Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1892-06-11
Peculiarities Of the Great Siberian
Highway Meandering Through
Tricky Wooded Tracts.
Many Hundred Miles of Silent Gran.
deur Little TrOdden by HUI.
man Feet.
Distinct Classes of Villagers Who
Remain Faithful to Their
National Customs.

The famine in Russia so graphically de-
serlbed by the clever young correspond
ants, Who personally and not without
risks visited the remote stricken districts
during the late winter and early spring,
has now reached such degree Of intensity
that many of the more desperate victims
voluntarily commit crimes that will call
forth an order Of arrest and a c)ndemna-
tion TO hard labor in Siberia. They Calou.
late that at least there will be food and
daily rations, says "A St. Petersburg cor.
respondent of the New York Sun, how
ever coarse and meager Tothem Siberia
has long been only the mines, the long
working hours In eternal night, priya-
tions, confinement, fortunes to be silently
borne under the watchful eye of Russian
task-masSers; and yet such is their present
distress that it has becomes a sort of
promised land of plenty.
In one respect, however, they are JUST
ned in their new view of the country
Siberia is not wholly the land OF penal
settlements, Of barbarous captivity and
servitude Ii is also the country of i'm
mense forests, of bUuudlass tracts. Of wild,
free life, Of wooded expnse compared
with which the forests of the governments
of Moscow and Vladimir are we're copses,
although it may take a traveller twenty-four
hours to ride through them
The Siberian forest begins in reality be-
yond Tomsk, though al trstit offers to the
eye rlucn the same vegetation, the meager
beetbes and aspeus sparsely dotted with
thin pines, and the scraggy underhrush OF
the lesser woods. 1t has the same
NASTY, sodden soil. and the open spaces
are likewise intersected by occasional oat-
fields preceding a miserable hamlet, till IA
region is reached where cultivation APP
parently completely ceases, and where the
dreary monotony of unnleresllaP brush
and ,ocppice is diversified by no
vestige of labor OF habitation That
such exist is probable, but they are secure.
~ hidden from the outward world IN the
depths Of the woodlands and therefore ig-
nored The impression upon the stranger
is one of unspeakable melancholy caused
by the sense of immensely, for it soon
becomes impossible to fancy that the
forest will ever end; it is llmitIess, and
yet conveys the idea OF "a prison
SILENT GRANDEUR OF THE TAGoA.
Further on between Marinsk and At
chinsk-the great Siberian Highway
these characteristics are slightly moailied
and improved; the coloring becomes
richer and more intense the trees life
themselves ia more sarrigd ranks, and aC.
qujre size and breadth, through openings
In the more llxu- iOus foliage ghmpses are
al times ohtanabe of the distant eastern
Sibeuen range vaguely silh0uettgd on the
deep, cold blue Of the horizon. The road
now meauders through valleys and gorges
/ between steep activities thichiy wooded,
! but 10 is, however, only near krasuiara
/ that the impressive and unutterabie maj
esty, power and stately gloom Of the
4 ''taiga' is felt in All its de9oIate grandeur
! There 10 becomes magnificent and strange.
/ ly verdaut: there In has broad open spaces
/ bathed in eternal twilight; impeneJaDe
1 thlckeis, wide avenues and aisles and deep,
! cold shadows. lt stretches in its iGthom-
/ less obscurity fer thousands Of yersts ia
| the distant sea; "a hundred of these may
4 be passed over at "a time without seeing a
single human creature; no human foot
has ever penetrated 20 the center OF TIE
talga
The somber cedars, the black pines, are
rarely relieved by the Lighter branches OF
tue aspen trees or now and then 10y tberel
berries of the wild cherry; more rarely
still by the white bloom Of some strange
looking tall lilies, and at long intervals g
noiseloss stream courses under the over
hanging branches. Witbtuta good horse
and an experienced guide it would bt
fooIhardy in tine extreme to venture ever
upon the trails and roads whirh are tho
most frequentcd and the better Known
No stranger could by any possibility fms
his way in these mysterious and deludlna
lahyrinths; for days no sound rs heard; M
song OF bird or hurried rampling Ct an
imal; daylight itself is changed and veil
ed, and when it ceases the clear northern
night drops a chill, immobie vtltenes
over the trunks and motionless branches
while IL seems to revoke subtle, penetrating
and aromatic perfumes from the cedar
and the pines that we're not perCeptiDl
before 1t is at that hour that the tang
sends out ugubrious signs, that fall o.
the startled ear like a mournful vail
I nothing else can give an idea OF this noe
turna awakening Of the Siberian forest
d which never changes TO gadness.
T FURY OF THE SIBERIAN STORM.