St. Petersburg on the 3rd of December, and immediately set to work to
obtain the necessary authorization for his proposed journey, which he
defined as a tour to India _viâ_ Khiva, Merv, and Kabul; in other words,
across Central Asia and Afghanistan. All that he _did_ obtain was a
communication to the effect that the commandants in Russian Asia had
received orders to assist him in travelling through the territory under
their command, but that the Imperial Government could not acquiesce in
his extending his journey beyond its boundaries, as it could not answer
for the security or the lives of travellers except within the Emperor’s
dominions—a self-evident fact. The reply was evidently intended to
discourage Major Burnaby; but Major Burnaby was not to be discouraged.
It is not in the English character to be daunted by a consideration of
prospective or possible dangers; certainly, it is not in the character of
English officers. So the adventurous guardsman started by railway for
Orenburg, the great centre and depôt of Central Asiatic traffic. At
Riajsk he obtained a vivid illustration of the heterogeneous character of
the Russian empire, the waiting-room being crowded with representatives
of different nationalities. Here stalked a Tartar merchant in a long
parti-coloured gown, a pair of high boots, and a small yellow fez. There
a fur trader, in a greasy-looking black coat, clutched his small leather
bag of coin. Here an old Bokharan, in flowing robes, was lulled by opium
into a temporary forgetfulness of his troubles. There Russian peasants
moved to and fro, with well-knit frames, clad in untanned leather, which
was bound about their loins by narrow leather belts, studded with buttons
of brass and silver. Europe and Asia met together in the waiting-room at
Riajsk station.
The railway went no further than Sizeran, where Major Burnaby and a
Russian gentleman hired a troika, or three-horse sleigh, to take them to
Samara. The distance was about eighty-five miles; but as the thermometer
marked 20° below zero (R.), the travellers found it necessary to make
formidable preparations. First they donned three pairs of the thickest
stockings, drawn up high above the knee; next, over these, a pair of
fur-lined low shoes, which in their turn were inserted into leather
goloshes; and, finally, over all, a pair of enormously thick boots.
Allow for extra thick drawers and a pair of massive trousers; and add a
heavy flannel under-shirt, a shirt covered by a thick wadded waistcoat
and coat, and an external wrap in the form of a large shuba, or fur
pelisse, reaching to the heels; and you may suppose that the protection
against the cold was tolerably complete. The head was guarded with a fur
cap and vashlik, _i.e._ a kind of conical cloth headpiece made to cover
the cap, and having two long ends tied round the throat. Thus accoutred,
the travellers took their places in the troika, which, drawn by three
horses harnessed abreast, and with jingling bell, rapidly descended the
hill, and dashed on to the frozen surface of the river Volga. Along the
solid highway furnished by the ice-bound stream, past frozen-in shipping
and sledges loaded with various kinds of wares, sped the troika;
sometimes, in its turn, outstripped by other troikas,—drivers and
passengers all alike white with glittering hoar-frost, until they seemed
a company of grey-beards. The solid river flashed like a burnished
cuirass in the rays of the morning. Here the scene was varied by a group
of strangely patterned blocks and pillars; there a fountain gracefully
shooting upwards with shapely Ionic and Doric columns, reflected a myriad
prismatic hues from its diamond-like stalactites. Here a broken Gothic
arch overhung the shining highway; there an Egyptian obelisk lay half
buried beneath the snow. Such were the fantastic shapes into which the
strong wind had moulded the ice as it was rapidly formed.
Regaining the main road, Major Burnaby and his companion sped on towards
Samara. Their first halting-place was a farmhouse, called Nijny Pegersky
Hootor, twenty-five versts from Sizeran, where some men were winnowing
corn after a fashion of antediluvian simplicity. Throwing the corn high
up into the air with a shovel, they allowed the wind to blow away the
husks, and the grain fell upon a carpet laid out to catch it. As for the
farmhouse, it was a square wooden building, containing two low but
spacious rooms. A large stove of dried clay was so placed as to warm
both apartments; and above it, a platform of boards, not more than three
feet from the ceiling, supplied the family with sleeping accommodation.
On the outside of the building a heavy wooden door opened into a small
portico, at one end of which stood the obraz, or image—as usual an
appendage to a Russian house, as were the Lares and Penates, or household
gods, to a Roman house. The obrazye are made of different patterns, but
usually represent a saint or the Trinity; they are executed in
silver-gilt on brass relief, and adorned with all kinds of gewgaws.
