. Siberia and the exile system. logarithmswould excite no sus-picion, even if ourbaggage were over-hauled, and we hopedthat the article uponthe exile systemwould carry the Rus-sian magazine. Fi-nally, I put one veryimportant letter intoa small square pieceof board, upon which was mounted an oil portrait of oneof the Decembrist exiles of 1825. This portrait had beenfound in one of the houses of the Decembrists at Chita,and as I was a collector of curious and interesting relics,it was natural enough that I should be in possession of it seemed to me that my papers were very
. Siberia and the exile system. logarithmswould excite no sus-picion, even if ourbaggage were over-hauled, and we hopedthat the article uponthe exile systemwould carry the Rus-sian magazine. Fi-nally, I put one veryimportant letter intoa small square pieceof board, upon which was mounted an oil portrait of oneof the Decembrist exiles of 1825. This portrait had beenfound in one of the houses of the Decembrists at Chita,and as I was a collector of curious and interesting relics,it was natural enough that I should be in possession of it seemed to me that my papers were very and successfully hidden. The police certainly couldnot find them without breaking or tearing to pieces nearlyeverything that I had. Wednesday night, December 9th, we sang with the politi-cal exiles in Chita for the last time the plaintive but beautifulsong of the Russian revolutionists, On the Volga there isa Cliff, distributed among them as mementos all the trin-kets and small articles of value that we had, and then, with. SIBERIAN FREIGHT-SLEDGES. ADVENTURES IN EASTERN SIBERIA 343 deep and sincere regret, bade them good-by forever. Twelvehours later we were posting furiously towards Irkutsk, thecapital of Eastern Siberia. For five days and nights wetraveled westward at the rate of eight miles an hour, stop-ping only to change horses, and suffering from cold, hunger,and sleeplessness until it seemed to me that I could endureno more. We found Lake Baikal still open, but the laststeamer for the season had gone, and we were forced totake the high, picturesque cornice road around the lake atits southern end. Monday evening, December 14th, we werestopped only fifty or sixty miles from Irkutsk by the ab-sence of post-horses. For almost three months we hadbeen cut off from all communication with the civilized world,for ten weeks we had not received a letter nor read a news-paper, and furious with impatience at finding ourselvesstopped so near the capital, we hired a peasant to ca
Size: 1656px × 1509px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectsiberiarussiadescrip
