IRKOUTSK TO TOMSK.
LET the reader picture the neighbourhood of Aldershot with its
undulating pine-clad hills suddenly transplanted into the depths of the
black country lying around Newcastle-on-Tyne. For stone buildings let
him substitute filthy, tumble-down houses of unpainted wood, almost
undistinguishable at a distance from the dark, greasy soil around them.
People these villages with dirty, wild-looking men clad in sheepskins
and gaudy-coloured rags, and still dirtier, half-naked women. Conceive a
sickly smell (peculiar to Asiatic Russia) of old skins, wood, smoke,
turpentine, and sewage, and a Siberian landscape is before you. In fine
weather a fine grey dust that creeps into your hair, chokes up eyes and
nostrils, and renders life almost unbearable; on a wet day thick,
greasy, black mud that is everywhere. In the post-house, in the
tarantass, there was no keeping it out. I do not know which was
worse——the dust or the mud——perhaps the latter, for it smelt abominably,
and stained like ink.
We had looked forward to fine scenery in Siberia, lofty, picturesque
ranges, wooded valleys, and glorious panoramas of forest and plain, but
were grievously disappointed, for the scenery between Irkoutsk and Tomsk
is, with one or two exceptions, intolerably monotonous and depressing.
My recollections of that weary journey are neither pleasant nor
interesting. Eastern Siberia, as I remember it, is simply one long and
varying succession of three colours: Dark green, brown, and
yellow——pines, mud, and occasional cornfields. Of the fifty odd villages
lying between the capitals of Eastern and Western Siberia, not more than
a dozen contained over 400 inhabitants. Save in these villages we saw no
signs of life but occasional gangs of prisoners, or a stray tarantass or
téléga. The poet’s lines——
“Miles, on miles, on miles, of desolation,
Leagues, on leagues, on leagues, without a change,”
fitly describe the country through which we travelled for three weeks
after leaving Irkoutsk.
A description of one Siberian village will suffice for all. The houses,
for the most part of rough unpainted wood, have an untidy, unfinished
appearance, the majority of them being dangerously out of the
perpendicular. The effect produced by their appearance was exactly like
that of ships rolling and tumbling about in a high sea, some with their
sterns high up out of the water, others with their bows buried in the
waves. This phenomenon is caused by the depression of the ground in
spring, when the snow melts, and when their foundations being very
insecure, the houses fall about in all directions. I saw one at
Kloutchefskaya, near Kansk, that had sunk to such a degree that the
inmates had to enter it on all fours. The entire absence of colour in
these villages was fearfully depressing. I do not think I saw a single
flower-garden throughout the whole journey. In some of the larger
villages faint attempts at decoration were made by cutting down a
fir-tree and sticking it (rootless) into the ground on either side of
the road; but as this had been done in early summer, the dark green of
the firs had usually faded, scorched by the sun into a dirty drab,
making the surroundings, if possible, more desolate and cheerless than
before. In every Siberian village, however small, are three Government
buildings; the church, prison, and post-house; also, situated at one
extremity of the place a huge wooden barn, in which a quantity of grain
is stored annually by the villagers as a precaution against famine.
We found the post-houses (which are situated at intervals of every
twenty or twenty-five versts) vary considerably in comfort and
cleanliness, the best being about on a par with a decently kept
labourer’s cottage in England. All are built on the same model, and of
wood, two black and white pillars at the door, and the Imperial arms
over the gateway alone distinguishing this building from the other rough
wooden huts. Two rooms, or partitions, each about twenty feet by
eighteen feet, are set apart for the use of travellers, a huge brick
stove in the wall heating them equally. The floor was invariably
carpetless, while the sole furniture consisted of a small table and two
hard wooden chairs, sometimes, but not often, an equally hard wooden
sofa; and for ornament a few woodcuts from the newspapers, or cheap
tawdrily coloured portraits of the Czar and Czarina were pinned on the
greasy, whitewashed walls. In one corner on a shelf is kept the “Black
Book,” a volume in which travellers are invited to write any complaints,
immediately over this a gaudy brass “Ikon,” or picture of the Holy
Virgin or Saviour, which no Russian’s room, from Czar to peasant, is
ever without. There were usually two windows——double ones——kept
hermetically sealed even on the hottest day. Washing appliances were, of
course, nil. I should hardly like to own how often I washed my face and
hands between Irkoutsk and Tomsk! Ablutions were almost entirely
dispensed with except for a handkerchief dipped into a tea-glass from
the “Samovar,” and passed over the face and hands. With this “lick and a
promise,” one had to be satisfied. The post-houses differed a good deal
in comfort and accommodation, some being as clean and well found as
those east of Lake Baikal, others little better than human pigstyes.
Curiously enough, the dirtiest were invariably situated near the large
towns, and while we met with nothing but civility and kindness from
officials in the wilder districts, those within forty versts or so of
Tomsk and Irkoutsk were as arrogant and extortionate as only a Siberian
post-master can be.
The Great Post-Road from Irkoutsk to Tomsk, would scarcely be called a
road in any other country. In wet weather it becomes a morass, in dry
seasons the thick grey dust is up to the axles, while in early autumn
the centre track is often so cut up by caravans as to make wheel traffic
quite impossible. The yemstchiks then diverge to the right or left,
where, though the going is not so heavy, the numerous tree-stumps,
watercourses, felled logs, &c., render it anything but safe. I often
wondered our tarantass did not come to pieces altogether long before
reaching Tomsk. No European carriage would have stood the work
twenty-four hours. A triple telegraph wire runs the entire length of the
road, and is carried on eastwards from Irkoutsk to Wladivostok, a town
of about 2000 inhabitants, and the headquarters of the Russian Naval
Squadron in Siberian waters. There is no telegraph direct to Pekin. I
was surprised, at times, to miss the wires altogether for twenty or
thirty versts but found, on inquiry, that they are sometimes laid under
ground on account of the violent storms that sweep across the steppes,
chiefly near Krasnoiarsk and Marinsk. Telegraphing in the Russian Empire
is cheap enough in all conscience. A message may be sent from Petersburg
to Wladivostok for fifteen kopeks, or about 2½_d._ a word; from the
capital to all parts of European Russia, for a third of that sum.
