and garments smelling of fish and raw fur, came and sprawled at the
long table, and demanded tea and cabbage soup, which they disposed of
like wild animals come to the kill; great hulking Russian peasants,
their heads and faces half-hidden in jungles of long, matted hair, sat
crouched on primitive stools, and ate the kernels of sunflower seeds by
the hour, throwing a handful of the seeds into their mouths, chewing
meditatively, and then ejecting the seeds in a wide semi-circle before
them on the floor.
From the window I could see the rude troikas of the farmers drive up,
with three horses abreast. They sat in their seats, while their women
disembarked from the rude carts, crawling out of the loose straw upon
which they had ridden, to unload bottles of milk, cabbage, and potatoes.
While their lords stomped about the station, drinking vodka in secret
places, from which they emerged wiping their mouths with the backs
of their hands, the women set up the farm products on boxes near the
station, and the market was open.
The mothers in the station crowds sought the milk eagerly. Such milk,
and in such bottles! The latter had evidently never seen water, but
were grimy with old and sticky milk down their sides. The wads of
paper and rudely whittled stoppers used as corks were loose, and milk
oozed up through them, to become a feeding place for millions of flies.
In some cases the milk appeared to be sold by the drink, a few kopecks
giving a man or woman the privilege of drinking from the bottle, while
the seller of the milk carefully watched the throat of the buyer and
counted the swallows. And I observed that the last swallow taken,
consisted of all the cheeks of the buyer would hold.
I saw a bottle snatched from a man, who was attempting to get more than
his money’s worth. Everybody laughed, including the bottle-snatcher,
and just to show that he was honest, and willing to pay for his little
joke, the man threw a few extra postage-stamp kopecks to the woman, and
went on his way, his shoulders heaving with mirth over his fun.
Those long hours of waiting at Botchkereva will always stick in my
memory as a period in my life when I was reduced to peasantry in
Siberia. It was cold and drear enough to make the sugarless tea from
the steaming samovar taste like nectar; I acquired a taste for greasy
cabbage soup which revealed formless chunks of meat concealed in its
foliage.
I shared with a giant Tartar my packet of Moscow biscuits, and
marvelled at the amount of nourishment he could still pick from his
teeth after he had finished his meal.
Lest I should build up the idea that travel de luxe is all that I know,
I wish to establish the fact that I know the forecastles of fishing
boats, have lived below in cattle ships, and know intimately the
foremast life of tramp steamers. I have lived among savages under most
primitive conditions, and know something of the hardships of campaign.
I spent eighty days ’tween-decks in a transport from New York to the
Philippines by way of Suez in the days when a soldier was a hard-bitted
being and knew nothing of Y. M. C. A. or Salvation Army aid. Three
times I have made the circuit of the globe, bent on seeing and admiring
and fighting, and have always felt more or less at home wherever my
campaign hat happened to hang.
But in the Maritime Provinces of Siberia I got the impression of being
on a new planet. This place seemed to me farther from civilization than
any place I had ever been, despite the fact that a railroad passed the
door of the station. The peasant of Siberia can create and endure the
vilest conditions of life I have ever witnessed.
It is said that there are queer tribes to the north, on the Siberian
littoral, who are more hidden from the world than the natives of
Central Africa or the Eskimos of the Arctic--the blacks of Africa and
the denizens of the regions near the poles have seen explorers and
traders, but civilization has never penetrated portions of the mainland
in behind Kamchatka. This territory would no doubt prove to be a rich
field to the ethnologist.
I knew that the green minarets of a church not far from the station
marked the position of the town, and I induced my orderly to take a
walk. We scouted for a bath-house, and found one. It was a primitive
structure of logs, floored with rotten adze-hewn planks which were full
of splinters, mouldy and dangerously slippery. A girl of about twelve,
clad in dirty rags, conducted us into the place. It looked as if it had
been deserted for years.
A rude fireplace, built of rocks, held the stubs of charred logs.
Above, was a sort of stone oven also made of rocks, but not mortared,
so that there were interstices through which a hand could be thrust.
