bedfellows, and in the men’s cabin were a polyglot company, consisting
of a German baron, a Swiss consul, a Dane, two French “bounders,” two
Russians, two Scotchmen, a North of Ireland man, and two Americans. All
made the best of the situation except the Frenchmen, who sputtered and
growled at everything, and made themselves generally disagreeable. Like
Mrs. Gummidge, they seemed to say of all the discomforts: “I feels it
more than others.” Especially did the food, which indeed was atrocious,
come in for their objurgations. At last the climax was reached when
one of these irascible Gauls found that sugar had been put in his
cabbage. His gastronomic canons were all outraged, and, throwing the
cabbage, dish and all, out of the window into the river, he flung a
full bottle of beer at the waiter, narrowly missing a lady’s head, and
only then felt that his outraged culinary taste had been fully avenged.
[Illustration: THE EVER-PRESENT SAMOVAR]
But for the most the company on the _Diana_ was a happy family, and
though a “Never Again Society” was proposed (never again to cross
Siberia by this route), we often consoled ourselves with the reflection
that things “might be worse.”
On the second day after boarding the barge the Amour, so far as we
were concerned, came to an end, or, rather, we came to its abrupt
beginning, for, at a junction point of entrancing scenery, the Argun
and the Shilka, two great rivers, come together to form the Amour,
after having pursued their separate and devious ways for hundreds
of miles. The Argun flows sharply from south to north, the Shilka
pursues a northeasterly course. To be sure, the Shilka is really the
Amour, and ought to bear the same name to its source, but for boundary
purposes the Russians choose to call it another river, and to bound
their possessions by the left branch of the Amour, called the Argun.
We turned into the Shilka and were soon steaming against its swiftly
flowing current.
Now, at length, after coasting along the Manchurian shore for over a
thousand miles, we leave China and plunge into the heart of Siberian
Russia. On either side the mountains close in on the Shilka, dipping
their feet in its rapid, crystal stream, and narrowing it down to
less than a quarter of a mile in width. Wild and picturesque is the
scenery for almost the whole distance to Stretinsk. The fertile arable
land and vast open parks of the Amour give way to rough and rugged
hill-sides, clad with a growth of small trees, but affording scant
encouragement for the agriculturist. The villages are fewer and farther
between, and the scanty houses are of a distinctly poorer type. In
fact, the whole country is given up to placer gold-mining and to
cutting wood for the frequent steamers, and almost no cultivation is
attempted.
[Illustration: SOME FIFTH-CLASS PEOPLE]
It even became difficult, and at last impossible, to secure milk and
eggs on shore, and some of the scanty fare provided by the steamer’s
steward might have been called “rotten” by the college boy without
indulging in slang.
But the natural scenery grew more charming as the evidence of man’s
handiwork disappeared. The hill-sides were carpeted with flowers;
lilies of the valley, azaleas, and a half-dozen kinds of rare and
beautiful orchids abounded everywhere, and the air was fragrant with
the new-made leaves of birch and pine. Cuckoos struck all hours of the
day from the deeper forest, and a sylvan beauty that I have rarely
seen surpassed constantly greeted our eyes.
Frequently during these days on the Shilka we passed great rafts,
floating down stream with the current, loaded with emigrant families,
men, women, and children, horses, cattle, and dogs, and all the little
store of household goods that the poor Moujiks possessed. Sometimes
a small bateau would contain a family of seven or eight people and
all their belongings. Occasionally great barges towed by a tug-boat
would pass us, and these were invariably crowded with such a mass of
humanity that one wondered how all could stand by day, much less lie
down by night. These crowded rafts and barges headed eastward were most
suggestive of Russia’s policy. Hers is a peaceful conquest of the far
East. First she must fill up the waste places of Siberia, and then she
can stretch out her hand over all Manchuria and northern China, and
even in spite of temporary Mongolian uprisings she can hold her own,
with no fear of a repetition of the disaster of Albazin, and another
exclusion for centuries from Manchuria.
[Illustration: A RAFT ON THE SHILKA]
With one barge company alone the government has made a contract to
transport thirty thousand peasants within three months to the lower
waters of the Amour. Thousands of others will find their way by other
methods of conveyance. Liberal land laws and government aid while they
are getting established will result in a few years in tens of thousands
of log-house homes that in time will make this wilderness to blossom
like the rose.
