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Title: Roughing it in Siberia
Author: Robert L. Jefferson
Release date: June 1, 2025 [eBook #76210]
Language: English
Original publication: London: S. Low, Marston & company, 1897
Credits: Alan, Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT IN SIBERIA ***
ROUGHING IT IN SIBERIA
[Illustration: _Frontispiece._ ROBERT L. JEFFERSON]
ROUGHING IT IN SIBERIA
WITH
_SOME ACCOUNT OF THE TRANS-SIBERIAN
RAILWAY, AND THE GOLD-MINING
INDUSTRY OF ASIATIC RUSSIA_
BY
ROBERT L. JEFFERSON
AUTHOR OF “A WHEEL TO MOSCOW,” “ACROSS SIBERIA ON A
BICYCLE,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY
_LIMITED_
St. Dunstan’s House
FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1897
_To_
_JOHN KEMP STARLEY, ESQ._
_DEAR MR. STARLEY_,
_Appreciating the practical and sympathetic interest which you have
for some years taken in Russian affairs, I venture to dedicate this
volume of mine--“Roughing it in Siberia”--to you, as a small token of
my esteem._
_Believe me_,
_Very sincerely yours_,
_ROBERT L. JEFFERSON_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE FIRST DAY IN ASIA 1
II. RUSSIA’S COLONIZATION SCHEME 12
III. ARRIVAL AT OMSK 31
IV. A MOST PALATIAL HOTEL! 43
V. ACROSS THE STEPPE 55
VI. IN THE OBI VALLEY 68
VII. IMPRESSIONS OF TOMSK 79
VIII. THE END OF THE RAILWAY 101
IX. KRASNOLARSK 120
X. DOWN THE YENESEI 138
XI. AN EXCITING ADVENTURE 152
XII. NEARING THE CHINESE FRONTIER 166
XIII. IN THE SYANSK MOUNTAINS 181
XIV. SIBERIAN GOLD-MINING 195
XV. LIFE AT THE MINE 210
XVI. A TRIP INTO CHINA 224
XVII. LOOKING WESTWARD 241
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TO FACE PAGE
PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR _Frontispiece_
SKETCH MAP OF THE AUTHOR’S ROUTE 1
A TRAIN ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY 8
EMIGRANTS AT CHELABINSK 16
OMSK 40
A STATION ON THE SIBERIAN RAILWAY 64
TOMSK 80
KRASNOLARSK FROM THE RIVER 112
THE YENESEI RAPIDS--SUMMER 136
ON THE YENESEI--SUMMER 160
MINUSINSK 168
KARATUSKI 176
GOLD-MINING APPARATUS ON THE UPPER YENESEI 192
TRIBUTE WORKERS IN THE SYANSK GOLD-MINES 208
OUR CAMP IN THE MOUNTAINS 224
A GOLD-MINE ON THE TOP OF THE SYANSK MOUNTAINS 240
[Illustration:
MAP
to accompany
“ROUGHING IT IN SIBERIA”
By R.L. Jefferson.
_G. Philip & Son, 32 Fleet St. London._
London: Sampson, Low, Marston & Co., Limited.]
ROUGHING IT IN SIBERIA
CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST DAY IN ASIA.
The short winter day was waning when the Chelabinsk train, seven
days out of Moscow, sluggishly passed the big stone erected in a
defile in the centre of the Ural mountain range, and which marked the
geographical boundary of Europe and Asia. Since yesterday, when we
had left the level plains of Eastern Europe for the uplands of the
Urals, the pace had been tantalizingly miserable. Some people say that
man can get accustomed to anything, but it absorbs an enormous amount
of patience in getting accustomed to Russian railway travelling;
the further eastward one goes, the slower becomes the pace, the
longer the stoppages at insignificant stations, and the greater the
demonstration--beating of tin cans, blowing of whistles, and ringing
of bells--which accompanies each arrival and departure. But now, with
Europe behind, the whole wealth of Asia before one, combined with
the uncertainty of the unknown, and which was backed up by popular
prejudice and travellers’ romantic tales, the thinking man has food for
reflection, and much of it.
We were rounding curves, sharp ones too, on a badly ballasted
track, that caused the heavy Russian cars to oscillate alarmingly,
notwithstanding the crawl at which we were proceeding. The views to
be obtained from the carriage windows were superb, in spite of the
wintry aspect which everything bore. It was January--time of deep snow,
frozen rivers, and biting atmosphere--everything around (except the
interior of the car) was wintry to the last degree. Snow piled up in
great drifts on the sharp spurs of the mountain-side; the branches
of the melancholy birches bowing down with the weight of their snowy
covering; icicles hanging in the crevices of the rocks, where, in
summer, splashed a mountain cascade. Deep below us, in a narrow gorge,
lay the tortuous course of a fast-flowing river, but now frozen to
its very bed, and its surface cut and streaked by the runners of many
sledges. Now and again we could catch a glimpse of some woodman’s hut
perched up on the hillside--a veritable house of snow, and as cold and
bleak-looking as any one could think to see.
Hurtling violently around the corner, we pass a level-crossing, where
stands a caravan of patient horses waiting to cross, with white
frost hard on their shaggy coats, and icicles from their eyes and
nostrils; a sheepskin-clad moujik, with fur hat over eyes and ears,
and feet encased in huge felt boots, complacently puffing at a stunted
_papiros_. Here, too, an old woman comes out to flag the train--a
woman who looks, from the amount of heavy clothing she wears, more
like an animated beer barrel than a human being, and on whose stolid
visage is nothing except an expression of tremendous importance at
the position she occupies in the service of His Imperial Majesty Czar
Nicholas the Second.
Darkness fell; my three companions were asleep. The conductor came and
inserted in glass boxes at each end of the long car two diminutive
candle-ends, the wicks of which he lighted laboriously. He looked at
the thermometer to see how far off roasting we were, and then, after
gazing superciliously around, left us. The heat in the car was fearful,
beads of perspiration stood out on the faces of my sleeping companions,
and yet this is only the Russian way of doing things. The Réaumur
glass outside showed thirty-six degrees below freezing-point; inside,
the heat was sufficient to almost roast one. And thus for seven days
had we sat and lounged, talked and read, and stewed gradually, with
no greater diversion than the rush for the buffet at each station, an
occasional row with some blustering traveller who would hustle us for
places, or the periodical breaking down of the locomotive, which event
occurred about once a day on an average.
It was impossible to read, for the light in the car was so dim that
one could scarcely see a couple of yards away. The train jolted and
groaned and jarred, the candles flickered and guttered, people in the
adjoining berths snored, a child was wailing dismally at the other end
of the carriage; the heat became more intolerable, and I thanked Heaven
when, two hours after darkness had fallen, the creaking of brakes
and the distant ringing of bells announced our immediate arrival at
Chelabinsk--the terminus of the European system of the Russian State
Railways.
The arrival of a train at a Russian station is attended with an amount
of excitement which it is hard to associate with the usually stolid
Russian. Particularly is this so in Eastern Russia, where railways
are new and interesting. As the train slowly steams in, the assembled
mob of sightseers and officials raise shouts of welcome--at least
they seem to be. A man hard by the ticket-office performs a terrific
tintinabulation on a large suspended bell. All the conductors blow
whistles, while the locomotive syren goes off in spasmodic squealings.
Slowly, but with many jerks and much grinding, the train comes to a
standstill. But the passengers are not allowed to descend all at once.
First of all the engine-driver must get off and shake hands with the
first half-dozen men that happen to be hanging about near, no doubt
receiving in return a sort of congratulatory address to the effect that
he has got so far safely. Half a dozen gaily caparisoned policemen, in
red hats with white cockades, and armed to the teeth with revolvers
and swords, parade up and salute gravely. All the conductors get
off--there seems to be quite a crowd of them. All salute a red-hatted,
despotic-looking individual, who is gazing about with tremendous scorn
and indifference, as if this sort of thing was very boring, although
ten to one his heart is thumping with pride and excitement; for he
is the stationmaster, salary one hundred pounds a-year, princely for
him, indeed. This individual, on thoroughly satisfying himself that
beyond the possibility of the remotest doubt the train is really there,
raises his hand as if he were about to pronounce a benediction, and
instantly there belches from the heart of the mob a smaller mob of
much-bewhiskered men in white aprons. These are the porters. These
gentlemen throw themselves upon the train in a frenzy of hurry; tear
open the doors, push, scramble, and fall over each other in their
endeavours to get in first, and ultimately disappear from view. The
crowd outside grows silent in expectancy; but the racket which proceeds
from inside the train tells eloquently that the porters are doing their
fell work. The cars now begin to disgorge boxes and men, bundles and
women, baskets and babies, everything mixed up, everybody talking.
The crowd outside parts, and the crowd _just_ out slides over the
slippery platform in a hard mass to the buffet doors. These always open
outwards, and are generally just wide enough for a thin man to get in
sideways. Then the crush commences. You are in the middle of the crowd
with a corner of a box in your ear and four men standing on your feet.
You worm and edge your way out of reach of the box and run your chest
against the side of a kettle, blacker than the blackest hat, and which
is tied around the neck of an evil-smelling moujik in front of you.
Somehow the door gets open; the janitor inside scuttles, in order to
prevent being swept off his feet. In we squeeze, and find ourselves in
a long white-washed apartment, heated to a suffocating degree.
[Illustration: A TRAIN ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY.]
Down the centre of the apartment runs a long table covered with
glasses, plate, and cutlery. Over on one side is a long bar, covered
with smaller glasses and large bottles, mostly containing vodki,
as well as at least half a hundred dishes of the _hors d’œuvre_
style--sardines, bits of sausage, sprats, caviare, sliced cucumber,
pickled mushrooms, artful dabs of cheese, raw radishes, smoked herring,
and such like. For the nonce the crowd ignores the long table,
equally so a kitchen-like arrangement in the corner where steams a
heterogeneous mass of cutlets and “Russian” beef-steaks, and which
is presided over by a couple of marvellously clean-looking men who
are rigged out _à la chef_. Vodki is the lodestone of the arrived
passengers. Each man gulps down a small glass of the fiery liquid,
seizes a piece of fish, or sausage, or cheese, or whatever he may fancy
or may be handy, and subsides to the big table, chewing vigorously.
Energetic waiters pounce upon him, lay before him a big plate of the
universal “stche,” or cabbage soup, over which our Russian hangs his
head and commences ladling away, apparently oblivious to its boiling
heat or the feelings of the people around. The tables fill up. Great
slabs of brown meat, floating in fat, are distributed with rapidity,
and which are with equal rapidity demolished. Manners are delightfully
absent. People jostle, growl, and gulp; smoke _papiros_ and puff the
smoke in each other’s faces; or make the most disgusting noises with
their mouths. At last, having got through several pounds of meat and
fat, and drunk about six to eight glasses of lemon-coloured hot water,
which is called tea, per man, the crowd lounges around in contentment,
and waits patiently for the bell to announce the probable departure of
the train--which may be anything in the region of one hour to four, or
while there is a bit of food in the buffet uneaten.
What a relief to get out of such an evil-smelling mob and the heat
and general nauseating surroundings, and, wrapt warmly in furs, to
promenade the ice-covered platform! They have unscrewed the engine
from the cars, and it has disappeared into the blackness of night on a
search for wood and water. At one end of the platform the third and
fourth class passengers, peasants of the humblest order, are huddled
together--sitting or lying, some asleep, some laughing boisterously--a
group of girls in their midst crooning forth a wailing song to the
accompaniment of a harmonica, the national musical instrument of the
Russian moujik. Over to the left, twinkling lights denote the town
of Chelabinsk. Eastward all is black, save for the blinking of a
signal light a mile away. That is the road to Siberia, and here is the
commencement of the Trans-Siberian Railway.
CHAPTER II.
RUSSIA’S COLONIZATION SCHEME.
I haven’t yet introduced you to my companions. Thomas Gaskell, citizen
of the United States of America, short, fair, a little bit bald, with
a record of having travelled through the whole of Asia from end to
end, and still only twenty-eight years of age. John Scawell, British
subject, tall, dark, reserved, and just fresh from Western Australia,
India, and the Transvaal. Evan Asprey, also British subject and also
slightly bald, medium height, fair and good to keep close to, as he
had already spent five years in Siberia, and was the only one amongst
us who understood clearly more than twenty words of Russian. Here we
were, then, at the commencement of Siberia, and bound to one of the
wildest regions of that wild country--the Syansk Mountains on the
Chinese frontier. Our mission was one entirely of peace, although the
customs officials at the Russian frontier _had_ confiscated Scawell’s
Mannlicher rifle and Webley revolver, and might have done the same with
my Smith and Wesson, if I hadn’t had it up my sleeve at the time. We
were going out just to see what Siberia was like. Half pleasure, half
business. People at home thought Siberia was a land of promise. The
Trans-Siberian Railway was opening the country. Germans with a loose
eye for business had announced their intention of looking up Asiatic
Russia. Being English, we wanted to get in also--if not the first, at
least in the van.
The station at Chelabinsk was not a cheerful place to spend six hours
in--for that was the amount of time which had to lapse ere the train
bound for Kreveschokovo on the banks of the river Obi was billed to
leave. Gratuitous information concerning the Trans-Siberian Railway
was freely offered by fellow-passengers, and we began to fear the
worst. Tales about three hours’ stoppages at small stations; half a
day here and a day there. No bridges over the Obi and Chulim rivers;
so that the monotonous train journey should be relieved by a little
sledging. An affable man is the Russian traveller, and a cheerful liar.
The Russian for “I know” and “I _don’t_ know” are so nearly alike that
only a Russian can tell the difference, and maybe this is why he would
rather tell an untruth than confess ignorance. Beneath his affability,
however, the observer can easily detect a purpose. His soul-absorbing
desire is to know who and what you are, where from, where going to,
and what you are going to do. What do you think of Russia? How old are
you? Will England let Russia have Constantinople? How many millions of
roubles have you got? Have you seen absolutely the finest city, and the
finest street in the world--St. Petersburg and the Nevsky Prospect
respectively? If one is wise he will be frank. But the torrent of
reiterated questions at every fresh acquaintance becomes boring after
a bit, and oftentimes we preferred to keep in our bunks in the train
rather than be compelled to go over the jargon of stereotyped replies
in the buffet. English is almost unknown in this region of the Urals;
next to Russian, German seems the language most freely spoken. Military
officers and functionaries of upper rank know French, but English we
never heard spoken in all our railway journey from Moscow. I think that
sometimes we were looked upon as curiosities, if one might judge from
the number of glances and finger points directed towards us, and the
oft-repeated word “Anglichiny,” or “Englishman,” when circumstances
compelled us to declare our nationality. But I must say that though
they were inquisitive we were invariably treated with respect by our
fellow-travellers.
[Illustration: EMIGRANTS AT CHELABINSK.]
But on one occasion, three overbearing Russian functionaries, who are
revered as Chinovniks, tried to take advantage of our slim knowledge of
things Siberian. The Russian cars, I might say, by way of preface, are
built on the side-corridor principle; each _coupé_ is designed to hold
four persons--two on racks, which are formed by lifting up the back of
each seat and securing them by means of iron outswinging tee-pieces,
and two on the main seats themselves. We had liberally bribed our
porter to get us a complete _coupé_, but it was while we were partaking
of a last glass of tea in the buffet that the three Chinovniks referred
to, being probably dissatisfied with their own quarters, removed
our baggage and installed themselves in our places. One of us had
slipped out of the buffet to see that nothing was being stolen, and
brought back the dismal news. There was scant hope of our getting
justice, but we awaited our opportunity. Thinking themselves safe, the
Chinovniks could not resist the fascination of tea-drinking, and their
departure was a signal for a combined attack on their baggage, its
removal, and the replacement of our own. The Chinovniks returned as the
train was on the point of leaving. They glared at us. We gazed blandly
back. They spoke loudly and long to us. We replied by unrolling our
blankets and pillows and preparing for slumber. They raved at us; but
we only looked at them with mild reproach. They fetched the conductor,
who, after listening to their tale, which was shouted with three
voices in his two ears, addressed a question to us, which to three of
the four, at any rate, was as incomprehensible as Afghan or Volapuk.
We could only fall back upon our standard saviour, and that was to
cry simultaneously, “_Neo panimio paa Ruski!_”--“I don’t understand
Russian!” The conductor shrugged his shoulders and looked inquiringly
at the Chinovniks. The Chinovniks raised their voices in their great
ire, and then the conductor did absolutely the wisest thing he could,
and that was to leave the car. The Chinovniks were nonplussed, vocal
persuasion had utterly failed to move us; forcible was entirely out of
the question for a Russian, and so they had to leave us.
This little incident may serve as some illustration of the Russian
character. I have seen two men in a car, one at each end, quarrelling
in the most terrible manner, hurling invectives at each other and
boiling over with rage, but never getting one inch nearer one to the
other. A tenth of the inducement would be enough for a free fight in
England.
It was in the early hours before the Siberian train crawled slowly
out of Chelabinsk station and commenced to bump miserably over the
badly laid road. The boy-stoker at the stove end of the car commenced
his infernal work, and in half an hour the temperature was something
abominable. The heat was bad enough, but as the car contained some
twenty-four passengers, and all possessed a large number of damp furs,
in all conditions of cleanliness, and possessing all varieties of
odour, the atmosphere was one almost unbearable. The worst of it is,
that the passengers abhor ventilation of the slightest degree. In the
roof of the car there is a ventilator, but it is always tightly closed.
The windows are double and immovable; the doors at each end are double,
one being closed before the other is opened; and thus, day in and day
out, scarcely a breath of fresh air can enter the carriage. Inside we
sweated and gasped for breath; the instant we alighted at a station our
hair, moustache, beard, and eyelashes would become covered with hard
white frost, and the exhalations from our lungs would be converted into
fine snow.
When morning came, and we arose from our uncomfortable couch, it was to
find the train jolting slowly over a level stretch of country; quite
uncultivated, and with here and there a melancholy clump of stunted
birch trees. We were on the edge of the great Tartar steppe, which
stretched north and south for thousands of miles, and which is bounded
on the east by the Irtish River, from whose banks stretches eastward
Siberia’s longest steppe--the Baraba, home of the Khirghiz hordes. The
Urals were completely out of sight, and we had the not very cheerful
prospect of a fifteen-hundred-mile journey over an absolute desert.
Seen in the summer, the steppe lands are by no means displeasing,
although their monotony is trying. Instead of the inevitable snow which
now stretched in all its glaring whiteness before us, the steppe is a
carpet of variegated bloom. The grass is stunted; not nearly as long
as that of the American prairie, this probably owing to the fact that
much of the water in the plains is strongly impregnated with alkali.
These steppes are, with the exception of the vast plains of perpetually
frozen ground adjacent to the arctic circle, the most unpopulated part
of all Siberia. Beyond the few miserable villages which occur every
thirty or forty miles, there is no sign of life except the occasional
kibitka of the nomadic Khirghiz. North or south of the high-road the
steppe goes uninterruptedly for many hundreds of miles, roadless,
treeless, not a landmark to guide one, swampy, sandy, and unprofitable.
Under its snowy shroud the steppe looks better.
Late in the day we arrived at Kurgan, a tolerably large town, with the
railway station miles away from the nearest house. Unwilling to take
the bread out of the mouths of the horse-breeding populace of Siberia
all at once, it would seem that the Russian Government has purposely
fixed the stations of the Siberian railroad as far away from the towns
as possible, in order to give the great army of drosky-drivers a
chance. Kurgan was interesting as being the first point where we saw
the debarkation of outward-bound emigrants.
Emigration to Siberia is now going on very vigorously, and not before
it is wanted, for the population of Russia, European and Asiatic, is
very disproportionate. The nomadic tribes of Siberia, such as the
Bashkires, Khirghiz, Tungus, Buriats, Votiaks, Kamchakdales, and
Samoyedes scarcely count, so small are their numbers in comparison
to the millions of acres comprising Asiatic Russia. The official
computation of the population being (including both Russians and
aborigines) one man to every five square miles. The first cause of the
extremely slow progress in populating Siberia may be set down to its
distance and inaccessibility from the congested districts of Russia.
The only means of reaching its heart, up till the commencement of the
Trans-Siberian Railway work, being by the lonely tarantass or the
occasional steamers plying the tortuous waterways of the Irtish and Obi
systems. The Siberian railway, however, promises to considerably alter
this state of things--combined with the startling facts that Southern
Russia is rapidly getting overcrowded. Another stumbling-block to the
rapid development of Siberia hitherto has been the great prejudice
existing against it throughout European Russia, a prejudice which may
be said to be far greater than that among foreigners. For many years
Siberia has been the dumping-ground for criminals of the worst class.
It has been held up as a Bastille-like threat to every Muscovite.
Mothers have for ages quieted their noisy children with, “Hush! or I
will send you to Siberia!” And thus every man who goes to Siberia,
voluntarily or otherwise, is looked upon as an exile. Although the
want of communication may be set down as the first, the chief cause
undoubtedly exists in Siberia having been made a penal colony.
It is said that the great famine of 1890-1 which spread throughout
Southern Russia, turned the eyes of the Government Siberia-wards as
a possible outlet for surplus population. The late Czar had ever
taken a kindly interest in his Asiatic possessions, and it was the
dream of his life to see Siberia developed to its fullest extent. The
wish was commendable, but the means were lacking. It was in order to
see with imperial eyes what Siberia was that the present Czar (then
Czarevitch) took his memorable journey across the steppes and mountains
from the Pacific coast, and then came Alexander’s famous ukase: “Let
there be a railway built across Siberia--the shortest way possible.”
The Czarevitch was then in Vladivostock, the Russian Pacific port.
A telegram from St. Petersburg bade him remain there and await the
corner-stone, which was to be laid in that town as the foundation-piece
of what will, in the course of a few years, rank as the monumental
railway enterprise of the nineteenth century. Alexander, right up to
his death, cherished his colonization scheme, and the heritage he left
his son has been energetically pushed forward.
Some assert that the idea which dominated the Siberian railway
scheme was that of strategy. While there may exist the strategical
undercurrent, no one who has passed over the line from end to end
as far as it is constructed can be oblivious to the fact that at
present, at any rate, one of the principal objects of the railway is
the transportation of emigrants to the fertile valleys of Central
Siberia. The train-bound traveller passes train load after train load
of outward-bound emigrants. At the principal stations of Chelabinsk,
Kurgan, Omsk, Kainsk, and Atchinsk, emigrants by the hundreds are
detrained, and may be seen encamped by the roadside awaiting their
further transportation north, south, or east. The numbers are evidence
complete that the attractions offered by the Government outweigh
entirely prejudice and the discomfort of a long journey.
The principle underlying Russia’s colonization scheme is similar to
England’s policy with regard to Canada, only that the means are easier
and the efforts and influence more energetic and widespread. The agents
of the Government are sent to the most thickly populated or distressed
portion of European Russia, and there the desirability of emigrating
to Siberia is impressed upon the more industrious of the peasantry,
who, in Russia itself, can scarcely make ends meet. Neer-do-wells are
not catered for, but the Russian Government offers inducements to the
willing, and at the same time fixes a nominal fare to Siberia, in
order to keep out the absolute drones. This fare is fixed at the rate
of one-twentieth of a penny per verst; and thus it is possible for a
peasant to travel, say, three thousand versts (two thousand miles) for
the moderate sum of six roubles (13_s._ 3_d._). From Southern Russia
this would land the emigrant in the heart of Siberia.
On arrival at his destination, the colonist is given a free grant of
land, ten deseteens in area, which equals about twenty-seven acres
English. He has permission to cut enough wood to build his house and
fencing and to provide him with fuel for one year. Thus, with a clear
start, and providing the peasant is industrious and frugal, there is
every opportunity for him of not only being able to feed and clothe
himself and his family warmly and cleanly, but of making a small profit
out of agricultural pursuits. For purposes of comparison, it may be as
well to state that in Russia itself the peasant is allowed only four
deseteens of land, but, as the price of agriculture is abnormally low,
it is next door to impossible for him to make ends meet, inasmuch as
the rude agricultural instruments he uses, and the entire absence of
artificial fertilization, in a few years impoverishes his property
to such an extent that it is hopeless. With the increased acreage in
Siberia, a better climate, and a richer soil, his chances are enhanced,
while a powerful factor is that agricultural prices all round rank from
fifty to a hundred per cent. higher than in European Russia. Of course
such prices will not last for ever, but as Siberia, minerally and
commercially, is far richer than Russia itself, the peasant is bound to
come in for some of the reflected prosperity.
