From the Arctic Ocean to the Yellow Sea

by Julius M. Price

MY SERVANT.

Travelling in Siberia is evidently altered very much for the better during the last three years, for my experiences on the Great Post Road were very different indeed to those described by the author of a recent book of travel in these parts. Perhaps, however, the fact of my doing the journey during the winter may to a certain extent account for it; but whatever the cause, the impressions received are the same, and the eight days’ journey, though certainly a somewhat tedious one, will remain in my memory as one amongst the many interesting episodes of my Siberian wanderings. After all I had read about the many difficulties and discomforts, not to say dangers, of this long journey, I must confess that it was not without certain misgivings that I at last decided to make a move and to start from my comfortable quarters in the Gostinnitza Gadaloff and push on further East, in accordance with the route I had planned out for myself. My numerous friends, on learning this, were so unanimous in their advice to me not to travel alone, in case of my being taken ill on the road or meeting with an accident, that I was at length persuaded, almost against my will, to listen to them and take a servant with me; and, as will be seen, it was very fortunate I did so.

Once it was known I was in want of a servant, I had no difficulty in finding men who were willing to go with me to Irkutsk, even on the off chance of my not requiring a servant when once there; in fact, it was an embarras de richesses, and I had my choice. The principal question was to find some one who was accustomed to travelling. Luckily, I suddenly heard of an ex-sergeant of gendarmes who was anxious to get to the capital, and who would be glad to give his services as servant to me in return for a “free passage.” The mere fact of his having been in the Gendarmerie was in itself sufficient recommendation, as only men of exceptionally good character are admitted into this branch of the service; so without hesitation I decided on taking him, and he eventually turned out to be the best and most conscientious servant I have ever had; he also was the biggest, for he stood no less than 6 ft. 3 in., and was a typical fellow of his class. My journey to Irkutsk was therefore une affaire arrangée, for from the moment I arranged with Sergeant Matwieff all trouble on my part ceased, for he simply took charge of the arrangements as though he had travelled with me for years, and all I had to do was to decide when to start, and leave the rest to him, even to packing my things, ordering the horses, and the host of minor details inseparable from Siberian travel. It is almost unnecessary to add that he spoke no language but Russian, so our means of conversation were very limited, and most of the time I had to make him understand by means of pantomime.

At last my preparations were complete, and on the evening of Sunday, January 25, I started towards the next stage of my long journey, and shortly after Krasnoiarsk, with its many pleasant associations, was but a reminiscence of the past.

The road for some miles, after leaving the town, lay along the ice in the very centre of the river Yenisei. As it was a very bright moonlight night, the effect was novel and beautiful, the track was smooth and level, and the horses went along at their top speed. I was gradually lulled into a deep sleep, and woke to find the first stage of twenty-nine versts accomplished and the sledge in the post-yard of Botoiskaya. The little village was slumbering; not a light was to be seen in any of the windows; in the post-house was the only sign of life. Looking up the quaint street, which in the moonlight had a weird appearance, with its tumble-down cottages, I saw a most curious sight. The centre of the road had exactly the appearance of being laid with railway sleepers; as far as one could see, the long ridges in the snow followed each other so regularly, that I could not help asking what was the reason of so cutting up the road. To my astonishment I was told that these ridges were caused by the thousands of horses of the caravans which had passed along the road since the commencement of the winter. The horses instinctively know that they can get a better foothold by walking in each other’s footsteps, and fall into the habit of doing so almost mechanically. I shortly after had the first of many opportunities of noting this for myself, for presently a large tea caravan came along, and I observed that it hardly ever happened that a horse stepped out of the grooves, so much so that the drivers strolling alongside seemed to have very little to do, as the animals appeared to know all that was expected of them.

This, my first sight of a caravan on the Great Post Road, was but the forerunner of what we met or passed both day and night almost without intermission the whole way to Irkutsk. While many were laden with European goods bound eastward, most of them were coming from China with tea. So great, in fact, was this traffic that I could not help wondering where all this immense quantity of tea can possibly go to, more especially when one comes to consider that what comes to Europe by the Great Post Road is only a small proportion of the annual amount exported from China. The tea of China, packed in bales of hide, is brought across the Gobi desert by ox-waggons or by camels as far as Kiakhta, the Russian frontier town, where it is transferred to sledges or Siberian carts, according to the season, and the long journey to Tomsk is then commenced, a journey taking over two months. The same horses go the whole way; but they are allowed to take their own pace, and seldom do more than three miles an hour. At Tomsk the tea is stored till the spring, when it is taken by river steamer into Russia. Tea brought overland is said to retain more of its original flavour than that which, packed in lead, has made a sea voyage, but the difference is probably so slight that only an expert could detect it.

There are comparatively very few men in charge of these immensely valuable consignments, which often consist of as many as two hundred and fifty sledges—one man to about seven horses as a rule—and these at night take it in turns to keep watch; for on the Great Post Road a peculiar form of highway robbery exists: bales of tea are frequently cut loose and stolen in the dark hours by thieves, who lurk around to take advantage of a driver dozing on his sledge. The poor fellow then has to pay dearly for his “forty winks,” as he has to make good the loss out of his wages—a very serious matter, considering the value of a large bale of tea. Last year, I am informed, these thefts became so frequent and the thieves so daring that at last the drivers combined to have their revenge, and when on one or two occasions they managed to catch a thief flagrante delicto they actually lynched him in quite a North-American Indian style. Bending a stout birch sapling to the ground by means of a rope, they fastened the back of the victim’s head to it by the hair, and then cut the rope, releasing the tree, which immediately sprang back to its original position, and the unfortunate wretch was literally scalped. He was then left to his fate. It is probable that a few examples of this kind will have as deterrent an effect on intending thieves as on the victims themselves. But to return to my narrative.

We had no difficulty in getting horses, and, after a stoppage of twenty-five minutes, were rattling merrily along the frost-bound highway. It was a bitterly cold night, no less than 40 deg. below zero (Réaumur), but till now I had not felt it much, as the wind was at our backs. Unfortunately, a turn in the road brought it right against us, and then I felt such cold that in all my life I never experienced any like it. Although I was buried in furs, and the hood of the sledge down, there was no keeping it out. Moustache, nostrils, and eyelashes were frozen hard, and my dacha, where it came in contact with my face, was one solid mass of ice, caused by my breath, and to this my skin actually stuck.

The wonder to me was how the yemschiks stand it as they do; but I suppose they get case-hardened to it in time—frost-proof, in fact, for rolled up in their sheepskins they seem impervious to temperature, taking it all as a matter of course. As to the horses, although they were always so covered with frost as to have the appearance of being thickly coated with snow, they never seemed to mind it a bit, and would keep up the same pace the whole stage; standing afterwards in the post-yard as quiet as sheep while their icy coats were, so to speak, broken off with a primitive sort of curry-comb attached to the handle of the driver’s whip. Twenty-five versts, or about two and a half hours of this sort of temperature was quite enough at a stretch, as I soon found, and the sight of the village boundary fence was always a welcome sight as betokening the end of another spell.