LIFE AT THE MINE.
Although somewhat rough and primitive, our quarters at the mine were by
no means uncomfortable. There were in all four log houses, tolerably
large, two of which were for the workmen, and the other two for
ourselves. Of course there was not the slightest attempt in the way of
luxury; rough wooden walls, dirt floors, hard benches for beds, a board
resting on a tree-stump for a table, and an iron stove, with several
feet of piping, as our heating accommodation. A little ingenuity on
our part, however, soon rigged up things in businesslike fashion. Some
roughly made shelves were requisitioned, and with other boarding and
the assistance of Schultz we made a tiny office, and spread around
our books in ostentatious display. We made up our beds with the spare
clothing we possessed, and that was ample. We provided a tablecloth out
of a huge towel which was fished from the bottom of Asprey’s trunk, and
we decorated the walls with various pictures cut from old comic papers.
We got one of the men to go into the forest and bring us several
armsful of fir foliage, and thus, after an hour or two’s hard work was
done we had succeeded in completely altering the appearance of the
interior of our quarters, and to its general improvement.
It was a sight to see the manner in which our men hogged in together
in one hut. Instead of doing the slightest in the way of improving
their situation, they simply laid around on the floor, as closely as
possible to each other, in order to get warmth, and covered with their
sheepskins. By the regulations laid down by the Mining Department we
had to allow each man so many poods of meat per week, so many candles
each, tea, butter, and cabbage. We had brought with us three frozen
oxen, four sheep, and forty poods of cabbage, and the task of weighing
out the various portions to each man was by no means a light one,
which, as it devolved upon me, I speedily found. As well as providing
the men with food, we had to supply them with certain portions of
clothing, should they require them, writing off against their wages
the cost of such articles. It is astonishing how minutely the Russian
Government goes into these matters, providing a schedule of prices
which shows how much a pair of boots or articles of clothing must be
charged the workmen. If nothing else, the authorities fully protect the
peasants from extortion on the part of the mine-owner.
For several days we did little else but get things shipshape. Wood
had to be cut in order to provide firing. Several of the men were
kept hard at work cutting pathways through the deep snow down to the
river-bed. The stream, as a matter of fact, was solid ice nearly to
the bottom, and only near the sluice-house, where the channel had
been cut deep, could we find much water. Our first endeavour was to
discover whether or not in the tailings, which had been idly thrown
away after nearly thirty years of washing, there was sufficient gold
to warrant its exploitation on European plans. To the reader it may
seem rather incongruous that we should have to conduct an inspection as
this in such weather; but time was pressing. Whatever was done in the
district had to be finished before the ice broke. If this occurred, the
transportation of men and provisions from Minusinsk to the gold-fields
would be delayed until the summer roads were ready, which, by the way,
rarely happened before the beginning of July.
It is not my intention to weary the reader with a detailed description
of our work, conducted as it was under such difficulties of weather
and with but scant assistance from the local officials. The statements
which were made by one and the other were so conflicting that the
greatest care had to be exercised, while we had not been long in the
district before we found that the gentle art of “salting” was not
entirely unknown to the apparently guileless Siberian. What freezing
work it was to be from daybreak to sundown on the banks of the river,
pan-washing the pay dirt, which had to be got out from under tons
of ice and snow, and dug out bit by bit with light steel picks! We
commenced at the bottom of the mine, and worked gradually up by
burrowing in through the snow to the scene of summer operations, and
there only to find the earth frozen as hard as granite, necessitating
occasional blasting and much hard and unprofitable labour.
The particular mine we were on, during the whole course of its
existence, had been mismanaged to a terrible degree. It had been worked
for the most part by tribute labour, and, in consequence, the richest
parts of it were encumbered with tons of débris which would all have
to be removed before the virgin alluvial could be got out. Frequently
we had to work with snowshoes on, for some portions of the mine,
where drifts had occurred, were under ten to fifteen feet of light
snow. Snowshoeing at the best of times is a laborious undertaking,
but to work with them on is a feat which requires some patience and a
tolerable amount of agility.
One of our little experiences of snowshoeing was amusing, as well as
being somewhat uncomfortable. Desiring a sample from the head of the
mine, I had gone out with Gaskell and two of the men. The men were
loaded up with picks, bags, shovels, and other mining paraphernalia,
and, being more expert on the “skis” than we, soon outstripped us.
It took us nearly an hour to do a little over a mile, for, what with
frequent falling, our progress was one of labour and confusion.
Snowshoes have a happy knack of sliding away from you when you least
expect them, so that you come down with a thump on your back, and bury
yourself up to the armpits in snow. No matter how you struggle, it is
impossible to get up again, for the long shoes prevent that. The only
thing is to unstrap the shoes, kneel on them, gradually insert one foot
and then the other into the straps, and then by an equilibristic effort
assume the perpendicular. The slightest want of balance and over you go
again. The snow affords no foothold, for you sink into it the moment
the shoes are off.
The spot from which we desired the sample was reckoned to be one
of the richest portions of the mine. It was a tunnel cut into the
river-side, but which was now completely covered with snow, so much
so, in fact, that we could not even see the entrance. Our men, Merkoff
and Nikeveroff, set to work spading out the snow, and gradually got
to the tunnel entrance. Merkoff was in advance of his companion when,
with a suddenness which made us gasp with astonishment, he disappeared
completely from sight. Where he had gone none of us knew. The snow
before us showed no trace of his disappearance, for there was no hole.
