Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/108

86 peculiar clinking of chains which suggested the continuous jingling of innumerable bunches of keys.

The first kámera or cell that we entered was situated in a one-story log barrack standing against the wall on the left of the gate, and built evidently to receive the overflow from the crowded main building. The room was about 35 feet in length by 25 in width and 12 feet high; its walls of hewn logs were covered with dirty whitewash; its rough plank floor was black with dried mud and hard-trodden filth; and it was lighted by three grated windows looking out into the prison yard. Down the center of the room, and occupying about half its width, ran the sleeping-bench—a wooden platform 12 feet wide and 30 feet long, supported at a height of 2 feet from the floor by stout posts. Each longitudinal half of this low platform sloped a little, roof-wise, from the center, so that when the prisoners slept upon it in two closely packed transverse rows, their heads in the middle were a few inches higher than their feet at the edges. These sleeping-platforms are known as nári, and a Siberian prison cell contains no other furniture except a large wooden tub for excrement. The prisoners have neither pillows, blankets, nor bed-clothing, and must lie on these hard plank nári with no covering but their overcoats. As we entered the cell, the convicts, with a sudden jingling of chains, sprang to their feet, removed their caps, and stood silently in a dense throng around the nári. "Zdrástvuitye rebiáta!" [How do you do, boys?] said the warden. "Zdrávie zheláiem váshe vuisóki blagaródie" [We wish you health, your high nobility], shouted a hundred voices in a hoarse chorus. "The prison," said the warden, "is terribly overcrowded. This cell, for example, is only 35 feet long by 25 wide, and has air space for 35, or at most 40 men. How many men slept here last night?" he inquired, turning to the prisoners.

"A hundred and sixty, your high nobility," shouted half a dozen hoarse voices.