The military were in great force on the banks of the Volga, and carried everything their own way, regardless of the interests of the general public, as represented by the few civilians who presented themselves as candidates for the middle passage. We had seen some of the soldiery before this time, but they were so-called "Cossacks" of the old type. Those we encountered at Kazan, and on the Volga, were smartly set off with French military caps, and had really a soldier-like bearing. The traditional grey over-coat was universal, but there was enough of innovation in their get-up to mark the recent improvement that has taken place in the Russian soldier. I shall probably allude in the sequel to the army reforms introduced into Russia during the present reign.
A good many Tartars were sprinkled among the crowd that infested the landing-place at the Volga ferry. They usually wear a round fur cap, somewhat different from that worn by the Russian moujik. Their physiognomy is widely removed from the Sclavonic type. They have the flat features of the Mongol races, but are not to be confounded with any of them.
The ferry-boats were engaged the whole day in conveying Polish exiles across the river, bound for Siberia. It is a sad sight to see so many people in captivity, and still more so to see a number of women accompanying the exiles. It is quite common for the wives, daughters, and mothers of the political convicts to follow their relatives into Siberia. This is not discouraged by the Russian government; on the contrary, every facility is granted to enable the families to emigrate, and they have always the means of travelling in company. The object of the government is to colonise Siberia, so that the more people go there the better. Besides, the residence of families in exile offers some guarantee against any attempt at a return to their native country. Two old ladies I particularly noticed coming out of a boat, accompanied by two soldiers. They were both well dressed in black silk and warm fur cloaks. One of them was extremely old, and unable to walk. She stooped a great deal, and leaned on a crutch while standing on the ice. The other was also very frail. We pitied these old creatures, exposed as they were day after day in such inclement weather, compelled to undergo the hardships and privations inseparable from all Russian and Siberian travelling. They were treated with great kindness by the soldiers, who lifted them carefully out of the boat, carried them to their sledges, which were in waiting, and put them in as tenderly as if they had been their own mothers. After carefully wrapping them up with their furs, a Cossack got in beside each of the ladies, and they drove off to Kazan. A girl who was with them was equally well attended to by the officer in command of the party, who seemed to consider the Polish maiden to be his especial charge.
Much has been said and written on this Polish question, and an unusual number of distorted and exaggerated statements have gained currency in Europe on the subject. It is certain that neither the oppressors nor the oppressed are to be implicitly trusted as regards their veracity, and it is not easy, in consequence, to sift out the bare unvarnished truth. But, leaving out of sight for a moment the actual merits of the question, as between the Russian government and the rebellious Poles, the fate of the exiles is by no means such a hard one as is too commonly supposed. I have taken pains to inquire into this, and the more I have heard about it from persons well able to judge, the more have I been convinced that the Poles in Siberia are very much better off than the average of those in Poland. The Russians to a man condemn them, and justify their government in the measures that have been adopted to put down the insurrection. But their feelings of loyalty to the Emperor may possibly warp their judgment. The foreign residents who have no such influence to sway their opinions, may be considered impartial in the matter; and they, on the whole, indorse the Russian views as regards the Poles. Those English residents in Siberia with whom I have conversed, assert that the Polish exiles enjoy a degree of peace, comfort, and prosperity, that they were altogether strangers to in their own country. Wealth, talent, industry, and education have the most ample scope in Siberia, and are set free from those distractions which sap healthy enterprise in a country torn with civil wars. I have already given some hints of the position occupied by Russian political exiles in Siberia, and I need not dwell on the subject now, further than to say that the Poles are treated with still greater leniency and consideration.
That the exiles are, on the whole, dissatisfied, there can be no doubt. But the more sensible of them admit that their worldly circumstances are improved by going to Siberia. Many of them are pleased at the change, and would not willingly return home if it were open to them to do so. So long as they remain in Poland, they say, they are at the mercy of every band of malcontents, who have nothing of their own to lose. In revolutionary times they are constrained, in spite of themselves, to take part in the proceedings, and to sacrifice their time, property, and everything else to schemes of which they may strongly disapprove. They never feel secure from the consequences of the folly of their hot-headed countrymen. They have no heart to work, when they are liable, at any moment, to be involved in ruin by the rashness of some insurrectionary party. But Siberia offers an escape from all this strife and endless conspiracy, and some of them hail with delight the sentence that exiles them to a more congenial soil. No one, indeed, who has observed, in an impartial manner, the conditions of life in Siberia and Russia respectively, will be disposed to doubt that the former is really the more attractive residence, and although it is remarkable, it is not incredible, that many Poles should deliberately prefer it to their own country.
