THROUGH SIBERIA

By HENRY LANSDELL, D.D., F.R.G.S.

With Illustrations and Maps

FIFTH EDITION

London

SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, AND RIVINGTON

188, FLEET STREET

1883

[All Rights Reserved.]

Being about to leave England on a projected tour through Russian Central Asia, and the second edition of “Through Siberia” having become nearly exhausted, I find myself called upon to make preparation for a third and cheaper issue. It is only necessary to say that the subject-matter of the third and second editions is alike, the third edition, however, being bound in one volume, and printed on thinner paper, with somewhat fewer illustrations.

H. L.

Blackheath,

21st June, 1882.

Being unexpectedly but agreeably obliged to prepare a second edition before the day for the public appearance of the first, I can do little more than express my gratitude for the favour with which my book has been received, and repeat what has already been printed. The kind and too favourable reviews that have thus far come under my notice seem to call for little remark but of thanks. One journal, however—the St. James’s Gazette—has stated, on the authority of a Russian informant, that ‘official orders were sent before me to the prisons to make things wear a favourable aspect for my visit.’ I venture therefore here to repeat what I wrote to the Editor (but which he did not think fit to publish), that if his Russian informant, or any other, thinks that I have been duped or misinformed, I am perfectly ready to be questioned, and shall be happy to discuss the question in the public press, provided only that my opponent give facts, dates, names, and places, and do not hide behind general statements and impersonalities. My own conviction is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, at all events, I saw Siberian prison affairs in their normal condition.

With the exception, then, of a corrected note which appeared on page 37, vol. i., a slight re-arrangement of the bibliography and appendices, a few verbal alterations, and a new and improved index, this second edition is the same as the first.

H. L.

The Grove, Blackheath,

20th February, 1882.

This book is a traveller’s story, enriched from the writings of others. In San Francisco an American Bishop said to me, “I hope, sir, you will give us your experience, for Siberia is a country of which we know so little.” Accordingly, on my return, two courses presented themselves—either to confine myself to an account of my personal adventures, or to supplement them from published information, and describe the country as a whole. I chose the latter course, and the result is in the reader’s hands. At the end of the work will be found a list of books consulted, to the authors of many of which I must acknowledge myself indebted for much scientific and technical information.

My speciality in Siberia was the visitation of its prisons and penal institutions, considered, however, not so much from an economic or administrative as from a philanthropic and religious point of view. Much has been written concerning them that is very unsatisfactory, and some things that are absolutely false. One author published “My Exile in Siberia” who never went there. “Escapes” and so-called “Revelations” of Siberia have been written by others who were banished only a few days’ journey beyond the Urals; [vii] whereas it is only east of the Baikal that the severest forms of exile life begin. None, so far as I know, who have escaped or been released from the mines, have written the tale of what they endured, and very few authors have been in a position even to describe what the penal mines are like.

It has been comparatively easy, therefore, in England for writers to exaggerate on this subject almost as they pleased, because scarcely any one could contradict them. Comparatively few travellers cross Northern Asia to the Amur. I doubt if any English author has preceded me. Probably also I was the first foreigner ever allowed to go through the Siberian prisons and mines. Perhaps none before have asked permission. That I obtained such an authorization astonished my friends, though the open manner in which the letter was granted seemed to show that the authorities had nothing to hide. A master-key was put into my hand that opened every door. I went where I would, and almost when I would; and on no single occasion was admission refused, though often applied for at a moment’s notice. Statistics also were freely given me; but this was “not so writ in the bond.” An afterthought, in Siberia, emboldened me to ask for them in various places, and they were usually furnished then and there. All these are displayed before the reader. I have exaggerated nothing,—kept nothing back.

I speak thus in case I should be thought to have written with a bias; but I had no reason to be other than impartial. Of politics I know next to nothing, and so was not prejudiced in this direction. Nor had I anything to gain by withholding, or to fear from telling, the whole of the truth. I did not travel [viii] as the agent or representative of any religious body. Two societies, indeed, at my request, made me grants of books, and a generous friend provided the cost of travel; but the expedition was a private one, and implicated none but myself. I could not, of course, see matters as a prisoner would; but I wish to state that, having visited prisons in nearly every country of Europe, I have given here an unprejudiced statement of what I saw and heard in the prisons and mines of Siberia

That a foreigner, flying across Europe and Asia, as I did, is exceedingly likely to receive false impressions and form erroneous conclusions, is obvious to every one, and I claim no exemption; for though I have journeyed in Russia, from Archangel to Mount Ararat, yet my experience is that of a traveller only, and not of a resident. I do not even speak Russ, but have been dependent on interpreters, or information received in French. I trust, therefore, that no one may be misled by taking my testimony for more than it is worth. I have tried to be accurate, and that is all I can say.

Perhaps I may add, however, that my proof-sheets have been revised by Russian friends among others, and that most of the chapters concerning exile life have been submitted not only to a Russian Inspector of Prisons, but also to released political exiles who have worked in the mines. The latter endorse what I have said, and (with reference to the chapters on “Exiles,” “Political Prisoners,” and the “Mines of Nertchinsk”) the Inspector has done me the compliment to write, “What you say is so perfectly correct that your book may be taken as a standard, even by Russian authorities.” I have good hope, therefore, that in this [ix] feature of my work, at all events, I have avoided misrepresentation.

On scientific subjects I cannot speak with authority; but I have been allowed to submit the proof-sheets to various friends, who have kindly read them with an eye to their particular studies. My thanks, accordingly, are due to Sir Andrew Ramsay, LL.D., F.R.S., Director-General of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom; to Mr. James Glaisher, F.R.S., formerly of the meteorological department of the Greenwich Observatory; and to Mr. Trelawney Saunders, Geographer to the India Office. Mr. Henry Seebohm, F.L.S., F.Z.S., has read such paragraphs as relate to zoology and ornithology; and Mr. Henry Howorth, F.S.A., author of “The History of the Mongols,” has afforded suggestions from his extensive reading in Siberian ethnology. I am also indebted for information concerning many Sclavonic words, manners, and customs to Mrs. Cattley, formerly of Petersburg, and a great traveller in Russia; and to the Rev. C. Slegg Ward, M.A., Vicar of Wootton St. Lawrence, for literary help. It is difficult to restrain my pen from mentioning others—the scores of friends who gave me introductions, the scores of others who received and honoured them—but if I once begin in this direction, where shall I end? I can only say that, for hospitality to strangers, Siberia carries the palm before every country in which I have travelled, and that from the day I crossed the Russian frontier till I reached the Pacific I met with nothing but kindness.

H. L.

The Grove, Blackheath,

20th December, 1881.

In proper names the letters should be pronounced as follows:—A as in father; e as in there; i as in ravine; o as in go; u as in lunar; and the diphthongs ai and ei as in hide. The consonants are pronounced as in English, save that kh is guttural, as in the Scotch loch.

The dates are given according to the English reckoning, being in advance of the Russian by twelve days.

All temperatures are expressed according to the scale of Fahrenheit.

The ordinary paper rouble is reckoned at two shillings, its value at the time of the Author’s visit; but before the Russo-Turkish war its value was half-a-crown and upwards.

English weights and measures are to be understood unless otherwise stated.

[xxv]

Object of the journey.—Interest in prisons.—Visitation of prisons in 1874.—Distribution of religious literature in Russia.—Tour round Bothnian Gulf, 1876.—To Russo-Turkish war, 1877.—To Archangel, 1878.—Origin of Siberian journey.—Alba Hellman and her correspondence.—The way opened.—Projected efforts of usefulness.—Books to be distributed.—Final resolve.

The object that took me through Siberia was of a philanthropic and religious character; and before proceeding to a general description of the country, I should like to acquaint the reader with the circumstances that led me there. My interest in prisons dates from a visit to Newgate jail in 1867, followed by others to prisons at Winchester, Portland, Millbank, Dover, York, Exeter, Geneva, Guernsey, and Edinburgh: but this interest amounted to little more than curiosity. Two years later it took a practical turn. My summer holidays up to that time had been spent on the principle, “Play when you play, and work when you work,”—a proverb that is doubtless true, but which I had not found entirely satisfactory. I was minded, [2] therefore, to test another saying, that “the way to be happy is to be useful,” and in 1874 was casting about as to how the principle could be applied to a tour of five weeks through seven countries, not one of whose tongues I could speak, when the visitation of continental prisons suggested itself, and the distribution therein and elsewhere of suitable literature. The Committee of the Religious Tract Society generously placed a supply at my disposal, and in company with the Rev. J. P. Hobson, then curate of Greenwich, I started for Russia viâ Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, intending to return through Poland, Austria, and Prussia. We saw the prisons of Copenhagen and Stockholm, but they were well supplied with books, and needed not our help; whereas, in the old castles used as prisons at Åbo and Wiborg, our papers were thankfully accepted, and in Russia quite a surprise awaited us. Without reason, I had feared that perhaps the orthodox Russians would decline to receive books from Protestants, as do the Romans. We found, however, that they would accept such books as had been approved by the censor, and accordingly we sent 2,000 pamphlets into the prisons of Petersburg, reserving a third thousand for giving away on the railway to Moscow, not knowing at that time that for such open distribution a permission is needed. I can never forget the surprise of the people and their desire to get the books. The peasants came and kissed our hands; the railway guards directed to us the attention of the station-masters, who came to receive our gifts. Priests took the books, and approved them; and many who offered money in return were puzzled to see it declined. Our stock was soon exhausted, and I determined some [3] day to make a tour in Russia to distribute on a larger scale.

In 1876 my holiday weeks were spent in a journey across Norway and Sweden and round the Gulf of Bothnia. Twelve thousand tracts were distributed, and visits made to prisons and hospitals, those of Finland being found inadequately supplied with both Scriptures and other books. On my return I brought this before the Committee of the Bible Society, and asked for a copy of the Scriptures for every room in every prison, and for each bed in every hospital, in all Finland. This they kindly granted, so far as to offer to bear half the expense with the Finnish Bible Society; and the plan, after some delay, was carried out. Scriptures were also to be provided, at my request, for the Finnish institutions for the deaf and dumb, and for the saloons of the steamers plying on the Scandinavian coasts.

In 1877 Roumania and the seat of the Russo-Turkish war was chosen for my holiday resort, with a view to being useful in the Russian hospitals. But I was too early, and my vacation too short; so that after visiting, on the outward trip, some of the prisons of Austria and Hungary, I returned, doing the like through Servia, Sclavonia, the Tyrol, Basle, and Paris. The mass of the prisoners were Roman Catholics, for whom I do not remember a single case in which the Scriptures were provided. Some of the authorities, however, said they would accept them if sent, and I therefore asked the Bible Society again for a liberal grant for the prisoners, the sick, and others of the countries through which I had passed. They were willing to make the grant, but the local agents reported many difficulties, and the result fell short of my expectations.

[4]

In 1878, therefore, I resolved upon a change of tactics, to take my ammunition with me, and carry out my cherished scheme for Russia. Considerable difficulties, however, lay in the way. An Englishman, unable to speak the language, going into the interior of Russia to distribute books and pamphlets, in the year of the Berlin Congress, towards the close of the war, would certainly not have been safe. No amount of official papers and permissions would have kept him out of the clutches of ignorant officials. It seemed necessary, therefore, to take an interpreter; and as the transport of heavy luggage in Russia is slow, and my books would accompany me as personal baggage, it was clear that the cost would be a great increase to holiday expenses. A generous friend, however, at this juncture, as also subsequently, came to my aid; and in the month of June I trotted out of Petersburg with about two waggonloads of books, a companion, an interpreter, and a sufficiency of official letters. We went by rail through Moscow and Jaroslav to Vologda, and thence by steamer on the Suchona and Dwina to Archangel. We distributed everywhere,—to priests and people, in prisons, hospitals, and monasteries, and created such a stir in some of the small towns that people besieged our rooms by day, and even by night. Our travel was necessarily so quick that we could not always inform the police beforehand of what we were doing, and more than once they came (as was their duty) to arrest us; but our encounters always ended amicably, and we reached home after a happy six weeks’ tour, extending over 5,500 miles, in the course of which we distributed 25,000 Scriptures and tracts. These experiences in [5] some measure prepared me for my longer journey in 1879, the origin of which was somewhat remarkable.

When travelling round the Gulf of Bothnia in 1876, my steamer unexpectedly stayed for a day at a town on the coast of Finland. I was anxious to visit the hospital, and was inquiring about a horse, when a passenger said she had friends in the town, who, she thought, could render assistance. I went with her; and that simple incident may be said to have originated my subsequent tour through the prisons of Siberia; for it was followed by correspondence with a lady member of the family to whom I was introduced, Miss Alba Hellman, who began by modestly asking me, chiefly because I was an Englishman and the only one she knew, whether I could not do something for the welfare of the Siberian exiles. I confess that at first I thought this the most extraordinary request ever put to me, and it seemed too great an undertaking even to be thought of. Already immersed in work, regular and self-imposed, I had no time or means for such an undertaking; and if the money were forthcoming, who would go? Another question, too, arose: Would the Russian Government allow anything to be done?

The case of my Finnish correspondent, however, was a touching one. When in health she had been wont, like Elizabeth Fry, but on a smaller scale, to spend part of her time in visiting prisoners. Now, acute heart disease forbade such visits, and even compelled her to sleep in a sitting posture, so that for 2,068 nights, or nearly seven years, she never went to bed. My coming to Finland, visiting prisons, had awakened memories of her former work, and she set [6] herself, after my departure, to write me a letter in English. She had had only a few lessons in this language when a girl; but, possessing a Swedish and English New Testament in parallel columns, and a dictionary, she set herself, with an industry and patience almost incredible, to find clauses and expressions that conveyed her meaning in Swedish, and then to copy their English equivalents, her letter ending, for example, “Here are many faults, but I pray you have me excused.” The force of her language, however, was unmistakable, thus: “You (English) have sent missionarys round the all world, to China, Persia, Palestina, Africa, the Islands of Sandwich, to many places of the Continent of Europe; but to the great, great Siberia, where so much is to do, you not have sent missionarys. Have you not a Morrison, a Moffatt, for Siberia? Pastor Lansdell, go you yourself to Siberia!”

What, then, could I say to this? To have spoken the real language of my thoughts would have been cruel. So I thought to shelve the question by returning an oracular answer, that “the letter contained much that was interesting, and that I would think the matter over.” My correspondent, however, was not to be discouraged, and wrote another letter, giving further information concerning Siberia, and drawing a gloomy picture of the religious condition of the natives and exiles. Others followed, and at last I began to think that, after all, the project was not quite so unfeasible as it first appeared to be. My generous friend, who had read the letters and was interested, both urged me on and again offered help; and when it was determined that I should leave a clerical appointment I had held [7] for ten easy and happy years, I resolved, in the absence of another suitable post presenting itself, at once to “rough it” for a summer in the wilds of Asiatic Russia.

But what could I do towards the object my friend had at heart? Ignorance of the Russian language and of the Siberian dialects would prevent my speaking to the people. I might, however, visit prisons, hospitals, and mines, and at least provide them with the Scriptures in various languages, and with books, as in previous holidays. When travelling in the Russian interior in 1878, persons were met with who had never seen a complete New Testament, and I reasoned that a general distribution of such books in Siberia, whether by sale or gift, would be doubly useful, besides which I meant to be on the look-out for such other opportunities of usefulness as might present themselves and be allowed me.

But what were the books you were to give away? and how is it that you were allowed to distribute them? are questions that have often been asked with surprise. An answer to the first will prepare the way for the second. The Scriptures included the four Gospels, the Book of Psalms, and the New Testament. These were for the most part in Russian; but there were a few copies in Polish, French, German, and Tatar, with certain portions of the Old Testament for the Buriats in Mongolian, and for the Jews in Hebrew. Besides these Scriptures there were copies of the Rooski Rabotchi, an adapted reprint in Russian of the British Workman, full of pictures, and well suited to the masses; also a large well-executed engraving, with the story written around, of the parable of the Prodigal Son, together with broad-sheets suitable for hospital [8] walls, and thousands of Russian tracts. The Scriptures were printed for the Bible Society by the Holy Synod, and the tracts had passed the censor’s hands. All was therefore in order, and before going to Archangel I had received a permanent legitimation to distribute, duly endorsed by the police.

So far, therefore, things in England looked promising for Siberia, but the way thither was by no means clear. In April, 1879, the plague was said to be raging in Russia, and towards the end of that month came one of the attempts on the late Emperor’s life. This led to Petersburg being placed in a state of siege, and few of my friends felicitated me on my intention to go thither. Some thought I should not obtain the required permissions for Siberia, and advised accordingly. But having always before succeeded through the courtesy of the Russians in getting what I asked, I resolved to be deaf as an adder to everything short of a denial at the capital from the lips of the authorities, and, being thus resolved, I set out on my journey.

Departure for Petersburg.—Official receptions.—Minister of the Interior.—Metropolitan of Moscow.—Introductions.—Books forwarded.—Departure for Moscow.—Nijni Novgorod.—Site of the fair.—Joined by interpreter.—Kasan.—Bulgarian antiquities.—Neighbouring heathen.—Idolatrous objects and practices.—Departure from Kasan.—The Volga and the Kama.—Arrival at Perm.

On Wednesday morning, 30th April, 1879, I left London, and reached Petersburg on the following Saturday evening, to find at my hotel a pleasant welcome in the shape of an invitation to breakfast with Lord Dufferin on the Monday morning. This was due to letters with which I had been favoured from high quarters in England, and one result of which, thanks to the kindness of the British Ambassador, was an introductory letter to M. Makoff, the Minister of the Interior, which I presented to his Excellency on Tuesday. Whilst waiting in the ante-room with other suitors, there was time for cogitation as to what the answer might be. My Petersburg friends gave me small hope of success; on the contrary, one of them, high in authority, who had helped me before, had gone so far as to say, “Why, it is not likely that, with so many political prisoners therein, they will allow him to go through the prisons of Siberia now.” I drew encouragement, however, from the fact that a ministerial [10] letter had been given me the previous year, which I thought would be registered in the archives, and, trusting there was on it nothing against me, I hoped that this would be in my favour. At length, when I was ushered into the Minister’s presence, he scarcely looked at the Ambassador’s letter, but referred to my having had the document the previous year, and said at once that there was no objection to my having another; upon which, flushed with success, I bowed and retired.

This emboldened me to go to another dignitary, and, having a friend to interpret, I went straight from the Minister to the new Metropolitan of Moscow, to present a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury, addressed “To the Metropolitans of the Church of Russia, or others whom it may concern.” His Eminence appeared in a brown silk moiré-antique robe, glittering with jewelled decorations, and wearing as is usual the white crape hat of a metropolitan, with a diamond cross in front. He stood on little ceremony, and, almost before I had made my bow, he shook my hand, gave me a fraternal kiss on either cheek, and motioned me to a seat beside him. He then entered with zest into my scheme for distributing the Scriptures, said that the Russians had not the means to perform all they would, and commended the English for what they were doing. He asked a few questions relative to Church matters in England, regretted that we had no language in common in which we could converse, and then cordially wished me God speed.

I had thus made an excellent beginning. The next thing to be done was to get additional introductions, and this I tried to do so as to find my way amongst various classes of people. A letter from Mr. Glaisher, the [11] aeronaut, and formerly of the Greenwich Observatory, opened the way for me to scientific people, more especially those taking meteorological observations in European and Asiatic Russia; an introduction from a German pastor brought me into contact with the educational world through Mr. Maack, the late General-Inspector of Schools for Eastern Siberia; a third and a fourth introduction procured letters to the Finns and the German pastors throughout Siberia; and a fifth to the telegraph officers, most of whom speak English, French, or German. Messrs. Egerton Hubbard took me under their wing, and kindly arranged to forward money and letters; and I had various mercantile introductions, together with several of a social character, to persons of different standing, from the Governors-General of Siberia downwards. All told, my introductions, as far as Kiakhta, numbered 133. It is, however, a traveller’s axiom that, “Of good introductions, store is no sore,” and many of mine proved to be worth their weight in gold.

My Petersburg friends were delighted at the Minister’s reply, and, as the sun was shining, they determined to make their hay. They urged me to take still more books—5,000 additional pamphlets of one kind, especially suited for schools; and this notwithstanding that upwards of 25,000 of a miscellaneous character had already been forwarded by slow transit to the Urals. My willingness, however, was limited only by my capabilities of carriage, and, accordingly, as many more books were taken as, together with my personal baggage and those gone before, would fill three Russian post waggons; and this I thought would be about as many as, under the circumstances, it was possible for me to take.

[12]

After a busy stay of nine days in the Russian capital, I left for Moscow on the afternoon of Monday, the 12th of May, and arrived the following morning. The only business that detained me there was to inquire of some ladies, who devote themselves to work among the prisoners, how many and what books they were distributing among the exiles, so that I might not do their work over again. I found, however, that their labours were directed more especially to the temporal good of the prisoners—looking after their wives, placing out their children, finding them clothes, and such like useful works, rather than seeking directly their spiritual good, though this had to some extent been attempted by lending and occasionally giving them books to read in the prison. Accordingly, I left Moscow by rail on Wednesday evening, to arrive after thirteen hours at Nijni Novgorod, on the Volga.

May is not a good time to see this famous place. The river overflows its banks in spring to a depth of several feet, and covers the site of the wonderful fair, in anticipation of which the lower storeys of the warehouses and buildings are cleared; and to cleanse them before July is one of the first things to be done by the owners, who with their goods arrive yearly from all parts of the world. I was rowed in a boat through the streets (which are called after the names of the merchandise sold therein) to see the Chinese quarter, with pagoda-like buildings; the Persian quarter, the two cathedrals, the theatre, the Governor’s house, etc., all of which are used only during the fair, and were now empty. The nearest approach to a fair that I saw was a gathering near the entrance to the Kremlin, where were men standing with their stock-in-trade in [13] their hands or slung over their shoulders—one with a pair of boots, another with a shirt, and a third with a pair of trousers or other garments, and for which each was ready to bargain and chaffer. Hitherto I had travelled alone. I now stayed at Nijni Novgorod to be joined by a young man who was to be my companion and interpreter, and then, leaving by steamer on Friday at mid-day, we reached Kasan early on Saturday morning, there to spend Sunday, the 18th of May.

The covered heads and veiled faces of the women, together with the tawny porters carrying their huge burdens, speedily reminded us that we had reached an ancient Tatar city. The only tourists’ lion we visited was Mr. Lichatcheff’s collection of Bulgarian antiquities. He very kindly and politely showed us through the rooms of his house, which were crammed with curiosities. Among them were rude implements of the stone age, ancient oriental lamps, and ancient crosses, one of which, dating from the eleventh or twelfth century, was without the foot-piece now found on the Russian cross, which foot-piece, our informant considered, was not used on Russian crosses in the earliest times. There were also some stone Byzantine crosses. The Bulgarian antiquities had been found on the banks of the Volga, showing the location of that people before their migration further south.

Another point of interest in Kasan must not be passed over. I had supposed that heathen rites and practices were now in Europe a thing of the past. We heard, however, of five nationalities scattered through Russia, but found more, especially in the Kasan government, who, though nominally Christian, [14] still resort to idolatrous superstitions. They are called Tcheremisi, Mordvar, Vodeki, Tchuvashi, and Tatars; and the Russian Government is adopting means for their enlightenment by taking peasant boys from among them, and training them for schoolmasters and priests. A seminary devoted to this purpose, situated near the Tatar quarter of the town, was shown to us by the principal, Professor Ilminski.⁠[1]

In or near the Bishop’s house in the Kremlin we were introduced to Mr. Zoloneetski, who trains young men to be mission priests to the nationalities whence they have been brought. In 1878 he had twenty-one students, some of them from the seminary just mentioned. He gives them lectures on aboriginal languages, customs, and superstitions, and shows them how to bring the natives to Christianity. This he does in part by exposing various idolatrous objects, of which he has a curious collection. Among them was a Tchuvash idol, consisting of a block of wood, to which pieces of cloth were brought as offerings. This had been used less than ten years before. Another piece of superstition came from the Tcheremisi,⁠[2] and was less than [15] twelve months old. There was also to be seen a rudely-cut box containing coins. Some of them were ancient, but were supposed to have been offered recently by Tatars, nominally Christian. It would seem that a Tatar sometimes makes a vow to the spirit of the forest to dedicate a horse, cow, or some other animal; but not having a victim, or not having it to spare at the time, he leaves money as a pledge of good faith, and then, when able to fulfil his vow, reclaims his coin.

Some of these objects had been obtained through friends and some by fraud, but there was a curious story connected with the boxes. A missionary priest (a friend of our informant), knowing of their existence, went to a family in his parish, and asked if he might take away their idolatrous things. They answered at first in the negative; but, after he had left the house, a woman came out to draw water, and told him she thought it would be much better if he would steal the things, for then they would have less money to bring and fewer prayers to say. The priest, therefore, returned at night, when the family pretended to be soundly asleep (so that the spirit might not be offended with what took place whilst they were unconscious), mounted the loft, took the things, and subsequently gave them to our informant.

[16]

We quitted Kasan on Monday morning in one of Lubimoff’s steamers, and, after proceeding two or three hours down the Volga, left that river to finish its career of 2,200 miles, whilst we turned into one of its affluents, the Kama, which is no mean river in itself, having a course of 1,400 miles. The junction of the two streams presents a fine expanse of water, but the banks are too flat to be pretty. Steamboat travelling in Russia is not expensive, the first-class fare from Nijni Novgorod to Perm, a four days’ journey, being only 36s.

After a voyage of three days and a half from Kasan we reached Perm, where the people were in great excitement consequent on the burning of two “quartals,” or large blocks of buildings. The roofs and houses of the town were described as being covered, during the previous night, with women, watching lest sparks should fall on their property, whilst their husbands helped to extinguish the fire; and so great was the fear of a general conflagration, that some sent their wives and families into the neighbouring villages. Others we saw encamped by the bank of the river, whilst on a grass plot near a church were others tired out and fast asleep beside the chattels they had rescued. Not long before, Orenburg and Irbit had been burnt, and were supposed by some to have been wilfully set on fire, and so excited were the inhabitants of Perm, and so ready to snap up persons at all suspected, that we were cautioned, as being strangers, to walk in the middle of the road. We then visited the hospital, saw the Governor, and left some books for the Perm institutions; but I was reserving my strength for Siberia, and the same evening the train was to carry us to the top of the Urals.

A new railway.—The Ural range.—Outlook into Russia in Asia.—Nijni Tagil.—The Demidoff mines and hospital.—May weather.—Russian railways.—Arrival at Ekaterineburg.—An orphanage.—Precious stones.—Orenburg shawls.—Tarantass and luggage.—Departure for Tiumen.—The exiles.—Visits to the authorities.

Those who have hitherto written of journeys to Siberia have told of a dismal drive from Perm to Ekaterineburg; but this misfortune did not fall to our lot, since in the autumn of 1878 a railway was opened over the mountains, and the journey is now accomplished in about four-and-twenty hours. The distance is 312 miles, and between the two termini are about 30 stations.⁠[1]

From the prominence given in maps of Europe to the Ural chain, one is apt from childhood to expect in these mountains something grand. The entire length of the range, including its continuation in Novaia [18] Zemlia, is about 1,700 miles. Its highest peak, however, does not attain to more than 6,000 feet, and many parts of the range are not more than 2,000 feet above the sea level. No part of it is permanently covered with snow. Travellers by the old route describe, in passing it, a never-failing object of interest on the frontier in the shape of a stone, on one side of which is written “Europe” and on the other “Asia,” across which, of course, an English boy would stride, and announce that he had stood in two quarters of the globe at once. Travellers by the new route miss this opportunity; but they have its equivalent in three border stations, one of which is called “Europa,” the next “Ural,” and the third “Asia,” through which those who have journeyed can say what no other travellers can, that they have passed by rail from one quarter of the globe into another.

Thus the ease with which one reaches the summit of the Urals is somewhat disappointing, but no such thoughts are suggested by an outlook into the immense country that now lies before the traveller. There stretches far before him a region known as Russia in Asia, the dimensions of which are very hard for the mind to realize. It measures 4,000 miles from east to west, about 2,000 from north to south, and covers [19] nearly five and three-quarter millions of square miles. It is larger by two millions of square miles than the whole of Europe; about twice as big as Australia, and nearly one hundred times as large as England.

The general aspect of the surface may be easily described. The Altai range of mountains, with its offshoots to the east, forms the general features of the southern boundary, and from these heights the land gradually slopes towards the northern tundras or bogs, which extend to the frozen ocean. The country is intersected by three of the largest rivers in the world, the Obi, the Yenesei, and the Lena, not one of which is much less than 3,000 miles long, and all of them, through great part of the year, flow under masses of ice to the Arctic Ocean. A fourth river, the Amur, rising in the Yablonoi mountains, which may be regarded as a part of the eastern slopes of the Altai chain, runs a course also of more than 2,000 miles, but takes an easterly direction, forming part of the southern boundary of the country, and empties itself into the Gulf of Tartary.

The country largely consists of immense steppes, marshes, and pools. Lakes, properly so called, are not numerous, but the greatest of them, the “Baikal,” is in some respects the most remarkable in the world. No less remarkable is the great variety of the inhabitants. They are sometimes classified into five typical races: Sclavonic (including Russians and Poles); Finnish (including Finns, Voguls, Ostjaks, Samoyedes, Yuraki); Turkish (including Tatars, Kirghese, Kalmuks, Yakutes); Mongolian (including Manchu, Buriats, and Tunguses—the last of various denominations); and Chinese, with whom may be classed, though not very accurately, the [20] Gilyaks and Aïnos. In fact, an ethnographical map of Asiatic Russia I bought at Petersburg shows therein no less than 30 peoples or nations.⁠[2]

Many of them, it is true, are but feebly represented, for the entire population does not number more inhabitants than are to be found in seven of the counties of England, and they have not enough men and women in Russian Asia to put one of each in every square mile, whereas every square mile of the seven English counties alluded to has on an average 573 inhabitants. It is difficult to give exact statistics, because, from the wandering life led by many of the aborigines, it is impossible to ascertain their number, and so authorities differ; but the total population, including Russians, is estimated at about 8,000,000. Our attention, however, is to be chiefly confined to Siberia, and it should not be forgotten that Siberia is not co-extensive with the whole of Asiatic Russia, and does not begin, properly speaking, till Ekaterineburg is passed. We have been merely taking a look, from the government of Perm, out of European into Asiatic Russia; this government, as also that of Orenburg, lying partly in Europe and partly in Asia.

Before descending to the foot of the Urals, we arrive at Nijni Tagilsk. At this place we halted for a day to [21] look over the famous Demidoff mines and works. There had been a fire in the town, as at Perm, on the night preceding our arrival; and in seven hours 78 houses had been burnt. Pieces of smoking wood were still flying about. The common people, as before, attributed the fire to incendiaries, such as escaped prisoners, who hoped to profit by the turmoil, and find an occasion for plunder; but more thoughtful people traced it to accidental causes. Demidoff’s workmen had been called out at night to assist as firemen, and were in consequence resting. We could not, therefore, see everything in motion, but enough was visible to make it clear that they were carrying on enormous metallurgical operations. One of the remarkable things to be noticed was a surface mine of magnetic iron ore, blasted and dug out in terraces, carted down by horses and taken to the furnace, where the ore proves so rich that it yields 68 per cent. of iron. We also descended a copper-mine, the mineral from which yields 5 per cent. of metal. We were dressed for the occasion in top-boots, leather hats, and appropriate blouses and trousers, each carrying a lamp, and thus by ladders we descended one shaft of 600 feet and came up another, the water meanwhile trickling upon us freely. At the bottom of the mine they were erecting an English machine for pumping 80 cubic feet of water per minute to the surface. In the engine-room two men at a time spend eight hours daily, for which they each receive in money about fifteen pence. We promised ourselves, as a great feature in the descent of the copper-mine, the seeing of malachite in its natural state, and we were not disappointed. The captain took us through [22] long galleries of timber beams, and then to the spots where the miners had been working. Here, by the light of our lamps, the pieces of green mineral could be clearly seen, and we had the pleasure of digging them out with a pick, and bringing them away as specimens. The price of malachite at the mine is six shillings a Russian pound, if in moderate-sized pieces; twenty shillings when the lumps are large, but only two shillings if they are small.

Besides these copper and magnetic iron mines, they have others of manganese iron ore, which contains 64 per cent. of binoxide of manganese, the peroxide being sold at the rate of about eighteen shillings per hundredweight. Specimens of these and other minerals of great interest to the geologist are exhibited in a museum not far from the works.

Among the remarkable things to be seen at these hives of industry were—a machine for drawing water by a cord from a copper-mine two miles off, a steam-hammer of seven tons weight, an iron furnace of 10,000 cubic feet dimensions, said to be the largest high furnace for wood in the world, and a machine for splitting their fuel wood, of which they burn annually 100,000 sajens—that is to say, a 325 feet cube, or, roughly speaking, a pile of logs twice as big as St. Paul’s Cathedral.⁠[3]

They make steel for Sheffield, and can do castings up to more than 30 tons in weight. Their iron is excelled in quality, I believe, only by that of Dannemora. [23] They have 11 zavods, or “works,” of which eight are connected with iron. But perhaps a better idea can be formed of their vastness by the mention of the number of persons employed, which amounts to 30,000. I heard also 40,000, and both numbers were from heads of departments; but probably the latter estimate includes carters, labourers, and perhaps even women. The Demidoffs pay annually, by way of rates and taxes—to the Commune, £5,000; the Church, £1,500; schools, £2,500; poor and aged, £3,000; together with other sums, amounting in all to about £20,000 a year. Wages, as compared with those in England, appeared low. Common workmen receive from 7½d. to 1s. a day, puddlers 3s., and those in the welding furnace 4s., whilst good rollers receive from 3s. 6d. to 6s. It should be observed, however, that they all have houses rent free, with the piece of land they formerly occupied as serfs.

Before the emancipation, the riches of the Demidoffs were counted in the phrase then usual in Russia as amounting to 56,000 souls.⁠[4] A small church, built on the crest of a neighbouring hill, was pointed out as having been built by the serfs in memory of their freedom; and I was glad to hear from the director, Mr. Wohlstadt (by whom we were courteously entertained), that since the emancipation the men work better and better, knowing, I presume, when serfs, that idleness would be repaid with something not much worse than [24] a beating; whereas now they know they may be discharged.

We slept at the club; and in the morning, before leaving, visited the Demidoff hospital, upon which, and upon institutions of a similar kind, the proprietors spend nearly £4,000 a year. The dimensions of the rooms were such as to allow of three cubic sajens, or 1,200 cubic feet, of air for each of the patients, of whom there were 120 at the time of our visit. Many fractured and amputated limbs were seen dressed with gypsum, alcohol, and camphor; but the most extraordinary thing was a machine in the director’s private room, in which he placed frozen human brains, and for scientific purposes cut them in very thin slices to photograph. The photographs are to be purchased in Paris.

On leaving Tagil we found the temperature much colder,⁠[5] and our journey to Ekaterineburg was somewhat comfortless, from the fact that, anticipating no more cold weather, the officials had not brought in the train the apparatus for heating by steam. At Ekaterineburg I finished railway journeys, amounting to 2,670 miles; and as I was now to bid farewell to the horse of iron and travel by horses of flesh, it is only right to say that of the iron horses which took me across Europe [25] the Russian on the whole was, I think, the best.⁠[6] Our arrival at Ekaterineburg on Saturday evening was expected, and quarters were provided for me through the kindness of Messrs. Egerton Hubbard. Ekaterineburg is a handsome town of 30,000 inhabitants, and has many fine churches and other buildings. On Sunday I visited the hospital, and also an orphanage for 100 children, which has been built and is supported by local voluntary effort. This kind of institution is not yet very common among the Russians. It was regarded as a novelty, and was the only one of its precise kind that we saw in Asia.

Formerly there were several Englishmen living at Ekaterineburg, but a few only are now left, and so little practice do they have in the tongue of their fathers that some of them are rapidly forgetting it. Instances of this were met with further east, and another case in which English parents were allowing their children to grow up speaking only Russian, the result of which would be that the son who had been sent for his education to England would forget Russian, and, on coming back to Siberia, would not be able to speak to his sister who had not learnt English.

[26]

Ekaterineburg is a famous place for the cutting of precious stones, in which Siberia is rich. Near the river Argun are found the jacinth, the Siberian emerald, the onyx, and beautiful jaspers, of which there are at least a hundred varieties. Near Lake Baikal are found red garnets and lapis lazuli, and the Altai mountains furnish the opal. Several of these are also found near Ekaterineburg, together with the beryl, the topaz, the chrysolite, the aqua marine, the tourmaline, rhodonite, nephrite, ophite, selenite, and the recently-discovered Alexandrite, which exhibits two colors—crimson and green—the one by day and the other by night. The stone derives its name from the Emperor Alexander, whose colours it shows. These stones are cut in the Government workshops and in private houses, and may be purchased at moderate prices.

South of Ekaterineburg, towards Orenburg, are villages where may be purchased uncommon souvenirs in the shape of gentlemen’s scarves and gloves, together with kozy pookh, or, as they are more commonly called, Orenburg shawls. They are made from the wool of the goats of the Kirghese, who allow the Cossacks to comb their flocks at the rate of from eight-pence to a shilling per head. Twice a year the goats are washed and combed, first with a coarse and then with a fine comb. To make a good shawl employs a woman six months, and then, if it be a large one, it sells at first hand for about fifty shillings; but very much higher prices are asked in Petersburg.

We stayed three days at Ekaterineburg to lay in provisions and gather our forces for proceeding by horses. The greater part of my heavy luggage had [27] been dispatched by slow train to Ekaterineburg fully a month before me, but it did not reach its destination till the day after my arrival. The agent said it might have been waiting on the road for the chance of other goods to make up a load. A tarantass had been very kindly placed at my disposal by Mr. Oswald Cattley, whose name, some time since, was before the public in connection with the opening up of a new trade on the Obi; and in this we packed ourselves and some of our personal baggage, placing the rest with several boxes in a second conveyance, and leaving still a third load of boxes to be forwarded as luggage. In this fashion, after receiving all sorts of kindness and hospitality from our English friends, we started on Tuesday evening, May 27th, for Tiumen, a distance of 204 miles, which was accomplished in 43 continuous hours.

Tiumen is situated on the Tura, and has a population of from 15,000 to 20,000 inhabitants. Commercially speaking, it is the most important town in Western Siberia, and through it pass the water carriage of the Obi, as well as the caravans coming from China and the East. Here we found an English engineering firm, conducted by Messrs. Wardropper, who were particularly kind to us. To Tiumen all the exiles are brought from Europe, and from thence are distributed over Siberia. I needed not, therefore, the eye of a general to see that, for my purpose of distributing books over the land, this was the key to a very important position. It was desirable, therefore, that I should see some of the magnates of the town who were members of the prison committee, and, if possible, secure their sympathy and co-operation.

Accordingly I was taken to visit the Mayor, who [28] was building a large commercial school for the benefit of the town, at a cost of more than £20,000, which, when finished, was to be handed over to the Government. He is a merchant who has made his way to the front, and now entertains the Governor-General when he passes through, though otherwise he lives quietly. His house, when we called, was in preparation for one of those viceregal receptions, and, knowing that his worship was rich, I busied myself, during the Russian conversation, in scanning what I supposed might be considered appropriate study furniture for a wealthy Siberian. The Mayor, I had heard, was fond of good horses, which accounted for the winner-of-the-Derby-like engravings hanging on the wall, the whole of which might have been purchased, I judged, in London for twenty shillings. The room, as is the custom of the country, was not carpeted, and the furniture consisted of a bare, polished, wooden bench, bored with holes, in patterns after the fashion of American street cars. The chairs were of wood, similarly ornamented. The table had about it some fretwork, and on it various writing materials, and accompaniments more or less artistic. I mentally appraised the whole as being worth about £20, and admired the simplicity of a man who could be content with a study thus furnished, whilst he was giving away a thousand times its value. My cogitations served to recall what had struck me in Norway and Sweden, when observing how much simpler, as regards furniture, people are content to live in these northern countries than in England, though I did not discern that they were less happy than we are. After leaving the house, I broached the subject approvingly to my friend who was with me, [29] upon which I found that I had undervalued the furniture, and that it was of American manufacture, and the first of the kind imported into the town.

I was taken also to call upon a prominent member of the prison committee, Mr. Ignatoff, of the firm of Kourbatoff and Ignatoff. They have steamers on the Kama and Obi, and hold the Government contract for the transport in barges of exiles. He was much interested in my scheme of visiting prisons, and was so pleased with my account of the Howard Association in London, of which I said I was a member, and which had for its object the prevention of crime and promoting the best methods for the treatment and reformation of prisoners, that he spoke of asking to be allowed at once to join the Association.⁠[7] He kindly undertook to do all he could to further the distribution of the books I engaged to send to him; and I was glad to have called, not only for the information obtained, but for the interest excited, though I was hardly prepared for the very practical and generous form which this interest took, which will be hereafter alluded to.

We called afterwards on the Ispravnik, or chief [30] man of the district, and presented my letter, with the view of visiting the prisons. I heard that in his district there were 24 schools, and, having made arrangements for providing them with tracts, I went to see the prison. From statistics given me for the previous year, it appeared that a total of 20,711 prisoners passed through the hands of the authorities in 1878.⁠[8] This opens up the whole subject of prisons and exiles, which is to form a leading feature of these pages, and therefore I think it will be better to devote separate chapters to both, in which general ideas can be given. This will save repetition, and it will then be easy to illustrate general principles by particular incidents as we meet them from time to time in travelling and visiting prisons from the Urals to the Pacific.

Reasons for and history of deportation to Siberia.—Number of exiles.—Their education.—Crimes.—Sentences.—Loss of rights.—Privileges.—Proportion of hard-labour convicts.—Where located.—Release.—Escapes.—Causes and methods of flight.—Transport.—A convoy of exiles.—Moscow charity.—Conveyance to Perm and Tiumen.—Their distribution.—Order of march.—Sea-borne exiles.—Mistakes of English newspapers.—Conveyance of political exiles.

In dealing with criminals, the Russian Government has to act as best it can for the good of the community in general. If, in particular cases, it seems likely that the criminal may be reformed, he is sent to one of the prisons or houses of correction at home; but if, on the other hand, the crime of the malefactor demands a severe punishment, and, after repeated correction, he seems to be incorrigible, then he is banished to Siberia, the people being thus rid of a corrupting member of society, whilst another unit is sent to assist in developing the resources of a large territory of the Russian empire, which has great need of population. This, I presume, is the theory, or part of it, of the deportation of prisoners to distant parts of the empire.⁠[1] [32] The number of ordinary exiles sent to Siberia for several years past has been from 17,000 to 20,000 per annum; but this includes wives and children who choose to accompany the prisoners. Of these nearly 8,000, on their arrival in Siberia, are set free to get their own living; about 3,000 of them being sent to Eastern and 5,000 to Western Siberia. The exiles come from all parts of Russia in Europe, and include about 300 a year from Finland. In 1879 there were 898 sent from Poland. Some idea may be formed of the education of the exiles from the fact that on the day we visited Tiumen prison there were, out of 470 prisoners, 42 who could read and write well, 32 who could do so a little, and 12 who could sign their names. At Tiumen, however, we heard from one who had to do with a great many exiles, and who had several statistics about them, that one-third of those with whom he had been brought into contact could read. Again, in the district of Kansk, in Eastern Siberia, in 1877, of 226 criminals, only two were marked as “well-educated,” whilst in 1878, of 182 prisoners, none stood [33] high enough, intellectually, to be thus designated. The figures from Kansk are not quite to the point in speaking of European Russia, but they help, with others, to give an approximate idea, not only of the education, but also of the social rank of the Siberian criminals. Again, for statistical purposes, the Russians are sometimes marked off into five classes, thus: nobles, merchants, ecclesiastics, citizens, and peasants; and in prison the higher grades receive better allowance, and are not mixed with the peasant prisoners, but have rooms apart. In going through the principal prisons of Siberia, however, we found the number of rooms thus occupied decidedly small; so that this observation, taken with the educational state of the prisoners, would seem to confirm what I was told by one prison official, that probably not more than 3 or 4 per cent. of the exiles are from the upper classes.

As to the crimes of the exiles, they are not all political, nor even chiefly so. A large proportion—4,000 out of 18,000, or say 20 per cent.—of them are charged with no one particular offence, except that they have rendered themselves obnoxious to the community among which they lived. If a man in Russia be incorrigibly bad, and will not pay his taxes nor support his wife and family, but leaves these things to be done by his neighbours, his commune—which may consist of one or more villages—meet in their mir, or village parliament, vote the man a nuisance, and adjudge that he be sent, at their expense, to Siberia. This judgment is submitted to higher authorities, and, unless just cause be shown to the contrary, is confirmed. The man is then taken to Siberia, not to be imprisoned, but to get his living as a colonist. [34] Those sent thus by the villages, I was told, are chiefly drunkards. We saw a whole wardful of them at Tiumen, dressed in private clothes, and not in prison garb; and a second ward, of a similar mixed multitude, consisting of men, women, and children. The perpetrators of political crimes, as those of the “black Nihilists,” are, when caught, usually accommodated with free lodgings in Siberia; and so with revolutionary offenders, who make insurrection in Poland, Circassia, or elsewhere. Of offenders such as these I must speak hereafter. Formerly religious dissenters were largely deported, but this has not been done since the proclamation of what may, in a fashion, be called religious liberty, unless in the case of one or two—more especially one sect—whose practices no enlightened Government could tolerate, and which are so extraordinary that, if they obtained universal acceptance, there would be no further increase of population, and the human race would become extinct. The fact is that the great mass of exiles are nothing more nor less than ordinary criminals, such as may be found in any of the prisons of Europe.⁠[2]

[35]

The sentences of the exiles vary widely according as they are condemned to one or the other of two classes, namely: those who lose all their rights, and those who lose only partial or political rights, which deprivations may be thus explained:—

Those who lose all their rights are not in an enviable position. These are some of the things they lose:—If a man have a title or official rank, he is degraded. An exile’s marriage rights are broken, so that his wife is free to marry another. Neither his word nor his bond is of any value. He cannot sign a legal document or serve any office, either municipal or imperial. He can hold no property, nor do anything legal in his own name. In prison he must wear convict’s clothes, and have his head half shaved; and, in the case of a woman, she cannot marry after her release from prison till by good conduct she has placed herself in a certain category; and, whether man or woman, they may, for new crimes, if the authorities see fit, after they have served their time in prison, and are living as colonists, be sent back again. They may be thrashed with rods and with the “plète,” and, even should they be murdered, probably little trouble would be taken to find the murderer. In fact, as the words imply, they lose all their rights, though I believe they can appeal to the law in case of being grossly wronged.

I have said that an exile’s marriage rights are broken, and I was told that it is the same with convicts in America. Were it not so, it might be very hard upon a young wife whose husband, for instance, had committed murder, and who, for her husband’s crime and banishment, should be compelled to remain single for the rest of her life. A Russian wife with [36] her children, however, may accompany the husband if she chooses; in which case they go with the exile and receive from the Government prison food and accommodation. If, on the other hand, a husband wishes to accompany a convict wife, he travels at his own cost. To the honour of the Russian women be it said that the proportion of men accompanied by their wives and families is one in every six. The proportion of women accompanied by their husbands is, I am told, not exactly known, though it is very much less.

Those who suffer the loss of particular rights lose certain of their privileges (but not family or property rights), and are settled in Siberia, to get their living in any way they are able. They may, however, in some cases, have first to serve for a period in prison; or, again, they may be allowed to live in their own houses and give a portion of their time to Government work.

Commonly, they are condemned first to serve a certain time in confinement, with or without labour. If they behave well they are, after a while, and in some cases, allowed to live outside the prison with their families, if they have any, but still to do their allotted work, until the period arrives for them to be liberated and located like colonists. Some of the women who are condemned to the far east have the good fortune to be taken as domestic servants by officers, and even favoured civilians, who, in a new country where ordinary servants are not to be had, are allowed for this purpose to take the prisoners, subject to inspection, of course. Lastly, some exiles, though comparatively few, I believe, are condemned to prison, or to prison and labour, for life.⁠[3]

[37]

The localities to which the exiles are sent vary according to their crimes. Speaking generally, those deprived of partial rights are sent to Western, and those deprived of all their rights to Eastern, Siberia. On this point I have no official statistics, but a legal officer gave me these particulars concerning the location of convicts. Murderers are sent to Kara. My finding 800 there would seem to confirm this, only that their presence was manifest in so many of the other prisons also. Political prisoners go to Kara, to the Trans-Baikal district, and (as I heard from other sources) to the Yakutsk government; also to this latter province are sent those who commit fresh crimes in Siberia. Vagrants or vagabonds are dispatched to the far east, to the government of the Sea Coast and Sakhalin. On the other hand, Western Siberia would seem to be reserved for minor offenders, and those deprived of certain particular rights only. It should be observed, however, that exiles, wherever they may be, are under police inspection, are furnished with papers [38] which they have to show at intervals, and which tie them to a certain place, whence they can move to a distance only by permission. When at large, and in some cases when in prison, the exiles may correspond with their friends through the post; but the letters must of course be read by the authorities. The hardest part of the lot of those who lose all their rights seems to be that they cannot look forward to the hope of returning. Not that a release is never granted even to these; for I am told that political offenders are sometimes seen hurried out of, as fast as they are hurried into, exile. The late Emperor, too, when he came to the throne, began his reign by an act of clemency on a larger scale, and allowed certain exiles whom his father had banished to return. Again, I have heard of a Polish exile in good circumstances who was fortunate enough to win the love of an English young lady connected (by name at all events) with one of the ducal families of Great Britain, through which it is said the ear was gained of a member first of the English royal family, then of the imperial family of Russia, and finally of the Emperor himself.⁠[4] I have met with another case of a released exile who was liberated under curious circumstances. He gave me his story thus:—When Alexander II. visited Paris in the time of Napoleon III., [39] the Tsar asked the Emperor if there were anything he could do for him. Upon which the Emperor replied: “You have a Frenchman who, in young and silly days, joined the Polish insurrection. He was made prisoner, and is now in Siberia. Will you do me the favour to release him?” The request was granted, a messenger despatched, the happy prisoner in forty-five days and nights drove back from the mines to Moscow, not with a couple of horses merely, but troika fashion, between a couple of gendarmes, and received his pardon. But such cases, of course, are rare.

It is well known that many of the exiles escape—some from the prisons, and others from the districts where they are living free. A Russian authoress, “O. K.,” in “Russia and England from 1876 to 1880,” says that in January 1876, out of 51,122 exiles supposed to be in Tobolsk, only 34,293 could be found, which figures an Englishman living in the Tobolsk government (speaking offhand) told me he should doubt, though he thought “O. K.’s” statement might be right regarding the government of Tomsk, in which the same authoress states that 5,000 were missing out of 30,000. For my own figures I am indebted to a prison official very high in position, who told me that nearly 700 get away yearly, and in 1876 as many as 952 escaped the control of the police. Thus the mere feat of running away does not seem to be difficult; but this does not imply that it is equally easy to get away from the country. A few roubles slipped into the hands of a Cossack or petty officer have a wonderful effect in blinding his eyes. Again, an escape is sometimes made from the gold-mines thus:—The convicts work in gangs, and one lies in a [40] ditch for the others to cover him with branches and rubbish. The numbers are called on leaving off work, and one is missing. Search proves fruitless, and, after all have left the mine, the man rises from his temporary grave and makes for the woods. The great difficulty is not to get away, but to keep away. The country is so vast that they cannot travel far before the approach of winter, and then, if they have escaped in company, they have the choice of returning to prison food or eating one another. They have, moreover, another difficulty with the natives. In the Trans-Baikal district, the Buriats are said to hunt down escaped convicts, and shoot them like vermin; which is probably explained by what was told me of the Gilyaks on the Lower Amur, that they receive three roubles a-head for every escaped convict they bring to the police, whether dead or alive. The natives argue thus: “If you shoot a squirrel, you get only his skin; whereas, if you shoot a varnak” (which is the nickname they give to convicts), “you get his skin and his clothing too.” Thus it is very difficult for them to get out of the country.

There are several reasons, however, which conduce to their running away. A long-term prisoner, for instance, condemned to twenty years’ labour, makes his escape from a penal colony, wanders about the country during the summer months, and, on the approach of winter, commits a crime and is caught. He is asked for his name, to which he replies that it is Ivan Nepomnoostchi—that is, “John Know-nothing.” He is asked where he comes from. He replies that he entirely forgets. What has been his occupation? His memory fails him. He is asked for his papers. He [41] says that he has none, or perhaps trumps up a story that he has lost them—and so on. Accordingly he is tried, and is sentenced, say to five years’ hard labour, for which he inwardly thanks the Court, and goes off, it may be, to a new prison, having effected a saving of the sorrows of eighteen years. Should he not play his game aright, however, and should he be detected, then his past service goes for nothing; he is most likely flogged, and sent back to a harder berth than he had before. Some run away under the influence of drink, and discover their mistake too late. Again, other reasons which may be supposed to conduce to flight are—the fear of punishment for new faults committed, the desire to get back to social and family ties in Europe, or, in the case of those twice imprisoned, to ties which they have formed whilst settled in Siberia.

I am disposed to think that the severance of family and social ties is with many the really hard pinch of Siberian exile. One lady, who had a convict for her nurse, told me that she gave her her own clothes, paid her £1 a month, provided her a home in the best house in the province, to say nothing of sundry perquisites, and yet she sometimes found her, when alone, in tears; and, on asking what was the matter, the answer was—“Oh, if I only knew something of my friends in Russia!” She had not learnt to write, her friends were in the same position, and the difficulty of procuring an amanuensis, together with uncertainty as to address, made communication almost impossible; and so she said she could not tell whether her friends were dead or alive, or what might be their fate. I recollect, too, in a prison at Uleaborg, in Finland, finding a woman who had escaped from exile, of whom I asked how she [42] liked Siberia; to which she replied that as regards the country she had nothing to complain of; but, she pathetically added, “I did so want to see my mother!” And to do this she had taken flight, during three years had traversed more than 2,000 miles, had reached her old home, and was then retaken!

But nothing has yet been said of the transport of the exiles. Of old they had to walk all the way, and the journey and stoppages occupied a long time. The woman at Uleaborg said she was eight months going from Petersburg to Tobolsk. In this matter, however, as in many others, the lot of the banished was much mitigated during the reign of the late Emperor, especially after 1867. The introduction of railways and river steamboats greatly facilitated this. Accordingly, those in Russia who are condemned to Siberia are now first gathered to a central prison in Moscow, where they may be seen entering the city in droves. A very affecting sight was the first of these droves I saw in 1874. The van consisted of soldiers with fixed bayonets. Behind them marched the worst of the men prisoners, with chains on their ankles, the clanking of which as they moved was most unmusical. Then followed men without fetters, but chained by the hand to what looked like a long iron rod; and next after them the women convicts; and then the most touching part of the whole—women, not convicts, but wives who had elected to be banished with their husbands. Then there were wagons containing children, the old and infirm, baggage, etc., the rear being brought up by armed soldiers. As the prisoners moved along the street, passengers stepped from the pavement to give them presents. To this the guards who walked at the [43] side made no objection, and in this way, in some of the towns, the prisoners gather, or used to gather, a considerable sum of money; for the woman at Uleaborg said that the money given to her drove of 156 prisoners, during their three days’ stay in Moscow, amounted to about 30s. each.⁠[5] More recently, however, a Pole, who began his walking in 1871, farther east, at Perm, told me his receipts from the wayside charity of the people were insignificant.

Being gathered then at Moscow, the prisoners are sent off in droves of about 700 each by rail to Nijni Novgorod. This commences in spring, as soon as the river navigation opens, and two or three parties go off each week. They began, the year of my visit, on May 8th. On reaching Nijni Novgorod they are placed in a large barge built for the purpose, which carries from 600 to 800, and is tugged by steamer to Perm.

Hence they are taken twice a week by rail to Ekaterineburg; 350 on Wednesday, and 500 on Saturday. Their walking, however, does not yet begin; for the 200 miles remaining to Tiumen is got over by conveyances, each of which, drawn by three horses, carries about six prisoners; and thus they arrive at the first prison in Siberia proper.

Now begins their distribution. Those who are condemned [44] to Western Siberia are assigned to particular towns or villages, whither they are sent by water, if possible, or, if not, on foot. Those, however, who are condemned to Eastern Siberia are placed in another barge, and taken on the Tura, Tobol, Irtish, Obi, and the Tom, to Tomsk, whence their walking eastward begins. When not hindered by accidental causes, they usually rest one day and walk two, marching sometimes twenty miles or more a day. Temporary prisons called étapes are erected along the road to receive them for the night, and in the towns are larger buildings called perisylnie prisons, in which they may rest, if necessary, a longer time, and where there are hospitals, medical attendants, etc. Thus they go on day after day, week after week, month after month, to their destined place or prison, to Irkutsk, to Yakutsk, to Chita, or, if perchance they are destined to Sakhalin, they continue to Stretinsk on the Shilka, thence by steam on the river Amur to Nikolaefsk, and so by ship to the island. Two years since, however, the Russian Government adopted a new and better plan with prisoners intended for Sakhalin, and, instead of sending them across Asia, shipped them from Odessa, viâ the Suez Canal, to the Pacific direct. A large merchant steamer, the Nijni Novgorod, was employed for the purpose, sailing under the Government flag, which made the passage in about two months, the prisoners arriving in excellent health, and without one death on the passage.

I mention this fact the more readily as I heard it in the Admiral’s house at Vladivostock, where the ship arrived a week or two before I did, and where it was said that one of the Japanese newspapers had copied [45] from an English paper to the effect that half the prisoners had died on the passage, and that the rest were in a terribly sick condition. As an Englishman I was called to account for this, and I found that the minds of some of my Russian friends were very sore with the editors of English newspapers, by reason of alleged misrepresentations received at their hands. They complained, moreover, that whereas some of the newspapers were ready enough to publish against the Russians all they knew that was bad, they were slow to acknowledge the good, and were not always ready to recall what had been said, even when proved to have been false. Not having the facts before me, I could only put in a plea regarding the desire of English journals to be first in the field with news, and the consequent rapid manner in which editorial work has to be done. Knowing something of an editor’s difficulties, I felt justified in expressing the hope that there had been no intentional departure from fairness, uprightness, and integrity. I am not sure, however, that I should have been ready with an answer had I known how the case really stood.⁠[6]

[46]

I have thus described the transport of ordinary exiles to Siberia. There is another category of prisoners—arch-heretics in political or revolutionary affairs, Nihilists, etc., of whom the authorities wish to take special care, who are not sent with the common herd, but are individually placed between two gendarmes, and sent off to travel alone direct to their destination. I am of opinion that the popular notion as to their numbers is exaggerated, and that they are much fewer than is commonly supposed. I shall offer my reasons for thinking thus later on. These persons, while travelling, are never allowed, under any pretence, to be out of sight of their keepers, who are charged to allow no one to speak to them. This, however, is not always carried out to the letter; for a friend of mine, coming one day to a swollen river in Siberia, near Omsk, where a gendarme was also waiting with a young lady prisoner of seventeen, was allowed to speak to her, and she told him that since she left Petersburg, [47] a distance of 1,700 miles, she had not once had a gendarme out of her presence. When there are several prisoners of this character travelling in a manner together, they are kept separate, and are not allowed to speak to each other. But even this cannot always be enforced; for not long before my arrival at Tiumen a batch of about ten such persons had passed. On arriving at Ekaterineburg, a separate carriage was taken for each; but when they came at Tiumen to the riverside, standing and waiting for the steamer, they were able to snatch a few moments for conversing together. I know of another instance, in which a young woman had been suspected of a political offence, and been warned by the authorities to desist; but, not profiting by the warning, she was arrested, sent off with a gendarme, and on her way met a gentleman whom she asked to convey a letter to her friends. This of course was against the gendarme’s orders, but, on being assured that the letter should be only of a private nature, and three roubles being put into his hand, he allowed it to be written and taken. This was in European Russia. Further east they become still more lax.

There is yet a third case, in which exiles are permitted to journey by themselves like ordinary travellers. We met a lady who was forced to quit Petersburg at twenty-four hours’ notice; but owing to her position, or through interest, she was allowed to travel alone; and in this manner, by reason of illness on the way, during which her money was stolen, she was a twelvemonth reaching her location in Eastern Siberia. This, however, was the only case we met with of an exile travelling privately, and I presume similar cases are very [48] exceptional. Whilst the exiles are on the march, and, in certain cases, whilst they are living like colonists, they receive clothing and an allowance for food, either in money or in kind; but this subject will be best treated under the description of prisons, to which subsequent chapters will be devoted.

General remarks on Siberia.—Limits.—Area.—Temperature.—Divisions.—Roads.—Ethnography.—Language.—Posting to Tobolsk.—Floods.—Spring roads.—Villages of Tatars.—Their history.—Characteristics.—Costumes.—Occupation.—Worship.—Language.

Between Ekaterineburg and Tiumen, as already intimated, the traveller passes into Siberia,—concerning which country it may be well here to make some general observations, with a view to the better understanding of future chapters. The western boundary of this immense region runs from the Arctic Ocean along the chain of the Northern Urals to a point in about the same latitude as Lake Onega; then, leaving the mountains a little to the left, it comes down in a tolerably straight line to a point midway between the Sea of Aral and Lake Balkash; thence it turns eastward to and along the northern shore of the lake, and, going further east, joins the Altai Mountains. All Russia lying to the west and south of this line is either in Europe or in Asia; all lying to the east of it is Siberia, the length and breadth of which are the same as of Russia in Asia; whilst its area, as given in recent Russian statistics, is 4,750,000 square miles, or more than three thousand millions of acres (3,185,510,900), of which nearly one-fifth is arable. [50] The river Yenesei (roughly speaking) divides the country into east and west, the surface of the western portion being almost entirely flat, whilst the eastern portion, especially towards the Pacific, is mountainous. Siberia extends over nearly 40 degrees of latitude, and in climate ranges from arctic to semi-tropical. In passing through the country from west to east, from the end of May to the beginning of October, between the 50th and 57th parallels, we found the temperature much the same as during the same period in England. When steaming on the Obi, at the beginning of June, on the 62nd parallel, my minimum thermometer fell during the night as low as 35° Fahrenheit, but rose by 9 o’clock to 75°. English winter clothing, therefore, by day was not too warm. Again, at Vladivostock, lying on the 43rd parallel, the heat towards the end of September was not too great for clothing suited to an English summer. All through the journey, however, when sleeping in the tarantass, it was sufficiently cold in the early morning, whatever might be the heat of the day, to make an ulster coat acceptable.

The political divisions of the country are two vice-royalties, called respectively Western and Eastern Siberia. Each of these is divided into “governments” and “oblasts.”⁠[1]

[51]

The means of communication in Siberia are more ample than a foreigner might suppose. There are, indeed, no railways; but when the line, now in course of construction, from Ekaterineburg to Tiumen is finished, the English traveller will be able to go by steam from Charing Cross to Tomsk, a distance of 5,000 miles, and further east than Ceylon. As it is now, when Tiumen is reached, river communication becomes possible with each of the four capitals of Western Siberia. Again, the Amur presents a water passage inland from the Pacific, by which Nikolaefsk, Blagovestchensk, and almost Chita, may be reached; and now that Captain Wiggins has led the way through the Kara Gates, and Professor Nordenskiöld has followed on to Behring’s Strait, Russia may congratulate herself on having for the commerce of Siberia three additional outlets—the Obi, the Yenesei, and the Lena—to both Europe and Japan.

Again, there is the communication by roads, which is the more important on account of the many months the rivers are frozen over. There are two post roads by which Siberia is entered from the west; one through Orenburg, which is little used, and the other through Ekaterineburg to Tiumen. There is also a third road, [52] not much used, which crosses the Urals further north, and connects Veliki Ustiug, on the Northern Dwina, with Irbit. The high road to China leaves Tiumen in an easterly direction to Omsk, where the routes from Orenburg, Semipolatinsk, and Central Asia converge. The main road goes east to Tomsk, where it is joined by roads on the north from Narim, and on the south from Barnaul; it then continues eastward to Krasnoiarsk, where it is joined by roads, on the north from Yeneseisk, and on the south from Minusinsk. After this it takes a south-easterly direction to Irkutsk, whence there go two ways—one to the north-east, to Yakutsk, and so on to Kamchatka; the other, and principal one, to the south-east and round the base of Lake Baikal to Verchne Udinsk. Here it divides into two, that to the right leading to Kiakhta and China; that to the left running east, through Chita to Stretinsk. Thence the traveller proceeds on the Shilka and Amur—by boat in summer, and on the ice in winter—past Blagovestchensk to Khabarofka, whence, to the left, he continues on the Amur to Nikolaefsk, or he turns to the right up the Ussuri and the Sungacha to Vladivostock. Along all these roads there is postal and, except towards Yakutsk, telegraphic communication also.

An ethnographical map of Siberia, coloured according to the area which is occupied by its various nationalities, reveals the fact that only a very small portion of the country is inhabited by Russians.⁠[2] In fact, a narrow strip of country suffices to show their habitat, if drawn [53] on either side of the great land and water highways, and somewhat widened in the mining districts of the Yeneseisk and Tomsk governments; and as the aborigines do not generally follow agriculture, it will be inferred that those parts of the land which are under cultivation lie within this narrow strip. The same observation will also indicate that, whilst the language of the towns and the highways is Russian, a knowledge of other tongues is needed for extensive intercourse with the natives.

Having made these general remarks concerning Siberia, we proceed on our journey from Tiumen to Tobolsk, en route for Tomsk, which is best reached in summer by river, steaming for 1,800 miles, the post road from Tiumen to Tomsk passing through Omsk, or by a somewhat nearer way, leaving Omsk to the south, and then crossing the Barabinsky steppe.

We arrived at Tiumen on Thursday, the 29th May, bringing with us two loads of luggage, and leaving the rest to follow by “goods’” transport. There was steam communication between Tiumen and Tobolsk twice a week, the passage occupying a day and a half; but the steamer that went on to Tomsk was to leave on the following Monday, by which time the remaining luggage could not arrive. It became, therefore, a question whether we should wait for it or go before, in the hope that, whilst we were making détours, our books might overtake us. My Finnish friend, Miss Alba Hellman, had sent me some pamphlets for distribution amongst a colony of Finns and others from the Baltic provinces, [54] numbering about 1,800, and located at Ruschkova, not far from the city of Omsk. We at first thought, therefore, to make this détour, and then, instead of returning to Tiumen, to go “across country” to Tobolsk, and thus see the prisons, and wait for the next steamer but one, in which we hoped all our luggage might be forwarded; but this plan our friends at Tiumen condemned. The question then remained, How could we see Tobolsk? The steamer in passing would stay but for an hour or two, and another boat would not follow for a week. The only alternative was to drive. But terrible accounts were given of the roads, which had not yet dried after the breaking up of the frost. Not to see Tobolsk, however, was out of the question, and we therefore determined to make the attempt by road, hoping to reach the city on Saturday, see the prisons on Monday, and take steamer the following day.

Accordingly, on Friday night, late, we left Tiumen in two tarantasses, with three horses to each. At the first station the post-master gave us warning that the roads were very bad, and that only one or two travellers had passed that way since the waters had subsided. On coming to the first river, it was found to be unapproachable at the usual place of embarkation. A ferry-boat had, therefore, to be brought to us, some six miles out of the way, and so we were kept waiting five hours. Whilst thus delayed, report said that the post-master kept hardly half the men required by his contract for working the ferry, and, further, that the men were sometimes extortionate. When, therefore we had rowed six miles down the stream to the landing-place, and the post-master could give no satisfactory reason why we had been thus kept, we thought it right, for the [55] benefit of future travellers, to enter in his “book for complaints,” bearing the Government seal, our regrets that his neglect had detained us five hours.

About eleven o’clock the same night another episode occurred, which illustrates the pleasures of spring travelling in Siberia. The post-master gave us, what we never had before or after,—two outriders to convey us over a bad place on the road. Towards midnight we slept, when, being awakened by repeated shouting, I peeped out and saw that we were plunging among willows and mire. The outriders were holding up the tarantass to keep it from toppling over. Then came more shouting, with desperate jerking and pulling of the horses, which were up to their knees in bog, till solid ground was gained, and all stopped for breath. The next thing was to get the luggage tarantass through. We heard in the distance a crash, and lo! one of the shafts was broken. A horseman went back to the village for a new one, but in vain, and the old one was repaired. Whilst waiting we had time to look around. It was not yet morning, but the rays of the sun, which in northern countries are seen above the horizon all the night through at this time of the year, shed sufficient light on our darkness to give a weird appearance to all that was visible.

Silence was broken only by the incessant croaking of frogs, and by the men, who were relating to each other how they had got through. One had slipped into water up to his waist. The temperature was anything but warm; but, poor fellows! they seemed to regard things as in their normal condition, and uttered repeated thanks when they were dismissed with a gratuity of a few extra kopecks. Further on [56] we had to wade through water above the axletrees, and during the last stage to cross five streams, the last of which was the Irtish. Tobolsk at length was reached, but not until Sunday night, and after a journey of forty-eight hours instead of twenty, as we expected.

By posting from Tiumen to Tobolsk, we purchased experience of early summer roads; and, in so doing, saw things which I should be sorry to have missed. Among these were several villages peopled exclusively by Siberian Tatars. These people differ in one important respect from most of the other nations living with the Russians in Siberia, in that they have a history and can look back to great princes who have made a name for themselves in the annals of the world. They are remnants of those who, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, in the days of Genghis Khan and his descendants, overran Northern Asia, and wrested [57] the land from its aboriginal inhabitants. They pushed their conquests to the Volga, and Serai, on that river, became the capital where their great Khans (known as the Khans of the Golden Horde) lived and reigned, and whence they long proved formidable antagonists to the Russians. At length came their disruption. Kasan was founded in the fifteenth century, and was the capital of a small khanate. A second khanate was that of Astrakhan, a third that of Krim, a fourth that of Tiumen—all fragments of the main horde which had collapsed in the fifteenth century. Towards the close of the sixteenth century, the Russians took from the Tatars Kasan and all else west of the Urals, and those on the east of the mountains, in the region of the Irtish, were afterwards subjugated by Yermak and his followers. Tatar villages may still be found between Kasan and Tobolsk, beyond which these people inhabit a district stretching south to the Kirghese hordes, and south-east as far as the Altai Mountains, and so joining the territory west of Irkutsk peopled by the Buriats.⁠[3] The Tatars live among and are subject to their Russian conquerors; but the two races do not blend—one race being Christian, the other Mohammedan. The traveller is reminded of this by noticing [58] that the Tatars, when on a journey, carry with them their wooden basins, for they will not drink from a vessel used by Russians; and so, in some parts, Russians will not drink from Tatar cups, though this exclusiveness wears away where Russians are many and Tatars are few. The Tatars have a good physique: dark eyes, swarthy skin, black hair, and high cheek-bones. Their strength of body is such as to make them excellent workmen, as may be seen by the enormous burdens they carry in loading vessels at Nijni Novgorod and Kasan. They are much liked in the capitals as coachmen, for they understand horses well. I heard good accounts of them likewise as servants in the hotel at Petersburg. They are not drunken, and are therefore valuable as waiters. Their women are supposed to wear veils, and do so in the cities. In the villages they content themselves with shawls, which are drawn nearly over the face when a stranger approaches. Men and boys, whether in the house or abroad, wear a small skull-cap, sometimes richly embroidered; and on high days some are seen with white turbans. These and their long cassock-like coats give the men a decidedly oriental appearance. Both men and women wear top-boots, and generally goloshes over them, so that, on entering the house or the mosque, they have only to slip off the goloshes to secure clean shoes.⁠[4]

[59]

In the Tatar villages the green domes and pinnacles of the Russian church, surmounted with the cross, were of course wanting; and in their places were found Mohammedan mosques, with minarets surmounted with the crescent. These latter reminded one of the shingled steeples of English village churches. Our first sight of Tatar worship was on the Volga, on board the steamer at sunset. Three Tatars approached the paddle-box, on a clean part of which they spread a small carpet. Leaving their goloshes on the deck, they knelt on the carpet, bowed their heads to the ground, and, rubbing their hands as if washing, chanted their prayers. They then appeared to pray silently in deepest reverence with closed eyes, and as if in total oblivion that a crowd was looking on. We were told that the pious pray thus at least three times a day, wherever they may be. At Kasan we had an opportunity of seeing their congregational worship in a Tatar mosque. Permission was given us to enter, if at the bottom of the stairs we would take off our goloshes, or, having none, our boots. The Mohammedan reason for this practice seemed to be that they did not wish to bring into the place anything soiled or unclean.

The building inside had a square room, with the barest of bare white walls, without attempt at ornament of any sort or kind. The only piece of furniture even was a high wooden rostrum approached by stairs, from which exhortations are delivered on Fridays. There were no chairs or benches, or any resemblance to an altar or table. Those who assembled early sat on the ground with their legs beneath them, apparently [60] for private prayer, reading, and meditation; but upon some one beginning to murmur in a low strain, all jumped up, ran to the front, and arranged themselves in ranks. They commenced their prayers by placing the thumb into or on the lower part of the ears, with the palms of the hands outwards. Then they stood, bowed, knelt, and then lowered the head to the ground. This is done a certain number of times, according to the hour of the day, twice at early morning, and increasing till five or more at the last of the five daily services. At the conclusion of prayer they passed their hands over their faces. All these external acts of devotion were done by each rank with the utmost precision, and the histrionic effect, as some would call it, was excellent; only that to one in the rear of four or five ranks of men, of each of whom nothing could be seen but the soles of their feet and the seats of their trousers, the spectacle was somewhat grotesque. In the less demonstrative parts of the service, however, there was not an eye that wandered, with the single exception of a man who bestowed a glance on us strangers; nor a man who did not behave in a manner becoming the occupation in which he was engaged. Some few who came in late did not join those whose service had begun, but commenced a separate one for themselves.

The floor was covered with clean matting, on which lay here and there a common rosary made of date-stones, ninety-nine in number, and divided by beads into three sections.

The Tatars objected to give us a translation in Russian of the prayers they said thereon. We heard elsewhere that they have ninety-nine names of God; [61] and a Tatar prisoner—apparently a gentleman—told me that they had a separate prayer for each bead. The uneducated, however, do not know these many names of the Deity. On the following day we had the opportunity of asking a monk concerning the Russian rosary, which differs from both the Mohammedan and the Roman.⁠[5]

The Tatars can read the Scriptures in Turkish, and are apparently not indisposed to do so, provided it does not attract attention. A colporteur at Moscow told me that he sold fifty-seven copies to Tatars in the villages between Kasan and Perm, though they became angry in [62] the larger towns if he attempted openly to sell them in the Tatar quarter. I took with me a few Turkish gospels, and among the prisoners at Barnaul found three Tatars, one of whom could read. As we repassed the door of their room, all three were seen sitting with their legs beneath them, the two illiterate ones listening to their scholarly friend with eager attention. We met several of this race in prison and elsewhere, as we proceeded onwards, but I do not remember passing through whole villages of Tatars after we left the district of Tobolsk. Hence we were the more glad not to have missed these.

Old Finnish prisons.—Model Petersburg prison.—Officers.—Contraband importations.—Russian prisons of six kinds.—Siberian prisons of three kinds: their number, location, structure, furniture.—Prisoners: their classification.—Kansk statistics.—Method of trial.—Remands.—Exchanging names and punishments.

The prisons of Russia occupy a position midway between the dungeons of the Middle Ages and the modern cellular abodes for criminals of the nineteenth century. A few of them, however, approach very near these extremes on either side. With regard to Finland, it is hardly fair to hold the Russian Government responsible for the condition of its prison affairs, because, although the Emperor is Grand Duke of that country, he allows these liege subjects to make their own laws. Nevertheless, I can never forget the vividness with which my boyhood’s reading came back to me or Robin Hood and the dungeons of Nottingham Castle, when I first visited the old prisons of Åbo and Wiborg. The descent by steps with candles to prisoners in the lower rooms, the dim light entering by windows in walls ten feet thick, the clanking of chains, the like to which I have seen in no other country except perhaps Mongolia—these things spoke more eloquently than a visit to the former prison of Sir Walter Raleigh, or even the unused Ratisbon chamber for the torture of [64] Protestant heretics; and that because these northern prisons were inhabited by living men. The majority of the Finnish prisons, however, and certainly all the new ones, are better than the two I have mentioned; though, unless a change has taken place since 1876, the Finns still have and use sets of irons nearly ten times the weight of any others I have seen in Europe. To pass to the other extreme. One sees in Petersburg a brand-new prison, which may be supposed to represent the very beau ideal of what a house of detention ought to be.

It is only right to say, however, before going further, that the condition of prisons and criminals in Russia is in a transitional state. The authorities have seen the necessity for reforms for at least 20 years, and great pains have been taken that these reforms should be made judiciously and effectively. Deputies have been sent to visit the prisons of other countries and report thereon; a commission has been appointed to receive the reports, to consider and debate, and so thoroughly to “shed upon the question the light of science.” All this has been done, and the reforms are yearly expected to take place, pecuniary reasons alone delaying the change for the better. Meanwhile a model prison has been built in the capital, and those who wish to see what Russia can do should visit this house of detention for persons awaiting their trial. It is built in the shape of a right angle, having two long corridors four storeys high. There are 285 separate cells for men, 32 for women, others for confinement in common, as well as places for associated and solitary exercise. Into cell No. 227 the late Emperor once entered, of which they keep up the remembrance by [65] allowing no one to be confined therein. No expense appears to have been spared in building the prison. The floors are of asphalte, and the door of each cell is of solid oak. Within are iron bedsteads, made to fold and hook up neatly against the wall. The tables and seats are of sheet iron, with hinges; and, both within the cells and without, every article and fitting of brass is rubbed to a high degree of polish. The officers move about noiselessly in felt shoes, so that they can unexpectedly and at any moment observe a prisoner through the wire-covered inspection-holes. In the infirmary are 10 cells for those who are to be kept apart, and 32 beds for those who live in common. There is likewise a room in which 40 men may mingle by day, and a general sleeping apartment with 36 bedsteads, across each of which wire is stretched, making for the prisoner a hard but clean, and, I should imagine, not uncomfortable bed. There is also a room for bookbinding, where a few can work.

The building contains three places of worship, for Russians, Roman Catholics, and Protestants respectively, the Russian having a very handsome ikonostasis and chandelier; and I was pleased to find that, if a man can read, he has always a New Testament in his cell, and further that, by asking, he can obtain from the library other books in addition. This is as it should be.

In the female division we found for warders superior-looking young women dressed in uniform, the insignia of office on their collars being a pair of crossed keys. Some of the women prisoners, as with the men, are placed together in common, and in some cases they have their choice of solitary or social life. This is true in a sense other than that which first [66] appears; for one lady prisoner, a criminal condemned to Siberia, was about to take to herself a husband before proceeding thither, and the happy event was to be celebrated in the prison on the morning after my visit. Peeping through the food aperture of one of the doors was the face of a pretty young woman, a political prisoner, in whose possession had been found suspicious books. There was a women’s reception-room, having a bath warmed by gas; but as it was found to cost about five shillings to heat, it is not surprising that this particular bath is seldom used.

Dark cells were shown to us, in which a prisoner may not be put for more than six successive days. The place where prisoners were allowed to converse with their friends was dark, which is not usual; and I observed in it no place for an officer to sit between the parties whilst they were speaking.

The attempts of the authorities to keep the prisoners from intercourse with one another, and with the outer world, do not yet appear to be perfectly successful.

The Polish prisoners in Warsaw, according to M. Andreoli, had a plan by which they could pass news in a couple of hours to all the prisoners in the fortress. A square was divided into 25 spaces for the 25 letters [67] of the Polish alphabet. One knock was understood to mean A, two knocks B, and so on; or, again, these signals might be changed by one knock, signifying V, and so forth; this dumb speech being kept up by tapping on the walls. This, however, is only one method.

In the chapel of the model prison at Petersburg are 24 boxes for prisoners whom they wish to keep from holding communication with each other, even by a look. But the partitions which separate them are only of wood, and I observed that those I entered had been furtively bored with small holes, through which conversation could be held. Again, the prisoners are allowed to receive food from their friends outside, and, although it is first examined by the officials, the friends manage sometimes to introduce for the prisoners some strange culinary concoctions. There were brought to a man, for instance, one day 230 roubles in a basin of buttermilk. Again, another man was frequently found the worse for drink in his cell. Milk was regularly brought to him, and duly tasted by the authorities; but still the man got drunk. At last they discovered that the jug in which the milk was brought had a false bottom with an aperture in the handle, and so the mystery was solved. What will not topers do to procure drink? On arriving at Werchne Udinsk, we heard that a drunken woman had just been detected in trying to smuggle spirits into the prison in a pig’s entrails!

I saw quite a collection of contraband articles at Petersburg, which had been found in the possession of prisoners. Among them were knives (one ingeniously made from a steel pen), playing cards, and dominoes—all of them of original and unique, if not of artistic, [68] character; also a file, for which a prisoner had given a warder 50 shillings. The man, too, had made busy use of his purchase. He set his mind upon breaking loose, and thought to file through a bar of iron an inch or more thick that confined him. But he could do his work only during the time that the warders were at dinner and at supper, and then not too loudly, giving 200 strokes of the file at dinner and 100 at supper time. He went on thus for three months, and then managed to break the iron. But he was detected, and condemned to Siberia, whither he had already been sent before, and whence he had managed to escape. There he has probably by this time found less costly and well-built prisons from which to break loose.

Before speaking, however, of the prisons of Siberia, it may be well to observe that in European Russia there are at least six various kinds of prisons. There is, first, the fortress—such as that at Schlüsselburg, in which it is generally supposed are confined grave offenders, especially the political and revolutionary. I have not visited one of these. Next there are military prisons, in which severity of discipline is said to be similar to that of the fortress. Then there are hard-labour prisons, in which long-term convicts work out their sentences. There are also houses of correction, where short-term prisoners do the same; likewise houses of detention, in which persons are kept awaiting their trial. I heard also of “houses of industry,” which, unless I am mistaken, are somewhat like our reformatories; and, lastly, there are buildings in which prisoners on their march to distant places stay temporarily—some only for a few days, others for weeks. These nice distinctions, however, can be drawn only in large towns in European [69] Russia. In Siberia, especially in small towns, the same building serves for all classes of prisoners, the best arrangement practicable being made for special cases. Speaking generally, and from my own observation rather than from accurate information upon the subject, there appeared to me to be in Siberia three classes of buildings which the English would call by the general name of prisons. There is, first, the étape, in which exiles on the march rest for a night or two; next, the perisylnie prison, in which, for various reasons, exiles may have to wait—it may be during the winter, or until the ice be broken up on the rivers; and, thirdly, the ostrog, which means a stronghold, and is a prison in general, where a man may be simply confined, work at a trade, or eat and sleep after working outside in the fields or mines. I have no statistics of the total number of prisons of all sorts in Siberia, but suppose it cannot be less than 300, which may be roughly computed thus: Nikolaefsk is more than 9,000 versts from Tiumen, and, supposing that convicts walk 30 versts a day, they would require 300 resting-places for that route alone. Some parts of the way, it is true, are traversed in summer by river communication; but no notice has been taken in my estimate of off-lying routes north and south, as, for instance, to Yakutsk, Barnaul, etc. The expenses, therefore, of building and keeping in repair this vast number of prisons must be very considerable.

As to the location of the prisons. The étapes are found all along the road from Tiumen to the Amur. There will also be found a prison or lock-up in most of the principal towns. But of the larger buildings there is one at Tiumen for the reception of all the ordinary [70] exiles as they come from Russia, and from which, as already stated, they are distributed over Siberia. At Tobolsk are three hard-labour prisons, with about 1,000 convicts, in which prisoners often spend part of their terms before going further east. The next building of similar dimensions is called the Alexandreffsky central prison, about 50 miles from Irkutsk, where are some 1,500 hard-labour convicts. Continuing east, there were formerly some large hard-labour prisons at Chita and Nertchinsk, tidings from which, in years gone by, have caused many an ear to tingle; but since the Russians have gained the Amur, and many of the mines have passed from Government into private hands, the great bulk of the convicts have been sent further east. At Kara, on the Shilka, for instance, is a large penal colony, where there are upwards of 2,000 convicts living in and about six prisons, the men being supposed to work in the gold-mines. After Kara, the next large colony is on the island of Sakhalin, which represents the utmost bound of Russian penal life. I have said nothing of the prisons in the provinces of Akmolinsk and Semipolatinsk, as I did not go there. There is or was a large prison at Omsk, through which exiles used formerly to pass; but, now their route has been changed, it serves only for local purposes. They have no prisons in these provinces, I believe, of considerable dimensions.

Some of the larger prisons in Siberia, especially those of stone, were not originally built for their present purpose. There are certain features, however, about the others which are more or less common to all. The Siberian prison, like the houses of the Siberian people, is usually built of logs calked with [71] moss to keep out the cold. Near the principal building, but generally detached, are the kitchen, the bath-house, exercise-yard, stores for provisions, out-houses, etc., and enclosing the whole is a high palisade of wooden poles pointed at the top. From the fact that almost all the new prisons of Europe are built upon the cellular plan, the detained being kept solitary, it appears to have been recognised as a principle that the old method of herding prisoners together is a bad one. The same principle would seem to have been adopted also by Russia, in that the plan of the new house of detention in the capital is in the main cellular. In Siberia, however, the old plan continues, and usually the prisons inside are divided into large rooms or wards, in each of which the principal feature is an inclined wooden plane, resembling that of a guard-room bed, upon which the prisoners sit and lounge by day, and sleep by night. If the room be square, this divan or platform is placed against three of the walls, or, if it be oblong, there may be a passage up the centre, from which the sleeping places ascend to the walls on either side; or, lastly, if the room be very large, there are two platforms meeting like a low gable in the centre of the room, and two others against the walls. Thus space is economised, and as many as 40 or 50 men (once I found 100) are packed in a room. There are usually a few separate cells for political or special offenders, and one or two for punishment.

Connected with the large prisons are usually a hospital, one or more chapels, sometimes a school-room, and a few workshops.

The large rooms or wards have little or no furniture. Each is provided with an ikon, or sacred picture, and [72] sometimes with a shelf on which the inmates may put their spoons, combs, and other table and toilet requisites with which they provide themselves.

Concerning the prisoners, it has been already intimated that those belonging to the upper classes are kept apart. There is a further classification in some of the large prisons according to the crimes committed: a room for murderers; a second for forgers and utterers of base money; a third for thieves, and generally two or three for “vagabonds”—that is, not merely for vagrants in the English sense of the word, but generally for persons who have run away from supervision, who have no papers, and can give no good account of themselves.⁠[1]

The number of persons in Siberian prisons awaiting their trial, or the confirmation of their sentences, is very considerable. This leads me to speak of the [73] courts, the judges, and their mode of trial. Since November 20th, 1860, law reforms were begun in Petersburg, Moscow, and Odessa, with their respective districts; and the new method of trial resembles that of England, with a mixture of certain French elements and some local introductions from Russia. Under the new régime in European Russia there are three courts, namely: those of the Judge of the Peace; the Assizes; and the Senate. A Judge of the Peace tries civil cases involving interests up to £50, and criminal cases involving a year’s punishment or less. Appeal from his decision may be made to a periodical meeting of Judges of the Peace for the district. At the court of Assizes, which consists of from three to nine persons with a president, trial is made by jury. The names of persons liable to serve are put into an urn, from which 36 are drawn by lot. From these the procureur, who is the public prosecutor, may, without assigning any reason, strike off eight, and likewise the prisoner’s advocate a greater number, bringing them down to 14. Then, if this jury decide that the prisoner be guilty, the opinion is asked of both procureur and advocate as to what punishment, according to the code, in their opinion should be inflicted; after which the president gives the decision of the court. The Senate is simply a court of appeal—does not re-try cases, but merely judges whether or not in the lower court the law has been rightly administered.

Trial by jury is not yet introduced into Siberia, but offenders are judged by a tribunal consisting of odd numbers, of not more than seven nor less than three. The tribunal is a standing institution, the members of which are paid according to their grade—from [74] about £70 to £100 a year. A procureur (who is an officer of the Government) prosecutes; and a barrister, retained by the prisoner, defends. Witnesses are called on both sides, and the tribunal decides by a majority of votes whether the prisoner be guilty or not. In case of even numbers being present, or of equal voting, the president has a vote and a half; but should the president be absent, and there be an even number for and against the prisoner, then the defendant in this and all similar cases has the benefit of the doubt. Should a verdict of guilty be returned, the tribunal decides the punishment according to the regulation of the code. In capital or important cases, however, in Siberia, such as murder, the judgment of the tribunal must be confirmed by the Governor-General; and hence, when the vastness of the country is considered, it will be seen why prisoners sometimes wait so long uncondemned. Suppose, for instance, a man commits a murder in a place which happens to be at a distance from the town where a tribunal sits. Some one goes to the authorities, deposes that a murder has been committed, gives evidence in writing, and the culprit is arrested. If the culprit can find bail he may remain free till wanted (in Russia it is enough for this purpose to deposit, as a guarantee of returning, a certain sum of money); but if unable to find bail he must go to prison till he can be sent, suppose, to Nikolaefsk. If it be winter, it would be too costly—the Amur being frozen—to send him by horses; he must therefore wait till the following June for the opening of the navigation. Then, having proceeded to Nikolaefsk, he is tried, perhaps within a week, found guilty, and his punishment determined, after which it is necessary that the [75] papers concerning his case be sent to the Governor-General at Irkutsk, a distance, there and back, of 5,000 miles; and so the prisoner must wait till his sentence is confirmed. Meanwhile he is supplied with a paper, which is, I presume, his ticket of indictment.⁠[2]

Whether, when the case is fully ended, the prisoner keeps this or a similar paper, I am not quite sure. I am under the impression that he does, at all events whilst he is on the road to his destination; and, further, that these papers serve as capital on which the prisoners exercise their ingenuity for their mutual convenience. I mean in this fashion: Ivan Nepomnoostchi has a ticket condemning him to five years’ labour in the coal-mines of Sakhalin, whilst the ticket of Augustus Poniatowski condemns him for a similar time to the gold-mines of Kara. For reasons best known to themselves, the one prefers country life and a cottage or prison near a wood, whilst the other inclines to a residence at the sea-side. So they change their tickets, their names, and, as far as they can, their beings, and sometimes manage in this way to effect what they wish. I have even heard of prisoners inducing those who are free to exchange places with them, the bargain being effected of course by money, and carried out [76] whilst a gang of several hundreds is marching on to a steamer, for instance, where heads are counted, but where they cannot recognize faces. Goryantchikoff represents the “changing of names” as taking place in the presence of prisoner witnesses, and when several of the party are more or less intoxicated, the price given being sometimes as much as 30 or 40 roubles. All are bound to secrecy by esoteric law, and as the man receiving the money generally spends it quickly in drink and so cannot restore it, he not infrequently finds, when too late, that he has sold his liberty, or exchanged a lighter to receive a heavier punishment for a few glasses of brandy. This is dangerous work, however, for at some of the jails they take down a full description of the prisoners, though they do not usually photograph them, as in England. At Alexandreffsky, for instance, they have a large book, the pages of which are filled with columns headed as follows:—Name, age, crime, and punishment; from whence; appearance; term of punishment; arrival; single or married; religion; date of sentence; from what prison in Russia; remarks, etc.

I am not sure that I have given all the process by which they manage the transfer of tickets, but what is written may perhaps render intelligible the crime charged upon a roomful of prisoners at Irkutsk, who, we were told, had been “changing their names.”

The present state of things, however, as regards prisons and exiles, must, as already stated, be regarded as temporary, since the reforms of 1860 have been now extended as far as the Urals, and it is only a question of money when they shall be spread to Siberia also.

Charitable committees.—Prison food.—Clothing.—Work.—Hard labour.—Exercise.—Amusements.—Privileges.—Intercourse with friends.—Punishments.—Capital punishment.—Corporal punishment.—Irons.—Prison discipline.—Flogging.—Exceptional severities.

The Russians introduce or allow the introduction into their prisons of an ameliorating influence, in the form of local committees, for furthering the temporal welfare of the prisoners. “You see,” said to me the president of one of these committees, “we have two elements in the government of our prisoners. The police strive for the letter of the law, whilst we strive for kindness to the prisoner.” Thus justice and mercy go hand in hand; and when they happen to fall out, I fancy that in Siberia, after their easy-going fashion, mercy not unfrequently wins the day. Whether all prisons have local committees I do not know; but we came in contact with the operations of several. The members take upon themselves to superintend, clothe, and educate the children of prisoners; and in more than one place we found admirable asylums built for this purpose. They also lend a helping hand to prisoners’ wives, and at Irkutsk we found they had supplied the prison with a library. Their exertions, however, do not stop here; for they look after and in [78] some cases improve and augment the prisoners’ food. The Government allows for each prisoner so much money a day. At Ekaterineburg, for instance, to the common exiles 10 kopecks; to the upper classes 15 kopecks. At Irkutsk we met an upper-class prisoner who had 17½ kopecks, which he received in money. The prisoners who remain at Ekaterineburg are allowed 6 kopecks a day. Instead, however, of each spending his 6 kopecks, the whole is taken and dispensed by the committee in the purchase for the general caldron of meat, vegetables, etc.; and they somehow manage out of threehalfpence a head to give to each prisoner two dishes of food. Whether the committee appeal to the public for funds I know not. At Tomsk we heard that each director of the prison committee gave his ten roubles annually, whilst from the neighbouring villages were brought presents of flour and other kinds of food. Again, it is common to see, outside prison gates, boxes in which may be placed offerings for the welfare of the prisoners; and such is the liberality of the people in this direction, especially on festivals, that in Petersburg those detained get more Easter eggs than they can eat. All this speaks of kindness on the part of the public towards prisoners, in which particular I know no nation that equals the Russian. Further allusion will be made to this hereafter.

Apart, however, from these philanthropic efforts, the reader will perhaps get a better idea of Siberian prison diet from details which came under our own observation. At Tiumen each man was said to receive daily 2½ lbs. (Russian) of bread, ½ lb. of meat on ordinary days, and ¾ lb. on holidays, with salt, pepper, etc., also a daily allowance of quass for drink. The fare in Tobolsk prison [79] was the same, a bucketful of quass or small-beer being provided for every ten men. At Nikolaefsk I heard of corned beef and kash, or corn, substituted for vegetables. At the Alexandreffsky prison they had ½ lb. of meat, including the bone, and 2½ lbs. of bread. At Kara, however, where the men work in the mines, the allowance is still more liberal. Each receives daily 4 lbs. of bread, 1 lb. of meat, ¼ lb. of buckwheat, with tea, but no quass.⁠[1] At Kara, when not working, they receive 3 lbs. of bread, ½ lb. of meat, and 1/12th of a lb. of buckwheat. We found in some of the prisons that, if they do not eat all their food, the prisoners may sell the remainder; or again, the surplus bread may be used for making quass, which, when given, always comes, I believe, from these “economies.” The diet, however, is considerably affected by the rigour with which fast-days are observed in the prisons. Every Wednesday and Friday are fast-days, and there are four great annual fasts, with an aggregate of at least a hundred days, so that there are probably quite half the days in the year when the prisoners get fast diet, which excludes flesh food. I understood, however, that this does not apply to those at hard labour; while other prisoners, during some of the long fasts, receive fish and fish-soup—the latter ad libitum. So at least it is at [80] Tobolsk. If a man happens to be in a position to buy tea or such luxuries, he may do so, and his friends may, if they please, bring him food daily. Thus a man ought not to starve in a Siberian prison.

Nor is he left without clothing. Prisoners awaiting their trial, also exiles losing partial rights, may, if they choose, wear their own clothes, or, if they have none suitable, they are supplied by the Government. Those who lose all their rights, however, must wear convicts’ clothing. This consists, in summer, of a linen shirt and pair of trousers, and a peasant’s coat of camel’s hair, a specimen of which last I bought for five shillings. Those condemned to hard labour have two yellow diamond-shaped patches sewn on the back; those without labour have one piece only. Other marks of a similar character indicate the province from which they come. At Kara a coat of felt is given yearly. A shirt must last six months, and is washed once a week; whilst in summer a pair of rough leather shoes or slippers is served out every 22 days. Those working in the mines are provided also with leather gloves.⁠[2]

Concerning their labour, I seriously avow my belief that in many cases the hardest part of a Siberian prisoner’s lot is not the work imposed upon him, but the absence of it. This appeared to prevail among the prisoners up to Kara.

[81]

I met at different places two Poles, who came to the east condemned to hard labour, but who got off exceedingly lightly. What one said amounted to this: that if he liked to work he worked, but if not he let it alone. The authorities told me, in one instance, that they cannot now find enough work for the exiles. Many of the mines have passed from Government into private hands, and some even of those remaining are more or less exhausted. Hence a part of the Russian criminals, who of old would probably have been exiled, are now detained in large prisons in European Russia, such as at Pskof, Wilna, Kharkhof, Orenburg, Simbirsk, Perm, etc.; but the plan has only lessened, not removed, the difficulty of finding useful yet laborious occupation for the condemned. When, therefore, it is remembered that a large number of the criminals cannot read, and that for those who can there has hitherto been, to say the least, but a poor supply of books, the tedium can be easily imagined of imprisonment without work in Siberia. Accordingly, it was little matter for surprise that we heard at Alexandreffsky of prisoners begging for work. In some of the prisons opportunities are afforded for the detained to work, which gives them employment, and also enables them to earn a little money with which to buy comforts. Some, however, are condemned to labour, which labour may be done for the Government direct, or it may be let out by the Government to private persons or companies, as at Kara, where some of the convicts work in private mines belonging to the Emperor, and at Dui in Sakhalin, where the coal-mines are worked by a commercial company.

Thus the work of convicts, when they are put to it, [82] is mainly of three degrees of severity,—that of the fabric, the zavod, and the mines, which I understand to mean as follows. Fabric work is that of a manufactory, or the labour of ordinary mechanics, such as carpenters, blacksmiths, joiners, shoemakers, tailors, etc. The best Russian prison I have seen of this kind was at Petersburg, on the Wiborg side of the Neva, which had almost the busy hum of a factory, where everything seemed well arranged and kept going; but in the prisons of Tobolsk, which I understood to be of this character, there seemed an insufficient number of workshops in proportion to the number of criminals. The word zavod is synonymous with our “works” for the founding and casting of metals; and for this, I presume, is sometimes substituted heavy outdoor or indoor work, such as making bricks, mending roads, or manufacturing salt. But of this class of work we saw next to none, save a handful of men at Alexandreffsky, returning from making bricks. Once more, the mines are of at least three sorts—gold, silver, and coal. The work of the gold-mines resembles the labour of English navvies in making a cutting, whilst that of silver and coal, being underground, is more difficult. From reports I heard, however, of these latter two, it did not appear that the convicts were by any means overworked; but further details upon this matter will be furnished hereafter. Those condemned to the hardest labour need, of course, no special time for exercise. The prisoners without labour are allowed at Alexandreffsky an hour a day for this purpose, which appeared to me too little. More generally, however, we found they had a happy-go-lucky way, especially in the smaller prisons, of opening the doors in the morning, and letting the [83] prisoners, if they did not misbehave themselves, go in and out of the yard as they liked—to sleep, talk, or bask in the sun, and in some cases to smoke.

I am not aware that the authorities permit the prisoners any amusements, though it has been already intimated that they find them for themselves—sometimes in the shape of cards, with which, if report be true, having nothing else to play for, they gamble away their food.

But we have not yet exhausted the prisoners’ privileges. Here are some more of them, though probably they are not the same in all the prisons. According to a convict’s behaviour he is placed in a certain category; and the longer he remains therein, and the better he behaves, the more ameliorations he gets. For instance, if a man condemned to fifteen years’ hard labour conducts himself well, he serves only thirteen years and two months, and, towards the end of the time, gains certain other privileges. If condemned to wear irons four years, he may, in a similar manner, lessen the time by one-third; if in the higher category, he receives 15 per cent. of what he earns by working for the Government, and in his spare time he may work on his own account; if in the lower category, he earns money, but it is withheld until he advances higher. At Alexandreffsky prisoners may receive money from their friends, up to a rouble a week, but not more. At Kara some prisoners are not allowed thus to receive money, but I heard of others there who receive as much as £15 a year, and who also receive visits once or twice a week from, not mere acquaintances—which is not allowed—but their families, who may also daily, if they please, bring them food.

[84]

I was told at one large prison that, strictly speaking, it was not permitted to prisoners (except political ones) to write to their friends, which seemed to confirm what I had heard and what I have written elsewhere. But unofficial persons denied this, saying that prisoners are free to write, and this also we heard at some of the prisons. The two statements may perhaps be reconciled thus: that it is one of those cases (and there are many such in Siberian prisons) in which the letter of the law is supposed to be more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

Once more, if men are well behaved, they get, before the expiration of a long sentence, into a position comparatively comfortable. They are allowed to live outside the prison with their wives and families; they may have their house and garden, still working a certain number of hours per day, and obliged to be in their homes by night; but otherwise they are free to do what they list, and are much in the same position as that of an ordinary labourer.

I have yet to speak of punishments, which are of two kinds—those decreed by the civil courts and courts martial, and those subsequently incurred in Siberia. Concerning the former two, it is not quite accurate to say that in Russia there is no capital punishment, since there are at least three offences for which death is the penalty, namely: (1) offences against the persons of the Imperial family, and certain laws concerning them; (2) military crimes, or, what is equivalent, crimes committed when a place is in a state of siege; (3) breaking quarantine laws, such as permitting a vessel with infectious diseases to come into a Russian port. But in these cases culprits are turned over to a military [85] tribunal, which alone can sentence to death; in accordance with which I was told of a case happening in 1877 in Sakhalin, wherein some convicts, with much brutality, killed a whole family, and were sentenced to be shot; but this is rare, and since the convicts had already lost all rights, it would perhaps be considered hardly an exception to the rule that murder in Russia is not followed by capital punishment.

Nor, again, does the Russian law inflict upon any free man corporal punishment. The knout has been abolished for some years. They do, however, put their prisoners in irons, which for the legs weigh from about five to nine pounds English; and if a man rebels, he may get them as heavy as fourteen pounds. I was told, however, that the new chains weigh only five pounds. Those for the wrists weigh two pounds.

As to the period for wearing them, accounts differed. At Alexandreffsky, up to eighteen months usually; at Kara, four years; whilst, at Tobolsk, it was said that prisoners might be in chains from two months to eight years. The manner of carrying the fetters is as follows. Over the leg is worn a coarse woollen stocking, and over that a piece of thick linen cloth; then come the trousers, over which is bound on the shins a pad of leather. A stranger might wonder at first how the trousers could be taken off; and to satisfy our curiosity, a prisoner in Tiumen showed us how it was done, which gave me the opportunity to observe, when his leg was bare, that it had no marks from wearing the irons. On each leg a ring is not locked, but riveted. To these rings is attached a chain of about three feet in length, which, for convenience in walking, is usually suspended in the middle by a string from the waist. [86] This may seem severe enough for English ideas of the present day, but I saw heavier on the legs of two murderers in America. Russian chains, however, are playthings compared with some to be seen in Finland, and which I have put on. In bringing the prisoners in Finland from the country districts to the towns, they make use of the farmers’ carts; and it sometimes happens that the cart is waylaid by accomplices, and the prisoner delivered. To prevent this, therefore, they in some cases put on an extraordinary suit of irons, which outdo those I saw even in China. First, there is a collar for the neck and a girdle for the body, which two are connected by means of chains, the hands likewise being fastened to the girdle. On each ankle is put an iron stirrup or socket, which projects over the front of the feet far enough to receive through its holes a heavy iron bar, weighing thirty-six pounds, [87] the whole weight of which is made to rest on the prisoner’s insteps and to connect the feet. Then from the middle of the bar comes another chain, fastening it to the girdle. The whole is of iron, and weighs about 108 lbs. It should be added that these are seldom used in Finland, and then only for desperate characters; but in Russia no such chains exist. The heaviest of the Russian irons are about the weight, I imagine, of those formerly in use in England, if one may judge from the pair called “Jack Sheppard’s irons,” which are kept as a curiosity in Newgate. Moreover, if report be true, there is a good deal of hocus-pocus connected with Siberian fetters. To an ordinary observer the fetters look riveted on in such a manner that without a smith it would appear impossible to get them off. The largeness of the rings, however, to allow of their fitting over the stocking, the bandage of linen, the trousers, and then the leather gaiter, will make it probable that, on the removal of these bandages, it may be possible in some cases to slip out the naked foot. However that may be, I heard from another source, not to be doubted, that a certain governor of a province, on visiting one of his prisons, was moved with compassion, and ordered that the chains should be struck off the prisoners; upon which they wriggled and kicked them off with such alacrity as to leave no doubt on his mind that they had been donned as uniform in which to receive his Excellency’s visit. A released prisoner has told me that so dexterous do they become in pressing the thumb into the palm of the hand, that they used to slip off their handcuffs and sleep without them. M. Andreoli also mentions in his account that, whilst on [88] the march, the payment of four roubles to the soldiers in charge got them free of the chain to which they were attached, on the understanding, however, that the guard should not be got into trouble by any one running away, and that the iron should be properly affixed when approaching the town or their resting-place for the night. He also mentions that, in a drove of 147 prisoners, there were 21—that is, a seventh—wearing chains. Throughout Siberia I saw only one man wearing handcuffs; but, in Western Siberia, chains were seen on the legs of many—how many I cannot say, but less, I should think, than a seventh; and this proportion markedly decreased as we proceeded further east.

The courts sometimes order a man—generally one who has run away repeatedly—to be chained, on reaching his destination, to a barrow or implement, which thus always accompanies him wherever he may go. A doctor informed me that he had seen a prisoner’s ticket with such a doom thereon within the previous twelve months; and I heard that at Sakhalin one or two ferocious characters were thus confined; but I saw none. There were none, I found on inquiry, among the two thousand at Kara; and such treatment was said to be exceedingly rare.

With regard to punishments inflicted for insubordination to prison authorities, or for subsequent crimes of convicts, the mildest form is incarceration in a solitary cell. A man is next deprived, in part, of food and minor comforts, as in England. Then, if not already in irons, he may have them put on; or, if this do not suffice, he may be “birched,” after the fashion in which our fathers corrected us. I witnessed this [89] performance at Nikolaefsk. Having heard on a Saturday—which is there the day for flogging—that a man was to receive 60 stripes with the rod, I thought it right, since the visitation of prisons was my speciality, to go and see it, and thus shirk no occasion of witnessing with my eyes what I learned through my ears. The man was a released convict, of horrible countenance, who had served his time in confinement, and was subsequently taken as a joiner into a merchant’s establishment, and he had rewarded his employer by robbing him. Accordingly, in the police station, he was brought from his room to the presence of the police-master. Behind the culprit stood a Cossack, and at his side a clerk, who read over his sentence. The prisoner then signed the paper, to signify that he had heard it read, and was marched back to another room and placed on the floor, with his back laid bare, one Cossack holding his head and another his feet. Two soldiers then inflicted the stripes successively, whilst a third counted aloud the number administered. The man wriggled and roared, and the skin became very red, but I saw no blood, and the operation was soon over.

