him off, in the middle of his peroration, to the river, where we took
possession of a boat with a chronic leak, and a prow the exact shape of
a sterlet's nose reversed. But Piotr swore that it was the stanchest
craft between Astrakhan and Rybinsk, and intrepidly took command,
steering with a long paddle, while four alert young peasants plied the
oars. Piotr's costume consisted of a cotton shirt and brief trousers.
The others added caps, which, however, they wore only spasmodically.
A picnic without singing was not to be thought of, and we requested the
men to favor us with some folk-songs. No bashful schoolgirls could have
resisted our entreaties with more tortuous graces than did those
untutored peasants. One of them was such an exact blond copy of a pretty
brunette American, whom we had always regarded as the most affected of
her sex, that we fairly stared him out of countenance, in our amazement;
and we made mental apologies to the American on the spot.
"Please sing 'Adown dear Mother Volga,'" the conversation ran.
"We can't sing." "We don't know it." "You sing it and show us how, and
we will join in."
The Affected One capped the climax with "It's not in the mo-o-o-ode now,
that song!" with a delicate assumption of languor which made his
comrades explode in suppressed convulsions of mirth. Finally they
supplied the key, but not the keynote.
"Give us some _vodka_, and we may, perhaps, remember something."
Promises of _vodka_ at the end of the voyage, when the danger was over,
were rejected without hesitation. We reached our breakfast-ground in
profound silence.
Fortunately, the catch of sterlet at this stand had been good. The
fishermen grilled some "in their own fat," by salting them and spitting
them alive on peeled willow wands, which they thrust into the ground, in
a slanting position, over a bed of glowing coals. Anything more
delicious it would be difficult to imagine; and we began to revise our
opinion of the sterlet. In the mean time our boatmen had discovered some
small, sour ground blackberries, which they gallantly presented to us in
their caps. Their feelings were so deeply wounded by our attempts to
refuse this delicacy that we accepted and actually ate them, to the
great satisfaction of the songless rogues who stood over us.
Our own fishing with a line resulted in nothing but the sport and
sunburn. We bought a quantity of sterlet, lest the fishermen at the camp
where we had planned to dine should have been unlucky, placed them in a
net such as is used in towns for carrying fish from market, and trailed
them in the water behind our boat.
We were destined to experience all possible aspects of a Volga
excursion, that day, short of absolute shipwreck. As we floated down the
mighty stream, a violent thunderstorm broke over our heads with the
suddenness characteristic of the country. We were wet to the skin before
we could get at the rain-cloaks on which we were sitting, but our
boatmen remained as dry as ever, to our mystification. In the middle of
the storm, our unworthy vessel sprung a fresh leak, the water poured in,
and we were forced to run aground on a sand-bank for repairs. These were
speedily effected, with a wad of paper, by Piotr, who, with a towel cast
about his head and shoulders, looked more like an apostle than ever.
It appeared that our fishing-camp had moved away; but we found it, at
last, several miles downstream, on a sand-spit backed with willow
bushes. It was temporarily deserted, save for a man who was repairing a
net, and who assured us that his comrades would soon return from their
trip, for supplies, to the small town which we could discern on the
slope of the hillshore opposite. There was nothing to explore on our
sand-reef except the fishermen's primitive shelter, composed of a bit of
sail-cloth and a few boards, furnished with simple cooking utensils, and
superintended by a couple of frolicsome kittens, who took an unfeline
delight in wading along in the edge of the water. So we spread ourselves
out to dry on the clean sand, in the rays of the now glowing sun, and
watched the merchandise, chiefly fish, stacked like cord wood, being
towed up from Astrakhan in great barges.
At last our fisher hosts arrived, and greeted us with grave courtesy and
lack of surprise. They began their preparations by scouring out their
big camp kettle with beach sand, and building a fire at the water's edge
to facilitate the cleaning of the fish. We followed their proceedings
with deep interest, being curious to learn the secret of the genuine
"amber sterlet soup." This was what we discovered.
