the beauty of the placid lake, the Holy Sea (Bai-Kal), on whose shores
we were waiting.
Baikal is one of the great lakes of the world. It covers thirteen
thousand five hundred square miles of surface. Only Lakes Superior,
Michigan, and Huron, of our own great lakes, surpass it in size. It is
half as large again as Lake Erie, and twice as large as Lake Ontario,
and being long and narrow, and surrounded by high, precipitous hills,
is more picturesque than any of them. Its waters are crystal clear,
and, at a depth of forty feet, every pebble upon the bottom can be
seen. Drop a stone into its clear waters from the steamer’s deck, and
you can see it fluttering and zigzagging its way down as a feather
falls through the air. The water is as cold, too, as it is clear, as a
delicious bath that I took testified. Even on the last days of June the
water cannot be far above the freezing point.
The peasants who live on the shores of the lake regard it with almost
superstitious reverence and love. There is in their estimation no lake
in all the world like the Baikal. Its rock-bound shores, its wooded
steeps, green with larch, and fir, and pine, and birch; its limestone
and marbles glistening in the sun; its shores strewn with bright
pebbles, washed smooth and round by countless centuries of the lapping
waves, all combine to make the Baikal worthy of the love and reverence
with which the true Siberian regards it.
We found it in a peaceful mood, but it is not always so by any means.
“No man has ever said his prayers until he has ventured on Lake
Baikal,” is a common saying of the peasants on the shore. Lying,
as it does, in a comparatively narrow valley, between the mountain
ranges, the terrible gales which have their homes between the mountain
peaks are often let loose with but scant warning. Then woe betide the
little fisherman’s craft that is caught far from shore, and even the
passengers on the stout steamer may well tremble.
To unite the two shores with a strong, substantial ferry-boat which can
run throughout the winter months, the railway has had constructed in
England and brought out piecemeal the huge “ice-breaker,” so called.
Several of the parts of this great craft were lost, strayed, or stolen
on the way, and infinite difficulty was experienced in putting it
together again when it reached the lake. Even now some tell me that it
is no great success as an ice-breaker.
[Illustration: THE ICE-BREAKER ON LAKE BAIKAL]
On a fine day, with a smooth sea, nothing could be more delightful than
a little journey on the great ships. Into the hold of the steamer runs
the whole train without unloading; or, rather, that is to be the way
when the railway is in running order. Three parallel tracks throughout
the entire length of the boat afford ample room for the longest trains.
Above are elegant accommodations for first-class passengers, while the
steerage people dispose of themselves in the hold as best they can.
Four great stacks belch out smoke and cinders, and the engines are of
the most powerful pattern. A half acre of deck room over all gives the
passenger unrivalled opportunities of viewing the magnificent lake,
whose southern end he is about to traverse.
A fine breakwater of wooden piles, nearly half a mile long, provides
a safe little harbor on the eastern side of the lake, while another,
not quite so large, affords a refuge from the winds on the other side.
Between these harbors the ice-breaker plies back and forth, making the
distance of about fifty miles in four hours.
As we approach the western shore, the scenery grows more lovely than
on the eastern side. The crystal lake, fifty feet deep at the shore,
dashes in places against precipitous cliffs; the banks are clad in
freshest grass, dotted with poppies and lilies and blue honeysuckles,
while a little village nestles in a cove beneath a frowning cliff.
Rarely have I seen in all my travels a scene more lovely than is
presented as the ice-breaker makes her way cautiously into the little
artificial harbor of Listvinitschnoie, at the southwestern end of the
Holy Sea.
In the early morning we could see, as we thought, the seals disporting
themselves in the icy waters, for it is a singular fact that in Lake
Baikal alone, of all the fresh-water lakes in the world, are seals
found. It is thought by some that in prehistoric times they made their
way up the River Yenisei, that flows from the lake into the Arctic
Ocean, two thousand miles away. At any rate, they have made themselves
very much at home in the Baikal, and have increased and multiplied and
replenished the lake.