I came away, I confess, considerably perturbed; but the Nikolaefsk folks said that was nothing, and further informed me that, for the commission of other than very serious offences, they frequently deal in this summary manner with released convicts, both male and female. The switches composing the rod, according to M. Andreoli, must, by law, be sufficiently small to allow of three being passed together into the muzzle of a musket. Those I saw reminded me of a dame’s birch, save that they were longer, and the switches somewhat [90] stouter than those formerly seen in schools—indeed, facsimiles of those used in the prison of Cold Bath Fields in London. A marvellous feature of the case is that some of the men (ay, and women too) not only receive the rod, but laugh and are impudent after it. One of my hosts in another town told me that some years ago, soon after the Amur came into the hands of the Russians, he was robbed by a soldier of some clothes, upon which the police-master sentenced the thief to receive 500 stripes with the birch rod; but the governor hearing of it increased the number to 1,100. My host was asked if he were willing to see the stripes inflicted; and, going at five in the morning, he saw 500 administered. As the man lay on the grass, and as each rod was worn out, it was replaced by a new one from a heap lying by. The prosecutor begged that the rest might be remitted, and came away. The whole number, however, were administered, and the man was kept in the hospital for a fortnight, at the end of which time he came to his prosecutor to ask for a glass of grog, and said that for a bottleful of spirits he would not mind having another 1,100 if it might again be followed by a fine time in the hospital!

I heard of others laughing at the birch. But there is yet one thing they fear, and that is a whip called the “troichatka,” or “plète.” I forewarn the reader that the treatment of this subject may harrow his feelings; yet, if a writer is to present a true picture of what has come under his observation, he must delineate not only the lights of his picture but the shadows also. The author of “Tom Brown’s School Days,” when about to describe a fight at Rugby, recommends any of his readers who feel particularly sensitive to skip the [91] chapter; and I venture to give similar advice with regard to the next few paragraphs.

The knout, as already said, has been abolished for some years, notwithstanding the persistent introduction of this instrument into the pages of some of the vindictive class of writers on Russian affairs. I found it had been discontinued sufficiently long to make it difficult for me to get an explanation of what it used to be like. M. Pietrowski, in his “Story of a Siberian Exile,” De Lagny, and one or two other writers of his class, do their very best to invest the knout with every horror, and to make it appear that a long strip of flesh was torn off the culprit’s back at every stroke. A more trustworthy account is that of M. Andreoli, which I am the more disposed to believe, because it agrees pretty accurately with the description of the instrument given me by an old man who had seen it used at Chita. The Russian post-drivers still use for their horses what they call a “knout,” which is a short whip like a heavy English hunting-whip, only that the lash consists of three or four pieces of twisted hide linked together continuously by metal rings. It makes a formidable instrument even for driving a horse. But on comparing this with our two descriptions, I make no doubt that the genuine knout for criminals was a somewhat similar whip to that now employed sometimes for horses. M. Andreoli gives it a handle from one to two inches in diameter, and 9 inches in length. At the top of the handle is a ring, then a lash of raw hide 18 inches long, with a ring at the end; then a second lash and ring; and thirdly came the part which is the “knout” proper, namely, a flat lash of hard leather, 21 inches long, bent to a curve and [92] ending with a hook something like the beak of a bird—the entire length of handle and lash being 2½ arshines, or nearly 6 feet. The instrument used to be wielded by a convict, who received his liberty or certain privileges for doing this work. I heard from a lawyer that the public flagellator in Moscow was so skilful in the manipulation of his weapon, that he could with it snip a cigarette off a window without breaking the glass, or at a single blow break an inch board, and, therefore, the spine of a man’s back. He was said to have found his profession so lucrative that, when his daughter married, he gave her a dowry of 60,000 roubles, at that time equal to, say, £9,000. He made his money from those he flogged. The law demanded that the person to be beaten should receive a certain number of stripes, but did not exact that the recipient should suffer; and thus, when well paid, this hero let the knout fall lightly—so, at least, the story goes.

The “troichatka,” or “plète,” is a whip of twisted hide, fastened to a handle 10 inches long and an inch thick. The lash, about the same thickness at the top as the handle, tapers for 12 inches, and then divides in three smaller lashes, 25 inches long, and about the size of the little finger, the whole measuring 4 feet in length, and weighing nearly 15 ounces. M. Pietrowski represents the plète as consisting of “three thongs weighted at the ends with balls of lead.” The balls of lead, however, if I mistake not, are a piece of invention to harrow the feelings. At all events, none of those I saw (and I saw a boxful) had anything attached to the lashes, nor did they need it, for the instrument is quite severe enough in itself. From 20 to 50 lashes is the number usually given, though [93] they may go up to 100. The criminal is bound to a thick board, wide at the top and narrowed towards the bottom, called a kobyla, or “mare,” which, by means of an iron leg, is made to incline at an angle of about 30 degrees. At the upper end of the board are three places hollowed out to receive in the centre the face and head, and on either side the hands, all which are bound down with leather thongs. A little lower and at either side are two iron loops, which confine the arms, whilst the feet are secured at the bottom. At an execution (for such as described to me by eye-witnesses it almost amounts to) a medical man and some of the authorities must be present. The convict executioner takes three or more plètes, and, having stretched them to render them supple, takes up his position about 10 yards distant, walks quickly to secure a momentum, and brings down the lash with full force on the lower part of the culprit’s back. This he repeats two or three times, letting the lash fall in the same place. Then he walks from the other side, so as to bring it down in a different direction, and, after a few strokes, changes his whip and walks from a third point, the strokes thus falling upon the man something in the shape of a star or an asterisk. M. Andreoli intimates that the flagellator is often bribed by the culprit or his friends, in which case he brings down the first blow with terrible severity, making the poor creature writhe and scream horribly, but then diminishes the force of his blows as he proceeds; whereas, if he be not bribed, he begins gently and gradually increases in severity, which is far worse. He has, however, to be wary, for if he does not strike hard enough he is threatened with twenty-five [94] stripes for himself, which were given the summer before my visit to an executioner in Nikolaefsk. Most descriptions of this punishment represent the culprit’s back as raw, and running with blood—and it is better for the man when this is the case. A skilful flagellator draws little or no blood, and more pain is caused when the skin simply rises in wales; but, when this is the case, mortification sometimes sets in, and the prisoner speedily dies. One thus thrashed in the morning had died at night during the week preceding that in which I received my information.

Before passing from this dreadful subject I wish to make quite clear what was told me: that no man for the first offence can, by Russian law, be condemned to corporal punishment. Also I was given to understand, by a legal authority, that the plète exists only at three places in Siberia—Kara, Nikolaefsk, and Sakhalin, (though I was informed by a released exile that he saw it, 15 years ago, at Chita, and nearly everywhere,) so that only the very worst criminals ever see it at all. If they were moderate offenders they would not be so far east, and those who get it have usually gone through deportation, prison, and irons, and yet remain incorrigible. Also it should be remembered that in these localities the inhabitants are few, and are surrounded by hundreds of convicts or ex-convicts; that a very large proportion of the women-servants, and men-servants too, are of the same class, some of them not having even finished their terms; and that, in addition to these ex-prisoners, who are supposed to be corrected and better behaved, a considerable number of the worst characters are constantly escaping. More than 100 escaped from Sakhalin, I was told, the winter before [95] my visit. When free, they make for Nikolaefsk to escape starvation, caring little what they do. In 1877 three convicts, to get the paltry sum of £12, brutally killed a woman and put her down a well. Hence the inhabitants say that, were they not defended by some very strong deterrents, they would not be safe a moment, since, if a man commit half-a-dozen murders, he knows he is not to be hanged.

I have thus forced myself to mention all the kinds of punishment, painful as some of them are, that came under my observation or to my knowledge in Siberia; and I have done so in part because I desired to leave no room for uneasy suspicions that aught had been kept back from the reader. Moreover, I should not think it right to contradict the many false statements which have appeared from time to time concerning the punishment of Siberian exiles without giving a picture of things as I really found them.

On the whole, my conviction is that, if a Russian exile behaves himself decently well, he may in Siberia be more comfortable than in many, and as comfortable as in most, of the prisons of the world. There are yet other points to be mentioned in connection with Siberian prisons, but these can be best treated of as we visit, in succession, the various towns in which they are situated.

Dimensions of river.—Its tributaries.—Province of Tobolsk.—Geographical features.—Population.—Voguls.—Samoyedes.—Intemperance.—Commercial prospects of Obi.—Siberian produce.—Corn land.—Timber.—Cost of provisions.—Carriage.—Discoveries of Wiggins.—Followed by Nordenskiöld.—Ship-building at Tiumen.—Navigation of Kara Sea.—Books on basin of Obi.

The Obi is one of the largest rivers of the Old Continent, and seems destined to play an important part in opening up to commerce the immense wealth of Western Siberia. Something, therefore, should be said of this enormous stream, and the province of Tobolsk through which it flows. The basin of the river contains more than a million and a quarter of square miles; an area nearly 2,000 miles in length, and, at the widest part, 1,200 in breadth.⁠[1] This vast [97] area is covered with a network of streams, navigable from the Arctic Ocean to the best parts of Western Siberia, the importance of which can hardly be overestimated, when it is borne in mind that the success of recent enterprise has demonstrated the possibility of carrying produce by water to Europe.

But let us now speak of the province, inhabitants, and aborigines of Tobolsk, which, though not the largest, is at once the oldest and by far the most populous of the governments of Siberia. It extends from the frozen ocean down to the 55th parallel, a distance of 1,200 miles from north to south, and of 700 miles in its widest part from east to west, its total area covering 800,000 square miles—a country, that is to say, seven times as large as Great Britain and Ireland. The surface, save where the western border approaches the Urals, is flat—so flat, indeed, that Tobolsk, which is 550 miles from the sea, is only 378 feet above its level. It has no large lakes, but there are several small ones, from which salt is obtained.⁠[2]

[98]

Ethnographically considered, the province is not so varied as some others, the people being for the most part Russians, Tatars, Voguls, Ostjaks, or Samoyedes; the Tatars belonging to the Turkish, and the Voguls and Ostjaks to the Finnish stock. Some writers classify the Samoyedes as Finns, but Mr. Howorth considers they should be treated as a race apart. Mr. Rae, in his “Land of the North Wind,” and Mr. Seebohm, in his “Siberia in Europe,” have recently given interesting information concerning the Samoyedes.

The Voguls inhabit a district which coincides pretty closely with the ridge of the Northern Urals, and were estimated in 1876 at 5,000 in number. Their country makes them hillmen and foresters, for they lie within the northern limit of the fir and birch, in the country of the wolf, the bear, the sable, the glutton, the marten, the beaver, and the elk. They usually dress like the Russians, and live by hunting, for they have no plains for the breeding of cattle, and no climate for agriculture. They are said to use no salt. Their villages are scattered and small, consisting of from four to eight cabins. Obdorsk is their trading town. To this town, on the Arctic circle at the mouth of the Obi, come also the Samoyedes and Ostjaks, of which latter I shall speak as I saw them further east.

The Samoyedes inhabit a larger tract of country, stretching along the shore of the frozen ocean from the north-east corner of Europe, all across the Tobolsk government to the Yenesei, descending to the region of the Ostjaks, and on some parts of the southern border [99] to Tomsk. With the Samoyedes I felt already in a measure acquainted, partly by correspondence from my friend in Finland, and partly by a near approach to them in 1878, when I travelled to Archangel. Their numbers were estimated, in 1876, at 5,700. Their riches consist of herds of reindeer, which they pasture on the mosses of the vast bogs or tundras, from which the animals in winter scrape the snow with their feet, and thus find their sustenance. To the Samoyede the reindeer is everything; when alive, the animal draws his sledge, and, when dead, its flesh is eaten and the skin used for tent and clothing.

At Archangel I bought a sovik or tunic, a cap, and a wonderful pair of Samoyede boots; and as the Samoyede manner of dressing resembles in its main features that of other northern aborigines in Siberia, I may as well describe it particularly. In winter, then, to be in the (Samoyede) fashion, one should dress as follows:—First a pair of short trousers made of softened reindeer skin, fitting tight, and reaching down to the knee. Then stockings of peshki, the skin of young fawns, with the hair inwards. Next come the boots, called poumé leepte, which means boot-stockings, reaching almost to the thigh, the sole being made of old and hard reindeer hide, the hair pointing forward to diminish the possibility of slipping on the ice or snow. Common boots have the hair only on the outside. Mine are a gay “lady’s” pair, lined inside with the softest fur, and made of white reindeer skin without, sewn with stripes of darker skin, and ornamented in front with pieces of coloured cloth. The clothing of the lower limbs being completed, one must work one’s way from the bottom to the top of the tunic, or sovik, which has an opening to put the [100] head through, and is furnished with sleeves. Mine has a high straight collar, but in some brought by Mr. Seebohm from the Yenesei this collar rises behind above the top of the head. The costume is completed by a cap of reindeer skin, with strings on either side ornamented with pieces of cloth. The hair of the sovik is worn outside in fine weather, and inside when it rains; but when prolonged exposure to cold is apprehended, a second garment, called a “gus,” is worn, with the hair outside, and a close-fitting hood, leaving exposed [101] only a small portion of the face. The Ostjaks are said to have at the end of the sleeve a glove or mitten, made of the hardest hide of the reindeer, and suitable for heavy work, and also a slit under the wrist to allow of the fingers being put through for finer work. A girdle is worn round the loins, over which the sovik laps a little, and thus forms a pocket for small articles.

I have been told, by one well acquainted with the Samoyedes, that it is often very difficult to trade with them before giving a glass of vodka, and that, when once given, they are irrepressible in clamouring for more. Men may sometimes be seen who have brought in their wares to barter for winter necessaries, and who will exchange the whole for spirits, and reduce themselves to beggary. This has caused the Russian Government to forbid the sale of spirits [102] in these northern regions, but the traders smuggle them in.⁠[3]

I must not forget to add that some pleasing accounts of the honesty of the Samoyedes and Ostjaks were related to us. The merchants of Tobolsk, for instance, when they go north in the summer to purchase fish, take with them flour and salt, place them in their summer stations, and, on their return, leave unprotected what remains for the following year. Should a Samoyede pass by and require it, he does not scruple to take what he wants, but he leaves in its place an I.O.U., in the form of a duplicate stick, duly notched, to signify that he is a debtor; and then, in the fishing season, he comes to his creditor, compares the duplicate [103] stick he has kept with the one he left behind, and discharges his obligation. Captain Wiggins also records that when, in the winter months of 1876–77, his ship the Thames was laid up in the Kureika, it was surrounded by hundreds of Ostjaks and other natives, but that nothing was stolen.

The difficulties of educating and Christianizing these wandering tribes are very great.⁠[4] I heard, however, that in European Russia a priest is sent yearly to a town in the far north of the Archangel province, to baptize the children and marry such among the Samoyedes of that region as are professedly Christian. Réclus, however, speaks of the Yurak-Samoyedes as still practising their bloody rites, and thrusting pieces of raw flesh into the mouths of their idols. In 1877 the Russians opened a school at Obdorsk for the natives. We may hope, therefore, that for them better days are coming, both by reason of what the Russians are doing, and also, possibly and indirectly, by the efforts which certain Englishmen are making to invade the lands of these aborigines for the purposes of trade.

That the commercial value of the basin of the Obi and a large part of Western Siberia is not yet realized by European capitalists is the opinion of most of those that I have met who have been there. A limited [104] demand exists for English merchandise, and the possibility of an almost unlimited supply of products needed by England. The Altai mountains, for instance, are rich in silver, copper, and iron, which last is also abundant in the valley of the Tom. But these are as nothing compared with grain, for the production of which the country is admirably fitted. From the southern border of the Tobolsk province, for 600 miles northward, lies a district of fertile black earth; and so [105] exclusively is it of this character in the valleys of many of the rivers, which overflow like the Nile, and leave a rich deposit, that the geologist finds it difficult to pick up even a few specimen pebbles. It is like a vast tract of garden land, well suited for the production of wheat, oats, linseed, barley, and other cereals. Farther north are prairies for cattle, and a wooded region, inhabited by various fur-bearing animals, where the pine, fir, and birch abound. These remarks apply to the valley of the Obi no less than to that of the Yenesei, where Mr. Seebohm found he could purchase a larch, 60 feet long, 3 feet diameter at the base, and 18 inches at the apex, for a sovereign, and that a hundred such could be had to order in a week. In the city of Tobolsk the cost of provisions, we were told, had advanced to five times what it was 30 years ago; but even so, the present price of meat was quoted at 2d., and rye flour at a halfpenny, per pound.⁠[5] Again, north of the wooded region come the tundras, over [106] which roam the reindeer, wild and tame; and about 100 miles up the Kureika, which flows into the Yenesei, there is a valuable mine of graphite lying on the surface; besides which the rivers are so full of fish that the fishermen try not to catch too many, because of the frequent breaking of their nets.

These riches have long been known to the Siberians, to whom they were practically useless for export, by reason of expensive land carriage over the Urals; and the only other way of transit to Europe was through the Kara Sea, which was supposed to be ice-blocked perpetually. So far back as the sixteenth century, the English and the Dutch tried hard to penetrate the Siberian ocean, but were always stopped at Novaia Zemlia; so that for two centuries no fresh effort was made. Of late years, however, Captain Wiggins, of Sunderland, who, from his youth, appears to have been a bold and adventurous seaman, happened to read in Wrangell’s “Polar Sea” that, three centuries ago, the Russians were wont to coast from Archangel, for purposes of trade, to Mangasee, on the Taz, near the gulf of the Obi; and it occurred to him that, if they could do it in their wretched “kotchkies,” or boats of planking, fastened to a frame with thongs of leather, and calked with moss, he ought much more easily to be able to do so with the aid of steam. With his characteristic love of adventure, therefore, and at his own expense, he determined to make the attempt; and on June 3rd, 1874, he left Dundee in the Diana, a small steamer of only 104 tons. In little more than three weeks the Kara Sea was entered, and found free of ice; and the Diana entered the gulf of Obi on the 5th of August—the first sea-going vessel that had ever done so. [107] Circumstances did not permit of his ascending the river; he returned, therefore, paid off his crew, and employed the winter in making known the feasibility of the route. He found great difficulty, however, in persuading the mercantile world, and applied in vain to the Royal Geographical Society for help to follow up his discoveries. Whereupon there came forward another explorer to snatch the rose from the captain’s hand; for Professor Nordenskiöld, seeing what Wiggins had done,—amply supported by his Government, by private enterprise, and without cost to himself (as it should be)—followed next year through the Kara Sea, passed the Obi gulf, and entered the Yenesei, from whence, having sent back his ship, he returned overland to Petersburg. The feasibility of the sea-route was now manifest; and, as I passed through Tiumen, Messrs. Wardropper were building, at a distance of 700 miles from the ocean, two sea-going ships, for Messrs. Trapeznikoff and Co., of Moscow, to be floated down the Obi and round the North Cape to England.

It is the opinion of both navigators that “a regular sea communication between Siberia and Northern Europe, during a short season of the year, ought not to be attended with greater risks and dangers than seamen encounter on many other waters now visited by thousands of vessels.” These are the sober words of Professor Nordenskiöld; and to the same effect are the words spoken publicly by Captain Wiggins, in whom we have a brave and honest seaman, and concerning whose work England need only be ashamed that he received so little support. He has shown, however, by a voyage made in 1878, that steamers of any size, but of shallow draught, can go some 400 miles up the [108] Obi. On the 2nd of August he left Liverpool in the Warkworth, an ordinary steamer of 340 tons net register, chartered through Mr. Wm. Byford, of London, shipbroker, for sole account of Mr. Oswald Cattley, first guild merchant of Petersburg, with a miscellaneous cargo, and arrived in 15 days. He was met by lighters from the Barnaul district, with wheat, flax, etc., to load the steamer, and then convey inland the cargo from Liverpool. No mishap occurred on the outward voyage; but, in consequence of the Obi falling so rapidly, the steamer touched the ground on coming down the river. He arrived safely, however, in London on the 3rd of October; thus occupying two months on the passage out and home. Subsequent trading voyages have been attempted, some of which failed; but the causes of failure were such as may in future be overcome, the Neptune of Hamburg having made successful voyages in 1878 and 1880. It appears, then, that the trade only awaits further development,⁠[6] and if, with specially strengthened steamers, the carriage of produce can thus be arranged between England and Siberia, both countries will doubtless be gainers thereby.⁠[7]

Early history of Siberia.—Yermak.—Conquest of the Tatars.—Tobolsk the first capital.—The exiled bell.—Our visit to the Governor.—Hard-labour prisons.—Interior arrangements.—“Travaux forcés.”—Testimony of prisoners.—Books presented.

Tobolsk, for a long period, was the capital of the whole of Siberia. This will be a suitable place, therefore, in which to treat briefly the history of the Russian subjugation of the country at large. It can hardly be said that Siberia was familiar to the Russians before the middle of the sixteenth century; for, although at an earlier period an expedition had penetrated as far as the Lower Obi, yet its effects were not permanent. Later, Ivan Vassilievitch II. sent a number of troops over the Urals, laid some of the Tatar tribes under tribute, and in 1558 assumed the title of “Lord of Siberia.” Kutchum Khan, however, a lineal descendant of Genghis Khan, punished these tribes for their defection, and regained their fealty, and so ended again for a while the result of the Russian expedition. A third invasion, however, was made in a way quite unexpected. Ivan Vassilievitch II. had extended his conquests to the Caspian Sea, and opened commercial relations with Persia; but the merchants and caravans were frequently pillaged by hordes of banditti, called [110] Don Cossacks, whom the Tsar attacked, killing some and taking prisoner or scattering others. Among the dispersed were 6,000 freebooters, under the command of a chief named Yermak Timofeeff, who made their way to the banks of the Kama, to a settlement at Orel, belonging to one of the Stroganoffs, where they were entertained during a dreary winter, and where Yermak heard of an inviting field of adventure, lying on the other side of the Urals. Thither he determined to try his fortunes, and after an unsuccessful attempt in the summer of 1578, started again with 5,000 men in June of the next year. It was eighteen months before he reached the small town of Tchingi, on the banks of the Tura; by which time his followers had dwindled down, by skirmishes, privation, and fatigue, to 1,500 men. But they were all braves. Before them was Kutchum Khan, prince of the country, already in position, and, with numerous troops, resolved to defend himself to the last. When at length the two armies stood face to face, that of Yermak was further reduced to 500 men, nine-tenths of those who left Orel having perished. A desperate fight ensued, the Tatars were routed, and Yermak pushed on to Sibir, the residence of the Tatar princes. It was a small fortress on the banks of the Irtish, the ruins of which are still standing, and of which I have seen a photograph, if I mistake not, among Mr. Seebohm’s collection.

Yermak was now suddenly transformed to a prince, but he had the good sense to see the precariousness of his grandeur, and it became plain that he must seek for assistance. He sent, therefore, fifty of his Cossacks to the Tsar of Muscovy, their chief being adroitly ordered to represent to the Court the progress which [111] the Russian troops, under the command of Yermak, had made in Siberia, where an extensive empire had been conquered in the name of the Tsar. The Tsar took very kindly to this, pardoned Yermak, and sent him money and assistance. Reinforced by 500 Russians, Yermak multiplied his expeditions, extended his conquests, and was enabled to subdue various insurrections fomented by the conquered Kutchum Khan. In one of these expeditions he laid siege to the small fortress of Kullara, which still belonged to his foe, and by whom it was so bravely defended that Yermak had to retreat. Kutchum Khan stealthily followed the Russians, and, finding them negligently posted on a small island in the Irtish, he forded the river, attacked them by night, and came upon them so suddenly as with comparative ease to cut them to pieces. Yermak perished, but not, it is said, by the sword of the enemy. Having cut his way to the water’s edge, he tried to jump into a boat, but, stepping short, he fell into the water, and the weight of his armour carried him to the bottom. Thus perished Yermak Timofeeff, and when the news reached Sibir, the remainder of his followers retired from the fortress, and left the country.

The Court of Moscow, however, sent a body of 300 men, who before long made a fresh incursion, and reached Tchingi almost without opposition. There they built the fort of Tiumen, and re-established the Russian sovereignty. Being soon afterwards reinforced, they extended their operations, and built the fortresses of Tobolsk, Sungur, and Tara, and soon gained for the Tsar all the territory west of the Obi. The stream of conquest then flowed eastward apace. Tomsk was founded in 1604, and became the [112] Russian head-quarters, whence the Cossacks organized new expeditions. Yeneseisk was founded in 1619, and, eight years afterwards, Krasnoiarsk. Passing the Yenesei, they advanced to the shores of Lake Baikal, and in 1620 attacked and partly conquered the populous nation of the Buriats. Then, turning northwards to the basin of the Lena, they founded Yakutsk in 1632, and made subject, though not without considerable difficulty, the powerful nation of the Yakutes; after which they crossed the Aldan mountains, and in 1639 reached the Sea of Okhotsk. Thus in the span of a single lifetime—70 years—was added to the Russian crown a territory as large as the whole of Europe, whose ancient capital, as I have said, was Tobolsk.

The citadel and upper town stand on a hill, with a precipitous front, at the foot of which lies the lower town. The two are now connected by a winding carriage-road, but formerly the only entrance to the citadel was by a very steep incline through the fortress gates. From the top of the hill an extensive view is obtained of the Irtish, flowing close by the town to its junction with the Tobol. The town below is built with regularity, and contains many churches and monasteries. The houses are chiefly of wood, and the streets are paved with the same material. But the glory of Tobolsk has long been waning, and, when this is the case with a Siberian town, wooden roadways degenerate into a delusion and a snare. They rot and remain unrepaired, and one is in danger at night of tumbling into holes. The population of the town consists mainly of Russians, Tatars, and Germans, and in it are manufactured leather, tallow, soap, tiles, boats, and firearms.

In the upper part of the town are some handsome [113] churches, and a cathedral, near which is the famous bell from Uglitch, that was exiled by Boris Gudonoff because it gave signal to the insurrectionists. On their being quelled, the unfortunate bell was deposed, had two of its ears broken off, was publicly flogged, and sent to Siberia and forbidden for ever to ring again. But the ban has since been removed, and it now is hung, not in a belfry, but alone, and assists in calling the people to church.

Not far from the fortress are the pleasure-gardens, and also the three hard-labour prisons, which we wished particularly to see. My letter was therefore presented to M. Lisagorsky, the Governor, who immediately sent for the police-master; and we proceeded at once to visit our first hard-labour prisons in Siberia. For many years Tobolsk was a principal place of punishment, and even now prisoners condemned to the east frequently spend here the first portion of their time. On the road we had heard it spoken of as a place of considerable severity, in which were kept those condemned to “travaux forcés.” On entering, therefore, I braced my nerves for such horrors as might present themselves. The authorities seemed determined that the prisoners should not harm us (or them?); for, as we moved from ward to ward and section to section, there followed us four soldiers with fixed bayonets. The buildings were large and of brick, with double windows to keep out the cold; and I noticed that, in addition to a pillow and covering, mattresses stuffed with old clothes were also provided for the prisoners. These, I presume, were furnished by the local committee. They had a few books, and as one man only in ten could read, it was usual during [114] the evenings for these to read aloud to their less instructed fellows. I saw a copy of the “Lives of the Saints” in one room, but no Bibles. The guard-room for the military was furnished much the same as the prisoners’ rooms. There were likewise other wards of various sizes: one for murderers, having five occupants (most of whom, we were told, had committed their crimes in fits of drunkenness); another for eight men without passports; and other rooms for thieves. One was occupied by a man who had run away, and another by a man who, for selling things belonging to an altar, had been found guilty of sacrilege.

In the first prison were nine single cells, in one of which was a Polish doctor, a political offender, who had surrounded himself with such small comforts as Polish books, eau-de-Cologne, and cigarettes, which last he (by way of privilege) was allowed to smoke. One or two cells were set apart for punishment.

After marching through room after room, corridor after corridor, now across yards with prisoners lolling about, and now through sleeping apartments, where some were not even up, though breakfast-time had long gone by, I began to wonder where the work was going on, and asked to be shown the labours of those condemned to “travaux forcés”; upon which we were taken first into a room for wheelwrights, and next into a blacksmith’s shop. Then we were introduced to a company of tailors, and another of shoemakers, and last of all we saw a room fitted for joiners or cabinet-makers’ work. The amount of labour going on appeared to be exceedingly small, and the number of men employed (or apparently that could be employed) to be only a sprinkling of the 732 inmates in prisons [115] Nos. 1 and 3, and 264 in prison No. 2. I believe some reason was given why more were not at work, though whether it was a holiday or bathing-day, or what, I forget; but I came to the conclusion that they had not appliances enough to find occupation for 1,000 prisoners, and that one need not have come to Siberia to see the severity of a hard-labour prison, since the same might just as easily have been witnessed in Europe. Had I entered with any of the curiosity that takes people to the chamber of horrors at Madame Tussaud’s, such curiosity would certainly have remained ungratified. The prisons of Tobolsk reminded me most of those I had seen in Vienna and Cracow, in which, however, in some respects, a comparison would result in favour of Siberia; for at Cracow the convicts had not only to work at the bench by day, but, if my memory does not fail me, to sleep on it at night. At Tobolsk a set portion of labour is imposed daily; but when this is done, the prisoner is at liberty to work for himself. Various specimens of their handicraft were shown to us.

Prison No. 2 contained criminals who were sentenced to terms ranging from one year to the whole of life, and who, when liberated, were to be sent east to live like colonists. I do not know to whom the credit of superiority is due, whether to the governor of the province, the governor of the prison, or the local committee; but I was struck with the fact when I subsequently asked two prisoners who had been deported across Siberia, as to which prison west of Irkutsk they thought, from their point of view, the best, they both mentioned that of Tobolsk. We left with the governor of this province nearly 500 Scripture portions, [116] such as copies of the Gospels, Psalms, and the New Testament in Russian, Polish, German, French, and Tatar, together with 400 copies of the illustrated Russian Workman, and 1,000 tracts, his Excellency kindly undertaking to distribute the papers and tracts in the schools, and in the best way he could through the province generally, and to place the books for permanent use, not in the libraries, but within reach of each person in every room of every prison, hospital, poor-house, or similar institution under his administration. Having made these arrangements, committed them to paper in the form of a letter, and delivered it to the governor on the Monday evening, we awaited the arrival of the steamer to take us to Tomsk.

The steamer Beljetchenko.—Fellow-passengers.—Card-playing.—Cost of provisions.—Inspection of convicts’ barge.—An exile fellow-passenger.—Obi navigation.—The Ostjaks.—Their fisheries.—Feats of archery.—Marriage customs.

The Siberians are rich in time. Days to them are of little consequence; hours of no moment. With them “Time is not money.” “What difference,” said a coachman at Ekaterineburg to a friend of mine for whom he had lost his train, “what difference one way or other could an hour make, or for that matter two hours either?” Moreover, the arrival and departure of steamers are not announced by a.m. and p.m., but the date simply is given; and of course you are expected to be in readiness to start at any moment of the twenty-four hours. We deemed it unsafe, therefore, to sleep at the hotel on Monday night, the 2nd of June, lest we should be left behind; so, getting our tarantass and luggage on the pier, I crept inside the vehicle, and there spent the early part of the night, till, at dawn, the steamer arrived. For a Siberian steamer, the Beljetchenko, belonging to Messrs. Kourbatoff and Ignatoff, was good, and her dimensions, compared with others upon which I subsequently travelled, were large. She was a paddle-boat, with [118] fore-cabins and saloons for first-class passengers, and after-cabins for those of the second class, whilst the deck was allotted to a considerable number of third-class passengers and discharged soldiers who were “homeward bound.” All told, the passengers, I should imagine, could not have counted less than from 100 to 150. Among those of the first class were some pleasant people, such as officers of the army, navy, and gendarmerie, and a few school girls going home for summer holidays from Petersburg, a distance of 3,000 miles. There were specimens also of the ubiquitous Russian merchant, travelling on business. Our first impressions of these travellers were unfavourable. Some of the gentlemen were taking leave, if I mistake not, at Tobolsk, of friends, and this event is usually accompanied in Siberia with the drinking of a great deal of wine; so that, when one of the naval officers came to take his place in the sleeping saloon, he was in a condition “unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.” We were spared further inconvenience of this kind by the captain, who had received injunctions from one of the proprietors, Mr. Ignatoff, to look after “Mr. Missionary,” as the captain insisted upon calling me, and on which I did not undeceive him. For the payment of three second-class fares he gave us for sleeping the second-class ladies’ cabin—intended for five persons—in which we were comfortable enough at night, whilst we sat where we pleased by day. The captain was also instructed to charge £2 instead of £4 for the carriage of our tarantass, and also to deal leniently with our heavy excess of baggage and books. As our voyage lasted several days, it was not a matter for surprise that time hung heavily upon the [119] hands of some of the passengers, but I was hardly prepared for the amount of card-playing with which much of it was killed. In no country that I have visited have I seen a tenth part of the card-playing that I witnessed in Siberia. The Russian Government exercises a monopoly in the manufacture of playing-cards, the profits being applied to the support of the Foundling Hospital at Moscow, and 110 tons of cards are annually carried on the Petersburg-Moscow railway. I am told that the amount of card-playing in European Russia also is very considerable; that there are clubs in Petersburg where the gambling is frightful. As for our fellow-passengers, there was a clique who played by day and quarrelled by night, and sometimes did not leave off their games till seven in the morning. By the time the journey was five days old, £20 had been lost by a young officer, who told me that in the small towns of the interior, in which soldiers are quartered, where there is little congenial society and nothing to do, card-playing is the daily constant resource of the officers. The habit, moreover, is not confined to men, but is indulged in, though apparently in a less degree, by women also. On board the steamer the game was not accompanied by excessive drinking, and, happily, several of the passengers—especially the ladies—spoke French, and a few could read English, so that in their society we passed an agreeable time.

The fares for travelling and the charges for provisions were low. The three second-class tickets for the whole journey of 8 days cost only £4, and for a dinner of 4 or 5 courses—soup, fish, meat, game, and pastry,—only 2s. were charged. I remembered this tariff with a sigh in California, where the price was [120] double for a meal not half so good, with wretched attendance into the bargain. It must be confessed, however, that provisions on the river’s bank were extremely cheap—so cheap that one almost hesitates to put it on paper. At Surgut I was offered a pair of ducks for 2½d.; 10 brace of riabchiks, a sort of grouse about the size of a partridge, cost 1s.; a couple of fish called yass, weighing, I supposed, 1½ lb. each, were offered for 1½d.; and 10 large fish, as a lot, for ¼d. each. At Juchova I was offered for 5d. a couple of pike, weighing probably 20 lbs., and a live duck for 1¼d.; whilst at the villages in the district we passed, which are not easily accessible, a young calf, I was told, could be bought for 6d.

As we ploughed along, there was tugged at our stern a barge laden with convicts, to which Dr. Johnson’s definition of a ship as “a prison afloat” would with accuracy apply. The barge was a large floating hull, called the Irtish, 245 feet long, and 30 feet beam, 11 feet high from the keel to the deck, with a 4-feet water-line. It was made expressly for the transport of convicts, of whom it was intended to carry 800, with 22 officers. Below it was fitted with platforms for sleeping, like those described in the jails, whilst at either end of the craft were deck-houses eight feet high, containing a small hospital, an apothecary’s shop, and apartments for the officers and soldiers in charge. The space between the deck-houses was roofed over, and the sides closed by bars and wires, painfully suggestive of a menagerie, or reminding one of the cage-cells in the old jail at Edinburgh. The vessel had neither masts nor engines, and bore a pretty close resemblance to a child’s Noah’s ark. At one of our [121] stoppages I was trying to make a sketch of this unique craft, when the officer came and invited me to inspect it. We therefore went on board, with hands and pockets full of reading matter for distribution; and if the bars were suggestive of a menagerie, so, I must add, was the mode in which the occupants received our literary food. Not that they were rude, but so delighted were they with the pictures, and so eager to get the papers that contained them, that we found it hard work to hold our own. We had afterwards an opportunity of testing the value in money of this apparent eagerness for reading material. In former years I had always given both Scriptures and tracts. This year it was urged, and I think rightly, that it is better, when possible, to sell them. To offer them, however, for money to convicts seemed almost a mockery. Nevertheless we tried it, and requested the officer to let us know how many prisoners would like to give 2½d. for a copy of the New Testament, or the Book of Psalms. To my surprise he came at a subsequent stopping-place, bringing the money for 44 copies, and said that one man was in such haste to get his book that he had been to him three times to ask for it. As we proceeded on our course, and, looking back, saw the broad keel of the barge ploughing its way after us, one could not help feeling for its strange freight, and the many heavy hearts that were being tugged along further and further from the dear place called “home.” But such thoughts received little enlargement at the halting-places, when the barge was drawn up to the bank; for the hilarity thereon of men, women, and children was much more noisy than that of the free people on the steamer. One might have thought that the convicts [122] were having a good time of it; and it had been observed to us at Tiumen, as a noteworthy remark, that although, of the 800 prisoners on board, probably 250 would be murderers, nevertheless 20 soldiers would suffice to control them. They had a considerable amount of freedom on the barge, though they could not go, of course, indiscriminately to whatever part of the vessel they pleased.

At one of the halting-places we dropped a Polish exile, a doctor. He was the same man we had seen with his little comforts in the prison at Tobolsk. He was not on the barge, but travelled, as such prisoners usually do, on the steamer, as a second-class passenger, in a cabin near ours, with a gendarme who kept him, and who, we had opportunities of observing, never allowed him to go for a moment out of his sight. We had ingratiated ourselves into the gendarme’s favour by giving him books, as we had given also to the soldiers, passengers, and all on board, and we wished to chat with the prisoner; but his guard was faithful to his duty, and would not suffer him to be spoken to. When it was time for the prisoner to go on shore, he walked erect out of his cabin, dressed in private clothes, wearing shaded spectacles, and smoking a cigar. But he was landed at a miserable place on the 62nd parallel, where, at the beginning of June, the leaves were not out, and it had not ceased occasionally to snow; at a village where an educated man could, I presume, find little agreeable society or congenial occupation. His hair was already grey, and as he sat upon his little stock of clothes, with the gendarme standing near, and watching our ship as it glided away, we felt we had left him in a sorry place in which to [123] spend his declining years. We heard that he had a second time incurred punishment, by trying to escape from Nertchinsk. But it was a melancholy illustration of the meaning of Siberian exile.

The distance from Tobolsk to Tomsk by water is 1,600 miles, which we accomplished in 8 days. We overtook more than one freight steamer, but saw few other vessels, and no timber rafts. The banks were low and flat, and houses of rare occurrence. On the second day from Tobolsk we stopped at Samarova, where the Irtish runs into the Obi; and on the third day we stopped at Surgut, a place of 1,200 inhabitants. Three days later we touched at Narim, which has a population of 2,000.

We did not land sufficiently near to any of these towns to allow of a visit, and the steamer picked up and set down few passengers. Herds of half-wild horses were seen from time to time on the prairies. They were not shod, were unfamiliar with the taste of oats, and had in the summer to find their own living. In the winter they are used for the transport of dried and frozen fish. The natives have an ingenious way of catching fish through holes in the ice, especially in the case of the sturgeon, which in winter congregate in muddy hollows in the bed of the river, lying motionless in clusters for the sake of warmth. The Ostjak cuts a hole above them, sets a spring rod, and then forms a number of balls of clay, which he makes red hot and throws into the river below his bait. The heat rouses the sturgeon, which rise, swim up stream, and are caught. There are large fisheries in the gulfs of the Obi and the Taz, where the Russians pay rent for the sandbanks to the Samoyedes, and, [124] having caught the fish in summer, they put them in ponds till the approach of winter. They are then taken out and frozen, and in this condition sent as fresh fish a journey of 2,000 miles to Petersburg.⁠[1] A large quantity of dried fish is also forwarded from the Obi to the great fair of Nijni Novgorod. Furs and hides likewise are sent there from the northern part of the province, together with rye, barley, oats, and buckwheat from the south.

Nothing, however, that we saw on the banks was more interesting perhaps than the aborigines, especially the Ostjaks, some of whom appeared paddling in their tiny canoes, and stealthily gliding among the bushes as the steamer approached. The Ostjaks inhabit a tract of country on either side of the Irtish and Obi, extending as far north as Obdorsk, on the south to Tobolsk, and nearly as far east as Narim. There is also a territory over which they roam on the left bank of the Yenesei below Turukhansk, though Mr. Howorth thinks that these are miscalled Ostjaks, being really Samoyedes. Their numbers are estimated at 24,000. They have no towns or villages, though they sometimes settle among the Russians. We saw on the banks the frames of some of their yourts, or tents, though the people were just then driven by the floods [125] to higher ground. In the neighbourhood of the Obi they possess no reindeer; their wealth consists of boats, fishing-tackle, clothes, and utensils; and a nomad Ostjak who possesses goods to the value of £10 is deemed a rich man. In this district they have ceased to wear their native costume; and are become more or less Russianized; but the Ostjaks of the Yenesei still dress in the costume of their forefathers. These people are short of stature, with dark hair and eyes, and flat faces; in complexion and general appearance those we saw were not much unlike some of the Siberians. They live principally by fishing [126] and the chase, and are very skilful in the use of the bow. In shooting squirrels, for instance, they use a blunt arrow, and take care to hit the animal on the head, so as not to damage the fur.⁠[2]

I had heard of these aboriginals, before leaving England, from Miss Alba Hellman in Finland, who thus writes of some of their marriage customs in expressive English: “The Ostjaks are carrying on the most shameless commerce with their daughters. A girl is a valuable thing while she is yet in her parents’ home. She then gets all possible care and protection. But is it therefore that she may be a good daughter, wife, or mother? By no means for that cause: an Ostjak father has the same object in his daughter’s feeding as he has in feeding his animals. Well fed, she will not long stay at home without the father getting good payment for her. The price of an ordinary wife was at the river Irtish (on the Obi the price is higher), first, from £20 to £30 in money; next, a horse, a cow, and an ox; then from 7 to 10 pieces of clothing; and lastly, a pood of meal, a few hops, and a measure of brandy for the wedding feast. And when a man cannot afford to pay all these things, he often steals the girl. So says Professor Castrén.”

The province of Tomsk.—The city of Tomsk.—Visit to the Governor.—The prison.—Institution for prisoners’ children.—A Lutheran minister.—Finnish colonies in Siberia.—Their pastoral care.—Dissuaded from visiting Minusinsk.—Distribution of Finnish books.—Détour to Barnaul.

The province of Tomsk is, in some respects, the most favoured in Siberia. It is not so huge and unwieldy as some of the others, and does not, like its two neighbours of Tobolsk and Yeneseisk, extend to the Frozen Sea; but, beginning on the 62nd parallel for its northernmost boundary, it continues southward as far as the borders of Mongolia, from which it is separated by the Altai mountains. The climate is good, and the land is valuable for agricultural purposes, while the mountainous districts are exceedingly rich in minerals.⁠[1]

The city of Tomsk is situated on the river Tom, [128] whence it derives its name, and has a population of 30,000. Its streets are wide but steep, and in the centre of the town is a good specimen of that prominent feature in so many Russian towns—a Gostinnoi Dvor (bazaar or market). It is an aggregation of shops and open spaces, to which the stranger is constantly sent for anything he may require. If a countrywoman has butter or milk to sell, she takes up her position there; so do hucksters with small wares. Larger establishments are to be found elsewhere, but the Gostinnoi Dvor of a Russian town contains a concentration of goods that supplies all wants. Many of the houses at Tomsk are of brick; it boasts of several hotels, two banks, and two photographers. In a distant part of the town is an imposing building, the law courts, etc., also a large church or cathedral, which is still unfinished.

We called upon M. Sooproonenko, the Governor, who was very obliging, and sent us at once to see the two prisons, in one of which criminals are kept, whilst in the other they only stay whilst passing through to their destinations. The condition of prison affairs in Tomsk showed that there was an active local committee. The jail in which criminals are permanently confined is a heavy brick building, with low, vaulted corridors, in which prisoners may be kept for terms varying from one month to four years. The authorities complained that in winter it is damp. This was one of the few prisons where there was a school, which such prisoners as chose might attend; but out of 640, when we [129] were there, only 30 did so. Among those confined was an old man who had been condemned to hard labour further east, but on his way his penalty had been mitigated, and he allowed to stay at Tomsk. There was some little show of work going on in the shoemakers’, carpenters’, and blacksmiths’ shops; but the great mass of the prisoners was herded in rooms where they had nothing to do. When invited by the Governor to point out any defects I had noticed, I mentioned, first, that I thought all should work. He replied that they have no laws to compel them (I presume he spoke of a certain class of prisoners), and that the severest punishment they are allowed to inflict is three days’ solitude with bread and water. We saw so many prisons in Siberia in which the majority of the prisoners had nothing to do, that the sight became wearisome; and when the authorities told us that they could not find them work, I was vain enough inwardly to say, “It strikes me that I could.” But on reaching San Francisco, I altered my mind when inspecting a prison managed on modern principles, where they can manufacture in a day more than a thousand doors, to say nothing of hundreds of other articles of wood, leather, iron, and I know not what; and yet, even there, they had men condemned to hard labour twirling their thumbs for want of a job. The difficulty of employing a large number of Siberian convicts is vastly enhanced by the difficulty and the expense of the carriage of raw materials, and the comparatively small demand for manufactured articles.

Our distribution of books was highly appreciated at Tomsk, and one prisoner gave me in return a paper-knife he had made, for which he would accept no money. [130] In the underground storehouse we saw quass in huge vats worthy of an abbot’s cellar, and large receptacles for sour cabbage, of which the Russians make soup. The cabbage is salted in September and pressed, and in ten days is ready for use. The store contained also a large number of tongues, which cost on the spot from 2d. to 6d. each. In one of the wards, the men who formed the church choir asked permission to sing us a hymn, which they did very creditably.

The most pleasing part of our visit, however, was that made to an adjoining building within the prison grounds—an institution for the children of prisoners and of the poor, which had been built by the local committee. The matron apologized that they were not in holiday trim, but the place was as neat and clean as could be. We called in the afternoon. The girls had an English sewing-machine, and were busy at work, whilst some were embroidering elaborate initials in the corners of handkerchiefs, to the orders of ladies in the town. Some of the boys were learning shoemaking, whilst others were taught to be of use in waiting on the doctors in the prisoners’ hospital. Such progress do some of them make that one boy had recently left the school to go to help a doctor at the gold-mines, for which he was to receive his board and lodging, and £30 a year. There are certain funds in connection with the institution, by means of which the girls, on leaving to go out to service, receive various gifts up to about £50; and with this, one of the committee told us, they not unfrequently take away an education which makes them better informed than their Siberian mistresses.

Before we had been many hours in Tomsk we discovered [131] an English lady, with whom and her husband we dined, and who told us that a certain Finnish pastor—Roshier, who had been named to me in my Finnish correspondence—was staying in the town. We therefore sought him out to ask advice concerning the whereabouts and the mode of approach to some of the Finnish colonies which I was anxious to visit.

The reader will perhaps wonder how there come to be Finnish colonies in Siberia at all. Often when a Finnish prisoner is condemned to a certain term of imprisonment in his own country, he petitions the Grand Duke, who is the Emperor of Russia, to send him instead to Siberia as a colonist, and the request is usually granted. I recollect meeting a young man at Wiborg, in the castle prison, in 1874, who told me that, rather than serve for three years as a convict in the town of his birth, he had asked to be allowed to go to Siberia. The Finns do not usually speak Russian. Consequently, on arriving in Siberia, they are quasi-foreigners, and, accordingly, are not scattered hither and thither, but put together in villages with Lithuanian, Esthonian, Lettish, and other convicts from the Baltic provinces. Of this nature are the colonies I wished to visit near Omsk, called Ruschkova and Jelanka, each with 400 inhabitants, and near to which are four villages, bearing the home-names of Riga, Reval, Narva, and Helsingfors. Another colony of a similar kind is Werchne Sujetuk, about 50 miles south of Minusinsk.⁠[2] Pastor Roshier had been settled there [132] for 15 years, and was returning home. The Finnish Government were looking out for one to fill his place, to whom they offered a stipend of £150 per annum; but when I heard from Mr. Roshier that he had not conversed with an educated fellow-countryman for 10 years, that he could speak no Russian, and that his dwelling had been in the midst of convicts only, I was not surprised to hear that the Finnish Government had a difficulty in finding a successor.

For my own part, it had been my intention certainly to turn aside to Werchne Sujetuk, thinking to go across country to Minusinsk, return by raft on the Yenesei, or by road, to Krasnoiarsk, and there await the arrival of the remainder of our luggage—plans which a better knowledge of the country afterwards taught me were visionary indeed. When we did subsequently arrive at Krasnoiarsk, we found persons who, on account of the floods, had been waiting a fortnight to go to Minusinsk.⁠[3] The remainder, however, of our baggage was not yet come from Tiumen, and could not arrive for a week; so we agreed meanwhile to make a détour [133] to Barnaul. There we should find a prison, and another in the same direction, at Biisk, to which we could send; priests and people would be benefited by the way; and we hoped to see the Emperor’s usine for the smelting of gold and silver. This looked more inviting, even though it involved a journey of 700 miles, than loitering at Tomsk for a week. We were now to begin tarantass travelling in earnest, which I think had better be once for all described, partly for the benefit of the uninitiated, who may possibly become Siberian travellers, and partly that the reader may not be wearied hereafter by a too frequent recurrence to the same topic.

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CHAPTER XII.
SIBERIAN POSTING.

Travelling by post-horses.—The courier, crown, and ordinary podorojna.—The tarantass.—Packing.—Harness.—Horses.—Roads.—Pains and penalties.—Crossing rivers.—Cost.—Speed.—Post-houses.—Meat and drink.

When you purpose to travel “post” in Russia, your first business is to get a podorojna, or permit, of which there are three kinds. The first is a “courier’s” podorojna, which is used by passengers travelling in hot haste upon important—generally Government—business. Each post-master reserves three horses in case a courier should arrive, in which event only a certain number of minutes is allowed for changing the horses, and away goes the courier at breathless speed. Not long before my visit an exile, condemned to the east, had reached the city of Tomsk, a distance of nearly 3,000 miles from the capital, when, for some reason, his presence was required by the authorities in Petersburg. They telegraphed, therefore, that he was to be brought back couriersky; whereupon [135] he was placed between two gendarmes, and then over the stones they rattled the bones of that unfortunate man, till in 11 days they brought him to his destination. This sort of podorojna is reserved for special messengers and persons of importance; but, after hearing the foregoing story, I came to the conclusion that it is not every one who would appreciate the privilege of travelling couriersky.

Number 2 is a “crown” podorojna, recognised by post-boys who cannot read by its having two seals. This is not paid for, and is usually given to officers and persons on Government service, and sometimes to favoured private individuals. The bearer crosses bridges and ferries free, and need not pay for greasing his wheels; but its great advantage is that, when there is a lack of horses, the owner of a crown podorojna has a preferential claim. Podorojna number 3 is that used by ordinary travellers, for which at the outset you have to pay, by way of tax, a trifling amount per verst, according to the distance you intend to travel.

And now, having secured your podorojna, your next concern is for a vehicle. If you simply take that to which your podorojna entitles you, it will be a roofless, seatless, springless, semi-cylindrical tumbril, mounted on poles which connect two wooden axletrees, and out of this at every station you will have to shift yourself and your baggage. This is called travelling pericladnoi. From such a fate, gentle reader, may you be delivered! No, better buy a conveyance of your own. The vehicle I have alluded to is called by the general name of tarantass. The one you will purchase, though in many respects similar, and by some called also a tarantass, will be dignified by the post-boys with the [136] appellation of an “equipage.” Like the other, it will be mounted on poles for springs, but the axles and body of the carriage will be of iron, and it will have a seat for the driver, and a hood, with a curtain and apron, under which you may sit by day and wherein you can sleep by night. The equipage may cost you from £20 to £30, and, if given to mercantile transactions, you may consider on the way how much you will gain or lose (for that is possible) by the sale of your vehicle at the end of the journey. A third way is to get a vehicle from one who—having come to Tomsk, for instance, to proceed to Russia—wishes his carriage taken back to Irkutsk. It was our good fortune to borrow the two we used, one being kindly lent by Mr. Oswald Cattley.

The packing of the vehicle requires nothing short of a Siberian education. Avoid boxes as you would the plague! The edges and corners will cruelly bruise your back and legs. Choose rather flat portmanteaus and soft bags, and spread them on a layer of hay at the bottom of the tarantass. Then put over them a thin mattress, and next a hearth-rug. When we entered Tiumen, women besieged us with these hearth-rugs, as I thought them. Not knowing what they were for, I could not conceive what they meant by such conduct. Had my companion been a lady, I should have deemed that they thought us on a bridal trip, and about to set up housekeeping. But I was innocent of all such devices, and chased the women away. When it was discovered what the carpets were for, I regretted not having bought one. Next, put at the back of the carriage two or more pillows of the softest down, for which please send on your order in advance, because these [137] must be bought as opportunity offers. If a housewife has finished the manufacture of a down pillow she wishes to sell, she will bring it into Ekaterineburg to market; but, if you want such a thing on a given day, you may search the town and not get one.

You may now get in, cover your legs with a rug, and watch them harness the horses. Siberian post-horses are sorry objects to look at, but splendid creatures to go. A curry-comb probably never touches their coats; but, under the combined influence of coaxing, scolding, screaming, and whip, they attain a pace which in England would be adjudged as nothing short of “furious driving.” They are smaller than English horses, but much hardier, and are driven two, three, four, or even five or more, abreast. The Russian harness is a complicated affair, the most noticeable feature being the douga, or arched bow, over the horse’s neck. To the foreigner this looks a needless incumbrance, but the Russian declares that it holds the whole concern together. The rods are fastened to the ends of the bow, and the horse’s collar in turn to the shafts, so that the collar remains a fixture, against which the horse is obliged to push. The shafts are supported by a saddle and pad on the back, and do not touch the horse’s body. The centre horse only is in rods; those on either side, how many soever they be, are called a “pair,” and are merely attached by ropes. If you have been wise, you have bought at the Gostinnoi Dvor about 20 yards of inch-rope to go all round the back of the vehicle, and to which are attached the two outer horses. The post-men are supposed to supply such a rope, but theirs are often thin and rotten. It is well, too, to take several fathoms of half-inch rope. One of the wheels [138] may become rickety, and threaten to fall to pieces, in which case the rope will be needed to interlace the spokes. A third supply should be laid in of still smaller cord, in case of spraining a pole or the rods. Do not forget to purchase besides a hatchet. All these we took, and more than all were wanted.

When the driver, or yemstchik, has taken his seat, the horses will not stay a minute. Indeed, in some districts, the horses’ heads are held while the driver mounts, and, when freed, they start with a bound. And now begin your pains and penalties!

When, at Nijni Tagilsk, we descended by ladders 600 feet into a copper-mine, and came up in the same manner, we were warned that on the following day we should be terribly stiff; but I aver that the consequences were as nothing compared with those of the first day’s travelling by tarantass. The roughness of the roads and the lack of springs combine to cause a shaking up, the very remembrance of which is painful. Let the reader imagine himself about to descend a hill at the foot of which is a stream, crossed by a corduroy bridge of poles. The ordinary tarantass has no brake, the two outer horses are in loose harness, and the one in rods has no breeching. The whole weight of the machine, therefore, is thrown on his collar, and the first half of the hill is descended as slowly as may be. But the speed soon increases, first because the rod-horse cannot help it, and next because an impetus is desired to carry you up the opposite hill. All three horses, therefore, begin to pull, and, long before the bridge is reached, you are going at a flying pace, and everybody has to “hold on.” The bridge is approached, and now comes the excruciating moment. Most likely—almost [139] to a certainty—the rain has washed away the earth a good six inches below the first timber of the bridge, against which bump! go your fore-wheels, and thump! go your hind ones; whilst fare and driver are alike shot up high into the air. I have a lively recollection of these ascents, some of which were so high that, when travelling from Archangel to Lake Onega, we had the hood removed, lest our skulls should strike the top. Happily, all roads are not so perilously rough, and, briefly to summarize my experience of them, I should say that those of Tobolsk and Tomsk are muddy, causing the yemstchiks, when possible, to avoid them—to go into lanes and by-ways, over hillocks and fallen timber, and down into holes and ditches, all of which give variety to the route. The Yeneseisk roads deserve nothing but praise; they are well kept, and would be reckoned good in England. The Irkutsk ways deteriorate, and those beyond Baikal are worse than all; for the Buriat yemstchiks drive you furiously over hillocks, rocks, and stones.

Nor are roads the only things to be traversed; there are numerous streams and rivers—some with bridges, but more without. Through some of these your horses simply walk; on others there is a well-kept ferry, upon which you and your carriage are drawn or rowed. On one occasion our vehicle was put on the ferry, and the horses made to swim the stream. It sometimes happens, however, especially in early spring, that the ice or floods have carried away or damaged the ferry, and a flat-bottomed boat is temporarily substituted. In this manner we crossed the Tom. The tarantass was lifted by degrees into the boat, one wheel at a time. The boat was only [140] just wide enough to take the vehicle, and we were advised to let down the hood, lest the wind should blow us over. This was about the only time I felt nervous, and I confess being thankful when we safely reached the opposite shore.

The cost of these pleasures of travel is not so great in Siberia as might be supposed. In the western division, where pasture is abundant, the hire of each horse is only about a halfpenny per mile. In Eastern Siberia the fare is exactly double. Horses are changed about every ten or fifteen miles, and each new driver looks for a gratuity, euphemistically called “money for tea.” On the amount of the “tip” depends your speed. Ten kopecks are often given, but we found fifteen put the boys in better humour, and we made from 100 to 130 miles a day. Two hundred versts in a day and night, for summer travelling, is considered good, and we sometimes did it; but given a Russian merchant, bound for a fair, where his early arrival will give him command of the market, and then a “tip” of, say, a rouble a stage will in winter get him over 300 versts, or 200 miles a day. It is common to hear Siberians boast of quick journeys made thus, but they are usually attained only at cruel cost to the horses. The reader may judge what speed can be made from a story told us at Tiumen of a Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, whom the late Emperor, some 12 winters ago, required on an emergency at Petersburg, a distance from Irkutsk of 3,700 miles. The General was put in a bear’s skin, wrapped up like a bundle, placed in a sledge, and in 11 days was brought to the capital. Several horses dropped dead on the way, an ear was cut from each as a voucher, and the journey [141] continued. When governors of provinces travel, they are supplied with the best horses in the villages, and sometimes have them changed at the half stage, so as to spare the animals whilst securing extra speed.

Having said this much about the vehicles, horses, and roads, the reader may wonder how it fares with the traveller in the matters of lodging and board, which brings me to the subject of post-houses. These, like the post-horses, are the property of the Government, and are of very varied quality, from the best—which have all the appearance and the comfort of a roomy, well-established English farm-house or country inn—to the worst, which are little better than hovels. Certain features, however, are common to them all. On one side of the door, as you enter, will be found the room in which the post-folks and their children live, and on the other will be one or more rooms reserved for travelling guests. The guests’ room will never contain less than the following articles: a table, a chair, a candlestick, a bed, or rather a bench—padded, if in a good house, but of bare boards in the humbler ones—an ikon or sacred picture, a looking-glass, and sundry framed notices. One of these notices is a tariff of meat and drink—not that you are to suppose for a moment that any amount of money would purchase the luxuries named thereon, but the Government makes every post-master take out a victualler’s licence, and named thereupon are the prices which he would charge for the delicacies IF HE HAD THEM! No—bed and board are the rub of Siberian travel. You may safely rely upon getting at any station a supply of boiling water, and probably some black bread; but beyond this all is uncertainty. In [142] Western Siberia milk and eggs are plentiful and cheap—the latter a farthing each; and everywhere, if you arrive at dinner-time, there is a chance of getting some meat, which you may or may not be able to eat. The fact is, you must take your own provisions, and for this winter is better than summer, because then you have simply to freeze your meat and chop off a piece with your hatchet when required. It is easy, moreover, to start with a stock of frozen meat pies, one of which, thrown in hot water, is eatable in a few minutes; and so with lumps of frozen cream. Tea and sugar are carried, of course, by every traveller in Russia; and to these were added a small quantity of tinned meat, fresh butter, anchovy paste, and marmalade—the last two as qualifiers in case we were reduced to black bread. These things, with a stock of white bread taken from the larger towns, formed a base, for which we were thankful. If anything better fell in the way, it was so much to the good; if white bread and butter failed, then we hoped for improved circumstances. These remarks apply, of course, to the hundreds of miles of country between the towns. In the towns we fared comparatively well. Such are some of the features of tarantass travel for which we prepared ourselves at Tomsk. What occurred will be related in its proper place.

Application for horses.—Effect of Petersburg letter.—A false start.—A horse killed.—Attempted cooking.—Siberian weather.—Meteorology.—Scenery.—Trees, plants, and flowers.—An elementary school.—Education in Western Siberia.

Though our journey to Barnaul took place quite early in our posting career, it was by no means devoid of incident. On Thursday, June 12th, we sent for a “troika” of horses at noon, and were coolly told by the postal authorities that we could have them towards midnight. Now the chief of their department at Petersburg had favoured me with a special letter, addressed to the post-masters on our route, enjoining them to help me, and requesting that I might be delayed as little as possible. We had been favoured likewise with a crown podorojna. This latter had been presented, but to no purpose; and it seemed a clear case for bringing our heavy artillery into action. We presented, therefore, the postal letter, and the effect was magical. Before the official had half read it, he sprang to his feet, eyed me respectfully, bustled off to his chief, and, speedily returning, promised the horses in an hour. They appeared punctually, and we started “troika” fashion—that is, three horses driven abreast. Unfortunately, however, the starosta, or man in charge [144] of the postal yard, could not read our podorojna, and he took it for granted that we wished to go towards Krasnoiarsk, and told the yemstchik to drive us thither. Nor was it till we had run some dozen miles or more that it was discovered we were not on the road to Barnaul. We had, of course, to retrace our steps to Tomsk, and then we heard that it was not the first time this starosta had sent off travellers in the wrong direction. The mistake in our case had caused the extra expenditure of eighteen pennyworth of horse-flesh, and I thought it right to visit the loss of this sum on the starosta for the benefit of future travellers as well as our own. I therefore declined to pay for the privilege of having been taken out of our way, and left the starosta to settle with the post-master.

Making a fresh start, we found ourselves by nightfall near the river Tom. The ordinary road was under water, and the banks of the stream were so flooded that we were obliged to take a cross-country road leading some 25 miles out of the way; and as it went over hill and dale, and almost “hedges and ditches,” we were advised to stay till morning. But we pushed on, crossed the river at daybreak, and at the third station, in the direction of the Barabinsky steppe, turned southwards, and travelled well till Saturday evening, when, on stopping awhile to rest the horses, one of them dropped and died upon the spot. We were pulling the creature off the road—one having hold of a leg, another of her tail, and so on—when the remaining horses, as if indignant at such conduct, rushed over the bank, and tore away with the tarantass into the forest. Some of us pursued, and fortunately caught and brought them back without further harm. [145] The loss of a horse is more serious in Eastern than in Western Siberia, where people have herds of horses worthy of patriarchs. One lady told me that her husband possessed from 4,000 to 5,000 horses, and about as many cows. Pasturage is abundant, and horse-flesh is cheap. Our horse was reckoned a good one, and valued at £4 10s. The post-master could claim nothing from us for its loss, and thanked us warmly for 10s. towards repairing his damage. As we went along we saw large herds of mares with their foals, turned loose for the summer in company with a single horse to guard them. Should danger approach, in the form of a wild beast for instance, the stallion drives all the mares within a circle with their heels outwards, and the foals in the centre, whilst he stamps the ground with rage and dares the wolf to come within reach of their hoofs.

When we reached the last river we had to cross, which at ordinary times was probably not half a mile wide, we found it so flooded that the ferry-boat had a journey of more than five miles. This took a long while, and, when returning, we thought to save time by eating a meal on the water. In my luncheon-basket is a “Rob Roy” cuisine, with a view to the using of which, before leaving England, I took an evening’s cooking lesson. I was now anxious to demonstrate to the Russians that it was possible to make a cup of tea without the aid of a samovar. We therefore commenced operations, there being on board not only our own three horses, but half-a-dozen others with their drivers and tarantasses. The great advantage of this cuisine is that, whereas a puff of wind may extinguish an ordinary spirit-lamp, the “Rob Roy,” by setting fire [146] to the steam of the spirit, burns so furiously that a hurricane will not blow it out. It makes, however, a considerable roar; and when matters reached this stage, not only were all the natives surprised, but the horses began so to kick and to plunge that we feared an upset. One of the drivers said his horse was 30 years old, and had never heard such a noise in his life! So, for the general safety of all on board, I packed up my kitchen and had to forego the tea.

Hitherto our Siberian tour had been highly enjoyable. South of Tomsk the weather was charming, and the new spring vegetation lovely. A question that has been repeatedly put to me since my return to England is, “Did you not find it very cold in Siberia?” It may be well, therefore, that this question should here be answered. Snow fell on the night we entered the country, and the ground next morning, May 29th, was white; but the snow disappeared after an hour or two, and we saw no more for some days. By the 5th of June we reached on the Obi a latitude 100 miles north of Petersburg, where the buds had not yet opened, nor had the winter floods subsided. I heard subsequently that the opening of spring had come that year unusually early in Petersburg, and exceptionally late in Siberia, where the ice usually breaks up at Tobolsk at the end of April. On the 6th of June we had snow, and the trees on the banks had little verdure till we reached Tomsk on the 9th, after which fine weather set in, and was followed by almost uninterrupted sunshine till the beginning of autumn. The summer climate, therefore, of those parts of Siberia through which I passed I consider [147] simply delightful—neither oppressively hot by day nor unpleasantly cold by night.

Before leaving England, my neighbour, Mr. Glaisher the meteorologist, had urged me to take a few instruments for the purpose of making observations, and had kindly lent me for the journey a valuable unmounted thermometer. I took, besides, an aneroid barometer, a compass, an anemometer, maximum and minimum thermometers, and two others. With these instruments I felt very much like a boy leaving home on a summer morning with excellent fishing tackle, and bent on taking nothing less than trout. When returning, I felt that I had brought back minnows. On my first night out, at Cologne, my apparatus was duly exposed from the hotel window, and on reaching Petersburg I climbed daily to the top of the hotel to measure the velocity of the wind. At the copper-mine at Nijni Tagilsk I was resolved on being very learned, and took my instruments to test the temperature of springs and the velocity of air currents. But, alas! I broke my thermometer, and, having reached the bottom of the mine, had forgotten, when undressing, to take my watch. On the Obi I was able to take a few observations, but it was impossible to continue this during posting journeys; and further on I broke my minimum thermometer, after which I abandoned hope of attaining meteorological distinction.⁠[1]

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The journey to Barnaul revealed to us beauties of scenery and vegetation for which we were hardly prepared after the flat and leafless districts through which we had been passing. The landscape now became undulating, and the traveller who passes further south to Biisk, and beyond, approaches the regions of the Altai chain, which are spoken of as well worth seeing.⁠[2] [149] The grass between Tomsk and Barnaul was remarkable, and the further south we went the more luxuriant it became. Much of the flora was familiar, but we were now introduced to a good many trees, shrubs, plants, and flowers, found more or less in the country west of Irkutsk, that were new to us. The most prominent of the trees was the white-barked birch, justly called the “lady of the forest.” We saw also the cedar-nut tree, the pitch pine, the larch, the flowering acacia, spruce fir, and alder, the white-pine, willow, lime, Siberian poplar, laburnum, and white-flowering cheriomkha—the last a beautiful object when in blossom, and yielding for fruit a small bird cherry. Among the shrubs appeared the white hawthorn, and an abundance of wild red currants, which, like bird cherries, are eaten by the people—the latter being made into bread and cakes, and, in common with other fruits, put into brandy to make naliphka. These fruits are very sour as compared with the English kinds. Strawberry and raspberry plants abounded, though we did not get our first plate of wild strawberries till 11th July. In autumn, numerous berries are plentiful, such as cranberries (called klukva), bilberries, cowberries, bearberries, stoneberries, the mountain ash berry, and the Arctic bramble. All these are found, too, in European Russia, north of Petersburg, the last having a blossom like a single rose, a strawberry leaf, and a fruit resembling the English blackberry. In summer, strawberries and raspberries are the best fruits within reach of the Siberian traveller until he reaches the southern region of the Amur. Among the spring flowers we missed (or perhaps overlooked) the pale primrose; but violets are found, also sweet-williams, daisies, [150] foxgloves, rich camomile flowers, the wild rose, crocus, lily of the valley, and many others. The fields were actually blue with forget-me-nots. We noticed also on this journey what was to me a new plant, bearing an orange flower something like a buttercup, but very much larger, and of which there were many. Also east of Tomsk we saw a large red lily, made much of in English gardens, but which here was growing wild; also, in great abundance, a red flower very much like the peony.

On the road to Barnaul, at a place called Medvedsky, is an elementary school, to which, in returning, we paid a visit, and so were brought into contact with village education.⁠[3] There were in attendance 32 boys and girls, of ages varying from 6 to 16, most of whom came from distant places (some 30 miles off), and lodged in the village. Only 8 were from the immediate neighbourhood. Adults sometimes attend the school, in which the education is free, the school being supported by the commune or mir. The scholars attend daily [151] from 8 o’clock till 2, after which hour some of them learn bookbinding. Sundays and saints’ days are holidays, but the children are required to be every Sunday at church. There was a priest in the room giving instruction. I asked the children some Scripture questions, but was poorly answered. Many of the children, however, jumped at the opportunity of purchasing a New Testament for 1¼d., and we left a supply for them. The master wished the boys to be examined in arithmetic, whereupon, among other questions, I asked them, “What two numbers multiplied together make 7?” They knitted their brows as if making a great effort—and even the master’s countenance seemed to betray that he thought the question too difficult. All laughed heartily, however, when, on giving it up, I told them that the factors were 7 and 1. The master lived in an adjoining part of the house; and in this far-off place I observed on the wall of the schoolmaster’s room, as I had seen on that of one of the prison officials at Tiumen, an English engraving of the portrait of Professor Darwin. The schoolmaster said I was the first Englishman he had seen, gladly purchased some of our books, and thanked us for our visit.

Situation of town.—Cemetery.—Burial of the dead.—The Emperor’s usine.—Visit to Mr. Clark.—Visits to hospital and prison.—A recently-enacted tragedy.—Crime of the district.—Smelting of silver and gold.—Price of land and provisions.—Return to Tomsk.

We reached Barnaul very early on Sunday morning, having traversed, after leaving the flooded river Obi, a miniature Sahara, or desert of sand. Barnaul, like Tobolsk and Tomsk, lies at the foot of a hill. It has 13,000 inhabitants. On the top of the hill is a cemetery, which was the first we had met with; but it did not convey a favourable impression of Siberian burying-places. Indeed, I have not been greatly struck by Russian cemeteries, whether in Europe or in Asia, though on the graves of their emperors the Russians place monuments of considerable taste, which deserve to be placed in the same category with memorials of the departed such as those of Frederick William III. and his Queen at Charlottenburg, or the tomb of Napoleon in the Hotel des Invalides. But it is otherwise, as I have said, with average Russian tombs.⁠[1]

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From the cemetery at Barnaul are seen its half-dozen churches and a large building known as the Emperor’s usine, or gold and silver smelting works. Most of the business of the town is connected with mining; and many surveyors and engineers live in the adjacent mountains in summer, and in Barnaul in winter. The discovery of the precious metals in the Altai regions was made by one of the Demidoffs, who is said to have been sent there by Peter the Great. His monument in brass stands in the public square at Barnaul. We had an introduction to the manager of the usine, Mr. Clark, who is the son of an Englishman, and who reads but does not speak his father’s language. We found in his spacious house a good collection of English books, together with copies of the Nineteenth Century, the Graphic, All the Year Round, and the weekly edition of the Times. On the Sunday afternoon our host took us to visit the poor-house and the hospital. In this latter were 14 rooms, which had the advantage of being very lofty and airy, though they struck me as not particularly tidy.

In the 9 rooms of the prison were 120 criminals, one of whom, a day or two previously, had within the prison walls enacted a tragedy, the circumstances of which would furnish material for a sensational novel. The rooms of the prison are ranged on either side of [154] a wide corridor, and in one of them was a number of women, one of whom had murdered her husband and was condemned to Eastern Siberia, to which she was on her way, though for some reason detained at Barnaul. In one of the male wards was a young man, formerly under-manager of a shop in the town, who had been suspected of stealing, and was imprisoned for three months. He had served out this time within a week; but during his stay in the prison he made the acquaintance of, and became more or less attached to, the murderess, holding conversation with her from the corridor during the time allowed for exercise. Another male prisoner was by these two taken into council, and the three determined to attempt an escape, by means of wooden keys which the men were to make. The plot, however, was discovered, and the woman, finding that she must proceed to her destination and leave her lover, tried to kill herself. But she was prevented. She therefore adopted another plan of ridding herself of life. In the door of the women’s chamber was an inspection-hole, unusually large. This she cut a little larger, thrust her head through into the corridor where the man was walking, and begged him, if he loved her, to take her life; upon which he took a knife, cut her throat, and so effectually killed her. We saw the stains of the blood still on the door, for the deed had been done only a day or two before our visit. Close at hand was the prisoner, placed in a separate and rather dark cell, and chained hand and foot—the only man I saw so chained in Siberia. As he walked out of his cell, I walked in, and found on the floor a quantity of cigarettes and a book of songs. Upon my pointing to the cigarettes, the officer said that the prisoners managed [155] to smuggle them in; and then came out the old story, that this prisoner had managed also to smuggle in drink, under the influence of which he had committed this horrid murder. On asking what punishment he would be likely to receive, we were told that he would probably be condemned to hard labour for about 16 years; and we were further informed that in the small district of Barnaul, consisting of less than half the population [156] of Liverpool, there are usually about 10 murders a year. As we went from room to room, the police-master introduced me to the prisoners as an Englishman travelling through Siberia who had brought them books, which usually elicited an expression of thanks. We left them a New Testament and papers for each room, doing the like also for the hospital and poor-house, and sending a supply for the prison at Biisk.

On Monday we went with Mr. Clark to see the Emperor’s usine, to which is brought mineral from Smirnagorsk, 200 miles distant, as well as from other parts of the Altai mountains, where are mines, the ore from which contains for the more part copper and silver. They find there but very little lead. Nor is the quantity of iron worked at all large—chiefly, I believe, for lack of capital and energy. In 1879 only 507 tons of iron were cast, and 238 tons wrought in the government of Tomsk. Many thousand poods of copper are obtained annually in the district, but not smelted at Barnaul. These mines are called the private mines of the Emperor, and the revenues belong to the Crown. In them are employed from 1,500 to 2,000 men (not, in this case, convicts), and the ore from the Altai regions is brought to be smelted to four different works for silver, and one for copper.

The smelting of silver is carried on at Barnaul all the year round. They burn charcoal, which costs 10s. a ton. The ore as brought from the mine is called mineral, and 4,000 tons of mineral yield 2 tons of silver—that is, 2,000 parts of ore yield one part of pure metal.⁠[2]

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We went from the usine to the museum, which could not fail to be interesting to a mining engineer or a geologist. There was a large and well-assorted collection of minerals; models of the principal Altai silver-mines, showing the shafts, adits, and galleries, with their machinery; models of gold-washing machines, of quartz mills, and of furnaces and works in various parts of Siberia. Among the natural curiosities of the [158] museum were the stock of a tree, with branches that represented pretty accurately a man in a sitting posture; and a piece of wood, which, when split, had been found to contain a cross inside. In the ethnological department were some good costumes of the Kirghese and of a Tunguse shaman, or priest and priestess. They had also in another room an eagle’s nest, and several specimens of the Altai eagle; but in the zoological department the most remarkable specimen was the stuffed skin of a tiger killed in the southern part of the district, where this animal is usually unknown.

The price of land and provisions at Barnaul was such as might make many a man sigh to live there. The price for the hire of cleared black soil was 3½d. an English acre. We saw them scratching the surface of it (for their instrument was so shallow that it was a mockery to call it ploughing), and yet such farming yields there an abundant crop. They take just a little of their stable manure for cucumber beds, but burn the rest to get rid of it, never thinking of putting it on the land; but when they have used a field for a few years, and it is becoming exhausted, they take fresh ground. The cost of provisions in this fertile district is on a level with the prices quoted on the Obi. Black rye flour costs half-a-farthing per English pound; undressed wheat flour, such as we use for brown bread, costs 2s. per cwt.; whilst white wheaten flour costs up to 16s. for a sack of 180 pounds. The price of meat is similar. In the summer, when it will not keep and is dear, beef costs 1¼d. per lb.; but in winter, when it can be kept in a frozen condition, it sells for less than ½d. per English pound. Veal is more expensive, and costs 1½d.; whilst aristocratic persons, who live on grouse, have to [159] pay as much as from 2d. to 2½d. per brace. In this part of Siberia it is rare to find a peasant without a stock of horses and cows, and a man with a family to help him can make an excellent living. When I wrote, in April 1880, some letters to the Times on Siberian prisons, one gentleman said he thought there would be a rush thither, because I made things look so comfortable. In case, therefore, the quotation of these prices should tempt any of my readers to emigrate, I think it right to point out that in this district carriage is dear and labour is scarce, a workman earning 1s. 3d. a day, or, if provided with food, 6s. a month.

We should have liked well to have stayed longer in this part of the country, and to have made our way among the hordes south and west, in the provinces of Akmolinsk and Semipolatinsk, which contain a population of 10,000 and 9,000 respectively.⁠[3] Our time, however, did not permit of our so doing; and therefore, after a very pleasant stay at Barnaul, and a final lunch [160] with Mr. Clark, we bade our host adieu, and on Wednesday, June 18th, we re-entered Tomsk, where we found our luggage arrived, and for the carriage of which, by steamer, Mr. Ignatoff—to his liberality be it said—would make no charge. When I added this concession to the reduced rate we had paid on the Obi for our tarantass, our berths, and excess luggage—to say nothing of the personal attention shown on board to “Mr. Missionary,”—and all this without my having breathed a word as to charges, I thought it very handsome, and I gladly record this good deed spontaneously emanating from beneath the double-breasted coat of a Russian merchant.

The Russian Church.—Geographical area.—History, doctrines, schisms.—Ecclesiastical divisions of Siberia.—Church committees.—Russian Church services.—Picture-worship.—Vestments.—Liturgy.—Ordination.—Baptism.—Marriage.—Minor services.

It will be expected, of course, in a journey from the Urals to the Pacific, that something should be said of the Siberian Church, to treat of which is to treat of the Russian Church in Siberia. Wherever the Russians carry their arms, there, like the Romans, they carry their creed; and consequently all along the great Siberian highways, where the Russians dwell, they have their ecclesiastical system as in Europe. I shall therefore speak generally of things concerning the Greek Church, whether in Russia or Siberia, and illustrate them by what I have seen.

Our knowledge of the Russian Church comes to us chiefly from two sources: from the pens of ecclesiastical authors, and from the writings of modern travellers. From the latter, it is not too much to say that the Russians and their religion often receive a scant measure of justice, not to add misrepresentation; for when the British tourist looks upon the gorgeous and elaborate ritual of an Eastern Church, sees the picture-worship of the people, their kissing of relics, and [162] invocation of saints, he is reminded of like things in the Churches of Italy and Spain, and he not unfrequently condemns both East and West as superstitious and corrupt alike. Such a charge, however, is far too sweeping, and betrays a lack of knowledge of many points which, if more generally known, would certainly bring English Churchmen nearer, at least in sympathy, with members of the Church in Russia. On the other hand, the writings of ecclesiastical authors are usually so technical as to fail in bringing before us what the traveller sees as the everyday religious life of a people. It is desirable to avoid these two extremes, and to distinguish between the recognized standards of a Church’s teaching, and the correspondence therewith, or otherwise, of the daily lives of its members.⁠[1]

I do not propose to enter here upon the history,⁠[2] [163] doctrines,⁠[3] or schisms⁠[4] of the Russian Church, but proceed to observe that, for ecclesiastical purposes, Siberia is divided into six dioceses, presided over by 7 bishops. It contains 1,515 churches and 1,509 clergy; 14 monasteries containing 147 monks, and 4 nunneries containing 62 nuns. Russian dioceses are subdivided into rural deaneries, each consisting of a circle of from ten to thirty parishes, some of which, in Siberia, must be very extensive, though not necessarily populous. A priest near Tobolsk, however, told me that he had 5,000 parishioners; another at Kansk, near Irkutsk, had 2,000, widely scattered; whilst on the Siberian coast of the Pacific, Nikolaefsk and Vladivostock, towns of 3,000 and 5,000 inhabitants respectively, form only one parish each. Every selo or town of a certain grade has a church; and in some of the derevni, or villages, churches and small chapels, or oratories, are built, in which latter, services, other than the liturgy or holy communion, may be performed. The churches and vestments are furnished and kept in repair by parochial committees, of not less than five persons, elected annually, who, on retiring from office, are called “church elders.” They visit every house in the parish, and determine what proportion of the expenses should be paid by each householder. There would seem to be no difficulty in raising the necessary funds; and I must add that I was agreeably surprised in Siberia to see how well and how clean the churches were kept, even in the remotest and most out-of-the-way places.⁠[5]

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We had several opportunities, in passing through Siberia, of attending the Church services. Picture-worship is an almost universal attendant of Russian devotion—more so, if possible, than in Roman countries; and the Russian Church has found it necessary to issue many warnings against the perils of idolatry.⁠[6]

Another prominent feature of “orthodox” worship is the plentiful use of lighted candles bought at the church entrance. In one church in Petersburg, and that not the largest, I was told that money is taken yearly for candles up to 10,000 roubles—say £1,000.

The vestments of the priests and bishops are gorgeous in the extreme. A metropolitan’s “sakkos” is shown at Moscow, which is said to weigh 50 pounds, by reason of the pearls and gems with which it is embellished. At the Troitza monastery are fifteen dresses for the Archimandrite, one of which, for the mere making, cost the Empress Elizabeth £600, the robe itself being valued at £11,000. This monastery is said to possess amongst its treasures two bushels of [165] pearls, and, from what I have twice seen there, I am inclined to add an estimated pint of diamonds, to say nothing of emeralds, rubies, and sapphires innumerable!

The Church services are of a monastic character, long and tedious, read in Sclavonic, “which is to the modern Russian,” it is said, “about what the language of Chaucer is to us”; so that, what with its ancient form and the rapidity with which the ecclesiastical language is read, it is practically unintelligible to many of the people. From time to time in the services commemorations are made of the Virgin and saints; and prayers are offered to them, blessings are asked of God through their intercessions, and the response, Gospodi Pomilui, “Lord, have mercy!” is uttered thirty, forty, fifty times or more, almost at a breath.

No instrumental music is allowed in the Russian Church; but the singing in large cathedrals, such as St. Isaac’s at Petersburg (where they have 30 choristers dressed in blue and gold tunics), is exceedingly grand. I do not remember to have heard elsewhere such extraordinary harmony. The basses descended to depths almost abyssmal, and the trebles soared to and were sustained at a height perfectly marvellous, whilst other voices were so profusely blended that I can compare the effect of the whole to nothing better than to an exquisite colored window. The hymn called “The Cherubim,” with music by Bortnyanski, I heard sung at Petersburg and Kasan; and at the latter place was not surprised to see tears falling from the eyes of a peasant woman near me, for my own were uncommonly moist. I made bold to approach and look over the music of one of the choristers, thereby alarming the Monk director, who, mistaking my interest, said afterwards [166] he thought I had perchance come from the Imperial choir to take away some of his best voices.

The ritual and services of the Russian Church are contained in twenty volumes folio. The greatest part of the service varies every day in the year except in the Liturgy, where the greater part is fixed.⁠[7]

As we passed through Kasan we happened to see the ordination of a priest and a deacon, which was interesting. Holy orders are regarded by the Russian Church as a sacrament or mystery, but are not indelible. If, for instance, a widower priest wishes to marry again, he can do so by resigning his priest’s orders and taking some inferior place among the minor orders, or by giving up his ecclesiastical profession altogether. They have five orders, namely, bishop, priest, deacon, sub-deacon, and reader; and the episcopal dignitaries consist of metropolitans, archbishops, and bishops, some of which latter are suffragans.⁠[8]

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The services connected with baptism in the Russian Church were formerly very numerous, though now they are frequently more or less combined;⁠[9] one principal difference in practice between the Greek and English Churches being that the former always baptizes by immersion. The child is usually named after one of the saints in the Russian calendar, the yearly recurrence of whose festival constitutes the person’s “name’s-day.” This is observed in Russia more than the “birth-day,” which practice has the advantage that if the Christian [168] name of a friend is familiar, one always knows when to congratulate him.

Marriage is counted one of the sacraments or mysteries of the Greek Church, but virginity is taught to be better than wedlock. Priests are commanded, under pain of degradation, not to join in wedlock persons of unsuitable ages, nor those ignorant of the essential articles of the faith, and in no case without due notice given. The Russian Church fixes the age of majority for the bridegroom at twenty-one, or, by permission of parents, as early as eighteen, and sixteen for the bride; it frowns on second and third marriages, and forbids fourth marriages altogether.⁠[10]

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There are yet other services, such as the so-called sacrament of penance, which closely resembles, but differs in two important respects from, that of the Church of Rome.⁠[11]

And, again, the Russian sacrament of unction differs in more than one respect from the Roman.⁠[12]

For the benediction of water there are two offices: the lesser, which is used whenever consecrated water is required, and the greater, which is performed at the Epiphany, in memory of the baptism of Christ, and is carried out with great ceremony. Another office in the Russian Church is that of “Orthodox Sunday,” [170] which is in form somewhat similar to the English “Commination Service,” and in which anathemas are pronounced against those who impugn various articles of the Russian faith. Yet another service is “the Office of the Holy Unction,” that is, for preparing the chrism,⁠[13] and there are other occasional and curious services, such as for the consecration of a church; for an icon or picture; washing the feet on Thursday in Holy Week; prayers on laying the first stone of a house; for seed time; longer offices to be used in drought, earthquake, plague, incursion of barbarians, for children when they commence their education, and many more; but I think that on this head I have said enough.

Parochial clergy.—Their emoluments.—Duties.—Official registers.—Discipline.—Morality.—Status.—Our clerical visits.—Monastic clergy.—The Metropolitan Macarius.—Fasting.—General view of Russian Church.—Compared with Roman.—Teaching respecting Holy Scripture and salvation by faith.—Needs of Russian Church.

The Russian clergy are of two orders—the parochial and the monastic; or, as they are sometimes called, the white and the black—the secular and the regular clergy. Such was the plethora of them in the time of Peter the Great that they had to restrict the number of ordinations and of those who should serve.⁠[1] Now, however, there is no superabundance.⁠[2] Speaking generally, every parish church is under the control of prikhod or corporation, consisting of the priest, deacon, and two dïechoks, or bell-ringer and reader, and also a widow-woman to prepare the sacramental bread.

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The parish priest may rise to be a protopope or head priest of an Episcopal Church, or one who holds a position in which there are other priests under him; but so long as his wife is living he can go no higher. Should he become a widower, and take the monk’s habit, he is then eligible to be made a bishop.⁠[3]

The pay of the town clergy in Russia is better than of those in the country, where it is very little. The salaries of the Siberian clergy, to judge from the district of the Amur, vary from £125 to £180 a year.⁠[4] Hence those who have families are miserably poor. It is not uncommon to hear them spoken of as exacting, avaricious, and grasping (such charges are easily made, all [173] the world over); but due allowance is not always made for the dire needs of poverty; and they sometimes are obliged almost, if not quite, to beg their bread.⁠[5]

It must not be supposed, however, that, because the pay of the priests is so small, their duties are light. Of their three daily services, the first often begins between four and five in the morning (fancy that with a thermometer below zero!), vespers at sunset, and the liturgy before mid-day. To these must be added occasional services in district churches or chapels, as well as in houses; at every birth, every death in the parish; when a building is begun, after it has been [174] repaired, and when it is supposed to be haunted; together with the blessing of school-houses and children before they begin work after the holidays; to say nothing of processions through the streets with miraculous pictures in times of harvest, pestilence, and danger. In Siberia we saw one of these processions, with a picture, lanterns, and flags, leaving a village church at four o’clock in the morning.

But this is not all. There are the church registers to be kept—all the more important because in Russia no one can stir hand or foot without a character paper, which sets forth, with the minutest details, the particulars of his birth, baptism, marriage, etc. These papers have to be signed and countersigned by the priest and deacon, and then to be sent to the bishop’s registry, which, in Siberia, may be 1,000 miles away—and all this with an expenditure of stamps, and red tape, and filling up of blank forms that is simply appalling.⁠[6] Again, every priest has to keep a clerical journal of his official acts as to what he and his fellows do daily. This is for the bishop’s assistant; and, should [175] the journal be suddenly found not written up to date, the priest is liable to be punished. “How would you be punished?” said I to a protopope. “With a good talking to, perhaps, for the first offence, and for the second a fine, or, it may be, have the delinquency inscribed on my character paper”; in other words, to carry a blot on his escutcheon perhaps for life!

Verily, ecclesiastical discipline, whether in great things or small, is not a dead letter in Russia. Perhaps it is not altogether uncalled for. By it priests are forbidden to find their amusements at the theatre, or in cards, buffoonery, or dancing; and mention is made of another evil greater than these, in which we shall recognize an old foe, too well known in England. It is drink!⁠[7]

It is not matter for surprise, then, that the status of the Russian clergy is low, as it was in England when [176] Christianity had existed no longer here than it now has in Russia—say in the fourteenth century, when Chaucer wrote his “Canterbury Tales.” We have no room for boasting; nor are these remarks made with any idea of drawing unfavourable comparisons, but only to give a true picture of a large class of the Russian ecclesiastics. I called upon some few of the priests in Siberia, who, like the peasants, seemed decidedly superior to, and better off than, those in Russia. On arriving at a post-station, I not unfrequently sent for or called upon the priest, gave him tracts to circulate in his parish, and offered to sell him, at a reduced rate, portions of Scripture for distribution, which offer was almost always accepted.

Let me now pass to the monastic clergy, who alone fill all the higher offices in the Russian Church. Among the monastic clergy are many scholars. The present Metropolitan (Macarius) of Moscow, formerly a professor at the Academy, may be selected as a bright example. He has written extensively, and, from the very outset of his literary career, is said to have resolved to devote all the money derived from his works to the progress of knowledge. He has founded scholarships and-prizes at Kieff, Petersburg, and Vilna, and as long ago as 1867 he possessed a capital of £12,000, the interest of which is distributed yearly in premiums for the best compositions in the Russian language. It was this amiable dignitary, as related in my first chapter, whom I had the honour of visiting when passing through Petersburg. Other things might be said to the praise of many of the Russian clergy—notably their simple manner of living. In none of their houses that I entered in Siberia was there the least approach to [177] luxury, and the library of one of the best priests I met was all too scanty for the literary work he had in hand. I remember, too, that I entered the sleeping-room of the archimandrite (who is also the Metropolitan of Moscow) at the “Skit,” near the Troitza monastery, and found a chamber that would be thought not too well furnished for a guest in an average English rectory. Further, in Russia, both orders of clergy fast at least 226 days in the year; and the monastic clergy, which includes all the bishops, never eat flesh at all. I met with a practical illustration of the strictness with which the clergy abstain from forbidden food. At a post station where we stopped, and where the priest had come to us, we invited him to drink tea, and I cut for him a slice of white bread and buttered it. This he declined, as it was a fast-day, and butter was forbidden. I then offered him a slice of bread; but another difficulty arose, for, having to lay in a large stock of white bread at the previous town, we had requested the baker to put in a little butter to keep it moist. The good man’s conscience therefore, he felt, would be denied even by this, and so I was obliged to call for black bread wherewith to entertain our fasting guest.⁠[8]

Something must be said of the Russian monasteries for women and men. They are of three sorts: Lavra, of which there are only three, namely, at Kieff, Petersburg, and Troitza, near Moscow; next are those called “Cœnobia”; and, lastly, others called “Stauropegia.” [178] Their general characteristics are Egyptian rather than Roman.⁠[9]

One of the monks of the Yuryef Monastery, near Novgorod, gave me the following outline of their daily life: They rise at half-past two (one o’clock on festivals), go to church till six, and from six till [179] nine they sleep. Then they go to church again for an hour and a half, and afterwards breakfast. This over, they are free to sleep or do as they please till five in the afternoon, when evening service brings them together for an hour and a half, after which they sup and go to bed. They have but two meals a day, never eat flesh, and, when observing the fasts, eat vegetables only.

To sum up, then, all that need here be said of the Russian Church—very different thoughts arise according as one looks at the every-day religion of the people, or their formularies and theology. The former may cause pain and grief, the latter excite sympathy and hope; and it will be my object in the remainder of this [180] chapter to expand these thoughts in a fair and honest way, without sparing blame or withholding praise.

Most persons, who have had the opportunity of observing, allow that the Russians are a religious people. One sees this not only in the large numbers both of men and women who attend the churches, but also in the tens of thousands who yearly go on pilgrimage to sacred places. The monks of Troitza sometimes have in summer, on a feast day, a thousand guests. Some, of course, are idle wanderers, going from place to place to get food; but many walk hundreds—nay, thousands—of miles to redeem a vow or offer a prayer for something specially desired. Much of this, no doubt, is eminently unspiritual and superstitious. Much of their worship is perilously like, if not altogether, idolatry; yet it should be remembered that the average Russian knows no better; and what can be expected of the peasant, if the highest authorities of the land, on arriving at a city, make it their first object to pay their devotions, if not, as at Ephesus, before “the image which fell down from Jupiter,” yet before a picture to which is attributed miraculous powers? We can at least admire, however, the intention in these things; and if the Russian peasant can only be kept sober, he displays a number of virtues, some of which are not found so abundantly in other and more advanced countries. They are a kind, a generous, and a hospitable people, by no means unmindful of philanthropic effort, and at least, we may add, intensely ecclesiastical.

Again, there is much to admire in the formularies of their Church, although Dean Stanley brings against it, and justly, three weighty charges—extravagant ritual, [181] excessive dogmatism, and a fatal division between religion and morality. When, however, the Russian Church is compared with the Roman, and spoken of as like it, certain considerations should be borne in mind which make the comparison result in favour of the former. Russia did not receive the religion of Jesus Christ in its purity. The merest tyro in Church history knows that when the stream of Christianity had flowed down to the tenth century, it was no longer pure as at its source. But follow the stream as it branches east and west, and observe which of the two remains the purer.⁠[10] And if this be said to be negative, and much of it belonging to the past, then other considerations may be adduced which seem to bring the Greek Church nearer to the English than many suppose, and notably so in two vital points, namely, the attitude of the Russian Church to the Holy Scriptures,⁠[11] [182] and her doctrine respecting salvation through Christ alone.⁠[12] She does not forbid or hide the Scriptures from the people, even if she neglects them, nor has she stereotyped her errors by the claim to infallibility. There is room, therefore, to hope for a change for the better, which in my humble opinion should be attempted from within, by a wider circulation and more general study of the Scriptures; next, by a vastly increased amount of good and Scriptural preaching; and, once more, by a powerful attack on the prevailing sin of intemperance. Would the priests only endeavour to instil into their people, respecting drink, half the abstemiousness and self-denial that they teach them to observe concerning forbidden food, they would render Russia such a service as I have no words to express.

Book-distribution in Western Siberia.—Departure from Tomsk.—Postbells.—How to sit in posting.—Sleeping.—Boundary of Western Siberia.—Wild and domesticated animals.—Birds.—Scenery.—Roadside villages.—Peasants’ houses.—Hammering up “the Prodigal Son.”—Siberian towns.—Houses of upper classes.—Misadventures.—A hospitable merchant.—Frontier of Eastern Siberia.

I have said that, on returning to Tomsk, we found the remainder of our books arrived. The reader may like to know how we had prospered in relation to their distribution through Western Siberia. Our singular mission greatly puzzled the Russians. I have since heard how it reached the ears of the worthy Archbishop of Tobolsk that a strange Englishman had been through the district, leaving thousands of books to be given away. Like a watchful shepherd, his first anxiety was to see that they contained no heresy. Having examined the books, however, and perused a set of the tracts, he found them exceedingly good, and would by no means put anything in the way of their distribution; but, said his Eminence, “Those English are a queer lot, and there must surely be some ulterior motive behind it.” To the same effect were many of the officials’ cogitations as they oozed out and reached me from time to time. We met with no opposition, however, or even questioning of what we [184] were doing. The fact that the revolutionists have sometimes distributed seditious leaflets inside pamphlets approved by the censor makes the police on the alert in European Russia; but I have usually found even there, so long as all was clear and above-board, that the authorities were willing to forward my endeavours; and I so far availed myself of this willingness in Siberia as to distribute more through the authorities than formerly, and less in proportion with our own hands. Still, we gave an immense number personally, and many also we sold, on the principle that a man values most what he pays for. At each of the towns and villages on the Obi we made up parcels and sent them with a note to the parish priest, asking him to distribute the books gratuitously. As the periodical—The Russian Workman—could be had post-free for a rouble a year, many said they should get it. One man intimated that he should write for 50 copies forthwith, and another that he should get the same number of subscribers in his neighbourhood, on the Lower Obi, where he had built a little church, and had had his son instructed to read to the people. Our greatest success, however, in Western Siberia, and one that would have repaid us for all our trouble, has since proved to be the plans laid at Tiumen, through which town, as observed before, some 18,000 exiles pass yearly. From data given me in the prison, we had calculated that there would be about 2,000 pass during the summer who could read, and for these I left 1,980 Russian Scripture portions, 36 Polish, German, French, Tatar, and Mongolian Scriptures, 546 copies of the Rooski Rabotchi, and 2,520 tracts. The exiles going east are sent [185] away in the barge weekly, and, before the party starts, a religious service is held by a priest at Tiumen. I have since heard that after this service, throughout the summer, our books were distributed; so that I trust they are now to be found not only among the convicts in prisons, but also with those who have been sent to live free, but in comparative solitude, in the furthest corners of the country.

Some have shaken their heads and said that the men would sell the books, and make cigarettes of the tracts. This, however, I doubt; but, even if it be so, it may simply mean, in the case of the Scriptures, that a book has passed from the hands of one who did not care for it to those of one who does. But the Russians have great respect, amounting almost to superstition, for what they call “holy books”; and such books are a great deal too scarce to allow of their being generally uncared for. Moreover, in Siberia, books of this character and tracts are new. In European Russia, many, on receiving the books, said they had no idea there were such publications in existence; and we had cases in Asia of soldiers giving their last kopeck to get a copy of the Gospels, the Psalms, or the New Testament.

Before leaving Tomsk we gave the Governor books for the public institutions of his government, and left with him boxes to be forwarded to the residence of the Governor-General Kaznakoff, at Omsk. I had been made acquainted with this latter officer, both officially and privately, in Petersburg, and had been invited to call upon him on my return through Omsk, to be introduced to his family. The general had told me also to telegraph to him in case I got into prison, [186] or in the event of any other small casualty, and I looked forward with pleasure to my visit; but with my subsequent change of plans, I wrote asking that the books I had sent might be distributed in the provinces of Akmolinsk and Semipolatinsk, and thus finished arrangements for the supply of the public institutions in all the four provinces of Western Siberia: our total distribution thus far being 4,000 Scriptures and 9,000 pamphlets and tracts.

We now prepared to drive into Eastern Siberia, and on Thursday evening, June 19th, galloped out of Tomsk in two troikas, containing ourselves and baggage—the latter reduced, but still a heavy load. Outside the town the tongues of our horses’ bells were unloosed, and we jingled merrily along. The said bells are placed beneath the douga, over the centre horse, and are intended to give notice to the public generally, and all whom it may concern, that post-horses are coming, and, accordingly, that it is their bounden duty to get out of the way. If they fail to do this, which is sometimes the case, especially at night, when the drivers of slow-going vehicles are nodding on their seats, then “the rule of the road” is that the post-boy may give them a cut with his whip—a visitation inflicted sometimes upon men, and sometimes, with caravans, upon the leading horse, which, in his driver’s absence or sleep, is supposed to know the side of the road he ought to take.

We were now becoming accustomed to our jolting mode of travel, and I had already discovered a secret in connection therewith worth handing down to posterity. It concerns the position of the body and legs in the tarantass. If you place your heels against the [187] front of the vehicle, or against a bag or box, your feet become excessively tired; and if you lie at full length, flat, you may soon imagine yourself in a ship’s berth, rolling from side to side. Now, my golden secret is this: First secure to yourself (in a hole if possible) a soft, springy base upon which to sit, and then place on that a ribbed circular air-cushion. Secondly, put your down-pillow behind at an angle of 60 degrees, and, if you like, an air-pillow, without ribs, in the nape of your neck. But the next arrangement is the most important. Draw up your legs till the knees come on a level with your chin; then put beneath the knee-pits a soft parcel or bag, sufficiently high to leave the feet dangling above the ground; and the result will be that you will travel with comparative comfort by night and by day continuously for 1,000 miles. Being thus fixed before and behind, and kept laterally straight by the side of the vehicle and your companion, the only direction in which you can be shot is upwards and heavenwards, to come down, alas! on the old spot; and this must be accepted as your minimum amount of local disturbance. The reader may think it utterly impossible to sleep under such circumstances—and at first it is so. But Nature will assert her claims. A Siberian priest told us that, when he travelled from Europe, he could not at first sleep at all in the tarantass; but that, when at last he did so, he lost no less than three hats whilst wrapped in slumber. As for myself, I soon learnt to doze; and in my journal of June 21st I find the entry, “Managed to sleep quite soundly in the tarantass till 8 o’clock this morning.” It was not always, however, one could sleep the whole night through; and I recollect on one occasion awaking [188] from a beautiful dream of pleasant society in an English drawing-room to find myself, to my disgust, outside a Siberian post-house. On another occasion I had been sleeping soundly, and, on looking out early in the morning, found that the driver had followed my example; and the horses, not feeling the lash, had followed suit, and so we had come to a standstill, and all were slumbering together. I gave the man, however (to confess it for once), a dig in the back; his whip fell on the horses, and they galloped in style to the end of the stage.

On the third day after leaving Tomsk, we approached the boundary that divides Western from Eastern Siberia; but up to this point we had not met with a large number of wild animals. No wolves came alongside the tarantass as they did last year in the Caucasus, nor did we so much as catch sight of a bear, as on my journey from Archangel.⁠[1] As to domesticated animals, large herds of cows were seen, and milk was abundant. Strange to say, however, the people make little or no cheese; and the peasants do not usually butter their bread. Their fresh butter, when they make it, is without salt, and is generally used for cooking. The pigs of the country are a long-legged breed, and are frequently seen running about the village streets. They furnish the long bristles from their mane which are used for making brooms.

[189]

We saw no lack of birds of prey in Western Siberia, for hawks of various kinds are seen sailing gracefully over every town. We met with the largest number of sportsmen’s birds between Tiumen and Tobolsk, chiefly water-birds, with wild ducks and geese in abundance. I tasted at Ekaterineburg the gluchar, or cock of the wood, the same as our capercailzie. It was a well-tasted bird, from whose breast ten persons were helped, and it may be bought in the winter at Ekaterineburg for 8d. In the Altai regions is found a magnificent eagle called the bearcoot, of which specimens are shown in the Barnaul Museum. It is strong enough to kill a deer with ease; and it not unfrequently happens that, when wolves have killed and begun to eat their prey, a pair of bearcoots will attack and kill or drive them away, and eat their intended meal. The Kirghese tame these birds for the purpose of hunting.

As we pursued our way towards Eastern Siberia, there was a slight improvement in the landscape. For a long distance, after leaving Tomsk, the country was flat; but in the direction of Krasnoiarsk was seen a range of hills to the south, dotted with pine-trees, the country looking English-like and fertile, well wooded, and here and there under cultivation. Hitherto the herbage had been singularly luxuriant; but, from the station next before Atchinsk, pasture became less plentiful, and thus, in a measure, explained why henceforth our hire of horses was to cost us double. The number of towns and villages along the road for the first 400 miles of the way—that is, from Tomsk to Krasnoiarsk—was more numerous than might be expected, though, the further east we went, the further apart they were. [190] The post-houses were rarely more than from ten to fifteen miles distant from one another, and we frequently drove through two or three intervening villages. To describe one village is to describe them all—the chief difference being that whilst each consists of a single street, with detached houses on either side of the way, some villages are larger than others. One we passed through was said to be nearly three miles long. The said street is usually wide, but never by any chance paved, though now and then a few boards are laid down for a footway. Nor is the street usually beautified with anything worthy the name of a garden. Now and then a few trees are planted in front of a house, but with such a high, clumsy palisade to keep off the cattle, that the attempted cultivation of beauty becomes rather a disfigurement than otherwise. The priest’s house is often one of the best in the place. So, again, the post-house usually stands out prominently; and if there happen to be any Government official in the village, an extra coat of paint, or some little ornamentation about the exterior, may point out the house inhabited by superiors; but ordinarily the houses of the peasants or farmers are very much alike. The foundation may perchance be of stone, but all else is of wood. For the walls, trees are cut and barked, slightly flattened by being cut away on two opposite sides, and then laid one above the other, the ends being dovetailed together at the corners. The interstices between the logs are calked with moss, and the roof is generally of overlapping boards. So long as the foundation holds good, the houses look tolerably neat; but when this begins to give, or the logs to rot, they become strained and warped in so many [191] directions as to present a very dilapidated appearance. When the houses are intended for the accommodation of human beings only, they generally have no second storey; but in the case of farm-houses, where cattle are sheltered, we frequently found them having an upper storey approached by an outside staircase. There were usually also out-houses adjoining, and under the same roof; so that one had but to leave the dwelling-room upstairs, cross a passage, and open a door, to find oneself looking down upon beasts and cattle, and other denizens of a farm-yard, which share the same roof, though not, like the Irish pig, the same apartments as their owners. The interior of the house is as simple as the outside. In the centre is a brick stove. The walls are whitewashed or papered, and adorned with pictures according to the means and taste of the owners. Portraits of the Imperial family figure largely, so do battle scenes, pictures of the saints, and family photographs. As already observed, I took with me a large number of illustrated prints of “The Prodigal Son,” round which was written the parable in Russ. Having provided myself with a hammer and tacks, I was wont to go into the guest-room at the post-houses, and there nail up the picture, to the great admiration usually of the post-master. I have heard from a gentleman, who has recently crossed Siberia, that these pictures still adorn the walls of the post-houses, and that the books given with them are carefully preserved. My action, however, was not always understood at first, especially by those who could not read. One woman, who saw only an early stage of my operations, ran off to her husband as frightened as if I had been nailing up an Imperial [192] ukase. They usually proceeded at once to read the parable; some said they should have it framed; and one post-master, a Jew, said in German, as he finished reading, that it was “a right good story.”

