li^ffiiroP&Bag I N EUROP A. .x\3.X/\ PH- KINO- (JOCMIICH GIFT or /f/j V S-r Oft - RUSSIA % ^0 ° IN EUROPE AND ASIA ^5lSgc %$t flfllorlb ^omv Smeg BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE COMING CHINA, 320 pages. With 49 illustrations . . . . $1.50 ««/ AFRICA OF TO-DAY, 335 pages. With 30 illustrations and 1 map . $1.50 net RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA, 312 pages. With 33 illustrations . $1.50 net MEXICO In Preparation HAWAII CANADA A. C. McCLURG & CO., Chicago > 1 1 < • ' .' I • o u o O - > < OS u z w o Cfie ftcaorlD €o*Dap Series RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA BY JOSEPH KING GOODRICH Sometime Professor in the Imperial Government College, Kyoto WITH $$ ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS a ' ' - j CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO. IQI2 COPYRIGHT, 1912 BY THE PLIMPTON PRESS PUBLISHED OCTOBER, I912 Copyright in England ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE- PLIMPTON' PRESS [ W D • O] NORWOOD • MASS • U • S A. PREFACE THERE is an enormous amount of literature at the disposal of the student of Russian affairs; and yet there is really very little which satisfies one who wishes to get a comprehensive glance at the whole empire in its many and various aspects. Hare's "Studies in Russia," prepared in 1886, but republished as lately as 1904, is still the only book of its kind, and the author is so well known for his other reliable volumes of a similar character that one may safely depend upon him. But naturally this particular book is altogether inadequate now. It does not even cover the whole territory of Russia in Europe. Since Hare wrote his admi- rable descriptions of a few cities and of some of the famous cathedrals, churches, palaces, and other famous buildings, considerable changes have taken place. There are many cities and towns that now attract the visitor, but for which no thoroughly satisfactory guidebook is available. Even the cities that Hare thought he was discussing fairly exhaustively have grown and developed in a quarter of a century, until he himself would now scarcely recognise them. For example, the town of RostofI is a place that deserves a visit, but there is no satisfactory description of it available to the English reader. There are a number of others which are historically or archaeologically most interest- ing, and the towns that have developed greatly as industrial centres are not yet sufficiently known through the medium of a guidebook. Siberia has changed so much in the last five or six years that Gerrare's " Greater Russia," frequently mentioned in the following pages, is now almost obsolete, so far as the important trans-Siberian Railway and internal improve- ments are concerned. Of Russia's Central Asian possessions 259589 VI PREFACE there is nothing available which is completely satisfactory, and I fear there cannot be until great changes take place in Russian ways of guarding her outlying "protectorates" from inquisitive strangers. The great deal that is not included in the chapters may be supplied by making use of the bibliography given at the end of this volume. It will be found that, after all, so far as the Russian people are concerned, and as the interesting customs of the land appeal to us, we cannot do much better than to depend upon the narratives and descriptions of the old authorities, Clarke, Haxthausen, Wallace, and several others. There is so much that is still refreshing and illuminating in their books, that, for the topics they discuss, we cannot do better than turn to them. To condense into one little volume the size of this, some- thing even approximating to an account of the great Russian Empire, or Siberia alone, is a very audacious thing to attempt, and I trust the many imperfections may be considered chari- tably. One great difficulty that has constantly faced me is the instability of conditions in those parts of Asia wherein Russia is an important factor. Even while writing, the changes which are taking place, and others that must be considered more than mere possibilities, present a difficulty that is discouraging to an author. J. K. G. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Introductory i II. Russia in Europe: The Beginning of the Empire 12 III. The Government of all the Russias . 18 IV. Development and Growth .... 33 V. Eastward to the Pacific 49 VI. Physical Russia: Europe and Asia . . 64 VII. The People 77 VEIL The Cities and Towns 94 IX. By Post and Passenger Train across Asia and Russia 112 X. The Wealth of Siberia 130 XL Colonisation 146 XII. Exiles and Convicts 161 XIII. Siberia and her Neighbours . . . . 175 XIV. Siberia and the Far East . . . . 187 XV. Russia in Central Asia 203 XVI. Russia and India 213 XVII. Diplomacy and Political History . . 227 XVIII. Religion and Education 248 XIX. Flora and Fauna 265 XX. Conclusion 273 Bibliography 283 Index 293 Vll ILLUSTRATIONS General View of Moscow Frontispiece jacmg page Fortress of S.S. Peter and Paul, St. Petersburg . 12 A Wealthy Peasant .. 22 A Cathedral Dean 22 The Winter Palace, St. Petersburg 30 The Bourse, St. Petersburg 30 Group of Peasant Women, TamborT Government, Central Russia 50 Troitska, Travelling Carriage 58 Religious Procession, Nevsky Prospekt, St. » Petersburg 58 Church cf the Resurrection, St. Petersburg ... 74 Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg 94 The Big Cannon, Kremlin, Moscow 98 Alexander II Monument, Moscow 98 The Kremlin, Moscow 100 A " Cabby" 104 A Street Pedler 104 Market Place, Moscow 120 City Hall, Moscow 120 Peter the Great's Monument, St. Petersburg . . . 138 Church of St. Basil, Moscow 156 La Place Rouge, Moscow: Kremlin wall, Church of St. Basil the Beatified 166 The Kremlin, Moscow, from Moskva River . . . 174 Peter the Great's Palace, Moscow 174 Kazan Cathedral, St. Petersburg 184 Inside the Kremlin, Moscow. Gate of the Redeemer 194 ix X ILLUSTRATIONS facing page Inside the Kremlin, Moscow. Tower of Ivan Veliki, Tsar Kolokol (the great bell) 194 The Bourse Lighthouse, Neva River, St. Peters- burg 214 Place de Marie, St. Petersburg 214 St. Saviour, Moscow 224 Kremlin Wall, Moscow ... 1 .... 224 The Winter Palace, Neva Front, St. Petersburg . . 234 The National Academy, St. Petersburg .... 240 Types of Stranniki 256 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY I WRITE of Russia with only the kindest feelings for the people of that country. In the intercourse which I have had with thousands of Russians of all classes, from nobleman to peasant, and in the association with a goodly number between whom and myself the line, so difficult to trace or to define, that marks the change from mere acquaintance to actual friendship, has been crossed, I have received for myself personally and for my family nothing but kindness, and kindness of that pleasing sort which springs forth spontaneously, without a trace or hint of any expectation of being requited in kind. I do not mean to say that during the months we were in the Tsar's domains, wandering about from the Pacific coast to the German frontier, there was never an attempt to cheat or to take an unfair advantage of us as strangers ; but the demand for treble the lawful fee by a railway porter at Vladivostok; the overcharge of two cents in the price of a quart of milk made by a peasant woman somewhere along the line of the Siberian Railway, far east of Lake Baikal; the successful bit of " bunco" work by an army officer at Irkutsk, which is narrated in a later chapter, wherein I shall tell of our 2 RUSS'A. TN-SUROPE AND ASIA trip by the railway; and perhaps one or two other trifling episodes, really count for nothing; they can be matched by the daily experience of almost any one of us in our intercourse with our own people. Even at the hotels, when we knew we were being over- charged, it was not true Russians who cheated us, but someone who, racially or nationally, was almost as much of a stranger as we were. When in the hands of Russian pension proprietors and the like, I do not recall a single effort to take advantage of us. I here assert my con- viction that the statement, so often made, that one can do nothing in Russia without bribing somebody, is not borne out by our experience; while the modest "tips" that were received with the smile and words of thanks which denote entire satisfaction, would make some people blush with shame for offering them, and in America would be rejected with scorn. If I find myself called upon to condemn a good deal in the treatment to which the Russian Government subjects its own people, and, at times, the stranger that is within its gates, it is only what many another writer has done before me and probably will continue to do until the millennium comes, with more venom than shall flow from my pen. I think I may safely and accurately adopt an English- man's declaration, changing the words of the figure to make it apply to ourselves — I mean my country and my fellow-citizens — and say that the Russians love the Americans, but they are too apt to hate America. That is true, I think. As individuals, they find us com- panionable, liberal, sympathetic, and appreciative; as representatives of a government so diametrically opposed to their own ideals, they cannot bring themselves to approve of us whole-heartedly, and, really — all the INTRODUCTORY 3 existing conditions carefully considered — it is almost too much to expect them to do so. Experience has taught me that it is well to declare what qualifications one has for writing such a book as this. In Nagasaki, Japan, while interpreter in our consulate, and frequently called upon to act as deputy consul, I had, for nearly a year in 1898 and 1899, seen a good deal of the Russian sojourners and visitors, most of the latter naval officers, and I had talked freely with them about Russian aims and ambitions in the Far East. My first direct acquaintance with Russia and the people of that interesting country, at home, was made in the summer of 1899, when I took a trip along the east coast of Korea and into the Maritime Province of Siberia, having my headquarters at Vladivostok. This experience was a revelation indeed. We were travelling by a Japanese steamer, all the crew being Japanese except the chief engineer (a Scotchman, of course), and we seemed to be, as we were, in the Far Orient when we turned the point which separates the outer from the inner harbour of Vladivostok. Then the East vanished almost entirely and we were in Europe; at least, we could easily have imagined ourselves to be had we closed our ears to the chattering Japanese about us on the deck. In the sea, outside, we had seen a number of Chinese fishing-boats, so that the impressions of the East were then still with us; but now these were all gone. Before us lay a town that bore no resemblance to those of Korea, Japan, or China. The buildings were, for the most part, substantial; there was just enough of the Near East about the architecture of the cathedral and some of the public buildings to make us realise that we were in Russia, and the whole atmosphere was totally 4 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA different from what we had seen at Fusan, Gensan, or other Korean ports and cities, and, of course, it was something quite opposite to what we had left in Japan less than a week before. During that visit to Eastern Siberia I saw something of the way the Russians were bearing themselves towards the Koreans, and I heard a good deal more, nearly all of which pleased me. It was thoroughly in harmony with what I had learnt to look for in the attitude which the Russians assume towards those whom they would like to absorb or annex, and even towards the conquered peoples of Asia. About this I shall speak at some length later. It was entirely con- sistent with the expansion plan generally; for it must be admitted by all save the most prejudiced observers that Russia has succeeded remarkably in making some of her best friends among the wild tribes of Central and Western Asia, some of whom have been absorbed willingly or unwillingly, others of whom she has subdued, not unfre- quently, by means which cannot be described by any gentler term than " harsh." There was, however, no evidence of harshness in the treatment which the Russian officials of the Maritime Province were giving those Koreans twelve or thirteen years ago. On the contrary, it was characterised by extreme gentleness and consideration for their moral, physical, and industrial welfare, and it was reaping its own reward. Along the middle and lower stretches of the Tuman River, the boundary between Russian posses- sions and Korea, there were a goodly number of little villages of Koreans, who had come across the border and put themselves under Russian protection. These people were being helped to make homes for themselves. There was not that mistaken generosity in gratuitously INTROD UC T O R Y 5 thrusting upon those whom we would truly aid, materials and assistance — an unwise course that too frequently tends to pauperise ; but help and direction were so wisely given that a new spirit of admirable independence was being infused into the Koreans — something they had never before dreamt of. They were being taught a good deal of wise husbandry and the care of cattle, although of the latter occupation they had not been altogether ignorant, even while yet in their native homes. Implements and seeds were provided on reasonable terms, and instruction was given by competent farmers and stockmen. Then — and probably this was the best thing of all — in each village or hamlet there was a church and a resident priest of the Orthodox Greek Church, who was, in every sense of the word, as here used, a father to his little flock. He looked after their physical ailments in a simple way (there was always an army surgeon within easy call if something serious happened); he was giving the rudiments, at least, of education; he was always ready to second the efforts of the practical men who were trying to make those Korean peasants independent; and his special, personal ministrations were bearing good fruit. The result of these combined efforts, as I saw it then, was happy, and I honestly considered that no better missionaries could be sent into Northern Korea than those returning farmers, who had received so much from their Russian pastors and lay teachers. I thought, at the time, that Korea could not fare badly if Russia were permitted to annex the peninsula and thus solve the problem, to her so important, of securing an ice-free harbour on the Pacific. 6 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA When, however, Russian ambition as to China asserted itself after the Boxer episode in 1900, and her aggres- siveness became greater after securing the eviction of Japan from the Liaotung Peninsula, and when she had unmistakably indicated her determination to push her trespass in Manchuria to absolutely illegal, unjustifiable bounds, my feelings underwent a change, and I was strongly sympathetic for Japan. Again I was deceived by false pretences. Since 1905 there have been two trespassers upon Chinese territory; and since Korea became a part of the Japanese Empire, the fate of the poor Koreans is worse than ever it was. Now, I feel that it would have been better had the United States stood heroically and honestly by her treaties with Korea, and sustained against Russian, Japanese, and all the rest of the world the independence of the " Hermit Kingdom." In 1903 it was my privilege to be with the Russian Minister to Japan, Baron Rosen, during the whole of that anxious summer. His family and mine were stay- ing at Kanaya Hotel, Nikko, and I may interpolate here that we preferred the independence of the hotel to the responsibility of cottage life. But Baron Rosen did not dare occupy his cottage, on the shore of Lake Chiu- zenji, eight miles farther up in the mountains, because the Japanese Secret Service had warned him that to do so was unsafe, sundry plans to blow up the cottage by hot-headed Russophobists having been discovered or suspected. I cannot say that His Excellency discussed any diplomatic secrets with me, or that his confidence ever passed beyond the limit of friendly intercourse; but the baron has always had a soft spot in his heart for our country, ever since I first knew him years ago INTRODUCTORY 7 when he was just a Secretary of Legation at Washington, and probably he did talk rather more freely with me than he might have done with some others. At any rate, I learnt a good deal of Russia's ambitions as to Eastern and Central Asia. Some of this knowledge did not please me, as, for instance, when it slipped out that Russia felt called upon to push southward in order to try to counter- act British influence along the Yangtze and in Central China, and that she viewed with dissatisfaction the growing strength of American influence in China gener- ally. I was convinced, however, that Baron Rosen was honestly and strenuously trying his best to avert war between his country and Japan ; but I realised that while he had no great difficulty in assuring the Japanese Foreign Office of the sincerity of his efforts, he was absolutely unable to make his own Government believe that Japan was really in earnest about going to war to try to drive Russia out of Manchuria, or that she was any better prepared to fight than was Russia herself. That the Russian Tsar and his advisers looked with a calm smile — somewhat contemptuously, I feared — upon all that Japanese bluster and bravado, was made entirely apparent. Ere long the war came, and soon to my place of temporary, although lengthy, sojourn, Kyoto, there were sent a number of the Russian prisoners; and from some of these, whom I was glad to entertain in my own home as much as I could be permitted to do by the rules which controlled their movements, I learnt more of Russian ambition and determination to push on and on in Asia. I also picked up some odd bits of information about the frightful corruption in the Russian army and navy. 8 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA In 1 910 I made the journey right across Siberia and Russia in Europe by post train. This was an experience vastly different from crossing the continents, Asia and half of Europe, by one of the cosmopolitan express trains. I was brought into contact every hour with some new phase of Russian civilisation: I met all sorts and condi- tions of men and women. True, there was not often great freedom of conversation, because few of my fellow- travellers, and fewer of the people who were at the stations where we stayed a long time, were able to con- verse in any language but their own, and in that I have no fluency of speech. Still, now and then, I met some- one who could talk with me in German; less frequently (although this surprised me then and I am sure it will astonish my readers) there was somebody who could speak French. Save when talking with my wife and children, I did not once hear proper English from Vladi- vostok to Moscow. But in various ways I gathered, during the fifteen days' journey from Japan to Moscow, a good deal of informa- tion, and I always kept my eyes open from early in the summer mornings until bedtime. In Russia proper I wandered up and down through the land, from Chelia- binsk, in the southeast, to the capital in the far north, and then back again until we passed into German terri- tory at Eydtkunnen, east of Konigsberg. It was both fortunate and unfortunate that my visit was made in the summer: fortunate in that I could see more of places and learn more of the life of the middle and lower classes in that season; unfortunate because the gentry were almost all away from the cities and there was absolutely nothing of social gaiety. For it is true that if one wishes to study life among the ruling classes of Russia, he INTRODUCTORY 9 must visit St. Petersburg, Moscow, and all the other cities in the winter. The bitter cold and the deep snow are the stimuli which bring that life to its greatest animation. It seems to be an opportune time to offer a little vol- ume about Russia, and especially about Russia in Asia, because present indications are that this year, 191 2, is likely to bring about yet further changes in the political geography of western and, possibly , northern Central Asia. Indeed, it is hardly self-praise to say that at least a part of the danger which I mentioned in " The Coming China" is in a fair way to become an accomplished fact, to China's great prejudice; and it is not China alone that is likely to suffer at Russia's hands, for Russia bids fair to add a considerable slice of Persia to her domain, if not the whole of the northern part of that country. The thought asserts itself with some persistence, that Russia has deliberately chosen a presidential election year for carrying out her plans, assuming that our Government and people will be so much engrossed at home as to be unable to give proper attention to their duty towards the people of those Asiatic countries; to one of which, China, we have plainly indicated a willingness to lend moral support, and have evinced at least a semblance of friendly interest in the other, Persia. If this surmise proves to be grounded on fact, it will be just one more demonstration of the wiliness of Russian diplomacy and aggressive ways. We were goaded on by Russia's contemptuous refusal to acknowledge the rights of those whom we have adopted, and others, native born, and by her insolent ignoring of a passport which should carry with it everything that the term "American citizen" stands for. When endurance ceased to be any longer a virtue, we notified Russia that the treaty of IO RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA 1832 would be abrogated at the end of this year. So far as Russia was concerned, on our part we had lived up faithfully to the obligations of that treaty : not so Russia. This is not the place to discuss the Russian view of the American Jew's position; that subject will be referred to later. We must, however, admit, if we are perfectly fair, that there is a Russian side to the question, and one that gives to the Government and the non- Jewish peoples of Russia a great deal of serious trouble. Perhaps it was a political and diplomatic mistake for our Govern- ment and national legislators to yield just at this time to the reasonable demand of a large part of our people and insist upon demanding that due respect be shown every American citizen; but it was worse than a mistake for Russia to take advantage of it. After having travelled extensively in Russian terri- tories, and having had some opportunity to discuss many problems with which that Government is compelled to deal, with men and women of various ranks in society, diplomats, army and navy officers, statesmen, government officials, merchants, and others who are not to be exactly included in any of these classes, I feel that I have a reason- able qualification for the task I have taken upon myself. I stand amazed when I think of what Russia seems to be determined to accomplish in the matter of territorial expansion. If the design of exercising " protectorate " rights over those Chinese semi-detached states, Mongolia, Dzungaria, and East Turkestan is carried out, and if she carries into the fullest execution the plan that is rapidly assuming definite shape in Persia, where and when will she stop? Will she rest content with pushing her sphere of influence (never was there a more specious term than this, as used in this context!) to meet the INTRODUCTORY II Chinese boundary along the southern edge of Mongolia and from the west until she has driven back the Chinese into the eighteen provinces of China proper? Does Russia, as it has been pithily, if rather vulgarly expressed, intend to own the whole earth? Russian "protection" has rarely meant anything but permanent occupation, and it is not even probable that there will be exceptions in these particular cases; for the declaration of Tsar Nicholas I, made in 1846, " where the Russian flag has been hoisted it must not be lowered," will doubtless be lived up to in these countries. The land area of the earth is, in rough round numbers, fifty million square miles. When Russia has brought about this expansion which is manifestly on the cards, that empire will be something over ten million square miles in area, more than one fifth of the total land on this globe, and con- siderably more than one half of the combined areas of Europe (3,760,000 sq. mis.) and Asia (16,313,000). The forward movement in Persia will bring the Russian and British spheres of influence practically into juxtaposition, and this fact adds poignancy to the remark of the Hon. George N. Curzon (now Baron Curzon of Kedleston), who in 1889, the year before he was appointed Viceroy of India, said: "Whatever be Russia's designs upon India, whether they be serious and inimical or imaginary and fantastic, I hold that the first duty of English statesmen is to render any hostile intentions futile, to see that our own position is secure, and our frontier impregnable, and so to guard what is without doubt the noblest trophy of British genius, and the most splendid appanage of the Imperial Crown." * *" Russia in Central Asia in 1889 and the Anglo-Russian Question." Hon. George N. Curzon, M. P., second ed., pp. 13 and 14. CHAPTER II RUSSIA IN EUROPE: THE BEGINNING OF THE EMPIRE THE Empire of All the Russias is now ruled by Nicholas II, Emperor of All the Russias; the official style of designating him is "imperator," which is rendered in Russian by Gosudar, but properly the old Russian title is Tsar. This is really the correct way to transliterate the Russian word, although the variants Tzar and Czar are frequently employed. He was born May 18, 1868,* and was the eldest son of the Tsar Alexander III. His mother was the Princess Dagmar (Maria Feodorovna), a daughter of the late King Christian IX, of Denmark. Nicholas ascended the throne upon the death of his father, November 1, 1894, and was married on the twenty-sixth day of the same month to Princess Alexandra Alix (Alexandra Feodor- ovna), a daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse. This princess was born June 6, 1872. The children born of this marriage are Grand Duchess Olga, November 15, 1895; Grand Duchess Tatiana, June 10, 1897; Grand Duchess Marie, June 26, 1899; Grand Duchess Anastasia, June 18, 1901 ; and Grand Duke Alexis, the heir apparent, * Throughout this book I shall ignore the Russian calendar, now thirteen days behind the Gregorian, but quite likely to be brought into agreement with that of all the rest of the world, since China has virtually decided to come into line, and give dates as they are in our calendar. — J. K. G. RUSSIA IN EUROPE 1 3 August 12, 1904, just when Russia was in the midst of her war with Japan. It will be remembered that the present Tsar's father passed many anxious days in the mosque-like palace of Gatschina, hourly dreading the assassination at the hands of the Nihilists, which had been his father's fate. This town is twenty-eight miles south- southwest of St. Petersburg, and it is the private property of the Tsar of Russia. Yet Alexander III was permitted to die a natural death; and we all know well how the possibility of a violent death for the present Tsar has made life a sad burden to his consort and cast a dreadful gloom over his own existence. The reigning family of Russia, now allied by recent or former marriages with nearly all the hereditary monarchs of Europe, traces its descent in the female line from Michael Romanoff, who was elected Tsar in 161 3, after the house of Rurik (of which I shall speak presently) had become extinct. In the male line, the descent is from Duke Karl Friedrich of Hoist ein- Go ttorp (see the House of Oldenburg), who was born in 1700, and who was a descendant of one of the cadet branches of the princely family of Oldenburg. It was part of the tremen- dous effort of Peter I (the Great) to bring about internal reform throughout his domains and to popularise the civilisation of Western Europe, which led him to seek a marriage for his daughter Anne with this German duke and thus bring his country into closer relations with the Western States of Europe. It should be noted that Peter had given up the hope of being succeeded by his own son, Alexis, born of Eudoxia Lopukhin, whom Peter had divorced in 1696. This was because Alexis, a constant source of trouble to his father, had avowedly joined himself to the reactionary party who hoped to r*" 14 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA reverse the progressive policy of Peter, through Alexis' assistance, as soon as he should succeed his father. Alexis was tried for high treason, sentenced to death, and doubt- less succumbed to the cruel tortures to which he was subjected. His death is a dark stain upon the character of Peter the Great. Catherine, the daughter of a Livonia peasant, but the second wife of Peter I, succeeded him. After her came Alexis' son and Peter's grandson, Peter II, and with his death in 1730, the male line of the Romanoffs ended. Then there followed three sovereigns, Anne, Ivan VI, and Elizabeth, who gained their right through the female line of the Romanoff family. During their rule Russia was in a state of transition, but the confusion ended with the accession of Peter III of the house of Holstein-Gottorp, and for a long time every Tsar con- nected himself by marriage with one or the other of the great German families. Alexander I, Nicholas I, and Alexander II married German princesses, bringing about family alliances, among others with the reigning houses of Wurtemberg, Baden, and Prussia. This mighty state, Russia, is a striking imperial illus- tration of the adage, "Tall oaks from little acorns grow." Ethnographically, we must assign a great antiquity to the people of Russia in Europe. There are in that country very few evidences of the existence of paleolithic man, the contemporary of the great quaternary animals, because such have been discovered in Poland, Poltava, and Veronezh only. It is possible there are such remains in the valley of the Oka, a river of Central Russia, which joins the Volga at Nijni-Novgorod; and similar remains, assignable to the lacustrine period, are so numerous that there is scarcely a single lacustrine basin in the RUSSIA IN EUROPE 15 Oka, Kama, and Dnieper regions, to say nothing of the lake region itself, north of St. Petersburg, or the White Sea coasts, where remains of neolithic man have not been found.* But politically, this amazing growth of the Empire of All the Russias is something comparatively modern, and the record, as is so often the case with parallels, begins with a legend. One Nestor — the name has a suspicious sound — an old monkish chronicler of Kieff, tells us that in the ninth century, only eleven hundred years ago, some Slav and Finnish tribes settled around Lake Ilmen (about halfway from St. Petersburg to Moscow), between Lake Ladoga and the upper waters of the Dnieper River. They paid tribute to certain military adventurers from the land of Riis, which was doubtless in that part of Europe that we know as Sweden. Shortly after the middle of that ninth century — the date is given by some authorities with remarkable pre- cision as 859 — the native tribes succeeded in driving away the Norsemen; but ere long they quarrelled among themselves over the question of government and were unable to get along, because they lacked a strong hand to rule them. Therefore, they sent messengers after the expelled Norsemen, to beseech them to return and rule them. Three brothers, Rurik, Sineus, and Truvor, princes of Riis, accepted the invitation and founded the dynasty which ran out in recent historic times, and from which many Russian princes and noble families claim descent. * While these terms, paleolithic, the age of roughly shaped stone implements, neolithic, that of polished stone, and lacustrine, the period of those who dwelt in buildings on piles driven into the bottom of fresh water lakes, have no chronological value, they all relate to remote, prehistoric times and indicate great antiquity. — J. K. G. l6 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Just who these Rus were is not known precisely; they were simply Norsemen and that must be sufficient for our purpose. After establishing themselves firmly in their fresh environment and having given a measure of satisfaction to their subjects, they began to conquer the neighbouring tribes and to possess themselves of their territories. In two centuries they were at Kieff, from which place they pushed still farther south; as far as Byzantium (Constantinople). Here they demanded a wife for their Tsar, Vladimir I, and a sister of the Byzan- tine emperor was given him, upon the condition that his people embrace Christianity. The condition was complied with, but this matter pertains to another chapter. The inroads of nomad hordes from the east were checked; but these were not the famous Mongols. Alliances by marriage were effected with Poland, Hun- gary, Norway, and France. The descendants of the orig- inal three princes looked upon the whole territory which they had conquered as one vast family estate, in which each had, at first and for some time, an undivided, equal share; but when the inevitable attempt to divide came, naturally great confusion followed; yet even then the sections were held together, after a fashion, by the dynastic sentiment of Rurik's descendants, the senior one of whom ruled at Kieff. There were innumerable and serious family quarrels, however. Yaroslav the Great was the last grand prince to uphold the old regime; he died in 1054 and then the empire (if such we may yet call it) began to go to pieces. During the next 170 years there were some sixty-four principalities, all quarrelling among themselves and thus inviting inroads by the wild tribes from the steppes. These barbarians RUSSIA IN EUROPE 17 drove the Russians northward into the regions along the upper waters of the Volga, eventually to Novgorod. In the meantime Moscow had come to be an important place, and with these two seats of government, Moscow and Novgorod, both trying to establish supremacy, it was but natural that bitter rivalry sprang up between them. It was about this time that the great Mongol invasion occurred and the success of this brought about the Tartar rule; towards the end of which the repre- sentatives of the Rurik dynasty began intriguing at the Mongol Court and this was most successful at Moscow. But in 1380 Dimitri Donskoi was able to allay the rivalry between the Russian chiefs and formed a com- bination to fight against the invading Tartars. Within the walls of the Kremlin, Moscow, he called his people to gather round his black flag and declared war to the death against Mama'i, the Tartar leader. He had been inspired to take this action by a miracle. His prophetic relative, Dimitri of Vollhynia, had dismounted from his horse and, stretching himself at full length upon the ground, had told Donskoi that from the depths of the earth there came voices urging the Russians to rise against the usurping Mongols and promising victory, but with great weeping and wailing over the slaughter which would be the price of success. The history of Russia may very properly be divided into four great epochs : 1 . The time of the Independent Principalities; 2. The short period of the Mongols Domination; 3. The Tsardom of Muscovy; 4. The Modern Empire. Each of these should be considered carefully by the student. CHAPTER III TEE GOVERNMENT OF ALL THE RUSSIAS IN the edition of the Almanac de Gotha for 191 2, I found this curious statement concerning the Rus- sian Government: "a constitutional monarchy under an autocratic tsar." This seeming contradiction of terms is, after all, not such a bad description as it appears to be at first reading. The actual condition of the govern- ment of Russia is not altogether unlike that of her late antagonist in war, but now her very good friend (and, I strongly suspect, her secret ally), Japan. The latter country is called a constitutional monarchy, and cer- tainly an apparently liberal constitution was given the people of that land February 11, 1889, which was framed after the pattern furnished by that of Prussia and other continental European states. But the skilful creator of this apparently liberal concession, the late Prince Ito, knew full well the limitations put upon him ; the jealousy with which the imperial prerogative is guarded, and how to please the Mikado by seeming to give much and yet withhold everything; for in the Japanese constitu- tion there is a proviso that the emperor may, whenever he likes, suspend the power of the constitution and do just as he chooses. This right has several times been exercised in direct opposition to the wishes of the people of Japan, as expressed by their representatives in the Lower House of the Japanese Diet. Specifically was this GOVERNMENT OF ALL RUSSIAS 19 the case some years ago when the militarists, shortly after the war with Russia and flushed with the mistaken idea of victory, demanded funds for carrying out their wild plans for the expansion of armaments. The repre- sentatives of the people declined to be a party to the excessive and — in the circumstances — unnecessary burden which it would put upon their constituents by passing the Budget (appropriation bills). The emperor promptly dissolved the Diet, ordered the Treasury to provide funds as the Cabinet demanded, and then issued writs for a new election with the notice to his faithful subjects that they were to return members to the Lower House who would carry out his wishes, and pass ex post facto bills approving the disbursements. If this is not "a constitutional monarchy under an autocratic em- peror," it will be difficult in any other way to describe concisely the Japanese form of government. In justice to Japan, however, it is but fair to say that the emperor, his statesmen, and even the ultra-militarists have seen the folly of trying to carry out their extravagant plans for military and naval expansion, and for some years there has been, on this score at any rate, no serious conflict between the Government and the representatives of the people. But who shall dare to say that the Mikado will never again exercise the autocratic right he has reserved unto himself? It is necessary, if All the Russias are to be discussed intelligently and my readers relieved from the necessity of consulting encyclopaedias, that as clear an idea of the Russian Government be had as can be given in a few pages. Rossiya is the general name given to both Euro- pean and Asiatic Russia inclusively, "All the Russias," in fact; and while both English and Russian writers 20 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA (as well as others) use the word Russia in this sense, " Russia" formerly meant simply Russia in Europe (even to the exclusion of Finland and Poland), or the Tsardom of Muscovy. It is frequently used in almost that way now; in fact, I imagine that when " Russia" is named, most of my readers will naturally think of those portions of the Tsar's domains which are in Europe, but inclusive of Poland, and Finland, and both Cis- and Trans- Caucasia. I shall not use the word in this loose way; when I write of "Russia," I shall mean the whole of the eight million, and more, square miles of the Tsar's empire (or shall I recognise what I fear is inevitable and include the square miles of Mongolia, Dzungaria, and Chinese Turkestan?), and when it is necessary to limit my meaning to Russia in Europe, I shall do so clearly. "The fundamental laws of Russia" is a phrase that is often found in works treating of the government of that country; but it is rather indefinite although its meaning may be fairly well guessed without going so far back in history as would be necessary if even an approximately exact definition is to be given. Before 1905, since which date the existing form of government has been established, the fundamental laws of the realm always alluded to the Tsar's power as "autocratic and unlimited." Officially he is even now always referred to as "Emperor and Autocrat of All the Rus- sias," but after His Majesty issued the famous mani- festo of October 30, 1905, which seemed to give his people at least a semblance of constitutional govern- ment, and since the opening of the first Duma, on April 27, 1906, in the new laws passed and in the re- modelled fundamental laws, although the title of autocrat GOVERNMENT OF ALL RUSSIAS 21 and the principles which it connotes are strictly retained, the word " unlimited" no longer appears. Even the most enthusiastic admirer of things Russian cannot say that the existing government is in any sense of the word constitutional, and certainly it is not legis- lative or parliamentary, speaking exactly. Yet for the former offensive attribute of " unlimited autocracy" has been substituted, by the Tsar's own motion, a sort of "self-limited autocracy." Whether this condition is to be permanent in the limitations which it manifestly puts upon the civil and material progress of Russia is a subject that we can see, by what is said in our daily papers, is causing bitter controversy between conflicting parties in that country. M. Chasles, a French jurist, has suggested the phrase, "a limited monarchy under an autocratic emperor," as a suitable definition of the present government; and while even this will hardly satisfy the precisianist,it maybe accepted as reasonably descriptive.* Although the Government of Russia is nominally a constitutional hereditary monarchy, yet, as a matter of fact, the whole legislative, executive, and judicial powers are vested in the Tsar. His will alone is law, and that sovereign continues to bear the title of Autocrat, not- withstanding that on August 19, 1905, it was decreed that a State Council (Gosudarstvennaya Duma) should be created by popular, but not universal, election, and that on October 30, of that same year, a law was pro- mulgated granting to the people the firm foundation of public liberty, based upon the principles of the real inviolability of the person, and securing freedom of conscience, speech, assembly, and association. There was established an unalterable rule that no law should * Le Parlement russe. 22 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA become operative without the approval of the Duma, and that to those elected as delegates by the people should be guaranteed the possibility of a real participa- tion in the control of the legislation or the acts of such authorities as are appointed by the Tsar. The Duma is composed of members who are elected for a term of five years, and they represent the great divisions of the empire, called governments, the provinces, and the most important cities, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw, Kieff, Lodz, Odessa, and Riga. This creation of the Duma and the determination of representation were provided for in the law of June 16, 1907. Members of the Lower House of the Duma (that which corresponds in a way to an Upper House will be con- sidered later) are not elected by direct, popular voting, but by electoral boards chosen by those in the chief towns already mentioned, in the governments, and in the provinces, who possess the prescribed qualifications for the suffrage. All things considered, the franchise is granted with some liberality in Russia; in towns, all possessing certain property or household qualifications, all who have occupied hired lodgings for twelve months immediately preceding the time for registering and are in residence at that time, also government clerks and employees of municipalities or railways, if they have the requisite educational qualifications, may cast a vote for members of the district or town assembly. In the country, all owners of a specified amount of land — this property qualification varying in different districts, those who are conducting a private enterprise valued at 50,000 roubles — provided it is not an industrial establishment, are given the right to vote; the volosts, or peasant communities, and manufactories employing GOVERNMENT OF ALL RUSSIAS 23 more than fifty workpeople, are represented in the elec- toral assemblies by delegates, two for each volost and one for each thousand workmen, chosen by the peasants or nominated by the proprietors of the factory. Stu- dents, soldiers, governors of provinces within their own official jurisdiction, and policemen in their official pre- cincts, may not vote. The qualified suffragists having elected the local committee, these proceed to act as so many small electoral colleges and designate the individual who is to represent their district in the Duma. The deputies are paid ten roubles a day during the entire session, and once a year each member of the Duma is allowed his travelling expenses to and from St. Petersburg. It is well to begin the consideration of the Russian system of government at its very basis. We shall find many complications, and when results are considered, we shall probably agree that it is more of a paper fabric than a substantial structure which is intended to shield and harbour all the people of that great empire. As will be made clear hereafter, the gens was merged in the village community and this last is really the ideal basic foundation. Mir means both "the village" and "the world," and in European Russia the government of the mir, village or parish, is nominally entrusted to the people themselves, in so far as the lands of the district are concerned, as well as a measure of the local adminis- tration; the main idea of the central government being to compel the common people to bear some responsi- bility in matters which affect themselves most directly; as, for example, drainage, sanitation, and rudimentary education. For the purpose of vitalising this local government, 24 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA the whole country is divided into 18,012 minor depart- ments, comparable — in the matter of size and functions — with the Swiss canton. Among the Russians this divi- sion is called a volost, in Poland it is a grnina, in the lands where the Cossacks live and are in the majority it is stanitsa, and in the few remote territories still occupied by natives who are not yet in any sense Rus- sianised ulu is the designation; and there may be other local names. Whatever be the title of the local assembly which the qualified electors in this minor district choose to represent them, it is presided over by an elder (volost- noi starshina, in the volost) who is elected at the cantonal election, which is, again, composed of delegates chosen by the suffragists in the village community, in the ratio of one member to every ten houses. The village com- munities elect an elder (starosta), or executive officer of the commune, and also a tax-collector. These officials are chosen at communal assemblies by the peasants and from among themselves. The communal assemblies are convened whenever, in the opinion of the elder, business requires consideration. The cantonal assemblies decide the same class of pertinent matters as do the communal assemblies, but, of course, each deals exclusively with its own district. It will thus be seen that the Russian peasants have, nominally at any rate, special matters of their own to look after; but it must be noted that all their deliberations are submitted to a bureau, one in each of the local governments, "for the consideration of peasants' affairs," so that in reality there is very little autonomy after all. In Poland, where the gmina re- places the volost, the assembly embraces all landholders, including the nobility, but excluding the clergy and the police; the priests being of the Romish church. Each GOVERNMENT OF ALL RUSSIAS 25 suffragist has but his single ballot, no matter what may be the extent of his property. The gmina has, however, much less actual jurisdiction than the volost, because all its acts are subject directly to the chief of the district, an appointee of St. Petersburg. The administration of the economical affairs of the thirty-six regularly organised districts or provincial governments of European Russia were placed, to some extent, in the hands of the Zemstvo, or district and pro- vincial assemblies, by the law of January 1, 1864. This council is composed of representatives elected by the peasantry, the nobility, the landed proprietors, the inhabitants who possess the franchise (peasants here excluded), and the householders in the towns. Their executive power is entrusted to provincial and district Upravas. The leader of the nobility of the district, or of the province as may be, is ex officio the presiding officer at Zemstvo meetings; but if he is unable to officiate, the judge (called in Russia ''president") of the local court takes his place. In 1890 important modifications were made in the regulations pertaining to these Zemstvos; the power of the noble landowners was greatly increased; the right of peasants to elect deputies was withdrawn — previously they had had the privilege of presenting to the governor a list of names of persons chosen by them- selves, and from that list the governor selected deputies; the number of deputies was reduced and the power of the Zemstvo was curtailed. All of this, as will readily be comprehended, was in the direction of lessening materially, or cancelling entirely, the privileges which had been granted to the people. The Russian towns and cities have had for a very long time certain local institutions of their own, survivals — 26 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA in some instances — of the time of the Independent Principalities that are noted later. These matters are now, however, arranged on nearly the same principles as those leading up to the Zemstvo. All urban house- holders are divided into three classes, each group sup- posed to represent an equal amount of real property, and each group sending, through its own electoral college, an equal number of deputies to the Duma. In 1894 municipal institutions, but with very limited scope of power, had been granted to several towns in Siberia; in 1895 somewhat the same thing was done in Caucasia. In 1899 the powers of these municipal governments were reduced, and now the control is almost wholly in the hands of governors appointed by the Tsar. At present the Zemstvo is found in thirty-four provinces (361 minor districts of European Russia). It is perhaps a trifle hazardous to make any positive statement concerning the government of Finland, be- cause the evidence of the last few years has been of the nature to lead us to assume that all semblance of inde- pendent government will be withdrawn ere long; but, speaking with due reserve, it may be said that this grand duchy is ruled by the Tsar as grand duke, yet nominally subject to the provisions of its own constitution. Begin- ning years ago, but with increasing evidence of inimical intention in 1899, 1901, and 1903, the Russian Gov- ernment evinced unmistakable purpose to curtail the privileges of the Finns. Then, however, in 1905 came what was probably the most inclusive and effective "strike" ever known: all classes joined in this protest against the manifest intention of the St. Petersburg Government to take away precious constitutional rights long enjoyed. Professional men, industrialists, artisans, GOVERNMENT OF ALL RUSSIAS 27 labourers, every class of people and every member of his class " struck," and the only places of business that were allowed to keep open were the provision shops and kindred purveyors of food stuffs, and even these were permitted to do nothing more than supply the daily needs of their regular Finnish customers. Embarrassed by the conditions left at the close of the war with Japan, the Tsar and his government were compelled to yield in a measure, although doubtless this is but a temporary concession. The liberal Swedish constitution was re- modelled, although the privilege of absolutely universal suffrage, regardless of sex, freedom of the press, of speech, and of meeting and association were recognised. But in 1908 and 19 10 friction between the Russian Government and the Finns reappeared; the imperial government insisted that whenever questions arose between Russia and Finland, they must be decided absolutely by the central government. A renewed attempt was made to curtail the powers of the Finnish national assembly, and the Russian Government has tried to enforce the use of the Russian language. Of Russian Poland and its interesting history, its sustained effort to preserve independence, its bravery and its early struggles, it is apposite now to say nothing more than they are actually things of the past or prob- ably soon will be. All towns of less than 2000 inhabi- tants were, as long ago as 1863, deprived of all municipal rights and are governed through appointed officials by St. Petersburg, in the various gminas. The Baltic Provinces had some institutions of their own for self- government, but these have gradually been withdrawn until now they are not even a shadow of things past. The Russian language is forced upon the people, and 28 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA education, both religious and secular, is essentially Russian. The University of Dorpat is now deprived of the right of self-government; while the name of that city has been changed to Yurief and the seat of govern- ment transferred to Riga. From what has been said, it is not difficult to see that the election of deputies to the Duma is arranged in such an indirect manner that the people have in reality less control over the choice than we in America have in choosing our Federal Senators. Perhaps this method of indirect election was devised purposely to give as little of the substance of popular government as possible, while the shadow was made to appear important. The Duma representatives are elected for a term of five years, and they represent the governments or provinces and the great cities, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw, Kieff, Lodz, and Riga (law of January 16, 1907). By a law that was promulgated on February 20, 1906, the Council of the Empire was associated with the Duma as the Upper House of the National Assembly, and since then the legislative power has been exercised normally by the Tsar only in concert with these two Chambers. This Council of the Empire, or Imperial Council, as reconstructed for the purpose just mentioned, consists of 196 members, 98 nominated by the Tsar, 98 by elec- tion, and the Ministers of State are, by virtue of their office, members in addition, and must accept as a part of their responsibilities the obligation of replying to interpellations addressed to them by the Representatives. Yet I have given a very incorrect impression of the autocracy of Russia, if my readers infer that this inter- pellation even remotely approximates the catechising to which British Ministers of State are frequently sub- GOVERNMENT OF ALL RUSSIAS 29 jected in the House of Commons. The elective members are chosen, three by the "black" clergy, that is, the cloistered Monks, three by the " white" clergy, who are the seculars or parish priests, eighteen by the associations of the nobles, six by the Academy of Science and the universities, thirty-four by the governments wherein there is a Zemstvo, sixteen by those without a Zemstvo, and six by Poland. The Polish members, I was assured, are really representatives of the noble landlords and not at all of the people. The Duma is actually, as yet, but the least important factor in the government of All the Russias, and I turn now to a consideration of what are some of the essential departments in the administration of the empire, which are still entrusted to great bodies or Councils, possessing separate functions that are usually diverse, and yet at times they are so approximate as to be confusing. One of the great colleges or boards of government is The Ruling Senate (Pravitelstvuyushchi Senat), that was established by Peter the Great in 1711. This must not be in any way confounded with the Council of the Empire as forming an Upper House (or Senate) of the Duma. The functions of the Senate are partly of a deliberative and partly of an executive character. No law is opera- tive until it has been promulgated by the Senate. It is also the highest court of justice — the Supreme Court, as it were, of the empire. This important body is divided into six departments, all of which have their offices in St. Petersburg, and two of its sections are Courts of Cassation, yet all of the divisions are authorised to decide, as courts of last resort, upon certain cases of unusual importance. The Senators are generally princes of high rank, or men who fill positions of great dignity and 30 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA importance, but there is always a jurist of acknowledged eminence to preside over each section. This presiding officer represents the Tsar himself, and without this president's signature — which is equivalent to the Tsar's approval — the decisions of his department are without force. At meetings of the whole Senate, or one of several independent sections, the Minister of State for Justice takes the chair. There is one special, and greatly dreaded section, which is entrusted with the duty of issuing disciplinary judgments against offending officials of the crown. Another of these great councils, also created by Peter the Great, in 1721, is the Holy Synod, and to it is en- trusted the supervision of religious affairs of the empire. It is composed of the three metropolitans of St. Peters- burg, Moscow, and Kieff, the Archbishop of Georgia (Caucasus), and several of the bishops, sitting in rotation. All its decrees are issued in the Tsar's name, for he is the acknowledged head of the Orthodox Church, and they have no force until approved by him. Yet, while theoretically the will of the Tsar is paramount, he is represented in the Holy Synod by a layman who decides what topics may be discussed, and without the approval of this non-cleric no decree of the Synod is efficient. Still the president of the Holy Synod is the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, and it is he who represents that body in the Tsar's Cabinet. The Council of the Empire is the most important board of government, since it was reorganised by the decree of November 1, 1905. In legislative matters this Council may be said to be co-ordinate with the Duma, for they have equal legislative powers, the same right of initiative in legislation, and of addressing The Winter Palace, St. Petersburg The Bourse, St. Petersburg GOVERNMENT OF ALL RUSSIAS 31 questions to Cabinet Ministers. Every measure, before being submitted for the imperial sanction, must be passed by the Duma and the Council of the Empire, and all such as are rejected by either, are not sent to the Tsar at all. Both the Council and the Duma have the right to annul the election of any of their members. The sittings of both bodies are open to the public. The closure of a debate may be ordered by a simple majority vote. Neither one is empowered to receive deputations or petitions. Laws passed by the two bodies are sub- mitted for imperial sanction by the President of the Council. The members of both institutions are granted the privilege of personal immunity during the session of the Duma ; they are liable to arrest only with the consent of their respective bodies, except in cases of flagrant offence or unlawful act committed in excess of their duties. It is further provided that bills vetoed by the Tsar may not be brought forward again during the same session; while measures rejected by one of these legisla- tive bodies may not be taken up again without imperial sanction. The Tsar's Cabinet comprises the following: Minister of the Imperial House and Crown Estates; Minister of Foreign Affairs ; Minister of War ; Minister of the Navy; Minister of the Interior; Minister of Public Instruction; Minister of Finance; Minister of Justice; Director of the Department of Land Organisation and Agriculture; Minister of Communications (Railways, Post, etc.); Minister of Commerce and Industry; Director of the Department of General Control; President of the Holy Synod; Director of the Bureau of State Studs; High Commissioner for the Study of all Points of View of the Railways. This last has to do with the development 32 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA and physical maintenance of the railways; the former looks after the operation. A Minister of State is eligible to election as an ordinary member of the Lower House of the Duma, and in that capacity he is qualified to vote on all measures. The empire is divided into governments and provinces, the subdivisions of which are called districts or circuits. There are 78 governments (49 in European Russia, 10 in Poland, 8 in Finland, 7 in Caucasia, 4 in Siberia); 21 provinces (1 in European Russia, 5 in Caucasia, 9 in Central Asia, 6 in Siberia); and one circuit, that of Shirvan in the Caucasus. Some of the governments or provinces are united into general governments. At the head of each general government is a governor-general, the representative of the Tsar, who as such has the supreme control and direction of all affairs, whether civil or military; he is almost invariably an army officer of high rank. In Siberia, the governors-general are each assisted by an elected council who have a deliberative voice. A civil governor, assisted by a council of regency, to which all matters must be submitted, is established in each government, and a military governor in 17 provinces, 1 town (Kronstadt), and on the island of Saghalien. A vice-governor is appointed to act for the governor, when necessary. There is also, for each gov- ernment, a council of control under the presidency of a special officer, subordinate to the Department of General Control. Each government or province is divided into from 5 to 15 districts (815 in the empire), each having its own administrative institutions. The important cities (8) are administered by special governors. CHAPTER IV DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH THE following is a synoptical account of the acqui- sition of the different Russian territories. "Moscow was founded as a principality, in the end of the thirteenth century, by Daniel, son of Alexander Nevski (of Novgorod). Vasili (1389-1425), Grand Prince of Moscow, and Vladimir acquired Suzdol, Murom, Vologda, and other territories. Ivan III, (1462-1505) acquired Perm in 1472, Novgorod in 1478, Iver in 1482, Vyatka in 1489, RostorT and vast regions in the north, and made conquests from Lithuania as far westward as the river Soga. Vasili (1 505-1 533) acquired Pskoff in 1 5 10, and Ryazan about 1521. Under Ivan IV, Kazan was acquired in 1552, and Astrakhan in 1554. The Don Cossacks came under the protection of Russia, and a great part of Siberia was added. The acquisition of Siberia went on through the seventeenth century. Under Alexis (1 645-1 676), Smolensk, Kieff, and the eastern Ukraine were added about 1667. By the treaty of Nystad, Peter the Great gained from Sweden Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria, and Karelia, which had been conquered several years previously. There was a small cession in southern Russia by Turkey in the reign of Anna (1730- 1740). Part of Finland was acquired by Elizabeth in 1743. Lithuania and a large part of Poland were acquired by the partitions of 1772, 1793, and 1795, under Catharine 34 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA II. She received cessions from Turkey in the peace of 1774, the terms of which enabled her to annex the Crimea (1783) ; annexed the republic of the Saporogian Cossacks; gained territory from Turkey between the Bug and Dniester in 1702; and annexed Courland in 1795. Paul annexed Georgia in 1801. Finland was conquered in 1808-09 by Alexander I, who also won Bessarabia from Turkey in 181 2. By the treaties of 18 15 a large part of the duchy of Warsaw was assigned as the kingdom of Poland to Alexander I. He added also Daghestan, Mingrelia, Imeritia, and Shirvan. Nicholas in 1828 acquired Erivan and Nakhitchevan from Persia, and in 1829 Poti and other fortresses near the eastern shore of the Black Sea from Turkey, and received the submission of the Kirghiz. Under Alexander II the Caucasus practically submitted in 1859; the Amur territory was gained in 1858; the Khanate of Samarkand was gained in 1868; and Bokhara became a vassal state. Russian America was ceded to the United States in 1867. Khiva became a vassal state in 1873. The Chinese province of Kuldja was acquired in 187 1, but retroceded in 1881. Khokand