These colonies by the great road had had very diverse origins, and were sharply differentiated from each other in character. There were more or less pure Russian villages, neighboured by barbaric Buriat settlements; and there were also villages inhabited exclusively by members of various sects, exiled from Russia and forcibly established there as a punishment for their daring to fall away from the Orthodox State religion. Those that I found specially interesting were the villages of the so-called Subòtniki (Sabbatarians). The members of this sect are Russian by nationality, yet their religion is the Mosaic in its strictest form. It was curious in the extreme to find these typical representatives of the Slav race considering themselves Jews by virtue of their religion, and still stranger to hear them boasting of the prerogatives of their Israelitish faith. In their manner of life and occupations they differ in no way from ordinary Russian peasants; although in decency and prosperity their villages are far above those of their Christian neighbours. Those of our criminal contingent who had travelled this way more than once already were well acquainted with the manners and customs of the Siberian people; many of them were veritable mines of information, and could relate tales of uncommon interest. In their narrations the Siberians usually figured in an unfavourable light; for the criminals hate them from the bottom of their hearts, and ascribe all kinds of evil qualities to them, being, one and all, firmly persuaded that although their own standard of conduct is by no means exalted, they are infinitely higher in the moral scale than the Siberians. “Heaven knows we are rascals through and through, good-for-nothings, and all that; but _that_ lot are far and away worse,” was their dictum. They showered on the Siberians all sorts of contemptuous names, which were quite incomprehensible to us, but seemed to provoke their recipients terribly. This mutual antipathy probably arose from the fact of the parties knowing one another only too well, and from the injuries inflicted by each on the other during past generations. We came into such close contact with the world of crime during our travels that we could soon recognise what Lombroso calls “the criminal type.” On the whole, the criminals made a more favourable impression on me than I had expected. Certainly there was much about them unpleasant, and even repulsive; but this was, I think, less due to their character as a class than to the special influence of the “Ivans”—a quite peculiar type, who imparted their tone more or less to all the others. With the exception of these leaders, and of a small number of the worst criminals, who had not succeeded in “swopping,” the majority consisted of very average men of the working class, with the good and bad qualities of their order. Their leading characteristics were dumb acquiescence in their lot and a shy dread of anyone who would attempt to better it.