BRIDLE PATHS OP SOUTHERN KAMCHATKA--HOUSES AND FOOD OF THE
PEOPLE--REINDEER TONGUES AND WILD-ROSE PETALS--A KAMCHATKAN DRIVER'S
CANTICLE
At Okuta we found our horses and men awaiting our arrival; and after
eating a hasty lunch of bread, milk, and blueberries in a little
native house, we clambered awkwardly into our saddles, and filed away
in a long irregular line through the woods, Dodd and I taking the
advance, singing _Bonnie Dundee_.
We kept continually near the group of mountains which had presented so
beautiful an appearance in the morning; but, owing to the forest of
birch and mountain ash which clothed the foot-hills, we caught only
occasional glimpses between the tree-tops of their white snowy
summits.
Just before sunset, we rode into another little native village, whose
ingeniously constructed name defied all my inexperienced attempts to
pronounce it or write it down. Dodd was good-natured enough to
repeat it to me five or six times; but as it sounded worse and more
unintelligible every time, I finally called it Jerusalem, and let it
go at that. For the sake of geographical accuracy I have so marked it
down on my map; but let no future commentator point to it triumphantly
as a proof that the lost tribes of Israel emigrated to Kamchatka;
I don't believe that they did, and I know that this unfortunate
settlement, before I took pity on it and called it Jerusalem, was
distinguished by a name so utterly barbarous that neither the Hebrew
alphabet nor any other known to ancient literature could have begun to
do it justice.
Tired by the unusual exercise of horseback riding, I entered Jerusalem
at a walk, and throwing my bridle to a Kamchadal in blue nankeen
shirt and buckskin trousers, who saluted me with a reverential bow, I
wearily dismounted and entered the house which Viushin indicated as
the one we were to occupy.
The best room, which had been prepared for our reception, was a low
bare apartment about twelve feet square, whose walls, ceiling, and
floor of unpainted birch planks were scoured to a smooth snowy purity
which would have been creditable even to the neat housewives of the
Dutch paradise of Broek. An immense clay oven, neatly painted red,
occupied one side of the room; a bench, three or four rude chairs, and
a table, were arranged with severe propriety against the other. Two
windows of glass, shaded by flowery calico curtains, admitted the
warm sunshine; a few coarse American lithographs hung here and there
against the wall; and the air of perfect neatness, which prevailed
everywhere, made us suddenly and painfully conscious of our own muddy
boots and rough attire. No tools except axes and knives had been
used in the construction of the house or of its furniture; but the
unplaned, unpainted boards had been diligently scrubbed with water
and sand to a delicate creamy whiteness, which made amends for all
rudeness of workmanship. There was not a plank in the floor from which
the most fastidious need have hesitated to eat. The most noticeable
peculiarity of this, as of all the other Kamchadal houses which we saw
in southern Kamchatka, was the lowness of its doors. They seemed to
have been designed for a race of beings whose only means of locomotion
were hands and knees, and to enter them without making use of those
means required a flexibility of spinal vertebrae only to be acquired
by long and persevering practice. Viushin and Dodd, who had travelled
in Kamchatka before, experienced no difficulty in accommodating
themselves to this peculiarity of native architecture; but the Major
and I, during the first two weeks of our journey, bore upon the fore
parts of our heads, bumps whose extraordinary size and irregularity
of development would have puzzled even Spurzheim and Gall. If the
abnormal enlargement of the bumps had only been accompanied by a
corresponding enlargement of the respective faculties, there would
have been some compensation for this disfiguration of our heads; but
unfortunately "perception" might be suddenly developed by the lintel
of a door until it looked like a goose-egg, without enabling us to
perceive the very next beam which came in our way until after we had
struck our heads against it.
The Cossack who had been sent through the peninsula as an
avant-courier to notify the natives of our coming, had carried the
most exaggerated reports of our power and importance, and elaborate
preparations had been made by the Jerusalemites for our reception.
The house that was to be honoured by our presence had been carefully
scrubbed, swept, and garnished; the women had put on their most
flowery calico dresses, and tied their hair up in their brightest silk
handkerchiefs; most of the children's faces had been painfully washed
and polished with soap, water, and wads of fibrous hemp; the whole
village had been laid under contribution to obtain the requisite
number of plates, cups, and spoons, for our supper-table, while
offerings of ducks, reindeer-tongues, blueberries, and clotted cream
poured in upon us with a profusion which testified to the good-will
and hospitality of the inhabitants, as well as to their ready
appreciation of tired travellers' wants. In an hour we sat down, with
appetites sharpened by the pure mountain air, to an excellent supper
of cold roast duck, broiled reindeer-tongues, black-bread and fresh
butter, blueberries and cream, and wild-rose petals crushed with white
sugar into a rich delicious jam. We had come to Kamchatka with minds
and mouths heroically made up for an unvarying diet of blubber, tallow
candles, and train-oil; but imagine our surprise and delight at being
treated instead to such Sybaritic luxuries as purple blueberries,
cream, and preserved rose-leaves! Did Lucullus ever feast upon
preserved rose-petals in his, vaunted pleasure-gardens of Tusculum?