was annexed in 1876. The strip of Bessarabia, lost in 1856, was regained in 1878, and Kars and Batum were gained at the same time. Geok-Tepe was taken in 1 88 1. The Merv oasis submitted in 1884. The region around Pendjeh, in northwestern Afghanistan, was gained in 1887-1888." * This synopsis is a fairly satisfactory statement up to the date when it was written, not later than 1901. Since that year there have been both expansion and contraction on a rather broad scale, and I purpose now considering in some detail the development and growth * The Century Dictionary and Cyclop cediaftol. IX, Article Russia. DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH 35 which the synopsis indicates, and I shall then try to pursue the record of expansion, as nearly as possible, down to the time of writing. Going back to the time indicated towards the close of the last chapter, it is to be noted that the consolidation and wise internal de- velopment of the rapidly growing State did not keep pace with the augmenting territory, so that the term, "All the Russias," indicated, but a very few centuries ago, a collection of units so perilously independent of one another that order and government in anything like satisfactory conditions, when we think of a nation, were impossible. The senior member of those independent principalities which have been mentioned was the Grand Prince who ruled at Kieff, "the mother of Russian cities," of which place a good deal will be said in another chapter. Here it is sufficient to say that as one travels in a direc- tion about south-southwest from Moscow, he reaches the valley of the Dnieper River, beyond which rises a range of low brown hills fairly well wooded. These swellings of the earth's surface would be merely "hills" in most countries, but because of the general level of Russia, they are called Kiev, "the mountain." It is certain that a town existed at this place long before it is mentioned in any of the chronicles. Yet the actual administrative authority of even this senior Grand Prince was restricted to his own compara- tively small domain. To be sure, when the almost con- stant disputes between other members of this curious family arose, it was the Grand Prince of Kieff who tried to exercise parental influence in allaying friction and he attempted to do this in the cause of general peace and with a rough sort of justice. One condition that tended greatly to the embarrassment of all concerned was the 36 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA fact that the position of Grand Prince was not hereditary; it was elective, and had this germ of democracy not been nipped by a strong hand, it is quite possible the autocratic Tsar of All the Russias would have been quite a different monarch from what he is. The senior member of the Rurik dynasty was supposed to be called to fill the position at Kieff, and a similar senior member of the collateral branches at other cities; therefore this in- volved frequent change of rulers; and inasmuch as these men were merely human, they were naturally desirous of getting, each for himself, as much territory as possible. Consequently, we find them asserting claim to any principality that, for the moment, was without a ruler and wherein there was a possibility of their making this claim good. Yaroslav the Great was the last Grand Prince of Russia, and he had his headquarters at Nov- gorod. Rurik had chosen this site for his metropolis, and the place, because of its exceptionally advantageous situation, had quickly grown into a commercial city. That it is one of the oldest cities in Russia cannot be denied, and its importance is attested by the fact that it was a member of the Hanseatic League, which is usually considered to have originated with the compact between Hamburg and Lubeck in 1241. Its influence (I hesitate to use the stronger term, government) ex- tended from the Baltic Sea on the west, to the Ural Mountains on the east, and subordinate to it were many towns of more or less importance, — Pskov, Nijni- Novgorod, and Vyatka were among them. In the form of government, it was distinctly more republican than monarchical, and it was, perhaps, the most conspicuous example of what might have developed in Russia, to which I have just alluded, had conditions remained DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH 37 unchanged from what they were at one time, and had Novgorod's example been followed by other cities and provinces. A more exact comparison than that between republic and monarchy would be to liken Old Novgorod, at the time when it was the political centre of north- western Russia and called "Lord Novgorod the Great," to a municipal republic like unto Venice. " Political power remained in the hands of the civil officials and the Vetche, a popular assembly which was called together in the market place, as occasion required, by the tolling of the great bell." We read very often of an usurper or a conqueror, who wished to humiliate the citizens of a captured city, removing the great bell, and it will be understood that this was an act in restraint of their political and civic liberty, by carrying away the instru- ment which summoned them to assemble for consultation and united action. Rurik's descendants, feeling themselves to be entrusted with the right to govern arbitrarily, chafed under the opposition which this tendency towards republicanism evinced; but for some time they were far from being successful, and they were not infrequently treated with such scant respect that there came into vogue this adage : "If the prince is bad, into the mud with him!" Thus while there was, for a while, a germ of republicanism in the Russia of seven hundred years ago, it was not to be permitted to develop. The true nucleus of the Russian Empire was not Novgorod, with its democratic institu- tions, but Moscow, where the power of the popular assembly was insignificant. There, the will of the prince was practically supreme; whatever of opposition there was to annoy him came, not from the burghers, but from the boyars and nobles. It should be remembered that 38 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA previous to the time of Peter the Great, the title of boyar was given to the highest class of Russian officials; the title conferred a rank in the state, but entailed no special duty. Later it came to signify the higher aristocracy; it is still heard, but has come to have a political mean- ing, for the boyar party is the popular name for the conservatives. The quarrels between Moscow and Novgorod were most persistent and continued until the first half of the thirteenth century, when a danger appeared which threatened both places equally and the whole of Russia as well. It was the coming of a mysterious foe from the Far East. An old Russian chronicler of the time says: "For our sins unknown nations arrived. No one knew their origin or whence they came, or what religion they practised. That is known to God only, and possibly to wise men who are learned in book-lore." The Rus- sians, advancing from the central part of what we now know as Russia in Europe towards the Ural Mountains and the frontier of Asia, had their first disagreeable ex- perience with the nomadic tribes whom they called the Polovtsi, who constantly plagued the Russian settlers pushing eastward; but now these nomads besought the friendship and protection of those whom they had persistently harassed. "These terrible strangers have taken our country and to-morrow they will take yours if you do not come quickly to help us," said they. After inflicting a crushing defeat upon the Russians on the banks of the Kalka River in 1224, the Mongols, for some unexplained reason, returned whence they came, but came back thirteen years later, and this time they came with the manifest intention of staying, for they set up their capital at Sarai on the lower waters of the DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH 39 Volga River. The ruins exist to-day, although they are now some miles from the left, or northern, bank of the river. They are in the Province of Astrakhan, east of the city, Tsaritzin. In considering this period of the Mongol rule, I find myself at variance with most other writers who have discussed the same subject; as I fear will be declared the case with other matters of Russian history and polity. Granting that there was the sense of bitter humiliation which the Russians must have felt at being ruled by such masters, upon whom they affected to look with contempt as being utter barbarians, yet when we make a careful comparison between Russian and Tartar methods in war, we find that in humanity and consideration for the conquered there was not much to be said for either side, and I think that history, even down to this very year, bears me out. The leader of this division of the Golden Horde, as the Mongols called themselves, was merely the repre- sentative of the Grand Khan, who had his capital far away in the then almost unknown and mysterious East. Just at the particular time which is now being considered, the headquarters of the Mongols was doubtless some- where along the lower reaches of the Amur valley. It is true that we do not yet know, and probably never shall know precisely, much of the early history of these Mongols, yet I believe it has been sufficiently shown where they had their original camping-grounds, and how they spread east and west from that region in the Tsetsen- Khanate of eastern Mongolia. As is always the case, we have an interesting myth to account for their miracu- lous beginning : that they sprang from a blue wolf ; and there is another story current among them that their great progenitor, Budantsar, was marvellously conceived 40 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA of a Mongol widow. But inasmuch as these legends were recorded by the Mongol historian S'sanang S'setzen, who lived at a time when his people had gained some knowledge of history other than their own, for the Mongolian language was probably not reduced to writing until the thirteenth century of our era, there is a suspi- ciously familiar sound to both those tales, as well as to the termination "tsar" of Budantsar's name. It was the famous Genghiz Khan who was the supreme ruler of the Mongols; but the horde which he sent into Europe carried out their master's instructions with horrible faithfulness to which was doubtless added per- sonal zest. I would not for a moment minimise the story of the frightful atrocities committed by those Mongols in Europe, yet the account of sacking and burning, ravishing and slaughter is too fearfully paralleled in many pages of our own history to permit of our pointing the ringer of scorn at these thirteenth-century invaders of Europe; and even in very recent times we have had accounts of cruelties practised, wanton slaughter com- mitted, and kindred atrocities which make us blush for our vaunted Christian civilisation. In religious matters, these Tartars were really an example to bigoted Christians. They were naturally Shamanists and, therefore, not religious fanatics; even after they had come under the influence of Islamism, or — as was the case with some — had embraced Chris- tianity, they were remarkably tolerant of other creeds. Berkai Khan of the Golden Horde, who was among the first to be converted to Moslemism, allowed the Russians to establish a bishop of the Orthodox (Greek) Church in his capital. Fifty years later another leader asked and received in marriage, through the Christian ritual, a DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH 41 daughter of the Byzantine emperor, and he gave his own daughter to be the wife of a Russian prince. There is, therefore, one side of this Mongol invasion of Europe that may almost be called a bright one; yet I confess that the dark side is something that can never be for- gotten, and the incalculable damage which these invaders wrought was never entirely wiped out. The Russians wore the Mongol yoke for nearly three centuries. When once the Horde had completed their capture of Russia, they seem to have been satisfied with recognition of their rule and the payment of taxes, levied, it must be admitted, in a somewhat arbitrary manner at first. The taxes were, for a while, paid to Tartar officials, but about 1259 the impost was regulated to conform, per capita, to a census of the entire popula- tion, and eventually the collection of taxes was entrusted to Russian princes who frequently undertook to see that not only was the proper amount paid from their own estates, but also assumed responsibility for the payment of the tribute by neighbouring peoples. In this way the Russians were relieved from the disagreeable necessity of coming into direct, personal contact with the Tartar officials, who were objectionable in every way. Yet the Russian princes felt the yoke to be galling in the extreme. They were made to realise their humilia- tion in a hundred ways. For example, in case of dispute of any kind between themselves and the Tartar officials, if it were a matter of but trifling importance, the native princes could not secure a hearing or so much as a sem- blance of justice without travelling to the Khan's capital on the Volga at least, there to lay their cause before the Khan; and not unfrequently they were obliged to go all the way to the farther extreme of Siberia in order to 42 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA plead their case at the Court of the Grand Khan himself. This latter journey was looked upon as being almost the end of all things human. Those Russians who were compelled to make it settled their affairs, drew up their wills, and bade goodbye to their families as if all hope of ever returning were lost. They set off with faint ex- pectation of ever getting back alive, and in few cases was there any return. Besides, the tremendous expense of the journey at that time was so great and the cost of litigation, the bribes, and incidental expenses such a tremendous drain, even when the journey was successful in its object and safely performed, that the fortune of the prince was hopelessly impaired. It was not to be expected that the Russian princes would forever submit to the shameful and onerous burden of the Tartar domination ; and — as has been intimated — there appeared eventually one who determined to risk all in making an heroic effort to cast off the humili- ating yoke. This was Dmitri Donskoi, who began by making himself useful to the Khan at Sarai. He under- took to relieve the Mongols from some of their police duties by watching his serfs and collecting the taxes. Ere long he and some of his friends were commissioned lieutenant-generals in the Khan's army. The cheerfully assumed duties devolving upon these positions naturally required the Russians to travel a good deal, and Donskoi availed himself of the opportunity thus given to reason with the Russian princes and quietly to arrange a coali- tion to attempt the expulsion of the Mongols. In 1380 he gained a great victory over the Khan, Mamai, at Kulikovo; which did not, however, prevent the Tartars from retaliating by sacking and burning Moscow in 1383. Twelve years later the great Timour, called also DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH 43 Timour-Leng (which is corrupted into the familiar Tamerlane, the hero of the play), made an incursion, but quickly retired without adding materially to the damage that had been already wrought. For nearly a century there was a measure of respite from these Tartars. Ivan III introduced firearms and cannon in the year 1475, an< i hi s troops became expert in handling them just in time to relieve their sovereign's consternation at the great irruption of Mongols in 1479, when, once more, Moscow was burnt by these vandals, in the reign of Ivan IV ("The Terrible"). In two years, however, General Svemgorod had crushed them, and with their expulsion ends this summary of some of the principal events in the second period of Russian history, the Mongol Domi- nation. It is hardly necessary to state that during those three centuries there was not much internal im- provement, socially, industrially, or commercially. Then came the third epoch, the Tsardom of Muscovy. They were troublous times indeed, for the coalition that had been reasonably satisfactory in driving out the hated Tartars seems to have had no permanency. The country was again broken up into many independent centres, nearly all of them hostile to all the others. Dmitri Donskoi, sometimes called the Grand Prince of All the Russias, had been seriously embarrassed by others who insisted upon styling themselves Grand Prince and asserting independence. The complete suppression of this unwise independence and the creation of an auto- cratic Tsardom with these many small states, most of them in a moribund condition, was a tremendous task and one that Donskoi had not been permitted to accom- plish himself. The work of bringing all Russia under the uncontested 44 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA monarchical rule of Moscow was completed by Ivan III (called "Ivan the Great"), founder' of the present dynasty, his son Basil, and his grandson, Ivan IV. The task was completed between 1462 and 1584 and was measurably successful. When Ivan III ascended the throne, Great Novgorod, Pskof, Tver, Ryazan, and Novgorod-Seversk, a group of cities widely scattered over the central part of Russia, still asserted their inde- pendence. Harsh measures to overcome this independ- ence were rarely resorted to in the case of any one of them. Attention was first given to Novgorod, and craftily the republican liberties of this haughty city were undermined, until "Lord Novgorod the Great" became a vassal of Moscow and took rank as a provincial town. With its annexation and that of its dependent territories, the power of Moscow was established from the Arctic Ocean to the southern spurs of the Ural Mountains. Ivan III then took possession of Tver, alleging that the Prince of that city had been guilty of high treason in allying himself with the (then) foreign country, Lithuania. Basil followed the example of his predecessor and did for Pskof what Ivan III had done for Novgorod. He took away the ancient liberties of the citizens, abolished the popular assembly of the people for the purpose of enacting laws and regulations for their own government, and carried off to Novgorod the great bell that had been the exponent of this independence in calling the citizens together. In place of the popular representatives, chosen by election, he put his own boyars to be the law-making council; and he adopted the drastic yet successful plan for changing sentiment towards himself, of compelling some three hundred of the leading families to move to other cities and in their stead installed an equal number DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH 45 of households from the loyal Muscovites, who could be depended upon for faithful allegiance to himself and in furthering his plans for centralisation of the government. He also established a strong garrison of his own tried troops. There is some confusion in the accounts given of the manner in which the important principality and city of Ryazan were secured as an appanage to the Tsardom of Moscow. One, the more pleasing, is that about 1521 Ivan III gave his sister in marriage to the Prince and thus accomplished his purpose without trouble. The other, perhaps more consonant with Muscovite methods at that time, tells that Ryazan ere long was treated in much the same way as Pskof had been; in 152 1 the Prince was accused of an attempt to form an alliance with the Tartars who had been permitted to settle in the Crimea; the Prince was imprisoned for life, but the annexation was accomplished without recourse to armed strength. Two years later, towards the end of the first war with Poland, the Prince of Novgorod-Seversk was accused of being friendly with the Poles and disposed to aid them in their effort to resist absorption by Moscow. This was deemed sufficient reason for imprisoning him for life and annexing his domains to Moscow. It must be noted that in not a single instance did this absorption of prin- cipalities enure to the material benefit of Russia; each one of the cities which I have mentioned had been a centre of considerable trade, but with the loss of integrity came also a loss of commercial importance. In particular was this the case with Novgorod, which is now merely a place of interest to the antiquarian and the archaeologist: the other towns, in conditions as now existing, are coming to have some importance commercially and industrially. 46 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Thus all the independent principalities were brought under the domination of Moscow, and at home there seemed to be nothing more for Ivan IV, called "The Terrible," to do. It was he who in 1547 took, for the first time, the title of Tsar of Russia, which has since been borne by all the monarchs, although expanded into Tsar of All the Russias. His contributions towards the expansion of his domains lay outside the sphere of Moscow's domination, for in 1552 he annexed Kazan, in 1554, Astrakhan, and later conquered western Siberia, but these are matters which should be discussed else- where. Ivan III married the niece of Constantine XIII, Palaeologus, the last emperor of Constantinople, who was killed at the capture of that city by Mohammed II in 1453- We may, therefore, look upon the third epoch in Russia's history, The Tsardom of Muscovy, as sufficiently sketched. There was, at Moscow, a curious mixture of Russian independence, Tartar influence, and Byzan- tine ideals, and these conditions have persisted so re- markably that the old capital is not inaptly described as displaying Oriental irregularity and bizarre beauty, and as being an Eastern exotic transplanted to the West, an inland Constantinople, a Christian Cairo. Because of their having embraced the religion of which the Byzantine rulers had been the Eastern champions, the Muscovites now looked upon themselves verily as "The Lord's Anointed," since the churchly power of Byzantium had disappeared with the conquest of Con- stantinople by the infidels, for never have the Russian Christians looked with tolerance upon the assumptions of Rome. The Muscovites came, not altogether un- naturally it must be admitted, to look upon themselves DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH 47 as the potentates of the Eastern Orthodox world and the defenders of the Orthodox (Greek Christian) Faith, for they were now the most powerful people in Eastern Europe. To strengthen this conviction in the minds of his princes and the boyars, and to popularise the idea of religious supremacy with the masses, after his marriage with the Byzantine princess, Ivan III took as his cog- nisance the double, two-headed, eagle to signify the union; and this emblem has been seen to the present day. As the primary purpose of this book is to deal with the development of the Russian Empire in Asia, Siberia most particularly, I shall not here dwell long upon the fourth epoch, the Modern Empire. The coming of the Mongols, the occupation which their presence at first and their later incursions, gave the Russians about all that their hands could hold. But before that time the Russian rulers had been looking towards the western frontier and considering the possibilities of expansion in that direction rather than to and across the Asian boundary. Lithuania, and Poland beyond it, were states which displayed a number of units very loosely held together; they had been created by the Piast and Gedymin dynasties * in very much the same way as the Tsardom of Muscovy had grown up. The Lithuanian and Polish rulers and nobles were themselves anxious to extend their frontiers eastward, and also keen to prevent Moscow from getting through their lands to the Baltic. These conditions could but * Piast, the reputed founder of this Piast dynasty, lived about the middle of the ninth century: Gedymin, 1316-41, was the second son of Lutouver and established something like a regular government in Lithuania, carrying on the new dynasty of rulers founded by his father. 48 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA result in armed conflict and eventually to the discomfiture of both Lithuania and Poland. To reach the Baltic, the Russians had to overcome the resistance not only of the Lithuanians and the Poles, but also that of the Teu- tonic and Livonian military orders; the Swedes and Danes all objected to the Muscovites having access to deep water. After varying fortunes of war, for the Russians had to submit to some pretty hard knocks from the neighbours on their northwestern frontiers, Esthonia, Livonia, and a large part of Finland were added to the Russian Empire in 1715. Finland was restored to Sweden, by whom it had been conquered in the twelfth century, and retaken several times. It was not until 1809 that Russia retained it by treaty. The dismember- ment of Poland, including Lithuania, which was incor- porated with Poland in 1501, was completed in 1795. The major part of Lithuania now belongs to Russia, the remainder to Prussia (Germany). I think that the period called Modern Russia has its beginning with Peter the Great. He is such an interest- ing character, if by no means always or even often at- tractive, that, as all know, he has been made the subject of many volumes much larger than this. I shall have occasion frequently to allude to Modern Russia and Peter in later chapters. CHAPTER V EASTWARD TO THE PACIFIC IT will doubtless have been noted that in the synopsis of Russia's territorial expansion, quoted at the beginning of the last chapter, very little is said of Russian acquisition in Asia. It is admitted that in the sixteenth century a great part of Siberia was added to the domains of the Tsar and that further acquisition of this territory went on through the seventeenth century; also that in the nineteenth century the Amur region was gained, and some other additions are noted. But the size and im- portance of Russia in Asia, 6,207,662 square miles in 191 1 as compared with the 2,092,145 square miles in Europe (including Trans-Caucasia) demand, geographi- cally, physically, and socially, careful attention, and the methods employed by Russia in securing the enormous additions must be commented upon, and — too often, I fear — criticised adversely. First, I purpose discussing Siberia, and at the very beginning of my task I find myself compelled, for obvious reasons, to consider the Cossacks. Here, again, I am somewhat at odds with other writers : for while I readily admit that these curious and generally unattractive people are altogether too ready to shoot and slash, I think they are an instance of painting the devil blacker than His Satanic Majesty really is. I confess that I have not had much personal intercourse with Cossacks, yet 50 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA no one can travel the entire breadth of the Russian Empire without being frequently brought into contact with these people, and what I did see of them did not leave an unfavourable impression. The Cossacks are sometimes said to be of Tartar origin; but " origin," in this connection, is a trouble- some word to define precisely and extremely evasive when we attempt to limit its use and significance. Probably there were a goodly number of Tartars in the extreme western parts of Siberia, just as far back as we can go historically; but it is not easy to detect, at any time, marked racial differences among the peoples along the two slopes of the Ural Mountains, which should, but do not, precisely form the boundary between Europe and Asia; and I shrewdly suspect that Tartar blood would have flowed had most of the inhabitants along there been scratched; but this is not the place to consider ethnic or racial affinities. In my opinion the Cossacks were originally pretty much like frontiersmen in many other parts of the world ; here in our own North America, for instance, or in the Australian bush. When settlers push far beyond the limit of influence of the civilisation from which they sprung, they must either give up all that they took with them of manners and customs different from those of the savages or barbarians with whom they come in contact, and submit to assimilation by the strangers, or they must fight to protect themselves and preserve their own institutions while adopting, in warfare at any rate, the ways of those to whom they are unwilling to submit. I do not mean to intimate that there was much to ad- mire or to be imitated in the civilisation in any part of the extreme northeastern section of Europe or the EASTWARD TO THE PACIFIC 51 contiguous regions of Asia a thousand years or so ago; but I am led to believe that the Cossacks had more in common with other Russians than is usually credited to them, by my observation of the remarkable persistency throughout the whole of the Tsar's realm, of certain types of humanity and phases of civilisation which the Cossack displays, measurably, with others. • We do not know just when the first voluntary settlers from, let us say, central Europe were attracted by the possibilities of the pastoral or nomadic life of the eastern steppes, the grazing lands of the northern Urals, or the great plains of western Asia ; but it was certainly a very long time ago, if anthropologists can teach us anything. They met even rougher people than themselves, people who lived, almost, astride of their horses, who fought in their own peculiar ways; and the European settlers soon learnt how to meet those strangers in fair fight, to conquer them, to drive them back, and to possess them- selves of the lands from which they had forcibly evicted the previous owners. The little we know of the origin of the name Cossack tends rather to bear out my con- tention; the Kazaks, that is " riders" — as the word is usually interpreted — were dreaded steppe marauders, all mounted and armed with lances. Because of this the term Kazak came gradually to be applied to all free- booters similarly equipped, whether allies or aliens, and it thus spread from the Aralo-Caspian basin to South Russia, where it still survives as "Kossak." Hence, although Kazak and Cossack are, in origin, the same word, the former now designates a . Mongolo-Tartar nomad race, the latter various members of the Great Russia and Little Russia family. Yet with all this, it cannot be said that any satisfactory explanation of the 52 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA word has been given. Since the eighteenth century, the Russians have used the compound expression Kirghis- Kazak chiefly in order to distinguish certain Asiatics from their own Cossacks, at times overrunning Siberia from the westward. It was the most natural thing in the world for those early "voluntary settlers" to go on towards the east and south and if, perchance, they eventually met different people, who were able to do more than hold their own against the invaders, and if then the Europeans were driven back, we have at least a plausible explanation of incursions from the south and southeast by so-called Cossacks in early times. It was from some such conditions that the Cossacks sprung, I think; and certainly there was little that was softening or refining in the life they were forced to adopt. When the time came to make use of them, the Russian generals found ready to their hands a body of horsemen who were easily convertible into, probably, the finest light cavalry the world has ever known. They were ready to push on still further east and south, and but for the assistance they gave the true modern Russian com- manders, I doubt if the occupation of Siberia and all the other conquests of the Russians in Asia would have been so easily accomplished as they were. The dividing of the Cossacks into two principal sections, those of Little Russia, or of the Dnieper valley, and those of Great Russia, or of the Don valley, is ac- cepted as satisfactory. From the former came the Zaporogian Cossacks, so called because of their having established themselves and built a fortified camp on an island in the Dnieper River, to the south of the porogi, or cataracts; these have always been considered the more troublesome and turbulent. The other section, EASTWARD TO THE PACIFIC 53 the Don Cossacks, have been generally less intractable, although they have been guilty of numerous uprisings. Not long after they had left their capital, Cherkask, in the marshes of the Don River, Tsar Ivan IV undertook to punish them for their misbehaviour; but they dis- persed, and one band, under the leadership of Yermak, went eastward and effected the conquest of western Siberia. " Another company established themselves in the Ural Mountains and expelled the Tartars from Jaik (Uralsk) ; while a third group probably found a refuge in the Caucasus, where their descendants are still known as the Grebenski, or Mountain Cossacks." Trained as soldiers, these restless and warlike people have furnished some of the best troops, of their kind, in the Russian army; and their services in protecting the frontiers from the Caucasus to far eastern China can hardly be over-praised. Although they are good cavalry- men, and admirable scouts and skirmishers, they are rather unsteady in an important and protracted engage- ment. "So great is their superstition, that in the midst of a conflict they have been known to give chase to a hare in order to avert the omen by its death; and they still retain a large measure of the freebooter's fondness for plunder." We must always remember the annoyance the Cossack cavalry caused Napoleon's army during the famous retreat from Moscow. They were everywhere; pro- tecting the Russian army, harassing the French most persistently, and acting as spies and scouts most success- fully, getting for the Russian generals the fullest informa- tion about every movement of the French. This is, perhaps, as good an example of the technical services the Cossacks have rendered the Russians as could be cited; 54 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA but there are, as well, a great many cases of personal fidelity recorded in Russian history which tend to raise one's opinion of the Cossack. The great Yermak, whose name has just been mentioned, is said to have been at one time nothing more than a highway robber and he was driven out of Russia. Going into Siberia, he effected the conquest of a large section of the country; yet instead of trying to make himself a ruler, he returned to Moscow and laid his conquest at the foot of Ivan IV, who par- doned his past offences and made him an important servant. He did not betray the trust.* There are abundant neolithic remains scattered all over western Siberia, tumuli and other things, which indicate a much denser population than the present; but interesting as this subject is, there is not space to consider it here. Somewhere about the year 1520, it is surmised, although the date is not known precisely, some true Tartar fugitives from Turkestan subdued the tribes who were living in the lowlands just to the east of the Ural Mountains northward of the point where the Siberian railway crosses the border. After completing the conquest of the loosely associated tribes, whose lack of organisation prevented a successful resistance, these invaders summoned agriculturalists, tanners, traders, and mullahs (priests) from Turkestan, and numerous small settlements sprung up along the Irtish and Ob valleys. Khan Ediger exercised the supreme office of governor, and these colonists were prospering until conflicts occurred with the Russians, perhaps those with Yermak, although they may have been predecessors of Yermak who were then attempting to colonise the *I have learnt that the identification of this "highway robber" as Yermak is denied by some authorities. — J. K. G. EASTWARD TO THE PACIFIC 55 region east of the Urals. These broils brought the Tur- kestan-Tartars into collision with Moscow, and the Khan sent messengers to that capital in 1555. The envoys consented to pay a yearly tribute of one thousand sable skins, upon assurance of no further molestation. The ease with which this tribute was paid seemed to indicate to the Russians that Siberia was a source of great wealth, and this proved a further stimulus for adventurers to pass over into the region eastward of the Ural Mountains. Bearing in mind what has been said of the indications that at some period in the remote past western Siberia certainly, if not the whole of at least the broad middle belt of that great country, must have been pretty well peopled and that this population dwindled almost to the vanishing point, it is not altogether inexact to say that it is only just over three centuries since the repeo- pling of the land by immigrants from Russia in Europe began, although but little of it was altogether a voluntary movement. The changes which have taken place in Siberia were all of a comparatively quiet nature; for the conflicts between the newcomers and the older inhabitants, or those between groups of immigrants themselves, or even the wars, were of little importance to the world generally; whereas in other parts of the globe, our own continent for example, those same three centuries were witnesses of tremendous changes, the evolution of nations, in fact, the wresting of supremacy from the hands of one European state by another, and the like. Russia simply grew towards the east and justified the boast, not precisely exact at all times, of Tsar Nicholas I, that where the Russian flag has once been raised it must never be lowered. 56 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA After Yermak's success, there was quite an interval before the first serious attempts to colonise Siberia were made; then, in 1590, thirty families from the town of Solvychegodsk, in the Vologda government, were sent there in pursuance of a command that had been given by Ivan IV ("The Terrible"), before his death in 1584, and we may be sure that this was punishment, not kind- ness. On May 15, 1593, the boy Dmitri was brutally murdered probably by some ruffians hired by Boris GodunofT who sought this way of clearing for himself the road to the throne, although the evidence in support of this statement is not conclusive. When Ivan IV died, he left two sons, of whom Feodor (Theodore we should call it), aged twenty-seven, succeeded him, and with his death in 1598 ended the male line of the dynasty founded by the Scandinavian Rurik. Feodor was hopelessly weak physically and almost an imbecile. Henning, in his "Chronicle of Livonia," declares that Feodor was so weak-minded that he could find no greater amusement than tolling the church bells before service. The other son, Dmitri, was but a child, yet he seems to have been a healthy boy and likely to follow his brother, when the latter relinquished the throne. Boris GodunofT had married Feodor's sister, Dmitri's half-sister, and being a strong man in every way, naturally the control of the government devolved upon him; but he was determined to change this semblance of power into reality. Of Feodor he had no ground for apprehen- sion, although the persistency with which the imbecile clung to life annoyed him; but he would not have the healthy child Dmitri foil him. At one time, he con- templated proclaiming the lad illegitimate, and therefore ineligible to the throne, because he had been born of EASTWARD TO THE PACIFIC 57 Ivan's seventh wife, and the alleged marriage was, in the circumstances, such as is forbidden by the Ortho- dox (Greek) Church. Eventually, however, the young prince died or was assassinated, as I have said. The event, whether accidental death or planned murder, occurred at the town of Uglich, in the government of Yaroslav, and the populace broke out into a riot to show their indignation and disapproval, which seems to point conclusively to the fact that they believed the child's death to have been the result of deliberate plan. This display of sympathy so angered Boris that he determined to punish the town; many of the inhabitants were put to death and practically all the rest were sent to a village on the Pelym River in the department of western Siberia. Because the church bell had been rung to call the citizens together when they expressed their disapproval and broke out in riot, it, too, was punished. The ears by which it was suspended were cut off, it was flogged by the public executioner, and was sent to Tobolsk after the townspeople. It was not brought back to its proper home until well into the last century. This act of punishing the church bell is typical of Russian supersti- tion. It was not alone the ignorant townspeople who were impressed; but the gentry, the nobility, and the clergy all felt that there was something real and personal in punishing their bell; this is indicated by the persistent demand, finally acceded to, to restore it. There will be more to say of this episode in which the Tsar Boris Godunoff played such a conspicuous part, when I come to the city of Moscow, in a later chapter. This transfer of the citizens of Uglich was probably the second considerable movement towards colonising Siberia; but later when emigration to that country came 58 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA to be somewhat popular, we find a peculiar trait of the Russian villager and peasant asserting itself. This was the seeming desire for all the inhabitants of the town or village to remove en bloc. For centuries, it was a rare thing for an individual or a single family voluntarily to leave their European home and seek a new one in Asia. When the desire to emigrate came to one or to a few of the inhabitants, it was their wont to try to persuade all their fellows to accompany them. If they succeeded the village was practically depopulated, provided always that the necessary government permission could be obtained; if unsuccessful, they either gave up their own desire or bided their time until all could be induced to go. It is somewhat the same way at present, although the ease with which the journey may now be made, as com- pared with the tremendous undertaking it was even half a century ago, and the fact that the government stands ready to assign the desired land at once, have naturally tended to remove much of the hesitation which deterred an individual or a single family from emigrating. No intelligent person will contend to-day that there is even a semblance of true communism in the national government of Russia, and yet the tendency to act as a community, which I have just mentioned, indicates a survival of the oldest form of government in that country. Primarily there was a gentile organisation and gentile marriages were insisted upon. The gens passed on into the village community; the communistic ideas persisted and the disposition to act as a communal unit prevailed. The unit of the state government is now nominally the village community or mir; a number of mir form a volost, and these maintained their influence and, indeed, a good deal of authority down to a very recent period. Troitska, Travelling Carriage Religious Procession, Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg EASTWARD TO THE PACIFIC 59 Even to-day, in certain minor matters, the village com- munity does possess some right of self-government; but its most conspicuous influence is to be noticed in the communistic spirit which seems to prompt the inhabitants to act together when, as is declared by many authorities, the Russian peasant does not migrate as an individual but as one of a village community. Following up the movement into Siberia, and eastward to the Pacific: "The free Cossacks of the Don, following upon the retreating Tartar horde when the empire of Chingis Khan crumbled away, possessed themselves of certain lands east of the Urals, and these were amongst the founders of the Russian settlements in Asia. Later, thousands of Poles were settled in the Tobolsk province, Jews were located at Tiukalinsk, western Siberia has had contingents from Finland, most of the governments of European Russia, and also a large number of gypsies, who have retained the nomadic habit, and wander over all Siberia and Manchuria." * Hastily summarising the principal events bearing upon the acquisition of Siberia during the three centuries preceding those of much greater importance in the nine- teenth, it is sufficient to say that after the rebellion of the Cossacks, headed by Stenka Razin, during the reign of Tsar Alexis (1645-76), was suppressed, those of his followers (and it is declared by contemporary writers that there were, at one time, three hundred thousand of them) who were unwilling or afraid to believe the prom- ises of the Government and to submit to the iron rule of Moscow, made their way into the government of Perm, on both sides of the Ural Mountains and bordering upon Asia. Then followed the episode of Yermak's * Gerrare, " Greater Russia." 60 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA expedition along the valleys of the Taghil and Tura Rivers, to the Tobol, and soon they had pushed on to the Isker (Irtish) where they defeated the Khan Kutchum near the site of the present town of Tobolsk on the Ob. These small rivers are either in European Russia or they are tributaries of the Ob from the west, and as Tobolsk is only about 68° east longitude, it will be seen that this " conquest" of Siberia was not a very great affair. After Yermak's death, the Cossacks abandoned Siberia, but large companies of fur-hunters and adven- turers went as far east as they dared to go, the Moscow government sending some regular troops to maintain its conquest as well as to give protection to these settlers. These people kept well up towards the northern limit of what is known as the central belt of Siberia, because they were afraid to come into conflict with the dense and brave communities along the Turkestan and Mongolian frontiers; but they did not go very far north into the bleak and inhospitable regions. By the middle of the seventeenth century the Russians had reached the Amur valley, and had even gone as far as the Pacific Coast. If it is admitted that they con- quered all of the great domain and really annexed it to the Tsar's empire, this may be explained "by the cir- cumstance that they met with no organised resistance; they found only the Tartar Kutchum on the Tobol and in the Altai, the Turkish stocks under the Kalmuck Altyn Khan, the centre of whose power was on the Kemtchik, and who collected tribute from the Teleuts, Uryankhs, Telesses, Beltirs, Buruts (Kirghiz), and other smaller tribes. Neither Tartars nor Turks could offer any serious resistance. When travelling down the EASTWARD TO THE PACIFIC 6l Yenisei in 1607-10, the Cossacks first encountered Tunguses, who strenuously fought to preserve their independence, but were at last subdued about 1623. In 1628 the Russians reached the Lena, founded the fort of Yakutski in 1637, and two years later reached the Sea of Okhotsk at the mouth of the Ulia River. The Buriats offered some opposition, but between 1631 and 1 641 the Cossacks erected several palisaded forts in their territory, and in 1648 the fort on the upper Uda (Verkhne-Udinski Ostrog) beyond Lake Baikal. In 1643 Poyarkoff's boats descended the Amur, returning to Yakutsk by the Sea of Okhotsk and the Aldan, and in 1649-50 Khabaroff occupied the course of the Amur. The resistance of the Chinese, however, obliged the Cossacks to quit their forts, and by the treaty of Ner- tchinsk (1689) Russia abandoned her advance into the basin of the river. In her anxiety to keep peace with China and not to endanger the Kiakhta trade, Russia rigorously prohibited and punished all attempts of the Siberians to advance farther towards that river until 1855. In 1849 tne Russian ship Baikal discovered the estuary of the Amur; in 18 5 1 the military post of Nikolaievsk was established at its mouth, and two years later the post of Mariinsk near Lake Kizi. Next year a Russian military expedi- tion under Muravieff explored the Amur, and in 1857 a chain of Russian Cossacks and peasants had settled along the whole course of the river. The accomplished fact was recognised by China in 1857 and i860 by a treaty. In the same year in which Khabaroff explored the Amur (1648), the Cossack Dejneff, starting from the Kolyma River (about 160 E. long., near Baranoff Island), sailed round the northeastern extremity of Asia, through the 62 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA strait which was rediscovered and described eighty years later by Behring (1728)." * This rather bald outline gives a suggestion, at least, of how the Russian Empire was expanded until it stretched across northern Europe and Asia from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean. It may be admitted readily that the task was not a difficult one, mainly because there was no opposition to the expansion raised by any of the other European Powers, none of whom had yet asserted " spheres of influence" upon which the Russians might trespass. It is possible that had the effort of Russia been deferred until the second half of the nineteenth century, there might not have been such plain sailing for her as there was. The conquest of Siberia having been thus easily com- pleted, there was nothing more to be done but perfect the government and thus secure the control. At first, as is always the case with Russian enterprises of a similar nature, the administration was entrusted entirely to the high-rank army officers. Gradually, these were replaced by civil officials, the country was divided into govern- ments, immigration was encouraged, until it was esti- mated that in 1906, the latest date for which anything like reliable census statistics are available, the population of all Siberia was 5,784,382 out of a total for all Russian possessions in Asia of over 20,000,000. (One authority, The Statesman } s Year Book for 191 1, gives 7,878,500 and 23,652,900.) It should be borne in mind that the Russian word Sibir (of extremely doubtful origin) included, within less * Although I have quoted from P. A. Kropotkin, I have taken the liberty of making certain corrections and have altered the translitera- tion of names to conform to our system. — J. K. G. EASTWARD TO THE PACIFIC 63 than three centuries, only the chief settlement of the Tartar Khan Kutchum, that of Isker in the present government of Irtish. Subsequently, its use was ex- panded to include the whole of Russia's dominions in Asia; but the name is not now applied to the territory in Central Asia, either actually claimed to belong to Russia or under her protection ; that is to say, the Kirghiz Steppes, Western Turkestan, Trans-Caspia, Uralsk, or from the true Siberian boundary down to the Afghanistan and Persian frontiers, skirting the western end of Mon- golia, Dzungaria, and Chinese Turkestan. The material development of Siberia will be considered in a later chapter, and in another place attention will be given to the acquisition of Central Asian possessions, both as to methods followed and effects produced. There are many other names of brave men, unscrupu- lous adventurers, and honest explorers, that will occur to the reader and that are mentioned in works which have discussed the conquest of Siberia more exhaustively than I have done. It is not because of lack of apprecia- tion for their efforts, when these were legitimate, or of fear to condemn them when they deserve it, that I have refrained from discussing all; it is simply because of the limitations of space. «•. CHAPTER VI PHYSICAL RUSSIA: EUROPE AND ASIA IT would be a hazardous thing for anyone to attempt to define precisely the boundaries of this great Russian Empire. Where adventurers, settlers, or con- querors have pushed forward to shores washed by differ- ent seas or oceans, and Russia's rights of occupation have been recognised definitely, the lines may be given with a satisfactory measure of precision — the Arctic Ocean, the Northern Pacific, Behring Sea and Straits, the Okhotsk Sea, and the Sea of Japan, are now correctly and probably permanently declared to be the northern and eastern boundaries. On the extreme northwest the frontier of Sweden will probably remain a permanent border, and the Baltic Sea, with its two deep indentations, the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, carries this line of demarcation southward. The German and Austrian frontiers, too, may be called defined, and the Roumanian, probably, on the west. But the southern borders of the Russian Empire cannot be expressed in terms that are anything approximately permanent. Even in Europe, it can hardly be said that the Russian flag has never been lowered in territories where it has once flown; and it would be incautious, to say the least, to declare that there will never be any more pushing southward of Russia's frontiers in that continent. While of Asia it would be simply rash to put a final definition on Russia's borders. PHYSICAL RUSSIA 65 If Bokhara and Khiva, not to enumerate all places that are in the same category, are still euphemistically represented as vassal khanates, preserving a semblance of autonomy, they are in reality mere dependencies of Russia; and " Russian protection," in all of the Central Asian states which come within her sphere of influence, merely spells permanent occupation and actual annexation; while northern Persia bids fair to be brought within that same sphere. So, too, of Dzungaria, Eastern Turkestan, and even Mongolia; admitting that the statement recently made by the Chinese Government is correct and that an arrangement entirely satisfactory to China has been made, by the terms of which Russia undertakes to keep her hands off, yet the great overland route from Kiahkta to Peking, via Urga, is, as a matter of fact, in the hands of Russia and "it is difficult to predict how far Russian influence may extend should circumstances lead it to seek a footing on the thinly populated plateaus of Central Asia." In the opinion of most Russians, from the time when the Chinese Government was coerced into substituting Russia for Japan in the Liaotung Peninsula, and granting permission to build the Chinese Eastern Railway across northern Manchuria and from Harbin south to Dalny, the whole of those three provinces of Manchuria were considered to be another addition to their empire, and surely the behaviour of the Russians justified outsiders in considering this to be the case. But the Treaty of Portsmouth changed the Manchurian conditions materi- ally and Russian occupation is now nominally restricted to the railway zones for the 147 miles north from Chang- chun to Harbin and across the upper end of Manchuria from the Siberian town of Man-dju-lie, 920 miles to 66 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Pogranichnaia where the line re-enters Russian territory. Yet it requires no great astuteness to see that Russia exercises much more the rights of ownership throughout the whole of northern Manchuria than the privileges of a lessee on good behaviour. This, however, is just what Japan is doing in the southern part of that same territory, notwithstanding that her privileges are supposed to be restricted to the occupation of the Liaotung Peninsula and to operating and guarding the railways that have come under her temporary control. Stretching as this Russian Empire does across a broad northern belt of the combined continents, Europe and Asia, from an Atlantic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, it is only natural to expect great diversity in the physical features of such an enormous territory, which on one side extends down to the cotton and silk producing regions of Turkestan and Trans-Caucasia, and on the other away up into the moss and lichen-clothed, bleak Arctic tundras and the Verkhoyansk Siberian pole of cold; from the dry Transcaspian deserts to regions watered by the superabundance of moisture brought by the southwest monsoon from the Sea of Japan. Yet physically there is surprisingly little variation in this wide empire. If we divide it into several basins, separated from one another by more or less sharply defined mountain ranges, we shall have Russia in Europe, from the Baltic Sea to the Ural Mountains on the east and the Caucasus on the south. In Asia there will be the great basin from the Urals on the west and the several ranges of low mountains, Orulgan, Aldan, etc., on the east, and the various ranges, most of them having peaks of considerable altitude, which define Siberia on the south, and the Russian Central Asian provinces. PHYSICAL RUSSIA 67 Last will be a stretch to the seas of Okhotsk and Behring, divided by the Stanavoi Mountains into two small basins. These several sections together reach from about 17 east longitude (Greenwich meridian) to about 170 west, a dis- tance equal to nearly one half the circumference of the earth (in that latitude) or approximately five thousand miles, and it is interesting to consider each separately. "Geographically, Russia in Europe is separated from Russia in Asia by the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea. The Urals are low hills forming the backbone of the empire, and have practically the same climate, fauna, flora, and soil on both the eastern and western slopes, and much of the Russia west of the range more closely resembles the Arctic plateau than it does the remainder of Europe. Geologically, it is Baikal — the lake and the volcanic range — which divides Russia, and zoologically it is the valley of the Irtish in West Siberia. Flatness characterises the country, and whether in Europe or Asia the central zone consists of large tracts of forest and marsh which terminate with frozen wastes in the Arctic circle on the north, and on the south change to rough prairie lands which merge with arid sandy plains. Throughout, the climate is more intense than in Europe: in summer the weather is hotter, and in winter colder than at corresponding latitudes in the west; there is also a greater range of temperature be- tween day and night." * To understand clearly what this author means when he speaks of climate and fully to appreciate the variations, it is necessary to study the isotherms; it will then be seen what remarkable pranks the temperature plays throughout practically the whole of the Russian Empire. * " Greater Russia." 