THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 
117 
had been frozen over. The distance, as the crow flies, was thirty- 
miles, and, therefore, further than from England to France. In many 
places the ice, mostly several yards thick, was desperately rough and it 
was extraordinary how the ponies trotted or galloped over it. A 
safer route existed round the southern end of the great sheet of water, 
but it was many miles longer. It is round that end that the railway 
will have to go in winter, a steam ferry being used in the summer for 
the trains. But the engineering difficulties must cause tremendous 
expenditure of money, as the high mountains from Chiua came right 
up to the waters edge. 
Before very long, however, the traveller will be able to go from 
London to the Pacific by changing onlj at Dover, Ostend and Wirballen, 
at the Russian western frontier, where the break of gauge occurs. 
I suppose that no lecture on Siberia would be cousidered at all 
worthy of the name unless some allusion were made in it to the 
exiles. 
Most people are aware that, as a general rule, foreigners have 
depicted their sufferings as being of the most horrible description. 
With regard to this, I must first point out that these travellers were 
usually dependent on interpreters for the statements which they publish¬ 
ed, while others again had first been primed by revolutionary 
refugees, who, having fled from Russia, still continued, at a safe 
distance, to incite others in their own country to agitation and worse. 
Now my sources of information were obtained at first hand, not only 
in the towns but when I was actually on the road. The most bigoted 
Russophobe could scarcely, I imagine, suggest that parties of exiles 
could have been dotted along my route at spots, sometimes hundreds 
of miles away from an inhabited centre, and officially prepared for 
my catching them up. 
First of all let us take the case of the convicts. I have seen many 
scores of them in various places. They are persons who have been 
sentenced by a court of law to a term of hard labour for several years. 
There is, I should mention, no death penalty in Russia except for high 
treason or by sentence of a court martial and it is exceedingly 
rare for this sentence to be carried out; even when a man, sentenced 
for repeated murders, is at last sent before a military court, the 
penalty of death is generally commuted to another term of hard 
labour. 
Convicts before setting out on their journey eastwards are provided 
with excellent warm and new clothing; so tender is the Russian 
Government that felt pads are even provided, called “ podkandaly ” to 
wear underneath the light leg fetters, in order that the skin may not 
be damaged. On arriving at his destination a convict is kept in con¬ 
finement for, perhaps, three years. Afterwards he is allowed his 
liberty but has to perform a moderate daily task, the rest of his time 
being at his own disposal, and he generally makes use of it to earn 
often considerable sums of money. Later on you may find him em¬ 
ployed as a footman in the service of some high official. Hard labour 
in Siberia is child’s play as compared with the same punishment in 
