Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/106

84 committee, we presented ourselves at the gate. The Tiumén forwarding prison is a rectangular three-story brick building, 75 feet in length by 40 or 50 in width, covered with white stucco and roofed with painted tin. It is situated in a large yard formed by a whitewashed brick wall 12 or 15 feet in height, at each corner of which stands a black-and-white zig-zag-barred sentry-box, and along each face of which paces a sentry carrying a loaded Berdan rifle with fixed bayonet. Against this wall, on the right-hand side of the gate, is a small building used as a prison office, and in front of it stands a post surmounted by a small A-shaped roof under which hangs a bell. A dozen or more girls and old women were sitting on the ground in front of the prison with baskets full of black rye-bread, cold meat, boiled eggs, milk, and fish-pies for sale to the imprisoned exiles. The Tiumén prison was originally built to hold 550 prisoners, but was subsequently enlarged by means of detached barracks so that it could accommodate 850. On the day of our visit, as we were informed by a small blackboard hanging beside the office door, it contained 1741. As we approached the entrance we were stopped by an armed sentry, who, upon being informed that we desired admittance, shouted through a square port-hole in the heavy gate, "Star-she-e-e!" (the usual call for the officer of the day). A corporal or sergeant, with a saber at his side and a Colt's revolver in a holster on his hip, answered the summons, carried our note to the warden, and in a moment we were admitted to the prison yard. Fifty or sixty exiles and convicts were walking aimlessly back and forth in front of the main prison building, or sitting idly in groups here and there on the ground. They were all dressed from head to foot in a costume of gray, consisting of a visorless Scotch cap, a shirt and trousers of coarse homespun linen, and a long gray overcoat with one or two diamond-shaped patches of black or yellow cloth sewn upon the back between the shoulders. Nearly all of them wore leg-fetters, and the air was filled with a