68 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA If we leave out of consideration the belt of land along the Arctic coast that will probably never be habitable in our present acceptance of the meaning of that word, and the very narrow strip along the southern border of Siberia, where lofty plateaus and some high peaks are found, it is quite correct to say that European Russia and most of Siberia are immense plains; the former at its central part being only about four hundred feet above the level of the sea. In this region there are many lakes and several large rivers, flowing north or northwest or south or southeast, with most intricate systems of tributaries whose slow currents and tortuous channels attest the fact that the land generally is sur- prisingly level, although it is known to be gradually rising; that at a time which, speaking in terms of the geologist, is not very far back in the earth's history, it was submerged, and that there was once, no doubt, a natural waterway between the Black and the Baltic Seas ; although that was long before the days of the Greek geographers, some of whom assumed that it was possible for a ship to sail from the Black Sea into the Atlantic Ocean without passing through the Mediterranean. The Russian rivers with their tributaries, when supple- mented by connecting canals, supply a most effective system of inland waterways. Excepting in the Ural and Caucasus regions, there is really no scenery in all the length and breadth of Russia in Europe that is of striking beauty. In the immediate neighbourhood of some of the towns, for many of which the best locations have been chosen, there are occasional bits that may be termed pretty ; yet as a rule the desola- tion of those almost treeless plains is extreme and very depressing, as needs must be the case in such a thinly PHYSICAL RUSSIA 69 populated region where evidences of human life do not always compensate for the absence of natural scenery. Still, after the traveller who comes from the east has left the Ural Mountains and crossed the Volga River, there is something attractive in the broad fields of grain in Great Russia, that indicate the success of the farmers in raising good crops of wheat; and much the same thing may be said about South Russia, extending down to the Sea of Azof, the Crimea, and the Black Sea, about Little Russia, where the population is greater than in any sec- tion of the empire except Poland, about West Russia, and about Poland. The whole of European Russia shows to greatest advantage just after the sudden change, almost instan- taneous, that comes in the late spring, transforming the bleak landscape into a flower-laden garden of indescribable radiance and freshness. The following description which I found in Mr. Hare's book * is so apposite even now that I do not hesitate to borrow it, as he had done before me. "The whole countrey differeth very much from it selfe, by reason of the yeere: so that a man would marveille to see the great alteration and difference betwixt the winter, and the summer Russia. The whole countrey in the winter lieth under snow, which falleth continually, and is sometime of a yard or two thicke, but greater towards the north. The rivers and other waters are all frosen vp a yard or more thicke, how swift or broade soeuer they bee. And this continueth commonly fiue moneths, viz., from the beginning of November till towardes the ende of March, what time the snow beginneth to melt. So that it would breede a frost in a man to looke abroad at that time, * See introduction to this book. 70 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA and see the winter face of that countrey. The sharpness of the aire you may judge of by this: for that water dropped down or cast up into the aire congealeth into yce before it come to the ground. In the extremitie of winter, if you holde a pewter dish or pot in your hand, or any other metall (except in some chamber where their warme stoaues bee), your ringers will friese fast vnto it, and drawe off the skinne at the parting. When you pass out of a warme roome into a colde, you shall sensibly feel your breathe to waxe starke, and euen stifeling with the colde, as you drawe it in and out. Diuers not onely that trauel abroad, but in the very markets and streetes of their townes, are mortally pinched and killed withall: so that you shall see many drop downe in the streetes; many trauellers brought into the townes sitting dead and stiffe in their sleds. Diuers lose their noses, the tips of their eares, and the bals of their cheeks, their toes, feete, &c. Many times (when the winter is very hard and extreame) the beares and wolfes issue by troupes out of the woods driuen by hunger, and enter the villages, tearing and rauening all they can finde: so that the inhabitants are faine to flie for safe- guard of their Hues. And yet in the summer time you shall see such a new hiew and face of a countrey, the woods (for the most part which are all of rirre and birch) so fresh and so sweete, the pastures are medowes so greene and well growen (and that vpon the sudden), such varietie of flowers, such noyse of birdes (specially of nightingales, that seeme to be more lowde and of a more variable note than in other countreys) that a man shall not lightly trauell in a more pleasant countrey." * * Dr. Giles Fletcher, Ambassador from Elizabeth to the Tsar Feodor Ivanovitch, 1588. PHYSICAL RUSSIA 71 Some years ago M. Kovalevski, an expert, was sent out by the Russian Government to make a report upon the limitations which the physical character of Siberia put upon the development of the country. He stated that the millions of acres of what he called the Siberian waste lands can never support a dense population. This is because so much of the area to the north of the admittedly cultivable zone, along the middle and southern parts of which passes the trans-Siberian Rail- way, is in the same latitude as the barren lands of North America. It is, also, similar to that in the steppe lands on the south where there are only oases of insignificant extent suitable for agricultural enterprise. Consequently there is only a meridional belt of all this vast region that is destined by nature to support civilised life. This is not the only limitation which this authoritative observer puts upon Siberia because of adverse physical conditions. Even when the land has already been cultivated in the fertile valleys and rich bottoms of the once great rivers, between the valleys themselves which are or may be suitable for farming, there are great swampy, barren, or rocky districts which can never be satisfactorily occupied by farmers. The central parts of the Tobolsk provinces, in the extreme west of Siberia, the northern part of Tomsk, nearly all of the Amur provinces, and practically all of the three great steppe regions, are, in M. Kovalevski's opinion, of this character. Now, while it would be ridiculous to contend that any portion of northern Siberia along or beyond the Arctic Circle can ever be really cultivated, not only because of the rigorous climate, but also because the tundras are actually nothing more than perpetually frozen bogs, yet it has been demonstrated in recent years that some 72 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA of the condemned land well to the north of the afore- mentioned meridional belt, can be brought under re- munerative cultivation. The trans-Siberian Railway after leaving Irkutsk on Lake Baikal, going in the direction of Europe, reaches up to about 56 ° north latitude, and I myself saw, in places, thrifty farms to the north of the line. I was assured that in the short, hot summer wheat and other grains were raised in large quantities even farther north, notwithstanding that on some of the farms the ground at a depth of from six to fifteen feet is perpetually frozen. It was said, and I fancy this statement is correct, that the underlying stratum of ice-tilled ground — that which had been frozen in the preceding winter, of course, not the lower, permanent ice — supplied sufficient moisture to ensure a healthy maturing of the grain. The second of the divisions into which I have chosen to divide the Russian Empire for consideration of physi- cal conditions, is just about as large as Russia in Europe, being considerably over two million square miles in area. It comes as soon as the Ural Mountains are crossed and therefore includes a very little of European Russia. Beginning in the extreme north, there is the subarctic region inhabited by the various subdivisions of the Samoyedes. The flat tundras present no marked fea- tures and most of the territory consists of these bleak, unprofitable stretches. It is, perhaps, as well to speak briefly of these tundras here, because the word must appear quite often in this book. They are the broad belts of land at the extreme north of the continents of Europe and Asia intervening between the forests and the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Many sluggish rivers and their tributaries, free of ice but for a few weeks in PHYSICAL RUSSIA 73 the summer, cross them in every direction, but the ground itself is completely water-logged and frozen to a very great depth. In this icy ground are found the remains of the mammoths which tell their story of condi- tions in the far-off past. Generally these are in land- slips along the banks of rivers. The fossil ivory is an important article of export from Siberia. The Samoyedes' country is in the extreme north of the great government of Tobolsk; there are large bays indenting the coast, but they are of little economic value. There are mountains in the north where some of the peaks attain a height of 4000 feet or more; but the government is generally of a lowland character, with extensive grassy steppes. In the southern part of these steppes there is some of the most fertile land in the Russian Empire. The climate is extremely severe; the cold of winter, when icy gales from the north sweep over these plains, is something frightful ; but in the short summer, when 70 ° F. or higher is not uncommon and the bright light of long, almost cloudless days stimulates a vegetable growth that is almost unknown in western Europe, it is difficult to believe it the same land. In some parts of this government, the almost total absence of ground-slope hinders drainage, and the surface water accumulates in lakes and marshes. In these latter are found the urmans, unprofitable forests and quivering marshes that are entered by the inhabitants for but short distances near the widely separated settlements. "Immense cedar-trees, larches, firs, pines, birches, and maples grow very densely, and the undergrowth is so thick that a passage can be forced only with the aid of the hatchet, the difficulties being further increased by the layers of decayed wood and by marshes. To cross 74 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA these, where treacherously concealed under a swaying layer of grassy vegetation, a kind of snowshoe must be used in summer, and many can be crossed only in winter." The government of Tomsk has a most varied surface. In the southeast are the high alpine tracts of the Altai Mountains, where there are elevated steppes; and in the northwest and west are the lowlands of the Irtish and the Ob marshes. The Altai Mountains cover, in Russian territory, an area fully three times that of the whole of Switzerland, and the region is yearly proving more attractive to the scientist and sportsman. Peaks of 10,000 feet are numerous. A good deal of work remains to be done by competent explorers before our orographic knowledge of this region can be called satis- factory. The portion of Uralsk which lies within the boundaries of Asia belongs administratively to the "Kirghiz Prov- inces." It is nearly all flat and most of the province is below sea-level. The large province of Turgal also belongs to the Aral-Caspian depression and it is mostly steppe, although there are some places in the northern part where the undulating plateau of the Mugojar Hills rises to something like 1000 feet. This part of the Russian Empire is in the wild region known as the Kirghiz Steppes. The southeastern border of the Syr-Daria province of Russian Turkestan runs along the lofty Tchotkat Mountains whose peaks rise to 14,000 or 15,000 feet, and there are immense glaciers ; yet here again our knowl- edge of orography is most incomplete and unsatisfactory. The major part of Syr-Daria is, however, steppe. "As the Tian-Shan is approached the steppe takes another Church of the Resurrection, St. Petersburg (Memorial to Tsar Alexander II) PHYSICAL RUSSIA 75 character: a thick covering of loess girdles the foothills and forms the fertile soil to which Turkestan is indebted for its rich fields and gardens." The surface of Russian Turkestan is most varied, and the great government still holds many secrets for the explorer to discover; but guarded as they are by the jealous Muscovite, it is doubtful if we shall know this region well for many years to come. Transcaspia is truthfully said to be nine-tenths uninhabitable desert and one-tenth of very little value: the greatest interest which the territory possesses is for the geologist and geographer. Yet there is abundant evidence that the awful desolation is not the result of Mother Nature's act, but due entirely to the wanton act of man. The next physical division is practically wholly in the government of Irkutsk. All the southern portion is mountainous, especially in the southwest; no part of this half of the section is less than 1,200 feet above sea- level, while some peaks rise to 6000 to 8000 feet; the wide distribution of volcanic remains suggests the geological formation and the physical characteristics, and gives a clue to the interest shown by scientists. In the north, after the last of the low hills have been passed, the absolutely uninteresting tundras stretch away to the Arctic shores. Lake Baikal is the most important physical feature of this section. This great fresh-water sea is notorious for its waywardness — for the placid surface of one moment can be transformed almost instantaneously into lashing, destructive waves. The surface is 1,360 feet above the sea; the greatest depth is upwards of 300 fathoms, and the area is about 12,500 square miles. The trans-Siberian Railway trains were, for a long time, carried across on ferryboats in 76 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA summer and as late in the winter as the ice-breakers could keep open a fair way; then recourse was had to sledges, and there was a rest-house and buffet on the ice midway. The task of boring the many necessary tunnels through the tough, adamantine volcanic rock along the south shore was successfully finished some years ago, and now the lake route is abandoned, save for freight in summer. Transbaikalia, about the size of Austria-Hungary, displays much physical variety, and here we come into touch with the great drainage basins of eastern Siberia, for the province runs off into the Pacific littoral. Much of the region displays the most thoroughly characteristic Siberian features of tameness and monotony. There are several mountain ranges of some importance although none of the peaks are high. In many respects, other than physical, this is one of the most interesting of the political divisions of Siberia. The Amur region may be called hilly without displaying any special features; and the same thing is to be said of the Maritime Province, or Primorskaia, including Russia's half of the island of Saghalien. These subsections possess great interest, but not of the nature to be discussed in this chapter. CHAPTER VII TEE PEOPLE IT is not my intention to attempt a discussion of the ethnology of this great Russian Empire, absorb- ingly interesting as the subject is, because limitations of space forbid; and the opportunities for studying a goodly number of widely different types of mankind, as one travels by train across Siberia, supplied quite sufficient material for my present purposes. At Vladi- vostok, besides the Slav of many gradations of blood — from that which may be called pure (although that is a very dangerous and elusive word to use in this connection) to mixtures that have thinned out the original stock almost to the point of disappearance — one meets many types of mankind. There are great numbers of Chinese, thousands of Koreans, some Ainus, and other people who were doubtless indigenous as compared with the intruders from central Asia and Europe. The Maritime Province still has many tribes and small stocks of natives, but the blighting influence of European civilisation is depressingly noticeable. A little way from Vladivostok there still remain a number of descendants of the Maniakhas who have resisted the contamination of Western civilisation to a remarkable degree, although they have, in individual cases, evinced capacity to appropriate the good features thereof. These people are frank, generous, kindly, and industri- 78 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA ous. It is said that when they can be induced to enter domestic service they make faithful and intelligent servants. Most of the villagers throughout the whole of the region within the jurisdiction of the Maritime Province, Primorskaia, northern Saghalien, and including the peninsula of Kamschatka, where they are not Russian settlers, either voluntary or convict, are half-breed Mongols or the descendants of others who have preserved a surprising degree of purity in the strain of blood. All of those who may be called truly natives have quaint customs and curious traditions. Close to the town of Vladivostok, there yet remain traces of a people who must have made considerable progress in a civilisation that compared not unfavourably with our own. They were able to mine the precious metals and refine them, and had a mint which turned out coins of an established value; they built good roads, as the remains of some ninety feet wide attest, and these were properly crowned and provided with ditches on both sides. Just who they were, cannot now be determined positively; but they can hardly have been of Chinese origin or true Mon- golians, for they were conquered long ago by invading Chinese, who called them barbarians and who killed nearly all the men and carried off most of the women into captivity. A few adults, most of them women, escaped and probably some children, who wandered away to the eastward amongst neighbouring tribes and mixed with them. The descendants of these people now form an almost distinct colony at Olga Bay on the shore of the Japan Sea, east of Vladivostok. They are called the Tozi and bear an excellent reputation. Far away to the north of Vladivostok, there are yet a THEPEOPLE 79 number of small tribes, or village groups, rather, of the brave Chukchees who made a good fight against the intruding and needlessly aggressive Russians and Cos- sacks; but it was unavailing and they wear the yoke as patiently as can be expected. They still hold together in small communities and continue to practise their own old customs. Some of these are barbarous in the ex- treme: for example, that of rolling the new-born child naked in the snow to harden it so that it may bear ex- posure. Naturally the infant mortality is great and the result is shown in the decrease in number of these people, who are — save for an occasional penal colony — about the only inhabitants of this region quite up to the Arctic shore. As the west-bound traveller by train passes from the Maritime Province at Pogranichnaia into Manchuria, he notes the difference between the Russian and the Chinese ways of doing certain things. At this station there are two custom houses, Russian and Chinese. West- bound passengers are subjected to no inconvenience, and if the place is passed at night, the formality of asking if the passenger has any dutiable articles is deferred until morning; but the east-bound passenger is haled out at any hour and made to open every box and bag and ham- per, the contents being strictly inspected and duty levied to the last kopek. After crossing Manchuria and re-entering Russian territory at Man-dju-lie, the west- bound traveller is compelled to conform strictly to Rus- sian ways, no matter if he is known to have come straight through from Vladivostok and had no opportunity to make purchases by the way. Here, again, for the east- bound passenger who is going into Chinese territory, the Chinese customs officers are exceedingly considerate, 80 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA while those who are going right through to Vladivostok are excused from opening their luggage. I mention this to show one phase of the peoples with whom one comes in contact. In Manchuria, there is little to note in the appearance of the people; the ordinary traveller calls them Chinese, and such they are, excepting the increasing number of Russians. Soon, however, there appear the interesting Buriats, who are popular with the Muscovites, many of the settlers and free convicts (the " ticket of leave" men, so to speak) having taken wives from among these people. Whether or not the Russian bridegroom conforms to one of the Buriat customs I do not know, but I very much doubt it; for amongst the Buriats those girls are most sought after in marriage who have already borne children, the more the better, and if by different fathers, still better yet — for this is a sure sign that the young woman is highly esteemed by men. These popular maidens make faithful wives when once they have entered the estate of matrimony. The dress of the Buriat woman is elaborate and pic- turesque. On each side of the face there project from behind the ears wide, flat plates of silver that are skil- fully wrought into artistic designs; the garments evince the usual barbaric fondness for bright colours. The women ride horseback cross-saddle, are expert horse- women, and make better teamsters than do the men, and in this capacity are much sought after by Russian farmers, contractors, and officials. When the time comes that it ceases to be with them after the manner of women, the Buriat dame has her hair cut off short and is no longer considered a wife, even though her husband is still living. She lays aside all her personal ornaments and spends THEPEOPLE 8l most of her time turning a Buddhist prayer-wheel, which has come into vogue since the introduction of that religion. On the periphery of the wheel are written prayers, or "the sacred name of Buddha," and each revolution scores just so many credits to the soul of the person who spins it around. These Mongolian Buriats do not bury their dead ; they simply drag the corpse outside the village limits and leave it to be devoured by dogs and vultures, for being Shamanists, despite the fact that they have professed Buddhism or Christianity, they have a dread of digging in the ground lest they may incur the displeasure of the earth spirits. As a consequence of this neglect to inter or cremate their dead, the ground all about the Buriat settlements and even near their temporary summer encampments is covered with bones, and some of the scenes enacted by these people are most repulsive to all Europeans and even to Chinese. Some of the Russian political exiles who had received the education fitting them for the task, have made careful anthropological and linguistic study of these native Asiatics with whom they have been brought into contact. Most of these Russian students contend that a similarity in physical attributes, language, construction, and other characteristics justifies the assertion that the North American Indians and certain Mongolian (or rather Altaic) races must have sprung from the same parent stock, and that, too, within historic times. Personally, I subscribe to this theory only so far as to admit the probability of a common origin, but I am strongly inclined to accept Count Gobineau's opinion that America was the original home of the yellow and copper-coloured races, who went westward at an im- 82 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA mensely remote period, crossed Behring Strait into Asia, and may have pushed their way through to Europe about the time that that continent was emerging from its last glacial covering. Although many papers written by these Russian ethnologists have been read before local (Siberian) societies, and some of them have been printed in Transactions or other journals, it is a pity that so very few of them have been translated into English or one of the European languages with which many of us are familiar.* At some of the small stations east of Lake Baikal, the traveller will occasionally see a man or a woman, and sometimes a whole family, from one or another of the small nations that have their homes in the far north or northeast of Siberia — the Chukchees, the Koryaks, the Kamschadales, the Ghilyaks, or the Tunguses. Rarely, however, is there anything in costume (for nearly all of them adopt a motley mixture of native and European dress, most conspicuously the Russian fur cap and long boots) or physical appearance to mark them distinctively from the rest of the crowd that always gathers to see the trains pass through; and unless one has a fellow- passenger who is interested and competent enough to point out these strangers they will escape notice. It was my good fortune to find several in the train who could do this favour for me. I frankly confess that Kropotkin's comment, " European civilisation has made them familiar with all its worst sides and with none of the best," seemed to me to express facts. Around and in Irkutsk the number of Buriats is great; but so, too, *For further interesting information concerning these Siberian people, especially the Buriats, the reader is referred to " Greater Russia," by W. Gerrare. THE PEOPLE 83 is that of those of mixed Buriat and Tungus blood ; while all through this central section of the Siberian railway many evidences are seen of the free admixture of Russian and Buriat, Cossack and Buriat, so that when wearing the Buriat costume there is nothing to distinguish these half-breeds from the true Buriat. Going still westward, the presence is to be noted of the few who remain of the Ugrian stock (an Ural-Altaic people who at one time must have been very numerous throughout the whole region from the Ural Mountains eastward to the Ob River and southward to Tobolsk) the Ostiaks, the Samoyedes, and the Voguls. With all of these the male Russian immigrant has intermarried freely, and because the union is usually prolific, while the pure stock is not so fertile, it can be but a short time until these indigenes will have disappeared. Throughout southern Siberia, from the European border as far as Lake Baikal, there are yet survivals of people who came from Turkish stock. These, too, are rapidly losing their identity and it would be a tedious enumeration of un- familiar names to attempt to describe the almost innu- merable subdivisions which the strict ethnologist makes of these Turkestan stocks. They have, as a rule, an excellent reputation for industry and honesty. Most of them are cattle-raisers, although many are successful farmers and fruit-growers. In the Central Asia prov- inces of the empire, the Muscovite has not yet materially influenced the habits of the people, nor left a marked impression through intermarriage. The very few com- petent non-Russian travellers who have been permitted to travel in the region, and the fewer yet who have done so surreptitiously and at great personal risk, are fairly well in agreement that the Russians, after effecting con- 84 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA quest, are considerate in their non-interference with habits, customs, and even religion, and display remark- able success in converting those who were once enemies into staunch friends. This subject will receive some attention in a later chapter, when Russian diplomacy is to be considered. The Russian in Siberia may be considered in two ways : first, as to his preservation of individuality, and second, as to the reason for being in that country. Of the first, it may be said that many preserve most tenaciously their own mode of life and are instilling into the natives with whom they come in contact, ideas quite outside of and in advance of their former habit. That this does not often bring admirable results has been admitted by most observers and cannot be denied, although there are exceptional cases. In some of the best agricultural colonies, especially those in the remote east, where Russian families have gone comparatively more than to other regions, the example of the grain and dairy farms has borne good results; for it is not alone from Siberian farms under Russian management that the markets of European Russia, Berlin, and London are now, in part at least, supplied with eggs, butter, and cheese. Then there are the many — by far the majority — of these Russian men who go alone to Siberia where they take to themselves a wife from among the native women. Sufficient time has elapsed since the beginning of this custom, under modern conditions, to enable us to com- ment upon the results. Physically, these are good, for the offspring are usually healthy, if not always industri- ous and desirable citizens. In other respects, the results are, to say the least, doubtful. Usually the Russian husband and father gives up his own language and THEPEOPLE 85 speaks that of the people among whom he has cast his lot; it is wonderful what linguists even these Russian peasants are. The effort of the local priest — and there is rarely a settlement too small or too remote to have its " Father " — to have the children of these mixed mar- riages baptised and brought up in the Orthodox Church is always reasonably successful; for no matter how depraved physically a Russian may become, his super- stition — if nothing else — keeps him a strict and devout churchman. Of the peoples of European Russia it is impossible to write fully because of the restrictions of space, and it is hardly necessary, for all know so much about them. I shall say no more than a little about the Jews. This subject is one that would seem to be new because of the importance of late attached to it by many Americans; and certainly it is an awkward one to discuss without giving offence somewhere. As an American, and one of those whose ancestors came from England nearly three hundred years ago; brought up to respect and uphold the principle of our Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness," I write. Feeling thus, I should like to see Russia afford to her Jewish population the same privileges that she confirms to all the rest ; and yet when I contemplate the position that the United States has taken in a matter which is very similar, I am compelled to admit that we are rushing into an altogether untenable position when we demand that Russia shall grant to American Jews precisely the same rights and privileges that she grants to American 86 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Christians. We disfranchise the negro citizen and we close our doors to Mongolian Asiatics: what lawful right, then, have we to say that Russia shall not close hers to American Jews? Furthermore, I would ask the question: Are we not courting trouble for ourselves by insisting upon the ratification of the Arbitration Treaties in the precise form they now have? In the British Straits Settlements of the Malay Peninsula, there are many pure Chinese who are bona fide British subjects. This is their right by birth, as well as because both their parents were born in those same British dominions. Many of these Chinese are wealthy and influential; some of them are members of the City Council of Singa- pore, some are magistrates, and plenty of others occupy positions of trust and responsibility in the Government. Suppose, now, that we were to ratify the Arbitration Treaties without modification to safeguard the position we take vis-a-vis the rest of the world, and that then one of these Singapore Chinese, just an ordinary workman, not a mere coolie, but still a true British subject, should demand admission into the United States upon the same terms as we accord to any other of the faithful subjects of King George, and that the British Government should support him? Again, let this supposititious case relate to a Mongolian subject of the Tsar of Russia. When the inevitable dispute arose, the question of our right to discriminate between the various subjects of these friendly sovereigns would be submitted to arbitra- tion, and it would be considered by a commission the majority of whom would be emphatically against us. The decision would be that our refusal to admit the British or Russian subject is declared unlawful discrimi- nation. It seems to me that apropos of this question of THEPEOPLE 87 Russia's treatment of the Jews, in particular, when she is alleged to show unfair and insulting discrimination against American citizens, careful attention should be given to the position taken by Senator Lodge, of Massa- chusetts, in his speech of February 29, 191 2, when he made a strong plea to the American Senate asking the elimination from the general treaties of arbitration of the full power given to the High Commission of Inquiry (without intervention of the Senate) to pass upon the arbitrability of disputes. It is quite unnecessary for me to present here the argument of the good and charitable Americans, with whose fundamental contentions I am in perfect accord, who are agitating so vigorously for recognition of Jews' rights which shall be absolutely equal with that accorded themselves; yet there is a very strong Russian side to this consideration and it deserves serious consideration. I regret as much as any man can that Russia continues her long-established policy of illiberality and unfair discrimination against the Jews as a race; yet we must bear in mind that her attitude has undergone no change in many years, and that for ourselves there is now no sudden emergency, except, possibly, an impending presidential election, which calls for prompt, not to say precipitate, action. It is estimated that there are in the Russian dominions more than one half of all the Jews in the whole world, over five millions of them, and it is admitted that the Government of that country is trying to reduce the number, towards the accomplishment of which desire they have enacted laws and enforced regu- lations which are indisputably within their sovereign rights. The Government, that is the Tsar, is acting in conformity with the wishes of all the people, excluding 88 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA only those five million Jews, and if there should come an upheaval and the form of government be changed from an autocratic monarchy to an absolutely repre- sentative republic, one of the few laws the national legislature would leave unchanged upon the statute books is that which excludes the Jews from Great Russia. The Russian objection to the Jew is not based upon religious grounds, for, with all their prejudice in favour of their own religion, the Orthodox (Greek) Church, and with all their seeming arrogance in considering themselves "The Lord's Anointed," the sole upholders of the Faith in the Eastern Empire, and successors in direct descent of the Eastern (Byzantine) Church, they are reasonably tolerant and even broad in religious matters. Only a few years ago the census returns showed that there were in the capital, St. Petersburg, the seat of government and the headquarters of the Holy Synod, churches of the Roman Catholic communion, the Anglican established Church, various Protestant denominations, a Jewish synagogue, even a Moslem mosque, and a number of chapels for the many dissenters from the Orthodox Church. It is true that there has been much persecution of the Russian dissenters and that, at times, the pathway of Protestants has not been an easy one — witness the troubles of the Baptists only last year. Yet the antipathy to the Jew is not because he stands as the descendant and representative of those who slew our Lord. The main reason for the hatred is a personal one. The Government dislikes him because he takes all that is given him, or that he can get, by means that are rarely commendable, and tries his best to evade the THEPEOPLE 89 one chief duty of a good Russian subject, that of being a soldier. In 1874 Russia adopted the same plan which has been followed elsewhere, and made military service universal. This action, of course, forced the Jew into the army; but in twenty-six governments along the western frontier, where the Jews are very numerous, ten of them being in Poland, statistics for the years 1876 to 1883, inclusive, showed that there were in those districts nearly one hundred thousand Jewish deserters. Since then these reports have been discontinued, but it is estimated that fully one hundred and fifty thousand Jews who were called upon to bear arms have failed to appear, or they have made their way out of the country, or for physical reasons (frequently self-inflicted injury) have successfully evaded duty. Almost every Russian, when asked why he hates the Jews, replies to this effect: because they bring nothing into the country; rather they take or send out all they can, and while in the country they make the peasants their slaves and live only for the sake of squeezing money out of everything : they themselves are never and cannot be peasants, producing something from the land that enures to the benefit of the entire commonwealth. It is not alone in America that the cause of the Jew, as directed against Russia, has assumed the proportions and importance of propaganda and concrete action. Much the same thing is to be noticed in Great Britain, where it is even alleged that merchants and manufac- turers are not allowed to send their Jewish employees into Russia; that the Jews in Russia are hindered and persecuted in every way; and, indeed, are not allowed to engage in business at all outside of the restricted districts wherein they are " confined," or in certain 90 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA villages. The Fortnightly Review * gives space to Baron Heyking, Russian Consul- General at London, to controvert this allegation. He declares that the Russian Government places no obstacle in the way of the entry of Jewish business representatives of foreign commercial and industrial firms. Such agents are given a visa by the proper consular officers in precisely the same way as the passports of Christians are endorsed; in both cases the visa being good for six months. One concrete objection to the Jews in Russia is their remarkable fecundity. The rate of increase of the Jewish population is nearly double that of the Slav. There are some interesting comparisons to be drawn between the restrictions on political and social rights which France and her colonies, the United States and her overseas' possessions, the British Empire, and other countries put upon certain classes, and the attitude of Russia vis-a-vis the Jew. There are, truly, but few who are justified in throwing the first stone. Baron Heyking emphasises a point which has been already mentioned: that if Russia should give unrestricted rights and privi- leges to the Jews, the same as are accorded other subjects, the most numerous and most helpless class, the peasants, would be exposed to rapacity; and it is for this very reason that most of the Russian Jews are kept within certain territorial limits. "The restriction does not, however, apply to those Jews who are merchants of the first guild; that is, who are not small traders, nor to persons employed by them, nor to artisans, graduates, or undergraduates preparing for examinations; pro- fessional persons, such as doctors, lawyers, and dentists; * January 12, 191 2. THEPEOPLE 91 and such persons as chemists,* assistants of chemists, mid wives, etc. In the case of all these Jews, who can prove that they are engaged in useful and self-supporting occupations, no limitation exists to the rights of settling in whatever part of the Empire they may choose. Jews may be members of the Duma from any constituency in Russia.^ Only the unproductive, the host of middlemen of all kinds, and those persons who have not qualified for a particular trade recognised by law, are confined to certain territorial limits. These limits are often described as comprising only a small stretch of land, where the Jews are crowded together and have no possibility of earning an honest livelihood. Let us see if this is really the case. Since the time of Vladimir Monomach, Jews have been forbidden to enter Russian territory, but they were allowed to settle in the kingdoms of Poland and Lithuania. It was only on the incorporation of these states into her domains that Russia, in the seventeenth century, acquired a large number of Jewish subjects. They were allowed to remain where they were, but they did not obtain the right to enter Russia proper. Since that time the limits of the territory open to them has been steadily increased. This territory comprises at present twenty-six provinces, with an area of 896,000 square versts (1 sq. v. = 0.44 sq. ml.), a territory which surpasses in size the largest states of Western Europe; it is double the size of both France and Germany; and it is two and one half times the size of Great Britain. It can, therefore, hardly be said that the Jews in Russia are crowded together. Within the same territorial limits dwell forty-four million Christians, a number * Chemists is here used in the sense of apothecary, druggist. fThe emphasis is mine. — J. K. G. 92 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA eight times as large as that of the Jews, without suffering from any congestion. The Jews have, in the course of time, obtained more and more ample rights, and their present position will certainly continue to improve provided they refrain from revolutionary propaganda, and that they identify themselves with the interests of the Russian State as a whole. The only possible solution of the so-called Jewish question in Russia is that the Jews should make, whole-heartedly, common cause with the rest of the population of the Empire. If they do this, the last trace of the restrictions on their rights as compared with those of Christians is bound to disappear automatically." That there is no tangible evidence of this requisite whole-hearted co-operation, the most casual observer who has had the opportunity to study conditions in Russia, must admit. For myself, I must say I failed to discover any satisfying signs of it from Vladivostok to the Polish frontier. I dislike to indulge in remarks which may seem per- sonal, and yet I cannot refrain from commenting upon the appearance of the Russian Jew at home, for it is a subject that is closely related to what has just been written, and what I shall say serves to emphasise the statement that he seeks to keep himself out of the ranks of his Christian fellow-countrymen, to discourage friendly association with them. It is a rare thing when the Jew in every part of the Russian Empire is not distinguishable at a glance. The physiognomy identifies him at once; the long hair is not particularly different from that of many others, but the curious curl that hangs down in front of each ear is distinctly typical and unique. The black alpaca or cloth cap that is set back on the crown of the head and has a long visor is another unmistakable THEPEOPLE 93 sign, for it is quite different from the cap worn by porters and peasants. The Jew sometimes replaces this by a peculiarly characteristic hat. The black gaberdine which recalls Shylock; the almost invariable umbrella (something most uncommon with the true Muscovite) ; and the shabby bag, for the Jewish man in Russia is very peripatetic within the limits put upon his wander- ings and always seems to be going on and on: all these stamp him unmistakably. It is not easy to say which comes first in the Jew's esteem, the Talmud and its ex- pounders, or the gold that he is always seeking. The women and the children, too, are unmistakable, and all these descendants of Abraham are — must I write the word? — dirty; although cleanliness is decidedly not a conspicuous trait of the middle and lower classes in any part of Russia. In conclusion, it may be said that there is some reason for the Russians' dislike of the Jew, and certain it is that most of the statements declaring and denouncing persecution, segregation, and injustice, like those referring to many other subjects — the convict system, for example — have been greatly exaggerated. CHAPTER VIII TEE CITIES AND TOWNS AS an almost necessary complement to the last chapter comes some consideration of Russian urban physical and social conditions, because it is here that one meets all classes of the people and sees something of what are, perhaps, the most interesting phases of society. And first I must, in all frankness, say that for Russia's own sake it would be well if all travellers could, as we did, make their first acquaintance with these centres of population by coming from the East. Es- pecially is this true of the cities and towns of European Russia. To arrive at Warsaw, or even St. Petersburg, after having a few hours before left Berlin, with its broad, clean asphalt streets, its neat and finished ap- pearance, or to make one's way up from Vienna, attract- ive and inviting in every way, to Moscow, brings a shock to one's sense of fitness that it is well to avoid, if possible. The largest cities of Russia have scarcely a decent street among them. When the visitor first makes ac- quaintance with St. Petersburg, the capital, it does not matter from which direction, upon leaving the railway station he finds himself facing one of the great, dusty, dirty squares with which he soon becomes familiar, for they are scattered all over the city; and he is at once confronted by a crowd of cabbies and droshky drivers. THE CITIES AND TOWNS 95 The same conditions, with some allowance for the place, obtain at all the other cities. A very few years ago, the only hackney carriages in Russia were the famous drosh- kies, the smallest vehicle of its kind in the world until, perhaps, the Japanese " pull-man car," the jinrikisha, came to be popular in other lands than that of its origin. There are still many of the droshkies, but the Russian droshky is different from the public cab which goes by the same name in Germany, and they are well patronised by Russians, who seem to be able to stow themselves away in these tiny boxes with a comfort that is incom- prehensible to the stranger. The latter prefers the larger, more comfortable barouche or landau ; and carriage-fares in Russia are one of the few things that are actually cheap. A barouche large enough for four or five adults, or a whole family, within reasonable limits, will take them all to any part of the city for a couple of roubles, or a trifle over a dollar, after the regular bargaining, of course, for, except in a very few reputable shops, one never pays at once what is demanded. When the station porter (a most cheerful, accommodating fellow and, as a rule, remarkably honest) or the traveller himself has arranged the fare, it is astonishing what a quantity of heavy luggage the cabby piles up behind or with himself on the box; trunks, valises, boxes are cared for without any demur or demand for extra pay in a manner that is a pleasing surprise after experiences in other European cities. But whether it is droshky, landau, or barouche, the drivers will all look alike ; they have aptly been described as resembling old women wearing a low-crowned top hat with a wide, much-curved brim, for the long blue dressing- gown that reaches from the neck to the heels completely 96 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA carries out the resemblance. They all seem to have the same mild, sleepy, benignant expression, and the same obsequious, almost cowed manner, as if the knout were still not an unknown thing to them — and I suspect it is not. The thickly wadded gown is worn in all seasons, mid- winter or scorching summer, and is enough to efface all suggestion of proportions, although there is a girdle which indicates about where the waist-line should be. How these men can stand such a garment in sum- mer, is a puzzle, for the heat at St. Petersburg in July and August, despite the fact that the latitude is 6o° north, is sometimes great in the middle of the day, although the air may even then be very keen at night. As there is no strap or cord to pull and attract the driver's attention, there is no way to communicate with him after he is once started; for a pull at his gown cannot affect him, and to poke him in the back with stick or umbrella makes just as much impression as it would on any other feather-bed! You are given time to pack away belong- ings and seat yourself and then, with a "Hold on, in God's name, little father!" away you go. Jehu son of Nimshi would not have been in it, bumping and jolting over streets so bad, that an ordinary country lane in Germany, France, or England would resent the insult of being likened to it. In all the Russian cities the streets are wide and almost all of them shabby. In St. Petersburg they are graded according to their importance and the section of the city, as prospekts, oulitzi, and peroulak, or shall I say boulevard, rue, and passage? but even the peroulak would be called a broad street in any other city of Europe. I do not mean to say that there are no narrow alleys or dismal courts and closes in the Russian cities, for they have their THE CITIES AND TOWNS 97 slums; nor would I deny that Nevski-prospekt, the broad street along the Neva, and some others are, in places, worthy of the name, but they are exceptional. There are now some really fine magasins (stores), but not many, and these are so patently un-Russian that they do not count. The real Russian shop is, as a rule, a pitiful little place. The name of the proprietor, or that of the place (the " Bull's Head" sort of terminology), and the character of the goods, are indicated by those bewildering half Greek, half reversed or inverted Roman letters, which testify to the Greek origin of the Russian literature and religion. The walls are often covered all over with pictures of what is offered for sale, a wise thing, because a terrible percentage of the Russians are illiterate ; coats, gowns, boots, bags, valises, for one, and an equally appropriate selection for others. The variety of styles, schools, and periods in St. Petersburg's architecture is bewildering, and it is small wonder that Miskewickz, the native poet, declares that while human hands built Rome and divine hands created Venice, yet he who looks over St. Petersburg cannot but exclaim, "This city is the work of the devil!" Peter the Great began the work of creating St. Petersburg, in a place of which a Minister of State afterwards declared to Catherine II, when the Tsarina complained of the climate: "What can Your Majesty expect if man pre- sumes to build a city where God never intended one to be, having created the place marked out by Him to be the abode of wild beasts only?" The beginning of the city was in 1703. Since then it has grown far beyond Peter's dream, and years would not be too long a time to stay there if one wishes to study its history and de- velopment, its churches, palaces, public buildings, and 98 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA exhaust the possibilities of its art galleries and museums, besides the thousands of other interesting sights. I dare not begin, for I am so fond of St. Petersburg that there would be no space left for Siberia; and I felt so com- fortable in the spacious, well-arranged rooms of "The Hermitage" that few of the other galleries of Europe appealed to me so strongly. Moscow takes sarcastic pride in three things — at least so it seemed her citizens tried to impress upon me: the largest bell in the world, but one that never was rung; the largest old-time cannon, but one that never was fired; and the vilest streets in Christendom. Yet Moscow has its Kremlin. I noticed that even Russian writers give a capital initial letter to Moscow's Kremlin only; although, as a matter of fact, it is a common noun, and every city in the land has, or had, or might have had its kremlin. It is simply a Tartar word, probably somewhat distorted, and means " fortress." But The Kremlin of Moscow means something more than that. As Hare says: "What the Acropolis is to Athens, or the Capitol to Rome, that the Kremlin is to Moscow." * From far away, as the traveller approaches Moscow in any direction across the level country, the great tower of Ivan Veliki reaches up to identify the Kremlin. At the foot of this tower still stands Tsar Kolokol, "The Emperor of Bells"; only that which we now see is a recast, made in 1733 from the materials of an older bell that the infamous Boris Godunoff had made. By giving the city a bell that weighed 288,000 pounds he thought to atone for the crimes — young Dmitri's murder and many others — that caused the blood to flow, through which he waded to the Russian J-rone; his sole claim * " Studies in Russia," Augustus J. C. Hare. The Big Cannon, Kremlin, Moscow Alexander II Monument, Moscow THE CITIES AND TOWNS 99 being that he had married the sister of the imbecile Tsar Feodor (1584-98), the second son and successor of Ivan the Terrible ; but his lust for power gave excuses in plenty and brooked nothing. As it seemed to be the rule to measure the piety of Russian Tsars and Tsarinas by the size of the bells they gave to the people, Anne, Duchess of Courland and Tsarina from 1730 to 1740 (and almost as bad a lot as Boris!), ordered the big bell recast and added 2000 pounds of metal. Peasants still visit the bell on saints' days and high festivals, just as they go to the churches, as an act of devotion. A fire in 1737 extended to the temporary shed, whence the monster had not yet been removed, and in attempting to ex- tinguish the flames, somebody threw cold water on the hot bell causing it to crack and a great piece to fall from one side. The myth that it was broken in a fall from a proper bell-tower has no foundation in fact. " Icons — pictures covered with metal except the faces and hands — are of Byzantine origin, and all the most ancient icons are the work of Greek artists, who had Russian pupils; it has never been permissible to alter the type. A miraculous icon — and there are many of these — is usually affirmed to be pointed out by a vision, and then to be found buried in the earth, or hanging in a tree; but its miraculous qualities must be recognised by 'the Most Holy Synod,' before it is given to the adoration of the orthodox. The most ordinary icons, however, re- ceive greater veneration than any of the images in Roman Catholic churches." * In the little Cathedral of the Annunciation, in the Kremlin, there is still preserved and shown on great days or upon proper authority, one of the most famous of these icons. It is called "The * Hare. IOO RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Virgin of the Don." It is impossible to see anything more than the metal plates, but very likely it had some- thing to do with the Don Cossacks : it was carried at the famous battle of Kulikovo, 1380, when Dmitri Donskoi gained the first victory over the Mongols; and it was taken out again by Boris Godunoff in 1591, when he defended the city against the attack of the Khan of the Crimea — that was during the reign of Boris' brother-in- law, Tsar Feodor. The Russians tell how the French, under Napoleon, were miraculously blinded when they looked at this icon, the frame of which is of pure gold, and rejected it as being nothing but copper. The Cathedral of the Archangel deserves more attention than I can give it. Here are the tombs of many Tsars, but most famous of all is that of the child Dmitri, of whom I have already written. " Whence art thou that thou knowest not the tomb of Saint Dmitri?" indignantly asks the Russian. The temptation is strong to linger in the Kremlin, about which a whole book could easily be written; to tell something of the Inner Circle of Moscow City, from which the Tartars expelled the Christians when they captured the city; of the Outer Circle that merges off into the suburbs and the country; of the famous mon- asteries near Moscow; of Sparrow Hills where Napoleon had his first view and pretty nearly succumbed to the disappointment caused by the burning of the city, upon whose stores he had counted to supply his army through that memorable winter; but this must be resisted. I must, too, pass over the other cities and interesting towns of Russia in Europe: Cronstadt, Riga, Archangel, War- saw, Odessa, Sebastopol, Batoum, Baku, Kieff, Nov- gorod-the-Great, Nijni-Novgorod and its Fair, Samara, ) THE CITIES AND TOWNS IOl Tula, and other places that are typical of new, industrial Russia, "The New America," as the people themselves call it. I am reconciled to this in a measure, because others have written so much about these places; while of the Siberian towns, not so much has been said and, in their way, they also are very interesting. Cheliabinsk, although not in Asia, is really the first Siberian town that the eastbound traveller by the trans- Siberian Railway will reach, and even before getting there, while passing through the Ural Mountains, there will be many evidences of the transition from Russia in Europe. The derricks of the oil-wells will have a familiar look to the American. Other manufacturing and indus- trial enterprises will be a revelation to all; while the magnificent virgin forests will speak volumes for the future. Cheliabinsk is now an important railway junc- tion and division point, and for Siberia it is an old town, for it was founded in 1658 and was named for the Baskir Cheliab, from whom the land was bought "for a song!" The roads — they cannot be called "streets" — are not even crowned or worked in any way, and of course, there is no sign of macadam or pavement. The houses are all of wood, rough, unpainted, and unattractive, not- withstanding that there is plenty of good building stone right at hand. The churches, too, are built of wood and not painted, but then that is characteristic of nearly all Siberia. The railway station comes nearest to having architectural and aesthetic aspirations of any building in the town. The place already indicates something of what may be in the future ; for there are grain elevators, some large and well-equipped flourmills, and a distillery of vodka. Immense numbers of sheep are slaughtered annually, 102 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA and their hides are tanned and tallow tried out. Fairs are held twice a year, in May and October, which are attended by great numbers of people of all sorts and conditions. The most important thing to be said about Cheliabinsk is that it is the place where all Russian emi- grants going into Siberia must register. This statement will tend to confirm what is said elsewhere about the absolute necessity for even a Russian subject to have a passport before he can move from one place to another. As this registration is a matter of great moment, these emigrants are detained for some time, and there are, therefore, great barracks, large and well-equipped hospitals, and stores for their accommodation and service; while the offices, the official residences, and the quarters for the troops who act as police, give to the locality an air of importance greater than it really has. I inferred from what I had seen all through Siberia, whenever we met trains of emigrants, as well as from what was told me, that the physical examination at Cheliabinsk is very superficial. In the summer there are crowds of these emigrants from all parts of European Russia, and some from beyond the empire. They are interesting ethnologically, but not in any other way. At Cheliabinsk, the railway which comes a little more direct than that via Moscow, from St. Petersburg, the one by the way of Ekaterinburg, joins the main line. It was originally contemplated building a system of Siberian railways which should link together the great rivers of that country and thus accomplish a joint service. The first of these links was the railway from Ekaterinburg to Tiumen (still a trade centre of some importance) on the Tobol River. Reference to a map of Siberia will enable the reader to follow the details of this plan. The great THE CITIES AND TOWNS 103 basins of the Ob, Yenisei, Lena, and Amur rivers were to be connected thus, the line passing some distance north of the present trans-Siberian Railway. For obvious reasons — mainly meteorological — this scheme was promptly abandoned. The route finally decided upon opens up, almost entirely, new country and, therefore, does not follow the old post road. It does not seem to make any special effort to connect towns that were established when the line was built, and as Gerrare says, " there are villages and towns on the route, but as it was not for them the line was constructed, the stations are so far distant that it seems a mockery to name them after the settlements. In fact the stations, like the sidings, are made at regular intervals, and the propin- quity of a town appears to be accidental." There is somewhat of literary license about this reflection. Petropavlovsk is the next town of importance, yet the traveller by train really sees nothing of the place, because the station is not placed at a convenient point, but several miles from the centre of the town which can be dimly seen across the level country. There is not much lost. Omsk, a division point of the railway, is still a place of much importance as a trading centre and the chief ad- ministrative town of the steppe region. There is an old gateway of some antiquarian interest, and in the church hangs a banner which was carried by the famous explorer Yermak. Dostoievski, the author, has given an account, most popular with Russian readers, of the old prison. He calls it "The Dead House," and therein he served four years at hard labour. One of his fellow-exiles was the poet Durov. Remembering what has been said of the rough, unfinished, unkempt appearance of all Russian towns, which Omsk shares fully, this place has the look 104 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA of an active, " hustling" town of western America. The railway bridge across the Irtish River is a structure which does credit to the builders. In the vicinity are seen many of the rough windmills that the settlers use. Tomsk is an amusing example of what has been said of the disregard of already existing towns when laying out the railway. Although it is now the capital of Siberia and the main line could easily have been deflected so as to pass through it, Tomsk is forty-eight miles from Taiga Junction, and is reached from there by a branch line. The place has a population of nearly 100,000 and is a typical Siberian town. It is an important official place, but besides being that it has considerable trade and there is reasonable ground for the demand for further facilities for exploitation. Personally, I do not share the pessimism which contends that there is no probability of continuing the Ekaterinburg- Tiumen railway line on through Tobolsk Province, by way of Tobolsk City and Kalpasheva to Tomsk. The agricultural and cattle-raising possibilities of the district which would be served by the line are already quite sufficient to ensure a satisfactory return on the cost of construction and maintenance, and they can be greatly expanded. I grant that it is south of the present railway that the industrial and agricultural prospects are more encouraging to railway development: the farming districts are surer, and the rich gold-fields will certainly be worked to a greater output than has yet been. Krasnoyarsk is an old town, for Siberia, dating from early in the seventeenth century. It was a "boom" town, some years ago after Captain Wiggins made his way by the North Sea Passage to and up the Yenisei River, crossed by the railway here. For a while THE CITIES AND TOWNS I05 it was thought that Krasnoyarsk had a bright future, but that is now one of the "has beens." The scenes along the river, the great floats with their enormous steering oars, the bridge of boats, and the evidences of a still considerable lumber trade are interesting. Irkutsk is one of the most important division points on the whole trans-Siberian Railway. The station is large, handsome, convenient, well lighted, and equipped with an excellent restaurant. As all passengers must change here, whether east or west bound, those going first class in the luxurious trains de luxe, the second or third class who put up with the modest passenger or post trains, as well as immigrants, herded in box-cars, almost like cattle, these attractive features of the station are decidedly popular. Outside, in the yards, engines of every descrip- tion are to be seen and carriages, goods vans, and every kind of "car." As I saw the big engine, double-com- pound, ten-wheels, six foot drivers, walking off with a train of fifteen long, heavy, compartment carriages crowded with passengers, I smiled to myself at the state- ments I had read about the wretched roadbed, the flimsy rails, and the inadequate rolling-stock! It is customary to speak and to write of Irkutsk as being on Lake Baikal, at the southern end of the lake; but this is not strictly correct, for the town is on the left (north) bank of a small river, the Irkut, just where it is joined by the Angara. The station actually on the lake shore is called Baikal, and the intervening distance is forty miles, yet from the bluff behind the station at Irkutsk and from the top of any lofty building in the town, across the river, the lake can be seen. To get from the station into the town a long bridge has to be crossed, and as there is a draw near one end, 106 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA it is well for the traveller, who visits the town during the long wait of all trains, to give himself plenty of time to get back, for if the draw is open, to negotiate the river in a boat is a matter of indefinite time, it may be, an hour or two. Irkutsk is well said to be the largest and most characteristic of the Siberian towns which owe their existence to the convict or exile system. It has many large shops, well stocked with European merchan- dise of all kinds, and goods are sold at prices which strike the passenger as being most reasonable for "the wilds of Siberia." There are hospitals, "homes," and many other philanthropic institutions, an attractive and interesting museum, a good public library, "scien- tific and learned" societies, and sundry gathering-places which come as near being "clubs" as the government tolerates. The streets, however, are abominable, being absolutely unmade in any way; one day, a quagmire, while the next, maybe, ankle-deep in dust. Where there are sidewalks, they are likely to be treacherous plank-traps to catch the unwary, and each property owner who in- dulges in this luxury pleases himself in the matter of determining level and grade — so that "up hill and down dale" correctly describes the motion of the pedestrian. Some of the churches, and there are many, of course, are richly supplied with decorations given by the faithful. A few years ago Irkutsk had an evil reputation because of the character of those frequenters who had come back flush from the gold-fields; but those conditions have been changed for the better — although the best that can be said for the place would not attract the stranger to make a lengthy stay. One serious deterrent is the hotel problem. There is no hotel that is really good; THE CITIES AND TOWNS 107 all are expensive, and at least a mile and a half from the station, with those impossible " streets" intervening. After leaving Irkutsk there are but few places which deserve special mention until the end of the railway is reached at Vladivostok. Verkhne-Udinsk is said to be a possible rival of Irkutsk, because it is on the Selenga River, which is navigable all the way into Mongolia; and it is even contemplated building a railway from this station via Kiahkta across the Gobi desert on to Peking; but that, I fancy, is a dream of future possibilities. Chita is a place of some importance, chiefly noted for the number of religious exiles, especially Dekabrists. One of the principal thoroughfares is called Damskaya, " Ladies' Street," to do honour to the faithful wives who insisted upon following their husbands into exile. Just east of Chita the old Siberian Railway diverges to Stret- yinsk at the head of Amur navigation on the Shilka River, whence the journey was continued via Blagoves- chensk to Khabaroff, at the mouth of the Usuri River, and there the Usuri Railway was taken into Vladivostok. The Russian frontier town, Mandjulie, need not detain us. From a point east of this station a military railway was built southward to the frontier of Inner Mongolia, and this may be reconstructed as a permanent line and projected on to Kalgan and Peking. There is not much to say of Harbin, or Kharbin (more properly, Kharbilin), the junction with the line south to Chang-chun, where connection is made with the Japanese system to Tairen (Dalny) and Port Arthur. The most unique thing at this place is a large Russian (Orthodox) church improvised from a number of Chinese buildings. Harbin is an important military post. Nominally, it is the headquarters only for the guards 108 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA whom Russia (and Japan in the southern part of Man- churia) is by treaty with China allowed to have for the protection of her railways. The line across Manchuria, east to west, is 920 miles long; that from Harbin south to Chang-chun is 147 miles. The number of guards is supposed to be limited to fifteen for each kilometre, or 1708 for the entire system. Yet Russia keeps in Man- churia four brigades of fifty-five companies each of infantry and cavalry, and a company of artillery — altogether, about 27,000 troops. The town is said to make an effort to be very " giddy," with an open-air theatre, band concerts, and various frivolities in what was once the private garden of a Buddhist monastery; and there are, besides, regular theatres, vaudeville, and all kinds of kindred entertain- ments. Four years ago, Harbin had eight flourmills with a daily capacity of over 8000 barrels. These were built in 1904 to provide bread for the soldiers during the Russo-Japanese War, and with the end of that war the extraordinary demand for flour ceased; therefore, the mills are now an unprofitable investment. It is said that American millers are negotiating for these properties with a view to supplying the wants of the Far East. Three miles west of Old Harbin (the place just described) is Harbin Quay, on the Sungari River; and another place, Sungaria, the present terminus of the line from Chang- chun. This last is likely to be the most populous and thriving of all