ON TRACKLESS SNOWS.
During six weary months I had been kept in solitary confinement in
a small, cold, ill-lit cell in the Fortress of Peter and Paul at
Petersburg, whither I had been transferred from Mstislavl. Dispirited by
solitude, weakened by lack of exercise, and ill through want of proper
medical attention, I began to fear that the confinement would cause my
reason to give way; therefore it was with a feeling of relief that one
day I greeted the announcement of my warder that we were to start for
Siberia on the morrow.
A detailed description of the frightful hardships of my long and terrible
journey would fill a volume, but it is only my intention to outline them
briefly.
With a hundred other men and women of all ages we left the grim fortress
at midnight, a sorry, smileless band, whose clanking chains formed an
ominous accompaniment to the loud shouts and cracking of whips of our
Cossack escorts. We were each attired in grey kaftan, strong knee-boots,
and sheepskin bonnet. Our breasts bore a metal plate with a number, while
strapped over our shoulders was the rug, the mess tin, and the wooden
spoon that comprised our travelling kit.
With ankles fettered by long heavy chains held to the waist by means
of a rope, we were fastened together in gangs and passed out upon the
Chudova road on the first stage of the weary tramp to that bourne whence
few exiles return. The rumbling of the springless carts in the rear,
for those who might fall ill on the way, awoke the echoes of the silent
thoroughfares, and following us were several Cossacks who with lanterns
carefully examined the road over which we had passed, in order that no
letter should be dropped clandestinely.
The night was wet and stormy as our weird, dismal procession passed
through the slumbering city and out upon the broad highway on its journey
eastward to the Ourals. Our wet clothes clung to us as we walked;
the icy wind that blew across the wide open plain chilled our bones.
Nevertheless, we plodded doggedly onward in silence, for conversation
had been forbidden, and those who had spoken had felt the heavy thongs
of the escort’s knout. The settled look of despair, and the sighs that
frequently escaped my fellow-exiles, plainly showed what were their
feelings at being banished from their native land.
Since the day I had seen Mascha in the prison-yard I had heard nothing of
her. A thousand times I had wondered what had been her fate; yet now,
in my despair, I had relinquished all hope of seeing her again. Indeed,
irreparable ruin had descended upon myself and my family so swiftly, that
already I had grown callous as to my ultimate fate.
Without trial, I had been sentenced by the Provincial Governor of
Moghilev, upon the report of General Martianoff, to hard labour for
life. Such, alas! was my punishment for endeavouring to rescue my poor
defenceless sister from the inhuman wrath of the dissolute representative
of the Tzar! I was well aware that for the Russian political convict
is reserved a death by slow torture to which any other means of ending
life is preferable. The silver mines in the terrible district beyond
Lake Baikal are the tombs of political suspects. The Government is
well aware that the conditions under which convicts work at Kara,
Nerchinsk, Pokrovski, and the other distant mining settlements to which
“politicals” are sent, are such as to cause death in from five to seven
years. With that refinement of cruelty for which the Government has
earned an unenviable notoriety, it has abolished the death sentence and
substituted one more torturing in that distant land where God is high
and the Tzar is far away. The prisons and _étapes_ of Siberia are foul,
insanitary, half-ruined wooden structures where human beings perish like
flies. Typhoid, diphtheria, and other epidemic diseases prevail there
constantly, and infect all who have the misfortune to be huddled into
the awful places. The grievously sick, for want of attendance, wallow on
the floor in the midst of filth, and their clothes rot on their bodies;
while so over-crowded are these pestilential _kameras_ by persons of all
ages and both sexes, that for those who are not fever-stricken there is
neither room to sit nor lie.
The exiles who are consigned underground are convicts of the worst type,
and political offenders of the best. The murderer for his villainy, the
intelligent honest Muscovite who expresses Liberal opinions—not a whit
more revolutionary than the ideas of English Radicals—are deemed equally
worthy of slow, agonising death.
Having reached Chudova, we were conveyed by train to Nijni Novgorod, and
there placed in a sort of cage on board a large barge, and taken down the
Volga and up the Kama to Perm, whence we took train to Ekaterinbourg, a
town of considerable proportions beyond the Ourals.
