during our stay
smallpox was raging, but chiefly amongst the native population. Leprosy
is as prevalent here as in Central Asia, but Russians suffer chiefly
from bronchitis and diphtheria, which never fail to make their
appearance with the return of spring. Every one suffers continually
from catarrh, irrespective of age or race, indeed we all had it
ourselves. And yet in this hotbed of pestilence there is no Government
infirmary, nor is any provision whatever made for the sick. Mr.
Miskievitch (a young medical student and himself an exile) was attending
the community, but a total lack of medical and surgical appliances
rendered his case a hopeless one. I inquired for the old hospital and
was shown a barn-like construction partly open to the winds and occupied
by a family of filthy but thriving Yakutes. The new infirmary for which
a large sum of money was subscribed in St. Petersburg ten years ago
adjoined the older building, but the former was still in its initial
stage of foundations and four corner posts, where it will probably
reign, the silent witness of a late _ispravnik's_ reign and rascality.

But there exists a mental disease far more dreaded than any bodily
affliction, or than even death itself, by this little colony of martyrs.
This is a form of hysteria chiefly prevalent amongst women, but common
to all, officials, exiles, and natives alike, who reside for any length
of time in this hell upon earth.[42] The attack is usually unexpected; a
person hitherto calm and collected will suddenly commence to shout,
sing, and dance at the most inopportune moment, and from that time the
mind of the patient becomes permanently deranged. A curious phase of
this disease is the irresistible impulse to mimic the voice and actions
of others. Thus I witnessed a painful scene one night in the home of an
exile who had assembled some comrades to meet me, and, in the street one
day, a peasant woman, born and bred here, seized my arm and repeated,
with weird accuracy, a sentence in French which I was addressing to de
Clinchamp. This strange affliction is apparently unknown in other Arctic
settlements. It is probably due to gloomy surroundings and the eternal
silence which enfolds this region. The malady would seem to be
essentially local, for the daughter of a Sredni-Kolymsk official who was
attacked, immediately recovered on her removal to Yakutsk. On the other
hand, sufferers compelled to remain here generally become, after a few