Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/396

374 circumference of the globe at the equator, one can appreciate the indomitable resolution of these men, and the strength of the influence that draws them towards home and freedom. In the year 1884, 1360 such brodyágs were recaptured in Western Siberia and sent back to the mines of the Trans-Baikál, and hundreds more perished from cold and starvation in the forests. M. I. Orfánof, a Russian officer who served many years in Eastern Siberia, says that he once found 200 "Ivan Dontremembers" in a single prison—the prison of Kaidálova, between Chíta and Nérchinsk.

Some of the brodyágs with whom I talked were men of intelligence and education. One of them, who was greatly interested in our photographic apparatus, and who seemed to know all about "dry plates," "drop shutters," and "Dallmeyer lenses," asked me how convicts were treated in the United States, and whether they could, by extra work, earn a little money, so as not to leave prison penniless. I replied that in most American penitentiaries they could.

"It is not so," he said, "with us. Naked we go to the mines, and naked we come out of them; and we are flogged, while there, at the whim of every nariádchik."

"Oh, no!" said Captain Gudim good-naturedly, "they don't flog at the mines now."

"Yes, they do, your Nobility," replied the brodyág firmly but respectfully. "If you are sick or weak, and can't finish your stent, you are given twenty blows with the cat."

I should have been glad to get further information from the brodyág with regard to his life at the mines, but just at this moment Captain Gudím asked me if I would not like to see the loading of the sick and infirm, and the conversation was interrupted.