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express grave disapproval; and then we, as his guests, should be in honor bound to respect his authority. It would hardly be fair to eat a man's bread and then openly disregard his expressed wishes in a matter that might be of vital interest to him as well as to us. I revolved these and many other similar considerations in my mind for two or three days, and finally decided that if I could see the political convicts before Major Potulof had said anything to me on the subject I would do it acting, of course, upon my own responsibility, at my own risk, and in such a way, if possible, as to relieve him from the least suspicion of complicity. I did not see why we should be tied hand and foot by accidental obligations of hospitality growing out of a situation into which we had virtually been forced. As soon as I had come to this decision I began to watch for opportunities; but I soon found myself involved in a network of circumstances and personal relations that rendered still more difficult and hazardous the course I intended to pursue. On the second day after our arrival we received a call from Captain Nikolin (Nee-ko'lin), the gendarme commandant of the political prisons. He had heard of our sudden appearance, and had come to see who we were and what we wanted in that dreaded penal settlement. He made upon me, from the first, a very unfavorable impression; but I was not prepared, nevertheless, for the contemptuous, almost insulting, coldness of the reception given to him by Major Potulof. It was apparent, at a glance, that the two men were upon terms of hostility; and for a moment I wondered why Nikolin should put himself in a position to be so discourteously treated. Most men would have regarded such a reception as equivalent to a slap in the face, and would have left the house at the first opportunity. Gendarme officers, however, are trained to submit to anything, if by submission they can attain their ends. Captain Nikolin wished to see the American travelers, and, notwithstanding the chilly nature of the reception given him, he was as bland as a May morning. It was obviously my policy to show him as much cordiality as I possibly could without irritating Major Potulof. I desired not only to remove any suspicions that he might entertain with regard to us, but, if possible, to win his confidence. "It must gratify even a gendarme officer," I thought, "to be treated with marked respect and cordiality by foreign travelers, when he has just been openly affronted by one of his own associates. We, as Major Potulof's guests, might naturally be expected to follow his lead. If we take the opposite course, Nikolin will give us credit not only for courtesy, but for independence of

judgment and clear perception of character, and we shall thus score a point." I never had any reason to doubt the soundness of this reasoning. Nikolin was evidently gratified by the unexpected evidences of interest and respect that appeared in our behavior towards him, and when he took his leave he shook my hand and expressed the hope that we might meet again. He did not dare, in Major Potulof's presence, to invite us to call upon him, nor did we venture to promise that we would do so; but we intended, nevertheless, to pay him a visit just as soon as we could escape from surveillance. Major Potulof had delicacy or prudence enough not to say a word in dispraise of Nikolin after the latter had gone; but in subsequent conversation with other officers I learned that the personal relations between the two men were greatly strained, and that Nikolin was generally hated and despised as a secret spy and informer by all the regular army officers at the post.

"He writes full reports to St. Petersburg of everything we do," said one officer to me; "but," he added, "let him write. I'm not afraid of him. We have had four or five gendarme officers in charge of the political prison here in the last three years, and he 's the worst of the lot."

This information with regard to Nikolin and his relations to Potulof greatly complicated the situation. Suppose I should succeed in making the acquaintance of the political convicts of the free command; Nikolin would almost certainly hear of it, and would probably find out that I had brought the convicts letters. He would at once report the facts to St. Petersburg, and would make them the basis of an accusation against his enemy Potulof by saying: "These American travelers are Potulof's guests. They have visited the political convicts secretly at night, and have even committed a penal offense by carrying letters. They would hardly have dared to do this without Potulof's knowledge and consent; consequently Potulof has been accessory to a violation of law, and has interfered with the discharge of my duties. I cannot consent to be held responsible for the political convicts if Major Potulof is going to aid foreign travelers in getting interviews with them and carrying letters to and from them."

The result of this would be that I, while receiving Major Potulof's hospitality, should be betraying him to his enemies and getting him into trouble-a thing that went terribly against all my instincts of honor. But even this was not all. Captain Nikolin, as I subsequently learned, was strongly opposed to the ticket-of-leave organization known as the free command, and had repeatedly recommended its abolition. My

visit to the political convicts-should I make one would furnish him with the strongest kind of argument in support of his assertion that the free command was a dangerous innovation. He would write or telegraph to the Minister of the Interior: "I understand that it is the intention of the Government to keep the more dangerous class of state criminals in complete isolation, allowing them no communication with their relatives except through the gendarmerie. It is manifestly impossible for me to give this intention effect if political convicts are allowed to live outside the prison where they can be seen and interviewed by strangers. Foreign travelers are coming more and more frequently to Siberia, and Kara is no longer an unknown or an inaccessible place. If army officers like Potulof are going to aid such foreign travelers in opening communication with the political convicts, the Government must either abolish the free command and recommit its members to prison, or else abandon the idea of keeping them in isolation."

It was not difficult to foresee the probable consequences of such a report. I might, by a single secret visit, bring disaster upon the whole free command, and cause the return of all its members to chains, leg-fetters, and prison cells. That I should be the means of adding to the miseries of these unfortunate people, instead of relieving them, was an almost insupportable thought; and I lay awake nearly all of one night balancing probabilities and trying to make up my mind whether it would be worth while to run such risks. I finally decided to adhere to my original intention and make the acquaintance of the political convicts of the free command at all hazards, provided I could escape the courteous, hospitable, but unceasing vigilance of Major Potulof.

I lived in Kara five days without having a single opportunity to get out-of-doors unaccompanied and unwatched. At last my chance came. On the sixth day Major Potulof was obliged to go to Ust Kara (Oost Kah-rah') to attend a meeting of an army board, or court

1 The history of this storehouse furnishes an interesting illustration of the corruption and demoralization that are characteristic of the Russian bureaucratic system everywhere, and particularly in Siberia. The building should have contained, and was supposed to contain, at the time it was burned, 20,000 poods (360 tons) of Government flour, intended for the use of the convicts at the Kara mines. Upon making an examination of the ruins after the fire it was discovered that 20 or 30 poods of flour, which belonged to a private individual and had been stored in the building temporarily as an accommodation, was only slightly charred on the outside, and that three-fourths of it could still be used. Of the 20,000 poods of Government flour, however, not the slightest trace could be

of inquiry, convened to investigate the recent destruction by fire of a large Government flour storehouse.1 He had said nothing to me about the political convicts; he had apparently become convinced that we were "safe" enough to leave, and he went away commending us laughingly to the care of his wife. Before he had been gone an hour I tore out the pocket of my large, loose fur overcoat, dropped down between the outside cloth and the lining a few little presents that I had promised to give to the political convicts, transferred from my waistbelt to my pocket the letters that I had for them and the rough map of the village with which I was provided, and then set out on foot for the political prison. It was about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Major Potulof expected to be absent until the following night, so that I could safely count upon twenty-four hours of freedom from surveillance. My plan was to pay a visit first to Captain Nikolin, get upon the most friendly possible terms with him, remove any lingering suspicions that he might still entertain with regard to us, and then, about dark, go directly from his house to the cabin of Miss Nathalie Armfeldt, the political convict from Kiev to whom I had a letter of introduction. My object in calling first upon Captain Nikolin was twofold. In the first place, I felt sure he would know that Major Potulof had just gone to Ust Kara, and I thought it would please and compliment the gendarme officer to see that I had availed myself of my very first moment of freedom to call upon him, notwithstanding Potulof's hostility to him. In the second place, I reasoned that if I should be seen going to the house of a political convict it would be safer and would excite less suspicion to be seen going there directly from the house of the commandant than from my own quarters. In the former case it would, very likely, be thought that I was acting with the commandant's knowledge or permission; and in any case open boldness would be safer than skulking timidity.

Captain Nikolin was an old and experienced gendarme officer of the most subtle and unscrupulous type, who had received

found, and an investigation showed that it had all been stolen by somebody, and that the building had been burned to conceal the theft. A few months later, after our departure from Kara and while the investigation was still in progress, Major Potulof's house, which contained all the documents relating to the case, was destroyed by an incendiary fire in the same mysterious way. The censor has never allowed the results of the investigation to be published in the Siberian newspapers, and I do not know who, if anybody, was found to be guilty of the double crime. In most cases of this kind the relations of the criminals with the higher authorities are found to be such as to necessitate a suppression of the facts and a hushing up of the whole matter. I presume that it was so in this case.

pleasant interview with Mr. Vlangalli (Vlangah'lee), the Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs in St. Petersburg, in order to show him that I had come to Siberia openly and boldly, with the consent and approbation of the highest Russian officials. He seemed to like to hear me talk; and, as I had not the slightest objection to talking, I rambled on until I had given him a detailed history of my whole life up to the year of our Lord 1885. If I omitted anything, I omitted it through forgetfulness or because he failed to draw it out. He inquired whether I intended to write an account of my Siberian trip, and I replied that I certainly did; that I was in the service of THE CENTURY MAGAZINE; that I had already written one series of articles on Siberia, and intended to write another as soon as I should get home. This seemed to interest him, and I therefore poured out information about American magazines in general and THE CENTURY in particular; invited him to come to our house and look over Mr. Frost's sketches; told him how much money THE CENTURY purposed to spend in illustrating our papers, and expressed regret that his ignorance of English would prevent him from reading them. He remarked hopefully that they might be translated. I replied that I trusted they would be, since my first book had been twice translated into Russian; and that, in any event, he would be interested in looking at the illustrations. What else I said in the course of our long conversation I cannot now remember, but I think I never gave any other man so much information about myself and my affairs as I gave that gendarme officer.

his training under General Muraviof (Moora-vy'off), "the hangman," in Poland, and had been about thirty years in the service. Personally he was a short, heavily built man fifty or fifty-five years of age, with a bald head, a full gray beard, thin, tightly-closed, rather cruel lips, an impenetrable face, and cold gray eyes. He had the suavity and courteous manners of the accomplished gendarme officer, but the unfavorable impression that he made upon me at our first meeting was deepened, rather than effaced, by subsequent acquaintance. He was in undress uniform, and he greeted me with what he evidently intended for frank, open cordiality, softening, so far as possible, all the hard lines of his face; but he could not bring a spark of good fellowship into his cold, watchful gray eyes, and I felt conscious that all his real mental processes were carefully masked. So far as I could read his character, its one weak point was personal pride in the importance and responsibility of his position - pride in the fact that he, a mere captain of gendarmes, had been selected in St. Petersburg and sent to Siberia to command this important prison; had been freed from all local control; and had been given the unusual privilege of communicating directly with the Minister of the Interior, which was the next thing to communicating directly with the Tsar. It seemed to me that a man who felt such a pride, and who knew that in spite of his position he was despised by all the regular army officers of the post, would be gratified to find that an intelligent American, living in the very house of one of his (Nikolin's) enemies, had clearness of insight and independence of judgment enough to call upon him the moment Potulof's restraint was removed, and to treat him with marked deference and respect. To what extent this reasoning was well founded I do not know, but upon it I acted. I apologized for not calling upon him before, and explained that I had been prevented from doing this by circumstances beyond my control. He bowed gracefully, said that he understood the circumstances perfectly, and asked me to do him the honor of drinking tea with him. A steaming samovar (sah'mo-vahr) was soon brought in by a soldier, our cups were filled with the beverage that cheers but does not inebriate, cigarettes were lighted, and we settled ourselves in easy chairs for a comfortable chat. I narrated with as much spirit as possible our adventures in Siberia; brought out casually the fact that I was a member of the American Geographical Society; referred to my previous connection with the RussianAmerican Telegraph Company; described dog-sledge travel and tent life with the wandering Koraks; and gave an account of my

My frankness and my childlike confidence in him finally began to produce the desired results. His manner softened and became more cordial; he poured out for me a third or a fourth cup of tea, asked me if I would not like to have some rum in it; and then, finding that I could be a sympathetic listener as well as a frank and communicative talker, he began to give me information about himself. He described to me the organization of the gendarmerie and the way in which gendarme officers are educated; gave me his own personal history; told me how many times and under what circumstances he had been promoted; how much salary he received; what decorations he had; how much longer he would have to serve before he could retire on a pension; and said, with a little pride, that he was the only officer of his rank in all Siberia who had the right to communicate directly with the Minister of the Interior. The conversation finally drifted into a discussion of common-criminal exile, and to my great surprise he vigorously condemned

the étapes and the forwarding prisons; declared that the life of common convicts on the road was simply awful; and said that the banishment of criminals to Siberia was not only ruinous to the persons banished, but very detrimental to all the interests of the country. This was to me a wholly unexpected turn, and for a moment I hardly knew what course to take. He might be merely posing as a philanthropist,— a sort of Howard in a gendarme officer's uniform, or he might be luring me on with a view to finding out how much I knew and what my opinions were. An instant of reflection convinced me that my safest course would be to follow his lead, without betraying too much knowledge of the subject, and to lay as much stress as possible on the few good prisons that I had seen. I therefore deplored the overcrowding of the forwarding prisons and the bad sanitary condition of the étapes, but referred to the new central prison at Verkhni Udinsk (Verkh'nee Oo'dinsk) as an evidence that the Government was trying to improve the condition of things by erecting better buildings. Without any suggestion or prompting from me, Captain Nikolin then diverted the current of our conversation to another branch of the subject and began to talk about the political convicts at the mines of Kara. Their condition, he said, was much better, and their life much easier, than people generally supposed. They lived together in large, welllighted kameras; they were not required to do any work; they had a good library; they could receive money from their friends; and at the expiration of their "term of probation" they were set at liberty, and were allowed to live in houses and to cultivate little gardens of their own. I expressed great surprise at this presentation of the case, and said, "Do you mean to tell me that the political convicts don't work in the mines ? "

"Work!" he exclaimed. "Certainly not. They have nothing to do but sit in large, comfortable, well-lighted rooms, and read or study." "Do they ever have communication with their friends or relatives in European Russia ?” I inquired.

Certainly," he replied. "That was one of the things that I insisted on when I came

1 Upon my return to Irkutsk (Eer-kootsk') I was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of an officer who was employed in the Comptroller's Department, and who had access to all the accounts of the Kara prisons. I asked him if he would be kind enough to ascertain for me how much money had been sent to the political convicts at Kara by their relatives in the first ten months of 1885. He made the investigation and reported that the prisoners had received, on an average, 37% cents a month per capita, or about $375 in all. Captain Nikolin apparently had shown me a "fixed-up" and deceptive statement, for the purpose

here, that they should be allowed to write to their friends and relatives. Of course I read their letters, or rather their postal cards, but they can write as much as they like."

"We have always had the impression in America," I said, "that state criminals in Siberia are compelled to work in underground mines, often chained to wheelbarrows, and that their life is a constant struggle with hardships and misery."

He smiled a calm, superior sort of smile, and said that he himself had had precisely similar ideas before coming to Siberia, and that he had been surprised just as I was. "Why,” said he, "if you should take a look into one of the kameras of the political prison at this moment you would see the prisoners sitting around a big table, reading and writing, just as if they were in some library."

I remarked that that would be a very pleasant thing to see, as well as to write about, and asked him if there would be any objection to my taking a look into one of the kameras.

"Well-yes," he replied hesitatingly. "I have no authority to allow any one to inspect the prison. I can show you, however, some of the books from the library-even English books."

He thereupon called a soldier from the hall and sent him to the prison with orders to bring back any English books or periodicals that happened to be in. The soldier shortly returned with a copy of Shelley's poems and a recent number of "Punch." These Nikolin handed to me triumphantly, as proofs that the political convicts had a library, and were even furnished with English periodicals.

"Not long ago," he continued, "they had theatrical performances in one of the kameras; and at one time they actually published a little manuscript newspaper for their own amusement."

He then got out the prison books to show me how much money the political convicts had received from their relatives that year. The total amount was 6044 rubles, or about $3022.1

"Do the prisoners themselves have the spending of this money ?" I inquired.

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"Yes," he replied. "It is not given into their hands; but they can direct the expenditure of

of making me believe that the political convicts were in receipt of $3000 or $4000 a year over and above their subsistence, and that, consequently, they were living in comparative luxury. I have no doubt that the computation made by the officer ofthe Comptroller's Department in Irkutsk was an accurate one, and that $375 was really the amount that the prisoners had received. Why the sum was not larger I shall explain in another place. Three hundred and seventy-five dollars every ten months, if divided among a hundred convicts, would give each of them about a cent and a quarter a day.

it, and buy with it anything that the prison regulations allow."

I received all these revelations with pleased surprise, and became almost enthusiastic when the humane and philanthropic gendarme officer drew for me a charming picture of happy state criminals, living contentedly together in large, airy rooms, studying English literature in a well-appointed library, reading" Punch" after dinner for relaxation, publishing a newspaper once a week for self-improvement, and getting up a theatrical entertainment in a kamera now and then as a safety valve for their exuberant spirits! I was grieved and shocked, however, to learn, a moment later, that these well-treated convicts were not worthy of the gracious clemency shown to them by a benevolent paternal government, and repaid its kindness with the blackest treachery and ingratitude.

"You have no idea, Mr. Kennan," said Captain Nikolin," how unscrupulous they are, and how much criminal skill they show in concealing forbidden things, and in smuggling letters into and out of prison. Suppose that you were going to search a political convict as thoroughly as possible, how would you do it?"

I replied that I should strip him naked and make a careful examination of his clothing. "Is that all you would do?" he inquired, with a surprised air.

I said that no other course of procedure suggested itself to me just at that moment. "Would you look in his ears?" "No," I answered; "I should not think of looking in his ears."

"Would you search his mouth?"
Again I replied in the negative.
"Would you look in a hollow tooth?"

I solemnly declared that such a thing as looking in a hollow tooth for a letter would never, under any circumstances, have occurred

to me.

"Well," he said triumphantly, "I have taken tissue paper with writing on it out of a prisoner's ear, out of a prisoner's mouth, and once I found a dose of deadly poison concealed under a capping of wax in a convict's hollow tooth. Ah-h-h!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands, "they are very sly, but I know all their tricks."

A cold shiver ran down my back as I suddenly thought of the things that lay hidden in my overcoat. Between the cloth and the lining were two Chinese tea-cups, a hand mirror, and a small red feather duster, which had been intrusted to me by an exiled lady in a village near Irkutsk, and which I had promised to deliver to Miss Armfeldt with assurances of the donor's remembrance and love. I had left the overcoat hanging in the hall, and if this gendarme officer was so extremely suspicious

as to look in ears for letters and in hollow teeth for poison, perhaps he had already ordered one of his subordinates to make an examination of it. How I should explain the presence between the cloth and the lining of such unusual articles of equipment as two porcelain tea-cups, a hand mirror, and a red feather duster, I did not know. I might say that Americans are constitutionally sensitive with regard to their personal appearance, and that, when making calls, they always carry looking-glasses in the tail pockets of their overcoats, in order that they may properly adjust their neckties before entering the drawing-rooms of their acquaintances; but how should I account for the tea-cups and the long-handled feather duster? I might as well try to explain the presence of a mouse-trap and a fire-extinguisher in a diving-bell! For twenty minutes I sat there in an uncomfortable frame of mind, half expecting every time the door opened that a Cossack would enter with the red feather duster in his hand. The apprehended catastrophe, however, did not occur, and Nikolin continued to pour out information concerning the political convicts and their life at the mines. Much that he said was true; but the truth was so interwoven with misrepresentation that if I had been the ignorant and credulous tourist he supposed me to be I should have been completely deceived. To an on-looker who understood the situation and could see into both hands, the game that we were playing would have been full of interest. My acquaintance with the political prison was almost as accurate and thorough as that of Captain Nikolin himself. I had a carefully drawn plan of it in a belt around my body; I had a list containing the names of all the prisoners; I could have described to him the appearance and the situation of every object in every cell; I knew exactly what the convicts had to eat and wear and how they spent their time; I knew that four of them had been chained to wheelbarrows and that several were insane; and I could have given him a detailed history of the prison for the five preceding years. With all this information in my mind, with a letter of introduction to the political convicts in my pocket, and with presents for them concealed in my overcoat, I had to sit there and listen coolly to statements that I knew to be false; assume feelings that I did not have; and play, without the quiver of an eyelash, the part of a good-humored, credulous, easygoing tourist who had nothing to conceal, who was incapable of keeping to himself even the details of his own private life, and who was naturally surprised and delighted to find that the political convicts, instead of being chained to wheelbarrows in damp subterranean mines, were really treated with humanity, considera

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