out cessation upon musical instruments, and
others busy over games of chance. In one room were men and dogs
enraged and biting each other. In a dormitory were many couples with
quilts of large dimensions, but in each couple there was an active
struggle, and its quilt was frequently pulled aside. In the last hall
of the establishment there were smiling couples, at peace with all the
world and 'the rest of mankind.' The song closes with the guide's
explanation of what Swan's Wing had seen.

"The women who spin now are punished because in their lives they
continued to spin after sunset, when they should be at rest.

"Those who swallow balls of hemp were guilty of stealing thread by
making their cloth too thin.

"Those condemned to hold heavy stones were guilty of putting stones in
their butter to make it heavy.

"The parties who make music and gamble did nothing else in their life
time, and must continue that employment perpetually.

"The men with the dogs are suffering the penalty of having created
quarrels on earth.

"The couples who freeze under ample covering are punished for their
selfishness when mortals, and the couples in the next apartment are an
example to teach the certainty of happiness to those who develop
kindly disposition."

The region of the Lower Yenesei contains many exiles whom the
government desired to remove far from the centers of population. These
include political and criminal prisoners, whose offences are of a high
grade, together with the members of a certain religious order, known
as "The Skoptsi." The latter class is particularly obnoxious on
account of its practice of mutilation. Whenever an adherent of this
sect is discovered he is banished to the remotest regions, either in
the north of Siberia or among the mountains of Circassia. It is the
only religious body relentlessly persecuted by the Russian government,
and the persecution is based upon the sparseness of population. Some
of these men have been incorporated into regiments on the frontier,
where they prove obedient and tractable. Those who become colonists in
Siberia are praised for their industry and perseverance, and
invariably win the esteem of their neighbors. They are banished to
distant localities through fear of their influence upon those around
them. Most of the money-changers of Moscow are reputed to believe in
this peculiar faith.

Many prominent individuals were exiled to the Lower Yenesei and
regions farther eastw