A PLUNGE INTO CIVILISATION--THE NOBLES' BALL--SHOCKING LANGUAGE--
SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLISH--THE GREAT SIBERIAN ROAD--PASSING TEA
CARAVANS--RAPID TRAVEL--FIFTY-SEVEN HUNDRED MILES IN ELEVEN
WEEKS--ARRIVAL IN ST. PETERSBURG
At Irkutsk, we plunged suddenly from a semi-barbaric environment into
an environment of high civilisation and culture; and our attempts to
adjust ourselves to the new and unfamiliar conditions were attended,
at first, with not a little embarrassment and discomfort. As we were
among the first Americans who had been seen in that Far Eastern
capital, and were officers, moreover, of a company with which the
Russian Government itself had been in partnership, we were not only
treated with distinguished consideration, but were welcomed everywhere
with warm-hearted kindness and hospitality; and we found it necessary
at once to exchange calls with high officials; accept invitations to
dinner; share the box of the Governor-General's chief of staff at the
theatre, and go to the weekly ball of the "noble-born" in the hall
of the "Blagorodnaya Sobrania," (Assembly of Nobles). The first
difficulty that we encountered, of course, was the lack of suitable
clothing. After two and a half years of campaigning in an arctic
wilderness, we had no raiment left that was fit to wear in such a city
as Irkutsk, and--worse than that--we had little money with which to
purchase a new supply. The two hundred and fifty dollars with which
we left Okhotsk had gradually dribbled away in the defrayment of
necessary expenses along the road, and we had barely enough left to
pay for a week's stay at the hotel. In this emergency we fell back
upon our telegraph-company uniforms. They had been soaked in the Lena,
frozen into masses of ice, and stretched all out of shape in the
process of wringing and drying at Krestófskaya; but we got an Irkutsk
tailor to press them and polish up the tarnished gilt buttons, and
after spending most of the money we had left in the purchase of new
fur overcoats to replace the dirty, travel-worn _kukhlankas_ in which
we had arrived, we got ourselves up in presentable form to call on the
Governor-General.
The severest ordeal through which we had to pass, however, was the
dance at the hall of the Blagorodnaya Sobrania to which we were
escorted by General Kukel (koo'-kel), the Governor-General's chief of
staff. The spacious and brilliantly lighted apartment, draped with
flags and decorated with evergreens; the polished dancing-floor;
the crash and blare of the music furnished by a military band; the
beautiful women in rich evening toilettes; and the throng of handsome
young officers in showy and diversified uniforms, simply overwhelmed
us with feelings of mingled excitement and embarrassment. I felt,
myself, like a uniformed Eskimo at a Charity Ball, and should have
been glad to skulk in a corner behind the band! All I wanted was an
opportunity to watch, unobserved, the brilliant picture of colour and
motion, and to feel the thrill of the music as the band swept, with
wonderful dash, swing, and precision, through the measures of a
spirited Polish mazurka. General Kukel, however, had other views
for us, and not only took us about the hall, introducing us to more
beautiful women than we had seen, we thought, in the whole course of
our previous existence, but said to every lady, as he presented us:
"Mr. Kennan and Mr. Price, you know, speak Russian perfectly." Price,
with discretion beyond his years, promptly disclaimed the imputed
accomplishment; but I was rash enough to admit that I did have some
knowledge of the language in question, and was forthwith drawn into a
stream of rapid Russian talk by a young woman with sympathetic face
and sparkling eyes, who encouraged me to describe dog-sledge travel
in north-eastern Asia and the vicissitudes of tent life with the
Wandering Koraks. On this conversational ground I felt perfectly at
home; and I was succeeding, as I thought, admirably, when the girl
suddenly blushed, looked a trifle shocked, and then bit her lip in
a manifest effort to restrain a smile of amusement not warranted by
anything in the life that I was trying to describe. She was soon
afterward carried away by a young Cossack officer who asked her to
dance, and I was promptly engaged in conversation by another lady, who
also wanted "to hear an American talk Russian." My self-confidence had
been a little shaken by the blush and the amused smile of my previous
auditor, but I rallied my intellectual forces, took a firm grip of my
Russian vocabulary, and, as Price would say, "sailed in." But I soon
struck another snag. This young woman, too, began to show symptoms
of shock, which, in her case, took the form of amazement. I was
absolutely sure that there was nothing in the subject-matter of my
remarks to bring a blush to the cheek of innocence, or give a shock to
the virgin mind of feminine youth, and yet it was perfectly evident
that there was something wrong. As soon as I could make my escape,
I went to General Kukel and said: "Will you please tell me, Your
Excellency, what's the matter with my Russian?"
