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[Illustration: Harry de Windt]
FROM PARIS TO NEW YORK BY LAND
BY HARRY DE WINDT
F.R.G.S.
[Illustration]
THOMAS NELSON & SONS
LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN AND NEW YORK
TO MY WIFE
PREFACE
Many who read the following account of our long land journey will not
unnaturally ask: "What was the object of this stupendous voyage, or the
reward to be gained by this apparently unnecessary risk of life and
endurance of hardships?"
I would reply that my primary purpose was to ascertain the feasibility
of constructing a railway to connect the chief cities of France and
America, Paris and New York. The European Press was at the time of our
departure largely interested in this question, which fact induced the
proprietors of the _Daily Express_ of London, the _Journal_ of Paris,
and the New York _World_ to contribute towards the expenses of the
expedition. Another reason is one with which I fancy most Englishmen
will readily sympathise--viz., the feat had never before been performed,
and my first attempt to accomplish it in 1896 (with New York as the
starting-point) had failed half way on the Siberian shores of Bering
Straits.
The invaluable assistance rendered by the United States Government in
the despatch of a revenue cutter to our relief on the Siberian coast is
duly acknowledged in another portion of this volume, but I would here
express my sincere thanks to the "Compagnie Internationale des
Wagonslits" for furnishing the expedition with a free pass from Paris
to the city of Irkutsk, in Eastern Siberia. In America the "Southern
Pacific" and "Wabash" Lines extended the same courtesies, thus enabling
us to travel free of cost across the United States, as guests of two of
the most luxurious railways in the world.
45 AVENUE KLEBER, PARIS,
_October 1903_.
CONTENTS
PART I.--EUROPE AND ASIA.
CHAP. PAGE
I. THROUGH EUROPE. THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 15
II. THE PARIS OF SIBERIA 28
III. THE GREAT LENA POST-ROAD 41
IV. THE CITY OF THE YAKUTE 68
V. THE LAND OF DESOLATION 92
VI. VERKHOYANSK 109
VII. THROUGH DARKEST SIBERIA 122
VIII. AN ARCTIC INFERNO 148
IX. THE LOWER KOLYMA RIVER 171
X. A CRUEL COAST 183
XI. IN THE ARCTIC 203
XII. AMONG THE TCHUKTCHIS 221
XIII. AMONG THE TCHUKTCHIS (_contd._) 239
PART II.--AMERICA.
XIV. ACROSS BERING STRAITS--CAPE PRINCE OF WALES 257
XV. AN ARCTIC CITY 274
XVI. A RIVER OF GOLD 286
XVII. DAWSON 304
XVIII. THE UPPER YUKON AND LEWES RIVERS. THE WHITE PASS RAILWAY 323
XIX. THE FRANCO-AMERICAN RAILWAY--SKAGWAY--NEW YORK 340
PART III.--APPENDICES.
I. APPROXIMATE TABLE OF DISTANCES, PARIS TO NEW YORK 361
II. LIST OF POST STATIONS BETWEEN IRKUTSK AND YAKUTSK 363
III. REINDEER STATIONS BETWEEN YAKUTSK AND VERKHOYANSK 368
IV. YAKUTE SETTLEMENTS BETWEEN VERKHOYANSK AND SREDNI-KOLYMSK 370
V. SETTLEMENTS ON KOLYMA RIVER BETWEEN SREDNI-KOLYMSK
AND NIJNI-KOLYMSK 372
VI. A SHORT GLOSSARY OF YAKUTE WORDS 373
VII. GLOSSARY OF VARIOUS DIALECTS IN USE AMONGST THE
TCHUKTCHIS INHABITING THE COASTS OF N.E. SIBERIA 375
VIII. METEOROLOGICAL RECORD OF THE DE WINDT EXPEDITION 377
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
HARRY DE WINDT Frontispiece
POOR YAKUTES Facing page 64
THE CHIEF OF POLICE, VERKHOYANSK 97
A VISITOR 128
CAPE DESPAIR 193
TENESKIN'S DAUGHTERS 224
ESKIMO GIRLS 289
CONSTRUCTING THE WHITE PASS RAILWAY 320
[Illustration]
PARIS TO NEW YORK BY LAND
PART I
EUROPE AND ASIA
CHAPTER I
THROUGH EUROPE. THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY.
