Siberia and the exile system (1891) (14802723963)

Identifier: siberiaexilesyst01kenn (find matches)
Title: Siberia and the exile system
Year: 1891 (1890s)
Authors: Kennan, George, 1845-1924
Subjects: Siberia (Russia) -- Description and travel Siberia (Russia) -- Exiles
Publisher: New York : Century Co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN



Text Appearing Before Image:
John Browns Body and The Star-spangled Banner, and at six oclock in the evening set outby post for Barnaul and Tomsk. The road, as far as thepost-station of Pianoyarofskaya, was the same that we hadfollowed in going from Semipalatinsk to the Altai Station.The country that it intersected seemed to us more parchedand barren than ever, but here and there, in the moisterplaces, we passed large flocks of fat-tailed sheep, guardedand watched by Kirghis horsemen, whose hooded headsand black faces, with the immense goggles of horsehairnetting that they wore to protect their eyes from the glareof the sun, gave them an almost demoniacal appearance.Occasionally, in the outskirts of the villages, we saw fieldsof cultivated sunflowers, or of half-ripe watermelons andcantaloups; but as a rule the steppe was uncultivatedand could not be cultiv^ated without artificial irrigation.The weather was still very warm, and in almost every vil-lage we noticed naked children playing in the streets. 280 SIBERIA
Text Appearing After Image:
»liiii\i\\Miii^^ A iOM-bXAllUN ON TllK BAKNAL). KOAD. THE PROVINCE AND THE CITY OF TOMSK 281 At Pianoyarofskaya we left the Semipalatinsk road andthe valley of the Irtish, and, turning to the northward,crossed the low divide which separates the water-shed ofthe Irtish from that of the Ob, and entered the province ofTomsk. A large quantity of rain had fallen, and had beenfollowed by a comfortable temperature; but the muddyroads hindered us, and the post-stations, where we gotvery little to eat, were filthy and swarming with bedbugs.In the stations of Shemanaiefskaya and Saiishkiua, aftervainly attempting to sleep, I sat up and wrote throughoutthe whole of two nights, killing fifteen or twenty bedbugseach night on my writing-table. The lack of proper food,the constant jolting, and the impossibility of getting anysleep, soon reduced us to an extremely jaded and exhaustedcondition, and when we reached the town of Barnaiil, Fri-day afternoon, August 14, after an almost sleepless journeyof