I had a curiosity to examine the ancient monuments at Tyr, opposite
the mouth of the Amgoon river, but we passed them in the night without
stopping. There are several traditions concerning their origin. The
most authentic story gives them an age of six or seven hundred years.
They are ascribed to an emperor of the Yuen dynasty who visited the
mouth of the Amoor and commemorated his journey by building the
‘Monastery of Eternal Repose.’ The ruined walls of this monastery are
visible, and the shape of the building can be easily traced. In some
places the walls are eight or ten feet high.
Mr. Collins visited the spot in 1857 and made sketches of the
monuments. He describes them situated on a cliff a hundred and fifty
feet high, from which there is a magnificent view east and west of the
Amoor and the mountains around it. Toward the south there are dark
forests and mountain ridges, some of them rough and broken. To the
north is the mouth of the Amgoon, with a delta of numerous islands
covered with forest, while in the northwest the valley of the river is
visible for a long distance. Back from the cliff is a table-land
several miles in width.
This table-land is covered with oak, aspen, and fir trees, and has a
rich undergrowth of grass and flowers. On a point of the cliff there
are two monuments. A third is about four hundred yards away. One is a
marble shaft on a granite pedestal; a second is entirely granite, and
the third partly granite and partly porphyry. The first and third bear
inscriptions in Chinese, Mongol, and Thibetan. One inscription
announces that the emperor Yuen founded the Monastery of Eternal
Repose, and the others record a prayer of the Thibetans. Archimandrate
Avvakum, a learned Russian, who deciphered the inscriptions, says the
Thibetan prayer _Om-mani-badme-khum_ is given in three languages.[C]
[Footnote C: Abbe Hue in his ‘Recollections of a journey through
Thibet and Tartary,’ says:—
“The Thibetans are eminently religious. There exists at Lassa a
touching custom which we are in some sort jealous of finding among
infidels. In the evening as soon as the light declines, the Thibetans,
men, women, and children, cease from all business and assemble in the
principal parts of the city and in the public squares. When the groups
are formed, every one sits down on the ground and begins slowly to
chant his prayers in an undertone, and this religious concert produces
an immense and solemn harmony throughout the city. The first time we
heard it we could not help making a sorrowful comparison between this
pagan town, where all prayed in common, with the cities of the
civilized world, where people would blush to make the sign of the
cross in public.
“The prayer chanted in these evening meetings varies according to the
season of the year; that which they recite to the rosary is always the
same, and is only composed of six syllables, _om-mani-badme-khum_.
This formula, called briefly the _mani_, is not only heard from every
mouth, but is everywhere written in the streets, in the interior of
the houses, on every flag and streamer floating over the buildings,
printed in the Landzee, Tartar, and Thibetan characters. The Lamas
assert that the doctrine contained in these words is immense, and that
the whole life of man is not sufficient to measure its depth and
extent.”]
The lowest of the monuments is five and the tallest eight feet in
height. Near them are several flat stones with grooves in their
surface, which lead to the supposition of their employment for
sacrificial purposes. Mr. Chase told me at Nicolayevsk that he thought
one of the monuments was used as an altar when the monastery
flourished. There are no historical data regarding the ruins beyond
those found on the stones.
Many of the Russians and Chinese believe the site was selected by
Genghis Khan, and the monastery commemorated one of his triumphs. The
natives look upon the spot with veneration, and frequently go there to
practice their mysterious rites.
Before leaving Nicolayevsk I asked the captain of the Irigodah how
fast his boat could steam. “Oh!” said he, “ten or twelve versts an
hour.” Accustomed to our habit of exaggerating the powers of a
steamer, I expected no more than eight or nine versts. I was surprised
to find we really made twelve to fifteen versts an hour. Ten thousand
miles from St. Louis and New Orleans I at last found what I sought for
several years—a steamboat captain who understated the speed of his
boat! Justice to the man requires the explanation that he did not own
her.
[Illustration: ON THE AMOOR.]
My second day on the Amoor was much like the first in the general
features of the scenery. Hills and mountains on either hand; meadows
bounding one bank or the other at frequent intervals; islands dotted
here and there with pleasing irregularity, or stretching for many
miles along the valley; forests of different trees, and each with its
own particular hue; a canopy of hazy sky meeting ranges of misty peaks
in the distance; these formed the scene. Some one asks if all the
tongues in the world can tell how the birds sing and the lilacs smell.
Equally difficult is it to describe with pen upon paper the beauties
of that Amoor scenery. Each bend of the stream gave us a new picture.
It was the unrolling of a magnificent panorama such as no man has yet
painted. And what can I say? There was mountain, meadow, forest,
island, field, cliff, and valley; there were the red leaves of the
autumn maple, the yellow of the birch, the deep green of pine and
hemlock, the verdure of the grass, the wide river winding to reach the
sea, and we slowly stemming its current. How powerless are words to
describe a scene like this!