the Harbins, for it is the best business centre in northern Manchuria. Vladivostok is the most important town in all Siberia. The harbour was first entered by Europeans in 1856, when the British warship, Winchester, came there, looking for the Russian Pacific fleet. "The Golden Horn" of THE CITIES AND TOWNS IO9 Peter the Great's Bay was christened "Port May," yet it was not occupied by Russians until i860. From the land side Vladivostok, "The Sovereign of the East," was first settled by some traders from Nikolaievsk. It is the residence of a Governor- General, an Admiral of the Fleet, a full General of the Army; and ecclesiastically it ranks very high as a diocese. The town wanders and scrambles most irregularly along the slopes and over the tops of several hills that skirt the shore of what is, undoubtedly, one of the finest harbours in the world; and the place is, naturally, most picturesque. The streets are badly cared for, although there are a few patches of pavement; but here, as else- where, throughout the Tsar's domains, the person who ventures into a carriage is promptly made to realise that he has taken his life in his own hands, or, rather, has entrusted it to those of the droshky driver. The place owes its size and importance entirely to the Russian Government's determination to make it a fortified post — impregnable, they believe it — with navy yard, docks, etc., arsenal, coast defences, and forts and barracks in every direction. There is a good deal of small business done, and there are many large and well-stocked shops; yet, after all, there is an appearance of artificiality and lack of permanency. The actual export and import trade, measured by standards applied throughout the world, is insignificant and cannot well be otherwise, since there is comparatively little hinterland to be supplied or to furnish exports; and the dependent population is sparse and wretchedly poor. One sees more brick and stone edifices at Vladivostok than in all the rest of Siberia combined, and some of the buildings, the cathedral, for example, make no mean IIO RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA pretensions to architectural beauty. The visitor, whether he comes from the west or the south, will be agreeably surprised by his first sight of "The Sovereign of the East." Yet all that there is of beauty, strength, and permanency is due, not to Russian, but to Chinese contractors and labourers. This is true of even some things which one would expect the army or navy tech- nologist to guard most jealously. As an evidence of the truth of my statement, I was assured that in the shops of the navy yard and fitting-out station, for one Russian employed, there are ten Chinese. Vladivostok is a mongrel town in many respects. It is neither truly Russian — for in some things it is too substantial — nor wholly Chinese — for the Chinese have adapted themselves to circumstances and changed their own mode of building and living. Japanese influence may be ignored. Truly, as Gerrare says: "It is a much- governed town. In addition to the Military Governor, it has a Commandant of the fortress, a Port Admiral, the Admiral of the Fleet in the Pacific, a Harbour-Master, a Director of Customs, and an Immigration Agent, Mayor, and others, each with a separate jurisdiction. " I have not, in this chapter, gone off the beaten track of the railway along which nearly all visitors will travel. Besides the few towns I have mentioned, there are many others in more or less remote regions, some of which may be alluded to in other chapters. The Amur valley towns are well worth visiting by all ; and for those whose personal interests lie in that direction, the mining towns and industrial centres possess attraction. But it must be said, by way of caution, that many of these places cannot be visited by strangers who have only the ordinary or even the special passport of their own government, no THE CITIES AND TOWNS III matter how properly it may be visaed. Special permis- sion must be given by the proper Ministry at St. Peters- burg, and this must be endorsed by the Governor- General of the government or province, and again by the local authorities. CHAPTER IX BY POST AND PASSENGER TRAIN ACROSS ASIA AND RUSSIA WHEN we decided to try the experiment of crossing Asia at about its widest part I wrote to the Agent of the Russian Volunteer Fleet at Tsuruga, Japan, for information, and to ascertain if the long journey by train could be broken day by day, in order to secure quiet nights at hotels. I must explain that the steamers which connect the trans-Siberian Railway, at Vladivostok, with Japan at either Tsuruga or Nagasaki, and with China at Shanghai, are owned by the Russian Volunteer Fleet, a company that is nominally a private corporation, but, as a matter of fact, merely another of the many branches of the Russian Government's extensive plan for exploiting its own country and trying to bring about satisfactory communication with other lands. Although there is a Japanese line of steamers between Vladivostok and Tsuruga, and between Vladivostok and Nagasaki, while, of course, the connections with Tairen (Dalny, near Port Arthur) are all Japanese, it is the agent at Tsuruga of the Russian line who is empowered to book passage, visa passports, etc. He it was who recommended us to take the post train, and he assured us we should be quite as comfortable as in the express train; a statement which, all things considered, was most satisfactorily borne out. TRAIN ACROSS ASIA AND RUSSIA 113 The trip of which I am about to tell was made in the month of July, 19 10, five years after the end of the Russo-Japanese War. At that time the control of the southern two thirds (about) of the railway from Tairen to Harbin had passed into Japanese hands. We might, had we chosen to do so, have gone from Nagasaki to Port Arthur, then by Japanese train to Chang-chun, where we should have been compelled to change into a Russian train, and at which point connection always meant a long delay. Often there was no connection at all, thus necessitating a stay of nearly a day at a most expensive and far from satisfactory hotel. From Chang- chun to Harbin we should have travelled by Russian train, said to be the poorest in equipment and service of the entire Siberian system. At Harbin, we should have made no connection at all with the train we did take from Vladivostok, and again should have been compelled to put up with even poorer hotel accommodations than at Chang-chun. Or we could have gone from Nagasaki to Fusan, Korea, through Soul, of course stopping over a day or so to see that capital, and then up through Korea to the mouth of the Yalu River and by way of Antung in a Japanese train to Mukden, where we should have made connection with the main line, Tairen to Chang-chun and Harbin. I use the word "connection" with due Asiatic and Russian limitation, and not in the sense it conveys to our minds when we speak of our own trunk lines of rail- way. Once in Russia, and then all the way to the Far East it is: "If the station master saw fit to send off the train an hour ahead of time, why should you worry? There's another train to-morrow!" or, "You say you cannot get places for yourself and family? Well, then, 114 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA take the next train, to-morrow. Meanwhile, go to a hotel and make yourselves comfortable!" I mention these alternate routes in order that my readers may know what are the possibilities which this trans-Siberian Railway offers. To a man travelling alone, or men and women travelling in company — most preferably multiples of four — I recommend trying the experiment of going south from Harbin, to stop over at Chang-chun, in order to go to Kirin, the ancient capital of the Manchus — it is well worth a visit — and again at Mukden, so as to see something of what that famous city and its neighbourhood have still to show of the old Manchu life. Thence, by the Mukden-Antung- Wiju-Pienyang line, to Soul. This line traverses a sec- tion of Manchuria made famous during the China- Japan War of 1894-5, and in Korea it passes through magnificent scenery. To be sure, Soiil is no longer a capital city, and under Japanese administration is fast losing its Korean characteristics, without gaining any- thing to compensate the loss. Still, there is something left that will interest the tourist, and from the city it is possible to make the few excursions that offer reward commensurate with the fair amount of discomfort entailed. From Soiil to Fusan is another section of interesting railway. The crossing of the Japan Sea to Shimonoseki is now a matter of but a few hours, and at Shimonoseki the traveller gets a through sleeping-car to Tokyo without change, and European dining-cars at proper intervals, when one does not go all the way. I am writing for the passenger whose Far Eastern objective point is the Japanese capital, and if he has had reasonable luck he will arrive in Tokyo thirteen days after leaving London, TRAIN ACROSS ASIA AND RUSSIA 115 and he will find the journey from New York has cost him less than to cross our continent and then the Pacific Ocean. The tourist, just to see what is to be seen, had better make this journey to Japan, and then go back to China; for if he goes from Harbin to Tairen and Port Arthur, and then to any Chinese port, he misses all the Korean section, and that would be a pity. After having seen as much of Russian cities and towns, and of Siberia as he will have done, there is no great reason to regret missing Vladivostok. The first step in preparation for the journey was to get, through the nearest American consul, a passport from the Department of State, Washington. This document is imperatively necessary now to gain admis- sion into any part of the Tsar's domains, and even it will not be sufficient to open the gates to certain parts of what are claimed to be " Russia." I speak from precise knowledge when I say that our ordinary passport, the one which merely asks permission to let the bearer travel freely and to give him " lawful aid and protection, " will not carry an American, even if he is not a Jew, into many parts of Central Asia where the Russian authority is not yet absolutely established and where, as in North- ern Manchuria, the Muscovites are distinctly trespassers. I doubt very much if even our extraordinary passport, the one that invokes permission "to pass freely without let or molestation, and to extend such friendly aid and protection as would be extended to like citizens of foreign governments resorting to the United States," and which is rarely issued to the ordinary traveller, being reserved for Government agents or specially influential citizens, would open some of the gates in the Caucasus, or secure freedom to travel in Transcaspia, and that region. Il6 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Strange as it must seem, it was and is quite as necessary for an alien to have a passport properly endorsed when he wishes to leave Russia as it always has been to get into that country. I know that at the time of my first visit to Vladivostok, not a word was said about passports when we arrived; but the steamship officials would not let me book the return passage until the proper Russian official had stamped our passport with the statement that there was no objection to the American citizen with his wife and child leaving Russian territory. To be sure, Vladivostok then (1899) was a "free port"; it was made a "closed port" the following year, and conditions are now different. While on this subject of passports, it may be of interest to say that our diplomatic representatives abroad, ambassadors and ministers plenipotentiary, are author- ised to issue passports, and usually these are recognised fully in the few countries wherein such relics of antiquity are still demanded; but it is always better to have a passport signed by the Secretary of State and bearing the great seal of the United States. It has much more potent effect than does an embassy or legation passport : and unless there is absolutely no probability that the different members of the family will be separated, it is much wiser for each adult to have his or her own in- dividual passport. In the case of a family comprising let us say, father, mother, and two minor children; if the visit to Russia is purely for sight-seeing, it is not likely that the father will go away from his family, and in such a case, one passport is sufficient for all, great care being taken to give full information about age, sex, etc., of the children. But if the visit contemplates business investigation, and there is even a remote possibility of TRAIN ACROSS ASIA AND RUSSIA 117 the father going away from the others, even for a day or two only, by all means let him have his own individual passport, and let the mother have one for herself and the children. I have heard of a woman being placed in a most embarrassing predicament because her husband had gone away from her into the country, taking with him the family passport. During his temporary absence the wife had been called upon to show her passport, and this may happen at any moment in Russia. Having none, of course, there would have been dreadful complica- tions, but for the friendly offices of diplomatic or consular officials. Another and equally important matter is the visa — the certification by a Russian ambassador, minister (and let not any of my readers confuse this " minister " with a " clergyman, " as I have known some to do!), or consul at, usually, the nearest point to where the frontier is to be crossed. This is imperatively necessary, as the formality attests the validity of the document and grants permission for the bearer to enter Russian territory. Upon settling down at hotel or pension, the proprietor will see to it that all formalities are complied with, and the necessary permission to go from one place to another or to leave Russia when the time comes to depart, is procured: but while the passport is in the possession of the " bearer" (when he is remaining over night, or longer, in one place, it is held by the police), let the document always be ready for inspection by any uni- formed official who sees fit to demand it. In my correspondence with the agent at Tsuruga, I had said that we were in no haste, but were desirous of seeing as much of the country and the peoples as possible. This inquiry brought the suggestion that we travel by Il8 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA the post train; one leaves each day. To do this we should be compelled to take with us blankets or rugs, pillows, sheets, etc., and to provide ourselves with a sizable lunch-basket containing plates, knives, and forks, spoons, teapot, cups, and saucers, bottles for milk and drinking water, and all sorts of things required for " light housekeeping" during the journey of fifteen or sixteen days. The agent very kindly told me that we could take into our compartment a good deal of luggage, for the overhead racks were wide and strong; and we found this to be the case, some of our fellow-travellers having good-sized steamer trunks, large baskets, huge portmanteaus, and enormous rolls of bedding. The expense by taking this train and travelling second- class was only about one third of what it would have been in the express train, again second-class; while the opportunities afforded for association and investigation were decidedly more than three times as great. I must say that the " second-class " does not, by any means, imply inferior accommodation and objectionable com- panions. Our fellow-travellers were always clean, neat, and friendly, and the railway carriages were quite as well cared for by porters as are the second-class or first- class trains. I cannot imagine myself as travelling by any of the express trains, after our experience in the post and passenger trains of the trans-Siberian Railway. I grant that time is saved by taking the express, if two or three days count for anything in such a journey; also that personal convenience is subserved because of the relief from the necessity for providing oneself with bedding, lunch-basket, etc., and that the language difficulty is reduced to an almost vanishing minimum, because among the attendants on those express trains TRAIN ACROSS ASIA AND RUSSIA 119 or the waiters in the dining-cars, there is always someone who can speak at least a little of every known tongue of Europe, and perhaps more besides! Yet even so, I strongly advise even the express train traveller to provide himself with a Russian-English phrase-book, and with his own tea-drinking outfit, that he may be able to take advantage of the opportunities offered " between meals" to indulge himself with a tumbler of the tea that is as good as can be found anywhere in the world. The usual cup is replaced by a glass and there should be a small saucer to carry slices of lemon, procurable at the " buffet" (pronounced as spelled) stations, and adding so much to the sweetened, rather weak, milkless tea which the Russians enjoy. Our preparations being all made, the initial stage of our journey was by Japanese train from Kyoto to Tsuruga. Here, altogether for the sake of appearance, we were " first-class"; because we felt that from the windows of a " second-class " carriage we could hardly wave goodbye to the Japanese officials, educationalists, Buddhist prelates, and a host of American and European friends who kindly and graciously came to see us start. At Tsuruga, a good deal of time was consumed in getting the visa put on our passport, and securing steamship tickets to Vladivostok, so that it was nearly six o'clock in the evening when the agent invited us to get aboard his launch to go off to the steamer lying at a buoy half a mile from the pier. Once on board, we became second- class passengers, for at that time there was no first-class carriage in the post train, and if there had been, we should not have taken it. As the steamer was to connect with the semi- weekly express train, we had several passengers for it, but since these express trains have first- and second- 120 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA class carriages only and even those second-class passen- gers are allowed to travel first-class by the steamers, none of them were in our end of the ship. Our fellow- passengers were either local, or, like ourselves, going by the post train. Our cabins were thoroughly comfortable in their appointment, but at that season of the year they were very warm until we were well away from the coast of Japan, and being right in the stern, of course we felt the motion very much. The food was excellent and there was plenty of it, although the meals were not always served at hours which conformed strictly to our habit. The language problem asserted itself at once, for the second-cabin steward knew nothing but Russian, and as some of our fellow-travellers, Russians who spoke either English or French, told me, even his Russian was of a very poor quality and he could not read, so that my phrase-book was of little use. We conversed by signs and there was not much said; still we managed to get along very well. The voyage began promptly at 6.30 p.m., and early the second morning we were steaming slowly through the inevitable summer fog off the entrance to Vladivostok harbour, but we were not detained long. There was a farcical quarantine inspection just after getting into the inner harbour; then our passport was returned, our luggage was examined, for as I have said, Vladivostok had ceased to be a free port of entry. This examination, too, was somewhat of a farce. The steamship pier is rather a long distance from the railway station, and both are quite at the wrong end of town for shopping or sight- seeing. I was not the least surprised when the uni- formed and licensed porters demanded nearly treble the o u O w u <: j H as < TRAIN ACROSS ASIA AND RUSSIA 121 proper fee for carrying our luggage to the station, and it was quite easy to bring them to terms. We had all day to wait, for the post train was not to start until evening, and we made good use of our time. Listening to the blandishments of the agent of the International Sleeping-Car Company and foolishly dis- regarding the advice of an English official of the Russian Volunteer Fleet, we took our railway tickets from the former, who was not a Russian, and were promptly swindled out of five roubles, commission. Now, this agent had assured me, both while we were still on the steamer and later, when we were at the railway station, that it would not cost us one kopek more to buy those tickets from him than at the station. I demurred at this commission ; but with a shrug that sent his shoulders nearly to the top of his head, the agent asserted, "But I must live!" I did not dispute that point; I knew the five tickets had been dated, punched, and defaced, so that he would have a lot of trouble if I rejected them. I let him keep the five roubles (about $2.60), but I told him it would be a dearly earned commission; and I am happy to say I have been able to keep my promise. I try (and I have been successful) to keep my friends and acquaintances out of the clutches of the International Sleeping-Car Company. Our consul very kindly secured for us a courier who, although an American citizen, had been born at Vladi- vostok and had not yet seen his own country. He spoke Russian, yet none too well, I discovered, but when we were at the restaurant for luncheon, it was I who acted as guide and interpreter for him when French or German was the medium of communication. But of Vladivostok this is not the place to speak. That city, 122 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA with other Siberian towns, has been mentioned in another chapter. Boarding a train of the Siberian Railway is not alto- gether such a simple matter as is the same sort of thing in our own country. In the first place, that inevitable passport must be shown in order to get tickets and again before the train starts. These formalities are gone through with in the case of Russian subjects as well as in that of foreigners. No one is allowed to travel freely without official permission. Then the getting of seats is a task of no mean proportions. Fortunately, we were well cared for in this respect, having two acquaintances who knew all the ropes, one of whom was indirectly connected with the railway service and could act with some official authority. These two friends engaged a couple of porters and gave them five pieces of hand- luggage. The porters stationed themselves at the door of the carriage as soon as the train was brought to the platform, and held their places despite all efforts by other intending passengers to displace them. The moment the door was opened they took possession of an entire compartment — that at the rear end of the carriage — and refused to let anyone sit there until we were in with all our belongings. Having four full tickets and one half-ticket, we were entitled to five places, and inasmuch as the cars for these trains that go a long distance are divided into compartments, in each of which no more than four passengers are permitted to sit (unless, as in our case, one small child is of the party), we filled ours, and when once in possession could bid defiance to anyone who attempted to intrude or dispossess us: a right which we were forced to assert very strenuously at once, because a crowd of people were going to a seaside resort TRAIN ACROSS ASIA AND RUSSIA 123 about two hours from Vladivostok. After that we had no trouble. As far as the Russian town of Mandjulie, just after leaving Chinese territory — Northern Manchuria proper — the carriage had open compartments (quite similar to a section in a Pullman sleeping-car) on one side of the aisle, save one shut-off stateroom just in the middle on the compartment side. In this particular carriage there were narrow seats on the other side of the gangway, making what one might call a half -section. Our right to occupy that half-section was recognised by everybody. From Mandjulie to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and from the capital to the German frontier, we had closed compartments in which we could have privacy and fasten the door with a chain on the inside. The seats were athwart, facing each other, and each made a bed; the backs lift up and are securely held in place by strong catches which come out from the framework of the car, so that they cannot fall. Thus, each compartment supplies four wide, long, comfortable berths. A hard pillow is furnished for each berth, but for obvious reasons, it is not well to form too intimate an acquaintance with these luxuries. At each end of the carriage is a lavatory, plentifully supplied with cold water, and — speaking from our experience — kept neat and clean. Beyond are the lobbies, each having a huge stove, and then the platform. The carriages, as will be understood, are entered at the ends only, precisely like our American cars. We made up our own beds and generally took care of ourselves. Our fellow-passengers made some use of the porter, but we were debarred from doing this by our lack of Russian; he was always ready and did sweep the compartment frequently. 124 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA The first morning brought a surprise that continued practically all the way to Europe. Instead of the dreary Siberia that we had expected, we found ourselves amongst tree-covered hills or jogging along over rolling, grassy plains which held infinite possibilities for the stockman. We were then in Manchuria and the Russian railway guards and Chinese soldiers — slouchy, unkempt fellows, these latter — were conspicuous. The construction of the railway told plainly the story of the method which had been followed; haste and false economy having manifestly been given precedence over substantiability and shortness. Instead of cuts, fills, and tunnels, the line wound around even slight elevations and zigzagged across the country in such a way as to arouse in my mind a strong suspicion that the contractors had taken a lesson from their congeners who had built our first trans-continental railway, the Union and Central Pacific, when every extra mile brought a material increase to the land grant. Only in Siberia there was no land grant, the railway being a State affair; but the contractors were paid by the verst and from the imperial treasury; it was, therefore, to their unlawful interest to make the line just as long as possible. This objectionable feature of unnecessary length is being greatly eliminated in the new, double-track line that is replacing the original single-track one. In this new one many curves are straightened; there are cuttings and embankments to aid in accomplishing this, and generally there is an appearance of satisfactory railway construction. We saw a great deal of this new work, most of it between Lake Baikal and the European frontier; and in a few places we travelled over short sections of it. The matter of catering for ourselves had been the cause TRAIN ACROSS ASIA AND RUSSIA 125 of considerable anxiety before actually starting. But all concern speedily disappeared, for the quantity and quality of food offered for sale at nearly all the stations — and we stopped every hour or so — were all that could be asked. The variety would satisfy the most epicurean, and the cost was absurdly reasonable. Cooked meats, poultry, and game; smoked meats, ham, sausage, etc.; delicious bread and excellent butter, creamy milk, fresh eggs, raw or boiled — there was no stint. For the first day, or until reaching Harbin, where he left us, I was well coached by a young Russian who spoke French well, and I learnt the proper prices for all sorts of eatables. At the buffet stations — and we always made long stops at one of these about eight o'clock in the morning, at about one or two in the afternoon, and again in the evening — I had no difficulty, for the one word pachom ("how much?") and a pointed finger sufficed to procure the desired information. But this brings back to my memory an amusing episode that shows, as well as any- thing can, what a curious conglomerate the modern Russian language is. After a few minutes' grind at my phrase-book, I put together the following sentence: "Tree portions rosbif ee kartofel ee macaroni, pachom?" I first submitted this to a friendly fellow-traveller and he smilingly approved. Then I tried it at a buffet station and was entirely successful. The actual result, I may remark parenthetically, produced enough of the three aliments to satisfy five hungry people! Literally translated, the sentence reads: " Three portions roast- beef and potatoes and macaroni, how much?" It will be noted that there is not a single word in the sentence that does not or might not be credited to one of the other languages of Europe; for even the seemingly Russian 126 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA word pachom is closely related to a modern Greek word having the same meaning. This conglomerate aspect of the Russian language struck me forcibly at all times. So many things that have been introduced in recent times retain their foreign names, just a little Russianised to make them easily pronounced: graneet, shahkahlaht, bank, kapeetahn, beelet, bagaKsh, kahndooktara, platzkart, and hundreds of others need no translation. The express trains make but one change in either direction between Moscow and Vladivostok, at Irkutsk near the shore of Lake Baikal, and through passengers are not called upon to submit their luggage to customs examination. This single change is easily made and involves nothing more than stepping from one train to another on a parallel track. Passengers by the post train change, when going west from Vladivostok, at Mandjulie, Irkutsk, and Cheliabinsk, and they cannot reserve places. Therefore, there is something of a scramble, but the porters will usually be able to pre-empt the needed seats, and it is best to trust these fellows, who are thoroughly reliable. I tried another experiment which failed disastrously and brought to us the only successful piece of "bunco" work that was ever practised upon me in Russia. Our train had been held for nearly a day at a small station about eight hours east of Irkutsk, because of a wash-out. We therefore arrived at Irkutsk only an hour or so ahead of the following post train, and inasmuch as it would never occur to a Russian railway official to double-up the connecting train, we knew we were sure to be dreadfully crowded. A Russian army officer who spoke German well, a little French, and a few words of English, asked me to give him our tickets, and he promised to secure for us a compartment. I did TRAIN ACROSS ASIA AND RUSSIA 127 it, and we were beautifully "left." Our five tickets enabled him to secure a compartment for himself and a Russian gentleman and his wife. Our porter was the first to enter the carriage, but not having our tickets he could not hold the fort, and we saw the train go off with- out us. It was a good lesson, and I give it for the benefit of others. Trust your porter; he will take good care of you, and it is a matter of pride with these strong, good- natured fellows to secure the best for their momentary master. After all, this seeming disaster turned out to be rather a good thing. We were enabled to see the town of Irkutsk. We were made very comfortable in the large and clean waiting-room at the station, because the hotels were too far away to risk going to one of them, and early the next morning we reserved our places in the passenger train to Cheliabinsk and there again to Moscow; and before reaching the European border we overtook and passed the train in which was our "bunco" friend, reaching Moscow a day and a half ahead of him. At Cheliabinsk something occurred of a nature the very opposite of what the army officer had done. Among our fellow-passengers from Irkutsk was the president (judge) of the highest court of that jurisdiction. He would not speak French, although he understood that language perfectly, and he had a way of expressing himself in Russian that enabled me to comprehend clearly what he was saying. I took my place in the whip at the booking- office just behind the judge and when he had secured his seat-checks, he stepped aside manifestly to watch over me. I asked for a full compartment and some of those in the line demurred, but the judge rebuked them for such a display of discourtesy to a stranger. The 128 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA ticket-seller declined to change my hundred rouble banknote, and I had not sufficient small money to pay the fees, amounting to six roubles, for four platzkarten from Cheliabinsk to Moscow. Seeing my predicament, the judge instantly put a twenty rouble note into my hand and walked away. After the excitement was over, the booking-clerk changed my hundred rouble note and I returned the loan. That is a sample of the kindness which we generally received from the Russians. All through Siberia the surprises came thick and fast — great fields of grain, thrifty orchards and fruit farms, stock ranches where the cattle were browsing on grasses nearly up to their bellies. Around the little stations, and we stopped at many such, something the expresses do not do, were clustered neat, comfortable houses, not all of them small, and always there was the church. Of the people whom we saw at these stations, of the convicts, and several other topics, I wish to speak in other places; here I confine myself to the railway. The great trans-Siberian Railway is rather an undertaking than a growing together of links. In European Russia, the necessity for affording facilities to the mining enter- prises in the North Ural district, induced the Govern- ment to build the Perm -Tiumen line, and it was then contemplated as a link in the possible railway to the Amur. This line was finished in 1884. I n 1891 the railway was pushed eastward to Cheliabinsk, and in that year, it may be said, the project of crossing Asia with a railway really assumed definite form. Tsar Alexander III instructed the Tsarevitch, when he landed at Vladi- vostok after his unpleasant experience in Japan, where a crazy policeman had tried to kill him, to announce that his august father had given a command to build a con- TRAIN ACROSS ASIA AND RUSSIA 129 tinuous line of railway across Siberia. The inauguration ceremony was performed by Tsar Nicholas II at Pervoya Rechka, a few versts from "The Golden Horn" at Vladi- vostok. Until after the war between Japan and China, the railway was not completed all across the continent. It was to be kept in Russian territory, following the northern bank of the Amur River to Khabarovsk and then go south to Vladivostok. For a long time the eastern terminus of the main line was Stryetensk on the Shilka tributary of the Amur. It was pushed down to Blagoveschensk, and no farther, because after the Boxer trouble of 1900 came Russia's opportunity to wring from China permission to build across Manchuria and down to Port Arthur. Undoubtedly, the adverse criticism of ten years ago was justified. The railway was hastily built; there was a frightful amount of stealing and scamping, and for years it was a very poor light railway. But since 1905 a tremendous lot of good work has been done in rebuilding, and now one cannot truthfully say that the roadbed is so weak as to be unable to bear the strain of heavy trains, or that the rolling-stock is entirely inade- quate to the service. The speed of trains is not great, even now, else the journey would not be so lengthy as it is, but a very distinct improvement has been made in five years, and it is still going on. CHAPTER X TEE WEALTH OF SIBERIA BY this title I mean, of course, the natural wealth of the country. It must be considered, first, as to what Nature has supplied — timber, minerals, and metals, cultivable and grazing regions, and other re- sources of the land; second, the marine products of the adjacent seas and, if there are such, raw materials from inland waters. The timber of Siberia is said to be inex- haustible, notwithstanding that there are unmistakable evidences that the forest areas are not comparable with what they were in former times; and even in historic times, we know that there has been wanton destruction of many square miles of valuable timber, felled just to make the progress easier for advancing armies. Yet we must bear in mind that precisely that same word, " inexhaustible," has been used within but a very few years when speaking of the timber supply of these United States of America; and we all know well that to-day experts are determining with alarming precision the comparatively few years that the existing forests will supply our needs, unless the greatest attention is given to the conservation of timber areas and the re- forestation of tracts that are susceptible of being renewed. In Siberia there is undoubtedly an enormous area that is well timbered; but the trees are rarely so large as are the same kinds in North America. The methods THE WEALTH OF SIBERIA I31 of exploiting the timber industry are the most destructive, and the science of forestry is neither appreciated for what it means for the future, nor understood in the proper way. The nearest approach to this science is that the Russian Government insists upon the preservation of the sources of cheap fuel for manufacturing enterprises and domestic use — wood being the only fuel that can be used in the huge stoves like those of Germany. Restrictions are also placed upon even a Russian free- holder to prevent the wanton destruction of forests and the removing of " protective" woods; that is, such as serve to prevent rivers from cutting into their banks where this involves the loss of arable land, flooding dry tracts of useful land, etc. In such cases, the owner is not allowed to fell trees on his own property without a written permit from the Government. The houses, to be sure, are nearly all built of timber, and this fact would certainly suggest that the lumber industry is an important one. Nevertheless, the char- acter of the lumber used in the houses and all wooden buildings shows clearly that the art and ability of the saw-miller are of low standards. Many of the houses are of the rough or hewn log-cabin order of architecture. The major part of the Siberian timber is that of the coniferous trees; but there are goodly numbers of de- ciduous trees as well, oak, maple, chestnut, and many others. Probably the birch is the most plentiful, and indications justify the conclusion that it is easiest reached and handled, for most of the railway cross-ties are cut from this tree. The birch is supposed to supply the best material for paper-pulp; and already a beginning has been made in this industry, although it is yet in its infancy without much likelihood that it will soon get I32 RUSSIA IN EUROPE ANDASIA out of swaddling clothes, because the Government is extremely averse to granting to foreigners concessions for industrial enterprises in Siberia, while Russians display no appreciable energy in this or any other practical matter. If competent American workmen, backed by sufficient capital to build and operate mills, could but secure the needed permission, they would surely and quickly make fortunes for all interested. But I have just suggested a serious obstacle in the pathway of would-be exploiters of Siberia's natural wealth, which deserves some special attention. It is the Government (the word being used here in its nar- rowest sense) that stands as the most serious obstacle to the healthy development of the whole Russian Empire; for it is the Cabinet Ministers who indicate the line to be taken by experiments in new enterprises; and over all, whether tentative or matured, they exercise the right to control and to suppress, if they see fit. This right is often exercised most whimsically and arbitrarily. Without the consent of the Government, nothing can be begun or expanded, and when it seems good to the officials to do so — with reason or without — an enter- prise may be checked in its demonstrated ability to expand, or it may be wiped out altogether. Mr. Gerrare has described conditions apposite to my present purpose. I do not care to quote in full all he has to say, but I make liberal use of his statements, because they confirm my own observation as well as my information at second hand. The officials are bound by the laws, by numerous and complex regulations, and by instructions from their superiors, and they not only govern the country, but they rule it. In Russia the mildest expression of opinion from superior to subordinate THE WEALTH OF SIBERIA I33 is law. The tendency is to increase the officials' power, and to reduce that of the composite councils — mentioned in a previous chapter. The authority of the Town Councils has lately been much curtailed, and since 1889 the functions of the communal village administration has been considerably modified and almost set aside by the appointment of more resident district magistrates. In this way the Central Government controls. The State leans towards Socialism, by directly interfering with industries and the regulation of wages, as well as by carrying on manufacturing and other enterprises. It is true, of course, that the Government does not intend to let any taxable commodity fail in yielding revenue; and sometimes this determination is achieved by doing the work itself. Examples of this State interference are not wanting in Russia's past history. Ivan the Terrible would not allow the Moscow merchants to trade without his per- sonal permission; and even after that had been given, those unfortunate merchants must wait until he and his chancellors had bought and sold in every market. The Government is now almost as jealous. It may be that its interference is only an effort to disarm Socialism by adopting as much of its policy as it can exploit with profit to itself. Exploitation by private firms is regu- lated by requiring them to employ State officials. For instance, in a mine there must be an engineer who is assumed to be qualified by a Government degree and who wears the government uniform, yet he is paid by the mining company. If explosives are used, another and different expert must be taken on. There must be, besides, an inspector, an assistant inspector, a superin- tendent of police and numerous policemen, a doctor. 134 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA hospital attendants, nurses, and others, according to the size of the estate and the volume of the company's business. All these must be paid by the mine-owners, although they do nothing, and are, in fact, little more than Government spies. Strangest of all, these private companies are often required to pay the salary, or part of it, of the local justice. In some cases, the company pays all these salaries into the State Treasury, and that department pays its servants. Needless to say, not unfrequently the sum those Government employees receive is not so much as that the company paid; but this is one of the Things Russian. It must be clear to all that this Government inter- ference is a serious obstacle in the pathway of develop- ment. The very industries which may reasonably be expected to contribute most to the financial prosperity of the country are crippled, and at times completely blocked. The iron mines are notoriously unproductive; and the same thing is to be said of copper, coal, and even the precious metals. "The Magnitnaia Gora" is de- clared to be the largest mass of magnetite ever seen; but it has not yet been exploited, although it would be an easy matter to smelt several million tons of pig annually. There is no scarcity of iron ore in the Ural Mountains; the output would depend upon the available fuel. Yet with enormous deposits of good coal and lignite at hand, the yearly quantity of coal mined is less than fifteen million tons, of which the railways take about one third. We cannot, however, hold the Russian Government alone responsible for the failure to develop the mineral resources of the country. Something is to be charged to the apathy of the people and to the absence of healthy THE WEALTH OF SIBERIA 135 competition. The proprietors and lessees of State mining properties do not wish to see any new-comers, and the Government would not lease forest land, from which fuel is to be taken, to any possible rivals of miners, even though its forests were rotting where they stand. Then there are vexatious restrictions due to the land not having been properly segregated and allotted since the serfs were emancipated in 1861, so that the old semi- feudal tenure is still in force. "Not knowing how the land will be divided, and what portions will fall to their share, landowners do not care to improve and exploit land which maybe taken from them," and handed over to the descendants of former serfs. In the Ural region, a good deal of the mining and forest land is leased from the Bashkirs; but these people were permitted to reserve the right to fish in all waters and to have free access to the lakes and streams. Their maintenance of the right-of-way leads to trouble that interferes seriously with the miners' plans. In development and prosperity, the greatest coal and iron field in Russia is that of the Donetz region, in the basin of the Don River, South Russia. Success here was largely due to the few restrictions and prohibitions put upon the work by the authorities, and because all the people were sufficiently liberal-minded as to render what aid they could. In this section particularly, but in others as well, there is abundant evidence that there are great possibilities in the coal and iron industries of European Russia. Conditions being properly considered the same is true of Siberia. The great plateau of Siberia is cut at its edges by great depressions which have been appropriately likened to broad railway cuttings with easy slopes. The streams 136 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA in these depressions have, from an indefinite period in the past, drained lakes and, doubtless, glaciers. Gold- dust is found in nearly all of these broad valleys, as well as in the hills bordering them. Gold-bearing sand has been found in many other parts of Siberia. In the eastern part of the continent, gold is obtained almost exclusively from gravel washings. Quartz-mining is carried on in but three localities of eastern Siberia; one is near Vladivostok and the other two are in Trans- baikalia. In the western part of Russia's Asiatic domin- ions, quartz-mining is increasing and placer-washing decreasing. Something like one million ounces of gold are mined in the various ways throughout Siberia each year. Silver and silver-bearing lead ores are abundant; so, too, are copper, cinnabar, and tin. No one of these has been mined as it should be, and this is due to a com- bination of apathy on the part of people, the difficulty of inducing home capital to invest, and the pernicious interference of the Government, who will not permit foreign capital to be used. Before leaving this subject of Siberia's possibilities as a producer of gold, I com- mend to the reader the account of the " New California " republic in the upper Jeltunga valley, Northern Man- churia, which Mr. Gerrare gives on pages 262 to 263 of his " Greater Russia." Excellent graphite is found in Siberia. Rock-salt is abundant in the Lena valley, in Transbaikalia, and elsewhere. From Omsk westward as far as Tula in European Russia, the traveller is made to realise that the Ural Mountains are rich in precious and ornamental stones, jasper, malachite, beryl, dark quartz, and many other, some of them really gems. At all the principal stations, watch-charms, trinkets of all sorts, and even THE WEALTH OF SIBERIA 137 larger pieces, are offered for sale; and all of them are tempting. At Ekaterinburg there are quite large stone- polishing works; also at Kolyvan in the Altai, and else- where. This industry is growing and is profitable. Altogether considered, it must be admitted that Siberia's mineral wealth is very great. Petroleum is the one Russian industry that has been developed until it showed positive rivalry with the same business in America. As yet the possibilities of Siberia in this line have not been exploited — considering Siberia politically and not geographically, because some parts of the Urals which should naturally be considered as pertaining to Asia, have been producing considerable quantities of petroleum for some time. It is the Black and Caspian Seas oil-fields, Batoum and Baku, which have entered into this rivalry; and it must have been something entitled to respectful con- sideration, for the Standard Oil Company has repeatedly tried to gain a foothold in the Russian oil-fields. Whe- ther this effort has been entirely successful or not, I have no means of ascertaining; yet I have good reason to suspect it has, for in the great consuming districts of the Far East — China and Japan — where successful competition by the Russian oil would adversely affect the Standard Oil Company, there is no indication of disaster to that company. It cannot be the superior quality of the American oil alone that has enabled the Standard to maintain its supremacy, and Russian oil — even when carefully refined — is much heavier than American. Russians declare that there is an agreement between some of their fellow-countrymen and representatives of the Standard, which secures to the latter a monopoly of 138 RUSSIA IN EUR OP E AND ASIA the business by resorting to the usual methods: purchas- ing some of the going concerns and promising properties, securing a controlling interest in others, and starving out other owners who are unwilling to listen to reason, as defined by the giant! There is, however, one impor- tant matter that rather tends to cause a doubt as to the success of the Standard Oil Company, and that is the fact that the Russian Government is opposed to the creating of private monopolies. The largest and best of the Russian oil-fields that have as yet been developed promise to be short lived. The Baku district never covered a wide territory, and it is more than likely to be exhausted in a comparatively few years. The average daily supply from producing wells is diminishing markedly; there are very few " flowing" wells tapped now, and pumping is becoming more and more difficult and expensive. There was, at least, one year when the output of crude oil from Russia's Black and Caspian Seas fields not only rivalled, but actually exceeded that of the United States. In 1899, 2,197 million gallons were obtained; that was 15 per cent, more than the total from American wells. In the Baku district there are something like twenty thousand hands employed, directly or indirectly, in this petroleum industry. Only about a fourth of all these are actually employed in sinking wells, handling the crude oil, refining it, and securing some of the by- products. Of the whole number of working-people, less than one half are true Russians. There are many Persians, Tartars, Turcomans, Armenians, and others from the countries of southeastern Europe and the adjacent parts of Asia. These are willing to work for a very small wage, and these facts deserve careful con- THE WEALTH OF SIBERIA 139 sideration. Yet, bearing in mind what labour really means in that country, man for man, it is probably true that those Batoum and Baku workmen get pay that is comparable with what is given in the United States. Assuming that the Russian Government is entirely sincere in its apparent determination to prevent such a monopoly as there would be if the Standard Oil Com- pany's Russian associates secured control; when the Siberian oil-fields are properly worked and the trans- Siberian Railway double- tracked, there will be a change in conditions in the Far East. With the construction of the railway lines into China, it will be possible to deliver refined oil in the populous Yangtze valley pro- vinces at prices with which even tank steamers cannot compete. As a source of future wealth, the oil-fields of Siberia may have great possibilities. I must leave this interesting subject, of products that are supplied by Nature, without exhausting it; and proceed to consider what the soil may bear in return for man's effort. Climate is such an important factor in determining the character and extent of the agricul- tural resources and products of a country, that this subject must receive some attention. That Siberia has hitherto borne an unenviable reputa- tion in this matter is, in the very nature of the case, entirely reasonable; and there is no disputing the fact that for the greater portion of the year the climate in all parts of the country is extremely severe. Prince Kropotkin and Mr. Bealby * tell us of minimum tem- peratures of-84 F. to-90 at Yakutsk and Verkho- yansk; while at Krasnoyarsk it is— 67 °, at Irkutsk -51 °, at Omsk-56 , at Tobolsk-58 . Verkhoyansk is *Enc. Brit., nth ed. 140 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA on the Jana River, 67 ° north and 133 ° east. It is almost due north of Vladivostok, but nearly two thousand miles from that place. R is the pole of cold in the eastern hemisphere, and naturally is a town that is dreaded by all Europeans who are compelled to reside there officially, or who are sent there as punishment. The rigorous climate of Siberia is due to the physical conformation of the continent: the great plateau of Central Asia, defined by hills that are low when compared with the surrounding country, yet of considerable altitude above the level of the ocean, prevents the moderating influence of the sea air from the east and southeast being felt, while the vast plain lies open to the influence of the Arctic Ocean. It is, however, somewhat surprising to know how high the snow-line is all over Siberia. In the eastern parts, where there are heights up to 10,000 feet and more above sea-level, the snow-line is found only on the Munku-Sardyk, above 10,000 feet. On the Altai Mountains, the snow-line runs about 7,000 feet above the sea. Yet the traveller by the trans-Siberian Railway passes through some of these very towns which have such an unenviable reputation for low temperature, and the trains are really very seldom detained by the snow. When the trip is made in summer it is difficult to realise the winter conditions; for during the long, really hot days of July and August vegetation seems to contradict all the statements about the winter's minimum tempera- ture. Spring comes fairly early all through the Siberian meridional belt, for by the end of April there is evidence of reviving nature in the appearance of many hardy and over- venturesome wild flowers, but in the second half of May come the "icy saints' days," so blighting THE WEALTH OF SIBERIA 141 that it is almost impossible to cultivate the apple or the pear. Yet when this dangerous period is passed, the real summer sets in with astonishing rapidity; for the eighteen or twenty hours of broad and hot daylight are more than able to counteract any ill effects of the short nights, even when they are exceptionally cold and possibly frosty. Wheat is sown all along a broad belt north and south of the railway from Yakutsk eastward to the Manchurian frontier. This is done towards the end of May or very early in June, and the fact that it is ready to be cut in August, speaks for the vigorous char- acter of the summer. One of the most pleasing sights that greet the traveller's eyes is the evidence of this successful wheat-growing. Nevertheless, it is declared by some authorities that in the whole of Siberia's nearly five million square miles, not more than half a million are fit for cultivation. A. Kaufman * says that in the governments or provinces of Tobolsk, Tomsk, Yeneiseisk, Irkutsk, Transbaikalia, Amur, and southern Usuri, there were less than twenty million acres under cultivation. Now, many Russians and some outsiders are more optimistic than this would indicate; and these contend that by careful selection of locality and wise adaptation of crops to local conditions, it will be possible greatly to expand the agricultural resources of Siberia. Such, at any rate, were the state- ments made to me by residents all the way from Man- djulie Station to Cheliabinsk; or the whole region traversed by the Siberian Railway, after re-entering Russian territory. Still, the export of wheat and other grains from Siberia * Russian Encyclopaedic Dictionary, Vol. LIX, 1900. 142 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA has not yet begun. On the contrary, the home produc- tion of cereals does not equal the demand, and much has to be brought in to supply bread to the existing population. At present, the following named may be called the principal grain-producing sections: Tobolsk and Ishmin, Baraba, around Tomsk, and the outlying foothills of the Altai Mountains. The Minusinsk district (south of the railway, between 90 ° and 100 ° east longitude) is one of the richest and most charming sections of Siberia. It has been called "The Switzerland of Siberia." There are more than 45,000 inhabitants, of whom 24,000 are nomads. Over 45,000 acres are under cultivation and yield crops that would satisfy the most exacting. A few words should be added about the method of farming, and most of the statements confirm my own observation, or what was told by fellow-travellers, and residents, with a few of whom I was able to converse at stations. I quote from the Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Tilling is conducted on very primitive methods. After four to twelve years' cultivation, the land is allowed to lie fallow for ten years or more. In the Baraba district it is the practise to sow different grain crops in three to seven years, and then let the land rest ten to twenty-five years. The yield from the principal crops fluctuates greatly; indeed, in a very good year it is almost three times that in a very bad one. The southern portions of Tobolsk, nearly all the government of Tomsk (except those of the Narym region), southern Yeniseisk and southern Irkutsk, have in an average year a surplus of grain varying from 35 to 40 per cent, of the total crop; but in bad years the crop falls short of the actual needs of the population. There is considerable movement of THE WEALTH OF SIBERIA 143 grain in Siberia itself, the populations of vast portions of the territory, especially of the mining regions, having to rely upon imported corn." It will thus be seen that the threatened competition of Siberian wheat with our American crop in the markets of the world is rather a thing of the future than something to be considered seriously now. The wheat belt of Russia is undoubtedly an immense tract; but most of it is in the "black soil" region of southeastern European Russia, below the railway from Moscow to Cheliabinsk, which is the first link of the trans-Siberian fine. This region must be better supplied than it is with railways, and there must be more agricul- turalist settlers before the territory south of Tula and Samara can be properly developed. This land is said by experts to be capable of producing better wheat than comes from the lower Danube valley; and this is de- clared to be equal, if not superior, to the best of the Red River country in North Dakota and Manitoba. The soil in many parts of Siberia is well adapted to wheat cultivation, although there is probably no place that equals the best of the "black soil " which, in some sections, is more than six feet thick. Such land could hardly be exhausted if it were farmed in a sensible man- ner. But throughout the whole of the Russian Empire agricultural methods are yet most primitive. Rotation of crops, if it is understood at all, is not even attempted; fertilisers are rarely used; all that is done to restore the soil, when it begins to show signs of exhaustion, is to let it lie fallow. Perhaps the Russian Empire may come to be a rival of America in the production of wheat and other cereals ; but until the farmers there are encouraged to greater independence, and learn their business better, 144 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA we have little to fear. Strange as it must sound, it is in that very " black soil region, " where agricultural possi- bilities should be greatest, that the most disastrous famines occur and spread their destructive influence far to the north. Another industry connected with the soil, but one that is as yet of very small proportions when compared with others, is bee-keeping. Many of the Siberian natives and settlers are engaged in this as supplementary to other occupations, and a good deal of honey is sent to European Russia, where there is a demand for it ex- ceeding the supply. It will be admitted that there is much wealth for Siberia in prosecuting agricultural pur- suits; but it is evident that methods must be radically changed before this wealth can be garnered to any appreciable extent. I shall content myself with a very brief mention of the source of wealth that Eastern Siberia possesses in marine products. Seal-catching was the most important of these, and one Russian company took some thirty thousand of these animals each year; while many more were killed by " pirates" (unlicensed sealers), who ran their catch into Japanese or Chinese ports. All inter- national efforts to control this industry and prevent the total destruction of the fur-seal have been but partly successful. Whaling, fishing, and kindred pursuits are all profit- able, in varying degrees. The fish-canning industry is receiving attention which grows each year, and is adding a little to Siberia's wealth. Wherever there are Russians, there will be a demand for caviare, and there are found some sturgeon in the waters of Eastern Siberia, so that the local demand is more than supplied, leaving some to THE WEALTH OF SIBERIA 145 be exported from Vladivostok to Japan, China, and elsewhere in the Far East. A good deal could be said about other wealth-producing industries, such as the weaving of textile fabrics, the manufacture of glassware, porcelain, and pottery, chemi- cals, paper, etc. They are as yet almost entirely re- stricted to European Russia. All of these are yielding handsome profits and the enterprises are expanding in volume and increasing in number. Low wages con- tribute much to the profits ; but it must always be borne in mind that a great deal of the apparent profit is abso- lutely fictitious, just as is the case with many of our own "protected" manufactures. In not one of the articles I have named, or any other, could Russia com- pete with other countries in an "open" market. If the prohibitive duties were not maintained, it would be much cheaper for Russia to import pretty much every- thing. Yet with enormous supplies of raw materials, the time will doubtless come when the Russian workman will be able to compete on entirely equal terms with all other comers, just as we can now build steel bridges for Asiatic and African railways, in the very face of European competition. CHAPTER XI COLONISATION QUITE a distinct parallel may be drawn between the incentives which led to and the methods fol- lowed in the colonisation and development of Siberia, and the conditions which existed in North America at about the same time. If we ignore the earlier and alto- gether impermanent efforts of the Spaniards, and begin with Raleigh's first English settlement, at Roanoke, Virginia, in 1585; and then if we accept the Russians' statement that in 1586 really began the attempt to colonise Siberia, the coincidence of dates will strike one forcibly. As has been already stated, immediately after Yermak had effected the conquest of the central Irtish valley — just a little bit of the enormous domain that was ere long to be known as Sibir — and had laid his trophy at the feet of the Tsar, Ivan the Terrible, in 1582, there were numbers of adventurers, hunters, and fur-traders who went into the new country from European Russia. These pioneers were stimulated to adventure by the alluring reports of game, furs, gold, perhaps, and cer- tainly a freedom greater than even the highest in rank could hope for in Greater Russia, for already the people were coming to realise most fully that "the nearer the Tsar, the greater the danger!' 