On the morning of November 16 we took a last look at the blue domes and
minarets of Samarkand, intermingled with the ruins of palaces and tombs,
and then wheeled away toward the banks of the Zerafshan. Our four days’
journey of 180 miles along the regular Russian post-road was attended with
only the usual vicissitudes of ordinary travel. Wading in our Russian
top-boots through the treacherous fords of the “Snake” defile, we passed
the pyramidal slate rock known as the “Gate of Tamerlane,” and emerged
upon a strip of the Kizil-Kum steppe, stretching hence in painful monotony
to the bank of the Sir Daria river. This we crossed by a rude rope-ferry,
filled at the time with a passing caravan, and then began at once to
ascend the valley of the Tchirtchick toward Tashkend. The blackened cotton
which the natives were gathering from the fields, the lowering snow-line
on the mountains, the muddy roads, the chilling atmosphere, and the
falling leaves of the giant poplars—all warned us of the approach of
winter.
We had hoped at least to reach Vernoye, a provincial capital near the
converging point of the Turkestan, Siberian, and Chinese boundaries,
whence we could continue, on the opening of the following spring, either
through Siberia or across the Chinese empire. But in this we were doomed
to disappointment. The delay on the part of the Russian authorities in
granting us permission to enter Transcaspia had postponed at least a month
our arrival in Tashkend, and now, owing to the early advent of the rainy
season, the roads leading north were almost impassable even for the native
carts. This fact, together with the reports of heavy snowfalls beyond the
Alexandrovski mountains, on the road to Vernoye, lent a rather cogent
influence to the persuasions of our friends to spend the winter among
them.
[Illustration: A RELIGIOUS DRAMA IN SAMARKAND.]
Then, too, such a plan, we thought, might not be unproductive of future
advantages. Thus far we had been journeying through Russian territory
without a passport. We had no authorization except the telegram to “come
on,” received from General Kuropatkine at Askabad, and the verbal
permission of Count Rosterzsoff at Samarkand to proceed to Tashkend.
Furthermore, the passport for which we had just applied to Baron Wrevsky,
the Governor-General of Turkestan, would be available only as far as the
border of Siberia, where we should have to apply to the various
governors-general along our course to the Pacific, in case we should find
the route across the Chinese empire impracticable. A general permission to
travel from Tashkend to the Pacific coast, through southern Siberia, could
be obtained from St. Petersburg only, and that only through the chief
executive of the province through which we were passing.
Permission to enter Turkestan is by no means easily obtained, as is well
understood by the student of Russian policy in central Asia. We were not a
little surprised, therefore, when our request to spend the winter in its
capital was graciously granted by Baron Wrevsky, as well as the privilege
for one of us to return in the mean time to London. This we had determined
on, in order to secure some much-needed bicycle supplies, and to complete
other arrangements for the success of our enterprise. By lot the return
trip fell to Sachtleben. Proceeding by the Transcaspian and Transcaucasus
railroads, the Caspian and Black seas, to Constantinople, and thence by
the “overland express” to Belgrade, Vienna, Frankfort, and Calais, he was
able to reach London in sixteen days.
Tashkend, though nearly in the same latitude as New York, is so protected
by the Alexandrovski mountains from the Siberian blizzards and the
scorching winds of the Kara-Kum desert as to have an even more moderate
climate. A tributary of the Tchirtchick river forms the line of
demarcation between the native and the European portions of the city,
although the population of the latter is by no means devoid of a native
element. Both together cover an area as extensive as Paris, though the
population is only 120,000, of which 100,000 are congregated in the
native, or Sart, quarter. There is a floating element of Kashgarians,
Bokhariots, Persians, and Afghans, and a resident majority of Kirghiz,
Tatars, Jews, Hindus, gypsies, and Sarts, the latter being a generic title
for the urban, as distinguished from the nomad, people.
[Illustration: OUR FERRY OVER THE ZERAFSHAN.]
Our winter quarters were obtained at the home of a typical Russian family,
in company with a young reserve officer. He, having finished his
university career and time of military service, was engaged in Tashkend in
the interest of his father, a wholesale merchant in Moscow. With him we
were able to converse either in French or German, both of which languages
he could speak more purely than his native Russian. Our good-natured,
corpulent host had emigrated, in the pioneer days, from the steppes of
southern Russia, and had grown wealthy through the “unearned increment.”
The Russian samovar is the characteristic feature of the Russian
household. Besides a big bowl of cabbage soup at every meal, our Russian
host would start in with a half-tumbler of vodka, dispose of a bottle of
beer in the intervals, and then top off with two or three glasses of tea.