Never! The original recipe for the preparation of celestial ambrosia
had been lost before ever "Lucullus supped with Lucullus"; but it was
rediscovered by the despised inhabitants of Kamchatka, and is now
offered, to the world as the first contribution of the Hyperboreans to
gastronomical science. Take equal quantities of white loaf sugar
and the petals of the Alpine rose, add a little juice of crushed
blueberries, macerate together to a rich crimson paste, serve in the
painted cups of trumpet honeysuckles, and imagine yourself feasting
with the gods upon the summit of high Olympus!
As soon as possible after supper, I stretched myself out upon the
floor under a convenient table, which answered practically and
aesthetically all the purposes of a four-post bedstead, inflated my
little rubber pillow, rolled myself up, _à la_ mummy, in a blanket,
and slept.
The Major, always an early riser, was awake on the following morning
at daylight. Dodd and I, with a coincidence of opinion as rare as it
was gratifying, regarded early rising as a relic of barbarism which no
American, with a proper regard for the civilisation of the nineteenth
century, would demean himself by encouraging. We had therefore entered
into a mutual agreement upon this occasion to sleep peacefully until
the "caravan," as Dodd irreverently styled it, should be ready to
start, or at least until we should receive a summons for breakfast.
Soon after daybreak, however, a terrific row began about something,
and with a vague impression that I was attending a particularly
animated primary meeting in the Ninth Ward, I sprang up, knocked my
head violently against a table-leg, opened my eyes in amazement, and
stared wildly at the situation. The Major, in a scanty _déshabillé,_
was storming furiously about the room, cursing our frightened drivers
in classical Russian, because the horses had all stampeded during the
night and gone, as he said with expressive simplicity, "Chort
tolko znal kooda"--"the devil only knew where." This was rather an
unfortunate beginning of our campaign; but in the course of two hours
most of the wandering beasts were found, packs were adjusted, and
after an unnecessary amount of profanity from the drivers, we turned
our backs on Jerusalem and rode slowly away over the rolling grassy
foot-hills of the Avachinski volcano.
It was a warm, beautiful Indian summer day, and a peculiar stillness
and Sabbath-like quiet seemed to pervade all nature. The leaves of the
scattering birches and alders along the trail hung motionless in the
warm sunshine, the drowsy cawing of a crow upon a distant larch came
to our ears with strange distinctness, and we even imagined that we
could hear the regular throbbing of the surf upon the far-away coast.
A faint murmurous hum of bees was in the air, and a rich fruity
fragrance came up from the purple clusters of blueberries which our
horses crushed under foot at every step. All things seemed to unite
in tempting the tired traveller to stretch himself out on the warm
fragrant grass, and spend the day in luxurious idleness, listening to
the buzzing of the sleepy bees, inhaling the sweet smell of crushed
blueberries, and watching the wreaths of curling smoke which rose
lazily from the lofty crater of the great white volcano. I laughingly
said to Dodd that instead of being in Siberia--the frozen land of
Russian exiles--we had apparently been transported by some magical
Arabian Night's contrivance to the clime of the "Lotus Eaters," which
would account for the dreamy, drowsy influence of the atmosphere.
"Clime of the Lotus Eaters be hanged!" he broke out impetuously,
making a furious slap at his face; "the poet doesn't say that the
Lotus Eaters were eaten up themselves by such cursed mosquitoes as
these, and they're sufficient evidence that we're in Kamchatka--they
don't grow as big as bumblebees in any other country!" I reminded him
mildly that according to Walton--old Isaac--every misery we missed was
a new mercy, and that, consequently, he ought to be thankful for every
mosquito that didn't bite him. His only reply was that he "wished he
had old Isaac there." What summary reprisals were to be made upon old
Isaac I did not know, but it was evident that Dodd did not approve of
his philosophy, or of my attempt at consolation, so I desisted.
Maximof (max-im'-off), the chief of our drivers, labouring under a
vague impression that, because everything was so still and quiet, it
must be Sunday, rode slowly through the scattered clumps of silver
birch which shaded the trail, chanting in a loud, sonorous voice a
part of the service of the Greek Church, suspending this devotional
exercise, occasionally, to curse his vagrant horses in a style which
would have excited the envy and admiration of the most profane trooper
of the army in Flanders.
"Oh! let my pray-er be-e-e (_Here! you pig! Keep in the road_!)
set forth as the in-cense; and let the lifting up of my han-n-n-ds
be--(_Get up! you korova! You old, blind, broken-legged son of the
Evil Spirit! Where you going to_!)--an eve-n-ing sacrifice: let not my
heart be inclined to--(_Lie down again, will you! Thwack? Take that,
you old sleepy-headed svinya proclatye_!)--any e-vil thing; let me not
be occupied with any evil works (_Akh! What a horse! Bokh s'nim_!).
Set a watch before my mouth, and keep the do-o-o-r of my lips--(_Whoa!
