and the broad, rapid current of the Shilka was so choked with masses of heavy ice as to be almost, if not quite, impassable. A large open skiff was making a perilous attempt to cross from Stretinsk to our side of the river, and a dozen or more peasants, who stood shivering around a small camp-fire on the beach, were waiting for it, with the hope that it would come safely to land and that the ferrymen might be persuaded to make a return trip with passengers. After watching for a quarter of an hour the struggles of this boat with the ice, Mr. Frost and I decided that it would be hazardous to attempt, in an open skiff, the passage of a rapid and ice-choked river half a mile wide, even if the boatmen were willing to take us; and we therefore sought shelter in the small log house of a young Russian peasant named Zablikoff (Zab'lee-koff), who goodhumoredly consented to give us a night's lodging provided we had no objection to sleeping on the floor with the members of his family. We were too much exhausted and too nearly frozen to object to anything; and as for sleeping on the floor, we had become so accustomed

possibility of reaching the Kara mines at that season of the year by an overland journey across the mountains.

Descending the river in a boat was manifestly impracticable on account of the great quantity of running ice; we could not waste two or three weeks in inaction, and the horseback ride to the mines over the mountains seemed to be the only feasible alternative. There were, on our side of the river, a few horses that Zablik off thought might be hired; but they belonged to a merchant who lived in Stretinsk, and in order to get permission to use them, as well as to obtain the necessary saddles and equipments and secure the services of a guide, it would be necessary to cross the Shilka to the town. This, in the existing condition of the river, was a somewhat perilous undertaking; but Zablikoff offered to accompany me with two or three of his men, and early Thursday morning we carried his light, open skiff down to the beach for the purpose of making the attempt. The weather had moderated a little, but it was still very cold; the river had become an almost continuous

as the result of an awkward jump, I gained a footing upon ice that was firm enough to sustain my weight. The weather was so cold that getting wet was a serious matter; and leaving Zablikoff and the men to pull out the boat, I started at a brisk run for the town and took refuge in the first shop I could find. After drying and warming myself I sent a telegram to Mr. Wurts, the Secretary of the United States legation in St. Petersburg, to apprise him of our whereabouts; found the owner of the horses and made a bargain with him for transportation to the first peasant village down the river in the direction of the mines; hired an old guide named Nikifer (Ne-ke'fer); procured the necessary saddles and equipments, and late in the afternoon made, without accident, the perilous return trip across the river to Zablikoff's house.

stant when the ice should give way under our feet. Four or five yards from the black, eddying current the ice yielded, we felt a sudden sinking sensation, and then, with a great confused crash we went into the water, Zablikoff shouting excitedly, "Now! Into the boat!" The skiff gave a deep roll, first to one side and then to the other, as we all sprung into it; but fortunately it did not capsize, and in another moment we were whirled away and swept rapidly downstream amid huge grinding icetables, which we fended off, as well as we could, with oars and boat-hooks. As soon as the first excitement of the launch was over, two of the men settled down to steady rowing, while Zablikoff, boat-hook in hand, stood in the bow as pilot and guided our frail craft through the narrow lanes of water between the swiftly running ice-floes. We were carried downstream about half a mile before we could reach the opposite shore, and when we did reach it the making of a landing on the thin, treacherous edge of the fast ice proved to be a more difficult and dangerous task than even the launching of the skiff. Three or four times while we were clinging with boat-hooks to the crumbling edge of the ice-foot I thought we should certainly be crushed or capsized by the huge white fields and tables that came grinding down upon us from above; but we finally broke our way into the stationary ice-belt far enough to get shelter. Zablikoff sprung out upon a hummock and made fast a line, and after being immersed in the freezing water up to my hips

As early as possible on Friday we saddled. our horses and set out for the mines, taking with us nothing except our blanket rolls and note-books, a bag of provisions, the camera, and about a dozen dry plates. The weather had again moderated and our thermometer indicated a temperature of eighteen degrees above zero; but the sky was dark and threatening, a light snow was falling, and as we rode up on the summit of the first high ridge and looked ahead into the wild, lonely mountainous region that we were to traverse, I felt a momentary sinking of the heart. I was still weak from my sickness in Troitskosavsk (Troy-its-kosavsk'), winter had set in, and I feared that

from their nostrils, and they seemed as impatient to get away as we were. With our departure from Lomi began the really difficult part of our journey. The trail ran in a tortuous course across a wilderness of rugged mountains, sometimes making long détours to the northward to avoid deep or precipitous ravines; sometimes climbing in zigzags the steep sides of huge transverse ridges; and occasionally coming out upon narrow shelf-like cornices of rock, high above the dark, ice-laden waters of the Shilka, where a slip or stumble of our horses would unquestionably put an end to our Siberian investigations. That we did not meet with any accident in the course of this ride to Kara seems to me a remarkable evidence of good luck. Our horses were unshod, and the trail in many places was covered with ice formed by the overflow and freezing of water from mountain springs, then hidden by a thin sheet of snow, so that it was impossible to determine from the most careful inspection of a steep and dangerous descent whether or not it would afford secure foothold for our horses. Throughout Saturday and Sunday we walked most of the time; partly because we were too nearly frozen to sit in the saddle, and partly because we dared not take the risks of the slippery trail. Three days of riding, walking, and climbing over rugged mountains, in a temperature that ranged from zero to ten degrees below, finally exhausted my last reserve of strength; and when we reached the peasant village of Shilkina at a late hour Sunday night, a weak and thready pulse, running at the rate of 120, warned me that I was near the extreme limit of my endurance. Fortunately the worst part of our journey was over. Üst Kara (Oost Kah-rah'), the most southerly of the Kara penal settlements, was distant from Shilkina only ten or twelve miles; the trail between the two places presented no unusual difficulties; and about noon on Monday we dismounted from our tired horses in the large village at the mouth of the Kara River, hobbled with stiffened and benumbed legs into the house of a peasant known to our guide, and threw ourselves down

