OFF FOR BERING SEA—THE TCHUKTCHES
The Tchuktches are the Apaches of Siberia—Their hospitality to Americans and their hostility to Russians—Wherein my experiences differ from those of Mr. Harry DeWindt—Result of licking a piece of stone with the thermometer at 45° below zero—Konikly—Power of moral suasion in dealing with a rebellious Korak—The cure of a dying woman and the disgust of her husband—Poll-tax and the Tchuktches.
Immediately upon our arrival at the village of Kaminaw I began looking about for dog-teams to take me on the long trip around by the shore of Bering Sea. I found it very difficult to get good dogs there, but after four days of patient search I secured two strong young natives, each with a team of twelve dogs. I contracted with them to accompany me all the way from that point, a distance of over fifteen hundred miles, for fifty pounds of tobacco and twenty pounds of sugar, all of which I paid in advance.
Thus equipped I left Kaminaw, and pushed toward the northeast, following the line of mountains, and examining the rivers and creeks, the cañons and the gulches for the precious metal. We generally found Korak villages in which to lodge, but we suffered greatly with the excessive cold. Not infrequently we had to go without any fire at all, and at such times we found raw meat preferable to empty stomachs.
The next few weeks we worked our way toward the coast, one day succeeding another in the monotonous iteration of camping and breaking camp, and digging down into bed-rock in a fruitless search for paying gold. As we approached the coast for the first time, we fell in with members of the Tchuktche tribe. This name is generally spelled Tchou-tchour, but I found the name invariably pronounced T'chuk-tche, the apostrophe signifying that the initial T is pronounced separately. These people are generally supposed to be a rather ugly lot, and the Russians have never been able to subdue them as they have the other Siberian tribes. They are the Apaches of Siberia, and when attacked they retire to their mountain fastnesses, where it is next to impossible to reach them. They are purely nomadic, and subsist solely upon their immense herds of reindeer. They are much taller and broader in the shoulder than is characteristic of any of the other tribes that I have seen. Many of them stand five feet and eleven inches. The women, too, are tall and well-formed.
I had been warned by the Russian authorities at Ghijiga to be on my guard when I fell in with these fierce people, but I found the warning entirely unnecessary. They had a clear knowledge of the difference between a Russian and an American. Their preference for the American lies in the fact that the Russians have tried to make them pay tribute, and have carried on a desultory war with them for fifty years, while the American whalers bring them articles of trade of which they stand in need. They took the greatest interest in me, and did everything in their power to make me comfortable. In their sledges they would take me on long drives up the water-courses to look for gold, and in countless other ways showed their good will. They were the only people in Siberia with whom we could not bargain for meat or transport. They simply would not listen to my offers of pay, and it was only with difficulty that I could get them to take presents of tobacco or tea. They smilingly told me that I had better keep all those things till I went south into Kamchatka, "where all the people are thieves." I felt so safe among the Tchuktches that never once did I take my guns from the pack and bring them into the tent with me. One instance will illustrate the manner in which these good people treated me. At one point I had to take a three-days' trip over the mountains. It required twenty-five reindeer and five drivers. The village chief insisted on carrying my baggage, leaving my dog-teams to come on behind, unloaded. For this service I succeeded in making him take twenty cartridges.
One of the Tchuktches—an unconquered Race.
Mr. Harry DeWindt crossed over from the American side, and reported later that he had been captured by the natives, and, after undergoing great hardships, was rescued by a man-of-war. In view of my experiences among this people it is very difficult to understand the treatment that Mr. DeWindt received. I traveled all along the coast to the same places visited by him, and was always treated as an honored guest by the natives. On the whole, they are the finest race of savages that it has ever been my lot to meet.
The trip had been barren of results, as far as gold was concerned. Not long after leaving Kaminaw I struck a sandstone formation, and lost all traces of the yellow metal. And now I was approaching the coast, though I had not as yet caught sight of it. On the eighth of March we reached the foot of a range, and one of the Koraks, pointing to a distant summit, said that from that point we would be able to see the ocean. With renewed courage we pushed on. Each of the dogs wore on his feet soft deerskin moccasins, and the teams were being very carefully handled, for they were sadly worn by the long journey. They now needed constant urging. We no longer rode on the sledges, but walked beside them, pulling on the bow to relieve the dogs. When the hills were too steep, we had to double up the teams and make two trips, which lengthened the journey materially. During this period I was compelled to keep my beard trimmed close to my face, because I found, by hard experience, that my mustache would freeze down to my beard in such fashion that I had a mass of ice depending from my face, which had frequently to be cut away with a knife. In ordinary cold weather a beard is a protection from the cold, but under those circumstances I found that it added greatly to my discomfort.
