File:Siberia and the exile system (1891) (14579509897).jpg

Identifier: siberiaexilesyst02kennuoft (find matches)
Title: Siberia and the exile system
Year: 1891 (1890s)
Authors: Kennan, George, 1845-1924
Subjects: Siberia (Russia) -- Description and travel
Publisher: new York : Century
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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he spring, after the river breaksup, the Kara mines are virtually isolated from all the restof the world, and can be reached only by a difficult anddangerous bridle path, which runs for a distance of seventyor eighty miles, parallel with the river, across a series ofsteep and generally forest-clad mountain ridges. We hopedto reach Stretinsk in time to descend the Shilka to theKara River in a boat; and when we left Chita, on Satur-day, October 24th, there seemed to be every probability thatwe should succeed in so doing. The weather, however,turned suddenly colder; snow fell to a depth of an inchand a half or two inches; and Wednesday morning, whenwe alighted from our telega on the northern bank of theShilka opposite Stretinsk, winter had set in with great 131 132 SIBERIA severity. The mercury in our thermometer indicated zero(Fahr.); our fur coats and the bodies of our horses werewhite with frost; and the broad, rapid current of theShilka was so choked with masses of heavy ice as to be
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mg OS O E es K ■< w almost, if not quite, impassable. A large open skiff wasmaking a perilous attempt to cross from Stretinsk to ourside of the river, and a dozen or more peasants, who stoodshivering around a small camp-fire on the beach, werewaiting for it, with the hope that it would come safely toland and that the ferrymen might be persuaded to make a THE CONVICT MINES OF KARA 133 return trip with passengers. After watching for a quarterof an hour the struggles of this boat with the ice, Mr. Frostand I decided that it would be hazardous to attempt, in anopen skiff, the passage of a rapid and ice-choked river halfa mile wide, even if the boatman were willing to take us;and we therefore sought shelter in the small log houseof a young Russian peasant named Zablikof, who good-hu-moredly consented to give us a nights lodging provided wehad no objection to sleeping on the floor with the membersof his family. We were too much exhausted and too nearlyfrozen to object to anything; and

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