty. The nearest approach to a fair that I saw was a gathering near the entrance to the Kremlin, where were men standing with their stock-in-trade in their hands or slung over their shoulders--one with a pair of boots, another with a shirt, and a third with a pair of trousers or other garments, and for which each was ready to bargain and chaffer. Hitherto I had travelled alone. I now stayed at Nijni Novgorod to be joined by a young man who was to be my companion and interpreter, and then, leaving by steamer on Friday at mid-day, we reached Kasan early on Saturday morning, there to spend Sunday, the 18th of May.
The covered heads and veiled faces of the women, together with the tawny porters carrying their huge burdens, speedily reminded us that we had reached an ancient Tatar city. The only tourists’ lion we visited was Mr. Lichatcheff’s collection of Bulgarian antiquities. He very kindly and politely showed us through the rooms of his house, which were crammed with curiosities. Among them were rude implements of the stone age, ancient oriental lamps, and ancient crosses, one of which, dating from the eleventh or twelfth century, was without the foot-piece now found on the Russian cross, which foot-piece, our informant considered, was not used on Russian crosses in the earliest times. There were also some stone Byzantine crosses. The Bulgarian antiquities had been found on the banks of the Volga, showing the location of that people before their migration further south.
Another point of interest in Kasan must not be passed over. I had supposed that heathen rites and practices were now in Europe a thing of the past. We heard, however, of five nationalities scattered through Russia, but found more, especially in the Kasan government, who, though nominally Christian, still resort to idolatrous superstitions. They are called Tcheremisi, Mordvar, Vodeki, Tchuvashi, and Tatars; and the Russian Government is adopting means for their enlightenment by taking peasant boys from among them, and training them for schoolmasters and priests. A seminary devoted to this purpose, situated near the Tatar quarter of the town, was shown to us by the principal, Professor Ilminski.[1]
In or near the Bishop’s house in the Kremlin we were introduced to Mr. Zoloneetski, who trains young men to be mission priests to the nationalities whence they have been brought. In 1878 he had twenty-one students, some of them from the seminary just mentioned. He gives them lectures on aboriginal languages, customs, and superstitions, and shows them how to bring the natives to Christianity. This he does in part by exposing various idolatrous objects, of which he has a curious collection. Among them was a Tchuvash idol, consisting of a block of wood, to which pieces of cloth were brought as offerings. This had been used less than ten years before. Another piece of superstition came from the Tcheremisi,[2] and was less than twelve months old. There was also to be seen a rudely-cut box containing coins. Some of them were ancient, but were supposed to have been offered recently by Tatars, nominally Christian. It would seem that a Tatar sometimes makes a vow to the spirit of the forest to dedicate a horse, cow, or some other animal; but not having a victim, or not having it to spare at the time, he leaves money as a pledge of good faith, and then, when able to fulfil his vow, reclaims his coin.
Some of these objects had been obtained through friends and some by fraud, but there was a curious story connected with the boxes. A missionary priest (a friend of our informant), knowing of their existence, went to a family in his parish, and asked if he might take away their idolatrous things. They answered at first in the negative; but, after he had left the house, a woman came out to draw water, and told him she thought it would be much better if he would steal the things, for then they would have less money to bring and fewer prayers to say. The priest, therefore, returned at night, when the family pretended to be soundly asleep (so that the spirit might not be offended with what took place whilst they were unconscious), mounted the loft, took the things, and subsequently gave them to our informant.
We quitted Kasan on Monday morning in one of Lubimoff’s steamers, and, after proceeding two or three hours down the Volga, left that river to finish its career of 2,200 miles, whilst we turned into one of its affluents, the Kama, which is no mean river in itself, having a course of 1,400 miles. The junction of the two streams presents a fine expanse of water, but the banks are too flat to be pretty. Steamboat travelling in Russia is not expensive, the first-class fare from Nijni Novgorod to Perm, a four days’ journey, being only 36_s._
After a voyage of three days and a half from Kasan we reached Perm, where the people were in great excitement consequent on the burning of two “quartals,” or large blocks of buildings. The roofs and houses of the town were described as being covered, during the previous night, with women, watching lest sparks should fall on their property, whilst their husbands helped to extinguish the fire; and so great was the fear of a general conflagration, that some sent their wives and families into the neighbouring villages. Others we saw encamped by the bank of the river, whilst on a grass plot near a church were others tired out and fast asleep beside the chattels they had rescued. Not long before, Orenburg and Irbit had been burnt, and were supposed by some to have been wilfully set on fire, and so excited were the inhabitants of Perm, and so ready to snap up persons at all suspected, that we were cautioned, as being strangers, to walk in the middle of the road. We then visited the hospital, saw the Governor, and left some books for the Perm institutions; but I was reserving my strength for Siberia, and the same evening the train was to carry us to the top of the Urals.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Government provides support for 150 scholars, half of whom are Russians, and the remaining half are from the five nationalities already mentioned. They have no difficulty in procuring the requisite number of scholars. Such as can say their small Russian catechism intelligently are received, and kept for three years as pupil-teachers, at the expiration of which time they serve the Government for six years by way of return for their education, and receive salaries of from twelve to thirty pounds a year. A New Testament, we found (but not the Bible), is provided for each youth in the higher classes.
[2] Their worship was thus described: The priest takes in one hand a piece of burning wood, and in the other a branch (such as we saw, and on which the leaves were still green, though dry), and then walks in a circle, the area of which is thus, for the time being, consecrated for worship. Then he fastens round a tree a withe, and sticks therein a branch with the bark peeled something like a whip, which is supposed to represent a fir-tree; on this is hung a piece of lead, previously melted, poured into cold water, and molten so as to form roughly the figure of a head, which is called an eeta. Towards this they afterwards say their prayers. The priest kills the victim, which may be a horse, a cow, a chicken, a duck, etc., and sprinkles the blood on the tree and the withe. (The blood was yet visible on the one we saw.) Then they proceed to peel or chip pieces of wood, making them fly off in the direction of the tree; and according as the chips fall, with the bark or the white side upwards, so they divine an answer to their prayer. The branch we saw was brought away by a friend of our informant just after the offering.
Chapter III
THE URALS TO TIUMEN.
A new railway.--The Ural range.--Outlook into Russia in Asia.--Nijni Tagil.--The Demidoff mines and hospital.--May weather.--Russian railways.--Arrival at Ekaterineburg.--An orphanage.--Precious stones.--Orenburg shawls.--Tarantass and luggage.--Departure for Tiumen.--The exiles.--Visits to the authorities.
Those who have hitherto written of journeys to Siberia have told of a dismal drive from Perm to Ekaterineburg; but this misfortune did not fall to our lot, since in the autumn of 1878 a railway was opened over the mountains, and the journey is now accomplished in about four-and-twenty hours. The distance is 312 miles, and between the two termini are about 30 stations.[1]
From the prominence given in maps of Europe to the Ural chain, one is apt from childhood to expect in these mountains something grand. The entire length of the range, including its continuation in Novaia Zemlia, is about 1,700 miles. Its highest peak, however, does not attain to more than 6,000 feet, and many parts of the range are not more than 2,000 feet above the sea level. No part of it is permanently covered with snow. Travellers by the old route describe, in passing it, a never-failing object of interest on the frontier in the shape of a stone, on one side of which is written “Europe” and on the other “Asia,” across which, of course, an English boy would stride, and announce that he had stood in two quarters of the globe at once. Travellers by the new route miss this opportunity; but they have its equivalent in three border stations, one of which is called “Europa,” the next “Ural,” and the third “Asia,” through which those who have journeyed can say what no other travellers can, that they have passed by rail from one quarter of the globe into another.
Thus the ease with which one reaches the summit of the Urals is somewhat disappointing, but no such thoughts are suggested by an outlook into the immense country that now lies before the traveller. There stretches far before him a region known as Russia in Asia, the dimensions of which are very hard for the mind to realize. It measures 4,000 miles from east to west, about 2,000 from north to south, and covers nearly five and three-quarter millions of square miles. It is larger by two millions of square miles than the whole of Europe; about twice as big as Australia, and nearly one hundred times as large as England.
The general aspect of the surface may be easily described. The Altai range of mountains, with its offshoots to the east, forms the general features of the southern boundary, and from these heights the land gradually slopes towards the northern tundras or bogs, which extend to the frozen ocean. The country is intersected by three of the largest rivers in the world, the Obi, the Yenesei, and the Lena, not one of which is much less than 3,000 miles long, and all of them, through great part of the year, flow under masses of ice to the Arctic Ocean. A fourth river, the Amur, rising in the Yablonoi mountains, which may be regarded as a part of the eastern slopes of the Altai chain, runs a course also of more than 2,000 miles, but takes an easterly direction, forming part of the southern boundary of the country, and empties itself into the Gulf of Tartary.
The country largely consists of immense steppes, marshes, and pools. Lakes, properly so called, are not numerous, but the greatest of them, the “Baikal,” is in some respects the most remarkable in the world. No less remarkable is the great variety of the inhabitants. They are sometimes classified into five typical races: Sclavonic (including Russians and Poles); Finnish (including Finns, Voguls, Ostjaks, Samoyedes, Yuraki); Turkish (including Tatars, Kirghese, Kalmuks, Yakutes); Mongolian (including Manchu, Buriats, and Tunguses--the last of various denominations); and Chinese, with whom may be classed, though not very accurately, the Gilyaks and Aïnos. In fact, an ethnographical map of Asiatic Russia I bought at Petersburg shows therein no less than 30 peoples or nations.[2]
Many of them, it is true, are but feebly represented, for the entire population does not number more inhabitants than are to be found in seven of the counties of England, and they have not enough men and women in Russian Asia to put one of each in every square mile, whereas every square mile of the seven English counties alluded to has on an average 573 inhabitants. It is difficult to give exact statistics, because, from the wandering life led by many of the aborigines, it is impossible to ascertain their number, and so authorities differ; but the total population, including Russians, is estimated at about 8,000,000. Our attention, however, is to be chiefly confined to Siberia, and it should not be forgotten that Siberia is not co-extensive with the whole of Asiatic Russia, and does not begin, properly speaking, till Ekaterineburg is passed. We have been merely taking a look, from the government of Perm, out of European into Asiatic Russia; this government, as also that of Orenburg, lying partly in Europe and partly in Asia.
Before descending to the foot of the Urals, we arrive at Nijni Tagilsk. At this place we halted for a day to look over the famous Demidoff mines and works. There had been a fire in the town, as at Perm, on the night preceding our arrival; and in seven hours 78 houses had been burnt. Pieces of smoking wood were still flying about. The common people, as before, attributed the fire to incendiaries, such as escaped prisoners, who hoped to profit by the turmoil, and find an occasion for plunder; but more thoughtful people traced it to accidental causes. Demidoff’s workmen had been called out at night to assist as firemen, and were in consequence resting. We could not, therefore, see everything in motion, but enough was visible to make it clear that they were carrying on enormous metallurgical operations. One of the remarkable things to be noticed was a surface mine of magnetic iron ore, blasted and dug out in terraces, carted down by horses and taken to the furnace, where the ore proves so rich that it yields 68 per cent. of iron. We also descended a copper-mine, the mineral from which yields 5 per cent. of metal. We were dressed for the occasion in top-boots, leather hats, and appropriate blouses and trousers, each carrying a lamp, and thus by ladders we descended one shaft of 600 feet and came up another, the water meanwhile trickling upon us freely. At the bottom of the mine they were erecting an English machine for pumping 80 cubic feet of water per minute to the surface. In the engine-room two men at a time spend eight hours daily, for which they each receive in money about fifteen pence. We promised ourselves, as a great feature in the descent of the copper-mine, the seeing of malachite in its natural state, and we were not disappointed. The captain took us through long galleries of timber beams, and then to the spots where the miners had been working. Here, by the light of our lamps, the pieces of green mineral could be clearly seen, and we had the pleasure of digging them out with a pick, and bringing them away as specimens. The price of malachite at the mine is six shillings a Russian pound, if in moderate-sized pieces; twenty shillings when the lumps are large, but only two shillings if they are small.
Besides these copper and magnetic iron mines, they have others of manganese iron ore, which contains 64 per cent. of binoxide of manganese, the peroxide being sold at the rate of about eighteen shillings per hundredweight. Specimens of these and other minerals of great interest to the geologist are exhibited in a museum not far from the works.
Among the remarkable things to be seen at these hives of industry were--a machine for drawing water by a cord from a copper-mine two miles off, a steam-hammer of seven tons weight, an iron furnace of 10,000 cubic feet dimensions, said to be the largest high furnace for wood in the world, and a machine for splitting their fuel wood, of which they burn annually 100,000 sajens--that is to say, a 325 feet cube, or, roughly speaking, a pile of logs twice as big as St. Paul’s Cathedral.[3]
They make steel for Sheffield, and can do castings up to more than 30 tons in weight. Their iron is excelled in quality, I believe, only by that of Dannemora. They have 11 zavods, or “works,” of which eight are connected with iron. But perhaps a better idea can be formed of their vastness by the mention of the number of persons employed, which amounts to 30,000. I heard also 40,000, and both numbers were from heads of departments; but probably the latter estimate includes carters, labourers, and perhaps even women. The Demidoffs pay annually, by way of rates and taxes--to the Commune, £5,000; the Church, £1,500; schools, £2,500; poor and aged, £3,000; together with other sums, amounting in all to about £20,000 a year. Wages, as compared with those in England, appeared low. Common workmen receive from 7½_d._ to 1_s._ a day, puddlers 3_s._, and those in the welding furnace 4_s._, whilst good rollers receive from 3_s._ 6_d._ to 6_s._ It should be observed, however, that they all have houses rent free, with the piece of land they formerly occupied as serfs.
Before the emancipation, the riches of the Demidoffs were counted in the phrase then usual in Russia as amounting to 56,000 souls.[4] A small church, built on the crest of a neighbouring hill, was pointed out as having been built by the serfs in memory of their freedom; and I was glad to hear from the director, Mr. Wohlstadt (by whom we were courteously entertained), that since the emancipation the men work better and better, knowing, I presume, when serfs, that idleness would be repaid with something not much worse than a beating; whereas now they know they may be discharged.
We slept at the club; and in the morning, before leaving, visited the Demidoff hospital, upon which, and upon institutions of a similar kind, the proprietors spend nearly £4,000 a year. The dimensions of the rooms were such as to allow of three cubic sajens, or 1,200 cubic feet, of air for each of the patients, of whom there were 120 at the time of our visit. Many fractured and amputated limbs were seen dressed with gypsum, alcohol, and camphor; but the most extraordinary thing was a machine in the director’s private room, in which he placed frozen human brains, and for scientific purposes cut them in very thin slices to photograph. The photographs are to be purchased in Paris.
On leaving Tagil we found the temperature much colder,[5] and our journey to Ekaterineburg was somewhat comfortless, from the fact that, anticipating no more cold weather, the officials had not brought in the train the apparatus for heating by steam. At Ekaterineburg I finished railway journeys, amounting to 2,670 miles; and as I was now to bid farewell to the horse of iron and travel by horses of flesh, it is only right to say that of the iron horses which took me across Europe the Russian on the whole was, I think, the best.[6] Our arrival at Ekaterineburg on Saturday evening was expected, and quarters were provided for me through the kindness of Messrs. Egerton Hubbard. Ekaterineburg is a handsome town of 30,000 inhabitants, and has many fine churches and other buildings. On Sunday I visited the hospital, and also an orphanage for 100 children, which has been built and is supported by local voluntary effort. This kind of institution is not yet very common among the Russians. It was regarded as a novelty, and was the only one of its precise kind that we saw in Asia.
Formerly there were several Englishmen living at Ekaterineburg, but a few only are now left, and so little practice do they have in the tongue of their fathers that some of them are rapidly forgetting it. Instances of this were met with further east, and another case in which English parents were allowing their children to grow up speaking only Russian, the result of which would be that the son who had been sent for his education to England would forget Russian, and, on coming back to Siberia, would not be able to speak to his sister who had not learnt English.
Ekaterineburg is a famous place for the cutting of precious stones, in which Siberia is rich. Near the river Argun are found the jacinth, the Siberian emerald, the onyx, and beautiful jaspers, of which there are at least a hundred varieties. Near Lake Baikal are found red garnets and lapis lazuli, and the Altai mountains furnish the opal. Several of these are also found near Ekaterineburg, together with the beryl, the topaz, the chrysolite, the aqua marine, the tourmaline, rhodonite, nephrite, ophite, selenite, and the recently-discovered Alexandrite, which exhibits two colors--crimson and green--the one by day and the other by night. The stone derives its name from the Emperor Alexander, whose colours it shows. These stones are cut in the Government workshops and in private houses, and may be purchased at moderate prices.
