From Pekin to Calais by Land

by Harry De Windt

I shall never forget my first night in a Siberian post-house. Unless the traveller falls asleep at once, it is long odds against his getting any rest at all, for tarantasses and télégas are arriving and leaving at all hours of the night. There is (by order) a lamp kept burning till morning, and the jingle of bells, shouting of yemstchiks and stamping of heavy feet on the carpetless floor, that goes on at intervals through the night, would waken the dead. There is another powerful antidote to sleep in every Siberian post, be it ever so clean——vermin——to say nothing of cockroaches and rats, who subsist on the scraps of food dropped on the floor by travellers, and who run about the floor and over one’s face and body with supreme indifference during the quieter moments of the night. Till I went to Siberia, I had the most unutterable loathing for rats; but now, like the Yankee and the snake, I almost feel lonely without them.

About 2 a.m. the cocks commenced crowing, and were promptly answered by the dogs of the village. Long before daylight the inhabitants of the post-house were astir and bustling about, cleaning up, lighting fires, chopping wood, &c. I usually rose about 4 a.m., and, lighting a cigarette, amused myself by studying the strange types of humanity around me till the samovar made its appearance. They were a strange, motley crew, as a rule. Men and women lying about pell-mell, and looking, in the weird half-light between night and day, like a lot of corpses in a fosse commune. One could always tell at a glance, the new hands at the game; the Russian official’s wife travelling the post-road for the first time in smart, tailor-made gown, beaver toque, and costly furs, or the Siberian with her awkward, ill-cut dress in the fashion of thirty years ago. It was second nature to the latter to remain unwashed for a couple of weeks, and sleep on the filthy floor, with, perhaps, a greasy, ragged Jew pedler for a neighbour, but one could not help pitying the better class,[^[14]] travelling from St. Petersburg or Moscow to rejoin their husbands in Eastern Siberia or the Amour district, sitting, if they could get them, on the hard, stiff-backed, wooden chairs all through the night, and almost falling off them at times from sheer weariness. The prettiest looked hideous in the early morning hours, with tangled hair, disordered dress, and pale, pasty faces, while their diamond rings only served to show off the blackness of their hands and nails, which they had probably been unable to wash for days. Few women look well, even in England, at six in the morning after a ball. Imagine their appearance after a dozen nights and days of Siberian travel. Many of the post-houses are worse than that I have described, but few are better. I have seen sights in these waiting-rooms that will not bear description. They are better left to the reader’s imagination; for in matters of decency the Siberian, pur et simple, is inferior to the Chinese.

I date the commencement of our mishaps and difficulties from the morning of the 27th of August, when I awoke in the dirty, little waiting-room of Tiretskaya post-house to find the rain pouring down in torrents, the sky one mass of grey, woolly clouds. It had evidently been raining some hours, for the road in front of the post-house was one pool of water, almost half-way up to the axle of our tarantass, on the roof of which the rain was pelting down unmercifully. Instinct told me that the water inside was quite an inch deep by this time. Mentally thanking Providence that we had taken out the mattress, I rolled myself in my furs and went to sleep again. It was hopeless to think of starting with a dangerous river to cross and the next post twenty-five versts distant.

The weather cleared a little towards mid-day, and we resolved, though it was still raining hard, to make a start, and, if possible, reach Listvinskaya, seventy odd versts distant, that evening. The tarantass had to be baled out before we got in. A tarantass for Irkoutsk arrived as we were putting to, and reported the ferry in working order, though the river was rapid and swollen to a dangerous extent. We thanked our informants and set off. The latter were travelling en famille, Monsieur and madame, four children and a nurse, all packed into the same tarantass. I envied them, for they had, at any rate, the advantage of warmth, the weather having suddenly become raw and cold, with, every now and then, blinding showers of sleet.