Here our weary journey on foot across Siberia commenced, and long before
the Asiatic frontier was reached, the paucity of human habitations, the
barrenness of the soil, and the increasing bleakness of the climate, had
had their effect upon even the hardiest among us. But we still pushed
onward, ill, hungry, footsore.
I well remember the day we crossed the frontier, and bade farewell to our
native land.
Already we had walked three hundred versts from Ekaterinbourg, along the
Great Post Road, at that season covered by a deep snow, and only marked
by the long straight line of black telegraph posts and wires. Away, as
far as the eye could reach, nothing was visible but the broad plain of
dazzling whiteness, and the grey, snow-laden sky, when suddenly we came
to a tall, square, brick-built obelisk, bearing on one side the arms of
the European province of Perm, and on the other those of the Asiatic
province of Tobolsk. It was the boundary-post of that great lonely
prison-land, Siberia.
No other boundary-mark in the world has witnessed so much human
suffering, or, according to Mr. George Kennan, has been passed by such
a multitude of heart-broken people. As it is situated about half-way
between the last European and the first Siberian _étape_, the captain
allowed our convoy to halt for rest, and for a last farewell to home and
country. The Russian peasant, even when a criminal, is patriotic, and
deeply attached to his native land; and there was a heart-rending scene
when our wearied band stopped before the crumbling obelisk. Some gave
way to wild hysterical grief; some comforted the weeping; others knelt
and pressed their faces to the loved soil of their native land, and
collected a little earth to take with them into exile, while a few of the
women, pale, tragic figures in their black-hooded cloaks, pressed their
thin, pale lips to the European side of the cold brick pillar, kissing
good-bye to all it symbolised.
The officer commanding our escort, who had been smoking a cigarette, and
looking with calm indifference upon this touching scene, suddenly shouted
the stern order, “_Stroisa!_” (“Form Ranks”), and at the word “March,” a
few moments later, we crossed ourselves, and with a confused jingling of
chains and leg-fetters, moved slowly away, past the boundary post, into
Siberia.
Day after day, week after week, hungry, cold, and fatigued, we trudged
across the bleak, snow-covered steppes, until life became so burdensome
that we longed for death.
Sometimes we passed the night in an insanitary _étape_ in one of the
wretched little villages along the road, but often we camped out in the
open, and, after our meagre ration of soup, wrapped our rugs around us,
and slept upon the ground around the fire we had lit. The hardships
of the long, monotonous marches were bad enough for men to bear, but
the women—who numbered about twenty, including several of noble birth,
condemned to the mines as Nihilist conspirators—fared worst of all.
One of them, Madame Marie Koutowzow, was a young widow I had met in
Petersburg society. She told me that she had incurred the special
animosity of a _tschinovnik_, or Government official, by refusing to
marry him, and he, anxious to avenge himself, had caused her arrest, and
had heaped up the hardships which might hurry her out of life. Death had
released three of these delicately nurtured ladies from their misery, and
we had buried them, without coffin or religious ceremony, ere we reached
Tobolsk.
When at length we arrived at the latter town, we were lodged in the great
convict prison, and allowed to rest for two days, after which we resumed
our journey eastward to Tomsk, arriving there three weeks later, with our
clothing in rags, and almost shoeless.
Although our experiences had been terrible enough during our forced
marches, the most horrible of all was our sojourn at the perisilni at
Tomsk—the prison where exiles remain until their fate is decided upon by
the authorities. The horrors of this den of vileness were indescribable.
The _kamera_, or public cell, into which we were driven like cattle, was
a long low room, ill-ventilated, and disgustingly dirty. Already there
were fully fifty convicts in it, and the smell of humanity that greeted
us as the great iron door was opened I shall never forget. When I looked
around and noted the dreadful groups, ragged, unkempt, unwashed, some
lying on the sloping wooden shelves which formed the common beds, others
crouching on the filthy floor, I shuddered with horror, and was appalled.
