NORTH TO THE SIBERIAN RAILWAY
One should spend weeks, not days, in Urga, but alas, time pressed and I
had to be "moving on." Just how to move on was a question, for the
ponies and buggy with which I had crossed Gobi could go no farther. I
finally arranged with a Russian trader for a tarantass and baggage cart
to take me the two hundred and twenty-five miles to the head of river
navigation beyond Kiakhta. Innumerable cigarettes were smoked while the
discussion went on in my room, and at times there seemed much more smoke
than progress, for the trader knew only his own tongue and Mongolian,
but one of the two Russians who were to go with me spoke a very few
words of German, so he and I made shift to understand each other. My
Mongol host was on hand, looking after my interests, but he could talk
with me only through the medium of Tchagan Hou, who spoke a little
Chinese, and Wang, who knew even less English.
My spirits were rather low as I said good-bye to my kind hosts one
bright morning in August. I was sorry to leave Urga with so much unseen,
sorry to see the last of Tchagan Hou, who had piloted me so skilfully
across the desert--blessings on his good face! I hope luck is with him
wherever he is--and I was sorry to part with my Chinese tent, my home
for weeks, and with my little camp-bed, on which I had slept so many
dreamless nights. A few days and nights in a tarantass were all that now
lay between me and the uninteresting comforts of Western hotels and
trains.
With great inward objection I climbed into the tarantass, like nothing
so much as a huge cradle on wheels, drawn by three horses, one, the
largest, trotting between the shafts, and the other two galloping on
either side. At the very outset I had a chance to realize the difference
between dealing with the Asiatic pure and simple, and the Asiatic
disguised as a European. We had been told that it would be necessary to
make an early start to cover the first day's stage before dark. I was on
hand, and so was Wang, but it was afternoon before we were finally off.
Luggage had to be packed and repacked, wheels greased, harness mended,
many things done that ought to have been attended to the day before. Now
of course that happens in China,--though nowhere else in my journeyings
did I encounter such dawdling and shiftlessness,--but there at least you
may relieve your feelings by storming a bit and stirring things up;
these people, however, looked like Western men, and one simply could not
do it.
So I kicked my heels for hours in the Russian merchant's lumberyard,
drinking innumerable cups of tea and refusing as many more, and getting
light on several things. I had been told that the Russians have little
of the Anglo-Saxon's race pride, but I did not suppose they ignored all
other distinctions. I was drinking a last glass of tea with the merchant
in his pleasant little sitting-room, attractive with many blossoming
plants, when Wang came in to collect my things. He was at once
boisterously urged to draw up to the table between us. He refused, but
the Russian insisted, trying to force him down into a chair. I watched
without saying anything as my boy quietly took a glass of tea and a
chair and withdrew to the other side of the room. He understood what was
suitable better than the Russian.
Passing out of the little Russian trading settlement, like nothing so
much as a thriving, hideous Western village, we drove through the main
street of the Mongolian quarter, where all the life of Lama-town seemed
to have drifted, for the gaiety and colour were intoxicating. Half an
hour took us away from the river and into the hills. The track was rough
and boggy and often blocked by interminable trains of bullock carts
laden with logs or dressed lumber, Urga's important exports. Toward the
end of the day the way became steeper and wilder, ascending between
slopes well wooded with spruce and pine and larch and birch. It was a
joy to be in a real forest again. The flowers that grew in great
profusion were more beautiful than any I had seen before in North
Mongolia, especially the wonderful masses of wild larkspur of a blue so
intense that it dazzled the eyes.
A storm was gathering and we pushed on as fast as we could; but the road
was too rough for speed and we were a long way from our camping-place
when a tremendous downpour burst upon us, and in the twinkling of an eye
our path was a rushing mountain torrent. Dry under my tarpaulin I could
enjoy the scene, splendid masses of blue-black clouds shot with vivid
flashes of lightning that served only to show the badness of the way and
the emptiness of the country. I will say for Ivan, the tarantass driver,
that he knew his business and kept the horses on their feet and in the
road better than most men could have done.
