eter Kropotkin came into life sailing on its topmost wave. The fat of the land, and its milk and honey were his. Personally, nothing was denied him. All the gifts had been lavished upon him. Position was his, health he had in abundance, he was as handsome as the characters in Tolstoy's War and Peace, and his talents were many and varied. To use the Russian vernacular, he was born in his shirt.
But not praise from princes or bows from beauties could induce him to fritter away his splendid energies in senseless dinky-dinks at Moscow or foppish balls at Petersburg. He wished to exercise head, hand and heart, for he agreed with John Ruskin that whatever else you are, you must not be useless and you must not be cruel—two adjectives which best portray the average official.
As has already been said, while still a youth Kropotkin went to Siberia to aid Kukel improve the prisons, the exile system, etc. But when the Herzen-reading Kukel was recalled, and it was no longer permitted to mention the word "reform," Kropotkin became an explorer.
Being clever, he soon made several important discoveries—the border-ridge of the Khingan, the tertiary volcanoes of the Uyun Kholdonsti, a direct route to the Amur.
Also it is interesting to remember that he was among the first Europeans who entered Manchuria,[10] and he went at the risk of being put in a cage and conveyed across the Gobi on a camel's back. It was impossible to go as an officer, so Kropotkin disguised himself as a trader, put on a long blue cotton dress, and acted like a Muscovite merchant—sitting on the edge of the chair, pouring his tea in the saucer, blowing on it with puffed-out cheeks and staring eyes, and nibbling tiny particles from his lump of sugar.
One night as he wandered thru a Chinese town, the inhabitants by signs asked him why such a young man wore a beard. Answering by the same means, Kropotkin told them that if he had nothing else to eat he could eat the beard. This caused the Celestials to roar with laughter, and they petted him tenderly, showed him their houses, and offered him more pipes than Skitaletz's Gavril Petrovitch could have smoked.
In 1866, Kropotkin found what previous explorers had vainly sought—a communication between the gold mines of Yakutsk and Transbaikalia.
Then came what he considers his chief contribution to science: the important discovery that the maps of Northern Asia were incorrect, because the main lines of structure run neither north and south, nor east and west, but from the southwest to the northeast.[11]
Later Kropotkin was to lead an expedition to the Arctic seas, but as the government was spending enormous sums in erecting scaffolds, it could not spare a poltinik for explorations in unknown regions. However the Geographical Society sent him to Finland to study the glacial deposits. Here he made valuable researches relative to the glaciation of the country. He conceived the idea of writing a monumental physical geography of Northern Europe. His chief ambition was to become the Secretary of the Society, for then he would be in a condition to considerably advance the cause of science.
But because he now had more leisure than formerly, he began seriously to think of another subject—The People. When he crossed a plain which had no interest for a geologist, he thought of their sufferings. When he walked from one gravel pit to another, he mused on their downtrodden hopes. Sometimes the hammer would pause in mid-air before it struck the chisel, because the naturalist was dreaming of these plundered beings. After collecting an immense amount of evidence, he anticipated what keen joy he would have in analysing and arranging it for publication; but then another feeling would assert itself—what right had he to this happiness when all around him were men and women and children struggling and slaving for a bit of mouldy bread? Yes, yes, Kropotkin was thinking about the hungry people.