What has been said of Siberian houses thus far refers more especially to the houses of the peasantry and their villages. The traveller, however, from Tomsk passes certain small towns which have cross streets, wooden footways, perchance a small hospital, and the residence of an ispravnik, or a few well-to-do merchants. On entering the dwelling of one of these classes, one finds large rooms, papered walls, and painted floors, with perhaps a square of carpet near the sofa and table. Things look plain but comfortable within; and the out-houses, such as kitchen and bath-house, are at a convenient distance in the yard. The liability of the kitchen to catch fire partly accounts for its being detached; and these out-houses serve as a residence for the servants.

Houses occupied by persons highest in position, such as governors of provinces, and high military officers, are also of wood, and often without a second storey; but the rooms are more spacious and en suite, enlivened with flowers and creepers, and the tables enriched by articles of virtu from Europe. It is interesting to an Englishman to see how many things from London find their way to these remote regions. Thus, when sitting at a desk, one finds oneself among Cumberland leads and Perry’s coloured pencils, and a dozen other trifles, reminders of home.

Our journey from Tomsk to Krasnoiarsk was not entirely devoid of incident, our misadventures being connected for the most part with a limping wheel. [193] Our first misadventure happened in returning from Barnaul, when, in the middle of the night, in the midst of a field, one of our shafts broke. But this might have happened anywhere; and fortunately there happened to be a man resting by the roadside to feed his horses, who lent us his pole to go to the next station. Early in the morning, however, it was discovered that our Siberian Jehu had been driving so furiously that, like Phaëton, his classical ancestor, he had set the wheels on fire. Matters were made worse for want of a smith at hand; and when we found a smith, he had no coal. We applied, therefore, a liberal allowance of grease, and limped on to Tomsk, where the whole concern was supposed to be put in order and cleaned, with the addition of new shafts and mended wheels, at a cost of nearly £2. We had not travelled four-and-twenty hours before the wheel was again on fire, and we paid several shillings for the repair of the axletree; a little further on, 24s. more; and then, on the evening of the third day, we arrived at a village where lived a smith. Now this man was well known in the district as an extortioner. He came to us clad in a pea-green dressing-gown, and smoked a cigarette as he leisurely walked round the tarantass, just as a man surveys a horse. He informed us that he would put us right for £5, which we flatly refused to give. “But you will certainly break down if you proceed,” urged the extortioner. “Then,” said I, “if we do, we will not come to you for assistance.” Said some of the people, “You had better go on to the next station at Bogotol, where there lives a merchant named So-and-so; and if you ask him he will recommend you to an honest wheelwright.” With our [194] spokes roped together, therefore, and wetted, we waddled on, and arrived at Bogotol between three and four in the morning.

“Is the merchant So-and-so at home?” was the first question we asked at the post-house. “Yes,” said they; “but he is asleep, and will get up for nobody.” “Indeed,” said I to my interpreter, “will you go to him and say as politely as you can that an Englishman travelling to Irkutsk has met with an accident, and will be greatly obliged if he can recommend him an honest wheelwright?” And off went Mr. Interpreter, with a glum countenance, evidently not liking his job. He knocked at the merchant’s door, expecting to get roundly abused for his intrusion. But the merchant, on ascertaining what was the matter, asked the stranger in, and shouted to his servants, Peter, Timothy, and John, to bestir themselves. One he sent for the wheelwright, another to heat the samovar, and a third to prepare some food; and then, said he, “I cannot think of letting you go till the wheelwright comes, and all is going well”; after which he plied his visitor with talk, telling him what a famous place was Siberia; that any one might come in his neighbourhood, and, without payment, till as much land or cut as much grass as he liked, no man forbidding him; though labour, he added, was scarce, and imported goods dear. Thus, after tea and talk, and the arrival of the workman, the merchant returned to his slumbers. But I thought this one of the finest examples of hospitality and kindness to strangers I had ever met with, and I wondered much whether a broken-down Russian traveller, knocking up an Englishman at four in the morning, and asking to be recommended to an honest wheelwright, would have received [195] a kindlier reception. The honest wheelwright mended us up for a few shillings, and, after calling to thank the merchant, we started, and about noon reached Krasnorechinska. Here we called upon the priest, who had 3,000 parishioners, of whom he said 200 could read, for whom we gave him some pamphlets, and sold him four New Testaments. He possessed a large Russian Bible, which cost upwards of six shillings, and was, he said, the cheapest to be had.

By night we reached Atchinsk, the first station in Eastern Siberia, and although the roads were perceptibly better immediately we crossed the border, our poor wheel was out of trim again, and threatened to detain us far into the morrow. And now came sundry physicians to administer advice, chiefly, however, in their own favour. One wished to sell us a new wheel for £1, another to make an exchange of our two front wheels for £2, and so on; in answer to which I declared that I would go straight to the Ispravnik and show my grand letter from Petersburg. “But,” urged Mr. Interpreter, “the Ispravnik has nothing to do with mending wheels!” “True,” I replied; but—“Let us go!” And so we did, and were kindly received. “If your axletrees are of iron,” said the Ispravnik, “I doubt whether there are any persons in the place capable of mending them; but, even if there are, they will most likely be drunk, as to-day is a fête; and you must therefore wait till to-morrow.” I pleaded, however that he should do his best, and things turned out better than he prophesied. A wheelwright was found, who for half-a-crown enabled us to proceed, and early next morning we reached Krasnoiarsk.

Sources of the river.—Discoveries of Wiggins and Nordenskiöld.—The Yenesei at Krasnoiarsk.—Current, width, depth.—Breaking up of ice.—The Yeneseisk province.—Geography.—Meteorology.—Forests.—Timber.—Fish of Yenesei.—Birds.—Russian population.—Navigation.—Corn and cattle.—Towns.—A Scoptsi village.—Salubrity of climate.—The aborigines.—Ethnology.—Tunguses.—Fur-bearing animals.—Methods of hunting.—Minerals.

The most remarkable of the natural features of the Yeneseisk province is its wonderful river, the Yenesei,⁠[1] much of our knowledge of which, below Krasnoiarsk, we owe to the discoveries of Wiggins and Seebohm, Nordenskiöld and Théel, all of whose information has come to us within the past seven years.⁠[2]

As I stood on the banks of the Yenesei at Krasnoiarsk, it appeared to me the most majestic stream I [197] had ever beheld; and, when looking at the rush of its waters, I was thankful that we had attempted nothing so rash as to descend by a raft on its bosom; for, however pleasant a method of travelling from Minusinsk this might be in summer, it would be nothing short of madness to attempt it during the spring floods. Some idea of the swiftness of the current may be gathered from the report of M. Théel, who says that, including stoppages and without rowing, they were carried in their boat from Krasnoiarsk to Yeneseisk, a distance of 300 miles, in 2½ days; that is to say, they floated down the stream at just about the same speed as we attained with three horses at our best travelling, namely, 130 miles in a day and night. Allowing for stoppages, they floated at the rate of seven miles an hour. Dr. Peacock, who lives at Krasnoiarsk, informed me that the river in quiet places has a current of five miles an hour; in swifter places of 10 miles, and in some very rapid parts of 17 miles an hour; but this last may perchance refer to the two rapids, through one of which M. Théel’s party had to shoot at Padporoschensk, about 170 miles below Krasnoiarsk, and the other, of which Mr. Seebohm speaks as remaining unfrozen all the winter through.⁠[3]

I imagine that the grandest thing to be witnessed on the Lower Yenesei is the breaking-up of the ice, [198] which Mr. Seebohm has described as he saw it in 1877. Proceeding down the river on the ice with Captain Wiggins, they reached the ship Thames in her winter quarters near the confluence of the Kureika with the Yenesei, and were quietly waiting for the opening of the navigation, when on the 1st of June commenced what Mr. Seebohm calls the “battle of the Yenesei.” The pressure underneath caused a large field of ice to break away, which, by collision with an angular point of the bank, resulted in the piling up of a little range of ice mountains 50 or 60 feet high, and picturesque in the extreme. Huge blocks of ice, six feet thick and 20 feet long, were seen standing perpendicularly, whilst others were crushed up in fragments like broken pottery. Some were white, and some clear as glass, and blue as an Italian sky. Then the river began to rise, and in the course of the night the whole crust of the Yenesei, as far as could be seen, broke up with a tremendous crash, and a dense mass of ice-floes and pack-ice rushed irresistibly up the Kureika, driving the poor ship like a toy before it, and leaving it in the evening, amidst huge hummocks of ice, almost high and dry. The velocity of these masses of pack-ice on the Yenesei was reckoned on some days to be not less than 20 miles an hour. This sort of thing continued for a fortnight, and during two days it was calculated [199] that 50,000 acres of ice passed the ship up the constantly changing Kureika, which alternately rose and fell. Many square miles of ice were marched up for some hours, and then marched back again. Sometimes the pack-ice and floes were jammed so tightly together that it looked as if one might scramble across the river without much difficulty. At other times there was a good deal of open water, and the icebergs “calved” as they went along, with much commotion and splashing, that could be heard a mile off. Underlayers of icebergs grounded, and after the velocity of the enormous mass had caused it to pass on, the “calves,” or pieces left behind, rose to the surface like whales coming up to breathe. Some of them must have done so from a good depth, for they rose out of the water with a considerable splash, and rocked about for some time before settling down to their floating level. At last took place the final march past of the beaten winter forces in this great 14 days’ “battle,” and for seven days more came slowly down the stragglers of the great Arctic army—worn and weather-beaten little icebergs, dirty ice-floes looking like mudbanks, and broken pack-ice in the last stage of destruction—after which the river was found to have risen to a height of 70 feet.

To proceed, however, from the river to the basin through which it flows. The Yenesei gives its name to Yeneseisk, that central Siberian province which is bounded on the west by the governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk, and on the east by those of Yakutsk and Irkutsk. It is the only province that stretches across the country from the Altai range to the Arctic Ocean, a distance from north to south of nearly 2,000 miles; or, to put it in another way, it extends from the latitude of London [200] to that of the most northerly point of Asia, within 14 degrees of the North Pole.⁠[4]

The province is divided into six uyezds, with six principal towns, viz., Krasnoiarsk, Minusinsk, Yeneseisk, Kansk, Atchinsk, and Turukhansk. The differences of temperature between its various parts are, of course, very great. The southern portions about Minusinsk we heard spoken of as the Italy of Siberia; and at Krasnoiarsk, towards the end of June, we found the temperature like that of an English summer. Further north, at Yeneseisk, the greatest heat of the year 1877 (registered in June) was 92·5, whilst the greatest cold sunk to 59·2 below zero. This cold was exceeded in December of the same year at Turukhansk, where the thermometer sank to 63·0 below zero.

The province is covered with magnificent forests up to the Arctic Circle, but the trees rapidly diminish in size further north, and disappear soon after lat. 69°. These forests are principally of pine. In the neighbourhood of Krasnoiarsk the pine and the larch attain to colossal dimensions. The pine frequently rises to 200 feet in height, but is never more than six feet in [201] diameter at the base. The larch, which has the furthest northern range, sometimes attains to the same height, but its diameter is but four feet on the surface of the ground.⁠[5]

The forests abound with animal life, as do the rivers with fish. Fish forms the principal food of the natives, and in summer almost every one is a fisherman, using nets and lines, or spearing by torchlight. In the Yenesei are found pike, ruff, perch, and tench, all which are little esteemed, and serve as food for the dogs. The more valued are the sturgeon, salmon, and various species of the genus Coregonus. The common sturgeon is caught along the whole Yenesei, and sometimes weighs more than 200 lbs. The sterlet [202] usually weighs only three or four lbs., but occasionally reaches 18. The salmon is most numerous in the upper course of the river at Minusinsk, where it is caught in great numbers.

The birds of the Yeneseisk province have received much attention from Mr. Seebohm. He brought home, in 1877, about 500 eggs, and more than 1,000 skins, but he thinks that he would have had a still larger bag had he made Yeneseisk his head-quarters instead of the Kureika. He speaks of a perfect Babel of birds when the ice was breaking up at the beginning of June. Gulls, geese, and swans were flying about in all directions, also flocks of redpoles and shore-larks, bramblings and wagtails; and in the course of the summer were seen the sea-eagle, the rough-legged buzzard, the [203] sparrow-hawk, and various kinds of owls. In addition to our species of cuckoo, the Himalayan cuckoo made its way to these regions, though it had a different note to that of our English bird—a guttural and hollow-sounding hoo, which could be heard at a great distance. Ravens and carrion-crows were plentiful, and jackdaws, magpies, and starlings were seen at Yeneseisk, though the jackdaw and starling did not go much further north, which remark applies also to the bullfinch. The nut-cracker was found as far north as the Kureika, where it showed a desire to be sociable, and often perched on the rigging of the Thames. Besides these, Mr. Seebohm, among many other birds, mentions the thrush, the black, hazel, and willow grouse, the capercailzie, bittern, crane, lapwing, and golden plover. Towards the end of summer is to be seen, he says, a curious sight on the tundras—flocks of geese in full moult and unable to fly.

The Russian population of the province is settled for the more part in towns and villages by the side of the river, and along the great high road crossing it. The natives wander over the remainder. Russian villages are seen from 10 to 15 miles apart on the rivers’ banks, at which travellers proceeding north may find oarsmen in summer and horses in winter,—horses, that is, as far as Turukhansk, beyond which first dogs and then reindeer are employed.

Most of the corn that is raised in the province grows about Minusinsk, where it may be bought at a fabulously low price, and whence it is brought down the river in barges and flat-bottomed boats.⁠[6] Rye is not cultivated [204] further north than Antsiferova, 40 miles below Yeneseisk, and oats not beyond Zotina, on the 60th parallel. Potatoes are cultivated up to Turukhansk, but they are small. Agriculture, in fact, practically ceases a little beyond Yeneseisk. The Russians alone give any attention to it, as the natives are too busy fishing during their short summers to till the land. Cattle are raised to some small extent in the valley of the Yenesei, though the people do not appear to understand how to make the most of them. Cows are found as far as Dudinsk; but though in some of the villages they may have 40 or 50, it is almost impossible to get a glass of milk, the calves being allowed to take it all. An Anglo-Russian lady informs me that, were these cows treated like English ones, even for a few days, they would lose their milk; therefore a Russian cow is only partially milked, the rest being left for her calf. A scientific gentleman told my friend that it is the peculiarity of all cows only lately redeemed from a wild state to lose their milk when deprived of their calves. The making of butter is only half known on the Yenesei, and of cheese not at all. Sheep are found as far as Vorogova, and goats up to Yeneseisk.

Of the towns and villages on the Yenesei, Yeneseisk [205] is the oldest, having been founded in 1618; and the most curious is that of Silovanoff, near Turukhansk. It is inhabited by exiled Scoptsi, a fanatical sect whose principal doctrine is based on Matt. xix. 12, who mutilate themselves, and endeavour to persuade others to follow their example. When these people are caught so acting, they are banished.⁠[7]

It has already been intimated that the aborigines wander over the uninhabited parts of the province. In the south, about Minusinsk, are Tatars, most of whom have embraced the Christianity of the Russian Church. In the north, to the west of the river, are the [206] Samoyedes and Ostjaks. West of the river, at the extreme north, are the Yuraks, and below them the Tunguses, which latter wander over a far larger area than any other tribe in Siberia.⁠[8] Those in the Yeneseisk province give themselves to the care of reindeer [207] and to the chase. M. Théel speaks of them as the most intelligent of the natives on the Yenesei, and says that their rich women, probably wives of chiefs, often wear furs of beaver, sable, and black fox to the value of many hundreds of pounds sterling. He mentions also, as some proof of their intellectual taste, that there was presented to him a hexagonal spindle of ivory, upon which the days, the weeks, and the months were indicated by different signs. He speaks also of a game they had resembling chess, of which all the pieces were of ivory.

Among the principal animals, objects of their chase, are the sable, the common fox, the white fox, the elk, the reindeer, the wolf, the bear, the ermine, and the squirrel. At the beginning of October, and sometimes also of January, they start on snow-shoes. Alone, or in company, the hunter goes into the virgin forest, some hundreds of versts from any habitation, and is followed by a little sledge drawn by dogs. If he finds the track of a sable, he follows, and, on lighting upon the animal, he has not much difficulty in killing it. But the sable often takes refuge in a hole, and then there is nothing to be done but to await his pleasure in coming out; and as this may be by night as [208] well as by day, his retreat is covered with fine threads attached to bells, which give the alarm. The hunter may thus have to wait two or three days; but, if he happen to kill the much-coveted animal, his trouble is well rewarded; for a good sable skin fetches from 50s. to £10. In skinning, the coat ought not to be stretched; but, on the contrary, contracted as much as possible, in order to render the hairs more bushy, [209] which enhances the value. Hence the skins one meets with in commerce are all short and wide.

The common fox is taken with snares and traps. The black fox is very rare in these parts, and its skin is valued up to £100. The white fox is taken on the tundra by means of traps placed on the top of little hills. This animal generally retires south towards the middle of September; and as it is known that the fox, rather than jump over an obstacle, however low, goes round it, the hunters, profiting by this knowledge, set up barriers of branches, leaving openings where they plant their snares, and catch their prey. The hunting of the elk is carried on by men on snow-shoes; and such numbers of this animal are killed that in some years one may buy at Yeneseisk as many as 10,000 skins. Reindeer are taken in numbers equally large, sometimes in traps, and sometimes by driving whole herds into an enclosure, from which they cannot get out.⁠[9]

One of their modes of capturing the bear in the Yeneseisk province is by fixing a wooden platform to the trunk of a tree, and at such a height from the ground that the bear is forced to stand on his hind-legs at full length to reach the middle. On this platform are numerous barbed iron spikes, and at the higher part a joint of meat. The bear arrives, stands up, and puts forward one paw to seize the bait; but, bringing it down on the spikes, finds it fixed. The furious animal puts down the second to release the [210] first, which also is caught, and he thus becomes an easy prey to the huntsman.

Thus the natives spend their days—fishing in summer and hunting in winter. They have no towns, no villages, no houses, but live in tents of skins or of bark, according to the season; and they have little idea of civilized life, or the mineral wealth with which their country abounds. Iron ore is found in the valley of the Yenesei, and from the province, in 1877, 2,700 tons were cast; also from the mine of graphite, on the Kureika, Captain Wiggins ballasted one of his vessels. The greatest mineral product of the province, however, is gold, of which I shall speak in the following chapter.

Gold in Siberia.—Where found.—Gold-hunting.—A prospecting party.—Thawing the ground.—Subterranean passages.—Hardships.—Mining calculations.—Building of barracks.—Preparations for our visit.—Costumes.—Road through the “forest primeval.”—Luxuriant vegetation.—Crossing mountains.—Arrival at mine.—Labour of miners.—Gold-washing machine.—Government inspection.—Wages.—Hours of labour.—Miners’ food.—Pay-day.—Drink and its follies.—Miners’ fortunes.—Mines of Eastern Siberia.—Return to Krasnoiarsk.

Not many Englishmen, probably, would think of going to Siberia to seek for El-dorado, the fabled land of gems and gold. Many tons of precious metals, however, are found there yearly; and there are firms, consisting of only two or three partners, that net an annual income of more than half-a-million sterling. The Russian empire furnishes an eighth part of the gold found yearly throughout the world, and three-fourths of this quantity come from Siberia. It was at the beginning of the century that gold-washing was commenced in the Urals, and a period of great prosperity followed from 1825 to about 1850. Since that time, the number of mines has increased, but the profits are less, because, whilst the value of gold has diminished, the price of labour has risen. The sources and affluents of the great Siberian rivers are rich in gold. The districts on the west of Lake Baikal that are most worked are those of Yeneseisk, Irkutsk, [212] Kansk, Nijni-Udinsk, and the sources of the Lena, which last are the richest.⁠[1]

Accordingly, when we arrived at Krasnoiarsk, the large town of the Yeneseisk gold-mining district, and made acquaintance with some of the gold-seekers’ families, it appeared a good opportunity to visit one of the mines, since they were called “near.” It was rather alarming, however, to discover what were the Siberians’ notions of the word near, for in that huge country 100 miles or more go for nothing—in fact, are a mere trifle, and not too long to be travelled for the sake of a ball or a festive gathering. The gold-seekers’ daughters even sometimes go out to their fathers’ mines within this distance, and, when they do so, stride their horses in top-boots and knickerbockers to save their dresses being torn in the primeval forest, or, as it is called, the taiga. When, therefore, I found that a pair of high boots would be necessary, and that it would involve a long journey on horseback, I rather hesitated. We had, however, been introduced to the Director of the Krasnoiarsk Hospital, Dr. Peacock; and when it appeared that not only he, but Mrs. Peacock also, would join the party, my courage rose, and I determined to go.

But, before we start, let me try to give the reader some idea as to the localities in which the gold is [213] found, and how it is discovered. In the mountainous districts of the forest countless brooks unite into rivulets, which, in accordance with the character of the landscape, have a strong fall, becoming very rapid in the spring, and still more so in the summer, after the melting of the snow. The waters uproot trees, undermine rocks, and sweep along earth, gold, and other metals with resistless fury, till the lowlands are reached, where the stream, having no longer the same force, allows the heavy gold to sink to the bottom, to be covered, perhaps, next season with more gold, or, perhaps, by earth and rubbish. It will be easy to understand, then, how a layer of sand containing gold may be thus formed, and subsequently covered over with beds of earth and stone.

The professional tayoshnik, or gold-hunter, has to discover these auriferous layers; but this he cannot do alone.⁠[2] There must be a prospecting party made up, which may consist, say, of an overseer, a leader, 8 workmen, 10 horses, 18 saddle-bags, provisions, and tools, the whole of which may be estimated to cost £500, which amount has to be risked, for the party may go out into the taiga and find nothing, or what may prove worse than nothing.⁠[3]

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The tayoshnik knows, however, that the Siberian gold deposits are almost always to be met with on the banks of streams, or in their beds. Again, gold is often hidden in crevices of the earth that have evidently once served as channels for running water. Moreover, he knows that those rivers that wash up gold are always such as have their sources in ravines, the rocks of which are very much weather-beaten. Gold is rarely found at precipitous spots, and is most abundant where the water ages ago had a calmer current, and consequently no longer possessed the necessary strength to carry the heavy metal along.⁠[4]

The hunter must, however, dig some depth beneath the surface, the thickness of the beds of earth covering the gold varying from 2 to 20 feet, though it increases sometimes to 150 feet. At some spots three or four gold deposits, or plasts, as they are called, lie one over the other, separated by thick strata of earth and rocks, in which case the lowest of the plasts is generally the richest.⁠[5]

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With knowledge of this kind, therefore, the gold-hunter proceeds till he arrives at a valley along which he judges some ancient river ages ago may have rolled down its golden sands. He then seeks in the bed of the rivulet for pyrites, iron, slate-clay, or quartz with a thick coat of crystals; and at length he forms a judgment as to whether or not he is likely by digging to find a gold deposit. If his verdict be favourable, then all hands are set to work to cut down trees and build a rude log hut, in which the party may have to live for months. The next business is to dig a number of holes or trenches at a distance from each other, to get down to the auriferous layers—that is, if there are any; for if there be none, their labour of course is lost, and they have to try elsewhere. But if there be auriferous layers, it is no easy matter to get to them, for gold-hunting is usually followed in the winter, often with the thermometer many degrees below zero, and when the ground is so hard as not to be pierced even by a pickaxe; they have, therefore, to make huge bonfires, whereby the earth is softened, so as to allow trenches of considerable depth to be dug. This manœuvre has to be repeated until the longed-for gold is found, or unyielding stone presents an impenetrable obstacle.⁠[6]

These trenches or holes are made under the superintendence [216] of the overseer. Samples of the earth are constantly tried, and so guidance is obtained as to the direction in which other work should be begun, and some idea formed as to the depth and breadth of the beds of gold. Often, however, the metal lies so far beneath the surface that it would scarcely be possible to dig out all the trenches begun. In such cases the wider ones are sunk into wells or shafts, and subterranean passages are made.⁠[7]

Thus the work of testing a locality may take some little time; meanwhile the workmen and overseer live in their wretched hut, which often is not well roofed, and heated only by a portable stove. The wind whistles through the cracks of the moss-calked walls, an insupportable heat reigns in the vicinity of the stove, while, on the opposite walls, icicles gleam like brilliants, and melting snow falls from above. The air is rendered poisonous by the exhalations of the inmates and the vapour ascending from damp clothing hung near the fire to dry. In fact, as the workmen say, the atmosphere is thick enough “to hang up an axe in.” However, in the wilderness, even such a shelter is a longed-for refuge when a fierce snowstorm is raging and the thermometer has sunk to far below zero.

But the climate is not the only hardship the gold-hunter has to encounter. His provisions consist of black rusks, dried meat, tea, and a little brandy; and [217] often he does not possess as much as could be wished even of this meagre fare, for he is obliged to carry with it all requisite tools and weapons on his beasts of burden, and communication with civilized centres or depôts is usually difficult, and in spring sometimes impossible. My interpreter told me he had an uncle, who was a tayoshnik, who made an income of about £1,000 a year, but had sometimes, for want of better food, to eat bear’s flesh.

But supposing the overseer to have discovered a promising spot, and to have tested the earth from several holes, he can then strike an average as to the amount of gold that may be got from every hundred poods—that is, every 32 cwt., or say every ton and a half—of sand. If the amount be five zolotniks,—say, ¾ oz., this is thought rich; if less than ⅛ oz. it is very poor; sometimes, however, ½ lb. of gold even is found to 100 poods of sand. The overseer has next to calculate whether it will pay to work the mine.⁠[8]

If, when all things are calculated, the land promises to pay, he sticks up two posts, one on each end of the area he has chosen, despatches a courier to his employer, and the place is registered at once by the commissary of police or other competent authority from the local Direction of Mines. The area is then thoroughly surveyed by a Government surveyor, who makes a map of the spot, and, when all is secured to [218] the finder, the proprietor can at once borrow money on the security of his mine, paying at the rate of from 20 to 30 per cent., according as money is scarce or plentiful. Many capitalists, content with this interest, employ all their money in this way.⁠[9]

The next thing is to build the necessary houses and barracks for the future manager of the mine and his workmen, the number of which may vary from 10 to 2,000. Provisions and fuel provided, then the digging begins about the middle of February, and the washing about the 1st of May, the operations being over on the 10th of September, or, if the weather be unusually fine, on the 1st of November. When a mine has been registered, it must be worked to some extent, or it is forfeited to the Crown. The owner, however, may sell it if he pleases, but it must not remain idle.

It was to a mine that had been opened the same year that we were to start from Krasnoiarsk. It was called the Archangel Gabriel mine, and was situated on the river Slisneva, at a spot nearly 30 miles from the Yenesei. Our worthy doctor arrayed himself for the occasion in the costume of a Tyrolese hunter, with a double gun over his shoulders, a revolver and bowie-knife in his belt, and a huntsman’s horn; for he hoped, he said, that we might chance to meet with a bear—a hope that I cannot say was shared by all the party. I know at least of one who hoped we should not meet with a bear. However, it was by no means unlikely, [219] and I accordingly armed Mr. Interpreter with our revolver. Madame Peacock wore a black velvet hat, a magenta chemisette, a brown tweed tunic, black knickerbockers, and top boots; and thus, with a few provisions, we started in the afternoon to cross the Yenesei to the village of Basaïka. The water was more than 20 feet higher than it had risen for 30 years, the ferry had been washed away, and the force of the stream carried down our boat a good mile ere we reached the opposite bank; and then, after wading through a great deal of mud and water, in doing which we learned to appreciate high boots, we reached the village, and took refreshment before mounting our steeds. We then advanced in single file from the village through the cultivated bottom-land, and afterwards through much grass, that was very like penetrating a forest of herbs, to which our horses took kindly, for they had scarcely to stoop their heads to nibble their fodder. Although the summer was young, there were to be seen the acacia in blossom, currants, and raspberries; and among flowers, the bitter vetch, the spiræa, anemones, Flora’s bell, high pæonies, aconite, or wolf’s bane, and large dragon-mouths; also abundance of ferns, among them one strongly resembling the Osmunda regalis, and the magnificent Struthiopteris germanica, which attains to gigantic growth in Siberia; and even the trunks of the trees and the granite rocks were covered with a rich variety of lichens and verdant mosses.

Thus far, therefore, everything was going well. The evening was delightful, and all were in excellent spirits. Soon, however, our guide turned into the forest, and we had before us the first of two mountains over whose [220] backs we were to climb, thinking to reach our destination by nightfall. At this point we began to get some idea of what is meant by “the forest primeval,” for sometimes the way was all but impassable by reason of masses of shattered-down dry wood; now our horses stepped over fallen trees, and now waded knee-deep up the beds of rivulets; in some places we met with snow-white skeletons of dead trees with branching arms; in others the way, indicated by notches on the trees, had been cut with an axe.

As we mounted higher and higher, we had before us a fine, bold, rocky mountain, lit up with the sinking sun. My companions called to me to look back, and we had a splendid view of the noble Yenesei at sunset, of its verdant bottom-lands on either side, its impetuous stream, and magnificent forests.

We then prepared for our first descent. But it became dusk, and the overshadowing trees made our difficulty the greater. My horse, however, seemed to know so well what he was about, that I was minded to keep my seat and hope for the best. But when all my companions, including Madame and the guide, had dismounted, and advised me to do the same if I valued my neck, I followed suit till the valley was reached. We then remounted for a short distance, by which time it was quite dark, and for a short space some of the party were lost to the others. All came right, however, towards midnight, when we saw afar off the glimmering of a candle. This we hailed with a lusty blast of the doctor’s horn, thinking to awake the inhabitants. Our coming had not been expected, but letters from the owners of the mine secured us attention, and such hospitality as the place afforded. “Let [221] us have the samovar,” said the doctor; “and bring a good large one, please, for we shall empty it.”

And he was true to his word; for although they brought a twenty-glass samovar, it went out empty. Russians, however, be it remembered, think nothing of drinking from eight to a dozen glasses of tea, and we were in need of refreshment!

Then came the question of sleep. They had but one room to offer us. Madame, therefore, lay on what might be called by courtesy a sofa. The bedstead was politely given to me, and the doctor and interpreter lay on the floor. Thus we managed to rest till about five in the morning, when we were called. Our toilets had to be speedily arranged, and our faces washed with a handful or two of water outside the door, for there was no sort of washing apparatus to be seen. After some tea and rusks, we started to witness the working of the gold-mine.

I had seen the Swedish iron-mines of Dannemora, and had gone down a copper-mine in the Urals; but the gold-mine was something new. There was no underground work going on, and no digging of holes and sending up the earth to be washed; but the whole surface had been laid bare. Hence the work resembled that of English navvies making a cutting. There were a number of small carts drawn by Siberian horses, and men with pickaxes and shovels filling them. When full, the carts were drawn up an incline to a platform, and emptied into one end of a large iron cylinder, resembling a coffee-roaster, with holes all round it. This was made to rotate by water-power, and the large stones and pebbles were, by the formation and turning of the cylinder, tumbled out at the end. Here [222] they were duly watched, so that no nuggets should be overlooked. At the same time several streams of water were poured into the cylinder, and the earth and small pebbles, passing through the holes, fell into a long wooden apron, inclined at an angle of 35°, with moveable boxes or “pockets.”

In order that we might see how the gold was washed, the manager caused some of these pockets to be emptied on to an inclined plane of clean wood, raised at either side, and over which ran equably and slowly a stream of clear water. One of the pockets (called dundofka) was then emptied on the higher part of the plane, and the water soon washed away the mud, the man who performed the washing having a wooden scraper, like that of a scavenger, with which he pushed back the descending grains of gold. This was repeated till six poods, or say 200 lbs., of washed earth had been placed on the board. After the mud and sand had been allowed to roll away, a brush was used instead of the scraper, and there remained behind perhaps a small teaspoonful of gold-dust, or as much as was roughly valued at from 40s. to 50s. The gold was then placed in a miniature frying-pan, and held over a small fire to dry, after which it was put into what resembled a “poor-box.” This was done in the presence of a Government official, of whom there is always one at every mine, and who is usually a Cossack officer.⁠[10]

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The gold thus gained is eventually poured into bags of coarse linen, which, after having been stamped with the brand of the mine, are sewn in leather sacks⁠[11] and taken to Irkutsk or Barnaul, where it is assayed; and afterwards there is deducted the tax of from 5 to 10 per cent., according to the quantity. Gold assignats are given in exchange, payable in six months, or they may be cashed at the Government bank at a discount of 7 per cent. per annum. Thus all the gold found in the country is claimed by the Government, and it is unlawful for any person to have gold-dust in his possession unknown to the authorities.

After we had seen the manner of washing the gold we walked into the barracks, the hospital, stables, and the houses for the 200 or 300 workmen. I have spoken of the hardships that are endured by a prospecting party. Yet, despite all their privations and dangers, there is never a lack of persons who volunteer their services to wealthy projectors, for they receive large wages. The overseer who discovers the mine generally stipulates that he shall receive from 1 to 5 per cent. on the yield; and the percentage given to some of the others on a lucky find is very liberal. The ordinary labourers, too, such as we saw, are well paid. [224] Among them, of course, is a great variety of races and people. There meet at the mines the nobleman and the Siberian peasant; the former officer of the army and the pardoned convict; the Pole, the German, the Tatar, and numberless others, who work in common, now freezing in the icy blasts of winter, and now scorching in the heat of the summer sun. They work intensely hard (sometimes from 3 a.m. to 7 p.m.), and observe no Sundays or saints’ days, excepting that of the patron saint of the mine. But in most cases they have wholesome food, warm quarters, and attention in sickness.

Some of them, however, run away. It happens occasionally that a man may have secreted gold, with which he gets off as early as possible; and some, not reckoning aright the difficulties of travelling so far alone, have been found starved, the useless gold clutched in the grasp of lifeless fingers. We found some attention paid to what might be called the fanaticism of the Mohammedan workmen; the Tatars being placed alone, and convenience being afforded them to cook their food in their own way. A separate barrack, too, was assigned to married men with their wives. Over an outdoor fire hung a large caldron, big enough to boil a donkey—the largest I had ever seen. This, I presumed, was for cooking the meat; and in the bake-house we saw abundance of rye bread, of which some of the men eat 7 lbs. in a day. Their beverages are tea and quass. It is forbidden by law to sell spirituous liquors at the mines. Only the managers have the right to keep them in their possession, though this sensible regulation is often evaded by contrabandists.

When the 10th of September arrives, and the workmen receive their pay, they break forth into the wildest [225] excesses. Before leaving the mine, each labourer gets a ticket, setting forth what he is to receive, which may vary from £20 to £50. This ticket he has to present some miles away at his employer’s office, and there, awaiting him outside, are merchants and dealers, who manage soon to empty his pockets. He too frequently begins by drinking; and then the man who has toiled harder than a slave for months is often at a loss to know upon what objects and follies to lavish his money.

Captain Wiggins says that he never witnessed among the Siberian miners, such scenes of depravity and disorder as may be witnessed among the Australian and Californian miners, or even, at times, in the low streets of English seaport towns. Another Englishman, however, has told me a different story, to the effect that one miner, for instance, will take a common woman and clothe her in satin and velvet, and then, a week after, when money is gone, will tear the clothes from her back to raise capital for drink. Another, of a vain turn of mind, buys bottles of champagne, and sticks them up in a row to throw stones at; a third will buy a piece of printed cotton, or other material, lay it down in the dirty road, and, to indulge his aristocratic tread, will walk on it; whilst a fourth, despising to be drawn by horses, will yoke to his telega his fellow-fools who have spent their money, and so be drawn by human beings. The end of this, of course, is that their money is speedily gone; and now comes the opportunity of the masters for the following year, since they know that they shall want the men again, and labour is scarce. Employers, therefore, advance them money, and the poor sots start off to walk, perhaps, 500 miles to their homes or friends, where, having [226] arrived, they must needs return in a few months to begin the labours of another season.

The managers of mines, some of whom make £1,000 a year, congregate in the winter in the towns, where much drinking and card-playing goes on. If capitalists are fortunate, they can make and keep large fortunes. Two gold-seekers in Krasnoiarsk are reputed to have found, in about 10 years, 1,000 poods of gold, of the value, say, of £2,000,000 sterling. We dined at the house of one of these men.⁠[12]

But to return to the Archangel Gabriel mine. After we had looked at the buildings, and seen what else there was of interest, we returned to a breakfast of beefsteaks, left some books for the workmen, and then, mounting our steeds, returned towards Krasnoiarsk; and, seeing that four persons similarly attired might not meet again for awhile, I proposed that, on reaching the town, we should be photographed in a group. This was done; and so ended one of the pleasantest détours of our journey.

Situation of Krasnoiarsk.—Our hotel.—Dr. Peacock.—Visit to prison, hospital, and madhouse.—Cathedral.—Drive in “Rotten Row.”—Shoeing horses.—Bible affairs at Krasnoiarsk.—Consignment to Governor for provinces of Yeneseisk and Yakutsk.—Departure from Krasnoiarsk.—Change of scenery.—Kansk Okrug.—Our arrival anticipated.—Visit to Ispravnik.—Statistics of crime.—The Protopope of Kansk.—Parochial information.—Demand for Scriptures.—A travelling companion.—Further posting help.—Butterflies and mosquitoes.—Nijni Udinsk.—Telma factory.—A détour.—Alexandreffsky.

Siberia, immense as it is, has only 17 towns with a population of more than 5,000 inhabitants, and of these large towns Krasnoiarsk, with a population of 13,000, is a fair specimen. It derives its name from the Russian words krasnoi, red, and yar, a cliff, in allusion to the red-coloured marl of the banks on which the town is situated; its houses being built on the tongue of land at the confluence of the Yenesei and the Kacha. On the south the plain stretches away for nine versts, and on the south-west a range of blue hills is descried, which betray their rocky character by sharp and picturesque outlines. The opposite bank, too, of the Yenesei has, amidst forest scenery, some fine rocks, one of which, of curious formation, called the Tokmak, rises to the dignity of a mount. The Siberians, therefore, are justified, to a [228] considerable degree, in claiming for Krasnoiarsk that it is picturesquely situated. It was certainly the prettiest spot we had thus far seen; and since we made there some pleasant acquaintances, and received much kindness from the people, it naturally lingers in the memory as one of the bright spots of our journey.⁠[1]

Having arrived early on the morning of the 24th June, we drove to what is called an hotel, kept by one “Shlyaktin,” where we engaged the best room in the house for two shillings a day, with two bedsteads, for which, as usual in Russia, we provided our own pillows and linen. Other things were proportionately cheap: turkeys 3s. a pair; a whole calf, nine months old, from 3s. to 4s.; geese from 1s. 8d. to 2s. 6d. a couple; but pheasants, brought hundreds of miles from Tashkend, cost 6s. a brace.

We had not entered many minutes before several beggars came to the window to solicit alms, which seemed to be their method of honouring all newcomers; and if they received anything they crossed themselves, and no doubt blessed us.⁠[2]

Krasnoiarsk boasts of a Lutheran chapel, though it [229] is without a resident pastor. We made it our business to go there first, thinking to find a catechist, Mr. Adamson, for whom we had a letter. He was away, however, and was represented by an old German woman. Whether she recognized in us kindred spirits, I know not, but she cried as she shook our hands and bade us God-speed.

We then accompanied Dr. Peacock, who took us first to see the prison,⁠[3] and afterwards the large hospital, through which pass annually about 2,500 patients. A part of it serves as a madhouse, in which were 48 inmates, 42 of whom were exiles, 28 being pronounced incurable. From inquiries I made, I did not gather that medical opinion went so far as to say that banishment drove people mad; but it seemed that many so afflicted were exiled as prisoners who ought rather to have been in lunatic asylums as idiots; such, for instance, was the case of one man who had been sent to Siberia for setting houses on fire, and who, on arriving, repeated his offence, saying that he did it “for fun.”⁠[4]

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The hospital building had been originally erected as a private residence by a rich gold-seeker.⁠[5] How far, in its altered condition, the house suits the purpose of a hospital, I could not judge; for in Russia they have a habit, in summer, of turning the patients out under temporary sheds and tents whilst the buildings are being repaired for the winter; and this was the state of affairs at Krasnoiarsk during our inspection. But I am afraid the building is not all that could be desired. At Tomsk we had seen a summer tent-hospital for 20 men with typhus fever.

Krasnoiarsk has a cathedral, presided over by the Bishop of Yeneseisk, and four or five churches, one of which was built at a cost of £70,000 by a rich gold-seeker, by name, I think, Kusnitzoff, which, be it known to English readers, means “Smith.” We made the acquaintance of two of his daughters during our voyage on the Obi. They had been spending the winter in Petersburg, and were then travelling a distance of 3,000 miles to spend the summer in Siberia. This was their usual practice. One of these ladies had travelled to England, had even crossed the Atlantic to America, and we were glad to renew our acquaintance at Krasnoiarsk. Theirs was one of the best of the private houses, on entering which a broad flight of steps led to the upper storey, where was a drawing-room, [231] or rather a ball-room, containing two grand pianos, the walls being hung with European oil-paintings, and where, among other curiosities, we were shown three nuggets of gold, each of which must have weighed several pounds, but serving no purpose but to be looked at, save that a natural indentation in one had been used on certain grand occasions as a cigar-boat. In front of the house was an enclosure, full of shrubs, dahlias, and flowers; but it was manifest that horticultural operations were carried on with difficulty. The Siberians do more with flowers in their rooms, thus adding much to their beauty.

We dined at this house, and afterwards were taken for a drive. The plain running south of the town is the “Rotten Row” of Krasnoiarsk; and here we saw a fair Amazon, of good position, and the mother, by-the-bye, of three children, with hair cut short behind, sitting astride her horse, in knickerbockers and high boots. It was the only instance we saw of this, however; and further east, on the Amur, I met with a lady in a riding-habit that would have been becoming enough even in Hyde Park.

We drove some distance up the bank of the Yenesei, intending to visit a monastery a few miles distant, but were stopped by the unusual height of the floods, and returned to pass through the two handsome squares in the middle of the town, and the smaller streets which cross the principal roads at right angles. We passed a public garden, also given by Mr. Kusnitzoff to the town. We walked there in the evening, leaving the carriages at the gates, as did several fashionables, and found inside a place for refreshments, rooms for cards, and a promenade. As we strolled about [232] among the trees and shrubs I asked how long they had been there, and found they were self-planted, and that the garden was an adaptation from nature. Close at hand were blacksmiths’ forges, where they were shoeing horses in a curious manner.⁠[6]

Before leaving our lady friends, their hospitality took a very practical turn, as Siberian hospitality generally does, for they gave us some excellent fresh butter and a jar of marmalade. Both these were of great value, and I was particularly thankful to get the latter. In order to prevent the possibility of being reduced to black bread between Krasnoiarsk and Irkutsk, we ordered to be baked a pile, three feet high, of large, flat, white loaves, with a little butter added to prevent their getting dry; and these lasted us for 600 miles.

I was anxious to open at Krasnoiarsk a depôt or an agency for the sale of the Scriptures, and, with that intent, presented an introduction at the shop of one of the principal tradesmen. We found a large store full of all manner of wares, among which, however, it was difficult to see anything small that was particularly Siberian, though I bought a string of beads, worn round the neck by Russian peasant girls, called a gaitan. Unfortunately the merchant was away, and I could not hear of another house of business suitable [233] for what I wanted. Dr. Peacock, however, seemed to feel so strongly the importance of making the most of an opportunity to get the Scriptures circulated in the neighbourhood that he purchased 250 copies, intending to dispense them far and near. I gave him also a supply of reading matter for his hospital patients.⁠[7]

Having thus spent four agreeable days at the capital of the Yeneseisk province, we left on the evening of the 27th June, with a journey before us of 600 miles to Irkutsk.⁠[8] We met with an early adventure on reaching the opposite bank of the river; for we had omitted to get a special note from the post-master, without which the post-boys, waiting with their horses, would not take us on. Mr. Interpreter, therefore, at a cost of 8s., and not without danger, had to spend half the night in recrossing the river and returning, whilst I “camped out” alone in the tarantass on the river’s bank. I was so stiff and tired, however, with the previous night’s journey to the gold-mine, that I slept soundly till, at early dawn, horses were procured, and we jogged onwards.

We had now entered a land of valleys and hills instead of a country of marshes or plains, and the scenery improved vastly. Not so, however, the roadside fare; for milk was less abundant, and consequently [234] we could not so easily get curds or such diet, nor even milk to drink. But we were so anxious to get forward that we became somewhat impatient of the long time spent in heating the samovar and preparing for a meal. The consequence was that if, on arriving at a station, horses were to be had at once, we did as best we could about food, eating in the tarantass as we went along, and sometimes not having more than one “square meal” a day.

For a time we travelled well. We continued to go up and down hills, some of which we estimated at about 500 feet in height; and though there was usually a sufficiency of horses, yet for the first two stages they failed us. We paid a little more than post fares, and hired private steeds instead. The peasants sometimes took advantage of the occasion, when post-horses failed, to ask double fares; but as this exorbitant demand amounted to only about 2d. a mile for each horse, it seemed better to do this for a stage than to be detained, perhaps for several hours, and then to get tired animals.

Having left Krasnoiarsk late on Friday night, we reached Kansk in good time on Sunday morning, where we spent the rest of the day, considerably fatigued with the combined effect of the recent horse-riding, tarantass driving, and insufficient rest and food. Kansk is the chief town of an okrug, or district, and the residence of an intelligent Ispravnik; and, as it possessed a small prison and hospital, we washed, dressed in our “Sunday best,” and called upon this dignitary to present our letters. He told us, to our surprise, that he had received a telegram the day before from the acting Governor-General of Irkutsk, [235] directing him to help us forward as much as possible; and consequently he had sent east and west to all the stations in his district—a distance of nearly 200 miles—telling them to let us have horses quickly. We were rather at a loss to account for such unexpected kindness, and the more so as the Ispravnik thought the instructions had originally been sent from Petersburg. It served, however, to remind us that we were not lost sight of at head-quarters. The Ispravnik accompanied us to the prison, in which were 146 prisoners in 29 rooms, which had a Sunday look about them. Things were brushed up and “settled,” as a housekeeper would say, and we distributed papers to the prisoners to read. We also gave the Ispravnik some copies of the New Testament and other reading material for the prison, for the town hospital, and for the schools of the neighbourhood; after which he invited us to his house to drink tea.

His wife was a German, which accounted for certain foreign tastes visible about the room, and for some of the pictures. We learned that the Ispravnik holds a similar position in his district or okrug, or circle, that a Governor does in his province,—the pay of an Ispravnik being from £100 to £150 per annum; that of a Governor from £600 to £1,000 per annum; and of a Governor-General about £3,000, the latter two having also furnished houses. The okrug of Kansk was 200 miles in diameter, and had a population of 40,000, with upwards of 900 miles of roads. These were kept in order by 9,000 men, each of whom was responsible for 90 fathoms of way; and it is only fair to say that we found the roads of Yeneseisk the best in Siberia. Nearly all the crime in the district, we [236] were told, is traceable to drink; and that which ended in murder commonly arose from love affairs.⁠[9]

Prisoners of all sorts were allowed to hold correspondence with their friends; but the prison chief, or the Ispravnik, might object to any part of what was written, and send it back to the writer, though even then the latter might appeal to the Governor-General. Letters usually came, we found, by every post, so that the prisoners evidently availed themselves to a considerable extent of their privilege.

After leaving the Ispravnik, we called on the Protopope, or head priest of the place. His house had a superior look about it, and so had the Protopope himself. He gave us a hearty reception, and we asked a few questions concerning his parish. It appeared that he had 2,000 parishioners, living in Kansk and four surrounding villages. He thought about 100 could read, and for these he very readily accepted papers [237] and tracts. He had an elementary boys’ school, which was supported by the community, the scholars paying nothing. I asked about his congregations, and found that from 300 to 400 usually came to church on Sundays, but that on festivals the number rose to 1,000 or 1,500, and of these about 300 or 400 in the course of the year received the Communion.⁠[10]

This chief pastor of the place told us he had often bestowed books on the prisoners, but that the books had disappeared. He gave us some idea of the desire there is for the Scriptures in remote parts of Siberia, by saying that on one occasion he bought 200 New Testaments and took them to Minusinsk, where he sold them in a single day at a rouble each.⁠[11]

In further illustration of the demand for Scriptures in this part of the country, I may mention that, on the way from Tomsk, I made it a practice to go into the post-stations; and whilst my companion was arranging [238] about the horses, I took some pamphlets and Scriptures, and, having nailed up an illustration of the “Prodigal Son,” I next distributed some tracts, saying, as I did so, “darom,” which means “gratis”; and then, showing a New Testament, I said “dvatzat-piat kopeck,” which means 25 kopecks; or I showed a copy of the Gospels, and said “dve-natzat kopeck,” or 12 kopecks. Usually this offer was jumped at; sometimes three or four were bought by one person; and it not unfrequently happened that the first purchaser would run off to tell others of his good fortune, and bid them lose no time in following his example. This was usually done whilst the horses were being changed; but if we stopped for a meal, and it was noised abroad in the village that tracts were being given away, we were taken by storm, and sometimes could hardly eat in peace for the numbers who came to ask for our gifts.

We had barely reached the post-station, after seeing the priest, before he came driving close on our heels for his return visit. He wore the violet velvet hat of a protopope, was dressed in a black silk cassock, with a gold chain and crucifix about his neck, and with a loose white overcoat to protect him from the dust of the road. He cordially wished us success in our work, and asked us to call again on our homeward journey. [239] We then went to the evening service in his church, after which the Ispravnik and his wife came to return our call, bringing with them their son, a boy of 13 years of age, who was to go to a military school at Irkutsk. The father said that he did not like to send him with just any one, but that he should be thankful to be allowed to place the boy under my care, offering at the same time to pay the cost of one horse to Irkutsk, which amounted to 25 roubles.

It is a common thing in Siberian travel, when one person does not wish to occupy the whole of his vehicle, to share the expense with a fellow-passenger. I therefore consented, and stowed the boy away among the tracts and books in the second tarantass, where he seemed happy enough. His joining us was rather a help, for his father gave us an open letter to all the post-masters of his district, requesting them, if there were not a sufficiency of post-horses, to hire some immediately from the peasants. He also added a blanco letter, which enabled us, in case of need, to take those reserved at the post-stations for the use of the Ispravnik or his police. This is called, I believe, “Zemski” post, applying only to Siberia, and the horses of which, when not wanted, are sometimes lent to private travellers.

The combined result of these letters was that we got on famously, and occasionally made 200 versts in the 24 hours. This for summer travelling is good—so good, in fact, that we hardly wished to do better, as it had now become very hot, and the dust of the way rendered the journey very fatiguing.

We were still passing through an undulating country, with delightful weather; on either side of the way grass, and in it grew a large yellow flower, similar in [240] form to our common white garden lily. On passing the frontier from the Yeneseisk to the Irkutsk governments, it soon became apparent that our new roads were not so good as those we had left behind. We crossed many rivers, on the banks of one of which we drove through an extraordinary swarm of white butterflies. The shrubs in the neighbourhood were evidently eaten bare by their larvæ, the imagines, or perfect insects, being assembled in troops on the ground. We were now drawing near a district famous for a small kind of mosquito, the bite of which is very virulent, and is so dreaded by the people that the men working at the roadside protect themselves about the head with horsehair veils. Another place in Siberia famous for these insects is the Barabinsky steppe, where horses persecuted by them sometimes break loose, and do so to certain death. We, however, were not incommoded by them.

On the 1st of July the weather was hotter than we had hitherto experienced it, and very oppressive, though at night it became chilly. The greatest heat registered in the province of Irkutsk in 1877 was during the month of August, when it rose to 90·3, the greatest cold registered being in January, and descending to 40·2 below zero.

On the second day after leaving Kansk we were somewhat hindered by a superabundance of fellow-travellers, with whom it was very pleasant to chat over a cup of tea in the post-house, though matters were not quite so smooth when it was discovered that less than the required number of horses were forthcoming, and the question arose as to who should be first served. At one station we had to stay five hours, yet it is [241] only fair to add that, thanks to our excellent recommendations, this was the longest delay of the kind that fell to our lot. Travellers are sometimes obliged to wait a whole day.

On the evening of the same day, at dusk, we reached Nijni Udinsk, and, as there was a small prison in the place, I was anxious to give a few books to the Ispravnik, and pass on without stopping; the latter, however, was away, so we went to his assistant. After knocking pretty lustily at his door, a servant appeared, who informed us that his master was asleep; and to awaken a man out of sleep is in Russia no venial sin. An Anglo-Russian friend informs me that she has frequently been told, on asking for a servant, that he was asleep, and could not be waked, because a sleeping man’s soul is before his God! We told this servant, however, that we had a letter from Petersburg; and before we left the town a messenger came to the post-house, giving me the particulars I desired, and took back a sufficiency of books for the 98 prisoners under detention.

We then started off about midnight, and on the afternoon of the following day reached a station called Telma, which in previous years has been famous as possessing a factory in which cloth, paper, glass, and soap were made, besides which they produced rough linen woven from Yeneseisk hemp, and dark unbleached cloth, spun from the wool of the Buriat sheep. The peasants generally make a rough cloth of this last material. Manufactures do not flourish in Siberia, as the raw material is grown at enormous distances from the establishments, and, when manufactured, must often be taken enormous distances to be sold; so it is found [242] cheaper to buy the goods imported from other countries. A suit of tweed clothes costs, I heard, £6 at Krasnoiarsk, and on the Amur I met with a gentleman ordering his clothes from Petersburg, and having them sent by post to Blagovestchensk, a distance of 5,000 miles. The factory at Telma is still standing, and is not absolutely idle, but I gathered that it is not in a flourishing condition.⁠[12]

We were now only about 50 versts from Irkutsk, which, under ordinary circumstances, we ought to have reached late the same night. Another project had, however, entered into my mind. About 70 versts north of Irkutsk is the largest prison in Eastern Siberia, called the Alexandreffsky Central Prison, the normal way of visiting which would have been for us to proceed to Irkutsk, present our letters, and so drive out and return, making a journey of 90 miles. Hearing at Telma that we could reach the place from thence in two hours by going across country, spend two hours inspecting the prison, and another two hours in returning to Telma, I calculated we should get back to the main road about midnight, and so reach Irkutsk on Saturday afternoon, and be ready for a quiet Sunday. The first difficulty in the way was that the law permitted no post-horses to be employed off the high-roads; but, thanks to the obliging post-master at Telma, this obstacle was overcome by his providing others, and I determined accordingly to try and save time by taking the prison on my way. How much [243] was involved in that decision I little thought at the moment, but it proved afterwards highly important.

The first object of interest we passed was a large salt-factory, which, like that at Telma, had in years gone by been worked by convicts under the management of the State. This kind of labour is no longer enforced there, and free workmen are employed instead. These were the only salt-works we heard of in Siberia, but we were told of some about 40 miles from Orenburg, in the Urals. Leaving the factory behind, we struck off through the woods, and were enjoying the drive thoroughly when it occurred to our yemstchik that he had taken the wrong direction. Accordingly, he went a long way back, but had to retrace his steps. This caused considerable delay, as did the crossing of the river Angara. At length, through a forest of pine, we reached the summit of a hill, and were able to take in at a glance the surroundings of the large prison, which we reached at dusk. On the road we met some Polish ladies, wives of officials, to whom I explained in French our object in coming. The Director, however, was gone to Irkutsk, and his deputy said it was too late that night, but that we might inspect the prison as early as we chose in the morning. I therefore named the hour of seven, and went to the post-house to sleep.

The keepers of the post-house in this out-of-the-way place appeared somewhat perturbed at the arrival of visitors who wished to spend the night under their roof. However, in this matter Siberian post-masters have no choice, for they are bound to find accommodation for travellers, and may not charge them for it; their profits are the small sums paid for the use of the [244]samovar, and for such refreshments as may be provided. Our quarters were better and more comfortable than usual, as also was our supper, and we lay down for a quiet night. Early in the morning the officer in charge of the prison came to say that when he had made us the promise on the previous evening he had intended to telegraph to Irkutsk for permission, but that there was a fire in Irkutsk, and telegraphic communication was stopped. He must therefore ask us to wait until the return of the chief, who was expected hourly. Accordingly, on his arrival we were conducted to the house of the Director; and though he had been travelling all night he received us at once, accorded us a hearty reception, and introduced us to his wife and friends. He was a Pole—by name Pavolo Schwekofsky—and his house was elegantly furnished, all his servants, however, being convicts. There was an appearance of comfort, not to say of luxury, about the place; and he had in a side room a turning-lathe and English tools. To this we called attention. “Ah, yes,” said he, “we could not do without the English.” And then, after drinking a glass of tea, we started to see the prison.

Prison wards.—Punishment cells.—Communication with friends.—Nationalities of prisoners.—Their work.—Food.—Distribution of books.—Our reception.—Lunch.—Departure.—Runaway horses.—An accident.—Left alone.—Return to post-house.

We found the prison a huge building, which had been originally erected for a brandy distillery. Hence it was, and sometimes still is, called the Alexandreffsky zavod, or factory. It contained 57 rooms, in each of which, according to size, were placed from 25 to 100 prisoners. We went into several of the ordinary wards, and found them lofty, but overcrowded. Also, in some of the oblong rooms, the inclined platforms for sleeping occupied so much space that only a narrow passage was left for walking about between them. When we entered such wards, therefore, the order was given that the men should mount the opposite edges of the platforms, and thus we passed to the end of the room and back. Further on we came to some small cells, over the doors of which was written the word “Secret”; and here I thought we might perhaps see something horrible. But the thing that struck me as worst about them was their smallness; for I should judge they could not have measured more than 8 ft. by 6 ft., [246] though they were probably more than 12 ft. high. These were “punishment” cells; but were far more endurable than cells known by that name in some of our English gaols, where the prisoner is sometimes below the level of the ground, and in a state of total darkness, with all sound shut out save the rumbling of carriage-wheels in the street. In the Alexandreffsky cells there was abundance of light; there was a Russian petchka, or stove, just outside the door, and it was not difficult to imagine that some prisoners might prefer solitude under such circumstances to the society of the motley crew packed into the larger wards.

There is a room in the building in which prisoners are allowed to see their friends, who may come on every maznik, or fête day, Sundays included, to converse for five minutes, and then make way for others. If a prisoner has friends, they may bring him food any day between 11 and 12 o’clock. So, too, a prisoner may write to friends when he pleases, and receive from them money up to a rouble a week.

The total number of prisoners in (and I suppose about) this place was stated as 1,589; and as they were gathered from all parts of the Russian empire, the walking through the wards was nothing short of an ethnographical study.

Besides the ordinary Slavs of Russia in Europe, there were Finns, Poles, Tatars of Kasan, Tatars of the Crimea, and Tatars of the Caucasus and Steppes. There were Bashkirs from the province of Orenburg, where they are breeders of cattle; and the pastoral Kirghese, who roam over the steppes north of Persia. Tatars were known by their shaved heads and skullcaps, and Buriats by their unmistakable Mongolian [247] features. I counted half-a-dozen different nationalities in a single room.

One of the worst features in this huge prison I judged to be lack of work; for, as we went from room to room, we found convicts twirling their thumbs, and literally begging for employment. All of them, however, were under “hard-labour” sentences, some to the mines for twelve years, some to factory-work for eight and ten years, and others to zavod work for two and six years.

We were taken, at length, to see such of them as were occupied. We entered a good-sized room, in which there might have been 50 men making papers for cigarettes, of which they turned out 100,000 a week. Prisoners were glad to do this, as they earn a little money thereby. A man could manipulate 5,000 unfinished cases in a day; and three men working together very hard could earn 30 kopecks a day, but 20 kopecks was a fairer average. For a man, however, to earn 2½d. a day necessitated his sitting at work so closely as to make his chest ache. I am not clear whether the machinery and materials for making these cigarette-papers belonged to the prisoners, or to a merchant in Irkutsk who bought the papers. We visited a room or two filled with shoemakers, and gold-seekers’ top-boots were shown us of their work. These were for sale at 14 shillings the pair. Outside the prison a small company of men were seen returning from making bricks, which are manufactured for the Government, and not for ordinary sale. Each man makes on an average about 100 a day. Fifty men, they told us, turn out 5,000, between 6 and 11 in the morning and 2 and 6.30 in the afternoon, for which [248] they get about 10s. There seemed, however, to be barely a tenth of the prisoners employed, at which we expressed astonishment. The authorities explained it by saying that they had no work to give them. This comparatively idle life of Siberian prisoners recalled what had been told me in Russia, that the Government now keep in European prisons many whom, but for the scarcity of suitable employment, they would send to Siberia; and I ought, perhaps, to add that a number of the convicts at Alexandreffsky were there, and had been there a long time, awaiting the decision of various committees who were considering how the Government could best dispose of them, so many of the Siberian mines having passed out of Imperial hands.

Whether our visit was too early in the day, or whether the prisoners were kept in their rooms for our inspection, I know not; but we saw none of them lounging in the yards, as in other places. The time allowed them for exercise is an hour a day. The number we saw wearing chains was comparatively small. If the convicts behave well, they are not usually kept in fetters, I heard, more than 18 months; and I certainly observed that, the further east I went, the fewer were the men in irons. We were next conducted to the kitchen, where was to be seen, in course of preparation for dinner, the uncooked meat, of which each man was said to have ½ lb. a day, including bone, and a daily allowance of 2¾ lbs. of bread. Near the prison is a garden, where some of the prisoners can work, and where they grow cucumbers, water-melons, and potatoes. A few acres of arable land, cultivated by convicts, were pointed out to us; and there was a hospital at a short distance, clean and airy, having [249] 8 rooms, in which we found 73 patients, many of whom were suffering from scorbutus.

We now entered the office of the prison, and saw the books, in one of which were entered four categories of punishment, namely, that of mines, hard labour, factory employment, and no work, of which four the last seemed by far the most prevalent, and I think the worst; for not only had the poor fellows nothing to do, but they had nothing to read. To remedy this was, of course, the chief object of our visit; and the director readily entered into my plans concerning the books. The men had been asking for something to read, he said, only a day or two previously. We were glad, therefore, to leave with him 160 New Testaments and other portions of Scripture in half-a-dozen languages, and about 500 tracts and periodicals, so that there might be at least a New Testament placed in every room.

We were now anxious to depart, but this was not so easy; for by this time the officials had begun to realize that we had not come as spies or intruders, but that we had really a benevolent object in view, though they asked sundry questions before they could grasp our motives. What could be our object in coming such a long distance to visit Siberian prisons, and why should I take notes of what we saw? I said something about the luxury of doing good to the poor and unfortunate; and pointed out that, if I did not make notes of what was said, I should forget. “Besides which,” I added, “perchance I may some day write about what I have seen.” “Oh! then you are travelling for literary purposes, that you may bring out a book?” “No,” said I; “but for all that I may perhaps write of my [250] travels”; after which there were given me several good-sized and well-executed photographs of the prison and its surroundings, with the remark, “Who knows? the English do such extraordinary things, we may, perhaps, see some day an engraving from these photographs in the English papers.” But, whatever the motive which had brought us, they said it was very rare for them to receive such a visit, and they were highly gratified at our coming.

The director begged us to favour his wife by staying to dinner; and when for want of time I declined, all sorts of reasonable and unreasonable inducements were urged why I should do so. I remained firm, and we were then invited at least to partake of light refreshment at the house of the secretary of the prison. We there found ourselves in the midst of a family of Poles, with some good-looking daughters. The eldest was dressed in Mala-Russiá, or “Little Russian” costume, consisting of a morning dress of washing material, trimmed with embroidery of variegated colours, and with Russian lace. I admired this, and inquired where such embroidery could be purchased. The mother gave me a small piece as a specimen, and also presented me with a portrait of her daughter photographed in the same costume.

The photograph was taken by Malmberg of Irkutsk, and I mention it because it has won the unqualified admiration of two eminent London photographers, who pronounce that, both technically and artistically, no better could be seen in any part of the world. It is particularly choice, and, as an operator would say, “well built up.” The light is good, and the background well arranged; and as a piece of artistic [251] workmanship it speaks well for the progress of art in Siberia that a photograph from Irkutsk should bear comparison with the best the world can produce.

After this quasi-lunch, and the exchange of sundry little souvenirs, we departed, hoping to regain the high road at Telma in about a couple of hours. We had reached the top of the hill, and begun the descent through the pine-forest; and the horses were going with a run, when one of the reins broke, and the right-wheeler began suddenly to run too wide from the centre horse. Before the yemstchik could stop his team, we came to a pine-tree at the side of the road, which the outer horse allowed to come between him and his fellow. We were going at a furious pace, and the wonder is that the whole concern, including ourselves, was not dashed to pieces. As it was, in rushing by I thought I saw the horse’s head strike the tree, with a force that I expected must have killed it. We ran some distance before the remaining horses could be stopped, and then the yemstchik went back to find, as we feared, another horse dead in our service. To our surprise, however, the creature had run away. The force with which the tarantass was going had broken the remaining rein, had snapped the traces, and so allowed us to escape, by a few inches at most, a terrible accident.

We had first to search for the missing horse, now out of sight; for which purpose the yemstchik mounted one of our remaining steeds, and, subsequently, my interpreter the other, I being left alone. Presently a rough-looking man appeared coming along the road, with an extraordinary wallet slung at his side. He was curiously ornamented with a profusion of brass [252] buttons and decorations, some of which would have served for the dress of a Tunguse shaman. He turned out to be a horse-doctor, and not a robber, though he naïvely said that when he saw us at first he thought we were highwaymen, until the sight of the tarantass reassured him.

At length, after having been left about five hours, the yemstchik and my companion came back, but without the truant horse; so we determined to proceed with the two that remained. We accused our yemstchik of having been drinking, but he denied it. As he went on, however, he grew inconsolable at his loss of the horse, and fairly bellowed, saying that he feared he should be turned out of his place and be sent to prison. He came round gradually, too, to confess that, of the shilling I had given him for fodder, he had spent twopence in drink; and then to the interpreter, who sat on the box to drive, or see that we met with no accident, he expressed the hope that the barin, or gentleman, would “forgive him for being a little drunk.”

And so it came to pass that by nightfall we got back to Telma, and found our friendly post-master about to send in search of us, as he was alarmed at our absence of 30 instead of 6 hours. After a good meal we left at midnight for Irkutsk, which under ordinary circumstances we ought to have reached early on the following morning. At one of the stations, however, there were no horses, and we had to wait four hours, which afterwards proved a mercy, though at the time I am afraid I chafed at the delay; so that we did not come in view of the city till 10 a.m.

Approach to Irkutsk.—The city entered.—Remains of a fire.—A second fire.—Our flight.—Crossing of the Angara.—A refuge.—Inhabitants fleeing.—Salvage.—Firemen’s efforts.—Spread of the catastrophe.—Return to lodging.—A chapel saved.—Spectacle of fire at night.—Reflections.

What a vivid recollection I have of the lovely morning of that 7th of July! The sun was bright and warm, but the air was not yet hot. The road lay near the cold and swiftly-flowing Angara, and the plains over which we passed were stocked with cattle. Before us lay Irkutsk. This city, or perhaps Kiakhta, I had thought originally to make the eastward limit of our travels. Many friends had prophesied that we should never get there. Some said that I was undertaking more than I could carry out, and others that I should not be permitted by the Russians to go so far. A subtle feeling of satisfaction, therefore, stole over us as we posted along, and saw how soon these prophecies were to be falsified. The town, built on a tongue of land, formed by the confluence of two rivers, with its dozen churches, domes, and spires pointing to heaven, looked extremely pretty; and on the hills around, handsome villas, nestling among the trees, added not a little to the picturesqueness of the scene. The prospect before us, therefore, the [254] retrospect of what we had done, the pleasant morning, and the repose to which we were looking forward, all combined to raise our spirits, and cause us to hasten onward. Alas! we little knew how speedily the face of things would change.

At the ferry was collected a large number of common vehicles, before which, however, our post-horses took precedence. We speedily crossed, and drove through a triumphal arch, erected at the time of the annexation of the Amur, and situated at the entrance of the town. We did not proceed far before we saw where fire had destroyed two blocks of buildings, the embers of which were still smoking. But it was only similar to what we had seen at Perm and Tagil, so that we were not greatly surprised. Worse was to come. We drove to Decocq’s hotel, and took apartments, paid and dismissed the yemstchiks, moved our belongings from the larger of the tarantasses, and arranged them in our rooms—or, rather, we were doing so, when the alarm was given that another fire had broken out. I clambered to the roof of the stables, and there, plainly enough, were flames mounting upwards, not a dozen houses off, and in the same street, though on the other side of the way.

The waiter said he thought the fire would not come towards the hotel, as the wind blew from the opposite direction; but I was disinclined to wait and see, and so we bundled our things back into the tarantass, and told the yemstchiks, who fortunately had not left the yard, to put to their horses, and in a few minutes we were out in the street, witnesses of a sight that is not easy to describe. Men were running from all directions, not with the idle curiosity of a London crowd [255] at a fire, but with the blanched faces and fear-stricken countenances of those who knew that the devastation might reach to them. They looked terribly in earnest; women screamed and children cried, and it was hard for me in the street to get an answer to any ordinary question.

Meanwhile the yemstchiks asked, Where should they go? I tried to discover where some of the persons to whom I had introductions lived, but people were too excited to tell me; and at last my companion suggested that we should go out of the town across the river. We soon put nearly a mile between us and the flames, and reached the bank of the Angara, where was a swinging ferry. The ferry was all but loaded, and would not take more than one of our two tarantasses. I therefore went with the first, leaving the interpreter to follow. On landing, the yemstchik drove along a bridge, at the end of which he motioned to me as to whether he should turn to the left or the right. To me it was just the same, but I pointed to the left; and that turning proved to be of not a little importance. I could say nothing to the yemstchik, and had therefore to wait till the ferry returned, and then crossed again, which occupied the greater part of an hour.

Meanwhile the increased smoke in the distance showed that the fire was spreading, and the inhabitants of the small suburb called Glasgova, to which I had come, were looking on in front of their houses. Among the people I noticed a well-dressed person, whom I addressed, asking if she spoke English or French. She at once inquired who I was and what I wanted. I replied that I was an English clergyman [256] travelling, that I had just arrived in Irkutsk, had run away from the fire, and was seeking a lodging. She answered that there were no lodgings to be had in any of the few houses on that side of the river; “but,” said she, “pray come into my little house, where you are welcome to remain at least during the day.” I was only too glad to do so; and, seeing that there was a small yard adjoining, I asked permission to put therein our two vehicles, in which we might sleep until some better place could be found. And thus we were a second time landed at Irkutsk, poorly enough, perhaps the reader may think, but in a far better condition, as will presently be seen, than before nightfall were many thousands of the inhabitants.

We soon found that our hostess was of good family, and an exile, though not a political, but a criminal one. On arriving at Irkutsk, the Governor-General had shown her kindness in allowing her to remain in the city, where she partly supported herself by giving lessons, and was living for the summer in this quasi country-house with a young man whom she called her brother, her little girl she had brought from Russia, and a small servant whom she spoke of as “ma petite femme de chambre.” There was one tolerably spacious dwelling-room in the house, and in this were sundry tokens of refinement brought from a better home. On the wall hung a photograph of herself, as a bride leaning on the arm of her husband in officer’s uniform, whilst several other photographs and ornaments spoke also of a better past.

The occasion, however, was not suited to long conversation, for the conflagration in the town was increasing. Whilst dining, we bethought ourselves [257] whether we could be of some service, and the outcome of our deliberations was that I offered to accompany Madame to her friends residing in the town, to see if we could be of use, whilst my interpreter stayed with the tarantasses and the little girl to guard the premises.

Madame and I, therefore, set out, accompanied by her maid. At the ferry we met a crowd of persons fleeing from the city, and carrying with them what was most valuable or most dear—an old woman tottering under a heavy load of valuable furs piled on her head; a poor half-blind nun, hugging an ikon, evidently the most precious of her possessions; a delicate young lady in tears, with her kitten in her arms; and boys tugging along that first requisite of a Russian home, the brazen samovar. Terror was written on all countenances. We pushed on to the principal street, and tried to hire a droshky, but it was in vain to call—they were engaged in removing valuables from burning houses, as were the best vehicles and carriages the town possessed. Even costly sleighs, laden with such things as could be saved from the flames, were dragged over the stones and grit in the streets.

Before long we came to the wide street in which were situated the best shops and warehouses, and where the fire was raging on either side and spreading. Those who were wise were bringing out their furniture, their account-books, and their treasures as fast as possible, and depositing them in the road and on vehicles, to be carried away. A curious medley these articles presented. Here were costly pier-glasses, glass chandeliers, and pictures such as one would hardly have expected to see in Siberia at all; whilst a little further on, perchance, were goods from a grocer’s [258] or provision merchant’s shop, and all sorts of delicacies—such as sweets and tins of preserved fruit, to which they who would helped themselves; and working-men were seen tearing open the tins to taste, for the first time in their lives, slices of West India pine-apples or luscious peaches and apricots. Other prominent articles of salvage were huge family bottles of rye-brandy, some of which people hugged in their arms, as if for their life, whilst other bottles were standing about, or being drunk by those who carried them. The effects of this last proceeding soon became apparent in the grotesque and foolish antics of men in the incipient stage of drunkenness.

It was curious to watch the conduct of some of the tradesmen, who seemed to hope against hope, and kept their shops locked, as if to shut out thieves, and in the hope that the fire would not reach their premises. I noticed one man, a grocer, whose doors were barred till the flames had come within two houses of his own; and then, throwing open the entrance, he called in the crowd to carry out his wares. They entered, and brought out loaves of sugar and similar goods, until one man carried out a glass-case full of bon-bons, at which there was a general onset in the street, every one filling his pockets amid roars of laughter. With this laughter, however, was mingled the crying of women, who wrung their hands as they emptied their houses, and saw the destroying flames only too surely approaching their homes.

In the street were all sorts of people—soldiers, officers, Cossacks, civilians, tradesmen, gentlemen, women and children, rich and poor, young and old—but not gathered in dense crowds; some were making [259] themselves useful to their neighbours, and a few were looking idly on. At every door was placed a jug of clean water for those to drink who were thirsty, and it would have been well if nothing stronger had been taken. The fire brigade arrangements seemed to me in great confusion. There were some English engines in the town,—one of them, of a brilliant red, bore the well-known name of “Merryweather and Sons,”—but the Siberians had not practised their engines in the time of prosperity, and the consequence was that the pipes had become dry and useless, and would not serve them in the day of adversity. The arrangements, too, for bringing water were of the clumsiest description. A river was flowing on either side of the city, but the firemen had no means of conducting the water by hose, but carried it in large barrels on wheels.

Now and then one saw a hand-machine in use, about the size of a garden engine, or a jet such as London tradesmen use to clean their pavements and their windows. Moreover, no one took command. I noticed in one case, as the flames approached the corner of a street, it evidently occurred to some that, if the house at the opposite corner could be pulled down, the fire might stop there for want of anything further to burn. They therefore got to the top of the house, and, with crowbars, unloosed the beams and threw them below; but, before they had gone on long, they changed their minds, and seemed oblivious of the fact that the fire would burn the beams equally well on the ground as when standing in a pile.

It must be confessed, however, that the fire had everything in its favour. Nearly all the houses were of wood—so completely so, that, after the calamity, [260] there was often nothing to mark the spot where a house had stood save the brickwork of the stove in the centre. There was a fresh breeze blowing too, and though the houses were in many cases detached, yet it frequently happened that the intervening spaces were stacked with piles of firewood, which helped to spread the conflagration.

A wooden house burning is of course a spectacle much grander than that of flames coming through the windows of a brick structure, and the heat much more intense. At Irkutsk it was sufficient to set fire to a building on the opposite side of the street, without the contact of sparks. In one case—that of a handsome shop—I noticed that the first things that caught were the outside sunblinds, which were so scorched that they at last ignited, and then set fire to the window-frames, and so to the whole building.

It soon became apparent that Madame could not reach her friends, who lived on the other side of the city, and therefore we made our way back towards the ferry, calling here and there and offering help. One friend asked us to take away her little daughter, which we did, and her husband’s revolver, which I carried, and a bottle of brandy—put into the arms of the femme-de-chambre. Thus laden, we walked towards the river, whilst on all hands men and women were pressing into their service every available worker for the removal of their goods. A religious procession likewise was formed by priests and people with banners, headed by an ikon, in the hope that the fire would be stayed. Had such taken place, the ikon would no doubt have acquired the reputation of having the power, in common with many others, of working [261] miracles. As it was, there was a small chapel or oratory in the centre of the town that escaped the flames, though the houses on either side were burned. I heard this spoken of as something very wonderful, if not miraculous, and I am under the impression that it was so telegraphed to Petersburg; but, on looking at the place after the fire, the preservation of the little sanctuary seemed easily accounted for, by the fact not only that it was itself built of brick, and left no part exposed that could well take fire, but that the houses on either side happened also to be of brick, so that they did not, in burning, give off the same heat they would have done had they been of wood. One rejoiced, of course, that the building was saved; but I could not help suspecting that, half a century hence, the chapel will be pointed out as having been preserved by a miracle from the great fire of 1879.

It was evening before we reached our temporary lodging, and as the day closed the workers grew tired. Many were drunk, and others gave up in despair. The impression seemed to gain ground that nothing could be done, but that the devouring element must be left to burn itself out. Hope therefore fled, and the flames continued to spread till the darkness showed a line of fire and smoke that was estimated at not less than a mile and a half in length. It seemed as if nothing would escape. Now one large building caught, and then another, the churches not excepted. To add to the vividness of the scene, an alarm of church bells would suddenly clang out, to intimate that help was needed in the vicinity. Perhaps shortly afterwards the flames would be seen playing up the steeple, and fancifully peeping out of the apertures and windows; [262] then reaching the top, and presenting the strange spectacle of a tower on fire, with the flames visible only at the top, middle, and bottom. At last the whole would fall with a crash, and the sky be lit up with sparks and a lurid glare such as cannot be forgotten.

Meanwhile the inhabitants continued to flee by thousands—the swinging ferry near us crossed and recrossed incessantly, bringing each time its sorrowful load, either bearing away their valuables, or going back to fetch others. Many of the people brought such of their goods as they could save to the banks and islands of the two rivers, and there took up their abode for the night in a condition compared with which ours was comfortable.

Towards midnight the town presented a marvellous spectacle. I have already spoken of the enormous length of the line of fire when looked at laterally; but, as the darkness deepened, I walked down to a point on the bank from which could be seen the apex of the triangle, in the form of which the town was built, and where appeared a mass of flames estimated as covering an area of not less than half a square mile.

We were supposed to sleep that night in the tarantass, but I rose continually to watch the progress of the fire, which towards morning abated, but only because it had burnt all that came in its way. About eleven o’clock the last houses standing on the opposite bank caught fire, and thus, in about four-and-twenty hours, three-fourths of the town were consumed.⁠[1]

As for myself, I had watched the fire with mingled [263] feelings, for we had narrowly escaped. And then came the recollection of the previous delays which had contributed to our preservation—the delay in going to the Alexandreffsky prison, the runaway horse in the wood, and our subsequent impatient waiting on the road. All these played an important part in saving us, for, had we arrived ten minutes earlier, our affairs might have gone very differently. Had we reached the town on the previous day, we should, in all probability, have been at church when the fire broke out; and then it is very doubtful whether we could have saved our effects, such was the difficulty of getting assistance. Moreover, the hotel was burnt within a very short time of our leaving it, so that, when looking back upon the chain of mercies by which we had been saved, I could not feel otherwise than deeply thankful.

Province of Irkutsk.—The capital.—Its markets.—Telegraph officers.—Visit to the Governor.—Ruins of the city.—Attempt to establish a Bible depôt.—Supposed incendiarism.—Benevolent arrangements of authorities.—Wife-beating.—Servility of Russian peasants.—Visit to a rich merchant.—Ecclesiastical affairs.—Visit to the acting Governor-General.—The prisons.—A prisoner’s view of them.—Prison committee.—Distribution of books.—Visit to inspector of schools.—Change of route.

The city of Irkutsk is the capital of a government of the same name,⁠[1] and was founded in 1680. Its population in 1879 was 33,000. About 4,000 gold-miners spend their winter and their money in the city, often mentioned as a cheerful place of rest for travellers coming from China, or proceeding eastward. It is 1,360 feet above the sea, and has a climate which even in winter is well spoken of, though, in the late autumn, and previous to the freezing of the Angara, the fogs from the river bring rheumatism and diseases of the throat and lungs. Little wind blows, storms are less frequent than at Petersburg or Moscow, and the snows [265] are not superabundant. Whether in winter or summer, the panorama of Irkutsk and its surroundings is one of beauty. Of its 20 churches, several were planned and constructed by two Swedish engineer officers captured at Pultava, and sent into exile by the great Peter.

The markets of Irkutsk are well supplied. Fish and game are plentiful. Beef is abundant and good, and costs about 2d. a pound. Pork, veal, and mutton are also cheap, especially in winter, when everything that can be frozen succumbs to the frost. Frozen chickens, partridges, and other game are often thrown together in heaps like bricks or fire-wood. Butchers’ meat defies the knife, and some of the salesmen place their animals in fantastic positions before freezing them. Frozen fish are piled in stacks, and milk is offered for sale in cakes or bricks. A stick or string is generally congealed into a corner of the mass to facilitate carrying, so that a wayfarer can swing a quart of milk at his side, or wrap it in his handkerchief at discretion. Whilst the products of the country are thus cheap, it should be observed that everything brought from beyond the Urals is expensive on account of the long land carriage. Champagne, for example, costs 12s. or 14s. a bottle, and porter and ale 7s. 6d.; the lowest price of sugar is 8d. a pound, while sometimes it costs 1s.; and as much as 2s. 6d. may occasionally be given for a lemon.

Much of this, however, I had to learn by report or reading; for, at the time of our visit, the Sunday’s fire had upset everything, and it became a serious question on Monday morning as to what we should do. Many of the telegraph clerks in Siberia are Danes, and speak several languages. We found that we had one of them, Mr. Larsen, for a near neighbour; for the telegraph [266] office had been burnt, and he had come to our side of the river to take shelter in the next house, where, having no electric battery, he had tapped the Verchne Udinsk wire, and was trying in this way, though without success, to communicate intelligence. He had had nothing to eat for 24 hours, and possessed only the clothes in which he stood; so it was quite a charity to take him a glass of tea to his temporary office in the open air, after which he dined with us. Mr. Larsen, to whom we had an introduction, had been a telegraphist in London, and spoke English fluently, so that we were able to discuss our prospects to advantage. It was of prime importance for us that we should see the Governor of the province and the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia as quickly as possible, for it was not hard to perceive that what provisions had escaped the fire would be sold at famine prices; lawlessness, it was rumoured, might get the upper hand; and it seemed better that we should leave the place without much delay. Our adviser feared, however, and reasonably so, that we should be able to get no attention from the higher officials in the present state of excitement, seeing the embers of the city were still smoking, and the authorities would naturally have more important business than ours to attend to. Mr. Larsen, however, kindly offered to accompany me over the river to see if anything could be done. Accordingly we crossed, and, walking along the broad road by the side of the Angara, the ashes of the fire scorched our faces.

We now saw something of the condition of the people who had fled to the bank of the river on the previous day, with such effects as they could save. Here were gentlefolks “camped out” under chests of drawers, [267] tables, and boxes, arranged in the best manner possible in the open air—sheets being used for walls, and curtains for coverings. Ikons from churches were lying about; likewise tables, heaped with philosophical instruments from the high school; and carts filled with movables. The instruments from the telegraph station were standing by a post, to which paper streamers were fastened to intimate that this was the temporary telegraph office. The people’s demeanour, however, was in strange contrast with their pitiable condition; for many, having saved their samovars, were drinking afternoon tea, and on all sides were joking and laughing at their comical situation.

We found many of his friends among those beside the river, and each began good-humouredly to ask what the other lost in the fire, and what had been saved. Nobody seemed inclined to be at all dull over the matter, and the same thing was apparent with the Deputy-Governor Ismailoff, upon whom we called. “What have you lost?” said the General to my companion. He lightly threw open his coat, and intimated that that was all he had saved. At this the General laughed heartily, and said that he was not so well off, for that the very shirt on his back was a borrowed one! Yet the Governor had lost in the fire a brand-new house, upon which he had spent many thousands of roubles.

Contrary to our expectation, it was arranged for us to see the acting Governor-General next morning, and meanwhile we had time to look at the ruins of the city. People had taken refuge with their effects in the large squares, as well as on the banks and islands of the river. Many had fled into the neighbouring villages. [268] The suburbs had escaped the fire, as well as many of the houses standing in spacious grounds. A few of the churches also were untouched. The large hospital was safe, likewise the usine for smelting gold, and the Governor-General’s house, but many of the public buildings had perished; amongst these the museum, in which I expected to find a good ethnographical collection. I should judge about three-fourths of the city were destroyed, and that the best part of the town; and so complete was the wreck that the isvostchiks with their droshkies hardly knew their way about the blackened streets.

We met a few of the higher class of exiles living free in Irkutsk, and, on asking them what they would do, received for reply, “We do not know. We have been earning something by teaching, but now our patrons will leave us. All sorts of provisions will be frightfully dear, and yet we dare not leave. So what is to be done?” The same doubts as to the future pressed heavily upon those tradesmen whose shops were not burnt.⁠[2]

Of course there were various rumours afloat during the excitement of the previous day—one, that the devastation was caused by a wilful act. Similar rumours were afloat at Perm and Tagil, and at Irkutsk more than twenty arrests were reported. But, upon asking [269] the Governor, it proved to be nonsense; for only two men had been arrested, and it was very doubtful whether even they were guilty. The only origin I heard given was that a hay-loft ignited, from which the flames spread.⁠[3]

In Siberian towns the police are represented by the gendarmerie; and in other places are police-masters with their employés. There are, strictly speaking, no policemen, but Cossacks are usually employed in their stead; and at the end of their short service are allowed to go home. They are, however, anything but efficient constables, and I was told that at Irkutsk the authorities do not employ them. To protect whatever might be of value among the ruins, and to keep order after the fire, troops were marched into the city by day, and patrolled the place at night.

Great credit was due to the officials for the prompt manner in which they attempted the relief of distress. The fire was scarcely extinguished before a committee was formed, and some of the merchants laid down handsome sums. Proclamations were posted about the place, saying that officers could be furnished with dinners at the rate of 30 kopecks a plate, that bread [270] might be bought for 2 kopecks—that is, a halfpenny—a pound; and that for the first week the poor might have bread for nothing; further, that all persons burnt out might, on application, receive the sum of 30 kopecks. No serious outbreak of disorder occurred during our stay, though a good deal of drunkenness was visible. With two inebriates we were brought palpably into contact. In the yard we occupied was a small kitchen-house, where lived a woman cook, her husband, and some children. The husband had been to the fire, had been drinking, and came home accompanied by a drunken associate. The companion, referring to the cook, said, “As for that woman, she ought to be hanged”; whereupon her husband fell to beating mercilessly both her and her boy of about ten years old; and the child came to us crying, as if he were half killed. Whereupon we rushed to the rescue, and one of the party, seizing the drunken man, took him from his wife, and gave him a thrashing.⁠[4]

When I got further east, I heard of a third and similar instance of wife-beating, related to me by a merchant in whose house I stayed. His servants were convicts, simply because he could get no others; but he said he was not usually curious to ask for what crimes they had been sent to Siberia. It happened, [271] however, that he had a woman-cook who was particularly well-behaved, and an excellent servant; and he asked her one day why she had been exiled. She said it was for poisoning her husband; upon which my friend opened his eyes, and said,—

“Oh, then, perhaps you will murder me?”

“Oh, no, master; I should not murder you.”

“Yes, but if you would murder your husband, why not, some day, me?”

“Oh, no, master; you would not do as he did, for he beat me every day for two years.”

Thus it was not altogether a meaningless form at a Russian wedding, that anciently the bridegroom took to church a whip, and in one part of the ceremony lightly applied it to the bride’s back, in token that she was to be in subjection.

It should be remembered, however, that the brutal conduct just described belongs to a type well known in a certain part of England; the difference between the two being that the Russian bully beats his wife with a whip, while the English one kicks her to death. The Russian wives take very kindly to a moderate amount of such treatment, and those of the lower class do not murmur or complain, but consider the “master” has a right to chastise them; and when things do not go so far as this, they expect, when they do not please their husbands, to be slapped and corrected accordingly. In fact, the Russian wife among the lower classes does not take what we think her proper position in a house. The husband usually goes to market once a week, and buys all he wants, business of such importance not being entrusted to the wife, who therefore knows nothing even of the cost of her household articles. [272] Among the higher classes, also, the master usually sends his chief servant to market, and pays for all that is consumed in the house.

There came out of this quarrel between man and wife another characteristic of the Russian peasantry, which perhaps is a remnant of serfdom, and betrays their want of manliness in the presence of their superiors. My merchant friend, just referred to, had a convict in the house whilst I was there, whom once before he had dismissed for drunkenness. The man came back entreating that he might be reinstated, but his master said, “No, I have warned you continually, and done everything I could to keep you sober, but in vain.” “Yes, sir,” said the man; “but then, sir, you should have given me a good thrashing.” So with the fighting husband at Irkutsk: after receiving his stripes he went away, but soon after came back, thanking the gentleman for his thrashing, and promising to behave better in future. In the days of serfdom, it was no uncommon thing for a gentleman to box the ears of his droshky driver; but this cannot now be done with impunity. My mercantile friend told me he was one day driving in Petersburg with a Russian gentleman, when the latter struck the isvostchik for doing something that displeased him; whereupon the man turned round and said, “No more of that, sir; those days are gone by, and if you strike me again I shall return it,”—a threat quite unbearable to a blagorodni, or “noble”; and he was about to go on as of old, when my friend said, “Look! you had better not; for if you are summoned, and I am called as a witness, I shall be bound to say that you began it”; whereupon he desisted.

[273]

We took an early opportunity after the fire to deliver up to General Khamenoff, its owner, the second tarantass we had borrowed at Tomsk, and in which my companion and I had driven and slept for a thousand miles. Our benefactor was in reality a rich merchant, and had given, if I mistake not, very handsome sums of money for educational purposes in Irkutsk. This patriotic action had gained him the distinction of “General.” His buildings had been saved, and we thus had an opportunity of seeing the house of one well-to-do merchant at Irkutsk.

The General was getting old, and appeared in a long dressing-gown, coming out of his beautiful garden, and seating us in a little secretarial chamber, which had about it sundry marks of foreign influence and taste. Before joining us, however, he bade adieu to a previous visitor, and called his footman to open the door. There was something inexpressibly droll about his manner of doing so, for he simply gave a prolonged grunt—ugh!!—and as the footman did not come at grunt number one, it was repeated, and the servant in passing received from his master a cuff at the back of the head, doing so with a grin and a duck of the noddle, as a schoolboy receives a blow from his mother’s palm, knowing that he shall not be hurt. The old gentleman then heard from us how we had escaped from the hotel, and how we were making a sleeping chamber of his tarantass, which he said we might continue to do until we left the town.

I was anxious to learn something of the state of ecclesiastical affairs in the province, and to inquire what the Russian Church was doing in her missions to the Buriats. The chief ecclesiastic of the province is one [274] Benjamin, Archbishop of Irkutsk and Nertchinsk, under whom is a suffragan bishop, Meleti of Selenginsk. The Diocese has 347 churches and chapels, 5 monasteries, and one nunnery. One of the monasteries is near Lake Baikal, and here lives, if I mistake not, the Bishop of Selenginsk, who could have given information about the Buriats, but the monastery lay too far out of our way to allow of our visiting it. Nor were we successful with the Archbishop; for on going to the monastery, his official residence, which had narrowly escaped the fire, we found him gone to his country residence in the suburbs. “When will he return?” we asked. “God knows,” said our priest informant; thereby using an expression which I observed to be very common among all classes of Russians.⁠[5]

On the Tuesday morning after the fire we were to be presented, as I have said, to the acting Governor-General of Eastern Siberia. The supreme Governor-General was Baron Friedrichs, to whom I had two private letters of introduction, besides my official documents; also we had made the acquaintance of his son when travelling on the Obi. The Baron, who was in ill-health, was at some mineral springs on the Mongolian frontier, and his place was filled at the time of our visit by M. Lochwitzky, the Governor of Yeneseisk, to whom we were presented by General Ismailoff. We met at the Governor-General’s house, the finest in the city, having been originally built and furnished, regardless [275] of expense, by an enormously rich tea merchant. We found M. Lochwitzky the first of the Siberian Governors (except the Governor-General in the West) who could converse in French. He entered readily into my plans for the distribution of books, thanked me for those I had left at Krasnoiarsk for his province, and promised to do for me what was a great boon, namely, to send some books to the town of Yakutsk, to be distributed throughout that largest province of the country. We were introduced to a Colonel Solovief, whose brother was in London, as Secretary to the Grand Duchess of Edinburgh; and after an assurance from the Governor-General that he would do all he could to further our wishes, we started to see the prisons, under the conduct of the Procureur of the town.

We drove through the ruins of the fire, and then crossed, by a wooden bridge 300 yards long, the Uska-Kofka, by which one side of Irkutsk is bounded. This stream divides the town from the prison and the workshops, where a certain number of convicts are employed.⁠[6] Speaking generally, the prison seemed to me to resemble others I had seen in Siberia, and to call for no special remark. Perhaps, however, I ought to add that before I left the town I had the opportunity of hearing about the establishment from a prisoner’s point of view. Thus I heard that, at six o’clock on the morning of our visit, the prisoners were told to [276] have all in order because some Englishmen were expected, and that certain objectionable things were hidden away. I thought, however, that it did not speak much for my informant’s candour when, on pressing him to say what the objectionable things were, he did not tell me. Again, my informant tried to make it appear that the officers stole the prisoners’ food by giving them short quantity, though he said the quality of the food was good enough. The Procureur said the prisoners did not eat all the food allowed them; and from the quantity of pieces of bread which we so often saw lying about in Russian prisons, I should be disposed to think this true. This seems to be so common, that we were told at Tiumen the prisoners may sell what they do not eat; but at Irkutsk my informant said that they did not receive more than half their allowance, and that a quarter of a pound only of meat was given for 10 men—a quantity so ridiculously small, that one could not but think that here exaggeration must have overshot the mark. Moreover, my informant told me that what he said was not from personal experience, because he was not one of the peasant prisoners whose circumstances he professed to relate.⁠[7]

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I was told in the town that to take books to the Irkutsk prison was a work of supererogation; and I confess to a feeling of disappointment when, on asking to see the library, I was taken to a cupboard full of New Testaments and tracts, precisely the same as some of those I was distributing, but all kept so fresh and in such order that evidently no one had used them. The committee was reported to have spent as much as £30 on books for the prison, but the officials had evidently not made the books accessible to those for whom they were intended. Their excuse was that the prisoners did not ask for them; but no doubt the officials were afraid of their being torn, and that trouble would ensue, and so had kept them locked up. It reminded me of what my Finnish friend had written, that when she went to the prison, the officials said, “The books must be arranged in order, in case the inspector should come”; and thus the books were practically kept from the inmates. When the Governor asked me what I thought of the prison, I did not fail to point out the inconsistency of withholding the books; [278] but of this he was ignorant, and he promised to look into the matter. I endeavoured also to make clear, in speech and by writing, that wherever my books or tracts went throughout the province, they were to be placed within reach at all times of the prisoners, and not to be put away in any of the libraries.

Thus we inspected the two prisons, and also saw a school built by the committee for prisoners’ children; in it were 42 scholars. We visited likewise a gentleman named Sokoloff, who was the deputy-inspector of schools for Eastern Siberia. There is also an inspector of schools for Western Siberia, who lives at Omsk. I was surprised to hear of the many schools and scholars in the sparsely-populated and, for scholastic purposes, exceedingly difficult country of Eastern Siberia.⁠[8] Our object in calling upon the inspector was to ask him to distribute throughout the schools copies of my tracts and periodicals, and to that end I began by showing my credentials. But upon hearing my object, he said that was quite sufficient; and he needed to see no papers, but would willingly help. He bought, moreover, on his own account, 200 New Testaments for 40 roubles, to give as prizes to the young schoolmasters on leaving the institution, by which means the books would be scattered widely.⁠[9]

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We now considered our next step. My original idea, when leaving England, as already intimated, was to proceed to Irkutsk; and then, after running on to Kiakhta for the gratification of seeing a Chinese town, to return to Europe, and come home by the Caucasus and the Mediterranean. I had been warned before quitting London that I should see nothing of the severities of Siberian exile-life if I did not penetrate the region beyond Lake Baikal; and, travelling on the Obi, this statement was confirmed by a Russian officer in the prison service. I feared, however, I could not do this in a single summer, and that, if I went so far east, I should be unable to return before winter set in. It never occurred to me that there was any available way of reaching the Pacific from Irkutsk other than by crossing the Mongolian desert to China, and this I was not disposed to do.

But when I learned that there was a service of steamers on the Amur, this opened the way for other possibilities; and on June 21st, as we rolled away from Tomsk, there dawned upon my mind a thought, the conception of which seemed at once to promise the birth of great things. What, said I to myself, if I could go right across Asia and leave so many copies of Scripture as would suffice for putting at least a New [280] Testament or a copy of the Gospels in every room of every prison, and in every ward of every hospital, throughout the whole of Siberia! As I look back upon it now as an accomplished fact, the matter seems ordinary enough; but when the thought came into my mind it looked like a consummation far beyond anything I had hoped to accomplish, and a result which, if it might be compassed, would be a cause of thankfulness for the rest of my life.

Accordingly I quietly nursed the idea till we reached Irkutsk, thus far having given a sufficiency of books answerable to the plan for all the provinces behind me; and there yet remained three before me. Several boxes of books were unopened, but these could not be sent forward, because, in the first place, there was no carrier, or, if there were, the fire had confounded all order; and even if some one could be persuaded to take the books, it was very doubtful if they would reach the hands of the prisoners unless I went with them in person and showed my credentials.

I determined, therefore, to journey onward and do my best to carry out the scheme which had taken possession of my mind. But to do this it was necessary to have supplementary documents, for I had asked the Minister of the Interior for letters only as far as Kiakhta. M. Lochwitzky, however, most kindly helped in the matter, and gave me the letters I needed for my extended plans. We were then free to go forward again (which the reader may do at once, if he prefers, by missing the next two chapters); but something must first be said of the routes by which former travellers have proceeded eastwards.

History of Russian invasion.—Former travellers to Okhotsk.—Cochrane, Erman, and Hill.—Down the Lena to Yakutsk.—Prevalence of goitre.—The Upper Lena and its tributaries.—The Lower Lena.—Discoveries of mammoths.—New Siberian islands.—Nordenskiöld’s passage.

When, at the beginning of the 17th century, the Cossack conquerors of Siberia had crossed the Yenesei, and had pushed on as far as Lake Baikal, they were met by the numerous and warlike tribe of the Buriats, who opposed the invaders with considerable force. Not waiting, therefore, for their entire subjection (which took 30 years to accomplish), the Cossacks turned northwards to the basin of the Lena, and descended the river more than half-way to the Arctic Sea, where, coming in 1632 to the principal town of the Yakutes, they built a fort and founded the city of Yakutsk. After this they crossed the Aldan mountains, and, seven years later, reached the Sea of Okhotsk. For two centuries this was the route followed by those who would cross Siberia from the Urals to the Pacific, or vice versâ. In the present day there are two other roads. All must go by the route we travelled from Tomsk to Irkutsk, but from thence the Pacific can be reached either by crossing the Mongolian desert to Peking, or by traversing the Buriat steppe, and so [282] descending the Amur. The second of these routes is now the best, but not briefly to mention the old route would be to omit much interesting information concerning the Lena, with its native population and fossilized remains, as well as to miss the opportunity of hearing a little of some of the most daring and adventurous journeys of previous travellers.⁠[1]

The most remarkable of these was an Englishman named John Dundas Cochrane, a captain in the Royal Navy, who, in 1820, proposed to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty that they should give their sanction and countenance to his undertaking alone a journey into the interior of Africa, with a view to ascertaining the course and determination of the river Niger. This they declined, whereupon he procured two years’ leave of absence, and resolved to attempt “a walking tour” round the globe, as nearly as could be done by land, crossing from Northern Asia to America at Behring’s Straits, his leading object being to trace the shores of the Polar Sea along America by land, as Captain Parry [283] was at the time attempting it by sea. Accordingly he left London with his knapsack, crossed the Channel to Dieppe, and then set out. This gentleman was endowed with an unbounded reliance upon his own individual exertions, and his knowledge of man when unfettered by the frailties and misconduct of others. One man, he said, might go anywhere he chose, fearlessly and alone, and as safely trust himself in the hands of savages as among his own friends. His favourite dictum was that an individual might travel throughout the Russian empire, except in the civilized parts between the capitals, so long as his conduct was becoming, without necessaries failing him. He put his principle rather severely to the test, and it must be allowed that he did so with very general success, for he states that in travelling from Moscow to Irkutsk (4,000 miles by his route) he spent less than a guinea. From Irkutsk he descended the Lena to Yakutsk, from whence, accompanied by a single Cossack, he penetrated in a north-easterly direction almost to the shores of the Ice Sea at Nijni Kolimsk, where, having altered his plans, he turned back by a most difficult route to Okhotsk. [284] From this place he sailed to Kamchatka, and married a native, whom he brought by sea back to Okhotsk, and then in winter crossed the Aldan mountains to Yakutsk, whence the happy pair proceeded to Irkutsk, and at length reached England, where Mrs. Cochrane, as I learn from the daughter of one who knew her, was carefully educated, and passed as a lady in good society. For enterprise and bravery this captain, I take it, easily bears off the palm from all Siberian travellers.⁠[2]

The writer who has added most, perhaps, to our scientific knowledge of the valley of the Lena is M. Adolph Erman, who crossed Siberia in 1828, in conjunction, though not in company, with Professor Hansteen, the first professor at the Magnetic Observatory at Christiania, in Norway, and famous for his researches in terrestrial magnetism. They both travelled for the purpose of making magnetic and other observations; but, on arriving at Irkutsk, Professor Hansteen returned to Europe, whilst Erman continued down the Lena to Yakutsk, crossed to the Sea of Okhotsk, and so continued round the world.⁠[3]

Later on, one more Englishman has reached the Pacific by way of the Lena, namely, Mr. S. S. Hill, who did so in 1848, and it is not unlikely that he may, for some time, be the last of the intrepid travellers who have accomplished this feat, since the Amur is [285] now open to the Russians, and presents a far easier way of crossing the continent.

To follow the older route, the first portion had to be traversed by post vehicles from Irkutsk, a distance of 160 miles in a north-easterly direction. The road crosses the water-parting of the Lena basin at or near the station Khogotskaya, which is about 90 geographical miles from Irkutsk. The traveller journeys through a hilly country, where there is abundant pasture, and where the land is to some extent cultivated, to the village of Kachugskoe, situated on the banks of the Lena. Here various sorts of merchandise are embarked in large flat-bottomed boats, which are floated down the river. These goods are exchanged with the natives for furs, the boats at the end of the journey being broken up in districts where timber is scarce, and the furs brought back in smaller craft.⁠[4]

The descent of the Upper Lena to Yakutsk by water was undertaken by Mr. Hill in spring, and by Captain Cochrane in autumn, but Mr. Erman accomplished it on the ice in winter, by a 20 days’ sledge journey of nearly 1,900 miles. As he passed along he observed, first in the village of Petrovsk, several of the women largely affected with goitre, and learned [286] with surprise that this malady, which in Europe characterises the valleys of the Alps, is frequent on the Lena. As he proceeded he found goitre in men also, and asking an exile at Turutsk, who appeared the only healthy person in the place, how he had protected himself from goitre, was told that adults arriving from Europe were never attacked by the disease, but that the goitre was born with the children of the district, and grew up with them. Medical men in Switzerland say that goitre proceeds from deposits in chemical combination, washed down by mountain streams that supply the inhabitants of the neighbourhood with drinking water, and that it attacks children on account of their mucous membranes being very tender and easily distended. Mr. Erman inquired carefully, as he went on, respecting the prevalency of goitre, and having made barometrical and other observations along the way, he came at length to the conclusion that the disease was traceable, in part, to the formation and altitude of various places along the valley of the river, where the air, being confined, is, in summer, heated to an extraordinary degree, and loaded with moisture.

With regard to the stream of the Upper Lena, its head waters have their sources spread out for 200 geographical miles along the counter slopes of the hills [287] that form the western bank of Lake Baikal, and the main stream rises within seven miles of the lake.

At Kachugskoe, about 60 geographical miles from the Baikal, and not less than 75 geographical miles in a straight line from its source, the Lena measures about the width of the Thames in London. The water, deep and clear, has in spring a very rapid current, though Captain Cochrane speaks of the rate lower down, in autumn, as only 1½ or 2 knots per hour. The next station after Kachugskoe is Vercholensk, a town of 1,000 inhabitants, the first of that size on the north-east of Irkutsk, and is the chief town of the uyezd. After flowing 500 miles further through a hilly country, with high banks always on one and sometimes on both sides, on which are 35 post-stations and more villages, the river passes Kirensk, which again is the chief town of an uyezd, and has a population of 800.⁠[5] Here cultivation practically ceases, except for vegetables. At this point, too, the river receives on its right the Kirenga, which has run nearly as long a course as the Lena. The stream thus enlarged now flows on for 300 miles more to Vitimsk, where it is joined by its second great tributary, the Vitim, from the mountains east of Lake Baikal. Another stretch of 460 miles, through a country still hilly, but with villages less frequent, brings the traveller to Olekminsk, the capital of another uyezd, a town of 500 inhabitants; there the Lena receives from the south the Olekma, which rises near the Amur river. It then continues for 400 miles through a sparsely-populated [288] district, till it reaches Yakutsk, where it is 4 miles wide in summer, and 2½ in winter, the river being usually frozen about the 1st October, and not free from ice till about May 25th.

Hitherto the course of the river has been to the north-east, but at Yakutsk the stream makes a bend and runs due north, receiving on its right, 100 miles below Yakutsk, one of its largest tributaries, the Aldan, which rises in the Stanovoi range bordering on the Sea of Okhotsk. Yakutsk is only 270 feet above the sea, and the current of the river henceforth is sluggish. About 50 miles further the Lena receives its largest tributary from the left, the Vilui, and then proceeds majestically through a flat country with an enormous body of water to the Arctic Ocean, into which it enters among a delta of islands formed of the débris brought down by the river.

