U^-\// b:iD.t:-'l,.iri.ii!t'a K n:>T %av}it( ^Xltt^MsfM, 8061 Nor gg / .{■r .-I--- -;>■■ SIDE-LIGHTS ON SIBERIA SIDE-LIGHTS ON SIBERIA SOME ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILROAD THE PRISONS AND EXILE SYSTEM BY JAMES YOUNG SIMPSON M.A., B.Sc. JVITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCXCVIII All Rights reserved ski: PATBI MATRIQUE DILECTISSIMIS Gs:2i0i P K E F A C E. The following pages record impressions received in the course of a journey in Siberia during the summer of 1896. The limitations under which a study of this kind must necessarily be conducted will suggest themselves to every mind. But so far as controversial subjects are dealt with, the writer can claim to be 'in great measure free from the limitation of partiality. Some of the chapters appeared during the course of the past year in ' Blackwood's Magazine,' but with one excep- tion these have been altered and considerably enlarged. The writer would here express his obligations to Professor A. H. Keane's 'Asia ' (Stanford's ' Compendium of Geography ') ; to the second edition of a Eussian book, ' Siberia and the Great Siberian Eailway,' issued by the Department of Trade and Manufactures in the Ministry of Finance ; to various local calendars ; and to Professor Thun's able ' Geschichte der revolutionjiren Bewegungen in Eussland,' on which chap. X. is largely based. The statistics everywhere are taken from the Imperial Prison Eeports. VI 11 PREFACE. Several of the illustrations are from photographs by a Mr Kuznetzov : the remainder are original. It is a commonplace for those who have travelled in Kussia to acknowledge the courtesy of officials with whom they came in contact. To many such officials the writer owes a debt of gratitude, especially to Mr Salomon, Director-in-Chief of Eussian prisons, and to State Secretary Kulomzin ; as also to his valued friend Prince N. S. Galitzin, who is happily not unknown in this country. Edinbukoh, fa. 1898. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE LAXD AND THE PEOPLE. Introduction— Area of Siberia — Political divisions — Mountains — Tundra — Taiya — Fertile zone — Aniuria — Eiver-sy stems — The Ob, Yenisei, and Lena — Population — Sub - Arctic races — Buryats and Shamanism — Tungus and Yakutes — Original Russian population .....* CHAPTEE II. THE GREAT SIBERIAX IRON ROAD. Historical review — Special Commission — Original plan of railway — Progress up to present time — The emigration movement — Regulations for its management — The rush of 1896 — Approach- ing Tchelyabinsk — Kurgan — Omsk — Primitive tools — Crossing the river Ob — Regaining the railway — The workmen employed — Convict labour — A military train — The settlers' camp at Atchinsk — Incidents of the journey — Krasnoyarsk — Careful nature of the work — The section round Lake Baikal — Misov- skaya to Srjetensk — Trans-Manchurian branches — North and south Ussuri lines — Changes on the original plan — Coal — Relation of the railway to Russia — The Perm - Kotlass scheme — The monument to Russia's culture in the nine- teenth century . . . . . . . IG X CONTENTS. CHAPTER in. TRAVEL IN SIBERIA. Oil the great post-road — Re(|uiremeiits — Cost of posting — The postmaster's book — To prevent racing — The yamstchik — His monotonous life — His management of horses — Post-stations outside and inside — Siberian vilUiges — The public playground — Drunkenness — AVhen the kye come hame — Lite on the trakt — The Angara — Lake Baikal — The Buryat country — Vallej' of the Selenga — Fellow-travellers — Tea caravans — Robbery — In- cidents and mishaps — Through the flood — Ferries and ferr3'- boats — River-travel — The Ob — Scenery on its banks — Sunset on the Ob — Taking in wood — The Irtish — Difficulties in its navigation . . . . . . .61 CHAPTER IV. MONARCH OR MONK ? A LEGEND OF TOMSK. Tomsk — Description of the town — "Alexander's House" — The life of Theodore Kuzmitch — His death — The last years of Alexander I. — Did he abdicate? . . . .114 CHAPTER V. ON THE MARC H. Departure of a convict gang from the Tomsk Forwarding Prison — The Peresilni Prison at Moscow — Overcrowding — The Rus- sian mujik at home — Lodging-houses in St Petersburg — Tinmen Forwarding Prison — A convict barge — Life on the river — Arrival at Tomsk . . . . .138 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTEE VI. ON THE MARCH concluded. Description of the Forwarding Prison at Tomsk — Attitude of tlie soldiers towards the prisoners — Convict dress — Transference by etape — Mapes and polu-etapes — Allowances on the march — The brodyaga — Etapes at Mariinsk and near Kansk — Life on the march — Etapes in Eastern Siberia — Politicals e» roide — Criticism — Changes effected by the Trans-Siberian Railway . 166 CHAPTEE YII. ALEXANDROVSKY CENTRAL. Past opinion regarding Siberia — Evolution of the prison — Statistics — The Siberian exile system — Distribution of ex-convicts and exile settlers — Alexandrovsky Central — The natchalnik — The Orphans' Home — The church — The prison buildings — Unusual precautions — The outhouses — Capital punishment — The jilet — Branding — Indoor labour — The Peresilni Prison — The hospital — Local prison at Irkutsk — Contrasted with Alexan- drovsky Central — Of animal food — The darker possibilities open to a " free command " . . . . . 194 CHAPTEE VIII. THE SILVER MINES OF NERTCHINSK. The Nertchinsk penal settlement — How approached — The Chinese in Siberia — The valley of the Shilka — Gorni-Zerentui — Con- vict labour on the railway — Description of the prison — The children's home — The settlement of voluntary followers — The released convict — Algatchi — Work in the mines — A Tungus village — Akatui — Slavinski the political — Down the mine — Alexandrovsky and its houses of refuge . . . 237 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. SAKHALIN' AM) ol'lIKIi CENTRES. Sakhalin — History of the island — Its climate — Riissian popula- tion — Native population — Exile settlers — Convict labour — Nertchinsk local prison — A merchants' town — The prison hospital at Tchita — Sunday labour — Local prison at Verkhni- Udinsk — Krasnoyarsk— Tobolsk and its prison factory — The Gubernski prison at Tomsk — Influence of exile settlers upon the Siberians . . . . . . .270 CHAPTEE X. THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT. Its birth — Alexander I. — The Decembrists — Alexander Herzen — Tchernishevski — Abolition of serfage — Katkov — Nihilism — Netchaiev's conspiracy — Lavrov and Bakunin — The "going amongst the people " — Failure of the movement— The secret society " Land and Liberty " — Jakov Stepanovitch — The Hundred and Ninety-three — Terrorism — Hunger-strikes — Soloviev's attempt — Campaign against Alexander II. — His assassination — Secret printing-presses and bomb-factories — What the Terrorists achieved ..... 298 CHAPTER XL THE POLITICAL PRISONER. Past opinion — Exile by administrative process — Politicals on the march — An "administrative" in prison — Life in a Yakute 'iiliis — A political of the second class — Schlusselburg — The ex-political newspaper editor — Terrorist colonies — Strength of the Terrorist party — Life at Kara — Manifestoes — A girl CONTENTS. XI U political — The Netchaiev conspirator — The romance of the political's life — Riissia and France — Present - day socialistic movements — Russian justice — Growth of the revolutionary idea — Terrorists and the peasants — The watchmaker and the i:)hotographer — Politicals and scientific work — The brij^ht side of their existence — Do they remain in Siberia? — Criticism — The freedom of Russia ...... 328 CHAPTER XII. CONCLUSIOX. Criticism of the Siberian exile system — The futi^re of the country — Its internal development and unity .... 373 Glossary ........ 377 Index .....••• 380 ILLUSTRATIONS. FULL-PAGE ILLUSTEATIONS. INTERIOR OF A PRISON KAMERA . . . Frontispiece AN OLD KARA PRIJUT ...... 90 A SETTLEMENT OF VOLUNTARY FOLLOWERS, EASTERN SIBERIA . 152 BRODYAGA BRANDED B . . . . . .178 LOADING A CONVICT WAGGON . . . . .192 " FREE-COMMANDS " ...... 200 THE READING-ROOM AT ALEXANDROVSKY CENTRAL . . 212 CONVICT BRANDED SKA. . . . . . 222 OFF TO THE MINES ...... 238 THE YOUNGEST OF THE GIRLS . . . . . 250 GUARDING THE PIT-HEAD ...... 252 CONSTRUCTION OF THE PRISON AT ALGATCHI . . . 254 AKATUI ........ 258 AT THE PIT-HEAD ....... 262 FEMALE CONVICTS, ALEXANDROVSKY .... 264 BLIND OLD CONVICTS ...... 266 OUTSIDE LABOUR AT THE OLD SMELTING-WORKS, ALGATCHI . 276 GRINDING CORN ....... 282 THE ROLL-CALL ....... 294 IN THE GOLD-MINES AT KARA ..... 342 FEMALE CONVICT LABOUR AT KARA .... 352 XVI ILLUSTKATIONS. ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT. SETTLERS EN ROUTE A BREAK IN THE EMBANKMENT IN TRANS-BAIKALIA LISTVINITCHNAYA . YAMSTCHIK AND BURYAT WOMAN OUTSIDE A POSTHOUSE TILL THE MASTER RETURNS RIVER INGODA, EASTERN SIBERIA PENDULUM FERRY-BOAT ON THE NERTCHA FALLEN TREES ON THE BANKS OF THE OB SUNSET ON THE OB ... VILLAGE ON THE BANKS OP THE IRTISH . TAKING IN WOOD .... ON THE OUTSKIRTS .... THE HOME OF THEODORE KUZMITCH A CONVICT ..... CONVICT-BARGE ON THE OB IN THE CAGE .... A CONVICT ..... AN l&TAPE, EASTERN SIBERIA ON THE HORIZON .... CONVICT CHAINED TO WHEELBARROW ALEXANDROVSKY CENTRAL . THE CHURCH AT ALEXANDROVSKY CENTRAL INSIDE THE COURTYARD PALATCH WITH PLET CONVICT CHAINED TO WHEELBARROW, RESTING THE SETTLEMENT OF THE VOLUNTARY FOLLOWERS, ZERENTUI THE BEST CABIN MAP OF SIBERIA GORNI- SIDE-LIGHTS ON SIBERIA. CHAPTEE I. THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. INTRODUCTION — AREA OF SIBERIA- — POLITICAL DIVISIONS — MOUNTAINS — TUNDRA — TAIGA — FERTILE ZONE — AlIURIA — RIVER-SYSTEMS — THE OB, YENISEI, AND LENA — POPULATION — SUB-ARCTIC RACES — BURYATS AND SHAMANISM — TUNGUS AND YAKUTES — ORIGINAL RUSSIAN POPULATION. SiBEPJA is at once the reservoir of the Eussian empire and its cesspool. In the latter aspect it has been known of old time; the former distinction has only lately come to light. Alongside of a truer appreciation of the value of the land, based largely upon the unearthing of its hidden treasures and the cultivation of its fertile soil, there has sprung up in the minds of many Eussians a recognition of the fatuity of early ideas as to the best use to which the country could be put, and they are quietly working to bring about a change. Hence it has come to pass that to-day the great domain is in a transition stage. The old Siberia, with its unhallowed associations of gloomy exile A 2 THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. system, long dark winters, and inhospitable wastes, is slowly passing away before the new Siberia, with its well-organised schemes of emigration, bright summers, and fair expanses of tilled land. Not that there has been any change in the seasons : what has altered is the point of view from which the territory was wont to be regarded. When one says that the country has a superficial area of nearly 5,312,000 square miles, not only is very little impression of its immense extent conveyed by the figures — this is better done by describing it as about forty-four times as large as Great Britain and Ireland — but it has also to be borne in mind that they are merely an approxi- mation. As a matter of fact, the actual area of Siberia is still unknown. Nansen complained that the charts of the north coast were inaccurate ; and the boundary between Siberia and China has still to be strictly defined over many lineal miles. In the interior there are hundreds of square miles where the foot of man has never trod. The tundra is little known ; the taiga is only now coming into considera- tion. Again, even those districts which have been longest known would seem to be still subject to the caprice of the imperial cartographers. Thus the European Eussia of geo- graphy should properly lie west of the Urals, but has in part been transferred politically to the other side, so that Siberia is now the poorer for the province of Yekaterinburg, which formerly constituted a part of the Eussian dominion in Asia, Siberia was annexed to the Eussian empire in the first instance by the Don Cossack Yermak at the end of the six- teenth century. It may be divided into the following parts : (1) Western Siberia, comprising the Governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk in the basin of the Ob. Formerly these two POLITICAL DIVISIONS. 3 regions were united under a governor-general, but now their civil governors are subject to the direct control of the Minis- ter of Interior, while the troops in the Government of Tomsk are under the command of the governor-general of the Steppe country. (2) Eastern Siberia, comprising the Governments of Yeniseisk and Irkutsk in the basin of the Yenisei, and the ohlast ^ of Yakutsk in the basin of the Lena and other lesser rivers, all united under a governor-general resident at Irkutsk. Yakutsk is chiefly remarkable in having one of the poles of greatest cold within its borders. In the district of Verk- hoyansk on the upper Yana, —49° C. have been registered in the coldest and 15° C. in the hottest month. In the town of Irkutsk the possible range is even greater, as there the maximum and minimum temperatures are 33°"8 C. (1894) and — 44°'3 0. (January 1890) respectively. The snowfall diminishes sensibly as you travel from west to east. (3) The Amur ohlast, to whose governor-general are also subject the adjacent Littoral (Primorsky) territory including Sak- halin, and the oUast Trans-Baikalia. The regions covered by these three ohlasts include the left half of the basins of the rivers Amur and L^ssuri, the entire coast-zone bordering on the Japanese, Okhotsk, and Bering seas, together with the peninsula of Kamtchatka, and the territory immediately to the east of Lake Baikal. (4) The Steppe country, com- prising the ohlasts of Akmolinsk, Semipalatinsk, and Semir- jetchensk, united under a governor-general. They occupy the upper basins of the Irtish and Ishim, as also the basins of several less important rivers that fall into Lake Balkhash. ^ An ohlast (which may be rendered " territory ") has not reached the same degree of political organisation as a " government," and has visually as governor an officer still actually in the military service, with the title of "military governor." He has full command of the troops in his ohlast, but is subject in the last instance to the governor-general. 4 THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. The Steppe portion proper of this whole region (for Semir- jetchensk is essentially a mountainous district) differs from the adjacent plain of Western Siberia in presenting no absolute level. Its ill-watered surface is broken by low but well-marked ridges of crystalline rock containing various minerals, and the oases are so few and far between that it is practically abandoned to the nomadic Kirghize. Although the better-known western lowlands of Siberia, with their 400 to 600 feet of altitude, have sometimes in popular description and imagination been vaguely extended over a wider area than they really cover, yet it must not be forgotten that there are mountain-ranges in the land of premier importance. Chief amongst these is the intricate Altai system, which, although forming for many miles the natural southern boundary of the country, may be held to run up through it — but by no means continuously — in a north- easterly direction under such names as the Sayan Mountains, and, east of Baikal, the Yablonovoi and Stanovoi chains, as far as the volcanic regions, active and passive, of Kamtchatka, beyond which it gradually descends to the East Cape. Strictly, however, Eastern Siberia is a lofty plateau, of which at least one of these mountain-chains may be regarded as the border-ridge. For peaks perpetually snow-clad, as for the feeding-grounds of glaciers, one has to go to parts of the irregular Altai range, or to the giant of the Sayan — Munku-Sardik (10,700 feet). From a convenient though not perfectly accurate point of view, Siberia may be regarded as divided into three broad east-and-west zones,^ of which the one farthest to the north is characterised as tundra. This is the name applied to the belt of land that skirts the Arctic Ocean from Novaya ^ Siberia and the Exile System, by George Kennan, vol. i. p. 57. THE TUNDRA. 5 Zemlya to Bering Strait, swampy and treeless for the greater part, and extending inland for a distance that varies from 150 to 400 miles. Desolate, inhospitable, treacherous, the surface of the tundra is covered in the summer months with myriad meres, rivulets, and marshy places, for the melting snows of winter cannot soak into the frozen sub- soil of alternate layers of earth and ice. During the death- less days of June and July the sun shines dimly through the vapour that rises from the mossy bogs ; but its heat is sufficient to induce a lusty growth of brown moss and grey lichen, that overspreads the thin unfrozen upper stratum. On the more southern slopes, not so completely water- logged, the scanty vegetation of the tundra is reinforced by dwarf bushes of bilberry, wild raspberry, and cranberry ; coarse grasses, dandelions, and poppies too are not un- known. Here and there various species of polar willow, alder, and stunted birch cling to the river-banks or crouch in the lee of some hillock, but it is a larch — Larix daurica — that pushes farthest towards the north. In early spring the lonely wastes resound to the harsh screams of cranes, geese, and ducks, swans, grebe, and snipe ; while sturgeon, sterlet, nelma, omul, and numerous other fish, ascend the rivers from the sea to spawn. There congregate the rein- deer, glad to quit the woods and with them the rapacious gadflies, one representative of the abundant insect life that wakes into being at the breath of the spring. But in the winter, and more especially throughout those two darkest months when the moon, stars, and northern lights alone illuminate the frigid desert ; when the sun brightens the southern horizon for a brief hour as if in un- fulfilled promise of a glorious dawn ; when the fierce arctic gales plough deep furrows in the trackless snow, and the 6 THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. courses of the frozen rivers are only discovered by a mean- dering line of dusky scrub ; when every living creature has sought the sheltering woods, there to abide until the return of vernal days, — then it is that the tundra presents that spectacle of utter dreariness, mysteriousness, nay, other- worldliness, that is peculiarly its own. The second zone, into which the first imperceptibly passes on its southern borders, is the Forest zone or taiga. It stretches from the Urals to the eastern shores of Kamt- chatka, and even penetrates far to the north along some of the larger river - valleys. Siberian poplars, with ash-grey stem and quivering leaves ; spruces, with their regular isosceles-triangled contour and dark shading ; giant larches towering above their fellows ; cedars {Pinvs cemhra), whose peculiar branches are crowded with knob -like bunches of green needles ; Scotch firs, with cinnamon - coloured upper trunks toning down to sombre iron-grey ; the oriental pitch pine, and, towards the outskirts, birches with pure white gentle stems, or moisture-loving alder, — these form the body, while the padding is largely left to the small but graceful Siberian spruce, with smoother bark and darker leaves than the ordinary spruce fir. It is a place of gloom below and silent conflict in mid-air. As little do the life- and light- diffusing rays of the seemly sun penetrate that felted mass of tree-tops, as does the reckless trapper force his way through their stout wall of stems buttressed by the decaying trunks and gnarled roots of heroes that have fallen in the unequal strife with devastating hurricanes, and are now almost buried beneath the accumulated mould of many years. Herbage is wanting in these denser spots : the grey, tenacious, clayey soil is carpeted with moss and lichens. Such is the Siberian jungle, now pierced in part by two thin lines of iron rail. THE FERTILE ZONE. 7 The third zone, before which the forest belt of lofty trees is slowly retreating towards the north, is the open, fertile, and, in great part, arable zone of Southern Siberia. It prac- tically coincides with the agricultural zone, and is largely inhabited by a settled population ; but it includes the whole steppe region, of which only small areas can be brought under the plough. It may be roughly described as lying south of a line drawn from the town of Tobolsk to that of Tomsk, there- after embracing the southern parts of the Governments of Yeniseisk and Irkutsk. Much of Trans-Baikalia is cultivable, and it is only a question of time till the banks of the Amur and Ussuri become entirely colonised with farmers. Hence in this cultivated tract agriculture is the predominant fea- ture, not only being the fundamental source of the prosperity of those who practise it, but, on the whole, yielding surplus quantities of grain, by the sale of which the population is enabled to pay its taxes and procure supplies. It has been estimated that to every hundred persons of the actual popu- lation the following areas are sown with grain : ^ — Uesiatines.2 In the southern districts of the Tobolsk Government . 104 In the central part of the Tomsk Government . . 87 In the agricultural region of the Yeniseisk Government 102 In the agricultural region of the Irkutsk Government . 97 That portion of Siberia which, from the name of the river that most contributes to its extensive watering -system, is known as the Amur country, deserves an added word. If the Argun and Kerulen be reckoned as the head-waters of the Amur, then its length is not less than 3070 miles. The excessive humidity of the climate, and the consequent ^ Siberia and the Great Siberian Railway, second edition, p. 96. - See Glossary. 8 THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. swampy reed - covered nature of many of the lower moun- tain-slopes, are by no means favourable to agriculture : still it has not been found impossible to cope even with these drawbacks. The continual burning" of. the ground vegetation over wide areas of the affected dis.tricts has resulted not only in the gradual conversion of the damp soil into fertile land, but has indirectly influenced the climate for the better. The forests, with which much of the regions of the Amur are covered, contain the trees already ♦ noted as constituting the taiga, with the distinctive additions of the Manchurian cedar, yew, maple, ash, walnut, linden (also found in Tobolsk), and cork-tree. Indeed, owing to its position with regard to the Pacific Ocean, this province has a flora peculiarly rich and unique. i To some minds the river-system Jf Siberia will be hardly less interesting than the exile system. In the first place, there is no single long river like the Nile, whose tribu- taries can never be regarded as anything else. Each of the great Siberian waterways may be -said to be formed by the junction of two streams of immense volume, as in the case of the Ob -Irtish, Yenisei -Angar», Lena-Vitim, and Amur- Argun systems. A second feature has been stated thus by Professor A. H. Keane : " The land has a general inclination towards the north, so that all the, great rivers flowing from the southern highlands pursue a normal and nearly parallel northerly course to the Arctic Ocean. But most of the large tributaries flow rather north-west and north-east to the left and right banks of the main streams, thus affording an almost uninterrupted water-highway from the Urals to the Pacific, as well as from the southern highlands to the Arctic. From the river Ural to Yakutsk, a distance of 6000 miles, this magnificent waterway is broken only by two short portages BAERS LAW. 9 between the Ob and Yenisei, and between the Yenisei and Lena respectively. The whole country is in this way cov- ered with a network of rivers, affording altogether some 30,000 miles of navigable waters." ^ A third observation applies only to those rivers that flow in a northerly direc- tion. The traveller observes that in each case the river hugs its right bank, which is commonly very steep and lofty, while the left bank is low, sometimes clothed with willow, and merges in the neighbouring plain. At the town of Atchinsk, where the railway crosses the river Tchulim, the embankment rises towards the bridge to a considerable height in order to gain the loftier level of the eastern bank. Appearances suggest that at no very remote date the present western bank formed part of the river's bed — that, in short, the very rivers are joining in the rush towards the east. This displacement of the rivers is due to the rotation of the earth. Since the force with which any moving body on the earth's surface would be deflected to the side under the influence of its rotation is dependent on its velocity, we see that the more quickly moving masses of water in the centre of a stream flowing north will be urged against the right bank more strongly than the slower-flowing parts, so that, on the whole, the current runs more swiftly on that side of the river-bed, and in consequence the erosion there is greater. Penck- illustrates this law of Baer by the consider- ation of a perfectly elastic ball running along a trench with perfectly elastic sides. On coming in contact with the right wall it rebounds, and crosses towards the left wall ; but while its motion in that direction is retarded by the earth's rotation, its return journey to the right is accelerated from •^ Asia, vol. i. p. 179. - Morphologie der Erdoberfliiche, vol. i. pp. 349-3.56. 10 THP] LAND AND THE PKOFLE. the same cause. This is continually repeated, with the result that, on the average, the right wall is struck more sharply than the left. Where there is no perfect elasticity of the walls, the right suffers tear and wear more than the left. A fourth consideration is that, while the signs of winter are disappearing in the interior and southern parts of Siberia, the estuaries and lower reaches of the great rivers remain frost-bound, occasioning spring floods on all the north -flowing rivers of such dimensions that the Ob, for example, assumes, not so far below Tomsk, the appearance of a great inland sea, whose opposite banks may not be seen from one another. The basin of this last colossal waterway occupies an area of over a million and a half square miles at the lowest com- putation, while its length is hardly under 3500 miles. The waters of its chief western head-streams — the Tobol and Ishim — are collected on the left by the Irtish, which, from the fact that it traces its source to the Kobdo plateau in Western Mongolia, should be regarded as " the true upper course of the main stream." The Ob itself rises on the northern slopes of the Altai, and after receiving hundreds of tributaries, of which, on its lower reaches, the Tom, Tchulim, and Ket are the most important, it unites some miles above Troitsk with the more travelled Irtish, and thereafter they pursue a joint course of 700 miles, although indeed in two separate chan- nels — the Great and Little Ob — to Arctic seas. The river Ket possesses a certain commercial interest, as its head- waters have been put in connection with those of the Kas, a tributary of the Yenisei, by utilising an intermediate lake and building a canal some five miles in length. By this enterprise the basins of the Ob and Yenisei are virtually united. THE YENISEI. 11 The Yenisei is decidedly inferior to the Ob in respect of the size of its basin, although if, on geological grounds, the Selenga be reckoned as one of its head -streams, its total length is not much less. Both of the great branches take their rise in Chinese territory, and break northwards through the mountain-barriers that separate the two coun- tries. The Selenga, reinforced by the Orkhon, which takes its rise in the veritable Gobi itself, falls into Baikal, the largest fresh-water lake in Asia, of which more will be said later. The outflow of the lake is through the Angara, a considerable, characteristic stream, on which Irkutsk stands. Its confluence with the main river produces a body of water whose breadth is never less than a mile, increasing near that point in time of flood by more than four times that amount, and immediately above its estuary by forty times. One of its chief eastern tributaries, the Nijni (Lower) Tunguska, approaches within fourteen miles of the Lena, which, if we pass over the Khatanga, Anabara, Olenek, Yana, Indigirka, and Kolima, is the only remaining river of any size that discharges its waters into the Arctic. Eising among the mountains to the west of Lake Baikal, it receives upon the right the tribute of the Vitim and Aldan (each of these rivers doubling the volume of the Lena previous to its junction with them), not to speak of the Olekma, and the stately, if somewhat solitary, western affluent, the Viliui. The area of its enormous basin has been estimated at a million square miles, while the length of the Lena proper and the Lena- Vitim system are 2900 and 3280 miles re- spectively. Unlike the Ob with its large gulf, or the Yenisei with its broad open estuary, the Lena pours its waters into the Arctic by means of a delta some 8000 square miles in extent. Projecting far into the polar seas, its main channel 12 THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. often blocked by floes for weeks in summer, this delta makes the Lena far less accessible than its kindred Yenisei. Of the rivers that flow towards the Pacific, mention need only be made of the Anadir, emptying itself into the Bering Sea, and of the Amur, about which something has already been said. Economically, the latter is by far the most important of all the Siberian rivers. After piercing the Khingan Mountains, which separate Manchuria from the Mongolian plateau, it is joined at Blagovyeshtchensk by the Zeya from the north, and later by the Bureya, while the Sungari and Ussuri swell its volume on the right bank. Before this, however, it has already begun to swerve in a north-easterly direction, and enters the sea opposite the north-west coast of Sakhalin. In connection with the Ussuri is found Lake Khanka, a fresh- water basin of some 1200 square miles in area. The population of Siberia (including Sakhalin) is given as 5,732,000 by the census of 1897, which, when compared with Koppen's estimate of 2,437,000 in 1851, shows a remarkable increase. The proportion of natives to Russians varies with the locality, being as 1 : 20 in Western Siberia, while in the ohlast of Yakutsk the figures are nearly reversed. Of the sub-Arctic races that inhabit the north-east of Siberia, it is sufficient to recall the names of the wandering Tchuktchi, " originally a Manchu or Tungus people," the wild Koryaks, the more hospitable Kamtchadals, the Lamuts and Yukaghirs, all differing in speech and appearance, but still related, however distantly. Their country is in no way adapted to permanent agricultural colonisation. They pass their lives in hunting, fishing, and tending their rein- deer herds. ]\[uch the same description applies to those THE BURY ATS AND SHAMANISM. 