The success of my recent land expedition from Paris to New York is
largely due to the fact that I had previously essayed the feat in 1896
and failed, for the experience gained on that journey was well worth the
price I paid for it. On that occasion I attempted the voyage in an
opposite direction--viz., from America to France, but only half the
distance was covered. Alaska was then almost unexplored and the now
populous Klondike region only sparsely peopled by poverty-stricken and
unfriendly Indians. After many dangers and difficulties, Alaska was
crossed in safety, and we managed to reach the Siberian shores of Bering
Straits only to meet with dire disaster at the hands of the natives of
that coast. For no sooner had the American revenue cutter which landed
us steamed away than our stores were seized by the villainous chief of
the village (one Koari), who informed us that we were virtually his
prisoners, and that the dog-sleds which, during the presence of the
Government vessel, he had glibly promised to furnish, existed only in
this old rascal's fertile imagination. The situation was, to say the
least, unpleasant, for the summer was far advanced and the ice already
gathering in Bering Straits. Most of the whalers had left the Arctic for
the southward, and our rescue seemed almost impossible until the
following year. When a month here had passed away, harsh treatment and
disgusting food had reduced us to a condition of hopeless despair. I was
attacked by scurvy and a painful skin disease, while Harding, my
companion, contracted a complaint peculiar to the Tchuktchis, which has
to this day baffled the wisest London and Paris physicians. Fortunately
we possessed a small silk Union Jack, which was nailed to an old whale
rib on the beach (for there was no wood), much to the amusement of the
natives. But the laugh was on our side when, the very next morning, a
sail appeared on the horizon. Nearer and nearer came the vessel,
scudding close-reefed before a gale which had raised a mountainous sea.
Would they see our signal? Would the skipper dare to lay-to in such
tempestuous weather, hemmed in as he was by the treacherous ice? Had we
known, however, at the time that the staunch little _Belvedere_ was
commanded by the late Capt. Joseph Whiteside, of New Bedford, we should
have been spared many moments, which seemed hours, of intense anxiety.
Without a thought of his own safety, or a valuable cargo of whales
representing many thousands of pounds, this gallant sailor stood boldly
in shore, launched a boat, which, after a scuffle with the natives and a
scramble over floating ice, we managed to reach, and hauled us aboard
the little whaler, more dead than alive. A month later we were in San
Francisco, far from the fair French city we had hoped to reach, but
sincerely grateful for our preservation. For twenty-four hours after our
rescue no ship could have neared that ice-bound coast, and we could
scarcely have survived, amidst such surroundings, until the following
spring.
A glance at a map will show the route which I had intended to pursue in
1896, although, as this land journey has never before been accomplished
(or even attempted), I was unable to benefit by the experience of
previous explorers. From New York we travelled to Vancouver, thence
across the now famous Chilkoot Pass to the Great Lakes and down the
Yukon River to the sea, crossing Bering Straits in an American revenue
cutter to the Siberian settlement of melancholy memory. From here I
hoped to reach the nearest Russian outpost, Anadyrsk, by dog-sled,
proceeding thence along the western shores of the Okhotsk Sea to Okhotsk
and Yakutsk. The latter is within a couple of thousand miles of
civilisation, a comparatively easy stage in this land of stupendous
distances. Had I been able on this occasion to reach Anadyrsk, I could,
all being well, have pushed on to Yakutsk, for Cossacks carry a mail,
once a year, between the two places. But the connecting link between
that miserable Tchuktchi village and Anadyrsk was missing, and so we had
to submit to the will of fate.
Follow now on a map my itinerary upon the last occasion, starting from
Paris to Moscow, and continuing from Moscow to Irkutsk by the
Trans-Siberian Railway. Here we strike in a north-easterly direction to
Yakutsk by means of horse-sleighs. Reindeer-sleighs are procured at
Yakutsk, and we then steer a north-westerly course to Verkhoyansk. From
Verkhoyansk we again proceed (still with reindeer) in a north-easterly
direction to the tiny political settlement of Sredni-Kolymsk, where we
discard our deer (for there is no more moss) and take to dog-sleds. A
journey of nearly two months, travelling almost due east, brings us to
East Cape Bering Straits, the north-easternmost point of Asia, and
practically half way from Paris to our destination.