The Westerner might perhaps take exception to the manner in which
the emigrants are transported to Siberia. I confess it came upon me
at first with a shock. The emigrants’ train is simply one of cattle
trucks, each car being marked on the side for “forty men or eight
horses.” There are no seats or lights provided, and into each of
these pens forty men, women, and children have to herd over a dreary
railway journey of fourteen or fifteen days. They have to provide
their own food, but at every station a large samovar is kept boiling
in order to provide them with hot water for their tea. At the points
of detrainment the emigrants are compelled to camp on the steppe or
on the mountain-side until provision is made for them to proceed to
the land apportioned off to their use. The filth, the rags, the utter
woe-begone aspect of the Russian emigrant is something inconceivable to
the European, but then it must be remembered that the Russian moujik is
used to roughing it all his life, and to hog, forty a time, in a cattle
truck, or to sleep by the camp fire, with no more covering than the
sky, is no very great hardship for him.
It must be gratifying to the Russian Government that the privileges
offered to the peasant have been keenly appreciated, and the
difficulty which now exists is to get the land ready for the
overwhelming tide of colonists flowing into Siberia. In 1896 alone
nearly a quarter of a million peasants left Russia for Siberia. At
that time neither the railway nor the colonizing department could
cope with the rush, and the Emperor was compelled to issue the ukase
commanding the officials of the various Siberian Governments to drop
all other State work and devote, for the time being, their efforts to
the colonization movement. For a time things were in rather a chaotic
state, and a large number of emigrants, finding no land ready for them,
returned to Russia.
Anticipating my journey a little, I had at Omsk a long and interesting
conversation with one of the head officials of the Colonization
Department. He was on his way to Turkestan, there to confer with the
officials regarding the colonization of that valuable and practically
un-Russianized possession. He assured me that the rush for Siberia
had not only completely astonished the authorities, but was rather
startling in the fact that it threatened to deplete portions of Russia
of labour. The Russian peasant is of such a simple disposition that
he is apt to think the inducements offered him are the means to a
comparative paradise. Thus many of the emigrants have suffered sore
disappointment, and, partly from this and from home-sickness, have
returned to Russia. The Government is, however, grappling manfully with
the task that it has set itself, and it will take but a few short years
to even up the disproportionate population of Russia considerably. One
fact cannot be overlooked, and that is that the Trans-Siberian Railway,
apart from its political and commercial significance, is likely to be
handed down to posterity as the means by which the riches of the great
white Czar were brought to the thresholds of his people.
CHAPTER III.
ARRIVAL AT OMSK.
From Kurgan to Omsk the railroad track passes over a wilderness of
snow--a dead level, absolutely devoid of interest. It was a relief
even to see at long intervals a group of wooden huts, huddling close
together, as if for warmth, in that biting cold; the thin blue smoke
curling from their several apologies for chimneys, and the glint
of the sunlight on the double windows. Melancholy these villages
looked, cut off from the entire world as they must have been before
the locomotive came snorting its way along. One pleasing feature,
or picturesque feature, I might say, was the inevitable round domed
church which reared its height above the ramshackle shingle roofs.
Green and white these churches were, with a golden cross perched on the
highest dome, and which shines and glitters for miles after the huddle
beneath has merged with the snow and disappeared from vision. No matter
how small and miserable the village, no matter how poverty-stricken
its inhabitants, the church was ever there, ever resplendent, and
apparently opulent.
One fact always strikes the traveller in Russia, and that is the
overpowering influence of the Church. Densely ignorant as he is, the
average moujik’s religious devotion is little better than slavish. One
wonders whence comes the money to build and to keep up such magnificent
ecclesiastical edifices which predominate everywhere throughout the
Russian Empire, and only close inquiry and persistent observation can
reveal the truth. From high class to low the first duty of the Russian
is to his religion. In every house, from the finest mansion to the
humblest hut, the gilded ikon hangs in the corner, before which the
devout Catholic prostrates himself twenty, and perhaps thirty, times a
day. Before every piece of bread he eats, before every glass of vodki
he drinks, he will cross himself and murmur his prayers. I do not fear
contradiction when I say that every believer in the Russo-Græco faith
wears underneath his shirt, attached to a string or chain, around his
neck, a metal cross, put on when he was a child and worn till death,
and even until his body has crumbled to the earth in which it lies. On
the large stations of the Russian railways there is always a chapel
with its glittering altar, its ikons and its burning candles, where
services are held daily.
The Church seems to stand even before the Czar, though it must be
said the Czar comes in a very good second. Great as is the State aid,
the help of the people is undoubtedly the mainspring of the Church’s
revenue. Time after time I have had it brought to my notice that
however improvident the moujik may be in his domestic life, his death
will furnish the pretext for lifting the slab of the stove to see how
much money he has been able to accumulate in his lifetime for his
beloved faith. His blind devotion to the Church is nearly equalled by
his discipline as a soldier, and without wishing to detract from his
character as a man, I must say that, so far as my observation goes,
these very qualities, if qualities they can be called, shows how
little removed from a mere animal he is. As a Russian, body and soul
he belongs to the Church. As soon as he dons the brown jacket of the
soldier, body and soul he belongs to the Czar. It is inconceivable
to the Westerner that men could withstand the hardships and yet
retain such cheerfulness and such patriotism as do the Russians. Iron
discipline, which would make the educated and better civilized soldier
mutiny or desert in a week, he submits to with equanimity. Kind words
he knows not; ill fed, ill clothed, wretchedly housed, and with seldom
or never a kopeck in his pouch, yet he maintains even gaiety in his
desolate life. This utter abasement of the man is very difficult to
realize, it is so essentially Russian that none but one who has seen it
can fully comprehend its significance.
An officer of cavalry once told me a little story concerning the
discipline and devotion to duty of the Russian peasant. The scene
was at Cronstadt, the island fortress off St. Petersburg, where
three officers, respectively English, German, and Russian, were
discussing the merits of their men. Each maintained his was the better
disciplined, and on the argument growing hot the Russian proposed a
test. They repaired to one of the batteries, and there the English and
German officers each ordered up one of their men, as the Russian did
one of his common soldiers. These men drew up in line before their
captains.
The English officer pointed to the port, below which the rocks lay some
hundreds of feet.
“Attention! Walk out of that port!” he cried in a voice of command.
The man stepped forward, white as a sheet, but hesitated.
“What good am I doing my country by this?” he asked huskily.
“Stand back,” said the officer.
The German officer motioned to his man.
“Walk out of that port!” he commanded.
The German stepped forward, he too hesitated, and glanced appealingly
at his commander.
“Will you keep my mother and father, sir, if I do it?”
“Stand back,” said the officer.
The Russian officer motioned to his man.
“Walk out of that port!”
The man was livid, but he stepped forward briskly; as he did so he
raised his eyes and made the sign of the cross, the next second he
would have precipitated himself on the rocks below, had not the
officer’s iron grip restrained him.
This tale was told me with great unction, as illustrative of the
superior discipline of the Russian soldier; but I did not care to
offend my friend by giving voice to my opinion that the demeanour of
the English and the German soldiers illustrated that fact which has so
often been emphasized in warfare, that an intelligent preservation of
one’s life is far better for the cause than blindly throwing that life
away.
Bump, bump, bump; rattle, rattle, rattle; on hurtled the train, morning
merged into afternoon, and the grey shadows which heralded night
came stealing over the steppe. Darkness black and heavy enveloped
us. Once more we made up our crude beds, and settled for the night.
Peterpavlovsk we reached in the middle of the night, and where we
sleepily alighted for something to eat, and participated for the
hundredth time in the rude scramble which ever accompanied that
procedure. Back to bed again, and sometimes sleep, helped thereto by a
concert of gurgling snores, tobacco smoke, and odours of vodki. Morning
broke, and for all the difference in our surroundings we might as well
have been where we were the day before. Grubby, weary, and profoundly
sick of each other’s company, since we had told every story we knew,
and had long since comfortably settled the affairs of the world in
long-continued argument, waiting patiently, till afternoon, when we
should reach our first Siberian city, Omsk.
Our literature was long since exhausted. It was useless to play cards,
as one man had constituted himself treasurer, possessed all the money,
and it seemed a hollow mockery to borrow under such circumstances;
everybody voted chess a bore, dominoes childish, while our only
musical instrument--a Jew’s harp--had long since lost its soothing
influence. We could only glare at each other and grumble, find fault
with everything, and say what ought to be done and what we would do if
only----
“Omsk!” The silver-embroidered conductor punched another little hole in
our much-perforated ticket, pocketed his tip, and left us to scramble
our baggage together. And even this was a delight. We were to stay
over two days in Omsk, and those two days were to be a welcome relief
from the seemingly never-ending train journey. Soon we came in sight
of the Irtish, one of those magnificent rivers which Siberia abounds
in, but now silent and still under its thick coating of ice. The train
rattled over the high iron bridge which spanned this noble waterway,
and ten minutes later drew up at Omsk station.
I mention the word “station” advisedly, because, as in duty bound,
the Russian engineers had put it as far away from the town as they
conveniently could--this time they had managed it by exactly three
versts, and no doubt considered they had achieved a triumph. What the
idea is in calling a station Omsk, when Omsk is two miles away, yet
remains to be explained. Nobody that I have asked has been able to
give me a satisfactory answer. Whether they expect the town to grow
out towards the station, or whether it is out of sheer and simple
cussedness, I do not know; I fancy it is the latter.
On the station steps we held a levee with half a hundred isvostchiks,
who wanted to drive us to town. Honour there may be amongst thieves,
but there is certainly very little amongst Siberian isvostchiks. The
manner in which they fought and scrambled with each other in order to
get hold of our baggage was highly diverting. They implored us singly
and wholly to follow them. Each man held out such inducements that the
brain fairly reeled.
“Come with my little horse, dear barins; it is the fastest trotter in
Siberia, it is a beautiful dove, and goes like the wind.”
[Illustration: OMSK.]
“Bah! Do not believe him, barins; he is a liar. His horse is covered
with ulcers, and may drop down dead before you go a verst. Come with
me, barins. Here you are, a lovely sledge, just painted, but quite
dry, and splendid cushions. Think how much money I have spent on that
sledge.”
“No, barins, none of these children know the way to Omsk. I am the
only one who knows the nearest and the best road. Take any of them you
will, and they will go the longest way and over a miserable road, which
will bump you to pieces, perhaps throw you out and break your neck, and
then what will you do?”
And amid all this flood of eloquence, smothered in furs and loaded
down with baggage, we were jostled and pinched and pulled until a
white-aproned porter rescued us and took us to the sledge he had
selected. Then all the voices died away in a long-drawn sigh; envious
looks were bestowed upon the favoured one, who gathered up his reins,
gave vent to a sort of war-whoop, fell rather than got upon the sledge,
and away we went at a mad gallop down the narrow roadway, scattering
the snow right and left, and swinging from side to side in the most
perilous manner imaginable.
It took us all our time to hang on, the while that the fierce rush
through the bitterly cold air made breathing difficult; tears forced
from the eyes by the cold instantly congealed; nostrils, too, became
closed with ice; moustaches and beards hard lumps of hoar frost. With
a cold which it is impossible to register on a Fahrenheit glass we
didn’t, I am sorry to say, appreciate the novelty of this breakneck
ride as we ought to have done. In less than a quarter of an hour we
passed through the gates of the city and stampeded like fury down
several wide streets, bordered on either side by one-story frame
houses, and ultimately pulled up with a jerk, which flung us in a heap
at the bottom of the sledge, before a low, mean-looking wooden house
which a dilapidated signboard announced to be the “Grand Hotel Moscow.”
CHAPTER IV.
A MOST PALATIAL HOTEL!
The Grand Hotel Moscow, in the good city of Omsk, was grand in name
only, and we had only to step inside its portals to realize to the
fullest extent that at length we were in Asia. Bad as had been the
generality of hotels in European Russia, they seemed like palaces
beside this ramshackle affair which was dignified by the name of
hotel. A few broken and wretchedly dirty stone steps led us into a
white-washed passage, which was flanked on either side by low doorways
leading to the six bedrooms--all the “hostinitca” possessed. Scawell
barked his shin badly by falling over the brick which, suspended on a
rope over a pulley, kept the inner door of the passage closed. Gaskell
gave vent to an American expression when he tripped over a long stretch
of dirty canvas which was lying, as a sort of apology for a carpet,
down the length of the corridor.
The proprietor of the hotel received us with the glare of avarice in
his grey eyes. We bargained with him at length for merely the favour of
a shelter; for that was all we could expect. He gave us a room for the
outrageous charge of four roubles (eight shillings and sixpence), and
that was thirty per cent. below his original demand. A lovely room it
was too! Two rickety, broken-backed chairs, a small square table, and a
truckle bed, on which reposed a filthy and suspicious-looking mattress,
formed its sole furniture. The floor was carpetless save for a canvas
strip by the door. The usual domestic utensils were absent; there was
not even a washstand. There was no lock on the door; the windows were
immovable; the walls were of beams laid one on top of another, with
the interstices filled with moss and hay to keep out the draught. A
delectable hotel this, but in nowise worse than the majority of such
places throughout the whole of Siberia.
In case my readers may think I am over-painting this description, it
may be as well to explain the why and wherefore of this seemingly
barbaric state of things. In the first place, up to the commencement
of the Siberian railway, as I have explained in a previous chapter,
the only means of communication with interior Siberia was by means of
horses. Such enormous distances had to be covered between towns that,
in order to accommodate the large number of travellers, the Government
erected, on the great high-road which pierces the heart of Siberia,
stations at intervals of twenty-five to thirty miles. At these stations
horses could be hired at rates set down on a Government schedule, but
beyond this and the shelter afforded nothing was provided. It was thus
necessary at the outset of the system for the traveller to provide
everything requisite for the journey himself. In addition to his
luggage, the wise Siberian traveller carried his bed, bed-clothing,
food, and, in short, everything that he might require, rendering
himself absolutely independent of hospitality on the way. On his
arrival at a post-station, he asked for, and wanted nothing but the
samovar, or machine for boiling water, with which he made his tea. The
charge for the samovar is ten kopecks, which equals twopence-halfpenny.
No charge whatever was or is made for the use of the post-house. If
one, therefore, excluded the cost of horses, the traveller’s outlay was
wonderfully small.
As the towns contained the post-stations as well as the villages,
and as the traveller came provided with everything he wanted, it may
be readily inferred that the chances of a hotel succeeding are very
small, inasmuch as the average Russian is parsimonious, even at the
expense of his personal comfort. With, however, the opening of the
country by means of the railway, it stands to reason that a new class
of travellers will spring up, and thus better accommodation may be
provided. The demand for this better accommodation must come from the
foreigners, for the Russians themselves are sticklers for custom and
habit, and the finest hotel erected for their use would meet but mean
patronage at their hands.
Thus it was that the accommodation we received at Omsk was of such
a wretched character. Unfortunately we were not so versed in things
Russian as the Russians themselves, and our inquiry for four beds was
met with a stare of astonishment. We did not press the matter, however,
after one of us had made an inspection of the mattress which had
already been provided. We thought it safer to sleep on our rugs on the
floor.
And so it was in this city of Omsk, capital of the Government of
Omsk, a military garrison, the residence of a general governor, four
Englishmen could get no better dinner than hard-boiled eggs, a tin
of sardines, and black bread, to be washed down with tea, out of
glasses, and made from the steaming samovar. Of course, had we been of
the usual run of travellers, that it to say functionaries, we should
have probably possessed papers which would have admitted us to some
Government residence. Being, however, only Englishmen, we had to put up
with what we could get.
And as the time wore on, our love of the place did not intensify. We
did not mind the blackbeetles so much as the animals which dropped
from the ceiling in order to disturb our slumbers. I think we were all
pretty hardened members, but the vermin of that room rather got the
best of us. Yet this hotel should not be singled out as a speciality in
that direction. Conversation on the subject once elicited a tale from
a fellow-traveller who, as well as carrying his bedstead with him took
four saucers and a can of kerosene. On fixing up his bed for the night,
his invariable custom was to fit the legs of the bed one into each
saucer and to fill the said saucer with kerosene--the suggestion being
that nothing alive would pass the kerosene without being asphixiated.
But even that, said our traveller, did not keep him out of trouble, for
these things of life, with a sagacity which one would hardly credit in
so small an insect, would make a detour by getting up the wall, on to
the ceiling, and then, having accurately poised, drop down upon the
victim--no doubt to his extreme discomfort. A painful and disagreeable
subject this, and one which I shall not allude to again.
Our ablutions in the morning were performed in what will, no doubt, be
considered a highly original manner. Having conceived the idea that
the removal of at least one layer of grime from our hands and faces
would not prejudice our case in Omsk, the difficulty was to find how
this was to be accomplished. Judicious inquiries revealed the fact that
at the end of the corridor the proprietor of the hotel had provided
an arrangement for the convenience of those who were so fastidious as
to desire to wash. This arrangement was nothing more or less than a
brazen bowl, about the size of a small kettle, which was nailed on the
wall. A knob protruded from the bottom of the bowl which, on being
jerked up vigorously, let forth a few drops of water on the hands;
and so with drops so obtained we managed with extreme economy to get
through the mockery of a wash. The waste and the drips went on our
knees and splashed around generally, but as nobody cavilled we were
content. Having primed ourselves on eggs, bread, and tea, we felt fit
to do the town; so, after getting into our felt boots and our furs, we
sallied forth.
Omsk is the second city of Western Siberia, and its population,
excluding the large proportion of Khirghiz, has been variously
estimated at between twenty and thirty thousand. It is a trading
centre, for here the steamers from Tiumen and Tobolsk call, and a
large quantity of merchandize is landed or shipped. European goods
come through Moscow, to Nijni Novgorod by rail, are shipped then on
the Volga and Kama to Perm, by train again through Ekaterinburg to
Tiumen, and by steamer once more on the Toura, Tobol, and Irtish to
find destination at Omsk, whence they are distributed to the outlying
towns and villages of the great Baraba steppe. It has in its time been
a very prosperous town, and for many years the shopkeepers, cut off
from direct competition, have made enormous profits and amassed huge
fortunes. The merchants, in fact, form the only society of the city.
All seem opulent; and no wonder, when one considers the prices which
are asked for even the common necessaries of life. There is a shadow,
however, looming over the fortunes of the Omsk merchants, and that is
the Trans-Siberian Railway. None realize this better than the merchants
themselves, who see that in a few years they will have to face
something which they have heard of but never experienced--competition
with the outside world. It is said that the community of Omsk was
bitterly opposed to the railway passing through the city, “You will
ruin our trade,” they cried as with one voice; but the decree of the
Emperor had gone forth, and through Omsk went the railway. Ultimately,
of course, the city will benefit enormously by being in touch with
Europe, but narrow-minded and short-sighted as is the Siberian, it is
hard to convince him of this at the present time.
The internal opposition to the Trans-Siberian Railway was widespread,
and at Tomsk--one of the most important cities of Siberia--the
representations made were so strong that the course of the line (which
I am led to understand was originally planned to take in that city)
was altered, and passed in a straight line some sixty miles south. The
citizens of Tomsk, however, speedily realized the terrible blunder they
had made in isolating themselves from the civilizing trading influence
of the iron road. The tide of trade flowing into Siberia passed by
Tomsk and ebbed into Krasnoiarsk, five hundred miles further on. Tomsk
was stranded, and the doom of the city almost sealed. Representations
were made, and a branch line was constructed to connect with the main
road; but even this will not repay the initial mistake, and people who
ought to know assert that Tomsk, which was once, next to Irkutsk, the
most important city in all Siberia, must by force of circumstances sink
into insignificance.
But reverting to Omsk, I do not think that it was the opinion of any
one of the four of us that it was the most agreeable place to spend
any length of time in. A city of wide streets, handsome churches, big
Government buildings, and a multitude of frame houses. The governor’s
palace and the military academy are perhaps the finest edifices apart
from the cathedral and the churches, which are always the most handsome
buildings of any Russian centre. I had the pleasure of an interview
with M. Boulanger, a French gentleman of culture who was head of the
academy. He confessed that it was like a ray of sunlight from his
beloved France to speak to one who knew his land, for he had lived
in Omsk for thirty-five years. I gazed upon him in astonishment.
Thirty-five years in Omsk! That dump of houses in the middle of a
wilderness! With a seven months’ cruel winter! Out of touch with
the world! But time had worked its charm, no doubt; he had resigned
himself. He spoke feelingly, though, of the land of his birth--for
who, be he native or alien, can do aught but love the fair land of
France?--and I, being fresh comparatively from the Western lands, could
not but sympathize with him in that resignation.
CHAPTER V.
ACROSS THE STEPPE.
But uninteresting as Omsk appeared as a town, it is unique in being
the extreme northward point where migrate the wandering tribes of
Khirghiz Cossacks. The term Cossack seems to be very little understood
outside Siberia or Russia. One is prone to associate it with a soldier,
but Cossacks in Russia simply means a tribe that receives special
concessions from the Czar for services rendered or likely to be
rendered. The Don, Ural, and Khirghiz Cossacks are exempt from certain
points of taxation by reason of the military ability of the male
members of the tribe. The Khirghiz, for instance, are born soldiers
and born horsemen. They look with no uncertain disdain on the Russian
moujik, who, poor fellow, is taxed up to his eyes, and who is but a
foot soldier when conscription claims him for its own. The Cossack of
the Khirghiz steppe is a servant of the Czar possessing such privileges
that make him independent of the Russian altogether.
Some few Khirghiz there are who have settled in the various towns of
South-Western Siberia--at Akmolinsk, Semipalatinsk, and at Omsk--but
the great bulk of the tribe is nomadic. The steppe, which extend
northwards for thousands of miles into the regions of Turkestan, forms
their home. They move their “kibitkas,” or tents, about from place
to place, pay no rent, know nothing of taxation, ignore the Russian
language, worship Mahomet, live by the gun, and have a good time
generally. As a conquered race it appears to me they are exceptionally
fortunate; but the Czar, with his far-seeing eye, knows their worth. In
time of war and trouble no soldier of the empire is likely to serve
him so well as this fierce and warlike horseman.
Next to the Buriats, the Khirghiz are, perhaps, the most interesting of
Siberian nomads. The Buriats are Buddhists or Shamists; the Khirghiz
are Mohammedans. So far as my observation goes, I do not think that
they possess the mosques as do the Tartars, but nevertheless they are
fervent followers of the Prophet. The vast steppe is their home. They
are rarely or never seen in the mountains, but on the steppe, that
vast melancholy plain, with its stunted grass and its far-reaching
horizon, they live, multiply, and die; their only business, beyond the
hope of fighting, being in the breeding of horses, which they sell
at ridiculously small prices either to the Government or to Siberian
traders.
During my stay in Omsk I had occasion to visit a Khirghiz encampment,
and although I had been told I should find them an exceedingly
ill-tempered and ill-favoured crowd, I must confess that the reception
I received was one which rather prejudiced me in their favour. It was
a kibitka on the steppe; three or four tents made of rough canvas
supported on birch poles, and with a corral outside for innumerable
horses, all hobbled by the hind leg. The tent itself, black and
unprepossessing on the outside, was a revelation inside. Gimcrack and
gaudy perhaps, but nevertheless picturesque. I can only compare it to
the interior of a canvas circus--cut down to small proportions, but
of the same shape and possessing much of its gaudiness. Latticework,
painted a brilliant red, blue, or pink, surrounded the sides. Shields
of various colours were hung on the walls, together with festoons of
antidiluvian weapons in the shape of knives, arrows, bows, clubs, long
swords, and old guns. The floor of the kibitka was covered with the
foliage of the fir tree, and in the centre a little raised platform
formed the table of the inhabitants.
I went to this kibitka under escort, and was glad to find that at
least one of the tribe was able to speak to me, in spite of the short
stock of Russian I possessed. Amiable as he was, yet I detected in
the sunken black eye of this nomad the fire of a latent warlike
spirit, which needed very little to arouse, and which would make him a
formidable antagonist.
The Khirghiz are essentially horsemen, and in the streets of Omsk one
never sees a Cossack but what he is riding. What they do, how they
live, what is their ambition,--all alike seems more or less wrapped in
mystery. The Russian population ignore them, and in return the Cossack
ignores the Russian. It is the bayonet of the conscript, however, which
keeps them in their place; and it is very rare that they do anything
against law and order. Every year the governor of the province will go
amongst them, and from the number of their tribe will select one who
shall be the headman, and responsible for the doings of his flock for
the time being.
Strangely enough the Russians seemed ever willing to warn us against
the Cossacks. They are thieves, murderers, anything you like, according
to the Siberian, but when one considers that the Khirghiz Cossacks are
merely a conquered race, and that seventy-five per cent. of the Russian
population of Siberia consists of convicts, exiled for all sorts of
crimes, one is apt to think and compare.
