ROADS.
A man who loads himself with common luggage would find these Russian
roads rather rough, whether his journey lay through the forest or
across the steppe. An outfit for a journey is a work of art. A hundred
things useful to the traveller are needed on these roads, from candle
and cushion down to knife and fork; but there are two things which he
can not live without--a tea-pot and a bed.
My line from the Arctic Sea to the southern slopes of the Ural range,
from the Straits of Yeni Kale to the Gulf of Riga runs over land and
lake, forest and fen, hill and steppe. My means of travel are those of
the country; drojki, cart, barge, tarantass, steamer, sledge, and
train. The first stage of my journey from north to south is from
Solovetsk to Archangel; made in the provision-boat, under the eyes of
Father John. This stage is easy, the grouping picturesque, the weather
good, and the voyage accomplished in the allotted time. The second
stage is from Archangel to Vietegra; done by posting in five or six
days and nights; a drive of eight hundred versts, through one vast
forest of birch and pine. My cares set in at this second stage. There
is trouble about the podorojna--paper signed by the police, giving you
a right to claim horses at the posting stations, at a regulated price.
As very few persons drive to Holmogory, the police make a fuss about
my papers, wondering why the gentleman could not sail in a boat up the
Dvina like other folk, instead of tearing through a region in which
there is hardly any road. Wish to see the birthplace of Lomonosof!
What is there to see? A log cabin, a poor town, a scrubby
country--that is all! Yet after some delays the police give in, the
paper is signed. Then comes the question: carriage, cart, or sledge?
No public vehicle runs to the capital; nothing but a light cart, just
big enough to hold a bag of letters and a boy. That cart goes twice a
week through the forest-tracks, but no one save the boy in charge can
ride with the imperial mail. A stranger has to find his means of
getting forward, and his choice is limited to a cart, a tarantass, and
a sledge.
"A sledge is the thing," says a voice at my elbow; "but to use a
sledge you must wait until the snow is deep and the frost sets in. In
summer we have no roads; in some long reaches not a path; but from the
day when we get five degrees of frost, we have the noblest roads in
the world."
"That may be six or seven weeks hence?"
"Yes, true; then you must have a tarantass. Come over with me to the
maker's yard."
A tarantass is a better sort of cart, with the addition of
splash-board, hood, and step. It has no springs; for a carriage slung
on steel could not be sent through these desert wastes. A spring might
snap; and a broken coach some thirty or forty miles from the nearest
hamlet, is a vehicle in which very few people would like to trust
their feet. A good coach is a sight to see; but a good coach implies a
smooth road, with a blacksmith's forge at every turn. A man with
rubles in his purse can do many things; but a man with a million
rubles in his purse could not venture to drive through forest and
steppe in a carriage which no one in the country could repair.
A tarantass lies lightly on a raft of poles; mere lengths of green
pine, cut down and trimmed with a peasant's axe, and lashed on the
axles of two pairs of wheels, some nine or ten feet apart. The body is
an empty shell, into which you drop your trunks and traps, and then
fill up with hay and straw. A leather blind and apron to match, keep
out a little of the rain; not much; for the drifts and squalls defy
all efforts to shut them out. The thing is light and airy, needing no
skill to make and mend. A pole may split as you jolt along; you stop
in the forest skirt, cut down a pine, smooth off the leaves and twigs;
and there, you have another pole! All damage is repaired in half an
hour.
On scanning this vehicle closely in and out, my mind is clear that the
drive to St. Petersburg should be done in a tarantass--not in a common
cart. But I am dreaming all this while that the tarantass before me
can be hired. A sad mistake! No maker can be found to part from his
carriage on any terms short of purchase out and out. "St. Petersburg
is a long way off," says he; "how shall I get my tarantass back?"
"By sending your man along with it. Charge me for his time, and let
him bring it home."
The maker shakes his head.
"Too far! Will you send him to Vietegra, near the lake?"
"No," says the man, after some little pause, "not even to Vietegra.
You see, when you pay off my man, he has still to get back; his
journey will be worse than yours, on account of the autumn rains; he
may sink in the marsh; he may stick in the sand; not to speak of his
being robbed by bandits, and devoured by wolves."
"He is not afraid of robbers and wolves?"
"Why not? The forests are full of wild men, runaways, and thieves; and
three weeks hence the wolves will be out in packs. How, then, can he
be sure of getting home with my tarantass?"
Things look as though the vehicle must be bought. How much will it
cost? A strong tarantass is said to be worth three hundred and fifty
rubles. But the waste of money is not all. What can you do with it,
when it is yours? A tarantass in these northern forests is like the
white elephant in the Eastern story. "Can one sell such a thing in
Vietegra?"
