ROUGHING IT IN SIBERIA
[Illustration: _Frontispiece._ ROBERT L. JEFFERSON]
ROUGHING IT IN SIBERIA
WITH
_SOME ACCOUNT OF THE TRANS-SIBERIAN
RAILWAY, AND THE GOLD-MINING
INDUSTRY OF ASIATIC RUSSIA_
BY
ROBERT L. JEFFERSON
AUTHOR OF “A WHEEL TO MOSCOW,” “ACROSS SIBERIA ON A
BICYCLE,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY
_LIMITED_
St. Dunstan’s House
FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1897
_To_
_JOHN KEMP STARLEY, ESQ._
_DEAR MR. STARLEY_,
_Appreciating the practical and sympathetic interest which you have
for some years taken in Russian affairs, I venture to dedicate this
volume of mine--“Roughing it in Siberia”--to you, as a small token of
my esteem._
_Believe me_,
_Very sincerely yours_,
_ROBERT L. JEFFERSON_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE FIRST DAY IN ASIA 1
II. RUSSIA’S COLONIZATION SCHEME 12
III. ARRIVAL AT OMSK 31
IV. A MOST PALATIAL HOTEL! 43
V. ACROSS THE STEPPE 55
VI. IN THE OBI VALLEY 68
VII. IMPRESSIONS OF TOMSK 79
VIII. THE END OF THE RAILWAY 101
IX. KRASNOLARSK 120
X. DOWN THE YENESEI 138
XI. AN EXCITING ADVENTURE 152
XII. NEARING THE CHINESE FRONTIER 166
XIII. IN THE SYANSK MOUNTAINS 181
XIV. SIBERIAN GOLD-MINING 195
XV. LIFE AT THE MINE 210
XVI. A TRIP INTO CHINA 224
XVII. LOOKING WESTWARD 241
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TO FACE PAGE
PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR _Frontispiece_
SKETCH MAP OF THE AUTHOR’S ROUTE 1
A TRAIN ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY 8
EMIGRANTS AT CHELABINSK 16
OMSK 40
A STATION ON THE SIBERIAN RAILWAY 64
TOMSK 80
KRASNOLARSK FROM THE RIVER 112
THE YENESEI RAPIDS--SUMMER 136
ON THE YENESEI--SUMMER 160
MINUSINSK 168
KARATUSKI 176
GOLD-MINING APPARATUS ON THE UPPER YENESEI 192
TRIBUTE WORKERS IN THE SYANSK GOLD-MINES 208
OUR CAMP IN THE MOUNTAINS 224
A GOLD-MINE ON THE TOP OF THE SYANSK MOUNTAINS 240
[Illustration:
MAP
to accompany
“ROUGHING IT IN SIBERIA”
By R.L. Jefferson.
_G. Philip & Son, 32 Fleet St. London._
London: Sampson, Low, Marston & Co., Limited.]
ROUGHING IT IN SIBERIA
CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST DAY IN ASIA.
The short winter day was waning when the Chelabinsk train, seven
days out of Moscow, sluggishly passed the big stone erected in a
defile in the centre of the Ural mountain range, and which marked the
geographical boundary of Europe and Asia. Since yesterday, when we
had left the level plains of Eastern Europe for the uplands of the
Urals, the pace had been tantalizingly miserable. Some people say that
man can get accustomed to anything, but it absorbs an enormous amount
of patience in getting accustomed to Russian railway travelling;
the further eastward one goes, the slower becomes the pace, the
longer the stoppages at insignificant stations, and the greater the
demonstration--beating of tin cans, blowing of whistles, and ringing
of bells--which accompanies each arrival and departure. But now, with
Europe behind, the whole wealth of Asia before one, combined with
the uncertainty of the unknown, and which was backed up by popular
prejudice and travellers’ romantic tales, the thinking man has food for
reflection, and much of it.
