Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/167

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THE CONVICT MINES OF KARÁ
151

prison, which was perhaps the best one we inspected at the mines. It was distant from the Lower Diggings about three miles, and was reached by a road that ran up the right bank of the Kará River through a desolate, snowy valley, dotted here and there with the dilapidated huts and cabins of the free

VIEW NEAR UPPER KARÁ, AND HOUSES OF THE FREE COMMAND.

command. More wretched and cheerless places of abode than these can hardly be imagined. Readers who remember the so-called "shanties on the rocks" in the upper part of New York City can form, perhaps, with the aid of the illustration on this page, some faint idea of their appearance. The best of them could hardly bear comparison with the poorest of the Irish laborers' houses that