Across Siberia : on the great post-road / by Charles Wenyon.

  • Wenyon, Charles.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Across Siberia : on the great post-road / by Charles Wenyon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    are breaches of the law which the Government has neither sanctioned nor approved. They are to be classed with the similar outrages which in former times not infrequently occurred at our own convict stations in Australia, and with the lynchings which are so common to-day in some parts of the United States. The convict stations of the Trans - Baikal province resemble in many res]3ects ordinary Siberian villages; there is no insurmountable surrounding wall, and it is by no means difficult for an exile to run away. But more effective than artificial barriers is the broad area of wild, inhospitable forest which on every side surrounds the settlement. IN'o one ever thinks of attempting to escape in the winter, nor when winter is approaching, but the spring seems to offer a favourable opportunity. The cuckoo is always heard in his season in Siberia. The exiles speak of him as the king of the woods; and when, after the long winter, his first familiar call is heard, the prisoners say among themselves, The king of the woods is calling, it is time to get away. Every year a considerable number respond to the cuckoo's invitation. The watch is not particularly close, and they need not wait long for an opportunity to slip away unobserved into the forest. But most of them soon find that flight does not mean freedom. Once, on an ocean steamer, a thousand miles from land, some ducks whose pen had been carelessly left open flew overboard. When last I saw them they were flapping their wings, and scuttling about on the water, in high glee afc their
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