13 purely Finnish tribes, the Ostyaks, Saraoyedes, and Voguls, who dwell on the outskirts of the forest zone of "Western Siberia, it being a minority in each case that prefers the polar tundra zone. Their religion, so far as it exists at all, is mainly shamanistic. The Mongolian stock is indeed represented by some 20,000 Kalmicks who live in the Altai mining region, but more successfully by the Buryats, who, with the Yakutes, alone give any promise of holding their own numerically before the encroachments of a greater race. They are found principally in the country on the two sides of Lake Baikal — although in greater numbers on the east — where they have been settled since the thirteenth century. They are a sober, strong, intelligent people, origin- ally nomadic cattle-breeders, but now showing a tendency to engage in agricultural and industrial pursuits, in which they meet with marked success. Beneath a veneer of Christianity or Buddhism the Buryat still retains a genuine respect for his ancient shamanistic faith. In Shamanism may be traced an element of ancestor-worship ; but, as in all Mongolian religions, witchcraft and sorcery play the leading part. The shaman is the mediator between man and the spirits, both good and evil. In the execution of his office he is assisted mainly by his ancestors, who are now good spirits. Not only in his attire, but in his twin function of priest and physician, the shaman resembles the medicine-man of the North American Indians. The Buryats are very superstitious, and call their more favoured children by uncongenial names, thinking to shield them from malign influences by this artificial depreciation. Closely allied to the Buryats are the Tungus people who roam all over the great expanse of land lying to the north of the Buryat country between the Yenisei and the Sea of 14 THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. Okhotsk, except wliere the Yakutes claim possession. Eussians speak of them as reindeer, horse, or dog Tun- guses, according to their habits. They are possessed of many noble characteristics, and are intrepid hunters. The territory of the Yakutes has been in Eussian hands since the seventeenth century. It embraces both sides of the middle and lower Lena. Their Turki dialect contains an admixture of Mongolian words. They occupy themselves mainly with cattle-breeding, hunting, and fishing, but their great versatility renders them capable agriculturists and artisans. There corresponds to them in Western Siberia a considerable Tatar population descended from the tribes that composed the ancient Kutchum Siberian kingdom. If we exclude the more recent peasant immigrants, the original Eussian population of Siberia may be said to comprise the following three classes: (1) the Kossaks, who first conquered the country ; (2) exiles, political and criminal ; (3) dissenters from the Greek Church, who were either banished to Siberia or went there of their own accord. That is to say, the original Eussian population of Siberia consists of men and women who were in some way, intellectually or physically, more active or more earnest than their fellow - countrymen and women who remained in European Eussia. The result is that to-day the average Siberian is a more vigorous and intelligent man than the average Eussian. He picks up a thing more quickly : his life is richer, brighter. Historians tell us that on December 20, 1620, a small body of saddened but deter- mined men — Dissenters too — landed from the Mayflower upon the New England coast, and from that Plymouth colony of Pilgrim Fathers and other like-minded individuals who followed them in later years has sprung much of what THE MODERN SIBERIAN. 15 is best in the America of our time. The delicate nervous activity and quickness that is more common in the American than in the Englishman — "that added drop of nervous Huid which," as a certain American writer has it, " was bestowed by the Creator upon the descendants of English stock when the final improvement upon it had to be made " — is also found in a lesser degree to be distinctive of the Siberian as compared with the European Russian. 16 CHAPTER 11. THE GKEAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. HISTORICAL REVIEW — SPECIAL COMMISSION — ORIGINAL PLAN OF RAIL- WAY — PROGRESS UP TO PRESENT TIME — THE EMIGRATION MOVEMENT — REGULATIONS FOR ITS MANAGEMENT — THE RUSH OF 1896 — APPROACHING TCHELYABINSK — KURGAN — OMSK — PRIMITIVE TOOLS — CROSSING THE RIVER OB — REGAINING THE RAILWAY — THE WORKMEN EMPLOYED — CONVICT LABOUR — A MILITARY TRAIN — THE SETTLERS' CAMP AT ATCHINSK — INCIDENTS OF THE JOURNEY — KRASNOYARSK — CAREFUL NATURE OF THE WORK — THE SECTION ROUND LAKE BAIKAL — MISOVSKAYA TO SRJETENSK — TRANS-MANCHURIAN BRANCHES — NORTH AND SOUTH USSURI LINES — CHANGES ON THE ORIGINAL PLAN — COAL — RELATION OF THE RAILWAY TO RUSSIA — THE PERM- KOTLASS SCHEME — THE MONUMENT TO RUSSIA'S CULTURE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTDRY. When in the years to come men review the greater under- takings of the nineteenth century, it will be hard to find a rival to the Trans-Siberian Eailway. Winding across the illimitable plains of Orenburg, traversing the broad Urals, spanning the widest rivers, like the Irtish, Ob, and Yenisei, it creeps round the southern end of Lake Baikal, and mounts the plateau of far Trans- Baikalia. Thereafter, leaving behind it the Yablonovoi Mountains, the line descends into the valley of the Amur, exchanges it presently for that of the Ussuri, and ends at last in Vladivostok. Such is, in brief, the original course of this vast enterprise. THE ADVANCE OF RUSSIA. 17 For long, Eussia has been feeling her way towards the open ocean. It is as if she were being choked for want of air. The White Sea and the Arctic Ocean enchained in Polar ice, the Baltic similarly blocked for half the year, the Black Sea closed in yet another way, and finally the landlocked Caspian, cannot satisfy her. In face of this, she has been compelled to seek the shores of the Pacific Ocean. As early as the middle of the seventeenth century a handful of intrepid, though predatory, Russian pioneers had gained the barren Okhotsk shore and founded the town that bears that name. But it was only to find that here the same conditions prevailed as on their western Baltic, and the disappointed explorers involuntarily turned their eyes towards the kindlier south. Soon a party of Kossaks and hunters, passing through Trans-Baikalia, took possession of some land on the Upper Amur. Gradually the whole territory on the left bank of that river, and thereafter the region of the Ussuri, came into Russian hands, though it was General Muraviev who in 1854, dur- ing the progress of the Crimean war, played the greatest part in the work of annexation. About four or five years later dawned the appearance of Siberian railway effort. The Trans - Siberian Railway scheme was probably but the development of sundry other lesser projects which had as object the providing of suitable means of communication in and with the newly acquired territories, so that they might be the more easily held, and, in addition, colonised. There are some patriotic individuals amongst ourselves who would have it kept in remembrance that no plan of Trans- Siberian conveyance appeared earlier than that of a certain English engineer. But this had better be forgotten. For when we learn that his proposal to carry a horse tramway B 18 THE GREAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. from Nijni - Novgorod through Kazan and Perm to some port on the Pacific Ocean was unsupported by any estimate — his name was Dull — we do not wonder that the Govern- ment passed it by in silence. r)Ut his was not the only paper scheme. More modest was that of Collins, an American, who wished to unite Irkutsk and Tchita by rail. In 1858 three English pro- jectors — Morison, Horn, and Sleigh — offered to lay a rail- way from Moscow to the Straits of Tartary, but at the same time petitioned for such privileges as would have retained the exploitation of Siberia and the ensuing profit in other than Ptussian hands for a number of years. Hence these and all other like vague drafts, based on no prelimin- ary surveys or careful investigation of the needs and trading possibilities of the districts they affected, went no further. More practical was a Kussian project which aimed at connecting the basins of the Ob and Volga. The pre- dominating influence of the Ural mining industry at this time so affected all suggested routes, that of the three which at the end of the " sixties " were alone deemed worthy of consideration every one began at Perm, and two ended at Tinmen. Thus by the smaller work of connecting the Kama and Tura the basins of the larger rivers couid be, and latterly were, united. Other men took up the idea of utilising the magnificent Siberian waterways, and showed how far by this means it was possible to traverse the country. By making a canal between one of the tributaries of the Ob and the Yenisei it would be possible to reach the Baikal Lake and ascend the Selenga. Thereafter all that was necessary would be to cross the Yablonovoi water- shed and descend into the valley of the Amur. A mass of details, exact and inexact, had been collected RAILWAY EXTENSION. 19 as the result of the various preliminary surveys bearing on the future Siberian Eailway, and since no definite con- clusion as to the direction of the route seemed possible under the existing circumstances, a Special Commission was sent out to the Urals and directed to make a final in- vestigation of the question. Their orders were to let the requirements of the Ural mining industry bulk most largely in their deliberations : the Siberian transport trade, although to be kept in view, was always to yield to the other in importance. The principal outcome of this activity was the decision that these two interests were incompatible. Accordingly, for the time being, the idea of a local Ural Eailway was preferred to that of a Trans-Siberian trunk line. Government surveys were conducted during 1872-74, and in 1878 the Ural line was opened as far as Yekater- inburg, Four years later it had been extended to Tiumen, through which town it was still felt that the future Trans- Siberian Eailway must pass. Meanwhile, within European Eussia there had been con- siderable railway extension. Orenburg was now in com- munication with the general system, and if for the moment the idea of a Trans - Siberian Eailway had slipped some- what into the background in the West, yet in the far East no little attention was given to the project, and as early as 1875 there were petitions, e.g., to unite Vladivostok and Lake Khanka by rail, if for nothing else than in view of future relations with China and Japan. The result of all this was, that in 1882 the subject of the Siberian Eailway was taken up afresh, and as additional surveys and other considerations showed the inadvisability of continuing the line through Tiumen, the whole matter had to be gone into again from the beginning. 20 THE GREAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. About this period Ostrovski, a Russian engineer, pro- pounded a scheme which, although but an extension of an older and more precise suggestion, still attracted considerable notice. He rather depreciated the idea of a continuous line of rail throughout Siberia, — he saw no need for it at the moment. Develop and facilitate internal communication, he said, and outlets will follow naturally in due time. And in demonstration of this plan he proposed that rails should be laid between Perm and Tobolsk, thus uniting the Kama and the Irtish ; between Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk, thus con- necting the Ob and Yenisei ; between Omsk and Barnaul, to link the Irtish with the Ob far above their natural union. To the last line he attached special importance. It would bring the rich Altai mining district nearer civilisation, and furthermore would strengthen the trade that, by way of Biisk and Kobdo, was being carried on with China. And like some old-time prophet, he looked forward to the day when Moscow and Irkutsk would be the termini of a far- reaching iron road, and even went the length of sketching its route in the following succinct terms : " The road should pass through Eiazan, Spassk, Ufa, and thence through Zlatoust, Tchelyabinsk, Petropavlovsk, Omsk, Kainsk, Tomsk, Mariinsk, Atchinsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kansk, Udinsk, and Balagansk to Irkutsk. It will thus, throughout its whole extent, meet all the chief administrative and trading centres of Siberia, will nowhere quit the zone of densest population, and will tra- verse almost exclusively the fertile tchernoziom tract, from the Volga to the Yenisei." This outline is little different from the course that the railway takes to-day. Greater im- petus was, however, afforded by sectional schemes petitioned for by such outstanding men as the Governors-General Korf and Isnatiev. The easternmost or Ussuri line was made the DECISION AS TO THE KOUTE. 21 subject of a Special Commission in 1890, which advanced from that detail to discussion of the Trans-Siberian Eailway as a whole. Strategical considerations, although always kept in view, were sometimes even subordinated to those of a commercial nature, so great was the desire to bring Siberia into close economic intercourse with European Eussia. The questions as to which route should be followed, how the construction of so long a line of railway could be most conveniently parcelled out, and whether it would be ad- visable to carry it right across Siberia, were eagerly debated. The last point was decided in the affirmative, mainly owing to a marked change for the better in financial prospects about that time. As to whether the railway should be a continuation from Tiumen on the Ural line, from Miass on the Samara-Zlatoiist line, or simply of that which runs to Orenburg, was less easy to decide. But after long study, in which the respective advantages and disadvantages of these three directions were carefully weighed and balanced, it became evident that one in particular held very strong commendatory claims ; and eventually in February 1891 it was resolved to lay a track from ]\liass to Tchelyabinsk, and to carry on the survey from that town to Tomsk. It only remained to determine whether it would be sufficient to make a commencement in any one place merely, or whether, on the contrary, it would be advisable to begin operations at different points. In the latter case the construction of the middle portion of the Siberian Eailway might be hastened by two years, and there appeared a possibility of entering on that of the Trans-Baikal portion even before the rails could be laid to Irkutsk. In view of these con- siderations, the Commission declared in favour of simultan- eous commencement at different points. 22 THE GKEAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. This is a Eussian project with which the reigning Tzar has a close and peculiar connection. During his journey through Siberia in 1891, while yet Tzarevitch, he became personally acquainted with every aspect of the undertaking. The execution of this colossal project is largely due to his great interest and enthusiasm in the matter. An imperial rescript given in his name on the 17th (29th) of March 1891 assured the accomplishment of the task. At Vladi- vostok the work was formally inaugurated. Nicholas II. wheeled away the first barrowful of earth and placed the first stone in position. Thereafter a start was made from either end. To carry on the undertaking, a Committee was appointed by the late Emperor Alexander III. It was to consist, amongst others, of the Ministers of Interior, of Agriculture and State Domains, of Finance, of Ways and Communica- tions, of War, and of the Director of the Admiralty. The present Emperor was elected its first president by his father ; and when, somewhat later, he had to ascend the throne, he insisted on holding this position in spite of his other arduous duties. The Committee had no executive power, — it was simply administrative, and when in difficulty was required to refer to its imperial founder. It met for the first time on February 10th (22nd) 1893. The first natural instinct was to hand over the execution of the project to the Direction of the Government railways. Later, it was thought that the gigantic nature of the under- taking would exhaust the resources of that department, and accordingly in June 1893 the actual construction of the rail- way was taken out of the hands of the Minister of Ways and Communications, and a separate branch of his department was instituted to carry the matter through. This new LENGTH OF THE RAILWAY. 23 branch was thus, in a sense, under the Minister of Ways and Communications, and liad power to see to the purchase of the rolling-stock, as well as to arrange direct contracts, without being limited to any sum. It could also change the period of contracts and terms of agreement. The total length of the railway from Tchelyabinsk to Vladivostok along the main line is 7083 versts. Twenty- nine additional versts included below represent branch lines to the principal rivers that intersect the main road.^ It has been divided into seven sections for convenience in working : these are — 1. Tchelyabinsk to river Ob, 1328 versts ; total estimated cost, inclusive of rolling-stock and rails, 47 million rubles. 2. Ob to Irkutsk, 1754 versts ; estimated cost, 73 million rubles. 3. Irkutsk to Misovskaya, 292 versts ; estimated cost, 22 million rubles. 4. Misovskaya to Srjetensk, 1009 versts ; estimated cost, 53 million rubles. 5. Srjetensk to Khabarovsk, 2000 versts ; estimated cost, 117 million rubles. 6. Khabarovsk to Grafskaya, 347 versts ; estimated cost, 18 million rubles. 7. Grafskaya to Vladivostok, 382 versts ; estimated cost, 17 million rubles: being in all, roughly, 350 million rubles. Such, at least, is the original plan and estimate, since sub- ject to considerable modification. For while on the simple ^ Calculating the verst as § mile, and the ruble as 2s. roughly, we find that the following figures represent the length and estimated cost of the different sections respectively: (1) 885 miles, £4,700,000; (2) 1169 miles, £7,300,000; (3) 195 miles, £2,200,000 ; (4) 673 miles, £.5,300,000; (5) 1333 miles, £11,700,000; (6) 231 miles, £1,800,000; (7) 255 miles, £1,700,000. Total length and estimate — 1741 miles, £34,700,000. 24 THE GREAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. initial section the actual cost has been some nine million rubles less than tlie estimate, on the second section, which involves cutting a way through the Taiga or forest zone, the estimate will be exceeded. It is probable that the latter condition of things will eventually be found to be true of the grand estimate as well. The third section will be the most difficult, and, comparatively, the most costly, as the road will have to be cut through cliffs which rise from the margin of Lake Baikal to a considerable height. As late as 1897 detailed surveys were being conducted on the southern coast-line of Lake Baikal, round which it is still intended to carry the railway if the new estimates do not prove to be too high.^ By the 15th June 1895 one quarter of the line had been laid ; in the autumn of the following year passengers were set down at Krasnoyarsk. The year 1897 saw the railway open as far as Nijni-Udinsk, and it is expected that by the summer of 1898, or at latest by spring of the succeeding year, not only will Irkutsk and St Petersburg be connected by rail, but steam communication will have been established between the capital and Vladivostok. That is to say, after crossing Lake Baikal by boat, the passenger will resume train as far as Srjetensk, whence Khabarovsk, which is already joined by rail to the Pacific port, will be reached by steamer. Fourteen days is optimistically given as the duration of such a journey between the extreme points, which will be reduced to ten, or even nine, when every- thing is in working order and the Manchurian line com- pleted. But it is difficult to see how the original plan can be carried out before 1903. The following figures show the ^ The cost of the construction of one verst of the railway has so far fluctu- ated between 35,500 and 64,500 rubles. NUMBER OF WORKMEN EMPLOYED. 25 numbers of workmen employed during 1895 on the West, Middle, Trans-Baikalian, and Ussuri divisions of the line : 36,629 navvies, 13,080 carters, 5851 surfacemen, 4310 car- penters, 4096 stone-masons, 2091 riveters, — in round numbers, 62,000 men. To meet the demand for official servants and experts, technical schools of engineering have been opened in the towns of Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Khabarovsk. The other Departments of State have combined to lend helping hands. Thus the Ministry of Agriculture and State Domains supplies and delivers gratis whatever timber may be required. The War Department has employed many of its men in survey and map - making, especially on the Amur, so as to get the best line through Khabarovsk. In short, it is a work on which official Eussia is quietly priding herself. She is looking forward to the time when she will have a railroad twice as long as that which now unites New York and San Francisco. So much for the past. The train, which, passing along the continuation of the Samara-Miass line, conducts the traveller on his way to- wards far Siberia, starts on its journey at Tula. Here it was that the writer first came into contact with the east- ern emigration movement that during the summer of 1896 was at once so sad and so remarkable.^ One of the platforms was literally crowded with a mass of homeless humanity, drawn mostly from the southern and more thickly populated parts of Russia. It was nearly mid- night, and the emigrants had clustered in small family 1 It must be distinctly understood that what is related here and on p. 47, with reference to the emigration movement, deals with the summer of 1896 only — steps having since been taken to prevent the recuri-ence of such congestion. 26 THE GREAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. groups round their few belongings, which were stowed away in sacks, baskets, and wooden boxes. Over their little heaps of worldly goods they had spread sheepskins or blankets of coarse texture. Piled up on these the children lay asleep, wrapped in their shuhas (sheepskin coats), with the white hide outermost. Commonly one parent rested by them and the other watched, and it was hard to find a group without a babe. Some of the adults wore a timid air, born of sheer helplessness. Most of the men had the dull dogged look of driven cattle : an intelligent face might have more easily been found amongst their wives. Thus they reclined and slept, or talked in low subdued voices, while behind them loomed the dark red waggons with their significant inscription, " 8 horses — 40 men," that were to carry them from the land of their nativity. Meanwhile labourers were at work on these mobilisation cars, fitting up an internal arrangement of boards, in order to render them more fit for human habitation during the week or so of railway journey to the East. As this emigration question assumed somewhat alarm- ing proportions during that summer, and is important in relation to the future of the country, it merits further attention. For several years the movement to the East has been in progress. In some very slight form it may also be said to be in operation all the year long; but May, June, and July are the months during which the pressure has commonly been most severe. Its origin is not absolutely clear. In some slight form the movement has been in vogue since the end of the seventeenth century. Its course has not been uniform : there were distinct lulls during the Crimean war, and again for some months about the time REGULATIONS UNDERLYING EMIGRATION. 27 of the abolition of serfage. A sudden rise in the figures for the year 1892 has led some to suppose that the great famine of 1890-91 brought the Eussian Government seri- ously to face the necessity of providing means for drafting off the surplus population of the south ; but a more im- portant factor was the formation about this time of the Committee for the construction of the railway, with which the question of colonisation has been always intimately associated. Indeed, one of the most important reasons for building the railway at all was to unite those numerous though often widely removed areas in Siberia that had already been colonised. Prior to this period certain re- strictions had been placed upon emigration ; but from this time these were removed in part, and inducements were held out of which the overtaxed peasants living in such a province as Poltava, where the population is very dense and the holdings proportionately small, were only too glad to avail themselves. Latterly, as will be seen, the move- ment has been checked and restrictions again imposed, as it was found that the population in many centres of agri- cultural labour was being positively depleted. In many ways the Government has offered encouragement to intend- ing settlers : they are taken as passengers at rates reduced enormously below the third-class fares — the actual price which they pay being 3 rubles per 1000 versts.^ Those who come from the more northerly parts are conveyed by steamer from Kazan to Perm for half that sum. In cases of dire extremity, grants of money without interest up to 100 rubles are made ; while during the first three years the settler is exempt from taxes. The plan commonly followed is, that on arrival at Tchelyabinsk, on the farther side of the ^ I.e., less than Is. per 100 miles. 28 THE GREAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. Urals, the settlers are arranged into parties and sent iinder superintendence to the locality that is to be colonised by them. A formal permission is indeed required in the case of every peasant, for which he may have to wait some time ; but this measure is solely to hinder debtors from abscond- ing. Once this has been obtained, the arrangements permit of even the poorest peasant emigrating. The substance of the regulations that underlie the emi- gration movement may here be briefly outlined. In the governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk a grant of 15 dcsiatines of suitable land is made to every man, and in some cases an additional grant of not more than 3 desiatines of forest. In the Governments of Yenisei and Irkutsk the extent of the grant is determined by the quality of the land. This land is conveyed to the settlers on letters of allotment, and, whilst remaining State property, will be for their perpetual benefit. Its sale and mortgage are forbidden, and all such transactions are defined as of no effect. Maps were early prepared at considerable cost, showing the population and physical features of each region. Owing to the very slender population of the Amur dis- trict, regulations have been drawn up to permit of the sale of the State lands in that territory. The principal idea underlying these regulations is to ensure that the State lands pass as private property only to those people — Eussian subjects — who really wish and have the capacity to work them. The maximum quantity of land that can be sold to one buyer under the new regulations is not defined : all that is stated is, that while allotments not exceeding 400 desiatines are to be made by the military governor, petitions for sale of land in larger quantities are to be presented with reasons to the chief of the dis- THE RUSH OF 1896. 29 trict. Those who receive an agreement for a sale have to deposit one-half of the sum in the local treasury, where- upon an arrangement is made for the delivery of the land for three years' use and profit. To obtain full proprietor- ship, the following further condition is obligatory — viz., that in the course of three years the buyer shall expend, in the working of the land and in furnishing the necessary plant, a sum, for an allotment not exceeding 100 desiatincs, of not less than the cost of it on the price of purchase. For allot- ments of from 100 to 400 desiatines the sum thus expended must be not less than twice the cost ; above 400 desiatines, four times the cost. Upon the non-fulfilment of these conditions the allotment is taken back, and the money received is kept as rent. The price fixed in 1895 was 6 rubles the desiatine within 20 versts of the large towns in Eastern Siberia and in certain specially fertile places. At other points the land is sold at the rate of 3 rubles the desiatine, while a small addition is made for survey expenses. That the numbers had been gradually rising each year ^ was in no way remarkable ; but the sudden increase that marked the spring of 1896 was quite unlocked for. It partook of the nature of a stampede. How it affected the average Eussian may be judged from the following incident. A gentleman personally known to myself, while staying at his country residence, was informed one morn- ing that his cook and coachman desired to speak with him. These two men, who had been long in his service and were the recipients of no mean wage, astonished him by quietly intimating that they were leaving for Siberia. 1 The figures for the year 1892 were, roughly, 100,000 ; for 1893, 150,000 ; for 1894, about 180,000 ; for 1896, about 250,000. 30 THE GREAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. Having known them many years he ventured to expostulate with them, but his suggestion that perhaps they were dis- contented with their wage and present circumstances was instantly scouted as quite out of the question. He then communicated to them what he knew about the general disorganisation that had overtaken the movement during the early part of May of that year, with its sad attendant circumstances, telling them in all the truth, not so much from any wish to retain them in his service as from his personal interest in them. It was in vain ; their only reply was, " Every one is going, and we must go too." That year the tide set in early, and between the months of January and May 170,000 people had already passed through Tchelyabinsk — in May alone, 100,000 : for a period of about a month the daily number of incomers was 2000. The population of the above-mentioned town is 17,000, and on a certain day in May there were just as many settlers camping out around the station and along the railway-line, waiting for further transportation. The re- sult was that the organisation of the young Siberian rail- way was quite unable to cope with this immense human flood. There were neither rolling-stock nor officials suffi- cient to conduct the settler-companies to their destination. In time more waggons were got out from Eussia, the question was faced, and very soon that large population was moved on — not, however, before cholera, typhus, and other epidemics had broken out and many had died. The question assumed so serious an aspect that a Secretary of State was sent out to inquire into this matter. Having arrived on the spot, he at once gave orders for the cessa- tion of all emigration, and proceeded personally to make fuller investigations and arrangements. As a result, by YOUNG SETTLEMENTS. 31 the end of the summer practically the whole government of Tobolsk had been settled, and the Taiga or virgin forest there is being surveyed and examined with a view to bringing under cultivation land occupied by it. The Secretary's son described to me the interest he had in seeing the different settlements in various stages of growth — some witli only four-and-twenty hours of history, others Settlers en route. three or four days old, and others again whose existence dated from several weeks back. Those emigrants who wish to go to the Amur perform the journey by sea (forty- five days) from Odessa ; but there were families settled in the Tobolsk government that summer which had come back overland from that distant country dissatisfied with the grant allotted them. In one case a family, after spending 32 THE GREAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. all they had (3000 rubles) on the journey to the Amur dis- trict and back, liad settled in Tobolsk penniless. The journey from Tula towards Siberia cannot be called interesting. A painfully flat landscape, monotony of scenery, everywhere the tracks of the settler: that is all. Thus at Eiajsk one side of the platform presented the same picture of frightened incarnations of misery, huddling together against the heavy rain, and crossing themselves at every lightning - flash and thunder-peal. We leave them, and the outlook is replaced by a broad sweep of land that extends on either side to the horizon, — hedgeless and brown where the soil has lately been upturned, but verdant also where one may distinguish the young corn. Occasionally we pass through a strip of wood whose trees exhibit a greenness that may almost be felt. It is the beginning of the Eussian spring. Thereafter we traverse wide plains through which the railway track has been so simply led ; the telegraph wires decrease in number, and one admits that the world is being left behind. There also, at distances of about 100 yards apart, is stacked in 10-feet lengths the wooden hoarding that in winter serves to shield the line from the fierce drifting of the snow. Quickly we fly through the government of Penza, to whose prosperity a multitude of windmills testifies. Acres of rye creep close up to the railway track and extend unbroken out of sight. At length we reach the Volga, Eussia's " most kindly nurse." The great waterway seems dark and muddy from the height of the noble iron bridge that through 600 sajens'^ spans her breadth. The low left bank, flooded at parts and thickly wooded with small shrubs and trees that hug the river's brink, seems to dis- ^ Sajen—7 English feet; the actual length of the bridge is 4375 feet. A RUSSIAN VILLAGE. 