NAGASAKI--WLADIVOSTOK
After the collapse of the rumor regarding the landing of the Japanese
in force on the shores of the Gulf of Pechili, which obtained credence
for nearly a fortnight in the Far East, fluttered every Cabinet in
Europe, forced even so cool and well-informed a man as Sir Robert Hart
into hasty action, and produced a hurried exodus of Europeans from
Peking and a scare generally among the foreign residents in North
China, I returned from Peking to Chefoo to await the course of events.
The war, its requirements, and its uncertainties disarranged the
means of ocean transit so effectually that, after hanging on for some
weeks, in the midst of daily rumors of great naval engagements, for
a steamer for Wladivostok, I only succeeded in getting a passage in
a small German boat which reluctantly carried one passenger, and in
which I spent a very comfortless five days, in stormy weather, varied
by the pleasant interlude of a day at Nagasaki, then in the full glory
of the chrysanthemum season, and aflame with scarlet maples. Lighted,
cleaned, and policed to perfection, without a hole or a heap, this trim
city of dwarfs and dolls contrasts agreeably with the filth, squalor,
loathsomeness, and general abominableness which are found in nearly all
Chinese cities outside the foreign settlements.
Chinese moved about the streets with an air as of a ruling race,
and worked at their trades and pursued the important calling of
_compradores_ with perfect freedom from annoyance, the only formality
required of them being registration; while from China all the Japanese
had fled by the desire of their consuls, not always unmolested in
person and property, and any stray “dwarf” then found in a Chinese city
would have been all but certain to lose his life.
The enthusiasm for the war was still at a white heat. Gifts in money
and kind fell in a continual shower on the Nagasaki authorities,
nothing was talked of but military successes, and a theatre holding
3,000 was giving the profits of two daily performances to crowded
audiences in aid of the War Fund. The fact that ships were only allowed
to enter the port by daylight, and were then piloted by a Government
steam-launch in charge of a “torpedo pilot,” was the only indication in
the harbor of an exceptional state of things.
It was warm autumn weather at Nagasaki, but when I reached Wladivostok
the hills which surround its superb harbor were powdered with the first
snows of winter, and a snowstorm two days later covered the country to
a depth of 18 inches. Wooded islands, wooded bays, wooded hills, deep
sheltered channels and inlets, wooded to the water’s edge, bewilder a
stranger, then comes Fort Godobin, and by a sharp turn the harbor is
entered, one of the finest in the world, two and a half miles long by
nearly one wide, with deep water everywhere, so deep that ships drawing
25 feet lie within a stone’s throw of the wharves, and moor at the
Government pier.
The first view of Wladivostok (“Possession of the East”) is very
striking, although the vandalism of its builders has deprived it
of its naturally artistic background of wood. Otherwise the purple
tone of the land and the blue crystal of the water reminded me of
some of our Nova Scotian harbors. There is nothing Asiatic about the
aspect of this Pacific capital, and indeed it is rather Transatlantic
than European. Seated on a deeply embayed and apparently landlocked
harbor, along the shores of which it straggles for more than 3 miles,
climbing audaciously up the barren sides of denuded hills, irregular,
treeless-lofty buildings with bold fronts, Government House, “Kuntz
and Albers,” the glittering domes of a Greek cathedral, a Lutheran
church, Government Administrative Offices, the Admiralty, the Arsenal,
the Cadet School, the Naval Club, an Emigrant Home, and the grand and
solid terminus and offices of the Siberian Railway, rising out of an
irregularity which is not picturesque, attract and hold the voyager’s
attention.
[Illustration: WLADIVOSTOK.]