"Ha, ha!" laughs my friend. "In Vietegra, the people are not fools; in
fact, they are rather sharp ones. They will say they have no use for a
tarantass; they know you can't wait to chaffer about the price. Your
best plan will be to drive into a station, pay the driver, and run
away."
"Leaving my tarantass in the yard?"
"Exactly; that will be cheaper in the end. Some years ago I drove to
Vietegra in a fine tarantass; no one would buy it from me. One fellow
offered me ten kopecks. Enraged at his impudence, I put up my carriage
in a yard to be kept for me; and every six months I received a bill
for rent. In ten years' time that tarantass had cost me thrice its
original price. In vain I begged the man to sell it; no buyer could be
found. I offered to give it him, out and out; he declined my gift. At
length I sent a man to fetch it home; but when my servant got to
Vietegra he could find neither keeper nor tarantass. He only learned
that in years gone by the yard was closed, and my tarantass sold with
the other traps."
A God-speed dinner is the happy means of lifting this cloud of trouble
from my mind. "The man," says our helpful consul, "thinks he will
never see his tarantass again. Now, take my servant, Dimitri, with
you; he is a clever fellow, not afraid of wolves and runaways; he may
be trusted to bring it safely back."
"If Dimitri goes with you," adds a friendly merchant, "I will lend you
my tarantass; it is strong and roomy; big enough for two."
"You will!" A grip of hands, a flutter of thanks, and the thing is
done.
"Why, now," cries my host, "you will travel like a Tsar."
This private tarantass is brought round to the gates; an empty shell,
into which they toss our luggage; first the hard pieces--hat-box,
gun-case, trunk; then piles of hay to fill up chinks and holes, and
wisps of straw to bind the mass; on all of which they lay your
bedding, coats and skins. A woodman's axe, a coil of rope, a ball of
string, a bag of nails, a pot of grease, a basket of bread and wine, a
joint of roast beef, a tea-pot, and a case of cigars are afterwards
coaxed into nooks and crannies of the shell.
Starting at dusk, so as to reach the ferry, at which you are to cross
the river by day-break, we plash the mud and grind the planks of
Archangel beneath our hoofs. "Good-bye! Look out for wolves! Take care
of brigands! Good-bye, good-bye!" shout a dozen voices; and then that
friendly and frozen city is left behind.
All night, under murky stars, we tear along a dreary path; pines on
our right, pines on our left, and pines in our front. We bump through
a village, waking up houseless dogs; we reach a ferry, and pass the
river on a raft; we grind over stones and sand; we tug through slush
and bog; all night, all day; all night again, and after that, all day;
winding through the maze of forest leaves, now burnt and sear, and
swirling on every blast that blows. Each day of our drive is like its
fellow. A clearing, thirty yards wide, runs out before us for a
thousand versts. The pines are all alike, the birches all alike. The
villages are still more like each other than the trees. Our only
change is in the track itself, which passes from sandy rifts to slimy
beds, from grassy fields to rolling logs. In a thousand versts we
count a hundred versts of log, two hundred versts of sand, three
hundred versts of grass, four hundred versts of water-way and marsh.
We smile at the Russians for laying down lines of rail in districts
where they have neither a turnpike road nor a country lane. But how
are they to blame? An iron path is the natural way in forest lands,
where stone is scarce, as in Russia and the United States.
If the sands are bad, the logs are worse. One night we spend in a kind
of protest; dreaming that our luggage has been badly packed, and that
on daylight coming it shall be laid in some easier way. The trunk
calls loudly for a change. My seat by day, my bed by night, this box
has a leading part in our little play; but no adjustment of the other
traps, no stuffing in of hay and straw, no coaxing of the furs and
skins suffice to appease the fretful spirit of that trunk. It slips
and jerks beneath me; rising in pain at every plunge. Coaxing it with
skins is useless; soothing it with wisps of straw is vain. We tie it
with bands and belts; but nothing will induce it to lie down. How can
we blame it? Trunks have rights as well as men; they claim a proper
place to lie in; and my poor box has just been tossed into this
tarantass, and told to lie quiet on logs and stones.
Still more fretful than this trunk are the lumbar vertebræ in my
spine. They hate this jolting day and night; they have been jerked out
of their sockets, pounded into dust, and churned into curds. But then
these mutineers are under more control than the trunk; and when they
begin to murmur seriously, I still them in a moment by hints of taking
them for a drive through Bitter Creek.
Ha! here is Holmogory! Standing on a bluff above the river, pretty and
bright, with her golden cross, her grassy roads, her pink and white
houses, her boats on the water, and her stretches of yellow sands; a
village with open spaces; here a church, there a cloister; gay with
gilt and paint, and shanties of a better class than you see in such
small country towns; and forests of pine and birch around
her--Holmogory looks the very spot on which a poet of the people might
be born!