My grandfather first crossed the Volga by the ferry near Simbirsk, and then struck across the steppe on the further side, and travelled on till he came to Sergievsk, which stands on a hill at the meeting of two rivers and gives a name to the sulphur springs twelve versts[8] from the town. The deeper he plunged into the district of Ufa, the more he was impressed by the spaciousness and fertility of that country. The first place where he found trees growing was the district of Boogoorooslan; and in the town of that name, perched on a high hill above the river, he made a halt, wishing to make inquiries and learn more particulars of the lands that were for sale. Of land belonging to the Bashkirs there was little left in this district: some of the occupiers were tenants of the Crown, whom the Government had settled on lands confiscated for rebellion, though later they granted a general pardon and restored their territory to the Bashkir owners; part of the land had been let to tenants by the Bashkirs themselves; and part had been bought up by migrating landowners. Using Boogoorooslan as a centre, my grandfather made expeditions to the surrounding districts and spent some time in the beautiful country watered by the Ik and the Dyoma.[9] It is an enchanting region; and even in his old age Stepan Mihailovitch often spoke with enthusiasm of the first impression produced on him by the astonishing richness of that soil. But he did not allow himself to be carried away. Ascertaining on the spot that any purchaser of Bashkir land was quite sure to be involved in endless disputes and lawsuits—for it was impossible for the acquirer to make sure either of his own title or of the number of the former owners—my grandfather, who feared and hated like poison the very name of a lawsuit, resolved to buy no land direct from the Bashkirs or without formal legal documents to confirm his ownership. Thus he hoped to exclude the possibility of disputes, and surely he had reason for such a hope; but things turned out very differently, and the last claim was only settled by his youngest grandson when he was forty years old.
My grandfather returned reluctantly from the banks of the Ik and the Dyoma to Boogoorooslan, where he bought land from a Russian lady near the river of that name and distant twenty-five versts from the town. The river is rapid and deep and never runs dry. For forty versts, from the town of Boogoorooslan to the Crown settlement of Fair Bank, the country on both sides of the river was uninhabited, so that there was ample room; and the amenities of the spot were wonderful. The river was so transparent that, if you threw in a copper coin, you could see it resting on the bottom even in pools fifteen feet deep. In some places there was a thick border of trees and bushes—birches, poplars, service-trees, guelder-roses, and bird-cherries, where the hop-bines trailed their green festoons and hung their straw-coloured clusters from tree to tree; in other places, the grass grew tall and strong, with an infinite profusion of flowers, including tall Meadow Sweet, Lords' Pride (the scarlet Lychnis), Kings' Curls (the Martagon lily), and Cat-grass or Valerian. The river flows along a valley varying in breadth and bordered on both sides by sloping hills with a steep cliff here and there; the slopes were thickly covered with hard-wood trees of all sorts. As you got out of the valley, the level steppe spread out before you, a black virgin soil over two feet in depth. Along the river and in the neighbouring marshes, wild ducks of all kinds, and geese, woodcocks, and snipe made their nests and filled the air with their different notes and calls; while on the table-land above, where the grass grew thick and strong, the music in the air was as rich and quite distinct. Every kind of bird that lives in the steppe bred there in multitudes—bustards, cranes, and hawks; and on the wooded slopes there were quantities of black-game. The river swarmed with every variety of fish that could endure its ice-cold water—pike, perch, chub, dace, and even salmon. Both steppe and forest were filled beyond belief with wild creatures. In a word, the place was, and still is, a paradise for the sportsman.
My grandfather bought about 12,000 acres for 2500 roubles. That was a large sum in those days, and the price was much higher than was generally paid. When he had assured his title by legal documents, he went back with a light heart to his expectant family in the Government of Simbirsk. There he set to work with fierce energy and made all preparations for transferring at once a portion of his serfs to the new estate. It was an anxious and troublesome job, because the distance was considerable—about 400 versts. That same autumn twenty families of serfs started for the district of Boogoorooslan, taking with them ploughs and harrows with rye for sowing. They chose their ground and set to work on the virgin soil. Two thousand acres were lightly ploughed, then harrowed, and sown with winter rye; two thousand more were ploughed in preparation for the spring sowing; and some cottages were built. When this was done, the men travelled back to spend the winter at home. When winter was over, twenty more labourers again went forth; and, as the spring advanced, they sowed the two thousand acres with spring wheat, erected fences round the cottages and byres, and made stoves for the cottages out of clay. The second party then returned home. These were distinct from the actual settlers, who remained at home, preparing for their move and selling off what they did not need—their houses and kailyards, stock and corn, and all sorts of odds and ends.