In a former journey through Siberia I had closer acquaintance with the
Khirghiz than many men have had the opportunity of. I had slept in
their tents, I had drunk their “koumiss,” and had eaten with them from
the same pot, but never once did I have occasion to complain of their
treatment.
We were getting tired of the Grand Hotel Moscow. There was nothing
about it which was attractive enough for us to prolong our stay
within its shelter. As soon as our business had been completed it
was the train again. Back over that dreary road to the station; the
same old familiar buffet; the same white-aproned porters; the same
officious soldier-policeman, ceremonious conductors, and all-important
engine-drivers; the same slow-moving cars; the same heat and smell and
general discomfort of those miserable _coupés_.
Our next important point was Tomsk, one of the most celebrated of
Siberian cities, and to reach which we had to pass over the full
length of the Baraba steppe. We started at night, and the next morning
found us out on the great white plain. The snow was deeper here, and
the occasional long grass which we had seen on the Tartar steppe was
absent. Nothing, look which way we would, was there to relieve the eye.
A white plain, a circular horizon--the perspective so deceiving that we
seemed ever to be at the bottom of a basin, and ever toiling upward.
We had two days of this, with nothing to relieve its drear monotony
but the occasional halt at a wayside station. As we progressed further
eastward, so things generally became more humble and more primitive.
The stations dwindled down in size and in importance. The cockaded
soldier gave way to a slouching policeman in rusty top boots, brown
overcoat, battered sword, and dirty peaked cap. Our stoppages became
longer--from minutes they went into half-hours and half-hours into
hours. Nobody cared, we drifted on entirely at the mercy of the man who
drove us, and, I must say, getting gradually habituated to Siberian
ideas. Hurry is a thing not to be dreamt of. We would pull up at a
station, which consisted of no platform and but a small hut combining
both telegraph-office and sleeping quarters. Food, too, began to get
scarce; but the inevitable sardine, and the equally inevitable tea were
always to be had. Now and again, at some larger village station, we
would almost shout for joy when an unexpected and long-since-despised
edible would be placed ostentatiously before us. Cabbage soup, for
instance, that nauseating compound which in Russia we had loathed. Now
we swallowed it with relish, and smacked our lips in satisfaction.
Vodki, too, which we had shuddered at in Russia, we were gradually
beginning to think was not such bad stuff after all. Our little party,
I perceived, were adopting Siberian manners to an alarming extent. It
was the Siberian custom to always take a nip of vodki before eating,
but we, being superior foreigners, had ignored this habit. I do not
know who started it, but long before we reached Tomsk it was a settled
custom amongst us to take that nip of vodki, and sometimes even to
indulge in the grimace after swallowing which was orthodox amongst
Siberians.
We got careless, we took little trouble now about our beds and our
general comfort. Now and again we forgot to wash, and went around
dirty, just as other Siberians did. Our boots had not been blackened
for weeks, neither had our clothes been brushed, nor had our toilet
arrangements been properly supervised. It was hard work to shave on
such a rattling train as that, and those who sported the razor in their
travelling trunks left it there for days together. It was not exactly
wearisome, it was a something which was indescribable, a feeling that
prompted a desire to go to sleep for at least three weeks on end and
wake up at the end of the journey; but there was no Rip Van Winkle
amongst us, and, although we did put in an enormous amount of time in
somnolent attitude, Nature was not to be thwarted, and many hours had
to be spent in loafing around and in conversational reiteration.
With what avidity we pounced upon anything which would disturb the even
tenor of our way! I verily believe that a railway accident would have
been welcome; and, once, something very near this did happen, although
beyond giving us food for talk and a little healthy exercise, nothing
more serious happened.
[Illustration: A STATION ON THE SIBERIAN RAILWAY.]
Bang out in the middle of the steppe, miles from anywhere, the train
one day brought up suddenly, and stuck there for three hours. As there
was only one train a day, it was hardly possible that we had been side
tracked, waiting for a Siberian “Flying Scotchman” to come along.
None of our Russian passengers ventured to inquire the cause of the
train’s inertion, neither did the conductor, who periodically passed
through the train with a face about as intelligible as a sphinx,
volunteer any information on the subject. Gaskell and I, however,
descended, walked along the line to the engine, and discovered that the
tank had burst and the water was cheerfully washing away the track.
The engineer was complacently leaning against the buffers smoking
_papiros_, his fireman was asleep in the cab of the tender, nobody else
was about, and the whole situation was so truly sublime that, being in
the condition to laugh at anything, we both laughed heartily.
The engine had broken down, that was clear. How were we going to get
on? The engineer didn’t know, and apparently didn’t care. Had anything
been done? The engineer _thought_ that somebody had walked along the
line to the next station, fifteen versts (ten miles) away, and would
telegraph for a new engine. Did he know when a new engine would come?
He hadn’t the slightest idea. To-day or to-morrow? It was possible, one
or the other.
Back in the car we tackled the conductor, and he, too, evinced as much
interest in the proceedings as an ordinary sheep does when it goes
to the slaughter-stool. The opportunity for a walk, however, was too
great, and so, in high spirits, Gaskell and I set off and walked that
fifteen versts to the next station. The line ran dead straight across
the steppe, and when we had traversed ten versts we looked back and
saw the train still standing there, a tiny black mass on the shining
metals, with as much life about it as would appear in a prison.
Our energy, however, was rewarded by forestalling the occupants of
the train in regard to the buffet arrangements. The stationmaster had
prepared quite a decent dinner, and he alone, of those concerned in the
matter, seemed to be perturbed at the train’s delay. We had a very
good time in the selection of the best dishes to be had, and on being
assured that there was no possible hope of the train arriving that
night, we curled ourselves up on benches and slept the sleep of the
well satisfied.
Next morning the train rolled up, and hungry and cursing passengers
descended and raided the buffet like so many wild beasts. The
over-bearing spirit of the Russian came to the front in all its
intensity. They jostled and pushed each other without a word of
apology, but rather with a growl of resentment and aggression. And
yet not one of all that crowd had been able to shake off the laziness
inherited from centuries of lazy progenitors and to tramp the ten miles
in order to secure a little food and comfort.
CHAPTER VI.
IN THE OBI VALLEY.
Three days after leaving Omsk, the train drew up at the rather
important station of Kreveschokovo. It was important as a station,
because here was the first check in our train journey from the Hook of
Holland. We had arrived, as a matter of fact, at the end of the railway
metals which lay in one continuous line from the most western part of
Europe right to the banks of the Obi River. The bridge had not yet been
completed over this colossal water highway, and in order to resume our
train journey it was necessary to take sledges from the station of
Kreveschokovo, across the river to the station of Ob.
I think that everybody was more or less glad that the bridge was not
completed. To ride in a sledge, after being cooped up in the overheated
train, was a bit of a change, at any rate, and I must confess that we
four Englishmen jumped at the chance.
We had reached the end of the steppe, and before us now lay mountainous
country, and the difficulties which the engineers of the Trans-Siberian
Railway had experienced were evident on all hands. The Obi at this
point was some two miles wide, and a bridge over such a distance as
that was no mean task. The railway, we understood, was completed almost
as far as Kansk, nearly a thousand miles further on; but in spite of
all the haste of the Russian engineers, the Obi bridge was yet far from
completion.
In the gathering twilight of an early February afternoon we stood out
on a bluff overlooking the frozen river and surveyed the workings of
what must rank as a monumental engineering enterprise. The Obi bridge
is built on the suspension plan on high tiers, and is simply a network
of girders and stanchions, great earthworks running up from the level
plain on either side to a considerable height.
We alighted, and the kind Russian officials left us to shift for
ourselves with regard to transportation across the river. We got out
our baggage, which was immediately distributed by energetic porters in
various and inaccessible portions of the station, and then wandered
out to find something in the shape of a sledge which would carry us to
the station of Ob, seven miles away. Unfortunately for our plan, the
whole of the passengers of the Siberian train were on the same tack,
and knowing Russian better than we, managed at any rate to get hold
of the best isvostchiks who ply for hire. Ultimately we were able to
secure a basket-work arrangement, tied on a couple of runners, and
which was supposed to be drawn by a pair of horses, the size of which,
in comparison to the size of the vehicle, was rather ludicrous. Whether
it is the cold, or whether it is the terribly hard work which Siberian
horses undergo, I don’t know, but I am safe in saying that the average
Siberian horse is not much larger than an English donkey. There was, of
course, the usual long and interesting bargaining encounter with the
driver of the vehicle. From five roubles we got down to two at length,
bundled in our baggage, pushed our way through the crowd of harpies who
had looked at the whole proceedings and wanted tipping for so doing,
and set off.
Down a little road past the station at a mad gallop; swish! round the
corner, and out over a level plateau. We banged against tree stumps
which stuck out through the snow, cannoned against fence corners
protecting some agricultural property, until, with a whirl and a
clatter, we dashed down a short slope and were out on the river.
Before us lay the white expanse of ice, but all hummocky and broken. It
is difficult to describe the appearance of that frozen river. Instead
of a smooth level plain of ice, as one would expect to see, the whole
surface was one jumbled mass of broken ice, which seemed as if at the
very moment of its breaking, it had been arrested by King Frost and
frozen solid. Great lumps, ten to fifteen feet high and four to five
feet in thickness, towered above us; smaller pieces hung on to the
larger by mere strips, and through this wilderness of congealation,
a narrow road had been formed for the passage of vehicles. Over this
road we galloped at a terrific pace, bumping and scrunching, whirling
and swishing, the drosky clattering from side to side, now on one
runner, now on the other, and all our traps jerking about like peas
in a frying-pan, while we, poor unfortunate mortals, hung on by one
hand, and with the other hand endeavoured to smother the mouth in
order to warm the air for the lungs. A few minutes of this brought us
into the centre of the river, where the ice was clearer, and a level
plain stretched before us. It was a sublime sight then to see that
noble river so silent and still, and it was something to realize the
marvellous work of Nature in having secured the means to that end.
On again, with the light fading away behind us and the greyness of
night creeping up ahead. Through the jagged ice once more, until, with
a whoop and a halloo, we scuttled over a narrow stretch where the water
oozed and spirted between a crack; then up the bank at a mad scramble,
to disappear in a miniature forest, to whirl around at a breakneck
speed on the edge of an embankment, and to clatter into the station
yard at Ob with smoking horses, excited driver, and bruised bodies we,
but pleased nevertheless.
The station at Ob is singular from the fact that previous to the
Trans-Siberian Railway passing that way the region was a complete
wilderness. Four years ago, when the railway reached that far, houses
began to spring up with marvellous rapidity, and at the present time it
is difficult to buy a plot of land in the vicinity of the station. Nor
is this all. Recognizing that the Trans-Siberian Railway is bound to
bring a large number of travellers from the East, who will probably in
the summer make use of the great steamboat highway of the Obi system,
hotels and magazines have been opened in anticipation of that traffic.
All this was very surprising to us in face of the extreme apathy which
seemed to obtain in every other part of Siberia so far. But the houses
in Ob, although constructed of wood, and the magazines and hotels built
on the orthodox Russian principle, were at any rate superior looking to
those we had seen thus far.
Next day we arrived at the small station of Tigre. It was called Tigre
because “tigre” is Russian for “forest.” This little station was bang
in the midst of the most impenetrable forest I had ever set eyes on.
It lay, in fact, in the centre of a clearing--in the centre of a pit,
it seemed, for the great black trunks of the pines went up all around
and left only a circular space of blue sky visible. When the engine
whistled the noise echoed and re-echoed through the still forest.
When we looked around, what was there to see? We might as well have
been dumped out of a balloon in the middle of an uninhabited land,
only that the railway gave the lie direct. A small hut representing
the station, a side-track with a few waggons, a glimpse of a house
amongst the trees, a forlorn-looking engine-shed away up the line,
and that was all--all except that bewildering mass of trees packed so
closely together that it seemed as if one could scarcely put one’s arm
between each trunk--sombre, still, and awe-inspiring. And here, in this
inspiriting place, we had to wait no less than nine hours for the train
to take us to Tomsk!
Tigre is the junction of the Tomsk railroad, and I have already
mentioned the fact that the main line in its neglect of Tomsk has left
that town very much stranded. It seems, too, that the Government,
resenting the independence of the great Siberian city, has put as many
obstacles in the way of travellers thereto as it possibly can. To wait
nine hours in a station like Tigre was the sort of thing sufficient
to make a man’s blood boil--that is if anything could boil in a
temperature of thirty-six below zero, Réaumur.
The Krasnoiarsk train departed. We watched it as it drew slowly out
of the station and disappeared in the forest, sparks flying from the
funnel of its engine and a wealth of smoke mingling with the snow
which covered the tree-tops. There were only a few of us bound for
Tomsk--seven, as a matter of fact--and we made four of them. Three
were Chinovniks, very much uniformed and very supercilious. There was
a buffet of insignificant proportions attached to the station, and in
this we did our best to while the time away. It was a hard matter, and
an experience well to be forgotten, for, with true Russian perversity,
the Tomsk train was got ready to start just about the time when we were
all in the middle of slumber.
Our natural ill humour was not reduced upon finding that the Tomsk
train contained no first-class _coupés_. Some one explained that up to
the present the Tomsk section had received no first-class carriages
from the works; so, although we possessed first-class tickets, we were
forced to put up with the miserable accommodation provided by some old
time-worn cars, which by some chance or other had managed to get so far.
The Tomsk section of the Siberian Railway, being, as it was, a
something apart from the great enterprise, was if anything worse than
the main line itself. It was miserably laid, and the jerks and joltings
which we experienced on that ninety-versts ride did not altogether
inspire us with confidence. We slept on bare boards in third-class
compartments, because the second-class cushions, after an hour or two’s
experience, became altogether too suspicious for longer stay. So we
groaned through the night and woke stiff and bruised, unrefreshed and
ill tempered. On we hurtled, at the excessive pace of eight miles an
hour, seemingly never coming to the end. Day broke, and passed, and
afternoon and its darkness came again. Ninety versts were all we had
to do, but what with hours spent at wayside stations, which seemed to
have no more importance than one hut could show, we got through time
grandly, and, just when it was too late for anything, pulled up at
Tomsk.
The usual ceremonial, the usual clanging of bells, blowing of whistles,
general excitement, and we descended to shake hands with each other on
the fact of having arrived in the very centre of Siberia.
CHAPTER VII.
IMPRESSIONS OF TOMSK.
Our arrival at Tomsk was signalized by the greatest cold which we had
experienced so far. The Réaumur glass showed more than forty degrees
of frost, and in this bitter atmosphere it seemed impossible to keep
up one’s circulation. In the miserable drosky which took us from the
station to the town we became so numbed that on arrival at the portals
of the hotel it was with difficulty that we could dismount. Gaskell
was unfortunate enough to get one of his hands frost-bitten, and the
thawing of that member was accompanied by pain so intense that he
almost screamed in agony. Nor was the hotel at which we were forced
to put up conducive to comfort. There is in Tomsk one very good
hotel, called the Europa, but unfortunately we were unable to obtain
apartments here, and were forced to seek shelter in a hostinitca, which
was, to say the least, decidedly third class--inferior, in fact, to the
accommodation which we had received at Omsk.
Bad as was the bedroom accommodation and the general eating
arrangements, the hardened traveller could perhaps put up with them,
but what was worse than all was the shocking sanitary arrangements
of the place--a state of things, however, which is pretty general in
Siberian houses. The stench of that hotel was something abominable, a
stench carried on the hot air which crowded and filtered into every
corner and crevice of the place. All the windows were tightly closed,
being constructed on the double plan, with cotton wool in between, in
order to preclude the possibility of a particle of air entering one’s
chamber. To sleep in such an atmosphere was out of the question, and
we got out of the difficulty by breaking a couple of panes of glass
in the window and tying a piece of sacking over the orifice. That hole
in the window, viewed from outside, was something like the funnel of a
steamer, the hot air rushing out in clouds of steam to be immediately
converted into fine snow. But even this novel means of ventilation did
not rid us of the smell, which permeated everything from the door of
the hotel to the tiniest room or passage.
[Illustration: TOMSK.]
The red-shirted and long-haired individual who acted as proprietor
and servant combined, intimated that it was quite impossible to get
anything to eat. The samovar we could have with pleasure, but of food
the only thing in that direction which it was possible to obtain would
be black bread. Our supply of provisions being exhausted, and being in
a town of some thirty thousand inhabitants, black bread was not the
sort of thing to satisfy four hungry Englishmen; so I wandered forth,
chartered a drosky, and drove down to the market-place, or bazaar,
which turned out to be a big square surrounded by rows of dismal
wooden huts in the last stages of decrepitude. Afar off, over a wooden
bridge which spanned the bed of a small river, I could see blinking
electric lights, and marvelled considerably.
Here was a town which sported one of the greatest inventions of the
age, and yet four travellers, willing to pay anything in reason for
decent accommodation, could get no better than that of which I have
spoken, and no better food offered than black bread! Most of the
magazines were closed. A few skin-clad moujiks, muffled up to the eyes,
shuffled along in their huge felt boots, and a few horses hobbled at
the heel, looked forlorn and miserable by the huge scales which marked
the centre of the bazaar.
My driver, on learning my mission, drove me to a magazine, which
fortunately was open, and here I was able to purchase a couple of dozen
eggs, frozen as solid as stones, a loaf or two of white bread, a box of
sardines, and some sweets. The manner in which the eggs were thrown
into the bottom of the drosky was a touching tribute to the severity of
the Siberian winter.
By dismal candlelight, seated on rough wooden chairs around a rougher
table, with the steaming samovar in the centre, we made our meal. Such
luxuries as plates or knives we knew not. We carved our bread with a
bowie; we held our eggs in our hands, and consumed the contents, not
by the use of a spoon, but by jerking all that would come out into our
mouths, then breaking the shell and sucking away what remained attached
to the skin. For four of us the proprietor had found one spoon, so the
bread-cutting bowie served also to stir up our tea. We started on eggs,
made a second course of sardines, and had sweets for dessert. Only our
perennial good temper made the meal enjoyable. It was not so much that
what we had was not satisfying, but the great fact that here we were in
a town, one of the richest in Siberia, and one of the most populous,
and that it was impossible to get better fare than this.
No wonder that Siberia is looked upon by the traveller with abhorrence.
Apart from its inhabitants, no one can say that Siberia is not a land
of beauty, plenty, and promise; but it is the nature of its inhabitants
which make it the terrible place it is. The independence, the filth,
and general want of comfort which characterize every effort of the
community serve to make a visit to any Siberian centre a thing to be
remembered for many years, and an experience not desirable to repeat.
Yet Tomsk is not without its attractions. It is divided into two towns,
the upper and the lower; the latter being on the banks of the Tom, and
the former on the brow of the high cliffs which divide the river into
two sections. There are some very fine buildings in the city, notably
the Military Academy, the Government Mining Laboratory, the governor’s
residence, the theatre, and half a dozen magnificent churches. The
main street is built on the side of a hill, east to west, but the
mean character of the houses and magazines on either side, as well as
the dilapidated and broken wooden pavement outside them, turns what
would be a magnificent avenue into one by no means pleasing to the
eye. At night the electric light casts a white glare upon this huddle
of houses, and serves to show the unwary pedestrian the pitfalls in
the road and the pavement. What this town is like in summer, when the
hot sun beats down upon its unpaved roads and serves to accentuate
its predominant smell, it is not difficult to realize. Happily for
the health of the Tomskite, there is an eight-months’ winter, and to
this almost perpetual time of frost I certainly think that much of the
good health of the Siberian is due. I have travelled in many lands,
but I must place it on record that for absolute neglect of the most
elementary stages of sanitation the Siberian authorities surpass the
efforts of all others I have seen.
Prior to the establishment of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, Tomsk,
being situated at the very centre of Siberia, became the _entrepôt_ for
the general commerce of the country. Westward, the magnificent water
system of the Obi put the traveller in touch with Tobolsk, Tiumen, and
the Trans-Ural Railway to Europe. Tomsk was, and still is, the biggest
debarking point for European goods. Here, too, are centred some of
the great tea magazines, and the residences of several millionaire
gold-miners and merchants. Its society is distinctly that of the
trading classes. Rich men abound--made rich by the profits of monopoly,
but with that monopoly steadily slipping at the present time from their
grasp. The gold-miners are, perhaps, the most influential, inasmuch as
the industry of gold-mining in Siberia is one in which the Government
takes an active interest. They are represented in Tomsk by many of
the leading gold-miners of the country, notably M. Siberikoff, one of
the richest men in all Siberia, and who has done much towards the
improvement of the city. In 1888 he founded the University, the first
one, I believe, in the whole of Siberia, and to which, at the present
day, students journey from all parts of Siberia in order to complete
their education.
While in Tomsk I had the opportunity of visiting one of these
millionaire gold-miners, a man whom popular repute said was one of
the richest in Tomsk. He possessed, at any rate, the largest and
most sumptuously furnished private residence, and was said to be
extremely hospitable. And yet this man could with difficulty sign
his own name. Forty years ago he had been an ordinary gold-washer
in the Semipalatinsk Mountains. That was in the days when gold was
found by the handful, when there was very little competition, less
Government supervision, and plenty of opportunities for stealing. From
a moujik the particular gold-miner I am speaking of became a renter of
Government land, and in the course of the next twenty years amassed
nearly a million roubles. He purchased houses and land freely in Tomsk,
and ultimately became, as I have hinted, one of the wealthiest men in
the community.
It is the custom in Siberia when paying a visit, even if it be at ten
o’clock in the morning, to go in evening dress. To neglect this is to
offer one of the greatest insults you can to the Siberian. Excuses
avail nothing; it is a case of being in a land where such a thing is
necessary, and if you are unprovided with the customary black coat
that is entirely your look out, and by far the best thing to do is to
decline the invitation. Fortunately, I was aware of this custom, and
had brought with me the necessary costume, and I made the visit at
midday.
My host received me with considerable enthusiasm, but although
accustomed somewhat to Siberian manners, it was with difficulty that
I could repress my repugnance of him. He was unshaven, dirty, and
the rusty black clothes which he wore fitted him as a sack would a
broomstick. He smoked _papiros_, spat, and made horrible noises with
his nose. He invited me to drink vodki, which I did. It was his custom
to take a glass, swallow its contents, and then eructate noisily; in
which performance he was aided and abetted by several of the male
members of the family and some visitors.
Dinner in the house of a wealthy Siberian is a peculiar custom. There
is no formal sitting down, to be waited upon as with us of the western
world. The apartment into which I was ushered was large, bare, and
uncomfortable. An enormous piano occupied one corner; chairs were
scattered around on the polished floor; the walls were whitewashed, but
without a picture or other ornamentation to relieve their bareness;
a great stove, which occupied another corner, sent out radiating
waves of heat. Down one side of the room ran a long table, decked out
with glasses, bottles, plates, knives and forks, and many and varied
articles of food in the way of canned goods. This table was faced by
three smaller ones, covered with red baize, and around which, in the
intervals of eating and drinking, our host’s party would assemble to
throw dice or play cards. The Siberian luncheon or dinner occupies
hours. You sit around and take a hand at cards or form one in a dice
party. Ten minutes elapse, the host comes round, pats each one of his
guests on the shoulder, and at the same time flicks his third finger
against his neck. This is the Siberian invitation for a drink. The
crowd collects around the table, each takes a glass filled with vodki,
or with some one or other of the many mysterious compounds which go
under the name of Siberian liqueurs, tosses it off, makes a grimace,
sometimes the sign of the cross, gulps down a bit of bread and sardine,
and wanders back to the card-table.
In another ten minutes a huge sturgeon, smoking hot, is brought in on
a dish. The host comes round again, again pats shoulders, but this
time moves his jaws convulsively, as if in the action of eating.
Up rises the crowd once more, in order to make a combined attack
upon the sturgeon with finger or with fork, washing down toothsome
morsels with more vodki. Back again to card-playing, and up again
to eat or drink--so the day wears on. Conversation is not very
brilliant or long sustained. There is a moody, dissatisfied air about
everybody--a general, as it seemed to me, want of confidence in one’s
neighbour--which makes the whole meeting oppressive, so much so that I
was glad when the time for departure came, and I was able to get out
into the street.
At that moment it is necessary again to observe Siberian customs, this
being to shake the hand of the host, the hostess, and everybody who has
got any connection with the house, and to thank them for the food you
have had; to declare that it is the finest food you have eaten in all
your life, that you have never tasted such vodki, and that, as long as
you live, you will remember the hospitality you have received. Mine
host hurries to help you into your shouba; but you must on no account
let him do that, as it would imply that you have not had enough to eat
to make you strong enough for that particular office. You gently ward
him off and laugh idiotically; he insists, and _you_ insist, until
ultimately you manage to get into your furs, shake hands again, cross
yourself before the ikon on the wall, bundle down the steps into the
yard, where dogs snarl around your legs, open the big gate, and emerge
into the street.
