I afterwards entered the desert, called Barabinskoi-step. The post service is performed by exiles of every description, whose settlements are at the distance of twenty-five, and sometimes fifty wersts from one another. These unfortunate beings live in the same manner as those who conducted me from Yakoutsk to Peledoui; they are neither more serviceable nor less ferocious, and their indolence is still more mortifying.
Accustomed to the fertile and rich country about Irkoutsk, cultivated by the laborious Starogili, the eye cannot survey, without pain, this barren waste. We are disposed to ascribe this melancholy contrast to the sloth of the perverse inhabitants, though it is acknowledged that the soil yields them no return. One might say, that in conformity with the vindictive hand that pursues them, Nature acts towards them as a step-mother; the earth, to which justice has banished them, seems to feel a reluctance in bearing them; its withered bosom refuses all success to their culture.
My courier, who had the rank of serjeant, did not treat these miserable creatures with more attention than was expedient. To enforce obedience, he frequently made use of his stick, and my remonstrances could not restrain him from these sallies, which he called, in pleasantry, his reigning sin. One day he had near paid for his cruelty in a terrible manner. Arriving at a stage we found no horses; the man upon whom the business this day devolved, had been guilty of the daring crime to absent himself, in order to get hay. Two hours passed away, and no one appeared; my courier at length resolved to go himself, with my soldier, and seize the first horses they could find. In about half an hour they returned, in a very angry humour, with a single horse, for which they had been obliged to fight. While they were relating the transaction, the man whom they accused of being the aggressor, ran to complain to me of their having plucked off half his beard. At the same moment I was surrounded by more than fifty persons, assembled from I know not where, for as we entered the village, we could perceive no one but the starost. They seemed to contend who should reproach him most; I spoke a long time without being heard. My courier, instead of assisting me in pacifying them, ran to the postillion, who returned from the fields, and made his arm pay dearly for the delay he had occasioned us. The man, whose beard had been torn off, prepared to avenge his comrade, but the soldier, by order of the courier, prevented him, and I was obliged to deliver him from his hands. By dint of vociferation and entreaties I at last suspended the fury of the combatants. I had great reason to applaud myself for my moderation; the spectators were enraged at the treatment their neighbour received; they would infallibly have murdered us, if I had not immediately ordered my two indiscreet attendants to return to the carriage, and the postillion to make haste and harness the horses. The crowd was desirous of pursuing them, but at last I succeeded in appeasing it, and they escaped with a few invectives. I hastened to my kibitk, and did not think myself safe till I was out of their reach.
I trembled lest this event should circulate; in the mean time, till my arrival at Tomsk, a town at the end of this desert, I saw not the least appearance of commotion. My people were eager to carry their complaints before the inspector general, and to my great mortification they appealed to me as a witness. This officer explained to me the dangerous influence the affair would produce upon the maintenance of order and subordination, if these exiles of Baraba were not severely punished; he accordingly prepared to set out for the spot, to make an example of them.
My visit to the governor of Tomsk soon consoled me for this disagreeable adventure. I found him to be a Frenchman, of the name of Villeneuve: his rank was that of colonel; I was received by him as a countryman, and I need say no more to express our mutual joy at meeting. I conceived myself to be already in France.
The town of Tomsk is tolerably neat; it is partly upon an eminence, where the house of the governor predominates, and the other part descends to the river Tom. I only staid while my wheels were repairing.
I met many companies of exiles, or galley slaves[113], and I was advised to be on my guard against them. As individuals frequently escape, the peasants are obliged to pursue them as much from duty as for their own safety. Nothing is in reality more easy than for these exiles to make their escape on the road; they are well guarded, it is true, but they are never fettered. I have seen in woods as many as eighty destined to the same place; they were divided into companies of four, five, or six men and women, who followed at the distance sometimes of two or three wersts. They are afterwards distributed in the different mines of Siberia: these were going to Nertschinsk.
I crossed the principal rivers of this province, as the Oka, the Yenisei, the Tom, the Obi, which the Russians call the Ob. On the last I ran a considerable risk in a small ferry, which was in so wretched a condition, that in the middle of the river it filled with water. We should have found some difficulty in saving ourselves, but for a smaller boat, that I had had the precaution to fasten to the ferry, and others that were quickly brought to our succour by the inhabitants on the opposite side.
Before I arrived at Tobolsk, I passed the Irtisch twice, the last time near the mouth of the Tobol. This capital, situated between these two rivers, would have been one of the most beautiful towns of Siberia, but a fire has made such havock as to reduce the greater part of it to ashes. Prior to this event, it was in two divisions, the upper town and the lower town; the one, built upon the platform of a mountain, presented many beautiful edifices of stone; the other was made up of wooden houses, which were the first devoured by the flames. By degrees the fire reached the upper part of the town and the stone houses, where it left nothing but the walls. I made no stay at this melancholy scene; the impression it made upon me was equally deep and forcible, and I shall never forget the air of consternation that was visible in the inhabitants, who, from the highest to the lowest, laboured indefatigably, but in mournful silence, to repair their losses. Already the ravages begin to disappear, and the foundations of some houses and shops, all rebuilding of stone, arise above the surface: it is probable that the rest of the town will have the same solidity.
In quitting it I passed the Irtisch a third time to reach Catherinebourg, or Yekaterinbourg, where I stayed twenty-four hours, that my carriage might again be repaired. I employed the time in visiting a gold mine in the neighbourhood, and the place where the copper money is coined.