South comprises short-term convicts, which means that for the most part they are young and are less exhausted by penal servitude. You meet some who are only twenty to twenty-five years old, have already served their sentences, and are homesteaders. There are quite a number of peasants- formerly-exiles who are between thirty and forty years old.4
Another favorable aspect of the Southern settlements is that the local peasants are not anxious to leave for the mainland. For example, of the 26 homesteaders in the above-mentioned Solovyevka, sixteen have achieved peasant status. There are very fcw women. Some settlements do not have even one woman. In comparison to the men, the majority of the women look ill and old. One is compelled to believe the local officials and setders who complain that only "useless" women are sent to them from the North while the Northerners retain the young and healthy for themselves. Dr. Z. told me that in performing his duties as the prison doctor, he decided to examine a group of newly arrived women and found all of them suffering from female illnesses.
The terms co-owner and half-owner are not used at all in the South, since each plot of land is assigned to only one homesteader. However, there are homesteaders who are assigned to settlements but have no homes, exactly as in the North. There are no Jews in the post nor in the settle- ments. Japanese prints hang on thc walls of some of the huts. I also saw some Japanese silver coins.
The first scttlement on the Susui is Goly Mys. It has only been in existence since last year and the huts are still unfinished. It has 24 men but not a single woman. The settlement stands on a hill which was formerly called 'Bald Cape." The stream is quite a distance from the houses and is reached by going downhill. There is no wcll.
The second settlement is Mitsulka, named in honor of M. S. Mitsul."
In the days when there was no road, there was a way station at Mitsulka, where horses were kept for officials traveling on government business. The grooms and laborers were permitted to remain for the duration of their terms;
they settled near the station and set up their own home- steads. There are only 10 holdings with 25 inhabitants, 16 male and 9 female. After 1886 the regional commander refused to permit any more settlers in Mitsulka, and he was right, because the land is poor and there is only enough meadowland for ten homesteads. Now the settlement has 17 cows and 13 horses in addition to sheep, goats and swine, and the treasury data also show 64 chickens. However, this number would not be doubled if the number of households were doubled.
In speaking of the peculiarities of the Southern district, I forgot to mention one thing: very often people are poi- soned by wolfsbane (Aconitum napellus). In Mitsulka the settler Takovy's pig died of wolfsbane poisoning. Takovy greedily ate the liver and almost died himself. When I was in his hut he could barely stand and scarcely speak, but he recalled the liver with a smile. One could see by his swollen, bluish face how dearly he had paid for it. Some- what earlier an old man called Konkov was poisoned by wolfsbane and died. His house stands empty.
This house is one of Mitsulka's sights. Several years ago the prison warden L., mistaking a climbing plant for a grapevine, notified General Gintse that there are grapevines in Southern Sakhalin which could be successfully cultivated. General Gintse immediately instituted a search for a pris- oner who had formerly labored in a vineyard. They soon found the settler Rayevsky, an extremely tall man, who said he was an expert. They believed him and give him an offi- cial d^^ment before sending him by the first ship from Alexandrovsk Post to Korsakov. Then they asked him, "Why have you come?" and he answered, "To grow grapes." They looked at him, read the document and shrugged their shoulders. The vine dresser went wandering around the district, his cap tilted debonairly. Since he had been sent out by the island commandant, he did not feel it necessary to report to the inspector of the settlements. A misunderstanding occurred. In Mitsulka his extreme height and the dignity with which he carried on his pursuits aroused suspicion. They thought he was a vagrant, bound him and sent him to the post. There he was held in prison for a long time while the investigations continued. Finaliy he was released, and evenrually he settled in Mitsulka, where he died, and Sakhalin was left without vineyards. Rayevsky's house reverted to the government for debts unpaid and was sold to Konkov for 15 rubles. When paying his money, old Konkov winked slyly and said to the district commander, "Weil, wait a bit, 111 die, and then you'll have more trouble with the house." And sure enough, soon afterward he was poisoned by wolfsbane and the govern- ment again has the house on its hands.r>
In Mitsulka lives the Sakhalin Gretchen, the daughter of the settler Nikolayev. Tanya, born in Pskov g«bemiya, is sixteen years old. She is blond and slender; her features are fine, soft and delicate. She has been promised in mar- riage to a guard. When passing through Mitsulka I always saw her sitting at her window and dreaming. God knows what this young and lovely girl, whom fate has brought to Sakhalin, is dreaming about!
The new settlement of Listvenichnoye [The Larches] is five versts from Mitsulka. The road here cuts through a larch forest. It is also caiied Khristoforovka, because a long time ago a Gilyak named Khristofor used to set sable traps here. It is not a good site for a settlement, because the soil is very poor and unfavorable for cultivation.' It has fifteen inhabitants, no women.
A bit farther along the Khristoforovka River, a few convicts previously made various wooden objects. They were permitted to settle there to serve out their sentences. However, the site was found to be unfavorable and in 1886 their four huts were moved to another location four versts north of Listvenichnoye, and this became the foundation of the Khomutovka settlement. It is thus cailed because a free settler, the peasant Khomutov, at one time used this as a hunting site. It has 38 inhabitants, 25 males and 13 females. This is one of the most uninteresting settlements, although it can pride itself on having one specialty. Here lives the settler Bronovsky, who is known throughout the Southern district as a passionate and insatiable thief.
Three versts farther on there is the Bolshaya Yelan settlement, founded two years ago. The river valleys cov- ered with elms, oak, hawthorn, elder, ash and birch are here called yelan. They are usually protected from cold winds. While the vegetation on the neighboring hills and marshes is unpleasantly sparse and differs little from that of polar regions, we find luxurious vegetation and grasses twice as tall as a man in the yelan. On sunny summery days the whole place steams, the air grows sultry as in a bathhouse, and the warmed soil turns all grasses into hay, with the result that in one month rye grows almost a sazhen high. The yelan reminds a Ukrainian of his native tree-encircled grasslands, where meadows alternate with orchards and groves, and these are the best sites for settle- ments.s
There are forty inhabitants in Bolshaya Yelan, 32 male and 8 female. There are 30 homesteaders. When the settlers cleared land for their homesteads, they were ordered co save as many old trees as possible. Thanks to this, the settlement docs not look new. In the courtyards and along the streets stand stately broad-leafed elms, so old that they might have been planted by their grandfathers.
Among the local inhabitants the Babich brothers of Kiev gubemiya are interesting. At first they lived in one hut, later they began quarreling and begged the administra- tion co separate them. One of the Babich brothers com- plained of the other and said, ''I'm just as afraid of him as of a snake."