Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/330

324 "No, they do not; they go from one large town to another. In the large towns there are prisons which serve as depots where exiles are accumulated, and the distribution of prisoners is generally made from these points. The officers and soldiers in charge of a convoy take their prisoners to one of these depots and deliver up their charges; receipts are given for the number of men delivered, just as for so many boxes or bales of goods. The guard can then return to its starting-point, and the prisoners are locked up until the convoy is ready for the road again.

"The guards are responsible for their prisoners, both from escape and injury. If a man dies on the road his body is carried to the next station for burial, so that the station-master and others may certify to the death; and if a man is killed while attempting to escape, the same disposition must be made of his body.

"Some years ago a Polish lady who was going into exile fell from a boat while descending a river. She had a narrow escape from drowning, and the officer in charge of her was very much alarmed. When she was rescued from the water, he said to her, 'I shall be severely punished if you escape or any accident happens to you. I have tried to treat you kindly, and beg of you, for my sake, not to drown yourself or fall into the river again.

"But don't a good many escape from Siberia, and either go back to their homes or get to foreign countries?"

"The number of escapes is not large," Mr. Hegeman answered, "as the difficulties of getting out of the country are very great. In the first place, there is the immense distance from the middle of Siberia to Moscow or St. Petersburg, or, worse still, to Poland. Nobody can hire horses at a station without showing his paderojnia, and this is only issued by the police-master, who knows the name and probably the face of every exile in his district. Even if a man gets a paderojnia by fraud, his absence would soon be discovered, and his flight can be stopped by the use of the telegraph.

"If an exile should try to get out of the country by going northward he would be stopped by the shores of the Arctic Ocean. If he goes to the south he enters China, or the inhospitable regions of Central Asia, where it is difficult, if not impossible, for a European to travel alone.

"Occasionally some one escapes by way of the Amoor River, or the ports of the Okhotsk Sea; but there are not many ships entering and leaving those ports, and the police keep a sharp watch over them to make sure that they do not carry away more men than they bring. I once met in Paris a Pole who had escaped from Siberia by this route. By some means that he would not reveal to me, he managed to get out of the