We skirted the lake for some time, now on a level with the shingly beach, now hundreds of feet above it, before we got to Monshafskaya, at dusk. The steamer, to our great relief, was a day late, and would not be leaving for Listvenitz (the port for Irkoutsk) till the following day at noon. The rest-house was crowded with travellers, one a special Government courier from Nicolaiefsk, whom Radovitch knew and introduced us to: a pleasant, chatty fellow, who had once held a commission in a crack cavalry regiment, but having lived not wisely but too well, had sold out and joined the Courier Service. On the occasion of the late Czar’s assassination he was sent (in winter) from Irkoutsk to Nicolaiefsk (on the sea of Okhotzk) and performed the journey in twelve days, an unprecedented feat, though on arrival at Nicolaiefsk he was lifted out of his sleigh more dead than alive, and did not recover for some months.
Monshafskaya is but a small village consisting of the rest-house, half a dozen cottages, and the “Ostrog” or prison. A sentry, with loaded rifle, stood at the gate, and eyed us rather suspiciously when we approached to look closer at the faces that, pressed against the iron bars of the small square windows, were watching our every movement. Most of them were, Radovitch told us, on their way to the gold-mines of Nertchinsk, and were of the lowest order of criminals, the sweepings of Moscow and St. Petersburg. More villainous faces I have seldom seen. The four large windows of the cells reserved for political prisoners showed us but one, a young and good-looking man, who when we looked at him, instantly averted his gaze. “He is for Karra,” said the sentry, with a leer, to Radovitch. “Won’t he enjoy himself?” None but Black Nihilists, of which he was one, and murderers are sent to this hell upon earth, which is, except Sakhalien, the most dreaded prison in Siberia. The unhappy wretches exiled to Siberia for political offences, are undoubtedly far worse off than the criminals sent there for theft or murder. Pens, ink, and paper, to say nothing of books, are rigorously forbidden, and this is the cruellest punishment for men of intellect who, taken from a life of mental activity in civilized Europe, are thrust perhaps for life into a prison with absolutely nothing, not even physical work to divert their thoughts from their shame and misery. As for the criminal classes, they care little so long as they get their vodka smuggled in, in the entrails of a pig or sheep, or can bribe or cajole their guards out of a screw of tobacco. Siberia may truly be called the criminal’s heaven and the Nihilist’s hell. Once past the Oural mountains, every liberty, every indulgence, is accorded to the former to induce them to colonize and become respectable citizens; for the latter there is nothing but insult, harsh treatment, and injustice.
Monshafskaya is surrounded by dense pine forest, through which runs the great post-road fringed by high banks, on which were hedges of hops and wild raspberries in full bearing. The fruit was quite equal in flavour to the real thing, though much smaller. The soil round here seemed wonderfully adapted for fruit-growing. Raspberries, currants, strawberries, and gooseberries grew luxuriantly in all the cottage gardens, and the natives preserve them largely for sale at Irkoutsk and other towns of Eastern Siberia. The place has rather a depressing appearance, nevertheless, the houses of unpainted wood giving a sombre look at first sight, for the only spot of colour against the dark forest was the rest-house, with its white walls and bright green roof. Turning seaward, or rather lakeward, however, the view was very different. It was a clear, though rather cold day, with a strong north-wester blowing, just sufficiently strong to cover the bright blue waters with curling white waves, and show one that if the wind rose any higher things might be unpleasant before we reached Listvenitz, for Radovitch gave us lamentable accounts of the steamer. It was just like being at the seaside in England. One almost fancied one smelt the ozone, while the sound of the waves, beating on the beach, heightened the illusion. The opposite coast was quite invisible, clear day though it was, while to the left and right of us extended broad stretches of shingly beach alternating with patches of bright golden sand standing out bright and distinct against the dark green pines growing down to the water’s edge. To complete the resemblance, a wooden jetty, with a lighthouse at the end, ran out for a distance of fifty yards into the lake, forming a small harbour in which lay moored a number of small fishing-boats and two large black hulks, prison barges, waiting to be towed back to Listvenitz for a fresh convoy. Such was the scene from our rest-house on the hill. Has the reader ever seen the village of Clovelly, in Devonshire? If so, let him substitute pines for oak and beech-trees, unpaved paths for cobbled streets, wooden huts for stone houses, and he has seen Monshafskaya as I saw it that bright August morning, when for the first time I looked on the waters of the Holy Sea of Siberia, for by this name alone is Lake Baikal known by the natives inhabiting its shores. To call it a lake to a Siberian is an insult. He will invariably correct you with the rebuke, “I suppose you mean our Sea.” Among the peasantry it is believed to bring dire misfortune on any one daring to call it by any other name. Lake Baikal was first discovered by one Ivanoff, who, travelling downwards from Yakoutsk, was prospecting for silver. Like Magellan, “He was the first that ever burst into that silent sea,” about the year 1600. The first caravan crossed the lake from China to Europe A.D. 1670.