The mistress of the household, being limited in her beverages to tea and
soup, would usually make up in quantity what was lacking in variety. In
fact, one day she informed us that she had not imbibed a drop of water for
over six years. For this, however, there is a very plausible excuse. With
the water at Tashkend, as with that from the Zerafshan at Bokhara, a
dangerous worm called _reshta_ is absorbed into the system. Nowhere have
we drunk better tea than around the steaming samovar of our Tashkend host.
No peasant is too poor, either in money or in sentiment, to buy and feel
the cheering influence of tea. Even the Cossack, in his forays into the
wilds of central Asia, is sustained by it. Unlike the Chinese, the
Russians consider sugar a necessary concomitant of tea-drinking. There are
three methods of sweetening tea: to put the sugar in the glass; to place a
lump of sugar in the mouth, and suck the tea through it; to hang a lump in
the midst of a tea-drinking circle, to be swung around for each in turn to
touch with his tongue, and then to take a swallow of tea.
The meaning of the name Tashkend is “city of stone,” but a majority of the
houses are one-story mud structures, built low, so as to prevent any
disastrous effects from earthquakes. The roofs are so flat and poorly
constructed that during the rainy season a dry ceiling is rather the
exception than the rule. Every building is covered with whitewash or white
paint, and fronts directly on the street. There are plenty of back and
side yards, but none in front. This is not so bad on the broad streets of
a Russian town. In Tashkend they are exceptionally wide, with ditches on
each side through which the water from the Tchirtchick ripples along
beneath the double, and even quadruple, rows of poplars, acacias, and
willows. These trees grow here with remarkable luxuriance, from a mere
twig stuck into the ground. Although twenty years of Russian irrigation
has given Nature a chance to rear thousands of trees on former barren
wastes, yet wood is still comparatively scarce and dear.
The administration buildings of the city are for the most part exceedingly
plain and unpretentious. In striking contrast is the new Russian
cathedral, the recently erected school, and a large retail store built by
a resident Greek, all of which are fine specimens of Russian architecture.
Among its institutions are an observatory, a museum containing an embryo
collection of Turkestan products and antiquities, and a medical dispensary
for the natives, where vaccination is performed by graduates of medicine
in the Tashkend school. The rather extensive library was originally
collected for the chancellery of the governor-general, and contains the
best collection of works on central Asia that is to be found in the world,
including in its scope not only books and pamphlets, but even magazines
and newspaper articles. For amusements, the city has a theater, a small
imitation of the opera-house at Paris; and the Military Club, which, with
its billiards and gambling, and weekly reunions, balls, and concerts,
though a regular feature of a Russian garrison town, is especially
pretentious in Tashkend. In size, architecture, and appointments, the
club-house has no equal, we were told, outside the capital and Moscow.
[Illustration: PALACE OF THE CZAR’S NEPHEW, TASHKEND.]
Tashkend has long been known as a refuge for damaged reputations and
shattered fortunes, or “the official purgatory following upon the
emperor’s displeasure.” One of the finest houses of the city is occupied
by the Grand Duke Nicholai Constantinovitch Romanoff, son of the late
general admiral of the Russian navy, and first cousin to the Czar, who
seems to be cheerfully resigned to his life in exile. Most of his time is
occupied with the business of his silk-factory on the outskirts of
Tashkend, and at his farm near Hodjent, which a certain firm in Chicago,
at the time of our sojourn, was stocking with irrigating machinery. All of
his bills are paid with checks drawn on his St. Petersburg trustees. His
private life is rather unconventional and even democratic. Visitors to his
household are particularly impressed with the beauty of his wife and the
size of his liquor glasses. The example of the grand duke illustrates the
sentiment in favor of industrial pursuits which is growing among the
military classes, and even among the nobility, of Russia. The government
itself, thanks to the severe lesson of the Crimean war, has learned that a
great nation must stand upon a foundation of something more than
aristocracy and nobility. To this influence is largely due the present
growing prosperity of Tashkend, which, in military importance, is rapidly
giving way to Askabad, “the key to Herat.”
That spirit of equality and fraternity which characterizes the government
of a Russian _mir_, or village, has been carried even into central Asia.
We have frequently seen Russian peasants and natives occupying adjoining
apartments in the same household, while in the process of trade all
classes seem to fraternize in an easy and even cordial manner. The same is
true of the children, who play together indiscriminately in the street.
Many a one of these heterogeneous groups we have watched “playing marbles”
with the ankle-bones of sheep, and listened, with some amusement, to their
half Russian, half native jargon. Schools are now being established to
educate the native children in the Russian language and methods, and
native apprentices are being taken in by Russian merchants for the same
purpose.
