The Project Gutenberg eBook, From Paris to Pekin over Siberian Snows, by Victor Meignan, Translated by William Conn

Transcriber's note: Cover created by Transcriber and placed in the Public Domain.

FROM PARIS TO PEKIN OVER
SIBERIAN SNOWS.

THE MONASTERY OF TROITSA.

[Frontispiece.

FROM PARIS TO PEKIN
OVER SIBERIAN SNOWS.

A NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY BY SLEDGE OVER THE SNOWS OF EUROPEAN
RUSSIA AND SIBERIA, BY CARAVAN THROUGH MONGOLIA,
ACROSS THE GOBI DESERT AND THE GREAT WALL,
AND BY MULE PALANQUIN THROUGH
CHINA TO PEKIN.

BY
VICTOR MEIGNAN,

EDITED FROM THE FRENCH BY
WILLIAM CONN.
With supplementary notes not contained in the original edition.

WITH A MAP AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS FROM
SKETCHES BY THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS.

LONDON:
W. SWAN SONNENSCHEIN AND CO.,
PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
1885.

Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Limited, London and Aylesbury.

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION.

Embarrassed readers, who delight in books of travel, whether for the recreation or the useful information they afford, are not relieved of their difficulty when the title of the work, instead of indicating the nature of the subject, only presents an enigma for them to solve. How, for instance, is the reader to gauge the nature of the contents of “Voyage en Zigzag?” It might mean the itinerary of some crooked course among the Alps, or, perhaps, the log-book of a yacht chopping about the Channel, or the record of anything but a straightforward journey. Again, “By Land and Sea” might simply be the diary of a holiday trip from London to Paris, or a réchauffé of impressions of a “globe-trotter,” who went to see what everybody talked about that he also might talk about what he had seen. Then there are a host of others, such as “Travels West,” “The Land of the North Wind”—which one has to discover vaguely by ascertaining first where it does not blow,—“Loin de Paris,” “Dans les Nuages,” “On Blue Water;” all of which might be strictly applicable to the metropolitan area if the water were only just a little bluer. But “Voyage Autour de ma Femme” is still less intelligible. Is it a book of travel at all, or only a romance, or a comédie-vaudeville? It may not be a fantaisie like “Voyage Autour de ma Chambre,” nor even the record of a journey necessarily performed within four walls, for—though I have not looked at the book—it may be the narrative of an unsentimental journey, in which the tourist had taken a holiday trip all around picturesque Europe and his wife, leaving her at home; or it may be a sentimental journey as touching as Sterne’s—a kind of circular tour en petit, circumscribed by the ordinary length of the apron-string; in which event, a very subjective turn of the impressions de voyage would be evident; and consequently would not suit readers who decidedly prefer to regard what is presented from the objective side.

The reader will naturally discover from the title of this book the traveller’s course, but he will at the same time, no doubt, desire to know something of the character of the book.

It may gratify him to be told that essentially it is a personal narrative, that cannot fail to interest those who like in a book of travel a tale of life full of incident and adventure: it is one in which his sympathies will be awakened and sustained in following the traveller in his movements from day to day and from place to place, his imagination being vividly stirred by the illusion that the participator is, as it were, in the changing scenes and events passing before his eyes like the tableaux of a diorama. And yet it must not be supposed, because the writer’s chief object has been to give an interesting personal narrative, that it is deficient in useful information: far from it; but, instead of overcharging his book with minute details, he has seized the more salient features of men and things. These are presented from his own point of view as the result of intelligent observation or discriminating hearsay.

The traveller, who is evidently a most genial companion, passes lightly and rapidly over the well-known route from Paris to St. Petersburg and Moscow in the short space of thirty pages. After taking a glance at the wonders of the Kremlin and the monastery of Troïtsa, probably the richest religious community in the world, with its heaps of precious pearls and various gems, he passes on to the famous mart of Nijni-Novgorod, along the frozen Oka and the Volga, through the country of the Votiaks, and across the Ural Mountains into Siberia. Posting at full gallop over the snowy way, sleeping, living altogether in fact, in his sledge (for the luxury of beds is unknown in Siberian hotels), he falls in with a series of adventures, sometimes amusing and sometimes even tragic, in his progress over that vast territory that presents so many strange races, and, in winter, so many remarkable scenes. At one time he is in imminent peril of being lost in a snowstorm on the steppe of Omsk, and at another on the frozen surface of the Baikal. He makes an excursion on the way amid the wild Kirghiz, gets a peep at the life of the Polish exiles, and at the gold miners and the people of Irkutsk in their amusements and occupations. The grand scenes of nature, particularly at this season, are all duly depicted with the emotion of one alive to the beautiful and sublime: the wonderful atmospheric effects of light at a very low temperature, the novel and changing aspects of the steppes; the startling spectacle of the frozen Angara and Lake Baikal, the grotesque aspect of the snow-capped forests, and then, later, the picturesque, verdant valleys of China. In the course of his journey through Mongolia, he enables us to get a glimpse at those strange people the Mongols, their tent life, their city of tents, their incessant prayer-turning as a chief occupation, and the fearful character of some of their ceremonies. Then, after a caravan journey of eighteen days across the trackless Desert of Gobi, he arrives at the great Wall of China, and finally at Pekin, where he contemplates its curiosities, its works of art, its people, their institutions and their daily life.

Having thus given an outline of the book and its contents for the reader’s guidance, I will proceed to explain why I have thought it advisable to depart from a close imitation throughout of the original, and to present, in fact, a modified version rather than a strict translation.

The style of the original, though simple and unadorned, is frequently slipshod; and the author—contrary to many French travellers, who often make, and perhaps still oftener attempt to make, the subject of their narrative a vehicle for epigram and sparkling and spirited diction—has evidently thought more of conveying a truthful picture to the reader, than of the mode of expression by which this could be most effectively done. In many novel and interesting descriptions, for example, the effect they are capable of producing is almost wholly lost through the want of a more just co-ordination of parts and subordination of minor details, and, occasionally, through the want of sufficient expansion, lest the reader should not have time to contemplate and realize a quick succession of fleeting images.

These, consequently, are some of the chief points I have attempted to correct; though in making the attempt, I hope I may not have exposed myself to an unpleasant suspicion, in the first place, of having assumed too much assurance in undertaking uninvited to revise the writing of another, and, in the next place, in certain tableaux, which would be unattractive if obscure or colourless, of having indulged in a taste for fine writing, when the sole object has been to place the matter before the reader as lucidly and vividly as possible.

But it will probably more concern the reader to be assured that the truthfulness of these descriptions, such as represented by the traveller, has not been distorted in this manner of treating them. On this point he may readily satisfy himself on taking the trouble to compare some of them with those in the original edition. He will find, I hope, that my work has not been in vain, and that I have contributed something towards rendering more attractive this interesting narrative, chiefly relating to that land over which Madame Cottin, Xavier de Maistre, and other writers have thrown a glow of romance.

WILLIAM CONN.

CONTENTS.

MAP TO ACCOMPANY “FROM PARIS TO PEKIN OVER SIBERIAN SNOWS.”

London: W. Swan Sonnenschein & C^o.
[(Larger)]

FROM PARIS TO PEKIN.

CHAPTER I.
FROM PARIS TO ST. PETERSBURG.

En route by rail—Berlin—Annoyances at the Russian Custom House—First aspect of European Russia—An evening on the banks of the Neva.

When I had quite made up my mind to pass my winter in Siberia and to proceed in the following spring to Pekin by Mongolia and the Desert of Gobi, my friends, hearing of my project, were incredulous of the steadfastness of my resolution; they shrugged their shoulders, quivering, perhaps at the prospect of frost-nipped limbs, and wondered what could induce me to quit the comfortably warmed salons at this season merely to brave the boreal blasts of so rigorous a climate. So far as it concerned me, however, this anticipatory cold was not at all catching, for, indeed, my resolution was then too firmly set to be shaken by a quivering void of sympathetic influence, or to yield to the allurements of the most inviting-Parisian cercle or boudoir.

Having therefore already well considered my project, I had decided on attempting to accomplish it for this reason: I had seen Syria and Nubia, lands of the Sun, in their full-blown summer radiance and glory, and I now longed to gaze on Siberia, the region of snow and ice, in its wondrous winter garb. When I am in the humour for a tour, I like to visit countries in their typical season, just as one likes to see a man in the exercise of his proper vocation. There is, undoubtedly, a feeling of satisfaction in contemplating the animate or inanimate world merely in its habitual phases, in so far as these are the normal and appropriate expression of a condition of established law and order—the harmonies of nature as well as the moral fitness of things. Siberia, as it is pictured to our imagination, is vividly associated with the stirring incidents of a rigorous arctic winter; it is in this, its most characteristic aspect, that we delight to regard it and muse over it; moreover, in winter only is it so remarkably dissimilar from the nature we are accustomed to see in milder and more genial climates, and in this season alone, with its mighty ice-bound rivers and boundless snow-capped forests, does it present to the wondering eye of the stranger the interest and attractiveness of a striking novelty.

I was in excellent spirits from the exhilarating anticipation of so much adventure, as the reader may imagine, and, busy with final preparations, my friends seeing me thus occupied, amused me with their diverse questions and suggestions. Every one puts questions in his own way according to his habitual ideas or occupation. The doctor with a grave look asks, “Are you sure your constitution is robust enough to bear so much cold?” the druggist, whether you have a good supply of quinine or chilblain ointment, or somebody’s magic pills—some comprehensive remedy for all human weaknesses, corporeal and mental, excepting, of course, the incurable one of belief in its efficacy; then ladies suggest a good supply of warm worsted stockings and knitted comforters; then others inquire whether you have a passport duly visé, a six-shot revolver, maps, a telescope, letters of credit, a belt for gold, and I really don’t know with what they would not considerately provide me. Some perhaps might have gone so far as to suggest a warming pan; and for my part, I think that a warming pan would not have been the least useful article suggested, inasmuch as it might serve as a stewing pan, and then I should be assured of a hot supper and a warm bed; then in inns its sonorous capacity might supply the want of bells, and on a journey serve to scare away the wolves, and finally, having no further use for this accommodating vade mecum, I might sell it in Mongolia, a land of honey, for a purpose to which, I have heard, it is sometimes applied in England, that is for swarming bees with its deep musical note, and this failing, at all events, dispose of it in China, on taking out the handle, as the latest novelty in gongs in articles de Paris.

But not one of my friends, not even the druggist, who sells mort aux mouches and other insect killers, thought of the chasses one is occasionally, though not so often now, obliged to devote himself to in foreign inns; probably they were not lovers of the chase, at least of such small game; but when one has once been bien mangé, the piqures leave their marks on the memory when they have been long effaced elsewhere, and not knowing what sport I might fall in with, I took care to secure the completeness of my gréement de chasse, and having at last made all my arrangements, I was ready to start.

Accordingly on the 25th of October, 1873, at eight in the morning, I left the Gare du Nord, and no sooner had I taken my seat than inquiries recommenced in another form by a talkative traveller. This traveller was a Belgian, and Belgians are generally loquacious and free in making acquaintances. “Where are you going, monsieur?” said he. “As for me, I am going as far as Cologne; it is a very long journey, you know, and I like to have some one to talk to, to pass away these twelve long hours in a carriage.” “And so am I going to Cologne,” I replied. “Oh! you are going to Cologne, are you? Is it to buy horses? That is what I am going there for,” he explained. “I am accustomed to buy my horses in Prussia.” “No,” I said, “I am not going to Cologne for that.” “What for, then?” “Well, it is to start again from there, for I go to Berlin.” “Oh! you are going to Berlin? Why then are you going to Berlin? Nobody goes there, neither tourists nor men of business.” “I go there to start again, for I go from there to St. Petersburg.” These questions succeeded one another in this way from stage to stage, till the moment we had finished the tour of the world. His simple Flemish countenance then took a curious expression of droll astonishment. He could say no more till after the lapse of some moments, and then it was to exclaim, opening his large mouth as wide as possible and vigorously thumping the cushion with his heavy fist, “Oh! Ah! Then you are really going round the world. Dear me! round the world!” “Yes, almost,” I replied, smiling, “and therefore when I want horses I must buy them elsewhere than in Cologne.”

As soon as Cologne and the Rhine are passed, a little favoured spot of this dull country—at least, as it appears to the traveller en route—you traverse an endless plain, neither picturesque nor interesting. Berlin redeems with no artistic beauty its sterile situation. But a Parisian could not be expected to find much attraction in Berlin, and accordingly I found it very dull. Its streets are badly paved; enormous gutters, separating the roadway from the pavement, expose carriages to danger and exhale noxious odours, filled as they are with filthy water and refuse of every kind.

What strikes one in this city is a general aspect of gloominess. They have tried in all the public buildings to imitate the Grecian Doric, and have only too well succeeded in it. I do not understand at all why the Prussians have adopted this cold style, more sepulchral even than the Egyptian, under a sky so dull, and almost as foggy as that of Old England. In the places of amusement, in the interior of the Opera for instance, they have replaced the Doric style with the Corinthian, that is to say, mourning with half-mourning. The national colours, white and black, profusely distributed everywhere, complete its funereal character.

The finest avenue, Unter den Linden, leads from the Museum to the exterior promenades, but the colour of the houses bordering this boulevard spoils the effect; it suggested a mixture of iron and saffron or something like the sickly hue of jaundice. The general impression is anything but cheerful. One is almost disposed to say to every one he meets: “Frère, il faut mourir!” but I said to myself, “Il faut partir,” and, after a short halt, I accordingly took my departure.