The passengers of our boat were of less varied character than those on
a Mississippi steamer. There were two Russian merchants, who joined us
at meal times in the cabin but slept in the after part of the boat.
One was owner of a gold mine two hundred miles north of Nicolayevsk,
and a general dealer in everything along the Amoor. He had wandered
over Mongolia and Northern China in the interest of commerce, and I
greatly regretted my inability to talk with him and learn of the
regions he had visited. He was among the first to penetrate the
Celestial Empire under the late commercial treaty, and traveled so far
that he was twice arrested by local authorities. He knew every fair
from Leipsic to Peking, and had been an industrious commercial
traveler through all Northern Asia.
Once, below Sansin, on the Songaree river, he was attacked by thieves
where he had halted for the night. With a single exception his crew
was composed of Chinese, and these ran away at the first alarm. With
his only Russian companion he attempted to defend his property, but
the odds were too great, especially as his gun could not be found. He
was made prisoner and compelled to witness the plundering of his
cargo. Every thing valuable being taken, the thieves left him.
In the morning he proceeded down the stream. Not caring to engage
another crew, he floated with the current and shared with his Russian
servant the labor of steering. The next night he was robbed again, and
the robbers, angry at finding so little to steal, did not leave him
his boat. After much difficulty he reached a native village and
procured an old skiff. With this he finished his journey unmolested.
There were fifteen or twenty deck passengers, a fair proportion being
women and children. Among the latter was a black eyed girl of fifteen,
in a calico dress and wearing a shawl pinned around a pretty face. On
Sunday morning she appeared in neat apparel and was evidently desirous
of being seen. There were two old men dressed in coarse cloth of a
‘butternut’ hue, that reminded me of Arkansas and Tennessee. The
morning we started one of them was seated on the deck counting a pile
of copper coin with great care. Two, three, four times he told it off,
piece by piece, and then folded it carefully in the corner of his
kerchief. In all he had less than a rouble, but he preserved it as if
it were a million.
[Illustration: CASH ACCOUNT.]
The baggage of the deck passengers consisted of boxes and household
furniture in general, not omitting the ever-present samovar. This
baggage was piled on the deck and was the reclining place of its
owners by day. In the night they had the privilege of the after cabin,
where they slept on the seats and floor.
‘Wooding up’ was not performed with American alacrity. To bring the
steamer to land she was anchored thirty feet from shore, and two men
in a skiff carried a line to the bank and made it fast. With this line
and the anchor the boat was warped within ten feet of the shore,
another line keeping the stern in position. An ordinary plank a foot
wide made the connection with the solid earth. These boats have no
guards and cannot overhang the land like our Western craft. Wood was
generally piled fifty, a hundred, or five hundred feet from the
landing place, wherever most convenient to the owner. No one seems to
think of placing it near the water’s edge as with us; they told me
that this had been done formerly, and the freshets had carried the
wood away. The peasants, warned by their loss, are determined to keep
on the safe side.
When all was ready the deck hands went very leisurely to work. Each
carried a piece of rope which he looped around a few sticks of wood as
a boy secures his bundle of school books. The rope was then slung upon
the shoulder, the wood hanging over the back of the carrier and
occasionally coming loose from its fastenings. No man showed any sign
of hurrying, but all acted as if there were nothing in the world as
cheap as time. One day I watched the wooding operation from beginning
to end. It took an hour and a half and twelve men to bring about four
cords of wood on board. There was but one man displaying any activity,
and _he_ was falling from the plank into the river.
[Illustration: WOODING UP.]
The Russian measure of wood is the _sajene_ (fathom.) and a sajene of
wood is a pile a fathom long, wide, and high. The Russian marine
fathom measures six feet like our own, but the land fathom is seven
feet. It is by the land fathom that everything on solid earth is
measured. A stick seven feet long is somewhat inconvenient, and
therefore they cut wood half a fathom in length.
We landed our first freight at Nova Mihalofski, a Russian village on
the southern bank of the river. The village was small and the houses
were far from palatial. The inhabitants live by agriculture in summer,
sending their produce to Nicolayevsk, and by supplying horses for the
postal service in winter. I observed here and at other villages an
example of Russian economy. Not able to purchase whole panes of window
glass the peasants use fragments of glass of any shape they can get.
These are set in pieces of birch bark cut to the proper form and the
edges held by wax or putty. The bark is then fastened to the window
sash much as a piece of mosquito netting is fixed in a frame.
Near Springfield, Missouri, I once passed a night in a farmer’s house.
The dwelling had no windows, and when we breakfasted we were obliged
to keep the door open to give us light, though the thermometer was at
zero, with a strong wind blowing. “I have lived in this house
seventeen years,” said the owner; “have a good farm and own four
niggers.” But he could not afford the expense of a window, even of the
Siberian kind!
