trenger en
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87 ZERIA
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755
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1882
MI

THE AUTHOR
IN FISH SKIN COSTUME OF THE GILYAKS.

THROUGH SIBERIA
BY
HENRY LANSDELL
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS
IN TWO VOLUMES
246686
RY
VOL. I.
SOLD BY THE
MERCANTILE LIBRARY,
NEW YORK.
BOSTON
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
NEW YORK: II EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1882

man


I inscribe these pages
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE
HUGH MCCALMONT, EARL CAIRNS, P.C., LL.D.,
CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN, AND LATE
LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND, IN GRATEFUL
APPRECIATION OF OFFICIAL KINDNESS
MORE THAN ONCE ACCORDED ME
IN FURTHERING MY VISITS
TO THE PRISONS OF
EUROPE
3-18-35 -
Recless, mis



PREFACE.
TH
HIS book is a traveller's story, enriched from
the writings of others. In San Francisco an
American Bishop said to me, “ I hope, sir, you will give
us your experience, for Siberia is a country of which
we know so little.” Accordingly, on my return, two
courses presented themselves—either to confine my-
self to an account of my personal adventures, or to
supplement them from published information, and de-
scribe the country as a whole. I chose the latter
course, and the result is in the reader's hands. At
the end of the work will be found a list of books
consulted, to the authors of many of which I must
acknowledge myself indebted for inuch scientific and
technical information.
My speciality in Siberia was the visitation of its
prisons and penal institutions, considered, however,
not so much from an economic or administrative as
from a philanthropic and religious point of view. Much
has been written concerning them that is very unsatis-
factory, and some things that are absolutely false. One
author published “My Exile in Siberia” who never
went there. “Escapes” and so-called “Revelations”
of Siberia have been written by others who were
banished only a few days' journey beyond the Urals;
a
290395

vi
PREFACE.
whereas it is only east of the Baikal that the severest
forms of exile life begin. None, so far as I know,
,
who have escaped or been released from the mines,
have written the tale of what they endured, and very
few authors have been in a position even to describe
what the penal mines are like.
It has been comparatively easy, therefore, in England
for writers to exaggerate on this subject almost as they
pleased, because scarcely any one could contradict them.
Comparatively few travellers cross Northern Asia to
the Amur. I doubt if any English author has pre-
ceded me. Probably also I was the first foreigner ever
allowed to go through the Siberian prisons and mines.
Perhaps none before have asked permission. That I
obtained such an authorization astonished my friends,
though the open manner in which the letter was
granted seemed to show that the authorities had
nothing to hide.
A master-key was put into my
hand that opened every door. I went where I would,
and almost when I would ; and on no single occasion
was admission refused, though often applied for at a
moment's notice. Statistics also were freely given me;
;
but this was “not so writ in the bond.” An after-
thought, in Siberia, emboldened me to ask for them
in various places, and they were usually furnished then
and there. All these are displayed before the reader.
I have exaggerated nothing,-kept nothing back.
I speak thus in case I should be thought to have
written with a bias; but I had no reason to be other
than impartial. Of politics I know next to nothing,
and so was not prejudiced in this direction. Nor
had I anything to gain by withholding, or to fear
from telling, the whole of the truth. I did not travel

PREFACE.
vii
as the agent or representative of any religious body.
Two societies, indeed, at my request, made me grants
of books, and a generous friend provided the cost of
travel ; but the expedition was a private one, and
implicated none but myself. I could not, of course,
see matters as a prisoner would; but I wish to state
that, having visited prisons in nearly every country
of Europe, I have given here an unprejudiced state-
ment of what I saw and heard in the prisons and
mines of Siberia
That a foreigner, flying across Europe and Asia, as I
did, is exceedingly likely to receive false impressions
and form erroneous conclusions, is obvious to every
one, and I claim no exemption ; for though I have
journeyed in Russia, from Archangel to Mount Ararat,
yet my experience is that of a traveller only, and not of
a resident. I do not even speak Russ, but have been
dependent on interpreters, or information received in
French. I trust, therefore, that no one may be misled
by taking my testimony for more than it is worth. I
have tried to be accurate, and that is all I can say.
Perhaps I may add, however, that my proof-sheets
have been revised by Russian friends among others,
and that most of the chapters concerning exile life have
been submitted not only to a Russian Inspector of
Prisons, but also to released political exiles who have
worked in the mines. The latter endorse what I have
said, and (with reference to the chapters on "Exiles,”
“Political Prisoners," and the “Mines of Nertchinsk”)
the Inspector has done me the compliment to write,
“What you say is so perfectly correct that your book
may be taken as a standard, even by Russian autho-
rities.” I have good hope, therefore, that in this
))

viii
PREFACE.
feature of my work, at all events, I have avoided
misrepresentation.
On scientific subjects I cannot speak with authority;
but I have been allowed to submit the proof-sheets to
various friends, who have kindly read them with an eye
to their particular studies. My thanks, accordingly, are
due to Sir Andrew Ramsay, K.C.B., F.R.S., Director-
General of the Geological Survey of the United
Kingdom ; to Mr. James Glaisher, F.R.S., formerly
of the meteorological department of the Greenwich
Observatory; and to Mr. Trelawney Saunders, Geo-
grapher to the India Office. Mr. Henry Seebohm,
F.L.S., F.Z.S., has read such paragraphs as relate to
zoology and ornithology; and Mr. · Henry Howorth,
F.S.A., author of “ The History of the Mongols,” has
afforded suggestions from his extensive reading in
Siberian ethnology. I am also indebted for infor-
mation concerning many Sclavonic words, manners,
and customs to Mrs. Cattley, formerly of Petersburg,
and a great traveller in Russia ; and to the Rev. C.
Slegg Ward, M.A., Vicar of Wootton St. Lawrence,
for literary help. It is difficult to restrain my pen from
mentioning others—the scores of friends who gave me
introductions, the scores of others who received and
honoured them—but if I once begin in this direction,
where shall I end? I can only say that, for hospitality
to strangers, Siberia carries the palm before every
country in which I have travelled, and that from the
day I crossed the Russian frontier till I reached the
Pacific I met with nothing but kindness.
H. L.
THE GROVE, BLACKHEATH,
20th December, 1881.

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
PAGE
Object of the journey.-Interest in prisons.-Visitation of prisons in
1874.-Distribution of religious literature in Russia.—Tour round
Bothnian Gulf, 1876.-To Russo-Turkish war, 1877.-To Arch-
angel, 1878.-Origin of Siberian journey.—Alba Hellman and
her correspondence.—The way opened.-Projected efforts of use-
fulness. - Books to be distributed.-Final resolve
I
CHAPTER II.
ACROSS EUROPE.
-
Departure for Petersburg. - Official receptions.-Minister of the
Interior.—Metropolitan of Moscow.— Introductions.-Books for-
warded.—Departure for Moscow.—Nijni Novgorod.—Site of the
fair.- Joined by interpreter.-Kasan.-Bulgarian antiquities.-
Neighbouring heathen.—Idolatrous objects and practices.-
Departure from Kasan.---The Volga and the Kama.—Arrival at
Perm
9
CHAPTER III.
THE URALS TO TIUMEN.
-
A new railway.--The Ural range.--Outlook into Russia in Asia.--
Nijni Tagil.—The Demidoff mines and hospital.—May weather.
-Russian railways.-Arrival at Ekaterineburg. ---An orphanage.
- Precious stones.—Orenburg shawls.—Tarantass and luggage.
--Departure for Tiumen.— The exiles.--Visits to the authorities. 17

x
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
THE EXILES.
PAGE
Reasons for and history of deportation to Siberia.-Number of exiles.
-Their education.--Crimes.-Sentences.- Loss of rights.—Privi-
leges.- Proportion of hard-labour convicts.—Where located. -
Release.-Escapes.-Causes and methods of fight.-Transport.
-A convoy of exiles.-Moscow charity.--Conveyance to Perm
and Tiumen.—Their distribution.-Order of march.-Sea-borne
exiles.—Mistakes of English newspapers.--Conveyance of
political exiles
-
.
31
CHAPTER V.
FROM TIUMEN TO TOBOLSK.
General remarks on Siberia.—Limits.-Area.—Temperature.--Divi-
sions.—Roads.-Ethnography.—Language. - Posting to Tobolsk.
.
-Floods.-Spring roads.-Villages of Tatars.—Their history.--
Characteristics.—Costume.--Occupation.-Worship.-Language 49
CHAPTER VI.
SIBERIAN PRISONS.
-
Old Finnish prisons.-Model Petersburg prison.—Officers.-Contra-
band importations.-Russian prisons of six kinds.-Siberian
prisons of three kinds : their number, location, structure,
furniture.- Prisoners : their classification. Kansk statistics.
-Method of trial.-Remands.--Exchanging names and punish-
ments
-
63
CHAPTER VII.
SIBERIAN PRISONS (continued).
-
-
Charitable committees. -- Prison food. - Clothing.–Work. - Hard
labour. — Exercise. - Amusements. - Privileges. - Intercourse
with friends.- Punishments.- Capital punishment. - Corporal
punishment. — Irons. - Prison discipline. - Flogging. - Excep-
tional severities
-
-
-
77

CONTENTS.
xi
CHAPTER VIII.
THE OBI.
PAGE
-
-
Dimensions of river.— Its tributaries.- Province of Tobolsk.-Geo-
graphical features. — Population. — Voguls. - Samoyedes. — In-
temperance.-Commercial prospects of Obi.-Siberian produce.
-Corn-land.—Timber.—Cost of provisions.—Carriage. -Dis-
coveries of Wiggins.-Followed by Nordenskjold.—Ship-building
at Tiumen.- Navigation of Kara Sea.—Books on basin of Obi . 96
-
CHAPTER IX.
TOBOLSK.
Early history of Siberia.—Yermak.-Conquest of the Tatars.-
Tobolsk the first capital.—The exiled bell.–Our visit to the
Governor. - Hard-labour prisons.- Interior arrangements.
“ Travaux forcés.”—Testimony of prisoners. --Books presented 109
-
CHAPTER X.
FROM TOBOLSK TO TOMSK.
The steamer Beljetchenko.-Fellow-passengers.-Card-playing.–Cost
of provisions.—Inspection of convicts' barge.—An exile fellow-
passenger.-Obi navigation.— The Ostjaks. Their fisheries.-
Feats of archery.—Marriage customs
117
.
CHAPTER XI.
TOMSK.
The province of Tomsk. —The city of Tomsk.–Visit to the Governor.
- The prison.-Institution for prisoners' children.--A Lutheran
minister. - Finnish colonies in Siberia. Their pastoral care.-
Dissuaded from visiting Minusinsk.—Distribution of Finnish
books.--Détour to Barnaul
.
127
CHAPTER XII.
SIBERIAN POSTING.
Travelling by post-horses. The courier, crown, and ordinary podo-
rojna.—The tarantass.-Packing.—Harness.-Horses.-Roads.
- Pains and penalties.-Crossing rivers.--Cost:-Speed.-Post-
houses.-Meat and drink.
134

xii
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XIII.
FROM TOMSK SOUTHWARDS.
PAGE
Application for horses.-Effect of Petersburg letter.-A false start.
-A horse killed.-Attempted cooking.-Siberian weather.
Meteorology.-Scenery.---Trees, plants, and flowers.-An ele-
mentary school. -Education in Western Siberia
143
CHAPTER XIV.
BARNAUL.
Situation of town.--Cemetery.—Burial of the dead. - The Emperor's
usine.- Visit to Mr. Clark.–Visits to hospital and prison. A
recently-enacted tragedy.--Crime of the district. --Smelting of
silver and gold.-Price of land and provisions.-Return to
Tomsk
152
CHAPTER XV.
THE SIBERIAN CHURCH.
The Russian Church.-Geographical area.--History, doctrines,
schisms.-Ecclesiastical divisions of Siberia.-Church committees.
-Russian Church services.- Picture worship.-Vestments.-
Liturgy.-Ordination.--Baptism.-Marriage.-- Minor services
-
161
.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE SIBERIAN CHURCH (continued).
Parochial clergy.—Their emoluments.---Duties.-Official registers.-
Discipline.-Morality.—Status.–Our clerical visits.—Monastic
clergy.- The Metropolitan Macarius.—Fasting.–General view
of Russian Church.—Compared with Roman.—Teaching respect-
ing Holy Scripture and salvation by faith.-Needs of Russian
Church
• 171
CHAPTER XVII.
FROM TOMSK TO KRASNOIARSK.
Book-distribution in Western Siberia.-Departure from Tomsk.-
Post-bells.-- How to sit in posting.--Sleeping.-Boundary of
Western Siberia.- Wild and domesticated animals.—Birds.-
Scenery.-Roadside villages.- Peasants' houses.-Hammering
up “the Prodigal Son.”-Siberian towns.--Houses of upper
classes.-Misadventures.-A hospitable merchant.-- Frontier of
Eastern Siberia
183

CONTENTS.
xiji
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE YENESEI.
PAGE
up
-
Sources of the river.- Discoveries of Wiggins and Nordenskjold. -
The Yenesei at Krasnojarsk.-Current, width, depth.—Breaking
of ice.- The Yeneseisk province.-Geography.-Meteorology.
-Forests.—Timber.- Fish of Yenesei.—Birds.-Russian popu-
lation.-Navigation.—Corn and cattle.-Towns.-A Scoptsi
village.-Salubrity of climate.—The aborigines.-Ethnology.-
Tunguses. - Fur-bearing animals.- Methods of hunting: -
.
Minerals
-
-
196
CHAPTER XIX.
A VISIT TO A GOLD-MINE.
-
Gold in Siberia.-Where found.--Gold-hunting.--A prospecting party.
---Thawing the ground. Subterranean passages.-Hardships.---
Mining calculations.—Building of barracks.- Preparations for
our visit.—Costumes.-Road through “the forest primeval.”—
Luxuriant vegetation.-Crossing mountains.-- Arrival at mine.-.
Labour of miners.—Gold-washing machine. — Government in-
spection.-Wages.-Hours of labour.-Miners' food.-Pay-day.
-Drink and its follies.-Miners' fortunes.-Mines of Eastern
Siberia.-Return to Krasnojarsk
. 211
CHAPTER XX.
FROM KRASNOIARSK TO ALEXANDREFFSKY.
.
Situation of Krasnoiarsk.-Our hotel.-Dr. Peacock.- Visit to prison,
hospital, and madhouse.—Cathedral.—Drive in “Rotten Row.”
-Shoeing horses.—Bible affairs at Krasnojarsk.--Consignment
to Governor for provinces of Yeneseisk and Yakutsk.--Departure
from Krasnoiarsk.—Change of scenery.—Kansk Okrug.–Our
arrival anticipated.–Visit to Ispravnik.—Statistics of crime. -
The Protopope of Kansk.–Parochial information.-Demand for
Scriptures.--A travelling companion. Further posting help.-
Butterflies and mosquitoes.- Nijni Udinsk.-- Telma factory.--A
détour.-Alexandreffsky
227
-
.

xiv
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE ALEXANDREFFSKY CENTRAL PRISON.
PAGE
Prison wards.-Punishment cells.-Communication with friends.-
Nationalities of prisoners. Their work.-Food.- Distribution of
books.-Our reception. - Lunch.-Departure.-Runaway horses.
-An accident.—Left alone.-Return to post-house
245
-
.
CHAPTER XXII.
A CITY ON FIRE.
-
Approach to Irkutsk.—The city entered.—Remains of a fire. -A
second fire.—Our flight.-Crossing of the Angara.-A refuge.-
Inhabitants fleeing.-Salvage.-Firemen's efforts.-Spread of
the catastrophe. -Return to lodging.--A chapel saved.--Spec-
tacle of fire at night.-Reflections
• 253
CHAPTER XXIII.
IRKUTSK.
--
Province of Irkutsk.-The capital.-Its markets.- Telegraph officers.
-- Visit to the Governor.--Ruins of the city. --Attempt to esta-
blish a Bible depôt.-Supposed incendiarism. — Benevolent
arrangements of authorities.-Wife-beating.–Servility of Russian
peasants.- Visit to a rich merchant.--Ecclesiastical affairs.
-Visit to the acting Governor - General.—The prisons.-A
prisoner's view of them.—Prison committee.- Distribution of
books. – Visit to inspector of schools.-Change of route 264
.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE LENA.
History of Russian invasion.-Former travellers to Okhotsk.-Coch-
rane, Erman, and Hill.-Down the Lena to Yakutsk.-Prevalence
of goitre.—The Upper Lena and its tributaries.— The Lower
Lena. – Discoveries of mammoths.- New Siberian islands.--
-
-
Nordenskjold's passage
281

CONTENTS.
XV
CHAPTER XXV.
YAKUTSK.
PAGE
The province of Yakutsk.–Rivers.—Minerals.—The town of Ya-
kutsk.-Its temperature.— Inhabitants.--The Yukaghirs.—The
Yakutes.—Their dwellings.-Food.-Dress.—Products.—Occu-
pations.-Industries.—Language.- Religion.-Route from Ya-
kutsk to Okhotsk.-Reindeer riding.--Summer journey.- Treat-
ment of horses
294
CHAPTER XXVI.
-
ACROSS LAKE BAIKAL TO TROITZKOSAVSK.
Leaving Irkutsk.-The Angara.-Approach to the Baikal : its shores
and fish.—Steaming across.-Seizing post-horses.-Arrival at
Verchne Udinsk.-Smuggling at the prison.-Arrival at Selin-
ginsk.—English mission to Buriats.-English graves.-Old
scholars.-Story of the mission.- Journey to Troitzkosavsk 309
.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE SIBERIAN FRONTIER AT KIAKHTA.
Hospitable reception.-History of Kiakhta.-Treaties between Rus-
sians and Chinese.—Early trading.- Decline of commerce. The
tea trade.-Troitzkosavsk church.-Miraculous ikons.-Kiakhta
church.—Russian churches in general.—Bells.—Valuable ikons.
-Climate of Kiakhta.-Drive to Ust-Keran
322
.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE MONGOLIAN FRONTIER AT MAIMATCHIN.
Outlook into Mongolia.—Town of Maimatchin : without women. -
Visit to a Chinese merchant.-Refreshments. Attendants.
Purchases.-Tea bricks for coin.-The town.-Buddhist temple.
--Chinese malefactors.—Their punishments.-Chinese dinner.
-Food. - Intoxicating drinks.-Route to Peking.–Travellers.
- Modes of conveyance.-Manners of the desert.—Postal service 337

xvi
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXIX.
FROM KIAKHTA TO CHITA.
PAGE
-
Farewell ceremonies.-Writing home of changed plans.-Caravans.
-An iron foundry.-Buriat yemstchiks.— Methods of driving -
Salutations.—Insignificant post-stations.-- Visit to a missionary
to the Buriats.--Russian missions in Japan.—A remarkable
meeting.-The Yablonoi mountains.-Chita.–Visit to the Gover-
nor and prison
• 353
-
-
CHAPTER XXX.
THE
BURIATS.
Country of the Buriats.-Their physiognomy and costume.-Habi-
tations.-Mongol yourts. - Hospitality.-Fuel. Possessions in
cattle.-Character of Buriats. Their religions.-Buddhist Bu-
riats. The soul of Buddha.-The lamas.—Their celibacy,
classification, employments, disabilities. – Buddhist doctrines.
.
-A prayer cylinder.—Christian Buriats.- English missions.-
Reports of English travellers. Results of Russian missions. -
Distribution of Buriat Scriptures
364
-
-
.
APPENDICES.
.
.
A. The History of the Russian Church
377
B. The Doctrines of the Russian, Roman, and English Churches · 380
C. The Schisms of the Russian Church
D. The Discoveries of Wiggins and Nordenskjold
387
382

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.*
PAGE
1. THE AUTHOR IN GILYAK COSTUME
Frontispiece
I
12
2. MAP OF SIBERIA, SHOWING THE AUTHOR'S ROUTE
3. THE NICHOLAS GATE, MOSCOW
4. TATARS OF KASAN.
5. THE COUNTY PRISON AT ÅBO
6. A FINNISH MURDERER IN TRAVELLING IRONS
56
63
86
100
7. MY SAMOYEDE DRESS
8. SAMOYEDES OF ARCHANGEL
IOI
104
I 20
9. A YURAK-SAMOYEDE
JO. THE “IRTISH,” A CONVICT BARGE ON THE OBI
II. RUSSIANIZED OSTJAKS
12. OSTJAKS ON THE OBI IN SUMMER YOURT
13. THE CASTLE PRISON AT WIBORG
125
125
131
.
14. SIBERIAN POST-HORSES
134
155
. 164
15. CONVICT SUMMER CLOTHING AND CHAINS
16. ENTRANCE TO TROITZA MONASTERY
17. A RUSSIAN NUN
18. TROITZA LAVRA AND PILGRIMS
19. OSTJAK WOMEN OF THE YENESEISK PROVINCE
.
178
180
.
.
206
20. YURAK HUNTSMAN
208
228
245
262
.
303
21. A RUSSIAN INN
22. THE ALEXANDREFFSKY CENTRAL PRISON, NEAR IRKUTSK
23. THE BURNING OF IRKUTSK
24. TUNGUSE GIRLS IN WINTER COSTUME
25. RUSSIAN BARGES
26. THE GREAT BELL OF MOSCOW AND IVAN VELIKI TOWER
27. Miss Bou-TA-Tyo, A BURIAT YOUNG LADY
28. BURIAT LAMAS AND MONGOLIAN INTERPRETER
· 312
.
• 333
· 365
.
• 371
* Most of which have been engraved from the Author's Photographs, and have
appeared, as have some of the following chapters, in the “ Leisure Hour," the
“Welcome," " Sunday at Home," “ Contemporary Review," and other periodicals.
b

OBSERVANDA.
In proper names the letters should be pronounced as follows :
A as in father; e as in there ; ; as in ravine ; o as in go; u as in
lunar; and the diphthongs ơi and ei as in hide. The consonants
are pronounced as in English, save that kh is guttural, as in the
Scotch loch.
The dates are given according to the English reckoning, being in
advance of the Russian by twelve days.
All temperatures are expressed according to the scale of Fahrenheit.
The ordinary paper rouble is reckoned at two shillings, its value
at the time of the Author's visit; but before the Russo-Turkish war
its value was half-a-crown and upwards.
English weights and measures are to be understood unless other-
wise stated.
The Russian Arshin
equals 28 inches English
Sajen
Verst
mile
Pound
14.43 ounces
Pud (or Pood)
Rouble (or 100 Kopecks) 2 shillings
Silver rouble
3
9
7 feet
97 99
>
36 lbs.
2
79
29

MAP OF
SIBERIA SHEWING THE AUTHORS ROUTE_3000 MILES BY LAND AND 5000 BY WATER.
o
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
90
100
10
120
130
140
150
160
170
180
190
Mossel
2
Zichy 19. hwilczer
80
1
SPITZURRULES BA Barente
Edge A.
STRAIT
this
BEHRING
OP
Gillis a
Skitter
C.Vostotekai Last C.
Serikaia
Selles
Marijuana
Bel sahy
Wiches Land King Kard)
/ Hochstetter I.
Sumot.
c.Chukotsko
Kulyuchinska B
C. Kristina
konsal
N
Vankarem
A
Stor
( To U.States)
Slawien centimeter
Clerki.
R
A
C. Sever wc.)
C
E
sa clatha
Wrangel
Portada
Herald I
Piover I.
olgano
Hope I
T
I I
Long Str.
Angoruyent
С
Cyakan
Catfigski
Shelagskoi
: Kiber
Bafo e nt z
Sela
Admoralty
NOVA A Pena
Takoleagito
Narth East C.
C.Severo or Cheliuskin
LIAKOV IS OR NEW SIBERIA
Figurint. c.Berejnich
will
ChaunyhaizB
G? Tee C
60
Fadievski
C.Kanunenoi
New Siberia
ar
Blagovichen ski Stars
Pachlya
Chain
Mauritius
KULE OF
Erdükkaia C.Shmanbergan
ANADIR
Baranov
C
Bear
Aun
Archangel Gabriel B.
cWavarin
Nossdu
Idimur
C. Tam ur
Petrovski B.
Batatoka
I
Barentz B.
thaderen B.
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Pony Joanko
Medvid
Beart
cirukotski
snaia
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C.S.Ainissi
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A Barkin
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C.Gousinoi
Wp
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Dry C.
C.Sterlegor
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cPreobrajenia
Hodorka
Bechesnoi.
Kamenniye
T
latansk B.
Vordvik B.
Anabarsk B.
Vashkina
Peñina
palakinsk
L.B
JOS.
in chines
Kromskaia B.
paynoplo
Pelatihan
Uryout
North West
Puipo
:
Russkoe Ustod
ero
ملي بالأكياس
KA R
Black)
Stolbovoid,
Moloi
Lenalimanskish
Blishnet inkov
Sviatoi c.
Jousut?
ME
Atlaika of Shevelexo
Matthew Str.
C. Golovina
Beloc or
White I.
A
Borkhaia
Vanske
a Taimur I.
Lena
Sellde
$
Dynitora
SC.Olyutorski
Balaknia
(Oterest
Chendon
kichael
Sredne kolimskyri
Indi girla
Piasina
Territoriale
C.Haen
Yenisei
Yefremov?
Ternbaskee
Birrange M
hodutana
1
/S E
hoggapiga kolena
Shdanovsk
Taimar
Olenek
Telon
70
Zopery
Tolenta
LIBRARY
A M
Vinnikskoe
w
ingreya
Novaia
eurns
Tona
s
Pena
Sutchie
Tehergrosava Nijni
Kolinsk
Piamuma
Dyantina Krefty
Konoratova
Povarnaia
rankia
Sazdaos
Arctic Circle
Oshogino
Uyandina
hier.
Khatenga
B: Pentins),
ur
Katchiginsko
Anabara
Kolins
Pobusa
Syerevo
de
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MED
LIBRAR
NET

map
THROUGH SIBERIA.
MERC
LIBRARY
CHAPTER I.
TILE
INTRODUCTORY.
FOR
Object of the journey. - Interest in prisons.–Visitation of prisons in
1874.—Distribution of religious literature in Russia.—Tour round
Bothnian Gulf, 1876.–To Russo-Turkish war, 1877.-To Archangel,
1878.-Origin of Siberian journey.—Alba Hellman and her corre-
spondence. The way opened.-Projected efforts of usefulness.-
Books to be distributed.-Final resolve.
THE object that took me through Siberia was of a
philanthropic and religious character ; and before
proceeding to a general description of the country, I
should like to acquaint the reader with the circum-
stances that led me there. My interest in prisons
dates from a visit to Newgate jail in 1867, followed
by others to prisons at Winchester, Portland, Millbank,
Dover, York, Exeter, Geneva, Guernsey, and Edin-
burgh: but this interest amounted to little more than
curiosity. Two years later it took a practical turn. My
summer holidays up to that time had been spent on the
principle, “Play when you play, and work when you
work,”—a proverb that is doubtless true, but which
I had not found entirely satisfactory. I was minded,
6
-
VOL. I.
I

2
.
THROUGH SIBERIA.
therefore, to test another saying, that “the way to be
happy is to be useful,” and in 1874 was casting about
as to how the principle could be applied to a tour of
five weeks through seven countries, not one of whose
tongues I could speak, when the visitation of conti-
nental prisons suggested itself, and the distribution
therein and elsewhere of suitable literature. The Com-
mittee of the Religious Tract Society generously placed
a supply at my disposal, and in company with the Rev.
J. P. Hobson, then curate of Greenwich, I started for
Russia viâ Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, intending
to return through Poland, Austria, and Prussia. We
saw the prisons of Copenhagen and Stockholm, but
they were well supplied with books, and needed not
our help; whereas, in the old castles used as prisons
at Åbo and Wiborg, our papers were thankfully ac-
cepted, and in Russia quite a surprise awaited us.
Without reason, I had feared that perhaps the orthodox
Russians would decline to receive books from Pro-
testants, as do the Romans. We found, however, that
they would accept such books as had been approved
by the censor, and accordingly we sent 2,000 pamph-
lets into the prisons of Petersburg, reserving a third
thousand for giving away on the railway to Moscow,
not knowing at that time that for such open distri-
bution a permission is needed. I can never forget
the surprise of the people and their desire to get the
books. The peasants came and kissed our hands; the
railway guards directed to us the attention of the
station-masters, who came to receive our gifts. Priests
took the books, and approved them ; and many who
offered money in return were puzzled to see it declined.
Our stock was soon exhausted, and I determined some

INTRODUCTORY.
3
day to make a tour in Russia to distribute on a larger
scale.
In 1876 my holiday weeks were spent in a journey
across Norway and Sweden and round the Gulf of
Bothnia. Twelve thousand tracts were distributed, and
visits made to prisons and hospitals, those of Finland
being found inadequately supplied with both Scriptures
and other books. On my return I brought this before
the Committee of the Bible Society, and asked for a
copy of the Scriptures for every room in every prison,
and for each bed in every hospital, in all Finland. This
they kindly granted, so far as to offer to bear half the
expense with the Finnish Bible Society; and the plan,
after some delay, was carried out. Scriptures were also
to be provided, at my request, for the Finnish institu-
tions for the deaf and dumb, and for the saloons of
the steamers plying on the Scandinavian coasts.
In 1877 Roumania and the seat of the Russo-Turkish
war was chosen for my holiday resort, with a view to
being useful in the Russian hospitals. But I was too
early, and my vacation too short; so that after visiting,
on the outward trip, some of the prisons of Austria
and Hungary, I returned, doing the like through
,
Servia, Sclavonia, the Tyrol, Basle, and Paris. The
mass of the prisoners were Roman Catholics, for
whom I do not remember a single case in which the
Scriptures were provided. Some of the authorities,
however, said they would accept them if sent, and I
therefore asked the Bible Society again for a liberal grant
for the prisoners, the sick, and others of the countries
through which I had passed. They were willing to make
the grant, but the local agents reported many difficulties,
and the result fell short of my expectations.

4
.
THROUGH SIBERIA.
In 1878, therefore, I resolved upon a change of
tactics, to take my ammunition with me, and carry out
my cherished scheme for Russia. Considerable diffi-
culties, however, lay in the way. An Englishman,
unable to speak the language, going into the interior
of Russia to distribute books and pamphlets, in the
year of the Berlin Congress, towards the close of
the war, would certainly not have been safe.
No
amount of official papers and permissions would have
kept him out of the clutches of ignorant officials. It
seemed necessary, therefore, to take an interpreter;
and as the transport of heavy luggage in Russia is
slow, and my books would accompany me as personal
baggage, it was clear that the cost would be a great
increase to holiday expenses. A generous friend, how-
ever, at this juncture, as also subsequently, came to my
aid ; and in the month of June I trotted out of Peters-
burg with about two waggonloads of books, a com-
panion, an interpreter, and a sufficiency of official
letters. We went by rail through Moscow and Jaroslav
to Vologda, and thence by steamer on the Suchona
and Dwina to Archangel. We distributed everywhere,
—to priests and people, in prisons, hospitals, and
monasteries, and created such a stir in some of the
small towns that people besieged our rooms by day,
and even by night. Our travel was necessarily so
quick that we could not always inform the police
beforehand of what we were doing, and more than
once they came (as was their duty) to arrest us; but
our encounters always ended amicably, and we reached
home after a happy six weeks' tour, extending over
5,500 miles, in the course of which we distributed
25,000 Scriptures and tracts. These experiences in

INTRODUCTORY.
5
some measure prepared me for my longer journey in
1879, the origin of which was somewhat remarkable.
When travelling round the Gulf of Bothnia in 1876,
my steamer unexpectedly stayed for a day at a town
on the coast of Finland. I was anxious to visit the
hospital, and was inquiring about a horse, when a
passenger said she had friends in the town, who, she
,
thought, could render assistance. I went with her ;
and that simple incident may be said to have origi-
nated my subsequent tour through the prisons of
Siberia; for it was followed by correspondence with a
lady member of the family to whom I was introduced,
Miss Alba Hellman, who began by modestly asking
me, chiefly because I was an Englishman and the
only one she knew, whether I could not do some-
thing for the welfare of the Siberian exiles. I confess
that at first I thought this the most extraordinary
request ever put to me, and it seemed too great an
undertaking even to be thought of. Already immersed
in work, regular and self-imposed, I had no time or
means for such an undertaking; and if the money
were forthcoming, who would go? Another question,
too, arose: Would the Russian Government allow any-
thing to be done?
The case of my Finnish correspondent, however,
was a touching one. When in health she had been
wont, like Elizabeth Fry, but on a smaller scale, to
spend part of her time in visiting prisoners. Now,
,
acute heart disease forbade such visits, and even com-
pelled her to sleep in a sitting posture, so that for
2,068 nights, or nearly seven years, she never went to
bed. My coming to Finland, visiting prisons, had
awakened memories of her former work, and she set

6
THROUGH SIBERIA.
herself, after my departure, to write me a letter in
English. She had had only a few lessons in this
language when a girl ; but, possessing a Swedish and
English New Testament in parallel columns, and a
dictionary, she set herself, with an industry and patience
almost incredible, to find clauses and expressions that
conveyed her meaning in Swedish, and then to copy
their English equivalents, her letter ending, for example,
Here are many faults, but I pray you have me
excused.”. The force of her language, however, was
unmistakable, thus: “You (English) have sent mis-
sionarys round the all world, to China, Persia, Pales-
tina, Africa, the Islands of Sandwich, to many places
of the Continent of Europe; but to the great, great
Siberia, where so much is to do, you not have sent
missionarys. Have you not a Morrison, a Moffatt,
for Siberia? Pastor Lansdell, go you yourself to
Siberia !”
What, then, could I say to this? To have spoken
the real language of my thoughts would have been
cruel. So I thought to shelve the question by returning
an oracular answer, that "the letter contained much
that was interesting, and that I would think the matter
over.” My correspondent, however, was not to be
discouraged, and wrote another letter, giving further
information concerning Siberia, and drawing a gloomy
picture of the religious condition of the natives and
exiles. Others followed, and at last I began to think
that, after all, the project was not quite so unfeasible
as it first appeared to be. My generous friend, who
had read the letters and was interested, both urged me
on and again offered help; and when it was determined
that I should leave a clerical appointment I had held

INTRODUCTORY.
7
for ten easy and happy years, I resolved, in the absence
of another suitable post presenting itself, at once to
“rough it” for a summer in the wilds of Asiatic Russia.
But what could I do towards the object my friend
had at heart? Ignorance of the Russian language
and of the Siberian dialects would prevent my speaking
to the people. I might, however, visit prisons, hos-
pitals, and mines, and at least provide them with the
Scriptures in various languages, and with books, as in
previous holidays. When travelling in the Russian
interior in 1878, persons were met with who had
never seen a complete New Testament, and I reasoned
that a general distribution of such books in Siberia,
whether by sale or gift, would be doubly useful, besides
which I meant to be on the look-out for such other
opportunities of usefulness as might present themselves
and be allowed me.
But what were the books you were to give away ?
and how is it that you were allowed to distribute them?
are questions that have often been asked with surprise.
An answer to the first will prepare the way for the
second. The Scriptures included the four Gospels, the
Book of Psalms, and the New Testament. These
were for the most part in Russian ; but there were a
few copies in Polish, French, German, and Tatar, with
certain portions of the Old Testament for the Buriats
in Mongolian, and for the Jews in Hebrew. Besides
these Scriptures there were copies of the Rooski
Rabotchi, an adapted reprint in Russian of the British
Workman, full of pictures, and well suited to the
masses; also a large well-executed engraving, with
the story written around, of the parable of the Prodigal
Son, together with broad-sheets suitable for hospital

8
THROUGH SIBERIA.
walls, and thousands of Russian tracts. The Scriptures
were printed for the Bible Society by the Holy Synod,
and the tracts had passed the censor's hands. All was
therefore in order, and before going to Archangel I
had received a permanent legitimation to distribute,
duly endorsed by the police.
So far, therefore, things in England looked promising
for Siberia, but the way thither was by no means clear.
In April, 1879, the plague was said to be raging in
Russia, and towards the end of that month came one
of the attempts on the late Emperor's life. This led
to Petersburg being placed in a state of siege, and few
of my friends felicitated me on my intention to go
thither. Some thought I should not obtain the required
permissions for Siberia, and advised accordingly. But
having always before succeeded through the courtesy
of the Russians in getting what I asked, I resolved to
be deaf as an adder to everything short of a denial at
the capital from the lips of the authorities, and, being
thus resolved, I set out on my journey.
a

CHAPTER II.
ACROSS EUROPE.
Departure for Petersburg.- Official receptions.—Minister of the Interior.
-Metropolitan of Moscow.-Introductions.—Books forwarded. -
Departure for Moscow.—Nijni Novgorod.- Site of the fair.—Joined by
interpreter.—Kasan.-Bulgarian antiquities.- Neighbouring heathen.
- Idolatrous objects and practices.-Departure from Kasan.—The
Volga and the Kama.--Arrival at Perm.
-
O
N Wednesday morning, 30th April, 1879, I left
London, and reached Petersburg on the follow-
ing Saturday evening, to find at my hotel a pleasant
welcome in the shape of an invitation to breakfast with
Lord Dufferin on the Monday morning. This was due
to letters with which I had been favoured from high
quarters in England, and one result of which, thanks
to the kindness of the British Ambassador, was an
introductory letter to M. Makoff, the Minister of the
Interior, which I presented to his Excellency on
Tuesday. Whilst waiting in the ante-room with other
suitors, there was time for cogitation as to what the
answer might be. My Petersburg friends gave me
small hope of success ; on the contrary, one of them,
high in authority, who had helped me before, had gone
so far as to say, “Why, it is not likely that, with so
many political prisoners therein, they will allow him to
go through the prisons of Siberia now.” I drew en-
couragement, however, from the fact that a ministerial

IO
THROUGH SIBERIA.
letter had been given me the previous year, which I
thought would be registered in the archives, and, trust-
ing there was on it nothing against me, I hoped that
this would be in my favour. At length, when I was
ushered into the Minister's presence, he scarcely looked
at the Ambassador's letter, but referred to my having
had the document the previous year, and said at once
that there was no objection to my having another; upon
which, flushed with success, I bowed and retired.
This emboldened me to go to another dignitary, and,
having a friend to interpret, I went straight from the
Minister to the new Metropolitan of Moscow, to present
a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury, addressed
“To the Metropolitans of the Church of Russia, or
others whom it may concern.” His Eminence appeared
in a brown silk moiré-antique robe, glittering with
jewelled decorations, and wearing on his head the
white crape hat of a metropolitan, with a diamond cross
in front. He stood on little ceremony, and, almost
before I had made my bow, he shook my hand, gave
me a fraternal kiss on either cheek, and motioned me
to a seat beside him. He then entered with zest into
my scheme for distributing the Scriptures, said that the
Russians had not the means to perform all they would,
and commended the English for what they were doing.
He asked a few questions relative to Church matters in
England, regretted that we had no language in common
in which we could converse, and then cordially wished
me God speed.
I had thus made an excellent beginning. The next
thing to be done was to get additional introductions,
and this I tried to do so as to find my way amongst
various classes of people. A letter from Mr. Glaisher, the
a

ACROSS EUROPE.
II
aeronaut, and formerly of the Greenwich Observatory,
opened the way for me to scientific people, more
especially those taking meteorological observations in
European and Asiatic Russia ; an introduction from a
German pastor brought me into contact with the edu-
cational world through Mr. Maack, the late General-
Inspector of Schools for Eastern Siberia ; a third and
a fourth introduction procured letters to the Finns
and the German pastors throughout Siberia ; and a
fifth to the telegraph officers, most of whom speak
English, French, or German. Messrs. Egerton Hub-
bard took me under their wing, and kindly arranged
to forward money and letters ; and I had various mer-
cantile introductions, together with several of a social
character, to persons of different standing, from the
Governors-General of Siberia downwards. All told,
my introductions, as far as Kiakhta, numbered 133.
It is, however, a traveller's axiom that, “Of good
introductions, store is no sore,” and many of mine
proved to be worth their weight in gold.
My Petersburg friends were delighted at the Minis-
ter's reply, and, as the sun was shining, they determined
to make their hay. They urged me to take still more
books—5,000 additional pamphlets of one kind, especi-
ally suited for schools; and this notwithstanding that
upwards of 25,000 of a miscellaneous character had
already been forwarded by slow transit to the Urals.
My willingness, however, was limited only by my
capabilities of carriage, and, accordingly, as many more
books were taken as, together with my personal baggage
and those gone before, would fill three Russian post
waggons; and this I thought would be about as many as,
under the circumstances, it was possible for me to take.

12
THROUGH SIBERIA.
After a busy stay of nine days in the Russian capital,
I left for Moscow on the afternoon of Monday, the
12th of May, and arrived the following morning. The
only business that detained me there was to inquire of
some ladies, who devote themselves to work among the
prisoners, how many and what books they were dis-
tributing among the exiles, so that I might not do their
work over again. I found, however, that their labours
were directed more especially to the temporal good of
the prisoners—looking after their wives, placing out
their children, finding them clothes, and such like useful
works, rather than seeking directly their spiritual good,
though this had to some extent been attempted by
lending and occasionally giving them books to read
in the prison. Accordingly, I left Moscow by rail on
Wednesday evening, to arrive after thirteen hours at
Nijni Novgorod, on the Volga.
May is not a good time to see this famous place.
The river overflows its banks in spring to a depth of
several feet, and covers the site of the wonderful fair,
in anticipation of which the lower storeys of the ware-
houses and buildings are cleared ; and to cleanse them
before July is one of the first things to be done by the
owners, who with their goods arrive yearly from all
parts of the world. I was rowed in a boat through the
streets (which are called after the names of the mer-
chandise sold therein) to see the Chinese quarter, with
pagoda-like buildings; the Persian quarter, the two
cathedrals, the theatre, the Governor's house, etc., all
of which are used only during the fair, and were now
empty. The nearest approach to a fair that I saw
was a gathering near the entrance to the Kremlin,
where were men standing with their stock-in-trade in

>*
III
OLD
THE NICHOLAS GATE, MOSCOW.
Page 12
KILE
LIBRARY
NO

M

ACROSS EUROPE.
13
their hands or slung over their shoulders—one with
a pair of boots, another with a shirt, and a third with
a pair of trousers or other garments, and for which
each was ready to bargain and chaffer. Hitherto I
had travelled alone. I now stayed at Nijni Novgorod
to be joined by a young man who was to be my
companion and interpreter, and then, leaving by
steamer on Friday at mid-day, we reached Kasan
early on Saturday morning, there to spend Sunday,
the 18th of May.
The covered heads and veiled faces of the women,
together with the tawny porters carrying their huge
burdens, speedily reminded us that we had reached
an ancient Tatar city. The only tourists' lion we
visited was Mr. Lichatcheff's collection of Bulgarian
antiquities. He very kindly and politely showed us
through the rooms of his house, which were crammed
with curiosities. Among them were rude implements
of the stone age, ancient oriental lamps, and ancient
crosses, one of which, dating from the eleventh or
twelfth century, was without the foot-piece now found
on the Russian cross, which foot-piece, our informant
considered, was not used on Russian crosses in the
earliest times. There were also some stone Byzantine
The Bulgarian antiquities had been found
on the banks of the Volga, showing the location of
that people before their migration further south.
Another point of interest in Kasan must not be
passed over. I had supposed that heathen rites and
practices were now in Europe a thing of the past.
We heard, however, of five nationalities scattered
through Russia, but found more, especially in the
Kasan government, who, though nominally Christian,
crosses.

14
THROUGH SIBERIA.
still resort to idolatrous superstitions. They are called
Tcheremisi, Mordvar, Vodeki, Tchuvashi, and Tatars ;
and the Russian Government is adopting means for
their enlightenment by taking peasant boys from among
them, and training them for schoolmasters and priests.
A seminary devoted to this purpose, situated near the
Tatar quarter of the town, was shown to us by the
principal, Professor Ilminski. *
In or near the Bishop's house in the Kremlin we
were introduced to Mr. Zoloneetski, who trains young
men to be mission priests to the nationalities whence
they have been brought. In 1878 he had twenty-one
students, some of them from the seminary just men-
tioned. He gives them lectures on aboriginal languages,
customs, and superstitions, and shows them how to
bring the natives to Christianity. This he does in
part by exposing various idolatrous objects, of which he
has a curious collection. Among them was a Tchuvash
idol, consisting of a block of wood, to which pieces of
cloth were brought as offerings. This had been used
less than ten years beforė. Another. piece of super-
stition came from the Tcheremisi,t and was less than
* The Government provides support for 150 scholars, half of whom are
Russians, and the remaining half are from the five nationalities already
mentioned. They have no difficulty in procuring the requisite number of
scholars. Such as can say their small Russian catechism intelligently
are received, and kept for three years as pupil-teachers, at the expira-
tion of which time they serve the Government for six years by way of
return for their education, and receive salaries of from twelve to thirty
pounds a year. A New Testament, we found (but not the Bible), is pro-
vided for each youth in the higher classes.
+ Their worship was thus described : The priest takes in one hand a
piece of burning wood, and in the other a branch (such as we saw, and on
which the leaves were still green, though dry), and then walks in a circle,
the area of which is thus, for the time being, consecrated for worship.
Then he fastens round a tree a withe, and sticks therein a branch with
a

ACROSS EUROPE.
15
twelve months old. There was also to be seen a
rudely-cut box containing coins. Some of them were
ancient, but were supposed to have been offered recently
by Tatars, nominally Christian. It would seem that a
Tatar sometimes makes a vow to the spirit of the forest
to dedicate a horse, cow, or some other animal ; but
not having a victim, or not having it to spare at the
time, he leaves money as a pledge of good faith, and
then, when able to fulfil his vow, reclaims his coin.
Some of these objects had been obtained through
friends and some by fraud, but there was a curious story
connected with the boxes. A missionary priest (a friend
of our informant), knowing of their existence, went to
a family in his parish, and asked if he might take away
their idolatrous things. They answered at first in the
negative; but, after he had left the house, a woman
came out to draw water, and told him she thought it
would be much better if he would steal the things, for
then they would have less money to bring and fewer
prayers to say. The priest, therefore, returned at night,
when the family pretended to be soundly asleep (so that
the spirit might not be offended with what took place
whilst they were unconscious), mounted the loft, took the
things, and subsequently gave them to our informant.
a
the bark peeled something like a whip, which is supposed to represent a
fir-tree; on this is hung a piece of lead, previously melted, poured into
cold water, and molten so as to form roughly the figure of a head, which
is called an eeta. Towards this they afterwards say their prayers. The
priest kills the victim, which may be a horse, a cow, a chicken, a duck,
etc., and sprinkles the blood on the tree and the withe. (The blood was
yet visible on the one we saw.) Then they proceed to peel or chip pieces
of wood, making them fly off in the direction of the tree; and according
as the chips fall, with the bark or the white side upwards, so they divine
an answer to their prayer. The branch we saw was brought away by a
friend of our informant just after the offering.

16
THROUGH SIBERIA.
We quitted Kasan on Monday morning in one of
Lubimoff's steamers, and, after proceeding two or three
hours down the Volga, left that river to finish its career
of 2,200 miles, whilst we turned into one of its
affluents, the Kama, which is no mean river in itself,
having a course of 1,400 miles. The junction of the two
streams presents a fine expanse of water, but the banks
are too flat to be pretty. Steamboat travelling in
Russia is not expensive, the first-class fare from Nijni
Novgorod to Perm, a four days' journey, being only 36s.
After a voyage of three days and a half from Kasan
we reached Perm, where the people were in great ex-
citement consequent on the burning of two “quartals,”
or large blocks of buildings. The roofs and houses
of the town were described as being covered, during
the previous night, with women, watching lest sparks
should fall on their property, whilst their husbands
helped to extinguish the fire ; and so great was the
fear of a general conflagration, that some sent their
wives and families into the neighbouring villages.
Others we saw encamped by the bank of the river,
whilst on a grass plot near a church were others tired
out and fast asleep beside the chattels they had rescued.
Not long before, Orenburg and Irbit had been burnt,
and were supposed by some to have been wilfully set
on fire, and so excited were the inhabitants of Perm,
and so ready to snap up persons at all suspected, that
we were cautioned, as being strangers, to walk in the
middle of the road. We then visited the hospital,
saw the Governor, and left some books for the Perm
institutions ; but I was reserving my strength for
Siberia, and the same evening the train was to carry
us to the top of the Urals.

CHAPTER III
THE URALS TO TIUMEN.
-
A new railway.-The Ural range.—Outlook into Russia in Asia.—Nijni
Tagil. - The Demidoff mines and hospital.—May weather.-Russian
railways.--Arrival at Ekaterineburg.—An orphanage.— Precious
stones.-Orenburg shawls.--Tarantass and luggage. -Departure for
Tiumen.—The exiles.—Visits to the authorities.
THE
HOSE who have hitherto written of journeys to
Siberia have told of a dismal drive from Perm
to Ekaterineburg ; but this misfortune did not fall to
our lot, since in the autumn of 1878 a railway was
opened over the mountains, and the journey is now
accomplished in about four-and-twenty hours.
The
distance is 312 miles, and between the two termini are
about 30 stations. *
From the prominence given in maps of Europe to
the Ural chain, one is apt from childhood to expect in
these mountains something grand. The entire length
of the range, including its continuation in Novaia
* Of the three divisions, the Northern or barren Ural, as the Russians
call it, beginning at the source of the Pechora, is the most elevated and
the least known. The Southern Ural begins about midway between Perm
and Orenburg, and descends to the banks of the Ural river. It is a pas-
toral country, and about 100 miles in width. The range is here less than
3,000 feet in height. The central Ural may be considered as a wide undu-
lation, beginning on the west on the banks of the Kama. Perm, situated
on the right bank of the river, is 378 feet above the sea level, and on the
post road to Ekaterineburg the highest point is 1,638 feet, which, if my
reckoning is correct, is 40 feet less than the highest station on the railway.
VOL. I.
2

18
THROUGH SIBERIA.
66
))
Zemlia, is about 1,700 miles. Its highest peak, how-
ever, does not attain to more than 6,000 feet, and
many parts of the range are not more than 2,000 feet
above the sea level. No part of it is permanently
covered with snow. Travellers by the old route de-
scribe, in passing it, a never-failing object of interest
on the frontier in the shape of a stone, on one side of
which is written “Europe” and on the other Asia,"
across which, of course, an English boy would stride,
and announce that he had stood in two quarters of the
globe at once. Travellers by the new route miss this
opportunity ; but they have its equivalent in three
border stations, one of which is called “ Europa,” the
,
next “Ural,” and the third “ Asia,” through which
those who have journeyed can say what no other
travellers can, that they have passed by rail from one
quarter of the globe into another.
Thus the case with which one reaches the summit
of the Urals is somewhat disappointing, but no such
thoughts are suggested by an outlook into the immense
country that now lies before the traveller. There
stretches far before him a region known as Russia in
Asia, the dimensions of which are very hard for the
mind to realize. It measures 4,000 miles from east
to west, about 2,000 from north to south, and covers
"
I set my aneroid at Perm, and found that at the fourth station, Seleenka,
a distance of 172 miles, we had mounted 470 feet; the next 22 miles
brought us down again to 120 feet, after which for 60 miles we continued
to ascend to Bisir, which registered 1,300 feet above Perm, and was the
highest station on the road. Level ground succeeded for about 30 miles
to the border station, after which in 50 miles we descended 750 feet to
Shaitanka, 10 miles beyond which we had remounted 200 feet; and on
this level we kept to Iset, the last station but one. The road then
descended about 150 feet to Ekaterineburg, which is said to be 858 feet
above the sea level.

THE URALS TO TIUMEN.
19
nearly five and three-quarter millions of square miles.
It is larger by two millions of square miles than the
whole of Europe; about twice as big as Australia,
and nearly one hundred times as large as England.
The general aspect of the surface may be easily
described. The Altai range of mountains, with its
offshoots to the east, forms the general features of the
southern boundary, and from these heights the land
gradually slopes towards the northern tundras or
bogs, which extend to the frozen ocean.
The country
is intersected by three of the largest rivers in the
world, the Obi, the Yenesei, and the Lena, not one of
which is much less than 3,000 miles long, and all
of them, through great part of the year, flow under
masses of ice to the Arctic Ocean. A fourth river,
the Amur, rising in the Yablonoi mountains, which
may be regarded as a part of the eastern slopes of the
Altai chain, runs a course also of more than 2,000
miles, but takes an easterly direction, forming part
of the southern boundary of the country, and empties
itself into the Gulf of Tartary.
The country largely consists of immense steppes
marshes, and pools. Lakes, properly so called, are not
numerous, but the greatest of them, the Baikal,” is
in some respects the most remarkable in the world.
No less remarkable is the great variety of the inhabi-
tants. They are sometimes classified into five typical
races: Sclavonic (including Russians and Poles); Finnish
(including Finns, Voguls, Ostjaks, Samoyedes, Yuraki):
Turkish(including Tatars, Kirghese, Kalmuks, Yakutes);
Mongolian (including Manchu, Buriats, and Tunguses
-the last of various denominations); and Chinese, with
whom may be classed, though not very accurately, the
66

20
THROUGH SIBERIA.
Gilyaks and Ainos. In fact, an ethnographical map of
Asiatic Russia I bought at Petersburg shows therein
no less than 30 peoples or nations.
Many of them, it is true, are but feebly represented,
for the entire population does not number more inhabi-
tants than are to be found in seven of the counties of
England, and they have not enough men and women
in Russian Asia to put one of each in every square
mile, whereas every square mile of the seven English
counties alluded to has on an average 573 inhabitants.
It is difficult to give exact statistics, because, from the
wandering life led by many of the aborigines, it is impos-
sible to ascertain their number, and so authorities differ;
but the total population, including Russians, is estimated
at about 8,000,000. Our attention, however, is to be
chiefly confined to Siberia, and it should not be for-
gotten that Siberia is not co-extensive with the whole
of Asiatic Russia, and does not begin, properly speaking,
till Ekaterineburg is passed. We have been merely
taking a look, from the government of Perm, out of
European into Asiatic Russia ; this government, as
also that of Orenburg, lying partly in Europe and
partly in Asia.
Before descending to the foot of the Urals, we arrive
at Nijni Tagilsk. At this place we halted for a day to
* 1. Slavs.
II. Sarti.
21. Goldi.
2. Zeryani.
12. Uzbeki.
22. Gilyaks.
3. Voguls.
13. Turks.
23. Yukagirs.
4. Votyaks.
14. Altai Kalmuks. 24. Chukchees.
5. Tatars.
15. Teleuti.
25. Koriaks.
6. Kirghese of little horde. 16. Ostjaks. 26. Kamchadales.
7. Kirghese of middle horde. 17. Samoyedes.
27. Ainos.
8. Kirghese of great horde. 18. Yuraki.
28. Buriats.
9. Buruti Kirghese.
19. Yakutes.
29. Manchu.
10. Karakalpaks.
20. Tunguse. 30. Chinese.