The date fixed was the middle of June, that the colonists might reach their destination before St. Peter's Day,[10] when hay-cutting begins. The carts were packed with the women and children and old people, and awnings of bast bent over them to protect them from the sun and rain; the indispensable pots and pans were piled up inside, the cocks and hens perched on the top, and the cows tied on behind; and off they started. The poor settlers shed bitter tears as they parted for ever with their past life, with the church in which they had been christened and married, and with the graves of their fathers and grandfathers. Nobody likes moving, and a Russian peasant least of all; but to move in those days to an unknown land inhabited by unbelievers, where the churches were so distant that a man might die without confession and infants remain long unchristened, a land of which rumour reported evil as well as good—this seemed a terrible ordeal. When the peasants had gone, my grandfather started after them. He had taken a vow that, when circumstances allowed, he would build a church dedicated to the Presentation of Our Lady—it was actually built by his son—and he named the new settlement after the festival. But the peasants, whose example was followed by their neighbours, called it New Bagrovo, after their master and in memory of Old Bagrovo, from which they had come; and to this day the formal name is only used in legal documents. No one knows the village, with its fine stone church and high manor-house, by any other name than Bagrovo. With unremitting care and attention my grandfather watched the labour of the people on their own land and on his; the hay was mown, the winter rye and spring corn were cut down and carried, and the right moment was chosen for each operation. The yield of the crops was fabulous. The peasants thought things were not so bad after all. By November, cottages were built for them all, and the beginning of a house for the owner was run up. All this was not done without help from neighbours. In spite of the long distances, they came willingly to lend a hand to the new landowner, who proved to be sensible and friendly; they ate and drank and turned to with a will, and sang as they worked. In that winter my grandfather went to Simbirsk and brought back his wife and children with him.
Next year forty more serfs were transferred and set up in their new abodes; and this proved an easier job. My grandfather's first operation in this year was to build a mill; without it, it had been necessary to drive forty versts to get his corn ground. A spot was chosen where the river was not deep, the bottom sound, and the banks high and solid. Then a dam of earth and brushwood was started from each bank, like a pair of hands ready to clasp; next, the dam was wattled with osiers, to make it more substantial; and all that remained was to stop the swift strong current and force it to fill the basin intended for it. The mill itself, with two pairs of millstones, was built beforehand on the lower bank. All the machinery was ready and even greased. It was the business of the river, when checked in its natural course, to fill the broad dam and pour through wooden pipes down upon the great wheel. When all was ready and four long oaken piles had been firmly driven into the clay bottom of the river, my grandfather invited his neighbours to lend him their assistance for two days; and they came, bringing horses and carts, spades, forks, and axes. On the first day, great piles of brushwood, straw, manure, and fresh-cut sods were heaped up on both banks of the Boogoorooslan, while the river continued to pour down its waters at its own sweet will. Hardly any one slept that night, and next morning at sunrise about a hundred men set to work to dam the stream; they all looked solemn and serious, as if they had important business before them. They began on both sides at the same moment. With loud cries they hurled with sturdy arms faggots of brushwood into the water; part was carried down by the stream, but part stuck against the piles and sank across the channel. Next came bundles of straw weighted with stones, then soil and manure, then more brushwood, followed by more straw and manure, and, on the top of all, a thick layer of sods. All this accumulation was swallowed up till it rose at last above the surface of the water. At once, a dozen strong and active men sprang on to the barrier and began to tread it and stamp it down. The operation was performed with the utmost speed; and the general excitement was so great and the noise so vociferous, that a passer-by, if he had not known the reason of it, might have been frightened. But there was no one there to be frightened by it: only the uninhabited steppes and dark forests and all the region round re-echoed the shouts of the labourers. The voices of women and children swelled the chorus; for such an important affair aroused interest in every breast, and the noise and excitement were universal. The resistance of the river was not overcome at once. For long it tore away and carried down brushwood and straw, manure and turf; but man at last conquered. The baffled water stopped, as if reflecting; then it turned back, and rose till it poured over its banks and inundated the fields. By evening the mill-pond had taken shape; or one might call it a floating lake, where the banks and all the green grass and bushes had disappeared; only the tops of submerged trees, doomed to die, stuck up here and there. Next day the mill began to work, and goes on working and grinding to this day.
