The passengers on board were of a mixed kind, but civil and good-humoured. It was rather trying, till one got used to it, being stared at in our tarantasses like wild beasts in a show, but one got used to it in time. After all it was only natural, for few of our fellow-passengers had ever seen an Englishman before. There were many Jews among them: fat, greasy fellows, with large gold thumb-rings, and flowing hair, and some of the loveliest children I ever beheld. One, a little girl of about fourteen, with very light flaxen hair, the lightest of blue eyes, and thick, black lashes, was a perfect picture.
We arrived at Listvenitz about 1 a.m., having taken about eight hours to do the passage, a little more than the distance from Dover to Calais! On landing we were ushered into the Custom-House, a long, bare room, where our luggage was minutely examined, two Cossacks being on guard the while to see that no one escaped inspection. It was not the brief examination we are accustomed to in Europe. A Customs’ officer, gorgeous in green and gold, stood in the centre of the room, and called out our names one by one, each having to bring up his luggage as best he could, for there were no porters. As there were over one hundred passengers, this performance lasted some hours, no one being allowed to leave till every box in the place had been opened and carefully searched. By the time we got to the rest-house it was nearly three o’clock in the morning. It was a dirty, ill-smelling place, and we were devoured by vermin, but managed to get something to eat before we turned in, the only food we had tasted the whole day being a couple of eggs and some black bread at mid-day.
But another difficulty now arose. The duty that we had paid on tobacco, &c, had dwindled our little store down to ten roubles and a few kopeks. The bare posting-fare to Irkoutsk was, we ascertained, six roubles, and there would be our night’s lodging to pay, which would come to five roubles more at the very least. Money was awaiting us at Irkoutsk, but how to get at it? There was but one way out of the dilemma; one of us must remain at Listvenitz while the other posted on to Irkoutsk and procured the needful. Radovitch entering while we were discussing the subject, overheard part of our conversation. “You are short of money?” said the friendly Russian; “why did you not ask me before?” at the same time producing a fifty rouble note. “Here, take this; you can pay me back at Irkoutsk, or where you like. I am off now. We shall meet again to-morrow. I suppose you will go to the Moskovskaya,” and he had gone, and we heard him jingle away in his tarantass before we could stammer out a word of thanks.
A message came shortly after from the Chief of Police, to say that he would call at eleven o’clock, and that we must not leave Listvenitz till our tarantass had been searched. This was vexing, as, the Customs’ examination over, we had replaced all our luggage, and any one who has ever packed one of these vehicles knows what a weary, heart-breaking job it is. However, it was no use grumbling, and we set to work and laid the things open on the ground, pending the great man’s arrival.
He turned up about mid-day, a tall, strapping fellow, with long Dundreary whiskers, accompanied by his interpreter, a Polish exile. The examination took over an hour, for he looked at everything, more, I soon saw, from curiosity than anything else. My journal especially attracted his attention.
“Read some of it out,” he said to his attendant, settling himself comfortably on the steps of the rest-house and lighting a cigarette. I was somewhat nervous at this, having expressed my views as to Russian habits and customs rather freely since leaving Kiakhta. The Pole opened the book at the very place I wished him to avoid, but, to my surprise, he turned hastily over to the next page, winking covertly at me as he did so, and I breathed again. On being told there was nothing offensive in the MS., his chief became quite jocose and friendly, insisted on our drinking with him, pumping me the while as much as he was able on the subject of India. What area was it? what population? were there many railways? Did we allow Russians to enter? &c. “Tell him,” he said as he rose to go, and I had answered as best I could his somewhat vague questions, “that we shall take it from them some day,” with which polite remark he bade us good day, swaggered away down the street, and we saw him no more.