In the region of the Lower Lena, and to the westward, have been found the remains of a huge rhinoceros, and an elephant larger than that now existing—the elephas primigenius, popularly called the mammoth. It is so named from the Russian mamont, or Tatar mamma (the earth), because the Yakutes believed that this animal worked its way in the earth like a mole; and a Chinese story represents the mamentova as a rat of the size of an elephant which always burrowed underground, and died on coming in contact with the outer air. The tusks of the mammoth are remarkable for exhibiting a double curve, first inwards, then outwards, and then inwards again; and Professor Ramsay gives it me as the opinion of several able naturalists that the so-called mammoth is of the same species as the Indian elephant, only much altered by the change [289] of climatic conditions. The Samoyedes say that the mammoth still exists wandering upon the shores of the Frozen Ocean, and subsisting on dead bodies thrown up by the surf. As for the rhinoceros, they say it was a gigantic bird, and that the horns which the ivory-merchants purchase were its talons. Their legends tell of fearful combats between their ancestors and this enormous winged animal.

A trade in mammoth ivory has been carried on for hundreds of years between the tribes of Northern Asia and the Chinese; but it was a long time before European naturalists took a marked interest in the evidence of an extinct order of animals which these remains undeniably recorded. The Siberian mammoth agrees exactly with the specimens unearthed in various parts of England, especially at Ilford in the valley of the Thames, near London, and on the coast of Norfolk; but whereas on European soil there remain but fragments of the skeleton, there have been found in Siberia bones of the rhinoceros and mammoth covered with pieces of flesh and skin. These discoveries date back more than a century.⁠[6]

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In 1865 the captain of a Yenesei steamer learnt that some natives had discovered the preserved remains of a mammoth in latitude 67°, about 100 versts west of the river. Intelligence was sent to Petersburg, and Dr. Schmidt was commissioned to go and examine into the matter. Accordingly he proceeded down the Yenesei to Turukhansk, and thence to the landing-place nearest the mammoth deposit, hoping to obtain the animal’s stomach, and, from the character of the leaves within, infer the creature’s habitat, since it is known that the beast lived upon vegetable food, but of what exact character no one has yet determined. Unfortunately the stomach was wanting.

In examining, under the microscope, fragments of vegetable food picked out of the grooves of the molar teeth of the Siberian rhinoceros at Irkutsk, naturalists have recognised fibres of the pitch-pine, larch, birch, and willow, resembling those of trees of the same kind which still grow in Southern Siberia. This seems to confirm the opinion, expressed long ago, that the rhinoceros and other large pachyderms found in the alluvial soil of the north used to inhabit Middle Siberia, south of the extreme northern regions where [291] their skeletons are now found; but Mr. Knox, who travelled for some distance with Schmidt on his return journey, says that the doctor estimated that the beast had been frozen many thousands of years, and that his natural dwelling-place was in the north, at a period when perhaps the Arctic regions were warmer than they now are. Covered with long hair, the animal could certainly resist an Arctic climate; but how on the tundras of the north could the animal have found the foliage of trees necessary for its subsistence? Must we conclude that formerly the country was wooded, or that the mammoth did not live where its skeletons are now found, but further south, whence its carcase has been carried northward by rivers, and frozen into the soil? These are questions debated among geologists, and still awaiting solution.

The fact, however, remains, that mammoth ivory is still an important branch of native commerce, and all travellers bear witness to the quantities of fossil bones found throughout the frozen regions of Siberia.⁠[7]

Each year, in early summer, fishermen’s barques [292] direct their course to the New Siberian group, to the “isles of bones”; and, during winter, caravans drawn by dogs take the same route, and return charged with tusks of the mammoth, each weighing from 150 lbs. to 200 lbs. The fossil ivory thus obtained is imported into China and Europe, and is used for the same purposes as the ordinary ivory of the elephant and hippopotamus.

We cannot leave the Lower Lena and the neighbouring shores of the Arctic Ocean without alluding to the wonderful sight those shores witnessed in 1878, for the first time in the history of the world. It was no less a sight than that of two steam vessels that had ploughed their way from Europe round Cape Cheliuskin. One of them was the Vega, in which was Professor Nordenskiöld, whose intention had been to anchor off the mouth of the Lena, but a favourable wind and an open sea offered so splendid an opportunity of continuing his voyage that he did not neglect it. He sailed away, therefore, on the 28th of August, direct for Fadievskoi, one of the New Siberian islands, where he intended to remain some days, and to examine scientifically the remains of mammoths, rhinoceroses, horses, aurochs, bisons, sheep, etc., with which these islands are said to be covered. The Vega made excellent progress, but though, on the 30th, Liakov Island was reached, the professor was unable to land, owing to the rotten ice which surrounded it, and the danger to which the vessel would have been exposed in case of a storm in such shallow water.

After the Vega, with Nordenskiöld on board, had left its sister ship the Lena, the latter vessel, under the command of Captain Johannesen, started to ascend [293] the river of its own name. A pilot had been engaged to descend the river and await the arrival of the Lena, but as neither he nor his signals were visible, the captain, after considerable difficulty, from the shallowness of the water, made his way through the delta, and on the 7th September reached the main stream, where the navigation was less difficult. Yakutsk was reached on the 21st September, dispatches were sent on to Irkutsk, and from thence it was telegraphed to Europe that the rounding of Cape Cheliuskin and the navigation of the Lena by a steamer from the Atlantic had been accomplished.

The province of Yakutsk.—Rivers.—Minerals.—The town of Yakutsk.—Its temperature.—Inhabitants.—The Yukaghirs.—The Yakutes.—Their dwellings.—Food.—Dress.—Products.—Occupations.—Industries.—Language.—Religion.—Route from Yakutsk to Okhotsk.—Reindeer riding.—Summer journey.—Treatment of horses.

The province of Yakutsk is the largest in Siberia, and covers an area of no less than a million and a half of square miles, and is therefore nearly as large as the whole of Europe, omitting Russia.⁠[1] The total population of this enormous province is 235,000,—that is to say, it has about one-seventh part of an inhabitant to each square mile. The yearly number of marriages is 5,000, and the births 12,000. The Russian town population in 1876 numbered about 2,000, and the [295] country population 5,000; of which there were hereditary nobles, 100; personal nobles, 450; ecclesiastical persons, 600; military, 1,700; and the rest, upwards of 220,000, were natives—that is to say, Tunguses, Yukaghirs, and Yakutes. The natives are divided into communities, under golovahs, or mayors, of their own race, who are, however, subject to the Russian authorities. The province is divided into five uyezds.

The chief mineral product is gold, which has frequently to be procured from frozen ground. The valleys of the Vitim and Olekma especially are rich in this mineral. In the valley of the Vitim, about 200 versts from its mouth, are quarries of mica, from which the whole of Siberia was formerly supplied with a substitute for window-glass. Mr. Erman procured plates of brown mica from one to two feet square. As, however, I saw glass used everywhere, I presume that the demand for mica must have diminished greatly.

In the forests of the Vitim and Olekma are caught the smallest sables, with the finest, blackest, and hence most valuable furs. The squirrels of the district are hunted only in winter, when they are sometimes black and sometimes bright grey, their fur in summer being red, the hair loose, and skin valueless. The black realize the highest price, and are frequently met with south of the river, while north of the Lena none but grey are captured. The hunters think that this difference depends upon the nature of the forest.⁠[2]

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The town of Yakutsk, which the natives proudly call “the city of the Yakutes,” presents a curious medley of dwellings; for there are seen not only the Government buildings, and the wooden houses of the Russians, but also the less pretentious winter dwellings of the Yakutes, and even their summer yourts. Oxen here take the place of horses. Women and girls ride them astride; their sledges also are often drawn by them, the driver being mounted on one of the animals. The cathedral is built of stone, and dedicated to St. Nicolas; and there are in the town some half-dozen churches, in which certain parts of the service, if not the whole, are performed in the Yakute language. The chief ecclesiastic is Dionysius, Bishop of Yakutsk and Viluisk, who has in his hyperborean diocese 49 churches and chapels, and one monastery containing 13 monks.

Yakutsk has the credit of being the coldest place upon the face of the earth. The mean temperature of the air is 18·5 Fahrenheit. A degree of cold takes place there every year between the 17th December and 18th February, exceeding 58° below zero. During Mr. Erman’s stay the cold reached even 71·5 below zero. Mercury, therefore, is frozen at Yakutsk for [297] one-sixth of the year. An exceedingly warm summer follows this cold winter, and continues from about the 12th May to the 17th September. The ground is then thawed three feet deep, and though the crops rest on perpetually frozen strata, yet they produce fifteen-fold on an average, and in particular places forty-fold.⁠[3]

Yakutsk has a population of 4,800, some of whom are political exiles, Scoptsi, etc., who live both here and in the villages along the river. It would require no great stretch of the imagination, however, to call all the Russian inhabitants exiles, for they are upwards of 5,000 miles from Petersburg.⁠[4] As we travelled on the Obi we had for fellow-passengers an official with four children and a woman, bound for Yakutsk; and when, outside Tomsk, we saw the party stowed into one tarantass, we [298] pitied them in prospect of the remainder of their 3,000 miles’ journey.

The Russian population of the province is confined almost exclusively to the banks of the Upper Lena, Yakutsk, and its neighbourhood. The Tunguses are found at the extreme east and west of the province, and have been already spoken of in a previous chapter.

Of another race, the Yukaghirs, it may suffice to say that they were computed, in 1876, at only 1,600 in number, and that very little is known of them. They roam over a tract on the shores of the Northern Ocean lying between the Yana and the Kolima. They were once powerful, and on the rivers Yana and Indigirka tumuli and ancient burial-places are pointed out, containing corpses armed with bows, arrows, and spears. With these, too, lies buried the magic drum, well known in Lapland. At one time there were more hearths of the Yukaghirs on the banks of the Kolima than stars in the sky—so their legend says. These people maintain themselves during the whole year on the reindeer they kill in spring and autumn. At such seasons the mosquitoes drive the tormented animals to take refuge in the rivers, and not until winter is coming do they return to the woods, the stags leading the way, followed by the hinds and their young. Posted under cover, the Yukaghirs discover the place where the herd will make the passage of a stream, and conceal their canoes under the banks till the animals take the water. Then they push out, and, having cut the helpless deer off from either shore, proceed to slaughter them, whilst swimming, with long spears, which they use with marvellous skill.

The Yukaghirs are great smokers; their tobacco—the coarse species of the Ukraine—they mix with chips [299] to make it go further; and in smoking not a whiff is allowed to escape into the air, but all is inhaled and swallowed, producing an effect somewhat similar to a mild dose of opium. Tobacco is considered their first and greatest luxury. Women and children all smoke, the latter learning to do so as soon as they are able to toddle. Any funds remaining after the supply of tobacco has been laid in are devoted to the purchase of brandy. A Yukaghir, it is said, never intoxicates himself alone, but calls upon his family to share the drink, even children in arms being supplied with a portion.

In the centre of the Yakutsk province, occupying the valley of the Lena, roam the Yakutes, some of whom I met as far off as Nikolaefsk. They are of middle height, and of a light copper colour, with black hair, which the men cut close. The sharp lines of their faces express indolent and amiable gentleness rather than vigour and passion. They reminded me of North American Indians; and I agree with Erman, who says that their appearance is that of a people who have grown wild rather than of a thoroughly and originally rude race. Those I saw, however, having been long settled among the Russians, had perhaps become somewhat more polished than their wandering brethren. As a race they are good-tempered, orderly, hospitable, and capable of enduring great privation with patience; but in independence of character they contrast unfavourably with their Tunguse neighbours. Lay a finger in anger on one of the Tunguses, and nothing will induce him to forget the insult; whereas with the Yakutes, the more they are thrashed the better they work.⁠[5]

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The winter dwellings of the people have doors of raw hides, and log or wicker walls calked with cow-dung, and flanked with banks of earth to the height of the windows. The latter are made of sheets of ice, kept in their place from the outside by a slanting pole, the lower end of which is fixed in the ground. They are rendered air-tight by pouring on water, which quickly freezes round the edges; and the fact that it takes a long time to melt these blocks of ice thus fixed is highly suggestive of what the temperature must be, both without and within. The flat roof is covered with earth, and over the door, facing the east, the boards project, making a covered place in front, like the natives’ houses in the Caucasus. Under the same roof are the winter shelters for the cows and for the people, the former being the larger. The fireplace consists of a wicker frame plastered over with clay, room being left for a man to pass between the fireplace and the wall. The hearth is made of beaten earth, and on it there is at all times a blazing fire, and logs of larch-wood throw up showers of sparks to the roof. Young calves, like children, are often brought into the house to the fire, whilst their mothers cast a contented look through the open door at the back of the fireplace. Behind the fireplace, too, are the sleeping-places of the people, which in the poorer dwellings consist only of a continuation of the straw laid in the cow-house.

In the winter they have but about five hours of daylight, which penetrates as best it can through the icy windows; and in the evening all the party sit round [301] the fire on low stools, men and women smoking. The summer yourts of these people are formed of poles about 20 feet long, which are united at the top into a roomy cone, covered with pieces of bright yellow and perfectly flexible birch bark, which are not merely joined together, but are also handsomely worked along the seams with horsehair thread.

The houses are not overstocked with furniture, and the chief cooking utensil is a large iron pot. At the time of the invasion of the Russians, this article was deemed such a treasure that the price asked for a pot was as many sable-skins as would fill it. They use also in winter a bowl-shaped frame of wicker-work, plastered with frozen cow-dung, in which they pound their porridge. With regard to their food, the Yakutes, if they have their choice, love to eat horse-flesh; and their adage says that to eat much meat, and grow fat upon it, is the highest destiny of man. They are the greatest gluttons. So far back as the days of Strahlenberg, it was said that four Yakutes would eat a horse. They rarely kill their oxen for food; and at a wedding, the favourite dish served up by the bride to her future lord is a boiled horse’s head, with horse-flesh sausages. When, however, horse-flesh or beef is wanting, they are not at all nice as to what they consume, for they eat the animals they take for fur, and woe to the unfortunate horse that becomes seriously injured in travel! It is killed and eaten then and there, the men taking off their girdles to give fair play to their stomachs, which swell after the fashion of a boa-constrictor. Thus earnestly do they aspire to their notion of the highest destiny of man! Milk is in general request among them, whether from cows or mares; and when they are [302] in the neighbourhood of the Russians, and can get flour, they do so; but far away in the forests they make a sort of porridge or bread, not exactly of sawdust, but of the under bark of the spruce, fir, and larch, which they cut in small pieces, or pound in a mortar, mixing it with milk, or with dried fish, or boiling it with glutinous tops of the young sprouts. In spring, when the sap is rising, they gather their bark harvest. They make also fermented beverages of milk; and in the height of summer, when the mares foal, an orgie is held, at which the men drain enormous bowls of this intoxicating liquor; whilst the women, denied the privilege of intoxication, solace themselves by getting as near to it as they can by smoking tobacco. The distillation of sour milk is also practised, producing a coarse spirit known as arigui. They devour likewise enormous quantities of melted butter. This also can be prepared in such a way as to cause intoxication when taken in sufficient quantities.

The dress of the Yakutes resembles in its main features that of the other natives of Siberia, save, perhaps, that they are fonder of ornaments. Both sexes riding a good deal on oxen and horses, a perpendicular slit is made up the back from the bottom of the sanayakh, or upper garment, in order to render the wearer comfortable in the saddle, and some of the women add behind them a cushion or pad, to save them from the rough motion of the animals. During the milder part of the year a robe, made of very pliable leather, stained yellow, is worn, which indoors is frequently laid aside, and males and females sit by the fire, leaving the upper part of the body naked. I bought a pair of women’s Yakute boots of this leather. [303] They fit tight to the leg, and have at the top a flap of black velvet with red cloth trimming, which can be turned down and exposed for show in fair weather, or turned up, bringing the boots to the thighs. On each boot are two broad leather thongs, five or six feet long, to wind round the leg. Waterproof boots are here made, called by the Russians torbasis. These are cut from horse-hide, steeped in sour milk, then smoked, and finally rubbed well with fat and fine soot. They last exceedingly well, and are an inestimable comfort to the wearer, enabling him to tramp through snow, water, and mud without inconvenience.

The Yakute women are clever in making up fur garments. When visiting a Yakute family, I was looking about for a souvenir, and could at first see nothing to buy. In the room hung a curious cradle, very nearly resembling a coal-scuttle, which, when travelling, they suspend at the side of a reindeer; but this was too large for me to bring away. At length the materfamilias drew out a box in which she kept her treasures. Among these were some large pieces of fur, each consisting of an immense number of the small pieces of white skin that are found under the squirrel’s neck. No piece was so large as the palm of the hand, and she had sewn them together with great industry. These I bought, much to the disgust of her daughter, for whom they were to have made a dandy garment. I purchased also of the old lady what I prized more, namely, an “itti,” or large cap, coming down with flaps at the ears. The crown is made of the skins of sables’ feet, and it has a border all round of the fur of sables’ tails. The sight of this, since my return, has often excited the admiration of my lady friends.

[304]

The Yakutes who inhabit the inclement region adjacent to the Frozen Ocean have neither horses nor oxen, but breed large numbers of dogs, which draw them to and fro on their fishing excursions. Even those living on the 62nd parallel keep cattle under far greater difficulties than usual, for they have to make long journeys to collect hay, and do not always find enough. The cold prevents their breeding sheep, goats, or poultry. Nevertheless, cattle and hunting are their chief means of subsistence, for they do not in general cultivate the land, though in the gardens at Yakutsk are grown potatoes, cabbages, radishes, and turnips; gherkins, too, are reared in hot-beds.

Some products of Yakutsk industry are purchased by the Russians, particularly floor-cloths of white and coloured felts, which are cut in strips and sewed together like mosaic. From the earliest times they have been able to procure and work for themselves metals.⁠[6]

The language of the Yakutes, which is largely spoken by the Russians who live among them, is one of the principal means by which we are led to assume their Turkish origin, for Latham says their speech is intelligible at Constantinople, and their traditions (for literature they have none) bespeak a southern origin.

[305]

Here are some Yakute words compared with Turkish:—

Strahlenberg calls these people Pagans, but the latest writers call them Christians; and the method of their conversion was, it is said, extraordinary, for the Russian priests not making much headway against their superstitions, an ukase was one day issued setting forth that the good and loyal nation of the Yakutes were thought worthy to enter, and were consequently admitted into, the Russian Church, to become a part of the Tsar’s Christian family, and entitled to all the privileges of the rest of his children. Such was the tenor of this strange proclamation, and success attended the measure. The new Christians showed perfect sincerity in the adoption of their novel faith, and the Russian priests have established their sway over the Yakute race, though amongst the outlying portion a lingering belief in Shamanism still survives, of which travellers from Yakutsk to Okhotsk have been made aware by their Yakute guides leaving them awhile in foggy weather, and stealing off into the forest to perform certain mysterious rites.

The distance from Yakutsk to Okhotsk is 800 miles [306] and the journey, whether undertaken in summer or winter, is one of the severest. The map gives one the idea that it might almost be accomplished by ascending the river Aldan and one of its affluents to the Stanovoi mountains. The usual plan, however, is to leave Yakutsk on horseback, with all the luggage on pack-saddles. Some estimate may be formed of the traffic once passing on this route from the fact that there were formerly employed in it from 20,000 to 30,000 horses. The postal service is still continued between Irkutsk and the Sea of Okhotsk; but there is no telegraph; hence the fact of Professor Nordenskiöld having been frozen in the ice on the north-east coast of Siberia was brought a long way by courier before it could be made known by telegram to Europe.

One of the difficulties of the winter journey is the insufficient sleeping accommodation on the route. The houses, when they exist, are very bad, and when they fail, travellers sleep in a tent, or else upon furs and wraps in the open air. They usually lie, however, by a roaring fire, and so roast on one side whilst they freeze on the other—changing their position when need requires.

After proceeding for some distance the traveller has to exchange his horse for a novel kind of steed—a reindeer, on which the mere gaining of one’s seat, to say nothing of keeping it, is by no means so easy as might be supposed.⁠[7] Having gained his reindeer [307] seat, the English traveller may keep it—if he can. He will most likely fall off half-a-dozen times in the first quarter of an hour, until he discovers that he must poise himself in such a manner that his body may continually, and with ease, lend itself to a swinging motion.⁠[8] There is a second lesson to be learned by the uninitiated, which is usually imparted in a very impressive manner; for should the cavalier attempt to hold with the knees, and the cushion consequently slip back, the moment the weight is felt on the animal’s back, he bends under his haunches and lets the rider slip to the ground, and that perhaps in ice, snow, or a pool of water.

As the traveller approaches Okhotsk he has again to change his mode of conveyance, to be drawn this time by dogs. All three methods of travel have their delights on this lonely journey, the tedium of which is sometimes relieved by an extemporary hunting scene.⁠[9]

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The difficulties of the summer journey are somewhat different in character. A large part of the way lies over swampy ground, on which the causeways are not kept in repair, and where the horses flounder in mud and water, into which they occasionally pitch the rider. It is no uncommon thing for horses to die under the fatigues of the way. The Yakutes, moreover, have a cruel fashion of giving their horses little food whilst journeying. A similar custom obtains farther east, among the Gilyaks, where I found that, though they gave a dog two pieces of fish daily when at home, yet, when travelling, they gave him only one, because the dogs immediately after eating are always lazy and feeble.⁠[10]

These, then, are some of the difficulties of the old route, from Irkutsk to the Pacific, which happily it did not fall to my lot to be obliged to encounter; but I crossed the Baikal instead, and, after making a détour to the Chinese frontier, continued across the Buriat steppe to the Amur.

Leaving Irkutsk.—The Angara.—Approach to the Baikal.—Its shores and fish.—Steaming across.—Seizing post-horses.—Arrival at Verchne Udinsk.—Smuggling at the prison.—Arrival at Selenginsk.—English mission to Buriats.—English graves.—Old scholars.—Story of the mission.—Journey to Troitzkosavsk.

We left Irkutsk on Thursday, July 10th, after a stay that could hardly be called enjoyable, though amid the confusion we met with much more consideration than could have been expected. For the first night we slept, as already stated, in our tarantass, and I took my morning bath in the pantry. What a treat, too, was that bath, deliciously cold from the Angara, to a man who had not taken his clothes off for more than a week! During our stay we made the acquaintance of several officers, of whom there is no lack at Irkutsk, as there are usually in barracks about 2,000 troops. It was very difficult to procure provisions. On sending out on the morning of our departure, all the white bread that could be found was one penny loaf, and that somewhat stale. It seemed, therefore, that I should have to come down to rye bread; but some pancakes were made for me, the difficulty was thus surmounted, and by two o’clock we had fairly begun our 300 miles to Kiakhta. Our baggage and remaining books were still too heavy to [310] be taken on the same vehicle, and we therefore stowed away ourselves and our personal effects in the tarantass, and the boxes followed in a post-conveyance, out of which they were changed at every station. We wished to make only 40 miles before night, to Lake Baikal, and then wait till morning at Listvenitznaya for the steamer.

We had not proceeded far before we drove along the banks of the Angara, which is, in some respects, the most remarkable river in Siberia. There are scores of streams and rivulets running into Lake Baikal, of which the more important are the Upper Angara, the Barguzin, and the Selenga; but the Angara is the only one that runs out, and it does so with such impetuosity that the rapid by which the water leaves the lake never freezes even with the temperature of the air at 24° below zero; and though the ice is six feet thick on the lake, yet, all the winter through, ducks float on the bosom of the rapid. I have heard it suggested that there may be hot-springs just there; but whether this is so or not, the waters of the lake and the Angara are particularly cold.⁠[1]

Shortly after leaving Irkutsk the road enters a wooded part of the Angara valley, and as the road winds along it, many points are passed presenting magnificent views. In some parts enormous sandstone [311] cliffs arise out of the water, crowned with dark pines and cedars; in others the thick forest descends to the river’s brink, and the broad sheet of water is seen rushing madly onwards. Afterwards the valley becomes more rugged, with deep ravines running up into the mountains. Beyond this the road has been cut along the edge of a cliff at a considerable height above the river, and, about five miles before reaching the Baikal, a scene is presented that may well cause the traveller to stop. The valley becomes wider, and the mountains rise abruptly to a much greater elevation. The Angara is here more than a mile in width, and this great body of water is seen rolling down a steep incline, forming a rapid nearly four miles in length. At the head of this, and in the centre of the stream, a great mass of rock rises, called the Shaman Kamen, or “Priest,” or “spirit’s stone,” held sacred by the followers of Shamanism, and not to be passed by them without an act of devotion. When Shamanism prevailed in this neighbourhood, human sacrifices were made at the sacred rock, the victim with his hands tied being tossed into the torrent below. Beyond is the broad expanse of the Baikal, extending about 50 miles, to where its waves wash the foot of Amar Daban, whose summit, even in June, is usually covered with snow. The mighty torrent throwing up its jets of spray, the rugged rocks with their fringes of [312] pendent birch overtopped by lofty pines, and the colouring on the mountains, produce a picture of extraordinary beauty and grandeur. A few miles further, and the Baikal is seen spreading out like a sea, and its waves are heard beating on the rocky shore.

The storms on the lake are very severe. They say, at Irkutsk, it is only upon the Baikal in the autumn that a man learns to pray from his heart. The most dangerous wind is the north-west. It is called the mountain wind, whilst that from the south-west is called the “deep sea-breeze.” Formerly, in crossing, it was no uncommon occurrence for a boat or barge to be detained three weeks on a voyage of 40 miles, without being able to land on either shore. This induced an enterprising merchant to have a hull built on the lake, and engines, boiler, and machinery brought 4,000 miles overland from Petersburg; and when the new vessel steamed across in a gale, both Siberians and Mongols looked on with not a little astonishment.⁠[2]

The fish of the Baikal are abundant, and are caught in variety, such as the omullé, somewhat like the herring; the suig, which resembles but is smaller than the sturgeon; the askina, the pike, the carp, the lavaret, and a white fish called the tymain. Travellers [313] also tell of a remarkable fish called the golomain, which is only seen when thrown on shore during a violent tempest, and is of so oily a nature that it melts in the sun, or on the approach of heat, leaving only its skeleton and skin. It is a remarkable fact also that the seal of the ocean is found in the lake. About 2,000 are killed yearly.

The natives call the lake Svyatoe More, the “Holy Sea,” and aver that no one was ever lost in its waters; for when a person is drowned therein, the waves invariably throw his body on shore. It must be a pleasant sensation to cross this lake in winter. The ice is as clear, transparent, and as smooth as glass, so that travellers describe the difficulty of realizing that they are not gliding on water. The journey across is made in a remarkably short time. Mr. Erman travelled thus 7 German miles (or 27 English) in 2¼ hours, which for horse travelling must be allowed to be extraordinary. Formerly there was a winter station on the ice, half-way across, for changing horses; but as the ice on one occasion gave way, and allowed the whole concern to disappear, they now cross the lake at a single stage. There is a road round the south end of the lake, but in summer the crossing by steamer is usually preferred.

[314]

We reached the station about six or eight hours after leaving Irkutsk, and, passing the night at a rough hotel, next morning got our tarantass on board, among half-a-dozen others, and steamed across. The steamer was called the General Korsakoff. It made a loud grunting, and out of its tall chimney emitted a cloud of sparks like the tail of a comet. I went below to see the engines, and found them of the most primitive kind—a huge boiler simply laid in a wooden hull. I offered for sale on board some of my books, and gave others away. This soon got me friends, and the engineer honoured me by playing a tune on his concertina. I went also into the captain’s cabin, and he was glad to buy some New Testaments. It was so chilly, however, on deck that I put on my ulster, and stowed myself away in the tarantass; after doing which, on the 11th of July, it was not difficult to believe what I had heard, that pigeons flying across the lake in winter sometimes drop dead from cold.

As we drew near to the shore, we had the enjoyment of a mild piece of something like revenge. I have already observed that the traveller who has a crown podorojna takes precedence; but if two travellers come to a station, both having crown podorojnas, he who arrives first takes the horses. Moreover, “the rule of the road” is that one set of post-horses must not outstrip one that has started before; which rule, however, an extra tip to the yemstchik will sometimes evade. Now, as we came towards Irkutsk, we had been outstripped by a military officer travelling with his wife, who took the fresh horses we should have had; so that, when we arrived, it was feared we should be without. Whereupon the officer’s wife, addressing [315] me in French, asked half-triumphantly, and half in a mischievous joke, whether I did not find myself “without horses”? She happened, however, to be wrong. We obtained horses, and, at night, overtook our friends, broken down, with their tarantass undergoing repairs at another station. We therefore got ahead, till, on the Baikal, they overtook us again. We saw at a glance that there would be a rush for horses, and, therefore, immediately the boat touched, I sprang ashore, presented to the post-master my podorojna, and secured my team; whereas the officer, not knowing that I had more than an ordinary civilian’s paper, or relying, perhaps, upon the power of his crown podorojna, was not so quick, and failed to get his steeds; and as we rolled away we heard him storming at the post-master for allowing us to have them before he had been served.

We drove for some distance on an elevated plateau beside the eastern shore of the lake, from which we got many good views of its waters, and where we observed at the roadside red Turk’s-head lilies, similar to but smaller than those seen in English gardens, and yellow lilies. There were likewise in the neighbourhood abundance of strawberries, raspberries, and whortleberries. Among the trees were cedars up to 120 feet in height; also the balsam poplar, which here attains a growth sufficiently large to allow the natives of the coast to make their canoes of a single log; likewise the cherry-tree and the Siberian apple. A black and white jackdaw, as my companion called it, made its appearance; and the birds of prey appeared more numerous, as they well might be in the vicinity of a larger animal population; for in these Baikal forests are found martens, [316] squirrels, foxes, wolves, the lynx, the elk, the wild boar, and the bear—the last feeding on berries in summer, and on cedar-nuts raked up from beneath the snow in winter.

Having taken the lead on the road from the Baikal, we were anxious to keep it, though things looked threatening on arriving at the first station, where the post-master said there were no horses. We brought our crown podorojna to bear, and then the letter of the Minister at Petersburg, but to no purpose. There were no post-horses, he said, though there was a man standing near who would lend us private horses at double fares. To this we should have had to agree, but we pulled out lastly our blanco letter, and this gained the day; for the post-master, on seeing that, said to the would-be extortioner, “You must let them have the horses”; and so on we trotted through a country more hilly than anything we had passed, till at six o’clock we arrived at Verchne Udinsk. This place might very well be called “the Amur and China Junction,” for to turn to the left brings the traveller to the Pacific, and to turn to the right leads to Peking.

It was now Saturday afternoon, and we were anxious to get on, if possible, a few stations further, to Selenginsk, which was the scene of the labours of some English missionaries, and there to spend the Sunday to inquire about their work. The old difficulty of horses, however, cropped up, for they could let us have none on the instant, and every one was on tiptoe expecting the passing through of the Governor-General, Baron Friedrichs. I have already mentioned that his Excellency was at some mineral springs on the Mongolian frontier, and, having heard of the fire at Irkutsk, he [317] was now returning. Everything, therefore, had to be in readiness. The post-house was swept and garnished, and we were requested not to go into the large guest-room, where the tables and chairs were arranged for his Excellency’s visit. Horses, however, were promised quickly as a favour, and meanwhile we strolled into the town.

Verchne—that is, Upper—Udinsk is the capital of an uyezd, and has a population of 3,500. It is a clean little town, and, upon entering the market square, it was easy to see that we were approaching the borders of the Celestial Empire—for here was John Chinaman, with open shop, standing behind the counter selling tea. We found also, to our great satisfaction, a baker’s shop, where was not only white bread, but all manner of bake-meats, of which we proceeded to make havoc then and there. The white bread was 75 per cent. dearer than at Tobolsk, but I was only too thankful to get a store at any price, my pancakes being all but gone. For lemonade they asked 6s. a bottle, or 6d. a glass. It was like watered lemon syrup. Fresh butter cost a rouble a pound, and was obtained with difficulty.

There is a prison in Verchne Udinsk, which we passed at the side of the road, and the prisoners were looking from the windows. Here had recently occurred an incident illustrative of Goryantchikoff’s statement, in his “Buried Alive,” that some of his fellow-prisoners were spirit-dealers, and frequently smuggled liquor into the prison in the entrails of cows or oxen. For this purpose the entrails were washed and filled with water, to keep them damp and ready to receive the liquor. When filled, they were wound by the smuggler round his body and thighs, and so brought into the prison. [318] On the afternoon of our arrival, a drunken woman had been detected thus carrying in vodka. We did not visit the building, but left with the Ispravnik half-a-dozen New Testaments, and the same number or Gospels for Tatars, and of Scripture portions in Mongolian. The present was not unappreciated, for the Ispravnik, learning that I was going to the far east, gave me an introduction to his son-in-law at Blagovestchensk, which afterwards proved useful.

At last we started, and trotted on through the night to Selenginsk, and spent there the remainder of the following day. We called on the Ispravnik, who, with his wife, received us politely; and the latter, finding that we had good books to dispose of, wished to purchase some, which I allowed her to do to the value of three roubles. We also asked the Ispravnik’s acceptance of some portions of Scripture in Mongolian for distribution among the surrounding Buriats. Then conversation followed about the English mission, of which Selenginsk was for 13 years the head-quarters, but ceased to be so about 40 years ago.

The Ispravnik had nothing to say of the missionaries but what was good and kind,—a repetition of what I had heard elsewhere. A house, he told us, was still standing on the spot where the missionaries lived, and he furnished us with the names of persons who could give us further information. We went, therefore, direct to the site of the mission station, where we found some out-buildings, very much like those of an English farmyard, and strongly suggestive of home. There was also a nice house, which had been built near the spot on which formerly stood the one inhabited by the Englishmen. The garden remained, and in it [319] we were taken to a walled enclosure—a little graveyard—in which were five graves: those of Mrs. Yule, Mrs. Stallybrass, and three children. The place had been recently renovated, at the expense of a missionary in China, and we were pleased to see the resting-place of our compatriots looking so neat and orderly. The garden commanded a pretty view of the valley of the Selenga, and there was pointed out across the river the site on which the town stood in the early part of the century, till, being destroyed by fire, it was rebuilt on the opposite side. The lady who occupied the house told us that now and then a traveller turns aside to see the spot, and that the ignorant people say that the English people come out of their graves at night—a report she is at no pains to contradict, on the plea that, as the house is in a lonely position, the idea may conduce to protect her from thieves.

After having been shown what there was of interest about the place, we called on an old man—a Russian—named Ivlampi Melnikoff, who, in his boyhood, had attended the mission school. When he heard that one of the missionaries, Mr. Stallybrass, was still living, and that I had seen him just before leaving England, he seemed much pleased, and spoke with affection of his teachers. He had not opened a book for 40 years, and so had forgotten how to read, but he remembered, and inquired particularly for, some of the missionaries’ sons, and sent to them his respects. The old man had lost sight of his Buriat schoolfellows, and thought that not one of them became a Christian, though he afterwards remembered that one was baptized into the Russian Church. Besides this old Russian we saw the nephew of one who had been a pupil in the [320] school, and heard of an old man living some 35 versts distant, still a Buriat, who, as a boy, had been a scholar. We had the same testimony from both witnesses, that has been repeated by several travellers, that the missionaries did not baptize a single convert. None of them, however, said what I did not know until I returned to England, and spoke to Mr. Stallybrass upon the subject, namely, that the missionaries were under agreement with the Russian Government not to baptize any converts.⁠[3]

We continued our journey from Selenginsk for twelve hours more, through a country which gave me my first [321] experience of a Russian steppe, a tract of undulating land with a sandy soil, covered with a little grass and a reedy-looking herb, but suffering from a lack of humidity, as the tundra suffers from lack of warmth. Trees were visible only here and there, but water was abundant, sometimes in large lakes; so that the hilly roads, the expanse of water, and the treeless waste, reminded me sometimes of the scenery of our Wiltshire downs, and, in one or two places, of the English lakes. As we approached our destination the road became more and more sandy, and very heavy for the horses; but at last, on Monday, the 14th July, we reached Kiakhta.

Hospitable reception.—History of Kiakhta.—Treaties between Russians and Chinese.—Early trading.—Decline of commerce.—The tea trade.—Troitzkosavsk church.—Miraculous ikons.—Kiakhta church.—Russian churches in general.—Bells.—Valuable ikons.—Climate of Kiakhta.—Drive to Ust-Keran.

I have said in the previous chapter that we reached Kiakhta. It would have been more accurate to have said Troitzkosavsk, which is within sight of and may be called a suburb of Kiakhta, situated on the Siberian frontier. Here we were lodged, for by the terms of a treaty between Chinese and Russians, no officer or stranger may sleep in Kiakhta proper. On arriving, we learned, to our dismay, that there was no hotel or guest-house in either town. We therefore went to the office of the Ispravnik, and in his absence showed our documents, which served so far to establish our respectability, that we were told we might have accommodation at the police-station. For this offer of course we were grateful, but, before accepting it, we thought we would present some of our letters of introduction. One was addressed to Mr. Tokmakoff, a first-class merchant in the place; but he was away in Mongolia, and his wife and family were living at their summer house “in the country.” We had another letter, given me by Mr. Larsen, the telegraphist at Irkutsk, to Mr. [323] Koecher, the principal of the real or commercial school, who lived in one of the best houses of the town, and who, upon our presenting the letter, immediately pressed us to take up our abode with him. We were only too thankful to do so, and, after a fortnight’s inconveniences in sleeping, to find ourselves in quarters with proper and comfortable beds. Our host was living bachelor fashion, and was expecting to leave shortly for Petersburg; his wife had already preceded him. He spared no pains to make us comfortable, and, being thus settled, we had time to look about the place, which, on leaving England, had been the utmost bound to which my travelling imagination had carried me. The Mohammedans say, “See Mecca and expire”; the Italians, “See Naples and die”; and in somewhat of the same spirit I had fixed upon Kiakhta as the ultima thule of my Siberian wanderings: not that there is much that is remarkable in the physical aspect of the place, but from Kiakhta one walks out of Siberia into China and sees the blue hills of Mongolia. The town, moreover, has a history, and was the scene of a treaty between the two largest empires in the world.

So far back as the 17th century, trade was carried on, though not protected by Government, between the Siberians and their southern neighbours the Chinese.⁠[1]

[324]

But in 1692 a treaty was made at Nertchinsk, opening the way to regular and permanent commerce between the two countries, though subject to certain vexatious forms and restrictions. Subsequently Peter the Great, seeing the advantage of this treaty, desired that the privilege of trading with China, then confined to individuals, should be extended to caravans; and, the Emperor approving, the right of trading thus was appropriated as a monopoly by the Russian Crown.

So things went on till 1722, when, the Russians offending their celestial neighbours, the Chinese Emperor expelled all Muscovites from his dominions, and brought trading affairs to a standstill. Six years later the treaty of Kiakhta was concluded, which stipulated that a caravan of not more than 200 persons should visit Peking every three years, and that the subjects of each nation, though not allowed to cross the frontier with their wares, might dispose of them to each other at two places on the border—Kiakhta, and Tsurukhaitu on the Argun, about 60 miles from Nertchinsk. This led to the foundation of the town of Kiakhta; and as there were certain conditions in the treaty limiting the number of persons, and imposing various restrictions upon those who should live there, another town was built a mile off, and called Troitzkosavsk, in which these restrictions were evaded.⁠[2]

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The traveller of to-day does not see Kiakhta as it was in palmy times, though a considerable trade is still carried on between China and Eastern Siberia, and large consignments are sent to Nijni Novgorod and Moscow. The tradition is still kept up that the sea passage injures the flavour of the herb, and that caravan tea is the best, which commands, accordingly, prices up to ten shillings per pound. I have heard quite recently of “yellow” tea, which even at Kiakhta costs this sum, and which, brought overland, would probably command in Petersburg 16s. or 18s. per pound. One hears also in Russia of “blossom” tea, which consists of only the dried flowers of the tea plant, and of other choice growths, the best of which are not brought to England at all. There is one kind of yellow tea, I am told, costing as much as five guineas a pound. The Emperor of China is supposed to enjoy its monopoly. A friend of mine, who received a few pounds as a present, tells me she did not think it distinguishable from that sold at 5s. a pound. Blossom tea is well known throughout Russia, and is mixed in the proportion of two-ounces to one pound of ordinary tea.⁠[3]

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In addition to ordinary and superior sorts, the Russians import, chiefly for consumption by the military and native populations, immense quantities of tea pressed into the form of tablets, or bricks, each of which weighs about 2 lbs. These bricks are made of tea-dust mixed with a common coarse sort made of twigs, stalks, and tea refuse, the whole being first submitted for a minute to the action of steam and then pressed into a mould. Some say that bullocks’ or other blood is also mixed with brick tea, but I have not heard this corroborated. The tea-dust used for brick tea costs in China about 5d. per pound, the manufacture about 1½d. more, and the article bears a handsome profit. In 1878 the Russian manufacturers in China were said to have realized a profit of 75 per cent. This they cannot do, however, all the year round, for the making of the bricks goes on only from the middle of June to the end of September, during which season they work at it night and day.

Apart, however, from the trade which passes over the Siberian frontier, there is much in Kiakhta and Troitzkosavsk to interest the western traveller. Among other novelties are to be seen Mongolian cavalry dashing about the streets, the soldiers being known mainly by a piece of ribbon streaming from their hats. The united population of the two places amounts to nearly [327] 5,000, who are supplied with provisions by both Russians and Chinese. There may be seen coming from their farms and gardens numbers of peasant wagons, as well as clumsy Mongolian carts, the latter on wheels without spokes, formed of large wooden discs, which oxen cause to wabble along. Common vegetables are to be had in abundance. A large square in the centre of Troitzkosavsk is used for a corn and hay market, and is provided in Russian fashion with a huge pair of scales sanctioned by the authorities. Here the vendors of agricultural and garden produce assemble, and generally manage to get rid of their stock and garden produce early in the day. Young chickens cost 4d. each, lemons in winter 1s. a-piece, and occasionally even double that price, and Cognac brandy 9s. per bottle. Troitzkosavsk is also supplied with excellent fish, but we found it difficult to get good fruit. Besides the market square at Troitzkosavsk, there are two public gardens at Kiakhta, and also a cemetery.

We went to the small prison, and found it a poor affair. The police-master told us he had received a letter concerning our intended visit long before, and had been expecting us. Where the information came from he did not say; but it served to remind us again that, though more than 4,000 miles from the capital, we were not lost sight of. This was the last place at which I heard of our coming having been announced beforehand, though a general at Petersburg had told me that I might usually expect this; for how, said he, are the Governors to whom your letter is addressed to know that your document is not forged unless they are advised that a letter has been given [328] you? and then, to illustrate his remark, he said that, on one occasion, a man, dressed like a gendarme, presented himself at Irkutsk with a forged letter and got a prisoner released.

I may add to the foregoing that Kiakhta was the last, and almost the only, place other than Petersburg where symptoms of a disaffected or revolutionary spirit came under my notice; and this in the solitary instance, that when an educated man in the town was shown in an English newspaper a portrait of Vera Sassulitch, the would-be murderess of Trepoff, I heard that he admired and praised her. As for Nihilism, I heard, in crossing Russia, so little about it that I am ashamed to say I left the country with very vague ideas as to what it is. I am not sure that I know much about it now, but an Englishman who has spent a large portion of his life in Russia and Siberia tells me there are various kinds of Nihilists. The mildest type, if they can be called such, simply want free speech and a free press, as do, I am told, all the “Slavophils”; the next wish for a ministry responsible to the people; but both these classes (which are supposed to be numerous) think the time not yet come, and that they must wait for further enlightenment of the people. With this opinion my friend agreed, feeling sure that at present the educated Russian and the moujik would quarrel, he said, if one were dependent on the other. The third class are the “black” Nihilists, who want the dethronement of the reigning dynasty and a republic, and who are willing to adopt any means, even the most criminal, to gain their end.

Of all this and its like I heard next to nothing after leaving Petersburg; there, however, great excitement [329] prevailed. I arrived only a few days after one of the attempts on the late Emperor’s life, and a friend called to tell me they were at their wits’ end to know what to do. Turning back his coat collar, he showed me sewn thereon the certified badge of his calling, so placed that it might be ready to show the police, if required, at a moment’s notice. The English, he said, were strongly suspected, and he doubted whether he should be safe in affording me his usual protection and kindly services. He had told one of his Russian friends that I had arrived in the country for the purpose of distributing books and tracts, but the Russian did not believe that I could be come for such a charitable object, but thought I must be sent by the English Government. The rumours afloat respecting the English were both numerous and ridiculous. The authorities had not then succeeded in finding the press from which were issued the Nihilist placards and papers, and, as the ambassadors’ residences are privileged places, supposed to be closed against the police, it was affirmed that the secret press must be there. My friend told me he heard it said that “proclamations” against the Russian Government could be bought at the English Embassy for a rouble each. Another rumour said that the Russians were persuaded that the centre of the revolution was in the English Embassy, and that they had even thought of setting fire thereto, with the hope of securing, in the confusion, the revolutionary papers. I smiled on hearing this, and concluded that it could be only the most ignorant of the people who believed such puerilities, but on repeating it as a joke to a Russian fellow-traveller from Moscow, he said he quite believed that [330] the forbidden press was in the Ambassador’s house, and that the revolutionists obtained their money from the English Government. I heard, too, in Petersburg that it was thought by the lower orders that the Nihilists obtained a large portion of their funds from the “International” in England.

All this smoke and rumour, however, we left behind on quitting Moscow, and though we may perchance have been watched, I was never conscious of it. I mention this because as some were surprised at my going to Russia when in such a disturbed condition, so others may be curious to know how this disturbance affected me as a traveller; and though I am far from supposing that my very limited and isolated experience is worth much, or perhaps anything, in showing the political condition of Russia and Siberia at the time of my visit, yet I wish to convey the impression that Russian atrocities and inflamed horrors, as posted on placards and shouted by London newsboys, shrink into very much smaller dimensions when the scene of action is reached. Such at least has been my invariable experience, and to this I shall further allude hereafter.

They have also at Troitzkosavsk a church in which “a miracle” seemed about to be recognised during our sojourn; for, on the first night of our stay, after I had gone to bed, a woman came to the party of friends with whom I had left Mr. Interpreter, and told them that she could see a strange halo of light in the church, but whether caused by celestial radiance or angels’ wings she did not say. The party turned out, therefore, my interpreter included, and made for the church, into which they could not gain admittance, [331] and which was apparently empty, though they managed at last, by looking through a crevice or window, to descry a lamp burning before a glass ikon, which happened to slant at such an angle as dimly to reflect through the darkness the rays of light to the spot where they had been seen by the woman. This took away the sense of the miraculous, not altogether to the satisfaction of some of the party, who seemed to think “there was something in it.”⁠[4]

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The great ecclesiastical wonder of Kiakhta is its cathedral, said to be the finest in Eastern Siberia, and to have cost 1,400,000 roubles, equal at the time of building to at least £150,000. It was built at the expense of the Kiakhta merchants, and possesses some excellent bells.⁠[5]

In bells, the Russian Church is the richest in the world—so far, at least, as regards their size. The largest we have in England—that of Christ Church, [333] Oxford, weighing 7 tons—is but a baby compared with many in Russia. The largest in Petersburg weighs 23 tons; “Great John,” in the older capital, weighs 96 tons; whilst the old “Tsar Kolokol,” or the King of Bells, in Moscow, weighed originally nearly 200 tons, or 432,000 lbs. Reckoning their value at 18 silver roubles per pood, we get a price for our Oxford bell of £1,100; and for that of the largest one of Moscow of £32,000. This monster bell is 26 ft. high, and 67 ft. round!

It was neither its bells, however, nor its architecture that made Kiakhta cathedral “a fine church,” but rather its costly fittings. It has two altars, both of silver; a candlestick with numerous rubies and emeralds, and a large chandelier studded with precious stones. More striking still, perhaps, was the profusion of objects made of solid silver, such as the “royal doors,” which are said to weigh 2,000 lbs.; and, above all, the [334]ikonostasis of gold and glass, or crystal—the value of the last, no doubt, being considerably enhanced by the cost of carriage to so remote a spot. There were also several paintings, executed at great expense in Europe.

We mounted the tower, and from thence had a view of the surrounding country and of the three towns of Troitzkosavsk, Kiakhta, and the Chinese Maimatchin. On a slight elevation, about a mile to the north, at the head of an open sand-valley between two ranges of moderately high hills, lay Troitzkosavsk, with its 4,600 inhabitants, its school, houses, shops, Government buildings, and a number of persons and officials who could not strictly be called merchants. There is also a large building which formerly was the Custom House, where the duties on tea were collected.⁠[6] Below us was Kiakhta, with about 400 inhabitants, the abode of Russian mercantile aristocrats and their belongings, making a population, according to Hoppe’s Almanack, of about 5,000. The town lies snugly in a hollow, between hills of sand and fir-trees, well sheltered from northerly winds, and opening out southwards towards Mongolia. A small rivulet, called the Bura, runs through the hollow, and, turning westward to the sandy plain, makes its way at last into the Selenga. The country round looks sandy and dry, which is in keeping with the meteorological conditions of the place. Southerly winds prevail, and there is a deficiency of moisture in the atmosphere; hence they have only a slight fall during the year either of rain or of snow. So much is this the case that wheeled [335] vehicles are used all through the winter, and goods and travellers at that season are thus driven some miles out of Troitzkosavsk to the spot where snow begins, and sledges are usable. Kiakhta is about 2,500 feet above the sea level. The greatest cold in 1877 was in February, when the thermometer stood at 42° below zero; whilst the greatest heat that year, namely 100°·5, was in August.

On the first morning after our arrival, our host sent us in his carriage for a drive of 20 miles to Ust-Keran, the summer residence of Mr. Tokmakoff, where also we expected to find a fellow-countryman, who, we heard, was Professor of English in the gymnase at Troitzkosavsk. It was a fine day, and our horses dashed along over a wide extent of country, somewhat suggestive of Salisbury plain. We saw very few people, but, happening to meet a vehicle, we pulled up, and my interpreter, having descended, went to the carriage to know if we were taking the right road. He called to me that we were right for Madame Tokmakoff’s, upon which I shouted, “Ask him if the Englishman is there!” whereupon someone in the carriage replied, “I am the Englishman.” It was pleasant to hear this spoken in my native tongue, and I hastened to make the acquaintance of Mr. Frank M——, who was spending his vacation as tutor, and teaching English, in the very family to which we were going. He therefore turned back, and accompanied us to Madame Tokmakoff’s, by whom we were heartily welcomed, and where we were reminded of home by the sight of cricket-bats, stumps, and sundry other English things.

The great event of the afternoon was driving some miles further to a Buriat lamasery, or monastery, [336] inhabited by priests, for whom I had taken some Scriptures; but none of them spoke Russian, and as we could not well make them understand, I left the books with our friend to give when an interpreter could explain, and this little commission he kindly performed. I shall have occasion to speak of this lamasery hereafter. On our way we had to cross a river, the vehicle being put on a raft, and the horses swam through the stream—not considered extraordinary in these parts, for the same evening we saw a dozen horses returning from their work, and when they came to the river, they plunged in of their own accord, and swam across.

One of the men on the bank was very much puzzled to make me out, especially as I asked questions, and made notes of the replies. He seemed to think there might be “something up,” but said that “I wore no official clothes, and so he could not tell what sort of a ‘tchinovnik’ I was.” His suspicions, however, abated, and his vanity seemed tickled, when he was told that I had come from a very far country, that I was anxious to know about their manners and customs, and made notes of what I heard and saw to tell my countrymen on my return. After inspecting the monastery, we drove back to Kiakhta the same evening, having spent a particularly agreeable day.

Outlook into Mongolia.—Town of Maimatchin without women.—Visit to a Chinese merchant.—Refreshments.—Attendants.—Purchases.—Tea bricks for coin.—The town.—Buddhist temple.—Chinese malefactors.—Their punishments.—Chinese dinner.—Food.—Intoxicating drinks.—Route to Peking.—Travellers.—Modes of conveyance.—Manners of the desert.—Postal service.

As we stood on the top of Kiakhta church, we could see, as already observed, the three towns of Troitzkosavsk, Kiakhta, and Maimatchin. The former two were like other Siberian towns, but southwards there lay before us something decidedly new. Just over the border was a veritable Chinese town; then came a broad plain, covered with sand and herbage, with the horizon bounded by the hills of Mongolia, beyond which the imagination was left to picture its capital, Urga, and, further south, the great wall of China. Before continuing our journey eastwards, therefore, I shall describe our visit to Maimatchin, and offer a few observations upon the route over the Mongolian frontier to Peking.

Mai-ma-tchin signifies, in Chinese, “buy and sell,” and so is applied to this border town as a “a place of trade.” It has a population, we were told, of 3,000, and differs in one respect, at all events, from all the cities upon the face of the earth, in that the inhabitants [338] are all of the male sex. Not a woman is to be found in the town, a baby’s music is never heard there, and the streets are void of girls and boys. Not that the men, however, are all bachelors, for some of them have wives and families in China proper. Nor are they all woman-haters or henpecked husbands. We did indeed hear of one man, a British subject, who so far agreed with Solomon as to the undesirability of living with a brawling woman, even though it were in a wide house, that he had fled from his island home, and retired to a house-top in the wilds of Siberia, where he is living in prosperity, and whither his spouse has not pursued him. But the fact is, that among the curious arrangements of the Chinese at the time of their early treaties with the Russians, and in order that their celestial subjects might not become rooted to the soil, but consider themselves as sojourners only, they have forbidden that women should live in Maimatchin. Hence a paterfamilias of Maimatchin, if he wishes to visit his wife and children, must undertake a month’s journey across the desert on the back of a camel, and return by the same means; so that a few such journeys may well give wings to his desire speedily to make his fortune and return home.

We took the opportunity of paying an afternoon visit to Maimatchin on the first day of our arrival at Kiakhta, Mr. Koecher kindly accompanying us. After passing out of the wooden gate of Kiakhta we found ourselves on a piece of neutral ground, about 500 yards wide, between the two empires. On the south side is a palisade pierced for the principal gate, shielded from view by a high wooden screen some eight or ten paces from the wall. Behind this screen we entered Maimatchin, [339] and found ourselves in a new world. The town is built inside a strong wooden enclosure, about 400 yards square, with four or five mud-paved streets. They are regular, however, tolerably clean, and, for China, wide,—wide enough perhaps to allow of a London omnibus being driven through them. The houses are of one storey, built of unburnt bricks of mud and wood, and are thus solid and tidy, and are surrounded by courtyards. At the entrances are screens that shut out the river from the street, which are painted with diabolical-looking figures, to frighten away evil spirits. This represents, however, the houses of the well-to-do merchants. Towards the southern part of the town are the mean, windowless houses of the poor, which have little of the neatness and propriety of the above.

We were taken first to visit one of the Chinese merchants named Van-Tchan-Taï; and on entering his courtyard we found it surrounded by a number of doors, some entering the warehouses, the kitchen, out-houses, etc., and one leading to the shop and dwelling-place of the merchant. The door consisted of a suspended transparent screen, admitting the air, and yet keeping out flies and insects. The window-frames were ornamented and covered with paper. None looked into the street, but all into the courtyard. Inside the house were two compartments, an outer and an inner. In the outer chamber we were seated on a raised platform, or divan, which serves for a sleeping-place for the clerks and assistants by night, and for a dining-place by day, when the bedding and cushions are neatly rolled up and ornamentally arranged. This platform is heated by a flue beneath, and on the edge [340] in front is kept, always burning, a small charcoal fire, which serves for lighting pipes and heating grog. Round the wall hung illuminated texts, from the writings of Confucius, and various pictures, one of which we were told was a representation of the god of happiness. And a very stout personage he looked! But this is strictly in keeping with Chinese notions, for they delight to load their deities with collops of fat, prosperity and abundance of flesh in their eyes having great affinity. A number of little birds were in the room, not in cages, but on perches resembling those on which parrots are kept in England.

The merchant invited us to drink tea, and told us that the Chinese use this beverage without sugar or milk three times a day; namely, at rising, at noon, and at seven in the evening. They have substantial meals at nine in the morning and four in the afternoon. When they discovered I was English, they were curious to know all about us, making various inquiries, trying to imitate our words and sounds, even to laughing, and examining carefully such things as were shown them, as watches, pencils, and knives. We were no less curious to pry into their affairs, and learn of them all we could. The merchant employed 23 “clerks,” 18 in Maimatchin, and the remainder at a branch establishment in some other part of the world. We did not make out, however, whether this number included shop assistants, warehousemen, servants, cooks, etc., or whether it consisted only of actual writers. They seemed all dressed alike, from the master downwards; that is, in a suit of blue nankeen, and black skull caps. Suspended on the wall, and covered with paper to keep them from dust, were two or three white [341] straw hats, of depressed conical shape, with a horsehair tassel on the top, seemingly reserved for summer use or gala days. One of the attendants had a black dress edged with white, and on inquiry he was found to be the coachman in half mourning. Chinese full mourning must not be of silk, is all white, and worn 100 days after the death of a relative, during which time the head is not shaved. Black and white is afterwards worn for three years, one of its features being a small white ball on the top of the cap. As the servants stood about waiting on us, their discipline appeared to be very much of the patriarchal character; none seemed greater or less than another, except it were the chief clerk, who received, we found, about £30 a year; whilst the “boys” received from £5 and upwards, their food being in all cases provided. This chief clerk cultivated a straggling moustache, which is the privilege of all Chinese men after they arrive at 30 years of age. He had also very long nails, protruding, perhaps, half an inch, which evidently were considered beautiful. It is the custom of Chinese gentlemen and ladies to have long nails, that other persons may be aware of their rank in society, for with such impediments they could not labour. This senior also seemed fond of his pipe, which held just so much tobacco as enabled him to take five good strong whiffs only, and he then blew out of the pipe, with a peculiar noise, the remainder of the tobacco and ashes.

Whilst sipping our tea we proceeded to make purchases. The principal articles of Chinese export into Russia are teas, cottons, nankeens, silks, good satins, rhubarb, and many articles of curiosity and ingenuity. The exports from Siberia are generally furs. As we [342] sat in the merchant’s shop, it was a matter for conjecture as to where the merchandise was kept, for it was not visible. A number of articles, however, were brought forth from mysterious cupboards and drawers, and we heard that the Chinese allow as little of their property as possible to be seen by the authorities, lest they should be more highly taxed. So far, therefore, as appearances go in a Chinese shop, the American dealer’s window-notice would be eminently appropriate: “If you don’t see what you want, ask for it.” We did this, and found it successful. My first purchase was a piece of silk called Chin-chun-cha, supposed to be of sufficient measure for two suits of clothes. This silk is undyed, and washes and wears so well that it is a favourite material throughout Siberia for gentlemen’s summer suits, and sometimes for ladies’ dresses.

The Chinese are fond of having a couple of balls in the hand, at idle times, to roll and rub one over the other with the fingers, and so play with; for the same reason, probably, that the Turks like to have beads in the hand. Several of these balls were offered to me. One pair was of Chinese jade, which, on being rubbed together, emitted flashes of electric light. Gilt buttons, too, were shown as a rarity, but their marks betrayed that they came from Birmingham. We bought some embroidered purses of native workmanship, and cups and saucers. The saucers are of a lozenge-shape, and of metal, with an indentation fitted to receive the bottom of the cup, which has no handle. Hence, in drinking the tea, it was not necessary to finger the cup, but merely to hold the saucer and drink from the cup resting therein. Some of the drinking vessels were of wood, but lacquered and covered with a varnish which [343] made them quite capable of holding boiling water. Our most comical purchase, perhaps, was a pair of furred ear-pockets, connected by a piece of elastic, for use in frosty weather.

After taking refreshment, we looked about the house and yard, into the kitchen, which was clean enough, and into the warehouse, with its piles of chests of tea, and were amused to see them take a hollow iron auger, something like a large cheese taster, and drive this into the corner of a tea-chest to bring thereout a sample handful of the fragrant herb. I contented myself, however, with buying a brick of tea, as a greater curiosity. It measures about nine inches by six, and is three-quarters of an inch thick, and might better be called, as it once was in Germany, “tile” tea. This article was formerly used for coin in certain parts of Siberia, and is so still in Mongolia. The owner of a circus, since my visit, made his way through Kiakhta to Urga. The stud and its riders greatly delighted the Mongolians, who are excellent horsemen, and, as the proprietor accepted the “current coin of the realm,” his cashier’s office presented the unusual appearance of being filled to overflowing with bricks of tea! We had cause, therefore, for congratulation, that we had not to carry a quantity of this very inconvenient form of cash.

After leaving the house we wandered through the streets, examining the wares exposed for sale, like those we had seen on the Chinese stalls in the market-place of Troitzkosavsk, and the looking round at which, in both places, gave us much amusement. We found all sorts of Chinese knick-knacks; and the poorest attempts at cutlery, in the shape of knives, scissors, and razors, [344] that ever I saw. The razors bore a strong resemblance to miniature hatchets, and, on steaming across the Pacific, I observed that their use was not confined to men, for the Chinese women think so much of having the hair cut away smoothly from the back of the neck, that one female on board was seen thus acting the barber on behalf of her sister. Beads and hats were likewise exposed for sale, brushes and combs, pieces of flint and steel, and Buddhist rosaries; which last, evidently, were considered finely perfumed, but we thought the smell abominable. A piece of Chinese vanity we saw consisted of circular felt pads, highly dyed with rouge, with which the people rub, and so redden, their faces. Several of these curiosities we bought, bargaining for the price by signs, to the mutual amusement of buyers and salesmen.

We were taken to the Buddhist temple, the precincts of which appeared to comprise the houses of the governor (or, as he is called, the zurgutchay), and the chief priest; also a theatre, and something like a prison. In the court of the temple were placed two or three cannon, which are fired daily when the governor is going to sleep. The theatre, we found, was open only on fête days, and, if the report of travellers be true, the plays are sometimes grossly obscene. This, however, is only in keeping with the pictures seen in the houses, and sold openly in the streets, which are too licentious to bear description.

We saw in the court of the temple two malefactors, who had iron rings round their necks, attached to which were chains, about five feet long, with enormous links, and of great weight, weighing, I should judge, in all, upwards of 50 lbs. They had chains, too, upon [345] their hands and legs, and, being exceedingly dirty and ill clad, they looked somewhat ferocious. One of them had his chain coiled about his shoulders for more convenient carriage, and when he saw that I was curious he allowed it to drop towards the ground, showing me the full length of his punishment. I bought the man’s rosary for a souvenir. We saw, also, in Maimatchin, another kind of Chinese punishment, in the shape of a wooden collar, made of 6-inch plank, about 2½ feet square, and put about a man’s neck. It was said to be more than 100 lbs. in weight, and the unfortunate wearer was prevented by its size from putting his hand to his mouth. He used therefore, in feeding himself, a long wooden spoon, but he looked anything but comfortable. His accusation was written on the collar, setting forth his name and family, and he was to wear his collar night and day for a month, and that for fighting! but I am not clear whether it was for an ordinary pugilistic encounter, or for attempted violence to a superior.

As we walked about the streets it was plain that, though we were distinctly in the Chinese empire and not in Russia, yet that the people of the two border towns were on the most friendly footing. Chinese merchants visit the Russians freely, drink tea, smoke cigarettes, and chatter,—not “pigeon English,” but “pigeon Russian.” To this good feeling I presume it was that we were indebted for an invitation to dine, two days after, with the merchant upon whom we called. We were particularly anxious to do this; for to eat a Chinese dinner at Maimatchin had been one of the curious treats I had promised myself when thinking of pushing on so far as Kiakhta. At the [346] same time, Mr. Michie’s declaring that a Chinese dinner, to which Kiakhta merchants take their friends, was “a feast most Europeans would rather undergo the incipient stages of starvation than come within the smell of it,” had rather terrified me as to the horrors one might be expected to eat. I determined, however, to place bread on one side of my plate and water on the other, and then martyrise myself for the sake of gaining experience, to say nothing of showing myself a person of good breeding in Chinese eyes, by tasting everything; and I hoped that, if anything particularly nasty came into my mouth, it might be neutralized or speedily swallowed by the aid of a piece of bread or a draught of water. Things were not so bad, however, as I had feared, and we were none of us made ill. Calling on our way to dinner at Mr. Tokmakoff’s, I begged a small loaf of half-white bread; and, thus prepared, we presented ourselves at the house of Van Tchan Taï.

There were five in the party, which included Mr. Koecher, our Russian host; Mr. M——, our fellow-countryman; Mr. Interpreter; myself, and a Russian friend. We were shown first into the inner compartment, and seated on the divan, whilst they brought us tea, dried fruits, and confections, such as candied ginger, dried walnuts and Mandarin oranges, salted almonds, and sugared ditto, melon seeds, etc., etc. We then adjourned to the outer chamber, where the dinner was spread on a table. But what a table! It was just about three feet square, and on this were placed, as a commencement, no less than 10 dishes, besides our own plates. These dishes, or saucers, of meats were replaced to the number of 30. Further east I met a [347] man who told me that when he dined at Maimatchin they gave him 64 dishes! At this tiny table we were seated, and each was provided with a small saucer, three inches in diameter, half filled with dark-looking vinegar, into which we were supposed to dip everything before carrying it to the mouth. Of this I soon got tired, and began to eat things au naturel, that is as far as possible; but most of the courses were so disguised by confectionery and culinary art that we had to ask of almost every plate, What is this? Happily the plates were so exceedingly small that to taste of each did not seriously strain one’s eating powers; and by tasting first, and then asking what it was, all prejudice was taken away till it was too late to have any. But we discovered that among the dishes we had eaten were beans, garlic, a kind of sea-weed cooked like seakale, and a green kind also; likewise radishes cut in slices, swallows’ eggs boiled, and rissoles of meat; various sorts of marine vegetables, and, I think, birds’ nests. Towards the end of the feast appeared a samovar, but not like the Russian article of that name,—the difference resembling that between an “outside” and an “inside” Dublin car, of which an Irishman said that, with an outside car the wheels were inside, whereas with an inside car the wheels were outside. So with the Chinese samovar, the boiling part was exposed to view, and contained the soup, in which were small pieces of meat, vermicelli, and rice puddings, the size of tennis balls, for the eating of which they brought us chop-sticks—I suppose, that we might try our hands, for at the earlier part of the meal they had given us knives and forks. Chop-sticks are a pair of cylindrical rods, rather [348] longer, and not quite so thick as lead pencils, which are both held between the thumb and fingers of the right hand, and are used as tongs to take the food and carry it to the mouth—an operation by no means easy to the unpractised. Our host did not sit at table, or eat with us, but stood looking on, and giving orders to his boys or “clerks.” Each guest was provided with a tiny cup about an inch or a little more in diameter, and perhaps half an inch deep. Into this, at an early stage of the proceedings, was poured, from a diminutive kettle, hot mai-ga-lo, or Chinese brandy, tasting, it was said, somewhat like whisky. It is exceedingly strong, though not so potent as another kind of which we heard, called khanshin, and which not only makes a man intoxicated on the day he drinks it, but if he takes a glass of water only on the morrow, the intoxicating effect is repeated. When they came to pour me out brandy I declined, the propriety of which our host recognised at once; for when my friends told him I was a “lama,” or priest, he said that “their lamas were not allowed to drink brandy.” It was comforting, therefore, to find that we had at least one good thing in common.

Whilst we were in the house of Van Tchan Taï there came in a Mongolian lama, to whom I was introduced as an English lama. The Mongolian lamas do not confine themselves to spiritual functions; for this man was a contractor for the carriage of goods across the desert to and from China, which leads me to say something of this curious journey. The Kiakhta-Peking route was not that followed by the earliest embassies sent overland from Siberia, nor by Marco Polo in his marvellous travels in Tartary. In fact, it [349] is remarkable how very little has been known, until lately, concerning this part of Central Asia, and how little is known still.⁠[1]

After the building of Kiakhta and Maimatchin, the route across the desert was of course extensively used by the caravans, though I am not aware that it was followed by any Englishman or celebrated traveller till within the past quarter of a century.⁠[2]

There are six Englishmen, four of whom I have met, who, as well as some ladies, have travelled this Mongolian route within the past 18 years.⁠[3] The [350] traveller, however, who has given us the most solid and scientific information about the part of Mongolia of which we are speaking is the Russian Colonel Prejevalsky, who spent three years, beginning in 1870, by travelling first from Kiakhta to Peking, then turning northward to Manchuria, and afterwards following in the tracks of Huc not quite to Lhassa, but as far as the Blue River, or the Yang-tse-kiang; and then, turning back, did the most daring thing of all, crossing the desert of Gobi from Ala-shan to Urga and Kiakhta. This journey had never before been attempted by a European, and was accomplished in the height of summer, when sometimes the party could obtain neither pasture nor water.

The distance between Kiakhta and Peking is a thousand miles, and Europeans who wish to make the journey have the choice of two modes of conveyance, either by post-horses or by caravan camels engaged by special bargain with their owners. So, at least, says Colonel Prejevalsky, though Mr. Milne tells a different tale, for he had intended to cross Mongolia in company with a Russian officer by courier horses; but he found that, according to the agreement between the Russian and Chinese Governments, it was allowable [351] only for such couriers as were Russian subjects to take the horse road, and therefore he was obliged to go the ordinary caravan route by camels. He made an agreement with some Mongol carriers, that they were to take him from Kiakhta to Kalgan, near the great wall of China, in 30 days, for which he was to pay them £15. For every day less than thirty he was to pay ten shillings extra; for every day beyond that time they were to pay him ten shillings. There was also a clause that a tent, fire, and water should be supplied. The ordinary procedure of the caravan in winter is to be on the move till about seven or eight in the evening, and then stop for tea, and travel on till midnight or two in the morning. A halt is then made for sleep, and all start again by eight or ten. They eat in winter only once a day, and, according to Mr. Milne’s account, a winter journey across the desert is anything but comfortable. Mr. Michie, however, and Captain Shepherd, who travelled in milder weather, give a very different account, and speak in pleasant terms of a nomad life. It is so utterly different from any European experience of motion and living that, though it has several drawbacks—and a month is rather too long to be wholly agreeable—yet those who have passed through such a phase of travel look back upon it as a pleasant change from the humdrum life of a homeward voyage in a P. and O. steamer.

The pace at which the caravan proceeds is provokingly slow, and the jolting of the rude, clumsy camel-cart makes walking, for a great part of the day, preferable to driving; but there is game to be shot, and the solitude of the desert is now and then relieved [352] by arrivals at Mongolian yourts, or tents, where, conversation being the only form of newspaper they know, there is a general wagging of tongues, and a shower of questions to be asked. The Mongol’s one notion of wealth is the number of a man’s flocks and herds; and thus, if the Englishman is asked what he is worth, he has to translate his riches into thousands of sheep, horses, and bulls, and then explain his possessions. Again, the monotony of the way may be relieved occasionally by meeting with the Russian post.⁠[4]

The manners and customs of the Mongolians are, in many cases, exceedingly interesting, as taking one back to the habits of a nomadic and pastoral people. But it is not necessary to detail them here, as we shall have before us, in a subsequent chapter, the Buriats, who are a branch of the Mongolian race; and in treating of the one we shall be in many respects treating also of the other.

Farewell ceremonies.—Writing home of changed plans.—Caravans.—An iron foundry.—Buriat yemstchiks.—Methods of driving.—Salutations.—Insignificant post-stations.—Visit to a missionary to the Buriats.—Russian missions in Japan.—A remarkable meeting.—The Yablonoi mountains.—Chita.—Visit to the Governor and prison.

We had determined, after dining at Maimatchin, to continue our journey eastwards. Mr. Koecher, however, would not let us go without giving us a supplementary dinner; for the Chinese spread is looked upon as a matter of curiosity rather than of genuine gastronomy, and we did not expect to get another respectable meal for many hundreds of miles. After this supplementary dinner, therefore, we prepared to start. The hospitality and kindness of the Siberians to departing friends is unbounded; and, among other customs, they have one method of doing honour to a guest at a feast which is considered a mark of great respect. It is called the podkeedovate, and is done by seizing the unfortunate victim and laying him flat on the extended and clasped hands of two rows of guests, who toss him up and catch him. When Mr. Collins, their first American visitor, was at Kiakhta, they tossed him up in this manner to the ceiling, which he touched, palpably. In our own case, happily, we were spared this honour, and were dismissed with the repeated [354] shakings of the hand of which the Russians are so fond; provided, however, it be not over the threshold. Twice I found myself transgressing in this respect—once to an American, who had become half Russianized, and once to a Russian lady. Both of them smiled, and asked me to come right in before shaking hands. What superstition they have upon the subject I know not. Another Russian custom with departing friends is to drive alongside for a few miles, perhaps to the first post-station, and then take a last farewell. This our host did when we left Kiakhta on the evening of Wednesday, the 16th July, and we were then fairly started for a drive of 600 miles. We passed along the road by which we came as far as Verchne Udinsk, or, as I have called it, “the Amur and China junction.” Here we took the opportunity to post letters to England, to say that to return from hence would be to leave my work half done, and that we were going on to the Amur, from which Mr. Interpreter was to turn back, whilst I was to continue to the Pacific, and so reach home by completing the circle of the globe; and as I thought to finish the journey in person sooner than a letter would cross Asia and Europe, and I did not know what holes and corners I might get into, or how be detained, my friends were exhorted not to be alarmed if they heard nothing of me for many days. And the exhortation was needed, for I subsequently got into two places from which I could not stir, nor well communicate my whereabouts, so that, notwithstanding my warning, serious and anxious doubts were entertained for my safety.

Whilst travelling eastwards we had frequently met caravans of carts carrying tea. These caravans sometimes [355] reach to upwards of 100 horses; and, as they go at walking pace, and when they come to a river are taken over by ferry, it is not matter for surprise that merchandise should be three months in coming from Irkutsk to Moscow. In winter the rivers, of course, present no difficulty, and hence this season is on some accounts preferred for transport. The number of drivers required for a large convoy is not numerous, and they lighten their work by hanging a bundle of hay on the hinder part of every cart, so that a horse, if hungry, takes good care to keep up with his leader. As we proceeded, from Verchne Udinsk we met trains of two-wheeled carts with manufactured iron.⁠[1] There was one driver to every four or five carts, and this driver had a dormitory on one of his loads, consisting of a rude frame, two-and-a-half by six feet, with a covering of birch-bark, and under this, clad in a sheepskin coat, a man contrives to sleep for many an hour of the night and day. They usually travel about 16 hours (though not at a stretch) out of the 24, and in the summer graze their horses at the side of the road.

We had now left the great highway between China and Europe, and of this we were sternly reminded by [356] the amount of shaking to which we were forced to submit. Also we were introduced to a new set of yemstchiks; for most of our drivers now were Buriats, who tie up their horse’s mane like a horn between his ears, and who, like the Russians, have a wonderful knack of sending their horses along without harassing them, the driving being done by the voice and by threatening with the hand. Whip-cracking is unheard in Siberia, and the long, slender, snapping whips of Western Europe are unknown. The Siberian uses a short stock with a lash of hemp, leather, or other flexible substance, but having no snapper at its end. The Russian drivers talk a great deal to their horses, and the speech they use depends much upon the character and performance of the animals. Do they travel well? Then the driver calls them his “brothers,” his “doves,” his “beauties,” his “jewels.” On the contrary, an obstinate or lazy horse is called a variety of names the reverse of endearing. He may be called a sabaka, or dog, and his maternity disrespectfully ascribed to the race canine. Sometimes the driver rattles off his words as if the creatures understood all the praise he is giving them, after which, on proper occasion, he storms at and scolds them as the veriest hags and jades he ever drove. But I do not remember that this fashion of talking to the horses was so observable among the Buriats, though they drove exceedingly well.

These people have a curious method of salutation, as have several of the peoples with whom we were brought in contact. The Chinese, for instance, fold the hands together, and raise them up and down several times. The Mongols hold up their thumb [357] to salute, and to clench a bargain one places his hand on the sleeve of the other. The Buriats do much the same, whilst the Russians shake hands for everything, and if they are friends they also kiss.

As we drove along we saw abundance of black and white jackdaws; small birds, like a cross between a canary and a linnet; and, on the distant hills, flocks of sheep. Further south, I have been told, herds of camels are reared, for the sake of their wool, which in these parts grows to a considerable length. The post-stations we passed were far apart and poor, and the villages few. In these last live many Buriats, some Russians, and a few Jews. In one village we saw some very good-looking Jewish women, whom I saluted with a word or two of Hebrew. This, and the showing of our podorojna that we were English, attracted attention to us as strangers. Not long before, some Chinese ambassadors had passed the same way; and one yemstchik, hearing that we were foreigners, thought we too must be ambassadors, and inquired whether he should go and put on his best suit, from which, however, we excused him.

On the evening of the second day after leaving Verchne Udinsk, we reached Koordinska, where lives a Russian priest who is a missionary to the Buriats, and upon whom I wished to call, though, as it was getting towards midnight, I feared we might find the good man in bed. But it was “now or never,” and I therefore persisted in going to the house, notwithstanding the Buriat yemstchik’s remonstrances, which I afterwards thought, may have proceeded from the fear that he should be bewitched, or in some way influenced by the missionary, for I could not get him [358] to stop his horses within many yards of the house. The missionary did not appear at first particularly amiable on being visited at such an unusual hour; but, when he found that we had good books to give him, he began to change his demeanour, and readily imparted to us information respecting the progress of the mission, telling us that during the previous year 300 Buriats had been baptized east of the Baikal, and more than 1,000 on the west. He showed us, however, that he had already a sufficiency of the Buriat Scriptures—of the same edition, in fact, as those we were distributing—and he did not care to accept more, which rather led me to surmise, what was afterwards confirmed, that the amount of knowledge required by the Russian priests of their converts before baptism is very slender. I do not know either how far they press upon the Buriats the study of the Scriptures, or whether the Buriats are averse to the book. The old man at Selenginsk, Ivlampi Melnikoff, told us that many copies of the Scriptures were left in the hands of his father when the English missionaries took their departure, and that the Buriats would not receive them. They were therefore handed over to a Russian priest; but he was speaking of things as they were forty years ago.

When our missionary friend found that we were really interested in his work, he pressed us, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, to drink tea; but this we declined, as we could not keep the post-horses standing. He was very eager to tell us, before we went, that the Russians were carrying on a successful mission to the Japanese (the liturgy being sung in Russian style in the vernacular), under the directorship [359] of the Archimandrite Nicolai; and the missionary, dwelling in the Buriat wilderness, was considerably perturbed because someone in Japan had been writing a book, attempting to show that Confucius was greater than Jesus Christ; and as I said that I expected to pass through Japan, he begged that I would get a copy of the life of Confucius, and consult with the Archimandrite how the heretical book might be extinguished. This was the first I heard of the Archimandrite, but, on reaching Nikolaefsk, I found him exceedingly well spoken of by a Lieutenant Yakimoff, who gave me a letter to him to deliver on my arrival in Japan.⁠[2] Accordingly I hoped to see the said Archimandrite Nicolai, but, before I reached Yokohama, he had returned home to be consecrated bishop. I therefore thought no more of the matter till last autumn, when my hopes were singularly and unexpectedly fulfilled, whilst staying at Kieff on my way to the Caucasus. My companion and I were trying to find someone in the Pechersky monastery who could speak English or French. At last appeared with the [360] monks a tall man in a cassock, dressed like the others, save that his cassock was brown. He said he could speak English, and, after having taken us round to see the sights, he inquired of me where I was labouring in England, or, as he put it, “where I was in service.” I told him, and then asked where he was “in service.” “Oh,” said he, “very far off.” “Well,” I said, “where?” “In Japan,” he replied. “Then,” said I, “you must be the Father Nicolai, to whom I had a letter last year from Siberia, and who has lately been consecrated bishop.” And so it turned out, and thus we had casually fallen in each other’s way, thousands of miles from the place of our expected meeting. I dined with him, and we then parted, he to continue his return journey to Japan, whilst I pushed forward to Mount Ararat.

All this, however, was in the unknown future when we were talking to the Russian missionary at Koordinska, who regretted that our visit was so short, and whom we left to continue our journey all night to Chita. In doing so we traversed hilly roads, and on the following day had some extended views as we approached the Yablonoi, or Apple-tree Mountains. This range runs in a north-easterly direction, right through the Za-Baikal province; and when, after gradually rising from Verchne Udinsk, which is 1,500 feet, we reached the summit of the range, 4,000 feet above the sea, we were then about 20 miles from Chita. Before us a well-defined range of mountains bounded the horizon to the east, while to the north and south the valley stretched away for miles. We had a fine morning for the descent, and bounding along over a rolling prairie, where herds of cattle were [361] grazing, had a beautiful view as we approached the town. Moreover, we were at last on the eastern side of the great Altai chain, and consequently the rivers before us differed from all that we had yet seen in Siberia. All the others had been flowing northwards to be emptied into the Arctic Ocean, whereas in the river Chita, from the left, joining the Ingoda from the right, the current was flowing eastward, through a delightful valley, to find its way, 2,000 miles off, into the Pacific. We had before us now, in fact, one of the valleys of the head waters of the Amur, of which valley Baron Rosen says that it is remarkable for its flora, and is called the “garden of Siberia.”

Chita stands on the left bank of the Ingoda on a height, bounded on two sides by lofty mountains. To the north lies Lake Onon, on whose shores Genghis Khan, as he marched westwards, held his court of justice, and in whose waters he drowned the condemned. Below this point the Ingoda is navigable for boats and rafts. During the early years of the Amur occupation, much material was floated down from Chita. The town was founded in 1851, when it had a population of 2,600; now it has 3,000. Many of the houses are large and well fitted, and all are of wood. We found shops, at which, however, we had to pay 1s. a pound for loaf-sugar, and white bread cost just three times what we had paid for it at Tobolsk.

The Governor’s house was the best in the place, and there we presented our letters. His Excellency, M. Pedashenko, gave us a kind reception. I had met on the road, at a post-station, the father of Madame Pedashenko, and he had given me an introduction to his daughter; but Madame was unwell. The Governor, [362] however, spared no pains to do for us all he could. On learning that I wished to visit the penal colony and gold-mines of Kara, he telegraphed that arrangements might be made for my being conveyed thither; and after this we proceeded to inspect the prison in the town. Outside the building was a black cart, which might be placed in a similar category with our old-fashioned English stocks. Formerly prisoners were taken in this cart to the market-place, and there exposed as outlaws and felons—their accusation being carried on the breast, and a notification attached that they had “lost all their rights.” This punishment was said to be abolished now, but I heard of its having been used at Blagovestchensk as lately as the previous year.

The prison at Chita contained 169 prisoners, and cannot, I suppose, be that in which the 30 Decembrists were confined in 1826; for Baron Rosen speaks of Chita in his day as a little village of 300 people. At the time of our visit, they were expecting a new place of confinement to be built—not a day before it was wanted; for the Chita prison was apparently the oldest, and I thought it the poorest and dirtiest, we had seen. The prisoners, too, were shabbily clad, and dirty. One of them was reading a religious book lent him, I think he said, by the priest; but there was no prison library. Indeed, it was very rare to find one, though at Ekaterineburg we were told that a prisoner who wished to read might have a prayer-book. Several of the Chita prisoners were from Russia, and condemned to hard labour. There was a carpenters’ shop, in which some were forced to work, and others did so for their own pleasure. Speaking generally, those in [363] the building appeared to be enjoying an easy time; for the doors of the wards were open to allow their going in and out of the yard as they chose, and many were lying about sleeping in the sun. We were told that they found it difficult to sleep at night by reason of vermin, and so were sleeping instead by day. This illustrates a remark of Goryantchikoff in “Buried Alive,” to the effect that his prison was never free from fleas even in winter, and that in summer they increased. In the prison kitchen we saw them cutting up rhubarb leaves to put in the soup (fresh cabbage not being ready at the time of our visit), which reminds me of another remark of Goryantchikoff, who writes as if it were a normal thing with him to have black-beetles swimming in his soup. His remark about fleas I can readily believe; but by “black-beetles” I presume he refers to little brown insects, about half an inch long, called “Tarakans,” which swarm in the houses of the Siberian peasants. Happily, however, they are non-belligerent, and I was told by an Englishman that the people are not averse to them. Why they should daily walk into the copper to be boiled in Mr. Goryantchikoff’s soup, I know not; but one thing about prison soup I do know, that, in the irregular, uncomfortable (I was going to say half-starved) condition in which I have sometimes travelled in certain parts of Russia, I have more than once tasted prison soup, of which, but for appearance sake, I would fain have eaten, not a mere spoonful to give my opinion thereon, but a plateful to satisfy my appetite. I should not have chosen that, however, seasoned with rhubarb leaves.

Country of the Buriats.—Their physiognomy and costume.—Habitations.—Mongol yourts.—Hospitality.—Fuel.—Possessions in cattle.—Character of Buriats.—Their religions.—Buddhist Buriats.—The soul of Buddha.—The lamas.—Their celibacy, classification, employments, disabilities.—Buddhist doctrines.—A prayer cylinder.—Christian Buriats.—English missions.—Reports of English travellers.—Results of Russian missions.—Distribution of Buriat Scriptures.

Soon after leaving Verchne Udinsk, we entered upon the vast steppe which occupies a large portion of the Trans-Baikal. Here we found ourselves in the heart of the Buriats’ country. We first met with these people a few miles on the western side of Irkutsk, and their physiognomy at once told us they belonged to a different race from any we had seen. They have very large skulls, square faces, low and flat foreheads; the cheek-bones are high and wide apart, the nose flat, eyes elongated, the skin swarthy and yellowish, and the hair jet black. With the men the hair is allowed to grow upon the crown of the head, and is plaited into a queue that hangs down their backs. What remains is cut close, but not shaved, as with the Tatars. The head-dress of the women is exceedingly rich, and consists of silver, coral, polished beads of Ural malachite, and mother-of-pearl. They wear their hair in two thick braids, which fall from the [365] temples below the shoulders, and the unmarried girls interweave their braids with strings of coral. Several women had many silver ornaments hanging on their breasts, and in some cases a straight rod at the back of the head stuck out horizontally for several inches on either side, and to this the hair was tied. I was desirous to purchase one of these head-dresses for a curiosity, but they were not to be had at shops. The stones and metal are purchased, and made up by household skill. I was, however, somewhat taken aback on finding that their value frequently amounted to twenty or thirty [366] pounds sterling. At a post-station we asked a Buriat what he would take for his hat. To our surprise, he asked the modest price of fifteen roubles merely for the silver knob at the top. The Buriats are said to wear no linen, but a wealthy bride’s dowry sometimes consists of 40 cases of the richest furs.

As for their habitations, the Buriats are such inveterate dwellers in tents that though they are supposed now to be civilized where they come in contact with the Russians, yet they make a tent of the house by piercing a hole in the middle of the roof, and have the fire in the centre of the floor. When visiting Madame Tokmakoff, she had a Buriat man-servant, for whom a Russian house was provided, but in which he could not be happy until he had thus readjusted his dwelling. We entered a Buriat house at Cheelantoui, although only the woman was at home. There was within a rude wooden bench, on which we were invited to sit, and on it was lying a pair of coral ornaments for the head. These the woman, on our noticing them, immediately put on, and she then invited us to drink tea. To have declined would have been considered highly unpolite. Even among the Russians, a general pleasantly told me that he took a refusal to eat food in his house like a slap in the face. Moreover, we were anxious to stand well in the good graces of our Buriat hostess, for we wished to be admitted to the Buddhist temple, and she was the only person in the place through whom we could communicate in Russian with the lamas. But to see the tea served, and have to drink it, was no small trial. Over the fire hung a large open iron pot, full of a bubbling liquid covered with scum. In this was a ladle, which our fair hostess [367] filled and refilled, and emptied back into the pot. Then, scraping the scum away, she took a ladleful of the decoction, poured it into cups, and gave us to drink. We were told it was tea flavoured with salt. I only hope it was nothing worse, but it will hardly be thought matter for surprise if, after tasting it, I had an accident, upset the beverage, and declined a second cup. We had a good look, however, at the furniture of the dwelling, the most interesting item of which was a family altar, something like a small sideboard with drawers. On it were round bronze cups of liquor, and other offerings. There were also about the room some objects of ornamented metal, betokening clever workmanship.

This represents the Buriat in his civilized condition. One gets a better idea of his native habits and antecedents by going away from the haunts of the Russians, or even into the “land of grass,” as their Mongolian brothers call their desert. There they live in tents, which, like those of other Siberian aborigines, are constructed with poles meeting at the top, but covered with felt instead of deerskins. The hospitality of all Mongol tribes is unvarying. Every stranger is welcome, and has the best his host can give; and the more he consumes, the better will all be pleased. The staple dish of the Mongol yourt is boiled mutton, but it is unaccompanied with capers, or any other kind of sauce or seasoning. A sheep “goes to pot” immediately on being killed, and when the meat is cooked, it is lifted out of the hot water and handed, all dripping and steaming, to the guests. Each man takes a large lump on his lap, or any convenient support, and then cuts off little pieces, which he tosses into his mouth. The best piece is reserved for the guest of honour, and, as a mark [368] of special attention, is frequently put into his mouth by the greasy fingers of his host. After the meat is devoured, the broth is drunk, and this concludes the meal. Knives and cups are the only aids to eating, and as each man carries his own “outfit,” the dinner-cloth and service does not take long to arrange. The entire work consists in seating the party around a pot of cooked meat. The Buriats are famous at drinking brick tea, infusing with it rye meal, mutton fat, and salt obtained from the lakes of the steppe. I suspect it was this we had to taste at Cheelantoui. So important an article of food is this tea to the Buriats, that they sometimes lay by stores of it as money. In dry situations, this substance will remain a long time undeteriorated; and consequently on the steppe an accumulation of it is often thought a better investment than herds and flocks.

In the northern parts, the Buriats procure wood for fuel; but in the southern parts, and with the Mongols in the desert, this article is scarce, and they use instead sun-dried camels’ dung, which they call argols, from a Tatar word which signifies the droppings of animals when dried and prepared for fuel.⁠[1]

The Buriat implements for striking fire used to be preferred to European, and commanded a high price among the Russians. They are made of plates of the best tempered steel, from four to six inches long, [369] stitched to a bag for holding the tinder, the bag being of red leather, and tastefully ornamented with silver and steel spangles. The English and Swedish matches have now driven them out of the Russian market.

The ordinary occupation of the Buriats is that of tending cattle, the number of their herds reminding one of the flocks of the Hebrew patriarchs. Mr. Stallybrass told me that, when he was living at Selenginsk, he knew rich Buriats to possess as many as 6,000 or 7,000 sheep, 2,000 head of horned cattle, and 200 horses; and Captain Cochrane mentions the case of the mother of a Buriat chief who possessed 40,000 sheep, 10,000 horses, and 3,000 horned cattle, besides a large property in furs. In a sparsely-populated country, therefore, a man’s children are very useful in looking after his cattle; and since it is necessary to be constantly removing to fresh pastures, it will be understood that this state of things presented to the missionaries a double educational difficulty, namely, unwillingness on the part of the parents to lose their children’s services, and their constant change of residence. The same difficulty besets those still who would carry on missionary and educational work among other wandering tribes of Siberia. The Buriats, in 1876, numbered 260,000—the largest of the native populations of Eastern Siberia. As yemstchiks we thought them livelier than the Russians, and there was a manly [370] independence in their bearing, which easily accounted for the difficulty the Russians had at first in subjugating them. Moreover, they would seem not to be deficient in intellectual power, for the English missionaries taught some of them Latin, and had prepared an elementary work on geometry and trigonometry in the Buriat language. Baron Rosen also mentions that they play chess, having learnt it from the Chinese, and he says that the best player among his comrades, who were Russian officers, having on one occasion challenged a Buriat to a game, was beaten. The speech of the Buriats is a dialect of Mongol, rough and unsophisticated, with Manchu, Chinese, and Turkish corruptions. It is distinguished by its abundance of guttural and nasal sounds. Instead of true Mongolian letters they employ the Manchu alphabet, which is written in vertical columns from the top to the bottom of the page, the lines running from left to right. The only versions of the Scriptures in the Mongolian language are those of the Calmuck and Buriat dialects.

The religion of the Buriats is of three kinds: Shamanism, Buddhism, and Christianity. Shamanism, more or less like that of the other tribes of Siberia, would appear to have been their old religion; and it still lingers most, I presume, in the northern parts of their country, which are farthest from Buddhist influence. Buddhism, however, holds sway over by far the greater portion of the people, and was originally imported from Thibet.⁠[2]

[371]

The lamas, or priests, are treated with great reverence, and every Buddhist Buriat desires that one of his family should follow the priestly calling. Hence it comes to pass that the lamas compose a sixth—some say a fifth—of the population. When in full dress they are clothed in scarlet, and shave their heads all over, and their large ears standing off from the skull give them a curious appearance. They are supposed to observe the strictest celibacy; hence Mr. Michie observes that it is a tender point with a lama to be asked how his wife and family are; but Mr. Erman points out that their celibacy has the most prejudicial consequences. The use of spirits is forbidden to them, lest excess “should disorder the brain of the student of the divine oracles, and corrupt the heart by the bad passions it might engender.” The use of tobacco also is denied them, and that for one of the best of reasons against smoking, because “it is conducive to indolence, and tends to waste leisure hours which ought to be devoted to pursuits affording instruction as well as amusement.”⁠[3]

Besides their religious employments the lamas [372] engage in various branches of ordinary industry, especially in the manufacture of their own wearing apparel and their ecclesiastical furniture. A lama labours under one inconvenience, in that he is not allowed to kill anything, through fear that what he slaughters may contain the soul of a relative, or possibly that of the divine Buddha. Even when he is annoyed, says Mr. Knox, by fleas or similar creeping things, with which their bodies are often thickly populated, he must bear his infliction until patience is thoroughly exhausted. He may then call in an unsanctified friend, and place himself and his garments under thorough examination. So again, in connection with this difficulty about killing, Captain Shepherd relates an instance in which the lamas did their best to keep the law and yet evade it at the same time. The captain, in crossing the desert, had bought a sheep, and was somewhat in difficulty as to how the animal should be slaughtered. There were four in the party. The late owner was a lama, and could not take life; so was the guide; the captain was unwilling to turn butcher, and his Chinese servant did not know how. The captain would have shot the animal, but the owner protested. One of the lamas, therefore, took the sheep aside, threw it down, tied its legs, explained to the Chinaman the trick, and lent his own knife for the deed to be done, after which he turned and walked quickly to a distance. When the sheep was once killed, the lamas soon cut it up, had it cooked, and, of course, helped to eat it.

[373]

The Buddhist books teach the people that they will attain the highest wisdom if they honour the lama; that the sun itself rises only that honour may be rendered to the lamas; and that persons obtain pardon for the most enormous sins by showing them respect. Any offence against a lama annihilates the merit acquired by a thousand generations. Whosoever shows any contempt for these personages is said to be punished by accident, sickness, and all kinds of misfortunes, and so forth. One of their Siberian monasteries, or lamaseries, with a temple, is at Turgutu, midway between Verchne Udinsk and Chita; and I think I heard of schools there. I have said that we visited a lamasery at Cheelantoui. It was a small one, consisting of about half-a-dozen houses, one of which was the temple, where, if I mistake not, they worship daily at sunset, but into which, unfortunately, we could not enter, as the chief was absent. There were younger lamas present, some of them mere boys; but they either could not or would not understand us, and seemed afraid to grant favours. We saw, however, the praying machine. It consisted of an upright cylinder, from two to three feet high, and perhaps two feet in diameter. It was fixed on a pivot, and could be turned by a rope, to be pulled by the devotee, who secured by each revolution some thousands of invocations to Buddha. Sometimes these machines are turned by mechanical power, like a wind or water mill. This, of course, is easier, and as the quantity of prayer is more important than the quality, the latter method saves much trouble, and is popular.⁠[4]

[374]

The Buriats, who are Buddhists, have temples, ritual, an order of priests, and a considerable literature. With a religion so developed, it will not be difficult to account for its overcoming the older Shamanistic creed, nor will it be hard to understand what was told us by the Ispravnik of Selenginsk,—that of the two religions among the Buriats, with whom the Russian missionaries come in contact, they find the conversion of the Shaman Buriats tolerably easy, but the Buddhists are greatly opposed to Christianity.

We now come to that part of the Buriat people who are Christian. Perhaps it was an inquiry into the false religion of Buddha, under which so many millions of the human race are deluded, or perchance only a timid belief in the power of their own creed, that led our early travellers in Siberia, with one exception, to look coldly and unbelievingly on the efforts of the English mission to the Buriats; in connection with which the thought arises for how little the heathen world would have to thank the Christianity [375] of England, if there were not some who take a more believing view than the travellers who go abroad, looking in a superficial way at what is being done, or sometimes not looking at all, and then coming home to pronounce missions a failure or an imposture. Captain Cochrane, for instance, speaking of the missionaries at Selenginsk, goes so far as to say, “For my own part, so small are my hopes of their success, that I do not expect any one Buriat will be really and truly converted.”⁠[5]

I have shown, however, that the English missionaries laid a solid foundation, taught several scholars, and translated the Scriptures, which translation the Russian missionaries have in their hands to-day; and whatever may have been the success or failures of the English, it certainly cannot be said of the Russian missionaries that they have no converts, for, such as they are, they count them by thousands.

The Ispravnik at Selenginsk told me there were about 40 men engaged in nine districts in the Russian [376] mission to the Buriats, though I am not aware whether some of them are not also parish priests. We called upon a priest at Verchne Udinsk to ask about the matter, and sold him some New Testaments and Gospels. He informed us that there were 15 mission stations among them, and that on the eastern side of Lake Baikal there were baptized annually about 300 Buriats, and on the western side more than 1,000. This was confirmed by the missionary upon whom we called further on, and it agrees tolerably with the general almanack of 1878, in which it is stated that in the Irkutsk diocese there were baptized, in the previous year, 1,505 of both sexes, including four Buriat lamas; though the number of converts given for the Trans-Baikal diocese for that year amounted to only 52, there being one lama to every 20 persons.

We had brought with us a number of copies of the Buriat Scriptures. Some of these we left at Irkutsk, some with the Ispravniks of Selenginsk and Troitzkosavsk, and some for the lamasery of Cheelantoui. Others we left at Chita with a view to spreading them over the district, as well as placing them in the prisons. I asked the Ispravnik at Selenginsk what he thought the lamas would do with the books. He said he thought they would first read them and then destroy them; but Mr. Stallybrass, on my return, was of opinion that they were likely to be deterred from destroying them by a feeling that they were holy books. In any case we gave the copies we had brought, and thus endeavoured to do what little we could for this interesting people, who, I doubt not, will gradually be absorbed into the Russian Church.

The Za-Baikal a natural prison.—“Decembrists” of 1825.—Misapprehensions respecting political prisoners.—The story of Elizabeth.—Vindictive foreign writers.—Palpable misstatements.—Misleading information.—Dostoyeffsky’s “Buried Alive.”—Rosen’s “Russian Conspirators.”—Present condition of political prisoners.—Testimony of Poles.—Treatment of an attempted regicide.—The number of “politicals” exaggerated.—Calculations concerning them.—Their mode of transport.—Paucity of statistics accounted for.

The Trans-Baikal province, east of the “Holy Sea,” was, until within the past 30 years, a cul-de-sac, to which the gravest of political offenders were commonly deported. It lay outside the two great routes of Siberian travel. The traveller to the Pacific, by way of the Lena, left the province on his right; the merchant going to Kiakhta passed it on his left. There was, indeed, a road running through the province, but it might be said to lead to nowhere. It was, moreover, a country from which a prisoner found it difficult to escape. If he went to the north he came to enormous forests, in which, though he might find berries in summer, he could not live in winter. Southwards he was hemmed in by the Mongolian desert. The road eastwards brought him to a river, down which, if he could float 2,000 miles and escape the jealous Chinese, he might reach the Pacific; [378] or, again, if he turned to the west, and rounded or crossed the Baikal lake, he was likely to be caught in the neighbourhood of Irkutsk; and lastly, in whatever direction he went, there was a price on his head that could be claimed by any Buriat who chose to make him his prisoner, and bring him to the authorities either dead or alive.

There was also another reason, which, in the eyes of the Government, made the Za-Baikal a suitable place in which to confine the worst offenders; for the province is rich in silver and gold, and gems are found in its mountains. It provided a place, therefore, where they could segregate disturbing elements of society, exact enforced labour from their convicts, and to some extent mitigate the cost of keeping them by the value of the minerals obtained. Consequently “the silver-mines of Nertchinsk” has long been an expression, at the mention of which the ears of Russians tingle; and so it was with the prisons of Chita and Petrovski,—connected in their minds with political exiles, and especially with certain of them called “Decembrists,” who in December 1825 tried to raise revolt among the soldiers of Nicolas, and deprive him of his throne.

The mines of Nertchinsk and Kara will be treated of in subsequent chapters. I purpose to speak in this, not of political exiles with their families and descendants generally, but of the condition of political prisoners, past and present, and of certain buildings in which some of them have been confined. That there exists a great deal of exaggeration and misapprehension in England, on the Continent, and in America respecting the number, misery, and degradation of [379] Russian political prisoners I am persuaded; nor is this hard to account for if regard be had to the character of the books which profess to give information upon the subject.

Let us begin, for instance, with the touching story of “Elizabeth; or, the Exiles of Siberia,” by Madame de Cottin, to whose work many English persons are indebted for nearly all they know of Siberia. The book so far resembles the truth that, in 1799, a young girl of 18, the only daughter of a Russian exiled officer, Proscovie Lopouloff, formed the project of asking forgiveness for her parents, for which purpose she left Ischim, near Tobolsk, with a few roubles in her pocket, walked in 18 months 2,000 miles to the capital, was presented, and obtained her petition, the real account of which is told by Xavier de Maistre in “La Jeune Sibérienne.” But Madame de Cottin imported a love-match into the story, and produced one of the most popular books of her day, depicting, however, a narrative for which she had to rely largely upon her imagination for many details. She paints a picture of Siberian exile life very different from anything I ever heard, saw, or read of in the country itself. Her mistakes, however, were the mistakes such as any foreign author might easily commit in laying the scene of a story in a country then almost unknown.

Less excuse can be made for later writers (some of them escaped or released convicts), who, trading upon the credulity and ignorance of the public, have retailed and garnished accounts of horrible severities, which they neither profess to have witnessed, nor attempt to support by adequate testimony. In one of these [380] books, by Alexander Hertzen, published in 1855, the author naïvely says in the preface that, having written in London a work, entitled “Prison and Exile,” which met with success, he decided to write another volume. He accordingly did so, and had the audacity to call it “My Exile in Siberia”; whereas, on reading the book, we find that he was not exiled to Siberia at all, but simply banished for awhile to Perm, which is in Russia in Europe! Again we have, in De Lagny’s “Knout and the Russians,” published in 1854, a tirade against Russia all through, in which words bad enough can hardly be found to vilify its army, navy, nobility, and clergy; whilst in the following year was published “Recollections of Russia by a German Nobleman,” in which he states that, for prisoners, water was drawn up green from the filthiest canal in Petersburg; and, as if that were too little, he adds that, after being knouted, the prisoners had to drink their own blood!

The books quoted thus far are mostly foreign productions, which have been translated into English; but within the past three years has been published in London a book called “The Russians of To-day,” by the author of “The Member for Paris,” and dedicated to the Duke of Sutherland, which gives the following account of a Russian prison (page 86):—

“A Russian gaol is not built on any wasteful plan of keeping prisoners warm and comfortable. A black, mouldy house, situate in one of the slums of the town, it is guarded by a dozen corp-headed soldiers, and has a painted escutcheon with the Imperial double-headed eagle over the gate. There is a whipping-post in the [381] front yard. Thieves, murderers, boys, lunatics, women, are all huddled together in a room of foul stenches, warmed by a stove, and the only food served out to them is a pound of black bread in the morning, and a mess of rancid soup at mid-day. The sexes are separated at night.”

Now as there will appear to be a great difference between this account and what has been stated in my chapters on Siberian prisons, I think it only right to say that I have visited Russian houses of detention from the White Sea in the north to the Black Sea and the Persian frontier in the south, and from Warsaw in the west to the Pacific in the east, but have never yet seen a Russian prison such as fairly answers to the description given above. My experience would place prisons in the suburbs rather than the “slums” of towns; and as for their atmosphere, I may safely say that the air I breathed in the worst Russian prison was incomparably better than that I had temporarily to endure in some of the peasants’ houses, or which may be inhaled in many of the post-houses. The “one pound of black bread” should be multiplied by two and a half or three, and in some cases four; and as for “the whipping-post,” I have seen such a thing in English and in American prisons, but not in Russia. The “kobyla,” or “mare,” used in flogging with the “plète” in Siberia, will be described further on; and I do not deny that in Russia there may be some instrument to which those to be birched are fastened, but I have never seen one, though I have usually made a point of asking concerning the mode of corporal punishment.

Again, the same author says (page 217):—

[382]

“The convicts are forwarded to Siberia in convoys, which start at the commencement of spring, just after the snows have melted and left the ground dry. They perform the whole journey on foot, escorted by mounted Cossacks, who are armed with pistols, lances, and long whips; and behind them jolt a long string of springless tumbrils, to carry those who fall lame or ill on the way. The start is always made in the night, and care is taken that the convoys shall only pass through the towns on their road after dark. Each man is dressed in a grey kaftan, having a brass numbered plate fastened to the breast, knee boots, and a sheepskin bonnet. He carries a rug strapped to his back, a mess-tin, and a wooden spoon at his girdle. The women have black cloaks with hoods, and march in gangs by themselves, with an escort of soldiers like the men, and two or three female warders, who travel in carts.

“In leaving large cities like Petersburg, all the prisoners are chained with their hands behind their backs; but their fetters are removed outside the city, except in the case of men who have been marked as dangerous. These have to wear leg-chains of 4 lbs. weight all the way; and some of the more desperate ones are yoked by threes to a beam of wood, which rests on their shoulders, and is fastened to their necks by iron collars.”

The author then goes on to say that “Nihilist conspirators, patriotic Poles, and young student girls, are all mixed up, and tramp together with the criminals.”

The words I have italicised (of which there are 23 in 26 lines) involve, in many cases, palpable misstatements. In others they are blunders, or are, at all events, open to serious question. As in the case of [383] Madame de Cottin (only with less innocence), a very free rein has been here given to the imagination. The avoiding of towns by day, the brass plate on the breast (instead of a piece of yellow cloth on the back), the accompanying female warders, and the chaining of men’s hands behind their backs, are blunders utterly inexcusable; and as for the mounted Cossacks with whips, and the “beams of wood” on some of the exiles’ necks—if the Cossacks were mounted, they would naturally have whips as part of their accoutrements, as they do even when riding behind the carriage of the Emperor, but the “beam of wood” is a pure invention. I never saw, heard, or read of such an instrument. Upon these last two points, however, to correct my own opinion if wrong, I spoke to an Englishman living in a town through which pass all the Siberian exiles. He has lived there many years, and has seen exiles from Perm to Kiakhta, and under all conditions. He tells me, however, that he never saw this wooden collar, and never saw soldiers with whips to conduct exiles; and he added, further, that he had never witnessed them using exiles improperly or unfairly. Thus it will be seen that some of the information offered to the public respecting Russian exiles is open to more than suspicion of grave misrepresentation.

