From Pekin to Calais by Land

by Harry De Windt

This was scarcely encouraging our first day out. Referring to the Posting-book, I found that Koutoulik lay fifty versts further on, which would probably land us there about 2 p.m. the following day, always supposing there was no delay at Maltinskaya or Polovilnaya, the intervening stations. We were well armed, as I took care to show the clerical stranger, who, for all I knew, might himself be in league with the thieves. Siberia makes one very suspicious. At any rate we resolved to travel as little as possible by night, and when doing so to keep a good look-out, sleeping only one at a time while on the road.

It was past 2 a.m. before the loquacious “Pope” allowed me to snatch a few hours’ rest. The wind had now risen, and the rain, which had threatened at intervals through the day, was pouring down in torrents, and rattling against the window-panes with a force that boded ill for our next day’s journey. Given fine weather and average luck in obtaining horses, I had not the slightest doubt of being able to reach Tomsk in time for the last steamer to Tiumen, but a week of steady rain would upset all our plans, and probably result in our being kept prisoners at Tomsk through the mists and fogs of early autumn, until the roads set for sleighing. To post through Siberia in October is next to impossible.

We had already been two hours on the road when day broke. By eight o’clock the thick woolly clouds had rolled away, and the sun burst forth clear and cloudless, which soon dried our wet, shivering frames, for the tarantass hood leaked badly, and we had been lying in a pool of water all the morning. About mid-day we sighted the Angara for the last time. The river here presents the appearance of a vast lake (so broad is the distance from shore to shore), its blue waters fringed with massive rocks and boulders of grey granite, while further inland a fertile plain of hay and corn fields stretched away to where on the horizon a low dark green line marked the recommencement of forest. Men, women, and children, were working in the fields, and it seemed strange to a European eye to see the peasantry gathering the harvest and making hay at the same time. This part of the country teems with game, wild fowl, and a very large species of hare.

Being detained for five hours at Polovilnaya, we did not reach Koutoulik until nine o’clock p.m. The post-house being fairly comfortable, we resolved to sleep here, and make a start at daybreak next day. We had the place to ourselves till about 11 p.m., when a loud cracking of whips and jingling of collar-bells announced a fresh arrival, and one of no little importance, to judge by the bustle and confusion displayed by the yemstchiks.

“The gospodin will perhaps kindly vacate the bed,” whispered the old post-master. “It is an officer of high degree and his lady.” The “bed” being composed of hard planks and about two feet broad, I took the floor without demur; for there was little difference; and a few moments after the new arrivals entered the waiting-room, one a tall, handsome man in uniform, his companion a pretty little woman of the true Russian type, with violet eyes and finely cut features.

“You are English, the post-master informs me,” said our new acquaintance in French. “Will you do my wife and myself the pleasure of supping with us? I conclude, you, like ourselves, are detained here till to-morrow morning.”

I have seldom enjoyed a meal more than that supper in the wilds of Siberia, for, apart from the fact that we had tasted no solid food for two days, our new friends were capital company. Madame had left school in Paris only seven short months before, to marry the gay Cossack, whose military duties called him to the dreary convict settlement of Nertchinsk, in Trans-Baikal. “Un drôle de voyage de noces, n’est-ce pas, messieurs,” said he, laughing heartily, while his poor little wife, who looked tired to death, tried hard to screw up a smile at the joke. A good supper and two or three glasses of Kümmel, however, worked wonders, and a merrier party could scarcely be found than we were that night. It was such a relief to meet a fellow-creature with whom one could converse without racking the brain over Reiff’s dictionary and dialogue-book, and we chatted away far into the early hours. While the Cossack enlarged upon Petersburg and its delights to Lancaster, little Madame V. and myself had a long talk over the delights of Paris, the opera, the “Bois,” Sara Bernhardt, and a thousand other subjects connected with the beautiful city so far away. She was a bright, plucky little thing, though worn to a shadow, and haggard from constant travel and fatigue. I could not help wondering now long that pretty face and expression would last in dreary, desolate Nertchinsk.

Madame having retired to rest (tucking up on the hard, cushionless sofa in the most matter-of-fact way), Colonel V. did not attempt to conceal his satisfaction at having come unscathed through the Katorgi infested district. “There have been two more murders since the ones you speak of,” he said in a low tone, on our telling him of my conversation with the priest at Tielminskaya. “One that of a Jew pedlar from Kansk, the other, T., the contractor at Krasnoiarsk, who was found dead in his tarantass two days ago, near Touloung, his throat cut from ear to ear. I saw the body myself, and it was not a pleasant sight, I assure you. His yemstchik and the horses have since disappeared, which proves to me that the drivers have a good deal to do with it. No, well armed though you be, take my advice and travel only by day, till you have left the town of Nijni Udinsk far behind you.”[^[12]]

“Their mode of attack is simple,” said V., in answer to my inquiry, and pouring himself out a huge tumbler of vodka (his fifth). “Travellers are never molested in the day-time. It is only at night that these blackguards (of whom there are sixty or seventy) attack wayfarers. The most dangerous hours are between 3 and 6 a.m., when travellers who have been on the qui-vive all night, somewhat relax their vigilance. A couple of the thieves are told off to cut the traces, two more to seize and bind the yemstchik (accomplice or not), and three or four others at the same moment to climb over the back of the tarantass, and falling suddenly in front of the hood, despatch the passengers with a blow from a heavy bludgeon. According to report, they have no firearms. Most of the victims are first stunned, and then their throats are cut. In no case of late has a traveller’s life been spared.” But, as V. remarked, it was a significant fact, that not a single yemstchik had lost his life, while no less than twelve travellers had been brutally murdered.

The sun was high in the heavens when we rose the next morning, V.’s entertaining conversation having kept us up till past five o’clock. Yet we woke to find them both gone, for they had left, the post-master informed us, a little after seven o’clock. For staying powers in the sitting-up line, commend me to a Russian Cossack. It is my firm belief that many never sleep at all. Perhaps vodka is the secret.