The great Siberian _Trakt_, or imperial highway, begins at Tyumen and runs across the eternal desolateness of interior Siberia to the Amur River, a distance of more than three thousand miles. Along this ancient road, beaten hard by sore and bleeding feet, moistened by myriad tears, _more than one million exiles trudged between the reigns of Nicholas I and Nicholas II_. When exiles arrive in Tyumen they are thrown into the waiting-prison until a sufficient number have arrived to make up a party for the interior. They are then corralled like so many cattle, formed into loose marching order, surrounded by Cossacks or regular troops, and marched over the weary way. They tramp thirty versts a day for two days, and rest the third day. Rough Russian carts, called _telegas_, usually drawn by one horse, accompany each party to carry the luggage and provisions, and sometimes sick or exhausted marchers. At this rate of going, through summer heat and winter cold, many months are consumed in reaching the destinations to which the exiles have been assigned. During the short summer season when the waterways are open, convict barges carry some of the parties as far as possible along the rivers of the Tobol, the Irtysh, and the Obi. In order to get a taste of Siberian water travel I decided to go by boat to Tobolsk, and from there on, and indeed back to Tyumen, by the usual post-roads. The little steamer that carried us from the chief city to the capital of the province was filled with soldiers and Tartar merchants returning from Nijni-Novgorod. Each spring the Tartars travel from their northern homes with winter pelts--ermines, sables, silver foxes--up the Siberian rivers to Tyumen, then by rail over the Ural Mountains to Perm and down the Kama to the Volga, then up to Nijni-Novgorod. The amount of commerce on the river surprised me greatly. We met many boats heavily freighted, plying between Omsk, Tobolsk, and Tyumen, and there was every appearance of a large volume of trade passing over these waterways. The quays and landing-places were very crude. In fact there were no regular docks at all. At intervals a single post had been driven into the mud, usually within a reasonable distance of some settlement or village, which seemed rarely to be close to the stream, and around this post the steamer’s hawser would be made secure, while a long gang-plank would be [Illustration: The great Siberian _Trakt_ Along this highway more than one million political exiles tramped toward remote Siberian settlements between the reigns of Nicholas I and Nicholas II--a period of 75 years] extended to the muddy bank over perhaps ten or even twenty feet of water. The steamer engines burned wood. Every few hours we would make fast to the bank near to a pile of cordwood which the native Tartars constantly replenish, and practically the entire crew and sometimes some of the passengers would act as stevedores bringing it aboard.