Part 9 (1/2)

”And do many wives come?”

”A good many,” the soldier said; ”but I only know what I have heard. I was with one of you last time, and it was only on the way back that I heard of things about the others. Formerly the guards remained in Siberia if they chose, it was too far to send them back to Russia; but now that the journey is done so quickly, and we can get back all the way from Tomsk by the rivers, except this little bit, we go back again as soon as we have handed over our charges. I did not go farther than Tomsk last time, and I was back at Nijni in less than three months after starting. What part of Russia do you come from?”

”I am an Englishman.”

The soldier looked round in surprise. ”I did not know Englishmen could speak our language so well; of course I noticed that your speech was not quite like mine, but I am from the south and I thought you must come from somewhere in the north or from Poland. How did--” and here he stopped. ”But I must not ask that; I don't want to know anything, not even your name. Look there, we are just going to pa.s.s a convoy of other prisoners.”

In a minute or two they overtook the party. It consisted of about a hundred and fifty prisoners escorted by a dozen mounted Cossacks. The men were in prison garb of yellowish-brown stuff with a coloured patch in the back between the shoulders. They had chains fastened to rings round the ankles and tied up to their belts. They were not heavy, and interfered very little with their walking. The procession in no way accorded with G.o.dfrey's preconceived idea. The men were walking along without much attempt at regular order. They were laughing and talking together or with their guards, and some of them shouted chaffing remarks to the four vehicles as they swept past them.

”They do not look very unhappy,” G.o.dfrey said.

”Why should they?” the soldier replied; ”they are better off than they would be at home. Lots of men break the law on purpose to be sent out; it is a good country. They say wives get rid of their husbands by informing against them and getting them sent here. I believe there are quite as many husbands with scolding wives who get themselves sent here to be free of them. As long as they are on the road or employed in hard labour they are fed better than they ever were at home, better a great deal than we soldiers are. Even in the prisons they do not work so very hard, for it is difficult to find work for them; only if they are sent to the mines their lot is bad. Of that I know nothing, but I have heard.

As for the rest, from what I have seen of it I should say that a convict here is better off than a peasant at home. But here we are at the post-house.”

CHAPTER V.

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.

The stay at the post-houses was very short. As soon as the vehicles were seen coming along the straight level road, the first set of horses were brought out, and the leading taranta.s.s was ready to proceed in two or three minutes. The other horses were changed as quickly, and in less than ten minutes from their arrival the whole were on their way again.

While the horses were being changed the prisoners were permitted to get out and stretch their legs, but were not allowed to exchange a word with each other or with anyone else. At every fourth stage a bowl of soup with a hunch of bread was brought to each prisoner by one of the guards at the ostrov or prison, where the convicts were lodged as they came along. There were rugs in the vehicles to lay over them at night when the air was sharp and chilly, although in the day the sun had great power, and the dust rose in clouds under the horses' feet.

There was little of interest to be seen on the journey. Only round the villages was there any cultivation, and the plains stretched away unbroken save by small groups of cattle, horses, and sheep. Although G.o.dfrey had not minded the shaking of the springless vehicle for the first stage or two, he felt long before he reached the journey's end as if every bone was dislocated. As a rule the road was good, but in some places, where it pa.s.sed through swampy tracts, it had given in the spring thaw, and had been cut into deep ruts. Here the shaking as they pa.s.sed along at night was tremendous. G.o.dfrey and his companion were dashed against each other or against the sides with such force that G.o.dfrey several times thought his skull was fractured, and he was indeed thankful when, after forty hours on the road, they drove into Tiumen.

Tiumen is a town of over 15,000 inhabitants, and is the first town arrived at in Siberia proper, the frontier between Russia and that country running between Ekaterinburg and that town. Here the prisoners were at once placed on board a steamer, and G.o.dfrey was glad indeed to throw himself down upon the bed, where he slept without waking until the steamer got under way in the morning. He was delighted to see that the port-hole was not, as in the first boat, blocked by an outside shutter, but that he could look out over the country as they pa.s.sed along. For a time the scenery was similar to that which they had been pa.s.sing over, bare and desolate; but it presently a.s.sumed a different character; fields of green wheat stretched away from the river side; comfortable-looking little villages succeeded each other rapidly as the steamer pa.s.sed along, and save for the difference of architecture and the peculiar green domes and pinnacles of the little churches he might have been looking over a scene in England.