The following day the express train, without any incident worthy of note, took me to the Russian frontier.

Though there are custom houses at the frontiers of every civilized state, their character and methods of proceeding have not, in spite of the levelling tendencies of railways, yet arrived at much approach to uniformity; and since these characteristics differ widely from China to Peru, they frequently give some sign of the political and social status of the people into whose country one enters.

At the custom house of this colossal empire of Russia, with a national budget so overcharged, the treasury is especially solicitous of filling the imperial coffers. Money is sorely needed.

The stranger there must first prove his identity by producing his passport duly visé at the consulates of all the places he has passed. The passport is returned to him, bearing a word written on the back. This word leaves every uninitiated traveller in complete ignorance of its meaning or object; it is written in Russian characters, and, moreover, badly written in a language which, in conformity with good taste, one is expected not to know.

When I received my passport marked with the mystic word, my embarrassment was painful. I walked up and down the waiting room, showing the word to every one I met. They all looked at me with astonishment, and kept clear of me without offering any explanation. I, at last, heard some one speaking French near me; it was a gentleman whose moustaches of immoderate length and dark whiskers white at the tips, something like the fur of the blue fox, indicated him to be of Northern nationality. I hastened to be enlightened, and at once learnt that this important word was the name of the officer appointed to examine my baggage. After some difficulty, I found the functionary, who, fortunately, spoke French. “Monsieur,” he said, “qu’avez-vous à déclarer?” “Rien,” I promptly replied, with all the freedom of innocence; “what I bring with me is for my personal use, and if some of the packages appear to you very bulky, it is because I am on a very long, a very distant journey.” “Be good enough to open them.” I accordingly began, feeling assured that everything would go on well and soon end. “It is my personal clothing,” I explained; “there is nothing but clothes in this trunk. Here is a pair of trousers that seems new; I have had it these three years. It looks, however, new; that is to my credit; you see, I do not wear out my clothes much,” I remarked merrily. “But,” he rejoined, “it seems too new; we will weigh it; this will be paid for.” My mortification was about to begin. He commenced putting into the scales all the clothing which he considered had not been worn. “What are these?” “They are memorandum books.” “Is there anything written in them?” “Nothing yet,” and then they also go into the scales. But he was not disposed to end there; far from it; I was obliged to open the chest I had got packed in Paris with the greatest care, containing my sporting equipment and many things for use only in Siberia. Perceiving that he was inexorable in his determination to turn out everything, I entreated him to put the case, just as it was, into the scales, preferring to pay more to having the contents turned upside down in the greatest disorder after they had been so artistically arranged. But I was much deceived, for this gentleman was too much of a Cossack to forego the pleasure of examining Parisian objects. Everything was turned out, and, if possible, inside out, and put into the scales. I was enraged.

In the midst of this intolerable annoyance, there was for me a gleam of malicious satisfaction. I had brought with me an enormous box of vermin-killer in powder, which was considered to be invaluable for my long journey through Asia. The box could not easily be opened; far from it. The officer tried in vain for some time, but at last, the cover yielding suddenly to his efforts, the powder was violently flung into his face, penetrating into his eyes, his nostrils, and mouth, and completely covering his coat. “What is this?” he demanded. “A very violent poison,” I replied, with an affectation of terror, to add to his discomfiture, which had due effect. He turned pale, and, at once, fixed the duty on my effects at the highest possible rate. But I had some unexpected sport with large game, and, my revenge having afforded me full satisfaction, I drew from my pocket my louis d’or.

But, alas! Russia, the country that produces at present so much gold, is the one where it has the least currency. I was obliged to go and change my twenty-franc pieces for paper roubles; and thus I paid at this custom house more than a hundred francs, merely to pass my old clothes—this sum being as much as they were worth—and my memorandum books, which I could not make up my mind to abandon, because they were my only companions to be entrusted with my impressions de voyage.

Before getting into the train, I observed a newsvendor on the platform. “Have you the Figaro?” I asked. “Yes, sir.” “How much?” “Thirty kopecks” (one shilling). “Then give me a newspaper of your own country printed in French.” “Here is one, sir, the Journal de St. Pétersbourg.” “How much?” “Fifteen kopecks.” “But why is it so dear, printed in Russia?” “It is, sir, because here there are enormous duties on the manufacture of paper.” This kind of tax, in my opinion, is, for one thing, to be fully appreciated. The Russians should thus be guarded against a propensity for scribbling, which, alas! is so rampant in France. And then again, when universal suffrage is to appear in Russia, who knows whether the exorbitant price of paper will not hinder the candidates from distributing the voting papers, and the electors from procuring them at their own expense? The exercise of this new power will then be the cause of a fresh charge and become consequently an obstacle. Such a state of things perhaps will cause universal suffrage to succumb and disappear—an institution apparently just and attractive in theory, but amusingly droll in practice to those who have witnessed its working, especially in the country districts. This first experience reconciled me with the administration of this vast country, almost even with its custom house, and I climbed up into my carriage, where two stoves, though it had not yet commenced to freeze, kept up a tropical heat. There I installed myself in one of the immense easy seats with which it was furnished, and which was transformed at night, with the aid of a mechanical arrangement, into a kind of bed, where one may be tolerably comfortable, and there I waited the signal of departure, prepared to observe the aspect of the country through which I was about to pass.

The part of Russia between Wilna and St. Petersburg is simply melancholy. When I passed over it, the absence of snow, of sun, and leaves on the trees, rendered this character, which is proper to it, still more striking. Unlimited forests, that are no longer copse and not yet arrived at full growth, and as impenetrable as a jungle, especially in autumn, from the swampy nature of the soil; a long undulating range of land, of an outline the ocean would assume in the monstrous swell of a tempest, sending back the horizon to an enormous distance; the appearance of a few habitations, at long intervals, and whose presence at all in such a spot suggests utter desolation more than absolute solitude:—this is what is presented to the traveller on entering Russia, immensity, impenetrability, and silent gloom.

It is true that autumn is the least favourable season for visiting Russia; it is, in a certain way, the period of inactivity for the whole race, a people scattered over an immense space, whose special character needs a rapid and continual locomotion. The land in autumn becomes too swampy for wheeled carriages, and travelling in sledges has not yet commenced. Soon, however, the snow, falling probably in abundance, will permit the Russians their favourite mode of travelling; and the intense cold, dissipating the clouds, will give to its white mantle unparalleled purity and brilliancy.

We will hasten to arrive at St. Petersburg, of which, however, as well as of Moscow, I will say but little, because I have to describe regions more remote and much less known. When one has a long journey before him, he should not linger at the first stages, for fear of feeling too sensibly the difficulties of the enterprise, and consequently of being tempted to abandon it in spite of a brave resolution at the outset.

I alighted at the Hôtel de France, and, almost immediately, went out afoot. It was six in the evening and quite dark. A mild and refreshing temperature was inviting to a walk. The sky was serene, and the moon shone brilliantly. It was one of those fine evenings described by Joseph de Maistre, although we were still in November. Chance led me towards the Neva, and I was much delighted, for, from the bridge of boats thrown across it, I was able to contemplate a spectacle truly magnificent. It is not a river, but rather an inlet of the sea. Four or five times wider than the Garonne at Bordeaux, this piece of water makes a bend in the middle of the city; and along its banks is exposed the principal architectural magnificence of St. Petersburg. The Emperor’s palace, the Senate, the Fortress, the Hermitage, the Academy of Fine Arts, are all along its banks, as well as an immense number of churches, each surmounted with five or six Byzantine domes.

At the moment I was there, the moon’s rays were reflected from all these gilded domes, and again these glittering beams were flashed like dazzling fireworks from the surface of the water; the gilded cupola of the Cathedral St. Isaac rose majestically above the others, and surpassed them in splendour. Black barges, resembling somewhat, at this hour of the night, Venetian gondolas, passed to and fro, leaving their luminous trails glittering on the surface of the water. The great mass of water of Lake Ladoga was gliding onward in its full flood with rapidity, but without noise, for nothing opposed its passage. The bells, which gave an idea of enormous size from their deep, solemn, and prolonged tone, alone broke the religious silence of the scene by the call to prayer. It was grand, solemn, and inspiring. This night at St. Petersburg, God revealed Himself to man by the splendour of the heavens and the mystery of the hour, and man’s thoughts were drawn to God by the imposing towering of His temples and the awe-inspiring sound of the bells.

Though I was much moved by this scene and its associations, I knew I could not adequately enjoy Russia in its aspect of the mild season. A little later, however, the Neva would be arrested in its course by the frost, the domes of the churches, as well as the land everywhere, would be dressed in a thick mantle of snow, and then I should no longer behold this country as it now was, but buried under its winter shroud. I remained therefore long contemplating this spectacle, the real beauty of which was enhanced in my imagination by the reflection that it was to be but of short duration.

CHAPTER II.
ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW.

Letters of recommendation for Siberia—M. Pfaffius, frontier commissary at Kiachta—Russian music—Arrival at Moscow.

During my sojourn at St. Petersburg, I went of course, and more than once, to see the curiosities with which the city is filled, but it was necessary to remember that I had set out for a much longer journey, and that my chief occupation at St. Petersburg was to search for a compagnon de voyage. With this object, I availed myself of all the letters of recommendation I had obtained in Paris, hoping thereby to secure the useful as well as agreeable society either of a tourist or of a functionary returning to his post in Eastern Siberia.

In the first réunions where I had the honour to be invited, I invariably spoke of my intended journey, hoping thereby to find a travelling companion, but in doing so, I was always answered with a frown or met with a deaf ear.

The reason was this: at St. Petersburg, it is not in good taste to travel in the direction of the East. The inhabitants of this city of pleasure seem to regret their origin; this society, so fastidious and refined, appears really to fear being still taken for a horde of barbarians. Women in the highest social rank have said to me sometimes: “Whatever I may do or say, you will nevertheless have your own opinion of me; you will regard me as a Cossack.” Everything associated with Asia is in disfavour, and, perhaps, those who exaggerate the sentiment would willingly cede Siberia to the Chinese Government, in order to have nothing in common with the East. To speak French is indispensable; when you are French and are received in society in St. Petersburg, it is surprising to see how much France is à la mode: French is habitually spoken, and read in newspapers and books; the cuisine is French as well as the costumes, and so are many of the plays at the theatres. It is quite the ton to have arrived from Paris, Luchon, or Trouville, and to have brought the latest cancans from the boudoirs à la mode.

As soon as the frost appeared, I began busying myself with the arrangements for my journey. I was aided in this difficult task by M. Bartholdy, then chargé d’affaires at the French Embassy. This obliging Frenchman succeeded with the Imperial Government in enabling me to traverse Siberia in a manner somewhat official, and the ministers accordingly gave me letters of recommendation to the governors of the various provinces I was about to visit.

I obtained also from M. Michaelof, the contractor for the posting between Nijni-Novgorod and Tumen, a circular order requiring each postmaster on the route to give me the best horses at the shortest notice.

Many persons recommended me to their friends in Siberia. In less than a fortnight I was provided with thirty-two of these recommendations, but I had not yet found either a companion or a servant.

The frost, however, was becoming every day more severe. The thermometer varied between 10° and 12° Centigrade below zero (14° to 10° Fahr.).[1]

[1] See [note 1] at end of book.

The canal of the Moïka, which my windows overlooked, was already half frozen; enormous blocks of ice were drifting on the Neva; the snow, though not yet very deep, fell often enough to lead me to hope for sledging very shortly. I was about to decide to start alone for Moscow, when I received a letter from the head of the Asiatic Government.

This letter informed me that the Russian frontier commissary at Kiachta, M. Pfaffius, was at St. Petersburg at the Hotel Démouth, and was about to join his post.

Without losing a moment, I gathered up all the letters, those even the addresses of which I could not read, and hastened to the Hotel Démouth.

I did not yet know what it was to travel through Siberia; I had not the least idea of many things that were required, nor that so many things even were necessary, and was therefore not a little surprised, on my entry into M. Pfaffius’s apartment, at the sight that there awaited me.

In the middle of the room lay on the floor a heap of pillows, furs, mattresses, blankets, and ropes. This was not all, for I soon perceived also a loaf of sugar, felt boots, a bottle of brandy, and bags and sacks of every shape and size.

The functionary, wearing a ring on the second finger of his right hand, a sign of his office, was seated at table breakfasting. At his side stood a Buriat servant, with half-Mongol, half-Tartar features, clad in a touloupe of offensive odour, watching his master’s slightest gesture to satisfy the most trifling desire. As soon as I appeared, the commissary ordered a chair for me, but since unluckily, perhaps through accident, no chair could be found in the room, it was necessary to search for one elsewhere. I was obliged to remain standing some moments while rage became apparent on the countenance of my host, who, however, as I afterwards found, was gentle enough. He became red and pale alternately. When the Buriat returned he rated him pretty smartly in words almost inarticulate, though of perfectly intelligible significance, and finished by raising his hand to strike him.

Accustomed as I was to Oriental manners, I anticipated the scene that was about to take place, and took little notice of it, when, to my great astonishment, the servant raised his head, and looking sternly at the commissary, addressed him in these simple words: “You forget then, sir, that I am a subject of the Emperor!”

This man well knew that an article of the decree enfranchising the serfs interdicted landowners and functionaries, under penalty of disgrace and even imprisonment, from having recourse to blows against any subject whomsoever of the Emperor, whether naturalized Russian or native of a conquered country, like the Kirghiz, the Buriats, or the Samoyeds.