But there is yet a third class of books which, in detailing past horrors, leads public opinion astray, not so much by saying what is absolutely untrue, as by omitting to point out that since the horrors they relate were enacted, the law has been altered, and that they are now a thing of the past. Englishmen would think themselves very unfairly dealt with if a foreigner, having seen an old pair of stocks in an English village, appealed [384] to this as proof that persons are still exposed therein; or if he hunted up stories of Tyburn, with accounts of gibbeted felons hung, drawn, and quartered, or pilloried criminals with slit noses and cropped ears, and then represented this as the existing state of things, or left his readers so to infer. This would be very similar to the treatment Russia receives at the hands of prejudiced and careless writers now-a-days, as will be seen more fully hereafter when we speak of the mines.

To keep, however, for the present, to books about prisons, and to mention one more which has appeared in English dress during the present year—namely, Dostoyeffsky’s “Buried Alive; or, Ten Years’ Penal Servitude in Siberia,” to which I naturally turned with interest as it was written by a Russian. I was struck at the outset with the significant fact that the reader is not properly informed as to places and dates. The introduction sets forth that a certain Alexander Petrovitch Goryantchikoff died, after whose death there was found among his papers a bundle of manuscripts, which the editor, Feodor Dostoyeffsky, thought would interest the public. But scarcely a word is dropped to inform the reader when the events referred to took place, and he is left to form the very natural conclusion that he is reading of things as they now exist. My suspicions being aroused, I put on my best critical spectacles to discover, if possible, where the events happened, and when. The writer mentions having been in Tobolsk, and says that his prison was near the banks of the Irtish. Now there was, and perhaps is, a prison on the banks of the Irtish at Tara, the same from which Rufin Pietrowski made his escape; and at first I was disposed to think this was the place [385] of Goryantchikoff’s captivity, but two subsequent allusions gave me additional light: one, that in the prison was a Jew who went out in the town to a synagogue; and another, that on some prisoners running away the Governor-General was told of it. Now, assuming that the Governor-General was living in the town, then the only prison situate on the banks of the Irtish, in a town with a synagogue and the residence of a Governor-General, would be Omsk, and here accordingly I adjudged my man as to his place. Then as for the date. The writer speaks of prisoners’ chains made of “four iron rods, the size of the finger, connected by three rings and worn under the trousers.” I saw none like these. All we saw had small links, and hence I assumed that the chains described must have been of an old-fashioned pattern of former days, and I have since learnt that chains such as the man describes were seen on a prisoner going to the Caucasus in 1842. Next he speaks a good deal of flogging, and mentions the running of a prisoner down “the green lane,” that is, between two rows of soldiers, each of whom gave the culprit a stroke with a stick. But this method of punishment has long been abolished in Russia; and, finally, the writer, when speaking of his conversation with a fellow-prisoner, happens to use this sentence: “I explained to him Napoleon’s position, adding that he might, perhaps, some day become Emperor of the French.” Taking, therefore, these three data, that Napoleon became Emperor in 1851, that the flogging of the description mentioned was abolished not later than 1860, and the old pattern of the chains, I came to the conclusion that the story must represent events at [386] least 30 years old; and I have since heard that it was about as long ago the book appeared in Russia. Now, of course, the translation might not have sold so well had readers been informed that it treats of a state of things more than a quarter of a century old; yet, no doubt, so candid a statement would have prevented many from forming false opinions respecting the present state of Siberian prisons.⁠[1]

But Goryantchikoff’s, it should be remembered, is a picture of a convict prison for criminals, and not for political prisoners, who are treated as a class by themselves,—so much so that they are sent to Siberia, not usually walking, under the charge of Cossacks, but driving furiously under guard of gendarmes; and if [387] they need to lodge at an ordinary prison, they are kept in special rooms, and so jealously watched that frequently I was not allowed to approach the inspection hole so much as to look at them. It may be that when they reach their destination they have, in some cases, to work outdoors in company with criminals. I think I met one case of this at Kara, but even he, in the prison, was kept apart.

Probably the best, and, as far as I know, the only book in English which gives the description by an eye-witness of life in a political prison is “Russian Conspirators in Siberia,” by Baron R(osen). He relates his taking part in the attempt to incite the soldiers to revolt on the accession of Nicolas in 1825, and how he was condemned with 120 comrades, large numbers of whom were counts, barons, princes, and some of the very flower of the Russian nobility. About 30 were at once transported to Chita. There they remained until a new prison was built expressly to contain them all at Petrovski, near Verchne Udinsk, at which place are the ironworks already alluded to. In these two places of confinement the Baron spent six years. I do not remember that he ever speaks of one of his comrades being thrashed. The Russian law, even in those days, held exempt from corporal punishments every noble, not only during his trial, but after his condemnation. The wearing of chains was included among corporal punishments, and it was forbidden to put them on nobles going into exile; but the law appears to have been set aside in the case of some of the Decembrists. The Baron describes their labour as that of digging and grinding corn in hand-mills. One of their first occupations was to dig the foundations [388] for their new prison. “Every day,” the Baron writes, “except Sundays and holy days, the non-commissioned officer on guard entered early in the morning with the call of ‘Gentlemen, to work!’ In general we set out with songs on our lips and energy in our hearts; no constraint was used towards us.” He gives likewise a vivid picture of their amusements and their studies. Playing-cards they might have had through the warders, but they wisely passed their word to each other not to allow card-playing, in order to prevent any cause of unpleasantness or dissension. Chess was their sole amusement between the time of work and sleep, and they formed among themselves a company of singers, which cheered many a sad hour. Some of them endeavoured, by study, further to improve their minds. One learnt not only Latin and Greek, but also eight modern languages; and it says much for the high education of the prisoners that this proficient found an instructor in each of the languages among his comrades, one of whom was still living, not many years ago, at Petrovsky Zavod, and lent my informant several books from what was the Decembrist library. They had, too, a room in which they practised the piano, the flute, the flageolet, the violin, and guitar. The most touching part of the book, however, recounts the arrival of some of the prisoners’ wives. Every effort short of absolute denial had been employed to prevent these noble ladies from expatriating themselves. Their heroic determination wrung tears from the eyes of the officials who had in vain dissuaded them. These ladies were compelled to resign their titles, and were warned that they would not be permitted to return. Several of them, notwithstanding, [389] gave up all to be allowed to join their husbands, and in so doing covered their names with undying lustre in the annals of Russian history. They were allowed to live with or near their husbands, and several had children, two of whom—a lady and a gentleman—I have met in Europe. The Baron’s book nowhere stoops to invective or misrepresentation; on the contrary, he acknowledges “there was reason enough for our having been treated thus”; but at the same time he tells a sad story, which is all the more touching because told so calmly, of what he and his comrades suffered. He was at length allowed to return to his home in Esthonia, in 1839, after 14 years’ imprisonment and exile. About 500 non-commissioned officers and soldiers, I am told, were sent to Omsk and different places, where they were by far less well treated than their superior officers under whom they had rebelled.⁠[2]

I have thus spoken of the political or State prison at Petrovski, which, as far as I know, is the only building there has ever been in Siberia that could with propriety be called a State prison for political offenders. It was burnt down many years ago, and [390] has not been rebuilt. Of the prison at Chita, and the accommodation for political prisoners at Kara, mention will be made hereafter. Meanwhile it should be borne in mind we have been speaking of events which happened about half a century ago.

We now pass from the condition of political prisoners as they were to treat of political prisoners as they are. I shall speak of those with whom I was brought in contact and with whom I conversed, and will put the worst case first. It is that of a Pole, who was concerned in the insurrection of 1863, at which time he was a student for the Roman priesthood, and, under cover of his clerical garb, had busied himself in procuring arms and provisions for the Polish rebels. On the suppression of the insurrection he fled from the country, but was foolish enough to return, six years afterwards, by permission, he said, of the Emperor; and within three days was taken, and, without trial, sent to a prison at Oriel for a year. After this he was sent to Irkutsk, and there learned that he was condemned for eight years to the mines, at which he arrived in 1871, having been a year on the route from Tiumen. He had 20 Polish companion exiles, some of whom were in irons, though his clerical character saved him from this degradation. The Polish party travelled by themselves as far as Tobolsk, beyond which they were sometimes compelled to walk and lodge with criminal prisoners, who robbed my informant of 300 roubles, which his mother had sewn at the back of his coat collar. He complained that some of the prison officers were great despots; in illustration of which he stated how, whilst they were at Nijni Udinsk, some of the prisoners having escaped at [391] night, the governor of the jail procured rods from the neighbouring woods and birched the rest of them, I suppose on the ground of aiding and abetting the escape of the others. The 21 Poles, however, were not in the ward from which the escape was made, and this they urged, but apparently to no purpose, for the governor seemed to have been enraged beyond bounds, and in some cases to have used, not only rods, but the plète and clubs. My informant declared that of the 300 Russians and 21 Poles thus treated, 17 subsequently died, though he could not give me any satisfactory evidence as to how, after leaving the place, he got this information; but the affair must have been serious (though abnormal), for, on arriving at Irkutsk they presented a petition to the governor, an inquiry was instituted (especially as regards the Poles), and the violent prison official was telegraphed for, and himself incarcerated, though how punished my informant did not know. He also complained that one of his companions was badly treated on the road, being lame, and yet made to hurry along.

When, however, the Polish cleric arrived at the mines, he did not appear to have once worked in them, as the chief made him his cook, exchanged his prison allowance for five roubles a month, and fed and lodged him thus for six years, after which the remaining two years were remitted on the score of good conduct. He was afterwards located in a small village in the Za-Baikal, but had obtained permission to live elsewhere, and when I met him he was respectably dressed, and apparently earning a good livelihood. Thus my informant’s gravamina, as regarded himself, were not so heavy as it might have been feared. He said, indeed, [392] that four or five letters reached him at the mines, informing him that money was enclosed, which he never received.

He had more to say of the way in which some of his fellow-prisoners were treated, to which I shall allude when speaking hereafter of the mines.⁠[3]

I did, it is true, meet another Pole who complained, though I do not know whether he was a political or a criminal offender, but I have already referred to him and the information he gave me respecting the prison at Irkutsk. There was a third Pole, also a student, banished after the insurrection of 1863, whom we met in the streets of Atchinsk, who looked very gloomy, and spoke in a very dispirited and dissatisfied manner; but he was free, having his wife and children with him, and he named no one particular cause of complaint. Still, I have mentioned these cases fully, though they seem somewhat opposed to the opinion I have stated, that there exists a great deal of misapprehension respecting the number, misery, and degradation of Russian political prisoners.

The severest case of punishment of a political prisoner I met with was that of, I think, a Nihilist, at Kara, who had daily to go to work in the gold-mines; but, on returning, he had a room to himself, some of his own furniture, fittings, and books, one of which was on [393] political economy. His wife lived in the neighbourhood, and could see him lawfully, and bring him food at frequent intervals; and it was not difficult for her to see him unlawfully, for just in front of his window passed the public road, where she could stand and talk to him with ease.

I met in Siberia one political prisoner whose case was more surprising, perhaps, than any I have mentioned. It was that of a man who had been concerned in one of the attempts upon the life of the late Emperor. He was sentenced to the mines, and no doubt popular imagination pictured him chained, and tormented to within an inch of his life; whereas I found him confined indeed, but only to the neighbourhood, and dressed, if I remember rightly, in a tweed suit, looking highly presentable, and engaged in a way that I purposely avoid naming, but which did not necessitate the soiling of his fingers. Again, I had two opportunities of speaking to upper-class prisoners in French, which the authorities accompanying me did not understand; therefore these men had no reason to fear speaking out plainly. One was a political prisoner; concerning the other I am not sure; but I asked them both whether they had any cause of complaint in the prison regimen. The first said the only thing he thought unjust was that he was not allowed to smoke, which one of my exile informants deems incredible, since at Nertchinsk, when, for insubordination, they were deprived of meat, milk, and tea, for weeks, they were still allowed to smoke, as a supposed preventive against scurvy. The man, moreover, in the neighbouring cell—a fat man—a defaulting post-master, a drunkard and a gambler, who would have made an admirable Falstaff, [394] was smoking, and I should not wonder if by this time the grievance is mended. The second man, a doctor, said that he had been taken about from place to place, and did not know his destination, though he thought it would be Irkutsk, but that he had nothing to complain of.

Supposing, then, that these instances throw any light upon the misery and alleged degradation of political prisoners, I have yet to offer some remarks upon their supposed numbers—that is, the average number banished annually at the time of my visit—for I do not profess here to deal with those sent into exile after the Polish insurrection of 1863, with their families and descendants, nor of Nihilists deported since the assassination of the late Emperor. Mr. Whyte, in his “Land Journey from Asia to Europe,” says: “It is calculated that in Eastern Siberia alone there are at least from 30,000 to 40,000 Polish political exiles, but they are kept in different portions for fear of disturbances, a great many having to work in the mines.” Now let us suppose for the moment that these figures are something like the truth, then let us add to this calculation for Eastern Siberia, whither are banished the gravest offenders, at least twice as many for Western Siberia, whither are sent those losing particular rights only; and this will give, say, 120,000 Polish political exiles in the whole country. Let us further suppose that they represent the surviving total of 30 years’ deportations, not including, of course, their families and descendants. Then this gives a yearly influx to Siberia of 4,000 Polish political exiles! Now from statistics given me in Warsaw last autumn, taken from the report sent to the Emperor, it appeared that the [395] total number of Polish criminal prisoners sent to Siberia in the year I passed through (1879) was 898; and last year, up to September, the number, as I had it straight from the prison books, was 270. Supposing, then, the politicals to number one-tenth of the criminals (which I judge far too great a proportion), it would give less than one-fortieth of the numbers quoted by Mr. Whyte respecting Polish political exiles.

I base my opinion, however, mainly upon other calculations, such as these: the prisoners must sometimes be lodged, permanently or temporarily, as they go to their destinations. But it has been already stated that there is now no building in Siberia answering to a State prison, and further that political prisoners, when confined, are kept not only apart from criminals, but as far as possible from one another. I fail to see, then, where all these multitudes are to be properly lodged, as at Tiumen, for instance, whilst they wait for the arrival of the steamer, or at other prisons where they may have to stop, but in none of which we found more than a very few separate chambers—always less, I think, than 20. Again, another difficulty is presented by the possibilities of separate conveyance for so large a number. It is not very long since that 78 political exiles passed through Tiumen, a town where, in summer, from 500 to 700 criminals pass through weekly; but these 78 politicals excited such a commotion that there was a general “turn out” to look at them; and the manager of the steamboat was at his wits’ end to know how properly to convey them; for political prisoners are not now sent, I am informed, in the common prisoners’ barges. To give each man a cabin was impossible; to put two in a cabin was unlawful; and [396] so they compromised the matter by putting husbands and wives together. But, if a batch of 78 made all this commotion, what would the annual passing through of 4,000 politicals do?

Again, Kara, I was told, was a special place for political offenders, and I saw and heard of more there than in any other prison. They had, at the time of my visit, 2,458 prisoners of all sorts, all of whose crimes were given me duly tabulated, with the exception of 73, which came under the heading “various.” Now, supposing all these 73 were political offenders (and I have not the least reason for thinking they were, but) even then the proportion of politicals would be only one-thirtieth of the criminals.

Once more: a recent correspondent of the Gaulois for 30th September, 1881, describing the last occasion on which he saw the exiled Tchernichewsky at Kadaya, near Nertchinsk, just after the news had been received of the assassination of President Lincoln, says, “At this time the number of (Russian?) political prisoners was not great; they might easily be counted.... I believe there were not 20 of them; if mistaken, I may certainly affirm there were not 50.” This scrap of information has come to hand very opportunely, for I have reason to believe that it may be relied on, and Nertchinsk was the only other district for political prisoners concerning which, until a few days ago, I did not feel satisfactorily informed.

Lastly, the summer of 1879 was supposed to be a very heavy one for the transport of Nihilists and revolutionary offenders. It was just after one of the attempts on the late Emperor’s life, and Petersburg was put under a military governor. The Daily Telegraph, [397] on the 2nd June, informed its readers, as I have said before, that “a large number of convicts were about to be despatched to Saghalien from Odessa, the service which provides for the ordinary transportation of criminals to Siberia being already overtaxed.” We were therefore traversing Siberia at a time and under circumstances particularly favourable for knowing the real condition of things; and as we went along the only route by which these exiles could possibly travel to Eastern Siberia, it might have been expected that we should see or hear something of them. The numbers, however, with whom we were brought in contact on the outward journey could easily have been counted on our fingers; and if it should seem that, having started early in the season, we had travelled in advance of them, then my interpreter, who returned from the Amur, had the opportunity of meeting them, or hearing of them, as he went back. As a matter of fact, however, he met, between the Amur and the Urals, three special convoys only. The first contained one prisoner, who said he was going to Kara; the next consisted of seven vehicles, each of which contained a soldier on the box, and a gendarme at the side of the prisoner; and the third convoy consisted of 21 vehicles, each filled in like manner. Thus, excepting the 78, or the possible 73 just mentioned, the total number we met or definitely heard of all across Asia, both in going and returning, did not amount, I should think, to 50.

I write, then, under correction, and shall be glad to be set right if I am wrong; but I must now leave it to my readers to judge whether or not the considerations brought forward are such as to justify my opinion [398] respecting the number, degradation, and misery of political prisoners. I have few statistics on the point, from the fact that political offenders are treated as belonging to a special department, and are unconnected with the ordinary sources from which I obtained my figures. This I did not know until I had left European Russia, and hence my inability to give other than general reasons. My impression, therefore, is that the greater number of the political exiles either go to prison only for a short time, or not at all, and are then placed in villages and towns. They are then expected to get their living. (I have recently heard that, at the time of the burning of Krasnoiarsk, there were 40 living free in the town.)

This they do in a variety of ways. Some are teachers of languages, some are tradesmen, and some are photographers. We met, for instance, two exile photographers at Tobolsk. As strangers we had, of course, no means of identifying exiles from other people, though we were sometimes brought into contact with them, from the fact that many of the Poles speak French. Moreover, as the question of prison and exiles was, so to say, my speciality, I was always glad, when opportunity presented itself, to converse with them directly rather than get my information translated. A stranger, however, who believes every exile who calls himself a “political,” may easily be misled. To be a “political” prisoner in Siberia is to be more or less of a gentleman, and many try thus to pass themselves off. Mr. Ashton Dilke, M.P., who travelled some years ago in Southern Siberia, and spoke Russian, has told me that, on asking gangs of convicts if they had any politicals or “gentlemen” [399] prisoners among them, they usually said “No”; and that, in the case of one man who imposed upon him and tried to palm himself off as a “political,” the Governor showed Mr. Dilke the man’s papers, which described him as a criminal, a thief, etc.

In Irkutsk I met an exile who told me he was a captain, and had been banished for a duel, which no doubt he thought a respectable crime; but, upon my repeating it to others who knew the man, they said he was a forger. Looking, however, at the political prisoners I saw in the separate rooms of the various prisons, at those with whom I came into personal contact, those pointed out to me, and those of whom mention was made as living in the towns through which we passed, I think that, if I had been commissioned to give a sovereign to each, 50 coins would have sufficed for the purpose. It is not pretended, of course, that a lover of statistics can or ought to attempt to build anything definite upon this statement; but, until proof is brought to the contrary, it may perhaps tend to modify what I deem the exaggerated and extravagant notions as to the number of Siberian political prisoners, and to show at least that they are not as “plentiful as blackberries.”⁠[4]

The Trans-Baikal province.—Books deposited with Governor.—Specimen letter of consignment.—Prisons and hospitals.—Governor’s distribution of books.—Satisfactory results.—Journey from Chita.—Buriat Obos.—Russian emigrants.—Salutations.—Approach to Nertchinsk.—Its mineral treasures.

The Trans-Baikal province is bounded on the south and east by Chinese territory, on the west by Lake Baikal, and on the north by the province of Yakutsk. It measures 830 miles from east to west, and 460 miles from north to south; its entire area covering about 240,000 square miles. It is thus not quite so large as Austria.⁠[1]

Before leaving the capital, Chita, we deposited with the Governor enough books for his prisons and hospitals; and since this region was so important, from my point of view, in regard to its penal establishments, and our efforts, moreover, here met with such good [401] success, I shall give the substance of a letter which I wrote to the Governor (in French), and which is a fair specimen of similar letters written to the other Governors throughout Siberia:—

“To His Excellency the Governor of ——.

“Sir,—

“I have the honour to beg your acceptance of — boxes of books containing — large New Testaments, — small New Testaments, — Gospels, — Psalms, — New Testaments in French, German, Polish, Tatar, and Buriat, — copies of the Rooski Rabotchi, — wall-pictures, and — tracts. Will your Excellency do me the favour to accept them for the prisons, hospitals, poor-houses, and schools of the government of ——? I shall be thankful if the copies of the Rooski Rabotchi (Russian Workman) and the tracts may be given to the children in schools to be taken to their homes, and thus distributed as much as possible among the people. As for the books, I wish that they should remain in the rooms (not in the libraries) of the prisons, hospitals, etc. If the chief of each room may be made responsible for the books as for the other property of the prisons, etc., I shall be glad; but in any case I wish that the books may be had without asking for them from the library. I hope [402] with your assistance in the government of —— to place a New Testament or a copy of the Gospels in every room of every prison and hospital throughout Siberia; and I shall be very thankful if I may hear from you, at my English address, how the distribution has been made, because I shall probably send an account of my tour to the authorities at St. Petersburg.

“I have the honour to be, etc., etc., etc.”

The Governor of the Trans-Baikal province, M. Pedachenko, spoke of his four large hospitals and 10 smaller, or occasional hospitals. He told us also that he had in his government four permanent prisons, besides those at the mines, namely, at Nertchinsk, Troitzkosavsk, Verchne Udinsk, and Chita, the last three of which we saw. The number of prisoners was given us as about 150 each at Chita and Nertchinsk.⁠[2] M. Pedachenko was good enough to promise that a small shelf should be put up in each room (under the ikon I suggested), on which the books might rest when not in use; and this promise he carried out.⁠[3]

I have dwelt particularly on what we were able to distribute in the Za-Baikal for two reasons; first, because the letter of the Governor, together with our own [403] observations, give an insight into the number of prisons existing in this province, which of all others was that reserved for the worst of exiles; and, secondly, because [404] of the satisfaction it afforded me, when looking back upon the work as a whole, to feel that the Scriptures and other reading material had been deposited in these out-of-the-way places, especially those of Kara, Nertchinsk, and Algatche. Had nothing more been effected than this, and what I subsequently learned was done at Tiumen, these two results would have well repaid me for the journey.

Late on the afternoon of Monday, July 21st, the day of our arrival, we left Chita and proceeded towards Nertchinsk, a distance of 180 miles, where we intended to make our next stoppage. The road ran within sight of the river, and as the route was hilly we had pretty views. Some of the hills I measured as 400 feet above the level of the river, and my barometer, at the highest point, stood at 2,350 feet above the sea. The hills were rounded and well wooded, whilst the lower land resembled English downs. We saw some of the flora of which Baron Rosen speaks so admiringly, and among them a flower we had not noticed before, like blue larkspur. On both sides of the Yablonoi range are grown wheat, rye, oats, hemp, flax, potatoes, cabbage, turnips, lettuce, radishes, onions, spinach, and horseradish. In the valleys was abundance of grass, but few cattle to graze it. We saw also buckwheat and barley growing, but neither the fields under cultivation, nor the Russian inhabitants, were numerous, nor did we come in contact, after passing Chita, with many Buriats, though we inspected one of their sacred spots on a hill not far from that town. It consisted of a few rough stones piled together, with some dried branches of trees, on which were hung small flags and strips of calico, having inscribed on them verses in the [405] Thibetan or Mongolian language. We had passed several of these south of the Baikal, and the Russian drivers had usually told us that they were Buriats’ graves. Sometimes there were sweetmeats lying about, and copper money, which the Russian yemstchiks did not scruple to collect and pocket. Sometimes, too, we found horse-shoes strewn around, and almost invariably a quantity of tufts of horse-hair tied to the bushes, the appearance of the whole reminding one of the so-called holy wells to which the Romanists of Ireland make pilgrimage. The yemstchiks said that the flags painted with demons were to frighten devils away, and that the coins and sweets were given as offerings to their God; but that if a Buriat had nothing to give, he cut off a piece of his horse’s tail and tied it to the bush.

I noticed that these spots were usually on elevated ground, like the “high places” denounced by the Hebrew prophets, and after reading the travels of Huc, Erman, and Hill, I make no doubt that they were not Buriats’ graves at all, but the obos which are erected throughout Tartary, and at which the people worship the spirits of the mountains, a superstition of the Shamanist Buriats, which extends, at least partially, to other aboriginal tribes in Siberia.⁠[4]

As we passed along the road, we sometimes overtook companies of emigrants from Russia, or from other parts of Siberia, who were wandering further east. We [406] heard, at Barnaul, that peasants are encouraged thus to migrate. Also, we sometimes drove by labourers in the fields, which gave an opportunity to the passing yemstchik to salute them in Russian fashion: “Bogh pomotch,” “May God be your help,” to which the reply is, “Spasibo,” “Thank you,” or “Save you!” a very similar custom to that I have observed in the west of Ireland, where the car-driver accosts his brother Pat, digging potatoes, with a “Bal o’ ye airth,” “God bless the work,” or, more probably, it will be, “God and Mary bless the work,” to which Pat replies, “And you too.” They both remind one of the salutation of the Hebrew, Boaz, “The Lord be with you!” to which his reapers replied, “The Lord bless thee!”

I confess to having been sometimes tired of travelling so many days without being able to read; I managed to get through only two or three small works, for, notwithstanding my air-cushions and a paper-knife placed below the line I was looking at, the shaking of the tarantass rendered study almost impossible. After leaving Chita on Monday, we travelled all day and all night on Tuesday, and on Wednesday found ourselves approaching Nertchinsk, a town surrounded by a hilly district noted for its minerals. The mining region extends over a large area, and for a long period of years provided employment to vast numbers of convicts, as also for many Polish exiles after the insurrection of [407] 1863. The mines were worked under the supervision and direction of an able chief, with a numerous staff of officers; and many distinguished mineralogists here commenced their career. Up to the year 1847, silver and lead formed the principal products.⁠[5] Tin and zinc also, and the aqua marina are found in the neighbourhood of Nertchinsk, and 130 miles to the south is the mountain of Odon Tchelon, celebrated for its gems, including the topaz and emerald, which latter Mr. Erman speaks of as green, yellow, and blue. To these minerals must be added gold, which is found in large quantities in the bed of the Nertcha and its tributaries, besides iron, antimony, and arsenic. In Petersburg, I heard the gold-mines of Nertchinsk spoken of as “large and well worked”; but other reports went to show that the Government mines brought in little to the Crown; and we heard that most of them about Nertchinsk have been sold, so that mining affairs at the time of our visit were in a transition state.

The supposed quicksilver-mines.—Inadequate evidence of their existence.—Unsupported statements of writers.—Not known to Anglo-Siberians.—Silver-mines perhaps intended.—Deleterious fumes a myth.—Questionable allegations regarding silver-mines.—Misstatements exposed.—Testimonies of Collins and other eye-witnesses.—Accounts of ex-prisoners and Lutheran pastor.—Nertchinsk Zavod and work in the mines.—Condition of affairs in 1866.—Present state of things.—The Nemesis of exaggeration.

When crossing the Pacific I heard it remarked by an American clergyman that Mrs. Beecher Stowe, in her exaggerated account, as he thought it, of American slavery, showed great shrewdness in assigning to her story a locality that was very remote and unknown to most of her readers. A similar observation might be made in regard to not a few of the writers on Siberian exiles and their labours in the mines. How the idea first came into my mind I know not, but when in 1874 an Englishman, born in Russia, told me in Petersburg that the worst of Russian criminals were put down in quicksilver-mines in Siberia, where they were speedily killed by unhealthy fumes, it seemed to me like an item of news I had heard before. Since my return from Siberia the question has been frequently put to me, Did you go to the quicksilver-mines, where the exiles are so cruelly treated? Baron [409] Rosen also wrote, “Eight persons of the above-mentioned eleven criminal categories were dispatched at once to the quicksilver-mines of Nertchinsk; ... they worked for long years underground in the mines, like the other forced labourers.” Again, the Newcastle Daily Chronicle for 21st November, 1878, quoting, apparently, Captain Wiggins, says: “Desperate criminals only are sent to labour in the quicksilver-mines, and for these there is a specially severe discipline provided, and ‘horrors,’ without doubt, exist.” And I have somewhere read, if I mistake not, that in the vicinity of Nertchinsk was a quicksilver-mine, which for a time was worked, but that the loss of life entailed upon the convict labourers was so great as to cause it to be given up.

Now it is somewhat remarkable that I have been unable to learn that there is a quicksilver-mine in Siberia at all, or to get satisfactory proof that one ever existed. This may perhaps surprise my readers, but I proceed to explain myself thus:—The “English Cyclopædia,” under the article “Mercury,” mentions various places where this mineral is found, but says nothing of Siberia. Yet surely, if mines exist there, affording employment for numerous labourers, we ought to hear something of their output. Again, in “Ure’s Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines,” a standard book on mining (p. 120), we find a good deal concerning the mines of Siberia, of those in the Urals, the Altai, and Daouria (which last comprise those about Nertchinsk), but nothing is said of quicksilver-mines in any one of these regions.⁠[1] Again, Mr. Atkinson, [410] who spent several years in Asiatic Russia, went to the district of Nertchinsk, and had friends among the mining engineers, says: “Tin and zinc ores are found, but neither have as yet been much worked, and I am not aware of the existence of quicksilver, though it is said to be found in these regions.” Mr. Eden, in his valuable little compilation on Siberia, speaking of its mineralogy, says, “Quicksilver also is reported to exist in some of the north-eastern provinces”; but he gives no authority for the report, says nothing of its being worked, nor mentions the existence of it at Nertchinsk. I may further add that recently I have seen the Englishman whom I met at Kiakhta, and who since has twice passed through Nertchinsk. He asked particularly of an officer connected with the mines for one of quicksilver, and was told that, though there was said to be quicksilver in the neighbourhood, it was not worked.

To these testimonies I must add my own, that neither in the town of Nertchinsk, through which we passed, nor in the neighbourhood, nor indeed throughout Siberia, did we anywhere hear of a quicksilver-mine. The only testimony I have ever received in the opposite direction is that of a released political exile, who has told me that he once heard from some of his fellow-prisoners at Petrovsky Zavod, many miles distant, that there was a small quicksilver-mine at Nertchinsk, but so poor an affair that it was not [411] worked. Subsequently my informant was deported to four places in succession round about Nertchinsk, but he neither saw nor heard anything more of the said quicksilver-mine. Accordingly, on meeting, since my return, with an English acquaintance who has spent a large part of his life in Siberia, and who knows it well, I said to him, “You have heard, have you not, that there are quicksilver-mines in Siberia?” to which he replied in the affirmative, but he did not know where they existed; and when I asked him whether, if I took upon myself to say that there was no such thing as a quicksilver-mine in Siberia, he could contradict me, he thought awhile, and then was obliged to confess he could not. The Englishman from Kiakhta said the same; and my most recent informant, a released political exile, who spent some years in the mines about Nertchinsk, assures me to the same effect. In the face, therefore, of the prevalent notion to the contrary, and notwithstanding what little evidence I have been able to collect in their favour, I must express my grave doubts as to whether mercury has ever been worked, in any sense worthy of the term, by Russian convicts; and I shall further venture on the assertion that there does not exist a quicksilver-mine in Siberia at all.

But perhaps silver-mines were intended instead of “quicksilver,” in which case it should be observed that, if the quicksilver-mines have no existence, then the slow process of killing convicts by their fumes is a delusion. That working in quicksilver-mines is destructive to health is perfectly well known; but working in silver-mines is quite another matter. When at Barnaul, we heard nothing of any difficulty arising under this head in the working of the Altai silver-mines. [412] When in the Rocky Mountains, I heard from a Russian lady, who had been down the silver-mine near Virginia city, that the heat was very great, but she said nothing as to the air being otherwise objectionable. Mr. Collins, also, describing his descent of one of the Nertchinsk mines, the silver-mine of Zarentunskie, says: “We now passed along another drift, and found nothing unpleasant in this underground passage.” Moreover, the two released exiles, to whose information I have already alluded, have told me that they never perceived any objectionable fumes,—that, in fact, there were none.

But, apart from the supposed deadly fumes, there has been a great deal said and written respecting the Siberian mines in general, and those of Nertchinsk in particular, which my experience and reading lead me to question, not to say to contradict. The number of Englishmen who have visited the great mine of Nertchinsk is represented, I believe, solely by Captain Cochrane,⁠[2] and great changes have taken place since his day. In 1848, the Emperor Nicolas decided, with a view to carrying out his plans in the regions of the Amur, that the whole of the people in the Trans-Baikal should become Cossacks. Hitherto a large body of the population had been employed in mining operations, and Mr. Atkinson speaks of this sudden change as having closed the silver-mines of Nertchinsk; but I [413] suppose he means relatively, for the mines have been worked for many years since by convicts, and, if we are to believe all that is written on the subject, they are full of horrors to the present day. But I shall venture to examine a few of these writings which say so, and compare them with the statements of travellers and eye-witnesses. I shall offer, too, my own experience, and then leave the reader to judge respecting the truth of the whole.

The author of “The Russians of To-day” says (p. 216): “The miners are supposed to be the worst offenders, and their punishment is tantamount to death by slow torture; for it is certain to kill them in ten years, and ruins their health long before that time. If the convict have money or influential friends, he had better use the time between his sentence and transportation in buying a warrant which consigns him to the lighter kinds of labour above ground, otherwise he will inevitably be sent under earth, and never again see the sky until he is hauled up to die in an infirmary.” This was published in 1878, and I have italicised the doubtful or erroneous words.

Again, the Contemporary Review for September 1879, in an article on “Conspiracies in Russia,” says (p. 143): “Of the treatment of political exiles in Siberia, as it has been carried on for a long time past, I have before me a thrilling description from the pen of Mr. Robert Lemke, a German writer, who has visited the various penal establishments of Russia with an official legitimation. He had been to Tobolsk, after which he had to make a long, dreary journey in a wretched car, until a high mountain rose before him. In its torn and craggy flank the mountain showed a colossal opening [414] similar to the mouth of a burnt-out crater. Fetid vapours, which almost took away his breath, ascended from it.”

Mr. Lemke then walks down with a guide, and—

“Entering a room of considerable extent, but which was scarcely a man’s height, and which was dimly lit by an oil lamp, the visitor asked, ‘Where are we?’ ‘In the sleeping-room of the condemned! Formerly it was a gallery of the mine; now it serves as a shelter.’ The visitor shuddered. This subterranean sepulchre, lit by neither sun nor moon, was called a sleeping-room. Alcove-like cells were hewn into the rock; here, on a couch of damp, half-rotten straw, covered with a sackcloth, the unfortunate sufferers were to repose from the day’s work. Over each cell a cramp iron was fixed, wherewith to lock up the prisoners like ferocious dogs. No door, no window anywhere.

“Conducted through another passage, where a few lanterns were placed, and whose end was also barred by an iron gate, Mr. Lemke came to a large vault, partly lit. This was the mine. A deafening noise of pickaxes and hammers. Then he saw some hundreds of wretched figures, with shaggy beards, sickly faces, reddened eyelids, clad in tatters,—some of them barefoot, others in sandals, fettered with heavy foot-chains. No song, no whistling; now and then they shyly looked at the visitor and his companion.”

Mr. Lemke leaves the mine and speaks to one of the officers about the convicts’ rest. “Rest!” said the officer, “convicts must always labour. There is no rest for them; they are condemned to perpetual forced labour, and he who once enters the mine never leaves it!” And so on.⁠[3]

[415]

These remarkable extracts may be appropriately followed by reference to an article in the Echo for May 5th, 1881. It numbered 100 lines, and on reading it I had the curiosity to mark every line that appeared to me to contain a misstatement or a blunder. No less than 20 were marked; that is to say, one line in every five. The article is headed. “On the Road to Siberia.” The author begins by starting his pedestrian exiles on the march at the Sparrow Hills at Moscow, and in crossing Russia he gives them all sorts of difficulties by road to overcome; whereas I have shown, in an earlier chapter, that for years past the prisoners are taken by steam across Russia, and that the exile reaches the first prison in Siberia without walking at all. Then the author places his pedestrian exiles under the charge of mounted, long-speared guards, feeds them with bread and oil (which latter I never yet heard of in a Russian prison), and, what is more amusing, feeds the Cossack horses with the meal (whatever that may be) eaten by their masters. Then having got his exiles over the Ural, he says:—

“Beyond the Ural, however, with its simple industries and markets, the region becomes more barbarous; it is less relieved by the softening aspects of social life; the exile population, clad in sheepskins, thickens at every step; the cold grows so intense” [this, by-the-bye, in the “open season,” i.e. the summer], “that occasionally the Cossacks on guard are frozen, lance in hand; and the silver-mines are now not far distant,—immense caverns, illuminated by torches of pine, peopled by men with leaden-hued faces, caused by exhalations from the copper ore, in which the silver is found imbedded; inhabited too by women and children, [416] who share in the unhealthful labour, and contribute their quota to the terrible totals of mortality, living, dying, and being buried often far below the light of day.”

Now, when I read this, my first thought was to take Mr. Punch’s advice, and “write to the Times,” but I repressed my feelings till I could gather these extracts, italicise the questionable words, and then calmly place before the reader such remarks upon the matter as I have to offer. Let me, then, observe, in the first place, that neither of these three authors professes to write from personal experience. Had the writer in the Echo been to Siberia in the “open season,” he would not have frozen his mounted guard, lance in hand, but would have made him trudge on foot at the side of his convoy, sweating beneath the load of rifle and bayonet; and neither of the three writers, had they been to Siberia, would have been so vague with regard to its geography. The author of the “Russians of To-day” (p. 216) informs his readers that “Siberia is a territory covering about six times the area of England and Scotland!” Had he written sixty times he would have been not far from the mark; but—perhaps six was a printer’s error!

Again, the Contemporary writer says that Mr. Lemke “had been to Tobolsk, after which he had to make a long dreary journey until a high mountain was before him;” which sentence, though not expressly saying so, leaves one to infer that the mountain was at least in the vicinity, whereas the country about Tobolsk is flat, and there is no mountain answering to the writer’s description, where convicts are employed, within 2,000 miles. So, again, the writer for the Echo, almost [417] immediately after getting his exiles over the Urals, informs us that “the silver-mines are now not far distant,” which is hardly an exact way of speaking of 3,000 miles.

But I shall now proceed to give such personal information as I am able about Nertchinsk, prefacing what I have to say with words from Mr. Collins’s chapters describing his visit to the mines of the district. This, I think, should go far to satisfy an ordinary reader as to the quality of the miners’ food, clothing, and sleeping accommodation. “This [gold] mine was a convict establishment, like all the mines east of Lake Baikal. The men were well clad, and in visiting the hospital, prison, and quarters, I found the arrangements for their health and sleeping clean and comfortable. Cooks were preparing dinner for the prisoners. I tasted of the soup, bread, and kacha, or grits, made from buckwheat and milk, and found them good and well prepared. There were a number on the sick list, mostly those who had recently arrived, but they were in a warm, clean room, with clean beds and clothing, and with a separate kitchen, where proper diet was prepared for them.”

This was published in 1860. Before leaving Asia I had an opportunity of asking an American, who had visited the Nertchinsk mines, as to what he saw, but he told of no such barbarities as those quoted above. Again, I asked an Englishman living in Siberia about women working in the silver-mines, but he had never heard of such a thing, nor have I; and my second exile informant denies it; so that I trust the women and the children with “leaden-hued faces,” inhabiting the mines and “sharing in the unhealthful labour,” [418] exist only in the imagination of the writer for the Echo. Had the article said that there were women and children at the mines, it would have been less difficult to believe, because I found them at the gold-mines—the women employed in scrubbing, washing, or hard female labour, and their children taken care of, clothed and fed in a school; but this will be alluded to hereafter. Again, I met a naval officer, who had seen the coal-mines at Dui, in Sakhalin, and who spoke of the prison abuses there in no measured terms. He had visited the mines at Nertchinsk five years before we met, and had descended into one of them; but though he said the men looked sickly, and sometimes had to “go on all fours” to get the mineral (which, I suppose, all miners occasionally have to do), yet he had no barbarities of which to speak, and did not confirm any of the notions with which I entered the country, as to the prisoners being kept underground by night and by day. He said they worked twelve hours a day, six on and six off. I questioned, too, the chief of the gold-mines at Kara concerning the silver-mines at Nertchinsk, which are not far off. He denied that the prisoners were kept underground, and thought they worked in three sections of eight hours each.

I have three testimonies besides, not from prison officials, travellers, or amateur philanthropists, but from men, two of whom themselves worked in the mines of Nertchinsk; whilst the third, a Lutheran pastor, told me of what he had heard direct from prisoners at the mines, where it was his business periodically to visit. He said that old convicts at Nertchinsk and Kara had told him of Rozguildieff, a director, 20 years before, who gave them only 4 lbs. of bread a day, and who [419] used to go about with four Cossacks behind him, armed with the knout, to thrash those who did not do the prescribed quantity of work. He afterwards became blind. I have heard from another quarter that this man used sometimes to condemn his prisoners, not to so many stripes, but so many “lbs.” of the birch—to 10 or 15 lbs., for instance—which meant that the man should be flogged until a certain weight of rods had been used up. But a military officer was sent to inspect the mines, and Rozguildieff was removed; since which time the pastor said that all seemed going on well, and that he had heard no complaints of abuse. I have also heard of this Rozguildieff and his cruelty from a third person, who was at Petrovsky Zavod in 1866, with about 500 prisoners, many of them Polish insurgents. Another testimony respecting the mines is from a Pole whom I met, engaged as a clerk at one of the post-houses. He had been sent to Nertchinsk as a political prisoner, condemned to hard labour, but he said he was not compelled to work. Perhaps he had the good fortune to be taken as a servant, or employed as a clerk; this he did not explain, but he said that the officers were not cruel, and that of the prison treatment he had no complaint to make. He had, he said, 3 lbs. of bread, and ½ lb. of meat a day. He might write a letter every three months; and so well satisfied did he seem with his present lot, that he said if the Emperor were to allow his return to Poland he would certainly go; but if he were offered permission to return only to Russia, he would prefer to stay where he was. One reason for this, it has been suggested, might be that police supervision is more irksome in Russia than in Siberia.

[420]

The last testimony I would offer is perhaps the most satisfactory of all, because it came to me direct in English from one who, implicated in the Polish insurrection of 1863, was sent as a political exile to Nertchinsk, with several like offenders from the Russian and Polish aristocracy, he himself being a man who had received a university education. The accounts he gave me relate to the condition of things in 1866 and 1867. The principal centre of the mining district, he said, was called Nertchinsky Zavod, or Bolshoi Zavod, “the great works,” at which, however, the mines were abandoned before 1865, and the prison was afterwards used for a hospital. Round about were various mines, works, hospitals, and prisons, such as Kadaya, Akatuya, Klitchka, Alexandreffsky, Algatche (the last a smelting place), and some others. At Stretinsk and Sivakoff, on the Shilka, were ship-yards, where prisoners were employed. There would seem to be labour going on still at Nertchinsk and at Algatche, since, from the Governor’s letter to me, it appears that some of my books have been sent to these two places, and to the hospital at Stretinsk; but the greater part of the mines just mentioned have now passed out of Government into private hands. I am speaking, however, of things as they were in the time of my informant, who laboured at Kadaya, Akatuya, Alexandreffsky, and Nertchinsky Zavod. Kadaya was only two or three versts from the Chinese frontier,⁠[4] Alexandreffsky was about six versts from the frontier, and 35 from head-quarters. [421] At most of the places there were prisons built: at Alexandreffsky, of stone; at Kadaya, of wood; and at Akatuya, partly of wood and partly of stone. At Nertchinsky Zavod the prison was very old, and was empty. The commandant, General Chitoff, living there, he preferred to house the convicts at a convenient distance. At Alexandreffsky there were not less than 700 prisoners in three buildings. Of these, 30 or 40 were Russian political offenders; the remainder were Polish insurgents of 1863. At Akatuya there were 110 prisoners, 60 of whom were Polish priests, together with 22 other prisoners sent to join them for extra punishment.

Akatuya, by reason of its isolation and loneliness, was regarded as the worst place of all, there being no village around it. There was reported to have been a Tatar in this prison, before 1866, chained to the wall, but this was an exceptional case, and such things, it was said, were not done to the political prisoners, some of whom had friends who could bring influence to bear in their favour. My informant, being counted “noble,” was exempted from wearing chains during the journey, but on his arrival he had irons, he said, of 7 lbs. (Russian) on the feet, and the same weight on the hands. If so, these handcuffs must have been heavier than any I have seen in Russia or Siberia. There were sometimes cases in which criminal prisoners burst into fits of ferocity, and were guilty of such insubordination as to call for special punishment. At Sivakoff, for instance, he had known men suspended for a time by the armpits, but none were chained to barrows or [422] tools, as has been sometimes done. In the case of my informant himself, who insulted the Governor-General Korsakoff, and also joined others in a league to refuse to work on Sundays (the cruel and unjust regulation to this effect was enforced on these exiles in 1866), he, with many more, and for a considerable time, was put first on half rations, then deprived of meat, then of milk, and then was not permitted to lounge in the yard, but had to go straight from work to his ward. The priests had joined in this resistance to Sunday labour, and there were also Protestants and a Jew among the league. Some of the priests, however, were the first to give in, and all at length followed, so that they had afterwards only four holidays in the course of the year, though this was exclusive of bath-day, which recurred once a fortnight, and was a holiday as at Kara.

I asked as to the formation of the mines, and found that some of them had shafts and galleries; one shaft in particular, by reason of its construction, being dangerous to descend. In some cases it seems that the granite was dug from the side of a hill, and the work of the prisoners consisted largely of boring holes for blasting, which were charged with powder by Cossacks or labourers, and, in the absence of the prisoners, were fired. From an engineering point of view, the mines, as far as I could understand, were worked badly enough; and this agreed with what I had heard elsewhere. The mineral was brought to the surface in baskets, but they had no steam or horse-power. There were veins of silver, but often the galleries did not follow them, and the mines seemed to subserve the purpose of providing hard labour for malefactors, rather than [423] that of bringing gain to the Emperor. Whilst my informant was talking to me, he had in his hand some pins, and, holding up one of them, he said, “I did not see a piece of silver as big as that all the time I was at Akatuya.”

I inquired carefully respecting the hours of labour, and heard that in 1866 it was 13 hours a day, which agrees with the hours I found at Kara in the gold-mines. At noon they came out of the mines to dinner—unless, that is, a man had arranged his hours otherwise; for it seemed that so long as they did not worry the Cossacks or prevent their lounging about and smoking, the prisoners might do their allotted number of hours when they pleased. There was, moreover, no definite amount of mineral required of every man daily, and hence he might work hard or not, pretty much as he liked.

This, then, appears to have been the condition of things at Nertchinsk 15 years ago;⁠[5] and from what I heard in Siberia, matters since seem to have improved rather than otherwise, though it must not be supposed that the lot of the convicts is an easy one. I am far from attempting to make it appear so. No doubt the corporal punishment inflicted in many cases is very severe. I shall have more to say of this hereafter. The period of an exile’s life spent at the mines, before being set free to colonize, cannot but be hard. Whatever [424] laxity of discipline may prevail, as compared with the prisons of other countries, the herding together of the worst of characters, the deprivation of social, intellectual, and religious privileges, to speak of nothing else, must to many make life in the mines, from the nature of things, a burden. But this is very different from killing exiles by inches in quicksilver fumes, or keeping men, women, and children underground by night and by day, with insufficient clothing, food, and sleep. Such gross misstatements must in time be refuted, and the revulsion caused by their exposure often makes people too easily believe less severity than really exists. The treatment of prisoners necessarily depends greatly upon those who are set over them, and the study of human nature about us renders it quite needless to go to Siberia to discover that among prison officials there are both bad and good. That there have been instances of cruelty in the mines I do not doubt, but I believe far less have occurred than some writers would have us believe; and I trust that what has here been written may tend to throw some light upon a matter of which many are desirous to know the truth.

Nertchinsk.—Its climate and history.—Scene of a Russo-Chinese treaty.—Appearance of the town.—Visits to authorities.—Dinner with a rich merchant.—Siberian table customs.—Poverty of travelling fare.—Fine arts in Siberia.—Painting and photography.—Journey from Nertchinsk.

Before passing from Nertchinsk, a few words should be said respecting its history, and as at Nertchinsky Zavod, 2,230 feet above the sea, there is a meteorological observatory—its climate, also. Mr. Atkinson writes: “The climate is not so horrible as many have supposed, nor is the earth a perpetual mass of ice at a few feet below the surface, as I have seen it stated. The summers are not so long as in Europe, but they are very hot, and the country produces a magnificent flora. Both agriculture and horticulture are carried on successfully, and vegetables of almost every kind can be grown here. Tobacco is extensively cultivated, for which the people find a sale among the Buriats and Tunguses.”

Again, Baron Rosen, speaking of Chita, which is on the same parallel and within 200 miles of Nertchinsk, says: “The high situation of Chita considerably increases the cold in winter, but it is healthy, with a fresh bracing climate. The sky is almost always clear, excepting in August, when the thunder is incessant for [426] days together, and then follows a shower, beginning with enormously large single drops, which in a few hours floods all the roads; for the water falls rapidly down the slopes, digging deep trenches as it runs. The great electricity of the air is remarkable: the slightest movement of cloth or wool produces sparks or crackling. The rapidity of the vegetation is most extraordinary; for both corn and vegetables ripen within the five weeks in which the frosts cease, i.e., from the middle of June to the end of July. One of my comrades first introduced the growing of cucumbers in the open air, and melons in hot-beds.” And the Baron afterwards adds: “When I was chosen senior of the prison, I salted down in brandy casks 60,000 cucumbers out of our garden.” Whether the Baron is accurate in speaking of five weeks only during which there is no frost, seems doubtful. I observe in the meteorological report from Nertchinsky Zavod, that in 1877 the lowest temperature was, in June, 36°·8; in July, 47°·8; and in August, 41°. If, therefore, frost occurred in these months, it must have been ground-frost caused by radiation; which would not affect the crops. The lowest temperature of the year, which occurred in January, was 45°·5 below zero; the highest temperature, 95°·3, occurring in August.

It should be observed that the Trans-Baikal province has a climate almost peculiar to itself. From the north, the Polar Sea, immense tracts of swamp, lakes, and rivers supply the atmosphere with moisture, a great deal of which is precipitated, in passing southwards, over a region more than 1,000 miles in breadth; and as the clouds approach the Altai, in process of elevating themselves to pass the mountains, they part [427] with their last drops, which fall along the northern, southern, and eastern sides of the range. But this happens, of course, only when the prevailing winds are from the north. Upon the south there are few lakes or rivers; while the land in general is dry, and remote from the sea. The winter clouds from the Indian Ocean in the south, and the Caspian on the west, discharging themselves upon the mountains of Thibet and Bucharia, rarely pass the desert of Gobi. Accordingly, the winds blowing so regularly from this direction bring no water; and thus, rain clouds coming for the most part from the Pacific only, it comes to pass that the fall of rain and snow about Chita and Nertchinsk is exceedingly small, and the winter passenger, for lack of snow upon which to drive, has frequently in this region to mount his sledge on wheels.⁠[1] As summer travellers, however, we had no difficulties of this kind, and the absence of rain we regarded as a blessing. The weather was delightful, and I was looking forward, after passing a few more stations, to bid farewell to tarantass and horses, and by steamer to descend the Amur.

[428]

The town of Nertchinsk is one of the oldest in Eastern Siberia, having been founded in 1658. After about 10 years it began to rise into a place of importance, and 20 years later was the birthplace of a famous treaty between the Russians and the Chinese.⁠[2]

The question in dispute was the boundary of the two empires; the Russians first proposing, and the Chinese refusing, that the Amur should be the boundary; after which the Chinese proposed, and the Russians refused, that Albazin, Nertchinsk, and Selenginsk should be surrendered. After several conferences neither party showed a disposition to yield, and both prepared for battle; but this was averted, and a treaty was at length drawn up fixing the boundary between the empires, but by no means in accordance with Russian wishes, for they were completely shut out from the Amur.

After this, Nertchinsk remained for a long time the most easterly of the large towns in the Trans-Baikal region. The discovery of metals in the surrounding mountains increased its importance, and the continued arrival there of exiles, and the stories connected with them, caused the place to be only too well known—at least by name—throughout the empire.

[429]

The town is charmingly situated, 1,845 feet above the sea. The surrounding country is picturesque, and the soil rich. Hill, valley, river, mountain, all combine to make it an interesting spot, apart from its legendary and historic associations. Mr. Knox entered the town from the east, and speaks of the view as especially pleasing, because it was the first Russian town where he saw evidences of age and wealth. The domes of its churches glistened in the sunlight that had broken through the fog and warmed the tints of the whole picture! It struck me, however, very differently. The natural beauties of the place, of course, one could not but admire, but I had left behind the handsome cities of European Russia, and had passed through many cleanly and newly-built towns in Siberia, in comparison with which Nertchinsk struck me as being black with age and decay. There was a woebegone look about the place, and the streets seemed deplorably neglected. Many of the houses were falling to pieces, and gave the town a most untidy appearance.

We reached Nertchinsk on Wednesday morning, July 23rd, and made it our first business to seek the Ispravnik, from whom I wished to get general information respecting prisons and mines, and permission, [430] perhaps, to visit some of them within reasonable distance, though I hardly hoped to see the great mines, as I knew they were more than 100 miles away from the town, and if I attempted to reach them I should either miss the penal colony of Kara, or lose the steamer which was shortly to leave Stretinsk. We had thought it just possible, moreover, that the Ispravnik might provide some one who could speak English, French, or German, to accompany me to Stretinsk, and thus leave my interpreter free to return.

Nertchinsk formerly stood at the junction of the Nertcha, which flows from the north, and the Shilka. The repeated damage to the houses from floods caused its removal, though even on its present site the lower part of the town has been more than once under water. It was to this lower part we drove in search of the authorities, but the Ispravnik was away “in the country,” and his representative was asleep.

We went next to present a letter of introduction to Mr. Bootyn, of whom we had heard at the Alexandreffsky Central Prison, and subsequently at Irkutsk. On approaching his house, it proved to be not only the most remarkable in the town, but, I might add, the grandest we had seen in Siberia. The houses of Nertchinsk have already been alluded to as old, black, and rotten; but Mr. Bootyn is a merchant, miner, and millionaire, who has been to England and round the world, and he was building himself a house, in the construction of which were manifest sundry foreign ideas. It was a huge erection, part of which was executed in Byzantine and castellated styles; and the establishment comprised dwelling-houses, gardens, conservatories, and shops—all in one. The Mr. Bootyn [431] to whom our letter was addressed was from home, but we were received by his brother, and invited to dine in the verandah conservatory.

This gave us an insight into the social habits of another class of Russians, and I was now beginning to know pretty well what to expect when invited by a Siberian to dinner. Their hospitality is unbounded, though, of course, its manifestation differs according to the means of the host. Our first dinner in Siberia was at a merchant’s house, where brother-merchants in travelling put up, and hence it was called a hotel. We were asked if we would have our dinner in our own room, or en famille. I was rash enough to choose the latter, and we found ourselves seated at the table with mine host and a queer lot of male guests (there were no females), who appeared to be clerks or fellow-lodgers. We were first requested to help ourselves from a tureen, in the centre of the table, to stchee, or soup, on the top of which the fat floated like oil; and for the next course we had bones of veal, followed by game and sour berries. Our fellow-guests ate ravenously, tearing the bones to pieces with their teeth. Nothing was placed on the table to drink, but towards the close of the meal a glass of milk, as is common in Western Siberia, was given to each. The foregoing represents, I should think, the dinner of the well-to-do Siberian tradesman. There is nothing like display, and things are sometimes served in a rough fashion. If any one wishes to be brushed clean of over-fastidiousness in the arrangements of the table, I can conscientiously recommend a tour across Siberia. In one house where I was entertained—and entertained most kindly—the fish was brought in in the frying-pan, and [432] thus placed in the middle of the table, which, if it did not minister to the delights of the eye, gave us food admirably hot. On one occasion we dined with a teacher of languages in a classical school, and he gave us stchee, roast meat with sour wild cherries, then preserved maroshka berries and pudding. We dined in a similar fashion with a medical doctor, but fared more sumptuously in the house of a gold-seeker, where salt-spoons reminded us of England.

At Nertchinsk we had fallen on pleasant places. The number of plants and flowers (I had almost said shrubs) on the table went far to hide the guests from one another, but there was abundance of excellent food. Had we been bibbers of wine, there was no lack of the choicest vintages; but, upon our declining alcohol, we were offered some excellent cherry syrup, which, in so remote a region, was a great luxury. Further east, I was invited to dinner by the acting governor of a town, where the first course was provided, they said, for my special benefit. It was a salmon pie. Fish pie is a grand dish with peasants, and their betters too, throughout Russia. If well prepared it is excellent. The crust is not made with butter, but with yeast, as it is commonly eaten in Lent, when butter is forbidden. I dined most sumptuously, however, in Siberia, at Vladivostock, with the officers of a Russian man-of-war, at the house of the Governor. Here everything was served with the elegance and refinement of an English mansion; and the customs observed were much the same, except that the hostess (in the absence of her husband, the Governor) gave a toast standing, and left her seat to come round and do the honours by touching glasses with several of her [433] guests. Thus I saw something of the table customs of nearly all classes. Grace was sung before meals in the house of a devoutly orthodox general in Petersburg, and now and then I saw a peasant, before or after a meal, turn to the ikon and cross himself; but grace before meat did not appear to obtain as a custom in Siberia. I partook, too, of all sorts of Siberian food, from sumptuous dinners down to what was often very humble fare indeed. I think the best dinner we got at a post-station consisted of chicken soup, then the newly-killed chicken that made it, and pancakes. This, perhaps, was due in part to our not usually caring to wait until a meal could be cooked, and we could not always eat what the post-people had prepared for themselves, even when it was ready. Our provision basket, however, supplied us with a few relishes to bread and butter, and thus we made shift from town to town. I never travelled with anything like such bodily fatigue as during the drive across Siberia; and never, that I can remember, ate so little animal food during a corresponding period of time; but I have no hesitation in saying that my health was better after the journey than before it.

Before we left Mr. Bootyn’s, we were shown some of the best rooms in the house, elegantly furnished. In one of them was a fair collection of European paintings, some of which I recognized as Swiss scenes. I do not remember seeing any other paintings in Siberia worth naming, nor do I remember being shown any statuary. Both would, of course, be carried safely with difficulty over such immense distances and such uneven roads.

The Siberians are, however, by no means behind in photography. When preparing for my tour, I had [434] serious thoughts of taking with me a camera and dry plates, thinking thereby to secure some novel pictures, to the surprise, perhaps, of the people. It proved well that I attempted nothing of the kind, for much trouble was thereby saved to me, and instead of my astonishing the natives, I found that the natives astonished me. I visited parts of Siberia of which no English author has written, but discovered that photography had everywhere preceded me; and though there were many villages in which we could not procure white bread, there were few towns in which the same could be said of photographs.⁠[3]

In Siberia, some of the photographers are Polish exiles; some are Germans; one I met was a Frenchman, and another a Finn. Their landscapes are not particularly good, and their productions are dear. Landscapes of the size of views which may be purchased in Rome for sixpence cost in Siberia at least six shillings; and when, at Krasnoiarsk, our party went to be photographed, we paid for cabinet groups [435] at the rate of sixteen shillings the half-dozen copies. It should be remembered, however, that the demand is limited.

After taking leave of Mr. Bootyn, we prepared for a journey of 150 miles, which was to bring us to Stretinsk. The upper town of Nertchinsk is built at the end of a long sweeping prairie, exposed to all the winds that blow up through the valley, or down from the cold summits of the Yablonoi Mountains. We came towards night to a solitary house in the midst of the steppe, the poorest station we had seen. The outer roof was off, and the building divided into two compartments—one for travellers and the other for horses—the one being not much better than the other; whilst on the opposite side of the road was the only building in sight—a roofless shed. The only food to be obtained was black bread, salt, and water, and in this place it looked at first as if we should be compelled to stay; for they had not six—that is, two “pairs” of—horses; they had four; and I suggested that the difficulty should be overcome by putting two horses to each vehicle. But this they said was illegal, because their four horses would make only one “pair,” and these they were willing to attach to our tarantass, if we would pile on the rest of our boxes before and behind. By what mathematical process they explained this reasoning about pairs I have never yet fathomed, but we were only too thankful to get on at any price, and early next morning we drove into Stretinsk.

Arrival at Stretinsk.—Recorded distances from Petersburg.—Taking in a passenger.—Travelling allowance to officers.—Parting with interpreter.—Farewell to tarantass.—Starting to Kara.—The world before me.—Previous writers on the Amur.—Gliding down the Shilka.—Talking by signs.—My Cossack attendant.—Taking an oar.—How Russians sleep.—Arrival at Ust-Kara.

On reaching Stretinsk, we were on the same meridian as Nanking. We had been reminded of our increasing distance from Petersburg by the verst-posts which kept us company all the way. At every station, too, there is a post setting forth how many versts distant are Petersburg, Moscow, and the government towns on either side. The verst-posts recur at every two-thirds of an English mile. At the top they are shaped square, being so turned that the approaching traveller sees at a glance how many versts it is to the station which he has left, or to which he is journeying. When we entered Siberia at Tiumen, the distance was 2,543 versts from Petersburg; at Tomsk it increased to 4,052; at Krasnoiarsk to 4,606; and at Irkutsk to 5,611; whilst on arrival at Stretinsk it was almost 7,000 versts, or 4,600 miles.

It has already been stated that, after leaving Nertchinsk, the number of our horses was reduced. On reaching the last station but one, we had to take in a [437] passenger. We overtook an officer, his wife and family, whose acquaintance we had made in the Obi steamer, and whom we subsequently met several times on our journey eastward. His wife spoke French, and their three or four children were exceedingly well-behaved. We could not help pitying this party of six, all of whom were stowed away in a single tarantass, not much, if any, bigger than ours, which was not excessively large for two. One of the children, if I mistake not, was a baby, and if to the discomforts I have described as accompanying us two be added the crowding of all these children and an untold quantity of baggage into a single vehicle, then one may picture some of the difficulties with which Russian officers and their families travel in Siberia.

This party having arrived before us had secured one “pair” of horses, and the question arose as to whether the remaining pair should be given to us or to a telegraph officer, who had also arrived before us, but who was proceeding in our direction. He proposed that we should have the horses and take him carriage free, which, rather than wait, we were glad to do, and he thereby was able to pocket his travelling allowance.⁠[1]

[438]

On arriving at Stretinsk we found it a good-sized town, with hospital, sundry factories, barracks, and other buildings, befitting the chief port of the Upper Amur. We were reminded, however, of its distance from civilized centres almost before our horses stopped, for a youth rushed up to inquire whether our tarantass was for sale. They make no axletrees of iron in these parts, and hence, when a traveller arrives who has a tarantass thus furnished, he has a good chance, after having had the use of it all across the country, to sell it at Stretinsk for as much or more than it cost in Europe. White bread was at famine prices here, costing 6d. a lb.—five times as much as we paid at Tobolsk—because the American flour deposited at Nikolaefsk ascends the river a distance of nearly 2,000 miles, and the Russian flour, from Irkutsk, travels 900 miles by land. So between the two, delicate persons “brought up on white bread,” as the Russians say, fare badly.

We called first at the telegraph office, and presented a letter of introduction to Mr. Koch, who was ready at once to help, and from whom I learned that my coming had been announced to the Commandant, Colonel Merkasin, a worthy officer, of whom I heard a good account from a released political exile, who said that prisoners received much kindness at his hands, and that, if the colonel used their labour, he paid them fairly [439] for their work. We were favoured with his ready attention, and, on going to his house, found that the Governor of Chita, according to his promise, had requested him to make arrangements whereby I might visit the mines of Kara. They were 80 miles distant, and could be approached in summer by land only by a bridle-path. The other method was to row down the Shilka in an open boat.

But I was first to part with my interpreter, who was to return from this place, a day or two afterwards, in our poor old tarantass.⁠[2] Before parting, there were sundry arrangements to make, and various things to send back with him, instead of my taking them round the remainder of the globe; but some of these I never saw again, for at one of the stations Mr. Interpreter’s portmanteau was stolen, with my property in it. The only place at Stretinsk in which we could put up was a small building, dignified with the name of an hotel, consisting of a central chamber with a billiard table, and a room on either side—one set apart for women and the other for men. The sleeping accommodation [440] in the latter was a wooden seat running round the room—a very common arrangement still in many parts of Russia. They provided us food, however, and the place sufficed for unpacking and arranging our effects, of which I intended to take the light baggage with me, and leave my trunk, “hold-all,” and boxes of books to follow by the steamer.

I was anxious to get forward as quickly as possible, for it was already Thursday morning, the 24th of July, and on Sunday evening the steamer was due to pick me up at Ust-Kara, and take me to the Amur. The colonel spared no pains to make things go smoothly. He had provided a boat used by the police, which I was to keep all the way, and not change at every station. He had also provided a Cossack who was to be my guard, servant, and attendant, and whom I asked the colonel positively to order not to leave me till he had delivered me safe into the hands of Colonel Kononovitch, the Commandant at Kara. The colonel smiled at my request, and undertook to see that my luggage was properly put on board the steamer, as also did Mr. Koch; and then, bidding farewell to the officer and to Mr. Interpreter, I embarked at three o’clock to float down the waters of the Shilka.

And now the world was before me, and that in a sense in which it had never been before. I was not only a stranger in a strange land, but penetrating a region where no English author had preceded me;⁠[3] [441] but I was far from disliking my new position. The weather was delightful, save that I rather feared sunstroke, and would fain have had a cabbage-leaf to put in my hat. The colonel had recommended some other antidote, but it was rendered unnecessary by the rising of clouds, from which there fell a few drops of rain. The Cossack had provided two oarsmen, so that I had nothing to do but to lean back in the boat, and enjoy the delightful way in which we glided down the stream. It was so pleasant, too, to miss the dust of the road and the jolting of the tarantass!

I could ask no questions, from the simple fact that none of my crew spoke anything but Russ, of which I had hardly learned a dozen words. I purposely did not spend time in mastering even the elements of the language, thinking that I should have an interpreter with me all the way, and not supposing that I should have any further use for my smatter after leaving the country. Moreover, the Russian alphabet of 36 letters is different from others used in Europe, and is certainly not inviting. I had very commonly found, among the upper classes of Russians, that I could get on by some means in French, German, or English. The post-masters, [442] who happened to be Jews, spoke German; and when this triglot mode of communication failed, I took to signs and dumb show—not always, however, with entire success.

At Tomsk, for instance, while Mr. Interpreter was “blowing up” the officials for allowing us to be sent on the wrong road, I was peacefully engaged in ordering the samovar and preparing for tea at the post-house. I wanted some eggs, for which, even if I had learned it, I had quite forgotten the Russian word, “yaitsi.” The Russian who wanted an egg in England cleverly clucked like a hen, and was instantly understood; but this did not occur to me. I therefore walked into the back room, and, to the woman’s astonishment, peeped into the cupboards and drawers, and examined the shelves; but to no purpose. I then bethought me of my artistic acquirements, and, taking out a pencil, drew on the wall an oval the size of an egg, and bade the woman look at that; but she was too dense to catch my meaning. At this juncture her husband entered, and I appealed to his masculine intelligence by pointing to the oval on the wall; but he could not “see” it. A happy thought then struck me, and I remembered that I had in my provision-basket an egg-cup. I took him accordingly into the guest-room, and showed it in triumph. But the man mistook it for a brandy-glass, and said to his wife, “Oh! it is vodka he wants.” I had therefore to return to the charge, and took him into the yard, thinking to see a hen walking about; but they were gone to roost. So I pointed to a pigeon instead, but he perceived no connection between that and a hen’s egg; nor, on second thoughts, did I. At last I saw in a corner some broken egg-shells, and, picking them up, [443] showed them, and effected my object. Further east, I lost a pocket-book containing some of my most important documents, and was compelled to go through a very serious conversation all in dumb show; but this I must not anticipate.

On the Shilka I experienced no inconvenience through not knowing Russ; for, on arriving at the first station, the Cossack went off for fresh oarsmen, and I aired my dozen words in ordering the samovar, which important word, together with tarelka, a plate; chai, tea; voda, water; stakan, a glass; sakhar, sugar; khleb, bread; and maslo, butter, I had thoroughly mastered. It was no part of my duty, I suppose, to feed my Cossack; for I observed he had brought with him black bread, but of course I offered him tea and other fare, to which he took very kindly, even to preserved meat, though he fought shy of anchovy paste, which probably he had never seen before.

Tea over, we left our first station, 17 miles from Stretinsk, for station number two, 14 miles distant. But on this stage one of our oarsmen was old and feeble, and I had insisted (by signs and motions) that an extra hand should be hired, and that the Cossack should be allowed to rest, which he did by curling himself up in the prow of the boat and going to sleep. In this state of things darkness came on, and eight o’clock, nine o’clock, and ten o’clock passed, and still we made only slow progress. At last, in spite of the remonstrances of the men, I took an oar myself, pulled away lustily till I had a warm jacket, and at eleven o’clock we arrived at the post-house of Uktich.

On entering the room a practical illustration was afforded us of the Oriental custom, “Take up thy [444] bed and walk.” The people of the house, not expecting travellers, had occupied the guest-chamber,—one on the bedstead, another on the floor, and so on; but, upon my entering, they snatched up the rugs or cloths upon which they were lying, and decamped with alacrity. In crossing Siberia we rarely saw a genuine bed in the houses of the peasantry, and the people do not usually, I believe, undress before going to sleep.⁠[4]

Soon after five the next morning, I roused the Cossack, who had taken up his quarters on the floor of the guest-room, and by six we started for Botti and Shilkinsk, the third and fourth stations from Stretinsk; and, after sundry stoppages, at seven in the evening we finished our day’s pull of 44 miles, and reached Ust-Kara, where Colonel Kononovitch was awaiting my arrival.

Evil reputation of Kara.—Testimony from Siberians and exiles.—My own experience.—The Commandant.—Our evening drive.—Hospitable reception.—Statistics respecting prisoners, their crimes, sentences, and settlement as “exiles.”—The Amurski prison.—Cossack barracks.—The upper prison.—Convicts’ food.—Prisoners’ private laws.—Middle Kara prison.—Mohammedan forçats.—Sunday labour.—Convict clothing.—Guard-house.—A genuine political prisoner.—The church.—Lack of preaching.—House of the Commandant.

In the penal colony of Kara I found more than 2,000 convicts, and a few political prisoners, together with some of their wives and families, a military staff, and some peasants. The penal institutions of this place are not so old as those of Nertchinsk; but, like them, they inherit a bad reputation. Mr. Atkinson appears to have been the first author to bring the place under the notice of English readers, doing so in no favourable terms, though he does not profess to speak as an eye-witness. Before I left England I was told that, if I did not intend to go east of the Baikal, I should see nothing but what might be witnessed in the prisons of London, and that I should get no idea of the real horrors of Siberian exile. This was said by a man who had worked in the mines of Nertchinsk, and he urged me by all means to see Kara.

Again, when we reached Siberia, and were travelling [446] on the Obi, my interpreter conversed with an officer in the prison service, whom he told that I had come to Siberia for the purpose of seeing its prisons. The officer expressed his doubts (as numbers of my English friends had done before) as to whether I should succeed in getting at the real state of the convicts in the mines and prisons; and he further mentioned three places where they had to work specially hard, namely, Alexandreffsky and Nertchinsk (about which I have spoken), and the third was Kara.

We met further east a gentleman who told me that his brother-in-law, a colonel, had given him sad accounts of the dreadful state of some of the prisons in Eastern Siberia. I was introduced to the said colonel, but a lengthy inquiry was productive of little more, on his part, than general statements, and I obtained only five lines for my note-book, the gist of them being that, when I asked for the very worst places—those in which I should find most horrors—one of the four places mentioned was Kara.

It is curious to notice that, of the four persons who spoke against Kara, not one of them (so far as I know) ever went there; and, with regard to Nertchinsk also, it is observable that the language of ear-witnesses respecting its mines is far stronger than the language of eye-witnesses, or even of those who suffered as prisoners. But I need dwell no longer upon what others have said, and may proceed to write of what I saw at Kara, where I was, if I mistake not, the first English visitor.

It was towards evening when our boat reached Ust-Kara. Pacing the river’s bank was Colonel Kononovitch, the Commandant of the colony. I had been [447] delayed on the way, and he had been for some hours awaiting me, but a few words of explanation sufficed to make matters clear. My tongue, after an enforced silence of nearly 30 hours, was now released. We talked in French, and I soon discovered that I was addressing an officer of more than average intelligence. He took me into the police-master’s house for some light refreshment, and to leave my heavy baggage, and then suggested that we should start on a drive of eight miles, so as to reach our destination before dark.

Our way lay over a stony road, through a wild valley, which, in the shades of evening, had a weird and out-of-the-world appearance. The ridges of the hills were irregular, and partially covered with conifers, while lower were deciduous shrubs and trees, though not of considerable dimensions. Among the rank and tall herbage were some late flowers, and an orange tiger-lily, about two feet high, that was strange to me. After we had driven a few miles, we came to a détour in the route, where the colonel proposed that we should clamber up a bank, and walk down to the road on the other side. From this elevation the landscape appeared wilder than ever, and the place looked like a natural prison, from which escape was impossible. There was not a habitation to be seen, and the consciousness that we were in the neighbourhood of so many “unfortunates,” as they are called, gave me similar feelings to those with which I looked down on the forest-bound prison at Alexandreffsky.

As we drove along, and darkness crept on, there passed us labouring men returning from work, who saluted us. “Who,” said I, “are they?” “They are [448] convicts,” said the colonel. “Convicts!” said I; “how, then, are they loose?” “Oh,” said he, “a large proportion of the condemned—perhaps half—live out of the prisons in their houses en famille.⁠[1] But they ought not to be out after dark.” I then began to inquire respecting the crimes of the prisoners, and was informed that there were in the place about 800 murderers, 400 robbers, and 700 vagrants or “brodiagi”; and having been told what proportion of these were loose, I was not surprised to hear the colonel say that he usually avoided, if possible, being out at night. I approved his caution. Being very tired, moreover, and seeing that it was now dark, and that neither of us was armed, I was heartily glad to reach Middle Kara, the end of our drive.

Where I was to be quartered I did not know. There was no hotel in the place, or even a post-house, and I doubt if they could have offered me lodgings, as at Troitskosavsk, in the police-station. The commandant, however, had arranged everything for me, and I found that I was to occupy his own study. There he had prepared a neat, clean little bed; and as I looked around at the European comforts on the table, in the shape of writing materials and ornaments, it seemed like an arrival in the library of an English gentleman rather than the private bureau of the director of a penal colony.

[449]

I wanted to get a thorough rest against the morrow, for we had a stiff programme before us. Moreover, the last bed I had occupied was nearly 600 miles away; and, with the exception of two nights, I had not taken off my clothes to sleep for exactly a month. But the colonel insisted first on giving me food, of which my prominent recollection is that it was tastefully served, and consisted of delicacies that had been out of reach for many a day, with tinned fruits, including pears that had made their way from America up the Amur. When at last I undressed, and stretched my limbs between a pair of sheets, I felt on excellent terms with my surroundings in general, and the colonel in particular. He was a fine-looking man, with intellectual tastes and an intelligent forehead, and neither smoked, drank, nor played cards,—a trio of virtues by no means always found in a Siberian official. The room was clean and sweet; quietness reigned around; and, uninterrupted by the rumbling of the tarantass or the noise of a post-house, I was left to sleep in peace.

I had been asked overnight whether next morning I should like a bath. Of course I jumped at the offer, having been able to get such a luxury but twice in Siberia. Accordingly, on waking, the colonel brought me a Turkish dressing-gown and bade me follow him. I thought, perhaps, he would lead the way to a bath-room, instead of which he opened the front door and marched me down the middle of his garden to a summer bathing-shed. Here I splashed about, then returned to my toilet and to breakfast.

Of course I asked all sorts of questions about the convicts, or, as they are called, “forçats,” or katorjniki—prisoners condemned to forced labour. Their [450] number at Kara for four preceding years had been as follows:—

Their classification according to crime is important, as throwing some light on the number of political prisoners, for whom, I was told, Kara is a special place of deportation, and I have heard that it has become more so since my visit. The only class where they could be included was under the heading “various,” of whom there were 73; and this would suffice to include the politicals, respecting whose number I asked, and was told that it was 13 Russians and 28 Poles. I did not hear of any of the sects of dissenters in prison at Kara.⁠[3]

As regards the sentences of the convicts, they were all, I believe, condemned to hard labour, either of the fabric or the mines—one year of work in the mines [451] counting for a year and a half in the fabric. There were a few, chiefly “vagabonds,” sentenced to Kara for life; but for such grave offenders even as parricides, fratricides, etc., 20 years was the extreme limit of their terms. The convicts are able to shorten their time, to some extent, by good conduct, and are set free to live as colonists, or, as they are then technically called, “exiles,” or “poselenetsi.”⁠[4]

Not all of the forçats at Kara, as already observed, were in prison, nor were those in close confinement placed all in one building, but in six, distributed over a distance about 15 miles long. Thus we left one behind at Ust-Kara, another about midway between the river and Middle Kara. At Middle Kara were one or two prison buildings, and in the opposite direction from the river were two more, the High Prison and the Amurski Prison, which last was eight miles distant from the commandant’s house. To this last the colonel proposed to drive first, and then work back, taking the others in order; and this, after breakfast, we proceeded to do.

It was a beautiful morning when we started, and the [452] bright sun and the clear air gave a very different aspect to the valley from that of the preceding night. The dark hues of the conifers stood out well in contrast with foliage of lighter green, a stream was visible here and there, and immense forests bounded the horizon. We drove a pair of splendid horses that would have attracted attention in Rotten Row; and as we dashed along the road I perceived at its side wild currants and strawberries, raspberries, and wild peas, the apple, and the vine. The colonel pointed out a gold-mine as we proceeded, but I do not remember seeing any one there at work.

When we reached the Amurski prison, it proved to be a log building, of good pitch, and of a single storey. Most of the prisoners were out at work, but a few were engaged in whitewashing the rooms, which the colonel said was done at least four times a year. The wards were large sleeping-rooms, occupied for the greater part of the year only by night. There were no bedsteads, but a wide shelf, like that of a guard-room, ran round three of the walls; and on this they placed their large bags, for the making of which sacking was supplied to them, to serve the double purpose of clothes-bag and bed.

Near the prison were the summer barracks of a company of 150 Cossacks, a fourth of whom were replaced yearly. The barracks consisted of large canvas booths, with rows of beds arranged in the fashion of the summer hospitals. A school is provided in winter for the Cossacks, of whom rather more than a half read.

We next drove back to the Verchne (or upper) prison, a building much older than the one we had [453] left, having in the rooms an upper sleeping shelf resembling a loft, on which the prisoners sleeping would have the full benefit of the breathed air of their comrades below. The commandant saw this, and pointed out that it was an old and doomed building, and that in the new erections they were avoiding a repetition of the evil. In this prison were two solitary punishment cells, one of them being occupied on the morning of our visit for the first time in the colonel’s experience.

Some prisoners, it seemed, might receive money, and some not. There was in this prison a Jew to whom 150 roubles a year were sent by friends. His family were living outside. They might bring him food, and were allowed to pay him at least a weekly visit.

We went into the kitchen, and I looked attentively at the scale of diet hung on the wall as in prisons in England.⁠[5] The weight of the highest allowance in Siberia, as observed before, is far in excess (nearly double) of the highest English convicts’ allowance, though for non-working prisoners in Siberia an abatement must be made for fast-days. The annual cost of provisions for each prisoner at Kara is 65 roubles 72¾ kopecks, or say £6 10s. The soup appeared [454] somewhat roughly served in small wooden tubs or bowls, but I presume that the place is too distant to allow of crockeryware being easily procured. Every prisoner provided his own spoon. Knives, as in most prisons, were forbidden.

We saw, lounging about this building, two or three men who seemed to have very little to do. They were called “starostas,” that is, seniors or elders. Each ward of men in prison, and each gang of exiles on the march, chooses a starosta, who is their ruler and representative, the middle-man between them and the authorities. He receives the charities given them on the road, and pays and bribes the petty officers for little favours. He is, in fact, banker, purveyor, and general factotum to the body by whom he is elected. The authorities recognise this arrangement, exempt the starostas from labour, and through them deal with the prisoners rather than give their small orders direct. On behalf of the prisoners it is the starosta’s duty to befriend them, and see that they have the proper amount of food, and whatever else may be their due; whilst, on behalf of the authorities, should anything go wrong with the prisoners, the starosta is held responsible.⁠[6] The office, however, at Kara, notwithstanding its privileges and exemptions, is by no means coveted; and the men, rather than be unoccupied, though it be to rule, prefer to work and to serve.

[455]

In the prison at Middle Kara was a considerable number of Tatars. Why they were unoccupied I know not, unless it happened to be a bath-day, which is a holiday, and recurs twice a month; or, again, it may have been one of the Mohammedan festivals, some of the greater of which they are allowed to observe, though not the Friday in every week. Nor are the Jewish prisoners allowed to rest on their Sabbath, nor Christians on the Sunday. It might possibly be argued, in justification of this, that Sunday is not usually observed at any of the Siberian gold-mines; but, however that may be, I thought this robbing the hard-labour prisoners of their day of rest the most cruel and unjust thing in their lot. A greater than a Russian Tsar gave to man the Sabbath, and to take it away from him is, to my mind, nothing less than a sin and a shame.⁠[7]

Near the prison at Middle Kara was a storehouse, to which we mounted by a flight of outside steps. It contained a quantity of material for prisoners’ clothing—coarse linen for shirts and summer trousers, felt for coats, and leather for shoes and gloves; also a number of made-up garments. A pair of summer shoes or slippers was valued at 3s., and a coat of felt at 12s. A pair of gloves, such as the prisoners use in the mines, was given me as a keepsake. I have added them to [456] my prison curiosities, collected in various parts of the world, comprising fetters, whip, handcuffs, specimens of prison labour, and a variety of other lugubrious objects.

There was likewise a guard-house at Middle Kara. In it I observed, as I had done at Tobolsk, that the furniture and arrangements for the soldiers were not at all better than for the prisoners. From information respecting soldiers’ food received later, I make no doubt the rations of the Cossack guards are less ample than those provided for the labouring convicts; and I am persuaded that under some circumstances, dear liberty excepted, the Cossacks are more to be pitied than their prisoners. Thus, when a gang of exiles comes at night to an étape, they can lie down and rest, whereas the Cossacks have to mount guard.

In this building, opening out of the central room guarded by soldiers, were a few (perhaps half-a-dozen) separate cells, through the doors of which no one could pass without being seen by the Cossacks. These cells were evidently inner prisons, in which were kept those whose escape was especially to be prevented. I entered two of them. The first was not quite so wide, but about the length and rather higher than the cell of an English prison, measuring perhaps five feet wide by eight long and ten high, and occupied by a Tatar gentleman, with his rosary of a hundred beads in hand, with nothing to do.

On entering the second cell, occupied by a political prisoner, just then at work in the mines, I had at last lighted upon the dwelling-place of one of a class about whom such harrowing stories have been told—a genuine political prisoner of high calibre, and a Jew to wit, undergoing the full sentence of punishment in the mines of [457] Siberia. This meant, in his case, that he had to labour in summer very much like a navvy, from six in the morning till seven in the evening, with certain hours for rest and meals; but in the winter he frequently had nothing to do. His wife was living near, and might see him twice a week. But his cell was that which struck me most. Compared to the criminal wards in the other prisons, this was a little parlour. It was clean, and in a manner garnished—not, indeed, in the fashion of a cell at San Francisco, where I found a “boss” painter condemned for life, and who had decorated his cell from floor to ceiling, as if intending to remain there for the rest of his days (this would have been out of keeping with Russian ideas); but [458] the Kara prisoner had certain articles of furniture and eating requisites, the placing and arrangement of which indicated familiarity with the habits of decent society, and showed the prisoner to be above the common herd. One of his books I found was a treatise on political economy, which may be noted in connection with the remark of Goryantchikoff in his “Buried Alive,” who asserts that in his prison no book was allowed but the New Testament. The room certainly was not large, but there was abundance of light, the outlook from the long window being not on a prison wall surrounded by chevaux-de-frise, but commanding a view of the Kara valley such as a Londoner might envy; whilst just outside was the public road, along which could be seen everything that passed. I speak only truth when I say that, if I had the misfortune to be condemned to prison for life, and had my choice between Millbank in London or this political’s cell at Kara, I would certainly choose the latter.

Between the guard-house and the residence of the colonel was a collection of buildings and store-houses, called “Middle” Kara. Among these was the church, the priest of which was the only chaplain I could hear of for the prisoners. He practised photography in addition to his ecclesiastical calling, and although he probably needed every rouble he gained thereby—and I certainly ought not to revile him, since by his means the colonel was able to present me with some views of the colony—yet it would have rejoiced me to hear that he was doing something worthy of his position for the spiritual good of the convicts. The pastoral superintendence, frequent services, and preaching to prisoners, as carried on in English prisons, is unheard of at Kara, [459] and I gathered that the convicts attended church only twice a year.⁠[8]

[460]

I may here mention that the religious scruples of Siberian exiles are to some extent respected. Thus, for the Jewish prisoners to be obliged to eat food prepared by Gentiles would be an abomination. In the prison at Tiumen we were informed that 42 Jews, who had been confined there during the previous winter, had been placed together in a ward, with a separate cooking-place, in which they prepared their food canonically. So, too, a similar arrangement had been observed with 71 Mohammedans; and I have just remarked that there were many of this religion together, in the prison at Middle Kara, who were allowed, within certain limitations, the exercise of their religious observances. I have already said that we met a Protestant pastor who made periodical visits to the prisons and mines; and on the Amur I travelled with a Roman Catholic priest, from Nikolaefsk, who was returning from a lengthened tour along the river, which doubtless included visits to his co-religionists in confinement.

After seeing Middle Kara our morning’s inspection was over. We had driven 15 miles, and as there were prisons in the opposite direction, extending over the same length of country, it will be seen that for the colonel to pay a visit to all his Kara prisons involved [461] a drive, in all, of 30 miles, which I understood he accomplished at least once a week; and he had also, I believe, another penal institution to inspect, called Alexandreffsky Zavod, at a still greater distance. His salary was £330 per annum, and an unpretentious house, his perquisites, perhaps, making up his income to £400. In his yard was a good bath-house and offices, and an enclosure with a couple of wild deer, caught and kept for his children.

At dinner I was introduced to Madame Kononovitch, who was considerably younger than her husband. They had married at Irkutsk, which to a Siberian is Paris. It was not greatly to be wondered at, therefore, if she found Kara somewhat dull. The society of the place was very limited. There were the families of the officers and the wives of a few gentle or noble prisoners, but these latter of course could be received into the colonel’s house only with a certain amount of reserve. The servants were, I suppose, all of them exiles, but the dinner was well served. I remember nothing of the food, save that the colonel had made a successful effort to get me a plate of wild strawberries. The season (July 26th) was now late, and they were the last I ate in Siberia. Madame spoke French well, and, as their children were growing up, she and her husband were interested in their education, and made many inquiries concerning our methods of teaching in England. The colonel then requested me to send him some English books; and soon after dinner we started for the hospital, the orphanage, and one of the mines.

Gold-mines not underground.—Hours of labour.—Visit to a mine.—Punishments.—Branding abolished.—Miners marching off.—Statistics respecting runaways.—Women criminals at mines.—A new building for expected politicals.—Superannuated forçats.—The hospitals.—“Birching” and its effects.—Kara in 1859.—Improvements effected by Colonel Kononovitch.—A children’s home.—Return to the gold-mine.—Comparison of Siberian and English convicts.—Distribution of books.

As I had visited the mine of the Archangel Gabriel near Krasnoiarsk, I was in some measure prepared what to expect in the gold-mines of Kara. It was not easy, however, to get rid of a preconceived notion attaching to Siberian mines, that the convicts must be working underground, for I had entered the country with ideas such as those expressed by the author of “The Russians of To-day.”⁠[1]

But now that I have been to the convict gold-mines, I have, happily, no such horrors to relate. All the gold-mining is done aboveground. The season begins [463] on the 15th February, and ends on the 15th November, and they work 13 hours a day, excepting certain hours for refreshment and rest. I suppose, however, both the length of the season and of their daily labour must be to some extent modified by the rigour of the frost and the duration of the light. During the three winter months the ground is frozen, and they are mostly unemployed.

The visiting of the mine at Kara was far from pleasant. It was like walking into a large gravel-pit, from 20 to 30 feet deep. In this pit 198 men were at work, some removing the roots, stones, and surface-earth, and others carting off the gold-bearing sand to the washing machine. The miners were surrounded with a cordon of armed sentries, as at Portland prison. A large number of the convicts had irons on their legs; this, however, was something special to a particular prison, and was inflicted for two months as a punishment for aiding and abetting the escape of four comrades.⁠[2]

A certain measure of earth was allotted to the men as each day’s labour. A released Pole, who had been at Kara, though he did not work in the mines, told me it was a 7-feet cube to three men. This he allowed to be less than the quantity worked by free labourers. He said these latter had the help of horses and were better fed, but there were 70 horses in the mine I visited at Kara, and the reader may judge, from what has been said, whether or not the miners’ food was sufficient. So far, therefore, the Siberian convicts [464] at Kara did not appear to be worked harder than—I should think not so hard as—our own at Portland.

I asked what was done to them if they did not fulfil their tasks, and was told that they were punished first by privation, and, if that did not suffice, by corporal chastisement with rods. Kara, I heard subsequently, is one of three places in Siberia where the troichatka or “plète” is in use. The colonel described it as a whip with three ends, of which, for serious offences, any number up to 20 stripes might be given; but, he said, he rarely used it, cases of insubordination being usually met by seclusion, irons, less food, or delay of removal to a higher class, which last might mean, in some cases, the virtual prolongation of a sentence for a couple of years.

The branding of prisoners is no longer practised. There were two or three veterans at Kara, one of whom, at my request, was brought to me, and whose cheeks and forehead were marked with the letters K A T, an abbreviation of Katorjnik, a convict. This man had been marked in 1863, and the letters presented a tattooed appearance, though the operation of tattooing must be the more severe, since it is slowly done by hand, whereas, in the case of the prisoners, the brand was done by a kind of cupping instrument, or stamp, furnished with small points, which, on being tapped, pierced the skin. A liquid was then rubbed on, and so the convict was tattooed for life. I just missed seeing one of these instruments at Nikolaefsk, where it had been recently sold as a curiosity.

It was late in the afternoon when we reached the mine at Kara; and by the time we had looked round, and gone among the miners, the hour arrived for [465] leaving off work; the drum sounded, and the convicts formed in line, some of them shouldering tools, and what looked like stretchers for carrying loads of earth between two bearers. Their heavy tools were put in carts to be drawn by horses, and all marched under guard to their prison, five miles off. This walk, therefore, to and fro must in this instance be added to their day’s labour; but I noticed that, when the convicts walked out of the mine, the free labourers continued working, and did so for some hours afterwards.

Before the miners started, their numbers were called, for prisoners sometimes attempt to remain in the mine all night for the purpose, it may be, of washing earth secretly to secure a little gold, or, more frequently, with a view to escape. If it be spring-time, a runaway may succeed, during the summer, in getting a long way off, and, as winter comes on, give himself up, be imprisoned as a vagrant or vagabond, and, the following spring, be fortunate enough, perchance, to make his escape again, and so get towards Europe. Sometimes they manage to obtain forged passports, and travel as free men. At other times the escaped gather in bands, and roam about the country. It is, in fact, by no means uncommon to meet escaped prisoners on the roads, but they are not spoken of as malicious. They are not like banditti. They will sometimes steal a chest of tea from the hindmost vehicle of a caravan, or, indeed, run off with horse, cart, and all; but they do not usually attack travellers. The runaways beg food of the peasantry, who, of course, by law, ought not to aid them; so they compromise matters by placing food on their window-sills at night, ostensibly with the charitable purpose of [466] helping passers-by in distress. They thus avoid conflict with the authorities, and do not anger the convicts, who might otherwise do them mischief, especially by setting the house on fire.

The half-liberty given to convicts after a period of good behaviour presents a loophole for escape, of which many hundreds avail themselves.⁠[3] These escaped convicts are known as “Brodiagi,” or “roaming gentry.” They wander about, guided through the forests by marks left by the natives and preceding runaways. There are some places, it is said, where they can live without fear. M. Réclus goes so far as to say that sometimes the authorities, in times of difficulty, or when ordinary labourers fail, call in the help of “vagabonds,” with the tacit understanding that they will not ask for their passports, whereupon hundreds emerge from the surrounding forests and present themselves for employment. I am not able to confirm this from my own experience as regards the authorities, [467] but I met with a private firm who had in their employ several men without their “papers.”

When marched out of the Kara mine, those in the higher category are free to go to their families. I saw, too, near the Cossack barracks, a dwelling in course of erection for those who were living half-free, but in which they were to sleep at night. Those in the lower category are taken to their respective prisons, and may sleep, if they choose, in summer from nine o’clock till five, and in winter from seven till seven.

I looked in at a prison, near the colonel’s house, just before the men were going to rest. I do not remember that there were any lights, and the place was gloomy enough; but I suspect that it must be more so during the long nights of winter. At Tiumen I observed but one small candlestick in a room for 65 prisoners,—light enough to make the darkness visible. In this respect my testimony is of limited value, as my visits were paid by day, but I can readily believe Goryantchikoff’s dismal description of the foul air and gloom of a Siberian prison by night. Whether the majority of prisoners, however, would wish for a constant and plentiful supply of oxygen I am not sure. They certainly do not provide for it in their own houses, any more than do some of the poorer classes in England.

I have said nothing yet of the female prisoners at the mines of Kara. Russian women look upon prison life from very different points of view. I met a lady in Petersburg who visited the female wards in the prisons, and she told me that on one occasion a woman, on being brought back to her cell for the fourth or fifth time, found the arrangement of its furniture [468] altered, whereupon she asked that her bed might be put “in the place where she always slept”; whilst another, a worthy old soul, on entering her cell, turned to the ikon and thanked God that her old age was so well provided for! This, of course, is very different from the picture of Siberian female prison life represented in “The Russians of To-day” (p. 230):—

“Women are employed in the mines as sifters, and get no better treatment than the men. Polish ladies by the dozen have been sent down to rot and die, while the St. Petersburg journals were declaring that they were living as free colonists; and, more recently, ladies connected with Nihilist conspiracies have been consigned to the mines in pursuance of a sentence of hard labour.” I neither heard nor saw anything of women labouring in the mines, and one of my released exile informants, from Nertchinsk, says that it is not true that women work in the mines in getting the mineral. At Kara there were 154 female prisoners to more than 2,000 men; and since the latter have a clean shirt every week, it would seem likely that the women may be employed in laundries and work-rooms, only that I am under the impression the prisoners wash their own linen. Five out of every six of the women convicts at Kara, dismal to relate, were murderesses, and walking between 58 of them in their prison at Ust-Kara was not pleasant. Some had babies, and most of the mothers had murdered their husbands. Husband-murder seemed to me painfully frequent in Russia, for which, in the fifteenth century, they had a barbarous punishment: the murderess was buried alive up to the neck, and left to the hungry dogs!

Near this women’s department was a new cellular [469] building of wood, recently erected. I notice this particularly because of its bearing upon the number of political exiles that are supposed to be imprisoned in Siberia. The spring of 1879, it will be remembered, was a time of great excitement in Russia. An attempt was made upon the life of the Tsar, the great cities of the empire were placed under military command, and the journals talked of troops of prisoners being sent off to Siberia. And this was true, only they were not troops of political prisoners. A telegram, however, was sent from Petersburg to the telegraph office at Kara, enjoining the commandant to prepare places for a certain number of prisoners about to be dispatched. But the number prepared for was not very great after all, for, as far as I remember, it did not exceed 20 or 30 at most; so that if the convoys of 29 prisoners, whom my interpreter met in returning, were all destined for Kara, as he heard they were, then this small prison would be filled, and it might, in a sense, be called “a State prison.” When, therefore, in a previous chapter, I ventured to say there was, with one exception, no prison in Siberia that could be called a political or State prison, this was the exception in my mind.⁠[4]

Of course I entered this little prison and looked at the cells. They were ranged on either side of a roomy oblong space, in which were two stoves. The chief fault I had to find with the cells was that they were [470] very small, and lighted, I think, only from the lobby within, the area of each cell being certainly smaller than that of the cells in Coldbath Fields, though I am not sure that they were smaller than those at Portland, nor do I remember how they compared with ours for height. If, therefore, the prisoners were to work by day, as do ours at Portland, perhaps the cells at Kara were not too small. For my own part, I would rather inhabit one of them in solitude by night than be turned in among the motley crew of the larger prisons.

There were convicts at Ust-Kara, however, in a plight more pitiable than those confined in the political cells, or who had to work in the mines. I allude to the occupants of two or three wards in an old weather-beaten, smoke-dried, low-pitched building, in which were confined a number of old men, perhaps from 30 to 50 in number, who were not ill in such sense as to be patients in the hospital, but who were condemned to prison for life, or who, though too old to work, had not served their time.

I do not remember any sight in Siberia that so touched me as this. To see scores of able-bodied men pent up in wards with nothing to do was bad, to hear the clanking of their chains was worse, though many of them were burly fellows who could carry them well. More touching still were the convoys of exiles with faithful and innocent women following their husbands; but to see these old men thus waiting for death was a most melancholy picture. The doctor inspects the convicts once a month, and determines upon those who are past work, who, in the absence of any specific disease, are then brought into these wards for the remainder of their lives. To release them, the colonel [471] pointed out, would be no charity, because, being too old to work, and being out of the near range of poor-houses or similar institutions, they would simply starve. And thus they were left in confinement for a Higher Power to set them free. They lounged in the prison and in the yard, and some sat near a fire, though it was a sunny day in July. One old man was pointed out who had attained to fourscore years, and another had reached the age of ninety, and so on. The difficult breathing of one, however, the wheezing lungs of a second, and the hacking cough of a third, proclaimed in prophetic tones that their time was short; and one wished them a softer pillow for a dying head than a convict’s shelf in a prison ward. Their building was one of the oldest in the place, and was doomed to be pulled down within a month.

There were two hospitals at Kara; one near the house of the commandant, at Middle Kara, containing, at the time of my visit, 43 patients; and the other at Ust-Kara, with 93 patients.⁠[5] By the time the exiles have reached Kara they have trudged nearly 1,000 miles, and have been lodged, after leaving Moscow, in about 200 étapes and prisons. Many, of course, die on the route, but I have no official statistics upon this point. A released exile told me that, as far as he [472] remembered, it was in his day about 16 per cent. With the survivors the fatigue of the march, together with deficiencies or irregularities of nourishment, and the bad atmosphere in some of the prisons, often induces scorbutus or scurvy. The colonel said that with bathing twice a day, and with good food, they are soon cured; and, though many arrive sick in April, they are commonly well before autumn. In winter they have fewer patients generally, and commonly no cases of scorbutus at all.

We visited the hospital at Middle Kara on the Saturday afternoon. It was a fine building, with large, lofty, and airy rooms, which were clean, and decked with boughs of birch and coniferous trees, placed in the corners, not merely for ornament, but with the idea that the odour given off by them is salubrious. I saw the same thing on a large scale in the prison hospital at Tomsk; and upon my asking in one of the prisons at Ust-Kara why a large branch of cypress was placed there, they said it was for the sake of the smell.

In the Siberian hospitals, at the head of every bed, was hung a board, with the occupant’s name written in Russian, and the name of the disease, written in Roman letters, in Latin; and as this was the only part of the writing I could read, I used generally to run my eye over the diseases in the wards. A remark made thereon caused the doctors sometimes to ask if I had studied medicine, which unfortunately I had not. Hence I was nonplussed at the word “costegcetis,” written over a man’s bed, and of which I asked an explanation; whereupon I was told that the man, who had been a ringleader in aiding the recent escape of the runaways, had been birched with 100 stripes of the rod, and that [473] he was consequently in hospital for recovery. Whether the effects of a birching are very serious I do not clearly make out, but I met at least two cases in which the recipients of the rod made fun of it. One was that of a servant in a house where I stayed. She was a convict, and therefore liable, in case of misconduct, to be sent by her mistress to the police to be birched, as in bygone days had been more than once done with her; but she did not fear the switches, saying they would not kill her: “they did indeed make one a little sore, but that was of no consequence!”

I saw only one suffering in this way at Kara; and the colonel told me, as already stated, that though he rarely used the whip, yet that he did not choose to be trifled with. It was manifest that he could not maintain discipline among 2,000 convicts if he did, yet I met with no prison official in Siberia who seemed so judiciously to line with velvet the glove of steel as did Colonel Kononovitch. The whole place bore about it marks of the superintendence of a man who conscientiously acted from a high sense of duty.

I have already mentioned what an unenviable reputation Kara had in former days. An old sea captain, with whom I stayed, told me he paid a visit to Kara in 1859, when there were 2,000 men branded, and chained to their barrows by night and by day. The overseer of the gold-mines, a German, told him that he had shot four men who had killed others when at work; and I have heard, since my return, that some of the predecessors of Colonel Kononovitch were so cruel that the mention of their names made convicts tremble. It is not, then, greatly to be wondered at that this evil reputation has descended to later days.

[474]

But Colonel Kononovitch had effected great improvements. It has already been pointed out that many of the Siberian prisons were old and dilapidated, but that reforms were expected yearly to take place; and, there being no money forthcoming, things were allowed to go on as best they could. It was under this condition of affairs that the colonel was appointed to Kara, with its crazy buildings, some of which had been pulled down only a few days before my arrival. I saw one or two that were yet standing. Of course he applied for funds to meet the expenses of new buildings so urgently needed, but received only the stock answer with a polite bow that there were insufficient funds, and that they could not expend money on prisons whilst waiting for reforms; whereupon the average Siberian official might have allowed things to drift, but not so the colonel! The reforms he knew had been talked of for 15 years, and he commenced a number of “economies,” by which, if money were not forthcoming from one quarter, it might be obtained from another.⁠[6]

In this way he might quietly have pocketed £1,200 a year, and if in Russian fashion he had handed round [475] hush money, all might probably have been smooth enough. But so did not the colonel, and he pointed out some of the improvements he had been able to effect by these economies.⁠[7]

The subordinate officials at Kara are very scantily paid, the chief of each prison receiving £70 a year, and his inferior officer £24. When at Tomsk, we heard of prison officials still lower, under each of whom were placed 30 prisoners, but who received only £6 a year and their food and accommodation, which were similar to those of the prisoners. It is not, therefore, greatly to be wondered at if these petty officers are not above misappropriating some of the prisoners’ food, or taking bribes. Colonel Kononovitch encouraged these men to engage in trade, or to keep horses, in which case he employed them in carrying or other ways, so long as they did not rob the prisoners.

But other substantial good was effected; for during the previous two years and a half the colonel, chiefly, I understood, by his economies, had erected no less than 18 buildings, for which the governor of the province complimented him highly.⁠[8]

The colonel, moreover, did not spend his savings wholly on prisoners, or restrict his efforts to what [476] might be strictly called his duty. He exceeded that, and allowed his justice to enlarge into benevolence. After seeing the hospital he took me to a children’s home which he had built for boys whose fathers were in prison.⁠[9]

The building was simple, but prettily situated within an enclosure, where was the best kitchen-garden I had seen in Siberia. In a green-house and a hot-house were growing melons, and I know not what. These the colonel said he sold for the good of the concern, and the money obtained for vegetables helped to pay the expenses of the school. The schoolmaster was an exile, and had been, I suspect, of good position from what I heard about him after I had left the place. The children were assembled for me to see, and I was tempted to act the schoolmaster and put to them some questions, but it was under difficulties of a polyglot character; and by the time my ideas had filtered twice through Russian, French, and English, the children’s answers were not very clear. Everything looked clean and orderly, and, what was better, there were about the place tokens of care and sympathy. Behind the house was a natural shrubbery, enclosed from the forest. In this a pavilion was erected, in which, from time to time, the commandant brought his wife and family to drink tea with the children, when the boys who had sisters in the colony might meet them, and where the humanizing influence of kindness was allowed to flow forth.

[477]

By the time we had seen the school the day was far spent, and I was desirous to return to the mine to witness the final washing of the sand. During the day there had been worked (I presume by convicts and freemen together) 30 sajens, or, as they put it, 30,000 poods of sand. The produce of the first half of the day had been taken out of the machine; and after the convicts had left the mine, a few workmen remained washing the sand, in which at length the gold was found together with black dust of iron.⁠[10]

The number of men who had stayed for the last of the washing was less than a dozen, and there was a certain gravity manifested by the little group as they took their places round the wooden apron on which was pushed up and down the few handfuls of mineral that remained of 240 tons that had passed through the cylinder. Darkness came on, so that they had to light torches of pine. There stood the colonel, looking on with dignity. The Cossack, too, was there, with loaded rifle, to protect the gold. The wooden scraper pushed away at the sand, and then the brush, and there was left only the gold and iron, less than half a pint. [478] This was put in the miniature frying-pan, dried over an extempore fire, and then placed in a tin can. It was given into my hand that I might feel its weight, which I judged to be about a pound, and, if so, worth £40. The can was then given to the Cossack, who mounted his horse, and, accompanied by an escort, took it off to the treasury.

And thus ended the day. That the men who worked in the mines had no easy task was plain, but it was equally plain that their labour, as compared with that of an English navvy or convict, was nothing extraordinary. The tread-wheel is unknown to them. Foreigners speak with horror of Siberian punishments, to which, as a set-off, I may mention that a Russian lady asked me, with a shudder, whether it could possibly be true that in England we placed prisoners on a wheel, on which, if they did not continue to step, it broke their legs! Comparing Siberian convicts with English,⁠[11] the Siberian has the advantage in more food (which perhaps the climate may require), more intercourse with his fellows, and far more permissions to receive visits from his family. The Kara convict, when in the [479] higher category, receives besides 15 per cent. of what he earns for the Government; and even in the lower category he is credited with the money, though its payment is deferred till he mounts higher. Political prisoners also may write to their friends; and though by strict right, I believe, criminals in Siberia cannot do so, yet this rule is not carried out, or is as often honoured in the breach as in the observance.

The following day was Sunday, and happened to be the colonel’s name’s-day. This kept him at home for the morning to receive visitors. A telegram came to felicitate him from Madame’s father, from Ekaterineburg, a distance of 3,000 miles, taking 30 hours in transit. As the visitors did not speak French, I was not introduced, and had a comparatively quiet time to arrange and digest the information I had received. Later, I unfolded to the colonel my plan of distributing the Scriptures throughout Siberia. With this work he sympathized heartily, and promised to do what I wished. He subsequently received a lion’s share of the books, etc., I left with the governor of the province. I gave him some for the children’s home, and afterwards sent him a considerable number for his soldiers. All these reached Kara safely, and I have since had the great satisfaction of hearing that they were properly distributed throughout the colony. According to my latest news, the colonel is said to have left Kara; and if this be so, I can only hope that he has been replaced by as good a man.

