Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/420

404 conspicuous devotion to science was that Mr. Martiánof kept our room filled with archæological relics and ethnological specimens of all sorts, and, moreover, brought to call upon us one evening the accomplished geologist, archæologist, and political exile, Dmítri Kléments. I recognized the latter at once as the man to whom I had a round-robin letter of introduction from a whole colony of political exiles in another part of Eastern Siberia, and also as the original of one of the biographical sketches in Stépniak's "Underground Russia." He was a tall, strongly built man about forty years of age, with a head and face that would attract attention in any popular assembly, but that would be characterized by most observers as Asiatic rather than European in type. The high, bald, well-developed forehead was that of the European scholar and thinker, but the dark-brown eyes, swarthy complexion, prominent cheek-bones, and rather flattish nose with open, dilated nostrils, suggested the features of a Buriát or Mongol. The lips and chin and the outlines of the lower jaw were concealed by a dark-brown beard and mustache; but all the face that could be seen below the forehead might have belonged to a native of any south-Siberian tribe.

As soon as I could get my round-robin certificate of trustworthiness out of the leather money-belt under my shirt, where I carried all dangerous documents likely to be needed on the road, I handed it to Mr. Kléments with the remark that although Mr. Martiánof had given me the conventional introduction of polite society, he could not be expected, of course, as a recent acquaintance, to vouch for my moral character, and I begged leave, therefore, to submit my references. Mr. Kléments read the letter with grave attention, went with it to one corner of the room, struck a match, lighted the paper, held it by one corner between his thumb and forefinger until it was entirely consumed, and then, dropping the ash and grinding it into powder on the floor under his foot, he turned to me and said, "That's the