These words were sufficient, in fact, to cause the lifted fist of the official to drop harmlessly by his side. What passion, indeed, is there in a Russian, when roused even to exasperation, that would venture to offend against the will of the Czar?

When this little scene had ended, M. Pfaffius became again perfectly calm and self-possessed,—quite a man of the world. I showed him my letters of recommendation. As soon as his eye caught the seal of the Imperial Ministry—and this for a Russian official was much more than was required—he showed me the highest consideration. One of these letters was personally addressed to him. I was accordingly from that moment his friend, and we resolved to travel together.

The reader will learn, from what took place later, that this plan was only partially carried out, in consequence of my having made at last an acquaintance at Moscow. Being unable at this moment to anticipate the number of travelling companions that subsequently presented themselves, I regarded my commissary as a great acquisition. He had to go to Kiew before the organization of the sledging took place. I allowed him to depart only after every precaution taken to ensure our rendezvous, and, filled with enthusiasm, I set out on my visites d’adieux.

I will speak of one of them only, which took place in a box of the Russian Opera, not so much on account of the very agreeable people who had invited me there to see the Opera, as on account of the character of the music and the manner of the representation of which I was a witness. It was the chef-d’œuvre of Glinka—Life for the Czar.

Without, however, detaining the reader with the details of the manner of the representation, which probably would interest him but slightly, I will give my impression of the character of the music.

The Russians, who are not an inventive people, have, however, a national music of a kind special and original.

Those who appreciate French operas, even plaintive, would feel little interest in listening to long lamentations and mournful melodies, so characteristic of this music. It may, however, move very much amateurs of grave music, especially in the country where it originates.

The phrases of Glinka’s opera, gloomy and lugubrious, as uniform as nature in Russia, as profound as its horizons, succeed one another monotonously without ever seeming to reach a distinct solution. At the moment when the impatient ear at last waits to dwell on the fundamental note, a renewed expression of grief comes forth unexpectedly, and the phrase is prolonged without changing its character. I cannot better compare Glinka’s inspirations than with the permanent efforts of the sea to assume its desired repose in struggling against the incessant succession of waves. This music therefore is void of the attraction of gaiety, and, on account of its uniformity, does not give rise to lively emotions, but it has all the charm of melancholy and vague reverie.

The flow of soul seems to wander and become bewildered and enervated in the prolonged thrilling notes of this endless melody; all the past comes back to the memory, and when the last note dies away, one wakes up, as if from a touching dream, with a tear starting in the eye.

I had postponed my departure from day to day, notwithstanding the snow that was falling and the hard frost so favourable to my journey, but having at last quitted the Russian capital, my thoughts returned to it in this way. One prefers, no doubt, the first enjoyment of a pleasure to the mere remembrance of it, and yet, perhaps, one separates himself less willingly from the souvenir than from the reality, because he feels that when this prolonged pleasure ends, it has vanished both from the senses and the memory.

When I left St. Petersburg, it was the 20th of November, and on the 21st, at ten o’clock in the morning, in a frost of 24° Centigrade (11° below zero Fahr.), I made my entry into the holy city of Moscow.

The temperature I had to bear this day was very moderate in comparison with that which I subsequently experienced in Siberia; I could, however, appreciate some of the effects produced by intense cold. You feel that everything shrinks, tightens, and contracts. The horses that perspire, on account of the rapid pace at which they are driven, have their coats covered with congealed perspiration that resembles a petrifaction. The drivers’ faces are puffed, spongy, and repulsive-looking. The sun, in the absence of snow, seems alone to rejoice or enliven what it touches. Under its caressing beams, the houses, with their varied hues, assume a brighter and more joyous aspect, that strikingly contrasts with the hooded personages afoot. I took care at once to provide myself with the usual winter clothing of Russians. I bought goloshes to march over the snow without suffering from cold or humidity; a bachelique, a kind of hood in camel hair to protect the ears and neck; and, finally, a cloak of jenotte, a fur not at all expensive and yet elegant.

The choice of fur is an important matter, especially at Moscow, where one’s individual value is appreciated by the value of the animal’s skin he wears. There is indeed a Russian proverb that seems to discredit this observation. “On vous reçoit selon votre habit, et l’on vous reconduit selon votre esprit.” But this apophthegm rarely serves as a precept in a society fond of showiness and imposing magnificence—a society that is closed against the most cultivated mind if the body be not decked in the skins of certain beasts.

CHAPTER III.
MOSCOW—NIJNI-NOVGOROD.

The Kremlin—Equipage and visits of the Virgin of Inverski—Origin of Christianity in Russia—A few words about Troïtsa—A travelling companion—Purchase of furs—Passage of the Oka in a sledge—Feeling of terror on first travelling in a sledge over a frozen river.

I cannot better compare the disposition of the streets of Moscow than with that of the series of concentric threads in a cobweb. Straight streets parting from the Kremlin, as a common centre, intersect all the circular arteries, in such a way, that it is impossible to lose one’s self in the city, notwithstanding its immensity.

Each Russian city has its kremlin. It is an enclosure that contains generally a fortress, a residence for the Emperor, and one or many churches. The Kremlin of Moscow is much celebrated on account of its vastness, its historical souvenirs, and the wealth of its sanctuaries. It is relatively modern, having been rebuilt since the conflagration of 1812. One may still visit a little relic of the old building. It would be difficult to say to what style it belongs; there may be found there a mixture of many of the Asiatic varieties, between the Byzantine and those of the extreme East. Walls of extraordinary thickness; a series of little chambers, vaulted or rising in a point; narrow windows, permitting only the penetration of a mysterious light, sifted through stained glass; low doors surmounted with a Moorish arch; walls, gilt from the ceiling to the floor, on which are drawn figures of saints, having only the head and hands painted or enamelled; here and there Chinese monsters; doors opening occasionally to the height of the first story, and consequently suspended stairs to pass from one floor to another—this is the ancient Kremlin. One wonders, on roving through this intricate labyrinth, whether he is in an oratory or a salon, in a place of amusement or in a torture chamber of the Inquisition. The new dwelling of the emperors is quite different. Although of very doubtful taste, it is at least in harmony, on account of its vastness, with the empire of which it is the seat. Space has not been spared. The hall of the throne is quite a steppe to traverse. Its dimensions are monstrous. What was my astonishment on finding there several statues and portraits of the Great Napoleon! The Russians, far from bearing any enmity towards our military hero, like to render homage to his glory. To admire thus genius, wherever it may be found, even when the admirer has been the victim, is at least the mark of a liberal mind and high sentiments.

I had finished my first visit to the Kremlin, and, muffled and wrapped in furs, I was being comfortably driven to my hotel, musing carelessly on the way, when my coachman suddenly turned round, and with a silly smile, lifted my fur cap, and at the same time raised his own. Obtaining no intelligible explanation, through my ignorance of the language, I fancied myself the object of some practical joke in which coachmen indulge, and, consequently, being unable to rate him well as he deserved, I subdued my rage and smiled also. I demanded my cap, however, by gestures, to which he responded with three bows, as many signs of the cross, and sanctimoniously smiled again. I was just going to recover my property by force, when I perceived we were under the Spasskoï gateway, and that every one was bareheaded.

The proceeding was now intelligible: this gate is surmounted with the picture of the Virgin of Inverski, the favourite virgin of the Muscovites, the miraculous virgin whose supernatural power had been equal to arresting the conflagration of the Kremlin—the conflagration lighted by Rostopchine, a personage much less popular in Russia than Bonaparte.

Nobody, therefore, should pass the Spasskoï gate without lifting his hat. Old men relate that a violent wind forced even the great French conqueror to submit to this law when he intended to pass it unobserved.

The Virgin of Inverski is invoked by everybody; still she does not make herself so cheap to everybody, for a widely spread custom consists in vicarious visits by representations.

In order to obtain miraculous cures, they send for the Virgin of the Assumption, and more special favours, for the Virgin of Vladimir; and when one goes on a long journey, he generally prefers a facsimile of the Virgin of Kazan. But extraordinary circumstances must exist to demand a visit from the Virgin of Inverski.

When the metropolitan considers that a family is worthy of such an honour, four monks and two dignitaries of the Church proceed to the Spasskoï gate in a carriage with six horses. Every spectator bows low and makes the sign of the cross as the picture is lowered from its accustomed place, and prostrates himself completely, in spite of the snow and frost, at the moment it is installed in the bottom of the carriage; the two priests then place themselves on the box in front, the monks act as drivers and footmen, and thus they proceed to the privileged house, whose members do not receive the honour of such a visit without very liberal offerings.

CARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN OF INVERSKI.

The individual ritual practices in the streets, on the promenade, and everywhere, and at all hours, constitute certainly some of the special characteristics of Moscow. One meets at every step people kneeling and reciting prayers, though nothing apparently calls for the devotion. The worship of pictorial representations is exaggerated almost to idolatry even by the more enlightened portion of the community. But then the higher class, though almost wholly Nihilistic, condescends to observe these popular forms on the one hand, merely through a servile deference to the authority of the Emperor, and on the other, an unwillingness to reproach by neglect the superstition of the lower class.

The orthodox religion is well known to be a faithful reproduction of the old Greek worship of Constantinople. About the year 1000, the chief of the horde that was then to become the embryo of the Russian nation—a thorough barbarian in daring and cruelty, in brute force and ungovernable impetuosity—constituted himself the promulgator of the Greek religion in the country subject to his rule.

This Vladimir—such was his name—hurled defiance at all the neighbouring peoples, and subjected to his will nearly the whole of the actual limits of European Russia. He is alleged to have had—if certain fabulous chronicles may be trusted—five legitimate wives, eight hundred concubines, and a multitude of children, whom he sacrificed to the gods. But just at the moment he was about to sacrifice his first wife, the partner even of his throne, he was seized with remorse.

Intent on forming into an entire nation all the hordes he had conquered, he nevertheless understood that this could only be accomplished by means of a national religion. With this object in view, he sent ambassadors into different countries, in order to study their respective religions, and these from their reports enabled him to choose which seemed to him the best. Mahomedanism is said to have displeased him, because the Koran forbade the use of wine, a precept that would not have favoured his indulgence in this habit. Romanism was rejected on account of the celibacy of the priesthood, and especially on account of the obedience it would exact towards an authority other than his own. Judaism, a religion without national coherence, was not favourable to his project of becoming the founder of a homogenous and solid empire. The Greek worship, however, imposed on his barbarian mind by the magnificence of its ritual; he therefore adopted it, and Russia became a Christian nation of the Eastern Church.

Though its dogmas differ but little from those of the Romish Church, the Russians have inherited the old hatred of the Greeks towards the Romans. They would willingly put into practice the ancient injunction of the Byzantine bishops at the time of the expedition of Frederick against Jerusalem:—“To obtain the remission of sins, the pilgrims must be massacred and exterminated from the face of the earth.”[2]

[2] Michaud.

They derive also from the devotees of the ancient Church their idolatry, for the indulgence in which these sacrificed their lives. They are the true disciples of those Byzantines who, at the time of the Latin conquest, overthrew with rage a statue of Minerva, upbraiding her with having called hither the barbarians, because she looked towards the west with outstretched arms.

During my stay at Moscow, I visited the monastery of Troïtsa, near this city. This monastery was founded by St. Sergius in 1338. It would be more correct to say that at this time the pious hermit of the forest of Godorok became a cenobite in imparting to a few zealous souls like his own a taste for poverty and the renunciation of all worldly things. But inasmuch as the united resources of these devotees were barely sufficient at first to provide for them a shelter, the convent was not constructed till later.

His fortune was indeed changed when St. Sergius, at the moment of the great Mongolian invasion, prevailed on Prince Dmitri to march against the barbarians in the plains of the Don. This prince having become victorious over the fierce Mamaï, overloaded the new community with presents. In 1393, Troïtsa was partially pillaged and burnt by the Tartars, and St. Sergius perished; but his body, recovered as if by a miracle from the heap of ruins, continued to be an object of veneration. The czars, the princes, the boyards, successively bestowed important largesses on the convent, whose wealth then became legendary in Russia. In the middle of the last century, Troïtsa possessed, in addition to an almost incredible heap of jewels, immense domains and a hundred thousand peasants. Then even the wealth of the monastery was estimated to be over forty millions of pounds sterling. Its fortifications, which still exist, defended it in 1609 against the Polish invasion, and sheltered from danger the young czars John and Peter Alexievitch during one of the revolts of the Strelitz Imperial Guards. Besides the buildings serving the community as habitations, it surrounds with its walls nine churches, whose riches excite the wonder rather than the admiration of the stranger. All the painted and enamelled portions of the representations of saints are set around with rubies, emeralds, topazes, and diamonds, of enormous size. The tomb of St. Sergius is in gilded silver; the canopy is of massive silver, and supported by four columns also of silver. The chasubles, worn by the priesthood in the exercise of their worship, are covered with fifteen, eighteen, and even twenty-one pounds of pearls. The spectator is at first dazzled at the sight of so much magnificence; but since all these things are wonders only on account of their immense value, one at last becomes indifferent to the spectacle of a mere heap of precious things. As other writers, more able, have already fully described Troïtsa, I will not fatigue the reader with further details. My guide led me to see everything: the chapels, the treasury, where may be seen twenty gallons of fine pearls, which are consigned to a glass case, the authorities not knowing what other use to make of them. When I had seen all these treasures, my guide led me to one of the outer doors and held out his hand. This movement, I must admit, embarrassed me, for after having visited the monastery of Troïtsa, a donation of a thousand roubles even seems a mere trifle. Before taking leave of this devotee, I asked permission to visit the library. “We have none,” he replied. This poor fellow then seemed to me really poor, and I was sorry I could not offer him a gratuity of a kind I would have bestowed with more pleasure. M. de Custine says the monastery has a library, but that the regulations do not permit the public to see it. I only hope what M. de Custine says is true.