33 appear, in contrast with the other bank, in height 300 feet or so, covered with luxuriant vegetation ; and you may even see a scrap of sandy beach from which the river has retreated, lying beside the dark current. AVe pass a village. Its most conspicuous object is the church, with whitened walls and two green domes. You notice that it holds a central place : you might almost fancy that the village had grown up around it as nucleus. The wooden huts, with their brown roofs of thatch, lighter in colour where the straw is of more recent date, stand separate in disconnected lines. The roads on which they abut preserve in part their primitive affinity with the sur- rounding plain — grass - covered where in their breadth they have not yet been trampled under foot, black where .some heavy wheel has rudely cut them up, A few youngsters in bright red shirts lend colour and activity to the scene. On the outskirts of the village each peasant owns a tiny plot, enclosed by stakes which form the basis of a wall of wickerwork. Inside, you see, perhaps, two horses or a cow, or even only straw. At the corner you will note a little dovecot raised on a pole, surmounted by a branch of birch. This welcome home is for blackbirds and the sparrows in the winter-time. Nor is this all, for on the extreme border of the small community, separated by a trench from the outer world, is an unkept square extent of land dotted with crosses, blue, black, or white, sometimes of iron, or, again, reduced to a short wooden post. Thus does the peasant reverence his dead. The rate of speed of our naphtha-stoked train is 30 versts an hour, and in process of time we leave Samara behind us. The " elevators " form an important feature at the stations in this neighbourhood. These are large metal c 34 THE GREAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. granaries, in which the produce of the surrounding country is stored. They are often of great height, and in them the grain is tossed about and mechanically sifted, so as to prevent over - heating. Beyond Samara we pass through gently undulating country, which now and again opens out on broader patches of damp reedy ground, occasionally monopolised by copses of stunted willow, birch, and oak. The only signs of habitation over long stretches are the lone cabins of the surfacemen. Sunk in the soil, with low roof sloping backwards, their weak walls buttressed on every side by plank -imprisoned earth, these humble homes strangely testify to the advance of civilisation. Ufa proclaims that we are nearing Asia. As on the Volga, one sees on the river Ufa many house-rafts, capable of support- ing a large floating population. Here and elsewhere we pass trainfuls of settlers returning homeward disillusionised. At length we come in sight of the Ural Mountains, which figure so largely on our maps. The first sense is that of disappointment. Although they extend a considerable length from north to south, and their breadth is fully borne in upon the mind by the slowness of the train, it is yet a remarkable fact that the highest peak only reaches 5200 feet. Languidly the train ascends 100 feet of thickly wooded hill-country. Geological inquiry discloses the truth that we are traversing two folds in the earth's crust. Occa- sionally we pass through deeper dynamite-blown cuttings, and issue out of them only to look up to pine- and fir-clad heights. We strike a muddy river — Yuresan — born in these cooler altitudes. We follow it, and on either side at times the beetling brows give way to meadow-land, in which are set at intervals quiet hamlets. The tiny stations have a desolate appearance, and towards evening a sublime silence TCHELYABINSK. 35 reigns, which is only broken by the tinkling of faint cow- bells, the plaintive cuckoo's cry, or the occasional hum of human voices. Thus we pursue our way over varying heights, now riding through a cloud of butterflies that are resting by the wayside, now raising frightened wild-duck from some part of the river's shaded banks. It was early morning when we steamed into Tchelyabiusk. The country had now reverted to the flatness that charac- terises the western side of the Urals. Birch and beech were still the prominent trees. It was this town that saw the worst features of the emigration fever ; but now, in the middle of June, scarcely 300 remained as witnesses to the past. The platform presented a motley group of interested human beings, — swarthy Tartars, sallow Paissians, brisk Siberians, benign Bashkirs, those renowned horse - stealers, and stolid Kirghize, relieved by the presence of the ever- lasting officer and sundry other petty tchinovniks. The Bashkirs, like the Kirghize, were originally a nomadic people, but have now somewhat settled down, and make excellent agricultural labourers. Leaving Tchelyabinsk, we pass through country that in- dicates considerable population. Much has been reclaimed, much is under cultivation. Still more is level steppe, occa- sionally broken by strips of shrubby copse or statelier trees. Short posts in black and white, with the imperial eagle, help to mark off the boundaries of the land reserved on either side for the railway. The soil, where it is exposed, pro- claims itself to be the far-famed tchcmoziom or black earth ; beneath it in section one makes out the widespreading loess. The villages are of course at a considerable distance from the line : this is the genius of all Eussian railways. Everything becomes simpler as we move farther east. 36 THE GREAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. Soon the stations resolve themselves into plain log-houses, surrounded by regular piles of sawn birch, that serve as fuel for the locomotives. Kurgan is the first town in Siberia proper at which we stop. From what one can see of it from the station, it has the appearance of being mainly composed of wooden houses ; but, characteristically, two white churches with their green domes and roofs obtrude themselves upon the notice of the passer-by. Here we witnessed the first meeting after ten years of a well-known political exile with his parents, and with a younger brother whom he now saw for the first time. A man selling models of convicts at work also recalls the peculiar associations that this country has for the civilised world. We have opportunity to stroll about and look around, for the train lingers an indefinite period at each stopping -place. To the Eussian time is not money, still less to the Siberian. You might, for that matter, partake of a protracted repast at every station if there was the where- withal ; but only at special points is provision made. An ominous diagrammatic wine-glass before the name of a station in the time-table indicates the presence of a buffet there. At such a place one is commonly allowed twenty minutes ; while elsewhere you will notice a line of tables at a fixed distance from the railroad, behind which stand a number of peasant women in picturesque attire, with milk, kvass, bread, butter, and other viands for sale. Omsk is situated in a bare plain, on two rivers, the Irtish and the Om. As a result the town can be descried from a great way off. At this distance the barracks, Cadet Corps College, and the Church of St Nicholas are the most prominent objects. The bridge across the Irtish is of the type commonly met with along the line — iron girders sup- OMSK. 37 ported on stone piers. Its length is 2100 feet. Tlie em- bankment at this point is between 35 and 40 feet high : even yet a staff of men is ahnost constantly at work keeping it in repair. This was also found to be the case over great lengths of the line farther to the east : the heavy rains are continually washing away in part these huge structures. It is obvious that, in addition to what we may call the tem- porary demand for workmen, such an immense railway will require a permanent contingent of labourers to clear away snowdrifts and repair the line. To secure this object, it was proposed to introduce navvies from European Russia : steps have been already taken in this direction, and ex- periments are being carried out successfully. The only distinguishing feature about Omsk station, which was in process of building, is that here one sees half-a-dozen lines of railway. This is, of course, a provision for the future ; the three trains weekly in either direction scarcely require them meantime.^ For the moment, except on the main line, all was in possession of a crowd of settlers who numbered 8000 at one time. Omsk is the centre of distribution in this region. Here the emigrants present their papers to the authorities and are told whither they must go. The wiser heads first make a visit of inspection, and then return to Omsk to fetch their families and goods if the allotment lias proved satisfactory. We have already noticed the numbers of men who are engaged on this vast undertaking. In the heat of the mid- day sun it was assuredly hard work, and one was not surprised to see the somewhat deliberate fashion in which any particular task w^as carried through. The great majority of the labourers were toiling in white (or what had once been 1 There is now at least a daily service. 38 THE GREAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. white) cotton shirts and pantaloons, barefoot, bareheaded. Some of their tools and implements were primitive — e.g., the wheelless barrow shoved along a plank. One saw the evolution of the spade in a single party, for while some were employing long-handled wooden shovels, all of one piece, others had the edge of the blade protected with a thin binding of tin, while yet others had the ordinary one with iron blade. Another tool looked like half a pick, with the back of the head flat- tened hammer-wise. They also made use of giant sledge- hammers of wood — a vast bole with a stout handle driven into it, making a very formidable weapon. Utilising a thick beam as lever, they would prise up great lengths of rail attached to the sleepers, and so fill in more ballast. One noticed also the absence of what are commonly known as " chairs " : the broad - based rails are simply laid on the notched sleepers, and held in position there by a small species of clamp on the inside only. Great care is being exercised in the regulation of this railway. Every hundred yards or so appear white boards indicating the gradients, which occasionally alter very considerably over quite short ranges. Also at extremely short intervals are posted the usual men in charge of the line, green flag in hand, to signify that their section at least is clear. Throughout its length tlie line is continuously accompanied on either side by ex- cavations of varying size, from which the soil was taken for its construction. At those pointy where over long dis- tances the embankment remains a considerable height, these trenches increase greatly in breadth, but not so much in depth. The cause of this is simply that the ground is frozen at about 6 feet below the surface till towards the end of July, so that the upper stratum alone is workable. These broad ditches fill with water, and become the spacious THE RIVER OB. 39 nurseries of myriads'of mosquifcoes and other objectionable forms of insect life. Beyond these lie immense expanses of verdant plain, whose uniformity is interrupted at intervals by irregularly set thickets of stunted birch. Occasionally some Kirghize boy betrays our laboured progress by forgino- ahead of the train on his hardy pony. Shaggy, sure-footed, speedy, they are the true Siberian travellers; shrewd also, for when the sun has dipped below the western horizon and the evening air seems to exist for nothing but mischief- making mosquitoes and their inhuman clan, mark how by yonder small encampment in the lee of a birch coppice the patient burden-bearers stand beside the fire, facing the wind, and hold their heads in the smoke to be relieved from their pestiferous associates. Animal life otherwise is not much in evidence. Occasionally a startled hare dashes from liis " form " too near the track of progressive man. Perhaps a mallard rises from some weeded brake, and overhead a towering hawk recks not but for his prey : save for these we are alone. In time we come to Krivoschekovo, having just crossed the Barabinsky steppe. We are now 2058 versts from Moscow, 1325 from Tchelyabinsk. The river Ob is at this point to be spanned by a bridge of over 2500 feet ; but as the wooden scaffolding was burned down, the construction of it has fallen much behind that of bridges farther on, and as yet only one girder unites two of the five stone piers.^ Here again we notice a gathering of settlers, who are, however, not allowed within the unfenced precincts of the station. A goodly number of log cabins may be seen in the vicinity, but these do not form the village, which is 4 versts off across the river. What one sees is simply the natural upgrowth of two years of railway ^ It has since been completed. 40 THE GREAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. labour. It follows that the original Krivoschekovo will decline in importance, and its place be taken by this upstart village : thus does the railway make and unmake places. To drive to the river, the only available conveyance is a country tarantassik. The first impression is that of a large basket supported on four wheels. More careful inspection discloses two stout axle-trees connected by six poles — branches un- hewn and lying in the horizontal ; a seventh, stronger than the rest, finds place below the other six. On this arrange- ment, only placed well forward, is perched the wicker basket, across which is set a board held in its place by ropes, and on this two men may sit with fear and trembling. Straw lines the bottom. A smaller board, most wonderfully balanced on the front edge of the basket, and also held in place by ropes, accommodates the driver. Behind the coble there remain about 3 feet of the horizontal framework, on which heavy baggage may be settled : it is an embryonic tarantass without the hood. The wheels have a run of 6 inches on the axle, which is so long as to prevent all chance of a capsize ; along this they perpetually wobble. The shafts are two young birch- trees, with the unlopped stumps of the branches still much in evidence. Between them is a small unshod Siberian pony, of a dun shade, in size and appearance not unlike a Shet- lander ; the traces are two half-inch ropes. It is supported by an outrunner trotting abreast, and retained by two as slender ropes, while a strap attaching his apology for a bridle to that of his neighbour hinders him from run- ning at an angle of more than 45° to the line of progres- sion. We start, how ? The driver simply whistles to his pair, and off they bound. It is early morning, but here many of the people are already astir. The baker's shanty is thronged by simple hungry peasants. Already in an open A PECULIAR FERRY-BOAT. 41 shed the butcher quarters his unsavoury lamb before an eager assemblage. Now we are off, but liow the dust Hies ! The little trace- horse holds his head out to the left and runs for dear life. The track is cruelly rough : every few minutes we shoot into a hole, and are as quickly jerked out. Soon we reach the brown turgid Ob. On its farther bank the red rubashkas of tlie men and the brightly coloured dresses of the women stand out against the dull yellow huts that crowd the bank, and against the dark pine-trees behind. We arrive at the ferry-boat and board it. But notice its primitive sim- plicity. Two barge-like boats are joined by a large platform deck that is common to them both. At one end of this platform a wooden cogged wheel works on a stout beam to which the tiller is attached. More complicated is the contrivance by which this paddle - boat is made to move by a literal three -horse power. On the outside of either boat is a puddle-wheel with wooden blades ; these are con- nected also with a large cogged wheel which lies in the horizontal. Outside this wheel is a trotting-ground, where the three ponies perform perpetual circles, being attached by horizontal poles to one large vertical axle leading through the centre wheel. The upper end of this axle turns in another thick beam that stretches across over all, being supported on either side outside the pony-track by a wooden pillar. Two of the ponies had attendant boys, who con- tinually walked behind them and kept them moving. The third driver was a tall fine-looking peasant with a mop of curly yellow hair and a bushy unkempt beard. In his magenta shirt and much - patched black velveteen panta- loons, whose ends were buried in tall boots, he looked an imposing figure ; and it seemed a pity that a man who 42 THE GKKAT SIBERIAN IKON ROAD. had to stoop each time he passed under the high cross- beam ah^eady alhided to, should have to spend liis days doing such menial service. The chiyey road creeps irregularly up the bank through the straggling huts that comprise the village. A tributary of the Ob has cut deeply into the bank, and the wooden bridge with its loose planks shakes and rattles ominously as we fly across, to bury ourselves in the sweet pine-woods. The dusty road winds and twists through verst after verst of placid pine and trembling aspen : its roughness causes us to make acquaintance with every corner of the oscil- lating basket. The back seat is no longer tenanted ; it simply serves as something to which to cling. We pass two tdycgas filled with various household stuffs : behind them are walking three barefooted peasant women with bright merry faces, a little girl with a handful of wild- flowers, and four or five men. My companion salutes them : they are from Periyaslav in South Eussia, and are proceeding to their new home, some forty miles away. Still we go on ; and then another turn of the road brings us face to face with a second slow procession. In the first wicker cart sit two young men clad in grey, with bare heads and clean-shaven faces : on their knees is the coffin of a little child, dressed out in pink and wild- flowers. In the second cart rides the father, with haggard downcast look, wearing the unbleached cotton coat that proclaims him to be something more than a peasant ; and by his side is a young boy. The third cart contains two women. One is the mother — you see it in her face. At last we come to the station in the wood ; it is called Ob. A cluster of buildings is growing up ; it looks as if some day it will be a place of importance. As yet, how- CONVICT LABOUR. 43 ever, nothing is open save a waiting-room ; the ticket office is in a fourth-class waggon on the train, and still there are settlers, still the crowd of interested peasants. But now the country changes : up to the Ob, plain had predominated. What seems rather like an unending park, planted with silver birch, the beauty of the Siberian forest, now supervenes. The orange - tinted Trollius asiaticus, so expressively called in Eussian what we might render as ■' little fire," colours the open ground in part, growing more plentifully, however, in the shade of individual trees. The wild rose also abounds, and brackens usurp what remains. Along the railway-line, which winds in long-drawn sigmoid curves, navvies are now in greater evidence. The Direction takes on practically all who offer, as the supply is not in excess of the demand. The unusual daily wage of IJ ruble is paid ; labour cannot be got cheaper. On the western half of the line the men are mainly Russians, Siberians, and in a few instances Italians ; farther east you find con- victs, Chinese, and Koreans. During the summer they He out at night or rear a simple dwelling by means of sleepers, much as a child makes a house of bricks. The question of criminal labour on the railway presents some interesting features that may be briefly narrated here. Once it was resolved to employ convict labour, the problem that presented itself to the Ministry of the Interior was how, out of the criminal prisoners from European Russia, the lazy local population of the Siberian prisons, and the political exiles, to form a disciplined army of railway work- men. It was, however, solved so brilliantly that the con- victs working on the Mid - Siberian road by their labour and irreproachable conduct attracted the attention of the august President of the Committee of the Siberian Rail- 44 THE GREAT SIBERIAN IKON ROAD. way. Convict labour was at first directed to the con- struction of the Ussuri Railway, where, on the contrary, it far from verified expectations, and the convict party was soon sent back to the island of Sakhalin. On a larger scale the experiment was repeated in the construction of the Mid - Siberian Eailway. In order to make the work attractive, and so include convicts of all categories, a regu- lation was made for those who came under the Governor- Cxeneral of Irkutsk, that eight months' railway work should count as one year of imprisonment or hard labour, according to circumstances. For the exiles the term required to enable them to be registered as peasants was to be reduced, in return for labour on the railway, in the proportion of one year for two. For those who more than two years before had been transported for life, the period during which they should have to wait before permission would be granted to choose a dwelling-place was reduced by one- half; and for those compelled to live in far Siberia, the term of deportation was to be shortened by counting one year as two. The success attending convict labour on the Mid-Siberian Railway gave rise to the idea of again extending these regu- lations to the other farther eastern section of the railway. With this object the same privileges were granted to prisoners and exiles coming under the surveillance of the Governor-General of the Amur as to those under the Gov- ernor-General of Irkut.sk. For the supervision of the exiles the Minister of the Interior appointed special officers, and for the supervision of the common criminal labourers, inspectors and orderlies. The former enjoy a position of district country control, with the added right of calling out a military escort. Each TOMSK. 45 individual controller has 200 versts of the road allotted to him. The inspectors and orderlies have the privileges of the lower police ranks, and are disposed at every 50 versts of road-construction. Again we have exchanged our wooded park for the open plain, along which we ride now somewhat timidly, and at last reach the banks of the river Tom, where the unfin- ished bridge once more renders the ferry-boat indispensable. Later we saw the testing of the bridge previous to opening. On each span a train consisting of four locomotives and four laden waggons had to remain for two hours ; thereafter the train traversed the bridge several times, increasing the rate of speed at each passage. Tomsk, the third largest town in all Siberia, is not situated on the main line ; a branch line of 90 versts from a point called Taiga runs thither. True to all traditions, the Tomsk terminus is 3 versts from the town. When we passed east- wards in June, Taiga was represented by a few piles of logs, and the branch-line was in process of construction. Three months later, not only was the usual large stone water- reservoir standing sentinel, pagoda-like, over a neat array of log-houses, varying in colour and appearance, but the bufi'et was capable of supplying a champagne lunch in honour of an event of local interest. The new train on the far side of the river Tom is entirely composed of trucks filled with iron rails and tools, except for two or three carriages reserved for the inspector and director of that division of the line : one of these we share. There is, however, one fourth-class waggon full of labourers. At Mariinsk we pass a military train — part of the general move- ment of Russian troops towards her eastern frontiers. In their white cotton jackets with red epaulettes, dark-green trousers, 46 THE GREAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. black waist-belts, long boots, and white peak caps, the men look in the best of spirits, as if they were enjoying them- selves to their hearts' content. At the station they descend, form up, and then march off, singing awhile some of their strange folk-lays. In about an hour the sound of a meas- ured tramp of feet accompanying a lively chorus betokens their return, and each man may be seen swinging along with a large brown loaf of rye-bread under his arm. Now we enter a distinctly hilly and wooded country. The tioral wealth is very great — purple cypripedia, aconite, blue potentillas, wild geranium, equisetum, and a hundred other varieties. Two lovely lilies now demand attention owing to their quantity, — the graceful yellow Hcmcroccdlis, set like so many golden stars in a firmament of emerald, smiles back to the drooping purple Lilium martagon. On occasions the train comes to a standstill, and the workmen wlio accompany us rush out and pull up the wild rhubarb. Scotch fir, spruce, Siberian poplar, alder, and birch predominate. Approaching Atchinsk, however, we again come on the open plain. As our waggon creeps nearer the town on a side-line, we observe that we are gradually work- ing into the midst of a large band of settlers. Suddenly there is a violent jerk, then the train stops, and we find that we have left the rails : thus we are conveniently situated for study right in the middle of the settler colony. It was already evening, and the cool night wind had begun to blow. Eeviewing the temporary camp pitched upon either side of us, we could perceive that it contained perhaps 300 souls. It was only natural to find that they had mostly come from Southern llussia, but had been waiting where we found them six long weeks, in hope of further transport to the neigh- bourhood of Yeniseisk. They had much of which to com- THE settlers' CAMP. 47 plain, and recounted liow they liad suffered numerically from epidemics. Cholera, typhus, and other loathsome enemies of mankind had walked — were walking — at their ease amongst them ; 30 per cent had died. Most had ensconced themselves in the lee of the embankment, which at this point began to rise to meet a bridge that spans the small river on which At- chinsk stands. Beside them were the railway trenches water-tilled ; clouds of mosquitoes filled the air. These the colonists attempted to drive away by smoking, or by sitting closely round the fires that formed the centre of each family circle ; or again, some plucked short half-charred sticks out of the fire, and blew on them, so that they served by the engendered heat to protect their faces ; while others, again, sought refuge in shawls and handkerchiefs, so wrapping up their heads that only an eye remained visible. Xot far removed, in little heaps, lay their worldly possessions, — a square box or two wrapped in sacking forming the ground- work, on and around which were bags and bundles tied with rope, untied, split, bursting, empty. A few branches bent hoopwise, with either end stuck in the ground, and inter- woven with yet other leafy branches, formed their rude dwellings. Some, more fortunate, had improvised a tent of dirty cloth, into which they could just crawl. Others had adopted the device of the surfacemen, and appropriated sleepers for hut - building purposes. See them squatting there, in weariness of soul, killing time as best they may around a samovar, perhaps a family heirloom that once saw better days. Thus, then, they sat by the low fires in dark- brown homespun Jcaftans, fleecy shuhas, or padded jackets. And as they sat they talked I know not what about, per- chance some memories of home, while far to the west the last rays of the declining sun were filling the heavens with a 48 THE GREAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. purple glow. We sat by the car - window and watched them in the stillness of the night : now and again they would start up when there was borne from some remoter group keeping late vigil one of those soft, weird, minor melodies that are the priceless possession of the Kussian folk. And when the dying strains of the song soared to a high-pitched note held by the female voices, while the men prolonged it an octave lower, it seemed like some sad musical interrogation, Why had they left I'oltava to die on the Siberian steppe ? Next morning we left our helpless waggon, crossed the river by the ferry-boat, and started off on the last possible railway-stretch in a fourth-class car. One night the coupling- irons gave way on a somewhat steep incline, and the detached portion of the train began to roll backwards. Fortunately the man in charge of the only brake awoke at this moment, and in a few seconds the retreat was stopped. He confessed, however, that it was more owing to the rough state of the line than to the efficiency of the brake that the runaway portion was so quickly controlled. But this was not all, for first the engine deserted the track, and later on another waggon followed its example, so that in all we spent exactly four days in covering what was performed in thirty-six hours on the homeward run. As we carried workmen with us, however, it was only a case of waiting till the necessary repairs were accomplished, except in the case of the coupling- irons. The Taiga has been cut down for about 40 yards on either side of the embankment, making a broad clearing of 100 yards or so at parts. Along the rough roadway, seldom devoid of gradient, the weary engine toils : at times it almost seems as if a steeper bit of incline would be too much for it, when suddenly with a jerk the difficulty is overcome, and KRASNOYARSK. 49 we resume our seven miles an hour, the slow rate being in part a precaution for safety. One fine morning at 3 a.m. we enter the hill-encircled plain where lies the town of Krasnoyarsk. Piles of wood, stone, and rails indicate that here, at any rate, is to be a station of some dimensions ; and when towards the end of summer we passed through again, an imposing building had been reared in red sandstone. The bridge over the Yenisei will be one of the masterpieces of the line. Built, like them all, in the lattice-girder style, it will have a length of over 3000 feet, and will not be open before the autumn of 1898. The bridge over the Tom, with three spans, is only about half as long as this will be, and it cost half a million rubles. After crossing the Yenisei, the line skirts the heights that overlook the town of Krasnoyarsk ; thereafter, ascending practically all the time, it traverses the valleys of the Bere- zovka and Sitik till a point is reached nearly 1000 feet above the level of the Yenisei bridge, and comes out finally at Kansk. Between the latter station and that of Nijni- Udinsk the embankment sometimes rises to a height of 70 feet, while between Nijni - Udiusk and Irkutsk there are bridges over at least four rivers whose breadth exceeds 700 feet. Although when coming back we joined a special waggon at a point 103 versts east of Krasnoyarsk, yet from this town we had to begin driving on the way out. "We con- stantly passed little patches of embankment, either finished or in process of construction, or again as yet merely repre- sented by three sticks standing in the tree-cleared vista, of which the outer two indicated the extreme limit of the breadth of the embankment, while the third marked its height at the middle point. And as we drove on through D 50 THE (;i;kat sibertan iron road. the forest we would suddenly come on the birch-bark huts of the workmen nestling in the shade of the trees. The labourers, variously attired, but with a preference for the red indiaslila, sit round their fires : a few teleygas still heaped with goods, the hobbled horses, all proclaim that work has not long commenced at this point. In the distance the over- A hrcdk in the cnihaiikiiiciit in Traiis-Daikalia. seer is riding away on his horse to the nearest village, now that the day's work is over. It is difficult to estimate the enormous amount of labour that has been expended on this railway. Consider how, to begin with, all the sleepers have been sawn tediously by hand. The log rests at a considerable elevation upon two props ; one man stands upon it, working the saw downwards to another man below. Then in the construction of any high embankment the supporting piles are driven in by a primitive contrivance, also of wood, in the form of a giant THE SIBERIAN WATERWAYS. 51 tripod, from the top of which there hangs a pulley. Over this runs a rope, to one end of which is attached a heavy- stone, with level base, while the other end is led on to a wheel at the side, by means of which the weight is raised. This arrangement is fixed over ecwh pile in turn, so that the descending stone may strike it : thus after a generation the pile is driven home to the required depth. Again, one was impressed with the extremely finished nature of the work : thus the side of the large brown embankment was often covered with an infinite number of small squares of turf, each of which was held in position by two little pegs of wood. One other point may be briefly touched upon. With one or two exceptions, Siberia is not in the possession of good roads — at least, not of such as could be utilised for the transport of rails, fixed or rolling stock. The natural course was therefore to employ her splendid waterways, and one of the first acts of the Committee of the Trans - Siberian Railway was to authorise the expenditure of over a million rubles on the improvement of water-communication on the rivers of Western Siberia, and on the exploration of the Amur. How much required to be done in the way of deep- ening channels, cutting down trees which threatened to fall into the water, retaining rivers in their beds, and marking dangerous places, can only be understood by those who have seen it for themselves. How much has been done is only in keeping with the really remarkable speed at which this whole €nterprise is being carried through. Owing to the manifold difficulties attending the construc- tion of the section of the railway that embraces the southern end of Baikal, a temporary branch is meantime being built from Irkutsk to Listvinitchnaya on the western shore of the 52 THE GKKAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. lake. From this port a steamer of 4000 tons will transport the train bodily across the lake.