The five days fixed by Sakalar for preparing for the journey were
wholly devoted to the necessary arrangements. There was much to be
done, and much to be talked of. They had to travel a long way before
they reached even the real starting-point of their adventurous voyage.
Sakalar, duly to impress Ivan with the dangers and perils of the
search, narrated once more in minute detail all his former sufferings.
But nothing daunted the young trader. He was one of those men, who,
under more favorable circumstances, would have been a Cook, a Parry,
or a Franklin, periling everything to make farther discovery in the
science of geography.
The five horses of Ivan were exchanged for others more inured to the
kind of journey they were about to undertake. There was one for each
of the adventurers and four to carry the luggage, consisting chiefly
of articles with which to pay for the hire of dogs and sledges. All
were well armed, while the dress of all was the same--Kolina adopting
for the time the habits and appearance of the man. Over their usual
clothes they put a jacket of foxes' skins and a fur-breast cover; the
legs being covered by hare-skin wrappers. Over these were stockings of
soft reindeer leather, and high strong boots of the same material. The
knees were protected by knee-caps of fur, and then, above all, was a
coat with loose sleeves and hood of double deerskin. This was not all.
After the chin, nose, ears, and mouth had been guarded by appropriate
pieces, forming together a mask, they had received the additional
weight of a pointed fur cap. Our three travelers when they took their
departure looked precisely like three animated bundles of old clothes.
All were well armed with gun, pistol, hatchet, and hunting-knife,
while the girdle further supported a pipe and tobacco-pouch. They had
not explained whither they were going, but the whole village knew that
they must be about to undertake some perilous journey, and accordingly
turned out to cheer them as they went, while several ardent admirers
of Kolina were loud in their murmurs at her accompanying the
expedition. But the wanderers soon left the plain of Miouré behind
them, and entered on the delectable roads leading to the Frozen Sea.
Half-frozen marshes and quagmires met them at every step; but Sakalar
rode first, and the others followed one by one, and the experienced
old hunter, by advancing steadily without hurry, avoided these
dangers. They soon reached a vast plain three hundred miles across,
utterly deserted by the human race; a desert composed half of barren
rock and half of swampy quagmire, soft above, but at a foot deep
solid and perpetual ice. Fortunately, it was now frozen hard, and the
surface was fit to bear the horses. But for this the party must have
halted and waited for a severe frost. The rivers were not frozen
when large in volume, and the Aldana had to be crossed in the usual
flat-bottomed boat kept for travelers. At night they halted, and with
a bush and some deer-skins made a tent. Kolina cooked the supper, and
the men searched for some fields of stunted half-frozen grass to let
the horses graze. This was the last place where even this kind of food
would be found, and for some days their steeds would have to live on a
stinted portion of hay.
On they went over the arid plain, which, however, affords nourishment
for some trees, fording rivers, floundering through marshes, and still
meeting some wretched apology for grass, when, on the third day, down
came the snow in a pelting cloud, and the whole desert changed in an
instant from somber gray to white. The real winter was come. Now all
Sakalar's intelligence was required. Almost every obvious sign by
which to find his way had disappeared, and he traversed the plain
wholly guided by distant hills, and by observing the stars at night.
This Sakalar did assiduously, and when he had once started under the
guidance of the twinkling lights of the heavens, rarely was he many
yards out at the next halt. He always chose the side of a hillock
to camp, where there was a tree or two, and half-rotten trunks with
bushes to make a huge fire.
It was nearly dawn on the fifth morning after entering the plain,
and Ivan and Kolina yet slept. But Sakalar slept not. They had
nearly reached the extremity of the horrible desert, but a new danger
occupied the thoughts of the hunter. They were now in the track of
the wild and savage Tchouktchas, and their fire might have betrayed
them. Had Sakalar been alone, he would have slept in the snow without
fire; for he knew the peril of an encounter with the independent
Tchouktchas, who have only recently been nominally brought into
subjection to Russia.
The heavy fall of snow of the two previous days rendered the danger
greater. Sakalar sat gravely upon a fallen tree--a pipe in his mouth,
and his eye fixed on the distant horizon. For some time nothing
remarkable caught his gaze; but at last he saw a number of dark
objects on the snow, galloping directly toward the camp. Sakalar at
once recognized a number of reindeer. It was the Tchouktchas on their
sledges, bounding with lightning speed along the frozen surface!
"Up!" cried the hunter. And when his companions were on their feet,
"Quick with your guns! The enemy are on us! But show a bold front, and
let them feel the weight of lead!"
Ivan and Kolina quietly took up their post, and awaited the orders
of Sakalar. No time was lost, and fortunately, for the savages were
already near, and were the next minute alighting from their sledges:
hand in hand they advanced along the snow, with their long ice
shoes, to the number of a dozen. A simultaneous discharge of the
heavy-metalled guns of the camp--one of which, that of Sakalar,
wounded the foremost man--checked their career, and they fell back
to hold a conference. It became evident at once that they had no
firearms, which removed almost all idea of danger. Ivan and Kolina
now proceeded to load the horses, and when all was ready, the whole
party mounted, and rode off, followed at a respectful distance by the
Siberian Arabs.