Natives will pay more for short-haired dogs, for, in the case of the long-haired dog, the moist breath, as it flows back from his nostrils, soon covers him with a mass of icicles. With the short-haired dog this is impossible.
One day, shortly before we reached the coast, we camped at noon, and, about half a mile away, I saw a peculiar outcrop of white rock. Thinking that it might be worth prospecting, I put on my snow-shoes and walked over to it, while the men were getting dinner ready. The thermometer stood at forty-five below zero. I found that there was only a soda-like incrustation on the rock. And then, without thinking of the after effects, I took up a piece, about two pounds in weight, and put it to my mouth to taste it. Of course my tongue stuck to it, and an excruciating pain shot through that organ. I had taken a generous lick, and the whole surface of my tongue was fastened firmly to the stone. I managed to get back to the camp, still holding the stone to my face. For a moment, the men gazed at me in wonder; then one of them hurried to bring a kettle of warm water, which he attempted to dash in my face, but it did not reach the right spot. For what he next did I shall be grateful always. He took a large mouthful of the warm water, and then, with careful aim, squirted it between the stone and my face, and we soon had the encumbrance removed. With it came away a piece of the skin of my tongue, as large as a silver quarter. This escapade was wholly inexcusable, as I had already had sad experience in handling naked guns with bare, moist hands, and all my weapons were wrapped in buckskin, with only the sights exposed.
Our teams were now so exhausted that several of the dogs dropped out entirely, to crawl along after us as best they might. Looking back, from time to time, I could see them trying desperately to keep up, for they seemed to know that their only chance of life was to reach the camp before night, to get some of the dog-food, which was running very low. They were quite useless in the collar, for they not only did not draw, but held back the other dogs who were able to pull. I had started with fourteen good, strong animals, but now was reduced to eight; and even these looked like skeletons. However, these eight were game to the backbone, and would pull till they fell dead in the harness. "Old Red," still my right-hand dog, would occasionally look over his shoulder with pitiful eyes when I called, "Hyuk, hyuk!" and then he would put down his head and strain at his collar, while his breath came in coughing gasps. The ravens followed us for the last five days, seeming to know that if the dogs gave out they would have a feast. As for us men, we were in no danger, for we could easily have walked to the coast.
At last, one memorable day, we dragged ourselves to that last summit, and there, before us, were the waters of the sea, stretching out far to the east, with the pack-ice extending fifteen miles out from the shore. Below us, ten miles away, we could see the black dots that stood for the "hour-glass" huts, where we knew there was warmth, food, and rest for ourselves and our dogs. Since that day I have been able to sympathize keenly with Xenophon and his ten thousand, when they caught sight of the waters of the Euxine, and raised that glad shout of "Thalassa, thalassa!"
Summit of Kamchatka—First Sight of Bering Sea.
Though the dogs were very weak and worn, we went in with a rush, as usual. But the moment we stopped, the poor fellows dropped in their tracks and went to sleep, without a thought of food. Their utter exhaustion was due to the fact that for the last ten days we had been crossing a stretch of uninhabited country, and it had been impossible to secure for them the necessary amount of food.
We were much relieved to find ourselves once more in "civilization," and we were in no hurry to move on. The people received us so hospitably, and with such genuine kindness, that we spent a week with them, resting and getting the dogs into condition again. Every day we were regaled with frozen fish, dried fish, dainty bits of walrus blubber, and frozen blueberries.
Some of the people of this tribe have curly hair, a thing that I had not seen before in Siberia. They speak with one of those peculiar "clicks" that are so baffling to the Western tongue, and which I had always supposed were confined to the languages of Africa.
The village was composed of a mixed race in whose veins was mingled Tchuktche, Korak, and Kamchatkan blood, in about equal proportions.
On our second day there I was glad to see the dogs that had dropped behind dragging themselves in. They were tied up in their old places, and fed generously on seal blubber and hot fish-soup, which might be called a kind of fish and oil chowder. They were all suffering badly from the need of fatty foods, and it was interesting to see the avidity with which they would bolt huge pieces of clear blubber. At the end of our week of rest, they were all fat again, their feet were healed up, and they were eager for the road once more. Some of the dogs that had shown less endurance than the others were traded off and better ones secured. The best medium of exchange seemed to be the little skeins of sewing-silk which I had been careful to bring. Skeins that were bought in Vladivostok for two and a half cents apiece readily brought a dollar here. I would have sold it cheaper, but they pushed the price of the dogs up from five dollars to twenty, and I was obliged to follow suit. The silk was in all the colors of the rainbow; it was a study to see the faces of these natives as they devoured the gaudy stuff with their eyes, especially the women. They use the silk to embroider the bottoms of their fur cloaks, some of which are true works of art. Traders have been known to pay as high as two hundred dollars for a single coat. The amount of needlework on them is simply enormous. Sometimes they cut out little pieces of skin a quarter of an inch square, of all colors and shades, and make a genuine mosaic of them, and around the bottom of each garment is a wide fringe of silk. The natives laughed at the prices that I asked, and good-naturedly expostulated with me, saying that they could get the same thing in Ghijiga much cheaper; to which I laughingly answered that they were at liberty to go and get it. Whenever I left a house, I presented the women each with a few needles, which in that country is a very substantial tip.
This village was not composed of pure Tchuktches, and these mongrel people are looked down upon by the clean Tchuktche stock, who frequently raid them and carry off their best-looking women.
It was now my purpose to turn south along the coast, and examine the beach sands and the rivers running into Bering Sea, as far down as the neck of the Kamchatkan peninsula, or Baron Koff Bay. As I was still in a sandstone country, there seemed little likelihood of finding gold in the beach sands, and unless the geologic formation changed as I went south, I should push right on without stopping, except to rest.
Bidding good-by to the friends who had treated us so kindly, we set out one morning, on our way southward, keeping to the smooth snow just above the beach line. Once, and only once, I tried to shorten the journey by crossing an arm of the sea on the ice. Here I had my first taste of what it must be like to attempt to reach the Pole across the frozen sea. Not once could I go fifty feet in a straight line. It was an unspeakable jumble of hummocks and crevasses. We covered eight arduous miles that day, and the dogs were so exhausted that we had to stop two days to recuperate. Time and again, that miserable day, I got into the water up to my waist, which necessitated an immediate change of clothes. About once an hour the dogs would fall into the water and have to be hauled out, after which a tedious detour would be made to find a more likely route across the wilderness of ice.
The sixth day out we reached Baron Koff Bay. It is a long, narrow inlet lying southeast and northwest; and at its head I found the little Korak village where it was decided that I should secure a guide to take me to the sulphur deposits, which were supposed to exist in an extinct volcano in the vicinity. These people were of the same mixed blood as those of the village I had so lately left, but they did not live in the hour-glass houses. They simply had the underground room, with a hole leading down into it. The one I entered was fifteen feet wide by ten in height.
Kassegan, half-caste Russian trader, and Korak wife, living at Boeta, Baron Koff Bay, Kamchatka.
In this village seal-catching is the principal pursuit. The seal is such an important animal to these people that they go through a peculiar ceremony every year in its honor—a ceremony that is characteristically childish and built upon superstitions.
Near this point is an immense deposit of coal which had been discovered by a Russian man-of-war some twenty years before. The coal is of poor quality, but could be used for steaming if necessary. The coal-measures come right down to the water's edge. In the cliff beside the water I found three veins of coal, with an aggregate thickness of eighty feet.
This was a "dog" village, as distinguished from a "deer" village, and it was amusing to see half a dozen dogs lying about each of the entrance-holes of their underground houses, with their heads hanging over the edge, so that they could better appreciate the smell of food that rose with the smoke of the fire below. Of course I was always on the lookout for good dogs, and while I was in this village I came upon the finest specimen of a Siberian sledge-dog that it was ever my fortune to see. He was tawny or light-brown in color, with a splendid head, back, and shoulders. Clean-limbed, muscular, and straight-eared, his tail curved up over his back in the most approved style. He whipped our best dog in less than a minute. His name was Konikly, meaning "One of Two," and his stuffed skin can be seen to-day in the American Museum of Natural History. I presented him to the Jessup Expedition, in charge of which was Mr. Buxton, whom I afterward met in Vladivostok on his way to the north. I tried to obtain this dog, but found, to my chagrin, that he had been marked for sacrifice, and could not be bought. After bidding in vain up to fifty dollars in tea, sugar, and silk, I came to the sad conclusion that the animal was not on the market. But Snevaydoff, my right-hand man, said to me in Russian, "There is a better way. We must simply take him and leave behind sufficient compensation." This, of course, I hesitated to do until I found that the natives would gladly sell him, but did not dare to do so, for fear of angering the deity to whom he had been vowed in sacrifice. If, however, we took the dog by force they would not be to blame, and could demand the price as compensation. So I left the matter with Snevaydoff to arrange as diplomatically as he could.
We waited a day or so for a Korak named Myela, who was to guide us to the sulphur deposits, and when he arrived we made ready to start the next morning. Everything was loaded the night before, and some time in the night my Korak drivers hitched up the dogs, taking Konikly with them, and drove out of the village. When morning came, the owner of the dogs seemed much surprised to find that his dog was missing, and he very naturally surmised that my men had taken him. He demanded that I should pay for the stolen animal. Of course I protested, but in the end paid the full price, and then every one was happy and satisfied. After these ethical gymnastics, we drove out of the village, and made our way southward to the mouth of a river near which point the sulphur deposits were supposed to be; but I found, to my disgust, that the place was twenty miles inland, up an unnavigable river, and through a very rough country. I saw at a glance that it could never be a good mining venture, but I determined to go and examine the deposit, in order to be able to give a thorough report of the case.
That night we arrived at Myela's home, which was an isolated house or hole in the ground. For the last twelve miles we had been gradually ascending the valley, and the next morning we saw, eight miles away, the extinct crater in which the sulphur lay. We unloaded the sledges, and, taking only our picks and shovels, found ourselves, two hours later, on the summit of the volcano. The crater was partly filled with snow, but on one side, where it had been wind-swept, it was not deep. We carefully descended the steep side of the crater until Myela stopped us, and said, "Dig here." After going down through six feet of snow to the ground I found it strewn with detached boulders, covered with a thin film of sulphur, evidently a late solfataric deposit from the crater which had been lately active, and the indications did not promise large quantities; but even if the deposit proved to be rich, I could see very well that mining it would never pay. The distance from the coast, the roughness of the country, and the complete absence of timber made it out of the question. A careful examination of the place was, therefore, unnecessary.
I was then ready to start for Cape Memaitch, on the western coast of the peninsula, but I perceived that if I went all the way back to Baron Koff Bay to make a new start, considerable time would be lost. One of my Koraks was tired of the trip, and insisted on going back home by the shortest route, rather than by way of Cape Memaitch. He absolutely refused to cross the range of mountains, as the spring sun was now beating down on the snow, and he feared that, at any time, we would be engulfed in an avalanche. I had already learned that this route would not be really dangerous till three weeks later, and that if we pushed right through we should be quite safe. So on the morning of starting I sent off the other Korak with one of the sledges, and then turned to the unwilling one and asked whether he would go with me over the mountains. He still said no. I drew my revolver, and told him that his only chance of seeing home again was to hitch those dogs up instantly and obey me to the letter. He stood for a moment looking into that compelling muzzle, and then turned, sullenly, and began harnessing up. I had no more trouble with him after that.
In Crater of Extinct Volcano, digging for Sulphur. Baron Koff Bay, Kamchatka.
Two reindeer sledges were engaged to show us the way across the mountains, and to break the track wherever necessary. They started a mile in advance, so as to keep out of sight of the dogs. It was easy work to follow, for it was simply an all-day chase for the dogs; each one had his nose to the ground, and was fondly imagining that he would soon enjoy the unparalleled delight of jumping at a reindeer's throat.
Myela led us before night to a Korak village of three yourtas. As we approached it I saw a crowd huddled about something on the ground. It proved to be a middle-aged woman, lying on a deerskin, and she seemed to be dying. I asked why they did not take her inside, and was told that she had asked to be brought out. I studied her symptoms, and decided that she was suffering from the grippe, and that her case demanded heroic treatment. She had not slept for three nights, so I gave her twenty grains of quinine, two cathartic pills, and one-tenth grain of morphine. She woke up the next morning with her eyes brighter, and feeling better in every way. I gave her ten more grains of quinine, and that afternoon she sat up, and dipped her hand into the dish of meat and "spinach," and ate her full share. I thought her cure was something of a triumph, for when I saw her she seemed to be in articulo mortis. As I was about to leave, the husband of this woman, a man of many reindeer, asked me if I had not forgotten something, and intimated that I had not paid for the meat that my dogs had eaten. I asked him if he did not think that my curing of his wife was compensation enough; nevertheless, I paid him his full price and departed. My Korak men told me later that the old fellow was angry because I had saved the woman, as he had already picked out a young and pretty girl to be her successor. Alas! I had unwittingly come between man and wife, and had wrecked (at least his) domestic bliss. On the whole, I am not sure but that it would have been kinder to have let her die.
Our way led up a succession of cañons, and then over high mesas until we reached the summit of the range. As we were passing up through these cañons, we frequently ran under the edges of enormous overhanging drifts, and I looked up anxiously, but nothing fell except a little light snow and a few small pebbles. After passing the summit I determined to take no chances at all, and so restricted traveling to the night-time, when, of course, everything was frozen stiff.
It was now well into April, and the sun was climbing up into the heavens at noon. The surface of the snow grew a little too soft to make day travel quite comfortable. On this side of the mountains I found considerable float coal, especially in the beds of the creeks. The whole country was a sandstone formation, which, of course, meant no gold. At last, far in the distance, we saw the blue waters of the Okhotsk Sea flashing under the rays of the western sun, and we came down rapidly to the shore. I saw below us a few of the hour-glass huts, and at the mouth of a shallow stream a long promontory running far out into the sea. This was Cape Memaitch,—whither I was bound because the Russians had heard reports of a United States schooner touching at this point and taking away full cargoes of ore to San Francisco.
The first question I asked was whether or not it was true that such a vessel had actually stopped there, and was answered in the affirmative. A villager offered to guide me to the spot from which the ore had been taken. I was naturally elated, for there was now a prospect of finding something that would benefit my employers. The next morning we started out along the shore. The guide led me to the face of a sandstone bluff, and said, "Here is the place from which they took the ore." To say that I was dumfounded would be to put it mildly. When I had recovered sufficiently to fairly get my breath, I asked why this stuff had been loaded on the vessel, and the guide calmly replied that it had been done to keep the ship from turning over. It appeared that the vessel was a Russian, and not an American, after all. This place had been a favorite rendezvous for traders, and the schooner had come to exchange the products of civilization for the skins offered by the natives. Of course, when the vessel was unloaded it was necessary to secure ballast, and for this purpose the sandstone had been brought into requisition. I shrugged my shoulders, and tried to take it philosophically.
Our next move was to start on the return trip around the head of the Okhotsk Sea to Kaminaw. We had a beautiful road over the smooth tundra. Konikly was now leading with "Old Red," and every time we stopped, the two would fight, for the latter was very loath to share my affection with Konikly, whom he considered a parvenu.
Killing Deer for Dog Food.
As we were speeding along the beaten track the Koraks would break out in a wild strain of music; then Snevaydoff would sing one of the Russian peasant-songs, and occasionally, not to be outdone, I would give them a few bars of some such touching lyric as "A Hot Time," or "After the Ball." Thus we whiled away the long hours on the road.
Every few hours we changed places, letting each team lead in turn, for only the driver of the head team had any work to do. The others could even lie down and go to sleep if they wished, for the dogs drew as steadily and as patiently as mules. It seemed second nature to them. I used to sit and wonder how they could be trained to undergo such severe labor. I found out that, when only four months old, they are put into the hands of the small boys to train. They make up little teams of pups, with the mother dog, perhaps, as leader, and bring in water from the neighboring stream or drag in the firewood. By the time they are a year old they are ready to be turned over to a grown-up, who hitches up one or two of the young dogs with some steady old fellows, and it is not long before the training is complete. This method not only trains the dogs, but it teaches the boys how to handle them, so that by the time they are young men they are expert drivers.
After several days of fine going we arrived at Kaminaw, where I found the Ghijiga magistrate, who had come on his annual collecting tour. Each of the Koraks pays an annual poll-tax of four and a half dollars' worth of skins. These are taken to Ghijiga, and there auctioned off to the highest bidder. All these northern natives pay this tax, except the Tchuktches, who refuse to pay a cent. I found the magistrate in one of the huts, reclining on several bearskins, and kindly and affable as ever. Over him was arranged a sort of canopy to protect him from particles of dust or dirt that might fall from between the rafters of the building. He was dressed in his full regimentals of green and gold, with a sword at his side. He gave me a fine cup of coffee, and made me take a pound of the fragrant berry to cheer me on my way in to Ghijiga. I jealously guarded it, and made the grounds do duty three or four times over till every particle of the caffein had been extracted.