The river was about two hundred yards wide here, a smooth and placid stream. The steamer did not proceed at any great pace, as it was towing behind it one of the heavy convict barges, and although the pa.s.sage is ordinarily performed in a day and a half, it took them nearly a day longer to accomplish, and it was not until late in the afternoon of the third day that Tobolsk came in sight. Through his port-hole G.o.dfrey obtained a good view of the town, containing nearly 30,000 inhabitants, with large government buildings, and a great many houses built of stone.

It is built in a very unhealthy position, the country round being exceedingly low and marshy. After pa.s.sing Tobolsk they entered the Obi, one of the largest rivers in Asia. The next morning the steamer again started for her sixteen-hundred-mile journey to Tomsk. The journey occupied eight days, the convict barge having been left behind at Tobolsk.

The time pa.s.sed tediously to G.o.dfrey, for the banks were low and flat, villages were very rare, and the steamer only touched at three places.

Herds of horses were seen from time to time roaming untended over the country. The only amus.e.m.e.nt was in watching the Ostjaks, the natives of the banks of the Obi. These people have no towns or villages, but live in rough tents made of skins. He saw many of them fis.h.i.+ng from their tiny canoes, but the steamer did not pa.s.s near enough to them to enable him to get a view of them, as they generally paddled away towards the sh.o.r.e as the steamer approached. He heard afterwards that they are wonderfully skilful in the use of the bow, which they use princ.i.p.ally for killing squirrels and other small animals. These bows are six feet long, the arrows four feet. The head is a small iron ball, so as to kill without injuring the fur of small animals, and the feats recorded of the English archers of old times are far exceeded by the Ostjaks. Even at long distances they seldom fail to strike a squirrel on the head, and G.o.dfrey was informed by a man who had been present that he saw an Ostjak shoot an arrow high into the air, and cut it in two with another arrow as it descended, a feat that seemed to him altogether incredible, but is confirmed by the evidence of Russian travellers.

Tomsk is situated on the river Tom, an affluent of the Obi. The town is about the same size as Tobolsk; the climate of the district is considered the best in Siberia; the land is fertile, and among the mountains are many valuable mines. Although a comparatively small province in comparison to Tobolsk on one side and Yeneseisk on the other, it contains an area of half a million square miles, and, excluding Russia, is bigger than any two countries of Europe together.

It contains a rural population of 725,000-130,000 natives, chiefly Tartars and Kalmucs, and 30,000 troops.

Here G.o.dfrey was landed, and marched to the prison. Of these there are two, the one a permanent convict establishment, the other for the temporary detention of prisoners pa.s.sing through. G.o.dfrey slipped a few roubles into the hand of his guard, for his watch, money, and the other things in his pockets had been restored to him before starting on his journey. After two days' stop in the prison the journey was continued as before, a soldier sitting by the driver, a police-officer taking the place of the soldier who had before accompanied him. He began to speak to G.o.dfrey as soon as they started.

”We are not so strict now,” he said. ”You will soon be across the line into Eastern Siberia, and you will no longer meet people through whom you might send messages or letters. As to escape, that would be out of the question since you left Ekaterinburg, for none can travel either by steamer or post without a permit, or even enter an inn, and the doc.u.ment must be shown at every village.”

”But I suppose prisoners do escape sometimes,” G.o.dfrey said.

”There have not been a dozen escapes in the last fifty years,” the policeman said. ”There are great numbers get away from their prisons or employments every year, but the authorities do not trouble about them; they may take to the mountains or forests, and live on game for a few months in summer, but when winter arrives they must come in and give themselves up.”

”What happens to them then?” G.o.dfrey asked.

”Perhaps nothing but solitary confinement for a bit, perhaps a beating with rods, just according to the temper of the chief official at the time. Perhaps if it is a bad case they are sent to the mines for a bit; that is what certainly happens when they are political prisoners.”

”Why can't they get right away?”