Lake Baikal is three hundred and fifty miles long by about forty at the lowest point, and is the largest fresh-water lake in Asia, or indeed the whole world, America excepted. The most peculiar characteristic about Baikal is its enormous depth. Soundings have been taken in parts of four thousand feet in the centre, in other parts lines of five thousand and six thousand feet have been used, but no bottom found, and some of the smaller rivers running into the lake, streams of fifty or sixty yards broad, have been found to be over one hundred and fifty fathoms deep. There are many rivers running into the Baikal, but only one that runs out, the “Angara,” which, eventually joining the Yenisei river, flows into the gulf of that name in the Arctic Ocean, thus traversing nearly half the breadth of Asia. The current of this immense body of water is so impetuous that although the distance is only thirty miles, vessels sometimes take four and even five days to do the distance from Irkoutsk to Lake Baikal, which is sixty feet higher above sea-level than the capital of Eastern Siberia, the lake being twelve hundred feet above the level of the sea. Baikal is occasionally visited by terrible hurricanes. On such occasions the loss of life is great, for the ramshackle boats in which the natives fish soon go to pieces in a sea. The Garra or mountain wind is the one most dreaded by the natives, and when this is blowing even the steamers do not put out. Lake Baikal that derives its name of Holy Sea, from the fact our Saviour, when visiting this part of Asia, is supposed to have mounted to the summit of Olkon, an island about sixty miles long by fifteen broad, in the middle of the lake, and surveyed the surrounding countries. Having blessed the land on the north and west, He turned to the south-west, and, stretching out His hands, cried, “Beyond this shall be desolation.” On this account, say the natives, the “Dauria” region is so sterile that not a grain of corn will grow there.
I think I am right in saying that Baikal is the only fresh-water lake in the world wherein seals are found. About two thousand are killed annually, and sent to Irkoutsk for sale. Bell, the English traveller, 1788 (the first Englishman, by the way, who ever got as far east as this), mentions this circumstance, and says, “Bay-Kall (sic), is furnished with excellent fish, particularly sturgeon. It also produces great numbers of seals, whose skins are preferred in quality to those caught in salt water. I am of opinion that both the seals in Bay Kall came originally from the Northern Ocean, as the communication between them is open, though the distance be very great.” The above, though written in 1788, is perhaps the most likely explanation of the matter.
Atkinson, the English traveller, is the only European who has ever thoroughly explored Baikal. He made, forty years since, a most interesting journey from its northern to its southern extremity in an open boat, a hazardous experiment, for Baikal is a miniature Mediterranean in the way of sudden and violent squalls. Atkinson found the shores surrounding the lake at the southern end to be chiefly granite cliffs capped by dense forests. Proceeding due north, the granite changes to an imperfect conglomeration of stone, the beach being composed of mixed débris. The northern shore is the steepest, and its precipices nine hundred to twelve hundred feet high, with soundings of one hundred and fifty fathoms a boat’s length from their base. “The whole country round,” says the same traveller, “shows unmistakable signs of volcanic eruption, and in the ravines are lava strata of great magnitude. This is probably the outcome of an extinct crater to the north of the Baikal chain in whose neighbourhood hot mineral springs are plentiful.”
