_THE PRIMORSK OR SEA-COAST PROVINCE._
Fuller treatment of this province.--Boundaries and
dimensions.--Mountains, bays, and rivers.--Climate.--Fauna and
flora.--Aboriginal and Russian population.--Government.--Food
products.--Imports.--Taxes.--Civil government.--Health of the
people.
A story is told of a certain preacher who, on mounting his afternoon
pulpit, discovered he had brought again the manuscript from which
he preached in the morning, whereupon, rising to the occasion, he
announced his intention to redeliver the morning’s discourse; and,
said he, “_I have a particular reason for doing so._” History does not
relate what followed; but I would advertise the reader that I purpose
to treat more fully of the Primorsk than of the other provinces of
Siberia, and “I have a particular reason for doing so”; the “particular
reason” in my case being that I know, personally, a great deal more
of this province than of the rest. Through other regions I passed as
rapidly as possible, never continuing long in one place; but on the
sea-coast I lived, moved, and had my habitation for several weeks. I
was stationary simply because I could not get forward, and used my
leisure to read up Siberia and arrange notes. Moreover, I had the great
advantage of staying with persons who spoke English, who had lived in
Asiatic Russia for many years, who knew the country well, and could
therefore inform me upon Russian affairs. Nor was this all, for I
was brought in frequent contact with military and naval officers who
spoke French and English, and during my stay at Vladivostock was almost
a daily guest at the Governor’s house, and so was enabled to gather
information respecting the condition of the province from official
sources.
The Littoral, or Sea-coast province, which the Russians call “The
Primorsk,” is a strip of seaboard, beginning on the frontier of Corea,
and continuing northwards along the coast of Manchuria, round the Sea
of Okhotsk and Kamchatka, and terminating at the Chaunskaia Bay in
the Arctic Ocean, about 700 miles west of Behring’s Straits.[1] The
general aspect of the country is mountainous throughout. Along the
Manchurian coast, at a distance of from 25 to 80 miles of the sea, runs
the Sikhota-Alin range, a continuation of the Shangan-Alin mountains.
The western slope is the birthplace of many streams, which run into the
Lower Amur and Ussuri. The eastern slopes drain into the channel of
Tartary, those rivers entering the sea having a short course, and being
navigable only near the mouth. These mountains attain an elevation of
from 4,000 to 6,000 feet. West of the Okhotsk Sea runs the Stanovoi
range, which is a continuation of the tableland lying to the north of
the Amur, and is estimated, according to Mr. Ravenstein, as having
an elevation of from 1,000 to 2,000 feet, the highest peaks reaching
perhaps to 5,000 or 6,000 feet. Besides these ranges, there are in the
peninsula of Kamchatka nearly 40 mountains, evidently volcanic, though
not more than a dozen volcanoes now throw out scoria.
On the sea-coast are several bays suitable for harbours, which might
become of commercial importance if the district were sufficiently
colonized, and good means of communication opened over the mountains
and forests of the Littoral.[2]
The principal rivers of the province are the Ussuri, the Lower Amur,
with its largest tributary the Amgun, and in the far north the Anadir,
which runs into Behring’s Sea. The Primorsk has one or two lakes on the
Arctic Circle, also Lake Kizi, which almost connects the Lower Amur
with the Gulf of Tartary at Castries Bay, and Lake Khanka, the largest
of them all, out of which flows the Sungacha, an important affluent of
the Ussuri. What marshes there are in the province are found on the
left bank of the Amur.
The variations of climate must of course be very considerable over
a tract of country which in the north lies within the Arctic Circle
to the 70th parallel, whilst its most southerly point is nearer the
equator than the Pole, being situated in latitude 43°, as far south,
that is, as the Pyrenees. Of the 14 meteorological observatories
in Siberia, two are situated in the Primorsk, at Nikolaefsk and
Vladivostock. For meteorological information from further north we
are indebted to travellers, especially to Baron Nordenskiöld.[3] The
climate of Nikolaefsk cannot be recommended to those in search of a
mild one.[4] During the eight months of winter keen winds prevail,
bringing snowstorms of such violence and density that I heard of a
man losing himself in crossing the street from the club to his own
house. The snow lies frequently from four to five feet deep. I stayed
at Nikolaefsk from the 13th to the 30th August, during which time the
summer was unusually cold. On several days it rained, and, when taking
an evening stroll, I did not feel an Ulster coat too warm.[5]
Descending ten degrees further south to Vladivostock, we find the
summer extending to six and a half months, but with an annual
temperature about ten degrees lower than at Marseilles, which is on the
same parallel.[6]
Thus it will be seen that even in the most southerly portion of the
Primorsk the winter climate is severe. The Bay of Peter the Great, it
is true, is not frozen at a certain distance from the shore at any
period of the year; yet ice is formed upon its creeks and inlets at
the beginning of December, and for more than a hundred days ships are
locked in the port of Vladivostock. On the other hand, the summer heat
on the Manchurian coast is very great, and rises in the port of Olga to
more than 96°.
