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Updated: June 8, 2025
The drivers were exposed on the outside of the sleigh, and had the full benefit of the wind. At the end of the first drive after this storm commenced our yemshick might have passed for an animated snow statue. The road was tolerable, and a great improvement upon that from Krasnoyarsk to Tomsk.
So long as he traversed a devastated country the difficulties must be very great; but if, having avoided Tomsk, he could resume the road to Irkutsk across the province of Yeniseisk, which was not yet laid waste, he would finish his journey in a few days. Night came on, bringing with it refreshing coolness after the heat of the day. At midnight the steppe was profoundly dark.
The adverse chances are numerous on this side of Tomsk, while beyond I shall in a few hours have passed the most advanced Tartar posts to the east. Still three days of patience, and may God aid me!" It was indeed a journey of three days which the prisoners, under the guard of a numerous detachment of Tartars, were to make across the steppe.
Shortly after leaving Tomsk, however, we passed the vanguard of these tea caravans and saw them no more. The road in western Siberia was hard and smooth, and the horses were so good that we made very rapid progress with comparatively little discomfort. We stopped only twice a day for meals, and every night found us 175 or 200 miles nearer our destination than we had been the night before.
The most eastern line occupied by the Tartar columns was not situated beyond the eighty-fifth meridian, which passes through Tomsk. This meridian once passed, Michael considered that he should be beyond the hostile zones, that he could traverse Genisci without danger, and gain Krasnoiarsk before Feofar-Khan had invaded the province.
"Do not talk about that," the soldier interrupted, "I must not know anything about you; talk about other things, but not why you are here." Godfrey nodded. "If we go on beyond Tiumen we go by steamer, do we not?" "Yes, through Tobolsk to Tomsk, beyond that we shall drive. You are lucky, you people, that you drive, the others walk; it is long work, but not so long as it used to be, they say.
It had been decided that a military fete should mark the inauguration of the Tartar headquarters in this important city. Feofar-Khan already occupied the fortress, but the bulk of his army bivouacked under its walls, waiting until the time came for them to make a solemn entry. Ivan Ogareff left the Emir at Tomsk, where both had arrived the evening before, and returned to the camp at Zabediero.
From the Pillar of Farewells to Tiumen, from thence to Tomsk, where they met the first of the released political exiles returning in a joyous band to their beloved Russia, and thence to Irkutsk, and then over the ice of Lake Baikal, and through the awful frozen desert of the Trans-Baikal Provinces, they had been driven like cattle until the remnant that had survived the horrors of the awful journey reached the desolate valley of the Kara and were finally halted at the Lower Diggings.
There are about 50,000 in each of the Siberian towns of Tomsk, Irkutsk and Ekaterinburg. There has been no census since 1897, but in 1900 the population of St. Petersburg was 1,439,739; Moscow, 1,035,664; and Riga, 282,943. The mortality in the towns is so great that the deaths exceed the births.
They were talking of the expected arrival of a corps of Muscovite troops, not at Omsk, but at Tomsk a corps intended to recapture that town from the Tartars of Feofar-Khan. Michael Strogoff lent an attentive ear, but took no part in the conversation. Suddenly a cry made him tremble, a cry which penetrated to the depths of his soul, and these two words rushed into his ear: "My son!"
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