FIRST ATTEMPT TO LEARN RUSSIAN--PLAN OF EXPLORATION--DIVISION OP PARTY
One of the first things which the traveller notices in any foreign
country is the language, and it is especially noticeable in Kamchatka,
Siberia, or any part of the great Russian Empire. What the ancestors
of the Russians did at the Tower of Babel to have been afflicted with
such a complicated, contorted, mixed up, utterly incomprehensible
language, I can hardly conjecture. I have thought sometimes that they
must have built their side of the Tower higher than any of the other
tribes, and have been punished for their sinful industry with this
jargon of unintelligible sounds, which no man could possibly hope to
understand before he became so old and infirm that he could never work
on another tower. However they came by it, it is certainly a thorn in
the flesh to all travellers in the Russian Empire. Some weeks before
we reached Kamchatka I determined to learn, if possible, a few common
expressions, which would be most useful in our first intercourse with
the natives, and among them the simple declarative sentence, "I want
something to eat." I thought that this would probably be the first
remark that I should have to make to any of the inhabitants, and I
determined to learn it so thoroughly that I should never be in danger
of starvation from ignorance. I accordingly asked the Major one day
what the equivalent expression was in Russian. He coolly replied that
whenever I wanted anything to eat, all that I had to do was to say,
"Vashavwesokeeblagarodiaeeveeleekeeprevoskhodeetelstvoeetakdalshai."
I believe I never felt such a sentiment of reverential admiration for
the acquired talents of any man as I did for those of the Major when
I heard him pronounce, fluently and gracefully, this extraordinary
sentence. My mind was hopelessly lost in attempting to imagine the
number of years of patient toil which must have preceded his
first request for food, and I contemplated with astonishment the
indefatigable perseverance which has borne him triumphant through the
acquirement of such a language. If the simple request for something
to eat presented such apparently insurmountable obstacles to
pronunciation, what must the language be in its dealings with the
more abstruse questions of theological and metaphysical science?
Imagination stood aghast at the thought.
I frankly told the Major that he might print out this terrible
sentence on a big placard and hang it around my neck; but as for
learning to pronounce it, I could not, and did not propose to try. I
found out afterwards that he had taken advantage of my inexperience
and confiding disposition by giving me some of the longest and worst
words in his barbarous language, and pretending that they meant
something to eat. The real translation in Russian would have been bad
enough, and it was wholly unnecessary to select peculiarly hard words.
The Russian language is, I believe, without exception, the most
difficult of all modern languages to learn. Its difficulty does not
lie, as might be supposed, in pronunciation. Its words are all spelled
phonetically, and have only a few sounds which are foreign to English;
but its grammar is exceptionally involved and intricate. It has seven
cases and three genders; and as the latter are dependent upon no
definite principle whatever, but are purely arbitrary, it is almost
impossible for a foreigner to learn them so as to give nouns and
adjectives their proper terminations. Its vocabulary is very copious;
and its idioms have a peculiarly racy individuality which can hardly
be appreciated without a thorough acquaintance with the colloquial
talk of the Russian peasants.
The Russian, like all the Indo-European languages, is closely related
to the ancient Sanscrit, and seems to have preserved unchanged, in a
greater degree than any of the others, the old Vedic words. The first
ten numerals, as spoken by a Hindoo a thousand years before the
Christian era, would, with one or two exceptions, be understood by a
modern Russian peasant.
During our stay in Petropavlovsk we succeeded in learning the Russian
for "Yes," "No," and "How do you do?" and we congratulated ourselves
not a little upon even this slight progress in a language of such
peculiar difficulty.
Our reception at Petropavlovsk by both Russians and Americans was most
cordial and enthusiastic, and the first three or four days after our
arrival were spent in one continuous round of visits and dinners. On
Thursday we made an excursion on horseback to a little village called
Avacha, ten or fifteen versts distant across the bay, and came back
charmed with the scenery, climate, and vegetation of this beautiful
peninsula. The road wound around the slopes of grassy, wooded hills,
above the clear blue water of the bay, commanding a view of the bold
purple promontories which formed the gateway to the sea, and revealing
now and then, between the clumps of silver birch, glimpses of long
ranges of picturesque snow-covered mountains, stretching away along
the western coast to the white solitary peak of Villúchinski, thirty
or forty miles distant. The vegetation everywhere was almost tropical
in its rank luxuriance. We could pick handfuls of flowers almost
without bending from our saddles, and the long wild grass through
which we rode would in many places sweep our waists. Delighted to
find the climate of Italy where we had anticipated the biting air of
Labrador, and inspirited by the beautiful scenery, we woke the echoes
of the hills with American songs, shouted, halloed, and ran races on
our little Cossack ponies until the setting sun warned us that it was
time to return.