South of Ekaterineburg, towards Orenburg, are villages where may be purchased uncommon souvenirs in the shape of gentlemen’s scarves and gloves, together with kozy pookh, or, as they are more commonly called, Orenburg shawls. They are made from the wool of the goats of the Kirghese, who allow the Cossacks to comb their flocks at the rate of from eight-pence to a shilling per head. Twice a year the goats are washed and combed, first with a coarse and then with a fine comb. To make a good shawl employs a woman six months, and then, if it be a large one, it sells at first hand for about fifty shillings; but very much higher prices are asked in Petersburg.
We stayed three days at Ekaterineburg to lay in provisions and gather our forces for proceeding by horses. The greater part of my heavy luggage had been dispatched by slow train to Ekaterineburg fully a month before me, but it did not reach its destination till the day after my arrival. The agent said it might have been waiting on the road for the chance of other goods to make up a load. A tarantass had been very kindly placed at my disposal by Mr. Oswald Cattley, whose name, some time since, was before the public in connection with the opening up of a new trade on the Obi; and in this we packed ourselves and some of our personal baggage, placing the rest with several boxes in a second conveyance, and leaving still a third load of boxes to be forwarded as luggage. In this fashion, after receiving all sorts of kindness and hospitality from our English friends, we started on Tuesday evening, May 27th, for Tiumen, a distance of 204 miles, which was accomplished in 43 continuous hours.
Tiumen is situated on the Tura, and has a population of from 15,000 to 20,000 inhabitants. Commercially speaking, it is the most important town in Western Siberia, and through it pass the water carriage of the Obi, as well as the caravans coming from China and the East. Here we found an English engineering firm, conducted by Messrs. Wardropper, who were particularly kind to us. To Tiumen all the exiles are brought from Europe, and from thence are distributed over Siberia. I needed not, therefore, the eye of a general to see that, for my purpose of distributing books over the land, this was the key to a very important position. It was desirable, therefore, that I should see some of the magnates of the town who were members of the prison committee, and, if possible, secure their sympathy and co-operation.
Accordingly I was taken to visit the Mayor, who was building a large commercial school for the benefit of the town, at a cost of more than £20,000, which, when finished, was to be handed over to the Government. He is a merchant who has made his way to the front, and now entertains the Governor-General when he passes through, though otherwise he lives quietly. His house, when we called, was in preparation for one of those viceregal receptions, and, knowing that his worship was rich, I busied myself, during the Russian conversation, in scanning what I supposed might be considered appropriate study furniture for a wealthy Siberian. The Mayor, I had heard, was fond of good horses, which accounted for the winner-of-the-Derby-like engravings hanging on the wall, the whole of which might have been purchased, I judged, in London for twenty shillings. The room, as is the custom of the country, was not carpeted, and the furniture consisted of a bare, polished, wooden bench, bored with holes, in patterns after the fashion of American street cars. The chairs were of wood, similarly ornamented. The table had about it some fretwork, and on it various writing materials, and accompaniments more or less artistic. I mentally appraised the whole as being worth about £20, and admired the simplicity of a man who could be content with a study thus furnished, whilst he was giving away a thousand times its value. My cogitations served to recall what had struck me in Norway and Sweden, when observing how much simpler, as regards furniture, people are content to live in these northern countries than in England, though I did not discern that they were less happy than we are. After leaving the house, I broached the subject approvingly to my friend who was with me, upon which I found that I had undervalued the furniture, and that it was of American manufacture, and the first of the kind imported into the town.
I was taken also to call upon a prominent member of the prison committee, Mr. Ignatoff, of the firm of Kourbatoff and Ignatoff. They have steamers on the Kama and Obi, and hold the Government contract for the transport in barges of exiles. He was much interested in my scheme of visiting prisons, and was so pleased with my account of the Howard Association in London, of which I said I was a member, and which had for its object the prevention of crime and promoting the best methods for the treatment and reformation of prisoners, that he spoke of asking to be allowed at once to join the Association.[7] He kindly undertook to do all he could to further the distribution of the books I engaged to send to him; and I was glad to have called, not only for the information obtained, but for the interest excited, though I was hardly prepared for the very practical and generous form which this interest took, which will be hereafter alluded to.
We called afterwards on the Ispravnik, or chief man of the district, and presented my letter, with the view of visiting the prisons. I heard that in his district there were 24 schools, and, having made arrangements for providing them with tracts, I went to see the prison. From statistics given me for the previous year, it appeared that a total of 20,711 prisoners passed through the hands of the authorities in 1878.[8] This opens up the whole subject of prisons and exiles, which is to form a leading feature of these pages, and therefore I think it will be better to devote separate chapters to both, in which general ideas can be given. This will save repetition, and it will then be easy to illustrate general principles by particular incidents as we meet them from time to time in travelling and visiting prisons from the Urals to the Pacific.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Of the three divisions, the Northern or barren Ural, as the Russians call it, beginning at the source of the Pechora, is the most elevated and the least known. The Southern Ural begins about midway between Perm and Orenburg, and descends to the banks of the Ural river. It is a pastoral country, and about 100 miles in width. The range is here less than 3,000 feet in height. The central Ural may be considered as a wide undulation, beginning on the west on the banks of the Kama. Perm, situated on the right bank of the river, is 378 feet above the sea level, and on the post road to Ekaterineburg the highest point is 1,638 feet, which, if my reckoning is correct, is 40 feet less than the highest station on the railway. I set my aneroid at Perm, and found that at the fourth station, Seleenka, a distance of 172 miles, we had mounted 470 feet; the next 22 miles brought us down again to 120 feet, after which for 60 miles we continued to ascend to Bisir, which registered 1,300 feet above Perm, and was the highest station on the road. Level ground succeeded for about 30 miles to the border station, after which in 50 miles we descended 750 feet to Shaitanka, 10 miles beyond which we had remounted 200 feet; and on this level we kept to Iset, the last station but one. The road then descended about 150 feet to Ekaterineburg, which is said to be 858 feet above the sea level.
[2] 1. Slavs. 2. Zeryani. 3. Voguls. 4. Votyaks. 5. Tatars. 6. Kirghese of little horde. 7. Kirghese of middle horde. 8. Kirghese of great horde. 9. Buruti Kirghese. 10. Karakalpaks. 11. Sarti. 12. Uzbeki. 13. Turks. 14. Altai Kalmuks. 15. Teleuti. 16. Ostjaks. 17. Samoyedes. 18. Yuraki. 19. Yakutes. 20. Tunguse. 21. Goldi. 22. Gilyaks. 23. Yukagirs. 24. Chukchees. 25. Koriaks. 26. Kamchatdales. 27. Aïnos. 28. Buriats. 29. Manchu. 30. Chinese.
[3] What extent of land must be cleared to furnish such a quantity of fuel I know not, but the railways of Central Russia are said to consume yearly the timber off 90,000 acres of forest--an area, that is, about the size of Rutlandshire.
[4] That is, men, or at least males; for I am told that male children are called “souls,” but female children never. An English lady of my acquaintance informs me that she was told scores of times in Russia that she was not a doash, or soul, but only a woman; and when her son was born she was congratulated on being the mother of a soul!
[5] Concerning the weather in crossing Europe, I may say that, from the Russian frontier to the capital, on the 2nd and 3rd of May, a fire was provided in the railway carriage, and on approaching Petersburg there was just a little snow left here and there in drifts. On the 4th the last of the ice was floating down the Neva. In less than a week it became positively hot in the middle of the day, and the trees opened their foliage rapidly. At Nijni Novgorod, on the 15th, the foliage was all but full. On the banks of the Kama the trees were covered with leaves, which the captain of the steamer said had come out within the previous five days; and on the 20th, when stopping for wood, some of the passengers found strawberry blossoms and violets. Fine weather then continued up to the 23rd.
[6] The new first-class carriages running between Petersburg and Moscow have fauteuils, which form couches at night; and one I saw was so fixed on springs as to furnish almost the softness of a feather-bed. They have also writing tables, and are more luxurious than anything I have seen elsewhere in Europe, or even America. The lavatory arrangements “on board” in all three classes are exceedingly good. There only lacks the receptacle for iced water provided in Norway, and, perhaps, the dining cars run in America, to make Russian railway accommodation perfect. The guards, it is true, are somewhat pompous as compared with the English, and the speed of the trains is slower; but, on the other hand, the refreshments are very much better, and the prices more reasonable. There is time allowed, moreover, to eat them, though I am thinking more especially of the line between the capital and Moscow, which is naturally one of the best.
[7] He had made private notes concerning the exiles, of which it appeared that, during the last ten years, from 9,500 to 10,500 yearly had passed through his hands. Of these there were adults about 9,000; under 15, 1,500; and under 2 years of age, 150. About 3,000, he thought, could read. The professors of various religious beliefs prevailed, he said in decreasing numbers, in the following order: (1) Orthodox Russian, (2) Mohammedan, (3) Jewish, (4) Roman Catholic, (5) Protestant. Drunkenness, he believed, was directly or indirectly the cause of the crimes of half of the whole number sent to Siberia, and these were found to be the worst prisoners and the most troublesome. He looked forward, therefore, with pleasure to the expected and now long-waited-for prison reforms, one of which, it was said, would be the sending no more exiles to the western part of Siberia.
[8] One-fourth of these (4,995) were women, and 215 were local offenders, of whom 10 were women and 3 were minors. In the course of the year were located in the Town Prison 157 men and 5 women; in the Police Prison 4 men, and in the Central Prison for exiles 15,111 men and 4,985 women.
Chapter IV
THE EXILES.
Reasons for and history of deportation to Siberia.--Number of exiles.--Their education.--Crimes.--Sentences.--Loss of rights.--Privileges.--Proportion of hard-labour convicts.--Where located.--Release.--Escapes.--Causes and methods of flight.--Transport.--A convoy of exiles.--Moscow charity.--Conveyance to Perm and Tiumen.--Their distribution.--Order of march.--Sea-borne exiles.--Mistakes of English newspapers.--Conveyance of political exiles.
In dealing with criminals, the Russian Government has to act as best it can for the good of the community in general. If, in particular cases, it seems likely that the criminal may be reformed, he is sent to one of the prisons or houses of correction at home; but if, on the other hand, the crime of the malefactor demands a severe punishment, and, after repeated correction, he seems to be incorrigible, then he is banished to Siberia, the people being thus rid of a corrupting member of society, whilst another unit is sent to assist in developing the resources of a large territory of the Russian empire, which has great need of population. This, I presume, is the theory, or part of it, of the deportation of prisoners to distant parts of the empire.[1] The number of ordinary exiles sent to Siberia for several years past has been from 17,000 to 20,000 per annum; but this includes wives and children who choose to accompany the prisoners. Of these nearly 8,000, on their arrival in Siberia, are set free to get their own living; about 3,000 of them being sent to Eastern and 5,000 to Western Siberia. The exiles come from all parts of Russia in Europe, and include about 300 a year from Finland. In 1879 there were 898 sent from Poland. Some idea may be formed of the education of the exiles from the fact that on the day we visited Tiumen prison there were, out of 470 prisoners, 42 who could read and write well, 32 who could do so a little, and 12 who could sign their names. At Tiumen, however, we heard from one who had to do with a great many exiles, and who had several statistics about them, that one-third of those with whom he had been brought into contact could read. Again, in the district of Kansk, in Eastern Siberia, in 1877, of 226 criminals, only two were marked as “well-educated,” whilst in 1878, of 182 prisoners, none stood high enough, intellectually, to be thus designated. The figures from Kansk are not quite to the point in speaking of European Russia, but they help, with others, to give an approximate idea, not only of the education, but also of the social rank of the Siberian criminals. Again, for statistical purposes, the Russians are sometimes marked off into five classes, thus: nobles, merchants, ecclesiastics, citizens, and peasants; and in prison the higher grades receive better allowance, and are not mixed with the peasant prisoners, but have rooms apart. In going through the principal prisons of Siberia, however, we found the number of rooms thus occupied decidedly small; so that this observation, taken with the educational state of the prisoners, would seem to confirm what I was told by one prison official, that probably not more than 3 or 4 per cent. of the exiles are from the upper classes.
As to the crimes of the exiles, they are not all political, nor even chiefly so. A large proportion--4,000 out of 18,000, or say 20 per cent.--of them are charged with no one particular offence, except that they have rendered themselves obnoxious to the community among which they lived. If a man in Russia be incorrigibly bad, and will not pay his taxes nor support his wife and family, but leaves these things to be done by his neighbours, his commune--which may consist of one or more villages--meet in their mir, or village parliament, vote the man a nuisance, and adjudge that he be sent, at their expense, to Siberia. This judgment is submitted to higher authorities, and, unless just cause be shown to the contrary, is confirmed. The man is then taken to Siberia, not to be imprisoned, but to get his living as a colonist. Those sent thus by the villages, I was told, are chiefly drunkards. We saw a whole wardful of them at Tiumen, dressed in private clothes, and not in prison garb; and a second ward, of a similar mixed multitude, consisting of men, women, and children. The perpetrators of political crimes, as those of the “black Nihilists,” are, when caught, usually accommodated with free lodgings in Siberia; and so with revolutionary offenders, who make insurrection in Poland, Circassia, or elsewhere. Of offenders such as these I must speak hereafter. Formerly religious dissenters were largely deported, but this has not been done since the proclamation of what may, in a fashion, be called religious liberty, unless in the case of one or two--more especially one sect--whose practices no enlightened Government could tolerate, and which are so extraordinary that, if they obtained universal acceptance, there would be no further increase of population, and the human race would become extinct. The fact is that the great mass of exiles are nothing more nor less than ordinary criminals, such as may be found in any of the prisons of Europe.[2]
The sentences of the exiles vary widely according as they are condemned to one or the other of two classes, namely: those who lose all their rights, and those who lose only partial or political rights, which deprivations may be thus explained:--
Those who lose all their rights are not in an enviable position. These are some of the things they lose:--If a man have a title or official rank, he is degraded. An exile’s marriage rights are broken, so that his wife is free to marry another. Neither his word nor his bond is of any value. He cannot sign a legal document or serve any office, either municipal or imperial. He can hold no property, nor do anything legal in his own name. In prison he must wear convict’s clothes, and have his head half shaved; and, in the case of a woman, she cannot marry after her release from prison till by good conduct she has placed herself in a certain category; and, whether man or woman, they may, for new crimes, if the authorities see fit, after they have served their time in prison, and are living as colonists, be sent back again. They may be thrashed with rods and with the “plète,” and, even should they be murdered, probably little trouble would be taken to find the murderer. In fact, as the words imply, they lose all their rights, though I believe they can appeal to the law in case of being grossly wronged.
I have said that an exile’s marriage rights are broken, and I was told that it is the same with convicts in America. Were it not so, it might be very hard upon a young wife whose husband, for instance, had committed murder, and who, for her husband’s crime and banishment, should be compelled to remain single for the rest of her life. A Russian wife with her children, however, may accompany the husband if she chooses; in which case they go with the exile and receive from the Government prison food and accommodation. If, on the other hand, a husband wishes to accompany a convict wife, he travels at his own cost. To the honour of the Russian women be it said that the proportion of men accompanied by their wives and families is one in every six. The proportion of women accompanied by their husbands is, I am told, not exactly known, though it is very much less.
Those who suffer the loss of particular rights lose certain of their privileges (but not family or property rights), and are settled in Siberia, to get their living in any way they are able. They may, however, in some cases, have first to serve for a period in prison; or, again, they may be allowed to live in their own houses and give a portion of their time to Government work.