Amid this filth disease was rife. No fewer than four men and two women
were at that moment dying of typhoid, while the body of a girl who had
succumbed was lying unheeded in a corner. No notice whatever was taken
of invalids by the officials, and I afterwards learnt that this room,
originally intended as an infirmary, had been converted into a common
cell for the accommodation of the ever-increasing crowds of exiles,
12,000 of which pass through the prison annually.
Coarse brown bread and tschi were our two articles of diet. The former
was flung to us as to dogs, and owing to the rations never being
sufficient to satisfy all, a fierce fight for a morsel of food invariably
resulted. Ravenously hungry men struggled with one another to secure
bread for their wives and children who had voluntarily accompanied them
into exile, while friendless females, too ill to move, were left in
corners to die.
It was hardly surprising that Marie Koutowzow, a refined and delicate
woman, should become infected by the fever that was raging. Very soon she
grew too ill to participate in the daily fight for food, and I obtained
her rations for her. Lying upon one of the plank beds at the further end
of the _kamera_, she bore the ravages of the disease bravely, praying
that death might release her. Her desire was fulfilled, for six days
after she had been attacked the malady proved fatal.
For three whole days the body was allowed to remain in that crowded
den of filth. None dare complain. We knew too well that the reward
for pointing out the fact to the officials would be an unceremonious
knouting, for in Siberia the lash is used at the slightest provocation.
In the same ragged dress that I had worn during my three months’ tramp
from European Russia, and which was insufficient to protect me from the
intense cold, I was taken from this Dantean _kamera_ at dawn one day and
chained to a large gang of convicts. Then I learned that my sentence was
subterranean hard labour at Kara, the most terrible mines in the whole of
Siberia!
To the exiles who had been my companions from St. Petersburg I bade
farewell, and as one of a convoy of criminals of the most dangerous
class, I left the forwarding-prison and wearily dragged my chains across
the endless snow-covered steppes, _en route_ for the dreaded district
beyond Irkutsk. The thought that each step took me nearer to my living
tomb rendered me desperate. Why should I, innocent of crime, be tortured
to death in the same manner as murderers and hardened criminals?
I resolved to endeavour to escape. It was a mad project, I admit,
for there was but little chance of crossing the wastes of snow which
stretched away three thousand miles before civilisation could be reached.
Nevertheless I determined to risk all. If I died in the snow, or starved,
it would end my miserable existence, and prevent further tortures being
heaped upon me.
In this frame of mind hope returned, and I walked on day after day,
watching for a chance to carry my hazardous design into effect. After
leaving Krasnoyarsk the chains that bound us to one another were removed,
and we were allowed to walk in groups. One day while trudging along the
road leading to Irkutsk we halted at a post-station. The weather being
intensely cold, the captain commanding the Cossacks sometimes allowed
those of us who had money to purchase _vodka_. On this occasion, however,
when we knocked at the door, our summons remained unanswered. It was
evident that the two men placed in charge of the low log house had
gone to visit their neighbours, the nearest of whom were twenty versts
distant; so after a further endeavour to open the door, we were compelled
to resume our weary tramp. About ten versts farther on we encamped for
the night on the border of a gloomy pine forest. This was the first
occasion we had slept near anything that might act as cover, therefore
I resolved, when my comrades were asleep, to slip past the sentries,
and make a dash for liberty. Tying my leg chain tighter to my waist to
prevent it jingling, I threw myself down after eating my evening ration,
and waited with breathless impatience. The minutes seemed hours, until at
last the camp became hushed in slumber; then I carefully rose, while the
Cossack sentry’s back was turned, and plunged swiftly and silently into
the great, dismal forest.
It was an exciting moment. Every second I expected to hear the hue
and cry raised, but as I gradually increased the distance between my
captors and myself, it seemed as though my escape remained undiscovered.
For an hour I walked in a straight line through the trees, and at
length I doubled, in the hope of finding the post-road I had left. My
anticipations were realised, and during the remainder of the long, dark
Siberian night I sped along as fast as my tired legs would carry me over
the road we had travelled on the previous day.
The almost insurmountable obstacles to my escape never entered my head,
so elated was I at the prospect of freedom.
Dawn came, and the weak, yellow rays of the sun were struggling forth,
when by chance I turned and looked behind me.
