Arriving at the last station before crossing the Kama, late at night, we were compelled to wait till morning, as no inducement would prevail on the men to attempt the ferry at that hour, although there was a bright moon. The truth was the men were all so hard worked during the day as to be unfit for anything at night. In the morning, however, we got across with our sledges, and proceeded to Ochansk, a small town three versts from the right bank of the river, where we breakfasted.
During the 22nd the frost disappeared for a few hours, and to our confusion the snow vanished so rapidly during the short time as to leave us in many places bare ground to drive our sledges over. The sight was really appalling, for all our hopes of ease and comfort for the journey rested on the snow. It was absolutely essential to us, seeing we were committed to sledges, and when we saw the black patches appearing here and there, we could sympathise in the despair which a fish must feel when abandoned by its native element and left panting on dry land. A westerly wind got up, and increased to a gale in the afternoon, coming round to north in the evening. This brought cold weather back again, and that night was one of the most severe we encountered in the whole journey. With the extreme cold the wind fell, and a dead calm ensued, which lasted a night and a day. The hard frost converted the soft, melting snow into a magnificent sledge-road, so far as it went; but all the way to Kazan we were plagued with bare places where the wind or sun had been most powerful.
CHAPTER XX.
RUSSIAN AND SIBERIAN PEASANTRY.
We had not travelled far into Russia proper, before the difference in the condition of the peasantry there, and in Siberia, forced itself on our attention. The houses in Russia are decidedly inferior to those in Siberia. They lack the air of rude comfort peculiar to the latter. Windows are broken and stuffed with straw, and roofs are out of repair. Women and children are ill-clad and squalid. The men are haggard, abject, and degraded. Everything is suggestive of poverty, negligence, and misery. In remarkable contrast to these phenomena are the outward circumstances of the peasants in Siberia. As I have intimated in the course of this narrative, these latter are well clad, well housed, and at least adequately fed. They have something of independence in their bearing, and the condition of their families, as well as the tasteful decorations often met with in their houses, evince a certain amount of self-respect. The difference is easily accounted for—the explanation lies in the words serf and no serf, and it illustrates the inevitable effects of slavery on a people. And if slavery, in its modified form of serfdom, can so deeply mark the character of the subjects of it, what may be expected from the pure, uncompromising "institution?"
The Siberian free peasant is the descendant of a convict. This applies to almost the whole Russian population of Eastern Siberia, as also to the great proportion of that of Western Siberia. In the latter region there are still the descendants of many of those Cossacks who followed the renowned Yermak in his victorious march across the Ural, and who continue in the enjoyment of certain privileges granted to them by the Empress Catharine. But Eastern Siberia, by far the richest of the two, may be said to be entirely peopled by the descendants of convicts. These belong to two categories—those who are condemned for capital crimes, and those who are expatriated for minor offences. The criminal who belongs to the first category, when he has undergone the corporal punishment allotted to him, and served his term (generally mitigated) of hard labour in the government mines, has a portion of land granted him, on being released from his confinement. He may cultivate as much ground as he chooses to clear, using the timber for building purposes or fuel. He is exempt from the payment of taxes, and from the conscription. The children of these convicts, born in Siberia, enjoy the same privileges, but they are still what are called minors, and do not possess the rights of a free peasant. For example, they are disqualified from holding any honorary appointment in the village or community where they may reside. Such disabilities may be, and frequently are overcome by means of money; for an industrious peasant has an opportunity of saving, and it is not an unusual thing for them to become rich. Many of the most wealthy men in Siberia at the present moment—large gold-digging proprietors, merchants, &c., are the descendants in the second or third generation of convicts who have undergone the penalty of the law. These men generally manage to "write themselves up," by a judicious application of their money, and then by paying the dues of one of the three guilds of merchants, they obtain a status in society, and enjoy the right of trading; they often make fortunes, either in trade, gold-digging, or other enterprises.
The other class of criminals is composed of those who have been exiled for minor offences such as theft; and of serfs, who, before their great emancipation in 1859, were liable to be sent to Siberia for any offence against their masters, or even for no offence at all, but from sheer caprice. I met an old woman in Tomsk who had been exiled on the latter count. She had inadvertently stuck a needle into the wall, and her mistress, with the nervousness that a bad conscience produces, took it into her head that the serf intended to bewitch her. For this offence the old wretch (though I dare say she was young then) was sent to the police, to be despatched to Siberia with the next batch of government exiles, and the official record stated she was so sent "by the will of her master."