We drove on until nine, when the driver declared he could go no farther,
and proceeded to make camp by the roadside, not far from a couple of
yurts. A light shone out, and there was the sound of angry voices and
wrangling, but I could not find out what was the matter. Nicolai's
German always gave out, as the Indian babu said his presence of mind
did, "in the nick of time." Finally, the Russians sulkily turned their
horses loose and set up the little shelter tent where the three men were
to sleep. Apparently there was no fuel to be had, and we all went
supper-less to bed.
My first night in a tarantass was very comfortable. The body of the
cart, made soft with rugs and sheepskins, was long enough for me to
stretch out at full length if I lay cornerwise, and the hood protected
me against rain and wind. When I waked in the morning the whole land was
drenched, but the sun shone brilliantly. I started out on my own account
to get a a little dry fuel from the Mongols, but was rather brusquely
repulsed. And I now found out what was the matter. The people had
objected the night before to our camping near the yurts, for it was
their hayfield, theirs by the custom which forbids encroaching on the
land near a settlement, but the Russians had persisted, and now, in
their helpless anger,--they were an aged lama and an old woman,--they
refused to sell us wood. They stood aloof looking ruefully at their
trampled meadow as we made ready to start, hardly brightening up at all
when I tried to make good their loss. An Englishman or an American would
scarcely have asked my boy to sit at table with us, but on the other
hand he would have spared the Mongol's poor little hayfield.
The experience of the first day was repeated all the following days; a
late start in the morning, tedious halts at noon, getting into camp long
after dark. Indeed, I do not know when we should have been off in the
morning had it not been for Wang. He it was who roused the men, and did
his best to get a fire started, collecting fuel for the whole camp.
Although it rained every day, I do not think it ever occurred to the
Russians to avail themselves of a chance to get dry wood against the
next meal, and Wang remarked sadly that the Russians spent even more
time than the Mongols in drinking tea.
After the first day we left behind the wooded hills and were again in
rolling grassland like South Mongolia, but there was much more water;
indeed, the streams and bogs often forced us to make long detours, and
finally we came to a deep, strong-flowing river that could not be
forded; but there was a ferry-boat made of four huge, hollowed logs
securely lashed together and covered with a loose, rough flooring. The
horses were taken out and made to swim across, while the Mongol
ferrymen, all lamas and big fellows, went back and forth, taking us and
the carts over.
The second morning we started again without our breakfasts,--there was
no dry wood. Ivan, the tarantass driver, and the only one of the party
who knew the road, cheered us with the prospect of something hot at a
Russian colonist's house an hour farther on, but it was four hours' hard
driving before we reached the place, which then, however, more than made
good all he had claimed for it.
The two families that formed the little settlement were engaged in
cattle raising, and seemed prosperous and contented. Their houses and
sheds were built of timber and mud, and looked substantial and well
suited to stand the cold and winds of North Mongolia. We were given a
hearty welcome and taken at once into a large whitewashed room, kitchen,
living-room, and bedroom in one. Everything was spotlessly clean; even
under the bed there was no dust. I can testify to that, for I pursued
Jack there. The mistress of the house was a very good-looking,
dark-browed woman in a neat red gown with a red kerchief tied over her
head. She promptly served us with delicious tea from the invariable
samovar, and the freshest of eggs and good black bread, while a chicken,
for me to take away, was set roasting on a spit before the fire. Two
little tow-headed boys, put out of the way on the bed, stared stolidly
at us as they munched raw parsnips, and a baby cradled in a basket
suspended by a rope from the ceiling was kept swinging by a touch from
the mother as she went to and fro. The people seemed to be on friendly
terms with their Mongol neighbours, two or three of whom came in while I
was there, but it must be a lonely life, a day's ride away from the
nearest Russian family. When I asked Nicolai what the children did for
school, he laughed scornfully. "Why should they learn to read? Their
father and mother cannot."
Such homes as these are Russia's advance posts in Mongolia, but given a
fair field and she would stand no chance, for the Chinese colonists must
outnumber the others a hundred to one. From this time on we saw more and
more signs of cultivation, the pasture land was broken by great fields
of rye and barley, and the yurts of the Mongol were often replaced by
Chinese houses, looking on the outside much like the one just described,
save that the window openings were filled with paper instead of glass.