Departure from Kara.—Parting hospitality.—Ust-Kara police-master.—Head waters of the Shilka.—Collins’s descent of Ingoda.—The Onon.—Formation of Shilka.—Scenery below Stretinsk.—Shilkinsk.—Hospitality of police-master.—Non-arrival of steamer.—Efforts at conversation.—Steaming down the river.—Shilka scenery.—Tributaries from north and south.—Arrival at confluence of Shilka and Argun.

My steamer was due at Ust-Kara on Sunday evening. It was arranged, therefore, that my host should drive me to the river and see me off; or, if the steamer did not come, then leave me to wait its arrival in the house of the police-master. The colonel was pleased to say that he regretted my departure. He seldom received visits of the kind I had paid, which naturally had been more pleasant, he said, than inspection visits of officials. He alluded, however, to a visit to Kara of the Grand Duke Alexei-Alexeivitch as having done much good, and he was desirous of gathering all the information he could respecting our treatment of criminals in England.

The colonel’s farewell did not end in words, for, like a true Russian, he made ample provision for his parting guest. Some Tunguses had passed a few days previously, of whom he had bought a box, of native manufacture, both curious and useful, and this he proceeded to fill for me with the good things of Kara. [481] These included roast chickens and a piece of boiled ham. Preserves, too, my host had discovered that I liked, and I must therefore take some pots of jam recently made. Did I like cheese? Well—at home, half a pound would suffice me for a twelvemonth; but in Siberia, where good butter was scarce, and a cheese cost ten shillings, I had learned to regard it as a delicacy. The colonel therefore insisted on my taking the greater part of a Dutch bowler, and he regretted that he could not offer me the only piece he had of what looked like Cheddar, because he was expecting a visit from his Excellency the Governor of the province, and wanted a delicacy to set before him. The extreme kindness with which this was done was almost embarrassing. In England it would appear strange, but in the district of the Amur these were presents not to be despised, for some of them I could have otherwise obtained neither for love nor money.

At last we set out duly laden, intending to call on our way at the prisons I had not yet seen. Packing, however, had taken rather long; and when we came to the first prison, where the officer was standing ready to receive us, I was afraid we should not have time, and that our staying might involve the missing of the steamer. I therefore begged that we might push on, which we did, to Ust-Kara. Here I looked over various buildings, which have been already referred to, as the summer hospital, with 93 patients, the women’s wards, and the wards for the old and superannuated men, also the new cellular prison for politicals, and a prison in which they manufacture various requisites for the use of the convicts. In this last, five men wished to sing to us a piece of Church music, which [482] they did, and thus ended my visits to five of the six prisons of Kara. Evening was now drawing on, and as the boat had not come, I was consigned to the care of the police-master, and bade adieu to Colonel Kononovitch with feelings of regret.

From Ust-Kara the steamer was to bear me to the Amur. This will be a convenient place, therefore, from which to say something further about the head waters of that river, namely, of the Ingoda and Onon, which form the Shilka; and the Argun, which, with the Shilka, forms the Amur.

The Argun, Onon, and Ingoda all rise in the Kentai (or Khangai) and Yablonoi mountains. From the summit of this latter range the traveller approaching Chita from the west first sees the Ingoda at the foot of the range. From Chita to Stretinsk the journey can be made by water, and Mr. Collins, the first American traveller in this region, in 1858, so accomplished it.⁠[1] On the fourth day he passed the river Onon, coming in from the south. This stream rises in the same district, but somewhat further south than the Ingoda, and in its upper course its banks are wooded. It is navigable all the summer.

[483]

By the union of the Ingoda with the Onon is formed the Shilka, and at the junction the two rivers have each run a course of some 400 miles. The stream now increases in breadth and slightly in depth, so that, when not frozen, the river can be navigated at all seasons in small boats, though with some risk from the numerous sandbanks and rapids. About 40 miles below the Onon, the Nertcha enters from the north, and here stands the old city of Nertchinsk, not far from which the floating traveller passes the monastery of Nertchinsky, and subsequently arrives at Stretinsk.

It was from this spot I commenced the descent of the Shilka with my Cossack attendant. As we glided along, hour after hour, the shifting scenes reminded one of some grand spectacle in a fairy tale, for bend after bend, and point after point, opened to view landscapes and vistas of surpassing beauty. Now and then we had to beware of rapids, and in one place of a sunken rock called the “Devil’s Elbow.” The depth sufficed for our boat, but we met a steamer coming up stream, whose captain had a hard task to find and keep the channel.

Between Stretinsk and Shilkinsk the left bank is fairly populated, most of the necessaries of life are easily attainable, and fish and game are abundant. Granite predominates on both banks of the river as far as the third station, Botti, beyond which limestone prevails. The cliffs become lofty, some of them about 1,000 feet, and their summits are riven into numerous picturesque turrets, while beneath are openings leading into caverns. A few miles further the valley of the Shilka opens out, and the rocks recede for a considerable distance till they reach the valley of Tchalbu-tchenskoi, [484] down the centre of which flows the river Tchal-bu-tche.

On the space formed by the receding rocks stands Shilkinskoi Zavod, a town stretching two miles along the river on a plateau 30 feet high. This was the seat of an old convict silver-mining establishment, the working of which has ceased long since.⁠[2] The river here has a breadth of 600 yards, with a current of four knots, and in the spring a depth of seven feet on the shallows, but in the summer and autumn the depth is much less.

On the second day we came in sight of a large house on the left bank, where I landed, thinking perhaps to find some one to speak to. At the various stations I had given tracts, and, in a small way, found a ready sale for New Testaments. I offered the same at this large house, which proved to be that of a doctor, but he was not at home. His wife was in the house, but we had no language in common, and therefore my sale had to be conducted here, as at the post-houses, by dumb motions, one question about the hour being put and answered, I remember, by drawing a clock and marking the hands. Ten miles further was Ust-Kara, [485] whence I digressed into a description of the headwaters of the Amur.

After bidding adieu to Colonel Kononovitch, on Sunday evening the 27th July, I was waiting in the house of the police-master for the arrival of the steamer. This worthy official was several degrees lower in position and intelligence than my late host, but he had a good house, and spared no pains to make me comfortable. He was living bachelor fashion, his wife and daughters having gone on a tour to Irkutsk. This he regretted, and so did I, for I was given to understand that they spoke French; and it was not particularly lively to be in a house in which you could speak a word to no one, especially with a host who would insist upon talking, whether you understood or not. One hour passed by, and two, and three, and the expected whistle was not heard, till, night having fairly set in, my host made me understand that the steamer had run aground.

It seemed best, therefore, to go to bed, hoping for its appearance in the morning. A bed was made for me on the floor of the best room in the house, but no washing apparatus provided. The maid was to be called in the morning to do the part of a Levite, and pour water on my hands. I was not, however, to retire supperless, and whilst food was being prepared the police-master begged me to try his piano. Accordingly, I strummed three tunes, which represent my stock-in-trade in this department, and my host nodded satisfaction. At supper he rattled away, and it was in vain that I shook my head and replied, “Ne govoriu po Russki” (I do not speak Russ). He returned to the charge afresh, until I was glad to retire.

[486]

Morning came, but not the steamer, and after breakfast I was writing, when it occurred to me that if the steamer were aground, it might be days or even weeks before it arrived, and at last I thought it desirable to inquire for particulars. A military officer came in, but I could extract from him no language I knew. Presently, however, the police-master brought a piece of paper that gave me hope. It was a polyglot letter to this effect: “Respected Sir, I should be glad to be allowed to teach your children French, which language I know. Your obedient servant, So-and-So.” And this was written in Russian, French, German, and English, and, as a finale, was added, “Sic transit gloria mundi.” I saw at once there was a genius in the place,—perhaps a released exile, or the wife of one, and I requested my host by signs to bring us together at once. But I think the said genius must have been away, for the police-master was holding a discussion with the officer as if there were some difficulty in the matter, when, as they were talking, the steamer’s whistle was heard.

The effect was magical. I rushed to make ready. The carriage was before the door in a very few minutes, and the police-master, who was expecting his family by the boat, was speedily with me, my baggage on the vehicle, and we dashed off to the station. Here I was introduced to the wife and family, and also to a lady who I fancy was the authoress of the polyglot paper,⁠[3] after which I embarked.

The weather was beautiful, and we steamed down [487] the lovely Shilka 150 miles to its junction with the Argun. The first station beyond Ust-Kara was Ust-Chorney. Here the Chorney, or Black river, falls into the Shilka by two channels. This river is so rapid, and sometimes so violent, as to dash the passing boat or raft a wreck against the opposite rock-bound shore. Further on the scenery changes on the south side. Perpendicular cliffs of limestone appear with groups of birch and larch on their tops, and in the small ravines. Over these rounded summits appear, and a long chain of hills stretches southwards towards the Argun.

The next station is Gorbitza, near the mouth of the Gorbitza river. Until 1854 this was the boundary of the Russian and Chinese empires. At Bogdoi, not far distant, is a mineral spring where annually a fair was held, at which a few Russian merchants and Cossacks used to assemble to meet the Manchu who came to barter. The Manchu ascended the Amur from Aigun in large boats, bringing printed cotton goods, silk, tobacco, and Chinese brandy, which they exchanged for glassware, soap, and deer-horns.

Below Gorbitza the river enters a region where the cliffs rise considerably higher than in the limestone. Here granite is heaved up in huge masses, which time, frost, and sun have riven and shattered into curious forms. Ravines are also rent far into the mountains, and down them clear streams descend. A little further on the shores become wooded, pine-trees grow along the banks, and on the upper slopes are black and white birches, with occasional clumps of larch, while the dwarf elm grows from the clefts in the rocks.

[488]

Mineral springs are frequently met with on the banks of the Shilka. To some the natives resort. Further down are several islands, upon one of which, named “Sable” island, are pine, larch, and birch. At the river Bankova, having its source in the mining district near the Argun, and falling into the Shilka from the south, there is another place where a fair was held by the Cossacks of the Argun and the Tunguses of the Yablonoi, the latter bringing skins, deer-horns, and a few sable and fox skins. These they bartered with the Cossacks for flour, vodka, powder, and lead. Further on, and not far from the confluence of the Shilka and Argun, the Son-ghe-noi enters the Shilka to the south, and at a short distance is a lake from which the natives and Cossacks obtain their supplies of salt. A few miles below Son-ghe-noi are two islands in the Shilka, and a little beyond these the sandstone rocks rise abruptly in picturesque forms from the water. The rocks recede to the southward, and a small delta has formed extending to the mouth of the Argun. Near it is the village of Ust-Strelka,⁠[4] or Arrow mouth, situated at the junction of the two rivers which form the Amur, and here I arrived on Wednesday evening, the 30th of July.

Divisible into three periods.—Period of Cossack plunder.—Poyarkof.—Khabarof.—Stepanof.—Discovery and occupation of Shilka.—Chernigovsky.—Period of conflict with Chinese.—Russo-Chinese treaty of 1686.—Russian mission at Peking.—Affairs on the Amur during Russian exclusion.—Third historic period from 1847.—Preparatory operations on Lower Amur.—Muravieff’s descent of the river, 1854.—Influence of the Crimean war.—Colonization of Lower Amur.—Further colonization, 1857.—Chinese protests.—Influence of Anglo-Chinese war.—The Sea Coast erected into a Russian province.—Renewed difficulties with China.—Treaty of 1860.—Review of Russian occupation.

The history of the Amur, or so much of it as need here be mentioned in connection with the Russians, may be divided into three periods. We have first the period of Cossack pillage and plunder of the native tribes, beginning in 1636, and extending over a period of 50 years to 1682. This was followed in 1683 by a period of warfare with China, lasting for half-a-dozen years, and succeeded by uninterrupted Chinese possession for (roughly) 150 years, to 1848; after which comes the period of Russian annexation, beginning in 1848, completed in 1860, and continuing to the present day.⁠[1]

I have already stated that, within about 20 years after the founding of Yeneseisk, the Russians pushed on their [490] conquests to the Sea of Okhotsk, on the shores of which, in 1639, they built a winter station for the collection of tribute. It was here first they heard from the Tunguses of tribes to the south, dwelling along the Zeya and Shilka.⁠[2]

These reports attracted attention in Yakutsk, and an expedition of 132 men, most of them promyshlenie, was placed under Poyarkof, who left Yakutsk in 1643, ascended the river Aldan, and built winter quarters for 40 of his men, and stores, in the mountains. Pushing on himself with 92 men, he crossed the Stanovoi range, and, after suffering great hardships, reached the head waters of the Zeya, where he met the first reindeer Tunguses. Further on he came to a Daurian village, in which he was kindly received, but his extortionate conduct provoked the natives to hostility; and one of his officers, having attacked a village and been repulsed, Poyarkof, with the loss of many Cossacks through hunger, retired down the Zeya, descended the Amur to its mouth, and, crossing the Sea of Okhotsk, reached Yakutsk in 1646.

The next prominent traveller was Khabarof, from 1647 to 1652. A shorter route to the river had been heard of by way of the Olekma; and Khabarof, at the head of a band of adventurers, took this route to the Upper Amur. The natives, having heard of the conduct of Poyarkof, fled before the Russians; and Khabarof marched on, slaughtering his opponents, or putting them to flight. Strengthened by reinforcements, he [491] descended the river to the Lower Amur, wintered at Achansk (which no longer exists), and was vainly attacked by the natives and the Manchu. In the following spring he turned back, and ascended the river to the Zeya, where some of his men mutinied. He sent messengers to Yakutsk asking for 6,000 men, and, there being no such force in Siberia, the voivod dispatched the messengers to Moscow, where the conquest of the Amur had been for some time under consideration. Khabarof returned in 1652, and thus ended the first nine years of Russian adventure on the Amur, during which some of the leaders had shown great perseverance; but the natives had been badly treated, exposed to all sorts of extortion, and their tilled lands reduced to deserts.

We come now to Stepanof (1652–1661). Reports of the excesses committed by the adventurers already mentioned had reached Moscow, and it was determined to send a force of 3,000 men to occupy the newly-explored territories. The command was given to Stepanof, and he was accompanied by hundreds of adventurers, who were attracted by the reported riches of the country. Stepanof was not able to carry out his instructions to found settlements, and spent his time in roving along the Amur and up the Sungari. At Kamarskoi he was besieged, in the spring of 1655 by a large Manchu force; but with a garrison of 500 men he put 10,000 foes to flight. Subsequently he was joined by Feodor Puschkin and 50 Cossacks, by whom he sent the tribute he had extorted to Moscow. Puschkin’s party lost their way, and 41 of them perished. Stepanof continued his predatory expeditions till 1658, when, at the mouth of the Zeya, 180 of his men deserted, [492] and he was met by a Manchu force, and himself and nearly all his band slain or made prisoners. This for a time practically cleared the Amur of the Russians, and what few remained evacuated the district in 1661.

All the expeditions above mentioned reached the Amur from the north-west, striking the river some miles below the confluence of the Shilka, at what is now Ust-Strelka. We proceed to say a few words respecting the discovery and occupation of that tributary, 1652–58. Cossacks from Yeneseisk had pushed their explorations beyond the Baikal, and, in consequence of their reports, Pashkof the Voivod, in 1652, sent out a party to cross the lake, under command of Beketof, who, two years later, built a fort on the Nertcha; but the expedition came to nothing. Other adventurers went out in 1654 and 1655. At length Pashkof was entrusted with a force of 566 men to found a town on the Shilka, whence the surrounding territories might be subjugated. He left Yeneseisk in 1656, and on his way founded Nertchinsk. Whilst so doing, he sent a number of his men down the Amur to look for Stepanof, but they were met by his deserters, and robbed of their provisions, after which, in 1662, Pashkof returned to Yeneseisk, his mission unattained.

What Government troops had failed to effect, however, was soon after accomplished by a runaway exile—Nikitao Chernigovsky—who, at the head of a lawless band, murdered the Voivod of Ilimsk, and in 1665 fled to the banks of the Amur, where he built a fort on the site of Albaza’s village, opposite the river Albazikha. He was joined by others as lawless as himself; villages were founded near the fort, and Albazin became a place of importance. A petition was forwarded to [493] Moscow, representing what had been done as done for the Tsar, and praying for Chernigovsky’s pardon, in consideration of his recent services. It was granted; and Chernigovsky made tributary many of the surrounding tribes near Albazin. The Chinese complained of Russian encroachments, and conciliatory embassies proceeded to Peking, in 1670 and 1675. The people of Albazin, however, determined to do as they pleased, and, in spite of orders to the contrary, they navigated the Lower Amur, and founded settlements, so that at the close of 1682 the Russians had established themselves at Albazin, on the Zeya, and on the Amgun.

This finishes the first period in the history of the Amur—that of Cossack pillage and plunder.

The oppression of the Russians naturally caused the tribes on the Amur to apply for help to their neighbours and nominal masters, the Chinese, who made large preparations to expel the intruders. They destroyed the Russian settlements on the Zeya and Amgun, took some of the garrisons prisoners, and advanced upon Albazin in June 1685. After a blockade of 18 days the garrison surrendered, and were allowed to retire to Nertchinsk. The Chinese then destroyed the fort, and withdrew down the river to Aigun; but the Russians followed in the wake of their conquerors and rebuilt their town. The Chinese, therefore, returned in July of the following year, again surrounded the fort, where the Russians held out bravely till November, in which month the siege was raised, in consequence of orders from the Chinese Government, to whom the Russians had sent ambassadors desiring conditions of peace.

[494]

The ever-recurring complications with the Chinese made the Russian Government desirous to come to some arrangement regarding the frontier of the two empires. Venyukoff accordingly was sent on a mission to Peking to arrange preliminaries, and he brought back with him a letter in Chinese, Manchu, and Mongol, translated into Latin, which supplies a good idea of Chinese views on the Amur question.⁠[3]

If this letter be anything like a true statement of the case, which there seems to be no just cause to doubt, then the moderation and forbearance of the [495] Chinese stands out in striking contrast to the conduct of the Russians. I have described (Chapter XXXV.) how the conference was conducted, and how it ended in a treaty, by which Albazin and the whole of the Amur were confirmed to the Chinese.⁠[4]

This settlement practically closed the district to Europeans for about 160 years—that is, till 1848. A few encroaching hunters were from time to time caught and punished. Some convicts also escaped from the mines of Nertchinsk to Chinese territory, and others went down the whole length of the Amur, one of them getting away from Nikolaefsk to America; but very little is known of the Amur basin during these years, though Russia kept up the supply of priests who crossed the desert to sustain the Russian mission at Peking.

After the treaty of Nertchinsk, the town of Aigun was removed to the right or southern bank of the river, and in keeping with the jealous policy of exclusion peculiar to the celestials, the Chinese were forbidden to emigrate northward to the thinly-populated Manchuria, and the Manchu were forbidden to pass northward of the town of San-sin on the Sungari, whilst the privilege of trading on the Amur was restricted to ten merchants, who obtained for that purpose a licence at Peking. Besides these particulars of the Amur during [496] the period of the Russian exclusion, we learn something from the letters of Roman Catholic missionaries in Manchuria, one of whom, M. De La Brunière, descended the Amur to the country of the Gilyaks, where he was killed. But I shall speak of this when I come to the people and place of his murder. This finishes our second period—that of war with China. It remains to treat of the recent history of the Amur, and of the annexation of all its left and part of its right bank by Russia. This will bring before us the events occurring between 1847 and 1861.

The recent history of the Amur may be said to date from the time that Count Nicolas Muravieff became Governor of Eastern Siberia in 1847. The Russians had long seen the desirability of acquiring the right of navigating the Amur, if only for the purpose of sending down it provisions for their settlements in Kamchatka, the land carriage of which annually required 14,000 to 15,000 pack-horses. With a view to this, they had sent Golovkin to Peking at the beginning of the present century to treat for the free navigation of the river, or, at all events, to gain permission to send a few ships once a year with provisions. But the Chinese were unwilling to make any concession whatever.

Muravieff became Governor of Eastern Siberia in 1848, and one of his first acts was to send an officer with four Cossacks down the Amur, who were never heard of again. Admiral Nevilskoi, in the same year, left Cronstadt for the Pacific to explore the mouth of the Amur; and, in 1851, founded Nikolaefsk and Mariinsk as trading ports. Two years later were founded Alexandrovsk, in Castries Bay; and other posts in the island of Sakhalin at Aniva Bay and Dui.

[497]

The next year, 1854–5, was important in the history of the Amur, as that in which the first Russian military expedition descended the river from the Trans-Baikal provinces. Russia had at the time three frigates in or near the Sea of Okhotsk, and, owing to the breaking out of the Crimean War and the presence of an English fleet in the Pacific, it was feared that these might be left in want of supplies, and that the Russian settlements on the Pacific, which at that time depended on shipments from home, might be seriously straitened. The Black Sea and the Baltic were blockaded, and the only feasible plan was to send provisions from Siberia down the Amur. The nearest Chinese authorities at Kiakhta and Urga professed themselves unable to give permission; but as no time was to be lost, Muravieff’s necessity knew no law, and he started down the river.

He had a steamer, 50 barges, and numerous rafts, 1,000 men, and guns. Several men of science, to whom we owe much of the solid information given us by Mr. Ravenstein, accompanied him. His journey down the river to Mariinsk was uneventful, and he returned by way of Ayan to Irkutsk.

The continuation of hostilities between Russia and the English and French allies naturally made the Russians prepare for an attack on their eastern settlements,⁠[5] and considerable activity was displayed by [498] them on the Amur in 1855–6. Three more expeditions left Shilkinsk in the course of the year, and conveyed down the river 3,000 soldiers and 500 colonists, with cattle, horses, provisions, agricultural implements, and military stores.⁠[6] Accordingly, the places founded on the river grew fast. Villages were built by the colonists at Irkutskoi, Bogorodskoi, and Mikhailovsk. Great progress also was visible at Nikolaefsk, which from a village of 10 houses grew to one of 150.

The operations of the allied fleets in the Pacific in 1855 were on a larger scale than in the preceding year; but the results were equally insignificant, and the peace of 1856 left the Russians free to carry on their plans of annexation. General Muravieff now went to Petersburg to advocate the granting of large means for colonizing the river, and during his absence the direction of affairs was left in the hands of General Korsakoff.⁠[7]

But the year 1857–8 will ever be one of the most memorable in the history of the river. Muravieff had succeeded at Petersburg in securing large grants of [499] men and money. Troops descended and formed numerous stations along the left bank, and colonists and provisions were conveyed to the possessions of the Russo-American Company. A Captain Furruhelm conducted down the river 100 emigrants and 1,000 tons of provisions, and with him travelled Mr. Collins, already referred to, as “commercial agent of the United States for the Amur river.” Count Putiatin, also bound on a mission to Japan and China, availed himself of the newly-opened way. Putiatin received orders to induce the Chinese to come to some definite arrangement regarding the frontier of the Amur, but he was not successful. This result was felt on the river; for the mandarins now again protested against the occupation of the territory, and in some instances molested the Russian traders. Accordingly, Muravieff hastened to Petersburg for fresh reinforcements, and more troops were sent east; whilst the territory in dispute, together with Kamchatka and the coast of the Okhotsk Sea, was erected into a separate province, called “the Maritime province of Eastern Siberia.” A squadron of seven screw steamers was dispatched from Cronstadt in the summer, and two European-built steamers, the Lena and the Amur, ascended the river with merchandise and troops.

When Muravieff got back to the Amur, in 1858, the Chinese were in a very different humour, for they were then at war with the English and French, and Russia found no difficulty in concluding an amicable treaty at Aigun on 28th of May. China ceded to Russia the left bank of the Amur down to the Ussuri, and both banks below that river, and opened the Sungari and Ussuri to Russian merchants and travellers.

[500]

On the 21st May, Muravieff laid the foundation of Blagovestchensk, at the mouth of the Zeya; he then descended the Amur, and founded Khabarofka, at the mouth of the Ussuri, and subsequently selected the site of Sophiisk; after which, in August, he was created “Count of the Amur.” On the last day of the year this territory received a new organization, and was divided into the “Maritime province of Eastern Siberia,” and the “Amur province,” the latter denoting a district along the river, above the mouth of the Ussuri.⁠[8]

We now come to 1859–60, during which time several measures were taken to favour colonization. Political exiles were to have passports granted them for three years, to enable them to proceed to the east; and if deserving, their term was to be extended permanently. The sailors stationed at the Lower Amur were allowed to retire after 15 years’ service, received a plot of ground, and might send for their families to come to them at the Government expense. The colonists, too, were to be maintained by Government for two years, after which time they were to provide for themselves. Government also renounced its monopoly of the mineral treasures [501] of Siberia; and in future any one, except convicts, was to be allowed to search for precious stones or metals. This attracted many emigrants, and on the arrival from Western Siberia of 10,000 of them at Irkutsk, Cossack stations were founded along the banks of the Ussuri and the Sungacha, with a view to the settlement of the frontier.

Difficulties, however, with China again arose. The Chinese had repelled the advance of the allied French and English forces in 1859, and, being elated for the moment with the power of their arms, imagined that it was no longer necessary to conciliate the Russians, and told them that China had never ceded the Amur, that they had no right there, and must immediately quit. Things, therefore, looked gloomy towards the south;⁠[9] but the relative positions of China and Russia were suddenly transposed by the successes of the English and French, who thoroughly humbled China; and Russia, availing herself of the opportunity, was able to conclude, on the 14th of November, 1860, a most advantageous treaty, much more comprehensive than any ever concluded by China with a foreign power, which gave Russia a right to the country north of the Amur and east of the Ussuri, together with the entire coast of Manchuria, down to the frontiers of Corea.

I have thus traced the history of the Amur from the [502] time that the Russians first heard of the river, in 1639, down to 1860, when they obtained possession of it.⁠[10] It remains for me now to give the reader, as best I can, an idea of the condition of things as I found them at the time of my visit.

Formation of the Amur.—Chinese boundary.—Our steamer.—Captain and passengers.—Natives of Upper Amur.—Orochons.—Manyargs.—Their hunting year.—Our journey.—Run aground.—Table provisions.—Scenery.—Albazin.—Cliff of Tsagayan.

We glided into the Amur about sunset on the 30th July, when, happening to come on deck, I found the passengers gazing over the stern of the vessel. Before us were the two rivers of which the Amur is formed. To the right was the defile of the Shilka, to the left the Argun; and between the streams the mountains narrowed, and came to a point a mile above the meeting of the waters. On the tongue of land below was the Russian village and Cossack post of Ust-Strelka. The soft light of evening threw a charm over the well-wooded landscape. We had, moreover, reached at last a point out of range of the ubiquitous English traveller, and to which even comparatively few Russians make their way from Europe. The Shilka we had travelled, and it was given to us to peep a little way up the Argun, and remember that in its valley the great Genghis Khan fought some of his early battles, and from hence started to subdue China, and begin that wonderful career of Mongol conquest that extended to Central Europe.

Looking to the north-east and down stream, the [504] view was exceedingly pretty. On the right, heavily-wooded mountains abut upon the river for two miles, while on the left is a strip of bottom-land backed by gentle slopes. To the front we see the river sparkling in the sun, and rejoicing in its new and beautiful birth.

We were now fairly launched upon a river which, including its numerous tributaries, is said to drain a territory of 766,000 square miles—an area as large, that is, as any three countries of Europe except Russia. The length of the stream from this point to the sea is 1,780 miles, with a fall of 2,000 feet; but if the Argun be regarded as the main stream, then the total length of the Amur is 3,066 miles, with a fall of 6,000 feet. It will be best, I think, to treat of so huge a river in sections, seeing it passes through such varieties of climate and population. The first section, extending from Ust-Strelka to Blagovestchensk, at the mouth of the Zeya, we will call the Upper Amur; from Blagovestchensk to Khabarofka, at the mouth of the Ussuri, the Middle Amur; and from Khabarofka to the Pacific at Nikolaefsk, the Lower Amur. The Russians have made a fine atlas, in 46 sheets, of the river below the confluence of the Shilka and Argun.

Up to the point we had now reached, Russian territory lay on both sides. Henceforth to Khabarofka we were to have Chinese soil on the right. The boundary then descends along the bank of the Ussuri, and continues in a tolerably straight line southwards through Lake Khanka to the Bay of Peter the Great, in the Sea of Japan. My intention was, therefore, roughly speaking, to keep along this boundary, and embark for Yokohama.

But I have said nothing as yet of the steamer in [505] which the first part of my journey was to be accomplished, namely, from Kara to Khabarofka, a distance of 1,270 miles. It was a paddle-boat called the Zeya. As I walked on board at Ust-Kara, Captain Paskevitch met me, told me in French that my cabin was not quite ready, and asked me to occupy meanwhile his room on deck. He had heard of my mission from Colonel Merkasin, at Stretinsk, and had most kindly set apart for me, on a full steamer, a first-class cabin intended for two persons. This he reserved so tenaciously as to refuse a first-class place to a passenger rather than cause inconvenience by giving me a companion, though I was asked to pay only a single fare.

As compared with the steamer on which I traversed the Obi, the Zeya was small, and it was not new. There were first and second-class cabins fore and aft, but third-class passengers lived on deck. All three grades were well represented. Among the first-class passengers was M. Kokcharoff, a Government officer connected with the gold-mines, whom we had met at Nertchinsk at dinner, and who was the father of one of the young officers we saw at Irkutsk. There were also an officer and his wife whom we had seen on the road at Verchne Udinsk. Among the second-class passengers were several naval and military officers, proceeding to their stations on the Pacific, and with them the lady and gentleman of whom we got the start with the horses from the Baikal. Several of the ladies spoke French, and a naval captain, Baron de Fitingoff, spoke a little English also. Thus I needed not to be silent, and soon found myself at home.

It speedily became manifest that our captain was a man of determination, and that he had a rough-and-ready [506] way of enforcing his orders. The cook, an oily-looking man, had smuggled vodka on board, and made himself so far drunk as to spoil the passengers’ dinner; whereupon the captain seized him and tied him to the capstan. He had not been there long, however, before the capstan was required for some one else. The ship had got into difficulties, the number of the crew being insufficient for the occasion; and the captain ordered a man-of-war’s-man, travelling as a third-class passenger, to lend a hand. He did not choose to do so, whereupon the captain collared him, and, having released the cook, bound him to the capstan. Our chief, I found, was only a young man—less than 25—and had served for a time in the Imperial navy. He had fallen in love, and wished to marry before the age allowed in the service. Just then the Amur Company made him a good offer to take charge of one of their vessels, and he had thus left the Government service, and accepted a stipend which enabled him to forsake a bachelor’s life. He thought, however, that in giving up the navy he had made a mistake, and sent his papers by some of our passengers to be presented to the Governor at Vladivostock, asking to return.

As we proceeded we found the population on the Chinese bank was exceedingly small, and but few houses appeared on the Russian side. The natives of the Upper and Middle Amur belong, all of them, to the Tungusian stock, though they differ somewhat among themselves, according to the manner of life they pursue, and their nearness or otherwise to Chinese influence. Thus, on the Upper Amur, on the Russian territory, are the Orochons, or reindeer Tunguses; whilst further east, north of the Middle Amur, are their [507] brethren the Manyargs, or horse Tunguses. On the southern bank of the Upper Amur are the Daurians, who to some extent cultivate the soil; whilst further east, and to the south of the Middle Amur, is the region of the Manchu, the most civilized of all the Tunguse tribes. This division is somewhat arbitrary, and does not notice subdivisions of some of the tribes; but it may suffice for the present to indicate their territories, and we can enter into further particulars as we approach their respective localities.

The Orochons numbered, in 1856, 206 individuals of both sexes, roving over an area of 28,000 square miles—a country, that is, as large as Bavaria or the island of Sardinia. They originally lived in the province of Yakutsk, whence they emigrated to the banks of the Amur in 1825, and occupied a part of the territory of the Manyargs, whom they compelled to withdraw farther down the river.⁠[1]

The Manyargs occupy the north bank of the Middle Amur below the Orochons, but in summer they ascend the river for the purpose of fishing. As the needs of the reindeer drive the Orochons to the moss tracts of the mountains, so the needs of the horses send the [508] Manyargs to the grassy valleys of the Zeya, and to the prairie region eastwards to the Bureya mountains.

Apart, however, from their differences as to habitation, and the domestic animals they use (the Orochons keeping deer and the Manyargs horses), we may speak of the Orochons and Manyargs together. In appearance they are rather small, and of a spare build. Their arms and legs are thin, the face flat, but the nose, in many instances, is large and pointed. The cheeks are broad, the mouth large, the eyes small and sleepy-looking. The hair is black and smooth, the beard short, and the eyebrows very thin. Old men allow the beard and moustache to grow, but carefully pull out the whiskers. They cut the hair short on the forehead and temples, and plait it behind into a tail, ornamented with ribbons and leather straps. This fashion was no doubt copied from the Manchu, but since they have come under Russian influence it has gradually waned. In the case of the women the hair is parted down the middle, the plaits are worn round the head, and fastened with ribbons above the forehead. During summer the women wear a conical hat made of cotton, somewhat like an extinguisher. Unmarried girls are recognized by their head-band, embroidered with beads.

The Orochons and Manyargs lead a wandering life. In spring and summer they live on the banks of the river to fish; in autumn they retire to the interior to hunt. In these migrations the deer or the horses carry the scanty property of their owners. The horses are small but strong, of great endurance, and find food in winter by scraping away the snow with their feet.

Wild animals in the region of the Upper and Middle [509] Amur are numerous. The Orochons disperse in small parties to hunt them, returning from time to time to their yourts.⁠[2] They hunt squirrels, sables, reindeer, elks, foxes, and sometimes bears. Squirrels they find in great numbers. A good sportsman may kill 1,000 in a season, and 500 is an average bag.⁠[3] In December they take their furs to the localities fixed upon for paying the yassak, or tax, where also they barter with merchants assembled for that purpose. Each male between the ages of 15 and 50 pays annually two silver roubles, or their equivalent in furs. No other [510] taxes are levied upon them, and this brings in to the Government an enormous quantity of skins.

My journey on the Upper Amur, or, more accurately, from Ust-Kara to Blagovestchensk, occupied eight days. The distance was 700 miles, and the first-class fare three guineas. Under ordinary circumstances, however, the time ought not to have been so long, but there was less water in the river, the captain said, than he had ever known before. It was by reason of this that the boat had run aground at Shilkinsk on the Sunday I was to have started, and on Monday evening a sister-boat, the Ingoda, having done the same, and knocked three holes in her hull, the Zeya had stayed alongside to render assistance. This caused the loss to us of the whole of Tuesday. Both boats belonged to the same company, and it was an act of policy, as well as kindness, that the damaged boat should not be left in so lonely a region, whilst a further reason for submitting to the delay, and keeping the boats together, was that our own vessel might run aground and so need assistance from the Ingoda.

I was curious to hear from the captain what was the [511] thickness of iron on the Zeya, and what distance we should have to sink, supposing we went to the bottom. The iron, I learned, was three-sixteenths of an inch thick, which was somewhat alarming, but it was a comfort to know that the water in some parts of the river was not much more than 30 inches deep. Our steamer drew only two feet and a half, consequently we were often gliding along within a few inches of the ground. One of the crew was placed in the bow of the boat, holding a measuring rod, with the feet marked in black and white, and secured to a string. This in shallow places he constantly threw, as if harpooning fish, and then noticing the depth when it struck the bottom, he called out in a sing-song fashion, “Chetiri-s’polovenoi! chetiri! tri-s’polovenoi! tri!”—four-and-a-half! four! three-and-a-half! three! and so on; the speed of the vessel being slackened when the small numbers were called.

After reaching the Amur on Wednesday, we travelled safely for that evening and on Thursday, but on Friday morning, coming to a turn in the channel, the boat ran aground on a bank, with her whole length turned sideways to the current—going at the rate of about four miles an hour. The shallowness of the stream now became apparent, for when the men jumped overboard the water rose hardly up to their waists.⁠[4] Every effort was made to float the craft with anchors [512] and levers, and digging away the beach, until, as evening came on and brought no success, we hoped the Ingoda would overtake us and return the compliment of rendering assistance, especially as we had once put back to look after her welfare. The Ingoda did come, but was not powerful enough to get us off, and we had therefore to lie aground till Saturday morning. The greater part of the passengers were then shifted from the Zeya to the Ingoda, and there they were compelled to remain from breakfast-time till evening, and that, too, with very little food, for the Ingoda was not carrying passengers, and so was not provisioned. Whilst this shifting was going on, I was in my cabin writing, and so had not to change. Meanwhile the sailors had hard work, for they were in the water nearly all day. About two o’clock, however, the Zeya was once more afloat, after which it took three or four hours to get up the anchors, and then, for the rest of our journey, we had no lack of water. The boat did not usually travel at night.

These delays had put a considerable strain on the resources of our cook, whose arrangements were not of a high order. I had rather anticipated this; and, having become so accustomed to see Russians travelling with their own provisions, had prepared accordingly. Some loaves of white bread had been brought for me by the ship from Stretinsk, and fresh butter; besides which, Colonel Kononovitch, as already stated, had loaded me with good things, and I had not parted with my provision basket and its cooking apparatus.⁠[5]

They had different arrangements on the Amur from [513] those we had on the Obi. The steward undertook to provide every one with four meals a day. The first was tea and bread on getting up. Next, about 11 a.m., came “déjeuner à la fourchette,” consisting of two courses. At five o’clock came bread and tea again, and dinner, of three or four courses, followed at seven. The provisions were decidedly inferior to those of the Obi, but acquaintance with certain Russian dishes was thereby forced upon me, which I might otherwise not have known. One of them was “gretchnevaya kasha,” or buckwheat gruel, with melted butter like oil poured over it. I imagined it might be given us as a last resource, all other provisions having failed; but the passengers seemed to think it good though humble fare, and said it was what they provide largely for the soldiers. It is a daily dish, I am told, among peasants and servants in Russia. Further on we bought and slaughtered an ox. And as we approached Blagovestchensk, our table improved to clear soup, with minced patties, meat from the joint, and stewed fruit.

The service, too, was inferior to that on the Obi, for on the Amur the steward was represented by a couple of boys, not too tidily dressed, and with rough heads, who knew more of play than of waiting. It should be added, however, that the price charged for the four meals a day was not exorbitant, namely, three shillings; and after having the samovar frequently into my own cabin, and other extras, though to a considerable [514] extent providing myself, my steward’s bill for the eight days came only to 17 shillings.

We were highly favoured in the weather, which, with the exception of one day, was fine, and added much to the enjoyment of the journey. Between Stretinsk and Blagovestchensk were 42 stations. Many of them were named after the Russian officers who took part in the annexation of the country, such as Orloff, Beketoff, Korsakoff, etc.

At Ust-Strelka the river is 1,100 yards wide, and sometimes 10 feet deep. At Albazin, 160 miles lower, it contracts to 500 yards, but increases to 20 feet in depth. After leaving the Shilka, the scenery of the Amur at first deteriorated. Soon, however, the river stretched across the valley, and the banks rose in precipitous cliffs, or steep rocky slopes. Many brooks entered the stream on both banks. When rain falls on the mountains, the river rises sometimes 12 feet and more in the course of a few days, the greatest rise being 24 feet. Our captain of the Zeya was hoping that the Thursday’s rain would thus aid him in getting out of the shallows. Five streams join the Amur on the Russian side, between Ust-Strelka and Albazin, of which the Amazar is the first and most considerable. At their mouths are small alluvial plains overgrown with grass, sometimes 18 inches high, though on higher spots in this district the herbage is not luxuriant.

Below the Amazar the banks were alternately rocky bluffs and wooded bottoms, the river sweeping along in great picturesque bends. At Sverbeef the river increases in breadth. The mountains are not so high, and sandbanks are frequent. These appear at low water as islands. The forests are thin, and there is [515] little underwood. On the mountains larch and firs prevail. In the valleys the white birch predominates, with bird-cherry and aspen. The trees, however, are small; and among them, further on, are apple-trees with tiny fruit, willows, and the hoar-leaved alder.⁠[6]

On the rocky mountain slopes are the service-tree, alder, aspen, poplar, and hawthorn, together with the Daurian rhododendron. On loose soil Indian wormwood frequently covers a whole mountain slope.

As we approached Albazin the mountains retired, and below them were extensive prairies, affording excellent pasturage. Opposite the town, on the Chinese bank, the Albazikha, or Emuri, falls into the Amur behind a large island, with an area of several thousand acres. Oaks and black birch now begin to take the place of the larch, and at the foot of the mountains are seen elms, ashes, hazels, willows, the Daurian buckthorn, wild roses, and bird-cherries—the last sometimes reaching to a height of 50 feet.

Albazin is the most important of the towns we passed between Ust-Strelka and Blagovestchensk. It is finely situated on a plateau 50 feet high, and extends some distance backwards to the mountains. We arrived there early on Friday morning, August 1st. Albazin was important to the early adventurers, by reason of the fine sables taken in its vicinity.⁠[7]

[516]

The Albazin sable is said to be the best on the Amur, that of the Bureya Mountains next, and, thirdly, that of Blagovestchensk; but none of them are so good as those obtained further north.

I was much struck, below the town, with the brilliant red of the sandstone cliffs. On the right bank the mountains approach again close to the river; but on the left the plain continues for 70 miles, ending in a rock or promontory, called Malaya Nadejda, or Little Hope. This lofty mass of rock projects into the river in the shape of a semicircular tower. After passing the station Tolbuzin, 240 miles from Ust-Strelka, the river takes a more southerly direction, and lower down has numerous islands. These are covered with poplar, ash, and willow; and among the flowers are seen the rhododendron, the lily of the valley, pink, primrose, violet, white poppy, forget-me-not, and white pæony; also garlic, chickweed, asparagus, cinquefoil, and thyme.

A few miles lower is a remarkably steep sandstone cliff, of yellowish grey colour, bounding one of the reaches of the river for a distance of three miles. It is called Tsagayan, and is 302 miles from Ust-Strelka. It is about 250 feet high, and has in it two seams of coal, of which there is said to be plenty on the Amur, though [517] it has not been worked, I believe, owing to the abundance of wood. The natives look upon Tsagayan as the abode of evil spirits. At its foot are found agates, carnelians, and chalcedonies.

Beyond the Tsagayan the valleys descending to the river are wider, the steep mountains recede, and the meadows are richer in grass. Small groves of poplars, elms, ashes, and wild apples alternate with bushes of red-berried elder, sand willows, self-heal, and wild briar. At the station Kazakevich, however, the mountains approach the river, and a dark granite rock, 300 feet high, overhangs the water. Eight miles south is the rock Korsakoff, a promontory of semicircular shape; and 40 miles more bring the traveller to the mouth of the Komar, which is the second considerable stream flowing into the Amur from the right bank after leaving Albazin, the other being the Panza. The course of the Amur here becomes very tortuous, and, about 50 miles below, the Komar almost describes a circle, leaving but a neck of land half a mile in width. The Komar is the greatest affluent of the Upper Amur from the Chinese side. It is a little short of 600 miles in length, more than one-half of which is navigable. The upper part of the valley is populated by Daurians.

Travelling thus amidst beautiful scenery, we reached Blagovestchensk on the eighth day, being now 560 miles from Ust-Strelka, and the width of the river having considerably increased. Here, however, we may leave the water for awhile, for the steamer stayed a whole day, and thus gave me the opportunity of spending some hours ashore.

Russian orthodox missions.—Particulars of Orthodox Missionary Society.—Visit to telegraph station.—Seminary for training priests.—Salaries of Russian clergy.—Blagovestchensk prison.—Leafy barracks.—View of the town.—Molokan inhabitants.

“Blagovestchensk,”—I hope that the tongue of the reader curls round the syllables of this word more easily than did mine on the first occasion I attempted to pronounce it. The g should be guttural, and the first e like the French é. The meaning of the name is “Annunciation,” or, as some put it, “glad tidings.” I know not whether this has anything to do with the fact that Blagovestchensk is the head-quarters of Oriental Siberian missionary effort, about which it will here be a rest to say a few words by way of change from the waters of the river.

As Russia ranges under her standards many nations, so she is brought into contact with many religions; with Lutheranism in the Baltic provinces and Finland, Buddhism in Mongolia, Mohammedanism along her southern frontier, Paganism in the Caucasus and Armenia, and, we may add, Shamanism and other ’isms among the aboriginal inhabitants of both her European and Asiatic territories. The Russians have long made persistent efforts to win back their own dissenters, whether from the various bodies of Raskolniks, or the Uniats, which [519] latter were seduced from them by the Church of Rome.⁠[1] Besides this reclaiming work of her own people, foreign missionaries were, in the time of Alexander I., allowed to work among the heathen within the empire, and I have already noticed the London mission to the Buriats. The Synod, however, put a stop to this foreign work; and that their jealousy in this matter continues, I learnt from a Lutheran pastor, who, when he was taking up his residence near some of the native tribes, was bidden “not to busy himself as a missionary.”

Compared with the Western Churches, whether Roman or Reformed, the Eastern Church has never been remarkable for missionary zeal, and I was therefore not a little surprised and pleased in Siberia to stumble unexpectedly upon the latest report (for 1876) of the “Orthodox Missionary Society,” published at Moscow the year before my visit. The book is of respectable size, extends to 100 pages, and the statistics are displayed with considerable fulness. At present it is with the Russians only the day of small things; but it should be borne in mind that 1876 was only the seventh year of the Society’s existence.

Some particulars of this young Society will be interesting, the more so as I am able to supplement what I learned in Siberia by extracts from the report for 1879, quoted in the Journal de St. Petersbourg, September 7th, 1881. The Society has a central council, and branches in 29 dioceses, with 7,560 members, which means, I suppose, subscribers. Its capital in 1879 [520] amounted to 660,000 roubles, of which 121,000 were spent during the year.⁠[2] Among the remittances sent to the central council from associations is £77 from “the army and navy.” Again, there appears what I imagine to be a special fund for “propagating the orthodox faith among the heathen.” This is apart from their efforts among Mohammedans and Romanists; but the Russian Church has missions to the adherents of all religions within her empire, except Protestants.

As for the spending of the money, it appears that the council and 27 associations distributed, among 19 missions, funds to the amount of £11,580. The 21 mission stations are, with one exception, within the bounds of the empire. The other mission, to which I have alluded in a previous chapter, is in Japan. I heard at Kasan that they have a missionary also in Jerusalem, New York, and San Francisco; but these, I presume, are chaplains. Their chief European pagan missions are in the governments of Astrakhan, Riazan, Perm, and Kasan, in which last are several semi-heathen tribes.⁠[3]

[521]

It is in Asiatic Russia, however, that most of the Society’s money is expended, and the conversion of 5,000 Pagans is reported to have taken place in 1879. They have opened a school among the Samoyedes. They have also missions in Kamchatka (including probably, the Sea-coast province), upon which, in 1876, they expended £300, and from whence the following year, according to the Almanack, they obtained 606 converts. The provinces, however, in which most money is spent are those of Tomsk, Irkutsk, and the Trans-Baikal. In the latter two are the Buriats, amongst whom the Russians have 30 mission stations and 68 missionaries.⁠[4] The province of Tomsk includes the region of the western chain of the Altai mountains, where schools and missions have been established for the Kirghese of the Steppes. In the Altai mission, during the first half of the year 1877, they enrolled 195 converts. Further east they have missionaries, some of whom I met, among the Goldi and Gilyaks; but I shall speak of them when we come to their districts. [522] At Blagovestchensk lives the Bishop of the diocese, who had been described to me as “a good missionary.”

We stopped at Blagovestchensk on Tuesday, August 5th, and I made my way to the telegraph station, where, as in other towns, thanks to good introductions, I received much kindness from the officials. When travelling to Barnaul, I chanced to light on a telegraph officer, Mr. Friis, whose name was on my list, and he told me of a brother officer in Tomsk who spoke English. At Irkutsk Mr. Larsen gave considerable linguistic help; so did Mr. Koch at Stretinsk; and now, at Blagovestchensk, I found a Mr. Niellsen, who had worked in London, and spoke English; and Mr. Peko, who spoke French and English too. Mr. Peko, I found, was the director of this station of first rank.⁠[5] When dining with the manager, Mr. Peko, and Mr. Niellsen, in the garden, I was interested to hear, among other scraps of professional information, that English is the best of languages for telegraphy, for that in it they can express more in few words than in any other. The Russians, they said, prefer to use English rather than their own language for telegrams. My nationality was further flattered in the town by a [523] doctor’s wife telling me that to speak English was now in Siberia and Russia more fashionable than to speak French. Said she, “On peut oublier maintenant le Français pour apprendre l’Anglais.”

Blagovestchensk has a seminary for the training of priests, similar to those established in Russia by Peter the Great. He found his clergy exceedingly ignorant, and established these institutions for their sons, enjoining the bishops to support them with a twentieth part of the income from the monasteries. In these establishments, and others which have been added, are educated the rank and file of the Russian clergy.⁠[6]

I did not once meet in Russia with a priest who could speak French, German, or English. Perhaps they throw their strength into patristic and ecclesiastical learning, since the parochial clergy are usually said to be not well instructed in secular studies. An instance was given me by an Englishman, who travelled in Siberia with a Russian archbishop, who one day asked the Englishman which had the greater population, London or San Francisco. Whereupon my wicked friend said, “Well, you see, London has a population of two hundred thousand, and San Francisco four [524] millions.” “Ah!” said the archbishop with satisfaction, “I thought so; I thought San Francisco was the larger!”

Those students who wish to attain to the higher degrees of learning, on leaving the seminary, proceed to one of the ecclesiastical academies which correspond to our universities, and where they can take the degrees of student, candidate, master, and doctor of theology. There is no theological faculty in the Russian universities, but it is now required that all who are to be consecrated bishops shall have passed through the academy.

To return, however, to the seminary: the students enter at the age of eight, and remain normally till twenty-two, when they receive a diploma, which is accepted by the bishop, and the candidate without further examination is ordained.

The case of one of these students presented a curious instance of the working of the inconsistent requirement of the Russian Church, that the parochial clergy at the time of their ordination must be married. “Do you see that boy running about on the deck?” said a fellow-passenger to me, pointing to one of the seminary students. “He is nineteen years old, and is returning to the seminary for the last time. In the course of a few months his mother is to find him a wife, and next year he will return to be married, and then immediately ordained!”⁠[7] This would be before [525] the canonical age for ordination, but was owing to the lack of clergy in the Primorsk, in which there are about 50 congregations with churches or chapels. Between Nikolaefsk and Vladivostock, a distance of 1,300 miles, are only 14 priests and 2 deacons; and so pressing was the need of clergy a few years since that tradesmen, letter carriers, and even yemstchiks in some few instances were ordained.

Mr. Peko accompanied me at Blagovestchensk to call upon Mr. Petroff, the deputy-governor, from whom I learned that there was only one prison in the province, having 26 rooms. We visited it, but the only notes I have are “dirty and overcrowded,” and “punishment cells all full,” some having two men in a place not too large for one. What made the prison so full I know not, nor am I able to say whether they were local offenders from the province or exiles temporarily there on their way eastwards. There were none lounging about in the yard, so I suppose they had all been gathered for our inspection. The punishment cells being occupied was not, as far as I know, because the men had misbehaved, but because they were compelled to use all available space. Moreover, since the prison authorities seem to look upon solitary confinement as so great a punishment, it may be that two were put in some of the cells for the sake of company. I remember that when I spoke to the president of the Tomsk prison approving the separate as opposed to the gang system, he thought it was decidedly bad to put a moujik, or simple peasant, in a cell alone; for “having nothing to think about,” he said, “he might go mad!” This good man informed me, too, in connection with my self-imposed mission, [526] that the prisoners did not want so much religion, but liked also books of history, travels, etc. This I knew, but since three wagonloads did not more than suffice for the little I attempted, and my means were limited both as to carriage and in other ways, I was only too thankful to take so many books as we did, and leave it to other philanthropists to complete the work. I left 50 New Testaments and 12 wall pictures at Blagovestchensk with Mr. Petroff for the prison, for the 20 rooms of his two hospitals and a school in the course of erection, with four rooms for prisoners’ children.

Near the hospital were summer Cossack barracks, put together in the most primitive fashion. The ordinary barracks needing repair, they had cut branches of trees and leafy underwood, tied them in fagots, and stood them up so as to form walls and roof, which gave tolerable shelter for hot weather, but served as poor protection from wind and rain. They were intended, however, to last only for a few weeks.

From these summer barracks there was a fine view of the river and town. The houses are situated on a plain 15 feet or 20 feet above the water. The Government establishments and merchants’ stores are large and well built, each having plenty of space around it. Some of them have gardens, and stretching along the bank from the wharf to the roomy telegraph office is a green sward planted with trees for a park. Blagovestchensk has a population of only 3,400, but its long river front and its cross streets give it the appearance of an important town. Some of the shops were excellent, and well supplied with merchandise. The town was founded in 1858, and the Amur Company [527] kept there one of its principal stores. On the winding up of its affairs, this store was bought by the company’s clerk. Mr. Knox says, in 1866, that the Russian officers complained of the combinations among the merchants to maintain prices at an exorbitant scale. I heard, too, that this is still done. If, for instance, in the middle of the winter a merchant discovers that his brother tradesmen have sold all their sugar or any other article, and that his stock is all the town possesses, then, knowing that no more can arrive till the ice goes and the navigation opens, he can demand higher prices for goods of which he has a monopoly. Candles were quoted to me as costing usually 11d. or 1s. per lb., but as rising sometimes to 2s. 6d. Cheese costs from 2s. to 2s. 6d. per lb., but I suppose that these articles must be of European or American manufacture. Chickens at Blagovestchensk vary from 6d. to 2s. each, veal from 4d. to 5d., and beef from 2½d. to 4d. per lb. Milk costs 2d. per pint in summer, and 4d. in winter; live geese, bought from the Manchu, cost from 2s. 6d. to 4s.; but in winter, from the Molokans, 5s. In connection with these prices should be quoted the cost of land, which may be purchased from the Government for 2s. an acre.

I was told that the town is full of dissenters. I did not hear of any Starovers or Old Believers, nor observe on any church the three transverse beams of their form of the cross; but there were many Molokans,—colonists, I suppose, or descendants of exiles. Their presence, doubtless, accounts for a good deal of the prosperity of the town, for they are “honest, sober, and industrious.”

[528]

The Molokans are so called because they drink milk on the usual fasting days. Their origin is involved in obscurity, and by some is dated back to the middle of the last century. Early in the present century many were living in the south of Russia. An English gentleman, residing at Berdiansk in 1848, visited their villages, and from his wife I learn that Salamatin, the Molokan chief, and his family were pious, but very simple, uneducated people. My friend used sometimes to invite them to her table. She tells me that their enlightenment came, to all appearance, simply from reading the Bible. They found there the worship of images forbidden, and accordingly declined to bow down before them, on which account some were persecuted, even to bodily pain, but to no purpose; they would not give way. Blunt’s “Dictionary of Sects” says that a Baron Haxthausen, in 1843, visited a colony of 3,000 Molokans in the Crimea, and found that they denied the necessity of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. With Blunt’s statement partly agrees what my friend told me, namely, that some important official came to visit the Molokans in her neighbourhood (not, however, in the Crimea, but in the government of Ekaterinoslav, which was then their habitation, their villages being situated on the banks of the Moloshna), and found so little objectionable among them, and so much that was good, that the official gave them an excellent character, and they were afterwards left unmolested. Also their alleged disuse of baptism and the Lord’s Supper seems to agree with what I heard of them from a fellow-traveller, who lodged in the house of a Molokan; for he told me that on Sundays they hold meetings, read the Scriptures, pray, sing, expound the [529] Bible, and ask questions, but he thought they did not baptize nor receive the Lord’s Supper. But I remember my lady friend telling me that when the Molokans separated from, or were turned out of, the Russian Church, they had no priests nor any person of education to guide them, nor have they priests now, but only elders; hence, if they are without sacraments, I am not clear whether it is from choice or necessity.⁠[8] My fellow-passenger spoke in high terms of the Molokans of Blagovestchensk. He said he never saw any of them intoxicated, or even enter a tavern; that he rarely or never saw them out of temper, or heard them use bad language; and that they spent their spare time in reading the Scriptures.

But this does not save them from annoyance. Their manner of living at Blagovestchensk has enabled many of the Molokans to become rich, so that they can hire servants. An old Russian law, however, forbids a Molokan to employ an orthodox Russian. The Russians, notwithstanding, like to serve the Molokans, because they are good masters, and pay well. Hence the law has become practically obsolete; but the summer before my visit, the police-master (a man of anything but exemplary moral character), having a grudge against a principal Molokan, and, Haman-like, thinking scorn to lay hands on one only, began doing his best to annoy the whole of them in the town. How the matter ended I did not hear.

I saw, before I left Siberia, an official confirmation [530] of the good opinion I was led to form of the Molokans. The governor of a province wrote officially to Petersburg thus: “We have 105 Molokans, most of them living in the South Ussuri district. They are living quietly, and are very laborious, and amenable to authority. They are civil in their bearing towards the members of the orthodox Church, and are not fanatical.” Looking, therefore, at this triple testimony, and comparing the lives of the Molokans with the lives of the orthodox, I felt that to bring the orthodox into contact with the Molokans would be likely to improve the orthodox rather than otherwise, and that the Tsar would have more good subjects than he now has if he had more Molokans.

Departure from Blagovestchensk.—The Zeya.—Climate.—Employment of time.—Russian tea-drinking.—The Bureya river and mountains.—Delightful scenery.—Ekaterino-Nicolsk.—Distribution of books and Scriptures.—Recognized by a passenger.—Prairie scenery.—Shooting a dog.—The Sungari.—Chinese exclusiveness.—Course of the river.—The Amur province.—An excise officer.—Remarks on alcohol.—Teetotalism in Russia.

We left Blagovestchensk on the morning of the 6th of August, and soon found the river widened. A short distance below the town is the mouth of the Zeya, the largest affluent of the Amur we had yet seen.⁠[1]

It was along the Zeya that the first Russians reached the Amur in 1643. Since the Russian occupation, 5,000 peasants have been settled along the river, which is said to be navigable for steam three or four hundred miles from its mouth. It is, I believe, owing to the immense volume of water at times discharged by this river that Blagovestchensk is liable to serious inundations. [532] At the time of my visit the town stood from 20 to 30 feet above the river, but in the course of a few weeks, news reached the Lower Amur that Blagovestchensk was so deeply flooded that the water had risen to the telegraph wires, and that there were several feet of water in the houses of the town. I heard, subsequently, of a flood higher by five feet that took place in 1872.

Beyond Blagovestchensk we experienced a decided rise in the thermometer. This town is on about the same parallel as London, and has a summer temperature not very different; but its winter climate is much more severe.⁠[2] So far as my own experience is concerned, I was highly favoured in the weather, for the only day on which any rain worth noticing fell was the last of July, on the Shilka. At the commencement of the voyage, at night, I put my maximum and minimum [533] thermometers out of the cabin window; but, having broken the latter on the 2nd of August, I am unable to say more than that the nights became very much warmer. On August 6th I noted that the heat was very great, and was doubly thankful in the morning for a cold bath. My cabin was about the size of an old-fashioned oblong church pew, with seats on the longer sides. These were too narrow to sleep upon, so I inflated my air bed and placed it on the floor; then in the morning it was necessary merely to remove the bed and unfold my bath previous to calling for water. I nowhere found in Russia or Siberia the use of “the tub” as English people now use it; and when on one occasion in Moscow I asked the landlord whether in the morning I could have a cold bath, he said he had never been asked for such a thing in his life!

Time on board hung by no means heavily upon my hands; for, having received several papers of statistics and official information written in Russ, I was glad to get them translated by some of the ladies who spoke French. I thus had opportunities of receiving explanations upon points not quite clear, and of correcting wrong impressions. With this writing-up books I alternated letter-writing, both private and official, though it seemed to be not much use writing to England, since I expected to get there by crossing the Pacific in less time than a letter could do so by crossing Siberia. The captain, however, expected to meet a steamer that would take mails to Stretinsk, and I therefore wrote a number of “open letters,” as the Russians call them, if only that my friends might receive a penny post-card from the land of my [534] temporary exile. Among them, I remember, was one to Miss Frances Ridley Havergal, to whom I had written the previous year during my Archangel tour. I little thought at the time I was writing she had passed away, and that when crossing America I should read of her death.⁠[3]

Thus, what with translating and writing, reading some small manuals I had brought on botany and geology, and gathering information on Russian affairs, the days passed happily enough. My fellow-voyagers were pleasant, and, after being thrown together for nearly a fortnight, we became quite sociable. The afternoon samovar was a great rallying-point, for Russians dearly love their tea—and not a little of it either. When two Moscow merchants have concluded a satisfactory bargain, they retire to a traktir, or tea-shop, where they call for a samovar, drink so many potations and make themselves so hot, that they call for a towel to wipe off the perspiration, and then—“begin again.” Our cook replenished his pantry at Blagovestchensk, and so did I, for I bought up all the white bread I could find, and Mr. Peko kindly gave his parting guest both butter and cheese. On the first day we travelled 340 miles, to Ekaterino-Nicolsk. When we started, the river was 1,200 yards [535] in width, with soundings of 15 feet. At Aigun, 14 miles lower, it had increased to 1,866 yards wide, and to 30 feet deep. The scenery during the early part of the day displayed an extensive plain, with no visible limit on the left hand, and bounded on the right by low ranges of hills. The soil of this prairie is clayey, with an upper stratum of rich black mould, which is covered with luxuriant grasses, attaining often the height of a man. Among them may be seen Manchurian panic grass, and succulent, broad-bladed kinds of which I do not know the names; also grape and pea vines, and [536] many varieties of flowers, among which the lily of the valley is so abundant as to fill the air with its fragrance. Small shrubs of cinnamon-rose are hidden everywhere by the grass, and, with vetches and other climbing plants, render travelling over these prairies, as Mr. Collins testifies, extremely difficult.

Below Aigun, the country on the north continues flat, and is covered with a rich black soil, in places fourteen inches thick. About 30 miles below Aigun, the river divides into many channels, and the right bank in several places is scooped out and steep. On the left are extensive shallows and sandbanks—some barren, others covered with grasses and willows. Of this last there are nine species on the river. The natives use the bark for making ropes. At Skobeltsina, 160 miles below Blagovestchensk, the Bureya comes in from the north, after a course of 703 miles. This river flows through a level prairie country, diversified by clumps of oaks and maples. At its mouth it has a breadth of half a mile. Beyond this stream the south bank rises, and toward the latter part of the day we found ourselves not far from the Bureya mountains, where the hills approached close to the river. Coal seams from three to four inches thick, resembling cannel coal, have been discovered in this district. The lower portions of the hills were wooded with small oaks, and on more elevated parts were denser forests of young oak and black birch. In shady ravines are found groves of white birch and aspen, and in open situations, and on the islands, various kinds of willows, limes, bird-cherry trees, small Tatar apples, elms, the Manchu ash, the Mongol oak, and a few cork trees of small size. Hazels also grow here, and at the skirt of [537] the forest may be found the vine climbing the trees to the height of 15 feet. The most characteristic shrub of these forests is the Manchurian virgin’s bower, the numerous white blossoms of which contribute not a little to its beauty.

We were favoured with a delightful evening for our journey through the Bureya mountains, the scenery of which reminded me forcibly of some parts of the Danube.⁠[4]

The Bureya, or Little Khingan, mountains cross the valley of the Amur at nearly right angles. They are of mica schist, clay slate, and granite. Porphyry has been found in one locality, and there are said to exist indications of gold. As we journeyed down the stream in the evening light, the tortuous course of the river added much to the beauty of the scene. Almost every minute the picture changed, hill, forest, and cliff giving variety to the prospect as we wound our way through the defile. Here and there were tiny cascades breaking over the steep rocks to the edge of the river, and occasionally a little meadow nestled in a ravine. At times one seemed completely enclosed in a lake, from which there was no escape visible save by climbing the hills, and it was impossible to discover any trace of an opening half a mile ahead. And thus we travelled on, till at dusk we arrived for the night at Ekaterino-Nicolsk, a settlement of 300 houses, standing on a plateau 40 feet above the river. Here I found a [538] church, which was approached through an avenue of trees in a public garden. I afterwards learned that specimens of all the trees in the region were planted there; but when I entered it, the light was too far gone to allow of my seeing more than that we had come to beauties of vegetation superior to anything I had yet beheld in Siberia.

The arrival of a steamer at Ekaterino-Nicolsk is not an event that takes place daily throughout the year, and the whistle draws a large proportion of the population to the river’s bank—some to sell garden produce, some to meet friends, and some to look on. These little crowds afforded me excellent opportunities for distributing my tracts, and selling or giving away the Scriptures. A large proportion of the Russian colonists get their living by supplying fuel for the steamers. In 1866 the Government used wood to the value of £6,000, and private firms £1,200; and as we had frequently to stop at these wood stations, I was able to go on shore, and leave my printed messengers in the most out-of-the-way places, where they were always thankfully received, and often gladly purchased.⁠[5]

This attracted the attention of the passengers, who wished also to purchase. One day, on the Shilka, I sold more than 30 copies, some of them to very poor-looking [539] persons. A merchant on board wished to invest largely, but I was unwilling to sell wholesale, preferring rather to scatter my stock over as wide an area as possible. I found, moreover, that travelling merchants in Siberia ask a shilling for the books I was selling at sixpence; and though, considering the difficulties of carriage from Petersburg, this was not perhaps exorbitant, yet I wished rather to bring my wares directly within reach of as many purchasers as possible, and even to give them, if necessary, in lonely and far-off places. We reached some out-of-the-way spots on the Obi by sending parcels of books to the priests, with a letter, but this I was unable to do on the Upper and Middle Amur.

The curiosity of my fellow-passengers was of course aroused by what appeared to them my strange proceedings, and they hit upon various conjectures as to who and what I might be. It has not unfrequently been my experience to find, after curiosity has subsided, that my distributing religious literature has secured for me many attentions and acts of kindness from those who, before reading the tracts, were disposed to be prejudiced and perhaps opposed. I found this particularly the case in Siberia, though I was hardly prepared to learn that the intelligence of what [540] I had done three years before in Finland had reached the Amur. On the second day, however, between Blagovestchensk and Khabarofka, a passenger, who had come on board the previous day, espied my name on my luggage, and, coming on deck, he asked if I had travelled round the Gulf of Bothnia. On receiving a reply in the affirmative, he said he had read of my tour, which had been translated by my Finnish friend for a paper called the Helsingfors Dagblad. He thus remembered what I had done, and was abundantly willing to be of service if he could. His name was M. Emil Kruskopf, an inspector in the telegraph service, and he performed several kindnesses for me unasked. He had been flattered as a Finn by the way I had spoken of the Scandinavian steamers, and thus I found that a kind word was bearing its fruit after many days, and far from the place where it was spoken.

Among the crowd who came to look on at Nicolsk was the priest, to whom I gave some pamphlets and some copies of the Russian Workman. Next morning we departed, hoping by nightfall to reach Khabarofka. After proceeding a short distance the mountains receded on the left, and, a little lower, on the right also. Then appeared two islands, the one on the right being about half a mile long and a few yards high, covered with birches and elms, in the shade of which grasses grow to the height of six feet. The second island is a steep rock. The depth of the river continued to be 70 feet.⁠[6]

[541]

The country in this part is the most desolate along the whole course of the Amur; though, with us, the monotony of the afternoon was enlivened by a cry that a bear was swimming across the river. And, surely enough, there was the head of some animal above the water, not very far from the steamer, though I confess it did not appear to me to be that of a bear. Some of the passengers went below for their revolvers and rifles, and began to fire, much to the excitement of every one on board. The captain stopped the ship, and as the animal came nearer, the shot entered the water so close to his nose that he raised himself to see what was the matter. At last a bullet struck him in the head, and the discolored water proclaimed a fatal shot. A boat was lowered, and some of the crew put off, but only to find that all the excitement had been bestowed upon an unfortunate dog!

We passed the mouth of the Sungari, on the southern bank of the Amur, 992 miles below Ust-Strelka.⁠[7] The Sungari, with its affluents, drains the larger portion of Manchuria. Very little is known about it, though its valley is said to be tolerably well peopled and fertile.⁠[8]

[542]

We had now reached the most southerly bend of the Amur, and had entered a somewhat different climate from that of the Bureya range, for these mountains are cooler than either of the prairies above or below them.⁠[9]

Below the Sungari the level prairie continues along the left bank of the Amur. On the right bank a range of hills accompanies the river for a distance of 20 miles, and at the villages of Dyrki, Etu, and Kinneli are bold cliffs. The hills are covered with an open forest. Underneath them a luxuriant herbage shoots up to the height of five feet, and in July are seen the numerous red flowers of the Lespedeza, the blue blossoms of vetches, large white umbels of the Biotia, and catkins of the Sanguisorba. On the shores [543] of the islands in the river are heaped up the bleached trunks of fallen trees and driftwood.

As we drew towards the end of our voyage, we were approaching likewise the confines of the Amur province, which is at once the smallest and least populous of the provinces of Siberia.⁠[10] There are 31 stations between Blagovestchensk and Khabarofka, the distance is 560 miles, and I paid for first-class fare £2 10s. The largest of the stations and the most important is Michael Semenovsk, about 17 miles below the mouth of the Sungari, so named in honour of a Governor-General of Eastern Siberia. It is a military post, and rejoices in the possession of two iron guns pointing over the river in the direction of China, though they are said to be utterly useless for purposes of war, and can only be employed for firing salutes.

At this place we put off some of our passengers, and among them the wife of the artillery officer whom we had first seen as far back as Kansk, and with whom we had been brought in contact on the Baikal, and again on the Shilka. It looked as if our acquaintance was now to cease, but it was not so; for when I reached Vladivostock this lady appeared again, at a distance of more than 3,000 miles from where we first met. I had made another acquaintance also since leaving Blagovestchensk, one Baron Stackelberg. This gentleman had been sent to the Amur to put the screw [544] on in the matter of excise. At the annexation of the country, the Government was so anxious to people it that they promised emigrants immunity from taxes for 20 years, and this time was nearly up. The Baron had, therefore, to put things in order, and had been doing so since 1875, when he crossed Siberia by land and happened to fall in and travel with Mr. Milne, to whose journey across Europe and Asia I have alluded in a previous chapter. The Baron spoke pleasingly of his journey with his English friend, as he called him, and he was evidently disposed to give a second Englishman a welcome. He spoke French fluently, and gave me some interesting statistics about alcohol, which is the principal source of the Government revenue both in Russia and Siberia.⁠[11] I hesitate, from my own experience, to endorse the opinion sometimes expressed, that the Russians, as a people, are more intemperate than the English. Among them, it is true, the vice seems to pass for less sin and for less shame than with us; but England has the unenviable [545] notoriety of arresting in one year 203,989 persons for crimes in which drunkenness is entered as part of the charges! I can present no statistics on the number of drunkards in Russia. One does see a great many, certainly, on a festival. I was lamenting this to a Russian lady, when she acknowledged its truth, but reminded me that with them the evil is confined chiefly to men; and without doubt, whatever comparison may be instituted between the two countries with regard to drunkenness among the male sex, they have no town in Russia which has more drunken women than men—that apprehends in a single year 6,276 females to 5,537 males, or 32 drunkards a day! For this, alas! we must look to England—to Liverpool. Still, drunkenness is a most fruitful cause of crime in Russia, as witnessed by what I saw and heard in the prisons at Tiumen, Tobolsk, and Barnaul; and it may very well be questioned whether the evil habits among Russians of gambling, drunkenness, and idleness are not in part to be traced to the very large number of holy days in their calendar, on many of which they abstain from work more completely than on Sundays. They fast rigorously and long, and then, at the close, break out in excess.

Teetotalism has not yet made much way among the Russian people or clergy. I chanced, indeed, to be dining in Petersburg in company with a gentleman, who said that the priest of his country parish was an abstainer, whom he sometimes invited to dinner; and when he would give him a little red wine for his stomach’s sake, the priest declined, saying that if he did not abstain altogether he might soon become a drunkard, because invited so often to drink by his [546] parishioners. This case, however, was sufficiently uncommon to cause a lady present to observe that she had never heard of an abstaining priest before. Accordingly, it is with great satisfaction I have observed from the newspapers that the matter has been under the consideration of the present Emperor, and that his Majesty has called in certain experts to advise on the subject. God send them help against this national curse, the demon of intemperance!

My meeting with Baron Stackelberg had an important bearing on my wanderings; for I had intended, on arriving at Khabarofka, to leave the Amur, and proceed direct up the Ussuri to Vladivostock. But so it was not to be, and in less than 24 hours I found myself going 1,250 miles out of my way, and in the opposite direction. But before leaving the Chinese border I must say something of the southern bank of the Amur, concerning which and its inhabitants I have hitherto been almost silent.

Manchuria and its aboriginal inhabitants.—Their history.—The Daurians.—The Manchu.—Visit to Sakhalin-Ula-Hotun.—Manchu dress.—Music.—Conveyances.—Articles of commerce.—Treatment of dead.—Boats.—Methods of fishing.—Archery.—Town of Aigun.—Buildings.—Temples.—Difficulties of access.

I have said very little on what we saw in descending the Amur of the Daurians and Manchu, because I thought it better to reserve a separate chapter for these extra-Siberian people. Manchuria is bounded on the north by the Amur, on the east by the Ussuri, on the west by Dauria and Mongolia, and on the south by Corea and the Yellow Sea. It is, in fact, the country north of Peking, from which city the territory is governed, and with which its history is closely connected.⁠[1]

[548]

A few words should be said, perhaps, first of the Daurians, whose territory we passed whilst on the Upper Amur. Of old they were settled along both banks of the river, and doubtless may here and there be found still on the northern bank; but for the sake of clearness I have preferred to treat of them on the southern bank in their proximity to the Manchu, from whom they can scarcely be distinguished in appearance, and with whom they have more in common than with the natives of the north. The Daurians and Manchu, Mr. Howorth says, are of the same stock in every way. The division is a political one only. The Daurians probably represent the section who paid tribute to the Chinese Court, and the Manchu those who were free. Mr. Wahl says that “Daours” is a name given to the Tunguses of the Amur by the Buriats. The Daurians are taller and stronger than the Orochons, the countenance is oval and more intellectual, and the cheeks are less broad. The nose is rather prominent, and the eyebrows straight. The [549] skin is tawny, the hair brown. The lower classes do not shave the head, and their hair resembles an ill-constructed haystack, around which they twist their pigtail. The higher classes shave the head in front and over the temples, but wear a tail.

The Daurians carry on agriculture successfully, and cultivate vegetables and tobacco. They live in houses made of earth, thatched with reeds or thin bamboos, and have the walls whitewashed inside. The houses are not divided into compartments, and the fireplace is outside, near the door, the smoke from it passing through a pipe into the house. Two iron kettles always form part of the household utensils, one of them for heating water for tea, the other for cooking the food. The windows are large and square, of paper soaked in oil. They are hinged at the top, and are propped open for ventilation. The religion of the Daurians is Shamanism. We saw their canoes from time to time when stopping at wood stations on the Upper Amur, but recognized few of the people themselves.

We saw many Manchu from the Zeya to the Khingan mountains. The southern shores of the Amur are inhabited by Manchu and Chinese, the latter being either exiles or their descendants.⁠[2] On the south bank of the Amur, opposite Blagovestchensk, is a [550] small Manchu town, called Sakhalin-Ula-Hotun (City of the Black River). The Manchu and Chinese formerly called the river above the Sungari “Sakhalin-Ula.” The Goldi called the Amur “Mongo,” and the Gilyaks “Mamoo.” The name Amur was given by the Russians, and is considered a corruption of the Gilyak word. I paid a visit to Sakhalin-Ula on the evening our steamer stayed in the vicinity. It is said to have less than 2,000 inhabitants. I was accompanied by Mr. Niellsen, from the telegraph office at Blagovestchensk, who was slightly known to one of the Manchu merchants. The town stretches a mile along the bank, but extends only a few paces back from the river. It consists of a single street, and is anything but picturesque; for the fences, made of log-frames and covered with board, shut out the view of the gardens, in which are grown millet, maize, radishes, onions, leeks, garlic, Spanish pepper, and cabbages. The walls of the houses are of log plastered with mud, and the windows usually of paper, but occasionally of glass.

The roofs of the buildings are covered with thatch of wheaten straw, and the town is embowered in elms, birches, maples, poplars, and wild apple-trees. This contrasts favourably with the Russian town, where there are few trees except those in the park. Timber, for use of both Russians and Manchu, is cut in the forests 60 miles up the river, and rafted down. They keep plenty of fowls and pigs, and a few horned cattle used for ploughing. Sakhalin-Ula abounds in gardens, which supply the market of Blagovestchensk. Once a month, during the full moon, the Manchu cross the river and open a fair, which lasts seven days. They sell the Russians wheaten and buckwheat flour, barley, [551] beans, oats, eggs, walnuts, vegetables, Ussuri apples, fowls, pigs, cows, and horses. Thus the Russians usually lay in a month’s supply; but should they require anything out of fair-time, the Manchu are not only ready to supply it, but do so at lower prices than the sums asked by the Russian merchants.

As we walked along the street we met a solitary woman, who ran quickly out of the way, as if afraid of us; and having made a long détour from the road, regained it, and continued her journey behind us. The Manchu women dress like the Chinese, in a blue cotton gown, with short loose sleeves, above which the well-to-do wear a cape or mantle of silk, reaching to the waist. The hair is brushed up, fastened on the top of the head in a bunch, and is secured by a comb ornamented with beads and hair-needles, and decked with gay ribbons, with real or artificial flowers. The earrings, finger-rings, and bracelets exhibit much taste. The women are in the habit of carrying their youngest children about with them, tied on the back. The girls, on being released from swaddling-clothes, are dressed like their mothers; but the boys, up to six or seven years of age, wear only a pair of loose pantaloons.

The costume of the men is a long blue coat of cotton, loose linen trousers fastened at the knee or made into leggings, and Chinese boots of skin. They wear also a kind of vest and a belt, to which is attached a case containing a knife, Chinese chopsticks, tinder, a small copper pipe, and tobacco. Both sexes are fond of smoking, and, as in China, constantly carry a fan.

As we passed one of the houses, we saw a Manchu, sitting out in the cool of the evening, enjoying his music, which he produced by scraping a stringed instrument [552] of the violin order, though it is no compliment to the fiddle to mention the two together. At Khabarofka I saw other musical instruments, coming nearer to the shape of the banjo. One, with three strings, had a long handle of rosewood, and a drum about six inches in diameter. The drum was covered on either side with serpents’ skin, but if its sound was no more pleasing than that of the instrument at Sakhalin-Ula, I fear it would generally be thought trying to English ears.

By dint of inquiry, we found the merchant to whom my companion was known, and, on entering his yard, saw some Mongolian sheep, with their enormous tails. It was not difficult to understand particularly fat Thibetan sheep needing a little carriage upon which to support this appendage. One could wish them better conveyances, however, than the Manchu carts, which are of a very clumsy description. They have two wheels fixed to the axletree, all turning together. They are drawn by oxen, and move slowly, creaking along. The Manchu have besides a rough kind of travelling carriage for persons of distinction, a two-wheeled affair, not long enough to allow one to lie at full length, nor with covering high enough to permit one to sit upright. It has no springs, the frame resting on the axle. The sides are curtained with cloth, having little windows or peep-holes. A few cushions and hard pillows inside serve to diminish the effect of jolting. The shafts are like those of a common dray, with a sort of shelf to support the driver sitting sideways about ten inches behind the horse. The wheel tires are of surprising breadth and thickness, and cogged as if made for use in a machine. In fact, a “machine” is exactly the word for the whole concern; and on coming out of the said [553] machine after a long journey, and its accompanying jolting over execrable roads, it may well be doubted whether one would not feel bruised “all over alike.”

Our merchant friend gave us a hearty welcome, and bade us be seated in his house, which closely resembled the house of the merchant with whom we dined at Maimatchin. Usually, when a guest enters a Manchu dwelling, one of the women fills and lights a pipe, and having taken a few puffs herself, and wiped the mouthpiece with her hand or apron, presents it. The people in the house we visited were perfectly ready to show us anything and everything we desired to see. One of them was writing, with Indian ink and pen of split reed, or pencil of squirrel’s hair, when, upon observing that I watched him closely, he wrote my name in Chinese on a piece of paper, and gave it me as a souvenir, whilst I did the same in English, and so returned the compliment. They presented me also a bundle of joss-sticks for making a perfume, and which they burn before their idols.

Adjoining the room in which we sat was the shop, where they arrayed me in silk dressing-gowns of splendid quality. Among the articles the Manchu sell to the Russians are silk stuffs, peltry, artificial flowers, felt shoes, matting, etc.; but I saw nothing that so tempted me as the silk dressing-gowns. I forbore to purchase one only because my companion told me that I should get them better and find a larger selection in Japan. We contented ourselves, therefore, with admiring them, to the amusement, apparently, of the Manchu, for they repeatedly imitated not only our speaking but our words and exclamations of surprise, and even our manner of laughing.

[554]

I heard in this town of a strange method of treatment of the dead, for Mr. Niellsen told me they were kept in the house for several days; they are then half buried in a funereal hut in the garden or field. The corpse is daily visited by the relatives, who bring all sorts of food and drink. The food is put to the mouth of the deceased with a spoon, and the drink is placed in small cups outside the hut. A few weeks pass in this manner, and then the decomposed corpse is buried deeper.

Steaming away from Sakhalin-Ula, we passed several kinds of Manchu boats, which present a lively appearance on the river. The junks for heavy merchandise are about 60 feet long, from 12 to 14 feet wide, with high bows and sterns, and a large mast, 40 feet high, amidships. Most of them are built on the Sungari, and have a small hut-like construction at the stern. They draw from three to four feet of water, and are manned by a crew of ten,—eight for pushing at the poles, one to steer, and a pilot on the bows to sound and announce the depth of water. Smaller than the junks are the merchants’ boats, with an awning over the state-room, in which the merchant lives, whilst his crew and cargo are stowed in the forepart of the craft. A good deal of valuable merchandise is sometimes carried on board. I remember going to one of them at a stopping-place where the owner showed me a gold watch, said to be of English make, about which, however, when asked for an opinion, I was bound to express my doubts. I thought perhaps the man of business might be disposed to purchase my revolver, for which I had had no use, and found it somewhat in the way. I offered it, therefore, to him for what it cost me. He was accustomed only to the prices of [555] the common Russian revolvers, whereas mine was of good English make. The figure, therefore, alarmed him, though, perhaps, after an hour’s patience, we might have come to terms; but the whistle sounded, and I had abruptly to close our negotiations and make for the steamer.

A Manchu fishing-boat is made of the trunk of a hollowed-out tree, cut in two pieces, fastened with wooden pegs, and secured from leaking with pitch. The small ones are propelled by one man, with a double-bladed paddle. They also make flat-bottomed boats of planks. Most of them carry flags or streamers, and some have dragons’ heads on their bows.

The traveller sometimes sees a novel method of fishing by the Manchu, who sit perched on a tripod of tent-poles, ten feet high, placed at the edge of the river. Here the fisherman waits, like a heron, watching for fish, which he catches with pole, net, or spear, according to circumstances. One would suppose the seat must be very uncomfortable, but these tripods, tied at the top, are seen on many sandbars and shoals, showing it to be one of the recognized methods of fishing. I saw also, below Sakhalin, another curious fishing machine, something like a hand-cart, with two small wheels and long handles. A frame over the axle sustained a long pole, from which was suspended a net about the size of a shrimp net. The machine could thus be wheeled into the water, and the snare lowered, after which the net was lifted again with its catch. During winter, when the river is covered with ice, the Daurians practise a third method of fishing, known to the Cossacks as chekacheni, or “malleting.” Where the ice is transparent, the fish may be seen [556] almost immovable near the surface of the water beneath it. A few blows on the ice with a mallet stun the fish, a hole is then made, and they are taken out with the hand or a small net.

The Manchu are excellent archers. At the military stations trials of skill take place periodically in the presence of the Mandarins and others.⁠[3] “To know how to shoot an arrow,” writes a Manchu author, “is the first and most important knowledge for a Tatar to acquire.” I presume, however, this was written before the introduction of the clumsy Manchu matchlock.

Fourteen miles below the Zeya, and a few hours after leaving Blagovestchensk, our steamer arrived at Aigun, the chief town of the Manchu on the Amur, and once possessing considerable strength. It was formerly the capital of the Chinese province of the Amur, but the seat of government was transferred, some five-and-thirty years ago, to Tsi-tsi-har. It has now a population estimated at 15,000. The town is built on a bank some 8 or 10 feet above high-water mark. The tableland behind the town extends to mountains in a serrated chain, which show themselves [557] as a background to the picture upon the southern horizon.

The Government buildings and several temples are surrounded by a double row of palisades, in the form of a square; and outside this are several hundred mud houses. The town has a gloomy appearance. The houses are nearly all of but one storey, and stand in square yards surrounded by fences of stakes or wickerwork. The only relief to the eye is produced by the gaily-painted temples, which are surrounded with trees, apparently sacred groves, the more noticeable as growing timber is scarce in this region. The temples are square buildings erected with rather more care than private houses. The walls are made of thin poles set up side by side, with the interstices filled with clay, and smoothened. The sloping roof is thatched with straw. As you enter you find yourself in an ante-room, separated from the inner compartment by a curtain running along the width of the temple, and suspended from slender pillars. The curtain being drawn aside, there is seen a table against the wall, upon or over which is a picture of a deity; and on the table lie dried stems and leaves of Artemisia, and some Chinese coins. There is also a semi-globular vessel of metal, with three holes on each side, which is struck by the worshipper, after he has made his obeisance, to attract the notice of the god.⁠[4]

[558]

I observed at Aigun, as at Maimatchin, the proximity of the temple and the theatre, and noticed poles standing in front of the Government houses and temples. But I am not clear whether they are merely flag-poles or whether they are for a purpose mentioned by Mr. Ravenstein, who alludes to poles fixed on the screens facing the doors of private houses, the upper parts of which poles are ornamented by the Manchu with the skulls of beasts of prey, small flags, and horsehair, and during prayer are hoisted whilst the worshippers lie prostrate.

Very few foreigners have succeeded in gaining admittance to Aigun. Mr. Collins, with Captain Fulyhelm, made a resolute but fruitless endeavour to do so.⁠[5]

This exclusiveness, however, appears to have abated in after years; for in 1866 Mr. Knox had no difficulty in visiting the town, even when the Governor happened to be absent. He speaks of the streets as having some dry spots, but that otherwise, by reason of the mud, he should describe the measurement of the “broadway” of Aigun as about two miles long, 50 feet wide, and “two feet deep.” The shops in one of the principal streets [559] have open fronts. Here the merchandise is exposed, and the merchant, attired in silks, gravely smokes his pipe till a purchaser enters. Dragons and other figures, cut in paper, are fixed to poles surmounting the shops, and paper lanterns hang across the street. The town has a guard-house and military quarters, and there was pointed out to me, from the deck of the steamer, the fortress and gateway leading to the Government quarter. Over the gateway was a small room, like the drawbridge room in a castle of the middle ages. Twenty men could be lodged there to shoot arrows or throw hot water on an invading foe.

I was not fortunate in getting into the city—not, however, through any difficulty with the authorities (as Baron Stackelberg offered to telegraph to the Chinese Governor to give permission for me to enter), but, owing to delays, our boat was so behind time that the captain could not be induced to lose a couple of hours for the purpose. We stopped, therefore, only a few minutes to take in passengers. Crowds of Manchu and Chinese came to the bank, some of the women having very remarkable head-gear. Men with a cloth about the waist were washing their plump little Manchu horses in the river; and we saw a number of junks drawn up on the banks. These represent some of the Chinese naval force on the Amur,—but only some, I suppose—because, when the Russians obtained the river, the Chinese transferred their navy to the Sungari. Towards this river we proceeded, after leaving Aigun, and arrived, as I have said, on the following day at Khabarofka, which may now be called the military capital of the Sea-coast province.

Fuller treatment of this province.—Boundaries and dimensions.—Mountains, bays, and rivers.—Climate.—Fauna and flora.—Aboriginal and Russian population.—Government.—Food products.—Imports.—Taxes.—Civil government.—Health of the people.

A story is told of a certain preacher who, on mounting his afternoon pulpit, discovered he had brought again the manuscript from which he preached in the morning, whereupon, rising to the occasion, he announced his intention to redeliver the morning’s discourse; and, said he, “I have a particular reason for doing so.” History does not relate what followed; but I would advertise the reader that I purpose to treat more fully of the Primorsk than of the other provinces of Siberia, and “I have a particular reason for doing so”; the “particular reason” in my case being that I know, personally, a great deal more of this province than of the rest. Through other regions I passed as rapidly as possible, never continuing long in one place; but on the sea-coast I lived, moved, and had my habitation for several weeks. I was stationary simply because I could not get forward, and used my leisure to read up Siberia and arrange notes. Moreover, I had the great advantage of staying with persons who spoke English, who had lived in Asiatic Russia for many years, who knew the country well, and could therefore inform me upon Russian affairs. [561] Nor was this all, for I was brought in frequent contact with military and naval officers who spoke French and English, and during my stay at Vladivostock was almost a daily guest at the Governor’s house, and so was enabled to gather information respecting the condition of the province from official sources.

The Littoral, or Sea-coast province, which the Russians call “The Primorsk,” is a strip of seaboard, beginning on the frontier of Corea, and continuing northwards along the coast of Manchuria, round the Sea of Okhotsk and Kamchatka, and terminating at the Chaunskaia Bay in the Arctic Ocean, about 700 miles west of Behring’s Straits.⁠[1] The general aspect of the country is mountainous throughout. Along the Manchurian coast, at a distance of from 25 to 80 miles of the sea, runs the Sikhota-Alin range, a continuation of the Shangan-Alin mountains. The western slope is the birthplace of many streams, which run into the Lower Amur and Ussuri. The eastern slopes drain into the channel of Tartary, those rivers entering the sea having a short course, and being navigable only near the mouth. These mountains attain an elevation of from 4,000 to 6,000 feet. West of the Okhotsk Sea runs the Stanovoi range, which is a continuation of the tableland lying to the north of the Amur, and is estimated, according to Mr. Ravenstein, as [562] having an elevation of from 1,000 to 2,000 feet, the highest peaks reaching perhaps to 5,000 or 6,000 feet. Besides these ranges, there are in the peninsula of Kamchatka nearly 40 mountains, evidently volcanic, though not more than a dozen volcanoes now throw out scoria.

On the sea-coast are several bays suitable for harbours, which might become of commercial importance if the district were sufficiently colonized, and good means of communication opened over the mountains and forests of the Littoral.⁠[2]

The principal rivers of the province are the Ussuri, the Lower Amur, with its largest tributary the Amgun, and in the far north the Anadir, which runs into Behring’s Sea. The Primorsk has one or two lakes on the Arctic Circle, also Lake Kizi, which almost connects the Lower Amur with the Gulf of Tartary at Castries Bay, and Lake Khanka, the largest of them all, out of which flows the Sungacha, an important affluent of the Ussuri. What marshes there are in the province are found on the left bank of the Amur.

The variations of climate must of course be very considerable over a tract of country which in the north lies within the Arctic Circle to the 70th parallel, whilst its most southerly point is nearer the equator than the Pole, being situated in latitude 43°, as far south, that [563] is, as the Pyrenees. Of the 14 meteorological observatories in Siberia, two are situated in the Primorsk, at Nikolaefsk and Vladivostock. For meteorological information from further north we are indebted to travellers, especially to Baron Nordenskiöld.⁠[3] The climate of Nikolaefsk cannot be recommended to those in search of a mild one.⁠[4] During the eight months of winter keen winds prevail, bringing snowstorms of such violence and density that I heard of a man losing himself in crossing the street from the club to his own house. The snow lies frequently from four to five feet deep. I stayed at Nikolaefsk from the 13th to the 30th August, during which time the summer was unusually cold. On several days it rained, and, when taking an evening stroll, I did not feel an Ulster coat too warm.⁠[5]

Descending ten degrees further south to Vladivostock, we find the summer extending to six and a half months, but with an annual temperature about ten degrees lower than at Marseilles, which is on the same parallel.⁠[6]

Thus it will be seen that even in the most southerly [564] portion of the Primorsk the winter climate is severe. The Bay of Peter the Great, it is true, is not frozen at a certain distance from the shore at any period of the year; yet ice is formed upon its creeks and inlets at the beginning of December, and for more than a hundred days ships are locked in the port of Vladivostock. On the other hand, the summer heat on the Manchurian coast is very great, and rises in the port of Olga to more than 96°.

The climate of the Lower Primorsk is more than commonly dependent on two influences: that of the prevailing winds, and of the temperature of the neighbouring seas. The warm Kuro Scivo, or Japan current, soon after it passes the Loo Choo islands, divides, and a small part enters the Sea of Japan, and, skirting its eastern shore, passes out through La Perouse Strait to reunite itself with the main stream that has kept to the eastward of the Japan archipelago. Under the name of “the North Pacific drift,” this Japan current afterwards passes a little south of the Kurile and Aleutian Isles, and then turns southward along the western coast of North America. From the north-east corner of the Sea of Okhotsk two cold currents start and run—the one along the coast of the mainland of Siberia, the other down the west side of Kamchatka. Sakhalin is thus on both shores washed by these cold waters, which continue their course southward along the western shore of the Sea of Japan, round the Corea, past the entrance of the Yellow-Sea, until, near the island of Formosa, they mingle [565] with the monsoon drifts of the China Sea. The effect of this body of cold water along the Siberian coast is obvious, and we find the winter climate far more severe than in corresponding latitudes on the western side of the Pacific or in the Niphon, and the southern islands of Japan. The prevailing winds in winter are from the north and east, and, passing as they do over this same cold sea-water, they get chilled, and add to the rigour of the season. In summer the winds are generally from the west and south-west, and in July the south-west monsoon even extends to the Sea of Okhotsk; and the temperature is abnormally above that of corresponding latitudes. If, however, the climate of the Lower Primorsk and of Eastern Siberia is remarkable for its extremes of cold and heat, drought and humidity, it has at least the advantage of regularity in its yearly progress, and has none of the abrupt changes of temperature met with in Western Siberia. The dry cold of winter, the humid heat of summer, are maintained without sudden changes.⁠[7]

To the phenomena of the particular climate of the sea-coast correspond naturally the distinctive features of its fauna and flora. The forests one passes through in the basin of the Amur are not, like the taigas, sloping towards the Frozen Ocean, composed uniformly [566] of the same species of conifers; but the kinds of trees are very diverse, though their distribution is little varied. With the fir, pitch pine, cedar, and larch are mixed not only the Russian birch, but also the oak, elm, hornbeam, ash, maple, lime, and poplar, some of which grow to the height of 100 feet, with trunks more than a yard in diameter. The bark of the larch is almost as valuable to the tanner as that of oak, and also produces the substance called Venice turpentine, which flows abundantly when the lower parts of the trunks of old trees are wounded. A kind of marrow also exudes from its leaves in the shape of white flakes, which are ultimately converted into small lumps. In the southern parts of the Ussuri country, and on the slopes of the Sikhota Alin, deciduous trees outnumber the conifers. The forest pines are often draped with wild vines, whose grapes ripen, though the cultivation of the vine has not yet been successful. On the Upper Ussuri the Chinese have plantations of ginseng. In the woods grow hazels, peach trees, and wild pears; and what orchards there yet are about the villages show that the Ussuri district might become, for the product of fruits, one of the richest countries in the world.

But the glory of the Lower Primorsk is the wealth of herbaceous plants which grow on the alluvial soils on the banks and the islands of its rivers. Umbelliferous plants, mugwort, roses, cereals of various kinds, form a mass of vegetation to the height of 8 or 9 feet, penetrable only axe in hand, or along the track of some wild animal. The wild boar, the stag, the roebuck hide themselves in these tall herbs better even than in the forest. The tiger as well as the panther [567] inhabit the bushy herbage of the Ussuri, and there meet also the bear and the sable. Thus the representatives of the south mingle with those from the north in this rich fauna, belonging at once to Siberia and to China.

As regards the inhabitants of the Sea-coast province, in the south are Chinese, Manzas, Tazas, and Coreans, who are constantly travelling, and so cannot well be counted; but, calculating from the registers of births and deaths, their number is estimated at 62,000. North of these, on the Ussuri, are the Goldi, and, on the Lower Amur, another race called Gilyaks, of whom I shall hereafter speak particularly. Proceeding round the Sea of Okhotsk, we come to the territories of the Lamuti, Tunguses, and Yakutes; and then reaching the north-east corner of Siberia, we have three other peoples—the Kamchatdales to the south of the peninsula, with the Koriaks above them, and furthest north the Chukchees. Besides these might be mentioned a few Orochi about the mouth of the Amur, and the Aïnos of Sakhalin and the Kurile islands. Owing to the wandering habits of these tribes, no census can be obtained, but from the church books their number, including both sexes, is estimated at 44,000.⁠[8]

The province is divided into seven uyezds, and the [568] principal towns, beginning from the south, are Vladivostock, Khabarofka, Sophiisk, Nikolaefsk, Ayan, Okhotsk, and Petropavlovsk. The Littoral was erected into a province in 1857, and placed under a Governor who was at once Admiral of the Fleet, Commander of the military forces, and Head of Civil Affairs; and this was the condition of things in 1879—Admiral Erdmann being Governor, and residing at Vladivostock. The military command, however, has since been separated, and given to General Tichmeneff, who resides, I am told, at Khabarofka.

Proceeding now to the natural products of the Primorsk, and the sources of sustenance to its population, we find that agriculture holds a very different place in the upper, middle, and lower parts of the country. The Upper Primorsk extends from Behring’s Straits down to Nikolaefsk, and produces no corn. The inhabitants live by hunting, the fur trade, or on grain supplied by the Government.

The Middle Primorsk extends from Nikolaefsk to Khabarofka, which means virtually the basin of the Lower Amur. Only the Russian subjects till the ground, the total cereal produce for the year 1878 being 327 tons, together with 811 tons of potatoes. The cost of meat in this district is from 5d. to 9d. per English pound, according to the season. The Lower or Southern Primorsk is populated by Ussuri Cossacks, and by voluntary and involuntary settlers. This is the most productive part of the province, the yield for 1878 being more than 1,000 tons of corn and 800 tons of potatoes. Meat costs from 4d. to 6d. per lb. Three qualities of wheaten flour are used throughout the Primorsk—the first and second of which are imported [569] from America. About 15,000 fifty-pound bags (say 330 tons) are sold yearly in Nikolaefsk, the best costing from 4d. to 6d. per lb., the second from 3d. to 3½d., and the third quality, grown at home, from 1½d. to 2½d. per lb. The price of rye-flour at Nikolaefsk and Sophiisk varies from 1½d. to 2d. per lb. On the Ussuri it costs rather less, and north of Nikolaefsk 2d. per lb. is asked.

Throughout the province the price of fish is from 9s. to 24s. per cwt.; butter (not fresh) costs from 10d. to 1s. 1½d. per lb.; black tea from 2s. to 4s. the Russian [570] pound, and brick tea from 10d. to 1s. 2d. The price of sugar varies from 6d. to 8d. per lb. Labour throughout the Littoral is scarce. The cost for a man and horse in summer is 6s. per day, but in winter 30s. a month and hay for the horse. At Nikolaefsk a man earns 3s. as a day’s wage; a dvornik, or night-watchman, gets as much as £3 10s. a month without board, and a man-servant £2 10s. a month and his food. At Vladivostock, convict women for domestic servants are paid from 16s. to 30s. a month board wages; mechanics earn from 3s. to 4s. a day, and common labourers 2s. This last is a decided advance on the 18s. or 20s. a month paid to the wharf-porters at Nijni Novgorod, who live, however, on 8s. a month, eating little but bread and stchee, the latter being made of good beef, with an allowance of one pound of meat for each person. A half-drunken man at Nijni told me boastfully that in good times he could earn nearly 2s. a day; but just then he could get no regular work, and so he said he had taken to drink!

In addition to the home produce of the Primorsk, the Government also imports largely in anticipation of bad seasons and famine, and for the military.⁠[9] They have, too, in this province a fund for loan to the aborigines to the annual amount of nearly £3,000, and rather more than this sum as a reserve fund for famine purposes.

I gathered from an official report in manuscript, [571] which I was courteously permitted to see, some account of the taxes of the province. Personal taxes are paid in the north in money or in furs. In money, in 1878, was paid £28, and in furs the value of nearly £800. The whole of the settlers in the Amur district were to be free from personal taxes, land taxes, and recruiting up to 1881. Hence the land taxes of the province amounted to only £90.⁠[10]

The report above quoted also treated of the health of the people, from which I noticed that vaccination throughout the province had not been wholly successful, partly for want of good vaccine, and partly from the lack of persons qualified to perform the operation. This latter was not greatly to be wondered at, seeing that the yearly remuneration attached to the appointment of district vaccinator was only two guineas, while the work involved much and difficult travelling. In the towns from which reports had come, it appeared that of 375 persons vaccinated, only seven cases had failed.

The total number of (I presume civil) patients through the province in 1878 was 319 (215 males and 104 females), of whom 247 recovered, 40 died, 32 were still under treatment; the average time spent in the hospital by each completed case being 31⅓ days.⁠[11]

[572]

The Siberians generally are said to be remarkably strong and robust, for which the reason has been suggested that all the weakly babies are killed by the climate. What truth there may be in this I know not, but in a table given me by the priest of Vladivostock, showing at what ages had occurred the 102 deaths in his parish, for 1878, it was seen that 58, or more than one-half, died under five years of age; and of these, 37 attained to less than the age of 12 months. Further, 24 died between the ages of 25 and 40, and only four exceeded the age of 50.

The report went on to speak of the civil affairs of the province, its public institutions and communications, the morality of the people and their religious dissensions, the prisons⁠[12] and statistics concerning [573] fire⁠[13] and floods; but I need enlarge no further upon the Primorsk as a whole. It has been already pointed out that the country can be best described in three sections,—the Upper or Northern portion, the Lower or Southern portion, and the Middle Primorsk, corresponding roughly to the basin of the Lower Amur, to the description of which last I shall now proceed.

My plans altered.—A serious alternative.—Khabarofka.—Fur trade.—Post-office and bank.—A Siberian garden.—Started for Nikolaefsk.—The Lower Amur.—Its affluents.—Fish.—A Russian advocate.—Goldi Christians.—Sophiisk.—A procureur.—Lake Kizi.—Mariinsk.—Snow mountains.—Mikhailofsky.—Hot-springs of Mukhal.—Beautiful scenery.—Tyr monuments.—The “white village.”—Mouth of the Amur.

Approaching Khabarofka on the evening of August 8th, I thought that my journeys on the Amur were ended. I had refused advice that I should go on to Nikolaefsk, my great object being to reach Vladivostock as quickly as possible, there embark for Japan, and thence proceed to America. As to how this could be accomplished no definite information was forthcoming. Something was said at Blagovestchensk about a steamer called the Dragon, and her periodical trips between China, Japan, Vladivostock, Sakhalin, and Nikolaefsk. Merchant ships also were reported to leave the Siberian ports from time to time, as also men-of-war, returning southwards after spending the summer months out of the heat of the tropics. My friends, therefore, at the telegraph station promised to inquire what ships were to leave Vladivostock, and I was to learn the reply on arriving at Khabarofka. A new factor, however, was added to my calculations by Baron Stackelberg, my fellow-passenger, who understood [575] that his friend, Professor Milne, was staying at Vladivostock. The Baron had telegraphed thither to his agent to inquire of the professor if he were “plein de voyage,” and if so, whether he would proceed by sea to meet him at Nikolaefsk for a pleasure tour, and then accompany him to Kamchatka. The Baron expected to find a telegram at Khabarofka, and then, said he, “If Mr. Milne come by the Dragon to Nikolaefsk, it will be better for you to go there with me, and take the boat on its return to Sakhalin, Vladivostock, and Japan, or you may otherwise have to wait at Vladivostock until the Dragon returns.”

Such were our thoughts as we approached Khabarofka, where, on arriving, I found, to my dismay, that the Ussuri boat had grown tired of waiting for us, and had gone, and that another would not start for three days.⁠[1] No message awaited me at Khabarofka, and from the Baron’s telegram it seemed that Mr. Milne was not at Vladivostock, but that the Dragon had just left, or was about to leave, for Nikolaefsk, to which port, however, there was no steamer proceeding from Khabarofka for several days. I was, therefore, in a dilemma. If I went south, I might have to wait a month for the Dragon; and if I stayed for the river steamer to Nikolaefsk, I might lose the Dragon, and thus go 1,250 miles out of my way. I fell asleep that night not knowing what to do, hoping that with morning [576] light the way might be clearer. On waking, I learned that the Baron had been to the agents and taken them to task because the steamer going north to Nikolaefsk had also not waited the arrival of our boat as announced. So successfully had he stormed, according to his own account, that the agent had ordered the Zeya, instead of going back, to go forward to Nikolaefsk.

At no previous point in my journey had I felt it so hard to decide what to do for the best. On leaving England, my tour had been planned to last three months, a period I had already exceeded, while more than half the globe remained to be traversed. I had, moreover, left in the hands of others editorial duties that called for my return, and now there seemed the possibility of prolonged delay. I looked up most earnestly for wisdom, and determined to be guided by the Baron’s advice. Gloomy rumours had reached me of the sad condition of the Sakhalin prisoners, and I asked the Baron whether he thought it at all likely that if I went to the island, and afterwards sent a report to the authorities, it might tend to better the prisoners’ condition. He first asked me gravely, though somewhat to my amusement, whether what I was doing was likely to bring the governments of our respective countries into collision, and then, on being assured that I was acting simply as a private individual, he told me that at Vladivostock I should get no information or statistics respecting Sakhalin, since the books were kept at Nikolaefsk, to which place, therefore, he recommended me to go. Accordingly, fortified with the hope of being useful, I decided to do this; but it was not without many misgivings, though out of that [577] decision sprang results for which afterwards I was deeply grateful. I did not find the Dragon, and had ultimately to retrace my steps to Khabarofka; but my going to Nikolaefsk led to the better distribution of more than 12,000 tracts and several Scriptures, and afforded me glimpses of heathen life for which I shall ever be thankful.

