Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/144

122 enjoy most freedom, and where it is easiest to make their acquaintance, but into a province which was then governed by a liberal and humane man.

On the morning of Tuesday, June 30, having made our farewell calls, purchased a tárantás, and provided ourselves with a padarózhnaya, or order for horses, we left Tiumén for Semipalátinsk by the regular Government post. The Imperial Russian Post is now perhaps the most extensive and perfectly organized horse-express service in the world. From the southern end of the peninsula of Kamchátka to the most remote village in Finland, from the frozen, windswept shores of the arctic ocean to the hot, sandy deserts of Central Asia, the whole empire is one vast network of post routes. You may pack your portmanteau in Nízhni Nóvgorod, get a padarózhnaya from the postal department, and start for Petropávlovsk, Kamchátka, seven thousand miles away, with the full assurance that throughout the whole of that immense distance there will be horses, reindeer, or dogs ready and waiting to carry you on, night and day, to your destination. It must, however, be borne in mind that the Russian post route is a very different thing from the old English post route, and that the Russian horse express differs widely, not only from our own western "pony express," but from the horse expresses of most other countries. The characteristic feature of the west European and American systems is the stage-coach or diligence, which leaves certain places at certain stated hours, or, in other words, runs upon a prearranged time schedule. It is precisely this feature that the Russian system does not have. There are, generally speaking, no stage-coach lines in Russia; the vehicles that carry the mails do not carry passengers, and, away from the railroads, there is no such thing as traveling upon a fixed time schedule. You are never obliged, therefore, to wait for a public conveyance which leaves at a certain stated hour, and then go through to your destination in that conveyance, stopping