Pursuing their journey with the utmost rapidity, they arrived on the 4th of February at Tomsk, where Bell, as usual, immediately set on foot the most active inquiries respecting the neighbouring regions and their inhabitants. From the citadel of Tomsk, which is situated on an eminence, a chain of hills is discovered towards the south, beyond which, our traveller was informed, in a vast plain, many tombs and burying-places were found. His information throws much interesting light on a passage of Herodotus. This great historian relates, in his fourth book, that when the ancient Scythians interred their king, they were accustomed to strangle upon his body his favourite concubines, his cupbearer, his cook, and other favourite personages; and we learn from other authors, that together with the bones of these, cups, vases, and other vessels of gold were deposited with the royal corpse in the tomb. Rites not greatly dissimilar took place in the heroic ages among the Greeks; for we find men and horses sacrificed upon the funeral pile of Patroclus in the Iliad, and Achilles placing the white bones of his friend in a χρυσέη φιάλη, or golden vase, to be afterward deposited with his own in the same mound.
The tombs discovered in the great plains south of Tomsk in all probability were those of ancient Scythian chiefs and kings; but if so, the spot must have been regarded as the common cemetery of the race, to which the bodies of all persons above a certain rank were to be borne, for the number of barrows formed there was immense. Numerous individuals annually resorted hither from Tomsk and other places to search for treasure among these ancient graves, and they constantly found among the ashes of the dead large quantities of gold, silver, brass, and occasionally precious stones; hilts of swords, armour, saddle-ornaments, bits, and horse-trappings, together with the bones of horses and elephants, were sometimes met with. From which Bell infers, that when any general or person of distinction was interred, it was customary to bury all his arms, his favourite horse, and servant with him in the same grave; and this practice prevails to this day, he adds, among the Kalmucks and other Tartars. He was shown several pieces of armour and other curiosities which were dug out of these tombs, particularly a small equestrian statue of brass or bronze of no mean design or workmanship; together with figures of deer cast in pure gold, which were divided in the middle, and pierced by small holes, as if intended to be used as ornaments to a quiver, or to the furniture of a horse.
In the woods of this part of Siberia there is a species of wild ass, strikingly resembling the African zebra, having their hair waved white and brown, like that of a tiger. Bell saw several of their skins. Numerous wild horses of a fine chestnut colour were likewise found, but could not, he says, be tamed, even if taken when foals. The Kalmucks, however, continued to make some use of them: for, not being able to ride, they killed and ate them, and used their skins as couches to sleep upon.
Proceeding eastward from Tomsk they arrived in about a fortnight on the banks of the river Tongusta, where the country on both sides being covered with impenetrable woods, it was necessary to make their way along the frozen stream, while the biting winds continued to whirl and drift about the snow in their path. Occasionally single houses or small villages were found upon the banks. One day, during their progress along this river, they met a prodigious flock of hares, all as white as the snow on which they walked, slowly descending the stream; and Bell was informed that these animals are frequently seen travelling south in much greater numbers.
They were now in the country of the Tongusy, a people who have no fixed dwellings, but roam at pleasure through the woods, erecting where they make any stay a few spars, inclining to each other above, and covering them with pieces of birchen bark sewed together, with a small hole at the top. The men, however, are brave, and the women virtuous. They practise tattooing. Their religion consists in the worship of the sun and moon. Their dress is of fur. Their arms, the bow and arrow, the lance, and a species of hatchet. In winter they travel over the frozen snow with shoes, the soles of which are of wood, and about five feet in length, and five or six inches broad, inclining to a point before and square behind. The feet are slipped into a thong fastened in the middle; and with these they can move over the deepest snow without sinking. But as these are suited only to the plains, they have a different kind for ascending the hills, with the skins of seals glued to the boards, having the hair inclining backwards, which prevents the sliding of the shoes. With these they climb hills with the greatest facility, and having reached the summit, dart down the opposite slope with astonishing rapidity.