The boat was not to start till noon, and this gave me leisure to see something of our stopping-place. Khabarofka stands on a promontory, at the junction of the Amur with the Ussuri, and overlooks both streams from the top of the bluff, in which, in this direction, the Khoekhtsi hills, running at right angles from the coast, terminate. The position is well chosen for a military post, and the town is not without importance commercially. There are several stores, and the merchants trade with the aborigines of the north in furs to the value of £30,000 a year. Whilst calling on a merchant with whom I had travelled, there entered a Chinaman with what looked like a number of dried rabbit-skins hung on his arm. They proved to be sable-skins, almost as they come from the animals’ backs, turned inside out. In this condition the natives barter them to the Chinese, who, in turn, sell them to the merchants, some of whom are agents for large firms in Petersburg and Moscow. On this occasion the Chinaman asked seven silver roubles, or a guinea, for each skin, which showed that they were not of high quality.⁠[2]

[578]

Besides the stores in Khabarofka there is an establishment where they employ 50 men and build steamers, etc., to the value of £10,000 yearly. One of the principal agents of the Steamboat Company lives in the place, drawing a salary of £500 a year, which is thought there a handsome income; but he told me he could not remain, since there was no school near for the education of his children. On entering the post-office, there were to be seen in a large chest, bags, not to say sacks, full of silver roubles, the guardianship of which seemed fully to justify the presence of an armed Cossack, one of whose cloth is always found keeping watch in the post-office and over the mail-bags in transit. The post-office, in fact, is a quasi bank, for on arriving at Nikolaefsk I found that my host kept his banking account 6,000 miles distant, at Petersburg. He paid in his money at the local post-office, and then telegraphed to the capital, upon which his bankers gave him credit for the deposit. There are State banks in Siberia, at Tomsk, Krasnoiarsk, and Irkutsk; but, from the narrow escape I had at Tomsk of being delayed in getting my cash, I was thankful for having exchanged my money in Petersburg for a number of hundred-rouble notes, which I carried in a pocket-girdle.⁠[3]

[579]

At Khabarofka I visited the garden of one of the merchants, said to be the best in the place. It was 10 years old, full of apple and pear trees, but they were wild ones, transplanted eight years before. None of the apples were so large as a good English crab, and the “Bergamot” pears were as small. The latter tasted something like the quince, and were useless except to preserve for eating with roast meat. Among other trees were the walnut, the acacia, the bird-cherry, a thorn with a berry larger than is commonly seen in England, called résan; the boyarka or service tree, with bunches of berries like grapes (called calina), and the beech. Among the shrubs, plants, and flowers were maize, wild white lilac, raspberries, currants, and strawberries, dahlias, verbenas, wild pæonies, stocks, carnations, and pinks; and among climbers the wild pea, and the Siberian vinegar plant. These, with other flowers, of which I did not know the names, made a fair show for Khabarofka, where the cold winds begin in the middle of September, and snow covers the ground from November to March. In the neighbourhood were abundance of trees common to a temperate region, such as the oak, maple, alder, larch, pine, poplar, willow, and lime. Some prettily overhung the river’s bank, which was enlivened with boats drawn up by Manchu and Chinese, some of whom were selling excellent French beans, whilst others were engaged in making and mending shoes.

[580]

Having thus made the most of my time at Khabarofka, I once more boarded the Zeya, on Saturday noon, for a voyage of 626 miles to Nikolaefsk, in the course of which we were to pass, though not necessarily to stop at, 52 stations. Some were native villages, the names of which had been adopted by the Russians; others were Russian settlements with Sclavonic names; whilst other stations bore double titles, both Russian and native.

The basin of the Lower Amur is bounded on the west by the Bureya mountains, between which and the river lies a flat and partially swampy country; whilst on the east its limit is the coast range already referred to as the Sikhota Alin. The course of the river is north-east. Its principal tributaries flowing in on the left or western bank are the Kur, Girin, and Amgun; on the right bank, the Dondon and the Khungar. The largest of these on the left bank is the Amgun; the largest on the right is the Dondon, which is 500 yards wide at its mouth. At Khabarofka, the Amur has a width of 900 yards; and as we steamed away, the right bank stood out in contrast to the left, which was flat; but after proceeding 20 miles, the character of the scenery changed. Both banks became flat, islands were numerous, and the stream widened to five miles. This kind of scenery continued for the rest of the day, and our evening progress was highly enjoyable, varied now and then by the appearance of the summer yourts of the natives, or the lonely post-stations, deserted in summer, where horses are kept in winter, when the river is frozen and transformed into a road. At the confluence of the Dondon, the river has soundings up to 37 feet, and the channel measures three miles in breadth. This is the [581] widest part of the river without intervening islands, though 17 miles lower, where the left bank is marshy and dotted with lakes, the entire width extends to 12 miles.⁠[4]

At Viatskoy, 50 miles from Khabarofka, I stayed on my return journey, and was offered a sturgeon a yard long, which a man had caught, and was keeping in the river tied by a string beneath the gills. Of the fish caught on the Lower Amur, the Russians think very highly of the sterlet, and the sturgeon is costly. For this small specimen at Viatskoy was asked 2s. 6d., but in Moscow they said it would fetch £1. They sometimes catch sturgeon weighing from 200 to 300 lbs., and the dried bones and cleansed gelatinous entrails of this fish form a prominent article of commerce between the natives and the Manchu. The bones cost in Manchuria, for culinary purposes, nearly 4s. per lb., and the gelatine in Moscow 7s. per lb.

In latitude 50° N., the Amur receives on the left bank, from Lake Bolan, an affluent 900 yards wide and 30 feet deep. Hills now rise on both banks, and at Perm (or Milku) the depth of the river increases to between 50 and 60 feet. At Tambofsk, 280 miles from Khabarofka, the banks become mountainous on either side, the river contracts to an average width of a mile and a third, and soundings often reach to 90 feet; and thus the river continues, for a distance of 60 miles, to Zherebtsofsk. From Zherebtsofsk to Sophiisk, the [582] scenery changes again, the river enlarges, runs between numerous islands and several sandbanks, and at Sophiisk its depth is nearly 50 feet.

Our company on board was small in number, which was to be expected, seeing that the boat was a “special.” In the first-class there were only three persons besides the Baron and myself, namely, M. Kruskopf, the telegraph inspector, an advocate, and with him a young man dressed like a Russian shopkeeper. The last two I had observed among the second-class passengers from Kara. We were now brought into closer contact. The advocate spoke French, and I gathered from him that the young man was his client, whose father had recently died, leaving him £20,000. They were come from Central Russia to realize the money, for which the advocate, since he would be occupied at least all the summer, was to have the modest fee of £3,000.⁠[5]

On the morning after leaving Khabarofka, M. Kruskopf left the boat to visit the station at Troitzkoy, but he did not forget me; for, unasked, he telegraphed to Nikolaefsk to his friends, told them I was coming, and requested them to look after my welfare. The day was Sunday, and I enjoyed a quiet morning in my cabin; and in the afternoon we had steamed 170 miles—to [583] Malmejskoy. Here we saw on the bank some Goldi, who called to my mind pictures I had seen of North American Indians. Some of them had a cross suspended from the neck, which in their case had a meaning; for those who wore it thus were baptized, and so distinguished from the pagan Goldi. I gave a few tracts among these people, and in return received, in one of the villages, a curious salutation. Offering an illuminated text to a little girl, her mother directed her to express her thanks by crossing her hands with the palms uppermost, and then go down on all-fours at my feet with her head to the ground.

At Tambofsk, or Girin, 280 miles further, was a village where, on the return journey in the beginning of September, I bought melons and ripe black currants, the latter good, but with less taste than those grown in England. Other berries, tart but juicy, were offered for sale. Here, too, were lying on the bank some drunken gold-miners, whom the captain refused to take on board in that condition, leaving them till he should call again three weeks later, by which time possibly they might be sober and wiser. I met gold capitalists both at Nikolaefsk and at Vladivostock; but from the report sent to the Emperor concerning the Primorsk, it appeared that in 1878 only 600 lbs. of gold were washed throughout the province, the small quantity being set down to the lack of workmen. At Tambofsk we passed out of the district inhabited by the Goldi, and entered that of a distinct though somewhat similar tribe, called the Gilyaks, of both of whom I shall speak hereafter.

The next place of note to which we came, 412 miles from Khabarofka, was Sofiisk, from which there is a [584] road 33 miles long by the shore of Kizi Lake to the coast at De Castries Bay. Light draught steamboats can go within 12 miles or less of De Castries; and as the navigation of the mouth of the Amur is difficult, it was at one time proposed to make a canal, or a railway, to connect the lake with the sea. Surveys were made by Mr. Romanoff, but the plan is not likely to be carried out. The steamer passed Sofiisk on my first journey, but in returning we stayed for a couple of hours; and as there was a prison in the place, I presented my letters, and requested to be allowed to see it. Also I gave to the Commandant of the 5th East Siberian battalion, Colonel Ussofovitch, who was stationed there, a box of books and tracts, with a letter in French, asking that they might be distributed among his soldiers. The colonel did not know French, and a young officer, who called himself the “procureur” of the battalion, was called in to interpret. What this gentleman’s precise office was, I could not exactly make out, but it seemed to be something between that of a judge and a military head police-master. He took me to see the building, where, to my surprise, were 150 prisoners, many of whom, however, were on their way to Sakhalin. The wooden planking of the footways in the town was miserably out of order, and I hinted to the procureur that since they had insufficient work for the prisoners, it would be well to employ them in repairing the pavements. This idea seemed never to have struck him, and he replied at once that he would consider the matter. The procureur spoke French fluently, though with a Russian accent, and he knew something also of the dead languages, Hebrew among them. He said that he had studied this language [585] in prospect of becoming a priest; but that, when he could not see his way to £200 a year in the church, he had entered the army, which, he said, “paid” better. In this case, it seemed to me, the Russian Church, by reason of its miserable emoluments, had lost to her clergy a youth of greater intellectual culture than the majority of her priests. The population of Sofiisk was given me as 700 military and 300 civilians, amongst whom I found a ready sale for the Scriptures. At the telegraph office complaints reached me, as at Khabarofka, that they had no means of educating their children, there being no local school.

The Amur at Sofiisk is nearly two miles wide; seven miles lower it expands to upwards of four miles. Thirteen miles beyond, the banks are low, flat, and marshy; but the land is good, and is cultivated by Russian settlers. Here, too, is the town of Mariinsk, the oldest Russian settlement, next to Nikolaefsk, on the Lower Amur, and situated on the right bank of the river, at the entrance to the Kizi Lake.⁠[6]

Mariinsk was founded by the Russian-American company in the same year with Nikolaefsk, and was a trading post until the military occupation of the river. Difficulties of navigation diminished its military importance, and the post was transferred to Sofiisk, founded in 1858. On an island opposite Mariinsk is [586] the trace of a fort, built by Stepanof, the Cossack adventurer, who descended the Amur in 1654. During the winter he remained here he collected nearly 5,000 sable-skins as tribute. On our return journey we took in at this place, as passengers, a priest, his wife, and son; the lady being the daughter of the late Metropolitan Innokente of Moscow, the wonderful priest who, travelling 8,000 miles, crossed Siberia with his translations of a portion of the New Testament into the language of the Kuriles, and then took them back [587] in print. This lady seems to have inherited something of her father’s enterprise, for I have heard recently from a friend that he met her travelling in Western Siberia.

Mr. Collins mentions that from Mariinsk is seen, to the south-west, a very high mountain, with much snow upon it; and Mr. Ravenstein observes that a few miles below Tambofsk, or Girin, may be seen the craggy summits of mountain ranges, at greater or less distance from the river, covered, in places, as late as June with snow. It was after June when I passed down the stream, but I saw mountains to the left with what looked like snow-drifts, or corries filled with snow. My fellow-passengers, however, and especially the Baron, stoutly maintained that I was mistaken, and that what we saw was either chalk or an effect of light. The formation of the rocks on some of the mountain crests was very remarkable, and they were arrayed in such straight lines, here and there, that they looked like the building of Titans rather than Nature’s handiwork.

Passing Mariinsk we reached Mikhailofsky, a distance of 526 miles from Khabarofka, on Monday afternoon,—that is to say, in about 48 hours, which was more rapid travelling than the captain had accomplished on the Shilka and Upper Amur. A merchant afterwards whispered to me, however, that it was reckless navigation. The captain had not made the passage before; so, placing a man in the bows with the measuring-rod, and rising above all questions as to where the channel lay, he just shot ahead, suspecting no ill where no ill seemed. Fortunately we ran on neither rocks nor shoals, but I was exhorted [588] to be thankful that we had not come to grief. Had we been allowed to proceed at this rate we should have reached Nikolaefsk in another 24 hours, but a telegram awaited the captain at Mikhailofsky to say that another boat of the company was coming up from Nikolaefsk, for which he was to wait, then exchange cargoes and passengers, and return. This involved a delay of 30 hours, which gave me an opportunity of visiting a settlers’ village, the priest of which informed me that he had in his parish 400 persons, of whom only 15 could read. The forest in the neighbourhood has been cleared, and rye, barley, and oats are successfully cultivated. So, too, are vegetables on the river’s bank, for the market at Nikolaefsk. Cucumbers were just coming in, and the people were eating them like apples. When the Baron and I made a morning call at one of the houses, they simply brought forth cucumbers and salt wherewith to regale us. I saw, too, in this village a curious specimen of Russian economy. Not able to purchase whole panes of window-glass, the peasants had used fragments of any form they could get, and fixed them with pieces of birch bark, cut to the shape. Mikhailofsky, however, was not a flourishing village, and it must be added that the colonies of the Lower Amur are generally the least prosperous in the country.

Late on Tuesday evening the promised steamship Onon arrived, and I left the Zeya, in which I had spent the previous 16 days, and travelled 1,900 miles. Next morning we arrived at a Gilyak village, called Mukhal, near to some hot springs which are said to be beneficial in cases of rheumatism, syphilis, diarrhœa, and goitre. The Polish exile, in whose charge they [589] are, is allowed their monopoly, and the Government gives him a grant of £50 a year. About mid-day we passed another Gilyak village called Tyr. The Amur here contracts to 900 yards, and from a bold cliff, 100 feet high on the right bank, a fine view is obtained up stream. The river’s banks spread to a width of five miles, and well-wooded islands lie between. To the south are dark forests and mountain ridges, and at the back of the cliff is a tableland several miles broad. On the opposite bank enters the river Amgun, which rises in the Bureya mountains, and, after a course of not less than 700 miles, flows into the Amur through a delta covered with forest.

The cliff at Tyr is interesting to the archæologist by reason of its Tatar monuments with inscriptions, the history of which appears somewhat doubtful.⁠[7]

I went ashore to examine these monuments, of which [590] Mr. Ravenstein mentions four—one with a granite base, and the upper portion of grey, fine-grained marble, and another of porphyry resting on an octagonal pedestal. Unfortunately, I could stay only a very short time, as the steamer did not wait. I found two monuments near the edge of the cliff, with characters cut thereon. A third is about 400 yards to the east, on a more elevated point, and on a bare rock foundation. The principal one, which I examined most, resembles a thick upright tombstone, about five feet high. The Archimandrite Avvakum says everything proves that the spot where the monument is standing was once the site of a temple devoted to the worship of Buddha, and in Chinese language was called “Youn-nen-se”—that is, the “Temple of Eternal Repose.” The two inscriptions on either side—one in Chinese and the other in Mongolian—were written, he thinks, by some illiterate Mongol lama, not thoroughly acquainted with Chinese grammar. On the left-hand side are the Sanscrit words, “Om-mani-badme-houm” in Thibetan letters; and beneath, in Chinese, “Dai Yuan shouch hi-li-gun-bu”—that is, “The great Yuan spreads the hands of force everywhere.” In a second line on the same side the words, “Om-mani-badme-houm” are written in Chinese and Nigurian. The inscriptions on the right side contain the same in Chinese, Thibetan, and Nigurian. “And then,” says the Archimandrite, “there is nothing more”; about which statement, however, with all deference, I venture to express my doubts; for although I do not read Chinese, and could only examine the monuments for a very few moments, yet I came to the conclusion that whether the interpretation first given be correct or not, it is inadequate, and far [591] from exhaustive. I saw clearly on the stone some large Chinese characters, perhaps two inches high, and some of the Chinese passengers were able partially to decipher them; but the general appearance of the stone reminded me of a palimpsest manuscript which had been, in the first place, covered with small characters, about half an inch square or less, over which the larger characters had been written. Beside the monumental stone, which was mounted on a pedestal, there were lying near five flat stones, cut across the centres from side to side with transverse grooves, about an inch wide and deep. Mr. Collins says they are supposed to have been altars of sacrifice, once elevated and within the temple, and that the grooves served to conduct the blood of the victim into the proper vessel. Whether this be so or not I cannot say, but they looked to me much more like the capitals or bases of pillars, with the grooves for keeping them in place.⁠[8] It is much to be wished that the spot should be visited, and the monuments examined by a competent scholar.

Towards evening we passed another Gilyak habitation called the “white village,” and afterwards found the banks of the Amur becoming abrupt, the islands low and to a great extent exposed to inundation. We had long been passing out of the region of foliferous trees, and in approaching Nikolaefsk they were almost entirely supplanted by conifers, fir-trees prevailing, [592] birches and some few other leafy trees occurring only in favoured localities. The Amur at Nikolaefsk reaches in some places to a depth of 15 feet, is a mile and three-quarters wide, with a current of from four to five knots. The river enters the sea at a distance of 26 miles from the town, the Liman, or gulf, measuring more than nine miles at its widest.⁠[9]

Thus, on Tuesday evening, the 13th of August, I arrived at Nikolaefsk, having completed the passage of the Lower Amur. I have said almost nothing, however, of its curious heathen inhabitants, whose acquaintance I am so glad to have made, and to whose description I shall now proceed.

The Gilyaks perfect heathens.—Their habitat, number, and form.—Diseases, generation, and character.—Habitations.—Living on fish.—Winter and summer clothing.—Methods of fishing.—Dirty habits.—Domestic animals.—Boats.—Marriage customs.—Price of a wife.—Foreign relations.—Fair at Pul.—Manchu merchants.—Conversation with Gilyaks.—Gilyak and Goldi languages.—Education.—Superstitions.—Idols and charms.—Method of bear catching and killing.—Alleged worship of the bear.—Shaman rites.—Gilyak treatment of the dead.—Romanist mission to the Gilyaks.—Martyrdom of the missionary.

The Gilyaks were the most thorough heathens I saw in Siberia.⁠[1] I visited two of their villages—Mukhul and Tyr—saw some of them at Nikolaefsk almost daily, and met a former starosta of the “white” village. I conversed also with an American and an Englishman who had known them for many years; with a French trader among them; with a telegraph engineer whose business took him through the Gilyak country and into their houses; and, further, with three Russian priests, who as missionaries labour among [594] them and the Goldi. From all of these I gathered more or less information, which has since been supplemented by reading; yet it must be owned that, as to all save what meets the eye, we are still very little informed in regard to this people; whilst of their religion (if they have any) next to nothing is known. Few Russians learn the Gilyak language, and few Gilyaks learn Russ.

The Gilyak country extends from Tambofsk (or Girin), about 350 miles south of Nikolaefsk, to the sea-shore near the mouth of the Amur, as well as over the northern half of the island of Sakhalin. The subdivisions of the people on the island are, on the west coast the Smerenkur, and on the east the Tro. To state accurately their numbers is not easy. When I asked a former starosta of the white village what was its population, he replied, “We have 60 men and more women, but the children are not counted.” Mr. Collins passed on the Amur 39 Gilyak villages, the population of which he estimated at 1,680.

In stature these aborigines are diminutive, usually below rather than above five feet; their eyes are elongated; the color of the skin tawny, like that of the Chinese; the hair black, and not luxuriant.⁠[2] The Gilyaks tie up the hair in a thick tail, but do not, like the Manchu and Goldi, shave or cut it; hence they were called by the Chinese “long hairs.”

They do not cause malformations of body by pressure, [595] mutilation, or incision. Their diseases, in common with the Goldi, are rheumatism, ophthalmia (produced by hunting in the snow), and syphilis, the last having been originally introduced by Manchu merchants. In hereditary cases it is no doubt aggravated by their filthy manner of living. The Gilyaks resort for cure to the hot springs at Mukhul; but the Goldi, having no such springs, frequently die of the disease. Insanity is rare among them. Their women have few children; six is thought a very large family. They strap their babies in wooden cradles very much like a butcher’s tray, and suspend them from the roof, as I saw at Mukhul, where the poor little creature was unable to move hand or foot. I gathered from a Russian missionary that the Goldi are thought to be slightly on the increase; but the Gilyaks, from the time the Russians first knew them, have been dying out.⁠[3]

The winter habitations of the Gilyaks and Goldi are erected in clusters of from two or three to perhaps a dozen. In the 39 villages mentioned by Collins he counted 140 houses. The first Gilyak dwelling I entered was at Mukhul. It was about 40 feet square, built of small posts or stakes, and plastered with mud. The roof was supported by heavier posts at the corners, with cross-pieces on which the rafters rested, and upright timbers supported the covering of larch bark, kept in its place and from warping in the sun [596] by stones and heavy poles. Among the cross-beams and joists were nets, skins, dog-sledges, light canoes, hunting implements, fish-baskets of birch or willow twigs, dried fish, herbs, and, in fact, the wealth and working tools of the half-dozen families to whom the house was evidently a comfortable home during a long and severe winter. Around three sides of the interior was a raised divan for a seat and dining and sleeping place, with a flue running underneath, and a fireplace at either end. At the vacant side of the interior were cooking utensils, pots, kettles, knives, and wooden pans; and there were hung to dry various skins and fish, entrails, etc. The house had only this one room, and in the centre was a raised platform, under which in winter are tied the dogs, and sometimes the family bear. The windows were of fish-skin, or thin paper, over a lattice. Besides this kind of dwelling-house for winter, I entered at Tyr a thatched log building, supported and raised on posts several feet above the ground, and out of the reach of floods, dogs, and vermin. The verandah was approached by climbing a notched log. The floor consisted of poles, between which daylight was visible; and in the centre was a box full of earth for the fireplace. The building was used probably in winter for a storehouse; but I found it inhabited as a summer residence. The most prominent objects, both indoors and out, were large racks and poles, on which fish were hung to dry; and the combined odour of fish and fish-oil made it little short of an act of heroism to stay long in a Gilyak’s house.

These people do not cultivate the land, but subsist almost entirely on fish. Occasionally they eat the animals taken in the chase, and their dogs, when they [597] die; while pork and other flesh, with a little millet, are reserved for festivals.⁠[4]

The favourite winter dress of both Gilyaks and Goldi is made of dogs’ skins, or of fox or wolf, as being the next warmest. In summer they wear fish-skin, hence the Chinese called them “Yupitatze,” or “fish-skin strangers,” though the well-to-do among the Goldi get from the merchants cotton goods, and sometimes even silk. The fish-skin is prepared from two kinds of salmon. They strip it off with great dexterity, and, by beating with a mallet, remove the scales, and so render it supple. Clothes thus made are waterproof. I saw a travelling bag, and even the sail of a boat, made of this material. I had hoped, when leaving Kara, to have found at Ignashina the dress of a Tunguse shaman, but I was disappointed. I succeeded, however, in purchasing at Tyr a fish-skin coat. It is handsomely embroidered, and colored on the back.⁠[5] The Gilyak hats are made of fur for the [598] winter with lappets; and the Goldi, by sewing together squirrels’ tails, make a round fur like a “boa,” about five inches in diameter, which, being joined at the ends, serves either for the neck or to encircle the head like a coronet. Their summer hat, of depressed conical shape, is made of birch-tree bark, ornamented on the top by strips of colored wood sewn in patterns. It has inside a wooden ridge, and is kept in place by a string under the chin.

The occupations of the Gilyaks and Goldi are fishing and hunting. They use gill-nets and seines in some localities, and scoop-nets in others. I more than once saw a fence of poles built at right angles to the shore, [599] extending 20 or 30 yards into the Amur. This fence is fish-proof, except in a few places where holes are purposely left for the salmon, which the natives lie in wait to catch with spears or hand-nets. When the fish are running well, a canoe can soon be filled.⁠[6] Ropes and nets they make from hemp and from the common stinging-nettle, the stalks of which are treated like flax. This latter material is preferred, and makes cordage equal to that of civilized manufacture, though sometimes not quite so smooth. I obtained a specimen of very fine sewing-thread of native manufacture, and exceedingly strong; but colored threads for embroidery are purchased from the Russians or the Manchu.

The habits of the Gilyaks are dirty beyond description. They are said never to wash. A telegraphic engineer told me that he one day gave a Gilyak a piece of soap, which he put in his mouth, and, after chewing it to a lather, pronounced “very good.” Both Gilyaks and Goldi have a liking, reverence, or fear for animals. They formerly domesticated ermines for catching rats, the high price of cats confining their possession to the wealthy. On the Lower Amur they find, besides those mentioned elsewhere, the elk, roebuck, reindeer, and fox; the racoon-dog, wild boar, and lynx; the polecat, hedgehog, ermine, sable, and striped squirrel.⁠[7] They are fond also of seeing swallows [600] build in their houses, and to induce them to do so they fasten small boards under the roof, by which these birds have access to the house. The Goldi keep the horned owl (for catching rats), the jay, the hawk, and the kite—the last for no particular use, unless it be for the sake of their feathers for arrows.⁠[8] The eagle is sometimes seen fastened near their houses, and so are the dogs, which, in winter, are their principal means of locomotion. I saw a large number of them at Mukhul. A team may consist of any odd number from 7 to 17, a good leader being worth 50s. and an ordinary dog from 8s. to 10s. The sledge is made of thin boards five or six feet long, and 18 inches wide, convex below, but straight on the upper edge. A team of nine dogs draws a man and 200 pounds of luggage an entire day, each dog receiving a piece of fish a foot long, and about two inches square, the same in size as suffices for his master. The mode of summer communication is by boats made of pitch-fir or cedar. Besides these the Goldi make canoes of birch-bark. The native sits in the centre, and propels himself with [601] a double-bladed paddle. The canoes are flat-bottomed, and very easily upset. When a native sitting in one of them spears a fish, he moves only his arm, and keeps his body motionless. The larger boats are usually rowed by women, the lords of creation sitting in the stern to steer and smoke their long-stemmed, amber-tipped, Chinese pipes. There is one marked difference, however, between the rowing of the Gilyaks and Goldi, for whereas the latter, taking two oars, pull them together, the former pull them alternately—a seemingly clumsy way, but in practice efficient.

Women occupy a low position among the Gilyaks and Goldi, who are polygamists. Mr. Ravenstein quotes a statement of Rinso, a Japanese traveller, that among the Smerenkur Gilyaks polyandry prevails. Betrothal dates from childhood. The father chooses the bride for his infant son, a rich Gold paying from £5 to £20 for a girl five years old. At Mukhul the price of a wife was given me as from £10 to £50, often paid in silk stuffs and other materials, whilst a telegraph engineer named as the selling price for a Gilyak bride, from eight to ten dogs, a sledge, and two cases of brandy, though, if she have “a good nose,” she fetches rather more. The bride elect is brought into the house of her future father-in-law, and when the girl is 12 or 13, and the boy 18, they are married.⁠[9] Should a Gold who has many wives desire to be baptized the Russian missionaries compel him to elect one, and be [602] canonically married to the object of his choice; the rest being sold, or, by a happy arrangement, returned to their respective fathers at half price. Notwithstanding such matrimonial drawbacks, I heard that among these interesting people there are no unmarried ladies.

The amusements of the Gilyaks are of the nature of gymnastics, such as throwing heavy irons and fencing. They begin early to shoot with bow and arrow, and are good archers. Their foreign relationships are of a very limited character.⁠[10]

There was formerly at Pul an annual fair, which lasted for 10 days, and was like that of Nijni Novgorod in miniature.⁠[11] The navigation of the Amur by the Russians has caused this fair to be discontinued, but the Manchu merchants still descend the river, though not in such numbers as formerly, when one voyage sufficed to realize enough for the wants of a [603] year. I was informed that they fleece the natives sadly, giving the Gilyaks, for instance, a pint of millet or half a pint of brandy for a sable-skin; and when the natives are made drunk, then, of course, skins are bartered for very much less. The Russian barges, fitted like floating stores, and towed on the river, must have interfered greatly with the Manchu traders, whose sway, it is to be hoped, is nearly at an end. The Gilyaks now come to the Russian towns, especially to Nikolaefsk, and not only sell their fish, but begin to purchase Russian articles; whereas, for a long time, they gave the preference to goods of Chinese make.

I met a family of Gilyaks in a shop at Nikolaefsk, with whom I endeavoured to exchange ideas, through one who spoke a little Russian, and I thought they seemed a people the lowest in intellect of any I had met. The company consisted of a father, mother, two daughters, and a deaf and dumb boy. The man did not know his daughters’ age, nor even his own, saying that they kept no account. When asked whether he would sell me his daughter to wife, he replied at first that they did not sell their girls to Russians, not approving the alliance. When pressed further, however, he said that she was already sold (she was about 10 years old, and was smoking a pipe), and he added, “I sold her dearly!” It was difficult, however, in Russ to convey to their minds any but the simplest ideas. Neither Gilyaks nor Goldi have any written signs. The missionary living at Khabarofka has translated into Goldi parts of the Scriptures and the Greek liturgy, using, if I mistake not, Russian characters. The Goldi language, he told me, was much like the Manchu, and that, speaking the former, he [604] could make himself understood in the latter. Both, Mr. Howorth says, are Tunguse languages. M. de la Brunière writes that Goldi stands to Manchu much as Provençal does to French or Italian.⁠[12]

The Russians have made some attempts to educate the Gilyaks. When Mr. Knox visited Mikhailofsky, he found a merchant farmer who was acting as superintendent of a school opened at the cost of the Government for the education of Gilyak boys. The copy-books exhibited fair specimens of penmanship, and on the desks were Æsop’s fables translated into Russ. Close at hand was a forge, where the boys learned to work, and a carpenter’s shop, with tools and turning lathe. The school at that time was in operation ten months a year, and the teacher belonged to one of the inferior ranks of the Russian clergy. I called on the priest at Mikhailofsky and inquired about the Gilyaks, but heard nothing of the existence of the school, and I am under the impression that it is discontinued. The Russians have two mission schools, however, on the Lower Amur, attended by 30 children—one at Troitzka for the Goldi, and another for the Gilyaks at Bolan, near [605] Malmuish. I heard of one Gilyak boy who had made sufficient progress to qualify him to become a psalmist, or dïechok, in the Russian Church.

Like other heathen tribes, the Gilyaks have many superstitions. They do not allow fire to be carried in or out of a house, not even in a pipe, fearing such an act may bring ill luck in hunting or fishing. The same superstition is found in many parts of Russia. They appear, too, to be fatalists; for an Englishman at Nikolaefsk told me that if one falls into the water, the others will not help him out, on the plea that they would thus be opposing a higher power, who wills that he should perish. A Russian officer and his family were drowned some time since near the town, within easy reach of the boats of the Gilyaks, who could have saved them, but they did not attempt to do so.⁠[13]

The Gilyaks believe in wooden idols or charms as antidotes to disease. I had practical illustration of this at Tyr, where I wished to buy some of the little amulets belonging to the head of a household; but he was at first unwilling to sell them, saying that he had found the wearing of them very efficacious in sickness. The offer of a silver piece, however, changed his mind;⁠[14] [606] and he afterwards sold me not only his own, but those of his baby, one of them like a doll in a sitting posture; and after I had left the house, he sent after me a fish rudely cut in wood, and meant for a sturgeon, with a little god seated on his back. This had been used, apparently, not long before, on a fishing expedition, for there was gelatine and fresh blood in the mouth of the fish and the god. Sometimes poles shaped like idols are placed before the houses. Another kind is carried as companion to the native on his journeys, whilst some are placed upon the summits of the mountains.

Other idols are in the form of the tiger, bear, etc., which animals are closely connected with their superstition, if not their religion. The tiger is said to be feared much more among the Gilyaks than the Goldi, and its appearance portends evil. If the remains are found of a man killed by a tiger, they are buried on the spot without ceremony. On the other hand, if a cow is found killed by a bear, it is eaten with [607] great glee and rejoicing. It is said that neither Gilyaks nor Goldi attempt to kill the tiger. Neither do they hunt the wolf, to which they attribute an evil influence. With the bear, however, things are very different. There is in each Gilyak village a bear cage. I saw them at both Mukhul and Tyr. They speak of the captive as Mafa, that is, “Chief Elder,” and to distinguish him from the tiger, who is Mafa sakhle, that is, “Black Chief.” In hunting the bear they exhibit great intrepidity. In order not to excite his posthumous revenge, they do not surprise him, but have a fair stand-up fight. When it is not desired to secure the animal alive, the natives use a spear, such as I saw at Krasnoiarsk, the head of which is covered with spikes. It lies upon the ground, having cord attached to the centre, and held by a man, the spear-point being towards the bear. As Bruin advances to the man, the spear-head is raised from the ground, and the beast throws himself upon it, but finds the chevaux-de-frize a disagreeable object to embrace. He is then set upon by the huntsmen and killed. It is much more interesting sport to catch a bear alive. A party of ten men or more enter the forest provided with straps, muzzle, and a collar with chain attached. Having discovered the whereabouts of the bear, he is surrounded, and one of them, jumping upon his back [608] in the twinkling of an eye, seizes hold of his ears. Another quickly fastens a running knot round the neck of the beast, and almost suffocates him. He is then muzzled, the collar passed round his neck, and he is led in triumph to the village to be put in the cage, and fattened on fish.⁠[15] Bruin is not imprisoned, however, to be treated like the sacred bulls of Egypt. On festivals he is brought out, his paws tied, an iron chain put in his mouth, and he is bound between two fixed poles, an involuntary witness of the natives frolicking around him. On very grand occasions he takes a more direct share in the festival by being killed with superstitious ceremonies.⁠[16] The people then go home, their chiefs staying to cut up the bear, the flesh of which is distributed to every house, and eaten with great zest, as food calculated to inspire and bring courage and luck. The head and paws, however, are treated with great reverence.⁠[17] These ursine ceremonies [609] have, no doubt, given rise to the statement that the Gilyaks worship the bear. Mr. Collins goes so far as to say that they consider the bear an incarnated evil spirit; and the missionary at Mikhailofsky, in answer to my question, was not sure, but he thought it quite likely that they worshipped the animal. It is only proper to say, however, that when I met at Nikolaefsk the former elder of the White village, and asked him whether it was true that they worshipped the bear, he denied it, and said that they killed it as we should do any other animal for a feast; and that each village was bound in turn to provide a bear, on which occasion other villages assembled and joined in the banquet. I then inquired what was the religion of the Gilyaks. He said they had none, but upon being asked to whom they prayed, he looked up to the skies. He acknowledged that they practised Shamanism, but added that that was a mystery.

Thus far I have frequently used the word Shamanism, but have deferred explaining it till I treated of the Gilyaks, some of whose Shamanistic practices were described to me by an eye-witness—the telegraph engineer, to whom I have before alluded. The Gilyaks and the Siberian natives generally believe in the existence of good and bad spirits; but as the former perform only good, it is not thought necessary to pay them any attention.⁠[18]

[610]

The shamans, or priests, who may be male or female, are regarded as powerful mediators between the people and the evil spirits. The shaman, in fact, combines the double functions of doctor and priest. When a man falls sick, he is supposed to be attacked by an evil spirit, and the shaman is called to practise exorcism. There is a distinct spirit for every disease, who must be propitiated in a particular manner. The performance was thus described to me. The shaman puts on a huge bearskin cloak, which jingles with bells, pieces of iron, brass, or anything which will help, when shaken, to make a noise; the whole sometimes weighing as much as 100 lbs. He begins by singing in a monotonous murmur, and drinks brandy. Both patient and doctor are usually decorated with strips of wood or shavings, hanging round the waist and head. By the side of the patient are placed idols and brandy. The shaman sits on one side and the audience on the other. He approaches, drinks more brandy, begins to sing and jingle his bells, and gives brandy to the spectators. On the table are placed idols, fish, a squirrel’s skin, millet and brandy, and a dog is tied under the table. The eatables are offered to the idols, and then distributed to be consumed by all present. Meanwhile the shaman contorts his body, and dances like one possessed, and howls to such an extent that Chinese merchants, who have come out of curiosity, have been known to flee in very [611] terror. He also beats a tambourine, and sometimes falls prostrate, as if holding communion with the spirits; and this kind of thing sometimes goes on for three days and nights, as long, probably, as provisions and spirits hold out, after which the patient is left to believe that he will get well; and the shaman receives his fee, which may be a reindeer, a dog, fish, brandy, or whatever the patient can afford. The shamans possess great power over their deluded subjects, though they are said to be somewhat held in check by the belief that, should they abuse their authority over evil spirits, to the detriment of a fellow human being, they will hereafter be long and severely punished. Their punishment is supposed to await them in a nether hell, dark and damp, filled with gnawing reptiles. A good shaman, however, who has performed wonderful cures receives, after death, a magnificent tomb to his memory.

The treatment of the dead among the Gilyaks would seem to vary. Réclus and Collins say that some tribes burn the dead on funereal pyres, and build a low frame over the ashes, and that others hang the coffins on trees, or place them on a scaffolding near the houses. The French trader at Nikolaefsk told me that in winter they wrap up the dead and put them in the forked branches of trees, out of the reach of animals, till the ground is thawed, and then, he supposed, the corpse was buried. The soul of the Gilyak is supposed to pass at death into his favourite dog, which is accordingly fed with choice food; and when the spirit has been prayed by the shamans out of the dog, the animal is sacrificed upon his master’s grave. The soul is then represented as passing underground, lighted and guided there by its own sun and moon, and continuing to lead [612] there, in its spiritual abode, the same manner of life and pursuits as in the flesh.

The Russians have missionaries among the Gilyaks, but the Greek Church cannot claim the honour of bringing Christianity first among them. This belongs to a Roman missionary, M. de la Brunière, who perished in his endeavour.⁠[19] On April 5th, 1846, he addressed a letter to the directors of the Seminary for Foreign Missions, telling them of his plans, and how strongly a Chinese friend tried to dissuade him, “representing to me the troops of tigers and bears which filled these deserts; and, whilst relating these things, he sometimes uttered such vehement cries that my two guides grew pale with horror. Being already a little accustomed to the figures of Chinese eloquence, I thanked him for his solicitude, assuring him that the flesh of Europeans had such a particular flavour that the tigers of Manchuria would not attempt to fasten their teeth in it.”⁠[20]

Then follows a touching portion, in which he writes:— “About the 13th or 15th of May, I will buy, if it please God, a small bark, in which I may descend the Amur to the sea to visit the ‘long hairs.’ I shall go alone, because [613] no one dare conduct me. I am well aware how difficult it will be to avoid the barges of the mandarins who descend the river from San-sin; but if it is the will of God that I arrive where I design going, His arm can smooth every obstacle, and guide me there in safety; and if it please Him that I return, He knows well how to bring me back.”

He went, and at the White village was murdered.⁠[21] I passed the spot a few hours before reaching Nikolaefsk, and the bay was pointed out where the missionary was put to death. My fellow-passengers said that De la Brunière reached the place with a baptized Mongol, whom he sent back on the day of his arrival, after which he proceeded to show the Gilyaks his watch, crucifix, spoons, etc.; and that two days after his arrival, they killed him on a small island where he had taken up his abode. One of my fellow-passengers was the Russian Lieutenant Yakimoff, who in 1857, with the Governor of the province, visited the village, and found the Gilyaks who had committed the murder. They had still in their possession the watch, crucifix, and spoons, which the Russians bought. During my stay at Nikolaefsk I met, as I have said, a former starosta of the White village, who told me that he had heard from his father the story of the missionary. Thus perished the first man who attempted to carry Christianity to the Gilyaks. What the Russians are doing among them I shall refer to when speaking hereafter of their missions to the neighbouring Goldi.

My arrival.—Visit to prisons and hospitals.—Health statistics.—Siberian hospitals in general.—A Sunday service arranged.—Visits to inhabitants.—Russian customs, superstitions, and amusements.—Dancing.—Nikolaefsk town, arsenal, and commerce.—Mr. Emery.—Russian bribery.—Cost of provisions and labour.

Nikolaefsk, founded in 1853, rapidly grew into importance, but gradually waned after the removal of the “port”; and as our steamer approached on a cloudy evening, I seemed to have arrived at a very dismal and out-of-the-way part of the world. My spirits, however, had risen appreciably during the day. The perplexity in which I left Khabarofka, and my uncertainty as to how to reach San Francisco, have been alluded to; but on boarding the Onon I met Mr. Enoch Emery, an American merchant of Nikolaefsk. After almost disusing my native tongue for three weeks, I was able to speak again in English, and I now learnt that for £90 a first-class ticket might be taken from Yokohama in Japan to Euston Square in London, including food whilst traversing the two oceans, an allowance of 250 lbs. of luggage, and railway tickets for America and England. It was not so clear, however, how Japan was to be reached. The Dragon was not expected at Nikolaefsk, I heard, nor was there any regular means of getting away other than by retracing [615] my steps to the Ussuri and Vladivostock. A Russian gunboat had been lying at the mouth of the Amur, the previous day, with provisions for Dui in Sakhalin, by which it was suggested that I might get a passage to the island, and perhaps be trans-shipped to Japan or China on some chance vessel calling for coal. But when we reached Nikolaefsk this gunboat had started a few hours before; and thus I landed—with regard to my future movements—as full of uncertainty as ever.

I had fallen, nevertheless, into good hands; for, in talking to Mr. Emery, it transpired that we had common friends in Petersburg, one of whom had spoken to me of the Amur, and would gladly have given me introductions, had I not persisted in saying that I did not intend to go so far. Mr. Emery invited me to be his guest—an invitation doubly welcome in a place where was no better hotel than a beershop, and because with him I should have the advantage of conversing in English.

Baron Stackelberg was lodged near me, and in the morning we went to the chief civil authority, M. Andreyeff, to whom I was introduced as a person desirous of information about the prisons of Sakhalin, and of a passage, if possible, to the island. To my surprise M. Andreyeff also was acquainted with some of my friends in Petersburg, and he at once promised the information; but it was uncertain, he said, when a ship would leave again with provisions.

The police-master was sent for to take me to see the prisons of the town. The police-station was the first building we entered; it contained a few rooms for temporary accommodation. In one of them were [616] flogging instruments I had heard of at Kara and elsewhere, and had vainly inquired for more than once. I have no reason to suppose, however, they were hidden from me in other places, a lawyer having told me that the troichatka, or plète, was used only at Kara, Nikolaefsk, and Dui. What they were like shall be told hereafter. I will only say for the present they were the most terrible things of the kind I had ever seen. There was a guard-room in the station where Cossacks were sitting on the floor, eating with wooden spoons from a common saucepan, and other rooms occupied by clerks and officials. I was then taken to the town prison, containing 68 prisoners in half-a-dozen rooms. Some of the men had just come from the bath, the advantages of which were patent. But I do not recollect seeing accommodation in any of the Siberian prisons for washing the hands and face except at Tomsk, where was a sort of caldron mounted on a tripod, and from which, through four tiny pipes, water was forced, in Russian fashion, to trickle on the hands. I fancy, however, that not only with prisoners, but among the lower classes generally, minor ablutions between the weekly or fortnightly steaming of the bath are regarded more or less as supererogatory.

In the western suburb of the town was the étape, a prison in which 150 persons could be lodged on their way to Sakhalin. Detached, but not far distant, was the kitchen, in which were convicts of good behaviour, allowed the run of the town by day, though compelled to sleep in the building at night. They could thus earn money if they chose.⁠[1] Both prisons [617] in the town were reported to the Emperor as “old, and built of bad material, wanting proper sanitary arrangements, and inconvenient for their purpose.”

A similar description would have been not far wrong of the Nikolaefsk hospitals, of which there were three—two military and one civil. In the civil hospital, partly supported by voluntary contributions, they were sadly cramped for room—so much so that, in one chamber, alongside of other patients was a boy suffering from small-pox. The chief doctor had, on his own account, opened an extra room for the blind and the infirm.⁠[2] In the hospital of the 6th East Siberian battalion were 24 beds only, whereas by law there should have been 48. Happily only five beds were occupied at the time of my visit, and the list of diseases treated in the hospital during the preceding 18 months appeared to show that the medical staff were doing their work successfully. The chief physician was a German, as are many of the doctors in Russia, and he took great pains to acquaint me with all I wished to know.⁠[3] I found some large hospitals for the navy at Vladivostock, with 108 patients at the time of my [618] visit; but the hospital that pleased me most in the province, not to say in all Siberia, was that at Khabarofka, built on the newest principles, and leaving nothing to be desired.⁠[4]

They have in the Sea-coast province no madhouses, properly so called; but lunatics are treated in a ward of the Nikolaefsk hospital. Of eight cases during 1878, four recovered, two remained, and two died. Besides these hospitals I have named, there is in the province one each at Petropavlovsk, Ghijiga, and Okhotsk. Looking at the Siberian hospitals with an unprofessional eye, I may say that they struck me as fairly good. I have twice met Englishmen in Russian hospitals,—one at Archangel, and the other in the Urals,—and they both said they had every attention. The hospitals of the country are supported by the Government, by the army, navy, and civil departments respectively. None are supported entirely by voluntary contributions. Government servants, being poor, pay nothing. Civilians pay, and one of the good features of the Russian hospitals is that persons of the middle classes may enter, and by a small extra payment receive medical attendance and superior accommodation.⁠[5] [619] The Siberian towns seemed fairly well supplied with medical men; but it was rather appalling on the Ussuri to hear from a telegraph official that he had no medical man within 200 miles to the south, and 300 to the north.⁠[6]

My coming to Nikolaefsk did not long remain unknown, for it was suggested that on the Sunday I should conduct a service, there being no resident Protestant minister, though they had a Roman chapel in the town. The pro-Governor, Mr. Andreyeff, readily gave his sanction, offered his house for a place of meeting, and sent round by the police a notice requesting all to sign who purposed to attend. More than 30 signed, and before Sunday several called on me. I was invited to a dinner on my first Friday in Nikolaefsk. It happened to be the birthday of Mr. Schenk, the worthy manager of the principal store. The shop was closed, and his friends called in the morning to felicitate him, and to drink and eat nick-nacks from a sideboard. In the evening a capital dinner was served with asparagus and preserved fruits, which it was hard to realize we were eating in one of the most dreary parts of Siberia, where they have seven months’ winter, and where the navigation does not open till the end of May. Several at table spoke English, and near me sat a merchant who had lived in the Sandwich Islands and in Kamchatka. Mr. Emery [620] the same week had a party to lunch; and Mr. Andreyeff gave a dinner in his garden to some of my fellow-passengers, myself, and the military commandant. The dinner began with “schnapps,” and among the dishes was a salmon pie, with rice on the top, the dinner ending with cream and wild raspberries, of which last there were bushels growing outside the town.

I made the acquaintance also of some of the naval officers, such as the captain of the Ermak, to whom I gave books for his men, and Lieutenant Wechman, the captain of the port. The latter was a Protestant, who invited me on the second Sunday to hold the service in his house, which I did, and sent books for the barracks of the men under his command. These social occasions gave me opportunities to see something of Russians at home, their customs, superstitions, and amusements. Tea was usually offered whenever a call was made; and as lemons were not to be had so far away in summer, a spoonful of jam was often put in the glass instead. They have a custom in Russia of addressing friends, or those to whom they wish to be polite, by their Christian name plus their patronymic, or Christian name of their father, which in the case of Mr. Emery sounded odd to me to hear a lady ask, “Enoch, son of Simeon, may I give you a glass of tea?”⁠[7]

Among the superstitions of the Russians may be mentioned the not liking to begin a journey on a [621] Monday. The Governor-General of Western Siberia told me he usually chose that day expressly, in order to avoid the crowd of fellow-passengers. Nor do they like to take edge-tools from another person’s hand, nor to pass the salt, or, if it be done, the person who receives must smile blandly to break the spell. Again, when a man is starting upon some special business, he thinks it very unlucky if the first person he meets in the street should be a priest; and if the eyes of one dying are not closed by a friend, it is imagined that there will soon be another death in the family.

The Russians struck me as a people exceedingly ill-provided with manly amusements. They have nothing to correspond to our cricket, boating, or football. Their young men seem incapable of rising to any greater exertion of mind or body than that demanded for billiards, cards, drinking, and smoking. I saw some soldiers, however, playing with a large, heavy steel pin, like a tenpenny nail with a heavy head.⁠[8] An outdoor game played by girls is called “skaka” (to jump), something like the English game of see-saw, only that the two parties do not sit but stand on the plank, which is only some four feet long, and is jumped upon with sufficient force that when one person reaches the ground the other springs into the air, and so on alternately. Swings, too, are in great demand at fairs and such gatherings. I was treated to one on the [622] Sukhona, suspended from a cross-beam not less, I should judge, than 40 feet high.

Dancing is one of the most popular of indoor amusements, and I had a good opportunity of witnessing the peasants’ performance of it at Mikhailofsky; for on the evening of our enforced stay a soirée was extemporized. The dancers were the young men and girls of the village, dressed in their heavy boots and cotton gowns, but washed and brushed up for the occasion. The manner in which the girls sat in a row at the commencement, and the men hung together in an outer room, struck me very much like a piece of human nature which is seen all the world over. The music consisted of a fiddle, accordion, and tiny bells; and in the first dance, two youths having nodded condescendingly to partners, the four stood up and figured before us, one feature of the dance being that the men from time to time stamped heavily with their feet.⁠[9] At an early stage of the proceedings cigarettes were handed round, and men, girls, and old women all began to smoke—a sure sign that they were not Starovers, or Old Believers, for they turn out their sons if they smoke, and call them “pogani,” or “nasty,”—the practice having been introduced into some parts of Siberia, I [623] was told, within the last quarter of a century.⁠[10] After dance No. 3, which was by four girls only, two plates were handed round—one of sweets, the other of cedar nuts. The latter, from the monotonous gaps they so often fill at parties, are called by a word which means “Siberian conversation.” Other refreshments followed in the shape of black bread and cucumbers, the whole affair looking very formal and solemn; but I am not sure whether this was normal, or whether the peasants were overawed by the strange company. I heard that [624] at Nikolaefsk, in winter, they have frequent balls at the club, but in the summer the evenings are given to the promenade.

At this time of day I usually took my constitutional, and searched about into every hole and corner of the town. Its population stands in the Almanack at 5,350, which probably was right some years ago, but it was estimated to me as having decreased to 3,500. The houses extend a mile and a half along the left bank of the river on a wooded plateau about fifty feet high. The landing-place is available only for small craft. Larger vessels lie in the middle of the river, and there is a wooden pier from which stairs lead to the plateau. The visitor is then opposite the church, built of wood, having one large cupola and four small ones. Behind the church stands what was the “Admiralty,” but is now the police-station, having a flagstaff with semaphore for signalling vessels in the harbour. To the west of the church is the officers’ club, and a few minutes’ walk to the east is situated the admiral’s house, the palace of the town, having around it a few flowers struggling for existence. In 1866 Mr. Knox found at Nikolaefsk machine-shops, foundries, and dockyard, into which last I wandered one evening, and thought of the time when nations are to learn war no more; for whereas there had been 800 men employed in the place a dozen years before, I found it covered with weeds, the workshops closed, and rusty iron lying about in all directions. Here and there were heaps of bombshells and cannon-balls, with a few grape-shot. Except the sentinel at the entrance, I met not a soul in the place, from which the glory had plainly departed. So it was, in fact, with the town generally. The boarded [625] pavements are fast rotting, and allow the unwary foot-passenger to step through into the drains. There is sufficient grass in the streets for cows to graze, and pigs are occasionally seen there looking about for food. The Governor’s house is falling into decay, and its grand rooms are looking and smelling dusty, musty, and old. Again, the buildings erected for the higher Government officials are inhabited by smaller and feebler folk, and some of the shops are closed.

Nikolaefsk, nevertheless, from its position at the mouth of a river which is navigable so far into Asia, will probably continue its present commercial standing.⁠[11]

There was a medical officer at Nikolaefsk, whose duty it was to examine the articles sold for food, and who during my stay lodged a complaint against a merchant for selling damaged flour, although he sold it as such, and at a reduced price. I heard Russia and Siberia spoken of as a country where capital can be placed out to great advantage. One merchant said he could easily get 6 per cent. for his money in Russia, on security which he deemed satisfactory. I have quoted in an earlier chapter the 30 or 40 per cent. given for capital at the gold-mines, and one man I met told me that in Western Siberia he made as much as 100 per cent. on a considerable portion of his capital.

My host, Mr. Emery, had come to the Amur as a [626] boy, and began at the bottom of the ladder; but at the age of 20 he was able to count his gains by thousands. He was but 27 when we met, but was looking forward in a year or two to retire.⁠[12]

One of the drawbacks to honest trading in Russia is the bribery which officials expect when purchasing Government supplies. An instance of bribery practised on the rivers was described to me thus: A shipping agent, for example, carries 5,000 poods of freight, for which the sender pays him at a certain rate for Government duty. At the custom-house the agent makes out his bill as having only one-tenth the real freight, and gives ten roubles each to the officers, who make out a false bill to correspond with his own. It is then signed by the head official, who receives no bribe on the spot, but occasionally drives to the agent’s office, says that he is short of money, and asks for the loan of 300 roubles or more. The agent “lends” them, not dreaming, however, to see them again. At the end of the year the agent finds himself several thousands of roubles in pocket, the higher official drives his carriage on a surprisingly small stipend, and the lower officials, having been put into their office by the higher, do not even ask for their salary, and yet manage to live in houses of their own procuring.⁠[13]

[627]

Again, gambling and drunkenness are two principal snares besetting foreign traders in Siberia, whose time in winter hangs heavily, and where, in seaport towns, officers and large consumers expect to be frequently fêted and invited to drink. Immorality is the third snare, which leads many astray who are removed from the restraints of home, and who otherwise hold their heads above gambling and insobriety.

The trade customs of Nikolaefsk were, in some respects, superior to those in the interior,—due, no doubt, to the influence of the Germans and Americans. In the bazaars of Petersburg one has to bargain for everything. A shopman asked me, for instance, 10s. for a box, for which he afterwards “touted” to me, and took 7s. At Nikolaefsk business is done at fixed prices, and I was glad to find that, though compelled to close their stores for many hours on the greater Russian festivals, the foreign merchants, for the most part, did not open at all on Sunday.

The weather during my stay on the Lower Amur was chilly and disagreeable, and the season for garden produce was about a fortnight late. On August 19th we ate new potatoes. They cost 2½d. per lb., but eight days later they cost but 1d. per lb. Cucumbers were ready on the 10th of August, and on the 27th [628] they were selling for 3s. per hundred. Eggs cost 5s. per hundred, fresh butter 2s. 3d. per pound, and beef from 7d. to 8½d. On August 27th we had our first spring cabbage made into little pies and eaten with soup. The price of these cabbages, to a “friend,” was 5d. each, but they were expected shortly to fall to 16s. or 20s. per hundred. I do not remember tasting mutton, but was informed that a good sheep weighs about half a cwt., and costs alive, at Nikolaefsk, from 22s. to 30s.

In Western Siberia, about Tomsk, a sheep can be bought for 2s. I am told that Russians in general abhor mutton, and my informant’s housekeeper wonders the English can eat it, for she would as willingly eat cat, dog, or rat as such “garbage.” Game and fish were surprisingly plentiful. I bought in the streets at Nikolaefsk a capercailzie (called glukhar, or deaf bird) for 10d., which was thought by no means cheap; and a blackcock was offered for a similar price. The cost of salmon, however, was most surprising. Up to the 20th August, salmon trout, weighing from 10 to 12 lbs., cost as much as 5d. each, but they were then said to be dear. On the 15th August a large salmon, the first fish of the season, and weighing perhaps 15 lbs., was offered to me for 7½d., but this was considered quite “a fancy price.” From the 1st September to the 17th, during which period the large fish are caught, weighing from 15 lbs. to 25 lbs., they may be bought for 10s. per hundred, or 1d. each!⁠[14]

[629]

I was fortunate in finding at Nikolaefsk some English books, and among them the travels of Collins, Knox, and Ravenstein, on the Amur. The reading of these occupied much of my time, and I sometimes wandered down to the river-side—especially in the morning—to the pier, to watch the Gilyaks sell their fish.⁠[15] Moored alongside the pier were some lighters of English build, which were failures for the particular purpose for which they had been constructed, though they made admirable landing-places. There were also several barges converted into floating shops, one of which was the property of a Frenchman, who had been a tutor in England. He dealt largely with the Gilyaks, and offered me a live eagle, obtained from them, for 6s.; a fish-skin coat for 8s., and a tiger’s skin for £3 10s. For bear-skins he asked from 10s. upwards, whereas in Krasnoiarsk they sell from 10s. down to 3s. each.

Thus passed by my enforced stay at Nikolaefsk, and, after trying in vain to get a passage to Japan, I determined to retrace my steps by the post-boat, which I started to do on Saturday, 30th of August. Before proceeding southwards, however, I must give some account, in the next two chapters, of what I have been able to learn concerning Kamchatka and the island of Sakhalin.

The Upper Primorsk.—History of north-eastern maritime discovery.—Travellers in the Upper Primorsk.—The Sea of Okhotsk and fisheries.—Bush’s journey.—Okhotsk and its natives.—Kamchatka.—Its volcanoes, earthquakes, springs.—Garden produce and animals.—Kamchatdales.—Their number and character.—The Koriaks.—Their warlike spirit.—Houses of settled and wandering Koriaks.—Food.—Herds of deer.—Marriage customs.—Putting sick and aged to death.—The Chukchees.—Their habitat.—Diminution of fur animals.—Vegetation.—Intoxicating plants.—Nordenskiöld on the Chukchee coast.—Onkelon antiquities.

North-eastern Siberia, or the Upper Primorsk, is to be the subject of this chapter, for which I have chosen the title of Kamchatka as best recalling the locality. Unlike the Amur, of which we have been treating, this portion of the Sea-coast province cannot be spoken of as new; for its discovery dates back more than a century. Of late years, all eyes have been turned in this direction by the maritime achievements of Professor Nordenskiöld, who, having completed his wonderful travel by water, was being fêted at Yokohama, whilst I was lying weather-bound off the coast.⁠[1]

[631]

During my stay at Nikolaefsk, I was further north than the capital of Kamchatka, and Petropavlovsk was distant only a few days’ sail. Intervening, however, was the Sea of Okhotsk, the mention of which so often recurs in connection with the north-eastern parts of Siberia.⁠[2] Formerly it was much frequented by whales. The captain of the Tunguse told me at Nikolaefsk that, as a young man, he used to go to the Okhotsk Sea in a whaler; but so many of these animals had been killed, he said, that during one season they caught only three of them, which he [632] thought poor. At Vladivostock, however, I met with Mr. Lindholm, who has a steamer and a sailing-ship engaged in the whale trade, and from him I gathered that at the present high price of whalebone, it answers well if, during a season, a boat takes two large whales.⁠[3] The whales feed on the molluscs of the Okhotsk Sea, some of which Erman mentions as being eaten by the Chinese.⁠[4] Whether the molluscs are less abundant than of yore, or whether so many whales have been killed that few remain, the diminution of the trade was impressed on my mind by meeting in the Primorsk several Finlanders who had left their fatherland in the expectation of speedily making their fortunes by whaling in the Okhotsk Sea; but their project proved a bubble.⁠[5]

The only man, I believe, other than an aboriginal, who has travelled round the Okhotsk Sea, starting [633] from Nikolaefsk, by land, is Mr. Bush, the author of “Reindeer, Dogs, and Snow-shoes,” all three of which he certainly had ample opportunity of becoming acquainted with. Nothing, perhaps, in his journey would appear more remarkable to those unacquainted with the records of Arctic travel than his sleeping, night after night, in the open air of a Siberian winter, between a couple of ordinary blankets, lined with deerskin, between which, on awaking, he sometimes found himself buried, as were his dogs, beneath recently-fallen snow. Proceeding round the coast, the first village we approach after leaving the Amur is Udskoi, with 150 inhabitants. It is situated on the river Ud, and was one of the earliest Cossack stations. Further north is Port Ayan, to which, in 1844, the American Company transferred their station for trading in fish and furs.

On the Okhota, further north, is the town of Okhotsk, which has given its name to the adjoining sea. Its population was never large, though it had a certain amount of activity before 1807, when the burdens of many thousands of horses passed through to the Russian settlements on the Pacific. It is a sorry-looking place of 200 inhabitants, though many a traveller has been glad to reach it after a severe journey from Yakutsk. The only animals kept at Okhotsk, says Mr. Knox, are cows and dogs. In summer the dogs are shrewd enough to go into the water and catch their own salmon, wading into the stream and standing, like storks, till the fish appear. The natives living on this western coast are the Lamuti, a seafaring Tunguse tribe, said to be uncorrupted from their primitive simplicity, either by the [634] tricks of the Russian merchants or those of the aboriginal Yakutes. From Okhotsk to Nikolaefsk is a voyage of 400 miles, but there is no road by land: hence the remarkable nature of Bush’s journey.

The traveller who, from Okhotsk, wishes to visit Kamchatka may reach Petropavlovsk by sea through the Kuriles, or continue round the coast by road. The latter course takes him through Yamsk to Ghijiga, at the north of the bay, a distance of 1,100 miles. He then descends along the western coast of Kamchatka to Tigil, 760 miles further, at which point he strikes inland to a valley lying below active volcanoes, and so reaches Petropavlovsk, on the shore of the North Pacific, a land journey from Okhotsk of 2,540 miles, accomplished by deer, horses, and dogs.

Kamchatka is so called after the name of its principal river. The peninsula is 800 miles long, and from 30 to 120 miles wide; its total area being about 80,000 square miles, or five times the size of Switzerland. The southern extremity, called Cape Lopatka, is a low, narrow tongue of land, which, as it proceeds northwards, widens and rises into rocky and barren hills, with small valleys timbered with willow and stunted birch. Two degrees north the range divides, one portion running nearly due north and the other taking a north-easterly direction. In the fork formed by these two chains lies the valley of the river Kamchatka. The western chain rarely rises above 3,000 feet, but the eastern chain has many high volcanoes, among them Kluchevsky, which is somewhat higher than Mont Blanc, and not far from the sea.⁠[6]

[635]

Earthquakes are more frequent, perhaps, in Kamchatka than in any other country. The number of shocks felt at Petropavlovsk averages eight annually.⁠[7]

The climate of Kamchatka is much milder than in the eastern parts of the mainland. The frost sets in about the middle of October, but up to December the temperature rarely falls 10° below the freezing point of Fahrenheit, though in severe winters the thermometer sometimes sinks to 25° below zero. Snow-storms with wind, called poorgas, are prevalent in February and March. They sometimes take up whole masses of snow, and form drifts several feet deep in a few minutes, burying, it may be, travellers, dogs, and sledges, who remain thus till the storm is over. Dogs begin to howl at the approach of a poorga, and try to burrow in the snow if the wind is cold or violent.

About 50 miles west of Petropavlovsk is a remarkable warm spring, into which when you enter, says Mr. Collins, the sensation is as if the skin would be [636] removed, whilst the stones and mud on the bottom fairly burn the feet, added to which the steam and gas, ascending from this natural caldron, fairly take away the breath. In a short time, however, bathers become red like lobsters, and find the temperature enjoyable. The water is very buoyant. It is used by the natives for all sorts of diseases.

The valley watered by the Kamchatka is composed of fine mould, and has abundant natural productions—fir, birch, larch, poplar, willow, cedar, and juniper, and that of larger size than in the same latitude elsewhere in Asia. Raspberries, strawberries, whortleberries, currants, and cranberries abound; and flowers are seen in spring in almost tropical luxuriance. There is much grass in the lower lands, and Mr. Hill records an extraordinary phenomenon in a place he visited respecting the growth and preservation of potatoes.⁠[8] There grows, likewise, a plant in the country called by the natives krapeva, from which they make a coarse but very durable cloth. It resembles our stinging-nettle, but is of larger growth and stronger fibre.

Among the animals of Kamchatka there is none with which the traveller becomes more familiar than the dog, which is found wild on the hills. The color is usually buff or silver-grey, and in nature and disposition he resembles the mastiff and the wolf, [637] sleeping, like the latter, more by day than by night. He is intelligent as regards his work, but not affectionate, as may be said of the steppe dogs, and has to be ruled by the rod. It is not usually safe to leave these dogs loose, for they kill fowls, deer, smaller dogs, and sometimes even children.⁠[9] As on the Amur, they are usually fed on fish, particularly the salmon, besides which there are caught in Kamchatka, or off its coasts, the cod, herring, smelt, as also whales, walruses, and seals. The country abounds with geese, ducks, and a variety of wild fowl.

The southern part of the peninsula is inhabited by the Kamchatdales, which is the name the Russians give them; but they are called Konchalo by their neighbours the Koriaks. They have large round faces, prominent cheek-bones, small sunken eyes, flattened noses, black hair, and tawny complexions. Their language, very guttural, is largely inflexional, or composed of invariable root forms modified by prefixes. The poverty of the language may be inferred from their having but one word for the sun and moon (khiht), but still more from the circumstance that it has scarcely any names for fish or birds, which are merely distinguished by the moon in which they are most plentiful. The language is spoken in the south among the Kuriles, and in the [638] extreme north about Penjinsk. Otherwise it is fast dying out, as is also the race. In certain parts the people are almost Russified. When Captain Cochrane travelled in Siberia, he surprised his friends by taking home a Kamchatdale wife, but this did not surprise me after meeting at Nikolaefsk, at dinner, a Kamchatdale lady who had married a Russian officer. I saw, too, at Khabarofka, and on the steamer, another Kamchatdale, of less presentable appearance—a cleric, wearing his hair in a queue, perhaps for convenience in travel. He was taken, as a boy of 10 years old, to Irkutsk to be educated; afterwards sent to be minister in a church in Russian America, and subsequently became priest of Okhotsk. He is now near Blagovestchensk, and when I saw him was sick. He looked a poor miserable creature, and was pointed out to me by Baron Stackelberg, of whom he had openly asked an alms, as “ce pauvre diable.” He appeared much pleased with some books I gave him, but was altogether about the poorest specimen of a priest I saw in Russia.

The number of the Kamchatdales, strictly so called, is estimated at 3,000. Their capital is Petropavlovsk, the only town on the eastern coast of the peninsula.⁠[10] The little town points with pride to its two monuments, erected, one to Behring and the other to La Perouse, and its old fortifications, now covered with grass and [639] flowers, serve to recall the defeat of the English and French allies, who attacked this village during the Crimean War.

The Kamchatdales are a people of much amiability and honesty. Their houses are always open to the stranger, whom they never weary of waiting upon, and from whom they soon forget an injury.⁠[11] They have given up, to a large extent, their Shamanism, though they still take care, when hunting an animal, not to pronounce its name, lest they should be visited by ill luck. The Kamchatdales have not the heroic character of their neighbours the Koriaks. Their plaintive songs do not celebrate battles, but love, sledge travels, fishing, and hunting. In their dances they mimic admirably the movements of animals, bounding like the deer, running like the fox, and even entering the water to swim like the seal.

The northern half of the peninsula, and the mainland up to the 65th parallel, are inhabited by the Koriaks, their district extending laterally from the 130th meridian to Behring’s Sea, and north of this region to the Frozen Ocean live the Chukchees.⁠[12]

The Anadir is the one river of this region worth mentioning; but flowing as it does on the polar circle, and near the limit where trees cease to grow, it traverses only solitudes without towns. The Russian [640] garrison was obliged to abandon the small fort of Anadirsk, constructed on its banks for a fur depôt, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and the Chukchees set it on fire. It is now replaced by four little villages, with a united population of about 200, consisting of aborigines and Cossacks living a half-savage life, though speaking Russ. The Anadir, like the rest of the rivers in the Chukchee and Kamchatdale countries, is so full of fish at the breeding season that the water seems alive with them. When the shoals of salmon mount the river, the water rises like a bank, and the fish are so pressed together that they can be taken by hand. The water ceases to be drinkable, and its smell and taste become intolerable, by reason of the millions of its inhabitants in a state of decomposition.

The Koriaks seem to be related to the Chukchees, and speak a dialect approaching theirs. They are divided into settled and wandering Koriaks, the former occupying themselves in fishing, the latter as reindeer keepers and hunters. Their southern limit in Kamchatka is the village of Tigil, whither they go once a year to exchange their commodities. Travellers do not speak well of the settled Koriaks. Deprived of their herds of reindeer, they have no resource but fishing and traffic with foreign sailors and Russian dealers. The first are said to have taught them drinking and debauchery, and the second lying and stealing. They are eaten up with misery and vice, and are the most degraded of the Siberian tribes. Only the women tattoo their faces, thinking thereby to arrest the ravages of time. Their winter yourts may be classed among the most extraordinary [641] of human habitations. They are built somewhat like a huge wooden hour-glass, 20 feet high, in the shape of the letter X, and are entered by climbing a pole on the outside, and then sliding down another through the “waist” of the hour-glass, which waist serves for door, window, and chimney. Holes are cut in the logs for climbing, but they are too small for the heavily-clad fur boots of a novice, who has, therefore, amid sparks and smoke, to hug the pole, slide down, and as best he can avoid the fire at the bottom. The interior presents a strange appearance, lighted only from above. The beams, rafters, and logs are smoked to a glossy blackness. A wooden platform, raised about a foot from the earth, extends out from the walls on three sides, to a width of six feet, leaving an open spot 8 or 10 feet in diameter in the centre for the fire, and a huge copper kettle of melting snow, in which is usually simmering fish, reindeer meat, dried salmon, or seals’ blubber with rancid oil; these make up the Koriaks’ bill of fare. When any one enters the yourt, the inmates are apprised of the fact by a total eclipse of the chimney hole. Among the wandering Koriaks an entrance to the tent is effected by creeping on the ground through a hole into a large open circle, which forms the interior. A fire burns upon the ground in the centre, and round the inner circumference of the yourt are constructed apartments called pologs, which are separated one from another by skin curtains, and combine the advantages of privacy with warmth and fugginess! These pologs are about four feet high and eight feet square. They are warmed and lighted by a burning fragment of moss floating in a wooden bowl of seal oil, [642] which vitiates the air and creates an intolerable stench.

Mr. Kennan gives a humorous description of his first supper among the wandering Koriaks, and their substitute for bread, called manyalla, of which the original elements are clotted blood, tallow, and half-digested moss taken from the stomach of the reindeer, where it is supposed to have undergone some change fitting it for second-hand consumption. These curious ingredients are boiled with a few handfuls of dried grass, and the dark mass is then moulded into small loaves and frozen for future use. As a mark of special attention, the host bites off a choice morsel from a large cube of venison in his greasy hand, and then, taking it from his mouth, offers it to his guest.

The wandering Koriaks necessarily move their habitation frequently; for a herd of 4,000 or 5,000 deer (Mr. Bush mentions one Koriak as possessing 15,000 of them) paw up the snow, and in a very few days eat all the moss within a mile of the encampment. This independent kind of life has given to the Koriaks the impatience of restraint, independence of civilization, and perfect self-reliance, which distinguish them from the Kamchatdales and other settled inhabitants of Siberia. They are most hospitable, and the best of husbands and fathers. Mr. Kennan, during his sojourn of 2½ years among them, never saw a Koriak strike any of his belongings. They treat their animals with kindness, and will on no account sell a deer alive. A slain deer may be had for a pound of tobacco. Among the Koriaks the animal costs 10s., at Okhotsk from 20s. to 30s., and on the Amur £5.

Like the Kamchatdales, the Chukchees are obliged [643] to earn their wives by working a year or more in the service of the prospective father-in-law, and even then the lover may be refused. In any case, at the wedding ceremony he has to pursue the object of his devotion through the pologs of a tent, the bridesmaids doing all they can to facilitate the passage of the bride, and, by keeping down the curtains and whipping him with switches, to hinder the progress of the bridegroom. The lover usually overtakes the maiden, however, in the last polog but one, and there they remain together for seven days and seven nights.

The treatment of the sick and aged in these regions is remarkable, for they put them to death to avoid protracted suffering. I heard the same alleged of the Gilyaks, but it was afterwards contradicted. The Koriaks look upon this as the natural end of their existence; and when they think the time come, they choose in what manner the last office of affection shall be rendered. Some ask to be stoned, and some to be killed by the hatchet or knife. All the young Koriaks learn the art of giving the fatal coup de grace as painlessly as possible.

Sometimes the younger request the old to wait a bit; but in any case immediately after death the corpse is burnt, to allow the spirit to escape into the air. Formerly, infanticide was common among them, and of twins one was always sacrificed. None of the Siberian tribes have shown such bravery in resisting the Russians as have the Koriaks and Chukchees, and some of these still retain their independence.

The Chukchee coast extends from Chaunskaia Bay, round Behring’s peninsula, to the Anadir river. The fauna of this part of Siberia is richer than in the west. [644] Probably some of the American animals have crossed the ice of Behring’s Straits, and are mingled with those of Asia. The Alpine hare, the bear, the marmot, the weasel, the otter, are common, and wild deer roam in herds of thousands. Snakes, frogs, and toads are not found in North-Eastern Siberia nor in Kamchatka. In the latter country, however, are lizards, which are regarded as of evil omen, and when found are cut up in pieces, that they may tell no one who killed them. The country teems with lemmings, which from time to time migrate in myriads, crossing in a straight line rivers, lakes, even arms of the sea, though decimated on the way by shoals of hungry fish. Travellers are sometimes stayed for hours, waiting the marching-past of these huge armies.⁠[13]

Many fur-bearing animals in Kamchatka and the Chukchee country have greatly diminished in number since the advent of the Russian hunters, as is the case in the neighbouring seas, where some of the species have altogether disappeared.⁠[14]

The aspect on the two sides of Behring’s Straits is very different. America is wooded, whilst the Chukchee country has no vegetation but lichens and mosses, and from a distance looks completely bare. Among the [645] flora, however, of North-Eastern Siberia is a peculiar mushroom spotted like a leopard, and surmounted with a small hood—the fly agaric, which here has the top scarlet, flecked with white points. In other parts of Russia it is poisonous. Among the Koriaks it is intoxicating, and a mushroom of this kind sells for three or four reindeer. So powerful is the fungus that the native who eats it remains drunk for several days, and by a process too disgusting to be described, half-a-dozen individuals may be successively intoxicated by the effects of a single mushroom, each in a less degree than his predecessor. The natives dig for roots and tubers, which serve for food or making intoxicating drinks. They eat also the green bark of the birch mixed with caviar.

In certain valleys, especially in those of Kamchatka, the grass exceeds the height of a man, and the Russian settlers make hay three times a year. The culture of cereals is of little profit; oats thrive best. Hemp has been grown, but not in sufficient quantities to replace the nettle as a textile thread. In fact, gardening has succeeded better than agriculture, and now the natives cultivate in hundreds of gardens cabbages, potatoes, beetroot, turnips, carrots, and other vegetables introduced by the Russians in the last century. All these, however, added to their other kinds of food, barely give sustenance enough to the Kamchatdales and their dogs, without which it would be almost impossible for them to leave their huts at certain times of the year. During the four months of summer they must lay up dry fish to provide for eight months of winter, and the normal amount of winter food for a pack of half-a-dozen Kamchatdale dogs is 100,000 herrings. Besides [646] this the owner’s family must be nourished, and hence, if a bad season comes, and the fishing or hunting fails, death is certain; for to the greater part of the natives who have no deer, winter and want are synonymous terms.

It was on the Chukchee coast that the vessel of Professor Nordenskiöld—the Vega—was frozen in. The ship had continued her eastward course to the 28th September, and had arrived to within a few miles of the open water of Behring’s Straits. New ice had, however, begun to form, and the ship had passed into a narrow and shallow channel, where the crew made fast for the night, hoping to disentangle themselves in the morning without difficulty, especially as whalers had sometimes remained in these parts till the middle of October. They were disappointed, however. For at least a month the wind blew from the north, and by the 25th of November the new ice was two feet thick, so that there was no hope of getting free till the following summer. The Vega’s winter harbour was at the northernmost part of Behring’s Straits, a mile from land, and only about two miles from the point where the straits open into the Pacific, for the passage of which a single hour’s steam at full speed would have sufficed. This was disappointing to the professor’s party, but they built a magnetic observatory, made what discoveries they could in the interest of science, and formed acquaintance with the Chukchees. They describe the natives’ tents as kept at so great a heat that the children were usually naked. The women wore only a girdle, and the children sometimes ran from one tent to another without shoes or clothing in a temperature below freezing point.

[647]

Some of the party made excavations in the neighbourhood of dwelling-places of a race that was driven by the Chukchees hundreds of years ago to islands in the Polar Sea. The people were called Onkelon. Their houses were in groups, and built, or at least partly so, of whale-bones and driftwood, covered with earth, and connected by long passages with the open air and with one another. The kitchen middens contained bones of whale, walrus, seal, reindeer, etc., together with stone and bone implements, fastened by leather thongs to wooden handles.

The language of the Chukchees and Koriaks has not been reduced to writing, nor do these people attempt to express ideas by signs or pictures. The Russians, however, have attempted something towards Christianizing them, and the first missionary arrived so far back as 1704, though baptism did not become general among them till 1800. Some of the Chukchees, notwithstanding their savage and independent spirit (which has become somewhat softened in the few who have received baptism), are just and honest; and though implacable to an enemy, are staunch and true to a friend. They are only nominal subjects of Russia, and it will apparently take long before the Russian Government can hope to Christianize and civilize them.

Geographical description.—Meteorology.—Flora and fauna.—Population.—Cultivation.—Mineral products.—Coal-mine at Dui and penal settlement.—Prison statistics.—Flogging.—Desperate criminals.—Complaints of prison food.—Prison labour.—Difficulties of escape.—Prison executive and alleged abuses.—General opinion on Siberian prisons.—Comparison of Siberian and English convicts.

Sakhalin (or Saghalien), an island nearly as large as Portugal, was not generally known to be an island until a century ago.⁠[1] A gloomy interest now attaches to it, because of late years the Russians have been deporting thither a large proportion of their criminal convicts, so that it promises to be the Siberian prison of the future.

As Sakhalin extends over eight degrees of latitude, the climate varies considerably; but at the best, in Aniva Bay, it cannot be called other than severe, for while the latitude is the same as that of Lombardy, the average temperature is that of Archangel. Besides [649] this low temperature, the climate is one of great humidity. At Kusunai, in the south of the island, 250 days in the year are foggy or rainy, and the east coast is worse.

The vegetation of the island resembles that of the neighbouring Manchu mainland, with the addition of some of the species common to the Japanese archipelago, and among them a sort of bamboo, which, attaining to the height of a man, covers whole mountains. Certain American species also mingle with the Asiatic flora, so that out of 700 kinds of phanerogamous plants, not more than 20 belong specially to Sakhalin. The plants on the lowest grounds resemble those of the opposite continent. The mountain slopes to the height of 500 yards are clothed with conifers, and higher are birches and willows, above which are the thick dark branches of creeping shrubs. The animals found on the island resemble those of the continent, and the tiger at times crosses the ice on the Mamia Strait to the northern portions; though no specimen has been seen in the south, nor did the Aïnos at the advent of the Russians know that animal even by name.

The population of the island is reckoned at 15,000. To the north are about 2,000 Gilyaks. In the centre are the Oroks, or Orochi—Tunguses of the same stock as the Manguns and Orochons of the Lower Amur; [650] and in the south are the Aïnos. These last are thought to have been the aboriginal population, not only of Sakhalin and of the Kuriles, but of the Japanese islands also. They have been driven to their present locality by the Gilyaks and Oroks from the north, and by the Japanese from the south, and the slavery to which the Japanese fishermen have reduced them has contributed alike to their diminution and their moral degradation.⁠[2]

Judging from a photograph I chanced to procure of an Aïno, they have large and wide cheeks, a narrow forehead, and eyes not so elongated as with the Chinese races, and their appearance is more European. The Aïno’s ample beard and moustache are worthy of a Russian. The Japanese, representing, with the Russians, the “upper classes” in Sakhalin, have established fishing-stations along the southern coast of the island, managed by a population who live there for the season without their families. On the south-eastern shore live 700 Chinese, engaged in gathering trepangs and sea-cabbage. Réclus mentions a trade in this last from the Bay of Paseat, in the south of the province, of £400 in 1864, £13,500 in 1865, £40,000 in 1866. The natives subsist on fish, and eat no bread. I was told at Khabarofka that the Aïnos contrive to make an intoxicating drink called sakhe—probably that described [651] by Miss Bird as obtained from the root of a tree—which, to attain their highest notion of happiness, they drink to beastly intoxication. As for the Russians in Sakhalin, nearly all are in the military or prison service, and are supplied with provisions by the Government, the resources of the island being utterly inadequate. I heard that a large proportion of the convicts are employed in farming on a considerable scale, but the cultivation of cereals and vegetables, and the raising of cattle, have not yet, I think, made much progress. Whether they can ever thrive in more than a certain number of sheltered valleys is doubtful.

The Russian military posts are all by the sea. Dui is the principal, situated about the middle of the western coast. On the shores of Aniva Bay are the Korsakoff barracks, with a garrison of 500 soldiers. Muravieff, near this, is a military post, and its port is perhaps the best, or rather the least bad, in the island; for along a coast of 1,200 miles Sakhalin has not a single harbour where vessels can anchor in real safety.

The island was held for a time jointly by Russia and Japan, and the latter was not altogether disposed to give up her portion; but the importation of convicts soon brought the Japanese to terms, and the Russians are now sole masters. I am not aware that it has any metals, though I heard of a surface iron-mine on the opposite coast near to Nikolaefsk, belonging to Mr. Boutyn of Nertchinsk, which it was said might be worked for scores of years without exhaustion, the mine being similar in character to that which I saw in the Urals. The one mineral production of Sakhalin is coal, of which 70,000 tons were raised in 1878. I [652] heard the coal spoken of as good, but small. Recently it has been described as “dusty nut-coal, suitable for smithy work, but not for steaming.” Coal at Sakhalin costs more than in Japan or Australia. The mines are let out by the Government to a company, which from the first has seen small prosperity.⁠[3]

The mention of the mines, and of those who work them, leads me to speak of the prisons, about which I have official statistics. I obtained information from several military and naval officers; also from a soldier, a prison officer, and a civilian, all of whom had been to Sakhalin, and most of whom spoke as eye-witnesses. At Dui, it would seem, there are four large prisons. I heard of them, from one who had lived in the island, as insufficiently heated in winter, and over-crowded. Another report, sent secretly by a prisoner to my exile informant, corroborated the alleged want of space. They said, however, that additional buildings were in course of erection.⁠[4]

The number of prisoners in the island in 1879 was about 2,600; half were reported to be in prison, the remainder comparatively free. The Sakhalin convicts [653] are for the most part murderers, vagabonds, and runaways, there being no “politicals” among them.⁠[5]

Dui is one of the three places where the authorities may use, in addition to the birch, the troichatka or plète, which I have described (vol. i., p. 92). I have no trustworthy information as to the frequency with which flogging is inflicted. At Tiumen the prison director said that, of 80,000 exiles who had passed through his hands in four years, he had flogged only [654] one. This, perhaps, is an extreme in one direction. An exile, purporting to give information he had received from a prisoner at Dui, and also translating into French what was supposed to be addressed to me by a Russian soldier from Sakhalin, said that Tuesday and Saturday were flogging days at Dui, and that they flogged from 40 to 50 a week. This, I afterwards learned, was very much exaggerated; and I had strong suspicions at the time that my interpreter was making up a story for my note-book, which he saw me writing. It is, in fact, difficult to know what is the truth, as so much exaggeration has been used concerning the flogging of Russian prisoners.⁠[6]

I saw at Nikolaefsk the wooden kobyla, or “mare,” on which the culprit is laid; it is preferable, I should think, to the birching “horse” in the Middlesex prison, Coldbath Fields, though, of course, there can be no comparison between the birch and the plète. The latter is a truly fearful instrument, but it is right to remember that the Russians use it for the more part on such as we should hang outright. Corporal punishment cannot be inflicted in Russia on a free man for a first offence. Only the worst offenders are sent so far [655] east as the localities where the plète exists; and according to the law (Article 808) this punishment is reserved for those who, condemned to hard labour, have committed further crime in Siberia, where it would seem there are not wanting some desperate characters.

When we passed through Ekaterineburg, for instance, a horrible incident had occurred only four days previously. A man had entered brandy-shops, ordered drink, and then presented a revolver to the salesmen if they dared to require payment, and had treated isvostchiks in a similar manner. He was summoned before the court, but through some technicality got off, and subsequently told one of his prosecutors that he would kill the lot of them; whereupon a number of isvostchiks set upon him, and wounded him with 30 stabs. Some four or five were awaiting trial at the time of my visit. Again, a murder took place during my stay at Nikolaefsk, at a small drinking-shop in the town, kept by a man and his wife. Two soldiers were in the habit of going there, and at night one said, “Let us go and kill those two and get what brandy we want.” Accordingly, very early in the morning, they went, knocked at the door, and, on the man opening it, one of the soldiers stabbed him. The other, after some difficulty, killed the wife, and all but cut off her head. A serving woman narrowly escaped stabbing, but rushed out of the window and told the police. The soldiers were called out, and the two men identified, whereupon they both confessed their crime, and were taken to the guard-house to await legal proceedings, which would consign them, not to death, but to hard labour, it was supposed, in Sakhalin, for 15 or 20 years.

I think the worst thing I heard of Dui was about [656] the prisoners’ food. From two or three independent sources I was told that they did not get enough. For some weeks one year they were reduced to a pound and a half of bread a day, in consequence of an insufficient quantity of flour having been sent to the island,—or, rather, by reason of the ice breaking up that season so late that a fresh supply could not be forwarded. Again, a naval officer told me that he had seen the convicts, when bringing coal to his vessel, pick up and eat the scraps which the seamen had thrown away. I should not think much of this, however, for when I was on board a Russian man-of-war I saw fragments of seamen’s biscuit tossed overboard such as any hungry man might well be thankful for, and which, being of superior flour, a convict would naturally relish in preference to his ordinary rye bread.

The soldier who came from Sakhalin told me that the prison fare consisted, on four days a week, of 3 lbs. (Russian) of bread and ¼ lb. of meat, and on three days, of 3 lbs. of bread and 1 lb. of fish, which is the quantity of bread allowed to the soldiers there, and exceeds the weight of bread given to English prisoners. It should be added that one of my informants said the prisoners gambled. Cards, with brandy at an exorbitant price, they manage to smuggle into the prison, and then play for their food. Goryantchikoff draws a vivid picture of this practice carried on at night. When all are supposed to be asleep, a piece of carpet is spread, a candle lighted, and a sentinel posted. The card-playing then begins, and often does not cease till morning; and the prisoners, having no money, stake their food and clothes. It is not matter for surprise, therefore, if some of the prisoners find [657] themselves with insufficient or very bad clothing, the frequent cause of which should be borne in mind in connection with the reckless statements sometimes published respecting the clothing of Russian prisoners.

Making due allowance for exaggeration, however, I am disposed to think that there is real cause for complaint regarding the food at Dui, as to quality, if not quantity.⁠[7] There are certain local circumstances which would render it likely that the prisoners’ food in the Sea-coast province, and especially Sakhalin, would not be so satisfactory as in Western Siberia. The cost of provisions is very much higher in the east, and the Government does not appear to allow proportionately increased payment.⁠[8]

Testimony went in the opposite direction as regards [658] the prisoners’ labour, and all seemed of opinion that they were not overworked. The agricultural convicts, from the great length and severity of the winter, are idle the greater part of the year. The Polish exile said, indeed, that the work was harder than at Kara, and that if the allotted amount of work were unfinished, the miners were flogged; but when the yearly output amounts to only 70,000 tons, it speaks for itself that the getting of this quantity and loading the ships therewith is a mere trifle for 1,000 or 1,500 men; and as in the other penal colonies of Siberia, convicts suffer more, I judge, from inactivity than from overwork. The miners spend 11 hours a day in the mine, from eight to noon and one till eight; and then return to their barracks or houses, not working, a German told me, so hard as English miners. One officer, who had been much in Dui, said that the daily task of a prisoner was not more than he himself could do in a couple of hours of really hard work, and that the men are idle and spin out the work.

Another, in answer to my question, replied that there was no difference perceptible in the general health of the convict miners and farmers; and the traveller I have quoted from the North China Herald goes so far as to say, “The conclusion we arrived at was, that contentment prevailed throughout, even the convicts giving no evidence of discontent.”

To escape from the prisons of Dui has been comparatively easy, but it is almost impossible to get far away, owing to the scarcity of provisions and the nature of the country; and the difficulty will no doubt be increased when the cable is laid⁠[9] from De Castries [659] Bay to Dui. From this spot the runaway must first walk 200 miles along the coast, and this through a country where he can get no provisions. He dare not show himself to the natives, since there is a price on his head, and they receive 6s. for taking him to the police, dead or alive; and even if he should succeed in crossing the six miles of ice to the continent, he is often compelled to give himself up to get food. Thus, out of 100 who were reported to have run away the winter before my journey, 32 were caught by the Gilyaks, and one case of cannibalism was said to have taken place among the starving fugitives. A terrible instance of the difficulty of procuring food in the Amur region occurred in 1856, when a battalion of soldiers was dispatched in September from Nikolaefsk up the river to Shilkinsk Zavod. They were overtaken by winter, and were compelled to draw lots as to who should be eaten. The survivors walked on the ice and arrived in safety. Mr. Emery told me he had more than once seen hungry runaways give themselves up to the authorities. Runaways when caught are flogged; but this does not prevent others from making the attempt to escape. During my stay at Nikolaefsk a rumour spread that a third of the prisoners landed by the Nijni Novgorod had escaped, having in their possession 30 revolvers; and as the small Cossack station on the island opposite the mouth of the Amur had only 15 men, it was feared they would be in a plight. Within a day or two the reported numbers sank to one-half, and I have since learned that 40 was the number—some newly arrived and others older convicts, and that 27 were caught.

With regard to the prison executive, there is a [660] resident priest in Sakhalin; and since my visit a schoolmistress has been sent for the convicts’ children, who are kept in prison. I sent a supply of Scriptures and tracts for the prisoners and soldiers at Dui and Aniva Bay. In the Nijni Novgorod, too, there came out a priest and an assistant bringing with them a number of ecclesiastical books. The assistant and books had been sent, I believe, by the Consistorium, from which the priest at Vladivostock, at the time of my visit, was expecting £40 worth of ecclesiastical literature. To every 100 prisoners in Dui there are one superior and two under officers, all of whom are miserably paid. The usual charges of peculation and using for their own advantage the prisoners’ work are brought against them; but with what amount of truth I cannot say. The most shameful abuse I heard of concerning Sakhalin was that formerly the female prisoners were allowed clandestinely to go on board the ships whilst coaling, and were expected, on their return, to share with the warders their licentious gains. This came from a prison official, but I cannot answer for its truth; though when I asked a Russian doctor if it was at all likely to be true, he thought it not improbable, and said that he had no doubt female prisoners could, by payment to under officers, get release for an occasional promenade. To what depths of rascality some of the prison authorities may descend, I know not; but one officer, of whom I thought highly, told me that he had been sometimes appointed to inspect Siberian prisons, and in one of them, which he named, he found the director had committed such frauds that, could he have hanged him, he would have done so. As it was, he reported him to his chief, and the man [661] was removed. On the sea coast they say the heaven is high and the Tsar is far off; and a bribe goes a long way in diverting the hand of justice. For instance, one merchant declared that released convicts had sometimes stolen his goods, but that he could not get them punished because the offenders bribed the police. At Nikolaefsk they testified that one convict, a murderer, who ought to have been fast in prison, was allowed, for handsome payment, the run of the streets; though, like John Bunyan in Bedford Gaol, he was obliged to be in prison when inspectors came. This may be sufficiently shocking to English readers, but not less so, perhaps, the following from nearer home. When visiting one of the largest and best-managed prisons of England, and pointing to the warders in broadcloth, I said to the gentleman conducting me, “Do you think these men can be reached by a bribe?” To which he replied, “I have not the smallest doubt of it; they bring in tobacco and eatables to the cells, and we are powerless to prevent it. A prisoner, for instance, informs his warder as to the whereabouts of his friends, and perhaps asks him to call. On doing so the warder can inquire, ‘What would you like me to do for your friend who is under my charge? and what will you give me for doing it?’” A simple-minded woman, in her innocence, came one day to the chaplain of a prison I know, complaining that it “cost her so much to get little comforts to her incarcerated husband”; and then came out the story of the warder’s exactions, which at last had exhausted her means and patience!

The reader will have observed that, in speaking of Sakhalin, I have only given the testimony of others, as [662] I did not go to the island. I entered one prison only after leaving Nikolaefsk—that of Vladivostock, and I may here, therefore, sum up my personal experience of Siberian prisons.

I have met with a deep and almost universal conviction that the prisons of Siberia, compared with those of other countries, are intolerably bad. This I cannot endorse. A proper comparison would be between the Russian sent to Siberia and the English convict as formerly transported to Botany Bay; but, comparing the convicts of the two nations as they now are, and taking the three primary needs of life—clothing, food, and shelter—the Russian convict proves to be fed more abundantly, if not better, than the English convict; and the clothing of the two, having regard to the dress of their respective countries, is very similar. The floors of Siberian cells are not of polished oak, as in Paris, nor are the walls of stone slabs, as in York. Siberian prisons have not fittings of burnished brass, with everything neat and trim, as at Petersburg; but then, neither have the houses of the Siberian people. The average peasant, taken from his izba to prison, need experience no greater shock than does the average English criminal when confined in jail. A convict’s labour in Siberia is certainly lighter than in England; he has more privileges; friends may see him oftener, and bring him food;⁠[10] and he passes his time, not in the seclusion of a cell, nor under imposed silence, but among his fellows, with whom he may lounge, talk, and smoke.

I am now looking at things from a prisoner’s point [663] of view, and referring more especially to his animal requirements. When we look at his intellectual, moral, and religious nature, then it must be allowed my former comparison, as between Russian and English prisons, no longer holds good. The English convict, if unlettered, is compelled to attend school; the Siberian is left in ignorance. In the case of the English prisoner, some attempt, at all events, is made at his moral reformation. When he enters the prison, and on subsequent occasions, it is the chaplain’s duty to see him privately; and having learned, if possible, his moral condition, to point out the cause of his fall, and to show him the way to rise; and these efforts are attended with more success than is known to the general public. Once more, the English prisoner has opportunity of daily religious worship—in some establishments twice a day, religious instruction twice a week or oftener, and this sometimes ends in the happy result that going to prison proves the turning-point of a life.

But I can hardly conceive this happening to a Siberian prisoner. Chaplains, in our sense of the word, are unknown; and even if the criminal be softened at the thought of leaving home or friends, or otherwise, he is turned loose among a herd of sinners more wicked perhaps than himself, with the imminent probability that he will speedily become as abandoned as they. If condemned to hard labour, he is robbed of the Sunday and attendance at church; there is none to point him to higher and better things, and hence he too often becomes a wreck both for this world and the next. Once more, there are in England voluntary agencies meeting the prisoner on his release with an endeavour to minister to his temporal and spiritual good, so that, if he desire [664] to lead a reformed life, he is helped to do so; and there are hundreds of former inhabitants of our prisons who to-day are respectable members of society. But in regard to the spiritual good of the Siberian prisoner, the Russian system is sadly deficient. The exile, it is true, is settled in a village, in possession of land where, if he chooses to work, he may satisfy his wants, and, as regards material things, begin life anew; but he is known as a convict, and too often does not care to retrieve his character. A doctor, holding a high position in Siberia, told me that he thought the convicts, when released, did not as a rule become reformed. They find difficulty, he said, in persuading peasants to give them their daughters in marriage; and if they marry released female convicts, these have almost always been women of bad character, who bear no children. Hence the men, having no home, often work during the week only to supply immediate wants, and to save enough for a drink on Sunday. Such was his testimony, from which it would appear that Siberia furnishes another illustration of the truth that reformation, to be worthy of the name, except on a religious basis, is impossible.

From Nikolaefsk to Khabarofka.—Proposal to move the port.—Military forces in the province.—Departure for Kamen Ruiboloff.—The Ussuri.—Visit to a parish priest.—The native Goldi.—Missions of the Russian Church.—Pay of missionaries.—Head waters of Ussuri.—The Sungacha.—Cossacks.—Visit to a Cossack stanitza.—Chinese houses.—Lake Khanka.—Arrival at Kamen Ruiboloff.

On Saturday night, August 30th, I left Nikolaefsk for Khabarofka, pleased with the prospect of travelling 700 miles where no English or American author had gone before. By Sunday morning we reached Tyr, and Mariinsk and Sophiisk were passed on Monday.⁠[1]

As we approached Khabarofka, on Thursday evening, summer appeared to have returned. The small steamer bound for the Ussuri did not start for 24 hours after our arrival, and so I had another day in Khabarofka, which just then was in a state of excitement. [666] General Tichmeneff was there, with a commission sent to the Sea-coast government, to consider whether or not it was desirable to move the port from Vladivostock. In early years Ayan, and next Petropavlovsk, was the Russian port in the Pacific; then it was removed to Nijni Kamchatka, afterwards to Nikolaefsk, and from thence, in 1865, to Vladivostock. From a strategic point of view the situation of Vladivostock was considered unsatisfactory, and when it looked possible, in 1878, that England and Russia might go to war, the apprehensions of the authorities were aroused, and some of the foreign merchants of the port, preferring not to run the chance of a siege, decamped to Japan. The question then was whether the Government should spend some £300,000 or £400,000 in the defence of Vladivostock, to make it a military as well as a naval stronghold, or move to another harbour that could be more easily fortified. This was the talk of the province during my stay, and steam, telegraph, and postal services seemed busy in doing the behests of the commission. I caught sight of the general as he and his staff embarked on the Onon for Nikolaefsk; and I have since heard that he has been appointed military governor of the province, to live at Khabarofka, whilst Vladivostock continues as the head-quarters of the fleet, and Admiral Erdmann has been recalled to Russia, and is now Governor of the Port of Reval.

I made it my business to call upon Major Evfanoff, the commandant, as I wished to place Scriptures in the barracks, and to give other reading material for distribution among soldiers and Cossacks. At Nikolaefsk I had entrusted upwards of 1,200 books and tracts to Colonel Ossipoff, which he distributed during my stay; [667] also at Sophiisk I left a parcel of 500 with Colonel Ussufovitch.⁠[2] The major expressed his willingness to carry out my wishes at Khabarofka, though he did not see how the books could be allowed to lie safely in the barrack-rooms for every one’s use. I was therefore obliged to ask him to carry out my intentions in the way that was most feasible, and he subsequently told me that the soldiers were highly pleased, and thankful for the distribution.

Besides the books left for the barracks and hospital, [668] I did a stroke of business with the merchant Plusnin, selling him a bundle of 250 tracts, hoping thereby to get them distributed; and had not my stock failed, I would gladly have sold to him, or sent to Blagovestchensk, some copies of the Scriptures for the Molokans, who, I heard, are the largest purchasers, as I suppose they are the greatest readers, of the Scriptures on the Amur. Thus, having done what I could for Khabarofka, I prepared to leave it on Friday night, September 5th.

The steamboat agents and officials were exceedingly kind to me, apparently out of regard to what I was doing. A man said at Nikolaefsk that the chief director had been staying with him, and had he known that I was coming on such an errand, he should certainly have asked for me a free passage. As it was, the clerk would not hear of taking anything for the carriage of “the holy books,” and a first-class cabin was given for my sole use at a second-class fare, and this was [669] repeated on the Ussuri.⁠[3] The great General Tichmeneff had been the last occupant of my cabin, and it was draped with Brussels carpet, apparently new, the stately proportions of the room being 6 feet long by 4 broad and 7 high, which I feared his Excellency, who was bigger than I in more senses than one, must have found exceedingly small.

The Ussuri, after the Sungari, is the most considerable of the rivers which join the Amur from the south. It flows from the south-west to the north-east in the valley that separates the two parallel ridges of the Shan-alin and the Sikhota-Alin mountains. At Khabarofka it measures nearly two miles wide, having at its mouth three islands and two sandbanks, with an ordinary depth of 10 feet, though after the summer rains it rises to 19 feet. Ascending 25 miles, the width diminishes to a mile and a half, the depth never exceeding 20 feet. The Ussuri was chosen in 1860 for a frontier, so that we now had Russian territory on the left, and Chinese territory on the right. The Chinese bank is for the most part flat, but the horizon is bounded by low mountain peaks. The Russian bank is mountainous and richly wooded, being formed of the western slopes of the coast range, which give birth [670] to a number of streams, the Chirka, Bikin, Por, and others, which flow in on the eastern bank of the Ussuri. The largest of the streams flowing in on the western bank are the Nor, Muren, and Sungacha. At the confluence of the Chirka the river is a mile and a quarter wide. For 30 miles further the mountains retire, and the bottom land thus left is richly, though not thickly, wooded with aspens, willows, oaks, and elms. Opposite the mouth of the Por, which flows in on the Russian bank, were a few Chinese houses called Sunchui. We had passed a similar group on the first day’s travel, and subsequently came to three others, one of which, opposite Graphskaya, was called Vikul Uima. The right bank was almost uninhabited. Within 70 miles from Khabarofka we passed, on the Russian bank, six stations, and among them Kazakevich (where was a military post, at which I gave some books to Colonel Glen); Dyachenkova, a village of seven houses; and Trëkh-svyateeteley, or the “station of three saints.” Another euphonious name was given further on to a collection of houses called Vidnaya, or “the beautiful,” where the Ussuri divides into three channels.

On Sunday morning we arrived at Kozloffskaya, or the Goat station, having a telegraph office and a church. Service was over, and I called on the priest, John Voskresenskie (which means resurrection), a man who, if not—

His parish extended along the river’s bank, 30 miles to the north and 50 to the south, and he ministered to [671] 10 villages. To the most distant he goes eight times a year, to the others once a month.⁠[4]

Most of the houses at Kozloffskaya had gardens, in some of which maize was growing. There was also a private chapel, erected by one of the tradesmen. At the next station, Vasilyeva, the Bekin flows in on the Russian bank, and the mountains here reach their highest.

On Sunday evening we passed a deserted village of 10 log houses, called Pashkova, from which the inhabitants had migrated in a body further south. On the Chinese bank the hills, well wooded to the top, approached the river. In the course of Sunday night we were delayed nine hours by fog, and during the next day stopped for a chat with a steam launch, used, if I mistake not, for the telegraph service. This was the only craft, excepting the canoes of the natives, that we met. Seven stations more were passed, and on Monday evening we arrived at Krasnoiarskaia, having completed half our voyage.

The principal natives of the Ussuri are the Goldi. In addition to what I read and saw of these people, I acquired a great deal of information from Alexander Protodiakonoff, the priest of Khabarofka, who has been a missionary hereabouts for 23 years. At Malmuish [672] a missionary, who had 3,000 Goldi in his district, came on board the Onon, from whom I gathered that he had been a priest only a year, during which time he had baptized 50 persons. This man called one of the Goldi passengers to explain to me the use of my Gilyak idols.

The Goldi are of the Tunguse family, and belong to the Mongolian race. Their number was estimated by Collins at 2,560, but a missionary gave it me as about 6,000. Their habitat extends along the Amur to the country of the Gilyaks on the north, and on the south to the Upper Ussuri, whilst laterally it extends from the mouth of the Sungari to the sea coast. The mortality among them, as among the Gilyaks, is great, but they are, nevertheless, thought to be on the increase. Their physiognomy is distinctly Mongolian. They imitate some of the customs of the neighbouring Manchu, amongst others that of shaving off the hair, with the exception of a tail, which they wear on the top of the head. They do not, as a rule, cultivate the ground, even for garden produce; and such vegetable food as they use, millet or rice, they get in exchange for furs. We did, however, pass two or three Goldi huts where millet was under cultivation, and where the natives looked unusually dirty. Their houses and clothing I have already spoken of as resembling those of the Gilyaks.

Their communications with the outside world are extremely limited. The only foreigners they know are Russians and Chinese. When, therefore, the natives asked who I was, it was exceedingly difficult to make them understand, as they had never seen an Englishman before.⁠[5] The Goldi, long used to dealing with [673] the Manchu, still use their money, weights, and measures, also their musical instruments. I was told they do not sing. Each village has its chief or elder, as formerly, under Manchu rule, but they are gradually becoming Russianized. Twenty years ago they used to have drunken fights, village with village, but this practice is now abandoned, and their treatment of the dead is growing more decent; not that they used, like their Mongolian congeners, the interior of their dogs for burying-places, the corpse being cut up and eaten, but they had in each village a house for the dead, which, in summer, stank so horribly as fairly to drive the people away. In these buildings the clothes and arms were placed with the corpse, and children and friends entered from time to time to mourn. A missionary told me he had seen one of these houses within the past 10 years, but that now the Goldi bury their dead, as do the Russians.

I spent part of my last evening at Khabarofka at the house of Peter Alexander, protodiakonoff, or arch deacon, of that town and two neighbouring villages, with a population of 260. He told me that the missionary district he superintended, in addition to his parish, extended from Orlofsk to Ekaterin-Nicolsk on the Amur, and from Busse on the Ussuri to Khabarofka, a river line of about 700 miles. At the time of my visit the priest and his brother were engaged on a translation of the Gospels, and as he did not appear to know how to get it printed, I recommended him to apply to the British and Foreign Bible Society, [674] whose obliging and energetic agent in Petersburg, Mr. Nicolson, had desired me to be on the look-out for new Siberian translations. The Russian liturgy had been already translated into Goldi. The priest gave me a photograph of a group of Goldi Christians, wearing ear and nose rings, and embroidered garments of fish-skin. I set great store by the picture, for it is a rarity. The natives have not yet become vain of their faces, and do not like to be photographed. This group had been taken for the priest who baptized them. In the background is the village starosta, and in front the patriarch of the group, whilst a large number of the other figures are women. I know not whether many of them were the patriarch’s wives, of whom, before baptism, he intended to have a sale. If so, he must have been rich, for one of the Goldi, of whom I inquired the price of wives, said that if paid in money they cost from £50 to £70; and if in goods, then from four to seven pieces of “stuff,” but he did not say whether it was to be silk, linen, or blue nankeen.

Peter Alexander, the archdeacon, in 23 years up to October 1878, had baptized 2,000 natives; 403 were Orochons (he computed them at 3,000 in his district), and 1,501 were Goldi.⁠[6]

[675]

I had heard it stated that the Russian missionaries pay the heathen to be baptized. One of the missionaries told me that he believed there were priests who gave rewards to their converts, though he had not done so, and he thought it possible that a few natives presented themselves more than once to different priests for baptism, hoping to gain thereby. Another allegation, that of a nobleman, was that the converts were “bribed.” But this kind of statement is so frequently made by those who look coldly on mission work that I did not regard it as proven. My informant said that he had seen at Irkutsk that they gave to the Buriats shirts, crosses, and a few roubles; and that often the same Buriats came again for baptism the following year. Also an Ispravnik, interested in the Buriat missions, told me they sometimes gave converts five roubles or so when poor and privately persecuted. Accordingly, I inquired concerning this of the archdeacon, and he explained by telling me that the last 400 he had baptized had received nothing, but that previously each candidate had been supplied, at the expense of the Missionary Society at Blagovestchensk, with a new shirt, a cross to hang on the neck, and an ikon. The reason for this would be evident to any one who knows Siberia. There would be no towns near, where the Gilyaks, for instance, could buy crosses or ikons, and without the possession of these I suppose it is doubtful whether a Russian could be persuaded that he was a Christian at all. Again, the new shirt might represent the chrisom, or baptismal robe; and even if not, the people’s ordinary garments (of fish-skin and dog-skin) are so filthy that it would be only becoming that for [676] once in their lives, at their baptism, they should look decently clean. The Protodiakonoff told me that on his journeys he used to take two or three hundred shirts and crosses, stay in a village for two or three days, and then sometimes baptize as many as 40 at once, especially when he could bring over a rich man, for then the poorer ones followed.