Board signs, not unlike "Keep off the grass" ones of the West, were set
up here and there, showing a Chinese holding. With or without government
aid the Chinese are coming in. They get land from the Mongols very much,
I imagine, as did the first English settlers in America, buying for a
song what the owner does not know he is selling. And once established
they are not easily dislodged, for they are good farmers, thrifty and
untiring. In the end they will oust the Mongol from the best lands as
sure as fate, unless Russia first ousts them, as apparently she is
doing. I am sorry for the Mongol; he is a happy-go-lucky, likeable
fellow, but it is all nonsense for the Russian Government to talk about
the way the Chinese settlers are wronging him, taking away the tillable
lands. He does not want them to till, but to pasture his herds, and that
is just the difficulty. It is not China but civilization that is driving
the Mongol to the wall, just as the Red Indian was driven. Nowadays the
people that will not make the best use of the land must give it up to
those who will.
The next day promised to be a long, hard one, and proved even harder
than I had expected. First the little dog was run over by my own baggage
cart. I thought surely he was dead, and then I feared the first use of
the revolver I had brought from America would be to end his gay little
life. The Russians shook their heads dolefully and gave no help, but
Wang lent a hand with his cheerful "all right," and in twenty-four hours
Jack was able to bark at the horses, even though he was too much bunged
up to stand.
My other trouble was the behaviour of the man Ivan. He was in fact a
thoroughly bad sort, lazy, stupid, sullen, and brutal to his horses. He
was supposed to take orders from the other Russian, but he refused to
obey him or any one. Only when by signs I could make clear what I wanted
could I do anything with him; then I could sometimes put enough
peremptoriness in my voice to bring him to heel. Added to the natural
bad temper of the man he was drinking constantly, and was quite beyond
control.
The country where we now were was a succession of beautiful valleys
watered by many streams and enclosed by barren, treeless hills,--a rich,
uninteresting district. We stopped for tiffin by a broad stream
bordered by willows. The grass was good, but the flies were so maddening
that the poor ponies hardly grazed at all. Hot as it was, I thought they
were better off moving than in this pestilential spot, but it was
impossible to get Ivan started. For hours he slept and drank, while the
horses twitched their skins and switched their tails and stamped their
feet, and between times tried to snatch a bite. Poor-looking women and
boys from some yurts crept over to our camp, and sought eagerly through
the grass for any finds in the way of tins or bottles. They were quite
the most miserable natives that I saw on my trip. As for me, I sat on
the ground, comforting Jack and longing for a Chinese or a Mongol or
anything that had learned to obey.
Finally at half-past five the driver roused from his drunken doze and we
started off again. On and on we go, over a tedious, uninteresting
stretch; the sun goes down, the twilight deepens into night, and the
stars come out. At half-past eight I ask how much longer we must drive,
and am told two hours. At half-past eleven I try to make the man
understand he must stop, but he pays no attention. And it is one o'clock
when I see the river in front of us, glimmering in the misty moonlight.
In a minute we are in the water; two steps more and the swift current is
up to the horses' sides, and the tarantass begins to turn over. Ivan,
now thoroughly awake, jumps out, the other Russian helps, and with
much pushing and floundering the horses manage to struggle back to
shore. This is plainly no ford, and as there is no help in sight we camp
on the bank for the rest of the night, no grass for the horses, nothing
to make a fire. After a bite of black bread and a tea-cup of the Foreign
Office Bordeaux, I curl up in the tarantass, shivering with damp river
cold, and Wang, rolled up in his sheepskin, sleeps on the ground
underneath. As for the Russians, I commit them cheerfully to all the
joys of rheumatism.
[Illustration: LAMA AND HIS "WIFE"]
For once every one is up at dawn. A passing lama directs us to a ferry
down the river, where we cross by means of a flat-bottomed boat worked
by an iron cable. On the other side the men start a fire and we get some
hot tea. Again I am struck by the familiar way in which the Russians
hobnob with the Mongols. Anglo-Saxons of their class would not do it. I
wonder if the "hail-fellow-well-met" treatment offsets the injustice and
rough handling the natives often get from their northern neighbours, and
if on the whole they like it better than the Anglo-Saxon's fairness when
coupled with his reserve. A distinguished Indian, not a reformer, once
said to me, "My countrymen prefer sympathy to justice." Perhaps that is
true of other Asiatics also.