A fresh team having been obtained, the travellers resumed their journey;
but the cold had increased, the wind blew more furiously, and their
suffering was severe. In thick flakes fell the constant snow, and the
driver had much ado to keep the track, while the half-fed horses
floundered along heavily, and frequently sank up to the traces in the
gathering drift. The cracks of the whip resounded from their jaded
flanks like pistol-shots. With sarcastic apostrophes the driver
endeavoured to stimulate their progress:—
“Oh, sons of animals!” (whack!)
“Oh, spoiled one!” (whack!) This to a poor, attenuated brute.
“Oh, woolly ones!” (whack, whack, whack!) Here all were upset into a
snow-drift, the sleigh being three-parts overturned, and the driver flung
in an opposite direction.
The sleigh was righted; the travellers once more took their seats; and on
through the darkening day they drove, until they came to a long
straggling village, where the horses stopped before a detached cottage.
Benumbed with the bitter cold, Major Burnaby and his companion dashed
inside, and made haste, in front of a blazing stove, to restore the
suspended circulation. Then, while the women of the house made tea in a
samovar, or urn, they unfroze in the stove some cutlets and bread which
they had carried with them, and proceeded to enjoy a hearty repast. In
one hour’s time they were ready to start; but their driver demurred. The
snowstorm was heavy; wolves prowled along the track; the river ice might
give way. It was better to wait until the morning, when, with beautiful
horses, they might go like birds to the next station. The two travellers
could do nothing with him, and were compelled to resign themselves to
pass the night on the hard boards, in an atmosphere infested by many
unpleasant smells. A good hour before sunrise all were again in motion.
The Major and his companion abandoned their heavy troika, and engaged two
small sleighs with a pair of horses to each, one for themselves and one
to carry their luggage.
It was a glorious winter morning, and the sun came forth like a
bridegroom to run his course, invested with indescribable pomp of colour.
First, over the whole of the eastern horizon extended a pale blue streak,
which seemed, like a wall, to shut off the vast Beyond. Suddenly its
summit changed into rare lapis-lazuli, while its base became a sheet of
purple. From the darker lines shot wondrous waves of grey and crystal;
and in time the purple foundations upheaved into glowing seas of fire.
The wall broke up into castles, battlements, and towers—all with magical
gleams, which gradually floated far away, while the seas of flame,
lighting up the whole horizon, burst through their borders and swelled
into a mighty ocean. The sight was one on which the eye of man could
scarcely gaze. The sunny expanse of the winter-bound earth reflected as
in a mirror the celestial panorama. Shafts of light seemed to dart in
rapid succession from earth to sky, until at last the vast luminous orb
of day rose from the depth of the many-coloured radiance, and with its
surpassing glory put everything else to shame.
The travellers reached Samara—a well-built prosperous town, situated on a
tributary of the Volga. There Major Burnaby parted from his companion,
whose road thenceforward lay in a different direction, and proceeded to
make his preparations for a drive across the steppes to Orenburg.
He started next morning, in a sleigh which he had purchased, and had
caused to be well repaired, and took the road towards Orenburg. The
country was flat and uninteresting; buried beneath a white shroud of
sand, with a few trees scattered here and there, and at intervals a
dreary-looking hut or two. The first post-station, for changing horses,
was Smeveshlaevskaya, twenty versts (a verst is two-thirds of an English
mile); the next, Bodrovsky, where Burnaby arrived a little after sunset.
After drinking a few glasses of tea to fortify himself against the
increasing cold (25° below zero, R.), he pushed forward in the hope of
reaching Malomalisky, about twenty-six and a half versts, about nine p.m.
But plunging into the heart of a terrible snowstorm, he and his driver
were so blinded and beaten, and the horses so jaded by the swiftly
forming snow-drifts, that he was compelled to give the order to return,
and to pass the night at Bodrovsky.
At daybreak the resolute guardsman was on his way. In the course of the
day he fell in with General Kryjonovsky, the governor of the Orenburg
district, who was bound for St. Petersburg; and a brief conversation with
him showed that the authorities, as he had suspected, by no means
approved of his expedition to Khiva. At one of the stations, the man
assigned to him as driver had been married only the day before, and
undertook his duties with obvious reluctance. His sole desire was to
return as quickly as possible to his bride, and with this intent he
lashed his horses until they kicked and jumped in the most furious
contortions. The Major was thrown in the air, and caught again by the
rebound; upset, righted, and upset again; gun, saddle-bags,
cartridge-cases, and traveller, all simultaneously flying in the air.
After a third of these rough experiences, the Major resolved to try the
effect of a sharp application of his boot.