1 May we not find in the motives which led the first settlers to cross the Atlantic very much the same story? COLONISATION 147 But it was not long until a more satisfactory attempt to colonise Siberia was made by sending a number of peasants, in 1586, to settle in the new country and try to develop its resources. Again, the parallel between the exploitation of America and Siberia will be found to continue in the methods employed. Besides the peasants who were properly assumed to be farmers or stock- raisers, or usually a combination of both, there were sent a greater number of soldiers. These latter were handy fellows, who successfully combined in themselves military prowess with a considerable ability to cultivate the soil. In addition, these soldiers, under the direction of their petty officers, attended directly to the collecting of tribute from the natives. They also superintended and took a hand in traffic. The principal occupation of these soldiers was, natu- rally, that of protecting themselves and others from the attacks of the Tartars, who had been accustomed to roam at their pleasure over the broad area stretching, on the east, from the lofty mountain ranges which sepa- rate Siberia and the Russian Central Asian provinces from Chinese domains, westward to the Ural Mountains and the Aral and Caspian Seas. These nomads could not see that any benefit came to them from Russian "protection," which justified the Europeans in demand- ing tribute or required themselves to pay it. They re- sented the intrusion of the invaders, and their resistance asserted itself, at times, most effectively, for they some- times inflicted severe chastisement upon the Russian soldiers and almost constantly harassed the civilian settlers. The Russians undertook to build a line of fortified outposts in precisely the same way that the earliest 148 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA European settlers in North America tried to protect their frontiers from the Indians. In both cases, too, the advance lines of these forts in Asia and those block- houses in America, were never more than a tentative occupation of the land, and oftener by unfair encroach- ment than by just purchase. These outposts were pushed forward, step by step, in both continents. Of America it is unnecessary to say more here; but Russia's audacity may be alluded to again, when I write of Russia in Central Asia. Tara, a place of sufficient importance even now to be called a "city," for it has a population estimated at something like 8000, and a considerable trade in furs and cattle, was a very good type of these early frontier settlements that were originally started to achieve the double purpose of aggression and protection. It is on the Irtish River, 135 miles north of Omsk and 200 miles up the stream from Tobolsk. The place was founded in 1594 and the fort (Russian, ostrog) was originally a rectangular outer structure, 1400 feet long and 1050 feet wide. Beyond its wooden wall was a stout palisade, a sort of cheveux de frise. Inside of the wall, and well protected by it, were loghouses for the subordinate officials and military officers, as well as barracks for the Cossack soldiers and their families. At the centre of this first enclosure was another strong wooden wall around what may be likened roughly to a citadel. It was about 300 feet square, and inside it were the church, the official residence of the Governor (a high-rank army officer, it is needless to say), the powder magazine, the storehouses for government supplies, tribute, etc., the trad- ing post and the canteen, or shop at which the garrison and the neighbouring settlers supplied their wants. COLONISATION 149 Twenty years later Kuznetzk, in the present govern- ment of Tomsk, but well on towards the Altai Moun- tains, was founded, and thus another of these outposts of colonisation came into existence. Kuznetzk is now but a small town of some 3000 inhabitants. It is 205 miles southeast of Tomsk, 400 miles in about the same direction from Tara, and 570 miles from Tobolsk, as the crow flies. In the earliest days of these two posts, one small company of Cossacks was assigned to duty at both, and they were expected to protect the whole of the country between the Irtish and the Ob rivers, a large region known as the Barabinsk Steppe. I may seem to have been needlessly precise in the information given about these two little places, which were among the earliest factors of Russia's advance movement; but they are interesting because they were the small begin- ning of what was soon to become something great. To avoid the danger of repetition, I shall say merely that the Russian plan for building a chain of these out- posts bearing, in direction, towards the south and south- east in Siberia, was thwarted by the Tartars. These natives were soon found to be too numerous and too warlike to permit of the Russians carrying out their plans, for a very long time. Notwithstanding that the forts were provided with cannon and the soldiers bore firearms, the Tartars were quite able to prevent the further intrusion upon their lands of the Europeans for nearly three centuries. It is, of course, this fact rather than anything like deliberate choice which determined, for such a long time, the course of Russian immigration so far to the northward of what is really the most attrac- tive belt of Siberia. The Tunguses and Buriats, branches of the great 150 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Mongolian family and found along the Yenisei and throughout the western central parts of Siberia, refused for a long time to comply with the Russian demand that they admit themselves conquered, place themselves under Muscovite rule, and pay tribute. This opposition proved to be another obstacle to Russian plans and temporarily turned the course of immigration from the upper Yenisei northward and northeastward into the valley of the Lena River and its tributaries. It was not until 1648 that the Russians made their way up the Angara River to its source in Lake Baikal. They crossed, or went round the southern end of the lake, and built an advanced outpost fort at the place now called Verkne Udinsk (already mentioned). \ It is said by some writers that Russia had begun, about the middle of the last century, to feel the influence of those new forces, material, political, social, which had everywhere surprisingly, and in not a few regions alarmingly, transformed conditions, so that the historian will be compelled to take an altogether different stand, when discussing the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from what had been the view-point previously. Because of this change, there had come a feeling in European Russia that increase in population had brought a press- ing need for enlarged opportunities for extension and development. The desire for expansion is, I grant, something that is almost insatiable with most of the Russian officials, the Grand Dukes, the militarists, and others. The idea of development along lines that make for the good of the country and of the whole people, has not yet asserted itself in anything like a satisfactory manner, or even a sensible one. The necessity for colonising COLONISATION 151 Siberia because of congestion in any part of European Russia, either as an existing fact or as an impending probability, I deny unhesitatingly. It is quite true that in Russia, as in every other country, the greatest increase of population has been in the cities; but if the Government intends to relieve the slums of St. Peters- burg, Moscow, Warsaw, and other urban centres, by drawing off the ineffective mass into rural districts, there are plenty of thousands of square miles west of the Urals to be made available before there will be a semblance of necessity for going across the frontier. Census statistics are about as unsatisfactory in Russia, and as far from being up to date, as is any information we can desire. However, making the best of that which is available, the Statesman's Year Book and Almanach de Gotha for 191 2, we have these figures: Aj-ea in sq. mis. Population Population to sq. ml. Russia in Europe including the Baltic Provinces 1,862,524 116,505,500 62.5 Cis (or Northern) Caucasia 85,201 4,820,000 56.6 Transcaucasia 95,402 6,572,400 68.8 Poland 49,018 11,671,800 238.1 Finland 144,000 3,015,700 20.9 It is seen that Poland is the most densely populated of all the divisions of Russia in Europe. Yet when we compare the number of inhabitants to the square mile (238.1), with that of Holland (466), it is impossible to say that any part of the Russian Empire is overcrowded. As an exponent of what an overcrowded population really is, we look to some of the provinces of China proper. It is true that nearly one half of Greater Russia is not fitted by Nature to support a large population; and it 152 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA is equally true that considerable areas of the other sections, by reason of mountains and other physical disqualification, cannot probably admit of any great increase. But to say that because of existing or threat- ened congestion any portion needs to be drained off into Siberia, is ridiculous. Mr. G. F. Wright, in his " Asiatic Russia," divides the stream of emigrants from Russia in Europe into Siberia, in this way. First, there were Cossacks who developed some capacity as agriculturalists, but were chiefly looked to for the protection of the frontier and as a military force to push that frontier still farther forward. It must, however, be borne in mind that the Cossack who turns his hand to farming or stock-raising, and a goodly number of them have done so, evinces a strong disinclination to respond to a call to take up arms and become again a mere soldier. Those Cossacks who have been commended as furnishing the best material in the Russian army are not encouraged to become peaceful, domesticated tillers of the soil. The second class is made up of peasants, either those who are sent as punishment, or induced by the govern- ment to settle at convenient places for the maintenance of communication, trade, or travel. These, like the Cossacks, were favoured by special grants of land and a certain amount of government assistance. They were to be ready, upon payment of a reasonable fee, to serve the interests of all travellers who had occasion to use the post roads. I do not see why the voluntary emi- grants, of whom there is more to say a little later, should not be included in this class. Third, there were the strielitz, or regular troops, who were stationed at the forts which had been built at COLONISATION 153 strategic points. In addition to their duties as warriors, these regulars do a good deal of police work as gens d'armes. They also, especially in Manchuria, where they act as railway guards, perform the duties of signal- men; and at highroad crossings, one often sees a soldier standing at ease, but with fixed bayonet, and waving the little flag which tells the engine-man that the line is clear. In the fourth class are the yamschiks, regular Russian officials, but of low grade, who are charged with the responsibility of maintaining the postal service on lines away from the modern routes, and with keeping a supply of horses at convenient intervals for the use of officials and other travellers who have occasion to make use of this method of travel; but no Russian will go by the post roads when he can, even by making a long detour and wasting a lot of time, take the train or steamboat. It is the successful effort of the yamschik on the Siberian post roads which has made travel so regular, rapid, easy, and economical that, except for the carriage of heavy goods, the need of more expeditious modes of transit has not been so pressingly felt as it has been in most other countries. Two hundred miles a day is by no means an uncommon rate of travel across Siberia, by using the convenient tarantass, or sledge, and securing frequent changes of horses at the regular posting stations. Another class who may be considered as colonists sent out by Government, consisted of free convicts who were placed under a variety of regulations, according to the character and result of the crimes which they had committed. But of these it will be better to speak in the next chapter, Exiles and Convicts. In addition to those colonists who were in these several 154 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA ways under the supervision or patronage of the Govern- ment, there has been from almost the first year in which attention was attracted to Siberia, a large and steadily increasing volume of free colonisation. There have been many reasons for this; from a laudable desire to improve conditions of life, to discontent of various sorts. Some of the dissatisfaction is of the kinds common to all countries ; but much of it arises from conditions peculiar to Russia. In the latter category may be included the dislike to enforced military service for a considerable term of years, the hampering of individual freedom by some of the peculiar regulations of the village communes, the nagging of constant police surveillance, and — above all — the growing conviction of so many Russians that "the nearer the Tsar, the greater the danger." Previous to the manumission of the serfs in 1861, there was a constant stream of fugitives of this class escaping from Russia and making their way by "the underground railway" into Siberia. This was much the same as the efforts of negro slaves to escape from their Southern masters and reach a place of freedom and safety in the Northern States or in Canada. Conditions in the two countries being borne in mind, many of these runaway Russian serfs found people all along the line and in Siberia, as ready to help them as did the fugitive slaves in America prior to 186 1. Yet, when we recall the reputation for vigilance that the Russian police have, and the difficulty for even a native to move from place to place without official permission, it is surprising to learn that thousands of serfs did manage to escape and to hide themselves in Siberia. But the most potent reasons for Russians who could do so to seek escape from European Russia and become COLONISATION 155 free colonists in Siberia, were the religious persecutions during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and the first part of the nineteenth centuries. I have already alluded to some of these voluntary religious exiles and I shall speak of them again ; but the student of Russian history will find that the topic of religious movement in that country is too important to be treated at all satisfactorily in a chapter or two. Forced colonisation was made up, speaking in rather general terms, of deserters from the army and those who sought to evade the conscription, but were caught before they could successfully hide themselves, either in Euro- pean Russia or Siberia, or get across the frontier into some other European country. Those who had com- mitted an assault with intent to kill, but had failed actually to commit murder, were sent to Siberia as forced colonists. So, too, were the vagrants, if for any reason they were unfit for military service, or if landed proprietors and their own village community refused to take charge of them. Some of those early settlers took wives from among the native women and reared families. This still con- tinues to be done, in a small way, but the number of these mixed marriages — and of cases of illicit inter- course, too — is surprisingly small. It is declared by competent authorities to have been of much less frequent occurrence than were the intermarriages of French settlers with the North American Indian women. From the very beginning of the movement towards Siberian colonisation, the Russian women have shown a beautiful devotion in their readiness to follow husband or lover into Siberia, whether the man went as free colonist, forced colonist, exile, or convict. 156 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA The children born of mixed parentage, that is, a Russian father and a native mother — for until in very recent years such a thing as a marriage between a Russian woman and a native man, was never heard of and is now extremely rare — these descendants are still called Siberiaks, and are readily distinguished from the true Russians and their offspring. They are not so numerous as one might be led to expect, except in Western Siberia, where the men are very good specimens of humanity. They are of average height, square build, strong in body, and usually have brown hair. The women display traits quite different from the Russian peasant women. They are relatively smaller than the men, and show more of the coarse, Asiatic type of features. They are unusually taciturn and rarely show any of the Russian simplicity and frankness. As a rule, throughout the entire country, the Siberiak speaks the native dialect, but always more or less corrupted. This is especially noticeable in Western Siberia, where there are many survivals of the Turanian, Ural-Altaic, tongue. The free colonists must be carefully distinguished from the Siberiaks, who approximate most closely to them in independence, as well as from the other classes of Russian immigrants. The Government is careful and considerate in designating localities for the settlements of these free colonists; trying to shield them from the contaminating influences of penal colonies, villages where there are many forced colonists, and all objectionable surroundings, whether physical or social. The free colonists live very much as do their fellows in European Russia, and they occupy themselves in much the same way; so that the appearance of their village and its surroundings is quite like that of the homeland. The Russian, even the Church of St. Basil, Moscow COLONISATION 157 woman, is not so prone to nostalgia as is the German, French, or Anglo-Saxon; consequently, the indications of contentment are distinct. There have been known, however, such intense longings for home that the family has gone back to Europe ; and — I was told — usually regretted it. The Russian Government is entitled to more credit than is generally accorded it for humanitarianism, because of the way it looks after the free colonists while en route. Not only at Cheliabinsk, as has been said, but at Kansk (about midway between Omsk and Tomsk) and at Stryetensk (on the Shilka River, the place where the Amur navigation begins), there are quarters supplied for their temporary accommodation. These have kitchens, fuel, and an unlimited supply of hot water gratis; and there are also hospitals with free medical attendance and volunteer nurses. The few who arrive in winter are often sheltered and looked after for a long time, on account of bad weather. The railway has virtually supplanted all other modes of travel for these immigrants. Fourth-class wagons (" box-cars," to convert the Russian va-gon into good American terminology!) are furnished for these settlers at very reasonable rates, and a few roubles will pay for a whole wagon from Cheliabinsk to Stryetensk. The Russian soldiers are carried in these cars, and they are fitted with open bunks, very much like the steerage of an emigrant steamer, so that when the settlers have their own bedding, they are not at all uncomfortable. Boil- ing water is furnished at every station, so that the tea can always be drawn, and if the colonist is indisposed or pecuniarily unable to purchase cooked food, he can make his soup at leisure. 158 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA The ease with which the journey is now made is a strong inducement to even steady peasant farmers to try their luck in the new country, and if the purse be- comes empty the officials help the immigrants on, when they do not insist upon going "home." Besides, the Government grants about forty acres of land to each male colonist, and advances, if necessary, thirty roubles for a family. The money pays no interest, and in specially deserving cases the loan is increased by one hundred roubles more. It is agreed by the benefited colonist that this loan will be repaid within ten years; but he is not pressed for it, and I doubt if the Treasury often sees again much of this money. One very objectionable phase of the existing plan for colonising Siberia, is that the settler is not at once fixed as to locality. The early comers were too much inclined to be satisfied with " squatter's rights." The land had not been surveyed, so that it was impossible to define the forty acres allotted to the man. Consequently, he took possession of the best he could find and as much as he could cultivate, together with a liberal amount of land for his stock. Not being definitely located by metes and bounds, when he had exhausted the soil on his first claim, he moved on to another, without having made any permanent improvements. These would have been a hindrance rather than an advantage. "But as the settlements have increased, the condition of things has more and more approximated to that in Russia. Whereas at first the commune did not need to apportion out the land to each family, because there was a superabundance for all, as time went on they have been compelled to limit the individual members to special lots, as is done in the mother country. For the COLONISATION 159 most part, however, the communal system is adopted and the land titles are held in the name of the commune. But even yet, the forests are so abundant and the pasture grounds so large, that the restrictions of use relate for the most part to the meadows and the lands which are more desirable for cultivation." * The matter of land tenure is something which has not yet been satisfactorily settled for Siberia, and it promises to be a source of friction. It may even exert a bad influence on the Government's effort to popularise emigration. Russian land tenure is a most complicated and most interesting subject. I do not profess to have grasped it fully, and when I find all the recognised authorities " begging" it, this confession does not bring a blush of shame. An idea of the complication and a basis to build upon in forecasting what may happen in the Siberia of to- morrow may be had from this extract from the last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica: "The present condition of the peasants — according to official docu- ments — appears to be as follows : In the twelve central governments they grow, on the average, sufficient rye bread for only 200 days in the year — often for only 180 and 100 days. One quarter of them have received allotments of only 2.9 acres per male, and one half less than 8.5 to 1 1. 4 acres — the normal size of the allotment necessary to the subsistence of a family under the three- fields system being estimated at 28 to 42 acres. Land must thus, of necessity, be rented from the landlords at fabulous prices. The aggregate value of the redemption and land taxes often reaches 185 to 275 per cent, of the normal rental value of the allotments, not to speak of * Wright, op. cit. l6o RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA taxes for recruiting purposes, the church, roads, local administration, and so on, chiefly levied from the peas- ants. The arrears increase every year: one fifth of the inhabitants have left their houses; cattle are disappear- ing. Every year more than half the adult males (in some districts three fourths of the men and one third of the women) quit their homes and wander throughout Russia in search of work. In the governments of the black-earth region the state of matters is hardly better. Many peasants took the 'gratuitous allotments,' whose amount was about one eighth of the normal allotment." It will be easy to comprehend from this and much more of the same character, that the Government has little difficulty in drafting off free colonists into Siberia. Now, while there are no great landed proprietors as yet in Russia's Asiatic possessions, so that there may be little danger of a state of affairs precisely the same as that which I have just indicated, the tendency to over- burden the peasant is too truly a Russian official char- acteristic to be overlooked. The strict defining of the mir, the village community, is a good thing in its way; but it too often happens that such a system throws upon the shoulders of the few honest, hard-working citizens, the burden that the shiftless will not carry. A liberal allowance for the whole Russian Empire, say 8,647,657 square miles, concedes that 20 per cent, of it is satisfactory arable land. The total population is, approxi- mately, 160,095,200, or 93 to the square mile of that culti- vable land. Of Siberia's total area, 4,786,730, probably i6| per cent., is a liberal allowance for the truly arable land, or say 800,000 square miles. The population is now about 8,000,000, only ten to each of those square miles of good land. There is yet a very ample margin for growth. CHAPTER XII EXILES AND CONVICTS IN making a distinction between the two classes of those who have been forced to go to Siberia by the Russian Government, it is found that the exiles take precedence in history. The first mention in Russian annals of this punishment is given in the time of Tsar Alexis, who succeeded his father, Tsar Michael, in 1645. Three years later, it is recorded, certain persons were carried across the border by soldiers and compelled to live in Siberia. But this was not considered in itself as punishment, for they had already been actually punished according to the terms of their sentences. It was done merely to get them out of the way, so that neither they nor their friends should give further trouble. The old Russian criminal code, with other preceding codes of the time of Ivan III and Ivan IV (The Terrible), was revised by a commission of ecclesiastics and laymen appointed by Alexis soon after his coronation, although the work was chiefly done by Prince Odoievski and Prince Volkonski. The present criminal code is not conspicu- ous for tender treatment of malefactors, but it is much better even than was Alexis' amended code. That old one is said to be preserved yet in the Oruzhennaia Palata of Moscow (I doubt it), and it must have been positively barbarous in its provisions for the punishment of evil- doers. 162 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Convicted criminals were impaled on sharp stakes; sometimes they were thrown from a wall and caught on the uplifted spears of soldiers massed below. Hundreds of unfortunates were hanged or beheaded for misde- meanours that we could not now by any possibility call crimes meriting capital punishment. The knout and bastinado were used continually. Red-hot branding irons were employed in cases when the provocation had been but slight. Some were horribly mutilated by having their limbs torn off or chopped off. Tongues and noses were cut off, while as for lopping off an ear, or both of them, that was of such frequent occurrence as scarcely to be deemed worthy of mention. One of the most brutal punishments, something that makes one almost sick merely to read of it, was to sus- pend the victim by hooks inserted under a rib, one on each side, and leave him to die of starvation; unless, perchance, the fowl of the air came to his relief and pecked out his eyes, thus reaching the brain, or attacked him in some other vital spot. Towards the end of that same seventeenth century, punishment by bodily mutilation was abolished by an imperial decree and for it was substituted banishment to Siberia. The criminal, although he could rarely be called such in reality, was accompanied into exile by his entire family. This was not done from humane motives, but because of a desire to give the new country a Russian population and to colonise it. I mention here that capital punishment was abolished in European Russia in 1750, by command of Tsarina Elizabeth. It was later permitted again, and has been freely inflicted. At present the death penalty is ex- acted only when the life of the Tsar, Tsarina, or EXILES AND CONVICTS 163 Tsarovitch is concerned. Capital punishment is still permitted in certain parts of Siberia even when a civilian's life is taken. Some of the earliest exiles were driven from home for having committed what were then called crimes, but which seem to us now to be not even trifling offences: for example, taking snuff, or driving with reins. The last was for a long time looked upon as a most offensive Western innovation, because the ideal coachman or driver was supposed to run by the side of his team. This was, of course, long before Peter the Great tried to civilise his subjects by popularising Western Europe's manners and customs. It is to be noted that punish- ment for having the snuff habit could not have continued very long, else the whole of the middle and upper classes, as well as the nobility, would have been driven from European Russia, because, in the time of Peter the Great, the almost universal possession of snuff-boxes by the Russian men (and many women, too) argues that the habit had become popular and that punishment had been suspended. It is an extremely difficult matter to form an opinion of just what are the conditions at the penal settlements and convict prisons of Siberia. Those foreigners who have made a careful study and who seem to have had ample and equal opportunities given them for investiga- tion, differ so diametrically in their opinions, and are so much at variance in their statements, that the in- terested reader is sorely puzzled, while the statements of Russians themselves are equally conflicting. Per- sonally, I made no study of the subject. I visited none of the Siberian prisons. I saw the outside only of some in Europe: e.g., The Citadel, St. Petersburg. I saw 164 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA plenty of convicts working as railway navvies, and elsewhere in Siberia; but I was not able to talk with any of them. The second-hand information which I secured, and it was considerable, did not come from anyone who had actually had personal experience; yet even the relatives of those who had suffered spoke more bitterly against the system of breaking up families than against the cruelties inflicted when the prisoners had reached their destination. Mr. George Kennan in the preface to his " Siberia and the Exile System " (1891), which is generally considered by Americans the final word on this subject, admits tacitly that he went to Siberia predetermined to find absolutely nothing but brutality in the treatment of both political exiles and condemned criminals, and the physical and sanitary conditions of their abiding place never anything but revolting. He, therefore, speaks as an advocate, not as a judge. With this bias, he naturally drew a picture in which not a single ray of light penetrates the awful darkness. But on the other side, Mr. H. De Windt, an English- man, who seems to have had quite as good opportunities to investigate as were accorded Mr. Kennan, takes issue with the latter and declares that many of his statements are not justified by facts. He, too, is an advocate rather than a judge. Both drew freely upon such Russian statistics as were available, and both found in published documents and reports confirmation of their widely different positions. Now, it must strike the unprejudiced reader that if conditions in Siberia were really as bad as Mr. Kennan represents, and if they were so much worse than anything which exists in other parts of the world, the Russian Government, with its exceptional facilities EXILES AND CONVICTS 165 for doing such a thing, would have suppressed such information. Yet it certainly has published some in- teresting statistics of the Siberian convict and exile life ; and it has permitted strangers to have free access to places which Mr. Kennan declares were a disgrace to Russian civilisation. Many other foreigners besides these two gentlemen have visited the penal settlements and convict prisons of Siberia, from the European frontier eastward into the island of Saghalien, which was, ad- mittedly, the worst place of all. Others, too, have had opportunity to study the problem. Mr. Augustus J. C. Hare does not usually speak any too highly in praise of Russian manners and customs, although I have generally found his descriptions to be accurate. Writing in 1885, he said: "Russian exiles condemned to Siberia are always assembled at Moscow. Their prisons on the Sparrow Hills are lofty, airy, and warm in winter, and their food is good. They set out from hence in bands every Sunday afternoon, thus taking their leave here in a last view of their 'holy mother Moscow,' a place whose hold upon Russian sentiment it is considered impossible for a foreigner to fathom. They journey from eight to twelve miles a day, and have regular sleeping places. They carry chains of only four pounds' weight upon their hands and feet on their march; but patriots, murderers, thieves, and conspira- tors are all chained together. Formerly, about sixty thousand exiles to Siberia passed through Kazan; now the number is perhaps ten thousand. About 15 per cent, still probably die on the road, but formerly only a third reached their destination. If a prisoner, however, is well off and can pay for it, he may often travel at his own expense and take his family and any amount of luggage l66 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA with him, but in this case he must always pay for his guards, who are never less than five in number. Legally, a Siberian exile is dead, and his wife, if she does not wish to accompany him, may marry again. The exiles are allowed to talk to one another on their journey and even to sing their sad, wailing choruses. It is generally arranged that they should pass through the towns at night, but universal pity is felt for them, and in the villages which lie on their way, the kind-hearted peasan- try bring out bowls of tea, jugs of vodka, and piles of bread for them; all this is done in silence, for no one may speak to a prisoner." Conditions are, of course, entirely changed since the opening of the trans-Siberian Railway, so far as the method of travel is concerned, and convict trains were not essentially worse than emi- grant and colonists' trains in America. In other matters Mr. Hare's account is apposite now. Again, when we read books written by Russians and translated into English, French, or German, we are struck by the diametric contradictions. Prince Kropot- kin's writings would lead us to assume that there is absolutely nothing but brutality and abomination in every prison and convict colony; while conditions among the forced colonists who are not actually in con- finement are as bad as they can possibly be. But when we turn to such books as " Buried Alive; or Ten Years of Penal Servitude in Siberia," Feodore Dostoyeffsky, or " Russia and Its Crisis," Paul Milyoukov, we are led to somewhat different conclusions. Yet the confusion of our minds persists. We are compelled to admit that the evidence of some who have actually suffered goes to show that the treat- ment of "the unfortunates" in Siberia is not much worse r > r > n m *J o c a pi c CD n o 3 pi > r r n Mm C n en H > CD H PI 03 Pi > Pi a J. . . i. EXILES AND CONVICTS 167 than is that given to prisoners in other lands. I hold no brief for Russia, and I am as ready as anyone can be to condemn her treatment of mere political offenders and others whose only offence is dissatisfaction because promises have been broken and class discrimination carried to an extreme. When it comes to considering anarchical plans and plots, I hold with many others that monarchical Russia is sovereign in determining how such offenders shall be treated; but the laws of humanity should prevail and woman's weakness and honour should be respected always. It is as bad when Orthodox Russia tramples those laws under foot and when Russian prison officials disregard that weakness and honour, as it is when the same things happen (and they have occurred too frequently) in any other Christian land; and it is worse than when such inhuman actions take place in Mohammedan lands or heathen countries. I shall not burden my readers by repeating what Mr. Wright tells us of conditions in certain prisons of our own land, although I do say that before Russia is con- demned ruthlessly, it would be well to read pages 332 to 336 of his book. But while I am writing this chapter, I extract from a despatch, dated London, March 16, 191 2, the following relating to Portuguese prisons wherein political offenders are confined: " Although the Republi- cans deny that their methods of repression exceed per- missible bounds, impartial investigations tend to show that the condition of affairs existing in Portugal in this respect is more reminiscent of the dark ages than is creditable to republican institutions based on principles of liberalism and justice. The casemates in which these unfortunate persons have been kept in secret confine- ment for over six weeks have but one small loophole for l68 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA light, and even in the middle of the day it is too dark for either reading or writing. To breathe freely the pris- oners must crowd about the single aperture to their cells. The only furniture is a bed, with a mattress of rotting straw. In wet weather the water runs down the walls, sometimes leaving as much as nearly two inches of water under the beds." In Limoeiro prison dungeons, "more than a hundred persons are lodged together in shameful proximity, respectable men being thrust together with the vilest criminals. . . . Among the wardens the greatest cruelty is practised on all those who cannot purchase considerate treatment. More than thirteen hundred miserable creatures are herded in a prison built for no more than four hundred." I have not read anything worse than that, or so bad, of any Siberian prison, not even in Mr. Kennan's book; that is, of mere political prisoners, not accused of murderous act or plot. I have always been surprised that Wallace,* when he wrote in 1877, had really nothing to say about the horrors of the exile and convict systems, if they really were so bad as some contend. Wallace's book, as an exponent of conditions in Russia half a century ago, still holds a place of much importance in the literature dealing with the same topic. As a Briton, he could not but condemn the way in which the governors treated the governed. Yet as an upholder of constituted authority, he could but recognise " sovereign rights," much as he deplored the absence of nearly all the privileges to which he had been accustomed throughout his entire life. Wallace quotes Russians as denying that there has ever been or is now, such a thing as caste distinction; and he is measurably correct when he says that an edu- * Russia, by D. Mackenzie Wallace. EXILES AND CONVICTS 169 cated Russian would (even now) declare that the laws and statistics dealing with seven distinct classes, heredi- tary nobles, personal nobles, clericals, townspeople, peasants, military, and foreigners, do not prove the existence of caste, and that the classes therein mentioned are mere administrative fictions. Yet it has been almost solely due to the effort to uplift one of those classes, that the existing conditions of political exile, resistance to oppression, etc., have come to be. His forecast has been most depressingly verified in late years: "The confident anticipation of many Rus- sians, that their country will one day enjoy political life without political parties, is, if not a contradiction in terms, at least a Utopian absurdity; but we may be sure that when political parties do appear they will be very different from those which exist in the countries with which we are better acquainted." Baron von Haxthausen, the eminent German, wrote his "The Russian Empire: its People, Institutions, and Resources" in 1856. This was the first book which revealed to people outside of Russia the real social condition of that country. It was promptly translated into English, and inasmuch as it was written just at the time when the Russian Government was most actively engaged in sending political exiles (not the recent Nihilist and Anarchist) to Siberia, we should naturally expect the author to condemn, if it were right to do so. Yet he says: "The condition of Siberian convicts, when arrived and settled in the country, is certainly favourable. The severity of their punishment consists in the loss of home, the disruption of early family ties, and the dangers and difficulties of the long journey. "In Siberia, the ancient, simple, and noble patriarchal 170 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA manners still prevail, and in this respect it is still the veritable old Russia in the best sense of the term — there is the greatest hospitality and good-will. " The convicts sent out as colonists are mostly trans- ported to the districts of Southern Siberia, which are described by all who have seen them as truly paradisiacal. The country is romantically beautiful, the soil incredibly fertile, and the climate healthy; the cold, indeed, is severe in winter, but with a perpetually clear sky; and nowhere are there so many vigorous old people. The peasants, descended from the early convicts, are all well off, some of them very rich; they only require industry, good behaviour, and exertion for a few years to acquire a substantial position. Their whole outward condition is from the first favourable: as soon as they arrive in Siberia, their past life not only lies like a dream behind them, but is legally and politically completely at an end; their crime is forgotten; no one dares to remind them of it, or to term them convicts ; both in the public official reports and in conversation they are termed only 'The unfortunate. '" It must be noted that conditions in Europe for the last few decades have been and are yet quite different from what they were one hundred years ago when Clarke* wrote thus: "In England, we hear of persons sent to Siberia as a very severe punishment, and entertain very erroneous notions concerning the state of exiles in that country. To a Russian nobleman, the sentence of exile can hardly imply punishment. The consequence of their journey is very often an amelioration of their understanding and their hearts. They have no particular *" Travels in various countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa." By Edward Daniel Clarke. Philadelphia,, 181 1. EXILES AND CONVICTS 171 attachment to their country; none of that maladie du pays, which sickens the soul of an Englishman in banish- ment. They are bound by no strong ties of affection to their families ; neither have they any friendship worth preserving. Tobolski, from the number and rank of the exiled, is become a large and populous city, full of shops and society, with theatres and elegant assemblies of amusement. Its inhabitants, about two thousand versts from Moscow, have booksellers, masquerades, French hotels and French wines, with the porter and beer of England. Those who have resided there, either as officers on duty, as travellers, or as exiles, give the highest accounts of its gaiety and population. An officer of considerable rank in the Russian service told me he would rather have the half of his pay and live at Tobolski, than the whole of it in residence at Petersburg. Many who have been ordered home have wished and sought to return thither. This is no subject of wonder. Tobolski is admirably adapted to the Russian taste." He who would have twentieth century confirmation of this optimistic view of Siberian exile, will find it in a great many more books than those to which I have referred. Mr. Henry Norman,* as he says of himself, is not a child in such matters as seeing what is and in de- tecting that which is rehearsed for his benefit, to bring the best in evidence while suppressing all that is offensive or bad. With all of us, he admits that the exile-convict system has its terrible side, but so has every such system the world over. The doleful, the disgusting (at times) photographs which are given by those who are Russo- phobists can be matched in every civilised land on earth. Russian officials are sometimes well informed as to what * "All the Russias." By Henry Norman, M. P., New York, 1902. 172 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA is going on in other countries than their own, and what other people think of them. Had conditions in Siberian prisons and convict settlements been unique, we may be sure that the authorities would never have granted Mr. Kennan permission to take the photographs from which his depressing illustrations were reproduced. Yet, after all, history as it was made in the Australian penal colonies, is simply repeating itself in Siberia, and if ever that country is to start fairly on a pathway which leads to true and satisfactory development, Russia must follow Great Britain's example in doing away with the system of transportation for crime absolutely and wholly. I do not include in this statement the banishment or exile of political offenders, when an anarchical attempt (successful or not) is proved. I think, as I shall proceed forthwith to show, that Siberia has gained and European Russia lost much by the exile of many of those political offenders. In a previous chapter I have mentioned briefly the obligation we are under to some of the political exiles for ethnological research. But that is not our only debt to those men and women. In every department of science, from the record of strange words crooned by a Samoyede or Chukchee mother to her baby and the noting of the tune, to some of the most complex astronomical problems, it has been almost solely the exile who has given the time to research that has either been exhaustive, or indicative for the more thoroughly equipped and educated specialist. Strange as it must seem, many of these political exiles — even some who have been convicted upon fair and lawful trial of criminal acts, bomb-throwing, and the like — are making the best of Christian mission- aries. They have been accompanied by their wives, EXILES AND CONVICTS 173 or followed by them ; by good conduct while in prison they shortened the term and gained the right of semi- free residence. As expounders of the doctrine of the Orthodox Greek Catholic Church, and as language teachers they are doing remarkable work along the best paths of Christian civilisation. But how shall I ex- press the thought of religious influence in Russia? Shall I say the Church is the people, or the people are the Church? I make one exception to the general disapproval I have expressed or implied of the sweeping condemnation by many observers of Siberian penal settlements. That exception is the island of Saghalien. I confess that I cannot lay my hand upon information as to affairs there since the partition of the island in accordance with the terms o f the Treaty of Portsmouth, 1905. Prior to the date when Japan secured the southern half of the island as the only prize she took from Russia, I am con- vinced that conditions in the prisons and at the settle- ments were quite as bad as they are described by Major Griffiths, in the article on Deportation which he prepared for the eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.* When going from Tsuruga, Japan, to Vladivostok, in July, 1 910, two of my fellow-passengers were American citizens, although neither one had ever been in the United States, and one of them could not speak English. They were sons of an old acquaintance, an American by a Russian wife, a fur-dealer and an adventurer who knew Siberia for every mile of the coast from Vladivostok all along the shores of the Okotsh Sea, the Kamschatkan * Major Arthur George Frederick Griffiths, H. M. Inspector of Prisons, 1878-1896. Author of "The Chronicles of Newgate," 11 Secrets of the Prisons." 174 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Peninsula, around the northeast corner of Asia into the Arctic Ocean, and including the island of Saghalien, when the . whole of it belonged to Russia and was one great penal colony. The two men had frequently ac- companied their father on his trips, and what they had seen of Saghalien prisons, prisoners, wardens, officials, and superintendents, supplied material for tales that may be matched in other parts of the world, but I hope, for the sake of my humanity, cannot be outdone in brutality, bestiality, cruelty, and all that is repulsive. These men contended, however, that so far as allegations of assaults upon women were concerned, they discredited them; because they felt sure that no women prisoners were sent to the island who were not already hopelessly depraved. The Kremlin, Moscow From Moskva River wmm Peter the Great's Palace, Moscow CHAPTER XIII SIBERIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS WHO is my neighbour? It is a question that may well be asked doubtingly by the Siberians, for their best foreign friend and most earnest admirer cannot credit them with having evinced much neighbourliness to anybody. * If the word neighbour must imply actual juxtaposition, then Siberia is badly off. Of the many tens of thousand miles that measure the outer limits of the great Asiatic half-continent which we know as Siberia, those lines which keep inland and may serve to mark the separation of neighbours, are but a small part, when we think of the coast line from Cape Tolstoi (frigid honour!) at the mouth of the Kara River, by the Arctic Ocean, Behring Sea, Japan Sea, on to the mouth of the Tumen River. On the land side there are not more than a handful or two of human beings to all the thousands of leagues. In the reign of Tsar Nicholas I (1823 to 1855), General Obruchov was told that the "permanent garrisons" he was establishing along the Khirgis Steppes were not sufficiently advanced to accomplish the plan which the Government had mapped out, and that in His Majesty's opinion it would be more satisfactory to all parties concerned, that is, of course, Russia (although the satisfac- tion of the native tribes on being brought under " protec- tion " was assumed), to have forts all along the valley of 176 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA the Syr-Darya. This, in the middle part of its course, is about the largest river in the Russian Central Asian Provinces. From its source in the Semiryetschensk, " Seven rivers," district of Russian (Western) Turkestan, until it is well into Ferghana province, it is called Naryn. After issuing from the Tian-Shan, it soon loses impetus and becomes so sluggish that a great deal of the water is soaked up by the thirsty sand, before the river nominally empties into the northeast corner of the Sea of Aral; and at no place is it of service to serious navigation. At one time a branch, now never more than a dry bed, save for a few days of the rains, entered the same sea at its extreme southeastern part. The obedient general took his master's expression of opinion as an imperial and imperative command. He could do nothing else, although it did not flatter him or put the stamp of approval on his judgment. The advance movement was pushed far to the south, because that Syr-Darya valley stretches right across the open country, from mountains to sea, and one result was the conquest of what we call Russian (Western) Turkestan. How did the Russians treat their newly-gained neigh- bours? "Obruchov agreed with Napoleon that waste land was the most impassable barrier for an army, so he devastated the steppe country, destroyed Bashkir settle- ments, drove some of the people into Russia, and settlers have now at great pains and expense to win back the land he threw out of cultivation." * But long before that — indeed I strongly suspect the idea crept into the head of someone who followed very soon after Ivan the Terrible — it had been the ambition of a Russian autocrat to save himself a lot of trouble *Gerrare, op. cit. SIBERIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS 177 and provide for the easy adjustment of all those Siberian land disputes, by making the southern boundary of his domain correspond exactly with the forty-fourth parallel of north latitude. On his part, however, it was to have been a matter of temporary convenience only, and it was not to be understood as hampering in any way the scheme of some following Tsar who might wish to do in another place precisely what Nicholas I had begun in Turkestan. Yet a glance at the map of Asia will show what a fine large slice of Mongolia and Manchuria the carrying out of this merry little plan would have chopped off from the Chinese Empire. It will be noted, too, that the port of Vladivostok, although Her Majesty, "The Sovereign of the East," had not then been born and probably was not yet con- ceived of even in the fertile brain of a Russian autocrat or minister, would be outside Russian bounds. But the same glance which reveals these things will likewise make it plain that parallels of latitude and degrees of longitude very seldom serve any wise or useful purpose in delimiting the territories of adjoining States. Nature seems to have defined with much effectiveness the boun- dary between Russia's present Asiatic possessions and the outlying dependencies of the Chinese empire: Man- churia, Mongolia, Dzungaria, Eastern Turkestan, and Tibet. But let us now follow the line that separates Siberia from her neighbours. I decline to recognise any Russian rights in Manchuria other than those acquired through China's tolerance, but which audacity bids fair to convert into permanent occupation with absolute possessory rights. There was a time when this occupation on sufferance covered the whole territory of the Three 178 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Eastern Provinces (for " Manchuria" is a foreign word, manufactured by Europeans; the Chinese official desig- nation, Tung-San-Sheng means, literally, East-Three- Provinces). It looked to the world generally as if Russia had no intention to let go her hold, and she certainly acted much as if her rights were sovereign. Had Russia been permitted to ignore the remonstrances of some other nations, the line between Siberia and her southern neighbours would follow quite a different course from what it takes to-day. There came an awakening, however, even if China, whose manifest duty it was, did not then give the jar. It may be that before the ex- piration of the term for which China has granted Russia the privilege of maintaining her railways in Northern Manchuria,* that is until 1939, there may come another convulsion which shall again restore China's sovereignty quite up to the limits which are to be a part of that which I am now going to consider. Beginning on the shore of the Sea of Japan, at the mouth of the Tumen River, we find that, as a matter of fact, Siberia has Korea for a neighbour for but a very short distance, because Manchuria pokes a curiously irregular line, like a huge gnarled and twisted pine- branch, down towards the coast, past the city, Hun-chun. But the people in that out-of-the way corner pay little attention to geography, and Russians, Siberiaks, Man- chus, and Koreans are neighbourly just as the circum- stances of the hour determine. Each is jealous of all the others, and results may be easily imagined. From the north bank of Tumen River, only a few miles * The privilege as to Southern Manchuria was, in 1905, transferred by Russia to Japan, with China's approval. All China's rights of purchase and of possession without payment upon expiration of the full period are recognised by Japan. SIBERIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS 179 up from its mouth, the line between the Ussuri district of the Maritime Province and Manchuria at first follows the crest of a range of low mountains, then touches the western shore of Hinka (Khanka) Lake, and crosses its northern end ; then it drops down into the valley of the Ussuri River, which is the boundary until the Amur River is reached, just above the town of Khabarovsk the northern terminus of the Ussuri Railway (Vladivos- tok-Khabarovsk) . At this town steamboats are taken up the river to Stretynsk, on the Shilka River, the termi- nus of the Siberian Railway before the Russian Govern- ment wheedled the Chinese into permitting the building of the Chinese Eastern Railway. This was to have been an enterprise purely in the interest of commercial de- velopment and a matter of friendly accommodation, with no thought of interfering with China's sovereign rights. The gold-fields, and there are several of them in the mountains at the southern end of the boundary I have just sketched roughly, have been the cause of a good deal of feeling that was anything but neighbourly. The traversing of the district by the Chinese Eastern Railway, built, controlled, and operated by Russia, with Russian soldiers as guards every few rolls, has not tended to advance materially China's interests. There is, to be sure, the counterfoil of Chinese railway guards, side by side or alternating with the Russians, after the line passes from Ussuri into Manchuria at Pogranitchnaieya, but they need only to be seen to bring conviction that the authority of China in that part of the empire is but a name. From Khabarovsk, passing innumerable small settle- ments of Russians on the north bank, the large town of l8o RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Blagoveshchensk, and the mouth of the Shilka River, on which is Stretynsk, already mentioned, the Amur and Argun Rivers are the boundary between Siberia and Manchuria until the Mongolian frontier is reached; but just where that line which delimits Manchuria and Mongolia is to be drawn, no one can say positively, because the Chinese Government has not yet fixed it. It is generally understood, however, that the Khingan Mountains are included in Manchuria. The neighbourliness along this extended river frontier is hardly of the kind that makes for the best of friendship. On the Chinese side there is not a great deal of agricul- tural land, and what there is has not been used to advan- tage by anybody. But when gold has been found to the south of the river, China's sovereignty has been calmly ignored. Of late years the disposition on the part of Russian officials — army officers especially — to attempt to exercise absolute jurisdiction throughout the whole of the curious round shoulder which Manchuria projects up into the great bend of the Amur, and their presump- tion in closing the territory to all foreign exploitation, have been remarked by many observers. I am not sure that it is entirely right to disapprove of the Russians' effort to preserve some semblance of order in that wild country; but I am vehement for an equal chance for everybody. The ability of a frontier Chinese mandarin to maintain order and to protect life and prop- erty in such jurisdiction, is very properly derided by all who have witnessed the farce. That great Manchurian shoulder has been a sore trial to Russians, I know. Into it there went swarms of escaped convicts who defied all law and everybody, and if space permitted I should like to dwell upon some of the neighbourly acts done there, SIBERIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS l8l and at other places along the Amur Valley. It will interest those who would like fuller information, to read the account of the establishing of Albazin, its siege and capture by the Chinese, its recapture, and the success of China in securing Russia's acceptance of the treaty of Nerchinsk, 1689, by the terms of which the entire line of the Amur as far as Gorbitsa River was retroceded, because Russia could not hold it. There are some very black stories to tell about the way Russia has acted towards her would-be peaceful neighbours. I have not time to go over the whole Boxer episode; to tell of Russia's cruel refusal (at first) to be interested in suppressing the revolt because it was a matter principally concerning religious propaganda, and that was something the Russian Church did not take an active part in. Then, when the Chinese realised what Russia really meant and a flame burst forth that seriously threatened the Russians from the Amur to the Gulf of Pecheli, how did Russia treat her neighbours? Gathered together thousands of them, men, women and children, into the town of Blagoveshchensk and the neighbouring villages along the Amur; then turned a host of brutal Cossacks loose who butchered the inoffen- sive Chinese or threw them into the river, and prodded those who could have saved themselves by swimming. There are a good many human butcherings charged up against the Russian soldiers; but that one of Blago- veshchensk is one of the most horrible, and it is small wonder that no Russian, soldier or civilian, will talk about it. Russia, as I have intimated, has not always dictated the terms of peace in Asia; and we shall find presently that her neighbour China's first appearance in the role 182 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA of a diplomat was entirely successful for herself and not to Russia's advantage. If from that (as yet) undetermined point on the upper waters of Argun River where Siberia, Manchuria, and Mongolia join, we cannot at once say that the line be- tween the first two mentioned neighbours is clearly de- fined by Nature ; yet we shall not go very far towards the west until it is to be noticed how the trend of the semi- detached chains of high mountains seems to suggest a nat- ural boundary. Soon after reaching 90 E. longitude the Siberian line leaves these mountains and her neighbours become, like her own people, subjects of the Tsar. Throughout the whole of this border, when among the mountains that skirt the province of Transbaikalia or the governments of Irkutsk and Tomsk, or still a little farther south in the deserts of Gobi and Dzungaria, the influence of Siberia upon her neighbours has been almost wholly for good. There are reasons for the un- usual complacency, even kindness, I may say, of the Russian officials. In the first place there has been no necessity to make any serious military display, because the Tsar's Government has always been looking far into the future. There have been some most unpleasant clashes between Russian and Chinese armed forces; but in the main it has been the policy of the Muscovite to keep at peace with the Pekingese. There has been from the time when the first opportunity was seized, more for Russia to gain from trade with China than for the latter. The few furs that Russian merchants carried up to or across the border are as nothing when compared with the tea and silk which they took back. It is not quite the whole truth to intimate that all the Russian merchants crossed the frontier and made their SIBERIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS 1 83 way quite to Peking or even the Yangtze River, although some of them did so. For centuries there has been a common meeting point at Kiakhta, some distance north of the frontier and near the Chinese town , Maimachin. Here the Siberians and Russians and their neighbours, Mongols, Chinese, Manchus, and representatives of many small tribes, met and still meet to barter. In 1910 the Kiakhta market was said to be an interesting place to visit, and I am sure it has not entirely lost its importance. It is stated in some works of reference that since the development of commercial facilities along the Yangtze River, particularly at Hankow (the trade centre of the district from which come the teas that the Russian upper classes like best), and the opening of the Suez Canal, Kiakhta has entirely lost its standing. This is but partly true. There is no longer any important market-place of the world at which just the same barter and exchange of goods take place that there were before money became so common and so plentiful as it is, and facilities for the exchange of money so great. At Kiakhta there is yet an interesting relic of the old barter days, and certainly the quantity of Chinese tea which passes over the Peking-Kiakhta caravan route in the season has been but little, comparatively, dimin- ished. The tea that one gets in European Russia is too good to have taken that long sea-voyage through the heat of the tropics, and it is too cheap to have paid the excessive ad valorem charges. The quantity of the cheapest stuff, the brick-tea, the dust, etc., that probably goes by ship to Black Sea ports, may be increasing; but the dish of tea which the upper class Muscovites love so much, is likely to exercise some influence upon neighbourliness, unless Russia can bag the whole thing. 