AN ARCTIC AURORA--ORDERS FROM THE MAJOR--ADVENTURES OF MACRAE AND
ARNOLD WITH THE CHUKCHIS--RETURN TO GIZHIGA--REVIEW OF WINTER'S WORK
Among the few pleasures which reward the traveller for the hardships
and dangers of life in the Far North, there are none which are
brighter or longer remembered than the magnificent auroral displays
which occasionally illumine the darkness of the long polar night, and
light up with a celestial glory the whole blue vault of heaven. No
other natural phenomenon is so grand, so mysterious, so terrible in
its unearthly splendour as this. The veil which conceals from mortal
eyes the glory of the eternal throne seems drawn aside, and the awed
beholder is lifted out of the atmosphere of his daily life into the
immediate presence of God.
On the 20th of February, while we were all yet living together at
Anadyrsk, there occurred one of the grandest displays of the arctic
aurora which had been observed there for more than fifty years, and
which exhibited such unusual and extraordinary brilliancy as to
astonish and frighten even the natives. It was a cold, dark, but clear
winter's night, and the sky in the earlier part of the evening showed
no signs of the magnificent illumination which was already being
prepared. A few streamers wavered now and then in the north, and a
faint radiance like that of the rising moon shone above the dark
belt of shrubbery which bordered the river; but these were common
occurrences, and excited no notice or remark. Late in the evening,
just as we were preparing to go to bed, Dodd happened to go outside
for a moment to look after his dogs; but no sooner had he reached the
outer door of the entry than he came rushing back, his face ablaze
with excitement, shouting: "Kennan! Robinson! Come out, quick!" With
a vague impression that the village must be on fire, I sprang up, and
without stopping to put on my furs, fan hastily out, followed closely
by Robinson, Harder, and Smith. As we emerged into the open air there
burst suddenly upon our startled eyes the grandest exhibition of vivid
dazzling light and colour of which the mind can conceive. The whole
universe seemed to be on fire. A broad arch of brilliant prismatic
colours spanned the heavens from east to west like a gigantic rainbow,
with a long fringe of crimson and yellow streamers stretching up
from its convex edge to the very zenith. At intervals of one or two
seconds, wide, luminous bands, parallel with the arch, rose suddenly
out of the northern horizon and swept with a swift, steady majesty
across the whole heavens, like long breakers of phosphorescent light
rolling in from some limitless ocean of space.
Every portion of the vast arch was momentarily wavering, trembling,
and changing colour, and the brilliant streamers which fringed its
edge swept back and forth in great curves, like the fiery sword of the
angel at the gate of Eden. In a moment the great auroral rainbow, with
all its wavering streamers, began to move slowly up toward the zenith,
and a second arch of equal brilliancy formed directly under it,
shooting up a long serried row of slender, coloured lances toward the
North Star, like a battalion of the celestial host presenting arms to
its commanding angel. Every instant the display increased in unearthly
grandeur. The luminous bands revolved swiftly, like the spokes of a
great wheel of light, across the heavens; the streamers hurried back
and forth with swift, tremulous motion from the ends of the arches to
the centre; and now and then a great wave of crimson would surge up
from the north and fairly deluge the whole sky with colour, tingeing
the white snowy earth far and wide with its rosy reflection. But as
the words of the prophecy, "And the heavens shall be turned to blood,"
formed themselves upon my lips, the crimson suddenly vanished, and
a lightning flash of vivid orange startled us with its wide,
all-pervading glare, which extended even to the southern horizon, as
if the whole volume of the atmosphere had suddenly taken fire. I even
held my breath a moment, as I listened for the tremendous crash of
thunder which it seemed to me must follow this sudden burst of vivid
light; but in heaven or earth there was not a sound to break the
stillness of midnight save the hastily muttered prayers of the
frightened native at my side, as he crossed himself and kneeled down
before the visible majesty of God. I could not imagine any possible
addition which even Almighty power could make to the grandeur of the
aurora as it now appeared. The rapid alternations of crimson, blue,
green, and yellow in the sky were reflected so vividly from the white
surface of the snow, that the whole world seemed now steeped in blood,
and then quivering in an atmosphere of pale, ghastly green, through
which shone the unspeakable glories of the two mighty crimson and
yellow arches. But the end was not yet. As we watched with upturned
faces the swift ebb and flow of these great celestial tides of
coloured light, the last seal of the glorious revelation was suddenly
broken, and both arches were simultaneously shivered into a thousand
parallel perpendicular bars, every one of which displayed in regular
order, from top to bottom, the primary colours of the solar spectrum.
