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386 beyond furnishing the prisoners with money for rations, and allowing the peasants or the soldiers of the convoy to act as purveyors. In times of scarcity it is impossible to buy, with the money given to each exile for his subsistence, enough food to satisfy hunger. In one district of Eastern Siberia, where there had been a partial failure of the crops, the exiles could scarcely buy, with five cents a day, a pound and a half of black rye bread. The étape officers complained bitterly to me of the indifference of the Government to the sufferings of the prisoners, and declared that it was unjust and cruel to give men only a pound and a half of black bread, and at the same time force them to march twenty miles a day in leg-fetters, and in bitterly cold weather.

After supper the roll of the party was called in the courtyard; a sentry was stationed at each corner of the quadrangular stockade, and another at the gate; a cheap tallow-candle was lighted in each kámera; paráshas, or large uncovered wooden tubs for excrement, were placed in the cells and corridors; and the prisoners were locked up for the night. More than half the party lay on the dirty floors without blankets or pillows, and the atmosphere of the rooms in the course of the night became foul and polluted to an extent that can be imagined only by one who has been present at the opening of the doors in the morning. How human beings, under such conditions, live to reach the mines of Kará, I do not know. It was my intention to ask a friendly étape officer to allow me to spend one night with the convicts in an étape kámera; but after