184 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA For centuries it was the custom of the merchants from all parts of Russia in Europe, to assemble in the early spring at Tobolsk, and thence a great caravan moved eastward and southward to Kiakhta, arriving in time for the late summer or early autumn market. To- day one is reminded of this old-time way of doing things by meeting at Irkutsk, merchants who are going to Kiakhta. They now go, however, not so much to buy and sell for themselves as to see to it that the tea bought, fired, packed, and shipped by their correspondents at Hankow, is expeditiously passed through the Russian Customs, and properly forwarded to Verkhne-Udinsk for distribution thence to all parts of the empire. A few words here about the deserts of Gobi and Dzun- garia, which have a considerable influence upon the neighbourliness of middle southern Siberia. We cannot learn very much about these great tracts from Chinese records, which are usually satisfied with the most casual allusion to the "sea of sand," and the " outer barbarians " who dwell therein. In myth, fiction, and blood-curdling tales that region figures conspicuously, but we do not usually place implicit dependence upon this sort of in- formation. Marco Polo was the first European to tell us about Gobi, and while he is remarkably reliable when he speaks of that which he had himself seen and in- vestigated, he was thoroughly mediaeval when it came to listening to marvellous tales. Dr. Sven Hedin is about the latest, and he is reckoned to be as scientifically accurate as Polo was gullible. The combined evidence goes to show that the deserts of Gobi and Dzungaria are hardly worse than those of Libya and Sahara. As our information grows, we find cartographists adding dot after dot to denote towns or villages; and where SIBERIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS 185 there are inhabitants for these, there must be some way of procuring food and water which do not exist in an absolute desert. The caravan routes across these deserts of Gobi and Dzungaria, are much less numerous than are similar trails in their great African congener; but on the other hand, what records we have justify the statement that the peril of crossing them was less. It is true that for quite six months of the year, no sensible man would attempt to make the journey. The cold of winter is intense, and the gales which sweep over those lofty valleys, down from barren, corroded mountains, whose very nudity testifies to almost inconceivably greater bulk and an antiquity that challenges the geologist's record of time, effectually call a halt to even the most hardy adventurer. The extreme south-western neighbour of Siberia (other than the Russian Central Asian provinces) is what is left to China of the old kingdom of Dzungaria. This name itself is almost lost to geographers, because the western parts, now known as the Russian provinces of Semipalatinsk and Semirechensk, were cut off soon after the middle of the nineteenth century, when Russia made her great advance into Central Asia. The rest of the territory was subsequently apportioned by the Chinese government partly to the administrative district of (Chinese) Turkestan and partly to that of northwest Mongolia. European scholars will always be likely to take an interest in this neighbour of Siberia, for Dzungaria attained a considerable height of civilisation (I use the word relatively) in the latter part of the seventeenth century, when the kingdom was ruled by Kaldan or l86 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Bushtu Khan. Only about one hundred years later, in 1757 to 1759, a Chinese army invaded the country and completely wiped out its independence. But unquestionably, the greatest interest that the people of all the world will have in this neighbour of Siberia, comes from the rise and overflowing of the great Mongol hordes who brought such devastation into Europe that not only was the young Russian empire threatened, but all that continent trembled with apprehension. Of this subject I have spoken elsewhere. * Although in this chapter I may have seemed to give a very hopeful aspect to Siberia's relations with her very few neighbours (and it is but natural for all lovers of international peace to do this), I must before I close the chapter confess to an entirely human timidity when I think of a bear as a neighbour, and especially the Russian bear whose hug is notorious. I do not believe that his muscles were the least strained or his claws drawn in the little fight he had a few years ago with the Japanese samurai. I doubt very much if his claws were greatly blunted, and if I were the president of the Great Republic of China and firmly seated in the Chinese White House, with every department of my government running smoothly and a national legislature in entire harmony with my policy, I should — much as I personally hate all that savours of militarism — try hard to set the north- ern front of my house in order, and I should certainly put strong bars to all the northern and western windows. It is now time to discuss some of the specific instances wherein Russian diplomats have crossed swords with the Chinese, as well as with the representatives of some of the other countries which go to make up the Far East. * See The Coming China. CHAPTER XIV SIBERIA AND THE FAR EAST IT is stated by some authorities that immediately after Yermak's conquest of Western Siberia the Russians and the Chinese began their intercourse. Some say they were actually in collision along the northern border of Mongolia. I cannot believe either the prompt intercourse or the collision, although had there been prompt meeting, I can readily understand how there might speedily have followed blows. A reference to a previous chapter will bring the explana- tion of why it was that the advancing Russians did not come into touch with the Chinese Government until well into the seventeenth century. It was because the brave and martially adept Buriat warriors for a long time com- pelled the Muscovites to take such a northerly course, through central Siberia, that they were altogether too far from the Mongolian frontier to meet many Chinese, It was not, however, in that part of the continent that Russia first attempted to give China a lesson in diplo- macy and came so near failure that Chinese historians themselves and Europeans who have dealt carefully with the subject of China's history, speak with much satisfaction of the fact that her first real trial at diplo- macy resulted to her own satisfaction, It is what is known as the treaty of Nerchinsk, and in order to understand the circumstances of the case at all, 188 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA it is necessary to make an effort to show, as clearly as I can, who the Manchus are and what Manchuria was — not at all the comparatively small area of the Eastern Three Provinces to which the name is now applied. It is a matter of small importance whether or not I have the unanimous endorsement of historians if I say that in all probability when the Mongol dynasty, the Yuen, 1260 to 1368 a.d., was driven off the Chinese throne and out of the empire by the founder of the last true Chinese dynasty, the Ming, a part of those particular Mongols went to the east of the Khingan Mountains so far that it was considered by the victorious Chinese a needless precaution to follow and annihilate them completely. It is certain that in that region there developed a very hardy and martial race of people who possessed them- selves of the territory from the Mongolia frontier almost indefinitely to the northward and eastward to the Pacific Ocean; although beyond the Amur River, northward, they gave little attention to what they pretended to dominate. It was through this occupation that the government of the great Chinese Empire asserted sover- eign rights to Korea which, with the whole of the great Manchu estates, was brought into the realm when the Manchus, in 1644, effected their conquest and placed Chuntche (or Chitson), the first emperor of the Taitsing dynasty, upon the throne of the greatly expanded empire. As I have already stated, Manchuria is a word un- known to the Chinese; but Manchu is the recognised name of the people who inhabit the Manchuria that we know, and who formerly were spread over a much larger territory. The name was adopted by a ruler who rose to power in the beginning of the thirteenth century. SIBERIA AND THE FAR EAST 189 Before that time the peop'e seem to have been thoroughly nomadic. I do not give any details of their history, but pass immediately to the early years of the seventeenth century when, in 161 7, Nurhachu, the Manchu leader, failing to receive satisfactory response to certain demands he made upon the Ming emperor, of China, declared war, and the final result of the struggle was the imposition of the Manchu yoke. "How a small Tartar tribe succeeded after fifty years of war in imposing its yoke on the sceptical, freedom-loving, and intensely national millions of China, will always remain one of the enigmas of history." * We are now prepared to see how it came about that the Russians and Chinese came into conflict in Man- churia and how they settled their difficulties diplomati- cally. The Chinese had given but little attention to the fortified posts which the Russians had erected along the southern border of their new possessions, because they were in a remote region and seemed not to menace China's sovereignty. But when a fort on a very pre- tentious and formidable scale was erected at the place to which the Russians gave the name of Albazin, the Chinese realised that their sovereignty was threatened. The Russians had been lulled by the apathy of the Chinese into the belief that their plans were to carry through without interference from the Chinese, and that their expropriation of the whole Amur valley was to be accomplished without further difficulty than the almost negligible opposition of an occasional native tribe. The Russians had penetrated into Dauria, as the region east of Lake Baikal was then called, in 1644, and promptly passed on into the Amur districts, needlessly destroying * Boulger, History of China. 190 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Daurian villages and arousing these people to opposition. The Daurians appealed to the Chinese for assistance in resisting the invaders, and Emperor K'ang-hi (1661-1722) sent troops who gave the Russians a very rude awakening. Albazin was captured, the fort de- stroyed, and a number of the Russians were taken as prisoners to Peking. It is said that their descendants have formed a little colony unto themselves even down to the present time. After the departure of the Chinese, the Russians returned and rebuilt their fort "with that obstinacy which is one of their characteristics, and which they derive from their Tartar origin. " * The Chinese re- newed their attack and it seemed as if there was to be an indefinite struggle. But K'ang-hi was more per- turbed by the uprising of some native tribes, at other points on the outskirts of his dominions, both east and west, than by the annoying Russians. He therefore listened to their overtures, made (according to Mailla) by Theodore Alexovitz Branki, son of the governor general of Eastern Siberia, who visited Peking in 1688, and in the following years ambassadors from both Courts met and the treaty of Nerchinsk was signed. By its terms the river Gorbiza or Kerbeche (Ghilyui ?) became the easterly limit of the Russian empire in the Amur region ; the boundary going from the headwaters of that river along the crest of the Yablonnoi (Stanovoi) moun- tains to the Sea of Okhotsk. This settled the aggressions of the Russians along the Amur for two centuries. Inasmuch as the Chinese cared little or nothing for the territory they had seemingly relinquished to Russia, and had defeated encroachment to the southward, this * Boulger. SIBERIA AND THE FAR EAST 191 treaty was considered a diplomatic victory for the Chinese statesmen. Towards the end of K'ang-hi's reign, an important episode connected with Russia occurred. This was an embassy sent by Peter the Great with a view to securing, if possible, more friendly relations between the two nations. The first embassy that the Russian Govern- ment had sent to the Chinese Court had been productive of no results, because the ambassadors had refused to perform the kaotao (the humiliating ceremony of prostra- tion, "three times kneeling and nine times knocking the head on the ground"). A second embassy had been sent from St. Petersburg to Peking in 1692; but beyond the fact that the envoy's name was Ides, we know nothing about it. Peter the Great's embassy reached China in 1719 and was honourably received. A suitable residence was assigned for their use and the entire embassy lived as the guests of the emperor. The members complained that they were not permitted to move about freely, being practically confined to their house and prevented from seeing anything of the life in the Chinese capital. The protest of ambassador Ismaloff was heeded and this annoying restriction of liberty was suspended. The kaotao again threatened to bring the embassy's effort to naught; but when one of Emperor K'ang-hi's highest rank ministers, representing his sovereign, offered the same respect to the letter from Peter the Great, the scruples of the Russian ambassador were overcome and an audience was granted. Peter's letter was presented to and received by the emperor and his gifts accepted. That letter reads thus: "To the Emperor of the vast countries in Asia, to the Sovereign Monarch of Bogdo, I92 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA to the supreme Majesty of Khilay, friendship and greet- ing. With the design which I possess of holding and increasing the friendship and close relations long es- tablished between your Majesty and my predecessors and myself, I have thought it right to send to your Court, in the capacity of ambassador-extraordinary, Leon Ismaloff, captain of my Guards. I beg you will receive him in a manner suitable to the character in which he comes, to have regard and to attach as much faith to what he may say on the subject of our mutual affairs as if I were speaking to you myself, and also to permit his residing at your Court of Peking until I recall him. Allow me to sign myself your Majesty's good friend, Peter." It was written in Russian, Latin, and Mongolian. Boulger says that the general testimony of all who witnessed the scene declares it was never before heard of a Chinese sovereign conferring greater honour on the ambassadors of a foreign State, than K'ang-hi did on this occasion to the representatives of Russia. After a short residence, Ismaloff returned home; but before his departure he succeeded in inducing the Emperor to consent to his leaving his secretary, De Lange, at Peking as a sort of diplomatic agent for the Tsar. Ismaloff 's report to the Tsar was so favourable (al- though entirely inaccurate, as we now know) that Peter was induced to send a commercial mission into northern China, expecting with a good deal of confidence to open and maintain a land route from the Siberian frontier to Peking. The caravan reached its destination, Peking, in 1 721; but the Tsar's representatives found conditions totally different from what Ismaloff's report had led the Russian Court to expect. De Lange was little more SIBERIA AND THE FAR EAST 193 than a prisoner; and to all overtures for development of commerce, the Manchu statesmen invariably made the same reply: "Trade is a matter of little consequence. It is something with which statesmen have nothing to do, and for ourselves, we look upon it with contempt." Not long after this episode both Peter the Great and the Great K'ang-hi died. In their ways they were equally great, and in true civilisation the Manchu was the superior of the Muscovite. Their successors were not competent to recover the ground that had been lost, even had they been desirous of doing so; therefore diplomacy and trade were deferred to a later day. K'ien-lung, K'ang-hi's proximate successor, was made to recognise the presence of the Russians along the northern border of his realm. While relations were, on the whole, friendly, there was more or less friction be- cause of the aggressiveness of individual Russians . These acted without official support; because the terms of the Treaty of Nerchinsk were lived up to fairly well. Yet the Muscovite spirit could not but assert itself; and having given the text of Peter the Great's letter, it will be interesting to know how the Chinese emperor, K'ien-lung, expressed himself in a characteristic letter rebuking Russian high-handedness and breach of faith. "It is found, upon examination, that should a thief belonging to either nation be discovered on the frontier, he is to be examined in the presence of authorities representing jointly the two Powers. If adjudged guilty, he is to be punished by the authorities of his own country, and that without delay. Pursuant to this law, in the forty-fourth year * two men who stole eleven horses from some of your countrymen, were condemned *That is, the 44th year of K'ien-lung's reign, 1779. 194 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA and executed. Our great Empire, acting according to law and strictly observing the faith of treaties, did this not for the preservation of friendship between us, but because of that love of faith and truth which it greatly esteems. Now you, because you have neglected to execute a condemned Russian thief, have broken the laws of friendship and the faith of treaties. Our great Empire takes full cognisance of your manifest intention to act according to your own will, because of the obstacles you throw in the way of executing justice when your nationals are guilty. We shall not, therefore, permit further trade between our subjects and yours to be carried on. Although our two empires border on one another, yet ours may properly call itself the elder brother. Since, then, we hold, in the rank of empires, the honourable place of elder brother, and inasmuch as we punished, at your request, the two thieves without delay, while you refuse to us the same satisfaction, should our great Empire brook such an affront? Ponder well and examine into this matter." Despite this haute en bas attitude of the Chinese emperor and his Manchu officials, they were unable to control their own subjects, and the Russians speedily developed a large trade at Kiahkta. In the first year of Emperor Tao-Kwang, 1820-21, another Russian embassy arrived in Peking. Commercially, it also was a failure; but in other respects we may say that some good results were gained. It was then that the Russian college was founded, and although it really did nothing for the Chinese in the matter of science and Western learning comparable with the success in those matters of the French Jesuits, still we are indebted somewhat to that Russian college. «- : Inside the Kremlin, Moscow Gate of the Redeemer Inside the Kremlin, Moscow Tower of Ivan Veliki. Tsar Kolokol (the Great Bell) SIBERIA AND THE FAR EAST 195 By an arrangement between the two Governments, the resident staff of the college was to be changed every ten years at the longest. In 1820, Egor Fedorovich Timkowski arrived in Peking to be the head of the college. His account of what he saw and did is one of the best contemporary works we have. He was reminded of the Kremlin, Moscow, when he saw the crenelated walls of Siuenhwa-fu; and several other Chinese cities made him think of home towns. Williams* says: "Tim- kowski's journey with the decennial mission to Peking in 1820-21 furnishes one of the best accounts of this trade and intercourse now accessible, and with Klaproth's notes, given in the English translation published in 1827, has long been the chief reliable authority for the divisions and organization of the Mongol tribes." I think I may truthfully add that this joint work has not yet been supplanted. In the opinion of the Chinese Court, the greatest good that the Russian College accomplished was the training of European interpreters who were entirely free from the contaminating influences of the Roman Catholic (Jesuit) missionaries. Another of the Russian college staff, although seemingly he belonged to an independent ecclesiastical mission, was the archimandrite, Hyacinth Batchourin, commonly called " Pere Hyacinth." He gave the first satisfactory description of Peking ever written in a European language: his book is accessible in an English translation. It is regrettable, however, that very few of the works of the early Russian authors — those who dealt with subjects relating to China and Russo- Chinese intercourse — have been translated. Retracing my steps for a moment, in order to complete * The Middle Kingdom. 196 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA the sequence of these diplomatic missions, it should be noted that in 1727 a fifth was sent by Tsarina Catharine, under Count Vladislovitch. Yung Ching, the immediate successor of K'ang-hi the Great, was then on the throne. Intercourse was arranged in a fairly satisfactory way and some representatives of the Russian State Church, six ecclesiastics and four laymen, were permitted to reside in Peking in order to study Chinese and Mongolian. The treaty which Vladislovitch concluded, was signed August 27, 1729, and remained in force until 1858. Williams avers that it was the longest lived treaty in history. About the middle of the nineteenth century the Rus- sians resumed actively the colonising of the upper Amur valley, and in 1858 and i860, treaties were made with China whereby the latter ceded to Russia all her territory north of the Amur and between the Usuri River and the Pacific. Thus the boundary between Siberia and China in that region was definitely established, in the opinion of the Chinese government. Passing by what little else there is in the diplomatic intercourse between the Russians, as relates to Siberia and the Chinese, I now consider briefly the incident of the great Hi province, or region. The Chinese govern- ment has had much trouble, at different times, with its Mohammedan subjects. There was an outbreak in the province of Yunnan shortly after the middle of last century, and at the same time similar disturbances occurred in Shensi and Kansu provinces. Immediately upon this came an uprising of all the Central Asia tribes that for some two thousand years had morally acknowl- edged Chinese rule. In Kashgaria a nomad chief, named Yakub Beg, w}io was also known as The Atalik SIBERIA AND THE FAR EAST 197 Ghazi, proclaimed himself Amir, and for a time it seemed as if he would maintain his independence of Chinese rule. The fertile province of Kuldja, or Hi, which stretches southwestwardly down from the Siberian frontier and lies to the north of the Tian-Shan, was occupied by Russia in 187 1. This was done in the interests of peace, as well as for the purpose of putting a stop to the anarchical conditions which threatened Russian trading interests. The Russian Government, however, declared that it would withdraw just as soon as China had re-established order. China found that Great Britain and Turkey especially were greatly interested in her affairs, as related to this outbreak, and she was, therefore, stimulated to unusual effort. A sum of £1,600,000 was borrowed from British bankers, and a well equipped force sent into IK. There was a fearful slaughter, but competent witnesses seemed to be agreed that from the very nature of the case, the methods of the Mussulmans, etc., this was un- avoidable. Gradually the authority of the Chinese emperor was re-established throughout the whole dis- affected region, until finally the Chinese forces were in touch with the Russian outposts in the Pamirs. China then called upon Russia to keep her promise, contending that she had demonstrated her ability to maintain order. The Chinese emperor sent one of his highest rank Manchu officials, Chung-how, to St. Peters- burg to negotiate a treaty pertinent to the situation. After long discussion, Russia seeking to evade the literal fulfillment of her promise, a convention, known as the treaty of Livadia, was signed in September, 1879. By the terms of this agreement, nearly all of the affected territory was to be restored to China upon pay- ment to Russia of five million roubles, which that 198 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Government represented to be the expense which had been incurred. When this action was reported in Peking, a perfect storm of indignation and protest broke forth. One of the most vehement denouncers of this prostitu- tion of China's rights and dignity was Chang Chih-tung, afterwards famous as " China's Greatest Viceroy," and the author of " China's Only Hope." * Prince Chun, the father of the young emperor (the late Kwang Hsu) came into prominence at this time, and there was considerable talk of war and of expelling all the foreigners from every part of China. However, the good judgment of saner statesmen prevailed and Marquis Tseng, at that time Minister to England, was sent to St. Petersburg to negotiate another and, it was expected, a more favourable treaty. A new treaty was signed August 19, 1881, and while China was not absolutely restored to possession of all the territory, yet the terms were otherwise satisfactory to the Chinese emperor and statesmen. "The Chinese Government could now contemplate the almost complete recovery of the whole extensive domains which had at any time owned the imperial sway. The regions directly administered by the officers of the em- peror extended from the borders of Siberia on the north to Annam and Burma on the south, and from the Pacific Ocean on the east to Kashgar and Yarkand on the west. There was also a fringe of tributary nations who still kept up the ancient form of allegiance, and who more or less acknowledged the dominion of the central kingdom. The principal tributary nations then were Korea, Luchu, Annam, Burma, and Nepaul." f *See The Coming China. tMr. Valentine Chirol, in Enc. Brit, nth ed. SIBERIA AND THE FAR EAST 199 This ambassador Chung-how, who succeeded in raising the storm of protest because of his willingness to accede to Russia's exorbitant demand for indemnity, was tried for maladministration and high treason and condemned to death on March 3, 1880. This seems almost like just punishment, although deferred. In 1870 it was this man who had been so notoriously connected with the massacre at Tientsin. In that year, because of the pretensions of the clerics connected with the French and Russian orphanages, the Chinese people had attacked the institutions and killed a number of foreigners. Chung-how was openly charged with having failed to make any effort to suppress the riot and to protect the foreigners. It seems hardly necessary to dwell long upon the events of the last years, in which Siberia and China figure. The Boxer episode and its consequences; the history of Manchuria, the results of the Russo-Japanese war, have all been either mentioned or they are familiar to all readers, without yet having attained the dignity of history, while the relations of the present time are too elusive to permit of fixing them in written record. If Russia, angered at the willingness of American bankers to render substantial pecuniary aid to China, with which she may rehabilitate herself domestically and re-equip herself with armaments, shall carry into execution her threat to withdraw entirely from all participation in European politics, in order that she may devote herself assiduously to her Far Eastern interests, it is plainly a notice to China to gird up her loins. The record of Russia's relations with Japan, until after the middle of the nineteenth century, can be summed up in a few words. After the Russians had 200 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA made their way to the Pacific, it was not long until they heard of the advantageous trade which the Portuguese and their successors, the Dutch, were enjoying at various ports — but principally Hirado and later Nagasaki — of the southern island, Kyushiu. They made applica- tion for permission to share in that trade, and after a most vexatious delay, during which the vessel, bearing the alleged commissioner to negotiate a treaty of friend- ship and commerce, was held almost as a prize at Naga- saki, they were refused what they asked and were curtly ordered away from Japan. It is impossible to suppose that the Japanese, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, could have known precisely what an offer from Russia to engage in friendly trading relations meant. But we must not belittle Japanese intelligence too much. The few works written from one hundred to one hundred and fifty years ago, are very difficult to procure now in original editions. When such can be had, it is manifest that the Japanese rulers were in an exceedingly nervous state lest some one of the big European nations should annex their little kingdom. Of Russia's capacity to absorb strange lands they may have heard, and this may explain something of their curtness. At any rate it is certain that the Japan- ese treated very shabbily Russians who fell into their hands and that the Russians resorted to armed reprisals. Later the Japanese were wheedled — I do not like to use the word coerced — into exchanging the Island of Saghalien for the bleak Kurile Archipelago. Japanese statesmen learnt something from the per- sistency of the Europeans and their display of martial strength, especially that of the Russians. It was fortu- SIBERIA AND THE FAR EAST 201 nate for Japan that the attention of Europe was with- drawn from her a century ago, and concentrated at home. Had it not been for the Napoleonic episode, it is by no means impossible that Russia's designs upon Japan would have been carried out. ; But since the re-opening of Japan's doors in 1853, or 1854, Russia had been content to play a subordinate role in the Far East, until a comparatively recent date. Her evident designs upon Korea, before the events of 1900 and 1901, naturally aroused Japan's jealousy and reasonable apprehension, and were merely an added incentive for the preparations which Japan made for the quarrel she picked with China in 1894. That all political lines are now drawn in the extreme eastern part of the continent of Asia as they are to remain indefinitely, is not the conviction of those who are best informed. For a time there were almost convincing signs of an understanding between Russia and Japan. Each was to keep hands off the other, and if the further- ance of one's plans meant discomfiture to China, the moral and material assistance of the other was assured. Of late there seems to have come a change; an indica- tion that Japanese statesmen are beginning to realise that it is no part of wisdom to build for to-day only. In the future it is that Japan's best days are to come, if she keeps faith with her British ally and if she joins hands heartily with America in helping China. To do these things properly demands a complete break with Russia. Assuming that such a break occurs — not an immediate fight — it requires no marked gift of prophecy to see how much strengthened Japan's hands would be, if Russian grand dukes and militarists should insist upon trying 202 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA once more the result of armed conflict. For the present, it is improbable that even those two factors in Russian administration could bring about another Russo-Japan- ese war, because the sentiment of the people is so much against both the war and the administration. While if Japan wisely allies herself with Great Britain and America in building up a New China, Russia would hesitate a long time before committing an assault upon the weakest of that three-party combination. Russia's relations with Korea are, like those of all the rest of the world now, a closed book. Commercially they never amounted to anything entitled to serious consideration. Politically, the peninsula was but another plum that the Muscovite contemplated picking when he was ready. He would then have transferred his im- pregnable fortress from Vladivostok to Fusan, extended his railway system, and had his open port on the Pacific. That he counted without his host is well for many people; although personally I cannot bring myself to admit that Korea and the Koreans are one whit better off in the hard, unrelaxing little hand of their Japanese taskmasters than they would have been in the big fist of a Russian tyrant. CHAPTER XV RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA IT is a little presumptuous to give to a single chapter the title which has been found appropriate to a number of volumes. Furthermore, it is a topic that cannot be treated exhaustively until the Russian ad- vance and British influence have lain down side by side in permanent peace somewhere in Persia, or along the Afghanistan frontier, or at any other agreed upon line in southwestern Asia. Is it a human possibility that this peace can be until the Saxon and the Slav have "had it out" and determined, so far as brutal war ever does determine anything, who is to be the master in that part of the world? This does not involve the keeping or losing of India. If the name of Mikhail Skobeleff is not familiar to all my readers, it is certainly one that was well known in all the chancelleries of Europe a quarter of a century ago, and a little more. As a general he was a brilliant officer; as an active servant of the Tsar in pushing for- ward the boundaries of the empire, he was remarkably successful; but as a humane conqueror he was a ghastly failure, and his name is even now execrated by all the descendants of the few whom he permitted to survive where he conquered. Skobeleff once wrote a letter, so it is said, in which he declared, "In Central Asia the position of affairs changes: 204 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA not every hour but every minute." It is a remark almost as apposite to-day applied to conditions in northern Persia especially as it was when the Russian general and conqueror penned it: and Skobeleff died in 1882. If its application were limited to northern Persia, we might perhaps be content to let Great Britain say when the change must stop. Yet when we read in the English daily newspapers and the magazines and quarterlies, the frank expressions of disgusted Britons at what they call the pusillanimity and double-dealing of their Govern- ment, we are not comfortably assured that even a halt has been called to the Russian advance to the Persian Gulf and into British India. I am strongly inclined to believe that Skobeleff voiced the sentiment of the majority of Russian army and navy officers, when he said, "I hate an Englishman." He did not mean necessarily all civilians, and the hatred is probably of that professional kind which would find its gratification in a war in Persia or Afghanistan, to determine (perhaps) whether or not the Muscovite shall go to the sea, or stop just where he is. As I have already stated, I am not convinced that it is in Central Asia alone that the position of affairs is changing, or is soon to change, so far as change is descrip- tive of Russia's aggression and expansion. Lovers of peace can find very little comfort in the appearance of conditions just now; but we may hope that the ominous portent shall be but a cloud which resolves into the ether of the bright skies. Recently there were most ominous signs of outrageous expansion southward along the whole central Siberian frontier. A little later, assurances were given that all was well; but at present there seems to be reason for apprehension. RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA 205 I am going to follow the example set by those who have preceded me in discussing the possessions of Russia in Asia, other than those now included in Great Siberia, and call them Russia's Central Asian Provinces. But as a geographical matter of fact they are not "central" as relates to the continent of Asia. They are central only when we think of a north and south line drawn along the western border of Asia between the parallels of latitudes including them. I could not if I would give to what I may write a political aspect; and I do not care to do so, for obvious reasons. Of Russia's methods in acquiring an area which is now estimated at 1,325,530 square miles, I must write as I feel. Those feelings are influenced by another declaration of General Skobeleff, and again he voiced the sentiments of most of his fellow officers: "I hold it as a principle that in Asia the duration of peace is in direct proportion to the slaughter you inflict upon the enemy. The harder you hit them the longer they will be quiet afterwards. My system is this: to strike hard, and keep on hitting until resistance is completely over; then at once to form ranks, cease slaughter, and be kind and humane to the prostrate enemy." Let me illustrate how that "humanity" was displayed by Russian officers in Central Asia, not once but many times. The famous Tekke (Turkoman) fortress of Denghil Tepe, commonly known as Geok Tepe, and so designated on our maps and in the gazetteers, was captured at one o'clock in the afternoon of Jan. 24, 1881. "At four in the afternoon Skobeleff led his cavalry through the breach and ordered both horse and foot to pursue the retreating enemy and to give no quarter. This command was obeyed with savage precision by 206 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA both till darkness fell — by the infantry (six companies) for a distance of seven miles, by the cavalry (a division of dragoons and four sotnias of Cossacks) for eleven miles, supported by a battery of horse artillery with long range guns. Eight thousand persons of both sexes and all ages were mercilessly cut down and slain. 'On the morning after the battle they lay in rows like freshly mown hay, as they had been swept down by the mitrail- leuses and cannon. ' In the fort were found the corpses of 6,500 men, and some thousands of living women and children. There, too, in General Grodekoff 's own words, 'all who had not succeeded in escaping were killed to a man by the Russian soldiers, the only males spared being the Persian prisoners, who were easily recognised by the fetters on their legs, and of whom there were about 600 in all. After that only women and children, to the number of about 5,000, were left.' The troops were allowed to loot without interruption for four days, and booty to the value of six hundred thousand pounds was found inside the fortress. In the operations of the day the Russian loss was only 60 killed and 340 wounded; during the entire campaign 283 killed and 689 wounded. Within the same time Skobeleff admitted that he must have destroyed 20,000 of the enemy. "It was not a rout, but a massacre; not a defeat, but extirpation ; and it is not surprising that after this drastic lesson, the Tekkes of the Akhal oasis have never lifted a little finger against their conquerors. "An incident related to me in Transcaspia afforded an interesting corroboration of the immeasurable effect that was produced upon the inhabitants by this disastrous day. I have already narrated that the Russian columns (there were three of them, under the command of RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA 207 Colonels Kuropatkin, Kozelkoff, and HaidarofT) ad- vanced to the assault with drums beating and bands playing, a favourite plan of SkobelefTs whenever he attacked. Five years later, when the railway was opened to Askabad, and in the course of the inaugural ceremonies the Russian military music began to play, the Turkoman women and children raised woful cries of lamentation, and the men threw themselves on the ground with their foreheads in the dust." * If this were the only example of comparable, although happily not often equalled, brutality in Russian military methods in Asia, a broad charity might prompt us to pass it by; but it is not. Skobeleff, after the defeat of his predecessor, Lomakin, by some of those very same Turkomans, had been given by his superior, the Russian Minister of War, the Government, and the Tsar himself, an absolutely free hand as to manner and methods of conducting his operations against those people. The only limitations put upon him were to conquer and annex. There are two other occasions that recur to me; the massacre of the Yomud Turkomans at Kizil Takir by General Kaufmann, after the surrender of Khiva in 1873, and General Lomakin's inhuman bom- bardment of Tekke women and children at the same Denghil Tepe in 1879. Unless the accounts we have had of the recent acts of Russian troops in Persia have been greatly exaggerated, and to the prejudice of the Musco- vites and Cossacks, we must admit that the spirit of the twentieth century is quite the same as was that which inspired the Russians in the past. ♦Curzon, Russia in Central Asia, pp. 82 to 84. His account is based upon Siege and Assault of Denghil Tepe. By General Mikhail Skobeleff (translated). London, 1881. 208 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA It is, however, only fair to the Russian soldier, whether Slav or Cossack, to say that all of them did not share the brutality and cruelty of Skobeleff. That general, when writing to military headquarters, insisted that in selecting officers to serve under him, only those should be considered whose sole idea of duty was to obey implicitly his orders, and that all who entertained vision- ary sentiments of humanitarianism should be kept away from Central Asia. After Skobeleff had conquered and practically de- populated Geok Tepe, he complained that he was unutterably bored, because there was nothing left for him to do. Yet some of his common soldiers who had probably amply satisfied his ideals of military discipline and implicit obedience in the assault and the succeeding butchery, were said to have shown somewhat of humanity in caring for the widows, and many of them "might be seen walking about, holding the little fatherless Tekke children by the hand." I have gone too far ahead of my story, and must now return a long way to consider the beginnings and de- velopment of these Central Asian Provinces of the Tsar's domains. In area they make a respectable sized State unto themselves. Compare their combined size with that of some of the Great Powers of continental Europe. Austria- Hungary has 241,333 square miles; Germany, 208,780, France 207,054. As to population, comparison is absurd. As to financial worth or commercial value, again we cannot draw a parallel. In order to keep a clear idea of what we are to include in this discussion of Russia's Central Asian possessions, I give a list of the political divisions which are now RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA 209 usually embraced by that definition. Akmolensk, Semi- palatinsk, Turgai, Uralsk: these provinces are in the government-general of the Steppes: Ferghana, Samar- kand, Syr-Daria, Semiryechensk : these provinces com- pose the government-general of Turkestan : the Province of Transcaspia. The latest estimate of the population is 9,973,400 for the whole. Ferghana and Samarkand are the only sections that may be said to have a fair population: in the former there are 53 inhabitants to the square mile; in the latter, 43. Not another district or division runs into double figures. There is no reasonable doubt in the mind of one who reads the earliest books which are readily obtainable, Clarke, Haxthausen, Pallas, et al.,* that the Russian Tsar, well back in the eighteenth century, had been looking most attentively and covetously across the Caspian Sea into the sparsely populated regions of adjacent Asia. While this may be, yet it was not until about 1864 that serious attention has been given to the appropria- tion of the enormous expanse of territory that reaches down from the Siberian frontier to the borders of Persia and Afghanistan. That nobody in Europe paid the slightest attention to what Russia was doing, for a long time, is as pertinent here as it was in speaking of Siberia. Moral and sentimental interest was aroused by the brutal methods employed to effect the annexation, rather than by the colossal steal of other peoples' property. The eastern boundary of this territory, in itself a handsome empire, is extremely irregular, if we think of straight lines. Yet when we consider that it is largely made up of mountain ranges, along the crests of which ♦See Bibliography. 2IO RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA the frontier as a rule runs, and zigzagging from range to range across the valleys, there is, after all, an approxima- tion to regularity. To the average human being, the top of a mountain or a river is a much more compre- hensible mete and bound than is the straightest line which can be drawn across level country. The western boundary of the Central Asian Provinces, where it does not march with that of European Russia, is rather a straight line, clearly defined by the shores of the Caspian Sea. The southern border is fixed by delimitation commissions: but how permanently? A very large part of this enormous area was simply occupied by Russian troops; the mere presence of the invaders, armed and equipped as the unsophisticated natives had never seen before, was quite enough to over- awe the poor people, who submitted tamely to what the Russians demanded. There was a stout resistance to this agression by some, but it was usually a simple matter to crush out such display of independence. A few of the petty rulers, or important ones, as might be — for ex- ample the Khan of Khiva, the Amir of Bokhara, and others — were flattered by being allowed to call them- selves sovereigns who had allied themselves with the Tsar of Russia, who, on his part, promised them pro- tection from the assaults of envious neighbours or troublesome enemies. I have already drawn attention to the interpretation put by great Russian army commanders upon the suggestion of the Tsar as to the desirability of a line of fortresses along the Syr-Daria valley. This command brought about precisely the result that was expected — the annexation of the entire region from sea to mountain tops, and the carrying out of the conquest of the territory RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA 211 of the Tekke Turkomans by General Skobeleff, as has been narrated. In 1884 the Merv oasis was annexed without special display of military strength. Three years before that the town of Askabad had been made the capital of the recently constituted Province of Transcaspia, and a governor-general was appointed to reside in the place. This act of the Russian government enhanced the dignity of the city and strongly appealed to the inhabitants thereof as well as to the people of the neighbourhood. Describe the process in any way we choose, it has gone on in that quiet, irresistible way which has marked the expansion of the great empire in every direction towards which the ruler has cast his envious eyes. We naturally ask ourselves the question, what is the value of this possession? Commercially it is hardly entitled to serious consideration; because the cotton it supplies is now not an important factor in the industries of Great Russia, and it could have been obtained without the sacrifice of life and the expenditure of money which the annexa- tion entailed. Most of the other products are classified as aesthetic luxuries which do not receive serious attention from statisticians. If there is real value to Russia in having her Central Asian acquisition, it is a selfish one and lies in directions beyond the present borders thereof. Eastward, there are possibilities towards China; southward, towards India, Persia, and the Persian Gulf. When the time comes, if ever it does come, which is extremely doubtful, that Russia opens freely these Central Asian Provinces to the traveller from other lands, there may be rich reward for careful scientific investigation. The student of ancient history will 212 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA (perhaps) be able to trace the route of Alexander the Great, and see how amusingly he was deceived by his wanderings into believing that he had encompassed the whole world with his victorious army, till there were no more worlds left to conquer. The scourging track of the early Tartar invasions down into the southwest of Asia will interest the antiquarian, and he may compare his Herodotus with his Marco Polo, probably to his astonishment at the reasonable veracity of both, and both may be checked off by facts demon- strated by cold precision and the accurate balance of modern science. The search for surviving relics of an influence which gave deep impress upon European civilisation, must attract many; as will, too, the oppor- tunity for investigating the Bactrian or Sogdian king- doms; and the vanished magnificence of the Great Mogul may furnish interest and excitement for a moment. The student of modern history — he who is not a subject of the White Tsar, and therefore will look upon his opportunities from a different point of view — will be able to determine, as none who has not been on the spot can do, something at least of the spirit in which the successive steps of the Russian advance were taken from the first colony on the Caspian Sea to the latest acquisition. Where that is to be, I do not dare to say. One pause every visitor will make, at Merv, to mourn over the dethroned " Queen of the World." For this is one of the myths that the Russian occupation has ex- ploded. Change and decay in all around, he will see ; and he will perfectly agree with Lord Curzon who says that before the eyes of the visitor to Central Asia, "the sands of an expiring epoch are fast running out; and the hour- glass of destiny is once again being turned on its base." CHAPTER XVI RUSSIA AND INDIA WHEN discussing Anglo-Russian relations in Asia, whether they are considered as the phase of racial jealousy, or the spheres of influence, or the antipo- dal civilisations, most people assume at once that Russia's ultimate — and indeed sole — object is the conquest of British India. It is usually contended that the Musco- vite wishes to precipitate a war with the Briton, the prize to be the possession of the brightest jewel in the crown of the British Empire. The whole British-Indian possessions are to be annexed to the already huge and unwieldy realm of the White Tsar and — for the con- venience of everybody of interest or indifferent — the Russian flag is to wave over the whole continent of Asia. I am disposed to doubt if Russia has quite such a tre- mendously wide view of possibilities as this would mean. It seems rather as if it were still the control of the Bosphorus with the collateral right of way through the Sea of Marmora and the Dardanelles out into the free waters of the Mediterranean which Russia has in mind. Someone will doubtless ask, just what bearing does Russia's possessing or lacking the absolute command of all water communication between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean have upon British rule in India? The answer is a very simple one. It is a matter of prestige; of Great Britain's saving or losing her face — 214 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA to borrow a now popular Chinese expression. If Russia can by any trick or scheming nag Great Britain into declaring war upon her in Persia or Afghanistan, the fight would open with a certain moral advantage for Muscovy. Having this handicap in her favour, she would expect assistance from the natives, and with their help force Great Britain to ask for peace. It is the opinion of most competent observers that the terms of peace would not be conditioned upon the surrender of India but a promise to let Russia have her way with Turkey. I wish to draw particular attention to what now fol- lows, because few people can so much as think of Russia and France as even possible armed allies at the close of the eighteenth century. Yet in the year 1800 Paul (1796 to 1801) the insane Tsar was an easy and willing victim of Napoleon's flattery and artifice. There was to have been an alliance between Russia and France, the purpose of which was to destroy the power and influence of Great Britain as a potent factor in European affairs by freeing the Indians and the natives of all dependent States from British rule. Napoleon, it will be remembered, was at that time merely First Consul of France. He was carefully following every fine of procedure or hint which gave promise of weakening the power that he dreaded most — that of England. On his part, in this contemplated alliance with Tsar Paul, he proposed to march an army of thirty-five thousand troops, representing all branches of the military service, down the Danube valley to the Black Sea. Russian transports were to be ready there to take this army to Tagaurog on the Sea of Azof, whence the French soldiers would be carried up the Don River The Bourse Lighthouse, Neva River, St. Petersburg Place de Marie, St. Petersburg RUSSIA AND INDIA 215 until opposite Tsaritzin on the Volga River, where they would be joined by a much larger army of Russians; that is, Cossacks mostly. Here the entire force would be placed under the always doubtful expedient of a joint command. Descending the Volga by river boats to Astrakhan, the entire army was there to embark on transports and be taken to Astrabad, at the extreme southeast corner of the Caspian Sea. Here the long overland march was to begin, and the route laid out was by way of northern Persia, through Herat and Farah to Kandahar, at or near which place, in southern Afghanistan, it was assumed the allies would be in touch with the British forces, and battle would take place. Napoleon's attention was diverted from this wild scheme by more urgent matters near home, and he with- drew from the enterprise. It is more than doubtful if he ever intended anything more than to flatter the weak-minded, yet tyrannical Russian despot who had been for some time evincing such manifest incapacity to govern his country, that plots were rife which cul- minated in his murder on March 11, 1801. Napoleon probably did not greatly fear Paul, but he realised that he was a dangerous mischief-maker who could be best cajoled into harmlessness. Paul had made trouble by getting his country into the second coalition against France, that of 1778; and then into another imbroglio, that of the armed neutrality against Great Britain of 180 1. In both cases he had displayed positive imbecility in acting from personal petulance. He at one time sought a quarrel with France, because he professed a sentimental interest in the Knights of Malta (successors, so to speak, of the Knights 2l6 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA of the Order of the Hospital of St. John at Jerusalem). After their discomfiture in the Mediterranean, many of the knights had sought refuge at Paul's Court and the half-mad Tsar was made Grand Master of the Order in October, 1 798. His display of zeal in behalf of the Order naturally brought him into ridicule generally. He was, however, so flattered by the attention of Napoleon and the suggestion of the alliance just mentioned, that he went far out of his way to pick a quarrel with Great Britain. The accounts which English travellers in Russia during Paul's reign give, show plainly that the Tsar's senseless animosity included individuals. Although a little irrelevant, I may here state that Paul's antipathy to Britons seems to have extended itself to include practically all Europeans who ventured across his borders. It is only in this way that we can account for such outrages as the sending of Augustus von Kotzebue into exile in Siberia.