In Tashkend, as in every European city of the Orient, drunkenness, and
gambling, and social laxity have followed upon the introduction of Western
morals and culture. Jealousy and intrigue among the officers and
functionaries are also not strange, perhaps, at so great a distance from
headquarters, where the only avenue to distinction seems to lie through
the public service. At the various dinner-parties and sociables given
throughout the winter, the topic of war always met with general welcome.
On one occasion a report was circulated that Abdurrahman Khan, the Ameer
of Afghanistan, was lying at the point of death. Great preparations, it
was said, were being made for an expedition over the Pamir, to establish
on the throne the Russian candidate, Is-shah Khan from Samarkand, before
Ayub Khan, the rival British protégé, could be brought from India. The
young officers at once began to discuss their chances for promotion, and
the number of decorations to be forthcoming from St. Petersburg. The
social gatherings at Tashkend were more convivial than sociable.
Acquaintances can eat and drink together with the greatest of good cheer,
but there is very little sympathy in conversation. It was difficult for
them to understand why we had come so far to see a country which to many
of them was a place of exile.
[Illustration: A SART RESCUING HIS CHILDREN FROM THE CAMERA OF THE
“FOREIGN DEVILS.”]
An early spring did not mean an early departure from winter quarters.
Impassable roads kept us anxious prisoners for a month and a half after
the necessary papers had been secured. These included, in addition to the
local passports, a carte-blanche permission to travel from Tashkend to
Vladivostock through Turkestan and Siberia, a document obtained from St.
Petersburg through the United States minister, the Hon. Charles Emory
Smith. Of this route to the Pacific we were therefore certain, and yet,
despite the universal opinion that a bicycle journey across the Celestial
empire was impracticable, we had determined to continue on to the border
line, and there to seek better information. “Don’t go into China” were the
last words of our many kind friends as we wheeled out of Tashkend on the
seventh of May.
At Chimkend our course turned abruptly from what was once the main route
between Russia’s European and Asiatic capitals, and along which De
Lesseps, in his letter to the Czar, proposed a line of railroad to connect
Orenburg with Samarkand, a distance about equal to that between St.
Petersburg and Odessa, 1483 miles. This is also the keystone in that wall
of forts which Russia gradually raised around her unruly nomads of the
steppes, and where, according to Gortchakoff’s circular of 1864, “both
interest and reason” required her to stop; and yet at that very time
General Tchernaieff was advancing his forces upon the present capital,
Tashkend. Here, too, we began that journey of 1500 miles along the
Celestial mountain range which terminated only when we scaled its summit
beyond Barkul to descend again into the burning sands of the Desert of
Gobi. Here runs the great historical highway between China and the West.
From Auli-eta eastward we had before us about 200 miles of a vast steppe
region. Near the mountains is a wilderness of lakes, swamps, and streams,
which run dry in summer. This is the country of the “Thousand Springs”
mentioned by the Chinese pilgrim Huen T’sang, and where was established
the kingdom of Black China, supposed by many to have been one of the
kingdoms of “Prester John.” But far away to our left were the white sands
of the Ak-Kum, over which the cloudless atmosphere quivers incessantly,
like the blasts of a furnace. Of all these deserts, occupying probably one
half of the whole Turkestan steppe, none is more terrible than that of the
“Golodnaya Steppe,” or Steppe of Hunger, to the north of the “White Sands”
now before us. Even in the cool of evening, it is said that the soles of
the wayfarer’s feet become scorched, and the dog accompanying him finds no
repose till he has burrowed below the burning surface. The monotonous
appearance of the steppe itself is only intensified in winter, when the
snow smooths over the broken surface, and even necessitates the placing of
mud posts at regular intervals to mark the roadway for the Kirghiz
post-drivers. But in the spring and autumn its arid surface is clothed, as
if by enchantment, with verdure and prairie flowers. Both flowers and
birds are gorgeously colored. One variety, about half the size of the
jackdaw which infests the houses of Tashkend and Samarkand, has a bright
blue body and red wings; another, resembling our field-lark in size and
habits, combines a pink breast with black head and wings. But already this
springtide splendor was beginning to disappear beneath the glare of
approaching summer. The long wagon-trains of lumber, and the occasional
traveler’s tarantass rumbling along to the discord of its _duga_ bells,
were enveloped in a cloud of suffocating dust.
[Illustration: VIEW OF CHIMKEND FROM THE CITADEL.]
Now and then we would overtake a party of Russian peasants migrating from
the famine-stricken districts of European Russia to the pioneer colonies
along this Turkestan highway. The peculiarity of these villages is their
extreme length, all the houses facing on the one wide street. Most of them
are merely mud huts, others make pretensions to doors and windows, and a
coat of whitewash. Near-by usually stands the old battered telega which
served as a home during many months of travel over the Orenburg highway.
