Godfrey dozed occasionally until morning, and then looked out at the dark woods through which they passed for hours. Twice the train stopped at lonely stations, and the prisoners were supplied with food. In the afternoon Godfrey saw the gilded and painted domes of a great city, and knew that it must be Moscow. Here, however, they made no stay, but steamed straight through the station and continued their way. Godfrey slept soundly after it became dark, waking up once when the train came to a standstill. At early morning he was roused and ordered to alight, and in the same order as before the prisoners were marched through the streets of Nijni Novgorod to the bank of the Volga. Few people were yet abroad in the streets, but all they met looked pityingly at the group of exiles, a sight of daily occurrence in the springtime of the year. Ordinary prisoners, of whom from fifteen to twenty thousand are sent annually to Siberia, are taken down the Volga in a convict barge, towed by a steamer, in batches of six or seven hundred. Political prisoners are differently treated; they are carried on board the ordinary steamer, each having a separate cabin, and during the voyage they are allowed no intercourse whatever, either with each other or with the ordinary passengers. [Illustration: Map of Russian Empire] Of these there were a considerable number on board the steamer, as the season had but just begun, and merchants, traders, and officials were taking advantage of the river's being open to push forward into Siberia. At present, however, these were all below. The prisoners were conducted to the cabins reserved for them, and then locked in. Presently Godfrey heard a buzz of many voices and a general movement in the cabin outside, and the fact that he was a prisoner and cut off from the world came to him more strongly than it had hitherto done. An hour later there was a movement and shouting overhead. Then he felt the paddles revolving, and knew that the steamer was under way. He could, however, see nothing. A sort of shutter was fastened outside the scuttle, which gave him the opportunity to take a glimpse of the sky, but nothing of the shore or water. Nothing could be more monotonous than the journey, and yet the air and light that came down through the port-hole rendered it far more pleasant than existence in a prison cell. He knew, too, that, dull as it was in the cabin, there would be little to see on deck, for the shores of the rivers were everywhere flat and low.