itself. The remainder of my documents, and a few letters from political exiles to their relatives in European Russia, I bound into the covers of books. As we were traveling with very little baggage, I had no books of my own; but the exiles in Chíta furnished me with an English copy of "David Copperfield," a bound volume of a Russian magazine which contained an article upon the exile system, and an old book of logarithms. 
SIBERIAN FREIGHT-SLEDGES. We felt sure that "David Copperfield" and the logarithms would excite no suspicion, even if our baggage were overhauled, and we hoped that the article upon the exile system would carry the Russian magazine. Finally, I put one very important letter into a small square piece of board, upon which was mounted an oil portrait of one of the Decembrist exiles of 1825. This portrait had been found in one of the houses of the Decembrists at Chíta, and as I was a collector of curious and interesting relics, it was natural enough that I should be in possession of it. Altogether it seemed to me that my papers were very skil-. fully and successfully hidden. The police certainly could not find them without breaking or tearing to pieces nearly everything that I had.
Wednesday night, December 9th, we sang with the political exiles in Chíta for the last time the plaintive but beautiful song of the Russian revolutionists, "On the Volga there is a Cliff," distributed among them as mementos all the trinkets and small articles of value that we had, and then, with
