Siberia and the exile system . s to his house with cordial hospitality,but took a friendly interest in all of our prison investiga-tions. Only a day or two after our arrival he called at ourhotel to inform us that a convict barge from Tiumen hadarrived that morning at the steamer-landing two or threemiles from the city, and to say that if we would like to seethe reception of a convict party, he would go to the landingwith us and introduce us to the chief officer of the local exilebureau. I thanked him for his thoughtfulness, and in ten THE PROVINCE AND THE CITY OF TOMSK 289 minutes Mr. Frost,
Siberia and the exile system . s to his house with cordial hospitality,but took a friendly interest in all of our prison investiga-tions. Only a day or two after our arrival he called at ourhotel to inform us that a convict barge from Tiumen hadarrived that morning at the steamer-landing two or threemiles from the city, and to say that if we would like to seethe reception of a convict party, he would go to the landingwith us and introduce us to the chief officer of the local exilebureau. I thanked him for his thoughtfulness, and in ten THE PROVINCE AND THE CITY OF TOMSK 289 minutes Mr. Frost, Colonel Yagodkin, and I were drivingfuriously over a muddy road toward the pristan, or land-ing-place. Although we made all possible haste, the pris-oners had disembarked before we reached our found them assembled in two dense gray throngs at theends of a long wooden shed, which was surrounded andturned into a sort of cattle-pen by a high plank wall. Herethey were identified, counted, and turned over by the con-. KOLIVAN LAKE. voy officer to the warden of the Tomsk forwarding shed was divided transversely through the middle bya low wooden barricade, at one end of which was a fencedinclosure, about ten feet square, for the accommodation ofthe officers who had to take part in the reception of theparty. About half the exiles had been formally receivedand were standing at the eastern end of the shed, while theother half were grouped in a dense throng at the westernend, waiting for their names to be called. The women,19 290 SIBERIA wilt) stood huddled together in a group by themselves, weremostly ill peasant costumes, with bright-colored kerchiefsover their heads, and their faces, I thought, showed greatanxiety and apprehension. The men all wore long grayovercoats over coarse linen shirts and trousers; most ofthem were in chains, and the bare heads of the convictsand the penal colonists had l)een half shaved longitudinallyin such a way that one side of the
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectsiberiarussiadescrip
