k from other prisons. By the way, Irkutsk is the capital of
eastern Siberia and here the greatest prisons were located. It is said
that as many as one hundred thousand prisoners have been in the great
prisons in and around this city at one time. There were no trains for
these freed exiles and they camped along the railroad track. Every day
the company became larger. At one time it was said that fifty thousand
sledges were rushing toward the railroad as fast as horses, dogs and
reindeer could drag them. The snow was already melting and they were
determined to get to the railroad before it was too late.

Those who think the great Russian Empire is nothing but cold, bleak,
barren waste, will have to think again. In 1913 there were eleven
million acres planted in potatoes, five and one-half million acres of
flax and hemp and nearly two million acres in cotton. They even had one
hundred and fifty thousand acres in tobacco. In all there were in
cultivation nearly four hundred million acres of land. In 1914 Russia
and Siberia possessed thirty-five million head of horses, fifty-two
million head of cattle, seventy-two million sheep, and fifteen million
head of hogs.

CHAPTER VII

THE HOME OF BOLSHEVISM--RUSSIA

Of All the countries in Europe, conditions in Russia are perhaps most
deplorable. With the granary of the world her people have the least
food. A few years ago her laws were the most rigid of all countries, now
she is nearest without law of any of them. With all her boundless
resources, she is as helpless as a child. Like poor old blind Samson,
she has lost her strength and is a pitiful sight to behold.

But the purpose of this article is not to recount the horrors the war
brought to Russia. I would much rather tell something about the people
as I saw them just before the war, and their country and cities in times
of peace. Some day these people will have a stable government. They have
suffered for a long time, but out of it all will come a purified people
and a government in which the people will have some rights and
privileges worth while. The writer of these lines does not pose as a
prophet, but will say that in twenty-five years Russia will have the
best government in Europe.

The Russian people are a race of farmers. When the war broke out
eighty-five per cent of the people lived in the country. Although a
nation having one-sixth of the earth's surface, yet she has only a few
large cities. It is actual