The ceremony of Siberian hospitality is almost ludicrous, viewed of
course from the light of things at home. It is impossible for the
Westerner to feel comfortable, and I have it on the authority of a
French gentleman who has lived in Tomsk for fifteen years, and is
compelled by his position to move about considerably in the so-called
society of the place, that he cannot get himself to enjoy the various
functions at which he is always an honoured guest.
While in Tomsk, it was my privilege and good fortune to make the
acquaintance of M. Shostok, the chief of the Mining Department
of Central Siberia, and who probably ranks, next to the General
Governor himself, as the most important personage in all Tomsk. I
found M. Shostok an extremely agreeable and cultured gentleman, who
had travelled much, and was keenly alive to the shortcomings of the
Siberian populace. His particular department was one which required
a tremendous amount of work, for he was the receiver of all the gold
and other precious metals mined in the provinces of Tomsk, Atchinsk,
Semipalatinsk, Minusinsk, and Yeneiseik, a district covering many
thousands of square miles, and including in its area all the richest
gold mines north of the Altai range.
At Tomsk the gold is received, assayed, and smelted, its actual value,
less 3 per cent, or 5 per cent., according to the district, being
credited to the miner on a six month’s acceptance. The average amount
of gold received yearly by the Tomsk laboratory amounts to some
hundreds of poods, the latest statistics showing 170 poods in 1891,
being 7.15 per cent. of the production of the whole country. Eastern
Siberia, of which the receiving depôt is Irkutsk, produces far more
gold, 1510 poods being the receipts in 1891--63.32 per cent. of the
production of the whole country. Considering that Western Siberia is
for the main part comparatively flat, the production is looked upon as
extremely encouraging, although Eastern Siberia offers greater scope to
the capitalist and to the foreign miner.
So far, owing to lack of information concerning the country, and to
the universal suspicion attaching to enterprises in Russia, combined
with the formidable red-tapeism of the Russian Government, very few
foreigners have attempted gold-mining in Siberia; although, from the
little that I have learnt of it, I can see that it is as safe, if
not safer, to work for gold in that country than in others where the
Government itself is not the protecting agent. One thing, however,
must be borne in mind: in order to pose as a successful miner in
Siberia it is necessary first of all to clearly understand the
conditions implied by the Government, and to have a complete knowledge
of the language and the customs of the people; for the pitfalls are
many, and the Russian Government is not the sort of one to excuse
mistakes.
Thanks to M. Shostok’s kindness, I was taken into the laboratory,
and shown into the safety vaults, where was stored something like
two hundred poods of smelted gold. The deep dungeons of mediæval
history may be compared to the safety vaults at the Tomsk laboratory.
Subterranean passages, guarded by heavily armed soldiers; ponderous
iron gates and doors; keys a foot long; rusty hinges, bolts; and all
that sort of thing. Four soldiers took us into the store-room, where
three enormous iron safes let into the walls glared at us. The locks of
these safes were sealed with wax, of which M. Shostok alone possessed
the seal. This wax was broken, the safe door unlocked, and there,
reposing on shelves, lay bars of the dull yellow metal, representing
some millions of roubles and the work of thousands of men for many
months.
I had the opportunity of trying to carry as much gold as I could lift,
and it was surprising to me what a small quantity it seemed, and yet it
would have been sufficient to have made my Siberian journey distinctly
remunerative--if I had been allowed the further opportunity of getting
away with it. But there were too many soldiers about; far too many
revolvers, guns, swords, big gates, ponderous locks, and such things
as that, to permit feelings of cupidity even in sight of such wealth.
I went out as poor as I entered, except from an intellectual point of
view, and proceeded to the smelting-room, where I saw tiny pellets of
gold extracted from masses of baser mineral; saw the smallest and most
sensitive balance I have ever had the luck to look upon. This balance
was so true that a piece of paper was weighed against so many hairs. I
afterwards wrote my name on the paper in pencil, and the weight of my
signature was clearly shown.
A word now as to the investment of foreign capital in the Siberian
gold-mining industry. In England, at any rate, there is, or seems
to be, an idea prevalent that before any one can undertake mining
enterprise of any sort in Siberia, it is necessary to get a concession
from the Russian Government. This is entirely erroneous. All that is
necessary is that the intending prospector or purchaser of land shall
be rated a good citizen of his particular country. He should possess
a paper from his consul or ambassador which gives him that honour.
The presentation of this paper, at Tomsk or Irkutsk, to the Minister
of Mines will secure for him a Russian privilege-paper, which gives
him the right for as long as he lives to prospect for gold or other
precious metals in any part of Siberia. He can either break fresh
ground or rent or buy existing mines, for the terms of the contract are
these: All the gold he obtains must be handed over to the Government.
He must obey in every particular the rules laid down by the Mining
Department as to the conduct of his affairs. He is not allowed to have
more than five versts of gold-bearing land in any one spot (this in
order to give other people a chance). But the Government, it seems to
me, in this particular makes one rule and another to obviate it. Thus,
although he may not possess more than five versts of land, his son may
possess the next five versts, his mother the next, and all his uncles,
aunts, sisters, brothers, grandfathers, and grandmothers can go on at
five versts a time consecutively, or as long as the money holds out or
there is land available.
The penalties for breaking any of the rules of the Mining Department
are very severe. It is forbidden to sink a shaft more than ten feet
deep without the presence of a Government inspector. Every piece of
gold obtained from the workings must be carefully weighed in the
presence of the Cossack provided by the Government, duly sealed, and
its weight, value, and venue entered into a gold book. If any mistake
be made in the entry, the miner is subject to a fine of twenty-five
roubles for every error, and in this particular the signatures of the
mining engineer and the mine owner must be attached to the book plain
and unvarnished, the slightest flourish or tailpiece to the signature
costing twenty-five roubles. Here, again, the Russian system of making
one rule to upset another comes in; for all that is necessary to get
back the money expended in fines, is to write a letter to the Minister
of Mines pleading for pardon, and I believe that this pardon is very
rarely withheld.
The gold obtained from the mines must be sent at periods of not more
than three months from each other to the laboratory. If any of the
gold should be lost in transit, the Government will shut down the mine
until that gold or its equivalent value is found. Again, if more than
two strikes occur amongst the workmen in one year the Government
may exercise its right to close the workings. If one of the workmen
be killed by defective machinery, or even in brawling, the works are
stopped.
Little things like these may not tend to encourage foreign capital,
more especially when above all there exists that autocratic right,
which the Emperor reserves, to present you with your passport without
explanation or reason, and to give you twenty-four hours notice to
leave the country.
So much for the general principles of gold-mining in Siberia. Of the
actual detail work of that industry I shall have more to say later on,
when, in contact with the rough gold-miners of the Syansk Mountains,
I had practical experience of the hunt for that noble metal which has
caused some happiness and untold misery for mankind in general.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE END OF THE RAILWAY.
Eastward from Tomsk the Trans-Siberian Railway passes through a country
of mountainous aspect. The foothills between the Obi River and Tomsk
itself develop into mountain ranges, up which the road-bed of the
railway is taken by many tortuous windings to the very top. As an
engineering feat, the railway engineers have to be commended for the
enterprise as a whole, but the shocking manner in which the line itself
is laid will always preclude any decent pace being attained on its
metals. Instead of cuttings or tunnelings, the whole line from Tigre
to Krasnoiarsk is but a series of sharp curves. Rather than tunnel or
cut through a bluff of insignificant proportions, the banking will
be carried around in zigzag fashion, only to meet another bluff not a
quarter of a mile away, which needs further curves.
Haste is shown in every feature of this section of the Siberian
railroad. At the outset of the enterprise it was estimated that Irkutsk
would be reached by the end of 1897; but while the laying of the road
over the flat steppes from Chelabinsk to the Obi River offered no
insuperable difficulties to the engineer, the mountains which had to be
traversed further on had been looked upon with too optimistic an eye,
and the consequence is that, in order to avoid borings or cuttings,
the line has been carried many miles out of its way, at a cost far
exceeding that which would have covered a properly laid and properly
engineered road-bed.
I had conversations with several engineers on this subject, but I
must confess that what I heard came rather as a shock to my ideas of
Russian State enterprise. “You see,” said one, “that we are engaged
to lay this railroad. It is to be finished all the way in about three
years’ time; after that what are _we_ going to do?” In other words,
the suggestion was that it would be foolish to kill the goose which
laid the golden eggs. And in corroboration of this I have heard many
suggestions from influential people in Siberia that the construction
of the railway has from its very commencement been one vast scheme of
bribery, corruption, and general mismanagement. Accidents to the first
trains to run over new sections have been numerous. On one new piece
of road between Marinsk and Atchinsk the first engine to travel over
the road disappeared bodily through the ballast into a small river
below, necessitating a delay of several months for repairs and another
excuse for extra pay. Still, all along that line there are signs of
prosperity. The peasantry, heretofore employed in agricultural pursuits
or the breeding of horses, are employed at wages which to them seem
fabulous. Prices have gone up all round, and everybody seems more or
less independent--and cheeky at that. Short-sighted, perhaps, for in a
few years, when the construction of the line shall be completed, they
will have to go back to their old pursuits, with less chance of making
those pursuits remunerative.
A day and a half after leaving Tomsk the train arrived at the banks of
the Chulim River, rather a small stream when compared to the Obi, Tom,
or Irtish, but still broad enough to make two of the River Thames at
London Bridge. A novel experience awaited us here, and one which we
had not bargained for. As on the Obi, the bridge was not finished--in
fact, only a couple of spans had been completed. The Russian engineer,
however, did not do here what he did at Kreveschokovo. Instead of
landing us out of the train to take sledges across the river, he
made use of Nature’s bridge, and that was the ice itself. A quarter
of a mile from the river the rails diverted from the main road, and
continued down the slope, and so on across the ice to the Atchinsk
side. The whole thing was so unexpected and so novel that each one of
us four gasped in astonishment. How deep the river was we did not know;
and whether the ice was thick enough to bear the several hundreds of
tons of locomotive and fifteen heavy carriages was another problem.
Anyway, we were all glad when, as the train drew slowly up on the bank
of the river, the conductor came up and requested us to descend and
walk to the other side--cheerfully remarking that if the train went
through only he, his fellow-conductors, and the engine-drivers would
be drowned. We descended. A cheerless waste of ice stretched before
us; beyond, over the river, we could see the glint of the sun on the
brazen dome of a church in Atchinsk, with the twilight gathering in its
greyness behind. The half-finished bridge stood out on our right, gaunt
and spidery, and nothing around us but the eternal white of the snow.
Out came the passengers, a nondescript and heterogeneous crowd,
smothered in furs, and all looking like gigantic bales of wool. Down
the bank and out on to the ice of the river we went; moujiks jabbering,
Chinovniks hustling through the crowd, and we, more interested than
any, slowly progressing in order to see the effect the train would have
in its passage across the ice. A whistle sounded, then another, and
yet another. The engine snorted, puffed, snorted again, puffed three
or four times and got up way slowly, drew to the shelving bank and
laboriously descended on to the ice. There was a distinct crunch as it
did so, and another crunch when the first car rolled on; but gradually
the whole train descended, and, at a pace not exceeding five miles an
hour, moved across the frozen surface. As it passed us we felt the ice
quiver, and heard innumerable cracks, like the reports of pistols in
the distance; but the train got across the centre safely, spurted when
near the bank, climbed up, and was on _terra firma_ again.
As a novel piece of railway engineering, I think the passage of the
Chulim River deserves commendation. Naturally it was impossible to
nail the ties to the ice, but the Russian engineer had obviated this
difficulty by freezing them on, and kept them frozen on by continual
douches of water which was brought in buckets from a hole in the ice.
I do not know the exact weight of that train, but it must have been
considerably heavier than an ordinary English train, inasmuch as the
carriages are built on a much more solid plan than our own. What struck
me more than anything was the indifference which all the passengers,
except ourselves, displayed in the affair. The taciturnity and
nonchalance of the Russian becomes almost exasperating at times. Here,
in face of what was distinctly a novel piece of railway travelling,
there was no one with the exception of our four selves to pass a word
of commendation, condemnation, or admiration of the feat.
Five minutes later we rolled into Atchinsk, where three mortal hours
were spent in a station which was, metaphorically speaking, little
larger than a bandbox, and not half so comfortable.
Through the night on we went, toiling over mountain passes, through
deep glens, or in and out gigantic forest glades, but with that
eternal snow everywhere, with nothing around us which was inspiring or
inspiriting. No moon, but with glinting stars that shed a pale light
down upon a melancholy and deserted country. Morning broke, still we
clattered on, but thankful that we were nearing our journey’s end. In
a few hours we should reach Krasnoiarsk, and there the Trans-Siberian
Railway would end, and we should have to resort to the primitive method
of locomotion which Siberians have known for hundreds of years, and
which they still cling fondly to--the tarantass sledge.
In the early morning we were descending the slopes of the mountain
range towards the valley of the Yenesei. Our train, in spite of the
indifferently laid road, got up something like a speed at times,
although I must admit the effect was not one to inspire confidence.
Round narrow curves and over trestle bridges, high embankments, and
across deep, sullen gorges, down which latter the very snow looked
black and forbidding. It was a great time, then, when the conductor
came and intimated that in one hour we should arrive at our journey’s
end. We commenced packing our traps with feverish haste; unpacked them
again when we found that we wanted something; packed them up, and
unpacked, in a delightful mood, engendered by the thoughts of something
fresh in store. At length we descended into the valley of the Yenesei,
and soon observed, from the end windows of the corridor carriages, the
little white town of Krasnoiarsk away in the distance.
At the station we repeated our experience of Tomsk--with one stupefying
alteration. This was the presentation of a hotel card by a dirty
looking individual who said, in broken German, that he was an
interpreter. Could it be possible that here, right out in the wilds
of Siberia, we had struck some sort of civilization? An interpreter!
We questioned him eagerly. What sort of hotel was it that he owed
allegiance to?--meanwhile that clamorous drosky drivers, crowding
around us, expatiated at length upon the merits of their particular
horses.
More sledging and more bumping over the frost-bound roads. The station,
as in duty bound, was three miles from the town, and a brisk drive of
half an hour landed us into its main street.
I must confess, however, that my impressions upon arrival were
considerably better than they had been on landing at Tomsk. Krasnoiarsk
is smaller, but it is much cleaner, and its situation is one which
cannot fail to elicit admiration. The tall mountains rear up all
around it, and in the narrow cleft on a low belt of land, past which
the broad and majestic Yenesei has its course, Krasnoiarsk lies. With
the exception of the one opening in the cliffs the town is entirely
sheltered; thus it was not surprising to find the snow not nearly so
deep as we had found it in other parts of Siberia--in fact, on several
parts of the high street we found our sledges running on the brown
earth of the roadway--while the atmosphere was distinctly warmer than
we had experienced so far.
The hotel which we put up at was attached to the post-station, a long
low building, but surprisingly clean and well ordered in comparison
with other Siberian hotels which we had stayed at. We even found, when
on a voyage of discovery, a billiard-table in the basement, and great
was our amazement thereat. The proprietor of the hotel, who was a Jew
of the most Hebrew cast of countenance possible to conceive, busied
himself to a great extent. He got us food in an incredibly short space
of time, he did all that he could to assist us in our difficulties,
and he did something more--and that was to ingratiate himself into our
favour of his race.
It is freely stated that Krasnoiarsk will become in the space of a few
short years the most important city in all Siberia. At the present
time it is, like Tomsk, a town of merchants and gold-miners. It is
something more--it is a penal settlement. About eighty per cent. of the
population of Krasnoiarsk consists of exiles, and these include not
only the very lowest class of the peasantry, but some of the wealthiest
and most influential men of the town. In Siberia it holds something of
a black name on account of its enormous percentage of exiled criminals,
and I have heard it said that, so great is the bond between exile and
exile, that the inhabitant who is a native-born Siberian, and not the
descendant of a convict, is not only tabooed from the so-called society
of the town, but has a very bad time in commercial matters. I give the
following story for what it is worth, but it is related that a certain
merchant of Krasnoiarsk found such difficulty in doing business with
the inhabitants, in view of that bond of sympathy existing between
the exiles, that he determined to become one of their class. To this
end he journeyed to St. Petersburg, committed a crime, and was sent
to Siberia in chains. After doing a short term of imprisonment in the
Alexandrovsk prison at Irkutsk, he journeyed back to Krasnoiarsk,
recommenced his business, and got on famously. Lie or no lie, I saw
enough in my little stay in this penal settlement to convince me that,
however little honour there may be amongst thieves, there is a great
deal of sympathy.
[Illustration: KRASNOIARSK FROM THE RIVER.]
To Englishmen Krasnoiarsk will be interesting from the fact that it
is the point of debarkation for English steamers. A few years ago
Captain Wiggins, an explorer of Northern seas, conceived the idea of
forcing the passage of the Kara Sea to the mouth of the Yenesei River,
and then to proceed by stream over a thousand miles to Krasnoiarsk.
After many fruitless attempts he succeeded in his object, and to his
success was due the formation of the Siberian Trading Syndicate. The
Russian Government was approached, and in order to encourage foreign
enterprise in Siberia a special concession was given to the English
syndicate, which allowed them to carry goods viâ the Kara Sea and the
Yenesei River into the heart of Siberia, free of duty. At the time,
it was predicted that nothing could stop the gigantic success of the
enterprise, but bungling at home and an ignorance of the requirements
of the Siberian trader led to complications and vicissitudes. Goods
were sent out which were of no earthly use to the Siberians. Ships
came along loaded to the very decks with goods which are to this day
lying rotting or rusting on the banks of the Yenesei. Much money was
lost, but considerable experience gained. The company was reconstructed
again and again; but, hard on the heels of the enterprise, came the
Trans-Siberian Railway, and whatever chances the Kara Sea route to
Siberia may have had in the past, it is difficult to reconcile its
success in the future with the construction of railway communication
from the Baltic to the Pacific.
In this Siberian enterprise the name of Mr. Leyland Popham, a
well-known London financier, stands out prominently. He has spent many
thousands of pounds in the development of his hobby, and it is to be
regretted that with special and unheard of concessions to foreigners
in Siberia his enterprise should not have borne better fruit. It
only exemplifies, however, the difficulty which all foreigners must
experience in trading with a country so different in every respect to
Europe.
The conditions of Siberia, it should always be remembered, are
diametrically opposed to those of the Western states; but it is a
difficult matter to convince the stay-at-homes of this fact, that
they are not dealing with a civilized country, but one which is even
more barbarous and primitive than the most barbarous and primitive
of the British colonies. It is a country where prejudice ranks above
everything, and where it is almost impossible to convince. The
Siberian is not the sort of man who will accept for gospel truth, by
means of an advertisement, that such and such a pick, or such and such
a machine, are better than the implements which his grandfather used.
What he wants you to do is to go there, demonstrate by actual working
that your instrument _is_ better than his, and then he will buy. This
feeling has contributed more to the failure of foreign enterprise in
Russia than many people are prone to admit.
Krasnoiarsk is also famous in connection with the Chinese tea trade.
The tea traffic of Russia, as my readers are perhaps aware, is one of
enormous proportions, and the Chinese tea which travels overland from
the fertile valleys south of the Great Wall, over the Gobi Desert,
through Urga, Kiakta, and Irkutsk, is handled in its commercial sense
by the great tea-merchants of Krasnoiarsk. Most of this traffic occurs
during the winter, when the frozen roads offer greater facilities
for travel than during summer, when mud, sand, and deep dust makes
travelling on the post-roads an extremely difficult undertaking. From
the time when the snow fairly settles on the high-road, some time in
October, until the break up in April, the whole road over the desert
south of Lake Baikal, and the Yeneseik Mountains, is one line of tea
caravans. It is sent in its original bales by the Chinese grower, but
in Krasnoiarsk is redistributed to the various centres of the Empire.
Many men have made fortunes out of the tea trade, which soon became
almost a monopoly, and how this came about forms the subject of an
interesting story.
Some forty years ago a certain merchant in Krasnoiarsk, who handled
an enormous amount of Chinese tea, conceived the rather novel idea,
at least to Siberians, of insuring his caravans. This was in the time
when escaped prisoners, brigands, cut-throats, and general desperadoes
thronged the high-road between Irkutsk and Krasnoiarsk, and as the
caravans, each one consisting of some forty to fifty sledges, were
in the charge of only two men to each caravan, there was considerable
danger of not only losing the tea but also the horses. Our wily
tea-trader, however, went even one better than the insurance scheme
could give him. He actually employed thieves to stop his own caravans
and steal his own tea. The stolen tea the hired thieves brought along
to him by a circuitous route, and was sold by him _sub rosâ_, while he
pocketed the insurance indemnity which the then guileless companies
paid up with a liberal hand. By such methods as these, this particular
tea-trader grew up in affluence, and, being in a land where swindling
was only part and parcel of the general condition of things, when
the bubble burst things were hushed up, and he went on his career
smilingly, a rich man and an independent. Being an exile, however, and
forbidden to leave Siberia for life, his wealth availed him little,
for it could not be spent beyond the confines of his home. Still,
the exercise of his capital was so great that in the few years of
his trading he had been able to crush all formidable opposition, and
could not only supply all markets of Siberia and European Russia at a
cheaper rate than any other trader, but he was able to purchase from
the Chinese grower a class of tea which could not be rivalled. Whether
the Government was reluctant to make a scandal of his pecadilloes, or
preferred to let things slide in consideration of the excellent tea
with which this trader supplied the community it is difficult to say,
but it only constitutes one of those peculiarities of Russian customs
which are for ever offering problems to he who cares to think.
CHAPTER IX.
KRASNOIARSK.
We had now arrived at the terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway--the
terminus so far as the early spring of 1897 was concerned. The road, we
understood, would be completed as far as Kansk by May, to Nijniudinsk
by the autumn, and to Irkutsk, the capital of Siberia, by the spring of
1898. Our journey from Krasnoiarsk was due south, towards the Syansk
Mountains, and in order to cover the eight hundred odd miles which
separated us from our goal, we had perforce to fall back upon the
original Siberian method of locomotion, the troika sledge.
Pausing here, as we did, for several days, in order to complete our
arrangements for that long and tedious journey, it may not be out of
place to present a few facts with regard to the construction of the
great Siberian railroad, an enterprise which is bound in future years
to become a very important factor in the commerce of Asia. There are
many political writers who assert that the great scheme covering the
idea of a railway across Siberia was one of strategy. Considering the
wealth of her Asiatic provinces, the Pacific littoral, and the Chinese
border, and which have ever been poorly protected, and in the hope of
bringing her Asiatic possessions into closer touch with Europe, Russia
had looked at the matter in a calm and far-seeing light. Russians
themselves, however, argue otherwise. They say that the main idea
which dominated the scheme was commercial enterprise. For very many
years, while Siberia has been growing in richness, and has supplied the
mother-country with most of its commercial products, that country has
been, even to Russians themselves, a land of mystery. It was the late
Emperor Alexander’s idea to construct the line--he was an imperialist
if ever one sat upon the throne of Russia. His predecessors, however,
if they had not shamefully neglected their Asiatic possessions, had
at least treated them with indifference. Siberia has supplied for
many years the finest furs to Moscow and St. Petersburg, the imperial
coffers have been loaded with Siberian gold, and the finest stones
have been sent from Siberia to Russia. There was the great Chinese
tea trade passing through its heart, there was a demand all over that
vast country for European goods, and yet there was no better means of
sending them, or of bringing goods from Siberia itself, than by way
of cumbersome and completely out-of-date caravans such as had toiled
across those plains back in the dark ages.
The scheme of the Siberian railroad was one which recent political
movements have had the effect of altering considerably. Starting from
Chelabinsk, the line goes straight across the Tartar and Barabinski
steppes, through the towns of Kurgan, Petropavlovsk, Omsk, Kainsk,
to Kreveschokovo, crossing the important rivers of the Tobol, Ishim,
and Irtish on its road. This section of the line is no less than 1320
versts long. I have already alluded to the reason why the railway,
instead of describing a northerly course and taking in the town of
Tomsk, went straight ahead to Atchinsk and Krasnoiarsk. After crossing
the Obi, the line is continued to Atchinsk, 551 versts further on,
crossing the rivers Tom and Chulim; then to Krasnoiarsk, another 169
versts; and after that Irkutsk, 1005 versts from the last-named town.