The fish must be alive. They remain so after the slight preliminaries,
and are plunged into the simmering water, heads and all, the heads and
the parts adjacent being esteemed a delicacy. No other fish are
necessary, no spices or ingredients except a little salt, the
cookery-books to the contrary notwithstanding. The sterlet is expensive
in regions where the cook-book flourishes, and the other fish are merely
a cheat of town economy. The scum is not removed,--this is the capital
point,--but stirred in as fast as it rises. If the _ukha_ be skimmed,
after the manner of professional cooks, the whole flavor and richness
are lost.
While the soup was boiling and more sterlet were being grilled in their
own fat, as a second course, our men pitched our tent and ran up our
flag, and the butler set the table on our big rug. It was lucky that we
had purchased fish at our breakfast-place, as no sterlet had been caught
at this camp. When the soup made its appearance, we comprehended the
epithet "amber" and its fame. Of a deep gold, almost orange color, with
the rich fat, and clear as a topaz, it was utterly unlike anything we
had ever tasted. We understood the despair of Parisian gourmets and
cooks, and we confirmed the verdict, provisionally announced at
breakfast, that the sterlet is the king of all fish. As it is
indescribable, I may be excused for not attempting to do justice to it
in words.
While we feasted, the fishermen cooked themselves a kettle of less
dainty fish, as a treat from us, since the fish belong to the contractor
who farms the ground, not to the men. Their meal ended, the regulation
cross and prayer executed, they amiably consented to anticipate the
usual hour for casting their net, in order that we might see the
operation. The net, two hundred and fifty fathoms in length, was
manoeuvred down the long beach well out in the stream by one man in a
boat, and by five men on shore, who harnessed themselves to a long cable
by halters woven from the soft inner bark of the linden-tree. We grasped
the rope and helped them pull. We might not have been of much real
assistance, but we learned, at least, how heavy is this toil, repeated
many times a day, even when the pouch reveals so slender a catch as in
the present instance. There was nothing very valuable in it, though
there was variety enough, and we were deceived, for a moment, by several
false sterlet.
The small _samovar_ which we had brought gave us a steaming welcome, on
our return to camp. Perched on the fishermen's seatless chair and stool,
and on boxes, we drank our tea and began our preparations for departure,
bestowing a reward on the men, who had acted their parts as impromptu
hosts to perfection. It was late; but our men burst into song, when
their oars dipped in the waves, as spontaneously as the nightingales
which people these shores in springtime,--inspired probably by the full
moon, which they melodiously apostrophized as "the size of a
twenty-kopek bit." They sang of Stenka Razin, the bandit chief, who kept
the Volga and the Caspian Sea in a state of terror during the reign of
Peter the Great's father; of his "poor people, good youths, fugitives,
who were no thieves nor brigands, but only Stenka Razin's workmen." They
declared, in all seriousness, that he had been wont to navigate upon a
felt rug, like the one we had seen in Piotr's cottage; and they disputed
over the exact shade of meaning contained in the words which he was in
the habit of using when he summoned a rich merchant vessel to surrender
as his prize. Evidently, Stenka was no semi-epic, mythical hero to them,
but a living reality.
"Adown dear Mother Volga, Adown her mighty sweep,"
they sang; and suddenly ran the boat aground, and fled up the steep
slope like deer, carrying with them their tall winter boots of gray
felt, which had lain under the thwarts all day. We waited, shivering in
the keen night air, and wondering whether we were deserted on this
lonely reach of the river at midnight. If the apostle Peter understood
the manoeuvre, he was loyal and kept their counsel. He gave no comfort
beyond the oracular _saytchas_, which we were intended to construe as
meaning that they would be back in no time.
When they did return, after a long absence, their feet were as bare as
they had been all day. Their boots were borne tenderly in their arms,
and were distended to their utmost capacity with apples! In answer to
our remonstrances, they replied cheerfully that the night was very warm,
and that the apples came from "their garden, over yonder on the bank."