The climate of the Lower Primorsk is more than commonly dependent on
two influences: that of the prevailing winds, and of the temperature
of the neighbouring seas. The warm Kuro Scivo, or Japan current, soon
after it passes the Loo Choo islands, divides, and a small part enters
the Sea of Japan, and, skirting its eastern shore, passes out through
La Perouse Strait to reunite itself with the main stream that has kept
to the eastward of the Japan archipelago. Under the name of “the North
Pacific drift,” this Japan current afterwards passes a little south
of the Kurile and Aleutian Isles, and then turns southward along the
western coast of North America. From the north-east corner of the Sea
of Okhotsk two cold currents start and run--the one along the coast of
the mainland of Siberia, the other down the west side of Kamchatka.
Sakhalin is thus on both shores washed by these cold waters, which
continue their course southward along the western shore of the Sea of
Japan, round the Corea, past the entrance of the Yellow-Sea, until,
near the island of Formosa, they mingle with the monsoon drifts of the
China Sea. The effect of this body of cold water along the Siberian
coast is obvious, and we find the winter climate far more severe
than in corresponding latitudes on the western side of the Pacific
or in the Niphon, and the southern islands of Japan. The prevailing
winds in winter are from the north and east, and, passing as they
do over this same cold sea-water, they get chilled, and add to the
rigour of the season. In summer the winds are generally from the west
and south-west, and in July the south-west monsoon even extends to
the Sea of Okhotsk; and the temperature is abnormally above that of
corresponding latitudes. If, however, the climate of the Lower Primorsk
and of Eastern Siberia is remarkable for its extremes of cold and heat,
drought and humidity, it has at least the advantage of regularity in
its yearly progress, and has none of the abrupt changes of temperature
met with in Western Siberia. The dry cold of winter, the humid heat of
summer, are maintained without sudden changes.[7]
To the phenomena of the particular climate of the sea-coast correspond
naturally the distinctive features of its fauna and flora. The forests
one passes through in the basin of the Amur are not, like the _taigas_,
sloping towards the Frozen Ocean, composed uniformly of the same
species of conifers; but the kinds of trees are very diverse, though
their distribution is little varied. With the fir, pitch pine, cedar,
and larch are mixed not only the Russian birch, but also the oak,
elm, hornbeam, ash, maple, lime, and poplar, some of which grow to
the height of 100 feet, with trunks more than a yard in diameter.
The bark of the larch is almost as valuable to the tanner as that of
oak, and also produces the substance called Venice turpentine, which
flows abundantly when the lower parts of the trunks of old trees are
wounded. A kind of marrow also exudes from its leaves in the shape
of white flakes, which are ultimately converted into small lumps.
In the southern parts of the Ussuri country, and on the slopes of
the Sikhota Alin, deciduous trees outnumber the conifers. The forest
pines are often draped with wild vines, whose grapes ripen, though
the cultivation of the vine has not yet been successful. On the Upper
Ussuri the Chinese have plantations of ginseng. In the woods grow
hazels, peach trees, and wild pears; and what orchards there yet are
about the villages show that the Ussuri district might become, for the
product of fruits, one of the richest countries in the world.
But the glory of the Lower Primorsk is the wealth of herbaceous plants
which grow on the alluvial soils on the banks and the islands of its
rivers. Umbelliferous plants, mugwort, roses, cereals of various kinds,
form a mass of vegetation to the height of 8 or 9 feet, penetrable only
axe in hand, or along the track of some wild animal. The wild boar, the
stag, the roebuck hide themselves in these tall herbs better even than
in the forest. The tiger as well as the panther inhabit the bushy
herbage of the Ussuri, and there meet also the bear and the sable. Thus
the representatives of the south mingle with those from the north in
this rich fauna, belonging at once to Siberia and to China.
[Illustration: THE SIBERIAN LARCH.]