What I saw caused me breathless terror and dismay. In the distance,
looking like three black ants on the snowy horizon, were a trio of
mounted Cossacks riding at full gallop.
It was evident they had seen me!
I looked round for some means of concealment, but there was none. In the
distance, about a verst away, I saw the deserted post-house we had passed
on the day previous. Without knowing what impelled me, I started running
as hard as I could in that direction; but as I glanced round from time
to time I saw the Cossacks were fast gaining upon me.
They shouted to me to stop, but I took no heed. Some superhuman strength
seemed to possess me, and I ran swiftly and lightly over the snow towards
the house. Gradually they drew nearer, and then I heard the report of a
rifle, but finding myself unhurt, I redoubled my pace.
As the triumphant yells of the galloping Cossacks broke upon my ears, I
gained the rear of the house and halted for a moment to discover some
safe retreat.
There was none. The doors were fastened as they had been on the day
before. Not a moment was to be lost, for already I heard the thud of the
horses’ hoofs upon the snow. I had to choose between a brief life of
horrible torture that would follow my recapture, and instant death! I
chose the latter.
Glancing round wildly, I sought means of suicide. As I did so the yelling
soldiers, with revolvers drawn, came tearing round the side of the house.
“Surrender! or we’ll fire!” they cried.
I looked determinedly into their faces. It was a case of life or death,
and they were driving me to the latter.
Before they could anticipate my intention or level their weapons at me, I
made a dash for a deep well, situate about twenty yards distant, shouting
in my despair—
“I’ll kill myself rather than go back!”
A moment later I had jumped headlong into it.
How long I remained in a state of semi-consciousness I had no idea. I
remember lying silent and motionless listening to the voices of the
soldiers above, and scarce daring to breathe.
“See!” cried one, “it’s useless to get him out. His neck is broken or he
could never be crushed into a heap like that.”
The second man suggested that I might be merely stunned, but the third
exclaimed—
“He’s dead enough, poor devil. Why should we trouble ourselves to take
him out? Leave that work for the post-house keeper when he returns.”
“He was no fool either,” observed the first man grimly. “I should kill
myself if I had the same choice.”
Although the second man did not persist in his demand for my extrication,
he fired his revolver down the well, afterwards remounting and riding
slowly back with his companions.
When I thought they had departed I rose, and to my intense delight found
myself uninjured. The well being frozen, the ice was covered with a thick
layer of snow, and this had considerably diminished the concussion of my
fall. The Cossack’s bullet had not struck me, and beyond a bruise on my
elbow I was none the worse for my reckless leap.
At this moment I discovered that the chain used to draw up water was
unwound from the windlass and suspended close to my hand. With an
exclamation of joy I grasped it, and after ascertaining that it was fast
at the top, quickly clambered to the surface and in a few moments again
stood before the post-house.
Then the thought suggested itself that if I could effect an entrance I
might discover food and clothing, for it was impossible for me to go far
in a convict’s dress with a yellow diamond upon the back, without being
rearrested. I tried both doors, but they were securely fastened. After a
search, however, I came across a long piece of iron in an outhouse, and
with it contrived to wrench off the latch of a window-shutter. Afterwards
I broke open the double windows and clambered in. The one large room
facing the road was a bare-boarded, dirty apartment, and, like all
Siberian post-houses, devoid of any furniture beyond a plain deal table,
a couple of rush-bottomed chairs, and a bench. In the centre stood a
large, round stove, while on the wall was a badly executed picture of the
Virgin. There was some food upon the table, and the room bore evidence of
recent occupation.
As I passed into the sleeping apartment beyond, I started and drew back
in alarm, for lying upon the unclean straw mattress, fully dressed, and
covered with a heavy fur overcoat, lay a man. His face was turned from
me, but after a moment’s hesitation I shook him gently by the shoulder.
He did not stir.
I placed my hand upon his face, but drew it back instantly, for its
contact thrilled me. It was icy cold! The man was dead!