THE URALS TO TIUMEN.
21
look over the famous Demidoff mines and works. There
had been a fire in the town, as at Perm, on the night
preceding our arrival; and in seven hours 78 houses had
been burnt. Pieces of smoking wood were still flying
about. The common people, as before, attributed the
fire to incendiaries, such as escaped prisoners, who
hoped to profit by the turmoil, and find an occasion
for plunder ; but more thoughtful people traced it to
accidental causes. Demidoff's workmen had been
called out at night to assist as firemen, and were in
consequence resting. We could not, therefore, see
,
everything in motion, but enough was visible to make
it clear that they were carrying on enormous metallur-
gical operations. One of the remarkable things to be
noticed was a surface mine of magnetic iron ore, blasted
and dug out in terraces, carted down by horses and
taken to the furnace, where the ore proves so rich
that it yields 68 per cent of iron. We also de
scended a copper-mine, the mineral from which yields
5 per cent. of metal. We were dressed for the
occasion in top-boots, leather hats, and appropriate
blouses and trousers, each carrying a lamp, and thus
by ladders we descended one shaft of 600 feet and
came up another, the water meanwhile trickling upon
us freely. At the bottom of the mine they were
erecting an English machine for pumping 80
cubic feet of water per minute to the surface.
In the engine-room two
a time spend
eight hours daily, for which they each receive in
money about fifteen pence. We promised ourselves,
as a great feature in the descent of the copper-mine,
the seeing of malachite in its natural state, and we
were not disappointed. The captain took us through
men
at

22
THROUGH SIBERIA.
long galleries of timber beams, and then to the spots
where the miners had been working. Here, by the
light of our lamps, the pieces of green mineral could
be clearly seen, and we had the pleasure of digging
them out with a pick, and bringing them away as
specimens. The price of malachite at the mine is six
shillings a Russian pound, if in moderate-sized pieces;
twenty shillings when the lumps are large, but only
two shillings if they are small.
Besides these copper and magnetic iron mines, they
have others of manganese iron ore, which contains
64 per cent of binoxide of manganese, the peroxide
being sold at the rate of about eighteen shillings
per hundredweight. Specimens of these and other
minerals of great interest to the geologist are exhibited
in a museum not far from the works.
Among the remarkable things to be seen at these
hives of industry were—a machine for drawing water
by a cord from a copper-mine two miles off, a steam-
hammer of seven tons weight, an iron furnace of
10,000 cubic feet dimensions, said to be the largest
high furnace for wood in the world, and a machine for
splitting their fuel wood, of which they burn annually
100,000 sajens—that is to say, a 325 feet cube, or,
roughly speaking, a pile of logs twice as big as St.
Paul's Cathedral. *
They make steel for Sheffield, and can do castings
up to more than 30 tons in weight. Their iron is
excelled in quality, I believe, only by that of Danne-
* What extent of land must be cleared to furnish such a quantity of
fuel I know not, but the railways of Central Russia are said to consume
yearly the timber off 90,000 acres of forest- an area, that is, about the size
of Rutlandshire.

LIBRARY
THE URALS 10 TIUMEN.
23
NE
comer
even women.
mora. They have 11 zavods, or “works," of which
ii
”
eight are connected with iron. But perhaps a better
idea can be formed of their vastness by the mention
of the number of persons employed, which amounts
to 30,000. I heard also 40,000, and both numbers
were from heads of departments ; but probably the
latter estimate includes carters, labourers, and perhaps
The Demidoffs pay annually, by way
of rates and taxes—to the Commune, £5,000; the
Church, £1,500 ; schools, £2,500 ; poor and aged,
£3,000; together with other sums, amounting in
all to about £20,000 a year. Wages, as compared
with those in England, appeared low. Common
workmen receive from 77d. to is. a day, puddlers
3s., and those in the welding furnace 45., whilst
good rollers receive from 35. 6d. to 6s. It should
be observed, however, that they all have houses rent
free, with the piece of land they formerly occupied
as serfs.
Before the emancipation, the riches of the Demidofts
were counted in the phrase then usual in Russia as
amounting to 56,000 souls.* A small church, built on
the crest of a neighbouring hill, was pointed out as
having been built by the serfs in memory of their free-
dom; and I was glad to hear from the director, Mr.
Wohlstadt (by whom we were courteously entertained),
that since the emancipation the men work better and
better, knowing, I presume, when serfs, that idleness
would be repaid with something not much worse than
* That is, men, or at least males; for I am told that male children
are called “souls,” but female children never. An English lady of my
acquaintance informs me that she was told scores of times in Russia that
she was not a doash, or soul, but only a woman; and when her son was
born she was congratulated on being the mother of a soul !

24
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a beating ; whereas now they know they may be dis-
charged.
We slept at the club; and in the morning, before
leaving, visited the Demidoff hospital, upon which,
,
and upon institutions of a similar kind, the proprietors
spend nearly £4,000 a year. The dimensions of the
rooms were such as to allow of three cubic sajens, or
1,200 cubic feet, of air for each of the patients, of
whom there were 120 at the time of our visit. Many
fractured and amputated limbs were
seen dressed
with gypsum, alcohol, and camphor ; but the most
extraordinary thing was a machine in the director's
private room, in which he placed frozen human
brains, and for scientific purposes cut them in very
thin slices to photograph. The photographs are to
be purchased in Paris.
On leaving Tagil we found the temperature much
colder,* and our journey to Ekaterineburg was some-
what comfortless, from the fact that, anticipating no
more cold weather, the officials had not brought in the
train the apparatus for heating by steam. At Ekate-
rineburg I finished railway journeys, amounting to 2,670
miles ; and as I was now to bid farewell to the horse
of iron and travel by horses of flesh, it is only right to
say that of the iron horses which took me across Europe
* Concerning the weather in crossing Europe, I may say that, from the
Russian frontier to the capital, on the 2nd and 3rd of May, a fire was pro-
vided in the railway carriage, and on approaching Petersburg there was
just a little snow left here and there in drifts. On the 4th the last of the
ice was floating down the Neva. In less than a week it became positively
hot in the middle of the day, and the trees opened their foliage rapidly.
At Nijni Novgorod, on the 15th, the foliage was all but full. On the banks
of the Kama the trees were covered with leaves, which the captain of the
steamer said had come out within the previous five days; and on the 20th,
when stopping for wood, some of the passengers found strawberry blossoms
and violets. Fine weather then continued up to the 23rd.
a

THE URALS TO TIUMEN.
25
* Our
the Russian on the whole was, I think, the best.
arrival at Ekaterineburg on Saturday evening was
expected, and quarters were provided for me through
the kindness of Messrs. Egerton Hubbard. Ekate-
rineburg is a handsome town of 30,000 inhabitants,
and has many fine churches and other buildings. On
Sunday I visited the hospital, and also an orphanage
for 100 children, which has been built and is supported
by local voluntary effort. This kind of institution is
not yet very common among the Russians. It was
regarded as a novelty, and was the only one of its
precise kind that we saw in Asia.
Formerly there were several Englishmen living at
Ekaterineburg, but a few only are now left, and so
little practice do they have in the tongue of their fathers
that some of them are rapidly forgetting it. Instances
of this were met with further east, and another case in
which English parents were allowing their children to
grow up speaking only Russian, the result of which
would be that the son who had been sent for his edu-
cation to England would forget Russian, and, on coming
back to Siberia, would not be able to speak to his sister
who had not learnt English.
* The new first-class carriages running between Petersburg and Moscow
have fauteuils, which form couches at night ; and one I saw was so fixed
on springs as to furnish almost the softness of a feather-bed. They have
also writing tables, and are more luxurious than anything I have seen
elsewhere in Europe, or even America. The lavatory arrangements “on
board” in all three classes are exceedingly good. There only lacks the
receptacle for iced water provided in Norway, and, perhaps, the dining
cars run in America, to make Russian railway accommodation perfect.
The guards, it is true, are somewhat pompous as compared with the
English, and the speed of the trains is slower ; but, on the other hand,
the refreshments are very much better, and the prices more reasonable.
There is time allowed, moreover, to eat them, though I am thinking
more especially of the line between the capital and Moscow, which is
naturally one of the best.

a

26
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
Ekaterineburg is a famous place for the cutting of
precious stones, in which Siberia is rich. Near the
river Argun are found the jacinth, the Siberian emerald,
the onyx, and beautiful jaspers, of which there are at
least a hundred varieties. Near Lake Baikal are found
red garnets and lapis lazuli, and the Altai mountains
furnish the opal. Several of these are also found
near Ekaterineburg, together with the beryl, the
topaz, the chrysolite, the aqua marine, the tourmaline,
rhodonite, nephrite, ophite, selenite, and the recently-
discovered Alexandrite, which exhibits two colors-
crimson and green—the one by day and the other
by night. The stone derives its name from the
Emperor Alexander, whose colours it shows. These
stones are cut in the Government workshops and in
private houses, and may be purchased at moderate
prices.
South of Ekaterineburg, towards Orenburg, are
villages where may be purchased uncommon souvenirs in
the shape of gentlemen's scarves and gloves, together
with kozine pookh, or, as they are more commonly
called, Orenburg shawls. They are made from the
wool of the goats of the Kirghese, who allow the
Cossacks to comb their flocks at the rate of from eight-
pence to a shilling per head. Twice a year the
goats
are washed and combed, first with a coarse and then
with a fine comb. To make a good shawl employs a
woman six months, and then, if it be a large one, it
sells at first hand for about fifty shillings; but very
much higher prices are asked in Petersburg.
We stayed three days at Ekaterineburg to lay in
provisions and gather our forces for proceeding by
horses. The greater part of my heavy luggage had


THE URALS TO TIUMEN.
27
been dispatched by slow train to Ekaterineburg fully a
month before me, but it did not reach its destination
till the day after my arrival. The agent said it
might have been waiting on the road for the chance of
other goods to make up a load. A tarantass had been
very kindly placed at my disposal by Mr. Oswald
Cattley, whose name, some time since, was before the
public in connection with the opening up of a new trade
on the Obi; and in this we packed ourselves and some
of our personal baggage, placing the rest with several
boxes in a second conveyance, and leaving still a third
load of boxes to be forwarded as luggage. In this
fashion, after receiving all sorts of kindness and hospi-
tality from our English friends, we started on Tuesday
evening, May 27th, for Tiumen, a distance of 204 miles,
which was accomplished in 43 continuous hours.
Tiumen is situated on the Tura, and has a population
of from 15,000 to 20,000 inhabitants. Commercially
speaking, it is the most important town in Western
Siberia, and through it pass the water carriage of the
Obi, as well as the caravans coming from China and
the East. Here we found an English engineering
firm, conducted by Messrs. Wardropper, who were
particularly kind to us. To Tiumen all the exiles are
brought from Europe, and from thence are distributed
over Siberia. I needed not, therefore, the eye of a
general to see that, for my purpose of distributing books
over the land, this was the key to a very important
position. It was desirable, therefore, that I should see
some of the magnates of the town who were members
of the prison committee, and, if possible, secure their
sympathy and co-operation.
Accordingly I was taken to visit the Mayor, who


28
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
was building a large commercial school for the benefit
of the town, at a cost of more than £20,000, which,
when finished, was to be handed over to the Govern-
ment. He is a merchant who has made his way to the
front, and now entertains the Governor-General when
he passes through, though otherwise he lives quietly.
His house, when we called, was in preparation for one
of those viceregal receptions, and, knowing that his
worship was rich, I busied myself, during the Russian
conversation, in scanning what I supposed might be
considered appropriate study furniture for a wealthy
Siberian. The Mayor, I had heard, was fond of good
horses, which accounted for the winner-of-the-Derby-
like engravings hanging on the wall, the whole of
which might have been purchased, I judged, in London
for twenty shillings. The room, as is the custom of
the country, was not carpeted, and the furniture con-
sisted of a bare, polished, wooden bench, bored with
holes, in patterns after the fashion of American street
The chairs were of wood, similarly ornamented.
The table had about it some fretwork, and on it various
writing materials, and accompaniments more or less
artistic. I mentally appraised the whole as being worth
about £20, and admired the simplicity of a man who
could be content with a study thus furnished, whilst
he was giving away a thousand times its value. My
cogitations served to recall what had struck me in
Norway and Sweden, when observing how much
simpler, as regards furniture, people are content to
live in these northern countries than in England,
though I did not discern that they were less happy
than we are.
After leaving the house, I broached
the subject approvingly to my friend who was with me,
cars.
THE URALS TO TIUMEN.
29
upon which I found that I had undervalued the furni-
ture, and that it was of American manufacture, and the
first of the kind imported into the town.
I was taken also to call upon a prominent member
of the prison committee, Mr. Ignatoff, of the firm of
Kourbatoff and Ignatoff
. They have steamers on the
Kama and Obi, and hold the Government contract
for the transport in barges of exiles. He was much
interested in my scheme of visiting prisons, and was
so pleased with my account of the Howard Association
in London, of which I said I was a member, and which
had for its object the prevention of crime and pro-
moting the best methods for the treatment and refor-
mation of prisoners, that he spoke of asking to be
allowed at once to join the Association.*
He kindly
undertook to do all he could to further the distribution
of the books I engaged to send to him; and I was
glad to have called, not only for the information
obtained, but for the interest excited, though I was
hardly prepared for the very practical and generous
form which this interest took, which will be hereafter
alluded to.
We called afterwards on the Ispravnik, or chief



* He had made private notes concerning the exiles, of which it appeared
that, during the last ten years, from 9,500 to 10,500 yearly had passed
through his hands. Of these there were adults about 9,000 ; under 15,
;
1,500 ; and under 2 years of age, 150. About 3,000, he thought, could
read. The professors of various religious beliefs prevailed, he said, in
decreasing numbers, in the following order : (1) Orthodox Russian, (2)
Mohammedan, (3) Jewish, (4) Roman Catholic, (5) Protestant. Drun-
kenness, he believed, was directly or indirectly the cause of the crimes of
half of the whole number sent to Siberia, and these were found to be the
worst prisoners and the most troublesome. He looked forward, therefore,
with pleasure to the expected and now long-waited-for prison reforms,
one of which, it was said, would be the sending no more exiles to the
western part of Siberia.


30
THROUGH SIBERIA.
man of the district, and presented my letter, with the
view of visiting the prisons. I heard that in his
district there were 24 schools, and, having made
arrangements for providing them with tracts, I went
to see the prison. From statistics given me for the
previous year, it appeared that a total of 20,711
prisoners passed through the hands of the authorities
in 1878.* This opens up the whole subject of prisons
and exiles, which is to form a leading feature of these
pages, and therefore I think it will be better to devote
separate chapters to both, in which general ideas can
be given. This will save repetition, and it will then
be easy to illustrate general principles by particular
incidents as we meet them from time to time in
travelling and visiting prisons from the Urals to the
Pacific.
* One-fourth of these (4,995) were women, and 215 were local offenders,
of whom 10 were women and 3 were minors. In the course of the year
were located in the Town Prison 157 men and 5 women ; in the Police
Prison 4 men, and in the Central Prison for exiles 15,111 men and 4,985
women.


CHAPTER IV.
THE EXILES,

-
Reasons for and history of deportation to Siberia.-Number of exiles.-
Their education.—Crimes.—Sentences.-Loss of rights. —Privileges.
-Proportion of hard-labour convicts.-Where located.-Release. -
Escapes.—Causes and methods of flight.— Transport.-A convoy
of exiles.-Moscow charity.-Conveyance to Perm and Tiumen.
Their distribution.--Order of march.-Sea-borne exiles.-Mistakes
of English newspapers.--Conveyance of political exiles.

IN
N dealing with criminals, the Russian Government
has to act as best it can for the good of the
community in general. If, in particular cases, it seems
likely that the criminal may be reformed, he is sent to
one of the prisons or houses of correction at home;
but if, on the other hand, the crime of the malefactor
demands a severe punishment, and, after repeated cor-
rection, he seems to be incorrigible, then he is banished
to Siberia, the people being thus rid of a corrupting
member of society, whilst another unit is sent to assist
in developing the resources of a large territory of the
Russian empire, which has great need of population.
This, I presume, is the theory, or part of it, of the
deportation of prisoners to distant parts of the empire.*
* According to M. Reclus, the first decree of banishment fell upon the
insurrectionists of Uglitch, in 1591, in the days of the Tsar Boris Godunof,
and for a century afterwards Siberia received scarcely any exiles but State
prisoners. At the end of the seventeenth century, however, some of the

32
THROUGH SIBERIA.
The number of ordinary exiles sent to Siberia for
several years past has been from 17,000 to 20,000 per
annum; but this includes wives and children who choose
to accompany the prisoners. Of these nearly 8,000, on
their arrival in Siberia, are set free to get their own
living; about 3,000 of them being sent to Eastern and
5,000 to Western Siberia. The exiles come from all
parts of Russia in Europe, and include about 300 a
year from Finland. In 1879 there were 898 sent from
Poland. Some idea may be formed of the edu-
cation of the exiles from the fact that on the day
we visited Tiumen prison there were, out of 470
prisoners, 42 who could read and write well, 32 who
could do so a little, and 12 who could sign their names.
At Tiumen, however, we heard from one who had to
do with a great many exiles, and who had several
statistics about them, that one-third of those with whom
he had been brought into contact could read. Again,
in the district of Kansk, in Eastern Siberia, in 1877,
of 226 criminals, only two were marked as well-edu-
cated,” whilst in 1878, of 182 prisoners, none stood
vanquished Little Russians of the Ukraine were deported thither ; and
they were followed by the raskolniks, or religious dissenters. The Streltzi,
who were likewise raskolniks, were banished by Peter the Great to garri-
sons in the most distant parts of the empire ; and after the reign of Peter,
the intrigues of the palace were the cause of exile to some of the Court
celebrities, such as Menchikoff, Dolgoruki, Biron, Munich, Tolstoï, and
others, some of whom, however, were brought back when their friends
came into favour. In 1658 began the deportation of Poles to Siberia, but
their banishment in large numbers dates from the reign of Catherine II.,
with the confederates of Bar, and then with the companions of Kosciuzko.
Nine hundred Poles, having served under Napoleon, were exiled to Siberia,
and large numbers of the insurrectionists of 1830 followed. The exiles
whose names awaken perhaps the most sympathy among the Russians
were the Decembrists of 1826, who endeavoured to deprive the Emperor
Nicholas of his throne; but of these, and political prisoners generally, I
shall treat hereafter in a separate chapter.

THE EXILES.
33
high enough, intellectually, to be thus designated.
The figures from Kansk are not quite to the point in
speaking of European Russia, but they help, with
others, to give an approximate idea, not only of the
education, but also of the social rank of the Siberian
criminals. Again, for statistical purposes, the Russians
are sometimes marked off into five classes, thus :
nobles, merchants, ecclesiastics, citizens, and peasants ;
and in prison the higher grades receive better allow-
ance, and are not mixed with the peasant prisoners,
but have rooms apart. In going through the principal
prisons of Siberia, however, we found the number of
rooms thus occupied decidedly small; so that this
observation, taken with the educational state of the
prisoners, would seem to confirm what I was told by
one prison official, that probably not more than 3 or
4 per cent. of the exiles are from the upper classes.
As to the crimes of the exiles, they are not all
political, nor even chiefly so. A large proportion-
4,000 out of 18,000, or say 20 per cent.—of them are
charged with no one particular offence, except that
they have rendered themselves obnoxious to the com-
munity among which they lived. If a man in Russia
be idle and drunken, and will not pay his taxes nor
support his wife and family, but leaves these things
to be done by his neighbours, his commune—which
may consist of one or more villages—meet in their
mir, or village parliament, vote the man a nuisance, and
adjudge that he be sent, at their expense, to Siberia.
This judgment is submitted to higher authorities,
and, unless just cause be shown to the contrary, is
confirmed. The man is then taken to Siberia, not to
be imprisoned, but to get his living as a colonist.
3
--
VOL. I.

34
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
a
Those sent thus by the villages, I was told, are chiefly
drunkards. We saw a whole wardful of them at
Tiumen, dressed in private clothes, and not in prison
garb; and a second ward, of a similar mixed multitude,
consisting of men, women, and children. The perpe-
trators of political crimes, as those of the “black Nihi-
lists,” are, when caught, usually accommodated with
free lodgings in Siberia ; and so with revolutionary
offenders, who make insurrection in Poland, Circassia,
or elsewhere. Of offenders such as these I must speak
hereafter. Formerly religious dissenters were largely
deported, but this has not been done since the pro-
clamation of what may, in a fashion, be called religious
liberty, unless in the case of one or two-more espe-
cially one sect—whose practices no enlightened Govern-
ment could tolerate, and which are so extraordinary
that, if they obtained universal acceptance, there would
be no further increase of population, and the human race
would become extinct. The fact is that the great mass of
exiles are nothing more nor less than ordinary criminals,
such as may be found in any of the prisons of Europe.*
* There are upwards of thirty crimes for the commission of one or more
of which a man may be sent to Siberia. In fact, I have been told that all
the crimes of the country are reduced to these thirty-three heads, viz.:
insubordination to authorities ; stealing or losing official documents;
escape, or abetting the escape, of prisoners ; embezzlement of Government
property ; forgery while in Government employ ; blasphemy; heresy and
dissent; sacrilege ; sheltering runaways; forging coin or paper money ;
without passport, or passport with term not renewed ; vagrancy ; bad
conduct and petty crimes ; murder, and suspicion thereof; attempted
suicide; wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm ; rape and
seduction ; insult ; attacking with intent to wound; holding property
falsely; practices of the “Scoptsi”; arson; robbery and burglary; thieving
and roguery ; horse-stealing ; dishonesty and false actions ; debt; dis-
honouring the name of the Emperor ; assuming false names or titles ;
bestiality; usury and extortion ; eluding military service; smuggling
and illicit distilling.

THE EXILES.
35
The sentences of the exiles vary widely according
as they are condemned to one or the other of two
classes, namely: those who lose all their rights, and
those who lose only some of their rights, which
deprivations may be thus explained :-
Those who lose all their rights are not in an
enviable position. These are some of the things they
lose :If a man have a title or official rank, he is
degraded. An exile's marriage rights are broken, so
that his wife is free to marry another. Neither his
word nor his bond is of any value. He cannot sign a
legal document or serve any office, either municipal or
imperial. He can hold no property, nor do anything
legal in his own name. In prison he must wear con-
vict's clothes, and have his head half shaved ; and, in
the case of a woman, she cannot marry after her release
from prison till by good conduct she has placed herself
in a certain category; and, whether man or woman, they
may at any moment, if the authorities see fit, after
they have served their time in prison, and are living as
colonists, be sent back again. They may be thrashed
with rods and with the “plète," and, even should they
be murdered, probably little trouble would be taken to
find the murderer. In fact, as the words imply, they
lose all their rights, though I believe they can appeal to
the law in case of being grossly wronged.
I have said that an exile's marriage rights are
broken, and I was told that it is the same with con-
victs in America. Were it not so, it might be very
hard upon a young wife whose husband, for instance,
had committed murder, and who, for her husband's
crime and banishment, should be compelled to remain
single for the rest of her life. A Russian wife with

36
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
her children, however, may accompany the husband if
she chooses ; in which case they go with the exile and
receive from the Government prison food and accom-
modation. If, on the other hand, a husband wishes to
accompany a convict wife, he travels at his own cost.
To the honour of the Russian women be it said that
the proportion of men accompanied by their wives and
families is one in every six. The proportion of women
accompanied by their husbands is, I am told, not
exactly known, though it is very much less.
Those who suffer the partial loss of rights lose only
some of their privileges, and are settled in Siberia, to
get their living in any way they are able. They may,
however, in some cases, have first to serve for a period
in prison; or, again, they may be allowed to live in their
own houses and give a portion of their time to Govern-
ment work.
Commonly, they are condemned first to serve a
certain time in confinement, with or without labour.
If they behave well they are, after a while, and in
some cases, allowed to live outside the prison with
their families, if they have any, but still to do their
allotted work, until the period arrives for them to
be liberated and located like colonists. Some of the
women who are condemned to the far east have the
good fortune to be taken as domestic servants by
officers, and even favoured civilians, who, in a new
country where ordinary servants are not to be had, are
allowed for this purpose to take the prisoners, subject
to inspection, of course. Lastly, some exiles, though
comparatively few, I believe, are condemned to prison,
or to prison and labour, for life. *
* Some idea may be formed of the proportion of the banished who

THE EXILES.
37
The localities to which the exiles are sent vary
according to their crimes. Speaking generally, those
deprived of partial rights are sent to Western, and
those deprived of all their rights to Eastern, Siberia.
On this point I have no official statistics, but a legal
officer gave me these particulars concerning the loca-
tion of convicts. Murderers are sent to Kara. My
finding 800 there would seem to confirm this, only
that their presence was manifest in so many of the
other prisons also. Political prisoners go to Kara, to
the Trans-Baikal district, and (as I heard from other
sources) to the Yakutsk government; also to this latter
province are sent those who commit fresh crimes in
Siberia. Vagrants or vagabonds are dispatched to the
far east, to the government of the Sea Coast and
Sakhalin. On the other hand, Western Siberia would
seem to be reserved for minor offenders, and for con-
victs from the upper classes of society. It should be
observed, however, that exiles, wherever they may be,
are under police inspection, are furnished with papers
are condemned to hard labour by observing that, of 17,867 exiles passing
eastwards through Tiumen prison in 1878 (the year before my visit),
2,252, or one-seventh, were transported for hard labour, and the remainder
for “residence for life, or for certain terms in East and West Siberia.”
I was told likewise by Mr. Ignatoff, at Tiumen, that about 2,500 hard-labour
convicts passed yearly through his hands, and that they spent the first part
of their time at Tobolsk. It may be further noticed, as throwing some light
on the numbers of those exiled for life and those exiled temporarily, that
the same year which saw the above number of exiles going eastwards,
there passed through the same prison 2,629 persons returning westwards
“to their respective homes in Russia.” Four hundred and sixty-two of those
condemned to hard labour, and 3,488 of those going into “residence,”
were minors,—that is to say, persons under twenty-one years of age,
as were 324 of those returning to Russia. It would thus appear, from the
figures before us, that of those banished about one-seventh are condemned
to hard labour, and a like proportion return to Russia ; also that in each
class about one-seventh are persons under full age. Hence, of those who
return as minors, their terms of banishment must manifestly be only short.
a

38
THROUGH SIBERIA.
which they have to show at intervals, and which tie
them to a certain place, whence they can move to a
distance only by permission. When at large, and in
some cases when in prison, the exiles may corres-
pond with their friends through the post ; but the
letters must of course be read by the authorities. The
hardest part of the lot of those who lose all their
rights seems to be that they cannot look forward to
the hope of returning. Not that a release is never
granted even to these ; for I am told that political
offenders are sometimes seen hurried out of, as fast
as they are hurried into, exile. The late Emperor,
too, when he came to the throne, began his reign
by an act of clemency on a larger scale, and allowed
certain exiles whom his father had banished to
Again, I have heard of a Polish exile in
good circumstances who was fortunate enough to win
the love of an English young lady connected (by name
at all events) with one of the ducal families of Great
Britain, through which it is said the ear was gained of
a member first of the English royal family; then of
the imperial family of Russia, and finally of the
Emperor himself.* I have met with another case of a
released exile who was liberated under curious cir-
. He gave me his story thus :—When
Alexander II. visited Paris in the time of Napoleon III.,
return.
cumstances.
* I have heard parts of this story in various places- in Hampshire, in
Devon, in Siberia, and on the coast of the Pacific-of the heroic conduct
of a Scotch Professor, who gallantly escorted this young lady to her
lover in Siberia, sat by her side for 3,000 miles, watched over her, saw
her married, and then, returning, gave no rest to friends or officials till
he had obtained the Pole's release. The incidents would doubtless suffice
for a three-volumed novel, which, however, I will not begin, as I know
only one of the parties concerned, and him only by correspondence, and
I have not had the recital from his own lips.

THE EXILES.
39
>)
the Tsar asked the Emperor if there were anything he
could do for him. Upon which the Emperor replied :
" You have a Frenchman who, in young and silly days,
joined the Polish insurrection. He was made prisoner,
and is now in Siberia. Will you do me the favour to
release him?” The request was granted, a messenger
despatched, the happy prisoner in forty-five days and
nights drove back from the mines to Moscow, not
with a couple of horses merely, but troika fashion,
between a couple of gendarmes, and received his
pardon. But such cases, of course, are rare.
It is well known that many of the exiles escape-
some from the prisons, and others from the districts
where they are living free. A Russian authoress,
“O. K.," in Russia and England from 1876 to
1880," says that in January 1876, out of 51,122
exiles supposed to be in Tobolsk, only 34,293 could
be found, which figures an Englishman living in the
Tobolsk government (speaking offhand) told me he
should doubt, though he thought “O. K.'s” state-
ment might be right regarding the government of
Tomsk, in which the same authoress states that 5,000
were missing out of 30,000. For my own figures I am
indebted to a prison official very high in position, who
told me that nearly 700 get away yearly, and in 1876
as many as 952 escaped the control of the police.
Thus the mere feat of running away does not seem
to be difficult; but this does not imply that it is equally
easy to get away from the country. A few roubles
slipped into the hands of a Cossack or petty officer
have a wonderful effect in blinding his eyes. Again,
an escape is sometimes made from the gold-mines
thus :—The convicts work in gangs, and one lies in a

40
THROUGH SIBERIA.
ditch for the others to cover him with branches and
rubbish. The numbers are called on leaving off work,
and one is missing. Search proves fruitless, and, after
all have left the mine, the man rises from his temporary
grave and makes for the woods. The great difficulty
is not to get away, but to keep away. The country
is so vast that they cannot travel far before the
approach of winter, and then, if they have escaped
in company, they have the choice of returning to
prison food or eating one another. They have,
moreover, another difficulty with the natives. In the
Trans-Baikal district, the Buriats are said to hunt
down escaped convicts, and shoot them like vermin;
which is probably explained by what was told me of
the Gilyaks on the Lower Amur, that they receive
three roubles a-head for every escaped convict they
bring to the police, whether dead or alive. The natives
argue thus : "If you shoot a squirrel, you get only his
skin; whereas, if you shoot a varnak” (which is the
nickname they give to convicts), “you get his skin and
his clothing too.” Thus it is very difficult for them
to get out of the country.
There are several reasons, however, which conduce
to their running away. A long-term prisoner, for
instance, condemned to twenty years' labour, makes
his escape from a penal colony, wanders about the
country during the summer months, and, on the ap-
proach of winter, allows himself to be caught. He is
asked for his name, to which he replies that it is Ivan
Nepomnoostchi—that is, “ John Know-nothing." He
is asked where he comes from. He replies that he
entirely forgets. What has been his occupation ? His
memory fails him. He is asked for his papers. He
THE EXILES.
41
says that he has none—and so on. He is therefore
tried as a vagabond—that is, a vagrant without a pass-
port—and is sentenced, say, to five years' hard labour,
for which he inwardly thanks the Court, and goes off,
it may be, to a new prison, having effected a saving of
the sorrows of fifteen years. Should he not play his
game aright, however, and should he be detected, then
his past service goes for nothing; he is most likely
flogged, and sent back to a harder berth than he had
before. Some run away under the influence of drink,
and discover their mistake too late. Again, other
.
reasons which may be supposed to conduce to flight
are—the fear of punishment for new faults committed,
the desire to get back to social and family ties in
Europe, or, in the case of those twice imprisoned, to
ties which they have formed whilst settled in Siberia.
I am disposed to think that the severance of family
and social ties is with many the really hard pinch of
Siberian exile. One lady, who had a convict for her
nurse, told me that she gave her her own clothes, paid
her £i a month, provided her a home in the best house
in the province, to say nothing of sundry perquisites,
and yet she sometimes found her, when alone, in tears ;
and, on asking what was the matter, the answer was-
“Oh, if I only knew something of my friends in Russia!"
She had not learnt to write, her friends were in the
same position, and the difficulty of procuring an
amanuensis, together with uncertainty as to address,
made communication almost impossible; and so she
said she could not tell whether her friends were dead
or alive, or what might be their fate. I recollect, too,
in a prison at Uleaborg, in Finland, finding a woman
who had escaped from exile, of whom I asked how she



42
THROUGH SIBERIA.
liked Siberia ; to which she replied that as regards
the country she had nothing to complain of; but, she
pathetically added, “I did so want to see my mother!”
And to do this she had taken flight, during three years
had traversed more than 2,000 miles, had reached her
old home, and was then retaken!
But nothing has yet been said of the transport of
the exiles. Of old they had to walk all the way, and
the journey and stoppages occupied a long time. The
woman at Uleaborg said she was eight months going
from Petersburg to Tobolsk. In this matter, however,
as in many others, the lot of the banished was much
mitigated during the reign of the late Emperor, espe-
cially after 1871. The introduction of railways and
river steamboats greatly facilitated this. Accordingly,
those in Russia who are condemned to Siberia are now
first gathered to a central prison in Moscow, where
they may be seen entering the city in droves. A very
affecting sight was the first of these droves I saw in
1874. The van consisted of soldiers with fixed bayonets.
Behind them marched the worst of the men prisoners,
with chains on their ankles, the clanking of which as
they moved was most unmusical. Then followed men
without fetters, but chained by the hand to what looked
like a long iron rod; and next after them the women
convicts; and then the most touching part of the
whole-women, not convicts, but wives who had
elected to be banished with their husbands. Then
there were wagons containing children, the old and
infirm, baggage, etc., the rear being brought up by
armed soldiers. As the prisoners moved along the
street, passengers stepped from the pavement to give
them presents. To this the guards who walked at the

THE EXILES.
43
side made no objection, and in this way, in some of the
towns, the prisoners gather, or used to gather, a con-
siderable sum of money; for the woman at Uleaborg
said that the money given to her drove of 156 prisoners,
during their three days' stay in Moscow, amounted to
about 305. each.* More recently, however, a Pole,
who began his walking in 1871, farther east, at Perm,
told me his receipts from the wayside charity of the
people were insignificant.
Being gathered then at Moscow, the prisoners are
sent off in droves of about 700 each by rail to Nijni
Novgorod. This commences in spring, as soon as
the river navigation opens, and two or three parties
go off each week. They began, the year of my visit,
on May 8th. On reaching Nijni Novgorod they are
placed in a large barge built for the purpose, which
carries from 600 to 800, and is tugged by steamer
to Perm.
Hence they are taken twice a week by rail to
Ekaterineburg; 350 on Wednesday, and 500 on
Saturday. Their walking, however, does not yet
begin; for the 200 miles remaining to Tiumen is got
over by conveyances, each of which, drawn by three
horses, carries about six prisoners; and thus they arrive
at the first prison in Siberia proper.
Now begins their distribution. Those who are con-
* M. Andreoli, in the story of his exile, remarks that the Moscow mer-
chants have established a considerable fund for dividing among prisoners
who go to Siberia, and that when a party arrives, the director of the fund
is at once informed as to the number of the prisoners. He then divides
equally among them the means at his disposal, which is never less than
145. or 16s., and is sometimes as much as 30s. or 325. to each person.
Men, women, and children share alike, so that a man with a family gets
substantial help. Both M. Andreoli and Baron Rosen speak also of the
kindness of the Siberian peasants to exiles on their journey,


44
THROUGH SIBERIA.
demned to Western Siberia are assigned to particular
towns or villages, whither they are sent by water, if
possible, or, if not, on foot. Those, however, who are
condemned to Eastern Siberia are placed in another
barge, and taken on the Tura, Tobol, Irtish, Obi, and
the Tom, to Tomsk, whence their walking eastward
begins. When not hindered by accidental causes, they
usually rest one day and walk two, marching some-
times twenty miles or more a day. Temporary prisons
called étapes are erected along the road to receive
them for the night, and in the towns are larger build-
ings called perisylnie prisons, in which they may rest,
if necessary, a longer time, and where there are hos-
pitals, medical attendants, etc. Thus they go on day
after day, week after week, month after month, to
their destined place or prison, to Irkutsk, to Yakutsk,
to Chita, or, if perchance they are destined to Sakhalin,
they continue to Stretinsk on the Shilka, thence by
steam on the river Amur to Nikolaefsk, and so by
ship to the island. Two years since, however, the
Russian Government adopted a new and better plan
with prisoners intended for Sakhalin, and, instead of
sending them across Asia, shipped them from Odessa,
viâ the Suez Canal, to the Pacific direct. A large
merchant steamer, the Nijni Novgorod, was employed
for the purpose, sailing under the Government flag,
which made the passage in about two months, the
prisoners arriving in excellent health, and without one
death on the passage.
I mention this fact the more readily as I heard it in
the Admiral's house at Vladivostock, where the ship
arrived a week or two before I did, and where it was
said that one of the Japanese newspapers had copied

THE EXILES.
45
a
from an English paper to the effect that half the pri-
soners had died on the passage, and that the rest were
in a terribly sick condition. As an Englishman I was
called to account for this, and I found that the minds
of some of my Russian friends were very sore with the
editors of English newspapers, by reason of alleged
misrepresentations received at their hands. They
complained, moreover, that whereas some of the news-
papers were ready enough to publish against the
Russians all they knew that was bad, they were slow
to acknowledge the good, and were not always ready
to recall what had been said, even when proved to
have been false. Not having the facts before me, I
could only put in a plea regarding the desire of English
journals to be first in the field with news, and the
consequent rapid manner in which editorial work has
to be done. Knowing something of an editor's diffi-
culties, I felt justified in expressing the hope that
there had been no intentional departure from fairness,
uprightness, and integrity. I am not sure, however,
that I should have been ready with an answer had I
known how the case really stood. *
* On reaching England I was referred to what had appeared in the
Daily Telegraph, first, on June 2nd, under the heading, “Reign of Terror
in Russia," where it was stated that “a large number of convicts are about
to be despatched to Sakhalin from Odessa, the service which provides
for the ordinary transportation of criminals to Siberia being already over-
taxed.” Again, on July 28th, under the same heading appeared half a
column of large print, speaking of “the appalling evidence of Russian
barbarity” which their “own correspondent” had obtained. The corre-
spondent informant visited the ship, and observed to the officer in com-
mand that the prisoners so badly provided for would never survive the
passage, to which the Russian officer was said to have replied, “Well, so
much the better for all parties if they do not,” and so on. On the next
day, under the heading “Russian Barbarities,” it appeared that Mr.
Joseph Cowen asked in Parliament whether the Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs had received information that 700 persons, mostly men

46
THROUGH SIBERIA.
I have thus described the transport of ordinary exiles
to Siberia. There is another category of prisoners-
arch-heretics in political or revolutionary affairs, Nihilists,
etc., of whom the authorities wish to take special care,
who are not sent with the common herd, but are indi-
vidually placed between two gendarmes, and sent off
to travel alone direct to their destination. I am of
opinion that the popular notion as to their numbers is
exaggerated, and that they are much fewer than is
commonly supposed. I shall offer my reasons for
thinking thus later on. These persons, while travelling,
are never allowed, under any pretence, to be out of
sight of their keepers, who are charged to allow no
one to speak to them. This, however, is not always
carried out to the letter; for a friend of mine, coming
one day to a swollen river in Siberia, near Omsk,
where a gendarme was also waiting with a young
lady prisoner of seventeen, was allowed to speak to
her, and she told him that since she left Petersburg,
and women of education, had been packed in the hold of a small ship
-(the Daily Telegraph had described it the same day as a man-of-war
of 4,000 tons)—that 250 had died on board, and 150 were landed in a
dying state, etc. Most of this appeared in large print, and attention was
called thereto. But by August 5th a change had come over the scene,
and all or nearly all the foregoing was found to be untrue; and then,
in their smallest print, simply headed “Reuter's Telegram,” the Daily
Telegraph informed its readers in six lines that "the Novoe Vremya of
August 4th states that the steamer Nijni Novgorod arrived at Nagasaki
on Friday last, and that the convicts were well in health.” Now here
would appear to have been ample room for, if not an apology, yet an
expression of regret that the Russians had been so very much misrepre-
sented; but, if such appeared, it has escaped me. On August 9th, the
Russian journals are alluded to as joining in a chorus of indignation
against Messrs. Cowen and Mundella for their motion in Parliament, but
nothing is recalled of what had been said. I know not how the foregoing
extracts may strike the reader, but the perusal of them did not cause me
to plume myself on the score of English fairness and our supposed love
of justice.

THE EXILES.
47
a distance of 1,700 miles, she had not once had a
gendarme out of her presence.
When there are
several prisoners of this character travelling in a
manner together, they are kept separate, and are not
allowed to speak to each other. But even this cannot
always be enforced; for not long before my arrival at
Tiumen a batch of about ten such persons had passed.
On arriving at Ekaterineburg, a separate carriage was
taken for each ; but when they came at Tiumen to the
riverside, standing and waiting for the steamer, they
were able to snatch a few moments for conversing
together. I know of another instance, in which a
young woman had been suspected of a political offence,
and been warned by the authorities to desist; but, not
profiting by the warning, she was arrested, sent off
with a gendarme, and on her way met a gentleman
whom she asked to convey a letter to her friends.
This of course was against the gendarme's orders, but,
on being assured that the letter should be only of a
private nature, and three roubles being put into his
hand, he allowed it to be written and taken. This
was in European Russia. Further east they become
still more lax.
There is yet a third case, in which exiles are per-
mitted to journey by themselves like ordinary travellers.
We met a lady who was forced to quit Petersburg at
twenty-four hours' notice; but owing to her position, or
through interest, she was allowed to travel alone; and
in this manner, by reason of illness on the way, during
which her money was stolen, she was a twelvemonth
reaching her location in Eastern Siberia. This, how-
ever, was the only case we met with of an exile travel-
ling privately, and I presume similar cases are very


48
THROUGH SIBERIA.
exceptional. Whilst the exiles are on the march, and,
in certain cases, whilst they are living like colonists,
they receive clothing and an allowance for food, either
in money or in kind; but this subject will be best
treated under the description of prisons, to which sub-
sequent chapters will be devoted.

ದ
CHAPTER V.
Etter
FROM TIUMEN TO TOBOLSK.
General remarks on Siberia.-Limits.-Area.- Temperature. -- Divisions.
--Roads.-Ethnography.---Language. - Posting to Tobolsk.-Floods.
--Spring roads.— Villages of Tatars. -Their history.-Characteristics.
-Costumes.-Occupation.-Worship.-Language.
B
ETWEEN Ekaterineburg and Tiumen, as already
intimated, the traveller passes into Siberia -
concerning which country it may be well here to make
some general observations, with a view to the better
understanding of future chapters. The western bound-
ary of this immense region runs from the Arctic Ocean
along the chain of the Northern Urals to a point in
about the same latitude as Lake Onega ; then, leaving
the mountains a little to the left, it comes down in a
tolerably straight line to a point midway between the
Sea of Aral and Lake Balkash ; thence it turns east-
ward to and along the northern shore of the lake, and,
going further east
, joins the Altai Mountains. All
Russia lying to the west and south of this line is
either in Europe or in Asia ; all lying to the east of
it is Siberia, the length and breadth of which are
the same as of Russia in Asia ; whilst its area, as
given in recent Russian statistics, is 4,750,000 square
miles, or more than three thousand millions of acres
(3,185,510,900), of which nearly one-fifth is arable.
VOL. I.
4

50
THROUGH SIBERIA.
The river Yenesei (roughly speaking) divides the
country into east and west, the surface of the western
portion being almost entirely flat, whilst the eastern
portion, especially towards the Pacific, is mountainous.
Siberia extends over nearly 40 degrees of latitude,
and in climate ranges from arctic to semi-tropical. In
passing through the country from west to east, from
the end of May to the beginning of October, between
the 50th and 57th parallels, we found the temperature
much the same as during the same period in England.
When steaming on the Obi, at the beginning of June,
on the 62nd parallel, my minimum thermometer fell
during the night as low as 35º Fahrenheit, but rose
by 9 o'clock to 75°. English winter clothing, there-
fore, by day was not too warm.
Again, at Vladivo-
stock, lying on the 43rd parallel, the heat towards the
end of September was not too great for clothing suited
to an English summer. All through the journey, how-
ever, when sleeping in the tarantass, it was sufficiently
cold in the early morning, whatever might be the heat
of the day, to make an ulster coat acceptable.
The political divisions of the country are two vice-
royalties, called respectively Western and Eastern
Siberia. Each of these is divided into “governments
and “ oblasts.”*
* I am not clearly informed as to the exact difference between a govern-
ment and an oblast, but I am under the impression that an oblast (which
means a “province”) is a territory often newly acquired and under martial
law, whereas, in a “government,” things have settled down, and the civil and
military organizations are under separate control. The word “oblasts” is
sometimes translated “territories”; their relation to “governments” being
similar to the relation between “Territories” and “States” in America.
The oblasts in Siberia are Akmolinsk and Semipolatinsk in the west, and
Yakutsk and the Sea Coast in the east; but, to avoid confusion, we will
speak of them all as governments or provinces. Each province has its
capital, which ranks as a “government” town, and each uyezd has like-

FROM TIUMEN TO TOBOLSK.
51
The means of communication in Siberia are more
ample than a foreigner might suppose.
There are,
indeed, no railways; but when the line, now in course
of construction, from Ekaterineburg to Tiumen is
finished, the English traveller will be able to go by
steam from Charing Cross to Tomsk, a distance of
5,000 miles, and further east than Ceylon. As it is
now, when Tiumen is reached, river communication
becomes possible with each of the four capitals of
Western Siberia. Again, the Amur presents a water
passage inland from the Pacific, by which Nikolaefsk,
Blagovestchensk, and almost Chita, may be reached; and
now that Captain Wiggins has led the way through the
Kara Gates, and Professor Nordenskjold has followed
on to Behring's Strait, Russia may congratulate herself
on having for the commerce of Siberia three additional
outlets—the Obi, the Yenesei, and the Lena—to both
Europe and Japan.
Again, there is the communication by roads, which
is the more important on account of the many months
the rivers are frozen over. There are two post roads
by which Siberia is entered from the west; one through
Orenburg, which is little used, and the other through
Ekaterineburg to Tiumen. There is also a third road,
wise its principal town. Each province is subdivided into districts, called
uyezds; uyezds into vollosts; and vollosts into villages, called selo, if with
a church, or derevnia if without. In the villages the chief man is called
a starosta; in the vollosts a zasidatil. Over each uyezd commonly presides
an ispravnik; over each province a governor; and over each vice-royalty
a governor-general. Western Siberia is divided into four provinces,
namely: Tobolsk, Tomsk, and Semipolatinsk, each of which has a capital,
bearing the name of the province; and Akmolinsk, which has Omsk for
its capital. Eastern Siberia is divided into six provinces : Irkutsk and
Yakutsk, with capitals of the same names; and Yeneseisk, Trans-Baikal,
Amur, and Sea Coast (or Maritime), with capitals named Krasnoiarsk,
Chita, Blagovestchensk, and Nikolaefsk.

52
THROUGH SIBERIA.
not much used, which crosses the Urals further north,
and connects Veliki Ustiug, on the Northern Dwina,
with Irbit. The high road to China leaves Tiumen
in an easterly direction to Omsk, where the routes from
Orenburg, Semipolatinsk, and Central Asia converge.
The main road goes east to Tomsk, where it is joined
by roads on the north from Narym, and on the south
from Barnaul ; it then continues eastward to Kras-
noiarsk, where it is joined by roads, on the north from
Yeneseisk, and on the south from Minusinsk. After
this it takes a south-easterly direction to Irkutsk,
whence there go two ways-one to the north-east,
to Yakutsk, and so on to Kamchatka ; the other, and
principal one, to the south-east and round the base of
Lake Baikal to Verchne Udinsk. Here it divides into
two, that to the right leading to Kiakhta and China ;
that to the left running east, through Chita to Stretinsk.
Thence the traveller proceeds on the Shilka and Amur
-by boat in summer, and on the ice in winter—past
Blagovestchensk to Khabarovka, whence, to the left, he
continues on the Amur to Nikolaefsk, or he turns to
the right up the Ussuri and the Sungacha to Vladi-
vostock. Along all these roads there is postal and,
except towards Yakutsk, telegraphic communication
also.
An ethnographical map of Siberia, coloured according
to the area which is occupied by its various nationalities,
reveals the fact that only a very small portion of the
country is inhabited by Russians. * In fact, a narrow
strip of country suffices to show their habitat, if drawn
* The total population, Russian and aboriginal, according to the Journal
de St. Petersbourg, August 7th, 1881, quoting the most recent statistics,
numbers 1,388,000 souls ; but I am not sure whether “souls” may not mean
males only, as it sometimes does in Russia. They are divided among

FROM TIUMEN TO TOBOLSK.
53
on either side of the great land and water highways,
and somewhat widened in the mining districts of the
Yeneseisk and Tomsk governments; and as the abo-
rigines do not generally follow agriculture, it will be
inferred that those parts of the land which are under
cultivation lie within this narrow strip. The same
observation will also indicate that, whilst the language
of the towns and the highways is Russian, a knowledge
of other tongues is needed for extensive intercourse
with the natives.
Having made these general remarks concerning
Siberia, we proceed on our journey from Tiumen to
Tobolsk, en route for Tomsk, which is best reached in
summer by river, steaming for 1,800 miles, the post
road from Tiumen to Tomsk passing through Omsk,
or by a somewhat nearer way, leaving Omsk to the
south, and then crossing the Barabinsky steppe.
We arrived at Tiumen on Thursday, the 29th May,
bringing with us two loads of luggage, and leaving the
rest to follow by "goods”” transport. There was steam
communication between Tiumen and Tobolsk twice a
week, the passage occupying a day and a half; but the
steamer that went on to Tomsk was to leave on the
following Monday, by which time the remaining luggage
could not arrive. It became, therefore, a question
whether we should wait for it or go before, in the hope
that, whilst we were making détours, our books might
overtake us. My Finnish friend, Miss Alba Hellman,
had sent me some pamphlets for distribution amongst
a colony of Finns and others from the Baltic provinces,
the provinces as follows: Tobolsk, 463,000 ; Tomsk, 324,000; Irkutsk,
165,000 ; Yeneseisk, 164,000 ; Trans-Baikal, 141,000 ; Amur, 3,000 ; Sea
Coast, 13,000; and Yakutsk, 112,000. This says nothing of Akmolinsk
and Semipolatinsk.