Commonly, they are condemned first to serve a certain time in confinement, with or without labour. If they behave well they are, after a while, and in some cases, allowed to live outside the prison with their families, if they have any, but still to do their allotted work, until the period arrives for them to be liberated and located like colonists. Some of the women who are condemned to the far east have the good fortune to be taken as domestic servants by officers, and even favoured civilians, who, in a new country where ordinary servants are not to be had, are allowed for this purpose to take the prisoners, subject to inspection, of course. Lastly, some exiles, though comparatively few, I believe, are condemned to prison, or to prison and labour, for life.[3]
The localities to which the exiles are sent vary according to their crimes. Speaking generally, those deprived of partial rights are sent to Western, and those deprived of all their rights to Eastern, Siberia. On this point I have no official statistics, but a legal officer gave me these particulars concerning the location of convicts. Murderers are sent to Kara. My finding 800 there would seem to confirm this, only that their presence was manifest in so many of the other prisons also. Political prisoners go to Kara, to the Trans-Baikal district, and (as I heard from other sources) to the Yakutsk government; also to this latter province are sent those who commit fresh crimes in Siberia. Vagrants or vagabonds are dispatched to the far east, to the government of the Sea Coast and Sakhalin. On the other hand, Western Siberia would seem to be reserved for minor offenders, and those deprived of certain particular rights only. It should be observed, however, that exiles, wherever they may be, are under police inspection, are furnished with papers which they have to show at intervals, and which tie them to a certain place, whence they can move to a distance only by permission. When at large, and in some cases when in prison, the exiles may correspond with their friends through the post; but the letters must of course be read by the authorities. The hardest part of the lot of those who lose all their rights seems to be that they cannot look forward to the hope of returning. Not that a release is never granted even to these; for I am told that political offenders are sometimes seen hurried out of, as fast as they are hurried into, exile. The late Emperor, too, when he came to the throne, began his reign by an act of clemency on a larger scale, and allowed certain exiles whom his father had banished to return. Again, I have heard of a Polish exile in good circumstances who was fortunate enough to win the love of an English young lady connected (by name at all events) with one of the ducal families of Great Britain, through which it is said the ear was gained of a member first of the English royal family, then of the imperial family of Russia, and finally of the Emperor himself.[4] I have met with another case of a released exile who was liberated under curious circumstances. He gave me his story thus:--When Alexander II. visited Paris in the time of Napoleon III., the Tsar asked the Emperor if there were anything he could do for him. Upon which the Emperor replied: “You have a Frenchman who, in young and silly days, joined the Polish insurrection. He was made prisoner, and is now in Siberia. Will you do me the favour to release him?” The request was granted, a messenger despatched, the happy prisoner in forty-five days and nights drove back from the mines to Moscow, not with a couple of horses merely, but troika fashion, between a couple of gendarmes, and received his pardon. But such cases, of course, are rare.
It is well known that many of the exiles escape--some from the prisons, and others from the districts where they are living free. A Russian authoress, “O. K.,” in “Russia and England from 1876 to 1880,” says that in January 1876, out of 51,122 exiles supposed to be in Tobolsk, only 34,293 could be found, which figures an Englishman living in the Tobolsk government (speaking offhand) told me he should doubt, though he thought “O. K.’s” statement might be right regarding the government of Tomsk, in which the same authoress states that 5,000 were missing out of 30,000. For my own figures I am indebted to a prison official very high in position, who told me that nearly 700 get away yearly, and in 1876 as many as 952 escaped the control of the police. Thus the mere feat of running away does not seem to be difficult; but this does not imply that it is equally easy to get away from the country. A few roubles slipped into the hands of a Cossack or petty officer have a wonderful effect in blinding his eyes. Again, an escape is sometimes made from the gold-mines thus:--The convicts work in gangs, and one lies in a ditch for the others to cover him with branches and rubbish. The numbers are called on leaving off work, and one is missing. Search proves fruitless, and, after all have left the mine, the man rises from his temporary grave and makes for the woods. The great difficulty is not to get away, but to keep away. The country is so vast that they cannot travel far before the approach of winter, and then, if they have escaped in company, they have the choice of returning to prison food or eating one another. They have, moreover, another difficulty with the natives. In the Trans-Baikal district, the Buriats are said to hunt down escaped convicts, and shoot them like vermin; which is probably explained by what was told me of the Gilyaks on the Lower Amur, that they receive three roubles a-head for every escaped convict they bring to the police, whether dead or alive. The natives argue thus: “If you shoot a squirrel, you get only his skin; whereas, if you shoot a varnak” (which is the nickname they give to convicts), “you get his skin and his clothing too.” Thus it is very difficult for them to get out of the country.
There are several reasons, however, which conduce to their running away. A long-term prisoner, for instance, condemned to twenty years’ labour, makes his escape from a penal colony, wanders about the country during the summer months, and, on the approach of winter, commits a crime and is caught. He is asked for his name, to which he replies that it is Ivan Nepomnoostchi--that is, “John Know-nothing.” He is asked where he comes from. He replies that he entirely forgets. What has been his occupation? His memory fails him. He is asked for his papers. He says that he has none, or perhaps trumps up a story that he has lost them--and so on. Accordingly he is tried, and is sentenced, say to five years’ hard labour, for which he inwardly thanks the Court, and goes off, it may be, to a new prison, having effected a saving of the sorrows of eighteen years. Should he not play his game aright, however, and should he be detected, then his past service goes for nothing; he is most likely flogged, and sent back to a harder berth than he had before. Some run away under the influence of drink, and discover their mistake too late. Again, other reasons which may be supposed to conduce to flight are--the fear of punishment for new faults committed, the desire to get back to social and family ties in Europe, or, in the case of those twice imprisoned, to ties which they have formed whilst settled in Siberia.
I am disposed to think that the severance of family and social ties is with many the really hard pinch of Siberian exile. One lady, who had a convict for her nurse, told me that she gave her her own clothes, paid her £1 a month, provided her a home in the best house in the province, to say nothing of sundry perquisites, and yet she sometimes found her, when alone, in tears; and, on asking what was the matter, the answer was--“Oh, if I only knew something of my friends in Russia!” She had not learnt to write, her friends were in the same position, and the difficulty of procuring an amanuensis, together with uncertainty as to address, made communication almost impossible; and so she said she could not tell whether her friends were dead or alive, or what might be their fate. I recollect, too, in a prison at Uleaborg, in Finland, finding a woman who had escaped from exile, of whom I asked how she liked Siberia; to which she replied that as regards the country she had nothing to complain of; but, she pathetically added, “I did so want to see my mother!” And to do this she had taken flight, during three years had traversed more than 2,000 miles, had reached her old home, and was then retaken!
But nothing has yet been said of the transport of the exiles. Of old they had to walk all the way, and the journey and stoppages occupied a long time. The woman at Uleaborg said she was eight months going from Petersburg to Tobolsk. In this matter, however, as in many others, the lot of the banished was much mitigated during the reign of the late Emperor, especially after 1867. The introduction of railways and river steamboats greatly facilitated this. Accordingly, those in Russia who are condemned to Siberia are now first gathered to a central prison in Moscow, where they may be seen entering the city in droves. A very affecting sight was the first of these droves I saw in 1874. The van consisted of soldiers with fixed bayonets. Behind them marched the worst of the men prisoners, with chains on their ankles, the clanking of which as they moved was most unmusical. Then followed men without fetters, but chained by the hand to what looked like a long iron rod; and next after them the women convicts; and then the most touching part of the whole--women, not convicts, but wives who had elected to be banished with their husbands. Then there were wagons containing children, the old and infirm, baggage, etc., the rear being brought up by armed soldiers. As the prisoners moved along the street, passengers stepped from the pavement to give them presents. To this the guards who walked at the side made no objection, and in this way, in some of the towns, the prisoners gather, or used to gather, a considerable sum of money; for the woman at Uleaborg said that the money given to her drove of 156 prisoners, during their three days’ stay in Moscow, amounted to about 30_s._ each.[5] More recently, however, a Pole, who began his walking in 1871, farther east, at Perm, told me his receipts from the wayside charity of the people were insignificant.
Being gathered then at Moscow, the prisoners are sent off in droves of about 700 each by rail to Nijni Novgorod. This commences in spring, as soon as the river navigation opens, and two or three parties go off each week. They began, the year of my visit, on May 8th. On reaching Nijni Novgorod they are placed in a large barge built for the purpose, which carries from 600 to 800, and is tugged by steamer to Perm.
Hence they are taken twice a week by rail to Ekaterineburg; 350 on Wednesday, and 500 on Saturday. Their walking, however, does not yet begin; for the 200 miles remaining to Tiumen is got over by conveyances, each of which, drawn by three horses, carries about six prisoners; and thus they arrive at the first prison in Siberia proper.
Now begins their distribution. Those who are condemned to Western Siberia are assigned to particular towns or villages, whither they are sent by water, if possible, or, if not, on foot. Those, however, who are condemned to Eastern Siberia are placed in another barge, and taken on the Tura, Tobol, Irtish, Obi, and the Tom, to Tomsk, whence their walking eastward begins. When not hindered by accidental causes, they usually rest one day and walk two, marching sometimes twenty miles or more a day. Temporary prisons called étapes are erected along the road to receive them for the night, and in the towns are larger buildings called perisylnie prisons, in which they may rest, if necessary, a longer time, and where there are hospitals, medical attendants, etc. Thus they go on day after day, week after week, month after month, to their destined place or prison, to Irkutsk, to Yakutsk, to Chita, or, if perchance they are destined to Sakhalin, they continue to Stretinsk on the Shilka, thence by steam on the river Amur to Nikolaefsk, and so by ship to the island. Two years since, however, the Russian Government adopted a new and better plan with prisoners intended for Sakhalin, and, instead of sending them across Asia, shipped them from Odessa, viâ the Suez Canal, to the Pacific direct. A large merchant steamer, the Nijni Novgorod, was employed for the purpose, sailing under the Government flag, which made the passage in about two months, the prisoners arriving in excellent health, and without one death on the passage.
I mention this fact the more readily as I heard it in the Admiral’s house at Vladivostock, where the ship arrived a week or two before I did, and where it was said that one of the Japanese newspapers had copied from an English paper to the effect that half the prisoners had died on the passage, and that the rest were in a terribly sick condition. As an Englishman I was called to account for this, and I found that the minds of some of my Russian friends were very sore with the editors of English newspapers, by reason of alleged misrepresentations received at their hands. They complained, moreover, that whereas some of the newspapers were ready enough to publish against the Russians all they knew that was bad, they were slow to acknowledge the good, and were not always ready to recall what had been said, even when proved to have been false. Not having the facts before me, I could only put in a plea regarding the desire of English journals to be first in the field with news, and the consequent rapid manner in which editorial work has to be done. Knowing something of an editor’s difficulties, I felt justified in expressing the hope that there had been no intentional departure from fairness, uprightness, and integrity. I am not sure, however, that I should have been ready with an answer had I known how the case really stood.[6]
I have thus described the transport of ordinary exiles to Siberia. There is another category of prisoners--arch-heretics in political or revolutionary affairs, Nihilists, etc., of whom the authorities wish to take special care, who are not sent with the common herd, but are individually placed between two gendarmes, and sent off to travel alone direct to their destination. I am of opinion that the popular notion as to their numbers is exaggerated, and that they are much fewer than is commonly supposed. I shall offer my reasons for thinking thus later on. These persons, while travelling, are never allowed, under any pretence, to be out of sight of their keepers, who are charged to allow no one to speak to them. This, however, is not always carried out to the letter; for a friend of mine, coming one day to a swollen river in Siberia, near Omsk, where a gendarme was also waiting with a young lady prisoner of seventeen, was allowed to speak to her, and she told him that since she left Petersburg, a distance of 1,700 miles, she had not once had a gendarme out of her presence. When there are several prisoners of this character travelling in a manner together, they are kept separate, and are not allowed to speak to each other. But even this cannot always be enforced; for not long before my arrival at Tiumen a batch of about ten such persons had passed. On arriving at Ekaterineburg, a separate carriage was taken for each; but when they came at Tiumen to the riverside, standing and waiting for the steamer, they were able to snatch a few moments for conversing together. I know of another instance, in which a young woman had been suspected of a political offence, and been warned by the authorities to desist; but, not profiting by the warning, she was arrested, sent off with a gendarme, and on her way met a gentleman whom she asked to convey a letter to her friends. This of course was against the gendarme’s orders, but, on being assured that the letter should be only of a private nature, and three roubles being put into his hand, he allowed it to be written and taken. This was in European Russia. Further east they become still more lax.
There is yet a third case, in which exiles are permitted to journey by themselves like ordinary travellers. We met a lady who was forced to quit Petersburg at twenty-four hours’ notice; but owing to her position, or through interest, she was allowed to travel alone; and in this manner, by reason of illness on the way, during which her money was stolen, she was a twelvemonth reaching her location in Eastern Siberia. This, however, was the only case we met with of an exile travelling privately, and I presume similar cases are very exceptional. Whilst the exiles are on the march, and, in certain cases, whilst they are living like colonists, they receive clothing and an allowance for food, either in money or in kind; but this subject will be best treated under the description of prisons, to which subsequent chapters will be devoted.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] According to M. Réclus, the first decree of banishment fell upon the insurrectionists of Uglitch, in 1591; in the days of the Tsar Boris Godunof, and for a century afterwards Siberia received scarcely any exiles but State prisoners. At the end of the seventeenth century, however, some of the vanquished Little Russians of the Ukraine were deported thither; and they were followed by the religious dissenters--the first accompanied by their families. The Streltzi were banished by Peter the Great to garrisons in the most distant parts of the empire; and after the reign of Peter, the intrigues of the palace were the cause of exile to some of the Court celebrities, such as Menchikoff, Dolgoruki, Biron, Munich, Tolstoï, and others, some of whom, however, were brought back when their friends came into favour. In 1758 began the deportation of Poles to Siberia, but their banishment in large numbers dates from the reign of Catherine II., with the confederates of Bar, and then with the companions of Kosciuzko. Nine hundred Poles, having served under Napoleon, were exiled to Siberia, and large numbers of the insurrectionists of 1830 followed. The exiles whose names awaken perhaps the most sympathy among the Russians were the Decembrists of 1826, who endeavoured to deprive the Emperor Nicholas of his throne; but of these, and political prisoners generally, I shall treat hereafter in a separate chapter.
[2] There are upwards of thirty crimes for the commission of one or more of which a man may be sent to Siberia. In fact, I have been told that all the crimes of the country are reduced to these thirty-three heads, viz.: insubordination to authorities; stealing or losing official documents; escape, or abetting the escape, of prisoners; embezzlement of Government property; forgery while in Government employ; blasphemy; heresy and dissent; sacrilege; sheltering runaways; forging coin or paper money; without passport, or passport with term not renewed; vagrancy; bad conduct and petty crimes; murder, and suspicion thereof; attempted suicide; wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm; rape and seduction; insult; attacking with intent to wound; holding property falsely; practices of the “Scoptsi”; arson; robbery and burglary; thieving and roguery; horse-stealing; dishonesty and false actions; debt; dishonouring the name of the Emperor; assuming false names or titles; bestiality; usury and extortion; eluding military service; smuggling and illicit distilling.
[3] Some idea may be formed of the proportion of the banished who are condemned to hard labour by observing that, of 17,867 exiles passing eastwards through Tiumen prison in 1878 (the year before my visit), 2,252, or one-seventh, were transported for hard labour, and the remainder for “residence for life, or for certain terms in East and West Siberia.” I was told likewise by Mr. Ignatoff, at Tiumen, that about 2,500 hard-labour convicts passed yearly through his hands, and that they spent the first part of their time at Tobolsk. It may be further noticed from my statistics, that during the same year which saw the above number of exiles going eastwards, there passed through the same prison 2,629 persons returning westwards “to their respective homes in Russia;” which expression I do not understand, since I am informed from an official source that the number of persons returning after temporary exile is very small. The law permits those only to go back who are banished by the communes (and then not without their permission), and those who are deprived of particular rights. Four hundred and sixty-two of those condemned to “hard labour,” and 3,488 of those going into “residence,” are marked as minors,--that is to say, children of exiles, and offenders under twenty-one years of age; of which last, I am told, the annual total sent to Siberia does not exceed 300.
[4] I have heard parts of this story in various places--in Hampshire, in Devon, in Siberia, and on the coast of the Pacific--of the heroic conduct of a Scotch Professor, who gallantly escorted this young lady to her lover in Siberia, sat by her side for 3,000 miles, watched over her, saw her married, and then, returning, gave no rest to friends or officials till he had obtained the Pole’s release. The incidents would doubtless suffice for a three-volumed novel, which, however, I will not begin, as I know only one of the parties concerned, and him only by correspondence, and I have not had the recital from his own lips.
[5] M. Andreoli, in the story of his exile, remarks that the Moscow merchants had established a considerable fund for dividing among prisoners going to Siberia, and that when a party arrived, the director of the fund was at once informed. He then divided equally among them the means at his disposal, which was never less than 14_s._ or 16_s._, and sometimes as much as 30_s._ or 32_s._ to each person. Men, women, and children shared alike, so that a man with a family got substantial help; but this fund, I am told, no longer exists. Both M. Andreoli and Baron Rosen speak of the kindness of the Siberian peasants to exiles on their journey.
