abundant than the sable. In the fairly extensive hunting-ground around
the already-mentioned town of Tagilsk from thirty to eighty are still
captured every winter. It is said that the pine-marten, much more than
the sable, is associated with the squirrel, and that the two appear and
disappear together. But the greedy marten is by no means content with
making the beautiful squirrel its prey; indeed it kills every creature
which it can master, and is an especially dangerous foe of black-cock
and capercaillie. Even in summer a clever spring often enables him to
capture the watchful bird; while in winter the habit the black game
birds have of sleeping in holes in the snow greatly facilitates his
stealthy operations. Sneaking almost noiselessly from branch to branch,
he comes within springing distance of the buried bird, and springs on
it from above, crushing down the snowy roof by the force of his bound,
and seizing the sleeper by the neck before it has any chance to escape.
The stone-marten also occurs everywhere in the mountain forests, but
it is rarer than its relative. Polecat, ermine, and weasel are also
widely distributed and locally very abundant; the mink is confined to
the western side of the Ural, and is also absent from its tributaries,
the Irtish and Ob, which harbour the otter in considerable numbers; the
badger is hardly ever mentioned in West Siberia; and the universally
distributed glutton is less thought of than any other of the martens,
being hunted not so much for his skin as because of his thefts from the
traps.
[Illustration: Fig. 24.--Sable and Hazel-grouse in a Siberian Forest.]
Although the west of Siberia is regarded as altogether over-shot, the
forest-folk prepare every year to hunt for sable and other martens.
Some huntsmen undertake expeditions and explorations, which compare
with those of the North American trappers. Of course, they do not
confine their attention to martens, but are prepared to bag all
kinds of game; the main objects of their quest, however, are martens
and squirrels. According to the time of colour-change in the latter
the huntsmen arrange their departure from the village home, for the
change of colour in the squirrels is regarded as an indication of the
approaching winter, whether it is to be early or late, severe or mild.
Armed and equipped as we have already described, the sable-hunters
set out, after the first snowfall, in companies of three to five.
Besides gun and ammunition each of them carries a sack on his back,
snow-shoes and a hatchet on his shoulders, and a whip in his girdle.
The sack contains the indispensable provisions:--bread, meal, bacon,
and “brick-tea”,[36] also a few utensils, such as a pan, tea-kettle,
drinking-vessel, spoons, and the like, and less frequently a flask of
spirits. The whip is used to drive out the squirrels and to bring them
into sight. Four to six dogs, which offend the eye of every German
sportsman, join the company.
Guided by the sun, which, however, is often hidden for days, and by
the known stars, the weather-beaten huntsmen traverse the inhospitable
wilds, camping out at night, feeding themselves and their dogs on
the flesh of the game they shoot, and sparing their small store
of provisions as carefully as possible. The ungainly but clever
and wide-awake dogs not only scent the tracks of game, but, spying
unfailingly the martens or squirrels hidden on the trees, bark at them
and keep them in sight till the huntsman is on the spot. He approaches
with the imperturbable quietness of all forest sportsmen, rests his
long musket carefully on a branch, or, if need be, on the fork fastened
to the barrel, takes a slow aim, and fires. At the outset of the hunt,
the squirrels and even the pine-martens are so much disturbed by the
dogs that they allow the sportsman to approach to within a few yards;
soon, however, they become wiser, and a sure and steady aim becomes
difficult. If the huntsman gets this, and succeeds in sending a ball
through the animal’s eye, then he is well-pleased, for not only has he
secured an undamaged skin, but he can recover his precious leaden shot.
As soon as he has got possession of his fallen booty he skins it, in
the case of martens and squirrels forcing the viscera through the mouth
opening. The skull is broken open to recover the shot, and skin and
body, separated from one another, are consigned to the bag.
When squirrels are plentiful, the hunt is as profitable as it is
entertaining. Everyone utilizes the short day to the utmost; one
shot quickly follows another; and the pile of skins rapidly grows.
Loading the gun is a tedious matter, but the skinning is done all the
more quickly; and every huntsman faithfully does his utmost. Without
resting, without eating, without even smoking, the huntsmen go forward
while they may. As the dogs call, the comrades draw together or
separate; the sharp report of their guns and the cheerful barking of
the dogs is to them a stimulating entertainment. They count the shots,
and welcome or envy their neighbours’ luck. But if the winter’s yield
be a poor one, if the oft-repeated cracking of the whip calls forth
no squirrel, if there be no tracks of sable or noble marten, of elk
or reindeer to be seen, huntsmen and dogs trudge silently and moodily
through the forest, and short commons put the finishing touch to their
ill-humour.
