A Siberian Incident.

Evening Star, Issue 7337, 8 October 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

A Siberian Incident.

The Odessa correspondent of the ' Levant Herald' reports a Siberian incident narrated by a civil engineer just returned from Central Asia, where he has spent the last six years. The monotony of his residence in those remote provinces was broken by an occasional hunting expedition into Siberia. On one of these trapping expeditions, which included a younger member of one of the Grand Ducal families, the party were one I evening belated in a pine forest at some distance from the day's bivouac. They were utterly astray. A stentorian viewhalloo brought to the assistance and guidance of the party a wood-cutter—an old man of some three score years, with tangled locks, coarse kafran, and bark-swathed feet. Under the old man's guidance the party found a rude hut, a charcoal fire, and some simple cooking utensils. The engineer noticed that the old wood-cutter, when unobserved, scanned his face rather attentively. He took a quiet opportunity of asking the old man if he observed in him any resemblance to some one he had previously known. "A very strong resemblance," was the reply. " Were you not some fifteen years ago a student of the Richelevski Gymnase in Odessa ?" The engineer answered affirmatively. " And do you not remember Professor beloved by every student in his class. I shall always remember kindly the amiable and learned professor who disappeared so suddenly and mysteriously from Odessa. But what do you know of him '!" The old wood-cutter for the first time smiled; the heavy moustache and beard had hidden the lines of the mouth in repose. The young engineer had not forgotten the peculiarly sad sweetness of his old professor's smile. The ragged and picturesque wood-cutter and the former learned professor of Sanscrit and comparative philology were the same. The rencontre (continues our correspondent) was, under the circumstances, naturally at once both pleasing and painful to my friend, to whose immediate and anxious inquiries the old man replied sadly: " All God's will, my J boy. As to the suddenness and mystery of my disappearance from Odessa the secret police might have explained. Nothing beyond an unfounded suspicion of disaffection to our Little Father and a preposterous charge of disseminating a revolutionary doctrine have sent me to this life-long banishment. But Ido not repine. I have sufficient philosophy left to apply myself to the felling of pine trees with the same zest as that with which I formerly delighted to pursue a knotty philological problem. Am I not wise in my generation and old age I am deprived of the sight and companionship of old friends, but God gives one health and a portion of contentment. My masters pay me with but few unkind words and two roubles jier mensem. My old Odessa pupils paid me six roubles an hour. But what of that ? I have sufficient. Some old memories draw tightly round the heart and give me infinite pain. Then I swing my heavy adze with greater force and endeavor to forget. It is to me a joy to look upon the still youthful face of my old pupil; but do not probe my heart, child. I ask you not to speak to me at parting. Your were ahvayfc obedient and you hear me. God keep you ! Good-bye ! " The old man would not allow my friend to convey any messages to relatives or icquaintances, who, he said, had probably long since forgotten his existence, and he would not disturb dead memories. How many others are there like the old professor —men also of birth, breeding, and brilliant intellectual parts, languishing out their lives in the dreary wilds of Siberia for a baseless suspicion. The reflection is saddening. mmmmmmmmmmmmmm _