NEWS FROM THE ANADYR PARTY--PLAN FOR ITS RELIEF--THE STORY OF A
STOVE-PIPE--START FOR THE SEACOAST
Immediately after our arrival at Anadyrsk we I had made inquiries as
to the party of Americans who were said to be living somewhere near
the mouth of the Anadyr River; but we were not able to get any
information in addition to that we already possessed. Wandering
Chukchis had brought the news to the settlement that a small band of
white men had been landed on the coast south of Bering Strait late in
the fall, from a "fire-ship" or steamer; that they had dug a sort of
cellar in the ground, covered it over with bushes and boards, and gone
into winter quarters. Who they were, what they had come for, and how
long they intended to stay, were questions which now agitated the
whole Chukchi nation, but which no one could answer. Their little
subterranean hut had been entirely buried, the natives said, by the
drifting snows of winter, and nothing but a curious iron tube out of
which came smoke and sparks showed where the white men lived. This
curious iron tube which so puzzled the Chukchis we at once supposed to
be a stove-pipe, and it furnished the strongest possible confirmation
of the truth of the story. No Siberian native could ever have invented
the idea of a stove-pipe--somebody must have seen one; and this fact
alone convinced us beyond a doubt that there were Americans living
somewhere on the coast of Bering Sea--probably an exploring party
landed by Colonel Bulkley to cooperate with us.
The instructions which the Major gave me when we left Gizhiga did not
provide for any such contingency as the landing of this party near
Bering Strait, because at that time we had abandoned all hope of such
cooperation and expected to explore the country by our own unaided
exertions. The engineer-in-chief had promised faithfully, when we
sailed from San Francisco, that, if he should leave a party of men at
the mouth of the Anadyr River at all, he would leave them there early
in the season with a large whale-boat, so that they could ascend the
river to a settlement before the opening of winter. When we met the
Anadyrsk people, therefore, at Gizhiga, late in November, and learned
that nothing had been heard of any such party, we of course concluded
that for some reason the plan which Colonel Bulkley proposed had been
given up. No one dreamed that he would leave a mere handful of men
in the desolate region south of Bering Strait at the beginning of an
arctic winter, without any means whatever of transportation, without
any shelter, surrounded by fierce tribes of lawless natives, and
distant more than two hundred miles from the nearest civilised human
being. What was such an unfortunate party to do? They could only live
there in inactivity until they starved, were murdered, or were brought
away by an expedition sent to their rescue from the interior. Such was
the situation when Dodd and I arrived at Anadyrsk. Our orders were to
leave the Anadyr River unexplored until another season; but we knew
that as soon as the Major should receive the letters which had passed
through our hands at Shestakóva he would learn that a party had been
landed south of Bering Strait, and would send us orders by special
courier to go in search of it and bring it to Anadyrsk, where it would
be of some use. We therefore determined to anticipate these orders and
hunt up that American stove-pipe upon our own responsibility.
Our situation, however, was a very peculiar one. We had no means of
finding out where we were ourselves, or where the American party was.
We had not been furnished with instruments for making astronomical
observations, could not determine with any kind of accuracy our
latitude and longitude, and did not know whether we were two hundred
miles from the Pacific coast or five hundred. According to the report
of Lieutenant Phillippeus, who had partially explored the Anadyr
River, it was about a thousand versts from the settlement to Anadyr
Bay, while according to the dead reckoning which we had kept from
Gizhiga it could not be over four hundred. The real distance was to us
a question of vital importance, because we should be obliged to carry
dog-food for the whole trip, and if it was anything like a thousand
versts we should in all probability lose our dogs by starvation before
we could possibly get back. Besides this, when we finally reached
Anadyr Bay, if we ever did, we should have no means of finding out
where the Americans were; and unless we happened to meet a band of
Chukchis who had seen them, we might wander over those desolate plains
for a month without coming across the stove-pipe, which was the only
external sign of their subterranean habitation. It would be far worse
than the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack.
