Very often on my sleigh ride I met convoys of exiles.  On one occasion as we were passing an ostrog the gate suddenly opened, and a dozen sleighs laden with prisoners emerged and drove rapidly to the eastward.  Five-sixths of the exiles I met on the road were riding, and did not appear to suffer from cold.  They were well wrapped in sheepskin clothing, and seated, generally three together, in the ordinary sleighs of the country.  Formerly most exiles walked the entire distance from Moscow to their destination, but of late years it has been found better economy to allow them to ride.  Only certain classes of criminals are now required to go on foot.  All other offenders, including ‘politiques,’ are transported in vehicles at government expense.  Any woman can accompany or follow her husband into exile.

Those on foot go from one station to the next for a day’s march.  They travel two days and rest one, and unless for special reasons, are not required to break the Sabbath.  Medical officers are stationed in the principal towns, to look after the sanitary condition of the emigrants.  The object being to people the country, the government takes every reasonable care that the exiles do not suffer in health while on the road.  Of course those that ride do not require as much rest as the pedestrians.  They usually stop at night at the ostrogs, and travel about twelve or fourteen hours a day.  Distinguished offenders, such as the higher class of revolutionists, officers convicted of plotting against the state or robbing the Treasury, are generally rushed forward night and day.  To keep him secure from escape, an exile of this class is sometimes chained to a soldier who rides at his side.

One night, between Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk, I was awakened by an unusual motion of the sleigh.  We were at the roadside passing a column of men who marched slowly in our direction.  As I lifted our curtain and saw the undulating line of dark forms moving silently in the dim starlight, and brought into relief against the snow hills, the scene appeared something more than terrestrial.  I thought of the array of spectres that beleaguered the walls of Prague, if we may trust the Bohemian legend, and of the shadowy battalions described by the old poets of Norseland, in the days when fairies dwelt in fountains, and each valley was the abode of a good or evil spirit.  But my fancies were cut short by my companion briefly informing me that we were passing a convoy of prisoners recently ordered from Irkutsk to Yeneseisk.  It was the largest convoy I saw during my journey, and included, as I thought, not less than two hundred men.