Requesting to be taken at once to the Customs, the bewildered air of
astonishment with which my request was met informed me that Wladivostok
had up to that time been a free port, and that I was at liberty to
land unquestioned. After thumping about for some time among a number
of stout _sampans_ in the midst of an unspeakable Babel, I was hauled
on shore by a number of laughing, shouting, dirty Korean youths, who,
after exchanging pretty hard blows with each other for my coveted
possessions, shouldered them and ran off with them in different
directions, leaving me stranded with the tripod of my camera, to which
I had clung desperately in the _mêlée_. There were droskies not far
off, and four or five Koreans got hold of me, one dragging me towards
one vehicle, others to another, yelling Korean into my ears, till a
Cossack policeman came and thumped them into order. There were hundreds
of them on the wharf, and except that they were noisier and more
aggressive, it was like landing at Chemulpo. Getting into a drosky, I
said, “Golden Horn Hotel,” in my most distinct English, then “Hôtel
Corne d’or,” in my most distinct French. The _moujik_ nodded and
grinned out of his fur hood, and started at a gallop in the opposite
direction! I clutched him, and made emphatic signs, speech being
useless, and he turned and galloped in a right direction, but stopped
at the disreputable doorway of one of the lowest of the many drinking
saloons with which Wladivostok is infested.
There all my Koreans reappeared, vociferating and excited. I started
the _moujik_ off again at a gallop, the drosky jumping ruts and
bounding out of holes with an energy of elasticity which took my
breath away, the Koreans racing. More gallops, more stoppages at
pothouses, and in this fashion I reached at last the Golded Horn
Hotel--a long, rambling, “disjaskit” building, with a shady air of
disreputableness hanging about it,--the escort of Koreans still
good-natured and vociferous. The landlady emerged. I tried her in
English and French, but she knew neither. The _moujik_ shouted at us
both in Russian, a little crowd assembled, each man trying to put
matters straight, and when every moment made them more entangled, and
the _moujik_ was gathering up his reins to gallop off on a further
quest, a Russian officer came up, and in excellent English asked if he
could help me, interpreted my needs to the lady, lent me some _kopecks_
with which to appease the Koreans and the _moujik_, and gave me the
enjoyment of listening to my own blessed tongue, which I had not heard
for five days.
By a long flight of stairs, past a great bar and dining-room,
where _vodka_ was much _en evidence_, even in the forenoon, past a
billiard-room, occupied even at that early hour, and through a large,
dark, and dusty theatre, I attained my rooms, a “parlor” and bedroom
_en suite_, opening on and looking out upon a yard with pigsties. There
were five doors, not one of which would lock. The rooms were furnished
in Louis Quatorze style, much gilding and velvet, all ancient and
dusty. They looked as if they had known tragedies, and might know them
again. The barrier of language was impassable, and I must be unskilled
in the use of signs, for I quite failed to make any one understand that
I wanted food.
I went out, cashed a circular note at the great German house of
Kuntz and Albers, the “Whiteleys” of Eastern Siberia, where all the
information that I then needed was given in the most polite way, found
it impossible anywhere else to make myself understood in English or
French, failed in an attempt to buy postage stamps or to get food,
delivered the single letter of introduction which I had somewhat
ungraciously accepted, and returned to my melodramatic domicile to
consider the possibilities of travel, which at that moment were not
encouraging.
Before long Mr. Charles Smith, the oldest foreign resident in
Wladivostok, to whom my letter was addressed, called, a kindly and
genial presence, and, as I afterwards found, full of good deeds and
benevolence. He took me at once to call on General Unterberger, the
Governor of the Maritime Province. I think I never saw so gigantic a
man--military, too, from his spurs to his coat collar. As he rose to
receive me he looked as if his head might eventually touch the lofty
ceiling.
Mr. Smith is a _persona grata_ in Wladivostok, and very much so with
the Governor, who consequently received me with much friendliness,
and asked me to let him know my plans. I explained what I wanted to
do, subject to his approval, and presented my credentials, which
were of the best. He said that he quite approved of my project, and
would do anything he could to help me, and wrote on the spot a letter
to the Frontier Commissioner, but he added that the disorganized
and undisciplined state of the Chinese army near the frontier might
render some modification of my plan necessary, as I afterwards found.
The Governor and his wife speak excellent English, and the social
intercourse which I had with them afterwards was most agreeable and
instructive.
During the afternoon Mr. Smith returned, and saying that he and his
wife could not endure my staying in that hotel, took me away to his
home high up on a steep hillside, with a glorious view of the city
and harbor, and of which it is difficult to say whether the sunshine
were brighter within or without. Under such propitious circumstances
my two visits became full of sunny memories, and I may be pardoned if
I see Wladivostok a little _couleur de rose_; for the extraordinary
kindness which dogs and shadows the traveller in the Far East were met
with there in perfection, and where I was received by strangers I left
highly valued friends.