Listvenitz is built in a sort of lagoon, or landlocked harbour. It is used by the people of Irkoutsk as a watering-place in summer, and there were many pretty villas and lodging-houses built about on the beach, which is of hard sand, and affords capital bathing, though it shelves in a few feet to a depth of twenty or thirty fathoms. We were to have horses at six that evening, and took a stroll after the mid-day meal to a low hill about a mile distant, whence there was a picturesque view of the little cluster of pretty villas nestling in woods and gardens. It was a lovely day, with a blue, cloudless sky; and the civilized surroundings, picturesque peasantry, and great sheet of water sparkling in the sunshine, reminded one not a little of Swiss or Italian lake scenery.
The Polish interpreter called on us in the afternoon, bringing with him a book of photographs, the portraits of brethren who were suffering in the cause of freedom. His story was, if true, a remarkable one. Sent to Vologda in European Russia in 1867 for a trifling offence, he managed to escape to Odessa, and thence to New York, returning to Paris in 1870 to take a prominent part in the Commune. He again managed to escape when the Imperial troops entered Paris, and luckily, for himself, for if caught he would assuredly have been shot. After a short residence in Geneva, he was sent by his society on a secret mission to St. Petersburg; but this time his luck deserted him, and he was captured and sent to Siberia, first to the mines of Kara, then to Listvenitz for life. Among the photographs was one of a young and pretty girl about eighteen or twenty years old. “That,” said the Pole with pride, “is Vera Figner, who shot dead the Police Commissary of Odessa. She is my sister-in-law,” he added. “This is my wife, who was concerned in Alexander’s assassination. Would you like to know her? My house is but a stone’s throw from here.” But we politely refused the invitation, and, to our great relief, he shortly afterwards left us, with the remark, “Well, good-bye, gentlemen, you have been a ray of sunshine in my life. It is dark enough, God knows, but I do not despair. I hope to do some good work yet!” He was a mean-looking, insignificant little fellow, but we heard afterwards at Irkoutsk that he was one of the most dangerous characters in Siberia. His greatest punishment was, he told us, being shunned by everybody in the place (for he was the only exile there) and being deprived of books and papers. Murderer and Nihilist though he was, one could not help pitying him.
Our horses arrived about seven o’clock, and after a final examination of the tarantass, we rattled away from Listvenitz, hoping to reach Irkoutsk by midnight. The country west of Baikal is densely wooded, but not mountainous. There is a good deal of cultivated ground between the mouth (or rather source) of the Angara and the city, and the country is fairly populated. The road, too, was in better order than any we had yet experienced, and we dashed along merrily to the end of the second stage, Patrone, where our high spirits underwent a slight check. We could have no horses till 5 a.m. It was now ten o’clock, and though only eighteen versts from Irkoutsk, we were compelled to sleep, or rather wait in the filthy post-house till morning. It is curious that we invariably found, throughout our journey, the nearer the town the dirtier the post-house. The one or two first stages from Irkoutsk, on the other side, were simply uninhabitable.
The road follows the banks of the Angara all the way to Irkoutsk. The river, rather more than a mile wide at the mouth, rolls down a tremendous volume of water, a steep incline at the inlet, and forms a huge rapid nearly three miles long. Half-way across is the “Shaman Kamen,” or Spirit Stone, a bare rock nearly hidden in the seething mass of foam and breakers. There is a legend among the peasantry, that were this island washed away, Lake Baikal would overflow, destroy the capital, and turn the whole Angara Valley into one huge sea. The “Chamans,” a sect now nearly died out, believe that the souls of the departed are transported to the “Shaman Kamen,” and are compelled to cling for a night to the steep, slippery rock; a very difficult proceeding. If they succeed in remaining till the following morning, they are saved, and received into eternal bliss; if not, they are engulfed for ever. Seen from above the rapids, the seething mass of white foam, the precipitous, rugged cliffs on either side, thickly clad with pine and cedars, and the blue waters of the lake stretching away to the foot of the Amar Daban, with its snowy summit on the Trans-Baikal shore, combine, on a clear evening, to make this one of the most weird and beautiful panoramas imaginable.