As I realised the truth, my eyes fell upon a piece of paper lying upon
the chair beside him. Taking it up, I read the following words written in
pencil in a feeble, shaky hand—
“_I shall die before you can return with medical aid. I order you in the
name of the Tzar to send on the despatches by a trusty messenger. You
will be repaid.—IVAN DRUKOVITCH._”
On searching the body I found the dispatches referred to secreted in the
money-belt around his waist. There were three official letters, secured
by the Imperial seal, and addressed to General Sergius Okoulow, Governor
of the District of Kolymsk, the Arctic exile settlement in the Province
of Yakoutsk. With the letters I found about 500 roubles in notes, and a
passport which declared the bearer to be “Ivan Drukovitch, messenger in
the service of His Imperial Majesty the Tzar, on official business to the
Governor of Kolymsk.”
It did not take me long to decide what course to adopt. Divesting myself
of my rags—which I put in the stove and set fire to—I attired myself in
the dead man’s uniform, strapped the money-belt with its contents around
my waist, together with a revolver, and destroyed the note the dead man
had written. After a brief search I discovered a file among the tools
belonging to the post-house keeper, and in half an hour had succeeded in
freeing my ankles of the galling fetters. Getting out of the window, I
went to the stable, where I found the courier’s horse, and having saddled
it mounted and rode away in the direction the convoy had taken.
Fortunately, my head had not been shaved, as is usual with criminals
entering upon the life sentence. The transformation from convict to
Imperial messenger was complete. My official dress, with its brass
double-headed eagle on the cap, was an effectual disguise. The wide
collar of my riding-coat was turned up, and just as it was growing dusk I
overtook the convoy. As I saluted the officers they responded, and I rode
past, inwardly chuckling, and soon left the sorry band of malefactors far
behind.
Mine was a terribly lonely and monotonous journey. Instead of following
the road to Irkutsk, I rode due north until I came to the mighty Lena,
afterwards travelling along its bank a distance of 700 English miles,
until I reached Yakoutsk. Remaining there for a couple of days, I again
bade farewell to all human companionship, and set out for the terrible
regions within the Arctic circle.
From the first I had recognised that it would be useless to attempt to
return to Petersburg by recrossing the Ourals, for the passport was
endorsed with dates so recent that if I presented it at the European
frontier it would be at once discovered that I had not had time to
travel to Kolymsk. This, combined with various other reasons, caused me
to assume the _rôle_ of courier and deliver the Tzar’s dispatches to the
person to whom they were addressed.
It is needless to refer in detail to my journey of 2,500 versts from
Yakoutsk across the great uninhabited desert and over the moss-covered
_tundras_, or Arctic swamps, to the most northerly exile settlement.
Lonely and weary, I sometimes rode for three and four days without
reaching a post-house or seeing a single human being, and frequently I
was in a half-starved, half-frozen condition. Time passed, and I kept no
count of it. My thoughts were only of eventual freedom. Having destroyed
the note left by the dying man, together with my convict’s rags, I knew
the post-house keeper would be puzzled at finding the corpse had been
plundered, and as there was no telegraph to Yakoutsk, I was confident
that I should not be forestalled by the news of the courier’s death.
After an incessant journey, lasting two months, I arrived at Sredne
Kolmysk, a small town of log huts situate at a point far beyond the
Arctic circle, where the deep river Ankudine flows into the Kolyma.
The houses, scattered about in disorder, are inhabited by Cossacks,
Mieshchany, Yakouts, and exiles. The highest erection is a log church,
and the only curiosity a small wooden tower, crooked with age, which
stands within the church enclosure, and was built by the conquerors of
the country as a protection from raids of hostile tribes. The condition
of the unfortunate exiles there was terrible, even for Siberia. In that
land, where winter commences in August and lasts till May, and where the
temperature varies from nine degrees above freezing-point to thirteen
degrees below, man is utterly powerless. Only a handful of wretched
savages inhabit the fearful region, having been driven to outer darkness
by the tribes with more vitality and energy.
It takes about eighteen months to reach this extremity of the habitable
globe, and by introducing, as a part of the penal system, exile to
the Arctic zone, the Russian Government has overstepped even its
broad allowance of iniquity. This hamlet is a penitentiary colony for
political exiles, whose punishment is purposely aggravated by physical
suffering, and who are compelled to exist in a perpetual state of famine
in dwellings that are simply wretched huts built of upright beams, with
rafters laid across and covered with layers of earth. From the Government
store musty rye flour is eked out to them at intervals, and for the rest,
they subsist upon what fish they can catch in the river.