"What makes you think there's anything the matter with it?" he replied
evasively, but with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes.
"It doesn't seem to go very well," I said, "in conversation with
women. They appear to understand it all right, but it gives them a
shock. Is my pronunciation so horribly bad?"
"You speak Russian," he said, "with quite extraordinary fluency,
and with a-a-really interesting and engaging accent; but--excuse
me please--shall I be entirely frank? You see you have learned the
language, under many disadvantages, among the Koraks, Cossacks, and
Chukchis of Kamchatka and the Okhotsk Sea coast, and--quite innocently
and naturally of course--you have picked up a few words and
expressions that are not--well, not--"
"Not used in polite society," I suggested.
"Hardly so much as that," he replied deprecatingly. "They're a little
queer, that 's all--quaint--bizarre--but it's nothing! nothing at all!
All you need is a little study of good models--books, you know--and a
few months of city life."
"That settles it!" I said. "I talk no more Russian to ladies in
Irkutsk."
When, upon my arrival in St. Petersburg, I had an opportunity to study
the language in books, and to hear it spoken by educated people, I
found that the Russian I had picked up by Kamchatkan camp-fires and
in Cossack _izbas_ on the coast of the Okhotsk Sea resembled, in many
respects, the English that a Russian would acquire in a Colorado
mining camp, or among the cowboys in Montana. It was fluent, but, as
General Kukel said, "quaint--bizarre," and, at times, exceedingly
profane.
I was not the only person in Irkutsk, however, whose vocabulary was
peculiar and whose diction was "quaint" and "bizarre." A day or two
after the ball of the Blagorodnaya Sobrania we received a call from a
young Russian telegraph operator who had heard of our arrival and who
wished to pay his respects to us as brother telegraphers from America.
I greeted him cordially in Russian; but he began, at once, to speak
English, and said that he would prefer to speak that language, for
the sake of practice. His pronunciation, although queer, was fairly
intelligible, and I had little difficulty in understanding him; but
his talk had a strange, mediaeval flavour, due, apparently, to the use
of obsolete idioms and words. In the course of half an hour, I
became satisfied that he was talking the English of the fifteenth
century--the English of Shakespeare, Beaumont, and Fletcher--but how
he had learned such English, in the nineteenth century and in the
capital of eastern Siberia, I could not imagine. I finally asked him
how he had managed to get such command of the language in a city
where, so far as I knew, there was no English teacher. He replied that
the Russian Government required of its telegraph operators a knowledge
of Russian and French, and then added two hundred and fifty rubles
a year to their salaries for every additional language that they
learned. He wanted the two hundred and fifty rubles, so he began the
study of English with a small English-French dictionary and an old
copy of Shakespeare. He got some help in acquiring the pronunciation
from educated Polish exiles, and from foreigners whom he occasionally
met, but, in the main, he had learned the language alone, and by
committing to memory dialogues from Shakespeare's plays. I described
to him my recent experience with Russian, and told him that his method
was, unquestionably, better than mine. He had learned English from the
greatest master of the language that ever lived; while I had picked
up my Russian from Cossack dog-drivers and illiterate Kamchadals. He
could talk to young women in the eloquent and impassioned words of
Romeo, while my language was fit for backwoodsmen only.
At the end of our first week in Irkutsk, we were ready to resume our
journey; but we had no money with which to pay our hotel bill, still
less our travelling expenses. I had telegraphed to Major Abaza
repeatedly for funds, but had received no reply, and I was finally
compelled to go, in humiliation of spirit, to Governor General
Sheláshnikoff, and borrow five hundred rubles.
On the 13th of December, we were again posting furiously along the
Great Siberian Road, past caravans, of tea from Hankow; detachments
of Cossacks convoying gold from the placers of the Lena; parties of
hard-labour convicts on their way to the mines of the trans-Baikal;
and hundreds of sleighs loaded with the products or manufactures of
Russia, Siberia, and the Far East.