As regards the inhabitants of the Sea-coast province, in the south are
Chinese, Manzas, Tazas, and Coreans, who are constantly travelling,
and so cannot well be counted; but, calculating from the registers
of births and deaths, their number is estimated at 62,000. North of
these, on the Ussuri, are the Goldi, and, on the Lower Amur, another
race called Gilyaks, of whom I shall hereafter speak particularly.
Proceeding round the Sea of Okhotsk, we come to the territories of the
Lamuti, Tunguses, and Yakutes; and then reaching the north-east corner
of Siberia, we have three other peoples--the Kamchatdales to the south
of the peninsula, with the Koriaks above them, and furthest north the
Chukchees. Besides these might be mentioned a few Orochi about the
mouth of the Amur, and the Aïnos of Sakhalin and the Kurile islands.
Owing to the wandering habits of these tribes, no census can be
obtained, but from the church books their number, including both sexes,
is estimated at 44,000.[8]
The province is divided into seven uyezds, and the principal towns,
beginning from the south, are Vladivostock, Khabarofka, Sophiisk,
Nikolaefsk, Ayan, Okhotsk, and Petropavlovsk. The Littoral was erected
into a province in 1857, and placed under a Governor who was at once
Admiral of the Fleet, Commander of the military forces, and Head of
Civil Affairs; and this was the condition of things in 1879--Admiral
Erdmann being Governor, and residing at Vladivostock. The military
command, however, has since been separated, and given to General
Tichmeneff, who resides, I am told, at Khabarofka.
Proceeding now to the natural products of the Primorsk, and the sources
of sustenance to its population, we find that agriculture holds a very
different place in the upper, middle, and lower parts of the country.
The Upper Primorsk extends from Behring’s Straits down to Nikolaefsk,
and produces no corn. The inhabitants live by hunting, the fur trade,
or on grain supplied by the Government.
The Middle Primorsk extends from Nikolaefsk to Khabarofka, which means
virtually the basin of the Lower Amur. Only the Russian subjects till
the ground, the total cereal produce for the year 1878 being 327 tons,
together with 811 tons of potatoes. The cost of meat in this district
is from 5_d._ to 9_d._ per English pound, according to the season.
The Lower or Southern Primorsk is populated by Ussuri Cossacks, and
by voluntary and involuntary settlers. This is the most productive
part of the province, the yield for 1878 being more than 1,000 tons of
corn and 800 tons of potatoes. Meat costs from 4_d._ to 6_d._ per lb.
Three qualities of wheaten flour are used throughout the Primorsk--the
first and second of which are imported from America. About 15,000
fifty-pound bags (say 330 tons) are sold yearly in Nikolaefsk, the best
costing from 4_d._ to 6_d._ per lb., the second from 3_d._ to 3½_d._,
and the third quality, grown at home, from 1½_d._ to 2½_d._ per lb.
The price of rye-flour at Nikolaefsk and Sophiisk varies from 1½_d._
to 2_d._ per lb. On the Ussuri it costs rather less, and north of
Nikolaefsk 2_d._ per lb. is asked.
[Illustration: A DVORNIK, OR RUSSIAN HOUSE-PORTER.]
Throughout the province the price of fish is from 9_s._ to 24_s._ per
cwt.; butter (not fresh) costs from 10_d._ to 1_s._ 1½_d._ per lb.;
black tea from 2_s._ to 4_s._ the Russian pound, and brick tea from
10_d._ to 1_s._ 2_d._ The price of sugar varies from 6_d._ to 8_d._
per lb. Labour throughout the Littoral is scarce. The cost for a man
and horse in summer is 6_s._ per day, but in winter 30_s._ a month and
hay for the horse. At Nikolaefsk a man earns 3_s._ as a day’s wage;
a _dvornik_, or night-watchman, gets as much as £3 10_s._ a month
without board, and a man-servant £2 10_s._ a month and his food. At
Vladivostock, convict women for domestic servants are paid from 16_s._
to 30_s._ a month board wages; mechanics earn from 3_s._ to 4_s._ a
day, and common labourers 2_s._ This last is a decided advance on the
18_s._ or 20_s._ a month paid to the wharf-porters at Nijni Novgorod,
who live, however, on 8_s._ a month, eating little but bread and
_stchee_, the latter being made of good beef, with an allowance of one
pound of meat for each person. A half-drunken man at Nijni told me
boastfully that in good times he could earn nearly 2_s._ a day; but
just then he could get no regular work, and so he said he had taken to
drink!