On further questioning, their village being miles distant, they
retorted, with a laugh, that they had gardens all along the river; and
they offered to share their plunder with us. The Affected One tossed an
apple past my head, with the cry, "Catch, Sasha!" to our host, of whose
familiar name he had taken note during the day. After this and other
experiences, we were prepared to credit an anecdote which had been
related to us of a peasant in that neighborhood, to illustrate the
democratic notions of his class which prevailed even during the days of
serfdom. One of the provincial assemblies, to which nobles and peasants
have been equally eligible for election since the emancipation, met for
the first time, thus newly constituted. One of the nobles, desirous of
making the peasants feel at home, rose and began:--
"We bid you welcome, our younger brothers, to this "--
"We are nobody's inferiors or younger brothers any more," interrupted a
peasant member, "and we will not allow you to call us so."
The nobles took the hint, and made no further unnecessary advances. Yes,
these Volga peasants certainly possess as strong a sense of democratic
equality as any one could wish. But the soft ingenuousness of their
manners and their tact disarm wrath at the rare little liberties which
they take. Even their way of addressing their former masters by the
familiar "thou" betokens respectful affection, not impertinence.
Our men soon wearied of pulling against the powerful current, dodging
the steamers and the tug-boats with their strings of barks signaled by
constellations of colored lanterns high in air. Perhaps they would have
borne up better had we been able to obtain some Astrakhan watermelons
from the steamer wharves, which we besieged in turn as we passed. They
proposed to tow us. On Piotr's assurance that it would be a far swifter
mode of locomotion, and that they would pay no more visits to "their
gardens," we consented. They set up a mast through an opening in one of
the thwarts, passed through a hole in its top a cord the size of a
cod-line, fastened this to the stern of the boat, and leaped ashore with
the free end. Off they darted, galloping like horses along the old
tow-path, and singing vigorously. Piotr remained on board to steer. As
we dashed rapidly through the water, we gained practical knowledge of
the manner in which every pound of merchandise was hauled to the great
Fair from Astrakhan, fourteen hundred and forty miles, before the
introduction of steamers, except in the comparatively rare cases where
oxen were made to wind windlasses on the deck of a bark. It would have
required hours of hard rowing to reach our goal; but by this means we
were soon walking across the yielding sands to Piotr's cottage. Our
cunning rogues of boatmen took advantage of our scattered march to
obtain from us separately such installments of tea-money as must, in the
aggregate, have rendered them hilarious for days to come, if they paid
themselves for their minstrelsy in the coin which they had suggested to
us before breakfast.
Piotr's smiling wife, who was small, like most Russian peasant women,
had baked us some half-rye, half-wheat bread, to our order; she made it
remarkably well, much better than Osip. We secured a more lasting
memento of her handiwork in the form of some towel ends, which she had
spun, woven, drawn, and worked very prettily. Some long-haired heads
were thrust over the oven-top to inspect us, but the bodies did not
follow. They were better engaged in enjoying the heat left from the
baking.
It was two o'clock in the morning when we drove through the village
flock of sheep, that lay asleep on the grassy street. With hand on
pistol, to guard against a possible stray wolf, we dashed past the
shadowy chalk hills; past the nodding sunflowers, whose sleepy eyes were
still turned to the east: past the grainfields, transmuted from gold to
silver by the moonlight; past the newly plowed land, which looked like
velvet billows in its depths of brown, as the moon sank lower and lower
beyond in a mantle of flame.
By this time practice had rendered us expert in retaining our seats in
the low, springless _lineika_; fortunately, for we were all three
quarters asleep at intervals, with excess of fresh air. Even when the
moon had gone down, and a space of darkness intervened before the day,
our headlong pace was not slackened for a moment. As we drove up to the
door, in the pearl-pink dawn, Tulip, the huge yellow mastiff with tawny
eyes, the guardian of the courtyard, received us with his usual
ceremony, through which pierced a petition for a caress. We heeded him
not. By six o'clock we were fast asleep. Not even a packet of letters
from home could keep our eyes open after that four-and-twenty hours'
picnic, which had been unmarred by a single fault, but which had
contained all the "experiences" and "local color" which we could have
desired.