It speaks well for the colonizing capacity of the Russians that they can
be induced to come so many hundreds of miles from their native land, to
settle in such a primitive way among the half-wild tribes of the steppes.
As yet they do very little farming, but live, like the Kirghiz, by raising
horses, cows, sheep, and goats, and, in addition, the Russian hog, the
last resembling very much the wild swine of the jungles. Instead of the
former military colonies of plundering Cossacks, who really become more
assimilated to the Kirghiz than these to their conquerors, the _mir_, or
communal system, is now penetrating these fertile districts, and
systematically replacing the Mongolian culture. But the ignorance of this
lower class of Russians is almost as noticeable as that of the natives
themselves. As soon as we entered a village, the blacksmith left his
anvil, the carpenter his bench, the storekeeper his counter, and the
milkmaid her task. After our parade of the principal street, the crowd
would gather round us at the station-house. All sorts of queries and
ejaculations would pass among them. One would ask: “Are these gentlemen
baptized? Are they really Christians?” On account of their extreme
ignorance these Russian colonists are by no means able to cope with their
German colleagues, who are given the poorest land, and yet make a better
living.
The steppe is a good place for learning patience. With the absence of
landmarks, you seem never to be getting anywhere. It presents the
appearance of a boundless level expanse, the very undulations of which are
so uniform as to conceal the intervening troughs. Into these, horsemen,
and sometimes whole caravans, mysteriously disappear. In this way we were
often enabled to surprise a herd of gazelles grazing by the roadside. They
would stand for a moment with necks extended, and then scamper away like a
shot, springing on their pipe-stem limbs three or four feet into the air.
Our average rate was about seven miles an hour, although the roads were
sometimes so soft with dust or sand as to necessitate the laying of straw
for a foundation. There was scarcely an hour in the day when we were not
accompanied by from one to twenty Kirghiz horsemen, galloping behind us
with cries of “Yakshee!” (“Good!”) They were especially curious to see how
we crossed the roadside streams. Standing on the bank, they would watch
intently every move as we stripped and waded through with bicycles and
clothing on our shoulders. Then they would challenge us to a race, and, if
the road permitted, we would endeavor to reveal some of the possibilities
of the “devil’s carts.” On an occasion like this occurred one of our few
mishaps. The road was lined by the occupants of a neighboring tent
village, who had run out to see the race. One of the Kirghiz turned
suddenly back in the opposite direction from which he had started. The
wheel struck him at a rate of fifteen miles per hour, lifting him off his
feet, and hurling over the handle-bars the rider, who fell upon his left
arm, and twisted it out of place. With the assistance of the bystanders it
was pulled back into the socket, and bandaged up till we reached the
nearest Russian village. Here the only physician was an old blind woman of
the faith-cure persuasion. Her massage treatment to replace the muscles
was really effective, and was accompanied by prayers and by signs of the
cross, a common method of treatment among the lower class of Russians. In
one instance a cure was supposed to be effected by writing a prayer on a
piece of buttered bread to be eaten by the patient.
[Illustration: ON THE ROAD BETWEEN CHIMKEND AND VERNOYE.]
Being users but not patrons of the Russian post-roads, we were not legally
entitled to the conveniences of the post-stations. Tipping alone, as we
found on our journey from Samarkand, was not always sufficient to preclude
a request during the night to vacate the best quarters for the
post-traveler, especially if he happened to wear the regulation brass
button. To secure us against this inconvenience, and to gain some special
attention, a letter was obtained from the overseer of the Turkestan post
and telegraph district. This proved advantageous on many occasions, and
once, at Auli-eta, was even necessary. We were surveyed with suspicious
glances as soon as we entered the station-house, and when we asked for
water to lave our hands and face, we were directed to the irrigating ditch
in the street. Our request for a better room was answered by the question,
if the one we had was not good enough, and how long we intended to occupy
that. Evidently our English conversation had gained for us the covert
reputation of being English spies, and this was verified in the minds of
our hosts when we began to ask questions about the city prisons we had
passed on our way. To every interrogation they replied, “I don’t know.”
But presto, change, on the presentation of documents! Apologies were now
profuse, and besides tea, bread, and eggs, the usual rations of a Russian
post-station, we were exceptionally favored with chicken soup and
_verainyik_, the latter consisting of cheese wrapped and boiled in dough,
and then served in butter.