After a snowstorm splendid weather set in. The snow prevented dust
blasts, the ordinary drawback of an Eastern Siberian winter, the skies
were brilliant and unclouded, the sunsets carnivals of color, the air
exhilarating, the mercury at night averaging 20°, there was light
without heat, the main road was full of sleighs going at a gallop,
their bells making low music, all that is unsightly was hidden, and
this weather continued for five weeks!
“The Possession of the East” is nothing if not military and naval.
Forts, earthworks, at which it is prudent not to look too long or
intently, great military hospitals, huge red brick barracks in every
direction, offices of military administration, squads of soldiers in
brown ulsters and peaked _pashaliks_, carrying pickaxes or spades
on their shoulders,[31] sappers with their tools, in small parties,
officers, mostly with portfolios or despatch boxes under their arms,
dashing about in sleighs, and the prohibition of photography, all
indicate its fortress character. Certainly two out of every three
people in the streets are in uniform, and the Cossack police, who
abound, are practically soldiers.
Naval it is also. There are ships of war in and out of commission, a
brand-new admiralty, a navy yard, a floating dock, a magnificent dry
dock, only just completed, and a naval clubhouse, which is one of the
finest buildings in Wladivostok. No matter that Nature closes the
harbor from Christmas to the end of March! Science has won the victory,
and the port has been kept open for the last two winters by means
of a powerful ice-breaker and the services of the troops in towing
the blocks of ice out to sea. Large steamers of the “Volunteer Fleet”
leave Odessa and Wladivostok monthly or fortnightly. As the eastern
terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway, Wladivostok aspires to be what
she surely will be--at once the Gibraltar and Odessa of the Far East,
one of the most important of commercial emporiums, as the “distributing
point” for the commerce of that vast area of prolific country which
lies south of the Amur. Possibly a branch line to Port Shestakoff in
Ham-gyöng Do may enable the Government to dispense with the services of
the ice-breaker!
The progress of the city is remarkable. The site, then a forest, was
only surveyed in 1860. In 1863 many of the trees were felled and some
shanties were erected. Later than that a tiger was shot on the site
of the new Government House, and a man leaving two horses to be shod
outside the smithy had them both devoured by tigers. Gradually the big
oaks and pines were cleared away, and wooden houses were slowly added,
until 1872, when the removal of the naval establishment of 60 men from
Nicolaeffk on the Amur to the new settlement gave it a decided start.
In 1878 it had a population of 1,400. In 1897 its estimated civil
population was 25,000, including 3,000 Koreans, who have their own
settlement a mile from the city, and are its draymen and porters, and
2,000 Chinese. The latter keep most of the shops, and have obtained
a monopoly of the business in meat, fish, game, fruit, vegetables,
and other perishable commodities, their guild being strong enough to
squeeze the Russians out of the trade in these articles, which are sold
in four large wooden buildings by the harbor known as the “Bazar.”
There are some good Japanese shops, but the Japanese are usually
domestic servants at high wages, and after a few years return to enjoy
their savings in their own country. A naturalized German is the only
British subject, and my host and his family are the only Americans.
The capital has two subsidized and two independent lines of steamers,
700 families of Russian assisted emigrants enter Primorsk annually,
each head of a household being required to be the possessor of 600
roubles (£60), and from 8,000 to 10,000 Chinese from the Shan-tung
province arrive every spring to fulfil labor contracts, returning to
China in December, carrying out of the country from 25 to 50 dollars
each, convict labor from the penal settlement of Saghalien having been
abandoned as impracticable.
The Chinese shops, which are a feature of Wladivostok, undersell both
Russians and Germans, and have an increasing trade. Kuntz and Albers, a
Hamburg firm of importers, bankers, shipping agents, and Whiteleyism in
general, with sixty clerks, mostly German, with a few Russians, Danes,
and Koreans, conduct an enormous wholesale and retail business in a
“palatial” pile of brick and stone buildings, and has sixteen branch
houses in Eastern Siberia, and the German firm of Langalutje runs them
very closely.