For the first thousand miles, our progress was retarded and our rest
greatly broken--particularly at night--by tea caravans. With the
establishment of the winter road, in November, hundreds of low,
one-horse sledges, loaded with hide-bound boxes of tea that had come
across the desert of Gobi from Peking, left Irkutsk, every day, for
Nizhni Novgorod. They moved in solid caravans, a quarter of a mile to
a mile in length, and in every such caravan there were from fifty to
two hundred sledges. As the tea-horses went at a slow, plodding
walk, their drivers were required, by law, to turn out for private
travellers and give the latter the road; but they seldom did anything
of the kind. There were only twelve or fifteen of them to a caravan
of a hundred sledges; and as they usually curled up on their loads at
night and went fast asleep, it was practically impossible to arouse
them and get the caravan out of the middle of the road. In order to
pass, therefore, we ourselves had to turn out and drive three quarters
of a mile, or possibly a mile, through the deep soft snow on one side
of the beaten track. This so exasperated our driver that he would
give every horse and every sleeping teamster in the whole caravan
a slashing cut with his long rawhide whip, shouting, in almost
untranslatable Russian, "Wake up!" (Whack.) "Get a move on you!"
(Whack.) "What are you doing in the middle of the road there?"
(Whack.) "Akh! You ungodly Tartar pagans!" (Whack.) "GO TO SLEEP IN
THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, WILL YOU?" (Whack, whack.) Meanwhile, the
strongly braced outrigger of our _pavoska_, on the caravan side, would
strike every one of the tea-sledges, as we passed, and the long series
of violent shocks, combined with the rolling and pitching of our
vehicle, as it wallowed through the deep snow, would be enough to
awaken a man from anything except the last sleep of death. Usually, we
were aroused by our driver's preliminary shouts when we first came in
sight of a caravan; but sometimes we were in such a stupor of sleep
that we did not awake until the outrigger collided with the first load
of tea and brought us suddenly to consciousness with a half-dazed
impression that we had been struck by lightning, or hit by a falling
tree. If we had had to undergo this experience only once or twice
in the course of the night, it would not have been so bad; but we
sometimes passed half a dozen caravans between sunset and dawn; threw
every one of them into disorder and confusion with outrigger and whip;
and left behind us a wake of Russian and Tartar profanity almost
fiery enough to be luminous in the dark. Shortly after leaving Tomsk,
however, we passed the vanguard of these tea caravans and saw them no
more.
The road in western Siberia was hard and smooth, and the horses were
so good that we made very rapid progress with comparatively little
discomfort. We stopped only twice a day for meals, and every night
found us 175 or 200 miles nearer our destination than we had been the
night before. We succeeded in getting across the Urals before the end
of the year, and on the 7th of January, after twenty-five days of
almost incessant night-and-day travel, we drew up before a hotel in
the city of Nizhni Novgorod, which, at that time, was the eastern
terminus of the Russian railway system. We sold our sleigh, fur bag,
pillows, tea-equipment, and the provisions we had left, for what
they would bring--a beggarly sum; took a train the same day for St.
Petersburg; and reached the Russian capital on the 9th of January,
eleven weeks from the Okhotsk Sea by way of Yakutsk, Irkutsk, Tomsk,
Tiumen, Ekaterineburg, and Nizhni Novgorod. In the eleven weeks we
had changed dogs, reindeer, or horses more than two hundred and sixty
times and had made a distance of five thousand seven hundred and
fourteen miles, nearly all of it in a single sleigh.
[Illustration: Wooden Cup]
INDEX
A
Abaza, Major S., appointed superintendent of Siberian division;
forms plan of operations;
starts northward from Petropavlovsk;
scares up a bear;
falls ill at Lesnoi;
leaves Gizhiga for Okhotsk;
orders from;
returns to Gizhiga;
makes trip to Anadyrsk;
sails for Okhotsk;
visits Yakutsk;
comes to Yamsk;
returns to Yakutsk;
starts for St. Petersburg;
letter from.
Agaricus muscarius, Korak intoxicant.
Air-hole, driving into
Aklán, river
Aldan, river
Amur, river
Anadyr, river;
work on.
Anadyr River party;
finding of;
experience of;
orders concerning.
Anadyrsk, village;
arrival at;
priest's house in;
history and description of;
climate of;
ball at;
character of inhabitants;
famine at.
