THE STEPPES
Amongst all the interesting experiences of an unusually varied and
adventurous life, since, in the very middle of my Oxford course I had,
for health's sake, to spend a couple of years ranching in the River
Plate, my long drives across the steppes stand out in bold and pleasing
relief.
They were necessitated by a Mining Camp Mission in Siberia, for the
steppes form a large part of the eastern portion of the Russian Empire,
and do not belong to Russia proper at all, lying beyond the Volga and
the Urals. It is in that part of Asiatic Russia that the development of
the empire's vast resources is taking place with special rapidity, and
our own countrymen are bearing a hand in it and playing no unworthy
part.
I believe the word "steppes" is given to that undulating but level
country in the provinces of Ufa and Orenburg, about two days' and two
nights' journey by train east of Moscow, inhabited by the Bashkirs,
the descendants of those Tartar hordes who nearly overwhelmed Russia at
one time, and possibly Europe itself, and were called for their
relentless cruelty "the Scourge of GOD."
[Illustration: _Consecration of Burial Ground in the Siberian Steppes._
(See page 178.)]
They are a fierce-looking race, even now, though peaceable enough, and
it seems strange to find them so near to Moscow still, and to see them
at their devotions when driving past their mosques on a Friday. They are
great agriculturists, and a delightful sight is presented by their vast
tracts of tender green wheat and oats shooting up as soon as the winter
is over, and even while, in out-of-the-way hollows, snow still remains.
The earth is black and very rich in character, and the seed, sown often
before the end of September, lies nearly seven months under the
protecting and fertilizing snow. As soon as this has gone and spring
comes, the young crops shoot up with amazing speed and strength. Late
frosts are terrible disasters, of course, under such circumstances.
But the _real_ steppes, which resemble the veldt of Africa, or the
pampas of South, and the prairie of North America, are those vast level
plains, partly agricultural, partly pasture, and partly scrub and sand,
which lie another day and night still further east, and extend for
thousands of miles to the south till they reach nearly to the borders
of Turkestan. These are the steppes I know best. There is also a
pastoral steppe of large extent and of agricultural character just above
the Black Sea.
If the reader will refer to the map he will see what a huge portion even
of the great country of Siberia is taken up by the Kirghiz Steppes, and
as they are extraordinarily rich in minerals, so far as one can judge
from enterprises already successfully started, produce large crops, and
sustain innumerable flocks and herds, it will be seen how much they are
likely to count for in the progress of Russia. The Kirghiz, familiarly
called the "Ks" in the mining camps, are a Tartar race, like the
Bashkirs, and, like them also in religion, are Mohammedans; but while I
saw mosques amongst the Bashkirs filled with praying congregations, I
never saw either mosque or prayers amongst the Kirghiz, nor their women
veiled. They are small in stature, very strongly built, rather like the
Japanese, and splendid horsemen. A Kirghiz when mounted seems part of
his horse as he dashes across the steppes at full speed with the merest
apology for reins and bit, ready to pull up in the twinkling of an eye.
They struck me always as very friendly, though I have read that others
have not found them so.
That they are very hospitable every one admits. A traveller, it is said,
can go thousands of miles across the steppes without a rouble in his
pocket, and want for nothing. Everywhere he will be hospitably
entertained. A Russian, of course, asks nothing better than to have a
guest, and considers himself honoured in being asked to take him in for
a meal or for the night; and the Kirghiz are Eastern in their reception
of guests as well.
In the steppes governments of Ufa, Orenburg, and Akmolinsk the
population must be nearly seven millions, of which the great majority
are the nomadic Kirghiz, living in tents in the summer, and taking their
flocks and herds away to the south and into villages, where they can
have roofs and walls during the seven months--at least!--of terrible
winter.
The tent is a most comfortable abode, though not much to look at from
outside. It has a wooden floor, with a rug or skins upon it, is circular
in its area, but has no pole of any kind, being built up very neatly and
ingeniously upon a framework of canes and laths until it is in shape
like a well-spread-out low and evenly-rounded haystack. It has a movable
top in its centre, which affords ample ventilation. Inside it is lined
with felt, which has often prettily embroidered draperies fastened upon
it; and outside the canework it is well covered over with stout canvas
securely lashed into its place. It will be seen that no obstacle is
presented to the strong winds which continually blow over the steppes,
as there are no "corners" such as are spoken of in Job i. 14, which
shows us that tents were raised upon four poles in early Israelitish
days as they are still amongst the Bedouin tribes of North Africa and
Arabia.