^ A model of this boat was on view at the Nijni-Novgorod Exhibition of 1896. It was intended that it should make its own way across the ice- bound lake ; but instead of working on the American prin- ciple of, as it were, climbing up on the ice and so breaking EOHH mi Listviii itchnaya. it down by sheer weight, in accordance with the idea of a Eussian engineer the model represented the vessel as pro- vided with a screw in the bow, which, by its action near the surface of the water, might be supposed to weaken the ice. This scheme was latterly condemned, for however well it might succeed with a foot of ice, it seemed to be a very ^ At any rate in summer. The latest scheme for winter is an electric rail- way on the ice. ROUND LAKE BAIKAL. 53 inefficient method of coping with the thicker Baikal ice. There was a twin screw-propeller at the stern ; and the bow was modelled to have the same appearance above water as the stern. Four funnels, disposed in corners of an imaginary square, served to give the steamer, on the whole, a very im- posing appearance. It was impossible to see anything of the work round the south end of the Baikal lake, as the direct route leads one naturally to traverse it by steamboat. Further, it seems needless to give any details of the projected work on that section, as they are liable to be changed by the more recent surveys — in fact, will be changed if the line is to be laid at all. For when one learns that the original plan included, amongst other feats, the boring of a tunnel over 12,500 feet in length on a continuous incline, so that it could only be attacked from one end, embankments sometimes 112 feet in height with propor- tionately high retaining- walls laid in cement, and endless cuttings in granite, gneiss, and sandstone, one is not sur- prised that the Committee shrank from entering on this stage before the matter had been gone into once again. From the port at Misovskaya on the south - east shore of the lake the railway proceeds afresh, at first following the coast line, only shortly to leave it and enter the valley of the Selenga by creeping round the Khamar-Dabansky hills. This river is spanned by an iron bridge some 2100 feet in length, now in process of construction, from which one will be able to catch a glimpse of the town of Verkhni- Udinsk, situated near the junction of the Uda and the Selenga. The line now enters the valley of the Uda, traversing fertile regions inhabited by the industrious liaskolniks or Dissenters, and at a distance of about 600 54 THE GREAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. versts from Baikal commences to ascend in good earnest the eastern slope of one of the branches of the Yablonovoi Mountains. At the summit the line is 3410 feet above the sea. Here the difficulty of working is enhanced by the ex- treme changes in temperature even in midsummer. Thus in June and July a difference of 30° C. has been registered between the readings during the day and at night, the efifect of which can be well imagined. The subsoil is per- petually frozen, and in summer the ground thaws only to a depth of 2 feet. Thereafter the railway course descends into the basin of the Pacific Ocean, passing through Tchita about 700 versts beyond Baikal, and 270 versts farther on crossing the river Nertcha, when it reaches the town of Nertchinsk, where the station will be some 6 versts distant from the town. Although the next stretch along the valleys of the Ingoda and of the Shilka to the town of Srjetensk, which stands on the right bank of the latter river, is of no great length, still the difficulties here connected with the earth and constructive works are formidable. Both valleys are narrow and wind considerably — that of the Ingoda, indeed, throughout its entire length — being shut in by mountains whose steep rocky slopes leave little free space between them and the water, thus necessitating heavy cutting, while the floods of the Shilka are notorious. This means that where these free spaces have been utilised in the service of the railway the periodic inundations which cover them (as in the summer of 1897) do considerable damage to the line on this river as well as on the Amur, thus intro- ducing a further annual outlay that had not been foreseen. The railway, which, inasmuch as it keeps to the left bank of the Shilka, only as a matter of fact comes to the village of Matakan opposite Srjetensk, was thence planned TKANS-MANCHUUIAN KAILWAV. 00 to continue down tlie valleys of that river and the Amur for a distance of 2000 versts to the town of Khabarovsk. Upon this route, which traverses sparsely populated taiga- covered country, no serious detailed surveying had ever been done ; and beyond the general idea that the railway could be shortened by diverting it from the valley of the Amur, even although this river must eventually be crossed by a bridge 8400 feet in length, little was said or done. The reason of this became apparent when, in December of 189G, the terms of the Cassini Treaty between Eussia and China were published, whereby the former Power acquired the right of adding a Trans-Manchurian branch to its Trans- Siberian railway. In consequence, the latter can no longer claim to be called Trans-Siberian, for although those in highest quarters still speak of some time uniting Srjetensk and Khabarovsk by rail on the lines of the original plan, yet this project has been so indefinitely postponed that meanwhile, at least, it may be considered as abandoned. In place of it a line will break off from the Trans-Siberian Trunk at the station of Onon just below Nertchinsk, enter China at Old Tsurukhaitu, traverse Manchuria by way of Tsitsihar and Ninguta, and rejoin the original line at Nicolskaya on the South Ussuri section. This Trans- Manchurian branch will be 1280 miles in length, 946 of which lie in Chinese territory, and will mean a reduction of at least 350 miles on the original plan. The other line, projected to run directly from Vladivostok to Hunchun, and thence through Kirin, Petune, Tsitsihar northwards to Aigun and Blagovyeshtchensk, is less important, and is not likely to be taken up for some time to come. Upon the political importance of this move, as well as on the other terms of the treaty, we cannot dwell at any 56 THE GREAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. length. They practically mean liussiaii administration of the whole of Northern China, probably ending with its acquisition. They open up to liussian capital and enter- prise a country renowned for its gold and rich in fine pasture- land. Finally, in connection with certain purely Chinese railways that are being constructed, they bring us witliin measurable distance of the time when the Trans- Siberian railway will find its Eastern terminus, not at Vladi- vostok, but on the milder shores of the Gulf of Pechili, which is the ultimate goal in the vision of liussian railway extension. The last two sections of the Trans - Siberian Railway comprise what is known as the Ussuri line, luuning from Khabarovsk to Vladivostok, a distance of 715 versts. They are known respectively as the North and the South Ussuri lines ; and while the latter was in working order by Feb- ruary of 1896, it took a year longer before the Northern, and consequently the whole system, was open to the public. In connection with the Northern half, two surveys were made — the first in 1891, the second three years later. The chief results of the final survey were — (1) that the length of this section (formerly 347 versts) was curtailed by 16 versts, which entailed an estimated saving of 800,000 rubles in the construction, and of 40,000 rubles in annual outlay ; (2) that the line is now strategically safe. Originally it was planned to lie along the valley of the river Ussuri, which forms the frontier line between China and Siberia, and consequently it would have been exposed at several points. Its direction has been so changed that for over 100 versts it entirely deserts the valley, and although never far from the river, does not approach nearer than at Muraviev- Amursky (the older Grafskaya), where it is still 3 versts THE USSUKI LINE. 57 away. It remains within 5 versts of the Ussuri over 72 versts, or 21 per cent of its length : for the rest, it bends away eastwards at a distance of from 5 to oO versts. Again, the stretches where damage from floods might have been expected have been greatly reduced in extent, as also the deep cliff-cuttings that the nature of the ground demanded. The Southern section is now considered to begin at Iman, 387 versts from Vladivostok and ten versts north of the Grafskaya of the hrst survey (1888), whose name has now been changed to Muraviev-Amursky, in honour of the man who made the country Eussian, The final surveys were completed in 1892, and the following year part of the line was open for traffic. The railway still keeps on the right bank of the Ussuri, till at the 328th verst from Vladivostok it crosses it by an iron bridge 840 feet in length. Thereafter it traverses the Khanka plain at a distance of from 20 to 40 versts from the lake. At its south-east corner it enters the valley of the Lefoo, crosses the watershed between that river and the Suiphun, a stream that falls into the Gulf of Amur, and enters its valley in turn. It only remains to skirt the sea-shore of the Gulf and come to rest in Vladivostok, where it would seem that all difficulties connected with a frozen port have now been overcome by means of ice-cutters. The principal result arrived at by this study is, that the plan of 1888, with which we started, will be pro- foundly modified before the railway is completed. Its length from Tchelyabinsk to Vladivostok now stands at 6858 versts, including 2000 versts, as allowed by the original estimate, from Srjetensk to Khabarovsk. But, with the Trans-Man- churian branch, a further reduction of 600 versts must be made from that number, leaving the total length at 6258 versts. Even this enormous undertaking is not sufficient 58 THE GREAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. for Eussian energy, and already plans are made for a branch line in the direction of Biisk, while it can only be a question of time till another connects Kiakhta with the Grand Trunk. In connection with the geological expeditions that have also been at work on behalf of the railway, some excellent results have been obtained. Hitherto the fuel used has been wood, and a recent discovery of coal at Pavlodar had not been regarded with any great interest. More lately, however, in the Mid-Siberian district, there have been two remarkable discoveries of anthracite or stone coal, but of very good quality, at points within 20 versts of the railway. Also in Trans-Baikalia, in the valley of the Selenga, and other places, valuable deposits have been found, some of the seams averag- ing 35 feet in thickness. In its relation to Eussia, it is obvious that the new railway as an exporting agency may not be altogether an unmixed blessing. The route from Europe to Siberia through the Kara Sea is still too uncertain a course to come into anything like general usage. Meantime an expedition is engaged in hydrographical work in these regions ; and the lapse of a few years may make a great change in the point of view from which this passage is regarded at the present moment. But Siberia requires some cheap convenient way even now by which to export her produce. The yearly excess of grain available for export is 9 to 12 million intds. A moment's thought will serve to show how tlie great railway, mainly in its function of populating the country, will soon augment this large quantity. At the same time, to flood the already crowded Eussian markets with Siberian corn would be fatal to the agricultural world of the former, where prices are at a minimum. THE PERM-KOTLASS RAILWAY. 59 To obviate this, a proposal was laid before the Committee of the Trans-Siberian Eailway to join by rail the basins of the Ob and northern Dvvina. The projected line was to start from Perm, and, passing through Viatka, to strike the Dwina near the village of Kotlass, whence a run of 641 versts down the river, whose depth here varies from 14 to 28 feet, would bring one to Arcliangel. During the summer of 1895 up- wards of seventy steam craft were plying on that stretcli of the river. It has been estimated that the cost of delivery of grain cargoes in London would be about If to 2^ kopeks the pud cheaper from Tinmen, and 3^ to 6i kopeks from Barnaul, through Archangel, than through St Petersburg. In time, with the improvement of the navigable condition of the Dwina and other rivers, as also by the lowering of the freights, it is supposed that this difference would be yet more increased to the advantage of Archangel. The cheapening of grain in the Archangel market will mean the fall of prices on all the White Sea coast, and will provide the possibility in the widest measure of increasing the sea industry, which is now declining year by year, and passing into the hands of the Norwegians. The estimated cost of this railway is 35 million rubles (£3,500,000). A commencement was made in 1895, and it is improbable that the line will be brought into direct connection with the other branches of the Eussian railway system in order that it may perform its function successfully, while Archangel is joined with Vologda by rail. At the same time, it must be remembered that the principal exports from Siberia will just be such bulky raw produce as grain and timber, which demand cheap transport and cannot be expected to provide royal revenues. On the other hand, it is hoped that other returns will be GO THE GREAT SIBERIAN IRON ROAD. increased. Thus, while at Odessa the duty on imported tea, regardless of quality, is about 21 rubles the 2'i'd, at Irkutsk it varies from IP) rubles on the best qualities to 2h on brick tea. This artificial reduction is made solely in favour of the trakt or great post - road — to keep this commercial route open. With the railway all necessity for such a lowering of dues disappears, and the estimated additional revenue from this source alone is nine million rubles annually. One feature about the railway and its influence is very noticeable. Russians are just beginning to find out what tliey have got in Siberia, this Greater Itussia. The seeming indifference of the Eussian people to the new exploit is really remarkable. If any English-speaking race were in the position of liussia at the present time, it is inconceivable that one would not meet with a host of individuals of all sorts and conditions rushing out to take possession of this land of promise — clerks, tradesmen, speculators, prospective hotel proprietors, saloon-keepers, bankrupts, members of the Salvation Army, — and what did one find in Siberia ? Not a single Russian travelling to spy out the land from mere love of it, and few anxious even so much as to visit this country of the future. Such, then, is the great monument to Russia's culture in the nineteenth century. Strategic, — how otherwise, to begin with, could she defend her 13,000 versts of Chinese frontier ? — political, economical, its influence will be felt in the suc- ceeding centuries. For some three hundred years, indeed, Siberia has been considered a Russian possession, but when the first train runs its unhindered way from St Petersburg to Vladivostok, then only will the work of Yermak have been completed. 61 CHAPTER III. TKAVEL IX SIBEKIA. ox THE GREAT POST-ROAD — REQl'IREMEXTS — COST OF POSTING — THE postmaster's book — TO PREVENT RACING — THE YAMSTCHIK — HIS MONOTONOUS LIFE — HIS MANAGEMENT OF HORSES — POST-STATIONS OUTSIDE AND INSIDE — SIBERIAN VILLAGES — THE PUBLIC PLAY- GROUND — DRUNKENNESS — WHEN THE KYE COME HAME — LIFE ON THE TRAKT — THE ANGARA — LAKE BAIKAL — THE BURYAT COUNTRY - — VALLEY OY THE SELENGA — FELLOW-TRAVELLERS — TEA CARAVANS — ROBBERY — INCIDENTS AND MISHAPS — THROUGH THE FLOOD — FERRIES AND FERRY-BOATS — RIVER-TRAVEL — THE OB— SCENERY ON ITS BANKS — SUNSET ON THE OB — TAKING IN WOOD — THE IRTISH — DIFFICULTIES IN ITS NAVIGATION. It is, however, in its simple primaiy function of transporta- tion that the new railway afi'ects the traveller most Few pages in the annals compiled by those who have in time past crossed Siberia are more graphic than the ones in which they describe their varied experiences by water and by land. One shares with them the tedium of days and weeks lost on the Ob and Yenisei in miserable steamers that seemed only to fulfil their destiny when they ran aground. Occasionally in October, towards the end of the season, some luckless vessels are overtaken in mid-voyage by the relentless frost, and forced to winter on the spot where they are captured, while passengers and crew are glad to seek 62 TRAVEL IN SIBERIA, their destination overland. Or, again, in the perusal of a paragraph that relates the story of conveyance by tarantass over some stretch of ground more rough than usual, one shuts one's eyes expectant of the next bump, which to the traveller signified painful acquaintance with the leathern hood, as the sturdy Siberian ponies ran, like the herd of swine, down a steep place violently, even to the length of plunging into some mountain torrent that had enlarged the borders of its conduit and buried the road under two feet of water ! Soon, very soon, all this will be but a memory. True, there still remains an illimitable sweep of country north and south of the long avenue that leads from Europe to Vladivostok, but as yet the tracks are few, and there is little to attract humanity except in the person of the explorer. And should any contingent circumstance arise, such as still greater discoveries of gold, or even coal, than have been already made, and the alluring spot bid fair to become a resort of men, it is only reasonable to surmise that the enterprise that is laying the thin metal lines across the continent will not shrink from putting the new centre in communication with the main artery. Sinc6, then, transport by steam-boat and by tarantass will suffer to some considerable extent by this most recent introduction, it may not be out of place to dwell on them a little at this stage. In order to travel by the well-organised Siberian post, it is no longer necessary to provide oneself with a fodorojnaya or order for post-horses, but those who have the right procure that special form of paper which is granted to persons on Government service, giving them the first claim to whatever horses at a station are available. Further, letters from the governor of the province to be traversed, or from the Post- master-General, are still more satisfactory, as furnishing one TRAVEL NA PEIIEKLADNIKH. 63 with a complete title to the provision of the stable, and so enabling one to go from station to station at maximum speed. Every person who can afford to do so drives in his own taraniass or holynsJm, in which case it is only necessary to change the team and yamstchil- at the several posthouses. The alternative is to travel na pcrckladnikh, which involves the additional change of conveyance at the end of each stage ; and as the vehicles supplied on many occasions cannot with clemency be even eulogised as decrepit tai^antasses, progression in this fashion is as upsetting an experience in every sense of the word as one can well imagine. The whole system is, like most things Eussian, fenced by a long series of regulations which are only made never to be observed ; or, rather, those simply are regarded that appeal to common-sense. But there is an unwritten code com- manding infinitely greater respect than any of the burden- some dictates that in print adorn the station walls. Amongst ordinary passengers, the claim to horses at any statiorf is decided by the order of arrival. The passage of the post is the one great hindrance to the eager traveller, as it leaves so many empty stalls behind it, and every one must give precedence to it. Tables are hung up on the station wall showing when it is timed to reach that particular halting -place; hence the postmasters know exactly when to expect it, and for three hours before reserve the re- quired number of horses. Moreover, the complement of horses kept at each station averages twenty -one, so the feelings of the traveller may be imagined when he sees the post drive in, consisting, as it often does, of five tarantasses in charge of one or two armed officials. This means fifteen at least of the available stock swept away at once, and if the station is crowded there are heart-burnings as one 64 TRAVEL IN SIBERIA. or two favoured individuals drive ofl' with the remaining teams. It must be very annoying to arrive at a point a few hours in advance of the mail only to learn that there are a score of horses ready, but not for you. It is, how- ever, possible to make up for the dearth by outside help, and in obedience to your official letters the postmaster must go and find some peasant who is willing to let you have horses on hire, if indeed some one of the crowd around the posthouse door has not already done so, perceiving your difficulty. Many people never employ any other than these volni (free) horses, as they are then masters of the situation, and are not so likely to suffer much detention. But the peasants are naturally inclined to overcharge. One Tatar refused to provide a troika for a 20-verst stage under 7 rubles. Or, again, look at that skulking peasant with a pipe between his teeth, one of a group of loafers, who proceeds to shuffle towards you as you stand about the station realising that no horses are obtainable for the next short stage of 18 versts. He removes his cap, and sheepishly inquires if harin wishes horses. You ask him how much he wants for a troika, and he replies " 4 rubles." The post fare for the distance only amounts to 1 ruble 92 kopeks. You offer three, but he turns away with a smile, and you have to wait three hours. But after two hours — and this is very characteristic — another peasant, who knows what has passed already, comes up awkwardly and offers you horses for 5 rubles. After vainly endeavouring to explain to the man that he is a sublime fool, and that since you have been delayed two hours you may as well remain the third, you feel a certain anxiety to learn what attitude of mind could possibly have prompted his action. He frankly confesses that he believes you are so tired and worried with waiting two hours COST OF POSTING. 65 that you will now be glad to take horses at any price. But it is you who smile this time as the peasant marches off. Otherwise, the regular cost of posting is ridiculously low. The charge for a horse varies with the locality, from 1| to 4i kopeks per verst, but 3 kopeks is the figure constant over the greatest area. A rough calculation fixes the tariff at 1| kopek the verst in Western and 3 kopeks in Eastern Siberia. In addition, there is a Government tax of 10 kopeks per horse over each stage. The number of horses required for each style of conveyance is also carefully regulated with due regard to the number of passengers and the weight of baggage. Further, the postmaster keeps a book wherein he notes each traveller's name, the place from which he has just come, as likewise his immediate destination, the hour of his arrival at the station, together with his yamstchik's name and the number of horses engaged by him. And when the new- comer starts on his way again, the information regarding him is completed by filling in the moment of his departure, the size of his team, and the approximate time at which the same horses shall on their return, and after three hours' rest, again be ready for service on the road. As this register is always open to inspection, the traveller can see at a glance how many horses are out, and how many yet remain in the stable. Eesidents in a town can start on a journey with post-horses from their own door, the main restriction in their case being that they must not keep them waiting more than one hour. On these long stretches, little matters, such as the greasing of the wheels, come into great prominence : this operation is repeated every 100 or 150 versts. To prevent racing, the order in which travellers left the last station, rather than that in which they arrive at the E 66 TRAVEL IN SIBKKIA. succeeding one, is the point taken into consideration, so that, except in cases of accident or wilful delay, any person who has been passed on the road, but who succeeds in gaining the next station before his rival resumes his journey thence, can claim the horses which the latter party may already have actually in harness. If, then, one has obtained a good start, it is advisable to maintain the lead, while the comparative progress that one makes when in pursuit of a friend or enemy can always be calculated from the postmaster's entry- book. Where, however, it is a case of an equal start for every one, as, e.g., after getting off the Baikal steamer, the horses are handed over to travellers in the order in which they make demand for them at the station. This occasions a scramble of minions from the ship's side to the post- station. Still, in addition to letters, much tact is required if one wishes to make any great progress. It is a rule that the rate of speed on the highroad should be maintained at 12 versts an hour, neither more nor less ; but this is one of those typical mandates that cannot always be put into practice. People suffer in various ways. At one station we passed two gentlemen from Moscow who had succeeded in making only 69 versts in thirteen and a half hours. The pisar would have every one believe that his chief end in life is to save his master's horses, but the wary traveller soon discovers that it is rather to get money out of him by pretending that no teams are available, when such is not the case. He often announces to the new arrival that it will be necessary to wait for several hours, but after a time he comes back and reports that the horses can be had sooner through his exertions, and the [fool gives him money, whereas he ought to have looked in the register. It is always preferable to THE YAMSTCHIK. 67 try gentleness first : many a traveller spoils his chances of progression by adopting too lofty a tone in his dealings with the pisar. Unless he is really some one of great importance in other than his own estimation, to go upon this tack is of little use, as one daring postmaster went the length of saying in my hearing, " The Governor-General is nothing to us." But we have only now come to the most important factor in post-travel — the yamstchik. Eegular uniform, he has none, although there are one or two badges of office which are more or less constantly worn. Of these the principal is a round metal plate with the imperial eagle and inscription wrought thereon. It is generally affixed to the front of the driver's cap, and a duplicate is sometimes worn on the left arm. When a man who was not a regular yamstchik was pressed into the service on any occasion, he simply strapped a badge round his arm : it is no easier to borrow a cap in Siberia than at home. The most common form of the latter was the round, flat-topped, astrakhan-bound cap, although as often without the astrakhan as with. Most of the wearers so crush them down upon their heads as to make the upper part of the ear stick out at a right angle. In winter these organs are protected by flaps, and carefully tucked in beneath a yet more oppressive head-gear. The rest of the costume varied with the pecuniary condition of the individual; and if, as sometimes happened, one's yamstchik had decked himself out in a heavy clotli coat with plaited skirt, or a black open-breasted khalat with velveteen collar, girded about with some light-coloured waistband, he looked an imposing figure mounted on the box. But what was most pleasing in artistic effect was the Kossak driver with jack- boots, black velveteen trousers, coloured sash, and bright rubashka with the yamstchik's badge attached to an arm 68 TKAVEL IN SUJERIA. thereof, and finally tlie dark cloth peak-cap with the yellow band that is his proud right. The yamstchih's life is a miserable monotonous cycle. It is spent over an average of 45 versts — i.e., the distance between two stations, there and back. Your first acquaint- ance is when you see him emerging out of a stable-shed with his two-belled diiga in one hand, while by the other he leads the centre horse of his troika: the other pair follow. He Yamstchik and Buryat woman, proceeds to harness, and when everything is ready retires once again into the post-station for the little black leather bag which holds his commission. On this paper, which he receives from the pisar, to whom you have previously paid your progon, are noted down several particulars, such as the number of horses that he has, and the hour of his departure. Now he gathers the ropes into his hands, and has a race to gain his seat before the mettlesome ponies start ; for directly the hardy little creatures feel the restraining hand at the other THE ROUND OF HIS EXISTENCE. 69 end of the line, they bound off eagerly while yet the yamstchik is scrambling into his place. It is often necessary, in con- sequence, to hold the animals' heads till the driver has got settled. But when the ponies are of a more serious cast of mind, and are content to start off only when they are bid, a low whistle or an explosive yell constitutes the common signal. After a run of 3 or 4 versts out of the village, the yamstchik stops to rests his troika, dismounts and walks round them, closely scrutinising their bearing, now tightening the breech- ing, now loosening a trace, and then comes round to the carriage and asks permission to smoke. This granted, he produces a little wooden pipe with a baby bowl, and fills its grimy hollow with some mixture dug out of a red or brown cloth poucli. Then he retires behind the carriage, strikes up with flint and steel, blows a few puffs, and then carefully redeposits the panacea in his pocket ; once more he ascends his throne, and we are off again. When we reach the post-station that is our destination, he gets down, and after handing his despatch-bag to the ^oisar, who makes corre- sponding entries in the paper, he turns to us and says, what we have already perceived, "Prijechali" ("Arrived"). We retire inside the building, not however before having pre- sented him with his pourhoire, more particularly described in Russian as natchai (for tea). He proceeds to unharness his team, and when, some time after, we again get on our way, we see him starting homewards astride one of his horses, while the others follow, or else lying in the bottom of some 7ia perekladnikh vehicle that came in charge of a fellow- yamstchik, while his own horses are secured to the back of the conveyance. And if both he and we have waited a little longer, and he be of a particular style of palate, we may see him staggering off' intoxicated, to the wonderment of his 70 TRAVEL IN SIBERIA. mute charges ; but even then he does not forget to raise his cap, and wish harin God-speed on his farther journey. But over it all, what magnificent management of equine life ! Some yamstchiks do not employ a whip,' while others are content simply to swing it wildly round their heads and do the rest by word of mouth. The driver sustains a con- versation with his willing team, coaxing them, calling them by endearing names, cheering them, complimenting them. How they prick up their ears to catch his words ! And then perhaps one of their number makes a mistake, or, more rarely, shies, or shows signs of flagging, and immediately there pours out on the astonished animal a torrent of abuse that increases and grows ever wilder and more fierce, till in sheer terror the creature throws back its shaggy head and springs for- ward with renewed energy, watching awhile the circling nagaika out of the corner of its eye. Much depends on the loquacity of the yamstchik. Some are by nature sparing in their words ; as a class, they are not prodigal of their blows. If you want to understand how far it is possible for man and beast to understand one another, take your seat beside a Siberian yamstchik over a long stage, and although you may understand of the actual words employed in the course of the strange monologue even as little as the horse itself, yet in that crooning interspersed with blessing and cursing that will rise and fall more or less during the whole interval be- tween two successive post- stations, and in the response thereto, you will see, as is rarely possible elsewhere, of what the horse is capable. The yamstchik's driving partakes of recklessness. He is sometimes so drunk that everything depends on the horses, ' The whips most commonly used have short handles, with a curry-comb attached in addition to the stout, long lash. ROBBERY. 