As we approached Stretinsk signs of civilization became more numerous.
Cultivated fields appeared. Winter wheat already seemed to be ripening,
forced to maturity by a few weeks of the almost continuous sunlight
of this northern clime. The interesting village of Oost Kara, about
seventy miles from Stretinsk, lies on the right bank of the Shilka,
and is supported by extensive gold-mines, which are worked by
convicts--criminals, not political prisoners, I am told.
At length, on the 21st day of June, thirteen days after leaving
Blagavestchensk, and twenty-one days after embarking on the Amour at
Khabaroffsk, we were glad enough to bid good-bye to the _Diana_, its
crowded decks, and its wretched fare, and still more glad to feel that
our long river voyage, which had stretched itself out from the twelve
days which we had expected to twenty-one, was at length at an end, and
that the rest of the journey would be behind the iron horse on land,
instead of his aquatic cousin, the puffing steamboat.
XI
THE TRANS-BAIKAL
We had supposed, as has already been remarked, that if we had tears
to shed, we should need to indulge them on the last part of our river
journey. But we soon found that we should have saved them all for the
journey on the Trans-Baikal Railway between Stretinsk and Irkutsk, as
the sequel will show.
Stretinsk is a raw, shabby, straggling frontier town, whose only excuse
for being so uninteresting is that it is very new and never thought of
being a place of any importance until it suddenly found itself, on the
28th of December, 1899, the terminus of the Trans-Baikal Railway, and
an important forwarding point for freight and passengers between the
Atlantic and Pacific. The large railway shops and engine-houses are
situated across the river from the town, which is connected with them
by a ferry, ingeniously worked by the swift current of the Shilka, like
the picturesque ferry at Bonn, on the Rhine. The hotels of Stretinsk
are wretched inns, and there are absolutely no attractions within the
town to persuade the traveller to remain. But, in justice even to the
squalid raggedness of Stretinsk, it must be admitted that fine hills
encircle it and a noble river washes its feet, for the Shilka, in spite
of shoals and shallows, is still a mighty stream, and runs even here
with a large, impetuous flow.
We were glad enough to find that we must remain in Stretinsk only
thirty-six hours, and that the train which was to carry us to Lake
Baikal was to start the following night. We were still more rejoiced to
find that the good governor of Vladivostock, General Tchitchagoff, had
not forgotten us, but had wired for a special car for our use. The
car was very small, and held but five people, and, as can be imagined,
it was not built on the latest Pullman plan, but, as compared with the
cars assigned to our three hundred fellow-passengers, it was a _car de
luxe_, indeed.
[Illustration: SIBERIAN RECRUITS BOUND FOR CHINA]
This road is not yet officially opened for traffic, and we were taken
on sufferance, as it were. At least, most of those who take it have to
suffer severely. Nor can they complain overmuch, for the government
does not invite them to go or advertise any attractions. The best cars
that are yet run, with the exception of the little _car de luxe_, of
which I have just spoken, are marked “fourth class,” and are no better
than they pretend to be. They have wooden seats of the hardest possible
variety, and three wooden shelves, one above another, afford cramped
opportunity for a man not more than five feet long to stretch himself
out. Each of these cars, with three tiers of shelves, is supposed to
afford accommodations for forty-three people. But these are the best,
as I have said. Others, which might be termed fifth class, if the
nomenclature of railway trains descended so far, are simply box-cars,
with no seats, and marked on the outside, “to carry twelve horses
or forty-three men.” Into these cars there crowded, helter-skelter,
pell-mell, higgledy-piggledy, Russians and Siberians, Moujiks and
Chinamen, Tartars, Buriats and Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, and
Americans.
If there were fifth-class cars, there were plenty of sixth and seventh
class people--some in rags, and many in tags, but few in velvet gowns.
Old Moujiks, with half a dozen half-naked children, filthy with a grime
that has accumulated since their birth, and alive with unmentionable
parasites, crowded every car, or, rather, human pigpen, as each car
soon becomes. Odors indescribably offensive made the air thick and
almost murky. The stench, the dirt, the vermin grew worse the longer
the car was inhabited, and one simply resigned himself to the
inevitable and lived through each wearisome hour as best he could.
