This well-to-do appearance was only in part to be ascribed to the productiveness of the husbandry in these regions. Trade and the conduct of traffic were the principal resources of the inhabitants; for this road was the only means of communication by land between Europe and the northern parts of Asia. Caravans in lengthy processions, sometimes in such numbers that the road was practically blocked, travelled along the great highway; and the country people found employment in the transport of both goods and passengers. The regular posting-stations were often unequal to the demands made upon them, and travellers—merchants especially—were obliged to hire private vehicles and pay dearly for them. Besides these legitimate industries, the inhabitants had another extremely lucrative source of gain. Many villages had won for themselves an evil name in this connection, and were known as “thieves’ towns,” because no caravan ever passed through them without paying toll of its wares; sometimes a chest of tea would be stolen, sometimes a horse, and so on. It was asserted that in some of these places the inhabitants made raids on travellers by night, and lived by highway robbery. It is characteristic of the country that this reputation lowered no man in public estimation. Anyone was received in “good society” if he were rich, no matter whether he were well known to have robberies by the score upon his conscience; he might, indeed, even be asked to fill the most honourable offices—such as churchwarden, mayor, or head of the commune. Later, when I was living in a Siberian town as an exile released from prison under police surveillance, I was frequently told by trustworthy persons, with every detail, how such and such a citizen, universally respected and esteemed, had made his fortune by cheating and robbery, or even by downright murder. There were numbers of people whose past could not bear inspection; and many of them, even after becoming possessed of wealth in superfluity, could not quite give up their old practices. It so fell out, for example, at the end of the eighties, that General Barabash the military governor of Tchita (the capital of the Transbaikalian Government), gave a banquet, to which all the notabilities of the place were invited, and that the highly respectable merchant and mayor Alexèiev broke off in the middle of the feasting and went straight from table to waylay the passing night-mail. This worthy citizen, with one of his friends, galloped after the mail-coach, murdered the driver, seriously wounded the guard, seized the bag containing the registered letters, and made off. The guard, however, whom they had left for dead, was rescued; and as an unusually energetic magistrate took the matter in hand, the whole story came out, and could not be hushed up in the customary manner. The case was brought before a court-martial, and the highway robbers were condemned to death.