How can I present a picture of all the variations in those sweet,
busy-idle days? They vanished all too swiftly. But now the rick-yard was
heaped high with golden sheaves; the carts came in steady lines,
creaking under endless loads, from those fields which, two years later,
lay scorched with drought, and over which famine brooded. The peasant
girls tossed the grain, with forked boughs, to the threshing-machine,
tended by other girls. The village boys had a fine frolic dragging the
straw away in bundles laid artfully on the ends of two long poles
fastened shaft-wise to the horse's flanks. We had seen the harvesting,
the plowing with the primitive wooden plow, the harrowing with equally
simple contrivances, and the new grain was beginning to clothe the soil
with a delicate veil of green. It was time for us to go. During our
whole visit, not a moment had hung heavy on our hands, here in the
depths of the country, where visitors were comparatively few and
neighbors distant, such had been the unwearied attention and kindness of
our hosts.
We set out for the river once more. This time we had a landau, and a
cart for our luggage. As we halted to drink milk in the Tchuvash
village, the inhabitants who chanced to be at home thronged about our
carriage. We espied several women arrayed in their native costume, which
has been almost entirely abandoned for the Russian dress, and is fast
becoming a precious rarity. The men have already discarded their dress
completely for the Russian. We sent one of the women home to fetch her
Sunday gown, and purchased it on the spot. Such a wonderful piece of
work! The woman had spun, woven, and sewed it; she had embroidered it in
beautiful Turanian, not Russian, patterns, with silks,--dull red, pale
green, relieved by touches of dark blue; she had striped it lengthwise
with bands of red cotton and embroidery, and crosswise with fancy
ribbons and gay calicoes; she had made a mosaic of the back which must
have delighted her rear neighbors in church; and she had used the gown
with such care that, although it had never been washed, it was not badly
soiled. One piece for the body, two for the head, a sham pocket,--that
was all. The footgear consisted of crash bands, bast slippers, rope
cross-garters. The artists to whom I showed the costume, later on,
pronounced it an ethnographical prize.
These Tchuvashi are a small, gray-eyed, olive-skinned race, with
cheek-bones and other features like the Tatars, but less well preserved
than with the latter, in spite of their always marrying among
themselves. There must have been dilution of the race at some time, if
the characteristics were as strongly marked as with the Tatars, in their
original ancestors from Asia. Most of them are baptized into the Russian
faith, and their villages have Russian churches. Nevertheless, along
with their native tongue they are believed to retain many of their
ancient pagan customs and superstitions, although baptism is in no sense
compulsory. The priest in our friends' village, who had lived among
them, had told us that such is the case. But he had also declared that
they possess many estimable traits of character, and that their family
life is deserving of imitation in more than one particular. This village
of theirs looked prosperous and clean. The men, being brought more into
contact with outsiders than the women, speak Russian better than the
latter, and more generally. It is not exactly a case which proves
woman's conservative tendencies.
On reaching the river, and finding that no steamer was likely to arrive
for several hours, we put up at the cottage of a prosperous peasant,
which was patronized by many of the neighboring nobles, in preference to
the wretched inns of that suburb of the wharves. The "best room" had a
citified air, with its white curtains, leaf plants, pretty china tea
service, and photographs of the family on the wall. These last seemed to
us in keeping with the sewing-machine which we had seen a peasant woman
operating in a shop of the little posting-town inland. They denoted
progress, since many peasants cherish religious scruples or
superstitions about having their portraits taken in any form.
The athletic sons, clad only in shirts and trousers of sprigged print,
with fine chestnut hair, which compensated for their bare feet, vacated
the room for our use. They and the house were as clean as possible.
Outside, near the entrance door, hung the family washstand, a
double-spouted teapot of bronze suspended by chains. But it was plain
that they did not pin their faith wholly to it, and that they took the
weekly steam bath which is customary with the peasants. Not everything
was citified in the matter of sanitary arrangements. But these people
seemed to thrive, as our ancestors all did, and probably regarded us as
over-particular.