Ten or fifteen miles above this village we reached Mihalofski,
containing a hundred houses and three or four hundred inhabitants.
From the river this town appeared quite pretty and thriving; the
houses were substantially built, and many had flower gardens in front
and neat fences around them. Between the town and the river there were
market gardens in flourishing condition, bearing most of the
vegetables in common use through the north. The town is along a ridge
of easy ascent, and most of the dwellings are thirty or forty feet
above the river. Its fields and gardens extend back from the river
wherever the land is fertile and easiest cleared of the forest. On the
opposite side of the river there are meadows where the peasants engage
in hay cutting. The general appearance of the place was like that of
an ordinary village on the lower St. Lawrence, though there were many
points of difference.
In several rye fields the grain had been cut and stacked. Near our
landing was a mill, where a man, a boy, and a horse were manufacturing
meal at the rate of seven poods or 280 pounds a day. The whole
machinery was on the most primitive scale.
Entering the house of the mill-owner I found the principal apartment
quite neat and well arranged, its walls being whitewashed and
decorated with cheap lithographs and wood-cuts. Among the latter were
several from the Illustrated London News and _L’Illustration
Universelle_. The sleeping room was fitted with bunks like those on
steamboats, though somewhat wider. There was very little clothing on
the beds, but several sheepskin coats and coverlids were hanging on a
fence in front of the house.
Borasdine had business at the telegraph station, whither I accompanied
him. The operator furnished a blank for the despatch, and when it was
written and paid for he gave a receipt. The receipt stated the hour
and minute when the despatch was taken, the name of the sender, the
place where sent, the number of words, and the amount paid. This form
is invariably adhered to in the Siberian telegraph service.
The telegraph on the lower Amoor was built under the supervision of
Colonel Romanoff and was not completed at the time of my visit. It
commenced at Nicolayevsk and followed the south bank of the Amoor to
Habarofka at the mouth of the Ousuree. At Mariensk there was a branch
to De Castries, and from Habarofka the line extended along the Ousuree
and over the mountains to Posyet and Vladivostok. From Habarofka it
was to follow the north bank of the Amoor to the Shilka, to join the
line from Irkutsk and St. Petersburg. Arrangements have been made
recently to lay a cable from Posyet to Hakodadi in Japan, and thence
to Shanghae and other parts of China. When the cable proposed by Major
Collins is laid across the Pacific Ocean, and the break in the Amoor
line is closed up, the telegraph circuit around the globe will be
complete.
The telegraph is operated on the Morse system with instruments of
Prussian manufacture. Compared to our American instruments the
Prussian ones are quite clumsy, though they did not appear so in the
hands of the operators. The signal key was at least four times as
large as ours, and could endure any amount of rough handling. The
other machinery was on a corresponding scale.
A merchant who knew Mr. Borasdine invited us to his house, where he
brought a lunch of bread, cheese, butter, and milk for our
entertainment. Salted cucumbers were added, and the repast ended with
tea. In the principal room there was a Connecticut clock in one
corner, and the windows were filled with flowers, among which were the
morning glory, aster, and verbena. Several engravings adorned the
walls, most of them printed at Berlin. We purchased a loaf of sugar,
and were shown a bear-skin seven feet long without ears and tail. The
original and first legitimate owner of the skin was killed within a
mile of town.
In addition to his commerce and farming, this merchant was
superintendent of a school where several Gilyak boys were educated. It
was then vacation, and the boys were engaged in catching their winter
supply of fish. At the merchant’s invitation we visited the school
buildings.
The study room was much like a backwoods schoolroom in America, having
rude benches and desks, but with everything clean and well made. The
copy-books exhibited fair specimens of penmanship. On a desk lay a
well worn reading book containing a dozen of Æsop’s fables translated
into Russian and profusely illustrated. It corresponded to an American
‘Second Reader.’
There was a dormitory containing eight beds, and there was a
wash-room, a dining-room, and a kitchen, the latter separate from the
main building. Close at hand was a forge where the boys learned to
work in iron, and a carpenter shop with a full set of tools and a
turning lathe. The superintendent showed me several articles made by
the pupils, including wooden spoons, forks, bowls, and cups, and he
gave me for a souvenir a seal cut in pewter, bearing the word
‘Fulyhelm’ in Russian letters, and having a neatly turned handle.
The school is in operation ten months of each year. The superintendent
said the children of the Russian peasants could attend if they wished,
but very few did so. The teacher was a subordinate priest of the
Eastern church. The expense of the establishment was paid by
Government, with the design of making the boys useful in educating the
Gilyaks.
