All at the table were the worse for liquor; but the scholastic representatives of mathematics and chemistry were, to say the least of it, very drunk indeed. I was the innocent cause of a severe and sanguinary combat between them. Earlier in the evening, our conversation having turned upon duelling, I had related to the Cossack captain, much to his amusement, the story of the three-cornered duel in “Mr. Midshipman Easy,” which is probably familiar to the reader. The mathematical professor insisted on the joke being translated to him by the professor of chemistry, which, with no little difficulty, the latter did, but it instantly led to a wrangle. No three men, said the mathematician, could fire at each other. The thing was absurd, unfair, preposterous; one of them must be at a disadvantage. The discussion became so heated at last that Wormoff had to put a stop to it, thinking every instant the pair would come to blows, and peace was, for a time, restored.
We then adjourned to the drawing-room, where all sang and shouted at the top of their voices, regardless of time or tune, till past 4 a.m. If poor Madame Wormoff slept anywhere near, she must have had a bad time of it. Suddenly, while at the piano, a low, choking sound attracted my attention, and I looked underneath to find Russia (represented by the mathematician), lying on the top of Germany (represented by the chemist), and slowly but surely throttling her. The thing had been done so gently that neither Lancaster nor myself had noticed it. The others had returned to the dining-room and vodka. Quickly summoning Wormoff, we managed to get them apart, but not without difficulty. The Russian had decidedly the best of the combat, for the chemist was half dead, his face purple, and eyes protruding. It took at least half a bottle of vodka to bring him round again, and enable him to inform us that the casus belli was still the triangular duel! The Cossack was all for blood, and wanted them to fight it out with pistols in the morning. Nothing, he said, would settle the question but practical demonstration, and he would be charmed to make a third, but this was fortunately averted.
It was broad daylight when we separated, English bottled stout being handed round as a finale to the entertainment. It costs about a guinea a bottle in Kiakhta, and we drank it out of small wine-glasses. Then every one kissed every one else (this we found one of the most trying ordeals in Siberia), and we separated, having accepted an invitation to dine next evening with the post-master, but dearly hoping by that time to have left Kiakhta, little knowing that he alone had the power to grant us a Podarojna and horses to take us to Irkoutsk. Cherkoff insisted on seeing us home to the door of the hotel, where, after affectionately kissing me on the forehead, he left us, and tacked up the street, his sword rattling between his legs, to morning parade at 5.30. So ended our first evening party in Siberia!
We bought a tarantass next morning, and were lucky enough to get a very good one, though it had just done a long journey, and necessitated a delay of a couple of days to have the wheels, axles, &c., thoroughly overhauled before setting out on the two thousand miles of rough and trying road that lay between us and Tomsk. There was little trouble about stores. A small box of tea, a bag containing sugar, two or three loaves of white bread, and half a dozen lemons are all the Siberian travels with, and we resolved to do the same, indeed there would have been no room for more, for the tarantass was already full to overflowing with our portmanteaus and gun-cases. It may here be as well to give the reader a brief description of the vehicle, which in summer replaces the sleigh in Siberia, and which is admirably adapted for long journeys and rough roads.
A tarantass resembles a large cradle on four wheels. The body of our vehicle was about seven feet in length by five feet broad, and the bottom being concave, gave us plenty of room wherein to pack our portmanteaus and other luggage impedimenta. There are neither seats or springs, the occupants lying at full length on a mattress placed over the luggage or bottom of the carriage. A hood, capable of being folded back, covers the occupant partially, and from this hood to the driver’s seat in front can be spread an apron to serve as a further protection. The body of the tarantass rests on poles, and these rest in turn on the axletrees and wheels. The poles are generally springy, and much longer than the body of the vehicle, the fore and hind wheels are placed as far apart as the length of the poles will allow, and the body is placed mid-way between the wheels, so the want of proper springs is partially compensated for, inasmuch as the occupant does not feel the force of the jolting as he would do if he were seated directly over the wheels. Such is a brief description of the vehicle in which we travelled a distance of considerably over a thousand miles, from Kiakhta to Tomsk. The price we paid for ours was 280 roubles, which, considering all things and the distance we were from civilization, was not out of the way.
The next thing was to get rid of our ponies, Chow and Kharra. I knew the kind of life they would lead had we sold them to our Kiakhta friends, so we gave them away to a party of Mongols setting out for the desert. Poor little Kharra! He has, at any rate, a better time of it on his native breezy steppes, than in the streets of hot, dusty Pekin. Nearly the whole day was spent in preparations for departure; packing the tarantass, obtaining our Podarojna, and so forth. For the latter we had to apply to our friend of the evening before, the post-master, who was most reluctant to give us the document, and begged us to make a longer stay in Kiakhta. Seeing we were determined, however, he gave it us at last, reminding us that dinner would be on the table at ten o’clock sharp that evening.
The market at Troitzkosavsk is an interesting sight. It is a square open building, the shops around belonging partly to Chinese and partly to Europeans, and the medley of eastern and western population was most curious. The Russian shops were principally for the sale of stores, tobacco, provisions of all kinds, and ironmongery, but those of the Chinese devoted exclusively to tea and silks, in both of which there is an enormous trade in Kiakhta. Adjoining this was the fish-market, where sturdy Siberian fishwives appeared to be doing a roaring trade in salted salmon, trout, “Omul,” carp, and other fish from Lake Baikal. Fresh fish is seldom obtainable at Kiakhta, the Little Bura river which flows through being nothing more than a dry ditch in summer, and frozen over in winter. Having occasion to send a telegram, I went to the office on my way home, and was surprised at the absurdly low tariff, one rouble, or rather under one and eightpence for ten words to Petersburg, and all other parts of the Russian empire from the Baltic to the Sea of Okhotzk.
We were to start for Lake Baikal at nine next morning——at least horses had been promised us for that hour, yet when we arrived at the postmaster’s with R————, it was getting on for 10.30, there were no signs of dinner. The party was in point of fact nothing more nor less than a repetition of the night before, with the addition of about a dozen male and half a dozen female guests. We saw, with a shudder, that the postmaster had resolved to make a night of it, and our hopes of getting away anything like early on the morrow vanished into thin air.
The company was rather more orderly, however, at first, and we had, for a wonder, something to eat. Among the ladies was a young “Bouriatte” lady, who had just returned from a finishing school in Irkoutsk. The Bouriattes are an aboriginal tribe inhabiting the country north and east of Irkoutsk, and were but a short time since very little removed from the Mongols in point of civilization. This young lady had the queer physiognomy peculiar to her race, the flat nose, high cheek bones, thick lips, and narrow, twinkling eyes, which made a strange contrast to a European gown of the latest fashion that she wore. Still more curious was it when she sat down at the grand piano and gave us Mendelssohn’s “Lieder,” and one of Liszt’s “Rhapsodies” with an execution and feeling that I have seldom heard surpassed by an amateur. Classical music was evidently not appreciated in Kiakhta, and the bright jingling music of the “Cloches de Corneville” and “Le petit Duc” were much more enthusiastically received when Madame B————, a pretty little woman, the wife of the military doctor, sat down to the instrument and rattled them off.
Our friend, Captain Cherkoff, came in rather late, having been out with his men at target practice by moonlight——the order for this practice had only just been promulgated from Petersburg, and it really seems a very sensible proceeding. Three times a week, wet or dry, the troops were exercised at this manœuvre from ten o’clock till midnight.