We were rounding curves, sharp ones too, on a badly ballasted
track, that caused the heavy Russian cars to oscillate alarmingly,
notwithstanding the crawl at which we were proceeding. The views to
be obtained from the carriage windows were superb, in spite of the
wintry aspect which everything bore. It was January--time of deep snow,
frozen rivers, and biting atmosphere--everything around (except the
interior of the car) was wintry to the last degree. Snow piled up in
great drifts on the sharp spurs of the mountain-side; the branches
of the melancholy birches bowing down with the weight of their snowy
covering; icicles hanging in the crevices of the rocks, where, in
summer, splashed a mountain cascade. Deep below us, in a narrow gorge,
lay the tortuous course of a fast-flowing river, but now frozen to
its very bed, and its surface cut and streaked by the runners of many
sledges. Now and again we could catch a glimpse of some woodman’s hut
perched up on the hillside--a veritable house of snow, and as cold and
bleak-looking as any one could think to see.
Hurtling violently around the corner, we pass a level-crossing, where
stands a caravan of patient horses waiting to cross, with white
frost hard on their shaggy coats, and icicles from their eyes and
nostrils; a sheepskin-clad moujik, with fur hat over eyes and ears,
and feet encased in huge felt boots, complacently puffing at a stunted
_papiros_. Here, too, an old woman comes out to flag the train--a
woman who looks, from the amount of heavy clothing she wears, more
like an animated beer barrel than a human being, and on whose stolid
visage is nothing except an expression of tremendous importance at
the position she occupies in the service of His Imperial Majesty Czar
Nicholas the Second.
Darkness fell; my three companions were asleep. The conductor came and
inserted in glass boxes at each end of the long car two diminutive
candle-ends, the wicks of which he lighted laboriously. He looked at
the thermometer to see how far off roasting we were, and then, after
gazing superciliously around, left us. The heat in the car was fearful,
beads of perspiration stood out on the faces of my sleeping companions,
and yet this is only the Russian way of doing things. The Réaumur
glass outside showed thirty-six degrees below freezing-point; inside,
the heat was sufficient to almost roast one. And thus for seven days
had we sat and lounged, talked and read, and stewed gradually, with
no greater diversion than the rush for the buffet at each station, an
occasional row with some blustering traveller who would hustle us for
places, or the periodical breaking down of the locomotive, which event
occurred about once a day on an average.
It was impossible to read, for the light in the car was so dim that
one could scarcely see a couple of yards away. The train jolted and
groaned and jarred, the candles flickered and guttered, people in the
adjoining berths snored, a child was wailing dismally at the other end
of the carriage; the heat became more intolerable, and I thanked Heaven
when, two hours after darkness had fallen, the creaking of brakes
and the distant ringing of bells announced our immediate arrival at
Chelabinsk--the terminus of the European system of the Russian State
Railways.
The arrival of a train at a Russian station is attended with an amount
of excitement which it is hard to associate with the usually stolid
Russian. Particularly is this so in Eastern Russia, where railways
are new and interesting. As the train slowly steams in, the assembled
mob of sightseers and officials raise shouts of welcome--at least
they seem to be. A man hard by the ticket-office performs a terrific
tintinabulation on a large suspended bell. All the conductors blow
whistles, while the locomotive syren goes off in spasmodic squealings.
Slowly, but with many jerks and much grinding, the train comes to a
standstill. But the passengers are not allowed to descend all at once.
