The San Saba news. [volume] (San Saba, Tex.) 1873-1966, 1889-02-08

called "kottee," instead of with boots.
Tsese kottee are made by contract and
by the thousand, of the cheapest mate
rails, and by the Government itself are
expected to last only six weeks. As a
matter of fact they frequently do not
last over one week.
A high officer of the exile administra-
ton told me that it was a common thing
to see exilei leave Tomsk or Krasno-
yarsk with new kottee and come into the
second etape Observation-Disclosures shoes
having gone to pieces in less than two
DAYS. Even when the kottee hold out
their nominal period of service, they are
not fitted to the feet of the weareIs;
they cannot be secured because they have
no laces; they are so low that they NIL
with mire and water and are constantly
sticking fast or coming of IN mud
holes; and OF such road az that be-
tween Achinsk and Krasnoyarsk scores
of convicts either remove their shoes
and hang them around their necks, or
throw them away altogether, and walk
for DAYS at a time with bare feet, through
mud whose temperature IS little above
the freezing point.
AS the party, wet, tired and hungry,
approaches one of the little log villages
that lies along its route, the ''starosta,"
or head man appointed by the exiles to
conduct their negotiation with the au-
thorlties, asks the convoy officer to al
low them to sing the "begging song as
they pass through the settlement. The
desired permission is granted; certain
prisoners are designated to receive the ex-
pected aims; the conYicts all remove
their gray caps, and entering the village
with a slow, dragging step, as If they
hardly had strength enough to crawl
along, they begin their mournful appeal
for pity.
shall never forget the emotions
reused in me by this song when I heard
it for the first time We were sitting,
one cold, raw, autumnal day, in dirty
post station on the great Siberian road,
waiting for horses. Suddenly my at
f1rfT5tRR Iqs atfae1tss1 ac which came 70
US from a distance, and which, although
made apparently by human voices, did
not resemble anything that 1 had ever
before heard. Itwas not singing, nor
chanting, nor wailing for the dead, but
a strange blending of all three. 1t sug-
gested vaguely the confused and com
mingled sobs, means, and entreaties of
human beings who were being subjected
to torture. but whose sufferings were not
acute enough to seek expression in
shrieks or high-pitched cries. As the
sound came nearer we went out into the
street in front of the station-house and
saw approaching a chained party of
about hundred bare headed conYicts,
who, surrounded by a Gordon of soldiers,
were marching slowly through the settle
ment, singing the ''exiles' begging
song No attempt was made by the
singers to pitch their voices in harmony,
or to pronounce the words in unison;
there were no pauses or rests at the ends
of the lines; and | could not make out
any distinctly marked rhythm. The
singers seemed to be constantly breaking
in upon one another with slightly modu-
lated variations OF the same slow, melan-
choly air, and the effect produced was
that of q rude fugue, or of a funeral
chant, so arranged as to be sung like
round or catch by hundred male voices,
each independent of the others in time
and melody, but all following certain
scheme of vocalization, and taking up
by turns the samedreary. wailing theme.
The words were as follows:
Have pity on us, o our fathers!
Don't forget the unwilling travellers,
Don't forget the long-imprisoned
Feed US, o our fathers-help US!
Feed and help the poor and nee1yi
Have compassion, o our fathersi
Have compassion o our mothersi
For the sake of Christ, have mercy
"a the prisoners-the shut-up onesi
Behint walls of stone and gratings,
Behind oaken doors and padlocks.
Behind bars and locks of iron,
We are held in close confinement.
We have parted from our fathers,
From our mothers;
We from all our kin have parted,
We are prisoners;
PITY Us, o our fathers
If you can imagine these words, half
sung, half chanted, slowly, in broken
time and on a low key, by hundred
voices, to an compartments made BY the
jinglmg and clashing of chains, you will
have faint idea of the "NIiloserdnava, u
or exiles' begging song. Rude, artless
and inharmonious as the appeal for pity
was, had never in my life heard any
thing so mournful and depressing. 1t
seemed to be the half-articulate express
sion of all the grief, the misery and
the despair that had been felt by gener-
tons of human beings in the etapes, the
forwarding prisons and the mines.
As the party marched slowly alone
the muddy street between the lines Of
gray log houses, children and peasant
women appeared at the doors with their
hands full Of bread, 'meat, eggs, or other
articles of food, which they put into the
caps or bags of the three or four shaven-
headed convicts who acted as aims
collectors. The jingIing of chains and
the wailing voices Of the exiies grew
gradually fainter and fainter as the party
passed up the street, and when the |
sounds finally died away in the distance
and we turned to re-enter the post
station, felt strange sense of lie ection,
as if the day had suddenly grown colder, ,
darker and more dreary, and the cares I
and sorrows of life more burdensome and
oppressive