“Whom Heaven has endowed as a fool at his birth it is a waste of
instruction to teach”
--_Chinese proverb_
Our real difficulties had, however, barely begun, and it was upon
arrival at the Hotel Siberie at Verkne-Oudinsk that we felt completely
at sea in the absence of one word of a common language. Reaching
our destination late at night we had the greatest trouble in making
them understand that we were hungry and wished to have supper before
seeking our rooms. Eggs, we thought, would be the simplest and most
easily obtainable fare. I therefore drew an egg. What they did _not_
think it was meant for can hardly be described; that it was an egg
never occurred to them. Certainly an egg drawn in a hurry might be
many things. Therefore I added an egg-cup to my sketch; and at this
they stared in blank astonishment. I think they had never seen such a
thing. I then tried to draw a chicken; at which they laughed, but had
no conception as to my intention. With all the resourcefulness of the
superior sex, Mr. Gull had a brilliant notion. Out of all patience--he
is a peppery little man--he pointed to my picture, and, violently
flapping his arms, he squawked “Cock-a-doodle-doo” at the top of
his voice. Delight on the part of the staff. The demonstration had
penetrated their thick skulls, and we had eggs for supper that night.
Next day our intention was to find out all about the steamboat which
was to carry us up the Selenga River to Kiachta, but how to encompass
this was almost an insurmountable problem. The clerks of the telegraph
office had been our solitary hope, but on acquaintance we found that
this means was worse than useless. They knew not one word of French,
German, or, of course, English. We wandered, somewhat disconsolate,
along the dusty streets, wondering what we should be able to do, when,
when coming away from a private house, we encountered the amiable
countenance of a Chinaman. We seized upon him, and our troubles were,
for the time being at least, at an end. What he did not know himself,
he put us in the way of finding out, and retracing his steps into the
house he invited the master thereof to come forth and to speak with us.
This gentleman turned out to be a German-speaking Russian engaged in
one of the more important businesses of the place, and of his kindness
we have the most grateful recollection. He helped us to order dinner,
he walked with us, and drove with us. He took us to the steamship
company’s office, purchased our tickets, and finally put us and our
luggage on board the “Rabatka,” waving us farewells from the wharf
like the good friend that he was.
Verkne-Oudinsk is not a place of many attractions. Once a penal
settlement, now a military stronghold, its main feature is the huge
white prison standing on the banks of the Selenga River a short
distance outside the town; it seems out of all proportion to the
population of some 40,000 inhabitants. This prison is capable of
containing 600 men and women, and in some of the rooms there are as
many as seventy persons herded together. Criminals of the worst order,
as well as those prisoners who have escaped and been recaptured, are
isolated, confined in dungeons, and wear fetters on their ankles.
Of Verkne-Oudinsk’s 40,000 inhabitants some 10,000 are said to be
Chinese, while of the remainder an appreciable proportion is no doubt
composed of Russian political exiles and ticket-of-leave men with their
families, or their descendants.
In relation to the size and position of the place the shops of
Verkne-Oudinsk are fairly good. There are also a couple of factories,
while a brisk trade is carried on at certain hours of the day in
the big market square. Considerable business is transacted in
Verkne-Oudinsk in connection with skins, fur, wool, and timber.
The first-named are, however, exported in their raw condition and
therefore not a great many people are employed in this trade. As in
most Russian towns, the church forms the dominant feature, and that
in Verkne-Oudinsk, with its copper-green roof and white walls, is
decidedly attractive to the eye, standing as it does, on the banks of a
flowing river.
The houses, mainly of wood, and often composed of rough logs with the
bark remaining, are for the most part of one story and border the roads
on which the dust is habitually ankle deep. The only possibility of
comfort under such conditions is to wear the long soft top boots of the
country. Yet it is only the men of the place who do so, and the women
for the most part go about in trodden-down slippers and with shawls
over their untidy heads.
The weather was by this time growing hot, and the prospect of two
days’ travelling on a river steamboat sounded exceedingly pleasant
after the shadeless, dust-laden streets of Verkne-Oudinsk. But we had
reckoned without the mosquitoes. The “Rabatka” can hardly be called a
luxurious boat, and the vibration and noise from the paddle-wheels were
at first not a little trying. The cabins, arranged with three hard,
velvet-covered seats in place of berths, were very small, while the
necessity that arose for the thick wire-gauze screens over the windows
as soon as the sun went down, rendered them almost unendurably hot.
There was a roomy upper deck upon which we had fondly contemplated
spending all our time, but alas! the funnel emitted, not smoke, but a
continuous rain of red-hot charcoal, and in view of the danger from
fire there was, of course, no awning.
The scenery, which was mildly pretty as we passed between the pine-clad
hills outside Verkne-Oudinsk, soon became flat and uninteresting.
Selenginsk, the only village of any size and with the usual large
white church with green domes, was passed about half-way between our
starting-point and Ost-Kiachta, and may be remembered as having been
during the early part of last century the field of a group of English
missionaries who established there an excellent work among the Buriats
(a Russian-nationalised tribe of Mongols). They lived there in complete
exile until Nicholas Imperator ordered them out of the country in the
early forties, the reason being that it was English influence and not
the Christianising of the Buriats that was feared by the authorities.