On returning from this visit, a young man called Constantine Kokcharof came to see me. His complexion was a yellowish brown, and he had prominent cheekbones like the Mongols, crisp hair and full lips like an African, a short stature, and yet great muscular strength. He seemed to hold a place between the native of the North and that of the tropical forests. If he would only have made researches into his genealogy, I am sure he would have traced his origin to the Mongols after the race had passed through some change in India. He said to me on entering: “May God, monsieur, bless your journey!” Then he gave me his name and held out his hand according to the Siberian custom. In Russia it is thought to be impolite not to offer the hand immediately on making an acquaintance.

“Monsieur,” added Constantine, “I am the friend of M. Sabachnikof, whom you have met at the house of M. Pfaffius, the commissary of Kiachta. I am returning to Irkutsk, where my parents live. I had written to M. Pfaffius to ask him if I might accompany him into Siberia, and he replied by giving me your address. Will you take me for your travelling companion? I will serve you as interpreter, and with me you will have the advantage of travelling as fast or as easily as it suits you, and, moreover, of taking the route that would be most convenient to yourself.”

I showed him my letters of recommendation; and among them he found one for his father and another for his uncle, both being imperial functionaries in Siberia. We settled the business at once, and I then occupied myself solely with preparations for departure.

My young companion was most valuable to me, because he was thoroughly acquainted with the route we were to take.

He was going to traverse, for the sixth time, the immense space that intervenes between Moscow and the Amoor river. He had made the journey in summer and in winter; he was therefore fully competent to advise me as to what arrangements had to be made, and what precautions it would be indispensable to take against cold and fatigue. He informed me that, in the sledge, besides my jenotte fur, I should roll myself up in a dacha, a kind of mantle, furred inside and out, in which the wearer, being muffled from head to foot, disappeared altogether. The one I bought the following day was lined with white hare skin, and covered again with elk skin, the hair of which was short, but thick. These two fur dresses not being considered sufficiently à la mode, I was obliged to set off with collars of beaver. Swaddled in this manner, I innocently imagined I could face with impunity the most rigorous cold of Siberia.

I have met, in the course of my travels, many a sharper and with many an impudent attempt at extortion, but never with a demand supported with such unscrupulous reasoning as that of the interpreter at the hotel at Moscow. “Monsieur,” he began unblushingly, “you owe me at least a recompense of three hundred francs. I will show you in what way. You had urgent need of a Russian companion to go through Siberia. When M. Kokcharof came to ask for you, I could easily have told him that I did not know you, and in keeping on talking with him, have found out his address. Then I might have come and said to you: ‘I have just found the man you want, but I cannot promise to let you know his name and where he may be found unless you give me a thousand francs.’ Now, monsieur, you know, I have not done such a thing as that, and you ought, indeed, to take it into consideration.”

My rage made me forget for the moment the article in the decree of the Emperor—the interdiction to strike a subject. I was about to raise my hand, but I raised my foot instead, and, in this way, speedily dismissed the barefaced impostor. I found out afterwards that this man was a Pole, a circumstance that enabled me to calm my conscience, for could the decree be meant for these convicts? Having finally secured my trunks, I went, in company with M. Constantine Kokcharof, chatting with him all the way, to take the train for Nijni-Novgorod.

Nijni-Novgorod is the last station of the railway before entering by road into Siberia.

To get from the railway station to the city, it is necessary to cross the Oka river, at about a few hundred yards before it falls into the Volga. When I arrived at Novgorod, on the 15th of December, the winter passage over the ice had begun. The surface of the Oka was furrowed with the passage of sledges coming from Irkutsk, from Nicolaefsk, from the world’s end, in fact, and bringing to the railway all kinds of Asiatic provisions. Every river in Russia and Siberia freezes in a different way. Some even have an aspect so special as to enable one, at a mere glance at the ice, to say which river it is. This peculiarity is caused by atmospheric conditions, by the nature and form of the shores, and especially by the rate of movement of the stream at the time of congelation.

The Oka, when frozen, presents on its surface a series of great protuberances, in form something like a succession of mounds and consequent dales. The untravelled foreigner sees in his imagination the rivers of the North, during winter, presenting a surface like plate glass, whereon skaters make long excursions at a rapid pace, and thus accomplish long journeys. Except, perhaps, the Volga, over which the ice, on account of the sluggishness of the current, is almost everywhere level, but where the presence of snow, however, does not admit of skating, I have seen in Russia no river whatever covered to any extent with a smooth surface of ice; indeed, many of them have a surface so uneven, that it would be impossible for any vehicle to pass over them.

The course of the Oka, however, is not of this character; its frozen surface is one of the least rugged. As for me, hitherto inexperienced in Northern locomotion, I should certainly not have supposed, on looking over the roughness of the route, that I was journeying over a frozen river, if my attention had not been attracted by a strange noise beneath, a noise too strange to be forgotten, and sufficient to dismiss from my mind any illusion that I was travelling over an ordinary road.

It was a hollow rumbling sound in a deep gulf below. To the excited fancy of the wayfarer, it seemed, at times, the echoed roar of some angry demon imprisoned in the depths of an icy cave; and the traveller, listening as he is whisked along, is affected by a terrifying sensation of sinking, produced by the alternate rising and falling of the sledge over the undulating surface—a movement from which he involuntarily recoils. Just as in a carriage, when the horses are rushing on with uncontrolled impetuosity, he instinctively throws himself backwards, as if to struggle against the force that would hurl him to destruction, or, standing on the ridge of a precipice, he impulsively recoils towards surer ground from the abyss yawning to devour him, so, the first time he travels over the frozen river, he shrinks from a movement, but from one against which it is in vain to struggle; for, in glancing over the fragile partition, he finds he is contending, not to attain solid ground, for there is no shore of safety near for retreat, but hopelessly against his own weight. He is irritated at the presence of others there, at their not becoming as light as air; he is angry with everybody and everything that is heavy, because what aggravates the danger by its weight, men or baggage, is exasperating, and, indeed, not without reason, for every ponderous atom, in his imagination, exaggerates the imminence of that desperate moment when, without the resource of a jutting branch or anything stable presented providentially to his grasp, this frail, frozen floor should break under the weight like a pane of glass, and plunge him into all the horrors of a glacial sepulture.

Scared with this appalling phantom that clung to me in my first sledging experience, it was a great relief to regain the solid ground with no roaring gulf beneath, and a still greater pleasure to arrive safe at Novgorod.

The city of Nijni-Novgorod is picturesquely constructed, and, at the same time, very interesting, on account of the liveliness of its bazaars.

The Volga where it receives the waters of the Oka is, at least, four miles wide. A great hill, or rather a mountain, swells up along the right bank of this immense sheet of water, and Novgorod rises proudly on the summit of this mountain, watching on one side Asia and on the other Europe, ready to awaken the Russian empire to any danger that might menace it from one quarter or the other. Communicating freely with remote districts by aid of its railway and two fine waterways, protected against catastrophes of inundations by its elevated position, against the misfortune of poverty by its extensive commerce, and against the calamity of decadence by its important annual fair, Novgorod is one of the most agreeable cities in Russia to visit, because, contrary to what one generally meets with in this vast empire, everything here has an air of gaiety, of busy prosperity, and lively movement.

The streets of the bazaars especially present extraordinary animation. Even when it is not the season of the great fair, they are picturesque with the costumes, the most singular and dissimilar, of every Asiatic race, specimens of which the stranger encounters at every step. In this business quarter, the only one, perhaps, so constructed in Russia, the houses have several stories, and the shops rise one above the other, although they do not always belong to the same proprietor. Wooden balconies, ascended by means of exterior staircases, where one may circulate from one end of the street to the other, serve the public in going to make their purchases at the shops of the upper stories.

In the other parts of the city, the houses are elegant, and they are almost wholly built of stone, houses, in fact, which, in any city beyond Moscow, and still more beyond Kazan, would be considered even magnificent. Numerous comfortable hotels offer an asylum to the traveller, who sees around him here, as well as in the city, bustling though not extensive, conspicuous results of the activity of its inhabitants and the incessant movement of commerce.

From the foot of the column dedicated to Sviataslof Vsevolovitch, on the spot where he vanquished the Swedes and Poles, that rises on one of the highest summits of the great hill on which Novgorod is built, the stranger may contemplate a prospect that might serve as a type of a Russian landscape in winter. In the plain below sleeps the Volga, silent and still to the senses in its winter dress; for the frost, one of nature’s forces, the most imposing from its effects, has already congealed the surface of its running stream into the solidity and quiescence of the plain. One sees on the left bank of this river, and to an enormous distance through the crepuscular gloom common to these latitudes in winter, a series of long, vast undulations, covered with boundless forests, leafless, dark and dreary. Here and there, however, the melancholy monotonous uniformity is broken by a few patches of pines, but elsewhere the white trunks of the birch start up like apparitions in this desolate expanse of savage nature.

This scene, characteristic of Russia in winter, is one of the most mournful and uninviting to behold, and the stranger who has once seen it wonders why any people, however wretched, do not shudder at the idea of establishing themselves in a land where nature is so cheerless and inhospitable.

CHAPTER IV.
FROM NIJNI-NOVGOROD TO KAZAN.

The Volga in winter—Varieties of podarojnaia—What is necessary for a long sledge journey—Departure from Nijni—Posting relays—A momentary thaw—The snow—Arrival at Kazan.

Hardly had I arrived at Novgorod, when I wished to begin my journey in a sledge as soon as possible. Thus man is attracted towards unknown adventures, even should he feel he is doomed to become, in consequence of them, a sufferer.

I went at once to the governor of the province, in order that he might afford me every facility for obtaining horses at the several posting stages. To obtain relays, there are three kinds of recommendations, which are called in Russian podarojnaia.

The most valuable and important of the three is the podarojnaia de courrier, which can only be obtained for exceptional cases, for an envoy extraordinary of the Emperor for instance.

When a traveller arrives at a stage provided with this order, the posting master is obliged to furnish horses immediately, and if they are not there, to demand them elsewhere by requisition; he also commands the driver to gallop without intermission.

The Crown podarojnaia, although an order of the second rank, is, nevertheless, much appreciated. It is generally accorded to the functionaries who are returning to their posts, or to those who are travelling in the public service. It was with one of these orders that the governor of Nijni-Novgorod was pleased to furnish me. The posting masters should always reserve a troïka or droïka (a vehicle with three horses) in case a traveller should present himself furnished with a Crown podarojnaia. It is therefore a rare occurrence to the bearer of this important order when he presents himself at a posting stage not to be provided with horses immediately. The drivers, under this order, have copper badges attached to their caps and arms which warn afar off other conductors coming in a contrary direction to clear the way immediately, under a penalty of severe chastisement in case of neglect; they also drive almost always at a gallop, like the drivers of the podarojnaia de courrier.

Between the Crown podarojnaia and the simple podarojnaia, there is a great difference. This is for the mass of ordinary travellers. It is necessary to pay at once, pretty dearly, to get it at all, and then the traveller is quite at the mercy of the postmasters, who will not give him horses unless they are disposed to do so.

The rule is that each relay should have six hours’ rest between each course. It, therefore, often happens that the traveller finds at the stages no other relays than those taking their usual rest, excepting always the reserve for the Crown podarojnaia. I have frequently seen travellers who had been waiting, two or three days, until the posting master was disposed to accommodate them or had been tired out with having his guests on his hands.

Unfortunately, the contractors of relays find every advantage in prolonging such a delay. The guest does not pay for his lodging, which is gratuitous, but he always takes there some provisions, and the postmasters hope to receive in the end, when he is tired out with waiting, a liberal gratuity in addition, in order to furnish a troïka, even with horses fatigued from a recent course.

The organization of the posting between Nijni-Novgorod and Tumen does not at present belong to the Government. It is conceded temporarily to M. Michaelof, who is making a rapid fortune by letting his horses at a high rate.

Provided, as I have mentioned, with a recommendation from this fortunate contractor, and also with a Crown podarojnaia, for which I was indebted to the governor of Nijni, I thought I should be able to start the following morning.

But, alas! I had reckoned, this time again, without Siberian frosts.

To complete my preparations for a prolonged journey in a sledge, I was obliged the whole morning to run about from shop to shop. The number of objects to be bought was incalculable. Constantine had made out a list as long as an apothecary’s bill. I did not get back to my hotel till one in the afternoon, worn out with fatigue, in a very bad humour, thirsty and dying with hunger, and, moreover, so knocked up, that I wished for nothing more than to go to bed at once and rest my weary limbs.

I was in this state, when Constantine said to me with all the coolness in the world: “Now, monsieur, we are quite ready; do you wish to start?” I was about to propose not to get into the sledge till the following day, or to wait at least a few hours, when I happened to cast my eyes over my acquisitions, standing in a great heap in the middle of the room.