54
THROUGH SIBERIA. .
66
numbering about 1,800, and located at Ruschkova, not
far from the city of Omsk. We at first thought, there-
fore, to make this détour, and then, instead of returning
to Tiumen, to go
across country” to Tobolsk, and
thus see the prisons, and wait for the next steamer but
one, in which we hoped all our luggage might be for-
warded; but this plan our friends at Tiumen condemned.
The question then remained, How could we see Tobolsk?
The steamer in passing would stay but for an hour or
two, and another boat would not follow for a week.
The only alternative was to drive. But terrible
accounts were given of the roads, which had not yet
dried after the breaking up of the frost. Not to see
Tobolsk, however, was out of the question, and we
therefore determined to make the attempt by road,
hoping to reach the city on Saturday, see the prisons
on Monday, and take steamer the following day.
Accordingly, on Friday night, late, we left Tiumen
in two tarantasses, with three horses to each. At the
first station the post-master gave us warning that the
roads were very bad, and that only one or two travellers
had passed that way since the waters had subsided.
On coming to the first river, it was found to be unap-
proachable at the usual place of embarkation. A ferry-
boat had, therefore, to be brought to us, some six miles
out of the way, and so we were kept waiting five hours.
Whilst thus delayed, report said that the post-master
kept hardly half the men required by his contract for
working the ferry, and, further, that the men were
sometimes extortionate. When, therefore we had rowed
six miles down the stream to the landing-place, and
the post-master could give no satisfactory reason why
we had been thus kept, we thought it right, for the

FROM TIUMEN TO TOBOLSK.
55
benefit of future travellers, to enter in his “book for
complaints,” bearing the Government seal, our regrets
that his neglect had detained us five hours.
About eleven o'clock the same night another episode
occurred, which illustrates the pleasures of spring tra-
velling in Siberia. The post-master gave us, what we
never had before or after,—two outriders to convey us
over a bad place on the road. Towards midnight we
a
slept, when, being awakened by repeated shouting,
,
I peeped out and saw that we were plunging among
willows and mire. The outriders were holding up
the tarantass to keep it from toppling over. Then
came more shouting, with desperate jerking and pulling
of the horses, which were up to their knees in bog, till
solid ground was gained, and all stopped for breath,
The next thing was to get the luggage tarantass
through. We heard in the distance a crash, and lo!
one of the shafts was broken. A horseman went back
to the village for a new one, but in vain, and the old
one was repaired. Whilst waiting we had time to
look around. It was not yet morning, but the rays
of the sun, which in northern countries are seen above
the horizon all the night through at this time of the
year, shed sufficient light on our darkness to give a
weird appearance to all that was visible.
Silence was broken only by the incessant croaking
of frogs, and by the men, who were relating to each
other how they had got through. One had slipped
into water up to his waist. The temperature was
anything but warm ; but, poor fellows! they seemed
to regard things as in their normal condition, and
uttered repeated thanks when they were dismissed
with a gratuity of a few extra kopecks. Further on

56
THROUGH SIBERIA.
we had to wade through water above the axletrees,
and during the last stage to cross five streams, the
last of which was the Irtish. Tobolsk at length was
reached, but not until Sunday night, and after a journey
of forty-eight hours instead of twenty, as we expected.
By posting from Tiumen to Tobolsk, we purchased
experience of early summer roads; and, in so doing,
saw things which I should be sorry to have missed.
பாவம்
TATARS OF KASAN.
Among these were several villages peopled exclusively
by Siberian Tatars. These people differ in one im-
portant respect from most of the other nations living
with the Russians in Siberia, in that they have a
history, and can look back to great princes who have
made a name for themselves in the annals of the world.
They are remnants of those who, in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, in the days of Genghis Khan and
his descendants, overran Northern Asia, and wrested

FROM TIUMEN TO TOBOLSK.
57
a
the land from its aboriginal inhabitants. They pushed
their conquests to the Volga, and Serai, on that river,
became the capital where their great Khans (known as
the Khans of the Golden Horde) lived and reigned,
and whence they long proved formidable antagonists
to the Russians. At length came their disruption.
Kasan was founded in the fifteenth century, and was
the capital of a small khanate. A second khanate was
that of Astrakhan, a third that of Krim, a fourth that
of Tiumen—all fragments of the main horde which
had collapsed in the fifteenth century. Towards the
close of the sixteenth century, the Russians took from
the Tatars Kasan and all else west of the Urals, and
those on the east of the mountains, in the region of
the Irtish, were afterwards subjugated by Yermak
and his followers. Tatar villages may still be found
between Kasan and Tobolsk, beyond which these peo-
ple inhabit a district stretching south to the Kirghese
hordes, and south-east as far as the Altai Mountains,
and so joining the territory west of Irkutsk peopled by
the Buriats. * The Tatars live among and are subject
to their Russian conquerors ; but the two races do not
blend-one race being Christian, the other Moham-
medan. The traveller is reminded of this by noticing
* Mr. Wahl, in his “Land of the Czar,” which contains much valuable
ethnographical information, gives the number of the Siberian Tatars of
the governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk at 40,000. Dr. Latham also, in
his “Native Races of the Russian Empire,” traces their affinities with
many peoples both in Europe and Asia, all of whom he classifies under
the general name of Turks, and points out that the area covered by the
Turkish stock is perhaps larger than that of any other race in the world.
The general name of Turks includes the Tatars of Kasan, of Siberia,
the Caucasus, and several other places ; also the Kirghese, Yakutes, and
many smaller tribes, some of which will hereafter be referred to under
the respective provinces which they inhabit. The Turkish stock are, as
to their religion, Christians, Pagans, and Mohammedans : Christians

58
THROUGH SIBERIA.
that the Tatars, when on a journey, carry with them
their wooden basins, for they will not drink from a
vessel used by Russians; and so, in some parts, Russians
will not drink from Tatar cups, though this exclusiveness
wears away where Russians are many and Tatars are
few. The Tatars have a good physique : dark eyes,
swarthy skin, black hair, and high cheek-bones. Their
strength of body is such as to make them excellent
workmen, as may be seen by the enormous burdens
they carry in loading vessels at Nijni Novgorod and
Kasan. They are much liked in the capitals as coach-
men, for they understand horses well. I heard good
accounts of them likewise as servants in the hotel at
Petersburg. They are not drunken, and are therefore
valuable as waiters. Their women are supposed to wear
veils, and do so in the cities. In the villages they con-
tent themselves with shawls, which are drawn nearly over
the face when a stranger approaches. Men and boys,
whether in the house or abroad, wear a small skull-cap,
sometimes richly embroidered ; and on high days some
are seen with white turbans. These and their long
cassock-like coats give the men a decidedly oriental
appearance. Both men and women wear top-boots,
and generally goloshes over them, so that, on entering
the house or the mosque, they have only to slip off
the goloshes to secure clean shoes. *
where they have been won over by the Russians to the Greek Church ;
Pagans where they have not been reached even by Mohammedanism,
but have remained in the darkness of aboriginal Shamanism, as is still
the case with a few of the Yakute Turks; and Mohammedans, which is
the case for the most part with those of the country through which we
passed.
* The natural home of the Turk or the Tatar is the steppe, where
they dwell in tents, and are herdsmen, horsemen, and in some cases
camel-drivers. Those we passed gain their livelihood by agriculture, by

FROM TIUMEN TO TOBOLSK.
59
In the Tatar villages the green domes and pinnacles
of the Russian church, surmounted with the cross, were
of course wanting ; and in their places were found
Mohammedan mosques, with minarets surmounted
with the crescent. These latter reminded one of the
shingled steeples of English village churches. Our
first sight of Tatar worship was on the Volga, on
board the steamer at sunset. Three Tatars approached
the paddle-box, on a clean part of which they spread a
small carpet. Leaving their goloshes on the deck,
they knelt on the carpet, bowed their heads to the
ground, and, rubbing their hands as if washing,
chanted their prayers. They then appeared to pray
silently in deepest reverence with closed eyes, and as if
in total oblivion that a crowd was looking on. We
were told that the pious pray thus at least three times
a day, wherever they may be.
At Kasan we had an
opportunity of seeing their congregational worship in a
Tatar mosque. Permission was given us to enter, if at
the bottom of the stairs we would take off our goloshes,
or, having none, our boots. The Mohammedan reason
for this practice seemed to be that they did not wish to
bring into the place anything soiled or unclean.
The building inside had a square room, with the
barest of bare white walls, without attempt at orna-
ment of any sort or kind. The only piece of furniture
even was a high wooden rostrum approached by stairs,
from which exhortations are delivered on Fridays.
There were no chairs or benches, or any resemblance
to an altar or table. Those who assembled early sat
on the ground with their legs beneath them, apparently

the breeding of cattle, and by the transport of goods. Their houses were
neat and cleanly, and compared favourably with those of the Russians.

60
THROUGH SIBERIA.
for private prayer, reading, and meditation ; but upon
some one beginning to murmur in a low strain, all
jumped up, ran to the front, and arranged themselves
in ranks. They commenced their prayers by placing
the thumb into or on the lower part of the ears, with
the palms of the hands outwards. Then they stood,
bowed, knelt, and then lowered the head to the
ground. This is done a certain number of times,
according to the hour of the day, twice at early
morning, and increasing till five or more at the last
of the five daily services. At the conclusion of prayer
they passed their hands over their faces. All these
external acts of devotion were done by each rank with
the utmost precision, and the histrionic effect, as some
would call it, was excellent ; only that to one in the
rear of four or five ranks of men, of each of whom
nothing could be seen but the soles of their feet and
the seats of their trousers, the spectacle was somewhat
grotesque.
In the less demonstrative parts of the
service, however, there was not an eye that wandered,
with the single exception of a man who bestowed a
glance on us strangers; nor a man who did not behave
in a manner becoming the occupation in which he was
engaged. Some few who came in late did not join
those whose service had begun, but commenced a
separate one for themselves.
The floor was covered with clean matting, on which
lay here and there a common rosary made of date-
stones, ninety-nine in number, and divided by beads
into three sections.
The Tatars objected to give us a translation in
Russian of the prayers they said thereon. We heard
elsewhere that they have ninety-nine names of God ;

FROM TIUMEN TO TOBOLSK.
61
-
and a Tatar prisoner-apparently a gentleman—told
me that they had a separate prayer for each bead.
The uneducated, however, do not know these many
names of the Deity. On the following day we had the
opportunity of asking a monk concerning the Russian
rosary, which differs from both the Mohammedan and
the Roman. *
The Tatars can read the Scriptures in Turkish, and
are apparently not indisposed to do so, provided it does
not attract attention. A colporteur at Moscow told me
that he sold fifty-seven copies to Tatars in the villages
between Kasan and Perm, though they became angry in
* The mention of all three invites a short study in “comparative
religions,” which may be briefly made as follows :—The complete Roman
rosary consists of 150 beads on a string, divided into 15 decades, between
each of which is a large or distinctive bead. Where the two ends join
there are 5 other beads attached, and at the loose end a crucifix. It is
used thus :-On the crucifix is repeated the Creed ; on the first bead the
Lord's Prayer; on each of the next three the “Hail, Mary!” and on the
fifth bead the Lord's Prayer. This is by way of introduction. Then on
each of the first 10 beads are said these words: “Hail, Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee! Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is
the fruit of thy womb,- Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us
sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” When this has been
said ten times, the “ Pater Noster” is said on the dividing bead, and this
is continued till 150 prayers have been offered to the Virgin, and 15 to
“our Father," and then the odd beads are used in inverse order for a
conclusion, as before for an introduction.
The Russian rosary looks smaller, but has also certain beads larger, or
at least distinguishable from the others. It is not worn or used by ordinary
members of the Russian Church, but only by monks and nuns. I was told
by a nun at Moscow that they say on each bead,“ May Jesus Christ have
mercy on sinners !” but a monk at Kasan said (what is not irreconcilable
with the former) that on each ordinary bead they say, “Lord God of heaven
and Jesus Christ, have mercy upon us”; and on the large and distinctive
bead they say a prayer either to Jesus Christ or the Virgin, the latter
beginning something to this effect : “Thou mighty Mary, hear our prayers,
and take away from thine unworthy servants all sin," etc. Lastly, we were
told that the Mohammedan continues to say on his rosary, “ There is but
one God, and Mohammed is His prophet"; and that if they do not know
the ninety-nine names of God they merely count the beads.
"

62
THROUGH SIBERIA.
the larger towns if he attempted openly to sell them in
the Tatar quarter. I took with me a few Turkish
gospels, and among the prisoners at Barnaul found
three Tatars, one of whom could read. As we re-
passed the door of their room, all three were seen sitting
with their legs beneath them, the two illiterate ones
listening to their scholarly friend with eager attention.
We met several of this race in prison and elsewhere, as
we proceeded onwards, but I do not remember passing
through whole villages of Tatars after we left the
district of Tobolsk. Hence we were the more glad
not to have missed these.

اس سے
لر -
سری
IA
گے۔
THE COUNTY PRISON AT ÅBO.
l'age 63.


CHAPTER VI.
SIBERIAN PRISONS.

Old Finnish prisons.-Model Petersburg prison.—Officers.-Contraband
importations.-Russian prisons of six kinds.--Siberian prisons of
three kinds : their number, location, structure, furniture.-Prisoners :
their classification.-Kansk statistics.--Method of trial.--Remands.
---Exchanging names and punishments.
-
THE
HE prisons of Russia occupy a position midway
between the dungeons of the Middle Ages and
the modern cellular abodes for criminals of the nine-
teenth century. A few of them, however, approach
very near these extremes on either side. With regard to
Finland, it is hardly fair to hold the Russian Govern-
ment responsible for the condition of its prison affairs,
because, although the Emperor is Grand Duke of that
country, he allows these liege subjects to make their own
laws. Nevertheless, I can never forget the vividness
with which my boyhood's reading came back to me of
Robin Hood and the dungeons of Nottingham Castle,
when I first visited the old prisons of Åbo and Wiborg.
The descent by steps with candles to prisoners in the
lower rooms, the dim light entering by windows in
walls ten feet thick, the clanking of chains, the like to
which I have seen in no other country except perhaps
Mongolia—these things spoke more eloquently than a
visit to the former prison of Sir Walter Raleigh, or
even the unused Ratisbon chamber for the torture of

64
THROUGH SIBERIA.
Protestant heretics; and that because these northern
prisons were inhabited by living men. The majority
of the Finnish prisons, however, and certainly all the
new ones, are better than the two I have mentioned ;
though, unless a change has taken place since 1876,
the Finns still have and use sets of irons nearly ten
times the weight of any others I have seen in Europe.
To pass to the other extreme. One sees in Peters-
burg a brand-new prison, which may be supposed to
represent the very beau ideal of what a house of
detention ought to be.
It is only right to say, however, before going further,
that the condition of prisons and criminals in Russia
is in a transitional state. The authorities have seen
the necessity for reforms for at least 20 years, and
great pains have been taken that these reforms should
be made judiciously and effectively. Deputies have
been sent to visit the prisons of other countries and
report thereon; a commission has been appointed to
receive the reports, to consider and debate, and so
thoroughly to "shed upon the question the light of
science.” All this has been done, and the reforms
are yearly expected to take place, pecuniary reasons
alone delaying the change for the better. Meanwhile
a model prison has been built in the capital, and those
who wish to see what Russia can do should visit this
house of detention for persons awaiting their trial. It
is built in the shape of a right angle, having two long
corridors four storeys high. There are 285 separate
cells for men, 32 for women, others for confinement
in common, as well as places for associated and solitary
exercise. Into cell No. 227 the late Emperor once
entered, of which they keep up the remembrance by
)

SIBERIAN PRISONS.
65
a
allowing no one to be confined therein. No expense
appears to have been spared in building the prison.
The floors are of asphalte, and the door of each cell is
of solid oak. Within are iron bedsteads, made to fold
and hook up neatly against the wall. The tables and
seats are of sheet iron, with hinges; and, both within
the cells and without, every article and fitting of brass
is rubbed to a high degree of polish. The officers
move about noiselessly in felt shoes, so that they can
unexpectedly and at any moment observe a prisoner
through the wire-covered inspection-holes. In the
infirmary are 10 cells for those who are to be kept
apart, and 32 beds for those who live in common.
There is likewise a room in which 40 men may mingle
by day, and a general sleeping apartment with 36 bed-
steads, across each of which wire is stretched, making
for the prisoner a hard but clean, and, I should imagine,
not uncomfortable bed. There is also a room for book-
binding, where a few can work.
The building contains three places of worship, for
Russians, Roman Catholics, and Protestants respec-
tively, the Russian having a very handsome ikonostasis
and chandelier ; and I was pleased to find that, if a man
can read, he has always a New Testament in his cell, and
further that, by asking, he can obtain from the library
other books in addition. This is as it should be.
In the female division we found for warders
superior-looking young women dressed in uniform, the
insignia of office on their collars being a pair of crossed
keys. Some of the women prisoners, as with the
men, are placed together in common, and in some
cases they have their choice of solitary or social life.
This is true in a sense other than that which first
5


a


玉
​VOL. I,
MEX
LIBRARY

66
THROUGH SIBERIA.
appears; for one lady prisoner, a criminal condemned
to Siberia, was about to take to herself a husband
before proceeding thither, and the happy event was to
be celebrated in the prison on the morning after my
visit. Peeping through the food aperture of one of the
doors was the face of a pretty young woman, a political
prisoner, in whose possession had been found suspicious
books. There was a women's reception-room, having
a bath warmed by gas; but as it was found to cost
about five shillings to heat, it is not surprising that this
particular bath is seldom used.
Dark cells were shown to us, in which a prisoner
may not be put for more than six successive days.
The place where prisoners were allowed to converse
with their friends was dark, which is not usual ; and I
observed in it no place for an officer to sit between the
parties whilst they were speaking.
The attempts of the authorities to keep the prisoners
from intercourse with one another, and with the outer
world, do not yet appear to be perfectly successful.
A
B
CD
С
E
ce
The Polish prisoners in Warsaw, according to M.
Andreoli, had a plan by which they could pass news in
a couple of hours to all the prisoners in the fortress.
A square was divided into 25 spaces for the 25 letters

SIBERIAN PRISONS.
67
of the Polish alphabet. One knock was understood
to mean A, two knocks B, and so on ; or, again, these
signals might be changed by one knock, signifying v,
and so forth ; this dumb speech being kept up by tap-
ping on the walls. This, however, is only one method.
In the chapel of the model prison at Petersburg
are 24 boxes for prisoners whom they wish to keep
from holding communication with each other, even by a
look. But the partitions which separate them are only
of wood, and I observed that those I entered had been
furtively bored with small holes, through which con-
versation could be held. Again, the prisoners are
allowed to receive food from their friends outside, and,
although it is first examined by the officials, the friends
manage sometimes to introduce for the prisoners some
strange culinary concoctions. There were brought to
a man, for instance, one day 2 30 roubles in a basin of
buttermilk. Again, another man was frequently found
the worse for drink in his cell. Milk was regularly
brought to him, and duly tasted by the authorities ;
but still the man got drunk. At last they discovered
that the jug in which the milk was brought had a false
bottom with an aperture in the handle, and so the
mystery was solved. What will not topers do to
procure drink? On arriving at Werchne Udinsk, we
heard that a drunken woman had just been detected
in trying to smuggle spirits into the prison in a pig's
entrails!
I saw quite a collection of contraband articles at
Petersburg, which had been found in the possession of
prisoners. Among them were knives (one ingeniously
made from a steel pen), playing cards, and dominoes-
all of them of original and unique, if not of artistic,
a
a

68
THROUGH SIBERIA.
character ; also a file, for which a prisoner had given
a warder 50 shillings. The man, too, had made busy
use of his purchase. He set his mind upon breaking
loose, and thought to file through a bar of iron an inch
or more thick that confined him. But he could do his
work only during the time that the warders were at
dinner and at supper, and then not too loudly, giving
200 strokes of the file at dinner and 100 at supper
time. He went on thus for three months, and then
managed to break the iron. But he was detected, and
condemned to Siberia, whither he had already been
sent before, and whence he had managed to escape.
There he has probably by this time found less costly
and well-built prisons from which to break loose.
Before speaking, however, of the prisons of Siberia, it
may be well to observe that in European Russia there
are at least six various kinds of prisons. There is, first,
the fortress—such as that at Schlüsselburg, in which
it is generally supposed are confined
grave
offenders,
especially the political and revolutionary. I have not
visited one of these. Next there are military prisons,
in which severity of discipline is said to be similar to
that of the fortress. Then there are hard-labour prisons,
in which long-term convicts work out their sentences.
There are also houses of correction, where short-term
prisoners do the same; likewise houses of detention,
in which persons are kept awaiting their trial. I heard
also of “houses of industry,” which, unless I am mis-
taken, are somewhat like our reformatories; and, lastly,
there are buildings in which prisoners on their march
to distant places stay temporarily—some only for a few
days, others for weeks. These nice distinctions, how-
ever, can be drawn only in large towns in European
a

SIBERIAN PRISONS.
69
Russia. In Siberia, especially in small towns, the same
building serves for all classes of prisoners, the best
arrangement practicable being made for special cases.
Speaking generally, and from my own observation
rather than from accurate information upon the subject,
there appeared to me to be in Siberia three classes of
buildings which the English would call by the general
name of prisons. There is, first, the étape, in which
exiles on the march rest for a night or two; next, the
perisylnie prison, in which, for various reasons, exiles
may have to wait—it may be during the winter, or until
the ice be broken up on the rivers ; and, thirdly, the
ostrog, which means a stronghold, and is a prison in
general, where a man may be simply confined, work at
a trade, or eat and sleep after working outside in the
fields or mines. I have no statistics of the total
number of prisons of all sorts in Siberia, but suppose
it cannot be less than 300, which may be roughly
computed thus : Nikolaefsk is more than 9,000 versts
from Tiumen, and, supposing that convicts walk 30
versts a day, they would require 300 resting-places
for that route alone. Some parts of the way, it is
true, are traversed in summer by river communication ;
but no notice has been taken in my estimate of off-
lying routes north and south, as, for instance, to
Yakutsk, Barnaul, etc. The expenses, therefore, of
building and keeping in repair this vast number of
prisons must be very considerable.
As to the location of the prisons. The étapes are
found all along the road from Tiumen to the Amur.
There will also be found a prison or lock-up in most of
the principal towns. But of the larger buildings there
is one at Tiumen for the reception of all the ordinary

70
THROUGH SIBERIA.
exiles as they come from Russia, and from which, as
already stated, they are distributed over Siberia. At
Tobolsk are three hard-labour prisons, with about
1,000 convicts, in which prisoners often spend part
of their terms before going further east.
The next
building of similar dimensions is called the Alexan-
dreffsky central prison, about 50 miles from Irkutsk,
where are some 1,500 hard-labour convicts. Continuing
east, there were formerly some large hard-labour
prisons at Chita and Nertchinsk, tidings from which,
in years gone by, have caused many an ear to tingle ;
but since the Russians have gained the Amur, and
many of the mines have passed from Government into
private hands, the great bulk of the convicts have been
sent further east. At Kara, on the Shilka, for instance,
is a large penal colony, where there are upwards of
2,000 convicts living in and about six prisons, the men
being supposed to work in the gold-mines. After
Kara, the next large colony is on the island of Sakhalin,
which represents the utmost bound of Russian penal
life. I have said nothing of the prisons in the pro-
vinces of Akmolinsk and Semipolatinsk, as I did not
go there. There is or was a large prison at Omsk,
through which exiles used formerly to pass; but, now
their route has been changed, it serves only for local
purposes. They have no prisons in these provinces, I
believe, of considerable dimensions.
Some of the larger prisons in Siberia, especially
those of stone, were not originally built for their pre-
sent purpose. There are certain features, however,
about the others which are more or less common
to all. The Siberian prison, like the houses of the
Siberian people, is usually built of logs calked with

SIBERIAN PRISONS.
71
a
one.
moss to keep out the cold. Near the principal build-
ing, but generally detached, are the kitchen, the bath-
house, exercise-yard, stores for provisions, out-houses,
etc., and enclosing the whole is a high palisade of
wooden poles pointed at the top. From the fact that
almost all the new prisons of Europe are built upon
the cellular plan, the detained being kept solitary, it
appears to have been recognised as a principle that
the old method of herding prisoners together is a bad
The same principle would seem to have been
adopted also by Russia, in that the plan of the new
house of detention in the capital is in the main cellular.
In Siberia, however, the old plan continues, and usually
the prisons inside are divided into large rooms or
wards, in each of which the principal feature is an
inclined wooden plane, resembling that of a guard-room
bed, upon which the prisoners sit and lounge by day,
and sleep by night. If the room be square, this divan
or platform is placed against three of the walls, or, if it
be oblong, there may be a passage up the centre, from
which the sleeping places ascend to the walls on either
side; or, lastly, if the room be very large, there are
two platforms meeting like a low gable in the centre
of the room, and two others against the walls. Thus
space is economised, and as many as 40 or 50 men
(once I found 100) are packed in a room. There
are usually a few separate cells for political or special
offenders, and one or two for punishment.
Connected with the large prisons are usually a hos-
pital, one or more chapels, sometimes a school-room,
and a few workshops.
The large rooms or wards have little or no furniture.
Each is provided with an ikon, or sacred picture, and




72
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
sometimes with a shelf on which the inmates may put
their spoons, combs, and other table and toilet requi-
sites with which they provide themselves.
Concerning the prisoners, it has been already inti-
mated that those belonging to the upper classes are
kept apart. There is a further classification in some
of the large prisons according to the crimes committed:
a room for murderers; a second for forgers and utterers
of base money; a third for thieves, and generally two
or three for vagabonds”—that is, not merely for
vagrants in the English sense of the word, but gene-
rally for persons who have run away from supervision,
who have no papers, and can give no good account of
themselves. *
The number of persons in Siberian prisons awaiting
their trial, or the confirmation of their sentences, is
very considerable. This leads me to speak of the
* Some statistics with which we were favoured from Kansk for the
previous year, 1878, give interesting facts, showing the ages of criminals
when they committed their crimes, their education, condition as to
marriage, religion, place of birth, and also their repetition of crimes. It
should be borne in mind, however, that the figures refer only to a small
district of Eastern Siberia, an okrug or circle, 200 miles in diameter,
and with a population of 40,000. They are therefore primarily of local
value, though in their general aspects they are highly suggestive. The
number of criminals was 121 male and 61 female : in all, 182. Of
these there were 31 from 17 to 21 years of age ; 83 from 21 to 33; 45
from 38 to 45; and 33 from 45 to 70. The figures, too, show curiously
enough that up to the age of 33 the proportion of male criminals is largely
in excess of the females, but that after that age this order is reversed, and
the proportion of female prisoners preponderates over that of the males.
Of the entire number, 182, not one is marked “well educated," only 46
could read and write, and 136 could do neither ; 129 out of 182 were
married, leaving 53 widows, bachelors, and spinsters. With respect to
religious profession, they were classified thus: 112 were orthodox Russians,
and 19 of other Christian denominations ; 34 were Jews, and 17 of other
non-Christian religions : 180 were born in the province; 22 had offended
twice, and 3 had done so thrice.

SIBERIAN PRISONS.
73
courts, the judges, and their mode of trial. Since
November 20th, 1860, law reforms were begun in
Petersburg, Moscow, and Odessa, with their respective
districts; and the new method of trial resembles that
of England, with a mixture of certain French elements
and some local introductions from Russia. Under the
new régime in European Russia there are three courts,
namely: those of the Judge of the Peace; the Assizes ;
and the Senate. A Judge of the Peace tries civil cases
involving interests up to £50, and criminal cases in-
volving a year's punishment or less. Appeal from his
decision may be made to a periodical meeting of Judges
of the Peace for the district. At the court of Assizes,
which consists of from three to nine persons with a
president, trial is made by jury. The names of per-
sons liable to serve are put into an urn, from which 36
are drawn by lot. From these the procureur, who is
the public prosecutor, may, without assigning any
reason, strike off eight, and likewise the prisoner's
advocate a greater number, bringing them down to 14.
Then, if this jury decide that the prisoner be guilty, the
opinion is asked of both procureur and advocate as
to what punishment, according to the code, in their
opinion should be inflicted ; after which the president
gives the decision of the court. The Senate is simply
a court of appeal—does not re-try cases, but merely
judges whether or not in the lower court the law has
been rightly administered.
Trial by jury is not yet introduced into Siberia,
but offenders are judged by a tribunal consisting of
odd numbers, of not more than seven nor less than
three. The tribunal is a standing institution, the
members of which are paid according to their grade-




74
THROUGH SIBERIA.
from about £70 to £100 a year. A procureur (who is
an officer of the Government) prosecutes; and a bar-
rister, retained by the prisoner, defends. Witnesses
are called on both sides, and the tribunal decides by a
majority of votes whether the prisoner be guilty or not.
In case of even numbers being present, or of equal
voting, the president has a vote and a half; but should
the president be absent, and there be an even number
for and against the prisoner, then the defendant in this
and all similar cases has the benefit of the doubt.
Should a verdict of guilty be returned, the tribunal
decides the punishment according to the regulation of
the code. In capital or important cases, however, in
Siberia, such as murder, the judgment of the tribunal
must be confirmed by the Governor-General; and
hence, when the vastness of the country is considered,
it will be seen why prisoners sometimes wait so long un-
condemned. Suppose, for instance, a man commits a
murder in a place which happens to be at a distance
from the town where a tribunal sits.
Some one goes
to the authorities, deposes that a murder has been
committed, gives evidence in writing, and the culprit
is arrested. If the culprit can find bail he
free till wanted (in Russia it is enough for this purpose
to deposit, as a guarantee of returning, a certain sum of
money); but if unable to find bail he must go to prison
till he can be sent, suppose, to Nikolaefsk. If it be
winter, it would be too costly—the Amur being frozen
—to send him by horses; he must therefore wait till
the following June for the opening of the navigation.
Then, having proceeded to Nikolaefsk, he is tried,
perhaps within a week, found guilty, and his punish-
ment determined, after which it is necessary that the
a
may remain

SIBERIAN PRISONS.
75
papers concerning his case be sent to the Governor-
General at Irkutsk, a distance, there and back, of 5,000
miles ; and so the prisoner must wait till his sentence
is confirmed. Meanwhile he is supplied with a paper,
which is, I presume, his ticket of indictment. *
Whether, when the case is fully ended, the prisoner
keeps this or a similar paper, I am not quite sure. I am
under the impression that he does, at all events whilst
he is on the road to his destination; and, further, that
these papers serve as capital on which the prisoners
exercise their ingenuity for their mutual convenience.
I mean in this fashion : Ivan Nepomnoostchi has a
ticket condemning him to five years' labour in the coal-
mines of Sakhalin, whilst the ticket of Augustus
Poniatowski condemns him for a similar time to the
gold-mines of Kara. For reasons best known to
themselves, the one prefers country life and a cottage
or prison near a wood, whilst the other inclines to a
residence at the sea-side. So they change their tickets,
their names, and, as far as they can, their beings, and
sometimes manage in this way to effect what they wish.
I have even heard of prisoners inducing those who
are free to exchange places with them, the bargain
being effected of course by money, and carried out
a
* The following is a translation of such a paper, which is divided into
six columns, with a printed heading to each, and filled up as follows :-
1. Surname, patronym, Christian name, and occupation of prisoner.
(Gregory, son of Nicholas M—, a peasant.)
2. Age. (39.)
3. Crime. (Wrong passport.)
4. When and by whose order imprisoned. (On 9 April. Tomsk dis-
trict police.)
5. When the case was tried and how it stands. (Terminated on 4 May,
1879. Now under revision.)
6. Remarks. (He begs it may be quickly ended.)

76
THROUGH SIBERIA.
زر
whilst a gang of several hundreds is marching on to a a
steamer, for instance, where heads are counted, but
where they cannot recognize faces. Goryantchikoff
represents the “changing of names as taking place
in the presence of prisoner witnesses, and when several
of the party are more or less intoxicated, the price
given being sometimes as much as 30 or 40 roubles.
All are bound to secrecy by esoteric law, and as the
man receiving the money generally spends it quickly
in drink and so cannot restore it, he not infrequently
finds, when too late, that he has sold his liberty, or
exchanged a lighter to receive a heavier punishment for
a few glasses of brandy. This is dangerous work,
however, for at some of the jails they take down a
full description of the prisoners, though they do not
usually photograph them, as in England. At Alexan-
dreffsky, for instance, they have a large book, the
pages of which are filled with columns headed as
follows :-Name, age, crime, and punishment; from
whence ; appearance; term of punishment; arrival ;
single or married ; religion ; date of sentence; from
what prison in Russia ; remarks, etc.
I am not sure that I have given all the process by
which they manage the transfer of tickets, but what is
written may perhaps render intelligible the crime
charged upon a roomful of prisoners at Irkutsk, who,
we were told, had been “ changing their names.”
The present state of things, however, as regards
prisons and exiles, must, as already stated, be re-
garded as temporary, since the reforms of 1860 have
been now extended as far as the Urals, and it is only
a question of money when they shall be spread to
Siberia also.

CHAPTER VII.
SIBERIAN PRISONS (continued).
-
Charitable committees.- Prison food.—Clothing.-Work.--Hard labour.
-Exercise.—Amusements.—Privileges.-Intercourse with friends.-
punishments.-Capital punishment.--Corporal punishment.-Irons.
-- Prison discipline.-Flogging.-Exceptional severities.

T
we
HE Russians introduce or allow the introduction
into their prisons of an ameliorating influence,
in the form of local committees, for furthering the
temporal welfare of the prisoners. “You see,” said
to me the president of one of these committees,
have two elements in the government of our prisoners.
The police strive for the letter of the law, whilst we
strive for kindness to the prisoner.” Thus justice and
mercy go hand in hand; and when they happen to fall
out, I fancy that in Siberia, after their easy-going
fashion, mercy not unfrequently wins the day. Whether
all prisons have local committees I do not know; but
we came in contact with the operations of several.
The members take upon themselves to superintend
clothe, and educate the children of prisoners; and in
more than one place we found admirable asylums built
for this purpose. They also lend a helping hand to
prisoners' wives, and at Irkutsk we found they had
supplied the prison with a library. Their exertions,
however, do not stop here ; for they look after and in


78
THROUGH SIBERIA.
some cases improve and augment the prisoners' food.
The Government allows for each prisoner so much
money a day. At Ekaterineburg, for instance, to the
common exiles 10 kopecks; to the upper classes 15
kopecks. At Irkutsk we met an upper-class prisoner who
had 171 kopecks, which he received in money. The
prisoners who remain at Ekaterineburg are allowed 6
kopecks a day. Instead, however, of each spending
his 6 kopecks, the whole is taken and dispensed by
the committee in the purchase for the general caldron
of meat, vegetables, etc. ; and they somehow manage
out of threehalfpence a head to give to each prisoner
two dishes of food. Whether the committee appeal to
the public for funds I know not. At Tomsk we heard
that each director of the prison committee gave his
ten roubles annually, whilst from the neighbouring
villages were brought presents of flour and other kinds
of food. Again, it is common to see, outside prison
gates, boxes in which may be placed offerings for the
welfare of the prisoners ; and such is the liberality of
the people in this direction, especially on festivals, that
in Petersburg those detained get more Easter eggs
than they can eat. All this speaks of kindness on the
part of the public towards prisoners, in which particular
I know no nation that equals the Russian. Further
allusion will be made to this hereafter.
Apart, however, from these philanthropic efforts, the
reader will perhaps get a better idea of Siberian prison
diet from details which came under our own observation.
At Tiumen each man was said to receive daily 21 lbs.
(Russian) of bread, 1 lb. of meat on ordinary days, and
2 lb. on holidays, with salt, pepper, etc., also a daily
allowance of quass for drink. The fare in Tobolsk prison

SIBERIAN PRISONS.
79
4
a
was the same, a bucketful of quass or small-beer being
provided for every ten men. At Nikolaefsk I heard of
corned beef and kash, or corn, substituted for vegetables.
At the Alexandreffsky prison they had į lb. of meat,
including the bone, and 23 lbs. of bread. At Kara,
however, where the men work in the mines, the allow-
ance is still more liberal. Each receives daily 4 lbs.
of bread, 1 lb. of meat, 1 lb. of buckwheat, with tea,
but no quass.*
At Kara, when not working, they
receive 3 lbs. of bread, 2 lb. of meat, and Lath of a lb.
3
of buckwheat. We found in some of the prisons that,
if they do not eat all their food, the prisoners may sell
the remainder; or, again, the surplus bread may be used
for making quass, which, when given, always comes, I
believe, from these “economies.” The diet, however,
is considerably affected by the rigour with which fast-
days are observed in the prisons. Every Wednesday
and Friday are fast-days, and there are four great
annual fasts, with an aggregate of at least a hundred
days, so that there are probably quite half the days in
the year when the prisoners get fast diet, which excludes
flesh food. I understood, however, that this does not
apply to those at hard labour ; while other prisoners,
during some of the long fasts, receive fish and fish-
soup—the latter ad libitum. So at least it is at


a

* If this highest scale of Siberian diet be compared with the highest
scale in the prisons of England and Wales, as printed in the Reports of
the Commissioners, Inspectors, and others for 1878, it will be found that
the English prisoner gets per week of bread 10 lbs. against the Russian
25; the Englishman has 8 oz. of cooked meat and 14 pints of soup against
the Russian's 6 lbs. of meat; whilst the Russian has besides i} lb. of buck-
wheat and tea against the Englishman's 5 lbs. of potatoes, 11 lb. of suet
5
pudding, 14 pints of porridge and cocoa. In fact, the Englishman has
per week 173 lbs. of solid food, 3 pints of soup, 14 pints of porridge and
cocoa, whilst the Russian has 33 lbs. of solid food, and tea.


80
THROUGH SIBERIA.
Tobolsk. If a man happens to be in a position to buy
tea or such luxuries, he may do so, and his friends may,
if they please, bring him food daily. Thus a man
ought not to starve in a Siberian prison.
Nor is he left without clothing. Prisoners awaiting
their trial, also exiles losing partial rights, may, if they
choose, wear their own clothes, or, if they have none
suitable, they are supplied by the Government. Those
who lose all their rights, however, must wear convicts'
clothing. This consists, in summer, of a linen shirt and
pair of trousers, and a peasant's coat of camel's hair,
a specimen of which last I bought for five shillings.
Those condemned to hard labour have two yellow
diamond-shaped patches sewn on the back; those
without labour have one piece only. Other marks of
a similar character indicate the province from which
they come. At Kara a coat of felt is given yearly.
A shirt must last six months, and is washed once a
week; whilst in summer a pair of rough leather shoes
or slippers is served out every 22 days. Those working
in the mines are provided also with leather gloves.*
Concerning their labour, I seriously avow my belief
that in many cases the hardest part of a Siberian pri-
soner's lot is not the work imposed upon him, but the
absence of it. This appeared to prevail among the
prisoners up to Kara.
* The annual cost of provisions for each prisoner at Kara is 65 roubles
and 72kopecks—say £6 1os., and for men's clothing 39 roubles 83
kopecks, or £4. Women's clothing is rather less expensive, so that the
annual cost for food and clothing of men is £10 1os., and of women £10.
In the new prison at Petersburg my notes give 25 kopecks a day as the
cost for each prisoner, 15 kopecks being spent for food. This represents
for the year 91 roubles 25 kopecks (rather more than £9), and 54 roubles
75 kopecks (£5 1os.) respectively, and excludes, I presume, the item of
clothing, since this prison at the capital is for those awaiting trial, and
who consequently wear their own clothes.
a
SIBERIAN PRISONS.
81
I met at different places two Poles, who came to
the east condemned to hard labour, but who got off
exceedingly lightly. What one said amounted to this :
that if he liked to work he worked, but if not he let it
alone. The authorities told me, in one instance, that
they cannot now find enough work for the exiles.
Many of the mines have passed from Government into
private hands, and some even of those remaining are
more or less exhausted. Hence a part of the Russian
criminals, who of old would probably have been exiled,
are now detained in large prisons in European Russia,
such as at Pskof, Wilna, Kharkhof, Orenberg, Simbirsk,
Perm, etc.; but the plan has only lessened, not removed,
the difficulty of finding useful yet laborious occupation
for the condemned. When, therefore, it is remembered
that a large number of the criminals cannot read, and
that for those who can there has hitherto been, to say
the least, but a poor supply of books, the tedium can
be easily imagined of imprisonment without work in
Siberia. Accordingly, it was little matter for surprise
that we heard at Alexandreffsky of prisoners begging
for work. In some of the prisons opportunities are
afforded for the detained to work, which gives them
employment, and also enables them to earn a little
money with which to buy comforts. Some, however,
are condemned to labour, which labour may be done
for the Government direct, or it may be let out
by the Government to private persons or companies,
as at Kara, where some of the convicts work in
private mines belonging to the Emperor, and at Dui
in Sakhalin, where the coal-mines are worked by a
commercial company.
Thus the work of convicts, when they are put to it,
6



VOL. I.

82
THROUGH SIBERIA.
-
is mainly of three degrees of severity,—that of the
fabric, the zavod, and the mines, which I understand
to mean as follows. Fabric work is that of a manu-
factory, or the labour of ordinary mechanics, such as
carpenters, blacksmiths, joiners, shoemakers, tailors,
etc. The best Russian prison I have seen of this kind
was at Petersburg, on the Wiborg side of the Neva,
which had almost the busy hum of a factory, where
everything seemed well arranged and kept going ; but
in the prisons of Tobolsk, which I understood to be of
this character, there seemed an insufficient number of
workshops in proportion to the number of criminals.
The word zavod is synonymous with our “works”
for the founding and casting of metals ; and for this,
I presume, is sometimes substituted heavy outdoor or
indoor work, such as making bricks, mending roads,
or manufacturing salt. But of this class of work we
saw next to none, save a handful of men at Alex-
andreffsky, returning from making bricks. Once more,
the mines are of at least three sorts—gold, silver, and
coal. The work of the gold-mines resembles the labour
of English navvies in making a cutting, whilst that of
silver and coal, being underground, is more difficult.
From reports I heard, however, of these latter two, it
did not appear that the convicts were by any means
overworked; but further details upon this matter will be
furnished hereafter. Those condemned to the hardest
labour need, of course, no special time for exercise. The
prisoners without labour are allowed at Alexandreffsky
an hour a day for this purpose, which appeared to me
too little. More generally, however, we found they had
a happy-go-lucky way, especially in the smaller prisons,
of opening the doors in the morning, and letting the

SIBERIAN PRISONS.
83
prisoners, if they did not misbehave themselves, go in
and out of the yard as they liked—to sleep, talk, or
bask in the sun, and in some cases to smoke.
I am not aware that the authorities permit the
prisoners any amusements, though it has been already
intimated that they find them for themselves—some-
times in the shape of cards, with which, if report be
true, having nothing else to play for, they gamble
away their food.
But we have not yet exhausted the prisoners' privi-
leges. Here are some more of them, though probably
they are not the same in all the prisons. According to
a convict's behaviour he is placed in a certain category;
and the longer he remains therein, and the better he
behaves, the more ameliorations he gets. For instance,
if a man condemned to fifteen years' hard labour con-
ducts himself well, he serves only thirteen years and
two months, and, towards the end of the time, gains
certain other privileges. If condemned to wear irons
four years, he may, in a similar manner, lessen the
time by one-third; if in the higher category, he receives
15 per cent of what he earns by working for the
Government, and in his spare time he may work on
his own account; if in the lower category, he earns
money, but it is withheld until he advances higher. At
Alexandreffsky prisoners may receive money from their
friends, up to a rouble a week, but not more. At Kara
some prisoners are not allowed thus to receive money,
but I heard of others there who receive as much as
£ 15 a year, and who also receive visits once or twice
a week from, not mere acquaintances—which is not
allowed—but their families, who may also daily, if they
please bring them food.

a



84
THROUGH SIBERIA.
I was told at one large prison that, strictly speaking,
it was not permitted to prisoners (except political ones)
to write to their friends, which seemed to confirm what
I had heard and what I have written elsewhere. But
unofficial persons denied this, saying that prisoners are
free to write, and this also we heard at some of the
prisons. The two statements may perhaps be recon-
ciled thus : that it is one of those cases (and there are
many such in Siberian prisons) in which the letter of
the law is supposed to be more honoured in the breach
than in the observance.
Once more, if men are well behaved, they get, before
the expiration of a long sentence, into a position com-
paratively comfortable. They are allowed to live out-
side the prison with their wives and families; they
may have their house and garden, still working a
certain number of hours per day, and obliged to be
in their homes by night; but otherwise they are free
to do what they list, and are much in the same position
as that of an ordinary labourer.
I have yet to speak of punishments, which are of two
kinds—those decreed by the civil courts and courts
martial, and those subsequently incurred in Siberia.
Concerning the former two, it is not quite accurate to
say that in Russia there is no capital punishment, since
there are at least three offences for which death is the
penalty, namely: (1) offences against the persons of
the Imperial family, and certain laws concerning them ;
(2) military crimes, or, what is equivalent, crimes com-
mitted when a place is in a state of siege ; (3) breaking
quarantine laws, such as permitting a vessel with in-
fectious diseases to come into a Russian port. But
in these cases culprits are turned over to a military

SIBERIAN PRISONS.
85
a
tribunal, which alone can sentence to death ; in accord-
ance with which I was told of a case happening in
1877 in Sakhalin, wherein some convicts, with much
brutality, killed a whole family, and were sentenced to
be shot; but this is rare, and since the convicts had
already lost all rights, it would perhaps be considered
hardly an exception to the rule that murder in Russia
is not followed by capital punishment.
Nor, again, does the Russian law inflict upon any
free man corporal punishment. The knout has been
abolished for some years. They do, however, put their
prisoners in irons, which for the legs weigh from about
five to nine pounds English ; and if a man rebels, he
may get them as heavy as fourteen pounds. I was
told, however, that the new chains weigh only five
pounds. Those for the wrists weigh two pounds.
As to the period for wearing them, accounts differed.
At Alexandreffsky, up to eighteen months usually ; at
Kara, four years ; whilst, at Tobolsk, it was said that
prisoners might be in chains from two months to eight
years. The manner of carrying the fetters is as follows.
Over the leg is worn a coarse woollen stocking, and
over that a piece of thick linen cloth; then come the
trousers, over which is bound on the shins a pad of
leather. A stranger might wonder at first how the
trousers could be taken off; and to satisfy our curiosity,
a prisoner in Tiumen showed us how it was done,
which gave me the opportunity to observe, when his
leg was bare, that it had no marks from wearing the
irons. On each leg a ring is not locked, but riveted.
.
To these rings is attached a chain of about three feet
in length, which, for convenience in walking, is usually
suspended in the middle by a string from the waist.



86
THROUGH SIBERIA.
This may seem severe enough for English ideas of the
present day, but I saw heavier on the legs of two
murderers in America. Russian chains, however, are
playthings compared with some to be seen in Finland,
and which I have put on. In bringing the prisoners
in Finland from the country districts to the towns,
they make use of the farmers' carts; and it sometimes
happens that the cart is waylaid by accomplices, and
A FINNISH MURDERER IN TRAVELLING IRONS.
the prisoner delivered. To prevent this, therefore,
they in some cases put on an extraordinary suit of
irons, which outdo those I saw even in China. First,
there is a collar for the neck and a girdle for the body,
which two are connected by means of chains, the hands
likewise being fastened to the girdle. On each ankle
is put an iron stirrup or socket, which projects over
the front of the feet far enough to receive through its
holes a heavy iron bar, weighing thirty-six pounds,

SIBERIAN PRISONS.
87
the whole weight of which is made to rest on the
prisoner's insteps and to connect the feet. Then from
the middle of the bar comes another chain, fastening
it to the girdle. The whole is of iron, and weighs
about 108 lbs. It should be added that these are
seldom used in Finland, and then only for desperate
characters; but in Russia no such chains exist. The
heaviest of the Russian irons are about the weight,
I imagine, of those formerly in use in England, if one
may judge from the pair called “ Jack Sheppard's
irons,” which are kept as a curiosity in Newgate.
Moreover, if report be true, there is a good deal of
hocus-pocus connected with Siberian fetters. To an
ordinary observer the fetters look riveted on in such
a manner that without a smith it would appear im-
possible to get them off. The largeness of the rings,
however, to allow of their fitting over the stocking, the
bandage of linen, the trousers, and then the leather
gaiter, will make it probable that, on the removal of
these bandages, it may be possible in some cases to
slip out the naked foot. However that may be, I
heard from another source, not to be doubted, that a
certain governor of a province, on visiting one of his
prisons, was moved with compassion, and ordered that
the chains should be struck off the prisoners; upon
which they wriggled and kicked them off with such
alacrity as to leave no doubt on his mind that they
had been donned as uniform in which to receive his
Excellency's visit. A released prisoner has told me
that so dexterous do they become in pressing the
thumb into the palm of the hand, that they used to
slip off their handcuffs and sleep without them. M.
Andreoli also mentions in his account that, whilst on




88
THROUGH SIBERIA.
the march, the payment of four roubles to the soldiers
in charge got them free of the chain to which they
were attached, on the understanding, however, that
the guard should not be got into trouble by any one
running away, and that the iron should be properly
affixed when approaching the town or their resting-
place for the night. He also mentions that, in a
.
drove of 147 prisoners, there were 21—that is, a
seventh-wearing chains. Throughout Siberia I saw
only one man wearing handcuffs ; but, in Western
Siberia, chains were seen on the legs of many—how
many I cannot say, but less, I should think, than a
seventh; and this proportion markedly decreased as we
proceeded further east.
The courts sometimes order a man-generally
one who has run away repeatedly—to be chained, on
reaching his destination, to a barrow or implement,
which thus always accompanies him wherever he may
go. A doctor informed me that he had seen a prisoner's
ticket with such a doom thereon within the previous
twelve months; and I heard that at Sakhalin one or
two ferocious characters were thus confined ; but I saw
There were none, I found on inquiry, among
the two thousand at Kara ; and such treatment was
said to be exceedingly rare.
With regard to punishments inflicted for insubordi-
nation to prison authorities, or for subsequent crimes
of convicts, the mildest form is incarceration in a
solitary cell. A man is next deprived, in part, of food
and minor comforts, as in England. Then, if not
already in irons, he may have them put on ; or, if this
do not suffice, he may be “birched,” after the fashion
"
in which our fathers corrected us. I witnessed this
none.

SIBERIAN PRISONS.
89
a
a
performance at Nikolaefsk. Having heard on
Saturday—which is there the day for flogging-
that a man was to receive 60 stripes with the rod,
I thought it right, since the visitation of prisons
was my speciality, to go and see it, and thus shirk
no occasion of witnessing with my eyes what I
learned through my ears.
The man was a released
convict, of horrible countenance, who had served his
time in confinement, and was subsequently taken as a
joiner into a merchant's establishment, and he had
rewarded his employer by robbing him. Accordingly,
,
in the police station, he was brought from his room to
the presence of the police-master. Behind the culprit
stood a Cossack, and at his side a clerk, who read over
his sentence. The prisoner then signed the paper, to
signify that he had heard it read, and was marched
back to another room and placed on the floor, with his
back laid bare, one Cossack holding his head and
another his feet. Two soldiers then inflicted the stripes
successively, whilst a third counted aloud the number
administered. The man wriggled and roared, and the
skin became very red, but I saw no blood, and the
operation was soon over.
I came away, I confess, considerably perturbed; but
the Nikolaefsk folks said that was nothing, and further
informed me that, for the commission of other than very
serious offences, they frequently deal in this summary
manner with released convicts, both male and female.
The switches composing the rod, according to M.
Andreoli, must, by law, be sufficiently small to allow
of three being passed together into the muzzle of a
musket. Those I saw reminded me of a dame's birch,
save that they were longer, and the switches somewhat



a

90
THROUGH SIBERIA.
stouter than those formerly seen in schools-indeed, fac-
similes of those used in the prison of Cold Bath Fields
in London. A marvellous feature of the case is that
some of the men (ay, and women too) not only receive
the rod, but laugh and are impudent after it. One of
my hosts in another town told me that some years
ago, soon after the Amur came into the hands of the
Russians, he was robbed by a soldier of some clothes,
upon which the police-master sentenced the thief to
receive 500 stripes with the birch rod; but the governor
hearing of it increased the number to 1,100. My host
was asked if he were willing to see the stripes inflicted ;
and, going at five in the morning, he saw 500 admi-
nistered. As the man lay on the grass, and as each
rod was worn out, it was replaced by a new one from
a heap lying by. The prosecutor begged that the rest
might be remitted, and came away. The whole num-
ber, however, were administered, and the man was kept
in the hospital for a fortnight, at the end of which time
he came to his prosecutor to ask for a glass of grog,
and said that for a bottleful of spirits he would not
mind having another 1,100 if it might again be followed
by a fine time in the hospital !
I heard of others laughing at the birch. But there
is yet one thing they fear, and that is a whip called the
troichatka,” or “plète." I forewarn the reader that
I
the treatment of this subject may harrow his feelings ;
yet, if a writer is to present a true picture of what has
come under his observation, he must delineate not only
the lights of his picture but the shadows also. The
author of “ Tom Brown's School Days,” when about
to describe a fight at Rugby, recommends any of his
readers who feel particularly sensitive to skip the
66

SIBERIAN PRISONS.
91
chapter; and I venture to give similar advice with
regard to the next few paragraphs.
The knout, as already said, has been abolished for
some years, notwithstanding the persistent introduction
of this instrument into the pages of some of the vin-
dictive class of writers on Russian affairs. I found it
had been discontinued sufficiently long to make it
difficult for me to get an explanation of what it used
to be like. M. Pietrowski, in his "Story of a Siberian
Exile,” De Lagny, and one or two other writers of his
class, do their very best to invest the knout with every
horror, and to make it appear that a long strip of flesh
was torn off the culprit's back at every stroke. A
more trustworthy account is that of M. Andreoli, which
I am the more disposed to believe, because it agrees
pretty accurately with the description of the instru-
ment given me by an old man who had seen it used
at Chita. The Russian post-drivers still use for their
horses what they call a “knout,” which is a short
whip like a heavy English hunting-whip, only that the
lash consists of three or four pieces of twisted hide
linked together continuously by metal rings. It makes
a formidable instrument even for driving a horse. But
on comparing this with our two descriptions, I make
no doubt that the genuine knout for criminals was a
somewhat similar whip to that now employed some-
times for horses. M. Andreoli gives it a handle from
one to two inches in diameter, and 9 inches in length.
At the top of the handle is a ring, then a lash of raw
hide 18 inches long, with a ring at the end ; then a
second lash and ring; and thirdly came the part
which is the “knout ” proper, namely, a flat lash of
hard leather, 21 inches long, bent to a curve and




92
THROUGH SIBERIA.
ending with a hook something like the beak of a bird
—the entire length of handle and lash being 2 arshines,
or nearly 6 feet. The instrument used to be wielded
by a convict, who received his liberty or certain privi-
leges for doing this work. I heard from a lawyer that
the public flagellator in Moscow was so skilful in the
manipulation of his weapon, that he could with it snip
a cigarette off a window without breaking the glass,
or at a single blow break an inch board, and, therefore,
the spine of a man's back. He was said to have
found his profession so lucrative that, when his daughter
married, he gave her a dowry of 60,000 roubles, at
that time equal to, say, £9,000. He made his money
from those he flogged. The law demanded that the
person to be beaten should receive a certain number
of stripes, but did not exact that the recipient should
suffer; and thus, when well paid, this hero let the
knout fall lightly—so, at least, the story goes.
The “troichatka,” or “plète,” is a whip of twisted
hide, fastened to a handle 10 inches long and an inch
thick. The lash, about the same thickness at the top
as the handle, tapers for 12 inches, and then divides
in three smaller lashes, 25 inches long, and about the
size of the little finger, the whole measuring 4 feet in
length, and weighing nearly 15 ounces. M. Pietrowski
represents the plète as consisting of “three thongs
weighted at the ends with balls of lead.” The balls
of lead, however, if I mistake not, are a piece of
invention to harrow the feelings. At all events, none
of those I saw (and I saw a boxful) had anything
attached to the lashes, nor did they need it, for the
instrument is quite severe enough in itself. From
20 to 50 lashes is the number usually given, though
۱)

SIBERIAN PRISONS.
93
they may go up to 100. The criminal is bound to
a thick board, wide at the top and narrowed towards
the bottom, called a kobyla, or “mare,” which, by
means of an iron leg, is made to incline at an angle
of about 30 degrees. At the
upper end of the board
are three places hollowed out to receive in the centre
the face and head, and on either side the hands, all
which are bound down with leather thongs. A little
lower and at either side are two iron loops, which confine
the arms, whilst the feet are secured at the bottom.
At an execution (for such as described to me by eye-
witnesses it almost amounts to) a medical man and
some of the authorities must be present. The convict
executioner takes three or more plètes, and, having
stretched them to render them supple, takes up his
position about 10 yards distant, walks quickly to secure
a momentum, and brings down the lash with full
force on the lower part of the culprit's back. This
he repeats two or three times, letting the lash fall in
the same place. Then he walks from the other side,
so as to bring it down in a different direction, and,
after a few strokes, changes his whip and walks from a
third point, the strokes thus falling upon the man
something in the shape of a
an asterisk.
M. Andreoli intimates that the flagellator is often
bribed by the culprit or his friends, in which case
he brings down the first blow with terrible severity,
making the poor creature writhe and scream horribly,
but then diminishes the force of his blows as he
proceeds ; whereas, if he be not bribed, he begins
gently and gradually increases in severity, which is far
He has, however, to be wary, for if he does
not strike hard enough he is threatened with twenty-

star or
worse.