We dashed along gaily the first two stages out of Irkoutsk, passing, a
few versts out, the monastery of St. Innocent, a huge stone building
erected at the cost of many million roubles by the gold-merchants of the
capital. This saint is supposed to protect travellers, and none of the
wealthier mine-owners ever dream of taking a journey without first
making a substantial offering at his shrine. Such voyages are
necessarily frequent enough, and the sum total at the end of the year is
considerable. It was almost like a glimpse of Italy or Southern France
to peep in through the open gateway, the priests in their brown and
white robes, strolling bareheaded about the sunny, vine-clad gardens,
and shady cloisters. The tower at the eastern side of the building, is
lofty, and of graceful architecture, but the fine effect is entirely
spoilt by a large sham clock, just beneath the steeple, its painted
hands pointing eternally to half-past twelve. The Siberians apparently
have a mania for these, for I afterwards noticed them on many public and
Government buildings at Tomsk, Krasnoiarsk, and Tobolsk.
We reached Bokovskaya, the first post-station out of Irkoutsk, a little
after two o’clock, and were lucky enough to obtain horses at once, a
circumstance that did not then strike one as out of the way, but we had
as yet but little experience of Siberian post-masters and their ways. It
was getting dusk as we reached the little village of Tielminskaya, where
our first check occurred. Though we had covered but little ground,
bright sunshine, a comfortable tarantass, and good horses, made our
first day’s posting so pleasant that we began to think the discomforts
of Siberian travel had been exaggerated by our Danish friends. To be
sure we had only come thirty versts, and over one thousand five hundred
lay between us and the good city of Tomsk!
[Illustration: A NIGHT IN A POST HOUSE.——TILMSKAYA.]
The waiting-room at Tielminskaya had just been vacated by a Siberian
family _en route_ for Irkoutsk. Its appearance was, to say the least of
it, uninviting, and did not give one a very high opinion of the
cleanliness of the Siberian _en voyage_. No horses were obtainable till
four o’clock next morning, so we spread our furs and rugs on the floor,
resolving to sleep in the waiting-room, filthy as it was. One might, to
use a slang expression, have cut the atmosphere with a knife. Though it
had been oppressively warm all day, every window was tightly closed,
while a huge fire roared in the brick stove. The dirty, worm-eaten
floor, strewn as it was with mud, straw, scraps of paper, fish-bones,
egg-shells, and other abominations, was anything but appetizing to look
at, to say nothing of the stench of stale cigarette smoke, furs, and
salt fish, but we managed to make a good meal notwithstanding, and
thoroughly enjoyed the fresh-laid eggs, clotted cream, and preserved
berries that the post-master’s wife provided. We little knew then that a
time was coming when even eggs and milk would be unobtainable luxuries.
A “Pope” (as priests of the Greek Church are called) made his appearance
about ten o’clock, just as we were thinking of turning in——a noisy,
bustling fellow, who put further rest out of the question; for he was of
a communicative turn of mind, and would talk, whether one answered him
or not, so I made the best of a bad job, and got out my dictionary, with
a view to picking up a little Russian. The conversation was somewhat
laboured, and consisted chiefly of pantomime. Lancaster did not join in,
but slumbered away peacefully in a corner. I verily believe he would
have slept through an earthquake.
A word constantly made use of by my clerical friend was _Katorgi_. I do
not know whether the reader has ever attempted to look out a Russian
word, having but a slight knowledge of the language. If so, it will not
surprise him that it took me a considerable time to discover that the
word, in English, means “Convicts.” By dint of hard work I managed at
the end of an hour to glean that, firstly, the road between Koutoulik
and Nijni Udinsk was infested with robbers; secondly, that on no account
must we travel at night through these districts; and, thirdly, that a
whole family on their way to Irkoutsk from Krasnoiarsk had been murdered
by thieves (escaped convicts) but a week previously.
This was scarcely encouraging our first day out. Referring to the
Posting-book, I found that Koutoulik lay fifty versts further on, which
would probably land us there about 2 p.m. the following day, always
supposing there was no delay at Maltinskaya or Polovilnaya, the
intervening stations. We were well armed, as I took care to show the
clerical stranger, who, for all I knew, might himself be in league with
the thieves. Siberia makes one very suspicious. At any rate we resolved
to travel as little as possible by night, and when doing so to keep a
good look-out, sleeping only one at a time while on the road.
It was past 2 a.m. before the loquacious “Pope” allowed me to snatch a
few hours’ rest. The wind had now risen, and the rain, which had
threatened at intervals through the day, was pouring down in torrents,
and rattling against the window-panes with a force that boded ill for
our next day’s journey. Given fine weather and average luck in obtaining
horses, I had not the slightest doubt of being able to reach Tomsk in
time for the last steamer to Tiumen, but a week of steady rain would
upset all our plans, and probably result in our being kept prisoners at
Tomsk through the mists and fogs of early autumn, until the roads set
for sleighing. To post through Siberia in October is next to impossible.
We had already been two hours on the road when day broke. By eight
o’clock the thick woolly clouds had rolled away, and the sun burst forth
clear and cloudless, which soon dried our wet, shivering frames, for the
tarantass hood leaked badly, and we had been lying in a pool of water
all the morning. About mid-day we sighted the Angara for the last time.
The river here presents the appearance of a vast lake (so broad is the
distance from shore to shore), its blue waters fringed with massive
rocks and boulders of grey granite, while further inland a fertile plain
of hay and corn fields stretched away to where on the horizon a low dark
green line marked the recommencement of forest. Men, women, and
children, were working in the fields, and it seemed strange to a
European eye to see the peasantry gathering the harvest and making hay
at the same time. This part of the country teems with game, wild fowl,
and a very large species of hare.
Being detained for five hours at Polovilnaya, we did not reach Koutoulik
until nine o’clock p.m. The post-house being fairly comfortable, we
resolved to sleep here, and make a start at daybreak next day. We had
the place to ourselves till about 11 p.m., when a loud cracking of whips
and jingling of collar-bells announced a fresh arrival, and one of no
little importance, to judge by the bustle and confusion displayed by the
yemstchiks.
“The gospodin will perhaps kindly vacate the bed,” whispered the old
post-master. “It is an officer of high degree and his lady.” The “bed”
being composed of hard planks and about two feet broad, I took the floor
without demur; for there was little difference; and a few moments after
the new arrivals entered the waiting-room, one a tall, handsome man in
uniform, his companion a pretty little woman of the true Russian type,
with violet eyes and finely cut features.
“You are English, the post-master informs me,” said our new acquaintance
in French. “Will you do my wife and myself the pleasure of supping with
us? I conclude, you, like ourselves, are detained here till to-morrow
morning.”