“Why do you do that?” said the driver, pulling up his horse. “You hurt,
you break my ribs.”
“I only do to you what you do to me,” replied the Major. “You hurt, you
break my ribs, and injure my property besides.”
“Oh, sir of noble birth,” ejaculated the fellow, “it is not my fault. It
is thine, oh moody one!” to his offside horse, accompanied by a crack
from his whip. “It is thine, oh spoilt and cherished one!” to his other
meagre and half-starved quadruped (whack!) “Oh, petted and caressed sons
of animals” (whack, whack, whack!), “I will teach you to upset the
gentleman.”
* * * * *
At length, after a journey of four hundred versts, Orenburg was reached.
At this frontier town, situated almost on the verge of civilization, our
traveller was compelled to make a short sojourn. He had letters of
introduction to present, which procured him some useful friends; a
servant to engage, provisions to purchase, information to collect about
the route to Khiva, and his English gold and notes to convert into
Russian coin. Through the good offices of a Moslem gentleman, he was
able to engage a Tartar, named Nazar—not five feet high—as a servant; and
after some delay he obtained from the military chief a podorojoraya, or
passport, as far as Kasala, or Fort No. 1. This pass ran as follows: “By
the order of His Majesty the Emperor Alexander, the son of Nicolas,
Autocrat of the whole of Russia, etc., etc. From the town of Orsk to the
town of Kasala, to the Captain of the English service, Frederick, the son
of Gustavus Burnaby, to give three horses, with a driver, for the legal
fare, without delay. Given in the town of Orenburg, 15th December,
1875.”
The next day, Frederick, “the son of Gustavus Burnaby,” with his Tartar
servant, took their departure from Orenburg, and in a few minutes were
trotting along the frozen surface of the river Ural. Every now and then
they fell in with a caravan of rough, shaggy, undersized camels, drawing
sleighs laden with cotton from Tashkent; or a Cossack galloped by,
brandishing his long spear; or a ruddy-faced Kirghiz slowly caracolled
over the shining snow. Three stations were passed in safety, and Burnaby
resolved on halting at the fourth, Krasnojorsk, for refreshment. But as
the afternoon closed in, the Tartar driver began to lash his weary jades
impatiently; as an excuse for his vehemence, pointing to the clouds that
were rising before them, and the signs of a gathering snowstorm. Soon
the air was filled with flakes; the darkness rapidly increased; the
driver lost his way, and, at length, the team came to a standstill,
breast deep in a snow-drift. What was to be done? It was equally
impossible to go forward or to return; there was no wood in the
neighbourhood with which to kindle a fire, no shovel with which to make a
snow house; nothing could the belated wayfarer do but endure the bitter
cold and the silent darkness, and wait for morning. Burnaby suffered
much from the exposure, but the great difficulty was to prevent himself
from yielding to the fatal lethargy which extreme cold induces—from
falling into that sleep which turns inevitably into death. How he
rejoiced when the day broke, and he was able to despatch the driver on
one of the horses for assistance; and how he rejoiced when the man
returned with three post horses and some peasants, and the road was
regained, and the journey resumed, and the station reached at last!
There they rested and refreshed themselves, before, with invigorated
spirits, they dashed once again into the snow-bound depths of the
steppes.
After a while the aspect of the country grew more cheery. The low chain
of mountains to the north-east was sometimes abruptly broken, and a
prominent peak thrust its summit into the interval. Through the fleecy
snow various coloured grasses were visible. Olive-tinted branches, and
dark forests of fir and pine, contrasted strongly with the whitely
shining expanse that spread as far as the eye could see. Spider-like
webs of frozen dew hung from the branches. The thin icicles glistened
like prisms with all the colours of the rainbow. Thus, through a
succession of fairy landscapes, such as the dwellers in Western lands can
form but a faint idea of, the travellers dashed onward to Orsk.
Then the face of the country underwent another change. They were fairly
in the region of the steppes—those wide and level plains which, during
the brief summer, bloom with luxuriant vegetation, and are alive with the
flocks and herds of the nomads, but in the long drear winter, from north
to south and east to west, are buried deep beneath frozen snow. Wherever
you direct your gaze it rests upon snow, snow, still snow; shining with a
painful glare in the mid-day sun; fading into a dull, grey, melancholy
ocean as noon lapses into twilight. “A picture of desolation which
wearies by its utter loneliness, and at the same time appals by its
immensity; a circle of which the centre is everywhere, and the
circumference nowhere.” Travel, in this world-beyond-the-world, in this
solitude which Frost and Winter make all their own, tests the courage and
endurance of a man, for it makes no appeal to the imagination or the
fancy, it charms the eye with no pleasant pictures, suggests no
associations to the mind. But it has its dangers, as Major Burnaby
experienced. He had left the station of Karabootak (three hundred and
seventeen miles from Orsk), and as the road was comparatively smooth, and
the wind had subsided, he leaned back in his sleigh and fell asleep.
