Esquimaux’. In North-eastern Siberia it was my fortune to be thrown
among the Koraks, a people whose dwellings have only one place to
serve as a door and chimney. The fire is directly beneath this hole.
It is generally burning in winter with considerable briskness, and
almost always has a pot of reindeer meat over it. When you accept
the hospitality of a Korak, you descend into this hole by means of a
pole with notches in its side, on which you must cling with feet and
hands. A blast of hot, blinding smoke rises in your face, and, as you
descend, it grows hotter and hotter. By the time you are within two
feet of the bottom, you can scarcely breathe. When you think you are
nearing the bottom, you must jump from the pole, and you are just as
likely to jump into the fire as you are to jump from it. At my first
experience I did not jump fairly into the fire, but so close to it
that my feet came very near being singed.
Every Korak habitation supports a large number of dogs, which are
used for draught purposes. The dogs are not admitted to the private
quarters of the family, but are compelled to stay outside. They
content themselves with hanging round the hole in the roof, and look
down in the inside, sniffing the venison that is below. Occasionally
they get to fighting near the hole, and one of them drops through.
Sometimes he drops into the fire, and sometimes into the pot of meat,
and makes a commotion. He yells a good deal in either case. If he
has fallen into the fire, he is taken by the neck and swung up again
through the chimney. If he falls into the stew-pot, he is taken out,
howling all the while like a congress of chimpanzees, the broth is
squeezed out of his shaggy hide, so that it shall not be lost, and
then he is thrown up into the open air. The natives do not appear to
have any pity for the dog, and the fact that he has been soused in
the dinner pot does not in the least affect their appetites. They
swallow the stewed venison with just the same relish as they would if
it contained no dog’s hairs to thicken the mess and get between their
teeth.
[Sidenote: INCONVENIENCES OF ARCTIC NIGHTS.]
In these northern regions the weather is exceedingly cold. On the
coast of the Arctic Ocean, far inside the polar circle, the sun
frequently forgets itself, and for days and weeks in summer behaves
like a masculine chicken, and never sets. In winter it also forgets
itself, and not only sets, but stays set for a longer time than the
most respectable hen that was ever known. It would be inconvenient
to publish a daily newspaper there, for the reason that some of the
days are not more than fifteen minutes long, while others are three
or four months. And the same is the case with the nights, which are
sometimes stretched out to an inconvenient length. They would be jolly
for courtships and for evening parties; but it would not be advisable,
in the middle of one of the best of those nights, to sing “We won’t go
home till morning,” and then fall to drinking hot punches and things
every ten minutes, “till daylight doth appear.”
Those long nights are a great delusion to a man who thinks it will be
capital sport to lie abed until late in the morning. If he goes to bed
with a determination to make a night of it, he finds that he does not
sleep straight through, but has to get up a good many times before
morning to have his hair dressed, and to get on the outside of that
edible conglomerate known as hash. If he should try to get through the
night without eating or drinking, the probabilities are that he would
furnish a job for a hyperborean undertaker in consequence of early
starvation; but it would be equally inconvenient to attempt to stay
out of bed all day, as a great many people insist upon doing in this
part of the world. A nap would be necessary after breakfast and after
dinner, at all events, and I shrewdly suspect that the most of us, if
we lived there, would have many breakfasts and dinners between sunrise
and sunset.
It would delight John B. Gough or Father Mathew to have an old toper
go away up north in summer, and take only one drink a day; and if
he took it in the shape of an appetizer before breakfast, it would
give him a splendid appetite by the time he sat down to his toast
and steak, provided the day was laid out for only one allowance of
breakfast, dinner, and supper.
[Sidenote: GAMOOT AT HOME.]
In describing life in this region of ice, and snow, and underground
dwellings, I propose to do it by narrating the adventures of a
mythical native, whom I will call Gamoot. He owned a brown stone
front, about latitude seventy-five degrees north, longitude two
hundred and fifty degrees east, where his nearest neighbor was a polar
bear, and he looked out of his bay window upon a cheerful scene of
icebergs, and all that sort of thing. His brown stone front was made
of ice, built over a hole in the ground, and looked like one of the
piles of hay that the farmers make in the field, before they drive
round with the cart. The front door was a slab of ice, and, when you
had rung the bell and sent up your card, you dropped on your hands and
knees, and went in. The hall was twenty feet long, and about two feet
high and wide; it made a couple of turns, and one of them was a sharp
angle, like the corner of a dry goods box. You went inside the house,
and had to twist yourself round the corner of the hall, like a big
steamboat going up the Red River. You had to work your way along very
much as an eel goes through a water-pipe. Gamoot did not ventilate his
hall very well, and if you were a new comer, it was quite possible for
you to imagine that you had mistaken the entrance, and gone into the
sewer instead of the fashionable doorway.