The beautifully and symmetrically rounded _uerta_, as the Kirghiz tent
is called, receives every wind that sweeps over it, and never makes the
slightest movement. At least twenty people could be, and often are,
gathered inside when some festivity is afoot, though each family as a
rule has its own tent. They are extremely attractive, and when I once
went to see an American family, engaged in preliminary mining work, I
found them with one of these tents for their living-room, set up with
sideboard, dining-table, easy-chairs, etc., and another opposite to it
fitted up as a most comfortable bedroom with brass beds and all the
usual furniture, the little cookhouse also being not far away. Breathing
in the marvellous air of the steppes, I thought I had never seen the
"simple life" presented in a more alluring form. I have longed, indeed,
ever since to have a month of it some time, and get as close to
Mother Nature as it is possible to do in these busy days.
[Illustration: _Outside a Kirghiz Uerta._]
The descendants of Jonadab knew what they were about, and what was good
for them, when they determined to keep to their pastoral life, and hold
on to all their tent-dwelling traditions; and as for wine, no one need
ever feel the need of such a stimulant in the invigorating air of those
great plains.
Amongst the Kirghiz one feels an extraordinarily biblical atmosphere,
and is back again in the days of Abraham and the patriarchs, and the
"women in the tent," of whom Jael sang after the great victory. The men
are attired much as Isaac and Ishmael, and Jacob and Esau were, and the
women very probably keep the traditions of thousands of years in wearing
their pretty nun-like head-dresses of white, which leave their pleasant
faces free and uncovered.
These Kirghiz hardly ever use money. They grow "rich in many flocks and
herds," and if they sold would immediately buy again. Some of them,
however, are very well off, and I was told that one, who lived simply
with his wife in a _uerta_ on the steppes, had sent his only son to
complete his education in Paris, and get a medical degree at its
University. For this he would have to sell off some of the increase of
his flock, and send the proceeds to his son.
Let me now explain how I came to be amongst these tent-dwelling folk at
all. During my first visit to Petrograd I was asked one evening by a
member of the Russia Company if I could appoint a chaplain to go out to
Siberia once a year or so, and visit the scattered little groups of our
own countrymen who are there, but, at that time, had never seen a
clergyman nor had a service since coming into the country.
"There are unbaptized," he said, "and unconfirmed, and even those who
need to be married with the service of their Church, who through no
fault of their own, but through circumstances, have had to go without
it. There are people who have been in Siberia all their lives, and some
who have been there forty and fifty years, and never once had any
ministration of their Church. Can nothing be done?"
This, of course, was a strong and direct appeal, and, after considering
for a short time, it seemed impossible to appoint a chaplain for work of
which one knew nothing, and so I proposed to go myself, which I found
later was what it was hoped and expected that I should do. Accordingly
in 1912 and again in 1913 I carried out this intention, and found that
it practically took the form of a Mining Camp Mission; for, though I
visited one or two other British communities, yet the most interesting
part of both years' experiences was in going to the mines situated,
except in one case, in the very heart of the steppes. Each, though
employing thousands of Kirghiz and Russians, is managed by a British
staff of between twenty and thirty, and is the property of a British
company with its board of directors meeting in its offices in London.
I will describe two of these journeys, for without knowing something of
the steppes and of those who live there, and indeed taking in something
of their spirit, it is impossible to feel that one really knows Russia.
Four days and nights from Moscow brings one to Petropavlosk (Peter and
Paul's town), and it is from there, in a southerly direction at first,
and then heading towards the east, that the great Spassky Copper Mine is
reached, for which a drive of a thousand miles, there and back, is
necessary. I had not realized till just before I set out that I should
have to drive on day and night without stopping for anything but food
and to change horses, as there were no Russian rest-houses on that
route, and the Kirghiz tents were impossible owing to the great number
of living beings, other than human, which inhabited them. It was no
light thing to undertake, as it meant leaving on Tuesday and getting in
late on Saturday evening, and this only if all went well. Some people
can sleep under such conditions during the night. I don't know how they
possibly can, for there are no roads in any true sense of the word, and
none of the vehicles which cross them have springs.