[6] On reaching England I was referred to what had appeared in the Daily Telegraph, first, on June 2nd, under the heading, “Reign of Terror in Russia,” where it was stated that “a large number of convicts are about to be despatched to Sakhalin from Odessa, the service which provides for the ordinary transportation of criminals to Siberia being already overtaxed.” Again, on July 28th, under the same heading appeared half a column of large print, speaking of “the appalling evidence of Russian barbarity” which their “own correspondent” had obtained. The correspondent informant visited the ship, and observed to the officer in command that the prisoners so badly provided for would never survive the passage, to which the Russian officer was said to have replied, “Well, so much the better for all parties if they do not,” and so on. On the next day, under the heading “Russian Barbarities,” it appeared that Mr. Joseph Cowen asked in Parliament whether the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had received information that 700 persons, mostly men and women of education, had been packed in the hold of a small ship--(the Daily Telegraph had described it the same day as a man-of-war of 4,000 tons)--that 250 had died on board, and 150 were landed in a dying state, etc. Most of this appeared in large print, and attention was called thereto. But by August 5th a change had come over the scene, and all or nearly all the foregoing was found to be untrue; and then, in their smallest print, simply headed “Reuter’s Telegram,” the Daily Telegraph informed its readers in six lines that “the Novoe Vremya of August 4th states that the steamer Nijni Novgorod arrived at Nagasaki on Friday last, and that the convicts were well in health.” Now here would appear to have been ample room for, if not an apology, yet an expression of regret that the Russians had been so very much misrepresented; but, if such appeared, it has escaped me. On August 9th, the Russian journals are alluded to as joining in a chorus of indignation against Messrs. Cowen and Mundella for their motion in Parliament, but nothing is recalled of what had been said. I know not how the foregoing extracts may strike the reader, but the perusal of them did not cause me to plume myself on the score of English fairness and our supposed love of justice.
Chapter V
FROM TIUMEN TO TOBOLSK.
General remarks on Siberia.--Limits.--Area.--Temperature.-- Divisions.--Roads.--Ethnography.--Language.--Posting to Tobolsk.--Floods.--Spring roads.--Villages of Tatars.--Their history.--Characteristics.--Costumes.-- Occupation.--Worship.--Language.
Between Ekaterineburg and Tiumen, as already intimated, the traveller passes into Siberia,--concerning which country it may be well here to make some general observations, with a view to the better understanding of future chapters. The western boundary of this immense region runs from the Arctic Ocean along the chain of the Northern Urals to a point in about the same latitude as Lake Onega; then, leaving the mountains a little to the left, it comes down in a tolerably straight line to a point midway between the Sea of Aral and Lake Balkash; thence it turns eastward to and along the northern shore of the lake, and, going further east, joins the Altai Mountains. All Russia lying to the west and south of this line is either in Europe or in Asia; all lying to the east of it is Siberia, the length and breadth of which are the same as of Russia in Asia; whilst its area, as given in recent Russian statistics, is 4,750,000 square miles, or more than three thousand millions of acres (3,185,510,900), of which nearly one-fifth is arable. The river Yenesei (roughly speaking) divides the country into east and west, the surface of the western portion being almost entirely flat, whilst the eastern portion, especially towards the Pacific, is mountainous. Siberia extends over nearly 40 degrees of latitude, and in climate ranges from arctic to semi-tropical. In passing through the country from west to east, from the end of May to the beginning of October, between the 50th and 57th parallels, we found the temperature much the same as during the same period in England. When steaming on the Obi, at the beginning of June, on the 62nd parallel, my minimum thermometer fell during the night as low as 35° Fahrenheit, but rose by 9 o’clock to 75°. English winter clothing, therefore, by day was not too warm. Again, at Vladivostock, lying on the 43rd parallel, the heat towards the end of September was not too great for clothing suited to an English summer. All through the journey, however, when sleeping in the tarantass, it was sufficiently cold in the early morning, whatever might be the heat of the day, to make an ulster coat acceptable.
The political divisions of the country are two vice-royalties, called respectively Western and Eastern Siberia. Each of these is divided into “governments” and “oblasts.”[1]
The means of communication in Siberia are more ample than a foreigner might suppose. There are, indeed, no railways; but when the line, now in course of construction, from Ekaterineburg to Tiumen is finished, the English traveller will be able to go by steam from Charing Cross to Tomsk, a distance of 5,000 miles, and further east than Ceylon. As it is now, when Tiumen is reached, river communication becomes possible with each of the four capitals of Western Siberia. Again, the Amur presents a water passage inland from the Pacific, by which Nikolaefsk, Blagovestchensk, and almost Chita, may be reached; and now that Captain Wiggins has led the way through the Kara Gates, and Professor Nordenskiöld has followed on to Behring’s Strait, Russia may congratulate herself on having for the commerce of Siberia three additional outlets--the Obi, the Yenesei, and the Lena--to both Europe and Japan.
Again, there is the communication by roads, which is the more important on account of the many months the rivers are frozen over. There are two post roads by which Siberia is entered from the west; one through Orenburg, which is little used, and the other through Ekaterineburg to Tiumen. There is also a third road, not much used, which crosses the Urals further north, and connects Veliki Ustiug, on the Northern Dwina, with Irbit. The high road to China leaves Tiumen in an easterly direction to Omsk, where the routes from Orenburg, Semipolatinsk, and Central Asia converge. The main road goes east to Tomsk, where it is joined by roads on the north from Narim, and on the south from Barnaul; it then continues eastward to Krasnoiarsk, where it is joined by roads, on the north from Yeneseisk, and on the south from Minusinsk. After this it takes a south-easterly direction to Irkutsk, whence there go two ways--one to the north-east, to Yakutsk, and so on to Kamchatka; the other, and principal one, to the south-east and round the base of Lake Baikal to Verchne Udinsk. Here it divides into two, that to the right leading to Kiakhta and China; that to the left running east, through Chita to Stretinsk. Thence the traveller proceeds on the Shilka and Amur--by boat in summer, and on the ice in winter--past Blagovestchensk to Khabarofka, whence, to the left, he continues on the Amur to Nikolaefsk, or he turns to the right up the Ussuri and the Sungacha to Vladivostock. Along all these roads there is postal and, except towards Yakutsk, telegraphic communication also.
An ethnographical map of Siberia, coloured according to the area which is occupied by its various nationalities, reveals the fact that only a very small portion of the country is inhabited by Russians.[2] In fact, a narrow strip of country suffices to show their habitat, if drawn on either side of the great land and water highways, and somewhat widened in the mining districts of the Yeneseisk and Tomsk governments; and as the aborigines do not generally follow agriculture, it will be inferred that those parts of the land which are under cultivation lie within this narrow strip. The same observation will also indicate that, whilst the language of the towns and the highways is Russian, a knowledge of other tongues is needed for extensive intercourse with the natives.
Having made these general remarks concerning Siberia, we proceed on our journey from Tiumen to Tobolsk, en route for Tomsk, which is best reached in summer by river, steaming for 1,800 miles, the post road from Tiumen to Tomsk passing through Omsk, or by a somewhat nearer way, leaving Omsk to the south, and then crossing the Barabinsky steppe.
We arrived at Tiumen on Thursday, the 29th May, bringing with us two loads of luggage, and leaving the rest to follow by “goods’” transport. There was steam communication between Tiumen and Tobolsk twice a week, the passage occupying a day and a half; but the steamer that went on to Tomsk was to leave on the following Monday, by which time the remaining luggage could not arrive. It became, therefore, a question whether we should wait for it or go before, in the hope that, whilst we were making détours, our books might overtake us. My Finnish friend, Miss Alba Hellman, had sent me some pamphlets for distribution amongst a colony of Finns and others from the Baltic provinces, numbering about 1,800, and located at Ruschkova, not far from the city of Omsk. We at first thought, therefore, to make this détour, and then, instead of returning to Tiumen, to go “across country” to Tobolsk, and thus see the prisons, and wait for the next steamer but one, in which we hoped all our luggage might be forwarded; but this plan our friends at Tiumen condemned. The question then remained, How could we see Tobolsk? The steamer in passing would stay but for an hour or two, and another boat would not follow for a week. The only alternative was to drive. But terrible accounts were given of the roads, which had not yet dried after the breaking up of the frost. Not to see Tobolsk, however, was out of the question, and we therefore determined to make the attempt by road, hoping to reach the city on Saturday, see the prisons on Monday, and take steamer the following day.
Accordingly, on Friday night, late, we left Tiumen in two tarantasses, with three horses to each. At the first station the post-master gave us warning that the roads were very bad, and that only one or two travellers had passed that way since the waters had subsided. On coming to the first river, it was found to be unapproachable at the usual place of embarkation. A ferry-boat had, therefore, to be brought to us, some six miles out of the way, and so we were kept waiting five hours. Whilst thus delayed, report said that the post-master kept hardly half the men required by his contract for working the ferry, and, further, that the men were sometimes extortionate. When, therefore we had rowed six miles down the stream to the landing-place, and the post-master could give no satisfactory reason why we had been thus kept, we thought it right, for the benefit of future travellers, to enter in his “book for complaints,” bearing the Government seal, our regrets that his neglect had detained us five hours.
About eleven o’clock the same night another episode occurred, which illustrates the pleasures of spring travelling in Siberia. The post-master gave us, what we never had before or after,--two outriders to convey us over a bad place on the road. Towards midnight we slept, when, being awakened by repeated shouting, I peeped out and saw that we were plunging among willows and mire. The outriders were holding up the tarantass to keep it from toppling over. Then came more shouting, with desperate jerking and pulling of the horses, which were up to their knees in bog, till solid ground was gained, and all stopped for breath. The next thing was to get the luggage tarantass through. We heard in the distance a crash, and lo! one of the shafts was broken. A horseman went back to the village for a new one, but in vain, and the old one was repaired. Whilst waiting we had time to look around. It was not yet morning, but the rays of the sun, which in northern countries are seen above the horizon all the night through at this time of the year, shed sufficient light on our darkness to give a weird appearance to all that was visible.
Silence was broken only by the incessant croaking of frogs, and by the men, who were relating to each other how they had got through. One had slipped into water up to his waist. The temperature was anything but warm; but, poor fellows! they seemed to regard things as in their normal condition, and uttered repeated thanks when they were dismissed with a gratuity of a few extra kopecks. Further on we had to wade through water above the axletrees, and during the last stage to cross five streams, the last of which was the Irtish. Tobolsk at length was reached, but not until Sunday night, and after a journey of forty-eight hours instead of twenty, as we expected.
By posting from Tiumen to Tobolsk, we purchased experience of early summer roads; and, in so doing, saw things which I should be sorry to have missed. Among these were several villages peopled exclusively by Siberian Tatars. These people differ in one important respect from most of the other nations living with the Russians in Siberia, in that they have a history and can look back to great princes who have made a name for themselves in the annals of the world. They are remnants of those who, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, in the days of Genghis Khan and his descendants, overran Northern Asia, and wrested the land from its aboriginal inhabitants. They pushed their conquests to the Volga, and Serai, on that river, became the capital where their great Khans (known as the Khans of the Golden Horde) lived and reigned, and whence they long proved formidable antagonists to the Russians. At length came their disruption. Kasan was founded in the fifteenth century, and was the capital of a small khanate. A second khanate was that of Astrakhan, a third that of Krim, a fourth that of Tiumen--all fragments of the main horde which had collapsed in the fifteenth century. Towards the close of the sixteenth century, the Russians took from the Tatars Kasan and all else west of the Urals, and those on the east of the mountains, in the region of the Irtish, were afterwards subjugated by Yermak and his followers. Tatar villages may still be found between Kasan and Tobolsk, beyond which these people inhabit a district stretching south to the Kirghese hordes, and south-east as far as the Altai Mountains, and so joining the territory west of Irkutsk peopled by the Buriats.[3] The Tatars live among and are subject to their Russian conquerors; but the two races do not blend--one race being Christian, the other Mohammedan. The traveller is reminded of this by noticing that the Tatars, when on a journey, carry with them their wooden basins, for they will not drink from a vessel used by Russians; and so, in some parts, Russians will not drink from Tatar cups, though this exclusiveness wears away where Russians are many and Tatars are few. The Tatars have a good physique: dark eyes, swarthy skin, black hair, and high cheek-bones. Their strength of body is such as to make them excellent workmen, as may be seen by the enormous burdens they carry in loading vessels at Nijni Novgorod and Kasan. They are much liked in the capitals as coachmen, for they understand horses well. I heard good accounts of them likewise as servants in the hotel at Petersburg. They are not drunken, and are therefore valuable as waiters. Their women are supposed to wear veils, and do so in the cities. In the villages they content themselves with shawls, which are drawn nearly over the face when a stranger approaches. Men and boys, whether in the house or abroad, wear a small skull-cap, sometimes richly embroidered; and on high days some are seen with white turbans. These and their long cassock-like coats give the men a decidedly oriental appearance. Both men and women wear top-boots, and generally goloshes over them, so that, on entering the house or the mosque, they have only to slip off the goloshes to secure clean shoes.[4]
In the Tatar villages the green domes and pinnacles of the Russian church, surmounted with the cross, were of course wanting; and in their places were found Mohammedan mosques, with minarets surmounted with the crescent. These latter reminded one of the shingled steeples of English village churches. Our first sight of Tatar worship was on the Volga, on board the steamer at sunset. Three Tatars approached the paddle-box, on a clean part of which they spread a small carpet. Leaving their goloshes on the deck, they knelt on the carpet, bowed their heads to the ground, and, rubbing their hands as if washing, chanted their prayers. They then appeared to pray silently in deepest reverence with closed eyes, and as if in total oblivion that a crowd was looking on. We were told that the pious pray thus at least three times a day, wherever they may be. At Kasan we had an opportunity of seeing their congregational worship in a Tatar mosque. Permission was given us to enter, if at the bottom of the stairs we would take off our goloshes, or, having none, our boots. The Mohammedan reason for this practice seemed to be that they did not wish to bring into the place anything soiled or unclean.
The building inside had a square room, with the barest of bare white walls, without attempt at ornament of any sort or kind. The only piece of furniture even was a high wooden rostrum approached by stairs, from which exhortations are delivered on Fridays. There were no chairs or benches, or any resemblance to an altar or table. Those who assembled early sat on the ground with their legs beneath them, apparently for private prayer, reading, and meditation; but upon some one beginning to murmur in a low strain, all jumped up, ran to the front, and arranged themselves in ranks. They commenced their prayers by placing the thumb into or on the lower part of the ears, with the palms of the hands outwards. Then they stood, bowed, knelt, and then lowered the head to the ground. This is done a certain number of times, according to the hour of the day, twice at early morning, and increasing till five or more at the last of the five daily services. At the conclusion of prayer they passed their hands over their faces. All these external acts of devotion were done by each rank with the utmost precision, and the histrionic effect, as some would call it, was excellent; only that to one in the rear of four or five ranks of men, of each of whom nothing could be seen but the soles of their feet and the seats of their trousers, the spectacle was somewhat grotesque. In the less demonstrative parts of the service, however, there was not an eye that wandered, with the single exception of a man who bestowed a glance on us strangers; nor a man who did not behave in a manner becoming the occupation in which he was engaged. Some few who came in late did not join those whose service had begun, but commenced a separate one for themselves.
The floor was covered with clean matting, on which lay here and there a common rosary made of date-stones, ninety-nine in number, and divided by beads into three sections.
The Tatars objected to give us a translation in Russian of the prayers they said thereon. We heard elsewhere that they have ninety-nine names of God; and a Tatar prisoner--apparently a gentleman--told me that they had a separate prayer for each bead. The uneducated, however, do not know these many names of the Deity. On the following day we had the opportunity of asking a monk concerning the Russian rosary, which differs from both the Mohammedan and the Roman.[5]
The Tatars can read the Scriptures in Turkish, and are apparently not indisposed to do so, provided it does not attract attention. A colporteur at Moscow told me that he sold fifty-seven copies to Tatars in the villages between Kasan and Perm, though they became angry in the larger towns if he attempted openly to sell them in the Tatar quarter. I took with me a few Turkish gospels, and among the prisoners at Barnaul found three Tatars, one of whom could read. As we repassed the door of their room, all three were seen sitting with their legs beneath them, the two illiterate ones listening to their scholarly friend with eager attention. We met several of this race in prison and elsewhere, as we proceeded onwards, but I do not remember passing through whole villages of Tatars after we left the district of Tobolsk. Hence we were the more glad not to have missed these.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] I am not clearly informed as to the exact difference between a government and an oblast, but I am under the impression that an oblast (which means a “province”) is a territory often newly acquired and under martial law, whereas, in a “government,” things have settled down, and the civil and military organizations are under separate control. The word “oblasts” is sometimes translated “territories”; their relation to “governments” being similar to the relation between “Territories” and “States” in America. The oblasts in Siberia are Akmolinsk and Semipolatinsk in the west, and Yakutsk and the Sea Coast in the east; but, to avoid confusion, we will speak of them all as governments or provinces. Each province has its capital, which ranks as a “government” town, and each uyezd has likewise its principal town. Each province is subdivided into districts, called uyezds; uyezds into vollosts; and vollosts into villages, called selo, if with a church, or derevnia if without. In the villages the chief man is called a starosta; in the vollosts a zasidatil. Over each uyezd commonly presides an ispravnik; over each province a governor; and over each vice-royalty a governor-general. Western Siberia is divided into four provinces, namely: Tobolsk, Tomsk, and Semipolatinsk, each of which has a capital, bearing the name of the province; and Akmolinsk, which has Omsk for its capital. Eastern Siberia is divided into six provinces: Irkutsk and Yakutsk, with capitals of the same names; and Yeneseisk, Trans-Baikal, Amur, and Sea Coast (or Maritime), with capitals named Krasnoiarsk, Chita, Blagovestchensk, and Nikolaefsk.
