Polish Exiles on their way to Siberia *
* This illustration is drawn mainly from the celebrated painting of the Polish exiles, by Sir William Allan, the scene of which is thus happily alluded to by Christopher North: ''They are but one family, but in their sufferings they represent those of all sent to Siberia, and cold and base would be that heart which melted not before such a picture. Toward evening, fatigue has weighed them down,— one and all on the roadside ; but there is no fainting, no hysterics. That man in Poland was a patriot — in the steppes of Siberia he is but a father.' With humble, almost humiliated earnestness, he beseeches the Bashkirs to let his wife and daughter, and other children, and himself, rest but for an hour! The Bashkirs are three ; and he who refuses, does so without cruelty, but, inexorable in his sense of duty, points toward the distance, a dim dreary way along the wilderness, not unoccupied by other wretches moving toward the mines !"
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