When night comes on, our sportsmen have to think of preparing their
beds. From under an old, thick, fallen tree each shovels out the snow,
makes a trough the size of a man, and kindles a strong fire in it.
One of them then clears the snow from a circular patch as nearly as
possible in the middle of all the hollows, and under the shelter of
thick firs or pines; another gathers fuel; a third heaps up in the
clearing a still stronger fire, and a fourth prepares supper. So many
squirrels have been shot that there is no lack of strong meat soup
with which to give a relish to the porridge and bread. The sportsmen
have their supper and go shares with the dogs, refresh themselves with
tea and a pipe made of twisted paper and then, after the fashion of
their kind, discuss the exploits and experiences of the day. Meantime
the fire in each hole has melted the snow, dried up the moisture,
caught hold of the old tree-trunk above, and thus thoroughly warmed
the chamber. Carefully each sleepy hunter pushes the still glowing
fragments of wood to one end of the hole, and into this, avoiding the
side-wall of snow, he creeps, calling his dogs after him that they too
may share the warm bed, and soon he is asleep. It is true that glowing
sparks from the smouldering tree-trunk fall throughout the night alike
on the hunter and his dogs, but a Siberian’s fur hunting-coat can stand
as much as a Siberian dog’s skin; and it is evident that a log like
this will give much more heat than a much larger free fire. It is to
the hole what the stove is to the room; it alone makes it possible for
the sportsman to camp out in the forest.
In the gray dawn the huntsmen arise refreshed, have breakfast, and go
on their way. If they reach a good hunting-ground, which is visited
every winter, they stay as long as they think fit. Here and there
they find a log-hut built in previous years and still serviceable for
shelter; in any case there are old and new fall-traps, which have to
be put in order and visited every morning. This takes time, for the
traps are often distributed over a wide range, and so it may be that
the company stay a week or more in one part of the forest, and hunt it
thoroughly, before they continue their wanderings.
On these hunting expeditions many Siberians pass the greater part of
the winter in the forest. Before he sets out, the huntsman usually
makes a bargain with a merchant. He promises the merchant all the skins
he gets at a certain average price, provided the merchant will buy all
without selection. If the hunter has good luck he may, even nowadays,
make enough out of it to keep him alive, or at least to defray the
expenses of the winter; usually, however, he has little recompense for
his hardships and privations, and no one less modest in his demands
than the Siberian huntsman could make it a means of livelihood.
Hunting the bear is regarded by the West Siberians as the most
honourable and the most arduous kind of sport. For in this region Bruin
is by no means the good-natured, simple creature he still is here and
there in East Siberia; he is rather, as in most regions, a rough,
uncouth fellow, who usually runs away from man, but who, when wounded
or driven into a corner, will show fight savagely and prove himself
exceedingly formidable. In spite of all persecution, he is still far
from extermination; his occurrence may be spoken of as frequent, or,
at any rate, as not uncommon. Always and everywhere, however, he goes
his own way, and does not too often cross man’s path. Not that he is
shy of human settlements, for he often stations himself not far from
these, and sometimes falls upon domestic animals under the very eyes
of their possessors; but he shows himself so sporadically that many
Siberians have never seen him face to face, nor met him in the forest.
It seems likely that he goes a-touring all the summer. He traverses
the woods with a disregard of paths, but keeps to more or less beaten
tracks when he ascends to the heights of the mountains in late summer,
or returns to lower ground at the beginning of winter. When the corn
is ripe, he stations himself in the fringes of the forest that he
may steal comfortably from the adjacent fields; sometimes he leaves
the wood entirely and visits the steppes, or the mountain-sides with
steppe characters; he will stay a long time in one district and hurry
through another without stopping, always and everywhere keeping a sharp
look-out for the constantly recurring opportunities of securing his
favourite foods. In most districts he is emphatically a vegetarian;
here and there he becomes a formidable carnivore; in other places he
seeks after carrion. In spring he is on short commons, and takes what
he can get; he sneaks stealthily on the herds grazing in the woodland,
makes a sudden bound on a victim, or pursues it with surprising
rapidity, seizes it, drags it to the ground, kills it, and, after
satiating himself, buries the remainder for a future meal. When a
cattle plague rages, he visits the burial-places in order to secure the
carcasses, and he is even accused of being a body-snatcher. In summer
he plunders the fields of rye, wheat, and oats, robs bee-hives, and the
nests of wild-bees and wasps, destroys ant-hills for the sake of the
pupæ, rolls old trunks over to get at the beetles and grubs beneath,
and even breaks up mouldering trees to capture the larvæ which live in
rotting wood. In autumn he lives almost exclusively on berries of all
sorts, and even on those fruits which he can gather from such trees as
the bird-cherry; when the cembra-cones are ripe he goes after these,
climbing lofty trees, and breaking off not only branches but the very
tops; nor can he refrain from persistently prowling round the stores
in which the cones are temporarily collected, or from trying to find
his way in. Moreover, at all seasons he tries his hand at fishing, and
not unfrequently with success. From man he usually runs away, but
sometimes he will attack him without further ado, not hesitating even
at superior force. According to the weather he times his winter-sleep.