* This book contains an interesting although extremely egotistical account of his experiences. It tends to discredit the charge of universal and unvary- ing brutality in the treatment of political and kindred exiles. After Napoleon had abandoned the suggested conquest of British India, Tsar Paul seriously proposed to under- take the mad adventure on his own account. Not with his few Russian troops, however. Paul, having once been seduced by the blandishments of Napoleon, and being now obsessed with the glory of such an under- taking, sought to flatter others into lending the needed *The Most Remarkable Year in the Life of Augustus von Kotzebue, containing an account of his exile into Siberia, written by himself. Translated from the German by the Rev. Benjamin Beresford, English lecturer to the Queen of Prussia, London, 1802. RUSSIA AND INDIA 217 aid. He must have felt that he could not depend upon any of his true Russian subjects to obey him in such a wild adventure, despite his autocracy. Paul wrote a long letter to the head ataman of the Don Cossacks in which he gave him the opportunity to capture India for the exclusive benefit of his people. He promised them the whole Indian empire, and declared that they could easily possess themselves of all its untold wealth. It seems difficult, indeed impossible, to believe that the cajoling address which Tsar Paul wrote at the time can have emanated solely and wholly from his feeble brain; and its composition, as well as its wily tone, gives a very suggestive insight of the ease with which the Tsar of All the Russias, his Ministers, and his Army officers justify their propensity for invading terri- tory which does not belong to them and for annexing lands which they covet. When Tsar Paul first gave heed to Napoleon's scheme for humiliating Great Britain, he promptly prepared a message which he caused to be circulated freely along the proposed line of march in Asia. It is hardly neces- sary to say that the sole purpose of this circular was to incite the natives against the British. If this could be successfully accomplished, it is manifest what a tre- mendous advantage would accrue to Russia. The appearance of disinterested altruism could hardly have deceived Persians or Afghans. This is an extract from a translation of the address: "The sufferings under which the whole native popula- tion of India groans, have appealed to France and Russia so forcibly as to excite their liveliest interest. The two Governments have resolved to combine their strength in an effort to liberate the peoples of India from the 2l8 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA tyrannical and barbarous yoke of English oppression. Accordingly, this message is sent forth to assure all princes and peoples, through whose territories the allied army may pass, that they need have no fear of molesta- tion or injury. On the contrary it must be manifest to all that it is their solemn duty to help with arms and materials such a glorious and beneficent enterprise. The purpose of the campaign We purpose undertaking is as just as Alexander the Great's was unjust when he set forth to conquer the whole world." Lord Curzon, commenting upon this grandiloquent manifesto in 1889, quite properly imputes plagiarism to General Skobeleff, eighty years later, when he tried the same sort of appeal. In contemplating the relative positions of Russia and Great Britain in Central Asia, there cannot be much that is agreeable to those who are patriotic Britons. Even those who are sincerely friendly towards England's legitimate aspirations are not pleased. Strangers are compelled to acquiesce in the opinion expressed by so many English writers. In fact, the whole method of the British treatment of such a serious case has been marked by something which permits of no other descriptive word than stupidity. When Russia began the annexation of territory lying west of the Chinese empire, it quite naturally seemed to British statesmen that such occupation contained no threat to the British-Indian empire. We should not, therefore, be surprised that no special effort was made to safeguard the outlying frontiers by establishing stronger British influence in Afghanistan than has ever yet been exerted. After the Crimean War had prostrated Russia, there was little indication of that aggressiveness which later RUSSIA AND INDIA 2IO, was to re-assert itself with respect to Anglo-Russian relations in Western Central Asia; and which has been positively offensive at times. The peaceful methods of Russia for nearly a quarter of a century after 1856, makes it seem almost impossible that within but a few years a Russian diplomat has bluntly said to an English colleague, "If you tamper with Russia's dominions north of the Oxus ; or if you interfere with the realisation of our national aims in Europe, we shall immediately cross the Afghan frontier and challenge you to mortal combat in the East." The colonisation of what was already admitted by all the rest of Europe to be a legitimate conquest of Russia in Asia — that is, Siberia — quite naturally led to an overflow southward over the Kirghis Steppes. It is not worth while considering here the desultory expedi- tions, prior to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, across the Caspian Sea, or the expeditions which even- tually led to the annexation of the extensive Khanate of Khiva. There were governments already established in those regions which were totally different from almost every- thing the Russians had found in Western Siberia. Even the settlements ruled by the first immigrants from Tur- kestan, around the upper waters of the Amu-Daria were not comparable in physical development and civilisation with what was common in several cities. These were the capitals, usually, of the Khanates, in the middle section of the belt which has been described as stretching southward from Siberia to Persia and Afghanistan; westward from the lofty mountains to the Caspian Sea. Samarkand was early captured, and Bokhara was conquered to all intents and purposes by 1868. Russia 220 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA had already conquered Western Turkestan and Khokand and virtually annexed them to her domains; so that north of the Oxus River there was nothing to cause special uneasiness to those who had undertaken the task of making the region a part of All the Russias. The point of active operations, in converting the southern portion of these Central Asian acquisitions into thoroughly Russianised provinces, was from a different point and the invaders pursued a new 1 course. Attention was given to the Caspian Sea frontage of the new territory, and from that base, operations were carried on. From Krasnovodsk steadily eastward, by Geok Tepe, Askabad, Merv, Sarakhs, and the oasis of Penjdeh, to within a few miles, comparatively, of Herat, this move- ment advanced and Russia had a new and singularly doubled Asiatic dominion. I should like here to follow Baron Curzon's " distinction between Turkestan, or Central Asia proper, the capital of which is Tashkent, and Turkomania, or the country of the Turkomans, which extends from the Caspian to Merv." A part of the route just mentioned is in Turkomania, the other in Turkestan. Between them were a great river and its wide bottom of desert sands that were well-nigh impassable. To river and valley the name Syr-Daria and Amu-Daria are applied, now one and then the other, causing much confusion. But the upper part of the river certainly, if not the whole of it, all of us know best by the name of the Oxus. After the decision to prosecute the conquest of this Central Asia from the eastern shore of the Caspian had been made, it was not long until General AnnenkofI conceived the idea of building a railway from the sea RUSSIA AND INDIA 221 as far eastward into these new possessions as the thing could be done. When, therefore, the native tribes had been subdued and the local rulers gathered under the wing of Russian "protection," this work was begun. Annenkoff's first plan was too economical, and it had to be set aside for something more expensive, but more practical and permanent: the gauge, for instance, was increased from a metre to five feet. The fine now starts at Krasnovodsk, on the Caspian Sea, and its present eastern terminus is Andijan, a town of over fifty thousand inhabitants. This last mentioned place is 1650 feet above sea-level, and is attractive in many ways. It was formerly the residence of the Khans of Khokand, and it now has beautiful gardens and a large park in the middle of the city. It also has a considerable trade, is the centre for the raw cotton business, and throughout the whole of Central Asia, West Turkestan merchants are known as Andijani. But Russia did not push the Transcaspian (or Central Asia) Railway away up into the mountains merely to provide easy communication with an attractive hill resort and sanitarium. There is a possible pass, the Suok, just east of Andijan which gives access to East Turkestan and so to the whole of western China. This may well be borne in mind. It is hardly necessary to say that the British-Indian officials watched the progress of that railway with the keenest interest, and that they made many vehement protests at Russia's calmly breaking promises to respect spheres of influence. In London, however, this railway construction seems hardly to have received any attention from the statesmen in Whitehall! The stories of Merv, Bokhara, Samarkand, Tashkent, 222 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA are told by Baron Curzon in the book I have already mentioned; and later, very precise information as to Russian methods in this Central Asian region will be found in Mr. Archibald R. Colquhoun's, "Russia against India." The latter goes into details of place, peoples, methods, and dates far more elaborately than is necessary for my purpose. I do not know any more recently published volumes which are quite as satisfactory as these two I have named. Let the reader turn to a large scale map of Central Asia and note how the railway passes right along the Persian frontier. In the light of recent events it is easy to understand why the line bears so much to the southward. There was, of course, another reason, and that was to reach the city of Merv. We must note carefully the branch line which goes due south, across the Afghanistan frontier, and is now only sixty-five miles from Herat. Russia has repeatedly declared that she looks upon Afghanistan as completely outside the sphere within which Russia might be called upon to exercise her in- fluence. Yet the record of Afghanistan's recent history is filled with evidence that Russia has continually acted in direct contradiction to this assurance, and is probably doing so now. It is, therefore, absurd to say that the British Government is wise in ignoring the Russian advance towards the Indian frontier, if there ever was any foundation for the declaration that when once the Russians are in possession of Herat, "the gateway to India," the fate of Britain's Indian dominions enters the acute stage. It is a curious fact, however, that very little of the advantage which Russia has gained over Great Britain RUSSIA AND INDIA 223 in that part of Asia now being considered, was the result of carefully thought out and deliberately prosecuted plan. As Baron Curzon says: "The Russian Govern- ment has often been as surprised at its own successes as rival States have been alarmed, and there is reason to believe that the Kushk episode in 1885, so far from being, as was supposed in England, part of a deep-laid design, was an impromptu on the part of KomarofT and Alik- hanoff that burst with as much novelty upon the Foreign Office of St. Petersburg as it did upon that of Whitehall." That Kushk affair demands a moment's notice. The Transcaspian Railway had been constructed for 145 miles from the Caspian — the Sea terminus was then Michaelovsk, a point on the coast considerably to the south of Krasnovodsk, the present and doubtless the permanent western terminus — to Kizil Arvat as a light, narrow-gauge, military line, to be used exclusively for the conveying of stores to the front. In December, 1 88 1, the first train reached that town, and until 1885 it continued to be the eastern terminus. In that latter year, Russian and British commissions were attempting to delimit the boundary between Afghanistan, over which British protection had been recognised, and the Transcaspian Province, as it is now called, of Russia's sphere of influence. Even while these negotiations were pending, some Russian troops — upon a most flippant pretext — attacked the town of Penjdeh on the Kushk River, the inhabitants of which considered themselves subjects of the Amir of Afghanistan. The Russians had little difficulty in driving out the Amir's troops, with some loss, and the commanding officers took possessions. When the frontier was agreed upon, in some extraordinary way the Russians were 224 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA permitted to remain in Afghan territory, twenty miles from the border. It was all an accident, not a premedi- tated act; but it convinced the Russians that their interests demanded the permanent occupation of Merv, and therefore the whole plan of the railway was changed. This is but one instance of these accidents which have had so much to do with the development and determina- tion of Russia's advance in Central Asia. We can hardly wonder that the Russians declare they are evidences of the truth of the saying, " Jupiter helps those who help themselves "; while the British are convinced that "The devil looks after his own." Khiva was reckoned to be the gateway for all com- mercial routes from eastern Europe into Central Asia; but peaceful negotiations and all offers of reasonable tolls had failed to open that gate; at last force was resorted to. Even this was not immediately successful. However, in June, 1873, the Khanate capitulated to General Kauf- mann, and the Khan, although allowed to retain his throne and to keep up the appearance of sovereignty, became but another of Russia's puppets. The British Foreign Office mildly demurred, and some English journals howled at the threatened invasion of India. The same thing hap- pened as to Khokand, Askabad, Merv, Penjdeh (Kushk), and again recently in northeastern Persia. The British Indians bewailed the impending annexa- tion; the natives deplored the cruel fate that threatened to cast them into the clutches of the Russian bear. The statesmen in London accepted the explanation of the "accidents"; and some even went so far as to declare that after all it might be better to have Russia as a neighbour than to have the constant trouble and expense of keeping peace with the turbulent native tribes along St. Saviour, Moscow Kremlin Wall, Moscow RUSSIA AND INDIA 225 the northern and western frontiers of India. "For half a century English writers have proclaimed that the loss of Herat would be the death knell of India. When the blow falls, I am certain that the British quill will cover reams of foolscap, but I am not so sure that the British sword will flash from the scabbard." * Russia will doubtless go blundering along or designedly carry out her plans for the increase of those already great Central Asian dominions. She may, too, continue to push back the boundary of Britain's sphere of in- fluence, slowly but surely, until patience has ceased to be a virtue. Yet I am still inclined to think that when, however, the Russians deliberately leave their lines of communication with the permanent bases of supplies and start from Herat towards the Indian frontier with the deliberate intention of attacking the British, then may the latter's commander-in-chief say, as did Cromwell, ' now hath the Lord delivered them into my hands." A careful study of the topography of the country through which the Russians would be compelled to pass, assum- ing the British held to a waiting, defensive campaign, and a knowledge of the limitations of that country to maintain even Cossacks, convinces me that no sane Russian commander would undertake the enterprise and no Tsar gives his consent to it. But indications that have assumed some importance since the Persian episode took coherent form, rather tend to divert the attention of the student of Asiatic affairs away from the northwestern frontier of Afghanis- tan. Russian methods are again characterised by initial ferocity that is brutal; but so they were in the case of the people of Khiva, of Geok Tepe, of Merv, of every ♦Curzon, op. cit. 226 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA place in Central Asia where the objection to conquest found expression in armed resistance. If SkobelefT belied by his acts at Geok Tepe, the policy towards conquered natives which he had preached, it was not always done. At Merv the competition of Turkomans to join the militia is always greater than is the need. It is the same with the western Tekkes, the descendants of those whose sires or grandsires were butchered but thirty years ago; and so it is in many places. Truly it is astonishing how successful the Russians have been in converting bitter enemies into helpful friends. It is probably because the officers encourage fraternising of their men with the natives, in times of peace, just as heartily as the British officers are rigorous in discouraging everything of the kind at all times. Should British complacency continue and Russia pursue her way in Persia, there may yet be more of the customary brutality, followed by the usual fraternising and friendship. Gradually, then, the way will be opened to the head of the Persian Gulf; if that will satisfy the ambition of Russian naval commanders, as giving free access to the sea. This is, I apprehend, the explanation of Russia's seeming aggressiveness rather than a mad attack upon India. Beaconsfield never said a truer thing than that the keys of India are to be found in London and consist in the spirit and determination of the British people. There is just a little something to add to that, even if it does disgustingly commercialise the glorious profession of arms, the only fit occupation for noblemen: the keys to India are held by the bankers of the world — some of them are in England, some in America — and until the holders consent to use them to open their vaults, it will be impossible for Russia to fill her war-chest. CHAPTER XVII DIPLOMACY AND POLITICAL HISTORY DIPLOMACY is the science of the forms, ceremonies, and methods to be observed in conducting the actual intercourse of one State with another, through authorised agents, on the basis of international law; more frequently in deference to unwritten con- ventions than by anything resembling statutes. Those who are versed in the science seem to look upon it as a game to be played in two ways. The first is, I fear, not entirely in favour with those who have been reckoned masters of the game. It is, in this view of the science, to be done with absolute frankness and truth. The other, and this is peculiarly descriptive of Russian diplomacy, displays too much of the logic of the card- table. With Russian statesmen it has never been and is not now considered a fixed rule that the obligation to speak the truth to your own disadvantage holds good in diplo- matic intercourse. They contend that to deviate from the truth, just as much as the exigencies of the particular case demand, is not lying; for the "lie" enters into any matter of intercourse, individual or national, only when there is among all concerned a recognised obligation to speak the exact truth, as is the rule among honourable people in the simpler affairs of ordinary life; and then only. If one is playing bridge and he can gain a selfish ad- 228 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA vantage later by playing a false card, it is not considered as acting a lie. The invitation, or opportunity, to win the trick, if you can, when refused, does not necessarily mean that you cannot do so. When the deception practised upon the adversary — and upon the partner, too, sometimes — turns out advantageously, it is a clever play or a successful diplomatic stroke. If the result is disaster, well, it was "on the cards," and your friend must bear it as he can. Diplomats, Russian and Japanese in these days per- haps rather more than all others (I do not go back very far in the history of diplomacy), regard their trade, occupation, or profession very much as most of us do a game of cards. Only, to play the game of diplomacy well, they think, demands a peculiar kind of selfishness, a peculiar gift of deception, a special knowledge of human and government weakness and of the subtle rules of the game. There is also to be absolute freedom in playing false cards. The stakes are higher, the risks are greater, therefore the line which demarks truth from lie disappears altogether. A very instructive example of Russian trickery and perfidious selfishness in diplomacy is just now presented to us. We may suspect or deny, as we like, the existence of a secret agreement between Russia and Japan that contemplated the partition of China. Yet we can hardly refuse to believe that those two Powers have been re- markably friendly, since 1905, in many ways, and apparently working together for the accomplishment of an end which shall enure to their common good. There was certainly something suspiciously like a scheme that boded ill for China in Russia's offer to assist Mongolia in obtaining independence of China's rule; DIPLOMACY AND POLITICAL HISTORY 229 and Japan was almost as vehement in ridiculing Mr. Secretary Knox's note which thwarted that and all kindred schemes, as was Russia herself; but moral force, if nothing else, compelled both to acquiesce. Had there been such a consummation of Mongolian independence, it is almost an axiom that Russian "protection" would have been the next step, and then annexation would have followed as a matter of course. Baulked in this scheme, Russia then attempted to effect the secret Russo-Belgian loan to China on the hypothecation of the Kalgan railway, the branch south- ward towards or to Peking from a point just east of Mand julie, on the Chinese Eastern division of the trans- Siberian line, already mentioned. To this America, Great Britain, and Germany, acting in concert, have made vigorous and formal protest. These Powers are so determined to prevent Russia from obtaining control of that railway, that they have actually taken a position to enforce their protest "at the cannon's mouth." The American armoured cruiser fleet is now in a position to co-operate with the other friends of China, to the fullest extent that the necessity of the case may seem to justify. If we admit (as I cannot help thinking we must) that there was, or is, a secret Russo-Japanese pact as to Far Eastern affairs, it must have been galling to Japan to learn of the perfidy of her partner in that game. The diplomatic representatives in Peking of the three Powers named as friendly to China are credited with having pointed out to their Japanese colleague that the Tsar purposed using the Mikado as a cat's paw to help pluck the Mongolian chestnut from the fire. This Kalgan railway not only commands the trade of Eastern Mongolia, and that is really the best the coun- 230 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA try has in mines, agriculture, and livestock, but it must compete seriously with Japanese enterprise in Man- churia; for when once the line is opened for traffic, all the through business for the north of China will be diverted from the Harbin- Chang-chun-Dalny line. Furthermore, it is alleged, although most of this has not any present value, that Russia had agreed that Japan should profit equally through this piratical ex- pedition into China, and was to be given any needed assistance in case of trouble with America over Man- churia or the Philippines. Instead of playing the game fairly, Russia had tried to keep all for herself. The American, British, and German Ministers were so successful that, it is declared, the Japanese Minister posted off forthwith to Tokyo to lay the matter in person before his Imperial Master; because it was altogether too vital to be dealt with in official despatches. Cer- tainly, the Japanese minister to the Chinese Court made a hasty trip to Tokyo about that time, March, 191 2. The Associated Press despatch which commented upon the incident, that I have introduced here at some length to illustrate Russian diplomatic methods, winds up thus: "If the Powers are able to prevent the Kalgan loan and at the same time to break up the coalition be- tween Russia and Japan, by laying bare the Tsar's perfidy to the Mikado, they will block, for the present at least, the partition of China — unless Russia hatches a more successful plot. It is feared that, caught in her treachery, Russia will offer to lay all her cards on the table and make any sacrifice to retain the co-operation of Japan in pilfering China of her golden provinces." The original germ of Russian diplomacy is found in the behaviour of Rurik. He and his associates did not DIPLOMACY AND POLITICAL HISTORY 231 confine their efforts to the tribes which had invited them to come and rule; but they began forthwith to conquer and annex the surrounding country ; sometimes by diplo- macy, oftener by conquest at arms. It was diplomacy of the most selfish kind that led Vladimir I to espouse the Byzantine emperor's sister; and all the early matri- monial alliances with the ruling or noble families of Europe were in the same category. So, too, was the diplomacy of the later members of Rurik's dynasty at the Mongol Court and Dmitri Donskoi's coalition of 1380 against Khan Mamai" of the Golden Horde. Moscow's policy of extending and consolidating her dominions at the expense of less powerful neighbours and relatives, brought to completion by the Muscovite diplomacy of Ivan the Great, Basil, and Ivan the Terrible, was but a continuation. There was a singular blending of religion with diplomacy in the posing as protectors of the Orthodox faith while making demands upon the Byzantine rulers. The diplomacy of Ivan III, The Terrible, was of a very drastic sort, a prototype of all Russian negotiations with weaker peoples. His imme- diate officials and representatives abroad he chose from among men of humble origin, more marked for their fortiter in re rather than for any suaviter in modo; and he treated his boyars and great nobles most unceremoniously. This Ivan brooked no contradiction abroad and at home held himself to be the head of the Church, exacting from all the ecclesiastics implicit obedience. He deposed, on his own authority, a metropolitan (of Moscow) who was, at that time, the highest dignitary of the Russian Church. He was the first ruler to be called, in the church service at his coronation, "the ruler and autocrat of All Russia, the new Tsar Constantine in the new 232 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA city of Constantine Moscow," Tsar being merely a contraction of Caesar. During Ivan the Terrible's reign Muscovite diplomacy was called upon to weaken the power of the several jeal- ous and conflicting Khanates into which the Tartar horde had been divided because of internal dissension. The principal of these subdivisions were Kazan, Astrakhan, and Crimea. Through diplomacy, coupled with trickery and a display of military strength, Kazan and Astrakhan were annexed in 1552 to 1554. Two years later the Bashkirs, Khiva, and the Crimea gave some trouble, but they, too, were subjugated in part and in part per- suaded by Muscovite diplomacy. Towards the west, ambition to extend its domains as well as a desire to reach the Baltic Sea, brought Moscow and the Lithuano-Polish princes into open conflict. The marriage of Ivan's daughter to the Lithuanian grand prince did not tend to improve condi- tions; it simply gave Ivan further diplomatic right to interfere in the government. Altogether, Russian diplo- macy in those early days was entirely directed towards territorial expansion and selfish control; and we cannot say that it has greatly changed since. During the reigns of Theodore I (1 584-1 598), Boris Godunoff (called the creator of serfage, but really only the accelerator of a process which was the natural result of economic conditions, 1 598-1605), Basil Shuiski (1606- 16 10), and the Pseudo-Demetrius II (1608-16 10), there was too much disturbance at home for diplomacy to be required. Those internal dissensions gave opportunity for the enemies of Moscow to develop strength, and Michael (16 13-1645) was compelled to make peace with Sweden, as well as to sign a very precise treaty with DIPLOMACY AND POLITICAL HISTORY 233 Poland, the terms of which were by no means favourable to Russia. Under Alexius (1 645-1 676) the country recovered strength and resumed an aggressive foreign policy. This was especially directed towards the Ukraine District, Little Russia, along the valley of the Dnieper. While not precisely diplomacy, the episode of Alexius and the Patriarch Nikon deserves attention, because it involved the settling of the question of which was supreme, the State or the Church. The incident afforded a new proof, where no proof was actually required, that the autocratic power of the Tsar is supreme, alike in matters spiritual and administrative. Peter the Great abolished the patriarchate altogether, and entrusted the administration of the Church to a Synod entirely dependent on the government. It is now, when Peter the Great appears upon the scene, that Russia's foreign relations begin to attain real importance. The Emperor of Austria, the govern- ments of England, Holland, France, and Sweden, even the Grand Turk, made overtures to the Tsar. Some of them wished to gain him as an ally against their rivals; while others hoped to obtain from him com- mercial privileges and especially permission to trade direct with Persia. It should be borne in mind that at this time, because of the depredations of the Mediterra- nean and Red Sea pirates, the sea-route to the East was virtually closed to all the Christian nations of Europe. So, too, were the roads through Asia Minor, Palestine, etc. Consequently, the only caravan route available was that which passed through Russian territory and protectorates. These advances were all received coldly. The Russian 234 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA diplomats and statesmen had aims which could not be reconciled completely with the policy of any other country; while the native merchants, fearing competi- tion objected to any concessions to foreigners. Negotia- tions therefore gave little tangible results; but they helped to prepare the way for the new order of things which was soon to be introduced by Alexius' son, Peter, known as "The Great." Peter's diplomatic relations had a substantial practical foundation. During his half-sister's regency he had led a suburban life, associating with foreigners who taught him mechanical arts, western military drill, the building and sailing of boats, and other useful things. He was ambitious to have his country attain rank as a naval power. The White Sea, where there was the port of Archangel, being impossible, he made effort to gain access to the Baltic Sea, and he also considered the Black Sea with free access to the Mediterranean. Peter's great tour through western and southern Europe — he also visited England — just before he actually took the reins of government into his own hands, taught him a great deal. Of this knowledge he made good use in later life. Returning home in haste from Venice and Vienna (because of an insurrection of the stryeltsi, Cossack regiments, of Moscow) , he learnt from King Augustus of Poland of the partition of Sweden's trans-Baltic provinces, and Russia obtained Ingria and Karelia. Peter's ambition to extend the boundaries of his domains to the Black Sea coasts involved him in much trouble. He was compelled to sign a humiliating treaty, whereby Azof and other conquests had to be returned to Turkey, and his plan for releasing Christians from L» ■- H pi H PI 35 > r > n _P1 z PI <; o H C/) pj H Pi cc C o ii » 4 t* 4 r «fr. r a*» # •"» j, 3>. < DIPLOMACY AND POLITICAL HISTORY 235 the infidel yoke was abandoned. The conquest of the northern shores of the Black Sea was postponed until the time of Catherine II. During the reign of Catherine II (1 762-1 796) Russia had so far advanced in civilisation that she was recog- nised as one of the Great Powers. Her foreign inter- course was, however, rather along literary and kindred lines than diplomatic. Efforts were made to push the frontiers westward and southward. As France was the traditional ally of Sweden, Poland, and Turkey, Russia at first adopted the so-called Systeme du Nord; that is to say, a close alliance with Prussia, England, and Den- mark against France and Austria. Russia's advance westward into Poland indirectly raised "the Eastern Question," because it threatened two of France's traditional allies, Sweden and Poland. Whereupon the Comte de Choiseul conceived the idea of thwarting Catherine's plans by inducing France's third traditional ally, Turkey, to attack her. But this was not a successful scheme, because the Sultan was defeated and had to sign the treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji, which gave Russia a firm hold upon the Black Sea and the lower Danube River. This peace was very short- lived, and the scheme of aggression which Catherine planned soon became manifest. The Porte declared war in 1787, and while Russia was fortunate, no material advantage was gained. By the peace of Jassy, January, 1792, Russia retained certain territory and privileges; but the Turks remained at Constantinople, and the reali- sation of those hopes which the friends of the Greek Church had entertained was postponed indefinitely. After all there was not much of diplomacy conspicuous in Catherine's reign, and none at all in Paul's. 236 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA When Alexander I ascended the throne of All the Russias, that empire considered itself a powerful member of the European family of nations; and this was the beginning of the aspiration to exercise predominant influence in all continental questions. This tendency had been indicated already when Catherine created the League of Neutrals as a combination against the naval supremacy of England; and again when Paul insisted that his negotiations with Napoleon Bonaparte should be regarded as part of a general European pacification in which he must be consulted. Alexander was even more insistent upon this principle, as becomes apparent when we read the convention of October, 1801, with the First Consul. This is an example of aggressive diplomacy. Success, although but trifling, appears to have made Alexander unduly self-complacent. He imagined that if any more territorial changes were contemplated, he would be consulted and his advice receive the greatest consideration. It would almost seem as if he assumed that he might be looked upon as co-dictator of European affairs with his new ally, France. But these ill-assorted allies soon became rivals and a breach was opened in 1803-4. In August of the latter year the imminence of armed conflict was recognised, and it came the next year, when Russia, Prussia, and Austria were allied against France. After Austerlitz, December, 1805, and Friedland, June, 1807, where Russia-Austria and Russia-Prussia were overwhelmingly defeated, came the meeting between Alexander and Napoleon on the raft in the river at Tilsit. The exact terms of the treaties there arranged need not be given here; but that meeting was the most consummate piece DIPLOMACY AND POLITICAL HISTORY 237 of diplomatic impudence ever known; the whole world was to be divided between Tsar and Consul. If Alexander cherished the hope that he gained through defeat in battle a strong ally in diplomacy, he was promptly undeceived and his hope of power crushed. There was much war and diplomatic scheming; but the most important measure — the Rhenish Confederation — secured for France a footing on the Baltic; the grand- duchy of Warsaw was re-organised and strengthened (a direct slap at Russian ambition) ; the promised evacua- tion of Prussia was indefinitely postponed; an armistice between Russia and Turkey was negotiated through French diplomacy overcoming Russian. By this last, Russian troops had to leave the Danube provinces which Alexander had intended to annex to his empire, and the scheme for breaking up the Ottoman empire as well as ruining Great Britain by the conquest of India, which had been one of the most seductive baits in the Tilsit trap — but which, it is hardly necessary to state, had not been specified in the formal treaty; all this was no longer so much as mentioned. Later Napoleon, now become again an enemy, turned his attention to Russia, and during the memorable three years, 181 2 to 181 5, it was largely due to Alexander's skill and persistency that the allies held together and freed Europe from the threatened Napoleonic domination. "When peace was finally concluded, he had attained that predominant position in European politics which had been the object of his ambition since the commence- ment of his reign, and he now believed firmly that he had been chosen by Providence to secure the happiness of the world in general and of the European nations in particular." That the people did not agree with him is 238 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA a statement which would lead up to a consideration of the reasons for our own Monroe doctrine. In Russia it marks the beginning of the secret societies in 18 16, in which a large number of young army officers were members, and eventually the revolution of Decem- ber, 1825. The reign of Nicholas I was not marked by any startling display of diplomacy. He strongly advised the King of Prussia to refuse to be made emperor, when the crown was offered him during the reactionary period of 1848-9. He rendered great assistance to the Emperor of Austria in suppressing the Hungarian insurrection. He also compelled the Prussians to suspend their support of the insurgents in Schleswig-Holstein. The conven- tion of Akerman, Bessarabia, 1826, had secured for Russian ships free passage of the Dardanelles. Nicholas* participation in signing the treaty of London, July 27, 1827, which contemplated a solution of the Greek ques- tion by the intervention of the Powers, indirectly led to the destruction of the Sultan's fleet. There was hard fighting between the Russians and the Turks, the result being altogether advantageous to the former. They secured full liberty of navigation and commerce in the Black Sea, as well as other material benefits. Diplomatically, Russia became for the time being, yet not for very long, supreme at Constantinople. The Egyptian campaign of 1831-1833 certainly brought no discredit to Russian diplomacy. Later the convention of London, July 15, 1840, checked Russian policy with regard to Turkey. The result of the Crimean War was a humiliation to the Muscovites, from which they cannot be said ever to have recovered. The terms of peace required the abandonment of Russia's attitude DIPLOMACY AND POLITICAL HISTORY 239 towards Great Britain; the limitation of the former's armaments in the Black Sea; the withdrawal from the mouths of the Danube River; the return to Turkey of Bessarabia, which Russia had annexed in 181 2; and finally to a renunciation of all special rights of initiative between the Sultan and his Christian subjects. In the face of crushing defeat at arms, Russian diplomacy was unable to cope with that of her conquerors. Nicholas I did not live to learn of the humiliation put upon his country. He had died at St. Petersburg, March 2, 1855, and had been succeeded by his eldest son, Alexander II. Prince Alexander Mikhailovitch Gortchakoff (1798 to 1883), the eminent statesman, had been ambassador to Vienna during the Crimean War, and his diplomacy was of the greatest service. He said, after returning to St. Petersburg and becoming a member of Alexander IPs Cabinet: La Russe ne boude pas; elk se recueille, " Russia isn't sulking; she is pulling herself together." But she did sulk, and with good reason, so far as Austria was concerned, and resented the manifested unfriendliness during the Crimean War, which all Gortchakofl's skill had barely been able to prevent displaying itself in overt act. This ingratitude, after what Russia had done at the time of the Hungarian revolt, confirmed fully the cynical prediction of Prince Schwarzenberg, that his country would some time amaze the world by its ingratitude. It is said that there was a possibility of a Russo- Turkish alliance, after the close of the Crimean War. The wiliness of Russia in this needs no explanation here. The scheme was thwarted in 1863 by the French emperor giving moral and diplomatic support to the Polish insurrectionists. Bismarck now appears on the stage 240 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA and he rendered assistance to Russia in blocking the threatened intervention of France and England in favour of the Poles. Bismarck's action laid the foundation of the friendly relations which prevailed between the Governments of Prussia and Russia until 1878. It dispelled the opposition of the latter to the creation of the German empire; Russia doubtless contributed materially towards the success of Prussian plans, after 1870, by defending the Prussian Cabinet against the jealousy and open enmity of Austria and France. The Iron Chancellor, in return, helped Russia to recover a portion of what had been lost by the Crimean War. It was certainly due to Bismarck's diplomatic strength and unfriendly connivance versus France and Great Britain, that Russia had the temerity — dishonesty, it would be called, were we not consider- ing diplomacy — to denounce with impunity the clauses of the treaty of Paris which restricted her Black Sea armaments. Had Alexander II been satisfied with this important diplomatic achievement, his reign might have been peace- ful and prosperous. Instead of resting content for the time being with reconstructing the fortress at Sebastopol and building a Black Sea fleet, he foolishly tried to recover all that he had lost, the province of Bessarabia and pre- dominant diplomatic influence at Constantinople. The inevitable consequence was war with Turkey, 1877-78, and this was by no means a series of successes for Russia. The Turkish army repeatedly repulsed the Russian, and if Bessarabia was recovered, it was only through treachery to and at the expense of Russia's ally, Rou- mania. Russia achieved no increase of prestige in the Near East, and when Constantinople was reached, it DIPLOMACY AND POLITICAL HISTORY 241 was to find that Great Britain and Austria forbade the Russian army to enter that city. In the diplomatic wrangle which supervened, Cis-Caucasia was extorted from the Porte by the terms of the preliminary treaty of San Stefano (March 3, 1878); but that convention was revived and considerably modified in Turkey's favour by the Congress of Berlin, convened on June 13, 1878 and dissolved July 13. Russia swore to avenge herself for being despoiled of what she claimed were legitimate prizes of war, just as Japan vowed vengeance for being robbed of the Liaotung Peninsula. Japan eventually succeeded; Russia has in part; will she wholly? In the second half of the nineteenth century, much greater success attended the efforts of Russian diplomacy in Asia. The treaty of Aigun, without military opera- tions, secured the greater part of the Amur basin from China. If it was diplomacy that effected the annexation of Khiva and Bokhara, that, too, was a success. In Asia, after the accession of Nicholas II (1894), the expansion of Russia, following the line of least resistance and stimulated by the construction of the trans-Siberian Railway, took the direction along the northern frontier of China and towards the effete little kingdom of Korea. A great portion of the eastern section of the line was built on Chinese soil, and elaborate preparations were made with surprising confidence for bringing the whole of Manchuria within the sphere of Russian influence. With this purpose in mind, the Russian Government after the China- Japan War of 1894-5, objected to all continental expansion by Japan, and insisted upon having the Treaty of Shimonoseki modified to suit its views. Later, substituting Russia for Japan, a long lease of the Liaotung Peninsula was secured from the 242 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Chinese Foreign Office, and a concession to connect Dalny and Port Arthur with the trans-Siberian Railway, by a branch line to Harbin, was wrung from the Tsung-li Yamun. Russia thus tightened her grasp upon that part of the Chinese Empire and contemplated completing the Russianising of the territory by the process of ''sponta- neous infiltration," that is, voluntary and forced colonisa- tion coupled with official and military occupation. From Manchuria it was expected this Russian influence and "spontaneous infiltration" would pass on into Korea, which would come within the sphere of influence, and on the coast a better port and a stronger fortress than Vladivostok would be constructed. This scheme was, however, most surprisingly checked by the vigorous opposition of Japan who had for centuries looked upon Korea as her own. Japan likewise declared very plainly that she would not listen to any assertion of Muscovite monopoly in the Eastern Three Provinces. Russian diplomats tried to overcome Japan's opposition by an affected contempt of the pretentious little Island Kingdom and by dilatory measures in not fulfilling the promise to evacuate Manchuria. Patience being exhausted, Japan did dare to attack the Muscovite, broke off diplomatic negotiations most abruptly, and in February, 1904, began hostilities. These, while not ultimately resulting in victory for Japan, proved to be a series of reverses for Russia, both on land and sea, until Mukden, when there were un- mistakable signs that the tide had turned. Fortunately for Japan, the President of the United States, in the Summer of 1905, intervened in the interests of humanity, and an armistice was agreed to. The treaty of Ports- DIPLOMACY AND POLITICAL HISTORY 243 mouth, October, 1905, is variously interpreted by stu- dents: some contending that it was altogether a diplo- matic triumph for Japan; others asserting that the Russian statesmen were the victors. The reception of the conditions of the treaty by the Japanese populace would argue for the latter view; but the more astute Japanese statesmen realised then that even greater concessions to Russia would have been wisely made to prevent renewal of hostilities and ultimate crushing defeat. Russia was doubtless influenced in acceding to the demand for peace, by her own domestic troubles. The people, all considered, were opposed to the war and to the causes therefor. The old Liberal movement as well as the Terrorist organisations, which had been suppressed by Alexander III, were being revived, and the leaders, taking advantage of the unpopularity of the war, were agitating for the summoning of a Constitutional Assembly which should replace the hated bureaucratic regime. To use a homely expression, Russia had so many troubles of her own, that she welcomed any way of getting out of the mess she had got into with Japan. Something has already been said about Russia's diplomatic relations with China, — the treaties of Nerchinsk and Aigun. In i860 the valley of the Naryn River, south of Lake Issyk-kul, had been formally ceded to Russia by the treaty of Peking, the southern boundary being fixed along the summit of the Tian-shan range and along the watershed between the valley of Kashgar and that of the headwaters of the Syr-Daria (Oxus), that Great Plateau of the Pamirs. This was certainly a diplomatic triumph for Russia, because it opens up another possible way of getting into western China. 244 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Continuing for a moment to discuss Russo-Chinese diplomatic relations, I am one of the many who believe that when Li Hung Chang died, Russia lost her best friend at the Chinese Court. He was a paid Russian agent and he served his employers well, and as faithfully as it was in him to serve anything but his own pocket. The treaty of Shimonoseki, between China and Japan, in 1895, was drawn as it was with malice aforethought. Russia felt confident that she could convince the other European Powers of the madness of letting Japan have a footing on the continent of Asia; and the ceding of Liaotung was made to be abrogated, eventually in Russia's favour. The great and good " Chinese " Gordon foretold Li Hung Chang's treachery.* In 1842 a formal treaty was signed with the Khan of Khiva, by the terms of which he promised to maintain friendly relations with the Russians and to restrain his people from committing acts of robbery and piracy. This treaty was the result of armed demonstration in 1 83 9-1 840, and in compliance therewith 418 Russian captives were liberated and sent into Russia accompanied by an envoy to make apology. But the treaty accom- plished nothing and annexation followed as a matter of course. After a long and bitter struggle, Turkey assigned to Russia, by the treaty of Adrianople, 1829, her sove- reignty over the tribes in Caucasus. The museum at Tiflis contains many pictures which display the heroic struggles of the Russians: one of them represents the Cossacks throwing themselves into a ditch to let the artillery pass over their living bodies. It is interesting to note how the Muscovites finally succeeded in conquer- * See The People and Politics of the Far East, p. 246. DIPLOMACY AND POLITICAL HISTORY 245 ing those brave mountaineers. Like Indians they fought from behind trees, and it was impossible to rout them from the timber. The Russian commander then gave orders to cut down all the trees; whereupon Schamyl, the Caucasian leader, exclaimed: "Now that the Russians are chopping away the woods, I perceive that WoronzofT has discovered the secret of my strength !" Henry Norman * in writing of Anglo-Russian relations, said: "I am perfectly convinced that a good and lasting understanding between the two nations is not only desirable above all things, but also well within the range of possibility. ... If our statesmen had been stronger (and younger, I mean), we should ere this have been on the road to an understanding, for Lord Salisbury has confessed that the anti-Russian pro-Turkish policy of Lord Beaconsfield was 'putting our money on the wrong horse'; and Mr. Balfour has pointedly remarked that ' Asia is big enough for both.' Their words flew up, but their thoughts remained below, for officially we are as suspicious of Russia as ever, and Russia is equally dis- gusted with our unformed, incalculable, spasmodic policy. Therefore she goes calmly ahead, doing what she pleases, taking what she wants, knowing that in all probability when England alone desires or opposes anything, a few acid despatches, and a little calling of names in Parliament will be the worst she has to fear. In diplomacy Russia plays a sly game, and plays it sometimes without scruples; but she both respects and likes an opponent who plays his own game slyly, too, and she does not demand in others a higher standard of scrupulousness than she follows her- self. . . . The ablest and most powerful statesmen of *All the Russias, 1902. 246 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Russia would welcome a definite and far-reaching recon- ciliation and adjustment, if they could be convinced of British sincerity and consistency. Anybody who knows what the Novoye Vremya is, will see what a change has come over Russian opinion when that journal publishes a series of lengthy articles from the pen of M. Siromyatni- koff, a much respected publicist, advocating an Anglo- Russian agreement and warning his fellow countrymen against the ' costly assistance of honest brokers' in Berlin. " Events of the past year tend to discredit this optimism, as they do that which believes that a glance at the map will show there is no foundation for the fear that is felt in Europe, especially in England, lest Russia is to absorb all Asia and become the autocrat of the world. This feeling of security found comfort in the fact that Russian expansion had been chiefly towards the east into thinly settled countries where the conflict was more with nature than with man, and that it has been between parallels of latitude where the conditions of life are closely similar to those in the home land. The doubtful accuracy of such statements and the instability of such hopefulness have been indicated in these pages. If it really rests with the two Great Powers, Russia and Great Britain, to decide what shall be the fate of Persia; what shall be the fixed boundary between the Russian and the British-Indian spheres of influence, there is one thing imperatively necessary, and I dislike very much to mention it. British statesmen must do a good deal more than has been done in the past decade to regain Russia's respect. It is not respect for the British character that I mean, but respect for British diplomacy, international sagacity, and determination. During the DIPLOMACY AND POLITICAL HISTORY 247 South African War, Great Britain tried to make overtures, but diplomatically that was something silly. As Henry Norman says in speaking of Russia and this incident: "She would observe that not until we had fought an unsuccessful war for more than two years, spent two hundred millions [pounds sterling] of money, seen Consols down to 92, lost twenty thousand men and wondered how we were going to replace our present army when it is disbanded, did it occur to us to remember that we loved Russia so much that we would gladly make a heavy sacrifice for her good-will." When, in the winter of 1911-12 the diplomacy of Great Britain as displayed in the Shuster episode in Persia was called to account in Parliament, and openly derided by British statesmen and publicists in signed articles published in the reviews and magazines, it cannot be said that Great Britain is exerting herself strenuously to regain Russia's respect for her diplomacy. CHAPTER XVIII RELIGION AND EDUCATION THE State religion of Russia is that of the Greek Church, which should properly be called the Eastern Church. Loyal and patriotic Russians who yield allegiance to the State in all matters — conscience, person, property — call it The Orthodox Church, and that is its official designation. That Eastern Church is unquestionably the source from which has sprung all the major and minor divisions and distractions of the Western Church. Devout Russians — and, truly, all are that even when they are frequently immoral — do well to resent the arrogance of the Romish schismatists in claiming priority and supremacy. It was in the East that Christianity had its origin. Greek was the language of the Scriptures and of the earliest services of the Church, and Byzantium (later Constantinople) was the head of the Church before Rome was dreamt of as the Ruler of Christianity. The Russians agree fully with those Italian writers who assert, with good reason, that it is more than doubtful if St. Peter ever was in Rome; and it is certain that Latin Christianity is much later than Greek. When this Latin Church had established itself in southern-central Europe and in Africa, and when the Roman Empire became divided, the eastern part became separate. It was then that the term Greek or Eastern Church came to have special significance. RELIGION AND EDUCATION 249 With the conquest of Constantinople by the Moslems, the integrity of the Eastern Church was destroyed at its base, but its power survived in the Orthodox Church of Russia. The venerable Doctors known as the Greek Fathers, St. Chrysostom, St. Basil, St. Athanasius, and St. Gregory Nazianzen, were banished from religious representations in the West; but their majestic figures meet us repeatedly in the sacred art of Eastern Christen- dom, and a fifth is generally added, St. Cyril of Alexan- dria. We sometimes find them represented in the West, but it is only where Byzantine artists were employed, as at St. Mark's in Venice or Monreale in Sicily. St. Basil is the Greek Father whose image is most frequently encountered in travelling through Russia. It is found in nearly all the churches, and it is sold in every icon-shop. He was the founder of monasticism in the East and implicit faith is placed in his intercessory prayers. Armenian Christians still believe that the prayers of this Saint can not only redeem lost souls from Purgatory, but actually rescue fallen angels from the pains of Hell. There is something almost pathetic about most of the magnificence displayed in the grandest cathedrals and churches of the Russian State Church, and it is a singular parallel with similar conditions obtaining in the Romish Church. When the interested visitor from other lands asks a Russian friend who it is that furnishes the money spent in furniture, vestments, and decorations, and in conducting the ornate services, the answer is almost invariably "the common people, the peasants"; and it is true. The Russian equivalent of Rome's "Peter's pence" is the source from which comes the conspicuous parts of the State religion. The central government, 250 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA the municipality, the village, may perhaps erect the edifice and furnish it sparsely, but it is the rnudjiks' kopeks that will make it a blaze of glory, or tawdriness, as the case may be and according to the way the stranger looks at the display. Should the stranger, as is but natural, express sym- pathetic regret that this burden falls on those who can least afford to bear it, he is assured that these very same peasants and other poor people would resent most strenuously any effort of the Government to prevent them from making the sacrifice. They will have these decorations, so often studded with genuine jewels. They demand as their right the elaborate services which cost so much money; and the Government is, perhaps, wise in yielding. For were the State to do otherwise and try to teach the masses that such display is unwise and unnecessary, it would be the beginning of that enlighten- ment which would end in the overthrow of the autocracy of the Tsar and the destruction of the oppressive bureau- cratic government. As has been already stated, it is the Tsar who is, naturally, the head of this State Church. He makes all appointments and when necessity or policy demands, it is he who deposes the prelates from the highest to the lowest. But the Tsar does not interfere with the deter- mination of questions relating to dogmatic theology, yet such do not now often arise in a Church that has been established for so long and has safely withstood the vicissitudes of varying fortune. The principal ecclesias- tical authority is the Holy Synod, whose head is one of the chancelleries possessing wide power. It is not essential that I dwell at length upon the services in the Russian Church. They are elaborately RELIGION AND EDUCATION 251 liturgical, yet not essentially different from those of the Anglican Church, although some are much longer, as, for example, the marriage service. In this, attendants are supposed to hold wreaths over the heads of the bride and bridegroom during the whole ceremony. As no single human being could stand the physical strain which this involves, there are relays of attendants, when this feature is precisely observed. Many writers have given currency to the story that every Russian who dies in full communion with the Orthodox Church, has a " passport" to Heaven buried with him. This came from the fact that just before the coffin is closed for the last time to be lowered into the grave, the priest does place a paper in it; but Clark * shows that this is merely a certificate that the deceased was buried with proper rites, in case the coffin should be opened in the future. The morals of the Russian clergy, even on the evidence of native writers, leave much to be desired. They are notoriously underpaid, and in the country districts very frequently one priest is assigned to two or more parishes. Sometimes the churches are far apart and the tramp from one to the other, to minister to half-a-dozen peasants, is shirked shamelessly. Then, too, many of the country priests are dreadful drunkards, for habitual intoxication is not a disgrace to a Russian cleric, because to " treat the little pope" is considered an honour by the peasants. In the Russian Church the parish priests are married; the bishops are unmarried. Elevation to a bishopric is not in the line of promotion. A priest who has lost his wife may not marry again. There is one part of the Russian Church which im- *See Bibliography. 252 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA presses most favourably all who hear it. That is the music. Rarely — I think, never — is there any instru- mental accompaniment to the singing. I have never heard any. Yet so well chosen are the voices, and so well balanced are they in the cathedrals and large churches, that the men's voices produce on the listeners' ears the effect of the most consummate pipe-organ music. I shall never forget the music in the cathedral at Suruga- dai, in Tokyo; the singing of the hundreds of Russian prisoners at the small church in Kyoto, and the other times I have listened to this solemn music. In theory any religion may be professed by a Russian subject, and the following list of religious denominations and membership tends to show that this theory is put into practice : Orthodox Greek 87,123,600 Dissenters 2,204,600 Armenian Gregorians 1 , 1 79, 240 Armenian Catholics 38,840 Roman Catholics 11,468,000 Poles and Lithuanians Lutherans 3,572,650 ) Esthonians, Western Finns, Reformed 85,400 ) Germans, and Swedes Baptists 38,140 Mennonites 66,500 Anglicans 4,180 Other Christians 3, 950 Karaite Jews 12,900 Jews 5,215,800 Mahommedans 13,907,000 Tax ^ rs { r Bashkirs ; Kir g hiz > °' v " Turkomans, etc. Buddhists 433,860 Other non-Christians 285,300 Total 125,640,000 The Dissenters demand some careful considerations. A comparatively small number of these differ from the true faith in such minor essentials, that they are not considered to be without the pale. A few of the sects RELIGION AND EDUCATION 253 are even granted the privilege of interment in consecrated ground; that is, the cemeteries set apart for Orthodox Churchmen. But the Raskolniks — the name comes from the word raskol, which means schism — are not only looked upon as heretics; but they have been subjected to great per- secution. Their reason for being, their development, and their history are interesting and may be briefly summarised thus: As is always the case with liturgical religious, the literature of the Russian Orthodox Church came to show inaccuracies and inconsistencies in various texts, because of copyists' mistakes, and through inter- pellations of commentators that could not receive the endorsement of all prelates. There was inevitable con- fusion, and shortly before the accession of Peter the Great, it was decided to have one complete and revised copy of the Scriptures and commentaries, as well as of all Church literature, prepared, which should be the standard for all; and — in the expectation and hope of the revisers — for all time. The work was begun in 1654 and conscientiously prosecuted, receiving the personal support of Peter, while he reigned conjointly with his brother Ivan, from 1682, and alone from 1696. Within human limitations, the task was well performed. But there arose the in- evitable fierce opposition to the so-called tampering with the sacred writings. Ignorant, or prejudiced people stood out hotly for the inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures; or demanded that, at any rate, what had been must continue to be. When Peter and the Holy Synod, which he had then established, insisted upon the Church receiving the corrected and revised texts, these protestants withdrew 254 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA from the Orthodox Church, and were called Raskolniks (some explain the etymology of this as ras, asunder, and kolot, to split) . They were, at first, most harshly treated ; punishments of the most drastic kind were inflicted ; while many were exiled to Siberia. This last punishment, it may be said, has been for Siberia's great benefit, for some of the best of that country is due to the industry of Raskolniks. At the present time these "Old Believers," as they call themselves, are to be found — for the most part — in the country. They are usually quiet, peaceful citizens, although all of them do not differ from the average Russian by abstaining from the use of vodka. Tobacco they abominate. When Peter the Great asked them if smoking were worse than vodka, the reply was: "Cer- tainly, for is it not written 'not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man?'" They assert that with Peter I commenced the dominion of Antichrist over the world. They execrate his name with that of Nikon, the patriarch who was deposed; but they revere the memory of Paul of Colonna, who dis- sented from the revision. Although they are devoted to the Tsar, it is to the Tsar with whom they are familiar in ancient pictures; not the reigning monarch, the head of the detested Orthodox Church. These Raskolniks are divided into two principal sects: Popovshchina, who, as the prefix popo, pope, father, priest, implies, have reverted in so far as they permit the ministrations of priests; Bezpopovshchina (without priests), who are the most remarkable. Each man is a priest unto himself, although they choose "elders" who are allowed to conduct something akin to services when they gather in numbers. RELIGION AND EDUCATION 255 In the homes of some of these dissenters, there are pre- served most interesting and quaint relics of old times: copies of writings which are to these Old Believers abso- lutely unintelligible; icons that bear the marks of great antiquity, and other kindred treasures that are most jealously guarded. These people are found in great numbers throughout the White Sea provinces; a region which is reasonably safe for them, because its desolation is not popular with the police. Their only sacrament is baptism, which any man is competent to perform. But their elders hear confessions. They are not evangelical in the Western sense of the word, because they observe fasts, adding some of their own to those which the Orthodox Church recognises. They have the greatest faith in the efficacy of many crossings, in doing which they consider it a mortal sin to use three fingers instead of two. They hold that to pronounce the name of Jesus in three syllables, I-e-sus, instead of I-sus, is a deadly sin which even the fires of Hell cannot purge, and the monks of Solovetsk defied Tsar, patriarch, and council for seven years about this matter. They likewise are continually prostrating themselves before icons, crosses, and anything that they consider sacred. Inevitably, these schismatists became themselves divided. I do not know that I could name and describe all the extraordinary subdivisions, even if I wished to do so. I shall mention only a few of the most remarkable. There are the Philippovsti, who take their name from one Philip, who burnt himself for Christ's sake in 1743. They exalt self-immolation into a principle. One minor branch was found to carry this to such an extreme that they dug a deep, large pit, lined it with firewood and dried, inflammable pine-branches. Then a number of 256 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA these maniacs, divesting themselves of all clothing, leapt into the pit, with their own hands set fire to the surrounding fuel, and joined in the singing of the on- lookers until unable to do so longer. The police had much difficulty in preventing these voluntary holocausts, and I am not sure these have been absolutely stopped even now. The Stranniki (pilgrims as the name implies) wander over the land, and seem to secure a comfortable living from the kind-hearted and superstitious peasants. The Byeguni (runners) claim to interpret literally Our Lord's words, Matt. X: 33 and following verses. They run from others; they reject legal marriage, and are despic- able in every way. The Nyetovsti (deniers) deny the necessity for common worship, and consequently refuse to recognise any priestly ministrations. The Molchaly- niki (mutes) maintain such absolute silence that no torture can make them utter a word. The most disgraceful of the miscalled religious sects is the Khlistovstchina, the Jumpers or Flagellants. It was founded by one Daniel Philippov on Mount Goro- dim, in the province of Vladimir, in 1645. He, blasphe- mously arrogating to himself God-like prerogatives, designated one Ivan Suslov to be "My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased." Suslov selected a "Virgin Mother" and twelve apostles. The adherents of this sect declare that this man was twice crucified and once flayed alive; yet he "rose from the dead." He finally died in 1716, designating one Prokopi Lupkin to be the Saviour; and in every generation since his time, there have been a Christ and a Virgin Mother. Indeed the extremists of this cult contend that every person must try to become one or the other. For full account of the RELIGION AND EDUCATION 257 immoral and promiscuous orgies of this sect, I refer the reader to Haxthausen's "The Russian Empire." I do not care to give them here. Although a secret order, they profess to belong to the Orthodox Church; but this is manifestly impossible. In contradistinction to the last mentioned sect are the Skoptsi (eunuchs by self-mutilation). They are a reac- tion from the gross, promiscuous immorality of the Khlistovtchina. Nearly all of the goldsmiths, silver- smiths, and jewellers of Moscow and many other cities belong to this strange sect. They marry and adopt children. The members bear a good reputation for industry, honesty, and charity. The most important article of their faith is that Christ never did and never could have died. He wanders, sexless, like unto Gau- tama Buddha, and assuming different human form in various places on earth. He will come again soon and cause the great bell of Uspenski Sobor, Moscow, to be rung to summon the faithful who will with Him inaugu- rate their everlasting empire over all the world. They call themselves Korablik, "a, tiny vessel tossing on the waves," and sing hymns which are appropriate to this sentiment. But I must leave these curious religious sects and close with a very short discussion of the present system of education. Incredible as it may seem, the statement is perfectly true that previous to the Revolution of 1905, but little progress had been made in Russia as regards general education. By this I do not mean that there were no such things as common or private schools. Even in the time of Catherine II (the Prussian princess who, as widow of Peter III and Empress of Russia, reigned 1762-1796) there were in Moscow, certainly, 258 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA and elsewhere, some good school buildings and teachers. But there were no pupils! One of Her Majesty's favourites, probably someone who had travelled abroad and had come to appreciate the benefits of general education, complained that nobody sent his children to school. Whereupon Catherine retorted: "Don't you worry yourself because the Rus- sians seem to have no desire for education. If I have opened schools, it was not done for the benefit of our own people. It was to make a good appearance before the rest of Europe, with whom we must maintain our prestige. But the day when our peasants find themselves able to get all the education they may wish, neither you, my friend, nor I will keep his place!" There are many reasons given for the absence of every- thing approximating in the past to our ideas of general education. The Russian people, even those of the upper classes, were afraid of the natural sciences; they still clung strangely to the notion that these were uncanny, even when applied to technical, useful purposes. Above the lowest grade of schools, there was a determination to keep education as the privilege of the upper classes, and even the wealthy bourgeois was looked at askance by the nobles when he sought too much learning for his children. Catherine's public schools had long disappeared, and the last decades of the nineteenth century witnessed, in Russia, a relapse into the Dark Ages, so far as general education was concerned. The Ministers of Public Instruction ruthlessly suppressed all effort, public or private, to give even a little education to the usually illiterate classes. The percentage of illiterates in the Russian Empire is appalling even now, although there are RELIGION ANDEDUCATION 259 no reliable statistics available since the improvement began after 1905. But since there can hardly have been a radical change in six or seven years, it will be interesting to consider the statistics of 1897. Per 100 inhabitants Per 100 of popula- tion of those over nine years of age and of both sexes Males Females Of both sexes European Russia Poland Caucasus Siberia Central Asia 67.4 65.8 81.8 80.8 92.I 86.3 73-2 94.0 94.9 97-8 77.I 69-5 87.6 87.7 94-7 70 59 83 84 93 Empire 70.6 86.9 78.9 72 The less illiterate provinces of European Russia are : — Esthonia (Baltic) 20.1 illiterates in 100 of population; Livonia (Baltic) 22.3; Courland (Baltic) 29.1; St. Petersburg 44.9; the other provinces average more than 50 illiterates to each 100 of population. But it must be stated that in some of the districts in Central Asia, specifically in the governor-generalship of Turkestan, there are entire subdivisions where the population is almost exclusively Mohammedan. In not a few of these over 50 per cent of the adults can read; and rarely, in such districts, does the percentage of illiterates run as high as 70 or 75 per cent. I am correct, I believe, in saying that there are no private schools in Russia. To permit such to be con- ducted would go directly against the policy of the Govern- ment, who even now will not tolerate the gathering together of more than three or four persons — children or adults — without special police permission being previously secured for each separate meeting, at which a representative of the government must also be present. 