From horizon to horizon there now stretched two vast curving bridges
of coloured bars, across which we almost expected to see, passing and
repassing, the bright inhabitants of another world. Amid cries of
astonishment and exclamations of "God have mercy!" from the startled
natives, these innumerable bars began to move back and forth, with a
swift dancing motion, along the whole extent of both arches, passing
one another from side to side with such bewildering rapidity that
the eye was lost in the attempt to follow them. The whole concave of
heaven seemed transformed into one great revolving kaleidoscope of
shattered rainbows. Never had I even dreamed of such an aurora as
_this_, and I am not ashamed to confess that its magnificence for a
moment overawed and almost frightened me. The whole sky, from zenith
to horizon, was "one molten mantling sea of colour and fire;--crimson
and purple, and scarlet and green, and colours for which there are no
words in language and no ideas in the mind--things which can only be
conceived while they are visible." The "signs and portents" in the
heavens were grand enough to herald the destruction of a world;
flashes of rich quivering colour, covering half the sky for an instant
and then vanishing like summer lightning; brilliant green streamers
shooting swiftly but silently up across the zenith; thousands of
variegated bars sweeping past one another in two magnificent arches,
and great luminous waves rolling in from the inter-planetary spaces
and breaking in long lines of radiant glory upon the shallow
atmosphere of a darkened world.
With the separation of the two arches into bars the aurora reached its
utmost magnificence, and from that time its supernatural beauty slowly
but steadily faded. The first arch broke up, and soon after it the
second; the flashes of colour appeared less and less frequently; the
luminous bands ceased to revolve across the zenith; and in an hour
nothing remained in the dark starry heavens to remind us of the
aurora, except a few faint Magellan clouds of luminous vapour.
The month of February wore slowly away, and March found us still
living in Anadyrsk, without any news from the Major, or from the
missing men, Arnold and Macrae. Fifty-seven days had now elapsed since
they left their camp on the lower Anadyr, and we began to fear that
they would never again be seen. Whether they had starved, or frozen
to death on some great desolate plain south of Bering Strait, or been
murdered by the Chukchis, we could not conjecture, but their long
absence was a proof that they had met with some misfortune.
I was not at all satisfied with the route over which we had passed
from Shestakóva to Anadyrsk, on account of its barrenness, and the
impossibility of transporting heavy telegraph poles over its great
snowy steppes from the few wooded rivers by which it was traversed. I
accordingly started from Anadyrsk with five dog-sledges on March 4th,
to try to find a better route between the Anadyr and the head-waters
of the Penzhina River. Three days after our departure we met, on the
road to Penzhina, a special messenger from Gizhiga, bringing a letter
from the Major dated Okhotsk, January 19th. Enclosed were letters from
Colonel Bulkley, announcing the landing of the Anadyr River party
under Lieutenant Macrae, and a map showing the location of their camp.
The Major wrote as follows: "In case--what God forbid--Macrae and
party have not arrived at Anadyrsk, you will immediately, upon the
receipt of this letter, do your utmost to deliver them from their
too long winter quarters at the mouth of the Anadyr, where they were
landed in September. I was told that Macrae would be landed _only in
case of perfect certainty_ to reach Anadyrsk in boats, and I confess I
don't like such surprises as Colonel Bulkley has made me now. For the
present our duty consists in doing our utmost to extricate them from
where they are, and you must get every dog-sledge you can, stuff them
with dog-food and provisions, and go at once in search of Macrae's
camp." These directions I had already anticipated and carried out, and
Macrae's party, or at least all I could find of it, was now living
in Anadyrsk. When the Major wrote this letter, however, he did not
suppose that Dodd and I would hear of the landing of the party through
the Wandering Chukchis, or that we would think of going in search of
them without orders. He knew that he had told us particularly not to
attempt to explore the Anadyr River until another season, and did not
expect that we would go beyond the last settlement. I wrote a hasty
note to Dodd upon the icy runner of my overturned sledge--freezing two
fingers in the operation--and sent the courier on to Anadyrsk with the
letters. The mail also included letters to me from Captain Scammon,
commander of the Company's fleet, and one from my friend W.H. Dall,
who had returned with the vessels to San Francisco, and had written me
while stopping a few days at Petropavlovsk. He begged me, by all the
sacred interests of Science, not to let a single bug or living thing
of any kind escape my vigilant eye; but, as I read his letter that
night by the camp-fire, I thought with a smile that snowy Siberian
steppes and temperatures of 30° and 40° below zero were not very
favourable to the growth and dispersion of bugs, nor to efforts for
their capture and preservation.
I will not go into a detailed account of the explorations which
Lieutenant Robinson and I made in search of a more practicable route
for our line between the Penzhina River and Anadyrsk. We found that
the river system of the Anadyrsk was divided from that of the Penzhina
only by a low mountain ridge, which could be easily passed, and that,
by following up certain tributaries of the latter, crossing the
watershed, and descending one of the branches of the Anadyr, we should
have almost unbroken water communication between the Okhotsk Sea and
Bering Strait. Along these rivers timber was generally abundant, and
where there was none, poles could be distributed easily in rafts. The
route thus indicated was everything which could be desired; and, much
gratified by the results of our labours, we returned on March 13th to
Anadyrsk.
We were overjoyed to learn from the first man who met us after we
entered the settlement that Macrae and Arnold had arrived, and in five
minutes we were shaking them by the hand, congratulating them, upon
their safe arrival, and overwhelming them with questions as to their
travels and adventures, and the reasons of their long absence.
For sixty-four days they had been living with the Wandering Chukchis,
and making their way slowly and by a circuitous route towards
Anadyrsk. They had generally been well treated, but the band with
which they travelled had been in no hurry to reach the settlement, and
had been carrying them at the rate of ten or twelve miles a day all
over the great desolate steppes which lie south of the Anadyr River.