For three or four hours after starting off again we traversed much the
same sort of country as the day before, crossing fertile valleys,
climbing rough hillsides to avoid bogs. There were not many signs of
cultivation, but along the horizon we could see the dark line of a
forest, a welcome change. Just before reaching it we turned off across
the plain to the yurts of the helpful lama of the morning. We were
expected and given a warm welcome in more senses than one, for the yurt
into which I was at once taken was so hot that I thought I should faint.
How those people in their woollen clothes could endure the heat was a
mystery.
The lama, a well-appearing, elderly man, seemed completely fitted out
with wife and children and yurts and herds. He was plainly a person of
substance, and the head of quite a settlement. The yurt where I was
received was very spacious, and was furnished precisely as Huc described
sixty years ago. There was one novelty, a stove-pipe connected with a
sort of cement stove, but perhaps this was merely for ornament, as my
dinner was cooked in a pot placed upon a tripod over a fire of wood and
argols. I was given the seat of honour, a sort of divan, and milk was
placed on a small, low table before me. But I at once espied something
more interesting than food. Round the walls of the yurt were ranged one
or two tables and chests of drawers. On one were some books, detached
leaves in leather covers with clasps. These were the lama's sacred
books. Very stupidly, for I had been told that no secular hand may
touch them, I started to pick one up, but the man courteously but very
firmly waved me back; hardly would he allow me to look at them from a
distance. He assured me he could read them, but that is not true of most
lamas. A little altar set out with small images and pictures of Buddha,
and among them a cheap photograph of the Gigin of Urga, did not seem
half so sacred, for the lama displayed them freely, even allowing me to
inspect the dozen or so small metal pots containing oil and other
offerings which were ranged in front of the images.
When our food was ready, the lama carried off the Russians to eat in the
men's tent; that is the rule, but the neighbours, men and women, who had
flocked in, stayed to watch me. Various strange dishes were put before
me; best of all, some hard curds decorated with lumps of sugar. Sugar is
a great delicacy with the Mongols.
As we were nearing the land of hotels, I emptied my tiffin basket here,
making my hosts and their friends happy with tins of jam and marmalade
and sardines and beef extract, not to mention enamelled cups and plates
and stew-pans. Everything was eagerly taken, even empty jars and
bottles, and they seemed as pleased as children with a new toy.
The country changed abruptly after leaving the last Mongol settlement.
Houses of Russian colonists occurred frequently, and presently we
entered the remnants of a fine pine forest, and from this time on there
was no lack of trees. We were now almost at the Russian frontier, and I
was becoming uneasy about the fate of my little revolver. It had already
undergone various vicissitudes; discovered by the customs officials at
Constantinople, they had threatened to fine me for violating the law
about bringing in firearms, but finally decided to remit the fine but
confiscate the weapon. When remonstrated with on the ground that I was a
lady going to Asiatic Turkey and might need it, they made matters
straight by returning the revolver, but kept the ammunition. I had paid
duty on the thing in Bombay, I had spent hours fitting it with
cartridges in Shanghai, many miles it had been carried, kept handy in
case of need, although I could not imagine what the need could be, and
now I was assured it would be seized and I would be fined if I tried to
take it over the Russian frontier. No firearms of any sort may be
brought into the empire without a permit procured beforehand. No, the
Russians should not have my little revolver. We passed a small pond; one
toss and it was gone.
The sun was setting as looking across the valley I caught the white
gleam of the great church in Kiakhta, but it was after eleven when we
rumbled through Mai-ma-chin, the frontier post of China, and, crossing
the Russian boundary unchallenged, drove quietly down the long main
street of the town. I was too sleepy to notice anything, until I heard
the men chuckling softly, and I waked up to find that we were past the
custom house. "It would be too bad to disturb the sleepy sentinels, so
we took off the bells," they explain. I imagine they had added to their
other misdeeds by doing a bit of smuggling.
It seemed to me that we drove for hours through the dark, echoing
streets of Kiakhta, but at last we stopped before the white wall of a
long, low building, and in a moment I was in another world. Behind me
were the wide, open plains of Mongolia and the starlit nights in tent or
tarantass. Here was Russia, half Europe, half Asia, and wholly
uninteresting. But at least there was a good bed awaiting me, and the
most wonderful little supper ever served at midnight on short notice,
delicious tea, good bread and butter, and the most toothsome small
birds, served hot on toast in a casserole. Where in a Western frontier
town could one find the like?
