From Pole to Pole: A Book for Young People

by Sven Anders Hedin

I started my journey across the Kirghiz Steppe in November, 1893, from Orenburg on the Ural River, which for some distance forms the boundary between Asia and Europe. I travelled in a stout tarantass, the common means of conveyance on Russian country roads; it consists of a sort of a box on two bars between the wheel axles, with a hood but no seat. The bottom is filled with hay, on which are spread a mat, cushions and pillows, furs and felt rugs, for the cold is intense. There are ninety-nine stages and changes of horses between Orenburg and Tashkent, the capital of Russian Turkestan. At the post-houses nothing can be got but tea, so provisions for nineteen days had to be taken with us, as well as sawn wood, rope and tools in case anything should break, and a large pot of cart-grease to keep the wheels cool. My boxes and trunks are wrapped in bast-matting and secured with strong ropes to the driver's box and behind the tarantass. It takes time to get everything ready, and it is late in the afternoon before the first team of three post-horses is led out and harnessed to the vehicle. I take my largest fur coat and pack myself in among the cushions and felt rugs. The carriage is open in front and the whirling snow which sweeps round the corners flies straight into my face. The driver takes his seat on the box, shouts shrilly and cracks his whip, and we dash along the streets of Orenburg in the snow and twilight to the lively jingle of the bells.

MAP SHOWING JOURNEY FROM ORENBURG TO THE PAMIR (pp. [55-71]).

The lights come to an end and the night is intensely dark when we come out to the high-road leading into Asia. The bells worn by the middle horse on a necklace round his neck ring in frequent beats. This horse always goes at a trot, being harnessed between the shafts with a high wooden arch above his neck, but the two outside horses go at a canter. The horses are accustomed to this pace and action, and a rapidly moving team is a fine sight. After three hours a yellow light is seen through the swirling snow, and the team dashes into a yard and comes to a halt at the steps of a house. As I have been already tossed about a good deal, I am glad to jump out and get a glass of tea. The horses are taken into the stable, and a fresh team is led out to take their place in the still warm harness.

The samovar, or Russian tea-urn, is boiling in the great room. While I am drinking my first glass of tea the stamping and rattle is heard of two other teams which roll into the yard. It is the post; and the courier enters covered with snow and with icicles on his beard. He is a good fellow, and we become acquainted at once and travel together to Orsk. He has travelled for twenty years with the mails between the two towns and must have covered altogether a distance as far as from the earth to the moon and six thousand miles besides.

My new driver now appears and calls out "The troika[8] is ready." Then I pack myself in again among the cushions and rugs and off we speed once more through the darkness and snow.

After forty-eight hours we are in Orsk, which also stands on the Ural River; and when we leave this town with fresh horses and steer southwards we are on Asiatic ground, in the vast Kirghiz Steppe, which extends from Irkutsk to the Caspian Sea, from the Ural River to the Syr-darya.[9] It is extremely flat and looks like a frozen sea. Day after day we drive southwards, the horses ready to run away; there is nothing to drive over, no ditches to fall into, no stones to carry away a wheel. The hoofs hammer on the hard ground, the wheels creak, I and my things are shaken and thrown about in the carriage, the coachman plants his feet firmly against the foot-board lest he should tumble off, and on we go over the flat dreary steppe. As we drive on day and night the tarantass seems always to be in the centre of the same unbroken landscape, always at the same distance from the horizon.

Here live the Kirghizes, a fine race of graziers and horsemen. They support themselves by their large flocks of sheep, and also own numerous horses and camels, as well as cattle. Therefore they are dependent on the grass of the steppe, and wander like other nomads from pasture to pasture. When their flocks have eaten up the grass at one place, they roll up their black tents, pack all their belongings on camels and migrate to another spot. They are a freeborn, manly people and love the boundless steppe. Life in the open air and on the level country, which affords grazing to their flocks, has sharpened their intellect to a wonderful degree. They never forget a place they have once seen. If the steppe plants grow closer or thinner, if the ground shows the slightest inequality, if there is grey or black gravel of different coarseness—all these details serve as marks of recognition. When we rest a minute halfway between two post-houses to let the horses breathe, the Kirghiz driver turns round and says, "Yonder rides a Kirghiz on a dappled mare." Yet on directing my field-glass towards the indicated spot, I can only see a small dot, and cannot distinguish what it is.

The stations on our road are usually small solid wooden houses with two lamp-posts at the door and a white board, on which are written the distances to the next stations in each direction. In some places there is no house at all but only a black Kirghiz tent, and instead of a stable fences of sticks and reeds afford the horses shelter. At one such station three camels are harnessed to the tarantass, and the clumsy animals waddle along so that their humps bob and roll on their backs. The reason for this change is that we are now on the shore of the Sea of Aral, where the soft yielding drifts make it impossible for horses to draw the tarantass. The two rivers, the Syr-darya (or Jaxartes) and the Amu-darya (or Oxus), which rise in the Pamir, flow into the Sea of Aral. The Cossacks carry on a profitable sturgeon fishery in this lake, which in area is not very much smaller than Scotland, and contains a great number of small islands—whence its name, for the word aral means "island."

With fresh horses we speed along the bank of the Syr-darya. Here grow small woods and thickets where tigers stalk their prey, and in the dense reed beds wild boars dig up roots. The shy gazelles like the open country, hares spring over the shrubs, ducks and geese quack on the banks, and flocks of pheasants lure the traveller to sport. The setting sun sheds a gleam of fiery red over the steppe, and as it grows dim the stars begin to twinkle. The monotonous ring of the bells and the shouts of the driver never cease, whether we are near the river or far off in the dreary steppe. The ground becomes soft and swampy. The wheels cut like knives into the mud. We move more and more slowly and heavily, and at last stick fast in the mire. The driver shouts and scolds, and cracks his whip over the team. The middle horse rears, one of the outside horses jibs and the other gathers himself together for a spring which makes the traces break with a loud report. Then the driver jumps down and says, "You must wait here, sir, while I ride back for two more horses." And he trots off in the darkness. After waiting about two hours I hear the tramp of horses in the distance. Now the team is made ready, the two extra horses are attached in front, the coachman takes his place on the box, and with united strength our animals drag the heavy vehicle up out of the slough. We roll and jolt on again with lumps of wet clay dropping and splashing round the wheels.