other the prison of Akatui, in the trans-Baikal
province, about three hundred miles east of Irkutsk. Schlusselburg I
have never visited, but I inspected the prison of Akatui, and conversed
freely with the politicals within its walls. The majority were men of
education, but dangerous conspirators, condemned to long terms of penal
servitude. The strictest prison discipline, the wearing of fetters, hard
labour in the silver mines, and association at night in public cells
with the vilest criminals was the lot of those whom I saw at Akatui, and
yet I doubt if any of these men would willingly have changed places with
their exiled comrades "domiciled" in comparative liberty at
Sredni-Kolymsk. For the stupendous distance of the latter place from
civilisation surrounds it with even more gloom and mystery than the
Russian Bastille on Lake Ladoga, which is the most dreaded prison of
all.

[Footnote 40: Political prisoners are no longer confined in the fortress
of SS. Peter and Paul. Short terms of imprisonment previous to
banishment to Siberia are served in the citadels of Warsaw and other
cities, but Schlusselburg and Akatui are the only establishments now
used as political prisons in the real sense of the word.]

At the time of our visit, the exiles here numbered twelve men and two
women, only two of whom had been banished for actual crime. One of these
was Madame Akimova, who was found with explosives concealed about her
person at the coronation of Nicholas II., and the other, Zimmermann,
convicted of complicity in the destruction of the public workshops at
Lodz by dynamite a few years ago. With these two exceptions the
Sredni-Kolymsk exiles were absolutely guiltless of active participation
in the revolutionary movement, indeed, most of them appeared to be
quiet, intelligent men, of moderate political views who would probably
have contributed to the welfare and prosperity of any country but their
own. Only one or two openly professed what may be called anarchistic
views, and these were young students, recent arrivals, who looked more
like robbing an orchard than threatening a throne. So far as I could
see, however, most of these so-called political offenders had been
consigned to this living tomb merely for openly expressing opinions in
favour of a constitution and freedom of speech. And strange as it may
seem, some of them were occasionally almost cheerful under circumstances
that would utterly annihilate the health and spiri