KIACHTA TO LAKE BAIKAL.
We got out of Troitskosarfsk about three o'clock in the afternoon, for as we intended to travel as the Russians do, night and day, it made no difference at what time of the day or night we commenced the journey. The first stage led us over rather hilly roads, in many places heavy with sand. The hills around have a sandy appearance, but after crossing the first ridge we opened out fine broken scenery with richly wooded heights. Our yemschik, or driver, being a Bouriat, we were able to converse with him in his mother-tongue, for though the Bouriats grow up speaking Russian, they preserve their own domestic institutions, and among themselves speak their own language, which, with some slight differences, is identical with that spoken by the Mongols of the Great Desert.
The first station we arrived at was Ust Kiachtinské, which is a fair-sized village of small wooden houses, with a very neat little church. We were prepared for all the horrors of a Siberian post-station, but found instead a new station-house, well kept and scrubbed inside, warm and clean. It is twenty-three and a-half versts, or nearly sixteen miles, from Troitskosarfsk. Our doubts and fears regarding our ability to deal with Russians, of whose language we were ignorant, awed us into great circumspection at this, the first point where we were left to our unaided resources. Our first anxiety was to maintain our prestige among the Russians, for, that failing, we should have been helpless indeed. The only sure way of saving our name under the circumstances was to decline all discussion, and as far as possible hold our tongues. This succeeded very well at Ust Kiachtinské—four horses were put to our tarantass, and no extra fare asked. The post had left that day, and the poor jades allotted to us had already performed one stage over very heavy roads, and were in no condition to drag our unwieldy equipage. Our Bouriat yemschik had not gone very far over the soft sand before he discovered this, and after exhausting all his persuasion to no good purpose, he sent a message to the station by a chance Russian whom we met on the road. In answer to this a fifth horse was sent from the post-house. The yemschik resumed his efforts to proceed, and by dint of yelling, carressing, and whipping, we got along a few miles further. A nasty steep hill lay before us, and arrested our progress finally for the night. When the yemschik had bawled himself hoarse, and had goaded his horses to despair, he entreated us, first in Russian, and then in Mongol, to get out and unload the carriage. It was a cold dark night, and we were warmly wedged into the carriage in a way that if we got out we could never have readjusted our beds in the dark. Finding us deaf to remonstrance, our poor yemschik took the horses out and let them graze—made a fire for himself of the end of a fallen tree, and waited patiently for morning.
When daylight came we found ourselves in a thick wood, half way up the hill. An hour and a half was spent in unloading and getting the vehicle over the hill. After which we proceeded slowly to the station Piravolofské, which we reached at 8 o'clock. On the road we passed several villages, with some cultivated enclosures farmed by Russians, who also keep a good many cattle.
It was plain that we could not go on so heavily laden, for even if horses could draw our tarantass, the machine itself would certainly break down, and we should run the risk of being wrecked on the road beyond the reach of assistance. We therefore determined if possible to secure an extra carriage at Piravolofské. To this the station-keeper demurred, and told us that with only one padaroshna it was impossible to horse two equipages. The pass from the commissary was efficacious in removing his doubts, and after expending all his eloquence in proving the impossibility of complying with our request, he quietly ordered a kibitka, into which we transferred a portion of our dead weight, and we went on our way rejoicing. The roads were rather sandy and a good deal up and down hill. At 2 o'clock we passed Paravotné station, where we had shtchee. We then proceeded by a good road up a long valley through which runs a tributary of the Selenga. Turning with the river into another valley to our left, we again encountered sandy and hilly roads. We soon struck the Selenga, a fine deep river, running through a wide valley, hemmed in by steep and well-wooded hills. A ferry-boat which was in attendance carried us across easily, horses, carriages, and all. The people who manned the boat were Russians and Bouriats, some of them showing unmistakeable marks of mixed blood. The river had fallen about twelve feet by the marks on the rock. A few miles from the ferry lies the small, but rather pretty town of Selenginsk. It has commodious barracks, one fine church, and some good houses. The station-master at Selenginsk was an old, fat, consequential and surly fellow. His room was adorned with some poor pictures, among which was an engraving of Catherine II. The companions of his solitude were a wretched-looking girl, maid-of-all-work, and a small cur, trained to perform certain tricks before travellers, on whom it seemed to depend for its daily bread. This old fellow was too important a personage in his own estimation to allow us to pass without challenging our right to the two carriages, but by dint of holding our tongue we conquered his objections as effectually as if we had greased his palm with roubles.