The determination of the Russian government to have through steam
communication between the oceans is shown by the fact that while such
sums have been spent for an ice-breaker and for harbors to make the
link across the Baikal possible, the railway is also being pushed
around the southern end of the lake, only a short distance away.
Both of these routes will be needed, I understand, to facilitate the
mobilization of her armies--the supreme object which Russia has in
mind in the construction of this great iron road.
At the village of Listvinitschnoie, on the western side of the lake,
we had another exasperating delay of eight hours, while passengers and
baggage were being transferred to the other train, a transfer which
would have been made in America in half an hour. For half a day we sat
about on our baggage in the broiling sun, surrounded by filthy Moujiks,
while the leisurely engines puffed back and forth, and the still more
leisurely porters loaded the train. At length all was ready, and we
steamed in a leisurely fashion to Irkutsk, the great city of Central
Siberia.
Here we arrived after being six days, within a few hours, on the road
since leaving Stretinsk. In those six days we had travelled less
than eight hundred miles, and less than six miles an hour, including
the stops. We had endured many discomforts, some of them entirely
unnecessary had a little system and forethought been used. Even in the
present incomplete state of the equipment of the road the journey
ought to be made in two days, and decent cars might be provided for
decent people.
[Illustration: THE SHORES OF LAKE BAIKAL]
I must say that this experience somewhat weakened my faith in the
boasted energy and enterprise of Russian railway construction. How a
road that is so slow and halting in peace can be great in war, I do not
see. How a line that cannot carry a few hundred passengers and their
luggage without interminable delays can be used to mobilize a hundred
thousand soldiers at short notice is difficult to comprehend. It is
fortunate for Russia that she has a slow, stupid opponent on the other
side of the world to contend with, an opponent that not only has no
slow railroads, but no railroads at all, of her own.
As it is, the Trans-Baikal railway, poor as it is, will undoubtedly
prove a very important instrument in forcing beneficent Russian fetters
upon poor, decrepit, worn-out China.
XIII
A SIBERIAN CITY OF CHURCHES
As the feeble and halting train that brought us from Lake Baikal,
following the meanderings of the swift Angara River, drew near to
Irkutsk, the capital of Central Siberia, we received the impression
of a small city dominated by a score of great churches. And this
impression was not dissipated when we crossed the Angara on the bridge
of boats that links the city with the railway on the other side and
found ourselves within the city precincts.
You cannot look up without seeing a beautiful dome or spire. In the
waters of the Angara the great cathedral is reflected, flanked by two
other churches which in any other city of its size would be considered
marvels. The principal street of the city seems to lead up to and
terminate in another lofty and imposing church, while every section
of the town has its own ecclesiastical buildings of lesser magnitude.
Brooklyn must look out for its laurels as the City of Churches when it
comes in competition with Irkutsk.
The interior of the churches is quite equal to their exterior, and they
blaze with sacred pictures and icons, framed and matted in gold, so
that the chief impression one gets is of walls of solid gold, chased
and fretted and highly ornamented, with the face of Christ or the
Virgin or some Oriental saint peering out between the shining plates.
The Russians are evidently an extremely devout and religious
people. This is evidenced by their churches, which are always, both
metaphorically and literally, higher than the chimneys of their
factories. In the small towns along the line of the railway the church
is always the one conspicuous object. The village may be, it probably
is, built entirely of logs, without a single frame or brick house
within its border. But the church, with its glittering dome and blue
and green towers, always lifts its Greek cross skyward, and reminds
the poor Moujiks that there is another world above the flat plains of
Siberia.
The unabashed devoutness of the peasants tells the same story as
their churches. Our fellow-travellers in the fourth-class cars from
Stretinsk never omitted their morning devotions, their ablutions being
an entirely secondary matter. The poorest boatman would always cross
himself and bless his crust of black bread before he ate it. The
soldiers with whom we journeyed for hundreds of versts, undismayed
by the presence of their comrades, would every morning face the
rising sun, and though they could secure no possible privacy, would,
with genuine devoutness, pray for ten minutes at a time, standing
bare-headed and reverential in the crowded railway car in which
they were travelling. Such genuine devotion speaks well for the church
which fosters it, and for the country that is peopled and defended by
faithful devotees, for no nation without a religion which took strong
hold of the hearts of the common people ever greatly influenced the
destinies of the world.