M. Menshikoff, an Irkoutsk tea-merchant, was the first to introduce steamers on Lake Baikal. The passage, as it was made forty years ago, in open boats, was very dangerous, and travellers were frequently obliged to remain for days exposed to great hardships, without being able to approach the land. The cost of the steamer was of course enormous, the engines having to come over four thousand miles from St. Petersburg. But the difficulty was at length surmounted, and rather more than twenty years ago bi-weekly steam communication between the eastern and western shores of the lake was established, which has been kept up ever since. There were, at the time of our visit, two steamers on the lake, and another building at Listvenitz. The navigation of the Baikal is suspended about the end of October, sometimes earlier, according to the severity of the season. Although there has been a road within late years round the southern side of the lake, it is rarely used, and the usual mode of crossing in winter is by sleigh. The ice is over seven feet thick, so there is no danger of immersion, although I must confess I should not care to do the journey myself. In mid-winter, when the ice is in good condition, the distance of thirty miles across is frequently done in two to three hours, but in the spring, huge cracks appear in the track, which impede the horses a good deal. There were also formerly rest-stations at intervals of every seven or eight miles, but on one occasion, the ice melting suddenly, one of them was found missing, since which the traveller embarks upon the frozen waters with no prospect of rest or refreshment till he gets to the other side.
The steamer hove in sight about mid-day with a large convict barge in tow. By two o’clock she was alongside the jetty, and we walked down to see the prisoners land. Thirty or forty Cossacks, with loaded rifles, stood in a double row at the gangway, and as soon as the huge, unwieldy barge was safely moored, some three hundred convicts stepped on to the landing-stage. All wore the prison dress, a long loose grey cloak covering a coarse drab suit, and many wore leg-irons. There were no political prisoners or women among this batch, though pretty nearly every race of Asiatic or European Russia was represented. Swarthy Caucasians, Kirghiz Tartars, Jews from Odessa, thieves from Moscow and St. Petersburg, every race and age, from beardless boys to decrepit old men, were represented. One got callous to it after a time, but my first meeting with a gang of prisoners en route to the mines was one I shall never forget. One poor old fellow especially excited sympathy: a man of sixty or seventy years old, with a refined, aristocratic face, who had evidently seen better days, and who could scarcely stagger along under his heavy chains. It would have been ridiculous, had it not been pitiable, to see the little luxuries the old fellow had provided himself with: a little brass teapot, a bag of tea slung round his neck, a loaf of white bread in his arms, and a huge umbrella! At length the hulk was empty, the officer gave the word, “Quick march,” and the long grey procession filed off up the hill and into the drab-coloured prison, which the gang we had seen in the morning had just vacated for their use. The incident cast quite a gloom over our spirits, and I remembered for many days the sad, wistful look the poor old fellow gave, as he entered the prison-gate, at the bright blue waters of the lake, beyond which lay the home he would never see again——for his crime was forgery——his sentence, life at the gold-mines of Nertchinsk.
It was nearly six o’clock before we got away, for there were three tarantasses besides our own to be hoisted on board. The fare across was not ruinous, eight roubles first, and five roubles second class, the freight of the tarantass being twelve roubles. I was rather relieved at this, for funds were running, uncomfortably short, and I did not relish the idea of being stranded on the road. Counting our combined purses, we found the amount was under forty roubles, and we were still more than thirty miles from Irkoutsk, and a night’s lodging to pay. Our course was an oblique one across the lake about W.S.W. to Listvenitz, near the mouth of the river Angara. Some distance from the shore the water became marvellously transparent. From the bows, before the ripple had disturbed the surface, one could distinguish large fish swimming about at least thirty feet down, so clear was the water. The steamer, though crowded with people, was clean and well appointed. There was no food on board, though a huge samovar, flanked by glasses, hissed in the cabin, for the use of those who wished to make tea.
It became very cold after sundown, and we retired to the tarantass forward, where, the head being to the wind, we kept pretty warm. In the hold were twenty convicts returning to their homes after a captivity of twenty years at Nertchinsk and Chita. One of them, who looked at least fifty, was, he told Radovitch, only thirty-three, and had been in the mines ever since he was sixteen. All were still in prison dress, and seemed rather ashamed of mixing with the other passengers. When it became dark, however, they lost their shyness, and, seated in a ring on deck, sang several prison songs——melancholy, dirge-like airs in the minor key. One appeared to be a great favourite, for passengers and sailors alike joined in the chorus. It was, Radovitch told us, composed originally by a prisoner, the refrain being, “Whither leads the dark road of Siberia?” and was so weird and beautiful, that it rang in my ears for days afterwards.