You merzavitz! What did you run into that tree for? Ecca voron!
Podletz! Slepoi takoi! Chart tibi vasmee_!)"--and Maximof lapsed
into a strain of such ingenious and metaphorical profanity that my
imagination was left to supply the deficiencies of my imperfect
comprehension. He did not seem to be conscious of any inconsistency
between the chanted psalm and the profane interjections by which
it was accompanied; but, even if he had been fully aware of it, he
probably would have regarded the chanting as a fair offset to the
profanity, and would have gone on his way with serene indifference,
fully assured that if he sang a sacred verse every time he swore, his
celestial account must necessarily balance!
The road, or rather trail, from Jerusalem turned away to the westward,
and wound around the bases of a range of low bare mountains, through a
dense forest of poplar and birch. Now and then we would come out into
little grassy openings, where the ground was covered with blueberries,
and every eye would be on the lookout for bears; but all was still and
motionless--even the grasshoppers chirping sleepily and lazily, as
if they too were about to yield to the somnolence which seemed to
overpower all nature.
To escape the mosquitoes, whose relentless persecution became almost
unendurable, we rode on more briskly through a broad, level valley,
filled with a dense growth of tall umbelliferous plants, trotted
swiftly up a little hill, and rode at a thundering gallop into the
village of Korak, amid the howling and barking of a hundred and fifty
half-wild dogs, the neighing of horses, running to and fro of men, and
a scene of general confusion.
At Korak we changed most of our horses and men, ate an _al fresco_
lunch under the projecting eaves of a mossy Kamchadal house, and
started at two o'clock for Malqua, another village, fifty or sixty
miles distant, across the watershed of the Kamchatka River. About
sunset, after a brisk ride of fifteen or eighteen miles, we suddenly
emerged from the dense forest of poplar, birch, and mountain ash which
had shut in the trail, and came out into a little grassy opening,
about an acre in extent, which seemed to have been made expressly with
a view to camping out. It was surrounded on three sides by woods, and
opened on the fourth into a wild mountain gorge, choked up with rocks,
logs, and a dense growth of underbrush and weeds. A clear cold stream
tumbled in a succession of tinkling cascades down the dark ravine, and
ran in a sandy flower-bordered channel through the grassy glade, until
it disappeared in the encircling forest. It was useless to look for
a better place than this to spend the night, and we decided to stop
while we still had daylight. To picket our horses, collect wood for a
fire, hang over our teakettles, and pitch our little cotton tent, was
the work of only a few moments, and we were soon lying at full length
upon our warm bearskins, around our towel-covered candle-box, drinking
hot tea, discussing Kamchatka, and watching the rosy flush of sunset
as it slowly faded over the western mountains.
As I was lulled to sleep that night by the murmuring plash of falling
water, and the tinkling of our horses' bells from the forest behind
our tent, I thought that nothing could be more delightful than camp
life in Kamchatka.
We reached Malqua on the following day, in a generally exhausted
and used-up condition. The road had been terribly rough and broken,
running through narrow ravines blocked up with rocks and fallen trees,
across wet mossy swamps, and over rugged precipitous hills, where we
dared not attempt to ride our horses. We were thrown repeatedly from
our saddles; our provision-boxes were smashed against trees, and wet
through by sinking in swamps; girths gave way, drivers swore, horses
fell down, and we all came to grief, individually and collectively.
The Major, unaccustomed as he was to these vicissitudes of Kamchatkan
travel, held out like a Spartan; but I noticed that for the last ten
miles he rode upon a pillow, and shouted at short intervals to Dodd,
who, with stoical imperturbability, was riding quietly in advance:
"Dodd! oh, Dodd! haven't we got most to that _con-found-ed_ Malqua
yet?" Dodd would strike his horse a sharp blow with a willow switch,
turn half round in his saddle, and reply, with a quizzical smile, that
we were "not most there yet, but would be soon!"--an equivocal sort of
consolation which did not inspire us with much enthusiasm. At last,
when it had already begun to grow dark, we saw a high column of white
steam in the distance, which rose, Dodd and Viushin said, from the hot
springs of Malqua; and in fifteen minutes we rode, tired, wet, and
hungry, into the settlement. Supper was a secondary consideration with
me _that_ night. All I wanted was to crawl under a table where no one
would step on me, and be let alone. I had never before felt such a
vivid consciousness of my muscular and osseous system. Every separate
bone and tendon in my body asserted its individual existence by a
distinct and independent ache, and my back in twenty minutes was as
inflexible as an iron ramrod. I felt a melancholy conviction that I
never should measure five feet ten inches again, unless I could lie on
some Procrustean bed and have my back stretched out to its original
longitude. Repeated perpendicular concussions had, I confidently
believed, telescoped my spinal vertebrae into each other, so that
nothing short of a surgical operation would ever restore them to their
original positions. Revolving in my mind such mournful considerations,
I fell asleep under a table, without even pulling off my boots.
[Illustration: Cap of brown and white fur]