Note 3 — Chapter XXXI · SIBERIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS.

Perhaps I ought to add that this information was given me in French, which the Pole had not conversed in for a long time, and did not speak readily. It was given, too, with a good deal of bitter feeling, whilst I made notes of what was told me. As he looked on at my writing, and knew pretty well who I was, and what I was travelling for, I felt he might be exaggerating, and I therefore asked him pointedly whether all he had told me was true. He replied in the affirmative, and I therefore hand on the account to my readers, though, as will be seen later on, it was a much severer testimony than I received from political prisoners in general.