back and forth by their passenger steamers. The contractors, at the time of our journey to Siberia, were Kurbátof and Ignátof, steamboat proprietors of Tiumén. The convict barges are three in number, and during the season of navigation, which lasts from May until October, they make, on an average, six round trips each, or eighteen trips altogether. In 1884, the first barge left Tiumén on the 27th of May and the last one reached Tomsk on the 4th of October. The voyage between the two cities occupies from seven to ten days according to the season of the year and the stage of the water. In 1884, the shortest voyage was seven days and six hours, and the longest ten days and nine hours. The number of convicts and exiles transported by these barges from Tiumén to Tomsk in the five years from 1880 to 1884 inclusive was reported by the inspector of exile transportation as follows.
| Year | Received in Tiumén. |
Delivered in Tomsk. |
| 1880 | 10,243 | 10,269 |
| 1881 | 10,757 | 10,462 |
| 1882 | 10,630 | 10,245 |
| 1883 | 10,726 | 11,049 |
| 1884 | 10,229 | 10,692 |
| Totals | 52,585 | 52,717[1] |
The contract for the transportation of exiles from Tiumén to Tomsk, which was made with Kurbátof & Ignátof in 1882, provides that the contractors shall furnish three barges large enough to accommodate 600 prisoners each, and that such barges shall make eighteen trips between terminal points in the course of every season of navigation. The contract, therefore, requires the transportation of 10,800 exiles per annum. The average number actually carried in the five years covered by the foregoing table was 10,543 per annum, and at that rate the average barge-load
- ↑ A few were taken or left every year at Tobólsk and other way places.