I have seldom enjoyed a meal more than that supper in the wilds of
Siberia, for, apart from the fact that we had tasted no solid food for
two days, our new friends were capital company. Madame had left school
in Paris only seven short months before, to marry the gay Cossack, whose
military duties called him to the dreary convict settlement of
Nertchinsk, in Trans-Baikal. “Un drôle de voyage de noces, n’est-ce pas,
messieurs,” said he, laughing heartily, while his poor little wife, who
looked tired to death, tried hard to screw up a smile at the joke. A
good supper and two or three glasses of Kümmel, however, worked wonders,
and a merrier party could scarcely be found than we were that night. It
was such a relief to meet a fellow-creature with whom one could converse
without racking the brain over Reiff’s dictionary and dialogue-book, and
we chatted away far into the early hours. While the Cossack enlarged
upon Petersburg and its delights to Lancaster, little Madame V. and
myself had a long talk over the delights of Paris, the opera, the
“Bois,” Sara Bernhardt, and a thousand other subjects connected with the
beautiful city so far away. She was a bright, plucky little thing,
though worn to a shadow, and haggard from constant travel and fatigue. I
could not help wondering now long that pretty face and expression would
last in dreary, desolate Nertchinsk.
Madame having retired to rest (tucking up on the hard, cushionless sofa
in the most matter-of-fact way), Colonel V. did not attempt to conceal
his satisfaction at having come unscathed through the Katorgi infested
district. “There have been two more murders since the ones you speak
of,” he said in a low tone, on our telling him of my conversation with
the priest at Tielminskaya. “One that of a Jew pedlar from Kansk, the
other, T., the contractor at Krasnoiarsk, who was found dead in his
tarantass two days ago, near Touloung, his throat cut from ear to ear. I
saw the body myself, and it was not a pleasant sight, I assure you. His
yemstchik and the horses have since disappeared, which proves to me that
the drivers have a good deal to do with it. No, well armed though you
be, take my advice and travel only by day, till you have left the town
of Nijni Udinsk far behind you.”[12]
“Their mode of attack is simple,” said V., in answer to my inquiry, and
pouring himself out a huge tumbler of vodka (his fifth). “Travellers are
never molested in the day-time. It is only at night that these
blackguards (of whom there are sixty or seventy) attack wayfarers. The
most dangerous hours are between 3 and 6 a.m., when travellers who have
been on the _qui-vive_ all night, somewhat relax their vigilance. A
couple of the thieves are told off to cut the traces, two more to seize
and bind the yemstchik (accomplice or not), and three or four others at
the same moment to climb over the back of the tarantass, and falling
suddenly in front of the hood, despatch the passengers with a blow from
a heavy bludgeon. According to report, they have no firearms. Most of
the victims are first stunned, and then their throats are cut. In no
case of late has a traveller’s life been spared.” But, as V. remarked,
it was a significant fact, that not a single yemstchik had lost his
life, while no less than twelve travellers had been brutally murdered.
The sun was high in the heavens when we rose the next morning, V.’s
entertaining conversation having kept us up till past five o’clock. Yet
we woke to find them both gone, for they had left, the post-master
informed us, a little after seven o’clock. For staying powers in the
sitting-up line, commend me to a Russian Cossack. It is my firm belief
that many never sleep at all. Perhaps vodka is the secret.
We were anxious, if possible, to reach Tiretskaya, fifty versts distant,
before sundown, and make the latter our sleeping-place. It would not be
a difficult task, the post-master said. There was but one relay at
Zalarinsk, twenty versts off, and unless we fell in with the mail from
Petersburg, then about due, we were sure to be able to get horses
without delay. The troika was therefore put in at once, and we were
hastily swallowing a couple of glasses of tea, preparatory to a fast of
twelve hours, when a shouting and cracking of whips was heard in the
village street, and in another minute in galloped the mail, four
mud-splashed carts, followed by a tarantass, in which, armed to the
teeth and resplendent in green and gold, reclined the courier in charge.
“Lochade scorei” (horses quickly), shouted the latter, as he leapt from
the tarantass, and brushed past us into the waiting-room, where a few
moments after, we saw him pouring down tumbler after tumbler of scalding
tea. To appeal to his finer feelings was, we knew, useless. Sadly we
watched, as our troika was ruthlessly taken out and harnessed to a
mail-cart, to the evident satisfaction and amusement of the courier,
who, having finished his tea, was smoking a cigarette and watching our
discomfiture with no little amusement. “Sibiri, gospodin!” he said, as
he climbed into his tarantass, and the cortège dashed off again on its
way to China. It was indeed Siberia! and we realized to the full that
patience is a virtue, when the post-master told us that under no
circumstances could we hope to get horses till five o’clock that
evening.
The long sunny day wore slowly away. There was absolutely nothing to do,
or look at, and time hung fearfully heavy on our hands. Towards mid-day
we strolled up to the prison, situate as usual about a hundred yards
outside the village.
The village prisons, or temporary resting-places for prisoners on the
road to the mines, are square or rather oblong wooden buildings, three
sides of which form quarters for the convicts and their guards, while
the remaining wing, a little detached from the main building, is used
for washing and cooking purposes. The open courtyard in the centre of
the building is used for exercise. It is rough and unpaved, and in wet
weather often knee-deep in mud and slush. This yard is entered by a pair
of high gates, the only entrance to the building, the whole being
surrounded by a high palisade, at every corner of which is posted, night
and day, a sentry with a loaded rifle. This vigilance, however, is only
maintained during the summer months. From April to October it is a very
different matter; and as the sentries often sleep upon their posts, and
the bars and gratings of the windows are so rickety and insecure that a
child could dislodge them, escape becomes comparatively easy. An escape
or attempted escape does not increase the length of a prisoner’s
sentence. There is a chance of a sound flogging with rods if the runaway
is brought back, but that is all. Without the connivance of their
guards, I doubt if prisoners would ever attempt to break out at all, and
were the prison officials more careful, not to say conscientious, in the
discharge of their duties, the Siberian roads would be comparatively
safe, instead of being, as they now are, infested with thieves and
desperadoes of the worst description. There is another and still more
powerful reason, which was explained to us by our travelling
acquaintance V., and one that clearly demonstrates that the highest as
well as the lowest officials connected with Siberian prisons are very
far from being _sans reproche_. The practice I am about to describe,
however, takes place only in the remoter districts of Eastern Siberia,
whence no whisper of the scandal is ever likely to reach the ears of the
Petersburg authorities.
