From Pekin to Calais by Land

by Harry De Windt

It was growing dusk as we left Kiakhta; but the cool night-air, rapid motion, and exhilarating jingle of the bells as the three sturdy little horses tore along the hard, level road, soon cleared the cobwebs from our brain, and made one forget the scenes of debauch of the past three days. The entertainments we had attended left the same impression on my mind as a head-feast I once witnessed in Central Borneo——a kind of wonder that human beings, however uncivilized, could become so animal, not to say bestial, in their minds and habits. I have not exaggerated the state of things at Kiakhta, though must, in justice, add that it was the most dissolute and drunken place we came across. Some excuse, too, must be made for people living in a land with such squalid, depressing surroundings, and having absolutely no intellectual pursuits.

There are two roads from Kiakhta to Lake Baikal; one the old post-road, the other a private one, made and used by the tea-merchants, or by those having their permission. The latter is a hundred and eighty versts shorter than the old government post-road. By the intervention of Herr R., we were permitted to use the private road, and luckily, for we had but three days before us to catch the steamboat at Moushafskaya, on the eastern shore of the lake. We reached the first stage, twenty versts from Kiakhta, just before midnight. Here we first began to taste the delights of Siberian posting, for there were no horses, nor would there be till next morning. The post-house was, however, brand new, and as clean as a new pin inside and out; and we were not sorry for the rest afforded by the delay. Had all the post-houses in Siberia been as clean and comfortable as those in the Trans-Baikal, we should have had little to complain of. But the Russian government has a very different way of doing things to its wealthy and luxurious purveyors of tea.

We were away again shortly after seven o’clock, but began the day badly. Of our “Troika,”[^[8]] two were bolters and one a jibber; and a slight difference of opinion at the start ended by the bolting of the two outside horses, who dragged the jibber along with them by main force. They tore along at a mad gallop for a couple of hundred yards, the heavy tarantass swaying to and fro, till a friendly sand-bank brought us up all standing, the off-wheel buried in the earth, the near one whirling round in the air. As for the yemstchik, he had disappeared, and presently emerged like a water-god, dripping with water, and covered with duck-weed, for he had been shot into a pond the other side of the bank. We got righted with the aid of some peasants, and by dint of lashing, yelling, and cursing, got the unruly team off again at a gallop; and though for a mile or so we were as often off the road as on it, we met with no further misadventure, for a time, at least. “Pour une personne qui n’aime pas les émotions,” as the French say, posting in Siberia is rather a strain on the nerves. The yemstchik has no idea of danger, will drive at full gallop down a hill like the side of a house, though it may be half a mile long, and there is nothing to stop you at the bottom but a river or precipice without a guard-rail, or standing up on the box and lashing the horses into a furious gallop in places where a broken rein or the falling of one horse would send the whole concern to kingdom come——yourself included. And yet it is surprising how few serious accidents do occur on the great post-road. Yemstchiks seem, like drunken men, to be under the special care of Providence.

We reached the Selenga river about mid-day, a deep, swift stream about half a mile broad, and crossed by a ferry. This was our first experience of a Siberian ferry, but we were not allowed to examine it long, for turning on to the wooden landing-stage, our yemstchik shaved the side so close that the bank gave way, and the off-side of the tarantass fell bodily over almost into the stream. Luckily, one of the posts of the bridge caught the axle of the wheel, and we jumped out quick as lightning, only to see that our vehicle was hanging, saved only by a thread from utter destruction. Had not the post been of the strongest pine, it must have given way. The yemstchik stood by whimpering, evidently expecting what he would have had if his passengers had been Russians, a sound thrashing, and I felt sorely inclined to give it him, except that it would have lost time, and every moment the strain on our sole hope, the wooden post, was getting more severe. It took us some time to get the horses out, for they were plunging and kicking so that I expected every moment to see them dislodge the heavy, cumbersome carriage, and send it plunging into the river. There was but one thing to do, cut the traces, and as soon as this was done Lancaster and I set to work and got all the luggage out to lighten it as much as possible. The yemstchik, delighted to find his skin whole, worked away like a Trojan, and with the aid of some men from the ferry, we managed to get two or three planks from the stage. These we placed under the carriage, and I breathed again. Our tarantass was saved. But though all actual danger of losing it was over, it was by no means an easy task to hoist it on terra firma. There were but two peasants in charge of the ferry——a very old man and a very small boy, and our united efforts never made it budge an inch. There was nothing left but to send for help to a village about three miles off, and patiently sit down and wait with the pleasing conviction that we had for a certainty lost the steamer at Shamoufskaya.

