On arrival at an _étape_, generally in the afternoon, a halt was called outside the palisade for roll-call, and then the great gates were thrown open for the indiscriminate admission of the crowd. “With a wild, mad rush and a furious clashing of chains, more than three hundred men made a sudden break for the narrow gateway, struggled, fought and crowded through it, and then burst into the _kameras_, in order to secure, by preoccupation, places on the sleeping platforms,” says Kennan. Leo Deutsch graphically describes this “battle for the best sleeping places, the weaker being thrust aside or trampled down by the stronger. At our first sight of this mad fighting and struggling among some hundred men in a narrow space, we thought they would kill each other, but generally the wild tumult of blows and kicks and curses did not result in anything serious.” The losers in the game took the worst places, or bartered for a better bed with the more fortunate at the price of a few kopecks. When the scramble for a night’s lodging ended, the tired wayfarers fell to preparing their own suppers. Hot water for making tea was retailed by the soldiers of the escort, and cooked food with coarse bread was bought from the market women who came in to sell their wares. Sometimes they did not appear and the convicts would almost starve, or the times were hard and impossible prices were charged. The daily allowance issued by the authorities was sometimes insufficient, and again the convicts went short. Often enough the buyers cheated the sellers, or stole their goods, and the poor women could get no redress. After supper, roll was again called, the watch was set, sentries were posted, and the prisoners were locked up and left for the night.