It is marvellously simple. Lieutenant A., of the Imperial Guard, having
lived not wisely but too well in the Russian capital, is compelled to
exchange, and finds himself transferred in five or six short mouths from
the gaiety and gilded salons of Petersburg to some desolate convict
settlement in the Trans-Baikal, his only society the Cossacks under his
command; his sole occupation, maintaining order among the two or three
hundred convicts in his charge. The next station, thirty versts off, is
under the command of his friend and brother officer in misfortune,
Lieutenant B., who to lighten the long, wintry evenings, makes
periodical visits to A. Heavy drinking, high play, and other little
amusements, which I need not mention, but which will continue so long as
female prisoners exist in Siberia, are the result of these meetings;
very frequently, also, one of the guardsmen loses considerably more than
he is able to pay. A Russian would sooner die than owe a debt of honour,
but the pockets of both these dashing guardsmen are probably sadly
deficient of that necessary commodity, “ready money.” There is but one
way out of the difficulty. Early in spring, a batch of fifty or sixty
convicts are liberated (upon the understanding that they return before
the end of September) to get their living as best they can upon the
roads. Some have been known to reach Tomsk from Nertchinsk on these
summer excursions. Nor do they ever fail to return, for none but a
lunatic would ever think twice of escaping outright from Siberia. During
the absence of the gang, M. le Lieutenant draws the money for their
rations, &c. from Petersburg, and discharges his just debts. “Cela n’est
pas plus difficile que cela!”
Though I visited three “ostrogs,” it was only with considerable
difficulty and a lavish expenditure of roubles that I succeeded in doing
so. It seems strange that the Russian Government should show such a
strong dislike to strangers visiting their convict establishments, for I
must confess to being most agreeably disappointed by what I saw.
Notwithstanding all the blood-curdling and revolting accounts so vividly
set forth by the authors of “Called Back,” “The Russians of To-day,” and
similar works, I found the prisons of Siberia clean and comfortable,
though perhaps not so sweet-smelling as our convict establishments at
Chatham or Dartmoor. It would be hard to keep them so, considering that
every twenty-four hours brings in a fresh batch of prisoners, each in
wet weather, with a pound or so of black, stinking mud on his feet. At
one village only (Rasgonnaia) along the whole post-road from Irkoutsk to
Tomsk was the ostrog (a very old one) almost uninhabitable. It swarmed
with rats, the post-master told us, and convicts, in winter, were
sometimes severely bitten; while they were forced to sleep in the
daytime, rest at night being rendered impossible by the swarms of
vermin. Let me in justice add that this was the only really bad ostrog I
heard of or saw during the whole journey, and the authorities were on
the point of pulling it down and building a new one. We hear a deal in
England of wretched hovels, where convicts are housed together like
sheep in a pen, human pigstyes reeking with filth of every description,
where not a day passes but a prisoner is carried off by typhus or some
other malignant fever. As a matter of fact I have seldom seen neater
buildings. But for the black and white sentry boxes, the barred windows,
and imperial eagle over the gate, one would never take them for prisons
at all, and they were often, with their bright yellow walls, red roof,
and neatly kept gardens, the only cheerful-looking building in the
squalid villages through which we passed. The ostrog at Koutoulik was
empty, but a gang was expected that afternoon, a Cossack told us.
Preparations for their arrival were already being made in the shape of
cakes, cream, eggs, apples, sweetmeats, and cigarettes spread out on
snowy linen cloths for the delectation of lucky convicts who had made a
few kopeks on the road.
[Illustration: THE POST-HOUSE AT RASGONNAIA.]
We strolled back to the post-house after our inspection, and called in
sheer desperation for the Samovar. There was literally nothing else to
do. Seven long hours must be got through before we could hope to get
horses and proceed on our journey. It is this eternal delay, this
irksome waiting that makes Siberian travel so monotonous and
dispiriting. The fatigue and privation were trifling compared to the
long weary days of boredom and inaction. We got into a habit at last of
calling mechanically for tea at every station. Fifteen or twenty glasses
were, after the first week, our daily allowance, and I verily believe I
drank tea enough during the two months I was in Siberia to keep a dozen
old maids going for a year.
Koutoulik consists of some eighteen or twenty houses and presented a
depressing appearance enough even that bright sunny afternoon, for the
village was deserted by all save women, children, dogs, and pigs, the
men being busy in the fields getting in the harvest. Under the guidance
of the post-master, a Pole who spoke a few words of French, I visited
one of the cottages. Most of the women were dirty, bedraggled creatures,
but some of the younger girls were good-looking, and the children many
of them beautiful, with fair flaxen hair and light blue eyes that made
one wonder how such thoroughly northern types of beauty could have been
born and reared so far east. The mistress of the cottage we entered (a
young and rather pretty woman) apologized for her costume, which
consisted simply and solely of a thin and almost transparent muslin
nightgown reaching a little below the knee; the only garment worn
indoors by peasant women in the brief but tropical Siberian summer. We
begged her not to apologize, assuring her that the costume, though
scanty, suited her remarkably well.
The interior of the cottage was, though primitive, scrupulously clean.
In one corner hung the sacred “Ikon,” or image of the Holy Virgin, a
huge brick stove immediately facing it. Half a dozen wooden chairs and a
rough pine table comprised the furniture, the flooring of the room was
at an angle of about forty-five degrees, which made sitting down a
somewhat dangerous experiment. From the centre of the roof hung a
Siberian cradle, a kind of linen bag secured by a long rope to a hook in
the ceiling, to which our hostess gave a swing every twenty minutes or
so, the length of the cord keeping it (and her last born) in motion for
quite that length of time.
While we were smoking a cigarette and regaling ourselves with a glass of
iced “Quass,”[13] the pretty housewife, who soon lost her shyness,
produced a Russian guitar, and sang to us (in a sweet, clear voice) two
or three national airs. One, a Volga boat-song, seems an especial
favourite, for we heard it continually the whole way from Kiakhta to
Nijni Novgorod, sung by peasants, prisoners, and yemstchiks alike. The
Siberian peasantry appear to have a good ear for music, but their airs
are nearly all in minor, and intensely depressing, after a time, to a
European ear.
The Siberian peasant cannot be called overtaxed, all that the imperial
Government exacts being a poll-tax of seventeen roubles. Those living on
the Great Post-Road are exempt from this even, if they breed and provide
horses for the postal service, of course receiving a remuneration for
the same. The men are cheery, good-tempered fellows enough, with, as a
rule, but one vice, drunkenness; when they do take too much, it is done
in a good-tempered way, and they become more urbane and benevolent than
when sober. I have never once seen a Siberian quarrelsome in his cups,
though I met many the worse for vodka in every town we passed through.
As regards the women, they are clean, thrifty, and very religious, but
at the same time rather lax in their morals, a mixture of qualities not
peculiar, I imagine, to Siberia.
[Illustration: A SIBERIAN VILLAGE STREET.]