So far, and in spite of the rather mountainous country between the
Obi River and Lake Baikal, the laying of the line, it was considered,
would not offer many difficulties to the engineer. The further project
is to continue the line round the southern shore of the Baikal as far
as Mysofsk, but here it is estimated tremendous difficulties will
have to be encountered, for the line is to pass along a valley which
is frequently inundated, and will necessitate the building of huge
embankments. The valley of the Irkut is to be followed as far as the
slopes of the Sirkisinsk Mountains, where it is to pass through the
first tunnel constructed. In fact, the whole of that portion of the
line running around the Baikal offers tremendous difficulties to the
engineer--marshy grounds, hard rock, and numerous rushing streams
having to be encountered. From here the line, according to the original
plan, was to follow the course of the Selenga, which river it was
to cross on a trestle bridge. Thence through a country of extreme
mountainous character, including the Yablonoi chain, to the watershed
of the Lena and Amoor, the course of the railway was one which only the
most scientific railway engineers in the world would care to tackle.
Nearing Stretinsk the line would be close to the Chinese border, which
it was to follow closely, by the banks of the Amoor and the Ussuri,
until it emerged from the mountains on to the coast and terminated at
Vladivostock.
The railway was commenced at both ends, and the Vladivostock station
was the first to be completed. A glance at the map will show that
from Vladivostock the railway had to take an extreme northward
course, in order to follow the Manchurian border, and at the time
many of those interested in the enterprise looked longingly at that
portion of Manchuria which alone obstructed a straight run across a
flat and easily engineered country from Stretinsk to the coast. The
Chino-Japanese War, and the political complications with Russia which
occurred afterwards, came, for the latter country at any rate, at a
most opportune time, and the result now is that the railway, instead of
going to Vladivostock, as was the original intention, will now depart
from the course at first laid down, and will cut into Manchuria and
drive a straight course down to the Pacific coast at Port Arthur.
The save which will be effected in this later development of the
Trans-Siberian Railway plan can only be appreciated when it is said
that the original line from Stretinsk to Vladivostock would offer
almost precisely similar difficulties to the engineer as those which
the constructors of the Union Pacific Railroad met with, and that the
new project involves nothing more terrible than laying the line on
what is practically a hard, sandy desert. On top of this political
stratagem comes the important fact that by cutting right into the heart
of Chinese tributary states the Trans-Siberian Railway must and will
absorb the bulk of the Chinese tea trade. As an instance of what this
tea trade really means, it is as well to mention that while the greater
portion of it heretofore has been carried by camel caravan across the
Gobi Desert and through the heart of Siberia to Russia, enterprising
traders have found that even a cheaper way to get tea into Russia
has been to ship at Shanghai, and then by the Colombo, Suez, and
Mediterranean route into the English Channel, trans-ship from here into
the steamers for the Arctic seas, and thence by the Kara Sea route down
into the centre of Siberia through the Yenesei River to Krasnoiarsk.
From end to end the line will be about seven thousand versts--4666
miles--but the construction of the main line itself does not
complete the whole enterprise, which will be further increased by
the development of the river traffic, in order to bring towns far
inland in direct steamboat communication with the railway. Wharves and
quays are to be built, branch lines sent out, and, in fact, as time
progresses, the whole scheme is one ambitious enough to bring all the
most important towns in Siberia into direct railway communication with
the Western world. Of the colonization value of the railway I have
already spoken. Siberia as a country is far richer agriculturally, and
in many other respects, than is European Russia, and although it will
take time to convince the somewhat slothful Russian that Siberia is
not all so black as it has been painted, the outlook is one decidedly
of promise. As an earnest of the Government’s endeavours to popularize
this land so little known, foreign traders and travellers are offered
privileges which one would scarcely dream of in connection with a
country which heretofore has seemed unapproachable. For travellers, as
a matter of fact, the Siberian Railway will offer many advantages. The
zone system of railway travelling, which originated in Hungary, is in
force throughout Russia, and at the present time it is possible to buy
a first-class railway ticket at the port of Riga, on the Baltic coast,
to Krasnoiarsk, right in the centre of Siberia, for the sum of £5
15_s._ This price is in such violent contrast to the excessive charges
for horses under the older system of Siberian travelling that it surely
cannot fail to have a very great effect upon the passenger traffic of
Siberia in future years.
Having now done with the railway, we four exiles had perforce to turn
our attention and our thoughts towards horses and sledges. The first
thing to do was to buy sledges, and the next to hire horses. We had
been told that, owing to the competition offered by the railway, we
should find sledges cheap, especially in Krasnoiarsk. A decent sledge,
new, will cost anything from two hundred to three hundred roubles; but
this was not anything like the price which we intended to pay.
Realizing the fact that we were foreigners, with but a scanty knowledge
of Russian, we were prepared to be fleeced a bit; but thanks to the
good offices of our Jewish landlord, we got through the ordeal of
sledge-buying to our complete satisfaction. The landlord knew a man who
had a sledge to sell. I saw his little eyes twinkle with cupidity when
we broached the subject of sledge-buying to him. He asked how much we
were prepared to spend on the sledges. I casually mentioned twenty-five
roubles. He raised his hands in horror. Twenty-five roubles! Why,
that would not purchase the runners! But we had a scheme which brought
him to the business-like point, and that was to offer him a commission
on the purchase, provided we were present, so that he should have no
chance of making any ulterior arrangement with the seller. We arranged
the commission on a sliding scale, so based that for every rouble he
saved us so many more kopecks commission for him. Being shrewd, he
saw the force of our argument, and I must say that in the subsequent
proceedings he behaved as honestly as we could desire.
We drove down to his friend, where, under a shed, the sledge for sale
was frozen hard and fast to the ground. We called forth the proprietor
and demanded its price.
“A hundred roubles.”
Our Jewish friend spat vigorously on the ground, called the other a
moujik and a thief and several other hard names.
“A hundred roubles! Preposterous!” The foreigners would not dream of
paying more than ten. There were plenty of other sledges in the town:
and, in fact, if he did not want to sell, why the Jew himself, in
commiseration for the foreigners, would lend them his own sledges!
This brought the proprietor down to seventy-five roubles. More spitting
and more ejaculations on the part of the Jew.
At a signal we all walked towards the gate and our drosky. The
proprietor ambled after us.
“Fifty roubles, then,” said he.
“Fifteen roubles!” said the Jew.
“It is the only sledge I have,” cried the other, raising both his hands
in mock supplication. “If you take it from me I shall have to walk, for
I must go to Irkutsk next week. There, there, it is a lovely sledge.
Look at the runners, sound and bright as on the day they were put in.
The body of the sledge too, roomy and comfortable; two gentlemen can
sleep here day and night, if they wish. Come now, forty-five roubles.”
“Twenty roubles,” cried the Jew, with his foot on the step of the
drosky.
“Bah!” cried the other, “you would rob me. Go your way.”
He slammed the gate at us, and we all made as if to get into the
drosky. But the Jew, however, motioned to us to wait for a moment;
and then the gate opened, and the hairy face of the sledge-proprietor
appeared. “Forty roubles,” he cried in a sort of half howl.
“Twenty-five,” responded the Jew.
“Not a kopeck less,” said the owner.
“Then drive on, isvostchik,” commanded the Jew.
The isvostchik struck the horse with the end of his reins; but the gate
of the moujik’s hut opened, and out the sledge-proprietor dashed.
“Thirty-five roubles.”
“Twenty-six.”
“Bah! you would rob me; say thirty.”
“Not a kopeck more than twenty-seven.”
“Twenty-seven, very well; but I must have ten kopecks for vodki.”
Out of the drosky we bundled again into the yard; inspected the sledge,
paid twenty-seven roubles for it, and ten kopecks for vodki; found the
first three men we could in the street, and gave them a few kopecks to
run the sledge round to the hotel, and the bargain was completed.
Another sledge was purchased with precisely similar proceedings, but
I must confess that the whole business, irrespective of the undoubted
fact that our Jewish friend pocketed a good round sum on the deal,
turned out much cheaper than we had expected.
The next thing was to purchase our store of provisions, which was to
last something like seven days; for during our passage of the Yenesei
River as far as Minusinsk, the villages would be few and far between,
and even in these villages the traveller would fare badly if he wanted
food. The main post-road to Minusinsk was from Atchinsk, but the river
road, we had been told, was vastly preferable to the post-road, in
spite of the discomfort which would be experienced in having to travel
long distances between villages. Nor could we have the assistance of
the Government post-horses, and should have to rely upon what horses
we could hire along the route in order to forward our journey. Why we
had been advised to take the river route I cannot tell. I can only
say that as it turned out it was a hundred per cent. dearer, two days
slower, and a hundred times more uncomfortable than if we had taken
the regular post-road through Atchinsk. But this fact was not brought
home to us until the return journey was made and the regular method of
communication resorted to.
The packing of a sledge is a task which only the experienced Siberian
traveller should undertake. The body of the vehicle almost touches
the ground, and it is in the body that all the stores are placed;
careful packing with hay and straw, canvas and rope, ensuring a
certain amount of rigidity. The goods are packed as nearly level as
possible, and on the top are thrown heaps of straw, then the pillows,
rugs, and furs of the traveller, who, poor fellow, is compelled, owing
to the general flatness of the vehicle, to assume, during the whole
of his journey, a more or less recumbent attitude. At the first set
off, and when, smothered in our furs, we laid down in our sledges,
everything seemed very jolly and comfortable, and I am sure we all
looked forward with much avidity to our long sledge ride. It was after
two days of it, however, when, what with the packages shifting and our
cramped positions, we began to feel that, wretched as had been the
accommodation of the Siberian railroad trains, one could at least move
about in them with some degree of freedom.
It was afternoon before we were prepared to start on the first stage
of the journey. The nearest village was fifty versts away, and a
Krasnoiarsk moujik had guaranteed to take us there for the sum of
eight roubles per sledge. Hours after the time appointed, he turned up
with his six horses, a douga with its jangling bells hanging over each
shoulder, a bottle of vodki under his arm, and a wooden pipe tucked
between his teeth. Night was already falling, and we were anxious to
be off, as we had no desire to have the first stage of our sledging
accomplished in the dark. The leisurely manner in which this particular
yemshik went about his business exasperated us, and it was already dark
before we were able to scramble in, tuck ourselves in our furs, shake
hands with the hotel proprietor, and give the signal to start.
[Illustration: THE YENESEI RAPIDS--SUMMER.]
And the start was made. The yemshik cracked his knout, gave vent to a
piercing scream, followed it up by a whoop, and then the horses dashed
forward as if they were pursued by demons. We went out of the yard of
the hotel in a sort of a side slide, which brought us up against a
wooden lamp-post on the opposite side of the road with a tremendous
jerk. Then down the road we careered; helter-skelter, bells
jangling, and yemshiks shouting. Round a turn, under a wooden archway,
erected to commemorate the visit of the Czarevitch; and then, with a
plunge and a vision of flying snow from horses’ feet, a cloud of steam
from horses’ nostrils, and with a sort of hold-on-or-be-thrown-out
feeling permeating us, we went down the slope of the river-bank, out
upon the glassy ice, with the whole broad expanse of the frozen Yenesei
before us.
CHAPTER X.
DOWN THE YENESEI.
Night had already come on, but away behind us we could see the few
pale lemon-coloured rays betokening the departure of the sun to other
climes. Before us the river stretched, a great white mass with a low
horizon and a mist beyond. We had got into a narrow cleft of the
roadway, which zig-zagged in and out of gaunt pieces of ice, still and
ghostly in the gloom.
Like the surface of the Obi, that of the Yenesei was all broken,
jagged, and ragged, and the wonder was to me, as we passed swiftly over
the bed of snow which concealed the ice beneath, how, in the first
instance, the Siberian yemshiks had been able to make a passage over
such a tumbled surface. The roadway was extremely rough, and we had not
long been travelling before we began to feel how uneven was our bed,
and how sharp were the corners of the boxes and bundles which made that
up, comfortable indeed as it had seemed at the moment of setting out.
But there was a solemnity about it all which could not fail to make
the experience one to inspire thought. The front of the sledge was
open, but, in spite of the still air which reigned around, the speed
of the horses caused a draught which sent quite a cutting wind in our
faces, to leave congealations of frost on eyebrows, eyelashes, and
beards. Wrapped up almost to our eyes in furs, and with such an amount
of rugs on top of us that it was quite impossible to move, we did not,
at least for the first hour or so, feel the cold. But how cold it was
one could realize when looking out, with blinking eyes, at the expanse
beyond; or, closer in, to the yemshik, whose burly figure was limned
against the white and yet whose clothing was covered with hairs of
frost; or upon the horses at the side, whose backs and whose legs were
white. Beyond the jangle of those douga bells, beyond the crack of the
yemshik’s knout, beyond the occasional wailing cry which he gave vent
to in order to encourage his willing steeds, or beyond the crunch of
the runners on the snow, or the patter of the hoofs when the snow was
left for some expanse of bare ice, there was no sound to be heard.
Dimly to the right and the left we could see the banks of the river,
simply mounds rising above the surface. And thus on we went; the horses
ever at a gallop, the yemshik sitting on one side of the sledge, feet
dangling almost beneath the runners, whip trailing idly in the snow,
head bowed, and face smothered in his sheepskin pelisse. Nothing to
break the monotony of it all, unless it were sleep. Behind us every now
and again, when some turn in the roadway brought us round, we could
hear the tinkle of the bells of our companions’ troika. Occasionally,
as if only to break the awful solitude which seemed to fill the very
air, one or the other of us would shout, and shout back; occasions
which called forth no resentment on the part of the yemshik, in spite
of the fact that every shout made the horses go faster.
What a ride that was! My companion Gaskell sought slumber; but I,
filled with the mood of reflection, could only sit and gaze upon--what?
the nothingness around me! To listen to the musical clanging of the
bells, to the hoof-beats of the horses, and to wonder what in the name
of Heaven the yemshik was talking about.
For he had a peculiar way, this yemshik. The little I could catch of
his talk referred to doves and pigs. He would address the starboard
horse in the most affectionate terms, and a second later would bring
his long knout with a swishing crack above the head of the beast to
port, and hurl terrible invectives at it; meanwhile that the equine
representative in the centre went along with great swinging strides,
loaded down, as it seemed, with the great douga, and undoubtedly
deafened with the noise of the bells around his ears.
Minutes went into hours, but there was no cessation in the pace; there
was no alteration in the surroundings, unless it was that with the
advent of the stars things became clearer and more distinct. Thus I
could see on either side the greenish blue ice which stood up like
points of rock all around us, and I could more distinctly perceive the
rugged banks of the river which now began to tower on either side.
Once, when we had travelled some two hours out of Krasnoiarsk, we burst
suddenly on a plain of ice uncovered by snow, and over whose clear
surface the horses scrambled at a mad pace, and the runners swished as
a fast steamer would through water. Passing over such a surface as this
could be compared to nothing so much as riding in a boat, for the ice
beneath was black, and glittered like still water. But we were soon
over that expanse, swept clean as it had been by blustering winds,
and in among the hummocky ice again, on the bed of snow; ever tearing
onward, the yemshik ever talking, the whip occasionally cracking, a
periodical shout from our comrades, a far-off tinkle of the bells of
their sledge, and the more clamorous tones of our own.
Three hours of this, and I saw the driver making a bee-line for the
bank. As he approached nearer and nearer, he urged his horses to faster
pace, stood up on the seat, shouted and gesticulated as a madman would;
while his little horses tugged and strained at the traces, galloping
like fury all the time, clouds of steam pouring from their nostrils
and rising above their heads, and with every hair upon their bodies
coated with white ice. The bank was reached, a short sharp clatter over
the bare ice by the side, and then up the slope at a swinging pace,
round the corner, and, almost before I knew it, we had passed a house,
another, and then another, all black and sombre in this darkness. One
more corner, and we swung into a street; not a light to be seen, not
a sign of life; still on at that wild gallop, until, with a jerk and
a huge side-slip, we pulled up before a small hut, which, to say the
least, looked anything but hospitable.
“First station,” cried the yemshik, as he laboriously descended from
his seat and went round to pick the ice from the nostrils of his
horses. “First station, barins. Please go in and have the samovar.”
Out we bundled. The second troika had arrived, and out _they_ bundled.
We asked each other what we all thought about it, and the general
verdict was one of approval. Novelty is a great thing, and while
variety is the spice of life, how could any one grumble, spite of hard
corners and that biting cold?
The moujik’s hut which we were bidden to enter was graced with one
of the smallest doorways I have ever seen. It was certainly not more
than four feet high. There was much banging of heads in order to get
through, more banging in ascending a short flight of wooden stairs
which led us into a small corridor, unlighted, but smelling very badly.
By diligent groping, one of us managed to find the handle of a door,
which door, owing to the enormous amount of padding on its edges,
persistently refused to open until two of us had exerted our strength
upon it, although it was no bigger than the one which gave entrance to
the passage.
A burst of light and a cloud of steam preceded our entrance. Bending
low we entered the single room of the moujik, a room not more than
six feet high, and which poor Scawell, who was tall enough to be
a Lifeguardsman, found to be particularly inconvenient. It was a
veritable moujik’s apartment, and one which was so truly Russian that
it deserves more than passing description.
As we entered, it was to perceive on one side a huge brick stove, which
gave off a fierce heat, and upon the top of which the lord and master
of the house reposed in slumber. A bench, in no wise dissimilar to the
tap-room benches of the English public-house, occupied another side.
Depending from the ceiling upon the end of a long birch pole was a
curious arrangement, which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be a
cradle. This was simply a shallow wooden dish, supported at each end
by string, terminating in a knot tied upon the end of a rope, which
in turn was attached to the birch pole. Little curtains hung on the
rope and surrounded the peacefully sleeping infant in the dish, the
limber pole above giving this primitive cradle a gentle motion, highly
calculated to soothe the slumber of the moujik’s baby.
But the heat--pouf! it was terrible. Coming in as we had from that
piercing cold right into a perfect hothouse, our beards and eyelashes
thawed in a moment, and the water streamed down our faces. There was a
smell of furs and skins, which did not improve the atmosphere. A little
old woman was sleeping on the bench in one corner; a younger woman, in
short red petticoat, a red shawl around her head, and a thin cotton
blouse open at the front and exposing her whole bust, and with bare
feet, had busied herself on our entry. Without signal or asking she had
put some pieces of paper and sticks in the samovar and was engaged in
lighting it.
Such is the way of the Siberian traveller. This was no post-station--it
was simply a peasant’s hut; but it was the custom of travellers to
enter unannounced, uninvited, any house in a village and demand
accommodation.
It was while consuming the contents of the samovar, and some food which
we had brought with us, that our yemshik, who by some manner of means
had got rid of the thick coating of ice which covered his features on
our arrival, entered, and, after laboriously crossing himself before
the small ikon in the corner of the hut, requested to know if it was
the wish of their excellencies to proceed to the next stage that night,
or to remain until day broke. Anxious to get on, we plumped for
proceeding without delay; and the yemshik departed in his search for
horses.
We now began to see the folly of not having taken the main post-road,
for it was some three hours before six horses could be found in that
village to take us on to the next stage; even then it was only by
paying exorbitant prices, and after much harangue with half a dozen
sturdy and extremely vociferous moujiks, who crowded heavily into the
chamber, that we were able to get horses at all.
Looking back at that scene--that tiny, low-pitched room; my lord of
the house slumbering comfortably on top of the stove; the bare floor;
those walls constructed of unplaned tree-trunks; the tiny windows; the
bench with its ornament of a steaming samovar; the swinging cradle,
and the general primitiveness of everything--it is hard to realize it
all occurred so short a time ago. The remembrance comes vivid of the
patient, yet indescribable look of the woman, her wondering eyes at
our, to her, incomprehensible tongue. But with the discomfort of it all
worn off by the swift hand of time, one comes to almost appreciate its
primeval originality.
We paid a few kopecks for the accommodation we had had. The yemshik
received his roubles and a few kopecks besides, which is humorously
called “tea money” in Siberia, although it is safe to say it is always
spent in vodki. Then off we went again.
A fleeting vision of village huts; down the bank and out upon the river
once more; a different yemshik, but with precisely similar methods
and mannerisms as characterized our first. Another three hours of it,
during which I tried to snatch a little sleep; only to be awakened at
intervals when the runners of the sledge would strike some obstruction,
and force the corner of some more than particularly hard box into my
ribs. Well into the night the second stage was reached; more horses
procured, then on we went again, obtaining spells of sleep of ten
minutes to a quarter of an hour’s duration, and thus we managed to
get through the night. But, as the grey morning began to creep over
the hilltops ahead of us, it was cold, weary, and sore that we were.
In spite of our heavy clothing it had been an utter impossibility to
keep out the cold, for it attacked us in all directions, and it was
only by liberal doses of cognac that we seemed to manage to keep our
circulation going at all.
It was a sublime sight to see the sun rise over the frosted peaks
ahead, while the hummocky ice around assumed all the colours of the
rainbow. As the sun’s rays became stronger, they tinged in glowing
colours the hillsides, which now reared themselves up from the very
banks of the river. We could perceive great stalactites of ice
depending from rocks, and which were, in summer, cascades. The huge
pieces of ice which crowded in on all sides of us, forming the surface
of the river, at times assumed enormous proportions and most grotesque
designs. Sometimes they would tower right above, or would appear as
mounds; piece piled upon piece until they looked like small pyramids.
The banks, too, were heaped with these broken lumps, not one of them
less than three to four feet in thickness. When the sun finally burst
over the hilltops it was a magnificent spectacle which met our gaze
down that wide river, all hemmed in as it was by beetling rocks. One
could realize then what this river was in summer; a great rushing
waterway, passing through scenery majestic in its grandeur, but now
with its water held tight and immovable in the grasp of the ice king.
CHAPTER XI.
AN EXCITING ADVENTURE.
For two days and nights we travelled thus, and, as we progressed up the
river towards the mountain ranges, the scenery around became extremely
grand and wild, the banks occasionally crowding into a narrow gorge,
with the cliff-sides of black slate and sandstone rearing themselves
up in perpendicular walls for many hundreds of feet. Villages became
few and far between, and more primitive, so that occasionally we were
compelled to remain in some woodman’s hut for hours at a stretch,
awaiting as patiently as possible the arrival of fresh horses. Nor did
the surface of the river road improve, for the traffic became less
and the track frequently ran through virgin snow. Four days out of
Krasnoiarsk the cliffs on either side of the river road subsided, and
we passed into the steppe of Minusinsk. This steppe is one of the most
peculiar in Siberia, situated as it is at the bottom of a circle of
huge mountains, through which the Yenesei runs.
It was while traversing this region that we experienced a sensational
incident which served considerably to break the monotony of the
journey. At a small village, some one hundred miles north of Minusinsk,
we had chartered six sorry-looking steeds to drag us on to the next
stage. It was a case of taking them or nothing, and, to add to the
difficulties of the situation, the yemshik who was to drive the first
troika, containing Gaskell and myself, was hopelessly drunk at the
start. The horses, it was clear, had been wretchedly kept, two of them
being nothing but skin and bone; still, we had seen some wretched
specimens of equine prowess so far, and did not pass much comment.
It was night when we started--a night so black that the darkness could
almost be felt. The driver, maudling and hiccoughing, had been helped
to his perch by some of the villagers, and we set off along the narrow
roadway at the usual gallop, which, however, owing to the inferiority
of the horses, soon dwindled down into a mere shuffle through the
snow. We had gone to sleep, and it must have been some hours after our
departure from the village when Gaskell awakened me and said he thought
something was the matter.
Looking out through the tarpaulin of the sledge, we could see nothing
but blackness around, with the exception of the thin light thrown up
from the snow. The sledge was at a standstill, and our shouts to the
yemshik brought forth no response.
Where were our companions?
I bundled out of the sledge, feeling at the same time so numbed that
it was with difficulty I could move. I shouted when I got out, in the
hope of attracting our companions; but no response came. I felt along
the sledge, thinking that perhaps the driver, drunk, had gone to sleep
and allowed his horses to wander, and as I went, sunk up to my knees in
the deep fleecy snow.
The driver’s perch was empty; and just then I stumbled over one of the
horses, which was lying buried up to its neck in the snow. Gaskell
joined me, and at once the full horror of our situation burst upon us.
It was clear that the driver had fallen from his seat, and that the
horses, left to themselves, had wandered off the track at their own
sweet will.
We had in the sledge a bicycle lantern which had been brought with us
from England. This we lit, and by its feeble light took in as much as
we could of the situation. The runners of the sledge were completely
buried in deep snow; the horses were likewise stuck fast; and a closer
inspection showed one of them to be dead--literally frozen to death.