The heap that had bewildered me, when I paid my visit to M. Pfaffius, was a mere hillock beside this mountain. There were here heaped up soft leather trunks filled with clothing, to be put at the bottom of the sledge to deaden the jerks, round valises, to serve as bolsters at night, touloupes, a dacha in sheepskin, cushions, mattresses, veal and mutton sausages, felt boots, felt rugs, bottles of brandy, ropes, a hammer, a liberal supply of tools for iron and wood work, eight pairs of large worsted stockings, belts, bags, a store of white bread, pillows, and I don’t know what else. And then, my trunks being no longer of any use, all the clothing I had brought from France lay distributed everywhere in this little room, and for the first time found themselves in such strange company. Neither the most crammed railway cloak rooms, nor chinoiserie shops, nor back rooms of pawnshops, nothing, in fact, except perhaps the brain cases of certain inveterate political reformers or the witches’ caldron in Macbeth, could give any idea of such a perplexing jumble.

This exhilarating spectacle at once restored my courage; I then had but one object in view—to get out of it as speedily as possible and start. I ordered horses on the instant.

“THE SLEDGE BEING AN OPEN ONE, WE COULD ENJOY A VIEW OF THE COUNTRY.”

While a servant had gone in search of the team, we, Constantine and myself, set to work to pack all the articles I have just enumerated into a sledge, which I had ordered from the manufactory of Romanof—the most celebrated of Russian coachbuilders. This sledge, especially, was wonderfully built. Lightness and strength, the two most important qualities of a good vehicle, were united in it to the highest point of excellence. The sledge being an open one, at least in front, we could enjoy, during the daytime, a view of the country; whilst a fixed hood, which we closed in completely at night with tarred canvas, protected us pretty well against the wind and the snow. Two pieces of wood, fixed at a little height above the ground and disposed in a sloping position from the front to the back, prevented the sledge from overturning, at least in ordinary circumstances, and protected the body of the vehicle against obstacles and shocks—encounters that were met with, I believe, verily twenty or thirty times a day.

Just as you make your bed, you lie on it, says the proverb. And in Russia, just as one arranges his sledge, he bears up in proportion against the fatigue of the journey. Constantine had, in this art, real talent. He laid the mattresses in a slanting position, just nicely calculated; he adroitly smoothed over, in some way, every jutting angle or boss as often as one or the other arose from the settling of the contents during a long journey. As soon as a cavity had formed from the jolting, no matter where, he immediately filled up the vacant space with hay, and everything kept its place to the advantage of our ease. He transformed, in short, our sledge into a comfortable soft bed, which would have enabled us to support, without fatigue, the fifteen hundred leagues we had to traverse as far as Irkutsk, if circumstances, which I shall subsequently relate, had not occurred. When all these preparations had been made and the horses put to, I began to wrap myself in my travelling costume.

Those who have not visited Siberia have no idea of the excessive wrapping-up and muffling necessary to a traveller on a long journey in that climate.

To put on such a great number of garments is no light matter, and cannot be accomplished, the first time especially, without laughing outright a great deal and perspiring much more.

We first put on four pairs of worsted stockings and over them, like jack boots, a pair of felt stockings that covered our legs. We then wrapped ourselves in three garments of fur, one over the other. Then we covered our heads with an astrakan and a bachelique. When we had got into the sledge we wrapped our legs in a fur rug and then buried ourselves side by side in two more fur rugs.

These accoutrements, which would be excessive to protect one’s self merely for a few hours against the cold, even the most intense, become light enough and barely sufficient when the traveller remains exposed to the air a long time, and especially to the fatigue of a sledge journey prolonged night and day, without stopping to sleep.

The only defect in the construction of Siberian sledges is the want of a seat for the yemschik or driver: this unhappy individual is obliged to sit on a wooden platform, that covers the travellers’ legs, with his legs hanging either on the right or left side, and, consequently, has to drive from either side. When he has troublesome horses to manage he gets on his knees, or even stands up on the platform. This arrangement is all the more inconvenient, inasmuch as it requires unusual dexterity to drive and hold in the mettlesome little horses of Northern Asia. The moment they feel the harness on their backs, whether from natural ardour alone or from a want to get warm, there is no holding them; their impatience is unparalleled in horseflesh. They tremble with excitement, they paw and scrape the ground, nibble at the snow, or make a huge ball with it, and then scatter it in a cloud of fine particles. The drivers have a very difficult task to calm their impetuosity; they accomplish this in the most soothing manner, by means of a steady trill on their lips; they sustain this more intensely the moment they leap on the platform of the sledge, which is for them a very delicate gymnastic feat, demanding great agility. At this critical moment, the horses, feeling no further restraint, uncurbed, rampant, start off in a mad gallop, le diable en queue. If, on the other hand, the driver should lucklessly make an abortive attempt, he is hurled over the crosspieces like a tile by the passing gale, and the travellers go on without a whip, flying on the wings of the wind.

This was just the hairbreadth escape that happened to the first yemschik chance had thrown in our way. His horses, just as he seized the platform to leap on to it, started off at a furious pace. Like a brave fellow, he kept his grip on it like a bulldog, and, luckily, on the reins too, and was thus hauled over the snow at our side for some minutes. At the end of this critical interval he found some lucky projection beside the sledge, where he could support his knee, and at last, thanks to the herculean strength of his arms and the help we gave him, he succeeded in gaining his seat and then tenaciously clung to it to the end of the stage. Thus equipped, we left Nijni-Novgorod on the 17th of December at three o’clock in the afternoon.

This first day’s journey in a sledge was delightful and exhilarating. We felt all the pleasure of the novelty of the locomotion without yet beginning to experience the least fatigue, and at every moment we met other travellers coming, twenty and even thirty leagues, to the city we had just quitted, on their business or pleasure.

However great the distance may be, it is never an obstacle to the Russians: they seem to make nothing of it, and never to calculate it. A lady at St. Petersburg said to me one day: “You should go and see the cascade of Tchernaiarietchka: I went there the other day, and I was charmed with it; I never dreamt there was anything so beautiful at our city gates.” On making inquiries about it a few days later, and as to how I could get there, I found that it would take forty-eight hours by rail, and twelve by diligence. I daresay they will think of sending the poor seamen who are ordered to join their ships at Nicolaefsk to St. Petersburg gates; it is only three hundred leagues from the Russian capital. The reader will learn subsequently, if he is interested in continuing the journey with me, that the Siberians, of the fair sex even, are not at all dismayed at the prospect of undertaking journeys of fifteen hundred, nay, two thousand leagues in a sledge, with young children to boot, and these sometimes at the breast.

On account of the great novelty and variety of the spectacle, I found the trip delightful on leaving Novgorod. The time passed more rapidly than the banks of the river, over whose congealed surface our horses continued fleeing at a mad pace as if pursued by a phantom.

This imposing Volga is of a character truly quite exceptional. France, certainly, has no river worthy of so much admiration for its grandeur. During the summer it is enlivened with an incessant movement of steamers, and is of immense importance as a waterway; and during winter also it continues rendering great services to humanity, affording the means for the transport of the grain that it has fertilized with its beneficent waters. Nothing is grander than this glacial route of unusual width, and of a uniformity and smoothness which no road laid by the hand of man can approach; without a pebble or a rut, one glides over without a jolt. Nothing interests the traveller more, the first time, than to watch the shores passing before the eye like a panorama; to contemplate the mountains and valleys the frozen way spares him the trouble of traversing; to coast the islands without navigating; and to pass here and there some barque, or perhaps steamer, imprisoned in the ice.

In about three hours and a half after leaving Novgorod, we reached our first stage, it being then quite dark.

In all these posting stages, there is a room for the travellers; and this room, though heated at the proprietor’s expense, becomes really a free home for the wanderer: he may eat, drink, and sleep there; do, in fact, whatever he likes; and what is still more singular, lodge there as long as he wishes, no one having a right to dislodge him.

Although this privilege is secured by contracts made between the posting masters and the Imperial administration, it would undoubtedly be quite consistent with the Russian character to accord it if it were not compulsory, the people being essentially hospitable.

This amiable quality results, perhaps, from the rigour of the climate; but I am rather disposed to believe—so general and spontaneous is it—that it is the consequence of a happy and generous disposition.

I shall have something more to say, by-and-by, on the merits of the Russian peasantry. I do not say that they have a monopoly of this benevolent spirit, for, indeed, it is common to all classes. The society of St. Petersburg cannot, certainly, be suspected to be wanting in kindness towards strangers; even the old Muscovite noble, notwithstanding his haughtiness, notwithstanding his hatred of new social institutions, notwithstanding his regret to see Moscow no longer the residence of the emperors, and, moreover, his antipathy for European ideas and fashions, adopted in the new capital;—in spite of all that, the Muscovite lord has retained profoundly rooted in his nature the old traditions of respect towards him who is his guest, and he regards hospitality, not simply as a passive virtue, but seriously as an active duty.

At the Siberian posting stages, the stranger often finds pleasant company or something to amuse him in the travellers’ room; it is rare to find it unoccupied; and when people are disposed to talk, subjects of conversation are not wanting. Those who are going in a contrary direction begin inquiring about everything that interests them on the way; about the state of the route; about the difficulties, more or less serious, that have been encountered in getting horses. Those who are taking the same way have generally already met at one or more stages, and now salute one another as old acquaintances. When the stage happens to be in a village, the principal persons of the neighbourhood generally come to pass away an hour or two very sociably with the travellers. They are very curious to know all about political matters from those who come from the West, and business affairs from those coming from the East. They all chat together in a manner perfectly free and easy, without the least exclusiveness on account of class, profession, or position. Their intercourse is always marked with the utmost good-nature and affability.

But at the stages that link Nijni to Kazan this kind of society is not always so agreeable.

The travellers around here are, in fact, a little too much civilized to be always quite so simple and warm-hearted. They are, perhaps, a little too well initiated in the new social principles of égalité and fraternité to believe that these amiable sentiments have so profoundly modified human nature as they find it in their surroundings. They look on the people accident throws in their way rather as competitors for accommodation, whose presence there may contribute to retard their journey, and would, if they had the liberté, such as their brethren and equals understand it (from the purely practical side of the formula), much rather smash their brethren’s sledges, than give them a helping hand under difficulties.

I did not linger very long in these first stages, where, on account of the privileged recommendations I was favoured with for obtaining horses, I met only with unfriendly looks and gestures; therefore, in twelve hours from my departure, I had already accomplished more than a quarter of the distance that separated me from Kazan.

We continued travelling over the Volga. A little before daybreak I was surprised at the strange noise that was being produced by the horses’ feet over the ice: it was no longer the dull, hollow sound that had terrified me at Nijni-Novgorod. It was to me one quite novel, and people generally, especially the most experienced,—a circumstance far from reassuring,—begin to get uneasy at it. This sound seemed to me the most fearful that one could hear on the ice; it was a splashing. I listened in terror; but as my companion had smiled at my first affright at Nijni, I did not venture, till after a long interval, to reveal it to him this time.

Through an excess of amour-propre which I probably now derived from intercourse with Russians, I was just going to allow him to fall off asleep, when I was splashed full in the face, and my terror, excited to its highest pitch, could no longer be smothered. I started up, leaping almost over Constantine, who, to use a Siberian saying, “was snoring enough to frighten the wolves.” It was but a poor resource against actual danger. Whilst I was rousing him, my wits seemed to be going a-wool-gathering; what wonderful feat were they not going to perform in such a peril as this? My imagination in fact, stirred up, no doubt, by the poesy of the journey, brought to my mind Dame Fortune saving the life of a sleeping infant on the brink of a well. The complete absence of wheels, however, soon brought me round to sober reality, and I explained the situation to Constantine with a conciseness that might serve as a model to many an orator. He questioned the yemschik on the matter, who replied with complete indifference: “Yes, sir, it is thawing; but it is merely the snow melting: the ice is just as thick as ever.”

The sky being very cloudy, the night was profoundly dark. Experience principally served to guide the driver in his course, and then the water—a fatal indication, indeed, of the way, when this way is over the bed of a frozen river! I crept back, without saying a word more, into the bottom of the sledge; but I must admit that it seemed to me that the ice successively yielded, cracked, and opened, and then, freezing over again with sufficient thickness, bore us up firmly. What does not the imagination shadow forth to an excited brain?

Gradually, but very gradually, the day came forth, or it would be more exact to say rather a kind of twilight, for a thick fog veiled nearly every object from our eyes. The summits of the hills that continuously command the right bank of the Volga marked a shadow on the horizon barely more sombre. Everything else appeared confounded in a general grey hue, and nothing, not even the shore, could be distinguished. Our ears soon began to catch the ominous sounds of a crackling under the horses’ feet, thereby announcing that the thaw had begun its work, now, indeed, on the ice. Then we could just distinguish very portentous fissures, starting right and left under the passage of the sledge. The yemschik at last, discovering that the situation was becoming perilous, thought it now high time to take precautions. He therefore dashed on as if chased by a pack of famishing wolves as far as the first village, and here we were glad to set foot at last on terra firma.

The following night snow began to fall, to our great discomfiture; for no state of the atmosphere here is so disagreeable to travellers in a sledge only partially closed.