It has been the custom for travelers in Russia to decry the Russian
post-station, but the fact is that an appreciation of this rather
primitive form of accommodation depends entirely upon whether you approach
it from a European hotel or from a Persian khan. Some are clean, while
others are dirty. Nevertheless, it was always a welcome sight to see a
small white building looming up in the dim horizon at the close of a long
day’s ride, and, on near approach, to observe the black and white striped
post in front, and idle tarantasses around it. At the door would be found
the usual crowd of Kirghiz post-drivers. After the presentation of
documents to the _starosta_, who would hesitate at first about quartering
our horses in the travelers’ room, we would proceed at once to place our
dust-covered heads beneath the spindle of the washing-tank. Although by
this dripping-pan arrangement we would usually succeed in getting as much
water down our backs as on our faces, yet we were consoled by the thought
that too much was better than not enough, as had been the case in Turkey
and Persia. Then we would settle down before the steaming samovar to
meditate in solitude and quiet, while the rays of the declining sun shone
on the gilded eikon in the corner of the room, and on the chromo-covered
walls. When darkness fell, and the simmering music of the samovar had
gradually died away; when the flitting swallows in the room had ceased
their chirp, and settled down upon the rafters overhead, we ourselves
would turn in under our fur-lined coats upon the leather-covered benches.
In consequence of the first of a series of accidents to our wheels, we
were for several days the guests of the director of the botanical gardens
at Pishpek. As a branch of the Crown botanical gardens at St. Petersburg,
some valuable experiments were being made here with foreign seeds and
plants. Peaches, we were told, do not thrive, but apples, pears, cherries,
and the various kinds of berries, grow as well as they do at home. Rye,
however, takes three years to reach the height of one year in America.
Through the Russians, these people have obtained high-flown ideas of
America and Americans. We saw many chromos of American celebrities in the
various station-houses, and the most numerous was that of Thomas A.
Edison. His phonograph, we were told, had already made its appearance in
Pishpek, but the natives did not seem to realize what it was. “Why,” they
said, “we have often heard better music than that.” Dr. Tanner was not
without his share of fame in this far-away country. During his fast in
America, a similar, though not voluntary, feat was being performed here. A
Kirghiz messenger who had been despatched into the mountains during the
winter was lost in the snow, and remained for twenty-eight days without
food. He was found at last, crazed by hunger. When asked what he would
have to eat, he replied, “Everything.” They foolishly gave him
“everything,” and in two days he was dead. For a long time he was called
the “Doctor Tanner of Turkestan.”
[Illustration: UPPER VALLEY OF THE CHU RIVER.]
A divergence of seventy-five miles from the regular post-route was made in
order to visit Lake Issik Kul, which is probably the largest lake for its
elevation in the world, being about ten times larger than Lake Geneva, and
at a height of 5300 feet. Its slightly brackish water, which never
freezes, teems with several varieties of fish, many of which we helped to
unhook from a Russian fisherman’s line, and then helped to eat in his
primitive hut near the shore. A Russian Cossack, who had just come over
the snow-capped Ala Tau, “of the Shade,” from Fort Narin, was also
present, and from the frequent glances cast at the fisherman’s daughter we
soon discovered the object of his visit. The ascent to this lake, through
the famous Buam Defile, or Happy Pass, afforded some of the grandest
scenery on our route through Asia. Its seething, foaming, irresistible
torrent needs only a large volume to make it the equal of the rapids at
Niagara.
Our return to the post-road was made by an unbeaten track over the Ala Tau
mountains. From the Chu valley, dotted here and there with Kirghiz tent
villages and their grazing flocks and herds, we pushed our wheels up the
broken path, which wound like a mythical stairway far up into the
low-hanging clouds. We trudged up one of the steepest ascents we have ever
made with a wheel. The scenery was grand, but lonely. The wild tulips,
pinks, and verbenas dotting the green slopes furnished the only pleasant
diversion from our arduous labor. Just as we turned the highest summit,
the clouds shifted for a moment, and revealed before us two Kirghiz
horsemen. They started back in astonishment, and gazed at us as though we
were demons of the air, until we disappeared again down the opposite and
more gradual slope. Late in the afternoon we emerged upon the plain, but
no post-road or station-house was in sight, as we expected; nothing but a
few Kirghiz kibitkas among the straggling rocks, like the tents of the
Egyptian Arabs among the fallen stones of the pyramids.
[Illustration: KIRGHIZ ERECTING KIBITKAS BY THE CHU RIVER.]
Toward these we now directed our course, and, in view of a rapidly
approaching storm, asked to purchase a night’s lodging. This was only too
willingly granted in anticipation of the coming _tomasha_, or exhibition.