94
THROUGH SIBERIA.
five stripes for himself, which were given the summer
before my visit to an executioner in Nikolaefsk. Most
descriptions of this punishment represent the culprit's
back as raw, and running with blood—and it is better
for the man when this is the case. A skilful flagellator
draws little or no blood, and more pain is caused when
the skin simply rises in wales; but, when this is the
case, mortification sometimes sets in, and the prisoner
speedily dies. One thus thrashed in the morning had
.
died at night during the week preceding that in which
I received my information.
Before passing from this dreadful subject I wish to
make quite clear what was told me : that no man for
the first offence can, by Russian law, be condemned to
corporal punishment. Also I was given to understand,
by a legal authority, that the plète exists only at three
places in Siberia—Kara, Nikolaefsk, and Sakhalin,
(though I was informed by a released exile that he saw
it, 15 years ago, at Chita, and nearly everywhere,) so
that only the very worst criminals ever see it at all.
If they were moderate offenders they would not be so
far east, and those who get it have usually gone through
deportation, prison, and irons, and yet remain incor-
rigible. Also it should be remembered that in these
localities the inhabitants are few, and are surrounded
by hundreds of convicts or ex-convicts; that a very
large proportion of the women-servants, and men-
servants too, are of the same class, some of them not
having even finished their terms; and that, in addition
to these ex-prisoners, who are supposed to be corrected
and better behaved, a considerable number of the worst
characters are constantly escaping. More than 100
escaped from Sakhalin, I was told, the winter before

SIBERIAN PRISONS.
95
In 1877
my visit. When free, they make for Nikolaefsk to
escape starvation, caring little what they do.
three convicts, to get the paltry sum of £12, brutally
killed a woman and put her down a well. Hence the
inhabitants say that, were they not defended by some
very strong deterrents, they would not be safe a
moment, since, if a man commit half-a-dozen murders,
he knows he is not to be hanged.
I have thus forced myself to mention all the kinds
of punishment, painful as some of them are, that came
under my observation or to my knowledge in Siberia ;
and I have done so in part because I desired to leave
no room for uneasy suspicions that aught had been
kept back from the reader. Moreover, I should not
think it right to contradict the many false statements
which have appeared from time to time concerning the
punishment of Siberian exiles without giving a picture
of things as I really found them.
On the whole, my conviction is that, if a Russian
exile behaves himself decently well, he may in Siberia
be more comfortable than in many, and as comfortable
as in most, of the prisons of the world. There are yet
other points to be mentioned in connection with Sibe-
rian prisons, but these can be best treated of as we
visit, in succession, the various towns in which they
are situated.




CHAPTER VIII.
THE OBI.
Dimensions of river.-Its tributaries.—Province of Tobolsk.-Geograph-
ical features.- Population. ---Voguls.—Samoyedes.- Intemperance.-
Commercial prospects of Obi.—Siberian produce.—Corn land. -
Timber.—Cost of provisions.-Carriage.- Discoveries of Wiggins.-
Followed by Nordenskjold.—Ship-building at Tiumen.-Navigation
of Kara Sea.-Books on basin of Obi.
THE
HE Obi is one of the largest rivers of the Old
Continent, and seems destined to play an im-
portant part in opening up to commerce the immense
wealth of Western Siberia. Something, therefore,
should be said of this enormous stream, and the
province of Tobolsk through which it flows. The basin
of the river contains more than a million and a quarter
of square miles ; an area nearly 2,000 miles in length,
and, at the widest part, 1,200 in breadth.* This vast
* The principal branch of the Obi is the Irtish, which, rising in
Mongolia, passes through Lake Zaizang, about 1,720 feet above the sea
level. It then passes Ustkammenogorsk, in the Altai region, where it
becomes navigable, and, flowing on to Omsk, is subsequently joined by
the Ishim and the Tobol, which last is made up of the Isset, Tura, and
Tavda, the last three descending from the watershed of the Urals. The
Obi proper rises in Siberia, and runs with a rapid course through the
northern ridges of the Altai mountains, amid scenery resembling in
beauty and grandeur that of the Lake of Lucerne. It is joined north of
Tomsk by the Tom and the Tchulim, and then it flows on in a westerly
course, swelled by many minor streams, to its junction with the Irtish, on
the both parallel. Before reaching the Tom the current becomes gentle,
and allows of easy navigation, especially in spring, when water is abundant;


THE OBI.
97
a
area is covered with a network of streams, navigable
from the Arctic Ocean to the best parts of Western
Siberia, the importance of which can hardly be over-
estimated, when it is borne in mind that the success of
recent enterprise has demonstrated the possibility of
carrying produce by water to Europe.
But let us now speak of the province, inhabitants, and
aborigines of Tobolsk, which, though not the largest,
is at once the oldest and by far the most populous of
the
governments of Siberia. It extends from the frozen
ocean down to the 55th parallel, a distance of 1,200
miles from north to south, and of 700 miles in its widest
part from east to west, its total area covering 800,000
square miles—a country, that is to say, seven times as
large as Great Britain and Ireland. The surface, save
.
where the western border approaches the Urals, is flat-
so flat, indeed, that Tobolsk, which is 550 miles from
the sea, is only 378 feet above its level. It has no
large lakes, but there are several small ones, from
which salt is obtained. *
but, in approaching the Irtish, shoals become numerous. The Obi then
takes a northerly course, and frequently divides as it traverses an alluvial
and low plain from 40 to 50 miles wide, the greater part of which, after
winter, is inundated. This enormous river, having now a course of 2,700
miles, falls into the Obi Gulf, which is 400 miles long, and from 70 to 80
miles wide. For a large part of the year the water flows under ice, which
at Tiumen is from 3 to 4 feet, and on the gulf is 7 feet, thick.
* There are nine uyezds in the province, and among its prominent
towns are Turinsk and Tiumen, on the Tura; Kurgan and Yalutorofsk
on the Tobol; Ishim, on the river of that name; and Tara, on the Irtish;
together with Surgut, Berezov, and Obdorsk, on the Lower Obi ; whilst
the capital town of the government is Tobolsk. Hoppe's Almanack for
1880 gives the population at 1,102,302, but the Almanack for 1878 gives a
smaller number, which represents an earlier census, and is mentioned
here only for the purpose of giving the reader some idea of the social
position of the inhabitants, who in 1870 were classified thus : hereditary
nobles, 404; personally noble, 3,025; ecclesiastical persons (which in-
cludes not only all grades of clergy, but also their families), 3,045; a town
7


VOL. I.

38
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
Ethnographically considered, the province is not so
varied as some others, the people being for the most
part Russians, Tatars, Voguls, Ostjaks, or Samoyedes ;
the Tatars belonging to the Turkish, and the Voguls
and Ostjaks to the Finnish stock. Some writers
classify the Samoyedes as Finns, but Mr. Howorth
considers they should be treated as a race apart.
Mr. Rae, in his “Land of the North Wind," and Mr.
Seebohm, in his “Siberia in Europe,” have recently
given interesting information concerning the Samoyedes.
The Voguls inhabit a district which coincides pretty
closely with the ridge of the Northern Urals, and were
estimated in 1876 at 5,000 in number. Their country
makes them hillmen and foresters, for they lie within
the northern limit of the fir and birch, in the country of
the wolf, the bear, the sable, the glutton, the marten,
the beaver, and the elk. They usually dress like the
Russians, and live by hunting, for they have no plains
for the breeding of cattle, and no climate for agriculture.
They are said to use no salt. Their villages are scat-
tered and small, consisting of from four to eight cabins.
Obdorsk is their trading town. To this town, on the
Arctic circle at the mouth of the Obi, come also the
Samoyedes and Ostjaks, of which latter I shall speak
as I saw them further east.
The Samoyedes inhabit a larger tract of country,
stretching along the shore of the frozen ocean from
the north-east corner of Europe, all across the Tobolsk
government to the Yenesei, descending to the region
of the Ostjaks, and on some parts of the southern border
population of 30,000, and a rural population of 436,000. To this must be
added a military force of 50,000, 25 foreigners, and an aboriginal and
mixed population of 142,000; the exact total of which then amounted to
666,890.

THE OBI.
99
to Tomsk. With the Samoyedes I felt already in a
measure acquainted, partly by correspondence from my
friend in Finland, and partly by a near approach to
them in 1878, when I travelled to Archangel. Their
numbers were estimated, in 1876, at 5,700. Their
riches consist of herds of reindeer, which they pasture
on the mosses of the vast bogs or tundras, from which
the animals in winter scrape the snow with their feet,
and thus find their sustenance. To the Samoyede the
reindeer is everything; when alive, the animal draws
his sledge, and, when dead, its flesh is eaten and the
skin used for tent and clothing.
At Archangel I bought a sovik or tunic, a cap, and a
wonderful pair of Samoyede boots; and as the Samoyede
manner of dressing resembles in its main features that
of other northern aborigines in Siberia, I may as well
describe it particularly. In winter, then, to be in the
(Samoyede) fashion, one should dress as follows:—First
a pair of short trousers made of softened reindeer skin,
fitting tight, and reaching down to the knee. Then
stockings of peshki, the skin of young fawns, with the hair
inwards. Next come the boots, called poumé leepte,
which means boot-stockings, reaching almost to the
thigh, the sole being made of old and hard reindeer hide,
the hair pointing forward to diminish the possibility of
slipping on the ice or snow. Common boots have the
hair only on the outside. Mine are a gay “lady’s” pair,
lined inside with the softest fur, and made of white
reindeer skin without, sewn with stripes of darker skin,
and ornamented in front with pieces of coloured cloth.
The clothing of the lower limbs being completed, one
must work one's way from the bottom to the top of
the tunic, or sovik, which has an opening to put the



IOO
THROUGH SIBERIA.
head through, and is furnished with sleeves. Mine
has a high straight collar, but in some brought by Mr.
Seebohm from the Yenesei this collar rises behind above
the top of the head. The costume is completed by a
eޒާހިއިކަރޔަ
MY SAMOYEDE DRESS.
cap of reindeer skin, with strings on either side orna-
mented with pieces of cloth. The hair of the sovik is
worn outside in fine weather, and inside when it rains ;
but when prolonged exposure to cold is apprehended,
a second garment, called a “gus," is worn, with the
a
hair outside, and a close-fitting hood, leaving exposed
))

THE OBI.
IOI
only a small portion of the face. The Ostjaks are
said to have at the end of the sleeve a glove or
mitten, made of the hardest hide of the reindeer, and
suitable for heavy work, and also a slit under the wrist
to allow of the fingers being put through for finer
work. A girdle is worn round the loins, over which
the sovik laps a little, and thus forms a pocket for small
articles.

SAMOYEDES OF ARCHANGEL.
I have been told, by one well acquainted with the
Samoyedes, that it is often very difficult to trade
with them before giving a glass of vodka, and that,
when once given, they are irrepressible in clamouring
for more.
Men may sometimes be seen who have
brought in their wares to barter for winter neces-
saries, and who will exchange the whole for spirits,
and reduce themselves to beggary. This has caused
the Russian Government to forbid the sale of spirits


102
THROUGH SIBERIA.
in these northern regions, but the traders smuggle
them in. *
I must not forget to add that some pleasing accounts
of the honesty of the Samoyedes and Ostjaks were
related to us. The merchants of Tobolsk, for instance,
when they go north in the summer to purchase fish,
take with them flour and salt, place them in their
summer stations, and, on their return, leave unpro-
tected what remains for the following year.
Should a
Samoyede pass by and require it, he does not scruple
to take what he wants, but he leaves in its place an
I.O.U., in the form of a duplicate stick, duly notched,
to signify that he is a debtor; and then, in the fishing
season, he comes to his creditor, compares the duplicate
* We heard from other sources that for brandy these aborigines will
sell everything short of their souls, and even these would appear some-
times to tremble in the balance, if the following story be true :--A Russian
priest, it seemed, intent upon adding sheep to his fold, even though by
very questionable means, sometimes gave drink to the Samoyedes and
Ostjaks, and, when they were in a muddled condition, baptized them, put
round their necks the cross, and thus brought them into the fold of the
orthodox Russian Church. On coming to their senses they sometimes
objected to what had been done, but, like the recruit who took the Queen's
shilling, they were caught, and the only way to escape was to bribe the
priest to erase their names from his register, and let them go. This
was told us by a man who had lived in the Samoyede country. The
story presented such a bathos of proselytizing zeal, that I asked particu-
larly if it were really true, and was answered in the affirmative. In the
time of the Emperor Nicholas, zealous missionary priests received honours
and decorations in proportion to the number of Pagans and Jews they
baptized ; but this, I believe, is not the case now. I heard, further east,
of other questionable means taken by a priest to obtain proselytes from
the aborigines of the Amur. This, however, was done by one who, during
my stay in the town, publicly disgraced his cloth by intemperance.
These enormities, therefore, must be laid to the account, not of the Russian
Church, but to that of certain of its corrupt officials. They are mentioned
here on the principle that not only the truth but the whole truth should
be told ; and, further, because I would fain not have to allude to the
subject when I come hereafter to record better things, as I shall have to
do, of the missionary efforts of the Russian Church in Siberia.

THE OBI.
103
stick he has kept with the one he left behind, and
discharges his obligation. Captain Wiggins also records
that when, in the winter months of 1876-77, his ship the
Thames was laid up in the Kureika, it was surrounded
by hundreds of Ostjaks and other natives, but that
nothing was stolen.
The difficulties of educating and Christianizing these
wandering tribes are very great. I heard, however,
that in European Russia a priest is sent yearly to a
town in the far north of the Archangel province, to
baptize the children and marry such among the Samo-
yedes of that region as are professedly Christian.
Reclus, however, speaks of the Yurak-Samoyedes as
still practising their bloody rites, and thrusting pieces
of raw flesh into the mouths of their idols. In 1877
the Russians opened a school at Obdorsk for the
natives. We may hope, therefore, that for them better
days are coming, both by reason of what the Russians
are doing, and also, possibly and indirectly, by the
efforts which certain Englishmen are making to invade
the lands of these aborigines for the purposes of trade.
That the commercial value of the basin of the Obi
and a large part of Western Siberia is not yet realized
by European capitalists is the opinion of most of
those that I have met who have been there. A limited
* In 1824 a commencement was made to translate into Samoyede the
Gospel of St. Matthew, but it did not go on after 1826. The same gospel
was translated some years ago into the language of the Ostjaks by the
protohierea, or chief priest, at Obdorsk, and was forwarded to the Russian
Bible Society, but not published; and, up to the present time, neither
that nor any other part of the New Testament exists, as far as I know
for the Samoyedes, Ostjaks, or Voguls.—Dr. Latham mentions II dia-
lects in the Samoyede language, and refers to the work of Professor Castrén.
who, about 30 years ago, studied closely the languages of the Finnish
and Samoyede nations, and to whose labours we owe dictionaries of some
of these tongues,-published after his death by Schiefner.

104
THROUGH SIBERIA.
demand exists for English merchandise, and the pos-
sibility of an almost unlimited supply of products
needed by England. The Altai mountains, for instance,
are rich in silver, copper, and iron, which last is also
M
اور ہر
A YURAK-SAMOYEDE.
abundant in the valley of the Tom. But these are
as nothing compared with grain, for the production
of which the country is admirably fitted. From the
southern border of the Tobolsk province, for 600 miles
northward, lies a district of fertile black earth; and so
THE OBI.
105
exclusively is it of this character in the valleys of
many of the rivers, which overflow like the Nile, and
leave a rich deposit, that the geologist finds it difficult
to pick up even a few specimen pebbles. It is like a
vast tract of garden land, well suited for the pro-
duction of wheat, oats, linseed, barley, and other cereals.
Farther north are prairies for cattle, and a wooded
region, inhabited by various fur-bearing animals, where
the pine, fir, and birch abound. These remarks apply
to the valley of the Obi no less than to that of the
Yenesei, where Mr. Seebohm found he could purchase
a larch, 60 feet long, 3 feet diameter at the base, and 18
inches at the apex, for a sovereign, and that a hundred
,
such could be had to order in a week. In the city of
Tobolsk the cost of provisions, we were told, had
advanced to five times what it was 30 years ago ; but
even so, the present price of meat was quoted at 2d.,
and rye flour at a halfpenny, per pound.* Again,
north of the wooded region come the tundras, over
* The surprisingly small cost of provisions on the Obi will be referred
to hereafter ; but some idea may be formed, for the purposes of trade, of
the cheapness of provisions, from the fact that a merchant told me that in
1877 he bought up meat at Tobolsk for less than 3d. per English pound,
and that, more recently, he sold for the Petersburg market ten thousand
brace of black grouse, capercailzie, and hazel grouse at 9d. a pair all
round. The cost for transporting from Tiumen to Petersburg is as
follows: heavy goods, going by land where necessary, and floated on the
rivers where possible, take 12 months in transit, and cost about 55. a
cwt. ; if, however, goods are sent by road to Nijni Novgorod, and thence
forwarded by rail, they take 2 months in transit, and cost up to 125. a
cwt.; or, again, if goods are sent “express '--that is, put into large sledges,
carrying each from a ton to a ton and a half, placed under charge of a
man, and drawn by three horses, to Nijni Novgorod, and thence by rail-
the transport costs 18s. a cwt. Notwithstanding this heavy cost of
carriage, however, the merchants at Tiumen can bring their fish from the
mouth of the Obi, forward it to Petersburg, sell the sturgeon at 245., and the
sterlet, nelma, and moksun at 30s. the cwt., and then secure a handsome
profit for everybody concerned.
2

106
THROUGH SIBERIA.
which roam the reindeer, wild and tame ; and about
100 miles up the Kureika, which flows into the Yenesei,
there is a valuable mine of graphite lying on the surface;
besides which the rivers are so full of fish that the
fishermen try not to catch too many, because of the
frequent breaking of their nets.
These riches have long been known to the Sibe-
rians, to whom they were practically useless for export,
by reason of expensive land carriage over the Urals ;
and the only other way of transit to Europe was through
the Kara Sea, which was supposed to be ice-blocked
perpetually. So far back as the sixteenth century, the
English and the Dutch tried hard to penetrate the
Siberian ocean, but were always stopped at Novaia
Zemlia ; so that for two centuries no fresh effort was
made. Of late years, however, Captain Wiggins, of
Sunderland, who, from his youth, appears to have been
a bold and adventurous seaman, happened to read in
Wrangell's “ Polar Sea” that, three centuries ago, the
Russians were wont to coast from Archangel, for pur-
poses of trade, to Mangasee, on the Taz, near the gulf of
the Obi; and it occurred to him that, if they could do it
in their wretched “kotchkies," or boats of planking,
fastened to a frame with thongs of leather, and calked
with moss, he ought much more easily to be able to
do so with the aid of steam. With his characteristic
love of adventure, therefore, and at his own expense,
he determined to make the attempt; and on June 3rd,
1874, he left Dundee in the Diana, a small steamer of
only 104 tons. In little more than three weeks the
Kara Sea was entered, and found free of ice; and the
Diana entered the gulf of Obi on the 5th of August
—the first sea-going vessel that had ever done so.

THE OBI.
107
Circumstances did not permit of his ascending the
river; he returned, therefore, paid off his crew, and
employed the winter in making known the feasibility
of the route. He found great difficulty, however, in
persuading the mercantile world, and applied in vain
to the Royal Geographical Society for help to follow
up his discoveries. Whereupon there came forward
another explorer to snatch the rose from the captain's
hand; for Professor Nordenskjold, seeing what Wiggins
had done,--amply supported by his Government, by
private enterprise, and without cost to himself (as it
should be)—followed next year through the Kara Sea,
passed the Obi gulf, and entered the Yenesei, from
whence, having sent back his ship, he returned over-
land to Petersburg. The feasibility of the sea-route
was now manifest; and, as I passed through Tiumen,
Messrs. Wardropper were building, at a distance of
700 miles from the ocean, two sea-going ships, for
Messrs. Trapeznikoff and Co., of Moscow, to be floated
down the Obi and round the North Cape to England.
It is the opinion of both navigators that “a regular
sea communication between Siberia and Northern
Europe, during a short season of the year, ought not
to be attended with greater risks and dangers than
seamen encounter on many other waters now visited
by thousands of vessels.” These are the sober words
of Professor Nordenskjold; and to the same effect are
the words spoken publicly by Captain Wiggins, in
whom we have a brave and honest seaman, and con-
cerning whose work England need only be ashamed that
he received so little support. He has shown, however,
by a voyage made in 1878, that steamers of any size,
but of shallow draught, can go some 400 miles up the



108
THROUGH SIBERIA.
Obi. On the 2nd of August he left Liverpool in
the Warkworth, an ordinary steamer of 340 tons
net register, chartered through Mr. Wm. Byford, of
London, shipbroker, for sole account of Mr. Oswald
Cattley, first guild merchant of Petersburg, with a
miscellaneous cargo, and arrived in 15 days. He
was met by lighters from the Barnaul district, with
wheat, flax, etc., to load the steamer, and then convey
inland the cargo from Liverpool. No mishap occurred
on the outward voyage; but, in consequence of the
Obi falling so rapidly, the steamer touched the ground
on coming down the river. He arrived safely, how-
ever, in London on the 3rd of October; thus occupying
two months on the passage out and home. Subsequent
trading voyages have been attempted, some of which
failed; but the causes of failure were such as may in
future be overcome, the Neptune of Hamburg having
made successful voyages in 1878 and 1880. It appears,
then, that the trade only awaits further development,
and if, with specially strengthened steamers, the car-
riage of produce can thus be arranged between England
and Siberia, both countries will doubtless be gainers
thereby.+
* For further remarks on the commercial prospects of Western Siberia,
see Appendix D.
† There are two books written by scientific explorers of the basin of
the Obi, which it may be useful to mention for the sake of any who wish
to study this part of Siberia. One is that of Adolph Erman, who, for the
purpose of making magnetical observations, travelled in 1828 to Tobolsk,
and then descended the river as far as Obdorsk; the second is the German
work of Dr. Otto Finsch, who, from Tiumen, ascended the Irtish, in
1876, towards the Altai mountains, and then, turning north to Barnaul
and Tomsk, followed the Obi to its mouth. Another class of books,
written for the most part by returned exiles, throws more or less light
upon Western Siberia, such as “The Exile of Kotzebue," published in
1802, and “ Revelations of Siberia," by a banished lady, who spent a short
time on the Lower Obi at Beresov.
*

CHAPTER IX.
TOBOLSK.
Early history of Siberia.—Yermak.—Conquest of the Tatars.--Tobolsk
the first capital.—The exiled bell.—Our visit to the Governor.-
Hard-labour prisons.-Interior arrangements.—“Travaux forcés.
Testimony of prisoners.-Books presented.
Tube
COBOLSK, for a long period, was the capital of the
whole of Siberia. This will be a suitable place,
therefore, in which to treat briefly the history of the
Russian subjugation of the country at large. It can
hardly be said that Siberia was familiar to the Russians
before the middle of the sixteenth century ; for, although
at an earlier period an expedition had penetrated as far
as the Lower Obi, yet its effects were not permanent.
Later, Ivan Vassilievitch II. sent a number of troops
over the Urals, laid some of the Tatar tribes under
tribute, and in 1558 assumed the title of “Lord of
Siberia.” Kutchum Khan, however, a lineal descen-
dant of Genghis Khan, punished these tribes for their
defection, and regained their fealty, and so ended again
for a while the result of the Russian expedition. A
third invasion, however, was made in a way quite
unexpected. Ivan Vassilievitch II. had extended his
conquests to the Caspian Sea, and opened commercial
relations with Persia; but the merchants and caravans
were frequently pillaged by hordes of banditti, called
>
e


IIO
THROUGH SIBERIA.
Don Cossacks, whom the Tsar attacked, killing some
and taking prisoner or scattering others. Among the
dispersed were 6,000 freebooters, under the command of
a chief named Yermak Timofeeff, who made their way
to the banks of the Kama, to a settlement at Orel,
belonging to one of the Stroganoffs, where they were
entertained during a dreary winter, and where Yermak
heard of an inviting field of adventure, lying on the
other side of the Urals. Thither he determined to try
his fortunes, and after an unsuccessful attempt in the
summer of 1578, started again with 5,000 men in June
of the next year.
It was eighteen months before he
reached the small town of Tchingi, on the banks of the
Tura; by which time his followers had dwindled down,
by skirmishes, privation, and fatigue, to 1,500 men. But
they were all braves. Before them was Kutchum Khan,
prince of the country, already in position, and, with
numerous troops, resolved to defend himself to the
last. When at length the two armies stood face to
face, that of Yermak was further reduced to 500 men,
nine-tenths of those who left Orel having perished. A
desperate fight ensued, the Tatars were routed, and
Yermak pushed on to Sibir, the residence of the Tatar
princes. It was a small fortress on the banks of the
Irtish, the ruins of which are still standing, and of
which I have seen a photograph, if I mistake not,
among Mr. Seebohm's collection.
Yermak was now suddenly transformed to a prince,
but he had the good sense to see the precariousness
of his grandeur, and it became plain that he must seek
for assistance. He sent, therefore, fifty of his Cossacks
to the Tsar of Muscovy, their chief being adroitly
ordered to represent to the Court the progress which

TOBOLSK.
III
to retreat.
the Russian troops, under the command of Yermak,
had made in Siberia, where an extensive empire had
been conquered in the name of the Tsar. The Tsar
took very kindly to this, pardoned Yermak, and sent
him money and assistance. Reinforced by 500 Rus-
sians, Yermak multiplied his expeditions, extended his
conquests, and was enabled to subdue various insurrec-
tions fomented by the conquered Kutchum Khan. In
one of these expeditions he laid siege to the small
fortress of Kullara, which still belonged to his foe, and
by whom it was so bravely defended that Yermak had
Kutchum Khan stealthily followed the
Russians, and, finding them negligently posted on a
small island in the Irtish, he forded the river, attacked
them by night, and came upon them so suddenly as
with comparative ease to cut them to pieces. Yermak
perished, but not, it is said, by the sword of the enemy.
Having cut his way to the water's edge, he tried to
jump into a boat, but, stepping short, he fell into the
water, and the weight of his armour carried him to the
bottom. Thus perished Yermak Timofeeff, and when
the news reached Sibir, the remainder of his followers
retired from the fortress, and left the country.
The Court of Moscow, however, sent a body of 300
men, who before long made a fresh incursion, and
reached Tchingi almost without opposition. There
they built the fort of Tiumen, and re-established the
Russian sovereignty. Being soon afterwards rein-
forced, they extended their operations, and built the
fortresses of Tobolsk, Sungur, and Tara, and soon
gained for the Tsar all the territory west of the
Obi. The stream of conquest then flowed eastward
apace. Tomsk was founded in 1604, and became the






II2
THROUGH SIBERIA.
Russian head-quarters, whence the Cossacks organized
new expeditions. Yeneseisk was founded in 1619,
and, eight years afterwards, Krasnoiarsk. Passing the
Yenesei, they advanced to the shores of Lake Baikal,
and in 1620 attacked and partly conquered the popu-
lous nation of the Buriats. Then, turning northwards
to the basin of the Lena, they founded Yakutsk in
1632, and made subject, though not without consider-
able difficulty, the powerful nation of the Yakutes; after
which they crossed the Aldan mountains, and in 1639
reached the Sea of Okhotsk. Thus in the span of a
single lifetime—70 years—was added to the Russian
crown a territory as large as the whole of Europe,
whose ancient capital, as I have said, was Tobolsk.
The citadel and upper town stand on a hill, with a
precipitous front, at the foot of which lies the lower
The two are now connected by a winding
carriage-road, but formerly the only entrance to the
citadel was by a very steep incline through the fortress
gates. From the top of the hill an extensive view is
obtained of the Irtish, flowing close by the town to its
junction with the Tobol. The town below is built with
regularity, and contains many churches and monas-
teries. The houses are chiefly of wood, and the streets
are paved with the same material. But the glory of
Tobolsk has long been waning, and, when this is the
case with a Siberian town, wooden roadways degene-
rate into a delusion and a snare. They rot and remain
unrepaired, and one is in danger at night of tumbling
into holes. The population of the town consists mainly
of Russians, Tatars, and Germans, and in it are manu-
factured leather, tallow, soap, tiles, boats, and firearms.
In the upper part of the town are some handsome
town.
a

TOBOLSK.
I13
a
churches, and a cathedral, near which is the famous bell
from Uglitch, that was exiled by Boris Gudonoff because
it gave signal to the insurrectionists. On their being
quelled, the unfortunate bell was deposed, had two of
its ears broken off, was publicly flogged, and sent to
Siberia and forbidden for ever to ring again. But the
ban has since been removed, and it now is hung, not in
a belfry, but alone, and assists in calling the people to
church.
Not far from the fortress are the pleasure-gardens,
and also the three hard-labour prisons, which we
wished particularly to see. My letter was therefore
presented to M. Lisagorsky, the Governor, who imme-
diately sent for the police-master; and we proceeded
at once to visit our first hard-labour prisons in Siberia.
For many years Tobolsk was a principal place of
punishment, and even now prisoners condemned to the
east frequently spend here the first portion of their
time. On the road we had heard it spoken of as a
place of considerable severity, in which were kept
those condemned to travaux forcés.” On entering,
therefore, I braced my nerves for such horrors as
might present themselves. The authorities seemed
determined that the prisoners should not harm us (or
them ?); for, as we moved from ward to ward and
section to section, there followed us four soldiers with
fixed bayonets. The buildings were large and of
brick, with double windows to keep out the cold ; and
I noticed that, in addition to a pillow and covering,
mattresses stuffed with old clothes were also provided
for the prisoners. These, I presume, were furnished
by the local committee. They had a few books, and
as one man only in ten could read, it was usual during
8




VOL. I.

114
THROUGH SIBERIA.
;
the evenings for these to read aloud to their less
instructed fellows. I saw a copy of the Lives of
the Saints” in one room, but no Bibles. The guard-
room for the military was furnished much the same
as the prisoners' rooms. There were likewise other
wards of various sizes : one for murderers, having five
occupants (most of whom, we were told, had committed
their crimes in fits of drunkenness); another for eight
men without passports; and other rooms for thieves.
One was occupied by a man who had run away, and
another by a man who, for selling things belonging to
an altar, had been found guilty of sacrilege.
In the first prison were nine single cells, in one of
which was a Polish doctor, a political offender, who
had surrounded himself with such small comforts as
Polish books, eau-de-Cologne, and cigarettes, which
last he (by way of privilege) was allowed to smoke.
One or two cells were set apart for punishment.
After marching through room after room,
corridor
after corridor, now across yards with prisoners lolling
about, and now through sleeping apartments, where
some were not even up, though breakfast-time had
long gone by, I began to wonder where the work was
going on, and asked to be shown the labours of those
condemned to “travaux forcés”; upon which we were
taken first into a room for wheelwrights, and next into
a blacksmith's shop. Then we were introduced to a
company of tailors, and another of shoemakers, and
last of all we saw a room fitted for joiners or cabinet-
makers' work. The amount of labour going on ap-
peared to be exceedingly small, and the number of
men employed (or apparently that could be employed)
to be only a sprinkling of the 732 inmates in prisons

TOBOLSK.
115
a
Nos. I and 3, and 264 in prison No. 2. I believe some
reason was given why more were not at work, though
whether it was a holiday or bathing-day, or what, I
forget; but I came to the conclusion that they had
not appliances enough to find occupation for 1,000 pri-
soners, and that one need not have come to Siberia to
see the severity of a hard-labour prison, since the same
might just as easily have been witnessed in Europe.
Had I entered with any of the curiosity that takes
people to the chamber of horrors at Madame Tussaud's,
such curiosity would certainly have remained ungrati-
fied. The prisons of Tobolsk reminded me most of
those I had seen in Vienna and Cracow, in which,
however, in some respects, a comparison would result
in favour of Siberia ; for at Cracow the convicts had
not only to work at the bench by day, but, if my
memory does not fail me, to sleep on it at night. At
Tobolsk a set portion of labour is imposed daily ; but
when this is done, the prisoner is at liberty to work for
himself. Various specimens of their handicraft were
shown to us.
Prison No. 2 contained criminals who were sen-
tenced to terms ranging from one year to the whole
of life, and who, when liberated, were to be sent east
to live like colonists. I do not know to whom the
credit of superiority is due, whether to the governor of
the province, the governor of the prison, or the local
committee ; but I was struck with the fact when I sub-
sequently asked two prisoners who had been deported
across Siberia, as to which prison west of Irkutsk
they thought, from their point of view, the best, they
both mentioned that of Tobolsk. We left with the
governor of this province nearly 500 Scripture portions,


116
.
THROUGH SIBERIA.
such as copies of the Gospels, Psalms, and the New
Testament in Russian, Polish, German, French, and
Tatar, together with 400 copies of the illustrated
Russian Workman, and 1,000 tracts, his Excellency
kindly undertaking to distribute the papers and tracts
in the schools, and in the best way he could through
the province generally, and to place the books for
permanent use, not in the libraries, but within reach of
each person in every room of every prison, hospital,
poor-house, or similar institution under his administra-
tion. Having made these arrangements, committed
them to paper in the form of a letter, and delivered it
to the governor on the Monday evening, we awaited
the arrival of the steamer to take us to Tomsk.

0.A.
و نا
Il be
LIBRARY
VESEL
CHAPTER X.
FROM TOBOLSK TO TOMSK.
-
The steamer Beljetchenko.-Fellow-passengers.--Card-playing.-Cost of
provisions.-Inspection of convicts' barge.-An exile fellow-passenger.
-Obi navigation.--The Ostjaks.—Their fisheries.-Feats of archery.
- Marriage customs.
TH
a
HE Siberians are rich in time. Days to them are
of little consequence; hours of no moment.
With them “ Time is not money.”
What difference,"
said a coachman at Ekaterineburg to a friend of mine
for whom he had lost his train, what difference one
way or other could an hour make, or for that matter
two hours either ?” Moreover, the arrival and depar-
ture of steamers are not announced by a.m. and p.m.,
but the date simply is given ; and of course you are
expected to be in readiness to start at any moment of
the twenty-four hours. We deemed it unsafe, there-
fore, to sleep at the hotel on Monday night, the end of
June, lest we should be left behind ; so, getting our
tarantass and luggage on the pier, I crept inside the
vehicle, and there spent the early part of the night,
till, at dawn, the steamer arrived. For a Siberian
steamer, the Beljetchenko, belonging to Messrs. Kour-
batoff and Ignatoff, was good, and her dimensions,
compared with others upon which I subsequently
travelled, were large. She was a paddle-boat, with



118
THROUGH SIBERIA.
fore-cabins and saloons for first-class passengers, and
after-cabins for those of the second class, whilst the
deck was allotted to a considerable number of third-
class passengers and discharged soldiers who were
“homeward bound.” All told, the passengers, I should
imagine, could not have counted less than from 100 to
150. Among those of the first class were some pleasant
people, such as officers of the army, navy, and gend-
armerie, and a few school girls going home for summer
holidays from Petersburg, a distance of 3,000 miles.
There were specimens also of the ubiquitous Russian
merchant, travelling on business. Our first impressions
of these travellers were unfavourable. Some of the
gentlemen were taking leave, if I mistake not, at
Tobolsk, of friends, and this event is usually accom-
panied in Siberia with the drinking of a great deal
of wine ; so that, when one of the naval officers came
to take his place in the sleeping saloon, he was in
a condition “unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.”
We were spared further inconvenience of this kind
by the captain, who had received injunctions from
one of the proprietors, Mr. Ignatoff, to look after
“Mr. Missionary,” as the captain insisted upon calling
me, and on which I did not undeceive him. For the
payment of three second-class fares he gave us for
sleeping the second-class ladies' cabin-intended for
five persons—in which we were comfortable enough
at night, whilst we sat where we pleased by day.
The captain was also instructed to charge £2 instead
of £4 for the carriage of our tarantass, and also to
deal leniently with our heavy excess of baggage and
books. As our voyage lasted several days, it was not
a matter for surprise that time hung heavily upon the
))

FROM TOBOLSK TO TOMSK.
119
hands of some of the passengers, but I was hardly pre-
pared for the amount of card-playing with which much
of it was killed. In no country that I have visited
have I seen a tenth part of the card-playing that I
witnessed in Siberia. The Russian Government exer-
cises a monopoly in the manufacture of playing-cards,
the profits being applied to the support of the Foundling
Hospital at Moscow, and 110 tons of cards are annually
carried on the Petersburg-Moscow railway. I am told
that the amount of card-playing in European Russia
also is very considerable; that there are clubs in
Petersburg where the gambling is frightful. As for
our fellow-passengers, there was a clique who played
by day and quarrelled by night, and sometimes did not
leave off their games till seven in the morning. By
the time the journey was five days old, £20 had been
lost by a young officer, who told me that in the small
towns of the interior, in which soldiers are quartered,
where there is little congenial society and nothing to
do, card-playing is the daily constant resource of the
officers. The habit, moreover, is not confined to men,
but is indulged in, though apparently in a less degree,
by women also. On board the steamer the game was
not accompanied by excessive drinking, and, happily,
several of the passengers—especially the ladies—spoke
French, and a few could read English, so that in their
society we passed an agreeable time.
The fares for travelling and the charges for pro-
visions were low. The three second-class tickets for
the whole journey of 8 days cost only £4, and for
a dinner of 4 or 5 courses—soup, fish, meat, game,
and pastry,—only 28. were charged. I remembered
this tariff with a sigh in California, where the price was



I20
THROUGH SIBERIA.
to put
double for a meal not half so good, with wretched
attendance into the bargain. It must be confessed,
however, that provisions on the river's bank were
extremely cheap—so cheap that one almost hesitates
it
on paper. At Surgut I was offered a pair of
ducks for 2}d. ; 10 brace of riabchiks, a sort of grouse
about the size of a partridge, cost is.; a couple of fish
called yass, weighing, I supposed, i} lb. each, were
offered for izd.; and 10 large fish, as a lot, for įd.
each. At Juchova I was offered for 5d. a couple of
pike, weighing probably 20 lbs., and a live duck for
1įd. ; whilst at the villages in the district we passed,
which are not easily accessible, a young calf, I was
told, could be bought for 6d.
As we ploughed along, there was tugged at our stern
a barge laden with convicts, to which Dr. Johnson's
definition of a ship as “a prison afloat” would with
accuracy apply. The barge was a large floating hull,
called the Irtish, 245 feet long, and 30 feet beam,
II feet high from the keel to the deck, with a 4-feet
water-line. It was made expressly for the transport
of convicts, of whom it was intended to carry 800, with
22 officers. Below it was fitted with platforms for
sleeping, like those described in the jails, whilst at
either end of the craft were deck-houses eight feet high,
containing a small hospital, an apothecary's shop, and
apartments for the officers and soldiers in charge.
The space between the deck-houses was roofed over,
and the sides closed by bars and wires, painfully
suggestive of a menagerie, or reminding one of the
cage-cells in the old jail at Edinburgh. The vessel
had neither masts nor engines, and bore a pretty close
resemblance to a child's Noah's ark. At one of our


년
​1EA
THE “IRTISH," A CONVICT BARGE ON THE OBI.
Page 120.



FROM TOBOLSK TO TOMSK.
I21
a
a
stoppages I was trying to make a sketch of this unique
craft, when the officer came and invited me to inspect it.
We therefore went on board, with hands and pockets
full of reading matter for distribution ; and if the bars
were suggestive of a menagerie, so, I must add, was
the mode in which the occupants received our literary
food. Not that they were rude, but so delighted were
they with the pictures, and so eager to get the papers
that contained them, that we found it hard work to
hold our own. We had afterwards an opportunity of
testing the value in money of this apparent eagerness
for reading material. In former years I had always
given both Scriptures and tracts. This year it was
urged, and I think rightly, that it is better, when
possible, to sell them. To offer them, however, for
money to convicts seemed almost a mockery. Never-
theless we tried it, and requested the officer to let us
know how many prisoners would like to give 2d. for
a copy of the New Testament, or the Book of Psalms.
To my surprise he came at a subsequent stopping-
place, bringing the money for 44 copies, and said that
one man was in such haste to get his book that he
had been to him three times to ask for it. As we
proceeded on our course, and, looking back, saw the
broad keel of the barge ploughing its way after us, one
could not help feeling for its strange freight, and the
many heavy hearts that were being tugged along further
and further from the dear place called "home.” But
such thoughts received little enlargement at the halting-
places, when the barge was drawn up to the bank;
for the hilarity thereon of men, women, and children
was much more noisy than that of the free people on
the steamer. One might have thought that the con-


122
THROUGH SIBERIA.
victs were having a good time of it; and it had been
observed to us at Tiumen, as a noteworthy remark,
that although, of the 800 prisoners on board, probably
250 would be murderers, nevertheless 20 soldiers
would suffice to control them. They had a consider-
able amount of freedom on the barge, though they
could not go, of course, indiscriminately to whatever
part of the vessel they pleased.
At one of the halting-places we dropped a Polish
exile, a doctor. He was the same man we had seen
with his little comforts in the prison at Tobolsk. He
was not on the barge, but travelled, as such prisoners
usually do, on the steamer, as a second-class passenger,
in a cabin near ours, with a gendarme who kept him,
and who, we had opportunities of observing, never
allowed him to go for a moment out of his sight. We
had ingratiated ourselves into the gendarme's favour
by giving him books, as we had given also to the
ers, passengers, and all on board, and we wished
to chat with the prisoner ; but his guard was faithful
to his duty, and would not suffer him to be spoken to.
When it was time for the prisoner to go on shore, he
walked erect out of his cabin, dressed in private clothes,
wearing shaded spectacles, and smoking a cigar. But
he was landed at a miserable place on the 62nd
parallel, where, at the beginning of June, the leaves
were not out, and it had not ceased occasionally to
snow; at a village where an educated man could, I
presume, find little agreeable society or congenial occu-
pation. His hair was already grey, and as he sat
upon his little stock of clothes, with the gendarme
standing near, and watching our ship as it glided away,
we felt we had left him in a sorry place in which to

FROM TOBOLSK TO TOMSK.
123
spend his declining years. We heard that he had a
second time incurred punishment, by trying to escape
from Nertchinsk. But it was a melancholy illustration
of the meaning of Siberian exile.
The distance from Tobolsk to Tomsk by water is
1,600 miles, which we accomplished in 8 days. We
overtook more than one freight steamer, but saw few
other vessels, and no timber rafts. The banks were
low and flat, and houses of rare occurrence. On the
second day from Tobolsk we stopped at Samarova,
where the Irtish runs into the Obi; and on the third
day we stopped at Surgut, a place of 1,200 inhabitants.
Three days later we touched at Narim, which has a
population of 2,000.
We did not land sufficiently near to any of these
towns to allow of a visit, and the steamer picked up
and set down few passengers. Herds of half-wild
horses were seen from time to time on the prairies.
They were not shod, were unfamiliar with the taste
of oats, and had in the summer to find their own living.
In the winter they are used for the transport of dried
and frozen fish. The natives have an ingenious way
of catching fish through holes in the ice, especially
in the case of the sturgeon, which in winter congregate
in muddy hollows in the bed of the river, lying motion-
less in clusters for the sake of warmth. The Ostjak
cuts a hole above them, sets a spring rod, and then
forms a number of balls of clay, which he makes
red hot and throws into the river below his bait.
The heat rouses the sturgeon, which rise, swim up
stream, and are caught. There are large fisheries in
the gulfs of the Obi and the Taz, where the Russians
pay rent for the sandbanks to the Samoyedes, and,


124
THROUGH SIBERIA.
sent
having caught the fish in summer, they put them
in ponds till the approach of winter. They are
then taken out and frozen, and in this condition
as fresh fish a journey of 2,000 miles to
Petersburg. * A large quantity of dried fish is also
forwarded from the Obi to the great fair of Nijni
Novgorod. Furs and hides likewise are sent there
from the northern part of the province, together with
rye, barley, oats, and buckwheat from the south.
Nothing, however, that we saw on the banks was
more interesting perhaps than the aborigines, especially
the Ostjaks, some of whom appeared paddling in their
tiny canoes, and stealthily gliding among the bushes
as the steamer approached. The Ostjaks inhabit a
tract of country on either side of the Irtish and Obi,
extending as far north as Obdorsk, on the south to
Tobolsk, and nearly as far east as Narim. There is
also a territory over which they roam on the left bank of
the Yenesei below Turukhansk, though Mr. Howorth
thinks that these are miscalled Ostjaks, being really
Samoyedes. Their numbers are estimated at 24,000.
They have no towns or villages, though they some-
times settle among the Russians. We saw on the
banks the frames of some of their yourts, or tents,
though the people were just then driven by the floods
* The fish of the Obi are generally pike, perch, bleak, and a kind of
red mullet, and are of less importance than the migratory fish from the
These are chiefly the sturgeon, the nelma, and muksum, several
kinds of salmon, and the herring. In the first weeks of June, when the
ice breaks up, they commence their ascent of the river, avoiding the rapid
parts, the quick swimmers soon getting ahead of the rest: 30 miles
below Obdorsk they form shoals, and have all passed in a week, by which
time, 150 miles higher, the quickest salmon arrive. The nelma comes
two days later, but the sturgeon not till five days afterwards. Erman
reckons this annual migration of fish to be at the lowest computation
26,000,000.
sea.


Low
has
3
wayMPER
RUSSIANIZED OSTJAKS.
Page 125

FROM TOBOLSK TO TOMSK.
125
to higher ground. In the neighbourhood of the Obi
they possess no reindeer; their wealth consists of
boats, fishing-tackle, clothes, and utensils; and a
nomad Ostjak who possesses goods to the value of
£10 is deemed a rich man. In this district they have
OSTJAKS ON THE OBI, IN SUMMER YOURT.
ceased to wear their native costume, and are become
more or less Russianized; but the Ostjaks of the
Yenesei still dress in the costume of their forefathers.
These people are short of stature, with dark hair
and eyes, and flat faces; in complexion and general
appearance those we saw were not much unlike some
of the Siberians. They live principally by fishing

126
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
and the chase, and are very skilful in the use of the
bow. In shooting squirrels, for instance, they use
a blunt arrow, and take care to hit the animal on
the head, so as not to damage the fur.*
I had heard of these aboriginals, before leaving
England, from Miss Alba Hellman in Finland, who
thus writes of some of their marriage customs in ex-
pressive English : “ The Ostjaks are carrying on the
most shameless commerce with their daughters. A
girl is a valuable thing while she is yet in her parents'
home. She then gets all possible care and protection.
But is it therefore that she may be a good daughter,
wife, or mother? By no means for that cause : an
Ostjak father has the same object in his daughter's
feeding as he has in feeding his animals. Well fed,
she will not long stay at home without the father
getting good payment for her. The price of an ordi-
nary wife was at the river Irtish (on the Obi the price
is higher), first, from £20 to £30 in money ; next,
a horse, a cow, and an ox; then from 7 to 10 pieces of
clothing; and lastly, a pood of meal, a few hops, and
a measure of brandy for the wedding feast. And when
a man cannot afford to pay all these things, he often
steals the girl. So says Professor Castrén.”
* Their bows are 6 feet long, with a diameter of an inch and a quarter
in the middle, and are made of a slip of birch joined by fish-glue to a
piece of hard pine wood. The arrows are 4 feet long, the head consisting
of either a ball for shooting small fur animals, or an iron spear-like head
for killing larger game. The bows are exceedingly powerful, and the
archers wear on the left forearm a strong bent plate of horn to deaden
the blow of the string. We heard of feats of archery accomplished by
them which far outdo the traditional deed of William Tell. Our captain
told a lady on board that on one occasion he saw an Ostjak mark an
arrow in the middle with a piece of charcoal and discharge it in the air,
whilst a second man, before it reached the ground, shot at the descending
shaft and struck it on the mark.
CHAPTER XI.
TOMSK.

The province of Tomsk.—The city of Tomsk.–Visit to the Governor.-
The prison. - Institution for prisoners' children. - A Lutheran
—
minister.-Finnish colonies in Siberia.-Their pastoral care.—Dis-
suaded from visiting Minusinsk.-Distribution of Finnish books.-
Détour to Barnaul.
THE
HE province of Tomsk is, in some respects, the
most favoured
favoured in Siberia. It is not so huge
and unwieldy as some of the others, and does not, like
its two neighbours of Tobolsk and Yeneseisk, extend
to the Frozen Sea; but, beginning on the 62nd parallel
for its northernmost boundary, it continues southward
as far as the borders of Mongolia, from which it is
separated by the Altai mountains. The climate is
good, and the land is valuable for agricultural pur-
poses, while the mountainous districts are exceedingly
rich in minerals. *
The city of Tomsk is situated on the river Tom,
* It is the most populous province of Siberia after that of Tobolsk, and
contains 838,000 inhabitants. Another reference to Hoppe's Almanack
shows the vast preponderance of its rural population over that of other
provinces, and shows also a large population of the upper classes, many
of whom, doubtless, are descendants of noble exiles. In 1875 the number
of hereditary nobles in the province was 2,400 ; ecclesiastical persons,
4,000; town population, 4,400; and rural population, 725,000 ; whilst the
military forces numbered 30,000; foreigners, 48; and the mixed races
(chiefly Tatars, Teleuti, and Altai Kalmucs) numbered 130,000, the
population being spread over an area of half a million square miles-a

128
THROUGH SIBERIA.
whence it derives its name, and has a population of
30,000. Its streets are wide but steep, and in the
centre of the town is a good specimen of that prominent
feature in so many Russian towns—a Gostinnoi Dvor
(bazaar or market). It is an aggregation of shops and
open spaces, to which the stranger is constantly sent
for anything he may require. If a countrywoman has
butter or milk to sell, she takes up her position there;
so do hucksters with small wares. Larger establish-
ments are to be found elsewhere, but the Gostinnoi
Dvor of a Russian town contains a concentration of
goods that supplies all wants. Many of the houses at
Tomsk are of brick; it boasts of several hotels, two
banks, and two photographers. In a distant part of
the town is an imposing building, the law courts, etc.,
also a large church or cathedral, which is still unfinished.
We called upon M. Sooproonenko, the Governor,
who was very obliging, and sent us at once to see the
two prisons, in one of which criminals are kept, whilst
in the other they only stay whilst passing through to
their destinations. The condition of prison affairs in
Tomsk showed that there was an active local committee.
The jail in which criminals are permanently confined
is a heavy brick building, with low, vaulted corridors,
in which prisoners may be kept for terms varying
from one month to four years. The authorities com-
plained that in winter it is damp. This was one of the few
prisons where there was a school, which such prisoners
as chose might attend; but out of 640, when we
territory bigger than any two countries in Europe except Russia. The
government is divided into six uyezds. It has seven prisons and four
large hospitals. The principal towns are Barnaul, Kainsk, Biisk, Kuz-
netsk, Marinsk, Narim, and Tomsk, which last is the capital and resi-
dence of the Governor.

TOMSK.
129
were there, only 30 did so. Among those confined
was an old man who had been condemned to hard
labour further east, but on his way his penalty had been
mitigated, and he allowed to stay at Tomsk. There
was some little show of work going on in the shoe-
makers', carpenters', and blacksmiths' shops ; but the
great mass of the prisoners was herded in rooms where
they had nothing to do. When invited by the Governor
to point out any defects I had noticed, I mentioned,
first, that I thought all should work. He replied that
they have no laws to compel them (I presume he spoke
of a certain class of prisoners), and that the severest
punishment they are allowed to inflict is three days'
solitude with bread and water. We saw so many
prisons in Siberia in which the majority of the prisoners
had nothing to do, that the sight became wearisome;
and when the authorities told us that they could not
find them work, I was vain enough inwardly to say,
“It strikes me that I could.” But on reaching San
Francisco, I altered my mind when inspecting a prison
managed on modern principles, where they can manu-
facture in a day more than a thousand doors, to say
nothing of hundreds of other articles of wood, leather,
iron, and I know not what ; and yet, even there, they
had men condemned to hard labour twirling their
thumbs for want of a job. The difficulty of employing
a large number of Siberian convicts is vastly enhanced
by the difficulty and the expense of the carriage of raw
materials, and the comparatively small demand for
manufactured articles.
Our distribution of books was highly appreciated at
Tomsk, and one prisoner gave me in return a paper-
knife he had made, for which he would accept no money.
9
VOL. I.

130
THROUGH SIBERIA.
In the underground storehouse we saw quass in huge
vats worthy of an abbot's cellar, and large receptacles
for sour cabbage, of which the Russians make soup.
The cabbage is salted in September and pressed, and
in ten days is ready for use. The store contained also
a large number of tongues, which cost on the spot from
2d. to 6d. each. In one of the wards, the men who
formed the church choir asked permission to sing us a
hymn, which they did very creditably.
The most pleasing part of our visit, however, was
that made to an adjoining building within the prison
grounds—an institution for the children of prisoners
and of the poor, which had been built by the local
committee. The matron apologized that they were not
in holiday trim, but the place was as neat and clean as
could be. We called in the afternoon. The girls had
an English sewing-machine, and were busy at work,
whilst some were embroidering elaborate initials in the
corners of handkerchiefs, to the orders of ladies in the
Some of the boys were learning shoemaking,
whilst others were taught to be of use in waiting on
the doctors in the prisoners' hospital. Such progress
do some of them make that one boy had recently left
the school to go to help a doctor at the gold-mines, for
which he was to receive his board and lodging, and
£30 a year. There are certain funds in connection
with the institution, by means of which the girls, on
leaving to go out to service, receive various gifts up
to about £ 50; and with this, one of the committee
told us, they not unfrequently take away an education
which makes them better informed than their Siberian
mistresses.
Before we had been many hours in Tomsk we dis-
town.

Tort de
gan
HIGH
STUDE
1913
(Baljeet
SXXXX7
THE CASTLE PRISON AT WIBORG.
Page 131.