Fatigued by the exciting emotions of the preceding night, and especially by thirty-six hours’ duration of a kind of locomotion to which I was not yet accustomed, I had fallen into a sound sleep. As it was not very cold, Constantine and I had never thought of lowering the canvas that partially closes in the front of the vehicle, and, moreover, we had neglected to take the precaution to cover our faces. But as the warmth of our breath dissolved the flakes that would otherwise have interrupted our respiration, we had scarcely noticed our situation. The snow, indeed, had penetrated and fallen thickly everywhere; our faces even were quite covered; it had insinuated itself in the openings of our dachas, and melting there, saturated our inner mantles: water was now running fast down our necks and sleeves; we were drenched: and it was likely to have been a very serious matter if the cold, which then commenced to make itself felt very acutely, had not roused us from our slumbers. But what a transition was that awakening! My mind, which seemed at first to be wandering far away from actual life, could in no way account for the situation; we opened our eyes, it is true, but were unable to distinguish anything; we felt a load pressing us down everywhere, and yet we were unable to grasp anything. I fancied myself one moment in a delirium and in the next the victim of a vivid nightmare; but the cold at last brought me to my senses. The first thing we did was to urge the yemschik to drive as fast as he could, that we might dry ourselves as soon as possible at the first stage. The wind now turned towards the north, the clouds had dispersed, and a piercing cold benumbed our limbs. Everything was frozen to our garments, which had become to the touch as rigid as tanned hides bristling “like quills upon the fretful porcupine.”

Fortunately, in this plight, the distance that separated us from Kazan was not very great. The surface of the Volga, on which we were enabled to continue our journey at daybreak, contributed very much to shorten the way, and on the 19th of December, about one in the afternoon, we drove into the ancient capital of the Tartars, after having accomplished what they consider in Siberia a short, easy journey.

CHAPTER V.
KAZAN—JOURNEY TO PERM.

The Virgin of Kazan—Russian manner of expressing disapproval—Dining with a grandee—His description of the enfranchisement of the serfs—The Tartars—Journey in a sledge—Caravan of exiles—The Votiaks—Aspect of European Russia.

The city of Kazan is not situated on the banks of the Volga. It stands at the distance of at least half a mile from the left bank of this river.

The day after we arrived here, Constantine introduced me to one of his old college companions, a young man who had just finished his studies in medicine at the university of Kazan. Being desirous of seeing Kazan and its neighbourhood, and this young medical man knowing them well, I begged him to become my guide, which he most courteously consented to do.

We first went to the university, which is celebrated; then to the cathedral, which interested me very much. Its style is different from the Byzantine—a style that obtrudes so often on the eye of the stranger in Russia that he at last gets tired of it; but this cathedral reminds one of certain portions of the ancient Kremlin, and is evidently a construction of a remote period. Its paintings are very crude, as in the early stages of the art, though well-executed specimens of the epoch. Another object that attracted my attention was the high altar in massive silver.

Then we went on a pilgrimage to the Virgin of Kazan, the patron saint of travellers. This virgin was formerly left hanging on a tree in the middle of the forest. There she performed wonderful miracles amid the awestruck peasantry, who made long pilgrimages to obtain pardon of their sins and find favour in her sight. One of the chief bishops of Kazan, touched at her exposure in so wild a spot, ordered her to be conducted to the cathedral, that she might be honoured in a sanctuary worthy of her merits. But on the day following the ceremony the lady excited the greatest wonder and admiration by returning herself to her accustomed place in the forest. It was in vain they led her back three times in a grand procession to the city; for the repeated miracle of her return just as often clearly indicated her will and pleasure. Since the lady would not go to a church, a church was obliged to come to the lady, and one accordingly came, or rather rose, on this privileged spot, and then followed in its wake a monastery which became, after that of Troïtsa, one of the richest in Russia. Then later habitations of the devoted began to cluster around, and now the Virgin of Kazan, whether she likes it or not, is shut up in a city.

This wonderful virgin, the reader will understand, is a little picture, pretty well executed in the Byzantine style and of great antiquity.

As I wished to see this treasure, we went there and sent to the abbess to obtain permission to visit it; but, to my disappointment and vexation, it was refused. This was the only occasion on which doors were closed against me whenever I presented myself, either in European Russia or Siberia, to gratify my curiosity in visiting any public building.

The young student who accompanied me was disgusted at the scrupulosity or ill-nature of the abbess, and manifested his feelings in a way more significant than delicate—a way quite common with Russians—by spitting with great energy repeatedly on the ground. But in spite of this unseemly reception of the abbess’s message, he was most respectful and courteous towards the nun who bore it, and we went away exchanging bows, as if she had conferred on us the highest favour.

THE MOTHER-SUPERIOR OF KAZAN MONASTERY.

This dainty habit of expressing disapproval or protestation by salivary effusion is so common and popular that it finds its way even into literature. It was here, just in this city, that I was present at a play wherein the author tried to represent as effectively as possible how far domestic quarrels might go in a household composed of members who were not very accommodating to one another. The representation was perfectly intelligible to me from beginning to end, notwithstanding my ignorance of the Russian language, simply because the best arguments employed by the leading characters in the play consisted principally in repetitions of this gesture, certainly far more expressive than delicate.

And so far as regarded my young companion also, if anything would have withheld him from responding quite as demonstratively to the abbess herself on receiving her refusal, it would not have been any sentiment of reverence or scruples of piety, and for a very good reason: because the students of the university of Kazan pique themselves on being freethinkers.

But what is much more serious in the Russian territory is that they strain the theory of emancipation to embrace ideas of political liberty in its most liberal sense. The Government, however, knows how to suppress this excess of enthusiasm as soon as it manifests itself. At the time of the Polish insurrection, three students having a little too openly demonstrated their views, one was shot and the other two banished for life to the Siberian deserts.

The liberation of the serfs had naturally caused a great deal of bitter feeling towards the late Czar on the part of certain aristocratic landowners; and the Russian liberals have succeeded, in a great measure, in conciliating the latter by sympathizing with them in their imaginary wrong; thus it sometimes happens that nobles and liberals share the same hopes, and consequently draw closer to one another. With this spirit pervading these two classes, the reader will not be surprised to learn that I was introduced by a student of the university of Kazan to an important personage of the old Russian aristocracy.

He entertained me with an account of the enfranchisement of the serfs, and it was naturally from his own point of view; but since these views differ very widely among people with whom I have conversed on the subject, according to their interests or prejudices, I will give in his own words the opinion of this old Russian noble without making any comment on it. He thus began:

“Formerly all the Russian territory belonged to the nobles. The peasant, of course, was at the mercy of the lord on whose land he lived, and was obliged to give him a certain amount of work. The lord, however, never abused this privilege; on the contrary, he was in the habit of distributing every year among the peasantry a certain quantity of land to farm for their own benefit, as a recompense for their services. Under this arrangement, the peasant had an interest in working; he worked for his master, and the land consequently improved, and then he worked for himself, to obtain some comfort in his old age. The land under this system produced more, and the general prosperity could not fail to increase accordingly.

“But then the Czar, just like Louis XIV. in France, fearing the growing influence of the aristocracy, gave to the peasantry the lands they had hitherto merely farmed. The Emperor himself undertook to indemnify the lords, reserving to himself the right of receiving, in the form of a land tax, the established rents, which, in the absence of such a liberality,—a liberality more apparent than real—the peasant would have continued paying to his lord. Since that time, the lords, deprived of their authority, have almost all abandoned their lands; the peasantry discover that the profits of their lands are absorbed by the Imperial tax; and this tax, itself inequitably assessed, does not, without much difficulty, find its way into the coffers of the state. The consequence of this enfranchisement, accorded solely with the object of increasing the Czar’s authority, is an injury in the first place to the serfs, then to the nobility, and finally to the state.”

This noble, as it appears, would admit no advantage whatever. The most insignificant social changes, however just—and there are none now in Russia that are not—appeared to him in the light of iniquities.

In the presence of these retrograde views, the political creed of the most ardent French Legitimists would appear revolutionary.

I was very much entertained, nevertheless, the evening I passed with him, where the old Russian manners and habits were scrupulously observed. When we rose from the supper table each of the guests went up to the host and hostess to shake hands in token of gratitude, to which they replied in the prescribed form: “I beg you will excuse me for what God has this day given me to eat, when I have the honour to receive you.” And to this they added such compliments as: “À votre santé”; “Les absents n’ont pas toujours tort.”

These complimentary customs, however amiable they may seem externally, lose a great deal of their sincerity when the motive that gives rise to them becomes apparent; and this undoubtedly is vanity, and especially the vain desire of exhibiting a little magnificence and expense. The real meaning of these fine phrases is: “I pray you to take notice that I have just offered myself a bottle of champagne, and the satisfaction it gives me in making you a witness of this luxurious habit surpasses any other pleasure I could possibly get out of it.”

The Tartar population that enlivens the streets of Kazan contributes very much to the picturesqueness of the city. Notwithstanding that they have been deprived of their territory ever since 1552, the Tartars can, with a very good grace, hold up their heads wherever they show themselves in Kazan, for they are not only the founders of the city, but they defended it with great bravery against their enemies, who captured it only after severe losses. After having made several bold sorties and repelled many desperate assaults, they courageously bore their sufferings from the want of water—a calamity the Russians inflicted on them by cutting off their communications with the Volga. When the last hope of victory died away the Tartar queen flung herself headlong from the top of the Sonnbec tower—a building which remains well preserved to the present day.

This interesting tower, from its combination of the minaret and the pagoda, reminds one of the people whose features are half Arab and half Mongol. It stands on a commanding eminence over the city, and forms certainly one of its most beautiful and attractive objects.

The Tartar harems are much less accessible than those of the Bosphorus or of Tunis, perhaps because Mahomedan fanaticism, in being here roused through impatience of Christian domination, has become all the more uncompromising. I therefore found it impossible to catch a glimpse of a single individual of these jealously guarded communities; and I was rather disappointed, because in judging from their lords, I had formed an idea that they must be very beautiful. The regularity and symmetry of features of the Arab race are associated in the Tartars with great muscular strength, and the dignified and haughty glance of a race impatient of conquest. This highly favoured physique is accompanied with moral attributes as elevated, and the Russians, however disdainfully they treat this people, have nevertheless adopted the proverb: “Honest and faithful as a Tartar.”

Kazan is the last European city on the road to Siberia that still preserves a European aspect, in so far as many of its houses are built of stone, and are ranged in streets of definite form. I was, therefore, getting impatient to quit it, and to see something of an Asiatic character.

Constantine and I went together to purchase a supply of eatables for our journey. We laid in a supply of sausages, some caviare, cheese, not forgetting white bread, which, when soaked in tea, is the principal part of the subsistence on a journey in Siberia. To venture on a journey in these parts, one should be neither a gourmet nor a gourmand. I have often been astonished to find how very little is necessary to sustain the human body, and wonder why we Frenchmen at home take so much trouble to give our stomachs so little rest and so much unnecessary work.

We went through the operation, for the second time, of getting into our three heavy fur garments, and on the 22nd of December, at four in the afternoon, we were gliding along again cosily, side by side, over the frozen snowy dust of the road leading to Siberia.

In order to go at a brisk rate in a sledge, it is necessary that the snow over which it is moving be well beaten down. Private sledges are not numerous enough to prepare a way by crushing the snow, so this work is done by sledges carrying goods; and since these follow in a line in the wake of one another, the beaten part of the road, on which one is desirous of gliding, is of very limited width. The consequence of this narrowness of the chosen way is that two sledges never pass without clashing against each other; nor are the yemschiks very solicitous about avoiding a collision, since they know perfectly well their own necks are quite safe, the long projecting wooden guards, which I have already described, being amply sufficient to protect them from danger. The sledges thus guarded whisk rapidly along one against the other, sometimes striking one another with a shock in which horses and sledge are thrown down and shot off at a tangent across the road.

The worst kind of these collisions is the shock from two sledges of unequal size: the larger of the two, being generally too heavy to be simply hurled aside by its adversary, as is the case with the lighter vehicle, is taken underneath and lifted instead, and occasionally high enough to be almost overturned.

But it is never a complete overthrow: the sledge thus thrown off or lifted slides along on a single skate and on the end of the long wooden guard, and they do not stop for so trifling a matter. The yemschik, unable to keep himself on an inclined plane without holding, hangs on to the apron and maintains his place by the sheer strength of his arms; the horses still go on at a gallop, and the travellers proceed three or even five hundred yards in this half-tilted posture till some rut in the road brings the sledge down again on both skates.

Each part of the road to Siberia has its special advantages and disadvantages, but the incidents just mentioned are of common occurrence when the wanderer no longer travels over a frozen river. The most disagreeable effect of this constant jolting, to an inexperienced traveller, is the want of sleep. During the whole night after we left Kazan I never closed my eyes a moment, whilst Constantine gave evident proofs of the soundness of his slumber by a prolonged sonorous snoring, equally uninterrupted whether he fell on me or I fell on him, crushing him even with all my weight.

I was bemoaning sadly within myself a long, tedious night, passed without sleep, when we came up at daybreak with a caravan of exiles. These poor wretches, dragging their chains afoot, were wearily trudging along, with a long journey before them, to the far end of Eastern Siberia. I had not at that time more pity for assassins and thieves than I have now, and since the day I passed the Russian frontier, conspirators have appeared to me no better, perhaps even worse; still it touched me to the heart to see these unhappy creatures, with a wearisome journey of three thousand leagues before them, and their fate too—if they lived to reach the end of the dreary march—instead of there finding a home to cheer them, to find nothing but a gaol!

A few sledges were following this caravan, and when I inquired why they thus accompanied it, I was briefly informed: “For the invalids and princes.” A phrase that had on reflection a great deal of meaning in it, and suggested very forcibly the formidable power of the Emperor in Russia, a sovereign power before which every subject, from the humblest serf to the highest prince of the realm, must bow down, with their differences almost lost in the equal degree of subjection.