Anadyrsk sickness
Animals, of Kamchatka
Anóssof, Russian commissioner
Arnold, member of Anadyr River party
Astronomical lectures
Atlantic cable, failure of first;
final success of.
Aurora borealis;
remarkable display of.
Aurora of the sea
Avacha, bay
Avacha, river
Avacha, village
Avacha, volcano
B
"Baideras," Korak skin boats
"Balagáns," fish storehouses
Ball, at Anadyrsk;
at Irkutsk.
"Ballalaikas," Siberian guitars
"Barabans," Korak drums
Baths, "black," Kamchatkan steam baths
Bear hunts
Bears
Bering, monument to, in Petropavlovsk
Berries
Bickmore, A.S., reference to Korak marriage ceremony
Birds
Bivouacs, Kamchatkan
Blueberries
Bollman, merchant in Petropavlovsk
Bordman, W.H.
Bowsher, member of Sandford's party
Bragan, Nicolai, guide
Bragans, Kamchatkan traders
British Columbia
British Government, concessions from
Bulkley, Colonel Charles S.
Bush, Richard J., becomes member of Siberian party;
sails for Amur River;
meeting with, at Gizhiga;
put in command of Northern District;
bad news from;
night meeting with;
experience in summer of 1866
Buttercups
C
Cable, Atlantic, failure of first;
final success of
Camp, a winter
Camps
Canoe travel
Canticle, a driver's
Christmas, in a storm;
in Anadyrsk
Christmas carols
Chuances
Chukchis
Church, Greek, architecture and color;
services
Cinquefoil
_Clara Bell_, bark
Climate
Clover
Cold, Asiatic pole of;
phenomena of;
on Myan River;
lowest temperature observed;
in Stanavoi mountains
Collins, P. McD., suggests overland telegraph to Europe
Congress, of U. S., promises assistance
Cossack waltz
Cossacks
Cows
Cowslips
Crimean war, connection of Petropavlovsk with
Crinoline, Korak comment on
Crows
D
Dall, W. H.
Dances, Siberian
Distance, Korak ideas of
Divide, Kamchatkan, crossing of
Dix, Major General, worshipped as a saint
Dodd, James, engaged as member of party in Petropavlovsk;
goes to Tigil;
left in Gizhiga
Dogs, ancestry:
endurance;
food;
sledges;
loads;
driving of;
first experiment in driving;
howling of, in chorus;
rest;
cutting of feet by ice
"Dole," arctic desert
Dranka, village
Dress;
of Kamchadals;
of Wandering Koraks;
of Zamutkis and Tunguses
Drunkenness, from poisonous toadstool
Ducks
E
Eagles
English, Shakespearian, in Irkutsk
Equipment, in San Francisco;
in Petropavlovsk;
in Lesnoi;
in Gizhiga;
in Anadyrsk;
in Yakutsk
Escape, narrowest
Eskimo-like natives
Ethnology, of Siberian natives
Evil spirits, propitiation of
Exploration, plans for
F
Famines
Fashion-plate, Korak comment on
Field glass, Chukchi experiments with
Fish-hawks
Fish savings banks
Flowers, in Gizhiga;
in Petropavlovsk;
in Kamchatka
Fluger, German merchant in Petropavlovsk
Fly agaric, as intoxicant
Food, of Kamchadals
Fort St. Michael
_Frank Leslie's_, fashion-plate from;
pictures from
Frazer River
Fritillaria;
bulbs eaten
Fronefield, American in Petropavlovsk
Frost, George A.