The railway station and offices are solid and handsome; an admirably
built railroad, open to the Ussuri Bridge, 186 miles, and progressing
towards the Amur with great rapidity, points to a new commercial
future; streets of shops and dwelling-houses, in which brick and stone
are fast replacing wood, are extending to the north, east, and west,
and along the Gulf of Peter the Great, for fully three miles; and new
and handsome official and private edifices of much pretension were
being rapidly completed. One broad road, with houses sometimes on
one, sometimes on both sides, running along the hillside for 2 miles
at a considerable height, is the “Main Street” or “High Street” of
Wladivostok. Along it are built most of the public buildings, and the
great shops and mercantile offices. It is crossed by painfully steep
roads climbing up the hill and descending with equal steepness to the
sea. There are two or three parallel roads of small importance.
The builder was at work in all quarters, and the clink of the mason’s
trowel and the ring of the carpenter’s hammer were only silent for a
few hours during the night. Several of Government buildings were barely
finished, and were occupied before they were painted and stuccoed.
Building up and pulling down were going on simultaneously. Roads were
being graded, culverts and retaining walls built, and wooden houses
showed signs of disappearing from the principal thoroughfare. There
was a “boom” in real property. The value of land has risen fabulously.
“Lots” which were bought in 1864 for 600 and 3,000 roubles are now
worth 12,000 and 20,000, and in the centre of the town land is not to
be bought at any price.
Newness, progress, hopefulness are characteristics of civil
Wladivostok. It has the aspect of a growing city in the American Far
West. Few things are finished and all are going ahead. The sidewalks
are mostly narrow, and composed of rough planks, with a tendency to
tip up or down, but here and there is a fine piece of granite flagging
10 feet wide. The hotels have more of the shady character of “saloons”
or barrooms than of anything reputable or established. Handsome houses
of brick and stone shoulder wooden shanties. Fashionable carriages or
sleighs bounce over ungraded streets. The antediluvian ox-cart with its
Korean driver bumps and creaks through the streets alongside of the
_troika_, with its three galloping horses in showy harness, and its
occupants in the latest and daintiest of Parisian costumes.
But the all-pervading flavor of militarism overpowers the suggestion
of the American Far West. The first buildings on the barren coast are
military hospitals and barracks, and barracks thicken as the city is
approached. The female element is in a remarkable minority. The dull
roll of artillery and commissariat wagons, the tramp, morning and
night, of brown battalions, and the continual throb of drum and blare
of trumpet and bugle, recall one to the fact that this is the capital
of Russia’s vast, growing, aspiring, Pacific Empire.
Theatricals, concerts, and balls fill up the winter season. Except
on the few days on which snow falls, the skies are cloudless, the
temperature is not seriously below zero, and the dryness of the air is
very invigorating. In winters, happily somewhat exceptional, in which
there is no snowfall, and the strong winds create dust-storms, the
climate is less agreeable. Spring is abrupt and pleasant, and autumn is
a fine season, but summer is hot, damp, and misty.
A fine Greek cathedral, with many domes and lofty gilded crosses, which
gleam mysteriously in the sunset when the gloom of twilight has wrapped
all else, a prominent Lutheran church, and a Chinese joss-house,
provide for the religious needs of the population. The Governor of
the Maritime Province, several of the leading, and many of the lower
officials are of German origin from the Baltic provinces, Lutherans,
and possibly imbued with a few liberal ideas. But among the kindly,
cultured, and agreeable people whose acquaintance I made in Wladivostok
one peculiarity impressed me forcibly--the absolute stagnation of
thought, or the expression of it, on politics and all matters connected
with them, the administration of government, religion, the orthodox
church, dissent, home and foreign policy, etc. It is true that
certain subjects, and these among the most interesting, are carefully
eliminated from conversation, and that to introduce any one of them
might subject the offender to social ostracism.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] The Russian soldier does a great amount of day labor. Far from
disporting himself in brilliant uniform before the admiring eyes of
boys and “servant girls,” he digs, builds, carpenters, makes shoes and
harness, and does a good civil day’s work in addition to his military
duties, and is paid for this as “piecework” on a fixed scale, his
daily earnings being duly entered in a book. When he has served his
time these are handed over to him, and a steady, industrious man makes
enough to set himself up in a small business or on a farm. _Vodka_ and
_schnaps_ are the Russian soldier’s great enemies.