71 which can be trusted faithfully to perform their duty in such an emergency, choosing, however, their own pace. If you are alone this is an awkward contingency, especially if it is necessary to sit on the box and sustain the driver. The gallop at which the yamstchik sets out is of necessity not maintained over the whole distance, but the fast trot into which it drops never slackens, growing, on the contrary, into an impetuous charge when a hill rises in front, and the steeper the incline the more furious is the assault. When once the eminence is gained, a halt is always made for a few minutes to recover breath. This is the moment that has been seized by highway robbers to attack the post and other travellers. And if the sides of the road are elevated and covered with a thick scrub, then it is possible to pick off every man as he sits in his tarantass waiting on his reviving horses, as has been done on more than one occasion. In descending a hill the yamstchik never shortens rein in the orthodox manner. He maintains his grasp of the ribbons at the same point, but draws them towards him, so that he is often seen sweeping down a sharp descent with either hand in the region of the corresponding ear. The majority of them wear coarse leathern gloves, as the hempen reins pull heavily on the hand. The extreme simplicity and freedom that attach to the post system are not unnatural. Thus, the first part of a 36-verst stage happened to be hilly, and we decided to start with five horses in our heavy kolyaska. After 25 versts the road became more even, and we considered that four would take us along as quickly as we wanted. We were then driving across the common (these preserves are always miles in breadth) of an intermediate village, and our yamstchik unharnessed one of the trace-horses, hobbled and turned it 72 TRAVEL IN SIBKRIA. loose, and we continued our journey. No one would touch it, — horse-flesh is too cheap in that country. At the same time the horses of each station — commonly 12 hands, and with a dark stripe running down the back — are subjected to various slight mutilations, usually of the ear, for pur- poses of identification. Further, if two parties travelling in opposite directions happen to meet on the road about half- way, the yamstchiks with their horses may change masters if mutual consent is given, and thus they save a whole stage. In a journey of any considerable length it is obvious that one had to deal with many interesting types of Jehu. The Buryats make splendid drivers, and are only excelled by the Kossaks in the Far East. But it is not the differences national so much as individual that create an impression. One of our drivers was afflicted with St Viius's dance. How his horses flew ! Another had a violent haemoptysis. Poor fellow ! his undermining cough even made his sympa- thetic charges look round with wistful eye. As a class the yamstchil's are a good set of men. Often drunk, it is true, but capable of moral endeavour even in that state. Once, when, owing to a scarcity of horses at the post - station, we were compelled to hire four peasant horses witli their master, who had had to borrow one of them, it happened that the off- horse, which was the loaned one, was not drawing well, and our driver got down to readjust the trace and breechings. Another tarantass passed us at the moment, the yamstchik whereof seized the occasion to pull up and come to our assistance. He was, however, quite tipsy, and could render little help. Our own driver, growing angry at the refractoriness of the horse, remarked to the other man that, if it did not go better now, he would simply punish it POSTHOUSES. 73 severely, and that it did not matter so much since it was borrowed. But the reeling man turned round, looked the offending brother in the face, and said to him slowly and with marked emphasis, " On that account you ouglit to take all the better care of it." The condition of the posthouses varied greatly. The stations that lay on the less frequented byroads differed Outside a posthouse. from those on the trald mainly in their smaller size and greater cleanliness. If you happened to be asleep just before arriving at one of them, it is probable that you would be rudely awakened by the pronounced rumbling that accompanies the last 3 or 4 feet of the journey. For the road outside the posthouse door is always laid with wooden planks to preserve it from being converted into a pit, and in 74 TKAVEL IN SIBERIA. the course of time this outside flooring becomes loose, and protests audibly at being run over. Two posts, painted black and white, stand on either side of the door, one of which supports a lamp. On the other is a tablet bearing the name of the station — Tidinslcaya potchtovajja stantziya (Tulinsky post-station) — followed by those of the nearest town in either direction, with the number of versts that it is distant, and beneath that the names of the nearest post-station on either side with its remoteness likewise. Inside there is little of note. The post-station is usually the largest log building in the village. The quadrangular yard, in and around which are arranged the stables and other out- houses, is enclosed by a stout stockade. Of the two rooms that look to the front, one is generally reserved by the post- master himself, and the other is devoted to the travelling public. In some cases more than one apartment may be at their disposal, but the furniture rarely exceeds a few chairs, one or more small tables, and two or three wooden benches, with an occasional lounge or old divan in some of the better houses. The small windows, that rarely light the public rooms satisfactorily, are mostly of the horizontal swinging type. And in mid-summer more than one lazy postmaster has still left in their place his double winter windows, with jars of sulphuric acid between to absorb the moisture. To one table a large folio notebook for the registry of complaints is attached by a sealed string, and it is sufficient to open this book on arrival to see with what kind of postmaster you have to deal. On the side-roads they were sometimes blank throughout. And the homelier simplicity of these less fre- quented stations was seen in the creepers planted in win- dow-pots and gracefully led by secret strings and tapes all over the ceiling, so that to pass an hour there was like par- THE traveller's BILL OF FARE. 75 taking of a pilgrim's rest in some leafy bower after the bare dull rooms of the traM post-stations. On the wall of the common room will be found litho- graphic pictures of the heads of the imperial house, of Father John of Kronstadt, whose fame has spread through- out Siberia, and occasionally of scenes from Russian life, while in a corner opposite the door is the indispensable ikon. But the traveller by preference studies a printed list of certain articles of food a prix fixe, with which the post- master or postmistress is supposed to be able to provide him. It is an appetising carte, including ryabtcliik cutlet ; but, as a matter of fact, you can count on little more than a samovar with hot water, black bread and milk, more rarely eggs, and exceptionally meat. In winter it is somewhat otherwise, for frozen blocks of shtchi, off which you chop a piece and drop it into hot water, together with black bread and the national dish — pilmeni — are your mainstay. Of many things the outward appearance is deceptive, giv- ing a really false impression of the strength and real nature of the life within, and in nothing does this come out so strongly as in the Siberian villages, through whose dreary squalid lengths the post-road creeps. At first, when one continues to drive day after day and week after week with- out remarking any sign of land-ownership other than the village settlements with their unfenced cultivated fields in close proximity, one is tempted to believe that this is a coun- try where a great Socialist ideal has been realised — where the soil belongs to the people, and where you may look in vain for the large landed proprietor. And it is only after a time that the truth dawns upon you slowly, and you see that, on the contrary, you are traversing the domains of an 76 TRAVEL IN SIBERIA. imperialist whose eastern march is the Pacitic, and on whose royal estate these villagers are but tenants. For practically all Siberia belongs to the Crown, and the village communes enjoy the use and profit of their acres, but no legal posses- sion. Hence litigation about land is unknown, and neigh- bouring villages that may have reason to differ about their rights to any particular tract, the desirableness of which is evident to both, still sometimes decide such questions in the most primitive fashion. Each of these villages in the west is strangely like its neighbour. Indeed they only differ in one respect — their linear extent ; otherwise they are all at the same stage of development. In almost every case they consist of a double row of plain single- storey ed log cottages, separated from one another by their side -yards, through the front wall of which you pass by one of three doors (commonly a large centre one for waggons, and two side ones for pedestrians) in order to gain entrance to the habitation. Around this courtyard are disposed the sheds and barns of the cottager, which provide shelter for everything from grain to poultry and horses. He makes use of very thick logs in the con- struction of his broad - eaved residence, dovetails them at the corners, beyond which they project about a foot in the two directions, and caulks them with moss, while the front wall may also be broken by the similar protruding ends of beams that compose an internal dividing wall. Dark brown or grey to the outward eye, they sometimes do not even stand squarely upon their foundations. The windows, whose frame- work is picked out in white, are commonly composed of eight square panes, of which some have the power of opening to the outside. In the humblest dwellings, fragments of glass, not sufficiently large to fill up the frames by themselves, are A SIBERIAN VILLAGE. 77 fixed between two layers of birch-bark cut to the required size. Moreover, the windows are provided with outer shutters attached to the white-painted ornamental framework, and closing flush witli the wall. Often in the yard may also be found a sunken storeroom, where the milk is kept cool in summer. The interiors of the cottages are unaccustomed to be whitewashed, although the posthouses cannot be included in this characterisation. The chimney may be built of brick and whitewashed, or an old iron tube may serve in that capacity. Often it does not exist at all to external appear- ance. Almost always you tread the bare wooden floor, which in some cases is concealed beneath a thick layer of straw or rushes. The well is a prominent feature of each village. The children play with the long pole, balanced at one end by additional blocks of wood or a stone, and watch the bucket- rope as it disappears and drags the other end to earth. But more unusual was the open recreation-space, in which were set up a wooden " horse," parallel bars, sometimes a trapeze, and a long horizontal pole for balancing feats. In the even- ing the villagers love to sit out on benches, each in the shadow of his house ; or the men talk in groups, and the women in companies discuss their little family themes. The Siberians love bright colours, and in towns and villages they indulge in them often without any regard to taste. Some of the peasant women had strength of mind sufficient to carry a green bodice over a strong purple skirt, while red and pink, or heliotropes and browns of every shade, were largely fancied. Their dress is very uniform. Outside of all is an ordinary apron ; below that a print skirt, often held up by two bands of the same material passing above the loose bodice, one over each shoulder. The men are content with a brightly-coloured 78 TKAVEL IN SIBERIA. ruhasJika, velveteen or tweed trousers, jack-boots and peak- cap, and a short pea-jacket in the cool evenings. There is little need to dilate upon the drunkenness of the Siberian folk, but from Tomsk onwards it was not once or twice merely that we passed men lying in the centre of the village road ; and often late in the evening, small groups of inebriates stumbled along the uneven track, unduly em- phasising with each loss of balance sundry snatches of their weird minor airs. The concertina is a favourite instrument : nearly every evening some one promenades a village, forcing on the inhabitants its wheezing plaint. Moreover, the door of the kabak is always the rendezvous for " the lewd fellows of the baser sort." These speedily become a wrangling group, and a strange kaleidoscopic effect is produced as the men in ruhashkas of red, pink, orange, green, blue, grey, or white move round about and in and out of one another under the influence of vodka fumes. How they vociferate ! One man contradicts all the others, who are determined to suppress him. Or see that old white-haired man as he staggers home leaning on the shoulders of his daughter, or that little girl as she trots down the village, trolling some peasant air, carelessly carrying a flask of vodka beneath her arm. Drink is the curse of Siberia. The land is very rich, and there is a royal waste of everything — of time, of space, of natural products. We have seen peasants who could afford to refuse 10s. for the hire of two troikas over a short stage. Their laziness is great. Sunday evening is usually spent in rioting and drunkenness : they rarely work on Monday. This is largely due to outward prosperity. Siberia is almost unique in consideration of the small amount of poverty within her borders ; you rarely see a beggar in a town. The land is very AT THE CLOSE OF THE DAY. 79 fruitful ; the peasants have good herds of horses and cattle ; fifteen of each are no unusual possession. It remains to be seen what effect the railway will produce upon these lethargic communities. When competition compels them to work, they will perhaps find that they have forgotten the meaning of that sublime word. As you drive through a village towards the evening, you will notice how each cottage is besieged by a small herd of horses, or cattle, or goats, peering in at the windows or lying down without, while they whisk off the flies with their tails. In the morning the villager opens the gate of his yard, and of their own account his horses and his cattle stream out and join the little bands from other cottages to march off to the pasture - land. The village commons, or the pasture - land immediately surrounding them, are carefully hedged in throughout the many miles of their circumference. Where the fence strikes the post -road a gate is set up, and in a miserable cabin by the roadside vegetates the village idiot or pauper to whom are intrusted the duties of gatekeeper. Late in the afternoon the flocks and herds return without guid- ance, commonly following some more than usually sagacious member of the fold adorned in consequence with a bell, and wait about their master's cottage till he returns from his day's labour at some other point of the compass, or if he be there already, till of his good pleasure he opens the wooden doors. And if you pass along at the right time, you will see multitudes of horses and mares attended by frisking foals, of cows with calves, and of lesser goats sauntering home- wards along the road. Then as each detachment comes op- posite its quarters it breaks off, and the diminished body, neighing and lowing and bleating, moves on. An easy- 80 TRAVEL IN SIBERIA. going company, for if any of them feel wearied they simply lie down in the middle of the thoroughfare and obstruct the passage; and when to these at other times of the day are added dogs, sheep, poultry, pigs, and children, it often seems as if all the life of the place were in the street. The peasant culture of the land is primitive but successful. The regular brown patches on the hillsides in the Far East betoken the agriculturist ; but when one passes the lonely ploughman despondently trudging behind his team of a dozen sturdy oxen, who require the constant attention of two Till Ihe i/iaster returns. youngsters continually rushing from one end of the line to the other plying their goads, it is possible to under- stand the cost. The villages on the highroad as far as Lake Baikal become poorer as one journeys towards the east. The con- tinuity of the double row of cottages is broken, in fact is lost: each man settles where he feels inclined. There is also a shrinkage in the size of the individual building. They are more often awry, and covered with damaged roofs, and the live stock that patrol the road are not present in such THE ANGARA. 81 great force. The village dogs likewise gain in ugliness : in fact it was sometimes difficult to understand where dog ended and wolf began. Life on the traJd is a most monotonous experience, and if you insist on travelling by night it may also be most tiring. For days at a time the scenery does not change : you know what you are coming to, what you may look for, except in those cases when escaped convicts prepare some little surprise. One stretch alone can be praised for its beauty — that between Irkutsk and Verkhni-Udinsk. As you leave the former town, you pass under a wooden archway over which is inscribed in great gilt letters, " Doroga k' Velikomu Okeanu" ("Eoad to the Great Ocean" — i.e., the Pacific). The distance to Verkhni-Udinsk is only 287 versts, but in that short space you encounter an unwonted diversity of surroundings. The road at first follows the valley of the Angara, skirting its right bank, till it reaches the shores of Lake Baikal, out of which this remarkable river falls. The Angara is probably the swiftest river in the world, and its stony bed can be descried through many fathoms of its translucent flood. In the height of summer its temperature is about 10° C. at the surface, and 4° C. below the surface in mid-stream ; hence you will hunt in vain for a bathing-box upon its banks at Irkutsk. It does not commence to freeze until the beginning of January. They also say that in its case the anchor or ground ice is the first to form. Lastly, owing to the unusual season at which it freezes, its floods are mistimed, and occur not in the spring but in early winter, when all the other rivers are frost-bound. Between Irkutsk and Lake Baikal the valley of the Angara is richly clothed with larch, spruce, and birch, while the left F 82 TRAVEL IN SIBERIA. bank is consistentl}' higher than the right. Many islands Hoat on the bosom of the rapid current, some of which are wooded, while others are low and treeless, looking like green blotches on the surface of the water. In the neighbourhood of Irkutsk, villages line either bank at intervals ; but as the left bank rises up more steeply, though clad with birch, pine, and spruce even to the water's edge at places, the human habitations tend to restrict themselves to the other. As we approach the lake the lower levels of the right bank dis- appear, the trees shrink in size, and on the opposite shore ravines are cut back into the hills which now close up on the stream. To their summits and higher reaches the trees grad- ually retreat, no longer brushing the water as it rushes by, while cliffs and promontories stand out boldly into the current. At the same time the valley widens appreciably till it is more than a mile in breadth. We turn a corner, and beneath us are the rapids, the throes of the river's birth, beyond which expands the peaceful surface of Baikal. The cool limpid water seems to hesitate a moment before it leaves the lake, then suddenly makes a fierce dash, tumbles wildly over the rapids, and settles down upon its quiet journey to the Polar Sea. Just at the point where the Angara issues out of Baikal, a curious curved belt of rock extends almost right across the bed of the river, now rising close up to the surface, now breaking through it, especially at the famous Shamanski Stone. The Buryats will tell you how an old Shaman planted this natural monument there in times gone by, and that on it live the ongoni or heavenly spirits who reveal themselves through the Shamans. It towers in two grey peaks, around which circle some gulls. On one side of it are the rapids, on the other the placid lake. The broken water enables you to trace distinctly the LAKP] BAIKAL. 83 direction of the ledge of rock over which the water pours. Steamers pass it by hugging the left bank, where it is broken. The great dam keeps back the flood, so that practically all the water that descends flows over the top of it, and men say that if it were blown up with dynamite, Irkutsk and the other places in the valley down below would all be carried away. The road skirts the shore of the lake, upon which the hills so crowd that, even if it was desired, there is no other possible form for a village to assume than a long thin double line of cottages, with somewhat restricted road-space between. Such is the little settlement of Listvinitchnaya, whence one takes passage for the other side. Lake Baikal is no less remarkable than the river to which it gives birth. Spoken of locally by Eussians and Mongolians alike as the Holy Sea, it is the deepest known fresh-water lake. The name Baikal probably stands for Baikul, which by interpretation means the Eich Sea, having reference to the abundance of life inhabiting it. Nyanza, Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Tanganyika alone surpass it in size. Six-and- sixty times the size of Lake Geneva, it extends throughout its length of nearly 420 miles, curving, though in no very pronounced fashion, from north-east to south-west. Its breadth varies from 10 to 60 miles. Its shore-line falls little short of 1200 miles, and the surface of its transparent deep blue waters exceeds 14,500 square miles. It has a distinct ebb and flow apart from all changes of level directly due to the earth tremors of volcanic origin that add to the awesome- ness of the lake. The average depth is rarely less than 819 feet. But at parts the bottom has been touched only at 4500 feet; one investigator avers to have sounded 4900 feet of depth ; the natives believe it to be bottomless. Situated 1561 feet above the level of the sea, it is divided, as it were, into 84 THAVEL IN SIBERIA. a northern and a southern part known as the Little and Great Baikal respectively, from the circumstance that Holy Cape on the eastern shore and Olkhon Island on the west stretch out in some degree to meet one another. A sub- merged ridge running parallel to the Irkutsk and Trans- Baikalian coasts, above which the water is at places not more than twenty-eight fathoms deep, is more important geologically, as suggesting that the lake originally consisted of two longitudinal cavities. The supremely picturesque shores, which often take the form of high granite cliffs rising abruptly from the water's edge, apparently do not shelter the lake from the two prevailing winds, which, blowing from the north-east and from the south-west, can lash the erst peaceful surface till it becomes rampant, and regular billows, a fathom and a half in height, effectually forbid all steam- boat passage. The surface temperature of the water does not alter more than 10° C. ; at the bottom it registers 3'5° C. The lake is frozen by December, when the sledge traffic is instituted, and the ice breaks up again by May. Desolate, buried among ravine-cut hills, hemmed in by undaunted cliffs, ravaged by winter tempests, shrouded by impervious fogs due to intense evaporation, Baikal has inspired the native mind with dread since earliest days. Other-world beings live in its depths ; the hills that circle it are the abode of spirits. A small shrine stands on the pier at Listvinitchnaya, where prayer is made by many a voyager : there are those who still liing money and bread into its waters to propitiate the unknown rulers. On the far south-western side of the lake the waters do not approach so closely to the foot of the hills, which are thickly covered with a dark-green mantle of young spruce, spotted with silver birch. And above this recent growth THE LAND OK THE BURYATS. 85 stretch the tall, grey, lifeless trunks of cedar, larch, and pine, sad memorials of bygone forest-fires. The road, which is not of the same quality as those in the west, skirts the edge of the lake for about 40 versts, and in consequence abounds in sharp rises and falls. As we advance, the wealth of vegeta- tion increases, till it sometimes seems as if we were in the taiga once again. Willows, aspen, and cinnamon firs join forces with the trees already mentioned, and the strong undergrowth would stifle him who attempted to pierce its jealous density. At length we leave the pebbly beach upon which the wavelets gently break, and follow the road as it bends sharply inland towards the hills that, retreating from the lake-side, stretch range upon range, peak upon peak, in an easterly direction as far as the eye can see. So a plain spreads out on our left, which may have been under water at some remote period, for it is certain that the Baikal of to-day lies in a diminished basin. We have now fairly entered the country of the Buryats, and the Government notices, affixed to the telegraph-poles, are printed in their tongue as well as in Eussian. The prin- cipal wayside flower is the pink willow-herb, which covers whole areas of ground, occasionally giving place to a red Turk's-cap lily ; but in the open a long bent has choked off almost everything except where copses of very young birch have sprung up. We pass the post-station of Kabanskaya. It proclaims itself as being 6091 versts from St Petersburg, 5487 from Moscow, 536 from Tchita, and 204 from Irkutsk — sufficiently out of the world for most purposes. A village through which we drive shortly after exhibits a certain fresh- ness and tidiness that were not too noticeable west of the Baikal. The dwellings are at least square on their founda- tions, if lacking somewhat in symmetry of arrangement; 86 TRAVEL IN SIBERIA. while the church, whose white plastered walls are surmounted by a steel-grey roof set with gilt stars, has evidently been the original nucleus of the community. To-day that position is held throughout Siberian villages in another sense by the wine-shop. It is a public holiday, being the completion of a fast, and every one is in his best attire. The greater seri- ousness of Trans-Baikalian village life is evidenced even by the paling that fences round the common. It is a carefully constructed ridge of wicker-work done with birch-branches, and well calculated to prevent horses and cattle from stray- ing. The individual habitations with their pent-houses stand absolutely detached, but a lower stockade surrounding the whole also helps to convey the impression of a freer, easier existence. Towards the outskirts of the village the cottages dwindle into huts. When we next awoke of a morning we had entered the valley of the Selenga. It is possible to go from Irkutsk to Verkhni-Udinsk by boat, as this river falls into Baikal. At first the valley is narrow, partaking almost of the nature of a ravine, on the left side of which the road is cut. The trees, similar to types already met, attain no height ; an alpine poppy of delicate yellow has usurped the roadside. The morning air is fresh, and immediately below us is the swirl of the Selenga. Trans-Baikalia is a fair land of ever- lasting hills clothed with the social pine, and dark sequestered valleys inhabited by a people of soft graces and pleasant charms, who live alongside of their Buryat neighbours in a state of peaceful amity. We drove up to a post-station in this neighbourhood that lay high on an escarpment in the lea of the last summit, with no attendant village. Its form was that of a little whitewashed building with the usual offices, in which the VERKHNI-UDINSK. 87 sturdy ponies snatch their too short rest before they again unfalteringly convey some other Trans-Baikalian traveller over a stage of his route. On the left of the entrance was the common room, with tlie kontora near by, while on the right were the two rooms of the liveried postmaster. And at the far end of the short passage, curled up on a rude bench, was the little postmistress of some sixteen summers, with the fair hair and blue eyes that are no rarity here, in tasteful bright red gown, set off by a pretty white pattern, diligently reading some Eussian tale — a peasant girl amid her moun- tains. When we came out again a dun falcon wheeled in ever narrowing circles around the lip of the crag that over- hung the post-station ; but marking as yet nothing for his cruel talons, he soared aloft into the realms of space. When we passed that way again the postmaster's little daughter was dead. After a time the track descends to the level of the river, but we take our line rather by the four telegraph-wires sup- ported on lanky tripods. The valley begins to open out, the hills decrease in size, and their thick wooding tends to disappear. Soon we emerge on the river-plain, and now that the directive influence of the hills no longer makes itself felt, the Selenga, flowing due north at this point, continually edges eastward, leaving behind it a level willow-covered waste. In a hollow on the right bank of the river Verkhni- Udinsk is cosily settled, somewhat like Krasnoyarsk. To the north rise, shoulder to shoulder, the grey hills, whose granitic composition shows out at many an escarpment. In consequence, especially towards the summit, the pine-trees can be counted individually, and lend the hills the appear- ance of couchant monsters with bristles erect, jealously guarding the town sleeping below. Brave are these wind- 88 TRAVEL IN SIBERIA. sown pines with a strong grip of life, maintaining a foothold and finding the means of existence in most unlikely ground, as they wind their roots around the lichen-covered rocks. The first hint of the town is given by four spires that seem to start out of the sandy soil ; and a little later one notices a large edifice consisting of a central building with two wings, removed at some distance from the town, on a slope facing the south. Its white plastered walls, bright red roof, and light encircling wall shine out gloriously from the dark pine-trees, amidst which it is set. Elsewhere you would take it for a hydropathic : here it happens to be the prison. It would not be difficult to sum up in a sentence the vari- ous parties that one meets upon the road — the post, peasants, fellow-travellers, hrodyagi, the military trains, and, most for- midable but also most interesting, the caravans of merchandise. It is not an uncommon thing for a heavy mist to descend upon the steppe towards evening, so that it seems to be a wonder- ful matter how the yamstchiks know their way. Then a dull red glow emerges out of the gloom, ever increasing in bright- ness, and the tired traveller thinks that now at last he is within sight of the lamp that is by night lit outside the post- station. But as he approaches the expanding blaze, it gradu- ally descends to the level of the earth, till at one moment it seems as if he were going to be driven right into the midst of it. And he who looked for the welcome door of some post-station is met by what appears to be a serried circle of pikes. These resolve themselves, however, into the shafts sup- ported on their clugas, of a multitude of carts that are drawn up in a ring round a roaring fire, beside which squats a pic- turesque group of strange humanity, for the drivers of the caravans are men of no gentle type. The still night air is disturbed by their loud coarse cries and exclamations as they A CARAVAN OF MERCHANDISE. 