[Illustration: FOR THIRTY-SIX MORTAL HOURS WE WAITED]
Our non-Russian fellow-passengers, when they found the true state of
affairs, made a desperate resistance to their fate, and after repeated
remonstrances, objurgations, and even threats, which nearly came to
blows, induced the station-master to put on another little car, which
they could have for themselves.
We fondly hoped that the governor’s kindness had spared us the heaviest
affliction of the journey; but alas! even the best-hearted governor
cannot insure all the bridges on the line, and we had not been
travelling a half-dozen hours when we learned that a bridge had burned
down twenty miles ahead, owing to the carelessness of a fireman who
drew the fire on the wooden sleepers, and there we were stranded as
fast as though on a sand-bar on the Shilka.
For thirty-six mortal hours we waited at that wretched railway town,
which consisted principally of a round-house and a water-tower, then
were pulled to the burned bridge, twenty miles away, and, with much
difficulty and long delay, were transferred to the train on the other
side. Here our good fortune deserted us. Our comparatively fine car
could not, of course, cross the bridge, the governor could do nothing
more for us, and in the general scramble we found ourselves in one of
those dreadful fourth-class cars I have already described, with the
Moujiks, the filth, and the vermin destined to be our companions for
four weary days and nights.
[Illustration: A TRANS-BAIKAL TRAIN. PRISONERS CARRYING WATER]
After passing the burned bridge our train met with no serious delay,
though our rate of progress was exceedingly moderate. The whole
distance to Irkutsk is about seven hundred miles, and we managed to
consume three days and a half of actual travel in covering it. It would
seem impossible to the uninitiated in Siberian travel that a railway
train that could go at all could go so slowly. Two hundred miles a
day, or about eight miles an hour, is scarcely more than post-horses
would make. This is accounted for by reason of the interminable,
unreasonable length of the stops at the stations. Our train would
draw up at a wood-pile and a log-house. The peasants would scramble
out of the train, build their fires, cook their soup, boil their
tea, and still the train would wait. There was usually no baggage to
be taken on or put off, no passengers to join us, no passing train
to wait for. Water would soon be taken, and still we would wait, a
half-hour, three-quarters, a full hour. At last, for no particular
reason, apparently, the station-master would ring a big dinner-bell.
Five minutes later he would ring another. Then, soon after, the guard
would blow his whistle, the engineer would respond with the engine
whistle, the guard would blow again, the engineer would answer him once
more, and, after this exchange of compliments, the train would move
leisurely along, only to repeat the process two hours later at the
next station.
The stops ranged from half an hour to two hours in length, and the
speed attained about fifteen miles an hour while running. Fortunately
the stations are few and far between, averaging nearly thirty miles
apart.
The only towns of any importance on this line are Chita and
Verkneydinsk, the former about two hundred and the latter about five
hundred and fifty miles from Stretinsk. Verkneydinsk is a centre of the
old caravan tea trade, and retains its life in spite of the new railway.
The Trans-Baikal province, which this railway traverses from end
to end, is the smallest of the six provinces into which Siberia is
divided, and has about six hundred thousand inhabitants, of whom
two hundred thousand belong to the aboriginal tribes. Much of it
seems exceedingly fertile, and vast savannas, stretching away from
the railway track as far as the eye can reach on either side, are
frequently seen during the early part of the journey. Thousands of
cattle and horses roam on these great flat prairies, which, often, are
as level as a house floor for miles. In other parts of this journey the
scenery is beautiful and picturesque, but never grand, the mountain
range which is crossed being not a lofty one. For many miles the
railway follows the winding of the Shilka River, usually high above its
banks. Then it crosses the plains, and afterwards, some four hundred
miles from the starting point, plunges among the pine-clad hills which
hem it in on both sides with their resinous heights.
In other parts of the hill beautiful birches stand like white sentries
in a green livery. The flowers that carpet the fields everywhere
are lovely; marigolds and marguerites, roses and blue honeysuckles,
buttercups galore, bold tiger-lilies, modest lilies of the valley, and
white and yellow poppies make the trackside gay.