When we made known to the people of Anadyrsk our intention of going to
the Pacific coast, and called for volunteers to make up a party,
we met with the most discouraging opposition. The natives declared
unanimously that such a journey was impossible, that it had never been
accomplished, that the lower Anadyr was swept by terrible storms and
perfectly destitute of wood, that the cold there was always intense,
and that we should inevitably starve to death, freeze to death,
or lose all our dogs. They quoted the experience of Lieutenant
Phillippeus, who had narrowly escaped starvation in the same region in
1860, and said that while he started in the spring we proposed to
go in midwinter, when the cold was most intense and the storms most
severe. Such an adventure they declared was almost certain to end in
disaster. Our Cossack Gregorie, a brave and trustworthy old man, had
been Lieutenant Phillippeus's guide and Chukchi interpreter in 1860,
had been down the river about a hundred and fifty miles in winter,
and knew something about it. We accordingly dismissed the natives and
talked the matter over with him. He said that as far as he had ever
gone towards Anadyr Bay there was trailing-pine enough along the banks
of the river to supply us with firewood, and that the country was no
worse than much of that over which we had already travelled between
Gizhiga and Anadyrsk. He said that he was entirely willing to
undertake the trip, and would go with his own team of dogs wherever we
would lead the way. The priest also, who had been down the river in
summer, believed the journey to be practicable, and said he would
go himself if he could do any good. Upon the strength of this
encouragement we gave the natives our final decision, showed them
the letter which we brought from the Russian governor at Gizhiga
authorising us to demand men and sledges for all kinds of service, and
told them that if they still refused to go we would send a special
messenger to Gizhiga and report their disobedience. This threat
and the example of our Cossack Gregorie, who was known to be an
experienced guide from the Okhotsk Sea to the Arctic Ocean, finally
had the desired effect. Eleven men agreed to go, and we began at once
to collect dog-food and provisions for an early start. We had as yet
only the vaguest, most indefinite information with regard to the
situation of the American party, and we determined to wait a few days
until a Cossack named Kozhevin (ko-zhay'-vin), who had gone to visit a
band of Wandering Chukchis, should return. The priest was sure that
he would bring later and more trustworthy intelligence, because the
wandering natives throughout the whole country knew of the arrival
of the mysterious white men, and would probably tell Kozhevin
approximately where they were. In the meantime we made some additions
to our heavy suits of furs, prepared masks of squirrelskin to be worn
over the face in extremely low temperatures, and set all the women in
the village at work upon a large fur tent.
On Saturday, Jan. 20th, N.S., Kozhevin returned from his visit to the
Chukchis north of Anadyrsk, bringing as we expected later and fuller
particulars with regard to the party of exiled Americans south
of Bering Strait. It consisted, according to the best Chukchi
intelligence, of only five men, and was located on or near the Anadyr
River, about one day's journey above its mouth. These five men were
living, as we had previously been told, in a little subterranean
house rudely constructed of bushes and boards, and entirely buried in
drifted snow. They were said to be well supplied with provisions,
and had a great many barrels, which the Chukchis supposed to contain
vodka, but which we presumed to be barrels of salt-beef. They made a
fire, the natives said, in the most wonderful manner by burning "black
stones in an iron box," while all the smoke came out mysteriously
through a crooked iron tube which turned around when the wind blew!
In this vivid but comical description we of course recognised a coal
stove and a pipe with a rotary funnel. They had also, Kozhevin was
told, an enormous tame black bear, which they allowed to run loose
around the house, and which chased away the Chukchis in a most
energetic manner. When I heard this I could no longer restrain a
hurrah of exultation. The party was made up of our old San Francisco
comrades, and the tame black bear was Robinson's Newfoundland dog! I
had petted him a hundred times in America and had his picture among my
photographs. He was the dog of the expedition. There could no longer
be any doubt whatever that the party thus living under the snow on the
great steppes south of Bering Strait was the long talked of Anadyr
River exploring party, under the command of Lieutenant Macrae; and our
hearts beat fast with excitement as we thought of the surprise which
we should give our old friends and comrades by coming upon them
suddenly in that desolate, Godforsaken region, almost two thousand
miles away from the point where they supposed we had landed. Such a
meeting would repay us tenfold for all the hardships of our Siberian
life.
Everything, by this time, was ready for a start. Our sledges were
loaded five feet high with provisions and dog-food for thirty days;
our fur tent was completed and packed away, to be used if necessary
in intensely cold weather; bags, overstockings, masks, thick
sleeping-coats, snow-shovels, axes, rifles, and long Siberian
snow-shoes were distributed around among the different sledges, and
everything which Gregorie, Dodd, and I could think of was done to
insure the success of the expedition.
On Monday morning, Jan. 22d, the whole party assembled in front of
the priest's house. For the sake of economising transportation, and
sharing the fortunes of our men, whatever they might be, Dodd and I
abandoned our _pavoskas_, and drove our own loaded sledges. We did not
mean to have the natives say that we compelled them to go and then
avoided our share of work and hardships. The entire population of the
village, men, women, and children, turned out to see us off, and
the street before the priest's house was blocked up with a crowd
of dark-faced men in spotted fur coats, scarlet sashes, and
fierce-looking foxskin hoods, anxious-faced women running to and fro
and bidding their husbands and brothers good-bye, eleven long, narrow
sledges piled high with dried fish and covered with yellow buckskin
and lashings of sealskin thongs, and finally a hundred and twenty-five
shaggy wolfish dogs, who drowned every other sound with their combined
howls of fierce impatience.
Our drivers went into the priest's house, and crossed themselves and
prayed before the picture of the Saviour, as is their custom
when starting on a long journey; Dodd and I bade good-bye to the
kind-hearted priest, and received the cordial "s' Bokhem" (go with
God), which is the Russian farewell; and then springing upon our
sledges, and releasing our frantic dogs, we went flying out of the
village in a cloud of snow which glittered like powdered jewel-dust in
the red sunshine.
Beyond the two or three hundred miles of snowy desert which lay before
us we could see, in imagination, a shadowy stove-pipe rising out of a
bank of snow--the "San greal" of which we, as arctic knights-errant,
were in search.
[Illustration: Ceremonial Masks of Wood]