89 while away the night in mirth and drunkenness, by which they are left in a state of torpidity throughout the day. And at intervals a milder response pierces the mist from the tink- ling bells of their hobbled horses. The overland tea-trade from China through Kiakhta is too well known to demand more than the mere mention. Add to this the fact that a large part of the supplies of each Siberian town has to be conveyed thither overland by horse, if the railway has not yet reached them, and it is easy to picture to oneself the need for the long caravans of from ten to one hundred and fifty carts of tea and other merchandise that continually pass along the great highroad. The material units of which these serpentine bodies are built up are of the simplest. The broad square wooden axle of the cart is only thinned down where it enters the bushed nave of the bulky wheel. The body of the cart consists of two stout poles, the anterior halves of which serve as the shafts, while behind they are connected together by a square beam, from beneath which project two pair of wooden teeth holding the axle between them like a vice. On the top of all this lies little else than a light shallow sparred frame. The freight is either a cubical tea-chest covered with sacking, a cask, or some amorphous mass of ware. The distance that these cara- vans have to go is not so much evidenced by the leisurely pace at which the procession moves, nor even by the tired appearance of the horses, nor yet by the rude canopy of verdant birch-branches, skins, or coarse cloth stretched over hoops and erected on every seventh cart, beneath which the captain over seven lies fast asleep, as by the ugly black grease-bucket that hangs from the shaft, and by the two or three ambulance-carts bringing up the rear, on which are piled spare axles and duplicate wheels. The chief, armed 90 TKAVEL IN SIBERIA. with a couple of revolvers, may be seen riding on horseback up and down the length of the cortdge to ascertain that the men are doing nothing worse than snoozing. From the back of each cart swings a bag of hay, so that when the caravan halts the horses can feed at pleasure with no trouble to the drivers. One often saw foals gambolling alongside of their mothers, enjoying a too brief freedom. A military caravan could be distinguished by a red flag flying from the leading cart, if by nothing else. The drivers employed on these caravans are as wild and fierce as the hrodyagi who infest the woods. One dark night a portmanteau of books, sent out by a philanthropist whose interest is in certain schools where the children of prisoners are educated, was cut oft' the back of our holyaslm. The discovery was only made at the next post-station, and as by a chance the ispravnik of the district happened to be in the village at that time, the circumstance was reported to him, although nothing was expected to come of it. Later on, after several weeks, my companion received a telegram to say that the books and portmanteau had been found, and were being forwarded. It seems that the robbers had not found the literature sufficiently interesting, and left the portmanteau by the wayside. Shortly after, in the grey morning, a caravan passed along, and the greedy drivers rushed forward on seeing the abandoned valise, thinking to have gained some great prize. Those who were farther back in the caravan caught up the cry and joined in the scramble, being anxious not to lose their share of the spoil. Meanwhile the ever-watchful highwaymen took in the whole situation and carefully lightened the last cart in the caravan of its merchandise, which they bore hastily away into the depths of the forest ; and as the lazy disappointed drivers A DANGEROUS STRETCH. 91 simply stood about until their respective carts came up to them, it was some time before they learned what had taken place. They then found that they had lost their bearings, which made it useless for them to think of recovering the stolen goods. Thus were the biters bitten, and the caravan arrived at the next village in charge of sadder if not wiser men. In time past a tax was laid upon this overland trade, to be devoted to keeping the road to Irkutsk in good repair. But in Trans-Baikalia the same standard of excellence is not main- tained : indeed in the more out-of-the-way districts the road frequently disappears altogether. As late as the summer of 1896, one stretch — between Kansk and Nijni-Udinsk — was still considered dangerous to pass at night. Eobbery was no unusual occurrence, although assaults of a more serious nature become less frequent. But you will notice more than one wooden cross, marking a spot where the post was attacked and plundered. One is inclined to believe that the navvies employed upon the railway — a heterogeneous lawless mass of humanity — are responsible for some of the more recent escapades. They live close to the road, so that all who pass along are practically at their mercy. The lesser mishaps that occasionally befall one serve to lend piquancy to this delightful mode of travel. It was no uncommon thing for a young inexperienced yamstchih in charge of our quintet to misjudge his distance when driving somewhat on one side of the road with the laudable inten- tion of avoiding the greatest number of ruts, with the result that the off-horse, considering that it would do just as well to run outside a telegraph-post, suddenly found itself con- strained to describe a complete somersault. Subjected to this violent strain, the cross -reins would snap, when the 92 TRAVEL IN SIBERIA. animal was free to recover from its discomposure, wondering liow it ever had succeeded so well in taking the place of the acrobat for once at a rural circus show. One had not to be put about because sheet-lightning in the middle of the night so disconcerted another team that they swerved off the road, and dragged the carriage vehemently down a small embankment (we were ascending a valley), although it refused to upset. Still nothing would move that kolyaska. It would not ev^en yield to the entreaties of the troika harnessed to the hind axle, in the hope that it would surely return by the way it had descended. The only amusement one got out of the situation was in endeavouring to persuade the yamstehiJc and the armed guard on the box that they had both been fast asleep. When morning came — and it does so early about mid-time of the summer in these far lands — we saw how one wheel had been caught in a hole, and by means of the leverage supplied by a young branch -stript pine the vehicle was released from its embarrassment. In descending any very steep declivity a shoe-drag was requisitioned, which was secured to the wheel by a long iron pin. On one occasion the rope to which the shoe- drag is attached snapped towards the bottom of a heavy slope, and the freed wheel flew round so violently with the clog affixed that the iron pin succeeded in tearing a great hole in the side of the carriage before its mad progress was checked. It was noteworthy that all these little in- cidents occurred east of Lake Baikal, where also, when attempting to gain the highroad after a detour to the silver mines of Nertchinsk, we were landed in the most awkward predicament of all as the sequel of many days of rain. We had set off at 4 x.^i. from a certain post-station, but after making some 4 or 5 versts the horses stuck in the heavy A FRESH START. 93 sodden ground, and refused to go farther. Accordingly the yamstckik left us in the rain to ride back to the village on one of his team for more horses. He sent out an older and more experienced driver in his place, and by the aid of an additional horse we reached the next post-station at 1 P.M. instead of at 7 a.m. After a hasty meal we started off' again with five horses, but the difficult nature of the drive soon became apparent. The track lay up the side of a broad River I/igoda, Eastern Siberia. valley, but at times descended so perilously near the small stream which graced it that at certain points the overflow had found it advantageous to make use of the artificial course. In consequence, for a considerable distance, we not only drove up a gentle incline, but also against a somewhat strong current of water, which, however, never was more than a foot and a half in depth. Later on, we crossed the stream by a wooden bridge that was beginning to break up. Gradu- ally the number of versts between us and the village mounted 94 TRAVEL IN SIBERIA. Up, and what with driving through rivulets and jerking across open conduits whose overarching trunks had been carried away by the rising water, we were not allowed to feel the tedium of the journey. The spruce- and birch-clad valley after several versts opened into another of still greater size, scoured by a correspondingly more powerful stream, and the flood formed by the union of the two swept turbid and reckless down the main valley. The road traversed this river by a bridge, but so soon as the yavistchik saw the swollen tide, he expressed his conviction that we should find no bridge standing. The nature of the surroundings had made it necessary to lead the road across the tributary which we had accompanied so long before we gained the bridge over the united streams. The small corduroy still held its ground although the water was washing its under surface, and, as we dashed over, welled up between the planks. The yamstcliik's worst fears were realised, for before we reached the second bridge that spanned the combined flow, we could see the hobbled horses and the carts of a caravan drawn up by the bank. The bridge had been carried away. The caravan- drivers who had complacently camped out in the soaking marshy ground by the river-side, content to wait till the waters subsided when it would be possible to begin the work of reconstruction, averred that the bridge over a third river ahead had likewise been floated away, and that a luckless tarantass had been caught between the two. They expected to wait three days if the rain held off. We preferred to return 26 versts to the village, where the ataman was interviewed, and promised to send men in the morning to see what could be done, if there was no more rain. Such are the uncertainties of Siberian travel, — post, prisoners, and travellers being treated alike by the impartial weather. THE REPAIR OF THE BRIDGE. 95 Two mornings later we set out to retrace for the third time the now familiar versts, for a man had come to the village reporting that two of the bridges had been repaired, and that the third would probably be ready by the time we reached it. We quickly gained the point where a temporary structure had been hastily thrown across the river, which did not seem to have abated much since we turned back from it two days before, and were nearing the second bridge when we met a troop of about thirty men on horseback, led by the ataman. They were the men of the village whom he had led out to the repair of the bridges that were within his domain. Most of the riders were barefooted, and each carried over a shoulder an axe or saw, while with the other hand he controlled his steed, from which two or three layers of coarse felt at the most separated him. Some had harnessed their horses to little two-wheeled runners on which trees had been drag-sjed down to the water's edge. We drove on, but still the clouds maintained their leaden hue, and it looked as if further rain might fall any moment. The heavy road still followed the valley, on the sides of which certain regular brown patches showed where ground had been reclaimed by industrious labourers from the now infrequent larch and birch that gave the slopes the appearance with which one is familiar from Chinese pictures of their own scenery. And although one might have been able to count the individual trees upon the crests, those slopes that faced the south-east were bare under the influence of the prevailing wind. Progress was greatly retarded, because the streamlets that drained the right side of the valley had perforce to cross the road to carry their tribute to the main torrent. There was a time when they had been kept under control, but the long-continued rains had enabled them to burst throu2,h the underground channel 9G TllAVEL IN SIBERIA. that had been constructed to contain them, the beams of which could often be seen lying a little below tlie road, and since the playful water had seized the opportunity to widen the original conduit, we were more than once confronted by a miniature ravine three feet across and as many deep, making it the better policy to leave the road at that point, and try to go round the trench, even at the risk of sinking in the marshy ground. The third bridge, of which we have already spoken, spanned another tributary to the main stream, but had been completely broken up and swept away, giving place to a highly vibratory successor. "We were now within sight of the next village, or rather of its surrounding wattled hedge which rose out of water, and from which we were still separated by gullies like those we have described. The state of matters was such as to warrant the presence of the two or three men of the village who were waiting there on horseback outside the gate, prepared to give assistance. Across the first, which was comparatively shallow, the kolyaslm was dragged with the help of a sixth horse, and the second was circumvented. Two of the men offered to ride ahead of us and show us the way, as most of the village and its pasture-land were under water, being unfortunately situated in the centre of the valley not so far above the normal level of the Unda. Hence, whenever the river rose to any considerable extent the result was widespread flooding. During the height of the recent storm half of the village had been under water ; a bridge over a small tributary was gone, and the flood areas, which comprised many acres, were not easily forded in the kohjaska, owing to the varying depth of the water. In the middle of the village a stream, that drained the immense volume of water that had accumulated in the low grounds A DIVIDED VILLAGE. 97 around, cut the road at right angles, having a breadth of at least fifteen feet, and a depth such that a man hanging on with extended arms to a long telegraph-pole thrown across it could not touch the bottom with his feet. The village was thus completely divided in two, and there had been a cessation of all serious communication for several days. The horses were taken out of the holyaska and made to swim : a couple of poles were then laid over the torrent, the carriage-axles rested on them, when it was pushed and dragged across. It was a curious sight to see some of the men in their Kossak caps, linen shirt, and drawers, up to the waist in water, as they sought with much shouting and gesticulation to get under the carriage and push it with one arm, while they held on to a pole with tlie other. At the post-station we learned that it would be useless to attempt to reach the station beyond by the main road which lay down the valley ; but finding that there was an alternative route over the hills, we decided to pursue it. The river was negotiated by means of a forlorn ferry-boat, which could only take the carriage on the first trip in addition to the rowers. It was pulled up stream by a rope from the shore for a considerable distance, and then set free, when by the conjoint efforts of a man with a long steering - oar, four others pulling at two small stout oars, and the current, the boat was moored to the other side about a quarter of a mile farther down the river. The rain had commenced again to fall, and the journey over the hills was slow ; but at length we arrived, got fresh horses and men, and once again set out. We had now changed our direction, and were ascending the left bank of another still larger river, of which we could only catch occasional glimpses through a thick fringe of G 98 TRAVEL IN SIBEKIA. willows whose roots were too well watered. The sur- rounding country was bare, and the road skirted the ancient bank of the river that rose several tens of feet in height like a wall on our right, covered sometimes with coarse grass. But now the river was making a supreme effort to recover its former kingdom, and to follow the road entailed driving slowly through a sheet of water that more than once covered the axle-trees. About 10 p.m. we had made 28 versts, and were once again on the confines of a village. We drove through the gate, but the yamstcJdk's management of his team became increasingly careful, as we neared the great flood which, with its overflowed banks, lay between us and the as yet concealed post-station. At one point the current seemed to take a bend round a grassy promontory, out on to which we drove, only to discover that the swift black stream that swirled past in front of us simply represented part of the flood area with a breadth of at least 150 yards, with evidence of a shallow half-way across where the surface of the water was broken. Our place of vantage was then seen to be nothing more than a little rising ground in the lowlands by the river, and already in the possession of the post-waggon and its armed guard. They had waited there for several hours fearing to cross. When one regarded the immense volume of water as it rolled noiselessly by, dark, dull, stupendous, and, to all appearance, some twenty feet in depth, it seemed madness to attempt to cross. One could discern the unsteady lights of some human habitations about eight versts up the river, and we understood that there was a hamlet not more than seven versts away, but the stars seemed nearer. It was now past midnight, and the moon, which had shone FORDING THE RIVER. 99 for a while, disappeared behind some heavy clouds, which were spasmodically illuminated by flashes of sheet - light- ning, while the mutterings of thunder in the distance be- tokened a renewal of the storm. Some of the men tried to light a fire on the damp grass, and the course of action was debated. By a majority it was resolved that we should at least make an attempt to ford the stream, which was prob- ably by no means so dangerous as it looked. Accordingly our driver was despatched post-haste to the nearest point to seek assistance, and to request the presence of the ataman and others to direct us in our endeavour. He returned after an hour, and was soon followed by the ataman and some of his fellow-villagers on horseback. The clouds crept off the face of the moon, and the storm passed away to the south ; but the sheet-lightning, playing at three points of the com- pass, served to show with what energy Jupiter Pluvius was still engaged not so very far away. The ataman suggested a certain line for us to take, and then the post, which in this remote region consisted of a single light tarantass, prepared to show the way. Lashing his horses, and shouting in the wild Siberian fashion, the yamstchik entered the deeps at a gallop, which was speedily checked to a slow walk, as the water rushed over the forewheels, and wellnigh covered the hind-wheels, while the horses battled with the current for a footing. At last he reached the place about 75 yards out, where the current did not run so fiercely, and paused a moment to let his team recover breath before they made their plunge into the farther broader flood, which, when they had entered, they were straightway lost to sight in the darkness. It was now our turn. The kolyaska was taken back some distance from the edge, the quintet were flogged to the charg- 100 THAVEL IN SIBERIA. ing point, and frantically jerked the ponderous vehicle into the tide. The waters rose and swirled around the body of the carriage, and gurgled through the wheels until they were wellnigh overwhelmed, and it almost seemed as if we must shortly float. But they began to retreat, and the rim of the fore wheels just showed above the inky surface, when suddenly — what is that furious lashing of the whip ? The driver stands upright and hits out as hard as he can at the horses floundering in the water — so hard as to lose his balance and collapse upon the box. We have stuck : one of the team is down. In vain the yamstchik attempts to make it rise : so he steps down into the stream, which conceals his thighs, and going round to the horse — the outside left of the troihc — brings it to its feet. Then he resumes his seat, and flings about his arms, his legs, his whip, yelling meanwhile at the pitch of his voice, but all to no purpose. The ataman then harnesses his extra horse, and there is a mighty troubling of the waters, but with as little result. The only thing that remains to be done is to abandon our vessel. So two of these sturdy Siberian ponies were led up to the side of the carriage, and we mounted their wet backs. My friend went off at once, and the ataman rode in front of him to pick his path. I remained behind for a moment to arrange some bags ; the five men also stayed to see what could be done for the halting conveyance ; then I left them. What a curious predicament ! Four figures splashing onwards 50 yards ahead. The dark bank just visible opposite in the light of the kindly moon. Above, a damp, raw atmosphere ; below, a cold, black stream flowing so soft, so full, so strong ; between, the damp body of a sturdy pony whose only trap- ping was a leathern bridle. How painfully slow were its steps, with a pause between each as if the creature were THROUGH THE FLOOD. 101 meditating where next to plant its foot, and could see through the thick waters where the best bottom lay. It took me 20 yards from the kohjasha, continually prodded with the heel of an unkind boot. Then it wanted to turn round and see how far off it had got from its fellows ; evi- dently it did not like this sort of work. But we had now gained the shallow only to forge ahead into the deeper part beyond. Then we were startled by a cry and the sound of a splash, but the animal still moved on. It certainly was deeper now. The water crept above one's boots, and slowly ascended the scale of buttons on one's leggings. The pony become more anxious, and insisted on lengthening the breath- ing-spaces between each step. Still the water rose. It seemed every moment as if it must swim. But when the tide had reached the level of one's knees, and the creature's belly was well in the water, the flood began to retreat, and each suc- ceeding pace raised one higher out of it. Soon we were beside our companion, who was eager to tell how the sound- ing ataman failed to reach the limit of a certain pool and disappeared therein with his horse, only to come up again a few yards below, while his follower was shown one line at least that it would be well to avoid. Thereafter we crossed another intervening tongue of land, and came to the river proper, from the far side of which, in response to long-continued calls, the ferry-boat put off; but inasmuch as it was nothing more than a simple rowing-boat, the same precautions were necessary as before, and we went over in detachments. About that time also the pleasing sound of tinkling bells broke on us from the rear, and soon the men came up with the kolyasha, which, after being relieved of the weight of its four occupants, had been dis- lodged with the help of seven horses. Four versts still 102 TRAVEL IN SIBERIA. separated us from the post-station, into the court of which we drove at 3 a.m. cokl and wet, and after an hour's halt were again en route for Nertchinsk. There is nothing unusual in these incidents ; they may be the lot of any one who sets out on this trans-Siberian drive. The only pity is that the advancing railway lessens more and more the chance of such entertainment. Several methods of ferrying the rivers are still in vogue. Of these mention has already been made of the horse-driven and the oar-propelled boat. The most common type is the Pendulum ferry-boat 07i the Nertcha. pendulum or " swing " ferry-boat, which takes advantage of the current in performing its passage. Again the required size of platform is only gained by lashing two hulks together. A rope, attached to the stern, is then led over the cross- bars that join each of a couple of pairs of upright poles, two of which are set up towards the bow and two near the stern, and thence carried over a series of free-swinging boats to the last of the line, which is anchored in mid-stream. The helm is put down and the current does the rest. Some of the smaller streams were spanned by a cable, along which, A KIVER VOYAGE. 103 by the help of a wheel, the ferry-boat was worked by manual labour. It is, however, when one traverses these rivers in their length that the experience tends to become wearisome. Siberia has immense waterways at its command, but per- haps in no other country are they so little developed. The main route of other days into the country was by water from Tinmen to Tomsk, but the speedier railway is changing this relation, although the cheaper cost of river-travel will still enable it to command a certain amount of custom apart from mere traffic in merchandise. . Reference has already been made to the Amur in this capacity, and the Angara has served as another type of the navigable river. But it is when gliding down the Ob or up the Irtish, hemmed in by grievous wastes, that one gains a true idea of Siberian river-travel. Of this more will be said later in its direct bearings on the convicts, for this particular route demands more than a passing reference, even if it be at the expense of partially repeating what has been so often told before. In journeying, for example, from Tomsk to Tinmen, one first descends the river Tom. Its banks are by no means high though thickly wooded, yet even on this little stream one was impressed with the energy that characterises the laudable attempts directed to make and keep it navigable. Dredgers are almost constantly at work deepening the river- bed, while on a little island in mid-stream a hut could be detected, over which fluttered the flag of the Department of Ways and Communications, and a shallow skiff was moored to the last of a series of trim wooden steps that led up the steep bank, in evident convenience for some lonely watch- man. 104 TRAVEL IN SIBEKIA. The Ob is one of those magnificent waterways that have done so much for Siberia. At any one point it gives one rather the impression of a great lake, owing to its exceeding breadth. When the wind blows from the north it is im- possible to detect tlie strong current flowing quietly, steadily, voluminously to the sea beneath the great brown surface billows that look as if they were prepared to roll back to the foot of the Altai Mountains themselves. This is the battle of the wind and of the water, in which the former seems to conquer; but, nevertheless, the river silently obeys the law of its being, which things are an allegory. But when some fixed object, such as one of the myriad buoys or warn- ing-posts, breaks the semblance of calm, then it is that one appreciates the marked velocity of the flow that carries every- thing on its broad bosom to Arctic realms. Look towards the shore, that is separated from you by yards of turbid stream, — a bank some 15 feet in height, built up of sandy strata gnawed away in the form of a rude giant staircase of colossal breadth descending to the water's edge, whose half- dozen steps are strewn with trees that have slid down from the higher level, and lie in great disorder just as they fell. Some of them rest with their roots in the water, others are in an earlier stage of ruin, their nether parts exposed and bare where the soil, like all that disappearing shore, has been licked off from around their feet. The top step is hidden by a hairy covering of long reedy grass, from which emerge the trees and shrubs. The banks rarely attain to any height, 12 or 15 feet sometimes screen the beyond, but at other times sandy fiat expanses remain in view until they disappear into the taig(( or a haze on the horizon. Across the water there may be a similar growth ; more probably in the fore- ground the eye will be attracted by a fair expanse of yellow THE BANKS OF THE OB. 105 sand, and so the two constantly change from one side to the other with the direction of the stream. Occasionally, where the water is deep close up to the river-brink, one has before one the various strata of sandy deposit in good geological section. Sometimes the banks are cloaked over long dis- tances with stately trees— aspen and other poplars, now and again relieved by willows ; and even the low willow clothing wears out in time and is replaced by a fir-wood, green to 9 >7^«^^' '.