The milkmaids as they went out to the rows of sheep and goats tied to the
lines of woolen rope, and the horsemen with reinless horses to drive in
the ranging herds, spread the news from tent to tent. By the time darkness
fell the kibitka was filled to overflowing. We were given the seat of
honor opposite the doorway, bolstered up with blankets and pillows. By the
light of the fire curling its smoke upward through the central opening in
the roof, it was interesting to note the faces of our hosts. We had never
met a people of a more peaceful temperament, and, on the other hand, none
more easily frightened. A dread of the evil eye is one of their
characteristics. We had not been settled long before the _ishan_, or
itinerant dervish, was called in to drive away the evil spirits, which the
“devil’s carts” might possibly have brought. Immediately on entering, he
began to shrug his shoulders, and to shiver as though passing into a state
of trance. Our dervish acquaintance was a man of more than average
intelligence. He had traveled in India, and had even heard some one speak
of America. This fact alone was sufficient to warrant him in posing as
instructor for the rest of the assembly. While we were drinking tea, a
habit they have recently adopted from the Russians, he held forth at great
length to his audience about the _Amerikón_.
The rain now began to descend in torrents. The felt covering was drawn
over the central opening, and propped up at one end with a pole to emit
the clouds of smoke from the smoldering fire. This was shifted with the
veering wind. Although a mere circular rib framework covered with white or
brown felt, according as the occupant is rich or poor, the Kirghiz
kibitka, or more properly _yurt_, is not as a house builded upon the sand,
even in the fiercest storm. Its stanchness and comfort are surprising when
we consider the rapidity with which it may be taken down and transported.
In half an hour a whole village may vanish, emigrating northward in
summer, and southward in winter. Many a Kirghiz cavalcade was overtaken on
the road, with long tent-ribs and felts tied upon the backs of two-humped
camels, for the Bactrian dromedary has not been able to endure the
severities of these Northern climates. The men would always be mounted on
the camels’ or horses’ backs, while the women would be perched on the oxen
and bullocks, trained for the saddle and as beasts of burden. The men
never walk; if there is any leading to be done it falls to the women. The
constant use of the saddle has made many of the men bandy-legged, which,
in connection with their usual obesity,—with them a mark of dignity,—gives
them a comical appearance.
After their curiosity regarding us had been partly satisfied, it was
suggested that a sheep should be slaughtered in our honor. Neither meat
nor bread is ever eaten by any but the rich Kirghiz. Their universal
kumiss, corresponding to the Turkish yaourt, or coagulated milk, and other
forms of lacteal dishes, sometimes mixed with meal, form the chief diet of
the poor. The wife of our host, a buxom woman, who, as we had seen, could
leap upon a horse’s back as readily as a man, now entered the doorway,
carrying a full-grown sheep by its woolly coat. This she twirled over on
its back, and held down with her knee while the butcher artist drew a
dagger from his belt, and held it aloft until the assembly stroked their
scant beards, and uttered the solemn bismillah. Tired out by the day’s
ride, we fell asleep before the arrangements for the feast had been
completed. When awakened near midnight, we found that the savory odor from
the huge caldron on the fire had only increased the attraction and the
crowd. The choicest bits were now selected for the guests. These consisted
of pieces of liver, served with lumps of fat from the tail of their
peculiarly fat-tailed sheep. As an act of the highest hospitality, our
host dipped these into some liquid grease, and then, reaching over, placed
them in our mouths with his fingers. It required considerable effort on
this occasion to subject our feelings of nausea to a sense of Kirghiz
politeness. In keeping with their characteristic generosity, every one in
the kibitka must partake in some measure of the feast, although the women,
who had done all the work, must be content with remnants and bones already
picked over by the host. But this disposition to share everything was not
without its other aspect; we also were expected to share everything with
them. We were asked to bestow any little trinket or nick-nack exposed to
view. Any extra nut on the machine, a handkerchief, a packet of tea, or a
lump of sugar, excited their cupidity at once. The latter was considered a
bonbon by the women and younger portion of the spectators. The attractive
daughter of our host, “Kumiss John,” amused herself by stealing lumps of
sugar from our pockets. When the feast was ended, the beards were again
stroked, the name of Allah solemnly uttered by way of thanks for the
bounty of heaven, and then each gave utterance to his appreciation of the
meal.
Before retiring for the night, the dervish led the prayers, just as he had
done at sunset. The praying-mats were spread, and all heads bowed toward
Mecca. The only preparation for retiring was the spreading of blankets
from the pile in one of the kibitkas. The Kirghiz are not in the habit of
removing many garments for this purpose, and under the circumstances we
found this custom a rather convenient one. Six of us turned in on the
floor together, forming a semicircle, with our feet toward the fire.
“Kumiss John,” who was evidently the pet of the household, had a rudely
constructed cot at the far end of the kibitka.
