COLONISTS AND EXILES IN SIBERIA. 525 



gorod, Kasan, or Perm. Whether criminals are still forced to march 

 in chains, two abreast, and thus to carry their fetters for the whole 

 journey, I do not know; I have never seen this, and I am firmly 

 convinced that the well-known mildness of the late Czar would 

 never have suffered this barbarous proceeding. In the towns already 

 mentioned, as well as in Tjumen and Tomsk, there are spacious 

 prisons, and, at intervals along such routes as have not been deserted 

 because of the railway, there are less roomy buildings for the safe 

 housing of the exiles during night. Whenever it can be avoided, 

 the exiles are not compelled to travel on foot, but are conveyed to 

 their destination by rail, by the wagons already referred to, or by 

 regularly plying steamers: thus from Nijni- Novgorod or Kasan to 

 Perm, from Tjumen via Thura, Tobolsk, Irtish, Ob, and Tom, to 

 Tomsk. The prisons are simple buildings, but thoroughly clean; 

 the hospitals connected with, but sufficiently far apart from them, 

 are model institutions; the river-boats are unusually long, two- 

 decked vessels, which may best be described as gigantic floating 

 cages, for the whole upper portion above the deck is latticed after 

 the fashion of a bird-cage. Each of these boats, which is towed by 

 a steamer, affords the necessary accommodation for six hundred 

 persons, and contains also a large kitchen, a sick-room, a small 

 dispensary, quarters for the accompanying soldiers and for the crew. 

 Between Perm and Tjumen run wagons, which also resemble bird- 

 cages, and which serve for the transport of dangerous criminals. 



Every exile receives from government a cloak of heavy gray 

 woollen material, in the middle of the back of which is fastened 

 a diamond- shaped piece of cloth of colours varying with the length 

 of the sentence, so that the soldiers in charge may be acquainted 

 with it as far as is necessary. For procuring food on the journey, ten, 

 or in the case of " unfortunates " of higher social standing, fifteen 

 kopeks a day are allowed to each; but during a prolonged stay 

 in prison the rate is seven and fifteen respectively. This sum is so 

 liberal that, if spent with care, it suffices to procure all the 

 necessaries of life, although every day, except during Lent, three- 

 quarters of a pound of meat are served out to each. If wife and 

 children accompany a condemned criminal, each of these receives 