Presently, however, we saw a hand come up through the snow and wave
about frantically. In another second the whole bank on which we were
standing, gave way with a rush, and down we went, snowshoes, picks,
shovels, bags, candles, and everything in one confused heap, sliding
and slipping some twenty or thirty feet below the level.
It was some time before we sorted ourselves out and got over the shock
of our descent. We then found ourselves in a narrow gallery supported
by beams, and which ran for some considerable distance into the earth.
For a minute or two we could only sit and laugh, for our entrance of
the tunnel had been highly successful if somewhat precipitous. The
floor of the gallery was covered with ice, formed by the oozing of
water through the bank, and for some time it was impossible to get at
the alluvial owing to the excessive hardness of the ice flooring, which
we were compelled to break with hammers. Strangely enough, although
we had all got down so cleverly, none of us gave a thought as to how
we were to get back. The samples obtained, this difficulty at once
presented itself, and we could only gaze at each other blankly.
We were twenty or twenty-five feet below the level of the snow, and
it was a matter of impossibility to think of climbing to the top of
that fleecy substance. There was only one thing to do, and that was
to batten the snow as hard as possible and to get up inch by inch to
the surface. This was a long and laborious undertaking, and occupied
us well into the afternoon, but ultimately Merkoff reached the top,
and, his snowshoes having been thrown after him, he was able to stand
up. Then the samples, by aid of rope, we got up, and eventually we all
managed to get out of the hole.
The next thing to do was to get the samples back to the camp, a
distance of a mile. Each was as much as one man could carry, provided
that the roadway was hard. The weight of one, however, on Merkoff’s
back, sent the snowshoes so deep that it was impossible for him to
move. We tried various ways, but none succeeded until it was decided
to form a temporary sledge of the snowshoes, and for one of the men to
drag the bags in this manner to the camp. At the time we did not think,
when we gave up the shoes so cheerfully and sat down in the snow in
order to prevent going in deeper, how we were ourselves going to get
back to the camp. We formed the sledge by tying the shoes together,
then fixed the bags and tools on top of them, and away went Merkoff,
with Nikeveroff behind, crawling on his hands and knees, and giving the
improvised sledge an occasional push. Gaskell and I attempted to walk.
We might as well have tried walking on the sea. Every effort landed us
deeper in the snow. There was only one way and that was to go down on
all fours and wriggle along as best we could. Only then could we make
progress by carefully beating down the snow as we went, to put the
whole length of the arm down in one place, and drag the body after
with a squirming motion. That mile was one of the hardest miles I have
ever travelled, for darkness was falling when we came in sight of the
huts. In spite of the cold, we were sweating with the labour, and to
add insult to injury, our companions came down on the bank and howled
with laughter as we progressed inch by inch along the surface of the
snow.
A little incident like this will give some idea of the difficulties
under which we worked. Another stumbling-block was the inability to
wash the pay-dirt with ordinary water. Close by the sluice-house we had
a huge iron cauldron suspended over a roaring fire. One man was kept
continually employed dumping in snow, while another was ladling out
buckets of hot water. The process was then to dump so many poods of
earth on the wash-table and to break it up by continual basting with
hot water. The washer (who stood on the table, and with his rake or
wooden shovel kept the mass in motion) frequently got frozen to the
wood, in spite of the fact that the water which flowed around his feet
had only a few seconds before been thrown boiling hot on the dirt.
During our stay we were able to make several little excursions to
neighbouring mines, and with the exception of one or two we found a
shocking want of system everywhere. In the best-conducted gold-fields
the disposal of the tailings is always a matter of grave moment, but in
Siberia it is one of the least considerations until it is too late, and
the property is ruined. There is, however, some hope that the future
may be better, for the St. Petersburg Department, being now brought
into closer contract with Siberia by means of the railroad, intends
to formulate a better system of inspection, which, provided Siberian
miners will only endeavour to look at matters in a broader spirit,
should increase the revenue considerably.
A pleasing feature in connection with mining in Siberia is made by the
little courtesies which one owner extends to the other. Thus we were
continually receiving invitations to dinner at some mine or the other,
and would drive over in our sledges to be welcomed literally with open
arms by the rough but hospitable miners, to be kissed on both cheeks,
and to be liberally supplied with everything the owner possessed in
an eating way. Very pleasant indeed were these little functions, for,
out of touch of anything like civilization, the grotesque customs
which obtain in the towns of “dress” went to the winds, and the
Siberian appeared for what he really was. There was perhaps a little
bit too much drinking, and at times a want of manners which jarred
unpleasantly, still one could not help but appreciate the hospitality
which was extended to us, rough as it was. It was gratifying on those
evenings after we had gone through the long dinner which is invariably
the rule in Russian houses, to sit around and listen to the harmonica
and to watch, between the puffs of our cigarette smoke, some big-booted
miner going through that extraordinary dance made famous by the
Little Russians. Considering what a clumsy, heavy, and ungainly lot
the Russians generally are, one can scarcely associate them with the
graceful mazurka, a dance of which they are passionately fond and
perform creditably.
These visits of ours to neighbouring mines tended much to take away
the monotony of our three weeks’ stay in the mountains, and we had the
pleasure, too, of receiving in our own camp the mine-owners who would
pay us return visits. They had a happy way, some of them, of bringing
whole cargoes of vodki, cigarettes, meat, vegetables, and, in short,
everything deemed necessary for the occasion. Every man would lend
his hand at the culinary arrangements; songs and dances interspersing
various items of the menu; while, to add to our enjoyment, our own men
would range up outside the hut and sing with lusty voice one of those
peculiar national songs, the cadence of which once heard can never be
forgotten.