Upon the information which he obtained in Petropavlovsk, Major Abaza
formed a plan of operations for the ensuing winter, which was briefly
as follows: Mahood and Bush were to go on in the _Olga_ to Nikolaievsk
at the mouth of the Amur River, on the Chinese frontier, and, making
that settlement their base of supplies, were to explore the rough
mountainous region lying west of the Okhotsk Sea and south of the
Russian seaport of Okhotsk. The Major and I, in the meantime, were
to travel northward with a party of natives through the peninsula of
Kamchatka, and strike the proposed route of the line about midway
between Okhotsk and Bering Strait. Dividing again here, one of
us would go westward to meet Mahood and Bush at Okhotsk, and
one northward to a Russian trading station called Anadyrsk
(ah-nah'-dyrsk), about four hundred miles west of the Strait. In this
way we should cover the whole ground to be traversed by our line,
with the exception of the barren desolate region between Anadyrsk
and Bering Strait, which our chief proposed to leave for the present
unexplored. Taking into consideration our circumstances and the
smallness of our force, this plan was probably the best which could
be devised, but it made it necessary for the Major and me to travel
throughout the whole winter without a single companion except our
native teamsters. As I did not speak Russian, it would be next to
impossible for me to do this without an interpreter, and the Major
engaged in that capacity a young American fur-trader, named Dodd, who
had been living seven years in Petropavlovsk, and who was familiar
with the Russian language and the habits and customs of the natives.
With this addition our whole force numbered five men, and was to be
divided into three parties; one for the western coast of the Okhotsk
Sea, one for the northern coast, and one for the country between
the Sea and the Arctic Circle. All minor details, such as means of
transportation and subsistence, were left to the discretion of the
several parties. We were to live on the country, travel with the
natives, and avail ourselves of any and every means of transportation
and subsistence which the country afforded. It was no pleasure
excursion upon which we were about to enter. The Russian authorities
at Petropavlovsk gave us all the information and assistance in their
power, but did not hesitate to express the opinion that five men would
never succeed in exploring the eighteen hundred miles of barren,
almost uninhabited country between the Amur River and Bering Strait.
It was not probable, they said, that the Major could get through the
peninsula of Kamchatka at all that fall as he anticipated, but that if
he did, he certainly could not penetrate the great desolate steppes
to the northward, which were inhabited only by wandering tribes of
Chukchis (chook'-chees) and Koraks. The Major replied simply that he
would show them what we could do, and went on with his preparations.
On Saturday morning, August 26th, the _Olga_ sailed with Mahood
and Bush for the Amur River, leaving the Major, Dodd, and me at
Petropavlovsk, to make our way northward through Kamchatka.
As the morning was clear and sunny, I engaged a boat and a native
crew, and accompanied Bush and Mahood out to sea.
As we began to feel the fresh morning land-breeze, and to draw out
slowly from under the cliffs of the western coast, I drank a farewell
glass of wine to the success of the "Amur River Exploring Party,"
shook hands with the captain and complimented his Dutch _History_,
and bade good-bye to the mates and men. As I went over the side, the
second mate seemed overcome with emotion at the thought of the perils
which I was about to encounter in that heathen country, and cried out
in funny, broken English, "Oh, Mr. Kinney! [he could not say Kennan]
who's a g'un to cook for ye, and ye can't get no potatusses?" as if
the absence of a cook and the lack of potatoes were the summing up of
all earthly privations. I assured him cheerfully that we could cook
for ourselves and eat roots; but he shook his head, mournfully, as if
he saw in prophetic vision the state of misery to which Siberian roots
and our own cooking must inevitably reduce us. Bush told me afterward
that on the voyage to the Amur he frequently observed the second mate
in deep and melancholy reverie, and upon approaching him and asking
him what he was thinking about, he answered, with a mournful shake of
the head and an indescribable emphasis: "Poor Mr. Kinney! _Poor_ Mr.
Kinney!" Notwithstanding the scepticism with which I treated his
sea-serpent, he gave me a place in his rough affections, second only
to "Tommy," his favourite cat, and the pigs.
As the _Olga_ sheeted home her topgallant sails, changed her course
more to the eastward, and swept slowly out between the heads, I caught
a last glimpse of Bush, standing on the quarter-deck by the wheel, and
telegraphing some unintelligible words in the Morse alphabet with his
arm. I waved my hat in response, and turning shoreward, with a lump in
my throat, ordered the men to give way. The _Olga_ was gone, and the
last tie which connected us with the civilised world seemed severed.
[Illustration: Bone Knife or Scraper]