The Emperor, in fact, may without trial condemn any subject to two years’ imprisonment, and even, if he thinks proper to do so, banish him for life.

It occurred to me, as I was watching these poor exiles, that there might be one innocent, and this thought would have made me very uneasy if I had not by this time become too good a Russian subject to venture to entertain it very long.

It is not at all an uncommon occurrence in Siberia to meet travellers afoot. I have seen, it is true, but very few women that recalled to my memory “the Siberian girl” of Xavier de Maistre; if I had, and our road had been in the same direction, I should have offered them perhaps a place in my sledge, just as the peasants of the Ural mountains compassionately helped the heroine, where she became so popular, to reach the end of her painful journey. But I have met men, very often in all kinds of weather and situations, trudging on foot, in spite of the snow and the intense cold, across a dreary extent of country where no human habitation could be seen, in order to reach some remote region with the hope of providing for a domestic want, to accomplish a pilgrimage, or to proceed to some destination under the coercion of the Government.

Amongst these was a young soldier on leave at home with his parents, and who had been ordered suddenly to join his regiment in garrison at Kazan. He was then in ill-health, but notwithstanding his feeble condition, he set off at once, and it might be said even with pleasure, because the will of the Emperor was in question. He was compelled to do so, they would tell me; no doubt he was: but the sentiment of obedience and loyalty is so deeply implanted in the Russian peasant, that he will submit to suffering without a murmur the half of which he would not undergo for any other personage than his sovereign.

When he had nearly come to his journey’s end, this brave young fellow, being no longer able to drag one foot after the other, and seized with giddiness and fainting, had wandered a few yards from the track beaten by the sledges, and there lay almost buried in the snow, the even surface of which had deceptively hidden a sudden fall in the ground. Just as I was passing by, a man of strange aspect had saved him from a terrible fate and was watching over him: this good Samaritan had a red beard and red hair under a thick shaggy fur cap; over his shoulder were slung a long bow and some arrows, and his feet were strapped on two long narrow planks of sufficient length to keep him whilst thus gliding over the snow from sinking into it, even at the spot where the young soldier was lying almost lost to sight in its ominous embrace.

As I had now gathered much information regarding the indigenous races, I recognized him almost at a glance to be a Votiak. With the aid of this good man, we helped the poor soldier on to a goods sledge, one of a file that fortunately happened to be passing at the moment, as if almost by a miracle. Having done this, we gave him some brandy to warm him, a little food, and then, being assured of his safety, we parted, each on our way.

A VOTIAK WITH SNOW-SHOES.

I was much interested in examining this specimen of a race that has occupied the country, not only before the Russians, but before the Tartars. The Votiaks seem to have preserved all their ancient freedom, and they roam the intricate and boundless forests of Eastern Russia in pursuit of game, on which they subsist. I regretted almost the direction I had to take as I watched this Votiak disappearing gradually amid the trees like a spirit of the forest, careless of the rifts over which he passed without seeming to notice them, a mythological union of half beast and half man: externally, in colour and roughness of ways, a beast; and internally, in humanity and tender-heartedness, a man, as this act I have related proved him to be—a curious combination of savageness and sensibility. I would willingly have followed this man and have had the liberty to hunt, in his company, the deer, the wolf, and the bear, to study his simple manners and lead his strange life; but when I could not make without fatigue a simple excursion in a sledge, I felt on comparison humiliated at the thought of having so little power of endurance.

In 1774 the Votiaks were fifty-five thousand in number, and since this period no census has been taken. Many have been converted to Christianity, though a large number remain idolaters, and still practise the superstitious ceremonies of their worship in the depths of their forests.

Tents pitched at certain distances from each other, generally in some picturesque spot, covered with groups of pine and birch, serve them as a sanctuary; these tents have but one opening, and that always facing the south. They are entirely void of furniture or ornament.[3]

[3] Müller.

The Votiaks have three principal divinities: a Master and Supreme Lord of everything, called Inmar; a god that protects the land and the harvests; and a third god that has dominion over the waters. Inmar dwells in the sun, which is an object of their highest veneration.

The principal fête of the year is in the month of August, and then the grand priest known as Toua proceeds to one of the sanctuaries I have just mentioned, and there sacrifices, in due order, one after the other, a duck, a goose, a bull, and a horse. The horse should be chestnut, though in cases of necessity it may be of any other colour, except black. Afterwards the faithful have a repast on the flesh of these animals; then the Toua collects the blood and the fat, and, putting them into the stomachs, he burns them with a portion of the bones; the heads are hung up on a neighbouring pine, and the skins sold for the benefit of the high-priest.[4]

[4] Pallas.

Before burying their dead the Votiaks wash them carefully and clothe them in rich ornaments. When they are about to close the grave they throw in a few pieces of silver, and say: “This ground is thine.” Finally, when a member of the family is dangerously ill, the parents are accustomed to sacrifice a black sheep.[5] As these practices are always carried out in secret, it was not without much difficulty that Pallas and Müller were able to penetrate the mysteries I have just mentioned.

[5] Müller.

It is the custom in Russia, whenever a new emperor mounts the throne, to oblige the Votiaks to take a fresh oath of fidelity. The ceremony is curious. They stretch a bear’s skin on the ground, and then lay on it an axe, a knife, and a bit of bread. Every Votiak cuts off a morsel of this bread, and, before eating it, recites this formula: “If I should not remain ever faithful to my sovereign during my life, or should I rebel against him with my free will and knowledge; if I neglect to perform the duties that are due to him, or if I offend him in any manner whatever—may a bear like this tear me to pieces in the heart of the forest, this bread choke me at once, this knife pierce my body, and this axe cut off my hand.” There is not an instance, says Gmelin, of a Votiak having violated his oath, although they have been so often persecuted on the ground of their religion.

The road leading from Kazan to Perm passes through immense forests of evergreen trees. My journey through this region was attended with a degree of cold rather severe. The thermometer varied from twenty to thirty degrees below zero (Centigrade). At this temperature, a temperature not at all unusual in Siberia, it rarely happens that the least breeze comes to disturb the tranquillity of the atmosphere. All the trees of the forest were therefore almost perfectly at rest: the only movement perceptible from time to time was a branch bending down slowly to relieve itself from a too heavy burden of snow.

This complete silence—this all-pervading stillness of nature, in which she seems to repose from the terrible manifestations of her power, as in the tempest and in the billows of the ocean—is not without grandeur, and to the thoughtful, perhaps, if less imposing, is more solemn than her other phases. On the one side she presents to us vicissitude and transitoriness, and on the other unchangeableness and duration; the agitation and the turmoil of the one may, indeed, remind us more vividly of life, but the quiescence and sepulchral muteness of the other draw our thoughts nearer to eternity.

The aspect of Asiatic Russia produces on the mind an impression not dissimilar from that derived from contemplating the ocean, or the African desert, and this is immensity—mournful immensity.

To be lost amid this inhospitable, boundless space is not to pine away simply from hunger and thirst, as on the sands of the desert, with some prospect, however remote, of relief; here one dies pierced with cold to the marrow, lingering without hope; for what hope could exist to escape from a region interminable to the desponding eye, whose glacial temperature without movement means inevitable death?

With the muteness and unchanging aspect of these limitless wilds is associated another of a fantastic character, doubtless one of the causes of the all-pervading superstition of this country. In the depth of these forests, which may be called virgin forests—not that they are untrodden, for they are inhabited—the snow falls very unequally. Here and there enormous cedars preserve beneath their branches large bare spaces; and farther on the avalanches from weaker branches accumulate into high pyramids. On one side the wind rounds off the angularity, and on the other it is pierced by protruding branches of vigorous shrubs. It follows that the snow, thus heaped up in these spots, takes many irregular forms, which, to the excited imagination, may easily become terrifying, especially at approaching night, when these white phantoms stand forth from the mysterious obscurity under the spreading cedars.

When we dismounted at the end of our stage, there was a little adventure that made me blush, I must admit, for my French gallantry. We met here two women, who had been waiting the whole day long, till the posting master was pleased to give them horses to continue their journey. This autocrat had at last relented just before we came up; the horses were put in their sledge, and they were going to start at once, when Constantine presented our Crown podarojnaia order. “That is my last troïka,” exclaimed the master of the relays; “I shall be obliged, I am sorry to say, to my great regret, to keep you waiting here——”

“Take the horses out of that sledge,” said Constantine authoritatively, perfectly indifferent to the distressing embarrassment into which he had thrown these two poor travellers.

I did not clearly understand the affair at first, but I doubt whether, after having examined these two personages, my gallantry would have overruled my selfishness, for their departure or detention depended on the one or the other. If at night all cats are grey, in Siberia all women swaddled for a journey are uniformly unattractive; and the face, besides, is disfigured with a look of uncleanliness from intense and prolonged cold.

I do not know what Don Quixote would have done in the presence of these two Dulcineas: as it was quite impossible for me to follow them, the only alternative was to precede them.

The reader will soon learn what followed from this incident. I am ashamed to say I had the cowardice to approve, at least by my silence, Constantine’s decision; and we continued our journey, without any other adventure, as far as Perm, where we arrived on the 26th of December at daybreak.

CHAPTER VI.
PERM—THE ROAD TO CATHERINEBURG.

Hotel accommodation in Siberia—A councillor—Opinions and examples of Russian administration—National music—The passion for aggrandizement of territory—Entry into Asia.

Though Perm is still within the limits of Europe, it has quite the aspect of a Siberian city: the houses are constructed of wood, without upper stories, and disposed without regularity with regard to one another. Its position reminds one a little of that of Nijni-Novgorod. Overlooking the Kama from the summit of a hill, Perm commands beyond also, from the same eminence, an immense plain covered with forests.

I put up at the Hôtel de la Poste. The reader would smile, no doubt, if he could only see the building to which I give the name of hôtel. And yet the poverty of our language obliges me to use this term: I could not give the name of auberge or gargote to the most important resting place the traveller could find in a city—a city which is the capital of a province as large as France.

In the way of familiar terms, the Russian language has a richness almost disheartening to those who have had the courage to commence its study. Constantine would frequently attempt to gratify his curiosity by putting questions to me like these: “What do you call in French, monsieur, a field of corn whose ears are just beginning to show?” “What do you call in your language a book that has its leaves cut by the reader as he proceeds with the reading?” Sometimes I replied: “We have no special term corresponding to the meaning of this periphrasis”; but more frequently I said I didn’t know; preferring that he should have a less favourable opinion of my knowledge than of the comprehensiveness of our language.

The walls of my room, like all those in Siberia, were whitewashed. The furniture consisted of a few chairs and a sofa; but no toilet table nor washstand, nor even a bed. This, in Siberia, is the traveller’s room, and indeed, one of the most luxurious; for the sofa, here quite an objet de luxe, is often wanting. Nobody, moreover, in this land of primitive manners, knows the refreshing comfort of reposing on a bed. At Kiachta, where I accepted the hospitality of a rich merchant, he found it quite sufficient for his night’s slumber to roll himself up in a blanket, and thus stretch himself on two chairs standing front to front.

The substitute for a washstand and its accessories is, to the stranger, even less satisfactory than the makeshift for a bed. In every hotel, this consists of a little reservoir of water, furnished at the bottom with a minute copper tube, and fixed against the wall in the passage. The traveller, desirous of performing his usual ablutions, lifts this tube, and a tiny jet of water spurts forth and trickles over his hands, which he endeavours to appropriate and utilize as well as he can, though he allows it to “slip through his fingers.” This cleansing operation, however, is apparently deemed by every Siberian of either sex, if not as effective, certainly quite as serviceable, as the more elaborate process of a Turkish bath.

I rarely experienced in the whole course of my travels so much disappointment as at Perm, where, after a long and fatiguing sledge journey, I had looked forward to the refreshing comfort of a thorough ablution, and found nothing more than this trickling stream to stand under. Knowing well it was perfectly useless to go elsewhere in search of any superior accommodation, I determined to enter my pro test against it at once, and went out to buy a big copper basin, which I procured, had brought into my room, and insisted on having filled with water. My ablutions then became, more than once, the subject of very lively altercations between the proprietors of the hotel and Constantine. The latter, fortunately, fully understanding the importance I attached to them, took upon him my defence so warmly, that he invariably came off victorious, but not without strenuous efforts, and not without much reproach for my want of cleanliness, as manifested by the splashing all around.

There is also another very great inconvenience for the traveller, and that is, there are no means of ventilating the chamber: he is shut in there with every chink closely puttied, and the temperature raised to twenty-eight, thirty, and even thirty-five degrees centigrade of heat,—that is to say, the summer temperature of Bombay. And since the winter cold of Central Siberia is seldom less than thirty degrees centigrade, one has to submit, on going out of doors, to a difference of sixty or seventy degrees.

When they had brought everything out of my sledge into my room,—for when these objects, however diverse they may be, are no longer in movement they should always be before the traveller’s eyes,—and I had almost retired for the night, Constantine led into my room a gentleman who was introduced to me as a member of the general council of Perm.

A councillor, whatever may be his origin, his rights, or his functions, seems to be a sign of liberal institutions. This dignitary, with his ideas savouring a little of decentralisation, and an ambition to augment his prerogatives, is not generally met with, except in democratic lands. Therefore, I must admit, I was not a little surprised to find, breathing in Russian atmosphere, a man marked with the title of ‘councillor.’ I found him very communicative and courteous, knowing thoroughly our history and our institutions, and expressing himself easily in French. He held besides the office of engineer of mines. I therefore felt I could enter into many subjects with him, and I received some encouragement to do so from the courtesy of his manners and his desire to be communicative. Perhaps, under the colour of holding similar views, he might have allied himself with the old noble I met at Kazan against the Emperor, reserving the disguised power to get rid of the aristocracy when they had fully served his purpose.

