The rates of passage by steamer across the lake are eight roubles first class, and five roubles deck passage, say twenty-four and fifteen shillings respectively. Distance about seventy miles. No table is kept on board. The freight on our tarantass was twenty roubles. Freight on general cargo is thirty kopeks per pood, equal to sixty shillings per ton. There seems to be no fixed rule as to passengers' baggage, but the agent is always open to an "arrangement." We were to pay the regular freight on ours, and the agent, to save himself the trouble of weighing it, asked us how much we had. I forget what the quantity was, but say it was ten poods. "Oh, then we will call it fifteen," said the agent. Our indignation was of course roused at this. We appealed to the Russian officer before mentioned, who laid it on so smartly to the agent for first asking us for the weight, and then assuming that we were necessarily trying to cheat him, that the wretch got frightened, and took our baggage free. This afforded the officer an opportunity, which the higher classes in Russia never let slip, of commenting on the low state of Russian morality, that is, of the merchant and moujik class, as distinguished from nous autres.
In the early morning the hive was all animation again. The clumsiest of boats were manned by crowds of Bouriats, with short paddles, to tow out to the steamer two of those huge barges that were lying in the harbour. The steamer was unable to approach nearer the shore than half a mile, owing to the shoalness of the water. The towing business pays the steamer well, and there are always numbers of sailing craft waiting at both ends for their turn to be towed across. Time is no object with them, and they miss many opportunities of sailing over with a fair wind, while waiting for the steamer to tow them. The trade is highly remunerative, as at present conducted, but it would pay much better to keep a smart steamer running regularly with mails and passengers, and a good tug to do nothing but tow barges. Half the number of these would then do as much work as the whole fleet does at present. A little healthy competition would work great results, but the Russians are fonder of combinations and monopolies than competition.
When the two barges had got their hawsers on board the steamer, one of the boats embarked our tarantass and ourselves, with a few other passengers who had turned up, and by eight o'clock we stood on the deck of the General Karsakof, so named after the present governor-general of Eastern Siberia. She is a rare specimen of naval architecture, and might have been built any time the last hundred years. Roughly put together, clumsy and unshapely, she would be a curiosity in any other part of the world; and for dirt I am certain she has not her match. The engines, which are of fifty horse-power, are the only redeeming feature in the vessel. They were made by an Englishman in Western Siberia. It is no doubt a great thing to have floated a steamer at all on the Baikal lake, but while they were about it the builders might have produced something more ship-shape. The General Karsakof and her sister ship are coining money for their owners, however, and they have no reason to be dissatisfied with their property.
We made but slow progress with the two lumbering barges in tow. There was a slight head wind at first, and our speed was about one mile per hour. Latterly the barges made sail, and we got on better.
Our course lay obliquely across the lake, about W.S.W. towards Listni-nijni at the head of the lower Angara. Had the weather been less severe we should have been tempted to keep the deck, and enjoy the sublime scenery with which we were surrounded. Both shores of the lake are very mountainous, those on the south-eastern side being highest, and covered with snow down to the water's edge. There was very little snow on the western side, the snow showers up to that time having been very slight and partial. The water of the lake, away from land, is of a very deep blue, almost black. Its depths have never been fathomed, probably from the want of proper tackle, for I am not aware that any ocean-sounding apparatus has ever been used on the Baikal. It has been said, I know not on what authority, that "no bottom" has been found at three thousand fathoms; but much that has been said of the Baikal is exaggerated, and I greatly doubt whether such a depth has been satisfactorily established. I was informed by a gentleman on the spot, personally acquainted with that part of the country, that the deepest soundings yet obtained in the lake were two hundred fathoms, and that beyond that depth nothing was known. It is only in a few places where soundings have not been taken.
The lake is over 300 miles in length, averaging about thirty in breadth; it covers a surface of 11,000 square miles, and is 1300 feet above the sea level. It is fed by two considerable rivers, the Little Angara on the north, and the Selenga on the east. It has only one outlet, the Great Angara, on the west, which drains the waters of the lake into the great river Yenisei, and that again into the Frozen Ocean. It is estimated that the water so drained, out of the lake does not amount to more than one-tenth of the quantity poured into it. This estimate may be a little wide of the mark, but there can be no doubt of the fact that the lake receives a large surplus of water above what it gives out, which the quantity lost by evaporation must be utterly inadequate to account for. The level of the water fluctuates only a few feet between seasons.
Baikal is a Mongol name. In saintly Russia it is called the Holy Sea, and among the peasant navigators it is considered high treason to call it a lake.
So much for the much be-written Baikal. To return to the General Karsakof. She is puffing and spluttering, with no apparent result but the rapid diminution of the pile of firewood which cumbered her deck. The passengers, mostly on deck, wrapped in huge furs, sit patiently wherever sitting-room can be found, facing the keen air with unruffled equanimity. Their noses look a little blue, but what of that?—every other portion of their body is warmly covered. The saloon, so called, is under deck, cold and cheerless. It was occupied by a few Russian officers and ourselves, who, between intervals of sleep, called for the samovar, and sipped tea ad libitum, the only kind of entertainment the steamer seemed capable of providing. All travellers in Russia carry their own tea and sugar.
I presume some one navigated the steamer, but I never could discover who occupied this important post. She was steered mostly by Bouriats, who take it very easy, sitting all the time on neat little stools to that end provided.
We succeeded eventually in reaching the western shore. We were eighteen hours crossing, the distance being seventy miles. A good little harbour, with deep water, shelters the steamers at Listni-nijni. A pier has been built for the vessel to go alongside, and everything would be perfect were the easterly shelter a little more complete.