It was nearly seven o’clock before we left Koutoulik, so we had to
abandon all hopes of getting further than Zalarinsk (the next station,
twenty-eight versts distant) that night. We looked to our pistols before
starting, and took care to let the yemstchik see we were armed, for it
was a desolate, cutthroat-looking road, and the forest so thick, one
could hardly see a foot either side of the tarantass, but we kept a
bright look-out, with revolvers at half-cock, and had we been attacked,
our assailants would have met with a warm reception. About ten o’clock
some twinkling lights ahead heralded the approach of Zalarinsk, and by
half-past ten we were safe for the night.
The succeeding two days were, as regards weather, perfect, a blue
cloudless sky and bright sun, which at mid-day was sometimes too hot to
be pleasant; on more than one occasion the thermometer rose to over 90°
Fahr., although the instant the sun set it sometimes dropped to only a
few degrees above Zero, so rapid are the changes of temperature. On the
26th of August the country became more cultivated, and the thick forest
gave place to large clearings of corn, maize, and mustard. This was on
the eastern side of Tiretskaya. The latter village passed, the landscape
again changed, and we returned to dull, monotonous pine forests, varied
by occasional silver-birch-trees or bushes with bright red and white
berries. Siberia is noted for the latter. There are no less than twenty
different kinds, and in parts of the country they form, with black
bread, the staple food of the inhabitants in summer-time. We found most
of them insipid, flavourless things, with the exception of the
“Brousniki,” a kind of bilberry, which eaten with cream and sugar was
delicious. The “Brousniki” is also very efficacious as a febrifuge.
Two large caravans were passed between Zalarinsk and Tiretskaya; one
laden with calico, ironmongery, and Manchester goods——the other with
tea——the former eastward, the latter westward bound. Each consisted of
over two hundred carts, in charge of about eight or ten men, who, till
our driver had roused the foremost with a cut of his whip, were fast
asleep when we came up to them, the horses rolling about the road from
side to side, and threatening every moment to dash the clumsy heavy
carts into our tarantass. The tea-caravans travel day and night, only
halting five hours out of the twenty-four, from 1 p.m. till 3 p.m., and
midnight till three o’clock in the morning. Yet the horses looked sleek
and fat, and not in the least out of condition, the reason, perhaps,
being that they never exceed a speed of three miles an hour.
We rarely passed more than two or three conveyances in a day, and this
is what makes posting in Siberia so irksome and monotonous. Between the
villages there is absolutely nothing to look at but the dreary
sand-coloured road——the endless vista of dark green forest. A cottage is
never found alone in Siberia or outside a village _enceinte_. Except in
the villages, usually twenty to thirty versts apart, one sees no
dwelling of any sort or kind. The monotony, after a week or so, becomes
absolutely maddening. What must it be to the wretched exiles who
sometimes take two years to reach their destination!
We reached Tiretskaya at sunset. A large river just beyond this station
was swollen by the rains to a considerable, not to say dangerous,
extent. Only that evening the ferry had been carried away and washed
down-stream, the Petersburg mail having to wait out in the open, on the
river-bank, till it was repaired. This was not pleasant news, but we
derived some consolation from the fact that the weather was fine and the
glass rising. We had the waiting-room to ourselves till midnight, when a
téléga clattered into the yard, and out clambered an enormously fat man
and a small, wizened woman, who informed us, before they had been in the
room five minutes, that they were newly married, and had come straight
through from Irkoutsk. Divested of their furs, I discovered that the man
was clad in a bran-new suit of shining broadcloth, the woman in what had
evidently been her bridal array, a white muslin dress, covered with
sprays of orange blossom, but terribly soiled and creased by travel and
the amorous advances of her bridegroom, to say nothing of the mud and
dirty straw of the téléga. When the partner of his joys and sorrows had
retired to rest (on two chairs), the unhappy bridegroom became
confidential, and confided to me, in a low tone, that he would much
rather have remained quietly in Irkoutsk, that he did not like this sort
of thing at all, and was only doing it to amuse his bride! I could not
help, like Mr. Pickwick, envying the facility with which the lady was
amused. “I shall take her as far as Nijni Udinsk, if her strength holds
out,” he said resignedly, “if not, we shall return to Irkoutsk.” What a
honeymoon! Next morning, when I woke, they were gone.
I shall never forget my first night in a Siberian post-house. Unless the
traveller falls asleep at once, it is long odds against his getting any
rest at all, for tarantasses and télégas are arriving and leaving at all
hours of the night. There is (by order) a lamp kept burning till
morning, and the jingle of bells, shouting of yemstchiks and stamping of
heavy feet on the carpetless floor, that goes on at intervals through
the night, would waken the dead. There is another powerful antidote to
sleep in every Siberian post, be it ever so clean——vermin——to say
nothing of cockroaches and rats, who subsist on the scraps of food
dropped on the floor by travellers, and who run about the floor and over
one’s face and body with supreme indifference during the quieter moments
of the night. Till I went to Siberia, I had the most unutterable
loathing for rats; but now, like the Yankee and the snake, I almost feel
lonely without them.
About 2 a.m. the cocks commenced crowing, and were promptly answered by
the dogs of the village. Long before daylight the inhabitants of the
post-house were astir and bustling about, cleaning up, lighting fires,
chopping wood, &c. I usually rose about 4 a.m., and, lighting a
cigarette, amused myself by studying the strange types of humanity
around me till the samovar made its appearance. They were a strange,
motley crew, as a rule. Men and women lying about pell-mell, and
looking, in the weird half-light between night and day, like a lot of
corpses in a _fosse commune_. One could always tell at a glance, the new
hands at the game; the Russian official’s wife travelling the post-road
for the first time in smart, tailor-made gown, beaver toque, and costly
furs, or the Siberian with her awkward, ill-cut dress in the fashion of
thirty years ago. It was second nature to the latter to remain unwashed
for a couple of weeks, and sleep on the filthy floor, with, perhaps, a
greasy, ragged Jew pedler for a neighbour, but one could not help
pitying the better class,[14] travelling from St. Petersburg or Moscow
to rejoin their husbands in Eastern Siberia or the Amour district,
sitting, if they could get them, on the hard, stiff-backed, wooden
chairs all through the night, and almost falling off them at times from
sheer weariness. The prettiest looked hideous in the early morning
hours, with tangled hair, disordered dress, and pale, pasty faces, while
their diamond rings only served to show off the blackness of their hands
and nails, which they had probably been unable to wash for days. Few
women look well, even in England, at six in the morning after a ball.
Imagine their appearance after a dozen nights and days of Siberian
travel. Many of the post-houses are worse than that I have described,
but few are better. I have seen sights in these waiting-rooms that will
not bear description. They are better left to the reader’s imagination;
for in matters of decency the Siberian, _pur et simple_, is inferior to
the Chinese.