Although the river Oka is situated only a mile or so from the village of Tiretskaya, it took us nearly an hour to reach the ferry. Parts of the road were entirely submerged, and our yemstchik had to find his way by guesswork. As we knew there was a broad, deep ditch on either side of the road, the work was, to say the least of it, exciting. It was impossible to go out of a walk, and even then it was as much as our five game little horses could do to drag the heavy, clumsy carriage along. We stuck fast twice, and all hands had to get out “to shove her off,” knee-deep in icy cold water. We were wet through by the time the ferry was reached, and shivering with cold, a somewhat unpleasant condition in which to embark on a stage of twenty-five versts, which it would in all probability take us several hours to accomplish, supposing we ever succeeded in reaching Ziminskaia at all. There were, the ferryman said, four bridges to cross before we reached it, and one or two, at least, would probably have been washed away by now, for the floods were worse there.

The appearance of the river Oka was highly picturesque, but not reassuring. A broad, swiftly flowing stream at any time, continuous rains had widened its waters to double the ordinary width, the torrent now being quite a mile across. The rotten and insecure ferry looked as if a touch from one of the snags or tree-trunks which were whirling madly along the surface of the stream would send it to the bottom in a second, and the ferryman was for some time inexorable, but the temptation of a 10r. note was too much for him, and with much muttering about “it would be our own fault if we were drowned,” we got the tarantass and horses aboard, and shoved off for the opposite shore. Scarcely were the chains let go when a loud shout from the bank attracted my attention. The crowd were shouting and gesticulating, running backwards and forwards on the bank like madmen, and pointing to a splashing, indistinct mass in the water which I presently made out to be a man and a horse. The latter had been brought down to water, but the bank, rotten with perpetual rain, gave way, precipitating the animal and its rider into deep water. I have seldom experienced a moment of more intense excitement. It quite took our thoughts away from our own danger——for all this time we were forging slowly ahead. The ferryman dare not stop, nor could we have rendered the poor fellow any help, for the current was rapidly carrying him further and further into the centre of the river. He was evidently a good swimmer, but could, we saw, do nothing against the terrific force of the current. Three times we saw him rise to the surface, when his screams were pitiful to hear, but the third time he was silent, and throwing up both arms, sank for the last time, in full view of us all. He was only twenty——the ferryman told us——a tall, good-looking fellow, who had stood by and given a hand to get our tarantass on board but three or four minutes before he met with his sad fate.

Crossing the river without mishap, we found the road on the other side in better order than the one we had left. At any rate it was not flooded, the yemstchiks could see where they were going, and there was not so much danger of being stranded ten miles from anywhere with a broken wheel or axle. Ziminskaia was reached at 3 p.m., and with a fresh relay of seven horses in (for which we had not to wait more than ten minutes), we continued our journey, hoping to reach Listvinskaya, fifty versts further on, some time that night, or the next morning.

Listvinskaya was reached at 11 p.m. The post-house was full of soldiers, who had been out all day in the rain, searching for prisoners, with no result, and no wonder. It was, indeed, a case of looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, to expect to find fugitives in these thick, impenetrable forests. We were not sorry when they had finished their vodka and departed, leaving us at 2 a.m. to snatch a few hours’ sleep, before again taking the road. The rain had now ceased, and the night was bright and starlit.

Our anticipations of a fine day were not disappointed, for we were awoke by the bright sun streaming into our faces, and the voice of our host inquiring how much longer we were going to sleep. And sure enough, worn out with fatigue and the anxieties of the previous day, we had slumbered on undisturbed by the noise of arrivals and departures, till past mid-day, or at least so the station clock said. But one was never quite sure about the time in Siberia. Every post-master has a time of his own. It seemed strange at first to leave, say, Tirestskaya station at nine in the morning, and arrive at Ziminskaia, twenty versts off, at half-past eight! But we soon got used to it, and after the first week never troubled our heads about the hour. It was but a minor detail.

We made good way that and the following day, and on the evening of the 29th of August reached the village of Touloung. But alas! good luck as regards weather was not destined to last. Just before sunset, the sky became overcast, and two hours before reaching our destination for the night the rain was falling in torrents. The hood was, as usual, worse than useless, and in a few minutes we were wet through to the skin. There were fortunately no more rivers between us and Nijni Udinsk, which town, all being well, we hoped to reach on the morrow.