It was into this oven-like place that water was thrown, once the rocks
were glowing from the fire, and thus the steam was generated for the
typical bath.
Merely out of curiosity to see what would happen, I gave the girl
a ruble and asked her to prepare the fire and bring water. Kissing
the dirty slip of paper money, she went out. In half an hour she had
provided one bucket of water and one stick of wood. In time she had a
sickly fire going. I judged that in about six hours she would have the
rocks of the oven warm enough to turn water into steam.
We went wandering about the town, which consisted of probably a
couple of hundred crude buildings, not counting the inevitable yellow
buildings near the station, provided for railroad employees. The place
seemed almost deserted, except for shivering Chinese at their open-air
counters in little kiosks at some of the street-corners. They were
huddled in these little huts, and were not at all eager to sell their
cigarettes and other goods--they most reluctantly took their hands out
of their ample sleeves, which they used as muffs. I believe they were
engaged chiefly in selling vodka.
But for all the deserted-village aspect, the place must have been well
inhabited. Under the ornately carved eaves of the buildings (which
indicate long and boresome evenings spent in whittling) there were
hanging long and deep fringes of brown salmon, which had been split
and hung up to dry. These drying fish fill the village landscapes of
Siberia in the Fall months.
The human being who craves beauty in his surroundings, even in the
midst of desolation, is to be commended. Yet when the barbarian carves
the house where he keeps his idol, or draws intricate designs on his
canoe, or tattoos his body, we say that by these things he betrays his
barbarism.
The Siberian can build a squat log house, and with strips of wood cut
into the most delicate filigree work, make the ungainly structure
dazzle your eyes in a manner only to be rivalled by a silicate
Christmas card.
At home we still have houses which appear to be the products of the
jig-saw, and look more like wedding cakes than places of residence. And
all the time in Siberian villages I was being reminded of Yonkers and
other suburban cities.
So I refrain from saying that the ornate eaves and window-trimming of
Siberian homes prove the Siberians to be barbarians. It might be better
to say that they outdo some of our own inhabitants when it comes to
being decoratively-minded.
Barbarism? We are all barbaric still, but we use different methods of
revealing it, and such things as are familiar to us, we assert go to
prove our civilization. It is always the other fellow who is barbaric
when the psychologist goes hunting for stigmata. If, for instance,
I had found no decorations on Siberian homes, I might have berated
Siberians for neglecting to beautify their surroundings. Those fretted
eaves are symbolical of the fact that the Siberian peasant will aspire
against all odds to better things, though he may be crushed to earth
generation after generation.
Yet if the time and energy represented by these exterior decorations
could have been expended on their brains, the Siberians might have
saved themselves from many of their past, present and future woes. Or
if instead of satisfying the visual yearning for beauty, the people
protected their other senses from the terrible and menacing smells
which go with their lack of sanitation, they might well do without
filigree work on their buildings. For if cleanliness be next to
godliness, the Siberian has a long and hard road to travel before he
approaches the divinity.
Late in the afternoon we heard a train puffing laboriously up the line,
and hastened back to the station. There was no reply to my telegram to
Major Miller. One of two things must be done--go on, or give up. The
telegraph operator informed me that there was no answer from Ushumun.
The Japanese captain in charge of the station came to tell me that if
I were seeking Major Miller, that officer was still at Ushumun, as his
Japanese operators had so informed him not an hour before.
The train arrived, and unloaded another throng of unkempt natives.
Those in the station clambered aboard, fighting for places in the
fourth-class cars, already over-crowded in spite of the human freight
which had disembarked.
The usual scramble for hot water for tea-kettles took place; men bought
double handfuls of red salmon-eggs, big as peas, and giving off an
odour similar to a glue factory. Caviare? No, they have never heard of
caviare. Eekrah, they call this vile mess.
The milk market did a lively business, while the engine loaded wood,
in the leisurely manner with which all such work is done. The train
crew abandoned the train, and made an onslaught on the cabbage soup
and tea--and talk! such a flood of talk they produced with the Russian
staff of the station!