When I complimented him on the dignity of his office, the exercise of which then drew him to Perm—“I can do very well without this honour,” he replied, “for our provincial assemblies are far from enjoying the prerogatives of yours. The Emperor, in creating them, would fain make believe in his liberalism, but in reality, he has given them but illusory rights. In the first place, the members of the council are nominated by important proprietors in the province of Perm, who have received from the Czar the faculty to send to the sessions one or several representatives. The president of the council is nominated by the Government. It is in no case whatever permitted to discuss politics. The Governor-General of Perm may, if so disposed, disregard entirely the wishes or votes of the council. The council may, it is true, appeal to the Senate of St. Petersburg, but the response is invariable: it emanates directly from the cabinet of the Emperor, and pronounces the dissolution of the council. Our votes, therefore, are very far from having the force of law. Three times have we demanded some repair of the road from Perm to Catherineburg: you will soon see in what state it still is for your journey.”

Among the interesting opinions with which this agreeable and well-informed man entertained me, I will mention one regarding the finances of the empire. I expressed my astonishment at not seeing in Russia, a country supposed to be rich, more coin in circulation. “The Government,” he said, “is wrong in not seeking its principal revenue in agriculture, and in the metallic resources in which the country abounds. It has been dazzled by the auriferous riches of the Trans-Baikal district, and hopes with these to maintain its financial position. A decree punishes, with the severest penalties, proprietors of gold mines who neglect to send to St. Petersburg all the precious metal they extract from the earth. The Emperor thus monopolizes, at its source, all the Russian gold, and then reimburses his subjects with bank-notes only. This state of things can only get worse, unless immediate and important reform be duly made in the administration and in the distribution of the tax. The budget, in fact, amounts to four or five hundred millions of roubles, whilst the State draws from the mines no more than seventy-five to eighty millions of roubles. To what rate of depreciation will not Russian paper fall, if they continue issuing such a quantity?”

This interesting mining engineer then turned from finance to the more comprehensive subject of politics in general, and added: “It is impossible for a single man to know all that takes place over such an immense territory. But if the Emperor could indeed be enlightened through the interpolations of a wise and intelligent opposition, he would still take good care not to introduce this element into the Constitution. To give you an instance of the ignorance of the high administration of the empire, I will only tell you that I regularly receive every year four thousand roubles, officially as engineer, for superintending the working of a Government manufactory that has been closed for five years!”

I could not help smiling at this candid avowal; and on learning this significant fact it seemed to me conclusive and peremptory.

I thanked my visitor for his agreeable society, and thought that this Russian proverb might justly be applied to him: “No one lets a bird of the Government escape without plucking out some feathers.” I begged him to introduce me in the evening to a sitting of the Council General, and then went with Constantine to visit an important cannon foundry situated at about three miles from Perm.

The director of this foundry pretends that the cannon turned out here are superior to anything that has been hitherto made in Prussia.

This sitting of the Council General was void of interest, and soon ended from default of speakers. The members, having replied to their names, left at once to be present at a concert given by a company of travelling musicians under the direction of Monsieur Slavenski.

The Russian people, essentially musical, sing on all occasions. After a marriage ceremony the guests mount into eight or ten sledges and then make an excursion, following one after the other in line, singing all the time. They do the same at funerals and baptisms; sometimes—provided the season is not too severe—for no other reason than because it is winter and there is no work to do. These songs, which were executed by a company of forty artistes, who travel over the country to give their popular airs, constituted the entire entertainment: their voices united an exuberant richness to a remarkable simplicity of harmony.

The nearer one approaches an object he is intent on, the more impatient he becomes; I was longing, therefore, to tread at last on Siberian ground. As the distance was not very great that separated me from Catherineburg, I imagined I should get over it very speedily. But, alas! the Councillor was quite right. The road was, indeed, in a deplorable state. I do not know, indeed, how they could give the name of road to a long course of land whose surface was not level for a single yard, and where wide pits succeeded each other without interruption—not simple ruts, but pits three, four, nay, five feet deep! The yemschik has to calculate very nicely the fall of the sledge into these pits, that the horses’ legs be not broken by the shock of the vehicle shooting forward against them; then he has to climb up the other side of the ditch, but not without great efforts, and no sooner does he get out of it than he has to prepare to dive into another.

The reader may easily conceive what the result of such a locomotion must be to a poor traveller: he is doubly wearied on account of the creeping pace accompanying the usual fatigue. It took me twenty-four hours to get over twenty-eight English miles! I was exasperated. My hope was to get a glimpse at the chain of the Ural Mountains, but a boisterous wind swept up the snow and whirled it round and round in moving columns reaching to the sky; beyond a few hundred yards nothing was visible.

To pass away the tedious hours I began questioning Constantine. “What is there in summer under this snow?” “Grass.” “Of what use is it?” “None at all.” “Who takes it?” “Nobody.” “Who cuts these woods?” “No one.” “Do all these lands belong to any one?” “Not always.” “This land then is not capable of producing anything?” “On the contrary; it would be very productive if they cultivated it.” “But then, why has your Emperor such a passion for conquest, when he can get so much out of his own land? Why does he go in search of gold in the Trans-Baikal, in the valley of the Issoury, and will soon perhaps in the Corea, as it is said among you, when he has at home more abundant and surer sources of riches? Why does he lead his armies into the burning deserts of Tartary, that were formerly independent? Why does he waste so much money in the conquest of Khiva when he could make far more on his own lands?”

When I waited for a reply to these questions, Constantine, who clung like a burr to the glory of his Emperor—and I congratulate him for his spirit—gave me one disdainfully: “I can easily understand, that the French, whose country is less extensive than our government of Perm, should be jealous of the immensity of our territory. You see, monsieur, that we are marching to the conquest of Asia entirely, which is the cradle of our race, and to Constantinople also, where our religion originated.”

My companion was much offended; it was easy to perceive that; and I held my tongue to give him time to recover his equanimity. An hour after this conversation, I wished to see if he continued to have a grudge against me; “How I long to come to the end!” I exclaimed, “this long route tires me out.” “Ah! Indeed, monsieur,” he exclaimed, bridling up, “how grand Russia is! There is not another empire in the whole world of such vast extent!” “You are mistaken,” I replied, duly estimating the lands uncultivated and absolutely useless, we had just traversed. “And which, if you please?” “The empire of the seas!” I replied gravely. His flattened nostrils then distended and quivered with indignation, and I patiently waited to be greeted with some emphatic Russian execration.

In spite of his amour-propre, Constantine was, nevertheless, of a congenial humour,—towards me at least. Sometimes he excited in me a feeling almost of pity, which I could hardly conceal. Just while we were passing the Ural—that almost imperceptible elevation that is called mountain because it is in Russia, but which would be a mere hill in the Vosges, a mere hillock amid the Alps, a ridge in the Himalayas,—just here, we came on a village of wooden houses, like all Russian villages, but perched against a slope that gave it a picturesque air. A little further down stood a house of less wood construction than the others, and surrounded with a few trees. On this spot Constantine’s eyes were riveted in a kind of reverie. “What a charming abode! Those people should indeed be happy!” he exclaimed. This remark moved me a little with commiseration, and I wondered what enthusiasm he would feel if he could only see our smiling Pyrenees or our Norman valleys, beaming with joy on a sunny May day.

Two days after our departure from Perm, on the 30th of December, about nine in the morning, we passed the boundary that marks the separation of Europe from Asia. It is a construction of stone, neither very high nor very fine, but which strikes the traveller on account of its simplicity and isolation.

Providence has decidedly withheld from this portion of the Russian Empire the imposing marks of its European limits. The quarters of the world generally (their states also, not unusually) have their boundaries defined by grand and prominent frontiers, such as the sea, high mountains, the desert, or some noble river. But here the border of the Ural is so little elevated, so unworthy of its rôle of boundary, that man has thought it his duty to interpose with his pigmy work, and say: It is here!

And here it is at last! We will enter with a beating heart, and advance as far as possible into the strange lands of ancient Asia—the dream of every traveller. We will endeavour to reach, as soon as we can, the shores of Lake Baikal, Mongolia, and the frontiers of China; for I fear my readers are tiring from the monotony of my narrative, as I have myself suffered since I left Perm from the monotony of this long route.

CHAPTER VII.
OUR PARTY ON THE ROAD TO TUMEN.

Trade and manufactures at Catherineburg—Carolling cherubs—Christmas at Kamechlof—Grand gala at a posting stage—Tumen—Its situation—Its gipsies—Fruit preserved in ice.

After we had been journeying nine or ten hours in Asia, we arrived at Catherineburg. This city should serve as an example to many other Russian cities. Its inhabitants are very industrious, and know how to turn the resources of their land to account. They have iron foundries and many other metal works. They sculpture artistically coloured and transparent stones that are found in the Ural in great abundance, converting them into objects of very good taste for domestic ornamentation.

The manager of the establishment where these stones are so artistically chiselled, showed me a chimney-piece of inestimable value that had just received its last touches, and was to be sent away to the Emperor. I asked him who was the owner of the establishment. He replied, “L’état.” “And who will pay for such a marvel of art?” “L’état”—and he added: “L’état payera, l’Empereur recevra.” There are not many sovereigns, perhaps, who have a better right than the Emperor of Russia to say: “L’état c’est moi.”

When I returned to my inn, I heard that Monsieur Pfaffius had just arrived at Catherineburg, and that he wished to see me. I was all the more pleased because it was something unexpected, and I consequently lost no time in paying him a visit.

And, at the house pointed out to me, I was delighted to find again the courteous and distinguished man I had left at St Petersburg. “Do you intend starting soon?” he inquired at once. “As soon as possible.” “Shall we travel together, then?” “With all my heart.” “Then that is settled.”

During the conversation two ladies made their appearance in the room of the Commissary of Kiachta: one of them was about thirty, tall and as beautiful as an antique statue; the other was less in stature and much younger. The beautiful, luxuriant, fair hair of the latter fell perfectly free and charmingly, methought, over her shoulders. Her youthful countenance beamed with freshness and vivacity.

“I am going to introduce you, if you will allow me,” said Monsieur Pfaffius, “to Mrs. Grant and Miss Campbell. These ladies are also going to Kiachta, and I have no doubt you will be highly delighted, as I shall be, with their agreeable society.”

On talking a few moments with these fair travellers, I learnt that Mrs. Grant was not English, but Russian, and had married Mr. Grant, an Englishman, at Kiachta; that her husband had been obliged to return to England for two or three years, she having accompanied him thither, and that now she was just returning to Kiachta, her native place, to meet her husband, who was expected there, taking Miss Campbell with her as a companion.

The latter, a young English lady, a little adventurous, like a great many of her country-women, had left her native land just as readily and just as merrily as she would have remained there, and now seemed to take pleasure in this wandering life, though she could foresee neither the end nor the consequences of it; and from day to day, penetrated still deeper into Asia, happy in running about everywhere, merely to see everything and pick up every scrap of information. “Have you been fatigued with the road?” I asked them, fully expecting to hear bitter complaints of it. “Not in the least, monsieur,” replied Miss Campbell, with an air that seemed to say she was hurt at the suspicion of having suffered from such a trifle as the jolting. “Do you go by way of Omsk to Kiachta?” “That would be going out of our way to no purpose: we go straight to Tomsk.” “You will travel quickly then?” “As fast as we can.” “For my part,” I remarked, “I prefer, on the contrary, going on slowly.” On this observation her eyes seemed to sparkle with some lively thought. “Indeed, we should not have supposed so.” “Well, and for what reason?” “They say that you are exceedingly clever in procuring horses everywhere.”

This observation made me open my eyes with astonishment, and I added: “Even at the expense of ladies?” “Quite possible.” “Then you know one who has had the misfortune to be a sufferer from my impatience, at a certain stage?” “It is not unlikely.” I could never have believed it if it had not been positively affirmed. I could not believe that the elegant toilettes then before my eyes could in any way ever have adorned two such figures so incapable of embellishment as those that appeared to me at the stage between Kazan and Perm. For they were quite hooded and overloaded with rough and draggled fur; so much like bales of raw hides, so little like human beings, that one would never have suspected that beauty lay there so many skins deep. The reader will readily understand how ill-adapted is the rigorous climate of Siberia to setting off the charms of female beauty.

I warmly pleaded to be pardoned for my conduct, and on behalf of Constantine, who was the guiltier of the two, and the following day we were all gliding rapidly along in three sledges, one after the other, on the road to Tumen; happy in the opportunity of chatting together at every stage, smiling at the embarrassments of the post-masters, which Monsieur Pfaffius coolly disregarded, and facing cheerfully the snow and the cold (those two enemies with which travellers in Siberia are doomed to struggle), but without venturing on the slightest murmur.

Of course the reader is well aware that Russia has not accepted the reform brought to the calendar by Pope Gregory XIII.; therefore when we arrived in the little town of Camechlof, on the 6th of January, at break of day, it was actually then only Christmas-day in Russia, and we were no sooner quietly seated at table, taking our tea, as is customary with Russian travellers at every stage, than five or six little children entered our room, singing Christmas carols.