For his bed he selects a suitable place under a fallen giant tree;
there he scrapes out a shallow hole, covers the floor with fine
pine-twigs and moss a foot and a half deep, cushions the side-walls
with the same material, covers the outside with branches and pieces of
stem, creeps into the interior, and allows himself to be snowed up. If
the first snowfall surprise him on the mountains, he does not always
descend, but hides in a rock-cave which he furnishes as best he can,
or else expands a marmot’s burrow till it is just big enough to hold
him, and there sleeps through the winter. Once sunk into deep sleep,
he lies dormant so obstinately that many efforts are often necessary
to rouse him; he bites savagely at the poles with which the huntsman
tries to poke him up, he growls and roars, and only surrenders when
rockets or fire-brands are thrown on his refuge. Then, if he be not
wounded, he rushes forth like a startled boar, and seeks safety in
rapid flight. According to the consistent evidence of all experienced
huntsmen, the she-bear brings forth young only every second winter, and
does not awake from her deep sleep until a short time before the birth;
she licks her cubs clean and dry, sets them to suck, and continues her
sleep in snatches. At the end of May or in June she seeks out her older
children, of two or even four years’ growth, and compels them to do
service as nurses.[37]
Although the flesh of the bear is by no means unpalatable, it is
but little esteemed in West Siberia, where bear-hams are served up
rather in obedience to fashion than from appreciation of the dish.
Nevertheless, the bear-hunt brings in rich gain. The skin is in great
demand for sledge-rugs and fetches a high price; teeth and claws serve
not only among the Ostiaks and Samoyedes, but also among the West
Siberian peasants, as potent charms; even the bones are now and then
used. The canine of a bear slain in honourable combat brings to the
Ostiak hunter, so he believes, supernatural gifts, especially courage,
strength, and even invulnerability. A claw, especially the fourth of
the right fore-foot, which corresponds to the ring finger, is prized
by the love-lorn maiden of the Ural, for the youth whom she secretly
scratches with it is bound to return her love ardently. Teeth and claws
have, therefore, a high value, and have more effect in inciting the
huntsman to pursue the most formidable carnivore of the forest, than
any damage which Bruin does. But the chase is neither easy nor without
danger. Traps do not seem to be of any avail. The hunter must seek
out the bear, and, weapon in hand, helped by his practised dogs, must
do battle. During the summer the restless habits of the bear make the
chase very difficult; during winter there is the chance of finding a
lair and of killing the sleeper in or near it. The poor peasant who
discovers a lair sells the bear _in situ_ to any well-to-do sportsman,
who, on a suitable day, goes with him and the requisite associates and
surrounds the sleeper with sure marksmen. Beaters rouse the creature
from his slumbers and bring him into view, and the huntsman shoots from
the nearest possible distance. It is thus that the great majority of
the bears are secured, and to good shots there is little danger. In
summer and autumn they track the bear with small dogs, and while these
bait him on all sides, the sportsman seizes a good opportunity for a
telling shot. Or he may use the bear-spear, as the bold Ostiaks do, and
charge the animal. Or else he may wind birch-bark several times round
his left arm, and, holding this as a shield against the angry bear, may
plunge a long, broad knife into his heart as he snaps at the bark. In
these modes of attack accidents do, indeed, often happen; but in the
course of time some hunters become so expert and cold-blooded that they
prefer the spear or knife to any other weapon. Indeed, a peasant girl
in the village of Morschowa is famous all over West Siberia for having
killed more than thirty bears with the knife.
Of undesired encounters with bears many stories are told. A hunter,
armed only with a pea-rifle, came across a large bear in the forest,
but did not dare to shoot, knowing that his weapon was too small for
such big game. He therefore remained still, so as not to irritate the
bear. But Bruin came along, raised himself, snuffed at the huntsman’s
face, and then gave him a blow which stretched him senseless on the
ground. Thereupon the bear ran away as quickly as possible, just as if
he thought that he had played a naughty trick. Two Swedes, Aberg and
Erland, were hunting hazel-grouse on the Urals. The former approached
a bramble bush in the hope of raising a bird, when to his surprise a
huge bear jumped up and made for him at once. As flight was impossible,
Aberg raised his fowling-piece to his shoulder, aimed at the bear’s
eye, fired, and was fortunate enough to blind him. Maddened with the
pain, the bear covered the bleeding eye with his paw, roared loudly,
and rushed on at the undismayed huntsman. But the latter coolly took
aim at the other eye and fired again with equal effect. Then he called
for his comrade, and they fired alternately at the blinded bear until
he was dead.