[2] The total population, Russian and aboriginal, according to the Journal de St. Petersbourg, August 7th, 1881, quoting the most recent statistics, numbers 1,388,000 souls; but I am not sure whether “souls” may not mean males only, as it sometimes does in Russia. They are divided among the provinces as follows: Tobolsk, 463,000; Tomsk, 324,000; Irkutsk, 165,000; Yeneseisk, 164,000; Trans-Baikal, 141,000; Amur, 3,000; Sea Coast, 13,000; and Yakutsk, 112,000. This says nothing of Akmolinsk and Semipolatinsk.
[3] Mr. Wahl, in his “Land of the Czar,” which contains much valuable ethnographical information, gives the number of the Siberian Tatars of the governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk at 40,000. Dr. Latham also, in his “Native Races of the Russian Empire,” traces their affinities with many peoples both in Europe and Asia, all of whom he classifies under the general name of Turks, and points out that the area covered by the Turkish stock is perhaps larger than that of any other race in the world. The general name of Turks includes the Tatars of Kasan, of Siberia, the Caucasus, and several other places; also the Kirghese, Yakutes, and many smaller tribes, some of which will hereafter be referred to under the respective provinces which they inhabit. The Turkish stock are, as to their religion, Christians, Pagans, and Mohammedans: Christians where they have been won over by the Russians to the Greek Church; Pagans where they have not been reached even by Mohammedanism, but have remained in the darkness of aboriginal Shamanism, as is still the case with a few of the Yakute Turks; and Mohammedans, which is the case for the most part with those of the country through which we passed.
[4] The natural home of the Turk or the Tatar is the steppe, where they dwell in tents, and are herdsmen, horsemen, and in some cases camel-drivers. Those we passed gain their livelihood by agriculture, by the breeding of cattle, and by the transport of goods. Their houses were neat and cleanly, and compared favourably with those of the Russians.
[5] The mention of all three invites a short study in “comparative religions,” which may be briefly made as follows:--The complete Roman rosary consists of 150 beads on a string, divided into 15 decades, between each of which is a large or distinctive bead. Where the two ends join there are 5 other beads attached, and at the loose end a crucifix. It is used thus:--On the crucifix is repeated the Creed; on the first bead the Lord’s Prayer; on each of the next three the “Hail, Mary!” and on the fifth bead the Lord’s Prayer. This is by way of introduction. Then on each of the first 10 beads are said these words: “Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee! Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,--Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” When this has been said ten times, the “Pater Noster” is said on the dividing bead, and this is continued till 150 prayers have been offered to the Virgin, and 15 to “our Father,” and then the odd beads are used in inverse order for a conclusion, as before for an introduction.
The Russian rosary looks smaller, but has also certain beads larger, or at least distinguishable from the others. It is not worn or used by ordinary members of the Russian Church, but only by monks and nuns. I was told by a nun at Moscow that they say on each bead, “May Jesus Christ have mercy on sinners!” but a monk at Kasan said (what is not irreconcilable with the former) that on each ordinary bead they say, “Lord God of heaven and Jesus Christ, have mercy upon us”; and on the large and distinctive bead they say a prayer either to Jesus Christ or the Virgin, the latter beginning something to this effect: “Thou mighty Mary, hear our prayers, and take away from thine unworthy servants all sin,” etc. Lastly, we were told that the Mohammedan continues to say on his rosary, “There is but one God, and Mohammed is His prophet”; and that if they do not know the ninety-nine names of God they merely count the beads.
Chapter VI
SIBERIAN PRISONS.
Old Finnish prisons.--Model Petersburg prison.--Officers.--Contraband importations.--Russian prisons of six kinds.--Siberian prisons of three kinds: their number, location, structure, furniture.--Prisoners: their classification.--Kansk statistics.--Method of trial.--Remands.--Exchanging names and punishments.
The prisons of Russia occupy a position midway between the dungeons of the Middle Ages and the modern cellular abodes for criminals of the nineteenth century. A few of them, however, approach very near these extremes on either side. With regard to Finland, it is hardly fair to hold the Russian Government responsible for the condition of its prison affairs, because, although the Emperor is Grand Duke of that country, he allows these liege subjects to make their own laws. Nevertheless, I can never forget the vividness with which my boyhood’s reading came back to me or Robin Hood and the dungeons of Nottingham Castle, when I first visited the old prisons of Åbo and Wiborg. The descent by steps with candles to prisoners in the lower rooms, the dim light entering by windows in walls ten feet thick, the clanking of chains, the like to which I have seen in no other country except perhaps Mongolia--these things spoke more eloquently than a visit to the former prison of Sir Walter Raleigh, or even the unused Ratisbon chamber for the torture of Protestant heretics; and that because these northern prisons were inhabited by living men. The majority of the Finnish prisons, however, and certainly all the new ones, are better than the two I have mentioned; though, unless a change has taken place since 1876, the Finns still have and use sets of irons nearly ten times the weight of any others I have seen in Europe. To pass to the other extreme. One sees in Petersburg a brand-new prison, which may be supposed to represent the very beau ideal of what a house of detention ought to be.
It is only right to say, however, before going further, that the condition of prisons and criminals in Russia is in a transitional state. The authorities have seen the necessity for reforms for at least 20 years, and great pains have been taken that these reforms should be made judiciously and effectively. Deputies have been sent to visit the prisons of other countries and report thereon; a commission has been appointed to receive the reports, to consider and debate, and so thoroughly to “shed upon the question the light of science.” All this has been done, and the reforms are yearly expected to take place, pecuniary reasons alone delaying the change for the better. Meanwhile a model prison has been built in the capital, and those who wish to see what Russia can do should visit this house of detention for persons awaiting their trial. It is built in the shape of a right angle, having two long corridors four storeys high. There are 285 separate cells for men, 32 for women, others for confinement in common, as well as places for associated and solitary exercise. Into cell No. 227 the late Emperor once entered, of which they keep up the remembrance by allowing no one to be confined therein. No expense appears to have been spared in building the prison. The floors are of asphalte, and the door of each cell is of solid oak. Within are iron bedsteads, made to fold and hook up neatly against the wall. The tables and seats are of sheet iron, with hinges; and, both within the cells and without, every article and fitting of brass is rubbed to a high degree of polish. The officers move about noiselessly in felt shoes, so that they can unexpectedly and at any moment observe a prisoner through the wire-covered inspection-holes. In the infirmary are 10 cells for those who are to be kept apart, and 32 beds for those who live in common. There is likewise a room in which 40 men may mingle by day, and a general sleeping apartment with 36 bedsteads, across each of which wire is stretched, making for the prisoner a hard but clean, and, I should imagine, not uncomfortable bed. There is also a room for bookbinding, where a few can work.
The building contains three places of worship, for Russians, Roman Catholics, and Protestants respectively, the Russian having a very handsome ikonostasis and chandelier; and I was pleased to find that, if a man can read, he has always a New Testament in his cell, and further that, by asking, he can obtain from the library other books in addition. This is as it should be.
In the female division we found for warders superior-looking young women dressed in uniform, the insignia of office on their collars being a pair of crossed keys. Some of the women prisoners, as with the men, are placed together in common, and in some cases they have their choice of solitary or social life. This is true in a sense other than that which first appears; for one lady prisoner, a criminal condemned to Siberia, was about to take to herself a husband before proceeding thither, and the happy event was to be celebrated in the prison on the morning after my visit. Peeping through the food aperture of one of the doors was the face of a pretty young woman, a political prisoner, in whose possession had been found suspicious books. There was a women’s reception-room, having a bath warmed by gas; but as it was found to cost about five shillings to heat, it is not surprising that this particular bath is seldom used.
Dark cells were shown to us, in which a prisoner may not be put for more than six successive days. The place where prisoners were allowed to converse with their friends was dark, which is not usual; and I observed in it no place for an officer to sit between the parties whilst they were speaking.
The attempts of the authorities to keep the prisoners from intercourse with one another, and with the outer world, do not yet appear to be perfectly successful.
┌───┬───┬───┬───┬───┐ │ A │ B │ C │ D │ E │ ├───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ └───┴───┴───┴───┴───┘
The Polish prisoners in Warsaw, according to M. Andreoli, had a plan by which they could pass news in a couple of hours to all the prisoners in the fortress. A square was divided into 25 spaces for the 25 letters of the Polish alphabet. One knock was understood to mean A, two knocks B, and so on; or, again, these signals might be changed by one knock, signifying V, and so forth; this dumb speech being kept up by tapping on the walls. This, however, is only one method.
In the chapel of the model prison at Petersburg are 24 boxes for prisoners whom they wish to keep from holding communication with each other, even by a look. But the partitions which separate them are only of wood, and I observed that those I entered had been furtively bored with small holes, through which conversation could be held. Again, the prisoners are allowed to receive food from their friends outside, and, although it is first examined by the officials, the friends manage sometimes to introduce for the prisoners some strange culinary concoctions. There were brought to a man, for instance, one day 230 roubles in a basin of buttermilk. Again, another man was frequently found the worse for drink in his cell. Milk was regularly brought to him, and duly tasted by the authorities; but still the man got drunk. At last they discovered that the jug in which the milk was brought had a false bottom with an aperture in the handle, and so the mystery was solved. What will not topers do to procure drink? On arriving at Werchne Udinsk, we heard that a drunken woman had just been detected in trying to smuggle spirits into the prison in a pig’s entrails!
I saw quite a collection of contraband articles at Petersburg, which had been found in the possession of prisoners. Among them were knives (one ingeniously made from a steel pen), playing cards, and dominoes--all of them of original and unique, if not of artistic, character; also a file, for which a prisoner had given a warder 50 shillings. The man, too, had made busy use of his purchase. He set his mind upon breaking loose, and thought to file through a bar of iron an inch or more thick that confined him. But he could do his work only during the time that the warders were at dinner and at supper, and then not too loudly, giving 200 strokes of the file at dinner and 100 at supper time. He went on thus for three months, and then managed to break the iron. But he was detected, and condemned to Siberia, whither he had already been sent before, and whence he had managed to escape. There he has probably by this time found less costly and well-built prisons from which to break loose.
Before speaking, however, of the prisons of Siberia, it may be well to observe that in European Russia there are at least six various kinds of prisons. There is, first, the fortress--such as that at Schlüsselburg, in which it is generally supposed are confined grave offenders, especially the political and revolutionary. I have not visited one of these. Next there are military prisons, in which severity of discipline is said to be similar to that of the fortress. Then there are hard-labour prisons, in which long-term convicts work out their sentences. There are also houses of correction, where short-term prisoners do the same; likewise houses of detention, in which persons are kept awaiting their trial. I heard also of “houses of industry,” which, unless I am mistaken, are somewhat like our reformatories; and, lastly, there are buildings in which prisoners on their march to distant places stay temporarily--some only for a few days, others for weeks. These nice distinctions, however, can be drawn only in large towns in European Russia. In Siberia, especially in small towns, the same building serves for all classes of prisoners, the best arrangement practicable being made for special cases. Speaking generally, and from my own observation rather than from accurate information upon the subject, there appeared to me to be in Siberia three classes of buildings which the English would call by the general name of prisons. There is, first, the étape, in which exiles on the march rest for a night or two; next, the perisylnie prison, in which, for various reasons, exiles may have to wait--it may be during the winter, or until the ice be broken up on the rivers; and, thirdly, the ostrog, which means a stronghold, and is a prison in general, where a man may be simply confined, work at a trade, or eat and sleep after working outside in the fields or mines. I have no statistics of the total number of prisons of all sorts in Siberia, but suppose it cannot be less than 300, which may be roughly computed thus: Nikolaefsk is more than 9,000 versts from Tiumen, and, supposing that convicts walk 30 versts a day, they would require 300 resting-places for that route alone. Some parts of the way, it is true, are traversed in summer by river communication; but no notice has been taken in my estimate of off-lying routes north and south, as, for instance, to Yakutsk, Barnaul, etc. The expenses, therefore, of building and keeping in repair this vast number of prisons must be very considerable.
As to the location of the prisons. The étapes are found all along the road from Tiumen to the Amur. There will also be found a prison or lock-up in most of the principal towns. But of the larger buildings there is one at Tiumen for the reception of all the ordinary exiles as they come from Russia, and from which, as already stated, they are distributed over Siberia. At Tobolsk are three hard-labour prisons, with about 1,000 convicts, in which prisoners often spend part of their terms before going further east. The next building of similar dimensions is called the Alexandreffsky central prison, about 50 miles from Irkutsk, where are some 1,500 hard-labour convicts. Continuing east, there were formerly some large hard-labour prisons at Chita and Nertchinsk, tidings from which, in years gone by, have caused many an ear to tingle; but since the Russians have gained the Amur, and many of the mines have passed from Government into private hands, the great bulk of the convicts have been sent further east. At Kara, on the Shilka, for instance, is a large penal colony, where there are upwards of 2,000 convicts living in and about six prisons, the men being supposed to work in the gold-mines. After Kara, the next large colony is on the island of Sakhalin, which represents the utmost bound of Russian penal life. I have said nothing of the prisons in the provinces of Akmolinsk and Semipolatinsk, as I did not go there. There is or was a large prison at Omsk, through which exiles used formerly to pass; but, now their route has been changed, it serves only for local purposes. They have no prisons in these provinces, I believe, of considerable dimensions.
Some of the larger prisons in Siberia, especially those of stone, were not originally built for their present purpose. There are certain features, however, about the others which are more or less common to all. The Siberian prison, like the houses of the Siberian people, is usually built of logs calked with moss to keep out the cold. Near the principal building, but generally detached, are the kitchen, the bath-house, exercise-yard, stores for provisions, out-houses, etc., and enclosing the whole is a high palisade of wooden poles pointed at the top. From the fact that almost all the new prisons of Europe are built upon the cellular plan, the detained being kept solitary, it appears to have been recognised as a principle that the old method of herding prisoners together is a bad one. The same principle would seem to have been adopted also by Russia, in that the plan of the new house of detention in the capital is in the main cellular. In Siberia, however, the old plan continues, and usually the prisons inside are divided into large rooms or wards, in each of which the principal feature is an inclined wooden plane, resembling that of a guard-room bed, upon which the prisoners sit and lounge by day, and sleep by night. If the room be square, this divan or platform is placed against three of the walls, or, if it be oblong, there may be a passage up the centre, from which the sleeping places ascend to the walls on either side; or, lastly, if the room be very large, there are two platforms meeting like a low gable in the centre of the room, and two others against the walls. Thus space is economised, and as many as 40 or 50 men (once I found 100) are packed in a room. There are usually a few separate cells for political or special offenders, and one or two for punishment.
Connected with the large prisons are usually a hospital, one or more chapels, sometimes a school-room, and a few workshops.
The large rooms or wards have little or no furniture. Each is provided with an ikon, or sacred picture, and sometimes with a shelf on which the inmates may put their spoons, combs, and other table and toilet requisites with which they provide themselves.
Concerning the prisoners, it has been already intimated that those belonging to the upper classes are kept apart. There is a further classification in some of the large prisons according to the crimes committed: a room for murderers; a second for forgers and utterers of base money; a third for thieves, and generally two or three for “vagabonds”--that is, not merely for vagrants in the English sense of the word, but generally for persons who have run away from supervision, who have no papers, and can give no good account of themselves.[1]
The number of persons in Siberian prisons awaiting their trial, or the confirmation of their sentences, is very considerable. This leads me to speak of the courts, the judges, and their mode of trial. Since November 20th, 1860, law reforms were begun in Petersburg, Moscow, and Odessa, with their respective districts; and the new method of trial resembles that of England, with a mixture of certain French elements and some local introductions from Russia. Under the new régime in European Russia there are three courts, namely: those of the Judge of the Peace; the Assizes; and the Senate. A Judge of the Peace tries civil cases involving interests up to £50, and criminal cases involving a year’s punishment or less. Appeal from his decision may be made to a periodical meeting of Judges of the Peace for the district. At the court of Assizes, which consists of from three to nine persons with a president, trial is made by jury. The names of persons liable to serve are put into an urn, from which 36 are drawn by lot. From these the procureur, who is the public prosecutor, may, without assigning any reason, strike off eight, and likewise the prisoner’s advocate a greater number, bringing them down to 14. Then, if this jury decide that the prisoner be guilty, the opinion is asked of both procureur and advocate as to what punishment, according to the code, in their opinion should be inflicted; after which the president gives the decision of the court. The Senate is simply a court of appeal--does not re-try cases, but merely judges whether or not in the lower court the law has been rightly administered.