[Illustration: BURIATS FROM LAKE BAIKAL, WITH SEAL FROM THE LAKE]
Distance lends considerable enchantment to Irkutsk, and nearer approach
does not bear out the remoter promise of its beautiful churches. The
streets are poorly paved and extremely dusty, and the wooden sidewalks
are frequently man-traps for the unwary passenger. Still it is no mean
city to be found in the heart of Siberia, three thousand five hundred
miles from the nearest European capital.
Irkutsk has had time enough to grow, for it was founded thirty years
after the _Mayflower_ sailed into Plymouth harbor, and is about ready
to celebrate its quarter millennial. Founded originally as a military
post to withstand the attacks of wandering Tartars, its naturally
advantageous situation has made it the metropolis of Siberia. It is now
the seat of government of the province of Eastern Siberia, and contains
something over fifty thousand inhabitants. It contains twenty-five
Greek churches, substantial Catholic and Lutheran churches, and two
synagogues. There are no less than forty schools, among which are
seminaries for girls, military and technical schools of various kinds,
so that the young idea of Irkutsk has no excuse for not learning how to
shoot.
The city has lost something of its ancient importance since the region
of the Amour has been erected into a separate province, independent of
Irkutsk, and since the rise of Vladivostock as a point of departure
on the Pacific for Odessa and America. Nevertheless, it will always
be an important centre, owing to its situation near the head-waters
of the Angara, which starts from Lake Baikal, forty miles away, and
continues its majestic and ever-widening way for three thousand
miles until, as the Yenisei, the fourth greatest river in the world, it
empties into the Arctic Ocean. It is a centre for the shipment of gold,
and in a single year no less than twenty-one thousand pounds weight
avoirdupois of the precious metal passed through Irkutsk on its way to
St. Petersburg.
[Illustration: AN IRKUTSK DROSKY]
It may make the geography of Siberia a little more plain if I here
explain that Siberia, for governmental purposes, is divided into six
provinces: First, starting from the Ural Mountains, Western Siberia,
that borders on Europe, and in a rough way embraces the basin of the
Obi. Next, Eastern Siberia, which stretches a thousand miles farther
east and embraces the basin of the Yenisei and its tributaries. In this
province Irkutsk is situated. Then comes the Trans-Baikal, the province
that lies east of the beautiful lake of that name, and through which we
made our slow and toilsome way as described in the last chapter. Then,
east of that, the great province of the Amour, embracing the basin of
the Amour and Ussuri. Last of all, bordering on the Pacific Ocean, and
including the convict island of Saghalien, is the province called in
Russian Primorskaia. The province of the Steppes lies south of Western
Siberia, but with that our new way around the old world has nothing
to do, for the railway barely grazes its edge, and does not fairly
enter its territory. During the twenty-nine days of rail and river
travel which I have already described, we had traversed in succession
Primorskaia, Amourskaia, and Zabaikalskaia and had reached the eastern
edge of Eastern Siberia.
During these twenty-nine days we had travelled nearly twenty-seven
hundred miles, and, between us and Moscow, there still lay more than
thirty-three hundred miles to be traversed. But the peculiar hardships
of the journey were nearly over, for a _train de luxe_ starts from
Irkutsk for Moscow every Friday afternoon, and we were just in season
to get our tickets, and secure our berths, and replenish our seedy
wardrobes, and take passage on the most famous train in all the world,
which, without a single change of cars, runs a distance considerably
greater than from Boston to San Francisco.
[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF IRKUTSK]
We were happy enough to board this train, as can be imagined, after
the bare boards and filth of the uncertain train which had carried us
from Stretinsk, and were in a fit frame of mind to enjoy its luxuries
and to overlook its defects. Nor were we sorry to leave Irkutsk, for
though it is a remarkable place to be found so far from the confines of
civilization, yet it has few attractions to long beguile the traveller;
and the stifling dust of the streets, which never seem to be watered,
obscure the attractions it does possess.
