In this century, also, many an unfortunate exile, guiltless at least of ignoble crimes, has been doomed to wander to Siberia. There many a soldier of the grande armée has ended his life; there still lives many a patriotic Pole, banished for having loved his country “not wisely but too well;” there also the conspirators who marked with so bloody an episode the accession of Nicholas, have had time to reflect on the dangers of plotting against the Czar.
Most of the Siberian exiles are, however, common criminals—such as in our country would be hung or transported, or sentenced to the treadmill: the assassin, the robber—to Siberia; the smuggler on the frontier, whose free-trade principles injure the imperial exchequer—to Siberia; even the vagabond who is caught roaming, and can give no satisfactory account of his doings and intentions, receives a fresh passport—to Siberia.
Thus the annual number of the exiles amounts to about 12,000, who, according to the gravity of their offenses, are sent farther and farther eastward. On an average, every week sees a transport of about 300 of these “unfortunates,” as they are termed by popular compassion, pass through Tobolsk. About one-sixth are immediately pardoned, and the others sorted. Murderers and burglars are sent to the mines of Nertschinsk, after having been treated in Russia, before they set out on their travels, with fifty lashes of the knout. In former times their nostrils used to be torn off, a barbarity which is now no longer practised.
According to Sir George Simpson’s “Narrative of a Journey Round the World” (1847), Siberia is the best penitentiary in the world. Every exile who is not considered bad enough for the mines—those black abysses, at whose entrance, as at that of Dante’s hell, all hope must be left behind—receives a piece of land, a hut, a horse, two cows, the necessary agricultural implements, and provisions for a year. The first three years he has no taxes to pay, and, during the following ten, only the half of the usual assessment. Thus, if he choose to exert himself, he has every reason to hope for an improvement in his condition, and at the same time fear contributes to keep him in the right path; for he well knows that his first trespass would infallibly conduct him to the mines, a by no means agreeable prospect. Under the influence of these stimulants, many an exile attains a degree of prosperity which would have been quite beyond his reach had he remained in European Russia.
Hofmann gives a less favorable account of the Siberian exiles. In his opinion, the prosperity and civilization of the country has no greater obstacle than the mass of criminals sent to swell its population. In the province of Tomsk, which seems to be richly stocked with culprits of the worst description, all the wagoners belong to this class. They endeavored to excite his compassion by hypocrisy. “It was the will of God!” is their standing phrase, to which they tried to give a greater emphasis by turning up the whites of their eyes. But, in spite of this pious resignation to the Divine will, Hofmann never met with a worse set of drunkards, liars, and thieves.
86. SIBERIAN PEASANT.
As to the free Siberian peasant, who is generally of exile extraction, all travellers are agreed in his praise. “As soon as one crosses the Ural,” says Wrangell, “one is surprised by the extreme friendliness and good-nature of the inhabitants, as much as by the rich vegetation, the well-cultivated fields, and the excellent state of the roads in the southern part of the government of Tobolsk. Our luggage could be left without a guard in the open air. ‘Ne-boss!’ ‘Fear not!’ was the answer when we expressed some apprehension; ‘there are no thieves among us.’ This may appear strange, but it must be remembered that the Tomsk wagoners, described above, are located far more to the east, and that every exiled criminal has his prescribed circuit, the bounds of which he may not pass without incurring the penalty of being sent to the mines.
According to Professor Hansteen, the Siberian peasants are the finest men of all Russia, with constitutions of iron. With a sheepskin over their shirt, and their thin linen trowsers, they bid defiance to a cold of 30° and more. They have nothing of the dirty avarice of the European Russian boor; they have as much land as they choose for cultivation, and the soil furnishes all they require for their nourishment and clothing. Their cleanliness is exemplary. Within the last thirty years the gold-diggings have somewhat spoilt this state of primitive simplicity, yet even Hofmann allows that the West-Siberian peasant has retained much of the honesty and hospitality for which he was justly celebrated.
Besides agriculture, mining, fishing, and hunting, the carriage of merchandise is one of the chief occupations of the Siberians, and probably, in proportion to the population, no other country employs so large a number of wagoners and carriers. The enormous masses of copper, lead, iron, and silver produced by the Altai and the Nertschinsk mountains, have to be conveyed from an immense distance to the Russian markets. The gold from the East-Siberian diggings is indeed easier to transport, but the provisions required by the thousands of workmen employed during the summer in working the auriferous sands, have to be brought to them, frequently from a distance of many hundred versts.