How were we to get out of the difficulty? Gaskell suggested shouting
for our companions: but that was little use. The second troika had
probably gone straight ahead on the track, and we had no means of
knowing how far off it we were, and there was no telling how soon the
other horses, sorry animals that they were, would survive the piercing
cold and their inertion.
A glance at the watch showed us that it was three o’clock, and another
five hours must elapse before dawn would appear. What to do was at
first difficult to decide. To wander off in search of assistance was
not to be thought of, as we had no means of telling in which direction
the horses had wandered--whether to the north or the south bank of the
river. We made a short circuit of the sledge, but nowhere could we find
traces of ice. To go forward seemed impossible, and yet to remain as we
were was equally risky. Food and drink we had with us, fortunately; but
with no means of knowing where we were, it was impossible to tell how
long it might be before we could get succour.
There was, however, just one way out of the difficulty, and that was
to retrace on the marks made by the sledge runners, if that could be
done with two horses. This was the plan decided upon. We cut the dead
horse adrift, and, using some of the spare rope as whips, we stood on
either side of the living, and lashed them until our arms ached. The
poor beasts were nearly succumbing. They lay flat on their stomachs,
nibbling at the snow, and our kicks and blows for a time seemed to have
no more effect upon them than if they were made of wood. At length,
however, we succeeded in getting them to move. We helped by pushing the
sledge, and gradually got it round into the track. Then, step by step,
with much floundering and many falls, we began to retrace our way.
All this in a pitch darkness, in a raw cold that pierced us, and in
momentary expectation of one or the other or both the horses dropping
dead.
An hour of this sort of work brought us to the river-bank, and here
we were so exhausted that we were compelled to rest a few moments,
while the horses, with drooping heads and trembling frames, looked fit
to fall. To have arrived at the river was at any rate something of a
blessing, but how to get on the road again was another difficulty; for
on the river surface we could trace no sign of the sledge runners,
while the jagged pieces of ice which stuck up all around made forward
progress look impossible. The only way out of it was for one of us to
go across the river in order to discover the road.
This duty Gaskell took on. He carried the lantern with him, and I was
to show the whereabouts of the sledge after his departure by signals
with lighted matches. He disappeared into the darkness, but the
occasional flash of his lantern as he crawled over the hummocks showed
me in his direction. Across the river he went, the spark of light
growing fainter and fainter as he progressed, ultimately disappearing
altogether, and I was left alone in that vast solitude, in the middle
of the night, with no sound but the heavy breathing of my two exhausted
horses or the just faintly perceptible rumble of the river beneath the
ice.
Five minutes, ten minutes passed, and then a shout was wafted to my
waiting ears on the cold air. I shouted in reply, and saw the faint
glint of Gaskell’s light away in the distance. He was coming round by
a circuitous route, and in a quarter of an hour rejoined me, with the
welcome intelligence that by following the bank of the river for a
short distance a gap in the hummocks led to the road.
The work it was to get those poor tired horses to start again! It was
useless to show mercy, for it was clear that they could not last out
much longer. Our compass told us which was the direction to follow,
and once having gained the track we set off as hard as we could get
the horses to go, both of us on the seat, alternately shouting and
whipping.
What relief we both experienced when, around a bend in the river, we
saw a sparkle of light away up on the left bank! I got out the bicycle
lantern, lit it, and waved it in the air. Then on the faint breeze came
the sound of a cry. Some one was evidently looking out for us, and we
urged our horses to their topmost pace. Another shout, and yet another,
and presently we distinguished the voices of Scawell and Asprey. Ten
minutes later we struggled up the bank of the river almost into the
arms of our comrades, who had been anxiously awaiting our arrival.
[Illustration: ON THE YENESEI--SUMMER.]
Judge of our astonishment when we learned that they had had an almost
similar experience to our own. They had been travelling behind us,
and not four versts out of the village from which we had started one
of their side horses dropped dead, was cut away, and the journey
resumed with the two remaining horses. But their sledge being heavy
they could not travel at more than a walking pace, and their anxiety
can be imagined when, on arrival at the village, they found that
we were absent and nothing had been heard of us. In this part of the
country, where murder and robbery are of frequent occurrence, all
sorts of surmises and conjectures may be aroused; but, safe out of the
difficulty, we had no mood now but to give our first thoughts to the
fate of the yemshik. It was obvious that the poor fellow must have
dropped asleep and fallen off his box. Where and when it was impossible
to say, and his fate seemed as good as sealed, for in that terrible
cold, hardened Siberian though he might be, he could scarcely survive
the inevitable.
One thing was remarkable, and that was the indifference which the
villagers and his brother yemshik displayed regarding his fate. We were
anxious to organize a search-party, but none of them evinced any great
willingness to enter upon the expedition. He would be sure to turn up,
they said; why bother? If he had liked to make a beast of himself and
fall from his sledge, that was surely his look out! No self-respecting
yemshik ought to do such a thing as that. Our arguments had little
avail, and, I confess it with shame, none of us four felt called upon
to undertake the task on our own responsibility, even if we had horses
with which to perform the task.
Life is cheap in Siberia! We had already heard so much of men being
frozen to death, of murders, and of general carelessness in regard to
human life, that even we, I fancy, were growing somewhat callous, and
we did what Nature called for first, and that was to sleep. We were
awake with daylight, prepared to continue our travelling, when our
inquiries regarding the fate of the yemshik revealed the fact that a
couple of men had gone down the road in order to find him; and we were
fain to leave the matter at that.
Fresh horses being engaged, we resumed our journey, and that night
galloped into the town of Minusinsk, the last township north of the
Chinese border. There was no inn or hotel at Minusinsk, but our
yemshik had a friend whose practice it was to put up travellers for
the night; so we drove immediately to the house, in order to obtain
its shelter and comfort, however poor that might be. To our delight
the house turned out to be superior, if anything, to the hotels which
we had seen so far in Siberia. It was at least roomy and clean, and
was kept by a Livland exile, who spoke German. We had the experience
of a meal of cutlets and white bread, washed down with a flagon of red
Caucasian wine. What matter if we did sleep on the bare boards, or
that the only illumination we had was by means of candles which wanted
perpetual snuffing! To what we had been accustomed during the past
few days on the river, the exile’s house in Minusinsk was a veritable
palace. We slept, and slept soundly; awoke and had our samovar, more
white bread, and some eggs. We made a tour of the town, our exit into
the street being signalized by the appearance of a Chinaman on the
opposite side removing the shutters of a tea-house. It was a glimpse
of the Oriental which had a significance for us--a hint that we were
close upon the borders of another land. Bad as were the Russian facias
to decipher, they were easy compared to the numerous hieroglyphics in
Chinese which we now occasionally stumbled across in our perambulations
of Minusinsk.
There was not much to be seen in the town. It was a mere huddle of
one-story frame-houses, with a rather fine church and a barracks--for
Minusinsk was the depôt for the Cossacks used in the control of the
Altai gold-mining system. There was a bank also, merely a hut in
itself, but sufficient for our purposes, and here we changed some of
our big paper money into small silver pieces, for south of Minusinsk we
were to go into a country which was almost uninhabited.
As an illustration of the manner in which the Russian officials keep
watch over all strangers in the vast dominions of the Czar, it was
interesting to find that we had been expected. Our return from the
ramble found the chief of police in our apartment, attended by a couple
of Cossacks of most formidable dimensions. He knew all our names,
knew where we had come from, and where we were going. He signed our
passports; urbanely drank tea and vodki with us, shook hands on his
departure, and wished us the best of luck.
An incident like this was very instructive as to the manner in which
the eye of the law is fixed upon the foreigner in autocratic Russia.
CHAPTER XII.
NEARING THE CHINESE FRONTIER.
At Minusinsk we were to leave the Yenesei, and continue our journey
to the Syansk Mountains over the foothills, which now intervened
between the Chinese border. Beyond one or two villages at decidedly
long intervals, we could look forward to nothing in the shape of
accommodation until we reached Karatuski, a village of rather larger
dimensions than the majority, and which was the last Siberian
habitation before the frontier. From Minusinsk to Karatuski, there
was no semblance of a road, merely a track formed in the snow by the
telegas of the gold-miners going to or returning from the mines.
Southward from Minusinsk the whole country was gold-bearing, and
Karatuski itself was the head-quarters of the goldmasters during the
summer operations.
After a day’s rest in Minusinsk we once more resumed our journey, our
way being over the barren uplands which were ever rising towards the
mountain range. Very little incident marked our progress during the
first day’s journey, and on the second we came in sight of the ragged
spurs of the mountains which mark the Chinese frontier. At midday
on that day we had reached, after a long toilsome drag up-hill, the
top of one of the foothills, and the scene round us was one truly
magnificent. To the north the whole snow-covered country lay stretched
like a panorama. To the south tumbled hills dwindled away in the
distance, and, then, above them, with peaks glittering and glinting
in the sunlight, rose the cones of the Altai range. To the east
more mountains, all peaked, shaggy, and uneven. They were hills and
mountains such as are seen in no part of the world except Asia. There
were no bluffs or rounded domes, but sheer heaps of rocks pointing up
to the sky like reversed stalactites.
On the evening of the third day we passed through a narrow gorge on
the ice of a small river, and ultimately came to Karatuski. Here we
were met by several Siberian gold-miners, who had been expecting
our arrival, and who were, even so early in the year, making their
preparations for the forthcoming season’s work. Karatuski was but a
village, still we had no difficulty in finding fairly comfortable
quarters in a moujik’s house, and as our stay in the village was to be
of some days, during which we had to buy provisions and engage men for
our expedition in the mountains, we made no bones about engaging two
houses in which to get as much comfort as it was possible during the
time.
[Illustration: MINUSINSK.]
On the very day of our arrival, and while we were doing full justice to
our first meal, we were besieged by quite a crowd of peasants who came
to be engaged. Somehow the rumour had gone forth that foreigners
were coming into the country, and would require labourers. Whether the
peasants thought that they were likely to get better pay or better
treatment from the foreigners, I do not know, but anyway they came in
their hundreds, and not even our oft-repeated refusals to have anything
to do with them until next day would rid us of them. Some assured us
that they had walked forty or fifty versts from neighbouring mines on
the chance of being engaged, and one interesting party, consisting
of nearly two dozen Livlanders, who all spoke German, and were all
convicts, begged and prayed of us to engage them. Our interview with
some of these worthies threw some sidelights upon Siberian gold-mining,
for ninety per cent. of the workers at the mines, it appeared, were of
the criminal class.
At Tomsk we had been very careful to make inquiries as to the class of
workmen to be obtained in the Minusinsk district, and had been assured
that no criminals were sent to the gold-mining districts. The contrary
we found was the case, for out of over two hundred men who presented
themselves to us not one per cent. bore the passport of a free man; but
had, instead, the police certificate which detailed the crime and the
sentence of the holder. It is interesting to record that we engaged
six men, the most likely-looking and the most intelligent of the mob,
and that each one of them had been banished for life to Siberia for
no less a crime than violent murder. The most intelligent of the lot
was a German Livlander, name, August Schultz, who had committed two
murders, one in Courland and one in Siberia, and enjoyed a wife who had
distinguished herself by beating out the brains of a former husband
with a hatchet. We engaged Schultz as our interpreter, and his wife
as our cook, although mentally resolving at the time that it would be
necessary to keep a loose eye on the doings of our employés.
When one of the gold-masters came to assist us in getting the police
permission for these men to travel with us, his horror at the discovery
of the sort of people we had engaged was something most interesting to
witness.
“If you had searched all Siberia,” said he, “you could not have found
six worse desperadoes than those you have got. Why did you not come to
me and let me get you different men?”
“But they are the most likely-looking of the lot who came for
engagement!”
“That I agree; I have had one or two of them working for me, and
they have been amongst the best, until they broke loose and started
fighting. These men, realizing that they have to remain in Siberia, and
always as the meanest of workmen, care nothing for their lives; but you
are responsible for them, and if one kills the other you will have to
pay the bill. However, I wish you the best of luck.”
As events turned out, we had nothing to complain of with regard
to our men. We paid them liberally, and they appreciated the fact,
and it was a spectacle to behold when, after giving them hand-money
for their engagement, they simultaneously flopped down on their
knees and severally kissed our boots. According to them we were all
“excellencies,” and they paraded the little village to the envy and
chagrin of the rest of the crowd who had come on the chance of being
engaged.
Our first duty was to proceed to a gold-mine some three or four versts
north of the frontier. Our papers, brought from Moscow, duly _viséd_
and passed in Tomsk, had to be laid before the local mining inspector
at Karatuski, and it was then that we began to realize what red-tapeism
in Russia means. I had already received from the Minister of Mines
a personal concession which gave me the right to explore for gold
in the whole of Siberia, either to rent or buy existing mines or to
prospect for new ground. Our object in first of all looking over a
mine already in existence was to get an idea of the manner in which
the Siberian works for the precious metal. Two of us were experts
from Western Australian and South African gold-fields, and one of
us had practical experience of Siberian mining on the Amoor River.
From Western Australia and South Africa to the Syansk Mountains is a
far cry, and customs and methods were naturally expected to be very
diverse. Having deposited our papers, it was my pleasant duty to sign
a formidable-looking document which bound me responsible for the lives
of the seven human beings in our employ. I then signed another paper
guaranteeing that I would not sink a shaft more than so many feet deep,
that I would never allow any brawling or strikes, that I would not
encroach upon another man’s land, that I would faithfully keep a record
of every particle of gold from wheresoever obtained while prospecting,
and a dozen or more similar documents which tied our little party
hand and foot to the Government, each document having to be stamped,
sealed, tied up with red tape, signed by half a dozen functionaries,
and so on, until we all became heartily sick of the whole proceedings.
They gave us a gold-book in which was to be entered most accurately
every piece of gold obtained, how much earth was dug out in order to
obtain it, its weight, nature, and consistency. I must admit, however,
that while all these rules and regulations looked bewildering in their
formidability, the Russians did their very best to impress upon us the
necessity of following them to the letter.
While in Karatuski, it may not be out of place to give a little idea of
how some of the rich Siberian gold-miners spend their time during their
self-imposed exile in this bleak and inhospitable region. Karatuski is
simply a village, and the dwellings composing it, although at least a
dozen of them are owned by rich miners, are nothing more than mere log
houses. In honour of our visit we received many invitations to parties
and to dinners, and here the ludicrousness of Siberian customs came
once more very much to the fore. Imagine a log house in a village of
less than a thousand inhabitants. Imagine a room the walls of which
are composed of beams laid one on the other, the floor bare boards,
a rough table in the centre, and scarcely any more ornamentation.
Imagine, on top of this, a dinner-party given in the middle of the day
and everybody in evening dress! The stiffness and formality were really
embarrassing at times. Most of the miners, rich men though they were,
were of the commonest type of Russians, uncultured either in manners
or education. Their very riches seemed to press upon them like a load.
They had some idea that it was necessary to be hospitable, but they had
not the experience or the knowledge which would tell them how to go
about it.
On several of our visits I noticed many side-glances of suspicion,
as to whether or not we were criticizing them. Their intentions were
good; they did the best they could for us according to their light, and
we appreciated that sentiment above everything. It was impossible,
however, not to realize how farcical the whole thing was. There was
nothing homely about it, nothing that would tend to make a man feel as
a guest should amongst friends; and, above all, it was impossible for
us to talk much with them, on account of our limited knowledge of the
language. Neither could we enter upon the drinking bouts which were so
frequent; nor take part in those solemn card-parties which extended far
into the night.
[Illustration: KARATUSKI.]
For the Siberian there is but little excitement or amusement than
that afforded by cards. In every house that we went to in Karatuski,
at least those possessed by the miners, there were the inevitable
card-tables, their solemn-faced ring of players, the heaps of paper
money at each man’s elbow, the eternal shuffle and click of the cards.
High stakes are the rule. Gold-mining in any country can hardly be set
down as a commercial enterprise, and in Siberia least of all. Men who
were peasants a few years ago find themselves millionaires to-day,
are overwhelmed by their wealth, and in cards seek a relaxation from
the monotony of their lives. I have it on good authority that several
of the richest men in Siberia have lost their whole fortune in one
night’s play, have started work again, and in a few years have made
another only to be spent once more at the card-table. One of our hosts
related quite frankly, and with a smile on his face, that in three
nights he lost two hundred thousand roubles. Certainly one of the
most peculiar aspects about it is that in the matter of playing it
was the millionaire gold-miner who lost and invariably the Government
functionary who won. It was common sight for us in our various visits
to see the staff, mere clerks, of the mining inspectors, the honoured
guests of the establishment. Most of these men receive from the
Government not more than seventy-five roubles a month, but that little
oval cockade in their caps and their shoulder straps which make them
Chinovniks, have an awe-inspiring effect upon the average Russian. I
have seen such clerks playing for stakes of a thousand roubles upwards,
and a close observation has shown me how little they lose. One is apt
to cogitate, then, on the possibility of a good proportion of the
miners’ losses not being quite unintentional.
In order to proceed to our destination, it was necessary to abandon our
big sledges at Karatuski, and to take smaller sledges, each drawn by
one horse, for the rest of the journey. These sledges, as well as the
horses which were to take us to the mountains, had to be purchased.
The former were merely tiny basket arrangements fixed on a couple of
runners, and were about as ramshackle as one could possibly conceive.
The track over the mountains being an extremely narrow one, it would be
quite impossible to take the larger and wider sledges. The purchase of
fifteen horses and fifteen sledges, which were to form our caravan--one
man to each sledge, and three sledges to contain our provisions--was
naturally an expensive undertaking in such a place as Karatuski. I have
no doubt that we were cheated right royally, but that could not be
helped under the circumstances.
Our first day’s journey was to be one of eighty versts along the course
of the River Armeul, one of the tributaries of the Yenesei. At eighty
versts from Karatuski, the miners of the district had erected a hut
for the shelter of those making their way to and from the mines, and
at every succeeding eighty versts a similar hut had been placed, these
being all maintained by the miners, who contributed a certain amount
per year for their maintenance.
On the morning of a day late in January, our preparations being all
complete--the baggage-sledges packed, the men all together, the horses
in their sledges, and everything ready for our two hundred miles’ drive
to the mine--we set out. Each man had to drive, but as the roadway was
one cut through the deep snow, the question of getting off the road
was not one to be concerned about, as right or left of the track the
snow was ten to twelve feet deep, and impossible to get through. The
whole population of the village turned out to see us off. There was
much cracking of whips, shouting, and other to-do as the caravan moved
slowly up the hill, rounded the corner, and in a few moments was out of
sight of Karatuski, with nothing but the glaring white uplands ahead.
CHAPTER XIII.
IN THE SYANSK MOUNTAINS.
For some distance our way led over a few short hills to the banks of
the Armeul, our progress being characterized from the very start by
frequent upsets. I can only describe the roadway, if roadway it can be
called, as one of the most villainous I had ever seen. The method of
making it was indeed primitive, for instead of selecting a circuitous
route, in order to avoid bad places, it went dead ahead, and in doing
so, yawning gaps occurred, down which our sledges fell, almost on
top of the horses, and with jerks and creakings which threatened
to dismember every vehicle. The horses slithered down the slopes,
struggled and squirmed up the other side, and could only be kept going
at times by much whipping and fierce shouting.
Nearing the Armeul, we came out on the crest of a small hill which
bordered the river, and here an amusing, although somewhat serious,
incident befell our party. The runners of previous passing sledges had
cut a deep groove in the snow, and so long as we kept in this groove
all was well. Arrived on the slope, Gaskell’s horse, infuriated at
the frequent whippings he had received, plunged heavily sideways,
the runners of the sledge got out of the groove, and in a second the
whole lot--sledge, horse, and driver--went rolling down the snow in
one confused heap towards the river. As chance would have it, the
edge of the river was bare of ice, where the border had been broken
away by water-carriers. Into this the horse fell with a tremendous
splash, dragging with him the sledge, and sunk in about eight feet of
water. For a time it was impossible for us to do anything to assist
our companion, who, fortunately, had been thrown clear of the sledge,
and was stuck fast up to his armpits in the soft snow. When we did
reach him, it was gratifying to find that no bones were broken, and we
quickly hauled him back on to the roadway. With the sledge and horse,
however, matters were more difficult, for the former had got fixed
under the ice, and the horse, with the instinct of self-preservation,
just showed his nose above water. There was much lugging and hauling,
shouting and halloaing, on the part of our men to get the poor animal
out, and ultimately a success was made of the effort. But the sledge
was smashed quite beyond repair, and perforce we had to abandon it.
Room had to be made for Gaskell, therefore, and this was accomplished
by half emptying one of the baggage-sledges, panniering the baggage on
the spare horse’s back.
Right once more, we continued our journey, all of us considerably more
careful now, and ultimately we got down on to the ice, and felt safer.
The little river Armeul was not more than a furlong wide, and wound
tortuously through gaps in the hillsides. In summer it was simply a
torrent, and going up-stream was simply going up-hill, for we were
to follow its course right up into the mountains. We went along at a
jog-trot, varied by spells of walking, and so the day passed. Night
came on, and with the blinking stars we endeavoured to get a little
sleep; but this we speedily realized was quite out of the question, for
the fearful bumps and jolts which were occasioned by the deep holes in
the road made it a difficult matter to hang on, let alone to repose. In
that faint starlight it was a weird proceeding to be travelling over
this uneven surface; to dimly see your horse suddenly disappear before
your eyes, and then to feel yourself sink down as if you were going
into the bowels of the earth, only to be brought up with a crash at the
bottom of the hole, sufficient to shake every bone in your body. Then,
the next second, up would go the horse on the other side of the hole,
struggling, kicking, and straining, with snow flying from its hoofs in
all directions, and with you, hanging on to the reins with the tenacity
born of the love of self-preservation, nearly falling out of the back
of the sledge. Well into the night we rounded a huge cliff, which,
towering up, blotted out the firmament, and left only a small circle of
the dark blue sky, and sighted, away ahead, a light winking solemnly.
Simultaneously we all raised a shout, for it was the light of the hut
of the first stage, and even the horses, after their eighty versts’
toilsome pull, seemed to recognize it. Pace was put on, and in a few
minutes our caravan drew up at the side of the river, before the hut.
Now we were roughing it with a vengeance. The hut was a small affair,
built of logs and mud, its roof of twigs and hay, and with no vestige
of comfort within. It was simply a shelter, but we were glad of that.
After the horses had been unhitched and hobbled, one of our men started
a roaring fire with some fuel which we had brought with us, and which
was made outside in the open. An iron tripod was erected, kettles and
saucepans hung over, and we prepared for our meal. The custodian of the
hut, a decrepit old man, smothered in the filthiest sheepskins that
ever I clapped my eyes on, busied himself on our behalf. It was easy to
see the pleasure which animated this poor old fellow, who for days, and
sometimes a week at a stretch, never saw a human face, and who had no
more chance of getting food than was given him by the miners going to
or coming from the mines, or by the fish he could catch through a hole
made in the ice.
Cold as it was, the fire outside the hut was warm enough for anything.
Some of our men, intent on not doing things by halves, had disappeared
in the forest with their hatchets, and presently we heard the clump,
clump, of the steel against the tree-trunks, and soon we had whole
trees blazing and crackling on the river-bank, while the light cast
up by this huge bonfire spread red and white across the frozen river
to light up with its lambent glare the façade of the cliffs on the
opposite bank. It was a wild-looking crowd we made, seated around on
the hay bags, with feet almost in the crackling embers, furs still on,
and eating almost ravenously the soup which had been prepared in the
huge saucepan. How delicious it was, although it was eaten out of rough
wooden bowls, with no cutlery save our hunting-knives, and with our
fingers as forks! What matter if we licked our fingers, if we gnawed
the bones, or were even guilty of wiping our mouths on our sleeves!
Pocket-handkerchiefs had been given the go-by some time before, and
this part of Siberia was no place for ceremony. We ate, and we drank
heartily, meanwhile that the fire blazed, and roared, and lit up in
fantastic light and shadow the motley crowd around it.
The hut would not hold more than four, but, unfortunately for our
peace, it was alive with vermin. We brought in plenty of straw and hay
from the sledges and spread it on the earth floor, and then, wrapping
ourselves in our shoubas, sought sleep. For our employés there were
the sledges, and in these they slept.