It was not till nearly four o’clock that the men arrived, and past five before we had got the things in again, rigged up some traces, a simple job enough in Siberia, where they are made of rope, and got our carriage safely hoisted on to the ferry. We then crossed safely, and proceeded on our journey.

The ferry across the Selenga is constructed on the same plan as over every other Siberian river we crossed. A large barge is moored mid-stream about two hundred yards above the ferry. To this is attached a stout chain, connected by means of a number of smaller boats, to the bows of the ferry. On being cast off from the shore, the mere force of the stream is sufficient to propel the ferry from bank to bank. This seemed a simple and effectual plan, particularly in Siberia, where the rivers are mostly of great size and swiftness.

The scenery from here to Monshafskaya was lovely, and perhaps the more civilized nature of the landscape made one appreciate it more from just leaving the bare, monotonous steppes of Mongolia. It seemed almost as if one were home again, to see the large enclosed meadows, the ruddy peasantry in the hay-fields, and the pretty, rustic-looking villages, with their gabled cottages, and picturesque church towers. The bright warm sun lent an air of gaiety to the scene, and everything looked happy and contented, from the rosy-cheeked peasant girls with their hay-rakes and milk-pails, to the fat sleepy cattle browsing in the fields.

There were no horses to be had till midnight at the next stopping-place, so we made ourselves comfortable and got the post-master’s wife to give us some supper, a delicious meal of black bread, eggs, and thick clotted cream, with some berries of her own preserving. All was excellent but the black bread, a substance not unlike suet mixed with soot and treacle. The postmistress herself brought us supper, but her lord and master was terribly jealous, and never let her out of his sight for a moment, a circumstance that seemed to afford her the greatest amusement. She was a true Russian from Nijni Novgorod, she told us, and not a Siberian. Her name was Olga, and she’d just had a baby, and would, I believe, have told us the whole particulars of its birth, had not Benedick, who scowled in a corner the whole time, sent her off to bed. We carried on the conversation by means of a dialogue book, and she laughed till she cried at my attempts at Russian. The walls of the post-house were covered with pictures cut from illustrated papers. Among others one of Mrs. Langtry out of the Graphic. “Krasivia Dama Ingliska,”[^[9]] said pretty Olga, as she pointed it out. I have often wondered how it ever drifted to this outlandish place, and if Mrs Langtry is aware that her fair fame has spread as far as the Russo-Chinese frontier.

The country became more mountainous after this and less cultivated, though one passed every now and again fertile valleys well stocked with rye, corn, and barley, and prosperous-looking, fair-sized villages nestling in the hills. The roads were excellent, far better than any others we met with throughout Siberia. Their comparative newness, and the small amount of traffic that goes this way compared to the other, no doubt accounts for this. We were fairly lucky too in obtaining horses, and were only detained twice, once on the occasion I have mentioned, and the other the night before we reached Monshafskaya on the Baikal at Abukansk. As, however, we made the acquaintance of a charming fellow-traveller on the second occasion, who was in the same plight as ourselves, we did not mind the delay. Had it not been for this chance friend, we should have been quite ten days reaching Irkoutsk instead of five. M. Radovitch was a Russian in Government employ, on his way to Irkoutsk. He had already been at Abukansk some hours when we got there, and when we entered the post-house addressed us in excellent French, much to our delight. We spent quite a pleasant evening, for the post-house was clean and comfortable, and next morning at 4 a.m., the horses being ready, started off together for Monshafskaya, Radovitch in a téléga or public travelling-carriage, a vehicle built on the same lines as a tarantass, but having the great disadvantage, that the traveller must change into another at every station.

The approach to Lake Baikal lies through a valley or gorge with steep rocky mountains, pine-clad almost to their summits, on either side. So narrow is the road in parts that there is barely room for two vehicles abreast, while a precipitous torrent about fifty feet below dashes along amid huge rocks and boulders to fall into the lake just below Monshafskaya. A great part of the road is cut out of the solid rock and must have cost a fabulous sum to make. We arrived at this, the most difficult and dangerous part of the road, just before sunset. It was rather nervous work, for there was no guard-rail or attempt at protection, and the slightest shy or false step of the horses, who were not of the steadiest, would have precipitated one on to the rocks below. Presently we left the ravine to ascend a steep hill, so steep indeed that four horses could hardly get us along. Luckily it was barely a quarter of a mile to the summit. Resting here awhile for our tired horses to regain breath, we heard a sound as of waves beating on a rocky shore. Walking on a few yards, we came to the edge of a cliff. The thick undergrowth and dense forest had up till now hidden it from view, for suddenly there at our feet, the snow-clad summits of its coasts glowing in the sunset, a sea of sapphire flecked with white waves, lay fathomless Lake Baikal.