In half an hour more, two of the boats were abreast of lighthouse bluff, and we descended to the landing-place to meet them in a state of excitement not easily imagined. Fourteen months had elapsed since we had heard from home, and the prospect of receiving letters and of getting once more to work was a sufficient excuse for unusual excitement. The smallest boat was the first to reach the shore, and as it grated on the sandy beach an officer in blue naval uniform sprang out and introduced himself as Captain Sutton, of the Russian-American Telegraph Company's bark Clara Bell, two months from San Francisco, with men and material for the construction of the line. "Where have you been all summer?" demanded the Major as he shook hands with the captain; "we have been looking for you ever since June, and had about come to the conclusion that the work was abandoned." Captain Sutton replied that all of the Company's vessels had been late in leaving San Francisco, and that he had also been detained some time in Petropavlovsk by circumstances explained in his letters. "What steamer is that lying at anchor beyond the Clara Bell?" inquired the Major. "That is the Russian corvette Varag, from Japan."—"But what is she doing up here?" "Why," said the captain with a quizzical smile, "you ought to know, sir; I understand that she reports to you for orders. I believe she has been detailed by the Russian Government to assist in the construction of the line; at least that was what I was told when we met her at Petropavlovsk. She has a Russian Commissioner on board, and a correspondent of the New York Herald." This was unexpected news. We had heard that the Navy Departments of Russia and the United States had been instructed to send ships to Bering Sea to assist the Company in making soundings and laying down the cable between the American and Siberian coasts, but we had never expected to see either of these vessels at Gizhiga. The simultaneous arrival of a loaded bark, a steam corvette, a Russian Commissioner, and a correspondent of the New York Herald certainly looked like business, and we congratulated ourselves and each other upon the improving prospects of the Siberian Division.
The corvette's boat by this time had reached the shore, and after making the acquaintance of Mr. Anóssof, Colonel Knox, the Herald correspondent, and half a dozen Russian officers who spoke English with the greatest fluency, we proceeded to open and read our long-delayed mail.
The news, as far as it related to the affairs of the Company and the prospects of the enterprise, was very satisfactory. Colonel Bulkley, the engineer-in-chief, had touched at Petropavlovsk on his way north, and had written us from there, by the Varag and the Clara Bell, full particulars as to his movements and dispositions. Three vessels—the Clara Bell, Palmetto, and Onward—had been sent from San Francisco to Gizhiga with a force of about sixty men, and large assorted cargoes to the value of sixty thousand dollars. One of these, the Clara Bell, loaded with brackets and insulators, had already arrived; and the other two, with commissary stores, wire, instruments, and men, were en route. A fourth vessel with thirty officers and workmen, a small river-steamer, and a full supply of tools and provisions, had also been sent to the mouth of the Anadyr River, where it would be received by Lieutenant Bush. The corvette Varag had been detailed by the Russian Navy Department to assist in laying the cable across Bering Strait; but as the cable, which was ordered in England, had not arrived, there was nothing in particular for the Varag to do, and Colonel Bulkley had sent her with the Russian Commissioner to Gizhiga. Owing to her great draught of water—twenty-two feet—she could not safely come within less than fifteen or twenty miles of the Okhotsk Sea coast, and could not, of course, give us much assistance; but her very presence, with a special Russian Commissioner on board, invested our enterprise with a sort of governmental authority and sanction, which enabled us to deal more successfully with the local authorities and people than would otherwise have been possible.
It had been Major Abaza's intention, as soon as one of the Company's vessels should arrive, to go to the Russian city and province of Yakutsk, on the Lena River, engage there five or six hundred native labourers, purchase three hundred horses, and make arrangements for their distribution along the whole route of the line. The peculiar state of affairs, however, at the time the Varag and the Clara Bell reached Gizhiga, made it almost impossible for him to leave. Two vessels—the Onward and the Palmetto—were yet to arrive with large and valuable cargoes, whose distribution along the coast of the Okhotsk Sea he wished to superintend in person. He decided, therefore, to postpone his trip to Yakutsk until later in the fall, and to do what he could in the meantime with the two vessels already at his disposal. The Clara Bell, in addition to her cargo of brackets and insulators, brought a foreman and three or four men as passengers, and these Major Abaza determined to send under command of Lieutenant Arnold to Yamsk, with orders to hire as many native labourers as possible and begin at once the work of cutting poles and preparing station-houses. The Varag he proposed to send with stores and despatches to Mahood, who had been living alone at Okhotsk almost five months without news, money, or provisions, and who it was presumed must be nearly discouraged.
On the day previous to the Varag's departure, we were all invited by her social and warm-hearted officers to a last complimentary dinner; and although we had not been and should not be able with our scanty means to reciprocate such attentions, we felt no hesitation in accepting the invitation and tasting once more the pleasures of civilised life. Nearly all the officers of the Varag, some thirty in number, spoke English; the ship itself was luxuriously fitted up; a fine military band welcomed us with "Hail, Columbia!" when we came on board, and played selections from Martha, Traviata, and Der Freischütz while we dined, and all things contributed to make our visit to the Varag a bright spot in our Siberian experience.
On the following morning at ten o'clock, we returned to the Clara Bell in one of the latter's small-boats, and the corvette steamed slowly out to sea, her officers waving their hats from the quarter-deck in mute farewell, and her band playing the Pirate's Chorus—"Ever be happy and blest as thou art"—as if in mockery of our lonely, cheerless exile! It was a gloomy party of men which returned that afternoon to a supper of reindeer-meat and cabbage in the bare deserted rooms of the government storehouse at Gizhiga! We realised then, if never before, the difference between life in "God's country" and existence in north-eastern Asia.
As soon as possible after the departure of the Varag, the Clara Bell was brought into the mouth of the river, her cargo of brackets and insulators discharged, Lieutenant Arnold and party sent on board, and with the next high tide, August 26th, she sailed for Yamsk and San Francisco, leaving no one at Gizhiga but the original Kamchatkan party, Dodd, the Major, and myself.
CHAPTER XXXIII
ARRIVAL OF BARK "PALMETTO"—DRIVEN ASHORE BY GALE—DISCHARGING CARGO UNDER DIFFICULTIES—NEGRO CREW MUTINIES—LONELY TRIP TO ANADYRSK—STUPID KORAKS—EXPLOSIVE PROVISIONS
The brief excitement produced by the arrival of the Varag and the Clara Bell was succeeded by another long, dreary month of waiting, during which we lived as before in lonely discomfort at the mouth of the Gizhiga River. Week after week passed away without bringing any tidings from the missing ships, and at last the brief northern summer closed, snow appeared upon the mountains, and heavy long-continued storms announced the speedy approach of another winter. More than three months had elapsed since the supposed departure of the Onward and Palmetto from San Francisco, and we could account for their non-appearance only by the supposition that they had either been disabled or lost at sea. On the 18th of September, Major Abaza determined to send a messenger to the Siberian capital, to telegraph the Company for instructions. Left as we were at the beginning of a second winter without men, tools, or materials of any kind, except 50,000 insulators and brackets, we could do nothing toward the construction of the line, and our only resource was to make our unpleasant situation known to the Company. On the 19th, however, before this resolution could be carried into effect, the long-expected bark Palmetto arrived, followed closely by the Russian supply-steamer Saghalin, from Nikolaievsk. The latter, being independent of wind and drawing very little water, had no difficulty in crossing the bar and gaining the shelter of the river; but the Palmetto was compelled to anchor outside and await a higher tide. The weather, which for several days had been cold and threatening, grew momentarily worse, and on the 22d the wind was blowing a close-reefed-topsail gale from the south-east, and rolling a tremendous sea into the unprotected gulf. We felt the most serious apprehensions for the safety of the unfortunate bark; but as the water would not permit her to cross the bar at the mouth of the river, nothing could be done until another high tide. On the 23d, it became evident that the Palmetto—upon which now rested all our hopes—must inevitably go ashore. She had broken her heaviest anchor, and was drifting slowly but surely against the rocky, precipitous coast on the eastern side of the river, where nothing could prevent her from being dashed to pieces. As there was now no other alternative, Captain Arthur slipped his cable, got his ship under way, and stood directly in for the mouth of the river. He could no longer avoid going ashore somewhere, and it was better to strike on a yielding bar of sand than to drift helplessly against a black perpendicular wall of rock, where destruction would be certain. The bark came gallantly in until she was only half a mile distant from the lighthouse, and then grounded heavily in about seven feet of water. As soon as she struck she began pounding with tremendous violence against the bottom while the seas broke in great white clouds of spray entirely over her quarter-deck. It did not seem probable, that she would live through the night. As the tide rose, however, she drove farther and farther in toward the mouth of the river until, at full flood, she was only a quarter of a mile distant. Being a very strongly built ship, she suffered less damage than we had supposed, and, as the tide ran out, she lay high and dry on the bar, with no more serious injury than the loss of her false keel and a few sections of her copper sheathing.