[To face [p. 96].
CHAPTER X.
THE CITY OF YENISEISK.
Custom-house officials—Novel sights in market-place and streets—My lodgings—Siberian idea of “board and lodging”—Society in Yeniseisk—A gentleman criminal exile.
YENISEISK.
Very few Englishmen have any real knowledge of Siberia. To most of them its name raises a dismal vision of ice-bound wastes and wretched exiles passing their lives in hopeless and cheerless misery. Little do they know that, far away in the very heart of Asia, there exists civilization equal to what is to be found in any part of Europe. But this is actually the case, and when, sitting after dinner smoking a cigarette, in a luxuriously furnished and delightfully warm apartment, surrounded by rare tropical plants and with appointments not to be excelled in Paris, it was hard to realize how far one was from Europe, or that outside the cold was 28 deg. below zero (Réaumur), and that it was so short a distance from the wild uninhabited regions that had to be traversed before reaching this far-away Siberian city.
I shall never forget my impressions when, after the fourteen long dreary weeks passed in the Arctic Ocean and in river navigation, we at last anchored off Yeniseisk. It was towards eight o’clock, a cold wintry evening, though October was not yet passed. The moon was just rising, and in the still evening air the effect was almost that of a huge panorama: against the southern sky the many churches and the strange-looking wooden buildings of the Asiatic city stood out in sharply defined silhouettes, relieved here and there by the lights in the windows of the houses facing the river, while along the banks we could just discern, in the increasing twilight, dark masses of people hurrying down to greet us on hearing the sound of our steam-whistle, which was being vigorously blown to announce our arrival. The church bells began ringing as we let go our anchors, and immediately all the Russians who were crowded on the upper deck, from the captain downwards, uncovered their heads, and, bowing devoutly, crossed themselves again and again as they murmured a prayer of thanksgiving for their safe return.
It was a strange and weird sight, and made me involuntarily rub my eyes, to ascertain if I were really awake, and all this not a dream—the long and wearisome journey at length at an end—the goal attained. There was, however, little opportunity for soliloquizing, for within a very short space of time after the stoppage of our engines we were boarded and taken possession of by the inevitable custom-house officers and their assistants, and the voyage of the Phœnix, successfully accomplished, was a thing of the past. Much as we all naturally desired immediately to go on shore, we could not do so, for we were courteously though firmly informed that until our baggage had been examined none of us could leave the ship.