After traversing about half the distance, the streams, which had been
flowing east into the Pacific, give way to others that flow west to
Lake Baikal. The roof of the world, or, at least, of this part of the
world, has been reached, and now we will follow the raindrops towards
the distant Atlantic.
The Selenga, which we reach on the last day of this journey, is a
great and strong flowing river, as large as the St. Lawrence above the
Ottawa. It is crossed by a splendid iron bridge, resting on magnificent
piers of cut stone, a bridge which would be an honor to any railway in
the world.
It is the custom of the few travellers who have crossed this line, or
any part of it, to poke fun at the Trans-Baikal Railway. And, indeed,
it is not hard to do so. With its crawling trains, its inordinately
long stops, its primitive rolling-stock, it does not inspire much
respect. It reminds one of the railway in the United States called a
“tri-weekly road,” which was explained by its president to mean that
a train went up one week, and tried to come down the next.
[Illustration: BOUND FOR FAR SIBERIA
A passing glimpse of an emigrant train]
All the ancient and hoary railway jokes, like the one about the boy
who started on a half-fare ticket and was so old before he reached the
end of his journey that he had to pay full fare for the last part, are
cracked and appreciated by the passengers on this line. Yet it must be
remembered that the last spike in this road was driven less than six
months before I passed over it; that it was not even then accepted by
the government, or formally open for traffic; that it is largely built
for military exigencies, and that no one is asked to travel over it,
but rather discouraged by Russian officials; then the jokes lose their
best points.
Still it must be confessed that the road seems to tithe the mint,
anise, and cumin, and omit the weightier matters of railway
construction. For instance, the water-towers are beautiful, stately
structures, and the stations are very creditable even for an old
railway, but the rails are light and constantly breaking and giving way
and delaying traffic for days at a time. “Two streaks of rust across
Siberia,” is the exaggeration of a friend, which has an element of
truth in it.
Many parts of the embankment have been carefully sodded, the sods
being pegged down with great care, but the road is very imperfectly
ballasted, and is rough almost beyond belief. The culverts and small
bridges are buttressed with cut stone, carefully dressed; the cars, as
I have said, are exceedingly poor and filthy.
Still the road is evidently built for the future, and all these defects
will, in time, be remedied, and the Trans-Baikal section will take its
place as an important link in the greatest railway of the world.
[Illustration: FIFTEEN MINUTES AT EVERY STATION]
During these long and weary days we were obliged to get what diversion
we could from our fellow-passengers. We watched the mother who
combed her offspring’s head with a carving-knife, with which she made
vigorous onslaught on the numerous inhabitants that had taken shelter
there, while we shuddered as we thought of the coming night in close
proximity. We were interested in the other mother who did her daily
washing in a pint cup and hung it out to dry on the upper bunk. We were
fascinated by the soldiers who performed their morning ablutions by
taking a large mouthful of water from a teapot, then, squirting it on
their hands, vigorously washed their faces.
We never get away from the prisoners in Siberia, and two cars,
immediately in front of ours, were filled with these poor wretches.
Before these cars, at every station, marched four soldiers with set
bayonets. The heads of the prisoners, shaved on one side only, would
have betrayed them even had they escaped for a little.
At the stations women and girls with milk and eggs were eagerly
patronized by us all, for we were desperately thirsty, and water that
we dared to drink was scarce. At some stations we saw the aborigines of
the country, the Buriats, of whom two hundred thousand remain in the
province. They are a Mongol race, and their black hair and slant eyes
contrast with the blue eyes and tow heads of the Siberians, bleached as
they were still further by the sun.
Some of the Buriats are won to Christianity, but most of them are rank
heathen still. They are a nomadic race, and do not take kindly even to
the limited civilization of Siberia.
[Illustration: PRISON CAR IN SIBERIA. FAMILIES OF PRISONERS AT THE
WINDOWS]
I must record that, in the midst of the filth and discomfort and
unutterable odors of this hard journey, we met with many courtesies and
kindnesses from the most unpromising of our fellow-travellers. Some of
the peasants were ladies and gentlemen at heart, who would incommode
themselves to promote our comfort, and were never too preoccupied to
lend a helping hand, or to supplement our exceedingly limited Russian.