The manager of the mine had kindly sent down the usual _tarantass_,
which, hooded like a victoria, is a very stout cart, lashed securely
upon poles, and drawn by three horses or _troika_. There is no seat
inside, but hay is placed over the bottom, and pillows and cushions on
the top, and there one reclines during the day, and lies down at night.
It all sounds very comfortable and even luxurious, but as there are no
roads, and only the roughest of tracks with fearful ruts and soft places
where water lingers, with sometimes a sloping bank down to a stream,
and, as the wild driver keeps his horses at their full speed, one is
hurled violently and roughly about the whole time, sleep, for me at
least, is beyond my wildest hopes from start to finish.
[Illustration: _Tarantass with its Troika for the Steppes._]
For the first day or so I had the greatest difficulty to avoid biting my
tongue in two as I was thrown about and it came between my teeth, and I
used to look with amazement and envy at my Kirghiz conductor, on the
box beside the driver, swaying about in all directions like a tree in a
hurricane, but sound asleep. His name was Mamajam, and on our arrival he
brought his little daughter Fatima to see me, and another youth named
Abdullah, completing the Arabian Nights impression he had already given
me.
There is no regularity in the arrangements for changing horses along the
steppes. Sometimes one would drive about twenty _versts_ (twelve and a
half miles) and then change, while at others we would go on as far as
sixty, or even eighty, _versts_ (fifty miles) without any change at all.
The horses are very strong and hardy, and are never allowed either food
or drink until the journey is over; and, with the horses, the driver is
changed also, as every man brings and understands his own. It was a
wonderful study in character, temperament, and dress, for the men were
extraordinarily different from each other, though all most attractive
and interesting; the Kirghiz more so than the one or two Russians we
had.
We carried our food, chiefly tinned, with us, but there was an abundance
of eggs, butter, and white bread always to be got, and, most welcome
sight, always the steaming _samovar_, with its promise of cheering and
comforting tea. It is astonishing how one's ordinary food can be cut
down in quantity when necessary. We gradually came down to two meals a
day, and on the return journey these only consisted of eggs, bread and
butter, and tea; and yet the simple life and magnificent air made one
feel always extraordinarily fit and well and in good spirits.
The steppes, though vast solitudes as far as human habitations are
concerned, are full of life and movement, and the most is made of the
short summer. Caravans are continually meeting the traveller as he goes
south or north, or crossing his route from east to west, or west to
east, carrying tea from China, timber and other articles of commerce,
travellers from town to town, or from one village to another, or a
little band of colonists seeking land upon which to settle, or herdsmen
in charge of sheep, oxen, or horses. Perhaps one's driver catches sight
of another _troika_ going in the same direction, and with a shrill cry
urges on his team; the other, nothing loath, joins in, and for a quarter
of an hour there is a most thrilling race. There is never a dull moment
night or day, though perhaps the most inspiring times are those when one
has just changed horses, and has a wild young Kirghiz on the box who,
seeing an opportunity of showing off, stands up whirling his whip and,
shrieking, yelling, whistling, like a demon, urges his horses to their
utmost speed, making the dust and earth fly in all directions. It makes
one feel that it is good to be alive.
The air is most transporting at that height, four thousand feet above
sea-level; the whole steppes in the early summer are strewn with
flowers, larks are singing overhead, streams are flowing on every side,
there is a clear horizon as at sea, though now and then there is hilly
ground, the sky is ever delightfully blue and without a cloud, and the
sun shines brightly, though not too fiercely, from morn till eve.
Nothing could be more delightful than that first experience, especially
as one thought of the object of one's journey and the services of the
coming Sunday. Then the wonderful nights, beginning with the sweet,
bell-like sounds of the innumerable frogs after the birds had ceased. As
I did not sleep I saw and enjoyed all that the nights had to give, and
we had the full moon. First the golden sunlight gradually died away and
the silvery light of the moon appeared, that in its turn, after what
seemed an extraordinarily short time, giving place to the dawn, which
shows itself sometimes more than an hour before the actual sunrise.