I date the commencement of our mishaps and difficulties from the morning
of the 27th of August, when I awoke in the dirty, little waiting-room of
Tiretskaya post-house to find the rain pouring down in torrents, the sky
one mass of grey, woolly clouds. It had evidently been raining some
hours, for the road in front of the post-house was one pool of water,
almost half-way up to the axle of our tarantass, on the roof of which
the rain was pelting down unmercifully. Instinct told me that the water
inside was quite an inch deep by this time. Mentally thanking Providence
that we had taken out the mattress, I rolled myself in my furs and went
to sleep again. It was hopeless to think of starting with a dangerous
river to cross and the next post twenty-five versts distant.
The weather cleared a little towards mid-day, and we resolved, though it
was still raining hard, to make a start, and, if possible, reach
Listvinskaya, seventy odd versts distant, that evening. The tarantass
had to be baled out before we got in. A tarantass for Irkoutsk arrived
as we were putting to, and reported the ferry in working order, though
the river was rapid and swollen to a dangerous extent. We thanked our
informants and set off. The latter were travelling _en famille_,
Monsieur and madame, four children and a nurse, all packed into the same
tarantass. I envied them, for they had, at any rate, the advantage of
warmth, the weather having suddenly become raw and cold, with, every now
and then, blinding showers of sleet.
Although the river Oka is situated only a mile or so from the village of
Tiretskaya, it took us nearly an hour to reach the ferry. Parts of the
road were entirely submerged, and our yemstchik had to find his way by
guesswork. As we knew there was a broad, deep ditch on either side of
the road, the work was, to say the least of it, exciting. It was
impossible to go out of a walk, and even then it was as much as our five
game little horses could do to drag the heavy, clumsy carriage along. We
stuck fast twice, and all hands had to get out “to shove her off,”
knee-deep in icy cold water. We were wet through by the time the ferry
was reached, and shivering with cold, a somewhat unpleasant condition in
which to embark on a stage of twenty-five versts, which it would in all
probability take us several hours to accomplish, supposing we ever
succeeded in reaching Ziminskaia at all. There were, the ferryman said,
four bridges to cross before we reached it, and one or two, at least,
would probably have been washed away by now, for the floods were worse
there.
The appearance of the river Oka was highly picturesque, but not
reassuring. A broad, swiftly flowing stream at any time, continuous
rains had widened its waters to double the ordinary width, the torrent
now being quite a mile across. The rotten and insecure ferry looked as
if a touch from one of the snags or tree-trunks which were whirling
madly along the surface of the stream would send it to the bottom in a
second, and the ferryman was for some time inexorable, but the
temptation of a 10r. note was too much for him, and with much muttering
about “it would be our own fault if we were drowned,” we got the
tarantass and horses aboard, and shoved off for the opposite shore.
Scarcely were the chains let go when a loud shout from the bank
attracted my attention. The crowd were shouting and gesticulating,
running backwards and forwards on the bank like madmen, and pointing to
a splashing, indistinct mass in the water which I presently made out to
be a man and a horse. The latter had been brought down to water, but the
bank, rotten with perpetual rain, gave way, precipitating the animal and
its rider into deep water. I have seldom experienced a moment of more
intense excitement. It quite took our thoughts away from our own
danger——for all this time we were forging slowly ahead. The ferryman
dare not stop, nor could we have rendered the poor fellow any help, for
the current was rapidly carrying him further and further into the centre
of the river. He was evidently a good swimmer, but could, we saw, do
nothing against the terrific force of the current. Three times we saw
him rise to the surface, when his screams were pitiful to hear, but the
third time he was silent, and throwing up both arms, sank for the last
time, in full view of us all. He was only twenty——the ferryman told
us——a tall, good-looking fellow, who had stood by and given a hand to
get our tarantass on board but three or four minutes before he met with
his sad fate.
Crossing the river without mishap, we found the road on the other side
in better order than the one we had left. At any rate it was not
flooded, the yemstchiks could see where they were going, and there was
not so much danger of being stranded ten miles from anywhere with a
broken wheel or axle. Ziminskaia was reached at 3 p.m., and with a fresh
relay of seven horses in (for which we had not to wait more than ten
minutes), we continued our journey, hoping to reach Listvinskaya, fifty
versts further on, some time that night, or the next morning.
Listvinskaya was reached at 11 p.m. The post-house was full of soldiers,
who had been out all day in the rain, searching for prisoners, with no
result, and no wonder. It was, indeed, a case of looking for a needle in
a bundle of hay, to expect to find fugitives in these thick,
impenetrable forests. We were not sorry when they had finished their
vodka and departed, leaving us at 2 a.m. to snatch a few hours’ sleep,
before again taking the road. The rain had now ceased, and the night was
bright and starlit.
Our anticipations of a fine day were not disappointed, for we were awoke
by the bright sun streaming into our faces, and the voice of our host
inquiring how much longer we were going to sleep. And sure enough, worn
out with fatigue and the anxieties of the previous day, we had slumbered
on undisturbed by the noise of arrivals and departures, till past
mid-day, or at least so the station clock said. But one was never quite
sure about the time in Siberia. Every post-master has a time of his own.
It seemed strange at first to leave, say, Tirestskaya station at nine in
the morning, and arrive at Ziminskaia, twenty versts off, at half-past
eight! But we soon got used to it, and after the first week never
troubled our heads about the hour. It was but a minor detail.
We made good way that and the following day, and on the evening of the
29th of August reached the village of Touloung. But alas! good luck as
regards weather was not destined to last. Just before sunset, the sky
became overcast, and two hours before reaching our destination for the
night the rain was falling in torrents. The hood was, as usual, worse
than useless, and in a few minutes we were wet through to the skin.
There were fortunately no more rivers between us and Nijni Udinsk, which
town, all being well, we hoped to reach on the morrow.
Had we known that night that we were destined to be imprisoned in the
filthy room in which we slept for two days, I doubt if we should have
retired to rest in such good spirits. We had come to the end of our
provisions, and should now have to subsist entirely on the meagre fare
provided by the post-houses. I could stand everything well enough but
the bread. Oh! that Siberian bread. My stomach recoils at the mere
recollection of the sour, greasy substance, as black as ink, as heavy as
lead, and in consistency so soft and damp, that one could pull it out
like a piece of unbaked dough.
Swallowing a glass of tea, we rolled up in our furs, wet through as we
were. Such a proceeding in England would probably have resulted in an
attack of rheumatic fever, but a special providence seems to watch over
one’s health in Siberia, and we never had a day’s sickness, hard though
the work, and short the supply of food and (with the exception of tea)
drink. We did not get much sleep that night, but lay awake, listening to
the howling of the wind and pattering of the rain on the window-panes.