Night was on before we got away from Selenginsk. At 11 o'clock we passed Arbusofské, and at 5 next morning we passed Nijni Ubukunské. A bitterly cold morning was the 9th of October. Passed through a well-peopled valley, in good cultivation compared with what we had seen, though still far short of what it might be. The valley runs north-east to Verchne Udinsk, a considerable town. We did not go round by that town, but turned off at Mohinski into a valley on our left, and struck the Selenga again, keeping on the left bank of the river. We now began to experience the effects of the recent inundations. Although the flood had abated very much, the water in the river was still high, and the flat banks were great marshes. The road had been almost obliterated by the flood, and new tracks had been struck out through the driest parts, over large boulders, deep holes filled with water, and heavy mud. The horses floundered, but struggled bravely, and the yemschiks vociferated for miles, through this impracticable compound of land and water. We were five hours in going sixteen miles.
The valley narrows to a steep gorge through which the Selenga forces its way under a shade of overhanging trees that almost conceals it from view. The river was running about four miles an hour, but so smoothly and silently, that the current would have been hardly perceptible but for the floating branches of trees borne on its surface. The scenery is most beautiful. The perpendicular walls of rock that form the gorge are thickly wooded with pine and birch, which, combined with the willows that grow in great luxuriance on the low banks of the river, and seem to stretch their branches almost across the water, give quite a tropical appearance to the valley.
The road through the gorge is scarped out of the rock, and rises to a good height above the river. It is narrow in the parts which are entirely artificial, so narrow that in some places there is not room for two vehicles to pass. The grandeur of the scenery faded away before our eyes as we looked down from the height into the deep abyss below. The edge of the precipice is guarded by a rough, strong, wooden parapet, without which, restive horses and drunken yemschiks would inevitably be immolated by the score at this dangerous place.
At 3 p.m. we arrived at Poloviné station, simultaneously with a number of other travellers from various quarters. The long interruption of travelling from the flooding of the country, had accumulated a great many on the west of Baikal lake, and now they crowded on all at once. Amongst our fellow-travellers were several government officers, and two loquacious Poles from Irkutsk. The station could not furnish horses for half of the number, and as we had all arrived together, it was a question who should get them. We required seven for our two carriages in the then state of the roads, and it was no small satisfaction to us to find that the postmaster assigned to us the precedence. The government officers made no remark, but simply ordered the samovar to make tea. The Russian travellers also took it very quietly. But the two Poles were not so easily appeased. We could glean a few words from the volleys of abuse with which they indulged themselves, the gist of which was anathemas on the Russian government, the postal system, and things in general, winding up with a threat to set up a "republic" in Siberia. Leaving our exasperated friends to digest the venom of their spleen, we rattled away over good roads along the left bank of the Selenga, till we arrived at dusk at the post station of Ilyensk, six versts short of the town of that name. The postmaster here was an old sergeant who kept house with his aged wife. She seemed to be a good sort of woman, for the house was in capital order, the wooden floor clean scrubbed, and the walls beautifully white. Tables and chairs were in the like good trim, as were also the pots and pans and crockery. The sergeant received us with open arms, and was obsequiously civil. It is probable that the yemschiks who had conducted us from Poloviné had passed the word to him of our being distinguished personages, whom all good postmasters delighted to honour. When the little man had acquitted himself of his bowing and scraping, he began to expatiate on the coldness of the night and the badness of the road that lay before us. The end of it was that he pressed us, with his most winning grimaces, to make ourselves comfortable under his roof for the night, and proceed at daylight next morning towards the Baikal. We were but too willing to listen to the voice of the charmer, for experience had taught us that night travelling in Siberia is no great luxury. Having therefore satisfied ourselves that we should be in good time to catch the steamer on the Baikal, which