Night on the steppes, like the day, is also full of movement, for many
of those who travel long distances prefer to let their horses and
bullocks feed and rest during the long day, when they enjoy their
pasture best, getting their own rest also at the same time, basking in
the sun, and continuing their journey through the night, which is never
really dark.
My second night out, just after midnight, I was startled at seeing a
camel come into view in the moonlight on my right, going in the opposite
direction and dragging a small cart, but making no sound upon the grass.
It looked quite spectral in the moonlight, and was followed by another,
and yet another; then came a bullock, then a horse or two, one after
another, then more camels, all with carts and in single file. Not a
sound could be heard, and only at intervals men walked beside them. It
went on and on, the strange, silent procession, and I could not think
what manner of caravan it could possibly be. All the carts were small,
carefully covered over, and evidently had small loads, though requiring
powerful creatures to draw them; and then all at once I understood. It
was smelted copper being taken down to the railhead from which I had
come, and from the mine to which I was going! I then began to count how
many had still to pass me, and reckoned up a hundred and six, so that
there must have been nearly three hundred in all. They take three months
to go down, load up with stores, and return, and yet I was told that
such transport was cheaper than sending by rail will be when that part
of the government of Akmolinsk is connected with the great
Trans-Siberian line running from Petropavlosk both to Moscow and
Petrograd.
Another time I should take the opportunity afforded by a pause when
changing horses in the night to get a few hours' sleep in the
_tarantass_ in the open air, which would, of course, make all the
difference, and which would then be quite possible. But if I had done it
on this occasion I should have had to lose a Sunday instead of arriving
on the Saturday evening. I was well repaid, for though nothing more than
a notice was sent quickly round, "The bishop has come, and there will be
services at the manager's house to-morrow at half-past ten and at six,
and Holy Communion at half-past seven," yet at half-past seven every one
of our countrymen was there and received Communion except the wife of
one member of the staff ill in bed. The manager's two little boys were
there to be present at the first early Anglican celebration of Holy
Communion ever taken beyond the Urals. A beautiful _ikon_, flowers, and
two lights adorned the temporary altar. Others than our own countrymen
attended the other services. It was a glorious day to have, including
as it did attendance at the Russian Church in the morning when our own
service was over.
This great mining property includes Karagandy, where the coal is, and to
which I came first; Spassky, where the smelting-works had been set up,
some forty miles further on; and Uspensky, where the mine itself is,
some fifty miles further still. From Spassky I went to Uspensky by
motor-car, and spent three days there with the foreman of the mine and
his family. I went down the mine also to make acquaintance with the
Kirghiz who are at work there, and knocked off for myself some specimens
of the rich ore.
The foreman and his family--two girls and two sons of between twenty and
thirty--had been in New Zealand, in the Backs, and it was no new thing
for them to have a bishop stay and give them services. The wife was a
particularly good and devout woman, and in all the years she had been
there had never once had the happiness of attending a service of her own
Church. The two young men were shy fellows, but the manager having first
prepared the way, I took them in hand, and, finding they were ready to
come to a decision in life, instructed and confirmed them. On these
missions, as with Philip and the eunuch, we cannot lose such
opportunities; and I shall not forget the Celebration, early on the day
I left, when that whole family received Communion together. I know what
a joy, such as she had never expected, it was to that good woman thus to
have family unity; and, as she died suddenly before the year was over, I
shall always feel that my long journey across the steppes was fully
worth while if it were only for the happiness it had brought her in
enabling her for once in her life to receive Communion with all the
members of her family.
I had another most interesting experience before leaving Spassky and the
Akmolinsk Steppes. Some little time before my arrival, two of the staff
had lost their lives in the smelting-works and been buried in a little
plot of ground with two monuments placed above them. One of the
memorials was of pure copper, the other of stone, and there was a wooden
railing round the small enclosure. The manager asked me to consecrate
this little plot of ground with a larger space added to it, so that they
might have their own little GOD'S acre.