But the merriest tale had its scene in the village of Tomski Sawod
in the district of Salair. One of the peasants was leading a load of
cembra-cones through the forest, and did not notice that the cones were
falling out of one of his sacks. A bear, who was wandering through the
forest in the rear of the cart, crossed the road, and finding some of
the cones looked for more, and followed the track unnoticed. After a
time the peasant left the horse and cart standing, and diverged into
the wood to fetch another sack which he had left filled with cones. But
before he returned with his burden, the bear, still gathering cones,
had reached the cart and climbed into it, there to feast to his heart’s
content. With no little dismay the peasant perceived as he drew near
what passenger had taken possession, and not daring to dispute his
right, left him with the horse and cart. The horse, becoming uneasy,
looked back, recognized the bear, and forthwith trotted off as fast
as he could go. But the undesired jolting frightened the bear and
prevented him from leaping off. He was forced to sit still and hold
on, venting his increasing discontent in loud roars. The roaring only
served to increase the pace; the more the bear stormed, the faster
the horse hastened to the village. Now the village-folk had been for
several hours expecting a visit from the bishop, and were standing
at their doors in holiday attire, ready to greet his reverence when
he appeared. Already sharp-eyed boys had been posted on the outlook
on the church-tower, with instructions to toll the bells when the
bishop’s company came in sight. In the distance was seen a whirling
cloud of dust; the boys sprang to the bells, men and women arranged
themselves in rows, the priest appeared with incense before the door of
the church, every soul stood ready to give a worthy reception to the
dignitary of the church. On came the rattling cart, and right through
the festive village tore horse and driver, the former covered with
dust, sweating and panting, the latter roaring and snorting, their
mad career only ending when they reached the peasant’s yard. Instead
of the beautiful Russian psalm, the terrified cries of half-senseless
women rang out through the air, and the men, instead of doing dutiful
reverence, rushed about astonished and affrighted. Only the church
bells continued to peal. Before these had ceased, the men had recovered
presence of mind and got hold of their weapons. The cart was followed,
and the bear, who seemed to have lost all his wits, was soon stretched
dead on the throne which he had himself chosen.
Those who know the ways of bears will allow that all might have
happened as I have described, though we may be inclined to regard the
humorous story as one of the sportsman’s budget. For even the most
serious and honourable forest-folk sometimes mingle truth and fancy
when they tell of the forests and woodcraft of Siberia.
THE STEPPES OF INNER AFRICA.
The north of Africa is desert, must be desert, and will be desert
for ever. For between the Red Sea and the Atlantic, the land-area
exposed to the scorching sun is so extensive that the surrounding
seas have not their usual climatic importance. The Red Sea is out of
account altogether; even the Mediterranean is too small to have great
influence, and the Atlantic Ocean affects only a narrow belt along the
west coast. Over regions so vast and so hot, every cloud is dispersed
without moistening or fertilizing the parched ground. Only when we go
much further south, near the equator, do the conditions change. On the
one side, the Atlantic Ocean sweeps in with a great curve; on the other
side, the Indian Ocean washes the African shores, the two oceans, as
it were, stretching their hands across the continent. Here, moreover,
at certain times, thunder-storms bring downpours of rain so heavy that
the desert has to give way to the more living steppe, and the year is
divided into two essentially different seasons--of life and of death,
of rain and of drought, whereas in the barren desert only the periodic
winds bear tidings of the seasonal changes in progress elsewhere.
In order to understand the steppe-lands it is necessary to give a
rapid sketch of their seasons. For every country reflects its dominant
climate, and the general aspect of a region is in great part an
expression of the conflicting forces of its seasons, apart from which
it cannot be understood.
Almost as soon as the rains are over, the season of destruction and
death begins--the long and terrible winter of the African interior--a
winter which brings about by heat the same dire effects as are wrought
in the North by cold. Before the sky, hitherto often clouded, has
become quite clear, some of the trees, which had become green in
spring, throw off their foliage, and with the wind-swept leaves go the
wandering birds. These had brooded here in the spring, but now they
seek other fields. The stems of the cereals turn yellow before the
rains have ceased; the low grasses wither and dry. The intermittent
water-courses cease to have any flow; the rain-filled pools are dried
up; and not only the reptiles and amphibians, but even the fishes
peculiar to them, are forced to burrow and seek winter-quarters in the
damp clay. The seeds of plants, and the eggs or larvæ of insects are
also hidden away in the earth.