It was inconvenient sometimes, when you were about mid-way of the
hall, creeping along ever so nice, and just doubling the sharp
corner,—it was inconvenient, I say, to meet one of Gamoot’s big dogs
on his way out. Gamoot’s dogs were an independent lot of pups, with
appetites like mill-hoppers, and teeth like cross-cut saws. When they
made up their minds to go out, they generally went, and if anybody was
in the way, it was healthier for him to go ashore than to stay there.
Gamoot used to apologize for his dogs, and say that their conduct was
owing to their breeding, as they were half wolf and the rest ugliness.
I used to wish that they had been of a different breed.
But if you happened to get into Gamoot’s house without being
interviewed by his dogs, you were sure to be interviewed by the whole
family as soon as you reached the parlor. The _grand salon_ was about
twenty feet across, and was high enough to allow Gamoot to lie down,
which he did very often. The only way you could stand erect was by
sitting down on the floor, and standing in sections. By sitting down
you could hold your head and body in a perpendicular position, or by
lying on your back you could stick up your feet and legs. The latter
position was considered ungraceful, and was not generally practised by
visitors. The house was ventilated through the hall, which was always
kept closed. The atmosphere was about as thick as an invalid’s gruel,
and sometimes it became so tough and hard that visitors used to break
off pieces of it to carry away as _souvenirs_. Gamoot had a pan which
he used to fill with fish-oil, and then put a wick in it. This pan
served as chandelier, furnace, and everything of the sort. Sometimes
the children fell into it, but it did not burn them, though they
soaked up a frightful lot of grease.
[Sidenote: HYPERBOREAN ETIQUETTE.]
Sometimes, when Gamoot had company that he wanted to get rid of, he
used to take a bottle out of doors, and fill it with fresh air. He
would then return, and hold it to the nose of each visitor. He would
then point to the cheerful hall-way; the two movements were understood
to mean that there was more of the same sort outside, and that the
visitors had better be sniffing it. The gentle hint was generally
understood, and the visitor, after looking to see that the dogs were
all inside, and not likely to be met in the hall, politely bade Gamoot
adieu, kissed Mrs. Gamoot, the children, and the dogs, and departed.
Gamoot was as hospitable as a Dutch uncle. He used to keep a barrel of
fish-oil and a box of candles on draught in one corner of his study
and smoking-room. Whenever you called, he would mix you a fish-oil
punch; and O, such a punch! It is enough to make one’s mouth oil to
think of it! Then he would hand you a candle, just as your Boston
entertainer would hand you a cracker; and he not only handed you a
candle, but he took one himself. It was a pleasure to see him, with a
tin glass of oil punch in one hand and a candle in the other, and as
fast as he took a sip at the candle, he took a bite at the punch; and
it was not the polite thing to refuse either one or the other. Gamoot
used to resent a refusal, and he had a pleasant way of taking you by
the back of the neck, and squeezing you till your mouth opened. Then
he would drive the candle down your throat with a mallet that he kept
for the purpose, and he would pour the punch after it with a funnel.
Knowing his playful eccentricities, it was always better to take your
punch and candle without making a fuss.
It may be inferred that Gamoot was an uncivilized savage; but he was
not. He had met white men who visited the polar regions in pursuit
of whales. He had learned from these aristocrats something of the
language and customs of civilization. He had no knowledge of sacred
history; but, to judge from the style of his speech, he was well
versed in profane history. He knew most of the parts of speech in the
English language that are addressed to disobedient sailors by their
captains and first and second mates; and on one occasion a shipwrecked
mariner offered to educate Gamoot in English for his board and
lodging. Gamoot accepted, and they went to work.
“I will teach the bloody Injin to box the compass,” said the mariner
to himself.
“Come here, blame your eyes!” said the mariner to Gamoot; only he used
another word, which I do not exactly recall, in place of “blame.”