First of all the engine-driver must get off and shake hands with the
first half-dozen men that happen to be hanging about near, no doubt
receiving in return a sort of congratulatory address to the effect that
he has got so far safely. Half a dozen gaily caparisoned policemen, in
red hats with white cockades, and armed to the teeth with revolvers
and swords, parade up and salute gravely. All the conductors get
off--there seems to be quite a crowd of them. All salute a red-hatted,
despotic-looking individual, who is gazing about with tremendous scorn
and indifference, as if this sort of thing was very boring, although
ten to one his heart is thumping with pride and excitement; for he
is the stationmaster, salary one hundred pounds a-year, princely for
him, indeed. This individual, on thoroughly satisfying himself that
beyond the possibility of the remotest doubt the train is really there,
raises his hand as if he were about to pronounce a benediction, and
instantly there belches from the heart of the mob a smaller mob of
much-bewhiskered men in white aprons. These are the porters. These
gentlemen throw themselves upon the train in a frenzy of hurry; tear
open the doors, push, scramble, and fall over each other in their
endeavours to get in first, and ultimately disappear from view. The
crowd outside grows silent in expectancy; but the racket which proceeds
from inside the train tells eloquently that the porters are doing their
fell work. The cars now begin to disgorge boxes and men, bundles and
women, baskets and babies, everything mixed up, everybody talking.
The crowd outside parts, and the crowd _just_ out slides over the
slippery platform in a hard mass to the buffet doors. These always open
outwards, and are generally just wide enough for a thin man to get in
sideways. Then the crush commences. You are in the middle of the crowd
with a corner of a box in your ear and four men standing on your feet.
You worm and edge your way out of reach of the box and run your chest
against the side of a kettle, blacker than the blackest hat, and which
is tied around the neck of an evil-smelling moujik in front of you.
Somehow the door gets open; the janitor inside scuttles, in order to
prevent being swept off his feet. In we squeeze, and find ourselves in
a long white-washed apartment, heated to a suffocating degree.
[Illustration: A TRAIN ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY.]
Down the centre of the apartment runs a long table covered with
glasses, plate, and cutlery. Over on one side is a long bar, covered
with smaller glasses and large bottles, mostly containing vodki,
as well as at least half a hundred dishes of the _hors d’œuvre_
style--sardines, bits of sausage, sprats, caviare, sliced cucumber,
pickled mushrooms, artful dabs of cheese, raw radishes, smoked herring,
and such like. For the nonce the crowd ignores the long table,
equally so a kitchen-like arrangement in the corner where steams a
heterogeneous mass of cutlets and “Russian” beef-steaks, and which
is presided over by a couple of marvellously clean-looking men who
are rigged out _à la chef_. Vodki is the lodestone of the arrived
passengers. Each man gulps down a small glass of the fiery liquid,
seizes a piece of fish, or sausage, or cheese, or whatever he may fancy
or may be handy, and subsides to the big table, chewing vigorously.
Energetic waiters pounce upon him, lay before him a big plate of the
universal “stche,” or cabbage soup, over which our Russian hangs his
head and commences ladling away, apparently oblivious to its boiling
heat or the feelings of the people around. The tables fill up. Great
slabs of brown meat, floating in fat, are distributed with rapidity,
and which are with equal rapidity demolished. Manners are delightfully
absent. People jostle, growl, and gulp; smoke _papiros_ and puff the
smoke in each other’s faces; or make the most disgusting noises with
their mouths. At last, having got through several pounds of meat and
fat, and drunk about six to eight glasses of lemon-coloured hot water,
which is called tea, per man, the crowd lounges around in contentment,
and waits patiently for the bell to announce the probable departure of
the train--which may be anything in the region of one hour to four, or
while there is a bit of food in the buffet uneaten.
What a relief to get out of such an evil-smelling mob and the heat
and general nauseating surroundings, and, wrapt warmly in furs, to
promenade the ice-covered platform! They have unscrewed the engine
from the cars, and it has disappeared into the blackness of night on a
search for wood and water. At one end of the platform the third and
fourth class passengers, peasants of the humblest order, are huddled
together--sitting or lying, some asleep, some laughing boisterously--a
group of girls in their midst crooning forth a wailing song to the
accompaniment of a harmonica, the national musical instrument of the
Russian moujik. Over to the left, twinkling lights denote the town
of Chelabinsk. Eastward all is black, save for the blinking of a
signal light a mile away. That is the road to Siberia, and here is the
commencement of the Trans-Siberian Railway.