Trial by jury is not yet introduced into Siberia, but offenders are judged by a tribunal consisting of odd numbers, of not more than seven nor less than three. The tribunal is a standing institution, the members of which are paid according to their grade--from about £70 to £100 a year. A procureur (who is an officer of the Government) prosecutes; and a barrister, retained by the prisoner, defends. Witnesses are called on both sides, and the tribunal decides by a majority of votes whether the prisoner be guilty or not. In case of even numbers being present, or of equal voting, the president has a vote and a half; but should the president be absent, and there be an even number for and against the prisoner, then the defendant in this and all similar cases has the benefit of the doubt. Should a verdict of guilty be returned, the tribunal decides the punishment according to the regulation of the code. In capital or important cases, however, in Siberia, such as murder, the judgment of the tribunal must be confirmed by the Governor-General; and hence, when the vastness of the country is considered, it will be seen why prisoners sometimes wait so long uncondemned. Suppose, for instance, a man commits a murder in a place which happens to be at a distance from the town where a tribunal sits. Some one goes to the authorities, deposes that a murder has been committed, gives evidence in writing, and the culprit is arrested. If the culprit can find bail he may remain free till wanted (in Russia it is enough for this purpose to deposit, as a guarantee of returning, a certain sum of money); but if unable to find bail he must go to prison till he can be sent, suppose, to Nikolaefsk. If it be winter, it would be too costly--the Amur being frozen--to send him by horses; he must therefore wait till the following June for the opening of the navigation. Then, having proceeded to Nikolaefsk, he is tried, perhaps within a week, found guilty, and his punishment determined, after which it is necessary that the papers concerning his case be sent to the Governor-General at Irkutsk, a distance, there and back, of 5,000 miles; and so the prisoner must wait till his sentence is confirmed. Meanwhile he is supplied with a paper, which is, I presume, his ticket of indictment.[2]
Whether, when the case is fully ended, the prisoner keeps this or a similar paper, I am not quite sure. I am under the impression that he does, at all events whilst he is on the road to his destination; and, further, that these papers serve as capital on which the prisoners exercise their ingenuity for their mutual convenience. I mean in this fashion: Ivan Nepomnoostchi has a ticket condemning him to five years’ labour in the coal-mines of Sakhalin, whilst the ticket of Augustus Poniatowski condemns him for a similar time to the gold-mines of Kara. For reasons best known to themselves, the one prefers country life and a cottage or prison near a wood, whilst the other inclines to a residence at the sea-side. So they change their tickets, their names, and, as far as they can, their beings, and sometimes manage in this way to effect what they wish. I have even heard of prisoners inducing those who are free to exchange places with them, the bargain being effected of course by money, and carried out whilst a gang of several hundreds is marching on to a steamer, for instance, where heads are counted, but where they cannot recognize faces. Goryantchikoff represents the “changing of names” as taking place in the presence of prisoner witnesses, and when several of the party are more or less intoxicated, the price given being sometimes as much as 30 or 40 roubles. All are bound to secrecy by esoteric law, and as the man receiving the money generally spends it quickly in drink and so cannot restore it, he not infrequently finds, when too late, that he has sold his liberty, or exchanged a lighter to receive a heavier punishment for a few glasses of brandy. This is dangerous work, however, for at some of the jails they take down a full description of the prisoners, though they do not usually photograph them, as in England. At Alexandreffsky, for instance, they have a large book, the pages of which are filled with columns headed as follows:--Name, age, crime, and punishment; from whence; appearance; term of punishment; arrival; single or married; religion; date of sentence; from what prison in Russia; remarks, etc.
I am not sure that I have given all the process by which they manage the transfer of tickets, but what is written may perhaps render intelligible the crime charged upon a roomful of prisoners at Irkutsk, who, we were told, had been “changing their names.”
The present state of things, however, as regards prisons and exiles, must, as already stated, be regarded as temporary, since the reforms of 1860 have been now extended as far as the Urals, and it is only a question of money when they shall be spread to Siberia also.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Some statistics with which we were favoured from Kansk for the previous year, 1878, give interesting facts, showing the ages of criminals when they committed their crimes, their education, condition as to marriage, religion, place of birth, and also their repetition of crimes. It should be borne in mind, however, that the figures refer only to a small district of Eastern Siberia, an okrug or circle, 200 miles in diameter, and with a population of 40,000. They are therefore primarily of local value, though in their general aspects they are highly suggestive. The number of criminals was 121 male and 61 female: in all, 182. Of these there were 31 from 17 to 21 years of age; 83 from 21 to 33; 45 from 38 to 45; and 33 from 45 to 70. The figures, too, show curiously enough that up to the age of 33 the proportion of male criminals is largely in excess of the females, but that after that age this order is reversed, and the proportion of female prisoners preponderates over that of the males. Of the entire number, 182, not one is marked “well educated,” only 46 could read and write, and 136 could do neither; 129 out of 182 were married, leaving 53 widows, bachelors, and spinsters. With respect to religious profession, they were classified thus: 112 were orthodox Russians, and 19 of other Christian denominations; 34 were Jews, and 17 of other non-Christian religions: 180 were born in the province; 22 had offended twice, and 3 had done so thrice.
[2] The following is a translation of such a paper, which is divided into six columns, with a printed heading to each, and filled up as follows:--
1. Surname, patronym, Christian name, and occupation of prisoner. (Gregory, son of Nicholas M----, a peasant.)
2. Age. (39.)
3. Crime. (Wrong passport.)
4. When and by whose order imprisoned. (On 9 April. Tomsk district police.)
5. When the case was tried and how it stands. (Terminated on 4 May, 1879. Now under revision.)
6. Remarks. (He begs it may be quickly ended.)
Chapter VII
SIBERIAN PRISONS (continued).
Charitable committees.--Prison food.--Clothing.--Work.--Hard labour.--Exercise.--Amusements.--Privileges.--Intercourse with friends.--Punishments.--Capital punishment.--Corporal punishment.--Irons.--Prison discipline.--Flogging.--Exceptional severities.
The Russians introduce or allow the introduction into their prisons of an ameliorating influence, in the form of local committees, for furthering the temporal welfare of the prisoners. “You see,” said to me the president of one of these committees, “we have two elements in the government of our prisoners. The police strive for the letter of the law, whilst we strive for kindness to the prisoner.” Thus justice and mercy go hand in hand; and when they happen to fall out, I fancy that in Siberia, after their easy-going fashion, mercy not unfrequently wins the day. Whether all prisons have local committees I do not know; but we came in contact with the operations of several. The members take upon themselves to superintend, clothe, and educate the children of prisoners; and in more than one place we found admirable asylums built for this purpose. They also lend a helping hand to prisoners’ wives, and at Irkutsk we found they had supplied the prison with a library. Their exertions, however, do not stop here; for they look after and in some cases improve and augment the prisoners’ food. The Government allows for each prisoner so much money a day. At Ekaterineburg, for instance, to the common exiles 10 kopecks; to the upper classes 15 kopecks. At Irkutsk we met an upper-class prisoner who had 17½ kopecks, which he received in money. The prisoners who remain at Ekaterineburg are allowed 6 kopecks a day. Instead, however, of each spending his 6 kopecks, the whole is taken and dispensed by the committee in the purchase for the general caldron of meat, vegetables, etc.; and they somehow manage out of threehalfpence a head to give to each prisoner two dishes of food. Whether the committee appeal to the public for funds I know not. At Tomsk we heard that each director of the prison committee gave his ten roubles annually, whilst from the neighbouring villages were brought presents of flour and other kinds of food. Again, it is common to see, outside prison gates, boxes in which may be placed offerings for the welfare of the prisoners; and such is the liberality of the people in this direction, especially on festivals, that in Petersburg those detained get more Easter eggs than they can eat. All this speaks of kindness on the part of the public towards prisoners, in which particular I know no nation that equals the Russian. Further allusion will be made to this hereafter.
Apart, however, from these philanthropic efforts, the reader will perhaps get a better idea of Siberian prison diet from details which came under our own observation. At Tiumen each man was said to receive daily 2½ lbs. (Russian) of bread, ½ lb. of meat on ordinary days, and ¾ lb. on holidays, with salt, pepper, etc., also a daily allowance of quass for drink. The fare in Tobolsk prison was the same, a bucketful of quass or small-beer being provided for every ten men. At Nikolaefsk I heard of corned beef and kash, or corn, substituted for vegetables. At the Alexandreffsky prison they had ½ lb. of meat, including the bone, and 2½ lbs. of bread. At Kara, however, where the men work in the mines, the allowance is still more liberal. Each receives daily 4 lbs. of bread, 1 lb. of meat, ¼ lb. of buckwheat, with tea, but no quass.[1] At Kara, when not working, they receive 3 lbs. of bread, ½ lb. of meat, and 1/12th of a lb. of buckwheat. We found in some of the prisons that, if they do not eat all their food, the prisoners may sell the remainder; or again, the surplus bread may be used for making quass, which, when given, always comes, I believe, from these “economies.” The diet, however, is considerably affected by the rigour with which fast-days are observed in the prisons. Every Wednesday and Friday are fast-days, and there are four great annual fasts, with an aggregate of at least a hundred days, so that there are probably quite half the days in the year when the prisoners get fast diet, which excludes flesh food. I understood, however, that this does not apply to those at hard labour; while other prisoners, during some of the long fasts, receive fish and fish-soup--the latter ad libitum. So at least it is at Tobolsk. If a man happens to be in a position to buy tea or such luxuries, he may do so, and his friends may, if they please, bring him food daily. Thus a man ought not to starve in a Siberian prison.
Nor is he left without clothing. Prisoners awaiting their trial, also exiles losing partial rights, may, if they choose, wear their own clothes, or, if they have none suitable, they are supplied by the Government. Those who lose all their rights, however, must wear convicts’ clothing. This consists, in summer, of a linen shirt and pair of trousers, and a peasant’s coat of camel’s hair, a specimen of which last I bought for five shillings. Those condemned to hard labour have two yellow diamond-shaped patches sewn on the back; those without labour have one piece only. Other marks of a similar character indicate the province from which they come. At Kara a coat of felt is given yearly. A shirt must last six months, and is washed once a week; whilst in summer a pair of rough leather shoes or slippers is served out every 22 days. Those working in the mines are provided also with leather gloves.[2]
Concerning their labour, I seriously avow my belief that in many cases the hardest part of a Siberian prisoner’s lot is not the work imposed upon him, but the absence of it. This appeared to prevail among the prisoners up to Kara.
I met at different places two Poles, who came to the east condemned to hard labour, but who got off exceedingly lightly. What one said amounted to this: that if he liked to work he worked, but if not he let it alone. The authorities told me, in one instance, that they cannot now find enough work for the exiles. Many of the mines have passed from Government into private hands, and some even of those remaining are more or less exhausted. Hence a part of the Russian criminals, who of old would probably have been exiled, are now detained in large prisons in European Russia, such as at Pskof, Wilna, Kharkhof, Orenburg, Simbirsk, Perm, etc.; but the plan has only lessened, not removed, the difficulty of finding useful yet laborious occupation for the condemned. When, therefore, it is remembered that a large number of the criminals cannot read, and that for those who can there has hitherto been, to say the least, but a poor supply of books, the tedium can be easily imagined of imprisonment without work in Siberia. Accordingly, it was little matter for surprise that we heard at Alexandreffsky of prisoners begging for work. In some of the prisons opportunities are afforded for the detained to work, which gives them employment, and also enables them to earn a little money with which to buy comforts. Some, however, are condemned to labour, which labour may be done for the Government direct, or it may be let out by the Government to private persons or companies, as at Kara, where some of the convicts work in private mines belonging to the Emperor, and at Dui in Sakhalin, where the coal-mines are worked by a commercial company.
Thus the work of convicts, when they are put to it, is mainly of three degrees of severity,--that of the fabric, the zavod, and the mines, which I understand to mean as follows. Fabric work is that of a manufactory, or the labour of ordinary mechanics, such as carpenters, blacksmiths, joiners, shoemakers, tailors, etc. The best Russian prison I have seen of this kind was at Petersburg, on the Wiborg side of the Neva, which had almost the busy hum of a factory, where everything seemed well arranged and kept going; but in the prisons of Tobolsk, which I understood to be of this character, there seemed an insufficient number of workshops in proportion to the number of criminals. The word zavod is synonymous with our “works” for the founding and casting of metals; and for this, I presume, is sometimes substituted heavy outdoor or indoor work, such as making bricks, mending roads, or manufacturing salt. But of this class of work we saw next to none, save a handful of men at Alexandreffsky, returning from making bricks. Once more, the mines are of at least three sorts--gold, silver, and coal. The work of the gold-mines resembles the labour of English navvies in making a cutting, whilst that of silver and coal, being underground, is more difficult. From reports I heard, however, of these latter two, it did not appear that the convicts were by any means overworked; but further details upon this matter will be furnished hereafter. Those condemned to the hardest labour need, of course, no special time for exercise. The prisoners without labour are allowed at Alexandreffsky an hour a day for this purpose, which appeared to me too little. More generally, however, we found they had a happy-go-lucky way, especially in the smaller prisons, of opening the doors in the morning, and letting the prisoners, if they did not misbehave themselves, go in and out of the yard as they liked--to sleep, talk, or bask in the sun, and in some cases to smoke.
I am not aware that the authorities permit the prisoners any amusements, though it has been already intimated that they find them for themselves--sometimes in the shape of cards, with which, if report be true, having nothing else to play for, they gamble away their food.
But we have not yet exhausted the prisoners’ privileges. Here are some more of them, though probably they are not the same in all the prisons. According to a convict’s behaviour he is placed in a certain category; and the longer he remains therein, and the better he behaves, the more ameliorations he gets. For instance, if a man condemned to fifteen years’ hard labour conducts himself well, he serves only thirteen years and two months, and, towards the end of the time, gains certain other privileges. If condemned to wear irons four years, he may, in a similar manner, lessen the time by one-third; if in the higher category, he receives 15 per cent. of what he earns by working for the Government, and in his spare time he may work on his own account; if in the lower category, he earns money, but it is withheld until he advances higher. At Alexandreffsky prisoners may receive money from their friends, up to a rouble a week, but not more. At Kara some prisoners are not allowed thus to receive money, but I heard of others there who receive as much as £15 a year, and who also receive visits once or twice a week from, not mere acquaintances--which is not allowed--but their families, who may also daily, if they please, bring them food.
I was told at one large prison that, strictly speaking, it was not permitted to prisoners (except political ones) to write to their friends, which seemed to confirm what I had heard and what I have written elsewhere. But unofficial persons denied this, saying that prisoners are free to write, and this also we heard at some of the prisons. The two statements may perhaps be reconciled thus: that it is one of those cases (and there are many such in Siberian prisons) in which the letter of the law is supposed to be more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
Once more, if men are well behaved, they get, before the expiration of a long sentence, into a position comparatively comfortable. They are allowed to live outside the prison with their wives and families; they may have their house and garden, still working a certain number of hours per day, and obliged to be in their homes by night; but otherwise they are free to do what they list, and are much in the same position as that of an ordinary labourer.
I have yet to speak of punishments, which are of two kinds--those decreed by the civil courts and courts martial, and those subsequently incurred in Siberia. Concerning the former two, it is not quite accurate to say that in Russia there is no capital punishment, since there are at least three offences for which death is the penalty, namely: (1) offences against the persons of the Imperial family, and certain laws concerning them; (2) military crimes, or, what is equivalent, crimes committed when a place is in a state of siege; (3) breaking quarantine laws, such as permitting a vessel with infectious diseases to come into a Russian port. But in these cases culprits are turned over to a military tribunal, which alone can sentence to death; in accordance with which I was told of a case happening in 1877 in Sakhalin, wherein some convicts, with much brutality, killed a whole family, and were sentenced to be shot; but this is rare, and since the convicts had already lost all rights, it would perhaps be considered hardly an exception to the rule that murder in Russia is not followed by capital punishment.