[2. The Government of Orenburg]
How wonderful in those days was that region, in its wild and virginal richness! It is different now; it is not even what it was when I first knew it, when it was still fresh and blooming and undeflowered by hordes of settlers from every quarter. It is changed; but it is still beautiful and spacious, fertile and infinitely various, the Government of Orenburg. The name sounds strange, and the termination "burg" is inappropriate enough. But when I first knew that earthly paradise, it was still called the "Province of Ufa."
Thirty years ago, one who was born within it[11] expressed in verse his fears for the future of the land; and these have been realised in part, and the process still goes on. But still hast thou power to charm, wondrous land! Bright and clear, like great deep cups, are thy lakes—Kandry and Karatabyn. Full of water and full of all manner of fish are thy rivers, whether they race down the valleys and rocky gorges of the Ural Mountains, or steal softly, glittering like a string of jewels, through the prairie-grass of the steppes. Wondrous are these rivers of the steppe, formed by the union of countless little streams flowing from deep water-holes—streams so tiny that you can hardly see the trickle of water in them. And thy rivers that flow swift from fountain-heads and run under the shade of trees and bushes are transparent and cold as ice even in the heat of summer; and all kinds of trout, good to eat and beautiful to see, live there; but they soon die out, when man begins to defile with unclean hands the virgin streams of their clear cool retreats. Fertile is the black soil of thy corn-land, and rich thy pastures; and thy fields are covered in spring with the milk-white blossom of the cherry-tree and wild peach, while in summer the fragrant strawberries spread over them like a scarlet cloth, and the small cherries that turn purple later when they ripen in autumn. Rich is the harvest that rewards the peasant, however idle and ignorant, when he scratches with his rude ploughshare the surface of thy soil. Fresh and green and mighty stand thy forests of all manner of trees; and buzzing swarms of wild bees fill their self-chosen nests among the leaves with the fragrant honey of the lime blossom. The Ufa marten, with its priceless fur, is still to be found in the wooded head-waters of the great rivers.
The original inhabitants of the land are men of peace, the wandering tribes of Bashkirs. Their herds of horses and cattle and flocks of sheep, though far smaller than they were once, are still numerous. When the fierce storms of winter are over, the Bashkirs crawl forth, thin and wasted like flies in winter. With the first warmth and the first sprouting of the grass they drive out into the open their half-starved herds and flocks, and drag themselves after them, with their wives and children. A few weeks change them beyond recognition, both men and animals. What were mere skeletons have become spirited and tireless horses; and the stallion proudly guards his mares as they graze, and keeps both man and beast at a distance. The meagre cattle have grown fat, and their udders swell with milk. But for cow's milk the Bashkir cares nothing. For the koumiss[12] is now in season and already fermenting in the bags of horse-hide; and every creature that can drink, from the infant in arms to the tottering old man, swallows the health-giving beverage, a drink for heroes. And the result is marvellous: all the traces of winter and starvation soon disappear, and even the troubles of old age; their faces fill out, and pale sunken cheeks take on the hue of health. But their deserted villages are a sad and even alarming sight. A traveller unfamiliar with the country might well start, appalled by the emptiness and deadness of the place. There stand the deserted huts with their white chimneys, and the empty window-frames look mournfully at him like human faces with no eyes in the sockets. He may hear the bark of a half-starved watch-dog, whom his master visits and feeds at long intervals, or the mewing of a cat that has run wild and finds food for herself; but that is all: not one human being remains.
How varied and picturesque, each in its own way, are the different regions of the land—the forests, the steppes, and, more than all, the hills, where all metals, even gold, are found along the slopes of the Ural ridge! How vast the expanse, from the borders of Vyatka and Perm, where the mercury often freezes in winter, to the little town of Guryeff on the edge of Astrakhan, where small grapes ripen in the open air—grapes whose wine the Cossack trades in and drinks himself for coolness in summer and warmth in winter. How noble is the fishing in the Urals, unlike any other both in the fish that are caught and in the manner of catching them! It only needs a faithful and lively description to attract general attention.