Unluckily he had forgotten to put on his thick gloves, and his hands,
slipping from the fur-lined sleeves of his pelisse, lay exposed to the
full potency of the cold air. In a few minutes he awoke with a feeling
of intense pain; and looking at his hands, he saw that the finger-nails
were blue, blue too the fingers and back of the hands, while the wrists
and lower part of the arms had assumed the hue of wax. They were
frost-bitten! He called his servant, and made him rub the skin with some
snow in the hope of restoring the vitality. This he did for some
minutes; but, meanwhile, the pain gradually ascended up the arms, while
the lower portion of the arms was dead to all feeling, all sensation.
“It is no good,” said Nazar, looking sorrowfully at his master; “we must
drive on as fast as possible to the station.”
The station was some miles off. Miles? Each mile seemed to the tortured
traveller a league; each league a day’s journey; the physical pain
consumed him, wore him down as mental anguish might have done. But at
last the station was reached; Burnaby sprang from the sleigh, rushed into
the waiting-room, and to three Cossacks whom he met there showed his
hands. Straightway they conducted him into an outer apartment, took off
his coat, bared his arms, and plunged him into a tub of ice and water up
to the shoulders. He felt nothing.
“Brother,” said the eldest of the soldiers, shaking his head, “it is a
bad job; you will lose your hands.”
“They will drop off,” remarked another, “if we cannot get back the
circulation.”
“Have you any spirit with you?” asked a third.
Nazar, on hearing this inquiry, immediately ran out, and returned with a
tin bottle containing naphtha for cooking purposes; upon which the
Cossacks, taking the Major’s arms out of the icy water, proceeded to rub
them with the strong spirit.
Rub, rub, rub; the skin peeled under their horny hands, and the spirit
irritated the membrane below. At last a faint sensation like tickling—we
are using the Major’s own words—pervaded the elbow-joints, and he
slightly flinched.
“Does it hurt?” asked the eldest Cossack.
“A little.”
“Capital, brothers,” he continued; “rub as hard as you can;” and after
continuing the friction until the flesh was almost flayed, they suddenly
plunged his arms again into the ice and water. This time, the pain was
sharp.
“Good,” exclaimed the Cossacks. “The more it hurts, the better chance
you have of saving your hands.” And after a short time they let him
remove his arms from the tub.
“You are fortunate, little father,” said the eldest Cossack. “If it had
not been for the spirit your hands would have dropped off, even if you
had not lost your arms.”
“Rough, kind-hearted fellows were these poor soldiers,” adds Major
Burnaby; “and when I forced on the oldest of them a present for himself
and comrades, the old soldier simply said, ‘Are we not all brothers when
in misfortune? Would you not have helped me if I had been in the same
predicament?’”
The Major shook his hand heartily, and retired to the waiting-room to
rest upon the sofa, as the physical shock he had undergone had for the
moment thoroughly prostrated him. Moreover, his arms were sore and
inflamed, the spirit having in some places penetrated the raw flesh; and
several weeks elapsed before he thoroughly recovered from the effects of
his carelessness.
* * * * *
At Terekli, about five hundred miles from Orenburg, our traveller entered
the province of Turkistan, and found himself in the region which
acknowledges the authority of General Kauffmann—a restless and ambitious
soldier, to whose energy much of Russia’s recent advance eastward would
seem to be due. He still pushed forward with characteristic resolution,
braving the terrors of the climate and the dangers of the road in his
determined purpose to reach Khiva. At one station no horses were to be
obtained, and, instead, three gigantic camels were harnessed to the tiny
sleigh. A strange spectacle! “I have tried many ways of locomotion in
my life, from fire-balloons to bicycles, from canoes and bullocks to
cows, camels, and donkeys; whilst in the East the time-honoured sedan of
our grandfathers has occasionally borne me and my fortunes; but never had
I travelled in so comical a fashion. A Tartar rode the centre camel.
