istinguished
offenders, such as the higher class of revolutionists, officers
convicted of plotting against the state or robbing the Treasury, are
generally rushed forward night and day. To keep him secure from
escape, an exile of this class is sometimes chained to a soldier who
rides at his side.

One night, between Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk, I was awakened by an
unusual motion of the sleigh. We were at the roadside passing a column
of men who marched slowly in our direction. As I lifted our curtain
and saw the undulating line of dark forms moving silently in the dim
starlight, and brought into relief against the snow hills, the scene
appeared something more than terrestrial. I thought of the array of
spectres that beleaguered the walls of Prague, if we may trust the
Bohemian legend, and of the shadowy battalions described by the old
poets of Norseland, in the days when fairies dwelt in fountains, and
each valley was the abode of a good or evil spirit. But my fancies
were cut short by my companion briefly informing me that we were
passing a convoy of prisoners recently ordered from Irkutsk to
Yeneseisk. It was the largest convoy I saw during my journey, and
included, as I thought, not less than two hundred men.

In the afternoon of the first day from Krasnoyarsk we reached Achinsk,
a town of two or three thousand inhabitants, on the bank of the Chulim
river. We were told the road was so bad as to require four horses to
each sleigh to the next station. We consented to pay for a horse
additional to the three demanded by our padaroshnia, and were carried
along at very good speed. Part of the way was upon the ice, which had
formed during a wind, that left disagreeable ridges. We picked out the
best places, and had not our horses slipped occasionally, the icy road
would not have been unpleasant. On the bare ground which we traversed
in occasional patches after leaving the river, the horses behaved
admirably and made little discrimination between sand and snow.
Whenever they lagged the yemshick lashed them into activity.

I observed in Siberia that whip cracking is not fashionable. The long,
slender, snapping whips of Western Europe and America are unknown. The
Siberian uses a short stock with a lash of hemp, leather, or other
flexible substance, but never dreams of a snapper at its end. Its only
use is for whipping purposes, and a practiced yemshick can do much
with it in a short time.

The Russian drivers talk a great de