*ifc?r^ Fallen frees on the banks of the Ob. appearance, but when you look into it, black as night. But more often between the trees and the sandy shore lie narrow strips, now of shrubby undergrowth, now of rich grass on which the cattle of the neighbouring village feed daintily. The islands, that seem to float silently past us, are likewise tree-girt, and thus distinctly proclaim their origin. The breadth of the river is borne in upon us as we gaze ahead and are baffled in trying to determine whether the next bend will be to right or left, for there meets the eye the similitude lOG TRAVEL IN SIBERIA. of an expansive lake skirted by a strip of yellow sand, whose breadth is as inconstant as the flinty particles composing it ; and above it all the azure and the white clouds. Very rarely we steam past some settlement spreading along the bank. Nets hung out to dry on poles advertise the staple industry. The boats are moored to the shore — long craft with considerable beam and far-projecting prows. The larger ones are propelled by half-a-dozen men seated at broad-bladed oars, which tliey pull with no regard to time, while the helmsman stands upright, and with a steering-oar attempts a little sculling on his own account. Sometimes we see individuals fishing with a line out of a smaller skiff, who, when they have caught a sufficiency, paddle homewards up-stream, keeping close to the edge so as to avoid the strength of the current. To take a heavy boat against the stream, horses are employed : they walk along the sand, or even, as in the case of a lumbering barge that was being urged against the current on the Angara at a point consider- ably below Irkutsk, the team of thirteen that dragged it with difficulty had each its rider, and was up to the knees in water. Sometimes the villages that lurked somewhere behind the halting-stations are visible from the steamer's deck, but it is impossible to see anything, e.g., of Narim unless one scrambles up the bank, when the first erection that meets the eye is a booth at which the second-class passengers renew their straitened commissariat. Two Tunguses hurry along the shore, bending under the weight of as many large sturgeon. The noble ganoids are still in life, and vigorously flap their tails, to the discomfort of the porters. A miserable offer of 12 rubles for one of them is refused by the would-be vendors, who maintain that they know where they can at least get 14 rubles apiece. SUXSET ON THE OB. 107 Truly these waterways are splendid. Who first rode upon them ? What must have been the coup d'ceil when on the greater Ob of bygone centuries mammoths resorted in com- panies to drink, and wakened these quiet desolate banks with their wild trumpetings ; when out of the thick undergrowth that clad the river's bank sneaked some poor savage in pur- suit of a young member of the herd, greedily desirous to win the luscious marrow of his bones. And since these times the Ob has still run on : run past the slower procession of life that thronged its sides or sought protection in its flood, — run past them all to bury its sorrows and its joys in the profound abysses of the Polar Sea. Its sorrows, for is there not the lengthy period when its activity is greatly checked by the cruel frost's strong fetter ? its joys, when, the brief summer through, it rolls for ever north on its long inland voyage. The sunsets on the Ob are gorgeous, especially if the steamer happens to be traversing a south-westerly bend towards evening. The wind has fallen, and the glassy surface of the stream is only broken by a gentle ripple. Two flocks of wild duck are paddling hastily ahead, casting behind them timid glances ; four seagulls wheel about the mast. Otherwise there is a strange absence of animal life — out of the water. The only sound comes from the advancing steamer as it cleaves the water. A wooded promontory seems to jut out into the river; it is only the inside of a sharp curve, but for a moment we go due west. Each bank is differently wooded — birch to the left, fir on the right. In the west hang no clouds, but in the zenith a few flecks dot the expanse. Gradually the birches are tinged with yellow, and the dark conifers look darker by reason of the strong light that shines behind them. On either side of the sun's 108 TRAVEL IN SIBERIA. couch a glorious blend of pink and gold tints the sky. Overhead each fleecy speck is bathed in a delicate purple. The brilliant orb sinks slowly behind the fir-trees, and then his rays glint through their topmost branches to strike the upper reaches of the opposing birches. But gradually they fail to penetrate as the sun disappears, and when we round the promontory he is gone ; the screaming wild duck follow him, and we are alone. Alone on that great silent mass of r-c ■■ .S////sc-f o// Ihf Oh. water that yet moves ever quietly onward in fulfilment of its destiny ! Alone, surrounded by forests that have never as yet resounded to the foot of man ! Alone in the depths of Asia ! Follow the Ob to the Polar Sea. Ah, there is desolation ! And even at that moment we are skirting banks clad with lithe birches that stood out on the promontory, a windy wall; for their branches have grown in the direction of the prevailing breeze, like subjects bowing before their lord. And the gold and the pink where the sun has died give place to the pink alone, and the pink gives TAKING IN WOOD. 109 place to a delicate blue, and the delicate blue loses itself in the twilight, and then the night covers all. At one point we stop to take in fresh fuel. At the outset of the journey great piles of logs 2i feet long mono- polised most of the main-deck, but were gradually flung down below to feed the insatiable furnaces. At 12.15 a.m. we are awakened by the energetic whistling of the steamer — a harmony, nay, an exact fifth, for she always blows her fog-horn and her whistle together. The engines have slowed down, and we draw close in to the side at a spot where the fir-banks reach the quite unusual height of perhaps 40 feet. A huge log-fire reveals four dusky figures crawling along the bank, with lamps. A second blaze a little way ofi' is demanded by the precipitous nature of the surroundings, over which progress is slow and difficult. There is no moon, and the sturdy spruce strain upwards into the darkness. A few more shadowy figures make their appearance, and catch the niooring-ropes that are flung to them. Two or three stealthily edge towards the fire, evidently bearing some light burden upon their heads ; the lurid glare sets in relief the outlines of women who have come down with laden birch- bark creels and baskets of food for sale. Black bread, milk, eggs, sterlet for a few kopeks, nelma or omul, they offer you ; but the late hour is not conducive to good trade. On the top of the embankment are some half-dozen monumental piles of sawn wood. It was usual for the soldiers from the convict barge that we had in tow to load the vessel with the necessary wood at these stations. This operation had to be repeated every twelve hours on an average. As we drift towards the west there are more frequent signs of population. Both banks fall in altitude, much of the timber has been cut down, and the land put under 110 TRAVEL IN SIBERIA. cultivation. The Ob also increases immensely in breadth. It is pretty to see the little streams bringing in their tribute. We work along the shore, and perhaps notice it gradually projecting into the river at one point till it ends in a spit of yellow sand ; and when we get in line with it, we see it shields the complacent tributary, moving slowly, it almost seems, because the willows gently brush it back. When we pass into the Irtish, the scenery and environ- ment are very markedly different — a prophecy of what the Ob itself will be one day. The banks of the Irtish present i sir -*■ Village on the banks oj the Irtish. greater variety of interest than do those of the larger stream. Although higher, they show evidence of a comparatively thick population. Unpainted skiffs are drawn up on the banks, bottom upwards, and nets hang out to dry ; but the contented cattle lying on the warm sand, and the stacks of hay dotting the green background, convey a more correct idea of the agricultural people in whose midst we are. We have come again amongst the settlers, the number of whose small communities is truly remarkable; while in the too fresh appearance of many of the cottages, and the first rush of ox THE IRTISH. Ill carefulness that marks off the newly acquired plot with a little hedge, we learn that two months ago this open land was untenanted. Above Tobolsk there is a great increase in population : at any point one may see peasants standing on the bank ; at any bend a village may come into view. The Irtish winds much more than the Ob, and the greater difficulty of navigation demands a pilot. His task has been lightened considerably by the Department of Ways and Communication. At comparatively short distances num- bered grey cabins with red roofs adorn one bank, each pro- tected by a tall white-and-black painted flag-post, from which flutters the white, blue, and red pennant with the crossed axe and pickaxe of the Department. In connection with the stations are red wooden signals (lamplit by night) recording the depth of the water and other needful items of information, which, together with the host of warning-poles, and of red and of white buoys (the former on the right, and the latter on the left bank), reduce the possibility of danger to a minimum. Animal life is not any more in evidence than on the Ob. At one point two or three flocks of cranes get up and fill the air with their hoarse cries, then slowly wing themselves away to a safe distance. We also saw wild duck and gulls, and from one swampy spot some curlews rose to give vent to their mournful wail. Where the water washed the bank closely with any depth a geological section results when the river falls, showing from the deck of the steamer about 6 feet of lenticular strata of brown peaty soil, on which were growing some hardy spruce, and it in turn rested on a clayey basis of lighter colour in which also the layers were very distinct. What timber fringed the banks of the Irtish has been al- 112 TRAVKI. IX SIIilOltlA. most all telled, ;uul wlu'U we take in wood, we no longer, as it were, lielj) ourselves at deserted piles, over each of which tloats the riatj,- of the steamboat company that owns them. ¥ov any industry is made an excuse to erect log-houses, where the wood-cutters live ; and while the lading pro- gresses, women row over from the other side in their Taki)ig in wood, peculiar boats with provisions for sale. The cutting down of the forests in Eussia has been attended with lamentable results. Her great waterways as such are being lost to the use of humanity. The Volga is shrinking : the steamboats of thirty years ago can no longer travel on its bosom. They have to be built of less draught every year, and the river- bed is being choked up with sandbanks. A short distance END OF THE RIVER SEASON. 113 below Nijni Novgorod there is a shallow extending across the Volga well called the Calf's Ford. But this contingency will be guarded against in Siberia. The river season is short. Already on the 3rd September, by our time, one experienced the first snow of the succeed- ing winter; the sere leaves were falling fast off the infrequent trees, and one felt the first nip of a frost that would soon have the whole country in its grasp. ^Such voyages may be tedious, but as long as there are romantic souls on the earth, they will not fail to have their lovers. 114 CHAPTER IV. MONARCH OR MONK ? A LEGEND OF TOMSK. TOMSK — DESCRIPTION OF THE TOWN — "ALEXANDER'S HOUSE" — THE LIFE OP THEODORE KUZMITCH — HIS DEATH — THE LAST YEARS OF ALEXANDER L — DID HE ABDICATE ? Tomsk town, which with its 45,000 souls still ranks as second in all Siberia, lies in a province of the same name, the most populous after Tobolsk, It may, in truth, be called a gold- born township, for before 1830 it was little more than a Siberian village. But, in addition to the discovery of gold in the vicinity about that date, it owes much of its import- ance to its position on the great highroad that unites the East and West. After eight weary days on a river-boat, from Tinmen, or half as many in a tarantass from Krasnoy- arsk, men gather hope when suddenly Tomsk breaks upon their view. Part of the town is built on the edge of a high plateau, which, extending from the foot of the Altai Moun- tains in the south, somewhat abruptly descends about this latitude to the lowlands of the Ob, that are in turn continu- ous with the treacherous tundra of the north. Part also is situated on the plain below, wedged in between the right bank of the river Tom, a tributary of the Ob, and the bold APPROACHING TOMSK. 115 bluff' above. So, in approaching the town from the east, the traveller is unaware of its existence until he wellnigh reaches the broken brink of the high level ; and it is this half, too, with its statelier buildings, that first attracts the notice of the river-voyager. The road from the south affords the same pleasant surprise, for it is only when one stands on the left bank of the Tom, On the outskii ti awaiting the paddle ferry-boat of three-horse power, that one becomes aware of the presence of human habitations. After gaining the other side, the traveller passes between two brick pillars, each surmounted by the imperial eagle. These mark the entrance to the town, as also the beginning of a long broad street (if the rough and deeply rutted thoroughfare 116 MONARCH OR MONK? A LEGEND OF TOMSK. can be dignified with such a name) that traverses the lower quarter with a continual though gradual ascent. Here the appearance of the buildings still resembles that of a Siberian village, for they consist of two rows of decrepit shanties, each with its little yard enclosed by more or less of a high wooden paling. Sometimes these squalid tenements lack the power of even standing squarely on their foundations by the road- side, — probably because they have none. But as you pene- trate farther, by degrees all this is left behind, till at one sharp steep bend you pass into the upper terrace, and soon find yourself in the central square, in the middle of which stands the massive white Troitsa Cathedral, with its golden bulbous dome attended by four cupolas reflecting a pale-blue tint. Opposite its main entrance is the long white Gov- ernment building, at one corner of which is the artistic little residence of the governor. Tomsk is a strangely unequal town in every sense of the word, for not only is it built on many different levels, but habitations noble and mean contrive to set off one another even in the more aristocratic parts. Towards the north side the irregularity in level necessarily becomes more noticeable. The highest knoll has been secured in the interests of the town : from it rises the watch-tower that surmounts the fire -station. Pacing round the summit of the tower a fireman keeps ceaseless watch, and warns the inhabitants of the time of day by sounding out the hours on a harsh-toned bell. Here also one used to find a hotel, where the lodger who took a room had to content himself with an iron bedstead, mattress, table, and chair. But better days have dawned, and a new establishment opened recently will satisfy the desponding traveller who imagines that he has left all comfort west of the Urals. THE UNIVERSITY. 117 Tomsk has a certain charm. It is not the dull sleepy place that one could well imagine it to be. Its noblest edifices com- mand attention : it is the centre of a pretty considerable local trade — e.g., as it is the starting-point of the great post-road across Siberia, thousands of tarantasses and other vehicles are built there yearly ; and it has " sights " of a very varied order. Be the traveller a physician, he will not regret a visit to the hospital. Be he interested in penology, Tomsk boasts of three prisons. If educational matters attract him, he will find some thirty schools, illustrating a great diversity of prin- ciples. These, with the magnificent University opened in 1888, bid fair to make Tomsk the intellectual centre of Siberia. The University lies on the outskirts of the town. The stately structure stands off the road in a garden, through which run avenues and footpaths. Beside it is the Arbore- tum, where most of the labour is performed by women. The Observatory peers above the multitude of shrubs and trees that throng the gardens ; from it one gets a charming view of the surrounding country. The University consists as yet of but a single faculty ^ — medicine — and of its 400 students only some 30 per cent are Siberians. The others come from the outlying districts of European Eussia, and even, it is said, from the Caucasus. But its great treasure is the Library, which is second only to that of St Petersburg. Its nucleus consists of the private collection of Count Stroganoff, which contains amongst other rarities a very early illustrated edition of Luther's Bible, bearing the date 1565, a first edition of ' Daph'nis and Chloe,' and a valuable assortment of painted designs of exquisite workmanship from the private collection of Louis XVI., which show evidence of having come originally ^ A faculty of law will shortly be added. 118 MONARCH OR MONK ? A LEGEND OF TOMSK. from the Vatican at Eome. There is also a very fair Archoe- ological JMuseum, with a startling array of antiquities that he must first explain away who would deny that Siberia too has had her Stone, her Bronze, and her Iron Age. Moreover, it was only in March 1896 that Professor Kastchenko dis- covered near the town some mammoth bones that had been split open. As he also found close at hand fragments of charred wood, there almost seems to be justification for his assertion that the cleavage was not due to natural causes, but was the work of man desirous to obtain the marrow. Thus he interestingly suggests the probable comtemporaneity of Homo saijiens with Mejyhas primigenius in these northerly latitudes. If the visitor has yet failed to discover anything that ar- rests his attention, he can at least drive about a town where the isvostchiks take fourpence for a course, even if it be over what are nothing more than badly kept country roads. Per- haps he will notice how, in the construction of a house, women bring up the carts laden with bricks, and transfer them thence on broad four-handled trays to the men, who do the building proper. Or maybe, if it is towards evening, he will pass a gang of convicts returning to the local prison after a day's work in the town, chatting pleasantly with the two or three warders, who, armed merely with revolvers, have been in charge of them. But woe to the traveller if he venture out to walk by night, for the uncertain gleam from the electric lamps does little to reveal the insecure and dangerous wooden pavement, whose planks have been sur- reptitiously removed at many points to serve an infinity of purposes, from use as firewood to repairing crippled roofs. The environment of Tomsk will not allure the stranger much. The landing-stage on the river, where he might reasonably hope to find some entertainment, is at a distance ALEXANDERS HOUSE. 119 of three versts from the town, and the road thither (which is on a par with everything of that description in the district) strikes across an arid plain. There also the new railway- station is built, on a piece of ground granted by a majority of the town councillors, to the great inconvenience of them- selves and their fellow-citizens. It will only be a chance if he now learns that he has not seen everything. For Tomsk has still one other choice possession, and her populace regard it with reverent eyes. Indeed they do not care to include it among the " sights " of their town : they love it, treasure it, almost conceal it. If, however, he asks some pensive droskhj-driyer who has drawn up by the side of the road (for there are no stands, and the isvostchiks take up a position where they choose) to bear him to " Alexander's House," the prospect of a modest fare of 20 kopeks tends to shake the once firm resolution of the isvostchik that he at least will conduct no stranger to gaze with unhallowed eyes on Tomsk's most holy memory, and, although somewhat reluctantly, he finally yields the point. Quickly our driver sought out the Monasterskaya, and stopped at the courtyard entrance of what was an im- posing house. AVe got out and entered the yard, which was a scene of great activity. Some men were carrying boxes and bales from the house to carts in which stood sturdy draught-horses, while others were lading them. Numerous storehouses and small sheds were built irregularly round the yard, and the house of the merchant Khromov still seemed to be the centre of some form of business. The court extended to the back of the house, where the outhouses par- took more of the nature of stables and cart-sheds. "When once the rear of the main building has been reached, the visitor observes on its other side a square plot of ground 120 MONARCH OR MONK? A LEGEND OF TOMSK. corresponding to the courtyard. This probably formed a pleasure-garden in days gone by, but is now like unto the garden of the sluggard. At least, from what one can see through the tall black paling that to-day surrounds this sacred spot, one would imagine that no tending hand had touched it for many years. The grass grows rankly on what was once a lawn. The paths are buried under a wild waste of weeds. Some dark dejected spruces serve to increase the gloom. A woman soon appeared from a backdoor of the house, and, opening a padlocked gate in the paling, allowed us to enter the enclosure. She led the way to a corner of the square, where in the shade of a brooding conifer stood what seemed to be a very open wooden hut. Closer inspection disclosed, however, that what had appeared to be "Alexander's House " was not so in reality, but was merely a protecting shed : the real thing lay inside. The outward covering had not struck one as being of any size ; but this quaint domicile beneath, this maisonette, how insignificant, how humble! Our guide entered, devoutly crossing herself. The door was apparently left open without fear, — no one could enter but by that padlocked gate, and the hut was well protected by its ample case. One stooped in crossing the threshold, which lay on the left of the front exposure as you face the house, and thereafter became aware of a short passage that ended to all appearance in a recess. But off the right there opened the single chamber of this house, — the home of him whose memory is still revered. A window not 2 feet square admits through its dull glass what rays of light can penetrate the thick branches of the surrounding trees and bend under the eaves of the protecting edifice. In the corner immediately to the left of the door is INTERIOR OF THE RETREAT. 121 the whitewashed brick stove, along a wing of which is placed a plank-bed with pillow to match. This is so arranged that the head is next the wall, and is of such a breadth that it takes up almost all the spare room between the stove proper and the door. From the free end of the stove to the opposite wall extends a shelf, now crowded with relics of the former The home of Theodore Kiizmiteh. resident. On it you may see some sacred literature, the cowl and garments of an anchorite, cooking utensils of the simplest quality — china cups, a metal teapot curiously enough, and a spoon. The wall above the bench is hidden by numerous portraits of the great monarch Alexander I., whom one imagines to have been, perhaps, the special hero of the late 122 MONARCH OR MONK? A LEGEND OF TOMSK. occupant of this room, or, as is more likely, the reigning monarch of his time. But these pictures differ from those in any ordinary Eussian house in this, that they represent the Emperor at different periods of his life. The apparent design of this hero-worshipper has been to collect as complete a series as possible of the object of his adoration. One sketch supposed to represent the monarch in death is par- ticularly striking, and you wonder why there is placed along- side of it the picture of an older man also in his last long sleep ; and as you gaze at the two, you almost fancy that you see a resemblance. But this is absurd. The wall opposite the door is now a mass of ikons and sacred pictures, but these are later accretions. An altar stands against the wall, and serves as the depository for another group of iko7is, amongst which are dispersed candle- sticks with dimly burning tapers, while a lamp faintly but steadily illumines the regular ikon in one of the far corners of the room. In the opposite corner by the window a censer hangs, and the musty odour of incense pervades the cheerless chamber. On the fourth wall, between the window and the door, are disposed prints and lithographs of a white- haired and bearded old man, dressed in a loose single garment to which the modern dressing-gown best corresponds. He holds one hand across his narrow chest, and has shoved the other carelessly into the hempen belt that gathers his mantle about him. Beneath one of the portraits is the inscription, " The Bondservant of God, the old man Theodore Kuzmitch, who passed a hermit life in Tomsk, and died in 18G4 in the cell of Khromov." Such is the little house that the Tomsk people consider to be one of their chiefest possessions. For the history of the mysterious being for whose sake they venerate it we are THEODORE KUZMlTCH. 123 most indebted to his patron the merchant Khromov, who built the cell for him, and to whom alone was at first revealed the secret of his life. In the following account, which is largely drawn from an abstract of Khromov's memoirs, some of the leading features in this extraordinary story are briefly stated. Somewhere in the " thirties " an old man appeared in the town of Tomsk. He had come from European Eussia with a prisoner band, having been sentenced to exile in Siberia for vagrancy by the court of a small town in the government of Perm. After a short stay in the Forwarding Prison at Tomsk, he was conducted to the village of Zertzal, in the government of Tomsk, as his place of residence. On settle- ment he gave very little satisfaction to all eager inquiries about his past, merely stating that he had received twenty strokes with the 'jj^ct for vagrancy, and giving as name the commonplace appellation of Theodore Kuzmitch. In out- ward appearance he was of high stature, while his years might have been put down at sixty. Add to this that he had a noble carriage, could with all truthfulness be styled good- looking, and ever spoke in a quiet sedate manner, so that from the first his peasant neighbours felt bound to treat him with marked respect. His general bearing and manner of conversation proclaimed him to be an educated man, and notwithstanding the simplicity of his life and speech, it was evident that he was not a man of common origin. Amongst his fellow - villagers was a convict who had reached the stage of a " free-command," and was employed in Government works there. Old Theodore took an interest in him, and, desiring company, shared his hut with the fierce creature. The following year the peasantry roused them- 124 MONARCH Oli MONK 1 A LEGEND OF TOMSK. selves and built a log cabin for him, in which he lived for over eleven years a life of self-effacement, with a bare sub- sistence on bread and water. He would, however, make occasional excursions to the neighbouring villages, where it was his peculiar pleasure to gather the children round him and teach them their letters. Latterly, on the invitation of a peasant named Latishev, he left Zertzal and took up resid- ence in Krasnorjetchinsk, the village of his host, who erected a special hut for him which he occupied in winter, while in summer he passed his time in the woods beside the wood- cutters. His private property merely included the clothes on his back and a few sacred books. It was in the year 1858 that, at the invitation of the merchant Khromov, Kuzmitch passed a winter on his farm, about 4 versts out of Tomsk. Ultimately Khromov built for him in a corner of his garden the little domain described above, where his guest spent the greater part of the last years of his life in prayer and fasting. The kind-hearted merchant had first made the acquaint- ance of Kuzmitch in 1852. His curiosity had been aroused by the tales which a friend recounted to him about the aged hermit, and having occasion to pass through the village of Krasnorjetchinsk, he resolved to seek him out. This was in the summer-time, and Kuzmitch was as usual with the wood- fellers, sharing a modest little home with his peasant host. Their dwelling was situated at a distance of 2 versts from the village that formed the centre of operations for those who were at work, and it lay on the bank of a rivulet. Khromov relates how he arrived at the cell, made the sign of the cross, and entered, as the door stood open. He saluted the white-haired inmate, who, in true Kussian style, demanded of him whence he had come and whither he was bound. " I UPON GOLD-MINING. 125 come from Tomsk, and go to Yeniseisk on matters connected with gold-mining," answered the merchant. To his surprise his interrogator would not let the subject drop, but talked long on the gold industry, finally exclaiming, " Vainly you are occupied with the gold industry, for without it God will sustain you." Khromov was fascinated by his new acquaint- ance, and used to pay him a short visit each time he passed that way. But on whatever themes they discoursed — and they were varied — the old man always returned to this maxim, " Do not endeavour to discover the mines ; thou hast enough, and Another will provide." In 1859, while resident on Khromov's country estate, Kuzmitch took seriously ill, and his host, thinking that it was high time he learned something about his mysterious guest, asked him on several occasions if he would not disclose his identity. But the reply, if continually the same, was at least decided : " No ; that cannot be revealed — never." His illness was of a somewhat serious nature, and it was with great difficulty that those who were anxious about him could persuade him to take anything beyond his accustomed bread and water. Khromov remarks how during this time he observed that the knees of the anchorite were covered with excrescences, the result of persistence in a kneeling posture during prayer, and it was difficult to know to what extent he suffered, as he kept so very much to himself. He exercised great care in the selection of his visitors, and when later he was restored to some measure of health, he never left his cell except to enter a church. If he ever referred to his vagrant life or journey to Siberia, it was only to speak in the kindest terms of his fellow-prisoners, as also to eulogise the treatment that he had received at the hands of the convoy soldiers, and in short from all who had had anything 126 MONARCH OR MONK? A LEGEND OF TOMSK. to do witli him. It seems that he now removed for a change to a Kossak village not far off, and lived in the house of one of the inhabitants. He had, however, a renewal of his old trouble, and not being perfectly happy in his new quarters, was quite ready, even in his weak state of health, to accept an invitation from Khromov to stay with him in Tomsk, Knowing how matters stood, the worthy merchant went himself to bring his friend to town : this was in 1863. Kuzmitch, fearing that there might be some well-intentioned effort made to keep him in the Kossak village, resolved not to disclose his plan of leaving till the last moment, when he engaged in quiet conversation with his host, and explained to him very shortly the reasons for his sudden departure. This device was successful, and during the time spent in arranging him and Khromov comfortably in the latter's tarantass, the whole village came out to see him off. In return Kuzmitch merely said, " I thank you all for every- thing you have done for me." The journey was taken slowly, and it was only after a ■couple of days that the party eventually arrived at their destination. Khromov, who was much affected by the low state of his friend's health, desired to pass the first night with him in the little wooden house which he had prepared for him. He relates that the old man spent much of the night in prayer, and that he could repeatedly catch the words, " I thank Thee." He was roused at 5 a.m. by the patient, who said that he felt better, adding that the cause of the improve- ment was a vision that he had seen in the night-watches. His look seemed to be keener and his conversation brighter, and Khromov hoped that perhaps he might still live. On the morning of the 20th January, as Khromov was leaving for his business, he asked that the old man would bless him. THE anchorite's DEATH. 127 "Nay, rather," said he, " bless me." In the course of the day the merchaut ran over several times from his ojSice, but did not speak much with Kuzmitch, who was lying on his hard bed, with his face to the stove. In the afternoon Khromov had occasion to go a short distance out of town on some business affair, but was soon hastily summoned by his nephew, who reported that the aged sufferer had suddenly become worse, and might at any moment pass away. The merchant returned home at once, and on arrival found the little cell crowded with anxious friends who had come to make inquiries, having heard of the serious turn matters had taken. Kuzmitch was tossing restlessly about, now lying on one side, now on the other, but saying nothing. Khromov's wife sat by him, power- less to give relief. He suffered, like an infant, in silence, and his only action was to continually make the sign of the cross. About 9 P.M. the visitors departed, and Khromov was left alone with the old man. He asked to be raised in his bed. He sat up for a little, but evidently had not strength for the exertion, for he fell back, and requested to be laid on his left side. He lay for a little while in this posture, and then suddenly turned on his back. The watcher noticed a distinct change in his eyes, and sent for wax-candles, for the end was not far off. Kuzmitch once again asked his benefactor to lay him on his right side, and for a moment he seemed to find satisfaction in weakly clasping the merchant's hand. Then came a short sharp struggle with the last enemy, a single long-drawn sigh, and Khromov was left alone. " Quietly and peacefully, without a moan, died the servant of God ; his right hand grasped a crucifix, and his left hand lay upon it. We wept for our father, the man of prayer and our instructor, and then proceeded to prepare his body for interment." So runs the unvarnished narrative. 128 MONARCH OR MONK ? A LEGEND OF TOMSK. We learn also that they dressed the body in a " new white shirt," but did not employ that upper garment already described as having a resemblance to a dressing-gown, and for this reason. While Theodore was still alive, Madame Khromov once asked him in the simplicity of her heart, with reference to his usual attire, " Father, in the event of death, shalt thou be clothed in that black dressing-gown ? " " K'ay," he replied ; " I am no monk." And Khromov carried out his wish the more readily, as he well knew the surpassing humility of his strange guest. "Friend," he had said to him once, " I am not great." These incidents have their interest, in that they are two of the few instances on which Kuzmitch ever referred to himself. His body was carefully deposited in a chaste coffin of cedar- wood, and, by his wish, his grave is in the monastery at Tomsk. There was a large assemblage gathered on the 23rd January to witness the last rites and to do honour to this well - loved saint. The Archimandrite addressed a few words to the crowd, in which he briefly alluded to the suffering life of their late friend, as also to his travels, for this side of the old man's life had exercised a strong fascina- tion over the populace. It seems, then, that with one important exception Theo- dore Kuzmitch, as he chose to call himself, spoke to no one on the subject of his origin, nor ever dropped hints as to his identity, except occasionally of a negative kind. It was his secret, and it almost seemed as if he would carry it with him to the grave. On one occasion Madame Khromov, somewhat exasperated at his reticence on this topic, said, " Father dear, disclose to me at least the name of thy guardian angel." " That God knows," was his quiet reply, and more than this he would confide to no one. STRIKING INCIDENTS. 