We discovered a “fourth-class guardian angel,” who took us under his
special protection, and was never weary of offering little kindnesses.
He even wished to share with us his black bread and some curds, which
we found it difficult to refuse without hurting his feelings.
None of the occupants of our car were intemperate or noisy, and,
in genuine politeness of heart, these Russian serfs of a few years
back could have given many points to the two selfish, unmannerly,
foul-mouthed Frenchmen of the party, who represent the nation
erroneously supposed to have a superfluous supply of politeness and
good manners.
XII
THE HOLY SEA
On the fifth day after leaving Stretinsk we were aroused at two o’clock
in the morning, just as the faint dawn began to streak the east, by a
guard going through the train and crying out: “Misovaia, all change.”
Eagerly we rubbed our sleepy eyes open, for now we had reached Lake
Baikal, and we fondly hoped that the most trying part of our journey
was over. But again we were doomed to disappointment, for we waited
and waited and waited, and still there was no sign of departure to the
other side of the lake. The sun rose, ascended high in the heavens,
reached the zenith, and began to decline, and still we sat about
miserably upon our baggage, not daring to go far lest at any moment the
“ice-breaker” from the other side of the lake might come to transfer
us across.
The station-master was eagerly importuned, but knew nothing. No
official had the slightest information. Our Russian fellow-travellers
only shrugged their shoulders when asked when we should start. At
length patience ceased to be a virtue, and a telegram was prepared
for the governor of Irkutsk, asking why a trainload of inoffensive
passengers of all nationalities were kept in anxious suspense for so
many hours at a miserable little station which had been eaten bare of
provisions long ago.
Just as this telegram was about to go came word that the “ice-breaker”
on the other side was waiting for the minister of justice, and that
when he got ready to start the boat would come. This proved to be the
case, and at last, fourteen hours after we had reached Misovaia, the
great steamer which should carry us across was seen approaching. Then
it took hours more to unload and reload her, and finally, in the
middle of the night, twenty-two hours after we should have started, we
got under way for the other side of the lake.
I dwell for a moment on this irritating experience, for it represents
one phase of Russian life which is very foreign to life in free,
constitutional countries. For twenty-two hours three hundred people
were made to wait upon the convenience of one official. Hungry
passengers were allowed to half starve; sick and crying babies, who
had with difficulty survived a week of hard journeying amid unnamable
privations; weary mothers, trying to comfort the babies; business
and professional men with important engagements to keep, and whose
connections with other roads were seriously imperilled by this delay,
all must wait and suffer while this one official finished his morning
nap, or ate an elaborate dinner, or otherwise made himself ready to
start for the other side of Lake Baikal.
[Illustration: THE ELEPHANT’S NOSE, LAKE BAIKAL]
Had this happened in any free country, such a howl would have arisen
as would have insured the decapitation of this minister of justice
(minister of justice indeed! minister of injustice rather) at the first
possible election.
How the _New York Tribune_ or the _London Times_ would have blazed with
indignant protests had such an affair taken place in America or Great
Britain! But in Siberia such an event is quite a matter of course. We
were still more surprised by the utter indifference and nonchalance of
our Russian fellow-passengers. There was nothing to be said and nothing
to be done. “Whatever is, is right,” especially if it is done by one
high in authority, seemed to be their motto.
The contrast between the foreign passengers and the Russians during
this exasperating delay was marked and amusing. The former champed
at the bit, and fretted and fumed and (it is feared) swore in their
different tongues. They would gather together in little groups and
discuss the situation. They haunted the telegraph office. They
interviewed every promising official. They tried to get another
steamer. They exhausted every possibility of progress.
The Russians placidly sipped their tumblers of tea, gathered about the
steaming samovar, quietly curled up on their luggage, and went to sleep
as though they had not an irritating care in the world. Why should they
fret? The official had all power. They had no appeal. No protest was
open to them. No _Times_ would thunder in St. Petersburg. No _Tribune_
would voice their complaints in Moscow. “Let it go; life is too short
to wear it out with such worries,” seemed to be their mental attitude.