During the second day of our detention we sighted the British gunboat Archer passing us to the southeast on her way to Kamchatka. We tried desperately to attract her attention with bombs, but did not succeed. Meanwhile, the chief officer had taken the long-boat and part of the crew and sailed back to Korsakovsk with a fair wind, to secure help. Three days later, he returned with the steam-launch and two lighters, one of which was filled with convicts who had been brought to help in getting the steamer off the rocks, if possible. If not, they were to save what cargo they could. They were put into the forward hold and a few cases were gotten out, but all my provisions and outfit were lost except my tent, which had been sent ashore for the Governor-general's wife. This, together with my valise, camera, guns, and ammunition, was all that I had to show for the careful preparation I had made.
My Russian friends had not enjoyed their stay on shore under the trying conditions. We threw overboard for their use all the ducks and geese, which, after disporting themselves a few minutes in honor of their new-found liberty, made their way to the shore, where they were speedily despatched with axes by the gentlemen in patent-leather boots and gold lace. We also consigned a pig to the vasty deep and it nobly struggled ashore only to meet the common fate of succulent pork. Through the glass I could see the Governor-general in his swell regimentals with a row of medals across his breast lugging an armful of driftwood along the shore to the fire.
And so we made our way back to Korsakovsk, a very discouraged and bedraggled company. The Governor-general took me to the house of the chief magistrate, where I was given a comfortable room, and could once more sit down to a good table. That night I ate my first genuine Russian dinner. Each person as he enters a dining-room, faces the icon which hangs in the corner, and bows and crosses himself. The table was loaded with tinned preserves, pâté de foie gras, caviar, salted salmon, herrings pickled, and raw fish, sardines, cheese, sliced raw onions, cold sausages, raw cabbage, and huge piles of black and white bread. There was also the usual large carafe of pure white vodka, a powerful distilled liquor made from rye. Before eating, every glass is filled and the host's health is drunk to the accompaniment of "Butches sd rovia," which means, "Your good health."
In eating, you must reach for what you want. It is very seldom that anything is passed during this first stage of the meal. You would never suggest to your neighbor on the right to pass you the cheese; but you would rise in your place and, with a firm grasp on your knife, reach over his plate and impale the tempting morsel. If this is not possible, you leave your place and go around the table and secure your loot. There is only one thing that they will readily pass, and that is the vodka. The general aspect of things is that of a well-patronized free-lunch counter when the train is to start in five minutes. It must be confessed that Russian table manners are not fashioned on ordinary European models. They closely resemble the Korean method of eating at a public feast, when all the food is put on the table at once.
It is a mistake to suppose this terminates a Russian dinner. It has only begun. By this time the uninitiated is full to repletion unless he has been forewarned, but to the Russian this is but the ante-prandial overture. Everything is now cleared off the table except the vodka, which is never out of sight, and the dinner proper begins with soup. I must say that this soup is the heaviest and richest it has ever been my fortune to taste. Alone, it would form a full meal for any one less robust than the ordinary Russian. Each guest adds to his soup two or three heaping spoonfuls of sour whipped cream.
Their method of eating soup appeals as much to the ear as to the eye. Perhaps they go on the principle that soup must be eaten as audibly as possible, for this means that it is so good you cannot wait for it to cool.
My Russian naturalist, Alek, was a fair sample of an educated Russian, and he turned to me and said:
"I see that you eat with a fork."
"Yes," said I; "and I see that you do not."
"No; but I had a sister who studied at an English convent in Japan for a year or so. When she came back she ate with a fork, but we soon laughed her out of it."