As a precautionary measure, the Russian government has always studied to scatter the exiles over Siberia, to prevent any large communities of them from congregating in one place. The governor-general of Western Siberia has the power of distributing them as he may see fit. All the exiles are taken to Tobolsk as a rendezvous, and are there told off to the various districts they are destined to reside in. In their final distribution there is great room for favouritism, as well as for the gratification of malevolence on the part of the governor; some of the exiles may be sent to the large towns, and others to wild, uninhabited regions, and inhospitable climates. Oppression and cruelty have doubtless been in former days practised on them, and may possibly still, to some extent, exist. But, in the main, they are treated kindly, both while travelling, and in their appointed residences. Whatever sentence may have been awarded (speaking of criminals), it is invariably mitigated in practice. The stigma of exile is no bar to their well-doing in Siberia. Everything combines to make their lives pleasant, except that one element of bitterness, the ever-present consciousness that they are under the ban of the law, and doomed never to return to their own unhappy country. That one consideration is, no doubt, powerful enough, in ardent and sensitive minds, to neutralise all the elements of happiness that their banishment affords; but time mellows it down to a vague, latent feeling of oppression, and sympathy with those of their countrymen who may still be engaged in the hopeless struggle for independence. Those of the exiles who have sense enough to accept their lot in a philosophical spirit, and do not weary their lives out in chafing under their fate, have comparatively little cause for dissatisfaction. The object of the Russian government is not so much to punish the insurgents, as to colonise Siberia with people of education and intelligence. Attempts to escape are punished with the utmost severity; but these attempts are rare.
Mrs. Atkinson relates a story of a Pole who was caught in a desperate effort to return to Europe, and sent to the mines. The same is still the stock-story served up for the entertainment of travellers, the ten years or more that have elapsed not having apparently supplied another instance.
There cannot be much difference of opinion on the question of the spoliation of Poland by the three great powers. Although the vices inherent in the Polish constitution rendered the subjugation of the country by its powerful neighbours almost inevitable, nothing can justify the unscrupulous proceedings of Russia and her two satellites in seizing it. But in the immediate causes that prompted the recent insurrection, and the measures adopted by the Russian government to quell it, the Poles have perhaps received more sympathy, and the Russians more odium, than they deserved. It is certain that the Emperor was liberally disposed towards the Poles; but they aspired, not to greater liberty, but to absolute independence of Russia. As was well shown by the correspondent of the "Times," no reform, however radical, would conciliate them while they were connected with Russia, and the easy rule of Alexander II. was the very thing that enabled the Poles to rebel, which, under the iron hand of Nicholas, was impossible.
It is, doubtless, a legitimate grievance that a highly cultured people, as the Poles are, should be governed by semi-barbarous Russians; but, on the other hand, the superior intelligence of the Poles found its full value in Russia. They were rapidly gaining posts of trust and emolument in the imperial service, and I have heard it said, by a person eminently qualified to judge, that if they had but postponed their insurrection for ten years, they would then have had no cause to rebel, because by that time they would have virtually governed Russia as much as Russia governs Poland. If the Poles had possessed the practical philosophy of the Chinese, they might have overcome their conquerors by a process somewhat analogous to that by which the latter people have successively out-civilised the various Tartar powers, and overrun their territories. But they cast to the winds their opportunities, and committed their destiny to the hazard of a desperate venture, in which success was, humanly speaking, impossible. The only result, indeed, that could reasonably have been expected from this fatal enterprise was that the old relations between the two countries should be replaced on the footing of a rigorous despotism on the one hand, and absolute subjection on the other.
Without attempting to extenuate the severities, often arbitrary, and cruelly unjust, that have been practised on the Poles by the Russian officials in the later stages of the insurrection, due allowance should be made for the exaggerations inseparable from one-sided accounts, especially in times of great excitement. And it is reasonable that their fair share of responsibility for the blood that has been needlessly shed, should be borne by the leaders of the movement, who with suicidal rashness plunged their country into a war, which a little calm reflection might have shown them was hopeless from the beginning.