Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/76



A VISIT TO THE SELENGÍNSK LAMASERY

HE latter part of our stay in the city of Irkútsk was devoted mainly to preparations for the journey that we were about to make through the little-known territory of the Trans-Baikál. We anticipated that this would be a very hard experience. The region that we purposed to explore was wilder and lonelier than any part of Siberia we had seen except the Altái; the convict mines, which we wished to inspect, were scattered over a rough, mountainous country thousands of square miles in extent, lying between the head-waters of the Amúr and the frontier of Mongolia; most of these mines were off the regular post roads, and were not laid down on the maps; we anticipated great difficulty in obtaining permission to visit them, and still greater difficulty in actually reaching them; and finally, we were about to plunge into this wilderness of the Trans-Baikál at the beginning of a semi-arctic winter, when storms and bitter cold would be added to the hardships with which we were already familiar. Owing to the fact that the territory of the Trans-Baikál had shortly before been detached from the governor-generalship of Eastern Siberia and annexed to the governor-generalship of the Amúr, we could not get in Irkútsk any assurance that permission to visit the mines would be granted us. In reply to my questions upon the subject Count Ignátief and Acting-Governor Petróf merely said, "The Trans-Baikál is out of our jurisdiction; for permission to visit the