It was still dark when Schultz awoke us and intimated that it would be
better to get on. A glance at our watches showed that it was 6 a.m.,
and though we would fain have had more sleep, the necessity of the case
knew no delay. The second stage threatened to be even more difficult
than the first, for we were informed in several places the ice of
the river was broken owing to the water passing away underneath, and
there would be much trouble in order to get through to the next hut,
eighty versts away. I must confess that when I staggered out of the
hut in the bitter cold air, I felt anything but happy or cheerful. The
romance of the thing was all right, and the experience one to be always
remembered. Its actuality, however, was the sort of thing to make a
man cross or even despondent. Outside, the fire had dwindled down to a
few glowing embers and wreaths of smoke; the stars had gone out, and a
faint mist was in the atmosphere. I stood there for a moment, and as
I did so heard two or three long-drawn howls. Dogs, I thought. I asked
Schultz, who was by my side, what it was.
“_Vulka_,” he said, and at the time I did not know that he meant wolves.
We shambled off in the darkness, Schultz leading the way with a
lantern, and soon the hut, distinguished alone from the darkness by the
tiny fire in front of it, grew fainter and fainter to our vision as
we progressed, and soon a bend in the river obliterated it entirely,
and we plunged on into the darkness. Day came imperceptibly--the grey
creeping over the hill-tops ahead of us and gradually suffusing the
horizon. Then a few glints of gold on the very tops of the mountains,
the reflection of which shed roseate hues upon smaller and more
insignificant hilltops. This glowing light, heralding the arrival of
the sun, caused the mountain crests to assume most grotesque shapes.
One stood out like a gigantic frog, another was like a man’s face, a
third was like an alligator, and so on. With the rising sun the mist
cleared off, and we were able to traverse the ice at a better pace.
But soon the road became next door to impassable. Here and there the
river ice had broken in, and the water, freezing again, left but a
thin coating, which was quite insufficient to bear the weight of our
caravan. This necessitated the dragging, one by one, of the sledges
over the hummocky ice, or up on the pathway which was here and there
formed on the river-bank, where the cliffs did not run sheer. At midday
we encamped on a small plateau by the side of the river, built our
fire, made more soup and more tea. It was cheerful, at any rate, to
note the good humour which characterized all our men. No matter how
difficult was the passage of the ice, they all went at it like bricks,
and when one way failed they tried another. Schultz, a gigantic fellow
of six feet four, or thereabouts, was ever to the fore, hauling and
tugging, or with his huge pick breaking away the impeding ice ahead.
To record the details of our journey forward would be but reiteration.
Thoroughly exhausted, we arrived at our second stage late in the
afternoon, and put in eight hours’ good solid sleep. On the third day
we arrived at the headwaters of the Armeul, where the river was only a
few feet wide, and where the springs feeding it burst from the rock,
but now hung masses of huge icicles. There was a pathway through the
forest to the eastward, and over this we had to go to our destination.
This pathway had been formed by the miners cutting their way through
with the hatchet. The trees were so close together that, although it
was day when we entered, once inside the wood, things were almost as
black as night. Now and again, as we progressed, we caught sight of
animals flitting about the underwood of the forest, but with all the
nonsense about wolves knocked out of us by travel, we gave them no
heed, save for an occasional rifle-shot which Scawell sent after them.
On the afternoon of the fourth day we arrived at the top of the first
range of mountains, and below us lay a deep valley through which the
tiny stream known as the River Isinsoul wound its course, and upon
whose banks was the property which formed our destination. Right ahead
of us, towering up almost perpendicularly, rose the final range of the
Syansk Mountains, the barrier between Russia and China, and now not
more than five miles away.
Our descent into the valley was rapid and exciting. The road was every
bit as bad as it had been on the river, and was, moreover, precipitous.
Horses stumbled, fell, and rolled over into the snow. Once I was shot
out of the sledge, and my feet, catching in the reins, I was dragged
along a considerable distance before my horse could be stopped.
Scarcely a minute after my accident, Asprey was thrown violently out,
and his head, striking a projecting tree-trunk, he was knocked nearly
insensible. A little later one of the baggage-sledges overturned, and
we had the glorious spectacle of our goods and chattels flying in
all directions down the hill.
[Illustration: GOLD-MINING APPARATUS ON THE UPPER YENESEI.]
Passing through the fringe of the forest we came out upon the slopes
of the valley, and now could clearly see, on the banks of the river
below us, traces of the work of man in the shape of huts and long
aqueducts, but all covered in snow and silent as the grave. At length
we were fairly down in the bed of the valley and making our way along
the course of the Isinsoul, hoping to reach our destination before
darkness fairly set in. What a shout we gave when, just as the sun was
sinking over the mountains to our back, Schultz announced that we had
reached the edge of the property! Huge mounds of earth, the tailings
of the washeries, but covered in deep snow, lay scattered all around.
A few dismantled huts, some heaps of logs here and there, the traces
of an abandoned washery, all looking desolate and forlorn underneath
their snowy covering. Three versts more and we came in sight of some
huts away up on the hillside, which we learned were to form our
head-quarters for the next two or three weeks. A man came out of one of
the huts and waved his hand. Schultz responded with a whoop that would
have done credit to a North-American Indian, and the horses, scenting
rest, sprung bravely forward. On we rattled and creaked, jerked and
bumped, until with a simultaneous sigh of most intense satisfaction we
drew up before the sluice-house of the mine. Our destination at last,
after five and a half weeks’ almost continual travelling from England!
CHAPTER XIV.
SIBERIAN GOLD-MINING.
It is not my intention to go into very intricate details regarding
gold-mining in Siberia, but would rather give a few personal
observations of what is undoubtedly a very interesting phase of Asiatic
life, inasmuch as gold-mining in that country is very different to what
it is in any other part of the world. The Minusinsk district, in which
we were now located, though not by any means the richest in Siberia
(that distinction being held by the mines of the Lena district, in
the province of Yakutsk), is nevertheless looked upon as an extremely
promising province. The richness of the Lena district is considerably
counterbalanced by the high price of provisions, labour, and material
there, and its inaccessibility. The Minusinsk district, on the other
hand is the most remarkable in all Siberia for its cheapness, while
transportation is fifty per cent. lower than on the Lena watershed.
From Krasnoiarsk, where the trunk line of the Siberian Railway passes,
there is steamboat communication in the summer with Minusinsk itself,
and, as I have already said, the gold-bearing district extends from
there southwards to Chinese territory.
The majority of the mine-owners in the district were, I found, of
very humble origin, and it may be said, with the exception of one
man, Kuznetsoff, not one works on a large scale, while the majority
have started without initial capital whatever. The consequence of
this is that the works are generally of a mean character. Machinery
is of the most primitive order, and what there is is so badly and
unscientifically made that in all cases some twenty per cent., and
in many cases fifty per cent., of fine gold is lost. Hydraulicing
is quite unknown, and the chemical process has never been tried
thoroughly, the nearest approach to it being the fixing, on some of the
Kuznetsoff mines, of amalgamating plates in the sluices.
Most of the mine-owners, being without initial capital, are forced at
the onset to resort to tribute work, which is done by men who provide
their own food, tools, and houses, and erect their own washeries.
These men are given so many “archines” of land to work, and the gold
obtained they sell to the mine-owner for from three to four roubles per
“zolotnik” (about one-seventh of an ounce, Troy), the miner re-selling
the gold to the Government at its current value, the price of the
zolotnik varying from four and a half to five roubles. But the damage
which is done to the property by tribute labour is enormous. The men
work in gangs of three or four, burrow and scratch like rabbits here
and there, and dump their tailings wherever it is most convenient to
do so (frequently on new ground); so that before the whole of the
mine can be worked out, the virgin alluvial has to be got out from
under tons of débris. This improvidence on the part of the tribute
workers naturally ruins mine after mine. The men are content to get
a zolotnik per man per day, and in order to obtain this erect fast
sluices, and put over an enormous amount of alluvial so as to get the
big pieces, complacently letting the fine gold escape. One of the mines
we saw during our stay had been worked for some forty years mainly by
tribute labour, and the consequence was that although the property was
by no means worked out (it extended some three and a half miles up a
rich valley) it was impossible to make a profit out of it on account
of the thousands of tons of tailings which encumbered the remaining
portions of unworked ground. And this is no single instance. The Mining
Department is continually hammering away at the mine-owners to exercise
more system in their work, hinting broadly that not only are they
losing themselves but that the Government suffers.
I have already said that the machinery used is of a primitive
character. The tribute workers use the box-sluice, or “Long Tom.” This
is a wooden structure from twenty to thirty feet long, tapering from
two feet at its top to one foot at the bottom. It is generally erected
on the level of the stream, and, as most of the tributaries of the
Yenesei have a very rapid current, the drop is pretty acute. There
are no riffles or cross-pieces in the sluices to catch the fine gold,
but an iron plate pierced with half-inch holes is set at the end, and
through these holes the gold drops by its own weight into a shallower
undercurrent sluice, where a slow stream of water carries away the
lighter sand and leaves the gold exposed. The “Long Tom” constructed by
the Siberians is, however, so unscientifically made that it would be
hopeless to expect it to catch all the gold.
The machine of the mine-owner is a more elaborate, but at the same
time far from ideal structure. The sluice-house is built up over the
stream, and usually contains three wide box-sluices, dropping one into
the other, the last one being riffled with one or two bars. The length
of the run would not be more, on the average, than forty feet, while
the angle is such that the water flows in a perfect swirl from start to
finish. At the back of the house, and above the sluice-boxes, an iron
cylinder, pierced with half to three-quarter inch holes, is erected
on a wooden axle. The cylinder tapers from one end to the other, and
at its largest end a shoot is erected, under which the carts, which
carry away the big boulders, can be backed. The cylinder is revolved
by water power, carried along an aqueduct which varies in length
according to the fall of the stream. Into the cylinder at its smaller
end the auriferous sands are pitched, water at the same time being
conducted upon it by pipes along the axle, and thus the whole mass
is churned up. The boulders and stones which will not pass through
the holes gradually roll down the declivity of the drum to its larger
end, and thence into the shoot, while through the holes the fine sands
containing the precious dust fall into the sluices below. At the shoot
end, the collectors of the boulders carefully examine the stones for
the presence of any nuggets; but, as a general rule, the wealth of the
alluvial consists in the small pieces which pass through the holes.
If the sluices were longer, and the angle so arranged that the water
flowed smoothly and evenly over them, there would not be much to object
to in this system, but the miners acknowledge that fully twenty per
cent. of fine gold escapes into the tailings, without endeavouring in
the slightest to remedy the defect. Amalgamating plates, or even a
judicious use of mercury, would prevent much of this loss, but these
appliances are almost entirely ignored.
It is the very cheapness of labour and material in the Minusinsk
gold region which is accountable for the absence of modern mining
machinery, and the unscientific method of washing. In nineteen cases
out of twenty the present gold-miners have been washers, who, having
at some time or other hit upon an unclaimed gold-bearing spot, have
applied to the Mining Department for permission to work it. Instead
of getting capital they have invited tribute workers to extract the
gold, until, after a few years of rigid economy they have saved enough
money to erect a machine and can continue the work by ordinary labour.
Meanwhile, the value of the mine has been woefully depreciated by the
methods of the tribute workers.
The alluvial deposits of the Minusinsk district do not vary to any
great extent in richness; the average being generally under one ounce
to the ton. This is, compared with alluvial working in Australia,
Africa, and California, rather poor, but the cheapness of everything
must be taken into consideration as a big set-off. Men cost in the
winter twelve to fifteen roubles (25_s._ to 31_s._) per month, and
in the summer eighteen to twenty roubles (38_s._ to 42_s._ 6_d._) per
month. Wood is abundant, and costs nothing except the labour of cutting
it. Provisions are likewise very cheap; bread, meat, eggs, hay, and
such like necessities being cheaper in the Minusinsk valley than in any
other part of Siberia.
Mining material and provisions are generally carried from the townships
to the mines during the winter, so that the ice on the rivers can
be taken advantage of. The cost of transport is twenty-five kopecks
(6½_d._) per pood per 100 miles. The pood equals 36 lbs. 6 ozs.
English. The Minusinsk mining region covers about three hundred square
miles, so that an approximate estimate of the cost of transport can be
made.
One of the great features about the district is its great suitability
for hydraulic working. Water is everywhere abundant, and the cost of
erecting a modern hydraulicing plant would be undoubtedly very much
cheaper than in any other gold district. The alluvial deposits are
eminently suited for such work, and where virgin ground is touched,
all things being equal, hydraulicing ought to increase the profits on
the Russian methods by twenty-five to thirty per cent. For purposes of
comparison, the Russian gold-seeker looks to a profit of twenty-five
per cent. on whatever small capital expended. With labour-saving
machinery, and the ability to tackle five or six times as much stuff in
the summer as under the Russian system, it stands to reason that the
initial cost of machinery would soon be wiped out and the increased
percentage of profit obtained.
To show how arduous the Russian method of working is, there is one mine
in the Minusinsk valley which has been worked for upwards of thirty
years. The claim is three miles long by a quarter of a mile wide.
During the thirty years an average of thirty men per year have been
employed in gold washing, and the mine has already yielded gold to the
value of about £400,000. Even after thirty years, yet one-third of the
claim is virgin soil. With hydraulicing methods, and with no more men
employed, the mine could have been exhausted in two or three summers.
There is no working for quartz gold in the Minusinsk region, and but
very little in any other part of Siberia. There _are_ quartz deposits,
and the alluvial strata shows indication of the proximity of reefs.
Want of capital, want of machinery, and lack of enterprise have,
however, prevented the exploitation of this profitable branch of the
gold-mining industry so far.
We were very much struck to find the enormous number of mines the
owners of which were most anxious to get rid of them, although their
gold-books showed that even under primitive conditions the various
properties were showing handsome profit. It was strange to interview
sheep-skin clad moujiks who had rich mines to sell, and who could not
work them themselves simply by reason of their lack of capital or their
ignorance as to the right way to go about the work. Fancy prices were
asked at first, only to come down to an “old song,” when we evinced no
anxiety to buy.
Most of the worst features of gold-mining in any part of the world are
to be seen in Siberia. Stealing and murder are of frequent occurrence,
in spite of the large number of Cossacks which are employed to keep law
and order. One great grievance of the miners in the Syansk Mountains
is the stealing propensity on the part of the workmen, and the open
dishonesty which one owner shows to the other. For instance, an owner
will give his tribute workers, say, three and a half roubles per
zolotnik of gold obtained. The tribute worker, however, hands over
only a portion of what he finds, reserving the remainder for sale to a
neighbouring miner, who will probably pay him four and a half roubles
for it. Thus many of the miners prefer to work on the tribute system
instead of getting an ordinary wage. Even the paid labourer steals
his master’s gold, to sell it to some neighbouring miner; but as each
owner adopts precisely the same methods, and the utmost secrecy has to
be maintained, duplicity is rampant all over the fields.
Various prices were asked for mines, from 50,000 roubles down to 20
roubles. Another plan freely offered is to rent an existing mine with
option of purchase, the rent demanded by the owner varying from 200 to
300 half-imperials per pood of gold obtained. The half-imperial is 7½
roubles paper currency, and equals approximately 16_s._ The value of a
pood of ligature gold ranges from £1700 to £2200, the general average
value being about £2000.
On the whole, while the Russian mine-owner may make, what is to him, a
fortune out of gold-mining, the general prospect for foreign capital
in the Syansk Mountains is not a very alluring one if the workings are
continued on Russian ideas. There is plenty of gold in the district,
but an enormous quantity of alluvial has to be moved before it can be
won, and while this removal yields a profit to the Russian owner, that
profit would perhaps be wiped out if on top of the ordinary expenses
such as those to which the Russian miner is subjected are placed
director’s big fees, large salaries for engineers, and other expenses
which are generally incidental to British gold-mining companies. The
men who have made fortunes in Siberia are the owners who have in the
first instance taken an active part in the working, and have generally
superintended the business themselves. The overseers, engineers, and
such-like officials work for salaries which would not buy the clothes
of similar individuals in Western Australia or South Africa. One of the
mines we visited, belonging to the Kuznetsoff group, had a responsible
manager at a salary of 1500 roubles (£160) per annum. It would,
however, be in buying groups of mines, and by working with enormous
numbers of men and with the most modern machinery, hydraulicing, or
otherwise, that the Siberian gold-fields might be made to pan out as
profitable and with far less risk than that usually experienced in
the hunt for the precious metal in other countries. To work on a small
scale one must adopt the Siberian methods, and the foreigner’s chance
of doing this at a profit is not enhanced by the fact that he is likely
to be cheated and robbed far more than his Russian compeer.
[Illustration: TRIBUTE WORKERS IN THE SYANSK GOLD-MINES.]
CHAPTER XV.
LIFE AT THE MINE.
Although somewhat rough and primitive, our quarters at the mine were by
no means uncomfortable. There were in all four log houses, tolerably
large, two of which were for the workmen, and the other two for
ourselves. Of course there was not the slightest attempt in the way of
luxury; rough wooden walls, dirt floors, hard benches for beds, a board
resting on a tree-stump for a table, and an iron stove, with several
feet of piping, as our heating accommodation. A little ingenuity on
our part, however, soon rigged up things in businesslike fashion. Some
roughly made shelves were requisitioned, and with other boarding and
the assistance of Schultz we made a tiny office, and spread around
our books in ostentatious display. We made up our beds with the spare
clothing we possessed, and that was ample. We provided a tablecloth out
of a huge towel which was fished from the bottom of Asprey’s trunk, and
we decorated the walls with various pictures cut from old comic papers.
We got one of the men to go into the forest and bring us several
armsful of fir foliage, and thus, after an hour or two’s hard work was
done we had succeeded in completely altering the appearance of the
interior of our quarters, and to its general improvement.
It was a sight to see the manner in which our men hogged in together
in one hut. Instead of doing the slightest in the way of improving
their situation, they simply laid around on the floor, as closely as
possible to each other, in order to get warmth, and covered with their
sheepskins. By the regulations laid down by the Mining Department we
had to allow each man so many poods of meat per week, so many candles
each, tea, butter, and cabbage. We had brought with us three frozen
oxen, four sheep, and forty poods of cabbage, and the task of weighing
out the various portions to each man was by no means a light one,
which, as it devolved upon me, I speedily found. As well as providing
the men with food, we had to supply them with certain portions of
clothing, should they require them, writing off against their wages
the cost of such articles. It is astonishing how minutely the Russian
Government goes into these matters, providing a schedule of prices
which shows how much a pair of boots or articles of clothing must be
charged the workmen. If nothing else, the authorities fully protect the
peasants from extortion on the part of the mine-owner.
For several days we did little else but get things shipshape. Wood
had to be cut in order to provide firing. Several of the men were
kept hard at work cutting pathways through the deep snow down to the
river-bed. The stream, as a matter of fact, was solid ice nearly to
the bottom, and only near the sluice-house, where the channel had
been cut deep, could we find much water. Our first endeavour was to
discover whether or not in the tailings, which had been idly thrown
away after nearly thirty years of washing, there was sufficient gold
to warrant its exploitation on European plans. To the reader it may
seem rather incongruous that we should have to conduct an inspection as
this in such weather; but time was pressing. Whatever was done in the
district had to be finished before the ice broke. If this occurred, the
transportation of men and provisions from Minusinsk to the gold-fields
would be delayed until the summer roads were ready, which, by the way,
rarely happened before the beginning of July.
It is not my intention to weary the reader with a detailed description
of our work, conducted as it was under such difficulties of weather
and with but scant assistance from the local officials. The statements
which were made by one and the other were so conflicting that the
greatest care had to be exercised, while we had not been long in the
district before we found that the gentle art of “salting” was not
entirely unknown to the apparently guileless Siberian. What freezing
work it was to be from daybreak to sundown on the banks of the river,
pan-washing the pay dirt, which had to be got out from under tons
of ice and snow, and dug out bit by bit with light steel picks! We
commenced at the bottom of the mine, and worked gradually up by
burrowing in through the snow to the scene of summer operations, and
there only to find the earth frozen as hard as granite, necessitating
occasional blasting and much hard and unprofitable labour.
The particular mine we were on, during the whole course of its
existence, had been mismanaged to a terrible degree. It had been worked
for the most part by tribute labour, and, in consequence, the richest
parts of it were encumbered with tons of débris which would all have
to be removed before the virgin alluvial could be got out. Frequently
we had to work with snowshoes on, for some portions of the mine,
where drifts had occurred, were under ten to fifteen feet of light
snow. Snowshoeing at the best of times is a laborious undertaking,
but to work with them on is a feat which requires some patience and a
tolerable amount of agility.
One of our little experiences of snowshoeing was amusing, as well as
being somewhat uncomfortable. Desiring a sample from the head of the
mine, I had gone out with Gaskell and two of the men. The men were
loaded up with picks, bags, shovels, and other mining paraphernalia,
and, being more expert on the “skis” than we, soon outstripped us.
It took us nearly an hour to do a little over a mile, for, what with
frequent falling, our progress was one of labour and confusion.
Snowshoes have a happy knack of sliding away from you when you least
expect them, so that you come down with a thump on your back, and bury
yourself up to the armpits in snow. No matter how you struggle, it is
impossible to get up again, for the long shoes prevent that. The only
thing is to unstrap the shoes, kneel on them, gradually insert one foot
and then the other into the straps, and then by an equilibristic effort
assume the perpendicular. The slightest want of balance and over you go
again. The snow affords no foothold, for you sink into it the moment
the shoes are off.
The spot from which we desired the sample was reckoned to be one
of the richest portions of the mine. It was a tunnel cut into the
river-side, but which was now completely covered with snow, so much
so, in fact, that we could not even see the entrance. Our men, Merkoff
and Nikeveroff, set to work spading out the snow, and gradually got
to the tunnel entrance. Merkoff was in advance of his companion when,
with a suddenness which made us gasp with astonishment, he disappeared
completely from sight. Where he had gone none of us knew. The snow
before us showed no trace of his disappearance, for there was no hole.
Presently, however, we saw a hand come up through the snow and wave
about frantically. In another second the whole bank on which we were
standing, gave way with a rush, and down we went, snowshoes, picks,
shovels, bags, candles, and everything in one confused heap, sliding
and slipping some twenty or thirty feet below the level.
It was some time before we sorted ourselves out and got over the shock
of our descent. We then found ourselves in a narrow gallery supported
by beams, and which ran for some considerable distance into the earth.
For a minute or two we could only sit and laugh, for our entrance of
the tunnel had been highly successful if somewhat precipitous. The
floor of the gallery was covered with ice, formed by the oozing of
water through the bank, and for some time it was impossible to get at
the alluvial owing to the excessive hardness of the ice flooring, which
we were compelled to break with hammers. Strangely enough, although
we had all got down so cleverly, none of us gave a thought as to how
we were to get back. The samples obtained, this difficulty at once
presented itself, and we could only gaze at each other blankly.
We were twenty or twenty-five feet below the level of the snow, and
it was a matter of impossibility to think of climbing to the top of
that fleecy substance. There was only one thing to do, and that was
to batten the snow as hard as possible and to get up inch by inch to
the surface. This was a long and laborious undertaking, and occupied
us well into the afternoon, but ultimately Merkoff reached the top,
and, his snowshoes having been thrown after him, he was able to stand
up. Then the samples, by aid of rope, we got up, and eventually we all
managed to get out of the hole.
The next thing to do was to get the samples back to the camp, a
distance of a mile. Each was as much as one man could carry, provided
that the roadway was hard. The weight of one, however, on Merkoff’s
back, sent the snowshoes so deep that it was impossible for him to
move. We tried various ways, but none succeeded until it was decided
to form a temporary sledge of the snowshoes, and for one of the men to
drag the bags in this manner to the camp. At the time we did not think,
when we gave up the shoes so cheerfully and sat down in the snow in
order to prevent going in deeper, how we were ourselves going to get
back to the camp. We formed the sledge by tying the shoes together,
then fixed the bags and tools on top of them, and away went Merkoff,
with Nikeveroff behind, crawling on his hands and knees, and giving the
improvised sledge an occasional push. Gaskell and I attempted to walk.
We might as well have tried walking on the sea. Every effort landed us
deeper in the snow. There was only one way and that was to go down on
all fours and wriggle along as best we could. Only then could we make
progress by carefully beating down the snow as we went, to put the
whole length of the arm down in one place, and drag the body after
with a squirming motion. That mile was one of the hardest miles I have
ever travelled, for darkness was falling when we came in sight of the
huts. In spite of the cold, we were sweating with the labour, and to
add insult to injury, our companions came down on the bank and howled
with laughter as we progressed inch by inch along the surface of the
snow.