In addition to the home produce of the Primorsk, the Government also
imports largely in anticipation of bad seasons and famine, and for the
military.[9] They have, too, in this province a fund for loan to the
aborigines to the annual amount of nearly £3,000, and rather more than
this sum as a reserve fund for famine purposes.
I gathered from an official report in manuscript, which I was
courteously permitted to see, some account of the taxes of the
province. Personal taxes are paid in the north in money or in furs. In
money, in 1878, was paid £28, and in furs the value of nearly £800.
The whole of the settlers in the Amur district were to be free from
personal taxes, land taxes, and recruiting up to 1881. Hence the land
taxes of the province amounted to only £90.[10]
The report above quoted also treated of the health of the people, from
which I noticed that vaccination throughout the province had not been
wholly successful, partly for want of good vaccine, and partly from the
lack of persons qualified to perform the operation. This latter was not
greatly to be wondered at, seeing that the yearly remuneration attached
to the appointment of district vaccinator was only two guineas, while
the work involved much and difficult travelling. In the _towns_ from
which reports had come, it appeared that of 375 persons vaccinated,
only seven cases had failed.
The total number of (I presume _civil_) patients through the province
in 1878 was 319 (215 males and 104 females), of whom 247 recovered,
40 died, 32 were still under treatment; the average time spent in the
hospital by each completed case being 31⅓ days.[11]
The Siberians generally are said to be remarkably strong and robust,
for which the reason has been suggested that all the weakly babies are
killed by the climate. What truth there may be in this I know not, but
in a table given me by the priest of Vladivostock, showing at what ages
had occurred the 102 deaths in his parish, for 1878, it was seen that
58, or more than one-half, died under five years of age; and of these,
37 attained to less than the age of 12 months. Further, 24 died between
the ages of 25 and 40, and only four exceeded the age of 50.
The report went on to speak of the civil affairs of the province, its
public institutions and communications, the morality of the people and
their religious dissensions, the prisons[12] and statistics concerning
fire[13] and floods; but I need enlarge no further upon the Primorsk
as a whole. It has been already pointed out that the country can be
best described in three sections,--the Upper or Northern portion, the
Lower or Southern portion, and the Middle Primorsk, corresponding
roughly to the basin of the Lower Amur, to the description of which
last I shall now proceed.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] From this point its inland border runs along the crests of
the Stanovoi range to the 55th degree of latitude, then continues
southwards to the Little Khingan mountains, thence in a line to the
Ussuri and Sungacha, through Lake Khanka, and so to Corea. The length
of the province from north to south exceeds 2,300 miles. Its widest
part, taken at right angles from the shore, does not exceed 400 miles,
whilst at its narrowest, on the Sea of Okhotsk, the western border in
some places is not more than 30 miles inland. The area of the province
is 733,000 square miles, or about six times as large as the British
possessions in Europe.
[2] Thus there are, beginning in the south, Vladivostock and
Paseat, and continuing up the Manchurian coast past Olga, Vladimir,
and Barracouta Bays, we have De Castries Bay, 135 miles south of
Nikolaefsk. De Castries was discovered and surveyed by La Perouse in
1787. It affords good and safe anchorage, and is a kind of ocean port
to Nikolaefsk. Other ports further north are Ayan and Okhotsk, and
Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka, Olga, Vladivostock, and Paseat are called
“open ports,” but all of them in winter are ice-bound, unless it be
Paseat, which is not much frozen, nor for long.
[3] Where the Vega was frozen in, west of Behring’s Straits, the
temperature sank before the 28th November to 14°·8 below zero, and
the newly-formed ice was already two feet thick. On Christmas Day the
temperature fell to 31°, and in January to 50°·8, both below zero;
whilst the average temperatures for October, November, December,
and January were 22°·6 and 2°·1 above, and 9° and 13°·2 below zero
respectively.
[4] At Nikolaefsk, in August 1877, the temperature reached no higher
than 82°·8, and sank to 45°·5, the mean temperature of the month being
61°·9. The greatest heat of the year was 88°·2, and occurred in July,
and the greatest cold registered was in February, when the thermometer
fell to 26°·9 below zero. The mean temperature for the year was only
30·2.
[5] On the night of August 19th, the thermometer registered 45°·5, and
during the preceding day had not risen above 50°. At Greenwich, on the
same date, the thermometer registered 49°·7 in the night, and 70° on
the preceding day.
[6] The maximum temperature at Vladivostock, in August 1877, was 89°·1
(the highest of the year); and the minimum was 57°, the mean for the
month being 68°·7. In January the degrees of cold registered were 10°·8
below zero, and the mean temperature for the year was 41°·5.