to rest.

The mines of Kara, which are the private property of his Imperial Majesty the Tsar, and are worked for his benefit, consist of a series of open gold placers, situated at irregular intervals along a small rapid stream called the Kara River, which rises on the water-shed of the Yablonoi Mountains, runs in a south-easterly direction for a distance of forty or fifty miles, and finally empties into the Shilka between Stretinsk and the mouth of the Argun (Ar-goon'). The name" Kara" - derived from a Tartar adjective meaning “black” was originally used

merely to designate this stream; but it is now applied more comprehensively to the whole chain of prisons, mines, and convict settlements that lie scattered through the Kara Valley. These prisons, mines, and convict settlements, taking them in serial order from south to north, are known separately and distinctively as Ust Kara or Kara mouth, the Lower Prison, the Political Prison, the Lower Diggings, Middle Kara, Upper Kara, and the Upper or Amurski (Am-moor'skee) Prison. The administration of the whole penal establishment centers in the Lower Diggings, where the governor of the common-criminal prisons resides, and where there is a convict settlement of two or three hundred inhabitants and a company or two of soldiers in barracks. It seemed to me best to make this place our headquarters; partly because it was the residence of the governor, without whose consent we could do nothing, and partly because it was distant only about a mile from the political prison in which we were especially interested. We therefore left our horses and our guide at Ust Kara with orders to wait for us, and, after dining and resting for an hour or two, set out in a telega for the Lower Diggings. The road ran up the left bank of the Kara River through a shallow valley averaging about half a mile in width, bounded by low hills that were covered with a scanty second growth of young larches and pines, and whitened by a light fall of snow. The floor of the valley was formed by huge shapeless mounds of gravel and sand, long ago turned over and washed in the search for gold, and it suggested a worked-out placer in the most dreary and desolate part of the Black Hills.

We reached the Lower Diggings just before dark. It proved to be a spacious but straggling Siberian village of low whitewashed cabins, long unpainted log barracks, officers' tinroofed residences, with wattle-inclosed yards, and a black, gloomy, weather-beaten log prison of the usual East Siberian type. The buildings belonging to the Government were set with some show of regularity in wide open spaces or along a few very broad streets; and they gave to the central part of the village a formal and official air that was strangely at variance with the disorderly arrangement of the unpainted shanties and dilapidated drift-wood cabins of the ticket-of-leave convicts which were huddled together here and there on the outskirts of the settlement or along the road that led to Ust Kara. On one side of an open square, around which stood the prison and the barracks, forty or fifty convicts in long gray overcoats with yellow diamonds on their backs were at work upon a new log building, surrounded by a cordon of Cossacks in sheepskin "shubas," felt boots, and

CONVICTS AT WORK UPON A NEW GOVERNMENT BUILDING IN THE LOWER DIGGINGS.

muff-shaped fur caps, who stood motionless at their posts, leaning upon their Berdan rifles and watching the prisoners. At a little distance was burning a camp-fire, over which was hanging a tea-kettle and around which were standing or crouching a dozen more Cossacks, whose careless attitudes and stacked rifles showed that they were temporarily off duty. In the waning light of the cold, gloomy autumnal afternoon, the dreary, snowy square, the gray group of convicts working listlessly as if hopeless or exhausted, and the cordon of

Cossacks leaning upon their bayoneted rifles, made up a picture that for some reason exerted upon me a chilling and depressing influence. It was our first glimpse of convict life at the mines.

We drove at once to the house of the governor of the prisons, for the purpose of inquiring where we could find shelter for the night. Major Potulof, a tall, fine-looking, soldierly man about fifty years of age, received us cordially and said that he had been apprised of our coming by a telegram from the acting governor in Chita; but he did not really expect us, because he knew the Shilka was no longer navigable, and he did not believe foreign travelers would undertake, at that season of the year, the difficult and dangerous journey across the mountains. He expressed great pleasure, however, at seeing us, and invited us at once to accept the hospitalities of his house. I told him that we did not intend to quarter ourselves upon him, but merely wished to inquire where we could find shelter for the night. He laughed pleasantly, and replied that there were no hotels or boarding-houses in Kara except those provided by the Government for burglars, counterfeiters, and murderers; and that he expected us, of course, to accept his hospitality and make ourselves at home in his house. This was not at all in accordance with our wishes or plans.