as it were, between walls of flaming
brilliancy. Soon the placid waters took on the colouring as reflected
from the hills, and we were indeed moving in a basin of liquid fire.
Many seagulls, appearing as quite old Norfolk friends, followed in our
wake.

At Missovaia we found another _train de luxe_ awaiting us, and it was
here, from the warmth of a saloon car, that I first saw a batch of
Siberian exiles, although I had previously seen the cars with caged
windows wherein they are now transported, instead of having to undergo
that weary tramp of 4,000 miles.

It was already dark and the train had not yet started, when I saw a band
of armed soldiers surrounding some thirty people carrying bundles,
coming along the dimly-lighted platform, and then form up at one end of
it, the people being always surrounded by the soldiers. What had
especially attracted my attention, or I might not have noticed in the
uncertain light of what the band consisted, was a little boy of about 10
or 12 years of age, who was carrying a large bundle which looked like
clothing, trying to pass on the wrong side of some palings, when he was
roughly seized by the ear by one of the Cossack guards and quickly
brought back.

Wishing to post some letters, I tried to pass along that end of the
platform in search of the pillar-box, but was at once stopped by the
guard. The steam from our engine, congealed by the sharp post, fell in a
fine snow about this luckless band, and glistened white on their clothes
in the station lights, and it almost seemed to add an uncalled-for
insult to the misery of their lot. I could not help wondering as to what
their thoughts might be as they watched our waiting train, replete with
every comfort and blazing with electric light. I have never before seen
the extremes of misery and captivity on the one hand, and the extremes
of freedom and luxury on the other, brought into such close and striking
contrast, and I hope never to see it again. Subsequently the dejected
looking throng, in which I fancied I saw women, were marched through a
doorway into a darkened passage in the station, and so disappeared from
sight.

Probably they were all criminals who deserved their fate. Possibly not.
Preconceived ideas and old tradition, however, stirred one's sympathies,
and left an unpleasant feeling in the mind for some time. I was
constrained to compare our lots, and be thankful for mine. I, free to go
my way in every comfort. They ......