As soon as the Russian priest heard that this was to be done he
immediately asked if he and his people might be present and share in the
service? And to this, of course, we readily agreed. It was impossible,
however, to draw up any joint service, as we were ignorant of each
other's language, so I arranged that he should say a few prayers first
and that I should take our own service afterwards. This he was very glad
to do, and, robed in his vestments as for the Liturgy, he prayed for the
departed, singing with his people, present in great numbers, a touching
little litany, and finishing with the offering of incense. As I looked
at all those fellow Christians of ours and their priest, and then
outside at the great circle of the vast steppes stretching away in all
directions, so suggestive of greatness of spirit, I felt most deeply
moved as I took the censer from him and, offering the incense as he had
done, led the way, censing the boundaries of the new burial-ground
marked out by stones. Our little community followed singing, "O GOD, our
help in ages past," every line of which helped us all to realize a
little at least of that large-hearted view of life and of death which no
other passage of Scripture gives us with the directness and grandeur of
Psalm xc.
The people looked on at this simple little procession with the closest
attention and sympathy, and then, after an address--an entirely new
experience for them in a religious service--I proceeded to the
consecration of the ground. I should fancy it is the only instance, as
yet, of clergy of the two Churches actually sharing a service together;
and that was especially in my mind as I took the good priest's censer to
offer, just as he had done and from the same censer, "an oblation with
great gladness," feeling to the full "how good and joyful it is for
brethren to dwell together in unity." I should say of that service also
that it was quite worth while taking that long journey across the
steppes to have it.
The prevailing idea of Siberia in this country is, as we all know, that
it is a terrible waste of ice and snow, a land of mines and of convicts,
ravaged by packs of wolves; and this is not at all an incorrect
impression of the greater part of it and for the longest period of the
year. All that is wrong in the impression is that it leaves out the five
months of the year in which there is the glow and charm of the tropics,
with growth and upspringing life and beauty on every hand. The steppes
are a paradise of singing birds and blooming flowers and flowing
streams, where the air is joyous to breathe, invigorating, quickening,
and inspiriting beyond description. These are the Siberian Steppes I
have known and traversed and loved, and long and hope to see again.
But I am keenly alive to all the real and ever-present sense of peril
which the winter brings with it as soon as it comes, and which it keeps
steadily before the mind till it is over for all who have to meet it and
struggle against it. I have heard men speak of the terrible blizzards
and the appalling cold; of the deadly gloom, when the air is so full of
snow that they can hardly see a hand before their faces, and they wander
uncertainly for a whole day and night together until they give
themselves up for lost, to find after all, when the storm is over, that
they are only a few yards away from their own doors, or in the middle of
the street from which they had started.
They instantly drop their voices on the Kirghiz Steppes when they begin
to speak of winter, and on some faces there comes at once that beaten
look which, whenever it appears, is testimony that the man has measured
himself against the sterner forces of Nature or of human life, and has
failed.
[Illustration: _Inside a Kirghiz Uerta._]
Tolstoi's _Master and Man_ gives a very clear and convincing account of
what a snowstorm may mean for even experienced travellers. There the
scene is laid in Russia, and between one village and another in a
country often traversed; but the vast spaces of Siberia in that long,
gloomy winter must be specially fraught with dangers and terrors during
those swiftly rising and deadly _boirams_, as the wind-storms are
called, which completely obliterate all landmarks while they last, and
which are not to be met with anywhere else in the inhabited parts of
the world. At Spassky they told me of a Kirghiz horseman who had been
found one morning, during the preceding winter, just outside his home,
horse and rider rigid in the snow and frozen stiff, both of them dead
for hours. They had struggled against the _boiram_ as long as they
could, the man probably urging on his horse to the last, and both giving
up the struggle together as the awful frost took possession of them, so
swiftly that there was no falling off for the one nor sinking down for
the other. And, if they had only known it, or the blinding storm had
permitted them to see, they were at the very door of their home and
within reach of warmth and food and shelter.
I remember once saying to friends that I supposed when travelling in
winter they could make themselves very comfortable by packing themselves
in with "hot-water foot-warmers." "Hot-water foot-warmers!" they
exclaimed. "Why, the frost would have them and destroy them completely
almost before we had left the door."
