[353] The English authorities of the Island of Cyprus asked a money guarantee of about two hundred and fifty roubles for each man from the Dukhobors emigrating there, so that in case of need they would not have to be supported at the government expense. At that time it became known, that in Russia several influential governmental persons had begun to zealously urge the government to send the Dukhobors to Manchuria for the Russification of those Chinese borders adjacent to Russia. It was necessary to hurry with the emigration of the Dukhobors; the English Quakers pulled them out of their helpless position, who first of all persuaded the English Government to decrease the guarantee from two hundred and fifty roubles to one hundred and fifty for each man, and afterwards in several days, collected among themselves a guarantee of one hundred thousand roubles, which, together with the fifty thousand roubles which were contributed at that time by various people, made up the necessary sum for giving the guarantee for the whole party of Dukhobors. In his letter to the Dukhobors of August 27, 1898, Tolstoi ended thus: “May God help you to accomplish His will with Christian manhood, patience and faithfulness, in establishing this change in your life.” [354] M. N. Rostovtzev, the daughter of Madame M. D. Rostovtzev, a land-lady of Voronezh, and a follower of Tolstoi, on coming from the Chertkovs, was arrested on the border because, at the custom examination some pieces of proof of a forbidden book were found on her. She was soon freed. [355] The interruption in receiving letters from V. G. Chertkov was caused by the secret police looking through them. Therefore Chertkov was forced to carry on a part of this far-distant correspondence through a circuitous address. In the letter to him at the end of August, 1898, Tolstoi, informing Chertkov that one of his letters was kept back a month, wrote: “Yesterday I received your letter of August 5th. It is terribly vexing, this interference with our communications which now have become so specially important. And what is it for?” [356] See Note 355. [357] L. A. Sullerzhitsky went to the Caucasus to help the Dukhobors arrange for their emigration abroad. The first group of Dukhobors, to the number of 1,126 persons, who had suffered the most from exile, hunger and illness, left on the 6th of August, 1898, for the Island of Cyprus while other lands be found and sufficient money collected for the transportation of those remaining to a more suitable place. At the request of Tolstoi, L. A. Sullerzhitsky later accompanied a group of Dukhobors to Canada. He wrote a book about this journey, _In America With the Dukhobors_, issued by _Posrednik_, Moscow, 1905. [358] The sister of Tolstoi, Countess Maria Nicholaievna. A month later, September 30, 1898, Tolstoi wrote to V. G. Chertkov: “Yesterday my sister, M. N., left, with whom I spent a very friendly month, never having been so loving.”