I lounged also many hours on the balcony of this house, where I took refreshments, agreeably occupied in contemplating the scene around me. I shall never forget these days of far niente passed at Kalkann after the long monotonous passage of the Gobi without stages and almost without repose. I was approaching at last the goal of my travels—that city of Pekin, towards which I had been almost daily moving for the last seven months. I was indeed in China at last, and all my surroundings forcibly impressed me with the novelty of my situation. I was never tired of watching every object, every incident, from my observatory, and when evening closed in I quitted it with regret.
Then we retired to a distant room. Wassili Michäelovitch, as well as a young inhabitant of Tien-tsin who happened to be visiting Kalkann, played on the guitar, and, in listening to the melancholy notes of their melodies, I recalled to memory the far-reaching steppe of Omsk and its changing aspects, the perilous night adventure in the snow on leaving Tumen, the savage grandeur of the frozen Angara, the terrors of the lonely Baikal, Mrs. Grant and Constantine—all my adventures in Siberia,—in fact, that now, with the rigours of an Arctic winter, were things of the past. The remembrance of all these incidents I cherished with that genial sensation that is experienced when we find ourselves safe at the end of a series of perilous adventures, provided they leave behind no ill consequences, but, on the contrary, a feeling of congratulation that we have so happily escaped them.
But what a contrast was this past to the present! It was not simply a change of country and people, but a change of the face of nature; for the trees had put forth their tender leaves and vied in brilliancy of tints with the verdure of the ground, and the whole was bathed in the genial beams of the warm spring sun.
Still it is the destiny of a traveller, who has before him a long journey to be accomplished without delay, to be always on the move. On the morning of the 3rd of May, therefore, we had five palanquins brought up for our accommodation. They are a kind of litter without wheels, furnished with two long shafts projecting before and behind and supported by these on two mules. The mule in the rear is not put in without some trouble, it being repugnant, apparently, to these animals to go into the shafts head foremost; they are, therefore, generally obliged to have their eyes bandaged during the operation.
The palanquin with mules is the most disagreeable vehicle I have ever travelled in: in the first place the greatest care is necessary to keep yourself quite in the middle, inasmuch as the least movement on the one side or the other disturbs at once the adjustment of the harness. In the second place the two mules do not step together or move in harmony, and consequently there is a continual pitching and jolting in every direction, producing as much sickness and distressing fatigue as the movement of the sea.
Our host would accompany us beyond Kalkann; we, therefore, began our journey afoot, going through the city from end to end. We went inside the fortifications, which consist of crenulated walls very solidly built, and from these we had a good view of the streets.
The attention is arrested at once by the swarming of the population. The Arab bazaars, the most thronged even, can give no adequate idea of such a circulation. The noise of all this is quite equal to the concourse. Every shop-keeper considers it his duty to stand in front of his shop to praise his wares. He calls out to the passer-by, to invite him to come in and buy, and, as every one strains his voice to make himself heard over his competitor, it may easily be imagined what a hurly-burly would greet the ear on penetrating further into the city.
Mule drivers, palanquin leaders, mandarins’ coachmen or carriers, scream also with all their might to have the way clear. Conjurers and tumblers are exercising their profession all along the streets, some violently beating their drums, others blowing their bamboo pipes with all the vigour at their command to arrest attention. But the concert of sounds is not yet complete; children being drubbed are squalling, and awkward people, that cannot escape from being crushed, are screaming: petty traders are violently quarrelling with their rivals, and then comes the growl of the tam-tam, marking, from time to time, the hour or the intervals on the bourse. An early morning at Billingsgate, or at the Halles in Paris, is quite peaceable in comparison with the obstreperous precinct of a Chinese town. Our ears were greeted with this uproar for an hour without cessation in passing on our way from one end to the other. M. Schévélof turned round to me many times with a wearied look, and exclaimed: “O Mongolia! calm of the desert, how precious thou art, and how I regret thee!” We arrived at last at the limit of the town, passed through another gate, and were in the country again, but Chinese country without solitude and silence. We took leave of our host, and a quarter of an hour afterwards we were swinging in our five palanquins, anxious to look out, but, following the advice of Mr. Schévélof, we closed our curtains and tried to escape from persecuting curiosity.
When night had quite closed in I opened the three windows of my palanquin, one on the right, one on the left, and the other in front, and was thus enabled to contemplate at my ease the magnificent scenery amid which we were travelling.
We had entered into a narrow and precipitous ravine: it was indeed so narrow, occasionally, that the palanquin had only just room to pass. Massive rocks rising perpendicularly were starting on our vision on all sides. It was clear we were now travelling along the crest of a mountain range, for gaps suddenly appearing here and there opened to view fearful precipices that made the head swim. The wind was blowing violently all the evening; and clouds flitting quickly over the face of the moon gave, through the fitful movements of light and darkness, a most fantastic aspect to this bit of nature.