A little incident like this will give some idea of the difficulties
under which we worked. Another stumbling-block was the inability to
wash the pay-dirt with ordinary water. Close by the sluice-house we had
a huge iron cauldron suspended over a roaring fire. One man was kept
continually employed dumping in snow, while another was ladling out
buckets of hot water. The process was then to dump so many poods of
earth on the wash-table and to break it up by continual basting with
hot water. The washer (who stood on the table, and with his rake or
wooden shovel kept the mass in motion) frequently got frozen to the
wood, in spite of the fact that the water which flowed around his feet
had only a few seconds before been thrown boiling hot on the dirt.
During our stay we were able to make several little excursions to
neighbouring mines, and with the exception of one or two we found a
shocking want of system everywhere. In the best-conducted gold-fields
the disposal of the tailings is always a matter of grave moment, but in
Siberia it is one of the least considerations until it is too late, and
the property is ruined. There is, however, some hope that the future
may be better, for the St. Petersburg Department, being now brought
into closer contract with Siberia by means of the railroad, intends
to formulate a better system of inspection, which, provided Siberian
miners will only endeavour to look at matters in a broader spirit,
should increase the revenue considerably.
A pleasing feature in connection with mining in Siberia is made by the
little courtesies which one owner extends to the other. Thus we were
continually receiving invitations to dinner at some mine or the other,
and would drive over in our sledges to be welcomed literally with open
arms by the rough but hospitable miners, to be kissed on both cheeks,
and to be liberally supplied with everything the owner possessed in
an eating way. Very pleasant indeed were these little functions, for,
out of touch of anything like civilization, the grotesque customs
which obtain in the towns of “dress” went to the winds, and the
Siberian appeared for what he really was. There was perhaps a little
bit too much drinking, and at times a want of manners which jarred
unpleasantly, still one could not help but appreciate the hospitality
which was extended to us, rough as it was. It was gratifying on those
evenings after we had gone through the long dinner which is invariably
the rule in Russian houses, to sit around and listen to the harmonica
and to watch, between the puffs of our cigarette smoke, some big-booted
miner going through that extraordinary dance made famous by the
Little Russians. Considering what a clumsy, heavy, and ungainly lot
the Russians generally are, one can scarcely associate them with the
graceful mazurka, a dance of which they are passionately fond and
perform creditably.
These visits of ours to neighbouring mines tended much to take away
the monotony of our three weeks’ stay in the mountains, and we had the
pleasure, too, of receiving in our own camp the mine-owners who would
pay us return visits. They had a happy way, some of them, of bringing
whole cargoes of vodki, cigarettes, meat, vegetables, and, in short,
everything deemed necessary for the occasion. Every man would lend
his hand at the culinary arrangements; songs and dances interspersing
various items of the menu; while, to add to our enjoyment, our own men
would range up outside the hut and sing with lusty voice one of those
peculiar national songs, the cadence of which once heard can never be
forgotten.
CHAPTER XVI.
A TRIP INTO CHINA.
With the frontier of China so close, what was more natural than that
the desire should spring up within me to penetrate, at any rate a
little way, into that mysterious country? So far as I knew, and could
gather, no European had yet crossed those mountain ranges into the
valley of the Upper Yenesei, which runs between the Syansk range and
the eastern slopes of the Altai.
[Illustration: OUR CAMP IN THE MOUNTAINS.]
The delimitation of the boundary-line between Russia and China is one
of those ludicrous things which only the wily Muscovite knows so well
how to manage. Maps showed the boundary to run along the tops of the
Syansk range, yet when I asked where was the actual frontier-line,
not a man in the Minusinsk valley could tell me. Amongst the officials
the idea of a frontier seemed to be a huge joke, and, penetrating
deeper into the subject, the solution of the mystery was simply this:
that the southern slopes of the Syansk Mountains were as rich in gold
as the northern, with the additional qualification that they were less
exposed to the rigour of the winter, and that the Russians coveted
the district. In consequence of this, and mainly owing to the lax
attitude of the Chinese Government, Siberian miners had penetrated
beyond the geographical frontier, had opened mines, and were in quite
a flourishing condition. The Russian officials meanwhile “winking the
other eye,” and accepting the gold from the miners just as if it had
been obtained from mines well within the border. Not only that, but
enterprising miners had conceived the idea of penetrating even further
towards the Altai range, which is well within Chinese territory; but
owing to the treachery of some busybody the news of their programme
reached official ears in Pekin. Complaints were lodged at St.
Petersburg, and the diplomatic shuffle began.
Said the Russian, “Where is the frontier? If you know it to be at the
top of the Syansk Mountains, why did you not prevent Russians from
coming over into your country and operating?”
Said the Chinaman, “North-Western China is practically uninhabited. We
cannot keep officials all along that frontier to prevent your people
coming in!”
Said the Russian, “Well, what are you going to do? Our people have been
there, have established themselves, and it would be a shame to oust
them now. Suppose we arrange it this way. Let them go on working just
as they are, and we will promise that no more Russians shall open mines
in your country.”
To this Pekin agreed. No surveillance was or is kept, and the
consequence is that gradually, but nevertheless surely, the Russian
is creeping into North-Western China. On the very top of the Syansk
Mountains, and quite half a mile over the boundary line, as marked
geographically, I have myself seen no less than five shafts sunk at
spots which are supposed to lead to quartz veins.
The ludicrousness of the situation is shown by the fact that the
officials of the Russian Government are well aware of the whole
business, as it is necessary that before a man can prospect he must
lay before the Department exact details as to the locality in which he
intends to operate.
Having some interest in geography, I made some searching inquiries into
this matter, but, as I have hinted, everywhere I was met with evasive
replies. One of the chief officials whom I met, said, in so many words,
that the frontier was where you could not find a Russian, and then
burst into a hearty laugh.
Beneath this supposed nonchalance, however, it is easy to detect the
trace of Imperial designs. “It is absurd,” said one official, “to
call the top of the range the frontier. The natural boundary is of
course, the Yenesei River, which, as you see, after winding through the
mountains, curves round in a semicircle to the mountains again.” Then,
emphatically, “It _must_ be Russian.”
Again, I had an interesting conversation with a Russian official on
the subject of the railway. The Mongolian map was spread before us,
and I traced from memory the course the line would take over the
north-eastern Gobi. “Do you think you will have difficulty with the
natives in this province?” I asked. My official friend simply winked.
“If we do,” said he, “we have plenty of Cossacks to keep them in order;
and if the Cossacks are once in they won’t come out very soon. And,”
continued he airily, “of course that part of the country north of the
line _must_ eventually become Russian.”
Recent events tend considerably to corroborate these statements. One
very singular fact about the matter is that the maps issued by the
Russian Government to the officials close to the border do not show a
single trace of the frontier-line. At present there is nothing to stop
the slow but steady creeping of the Russian grey coats into Chinese
Mongolia all along the frontier from west to east.
It was in order to find out more about this frontier business that
I planned a little excursion to China, being aided and abetted by
Scawell, who also had desires in that direction. We started out early
one morning with one sledge, and with Schultz as our driver. For some
distance the snow had been kept hard, and a decent road took us up
the mountain-side. After an hour or two, however, the way got very
precipitous, and perforce we had to abandon the sledge and continue our
journey on snowshoes. Halfway up the mountain-side we passed though
a dense forest, which obliterated, for the time being, all view of
the surrounding country, and where it was terribly hard work pushing
our snowshoes through the undergrowth which stuck out here and there
through the deep snow. At length we got through the forest, and came
out on the edge of a bluff which overlooked the whole surrounding
country. The sight was one which no pen can describe.
Below us to the northward lay Siberia, a tumbled, mountainous country,
which seemed to lie at our very feet--jagged masses of rock sticking
out, cones of huge hills far below us, all silent, and white,
and ghostly. Afar off we could just dimly see, by the aid of our
field-glasses, the huts which formed our camp; beyond that, hills upon
hills, clothed with fir, or pine, or birch, undulating away into space.
To the south was a different scene, for here the mountains sloped away
gently to a plain, and, singularly enough, here and there, instead of
the great mass of white which was everywhere on the Siberian side, we
detected patches of green and brown. We were some six thousand feet
above the sea-level, and fleecy clouds at times swept around us,
obliterating on one hand or the other the magnificent views which, as
we stood, we drank in with keen enjoyment.
Our descent of the southern slopes of the Syansk was rapid and
exciting. Only those who have travelled on snowshoes can realize what
it means to go slithering down a slope with absolutely no prospect of
stopping yourself except by falling backwards heavily. I am sorry to
say, occasionally, and quite unintentionally, we did stop ourselves,
and by this method. It had taken us the best part of a day to get up
the northern heights. It took us less than an hour to get down three
thousand feet on the southern side. To our surprise we found here not
more than a few inches of snow, and we were safe in taking off our
snowshoes in order to continue our journey, trailing them behind us
in order to leave a mark in the snow which would show our direction
for the return journey. Before us stretched almost a level plain, but,
tapering away off to the right, we could dimly discern the blue tops
of the Altai Mountains, in the intervening distance being occasional
clumps of trees of much the same character as those on the Siberian
side. Progressing on, we now and again came to patches of brown earth
or grass with no more snow on them than might be seen in England at
midsummer. This complete transition from the terrible cold, snow, and
ice on the other side of the mountains was a revelation to us. The
very air was warmer--in fact, it seemed as if in the space of a few
hours we had jumped from the middle of an Arctic winter into spring. We
doffed our fur caps and pelisses, carrying them over our shoulders, and
weighty they seemed now, for the walking brought the sweat out.
We had paused by the side of a stream which was brawling away merrily,
as innocent of ice as ever one could conceive, and, while sitting on
its bank, partaking of a nip of spirit, Scawell espied, away across
the plain, a tiny wreath of smoke curling upwards. Our first thought
was that this probably came from one of the Russian mines which we
had heard of, and so, anxious to see how the operations were being
conducted, we immediately set out towards it.
An hour’s stiff walk brought the smoke much nearer, and we were able
to see that instead of a mine we were coming upon an encampment of
some sort. Through our field-glasses we could see several black tents,
and around them some strange animals, which in the distance we could
not make out, although it was clear they were neither horses nor
oxen. Another half-hour and we were within hailing distance of the
encampment, and saw that instead of Russians we had fallen in with
some of the natives of the province, the aboriginal Syots. The strange
animals, we now perceived, were reindeer. We held a little council of
war as to what to do, and the outcome of it was to go on and see all we
could.
Strange-looking beings appeared before their tents, shouting excitedly
as we approached. They were attired in the most grotesque fashion,
huge skins forming one garment from head to foot. Their faces were of
the true Mongolian type, and far more hideous than the Chinese. The
eyes were big, oblique to a degree, cheek bones very high, and the
skin almost black. One of these individuals came running towards us
and addressed us in Russian, and the words, “_Morjna kopeet saable,
koreshee saable_,” gave us a hint. We had heard that the Syots are
sable-hunters, and what they had said was a request to know if we
had come to buy good sables. With nothing else to do, under the
circumstances, we assented, and entered the encampment. One of the men,
the chief evidently, conducted us to a tent which we entered with the
gravity and solemnity due to the occasion. The tent was a primitive
affair--merely undressed skins stretched over a few poles which tapered
up to a point like the tepee of the red man. There was nothing inside
except a few skins scattered over the earth of one corner, and which
probably formed the resting-place of the inhabitant.
Our host, in broken Russian, made references to tobacco, tea, sugar,
and gunpowder. Had we brought them? He had magnificent sables he would
give in exchange--all the time that we, in the first novelty of our
discovery, scarcely realized what it all meant. It was not long before
we were surrounded by some twenty to thirty Syots, the dirtiest,
ugliest crowd of humanity which it has ever been my lot to see. They
looked at us curiously, evidently perceiving that we were not the same
sort of Russians to which they had been accustomed. Their bewilderment
at our intrusion became greater when it dawned upon them how little
we knew of the Russian language, and I really began to fear that our
hospitable reception would not end so peacefully as might have been
anticipated at the outset. Scawell was for making tracks and getting
out of it, and I, seconding his motion, rose to leave, but the chief
bade us be reseated, and brought for our inspection some fifty skins,
which even the unpractised eye could detect as being magnificent
specimens of the sable. Had we got any tobacco, tea, gunpowder, or
shot? Scawell had some cartridges, but these were useless for the
weapons used by the Syots. They brought forward for our inspection
one of the most unearthly looking guns, surely, that man has ever
constructed. It was an arrangement consisting of a long piece of iron
piping, plugged up at one end and fastened to the apex of a tripod;
the tube had a hole bored about three inches from the plugged end, and
this formed the touch-hole. Inquiries elicited the information that
this is the usual instrument employed by the Syots in their capture of
sables. How tenderly they caressed Scawell’s Mannlicher! what wondering
eyes they cast upon its mechanism! while my revolver astonished them.
They could not conceive that so small a weapon could have such deadly
effect as I told them. They asked us who we were and where we had come
from; but, think of it, ye Englishmen, these Syots knew of but two
people--Mongolian and Russian!
Out there on the Chinese plain we sat in a tent endeavouring to explain
to a crowd of swarthy aborigines that there was another country in the
world called England, and that the whole of the earth’s inhabitants did
not consist entirely of Chinamen and Russians. It was interesting to
hear from the lips of a Mongolian nomad his ideas of things in general.
He had heard, he said, that afar off there lived a being called the
“Ruski Imperator,” who knew everything and could see everything. I
asked the chief about the Emperor of China, but he looked in wonderment
upon me, and it was clear he had never heard of him. I mentioned
the name “Li Hung Chang,” but again there was no recognition. How
far-reaching and how omniscient must be the power of a king, therefore,
who, like the Czar of Russia, could be known to a man who has never
heard of the existence of a king of his own country!
Fortunately, I had brought with me several handsful of cigarettes,
and these I distributed amongst the crowd, telling them at the same
time that if they cared to come over the mountains to our encampment I
would purchase their sables from them. Of money they knew nothing, but
I elicted that an ordinary sable was worth half a brick of tea, which
would weigh something about half a pound. A handful of gunpowder and
a handful of small shot would be its equivalent, and that the Russian
traders never gave more. When one considers that in Moscow and St.
Petersburg a single sable skin of good quality will fetch £10 to £15
sterling, the fur-traders of Siberia must be doing a rather lucrative
business.
We were anxious to get back, for there was not much daylight remaining,
and impressed this upon our hosts, who good naturedly suggested that we
should ride some of the reindeer back to the mountains--an offer which
we gladly fell in with, as the tramp to the slopes was over three
miles. I have ridden some curious animals in my time, but the reindeer
with its long, shambling stride is something peculiar. One has to keep
a sharp look out for his horns, which he occasionally throws back with
a sweep sufficient to knock your head off if you are not careful. It
was not a very enjoyable ride, I must admit, encumbered as we were with
our snowshoes and our heavy pelisses, and we were glad when the slopes
of the mountain had been reached and we were able to dismount and thank
our strange conductors for their courtesy.
At sunset we scrambled to the top of the Syansk again, and commenced
our descent into the snow and ice of Siberia. It was then that we
fully realized the great change between these two climes. On went our
pelts, our gloves, and our fur caps; then slither, slither, slither, we
careered through the forest; down and down until we came out into the
open again, and discovered our faithful Schultz comfortably asleep in
the sledge and our poor horse, which had somehow got out of the track,
buried up to its neck in the snow. Night had fallen when we reached the
camp, well pleased with our day’s excursion; for, if it yielded nothing
else, it had given us an insight into the character of a people whose
very existence is perhaps unknown to Europe.
[Illustration: A GOLD-MINE ON THE TOP OF THE SYANSK MOUNTAINS.]
CHAPTER XVII.
LOOKING WESTWARD.
For the next two weeks matters went on smoothly at our encampment. Days
spent in labour, and evenings relieved by reading or the occasional
visit from some neighbouring miner. How the world was getting on we
had not the slightest idea, for, since leaving Moscow, we had received
no word from those at home. We were now eagerly looking forward to
the time when we should receive the first batch of correspondence.
Arrangements had been made to forward our post from Minusinsk by
horseback, and when, on the eventful morning, the news was brought
up to our hut that the postboy was seen approaching, the excitement
amongst us all was great. We almost fell upon the bundles of letters
and newspapers which the faithful messenger had brought, sent work
to the winds for the rest of that day, neglected our meals, and did
nothing but devour the intelligence which cold print conveyed.
Signs were not wanting that it would not be very long before the break
up of the winter would come about. The sun was daily getting warmer,
and here and there the ice and snow were melting. The postboy told
us that the River Armeul was thawing rapidly, and that if it was our
intention to get back to Minusinsk on the winter road it would be
necessary to speedily bring our operations to a close. There was,
indeed, but little to detain us. Our expedition had been practically
completed, and we needed now only the visit of the mining inspector to
relieve us of the responsibility of our present position by handing
over to him the enormous number of books and papers with which it had
been necessary to burden ourselves in order to undertake our project.
Gaskell and I were to return straight to England, but Scawell and
Asprey had other fish to fry, as they were to go further eastward into
the provinces of Northern Manchuria. As the time approached for our
departure our eagerness to be off became chronic. Visions of other
lands and other peoples, of more cheerful surroundings, were ever
before us--anything, now, to get out of this dreary waste of snow which
for more than three months had enveloped us.
Our camp was the scene of some mild excitement when one day the
Government inspector, attended by several servants and a whole
string of horses, arrived. It was a great to-do, for he was an
important-looking personage, very much epauletted and be-buttoned
and extremely officious. His first duty was the inspection of our
gold-book, and, as bad luck would have it, a couple of trivial mistakes
had crept in, and within half an hour of the inspector’s arrival we
had to pay out fifty roubles as fines. It was a scene, too, later on in
the day, when we called up our men for their pay and gave them their
discharge. Criminals of the worst class though they were, we had got
to like our little staff, and I think they in return reciprocated the
feeling. Several of the men had made tremendous inroads on their wages
in the matter of purchases of vodki and clothing, and one cheerful
individual, after his sheet had been reckoned up, owed us a bit,
although he humorously remarked that our chances of getting it were
rather remote.
This was our last night in camp. On the morrow we were to depart on
our westward journey, and to signalize the event our men got up an
impromptu concert, which lasted well into the small hours, meanwhile
that they drank themselves into a maudlin state.
Morning broke--just the same sort of morning as we had experienced
during the whole time we had been in Siberia--cloudless, brilliant,
white. Our little caravan was already ranged up outside the hut. The
mining inspector was there to see us off. Asprey and Scawell had risen
betimes, and had loaded us with messages to friends at home. It was a
break indeed to part with those two good fellows who had been our boon
companions for so many weeks in this cheerless land. The Siberians,
I think, wondered why it was that we did not fall on each other’s
necks and kiss each other rapturously, as is the custom there. “You
English have cold blood,” said Schultz, “that you can part with your
comrades like this!” For a hurried shake of the hand, “Good-bye, old
boy, and good luck,” was all. We ambled out of the camp, and then down
the narrow pathway through the property. At the bend of the river we
surmounted a small hill and looked back. Asprey and Scawell were on the
roof of the hut, waving their scarves at us. The sound of a pistol-shot
reached our ears. It was the parting salute, and we fired our revolvers
in reply. Then we passed the brow and went down the great dip towards
the Armeul, and we saw no more of our camp in the mountains, or of our
comrades.
It took us five days to reach Karatuski, for it was now late in March,
and the ice on the Armeul was breaking up right and left, rendering
our passage one of extreme danger and difficulty. How welcome that
little village seemed after the roughing-it we had experienced in the
mountains! A man’s appreciation of comfort depends considerably on
where he has come from, and though Karatuski might be voted one of the
most miserable spots on the face of the earth by he just fresh from
Europe, it was a veritable city of plenty to us now.
From Karatuski to Minusinsk, and from Minusinsk to Atchinsk, with
galloping horses night and day; for every morning saw the snow getting
less and the great Yenesei cracking on all sides. Once, in the night,
while travelling up the river, the ice broke under us, and we lost one
of our horses. Only the fact that we were on the side, and not in the
centre, of the river saved us from complete destruction. How welcome
was the sound of the locomotive’s whistle at the station of Atchinsk!
and again when, as the cars rolled slowly in, what a link they seemed
with the civilization of the West!
Day succeeded night and night succeeded day with us ever journeying
westward. Familiar now were the names of the stations--Tigre,
Kreveschokovo, Kainsk, Omsk, Kurgan, Chelabinsk. Only drifts of
snow now in the mountain passes; buds to be seen on wayside trees;
everything betokening the rapid approach of the Asiatic summer. Late
one evening Gaskell awakened me from the nap into which I had fallen.
The train was slowly grinding through a defile in the Ural Mountains.
He looked at his watch. “In three minutes,” said he, “we shall be in
Europe.” The minutes slowly ticked off, and then, rounding a bend, the
sluggish train passed slowly the stone monument which separates Europe
from Asia.
There is nothing more of moment to tell in connection with our journey
to the Syansk Mountains. With the exception, probably, of the Captain
Wiggins’ expedition, we constituted, I think, the first English party
to enter Siberia in order to inquire into the commercial resources
of that vast country. The general impressions created by our visit I
have endeavoured to set down as clearly as possible, and at a time
when considerable attention is being directed towards Asiatic Russia
it is possible they may be of some value. Travellers to Siberia
hitherto have mainly consisted of those who have travelled through the
country with the express desire of writing a book, and have confined
themselves principally to the standard questions of the day; in which
prisons, exiles, wolves, and bears form no inconsiderable part. The
lasting impression which Siberia has upon me is that, while it is
undoubtedly a land of promise, yet some few years must elapse before
Europe can be brought into direct commercial contact with it. Anxious
as the Government is to promote trade in Siberia, the distance and the
primitiveness of the country will do much to delay matters; while, so
far as Englishmen are concerned, the autocratic laws of the great White
Czar can never be palatable. That there exists in Siberia a big field
for the investment of foreign capital goes without saying, but whether
Englishmen will grasp the opportunity is another matter. Ten years may
see Siberia a far different country to what it is at the present time,
and in this connection nothing will have tended more to remove the
mystery and gloom of that great country than that magnificent State
enterprise--the Trans-Siberian Railroad.
INDEX
Armeul, The river, 182, 191
Atchinsk, The town of, 107
Baraba steppe, The, 20
Chelabinsk, 1-13
Chulim river, The, 104
Colonization, Russia’s scheme, 21
Criminal workmen, 170
Czar, The late, and the Siberian railway, 23
Emigrants’ fares to Russia, 26
Emigrants’ train, 27
English language in Russia, 15
Exiles, Condition of, 113
Frozen river, The, 72
Gobi desert, The, 228
Gold averages, 94
Gold-miners, Amusements of, 174, 222
Gold-miners, Siberian, 174
Gold-mining, Account of, 195
Gold-receiving depôts, 94
Grants of land to emigrants, 26
Irtish river, The, 19
Kansk, 69
Kara sea route, 114
Karatuski, Village of, 166
Khirghiz Cossacks, The, 55
Khirghiz horsemanship, 59
Khirghiz Kibitkas, or tents, 58
Krasnoiarsk, Population of, 112
Krasnoiarsk, The city of, 101, 110
Krasnoiarsk, The valley of, 108
Kurgan, 21
Machinery for gold-mining, 199
Merchandise, Siberian, 116
Millionaires of Tomsk, The, 87
Mining concessions, 97, 172
Mining laws, 98
Minusinsk, 133, 162
Moujiks, Siberian, 145
Nomadic tribes, 21
Ob, The station of, 74
Obi bridge, 69
Obi river, The, 69
Obi valley, The, 68
Omsk, 31
River sledging, 70
Russian Church, The, 32
Russian corruption, 102
Russian curiosity, 14
Russian incivility, 16
Russian railway travelling, Economy of, 128
Russian trade with Siberia, 51
Russian vigilance, 165
Sable hunting, 235
Siberian cabmen, The, 40
Siberian food, 82
Siberian forest, A, 75
Siberian hospitality, 88
Siberian hotels, 43
Siberian posting stations, 45
Siberian railway station, Description of, 5
Siberian trains, Slowness of, 62
Siberikoff, M., 86
Sledging, 129, 139
Sledging, Dangers of, 153, 182
Sledging, Discomforts of, 186, 192
Snowshoeing, 215
Syansk mountains, 100, 181
Syots, The, 234
Tartar Steppe, The, 19
Tea-trade of Siberia, The, 116
Tigre, The station of, 74
Tom, The river, 86
Tomsk and the railroad, 52
Tomsk mining laboratory, The, 92
Tomsk, The city of, 76
Tomsk university, 87
Trans-Siberian Railway, Description of, 101, 120
Trans-Siberian Railway, Importance of, 126, 128
Transport, 202
Ural mountains, 1
Vladivostock, 24
Wiggins’ expedition, 113
Yenesei, The valley of, 108
Yenesei river, The, 138
THE END.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET
AND CHARING CROSS.
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
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