Vernoye, the old Almati, with its broad streets, low wood and brick
houses, and Russian sign-boards, presented a Siberian aspect. The ruins of
its many disastrous earthquakes lying low on every hand told us at once
the cause of its deserted thoroughfares. The terrible shocks of the year
before our visit killed several hundred people, and a whole mountain in
the vicinity sank. The only hope of its persistent residents is a branch
from the Transsiberian or Transcaspian railroad, or the reannexation by
Russia of the fertile province of Ili, to make it an indispensable depot.
Despite these periodical calamities, Vernoye has had, and is now
constructing, under the genius of the French architect, Paul L. Gourdet,
some of the finest edifices to be found in central Asia. The orphan
asylum, a magnificent three-story structure, is now being built on
experimental lines, to test its strength against earthquake shocks.
[Illustration: FANTASTIC RIDING AT THE SUMMER ENCAMPMENT OF THE
COSSACKS.]
One of the chief incidents of our pleasant sojourn was afforded by
Governor Ivanoff. We were invited to head the procession of the Cossacks
on their annual departure for their summer encampment in the mountains.
After the usual religious ceremony, they filed out from the city
parade-ground. Being unavoidably detained for a few moments, we did not
come up until some time after the column had started. As we dashed by to
the front with the American and Russian flags fluttering side by side from
the handle-bars, cheer after cheer arose from the ranks, and even the
governor and his party doffed their caps in acknowledgment. At the camp we
were favored with a special exhibition of horsemanship. By a single twist
of the rein the steeds would fall to the ground, and their riders crouch
down behind them as a bulwark in battle. Then dashing forward at full
speed, they would spring to the ground, and leap back again into the
saddle, or, hanging by their legs, would reach over and pick up a
handkerchief, cap, or a soldier supposed to be wounded. All these
movements we photographed with our camera. Of the endurance of these
Cossacks and their Kirghiz horses we had a practical test. Overtaking a
Cossack courier in the early part of a day’s journey, he became so
interested in the velocipede, as the Russians call the bicycle, that he
determined to see as much of it as possible. He stayed with us the whole
day, over a distance of fifty-five miles. His chief compensation was in
witnessing the surprise of the natives to whom he would shout across the
fields to come and see the _tomasha_, adding in explanation that we were
the American gentlemen who had ridden all the way from America. Our speed
was not slow, and frequently the poor fellow would have to resort to the
whip, or shout, “Slowly, gentlemen, my horse is tired; the town is not far
away, it is not necessary to hurry so.” The fact is that in all our
experience we found no horse of even the famed Kirghiz or Turkoman breed
that could travel with the same ease and rapidity as ourselves even over
the most ordinary road.
At Vernoye we began to glean practical information about China, but all
except our genial host, M. Gourdet, counseled us against our proposed
journey. He alone, as a traveler of experience, advised a divergence from
the Siberian route at Altin Imell, in order to visit the Chinese city of
Kuldja, where, as he said, with the assistance of the resident Russian
consul we could test the validity of the Chinese passport received, as
before mentioned, from the Chinese minister at London.
A few days later we were rolling up the valley of the Ili, having crossed
that river by the well-constructed Russian bridge at Fort Iliysk, the head
of navigation for the boats from Lake Balkash. New faces here met our
curious gaze. As an ethnological transition between the inhabitants of
central Asia and the Chinese, we were now among two distinctly
agricultural races—the Dungans and Taranchis. As the invited guests of
these people on several occasions, we were struck with their extreme
cleanliness, economy, and industry; but their deep-set eyes seem to
express reckless cruelty.
[Illustration: STROLLING MUSICIANS.]
The Mohammedan mosques of this people are like the Chinese pagodas in
outward appearance, while they seem to be Chinese in half-Kirghiz
garments. Their women, too, do not veil themselves, although they are much
more shy than their rugged sisters of the steppes. Tenacious of their
word, these people were also scrupulous about returning favors. Our
exhibitions were usually rewarded by a spread of sweets and yellow Dungan
tea. Of this we would partake beneath the shade of their well-trained
grape-arbors, while listening to the music, or rather discord, of a
peculiar stringed instrument played by the boys. Its bow of two parts was
so interlaced with the strings of the instrument as to play upon two at
every draw. Another musician usually accompanied by beating little sticks
on a saucer.
These are the people who were introduced by the Manchus to replace the
Kalmucks in the Kuldja district, and who in 1869 so terribly avenged upon
their masters the blood they previously caused to flow. The fertile
province of Kuldja, with a population of 2,500,000, was reduced by their
massacres to one vast necropolis. On all sides are canals that have become
swamps, abandoned fields, wasted forests, and towns and villages in ruins,
in some of which the ground is still strewn with the bleached bones of the
murdered.