Nor, again, does the Russian law inflict upon any free man corporal punishment. The knout has been abolished for some years. They do, however, put their prisoners in irons, which for the legs weigh from about five to nine pounds English; and if a man rebels, he may get them as heavy as fourteen pounds. I was told, however, that the new chains weigh only five pounds. Those for the wrists weigh two pounds.
As to the period for wearing them, accounts differed. At Alexandreffsky, up to eighteen months usually; at Kara, four years; whilst, at Tobolsk, it was said that prisoners might be in chains from two months to eight years. The manner of carrying the fetters is as follows. Over the leg is worn a coarse woollen stocking, and over that a piece of thick linen cloth; then come the trousers, over which is bound on the shins a pad of leather. A stranger might wonder at first how the trousers could be taken off; and to satisfy our curiosity, a prisoner in Tiumen showed us how it was done, which gave me the opportunity to observe, when his leg was bare, that it had no marks from wearing the irons. On each leg a ring is not locked, but riveted. To these rings is attached a chain of about three feet in length, which, for convenience in walking, is usually suspended in the middle by a string from the waist. This may seem severe enough for English ideas of the present day, but I saw heavier on the legs of two murderers in America. Russian chains, however, are playthings compared with some to be seen in Finland, and which I have put on. In bringing the prisoners in Finland from the country districts to the towns, they make use of the farmers’ carts; and it sometimes happens that the cart is waylaid by accomplices, and the prisoner delivered. To prevent this, therefore, they in some cases put on an extraordinary suit of irons, which outdo those I saw even in China. First, there is a collar for the neck and a girdle for the body, which two are connected by means of chains, the hands likewise being fastened to the girdle. On each ankle is put an iron stirrup or socket, which projects over the front of the feet far enough to receive through its holes a heavy iron bar, weighing thirty-six pounds, the whole weight of which is made to rest on the prisoner’s insteps and to connect the feet. Then from the middle of the bar comes another chain, fastening it to the girdle. The whole is of iron, and weighs about 108 lbs. It should be added that these are seldom used in Finland, and then only for desperate characters; but in Russia no such chains exist. The heaviest of the Russian irons are about the weight, I imagine, of those formerly in use in England, if one may judge from the pair called “Jack Sheppard’s irons,” which are kept as a curiosity in Newgate. Moreover, if report be true, there is a good deal of hocus-pocus connected with Siberian fetters. To an ordinary observer the fetters look riveted on in such a manner that without a smith it would appear impossible to get them off. The largeness of the rings, however, to allow of their fitting over the stocking, the bandage of linen, the trousers, and then the leather gaiter, will make it probable that, on the removal of these bandages, it may be possible in some cases to slip out the naked foot. However that may be, I heard from another source, not to be doubted, that a certain governor of a province, on visiting one of his prisons, was moved with compassion, and ordered that the chains should be struck off the prisoners; upon which they wriggled and kicked them off with such alacrity as to leave no doubt on his mind that they had been donned as uniform in which to receive his Excellency’s visit. A released prisoner has told me that so dexterous do they become in pressing the thumb into the palm of the hand, that they used to slip off their handcuffs and sleep without them. M. Andreoli also mentions in his account that, whilst on the march, the payment of four roubles to the soldiers in charge got them free of the chain to which they were attached, on the understanding, however, that the guard should not be got into trouble by any one running away, and that the iron should be properly affixed when approaching the town or their resting-place for the night. He also mentions that, in a drove of 147 prisoners, there were 21--that is, a seventh--wearing chains. Throughout Siberia I saw only one man wearing handcuffs; but, in Western Siberia, chains were seen on the legs of many--how many I cannot say, but less, I should think, than a seventh; and this proportion markedly decreased as we proceeded further east.
The courts sometimes order a man--generally one who has run away repeatedly--to be chained, on reaching his destination, to a barrow or implement, which thus always accompanies him wherever he may go. A doctor informed me that he had seen a prisoner’s ticket with such a doom thereon within the previous twelve months; and I heard that at Sakhalin one or two ferocious characters were thus confined; but I saw none. There were none, I found on inquiry, among the two thousand at Kara; and such treatment was said to be exceedingly rare.
With regard to punishments inflicted for insubordination to prison authorities, or for subsequent crimes of convicts, the mildest form is incarceration in a solitary cell. A man is next deprived, in part, of food and minor comforts, as in England. Then, if not already in irons, he may have them put on; or, if this do not suffice, he may be “birched,” after the fashion in which our fathers corrected us. I witnessed this performance at Nikolaefsk. Having heard on a Saturday--which is there the day for flogging--that a man was to receive 60 stripes with the rod, I thought it right, since the visitation of prisons was my speciality, to go and see it, and thus shirk no occasion of witnessing with my eyes what I learned through my ears. The man was a released convict, of horrible countenance, who had served his time in confinement, and was subsequently taken as a joiner into a merchant’s establishment, and he had rewarded his employer by robbing him. Accordingly, in the police station, he was brought from his room to the presence of the police-master. Behind the culprit stood a Cossack, and at his side a clerk, who read over his sentence. The prisoner then signed the paper, to signify that he had heard it read, and was marched back to another room and placed on the floor, with his back laid bare, one Cossack holding his head and another his feet. Two soldiers then inflicted the stripes successively, whilst a third counted aloud the number administered. The man wriggled and roared, and the skin became very red, but I saw no blood, and the operation was soon over.
I came away, I confess, considerably perturbed; but the Nikolaefsk folks said that was nothing, and further informed me that, for the commission of other than very serious offences, they frequently deal in this summary manner with released convicts, both male and female. The switches composing the rod, according to M. Andreoli, must, by law, be sufficiently small to allow of three being passed together into the muzzle of a musket. Those I saw reminded me of a dame’s birch, save that they were longer, and the switches somewhat stouter than those formerly seen in schools--indeed, facsimiles of those used in the prison of Cold Bath Fields in London. A marvellous feature of the case is that some of the men (ay, and women too) not only receive the rod, but laugh and are impudent after it. One of my hosts in another town told me that some years ago, soon after the Amur came into the hands of the Russians, he was robbed by a soldier of some clothes, upon which the police-master sentenced the thief to receive 500 stripes with the birch rod; but the governor hearing of it increased the number to 1,100. My host was asked if he were willing to see the stripes inflicted; and, going at five in the morning, he saw 500 administered. As the man lay on the grass, and as each rod was worn out, it was replaced by a new one from a heap lying by. The prosecutor begged that the rest might be remitted, and came away. The whole number, however, were administered, and the man was kept in the hospital for a fortnight, at the end of which time he came to his prosecutor to ask for a glass of grog, and said that for a bottleful of spirits he would not mind having another 1,100 if it might again be followed by a fine time in the hospital!
I heard of others laughing at the birch. But there is yet one thing they fear, and that is a whip called the “troichatka,” or “plète.” I forewarn the reader that the treatment of this subject may harrow his feelings; yet, if a writer is to present a true picture of what has come under his observation, he must delineate not only the lights of his picture but the shadows also. The author of “Tom Brown’s School Days,” when about to describe a fight at Rugby, recommends any of his readers who feel particularly sensitive to skip the chapter; and I venture to give similar advice with regard to the next few paragraphs.
The knout, as already said, has been abolished for some years, notwithstanding the persistent introduction of this instrument into the pages of some of the vindictive class of writers on Russian affairs. I found it had been discontinued sufficiently long to make it difficult for me to get an explanation of what it used to be like. M. Pietrowski, in his “Story of a Siberian Exile,” De Lagny, and one or two other writers of his class, do their very best to invest the knout with every horror, and to make it appear that a long strip of flesh was torn off the culprit’s back at every stroke. A more trustworthy account is that of M. Andreoli, which I am the more disposed to believe, because it agrees pretty accurately with the description of the instrument given me by an old man who had seen it used at Chita. The Russian post-drivers still use for their horses what they call a “knout,” which is a short whip like a heavy English hunting-whip, only that the lash consists of three or four pieces of twisted hide linked together continuously by metal rings. It makes a formidable instrument even for driving a horse. But on comparing this with our two descriptions, I make no doubt that the genuine knout for criminals was a somewhat similar whip to that now employed sometimes for horses. M. Andreoli gives it a handle from one to two inches in diameter, and 9 inches in length. At the top of the handle is a ring, then a lash of raw hide 18 inches long, with a ring at the end; then a second lash and ring; and thirdly came the part which is the “knout” proper, namely, a flat lash of hard leather, 21 inches long, bent to a curve and ending with a hook something like the beak of a bird--the entire length of handle and lash being 2½ arshines, or nearly 6 feet. The instrument used to be wielded by a convict, who received his liberty or certain privileges for doing this work. I heard from a lawyer that the public flagellator in Moscow was so skilful in the manipulation of his weapon, that he could with it snip a cigarette off a window without breaking the glass, or at a single blow break an inch board, and, therefore, the spine of a man’s back. He was said to have found his profession so lucrative that, when his daughter married, he gave her a dowry of 60,000 roubles, at that time equal to, say, £9,000. He made his money from those he flogged. The law demanded that the person to be beaten should receive a certain number of stripes, but did not exact that the recipient should suffer; and thus, when well paid, this hero let the knout fall lightly--so, at least, the story goes.
The “troichatka,” or “plète,” is a whip of twisted hide, fastened to a handle 10 inches long and an inch thick. The lash, about the same thickness at the top as the handle, tapers for 12 inches, and then divides in three smaller lashes, 25 inches long, and about the size of the little finger, the whole measuring 4 feet in length, and weighing nearly 15 ounces. M. Pietrowski represents the plète as consisting of “three thongs weighted at the ends with balls of lead.” The balls of lead, however, if I mistake not, are a piece of invention to harrow the feelings. At all events, none of those I saw (and I saw a boxful) had anything attached to the lashes, nor did they need it, for the instrument is quite severe enough in itself. From 20 to 50 lashes is the number usually given, though they may go up to 100. The criminal is bound to a thick board, wide at the top and narrowed towards the bottom, called a kobyla, or “mare,” which, by means of an iron leg, is made to incline at an angle of about 30 degrees. At the upper end of the board are three places hollowed out to receive in the centre the face and head, and on either side the hands, all which are bound down with leather thongs. A little lower and at either side are two iron loops, which confine the arms, whilst the feet are secured at the bottom. At an execution (for such as described to me by eye-witnesses it almost amounts to) a medical man and some of the authorities must be present. The convict executioner takes three or more plètes, and, having stretched them to render them supple, takes up his position about 10 yards distant, walks quickly to secure a momentum, and brings down the lash with full force on the lower part of the culprit’s back. This he repeats two or three times, letting the lash fall in the same place. Then he walks from the other side, so as to bring it down in a different direction, and, after a few strokes, changes his whip and walks from a third point, the strokes thus falling upon the man something in the shape of a star or an asterisk. M. Andreoli intimates that the flagellator is often bribed by the culprit or his friends, in which case he brings down the first blow with terrible severity, making the poor creature writhe and scream horribly, but then diminishes the force of his blows as he proceeds; whereas, if he be not bribed, he begins gently and gradually increases in severity, which is far worse. He has, however, to be wary, for if he does not strike hard enough he is threatened with twenty-five stripes for himself, which were given the summer before my visit to an executioner in Nikolaefsk. Most descriptions of this punishment represent the culprit’s back as raw, and running with blood--and it is better for the man when this is the case. A skilful flagellator draws little or no blood, and more pain is caused when the skin simply rises in wales; but, when this is the case, mortification sometimes sets in, and the prisoner speedily dies. One thus thrashed in the morning had died at night during the week preceding that in which I received my information.
Before passing from this dreadful subject I wish to make quite clear what was told me: that no man for the first offence can, by Russian law, be condemned to corporal punishment. Also I was given to understand, by a legal authority, that the plète exists only at three places in Siberia--Kara, Nikolaefsk, and Sakhalin, (though I was informed by a released exile that he saw it, 15 years ago, at Chita, and nearly everywhere,) so that only the very worst criminals ever see it at all. If they were moderate offenders they would not be so far east, and those who get it have usually gone through deportation, prison, and irons, and yet remain incorrigible. Also it should be remembered that in these localities the inhabitants are few, and are surrounded by hundreds of convicts or ex-convicts; that a very large proportion of the women-servants, and men-servants too, are of the same class, some of them not having even finished their terms; and that, in addition to these ex-prisoners, who are supposed to be corrected and better behaved, a considerable number of the worst characters are constantly escaping. More than 100 escaped from Sakhalin, I was told, the winter before my visit. When free, they make for Nikolaefsk to escape starvation, caring little what they do. In 1877 three convicts, to get the paltry sum of £12, brutally killed a woman and put her down a well. Hence the inhabitants say that, were they not defended by some very strong deterrents, they would not be safe a moment, since, if a man commit half-a-dozen murders, he knows he is not to be hanged.
I have thus forced myself to mention all the kinds of punishment, painful as some of them are, that came under my observation or to my knowledge in Siberia; and I have done so in part because I desired to leave no room for uneasy suspicions that aught had been kept back from the reader. Moreover, I should not think it right to contradict the many false statements which have appeared from time to time concerning the punishment of Siberian exiles without giving a picture of things as I really found them.
On the whole, my conviction is that, if a Russian exile behaves himself decently well, he may in Siberia be more comfortable than in many, and as comfortable as in most, of the prisons of the world. There are yet other points to be mentioned in connection with Siberian prisons, but these can be best treated of as we visit, in succession, the various towns in which they are situated.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] If this highest scale of Siberian diet be compared with the highest scale in the prisons of England and Wales, as printed in the Reports of the Commissioners, Inspectors, and others for 1878, it will be found that the English prisoner gets per week of bread 10 lbs. against the Russian 25; the Englishman has 8 oz. of cooked meat and 14 pints of soup against the Russian’s 6 lbs. of meat; whilst the Russian has besides 1½ lb. of buckwheat and tea against the Englishman’s 5 lbs. of potatoes, 1½ lb. of suet pudding, 14 pints of porridge and cocoa. In fact, the Englishman has per week 17½ lbs. of solid food, 3 pints of soup, 14 pints of porridge and cocoa, whilst the Russian has 33 lbs. of solid food, and tea.
[2] The annual cost of provisions for each prisoner at Kara is 65 roubles and 72¾ kopecks--say £6 10_s._, and for men’s clothing 39 roubles 8⅜ kopecks, or £4. Women’s clothing is rather less expensive, so that the annual cost for food and clothing of men is £10 10_s._, and of women £10. In the new prison at Petersburg my notes give 25 kopecks a day as the cost for each prisoner, 15 kopecks being spent for food. This represents for the year 91 roubles 25 kopecks (rather more than £9), and 54 roubles 75 kopecks (£5 10_s._) respectively, and excludes, I presume, the item of clothing, since this prison at the capital is for those awaiting trial, and who consequently wear their own clothes.
Chapter VIII
THE OBI.
Dimensions of river.--Its tributaries.--Province of Tobolsk.-- Geographical features.--Population.--Voguls.--Samoyedes.-- Intemperance.--Commercial prospects of Obi.--Siberian produce.--Corn land.--Timber.--Cost of provisions.--Carriage.-- Discoveries of Wiggins.--Followed by Nordenskiöld.--Ship-building at Tiumen.--Navigation of Kara Sea.--Books on basin of Obi.
The Obi is one of the largest rivers of the Old Continent, and seems destined to play an important part in opening up to commerce the immense wealth of Western Siberia. Something, therefore, should be said of this enormous stream, and the province of Tobolsk through which it flows. The basin of the river contains more than a million and a quarter of square miles; an area nearly 2,000 miles in length, and, at the widest part, 1,200 in breadth.[1] This vast area is covered with a network of streams, navigable from the Arctic Ocean to the best parts of Western Siberia, the importance of which can hardly be overestimated, when it is borne in mind that the success of recent enterprise has demonstrated the possibility of carrying produce by water to Europe.
But let us now speak of the province, inhabitants, and aborigines of Tobolsk, which, though not the largest, is at once the oldest and by far the most populous of the governments of Siberia. It extends from the frozen ocean down to the 55th parallel, a distance of 1,200 miles from north to south, and of 700 miles in its widest part from east to west, its total area covering 800,000 square miles--a country, that is to say, seven times as large as Great Britain and Ireland. The surface, save where the western border approaches the Urals, is flat--so flat, indeed, that Tobolsk, which is 550 miles from the sea, is only 378 feet above its level. It has no large lakes, but there are several small ones, from which salt is obtained.[2]
Ethnographically considered, the province is not so varied as some others, the people being for the most part Russians, Tatars, Voguls, Ostjaks, or Samoyedes; the Tatars belonging to the Turkish, and the Voguls and Ostjaks to the Finnish stock. Some writers classify the Samoyedes as Finns, but Mr. Howorth considers they should be treated as a race apart. Mr. Rae, in his “Land of the North Wind,” and Mr. Seebohm, in his “Siberia in Europe,” have recently given interesting information concerning the Samoyedes.