TOMSK.
131
a
covered an English lady, with whom and her husband
we dined, and who told us that a certain Finnish pastor
– Roshier, who had been named to me in my Finnish
correspondence—was staying in the town. We there-
fore sought him out to ask advice concerning the
whereabouts and the mode of approach to some of
the Finnish colonies which I was anxious to visit.
The reader will perhaps wonder how there come to
be Finnish colonies in Siberia at all. Often when a
Finnish prisoner is condemned to a certain term of
imprisonment in his own country, he petitions the
Grand Duke, who is the Emperor of Russia, to send
him instead to Siberia as a colonist, and the request is
usually granted. I recollect meeting a young man at
Wiborg, in the castle prison, in 1874, who told me that,
rather than serve for three years as a convict in the
town of his birth, he had asked to be allowed to go to
Siberia. The Finns do not usually speak Russian.
Consequently, on arriving in Siberia, they are quasi-
foreigners, and, accordingly, are not scattered hither and
thither, but put together in villages with Lithuanian,
Esthonian, Lettish, and other convicts from the Baltic
provinces. Of this nature are the colonies I wished
to visit near Omsk, called Ruschkova and Jelanka,
each with 400 inhabitants, and near to which are four
villages, bearing the home-names of Riga, Reval,
Narva, and Helsingfors. Another colony of a similar
kind is Werchne Sujetuk, about 50 miles south of
Minusinsk. * Pastor Roshier had been settled there
* Since 1850, it appeared, 541 persons have been sent there, of whom 142
are dead ; 20 for fresh crimes were transported further east, and 80 have
disappeared-probably run away to live by pilfering and plunder. Some
of the last-named possibly have been killed by the Russians and buried ;
for when the peasants catch men of this kind doing them mischief, so far




132
THROUGH SIBERIA.
for 15 years, and was returning home. The Finnish
Government were looking out for one to fill his place,
to whom they offered a stipend of £150 per annum ;
but when I heard from Mr. Roshier that he had not
conversed with an educated fellow-countryman for 10
years, that he could speak no Russian, and that his
dwelling had been in the midst of convicts only, I was
not surprised to hear that the Finnish Government had
a difficulty in finding a successor.
For my own part, it had been my intention certainly
to turn aside to Werchne Sujetuk, thinking to go across
country to Minusinsk, return by raft on the Yenesei, or
by road, to Krasnoiarsk, and there await the arrival of
the remainder of our luggage-plans which a better
knowledge of the country afterwards taught me were
visionary indeed. When we did subsequently arrive
at Krasnoiarsk, we found persons who, on account of
the floods, had been waiting a fortnight to go to
Minusinsk.* The remainder, however, of our baggage
was not yet come from Tiumen, and could not arrive
for a week; so we agreed meanwhile to make a détour
off are the courts, and so difficult is the bringing of witnesses, that they
take the law into their own hands, and put the malefactors to death. In
all, there should be now 547 persons living at Werchne Sujetuk, including
358 Finns. But about 300 live away at the gold-mines, and so it comes
to pass that not more than 10 or 12 families reside there regularly.
Apart from and in addition to these difficulties, however, there were
other considerations that dissuaded me from going—such as the small
number of Finns I should find, my ignorance of their language, their not
being in particular need of books, and the offer of the pastor to enclose
mine in a parcel he was sending to the catechist he had left in charge.
All this caused me to listen to what proved good advice, and instead of
going, I determined to send about a third of my books by the pastor.
When further east, I elected to go home through America, consequently
another third of my books was sent to the Lutheran pastor at Omsk.
Some were left also for the Lutheran pastor at Irkutsk; and I gave the
remainder to various prisons and persons for the Finns in the east.

TOMSK.
133
a
to Barnaul. There we should find a prison, and another
in the same direction, at Biisk, to which we could send ;
priests and people would be benefited by the way; and
we hoped to see the Emperor's usine for the smelting
of gold and silver. This looked more inviting, even
though it involved a journey of 700 miles, than loitering
at Tomsk for a week. We were now to begin tarantass
travelling in earnest, which I think had better be once
for all described, partly for the benefit of the uninitiated,
who may possibly become Siberian travellers, and partly
that the reader may not be wearied hereafter by a too
frequent recurrence to the same topic.



Wind
und
CHAPTER XII.
SIBERIAN POSTING.
Travelling by post-horses.--The courier, crown, and ordinary podorojna.
- Thetarantass.---Packing.-Harness.-Horses.-Roads.--Pains and
penalties.-Crossing rivers.-Cost.-Speed.—Post-houses.-Meat and
drink.
WH
a
CHEN you purpose to travel “post” in Russia,
your first business is to get a podorojna, or
permit, of which there are three kinds. The first is
a “courier's” podorojna, which is used by passengers
travelling in hot haste upon important-generally
Government—business. Each post-master reserves
three horses in case a courier should arrive, in which
event only a certain number of minutes is allowed for
changing the horses, and away goes the courier at
breathless speed. Not long before my visit an exile,
condemned to the east, had reached the city of Tomsk,
a distance of nearly 3,000 miles from the capital, when,
for some reason, his presence was required by the
authorities in Petersburg. They telegraphed, there-
fore, that he was to be brought back couriersky ; where-


SIBERIAN POSTING.
135
66
2
a
upon he was placed between two gendarmes, and then
over the stones they rattled the bones of that unfortu-
nate man, till in 11 days they brought him to his desti-
nation. This sort of podorojna is reserved for special
messengers and persons of importance; but, after hear-
ing the foregoing story, I came to the conclusion that
it is not every one who would appreciate the privilege
of travelling couriersky.
Number 2 is a crown” podorojna, recognised by
post-boys who cannot read by its having two seals.
This is not paid for, and is usually given to officers
and persons on Government service, and sometimes
to favoured private individuals. The bearer crosses
bridges and ferries free, and need not pay for greasing
his wheels; but its great advantage is that, when there
is a lack of horses, the owner of a crown podorojna has
a preferential claim. Podorojna number 3 is that used
by ordinary travellers, for which at the outset you have
to pay, by way of tax, a trifling amount per verst,
according to the distance you intend to travel.
And now, having secured your podorojna, your next
concern is for a vehicle. If you simply take that to
which your podorojna entitles you, it will be a roofless,
,
seatless, springless, semi-cylindrical tumbril, mounted
on poles which connect two wooden axletrees, and
out of this at every station you will have to shift your-
self and your baggage. This is called travelling peri-
cladnoi. From such a fate, gentle reader, may you be
delivered! No, better buy a conveyance of your own,
The vehicle I have alluded to is called by the general
name of tarantass. The one you will purchase, though
many respects similar, and by some called also a
tarantass, will be dignified by the post-boys with the


a
in


136
THROUGH SIBERIA.
appellation of an "equipage." Like the other, it will
be mounted on poles for springs, but the axles and
body of the carriage will be of iron, and it will have a
seat for the driver, and a hood, with a curtain and apron,
under which you may sit by day and wherein you
can sleep by night. The equipage may cost you from
£20 to £30, and, if given to mercantile transactions,
you may consider on the way how much you will gain
or lose (for that is possible) by the sale of your vehicle
at the end of the journey. A third way is to get a
vehicle from one who—having come to Tomsk, for
instance, to proceed to Russia—wishes his carriage taken
back to Irkutsk. It was our good fortune to borrow
the two we used, one being kindly lent by Mr. Oswald
Cattley.
The packing of the vehicle requires nothing short of
a Siberian education. Avoid boxes as you would the
plague! The edges and corners will cruelly bruise
your back and legs. Choose rather flat portmanteaus
and soft bags, and spread them on a layer of hay at
the bottom of the tarantass. Then put over them a
thin mattress, and next a hearth-rug. When we entered
Tiumen, women besieged us with these hearth-rugs, as
I thought them. Not knowing what they were for, I
could not conceive what they meant by such conduct.
Had my companion been a lady, I should have deemed
that they thought us on a bridal trip, and about to set
up housekeeping. But I was innocent of all such
devices, and chased the women away. When it was
discovered what the carpets were for, I regretted not
having bought one. Next, put at the back of the car-
riage two or more pillows of the softest down, for which
please send on your order in advance, because these

SIBERIAN POSTING.
137
a
66
must be bought as opportunity offers. If a housewife
has finished the manufacture of a down pillow she wishes
to sell, she will bring it into Ekaterineburg to market ;
but, if you want such a thing on a given day, you may
search the town and not get one.
You may now get in, cover your legs with a rug, and
watch them harness the horses. Siberian post-horses
are sorry objects to look at, but splendid creatures to
go. A curry-comb probably never touches their coats;
but, under the combined influence of coaxing, scolding,
screaming, and whip, they attain a pace which in
England would be adjudged as nothing short of
furious driving.” They are smaller than English
horses, but much hardier, and are driven two, three,
four, or even five or more, abreast. The Russian
harness is a complicated affair, the most noticeable
feature being the douga, or arched bow, over the horse's
neck. To the foreigner this looks a needless incum-
brance, but the Russian declares that it holds the whole
concern together. The rods are fastened to the ends
of the bow, and the horse's collar in turn to the shafts,
so that the collar remains a fixture, against which the
horse is obliged to push. The shafts are supported by
.
a saddle and pad on the back, and do not touch the
horse's body. The centre horse only is in rods; those
on either side, how many soever they be, are called a
pair,"and are merely attached by ropes. If you have
been wise, you have bought at the Gostinnoi Dvor about
20 yards of inch-rope to go all round the back of the
vehicle, and to which are attached the two outer horses.
The post-men are supposed to supply such a rope, but
theirs are often thin and rotten. It is well, too, to take
several fathoms of half-inch rope. One of the wheels
a



138
THROUGH SIBERIA.
may become rickety, and threaten to fall to pieces, in
which case the rope will be needed to interlace the
spokes. A third supply should be laid in of still smaller
cord, in case of spraining a pole or the rods. Do not
forget to purchase besides a hatchet. All these we
took, and more than all were wanted.
When the driver, or yemstchik, has taken his seat, the
horses will not stay a minute. Indeed, in some dis-
tricts, the horses' heads are held while the driver
mounts, and, when freed, they start with a bound.
And now begin your pains and penalties !
When, at Nijni Tagilsk, we descended by ladders
600 feet into a copper-mine, and came up in the same
manner, we were warned that on the following day we
should be terribly stiff; but I aver that the conse-
quences were as nothing compared with those of the
first day's travelling by tarantass. The roughness of
the roads and the lack of springs combine to cause a
shaking up, the very remembrance of which is painful.
Let the reader imagine himself about to descend a hill
at the foot of which is a stream, crossed by a corduroy
bridge of poles. The ordinary tarantass has no brake,
the two outer horses are in loose harness, and the one
in rods has no breeching. The whole weight of the
machine, therefore, is thrown on his collar, and the
first half of the hill is descended as slowly as may be.
.
But the speed soon increases, first because the rod-
horse cannot help it, and next because an impetus is
desired to carry you up the opposite hill. All three
horses, therefore, begin to pull, and, long before the
bridge is reached, you are going at a flying pace, and
everybody has to “hold on.” The bridge is approached,
and now comes the excruciating moment. Most likely
a
a
"

SIBERIAN POSTING.
139
-almost to a certainty—the rain has washed away the
earth a good six inches below the first timber of the
bridge, against which bump! go your fore-wheels,
and thump! go your hind ones; whilst fare and driver
are alike shot up high into the air. I have a lively
recollection of these ascents, some of which were so
high that, when travelling from Archangel to Lake
Onega, we had the hood removed, lest our skulls should
strike the top. Happily, all roads are not so perilously
rough, and, briefly to summarize my experience of
them, I should say that those of Tobolsk and Tomsk
are muddy, causing the yemstchiks, when possible,
to avoid them—to go into lanes and by-ways, over
hillocks and fallen timber, and down into holes and
ditches, all of which give variety to the route.
The
Yeneseisk roads deserve nothing but praise ; they are
well kept, and would be reckoned good in England.
The Irkutsk ways deteriorate, and those beyond Baikal
are worse than all ; for the Buriat yemstchiks drive
you furiously over hillocks, rocks, and stones.
Nor are roads the only things to be traversed ;
there are numerous streams and rivers-some with
bridges, but more without. Through some of these
your horses simply walk; on others there is a well-
kept ferry, upon which you and your carriage are
drawn or rowed. On one occasion our vehicle was
put on the ferry, and the horses made to swim the
It sometimes happens, however, especially
in early spring, that the ice or floods have carried away
or damaged the ferry, and a flat-bottomed boat is
temporarily substituted. In this manner we crossed
the Tom. The tarantass was lifted by degrees into
the boat, one wheel at a time. The boat was only
stream.


140
THROUGH SIBERIA.
just wide enough to take the vehicle, and we were
advised to let down the hood, lest the wind should
blow us over. This was about the only time I felt
nervous, and I confess being thankful when we safely
reached the opposite shore.
The cost of these pleasures of travel is not so great
in Siberia as might be supposed.
In the western
division, where pasture is abundant, the hire of each
horse is only about a halfpenny per mile. In Eastern
Siberia the fare is exactly double. Horses are changed
about every ten or fifteen miles, and each new driver
looks for a gratuity, euphemistically called “money
for tea.” On the amount of the “ tip” depends your
speed. Ten kopecks are often given, but we found
fifteen put the boys in better humour, and we made
from 100 to 130 miles a day. Two hundred versts
in a day and night, for summer travelling, is considered
good, and we sometimes did it; but given a Russian
merchant, bound for a fair, where his early arrival will
give him command of the market, and then a “tip” of,
say, a rouble a stage will in winter get him over 300
versts, or 200 miles a day. It is common to hear
Siberians boast of quick journeys made thus, but they
are usually attained only at cruel cost to the horses.
The reader may judge what speed can be made from
a story told us at Tiumen of a Governor-General of
Eastern Siberia, whom the late Emperor, some 12
winters ago, required on an emergency at Petersburg,
a distance from Irkutsk of 3,700 miles. The General
was put in a bear's skin, wrapped up like a bundle,
placed in a sledge, and in 11 days was brought to the
capital. Several horses dropped dead on the way, an
ear was cut from each as a voucher, and the journey

SIBERIAN POSTING.
141
continued. When governors of provinces travel, they
are supplied with the best horses in the villages, and
sometimes have them changed at the half stage, so as
to spare the animals whilst securing extra speed.
Having said this much about the vehicles, horses,
and roads, the reader may wonder how it fares with
the traveller in the matters of lodging and board, which
brings me to the subject of post-houses. These, like
the post-horses, are the property of the Government,
and are of very varied quality, from the best—which
have all the appearance and the comfort of a roomy,
well-established English farm-house or country inn-
to the worst, which are little better than hovels.
Certain features, however, are common to them all.
On one side of the door, as you enter, will be found
the room in which the post-folks and their children
live, and on the other will be one or more rooms
reserved for travelling guests. The guests' room will
never contain less than the following articles : a table,
a chair, a candlestick, a bed, or rather a bench-
padded, if in a good house, but of bare boards in the
humbler ones—an ikon or sacred picture, a looking-
glass, and sundry framed notices. One of these notices
is a tariff of meat and drink—not that you are to
suppose for a moment that any amount of money
would purchase the luxuries named thereon, but the
Government makes every post-master take out a vic-
tualler's licence, and named thereupon are the prices
which he would charge for the delicacies IF HE HAD
THEM! No-bed and board are the rub of Siberian
travel. You may safely rely upon getting at any
station a supply of boiling water, and probably some
black bread; but beyond this all is uncertainty. In



142
THROUGH SIBERIA.
Western Siberia milk and eggs are plentiful and cheap
—the latter a farthing each ; and everywhere, if you
arrive at dinner-time, there is a chance of getting some
meat, which you may or may not be able to eat. The
fact is, you must take your own provisions, and for this
winter is better than summer, because then you
have
simply to freeze your meat and chop off a piece with
your hatchet when required. It is easy, moreover, to
start with a stock of frozen meat pies, one of which,
thrown in hot water, is eatable in a few minutes; and
so with lumps of frozen cream. Tea and sugar are
carried, of course, by every traveller in Russia ; and
to these were added a small quantity of tinned meat,
fresh butter, anchovy paste, and marmalade—the last
two as qualifiers in case we were reduced to black
bread. These things, with a stock of white bread
taken from the larger towns, formed a base, for which
we were thankful. If anything better fell in the way,
it was so much to the good ; if white bread and butter
failed, then we hoped for improved circumstances.
These remarks apply, of course, to the hundreds of
miles of country between the towns. In the towns
we fared comparatively well. Such are some of the
features of tarantass travel for which we prepared our-
selves at Tomsk. What occurred will be related in
its proper place.

CHAPTER XIII.
FROM TOMSK SOUTHWARDS.
-
Application for horses.-Effect of Petersburg letter.-A false start.--A
horse killed.-Attempted cooking.--Siberian weather.-Meteorology.
-Scenery.- Trees, plants, and flowers. --An elementary school.
Education in Western Siberia.
THO
‘HOUGH our journey to Barnaul took place
quite early in our posting career, it was by no
means devoid of incident. On Thursday, June 12th,
we sent for a “troika” of horses at noon, and were
coolly told by the postal authorities that we could have
them towards midnight. Now the chief of their
department at Petersburg had favoured me with a
special letter, addressed to the post-masters on our route,
enjoining them to help me, and requesting that I
might be delayed as little as possible. We had been
favoured likewise with a crown podorojna. This latter
had been presented, but to no purpose; and it seemed
a clear case for bringing our heavy artillery into action.
We presented, therefore, the postal letter, and the effect
was magical. Before the official had half read it, he
sprang to his feet, eyed me respectfully, bustled off to
his chief, and, speedily returning, promised the horses
in an hour. They appeared punctually, and we started
“troika ” fashion—that is, three horses driven abreast.
Unfortunately, however, the starosta, or man in charge
>

144
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
of the postal yard, could not read our podorojna, and
he took it for granted that we wished to go towards
Krasnoiarsk, and told the yemstchik to drive us
thither. Nor was it till we had run some dozen miles
or more that it was discovered we were not on the
road to Barnaul. We had, of course, to retrace our
steps to Tomsk, and then we heard that it was not the
first time this starosta had sent off travellers in the
wrong direction. The mistake in our case had caused
the extra expenditure of eighteen pennyworth of horse-
flesh, and I thought it right to visit the loss of this
sum on the starosta for the benefit of future travel-
lers as well as our own. I therefore declined to pay
for the privilege of having been taken out of our way,
and left the starosta to settle with the post-master.
Making a fresh start, we found ourselves by night-
fall near the river Tom. The ordinary road was under
water, and the banks of the stream were so flooded
that we were obliged to take a cross-country road
leading some 25 miles out of the way ; and as it went
over hill and dale, and almost “hedges and ditches,"
we were advised to stay till morning. But we pushed
on, crossed the river at daybreak, and at the third
station, in the direction of the Barabinsky steppe,
turned southwards, and travelled well till Saturday
evening, when, on stopping awhile to rest the horses,
one of them dropped and died upon the spot. We
were pulling the creature off the road—one having
hold of a leg, another of her tail, and so on—when the
remaining horses, as if indignant at such conduct,
rushed over the bank, and tore away with the tarantass
into the forest. Some of us pursued, and fortunately
caught and brought them back without further harm.


FROM TOMSK SOUTHWARDS.
145
The loss of a horse is more serious in Eastern than in
Western Siberia, where people have herds of horses
worthy of patriarchs. One lady told me that her
husband possessed from 4,000 to 5,000 horses, and
about as many cows. Pasturage is abundant, and
horse-flesh is cheap. Our horse was reckoned a good
one, and valued at £4 Ios. The post-master could
claim nothing from us for its loss, and thanked us
warmly for ios. towards repairing his damage. As
we went along we saw large herds of mares with their
foals, turned loose for the summer in company with a
single horse to guard them. Should danger approach,
in the form of a wild beast for instance, the stallion
drives all the mares within a circle with their heels
outwards, and the foals in the centre, whilst he stamps
the ground with rage and dares the wolf to come
within reach of their hoofs.
When we reached the last river we had to cross,
which at ordinary times was probably not half a mile
wide, we found it so flooded that the ferry-boat had a
journey of more than five miles. This took a long
while, and, when returning, we thought to save time by
eating a meal on the water. In my luncheon-basket
Rob Roy” cuisine, with a view to the using of
which, before leaving England, I took an evening's
cooking lesson. I was now anxious to demonstrate
to the Russians that it was possible to make a cup of
tea without the aid of a samovar.
We therefore com-
menced operations, there being on board not only our
own three horses, but half-a-dozen others with their
drivers and tarantasses.
The great advantage of this
cuisine is that, whereas a puff of wind may extinguish an
ordinary spirit-lamp, the "Rob Roy," by setting fire

is a


VOL. I.
IO

146
THROUGH SIBERIA.
to the steam of the spirit, burns so furiously that a
hurricane will not blow it out. It makes, however,
a considerable roar; and when matters reached this
stage, not only were all the natives surprised, but
the horses began so to kick and to plunge that we
feared an upset. One of the drivers said his horse
was 30 years old, and had never heard such a
noise in his life! So, for the general safety of all
on board, I packed up my kitchen and had to forego
the tea.
Hitherto our Siberian tour had been highly enjoy-
able. South of Tomsk the weather was charming,
and the new spring vegetation lovely. A question
that has been repeatedly put to me since my return
to England is, Did you not find it very cold in
Siberia ?” It may be well, therefore, that this ques-
tion should here be answered. Snow fell on the night
we entered the country, and the ground next morning,
May 29th, was white ; but the snow disappeared after
an hour or two, and we saw no more for some days.
By the 5th of June we reached on the Obi a latitude
100 miles north of Petersburg, where the buds
had not yet opened, nor had the winter floods sub-
sided. I heard subsequently that the opening of spring
had come that year unusually early in Petersburg, and
exceptionally late in Siberia, where the ice usually
breaks up at Tobolsk at the end of April. On the
6th of June we had snow, and the trees on the banks
had little verdure till we reached Tomsk on the 9th,
after which fine weather set in, and was followed by
almost uninterrupted sunshine till the beginning of
The summer climate, therefore, of those
parts of Siberia through which I passed I consider
autumn.

FROM TOMSK SOUTHWARDS.
147
simply delightful-neither oppressively hot by day nor
unpleasantly cold by night.
Before leaving England, my neighbour, Mr. Glaisher
the meteorologist, had urged me to take a few instru-
ments for the purpose of making observations, and
had kindly lent me for the journey a valuable un-
mounted thermometer. I took, besides, an aneroid
barometer, a compass, an anemometer, maximum
and minimum thermometers, and two others. With
these instruments I felt very much like a boy leaving
home on a summer morning with excellent fishing
tackle, and bent on taking nothing less than trout.
When returning, I felt that I had brought back
minnows. On my first night out, at Cologne, my
apparatus was duly exposed from the hotel window,
and on reaching Petersburg I climbed daily to the top
of the hotel to measure the velocity of the wind. At
the copper-mine at Nijni Tagilsk I was resolved on
being very learned, and took my instruments to test
the temperature of springs and the velocity of air
But, alas ! I broke my thermometer, and,
!
having reached the bottom of the mine, had forgotten,
when undressing, to take my watch. On the Obi I
was able to take a few observations, but it was impos-
sible to continue this during posting journeys; and
further on I broke my minimum thermometer, after
which I abandoned hope of attaining meteorological
distinction.*

currents.
* My scientific attempts brought me in contact with some pleasant
people; notably Captain Rykatcheff, of the Observatory in Petersburg,
and with others at Moscow, Ekaterineburg, Tomsk, etc. ; at all of which
places they have observatories, that near Petersburg being, I was told, in
some respects better than ours at Greenwich. The Russians take con-
siderable pains in collecting data from 103 stations throughout the

148
THROUGH SIBERIA.
The journey to Barnaul revealed to us beauties of
scenery and vegetation for which we were hardly pre-
pared after the flat and leafless districts through which
we had been passing. The landscape now became
undulating, and the traveller who passes further south
to Biisk, and beyond, approaches the regions of the
Altai chain, which are spoken of as well worth seeing. *
,
Empire, of which 14 are in Siberia, namely : at Omsk, Akmolinsk,
Semipolatinsk, Tomsk, Barnaul, Kuznetsk, Yeneseisk, Turukhansk, Irkutsk,
Kiakhta, Nertchinsk mines, Blagovestchensk, Nikolaefsk, and Vladivo-
stock. The Russians have an observatory also in China, at Peking; and
I think I heard of some new ones established on the Obi. They register
thrice daily-at seven, one, and nine—the readings of the barometer, the
dry and wet bulb thermometers giving the temperature and humidity of
the atmosphere, the direction of the wind, and the amount of clouds, rain,
snow, etc.; and these statistics are collected and published at Petersburg
with a fulness which exceeds, I am told, anything that we do in poor England.
I was presented with the Report for 1877 (the last then published)—a great
volume of 600 pages. It will be from this source that I shall from time
to time air before the reader my meteorological learning. Tomsk was the
first of the Siberian stations at which we arrived, where the maximum
temperature of the year rose, at one o'clock on the 6th August, to 106°.9,
and the minimum temperature, 83º.2 below zero, occurred on Christmas
Day. At Barnaul, some 200 miles south, it was a little hotter and a little
colder, the maximum being 1070.8, and the minimum 840.8 below zero.
On the Sunday we spent there, June 15th, the temperature was the hottest
we had experienced up to that time in Siberia ; and we heard it is so
cold in winter that small birds sometimes drop dead in the streets.
* The entire Altai system extends in a serpentine line, and under various
names, from the Irtish to Behring Strait. The breadth of the chain
varies from 400 to 1,000 miles. Its entire length is about 4,500 miles, but
it is only to the portion west of Lake Baikal that the term Altai is applied.
This part consists of a succession of terraces with swelling outline,
descending in steps from the high tableland, and terminating in promon-
tories on the Siberian plains. On these terraces (some of them at great
height) are numerous lakes. The ordinary, tablelands are given as not
more than 6,000 feet high, and as seldom covered with perpetual snow,
though it is otherwise with the Korgan tableland, which reaches 9,900
feet; and the two pillars of Katunya, which are said to attain to nearly
13,000 feet above the sea level. At the western extremity of the chain
are metalliferous veins, in which several important workings have been
established since 1872.
FROM TOMSK SOUTHWARDS.
149
a
The grass between Tomsk and Barnaul was remarkable,
and the further south we went the more luxuriant it
became. Much of the flora was familiar, but we were
now introduced to a good many trees, shrubs, plants,
and flowers, found more or less in the country west of
Irkutsk, that were new to us. The most prominent of
the trees was the white-barked birch, justly called the
“lady of the forest.” We saw also the cedar-nut tree,
“
the pitch pine, the larch, the flowering acacia, spruce
fir, and alder, the white-pine, willow, lime, Siberian
poplar, laburnum, and white-flowering cheriomkha—the
last a beautiful object when in blossom, and yielding for
fruit a small bird cherry. Among the shrubs appeared
the white hawthorn, and an abundance of wild red
currants, which, like bird cherries, are eaten by the
people—the latter being made into bread and cakes,
and, in common with other fruits, put into brandy to
make naliphka. These fruits are very sour as com-
pared with the English kinds. Strawberry and rasp-
berry plants abounded, though we did not get our first
plate of wild strawberries till 11th July. In autumn,
numerous berries are plentiful, such as cranberries
(called klukva), bilberries, cowberries, bearberries,
stoneberries, the mountain ash berry, and the Arctic
bramble. All these are found, too, in European
Russia, north of Petersburg, the last having a blossom
like a single rose, a strawberry leaf, and a fruit re-
sembling the English blackberry. In summer, straw-
berries and raspberries are the best fruits within reach
of the Siberian traveller until he reaches the southern
region of the Amur. Among the spring flowers we
missed (or perhaps overlooked) the pale primrose;
but violets are found, also sweet-williams, daisies,


150
THROUGH SIBERIA.
foxgloves, rich camomile flowers, the wild rose, crocus,
lily of the valley, and many others. The fields were
actually blue with forget-me-nots. We noticed also on
this journey what was to me a new plant, bearing an
orange flower something like a buttercup, but very
much larger, and of which there were many. Also
east of Tomsk we saw a large red lily, made much of
in English gardens, but which here was growing wild ;
also, in great abundance, a red flower very much like
the peony.
On the road to Barnaul, at a place called Medvedsky,
is an elementary school, to which, in returning, we paid
a visit, and so were brought into contact with village
education.* There were in attendance 32 boys and
girls, of ages varying from 6 to 16, most of whom came
from distant places (some 30 miles off), and lodged in
the village. Only 8 were from the immediate neigh-
bourhood. Adults sometimes attend the school, in
which the education is free, the school being supported
by the commune or mir. The scholars attend daily
* In the uyezd or district of Tiumen, which is one out of 9 in the
province of Tobolsk, there are 24 schools; at Tobolsk we heard of 12
schools more. In the villages about Barnaul there are few schools, but
there are some in the district of the mines and the works. In Tomsk are
a few upper-class schools, as also at Tobolsk; and we met at Tomsk a
school inspector. Further, from the Golos of 25th June, 1879 (old style),
it appeared that the Russian Government had lately opened a classical
school, or gymnase, at Omsk; a real, or commercial school, at Tomsk ;
and pro-gymnases, or preparatory classical schools for girls, at Tomsk
and Barnaul. It was further stated that in 1878 there were in Western
Siberia 22 upper-class schools, with an attendance of 3,200 scholars; and
that other such schools were asked for at Semipolatinsk, Petropavlofsk,
Kainsk, and Barnaul. In Western Siberia, in 1878, 546 schools of a
lower class existed, numbering 15,000 scholars, of whom, however, the
remarkable preponderance of 13,000 boys over 2,000 girls is startling.
The Russians have had schools for some time for Kirghese boys, and
they have two also for Kirghese girls ; whilst, as observed before, they
opened in 1879 a school at Obdorsk for the Ostjaks and Samoyedes.

FROM TOMSK SOUTHWARDS.
151
from 8 o'clock till 2, after which hour some of them
learn bookbinding. Sundays and saints' days are
holidays, but the children are required to be every
Sunday at church. There was a priest in the room
giving instruction.
I asked the children some Scrip-
ture questions, but was poorly answered. Many of
the children, however, jumped at the opportunity of
purchasing a New Testament for 1d., and we left
a supply for them. The master wished the boys to
be examined in arithmetic, whereupon, among other
questions, I asked them,“ What two numbers multiplied
together make 7 ?" They knitted their brows as if
making a great effort—and even the master's coun-
tenance seemed to betray that he thought the question
too difficult. All laughed heartily, however, when, on
giving it up, I told them that the factors were 7 and 1.
The master lived in an adjoining part of the house ;
and in this far-off place I observed on the wall of the
schoolmaster's room, as I had seen on that of one of
the prison officials at Tiumen, an English engraving of
the portrait of Professor Darwin. The schoolmaster
said I was the first Englishman he had seen, gladly
purchased some of our books, and thanked us for our
visit.


CHAPTER XIV.
BARNAUL.
Situation of town.-Cemetery.-Burial of the dead.— The Emperor's usine.
-Visit to Mr. Clark. - Visits to hospital and prison.--A recently-
enacted tragedy.-Crime of the district.-Smelting of silver and gold.
- Price of land and provisions.- Return to Tomsk.
W:
TE reached Barnaul very early on Sunday morn-
ing, having traversed, after leaving the flooded
river Obi, a miniature Sahara, or desert of sand.
Barnaul, like Tobolsk and Tomsk, lies at the foot of
a hill. It has 13,000 inhabitants. On the top of the
hill is a cemetery, which was the first we had met
with ; but it did not convey a favourable impression of
Siberian burying-places. Indeed, I have not been
greatly struck by Russian cemeteries, whether in
Europe or in Asia, though on the graves of their
emperors the Russians place monuments of consider-
able taste, which deserve to be placed in the same
category with memorials of the departed such as those
of Frederick William III. and his Queen at Charlotten-
burg, or the tomb of Napoleon in the Hotel des
,
Invalides. But it is otherwise, as I have said, with
average Russian tombs. *
* In the Russian Church there are five offices for the burial of the
dead, namely, two for the laity, and one each for monks, priests, and
children. The priest is sent for immediately after death, and performs a
service. The rich usually have relays of priests to continue praying so

BARNAUL.
153
From the cemetery at Barnaul are seen its half-
dozen churches and a large building known as the
Emperor's usine, or gold and silver smelting works.
Most of the business of the town is connected with
mining; and many surveyors and engineers live in
the adjacent mountains in summer, and in Barnaul in
winter. The discovery of the precious metals in the
Altai regions was made by one of the Demidoffs, who
is said to have been sent there by Peter the Great.
His monument in brass stands in the public square at
Barnaul. We had an introduction to the manager of
the usine, Mr. Clark, who is the son of an Englishman,
and who reads but does not speak his father's language.
We found in his spacious house a good collection of
English books, together with copies of the Nineteenth
Century, the Graphic, All the Year Round, and the
weekly edition of the Times. On the Sunday after-
noon our host took us to visit the poor-house and the
hospital. In this latter were 14 rooms, which had the
advantage of being very lofty and airy, though they
struck me as not particularly tidy.
In the 9 rooms of the prison were 120 criminals,
one of whom, a day or two previously, had within the
prison walls enacted a tragedy, the circumstances of
which would furnish material for a sensational novel.
The rooms of the prison are ranged on either side of
long as the corpse remains in the house. Burials always take place in
the morning. The corpse is taken into the church with the face un-
covered, looking eastward, and before removal is kissed by the priest and
relatives. At the grave the priest casts earth upon it. Further (though
this is not ecclesiastically prescribed), the Russians have services for the
dead at the grave, or at the church, on the third, the ninth, and the fortieth
day, also on the anniversaries of the departed one's death and birthday,
the last two being continued for some persons for many years. They do
not, however, believe in purgatory.

154
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a wide corridor, and in one of them was a number of
women, one of whom had murdered her husband and
was condemned to Eastern Siberia, to which she was
on her way, though for some reason detained at Barnaul.
In one of the male wards was a young man, formerly
under-manager in a shop in the town, who had been
suspected of stealing, and was imprisoned for three
months. He had served out this time within a week ;
but during his stay in the prison he made the acquaint-
ance of, and became more or less attached to, the
murderess, holding conversation with her from the
corridor during the time allowed for exercise. Another
male prisoner was by these two taken into council, and
the three determined to attempt an escape, by means
of wooden keys which the men were to make. The
plot, however, was discovered, and the woman, finding
that she must proceed to her destination and leave her
lover, tried to kill herself. But she was prevented.
She therefore adopted another plan of ridding herself
of life. In the door of the women's chamber was an
inspection-hole, unusually large. This she cut a little
larger, thrust her head through into the corridor where
the man was walking, and begged him, if he loved her,
to take her life; upon which he took a knife, cut her
throat, and so effectually killed her. We saw the stains
of the blood still on the door, for the deed had been
done only a day or two before our visit. Close at
hand was the prisoner, placed in a separate and rather
dark cell, and chained hand and foot—the only man I
saw so chained in Siberia. As he walked out of his
cell, I walked in, and found on the floor a quantity of
cigarettes and a book of songs. Upon my pointing to
the cigarettes, the officer said that the prisoners managed

BARNAUL.
155
to smuggle them in ; and then came out the old story,
that this prisoner had managed also to smuggle in drink,
under the influence of which he had committed this
horrid murder. On asking what punishment he would

HYMPEP
CONVICT SUMMER CLOTHING AND CHAINS.
be likely to receive, we were told that he would pro-
bably be condemned to hard labour for about 16 years;
and we were further informed that in the small district
of Barnaul, consisting of less than half the population

156
THROUGH SIBERIA.
of Liverpool, there are usually about 10 murders a
year. As we went from room to room, the police-master
introduced me to the prisoners as an Englishman tra-
velling through Siberia who had brought them books,
which usually elicited an expression of thanks. We
left them a New Testament and papers for each room,
doing the like also for the hospital and poor-house, and
sending a supply for the prison at Biisk.
On Monday we went with Mr. Clark to see the
Emperor's usine, to which is brought mineral from
Smirnagorsk, 200 miles distant, as well as from other
parts of the Altai mountains, where are mines, the ore
from which contains for the more part copper and silver.
They find there but very little lead. Nor is the quan-
tity of iron worked at all large--chiefly, I believe, for
lack of capital and energy. In 1879 only 507 tons of
iron were cast, and 238 tons wrought in the govern-
ment of Tomsk. Many thousand poods of copper are
obtained annually in the district, but not smelted at
Barnaul. These mines are called the private mines of
the Emperor, and the revenues belong to the Crown.
In them are employed from 1,500 to 2,000 men (not,
in this case, convicts), and the ore from the Altai
regions is brought to be smelted to four different works
for silver, and one for copper.
The smelting of silver is carried on at Barnaul all
the year round. They burn charcoal, which costs
The ore as brought from the mine is
called mineral, and 4,000 tons of mineral yield 2 tons
of silver—that is, 2,000 parts of ore yield one part of
.
IOS. a ton.
pure metal.*
* The processes of smelting are three. The mineral is first powdered,
and a handful taken to the assaying house. Here we saw a man making

BARNAUL.
157
We went from the usine to the
usine to the museum, which
could not fail to be interesting to a mining engineer or
a geologist. There was a large and well-assorted col-
lection of minerals; models of the principal Altai silver-
mines, showing the shafts, adits, and galleries, with
their machinery ; models of gold-washing machines, of
quartz mills, and of furnaces and works in various parts
of Siberia. Among the natural curiosities of the
small crucibles of clay, at the rate of 1,000 a day. In two cups, one
having bone in its composition, is put an ascertained quantity of the
mineral : both are placed in the furnace, and the result shows what pro-
portion of pure metal the mineral will yield. The powdered mineral is
then taken to furnace No. 1, which is like an iron furnace, and from 20
to 30 feet high. Into this the mineral is put with charcoal, and, after
remaining there about 12 hours, there comes out of the furnace a black
compound of lead and silver called ruststein. The ruststein is then placed
in furnace No. 2 with lead, and, after remaining there for a short time
(three tons, for instance, for an hour), the silver is extracted by the lead,
and the compound which comes out is called werchblei. This is put into
furnace No. 3, where 16 tons would remain three days, with the result
that the lead oxydizes into glot, and is run off, whilst the silver remains
and sinks to the bottom of the furnace. It is then taken out in round
cakes from 12 to 15 inches in diameter, and sent to Petersburg. The
cakes we saw had a dull hue, very much resembling lumps of newly
molten lead, and were valued at £3 6s. 8d. per pound.
A simpler process is the smelting of gold, carried on in a room about
20 feet square, having a tall furnace in the centre, in which are fires not
much larger than those in a laundry copper. The gold is brought to the
usine in dust and small nuggets, tied up in leather bags, and begins to
arrive from the mines at the end of June. The smelting goes on to the
end of October. Some of the leathern bags were shown to us, duly sealed,
and with particulars written thereon. One, about the size of a hen's egg,
was worth £36; and another, the size of a blackbird's egg, was marked
£5. When opened, the gold, just as it comes from the washings, with
borax as a flux, is put into an earthenware pot, and then placed in the
fire, after which it fuses, and is poured out into an iron mould in the
shape of a flat bar. A bar we saw weighed 15 pounds.
In the season they sometimes have in the strong-room 250 poods--
say from four to five tons—of gold, which the previous summer had been
worth £2,000 a pood, making a total value of £ 500,000 for gold alone.
At the end of the season the silver and gold are sent to the capital, under
charge of a military escort.

a

158
THROUGH SIBERIA.
museum were the stock of a tree, with branches that
represented pretty accurately a man in a sitting posture;
and a piece of wood, which, when split, had been found
to contain a cross inside. In the ethnological depart-
ment were some good costumes of the Kirghese and of
a Tunguse shaman, or priest and priestess. They had
also in another room an eagle's nest, and several
specimens of the Altai eagle; but in the zoological
department the most remarkable specimen was the
stuffed skin of a tiger killed in the southern part of the
district, where this animal is usually unknown.
The price of land and provisions at Barnaul was such
as might make many a man sigh to live there. The
price for the hire of cleared black soil was 3}d. an
English acre. We saw them scratching the surface of it
(for their instrument was so shallow that it was a mockery
to call it ploughing), and yet such farming yields there
an abundant crop. They take just a little of their
stable manure for cucumber beds, but burn the rest to
get rid of it, never thinking of putting it on the land ;
but when they have used a field for a few years, and it
is becoming exhausted, they take fresh ground. The
cost of provisions in this fertile district is on a level
with the prices quoted on the Obi. Black rye flour
costs half-a-farthing per English pound; undressed
wheat flour, such as we use for brown bread, costs 25.
per cwt. ; whilst white wheaten flour costs up to 16s.
;
for a sack of 180 pounds. The price of meat is similar.
In the summer, when it will not keep and is dear,
beef costs Iļd. per lb. ; but in winter, when it can be
kept in a frozen condition, it sells for less than £d. per
English pound. Veal is more expensive, and costs izd.;
whilst aristocratic persons, who live on grouse, have to
;
I

BARNAUL.
159
pay as much as from 2d. to 23d. per brace. In this
part of Siberia it is rare to find a peasant without a
stock of horses and cows, and a man with a family to
help him can make an excellent living. When I wrote,
in April 1880, some letters to the Times on Siberian
prisons, one gentleman said he thought there would be
a rush thither, because I made things look so com-
fortable. In case, therefore, the quotation of these
prices should tempt any of my readers to emigrate, I
think it right to point out that in this district carriage
is dear and labour is scarce, a workman earning is. 3d.
a day, or, if provided with food, 6s. a month.
We should have liked well to have stayed longer in
this part of the country, and to have made our way
among the hordes south and west, in the provinces
of Akmolinsk and Semipolatinsk, which contain a popu-
lation of 10,000 and 9,000 respectively.* Our time,
however, did not permit of our so doing; and therefore,
after a very pleasant stay at Barnaul, and a final lunch


* Dr. Finsch, who travelled with an exploring party up the Irtish in
1876, has put on record much information of a scientific character about
a
this part of Siberia. Mr. Atkinson, an English artist, with his wife, also
spent seven years in Central Asia and the Kirghese steppes. He gives fuller
information than I have met elsewhere of the Kirghese, who number
nearly 1,500,000 souls. They live either in tents or in caverns resembling
rabbit burrows, both of which are filthy beyond measure. The appearance
of the Kirghese, judging by those I saw in the prisons, is anything but
prepossessing—the nose sinks into the face, and the cheeks are large and
bloated. They eat chiefly mutton and horse-flesh, and drink tea and
mare's milk. The last, when fermented, is called koumis, and is kept in
the tent in a large leathern sack, said to be never washed out. The
Kirghese are splendid horsemen ; and their usual occupation is tending
sheep, goats, horses, and camels, of which they possess immense herds.
Indeed, I was told that, in the aoul or encampment of a rich Kirghese
chief, one can see in the present day the principal objects that were
witnessed 4,000 years ago, when the patriarch Abraham was a dweller
in tents, and pastured cattle.

160
THROUGH SIBERIA.
with Mr. Clark, we bade our host adieu, and on Wed-
nesday, June 18th, we re-entered Tomsk, where we
found our luggage arrived, and for the carriage of
which, by steamer, Mr. Ignatoff—to his liberality be
it said—would make no charge. When I added this
concession to the reduced rate we had paid on the Obi
for our tarantass, our berths, and excess luggage—to
say nothing of the personal attention shown on board
to “Mr. Missionary,”—and all this without my having
breathed a word as to charges, I thought it very hand-
I
some, and I gladly record this good deed spontaneously
emanating from beneath the double-breasted coat of a
Russian merchant.
a

CHAPTER XV.
THE SIBERIAN CHURCH.
The Russian Church.—Geographical area.--History, doctrines, schisms.
-Ecclesiastical divisions of Siberia. -Church committees.-Russian
Church services.-Picture-worship.-Vestments. --Liturgy.--Ordina-
tion.-Baptism.- Marriage. -Minor services.

IT
T will be expected, of course, in a journey from
the Urals to the Pacific, that something should
be said of the Siberian Church, to treat of which is to
treat of the Russian Church in Siberia. Wherever the
Russians carry their arms, there, like the Romans,
they carry their creed; and consequently all along the
great Siberian highways, where the Russians dwell,
they have their ecclesiastical system as in Europe. I
shall therefore speak generally of things concerning
the Greek Church, whether in Russia or Siberia, and
illustrate them by what I have seen.
Our knowledge of the Russian Church comes to us
chiefly from two sources : from the pens of ecclesias-
tical authors, and from the writings of modern travel-
lers. From the latter, it is not too much to say that
the Russians and their religion often receive a scant
measure of justice, not to add misrepresentation ; for
when the British tourist looks upon the gorgeous and
elaborate ritual of an Eastern Church, sees the picture-
worship of the people, their kissing of relics, and

VOL. I.
II
04
NER
II
LIBRARY

162
THROUGH SIBERIA.
invocation of saints, he is reminded of like things in
the Churches of Italy and Spain, and he not unfre-
quently condemns both East and West as superstitious
and corrupt alike. Such a charge, however, is far too
sweeping, and betrays a lack of knowledge of many
points which, if more generally known, would certainly
bring English Churchmen nearer, at least in sympathy,
with members of the Church in Russia. On the other
hand, the writings of ecclesiastical authors are usually
so technical as to fail in bringing before us what the
traveller sees as the everyday religious life of a people.
It is desirable to avoid these two extremes, and to dis-
tinguish between the recognized standards of a Church's
teaching, and the correspondence therewith, or other-
wise, of the daily lives of its members. *
I do not propose to enter here upon the history,
a
"
* In connection with this subject, we constantly meet with the terms
“Eastern Church,” “ Greek Church,” and “Russian Church.” Let us
distinguish between them. If on a map of Europe a line be drawn from
the White Sea southwards to Petersburg, thence along the western border
of Russia to Cracow, then along the eastern and southern frontier of
Austria to the Adriatic, this line will roughly divide Christendom between
the Churches of the East and of the West. Eastern Christendom is
sometimes divided into three main groups of Churches, the first group
being the Chaldean, the Armenian, the Syrian, the Egyptian, and the
Georgian Churches. The second is the Greek Church, whose members,
speaking the Greek language, are found as far south as the desert of
Mount Sinai, through all the coasts and islands in the Levant and the
Archipelago, and whose centre is Constantinople. This is the only
living representative of the once powerful Church of Constantine,
called the “Orthodox Imperial Church." The third group of Eastern
Churches consists partly of the Sclavonic peoples, found in the provinces
of the Lower Danube, Bulgaria, Servia, Wallachia, and Moldavia ; and
partly, and much more largely, of the Sclavonic people of Russia.
The Russian Church, therefore, is an offshoot of the Greek Church of
Constantinople, once the centre of Eastern Christianity, which Greek
Church, by reason of its former Imperial grandeur, sometimes gives its
name to the other Oriental communions.
+ See Appendix A.

THE SIBERIAN CHURCH.
163
doctrines, *
or schisms t of the Russian Church, but
proceed to observe that, for ecclesiastical purposes,
Siberia is divided into six dioceses, presided over by
7 bishops. It contains 1,515 churches and 1,509
clergy ; 14 monasteries containing 147 monks, and 4
nunneries containing 62 nuns. Russian dioceses are
subdivided into rural deaneries, each consisting of a
circle of from ten to thirty parishes, some of which, in
Siberia, must be very extensive, though not necessarily
populous. A priest near Tobolsk, however, told me
that he had 5,000 parishioners ; another at Kansk,
near Irkutsk, had 2,000, widely scattered ; whilst on
the Siberian coast of the Pacific, Nikolaefsk and
Vladivostock, towns of 3,000 and 5,000 inhabitants
respectively, form only one parish each. Every selo
or town of a certain grade has a church; and in some
of the derevni, or villages, churches and small chapels,
or oratories, are built, in which latter, services, other
than the liturgy or holy communion, may be per-
formed. The churches and vestments are furnished
and kept in repair by parochial committees, of not less
than five persons, elected annually, who, on retiring from
office, are called “church elders.” They visit every
house in the parish, and determine what proportion of
the expenses should be paid by each householder.
There would seem to be no difficulty in raising the
necessary funds; and I must add that I was agreeably
surprised in Siberia to see how well and how clean the
churches were kept, even in the remotest and most
out-of-the-way places. I
* See Appendix B.
+ See Appendix C.
I Besides this parish church committee, there was formerly, and may
be now in some instances, in large towns, a “ directory,” consisting of
about four members. In each diocese there is a “consistory," of from



164
THROUGH SIBERIA.
*
We had several opportunities, in passing through
Siberia, of attending the Church services. Picture-
worship is an almost universal attendant of Russian
devotion-more so, if possible, than in Roman coun-
tries ; and the Russian Church has found it neces-
sary to issue many warnings against the perils of
idolatry.
Another prominent feature of “orthodox” worship
is the plentiful use of lighted candles bought at the
church entrance. In one church in Petersburg, and
that not the largest, I was told that money is taken
yearly for candles up to 10,000 roubles—say £ 1,000.
The vestments of the priests and bishops are gor-
geous in the extreme. A metropolitan's “sakkos” is
shown at Moscow, which is said to weigh 50 pounds,
by reason of the pearls and gems with which it is
embellished. At the Troitza monastery are fifteen
dresses for the Archimandrite, one of which, for the
mere making, cost the Empress Elizabeth £600, the
robe itself being valued at £11,000. This monastery
is said to possess amongst its treasures two bushels of
five to seven members, presided over by the bishop, the whole being
under the synod. Appeals, therefore, lie from the directories (where they
exist) to the consistory, from the consistory to the bishop, and from the
bishop to the synod. The synod, which has equal civil rank with the
senate, and the ecclesiastical rank of a patriarch, consists of bishops and
priests, whose nomination, appointment, and length of membership
depend on the will of the Sovereign. There sits also with them a
lay procurator, who is the crown representative, and who has a veto
which can be reversed only by appeal to the Emperor.
* The “orthodox” Church draws a nice distinction between the unlaw-
fulness of using in church an image proper, and the lawfulness of using
the same image if carved on a flat surface; but the ordinary observer,
who beholds people in an Eastern Church bowing down before graven
images and likenesses of things that are in heaven and in earth, must find
it exceedingly difficult to determine where reverence ends and idolatry
begins.


TALLE
வாயாபனம்
Panny
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ENTRANCE TO TROITZA MONASTERY.
Page 164.