makes two trips a week, we resigned ourselves with a good conscience to the kind solicitations of our host. When supper was over and bedtime came, visions of Russian vermin began to haunt us, and seriously disturbed our prospects of rest. The most careful scrutiny of the apartment, however, led to no discoveries of a disagreeable nature, beyond the shoals of small cockroaches which the heat of the room brought out in high condition. These animals are inoffensive enough in their habits, but restless, and ever on the move, running to and fro over the room and everything in it. They emit a fetid odour, which is the most unpleasant thing about them, particularly when you inadvertently crush them. But the close, oven-heat of the room itself was in my case a sufficient objection to sleeping there, and the tarantass was to me the more attractive dormitory of the two. Indeed, when well wrapped up with furs, and only a part of the face exposed to the frost, the tarantass affords sleeping accommodation that might well be envied by a king, provided always there is no jolting over rough roads to disturb the sleeper.
The jingling of bells at various periods of the night announced the arrival of other travellers, and in the morning we found that one party of Russian officers, whom we had left drinking tea at Poloviné, had come and gone without stopping at Ilyensk. Another party of merchants had arrived later, and were all ready to start again when we got out of bed. We were naturally, though perhaps unjustly, suspicious of the Russians, and the first thought that flashed across our minds, on surveying our situation, was that we had been duped by the post-master into remaining all night at Ilyensk in order to let the others get a clear start of us on the road. It was of the last importance to reach the shore of Lake Baikal, from which we were still ninety versts distant, in time to save the steamer, and in the bad state of the roads it was impossible for us to calculate the length of time we should require to travel the distance. The advantage we had been induced to yield to our fellow-travellers might prove fatal to our own success, for although horses would be kept for us at Ilyensk, there might be a scarcity at the following stations, and our neighbours having the lead might take every available beast, leaving none for us. Under such circumstances the old sergeant was regarded with very different feelings from those we entertained of him when we retired to rest the night before. He did not escape a fair quota of abuse, but he still protested that his intentions were honourable. Great haste was made to get our horses in, and we had faint hopes of overtaking some of our friends.
The road from Ilyensk was good for fifteen versts, and quite level. Beyond that it had been completely destroyed by the recent floods, and the country was full of lagoons. The bridges were washed away, and their débris were scattered about over the fields. The main road was quite impracticable, and by-paths were struck out wherever the fancy, or topographical knowledge of the yemschik directed him. It was a wild chase for many weary miles, through great sheets of water, over high banks, and wide deep ditches, which were charged at full gallop, the lumbering machine being got over apparently by the sheer force of momentum. We then plunged into a dense forest where a lane had been cut out, leaving the stumps of the trees still sticking up. The ravines had been roughly bridged over with new-cut trees, overlaid with branches. This road, besides being as rough as wheeled carriage ever travelled on, was very circuitous, and our stage of twenty-four versts by the main road was stretched out to not much short of double that distance by the tracks we were compelled to follow. It says something, however, for the energy of the government, that the emergency should have been met so promptly. Their postal communication had not been interrupted a fortnight before this new road had been cut through the wood, on the slope of a hill above the reach of inundation.
Changed horses at Tarakanofské, a small miserable station, and at 1.30 reached Kabansk, a neat town with a pretty church. Here we dined, and proceeded at 2.30. The high mountains west of the Baikal were now distinctly visible. At the next station, Stepné-dvaretské, the postmaster was a Pole, a fine old gentleman, who was exiled under Nicholas in 1854. He appeared very anxious to talk about the affairs of Poland, but we had not acquired enough Russian to make conversation very interesting to either party, and besides we were in a hurry, and daylight was fast failing. The old fellow exulted in the expectation of foreign intervention in Poland, and became radiant with delight when we revealed our respective nationalities.