With my baggage stowed in a crowded fourth-class car, holding some
forty persons each determined to keep inviolate the few inches of
seating space already pre-empted, I got into the open air again, and
attracted by the clamor of the railroad men in the station, I got my
interpreter to translate some of the conversation, which, by the vigor
shown by the talkers, must indicate something afoot which would stand
out in Russian history. Perhaps a new revolution, or the Czar had come
back to the throne.
This was the burden of their excited discussion:
The engine is bad.
When will these accursed Japanese go away?
The weather is good.
I am very thirsty.
I have a lazy Chinese for a helper.
Ivan, who worked at Nikolsk, is sick.
Do you remember when Peter fell in the river?
The tea is good.
I will see my wife when I go back to First River.
My mother’s mother had a boil ten years ago--she cured it with ashes.
What time is it? Never mind, what does it matter?
My brother’s cow has a calf.
And the world shuddering about what would happen to the Russian people,
groping amid the ruins of a shattered nation! Massacres in Petrograd
and Moscow, in Samara and Perm, Vladivostok in control of Allied
troops, wreck and ruin, refugees and desolation, unlimited numbers of
factions quarreling to see who would pick the bones of the country,
intrigue, murder and sudden death stalking through city and town, the
very railroad on which they worked ready to lie down and die in its
tracks, their wages six months overdue, and no telling what would
happen to-morrow to themselves or their families--these people calmly
discussed the birth of a relative’s calf!
And I, with several thousand other American citizens, had cast aside
all the things we held dear, to come half way round the world and fight
to save Russia! The American people poured men and money, to help these
people, and for a long time will be paying the bills. But the Russian
worried only about the temperature of his tea, and wondered why we
should worry at all about him or his affairs. And the railroad men in
Siberia represent the best type of working men, far above the simple
peasant in mental advancement.
With a similar state of affairs at home, can we imagine the crew of one
of our passenger trains finding nothing to discuss but trivial personal
affairs? Yet we persisted in considering the Russian people on a par
with our own in seeking enlightened government and an orderly condition
of life, once they had rid themselves of the oppressing Czar and his
bureaucrats.
In due time, our train moved out. The car windows were sealed tightly
against any outside air. The three decks of sleeping shelves were
filled with men, women and children, so completely that from floor to
ceiling there was a solid block of humanity. I managed to secure a
shelf for my blankets, by watching those who prepared to detrain at
stations ahead, and taking the space before the new passengers got in.
The narrow aisle was so piled with cases and bags of merchandise and
personal effects, that it was almost impossible to get in or out of
the car. And there were battles royal at every station, as one mob
tried to get out while the other mob fought its way inside. There were
many Chinese, peddling with packs, carrying salt, tea, sugar and such
necessities, and selling them at exorbitant prices. Instead of sugar,
there was also a cheap, highly-colored candy, used to sweeten tea--and
give it most outlandish flavors.
These speculating Chinese were most rude and insolent to the Siberians.
I saw a pair of them drive a woman and her two children from a seat,
and leave them standing, in order to get the seat for themselves. A
young Cossack officer hove them out bodily, but they ran after the
train and rescued their baggage. They who had been so overbearing with
a helpless woman, gave a fine exhibition of cringing when they in turn
found themselves in the presence of a strong and ruthless personality.
The provodnik distributed candles as darkness came on, and we rattled
along through the night at about ten miles an hour, slowing down
discreetly to cross temporary bridges, which had been built where the
Bolshevists, as they fled before the Allies, had blown out the original
structures.
The candles increased the richness of our air-mixture, and as they
burned low and guttered smoking tallow over bare feet of sleepers,
the odor of the salmon-roe, cached in tin cans about the car, almost
lost its lusty pervasiveness. I awoke at about midnight, and though
the candles were still glimmering faintly and producing a nut-flavored
smoke, the salmon-roe still held its own, and asserted its presence
unmistakably.
