We called for the samovar, and beguiled the weary hours with “chi” till past midnight. The post-house swarmed with vermin, and we here made the acquaintance, for the first time, of a small white bug, peculiar to Siberia. Its bite is very poisonous, and sets up a state of intolerable irritation and inflammation, for it burrows under the skin. Nothing but copious applications of ammonia gave relief, and our clothes and bodies swarmed with these when we reached Irkoutsk a few hours later. I give these details, which may seem repulsive to the reader, to show exactly the amount of discomfort one has to go through in the shape of minor annoyances as well as greater ones on the great Post-Road.
About daybreak the jingle of collar-bells announced the arrival of the horses. The landscape now became less wooded, the broad blue river running through fields of rye and barley, while the banks on either side of the road were covered with lilies of the valley and violets, which deliciously perfumed the clear morning air. Presently we left the river, to emerge on a sandy plain. Here our driver alighted, and removed the yoke-bells, a law prevailing in Siberia which forbids their being used in cities. A few minutes more and we were well in sight of the white buildings, golden domes, and green roofs, of the capital of Eastern Siberia, Irkoutsk.
[8]. Russian for a team of three horses.
[9]. A pretty English lady.
CHAPTER VIII.
IRKOUTSK.
There is probably no country in the world of which the generality of English people are so ignorant as Siberia. The very word conveys to the mind visions of frozen steppes and lonely pine forests, with nothing to break the monotony of the white and dreary landscape but an occasional gang of prisoners or pack of wolves. Many asked, on my return to England, if I had not suffered terribly from the cold, and seemed quite surprised to hear that the Siberian climate is, in summer, often too warm to be pleasant, that the country itself is in many parts one of the most fertile and beautiful in the world.
The city of Irkoutsk, which has a population of over 50,000, was founded in the year 1680, and is situated on a peninsula formed by the confluence of two rivers, the Angara, which, rising in Lake Baikal, joins the river Yenisei just below Yeniseisk, and falls with it into the frozen ocean, and the small and less important Irkout River. In spring, when the Angara is swollen by the breaking of the ice in Lake Baikal, inundations at Irkoutsk are frequent, and cause great destruction to life and property.
The great province or Government of Irkoutsk is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the north by the Frozen Ocean, on the west by the province of Tomsk (Western Siberia), and on the south by the vast chain of mountains known as the Altai range, which divide Siberia from the Chinese possessions in Mongolia. The Government is divided into four districts, viz. Irkoutsk proper, Nertchinsk, Yakoutsk and Okhotsk. A great proportion of the inhabitants of this enormous area are Toungouses and Yakouts, wandering semi-savage tribes who live by hunting and fishing, and of which the Toungouses are the most numerous. The residence of the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, who at the time of our visit was General Ignatieff, a brother of the famous diplomat, is at Irkoutsk.