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22
SIBERIA
upon exile by administrative process. In that article —a copy of which now lies before me—Mr. Priklónski, over his own signature, uses the following language with regard to the life of political exiles in Yakút ulúses:
There exists in the province of Yakútsk a form of exile more severe and more barbarous than anything that the Russian public has yet known, … namely, banishment to ulúses. This consists in the assignment of administrative exiles separately to residences in scattered Yakút yurts, situated sometimes many versts one from another. A recent number of the Russian Gazette (No. 23), in its correspondence from Yakútsk, publishes the following extract from the letter of an ulús exile, which graphically describes the awful situation of an educated human being who has been mercilessly thrown into one of the yurts of these arctic savages.
"The Cossacks who had brought me from the town of Yakútsk to my destination soon returned, and I was left alone among Yakúts who do not understand a word of Russian. They watch me constantly, for fear that if I escape they will have to answer for it to the Russian authorities. If I go out of the close atmosphere of the solitary yurt to walk, I am followed by a suspicious Yakút. If I take an ax to cut myself a cane, the Yakút directs me by gestures and pantomime to let it alone and go back into the yurt. I return thither, and before the fireplace I see a Yakút who has stripped himself naked, and is hunting for lice in his clothing—a pleasant picture! The Yakúts live in winter in the same buildings with their cattle, and frequently are not separated from the latter even by the thinnest partition. The excrement of the cattle and of the children; the inconceivable disorder and filth; the rotting straw and rags; the myriads of vermin in the bedding; the foul, oppressive air, and the impossibility of speaking a word of Russian—all these things taken together are positively enough to drive one insane. The food of the Yakúts can hardly be eaten. It is carelessly prepared, without salt, often of tainted materials, and the unaccustomed stomach rejects it with nausea. I have no separate dishes or clothing of my own; there are no facilities for bathing, and during the whole winter—eight months—I am as dirty as a Yakút. I cannot go anywhere—least of all to the town, which is two hundred versts distant. I live with the Yakúts by turns—staying with one family for six weeks, and then going for the same length of time to another. I have
"The Cossacks who had brought me from the town of Yakútsk to my destination soon returned, and I was left alone among Yakúts who do not understand a word of Russian. They watch me constantly, for fear that if I escape they will have to answer for it to the Russian authorities. If I go out of the close atmosphere of the solitary yurt to walk, I am followed by a suspicious Yakút. If I take an ax to cut myself a cane, the Yakút directs me by gestures and pantomime to let it alone and go back into the yurt. I return thither, and before the fireplace I see a Yakút who has stripped himself naked, and is hunting for lice in his clothing—a pleasant picture! The Yakúts live in winter in the same buildings with their cattle, and frequently are not separated from the latter even by the thinnest partition. The excrement of the cattle and of the children; the inconceivable disorder and filth; the rotting straw and rags; the myriads of vermin in the bedding; the foul, oppressive air, and the impossibility of speaking a word of Russian—all these things taken together are positively enough to drive one insane. The food of the Yakúts can hardly be eaten. It is carelessly prepared, without salt, often of tainted materials, and the unaccustomed stomach rejects it with nausea. I have no separate dishes or clothing of my own; there are no facilities for bathing, and during the whole winter—eight months—I am as dirty as a Yakút. I cannot go anywhere—least of all to the town, which is two hundred versts distant. I live with the Yakúts by turns—staying with one family for six weeks, and then going for the same length of time to another. I have