260 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Even an entertainment in a private house must not exceed the statutory number, except by permission. Consequently, it is inconceivable that a private school could be carried on from day to day. Besides, the published statistics show that the schools of the whole empire are under the direct control of one or another of the Ministers of State. Most of them are, of course, supervised by the Minister of Public Instruc- tion; and for the purposes of ordinary education, the empire is divided into fifteen educational districts, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, Orenburg, Kharkoff, Odessa, Kieff, Vilna, Warsaw, Riga, Caucasus, Turkestan, West Siberia, East Siberia, and the Amur. A good many — in fact nearly all — of the primary schools are under the management of the Holy Synod, to which body the whole appropriation for primary instruction is handed for the maintenance of parish schools taught by the white, or secular, clergy. These parish schools under the Holy Synod are divided into two classes or grades: parish schools proper and schools of a low order in which nothing more than reading is taught. The teachers in these schools — both divisions — pass no examination as to qualification, their certificates being nothing but the permission, written or verbal, of the local bishop. Inasmuch as the village priests are engrossed in their parochial duties, they find but little time to give to the school. When they do attend the work is done in a half-hearted, perfunctory way. Very often the reported attendance represents " paper" only; or if not this, the pupils are taught by half-educated teachers, choir-masters, or anybody who can be hired for a pittance. One good feature of the Russian primary school, RELIGION AND EDUCATION 261 however, is that in many of the villages there is a practi- cal garden or field. Bee-keeping is now taught in about one thousand of these schools. In three hundred, silk- worm culture is taught; in some nine hundred, some useful trade; and in three hundred, the Finnish sloid system of manual training is installed. Girls are taught domestic science and handiwork in many schools. About one half the teachers in these primary schools are women. The total expenditure for this primary education was fifty million roubles in 1900; and probably that figure represents the expenditure for each year since; 20% was furnished by the State, 23% by the zemstvos, 352% by the municipalities or villages, n|% by private persons. The next higher grade of schools — called Middle Schools — are supported by a system of contributions practically the same as that followed with the primary schools. These middle schools combine the work done in the upper classes of American Grammar Schools and the lower classes of the High Schools; 25% of the ex- penses of these classical and technical schools is provided by government, 30% by fees and by donations from the zemstvos, the municipality making up the balance. While there has been some progress in general educa- tion during the last seven years, still the Russian lower classes and the peasantry have not displayed any un- seemly precipitancy or overcrowding in their desire to avail themselves of the opportunity offered. That statement does not apply unqualifiedly to the institu- tions which give the highest education. In the universities, for example, the attendance is large. The standard here is high, quite comparable with that of the German universities. The students 262 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA work hard; harder, by a great deal, than does the average American or English university undergraduate. Nearly all of the Russian university students come from homes wherein poverty exists of a kind that is scarcely known in this country among the classes that, even for a moment, contemplate such a thing as higher education. They must therefore live in a way that cannot furnish the nutriment required by that healthy body which is sup- posed to harbour a sound mind. It is by no means a ridiculous conclusion that other observers besides myself have reached: that something of the character which marks so many acts of the Russian students towards the Government and officials, is chargeable to intense study overtaxing an under-nourished body until the brain almost gives way; and not infrequently violent dementia appears. It is not an easy matter to get from a Russian student an expression of opinion. He knows too well the risk he runs of opening his heart to a government spy who is more than ready to hand him over to cruel justice (?) and to use every word he may utter to incriminate his friends. In my own case, I admit frankly that the few students I met quietly but firmly refused to have anything to say about the aims and methods of their fellows who are struggling for fair treatment for all. My acquaintances were glad to talk about education as an academic subject, and all of them admire American technical methods. In 1904 there were only nine universities in the whole Russian Empire : that is one for every million square miles or more. In the British Isles there is a university for every eight thousand square miles. It is not easy to give such ratio for the United States, because it is some- what difficult to determine precisely the number of educa- RELIGION AND EDUCATION 263 tional institutions which correspond even approximately with the European idea of an university. As to popula- tion, in the Russian Empire there is one university for every sixteen million people; in the British Isles, one for every million and a quarter. But such a comparison is entirely misleading because of the utter lack of homo- geneity in Russia's case. In those nine universities of 1904 there were nearly twenty thousand students: over two thousand to each. At Oxford the number of undergraduates averages nearly four thousand a year; at Cambridge very few less than that; and at Edinburgh, something over three thousand. Here, again, due consideration must be given to local conditions. Besides these universities, there were in Russia six medical schools (one of them for women), six theolog- ical seminaries, six military academies, five philological institutes, three Eastern languages schools, three law schools, four veterinary schools, four agricultural colleges, two schools of mines, four engineering schools, two uni- versities for women (the one in St. Petersburg had 930 students), three practical pedagogy schools, ten technical schools, one forestry school, and one topographical school. Pretty nearly every one of the Departments of State has its own special educational institution, and in all the schools of every class and kind there has been growing activity since 1903. But it is not along lines that we Americans can heartily approve. Catherine II 's apprehension is still a vital factor in Russia — in Europe more than in Siberia. The bureaucrats, the grand dukes, the Tsar himself, dread the time when the people of All the Russias are educated; and well they may, for it spells their downfall. Siberia has presented us with 264 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA examples of a tendency towards civil liberty. It became so pronounced that the suffrage has been withdrawn from some of the districts. That theory of "the nearer the Tsar, the greater the danger" may yet work out to such a degree that there will be, in the near future, A Coming Siberia which shall command the respect of nations. CHAPTER XIX FLORA AND FAUNA WHENEVER one of the small stations (and our train stopped at every one of them) was near the village church and time permitted us to take a little walk, I noticed that the peasants and settlers seemed to be fond of decorating their churches and chapels with bunches of garden or wild flowers. So common was this, that I was reminded of Canada, that is, the eastern provinces of the Dominion, where the French Roman Catholics do so much of the same thing, and I found myself involuntarily looking for the wayside shrines that are so frequent in Quebec and Ontario, and which are so regularly decorated with some summer wild flowers in a vase or, maybe, just stuck in a bottle. In Russia, I was, of course, disappointed in this matter; yet I came to believe that the peasants of that country have a true love for wild flowers. On the tundras and in the regions where the Sa- moyedes and Chukchees live, there are reindeer, arctic fox, hare, wolf, and lemming, while field-mice are com- mon. The avifauna, however, is very numerous during the short summer; for there are many migratory water-birds, marsh-fowls and land birds. There are but five kinds of resident land birds, and their names are so commonly known that it will at once be seen they are not peculiar to Siberia: the ptarmigan, the snow bunt- 266 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA ing, the Iceland falcon, the snow-owl, and the raven. As some of these are predaceous, one wonders what they do for food in the long winter, when the small animals have hibernated, and the summer visitors flown away. On the shores of Lake Baikal throughout the entire summer, many seal of a peculiar, fresh-water, land- locked variety are killed for their pelts, and inasmuch as little discretion in this slaughter is required by the authorities, there is great danger that these animals will speedily disappear entirely. The skins of these Baikal seal do not figure at all in the markets where seal-skins are bought for garments; they are used en- tirely for tanning and the leather is made up into boots, bags, and a thousand useful or ornamental articles. The seal fishery of Eastern Siberia and its islands, having over 13,000 miles of coast, is an important source of revenue to the Russian Government; but it has been — as we know well — a constant cause of disputes with the United States and Japanese authori- ties that have sometimes grown into almost international proportions. As an industry this subject has been dis- cussed elsewhere. Besides several varieties of seals found along these shores, there are also walrus, dol- phins, sea-otter (once very common, but now extremely rare), and innumerable kinds of fish. Bears feed upon the fish that fairly abound in the many fiords, bays, and bights. After a storm the shores are often strewn with fish, piled up till they form a wall several feet high and many feet thick. The rivers and lakes of practically the whole of Siberia are well supplied with fish, as the traveller by train realises, to his great satisfaction, when his train FLORA AND FAUNA 267 makes a long halt at one of the many good "buffet" stations about meal- time; for he then learns that "fish- chowder" is a palatable dish not restricted to America. In the flat country west of Tomsk and all the way to the European border, where the streams are remark- ably sluggish, there are many ponds as well as lakes of considerable size. In all of these waters — the lakes particularly — there are many fish, pike, carp, bream (akin to our sun-fish, but larger and better for food), perch, and others. They afford sport of a kind to those seeking it and a welcome supply of food to the residents. From one of these lakes, Chany — between Tomsk and Omsk — over fifteen tons of fish are taken each year. In this region, however, there are no true game fish and the act of catching them is tame sport. Elsewhere, in some of the mountain streams, there are active fish that rise to a fly, yet even the best of these are not very gamey when hooked. The Russian fisherman, it seemed to me, measures his sport rather by the quan- tity taken than by the struggle required to land his catch. Nature has apparently indulged in some curious vagaries in her distribution of animals through certain parts of Siberia. We are accustomed, I think, to asso- ciate the camel with latitudes near the equator, and as " the ship of the desert" to picture it in the sandy regions of Arabia and northern Africa. Our children, who had seen camels used as beasts of burden, only at Aden and Port Said, were much surprised to find the animal similarly employed at various places along the Siberian railway, and often harnessed into carts. Yet it has become thoroughly acclimated; tramps over the snow in winter as readily as over the desert sands of the 268 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA Sahara, the pads of its feet being harder than those of other species, so that it is fitted to bear the changes in the soil caused by rain or drought. In winter it not only lives but thrives on the leaves and twigs of the willow and birch. The owners are proud of their possession and are said to be very careful and consid- erate, the animals requiting kindness in kind. It belongs to the Bactrian or two-humped species and is found throughout the region lying to the north and east of that inhabited by the dromedary, from the Black Sea to China, and northward to Lake Baikal. Another seeming whim of Nature is the Manchurian tiger, which is found throughout the eastern regions up to the Amur River; north of that it is not seen, I believe. The Koreans, the people of the Maritime Province, the natives of northern Manchuria, eastern Mongolia, and the Amur valley, are dreadfully and justly afraid of this beast. Not many years ago, one was killed within the limits of Vladivostok city. It is the royal Bengal tiger, and shows surprisingly little vari- ation from its prototype because of change in environ- ment. It is often poisoned with strychnine by natives in various places, but this method of killing totally spoils the skin for decorative purposes. "There is great difficulty experienced in hunting the animal, as there are no elephants or shikaris* It is next to im- possible to get within shot safely in summer, but in winter when the grass is down, the tracks are followed in the fresh snow, and each season two professional trappers of Nikolsk get four or five in this way. Its range is from far south to within a hundred and twenty miles of Nikolaievsk at the mouth of the Amur, thus * The Indian hunter or beater. FLORA AND FAUNA 269 practically over the whole of the Ussuri district as well as in Manchuria." The animals of Russia's Central Asian provinces do not differ greatly from those of western Siberia. The camel and the dromedary are more common as domesti- cated animals, and there is, besides, a wild camel in the Ala-Shan, but this is not yet very well known. The tiger is not often seen, save in the lower Amu-Daria country. In the Himalayas there are some distinct animals, and in the Pamir plateau there is a magnificent mountain sheep, which may have been the ancestor of our common sheep, and is, perhaps, a cousin to our Rocky Moun- tain sheep. Prejevalsky discovered the wild horse (described as Equus prejevalskii by Polyakoff) in the high- lands of Dzungaria. Bear, antelope, Siberian ibex, the yak, the zebu, wild boar, and a long list of other animals make up the abundant fauna of these provinces. Birds and insects are innumerable. From what has been said and suggested, it will be clear that in many parts of Russia's vast possessions in Asia there is yet a good deal for the naturalist to do, and it is certain that the sportsman will enjoy himself. The true lover of sport will, I fancy, not be anxious to adopt the local method of Siberia, and will agree with Mr. Gerrare's comment thereon: "The com- mon method of hunting is that of the ' surround,' as in Russia. In the autumn there will be several great drives organised by the army officers with several regi- ments as beaters. As many carry their rifles, and on sighting the game fire volleys, there is hardly sufficient sport to give the proceedings a name." Even in the extreme north-east corner of Asia, along the Okhotsk Sea and in the Kamschatka Peninsula, there is lots of 270 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA sport, reindeer, musk-ox, roebuck, etc.; while birds are innumerable. In somewhat the same way as the Siberian fauna is segregated by the zoologist into sundry broad latitud- inal belts, so the flora is likewise differentiated by the botanist; only that, in the latter case, it is customary to consider these belts as being four in number: the true arctic region, the sub-arctic or coniferous region, the Altai and Daurian mountain regions, and the Eastern Chinese region which extends northward into that part of Siberia belonging in the Amur basin. For my pur- pose, however, there must be added to the last of those divisions the Maritime Province, east of Manchuria; and there should be a sixth, that of the Central Asian provinces. It is but natural, in the existing circumstances, and having due regard to the development of the earth, to expect the full breadth of the continent to be well wooded throughout the whole of the second belt, the sub-arctic or coniferous regions; and it probably was at one time; for even now the forests cover from one-half to the whole of the ground, according to locality and obeying certain local natural laws. In many places the forests have not yet been touched, and they are unbroken save where a bald mountain peak pushes up through the verdure. But then, on the other hand, there are hundreds of square miles where the magnificent trees have been wantonly felled and left to rot, just to effect a little clearing. The science of forest conserva- tion is but little understood in Siberia and it is prac- tised hardly at all. South of the broad line of demarcation between tundra and tree belt wherein the conifers are a farce, FLORA AND FAUNA 271 the first conspicuous tree is the birch. Beginning as a puny dwarf, it rapidly increases in size and importance towards the south, until along the railway one frequently sees miles of stacks of crossties cut from this tree; the wood shimmers in the sunlight like white satin. Still farther south in the timber belt are oak, elm, hazel, apple, lime, and maple. These disappear towards the east, but are found again in the mountains that border the edge of the great plateau. Nowhere, perhaps, is the change better seen than on crossing the Great Khingan. Still farther east, in the Amur region, there are a great number of new species of European trees, and even some new genera are met with that are not found in Europe at all. There are cork-trees, walnut, acacia, a graceful climber, and others not to be seen in central Siberia. The larch predominates over all conifers on the high plateaus, and the Scotch fir is also well known. From eastern Manchuria, on the railway fine, until well towards the coast, the forest trees are large and abundant. Everywhere, almost throughout the length and breadth of Siberia, in the widest acceptation of the word, there are berry- yielding plants in abundance: the red whortle- berry or cowberry, the swamp whortleberry, bilberry, the arctic bramble found far inland, raspberries, both red and black currants: all of these form luxuriant undergrowth. As has been intimated, in the spring and early summer wild flowers fairly cover the ground with brilliant colours. In the Far East, the most beautiful lilies are so plentiful as to be a nuisance to the farmer, while his intended meadow is so likely to be invaded by flowering plants in such numbers that the grass makes 272 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA poor fodder. In the Khingan Mountains the edelweiss carpets the slopes even more thoroughly than it does in the Alps. I have made no attempt to transcribe the list of animals, birds, and insects that are found in Siberia; nor have I pretended to enumerate the trees and plants. What I have written will, I think, be sufficient to show that a considerable part of the country is far from being the abomination of desolation that many imagine it to be; and I confess that before I crossed the continent of Asia by the trans-Siberian Railway, the word " Siberia" connoted the very acme of that which is bleak and lonely, with here and there, at long intervals, dreary settlements for convicts and exiles who had to be fed with provisions brought from a distance. I do not even now wish my readers to think that Siberia is an attractive place for intelligent settlers. CHAPTER XX CONCLUSION THIS chapter is in the nature of an Afterword, because it has been written since the rest of the book was in print. The apprehension expressed in preceding pages, that Russia's plan of action in the Far East does not give comforting assurance of lasting peace in that part of the world, seems to be confirmed. The public press gives precise information of a defensive alliance between Russia and Japan, which will probably be signed by its negotiator, the Japanese Ambassador at the Russian Court. Prince Katsura's departure from Japan on his way to Europe by way of the trans-Siberian Railway, doubtless meant that this statesman was to conclude whatever formalities were necessary to determine the pact between his Imperial Master and the Russian Tsar; and probably Katsura was vested with plenary power to sign the treaty for the Japanese Emperor. But the alarming news of the serious condition of Emperor Mutsuhito's health, and his almost certainly impending death, which sad event occurred on July 30, 191 2, necessitated the return of Katsura; although he may have had sufficient time in St. Petersburg to finish the preliminaries and perhaps sign the treaty. Yet the treaty was concluded, and it is intended to delimit the spheres of influence of Russia and Japan 274 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA in Mongolia and Manchuria. In other words, these two trespassers upon Chinese territory will almost surely be found to have entered into an agreement to support each other in carrying out plans which cannot but be inimical to China's welfare. Furthermore, it is hardly necessary to say that any agreement of this nature between Russia and Japan means that both those dis- tricts, Mongolia and Manchuria, parts of China's sovereign domain, are to be kept closed indefinitely against all " intruders," in which category Russia classes all the world, except herself and not excepting Japan, so far as the whole of Mongolia and the northern part of Manchuria are concerned; while Japan returns the com- pliment by including Russia with all the rest of the world, among those whom she purposes to exclude from South- ern Manchuria and all the other sections of the Chinese Empire over which she hopes to secure control, possibly through the moral, financial, and military assistance which this treaty of defensive alliance will confer. Once more I am compelled to admit that I have been deceived by the act of these two Powers, Japan and Russia. It seemed as if Japan had been brought to see that, in the game of diplomacy, she could not trust Russia, whose wiliness is so selfish, and that all of her best interests would be served by co-operating with America and Great Britain in furthering China's wel- fare. But it is evident that Japan considers Russia a better ally than any other Power, and that her own selfishness is to be the determining factor. I cannot help asking myself the question: will Japan, by this alliance, make it absolutely certain that Russia's plans for expansion will never include her own island empire? It is not a condition of affairs which holds promise CONCLUSION 275 of real and abiding peace in the Far East. Looking past the terms of the treaty itself so far as we are in- formed about them, there is manifest to all outside, yet interested, observers, a disposition to foment trouble in China, and to prevent, if possible, the consummation of the plans of Chinese statesmen for the establishing of the Republic of China on a broad, firm, enduring basis. The second part of the treaty of defensive alliance between Russia and Japan is said to provide for assist- ance to be given by the other party thereto in the event of either party being attacked, in the Far East, of course. That is to say, should China succeed in quell- ing the disturbances which now exist in various parts of that country, in readjusting her finances, in estab- lishing full power at home, and in securing the moral support abroad needed to help her perfect all these conditions, she will ere long be in a position to serve notice upon both Russia and Japan that they must vacate the Chinese territory they now occupy unlaw- fully. I must repeat here what has been said already about Japan's tenure in Manchuria. By a treaty made be- tween Russia and China, on March 27, 1898, supple- mented and confirmed by a convention concluded a little later between the Russian Government and the Chinese Minister at St. Petersburg, Russia secured a lease of the Liaotung Peninsula for twenty-five years, or until 1923. Japan fell heir to whatever privileges (and — speaking of territory — only such privileges) that agreement conferred, by the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth, 1905, between Russia and Japan; the terms of which treaty China, for reasons that are well 276 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA known to everybody, was compelled to acquiesce in. Japan calls this Manchurian jurisdiction, Kwangtung Province. Neither Russia nor Japan ever gained legitimately from China any territorial rights beyond the Peninsula; for the right to protect the railways with military guards did not carry with it any privilege of occupying terri- tory, although the right has been most shamelessly exercised, especially by Russia. By treaty, then, China has the right to evict Japan from Manchuria in less than eleven years from this time, 191 2. Besides, China has the right to purchase all Russian and Japanese railways in Manchuria in 1939, upon payment of all outlays made by either Russia or Japan. Such outlays will be difficult to assess, and doubtless a pretty bit of arbitration and evaluation would be required. Even if the existing conditions and treaties remain unchanged, in 1983 all those rail- ways, with all their appurtenances and belongings, should any exist, revert to China without any com- pensation whatever to Russia or Japan. But I am thinking of a rehabilitated, a strong China; a nation that is in a position to assert its sovereign rights, and I cannot help believing that the recovery of full autonomy in Manchuria and Mongolia will be one of the first ambitions of China. She may denounce the treaty which gave Russia a semblance of right to the occupation of Liaotung, and by virtue of which Japan is now in possession; declare the convention and agreement invalid because they were secured through improper pressure originally, and continued without adequate compensation, and serve notice to vacate her territory; backing up the demand with military display. CONCLUSION 277 Such notice will be ignored by both Russia and Japan, and then may come an "attack" upon one or the other of them to compel restoration of China's rights. It is for just such contingency that the alliance between Russia and Japan has been negotiated. It is not likely that Great Britain will "attack" either one of those countries in the Far East; but if England and Russia come to blows on the Afghanistan frontier or in northern Persia, Japan will be in a peculiarly embarrassing situa- tion. Which ally will she support? The alliance can hardly be directed against Germany. It may be that America's friendship for China has, in the eyes of these Russo-Japanese allies, gone too far, and that they have joined hands to resist further aggres- sion. Yet this, too, seems improbable and the conclu- sion appears to be unescapable that it is China against whom Russia and Japan are in open alliance. Only why call it "defensive"? I do not look with satisfaction upon the apparent calm that has existed for some months in northern Persia. It is too consistent with Russian methods and British apathy to be reassuring. At any moment we are likely to hear that Russia has gone quietly on per- fecting her plans for expansion and absorption in that region; and the British Government may wake up some morning to be told that the "frontier question" has been pushed far to the south, and that Russia has established herself so firmly as to make the way to the head of the Persian Gulf open to her. Complications may be increased by a trespass upon what Germany looks upon as her "preserves"; but this obstacle will be overcome in some way. However, let us assume that Russia perfects her 278 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA plans for securing a "protectorate" in Mongolia and, with the assistance of her confirmed ally, Japan, makes her position in northern Manchuria one of permanent occupation instead of tenancy on sufferance, there will then be a much greater Siberia and Russia in Asia for us to contemplate, and the advantages to accrue to Russia are immense. It is not likely that Japan will grant, even to her ally, the privilege of establishing an independent and exclusive naval station somewhere on the coast of Korea Bay, say the mouth of the Yalu River, or that of Liaotung Gulf; but it would hardly be the friendly act of an ally to refuse her associate the full facilities for a fitting-out station that Port Arthur may afford. Russia would be grateful for even so much, and with it she would be content for the present, or until she has turned the Wheel of Time so that she gets quite all she wishes. If the way is opened to the Persian Gulf and if, as is reasonably certain, a satisfactory arrangement is made which permits of Russia and Japan using conjointly the railways from Tairen to Harbin, there will be even greater possibilities for a Coming Siberia than now exist. It must be for some time, however, an import- ing Siberia; because, as I think has been pretty well shown, Siberia cannot be a great exporting country for may years to come, except in lumber, minerals, and perhaps a few other articles that are procurable or manufactured in excess of home consumption. Yet it is clear that Russia's first and greatest ambition is expansion in Asia. This must strike most observers as being rather a senseless policy, for already her pos- sessions in that continent are so immense and so un- wieldy that her capacity to manage and develop them CONCLUSION 279 is altogether overtaxed. With scarcely an exception, there is not a government, province, or dependent state which is now being administered in a manner that ensures the possibilities in economics and material output of which the district is capable. It has been shown that Russia has not in her European dominions a surplus population upon which to draw for emigrants needed to colonise satisfactorily those millions of square miles which she now owns or " pro- tects'' in Asia. Where there is, in European Russia, a suggestion of congestion in the resident population, the character of the possible surplus is not of the kind that the Government wishes to send into Siberia. Little is being done by the Russian Government to popularise any part of the Siberian provinces in the eyes of farmers and industrialists from other parts of Europe. The feeling which finds vocal expression in "the nearer the Tsar, the greater the danger," tends to deter the peasants of all countries from seeking homes in even the most attractive parts of Siberia; and the constant nagging interference of the Govern- ment will always prevent foreign investors from effort to exploit the promising industries. Russia would, no doubt, be glad to have more Chinese and Koreans settle within her borders, and the evidence is conclusive that lately there have been attractive inducements held out to them; but the former are not yet prepared to overlook the episodes in the Amur Valley and along the Irkutsk frontier; while the latter have simply given up hope of being any better off than they now are, so that emigration fails to hold attraction for them. The policy of the Russian Government towards the 280 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA United States has shown itself in the recent pronounce- ment of the farmers to discard American agricultural machinery and implements. This movement is not spontaneous with the farmers themselves; it is some- thing that they are doing because they are ordered to do so by the officials. The Russian peasants have been trained from time immemorial not to take the initiative in such matters; and this lack of initiative has now become such a marked trait in their character, that, to one who has seen them in their homes, it is inconceivable that they could think of establishing a boycott against American agricultural implements or anything else. It was a most difficult matter to compel them to give up their antiquated methods of tilling the soil and harvesting their crops, and to avail themselves of the valuable assistance which American implements conferred. What little had been done in this way of substituting good for bad was due entirely to the per- sistent, mandatory effort of government officials. The apparent revulsion of feeling, and the attempt to secure similar implements from other sources (this, it may safely be affirmed, cannot be done economically), is to be attributed to the same official influence. The information which has come to hand of activity in straightening the trans-Siberian Railway, cutting down grades, double-tracking the line from Moscow to Irkutsk, and increasing and improving the rolling-stock, is remarkable evidence of a determination to make this property available in every way; whether it be peaceful expansion and development, or military ag- gression. The work has already brought about a reduction of at least one day in the schedule time be- tween Moscow and Vladivostok. CONCLUSION 28l The work of laying the second track has not been completed in the western section, Moscow to Irkutsk, but it is so well in hand that attention is now being given to the eastern half, from Irkutsk through to Vladivostok. I have no reliable source to which to turn for information as to Russia's right to double-track the line across northern Manchuria, and from Harbin south to the junction with the Japanese railway at Chang-chun; that is, in Chinese territory. I think, however, that nothing is said, one way or the other, in the permission which China reluctantly gave to the construction of these lines. In any case, Russia is going ahead to do just what she wishes, and if it seems good to the Tsar and his Cabinet, the Minister of War and the High Commissioner for the Study of all Points of View of the Railways especially, to double those Manchurian lines, it will be done at Russia's convenience and without taking the trouble to obtain permission from Peking. The Kalgan Railway, if it is not actually in running order at this moment, will probably be open for traffic before this volume is in the hands of readers. It gives Russians quick access to the Chinese capital, and tightens the grip of Russian diplomatists upon the Chinese Foreign Office. When the " protection" of Mongolia is assured, it cannot be long before the much- talked-of line from the trans-Siberian Railway via Kiahkta to Peking will be taken in hand and pushed rapidly to completion. In all such matters, the develop- ment of Siberia may safely be said to be progressing. Before closing, it may be interesting to my readers to learn that the former Crown Prince of Japan, now Emperor Yoshihito, is rather more inclined to be influ- 282 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND ASIA enced by German diplomacy and statecraft than by either Russian or British. He understands German quite well, and, if I am correctly informed, speaks the lan- guage. He may know something of English, but he would never talk with me in that tongue, although I have met him several times. I doubt if he knows anything about Russian. He is a thorough militarist and since he has ascended the throne there is not much likelihood of a change in the rather assertive policy of his Government. Beyond a certain sentimental regard for the United States of America, because of what she has done in the past and continues to do in civilisation and educational matters, and a wholesome respect for Americans' plentitude of dollars, Emperor Yoshihito, like his father, gives little consideration to America, because of an assumed con- tempt for the democratic ideas which govern in that land. What his imperial name will be, and how he will designate his reign, may be known to himself and the advisers who are closest to him, but it would be contrary to Japanese rule — and superstition — to divulge them before the new emperor succeeds.* It may be that the present close relations between Russia and Japan will not be so powerful since this young Emperor, who is now only thirty-three years of age, has suc- ceeded. I imagine that the Russian Court would much prefer to have had the late emperor recover his health and hold the reins of government for many years to come, than to have had Prince Yoshihito crowned im- mediately. * These have been determined. The era name is to be Taisho, vari- ously translated, but ''Great Righteousness" is as good as any. BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY A Short List of Books which may be useful Russian Life and Society as Seen in 1866-67 by Appleton and Longfellow. Brevet Captain Nathan Appleton, Boston, 1904. Oriental and Western Siberia. Thomas William Atkinson, 1858. Slavonic Europe. Robert Nisbet Bain, Cambridge, Eng., 1908. A Year in Russia. Maurice Baring, London, 1907. Travels in Bokhara. Sir A. Barnes, London, 1834. The Russian Road to China. Lindon Bates, Jr., London, 1910. Memoirs and Travels of Mauritius Augustus. Count de Benyow- sky, London, 1904. The Russian Empire and Czarism. Victor Berard, tr., 1905. The Russian Advance. Albert J. Beveridge, New York, 1903. Borderland of Czar and Kaiser. Poultney Bigelow, New York, 1895. The Life of Yakoob Beg. Demetrius Charles Boulger, London, 1878. Russia of To-day. Baron E. von der Briiggen, tr., London, 1904. The Midnight Sun: the Tsar and Nihilists. J. M. Buckley. A Nemesis of Mis government. James William Buel, Philadelphia, 1904. A Ride to Khiva. Captain Frederick G. Burnaby, London, 1876. The Case of Russia; a composite view. Alfred Rambaud, Vlad- imir G. Simkovitch, J. Novicow, Peter Roberts, and Isaac A. Hourwich, New York, 1905. Historical Memoirs of the Emperor Alexander I. and the Court of Russia. Madame la comtesse de Choiseul-Gouffier, tr., Chicago, 1900. Travels in Various Countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Part the First, Russia, Tartary, and Turkey. Edward Daniel Clarke, Philadelphia, 181 1. Narrative of a Pedestrian Journey Through Russia and Siberian 286 BIBLIOGRAPHY Tar tar y to the Frontiers of China, to the Frozen Sea and Kam- schatka. John Dundas Cochrane, 1824. Voyage Down the Amoor; with a land journey through Siberia, and incidental notices of Manchuria, Kamschatka, and Japan. Perry McDonough Collins, i860. Russia against India, the Struggle for Asia. Archibald R. Colqu- houn, New York, 1900. The Mongols in Russia. Jeremiah Curtin, Boston, 1908. Russia in Central Asia in i88g and the Anglo-Russian Question. The Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M. P. (now Baron Curzon of Kedlestone), London, 1889. [Contains excellent bibliography.] Journal of De Lange. London, 1715. Sixteen Years in Siberia: some experiences of a Russian Revolu- tionist. Leo Deutsch, tr., New York, 1904. From Pekin to Calais by Land. Harry De Windt, London, 1889. Ride to India Across Persia and Baluchistan. Harry De Windt, London, 1891. Siberia as it is. Introduction by Mme. Olga NovikofT. Harry De Windt, London, 1892. Buried Alive; or Ten Years of Penal Servitude in Siberia. Fedor Dostoyeffsky, New York, 1881. Celebrated Crimes of the Russian Court. Alexandre Dumas, Bos- ton, 1905. Six Years at the Russian Court. M. Eagar, London, 1906. An Account of the Kingdom of Cabul and Its Dependencies in Persia, Tartary, and India. The Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, London, 181 5. Russia Through the Stereoscope. M. S. Emery, New York, 1901. Slav or Saxon. William Dudley Foulke, 3rd. ed. New York, 1904. Russie dans VAsie-Mineure; ou campagnes du Marechal Pas- kevitch. F. P. Fonton, 1840. Red Russia. John Foster Fraser, New York, 1907. The Real Siberia. John Foster Fraser, 1902. The Downfall of Russia. Hugo Ganz, London, 1905. Land of Riddles (Russia of To-day). Hugo Ganz, 1904. Little Journeys to Russia and Austria-Hungary. Marian M. George, ed. 1906. Greater Russia. Wirt Gerrare, New York, 1904. BIBLIOGRAPHY 287 Ice-pack and Tundra; account of the search for the Jeannetle, and a sledge journey through Siberia. William Henry- Gilder, London, 1883. Memoirs of Countess Golovine. Varvara Nikolaevna Golovina, tr., 1910. A Vagabond in the Caucasus. Stephen Graham (?) , New York, 1908. Undiscovered Russia. Stephen Graham, New York, 191 2. Studies in Russia. Augustus John Cuthbert Hare, written 1885 — new ed., New York, 1904. In the Uttermost East; being an account of investigations among the natives and Russian convicts of the Island of Sakhalin, with notes of travel in Korea, Siberia, and Manchuria. Charles H. Hawes, New York, 1904. The Russian Empire, its People, Institutions, and Resources. Baron August, freiherr von Haxthausen-Abbenburg, 2 v., London, 1856. Transcaucasia, sketches of the nations and races between The Black Sea and The Caspian. Baron August, freiherr von Haxthausen-Abbenburg, London, 1854. Russian Church and Russian Dissent. A. F. Heard, London, 1887. The Court of Russia in the Nineteenth Century. Edward Arthur Brayley Hodgetts, New York, 1908. Leisure Hours in Russia. Wickham Hoffman, 1883. Prisoners of Russia [deals especially with Saghalien]. Benjamin Douglas Howard, 1902. History of the Mongols from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century. Sir Henry Hoyle Howorth, London, 1876. Three Years' 1 Travels from Moscow Overland to China. E. I. Ides, 1706. The Russian Bastile; or, The Schluesselburg Fortress. I. P. Youvatshev, tr., London, 1909. Russia as it Really is. Carl Joubert, London, 1904. The Truth About the Tsar and the Present State of Russia. Carl Joubert, London, 1905. The Fall of Tsardom. Carl Joubert, London and Philadelphia, 1906. History and Bibliography. N. M. Karamzin, Fr. ed., 12 v. Eng. 11, St. Petersburg, 1818-29, London, 1819-26. History of Russia to the Present Time. 2 v., W. K. Kelly, London, 1854. 288 BIBLIOGRAPHY Siberia and the Exile System. 2 v., George Kennan, New York, 1891. Tent Life in Siberia. George Kennan, New York, original 1870 25th impression, 1907. The Russian Peasant. Howard P. Kennard, Philadelphia, 1908. Bokhara; Its Amir and Its People. N. de Khanikoff, tr., London, 1845. Where Three Empires Meet. A narrative of recent travel in Kash- mir, Western Tibet, Gilgit, and the adjoining countries. E. F. Knight, London, 1893. Russian Political Institutions. Maxime Kovalevsky, Chicago, 1902. Russia in Asia. A. Krausse, 1899. Underground Russia: revolutionary profiles and sketches from life. S. M. Kravchinsky [Stepniak, pseud.], tr. from the Italian, 1883. Russia Under the Tzars. S. M. Kravchinsky, tr., 1885. Turkomania and the Turkomans [in Russian Military Journal]. A. N. Kuropatkin, tr., London, 1879. Kashgaria. A. N. Kuropatkin, tr., Calcutta, 1882. Russia, the Land of the Great White Czar. E. C. Phillips (Mrs. Horace B. Looker), New York, 1904. The Court of Alexander III. Mrs. Almira (Strong) Lothrop, ed., William Prall, Philadelphia, 19 10. Through Siberia. H. Lansdell, London, 1879. Russian Central Asia. 2 v. H. Lansdell, London, 1885. Natives of Siberia. H. Lansdell, 10 pp. Harper's Mag., v. 75, New York, 1887. The Awakening of the East; Siberia-Japan, China. Pierre Leroy- Beaulieu, tr., 1900. History of Afghanistan [to 1878]. Col. G. B. Malleson, London, 1882. The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, tr. Col. Henry Yule, 2 v., London, 1875. On Sledge and Horseback to the Outcast Siberian Lepers. Kate Marsden, 1892. The Russian Advance Towards India. Ch. Marvin, London, 1881. In Russian Turkestan; a garden of Asia and its people. Annette M. B. Meakin, London, 1903. Russia; travels and studies. Annette M. B. Meakin, 1906. BIBLIOGRAPHY 289 Winter Journey Through Russia, the Caucasian Alps, and Georgia. R. Mignan. Russia and Its Crisis. Paul Milyoukov, Chicago, 1905. From Siberia to Switzerland; the story of an escape. D. Mok- rievitch, Contemporary Review, v. 47, 24 pp., London, 1885. The Russian Court in the Eighteenth Century. Fitzgerald Molloy, London, 1905. Russia. William Richard Morfill, New York, 1891. Russia and Poland. William Richard Morfill, Philadelphia, 1907. A History of Russia from the Birth of Peter the Great to Nicholas II. William Richard Morfill, New York, 1902. From China by Rail; an account of a journey from Shanghai to London via the Trans-Siberian railways. Christopher A. Morgan, Edinburgh [private], 1902. Travels in Russia and a Residence at St. Petersburg and Odessa in the Years 1827 and 1829. Edward Morton. Rise of the Russian Empire. H. H. Munro. (?) New York, 1900. Voyage en Turcomaine et a Khiva, fait en 1819 et 1820. M. N. Muravieff, tr. Eng., Calcutta, 1871. Nestor, Monk of Pestcherski. Latopis [Russian and Polish], 1864 (A. Bielowski, Monumenta Polon, hist. v. 1). The Dawn in Russia, or, Scenes in the Russian Revolution. Henry W. Nevinson, London and New York, 1906. Russia and the Russians. E. Noble, 1900. Peoples and Politics of the Far East. Henry Norman, M. P., (?) London and New York, 1899. All the Russias. Henry Norman, M.P., New York, 1902. The Merv Oasis, 2 v. Edmund O'Donovan, London, 1882. Travels Through the Southern Provinces of the Russian Empire in the Years 1793-1794. Peter Simon Pallas, tr., London, 2 ed., 181 2. Russian Life in Town and Country. F. H. E. Palmer, New York, 1902. Russia and Reform. Bernard Pares, London, 1907. From the Arctic Coast to the Yellow Sea. Julius M. Price, 1892. Early Russian History — from 16 13. William Ralston, London, 1874. The Expansion of Russia. Alfred Nicolas Rambaud, New York, 1904. The History of Russia from the Earliest Times to 1877, and Additional 290 BIBLIOGRAPHY Chapters to IQ04. Alfred Nicolas Rambaud and G. Mercer Adam, New York, 1904. Russian History [to 1894]. Angelo S. Rappoport, London, 1905. The Curse of the Romanovs. Angelo S. Rappoport, London, 1907. Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute. Gen. Theodore F. Rodenbough, New York, 1885. Journey Due North; notes of a residence in Russia. George Augustus Henry Sala, London, 1858. Russia under Alexander III. and in the Preceding Period. H. von Samson-Himmelstjerna, tr., London, 1893. Russia, Her Strength and Her Weakness. Wolf von Schierbrand, 1904. Journey in Turkistan, Khokand, Bukhara, etc., 2 v. Eugene Schuyler, London, 1877. History of Peter the Great. 2 v. Eugene Schuyler, London, 1884. Siberia in Asia. H. Seebohm, London, 1882. The Great Siberian Railway from St. Petersburg to Pekin. M. M. Shoemaker, 1903. Political Prisoner in Siberia and Prisons of Siberia. ]. Y. Simp- son, Blackwood's Magazine, London, 1897. The Seat of War in the East [Crimea]. William Simpson, London, 1902. Russia as Seen and Described by Famous Writers. Esther Single- ton, ed., New York, 1904. Expansion of Russia, 1815-IQ00. Francis Henry Skrine, 1903. Heart of Asia; a history of Russian Turkestan. F. H. Skrine and E. D. Ross, 1899. Through Siberia. Jonas Jonsson Stadling, ed., F. H. H. Guille- mard, London, 1901. The M.P. for Russia; reminiscences and correspondence of Mad- ame Olga Novikoff, ed. by W. T. Stead, London, 1909. Through Russia on a Mustang. Thomas Stevens, London, 1891. Across Russia. Charles A. Stoddard, New York, 1892. Russia in Central Asia: Historical sketch of Russia's progress in the East up to 1873. H. Stumm, tr., London, 1885. Through the Highlands of Siberia. Maj. Harald George Carlos Swayne, London, 1904. Strange Siberia Along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Marcus Lorenzo Taft, New York, 191 1. BIBLIOGRAPHY 291 The Relation Between Ancient Russia and Scandinavia. Vilhelm L. P. Thomsen, London, 1877. Origin of the Russian State. Vilhelm L. P. Thomsen, London, 1877. Russia: Political and Social. 2 v. L. Tikhomirov, tr., London, 1887. Siberia. Samuel Turner, Philadelphia, 1906. A Russo-Chinese Empire. [English version.] Alexander Ular, London, 1904. Russia from Within. Alexander Ular, London, 1905. Memoirs of a Russian Governor. Prince Serge Dmitriyevich Urussov, tr., London, 1908. The Russians in Central Asia. Valikhanoff, Veniukoff, and other Russian travellers, tr., London, 1865. Travels in Central Asia. Arminius Vambery, London, 1864. Sketches of Central Asia. Arminius Vambery, London, 1868. In Search of a Siberian Klondike. W. B. Vanderlip and H. B. Hulbert, New York, 1903. Russia Under the Great Shadow: impressions of Russia during Russo-Japanese war. Luigi Villari, London, 1905. Russia. Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace. New and enlarged ed., New York, 1905. Russia's Message, the True World Import of the Revolution. Wil- liam English Walling, New York, 1908. Russia. L. Edna Walter, London, 1910. With the Russians in Peace and War. Col. the Hon. F. A. Welles- ley, London, 1905. Persian Problem; an examination of the rival positions of Russia and Great Britain in Persia. Henry James Whigham, (?) New York, 1903. Asiatic Russia. George Frederick Wright, New York, 1902. Cathay and the Way Thither. Col. Henry Yule, London, 1866. Documents on the History of the Diplomatic Relations of Russia with European Sovereigns in Secret. From the universally con- cluded peace in 1814 to the Congress of Venice in 1822 [Russian and French], 1823-5. 2 vols. The Russian Revolutionary Movement. Konni Zilliacus, tr. v London, 1905. 292 BIBLIOGRAPHY Through Savage Europe. Harry De Windt, London and Phila- delphia, 1907. A Year in Russia. Maurice Baring, London and New York, 1907. The Red Reign; the true story of an adventurous year in Russia. New York, 1907. Tramps in Dark Mongolia. John Hadley, New York, 1910. INDEX INDEX Aborigines of Siberia, 188. Academy of Science, 29. Acquisition of territory, 33. Administration of economic af- fairs, 25. Afghanistan, 209, 222. Afterword, 273. Agriculture in Russia, 71. Albazin, 190. Alexander I, 14, 236. Alexander II, 14, 240. Alexis, Peter the Great's son, 13. Alliance, Russo-Japanese, 191 2, 273; its objects, 277. Almanac de Gotha, 18. American intervention, Russo- Japanese war, 1905, 242. Amir of Bokhara, 210. Amur River or Valley, 61, 181. Angara River, 150. Anglo-Russian relations, 245. Animals of Central Asia Provinces, 269. Anne, 14. Architecture, 97. Asia, Russia in, 11. Attack on British India, proposed, 214. Austria, 233. Author's acquaintance with Russia, 3- Avifauna, 263. Baikal, Lake, 75; seals of, 266. Baku, 137. Baltic Provinces, 27, 48. Basil, Saint, 44. Batoum, 137. Bee-Keeping, 143. Bell of Moscow, "Tsar Kolokol," 98. Bells, treatment of, 37, 99. Berries in Siberia, 271. Bezpopovshchina, "no-priest" re- ligious dissenters, 254. Bismarck, Prince, 240. "Black" clergy, 29. Black Sea, 213. "Black Soil," 143. Bokhara, 219. Boulger, D. C, 190. Boundaries of Russia, 64. "Boxer" episode, 6, 199. Boyars, 38. British complacency, 226. British Government and India, 277. British India, 213, 214. Brutal treatment of criminals, former, 162. Budantsar, Mongol progenitor, 39. "Bunco," 126. Buriats, 80, 147. Byeguni, religious "runners," 256. Byzantine rulers, 46. 296 INDEX Cabinet, Tsar's, 31. Camel, Siberian, 267. Cannon, great, Moscow, 98. Cantonal assemblies, 24. Capital punishment, 162. Caravans, 184, 185. Cars for colonists, 157. Catering along Siberian railway, 125. Catherine I, 14, 196. Catherine II, 235; her schools, 258. Caucasus, 244. Census statistics, 151. Central Asia, 65, 74, 203, 208, 211; animals, 269; railway, 220. Chang Chih-tung, 198. Chasles, M., 21. Cheliabinsk, 101. China, 61, 65, 187, 191, 276; Russian designs on, 7. China- Japan war, 1894-5, 241. Chinese Eastern railway, 65. Chinese in Russia, 279. Chita, 107. Chukchees, 79, 82. Chun, Prince, 198. Chung-how, ambassador, 199. Church services, 231. Churches in Siberia, 265. Circuits or districts, 32. Cities, Russian, 22. Clarke, Edward Daniel, 170. Climate, Siberian, 139. Colonisation, incentive to, 146. Colquhoun, Archibald R., 222. Communal assemblies, 24. Communism in Russia, 58. Conditions in penal settlements, 163. Coniferous trees, 131. Constantinople, 238. Construction of Siberian railway, 124. Convicts and exiles, 161. Cossacks, 49, 152; harass Napo- leon's army, 53; like American frontiersmen, 50; mountain, 53; Zaporogian, 52. Council of empire, 28, 30. Courts of cassation, 29. Crimean war, 218. Criminal codes, 161. Crossing Siberia, 8. Cultivable land, 141, 160. Curzon, George N., 11, 207, 223. Custom Houses, Russian and Chinese, 79. Dagmar, Princess, Tsarina, 12. Dairy products, 84. Dardanelles, 213. Dauria, Amur, 189. Death of Japanese emperor, 273. De Lange, secretary of embassy, Peking, 192. Deserts, Gobi and Dzungaria, 182, 184. De Windt, H., 161. Difficulty in getting off "beaten tracks," no. Diplomatic relations, Russia and China, 196; Russia and Japan, 199. Display in cathedrals and churches, 249. Dissenters, religious, 252. Districts or Circuits, 32. Diversity of physical features, 66. Dmitri Donskoi, 17, 42, 43. Dmitri of Vollhynia, 17. INDEX 297 Dmitri, the boy 56; his assassi- nation, 57. Domestic, national, troubles, 243. Don Cossacks, 53. Donetz River, 135. Dorpat, university of, 28. > Double-tracking Siberian railway, 280. Droshky, 95 ; driver, 96. Duma, 20, 22, 28, 29. Durov, poet, 103. Dzungaria, 65, 184, 185. "Eastern Question," the, 235. Eastern Three Provinces, Man- churia, 178. Eastern Turkestan, 65. Economic affairs, administration of, 25. Education, 260. Elder, "Volostnoi starshina," 24. Elizabeth, 14. "Emperor and Autocrat," 20. Emperor Mutsuhito's death, 273. Emperor Yoshihito, 281. Equal chance in Manchuria, 180. Esthonia, 48. Ethnological research of political exiles, 172. Eurasians, 156. Europe, Russia in, 11; physical, 68. European civilisation, effect upon Siberia, 82. Eviction of Russia and Japan from Manchuria, 277. Exiles, ethnological research by, 172. Exiles and convicts, 161. Expense of litigation during Mon- gol rule, 41. Farming methods, 142. Fauna, 265. Feodor, 56. Finland, 26; "strike" in, 26. Finns, early settlers in Russia, 15. First impressions of Vladivostok, 3- Fish in Siberia, 266; in European Russia, 15. Fletcher, Dr. Giles, 70. Flora, 265; segregation of, 270. Flour-mills at Harbin, 108. Forced colonists, 155. Forest preservation, Siberia, 131. Forests, 271. Forts, frontier, 149. Franchise in Russia, the electoral, 22. Free colonists, 154. French diplomacy, 239. "Fundamental laws," 20. Fur- trade, 55. Game, fish, 267; "surrounds," 269. Gatschina, 13. Gedymin, 47. Genghiz Khan, 40. Gentile organisation, 58. Geographical divisions, 67. Geok Tepe, 205. Gerrare, Wirt, 59, 67. Ghilyaks, 82. Gmina, 24. Gobi, desert of, 184. Godunoff, Boris, 56. Gold, 136, 179. Golden Horde, the, 39. Gortchakoff, Prince, 239. Government obstruction to devel- opment, 132. 298 INDEX Government, political divisions, 32. Governors-general, 32. Grain in Siberia, 141. Grand Prince, 35. Graphite in Siberia, 136. Great Britain on Jews in Russia, 89. Greater Siberia, 278. Greek Church, the, 248. Hanseatic League, 36. Harbin, 107; flour-mills at, 108. Hare, Augustus J. C., 165. Haxthausen, Baron von, 169. Hedin, Sven, 184. Henning's Chronicle of Livonia, 56. Heyking, Baron, on Jews in Russia, 90. Higher schools, 263. Holy Synod, 30. Hungarian Insurrection, 238. Icons, 99, 255. Ill, Kuldja, 197. Illiteracy, 259. Ilmen, Lake, 15. Imperial Council, 28. Independent Principalities, 17. Intermarriage in Siberia, 83. Internal dissension, 232. International Sleeping-car Co., 121. Interpellation of Ministers of State, 28. Irkutsk, 75, 105. Iron mines, 134. Ismaloff, ambassador to China, 191. Ito, Prince, 18. Ivan III, "The Great," 43, 44, 231. Ivan IV, "The Terrible," 43, 44, 46, 56. Ivan VI, 14. Japan, 18; in Liaotung Peninsula, 6. Japanese Diet, 18; government, 18. Japanese-Russian alliance, 191 2, 273- Japanese tenure in Manchuria, 275. Jassy, peace of, 235. Jews in Russia, 85-93. Kalgan railway, 229, 281. Kalka River, defeat at, 38. Kamschadales, 82. K'ang-hi, Chinese emperor, 190. Katsura, Prince, 273. Kazaks, Cossacks, 51. Kennan, George, 164. Khan Kutchum, 63. Khiva, 207; Khan of, 210, 224. Khlislovstchina, religious jumpers and flagellants, 256. Khokand, 220. Kiahkta, 61, 183. Kieff, 35. K'ien-lung, Chinese emperor, 193. Kizil Takir, 207. Korabliks, religious dissenters, 257. Korea, 202, 242. Korean settlements in Siberia, 5, 279. Koreans, Russia's treatment of, 4, 279. Koryaks, 82. Kotzebue, Augustus von, 216. Kovalevski, M., 71. INDEX 299 Krasnoyarsk, 104. Kremlin, The, Moscow, 98, 100. Kronstadt, 32. Kropotkine, P. A., 62, 166. Kuchuk-Kainarji, treaty of, 235. Kuldja, 111, 197. Kushik, 223. Kutchum, Khan, 63. Kuznetzk, 149. Ladoga, Lake, 15. Lakes, Baikal, 150; Ilmen, 15; Ladoga, 15. Land birds, 265. Language, the Russian, 125. Liaotung Peninsula, Japanese in, 6, 65; Russians in, 241. Li Hung-chang, 244. Lithuania, 4.7. Lithuano-Polish princes, 232. Livonia, 48, 56. Local, government, 23; institu- tions, 25. "Lord Novgorod the Great," 37. "Lord's Anointed, The," 46, 88. Magnificence in cathedrals and churches, 249. Magnitnaia Gora, 134. Mamai, Tartar leader, 17, 41. Mamakhas, 77. Manchuria, "Eastern Three Prov- inces," 178, 179. Manchuria, peoples, 80; provinces, 77; Russians in, 66. Manchuria tiger, 268. Marine products, 144. Merv Oasis, 211. Methods of farming, 142. Milyoukov, Paul, 166. Ministers of State, interpellation of, 28. Mir, definition of, 23. Modern empire, 17. Molchalyniki, religious mutes, 256. Mongol historian, S'sanang S'set- zen, 40. Mongol yoke, 41. Mongolia, 65. Mongols, 16, 38, 39; capital, Sarai, 38; domination, 17. Morals of Russian clergy, 251. Moscow, 17,98; Bell, 98; Cannon, 98; expansion of, 231; nucleus of Russian empire, 37; quarrels with Novgorod, 38. Mountain Cossacks, 53. Mukden, 114. Mullahs, 54. Music in Russian churches, 252. Napoleon Bonaparte, 214; wars, 236. Naturalist in Siberia, 269. Neighbours, Siberia's, 175. Nerchinsk, 187. Nestor, 15. Nicholas I, 14, 55, 238. Nicholas II, 12. Nijni-Novgorod, 36. Norman, Henry, 171, 245. Norsemen, 15. Novgorod, 17, 44. Novgorod-Seversk, 44, 45. Nucleus of Russian empire, Mos- cow, 37. Nyetovsti, religious "deniers," 256. Obruchov, General, 176. 3°° INDEX Omsk, 103. "Open" markets, 145. Origin of Christianity, 248. Parallelism, Siberia and North America, 146. Passport, 115; visa, 117. "Passport to Heaven," 251. Paul, 215; address to Cossacks, 217. Peace in the Far East, 275. Peasant colonists, 152; emigrants, 58; present condition, 159. Penal settlements, conditions in, 163. "Permanent garrisons," 175. Persia, 65, 207, 209; episode (American), 1911-12, 225. Persian Gulf, Russia at, 278. Peter I, "The Great," 13; em- bassy to China, 191, 234. Peter III, 14. "Peter's Pence," Russian equiva- lent, 249. Petroleum, 137. Petropavlovsk, 103. Philippovsti, religious dancers, 255. Physical Irkutsk, 75. Poland, Russian, 27, 45, 47. Political exiles, their researches, 81. Political lines in the Far East, 201. Polo, Marco, 184. Popovshchina, religious dissenters, 254- Portsmouth, N. H., U. S. A., treaty of, 1905, 65. Portuguese prisons, 167. Post-trains Siberian railway, 118; formalities, 122, 123, 126. Prast, 47. Pravitelstvuyushchi Senat, Ruling Senate, 29. Present condition of peasants, 159. Preservation of forests, Siberia, 131. Primary schools, none, 259. Progress in education, 261. "Protection," 145. Pskov, 36, 44. Quarrels between Moscow and Novgorod, 38. Railway, St. Petersburg-Chelia- binsk, direct, 102. Raskolniks, religious dissenters, 252. Recent events, 246, 277. Recommendation to travellers, 114. Religious denominations, 252. Revision of religious books, 253. Rhenish Confederation, 237. Rosen, Baron, author's association with, 6. Rossya, 18. Routes to India, 233. Ruling Senate, Pravitelstvuyush- chi Senat, 29. Rurik, House of, 13, 15, 36, $7. Rus, Swedes, 15, 16. Russia, agriculture in, 71; ambi- tions in Asia, 278; and United States, 286; area in Europe and Asia, 11; at Persian Gulf, 278; attitude of, 9; author's wander- ings in, 9; boundaries of, 64; boycott of American implements, 280; communism in, 58; designs INDEX 301 in Asia, 11; franchise in, 22; fundamental laws of, 20; gov- ernment of provinces, 279; in Manchuria, 66, 274, 276; in Mongolia, 274, 276; in Siberia, 84; in the spring, 69. Russia and France, 214, 236. Russia and Great Britain in Asia, 246. Russian, acquisition of territory, 33; designs on China, 7; diplo- macy, 227, 230; diplomacy in Amur Valley, 241; empire, growth of, 14; expansion in Central^Asia, 204; "humanity" of generals, 205; language, 125; objection to Jews, 88; opinion of Americans and Englishmen, 2; peasants in Siberia; towns, 94; treatment of Koreans, 4, 279. Russian Manchurian railway, 108. Russian Poland, 27. Russian Volunteer Fleet., 112 Russians, author's acquaintance with, 3; in Amur Valley, 181. Russo-Japanese, alliance, 191 2, 273; intercourse, 228. Russo-Japanese war, 1904-5, 242. Russo-Turkish alliance, 239. Ryazan, 44, 45. Saghalien, 32, 173. Saint Basil, 249. St. Petersburg, 94; architecture, 97- Samarkand, 219. Samoyedes, 73. Sarai, Mongol capital in Russia, 38. Scenery, European Russia, 68. Schools, 257. Science, Academy of, 29. Seal fisheries, 266. Segregation of flora, 270. "Self-limited monarchy," 21. Shimonoseki treaty, China and Japan, 241. Shops in Russian cities, 97. Siberia, 32; acquisition of, 49; and her neighbours, 175; an- cient population, 54; changes in, 55; conquest of, 62; crossing of, 8; fish in, 266; intermar- riages in, 83; native tribes, 60; progress in acquisition of, 60; Russian settlements, 5; settle- ment of, 56, 59; soldier colonists, 147; summary of acquisition, 59- Siberiaks, 156. Siberian, aborigines, 188; borders, 177; camel, 267; climate, 141; forest preservation, 131; fur- trade, 55; grain, 141; railway construction, 124; timber, 130; voluntary settlers, 51. Sineus, 15. Siromyatnikoff, M., 246. Skobeleff, General Mikhail, 203. Skoptsi, religious eunuchs, 257. Slav, early settlers, 15. Soldier colonists in Siberia, 147. Sparse population, 151. " Spontaneous infiltration," 242. "Squatter's Rights," 158. S'sanang S'setzen, Mongol his- torian, 40. Stanitsa, 24. Starosta, elder, 24. State, Council of, 21. 302 INDEX Steamers, Japan to continent, 112, Uglich, treatment of citizens, 57. Ugrian stock, 83. Ukase of Oct. 30, 1905, 20, 21. Ukraine District, 233. 113, 120. Stranniks, religious pilgrims, 256. Streets in Russian cities, 96. Strielitz, 152. Ulu, 24. Summary of Siberia's acquisition, "Underground Railway," 154. 59- Syr-Darya, 176. Tao-kwang, Chinese emperor, 196. Tara, 148. Tarantass, 153. Tartars, 17, 40, 54. Tea-trade, 183. Textiles, 145. "The Lord's Anointed," 46, 88. Tiger, Siberian, 268. Tilsit, treaty of, 236. Timber in Siberia, 130. Timkowski, Egor Fedorovich, 195. Timour, 42. "Tips," 2. Tomsk, 104. Tozi, 78. Transbaikalia, 76. Trans-Siberian railway, double- tracking, 281. Treatment of colonists, 157. Truvor, 15. Tsar, head of Church, 250. Tsar Kolokol, great bell of Mos- cow, 98. Tsardom of Muscovy, 17, 43. Tsar's Cabinet, 31. Tumen River settlements, 179. Tundras, 71, 72, 265. Tunguses, 82, 149. Turkestan, 220; Tartars of, 54. Turkish war, 1877-78, 240. Tver, 44. Universities, 261. Urmans (bogs), 73. Valuable stones, 136. Various railway connections, 113. Verkhne-Udinsk, 107. Village churches, 265. Vladivostok, 58, 177; first im- pressions of, 3; population, 77. Volost, 24. Volostnoi-starshina, elder, 24. Voluntary settlers in Siberia, 51. Vyatka, 36. Wallace, D. Mackenzie, 168. Wanderings in Russia, 9. Western Siberia, 72. Wheat belt, 143. "White" clergy, 29. Williams, S. Wells, 195. "Winchester," British man-of- war, 108. Workmen in oilfields, 138. Wright, G. F., 152, 159. Yamschiks, 153. Yaroslav the Great, 16, 36, Yermak, the Cossack, 54, 146, 187. Yoshihito, Emperor of Japan, 281. Yung Ching, Chinese emperor, 196. Zaporogian Cossacks, 52. Zemstvos, 26. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY Return to desk from which borrowed. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Mar's 3 7953 D 100EC58AB NOV 29 jut 10* REC'D Lb JUL TO 535 ^D 21-100w-7,'52(A2528sl6)476 U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES ca^iabsai 25956f> \lt i ' i3r+?