The cause of my waking was a burly Chinese, who mistaking me for a
peasant as I lay on my shelf rolled in my blankets, took the liberty
of heaving several of his heavy boxes in upon me, in an attempt to
discourage me from occupying so much space. My reading of Darwin made
me realize that it was a case of the survival of the fittest. I felt
particularly fit, and when that Chinese had eliminated himself from
the car, along with his baggage, I went back to sleep. I forgot in the
meantime the necessity for maintaining cordial international relations
with China, and made it a purely personal matter.
Incidentally, it must be the boldest spirits among the Chinese who
dared travel in that part of Siberia with anything of value. I was
awakened later that night by a great to-do in the car, when Cossacks
at a station went through the train and looked all the passengers
over, including baggage. They took two Chinese out of the car, with
some bulky bundles. The bundles proved to be full of packets of
paper rubles. The Cossacks debated among themselves as to whether so
much wealth was not in itself evidence of criminality, and favored
confiscating the money. How much was given up, I do not know, but once
more the Chinese came back, settled themselves for sleep upon their
shelf and we rolled merrily on.
Toward morning I was awakened once more by a big peasant who stepped
upon my face, in order to climb to the top of the car. I watched him
mount upward, till he was in reach of a ventilator, and I came to the
conclusion that I had misjudged peasants when it came to desiring fresh
air--it was obvious that this man desired to tamper with the ventilator
in the ceiling so that it would provide a better opening to let out our
bad odors.
But instead, before my horrified eyes, he closed it! And not satisfied
with its natural tightness, he stuffed into it a Russian newspaper in
which had been wrapped salmon-eggs! I roused myself, dressed, and went
out on the car-platform in the crisp, cool air where I waited for the
sun to rise over the bleak hills.
Before long, we came to a small yellow depot, with this signboard
upon it, as near as I can reproduce with Roman letters: “YXXYMYH”--it
was Ooshoomoon, or Ushumun, the y’s distributed through its system
providing the oo sounds in Russian.
Not an American soldier in sight. We learned from the telegraph
operator that Major Miller and his force had left the evening before
in a troop-train, and had passed us during the night, going in the
direction from which we came.
As for my telegram to Major Miller, the operators had never heard of
it. I suppose the operator at Botchkereva had pocketed my rubles, and
let it go at that. Anyhow, that is the most brilliant procedure I can
ascribe to him. He was either a fool or a knave. With the people then
operating the trans-Siberian railroad, the theory that they mask their
knavery under stupidity has proven true with me, in the long run.
By appearing stupid, and so making fools of the smart Americanskys,
they prove their superiority to us, according to their Asiatic style
of reasoning. They would rather pocket our money than to show to us
something in the nature of human intelligence.
But my missing Major Miller was not vital, except in so far as I was
concerned with the element of time. We got our baggage out of the car,
and faced the prospect of spending the night and most of the next day
in the primitive little station, waiting for the single train running
daily, which would take us back toward Khabarovsk.
VIII
ON THE BACK TRAIL
The train which had brought us to Ushumun pulled out to the east,
leaving me sitting on my bedding-roll smoking a cigarette in the frosty
morning, while my interpreter went to the station restaurant to ask if
they had any eggs, and if they had, would they please fry them “sunny
side up.”
Physically and mentally, inside and out, I was flat. My love for
Siberia and the Siberians was at its lowest ebb--I would have sold
the whole country to the Cossacks at a bargain price, if I had owned
it that morning. I yearned for the trenches--any place, where if a
man displayed a copious vocabulary, its full depth of feeling and
expression might be appreciated.
A Japanese civilian, in a bluish sort of suit, which reminded me of
chauffeurs in New York who buy cast-off livery to wear as a uniform,
drew near, and, so to speak, wagged his tail. (Later I learned that
his outward aspect was similar to that of Japanese officers on secret
service).
He spoke fairly good English, but managed to maintain an abject
and apologetic manner. He informed me that he had been a barber in
Vladivostok, the purpose of which remark I could not fathom--either
he was attracted by the glamor of a two-day beard of reddish hue which
I wore, or he mentioned Vladivostok to account for his having learned
English. His progress in the language must have been rapid if he
learned English there from the American troops, for up to about a month
before, one might have as well gone to Timbuctu to acquire our language.
