Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/374

358 handkerchief, a ragged tippet, or an old stocking tied over it in such a way as to protect the ears; a pólu-shúba, with the reddish tanned side out; long, loose leather boots, which had been stuffed around the feet and ankles with hay to make them warmer; woolen trousers, foot-wrappers, or short woolen stockings, and big leather mittens. The leg-fetters, in most cases, were worn inside the boots, and the chain that united them was looped up in the middle by means of a strap attached to the leather waist-belt. From this point of support it hung down to the ankle on each side between the tucked-in trouser-leg and the boot. With some slight changes—such, for example, as the substitution of a fur hood for the flimsy Tam o'Shanter cap—the dress, it seemed to me, would afford adequate warmth in ordinary winter weather to men whose blood was kept in vigorous circulation by exercise; but it was by no means sufficient for the protection of sick or disabled convicts who were exposed in open vehicles for eight or ten hours at a stretch to all sorts of weather. I noticed a number of such incapables lying in the shallow, uncomfortable one-horse sleighs at the rear of the column, and clinging or crouching together as if to seek warmth in mutual contact. They all seemed to be half frozen to death.

As the straggling column passed us, a convict here and there left the ranks, apparently with the permission of the guard, and, approaching our pavóska with bared head and extended cap, begged us, in the peculiar, half- wailing chant of the milosérdnaya, to "pity the unfortunate" and to "have mercy on the poor and needy, for Christ's sake." I knew that money given to them would probably be used in gambling or go to the maidánshchik in payment for vódka; but the poor wretches looked so cold, tired, hungry, and