[Sidenote: NEW WAY OF BOXING THE COMPASS.]
The mariner had saved a compass, and as Gamoot stood over it, Jack
placed his finger on the “points,” and named them over. But instead of
giving their names as they are known to nautical sailors, he applied
an oath to each of them; and he varied the oaths, so that by the time
the compass was boxed, he had uttered a lot of profanity that would
make an Arkansas stage-driver break his heart for joy.
Gamoot was a good scholar, and learned his lesson well. He used to
repeat it to visitors, and was as proud of it as a poodle dog is
of the ribbons in his ears. He always gave great delight to the
strangers, especially if they happened to be chaplains of whale-ships,
or missionaries on the hunt for converts. To enter his house, take
an oil punch and an appetizing candle, and hear his melodious voice
box the compass in the way he had been taught, was a delight that few
persons ever enjoyed.
[Sidenote: TRAGIC FATE OF GAMOOT.]
But one day, when the bark Susan Maria touched near Gamoot’s mansion
for salt, water, and provisions, the hospitable gentleman went to
the beach to welcome the crew, and look out for a chance to steal
something. By accident he picked up an oar, and was walking off with
it, for fear it might be lost. One of the sailors addressed Gamoot in
language much like boxing the compass, and the innocent aboriginal
supposed the briny navigator was repeating his lesson. The first mate,
who had charge of the boat, repeated the address, and added something
which implied that the dog-star presided at the birth of Gamoot. This
phrase was also familiar to the native, and he paid no attention to it.
The mate then proceeded to give Gamoot a gentle hint, which he did by
throwing a harpoon through him. The point of the instrument entered
between the brown-skinned gentleman’s shoulders, and came out in
front of his heart, after dividing that organ into unequal parts. The
boat-steerer then gave an additional hint by throwing a bomb-lance,
which exploded in Gamoot’s head, and interfered seriously with future
repetitions of his lesson in navigation.
Gamoot subsequently died of his injuries. His romantic career has
passed into poesy, and the story of his house, his punches, his
candles, his linguistic researches, and his unfortunate harpooning is
sung wherever he was known.
LII.
BRIGANDAGE AS A FINE ART.
HIGHWAY ROBBERY IN MODERN TIMES.—THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW
CONTRASTED.—HABITS OF RUSSIAN ROBBERS.—PIOUS THIEVES.—PRAYERS FOR
SUCCESS.—ROAD AGENTS.—CRUELTIES OF ITALIAN BRIGANDS.—TORTURE AND
RANSOM OF PRISONERS.—SPANISH BRIGANDS.—ADVENTURE ON A SPANISH
ROAD.—AN AMERICAN PRINCE AND AN ENGLISH DUCHESS.—AN EXCITING
RACE.—A DUCHESS IN UNDRESS.
Brigandage is rapidly becoming a thing of the past in most parts
of Europe, thanks to the introduction of railways, and the gradual
abolition of the mail coach and diligence. In France it occurs so
rarely as to cause general comment whenever an instance is reported;
and in Prussia and Austria one can travel, with little danger of
highway robbery, from one end of the country to the other. Russia,
which has few railways, has more cases of brigandage than its western
neighbors, though the government always deals very severely with
robbers when it catches them. Travellers in the eastern and southern
parts of the Muscovite empire frequently encounter robbers on their
route, and give up their purses with as good grace as they can muster.
There is a law in Russia that forbids one to fire upon robbers, unless
they outnumber him three to one; but as a man who is attacked can
usually make conscientious oath that he thought his assailants very
numerous, he is generally excused for any violation of the statute in
such cases made and provided.
The land to which most of the Russian convicts are banished, Siberia,
is, curiously enough, less dangerous for a traveller than the European
possessions of the czar. In a land journey of five thousand miles, in
Northern Asia, I was never disturbed by footpads, and suffered no
apprehension. Had my tour been in midsummer, there would have been
less security; but as it occurred in winter, when the thermometer
frequently reached forty degrees below zero, the circumstances were
not favorable to lying in wait for several hours, when the prospect
was good that the highwayman would freeze to death before he could
find some one on whom to try his skill.
[Sidenote: HOLDING PRISONERS FOR RANSOM.]
Of all European countries, Italy is the one at present whose
sculpture, begging, painting, and highway robbery have attained the
highest stage of perfection. In the southern part of the kingdom
robberies are of frequent occurrence, and the mountains are full of
bands, that have a regular organization for plundering travellers.