THE SIBERIAN CHURCH.
165
pearls, and, from what I have twice seen there, I am
inclined to add an estimated pint of diamonds, to say
nothing of emeralds, rubies, and sapphires innumerable!
The Church services are of a monastic character,
long and tedious, read in Sclavonic, which is to the
modern Russian,” it is said, “ about what the language
of Chaucer is to us”; so that, what with its ancient
form and the rapidity with which the ecclesiastical
language is read, it is practically unintelligible to many
of the people. From time to time in the services com-
memorations are made of the Virgin and saints; and
prayers are offered to them, blessings are asked of
God through their intercessions, and the response,
Gospodi Pomilui, “Lord, have mercy!” is uttered
thirty, forty, fifty times or more, almost at a breath.
No instrumental music is allowed in the Russian
Church ; but the singing in large cathedrals, such as
St. Isaac's at Petersburg (where they have 30 choristers
dressed in blue and gold tunics), is exceedingly grand.
I do not remember to have heard elsewhere such
extraordinary harmony. The basses descended to
depths almost abyssmal, and the trebles soared to and
were sustained at a height perfectly marvellous, whilst
other voices were so profusely blended that I can
compare the effect of the whole to nothing better than
to an exquisite colored window. The hymn called
The Cherubim,” with music by Bortnyanski, I heard
sung at Petersburg and Kasan ; and at the latter place
was not surprised to see tears falling from the eyes of
a peasant woman near me, for my own were uncom-
monly moist. I made bold to approach and look over
I
the music of one of the choristers, thereby alarming the
Monk director, who, mistaking my interest, said after-

66

166
THROUGH SIBERIA.
wards he thought I had perchance come from the
Imperial choir to take away some of his best voices.
The ritual and services of the Russian Church are
contained in twenty volumes folio. The greatest part
of the service varies every day in the year except in
the Liturgy, where the greater part is fixed. *
As we passed through Kasan we happened to see
the ordination of a priest and a deacon, which was
interesting. Holy orders are regarded by the Russian
Church as a sacrament or mystery, but are
indelible. If, for instance, a widower priest wishes to
marry again, he can do so by resigning his priest's
orders and taking some inferior place among the minor
orders, or by giving up his ecclesiastical profession
altogether. They have five orders, namely, bishop,
priest, deacon, sub-deacon, and reader; and the epis-
copal dignitaries consist of metropolitans, archbishops,
and bishops, some of which latter are suffragans.
are not
* This Liturgy (which in the Greek Church always means the office
for the Holy Communion, and is the ordinary morning service) is divided
into three parts, namely, “the offering," during which the bread and
wine are offered by the people, and prepared by the priest ; "the liturgy
of the catechumens," during which the Epistle and Gospel are read ;
and “the liturgy of the faithful,” during which the elements are adminis-
tered. The priest and deacon receive the bread and wine separately, as
with us ; the laity receive bread and wine mixed together from a spoon,
and standing ; whilst to infants wine only is administered, for fear of
ejection. The priest receives daily, the devout quarterly or oftener, and
every one by law yearly.
† Each of the five orders has a separate ordination. At the ordination
of a reader, he is clothed with a vestment called a sticharion; and the
bishop among other things says to him, “Son, ... it is your duty daily
to study the Holy Scriptures, and to endeavour to make such proficiency
therein that those who hear you may receive edification.” A sub-deacon,
on ordination, wears an orarion, like an English stole, girded crosswise
over his shoulders. The bishop puts a towel also on the left shoulder of
the newly ordained, and delivers him a basin and ewer, in which the
bishop washes his hands. A deacon, when ordained, kisses the four


THE SIBERIAN CHURCH.
167
The services connected with baptism in the Russian
Church were formerly very numerous, though now they
are frequently more or less combined ;* one principal
;
difference in practice between the Greek and English
Churches being that the former always baptizes by
immersion. The child is usually named after one of
the saints in the Russian calendar, the yearly recurrence
of whose festival constitutes the person's " name's-day.”
This is observed in Russia more than the birth-day,"
which practice has the advantage that if the Christian
corners of the holy table, the bishop's hands and shoulder, and the part
of his garment called the epigonation. He kneels on his right knee, lays
his hands crosswise on the holy table, and puts his forehead between his
hands. The bishop's omophorion, or pall, is placed on his head, the stole
on his left shoulder, and he is presented with sleeves or cuffs, and a fan
with which to fan the sacramental elements. When ordained priest, the
stole is exchanged for a similar vestment, called an epitrachelion, and
there are also added a phelonion and a girdle.
The consecration, however, of a bishop is much more elaborate. He is
called upon to confess the Nicene Creed. He anathematizes sundry
heretics in particular, and all of them in general ; confesses the Virgin
Mary to be properly and truly the mother of God; and prays that she
may be his helper, his preserver, and protectress all the days of his life.
He promises to preserve his flock from the errors of the Latin Church ;
declares that he has not paid money for the dignity about to be conferred
upon him ; promises not to go into other dioceses without permission,
nor to ordain more than one priest and one deacon at the same service;
further, that he will yearly, or at least biennially, visit and inspect his
flock; and among other things take care that the homage due to God be
not transferred to holy images. He puts on his sakkos and other episcopal
garments ; and there is delivered to him the panagion, or jewel, for the
neck; mantyas, or ordinary cloak; the cowl, mitre, rosary, and pastoral
staff; after which he walks to his house attended by two of the superior
clergy.
* 1. On the day of delivery the priest goes to the house, and prays for
mother and child ; 2, on the eighth day the child should be taken to
church to receive its name ; and 3, on the fortieth day it should be taken
by the mother to be received into the Church, according to the service
for the reception of catechumens. In the course of this service the priest
breathes in the catechumen's face, pronounces three exorcisms, calls upon
the catechumen or his sponsor to blow and spit upon Satan, which he

168
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
name of a friend is familiar, one always knows when to
congratulate him.
Marriage is counted one of the sacraments or mys-
teries of the Greek Church, but virginity is taught to
be better than wedlock. Priests are commanded, under
pain of degradation, not to join in wedlock persons
of unsuitable ages, nor those ignorant of the essential
articles of the faith, and in no case without due notice
given. The Russian Church fixes the age of majority
for the bridegroom at twenty-one, or, by permission of
parents, as early as eighteen, and sixteen for the bride ;
it frowns on second and third marriages, and forbids
fourth marriages altogether. *
essays to do, not metaphorically, but visibly; after which follows, 4, the
administration of baptism, when the candidate is first anointed with oil,
then completely immersed three times, then clothed by the priest with a
white garment, and a cross is suspended on the neck. Immediately after
the baptism follows, 5, confirmation, or anointing of the baptized with
chrism on the forehead, eyes, nostrils, mouth, ears, breast, hands, and
feet, with the words repeated each time, “ The seal of the gift of the
Holy Ghost.” Prayers are offered, an Epistle and Gospel read, and the
benediction pronounced. Eight days after, the candidate is brought again
to the church for, 6, the ablution of the chrism. The priest looses the
candidate's clothes and girdle, and with a sponge washes the parts that
have been anointed ; after which follows the last part of the service,
namely, 7, the tonsure, in which the priest cuts the hair of the newly
baptized in the form of a cross, in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
* The marriage service consists of two distinct offices, which are per-
formed at the same time. The first is called the “Betrothal,” when
rings are given and exchanged; the second is the “Coronation," in
which the bride and bridegroom are crowned, and are thrice given wine
to drink from a common cup, and thrice led round a lectern on which lie
the Gospels. Weddings in Russia are usually celebrated in the evening,
and among the friends are persons corresponding to a godfather and
godmother, before whom, previous to coming to church, the happy pair
kneel in the house, and ask a blessing. The godfather holds in his
hand an ikon, usually of Christ, with which he makes the sign of the
cross over the head of the bridegroom, and then gives it him to be
his peculiar treasure. In old-fashioned places the godmother gives

THE SIBERIAN CHURCH.
169
There are yet other services, such as the so-called
sacrament of penance, which closely resembles, but
differs in two important respects from, that of the
Church of Rome. *
And, again, the Russian sacrament of unction differs
in more than one respect from the Roman.
For the benediction of water there are two offices :
the lesser, which is used whenever consecrated water
is required, and the greater, which is performed at the
Epiphany, in memory of the baptism of Christ, and is
carried out with great ceremony. Another office in
the Russian Church is that of “Orthodox Sunday,"
the bride a loaf of bread, symbolical of worldly prosperity, making
the sign of the cross. The godmother also presents the bride with an
ikon, usually of the Virgin Mary; and these two ikons are carried to the
church, figure in the wedding ceremony, and are afterwards taken to
the new home, to be sacredly preserved for life, and afterwards bequeathed
to their children.
* Both Churches require contrition, and also confession. Confession
in both Churches begins at the age of seven years, and is a secret,
periodical, compulsory acknowledgment of mortal sins to a priest; but it
is made less complete in Russia than in Rome–has less of an inquisi-
torial character; and hence Dean Stanley says, “ The scandals, the
influence, the terrors of the confessional are alike unknown in the East."
The other important difference between the two Churches is, that sub-
sequent exercises of piety, commonly called “penance," when enjoined
upon the penitent in the Russian Church, are not performed as satis-
faction offered to God. This, it will be seen, closes the gate against a
great deal of Roman teaching concerning the meritorious value of good
works.
+ In the East the oil is not previously consecrated by the bishop, but
at the time, by seven priests; and, further, whereas extreme unction is
not administered by the Romans until the sick person is beyond hope of
recovery, the Russians call for the elders of the Church, pray over him,
even though the sickness be but slight, and anoint him with oil, in the
hope that he may be healed both spiritually and bodily. The service is
performed by seven priests (or at the least three), who place a table in
the church or house, on which is set a dish with wheat, a vessel for the
oil, and seven twigs with cotton tied around, one for each of the priests,
who first anoint the sick and subsequently spread the Gospels, with their
hands laid thereon, over his head.


170
THROUGH SIBERIA.
*
which is in form somewhat similar to the English
Commination Service," and in which anathemas are
pronounced against those who impugn various articles
of the Russian faith. Yet another service is “the
Office of the Holy Unction,” that is, for preparing
the chrism,* and there are other occasional and curious
services, such as for the consecration of a church ; for
an icon or picture ; washing the feet on Thursday in
Holy Week; prayers on laying the first stone of a
house ; for seed time; longer offices to be used in
drought, earthquake, plague, incursion of barbarians,
for children when they commence their education, and
many more ; but I think that on this head I have said
enough.
* This ointment, made of 23 ingredients, can be consecrated only by a
bishop, and in Passion Week. It boils three days, with a depth of five
fingers of wine below the oil, and priests and deacons by turns read the
Gospel day and night, without ceasing, from Monday till Thursday.


CHAPTER XVI.
THE SIBERIAN CHURCH (continued).
-
Parochial clergy.-Their emoluments.-Duties.-Official registers.--Dis-
cipline.—Morality.—Status.Our clerical visits.--Monastic clergy.
-The Metropolitan Macarius.-Fasting.-General view of Russian
Church.—Compared with Roman.--Teaching respecting Holy
Scripture and salvation by faith.—Needs of Russian Church.
THE
‘HE Russian clergy are of two orders—the paro-
chial and the monastic ; or, as they are some-
times called, the white and the black—the secular and
the regular clergy. Such was the plethora of them in
the time of Peter the Great that they had to restrict
the number of ordinations and of those who should
serve.* Now, however, there is no superabundance."
Speaking generally, every parish church is under the
control of a prikhod or corporation, consisting of the
priest, deacon, and two diechoks, or bell-ringer and
reader, and also a widow-woman to prepare the sacra-
mental bread.
* In an Episcopal Church, for instance, there were not to be more than
one protopope, two treasurers, five priests, four deacons, two readers, and
two sacristans, besides thirty-three choristers. In parishes of large extent
there were to be two priests, two deacons, two choristers, and two sacris-
tans, reckoning one priest for every hundred houses.
+ On the Amur I heard of merchants and, in exceptional cases, even
yemstchiks, being ordained ; also of students, for lack of a sufficiency of
priests, being ordered deacons at the age of 20 (instead of 22), and some-
times made priests seven days after.

172
THROUGH SIBERIA.
The parish priest may rise to be a protopope or head
priest of an Episcopal Church, or one who holds a
position in which there are other priests under him ;
but so long as his wife is living he can go no higher.
Should he become a widower, and take the monk's
habit, he is then eligible to be made a bishop. *
The pay of the town clergy in Russia is better than
of those in the country, where it is very little. The
salaries of the Siberian clergy, to judge from the district
of the Amur, vary from £ 125 to £180 a year. Hence
those who have families are miserably poor.
It is not
uncommon to hear them spoken of as exacting, avari-
cious, and grasping (such charges are easily made, all
* There are, or were, several curious customs and regulations among
the Russian clergy with respect to matrimony. A man cannot join the
ranks of the white clergy unless he be “the husband of one wife.” Formerly!
he was obliged, or expected, to marry a priest's daughter; and as a priest's
daughter sometimes received her father's living for her dowry, a young
priest not infrequently found himself, in this way, settled for life; though,
if the father-in-law were old and merely retired, then the son-in-law was
expected to keep him. In these arrangements the bishop played a part,
for knowing, on one hand, the young men coming forward for ordination,
and being kept informed, on the other, regarding the marriageable daughters
of his clergy, he could frequently make suggestions for the benefit of all
parties concerned. There prevailed, too, in former times in Russia, a
pernicious custom, that every clergyman's son was obliged to follow the
profession of his father. This is no longer compulsory : and the sons of
the clergy, finding themselves free, choose other callings to such an extent
that there is now a lack of candidates for the priesthood. Candidates,
however, are still drawn for the most part from the homes of the clergy,
and from the lower class of merchants. Quite recently, I am informed,
a few of the Russian nobility have taken Holy Orders.
† Dr. Neale, in his learned work on the Eastern Church, says, “The
Russian clergy never possessed tithes. Their income arises from Easter
offerings, fees, and glebe, the minimum of the glebe being 181} acres, to
be divided between four clergy.” I have heard that the usual remunera-
tion for a country priest in Russia is from £22 to £25 a year, and his
share of the glebe. To these must be added, I suppose, his fees. The
town priests receive no regular stipend from Government, but in Peters-
burg and Moscow the income from some of the parishes amounts to £600,

THE SIBERIAN CHURCH.
173
the world over); but due allowance is not always made
for the dire needs of poverty ; and they sometimes are
obliged almost, if not quite, to beg their bread.
It must not be supposed, however, that, because the
pay of the priests is so small, their duties are light.
Of their three daily services, the first often begins
between four and five in the morning (fancy that with
a thermometer below zero!), vespers at sunset, and the
liturgy before mid-day. To these must be added
occasional services in district churches or chapels, as
well as in houses ; at every birth, every death in the
parish ; when a building is begun, after it has been

or more, to be apportioned amongst several clergy. At a cathedral I
attended, I was informed that the protopope, from all sources, received
about £ 500 a year and a house ; two priests from £220 to £250 each ;
the deacon about £180; and the psalmist or dïechok from £90 to £150 ;
the whole available sum for all the parish clergy in this cathedral being
from £1,500 to £1,800 a year. At another cathedral, in the provinces, I
was told that the bishop received £110 from the Government, and £75
from the monastery, with monks as servants free. A correspondent
further informs me that metropolitans and archbishops receive “large
sums for the maintenance of their house, church, singers, serving monks,
and other comforts, of which they can take or leave as much as they
like”; the “large sums” quoted, with these not insignificant expenses,
being from £625 to £1,250 a year; and this for men who rank ecclesi-
astically with English primates !
* The Russian priests labour under great social disadvantages. They
are less instructed than what are called the “educated classes” of their
countrymen, and so do not mingle with them on a social equality; and in
many of the towns of the interior, intellectual affairs are on so low a level
that the priest's most intelligent companion is the schoolmaster, lately
arrived perhaps from the capital with a smattering of neology. In one
parish of which I know, the old priest said that the new schoolmaster
had been telling him, among other like things, that it was not God who
made the world, etc., etc., till the priest hardly knew what was right or
otherwise. He could not think what a lay person could possibly find to
preach about from a verse out of the Bible. This same priest, when
recommended pastorally to visit his flock, said, “I never appear among
my people except to ask for corn, milk, and eggs, and thus they hate the
sight of me.” He had not even a Bible, and said he never possessed one.


174
THROUGH SIBERIA. .
ܪ
repaired, and when it is supposed to be haunted ; to-
gether with the blessing of school-houses and children
before they begin work after the holidays ; to say
nothing of processions through the streets with miracu-
lous pictures in times of harvest, pestilence, and danger.
In Siberia we saw one of these processions, with a
picture, lanterns, and flags, leaving a village church at
four o'clock in the morning.
But this is not all. There are the church registers
to be kept—all the more important because in Russia
no one can stir hand or foot without a character paper,
which sets forth, with the minutest details, the par-
ticulars of his birth, baptism, marriage, etc. These
papers have to be signed and countersigned by the
priest and deacon, and then to be sent to the bishop's
registry, which, in Siberia, may be 1,000 miles away-
and all this with an expenditure of stamps, and red
tape, and filling up of blank forms that is simply
appalling. * Again, every priest has to keep a clerical
journal of his official acts as to what he and his fellows
do daily. This is for the bishop's assistant; and, should
* One of these blank forms, given me by a protopope, relates to each
of the clergy in a particular church. Here are the headings of some of
the columns :
1. Name; place of birth ; from what rank in society ; where educated,
and in what subjects; when promoted to last appointment, by whom, and
to what office; whether holding any additional appointment ; when and
how rewarded for service ; whether having a family, and, if so, of what
number.
2. What he knows; of what capacity in reading and explaining the
catechism, Scriptures, etc. ; whether he be a singer; and how many times
in the year he has composed his own sermons.
3. His children ; their place of education ; character ; what they are
learning; and their behaviour at home.
4. His family relations.
5. Whether he has ever been accused before the court, and how punished;
or whether the trial is still pending.


THE SIBERIAN CHURCH.
175
66
the journal be suddenly found not written up to date,
the priest is liable to be punished.
How would you
be punished ?” said I to a protopope.
“ With a good
talking to, perhaps, for the first offence ; and for the
second a fine, or, it may be, have the delinquency in-
scribed on my character paper” ; in other words, to
carry a blot on his escutcheon perhaps for life!
Verily, ecclesiastical discipline, whether in great things
or small, is not a dead letter in Russia. Perhaps it is
not altogether uncalled for. By it priests are forbidden
to find their amusements at the theatre, or in cards,
buffoonery, or dancing ; and mention is made of
another evil greater than these, in which we shall
recognize an old foe, too well known in England.
.
It is drink ! *
It is not matter for surprise, then, that the status of
the Russian clergy is low, as it was in England when
* The excellent Russian book on the duty of parish priests, speaking of
drunkenness fifty years ago, says, “Yet though drunkenness is a sin so
grievous and deadly, there are very many in our time who scarcely pass
a day without indulging their sottish passion for drink. Wherefore ...
the councils forbid . . . all clerks ... so much as to enter a tavern, under
pain of deprivation and excommunication.” This is a painful and humili-
ating subject, though the more respectable amongst the Russians regard
the matter in various lights. Some, of course, condemn such priests
unmercifully. One man told me he had not communicated for several
years ; “ for,” said he, “ how can I in the morning receive the sacrament
from the hands of my country priest when I know that before night he
will probably be inebriated ?” To which some, in effect, reply that he
should look at the light and not only at the lantern; as a religious general
said to me, “ If my priest supplies me properly with the ordinances of the
Church, I am not concerned with his private life—that lies between God
and his own soul.” Others, again, make allowance for their great tempta-
tions. On five festivals in the year, at least, such as Christmas, New
Year, Easter, etc., the priest is supposed to go the round of his parish and
say a prayer in every house; and on these festive occasions refreshment
stands on the sideboard, and vodka, or spirits, is offered as drink--the
evil results of which, among clergy and laity, on one of the festivals, I
myself could not but observe.


176
THROUGH SIBERIA.
Christianity had existed no longer here than it now has
in Russia—say in the fourteenth century, when Chaucer
wrote his “Canterbury Tales.”. We have no room for
boasting ; nor are these remarks made with any idea
of drawing unfavourable comparisons, but only to give
a true picture of a large class of the Russian eccle-
siastics. I called upon some few of the priests in
Siberia, who, like the peasants, seemed decidedly
superior to, and better off than, those in Russia. On
arriving at a post station, I not unfrequently sent for
or called upon the priest, gave him tracts to circulate
in his parish, and offered to sell him, at a reduced rate,
portions of Scripture for distribution, which offer was
almost always accepted.
Let me now pass to the monastic clergy, who alone
fill all the higher offices in the Russian Church.
Among the monastic clergy are many scholars. The
present Metropolitan (Macarius) of Moscow, formerly a
professor at the Academy, may be selected as a bright
example. He has written extensively, and, from the
very outset of his literary career, is said to have resolved
to devote all the money derived from his works to the
progress of knowledge. He has founded scholarships
and prizes at Kieff, Petersburg, and Vilna, and as long
ago as 1867 he possessed a capital of £ 12,000, the in-
terest of which is distributed yearly in premiums for the
best compositions in the Russian language. It was this
amiable dignitary, as related in my first chapter, whom
I had the honour of visiting when passing through
Petersburg. Other things might be said to the praise
of many of the Russian clergy-notably their simple
manner of living. In none of their houses that I
entered in Siberia was there the least approach to


THE SIBERIAN CHURCH.
177
luxury, and the library of one of the best priests I met
was all too scanty for the literary work he had in hand.
I remember, too, that I entered the sleeping-room of
the archimandrite (who is also the Metropolitan of
Moscow) at the “Skit,” near the Troitza monastery,
and found a chamber that would be thought not too
well furnished for a guest in an average English
rectory. Further, in Russia, both orders of clergy. fast
at least 226 days in the year; and the monastic clergy
which includes all the bishops, never eat flesh at all.
I met with a practical illustration of the strictness with
which the clergy abstain from forbidden food.
post station where we stopped, and where the priest
had come to us, we invited him to drink tea, and I cut
for him a slice of white bread and buttered it. This
he declined, as it was a fast-day, and butter was for-
bidden. I then offered him a slice of bread; but
another difficulty arose, for, having to lay in a large
stock of white bread at the previous town, we had
requested the baker to put in a little butter to keep it
moist. The good man's conscience therefore, he felt,
would be defiled even by this, and so I was obliged to
call for black bread wherewith to entertain our fasting
At a

guest. *
Something must be said of the Russian monasteries
for women and men. They are of three sorts : Lavra,
of which there are only three, namely, at Kieff, Peters-
burg, and Troitza, near Moscow; next are those called
Coenobia”; and, lastly, others called “Stauropegia.”
* There are four great fasts in the year, during which are eaten only
bread, vegetables, and fish : 1. Lent; 2. St. Peter's fast, from Whit-
Monday to the 29th June; 3. Fast of the Virgin Mary, from August ist
to 15th ; and 4. St. Philip's fast, from November 15th to December 26th.
Wednesday and Friday also are fast-days.

VOL. I.
I 2

178
THROUGH SIBERIA.
Their general characteristics are Egyptian rather than
Roman. *
One of the monks of the Yuryef Monastery, near
Novgorod, gave me the following outline of their
daily life: They rise at half-past two (one o'clock on
A RUSSIAN NUN.
festivals), go to church till six, and from six till
* The Lavra of Egypt are supposed to have been collections of tents
in the deserts, where each provided for himself, but joined the rest in
common devotions. Coenobia were institutions where all lived associated.
The discipline is the same in all three, but the Stauropegia are under the
direct jurisdiction, not of the bishops, but of the Synod. Dr. Neale gives
the numbers of Russian monasteries for men at 435, and for women, 113.
My almanack mentions a gross total of 472. Greek monks need not be

THE SIBERIAN CHURCH.
179
nine they sleep. Then they go to church again for
an hour and a half, and afterwards breakfast. This
over, they are free to sleep or do as they please till
five in the afternoon, when evening service brings
them together for an hour and a half, after which
they sup and go to bed. They have but two meals
a day, never eat flesh, and, when observing the fasts,
eat vegetables only.
To sum up, then, all that need here be said of the
,
Russian Church—very different thoughts arise according
as one looks at the every-day religion of the people, or
their formularies and theology. The former may cause
pain and grief, the latter excite sympathy and hope ;
and it will be my object in the remainder of this
ecclesiastics, and are all of the order of St. Basil. The head of a large
monastery is called an archimandrite (or abbot); of a smaller monastery,
a hegumen (or prior), whilst the lady superior of a monastery for women
is called a hegumena. There are monk priests, and also monk deacons,
and in the churches attached to the nunneries a large part of the service
is performed by the nuns. Among the Russian monks, according to Dr.
King, are three degrees : novices, who should serve three years; the
proficients, who wear the lesser habit; and the perfect, who wear the
greater or angelic habit, which last are said to be uncommon in Russia.
Men are not admitted to be monks till 30 years of age, and nuns do not
receive the tonsure till 60, or at least 50. Younger women may enter as
probationers; but they take no vow, and are at liberty to leave and be
married. Probationers, whether men or women, wear a black velvet hat
without a brim, and the men a black cassock. Proficients have a black
veil attached to the hat (with metropolitans this is white), and monastics
of the third degree always wear the veil or hood down, and never suffer
their faces to be seen. In the time of Peter the Great the monasteries
had become homes for the idle, and he issued many salutary rules con-
cerning them. Monastics were to confess and receive the communion
four times a year, though they were not compelled to confess to their own
superior. They were to avoid idleness; were not allowed (with the
exception of the superior, the aged, and infirm) to keep servants; were
not to receive or pay visits without permission ; and in all monasteries
the monks were to be strictly kept to the study of the Bible, the most
learned were to explain it, and such only were to be promoted to offices
and dignities.

180
THROUGH SIBERIA.
chapter to expand these thoughts in a fair and honest
way, without sparing blame or withholding praise.
Most persons, who have had the opportunity of
observing, allow that the Russians are a religious
people. One sees this not only in the large numbers
both of men and women who attend the churches, but
also in the tens of thousands who yearly go on pil-
grimage to sacred places. The monks of Troitza
sometimes have in summer, on a feast day, a thousand
guests. Some, of course, are idle wanderers, going
from place to place to get food ; but many walk hun-
dreds—nay, thousands—of miles to redeem a vow or
offer a prayer for something specially desired. Much
of this, no doubt, is eminently unspiritual and super-
stitious. Much of their worship is perilously like, if
not altogether, idolatry; yet it should be remembered
that the average Russian knows no better ; and what
can be expected of the peasant, if the highest autho-
rities of the land, on arriving at a city, make it their
first object to pay their devotions, if not, as at Ephesus,
before “the image which fell down from Jupiter,” yet
before a picture to which is attributed miraculous
powers? We can at least admire, however, the in-
tention in these things; and if the Russian peasant can
only be kept sober, he displays a number of virtues,
some of which are not found so abundantly in other
and more advanced countries. They are a kind, a
generous, and a hospitable people, by no means un-
mindful of philanthropic effort, and at least, we may
add, intensely ecclesiastical.
Again, there is much to admire in the formularies of
their Church, although Dean Stanley brings against it,
and justly, three weighty charges—extravagant ritual,


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TROITZA LAVRA, AND PILGRIMS
Page 180.


THE SIBERIAN CHURCH.
181
excessive dogmatism, and a fatal division between
religion and morality. When, however, the Russian
Church is compared with the Roman, and spoken of
as like it, certain considerations should be borne in
mind which make the comparison result in favour of
the former. Russia did not receive the religion of
Jesus Christ in its purity. The merest tyro in Church
history knows that when the stream of Christianity
had flowed down to the tenth century, it was no longer
pure as at its source. But follow the stream as it
branches east and west, and observe which of the two
remains the purer.»
* And if this be said to be negative,
*
and much of it belonging to the past, then other con-
siderations may be adduced which seem to bring the
Greek Church nearer to the English than many sup-
pose, and notably so in two vital points, namely, the
attitude of the Russian Church to the Holy Scriptures, +
* When clerical celibacy, for instance, was imposed in the West, it was
not followed in the East, nor was the cup denied to the Russian laity when
it was withheld from the Roman. The Russian Church never fabricated
a purgatory, and then sold indulgences to get people out of it. The Eastern
Church has never added uncatholic articles to the Nicene Creed, as in
that of Pope Pius the Fourth, and issued the whole as binding upon all
who would be saved. Again, the errors of the East have at least the stamp
of antiquity. They have not added to the Christian faith novel articles,
such as the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, or still less claimed a
supremacy and infallibility which in the early Christian councils would need
only to have been mentioned to have been scouted ; but in a very real sense
it may be said that Russia has kept the faith as she received it.
+ It may surprise some, as I confess it at first surprised me, to learn the
place the Russian Church gives to the Bible in her “Treatise on the Duty
of Parish Priests,”—a book by two Russian bishops, which has been adopted
by the whole Sclavonian Church, and which all candidates for orders are
required to have read, and to show their acquaintance with before being
ordained. The book begins by saying that “to teach the people is the
priest's very first duty," and then (VII.) that the priest is to teach the faith
and the law; that (ix.) “all the articles of faith are contained in the Word
of God—that is, in the books of the Old and New Testament”; and that
(XI.) “none other books are to be held by us as Divine Scriptures, or called




182
THROUGH SIBERIA.
and her doctrine respecting salvation through Christ
alone.* She does not forbid or hide the Scriptures
from the people, even if she neglects them, nor has
she stereotyped her errors by the claim to infallibility.
There is room, therefore, to hope for a change for the
better, which in my humble opinion should be attempted
from within, by a wider circulation and more general
study of the Scriptures; next, by a vastly increased
amount of good and Scriptural preaching ; and, once
more, by a powerful attack on the prevailing sin of
intemperance. Would the priests only endeavour to
instil into their people, respecting drink, half the
abstemiousness and self-denial that they teach them to
observe concerning forbidden food, they would render
Russia such a service as I have no words to express.
3
a
the Word of God, than the two volumes of the Old and New Testaments.”
Again (XIII.), that “the writings of the Holy Fathers are of great use.
But neither the writings of the Holy Fathers, nor the traditions of the
Church, are to be confounded or equalled with the Word of God and His
commandments; for the Word of God is one thing, but the writings of the
Holy Fathers and traditions ecclesiastical are another.” And further
(XXXII.), “So great being this work of teaching, etc. ... we cannot fail to
see how needful it is for the priest to abound both in word and in wisdom,
in order to the well-fulfilling of this his vast duty; and the only way hereto
is that he be skilled and nourished up from a child in Holy Scripture.”
* The “Treatise on the Duty of Parish Priests” reads (XXIX.): “Since
the sole beginner and perfecter of our holy faith and of everlasting
salvation is our Lord Jesus Christ (Heb. xii. 2), and there is none other
name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved, but only
His (Acts iv. 12), ... it is plain that in each of the above kinds of teach-
ing, the priest ought to instil the knowledge of Christ Jesus, inculcate His
doctrine, dwell on His exceeding compassion, and possess the soul with
this truth, that Christ alone is made unto us of God wisdom, righteous-
ness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. i. 30). . . . In every case, I
say, according to circumstances, he can implant, and is in duty bound to
implant, the knowledge of Christ Jesus; and so all instruction, and every
particular instruction, should be grounded on Christ ; for all that can be
either written or said in reference to the faith, and to everlasting happiness,
if it be not grounded on faith in Christ, is unfruitful, and can never save.”

CHAPTER XVII.
FROM TOMSK TO KRASNOIARSK.
Book-distribution in Western Siberia.-Departure from Tomsk.-Post-
bells.—How to sit in posting.--Sleeping.–Boundary of Western
Siberia.— Wild and domesticated animals.—Birds.-Scenery.--Road-
side villages.- Peasants' houses.-Hammering up “the Prodigal
Son.”—Siberian towns.-Houses of upper classes.—Misadventures.
-A hospitable merchant.-Frontier of Eastern Siberia.
I
HAVE said that, on returning to Tomsk, we found
the remainder of our books arrived. The reader
may like to know how we had prospered in relation to
their distribution through Western Siberia. Our sin-
gular mission greatly puzzled the Russians.
I have
since heard how it reached the ears of the worthy
Archbishop of Tobolsk that a strange Englishman had
been through the district, leaving thousands of books
to be given away. Like a watchful shepherd, his first
anxiety was to see that they contained no heresy.
Having examined the books, however, and perused
a set of the tracts, he found them exceedingly good,
and would by no means put anything in the way of
their distribution ; but, said his Eminence, Those
English are a queer lot, and there must surely be some
ulterior motive behind it.” To the same effect were
many of the officials' cogitations as they oozed out and
reached me from time to time. We met with no
opposition, however, or even questioning of what we

184
THROUGH SIBERIA.
were doing. The fact that the revolutionists have
sometimes distributed seditious leaflets inside pam-
phlets approved by the censor makes the police on
the alert in European Russia ; but I have usually
found even there, so long as all was clear and above-
board, that the authorities were willing to forward
my endeavours; and I so far availed myself of this
willingness in Siberia as to distribute more through
the authorities than formerly, and less in proportion
with our own hands. Still, we gave an immense
number personally, and many also we sold, on the
principle that a man values most what he pays for.
At each of the towns and villages on the Obi we
made up parcels and sent them with a note to the
parish priest, asking him to distribute the books
gratuitously. As the periodical— The Russian Work-
man—could be had post-free for a rouble a year, many
said they should get it. One man intimated that he
should write for 50 copies forth with, and another that
he should get the same number of subscribers in his
neighbourhood, on the Lower Obi, where he had built
a little church, and had had his son instructed to read
to the people. Our greatest success, however, in
Western Siberia, and one that would have repaid us
for all our trouble, has since proved to be the plans
laid at Tiumen, through which town, as observed
before, some 18,000 exiles pass yearly From data
given me in the prison, we had calculated that there
would be about 2,000 pass during the summer who
could read, and for these I left 1,980 Russian Scripture
portions, 36 Polish, German, French, Tatar, and Mon-
golian Scriptures, 546 copies of the Rooski Rabotchi,
and 2,520 tracts. The exiles going east are sent
a

FROM TOMSK TO KRASNOIARSK.
185
tracts.
away in the barge weekly, and, before the party starts,
I
a religious service is held by a priest at Tiumen.
have since heard that after this service, throughout
the summer, our books were distributed ; so that I
trust they are now to be found not only among the
convicts in prisons, but also with those who have been
sent to live free, but in comparative solitude, in the
furthest corners of the country.
Some have shaken their heads and said that the
men would sell the books, and make cigarettes of the
This, however, I doubt ; but, even if it be so,
it may simply mean, in the case of the Scriptures, that
,
a book has passed from the hands of one who did not
care for it to those of one who does. But the Rus-
sians have great respect, amounting almost to super-
stition, for what they call “holy books ”; and such
books are a great deal too scarce to allow of their
being generally uncared for. Moreover, in Siberia,
books of this character and tracts
In
European Russia, many, on receiving the books, said
they had no idea there were such publications in exist-
ence; and we had cases in Asia of soldiers giving
their last kopeck to get a copy of the Gospels, the
Psalms, or the New Testament.
Before leaving Tomsk we gave the Governor books
for the public institutions of his government, and left
with him boxes to be forwarded to the residence of
the Governor-General Kaznakoff, at Omsk. I had
been made acquainted with this latter officer, both
officially and privately, in Petersburg, and had been
invited to call upon him on my return through Omsk,
to be introduced to his family. The general had told
me also to telegraph to him in case I got into prison,

new.
;


186
THROUGH SIBERIA.
or in the event of any other small casualty, and I
looked forward with pleasure to my visit ; but with
my subsequent change of plans, I wrote asking that
the books I had sent might be distributed in the pro-
vinces of Akmolinsk and Semipolatinsk, and thus
finished arrangements for the supply of the public
institutions in all the four provinces of Western
Siberia : our total distribution thus far being 4,000
Scriptures and 9,000 pamphlets and tracts.
We now prepared to drive into Eastern Siberia,
and on Thursday evening, June 19th, galloped out
of Tomsk in two troikas, containing ourselves and
baggage—the latter reduced, but still a heavy load.
Outside the town the tongues of our horses' bells were
unloosed, and we jingled merrily along. The said
bells are placed beneath the douga, over the centre
horse, and are intended to give notice to the public
generally, and all whom it may concern, that post-
,
horses are coming, and, accordingly, that it is their
bounden duty to get out of the way. If they fail to
do this, which is sometimes the case, especially at
night, when the drivers of slow-going vehicles are
nodding on their seats, then “the rule of the road”
is that the post-boy may give them a cut with his
whip—a visitation inflicted sometimes upon men, and
sometimes, with caravans, upon the leading horse,
which, in his driver's absence or sleep, is supposed to
know the side of the road he ought to take.
We were now becoming accustomed to our jolting
mode of travel, and I had already discovered a secret
in connection therewith worth handing down to pos-
terity. It concerns the position of the body and legs
in the tarantass. If you place your heels against the

FROM TOMSK TO KRASNOIARSK.
187
a
tant.
front of the vehicle, or against a bag or box, your feet
become excessively tired; and if you lie at full length,
flat, you may soon imagine yourself in a ship’s berth,
rolling from side to side. Now, my golden secret is
this : First secure to yourself (in a hole if possible) a
soft, springy base upon which to sit, and then place on
that a ribbed circular air-cushion. Secondly, put your
down-pillow behind at an angle of 60 degrees, and, if
you like, an air-pillow, without ribs, in the nape of your
neck. But the next arrangement is the most impor-
Draw up your legs till the knees come on a
level with your chin ; then put beneath the knee-pits a
soft parcel or bag, sufficiently high to leave the feet
dangling above the ground ; and the result will be that
you will travel with comparative comfort by night and
by day continuously for 1,000 miles. Being thus fixed
before and behind, and kept laterally straight by the
side of the vehicle and your companion, the only
direction in which you can be shot is upwards and
heavenwards, to come down, alas ! on the old spot ;
and this must be accepted as your minimum amount of
local disturbance. The reader may think it utterly
impossible to sleep under such circumstances—and at
first it is so. But Nature will assert her claims. A
Siberian priest told us that, when he travelled from
Europe, he could not at first sleep at all in the taran-
tass; but that, when at last he did so, he lost no less
than three hats whilst wrapped in slumber. As for
myself, I soon learnt to doze ; and in my journal of
June 21st I find the entry, “ Managed to sleep quite
soundly in the tarantass till 8 o'clock this morning.”
It was not always, however, one could sleep the whole
night through; and I recollect on one occasion awaking
W


188
THROUGH SIBERIA.
from a beautiful dream of pleasant society in an Eng-
lish drawing-room to find myself, to my disgust, outside
a Siberian post-house. On another occasion I had
been sleeping soundly, and, on looking out early in the
morning, found that the driver had followed my
example; and the horses, not feeling the lash, had
followed suit, and so we had come to a standstill, and
all were slumbering together. I gave the man, how-
ever (to confess it for once), a dig in the back; his
whip fell on the horses, and they galloped in style to
the end of the stage.
On the third day after leaving Tomsk, we ap-
proached the boundary that divides Western from
Eastern Siberia ; but up to this point we had not met
with a large number of wild animals. No wolves came
alongside the tarantass as they did last year in the
Caucasus, nor did we so much as catch sight of a
bear, as on my journey from Archangel. * As to
domesticated animals, large herds of cows were seen,
and milk was abundant. Strange to say, however,
the people make little or no cheese ; and the peasants
do not usually butter their bread. Their fresh butter,
when they make it, is without salt, and is generally
used for cooking. The pigs of the country are a long-
legged breed, and are frequently seen running about
the village streets. They furnish the long bristles
from their mane which are used for making brooms.
* Mr. Atkinson gives the following list of mammalia as inhabiting
Siberia The reindeer, stag, roebuck, elk; the argali, or wild sheep, and
wild boar; the jackal, wolf, tiger, and bear; the Corsac and Arctic foxes;
the lynx, glutton, and polecat; the beaver, otter, badger, hedgehog,
ermine, Arctic hare ; sable; flying, striped, and common squirrels; the
Siberian and common marmots; the water and common rats; the mouse,
,
bat, and mole.

FROM TOMSK TO KRASNOIARSK.
189
We saw no lack of birds of prey in Western
Siberia, for hawks of various kinds are seen sailing
gracefully over every town. We met with the largest
number of sportsmen's birds between Tiumen and
Tobolsk, chiefly water-birds, with wild ducks and
geese in abundance. I tasted at Ekaterineburg the
gluchar, or cock of the wood, the same as our caper-
cailzie. It was a well-tasted bird, from whose breast
ten persons were helped, and it may be bought in
the winter at Ekaterineburg for 8d. In the Altai
regions is found a magnificent eagle called the bear-
coot, of which specimens are shown in the Barnaul
Museum. It is strong enough to kill a deer with
ease ; and it not unfrequently happens that, when
wolves have killed and begun to eat their prey, a
pair of bearcoots will attack and kill or drive them
away, and eat their intended meal. The Kirghese
tame these birds for the purpose of hunting.
As we pursued our way towards Eastern Siberia,
there was a slight improvement in the landscape. For
a long distance, after leaving Tomsk, the country was
flat ; but in the direction of Krasnoiarsk was seen a
range of hills to the south, dotted with pine-trees, the
country looking English-like and fertile, well wooded,
and here and there under cultivation. Hitherto the
herbage had been singularly luxuriant; but, from the
station next before Atchinsk, pasture became less plen-
tiful, and thus, in a measure, explained why henceforth
our hire of horses was to cost us double. The number
of towns and villages along the road for the first 400
miles of the way—that is, from Tomsk to Krasnoiarsk
-was more numerous than might be expected, though,
the further east we went, the further apart they were.




190
THROUGH SIBERIA.
The post-houses were rarely more than from ten to
fifteen miles distant from one another, and we frequently
drove through two or three intervening villages. To
describe one village is to describe them all—the chief
difference being that whilst each consists of a single
street, with detached houses on either side of the way,
some villages are larger than others. One we passed
through was said to be nearly three miles long. The
said street is usually wide, but never by any chance
paved, though now and then a few boards are laid
down for a footway. Nor is the street usually beau-
tified with anything worthy the name of a garden.
Now and then a few trees are planted in front of a
house, but with such a high, clumsy pallisade to keep
off the cattle, that the attempted cultivation of beauty
becomes rather a disfigurement than otherwise. The
priest's house is often one of the best in the place.
So, again, the post-house usually stands out promi-
nently ; and if there happen to be any Government
official in the village, an extra coat of paint, or some
little ornamentation about the exterior, may point out
the house inhabited by superiors ; but ordinarily the
houses of the peasants or farmers are very much alike.
The foundation may perchance be of stone, but all
else is of wood. For the walls, trees are cut and
barked, slightly flattened by being cut away on two
opposite sides, and then laid one above the other, the
ends being dovetailed together at the corners. The
interstices between the logs are calked with moss, and
the roof is generally of overlapping boards. So long
as the foundation holds good, the houses look tolerably
neat ; but when this begins to give, or the logs to
rot, they become strained and warped in so many

FROM TOMSK TO KRASNOIARSK.
191
directions as to present a very dilapidated appearance.
When the houses are intended for the accommodation
of human beings only, they generally have no second
storey ; but in the case of farm-houses, where cattle
are sheltered, we frequently found them having an
upper storey approached by an outside staircase. There
were usually also out-houses adjoining, and under the
same roof; so that one had but to leave the dwelling-
room upstairs, cross a passage, and open a door, to
find oneself looking down upon beasts and cattle, and
other denizens of a farm-yard, which share the same
roof, though not, like the Irish pig, the same apart-
ments as their owners. The interior of the house is
as simple as the outside. In the centre is a brick
stove. The walls are whitewashed or papered, and
adorned with pictures according to the means and taste
of the owners. Portraits of the Imperial family figure
largely, so do battle scenes, pictures of the saints, and
family photographs. As already observed, I took
with me a large number of illustrated prints of “The
Prodigal Son,” round which was written the parable
in Russ.
Having provided myself with a hammer
and tacks, I was wont to go into the guest-room at the
post-houses, and there nail up the picture, to the
great admiration usually of the post-master.
I have
heard from a gentleman, who has recently crossed
Siberia, that these pictures still adorn the walls of the
post-houses, and that the books given with them are
carefully preserved. My action, however, was not
always understood at first, especially by those who
could not read. One woman, who saw only an early
stage of my operations, ran off to her husband as
frightened as if I had been nailing up an Imperial




192
THROUGH SIBERIA. .
a
ukase. They usually proceeded at once to read the
parable ; some said they should have it framed ; and
one post-master, a Jew, said in German, as he finished
reading, that it was “a right good story.”
What has been said of Siberian houses thus far
refers more especially to the houses of the peasantry
and their villages. The traveller, however, from
Tomsk passes certain small towns which have cross
streets, wooden footways, perchance a small hospital,
and the residence of an ispravnik, or a few well-to-do
merchants. On entering the dwelling of one of these
classes, one finds large rooms, papered walls, and
painted floors, with perhaps a square of carpet near
the sofa and table. Things look plain but comfortable
within ; and the out-houses, such as kitchen and bath-
house, are at a convenient distance in the yard. The
liability of the kitchen to catch fire partly accounts for
its being detached ; and these out-houses serve as a
residence for the servants.
Houses occupied by persons highest in position,
such as governors of provinces, and high military
officers, are also of wood, and often without a second
storey ; but the rooms are more spacious and en suite,
enlivened with flowers and creepers, and the tables
enriched by articles of vertu from Europe. It is
interesting to an Englishman to see how many things
from London find their way to these remote regions.
Thus, when sitting at a desk, one finds oneself among
Cumberland leads and Perry's coloured pencils, and a
dozen other trifles, reminders of home.
Our journey from Tomsk to Krasnoiarsk was not
entirely devoid of incident, our misadventures being
connected for the most part with a limping wheel.

FROM TOMSK TO KRASNOIARSK.
193
Our first misadventure happened in returning from
Barnaul, when, in the middle of the night, in the
midst of a field, one of our shafts broke. But this
might have happened anywhere; and fortunately there
happened to be a man resting by the roadside to feed
his horses, who lent us his pole to go to the next
station. Early in the morning, however, it was dis-
covered that our Siberian Jehu had been driving so
furiously that, like Phaëton, his classical ancestor, he
had set the wheels on fire. Matters were made worse
for want of a smith at hand; and when we found
a smith, he had no coal. We applied, therefore, a
liberal allowance of grease, and limped on to Tomsk,
where the whole concern was supposed to be put in
order and cleaned, with the addition of new shafts and
mended wheels, at a cost of nearly £2. We had
not travelled four-and-twenty hours before the wheel
was again on fire, and we paid several shillings for
the repair of the axletree ; a little further on, 245.
more; and then, on the evening of the third day, we
arrived at a village where lived a smith. Now this
man was well known in the district as an extortioner.
He came to us clad in a pea-green dressing-gown, and
smoked a cigarette as he leisurely walked round the
tarantass, just as a man surveys a horse. He informed
us that he would put us right for £5, which we flatly
refused to give.
But you will certainly break down
if you proceed,” urged the extortioner. “Then,” said
.
I, "if we do, we will not come to
come to you for assistance.”
Said some of the people, “You had better go on to
the next station at Bogotol, where there lives a mer-
chant named So-and-so ; and if you ask him he will
recommend you to an honest wheelwright.” With our
13
a


VOL. I.

194
THROUGH SIBERIA.
spokes roped together, therefore, and wetted, we
waddled on, and arrived at Bogotol between three
and four in the morning.
“Is the merchant So-and-so at home?” was the first
question we asked at the post-house. “Yes,” said they;
“but he is asleep, and will get up for nobody.” “Indeed,"
said I to my interpreter, “will you go to him and say
as politely as you can that an Englishman travelling to
Irkutsk has met with an accident, and will be greatly
obliged if he can recommend him an honest wheel-
wright?” And off went Mr. Interpreter, with a glum
countenance, evidently not liking his job. He knocked
at the merchant's door, expecting to get roundly abused
for his intrusion. But the merchant, on ascertaining
what was the matter, asked the stranger in, and shouted
to his servants, Peter, Timothy, and John, to bestir
themselves. One he sent for the wheelwright, another
to heat the samovar, and a third to prepare some food;
and then, said he, I cannot think of letting you go
till the wheelwright comes, and all is going well”; after
which he plied his visitor with talk, telling him what a
famous place was Siberia; that any one might come in
his neighbourhood, and, without payment, till as much
land or cut as much grass as he liked, no man for-
bidding him ; though labour, he added, was scarce,
and imported goods dear. Thus, after tea and talk,
and the arrival of the workman, the merchant re-
turned to his slumbers. But I thought this one of the
finest examples of hospitality and kindness to strangers
I had ever met with, and I wondered much whether a
broken-down Russian traveller, knocking up an English-
man at four in the morning, and asking to be recom-
mended to an honest wheelwright, would have received
a

FROM TOMSK TO KRASNOIARSK.
195
a kindlier reception. The honest wheelwright mended
us up for a few shillings, and, after calling to thank the
merchant, we started, and about noon reached Krasno-
rechinska. Here we called upon the priest, who had
3,000 parishioners, of whom he said 200 could read,
for whom we gave him some pamphlets, and sold him
four New Testaments. He possessed a large Russian
a
Bible, which cost upwards of six shillings, and was, he
said, the cheapest to be had.
By night we reached Atchinsk, the first station in
Eastern Siberia, and although the roads were per-
ceptibly better immediately we crossed the border, our
poor wheel was out of trim again, and threatened to
detain us far into the morrow. And now came sundry
physicians to administer advice, chiefly, however, in
their own favour. One wished to sell us a new wheel
for £1, another to make an exchange of our two front
wheels for £2, and so on; in answer to which I declared
that I would go straight to the Ispravnik and show my
grand letter from Petersburg. “But,” urged Mr. Inter-
preter, “the Ispravnik has nothing to do with mending
wheels!” “True," I replied; but—“Let us go!”
And so we did, and were kindly received.
axletrees are of iron,” said the Ispravnik, “I doubt
whether there are any persons in the place capable of
mending them ; but, even if there are, they will most
likely be drunk, as to-day is a fête ; and you must
therefore wait till to-morrow.” I pleaded, however,
that he should do his best, and things turned out better
than he prophesied. A wheelwright was found, who
for half-a-crown enabled us to proceed, and early next
morning we reached Krasnoiarsk.
6
If your


CHAPTER XVIII.
THE YENESEI.
-
Sources of the river.- Discoveries of Wiggins and Nordenskjold.—The
Yenesei at Krasnoiarsk.-Current, width, depth. - Breaking up of
ice.—The Yeneseisk province.—Geography.—Meteorology.-Forests.
- Timber.—Fish of Yenesei.-—Birds.-Russian population.— Naviga-
tion.-Corn and cattle.—Towns.-A Scoptsi village.-Salubrity of
climate. - The aborigines. - Ethnology. – Tunguses. - Fur-bearing
animals.—Methods of hunting.–Minerals.
THI
HE most remarkable of the natural features of
the Yeneseisk province is its wonderful river,
the Yenesei, * much of our knowledge of which, below
Krasnoiarsk, we owe to the discoveries of Wiggins and
Seebohm, Nordenskjold and Théel, all of whose infor-
mation has come to us within the past seven years.t
As I stood on the banks of the Yenesei at Kras-
noiarsk, it appeared to me the most majestic stream I
* Its most distant sources rise under another name in Mongolia, on
the eastern side of the Khangai mountains, whence the Selenga and
the Orkhon, flowing together into Lake Baikal, emerge as the Angara,
which flows into the Yenesei proper near the town of Yeneseisk. The
stream that is called the Yenesei, however, rises in the Tannu range of
the Altai mountains, whence it bursts through the Sayansk chain in
cataracts and rapids, and enters Siberia south of Minusinsk; and then,
flowing on beyond Krasnoiarsk, it is joined by the Angara, the Lower
and Upper Tunguska, and the Kureika, all flowing in on the right bank.
The Russians give its length as 3,472 miles, thus making the Yenesei the
fourth longest river in the world, being exceeded only by the Nile, the
Amazon, and the Mississippi.
+ See Appendix D.

THE YENESEI.
197
had ever beheld ; and, when looking at the rush of its
waters, I was thankful that we had attempted nothing
so rash as to descend by a raft on its bosom ; for, how-
ever pleasant a method of travelling from Minusinsk
this might be in summer, it would be nothing short of
madness to attempt it during the spring floods. Some
idea of the swiftness of the current may be gathered
from the report of M. Théel, who says that, including
stoppages and without rowing, they were carried in
their boat from Krasnoiarsk to Yeneseisk, a distance
of 300 miles, in 2} days; that is to say, they floated
down the stream at just about the same speed as we
attained with three horses at our best travelling, namely,
130 miles in a day and night. Allowing for stoppages,
they floated at the rate of seven miles an hour. Dr.
Peacock, who lives at Krasnoiarsk, informed me that
the river in quiet places has a current of five miles an
hour; in swifter places of 10 miles, and in some very
rapid parts of 17 miles an hour ; but this last may per-
chance refer to the two rapids, through one of which
M. Théel's party had to shoot at Padporoschensk,
about 170 miles below Krasnoiarsk, and the other, of
which Mr. Seebohm speaks as remaining unfrozen all
the winter through.*
I imagine that the grandest thing to be witnessed
on the Lower Yenesei is the breaking-up of the ice,
* The gigantic proportions of the Yenesei will be further realized from
its width, which at Krasnoiarsk, 1,700 miles from the sea, is more than
1,000 yards, and at Yeneseisk it measures rather more than a mile. From
thence it widens gradually, so that at the Kureika it enlarges to about
three miles; and between Tolstonosovsk and Goltchikha it expands like a
lake with a breadth of more than 40 miles. The delta and lagoon formed
by its waters are about 400 miles in length. The depth of the river varies,
of course, according to the season, but opposite Dudinsk M. Théel's
sounding-line indicated a depth of 12 fathoms. The river has a fall of

198
THROUGH SIBERIA.
which Mr. Seebohm has described as he saw it in
1877. Proceeding down the river on the ice with
Captain Wiggins, they reached the ship Thames in her
winter quarters near the confluence of the Kureika
with the Yenesei, and were quietly waiting for the
opening of the navigation, when on the ist of June
commenced what Mr. Seebohm calls the battle of
the Yenesei.” The pressure underneath caused a large
field of ice to break away, which, by collision with an
angular point of the bank, resulted in the piling up of
a little range of ice mountains 50 or 60 feet high, and
picturesque in the extreme. Huge blocks of ice, six
feet thick and 20 feet long, were seen standing per-
pendicularly, whilst others were crushed up in fragments
like broken pottery. Some were white, and some clear
as glass, and blue as an Italian sky. Then the river
began to rise, and in the course of the night the whole
crust of the Yenesei, as far as could be seen, broke up
with a tremendous crash, and a dense mass of ice-floes
and pack-ice rushed irresistibly up the Kureika, driving
the poor ship like a toy before it, and leaving it in the
evening, amidst huge hummocks of ice, almost high
and dry. The velocity of these masses of pack-ice on
the Yenesei was reckoned on some days to be not less
than 20 miles an hour. This sort of thing continued
for a fortnight, and during two days it was calculated
4,000 feet, and the banks generally are steep and lofty, from 60 to 100 feet
above the water. Thus it would seem that comparatively little land is
covered by the summer floods, which is just the reverse in the case of the
Obi. M. Théel observes, however, that it frequently happens, when one
bank is high, the other is low, from which it follows that the vegetation on
either side assumes a somewhat different character; for where the bank
is low, and consequently exposed to inundations, one sees abundance of
willows, whilst the higher bank is very often covered with fir, pine, and
larch.

THE YENESEI.
199
that 50,000 acres of ice passed the ship up the con-
stantly changing Kureika, which alternately rose and
fell. Many square miles of ice were marched up for
some hours, and then marched back again. Sometimes
the pack-ice and floes were jammed so tightly together
that it looked as if one might scramble across the river
without much difficulty. At other times there was a
good deal of open water, and the icebergs “calved” as
they went along, with much commotion and splashing,
that could be heard a mile off. Underlayers of icebergs
grounded, and after the velocity of the enormous mass
had caused it to pass on, the “calves,” or pieces left
behind, rose to the surface like whales coming up to
breathe. Some of them must have done so from a
good depth, for they rose out of the water with a con-
siderable splash, and rocked about for some time before
settling down to their floating level. At last took
place the final march past of the beaten winter forces
in this great 14 days' " battle,” and for seven days
more came slowly down the stragglers of the great
Arctic army-worn and weather-beaten little icebergs,
dirty ice-floes looking like mudbanks, and broken pack-
ice in the last stage of destruction—after which the river
was found to have risen to a height of 70 feet.
To proceed, however, from the river to the basin
through which it flows. The Yenesei gives its name
to Yeneseisk, that central Siberian province which is
bounded on the west by the governments of Tobolsk and
Tomsk, and on the east by those of Yakutsk and Irkutsk.
It is the only province that stretches across the country
from the Altai range to the Arctic Ocean, a distance
from north to south of nearly 2,000 miles; or, to put
it in another way, it extends from the latitude of London




200
THROUGH SIBERIA.
summer.
to that of the most northerly point of Asia, within 14
degrees of the North Pole. *
The province is divided into six uyezds, with six
principal towns, viz., Krasnoiarsk, Minusinsk, Yene-
seisk, Kansk, Atchinsk, and Turukhansk. The dif-
.
ferences of temperature between its various parts
are, of course, very great. The southern portions
about Minusinsk we heard spoken of as the Italy
of Siberia ; and at Krasnoiarsk, towards the end of
June, we found the temperature like that of an English
Further north, at Yeneseisk, the greatest
heat of the year 1877 (registered in June) was 92.5,
whilst the greatest cold sunk to 59'2 below zero. This
cold was exceeded in December of the same year at
Turukhansk, where the thermometer sank to 63'0
below zero.
The province is covered with magnificent forests up
to the Arctic Circle, but the trees rapidly diminish in
size further north, and disappear soon after lat. 69°.
These forests are principally of pine. In the neigh-
bourhood of Krasnoiarsk the pine and the larch attain
to colossal dimensions. The pine frequently rises to
200 feet in height, but is never more than six feet in
* The province has an area of nearly a million square miles——that is to
say, is somewhat larger than the aggregate surface covered by Austria,
France, Russia, Spain, and all the British possessions in Europe. The
southern part only is mountainous, all above the both parallel being flat and
swampy. It has some half-dozen large and thousands of smaller lakes in
the tundras of the north, and the province is well watered by the Yenesei
and its larger affluents,-namely, the Angara, the Podkamennaia (or
stony) Tunguska, the Nijnaia (or lower) Tunguska, and the Kureika.
In 1873 the population was thus classified : hereditary nobles, 800 ;
personally noble, 1,600 ; ecclesiastical persons of all sorts, 4,000 ; towns-
people, 20,000 ; rural population, 232,000; military, 15,000; foreigners,
42 ; and others, probably aborigines, 122,000. The total population in
1880 was 372,000, or about three-fourths of the population of Liverpool.

