OCR Text |
Show ACROSS THE RUSSIAN FRONTIER. The Boundary Post of Siberia Heart Broken Exile The Frwll. We sprang out of the tarantaa and saw, standing by tbe roadside, a square pillar ten or twelve feet in height, of stuccoed or plastered plas-tered brick, bearing on one side the coat of arms of tbe European province of Perm, and on the other that of the Asiatic province of Tobolsk. It was the boundary post of Siberia. Si-beria. No other spot between St. Petersburg Peters-burg and tbe Pacific Is more full of painful suggestions, and none bas for the traveler a more melancholy interest than tbe little opening in the forest where stands this grief consecrated pdlar. Here hundreds of thou sands of exiled human beings men, women and children; princes, nobles and peasant have bidden good-by forever to friends, country and borne. No other boundary post in the world has witnessed so much suffering, or been passed by such a multitude of heart broken people. More than 170,000 exiles have traveled this road since 1878, and more than half a million mil-lion since tbe beginning of the present century. As the boundary post is situated sit-uated about half way between the last European and the llrst Siberian etape, it bos always been customary to allow exile parties to stop here for rest and for a last good-by to home and country. The Russian peasant, even when a criminal, is deeply attached at-tached to his native land; and heartrending scenes have been witnessed around tbe boundary bound-ary pillar wbeu such a party, overtaken perhaps per-haps by frost and snow in the early autumn, stopped here for a last farewell Some gave way to unrestrained grief ; some comforted the weeping; some knelt and pressed their faces to the loved soil of their native country, and collected a Uttle earth to take with them into exile; and a few pressed their lips to the European side of tbe cold brick pillar, as if kissing good-by forever to all that it symbolized. sym-bolized. At last the stern order "StrolsaP ("Form ranksl") from the under officer of the convoy put an end to the rest and the leave taking, and at tbe word " March I" the gray coated troop of exiles and convicts crossed themselves them-selves hastily all together, and, with a confused con-fused jingling of chains and leg fetters, moved slowly away past the boundary post into Siberia. George Eennan in The Century. |