129 It was only natural that round the story of the life of such an unusual personage should cluster a tangled growth of fanciful and far-fetched tales. He was popularly credited with a marvellous power of foresight, which was probably nothing more, as is often the case, than deep insight into character. Thus they say in all simplicity that on one occasion a priest named Israel, who was formerly attached to the Cathedral of Archangel, desired to see the old man while yet lie was with Latishev at Krasnorjetchinsk. He reached their humble home towards evening, and without any ceremony stepped into Kuzmitch's room, crossed him- self, and proceeded to salute him. The startled occupant, still sitting on a bench, briefly made answer, " Good day. Father Israel," and this " when as yet he had not heard of him or his arrival, or named his name." A similar story is told of him, on the occasion of a visit which he received from a priest who belonged to Krasnoyarsk. They are probably the same incident, with merely a difference in the name. The best instances of Kuzmitch's remarkable perspicacity are, however, related in connection with private interviews that he had with people who went to consult him when in difficulty. This makes it the more probable that he was gifted with a very remarkable power of observation and insight into character rather than with any supernatural power such as the average Eussian is so ready to believe in. There was in particular one woman, a Government offi- cial, resident for some time in Krasnorjetchinsk, who used to call on him frequently to ask his blessing on any new projects she was about to undertake. She recounts how he often seemed to foresee her wants, and sometimes gave her advice in epigrammatic sayings. Another somewhat extreme episode is to the effect that I 130 MONARCH OR MONK? A LEGEND OF TOMSK. Khromov, intending to visit Kuzmitch on one particular occasion when passing through Krasnorjetchinsk on his way to the mines, suggested to his wife, who was to accompany him, that she should take a linen shirt of the finest quality as a gift for the old man. But she considered that it would be better to supply him with a garment of some thicker material, and so took a coarser woollen article. To her surprise, when making the presentation, she was reminded by the aged recipient that her husband's wish had been that she should provide for him a shirt of fine linen, and that there- fore she ought to have accomplished his desire. " But," he added, " for me, who am now a vagrant, what you have given is more than meet," Again, in the year 1867, Khromov happened to call on a brother merchant in Moscow, and in the course of conversa- tion began to talk about this strange individual. The man whom he was visiting said that when he was in business in Krasnoyarsk, he had called on Kuzmitch, who confronted him with these extraordinary words, "Why didst thou take that copper money ? it was not for thee." " And," confessed the Siberian trader, " I did verily on one occasion lay hands on money that was not mine, but you may be sure that no one knew about it ! " One of the many visitors to the cell in Khromov 's garden was a highly respected lady member of the community in Tomsk. According to her own account, she once omitted to make the sign of the cross on entering Kuzmitch's cell, when he addressed her thus : " And tell me, lady, which Tzar honourest thou the more, the worldly or the heavenly?" Taken much aback, she replied, " Dear father, the heavenly," Upon this he answered, " How is it that thou didst not do honour to the heavenly Tzar ? thou camest and didst not WHO WAS THE STRANGER? 131 pray." And much more he spoke to her in a similar strain. Another time she took her young daughter to see him, and the aged hermit turning to the mother said, " See, beloved, this little bird will ultimately grow to feed and shelter thee." Later the girl was sent to the Irkutsk Institute to be edu- cated, which she only left to be married to a naval officer serving in the Amur province. " And," says the chronicler, " in 1871 there arrived in Tomsk this young damsel and her husband, and she took her mother back to live with her, and so was fulfilled the prophecy of the old man Theodore Kuzmitch." Two other sayings of his may be recorded. He showed intimate knowledge of all matters connected with the State, and frequently discussed political questions. He was once heard to remark, " But the beloved imperial service is not without its needs " ; and once again, more significantly, "The house of Romanov is firmly rooted, and deep are its roots." Who was this mysterious saint, this reader of men's thoughts, this prophet, this unknown personage without beginning of days ? There are some people who know or think that they know everything, and the Tomsk populace will tell you without any hesitation that he was none other than Alexander I. This is the creed of all Siberia as to that strange individual. And so the people call his cell " Alex- ander's House," have covered its walls with portraits of the Emperor (and now you do not wonder that you see a resem- blance between him and Theodore Kuzmitch), and venerate the relics of the departed great in the manner that only Russians can. Khromov himself is mainly responsible for this belief, for he has declared that shortly before death the self-named Theodore Kuzmitch gave him papers showing con- 132 MONARCH OR MONK? A LEGEND OF TOMSK. clusively that he was none other than his Emperor : these papers Khroniov took back to St Petersburg with him. It has been the lot of ahnost every Eussian emperor to have it said of him that he did not die according to official bulletin ; but for those who love this sort of mystery a better case can hardly be made out than in the instance of Alexander I. Born in the year 1777, a son of Paul by his marriage with Maria of Wurtemburg, he soon showed himself to be pos- sessed of a mind of his own. He received a liberal education at the hands of his grandmother, the Empress Catherine, with the assistance of foreign tutors. In the year 1793 he married Elizabeth of Baden, and was called to succeed his father on the throne in 1801. At first everything augured well. The charitable young ruler commenced his reign by a series of generous reforms, that were especially welcome after the somewhat austere rule of his father. The country was again opened up to foreigners, and permission to travel abroad was granted in turn to Russians. The strict press censorship was relaxed, and the secret police service was in part allowed to fall into abeyance. But there were even further-reaching schemes. The question of the emancipation of the serfs was mooted, and, if not a fait accomjjli until 1861, it now first assumed the air of probability, and much was done to alleviate their lot. Very lenient also was his attitude towards Sectarians and Dissenters. " Eeason and experience," says one of his edicts, " have for a long while proved that the spiritual errors of the people, which official sermons only cause to take deeper root, cannot be cured and dispelled except by forgiveness, good examples, and toler- ance. Does it become a Government to employ violence and cruelty to bring back these wandering sheep to the fold of ALEXANDER I. AND NAPOLEON. 133 the Church ? " ^ Surrounding himself with a body of young- Ministers, Alexander pushed his reforms into every depart- ment of the State. Political and educational institutions were remodelled, and the Council of the Empire was formed, which, including the chief dignitaries of the State, became the legislative power in the country. But even more in foreign affairs was it felt that with Alexander's accession there had begun a new regime. In July 1801 he put an end to hostilities with England, and being desirous to remain at least outwardly on good terms with France, commenced negotiations respecting the indem- nification of Bavaria, Wurtemburg, and Baden in Germany, and Naples in Italy. Napoleon showed very little sincerity in the matter, and Alexander joined the Coalition of 1805 ; but at the battle of Austerlitz the combined Austrian and Russian forces were routed by the First Consul. The fol- lowing year Alexander, who, feeling that Napoleon must be crushed, still inclined to war, allied himself with Prussia, only to be again defeated at Eylau and Friedland. The Treaty of Tilsit (1807) was the outcome, on which occasion Alexander and Napoleon talked together for two hours on a raft. Its articles decreed the fall of Prussia, a few states being left to Frederic William III. out of Napoleon's defer- ence to Alexander's wish. The Tzar soon after declared war on England, and thus reversed his previous policy, in order to fall into line with that of France. This change in external politics involved a change in his home advisers. He also attacked Sweden, the ally of England, and it was at this time that Finland came into the possession of Russia (1809). While letting Napoleon bear the brunt of a con- test with Austria, Alexander entered into conflict with Tur- ' RambaucVs History of Russia, tr. by L. P.. Lang, ii. 312. 134 MONARCH OR MONK? A LEGEND OF TOMSK. key, and this war continued until the Peace of ]>ucharest (1812). Not for long was it possible that France and Eussia should thus remain in league. Many causes led to an open rupture. Mutual mistrust and jealousy, together with the more per- sonal incident of the abandonment of Napoleon's projected marriage with the sister of Alexander, had mainly served to bring this about. The " Patriotic War " followed, with the burning of Moscow, and the destruction of the Grand Army (1813). Thereafter Alexander made an offensive and de- fensive alliance with Frederic William of Prussia, and the struggle with the conqueror was renewed. During a short armistice the allies had time to repair their once more shat- tered forces (Liitzen, 1813) : it was the lull before the final tempest, which soon broke ominously on Bonaparte. Spain had now been lost to him, the Prince of Sweden had joined the Coalition, Austria had again become restive. This time fortune favoured the Coalition, and the occupation of l*aris and downfall of Napoleon quickly succeeded one another. Pound Alexander centred the consequent diplomatic and political arrangements. By the Congress of Vienna he rested content with only a portion of Poland, and in the end carried out more loyally than the other two co-partitioners (Prussia and Austria) the terms of that treaty which bore on the ill- fated land. In 1815 men saw the restoration of Poland under Alexander as king, who presented the country with a new constitution. Tlirough his influence Pussia had become the leading Power on the Continent. This was the supreme moment of his authority : soon after a great change came over the liberal-minded Tzar. The Congresses of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818) and Troppau (1820) had served to show the influence THE GREAT CHANGE. 135 of the man as a factor in European politics ; but on the other hand such demonstrations as attended the reaction in Ger- many in favour of constitutional government were little tasteful to this champion of divine right, " He grew gloomy and suspicious. His last illusions had flown, his last liberal ideas were dissipated. After the Congresses of Aix-la-Chap- elle and Troppau he was no longer the same man. It was at Troppau that Metternich announced to him, with calculated exaggeration, the mutiny of the Semenovski, his favourite regiment of Guards. From that time he considered himself the dupe of his generous ideas, and the victim of universal ingratitude. He had wished to liberate Germany, and Ger- man opinion had turned against him. . . . He had sought the sympathy of vanquished France, and at Aix-la-Chapelle a French plot had been discovered against him. He had longed to restore Poland, and Poland only desired to free herself completely." ^ The result was that the Emperor, who had moved too fast for his slow-stepping country, faced round, and completely reversed his youthful home-policy of toleration. The revolt in Greece unconsciously served to bring him into complete opposition with the feeling of his people. They were strongly in sympathy with the weaker party in this infamous struggle, whereas Alexander contented himself with addressing a few harmless notes to the Porte, as he considered the rising to be an insurrection. In 1824 there was a terrible inundation at St Petersburg, which the Eussian people openly affirmed to be a judgment on the un- avenged massacre of the Greek population in Constantinople (1821). But, far more than this, the death of his daughter whom he adored, and the rumours of a Kusso-Polish conspir- acy against the house of Romanov, wholly unnerved the once 1 Ojo. cit., ii. 320. 136 MONARCH OR MONK? A LEGEND OF TOMSK. brilliant man. He was in advance of his day, and his noblest resolutions to promote the good of his and other countries had been coldly and suspiciously regarded, and he became like unto those around him. In September 1825 he set out on a journey to the Crimea for the sake of his health, but died at Taganrog on December 1. And the horrified Russian people likewise referred to the wrath of God " the premature and mysterious death of Alexander." So far received his- tory. To return to Khromov, who died only a few years ago. Eelying on the papers that he received from Theodore Kuz- mitch, he held to the end that Alexander I. of Eussia, like Charles V. of Germany and Christina of Sweden, abdicated the throne through disappointment and chagrin, desirous to be quit of the reins of government and at peace from the strife of tongues. Alexander "died" in 1825, aged forty- eight. Theodore Kuzmitch appeared in Tomsk somewhere in the " thirties," after having led a vagrant life for several years, and died in 1864, at which date Alexander would have been eighty-seven, if Khromov is correct. In support of his theory there is also to be adduced the resemblance in the portraits between Alexander and this old vagabond, as they adorn the walls of his humble dwelling in Khromov's garden. Coming home across the Urals, we had as travelling com- panion for a portion of the journey an old Kossak officer who had not heard much about Kuzmitch. He listened quietly to my fellow-traveller's narration of the story, and then added that he was a boy in St Petersburg at the time when the remains of the deceased Emperor were brought up from the south, and that he remembered distinctly how it was quite openly remarked that the body that had thus been transported home was not that of Alexander. " And also," THE TOMSK BKLIEF. 137 he said, " it was a cause of comment at the time that people were not allowed to pass by and look on the face of their late Emperor, as he lay in state, according to custom." I also asked one of the professors in Tomsk University for his opinion on the whole matter, thinking that he at least would be above all popular fancies. He rather surprised me by saying, " Well, if the old man was not Alexander, he was at any rate some one very highly connected at Court." Such, then, is this little episode, it may be in Russian history, it certainly is in the history of Tomsk. It is needless to remark that the best Russian historians do not credit the theory that was to Khromov more than fact, while others relegate it to the number of those questions that can never now be solved. This at least is beyond all doubt, that it will be many years before the belief is eradi- cated from the mind of the Tomsk populace, that for a season they had their Emperor dwelling amongst them in all humi- lity, and knew him not. 138 OHAPTEK V. ON THE M A K C H. DEPARTURE OF A COXVICT GANG FROM THE TOMSK FOHWAKUING PRISON — THE PERESILNI PRISON AT MOSCOW — OVERCROWDING — THE RUSSIAN MCJIK AT HOME — LODGING-HOUSES IN ST PETERSBURG — TIUMEN FORWARDING PRISON — A CONVICT BARGE — LIFE ON THE RIVER — ARRIVAL AT TOMSK. It is a iDright morning towards the end of June. As our horses climb the rising' ground to the north-east of Tomsk where lies the Peresilni or Forwarding Prison, a heavy haze enshrouds the lower quarter of the town. Soon we liave left the last houses behind ; but in front of us we can now see the grim palisade, typical of most Siberian prisons. It is com- monly, as here, some 15 feet in height, while the individual stakes composing it preserve their natural appearance, and are pointed or rounded accord- ing to the whim of the constructor. Above it, as seen from a distance, peer the dull red roofs of the low barracks that comprise the prison proper ; but as we . / convict. PREPARATIONS. 139 approach nearer they gradually drop within, till there only remain visible the church tower, and the goodly edifice of brick — the natrholnik's house — that intersects the palisade at the centre of what is thus constituted the front exposure. Soldiers in white linen tunics, cloth caps covered with a similar material, and dark-green pantaloons tucked into tall boots, are standing about with bayonets fixed. A dozen loafers have gathered at the spot, and chatter to one another, or critically examine the tdifcgas that are employed for the transport of political prisoners, the sick and aged, and the belongings of a convict gang. The hum of suppressed excitement is audible ; even the stolid soldiers are not un- affected by it. A large iron-bound gate discloses itself in the stockade at that point where it becomes continuous with the wall of the governor's house ; in one of the wings is a wicket, guarded by a sentry. As we drive up, a sound of voices, accompanied by the rattling of chains, proceeds from the other side of the wall. But all at once the tumult ceases, and a stentorian voice raises itself above the faint murmurs. "GotovoT' (EeadyO, "Otkroi" (Open). A fumbling of keys ensues ; the lumbering bolt turns noisily within the lock, and the wings of the heavy wooden gate swing open upon the first of the convict band. They step out briskly in Indian file to the harsh music of their iron fetters. Dressed in the summer garb of unbleached linen, over which some choose to wear their grey frieze hhalat, while others have it slung round their backs, they march forward a few paces and then lounge about till the whole of the party has passed out. You notice that each man bears upon his shoulder a sack or bundle, of dimensions apparently varying with the amount of his personal property. In his hand 140 ON THE MARCH. he carries a pan and tea - kettle, or suspends them from his waist-belt. The soldiers spring to "Attention" and surround the .yang at intervals, facing them. The prisoners busy themselves adjusting their iron anklets or their culinary utensils. The idlers walk round and round the group, now talking a few words, now lending a helping hand — nothing more, and that only from a morbid curiosity. At lengtli the convicts deposit their burdens on the telyegas, and the appearance of a dozen men, mostly young, in blouses of different shades and breeches of varied pattern, following slowly in the wake of a special waggon laden with small trunks and boxes, shows that the procession is almost at an end : these were the politicals.^ The gates close again on the last of tliem. Political prisoners, together with the women and all chil- dren under fifteen years of age, have the right to be conveyed by tdijega. This arrangement also holds for any of the ordi- nary criminals who may fall ill on the march. Politicals may even go by themselves in tarantass if they have suffi- cient means ; but they must pay the expenses of their convoy not only en route, but also back to the point whence it came. It does not often happen that they can afford this luxury : once only did I see advantage taken of it. The party numbered about 350, of whom fourteen were political. Tlie captain of the convoy, a bronzed-looking in- dividual with a grey beard, was the last to appear. Under him were some twenty soldiers, the number sent being usually in the proportion of one to about every twenty prisoners. Quickly he gave his orders. Some three or four soldiers marched off at ease, then the convicts followed in an extenu- ' The term political is used throughout in place of the longer equivalent political prisoner. THE START. 141 ated body flanked on either side by an occasional soldier, then came another handful of guards at the rear. The women and children who were voluntarily accompanying certain of the prisoners formed the next body : they walked, or were ensconced in the felycgas, while one or two soldiers marched beside them. Shortly after the others had moved off the political prisoners set out, tramping, of their own accord, behind their special cart. They had more soldiers to look after them in proportion to their numbers. Such was the start on the 2000-mile march which lay before the majority of the band to the silver mines of Nertchinsk. " When will the party reach Irkutsk, say ? " we ask the commandant. " In three months." Three months later, as I was visiting the little local prison at Nijni-Udinsk, which is 484 versts west of Irkutsk, the natchalnili, who was per- sonally conducting me over it, was suddenly accosted by one of his soldiers, who intimated that an expected gang had just arrived. We got round into the open square in time to see the gates unbarred, and the same party that I saw set out from Tomsk tramped into the prison-yard. Some of the con- victs sank down on the ground exhausted. The political prisoners, at once distinguishable by their ordinary clothes and by the haversack slung across one shoulder, withdrew into a corner of the yard and lay down, or stood about, talk- ing to one another. And as the gate in the enclosing palisade still remained open to admit the telyegas, a cordon of soldiers posted themselves, and stood at " Attention " watching them. The women had not been conducted into this yard, but had been led off elsewhere. But one had contrived to linger be- hind and gazed longingly in the direction of a stalwart form that would not, perhaps could not, respond to that mute appeal. He hid himself among his fellows, but she sat by 142 ON THE MAKCH. the gate and watched, inoiinted on the two small green boxes that she liad herself lifted off the tclycga. How long she would have waited there I do not know ; but two soldiers who were off duty saw her, spoke to her kindly, took up her baggage, and after one final parting glance she followed them reluctantly. Tomsk is, however, as almost every one knows, an advanced point on the convict route across Siberia : from this town the march proper begins. To see where this now famous ex- perience commences we must go back to certain of the larger liussian cities, by preference Moscow, and visit the Peresilni Prison there. As it has been described somewhat minutely by previous investigators, it seems superfluous to do more than simply outline its leading features. Situated in one of the humbler suburbs of the town, it presents a somewhat imposing appearance. It is a three-storeyed solid brick building, clean and well lighted, with large airy corri- dors. During the daytime little restraint is exercised upon the prisoners, so that one of them was able to come down to the main entrance to get a key from a warder there. On this spot the darker rays of Eussian criminality, many of which have their origin in some of the most remote parts of the European portion of the empire, are brought to a focus. This prison is also put to the secondary use of serving as a house of detention for all passportless individuals who may have been arrested within the precincts of the great city, having wandered thither from the surrounding country. Their iden- tity and native village are then determined, and they remain in the prison until such time as a party shall be made up which goes in that direction, when they are joined to it, and conducted home again. Prisoners bound directly for Sakhalin leave in the spring MOSCOW PERESILNI PRISON. 143 (March and April) Ijy boat from Odessa, vid the Suez Canal, Hongkong, and Nagasaki. Such a transport vessel as the Yaroslav, which belongs to the so-called " Volunteer Fleet," is built to carry 800 souls ; and while the men are de- spatched at one time, female convicts, together with the women and children voluntarily accompanying male convicts, are sent at another time. The trip occupies two months as a rule, and after October all navigation to the north of Vladi- vostok is closed owing to the ice.^ In spring also com- mences the great movement of convicts by land. Although undoubtedly in Siberia progress is made with their trans- portation across the country in winter, yet the journey be- tween Moscow and the Siberian frontier is only undertaken during the summer. The consequence is, that although as at the moment when one visited the Moscow Peresilni Prison — in September — there were only some 300 or 400 people in a place that was built to accommodate at least 1000, with the procession of the winter months the building gradually be- comes filled up, and there is a tendency to overcrowding, so- that by the spring, shortly before the first batch has been despatched to Nijni, the conditions may become alarming' from the Western point of view. Upon the overcrowding in Russian and Siberian prisons much has been written, some writers denying it, while others ^ The following statistics relate to 1894, and may be taken as typical. The Yaroslav left Odessa on March 28 with a contingent of 802 male convicts, and discharged them at Alexandrovsky-Post, Sakhalin, on May 18 : one man died on the voyage. On August 27 she again left Odessa with a similar com- plement, and reached her destination on October 22 : on this occasion there were three deaths. The steamship Moscow left a few days later with 142 female convicts and 23 of their children : she also carried 131 women and 248 children, who were voluntarily accompanying the male convicts. These figures represent the total influx of penal population into Sakhalin for that year. 144 ON THE MARCH. have given thrilling accounts of this sad feature of the prison life. It is not a question, however, on which to judge hastily. I may say that I have seen overcrowding : Tinmen Prison seems to be in an almost chronic state of congestion, while the limited size of the (^tcqjes simply means overcrowding every time a gang of more than a certain number is sent along the road. The overcrowding occurs where we would naturally expect it, and where it can hardly be avoided under present circumstances. Thus Tinmen is not unfrequently overcrowded, because only at intervals of a week or ten days do convict-barges leave for Tomsk, and within a given period they may carry away fewer people than pour into the prison. Tomsk is not so crowded, because parties set out regularly every week on foot, sometimes oftener. Tomsk Forwarding Prison has, unfortunately, acquired an unenviable reputation. But from what I saw, the prison at Tinmen was much the less desirable place of the two, and yet the people of that town consider it a well-conducted institution compared with others farther to the south. Again, the peculiar habits of the Ptussian must be taken into account. It is not enough to say that these go for nothing — that there are certain hygienic laws that hold for all mankind, as, e.g., that every man must have so many cubic feet of air. Such propositions are not laws till men become accustomed to them. Come and see the low-class Russian as he lives at home in the gloomier haunts of St Petersburg. It is a little after midnight. Perhaps some late visitor walks at a smart pace homewards, some student rolls in the direction of his lonely lodging. Otherwise, save for an occasional isvostchih who has drawn up by the edge of the pavement, and half reclines, half sits on his narrow perch with his head on his breast. A ST PETEKSBURU LODGING-HOUSE. 145 wrapped in profound slumber, and the drowsy dvorniks seated by the courtyard entrances or lying on a bench hard liy, the electric-lighted streets are desolate. Our cortdge of three droshkics glides quickly along the partly wood-paved thoroughfare ; but as we near the lower quarter of the town the neat hexagonal sections of pine give way to coarser cob- bles, over which our vehicles rattle with sharp jarring notes. Tall factories loom above us, but these we also pass, and de- scend into smaller streets or pcreuloks flanked by unsubstan- tial, uninviting buildings. At last our leader halts at the gate in a high paling that hinders access to the courtyard of one of these houses. The detective who accompanies our party springs out, whispers a few words to the surprised dvornik, and we pass in. We cross the yard, come to a low building containing a few rooms, enter it and walk along a dark passage ; the detective leads, and finds his way by means of an uncertain candle. We reach a room, and the stove that heats both it and a neighbouring apartment roars with the straw that has just been piled into it. We open the door and a warm unsavoury odour rushes out. It is a chamber perhaps 22 feet in length by 16 in breadth. A narrow pas- sage extends to the opposing wall, between a couple of plat- forms which are raised some 30 inches above the floor and occupy the rest of the room. On and underneath these lie crowds of sleeping men: their deep low breathing, is very audible, while some snorers combine to produce a greater effect. One of the sleepers, disturbed by the invasion, rises on his elbow, indulges in a dreamy stare, then turns over and is soon again beyond the things of sense. The licence of the lodging-house proprietor permits him to accommodate twenty-five people in this room : there are exactly forty- nine. And not only are the lodgers seemingly unconscious K 146 ON THE MARCH. of the closeness clue to overcrowding, but they must needs have the stove lit in addition. For all this they pay 5 kopeks a-night, and some relish the accommodation so much that they have engaged the right to sleep there for two years in advance. In the morning they can get tea and bread for a trifle more. We went to see a Government lodging-house by way of contrast. The building was scrupulously clean, and the rooms of good size and well ventilated. The nari or sleep- ing platforms ran down the centre, and the space allotted to each individual was plainly defined by the thin wooden par- tition that traced out the middle line of the erection, thus separating the heads of any two opposing sleepers, and at the same time sending off like ribs at right angles to itself every 3 feet or so, other partitions that served to separate each person from his immediate neighbour on either side. More- over, a slight surface slope, culminating in a pronounced up- ward bend as the axial screen was reached, contrived to make the plank-beds the most comfortable things of their kind that one could well imagine. The tariff was 9 kopeks for the night with a good meal in the morning, — in every way a better bargain than the other from the Western point of view. But the institution was poorly patronised, and there was not the same look of contentment on the men's faces in these more sanitary apartments. What we saw of a third large tenement, also a Night Shelter capable of holding considerably over 1000 souls, showed it to be simply a repetition of the first case on a grander scale. The charge was 5 kopeks, and the lodgers could enter for the night at 7 P.M., but were required to leave at 8 the following morning. Here, indeed, was over- crowding: one saw rooms that would have been full with MOSCOW TO NIJNI-XOVGOROD. 147 200 men crammed with half as many more. Sleepers lay about everywhere — on a large central platform that occupied a considerable space, beneath it, on the supplementary shelves that skirted two of the walls, under them, even in the pas- sages. They were often miserably clad, and slept in their clothes ; others had partially disrobed or were stark naked. So thickly were they strewn that one had to pick every step : beyond a certain distance progress was impossible. And this is not distasteful to the Eussian peasant ; the Government lodging-houses, as well conducted as any in more Western lands, and cheaper than the ordinary lodging-house, are prac- tically deserted in favour of the latter.^ These are the men you find in the overcrowded Siberian prisons ; but the Petersburg Night Shelter surpassed anything I saw in the land of tundra and taiga. The railway journey from Moscow to Nijni-Novgorod is the work of a night. Here the prisoners are embarked upon barges that are towed down the Volga and up the Kama as far as Perm. From this town they resume travel by train, and, crossing the Urals, descend on Tinmen. This last stretch of a day and night presents no hardship : the ordi- nary third-class car lighted by barred windows is a luxury compared with the horse-waggons in which the emigrants who pass along the Trans-Siberian Eailway have to spend a week. Tiumen is the first town in Siberia proper that greets the traveller when following the northern route. Its most in- teresting feature is the Forwarding Prison, of which no one has yet said a good word. It stands on an open piece of ^ Further study of the slum Hfe of St Petersburg, by Mr J. F. Willard, seems to indicate that this marked preference for the less desirable type of lodging-house finds its chief ground in the facts that no vodka is allowed on the Government premises, while, on the other hand, the interests of the State religion are not forgotten. 14