nts of them she colonized along the Kuban
and Terek rivers, to serve as bulwarks against the incursions of the
Caucasus tribes and as the vanguard of the advance southward.[398]

This is one principle underlying the transportation of criminals to the
frontier. They serve to hold the new country. There these waste elements
of civilization are converted into a useful by-product. They may be only
political radicals or religious dissenters: if so, so much the better
colonial material. The Russian government formerly transported the
rebellious sect of the Molokans or Unitarians to the outskirts of the
Empire, where the danger of contagion was reduced. Hence they are to be
found to-day scattered in the Volga province of Samara, on the border of
the Kirghis steppe, in the Crimea, the Caucasus, and Siberia, still
faithful and still persecuted.[399] Since 1709 the Russian advance into
Siberia has planted its milestones in settlements formed of prisoners of
war, political exiles, and worse offenders.[400] Penal colonists located
on the shores of Kamchatka helped build and man the crazy boats which
set out for Alaska at the end of the eighteenth century. China settles
its thieves and cheats among the villages of its own border provinces of
Shensi[401] and Kansu; but its worst criminals it transports far away to
the Hi country on the western frontier of the Empire, where they have
doubtless contributed to the spirit of revolt that has there manifested
itself.[402]

[Sidenote: Drift of lawless elements to the frontiers.]

The abundance of opportunity and lack of competition in a new frontier
community, its remoteness from the center of authority, and its
imperfect civil government serve to attract thither the vicious, as well
as the sturdy and enterprising. The society of the early Trans-Allegheny
frontier included both elements. The lawless who drifted to the border
formed gangs of horse thieves, highwaymen, and murderers, who called
forth from the others the summary methods of lynch law.[403] North
Carolina, which in its early history formed the southern frontier of
Virginia, swarmed with ruffians who had fled thither to escape
imprisonment or hanging, and whose general attitude was to resist all
regular authority and especially to pay no taxes.[404] Similarly, that
wide belt of mountain forest which forms the waste boundary between
Korea and Manchuria is the resort of bandits, who have harried both
sides of the border ever sinc