His head-gear would have called attention, if nothing else had, for he
wore a large black hat, which reminded me of an inverted coal-scuttle,
whilst a horn-like protuberance sticking out from its summit gave a
diabolical appearance to his lobster-coloured visage. The hat, which was
made of sheepskin, had the white wool inside, which formed a striking
contrast to the flaming countenance of the excited Tartar. He had
replaced the usual knout used for driving, by a whip armed with a thin
cord lash, and he urged on his ungainly team more by the shrill sounds of
his voice than by any attempt at flagellation, the Tartar seldom being
able to get more than four miles an hour from the lazy brutes.
“All of a sudden the camel in the centre quickly stopped, and the rider
was precipitated head-over-heels in the snow. Luckily, it was soft
falling; there were no bones broken, and in a minute or two he was again
in the saddle, having changed the system of harnessing, and placed one of
the camels as leader, whilst the other two were driven as wheelers. We
got on very fairly for a little while, when the foremost of our train
having received a rather sharper application of the lash than he deemed
expedient remonstrated with his rider by lying down. Coaxing and
persuasion were now used; he was promised the warmest of stalls, the most
delicious of water, if he would only get up. But this the beast
absolutely declined to do, until the cold from the snow striking against
his body induced him to rise from the ground.
“We now went even slower than before. Our driver was afraid to use his
whip for fear of another ebullition of temper on the part of the
delinquent, and confined himself to cracking his whip in the air. The
sounds of this proceeding presently reaching the ears of the leader,
perhaps made him think that his companions were undergoing chastisement.
Anyhow, it appeared to afford him some satisfaction, for, quickening his
stride, he compelled his brethren behind to accelerate their pace; and
after a long, wearisome drive we arrived at our destination.”
Under the influence of milder weather the aspect of the country rapidly
modified and brightened, and instead of a uniform sheet of frozen snow,
broad patches of vegetation met the eye. On these the Kirghiz horses
were browsing with evident delight. How they live through the winter is
a mystery, as their owners seldom feed them with corn, and they are
compelled to trust to the scanty grasses which may still be partially
alive underneath the snow. Nor are they in any way protected from the
cold. As a necessary consequence, the spring finds them reduced to mere
skeletons, whose ribs are barely covered by their parchment-like skin;
but they soon gain in flesh and strength when once the rich pasturage of
the steppes is at their disposal. Their powers of endurance are
wonderful; and without rest, or water, or food, they will accomplish
surprising distances, maintaining a first-rate speed. An instance is on
record of a Kirghiz chief having galloped two hundred miles, over a rocky
and mountainous ground, in twenty-four hours. A Russian detachment of
cavalry, mounted on Kirghiz horses, marched 333 miles in six days.
Major Burnaby was soon apprised that he was nearing the Sea (or Lake) of
Aral by the salt breeze which blew persistently in his face. The whole
district for miles around was impregnated with salt, and the springs and
streams had all a brackish taste and strong saline flavour. At
Nicolaivskaya his road touched close upon the north-eastern extremity of
the sea. This great inland basin of brackish water is separated from the
Caspian by the dense plateau of Ust-Urt. It measures about 260 miles
from north to south, and 125 from east to west. On the north-east it
receives the waters of the Syr-Daria, or Jaxartes; on the south-east
those of the Amu-Daria, or Oxus. As it is on the same level with the
Caspian, we may reasonably suppose that both seas were at one time
connected. Owing to the excessive evaporation which takes place, it is
understood to be decreasing in size.
At Kasala, or Fort No. 1, our traveller struck the Syr-Daria, some forty
or fifty miles above its outlet in the Aral. Kasala is inhabited by
nomad Kirghiz, who pitch their kibitkas in its outskirts in the winter,
to resume their migratory life with the first breath of spring; by
Russian and Tartar merchants, who dwell in one-storied houses, built of
brick or cement; and by a motley population of Greeks, Khivans,
Bokharans, Tashkentians, and Turcomans generally, attracted thither by
the hope of gain. Owing to its geographical position, it is the centre
of a considerable trade; for all goods to Orenburg from Western Turkistan
must pass through it. Its civil population numbers about 5000 souls; its
garrison consists of about 350 infantry and 400 cavalry, and it is also
the head-quarters in winter of the sailors of the Aral fleet, which is
made up of four small steamers of light draught. As for the fort, it is
simply an earthwork, constructed in the shape of a half-star, with a
bastion on the south extending to the bank of the Syr-Daria. A dry
ditch, thirty feet broad by twelve feet deep, and a parapet, eight feet
high and twelve feet thick, surround it. Sufficiently strong to overawe
the Kirghiz, it could offer no effective resistance to an European force.