THE YENESEI.
201
diameter at the base. The larch, which has the furthest
northern range, sometimes attains to the same height,
but its diameter is but four feet on the surface of the
ground. *
The forests abound with animal life, as do the rivers
with fish. Fish forms the principal food of the natives,
and in summer almost every one is a fisherman, using
nets and lines, or spearing by torchlight. In the
Yenesei are found pike, ruff, perch, and tench, all
which are little esteemed, and serve as food for the
dogs. The more valued are the sturgeon, salmon,
and various species of the genus Coregonus. The
common sturgeon is caught along the whole Yenesei,
and sometimes weighs more than 200 lbs. The sterlet
* The larch is called in Russ listvenitsa (from list, a leaf, and venets,
a crown), in allusion to the arrangement of its acicular leaves. Its wood
looks well for the walls and ceilings of the peasants' rooms.
The larch
is highly valued also for its power of resisting the effects of moisture,
besides which, when used as fuel, it is found to produce a high degree of
heat (in which respect the birch comes next), though it does not produce
a brilliant light. For the tile-kilns it is preferable to all other wood, but
it is not used for charcoal, nor does it serve well for burning in the house,
on account of the pungent and stupefying qualities of its smoke ; nor in
the furnaces used for the manufacture of rolled iron plates, for it soils the
metal.
The elegant spruce fir, with its branches almost down to the root and
trailing on the ground, is more abundant, and extends nearly as far north.
The Siberians look upon this tree as very important for commercial pur-
poses. The wood is white, light, and very elastic. It is the favourite
tree for masts, and is considered the best substitute for ash for oars,
and it makes the best "knees” for shipbuilding. Snow-shoes also are
generally made of this wood. The quality is good down into the roots.
It is, however, subject to very hard knots, which are said to blunt the edge
of any axe not made of Siberian steel. The Siberian spruce is less abun-
dant, and differs from the common spruce in having a smooth bark of an
ash-grey colour. The leaves are also of a much darker and bluer green.
The wood is soft and liable to crack and decay, and is consequently of little
commercial value ; but, being easy to split, it is largely used for roofing and
for fuel. The cost of firewood in Siberia per sajen, or seven-feet cube, is
35., as compared with 12s. in Petersburg, and from 203. to 30s. at Moscow




202
THROUGH SIBERIA.
usually weighs only three or four lbs., but occasionally
reaches 18. The salmon is most numerous in the upper
course of the river at Minusinsk, where it is caught in
great numbers.
The birds of the Yeneseisk province have received
much attention from Mr. Seebohm. He brought home,
in 1877, about 500 eggs, and more than 1,000 skins, but
he thinks that he would have had a still larger bag had
he made Yeneseisk his head-quarters instead of the
Kureika. He speaks of a perfect Babel of birds when
the ice was breaking up at the beginning of June.
Gulls, geese, and swans were flying about in all direc-
tions, also flocks of redpoles and shore-larks, bram-
blings and wagtails ; and in the course of the summer
were seen the sea-eagle, the rough-legged buzzard, the
:
At Krasnoiarsk a log of building timber, 80 feet long, costs from zod. to
35., whilst bricks cost from 16s. to 2ps. per 1,000. The Scotch fir, with the
upper trunk and branches almost of a cinnamon yellow, is in many places
very abundant.
The Siberian is proudest, however, of his cedar-a tree very similar in
appearance to the Scotch fir, but more regular in its growth-clothed with
branches nearer to the ground, and with an almost uniform grey trunk.
For furniture and indoor wood it is considered to be the best timber in the
country, and is said never to rot or shrink, warp or crack. It is soft and
easy to work, but has a fine grain, and is almost free from knots. The
Ostjaks use it for building their large boats. They take a trunk two or
three feet in diameter, split it, and of each half make a wide, thin board.
Having no proper saws, they are obliged to cut the wood away with an
axe, and thus the greater part of the tree is wasted. The Russian peasant
is still more prodigal with his timber, for when I was going through the
forest east of the Yenesei, a felled cedar-tree was pointed out, and the
remark made that it was quite usual that a man who wanted nuts should
cut down a fine tree for the sole purpose of replenishing his bag with the
nut-filled cones.
The birch is common up to the 70th parallel, and still further north, on
the tundra, in suitable localities, the creeping birch and two or three sorts
of willow may be met with. The alder is abundant, and the juniper. The
poplar is found as far north as Turukhansk. The Ostjaks hollow their
canoes from the trunks of this tree.

THE YENESEI.
203
sparrow-hawk, and various kinds of owls. In addition
to our species of cuckoo, the Himalayan cuckoo made
its way to these regions, though it had a different note
to that of our English bird—a guttural and hollow-
sounding hoo, which could be heard at a great distance.
Ravens and carrion-crows were plentiful, and jackdaws,
magpies, and starlings were seen at Yeneseisk, though
the jackdaw and starling did not go much further
north, which remark applies also to the bullfinch. The
nut-cracker was found as far north as the Kureika,
where it showed a desire to be sociable, and often
perched on the rigging of the Thames. Besides these,
Mr. Seebohm, among many other birds, mentions the
thrush, the black, hazel, and willow grouse, the caper-
cailzie, bittern, crane, lapwing, and golden plover. To-
wards the end of summer is to be seen, he says, a
curious sight on the tundras—flocks of geese in full
moult and unable to fly.
The Russian population of the province is settled
for the more part in towns and villages by the side of
the river, and along the great high road crossing it.
The natives wander over the remainder. Russian vil-
lages are seen from 10 to 15 miles apart on the rivers'
banks, at which travellers proceeding north may find
oarsmen in summer and horses in winter,—horses, that
is, as far as Turukhansk, beyond which first dogs and
then reindeer are employed.
Most of the corn that is raised in the province grows
about Minusinsk, where it may be bought at a fabulously
low price, and whence it is brought down the river in
barges and flat-bottomed boats.* Rye is not cultivated
* In 1876 the number of steamers on the Yenesei was four, all of which
had paddle-wheels, and were used for tugging barges. The steamers took



204
THROUGH SIBERIA.
further north than Antsiferova, 40 miles below Yene-
seisk, and oats not beyond Zotina, on the both parallel.
Potatoes are cultivated up to Turukhansk, but they are
small. Agriculture, in fact, practically ceases a little
beyond Yeneseisk.
The Russians alone give any
attention to it, as the natives are too busy fishing during
their short summers to till the land. Cattle are raised
to some small extent in the valley of the Yenesei,
though the people do not appear to understand how to
make the most of them. Cows are found as far as
Dudinsk; but though in some of the villages they may
have 40 or 50, it is almost impossible to get a glass of
milk, the calves being allowed to take it all. An Anglo-
Russian lady informs me that, were these cows treated
like English ones, even for a few days, they would
lose their milk ; therefore a Russian cow is only par-
tially milked, the rest being left for her calf. A scientific
gentleman told my friend that it is the peculiarity of all
cows only lately redeemed from a wild state to lose their
milk when deprived of their calves. The making of
butter is only half known on the Yenesei, and of cheese
not at all. Sheep are found as far as Vorogova, and
goats up to Yeneseisk.
Of the towns and villages on the Yenesei, Yeneseisk
no cargo on board, and some of the barges were arranged like floating
shops. These last leave Yeneseisk at the end of May, and return from
the lower part of the river at the end of September, during which period
the two largest steamers, with engines of 60 or 70-horse power, make two
voyages, the smaller only one. Some of the barges are of 250 tons burthen.
Besides these steamers, there were two sailing-boats of 50 tons burthen
each, and a number of others from 6 to 20 tons. It should also be added
that there are large pentagonal boats or barges, constructed with huge
timbers in the corn-growing districts on the upper part of the river, whence
they are towed down each by 15 or 20 men, and then, arrived at their
destination, are broken up for building or firewood. Such was the fleet of
the Yenesei at the time of the visit of M. Théel.
a

THE YENESEI.
205
is the oldest, having been founded in 1618; and the
most curious is that of Silovanoff, near Turukhansk.
It is inhabited by exiled Scoptsi, a fanatical sect whose
principal doctrine is based on Matt. xix. 12, who muti-
late themselves, and endeavour to persuade others to
follow their example. When these people are caught
so acting, they are banished. *
It has already been intimated that the aborigines
wander over the uninhabited parts of the province.
In the south, about Minusinsk, are Tatars, most of
whom have embraced the Christianity of the Russian
Church. In the north, to the west of the river, are the
* Mr. Seebohm tells me that, as regards material comforts, this village is
far in advance of the ordinary Russian villages. He found the land well
cultivated and railed off, the cattle kept out by gates, and there was a
hospital for the sick. The houses were ventilated, the joining work was
good, and there were books. All intoxicants were forbidden, and likewise
tobacco and tea and coffee. Morally, in fact, it was a model village and
without crime. The inhabitants, however, of whom there were more men
than women, had a remarkable appearance. They were all sallow; the
men were beardless, with squeaky voices; and no inhabitant was less than
forty years of age. A “baby's music” had never been heard among
them. They keep all the festivals of the Russian Church, but have no
priest. They say that every man is a priest, and that he can perform
priestly acts only for himself. They provided Mr. Seebohm, as a guest,
with both tea and butter, but the Scoptsi themselves eat no animal food
but fish, use no butter and drink no milk. At least this was so origin-
ally; but here breaks forth a fact that should be respectfully dedicated
to all who suppose it within the bounds of possibility to bring every one,
or to keep every one, to the same way of thinking. These people number
less than a score, have no one in the village not of their own persuasion,
and yet they have split into two sects, the difference being that one
drinks milk and the other does not. Originally some 700 or 8oo were
sent from the government of Perm ; but many on the Yenesei were
dying, and they petitioned to be removed elsewhere, and are now to be
found with other Scoptsi in large numbers in the province of Yakutsk.
As to the relative salubrity of these and other Siberian provinces, the only
clue that I have is that whereas in 1879 the death-rate in the government
of Perm, whence these people came, was 5'07 per cent., it was 4'13 in the
province of Tobolsk, 3.89 in that of Irkutsk, and 3.51 in the province of
Yeneseisk.



206
THROUGH SIBERIA.
Samoyedes and Ostjaks. West of the river, at the
,
extreme north, are the Yuraks, and below them the
Tunguses, which latter wander over a far larger area
other tribe in Siberia.* Those in the Yene-
than any
**
OSTJAK WOMEN OF THE YENESEISK PROVINCE.
seisk province give themselves to the care of reindeer
* Dr. Latham observes that, if we take the principal populations that
are common to the Russian and Chinese Empires, we find them to be the
Turkish, Mongolian, and Tungusian races; the Turk on the west, the
Mongol in the middle, and the Tunguse on the east. The Tunguse race
begins, he says, north of Peking, and stretches through Manchuria across

THE YENESEI.
207
and to the chase. M. Théel speaks of them as the
most intelligent of the natives on the Yenesei, and says
that their rich women, probably wives of chiefs, often
wear furs of beaver, sable, and black fox to the value
of many hundreds of pounds sterling. He mentions
also, as some proof of their intellectual taste, that there
was presented to him a hexagonal spindle of ivory,
upon which the days, the weeks, and the months were
indicated by different signs. He speaks also of a game
they had resembling chess, of which all the pieces were
of ivory.
Among the principal animals, objects of their chase,
are the sable, the common fox, the white fox, the elk,
the reindeer, the wolf, the bear, the ermine, and the
squirrel. At the beginning of October, and sometimes
also of January, they start on snow-shoes. Alone, or
in company, the hunter goes into the virgin forest,
some hundreds of versts from any habitation, and is
followed by a little sledge drawn by dogs. If he
finds the track of a sable, he follows, and, on lighting
upon the animal, he has not much difficulty in killing
it. But the sable often takes refuge in a hole, and
then there is nothing to be done but to await his
pleasure in coming out ; and as this may be by night as

the district of the Amur, and north-east and west to the sea of Okhotsk
and to the Yenesei. Of the Tunguse family the Manchu is the most
civilized, whilst in Siberia we have them in their extreme character of
rude nomads, unlettered, and still pagan, or but imperfectly Christianized.
The Tungusian approaches the Mongolian, the Ostjak, or the Eskimo,
according as his residence lies north or south ; within the limit of the
growth of trees or beyond it, on the champaign, the steppe, or the
tundra. On the tundra the horse ceases to be his domestic animal, and
the reindeer or the dog replaces it. Hence we hear of three divisions of
the Tunguse family called by different names, according as they possess
horses, reindeer, or dogs.

208
THROUGH SIBERIA.
well as by day, his retreat is covered with fine threads
attached to bells, which give the alarm. The hunter
may thus have to wait two or three days ; but, if he
happen to kill the much-coveted animal, his trouble is
en
13
YURAK HUNTSMAN.
well rewarded; for a good sable skin fetches from
50s. to £10. In skinning, the coat ought not to be
stretched; but, on the contrary, contracted as much as
possible, in order to render the hairs more bushy,

THE YENESEI.
209
which enhances the value. Hence the skins one
meets with in commerce are all short and wide.
The common fox is taken with snares and traps.
The black fox is very rare in these parts, and its skin
is valued up to £100. The white fox is taken on the
tundra by means of traps placed on the top of little
hills. This animal generally retires south towards
the middle of September; and as it is known that
the fox, rather than jump over an obstacle, however
low, goes round it, the hunters, profiting by this
,
knowledge, set up barriers of branches, leaving open-
ings where they plant their snares, and catch their
prey. The hunting of the elk is carried on by men
on snow-shoes ; and such numbers of this animal are
killed that in some years one may buy at Yeneseisk as
many as 10,000 skins. Reindeer are taken in numbers
equally large, sometimes in traps, and sometimes by
driving whole herds into an enclosure, from which they
cannot get out.
One of their modes of capturing the bear in the
Yeneseisk province is by fixing a wooden platform to
the trunk of a tree, and at such a height from the
ground that the bear is forced to stand on his hind-
legs at full length to reach the middle. On this plat-
form are numerous barbed iron spikes, and at the
higher part a joint of meat. The bear arrives, stands
up, and puts forward one paw to seize the bait ; but,
bringing it down on the spikes, finds it fixed. The
furious animal puts down the second to release the
* The horns of these animals are very fine. I was presented with a
pair in Archangel, measuring nearly four feet from the skull to the extre-
mities, which are a yard apart. The brow antlers are 13 inches long, and
the bes-antlers, or those next above, 16 and 18 inches respectively, whilst
the total measurement of antlers and branches is upwards of 14 feet.
*

VOL. I.
14

210
THROUGH SIBERIA. .
first, which also is caught, and he thus becomes an
easy prey to the huntsman.
Thus the natives spend their days—fishing in summer
and hunting in winter. They have no towns, no vil-
lages, no houses, but live in tents of skins or of bark,
according to the season ; and they have little idea of
civilized life, or the mineral wealth with which their
country abounds.
Iron ore is found in the valley of
the Yenesei, and from the province, in 1877, 2,700
tons were cast; also from the mine of graphite, on the
Kureika, Captain Wiggins ballasted one of his vessels.
The greatest mineral product of the province, how-
ever, is gold, of which I shall speak in the following
chapter.

CHAPTER XIX. ,
A VISIT TO A GOLD-MINE.
-
Gold in Siberia.-Where found.-Gold-hunting.--A prospecting party.--
Thawing the ground. --Subterranean passages.-Hardships.--Mining
calculations.—Building of barracks.—Preparations for our visit.-
Costumes.-Road through the “forest primeval.”—Luxuriant vege-
tation.-Crossing mountains.-Arrival at mine.-Labour of miners.
– - Gold-washing machine. — Government inspection. — Wages.
Hours of labour.—Miners' food.-Pay-day.-Drink and its follies.-
Miners' fortunes.-Mines of Eastern Siberia.- Return to Krasnoiarsk.
-
N ,
°
OT many Englishmen, probably, would think of
going to Siberia to seek for El-dorado, the
fabled land of gems and gold. Many tons of precious
metals, however, are found there yearly ; and there are
firms, consisting of only two or three partners, that net
an annual income of more than half-a-million sterling.
The Russian empire furnishes an eighth part of the
gold found yearly throughout the world, and three-
fourths of this quantity come from Siberia. It was at
the beginning of the century that gold-washing was
commenced in the Urals, and a period of great pro-
sperity followed from 1825 to about 1850. Since that
time the number of mines has increased, but the
profits are less, because, whilst the value of gold has
diminished, the price of labour has risen. The sources
and affluents of the great Siberian rivers are rich in
gold. The districts on the west of Lake Baikal that
are most worked are those of Yeneseisk, Irkutsk,




212
THROUGH SIBERIA.
Kansk, Nijni-Udinsk, and the sources of the Lena,
which last are the richest. *
Accordingly, when we arrived at Krasnoiarsk, the
large town of the Yeneseisk gold-mining district, and
made acquaintance with some of the gold-seekers'
families, it appeared a good opportunity to visit one of
the mines, since they were called “near.” It was rather
alarming, however, to discover what were the Siberians'
notions of the word near, for in that huge country 100
miles or more go for nothing—in fact, are a mere trifle,
and not too long to be travelled for the sake of a ball or
a festive gathering. The gold-seekers' daughters even
sometimes go out to their fathers' mines within this
distance, and, when they do so, stride their horses in
top-boots and knickerbockers to save their dresses
being torn in the primeval forest, or, as it is called,
the taiga. When, therefore, I found that a pair of
high boots would be necessary, and that it would in-
volve a long journey on horseback, I rather hesitated.
We had, however, been introduced to the Director of
the Krasnoiarsk Hospital, Dr. Peacock ; and when it
appeared that not only he, but Mrs. Peacock also,
would join the party, my courage rose, and I deter-
mined to go.
But, before we start, let me try to give the reader
some idea as to the localities in which the gold is
* East of Lake Baikal are many mines on various rivers, such as the
Nertcha, the Ingoda, and the Onon. Another famous river is the Olekma ;
whilst the Amur produces so much of the precious metal that the yield of
some of its valleys is fabulous. I heard, near Albazin, concerning the
Upper Amur Gold-mining Company, that for the past ten years they had
washed 150 poods of gold annually, which, reckoned at £2,000 a pood-its
price during the year of my visit-gives a product of £3,000,000. Also on
the Vitim, during the summer of 1878, from 300 to 400 poods, I was told,
had been extracted, which represent from £600,000 to £800,000 sterling.

A VISIT TO A GOLD-MINE,
213
found, and how it is discovered. In the mountainous
districts of the forest countless brooks unite into rivulets,
which, in accordance with the character of the land-
scape, have a strong fall, becoming very rapid in the
spring, and still more so in the summer, after the melt-
ing of the snow. The waters uproot trees, undermine
rocks, and sweep along earth, gold, and other metals
with resistless fury, till the lowlands are reached, where
the stream, having no longer the same force, allows the
heavy gold to sink to the bottom, to be covered, per-
haps, next season with more gold, or, perhaps, by
earth and rubbish. It will be easy to understand,
then, how a layer of sand containing gold may be
thus formed, and subsequently covered over with beds
of earth and stone.
The professional tayoshnik, or gold-hunter, has to
discover these auriferous layers ; but this he cannot do
There must be a prospecting party made up,
which may consist, say, of an overseer, a leader, 8 work-
men, io horses, 18 saddle-bags, provisions, and tools,
the whole of which may be estimated to cost £ 500,
which amount has to be risked, for the party may go
out into the taiga and find nothing, or what may prove
worse than nothing.t
* Any one, indeed, may go into the uninhabited taiga to seek for
gold (as the hunter may penetrate the same dismal region in search of
game), provided, that is, he have a certificate from the mining officers,
which he may get by giving proofs of good citizenship from the local
authorities among whom he resides. He is then at liberty, when he has
found gold, to hire the land from the Government for the purposes of
mining
+ A party of this kind will go where, perhaps, the foot of man
has never trodden. Fortunate is the tayoshnik if he have by his side
a faithful native who can direct ; otherwise he throws himself into a
labyrinth of small valleys and hills, intersected in all directions by
rushing mountain streams. He has no path to guide him save the course
alone. *


214
THROUGH SIBERIA.
The tayoshnik knows, however, that the Siberian
gold deposits are almost always to be met with on the
banks of streams, or in their beds. Again, gold is
often hidden in crevices of the earth that have evidently
once served as channels for running water. Moreover,
he knows that those rivers that wash up gold are always
such as have their sources in ravines, the rocks of
which are very much weather-beaten. Gold is rarely
found at precipitous spots, and is most abundant where
the water ages ago had a calmer current, and conse-
quently no longer possessed the necessary strength to
carry the heavy metal along. *
The hunter must, however, dig some depth beneath
the surface, the thickness of the beds of earth covering
the gold varying from 2 to 20 feet, though it increases
sometimes to 150 feet. At some spots three or four
gold deposits, or plasts, as they are called, lie one over
the other, separated by thick strata of earth and rocks,
which case the lowest of the plasts is generally the
richest.+
a
of the rivers, often no compass save the sun, and in this manner he travels
-mounted, perhaps, on a small Siberian pony, or, in the far north, on
the back of a reindeer. In situations where it is impossible for him to
make use of small sledges drawn by reindeer on the frozen rivers, he has
to run on snow-shoes, everywhere encountering hardship and dangers,
with certain death in store for him should he lose his way.
* Large rivers hardly ever carry gold with them, and when in excep-
tional cases they do, the treasure cannot be recovered, since to turn the
. water from its channel would be too great an expense. The shape of the
gold grains gives some idea of its previous history and travels. Are
the particles flat and thin? Then they have been dragged over sand and
rocks. Are they round like grains ? Then they have been in some whirl-
pool, participants in a mad circling dance. Or, once more, are they fine
dust particles, with here and there a larger piece, or with various minerals
attached-particularly quartz, their original home? Then in this last
shape the gold has probably had a comfortable and quiet journey.
+ The plasts vary from 3 inches to 15 feet, and their composition varies
a

A VISIT TO A GOLD-MINE.
215
a
With knowledge of this kind, therefore, the gold-
hunter proceeds till he arrives at a valley along which
he judges some ancient river ages ago may have rolled
down its golden sands. He then seeks in the bed of
the rivulet for pyrites, iron, slate-clay, or quartz with
a thick coat of crystals ; and at length he forms a
judgment as to whether or not he is likely by digging
to find a gold deposit. If his verdict be favourable,
then all hands are set to work to cut down trees and
build a rude log hut, in which the party may have to
live for months. The next business is to dig a number
of holes or trenches at a distance from each other, to
get down to the auriferous layers—that is, if there are
any ; for if there be none, their labour of course is lost,
and they have to try elsewhere. But if there be auri-
ferous layers, it is no easy matter to get to them, for
gold-hunting is usually followed in the winter, often with
the thermometer many degrees below zero, and when
the ground is so hard as not to be pierced even by a
pickaxe; they have, therefore, to make huge bonfires,
whereby the earth is softened, so as to allow trenches
of considerable depth to be dug. This manoeuvre has
to be repeated until the longed-for gold is found, or
unyielding stone presents an impenetrable obstacle. *
These trenches or holes are made under the super-

considerably. Blue clay, coarse sand, quartz, clay-slate, limestone, granite,
and syenite occur frequently, as well as iron in the most various combi-
nations; and, more rarely, ferruginous red clay. This last is very tough,
and in the rainy season causes the workmen no little difficulty. In return,
however, it contains a good deal of gold. In the district of the Olekma
the gold deposit rests on a bed of firm rock.
* In many localities it is in the cold season only that the trenches can
be dug with advantage. In summer they would be quickly flooded.
Even in the winter the water must be fought against, and there are some
places where the earth is dug out from under frozen rivers.


216
THROUGH SIBERIA.
intendence of the overseer. Samples of the earth are
constantly tried, and so guidance is obtained as to the
direction in which other work should be begun, and
some idea formed as to the depth and breadth of the
beds of gold. Often, however, the metal lies so far
beneath the surface that it would scarcely be possible
to dig out all the trenches begun. In such cases the
wider ones are sunk into wells or shafts, and subter-
ranean passages are made.*
Thus the work of testing a locality may take some
little time ; meanwhile the workmen and overseer live
in their wretched hut, which often is not well roofed,
and heated only by a portable stove. The wind whistles
through the cracks of the moss-calked walls, an insup-
portable heat reigns in the vicinity of the stove, while,
on the opposite walls, icicles gleam like brilliants, and
melting snow falls from above. The air is rendered
poisonous by the exhalations of the inmates and the
vapour ascending from damp clothing hung near the
fire to dry. In fact, as the workmen say, the atmo-
sphere is thick enough “to hang up an axe in.”
However, in the wilderness, even such a shelter is a
longed-for refuge when a fierce snowstorm is raging
and the thermometer has sunk to far below zero.
But the climate is not the only hardship the gold-
hunter has to encounter. His provisions consist of
black rusks, dried meat, tea, and a little brandy; and
* These are the beginning of the so-called gold-mines. The subterranean
work, which is carried on principally during the winter months, does not
differ much from the ordinary work of the miner. Poisonous vapours do
not usually occur, but, when cutting through clay-slate, the presence of
sulphate of cobalt has sometimes an injurious effect. The passages are
nine feet wide and high, and two labourers generally work from two to
three tons of sand per day. The sand thus accumulated during the winter
is thrown up into heaps and washed in the summer.


A VISIT TO A GOLD-MINE.
217
often he does not possess as much as could be wished
even of this meagre fare, for he is obliged to carry with
it all requisite tools and weapons on his beasts of
burden, and communication with civilized centres
,
or depôts is usually difficult, and in spring sometimes
impossible. My interpreter told me he had an uncle,
who was a tayoshnik, who made an income of about
£1,000 a year, but had sometimes, for want of better
food, to eat bear's flesh.
But supposing the overseer to have discovered a
promising spot, and to have tested the earth from
several holes, he can then strike an average as to the
amount of gold that may be got from every hundred
poods—that is, every 32 cwt., or say every ton and
a half-of sand. If the amount be five zolotniks,-
say, i oz., this is thought rich ; if less than } oz. it is
very poor ; sometimes, however, i lb. of gold even is
found to 100 poods of sand. The overseer has next
to calculate whether it will pay to work the mine. *
If, when all things are calculated, the land promises
to pay, he sticks up two posts, one on each end of
the area he has chosen, despatches a courier to his
employer, and the place is registered at once by the
commissary of police or other competent authority
from the local Direction of Mines. The area is then
thoroughly surveyed by a Government surveyor, who
makes a map of the spot, and, when all is secured to

* He must reckon the quantity of earth and rubbish to be removed
before he gets to the gold sand, also the number of labourers neces-
sary to be brought to the place, and food to keep them; and, further, he
must consider what will be the summer level of the stream on which his
claim lies, because without the proper supply of water the machinery
cannot be set in motion, and to put up an artificial water conduit would
be too expensive.


218
THROUGH SIBERIA.
*
a
the finder, the proprietor can at once borrow money
on the security of his mine, paying at the rate of from
20 to 30 per cent., according as money is scarce or
plentiful. Many capitalists, content with this interest,
employ all their money in this way.
The next thing is to build the necessary houses and
barracks for the future manager of the mine and his
workmen, the number of which may vary from 10 to
2,000. Provisions and fuel provided, then the digging
begins about the middle of February, and the washing
about the ist of May, the operations being over on the
Ioth of September, or, if the weather be unusually fine,
on the ist of November. When a mine has been regis-
tered, it must be worked to some extent, or it is for-
feited to the Crown. The owner, however, may sell it
if he pleases, but it must not remain idle.
It was to a mine that had been opened the same
year that we were to start from Krasnoiarsk. It was
called the Archangel Gabriel mine, and was situated
on the river Slisneva, at a spot nearly 30 miles from
the Yenesei. Our worthy doctor arrayed himself for
the occasion in the costume of a Tyrolese hunter, with
a double gun over his shoulders, a revolver and bowie-
knife in his belt, and a huntsman's horn; for he hoped,
he said, that we might chance to meet with a bear—a
hope that I cannot say was shared by all the party. I I
know at least of one who hoped we should not meet
with a bear. However, it was by no means unlikely,
a
* An area consists of a piece of land about 31 miles long, the breadth
being determined by the distance between the two mountains in which
the gold-seam lies. This is generally from 500 to 1,000 feet. No one
can occupy more than three consecutive miles; but a wife, a friend, or
partner, having a certificate, may take the adjoining three miles, and then
the three miles below may be taken, and so on to any extent.


A VISIT TO A GOLD-MINE.
219
and I accordingly armed Mr. Interpreter with our
revolver. Madame Peacock wore a black velvet hat,
a magenta chemisette, a brown tweed tunic, black
knickerbockers, and top boots ; and thus, with a few
provisions, we started in the afternoon to cross the
Yenesei to the village of Basaïka. The water was
more than 20 feet higher than it had risen for 30 years,
,
the ferry had been washed away, and the force of the
stream carried down our boat a good mile ere we
reached the opposite bank; and then, after wading
through a great deal of mud and water, in doing
which we learned to appreciate high boots, we reached
the village, and took refreshment before mounting
our steeds. We then advanced in single file from
the village through the cultivated bottom-land, and
afterwards through much grass, that was very like
penetrating a forest of herbs, to which our horses
took kindly, for they had scarcely to stoop their heads
to nibble their fodder. Although the summer was
young, there were to be seen the acacia in blossom,
currants, and raspberries ; and among flowers, the
bitter vetch, the spiræa, anemones, Flora's bell, high
pæonies, aconite, or wolf's bane, and large dragon-
mouths; also abundance of ferns, among them one
strongly resembling the Osmunda regalis
, and the
magnificent Struthiopteris germanica, which attains
to gigantic growth in Siberia ; and even the trunks
of the trees and the granite rocks were covered with
a rich variety of lichens and verdant mosses.
Thus far, therefore, everything was going well. The
evening was delightful, and all were in excellent spirits.
Soon, however, our guide turned into the forest, and
we had before us the first of two mountains over whose



220
THROUGH SIBERIA.
backs we were to climb, thinking to reach our destina-
tion by nightfall
. At this point we began to get some
idea of what is meant by “the forest primeval,” for
sometimes the way was all but impassable by reason
of masses of shattered-down dry wood; now our
horses stepped over fallen trees, and now waded knee-
deep up the beds of rivulets; in some places we met
with snow-white skeletons of dead trees with branching
arms; in others the way, indicated by notches on the
trees, had been cut with an axe.
As we mounted higher and higher, we had before us
a fine, bold, rocky mountain, lit up with the sinking
sun. My companions called to me to look back, and
we had a splendid view of the noble Yenesei at sunset,
of its verdant bottom-lands on either side, its impetuous
stream, and magnificent forests.
We then prepared for our first descent. But it be-
came dusk, and the overshadowing trees made our
difficulty the greater. My horse, however, seemed to
know so well what he was about, that I was minded to
keep my seat and hope for the best. But when all my
companions, including Madame and the guide, had
dismounted, and advised me to do the same if I valued
my neck, I followed suit till the valley was reached.
We then remounted for a short distance, by which
time it was quite dark, and for a short space some of
the party were lost to the others. All came right,
however, towards midnight, when we saw afar off the
glimmering of a candle. This we hailed with a lusty
blast of the doctor's horn, thinking to awake the in-
habitants. Our coming had not been expected, but
letters from the owners of the mine secured us atten-
tion, and such hospitality as the place afforded. “Let


A VISIT TO A GOLD-MINE.
221
us have the samovar,” said the doctor ; "and bring a
good large one, please, for we shall empty it.”
And he was true to his word; for although they
brought a twenty-glass samovar, it went out empty.
Russians, however, be it remembered, think nothing
of drinking from eight to a dozen glasses of tea, and
we were in need of refreshment !
Then came the question of sleep. They had but
one room to offer us. Madame, therefore, lay on what
might be called by courtesy a sofa. The bedstead was
politely given to me, and the doctor and interpreter
lay on the floor. Thus we managed to rest till about
five in the morning, when we were called. Our toilets
had to be speedily arranged, and our faces washed with
a handful or two of water outside the door, for there
was no sort of washing apparatus to be seen. After
some tea and rusks, we started to witness the working
of the gold-mine.
I had seen the Swedish iron-mines of Dannemora,
and had gone down a copper-mine in the Urals; but the
gold-mine was something new.
There was no under-
ground work going on, and no digging of holes and
sending up the earth to be washed; but the whole
surface had been laid bare. Hence the work resembled
that of English navvies making a cutting. There were
a number of small carts drawn by Siberian horses, and
men with pickaxes and shovels filling them. When
full, the carts were drawn up an incline to a platform,
and emptied into one end of a large iron cylinder,
resembling a coffee-roaster, with holes all round it.
This was made to rotate by water-power, and the
large stones and pebbles were, by the formation and
turning of the cylinder, tumbled out at the end. Here


222
THROUGH SIBERIA.
۱)
they were duly watched, so that no nuggets should be
overlooked. At the same time several streams of water
were poured into the cylinder, and the earth and small
pebbles, passing through the holes, fell into a long
wooden apron, inclined at an angle of 35°, with move-
able boxes or “pockets.”
In order that we might see how the gold was washed,
the manager caused some of these pockets to be emptied
on to an inclined plane of clean wood, raised at either
side, and over which ran equably and slowly a stream
of clear water. One of the pockets (called dundofka)
was then emptied on the higher part of the plane, and
the water soon washed away the mud, the man who
performed the washing having a wooden scraper, like
that of a scavenger, with which he pushed back the
descending grains of gold. This was repeated till
six poods, or say 200 lbs., of washed earth had been
placed on the board. After the mud and sand had
been allowed to roll away, a brush was used instead of
the scraper, and there remained behind perhaps a small
teaspoonful of gold-dust, or as much as was roughly
valued at from 40s. to 50s. The gold was then placed
in a miniature frying-pan, and held over a small fire to
dry, after which it was put into what resembled a
“poor-box.” This was done in the presence of a
”
Government official, of whom there is always one at
every mine, and who is usually a Cossack officer. *
* It is his duty to supervise the washing of the gold, which is placed in
a coffer, locked by the proprietor, and sealed by the Government agent,
the quantity of gold washed at each operation being entered in a register.
If they find a quarter of an ounce of gold to a ton and a half of sand, then
200 men can wash from four to five pounds of gold a day. I heard, how-
ever, of a mine to the south of Yeneseisk, where they usually found from
15 to 20 lbs., and sometimes even up to 36 lbs. a day. Gold thus found
is not always pure, but is frequently mixed with magnetic iron, which is
a


A VISIT TO A GOLD-MINE.
223
The gold thus gained is eventually poured into bags
of coarse linen, which, after having been stamped with
the brand of the mine, are sewn in leather sacks* and
taken to Irkutsk or Barnaul, where it is assayed; and
afterwards there is deducted the tax of from 5 to 10
per cent., according to the quantity. Gold assignats
are given in exchange, payable in six months, or they
may be cashed at the Government bank at a discount
of
7 per cent. per annum. Thus all the gold found in
the country is claimed by the Government, and it is
unlawful for any person to have gold-dust in his
possession unknown to the authorities.
After we had seen the manner of washing the gold
we walked into the barracks, the hospital, stables, and
the houses for the 200 or 300 workmen. I have
spoken of the hardships that are endured by a pro-
specting party. Yet, despite all their privations and
,
dangers, there is never a lack of persons who volunteer
their services to wealthy projectors, for they receive
large wages. The overseer who discovers the mine
generally stipulates that he shall receive from 1 to 5 per
cent. on the yield ; and the percentage given to some
of the others on a lucky find is very liberal. The
.
ordinary labourers, too, such as we saw, are well paid.
drawn off by a magnet. Nor is the metal all of the same colour. In some
places it is found very dark, and often still covered by a crust of oxide of
iron; in other places it is of a very light colour, and contains silver.
* Each bag contains about 50 lbs. of gold. Two of these, further pro-
tected by a covering of thick felt, constitute the load for one horse. To
the two bags are fastened a long cord and a piece of dry wood, so that, in
the event of the horses' burdens being washed away while crossing a
swollen river, the floating wood would indicate the whereabouts of the
sunken treasure. In the middle of June, or at the end of the season, the
departure of loads of gold from the mine is accompanied with pistol-firing
and the booming of cannon, and cheers and blessings bid the caravan bon



voyage.
: الحل
LIBRARY
I TIL

224
THROUGH SIBERIA.
1
Among them, of course, is a great variety of races and
people. There meet at the mines the nobleman and
the Siberian peasant; the former officer of the army
and the pardoned convict; the Pole, the German, the
Tatar, and numberless others, who work in common, now
freezing in the icy blasts of winter, and now scorching
in the heat of the summer sun. They work intensely
hard (sometimes from 3 a.m. to 7 p.m.), and observe no
Sundays or saints' days, excepting that of the patron
saint of the mine. But in most cases they have whole-
some food, warm quarters, and attention in sickness.
Some of them, however, run away. It happens
occasionally that a man may have secreted gold, with
which he gets off as early as possible ; and some, not
reckoning aright the difficulties of travelling so far
alone, have been found starved, the useless gold clutched
in the grasp of lifeless fingers. We found some atten-
tion paid to what might be called the fanaticism of the
Mohammedan workmen ; the Tatars being placed
alone, and convenience being afforded them to cook
their food in their own way. A separate barrack, too,
was assigned to married men with their wives. Over
an outdoor fire hung a large caldron, big enough to
boil a donkey—the largest I had ever seen.
This, I
presumed, was for cooking the meat ; and in the bake-
house we saw abundance of rye bread, of which some
of the men eat 7 lbs. in a day. Their beverages are tea
.
It is forbidden by law to sell spirituous
liquors at the mines. Only the managers have the right
to keep them in their possession, though this sensible
regulation is often evaded by contrabandists.
When the roth of September arrives, and the work-
men receive their pay, they break forth into the wildest
and quass.

A VISIT TO A GOLD-MINE.
225
a
excesses. Before leaving the mine, each labourer gets
a ticket, setting forth what he is to receive, which may
vary from £ 20 to £ 50. This ticket he has to present
some miles away at his employer's office, and there,
awaiting him outside, are merchants and dealers, who
manage soon to empty his pockets. He too frequently
begins by drinking ; and then the man who has toiled
harder than a slave for months is often at a loss to know
upon what objects and follies to lavish his money.
Captain Wiggins says that he never witnessed among
the Siberian miners such scenes of depravity and dis-
order as may be witnessed among the Australian and
Californian miners, or even, at times, in the low streets
of English seaport towns. Another Englishman, how-
ever, has told me a different story, to the effect that
one miner, for instance, will take a common woman
and clothe her in satin and velvet, and then, a week
after
, when money is gone, will tear the clothes from
her back to raise capital for drink. Another, of a vain
turn of mind, buys bottles of champagne, and sticks
them up in a row to throw stones at; a third will buy
a piece of printed cotton, or other material, lay it
down in the dirty road, and, to indulge his aristocratic
tread, will walk on it ; whilst a fourth, despising to be
drawn by horses, will yoke to his telega his fellow-fools
who have spent their money, and so be drawn by
human beings. The end of this, of course, is that
their money is speedily gone; and now comes the
opportunity of the masters for the following year, since
they know that they shall want the men again, and
labour is scarce. Employers, therefore, advance them
money, and the poor sots start off to walk, perhaps,
500 miles to their homes or friends, where, having
15


VOL. I.

226
THROUGH SIBERIA.
arrived, they must needs return in a few months to
begin the labours of another season.
The managers of mines, some of whom make £1,000
a year, congregate in the winter in the towns, where
much drinking and card-playing goes on. If capitalists
are fortunate, they can make and keep large fortunes.
Two gold-seekers in Krasnoiarsk are reputed to have
found, in about 10 years, 1,000 poods of gold, of the
value, say, of £2,000,000 sterling. We dined at the
house of one of these men.
But to return to the Archangel Gabriel mine. After
we had looked at the buildings, and seen what else
there was of interest, we returned to a breakfast of
beefsteaks, left some books for the workmen, and then,
mounting our steeds, returned towards Krasnoiarsk;
and, seeing that four persons similarly attired might
not meet again for awhile, I proposed that, on reaching
the town, we should be photographed in a group. This
was done ; and so ended one of the pleasantest détours
of our journey.
* There are, or were, some rich gold-mine proprietors at Kiakhta. One
firm there, consisting of three partners, washed in one year enough gold
to give a net profit of £600,000 ; they expected the year after to make
£1,000,000 ; and the Government surveyor calculated that at that rate the
mine would last 50 years. Thus many fortunes are realized in Siberia ;
but hardly a month passes without chronicling some one's ruin, which
may often be attributed to the fast life and gaming propensities of the
miners. Hence, although between the years 1833 and 1870 about 30,000
poods of gold were sent out of Eastern Siberia alone, to the value of
£ 50,000,000, the finding of which gave employment in some years to
upwards of 30,000 workmen, yet it will be seen from the foregoing that
this great wealth has not proved an unmixed blessing, for the discovery
of a gold-mine never brings to it a population permanently thriving and
industrious.

CHAPTER XX.
FROM KRASNOIARSK TO ALEXANDREFFSKY.
-
Situation of Krasnoiarsk.-Our hotel.—Dr. Peacock.–Visit to prison,
hospital, and madhouse.—Cathedral.-Drive in “Rotten Row.”_
Shoeing horses.--Bible affairs at Krasnoiarsk.—Consignment to
Governor for provinces of Yeneseisk and Yakutsk. --Departure from
Krasnoiarsk.-Change of scenery.—Kansk Okrug.-Our arrival
anticipated.—Visit to Ispravnik.-Statistics of crime.—The Proto-
pope of Kansk.–Parochial information.— Demand for Scriptures.-
A travelling companion.-Further posting help.-Butterflies and
mosquitoes.-- Nijni Udinsk. - Telma factory.-A détour.-Alex-
andreffsky.
S'
a
IBERIA, immense as it is, has only 17 towns with
a population of more than 5,000 inhabitants, and
of these large towns Krasnoiarsk, with a population of
13,000, is a fair specimen. It derives its name from
the Russian words krasnoi, red, and yar, a cliff, in
allusion to the red-coloured marl of the banks on
which the town is situated; its houses being built on
the tongue of land at the confluence of the Yenesei
and the Kacha. On the south the plain stretches
away for nine versts, and on the south-west a range
of blue hills is descried, which betray their rocky cha-
racter by sharp and picturesque outlines. The
site bank, too, of the Yenesei has, amidst forest
scenery, some fine rocks, one of which, of curious
formation, called the Tokmak, rises to the dignity of
The Siberians, therefore, are justified, to a
The oppo-
a mount.

228
THROUGH SIBERIA.
considerable degree, in claiming for Krasnoiarsk that
it is picturesquely situated. It was certainly the pret-
tiest spot we had thus far seen; and since we made there
some pleasant acquaintances, and received much kind-
ness from the people, it naturally lingers in the memory
as one of the bright spots of our journey. *
Having arrived early on the morning of the 24th
June, we drove to what is called an hotel, kept by
one “Shlyaktin,” where we engaged the best room
in the house for two shillings a day, with two bed-
steads, for which, as usual in Russia, we provided our
own pillows and linen. Other things were proportion-
ately cheap : turkeys 35. a pair ; a whole calf, nine
months old, from 38. to 45. ; geese from is. 8d. to 25. 6d.
a couple; but pheasants, brought hundreds of miles
,
from Tashkend, cost 6s. a brace.
We had not entered many minutes before several
beggars came to the window to solicit alms, which
seemed to be their method of honouring all new-
comers; and if they received anything they crossed
themselves, and no doubt blessed us. +
Krasnoiarsk boasts of a Lutheran chapel, though it
* Owing to the formation of the hills about the town, Krasnoiarsk is more
than ordinarily favoured with abundance of wind, which in winter blows the
snow off the ground and stops sledging. One night during our stay it
rained, and the streets were in a condition next morning such as I have
never seen before or since. To speak of “puddles ” would be a mockery,
and “ponds ” is barely the word to use ; whilst to cross the street was to
run imminent risk of losing one's boots. Fortunately, however, there
were droshkies at hand, and in these we waded through water nearly up
to the horses' knees.
+ We saw beggars here and at Tomsk, but I do not recollect that they
were numerous or particularly importunate. The Russians are, however,
in this sense, very charitable. It is customary not only to give a few
kopecks to such as these, but also to the old men posted at the entrances
of the villages, who have charge of the gates placed across the roads to
keep cattle from straying in or out.


SU
والا
لوگو
MPERسرا
ی کی
سے
A RUSSIAN INN.
Page 228.
CE




FROM KRASNOIARSK TO ALEXANDREFFSKY.
229
is without a resident pastor. We made it our business
to go there first, thinking to find a catechist, Mr.
Adamson, for whom we had a letter. He was away,
however, and was represented by an old German
woman. Whether she recognized in us kindred spirits,
I know not, but she cried as she shook our hands and
bade us God-speed.
We then accompanied Dr. Peacock, who took us
first to see the prison,* and afterwards the large
hospital, through which pass annually about 2,500
patients. A part of it serves as a madhouse, in which
were 48 inmates, 42 of whom were exiles, 28 being
pronounced incurable. From inquiries I made, I did
not gather that medical opinion went so far as to say
that banishment drove people mad; but it seemed
that many so afflicted were exiled as prisoners who
ought rather to have been in lunatic asylums as idiots ;
such, for instance, was the case of one man who had
been sent to Siberia for setting houses on fire, and
who, on arriving, repeated his offence, saying that he
did it “ for fun." +

* It was one of the perisylnie character, having 46 wards, and a hospital
with sixteen rooms. There were 26 murderers in the place, and the
number of persons committing this crime yearly in the district seemed to
me, from the round numbers they gave, to be very high. The sentences
of murderers, they said, varied from five or six to 20 years' hard labour,
after which time they were free as exiles. The general arrangements of
the prison appeared to be fairly good. I thought it clean and well ordered ;
and we were struck, in the bake-house, with the enormous size of their
loaves of bread, some of them weighing from 40 to 50 lbs.
+ In the Tomsk hospital we had seen two persons mad from the effects
of alcoholic drink ; and I was sorry to hear it asserted afterwards, by a
Russian medical man, that the proportion of those in Siberia who went
mad from delirium tremens was greater than in England ; and he
further remarked of his countrymen, that though for a long time they
indulge in no intoxicating liquor, yet when they once drink they do so
furiously. A friend of mine had more than one man-servant who acted

230
THROUGH SIBERIA.
The hospital building had been originally erected as
a private residence by a rich gold-seeker. How far,
in its altered condition, the house suits the purpose
of a hospital, I could not judge; for in Russia they have
a habit, in summer, of turning the patients out under
temporary sheds and tents whilst the buildings are being
repaired for the winter; and this was the state of affairs
at Krasnoiarsk during our inspection. But I am afraid
the building is not all that could be desired. At Tomsk
we had seen a summer tent-hospital for 20 men with
typhus fever.
Krasnojarsk has a cathedral, presided over by the
Bishop of Yeneseisk, and four or five churches, one
of which was built at a cost of £70,000 by a rich
gold-seeker, by name, I think, Kusnitzoff, which, be
it known to English readers, means Smith.” We
made the acquaintance of two of his daughters during
our voyage on the Obi. They had been spending the
winter in Petersburg, and were then travelling a
distance of 3,000 miles to spend the summer in Siberia.
This was their usual practice. One of these ladies
had travelled to England, had even crossed the Atlantic
to America, and we were glad to renew our acquaint-
ance at Krasnoiarsk. Theirs was one of the best of
the private houses, on entering which a broad flight
of steps led to the upper storey, where was a drawing-
in this manner. They did not drink for months, and then all of a sudden
did so without ceasing, and would be mad drunk for a week or ten days.
At last, exhausted, they slept for a day or two, and woke up abashed,
promising to do so no more ; but, alas ! it was only till the next time.
* It is the same, I suspect, as that mentioned by Mr. Hill in his “Travels
in Siberia,” 30 years ago, the dimensions of which he gives as 131 feet
long by 98 broad and 52 high. It is of two storeys, and in Mr. Hill's time
was furnished after the most elegant mode of Petersburg. The articles
brought from that capital alone cost its owner from £6,000 to £7,000.

FROM KRASNOIARSK TO ALEXANDREFFSKY.
231
a
room, or rather a ball-room, containing two grand
pianos, the walls being hung with European oil-paint-
ings, and where, among other curiosities, we were
shown three nuggets of gold, each of which must have
weighed several pounds, but serving no purpose but to
be looked at, save that a natural indentation in one
- had been used on certain grand occasions as a cigar-
boat. In front of the house was an enclosure, full of
shrubs, dahlias, and flowers ; but it was manifest that
horticultural operations were carried on with difficulty.
The Siberians do more with flowers in their rooms, thus
adding much to their beauty.
We dined at this house, and afterwards were taken
for a drive. The plain running south of the town is
the “Rotten Row” of Krasnoiarsk ; and here we saw
a fair Amazon, of good position, and the mother, by-
the-bye, of three children, with hair cut short behind,
sitting astride her horse, in knickerbockers and high
boots. It was the only instance we saw of this, how-
ever; and further east, on the Amur, I met with a
lady in a riding-habit that would have been becoming
enough even in Hyde Park.
We drove some distance up the bank of the Yenesei,
intending to visit a monastery a few miles distant, but
were stopped by the unusual height of the floods,
and returned to pass through the two handsome
squares in the middle of the town, and the smaller
streets which cross the principal roads at right angles.
We passed a public garden, also given by Mr. Kus-
nitzoff to the town. We walked there in the evening,
leaving the carriages at the gates, as did several fashion-
ables, and found inside a place for refreshments, rooms
for cards, and a promenade. As we strolled about



232
THROUGH SIBERIA.
*
among the trees and shrubs I asked how long they
had been there, and found they were self-planted, and
that the garden was an adaptation from nature. Close
at hand were blacksmiths' forges, where they were
shoeing horses in a curious manner.
Before leaving our lady friends, their hospitality took
a very practical turn, as Siberian hospitality generally
does, for they gave us some excellent fresh butter and
a jar of marmalade. Both these were of great value,
and I was particularly thankful to get the latter. In
order to prevent the possibility of being reduced to black
bread between Krasnoiarsk and Irkutsk, we ordered to
be baked a pile, three feet high, of large, flat, white
loaves, with a little butter added to prevent their getting
dry ; and these lasted us for 600 miles.
I was anxious to open at Krasnoiarsk a depôt or
an agency for the sale of the Scriptures, and, with that
intent, presented an introduction at the shop of one
of the principal tradesmen. We found a large store
full of all manner of wares, among which, however,
it was difficult to see anything small that was particu-
larly Siberian, though I bought a string of beads, worn
round the neck by Russian peasant girls, called a
gaitan. Unfortunately the merchant was away, and
I could not hear of another house of business suitable
a
* Outside the smithy stood four stout posts, fixed in the ground at the
four corners, as it were, of an oblong figure, which posts were connected
at the top by cross-pieces. Into the midst of these the horse was led.
Girths were then put under him by which he could be all but lifted off the
ground, suspended to the cross-beams. To prevent his kicking unad-
visedly, two of his legs were bound with rope to the nearest of the posts ;
and thus rendered helpless, and standing on tiptoe with his remaining leg
he was shod. They said that Siberian horses are too wild to allow of their
being treated in English fashion, and it may be sc, but the animals seemed
to be equally averse to the other plan.

FROM KRASNOIARSK TO ALEXANDREFFSKY.
233
a
for what I wanted. Dr. Peacock, however, seemed to
feel so strongly the importance of making the most of
an opportunity to get the Scriptures circulated in the
neighbourhood that he purchased 250 copies, intending
to dispense them far and near. I gave him also a
supply of reading matter for his hospital patients. *
Having thus spent four agreeable days at the capital
of the Yeneseisk province, we left on the evening of
the 27th June, with a journey before us of 600 miles to
Irkutsk. We met with an early adventure on reach-
ing the opposite bank of the river ; for we had omitted
to get a special note from the post-master, without
which the post-boys, waiting with their horses, would
not take us on. Mr. Interpreter, therefore, at a cost
of 8s., and not without danger, had to spend half the
night in recrossing the river and returning, whilst I
“camped out” alone in the tarantass on the river's
bank.
I was so stiff and tired, however, with the
previous night's journey to the gold-mine, that I slept
soundly till, at early dawn, horses were procured, and
we jogged onwards.
We had now entered a land of valleys and hills
instead of a country of marshes or plains, and the
scenery improved vastly. Not so, however, the road-
side fare ; for milk was less abundant, and consequently
* The Governor was away, but the Vice-Governor informed us that
there were six prisons in the province, for which we left him upwards of
200 New Testaments and Scripture portions, and about the same number
of tracts, papers, and broad-sheets. We subsequently saw the Governor
at Irkutsk, and I have since heard from him that these Scriptures, etc.,
have been distributed as I wished, as also a further quantity I left with
him to be forwarded to the prisons and hospitals of the immense province
of Yakutsk.
+ Since this chapter was written, Krasnoiarsk has been almost entirely
destroyed by fire.



