Siberia and the exile system . .It was already the first weekin August, and a distance of2500 miles lay between us andthe head-waters of the Amur. Our next objective point wasthe city of Tomsk, distant fromthe Altai Station about 750miles. In order to reach it weshould be obliged to returnover a part of the road thatwe had already traversed, andto descend the Irtish as far asthe station of Pianoyarof that point the road to Tomskleaves the Semipalatinsk road,and runs northward through the great Altai mining districtand the city of Barnaiil. There were two colonies of politicalexiles on
Siberia and the exile system . .It was already the first weekin August, and a distance of2500 miles lay between us andthe head-waters of the Amur. Our next objective point wasthe city of Tomsk, distant fromthe Altai Station about 750miles. In order to reach it weshould be obliged to returnover a part of the road thatwe had already traversed, andto descend the Irtish as far asthe station of Pianoyarof that point the road to Tomskleaves the Semipalatinsk road,and runs northward through the great Altai mining districtand the city of Barnaiil. There were two colonies of politicalexiles on our route—one of them at the Cossack station ofUlbinsk, 160 miles from the Altai Station, and the other inthe town of Ust Kamenogorsk. In each of these places,therefore, we purposed to make a short stay. On the morning of Thursday, August 6th, we packed ourbaggage in the tdrantds, ordered horses from the poststation, took breakfast for the last time wdth Captain Maief-ski and his wife, whose kindness and warm-hearted hospi-. EOCTE FROM THE STATIONTO TOMSK. TWO COLONIES OF POLITICAL EXILES 229 tality had made their house seem to us like a home, andafter drinking to the health of all our Altai friends, andbidding everybody good-by three or four times, we rodereluctantly out of the beautiful alpine village and beganoui descent to the plains of the Irtish. It is not necessary to describe our journey down thevalley of the Biikhtarma and across the gray, sterile steppesof the upper Irtish. It was simply a reversal of the expe-rience through which we had passed in approaching theAltai Station three weeks before. Then we were climbingfrom the desert into the alps, while now we were descendingfrom the alps to the desert. At six oclock Friday afternoon we reached the settlementof Bukhtarma, w^here the Irtish pierces a great outlyingspur of the Altai chain, and where the road to Ust Kame-nogorsk leaves the river and makes a long detour into themountains. No horses were obtainabl
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectsiberiarussiadescrip
