On April 7 we reached a landmark for which Mikouline had been searching in some anxiety, the Bolshaya-Reka or Big River. All that day we had been at sea, picking our way through mountainous bergs and hummocks, some quite sixty feet in height, while the sleds continually broke through into crevasses concealed by layers of frozen snow. On the right bank of this river we found a deserted village once occupied by trappers; half a dozen ruined huts surrounding a roofless chapel. The place is known as Bassarika, a corruption of Bolshaya-Reka, and Mikouline had known it ten years ago as the abode of prosperous fur traders. But one hard season every living being perished from smallpox and privation, and the priest alone escaped to carry news of the disaster to Nijni-Kolymsk.[51]
[51] Twenty or thirty years ago there were three or four Russian settlements, and at least as many Tchuktchi villages between the Kolyma River and Tchaun Bay, but there is now not a solitary being on the coast throughout the whole distance of nearly six hundred miles.
Our drivers camped here with reluctance, for the place is said to be haunted, and its silent, spectral appearance certainly suggested an abiding-place of evil spirits. But one of the ruined huts, although pitch dark and partly filled with snow, offered a pleasanter shelter than our draughty tent, and I insisted upon a halt. Drift-wood was plentiful (it always was near the mouth of a river), and a fire was soon kindled, or rather a bad imitation of one, for this fuel only yields a dull, flickering flame. This latter, however, melted the snow sufficiently to convert the floor of our shanty into a miniature lake, and we therefore left it in disgust and adjourned to the deerskin tent shared by Stepan and the drivers, hard snow being a preferable couch to several inches of icy-cold water. This happened to be my birthday, and Harding triumphantly produced a tiny plum pudding, frozen to the consistency of a cannon-ball, which he had brought all the way from England in honour of the occasion. But we decided to defer the feast until we could enjoy it in comparative comfort, perhaps on the shores of Bering Straits—if we ever reached them! My notes between Bassarika and Tchaun Bay are very incomplete, for they were generally made at night, when the temperature inside the tent seemed to paralyse the brain as completely as it numbed the fingers. Oddly enough there is nothing colder than paper, and when the bare hand had rested upon it for a few moments it had to be thrust back into a fur mit to restore circulation.
Imagine a barren, snow-clad Sahara absolutely uninhabited for the first six hundred miles, and then sparsely peopled by the filthiest race in creation, and you may faintly realise the region traversed by my expedition for nearly two months of continuous travel from the last Russian outpost to Bering Straits. Place a piece of coal sprinkled with salt on a white tablecloth, a few inches off it scatter some lump sugar, and it will give you in miniature a very fair presentment of the scenery. The coal is the bleak coast-line continually swept clear of snow by furious gales; the sugar, sea-ice, and the cloth the frozen beach over which we journeyed for over 1600 miles. The dreary outlook never changed; occasionally the cliffs vanished and our way would lie across the tundras—marshy plains—which in summer encircle the Polar Sea with a belt of verdure and wild flowers, but which in winter-time are merged with the frozen ocean in one boundless, bewildering wilderness of white. In hazy weather land and sky formed one impenetrable veil, with no horizon as dividing line, when, even at a short distance away, men and dog-sleds resembled flies crawling up a white curtain. But on clear days, unfortunately rare, the blue sky was Mediterranean, and at such times the bergs out at sea would flash like jewels in the full blaze of the sunshine, while blocks of dark green ice, half buried in snow under shadow of the cliffs, would appear for all the world like cabochon emeralds dropped into a mass of whipped cream. But the reverse of this picture was depressing in the extreme. For on cloudy days the snow would assume a dull leaden appearance, and the sea-ice become a slate grey, with dense banks of woolly, white fog encircling the dismal scene. Fair and foul weather in the Arctic reminded me of some beautiful woman, bejewelled and radiant amid lights and laughter, and the same divinity landing dishevelled, pale, and sea-sick from the deck of a Channel steamer.
But we had little time, or indeed inclination, to admire the beauties of nature, which are robbed of half their charms when viewed by the owner of an empty stomach. Did not Dr. Johnson once truthfully remark that, "the finest landscape is spoiled without a good inn in the foreground"? Time also in our case meant not merely money, but life, and we were therefore compelled to push on day after day, week after week, at the highest rate of speed attainable by our miserable teams, which, to do them justice, did their best. The poor beasts seemed to be instinctively aware that our food would only last for a limited period. When the coast was visible we steered by it, travelling from 6 A.M. until we struck drift-wood, the traveller's sole salvation on this coast. Sometimes we found it and sometimes we didn't, in any case it was seldom more than sufficient to boil a kettle, and bodily warmth from a good fire was an unknown luxury. Even a little oil would have been a godsend for heating purposes, but we had used up every drop we possessed before reaching Sredni-Kolymsk, where no more was attainable, and I dared not waste the alcohol brought for the purpose of bartering with the Tchuktchis. I can safely say I have never suffered, physically or mentally, as I did during those first two weeks along the shores of North-Eastern Siberia. We were often compelled to go without food throughout the twenty-four hours, and sometimes for thirty-six, our frozen provisions being uneatable uncooked. At night, after a cheerless meal, we would crawl into sleeping-bags and try to sleep in a temperature varying from 35° to 45° below zero. And sometimes lying sleepless, miserable, and half frozen under that flimsy tent, I resolved to give it all up and make an attempt to return to the Kolyma River, although even retreat would now have been attended with considerable peril. And yet, somehow, morning always found us on the march again eastward. On the beach we got along fairly well, but steep, precipitous cliffs often drove us out to sea, where the sleds had to be pushed and hauled over rough and often mountainous ice, about the toughest work I know of. We then travelled about a mile an hour, and sometimes not that. The end of the day generally found us all cut about, bruised, and bleeding from falls over the glassy ice; and the wounds, although generally trifling, were made doubly painful by frost and the absence of hot water. I enter into these apparently trivial details as at the time they appeared to us of considerable importance, but the reader may think them unnecessary, just as the man who has never had toothache laughs at a sufferer. Toothache, by the way, was another minor evil that greatly increased our sufferings during those dark days of hunger and incessant anxiety.
And yet, if all had gone well, all these troubles—added to intense cold and semi-starvation—would have been bearable; but everything went wrong. First it was the dogs, as famished as ourselves, who dragged their tired limbs more and more heavily towards evening as the weary days crawled on, and every morning I used to look at their gaunt flanks and hungry eyes, and think with despair of the thousand odd miles that lay between us and Bering Straits. Then the Russian drivers, secretly backed by Mikouline, threatened almost daily to desert us and return to the Kolyma. One morning all three burst into my tent and vowed that nothing should induce them to proceed a mile further. Finally, force had to be employed to keep these cowards together, and, luckily, we were well armed, which they were not. But this trouble necessitated a watch by night, as exhausting as it was painful in the pitiless cold. Only ten days out from the Kolyma we were living on a quarter of a pound of Carnyl and a little frozen fish a day, a diet that would scarcely satisfy a healthy child. Bread, biscuits, and everything in the shape of flour was finished a week after leaving Kolymsk, but luckily we had plenty of tea and tobacco, which kept life within us to the last.
Then sickness came. Owing to the frequent dearth of fuel our furs and foot-gear were never quite dry, and during sleep our feet were often frozen by the moisture formed during the day. One fireless night De Clinchamp entirely lost the use of his limbs, and a day's delay was the result. Four days later he slipped into a crevasse while after a bear and ruptured himself. This bear, by the way, was the only living thing we saw throughout that journey of nearly six hundred miles to Tchaun Bay. Then I was attacked by snow-blindness, the pain of which must be experienced to be realised. Goggles gave me no relief, and in civilisation the malady would have necessitated medical care and a darkened room. Here it meant pushing on day after day half blinded and in great agony, especially when there was no drift-wood and therefore no hot water to subdue the inflammation. Sleep or rest of any kind was impossible for nearly a week, and for two days my eyes closed up entirely and I lay helpless on a sled, which was upset, on an average, twice every hour on the rough, jagged ice. At last we struck a fair quantity of wood and halted for forty-eight hours, and here I obtained relief with zinc and hot water, while Mikouline proceeded to rub tobacco into his inflamed optics, a favourite cure on the Kolyma, which oddly enough does not always fail. About this time one of the dogs was attacked with rabies, and bit several others before we could shoot it. We lost over a dozen dogs in this way before reaching Bering Straits, this being probably due to the casual manner in which Stepan treated the disease. When one animal had to be destroyed he coolly led it about at the end of a string to find a suitable spot for its execution, and when another went mad, and I was for despatching it, suggested that we could ill spare it from the team for a few days longer! And yet, notwithstanding these hourly difficulties, privations, and hardships, I am proud to say that I never once heard a word of complaint from a single member of my party, although those days of constant toil and suffering in that grave of nature, the Arctic, might well have tried the constitution of a Sandow and the patience of a Job! And I may add that no leader of an expedition could wish for three more courageous and unselfish companions than the Vicomte de Clinchamp, George Harding, and last, but not least, the Cossack Stepan Rastorguyeff, whose invaluable services throughout this journey will, I am informed, be suitably rewarded by the Russian Government.
About one day in four was bright and sunny, and would have been almost pleasant under other circumstances. Even our chicken-hearted drivers would become less gloomy under the genial influence of bright sunshine, and join together in the weird songs of their country until darkness again fell, bringing with it disquieting fears of the murderous Tchuktchi. Most of that memorable journey was made through a constant succession of snowstorms, gales and poorgas. We met three of the latter between the Kolyma River and Cape North, the last one striking us on the twentieth day out, as we were crossing Tchaun Bay, on the eastern shores of which I hoped to find a settlement. Although the weather just before had been perfectly clear and calm, in five minutes we were at the mercy of such a tempest that men and dogs were compelled to halt and crouch under the sleds to escape its fury.
During a temporary lull we got under way again, and for seven of the longest hours of my life we floundered on. As even a gentle zephyr up here, blowing against the face, means considerable discomfort, and anything like a gale, acute distress, the reader may imagine what it meant to struggle against a howling poorga. During those terrible hours one could only glance hastily to windward, for the hard and frozen snow cut like a whip into cheeks and eyeballs. Every few minutes the weak, half-starved dogs would lie down, and were only urged on by severe punishment which it went to my heart to see inflicted, but to reach land was a question of life or death. Sometimes the coast would loom ahead through the blinding snow, but we had to steer by the compass, which, for some occult reason, was that day useless, for it pointed east and led us due north towards the sea. At last, after a journey from the opposite coast of ten hours, with faces, feet and hands badly frozen, we reached land exhausted, and, for the time being, safe. Some drift-wood and the shelter of a friendly cave were handy, or that night some of us must inevitably have perished. But after a painful struggle up a steep cliff, waist-deep in snow, and a crawl into the cheerless refuge, the cry was raised, "A sled is lost!" and there was nothing for it but to face the poorga again in search of the missing narta and its driver, one of the Kolyma men. For perhaps an hour every man floundered about the hummocks and crevasses of the bay with a dogged perseverance born of the knowledge that at this time of the year large floes are often detached from the main pack and blown out to sea. But at last even Stepan's pluck and endurance were exhausted (to say nothing of my own), and I blew the whistle for a general retreat to our cavern, only to find the missing sled triced up with the others and its occupant snugly reposing inside the rock. And right glad we were to find not only the man in charge of it but also the missing sled, which had contained the last remnants of our provisions!
That night, after the evening meal, every mouthful of food we had left was two pounds of Carnyl and fourteen frozen fish, and this must suffice for nine men and sixty ravenous dogs! Hitherto we had joked about cannibalism. Harding, we had said, as being the stoutest member of the party, was to be sacrificed, and Stepan was to be the executioner. But to-night this well-worn joke fell flat. For we had reached the eastern shores of Tchaun Bay, and this was where we should have found a Tchuktchi village. When the sun rose next morning, however, not a sign of human life was visible. Even Stepan's features assumed a look of blank despair, but the plucky Cossack aroused our miserable drivers as usual with his cruel nagaika[52] and compelled them to make a start, although the poor wretches would willingly have resigned themselves to a death which undoubtedly overtook them a few days later.