CHAPTER VIII
THE HISTORY OF THE KARÁ POLITICAL PRISON
ALMOST the last work that Colonel Kononóvich accomplished at the mines of Kará was the erection of the new political prison near the Lower Diggings. Captain Nikólin would not allow me to inspect this building, nor would he allow Mr. Frost to photograph it; but from convicts who had been confined in it I obtained the plan on page 225 and the picture on page 226, and from memory Mr. Frost drew the sketch on page 224. In general type it differs little from the common-criminal prisons, but it is larger, better lighted, and more spacious than the latter, and is, in all respects, a more comfortable place of abode. It contains four kámeras, exclusive of the hospital, or lazaret, and in each of them there are three windows, a large table, a brick oven, and sleeping-platform accommodations for about twenty-five men. There are no beds, except in the lazaret, and all the bed-clothing that the prisoners have was purchased with their own money. Originally the palisade did not entirely inclose the building, and the prisoners could look out of their front windows across the Kará valley; but Governor-general Anúchin, on the occasion of one of his rare visits to the mines, disapproved of this arrangement, remarked cynically that "A prison is not a palace," and ordered that the stockade of high, closely set logs be so extended as to cut off the view from the windows, and completely shut the building in. It is hard to see in this order anything but a deliberate intention on the part of a cruel official to make the life of the political convicts as miserable