Fruits, of Kamchatka
Fur trade, of Kamchatka
G
Gale, in North Pacific
Geese
Genal, valley
Genal, village
Gilyaks
Gizhiga, village;
arrival at;
first days in;
departure from;
return to, from Anadyrsk;
spring in;
climate of;
dancing parties in
_Golden Gate_, bark, wreck of
Goldsmith, Oliver, reference to Korak intoxicant
Grouse "teteer"
Gulls
H
_Hallie Jackson_, brig
Hamilton, captain of whaling bark _Sea Breeze_
Harchina, village
Harder, member of Anadyr River party
_Harper's Weekly_, pictures from
Heck, member of Sandford's party
_Herald, N.Y._, correspondent of
Horseback travel
Horse-express, Siberian
Houses, Kamchadal
Hunter, American in Petropavlovsk
I
_Illustrated London News_, as wall paper
Imperator and operator
Indian type, of Siberian native
Intoxicant, Korak
Irkutsk, city
"Ispravnik," local governor of Petropavlovsk;
of Gizhiga;
of Okhotsk
J
Jelly-fish;
luminous
"Jerusalem," village
K
Kamchadals, character;
food;
language;
music;
numbers;
physique;
religion;
sable trapping;
summer settlements;
transportation
Kamchatka, animals;
berries;
birds;
climate;
first impressions;
first view of coast;
flowers;
fruits;
government;
mail;
population;
scenery;
topography;
transportation;
volcanoes
Kamchatka River;
raft, life on;
valley of
Kamchatkan Divide, crossing of
Kamchatkan lily
Kamchatkan mountains
Kamenoi
Kazarefski, village
"Kazarm," a Russian barrack
"Kedrovnik," see "Pine"
Kennicott, leader of Alaskan exploring party
Kirinsk, town on Lena River
Kluchei, village
Kluchefskoi volcano
Knox, Colonel T. W., correspondent of _N.Y. Herald_
Kolyma, mosquitoes in
Korak, village
Koraks, Settled, appearance;
experiments with American food;
in Kamenoi;
stupidity and ugliness;
yurts
Koraks, Wandering, arrival at first encampment;
appearance;
character;
comment on dress of American woman;
food;
geographical range;
intoxicant;
language;
marriage ceremony;
monotonous life;
old and sick killed;
pologs;
reindeer;
relation to Chukchis;
relieve starving Anadyrsk people;
religion;
social organisation;
superstitions;
tents
Koratskoi, volcano
Krestofskaya, village
Kristi, village
Kuil, village of Settled Koraks
Kukel, General
"Kukhlanka" fur overshirt
L
Labrador tea
Lamutkis
Land, longing for
Language, "American";
Russian difficulty of learning;
grammar of;
specimen;
experience with, in Irkutsk
La Perouse, monument to, in Petropavlovsk
Lecky, W.H., reference to religion of terror
Lectures, astronomical
Leet, American brought by bark _Onward_;
suicide of
Lesnoi, village
Letovies, summer settlements
Lewis, Richard, telegraph operator brought by bark _Onward_
Lily, Kamchatkan
"Lodkas," Siberian skiffs
M
Macrae, leader of Anadyr River party
Macrae and Arnold, go with Chukchis;
no news from;
arrive in Anadyrsk;
experience with Chukchis;
first winter's work
Magpies
Mahood, Captain James A.
Mahood and Bush
Maidel, Baron
Malchanski
Malqua, village
Manchus
"Manyalla," Korak bread
Marriage ceremonies, Russian
Korak
Matches, Koraks see for first time
Matuga, island
Maximof, Kamchatkan driver
Medusae;
luminous
Mikina, village
Milkova, village
Mirages
Mongolian type of natives
"Moroshkas," berries
Mosquitoes
Moss steppe
Mountains, Kamchatkan
"Muk-a-moor," Korak intoxicant
Music, American, in Kamchatka;
of Kamchadals;
of Greek Church;
on corvette _Varag_
Myan, river
N
Nalgim, mountain
"Nart," Siberian dog-sledge
_New York Herald_, correspondent of
Nights, in summer
Nikolaievsk, town
Nizhni Novgorod
Northern District, famine in;
work in
Norton, forearm of pole-cutting party
Norton, sound
O
"Oerstel," a spiked stick
Okhotsk Sea;
coast of;
temperatures of;
phosphorescence of
Okuta, village
_Olga_, brig, passage engaged on;
inspection of;
sails from San Francisco;
life on;
sails for Amur River
_Onward_, bark
Operator and imperator
P
_Palmetto_, bark
Paren, river
"Pavoskas," travelling sleighs or sledges
Penzhina, river
Penzhina, village
Penzhinsk Gulf
Petropavlovsk
Phillippeus, trip down the Anadyr;
boat of
Phosphorescence, of the sea
Pierce, American in Petropavlovsk
Pine, trailing or "Kedrovnik"
Plans, at Gizhiga
Plover
"Podorozhnaya," order for post-horses
"Pologs," skin bedrooms
Pope, leader of Alaskan party
Porte Crayon, sketches of, in Kamchatka
Post-road to Irkutsk
Povorotnoi, cape
Price, telegraph operator, brought by _Onward_
Primroses
"Pripaika," ice-foot
Propashchina, River of the Lost
"Protoks," arms of stream
Ptarmigan
Puffin
"Purgas," blizzards
Pushchin, village
R
Raft, Kamchatkan
Raft travel
Raselskoi, volcano
Ravens
Reception, Kamchatkan
Reindeer
catching;
driving;
food;
guarding;
habits;
of Koraks;
of Tunguses;
stampede;
superstition
about sale of;
uses
Reindeer Koraks, see "Koraks,
Wandering"
Reindeer-sledge travel
Religion, of Kamchadals;
of Wandering Koraks
Reveries, seasick
River of the Lost
Roads
Robinson, member of Anadyr
River party
Roses, wild
Route of line
Routes from Kluchei
Russell and Co.