I came, therefore, to the conclusion that the charge of bribery on the part of the missionaries was not well founded; but, on the other hand, it was equally plain, upon their own showing, that the Russian missionaries differ widely from the English as to what constitutes proper qualification for baptism.⁠[7] I asked the priest at Khabarofka concerning the pay of missionaries, to which he replied that he to whom I had spoken from Malmuish received £25 per annum, and he himself received £30 as a missionary, and 241 roubles 62 kopecks, or about £24, from another source—say £55 in all. Others had represented to me that he received £250 a year; so perhaps this was exclusive of his offerings, which I heard might vary from 6d. to £1 for baptisms, and from 6s. to £5 for a wedding. Also it is usual to call in the priest after a death to say a “panychid,” or office, the name of which suggests a prayer all night long, but which lasts an hour, and for which it is usual to give [677] from 6d. up to £1. Offertories, too, are collected each Sunday for the priest, orphans, church, etc., according to the object, for which each of several plates is carried. I gathered that the support given by the natives to their pastors and the church consists of the purchase of candles to the extent of a few pence and an occasional sable-skin. The house and library of the Protodiakonoff did not look as if its owner had an income of £250 a year; but his home was neat and clean, though simply furnished, and his wife and daughters were becomingly dressed. I was glad to hear an excellent report of this missionary, who was said to be a good man and learned. It was his custom actually to preach or read a sermon every Sunday, and he had a crowded church in consequence. I suppose he did not profess that his sermons were all original; for when, on board the Onon, he caught sight of a tract I had given to the steward’s boy, he immediately seized it, and wrote thereon “for a sermon.”

I thought this missionary the most hard-working priest I met in Siberia, and I was very glad to have obtained from him what I consider such trustworthy information concerning the Goldi. The last representatives of this race I saw at the little village of Krasnoiarskaia, 260 miles from Khabarofka, where a man and woman were standing on the banks. The man had a Manchu matchlock with no butt, but having a handle something like that of a pistol. It had a flint and hammer, pulled by a very clumsy trigger. Of the woman I bought her ear- or nose-ring.

On the fourth day, Tuesday, we arrived early in the morning at Busse, where was another telegraph [678] station. Up to this point we had passed on the river 10 tributaries on the right bank, and 17 on the left. About an hour before noon, we changed our course from the Ussuri to the Sungacha; but, before leaving the Ussuri, I would observe that its head waters are formed by the confluence of the Daibecha and the Ulache, together with several smaller streams. One of them, the Sandugu, rises only about 50 miles from the coast at Olga Bay, and on the banks of the Daibecha gold has been found. I learn, too, from the North China Herald, that a few miles from Vladivostock (in what direction is not stated) coal-mines on a large scale are being opened up by Mr. S. Morris, whom I met, if I mistake not, and that they promise to yield well. The Ussuri is navigable several miles higher than Busse, and could a railway be constructed (to which the country offers, I am told, no special obstacle) from Vladivostock to the most southern navigable point of the Ussuri, a means of communication would be made for the carriage of merchandise and passengers, which would be of the utmost importance to the Ussuri valley, the only military and commercial route leading from the Amur to the southern parts of Russian Manchuria.⁠[8]

On the morning of Tuesday, the 9th of September, [679] we entered the Sungacha. It enters at right angles on the western bank of the Ussuri. The Sungacha, flowing out of Lake Khanka, is the largest of the Ussuri tributaries, and the most tortuous river on which I have been. A straight line from its source to its mouth measures but 60 miles, whereas along its channel it measures nearly 180 miles, and I do not think we traversed a single half mile without a bend. Great skill, therefore, was required in steering both steamer and barge. So sharp were some of the curves that, when the former had turned the bend, the two crafts appeared to be proceeding in opposite directions. The steamer at such times slackened speed, but even then, on the first day, the barge twice ran into the muddy bank, and temporarily stuck fast. The Sungacha is from 20 to 60 feet deep, from 100 to 110 feet wide, with a current of two knots. In some parts it is barely 100 feet wide, and in two places only from 8 to 12 feet deep.

Black and turbid as was the water of the Ussuri, it was limpid compared with that of the Sungacha, which was unusable for cooking. A supply of Ussuri water was therefore taken on board, and this implies a good deal, since the Siberians are not too nice in this respect, and are accustomed to the use of river and surface water only. I saw turtles in the Sungacha, and learned that this river, as well as Lake Khanka and the Ussuri, abounds with all kinds of fish, especially carp, sterlet, and salmon.⁠[9]

[680]

There joined us at Busse a telegraph officer named Adamson, who spoke German, and with whom I was able to employ my smattering of that tongue to good effect. Hitherto I had not exchanged many ideas with my four fellow first-class passengers, one of whom was a veterinary surgeon, and two others Russian and Polish officers. The horse-doctor and the Pole seemed to have no mental resources whatever; and regarding them as types of Siberian “society,” it was not difficult to understand the dismal complaint of a physician I met, that he had no congenial companions, there being nothing cared for in the town above the level of wine or cards. These two passengers played incessantly, and, excepting at meals and during sleep, I doubt if cards were out of their hands for a couple of hours during the passage. One night the Pole, even after he had gone to bed, got up to play another game. The captain was very obliging, and gave me a chart he had made of the Ussuri, which is valuable, there being only two original writers, as far as I know, on any considerable portion of this river—namely, Venyukoff and Prejevalsky.⁠[10]

On the day we entered the Sungacha, we came to one station only—Markova, which was the last collection of houses that could be dignified with the name of a village. All the stations beyond were Cossack pickets, [681] and consisted of one or perhaps two houses, at which horses are kept for the postal service in winter. There were six of these pickets beyond Markova, making a total of 36 stations between Khabarofka and Kamen Ruiboloff. Among them are four villages only with a church—namely, Kazakevich, Ilyinska, Kozloffski, and Venyukova, with a resident priest to each of the first three. Among the stations were likewise 21 Cossack stanitzas or settlements, containing from one to a hundred houses each. Also, between Kamen Ruiboloff and Vladivostock are ten stanitzas and three churches. Markova was a Cossack stanitza, and as we stayed there for an hour or two, I enlisted the services of Mr. Adamson, and peeped at Cossack life.

Cossacks of old were warlike people, who lived a free-and-easy life on the border, frequently ravaging their neighbours’ herds, whom the Russians reduced to subjection, but left them many privileges. When the Amur came into the hands of the Tsar, it became necessary that the Russian frontier should be guarded, and, if possible, settled. General Muravieff therefore took many of the children of convicts, called them Cossacks, and placed them, together with voluntary emigrants from the Trans-Baikal province, in stations, about 10 miles apart, along the Amur and the Ussuri. Land was allotted to them, and they were supplied with cows, horses, farming-stock, and provisions for a year, after which time they were expected to take care of themselves.⁠[11] The mounted Cossacks are employed [682] to keep the boundaries, and many of the foot Cossacks act as police. When not engaged in service they are free to farm, rear cattle, hunt, or, in fact, turn their hands to what they please, though they are liable to be called up in time of war, almost to the depopulation of a whole neighbourhood.⁠[12] This accounted for the deserted village of Pashkova, and I learned that the service is not unpopular; for when the Government wanted 800 men wherewith to found a colony on the shores of Lake Khanka, there was no lack of volunteers—a circumstance sufficiently explained by the fact that in such cases they get new farming stock and provisions.⁠[13]

On the Ussuri the Cossacks are expected to keep off the Chinese smugglers, and even traders, who are not allowed to settle on the Russian bank except under proper restrictions. Cossack habitations, therefore, represent the utmost bounds of Russian life.

Markova consisted of rather more than a dozen [683] houses, of which only seven were inhabited. I entered some of them, and was struck with their cleanly and orderly arrangement, as compared with the houses of the Russian peasantry. In the first the floor was strewn with hay, the walls were whitewashed, and on one of them was displayed a quantity of table ware, consisting of seven forks, four spoons, and a ladle. On a plate-shelf stood a teapot, slop-basin, two dishes, and four plates, a mug, cup, and two glasses. Near the door hung two bundles of squirrel-skins, and a sheepskin coat, whilst in the corner was a well-known feature in every Cossack’s house,—a handmill for grinding corn, worked by the Cossack’s wife. A larger mill in the village was turned by horse-power, but with the slender result of grinding only 3 cwt. of meal a day. I saw, too, rope made of lime-tree bark, good for use in the water, and large fish-hooks on which the fish of the Sungacha hook themselves whilst playing with the float. In another house was a Cossack’s hunting gun, with a two-legged rest and a flint lock, which is said still to be preferred to more modern kinds. In a third house I bought some hazel-nuts. I had been unable to procure any fruit since leaving [684] Khabarofka, nor could I succeed at Krasnoiarskaya in getting cucumbers.

After leaving Markova the banks of the Sungacha continued flat, and were all but uninhabited. Our ceaseless windings on the river continued till Wednesday evening, when we arrived at Lon Mayo, on the edge of Lake Khanka, where, on the Chinese bank, were two small houses. They were inhabited, apparently, by men only, and those very dirty. Within the house I entered there was an inner compartment, where, among other objects, I observed a heavy stone for grinding corn, a well-made wicker shovel, and a huge brandy bottle, or cask, made of a sort of coarse papier-maché. The building was thatched, and at a distance of two or three yards stood the chimney, constructed of the hollowed trunk of a tree, and plastered with mud at the bottom. In the yard was a cart, with clumsy Chinese wheels, and troughs for cattle, hollowed, like canoes, from the trunks of trees. Bricks, made of mud and rushes, were drying in the sun, and men were busy pulling hemp into threads. In the garden was a small heathen temple, the size of a sentry-box, into which they did not object to my looking. Two poles stood in front, and inside, a table, with a picture over it, a pan and vase, with joss-sticks and some fish-hooks. Not far distant I noticed a field of “buddha” or millet growing, and attempted to approach it by crossing a boggy plot, but was compelled by mosquitoes to beat a speedy retreat. The Ussuri and Sungacha are famous for these insects, as was suggested by the mosquito blinds of the steamer; but a slight breeze and the comparative lateness of the season delivered us.

[685]

The Khanka Lake might be called a “Mediterranean,” for such is the meaning of the Chinese word “Khan-Kaï,” which the Russians have changed into Khanka, spelt also Khinka, Hinka, and Kenka.⁠[14] Its superficial extent is more than 1,200 square miles, but, notwithstanding its size and high-sounding name, it is little more than a huge inundation, for its depth is in no part more than seven feet. In early summer one can sometimes walk into the lake, half a mile from the bank, without finding more than 10 inches of water. Hence I had been warned that the steamer might possibly not be able to cross, in which case it would be necessary to proceed 40 miles through Chinese territory, round the north of the lake, by a road on which there is but one post-station, and so to re-enter Russian territory at a point on the north-west shore; for the frontier does not skirt the lake, but crosses it from Lon Mayo, at an angle of 45 degrees. My host at Nikolaefsk on one occasion was obliged to accomplish this journey on the back of a cow. This, however, I was spared, for the thunderstorms of June and July, with the south-east winds, had brought their usual supply of rain, and caused the lake to enlarge, so that it assumed the proportions of an inland sea. At ordinary times the Khanka is divided into two parts, the “great lake” and the “little lake,” which latter is also called “the Dobuka.” From the captain’s chart I calculated it to be 20 miles long by three wide. The two lakes are separated by a sandy strand, of regular proportions, bending towards the north in such a manner as to [686] continue with exactness the curves of the banks from the east and west. This strand, developing its arc with geometrical precision, is only like many others found on the shores of the ocean; but few similar cases occur on the banks of a lake of such comparatively small extent. Such strands, for the most part, are formed when the locality is sheltered from the winds, which do not come regularly from the same quarter.⁠[15]

I suppose that the water is sometimes rough, for the good-natured captain kindly inquired whether I should be afraid if the boat rocked about. I had not at that time traversed two oceans, but was able to assure him, nevertheless, that I hoped for the best. The windows were as solemnly closed and battened as if we were about to cross the Atlantic; and towards night we steamed into the lake, to find it as calm as a mill-pond. After steering south-east for about 50 miles we arrived, at dawn, at Kamen Ruiboloff, or the Fisherman’s Stone, thus finishing a voyage from Khabarofka of 466 miles, [687] or 510 if we had gone to the stations on the shores of the lake.

We had made a quicker passage than was expected; perhaps partly to be accounted for by an “attraction” which no doubt influenced the captain. He spoke a little French, and communicated to me that on the day after our arrival he was to be married to the niece of the merchant Plusnin, of Khabarofka. They have certain domestic and semi-religious preliminaries to a Russian wedding, as I have stated, which I was anxious to see, for we have nothing corresponding to them in England; but unfortunately I missed the opportunity at Kamen Ruiboloff, for although I rose soon after daylight, the captain had fled, and I hastened to proceed, remembering well that the foremost traveller at the post-house gets the untired horses.

Difficulties in prospect.—Appearance of the country.—Vegetation.—Garden produce.—Medicinal plants.—Ginseng.—Country almost uninhabited.—A serious loss.—Remarkable landscape.—Distribution of animals in Siberia.—Little-Russian settlers.—Peasant affairs and taxes.—Travelling by night.—Arrival at Rasdolnoi.—Clerical functions in request.—War in the post-house.—Summary of tract distribution.—Russia as a field for Christian effort.—The Suifun.—Cheap travelling.—Baptizing children.—Arrival at Vladivostock.

From Kamen Ruiboloff I had before me a drive of nearly 100 miles to Rasdolnoi, on the river Suifun, and this comparatively short journey I feared might present greater difficulties than any I had encountered since leaving my interpreter. In towns, or on the steamer, some one could be found with whom to exchange ideas in one of the three principal languages of Europe; but now I was to go alone through a district where even Russians are comparatively strangers, and where, if my half-dozen words of Sclavonic failed, I expected to be quite at a loss in communicating with the Manchu. Besides this I had heard uncomfortable accounts of the Manzas, Coreans, and other congeners of the Chinese, many of whose culprits had been expatriated to these regions as to a Botany Bay, and were giving the authorities trouble, not from political causes, but by forming themselves into banditti and plundering Russians and Chinese [689] alike. At Khabarofka Major Evfanoff informed me that quite recently a number of these robbers had committed depredations on the Russians, and that Cossacks were gone in search of them. I also heard further on that they had entered an officer’s house, murdered his wife, hung her up by the heels, and carried away her child. Again, tigers were said to infest the district.⁠[1]

I was so delighted, however, with the thought of reaching the coast, and with the hope of getting from thence to Japan, that I hastened to depart notwithstanding. A letter of introduction had been given me from Nikolaefsk to Colonel Vinikoff, stationed at Kamen Ruiboloff, and the prospect held out that he would perhaps show me the wonderful manœuvres of his cavalry Cossacks; but, hearing that he was away, I contented myself with sending to him by the captain of the steamer a letter, and a box of books for his men, and by 8 o’clock I was ready to start. The weather was charming, like that of a sunny English September—a morning without clouds.

The district through which I was to travel, south of Lake Khanka, is about 100 miles from north to south, and the Chinese frontier is a few miles west of the post-road. Extensive plains constitute a prominent feature of the country, which is sufficiently hilly, however, to render the landscape pleasing. The soil, loamy and black, is covered with rich vegetation. These Manchurian plains are like enormous limitless meadows and heaths, from which the herbage has [690] never been cut, and where pasture is ready for cattle by thousands. The country was fairly but not thickly wooded until I crossed the hills, south of which flows the Suifun. Water in some places was scarce, and I had to wait at one station at least an hour whilst a man fetched a supply. The climate resembles that of the Ussuri. On the 5th and 6th of September, at Khabarofka, I found it decidedly hot. The mean annual temperature is 48°, which allows of the cultivation of the cereals of Northern Europe, and of some of the hardier fruit-trees. Wild grapes I saw in abundance, but none cultivated. On the coast the Governor had recently planted some fruit-trees, and Madame one day, during my visit, brought to table her fruit harvest, which consisted of less than a dozen apples. Vegetables, however, thrive well. My host told me that near Vladivostock, on his island, he had raised potatoes twice from the same ground, between the middle of April and October.⁠[2] He had grown cart-loads of tomatoes, but, being unable to sell them to his satisfaction, salted them for his cows. Carrots and parsnips grow wild, and in the market at Vladivostock I observed, in addition to what have been mentioned, pumpkins, celery, turnips, beetroot, the egg plant, and Chinese onions and radishes. The [691] missionary Huc mentions three treasures of Manchuria. One is the sable, another a grass called oula, the peculiar property of which is that, when put into the boots, it communicates to the feet a soothing warmth even in the depth of winter.⁠[3] The third treasure is “Ginseng.” The Chinese call it Orhota, that is, “the first of all plants.” They consider it the most costly produce of the earth, diamonds excepted, and ascribe to it the most wonderful healing properties. It is said to be a specific in all kinds of bodily ailments, to cure consumption when half the lungs are gone, and to restore to dotards the fire of youth. Huc says the Chinese physicians think it too heating for the European temperament, already in their opinion too hot.⁠[4]

Other medicinal plants of the district are the yellow rhododendron and marsh wild-rosemary, of which the natives use an infusion against stomach-ache; also the root of the tokose herb is used for diarrhœa, produced by feeding on fish. The burnt heads of burdock are [692] laid on ulcers as in Peking, wounds are covered with agaric, the root of “Solomon’s seal” is applied for pains in the throat, and that of the hand-shaped bulb of an orchid for ulcers. The Goldi, however, as I have said, often attempt another method of cure, by making a wooden model of the part afflicted, which they carry about; but authorities do not record the comparative values of the two modes of treatment. It is said that the enlightened portion of the native community despise vegetable medicine, and more frequently resort to the services of the shaman and his brandy-drinking performances, which no doubt are popular with all parties concerned.

On leaving Kamen Ruiboloff the country was almost uninhabited. On the first stage I met one vehicle and three men, but passed not a single house. On the second stage two men only were seen.⁠[5] On arriving at the fourth station—Dubininskaya—I discovered that I had lost a large pocket-book, or paper wallet, in which were my most valuable documents, including the letter from the Minister of the Interior, my podorojna, and [693] other official papers. This alarmed me, for without the podorojna I could not claim post-horses to go either backwards or forwards; and the situation was the more serious because none of the post-people could speak anything but Russian. I made them understand by signs that I had lost my letter-case, and that I must go back with the yemstchik to see if I had left it at the previous station. Giving my heavy luggage in charge to the post-mistress at Dubininskaya, I mounted the returning vehicle. It was now nine o’clock, and quite dark, and I journeyed in anything but a pleasant mood. I remembered, too, with appreciation, the luxury I had had further west, in Mr. Cattley’s tarantass, for here I had nothing but a wretched post-tumbril, without springs, seat, or hood. One of the horses went lame, which retarded progress, and I lay on my bear-skin, with only a shawl to cover me, for six hours of the night, gazing up into the heavens. The moon arose in her beauty, and the number of stars visible might have delighted the eye of an astronomer, but I could think of nothing but my loss. At three o’clock in the morning we reached the station, where they knew nothing of the pocket-book, and where the guest-room was occupied by a Chinese packman and his assistant, with whom I did not at first relish passing the remainder of the night. One, however, got off the bedstead and offered it me, and the other wished to give me tea, which, to say the least, was civil. So I spread my bearskin on the wooden couch, and the candle was extinguished. In less than two minutes I had kicked out the tester-board of the rickety bedstead, and it came down with a clatter, causing my room-fellows to start. “Ladna! ladna!” said I, thinking this was [694] the Russian for “all right”; and then we recomposed ourselves. On awaking, and after further search, I ascertained that my difficulties were increased, for I now discovered, to my dismay, that beside the important papers alluded to in the wallet, there were also two volumes of manuscript notes, taken in coming across Siberia. I was now in an agony; and if crying would have availed I could well have done it, so distressed was I at the thought of losing information that had cost so much. It occurred to me that I might have left the wallet at the station still further back, and, seeing a Cossack saddle in the post-house, I pointed at it, intimating that the yemstchik should mount, and ride courier to inquire for the lost treasure. But he did not welcome the task, though he intimated I might have the saddle if I chose to go myself. Thinking to quicken the post-master into further exertion I offered a reward of five roubles if the book could be found. Meanwhile the two Chinamen evinced great kindness and sympathy with me in my loss, and the more so when they discovered I was an Englishman. At breakfast they offered me rice and onions, and I returned the compliment by inviting them to partake of bread and jam. They were travelling to Kamen Ruiboloff, and offered me a place for two stages in their vehicle. I resolved at first to go back, but afterwards determined to send a note by the Chinamen to Colonel Vinikoff, asking him to make inquiries for the wallet, and then continue my way, and to look very narrowly on the road for what I had lost. The yemstchik was not a good specimen of his profession, being fonder, if I mistake not, of drink than of work, and my slender knowledge of Russian led me to suspect that he was [695] congratulating himself on the extra money he was exacting from me, which, in my suppliant condition, I was ready enough to pay if only the books could be found. At last we started, and I was scanning the road with the eyes of a lynx when about a mile from the station we met a post-vehicle, in which was a lady traveller whom I had seen the previous evening at Dubininskaya. We pulled up, and she placed her hands at distances apart, showing the length and breadth of something that had been found, and spoke to the yemstchik, from which I was able to make out that my troubles were over. I clapped my hands, and pushed forward with a light heart to the station, and there was my wallet, well hauled over, but with nothing missing. The yemstchik had told a peasant of my loss, and of the promised reward, and he had found the article lying in the road. I then remembered that, in the cool of the evening, I had put on my ulster, standing up in the conveyance, without stopping the horses, and so had jerked the wallet out of my pocket. Never did I pay ten shillings with greater pleasure than to the finder, after which I set forward, truly grateful, and prepared with reanimated spirits to enjoy the prospect before me.

Leaving Dubininskaya, the post-road lay over a range of low hills, the top commanding a view such as I had never before seen. The distant horizon was bounded by pointed hills, and between were enormous plains of tall, brown, luxuriant pasture, waving like fields of corn—a land of plenty, at all events, if not flowing with milk and honey. No cities were visible, nor a human being, nor a habitation. There were just one or two spots where the grass had been cut and piled in heaps, [696] but the abundance that remained seemed to mock such puny efforts. The hills were wooded with oak, and the plains with aspens, elms, lime trees, ashes, black and white birches, maples, and walnuts.⁠[6] In young forests of this district are vines, roses, and a great many lilies. In the grass land there is much wormwood and pulse, the marsh ranunculus, and field-pink-clover. This last I saw in such abundance as to remind one of an English clover-field. There were also wild sun-flowers, and, growing at the roadside, wild millet, and what looked like bastard wheat or darnel.

Nor is this richness confined to the vegetable kingdom. To the 20,000 sable-skins sold annually at Khabarofka, Southern Manchuria contributes its quota; but I heard more of its abundance of deer, the flesh of which sells in Vladivostock in winter from 1½d. to 2d. per lb.⁠[7] Wild turkeys are found in the district. Ducks and water-fowl we caused to fly up without number on the Ussuri, and pheasants, like those in England, rose before me as I drove to the south. At the station I was now approaching, woodcocks cost from 10d. to 1s. each, riabchiks or black grouse 5d. each, and pheasants [697] 6d. each. So plentiful were pheasants in 1875, that they could be bought for 7½d. a brace, and at Paseat for 2½d. each.⁠[8] This was in strong contrast to what the telegraph inspector told me of the prices of butchers’ meat at Vladivostock. He had been asked nearly £3 for the half of a calf, and beef, he said, cost 5d. per lb.

I now and then saw large herds of cows grazing, and learned that in 1878 there were imported to the Ussuri districts 80 horses, 600 sheep and pigs, and 1,000 head of cattle.

On arriving at the next station, Nicolsk, there was a good-sized village, with a church, barracks of the 3rd Ussuri battalion, and, what was better to me, a telegraph station. It was now Friday afternoon, and I was anxious, if possible, to reach Vladivostock on the following day, so as to be ready for Sunday. I had heard that they had been building there a Lutheran church, and it was suggested to me at Nikolaefsk that I might open it, as there was no resident pastor. I [698] knew also that steamers served on the Suifun only for the mail service, and that when travellers required a passage, a telegram had to be sent to the Governor. I had heard that he was absent; but as his wife spoke English I telegraphed from Nicolsk, and said that if I could reach Vladivostock in time I should be happy to conduct a Sunday service. In the telegraph office I met Captain Alexander Jdanoff, to whom I gave some reading material for his soldiers, and then went to the post-house.

I noticed in several of the houses at Nicolsk that the chimneys were built of lattice work like English hurdles, plastered with mud. These erections told a tale to those who could read it, the builders being emigrants from Little Russia. So long as serfdom continued, the Russian peasantry were rooted to the soil, and often in great poverty;⁠[9] but when the serfs were liberated they came in some cases to the Government in numbers, and said, “We are poor; please send us to colonize in Siberia, or make us Cossacks.” And the Government, desiring to populate the Ussuri, had sent them hither, freed from taxes, and with the usual privileges granted to colonists.⁠[10]

[699]

The telegraphist at Nicolsk strongly advised me to push on to the Suifun without delay, so as that night to reach the steamer, which was to leave Rasdolnoi early on the morrow. I therefore started after tea for a drive of 14 miles, the first stage being to Baranofskaya, or the “sheep” station. On arriving I thought more of wolves than of sheep, and of tigers than either. The post-house was in the middle of a wood, and near it were burning large fires to keep away the mosquitoes and, as I supposed, beasts of prey. It was now night, and I certainly should have preferred proceeding by day; but I remembered the advice just received, and told the men to put to the horses. A sailor youth, travelling to Vladivostock, apparently on foot, and [700] speaking a few words of English, made himself officious on my behalf, and then wanted to be allowed to mount my vehicle. It was too dark for me to see what he was like, but I consented, thinking that if we did have any encounter with wild animals or robbers, it might be an assistance to have some one who understood if only a word or two of my mother tongue. I sincerely hoped that we should not meet a supperless tiger, though I think I should have been really uneasy had I known what I learned on the morrow—that several of these animals had been killed during the summer at the very village to which I was going.⁠[11]

It was nearly midnight when we reached Rasdolnoi. On the way my fellow-traveller showed that he had been drinking, and his stock of English words proved to be very small and by no means choice. I went to the telegraph office and ascertained that the steamer, lying a few miles off in the river, would leave at seven next morning; accordingly, I took up [701] my quarters at the post-house, and at midnight was writing up my diary when, the news having spread that a clergyman had come, a Finnish shopkeeper, named Rosenstrom, presented himself and asked if I would baptize his little girl. The request came at an awkward moment, for I had ordered the horses for five. At half-past three, however, I sallied forth, arrayed in my cassock, with the Finn to conduct me, lantern in hand. His house was not far, though approached by a rough road; and, passing through the shop, I found a room nicely arranged and brilliantly lighted, with some half-dozen persons present—the telegraph officer and his wife or sister (who had communicated my arrival), and a Finnish friend, besides the father and mother of the child. After the service and breakfast, dawn appeared, and by five I was ready to depart. Much to my chagrin, however, the smoke from the funnel, among the distant trees, showed the vessel to be moving, and I was left behind. I telegraphed to Vladivostock to this effect, and received a reply that the steamer would return and bring me on Monday morning.

I had abundance of time, therefore, to inspect the little station of Rasdolnoi.⁠[12] Had I not felt impatient at losing the boat, I might have enjoyed the view from the post-house, for it was exceedingly pleasing. [702] The country was well wooded, and the curves of the Suifun added much to the beauty of the picture. It was in this post-house, and only here, that I had a desperate battle with thousands of cockroaches or tarakans. By day they hid themselves, but at night they came out on to the table, the couch, and everywhere, great grandfathers and grandmothers with their offspring to the third and fourth generation. To wage general warfare against them was hopeless; therefore I set my wits to work to keep the table free. I recalled a visit paid to Messrs. Huntley and Palmer’s Biscuit Manufactory at Reading, where, on the floor, were thousands of little insects running about. Let no lover of Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits, however, be dismayed, for none of these creepers are allowed to mount the tables, the legs being made to stand each in a little pan of water; and as the emmets will not take to swimming, they have to be content with the crumbs on the floor. This plan I adopted with modifications. My friends had strongly urged me to take from Petersburg a box of Persian powder, supposed to be an abomination to B flats and F sharps. I had not used it once, but now I surrounded each leg of the table with an embankment of the said powder, and great was my delight to see the enemy advance, evidently thinking to scale the ramparts and mount as usual, but, instead, suddenly stop, hold a council of war, wave feelers, and then beat a retreat!

[703]

I was enjoying my tea on Saturday afternoon from a clean table when two officers, a wife, and child arrived from Vladivostock. Then was cleared up the mystery of the boat having left so early; a telegram had been sent that it should depart at five to meet these travellers, one of whom was merely accompanying his friends for a few miles in Russian fashion, and was to return next day. They spoke French and a little English, and, having started in a hurry, they asked if I could sell them some quinine, which I thought I might venture to do, seeing that I had not once opened my store. Arnica had been needed for the sprain of the interpreter’s foot, but as for myself I am not sure that I had taken so much as a pill since leaving London, so that the counsel of my medical adviser had proved to be sound; for when I proposed to take a lot of medicines, he strongly urged me not to carry too much, “lest,” he said, “you should be tempted to excess.”

Though Rasdolnoi was so small a place, yet, when it became known that I had good books in possession, several came from I know not where to buy them. I now had time to reckon up my “takings,” and found that sales amounted in all to about £18—not a large sum truly, but a good deal to make up in kopecks, of which 100 equal only 2s. My receipts covered, I suppose, about a fourth of the cost of the transport of books and tracts, and as these had been given me, with grants toward their carriage, by the Bible and Tract Societies of London and Petersburg, I subsequently divided among them the proceeds. From Nikolaefsk I sent to the Governor of the Primorsk 1,000 New Testaments, 10,000 tracts, and 200 copies of the “Life of Christ,” requesting that they might be distributed from [704] Vladivostock to Kamchatka, to the prisons, hospitals, soldiers, Cossacks, schools, and the seamen of the Siberian fleet; and it has gratified me to hear, during the present year, that this was thoroughly and carefully done. Thus I distributed in all by proxy—that is through the authorities—about 44,000 publications, and personally about 12,000, the exact total being 55,812 of all kinds.⁠[13]

On my return to England I wrote to the Director of the Central Administration of Prisons, saying what I had done, and enclosing a list of the persons to whom and for whom the books had been given. I also stated my “strong conviction that a wider and better knowledge of the Holy Scriptures would do much both to lessen crime and also to reform the criminal. Hence I wished that a copy of the New Testament might always remain within reach of every prisoner and hospital patient in Siberia, and I cherished the hope that some who might perhaps take up the book to while away time might read to profit and subsequent reformation.” To this end I asked the administration to do anything they could to forward the successful completion of my work; and this letter I enclosed to the Minister of the Interior, when writing to thank his Excellency for the great kindness and attention his letter had secured for me.⁠[14]

[705]

My “work” was now almost done, and I looked forward with hope, for I regard the Russian people as presenting a promising field for the diffusion of a more spiritual religion than they now possess. Many, it is true, do not cease to speak of Russian bribery and untruthfulness, gambling and dishonesty. But, however that may be, there seemed to me to be a general willingness in Russia to learn better things. The sceptics we met were few and far between. In Western Siberia a Polish veterinary surgeon—a Romanist—argued as if he would like to upset Christianity, but he ended by giving money for a New Testament, and acknowledged that he envied the experience of his antagonist. In Eastern Siberia I met a Protestant gentleman who said that most educated people in Siberia were materialists; but I had afterwards reason to suspect he was measuring by his own bushel, for so material was his creed that, though holding a high position in the Government, with a large salary, he [706] was not above suspicion of asking a bribe. I ought, however, to add that a Russian critic, by no means unfriendly, lamented to me that, owing to the want of teaching power in the priests, men of the educated classes in Russia are, as a rule, perfectly indifferent to religion, and therefore tolerant to all and every creed, though jealous of the orthodox Church as a national institution.

A good type of a religious gentleman—a devotee perhaps some would say—was an officer I met, who goes to mass every morning at five; or, again, a lady of high rank, who, whilst continuing strictly “orthodox,” learns to look at the errors of her Church in their least objectionable form, and to separate the good from the bad. Another educated man, an advocate, was typical, I should judge, of many in his rank of life. All are required to attend church on certain occasions, and beyond this he acknowledged that he did so very little; but it was because he got no teaching there. He went, he said, on the festivals, from six to twelve times a year, and oftener whilst his children were young; but he was ready to go every Sunday if something could be learned thereby. As for the uneducated Russians, the distances they will go, amounting to literally thousands of miles, for religious purposes, manifests at least something intensely earnest about religious affairs. Never—certainly, in any other country—have I met with such eagerness to get Scriptures and good books. This extends to both clergy and laity. When, on one occasion, my friend who edited the Russian Workman thought of giving it up, some of the priests sent their subscriptions again, and implored that it might be continued; and some of those interested in the [707] religious societies at work in the empire have told me that, in spite of the obstacles put in their way, they have far more opportunities of usefulness than they can use. I agree, therefore, with those who look upon Russia as a promising field for Christian effort.

On Sunday afternoon the officer returned to Rasdolnoi, and I began immediately to question him. There was no ship sailing to Japan, he said, for a fortnight; and then, by way of preface to information respecting Vladivostock, he asked my standing, and whether I was rich or poor. Having classed myself with those who have neither poverty nor riches, he said that, as for himself, he was a man of means, and that he took the journeys to the Caucasus and Egypt (of which he had told me) because he had money in pocket, and so on—tall talk which sank down wonderfully when I searched him out at Vladivostock.⁠[15] He appeared well posted, however, in his professional studies, and willing to give me information; so, as we were to start very early in the morning, we boarded [708] the steamer towards sunset. The Suifun is 120 yards wide. It varies in summer from 30 inches to 7 feet in depth, and in winter rises 20 feet. Our vessel was named Suifun, after the stream, and drew 2 feet of water, and could steam 8 or 10 miles an hour. Vladivostock was only 50 miles distant, but the boat was not suited for the sea, and therefore, on reaching the mouth of the river at Richnoi, 30 miles distant, we were to be transhipped to a sea-going steamer, the Amur, and so landed at Vladivostock. The Suifun was not a passenger vessel in the ordinary sense of the word, but belonged to the Government. It was used for bringing the mails from Khabarofka, and if there happened to be passengers accompanying them, they travelled the 50 miles free. They were, moreover, so obliging, that, if travellers arrived and telegraphed to the post as I had done, the two ships were put in motion; and as if that were not enough, an allowance was made to the officers to feed hungry passengers free of expense, so that, on the whole, this was the cheapest 50 miles I travelled.

I did not know of these arrangements at first, and heard that there were no provisions to be had on board, and no sleeping accommodation. My fellow-passenger [709] slept in the open air, on deck, and I thought I should be compelled to do the same; but the captain gave me an excellent cabin, with plenty of room, which the officer, however, would not share. I had not been long on board when my clerical services were asked for a second time. We were to pass a saw-mill where lived a Protestant family, and the captain, knowing that the children were unbaptized, thought my coming very opportune, and asked whether, if he stopped the steamer, I would go ashore and officiate. As we approached Richnoi we came in sight of the mill, built, as I afterwards ascertained, by Captain de Vries, and subsequently sold to the Government. There are three such mills near Vladivostock, employing 39 workmen, chiefly Chinese, who earn £4,500 a year. The manager was a Swede, named Lovelius, his wife, if I mistake not, being one of the whaling community who had come from Finland. The father spoke a little English, calling me “parson”; and after I had christened his three children he placed a fee in my hand. When I demurred to take it, he said he wished to stand indebted to no man, and added that I had saved him a “lot of trouble,” for otherwise he must have brought all the children into Vladivostock, when there chanced to arrive a minister or chaplain.⁠[16]

[710]

The saw-mill was prettily situated, and the manager received good remuneration, but he was not much in love with his position; for one thing, the mosquitoes troubled him, as on the previous evening they did me.⁠[17] Fear of the Manza robbers, however, troubled the manager more, and he pointed to a house across the river where they had lately murdered an old man of seventy.

On reaching the mouth of the Suifun we met the Amur, and the two vessels exchanged passengers, whereupon I discovered, to my surprise, that some of our new officers were those I had travelled with on the Shilka. I had breakfasted that morning, not very comfortably, in the open air, and was, therefore, ready for dinner in the officers’ cabin, after which it was I learned that I had eaten at the expense of the Emperor; and then, steaming down the Amur Gulf, and rounding the promontory into the Golden Horn, we dropped anchor before Vladivostock.

Situation of town.—Lodged with Captain de Vries.—Chinese labourers.—Chinese convicts.—Coreans.—Inhabitants of Vladivostock.—Presented at the Governor’s house.—Admiral Erdmann’s improvements.—Visit to barracks.—Boys’ high school.—Education in Russia, its cost and method.—Vladivostock Girls’ Institute; and Free School.—Statistics of crime.—Telegraph companies.—Sunday services.—Protestantism in Siberia.—Village of exiles.—General remarks on exiles.—Preparations for departure.

Vladivostock derives its lordly name from its supposed “command of the east.” The town overlooks an inlet, sheltered by islands, at the end of a promontory jutting out from the middle of the bay of Peter the Great. Behind the harbour rises a lofty hill, crowned by a watch-tower, to which I climbed during my stay, and was rewarded by a remarkably fine view. Northwards stretched the well-wooded Muravieff promontory. East and west lay the gulfs of the Amur and the Ussuri, down the former of which I had steamed from the Suifun; whilst to the south were mountainous islands with rocky headlands, separated from the mainland by the eastern “Bosphorus.” Descending from this elevated spot, and looking from the verandah of the Governor’s house, a less extensive view is obtained, but a very pretty one, comprising the entrance to the harbour called the “Bay of the Golden Horn,” with its two headlands forming the west and southern shores. [712] The depth of water within the harbour is from 30 to 60 feet, and, at the entrance, about double these soundings. The “Bosphorus” is from 60 to 120 feet in depth, and after passing Kazakevich Island, this increases to 200 feet and upwards.

As I steamed into the harbour on Monday afternoon, the 15th September, it was well filled with the ships of many nations, including Chinese junks with their clumsy sails. A German gunboat had just replaced an English line-of-battle ship, and an Italian man-of-war arrived during my stay. There were Russian ships from the Siberian and Pacific fleets, merchant vessels (of which 50 a year visit the port), and a number of boats, many of which ply between Vladivostock, Olga, and Paseat bays. I found, however, no regular service to Japan, but was told that I could probably leave in a Russian man-of-war within a fortnight.

I sought a lodging with Captain de Vries, a Heligolander by birth, who, when in command of a passenger ship plying between England and New York, had become an American subject, and had again changed his nationality to Russian on settling in Siberia at the time of the annexation of the Amur. He had travelled over Siberia, and had a minute knowledge of the Amur and Russian Manchuria; so that from him I acquired a great deal of information, whilst his kind-hearted English wife spared no pains to make me comfortable. In fact, I found the 15 days of my stay at Vladivostock the pleasantest of my tour; for not only had I time to rest and write and acquire information, but I was almost daily received as a guest at the houses of the Governor, or of some of the many inhabitants who spoke English.

The population of Vladivostock in the Almanack is [713] stated to be 8,431, but was estimated to me on the spot at 5,000. The births for 1878 were given by the priest as 184, marriages 13, and deaths 102, of which last 66 were males. The population, however, must fluctuate greatly, for during the previous year 8,000 troops had been quartered in and about the town; and I saw the earth batteries they had thrown up to receive the English, in case the treaty of Berlin had been settled the wrong way. Happily it went the right way; and when H.M.S. Iron Duke, on a northern cruise, steamed into Vladivostock, instead of being injured by torpedoes or fired upon, the officers were invited to dine at the admiral’s house. I judged the party must have been a pleasant one, for the commander of the Siberian fleet told me he had been immensely pleased with the English admiral, and the Governor’s wife and family had nothing to say of the officers but what was gracious and kind.

A large number of the inhabitants of Vladivostock are Manzas, Coreans, and Chinese, whose presence is looked upon in different lights. My host, for instance, thought their numbers a hindrance to Russian progress, because they outbid the Russians, work cheaper, and undersell them. In fact, this was one of the subjects upon which the captain used to wax warm. Accustomed to the high prices of American markets, he was sorely offended at the insignificant profits proposed to him by the Chinese, and, after speaking of their miserable offers for his goods or services, he used to wind up his orations by telling me, in not quite classical English, “There ain’t no footur for this country.” The Governor’s wife and other Russians thought differently, for, apart from the larger [714] exports and imports,⁠[1] they had the Chinese to thank for the vegetable market and the performance of a great deal of local work at a cheap rate, which otherwise would possibly not have been done at all.⁠[2]

Emigrants from the Corea take refuge on Russian soil, in spite of the Corean death penalty attached. In 1868 there were 1,400 of these fugitives; but in the following year, when floods in the Corea drove additional multitudes to seek refuge on neighbouring soil, their further immigration was forbidden by the Russians, and some of the fugitives were sent back, and, on their return, decapitated.⁠[3]

Sad accounts of the Manzas were heard at Vladivostock. My host employed, he said, an old man whom he one day missed, and found that he had been murdered, to be robbed of £10. The Manzas are [715] pirates also. In their transactions with the Russians the Chinese demand to be paid in silver money, and this they take home by sea. Hence I saw more silver roubles in the Sea-coast province than I had observed in any other part of the empire. I saw too, at Khabarofka, a considerable sum of silver money in Mexican dollars. The Manza robbers, accordingly, watch for the boats, murder the crews, and secure the booty.

The Coreans were described as very industrious. They dress in white, and tie up their hair in the shape of a horn. Their summer hats resemble those of the Gilyaks, except that they are hexagonal instead of circular. I went into some of their houses, the walls of which were of mud, plastered on a framework of straw. The floor was of beaten earth, with a mud fireplace in the centre, and a divan round the walls. In the best houses, the wife had a separate apartment. Fire burns in the centre by day, and the flues, under the divan, are heated morning and evening. The people live on millet and rice, and use a spoon of bronze, with a nearly circular flat bowl. Taking one from a man who was eating, I presented the spoon in one hand and a silver coin in the other, intimating that I wished to buy; and when he had taken the coin the master of the house came up, and, receiving from me the spoon and from the man the coin, he graciously returned them both, implying that he gave me what I desired.

The Russian inhabitants of Vladivostock consist almost entirely of officers and persons connected with the army and navy, and there are several foreign inhabitants besides,—some of them Germans, Finns, and Americans. England was represented by an [716] engineer, who went there, I believe, as a mechanic, and whose son-in-law, at the time of my visit, was mayor of the town.⁠[4]

In 1878 there were in Vladivostock 80 merchants of the first guild, who pay in Russia a tax of £50 per annum; 185 of the second guild, who pay £6 per annum; 228 temporary merchants, and 99 street-hawkers; also 215 first-class and 209 second-class clerks.⁠[5]

The junks of the Chinese, their little houses of wood, their sheds and implements, give to Vladivostock a different aspect from that of ordinary Siberian towns. The Russian houses are chiefly of wood, and among the public buildings are both barracks and winter quarters for the seamen of the fleet. To these must be added the Admiralty, an officers’ club, two high-class schools for boys and girls, a library, two free schools, a Russian and a Lutheran church, two telegraph stations, a dockyard, and the Governor’s house.

At this last I was presented, on the day after my [717] arrival, by Captain Naumoff, the captain of the port. The Governor was away on a tour of inspection, but I was introduced to Madame Erdmann, who spoke excellent English, and had all the manners and charm of an English lady. She was a German-Russian from the Baltic provinces, and both she and her husband were Protestants—and zealous ones, too, for they had come out to Vladivostock with the intention of effecting some good in the place, and were evidently doing it. My host, Captain de Vries, bore testimony to the material improvements which had been made by the Governor; for, said he, until the admiral came, “we had no road for the buggy.” His Excellency made also a pretty pleasure-garden at his own cost, for which, now that it is finished, the Government allows a grant for maintenance. Admiral Erdmann, who combined the three offices of Admiral of the Fleet, Chief of the Military, and Civil Governor of the province, drew a stipend of about £2,000 a year, kept an establishment of 15 servants, and seemed to take pleasure in entertaining in vice-regal style the officers of men-of-war of all nations visiting the port.

But Admiral and Madame Erdmann have left other monuments than these to testify to their endeavours to promote the welfare of the town. When they arrived there was no system of poor relief, whereupon her Excellency called together the ladies of the place, and organized a society which has been an immense benefit. She proposed, in the first place, to build a free school, which was done. The institute or boarding-school for girls also was enlarged, and Madame had been the prime mover in another effort to build a Lutheran church and manse. The means by which [718] funds were raised for these charitable objects were, in part, concerts and fancy fairs. One that took place during the first week I was there was described to me as resembling those in England, and I heard that by two such fêtes within a fortnight they cleared the sum of £500.

I was invited to dine at the admiral’s house soon after my arrival, and met there the officers of the Russian clipper Djiguitt, in which I afterwards left Siberia. A band performed during the evening, and fairly surprised me by its excellence; for I had met with nothing to equal it in Russia, and had heard little music of any kind in crossing Siberia. This dinner-party brought me into contact with several naval people, and I subsequently met a Commander Terentieff, who was exceedingly kind in translating for me. He accompanied me one morning to the temporary barracks of the first battalion, whose chief is the Grand Duke Alexei. Its standard was presented by Peter the Great, and the Commandant informed me with pride that it was this battalion that escorted the Russian Ambassador across the Mongolian desert to Peking in the seventeenth century. The barracks were shown me as something noteworthy, in that they were built of mud-bricks not burnt, after the fashion of the new ones at Tashkend. All inside was orderly, but the bedsteads were somewhat close together. Some of the extras in furniture, such as here and there a bright counterpane or quilt, had been purchased by the economies of the regiment. I tasted their soup, and found it excellent. The men varied in age from 22 to 26. Barracks of ordinary bricks for 200 men were in course of construction. Usually the Russian soldiers [719] are their own builders, but in this instance accommodation, including a room for gymnastics convertible into a chapel, was being erected by Chinese labourers at a cost of £6,000.

From the barracks we went to the lock-up, where were 20 military and 21 civil prisoners, the latter being for the most part Manza brigands. At our entrance they went down on all-fours, and continued in that posture whilst one was deputed to ask how their trial was going on; and another, thinking, I suppose, to expedite matters, said that he wished to be baptized. They were a sorry-looking lot; but I must give them credit for keeping their chamber cleaner than the Russian prisoners did. The hide upon which each of them slept was neatly rolled up, and all was arranged in order.

The commander took me to visit the boys’ pro-gymnasium or high-class school for 45 scholars, established four years previously. It was modelled on precisely the same plan as all the schools of its class throughout Russia. Hence two boys in the same grade of school, though one may be at Moscow and the other at Vladivostock, go through the same studies, and keep the same hours to each subject. The scholars dress in a blue and white uniform, and a boy, after passing through the preparatory class, goes on through the various grades up to the sixth, or, for a higher education, to the seventh and eighth classes. He may then go to the university, or to the Lyceum, to study philology and jurisprudence; or, again, to one of the academies, with a view to special studies, such as medicine, mineralogy, divinity, etc.

The cost of education in Russia, as compared with [720] England, is low.⁠[6] The Russian curriculum looks very formidable on paper, and I have heard from an English tutor in Russia that the boys are obliged to work exceedingly hard to pass their examinations. He thought they were worked harder than English boys, and acquired more theoretical knowledge, though the education is of a less practical character than in England.⁠[7] Corporal punishment is forbidden, and is replaced by impositions; and when these are inflicted the scholar receives a note stating his fault, which he must take home and bring back signed by his parents. Should a boy fail to pass his examination in each of his classes, he is usually turned out of the gymnasium, which is a serious loss to him, because a boy gains military exemptions according to the class he is in on leaving school.⁠[8]

Besides the boys’ school at Vladivostock I visited [721] the girls’ institute for the daughters of naval officers, and witnessed the opening religious ceremony of blessing the house after the long vacation. Each child as she came up to kiss the Gospels was sprinkled with holy water, as were also the visitors; after which the priest and his assistant went over the building, sprinkling in all directions. The inspector subsequently declared what children were to be advanced to higher classes. The subjects taught were in keeping with those of the boys’ gymnasium, from which the institute differed in that the children were lodged, clothed, and boarded; 12 free, the rest on payment of £20 per annum. The Government gives a grant of £1,000 per annum towards this school, and the remainder is made up by the children’s fees and voluntary contributions. The cleanliness and good arrangement of this building were striking, not to say luxurious. A great deal, no doubt, was due to the fact that the Governor’s wife visited one of the schools every day. The senior class had two girls of 15 and 16 years of age. To my questions in geography they gave good answers, and in the Gospels fair. They had not read the Epistles, but were expecting so to do that year. One girl was from a peasant home, the other the daughter of a foreign merchant, but they appeared throughout to stand on a level with the officers’ daughters. They had a custom of posting up on a red [722] board for a year the name of the best girl in the school. At the time of my visit the same maiden had held this “blue ribbon” for five years consecutively. Whether it was for excellence of intellect or conduct I know not, but I amused them by offering a prize, such as I had seen given in the schools of the Irish Church Missions, called the “best beloved” prize. The girls were ranged in a line, and each came and whispered in the ear of the teacher the name of the schoolfellow she loved best, and the girl who gained the highest number of votes received the prize. The idea was new to them, and they said the whispering was like going to confession.

There was yet another school the Governor’s wife took me to see—the little free school—built by the society she had founded, and of which it is not too much to say that it was the neatest and best-built house in the town. It was furnished in a manner that would be thought too good for a ragged school in England, and it struck me, as did the institute, that it was somewhat over-provided with teachers.⁠[9]

There were 30 children on the books, of whom [723] one class came in the morning, and the other in the afternoon. The religious instruction consisted in learning the 10 principal prayers of the Russian Church from a small primer, the contents of which would be as much or, I was told, rather more religious knowledge than the average Russian peasant would know. The children received at Christmas presents of clothing, and a marked increase of attendants takes place as the time for the gifts draws near—a phenomenon not confined to Siberian schools!

Madame Erdmann told me of an industrial school in the town for boys, where they are paid 6d. a day for their work. It must not, however, be inferred from these remarks about the educational condition of Vladivostock that things so prevail throughout the province. On the contrary, there are only 15 elementary schools throughout the Primorsk, attended by 215 boys and 66 girls; and the low condition of education was alleged to the Emperor as one of the principal causes of crime in the district.⁠[10]

The foreign communications of Vladivostock are in summer tolerably numerous. Ships from various nations come northwards to avoid the heat of the tropics, or to get coal at Dui, and put in at Vladivostock for provisions, the prices of which, in the meat and vegetable markets, immediately rise on the arrival of a large ship. [724] Again, the inhabitants of this town in the far east have the advantage of two telegraph stations, by one of which they can send a message to London through Siberia, and by the other viâ China and India. The latter wires are those of the Great Northern Telegraph Company, opened in 1871, and passing through Hakodate and Nagasaki, thence to Shanghai and Amoy, and so on to India and Suez. The latter wire goes by the route I followed as far as Khabarofka, there meeting wires from Nikolaefsk, and then continues across Siberia by the route I travelled. The number of messages sent in 1878 from Russia to China was 595, and to Japan 515, or 1,100 in all.

Of the two Siberian wires, one, I found, is reserved for international correspondence. Of 20,000 messages passing from the south through Vladivostock, no less than 15,000 were in English. Of the remaining 5,000, those in the French and German languages absorbed the larger proportion.⁠[11]

[725]

The director of the Great Northern Company was Mr. Russell, at whose house I dined, and whose wife played the harmonium at the Sunday service. I have already mentioned the heartiness with which Russians and foreigners alike assisted these services in the Primorsk. At Nikolaefsk, not only did the authorities send round notice of what was to take place, but they seemed to vie with one another in offering assistance. The military commandant offered the use of a room at the club; the captain of the port, being a Protestant, seemed almost aggrieved that his house from the first had not been chosen, and the chief civil authority lent the best room in the Governor’s residence, and attended the service with other dignitaries in full uniform. There were present on the first Sunday 33 persons, Greeks, Romans, and Protestants, representing Russia, Poland, England, America, Finland, Germany, and Sweden. Some came, doubtless, out of curiosity to see the first English service on the Amur, but many were able to understand; and on the second Sunday, which was wet, there were 20 persons present, all men but one. At Vladivostock the service was held in the new Lutheran church. The congregation numbered 27 persons, representing quite as many nationalities as at Nikolaefsk, and some Swiss besides. So few were familiar with the offices of the English Church that I was compelled to make the service of an irregular character; but it was pleasant, after the sermons, to have one and another grasping one’s hand, and expressing their thanks for what they had heard. Some of them had not had such an opportunity for a long time. I was greatly struck with one thing that reached me in connection with [726] these services. Some of the Russians had never attended a Protestant service before, and more than one remarked upon its solemnity. This I thought remarkable as coming from persons who from childhood had been accustomed to an ornate and very elaborate ritual, and none other. They were plainly struck by the quietness that prevailed and by the appeal to the intellect as manifest in the sermon, in contrast to their service of worship only, with persons moving hither and thither; and a well-educated officer, commenting upon the solemnity of the service, said that he had never before been impressed by a sermon in his life.

The offertory at Vladivostock was given to the building fund, for the church was not quite finished. A resident pastor was expected to arrive in the course of a few months, which would make four Lutheran ministers in Siberia, instead of the former three living in or near Omsk, Tomsk, and Irkutsk, their general superintendent, Pastor Jürgenssen, living at Moscow. The number of Protestant churches in Siberia is five, and of Protestants about 7,000. At Ekaterineburg are living some 300 German Protestants, but nine persons, we heard, was considered a large Sunday congregation. In the vicinity of Tobolsk some of the Lettish peasants were said to have joined the Russian Church, and some to have fallen away from religion altogether. The account, however, of 1,800 Finns living at Ruschkova was better. They had petitioned for, and were awaiting, a pastor.

At Vladivostock I took my farewell of Siberian exile life at an experimental penal colony called “First River” village. Accompanied by the German captain [727] of the Cyclop, Captains Boris and Charles de Livron, and a lady, we proceeded thither on horseback, by a pretty ride through a partially-cleared forest, till, from the top of a hill, we saw a brewery, brick-fields, and, not far distant, nestling among the trees, the exiles’ village. It consisted of about 20 log houses, occupied by 15 convicts and five others who had served their time, and who might have removed elsewhere, but they so far liked their quarters that they chose to remain. Two naval men lived in the village for the purpose, ostensibly, of keeping order, and a few Chinese had been attracted to settle in the place. Four of the convicts were under sentence of 15 years’ hard labour, one for 20 years, and one for life. They were condemned to Sakhalin, but, seeing that their wives had accompanied them, and that there was not enough work in the coal-mines, the kind-hearted Governor had obtained permission to place them in the little colony as an experiment. The men had built their own houses, and took it in turns to go into Vladivostock, from eight to twelve, to do night work. They might earn what they could by day, and the wives were able to add to the store by laundry work. One wife had by this means possessed herself of two cows.

Besides this, they might take as much land as they chose to cultivate. They were growing potatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, and cabbages, but the soil was said to be unsuitable for corn. Pigs and poultry were running about; and though, according to their own account, one of them with seven children found it difficult to make a living, yet the others did so easily.

One of the convicts, thinking I was a Government official, informed me that he had not yet received his [728] new clothes, whereupon I learned that, when they begin to colonize, they receive monthly 72 lbs. of flour and 5d. a day. Every year they received a shuba, or sheepskin coat, underlinen, two pairs of winter boots, three pairs of summer shoes, and, once in three years, a long coat. In one of the best of the houses we found a clean, orderly room, with a good samovar, and plenty of pictures and photographs. The owner possessed two cows and a horse; so we were told, at least, by a fellow-convict, who took us into his garden and seated us beneath a bower of wild vines. Milk and wild grapes were afterwards brought for our refreshment. This man had been in the Imperial Guard, and had finished his military service, when, having invited some friends to his house, he killed one of them in a drunken quarrel. I tried to get at the relative positions of some of these convicts before the committal of their crimes and after, and found in one case that in Russia the man was a drunkard and poor, whereas in this village he could live well, and could not get intoxicated so easily, by reason of his distance from Vladivostock. There were but one man and one woman in the village who could read, and one had friends who corresponded with him from Russia. The children were educated at the industrial school at Vladivostock. Thus my last specimen of Siberian exile life was the most favourable of all.

I had now followed the exiles from Moscow all across Siberia, and, with the exception of the mines at Nertchinsk and Dui, had seen them under the varying circumstances in which they live. Looking at the matter calmly and dispassionately, I am bound to say that “exile to Siberia” no longer calls up to my [729] mind the horrors it did formerly. I am quite prepared to believe that instances have occurred of bad management, oppression, and cruelty. I have already quoted some cases; but that the normal condition of things has been exaggerated I am persuaded. Taken at the worst, “condemned to the mines” is not so bad as it seems, and in the case of peasant exiles, willing to work, I cannot but think that many of them have a better chance of doing well in several parts of Siberia than at home in some parts of Russia. English people are accustomed to think of exiles like the parents of “Elizabeth,” banished to a region in the far north where scarcely anything grows; but a little consideration would show this to be, in the great number of cases, extremely unlikely, for the Government would then have to keep them, whereas in the south they can keep themselves. On the sea coast, women convicts get excellent places as servants. One hardship connected with their lot is that, until they have served their time or gained their good conduct class, they cannot marry; and even then the husband, if a free man, must undertake not to quit Siberia and so leave his wife behind. This law is rigidly enforced. I heard of one case of a woman who had behaved particularly well, and whose husband wished to return to Russia, for which even the Governor of a province petitioned, but the request was refused.

A lady told me at Vladivostock that some of her convict servants had recently said to her, “We have such a good time of it here in Siberia, that, had we known it, we would certainly have committed a crime before to get here; and now we mean to write to our relations and tell them to do something to get [730] sent here too,”—a speech that will probably strike the reader as the foolish saying of a servant girl, but the truth of which, in this particular case, I do not doubt. The servant had the good fortune to be taken into the service of Madame Boris de Livron, who had spent many years in America, and of whose home I can speak, because I dined therein; and one had only to contrast with it some wretched izba in European Russia, from which, perhaps, the woman came, and her laborious work in the fields, to render it exceedingly likely that she spoke, after all, only the sober truth. That this was an exceptional case may very well be, and so also the exile village was in a manner exceptional, for the exiles are usually planted, on their release, among colonists, rather than put into villages by themselves; but I have quoted these instances as the least repulsive forms of exile life that came under my notice, and to show that, once set free from prison, the prosperity of the banished is pretty much in their own hands.

Before leaving Vladivostock I called upon the priest, who gave me information about the church, and I likewise made the acquaintance of several of the merchants, among them Mr. Lindholm, who had whaling vessels in the Sea of Okhotsk. With him I exchanged my paper money, at the rate of two roubles four kopecks per Mexican dollar, taking with me a draft on his partners, Messrs. Walsh, Hall, and Co. of Yokohama. Thus prepared I awaited the return of the Governor, and on Monday afternoon, September 29th, the admiral’s flag appeared in the harbour; the naval captains and military officers assembled to present their reports, and I got my luggage on board the Djiguitt. [731] Madame Erdmann insisted on my coming, however, the same evening to be introduced to the admiral, which I thought very kind, immediately after his prolonged absence, and the weariness of his journey. A warm reception was accorded me by the Governor, a lively interest manifested in my plans, and I left terra firma to sleep in the ship.

Reflections on leaving Siberia.—Departure.—The Russian navy.—The Djiguitt.—Seamen’s food, clothing, work.—Relation between officers and men.—Received as captain’s guest.—Progress.—Hospital arrangements.—Arrival at Hakodate.—Divine service.—Religious professions of seamen.—Inspection of ship.—A “strong gale.”—Russian sentiments towards Englishmen.—Cause of dislike.—Misrepresentations by English press.—Russian writings.—Transhipped to American steamer.—Arrivals at San Francisco and London.

Siberia was not my native land, and I did not climb for a last fond look; yet I confess to drawing half a sigh as I was borne away from Vladivostock. At all events I was not unmoved, and various thoughts presented themselves—some, I hope, of thankfulness that I had been permitted to cross the Old World without scratch or bruise.⁠[1]

But my happiest reflections were connected with what has been called my work. I entered the country very much in the dark as to what could be done, and what I did was little enough to boast of; yet, to me, it was a source of gratitude that I had been permitted to place within reach of at least every prisoner and hospital patient in Siberia a portion of the Word of God. A few opportunities also for the exercise of [733] clerical functions had presented themselves, such as the services at Nikolaefsk and Vladivostock, as also some others of a private character, which linger pleasingly in the memory. Since my return, news has come from Archangel that the books I left in 1878 have caused inquiry and demand for the Scriptures. Again, more than one who has followed me in Northern Asia has told of the manner in which the books left at the post-houses are treasured, and, last winter, two gentlemen, travelling over a large portion of Western Siberia, found the tracts I had left in great demand. One of them writes that they have been a boon and a pleasure at many a peasant’s fireside. If, then, the result were no more than this, it would be something to have ministered gratification to tens of thousands of readers. But I had higher aims; for I believed that in those Scriptures and tracts there were germs of new life and thought and hope. I remembered what reading the Scriptures had done for men in other lands,—for Luther in his cell, and Bunyan in prison; and having sown the seed, I was content to leave it with Him in Whose name I went forth. Then I sailed away with the thought that I had done what little I could. Those who labour in similar fields will understand and sympathize with my feelings, and some perhaps will breathe a prayer that in the great day of account the harvest may be plenteous.

As the Djiguitt steamed out of the harbour we fired a salute of seven guns, and, gliding past the admiral’s house, saw his Excellency and Madame Erdmann waving their handkerchiefs from the verandah. Our captain, Charles de Livron, is the admiral’s son-in-law, [734] so that there were hearty farewells passing. Madame Erdmann had kindly expressed to me a wish that our acquaintance thus begun might be continued, and, on leaving, I felt that I was parting from pleasant friends, not only in the Governor’s house, but in the town and country too. As I had applied to Captain de Vries for lodgings, I asked, of course, for my bill; but Mrs. de Vries would not hear of one, and the old captain said, “Well, write me a letter, and tell me how you get home, and then come again as soon as you can.”

We had hardly lost sight of land before I began to inquire about the Siberian fleet, which I understood to consist of 12 ships, divided into four classes, some being of iron and some of wood; 1 is for the China station, and there are besides 5 transports, 2 cruisers, and 4 gunboats, the last with 3 guns each; the whole being manned by 208 officers and 2,240 seamen. Of these about 380 are employed on shore for mechanical and building purposes, and a far larger number live ashore in winter. Their pay is much higher (nearly double, I heard) than that of sailors in the Baltic fleet.⁠[2]

And now a word about the Djiguitt (pronounced “Jee-geet,” and meaning “a horseman”), on board which I was favoured with a passage from Vladivostock to Japan. The clipper had been built four years previously, [735] at a cost of £62,500, and measured 218 feet long, was of 1,300 tons burden, and fitted with engines of 250 nominal, but 1,200 registered, horse-power. She carried 200 men, with three large guns in the middle of the deck, and four small ones at the sides. The captain said he relied less upon his guns than upon his torpedoes, the apparatus connected with which fired 30 for defensive and 5 for offensive purposes. By means of wires the torpedoes—a kind supposed to be in possession only of the Russian navy—could be moved about under the water, and caused to explode automatically or at will. I am incapable of judging how far this information was correct, but I observed subsequently, from one of the English newspapers describing the Djiguitt, and some of her sister ships, that they were said to be well fitted to damage merchant shipping; and there is no doubt that, had England and Russia declared war in 1878, this clipper would have done her best to cripple the English commercial navy in the Pacific.

The Djiguitt had three masts, could spread 15,000 square feet of canvas, and, under sail and steam, was supposed to make 13 knots an hour. We were not fortunate enough, however, to get up to anything near this speed, nine knots on the first day being, if I mistake not, our best travelling. Often it was not more than six knots, and one day we made only 103 [736] miles. Everything on board was scrupulously clean. The same thing struck me at Vladivostock, when steering the boat of the chief of the staff, in which I was rowed to the end of the harbour. The boat was manned by six men with 18-feet oars. According to Russian regulations, the men row up to 42 strokes a minute, and I noticed that when their arms were outstretched the men simultaneously bobbed their heads, but whether for obtaining more pulling power, or for appearance’ sake, I did not make out.

The sailors in the Imperial navy are now shorter than formerly. The Russian plan was to give from recruits, taken from all parts of the country, the tallest men to the navy, the next to the artillery, and the next to the infantry; but now they have made an alteration, and the navy takes the shortest.⁠[3]

The food of the seamen on shore I have already alluded to. At sea, each man gets 1 lb. of beef per day and plenty of biscuit. As I saw them eating their meals, sitting at tables, or on deck in circles round a common soup-bowl, they appeared to have enough and to spare, for a good deal of broken victuals was at [737] times thrown overboard; and if, moreover, they do not eat all their allowance (which is usually the case), they may economise and purchase extras for holidays. Rum was served out at least once a day (for the notion that this benefits the men is not yet exploded in Russia), but a man might forego this if he pleased, and receive a trifling pittance instead.⁠[4]

It was difficult sometimes on so small a ship to find work for 200 men; consequently, a large number of them were employed in labour of a time-killing character, polishing the fittings of the ship and guns, making them in some parts as bright as silver plate. Others were weaving stays, or binding fine wire on telegraph lines for use with the torpedoes. Once or twice I saw them at gun drill. The smaller guns were breech-loaders, firing 15-lb. shot, worked by five men each; and the larger were 90-lb. muzzle-loaders, each worked by 19 men.

There seemed to me to exist an excellent feeling between officers and men. The captain, on leaving [738] Cronstadt, hinted to his crew that, as he was proceeding to Siberia, he might leave some of them there if they misbehaved. He gave them, however, an excellent character, and said that, on arriving in Japan, he told an officer to let him know the number of men whose conduct since leaving port had been immaculate, and out of 180 men more than 100 were found without a bad mark. These, by way of encouragement, he treated to a special performance in a circus. On another occasion the captain paid some Chinese jugglers to come on board and give the men an exhibition, whilst, in the tropics, the officers had given the men lectures on scientific subjects, illustrated by a magic lantern.

On boarding the Djiguitt I had as usual “fallen on my feet.” There was a small berth in the vessel set apart for a chance passenger; but the captain honoured me with a place at his table in his own cabin, where things were more than comfortable. My host spoke excellent English, to say nothing of several other languages; and so well educated in this respect were the officers that, although the captain usually invited two of them to dine with us daily, there was seldom or never an occasion when they could not converse with me in English or French. Among the officers were some of the Russian nobility, one a prince, another a baron, and so on; and after sailing with them for 12 days, I came to the conclusion that they were gentlemen and officers of whom any navy might be proud. The doctor played the violoncello, a second officer accompanied on the piano, and others sang part songs. A young baron in Siberia had told me that the officers of the army were badly educated, and worse [739]“elevé”; but this certainly was not the case with the officers of the Djiguitt.

On Sunday the captain and I were invited to lunch in the officers’ cabin, where I was reminded of the smallness of the world by the discovery that the first lieutenant sitting next me had been to the Greenwich Observatory, and as he had gained scholastic distinction in Russia, and had the privilege of spending two years in foreign study, he thought of coming again to Greenwich to the Naval College.

We left Vladivostock on Tuesday, the 30th of September, for Yokohama, and made fair progress till, next morning, a slight derangement of the machinery caused us to lift the screw and depend on sails. This piece of brass machinery, weighing nearly five tons, was heaved up by two lines of seamen on either side of the deck, which operation interested me, as did also some of the manœuvres for setting the sails, of which 11 were one day hoisted on the foremast, thereby spreading to the wind about 5,000 square feet of canvas. I accompanied the captain once or twice on his rounds of inspection, and was surprised at the stock of carpenters’ tools and stores on board. In the kitchen, divided into two compartments for officers and men, was a Chinese cook, who received excellent wages (the Chinese cook at Madame Erdmann’s at Vladivostock received £60 a year); and to him I paid the ordinary passenger’s tariff for food of 4s. a day. In the fore part of the clipper were two small compartments almost dark, used, when needed, for a prison.⁠[5] There was a [740] lazarette on board, and I found that the doctor was obliged to keep a daily report, showing the number of patients in the ship, the number of cases standing over, new cases, cured, sent to hospital, remaining, and dead.⁠[6]

We sighted Japan on Friday, October 3rd, and early on Saturday morning reached Hakodate, where the ship stayed to get coal. I went on shore, not dreaming that I should know a creature, but soon found a missionary with whom, as a student, I had played football and cricket; and then, walking along the streets, a second surprise awaited me on meeting a youth whom I had known as a boy in Sussex. We stayed only a few hours, but I had time to visit the prison with Mr. Dening, the missionary; and then, getting on board, we steamed away on Saturday afternoon.

On Sunday morning, at half-past nine, a white sail with a red cross was run up to the mast-head, the bugle and drum sounded, and the crew assembled on deck for Divine service. Two men, uncovered, reverently brought an ikon, which was fastened by an officer to the captain’s bridge. It was a new ikon (about two feet square) of silver gilt, lately presented by the captain and officers of the ship at a cost of £20. It had been purchased in Petersburg, been sent to Vladivostock by post, and was used on this particular Sunday for the first time.⁠[7]

[741]

When all was ready the officers and choir were ranged in front and the men behind, and the Commander (in place of Captain de Livron, who is a Lutheran) read prayers and a psalm, the men responding and singing. The service was of short duration, but highly impressive, and very reverential. So, too, was their daily evening prayer, just before going to their hammocks at dusk, when the men, drawn up in double lines facing each other, at a signal doffed their caps, and chanted the Lord’s Prayer.⁠[8]

After Divine service the captain proceeded officially to inspect the ship, which he did in a very thorough manner, looking into every hole and corner for the least speck of dust or disorder. Here a cloth had been left in a recess, and there a piece of biscuit remained on a shelf. Both were ordered to be removed, and the attention of an officer was drawn to the broken hook and eye which attached the hen-house to the bulwarks. The captain even complained because, [742] putting his hand on the polished brass of a gun, he found it somewhat dusty.

This, however, was fine-weather inspection, and we were to have a taste of something different. On Tuesday and Wednesday all had been bright. About two o’clock on Thursday morning a sudden squall struck the ship from right ahead, and caused a commotion, but did no harm, and for the remainder of the day the wind blew coldly from the north. On Friday and Saturday the temperature rose, and on Wednesday, 8th October, we passed through a warm stream with a temperature of 77°, whilst the thermometer on deck indicated only 70°. I had frequently asked how soon we should arrive at Yokohama, and the captain had prudently declined to say; but on Sunday afternoon he volunteered the remark that he was able to assure me that we should be at Yokohama in four days. Luckless boast! for the words had not been long spoken when there came on a tempest such as I had never experienced. Towards sunset the wind whistled and blew “a strong gale,” that would be marked 9 in the Beaufort notation (the remaining three degrees being 10, “a whole gale”; 11, “a storm”; 12, “a hurricane”). The topmasts were lowered, the sails furled, and the heavy guns, lest they should break away, were fastened by two extra lashings. Then followed great running about on deck, and climbing the rigging, at which I was looking on amused rather than otherwise. The captain, perceiving this, said, “Ah! we shall soon have the water rough!” And so it came to pass; there was a pendulum on the deckhouse to indicate the careen of the ship, the scale being marked up to 35°, and when I say that the ship [743] heeled over to 32°, the reader will be prepared for the statement that in the captain’s cabin, where I was writing, the heavy table and myself behind it quitted our respective bases, in a very undignified manner, in favour of the opposite side of the cabin. The carpenter was called, and the table screwed down, after which, by tucking my knees tightly between it and a chair, I managed to hold my own. I know not whether the jolting of the tarantass across Siberia had rendered my nerves sea-proof, but, to my agreeable surprise, I found myself able to write during three severe storms on the Pacific and Atlantic. On Monday there ran “a high sea,” which the captain marked “7” (“8” standing for “very high,” and “9” for “tremendous,” beyond which my figures to indicate the disturbance of the water do not go). After the storm came a calm wind with rough waves. We dropped the screw, used steam, and to some extent steadied the ship; but, with all our efforts, made little progress, and burnt a great deal of coal, so that we had not sufficient to steam the remainder of the voyage. The captain said he had never known, in so short a space of time, so many changes of wind, barometer, and weather.

I had learned that the steamer left Yokohama for San Francisco on Saturday, the 11th of October, and as the mail-packet makes the passage from Hakodate to Yokohama in 64 hours, my hope was that I might land in the early part of the week, take a peep at the capital, and then embark for California; but the storm and the calm upset our calculations completely, and I had nothing to do but to submit, and make the best of my ebbing opportunities of gaining Russian information, and of getting my statistics translated.

[744]

Being brought into such close proximity with Russian gentlemen for several days, we naturally became somewhat intimate; restraint wore off, and I learned more fully than I had done before the feelings of educated Russians towards England. When passing through Petersburg a general had said to me, “J’adore les Anglais, mais je hais leurs conseils,” which, in 1879, was natural enough. Also the Djiguitt had left Europe during the Russo-Turkish war, and I discovered that her officers had brought away with them unpleasant feelings towards my nation. One of them observed, though not unkindly, that the English had interfered most rudely with Russian affairs, for which, he thought, the English Government was deeply hated by the Russian people, though Englishmen, he said, were not so. He was ready to discuss, very keenly, the probability of war between our two nations; and did not attempt to hide the disappointment of the Russians at being foiled of their purpose to enter Constantinople. He thought that, if war did break out, it would, on the Russian side, be intensely popular.

I set myself to discover, if possible, the cause of the alleged dislike, whereupon I found that, among other reasons, he was extremely sore about the frequent misrepresentation of Russia in English newspapers. He complained that there were certain journals always ready to exaggerate Russian defects; and, to be honest, I could not help allowing there was a measure of truth in what he said. Misrepresentation, however, may arise from two different sources—from ignorance or from malevolence. When passing through the northern capital, I myself saw, in some of the best English newspapers, statements to the effect that Petersburg [745] was then in such a state that it was penal for anyone to stir out after nine without a certificate; that no evening party might be given without leave from the police; that no student might burn the midnight oil; and that a curfew law forbade a light to be seen in a dwelling after ten: all of which I read with amazement, for I myself was out as I pleased till past midnight, and burned a light in packing nearly all the night through. When I returned to London I said so to the editor of one of the papers, and found that his statements had been due to wrong information.

But complaint was made not merely of mistakes arising from ignorance or wrong information. It was urged that false statements were frequently put forth, and not properly and honorably rectified, when it afterwards became manifest that they were wrong.⁠[9] I had not up to that time realized to what an extent this was true; but, after reading various books and papers for the present work, I cannot but acknowledge that some of the writers upon Russian affairs do, to put it in the mildest form, make [746] the most extraordinary statements. Some of these, as I have said, arise from ignorance, and are pardonable; but others, it is to be feared, arise from something far worse, which I prefer not to have to name. What, for instance, will the reader think of the following extract from an article in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph of December 6th last, which has come to my hand just before going to press?—“The Russian Government does a regular and an important business with Sheffield. Our Russophiles will be charmed. The Government of ‘the Divine figure from the North’ takes from Sheffield five tons per week of horseflesh. The horses killed for Holy Russia are those which, through decay or disease, are worthless. The dogs’ meat thus obtained is bought as food for human beings in Siberia, and, having to travel so far, it is often in a putrid condition when it arrives there, and in all its horrible putrescence it is so served out.”

This is remarkable information. The cheapest cost of carriage known to me from Petersburg to the Siberian frontier is £5 a ton, taking 12 months in transit (no [747] wonder that the meat is putrid!); and if to this sum be added the cost of the horseflesh and its conveyance from Sheffield, and salt (for the Telegraph is kind enough to say, on Dec. 3rd, that the meat is salted, although it becomes putrid!), then how strange it will seem that the Russian Government should come to Sheffield to buy meat, when live stock, as I have already stated, can be purchased in Western Siberia at less than ½d. per pound! This, with a vengeance, is “carrying coal to Newcastle”! But the article goes on to speak of the prisoners working “in quicksilver-mines, where the mercury produces an artificial leprosy that rots blood, bones, and skin”; and then the writer pathetically adds that this “is the unspeakable fate of thousands of Russians in whom education and a disposition and temperament naturally brave have aroused thoughts too deep for tears, and a devoted courage worthy of the Christian martyrs.” These “martyrs,” moreover, are fed with “flesh swept up from English knackers’ yards”—that is to say, with horseflesh carried overland 8,000 miles!—I suppose to Nertchinsk, for the writer wisely abstains from naming the locality of his mines. O wonderful information from the Sheffield Daily Telegraph! Would that I could be informed where there exists in Siberia a quicksilver-mine at all, that I might hasten thither if only to clear up this mystery about—Sheffield horseflesh!

To return, however, to serious writing. Is it surprising if Russians feel annoyed at calumnies so gross? and ought one who knows them to be so to abstain from giving such statements the lie? Few Englishmen, one trusts, will be proud to read misstatements like these, and the exposure of them, it is to be hoped, [748] may lead the unimpassioned to reflect on such injustice, and to call it by its proper name. For my own part (humiliating as it is to acknowledge), I have learned to expect from certain quarters exaggerations and misstatements respecting Russian affairs. If any complain to me of the character of Russian diplomacy I reply that I do not defend it. I say nothing of Russians as politicians, and so long as human nature remains as it is there will probably not be wanting writers to fan national jealousies and misgivings to a flame; but no right-minded persons will ever look upon misstatements like those I have quoted, other than with shame and disgust. Such misrepresentations carry also their own Nemesis, for the uninformed, led astray thereby, when they see themselves duped often espouse the opposite cause. Such unfairness has taught me at least to sympathize with Russians who are thus misrepresented; and perhaps I ought to confess that this feeling had something to do with my resolving to write this book.

It does one an immensity of good sometimes to have to listen calmly to an opponent, and I was thankful for the plain speaking I heard on the Djiguitt. I am indebted for other similar thoughts to various writings by Russians, among them to Madame Novikoff’s “Russia and England—a Protest and an Appeal” (by “O. K.”); all the more forcibly put because so politely written. I have said in my preface that of politics I know next to nothing, and it is not in this connection that I agree or disagree with what that accomplished lady has published; but I perceive that “O. K.” has found in England what I have found in Russia—a number of warm and generous friends, [749] between whom one would desire that only the best of feelings should exist. If Russia were but better known, a similar feeling would grow, I feel sure, between Englishmen and Russians generally, and both would be gainers thereby. There are many who wish to know the truth respecting Siberia, and to form an unbiassed opinion, and if what I have written should tend in any degree to this end, I shall be thankful indeed.

On Saturday morning, October 11th, the Djiguitt was creeping along, without coal and almost without wind, when a five-masted steamer was seen on the horizon, coming away from Yokohama. “That,” said the captain, “is your steamer. Shall I ask them if they will take a passenger?” I quickly decided in the affirmative, packed my luggage, and embarked in a gig. The commander of the City of Peking did not stay to read the signals, but, seeing a boat put off from a man-of-war, concluded that it could be nothing short of an officer with important dispatches, and came to a standstill, to discover, however, that it was only to pick up a man “escaped from Siberia.” San Francisco was reached in sixteen days. From thence I visited the Yo-Semite Valley, Salt Lake City, Chicago, and Niagara; and then, pushing on to New York, crossed the Atlantic to Liverpool, and on November 25th re-entered London, having compassed the world in nearly a straight line of 25,500 miles.

[751]

Gratias Deo.

The history of the Russian Church may be treated under the four periods of its foundation, consolidation, transition, and reformation. Its foundation period extends from the end of the tenth century to the beginning of the fourteenth. In the year 957 a Russian princess, named Olga, visited Constantinople, was baptized, and returned with the Christian name of Helena. About thirty years afterwards there came to her grandson, Vladimir, envoys from the different religious communities of the known world,—from the Mussulmans, the Pope, the Jews, the Greeks,—inviting him to adopt their respective creeds. To these he replied by sending elders and nobles to examine their various religions; and shortly afterwards, in 988, he was baptized and joined the Greek Church. Vladimir then gave orders for a wholesale baptism of his docile subjects at Kieff. A church was built there, and the work of conversion advanced rapidly. The Holy Scriptures had been translated into Sclavonic a century before for the nations on the Danube; so that the Greek priests, on going to Russia, had this powerful lever ready to hand in the language of the people.

The period of the consolidation of the Russian Church dates from the beginning of the fourteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth, during which time the local centre of ecclesiastical history was transferred from Kieff to Moscow, and three great powers came prominently forward—the Tsars, the Metropolitans, and the Monks. The Tsar, in his ecclesiastical position, represented the laity of the Church, [752] and received the unbounded veneration of the people; and the Metropolitans, second only to the Tsar, almost without exception supported the authority of the Sovereign. In the middle of the fifteenth century the Metropolitans became independent of the See of Constantinople; and in 1589, Job, the Metropolitan of Moscow, was elevated to the dignity of a patriarch. Again, the hermits and monks acquired an immense influence. In 1338 was founded the famous Troitza monastery—a seminary, cathedral, church, and fortress all in one—the monks and clergy of which have more than once taken an active part in the deliverance of their country from the Tatars and Poles.

The transition period of the Russian Church extends from the middle of the seventeenth to the beginning of the eighteenth centuries, during which time lived Nikon, the famous Patriarch of Moscow. He has been called a Russian Chrysostom, a Russian Luther, a Russian Wolsey. Ivan the Terrible, in his own savage way, had done something towards rectifying the abuses of the Church. The Patriarch did more; he took in hand the Russian hierarchy, whom he found idle and drunken. He set them a good example, on one hand, by founding hospitals, feeding the hungry, visiting prisons, and, above all, after the silence of many centuries, by preaching; but, on the other hand, he administered clerical discipline with uncommon severity. He was perpetually sending his officers round the city, with orders that, if they found priest or monk in a state of intoxication, they were to imprison, strip, and scourge him; and numbers of dissolute clergy he banished to Siberia. His name, however, is chiefly remembered by reason of his innovations, or perhaps resuscitation of forgotten details in ritual. Finding that copyists’ errors had crept into the service books, which were in manuscript, he sent deputations to Mount Athos, and throughout the Eastern Churches, for correct copies, put the printing press to work to circulate new rubrics, and set on foot a work of revision, which met with frantic opposition on the part of the ignorant among the people, and was ultimately made the occasion of the secession of a large part [753] of what are now known as the Russian raskolniks, or dissenters.

The fourth period, which has been called—though, alas! in only a very limited sense—the reformation of the Russian Church, extends from the time of Peter the Great to our own day. The patriarchate had attained to a position of great power, and the great Peter was not the man to brook such a rival as Nikon had been to his father Alexis; accordingly, on the death of the Patriarch Adrian, in 1700, his chair was allowed to remain vacant for twenty years, at the end of which time Peter abolished the patriarchate and appointed a synod. He also carried out many reforms and improvements, which he had the good sense to see were sorely needed. He established schools for the children of the clergy, abolished anchorites, reformed the monasteries, and issued regulations enjoining bishops to read the Scriptures carefully, and not to be absent from their dioceses without permission of the synod. Many of his changes, however, excited great dissatisfaction. The measures of Nikon had sadly perturbed the orthodox Russians; those of Peter drove them to desperation and to further schism. Among the charges brought against the Tsar were such as these: that he had introduced into the churches pictures by Western artists; and this was said to be a mortal sin. Besides this, at the opening of the eighteenth century, Peter changed the calendar, gave his people the 1st of January for their New Year’s Day, and began to reckon the year from the birth of Christ instead of from the creation of the world. This, among other like things, was regarded as the very sign of Antichrist, inasmuch as he was “to change times and laws”; and Peter the Great is still designated Antichrist by a large proportion of the Russian dissenters. Since the time of the great reformer the Russian Church has gone on very much as he left it, the few minor reforms introduced by the Emperors Alexander the First and Second being in the right direction.

The doctrines of the Russian Church are not set forth in any one public document like the “Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion,” but must be sought in its creeds, councils, Church services, and catechisms. Generally speaking, it may be said that the Bible and tradition form the Russian rule of faith, and excommunication is the penalty of heterodoxy. The Nicene Creed we know the Russians receive, with the exception of the clause relating to the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son; and the Athanasian Creed finds a place in their Church books, though it is not read in the public services. There are likewise certain works by eminent Russian divines which have been promulgated or received with more or less authority by councils or the general consent of the Eastern Church. Such are the treatise of St. John Damascene on the Orthodox Faith; the Answers of the Patriarch Jeremiah to the Lutherans, 1574–1581; Peter Mogila’s Orthodox Confession of Faith of the Catholic and Apostolic Church of the East, 1643–1662; the Eighteen Articles of the Synod of Bethlehem, 1672; and the Orthodox Doctrine of Platon, 1762. We get a better insight, however, into the doctrines of the Russian Church, as they are taught in the present day, from Mr. Blackmore’s translation of the Russian Primer, the Catechisms, and the Treatise on the Duty of Parish Priests—a perusal of which last seems to me to bring the Russian Church nearer to the English, and further from the Roman, than is generally supposed. Some idea of the divergences of the three Churches will be obtained by briefly enumerating their differences, thus:—

1. The principal differences between the Russian and English Church are upon—

[755]

2. The differences between the Russian and English Churches on one side, and the Roman on the other, are upon—

3. Once more, the differences between the English Church and the Russian and Roman combined are upon—

These are some of the principal differences between the three branches of the Catholic Church, besides which there are others connected with usage and ritual.

It cannot be denied that there is a very considerable amount of toleration of foreign religions in the Russian Empire. The Tsar does not emulate the Roman Pontiff, who, as long as he could prevent it, which was up to about 12 years ago, would not allow a Protestant place of worship to be built within the walls of his capital. On the contrary, at the fair of Nijni Novgorod, the Mohammedan mosque and the Armenian church stand side by side with the orthodox cathedral, and I am not sure that I did not see in the Chinese quarter a Buddhist temple. Notwithstanding all this, however, the religious toleration of the Tsar is of a somewhat one-sided character. A man is usually left in peace to practise the religion in which he was born, so long as he does not try to proselytize. Again, should an English Churchman, or any one else living in Russia, be convinced that the Greek Church is more scriptural and catholic than his own, the Greek Church will receive him into her communion. But not vice versâ. On the contrary, should a Russian Churchman living in Russia be convinced that the English Church is more scriptural and catholic than his own, and should he attempt to carry out his convictions, he would thereby render himself liable, I believe, to expatriation, confiscation of property, and other pains and penalties too dreadful to mention; and to receive the convert into the English Church would be more than the Chaplain at Petersburg or Moscow dare do. Again, in mixed marriages—that is, when either father or mother is “orthodox”—the children must be orthodox, and follow the religion of the State. Russians abroad sometimes change their religious profession, [757] in which case they remain Russian subjects, but are not permitted to return to their country unless they recant.

The matter therefore stands thus, that whilst the Russian Church is ready to receive from all, she gives to none—that is, if she can help it. Consequently, what she will not give, there are some who choose to take. The rich, who are possessed of broad acres, be they ever so convinced that some of the doctrines of the Greek Church are unscriptural and uncatholic, naturally think twice before they render their estates liable to confiscation. But there are others, who have less to lose, for whom confiscation has no such terrors; or, if it has, dare to face them, and bid the law do its worst.

Persecution, however, such as we have known in England, has never been a characteristic of the Church of Russia. I do not mean that her repressive measures have never taken a form which can with difficulty be distinguished from persecution. But she has never had an Inquisition; neither Petersburg nor Moscow has a Smithfield; and the plains of Russia have never heard such cries as once resounded through the valleys of Piedmont. On the whole, I am disposed to think that, in religious matters at all events, the hug of the bear is not so bad as might be expected from his growl; and that the powers that be, when they see a religious point cannot be carried, meet the difficulty half-way.

I left Siberia in a Russian man-of-war, and heard a story that will illustrate this. Formerly the law obtained in the Russian navy that all the seamen should have shaven chins. Now, at the Council of Moscow in the seventeenth century, to shave the beard was pronounced “a sin which even the blood of martyrs could not expiate”; and some of the Russian dissenters still believe that to cut the hair or the beard is altogether unscriptural and unorthodox. Accordingly, one fine day two recruits appeared in the navy with flowing beards. They were ordered to cut them off, but they obstinately refused. Their insubordination was reported to higher quarters, and an order was returned that the men must shave or be shaved. The men still refused, and in consequence were shaved, to the saving of their consciences, but the loss [758] of their beards. But nature gave them new ones, and the difficulty came up again, the men once more refusing to obey orders. Their obstinacy was again reported, this time to very high authorities—to one of the Grand Dukes, if not to the Emperor himself—when it occurred to one of them, in his wisdom, to ask why these men should be made to shave; and, no satisfactory answer being forthcoming, another question followed—why should any of the men be made to shave? and shortly there went forth a regulation that, throughout the whole of the navy, men should be left to do as they liked with their beards. So in many things respecting religion: when the Government of the present day cannot carry a point, they not unfrequently give it up, or cease what looks like active persecution.

The Russians have, however, certain fanatical sects to deal with, whose tenets are so outrageous that no enlightened Government could do otherwise than try to repress them. Some of their ideas are sufficiently ludicrous. “Cursed be the man,” said one of these people to an acquaintance of mine—“Cursed be the man who presumes to pray to God in a pair of trousers!” from which, I suppose, we are to infer that in public worship these individuals think it right to divest themselves of their nether garments. I am not aware, however, that persons such as these are persecuted. Among the fanatical sects also are the Scoptsi, some of whom are banished to a village on the Yenesei. There are certain sectarians also who have no settled home, but wander about as strangers and pilgrims. We met some of them in the Siberian wilds. The great mass, however, of the Raskolniks, or Russian dissenters, estimated at eight millions in number, are very different from those I have mentioned.

When, in the seventeenth century, the Patriarch Nikon began to have the Church books revised and corrected, he met with fierce opposition. He was charged with interpolating instead of correcting the books, and nothing would persuade many of the ignorant people to the contrary. Many thus became unsettled and broke away—not, they would say, because they were leaving the Church, but because the Church, [759] with its new-fangled notions, was leaving them. Then when, in addition to Nikon’s changes, Peter the Great introduced others, things were looked upon as becoming worse than ever. There was, accordingly, a large section of the most ultra-Conservative Russians, both of priests and people, who clung to old books, old pictures, and old ways, under the impression that thus only could they worship God according to the customs of their forefathers; and it is from these secessionists that the great mass of the Staroveri, or Old Believers, are descended. We heard, at Tiumen, that some are very strict in their habits of living; that, for instance, they will not drink tea or wine, and will not drink out of the same vessel with one who is not of their sect. The Staroveri are split into two principal parties. They had a bishop with them at the time of their secession, and he ordained many priests; but as these priests died they asked, How shall we fill their places? They had no second bishop to ordain more. Some decided that they would do without priests, and these are called Bezpopoftschins, or priestless. The others for a time got priests from the Established Church as best they could, but eventually came to a compromise with the Government, and, by certain concessions made to them, saved their scruples and obtained their priests. These are called Popoftschins. The differences, however, between both parties on the one side, and the Established Church on the other, were not questions of doctrine, but such points as these: the Starovers gave the benediction holding up two fingers, the established clergy holding up three, which latter practice was regarded by the Old Believers as a mortal sin. The Starovers’ form of the cross had three transverse beams, instead of the Russian two or the Latin one. Again, to say the name of Jesus in two syllables instead of three (as in Greek) was condemned by the Starovers, as was also the repetition of the hallelujah in the service thrice instead of twice. It became also an alarming innovation to read or write, for ecclesiastical purposes, a word in modern Russ. I had a reminder of this in 1878 on the Dwina, where Old Believers exist, for I sometimes [760] found my tracts objected to because not printed in Sclavonic.

But there are many among the Raskolniks of Russia who dissent from the Established Church on points less diminutive than those of the Starovers; as the Dukhobortsi, or “wrestlers with the Spirit,” who spiritualize to a high degree both doctrines and sacraments. Also they reject pictures, do not cross themselves, nor observe the appointed fasts. In their meetings they pray for one another, sing psalms, and explain the Word of God. They call themselves “Christians,” and their great dogma is to worship God in spirit and in truth. They have no magistrates, but govern their own society; they practise brotherly love, have all things common, and are remarkable for the orderly and cleanly manner in which they live. An officer whom I met last year in the Caucasus spoke to me in the highest terms of their blameless lives.

There are many other sects of the Russian Church, many followers of which are found in Siberia, either because banished or born there, or having migrated by their own choice for the sake of greater liberty. Not the least interesting among them are the Molokans, some of whom I found on the Amur, and others more recently in the Trans-Caucasus.

From various papers in the Proceedings of the Society for the Promotion of Marine Enterprise and Trade in Russia, together with information gathered by Mr. Oswald Cattley, it seems that Mr. M. K. Sidoroff of Petersburg was the agitator, and, in a certain sense, the originator, in modern times, of sea-trading adventure in the north of the Russian empire. He was largely interested in gold-mining in the Yenesei, and his efforts to open up marine communication with the north date from 1841. In 1860, thanks to his enterprise, the first foreign vessel entered the Bay of Petchora. At the Universal Exhibition of 1862, in London, Mr. Sidoroff exhibited, and obtained two medals for, products from the Turukhansk district—graphite, skins, coal, salt, mammoth tusks, etc.—all of which he presented to the South Kensington Museum. In 1867 he began agitating the possibility of communicating with Europe by sea viâ the Yenesei and Obi rivers and the Arctic Ocean. In 1868 he communicated with the Norwegian whalers, and at his initiative Captains Foyne, Carlsen, and others ventured into the Kara Sea, but none reached to the mouth of either of the two great rivers. This success was to be reaped by Captain Wiggins, of Sunderland, who fitted out, at his own expense, a small steamer, the Diana, in which he reached the mouth of the Obi in 1874. He was resolved upon repeating the voyage in 1875, and to that end invited capitalists to assist him in organizing a trade between Siberia and England. These overtures were not successful to any considerable extent, though two gentlemen came forward with subscriptions in Sunderland, and the captain added more from his own means; but the whole amounted to [762] less than was needed for efficient operations. Determined, however, not to be baffled, Wiggins purchased a small cutter, the Whim, that might have been put in a good-sized drawing-room (it was only 45 feet long, and of 27 tons register!), and in that he sailed direct for the Kara Sea. The weather was adverse, and he was compelled to return in the autumn of 1875. Another explorer, however, had followed suit, for Professor Nordenskiöld, seeing what Wiggins had done in 1874, took the same track in 1875, and reached the mouth of the Yenesei. Thence he sent back his walrus sloop to Hammerfest, ascended the river, and returned overland to Petersburg.

Captain Wiggins was now asked to meet his brother explorer, Nordenskiöld, at Petersburg, where they both addressed crowded audiences; after which the Russian merchants offered subscriptions towards the equipment of another expedition, under the command of Captain Wiggins, who was to return at once to England and secure a steamer suitable to the work. But jealousy of a “foreign element” subsequently seized some of the Russian merchants, and they desired that a Russian naval officer should head the expedition—in other words, that Captain Wiggins should be pilot, which he declined. Many of the Russian subscriptions were in consequence withheld, but not that of Mr. Sibiriakoff, who placed his money in the hands of the editor of the Times. This money, with the assistance furnished by Mr. Gardiner, of Goring, enabled Wiggins to attempt a third voyage, and he now purchased the screw-steamer Thames—doing so, however, under protest, for she was not the vessel he ought to have had. In this, in 1876, he started for the mouth of the Obi, and reached it; but, owing to the unsuitability of his ship, he could not ascend the river. He lay, therefore, in the Baidaratsky Gulf of the Kara Sea, employing himself usefully in making nautical surveys, dredging, etc. He then directed his course to the Yenesei, entered the river, and reached the village of Dudinsk, about 400 miles from the ocean. Here he was informed that the nearest port or river of safety was the [763] Kureika. I have since been told, by one in Siberia, that this was a mistake, the river not being a suitable place for winter quarters. But the captain proceeded without chart, without pilot; time was of importance; and he had not got his steamer into the Kureika more than two or three days before the ice formed, and she was locked up for eight months. This had been anticipated; and the captain now returned overland, post-haste to London, which he reached in January 1877.

Meanwhile Professor Nordenskiöld had also been following up his discoveries, in proceeding again to the Yenesei, in 1876, with an object mostly, but not entirely, scientific. It was arranged that his expedition, consisting of Swedish geologists, botanists, zoologists, and men of science, should be divided into two parties; one going with the Professor, in the steamship Ymar, through the Kara Sea, was to enter the mouth of the river and ascend to Mesenkin; whilst the other party, under the direction of M. Théel, was to proceed overland to Krasnoiarsk, and then descend the river to meet their comrades. The Professor ascended to Mesenkin, but M. Théel could not get so far. The two parties therefore failed to effect a meeting; but they added much valuable information to what had been hitherto known of the natural history of the Yenesei, and which was printed in two reports—the one from Professor Nordenskiöld, and the other from M. Théel, addressed to Messrs. Oscar Dickson, of Gothenburg, and Alexander Sibiriakoff, at whose joint expense the expedition had been sent.

In the spring of 1877 Wiggins went overland from England through Siberia, and down the Yenesei to the Thames, intending to steam back to Europe. But the vessel was damaged by the breaking-up of the ice, and became a wreck; and Wiggins was once more compelled to return by land. He had been accompanied on the outward journey by Mr. Henry Seebohm, who proceeded to the Yenesei to study its ornithology, and who has since published some of the results of his researches, as well as a book called “Siberia in Europe,” on the ornithology of North-eastern Russia and [764] part of Siberia. Besides these travellers and their journeys, there have been several voyages undertaken, with a view to bring Siberia into maritime contact with Europe. The Newcastle Daily Chronicle for November 28th, 1878, records several voyages as having been made up to that time, with more or less success; and thus from the years 1875 to 1878 we learnt more than had ever been previously known of these two ancient rivers, the Obi and the Yenesei—to which latter, another vessel has made its way during the present year.

That Western Siberia is capable of being made to play an important part in the supply of European markets seems certain. The country possesses immense stores of minerals, from gold down to excellent coal, and agricultural produce both of fibre and cereals, the latter including wheat, to be purchased at from 12 to 15 shillings per quarter, first hand, which in England commands from 45 to 50 shillings. A thousand miles of land between the Tobol and the Obi is capable of producing an almost unlimited supply of wheat, oats, barley, rye, hay, linseed, flax, and hemp; and to these might be added for export, to be purchased very cheaply, hides, tallow, wool, and other products. Already, on the rivers of the Obi system alone, there are no less than 46 passenger and tug steamers plying annually, and ranging from 30 up to 120 horse-power. If, then, two central warehouses could be established, at, say, Tiumen and Tomsk, it would be easy from thence to purchase and carry produce to the mouth of the Obi. The difficult part of the navigation lies between the mouth of the Obi and the Kara or the Waigatz Straits, west of the Kara Sea; and what is required is a powerful steamer, adapted for working among ice if needed, to ply between the Obi Gulf and a depôt, say, on Waigatz Island, or even at the North Cape, whence ordinary vessels could bring the produce away. The ice steamer might then, in her last voyage for the season, return with foreign merchandise, to be sold at the establishments in the interior, and, in February, at the annual fair of Irbit where merchants congregate from all parts of Siberia. Mr. Seebohm [765] goes so far as to say that, could the talked-of canal be formed from the Obi Gulf across the Yamal peninsula, it might prove almost as important as that across the Isthmus of Suez. Captain Wiggins thinks the canal impracticable, but is sanguine as to the possibilities of trade on the Obi; and it has been computed by Mr. Oswald Cattley that with a strong steamer, a tug, six barges, and a couple of lighters, there might be exported from Siberia, in a single navigation season, 6,000 tons of wheat; but, of course, this would involve the outlay of considerable capital, and the location of responsible agents in the country.

The north-east passage to China was attempted as far back as the 16th century, after the discovery of America had given such zest to geographical exploration. Willoughby, Chancellor, and Burroughs started on a route indicated to them by Sebastian Cabot, but with the result that Willoughby perished in 1554; Chancellor landed in the White Sea and laid the foundation of Anglo-Russian commerce; and Burroughs was stopped before entering the Kara Sea. Thinking that China might, perhaps, be reached by way of the Obi gulf, thence up the river, and by a fabulous lake of Kitaï (or China) marked upon the map of Herberstein, the English renewed their efforts. In 1580 two English ships, commanded by Pet and Jackman, sailed towards the Russian Polar Seas, their navigators being counselled by Hakluyt and Mercator, the foremost geographers of their day; but both were baffled by the ice of the Kara Sea. The Dutch were not more fortunate, and in the three voyages, in which the illustrious Barentz took part, 1594–1597, no progress was effected beyond the Seas of Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. In 1608, the Dutch Hendrick Hudson, sailing in the English service, endeavoured but in vain to pass the limits where his predecessors had been stopped, and after his name should be mentioned those of Wood and Flawes, bringing us to 1676. There was subsequently a lull in the efforts made by the navigators of Western Europe for two centuries, and then we have the voyage in the Tegetthoff, under Payer and Weyprecht. The fishermen and Russian merchants from [767] the White Sea, however, knew perfectly the route to the gulfs of the Obi and Yenesei. Of this there is proof in the map of Boris Godunof in the year 1600, although it is true that to travel by this route was forbidden sixteen years later under pain of death, lest the Russians should pilot foreigners to the coasts of Siberia.

Cut off thus by a frozen sea, the sailing of which was considered by the navigators and geographers of Western Europe an impossibility, the exploration of the North Siberian littoral could go on only from Siberia itself, which was done by means of river craft. In 1648, the Cossack Dejnev, leaving the mouth of the Kolima in command of a little fleet of seven boats, had succeeded in rounding the extreme northern point of Asia, and in clearing, long before Behring was born, the strait which bears the name of that navigator. Stadoukhin also traversed the seas of Eastern Siberia, looking for islands covered with fossil ivory, of which the natives had told him. In 1735 Prontchichtchev and Lasinius descended the Lena to examine its delta and coast along to the east and west. The former proceeded round Cape Cheliuskin (so named after his pilot), but did not reach the Yenesei Gulf, and the expedition brought back their leader’s corpse. Again, an expedition set out in 1739 under Laptev, and, after being shipwrecked, crossed overland the most northern cape of the Old World, and explored the Taimur peninsula. The littoral between the estuaries of the Obi and Yenesei was discovered two years previously by Ovtzin and Minin.

Navigation towards the Siberian Sea had already commenced, however, by way of the Pacific. In 1728 Behring, a Dane in the Russian service, crossed Siberia by land, and, embarking on the Pacific, penetrated the famous straits which bear his name, and it was through him that the geographers of Western Europe learned the existence of this passage, already known for eighty years to the Siberian Cossacks; but the archives of Yakutsk had so closely kept the secret that the great Peter himself did not know it when he charged Behring to go and explore the coasts of Eastern Siberia.

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The explorations of Cook, in 1778, confirmed the points laid down by Behring, and added much to our knowledge of these north-eastern waters. After the voyage of Cook, only the seas about Sakhalin, Yesso, and the Kuriles remained to be explored. La Perouse laid down the first tracing of the islands and the shores of the continent, and he recognized the insular character of Sakhalin and the existence of a passage uniting the seas of Japan and Okhotsk.

Thus all the coast lines of Siberia were mapped out as to their principal features, and there matters remained until, at the instance of Mr. Sidoroff, in 1868, some Norwegian whalers ventured to the Kara Sea, which, however, was not successfully navigated, I believe, by an ocean craft till 1874, when Captain Wiggins accomplished it by steam. He reached the gulf of the Obi, and would willingly have steamed on to “the land of Kitaï,” but he was unsupported by such enterprise as sent out Willoughby, Chancellor, and Burroughs, and the rose was honorably snatched from the Englishman’s hand by Nordenskiöld, the Swedo-Finn, whose voyage may, in a manner, be said to have closed the maritime discovery of Siberia.

The scientific exploration of this vast country by land can hardly be said to have commenced till the 18th century, with Messerschmidt. Some years later, Gmelin, Müller, and Delisle de la Croyère, during an absence of nine years, from 1733 to 1742, recorded valuable observations on the physical geography of the country. In those days, however, the Russian Government regarded with considerable jealousy the publication of documents relative to the resources of the empire. Pallas travelled over Siberia to the Baikal and beyond, with several scientists, and brought back much valuable information, especially concerning geology and natural history. Scientific travels in Siberia were then suspended till after the political events of 1815. In 1828 the Norwegian Hansteen, accompanied by Erman, went on those travels which proved of such importance to the study of terrestrial magnetism, whilst Erman’s astronomical determinations were of great use in correcting the maps which [769] hitherto had been only approximately correct. Humboldt went to Siberia when Hansteen and Erman were there; and though his visit, by reason of its shortness, was not very fruitful in observations, it proved important in the history of science, because he brought back documents which proved valuable for his work on Central Asia. The explorations of Middendorf in Northern and Eastern Siberia had considerable importance, and in 1854 Schwartz, Schmidt, Glehn, Usoltzoff, and their companions made a remarkable expedition, which explored the immense region stretching from the Za-Baikal to the Lena, including the northern affluents of the Amur.

These are some of the prominent names connected with the scientific exploration of Siberia in general. Several specialists also have pushed their way to various parts of the country—Castrén the philologist to the Samoyede country, 1842–3; Maack, Venyukoff, and Radde, to the Amur and Ussuri, 1854–9; Müller and Czekanovski to the country of the Chukchees, 1869–70, and to the Yenesei in 1873–4. Two years later Seebohm, the ornithologist, descended the Yenesei, as also did the Swedish expedition under Professor Théil; and in the same year Finsch, Brehm, and Zeil explored the basin of the Irtish and Obi. For the names of other travellers in Northern Asia the reader is referred to the Bibliography of Siberia, and list of works consulted, in the following appendix.

P.S.—This appendix was written before the publication of “The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, with an Historical Review of Previous Voyages along the North Coast of the Old World. By A. E. Nordenskiöld,” whose book will doubtless be regarded as a standard work, and to it, accordingly, the reader is referred for fuller information on the maritime coast of Siberia.

The following shows the dates of the Author’s arrivals and departures, with distances in miles travelled by rail, water, and road, together with the number of post-horses employed:—

From the foregoing it will appear that the total distance travelled was 25,510 miles, of which 3,305 miles were accomplished by the hire of 1,005 post-horses. The whole time occupied was 210 days, of these, 50 days were stationary; thus leaving 160 days, during which was covered an average of 159 miles per day.