[7] In the least rainy month, for instance, February, the
precipitation, whether of snow or rain, represents at Nertchinsk Zavod
only one fifty-eighth part of the rainfall of the wet season. So again
at Vladivostock the difference between the snowfall of winter and the
rainfall of summer is still greater, the snow representing a quantity
about 840 times less than the rain. In 1858, Venyukoff experienced
on the Ussuri 45 consecutive wet days, and the annual rains drench
the harvests of the Cossacks of the Ussuri, who have not yet learned
to imitate the Chinese in accommodating their agriculture to the
alternations of the seasons.
[8] These statistics are taken from the Government books, and they
refer to the native population. The Almanack for 1880 gives to the
province 76 populated places, and the number of the Russian inhabitants
was handed to me at Nikolaefsk, from Government sources, as 20,000,
made up of 10,000 naval and military, 1,200 Government officials,
1,800 townspeople, and 7,000 peasants. In the whole province in
1878 the number of (Russian) marriages was 223, excluding those of
soldiers and convicts. The number of births was 1,322, of which 96 were
illegitimate; and the number of deaths 545 males and 447 females, in
all 992, giving a net increase of 330 to the Russian population.
[9] In 1878, salt, rice, and millet were imported to the value of
£25,000. To the southern part of the province salt comes from China.
The northern part is supplied by a Government contract with a merchant
who has a monopoly up to 1887 for rye, salt, gunpowder, and lead. For
the supply of the soldiers, the Government imported also overland 636
tons of rye; of oatmeal, 285 tons; and by sea 1,400 tons of rye, and
280 tons of oatmeal. The average cost of flour to the Government is at
Sakhalin 4_s._ 3_d._ and at Vladivostock 3_s._ 9_d._ the pood.
[10] For municipal taxes, police, roads, etc., were paid at Nikolaefsk,
£1,582; Vladivostock, £1,500; Sophiisk, £140; Petropavlovsk, £70;
Okhotsk, £15; and Ghijiga, £11; that is, about £3,320 together. The
excise taxes, however, were far higher--namely, for imported liquors,
£9,500; home-made beer, etc., £37; home-made liquors, £569; licences,
£1,569; fines, £52; duty for _growing_ tobacco, 6_s._, and for selling
it, £269; and tobacco fines, £20. This shows an excise income from the
province of £12,000, being a decrease on foreign liquors, compared with
the previous year, of £4,600, and an increase on home-made liquors of
£439; but an increase for licences of £150, and £15 for fines.
[11] The most frequent maladies were inflammation of the lungs, bowels,
and womb, and heart disease. Under the head of epidemics it seemed that
during the year typhoid fever broke out at Nikolaefsk and carried off
21 men. A like visitation, lasting for 18 days, in the Khanka district
caused about the same number of deaths. At Sophiisk and Udskoi 248
men were struck down, of whom, however, 244 recovered. The deaths by
accident and suicide in the province amounted to 21, ten more than in
the preceding year.
[12] Criminals and their crimes in the Sea-coast Province for five
years, 1874-1878.
1874. 1875. 1876. 1877. 1878. Total.
Male. Fm. Totl.
Sacrilege or ecclesiastical
offences 1 2 3 3
Offences against the Government
and insubordination to
authorities 4 2 6 1 13 24 2 26
Breaking prison bounds, running
away, and liberating others 9 8 38 43 13 109 2 111
Offences against excise laws 12 3 1 2 2 20 20
Offences against mercantile
laws 4 4 5 11 2 13
Vagrancy, harbouring vagabonds,
and offences against passport
laws 13 10 80 22 38 157 6 163
Murder 3 8 14 7 12 37 7 44
Wounding and other kinds of
violence 2 2 15 3 11 30 3 33
Personal insult and assault 10 2 5 8 12 35 2 37
Robbery 8 6 62 28 28 127 5 132
Rascality 3 3 11 6 16 36 3 39
Embezzlement and fraud 1 1 4 1 7 7
Forgery, or counterfeiting notes 8 7 1 8
Bigamy 5 3 2 5
Offences against marriage laws 2 1 1 2
Arson 1 1 1
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Totals 64 50 239 129 162 608 36 644
[13] The three fire-engine establishments, maintained at a cost of £534
per annum, are situated at Petropavlovsk, Nikolaefsk, and Vladivostock,
their plant consisting of three steam and three manual engines, 26
horses, and 13 water-carts.