The travelers, however, received no further annoyance from them, and
camped the next night on the borders of the Toukyulane, at the foot of
the mountains of Verkho-Yansk. After the usual repose, they began the
severest part of the journey. Rugged rocks, deep ravines, avalanches,
snow, and ice, all were in their way. Now they rode along the edge
of frightful precipices, on a path so narrow, that one false step was
death; now they forced their way through gulleys full of snow, where
their horses were buried to their girths, and they had to drag them
out by main force. Fortunately the Siberian horse, though small, is
sturdy and indefatigable, living during a three months' journey on
faded grass and half-rotten herbage. That evening they camped on
the loftiest part of the road, where it winds through still elevated
rocks.
The middle of the next day brought them to another plain not much
superior to that they had passed through, but yet less miserable
looking, and with the additional advantage of having yourtes here
and there to shelter the traveler. The cold was now intense; and glad
indeed was Ivan of the comforts of his Siberian dress, which had at
first appeared so heavy. The odd figures which Kolina and Sakalar
presented under it made him smile at the notion which Maria Vorotinska
would have formed of her lover under a garb that doubled his natural
volume. Several halts took place, and caused great delay, from the
slippery state of the ice on the rivers. The unshod horses could not
stand. A fire had to be lit; and when sufficient ashes were procured,
it had to be spread across in a narrow pathway, and the nags led
carefully along on this track--one of the many artifices required to
combat the rigorous character of the climate. And thus, suffering
cold and short commons, and making their way for days through frosty
plains over ice and snow, amid deep ravines and over lofty hills, they
at length reached Nijnei-Kolimsk, though not without being almost
wholly knocked up, especially Kolina, who was totally unused to such
fatigues.
They had now almost reached the borders of the great Frozen Sea. The
village is situated about eighteen degrees farther north than London,
and is nearly as far north as Boothia Felix, the scene of Captain
Ross's four years' sojourn in the ice. It was founded two hundred
years ago by a wandering Cossack; though what could have induced
people to settle in a place which the sun lights, but never warms, is
a mystery; where there is a day that lasts fifty-two English days,
and a night that lasts thirty-eight; where there is no spring and no
autumn, but a faint semblance of summer for three months, and then
winter; where a few dwarf willows and stunted grass form all the
vegetation; and where, at a certain distance below the surface, there
is frost as old as the "current epoch" of the geologist. But by way
of compensation, reindeer and elks, brown and black bears, foxes and
squirrels, abound; there are also wolves, and the isatis or polar fox;
there are swans, and geese, and ducks, partridges and snipes, and in
the rivers abundance of fish. And yet, though the population be now
so scanty, and the date of the peopling of Kolimsk is known, there was
once a numerous race in these regions, the ruins of whose forts and
villages are yet found. The population is about 5000, including the
whole district, of whom about 300 are Russians, the descendants of
Siberian exiles. They dwell in houses made of wood thrown up on the
shore, and collected by years of patience, and of moss and clay.
The panes of the windows in winter are of ice, six inches thick; in
summer, of skins. The better class are neatly and even tastefully
dressed, and are clean, which is the very highest praise that can be
given to half-civilized as well as to civilized people.
They are a bold, energetic, and industrious race. Every hour of
weather fit for out-door work is spent in fishing and hunting, and
preparing food for the winter. In the light sledge, or on skates,
with nets and spears, they labored at each of these employments in
its season. Toward the end of the long winter, just as famine and
starvation threaten the whole population, a perfect cloud of swans,
and geese, and ducks, and snipes, pour in; and man and woman, boy and
girl, all rush forth to the hunt. The fish come in next, as the ice
breaks; and presently the time for the reindeer hunt comes round.
Every minute of the summer season is consumed in laying in a stock of
all these aliments for a long and dreary season, when nothing can be
caught. The women collect herbs and roots. As the summer is just about
to end, the herrings appear in shoals, and a new source of subsistence
is opened up, Later still, they fish by opening holes in the
newly-formed ice. Nor is Kolimsk without its trade. The chief traffic
of the region is at the fair of Ostrovnoye, but Nijnei-Kolimsk has
its share. The merchants who come to collect the furs which the
adventurous Tchouktchas have acquired, even on the opposite side of
Behring's Straits, from the North American Indians, halt here, and
sell tea, tobacco, brandy, and other articles.
The long night had set in when Ivan and his companions entered
Kolimsk. Well it was they had come, for the cold was becoming
frightful in its intensity, and the people of the village were
much surprised at the arrival of travelers. But they found ready
accommodation, a Cossack widower giving them half his house.
* * * * *
[FROM DICKENS'S HOUSEHOLD WORDS.]