But it was not until I waked the next morning that I realized how very
Western Kiakhta is: humble log houses side by side with pretentious
stuccoed buildings, rickety wooden sidewalks or none at all, streets
ankle-deep in dust one day, a bog the next; but the handful of fine
residences, and above all the great white church costing fabulous sums
in decorations, tell of Kiakhta's great commercial past, a history that
goes back two hundred years, when Gobi was alive with the long lines of
camel caravans coming and going between the Great Wall and the Russian
border. Those were the days when the great tea merchants of Kiakhta
heaped up huge fortunes, to squander them in ways common to the suddenly
rich all over the world. But with the building of the railway, trade
turned aside, and to-day the town bears the marks of decaying fortunes.
The storehouses are half empty, many of the great merchant families have
gone away or are ruined, and were it not for the regiments stationed at
this frontier post, Kiakhta would be wrapped in the silence of the
desert. It remains to be seen what will be the effect of the railway
Russia proposes to build between Verchneudinsk and Urga. It may give new
life to the town, but of course it is military and political in its
purpose rather than commercial. During my four days' trip from Urga
there was very little traffic coming or going, and unless Mongolia's
resources prove unexpectedly rich, the days of Kiakhta's prosperity are
gone beyond recall.
But I did not stop long to investigate either the past or the present
interest of Kiakhta, for by the next afternoon I was off again, finally
ending my tarantass journey some eighteen miles north of the town, in a
great lumberyard on the right bank of the Iro, the starting-point of
the steamer to Verchneudinsk. There, together with some scores of
people, mostly Russian officers and their families, I kicked my heels
among the lumber for ten hours, waiting for the belated boat. It rained
most of the time, and the two tiny waiting-rooms were crowded to
overflowing with people and luggage; there was no restaurant, and I
should have starved had not good Wang made friends with some Chinese
workmen and got me some eggs. Finally we were told the boat would not
come till morning, so each person tried to find a corner and go to
sleep. I had just curled up comfortably, at one end of a great,
unfinished shed where the horses had been put out of the rain, when a
cry sounded through the dark that the boat was coming. By one o'clock we
were off. Everything was in confusion and every one was cross. I had
secured a cabin beforehand, and then found I was expected to share it
with a young Russian officer going home on leave. I quite regretted my
airy, quiet corner in the open shed.
All the next day we were steaming in leisurely fashion down the Iro,
making long stops at little hamlets in the forest, where all the
inhabitants of the half-dozen log houses clustered round the invariable
white church with green domes turned out to meet us, often bringing
bottles of delicious milk to sell. They were mostly of the peasant type,
large, fair, and stolid-looking. The scenery along the river was dull
and monotonous, low, heavily wooded banks, broken now and then by a
little clearing. It was a sodden, unkempt, featureless country, and I
found myself longing for the journey's end.
On the boat the third-class passengers were mostly Russian peasants and
a few Chinese, with a little group of frightened-looking Mongols. I
fancy they wished themselves back in the desert; I know I did. In the
first and second class there were almost none but military people, the
men all in full uniform of bewildering variety. Most of them were tall
and large, but rather rough in manner. I imagine one does not find the
pick of the Russian army on the frontier.
We reached Verchneudinsk well after dark, and a queer little tumble-down
phaeton took us to the inn chosen because of its German-speaking
landlord. Here I spent two days waiting for the Moscow Express. After I
had started my invaluable Wang off on his journey back to Peking by way
of Harbin and Mukden, I had nothing to do but rest and enjoy the
charming courtesies of the officials of the Russo-Asiatic Bank.
Verchneudinsk has little of interest, however; it is just a big, new
town, raw and unfinished, half logs and half stucco, with streets that
are mostly bog, and several pretentious public buildings and an ugly
triumphal arch marking the visit of the Tsar a few years ago.
Civilization has some compensations, but half-civilization is not
attractive; and it was a happy moment when I found myself with Jack in
my own little compartment on the Moscow Express, westward and homeward
bound.