Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/143

army officers, in terms of enthusiastic admiration, as "the Siberian Switzerland." I had, moreover, another reason for wishing to keep as far away as possible from the regular through routes of travel. I supposed when we left St. Petersburg that we should be obliged to go from Tiumén to ENLARGED MAP OF ROUTE FROM
TIUMÉN TO SEMIPALÁTINSK. Tomsk either by steamer or over the great Siberian road. The Minister of the Interior understood that such would be our course, and he caused letters to be written to all the local officials along these routes, apprising them of our coming and furnishing them with such instructions concerning us as the circumstances seemed to require. What these instructions were I could never ascertain; but they anticipated us at every important point on the great Siberian road from Tiumén to the capital of the Trans-Baikál. In Eastern Siberia the local authorities knew all about us months before we arrived. I first became aware of these letters and this system of official surveillance at Tiumén; and as they seemed likely to interfere seriously with my plans,—particularly in the field of political exile,—I determined to escape or elude them as far as possible, by leaving the regular through route and going into a region where the authorities had not presumably been forewarned of our coming. I had reason afterward to congratulate myself upon the exercise of sound judgment in making this decision. The detour to the southward brought us not only into the part of Siberia where the political exiles