Such are the great sable hunters of Siberia, who feed indifferently on the bear, the fox, and the wolf. The sables, says Bell, are not caught in the same manner as other animals. The fur is so tender, that the least mark of an arrow, or ruffling of the hair, spoils the sale of the skin. In hunting them they only use a little dog and a net. When a hunter discovers the track of a sable upon the snow, he follows it sometimes for several days unintermittingly, until the poor animal, quite tired, takes refuge in some tall tree, for it can climb like a cat. The hunter then spreads his net round the tree, and kindles a fire, when the sable, unable to endure the smoke, immediately descends, and is caught in the net. These hunters, when hard pressed by hunger, have recourse to a practice analogous to that of many South Sea islanders under similar circumstances: taking two thin pieces of board, they place one on the pit of the stomach, the other on the back, and gradually drawing together the extremities, allay in some degree the cravings of appetite. The winters here are long, and the cold so intense that the earth never thaws, even in summer, beyond two feet and a half below the surface. When they dig to the depth of three feet for the purpose of burying their dead, they find the earth frozen; and in these graves the bodies remain unconsumed, and will do so, says the traveller, to the day of judgment.
On the 17th of March, the weather, as they began to approach the Baikal lake, changed so suddenly from winter to spring that they almost imagined themselves dropped imperceptibly into another climate. They therefore abandoned their sledges, which, as the snow was gone, were now become useless, and proceeded on horseback. Next day they arrived at Irkutsk on the river Angara. Here they remained until the 15th of May, waiting for the melting of the ice on the lake; and amusing themselves in the meanwhile with hunting, and observing the country and its inhabitants.
When the season was thought to be sufficiently far advanced, they proceeded up the banks of the river, until they discovered the lake bursting out between two high rocks, and tumbling down over enormous stones which lie quite across the channel of the river, which is here a mile in breadth. The sublimity of the scene, which is magnificent beyond description, is heightened exceedingly by the dashing and roaring of the waters, which impress the beholder with ideas of the irresistible power and grandeur of nature, the privilege to contemplate which elevates and ennobles him in his own estimation. And this, in reality, is the principal source of the pleasure we derive from the view of stupendous mountains, the tempestuous ocean, cataracts, volcanoes, or conflagrations.
They now embarked on the Baikal, which, as Gibbon facetiously observes, disdains the modest appellation of a lake, and on receding from the land enjoyed a full prospect of its western shores, rising abruptly into rocky pinnacles capped with snow, and towering far above every thing around them. These stretched away immeasurably towards the north, until they were lost in the distance. On the south the view was bounded by hills of gentler elevation, whose tops, for the most part, were covered with wood. Their passage was tedious, for on approaching the mouth of the Selinga they found the whole shore skirted by long reefs of floating icebergs, between which they forced their way with considerable difficulty. However, they at length entered the Selinga, and ascending partly in their boats and partly on horseback along its banks, arrived safely at Selinguisky on the 29th of May.
At this town, which, like the ancient Chalcedony on the Bosphorus, may be termed the “City of the Blind,” being built upon an inconvenient spot in the neighbourhood of an excellent one, they were to remain until the court of Pekin, which had been informed of their approach, should send an officer to conduct them over the frontiers. In the mean time every person amused himself according to his taste. Our honest and intelligent traveller, as he is very properly denominated by Gibbon, whose chief pleasure consisted in observing the manners of mankind, had here an ample field before him, in a variety of characters affording the most striking moral contrasts, from the Hindoo Yoghee, who bought live fishes on the banks of a stream in order to enjoy the pleasure of setting them swimming again, to the fierce, tough-nerved Mongol, who could view death, whether inflicted on man or beast, without exhibiting the least horror or emotion. With one of the chiefs of this warlike nation, who, by temperance and exercise, had contrived to reach his eightieth year with much of the vigour and energy of youth about him, they had a splendid hunting-match, which, as conducted by the Tartars, may justly, as our great historian remarks, be considered as the image and the school of war.