The Gilyaks of the lower Amoor are pagans, and the attempts to
Christianize them have not been very successful thus far. Their
religion consists in the worship of idols and animals, and their
priests or _shamans_ correspond to the ‘medicine man’ of the American
Indians. Among animals they revere the tiger, and I was told no
instance was known of their killing one. The remains of a man killed
by a tiger are buried without ceremony, but in the funerals of other
persons the Gilyaks follow very nearly the Chinese custom. The bear is
also sacred, but his sanctity does not preserve him from being killed.
[Illustration: BEAR IN PROCESSION.]
In hunting this beast they endeavor to capture him alive; once taken
and securely bound he is placed in a cage in the middle of a village,
and there fattened upon fish. On fete-days he is led, or rather
dragged, in procession, and of course is thoroughly muzzled and bound.
Finally a great day arrives on which Bruin takes a prominent part in
the festival by being killed. There are many superstitious ceremonies
carefully observed on such occasions. The ears, jawbones, and skull of
the bear are hung upon trees to ward off evil spirits, and the flesh
is eaten, as it is supposed to make all who partake of it both
fortunate and courageous.
I did not have the pleasure of witnessing any of these ursine
festivals, but I saw several bear cages and looked upon a bear while
he lunched on cold salmon. If the bear were more gentle in his manners
he might become a household pet among the Gilyaks; but at present he
is not in favor, especially where there are small children.
Ermines were formerly domesticated for catching rats, the high price
of cats confining their possession to the wealthy. Cats have a
half-religious character and are treated with great respect. Since the
advent of the Russians the supply is very good. Before they came the
Manjour merchants used to bring only male cats that could not trouble
themselves about posterity. The price was sometimes a hundred roubles
for a single mouser, and by curtailing the supply the Manjours kept
the market good.
The Gilyaks, like nearly all the natives of Northern Asia, are
addicted to Shamanism. The shaman combines the double function of
priest and doctor, ministering to the physical and spiritual being at
the same time. When a man is taken sick he is supposed to be attacked
by an evil spirit and the shaman is called to practice exorcism. There
is a distinct spirit for every disease and he must be propitiated in a
particular manner. While practicing his profession the shaman contorts
his body and dances like one insane, and howls worse than a dozen
Kamchadale dogs. He is dressed in a fantastic manner and beats a
tambourine during his performance. To accommodate himself to the
different spirits he modulates his voice, changes the character of his
dance, and alters his costume. Both doctor and patient are generally
decked with wood-shavings while the work is going on.
Sometimes an effigy of the sick person is prepared, and the spirit is
charmed from the man of flesh to the one of straw. The shaman induces
him to take up lodgings in this effigy, and the success of his
persuasion is apparent when the invalid recovers. If the patient dies
the shaman declares that the spirit was one over which he had no
control, but he does not hesitate to take pay for his services.
[Illustration: PRACTICE OF MEDICINE.]
A Russian traveler who witnessed one of these exorcisms said that the
shaman howled so fearfully that two Chinese merchants who were present
out of curiosity fled in very terror. The gentleman managed to endure
it to the end, but did not sleep well for a week afterward.
The Gilyaks believe in both good and evil spirits, but as the former
do only good it is not thought necessary to pay them any attention.
All the efforts are to induce the evil spirits not to act. They are
supposed to have power over hunting, fishing, household affairs, and
the health and well-being of animals and men. The shamans possess
great power over their superstitious subjects, and their commands are
rarely refused. I heard of an instance wherein a native caught a fine
sable and preserved the skin as a trophy. Very soon a man in the
village fell ill. The shaman after practicing his art announced that
the spirit commanded the sable skin to be worn by the doctor himself.
The valuable fur was given up without hesitation. A Russian traveler
stopping one night in a Gilyak house discovered in the morning that
his sledge was missing, and was gravely told that the spirit had taken
it.
In 1814 the small pox raged in one of the tribes living on the Kolyma
river, and the deaths from it were numerous. The shamans practiced all
their mysteries, and invoked the spirits, but they could not stop the
disease. Finally, after new invocations, they declared the evil
spirits could not be appeased without the death of Kotschen, a chief
of the tribe. This chief was so generally loved and respected that the
people refused to obey the shamans. But as the malady made new
progress, Kotschen magnanimously came forward and was stabbed by his
own son.
In general the shamans are held in check by the belief that should
they abuse their power they will be long and severely punished after
death. This punishment is supposed to occur in a locality specially
devoted to bad shamans. A good shaman who has performed wonderful
cures receives after death a magnificent tomb to his memory.
The Russians think that with educated Gilyaks they can succeed in
winning the natives to Christianity, especially when the missionaries
are skilled in the useful arts of civilized life. Hence the school in
Mihalofski, and it has so far succeeded well in the instruction of the
boys. Russian and Gilyak children were working in the gardens in
perfect harmony, and there was every indication of good feeling
between natives and settlers.