Note 2 — Chapter XXXI · SIBERIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS.

I have been favoured with a few particulars from an unpublished manuscript, written by a Decembrist prisoner for the use of his wife and children. He describes his cell at the fortress in Petersburg as small, dirty, and dark; and speaks of a poor and scanty diet, adding, “C’était l’Empereur, qui, sur le rapport du comité d’enquête prescrivait, le régime diétique ainsi que la dure aggravation d’une détention penible.” He had to leave Petersburg, and many of his comrades with him, in the middle of the night, in chains (though a noble), and was not allowed to bid his mother good-bye, though she was in the next room to him at the post-station. They left in a telega, travelling viâ Jaroslav, Kostroma, Viatka, Ekaterineburg, Omsk, etc., and reached Irkutsk in 24 days. At Chita they were kindly treated by the governor of the prison and attendants, and later on, when allowed to colonize at Irkutsk and Tobolsk, suffered no hardships, excepting petty restrictions and vexations.