The Voguls inhabit a district which coincides pretty closely with the ridge of the Northern Urals, and were estimated in 1876 at 5,000 in number. Their country makes them hillmen and foresters, for they lie within the northern limit of the fir and birch, in the country of the wolf, the bear, the sable, the glutton, the marten, the beaver, and the elk. They usually dress like the Russians, and live by hunting, for they have no plains for the breeding of cattle, and no climate for agriculture. They are said to use no salt. Their villages are scattered and small, consisting of from four to eight cabins. Obdorsk is their trading town. To this town, on the Arctic circle at the mouth of the Obi, come also the Samoyedes and Ostjaks, of which latter I shall speak as I saw them further east.
The Samoyedes inhabit a larger tract of country, stretching along the shore of the frozen ocean from the north-east corner of Europe, all across the Tobolsk government to the Yenesei, descending to the region of the Ostjaks, and on some parts of the southern border to Tomsk. With the Samoyedes I felt already in a measure acquainted, partly by correspondence from my friend in Finland, and partly by a near approach to them in 1878, when I travelled to Archangel. Their numbers were estimated, in 1876, at 5,700. Their riches consist of herds of reindeer, which they pasture on the mosses of the vast bogs or tundras, from which the animals in winter scrape the snow with their feet, and thus find their sustenance. To the Samoyede the reindeer is everything; when alive, the animal draws his sledge, and, when dead, its flesh is eaten and the skin used for tent and clothing.
At Archangel I bought a sovik or tunic, a cap, and a wonderful pair of Samoyede boots; and as the Samoyede manner of dressing resembles in its main features that of other northern aborigines in Siberia, I may as well describe it particularly. In winter, then, to be in the (Samoyede) fashion, one should dress as follows:--First a pair of short trousers made of softened reindeer skin, fitting tight, and reaching down to the knee. Then stockings of peshki, the skin of young fawns, with the hair inwards. Next come the boots, called poumé leepte, which means boot-stockings, reaching almost to the thigh, the sole being made of old and hard reindeer hide, the hair pointing forward to diminish the possibility of slipping on the ice or snow. Common boots have the hair only on the outside. Mine are a gay “lady’s” pair, lined inside with the softest fur, and made of white reindeer skin without, sewn with stripes of darker skin, and ornamented in front with pieces of coloured cloth. The clothing of the lower limbs being completed, one must work one’s way from the bottom to the top of the tunic, or sovik, which has an opening to put the head through, and is furnished with sleeves. Mine has a high straight collar, but in some brought by Mr. Seebohm from the Yenesei this collar rises behind above the top of the head. The costume is completed by a cap of reindeer skin, with strings on either side ornamented with pieces of cloth. The hair of the sovik is worn outside in fine weather, and inside when it rains; but when prolonged exposure to cold is apprehended, a second garment, called a “gus,” is worn, with the hair outside, and a close-fitting hood, leaving exposed only a small portion of the face. The Ostjaks are said to have at the end of the sleeve a glove or mitten, made of the hardest hide of the reindeer, and suitable for heavy work, and also a slit under the wrist to allow of the fingers being put through for finer work. A girdle is worn round the loins, over which the sovik laps a little, and thus forms a pocket for small articles.
I have been told, by one well acquainted with the Samoyedes, that it is often very difficult to trade with them before giving a glass of vodka, and that, when once given, they are irrepressible in clamouring for more. Men may sometimes be seen who have brought in their wares to barter for winter necessaries, and who will exchange the whole for spirits, and reduce themselves to beggary. This has caused the Russian Government to forbid the sale of spirits in these northern regions, but the traders smuggle them in.[3]
I must not forget to add that some pleasing accounts of the honesty of the Samoyedes and Ostjaks were related to us. The merchants of Tobolsk, for instance, when they go north in the summer to purchase fish, take with them flour and salt, place them in their summer stations, and, on their return, leave unprotected what remains for the following year. Should a Samoyede pass by and require it, he does not scruple to take what he wants, but he leaves in its place an I.O.U., in the form of a duplicate stick, duly notched, to signify that he is a debtor; and then, in the fishing season, he comes to his creditor, compares the duplicate stick he has kept with the one he left behind, and discharges his obligation. Captain Wiggins also records that when, in the winter months of 1876-77, his ship the Thames was laid up in the Kureika, it was surrounded by hundreds of Ostjaks and other natives, but that nothing was stolen.
The difficulties of educating and Christianizing these wandering tribes are very great.[4] I heard, however, that in European Russia a priest is sent yearly to a town in the far north of the Archangel province, to baptize the children and marry such among the Samoyedes of that region as are professedly Christian. Réclus, however, speaks of the Yurak-Samoyedes as still practising their bloody rites, and thrusting pieces of raw flesh into the mouths of their idols. In 1877 the Russians opened a school at Obdorsk for the natives. We may hope, therefore, that for them better days are coming, both by reason of what the Russians are doing, and also, possibly and indirectly, by the efforts which certain Englishmen are making to invade the lands of these aborigines for the purposes of trade.
That the commercial value of the basin of the Obi and a large part of Western Siberia is not yet realized by European capitalists is the opinion of most of those that I have met who have been there. A limited demand exists for English merchandise, and the possibility of an almost unlimited supply of products needed by England. The Altai mountains, for instance, are rich in silver, copper, and iron, which last is also abundant in the valley of the Tom. But these are as nothing compared with grain, for the production of which the country is admirably fitted. From the southern border of the Tobolsk province, for 600 miles northward, lies a district of fertile black earth; and so exclusively is it of this character in the valleys of many of the rivers, which overflow like the Nile, and leave a rich deposit, that the geologist finds it difficult to pick up even a few specimen pebbles. It is like a vast tract of garden land, well suited for the production of wheat, oats, linseed, barley, and other cereals. Farther north are prairies for cattle, and a wooded region, inhabited by various fur-bearing animals, where the pine, fir, and birch abound. These remarks apply to the valley of the Obi no less than to that of the Yenesei, where Mr. Seebohm found he could purchase a larch, 60 feet long, 3 feet diameter at the base, and 18 inches at the apex, for a sovereign, and that a hundred such could be had to order in a week. In the city of Tobolsk the cost of provisions, we were told, had advanced to five times what it was 30 years ago; but even so, the present price of meat was quoted at 2_d._, and rye flour at a halfpenny, per pound.[5] Again, north of the wooded region come the tundras, over which roam the reindeer, wild and tame; and about 100 miles up the Kureika, which flows into the Yenesei, there is a valuable mine of graphite lying on the surface; besides which the rivers are so full of fish that the fishermen try not to catch too many, because of the frequent breaking of their nets.
These riches have long been known to the Siberians, to whom they were practically useless for export, by reason of expensive land carriage over the Urals; and the only other way of transit to Europe was through the Kara Sea, which was supposed to be ice-blocked perpetually. So far back as the sixteenth century, the English and the Dutch tried hard to penetrate the Siberian ocean, but were always stopped at Novaia Zemlia; so that for two centuries no fresh effort was made. Of late years, however, Captain Wiggins, of Sunderland, who, from his youth, appears to have been a bold and adventurous seaman, happened to read in Wrangell’s “Polar Sea” that, three centuries ago, the Russians were wont to coast from Archangel, for purposes of trade, to Mangasee, on the Taz, near the gulf of the Obi; and it occurred to him that, if they could do it in their wretched “kotchkies,” or boats of planking, fastened to a frame with thongs of leather, and calked with moss, he ought much more easily to be able to do so with the aid of steam. With his characteristic love of adventure, therefore, and at his own expense, he determined to make the attempt; and on June 3rd, 1874, he left Dundee in the Diana, a small steamer of only 104 tons. In little more than three weeks the Kara Sea was entered, and found free of ice; and the Diana entered the gulf of Obi on the 5th of August--the first sea-going vessel that had ever done so. Circumstances did not permit of his ascending the river; he returned, therefore, paid off his crew, and employed the winter in making known the feasibility of the route. He found great difficulty, however, in persuading the mercantile world, and applied in vain to the Royal Geographical Society for help to follow up his discoveries. Whereupon there came forward another explorer to snatch the rose from the captain’s hand; for Professor Nordenskiöld, seeing what Wiggins had done,--amply supported by his Government, by private enterprise, and without cost to himself (as it should be)--followed next year through the Kara Sea, passed the Obi gulf, and entered the Yenesei, from whence, having sent back his ship, he returned overland to Petersburg. The feasibility of the sea-route was now manifest; and, as I passed through Tiumen, Messrs. Wardropper were building, at a distance of 700 miles from the ocean, two sea-going ships, for Messrs. Trapeznikoff and Co., of Moscow, to be floated down the Obi and round the North Cape to England.
It is the opinion of both navigators that “a regular sea communication between Siberia and Northern Europe, during a short season of the year, ought not to be attended with greater risks and dangers than seamen encounter on many other waters now visited by thousands of vessels.” These are the sober words of Professor Nordenskiöld; and to the same effect are the words spoken publicly by Captain Wiggins, in whom we have a brave and honest seaman, and concerning whose work England need only be ashamed that he received so little support. He has shown, however, by a voyage made in 1878, that steamers of any size, but of shallow draught, can go some 400 miles up the Obi. On the 2nd of August he left Liverpool in the Warkworth, an ordinary steamer of 340 tons net register, chartered through Mr. Wm. Byford, of London, shipbroker, for sole account of Mr. Oswald Cattley, first guild merchant of Petersburg, with a miscellaneous cargo, and arrived in 15 days. He was met by lighters from the Barnaul district, with wheat, flax, etc., to load the steamer, and then convey inland the cargo from Liverpool. No mishap occurred on the outward voyage; but, in consequence of the Obi falling so rapidly, the steamer touched the ground on coming down the river. He arrived safely, however, in London on the 3rd of October; thus occupying two months on the passage out and home. Subsequent trading voyages have been attempted, some of which failed; but the causes of failure were such as may in future be overcome, the Neptune of Hamburg having made successful voyages in 1878 and 1880. It appears, then, that the trade only awaits further development,[6] and if, with specially strengthened steamers, the carriage of produce can thus be arranged between England and Siberia, both countries will doubtless be gainers thereby.[7]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The principal branch of the Obi is the Irtish, which, rising in Mongolia, passes through Lake Zaizang, about 1,720 feet above the sea level. It then passes Ustkammenogorsk, in the Altai region, where it becomes navigable, and, flowing on to Omsk, is subsequently joined by the Ishim and the Tobol, which last is made up of the Isset, Tura, and Tavda, the last three descending from the watershed of the Urals. The Obi proper rises in Siberia, and runs with a rapid course through the northern ridges of the Altai mountains, amid scenery resembling in beauty and grandeur that of the Lake of Lucerne. It is joined north of Tomsk by the Tom and the Tchulim, and then it flows on in a westerly course, swelled by many minor streams, to its junction with the Irtish, on the 60th parallel. Before reaching the Tom the current becomes gentle, and allows of easy navigation, especially in spring, when water is abundant; but, in approaching the Irtish, shoals become numerous. The Obi then takes a northerly course, and frequently divides as it traverses an alluvial and low plain from 40 to 50 miles wide, the greater part of which, after winter, is inundated. This enormous river, having now a course of 2,700 miles, falls into the Obi Gulf, which is 400 miles long, and from 70 to 80 miles wide. For a large part of the year the water flows under ice, which at Tiumen is from 3 to 4 feet, and on the gulf is 7 feet, thick.
[2] There are nine uyezds in the province, and among its prominent towns are Turinsk and Tiumen, on the Tura; Kurgan and Yalutorofsk on the Tobol; Ishim, on the river of that name; and Tara, on the Irtish; together with Surgut, Berezov, and Obdorsk, on the Lower Obi; whilst the capital town of the government is Tobolsk. Hoppe’s Almanack for 1880 gives the population at 1,102,302, but the Almanack for 1878 gives a smaller number, which represents an earlier census, and is mentioned here only for the purpose of giving the reader some idea of the social position of the inhabitants, who in 1870 were classified thus: hereditary nobles, 404; personally noble, 3,025; ecclesiastical persons (which includes not only all grades of clergy, but also their families), 3,045; a town population of 30,000, and a rural population of 436,000. To this must be added a military force of 50,000, 25 foreigners, and an aboriginal and mixed population of 142,000; the exact total of which then amounted to 666,800.
[3] We heard from other sources that for brandy these aborigines will sell everything short of their souls, and even these would appear sometimes to tremble in the balance, if the following story be true:--A Russian priest, it seemed, intent upon adding sheep to his fold, even though by very questionable means, sometimes gave drink to the Samoyedes and Ostjaks, and, when they were in a muddled condition, baptized them, put round their necks the cross, and thus brought them into the fold of the orthodox Russian Church. On coming to their senses they sometimes objected to what had been done, but, like the recruit who took the Queen’s shilling, they were caught, and the only way to escape was to bribe the priest to erase their names from his register, and let them go. This was told us by a man who had lived in the Samoyede country. The story presented such a bathos of proselytizing zeal, that I asked particularly if it were really true, and was answered in the affirmative. In the time of the Emperor Nicholas, zealous missionary priests received honours and decorations in proportion to the number of Pagans and Jews they baptized; but this, I believe, is not the case now. I heard, further east, of other questionable means taken by a priest to obtain proselytes from the aborigines of the Amur. This, however, was done by one who, during my stay in the town, publicly disgraced his cloth by intemperance. These enormities, therefore, must be laid to the account, not of the Russian Church, but to that of certain of its corrupt officials. They are mentioned here on the principle that not only the truth but the whole truth should be told; and, further, because I would fain not have to allude to the subject when I come hereafter to record better things, as I shall have to do, of the missionary efforts of the Russian Church in Siberia.
[4] In 1824 a commencement was made to translate into Samoyede the Gospel of St. Matthew, but it did not go on after 1826. The same gospel was translated some years ago into the language of the Ostjaks by the protohierea, or chief priest, at Obdorsk, and was forwarded to the Russian Bible Society, but not published; and, up to the present time, neither that nor any other part of the New Testament exists, as far as I know for the Samoyedes, Ostjaks, or Voguls.--Dr. Latham mentions 11 dialects in the Samoyede language, and refers to the work of Professor Castrén, who, about 30 years ago, studied closely the languages of the Finnish and Samoyede nations, and to whose labours we owe dictionaries of some of these tongues,--published after his death by Schiefner.
[5] The surprisingly small cost of provisions on the Obi will be referred to hereafter; but some idea may be formed, for the purposes of trade, of the cheapness of provisions, from the fact that a merchant told me that in 1877 he bought up meat at Tobolsk for less than ½_d._ per English pound, and that, more recently, he sold for the Petersburg market ten thousand brace of black grouse, capercailzie, and hazel grouse at 9_d._ a pair all round. The cost for transporting from Tiumen to Petersburg is as follows: heavy goods, going by land where necessary, and floated on the rivers where possible, take 12 months in transit, and cost about 5_s._ a cwt.; if, however, goods are sent by road to Nijni Novgorod, and thence forwarded by rail, they take 2½ months in transit, and cost up to 12_s._ a cwt.; or, again, if goods are sent “express”--that is, put into large sledges, carrying each from a ton to a ton and a half, placed under charge of a man, and drawn by three horses, to Nijni Novgorod, and thence by rail--the transport costs 18_s._ a cwt. Notwithstanding this heavy cost of carriage, however, the merchants at Tiumen can bring their fish from the mouth of the Obi, forward it to Petersburg, sell the sturgeon at 24_s._, and the sterlet, nelma, and moksun at 30_s._ the cwt., and then secure a handsome profit for everybody concerned.
[6] For further remarks on the commercial prospects of Western Siberia, see Appendix D.
[7] There are two books written by scientific explorers of the basin of the Obi, which it may be useful to mention for the sake of any who wish to study this part of Siberia. One is that of Adolph Erman, who, for the purpose of making magnetical observations, travelled in 1828 to Tobolsk, and then descended the river as far as Obdorsk; the second is the German work of Dr. Otto Finsch, who, from Tiumen, ascended the Irtish, in 1876, towards the Altai mountains, and then, turning north to Barnaul and Tomsk, followed the Obi to its mouth. Another class of books, written for the most part by returned exiles, throws more or less light upon Western Siberia, such as “The Exile of Kotzebue,” published in 1802, and “Revelations of Siberia,” by a banished lady, who spent a short time on the Lower Obi at Beresov.