In the course of the twelve days that we spent in Irkútsk we made many pleasant and interesting acquaintances, among them Mr. Adam Bukófski, a well-known East-Siberian mining proprietor, who spoke English well and whose hospitable home was always open to us; Dr. Písaref, a well-known physician of the city, to whom we brought a letter of introduction from St. Petersburg; Mr. Bútin, formerly of Nérchinsk, who had traveled extensively in the United States and who was half an American in his ideas and sympathies, and Mr. Zagóskin, the venerable editor of the newspaper Sibír.
On the 21st of September, a little more than a week after our arrival, we were overtaken by our countryman Lieutenant Schuetze, who was on his way to the province of Yakútsk with the gifts sent by our Government to the people of that province who had aided and succored the survivors of the Arctic exploring steamer Jeannette. He had left America long after our departure, and it was a very great pleasure to us to meet him in that far-away part of the world, to hear his New York and Washington news, and to compare our respective experiences of Siberian travel.
A few days after my talk with Captain Makófski about the Irkútsk prisons, I called upon him at his house, and drew him into conversation upon the subject of political exile. He spoke very bitterly, almost contemptuously, of the revolutionists and "nihilists" generally, and seemed to regard most of them as wild fanatics, who were opposed, not only to the present form of government in the empire, but to government in any form, and who therefore should be put down with a strong hand. He said he once asked one of them, an exiled lady, what government she and her companions would establish in Russia if they had their way — a limited monarchy, a republic, a commune, or what? She replied that all men had been created free and equal, and that any kind of government was a violence done to individual liberty. "This, of course," said Captain Makófski, "was simply nonsense."
