At every step in our walk through the two prisons Major Pótulof was besieged by unfortunate convicts who had complaints to make or petitions to present. One man had changed names with a comrade on the road while intoxicated, and had thus become a hard-labor convict when he should have been merely a forced colonist, and he wanted his case investigated. Another insisted that he had long since served out his full prison term and should be enrolled in the free command. Three more declared that they had been two months in prison and were still ignorant of the nature of the charges made against them. Many of the convicts addressed themselves eagerly to me, under the impression, apparently, that I must be an inspector sent to Kará to investigate the prison management. In order to save Major Pótulof from embarrassment and the complainants from possible punishment, I hastened to assure them that we had no power to redress grievances or to grant relief; that we were merely travelers visiting Kará out of curiosity. The complaints and the manifestly bad condition of the prisons seemed to irritate Major Pótulof, and he grew more and more silent, moody, and morose as we went through the kámeras. He did not attempt to explain, defend, or excuse anything, nor did he then, nor at any subsequent time, ask me what impression the Ust Kará prisons made upon me. He knew very well what impression they must make.
In another stockaded yard, adjoining the one through which we had passed, stood the political prison for women; but Major Pótulof could not take us into it without the permission of the gendarme commandant, Captain Nikólin. From all that I subsequently learned with regard to this place of punishment, I have little doubt that, while it is cleaner and less overcrowded than the common-criminal prisons, it does not rank much above the latter in comfort or in sanitary condition.
Early Tuesday afternoon we visited the Middle Kará