I was not long in discovering General Okoulow’s residence, and, acting as
Imperial messenger, delivered the dispatches in as ceremonious a manner
as I could. As I had anticipated, they contained several pardons, and
when this became known in the little colony I was _fêted_ and treated
with every courtesy and kindness. Although such a reception was pleasant
after the wearying monotony of the Verkho-yansk Desert, yet I was anxious
for an opportunity to shake the snow of Siberia from my feet. Having
waited several days while the Governor was preparing his reports for
Petersburg, I one morning made a request—not without trepidation, I
admit—that he should endorse my passport so as to enable me to go on a
brief visit to a brother in Petropaulovsk before returning to Russia. To
my joy, the accommodating Governor saw no objection to this course, and
with a light heart I set out at dawn on the following day towards the
Stanovoi mountains.
Crossing them, I rode onwards for four weeks through the wild grey
mountains until my jaded horse sank and died of sheer exhaustion. Being
compelled to perform the remainder of the terrible journey on foot, I
walked by slow, weary stages across the great lone land, where nothing
marked my route except the sun, and the country being totally uninhabited
I had to eat grass and willow-leaves for sustenance. Suddenly, however,
at the close of a dull, stormy day, I had the satisfaction of seeing, for
the first time, the broad, grey waters of the Pacific stretching away to
a limitless horizon.
Even when I had arrived at Petropaulovsk I had by no means eluded the
police. The journey to Kolymsk I had undertaken because I recognised
how extremely dangerous it would have been to travel to the coast with
a passport which distinctly stated my route and destination. The police
at Siberian ports are ever-watchful for escaping convicts, but in my
eagerness for freedom it never occurred to me that information would be
telegraphed to that extreme corner of the empire of the theft of the dead
man’s papers. This carelessness nearly resulted in disaster.
It was late one afternoon when I descended the hill at the entrance
to the town, and passed along the quay. In doing so I noticed a ship
anchored about a mile distant. Of a fisherman I casually inquired
what the vessel was, and when she would sail. He replied that it was
a Canadian sealer, and that it would sail on the morrow. During the
remainder of the day I wandered about the dirty, wretched town in search
of some means of escape. I had only twenty roubles left, but with these I
intended to bribe some foreign sailor to let me embark as a stowaway.
When it had grown dark and I was looking about for lodging for the
night, I discovered, to my dismay, that I was being closely watched by a
police spy. In order to allay suspicion, I sought the police bureau, and
entering boldly, presented my passport. The _ispravnik_ chanced to be
there, and when he glanced at it a curious smile passed over his features.
“The Imperial courier, Ivan Drukovitch, is dead,” he said, looking at me
searchingly. “Consider yourself arrested!”
I waited for no more. Ere he had uttered the last sentence I had dashed
out of the door and down the street. Half-a-dozen policemen were
instantly in full cry after me, but in desperation I was determined not
to be apprehended just as I was within an ace of securing my freedom.
Exerting every muscle, I ran up and down the narrow streets until I
suddenly found myself upon the quay. In the glimmering starlight my eyes
caught sight of a moored boat. Without a moment’s hesitation I jumped
into it and cut the cord that held it. Before my pursuers could gain the
water-side the swift current had taken the boat down beside some great
piles and I was effectually hidden in the darkness.
It was an intensely exciting moment.
I heard the hurrying footsteps pass close to where I was concealed, and
listened to them receding in the distance. Then I breathed again. Taking
the oars, and dreading lest I should be discovered, I pulled swiftly
across the bay to the moored ship I had noticed in the afternoon.
The captain, a genial, kind-hearted man, took compassion upon me when I
had related my story, and a few hours later I had the gratification of
watching the twinkling lights of Petropaulovsk disappear at the stern.
Three weeks later I landed at Victoria, Vancouver, and after a short
residence there was provided with funds by our Organisation, and left for
England.