About two in the morning I dropped into an uneasy dose, from which I
awoke about an hour after, to find the old post-master replenishing the
stove. “A terrible night, gospodin,” he muttered, tossing a huge pine
log into the flame. “One almost pities the Katorgi, with no roof over
their heads. Poor devils, they must be like drowned rats!” Too tired to
answer, I was about to turn on my side, when a loud knock startled me
into a sitting position, and brought the old man shuffling back from the
kitchen in double quick time. It was no tarantass or téléga. There had
been no bells or sound of wheels. Whoever the nightly visitor was, he
had come on foot. The old man displayed no desire to open the door, and
showed signs of such uneasiness, that then, for the first time, flashed
across me the words of our Cossack friend at Koutoulik, “Keep a good
look-out about Touloung. They are worse there than anywhere.”
A second knock, louder than the first, cut short my reflections, and
induced me to make signs to the Pole that my revolver was loaded, and
that Lancaster (who was still slumbering peacefully) had a similar
weapon. Apparently reassured, he then went to the door, unbolted it, and
let in the mysterious visitor.
A tall, spare man with reddish grey beard and moustache, apparently
about sixty years of age, pushed rudely past the Pole and entered the
room; and divesting himself of a huge bearskin pelisse, sank into a
chair with a sigh of satisfaction. “Enfin!” he muttered in French,
adding in Russian sharply, “I thought you were going to keep me out
there all night. Why did you not open sooner? Come! quick, the samovar,
and some eggs and bread. Don’t stand staring there like a fool.”
That the stranger had no earthly right to order provisions in a
Government post-house, without a podarojna, I was well aware. This fact,
however, did not seem to occur to the post-master, who slunk away
without a word of remonstrance to get the refreshments. In the meantime,
being unobserved, I had a good opportunity of taking stock of the new
arrival from behind my dacha.
It was not a pleasing or reassuring countenance. One thing especially
struck me as curious; he had not removed his cap on entering the room,
and had, apparently, no intention of doing so. It is, as I have said, an
unwritten law, that on entering an apartment in Russia the head shall be
uncovered, more out of respect to the sacred Ikon, which always stands
in one corner, than out of politeness to the occupants of the
compartment. I had never yet seen the rule departed from, and felt sure
that the man had some hidden motive in remaining covered. His dress was
unique if not becoming: a pair of grey tweed trousers, surmounted by a
Siberian peasant’s caftan, secured by a broad red sash round the waist,
and a pair of high-heeled, buttoned boots. Save for a thick wooden
cudgel, which lay on the table beside him, the stranger was apparently
unarmed. Who could the man be? and where in Heaven’s name had he dropped
from this wild stormy night, or rather morning? for I noticed with
satisfaction that day was beginning to dawn.
Who he was, must remain a mystery. He left about 5 a.m., as suddenly as
he had come, and the old post-master was either too frightened or too
lazy to send up to the prison for a couple of Cossacks. One circumstance
convinced me that my suspicions were well founded. Having made a hearty
meal of tea, black bread, and sardines, he pushed his chair back, and
resting both feet on the stove, lit a cigarette. While so doing his cap
slipped off, and I distinctly saw that _one half of his head was partly
shaved_, the distinguishing mark of the Siberian convict. That he was a
“Katorgi” I do not for a moment doubt. He never once caught sight of me,
lying as I was in the shadow of the table; but Lancaster, who slept
calmly through the whole business, lay close to him, and my only wonder
is that he did not take a fancy to the gold watch-chain lying so
temptingly across my friend’s chest. He left the post-house very quietly
without paying for his food, nor did the old post-master make any
further remarks anent his strange visitor. It might have got him into
trouble with the authorities.
The poor wretch had probably been starving for the past two or three
days, afraid to show his face in the village near which so many brutal
murders had been committed. Judging there would be few travellers abroad
a night like this, he had made for the post-house, and seeing, as he
thought, its only inmate the old Pole, had summoned up courage to enter.
It seemed odd that with the dirty and ragged dress he wore, a large
diamond ring, sparkled on the first finger of his left hand. We
afterwards heard that the contractor had been robbed of one of unusual
size and brilliancy.
Any hopes we had of pushing on to Nijni Udinsk the next day were soon
dispelled, for at about ten o’clock the Imperial post clattered in, and
every available horse was harnessed to the mail-carts. We were not
altogether sorry, for the rain was coming down as hard as ever. Even the
dirty, dreary post-house was preferable to a long drive of eighty odd
versts, wet to the skin and chilled to the bone, with a filthy
post-house and no food at the end of the journey.
What a day that was! I have experienced many miserable hours in the
course of my travels but never a day so wretched, and unspeakably
depressing as that 30th of August in Touloung post-house. Save the mail,
nothing passed the whole livelong day, not even a téléga. Having read
all that the rain had left us of our books, we simply sat down and
looked at each other in sheer despair. The situation would have been
laughable had it not seemed, at the time, so serious.
The main street of an Eastern Siberian village is not an inspiriting
sight, even on a fine and sunny day. I have never looked upon a more
dismal spectacle than met the eye from the post-house windows at
Touloung. There were four, two looking on to the village street, the
others on to a lonely barren stretch of common, at the end of which,
through the grey mist, loomed the red roof of the ostrog. It was hard to
say which depressed one most, the dirty village street, knee-deep in mud
and filth, the dirty dilapidated houses; the only signs of life half a
dozen mangy-looking ducks splashing and wallowing in the rain, and a
couple of shivering post-horses crouching under shelter of our
tarantass;——or the lonely, drab-coloured road, winding away like a great
snake over the common, past the prison, and into a green mass of forest
just beyond; the tall gaunt telegraph poles and black and white verst
posts almost undistinguishable in the dense grey mist, dispelled, ever
and anon, by driving showers of rain and sleet. The interior was no
better than the look-out. Our amusement became at length reduced to
killing the flies, which swarmed in thousands on the dirty walls, and
drinking tea, that never-failing solace of the Siberian traveller. There
was no food in the house to speak of. The unwelcome visitor of last
night had exhausted our old friend’s stock, and reduced the contents of
his larder to some salted “omuli” and a couple of loaves (or rather
“lumps”) of black bread. This constituted our evening meal. A buxom
female, who appeared as if by magic from the innermost recesses of the
kitchen, waited on us. We would willingly have dispensed with her
services, for she was not only disgustingly dirty, but was afflicted, in
addition, with a loathsome skin disease. Nor was it reassuring when our
host explained the cause. “Poor girl,” he said pensively, “she has
suffered much the last three weeks. You would hardly think, to see her
bustling about so cheerfully, that she only rose for the first time
to-day from a bad attack of small-pox, caught from one of those beastly
tea-caravans from China. Curse them! they spread it all over the
country.” Under any other circumstances I should have felt uneasy, but
we were becoming so desperate that had violent symptoms developed
themselves, I believe we should have taken it quite as a matter of
course. For this very reason, perhaps, neither of us caught it, for the
fair “Liouba” had undoubtedly arrived at the most infectious stage of
the disease.