Sometimes the scoundrels add murder to robbery, and they have a
pleasant way of holding men for ransom. If the ransom money does not
come as promptly as they desire, they detach a prisoner’s ear, and
send it as a gentle hint for his friends to hurry up. If the ransom is
still delayed, the other ear follows, then a finger, and so on, until
the unfortunate traveller is about as much his former self as Hamlet
without Hamlet.
The Italian brigands are a pious lot of thieves, and when they set
out on a marauding expedition, they generally offer up prayers for
a successful result. Russian robbers are equally devout. There is
a story of a Muscovite highwayman, who one day killed a traveller,
and, while rifling his pockets, discovered a cake containing meat.
Though very hungry, he could not eat the cake, as the church fast then
prevailing forbade the use of meat. The King of Italy has made very
earnest efforts to suppress brigandage in his dominions; but he has
not succeeded, partly on account of the pope declining to coöperate
with him as fully as he desires, and partly owing to the fondness of
the inhabitants for a wild life. The Ex-King of Naples, who resided
in Rome until quite recently, was well known to be in league with the
brigands, whom he hoped at some time to make the nucleus of an army in
case he should deem it prudent to endeavor to regain his throne. Men
who had been plundered on the roads of Southern Italy told me that
they afterwards met their robbers on the Corso, or in the Piazza di
Spagna, and saw them enter and leave the house of Ex-King Ferdinand.
[Sidenote: ROAD AGENTS IN CALIFORNIA.]
The most prosperous parts of the United States, in the matter of
brigandage, as elsewhere stated, are the new states and territories
west of the Missouri River. In Montana, Idaho, Nevada, and California,
highway robberies are frequent; and it is sometimes the custom for
the stage companies to supply passengers with rifles for their
protection. But the robbers generally take the opportunity to approach
when least expected, and in many cases they do not trouble the
passengers, but content themselves with the treasure in charge of
the express messenger. Generally the messenger shows fight, if the
driver does not, and in some instances the robbers have paid dearly
for their attempt. They are well armed, and the passengers usually
find it best to submit, and hand over their money without grumbling.
The Californians speak of these robbers as “road agents,” and I was
much amused at the name the first time I heard it. I was starting
from Stockton for Mariposa, and some one suggested, as I mounted to
the outside of the coach, that the road agents might trouble us. I
innocently asked if we were obliged to pay the tolls on the road, and
suggested that the duty belonged to the company. There was a general
laugh at my expense, as a fellow-passenger explained to me what a road
agent was.
Spain can boast a fair allowance of brigands, though not as many as
she could twenty years ago, on account of the construction of railways
along the principal routes of travel. Probably the present troubles
will leave the country in a very disordered condition, and for years
to come there will be many men seeking their living by plundering
others. The Spanish robbers are no less cruel than their Italian
brethren, and they regard human life as of very little consequence.
They do not hesitate to kill their victims when they think they will
endanger their safety by leaving them alive. Mexico, Cuba, and the
South American countries in general, copy the customs of the people
who colonized them, and especially in Mexico robbery is considered
one of the fine arts. Many wealthy people are not exempt from the
suspicion of having acquired their property by foul means; and not
unfrequently some of the high officers of the government are known to
connive at the exploits of Mexican Jack Sheppards and Claude Duvals.
[Sidenote: ADVENTURE WITH SPANISH BRIGANDS.]
A few years ago a gentleman of my acquaintance had a curious adventure
in Spain, which I will endeavor to relate in his own words. “I was
travelling with my wife,” said he, “and we had a long ride before
us to Grenada. I found that two diligences were to start the next
day, one of them quite new, and the other an old one. I engaged the
_coupé_ of the new diligence, paid for it, and was told to be ready
at six o’clock the next morning. When I went there, I found that an
English woman and her servant had installed themselves in our place,
which they preferred to the old carriage, in which they had chartered
the _coupé_. I protested; but the woman cut me short with, ‘I am the
Duchess of ——, and shall retain this carriage.’
“‘Ah,’ I replied, bowing low, ‘but I am the Prince Thomas of America,
and my other titles are Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and
Salt Lake. We are all princes in America; and, madam, my wife is the
Countess of Michigan, Illinois, and Kentucky.’
