Our cortège consists of seven carriages. Whilst we traverse the camp the soldiers forming a line on each side of us cheer us loudly; military bands play marches as we drive along. We plodded on steadily the whole morning and were shaken a good deal on the badly-made roads. The two first stations were kept by the post department, but at the third stopping-place a team of three horses, belonging to different Russian colonists, harnessed together with utter disregard to size, breed, and disposition, were awaiting us. The harness was rusty and mended with strings. The driver was with great difficulty inspired to action, and totally incapable of transmitting such inspiration to his animals, by coaxing words or whip. At last the poor hacks moved on, one pulling to the right, the other to the left. The road was completely deserted; we didn’t meet a living creature on our way. I was told that these spots were frequented by tigers, and when I asked a Cossack of our escort if we had no risk of meeting one, the man answered coolly that it might happen very easily. Not much comfort from that Cossack.
The roads were very bad, very hilly and rough. We climbed with difficulty the steep ascents, and descended with still greater difficulty. Our driver, a peasant boy of about sixteen, drove atrociously, cutting corners and racing down steep hills. At a descent, which he took at a tremendous pace, a part of the harness gave way and the horses became uncontrollable. I was on the act of jumping out of the carriage when the Cossack, who sat on the box, succeeded in holding in the horses.
At each stage the colonists welcomed us with “Bread and Salt.” My husband received a great number of petitions from the emigrants, for the greater part complaints from the new settlers against the colonists, who demanded one hundred roubles for the right of settling down with them, and oppressed them in every way.
Towards evening we reached a large village, and passed under a triumphal arch bearing the inscription “Welcome!” We had an hour’s stop at the village-inn, where we pulled up for dinner. We did honour to the frugal repast, consisting of cabbage-soup and roasted chicken, served by pretty village girls arrayed in their Sunday best.
After a drive of less than an hour, we came to a village where we stopped to rest for the night at the house of the Commissary of Rural Police.
September 6th.—We went in the morning to hear mass in the village chapel. The peasant girls were in their national dress, their long tresses interlaced with gay-coloured ribbons. After church, we continued our journey. We have yet many miles before us. At the next station we found a relay of four powerful horses belonging to the Prison Department. The Inspector of the Prisons, Mr. Komorski, was at the station to meet us. Our escort was increased by two Cossack officers. The horses fretted at standing, and I found them a bit over fresh; they started at a brisk pace. Our driver is a convict transported for life to Siberia, who had just terminated his ten years of penal servitude, and will be made a colonist in a short time. On the way we stopped at the house of a young engineer who is taking part in the construction of the railway-line beyond the Lake Baikal, after the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Aral, the largest lake in Asia. As soon as the horses were sufficiently rested, we proceeded on a road which had been growing from bad to worse. It is constructed on marshy ground and is full of ruts and holes in which we jolted and tossed about. The shocking roads aren’t like roads at all, more like ploughed fields, inches deep in mud, and so rough that our vehicle seemed to be propelled by a succession of earthquakes wallowing in mud half-way deep. Our horses had hard work, sinking almost to their shoulders at every step. Our Heir to the throne on his tour to the Orient, when passing this way, had to be drawn by oxen.
At last we reached the convict settlement where Mr. Kopanski resides, superintending the work on the railway-line of the convicts sentenced to hard labour. At the present moment he has under his command three thousand convicts, and one thousand soldiers to guard them.
Mr. Komorski’s house stands on a small eminence surrounded by barracks inhabited by convicts, dressed in long grey coats; the greater part are in chains. A long line of prisoners had half of their heads shaved, they were runaway convicts, who were brought back again to these parts. They cheered my husband gaily. A monk stood on the threshold of the chapel, where a Te Deum was sung by the convicts.
Mr. Komorski showed us a great deal of hospitality. He has contrived to give our apartment quite an air of cosiness. On my dressing-table I saw a bottle of scent bearing the name of “Bouquet d’Amour” quite a fitting denomination, for we are now in the provinces of the “Amour.”
All the servants in the house are convicts, who fulfil their duty perfectly well, nevertheless these surroundings made me feel so nervous and miserable, that I did not want to be present at dinner and went to bed immediately after our arrival, under the pretext of a bad headache. Oh! how horrid it was to hear the sounds of a gay waltz played by an orchestra of convicts during the repast! I buried my head in my pillow and had a good cry. I hated our host ferociously at that moment.