536 



FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



remains true to his resolutions, continues to work diligently, and 

 begins to take thought for his family. This binds him fast to the 

 land he had dreaded so unspeakably at first; it turns out not so bad 

 as he had expected, and he begins to grow contented. Now is the 

 time to restore him to society. The overseer gives him permission 

 to till the soil. Years have passed since his crime was committed; 

 he only remembers it like an evil dream. Before him he sees a 

 growing peasant-estate, behind him his chains. His native land 

 seems strange to him now, and he has become reponciled to the 

 foreign one. He becomes a peasant, works, earns money, and dies 

 a reformed man. With his death the bondage of his children ceases, 

 and they continue as free Siberian subjects to till the piece of land 

 with which the government presents them. This is no invention, 

 but reality. 



Not every criminal, however, thus submits to his fate. Full of 

 resentment against it and against all mankind, discontented with 

 everything and everyone, tired of work, perhaps also tortured by 

 home-sickness, or at least pining for freedom, one finds out another 

 in similar mood, and both, or several, resolve on flight. For weeks 

 and months, perhaps for years, they watch for a favourable oppor- 

 tunity ; one relates to the other over and over again the story of 

 his life; describes to him in the most minute detail his native 

 village, the locality and the house in which he spent his childhood, 

 teaches him the names of his relations, of the people in the village, 

 of the neighbouring villages and the nearest towns, omitting 

 nothing, and impressing it all deeply on the mind of his comrade, 

 who does the same to him, for they intend to exchange names and 

 histories to render identification less easy in case of capture. A 

 smith is bribed, won, persuaded to flight, and a tool to break the 

 fetters is found, or, if need be, stolen. Spring has become a reality, 

 the day of flight has come, and escaping without much probability 

 of being missed for a few hours is very easy under the present 

 system in the mines. If the fugitives reach the forests they are 

 safe from recapture, but by no means from other dangers. For a 

 wandering native Yakoot or Tungus hunting in the forest may be 

 tempted by the sight of a fur-coat better than his own, and for its 