Delightful indeed it was to reach the little port of Ost-Kiachta in
the cool of the morning, to make a bad bargain with the owner of a
tarantass, and to find ourselves driving along through country which
was in refreshing contrast to that we had recently left--stretches
of flowery moorland bordered with pines and silver birches. At one
point across a shallow valley drifted sounds of melody, which, we
discovered later, arose from the tents of an encampment of Russian
soldiers. This part of Siberia, in fact, bristles with bayonets, and
the ulterior motives of massing such numbers of soldiers in territory
so obviously peaceful is significant enough. We must have driven for
some ten miles or more when we dashed through the gay little town
of Troitze-Casavsk, in which churches and barracks seemed to dominate
everything right up to the door of the unpretentious, one-storied,
barn-like erection which called itself the Hôtel Metrôpole.
[Illustration: TROITZE CASAVSK]
[Illustration: OUR BURIAT HOSTESS]
[Illustration: THE JAMSCHIK AND HIS TARANTASS]
The place presented a depressed aspect, and the bedrooms, like cells,
opening off a long and odoriferous passage, were far from cheering.
The washing arrangements, just a trickle of water coming from a tin
receptacle of doubtful cleanliness fixed above a basin, and the
sheetless, blanketless beds were by no means inviting. The landlord,
however, a portly Serb, was a pleasant enough fellow, and sent us in an
appetising lunch, which, after our picnicing experiences on both boat
and train was welcome. Kiachta, of which Troitze-Casavsk is merely a
division on the northern side, we found to be a far more interesting
place than Verkne-Oudinsk. A great military centre, with newly-erected
barracks of strikingly ugly design and capable of accommodating over
15,000 soldiers, mars the foreground of what would otherwise be a most
charming view extending as far as the eye can reach into Mongolia.
A ribbon of no man’s land divides Kiachta from Mai-mai-ch’eng (buy-sell
city), a pretty little Chinese township which fringes the northernmost
border of Mongolia opposite Kiachta--the neutral territory being
defined by a couple of stone pillars on the strip of dusty waste.
But Russia has long ago broken the laws of neutral territory by the
establishment of barracks within five miles of the frontier, and
Mai-mai-ch’eng is depressed. They are very depressed indeed, for the
Russians are pressing the Chinese very hard here, and, while the latter
doubtless squeezed the Mongol to the limits of his endurance, they
in their turn are being ground down and out of existence by dues and
taxation on both incoming and outgoing goods, in face of the special
protection which is afforded to all Russian products. The Chinese
were very ready to talk about their grievances, and we sat in their
little shops and drank excellent tea, in Russian fashion, in vast
quantities one hot afternoon while they poured these grievances into
our sympathetic ears. Chinese, Mongols, and Russians live cheek by jowl
in Kiachta, but all told, apart from the military, the total population
numbers not many more than a thousand souls.
It is here in Kiachta that one first makes the acquaintance of the
Khalkha or Northern Mongol. In the streets, in the market place, in the
burning heat where the sand refracts every atom of glare, they are to
be encountered. Always mounted, they presented the most extraordinarily
picturesque appearance, and the first impression fascinated me.
One couple, an elderly rake and his pretty young wife, we followed
about while they made their purchases. The girl, sitting easily and
gracefully on her pony, bartered for things at the various stalls,
while her elderly swain doled out the roubles with a cheeriness
which made me think that she must surely be the wife of “the other
fellow”--it certainly was not marital. At a Chinese booth she drank,
what looked like, sherbet, made an awful face over it, whereat Don
Yuan laughed derisively. Riding astride, she appeared both eminently
practical and unpractical at the same time--the curious spreading
coiffure looking as though it would catch the wind to any extent when
she was going fast. This seemed to me as though it might possibly have
been the forerunner of the Manchu headdress which strikes one as being
so attractive the first time one sees it in Peking. The typical Mongol
swagger, of which later we were to see plenty, was not absent from the
pair, and the maiden evidently enjoyed our interest, and was, moreover,
quite coy about it.
How to get away from Kiachta was a problem somewhat difficult of
solution. Wild rumours regarding the turbulent soldiery and the
Hung-hu-tzes, or “red-beards,” as these murderous robbers are
called, sent up the prices alarmingly. By an European we had met in
Verkne-Oudinsk we had been told that our route might be infested by
such, and that on meeting a bunch of mounted men in Russian boots and
slouch hats we were to shoot at sight and not to wait for them “to
plug the lead in first”. Hung-hu-tzes have the reputation of killing
first and robbing afterwards. How sound this advice may have been it
is difficult to determine now, for fortunately we never had occasion
to put it into practice. Through the kind offices of a solitary Dane
in charge of the telegraph system at Kiachta, to whom we were lucky in
having an introduction, we were able to come to terms with the owner
of a tarantass. The latter is a rough cradle-like, hooded structure,
virtually springless, on four wheels, drawn by three fiery horses,
driven by a Jamschik or Russian coachman. For sixty roubles (nearly
£7), ten of them in advance (which we inadvertently forgot to deduct
when we got to our journey’s end), our ruffianly looking driver
undertook to convey us to Urga, but, he said, owing to the rivers at
this time of year being in flood, he would not guarantee to do so
under a week. From my point of view this was no drawback; lingering on
the road enables one frequently to obtain an intimacy with the local
conditions which hurrying through against time and under contract
completely frustrates.
I was glad to shake the dust of Russia from my feet for a while and
depart from the hotel which at 8 o’clock on this perfect summer’s day
was still slumbering and slothful. Evidence of the previous night’s
debauch sufficed to make breakfast in the dining-room an unattractive
experience, and it was not a place in which one cared to remain longer
than absolutely necessary. A charge in our bill of something over five
shillings for a cooked cauliflower was proof enough that the Russians
love money though they do not love work. Rather a Mongol yourt at any
time than an Hôtel Metrôpole in Siberia. Civilisation, so called, is
all very well, but more often than not it destroys simplicity while in
no sense augmenting comfort.