They had experienced great hardships; had lived upon reindeer's
entrails and tallow for weeks at a time; had been alive almost
constantly with vermin; had spent the greater part of two long months
in smoky Chukchi _pologs_, and had despaired, sometimes, of ever
reaching a Russian settlement or seeing again a civilised human being;
but hope and courage had sustained them through it all, and they had
finally arrived at Anadyrsk safe and well. The sum-total of their
baggage when they drove into the settlement was a quart bottle
of whisky wrapped up in an American flag! As soon as we were all
together, we raised the flag on a pole over our little log house,
made a whisky punch out of the liquor which had traversed half
north-eastern Siberia, and drank it in honour of the men who had lived
sixty-four days with the Wandering Chukchis, and carried the stars and
stripes through the wildest, least known region on the face of the
globe.
Having now accomplished all that could be done in the way of
exploration, we began making preparations for a return to Gizhiga. The
Major had directed me to meet him there with Macrae, Arnold, Robinson,
and Dodd, as soon as the first of April, and the month of March was
now rapidly drawing to a close.
[Illustration: A CHUKCHI RUG OF REINDEER SKIN]
On the 20th we packed up our stores, and bidding good-bye to the
kind-hearted, hospitable people of Anadyrsk, we set out with a long
train of sledges for the coast of the Okhotsk Sea.
Our journey was monotonous and uneventful, and on the second of April,
late at night, we left behind us the white desolate steppe of the
Paren, and drew near the little flat-topped _yurt_ on the Malmofka,
which was only twenty-five versts from Gizhiga. Here we met fresh men,
dogs, and sledges, sent out to meet us by the Major, and, abandoning
our loaded sledges and tired dogs, we took seats upon the light
_narts_ of the Gizhiga Cossacks, and dashed away by the light of a
brilliant aurora toward the settlement.
About one o'clock we heard the distant barking of dogs, and in a few
moments we rushed furiously into the silent village, and stopped
before the house of the Russian merchant Vorrebeof (vor'-re-be-off')
where we had lived the previous fall, and where we expected to find
the Major. I sprang from my sledge, and groping my way through the
entry into a warm dark room I shouted "Fstavaitia!" to arouse the
sleeping inmates. Suddenly some one rose up from the floor at my feet,
and, grasping me by the arm, exclaimed in a strangely familiar voice,
"Kennan, is that you?" Startled and bewildered with half-incredulous
recognition, I could only reply, "Bush, is that you?" and, when a
sleepy boy came in with a light, he was astonished to find a man
dressed in heavy frosty furs embracing another who was clad only in a
linen shirt and drawers.
There was a joyful time in that log house when the Major, Bush,
Macrae, Arnold, Robinson, Dodd, and I gathered around a steaming
samovar or tea-urn which stood on a pine table in the centre of the
room, and discussed the adventures, haps, and mishaps of our first
arctic winter. Some of us had come from the extremity of Kamchatka,
some from the frontier of China, and some from Bering Strait, and we
all met that night in Gizhiga, and congratulated ourselves and one
another upon the successful exploration of the whole route of the
proposed Russian-American telegraph line from Anadyr Bay to the Amur
River. The different members of the party there assembled had, in
seven months, travelled in the aggregate almost ten thousand miles.
The results of our winter's work were briefly as follows: Bush and
Mahood, after leaving the Major and me at Petropavlovsk, had gone on
to the Russian settlement of Nikolaievsk, at the mouth of the Amur
River, and had entered promptly upon the exploration of the west coast
of the Okhotsk Sea. They had travelled with the Wandering Tunguses
through the densely timbered region between Nikolaievsk and Aian,
ridden on the backs of reindeer over the rugged mountains of the
Stanavoi range south of Okhotsk, and had finally met the Major at the
latter place on the 22d. of February. The Major, alone, had explored
the whole north coast of the Okhotsk Sea and had made a visit to the
Russian city of Yakutsk, six hundred versts west of Okhotsk, in quest
of labourers and horses. He had ascertained the possibility of hiring
a thousand Yakut labourers in the settlements along the Lena River, at
the rate of sixty dollars a year for each man, and of purchasing
there as many Siberian horses as we should require at very reasonable
prices. He had located a route for the line from Gizhiga to Okhotsk,
and had superintended generally the whole work of exploration. Macrae
and Arnold had explored nearly all the region lying south of the
Anadyr and along the lower Myan, and had gained much valuable
information concerning the little-known tribe of Wandering Chukchis.
Dodd, Robinson, and I had explored two routes from Gizhiga to
Anadyrsk, and had found a chain of wooded rivers connecting the
Okhotsk Sea with the Pacific Ocean near Bering Strait. The natives we
had everywhere found to be peaceable and well disposed, and many of
them along the route of the line were already engaged in cutting
poles. The country, although by no means favourable to the
construction of a telegraph line, presented no obstacles which energy
and perseverance could not overcome; and, as we reviewed our winter's
work, we felt satisfied that the enterprise in which we were engaged,
if not altogether an easy one, held out at least a fair prospect of
success.