As we ascended the Ili valley piles of stones marked in succession the
sites of the towns of Turgen, Jarkend, Akkend, and Khorgos, names which
the Russians are already reviving in their pioneer settlements. The
largest of these, Jarkend, is the coming frontier town, to take the place
of evacuated Kuldja. About twenty-two miles east of this point the large
white Russian fort of Khorgos stands bristling on the bank of the river of
that name, which, by the treaty of 1881, is now the boundary-line of the
Celestial empire. On a ledge of rocks overlooking the ford a Russian
sentinel was walking his beat in the solitude of a dreary outpost. He
stopped to watch us as we plunged into the flood, with our Russian telega
for a ferry-boat. “All’s well,” we heard him cry, as, bumping over the
rocky bottom, we passed from Russia into China. “Ah, yes,” we thought;
“ ‘All’s well that ends well,’ but this is only the beginning.”
[Illustration: THE CUSTOM-HOUSE AT KULDJA.]
A few minutes later we dashed through the arched driveway of the Chinese
custom-house, and were several yards away before the lounging officials
realized what it was that flitted across their vision. “Stop! Come back!”
they shouted in broken Russian. Amid a confusion of chattering voices,
rustling gowns, clattering shoes, swinging pigtails, and clouds of opium
and tobacco smoke, we were brought into the presence of the head official.
Putting on his huge spectacles, he read aloud the visé written upon our
American passports by the Chinese minister in London. His wonderment was
increased when he further read that such a journey was being made on the
“foot-moved carriages,” which were being curiously fingered by the
attendants. Our garments were minutely scrutinized, especially the
buttons, while our caps and dark-colored spectacles were taken from our
heads, and passed round for each to try on in turn, amid much laughter.
[Illustration: THE CHINESE MILITARY COMMANDER OF KULDJA.]
Owing to the predominant influence of Russia in these northwestern
confines, our Russian papers would have been quite sufficient to cross the
border into Kuldja. It was only beyond this point that our Chinese
passport would be found necessary, and possibly invalid. After the usual
visés had been stamped and written over, we were off on what proved to be
our six months’ experience in the “Middle Kingdom or Central Empire,” as
the natives call it, for to Chinamen there is a fifth point to the
compass—the center, which is China. Not far on the road we heard the
clatter of hoofs behind us. A Kalmuck was dashing toward us with a
portentous look on his features. We dismounted in apprehension. He stopped
short some twenty feet away, leaped to the ground, and, crawling up on
hands and knees, began to _chin-chin_ or knock his head on the ground
before us. This he continued for some moments, and then without a word
gazed at us in wild astonishment. Our perplexity over this performance was
increased when, at a neighboring village, a bewildered Chinaman sprang out
from the speechless crowd, and threw himself in the road before us. By a
dexterous turn we missed his head, and passed over his extended queue.
[Illustration: TWO CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES IN THE YARD OF OUR KULDJA
INN.]
Kuldja, with its Russian consul and Cossack station, still maintains a
Russian telegraph and postal service. The mail is carried from the border
in a train of three or four telegas, which rattle along over the primitive
roads in a cloud of dust, with armed Cossacks galloping before and after,
and a Russian flag carried by the herald in front. Even in the Kuldja
post-office a heavily armed picket stands guard over the money-chest. This
postal caravan we now overtook encamped by a small stream, during the
glaring heat of the afternoon. We found that we had been expected several
days before, and that quarters had been prepared for us in the postal
station at the town of Suidun. Here we spent the night, and continued on
to Kuldja the following morning.
Although built by the Chinese, who call it Nin-yuan, Kuldja, with its
houses of beaten earth, strongly resembles the towns of Russian Turkestan.
Since the evacuation by the Russians the Chinese have built around the
city the usual quadrangular wall, thirty feet in height and twenty feet in
width, with parapets still in the course of construction. But the rows of
poplars, the whitewash, and the telegas were still left to remind us of
the temporary Russian occupation. For several days we were objects of
excited interest to the mixed population. The doors and windows of our
Russian quarters were besieged by crowds. In defense of our host, we gave
a public exhibition, and with the consent of the _Tootai_ made the circuit
on the top of the city walls. Fully 3000 people lined the streets and
housetops to witness the race to which we had been challenged by four
Dungan horsemen, riding below on the encircling roadway. The distance
around was two miles. The horsemen started with a rush, and at the end of
the first mile were ahead. At the third turning we overtook them, and came
to the finish two hundred yards ahead, amid great excitement. Even the
commander of the Kuldja forces was brushed aside by the chasing rabble.
[Illustration: A MORNING PROMENADE ON THE WALLS OF KULDJA.]
V