Shortly before our arrival news had come of the serious disturbances
in China, and troops were being enrolled and equipped and hurried to
the eastern coast in feverish haste. The whole square in front of
the Hôtel de Russie was filled with peasants in their red blouses and
top-boots, each with his tea-kettle and little bag of poor belongings.
These peasants were to be shipped off that day as food for Chinese
powder, if so be the Celestials have any powder left by the time these
Moujiks reach Blagavestchensk or, later, Port Arthur. The whole city
was full of rumors of war, and, though we could not read the Russian
papers, or know the extent of the trouble, the air seemed vibrant with
battle.
We were told that the train we had taken over the Trans-Baikal road
would be the last passenger train that would be allowed to go through
for six weeks. How we blessed our fortunate stars that we were not
stranded in Stretinsk for six times seven days! We were told also that
between Omsk and Irkutsk were twelve trains loaded with soldiers, bound
for Manchuria, and that no private telegram to Vladivostock could
be delivered within a week, so hot were the wires with government
despatches.
Some of these reports were true and some were exaggerated, but
evidently China’s last days had come, we thought, as we boarded the
_train de luxe_, and Russia intends to be in at the death.
XIV
A SIBERIAN _TRAIN DE LUXE_
The Paris Exposition has made famous the Siberian _train de luxe_,
with its moving panorama, its terminal stations at St. Petersburg
and Peking, and its dinners at seven francs per head. The newspaper
correspondent, too, who has seen it only in his mind’s eye, as he sat
at his own cosey fireside rehashing second-hand descriptions of its
magnificence, has done his share to advertise it, until the wondering
world has an idea that it is a veritable Waldorf-Astoria on wheels,
before which all Empire State expresses on the American continent must
hide their diminished heads. We read of library-cars and bath-cars,
gymnasium-cars where one can make a century run on a stationary
bicycle, elegant dinners, barber-shops where passengers receive a
free shave every morning, pianos, and other luxuries too numerous to
mention.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE BEAUTIFUL CHURCHES OF IRKUTSK]
As a matter of fact, the Siberian _train de luxe_, at least as it
started from Irkutsk on the 29th day of June, in the year of our
Lord 1900, was a rather shabby vestibuled train of three sleepers, a
diner, and a baggage-car. It was luxurious, indeed, compared with the
fourth-class emigrant train on which we had been journeying, but it
is still many degrees behind the best American trains. It should be
remarked, however, that the best cars had been sent to Paris for the
Exposition, and it is doubtless true that the train we took is somewhat
below the average of the Siberian _trains de luxe_. It is well worth
describing, however, as an important link in the great chain that
connects the Atlantic and the Pacific in this new way around the world.
First, and very naturally, comes the engine of Russian make, with
a great flaring smoke-stack for burning wood. Next to it is the
baggage-car with one end fitted with a bath-tub, where dusty travellers
can enjoy a refreshing bath on payment of a rouble and a half
(seventy-five cents), a very high price to be sure compared with the
rate charged for transportation; but then the scarcest and dearest
thing throughout Siberia we found to be cold water, either for drinking
or bathing purposes.
Following the baggage-car was the dining-car, which was also divided
into two sections, half being occupied with small tables that seat
two and four each, and the other half fitted with easy-chairs for
the smokers and provided with ample windows for observation. In the
smoking-room was a small library of, perhaps, fifty books in the
Russian, French, and German languages, but nothing in English, except
two or three discarded fifth-rate novels in paper covers, evidently
contributed by previous travellers.
In the dining-car, two _table d’hôte_ meals were provided: a lunch
of two courses at one o’clock, which cost one rouble, and a dinner at
six of four courses, for a rouble and a quarter. At other times of day
passengers could order what they pleased _à la carte_ from a limited
bill of fare.