To fill in the interval of waiting, we made an excursion to the heart of
the town, and visited the pretty public garden overhanging the river,
and noteworthy for its superb dahlias. As we observed the types of young
people who were strolling there, we recognized them, with slight
alterations only, which the lapse of time explained, from the types
which we had seen on the stage in Ostrovsky's famous play "The
Thunderstorm." The scene of that play is laid on the banks of the Volga,
in just such a garden; why should it not have been on this spot?
All peasant _izbui_ are so bewilderingly alike that we found our special
cottage again with some difficulty, by the light of the young moon. By
this time "the oldest inhabitant" had hazarded a guess as to the line
whose steamer would arrive first. Accordingly, we gathered up our small
luggage and our Tchuvash costume, and fairly rolled down the steep,
pathless declivity of slippery turf, groping our way to the right wharf.
How the luggage cart got down was a puzzle. Here we ordered in the
_samovar_, and feasted until far into the night on the country dainties
which we had brought with us, supplemented by one of the first
watermelons from Astrakhan, which we had purchased from a belated dealer
in the deserted town market. The boat was late, as a matter of course;
but we understood the situation now, and asked no questions. When it
arrived, we and our charming hosts, whose society we were to enjoy for a
few days longer, embarked for Samara, to visit the famous kumys
establishments on the steppes.
Russian harvest-tide was over for us, leaving behind a store of memories
as golden as the grain, fitly framed on either hand by Mother Volga.
XI.
THE RUSSIAN KUMYS CURE.
It is not many years since every pound of freight, every human being,
bound to Astrakhan from the interior of Russia simply floated down the
river Volga with the current. The return journey was made slowly and
painfully, in tow of those human beasts of burden, the _burlaki_. The
traces of their towpath along the shores may still be seen, and the
system itself may even be observed at times, when light barks have to be
forced upstream for short distances.
Then some enterprising individual set up a line of steamers, in the face
of the usual predictions from the wiseacres that he would ruin himself
and all his kin. The undertaking proved so fabulously successful and
profitable that a wild rush of competition ensued. But the competition
seems to have consisted chiefly in the establishment of rival lines of
steamers, and there are some peculiarities of river travel which still
exist in consequence. One of these curious features is that each
navigation company appears to have adopted a certain type of steamer at
the outset, and not to have improved on that original idea to any marked
degree. There are some honorable exceptions, it is true, and I certainly
have a very definite opinion concerning the line which I would patronize
on a second trip. Another idea, to which they have clung with equal
obstinacy, though it is far from making amends for the other, is that a
journey is worth a certain fixed sum per verst, utterly regardless of
the vast difference in the accommodations offered.
Possibly it is a natural consequence of having been born in America, and
of having heard the American boast of independence and progress and the
foreign boast of conservatism contrasted ever since I learned my
alphabet, not to exaggerate unduly, that I should take particular notice
of all illustrations of these conflicting systems. Generally speaking, I
advocate a judicious mixture of the two, in varying proportions to suit
my taste on each special occasion. But there are times when I distinctly
favor the broadest independence and progress. These Volga steamers had
afforded me a subject for meditations on this point, at a distance, even
before I was obliged to undergo personal experience of the defects of
conservatism. Before I had sailed four and twenty hours on the broad
bosom of Matushka Volga, I was able to pick out the steamers of all the
rival lines at sight with the accuracy of a veteran river pilot. There
was no great cleverness in that, I hasten to add; anybody but a blind
man could have done as much; but that only makes my point the more
forcible. It was when we set out for Samara that we realized most keenly
the beauties of enterprise in this direction.
We had, nominally, a wide latitude of choice, as all the lines made a
stop at our landing. But when we got tired of waiting for the steamer of
our preference,--the boats of all the lines being long overdue, as
usual, owing to low water in the river,--and took the first which
presented itself, we found that the latitude in choice, so far as
accommodations were concerned, was even greater than had been apparent
at first sight.