Then the wolves are there also! Siberia has not changed in that respect
from the weird land of which we have read as long as we can remember,
and is still the haunt of the most fierce and untiring enemies which
man and beast alike have to fear when they are the hunters and not the
hunted. The fair Siberia of the glorious summer knows no wolves. Then
there is food enough and to spare always within reach, and there are
homes and family life even for wolves to think of and be happy about.
There is no need then, though they are gregarious by nature, for them to
join together. Each can fend for himself, and have enough for all his
family and to spare. Not a wolf is to be seen except very rarely, and
the traveller never even thinks of them with fear as, singly, sleek, and
well fed, they slink away immediately as soon as seen. It is altogether
different when winter comes, and hunger, even famine, gets a grip upon
them because so many other creatures are hibernating. Then the quarry
must be of different character, and nothing is too strong or big for a
huge pack well led. Once they have been driven by stern necessity to
combine together and choose their leader they will stick at nothing and
attempt almost anything.
A friend of mine, born in Petrograd, tells us of an old travelling
carriage of his father's, in which he and his brothers and sisters, when
children, used to play.
"It was raised very high from the ground," he says, "only to be reached
by a small ladder, so as to be out of the reach of wolves."
Just the same stories are told after every winter as those of which we
have so often read in prose and verse; and, out of the many told me as
happening quite recently, I select the following:--
Three winters ago a wedding party went from their village, in the Altai,
where the ceremony had taken place in the morning at the home of the
bride, to the village where the bridegroom lived, and to which he was
now taking back his newly-wedded wife. They were a hundred and twenty in
number, and made a large party, with their horses and sledges, and were
not afraid; but an unusually large pack of wolves was out that
afternoon, and, soon scenting them, gave chase. Party after party were
overtaken, pulled down, and, with horses as well, devoured. The bride
and bridegroom and best man were in the front sledge with good horses,
and kept ahead till they were quite close to the village, when they too
were overtaken by a few of the strongest and swiftest of their pursuers.
To save themselves the bridegroom and best man threw out the bride, and
thus stopped the pursuit for a time sufficiently for them to gain the
village. It was a shocking thing to do, but when the villagers began to
question and help them out the awful explanation was forthcoming! The
two men had gone mad with fright, and had not known what they were
really doing. In that terrible hunting down, with the shrieks and
despairing cries of their friends, as they were overtaken, ever ringing
in their ears as they urged their own terror-stricken horses forward, it
is little wonder that their minds gave way.
Let there be no mistake, therefore, about the steppes. The reader may
keep the new impression (if it is new) that I have endeavoured to give
of a most beautiful, rich, and fertile country; and which I am hoping to
be visiting again while this book is being read, finding, I hope, this
country of the wolves story rejoicing in all the glow and beauty of
summer. But still, for nearly seven months of the year, that Siberia is
the old Siberia still, fast bound in the grip of an appalling frost,
waging, in its storms, a never-ceasing battle against human enterprise
and effort; and the haunt of those insatiable and savage creatures which
seem to stand out from all other creatures in being devoid, when in
packs, of all fear or dread of man.
The steppes above Turkestan, which I visited last, are milder in climate
than those of Akmolinsk. Great parts of them are sand, with a sage-like
scrub, dear to the heart of camels; and they have a drier and even more
invigorating air than that of the northern plains. Across these I
travelled my five hundred miles in a Panhard motor-car, with a wild
Russian chauffeur who knew no fear. He dashed across a country which
practically had no roads and resembled a rough Scotch moor, with an
_elan_ that the most daring French chauffeur might envy. He was a fine
fellow, Boroff by name, and carried me on as before, day and night, and
again with sunshine for the one and moonlight for the other. "The
devil's wagon" is the name the wondering Kirghiz have given the
motor-car from the first, but it is the last description it deserves. My
journey of under twenty-four hours from the railhead to the Atbazar
Mining Camp, if I had had to go by camel, as I expected might be
possible until my actual arrival, would have taken me some twelve days,
or even more.
All the transport in these steppes is by camels, and I could not be
satisfied until I had made a small expedition upon one, and shall,
perhaps, have to do the same again; but modern appliances are not to be
despised, and no one can wish for a better experience of the steppes
than to make the journey in the middle of summer and in a good modern
motor-car.