Behind the dining-car came a second-class sleeping-car, then a
first-class sleeper, and, last of all, another second-class sleeper.
These cars are all divided into compartments, or little staterooms,
holding two or four people each, with a window, a table, and a wide and
very comfortable berth for each person. The cars are all handsomely
carpeted and upholstered in blue plush, covered, for the sake of
protection, with red-striped denim. In each stateroom were convenient
racks and hooks for the disposal of clothes and baggage, and in every
way one could make himself as comfortable and have almost as much room
as in an ocean steamer’s cabin.
For two friends travelling together, or for a small family of three,
as in my own case, this arrangement is far superior to America’s more
promiscuous and public Pullman sleeping-car. For individuals travelling
alone, the Pullman plan has some decided advantages, if one does not
care to be cooped up in narrow quarters for eight or nine days with
any chance stranger who may be assigned to the same stateroom. The
Pullman cars, too, economize space, for while from forty to forty-eight
people can sleep in a Pullman car when crowded, only eighteen can find
“lying-down room,” in a Siberian sleeper.
One curiosity of this particular _train de luxe_ was that the first and
second class cars were precisely alike in every particular. In amount
of room, fittings, upholstery, and comforts of every description, there
was not the slightest difference between the three sleeping-cars that
composed our train, while the difference of price was nearly forty
roubles in favor of the second-class. One would think that, these
being the facts, the second-class cars would be overcrowded and the
first-class would be empty. Such was not the case on this train at
least, for I found every cabin in the first-class taken, and was able
to get a large four-berth stateroom in one of the second-class cars for
little more than I would pay for two berths in the first-class car.
[Illustration: A PART OF OUR _TRAIN DE LUXE_]
At the most, the fares in Siberia are remarkably cheap. For the whole
stateroom I paid less than one hundred and twenty dollars from Irkutsk
to Moscow, a distance of three thousand three hundred and fifty miles;
this included four fares and the supplementary price of the _train de
luxe_. For the same accommodations in a Pullman car across the American
continent (a shorter distance) I should have paid at least five hundred
dollars. The full first-class fare in the _train de luxe_ is about
fifty dollars, while the second-class fares are less than thirty
dollars. By the ordinary trains a considerable saving is effected over
these very cheap rates.
Each car has its porter, who can usually speak German or French in
addition to Russian, but the specimens that we saw were very lazy and
inefficient fellows compared with the deft and obliging “George” who
attends to one’s wants in a Pullman car. Our porters on the _train de
luxe_ never thought of sweeping or dusting the staterooms, and seemed
to think it an imposition to be asked to thoroughly make up the berths
for day travel, preferring to leave the beds made up by day that they
might have less trouble at night. All day long the lazy porters would
loll about on their seats in the middle of the car, doing as little
as possible, and apparently begrudging that little. Twice a week the
bed linen is changed. Ample washrooms, with a single roller towel, for
all guests who do not furnish their own, complete the equipment of the
Siberian sleeper.
My excuse for this somewhat minute description of these accommodations
is that it will be welcomed by future travellers who have to spend at
least eight and one-half days in their little room on wheels.
It must not be thought that for all its name and fame the “Siberian
Special” is a lightning express. In speed it would be outstripped,
during all the early part of the journey, by any “huckleberry train” in
America. Fourteen miles an hour, including stops, was all it pretended
to make during the first five days from Irkutsk. The road-bed is new,
the rails are light, and as a consequence the train plods along at a
pace which an able-bodied cowboy on his bronco would outstrip. In fact
I saw, one evening, a race between our famous train and a Siberian
“cow-puncher,” in which, for two miles or more, the horseman more than
held his own. Then he pulled up with a careless wave of his hat, as
though he did not consider it worth while to race any longer with so
slow a rival.
The stops at the stations, too, seem most unnecessarily protracted for
such a train, which might be supposed to have the right of way. Never
less than ten minutes, and more often fifteen or twenty, our patient
locomotive would stand panting at every little platform in the wilds
before the station-master would ring his welcome bell, to tell it that
it might shriek its farewell and proceed on its way.