Towards sunset the rain abated a little. About seven o’clock, some women
emerged from the houses opposite, each carrying a basin and slice of
black bread, which, having placed under shelter of the eaves, they left
and returned within doors. A Siberian woman’s out-door costume on a
rainy day is even more peculiar than that in which she receives her
guests in summer, for, from the waist downwards, with the exception of a
pair of high boots reaching to the knee, there is no attempt at clothing
of any description, the linen skirt being fastened apparently round the
neck. The appearance of these worthy dames all at once at the gates of
their courtyards was curious in the extreme, nor did they appear the
least disconcerted when they caught sight of our faces at the window. On
inquiry, it is the custom, throughout Siberia, for the peasants of every
village and town to place outside each house refreshment of some sort
(which usually takes the shape of bread and milk) for the use of any
convict that may make his escape. The rule is an old one, nor has it
ever been interfered with by the Imperial Government. It is also
understood that the bowl and plate holding the provisions shall not be
tampered with or taken away, china utensils being rather valuable in
Eastern Siberia. Whenever this code of honour has been infringed the
next convict who escapes is bound, should he come across him, to kill
the thief. A sentence of this kind was carried out near Tomsk while we
were staying there. Both convicts had made their escape from the ostrog
at Kolinskaya, about ninety versts from Tomsk, the first escaping about
three weeks before the second. As usual, both made what they could upon
the road, till the latter accidentally heard of the theft committed by
the former, and never rested till he had hunted him down, and after a
severe struggle beaten him to death with a bludgeon. His body was found
in the forest some days later.
But if the day at Touloung had been depressing, the night was infinitely
more so. The remains of our scanty meal having been carried away by the
small-pox patient, the post-master appeared with two guttering tallow
dips, which just sufficed to make darkness visible, and, bidding us good
night, retired to the depths of his ill-smelling den, whence, a few
moments after, there issued sounds of music in the shape of a groaning,
wheezing concertina. We were given the benefit of this inspiriting music
from a little past eight o’clock till far into the night. I used to
think the Russian National Anthem a fine and stirring composition, but
can, even now, scarcely hear it without a shudder. It was the only tune
he knew. It was past 1 a.m. when I got to sleep. The howling of the
wind, and rattling of the rain and sleet against the window-panes, made
one feel thankful one was under shelter, even in such a den as this. A
huge grey rat, sitting near on the floor, his eyes gleaming in the
semi-darkness, appeared to share my opinion. Two months before, I could
not have slept a wink with the knowledge that such an animal was in the
room, but I now composed myself to slumber quite unconcernedly, although
with the firm conviction that when asleep, he, and probably many others,
would be scrambling over my body and face. An excellent school is
Siberia for the fastidious, and I know many a youthful London “masher”
who would derive incalculable benefit (both physical and and mental)
from a short residence at Touloung.
Awakening at five o’clock, I sprang eagerly to the window, to see how
the weather was. Alas! it was pouring harder than ever. Still the same
sodden grey sky of yesterday, with sooty-coloured clouds driving over
it, still the same desolate landscape, dripping houses, and distant
forest shrouded in white mist. Another day at Touloung! Cursing Siberia
and everything connected with it, I wrapped myself in my pelisse, and
lay down again on the filthy worm-eaten floor, nor did I wake again till
past ten o’clock, to find a new arrival seated, in front of the hissing
samovar, and the rain coming down harder than ever.
The new comer was a Jew, and a very dirty one into the bargain, though
evidently a man of means, as his private tarantass and fat podgy hands,
covered with enormous diamond rings, testified. Like most of his race,
he was as curious as a monkey, and no sooner had I opened my eyes than I
was assailed with the usual bevy of questions. “What was my
nationality?” “Where had I come from?” “Where was I going?” “What was my
income?” and finally, “What had brought me to Siberia?” My answer,
“Pleasure,” was invariably met with shouts of laughter on these
occasions. Nor, now that I have crossed that dreary country, can I blame
my fellow-travellers for what at the time I looked upon as a somewhat
rude and unnecessary display of mirth. The Jew spoke a little French,
and was a welcome addition to our melancholy party, for besides being a
cheery, talkative fellow, full of fun and anecdote, he had a large stock
of provisions. We were, almost starving, and accepted with alacrity his
invitation to join him in a tin of preserved mutton, washed down by a
couple of glasses of vodka. I do not know when I ever enjoyed a meal
more. We had not tasted solid food for nearly three days, and the pangs
of hunger were beginning to make themselves felt in a most painful and
unmistakable manner. We more than once experienced, seriously speaking,
the pains of starvation in Siberia: that terrible gnawing sensation at
the pit of the stomach which is so hard to describe, but which for sheer
mental and physical suffering is unequalled.
Our Hebrew friend was, it transpired, a bagman “travelling” in
gunpowder, and a native of Irkoutsk. He was now on his way to Tashkent,
in Central Asia, having come the whole distance from Nicolaievsk, on the
Sea of Okhotsk, without a break, save a rest of a couple of days in his
native city. Such a voyage as ours paled before the prodigious length of
this journey, which must be at least four thousand miles from end to
end. The Jew had already done it four times, once in winter, an
experiment, he added, he would not care to repeat. “In summer,” said our
talkative friend, “it is charming. Like what you English would call one
great _Picque-Nicque_.” How I envied the little man his cheerful
disposition!
He made a start by five o’clock, when the weather cleared a little, and
by nine o’clock the sky was cloudless and covered with bright stars.
Dreading a rainy morrow, we almost decided to have the horses put in and
push on at once. The next station could not, at any rate, be worse than
Touloung, and might be better; but the post-master begged us not to
attempt it. The floods were out in places, and he had but a young and
inexperienced yemstchik to give us, who would probably lose his head,
should anything go wrong. We were not sorry next day that we had taken
the old man’s advice. Morning broke bright and clear, though the roofs
of the houses were still wet and gleaming in the sunshine, as with six
horses in, we slowly made our way up the miry street, and said good-bye,
with a sigh of relief, to the grimy post-house in which we had passed so
many dreary, comfortless hours.