From here the journey is fairly easy, for the beaten tracks of Alaska
now entail no great hardships. Remote Eskimo settlements like that at
Cape Prince of Wales are naturally as primitive as those on the Siberian
side, but once Nome City is reached, the traveller may proceed (in
summer) to New York solely by the aid of steam.
I shall not weary the reader with details of my preparations. Suffice it
to say that, although the minutest care and attention were lavished on
the organisation of our food-supply, lack of transport in the Far North
compelled me to abandon most of our provisions and trust to luck for our
larder, which was therefore frequently very meagrely stocked. Indeed,
more than once we were within measurable distance of starvation, but
this was the more unavoidable in so far as, even at Moscow, I was
compelled to abandon several cases of provisions on account of a
telegram received from the Governor-General of Siberia. The message
informed me that reindeer were scarce, dogs yet more so, and that,
unless the expedition travelled _very_ light, it could not possibly hope
to reach even the shores of the Arctic Ocean, to say nothing of Bering
Straits. Nevertheless, even at the outset of the journey I was blamed,
and that by totally inexperienced persons, for abandoning stores so
early in the day; a certain British merchant in Moscow expressing
surprise that I should have "made such an egregious error" as to leave
any provisions behind. I fancy most explorers have met this type of
individual--the self-complacent Briton, who, being located for business
or other purposes in a foreign or colonial city, never leaves it, and
yet poses as an authority on the entire country, however vast, in which
he temporarily resides. I can recall one of these immovable fixtures in
India, who had never stirred from Bombay save in a P. and O. liner, but
who was good enough to advise me how to travel through Central
Baluchistan, a country which I had recently explored with some success!
The Moscow wiseacre was perhaps unaware that during hard seasons in
Arctic Siberia the outfit of an expedition must be strictly limited to
the carrying capacity of dogs and reindeer. However, this gentleman's
ignorance was perhaps excusable, seeing that his experience of Russian
travel had been solely gleaned in a railway car between Moscow and the
German frontier. I am told that the same individual severely criticised
me for not travelling through Siberia in summer, thereby avoiding the
severe hardships arising from intense cold. He was, of course, unaware
that during the open season the entire tract of country north-east of
Yakutsk is practically impassable owing to thousands of square miles of
swamp and hundreds of shallow lakes which can only be crossed in a
frozen condition on a dog-sled. Even the natives of these regions never
attempt to travel between the months of May and September.
Paris is my home, and I am not ashamed to own that, like most Parisians,
I suffer, when abroad, from a nostalgia of the Boulevards that a
traveller were perhaps better without. It was therefore as well that our
departure for New York took place on a dreary December day, when the
beautiful city lay listless and despondent, swept by a wintry gale and
lashed by gusts of driving sleet. The sky was sunless, the deserted
thoroughfares rivers of mud mournfully reflecting bars of electric light
from either side of the street. As my cab splashed wearily up the Rue
Lafayette I thought that I had never seen such a picture of desolation.
And yet it were better, perhaps, to remember Paris thus, than to yearn
through the long Arctic night for the pleasant hours I had learned to
love so well here in leafy June. Bright days of sunshine and pleasure in
and around the "Ville Lumiere!" cool, starlit nights at Armenonville and
Saint Cloud! Should I ever enjoy them again?
"The De Windt Expedition" left Paris on December 19, 1901. Preliminary
notices of the journey in the French Press had attracted considerable
notice in Paris, and a small crowd of journalists and others had
assembled at the Gare du Nord to wish us God-speed. We were three in
number--myself, the Vicomte de Clinchamp (a young Frenchman who acted as
photographer), and George Harding, my faithful companion on many
previous expeditions. The "Nord Express" was on the point of departure,
but a stirrup-cup was insisted upon by some of De Clinchamp's
enthusiastic compatriots, and an adjournment was made to the Buffet,
where good wishes were expressed for our safety and success. After a
hearty farewell the train steamed out of the station amidst ringing
cheers, which plainly told me that Paris as well as London contained
true friends who would pray for our welfare in the frozen North and
welcome our safe return to "La Belle France."
