the west, while if the smaller poluétapes sometimes looked lonely and anæmic, the same could hardly be said of the full étapes, which were enlivened by the presence of gymnastic apparatus on a large scale for the benefit of the soldiers. Piles of sawn birch, the black-andwhite-striped sentry-boxes at each corner, and a similarly coloured post that held the Imperial eagle aloft, were common to étape and polu-étape alike. Both classes had dark-red roofs, chimneys of whitened brick, and the lines of the windows were picked out in white on the natural dirty yellow of the seasoned logs. Often a slight deception was practised which gave the semblance of a sure foundation to the étapes: about three feet from the ground the trusty logs were discontinued, and planks with their broad side in the vertical were substituted. In Siberia it is no uncommon thing to find the log-houses poised on stone foundations; but the foundation is laid last. A square log box, as it were, without a lid is erected, and rests about two and a half feet above the ground on four corner supports. The doors and windows are then sawn out, and the stone foundation is built in below. So the étapes were built, save that their foundations are still of wood.

1

One other étape in the vicinity of the Nertchinsk Silver Mines deserves mention, not on its own account for it had no palisade, and the door was sustained more by its padlock than the hinges 1_ but on account of the captain who was in charge. Truly the lot of the soldiers and officers is often as hard comparatively as that of any of the convicts. Formerly our

both vehicle and team. Thereafter they disappeared inside the post-house to discuss a cup of tea, while their attendant mounted guard at the door and adopted a very careless attitude, joking with the bystanders about his charges.

Farther on the road that day we passed a tiny procession, consisting of some twenty telyegas: the number of convicts was small, mainly women. There were, however, half-a-dozen men in chains dispersed throughout the cortège. On one cart were seated an old woman and a soldier, who was chatting busily with her; his rifle - butt rested on his knee, and the muzzle pointed towards the heavens. Another waggon held a man in chains, his wife, and two or three small children; but the natchalnik of the convoy had paid no special attention to him his children were a sufficient guard. A third cartload of young women was willingly escorted by a couple of soldiers, who were evidently enlivening proceedings for them with their coarse witticisms. In this extraordinary gang no prisoner was walking. There seemed to be a large proportion of soldiers for the size of the party, so that one assumed that the telyegas were transporting men of criminal distinction. A few waggons weighted with sacks and bags brought up the rear.

In attempting criticism of the march as a whole, one naturally seizes on three points: (1) The food allowance; (2) the condition of the étapes; (3) the hospital accommodation. With regard to the first of these, one remarks that while in ordinary circumstances 8 kopecks would be quite suffi

cient, the fluctuations in market prices make it imperative that there should be no hard-and-fast allowance throughout Siberia at all seasons of the year. Nor is this the case; for it has always been customary to grant a higher allowance in Eastern Siberia, where the prices are dearer than in the West. Difficulty seems rather to manifest itself in the adjustment of the necessary rise to the periods of distress. The consequent state of affairs has been extravagantly depicted by a Russian writer, who sarcastically adds that when once, during a year of famine, orders were given from headquarters that the daily grant should be increased in a certain quarter, owing to official delays the rise did not come into effect till the year after, when again there was plenty. Be that as it may, this I know for certain, that when my companion telegraphed to St Petersburg how matters stood in the districts already described, General Bogdanovitch immediately raised the ordinary grant from 10 to 15 kopecks. It has also been suggested that all the food should be bought beforehand by the local authorities at prices strictly fixed by the Crown: this would obviate the annoyances associated with the individual dole. Further, if those members of each gang whom it elects as cooks could be sent on ahead to the étape destination for the night, it would be possible to have a good meal ready awaiting the arrival of the prisoners.

The condition of the étapes has excited comments from all observers. Those in the East are in vastly better order than their Western equivalents, some of which are said to date from the "thirties." But to stigmatise them

all as enormous gloomy structures, "ancient, skeletonised, and draughty," is unfair; many are in excellent condition. A large sum is spent every year on the reconstruction and repairing of étapes— admittedly not enough: at the same time the Director says, what is only natural and reasonable in maintaining, that the Government does not feel justified in making any great outlay in this particular direction, considering that the railway will shortly do away with the need for the greater number of these buildings. Still, one cannot help remembering that transportation by étape antedates all dreams of railway enterprise.

On the subject of the hospitals I intend to say more at a later period. Any man who falls ill on the march is left at the nearest town; but as in Eastern Siberia it may be more than a hundred miles distant, he may suffer a great deal before he reaches one. This affects soldiers and prisoners alike. Moreover, the tiny lazarets that are occasionally found at the étapes do not as a whole look specially inviting. On the other hand, the devices to which the prisoners resort in order to obtain admission to a hospital of any class is a testimonial of a very high order.

But the death-knell of this grim march has been sounded: hereafter the humaner railway will relieve it of its horrors. The autumn of 1896 was to witness the last long river-voyage to Tomsk in the menagerie-like barges. Perhaps that crowded floating prison, dragged in the wake of a hardly less miserable steamer, that greeted us in mid-stream of the Ob on that quiet autumn evening, was then making its final journey. Perhaps the desolate low banks of that cold unresponsive river then listened

"Jackson, my enquiry was about my own affair. I want to know what you think of my chance there." I looked at him severely, for this inattention was too bad.

"Well, and I gave you a parallel. We are almost in the same boat, I should say; though yours is a sort of savage canoe, full of Oriental fish-tails, no doubt, and liable to Vendetta, and many other frightful nuisances. To your young mind all that too probably increases the attraction. But to my mature views, there's romance enough and to spare, in a quiet English maiden, -sweet, gentle, affectionate, firm principled, and not too sure of her own mind. Are they to be despised, because you can speak a civil word to them, without having a bullet through you? George, there is more romance really, where you know how to behave, than where you don't."

"Can't see it," I answered, "can't see it at all. Is it poetry to take up your spoon for pea-soup?"

"Poetry be hanged!" cried JackAnd as it was only my brother who went in for it, when I never could make a blessed rhyme, why should I stand up for the Muses, who had never deigned a glance at me? Nevertheless, I was slightly shocked, for every man is, or ought

to try to be, a little above the common mark, when he thinks he loves something even better than himself. And to be above the common mark is getting on for poetry.

"You go your own way, and leave me to go mine." I spoke with that elbow-lift of the mind which resembles what coachmen used to do to one another, when they met on the highroad, and did not want to raise the whip. "You will see, Jackson, if you live long enough, that I shall have a better time than you will." For I knew that Grace needed a very light hand; though girls had not got their mouths just yet, half as much as they have now.

It

"The Lord only grant me the chance of it!" he replied, with the happy rashness of young men. was not for me to speak against my sister; but I knew all her little ins and outs, and I daresay she thought that she knew mine.

"Let me come down to your happy valley," he continued, with that contempt of my ideas, which I always leave Time to redress, and have seldom found him fail to do it. "I want to see this perfect wonder. Why, Shakespeare himself can have never created any heroine to compare with her. It is out of possibility, my dear George. Bless my heart-Imogen, Portia, Miranda, Rosalind, Juliet, Ophelia -no, she was weak Sylvia, Helena, half a dozen others rolled into one, down in that little hole! I want to see her, that I may learn to despise the best English girl ever born; or try to pretend to do it, if