“But the woman repeated her title, and refused to move. She did not
care for an American prince; and I was about to call the officials
to eject her, when my wife said, in her hearing, ‘If she is so
unlady-like as to act in this way, we will leave her to herself, and
ride in the old diligence.’
“The new vehicle moved off, bearing the English duchess, and we
followed ten minutes later in the old one. About two miles from the
starting-point, we passed the new carriage with a broken pole, and
the driver and conductor were endeavoring to get another from a
neighboring farm-house. As we passed them, I shouted to our postilion
that I would give him a real for every mile he kept ahead of the other
carriage, and a dollar for every hour he arrived in advance of his
usual time.
“He accepted the offer, and urged the horses to their best speed.
Every time we changed, I distributed a few reals to the men about the
stable; and I heard the postilion hint to them to make the changes
as fast as possible, but to be in no hurry in supplying the other
diligence. We went at a killing pace, and every time when we halted,
the postilion said, ‘You will owe me a great deal of money for this;
you will owe me a great deal of money.’
“I found on calculation that I should owe him a very liberal gratuity,
and assured him that I would pay everything I owed. As we passed
through a certain wood, I observed that he watched the road-side very
closely, and soon after repeated his remark about my indebtedness to
him. I could not understand what he meant, but was wiser afterwards.
[Sidenote: ENGAGING AN ENTIRE HOTEL.]
“We reached Grenada more than three hours ahead of time. There was
then but one decent hotel in the place; and I knew that my duchess
would be certain to go there, as it was not only the best hotel, but
the point of arrival and departure of the diligence. The house was
nearly full, and I engaged all the vacant rooms, paid a part of the
money for them, and took a receipt. Two or three Spanish travellers
arrived in the next hour, and I gave up some of my rooms to them, but
enjoined the landlord under no circumstances to admit the duchess, or
I would prosecute him for a violation of the contract.
“We dined, and took our ease in our room, and, after dinner was over,
we watched for the other diligence, which was somewhat overdue.
“When it arrived, it was three hours behind the regular time, or
six hours later than ourselves. The delay in consequence of the
pole giving way had been more than an hour; but this was the least
important mishap of the journey.
[Illustration: ROBBERY OF THE DILIGENCE.]
“The diligence had been robbed, and the brigands had done their work
most thoroughly. They had an understanding with the drivers, whom they
never disturbed, and expected the diligence at the wood where my
postilion looked around so anxiously. The rapid rate at which I was
travelling in the old carriage took us past the haunts of the robbers
an hour before we were expected, and thus I unwittingly saved myself
from being plundered. It turned out that the frequent remark of the
postilion, that I should owe him a great deal of money, referred to
this little business of robbing more than to the fast driving. By
following my desires in the matter of speed, he had saved me from an
encounter with the brigands, who would have relieved me of all my
spare cash, and of everything else of any value to them.
“As soon as I found how the matter stood, I sent for the fellow, who
had been all the time loitering about the court-yard, and asked him
how much he thought I owed him. He replied with the utmost dignity,
though he could not suppress a smile, that he thought ten dollars, in
addition to what I had given him, would be satisfactory. I paid with
alacrity, and should have been equally satisfied had he asked five or
ten times as much.
[Sidenote: ROBBING A DUCHESS.]
[Sidenote: COURTESY AND AN APOLOGY.]
“The Duchess of —— had been robbed about as much as she could be. The
brigands were, no doubt, indignant that our diligence had escaped
them, and determined to make complete work of the one they captured.
They took her trunks from the carriage, and rifled them of everything
they contained. They compelled my lady to hand over all her money
and jewelry, and even stripped her of her travelling-dress, leaving
her to finish her journey in her under-clothing. They offered her
no indignities, and were as polite as could be expected under the
circumstances. Not relishing the idea of arriving at the hotel dressed
as she was, she had cut away the plush lining of the carriage, and
hung it around her waist as a sort of skirt of a decidedly gaudy
pattern. She was the most woe-begone picture I ever looked upon, and
my heart relented when I saw into what a plight she had fallen. I
had fully determined not to allow her to stop at the hotel; but when
she arrived in utter destitution, I told the landlord to tell her
that all the rooms had been taken by the American prince, who was
only too happy to accommodate an English duchess. She apologized for
her rudeness in the morning, though she could not rid herself of her
haughty demeanor.