After leaving Stepné-dvaretské we soon reached the shore of the lake, when we turned to the left, and followed the coast-line, through occasional thickets and wide lagoons, till we reached Pasoilské, the terminus of the Trans-Baikal post-road. The station-house was full of travellers waiting for the steamer to cross the water. The fixed time of her departure was 9 o'clock the next morning, and the crowd of travellers spent the night in the post-house. No beds, and few seats are provided at these places. Men, women, and children roll themselves down on the floor indiscriminately, and sleep soundly through the incessant turmoil and noise that would make night hideous to nervous people. It is often impossible to thread one's way into the dormitory without treading on half the people who are sleeping among the bundles of clothing that cover the floor; but aggressions of that sort, being of common occurrence, are borne with stoical indifference. I slept as usual in the tarantass, and was lulled to sleep by the harmony of a howling wind, and the loud murmur of the waves of the lake that washed the sandy beach within a few yards of me.
The Selenga is formed in Mongolia by the junction of a number of small streams south of Lake Kosgol, 230 miles south-west from Kiachta. It is afterwards joined by the Orkhon, and its tributaries from the Kinghan mountains. The length of this river has been computed at 300 miles, which is probably near the mark. It is singularly rich in fish, among which is the sturgeon. The fisheries are a great blessing to the people who inhabit the valley, among whom fish forms a staple article of diet.
The Selenga falls into the Baikal, by several mouths, about twenty miles north of Pasoilské. That part of the coast would not be so convenient for the steamer to cross at, and would moreover make the crossing so much longer. But as the Selenga itself is navigable, by properly constructed vessels, from its mouth to a point higher than Selenginsk, the steamer route may possibly be eventually diverted to the river.
The valley of the Selenga is hemmed in to a narrow compass by mountains as far down as Ilyensk. Thence, downwards, the two mountain barriers diverge gradually, leaving a fine open valley, which widens to about forty miles on the coast of the lake. This valley supports a pretty large agricultural population, and the peasants seem all well-to-do. Agriculture is certainly not in an advanced state, if Europe be taken as a standard, but still a large portion of the valley is enclosed and cultivated; weeds are kept down; and stubble looks like stubble, and not merely grass of a different shade of colour from the surrounding pastures, which is the characteristic of the fields nearer Kiachta. The soil is light, dry, and friable; furrows don't hold their shape. The crops are chiefly cereals—wheat, barley, rye, and oats.
There is an immense tract of uncleared country in the Selenga valley, only wanting hands to fell trees and bring the soil under the plough, to make this a rich and fertile region. The slopes of the hills are also capable of cultivation, but centuries will probably elapse before they are required. In the meantime, both hills and plains bear magnificent crops of timber, which will keep the Siberians in fuel and building material for a thousand years to come.
Cattle are abundant, but under-bred and rather small. The milk cows are poor, which is singular considering that milk is such a valuable item in the subsistence of the people. They have a good hardy breed of sheep, which are nearly all black. Pigs are also very common in the villages. They are a peculiar breed, very active, do not grow to any size, rather long in the legs, and bristly. Their owners do not seem to feed their stock much, if at all, and consequently the animals have to follow their own instincts of self-preservation. They may be seen in the morning trooping it down the street at a steady trot, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, until some edible substance arrests their attention. They are not very particular about what they eat, and they manage, by dint of rapid movements, to eke out a subsistence off the odds and ends to be found in the streets, and the roots they can burrow out of the fields. Many of these Siberian pigs are of a brown colour, which is uncommon in the porcine race.
The dogs of Siberia are of the ubiquitous breed which is common all over China, Japan, and many other countries, and is nearly akin to our own collie dog.