Russian-American Telegraph Co.
organisation of
failure of
Russian Government
Russian language
S
Sables, trapping;
trade in skins
_Saghalin_, Russian supply steamer
St. Petersburg
Sale, a bargain
Salmon, catching and curing;
failure of;
frozen;
dependence of Siberians upon
Samanka Mountains
Samanka River
Sandford, Lieut., foreman of
pole-cutting party
"Sastrugi," permanent drifts
of snow
Scammon, Captain, commander
of Company's fleet
Scenery of Kamchatka
Scenery, Siberian, in winter
Schwartz
_Sea Breeze_, whaling bark
Sea life
"Selánka," Kamchatkan soup
Send-off, a Siberian
Shamanism
"Shchi," cabbage soup
Sheláshnikoff, Governor-General
Sherom, village
Shestakóva, village
Sidanka, village
Smith, member of Anadyr River
party
Sparrow song
Spring, in Gizhiga
Squirrel skins
Stanavoi Mountains
Star-flower
"Starosta," head man of village
Steeplechase, to Sidanka
Stock, of Western Union Extension
Co.
Storm in Northern Pacific;
on the Viliga River;
on the Málkachán steppe;
in Gizhiginsk Gulf
Stovepipe, search for;
finding of
"Struganini," frozen fish
Sugar, used instead of money
Sulkavoi, captain of port of Petropavlovsk
Sutton, captain of bark _Clara Bell_
Suveilich, volcano
Swallows
Swans
Sword-bearer
T
"Taiyon," Korak chief
"Tarantas," Siberian travelling carriage
Tea, used instead of money
"Tea caravans,"
Telega, four-wheeled Siberian wagon
Tents, of Koraks, life in
"Teteer," Russian grouse
Thrushes
Tide, a race with
Tigil, village
Time, expedients to pass away
Tobacco, used instead of money
Tobézin, captain of steamer, _Saghalin_
Topolofka, river
"Topor," Russian axe
"Torbasses," fur boots
Trances, in Anadyrsk sickness
Trailing-pine. See "Pine"
Transportation, means of, in Kamchatka
Tundras, mossy plains
Tunguses;
encampments
Turkish type of natives
U
Ural Mountains
Usinova, brook
V
Valerian
_Varag_, Russian corvette
Verkholénsk, town on Lena River
Victoria
Viliga, stormy gorge of;
mountains
Villages, Kamchatkan, descriptions
Villuchinski, volcano
Vitimsk, town on Lena River
Volcanoes of Kamchatka
Vorrebeoffs, Kamchatkan traders,
W
Wages, paid Yakut laborers
Wedding, in Petropavlovsk;
in Korak tent
Western Union Extension Co.
Western Union Telegraph Co.
Wheeler, sent to Yamsk
Whymper, book of
Wild-rose petals, as food
Women, American, Korak comment on dress of
Work accomplished up to March 1886
Writing, Korak and Chukchi, ignorance of
Y
Yakuts
Yakutsk;
winter temperatures
Yamsk, village;
trip to, in March
"Yassak," a tax on furs
Yolofka, pass
Yolofka, river, canoe travel on
Yolofka, village
"Yukola," dried fish
"Yurts," Asiatic habitations;
of settled Koraks,
Z
"Zimovie," winter settlement
Zinovief, Gregorie, Cossack guide