Moscow was reached three days later, and here commenced the first of a
series of minor but harassing delays which relentlessly pursued me
throughout the Asiatic portion of the journey. While alighting from the
train I was suddenly seized with such severe internal pains, accompanied
by faintness and nausea, that on arrival at the Slaviansky Bazar (the
best Hotel, by the way, in the place), I was carried to bed. The attack
was inexplicable. Harding, ever a pessimist, suggested appendicitis, and
a physician was hastily summoned. The medicine-man gravely shook his
head: "You are very ill," he said, and I did not dispute the fact. "Can
it be appendicitis?" I asked anxiously. "Appendicitis," replied the
Doctor; "what is that? I never heard of the disease!"
Morning brought me some relief, and with a not unnatural distrust of
Russian medical methods, I resolved to return at once to Berlin and
consult Professor Bergmann. To abandon the journey was now out of the
question, but our medicine-chest was up-to-date and I could at any rate
ask the famous surgeon how to treat the dread disease should it declare
itself in the wilds of Siberia. The next morning saw me back in Berlin,
and by midday my mind was at rest. I was suffering from a simple rupture
of long standing, but hitherto quiescent, which only required rest and
proper treatment for at least a fortnight. "Then it must be in the
train," I said, explaining the situation and the priceless value of
time. So, after some discussion, I departed with the Professor's good
wishes, which, however, were conveyed with an ominous shake of the head.
Two days later I arrived in Moscow, only to be confronted by another
difficulty: our rifles, revolvers and ammunition had been seized at the
Russian frontier, and at least a fortnight must elapse before we could
obtain them. Moscow fortunately boasts of an excellent gun-maker, and I
was able to replace our armoury with English weapons, though, of course,
at a ruinous expense. But time was too precious to waste. We had now but
a little over four months in which to reach Bering Straits, for by the
middle of May the bays and estuaries of the Arctic begin to break up,
and open water might mean imprisonment (and worse) on these desolate
shores throughout the entire summer. So I purchased revolvers, two
rifles and a fowling-piece at about five times their usual cost, and
hoped that our troubles were over, at least for the present. I should
add that the arms had left London six weeks previously, and that I was
furnished with a special permit to introduce them into the country. But
Russian methods are peculiar, and fortunately unique, I was unaware
before our departure of the fact that if a gun is consigned direct from
its English maker to a gunsmith in Russia it goes through without any
trouble whatsoever. Otherwise, it may take six months or more to reach
its destination.
The New Year was passed in Moscow, and a gloomy one it was. From an
historical and picturesque point of view the city is intensely
interesting, but otherwise it is a dull, dreary place. Russian cities,
not excepting Petersburg, generally are, although the English novelist
generally depicts them as oases of luxurious splendour, where love and
Nihilism meet one at every turn, and where palaces, diamonds and silver
sleigh-bells play an important part, to say nothing of that journalistic
trump card, the Secret Police! I wish one of these imaginative scribes
could spend a winter evening (as I have so often done) in a stuffy hotel
reading-room, with a _Times_ five days old, wondering whether the
Russians will ever provide a theatre sufficiently attractive to tempt a
stranger out of doors after nightfall. In summer it is less dismal;
there are gardens and restaurants, dancing gipsies and Hungarian
Tziganes, but even then the entertainment is generally so poor, and the
surroundings so tawdry, that one is glad to leave them at an early hour
and go sadly to bed.
The distance from Moscow to Irkutsk is a little under 4000 English
miles, the first-class fare a little over a hundred roubles (or about
L12), which, considering the journey occupies nine days or more, is
reasonable enough. There are, or were, two trains a week,--the "State"
and Wagonlits expresses, which run alternately. The former is a
Government train, inferior in every respect to the latter, which is
quite as luxurious in its service and appointments as the trains run by
the same company in Europe.
At 10 P.M., on January 4, we left Moscow, in a blinding snowstorm, a
mild foretaste of the Arctic blizzards to come, which would be
experienced without the advantage of a warm and well-lit compartment to
view them from. For this train was truly an ambulant palace of luxury.
An excellent restaurant, a library, pianos, baths, and last, but not
least, a spacious and well-furnished compartment with every comfort,
electric and otherwise (and without fellow travellers), rendered this
first "etape" of our great land journey one to recall in after days with
a longing regret. But we had nearly a fortnight of pleasant travel
before us and resolved to make the most of it. Fortunately the train was
not crowded. Some cavalry officers bound for Manchuria, three or four
Siberian merchants and their families, and a few Tartars of the better
class. The officers were capital fellows, full of life and gaiety
(Russian officers generally are), the merchants and their women-folk
sociable and musically inclined. Nearly every one spoke French, and the
time passed pleasantly enough, for although the days were terribly
monotonous, evenings enlivened by music and cards, followed by cheery
little suppers towards the small hours, almost atoned for their hours of
boredom.