He squatted on his heels before me, and asked for a match. He being
the most amiable object on the landscape, I did not resent his
presence, but gave him the match, and he lit a limp cigarette with
great solemnity. I could fairly hear him think of how to attack me as a
problem and wring from me the most possible information.
Finally, after considerable discussion of the most commonplace weather,
he got down to business. I must say that if he revealed the teachings
of the Japanese military secret service, that organization is far
behind the times. It was counter-espionage at its worst.
He wanted to know first where I was going. I told him that I intended
to stay permanently in those parts, which put him in something
resembling a panic. He recovered in time to ask me what part of town I
intended to reside in. As I could see no town, I told him I intended to
live in the railway station. He nearly fell off his heels, so overcome
was he--for which I do not blame him, considering the station.
He assured me dismally that there was a Japanese officer, and several
Japanese soldiers, already living in the station, and that there was
not room left for so much as a flea’s brother-in-law. I told him that
my orders were to live in that section, and I intended to do so if I
had to sleep on the counter where the samovar stood in the daytime.
Now orders to a Japanese soldier, are not merely orders as we
understand them--they are sacred revelations emanating from the most
holy place in Japan and the heavens above. He understood that I was
going to live in that station, even if I had to pitch out a whole
Japanese division. He almost wept over the prospect, but borrowing
one of my cigarettes, which I had most carelessly exposed, he got off
his heels, and departed sadly to that part of the station where the
Japanese officer in charge cooked his rice.
Presently the “barber” was back, now with a Japanese captain, who
approached me as if I were a divinity. I let him approach close before
I “saw” him, and then leaped to my feet and came to a most dramatic
salute. He beamed upon me, and after we had got done bowing and
scraping, the barber announced proudly that the Japanese officer had
come to pay his respect to the American officer. I acknowledged his
kindness with a bow that near broke my car-stiffened back.
The barber, who refrained now from sitting on his heels, and betrayed a
most suspicious desire to look military, said that he would be glad to
interpret for us, and said that the Japanese captain was most sad over
my fate--I must have the steel of Samurai in my backbone to face so
calmly an existence which would undoubtedly wreck my constitution, if
it did not result in my death. I replied that I was a soldier, and was
tempted to say that so far as I could observe, the Japanese captain was
bearing up most wonderfully under a similar mode of life. But one must
be extremely careful in joking with Japanese.
But I knew that in order to save my face when I took the first train
bound south, I had better not carry my simulation of a desire for
permanent residence, too far. So I became disconsolate, as they went on
to tell of the discomforts awaiting me.
The Japanese captain took me to the little shed adjoining the station,
where he lived. He had improvised a shelf a few inches from the dirt
floor, and with a fire in a bucket, called it home. He gave me saki, in
a thimble-like glass, and some raw fish. And he smiled and smiled as I
said I could never endure such quarters. No doubt he has made a report,
in which he cites the fact that American officers will not willingly
endure privations on campaign. Thus do the nations get false ideas
about one another.
I expressed a desire to get out of Ushumun as quickly as possible. The
Japanese captain beamed. He informed me that a Japanese troop-train
was coming down the line, and would pass through there in a couple of
hours. If I desired to travel away on it, he could probably arrange
with the train commander for transportation. Which he did.
So when a train with a Japanese battery of artillery arrived, I saw
my friend in serious consultation with the train commander, and I was
invited to the fourth-class coach on the rear, filled with officers and
soldiers, and given a section, the soldiers being put out in box-cars
with the horses and other men.
I do not care to analyze the motives which led the Japanese captain to
hurry me out of Ushumun. It was obvious that he desired me far away.
And my expressed intention of staying there, only increased his worry.
If I had told him I intended leaving by the next train, no doubt I
would have spent that day and the next night in discomfort in Ushumun
station. But it is not in me to look a gift-horse in the mouth.