Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1893 — A Train of Exiles. [ARTICLE]

A Train of Exiles.

All travelers in Siberia desire to see something of the criminal exiles. When, therefore, I was informed that a detachment was on its way from Tomsk, I took a conveyance and drove out to meet it. We had driven a considerable distance without seeing the slightest signs of life on the deserted highway, when suddenly on the crisp, frosty air, I distinguished a faint, distant sound, so peculiar and weird that it at once attracted my attention, as it was evidently approaching us. It was not unlike the noise which would be produced by hundreds of small birds singing all at once, yet I could see nothing of any sort anywhere on the vast plain. As well as I could, with my limited Russian vocabulary, I drew my driver’s attention to it. To him it was neither novel nor interesting; he knew what it was at once. “The arrestanti are coming,” he remarked briefly; and shortly after, on ascending a rise in the road which had concealed them from our view, there came in sight a big body of men coming slowly along, and I discovered that tbe strange noise which had so impressed me was produced by the heavy chains they wore. But then, alas! all preconceived illusions vanished, for it was a loathsome and depressing sight, rendered doubly so by the bright sunshine. There was about it absolutely nothing of the poetic, such as I had been led to expect. It was simply a huge crowd of what looked like—and probably was—the very scum of the earth, for all races seemed to be represented, making as villainous and evil-looking a lot of men as one could possibly see.