Nevertheless, I cannot recommend this railway journey, even as far as
Irkutsk, to those on pleasure bent, for the Trans-Siberian is no tourist
line, notwithstanding the alluring advertisements which periodically
appear during the holiday season. Climatically the journey is a
delightful one in winter time, for Siberia is then at its best--not the
Siberia of the English dramatist: howling blizzards, chained convicts,
wolves and the knout, but a smiling land of promise and plenty even
under its limitless mantle of snow. The landscape is dreary, of course,
but most days you have the blue cloudless sky and dazzling sunshine, so
often sought in vain on the Riviera. At mid-day your sunlit compartment
is often too warm to be pleasant, when outside it is 10 deg. below zero.
But the air is too dry and bracing for discomfort, although the pleasant
breeze we are enjoying here will presently be torturing unhappy mortals
in London in the shape of a boisterous and biting east wind. On the
other hand, the monotony after a time becomes almost unbearable. All day
long the eye rests vacantly upon a dreary white plain, alternating with
green belts of woodland, while occasionally the train plunges into dense
dark pine forest only to emerge again upon the same eternal "plateau" of
silence and snow. Now and again we pass a village, a brown blur on the
limitless white, rarely a town, a few wooden houses clustering around a
green dome and gilt crosses, but it is all very mournful and
depressing, especially to one fresh from Europe. This train has one
advantage, there is no rattle or roar about it, as it steals like a
silent ghost across the desolate steppes. As a cure for insomnia it
would be invaluable, and we therefore sleep a good deal, but most of the
day is passed in the restaurant. Here the military element is generally
engrossed in an interminable game of _Vint_[1] (during the process of
which a Jew civilian is mercilessly rooked), but our piano is a godsend
and most Russian women are born musicians. So after _dejeuner_ we join
the fair sex, who beguile the hours with Glinka and Tchaikovsky until
they can play and sing no more. By the way, no one ever knows the time
of day and no one particularly wants to. Petersburg time is kept
throughout the journey and the result is obvious. We occasionally find
ourselves lunching at breakfast time and dining when we should have
supped, but who cares? although in any other clime bottled beer at 8
A.M. might have unpleasant results.
[Footnote 1: Russian whist.]
The Ural Mountains (which are merely downs) are crossed. Here the
stations are built with some attempt at coquetry, for the district teems
with mineral wealth, and in summer is much frequented by fashionable
pleasure-seekers and invalids, for there are baths and waters in the
neighbourhood. One station reminds me of Homburg or Wiesbaden with its
gay restaurant, flower-stall, and a little shop for the sale of trinkets
in silver and malachite, and the precious stones found in this
region--Alexandrites, garnets and amethysts. But beyond the Urals we
are once more lost in the desolate plains across which the train crawls
softly and silently at the rate of about ten miles an hour. I know of
only one slower railway in the world, that from Jaffa to Jerusalem,
where I have seen children leap on and off the car-steps of the train
while in motion, and the driver alight, without actually stopping his
engine, to gather wildflowers! We cross the great Obi and Yenisei rivers
over magnificent bridges of iron and Finnish granite, which cost
millions of roubles to construct. Krasnoyarsk is passed by night, but
its glittering array of electric lights suggests a city many times the
size of the tiny town I passed through in a _tarantass_ while travelling
in 1887 from Pekin to Paris. So the days crawl wearily away. Passengers
come and passengers go, but this train, like the brook, goes on for
ever. Although the travelling was luxurious I can honestly say that this
was the most wearisome portion of the entire journey. But all things
must have an end, even on the Trans-Siberian Railway, and on the tenth
day out from Moscow we reach (unconsciously) our destination--Irkutsk.
For it is two o'clock in the morning and we are aroused from pleasant
dreams in a warm and cosy bed to embark upon a drive of about three
miles through wind and snow in an open _droshky_. But we are now in
Eastern Siberia, and comfort will soon be a thing of the past.