234
THROUGH SIBERIA.
failed us.
we could not so easily get curds or such diet, nor
even milk to drink. But we were so anxious to get
forward that we became somewhat impatient of the
long time spent in heating the samovar and preparing
for a meal. The consequence was that if, on arriving
at a station, horses were to be had at once, we did as
best we could about food, eating in the tarantass as we
went along, and sometimes not having more than one
“square meal” a day.
For a time we travelled well. We continued to go
up and down hills, some of which we estimated at
about 500 feet in height; and though there was usually
a sufficiency of horses, yet for the first two stages they
We paid a little more than post fares, and
hired private steeds instead. The peasants sometimes
took advantage of the occasion, when post-horses failed,
to ask double fares; but as this exorbitant demand
amounted to only about 2d. a mile for each horse,
it seemed better to do this for a stage than to be
detained, perhaps for several hours, and then to get
tired animals.
Having left Krasnoiarsk late on Friday night, we
reached Kansk in good time on Sunday morning,
where we spent the rest of the day, considerably
fatigued with the combined effect of the recent horse-
riding, tarantass driving, and insufficient rest and food.
Kansk is the chief town of an okrug, or district, and
the residence of an intelligent Ispravnik; and, as it
possessed a small prison and hospital, we washed,
dressed in our “Sunday best," and called upon this
dignitary to present our letters. He told us, to our
surprise, that he had received a telegram the day
before from the acting Governor-General of Irkutsk,

FROM KRASNOIARSK TO ALEXANDREFFSKY.
235
-а
directing him to help us forward as much as possible ;
and consequently he had sent east and west to all the
stations in his district-a distance of nearly 200 miles
-telling them to let us have horses quickly. We
were rather at a loss to account for such unexpected
kindness, and the more so as the Ispravnik thought
the instructions had originally been sent from Peters-
burg. It served, however, to remind us that we were
not lost sight of at head-quarters. The Ispravnik
accompanied us to the prison, in which were 146
prisoners in 29 rooms, which had a Sunday look about
them. Things were brushed up and “settled,” as a
housekeeper would say, and we distributed papers to
the prisoners to read. We also gave the Ispravnik
some copies of the New Testament and other reading
material for the prison, for the town hospital, and for
the schools of the neighbourhood; after which he
invited us to his house to drink tea.
His wife was a German, which accounted for certain
foreign tastes visible about the room, and for some of
the pictures. We learned that the Ispravnik holds
a similar position in his district or okrug, or circle,
that a Governor does in his province,—the pay of an
Ispravnik being from £100 to £ 150 per annum ; that
of a Governor from £600 to £1,000 per annum; and
of a Governor-General about £3,000, the latter two
having also furnished houses. The okrug of Kansk
was 200 miles in diameter, and had a population of
40,000, with upwards of 900 miles of roads. These
were kept in order by 9,000 men, each of whom was
responsible for 90 fathoms of way; and it is only fair
to say that we found the roads of Yeneseisk the best
in Siberia. Nearly all the crime in the district, we
a


236
THROUGH SIBERIA.
were told, is traceable to drink; and that which ended
in murder commonly arose from love affairs. *
Prisoners of all sorts were allowed to hold corre-
spondence with their friends; but the prison chief, or
the Ispravnik, might object to any part of what was
written, and send it back to the writer, though even
then the latter might appeal to the Governor-General.
Letters usually came, we found, by every post, so that
the prisoners evidently availed themselves to a con-
siderable extent of their privilege.
After leaving the Ispravnik, we called on the Proto-
pope, or head priest of the place. His house had a
superior look about it, and so had the Protopope him-
self.
He gave us a hearty reception, and we asked a
few questions concerning his parish. It appeared that
he had 2,000 parishioners, living in Kansk and four
surrounding villages. He thought about 100 could
read, and for these he very readily accepted papers
* The statistics of crime in the okrug, in the year 1878, revealed that, of
182 criminals, not one was less than 17 years of age; 26 men and 5 women
were between 17 and 21; but the greatest number of criminals—63 men
and 20 women—were of ages ranging from 21 to 33; after which the numbers
of men became fewer as they grew older, but there was not a similar de-
crease in the number of older women. Below the ages of 45 and 70 there
were more women criminals than men. It appeared, too, that there were
129 married criminals as against 53 unmarried. Again, 112 were of the
Russian Church, 19 of other Christian denominations, 34 were Jews, and
17 of other non-Christian religions. Further, 157 were criminals for the
first offence, 22 for the same offence once repeated, and 3 for the same
offence twice repeated. This last fact compares favourably with our
English criminal statistics, which show many who go in and out of prison
a hundred times. I have spoken elsewhere of the long-period prisoners
having sometimes to wait in durance for their trial. This may often be
avoided by furnishing bail. In 1878 there were in Kansk 415 on bail as
against 96 under detention. Of these, 88 were found innocent, 93 were
dismissed as
not proven,” and 147 sent elsewhere for trial ; whilst of
those found guilty, 7 only were condemned to the mines, 26 to hard labour
in prison, and the remaining 149 to a “house of detention.”
66
"

FROM KRASNOIARSK TO ALEXANDREFFSKY.
237
and tracts.
He had an elementary boys' school, which
was supported by the community, the scholars paying
nothing. I asked about his congregations, and found
that froni 300 to 400 usually came to church on Sundays,
but that on festivals the number rose to 1,000 or 1,500,
and of these about 300 or 400 in the course of the year
received the Communion.*
This chief pastor of the place told us he had often
bestowed books on the prisoners, but that the books
had disappeared. He gave us some idea of the desire
there is for the Scriptures in remote parts of Siberia,
by saying that on one occasion he bought 200 New
Testaments and took them to Minusinsk, where he sold
them in a single day at a rouble each.t
In further illustration of the demand for Scriptures
in this part of the country, I may mention that, on the
I
way from Tomsk, I made it a practice to go into the
post-stations; and whilst my companion was arranging
* A lady on the Obi told me that all were bound to confess and receive
the Communion once a year. If any special reason required it, they might
receive oftener, always confessing, however, beforehand, in a standing
posture at the side of the priest, and then kneeling at the absolution.
The priest said that 200 times in the year, at Kansk, children were par-
ticipants in the sacred rite; and in connection with this remark he made
a curious statement, to the effect that, there being few doctors in the
district, it was common for mothers, when their babies were ill, to bring
them to receive the Sacrament, under the impression that it did them
physical as well as spiritual good. He said, too, that mothers thought
it their duty to bring their children frequently to Communion till they
were seven years of age, after which period they came with them once a
year for confession, communion, and instruction.
† This compared favourably with the sales at the Bible Society's depôt
at Tomsk, which is the only one in Siberia, though I had hoped to be able
to establish others at Tobolsk, Omsk, Krasnoiarsk, and especially Irkutsk.
The depôt at Tomsk had been opened about three years, the annual sales
having amounted to about 300 Bibles, 200 New Testaments, and 500 copies
of the four Gospels in Sclavonic and Russian. They had also sold a few
Hebrew Bibles and the Psalms, the latter chiefly in Sclavonic. The



238
THROUGH SIBERIA.
about the horses, I took some pamphlets and Scriptures,
and, having nailed up an illustration of the “ Prodigal
Son,” I next distributed some tracts, saying, as I did so,
"darom,” which means “gratis”; and then, showing a
New Testament, I said “dvatzat-piat kopeck,” which
means 25 kopecks; or I showed a copy of the Gospels,
and said “dve-natzat kopeck,” or 12 kopecks. Usually
this offer was jumped at; sometimes three or four were
bought by one person; and it not unfrequently happened
that the first purchaser would run off to tell others of
his good fortune, and bid them lose no time in following
his example. This was usually done whilst the horses
were being changed; but if we stopped for a meal, and
it was noised abroad in the village that tracts were
being given away, we were taken by storm, and some-
times could hardly eat in peace for the numbers who
came to ask for our gifts.
We had barely reached the post-station, after seeing
the priest, before he came driving close on our heels
for his return visit. He wore the violet velvet hat of
a protopope, was dressed in a black silk cassock, with a
gold chain and crucifix about his neck, and with a loose
white overcoat to protect him from the dust of the
road. He cordially wished us
wished us success in our work,
and asked us to call again on our homeward journey.
a
a
Protopope said he would gladly become a depositary for the Bible Society,
and would purchase at once 50 copies from me of the New Testament ;
but Kansk had not been mentioned as one of the places at which a depôt
a
was desired. Moreover, I had been instructed, in opening a depôt, to
require the depositary to sign an agreement to abide by certain terms,
after which I might take an order to the value of £30. But I did not
gather that our friend wished altogether to turn merchant; and therefore
I thought it better to let him have the 50 copies out of hand, rather
than to put him into more complicated mercantile transactions with
Petersburg

FROM KRASNOIARSK TO ALEXANDREFFSKY.
239
We then went to the evening service in his church,
after which the Ispravnik and his wife came to return
our call, bringing with them their son, a boy of 13
years of age, who was to go to a military school at
Irkutsk. The father said that he did not like to send
him with just any one, but that he should be thankful
to be allowed to place the boy under my care, offering
at the same time to pay the cost of one horse to Irkutsk,
which amounted to 25 roubles.
It is a common thing in Siberian travel, when one
person does not wish to occupy the whole of his vehicle,
to share the expense with a fellow-passenger. I there-
fore consented, and stowed the boy away among the
tracts and books in the second tarantass, where he
seemed happy enough. His joining us was rather a
help, for his father gave us an open letter to all the post
masters of his district, requesting them, if there were
not a sufficiency of post-horses, to hire some immediately
from the peasants. He also added a blanco letter, which
enabled us, in case of need, to take those reserved at the
post-stations for the use of the Ispravnik or his police.
This is called, I believe, “Zemski” post, applying only
to Siberia, and the horses of which, when not wanted,
are sometimes lent to private travellers.
The combined result of these letters was that we
got on famously, and occasionally made 200 versts in
the 24 hours. This for summer travelling is good—so
good, in fact, that we hardly wished to do better, as it
had now become very hot, and the dust of the way
rendered the journey very fatiguing.
We were still passing through an undulating country,
with delightful weather; on either side of the way
grass, and in it grew a large yellow flower, similar in
,

a
a


240
THROUGH SIBERIA.
form to our common white garden lily. On passing
the frontier from the Yeneseisk to the Irkutsk govern-
ments, it soon became apparent that our new roads
were not so good as those we had left behind. We
crossed many rivers, on the banks of one of which we
drove through an extraordinary swarm of white butter-
flies. The shrubs in the neighbourhood were evidently
eaten bare by their larva, the imagines, or perfect
insects, being assembled in troops on the ground. We
were now drawing near a district famous for a small
kind of mosquito, the bite of which is very virulent,
and is so dreaded by the people that the men working
at the roadside protect themselves about the head with
horsehair veils. Another place in Siberia famous for
these insects is the Barabinsky steppe, where horses
persecuted by them sometimes break loose, and do so
to certain death. We, however, were not incommoded
by them.
On the 1st of July the weather was hotter than we
had hitherto experienced it, and very oppressive, though
at night it secame chilly. The greatest heat registered
in the province of Irkutsk in 1877 was during the
month of August, when it rose to 90*3, the greatest
cold registered being in January, and descending to
40-2 below zero.
On the second day after leaving Kansk we were
somewhat hindered by a superabundance of fellow-
travellers, with whom it was very pleasant to chat over
a cup of tea in the post-house, though matters were
not quite so smooth when it was discovered that less
than the required number of horses were forthcoming,
and the question arose as to who should be first served.
At one station we had to stay five hours, yet it is
FROM KRASNOIARSK TO ALEXANDREFFSKY.
241
a
only fair to add that, thanks to our excellent recom-
mendations, this was the longest delay of the kind that
fell to our lot. Travellers are sometimes obliged to
wait a whole day.
On the evening of the same day, at dusk, we reached
Nijni Udinsk, and, as there was a small prison in the
place, I was anxious to give a few books to the
Ispravnik, and pass on without stopping; the latter,
however, was away, SO
we went to his assistant.
After knocking pretty lustily at his door, a servant
appeared, who informed us that his master was asleep;
and to awaken a man out of sleep is in Russia no venial
sin. An Anglo-Russian friend informs me that she
has frequently been told, on asking for a servant, that
he was asleep, and could not be waked, because a
sleeping man's soul is before his God! We told this
servant, however, that we had a letter from Petersburg;
and before we left the town a messenger came to the
post-house, giving me the particulars I desired, and
took back a sufficiency of books for the 98 prisoners
under detention.
We then started off about midnight, and on the after-
noon of the following day reached a station called
Telma, which in previous years has been famous as
possessing a factory in which cloth, paper, glass, and
soap were made, besides which they produced rough
linen woven from Yeneseisk hemp, and dark unbleached
cloth, spun from the wool of the Buriat sheep. The
peasants generally make a rough cloth of this last
material. Manufactures do not flourish in Siberia, as
the raw material is grown at enormous distances from
the establishments, and, when manufactured, must often
be taken enormous distances to be sold ; so it is found
16
a

VOL. I.

242
THROUGH SIBERIA.
cheaper to buy the goods imported from other countries.
A suit of tweed clothes costs, I heard, £6 at Kras-
noiarsk, and on the Amur I met with a gentleman
ordering his clothes from Petersburg, and having them
sent by post to Blagovestchensk, a distance of 5,000
miles. The factory at Telma is still standing, and is
not absolutely idle, but I gathered that it is not in a
flourishing condition. *
We were now only about 50 versts from Irkutsk,
which, under ordinary circumstances, we ought to have
reached late the same night. Another project had,
however, entered into my mind. About 70 versts
north of Irkutsk is the largest prison in Eastern
Siberia, called the Alexandreffsky Central Prison, the
normal way of visiting which would have been for us
to proceed to Irkutsk, present our letters, and so drive
out and return, making a journey of 90 miles. Hear-
ing at Telma that we could reach the place from
thence in two hours by going across country, spend
two hours inspecting the prison, and another two hours
in returning to Telma, I calculated we should get back
to the main road about midnight, and so reach Irkutsk
on Saturday afternoon, and be ready for a quiet
Sunday. The first difficulty in the way was that the
law permitted no post-horses to be employed off the
high-roads; but, thanks to the obliging post-master at
Telma, this obstacle was overcome by his providing
others, and I determined accordingly to try and save
time by taking the prison on my way. How much
* Manufacturing industry, properly speaking, has no real importance
in Siberia, except in distilling from grain and potatoes the alcohol which
is sold in numberless taverns. Reckoning factories and distilleries together,
there were, in 1876, according to Reclus, 1,100 factories and 4,000 workmen,
which produced manufactures to the value of £800,000.

FROM KRASNOIARSK TO ALEXANDREFFSKY.
243
was involved in that decision I little thought at the
moment, but it proved afterwards highly important.
The first object of interest we passed was a large
salt-factory, which, like that at Telma, had in years
gone by been worked by convicts under the manage-
ment of the State. This kind of labour is no longer
enforced there, and free workmen are employed instead.
These were the only salt-works we heard of in Siberia,
but we were told of some about 40 miles from Oren-
burg, in the Urals. Leaving the factory behind, we
struck off through the woods, and were enjoying the
drive thoroughly when it occurred to our yemstchik
that he had taken the wrong direction. Accordingly,
he went a long way back, but had to retrace his steps.
This caused considerable delay, as did the crossing of
the river Angara. At length, through a forest of pine,
we reached the summit of a hill, and were able to take
in at a glance the surroundings of the large prison,
which we reached at dusk. On the road we met some
Polish ladies, wives of officials, to whom I explained
in French our object in coming. The Director, how-
ever, was gone to Irkutsk, and his deputy said it
was too late that night, but that we might inspect
the prison as early as we chose in the morning. I
therefore named the hour of seven, and went to the
post-house to sleep.
The keepers of the post-house in this out-of-the-
way place appeared somewhat perturbed at the arrival
of visitors who wished to spend the night under their
ro However, in this matter Siberian post-masters
have no choice, for they are bound to find accommoda-
tion for travellers, and may not charge them for it ;
their profits are the small sums paid for the use of the


244
THROUGH SIBERIA.
samovar, and for such refreshments as may be pro-
vided. Our quarters were better and more comfort-
able than usual, as also was our supper, and we lay
down for a quiet night. Early in the morning the
officer in charge of the prison came to say that when
he had made us the promise on the previous evening
he had intended to telegraph to Irkutsk for permission,
but that there was a fire in Irkutsk, and telegraphic
communication was stopped. He must therefore ask
us to wait until the return of the chief, who was
expected hourly. Accordingly, on his arrival we were
conducted to the house of the Director ; and though
he had been travelling all night he received us at once,
accorded us a hearty reception, and introduced us to
his wife and friends. He was a Pole—by name Pavolo
Schwekofsky—and his house was elegantly furnished,
all his servants, however, being convicts. There was
an appearance of comfort, not to say of luxury, about
the place; and he had in a side room a turning-lathe
and English tools. To this we called attention. “Ah,
yes," said he, “we could not do without the English.”
And then, after drinking a glass of tea, we started to
see the prison.
a


MU
BI
OND
000 o Con
THE ALEXANDREFF SKY CENTRAL PRISON NEAR IRKUTSK.
Page 245


CHAPTER XXI.
THE ALEXANDREFFSKY CENTRAL PRISON.
Prison wards.- Punishment cells.-Communication with friends.-
Nationalities of prisoners.-Their work.--Food.--Distribution of
books.-Our reception.---Lunch.--Departure.- Runaway horses.-
An accident.---Left alone.- Return to post-house.
WE
E found the prison a huge building, which had
been originally erected for a brandy distillery.
Hence it was, and sometimes still is, called the
Alexandreffsky zavod, or factory. It contained 57
rooms, in each of which, according to size, were
,
placed from 25 to 100 prisoners. We went into
several of the ordinary wards, and found them lofty,
but overcrowded. Also, in some of the oblong
rooms, the inclined platforms for sleeping occupied so
much space that only a narrow passage was left for
walking about between them. When we entered such
wards, therefore, the order was given that the men
should mount the opposite edges of the platforms, and
thus we passed to the end of the room and back.
Further on we came to some small cells, over the
doors of which was written the word Secret”; and
here I thought we might perhaps see something hor-
rible. But the thing that struck me as worst about
them was their smallness ; for I should judge they
could not have measured more than 8 ft. by 6 ft.


246
THROUGH SIBERIA.
though they were probably more than 12 ft. high.
These were “punishment " cells; but were far more
”
endurable than cells known by that name in some
of our English gaols, where the prisoner is sometimes
below the level of the ground, and in a state of total
darkness, with all sound shut out save the rumbling of
carriage-wheels in the street. In the Alexandreffsky
cells there was abundance of light; there was a Russian
petchka, or stove, just outside the door, and it was not
difficult to imagine that some prisoners might prefer
solitude under such circumstances to the society of the
motley crew packed into the larger wards.
There is a room in the building in which prisoners
are allowed to see their friends, who may come on
every maznik, or fête day, Sundays included, to con-
verse for five minutes, and then make way for others.
If a prisoner has friends, they may bring him food any
day between 11 and 12 o'clock. So, too, a prisoner
may write to friends when he pleases, and receive from
them money up to a rouble a week.
The total number of prisoners in (and I suppose
about) this place was stated as 1,589; and as they
were gathered from all parts of the Russian empire,
the walking through the wards was nothing short of
an ethnographical study.
Besides the ordinary Slavs of Russia in Europe,
there were Finns, Poles, Tatars of Kasan, Tatars of
the Crimea, and Tatars of the Caucasus and Steppes.
There were Bashkirs from the province of Orenburg,
where they are breeders of cattle; and the pastoral
Kirghese, who roam over the steppes north of Persia.
Tatars were known by their shaved heads and skull-
caps, and Buriats by their unmistakable Mongolian
a

THE ALEXANDREFFSKY CENTRAL PRISON.
247
features. I counted half-a-dozen different nationalities
in a single room.
One of the worst features in this huge prison I judged
to be lack of work ; for, as we went from room to
room, we found convicts twirling their thumbs, and
literally begging for employment. All of them, how-
ever, were under “hard-labour” sentences, some to
the mines for twelve years, some to factory-work for
eight and ten years, and others to zavod work for two
and six years.
We were taken, at length, to see such of them as
were occupied. We entered a good-sized room, in
which there might have been 50 men making papers
for cigarettes, of which they turned out 100,000 a
week. Prisoners were glad to do this, as they earn a
little money thereby. A man could manipulate 5,000
unfinished cases in a day; and three men working
together very hard could earn 30 kopecks a day, but
20 kopecks was a fairer average. For a man, how-
ever, to earn 2}d. a day necessitated his sitting at
work so closely as to make his chest ache. I am not
clear whether the machinery and materials for making
these cigarette-papers belonged to the prisoners, or to
a merchant in Irkutsk who bought the papers. We
visited a room or two filled with shoemakers, and
gold-seekers' top-boots were shown us of their work.
These were for sale at 14 shillings the pair. Outside
the prison a small company of men were seen returning
from making bricks, which are manufactured for the
Government, and not for ordinary sale. Each man
makes on an average about 100 a day. Fifty men,
they told us, turn out 5,000, between 6 and 11 in the
morning and 2 and 6.30 in the afternoon, for which



248
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
they get about los. There seemed, however, to be
barely a tenth of the prisoners employed, at which we
expressed astonishment. The authorities explained it
by saying that they had no work to give them. This
comparatively idle life of Siberian prisoners recalled
what had been told me in Russia, that the Government
now keep in European prisons many whom, but for
the scarcity of suitable employment, they would send
to Siberia ; and I ought, perhaps, to add that a number
of the convicts at Alexandreffsky were there, and had
been there a long time, awaiting the decision of various
committees who were considering how the Government
could best dispose of them, so many of the Siberian
mines having passed out of Imperial hands.
Whether our visit was too early in the day, or
whether the prisoners were kept in their rooms for our
inspection, I know not; but we saw none of them
lounging in the yards, as in other places. The time
allowed them for exercise is an hour a day. The
number we saw wearing chains was comparatively
small. If the convicts behave well, they are not usually
kept in fetters, I heard, more than 18 months; and I
certainly observed that, the further east I went, the
fewer were the men in irons. We were next conducted
to the kitchen, where was to be seen, in course of pre-
,
paration for dinner, the uncooked meat, of which each
man was said to have } lb. a day, including bone, and
a daily allowance of 24 lbs. of bread. Near the prison
is a garden, where some of the prisoners can work,
and where they grow cucumbers, water-melons, and
potatoes. A few acres of arable land, cultivated by
convicts, were pointed out to us; and there was a
hospital at a short distance, clean and airy, having

THE ALEXANDREFFSKY CENTRAL PRISON.
249
8 rooms, in which we found 73 patients, many of whom
were suffering from scorbutus.
We now entered the office of the prison, and saw
the books, in one of which were entered four cate-
gories of punishment, namely, that of mines, hard
labour, factory employment, and no work, of which
four the last seemed by far the most prevalent, and I
think the worst ; for not only had the poor fellows
nothing to do, but they had nothing to read. To
remedy this was, of course, the chief object of our
visit ; and the director readily entered into my plans
concerning the books. The men had been asking for
something to read, he said, only a day or two pre-
viously. We were glad, therefore, to leave with him
160 New Testaments and other portions of Scripture
in half-a-dozen languages, and about 500 tracts and
periodicals, so that there might be at least a New
Testament placed in every room.
We were now anxious to depart, but this was not so
easy; for by this time the officials had begun to realize
that we had not come as spies or intruders, but that
we had really a benevolent object in view, though they
asked sundry questions before they could grasp our
motives. What could be our object in coming such a
long distance to visit Siberian prisons, and why should
I take notes of what we saw ? I said something about
the luxury of doing good to the poor and unfortunate ;
and pointed out that, if I did not make notes of what
was said, I should forget. Besides which," I added,
“perchance I may some day write about what I have
I
seen.” “Oh! then you are travelling for literary pur-
poses, that you may bring out a book ?” “No," said
I; “but for all that I may perhaps write of my
3)


250
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
travels"; after which there were given me several
good-sized and well-executed photographs of the prison
and its surroundings, with the remark, “Who knows?
the English do such extraordinary things, we may,
perhaps, see some day an engraving from these photo-
graphs in the English papers.”
But, whatever the
motive which had brought us, they said it was very
rare for them to receive such a visit, and they were
highly gratified at our coming.
The director begged us to favour his wife by staying
to dinner; and when for want of time I declined, all
sorts of reasonable and unreasonable inducements were
urged why I should do so. I remained firm, and we
were then invited at least to partake of light refresh-
ment at the house of the secretary of the prison. We
there found ourselves in the midst of a family of Poles,
with some good-looking daughters. The eldest was
dressed in Mala-Russiá, or “Little Russian ” costume,
consisting of a morning dress of washing material,
trimmed with embroidery of variegated colours, and
with Russian lace. I admired this, and inquired where
such embroidery could be purchased. The mother
gave me a small piece as a specimen, and also pre-
sented me with a portrait of her daughter photographed
in the same costume.
The photograph was taken by Malmberg of Irkutsk,
and I mention it because it has won the unqualified
admiration of two eminent London photographers,
who pronounce that, both technically and artistically,
no better could be seen in any part of the world. It
is particularly choice, and, as an operator would say,
' well built up.” The light is good, and the back-
ground well arranged; and as a piece of artistic

THE ALEXANDREFFSKY CENTRAL PRISON.
251
workmanship it speaks well for the progress of art in
Siberia that a photograph from Irkutsk should bear
comparison with the best the world can produce.
After this quasi-lunch, and the exchange of sundry
little souvenirs, we departed, hoping to regain the
high road at Telma in about a couple of hours. We
had reached the top of the hill, and begun the descent
through the pine-forest; and the horses were going
with a run, when one of the reins broke, and the right-
wheeler began suddenly to run too wide from the
centre horse. Before the yemstchik could stop his
team, we came to a pine-tree at the side of the road,
which the outer horse allowed to come between him
and his fellow. We were going at a
furious
pace,
and
the wonder is that the whole concern, including our-
selves, was not dashed to pieces. As it was, in rushing
,
by I thought I saw the horse's head strike the tree,
with a force that I expected must have killed it. We
ran some distance before the remaining horses could
be stopped, and then the yemstchik went back to find,
as we feared, another horse dead in our service. To
our surprise, however, the creature had run away.
The force with which the tarantass was going had
broken the remaining rein, had snapped the traces,
and so allowed us to escape, by a few inches at most,
a terrible accident.
We had first to search for the missing horse, now
out of sight; for which purpose the yemstchik mounted
one of our remaining steeds, and, subsequently, my
interpreter the other, I being left alone. Presently
a rough-looking man appeared coming along the road,
with an extraordinary wallet slung at his side. He
was curiously ornamented with a profusion of brass

а


252
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
buttons and decorations, some of which would have
served for the dress of a Tunguse shaman. He turned
out to be a horse-doctor, and not a robber, though he
naïvely said that when he saw us at first he thought
we were highwaymen, until the sight of the tarantass
reassured him.
At length, after having been left about five hours,
the yemstchik and my companion came back, but
without the truant horse ; so we determined to pro-
ceed with the two that remained. We accused our
yemstchik of having been drinking, but he denied it.
As he went on, however, he grew inconsolable at his
loss of the horse, and fairly bellowed, saying that he
feared he should be turned out of his place and be sent
to prison. He came round gradually, too, to confess
that, of the shilling I had given him for fodder, he had
spent twopence in drink; and then to the interpreter,
who sat on the box to drive, or see that we met with
no accident, he expressed the hope that the barin, or
gentleman, would " forgive him for being a little
drunk.”
And so it came to pass that by nightfall we got
back to Telma, and found our friendly post-master
about to send in search of us, as he was alarmed at
our absence of 30 instead of 6 hours. After a good
meal we left at midnight for Irkutsk, which under
ordinary circumstances we ought to have reached early
on the following morning. At one of the stations,
however, there were no horses, and we had to wait
four hours, which afterwards proved a mercy, though
at the time I am afraid I chafed at the delay ; so that
we did not come in view of the city till 10 a.m.

CHAPTER XXII.
A CITY ON FIRE.
Approach to Irkutsk.–The city entered.—Remains of a fire.--A second
fire. -Our flight.-Crossing of the Angara.--A refuge.-Inhabitants
fleeing.–Salvage.-- Firemen's efforts.-Spread of the catastrophe.
Return to lodging.-A chapel saved.--Spectacle of fire at night.-
Reflections.
-
WHA
THAT a vivid recollection I have of the lovely
morning of that 7th of July! The sun was
bright and warm, but the air was not yet hot. The
road lay near the cold and swiftly-flowing Angara, and
the plains over which we passed were stocked with
cattle. Before us lay Irkutsk. This city, or perhaps
Kiakhta, I had thought originally to make the east-
ward limit of our travels. Many friends had pro-
phesied that we should never get there. Some said
that I was undertaking more than I could carry out,
and others that I should not be permitted by the
Russians to go so far. A subtle feeling of satisfaction,
therefore, stole over us as we posted along, and saw
how soon these prophecies were to be falsified. The
town, built on a tongue of land, formed by the con-
fluence of two rivers, with its dozen churches, domes,
and spires pointing to heaven, looked extremely pretty;
and on the hills around, handsome villas, nestling among
the trees, added not a little to the picturesqueness of
the scene.
The prospect before us, therefore, the



254
THROUGH SIBERIA.
retrospect of what we had done, the pleasant morning,
and the repose to which we were looking forward, all
combined to raise our spirits, and cause us to hasten
onward. Alas! we little knew how speedily the face of
things would change.
At the ferry was collected a large number of
common vehicles, before which, however, our post-
horses took precedence. We speedily crossed, and
drove through a triumphal arch, erected at the time
of the annexation of the Amur, and situated at the
entrance of the town. We did not proceed far before
we saw where fire had destroyed two blocks of build-
ings, the embers of which were still smoking. But it
was only similar to what we had seen at Perm and
Tagil, so that we were not greatly surprised. Worse
was to come. We drove to Decocq's hotel, and took
apartments, paid and dismissed the yemstchiks, moved
our belongings from the larger of the tarantasses, and
arranged them in our rooms—or, rather, we were doing
So, when the alarm was given that another fire had
broken out. I clambered to the roof of the stables,
and there, plainly enough, were flames mounting
upwards, not a dozen houses off, and in the same
street, though on the other side of the way.
The waiter said he thought the fire would not come
towards the hotel, as the wind blew from the opposite
direction ; but I was disinclined to wait and see, and
so we bundled our things back into the tarantass, and
told the yemstchiks, who fortunately had not left the
yard, to put to their horses, and in a few minutes we
were out in the street, witnesses of a sight that is not
easy to describe. Men were running from all direc-
tions, not with the idle curiosity of a London crowd

A CITY ON FIRE.
255
tasses.
at a fire, but with the blanched faces and fear-stricken
countenances of those who knew that the devastation
might reach to them. They looked terribly in earnest;
women screamed and children cried, and it was hard
for me in the street to get an answer to any ordinary
question
Meanwhile the yemstchiks asked, Where should
they go? I tried to discover where some of the
persons to whom I had introductions lived, but people
were too excited to tell me ; and at last my companion
suggested that we should go out of the town across
the river. We soon put nearly a mile between us and
the flames, and reached the bank of the Angara, where
was a swinging ferry. The ferry was all but loaded,
and would not take more than one of our two taran-
I therefore went with the first, leaving the
interpreter to follow. On landing, the yemstchik
drove along a bridge, at the end of which he motioned
to me as to whether he should turn to the left or the
right. To me it was just the same, but I pointed to
the left ; and that turning proved to be of not a little
importance. I could say nothing to the yemstchik,
and had therefore to wait till the ferry returned, and
then crossed again, which occupied the greater part of
an hour.
Meanwhile the increased smoke in the distance
showed that the fire was spreading, and the inhabitants
of the small suburb called Glasgova, to which I had
come, were looking on in front of their houses.
Among the people I noticed a well-dressed person,
whom I addressed, asking if she spoke English or
French. She at once inquired who I was and what
I wanted. I replied that I was an English clergyman


256
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a
travelling, that I had just arrived in Irkutsk, had run
away from the fire, and was seeking a lodging. She
answered that there were no lodgings to be had in any
of the few houses on that side of the river ; " but,"
said she, “pray come into my little house, where you
are welcome to remain at least during the day.” I
was only too glad to do so; and, seeing that there was
a small yard adjoining, I asked permission to put
therein our two vehicles, in which we might sleep
until some better place could be found. And thus we
were a second time landed at Irkutsk, poorly enough,
perhaps the reader may think, but in a far better con-
dition, as will presently be seen, than before nightfall
were many thousands of the inhabitants.
We soon found that our hostess was of good family,
and an exile, though not a political, but a criminal one.
On arriving at Irkutsk, the Governor-General had
shown her kindness in allowing her to remain in the
city, where she partly supported herself by giving
lessons, and was living for the summer in this quasi
country-house with a young man whom she called her
brother, her little girl she had brought from Russia,
and a small servant whom she spoke of as
ma petite
femme de chambre.” There was one tolerably spacious
dwelling-room in the house, and in this were sundry
tokens of refinement brought from a better home.
On the wall hung a photograph of herself, as a bride
leaning on the arm of her husband in officer's uniform,
whilst several other photographs and ornaments spoke
also of a better past.
The occasion, however, was not suited to long
conversation, for the conflagration in the town was
increasing. Whilst dining, we bethought ourselves


A CITY ON FIRE.
257
a
tenances.
whether we could be of some service, and the outcome
of our deliberations was that I offered to accompany
Madame to her friends residing in the town, to see if
we could be of use, whilst my interpreter stayed with
the tarantasses and the little girl to guard the premises.
Madame and I, therefore, set out, accompanied by
her maid. At the ferry we met a crowd of persons
fleeing from the city, and carrying with them what was
most valuable or most dear-an old woman tottering
under a heavy load of valuable furs piled on her head;
a poor half-blind nun, hugging an ikon, evidently the
most precious of her possessions; a delicate young
lady in tears, with her kitten in her arms; and boys
tugging along that first requisite of a Russian home,
the brazen samovar. Terror was written on all coun-
We pushed on to the principal street, and
tried to hire a droshky, but it was in vain to call-
they were engaged in removing valuables from burning
houses, as were the best vehicles and carriages the
town possessed. Even costly sleighs, laden with such
things as could be saved from the flames, were dragged
over the stones and grit in the streets.
Before long we came to the wide street in which
were situated the best shops and warehouses, and
where the fire was raging on either side and spreading.
Those who were wise were bringing out their fur-
niture, their account-books, and their treasures as fast
as possible, and depositing them in the road and on
vehicles, to be carried away. A curious medley these
articles presented. Here were costly pier-glasses,
glass chandeliers, and pictures such as one would
hardly have expected to see in Siberia at all; whilst
a little further on, perchance, were goods from a grocer's
17

VOL. I.

258
THROUGH SIBERIA. .
or provision merchant's shop, and all sorts of delicacies
—such as sweets and tins of preserved fruit, to which
they who would helped themselves; and working-men
were seen tearing open the tins to taste, for the first
time in their lives, slices of West India pine-apples
or luscious peaches and apricots. Other prominent
articles of salvage were huge family bottles of rye-
brandy, some of which people hugged in their arms,
as if for their life, whilst other bottles were standing
about, or being drunk by those who carried them. The
effects of this last proceeding soon became apparent in
the grotesque and foolish antics of men in the incipient
stage of drunkenness.
It was curious to watch the conduct of some of
the tradesmen, who seemed to hope against hope,
and kept their shops locked, as if to shut out thieves,
and in the hope that the fire would
not reach
their premises. I noticed one man, a grocer, whose
doors were barred till the flames had come within
two houses of his own; and then, throwing open the
entrance, he called in the crowd to carry out his
wares. They entered, and brought out loaves of sugar
and similar goods, until one man carried out a glass-
case full of bon-bons, at which there was a general onset
in the street, every one filling his pockets amid roars
of laughter. With this laughter, however, was mingled
the crying of women, who wrung their hands as they
emptied their houses, and saw the destroying flames
only too surely approaching their homes.
In the street were all sorts of people—soldiers,
officers, Cossacks, civilians, tradesmen, gentlemen,
women and children, rich and poor, young and old
--but not gathered in dense crowds; some were making

A CITY ON FIRE.
259
a
a
themselves useful to their neighbours, and a few were
looking idly on. At every door was placed a jug of
clean water for those to drink who were thirsty, and
it would have been well if nothing stronger had been
taken. The fire brigade arrangements seemed to me
in great confusion. There were some English engines
in the town, one of them, of a brilliant red, bore the
well-known name of “Merryweather and
Merryweather and Sons,”—but
the Siberians had not practised their engines in the
time of prosperity, and the consequence was that the
pipes had become dry and useless, and would not serve
them in the day of adversity. The arrangements, too,
for bringing water were of the clumsiest description.
A river was flowing on either side of the city, but the
firemen had no means of conducting the water by hose,
but carried it in large barrels on wheels.
Now and then one saw a hand-machine in use, about
,
the size of a garden engine, or a jet such as London
tradesmen use to clean their pavements and their
windows. Moreover, no one took command. I
noticed in one case, as the flames approached the
corner of a street, it evidently occurred to some that,
if the house at the opposite corner could be pulled
down, the fire might stop there for want of anything
further to burn. They therefore got to the top of
the house, and, with crowbars, unloosed the beams
and threw them below; but, before they had gone on
long, they changed their minds, and seemed oblivious
of the fact that the fire would burn the beams equally
well on the ground as when standing in a pile.
It must be confessed, however, that the fire had
everything in its favour. Nearly all the houses were
of wood—so completely so, that, after the calamity,


260
THROUGH SIBERIA.
centre.
a
there was often nothing to mark the spot where a
house had stood save the brickwork of the stove in the
There was a fresh breeze blowing too, and
though the houses were in many cases detached, yet
it frequently happened that the intervening spaces
were stacked with piles of firewood, which helped to
spread the conflagration.
A wooden house burning is of course a spectacle
much grander than that of flames coming through the
windows of a brick structure, and the heat much more
intense. At Irkutsk it was sufficient to set fire to a
building on the opposite side of the street, without the
contact of sparks. In one case—that of a handsome
shop-I noticed that the first things that caught were
the outside sunblinds, which were so scorched that they
at last ignited, and then set fire to the window-frames,
and so to the whole building.
It soon became apparent that Madame could not
reach her friends, who lived on the other side of the
city, and therefore we made our way back towards
the ferry, calling here and there and offering help.
One friend asked us to take away her little daughter,
which we did, and her husband's revolver, which I
carried, and a bottle of brandy-put into the arms
of the femme-de-chambre. Thus laden, we walked
towards the river, whilst on all hands men and
women were pressing into their service every available
worker for the removal of their goods. A religious
procession likewise was formed by priests and people
with banners, headed by an ikon, in the hope that the
fire would be stayed. Had such taken place, the ikon
would no doubt have acquired the reputation of having
the power, in common with many others, of working


A CITY ON FIRE.
261
miracles. As it was, there was
there was a small chapel or
oratory in the centre of the town that escaped the
flames, though the houses on either side were burned.
I heard this spoken of as something very wonderful,
if not miraculous, and I am under the impression that
it was so telegraphed to Petersburg; but, on looking
at the place after the fire, the preservation of the little
sanctuary seemed easily accounted for, by the fact not
only that it was itself built of brick, and left no part
exposed that could well take fire, but that the houses
on either side happened also to be of brick, so that
they did not, in burning, give off the same heat they
would have done had they been of wood. One rejoiced,
of course, that the building was saved; but I could not
help suspecting that, half a century hence, the chapel
will be pointed out as having been preserved by a
miracle from the great fire of 1879.
It was evening before we reached our temporary
lodging, and as the day closed the workers grew tired.
Many were drunk, and others gave up in despair.
The impression seemed to gain ground that nothing
could be done, but that the devouring element must
be left to burn itself out. Hope therefore fled, and
the flames continued to spread till the darkness showed
a line of fire and smoke that was estimated at not less
than a mile and a half in length. It seemed as if nothing
would escape. Now one large building caught, and
then another, the churches not excepted. To add to
the vividness of the scene, an alarm of church bells
would suddenly clang out, to intimate that help was
needed in the vicinity. Perhaps shortly afterwards
the flames would be seen playing up the steeple, and
fancifully peeping out of the apertures and windows;

a
a

262
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
a
then reaching the top, and presenting the strange
spectacle of a tower on fire, with the flames visible
only at the top, middle, and bottom. At last the whole
would fall with a crash, and the sky be lit up with
sparks and a lurid glare such as cannot be forgotten.
Meanwhile the inhabitants continued to flee by
thousands—the swinging ferry near us crossed and
recrossed incessantly, bringing each time its sorrowful
load, either bearing away their valuables, or going
back to fetch others. Many of the people brought
such of their goods as they could save to the banks
and islands of the two rivers, and there took up their
abode for the night in a condition compared with which
ours was comfortable.
Towards midnight the town presented a marvellous
spectacle. I have already spoken of the enormous
length of the line of fire when looked at laterally; but,
as the darkness deepened, I walked down to a point
on the bank from which could be seen the apex of the
triangle, in the form of which the town was built, and
where appeared a mass of flames estimated as covering
an area of not less than half a square mile.
We were supposed to sleep that night in the tarantass,
but I rose continually to watch the progress of the fire,
which towards morning abated, but only because it had
burnt all that came in its way. About eleven o'clock
the last houses standing on the opposite bank caught
fire, and thus, in about four-and-twenty hours, three-
fourths of the town were consumed.*
As for myself, I had watched the fire with mingled
* The numbers of the buildings destroyed were, of stone more than
100, and of wood about 3,500, including 6 churches, 2 synagogues, and
2 Lutheran and Roman chapels, besides 5 bazaars, the custom-house,

A CITY ON FIRE.
263
feelings, for we had narrowly escaped. And then came
the recollection of the previous delays which had con-
tributed to our preservation—the delay in going to
the Alexandreffsky prison, the runaway horse in the
wood, and our subsequent impatient waiting on the
road. All these played an important part in saving
us, for, had we arrived ten minutes earlier, our affairs
might have gone very differently. Had we reached
the town on the previous day, we should, in all proba-
bility, have been at church when the fire broke out;
and then it is very doubtful whether we could have
saved our effects, such was the difficulty of getting
assistance. Moreover, the hotel was burnt within a
very short time of our leaving it, so that, when looking
back upon the chain of mercies by which we had been
saved, I could not feel otherwise than deeply thankful.

and the meat market. The destruction of property was estimated at
£3,000,000 sterling; and since the town contained about 33,800 inhabit-
ants, upwards of 20,000 of them probably must have been rendered house-
less and homeless. From calculations made three months afterwards, it
appeared that 8,000 of the inhabitants were in good circumstances; 2,000
were in the military, and 1,000 in Government employ ; 6,000 were in
reduced circumstances, to whom bread and corn were sold at a very low
price. There were 2,500 government employés similarly straitened by
the catastrophe, leaving about 14,000 to earn their bread as best they
could.



CHAPTER XXIII.
IRKUTSK.
-
-
THE
Province of Irkutsk.—The capital.— Its markets. —Telegraph officers.-
Visit to the Governor.–Ruins of the city.–Attempt to establish a
Bible depôt.-Supposed incendiarism.—Benevolent arrangements of
authorities.-Wife-beating.–Servility of Russian peasants.—Visit to
a rich merchant.- Ecclesiastical affairs.-
Visit to the acting Governor-
General.—The prisons.—A prisoner's view of them.--Prison com-
mittee.- Distribution of books.— Visit to inspector ofschools.-Change
of route.
HE city of Irkutsk is the capital of a government
of the same name,* and was founded in 1680.
Its population in 1879 was 33,000. About 4,000 gold-
miners spend their winter and their money in the city,
often mentioned as a cheerful place of rest for travel-
lers coming from China, or proceeding eastward. It is
1,360 feet above the sea, and has a climate which even
in winter is well spoken of, though, in the late autumn,
and previous to the freezing of the Angara, the fogs
from the river bring rheumatism and diseases of the
throat and lungs. Little wind blows, storms are less
frequent than at Petersburg or Moscow, and the snows
* Compared with some of the enormous provinces of Siberia, that of
Irkutsk is comparatively small, with an area of 300,000 square miles only;
that is, about the size of Sweden and Norway. The surface is moun-
tainous, and through it flow two rivers of importance, namely, the Angara,
issuing from Lake Baikal, and the Lena, which rises not far from the
capital. The province is divided into five uyezds, and has a population
of 380,000, of whom only 10 per cent. are dwellers in towns. Marriages
4,600, and 25,000 births are recorded in the province yearly.

BITI
))))))
►
Page 262.
))))))
THE BURNING OF IRKUTSK.
(As seen from the Glasgova Suburb, 7th July, 1879.)


IRKUTSK.
265
are not superabundant. Whether in winter or summer,
the panorama of Irkutsk and its surroundings is one of
beauty. Of its 20 churches, several were planned and
constructed by two Swedish engineer officers captured
at Pultava, and sent into exile by the great Peter.
The markets of Irkutsk are well supplied. Fish and
game are plentiful. Beef is abundant and good, and
costs about 2d. a pound. Pork, veal, and mutton are
also cheap, especially in winter, when everything that
can be frozen succumbs to the frost. Frozen chickens,
partridges, and other game are often thrown together in
heaps like bricks or fire-wood. Butchers' meat defies the
knife, and some of the salesmen place their animals in
fantastic positions before freezing them. Frozen fish are
piled in stacks, and milk is offered for sale in cakes or
bricks. A stick or string is generally congealed into
a corner of the mass to facilitate carrying, so that a
wayfarer can swing a quart of milk at his side, or
wrap it in his handkerchief at discretion. Whilst
the products of the country are thus cheap, it should
be observed that everything brought from beyond the
Urals is expensive on account of the long land carriage.
Champagne, for example, costs 125. or 145. a bottle, and
porter and ale 7s. 6d. ; the lowest price of sugar is 8d.
.
a pound, while sometimes it costs is. ; and as much as
25. 6d. may occasionally be given for a lemon.
Much of this, however, I had to learn by report or
reading; for, at the time of our visit, the Sunday's fire
had upset everything, and it became a serious question
on Monday morning as to what we should do. Many
of the telegraph clerks in Siberia are Danes, and speak
several languages. We found that we had one of
them, Mr. Larsen, for a near neighbour ; for the tele-


a

266
THROUGH SIBERIA.
.
graph office had been burnt, and he had come to our
side of the river to take shelter in the next house,
where, having no electric battery, he had tapped the
Verchne Udinsk wire, and was trying in this way,
though without success, to communicate intelligence.
He had had nothing to eat for 24 hours, and possessed
only the clothes in which he stood; so it was quite a
charity to take him a glass of tea to his temporary office
in the open air, after which he dined with us. Mr.
Larsen, to whom we had an introduction, had been a
telegraphist in London, and spoke English fluently, so
that we were able to discuss our prospects to advantage.
It was of prime importance for us that we should see
the Governor of the province and the Governor-General
of Eastern Siberia as quickly as possible, for it was not
hard to perceive that what provisions had escaped the
fire would be sold at famine prices; lawlessness, it was
rumoured, might get the upper hand ; and it seemed
better that we should leave the place without much
delay. Our adviser feared, however, and reasonably
so, that we should be able to get no attention from the
higher officials in the present state of excitement, seeing
the embers of the city were still smoking, and the
authorities would naturally have more important busi-
ness than ours to attend to. Mr. Larsen, however,
kindly offered to accompany me over the river to see
if anything could be done. Accordingly we crossed,
and, walking along the broad road by the side of the
Angara, the ashes of the fire scorched our faces.
We now saw something of the condition of the people
who had fled to the bank of the river on the previous
day, with such effects as they could save.
Here were
gentlefolks “camped out” under chests of drawers,

IRKUTSK.
267
tables, and boxes, arranged in the best manner pos-
sible in the open air—sheets being used for walls,
and curtains for coverings. Ikons from churches
were lying about ; likewise tables, heaped with philo-
sophical instruments from the high school ; and carts
filled with movables. The instruments from the tele-
graph station were standing by a post, to which paper
streamers were fastened to intimate that this was the
temporary telegraph office. The people's demeanour,
however, was in strange contrast with their pitiable
condition ; for many, having saved their samovars,
were drinking afternoon tea, and on all sides were
joking and laughing at their comical situation.
We found many of his friends among those beside
the river, and each began good-humouredly to ask
what the other lost in the fire, and what had been
saved. Nobody seemed inclined to be at all dull over
the matter, and the same thing was apparent with the
Deputy-Governor Ismailoff, upon whom we called.
“ What have you lost ?” said the General to my com-
panion. He lightly threw open his coat, and intimated
that that was all he had saved. At this the General
laughed heartily, and said that he was not so well off,
for that the very shirt on his back was a borrowed one!
Yet the Governor had lost in the fire a brand-new
house, upon which he had spent many thousands of
roubles.
Contrary to our expectation, it was arranged for us
to see the acting Governor-General next morning, and
meanwhile we had time to look at the ruins of the city.
People had taken refuge with their effects in the large
squares, as well as on the banks and islands of the
river. Many had fled into the neighbouring villages.


268
THROUGH SIBERIA.
The suburbs had escaped the fire, as well as many of
the houses standing in spacious grounds. A few of
the churches also were untouched. The large hospital
was safe, likewise the usine for smelting gold, and the
Governor-General's house, but many of the public
buildings had perished; amongst these the museum,
in which I expected to find a good ethnographical
collection. I should judge about three-fourths of the
city was destroyed, and that the best part of the town;
and so complete was the wreck that the isvostchiks
with their droshkies hardly knew their way about the
blackened streets.
We met a few of the higher class of exiles living
free in Irkutsk, and, on asking them what they would
do, received for reply, “We do not know. We have
been earning something by teaching, but now our
patrons will leave us.
All sorts of provisions will be
frightfully dear, and yet we dare not leave. So what
is to be done?” The same doubts as to the future
pressed heavily upon those tradesmen whose shops
were not burnt. *
Of course there were various rumours afloat during
the excitement of the previous day—one, that the de-
vastation was caused by a wilful act. Similar rumours
were afloat at Perm and Tagil, and at Irkutsk more
than twenty arrests were reported. But, upon asking
* I was specially anxious to open a depôt for the Bible Society in
Irkutsk, and to that end called upon a bookseller and printer named
Sinitzun, of Harlampi Street, and invited him to become a depositary.
He replied that he had the will to do so, but that he must first consult his
partners; for it was doubted whether the city would be rebuilt, and
whether persons having lost their premises would not, instead of re-erecting
them, go and live elsewhere. I have heard, since my return, however,
that the town is rising from its ashes even on a grander scale than it
formerly possessed.

IRKUTSK.
269
the Governor, it proved to be nonsense; for only two
men had been arrested, and it was very doubtful whether
even they were guilty. The only origin I heard given
was that a hay-loft ignited, from which the flames
spread. *
In Siberian towns the police are represented by the
gendarmerie, and in other places are police-masters
with their employés. There are, strictly speaking, no
policemen, but Cossacks are usually employed in their
stead; and at the end of their short service are allowed
to go home.
home. They are, however, anything but efficient
constables, and I was told that at Irkutsk the authorities
do not employ them. To protect whatever might be
of value among the ruins, and to keep order after the
fire, troops were marched into the city by day, and
patrolled the place at night.
Great credit was due to the officials for the prompt
manner in which they attempted the relief of distress.
The fire was scarcely extinguished before a committee
was formed, and some of the merchants laid down
handsome sums. Proclamations were posted about
the place, saying that officers could be furnished with
dinners at the rate of 30 kopecks a plate, that bread
* The Russians have reason, however, for constant suspicion, for they
have a revengeful way of “letting loose the red cock” upon a man, which
means setting his house on fire; and this is only too common among the
peasants of Siberia, as, in fact, generally in all Russia. Thus, of 758 fires
which took place in Siberia in 1876, no less than 99, or more than one-
eighth, were due to incendiaries, to say nothing of nearly 500 more of
which the causes could not be traced. Further particulars relating to
these 758 fires are, that 185 were registered as due to “carelessness," and
Io to lightning, whilst the estimated loss of the whole 758 was reckoned
at £82,162. With such a number of fires it is not difficult to understand
the dread of destruction in which Siberians live, nor their practice of
having a large chest in the house, in which they habitually keep their
valuables, to be removed, if necessary, at a moment's notice.



270
THROUGH SIBERIA.
contact.
might be bought for 2 kopecks—that is, a halfpenny-a
pound; and that for the first week the poor might have
bread for nothing; further, that all persons burnt out
might, on application, receive the sum of 30 kopecks.
No serious outbreak of disorder occurred during our
stay, though a good deal of drunkenness was visible.
With two inebriates we were brought palpably into
In the yard we occupied was a small kitchen-
house, where lived a woman cook, her husband, and
some children. The husband had been to the fire, had
been drinking, and came home accompanied by a
drunken associate. The companion, referring to the
cook, said, “As for that woman, she ought to be
hanged”; whereupon her husband fell to beating mer-
cilessly both her and her boy of about ten years old;
and the child came to us crying, as if he were half
killed. Whereupon we rushed to the rescue, and one
of the party, seizing the drunken man, took him from
his wife, and gave him a thrashing. *
When I got further east, I heard of a third and
similar instance of wife-beating, related to me by a
merchant in whose house I stayed. His servants were
convicts, simply because he could get no others; but
he said he was not usually curious to ask for what
crimes they had been sent to Siberia. It happened,
* This assault by the husband was, as far as I know, quite unprovoked
on the part of his better half, and it serves as an illustration of the way
in which a certain class of the Russians treat their wives. It also serves
to confirm what is written of Akoulka's husband in Dostoyeffsky's “Buried
Alive," where two prisoners are talking in the night, and one relates : “I
had got, somehow or other, in the way of beating her. Some days I would
keep at it from morning till night. I did not know what to do with
myself when I was not beating her. She used to sit crying, and I could
not help feeling sorry for her, and so I beat her.” Subsequently he mur-
dered her. After which relation, the other prisoner acquiesces, and says
that “wives must be beaten to be of any service.”
u

IRKUTSK.
271
however, that he had a woman-cook who was particu-
larly well-behaved, and an excellent servant; and he
asked her one day why she had been exiled. She
said it was for poisoning her husband ; upon which
my friend opened his eyes, and said, -
“Oh, then, perhaps you will murder me?”
Oh, no, master; I should not murder you.”
Yes, but if you would murder your husband, why
not, some day, me ?”
“Oh, no, master; you would not do as he did, for he
beat me every day for two years.”
Thus it was not altogether a meaningless form at a
Russian wedding, that anciently the bridegroom took
to church a whip, and in one part of the ceremony
lightly applied it to the bride's back, in token that she
was to be in subjection.
It should be remembered, however, that the brutal
conduct just described belongs to a type well known
in a certain part of England; the difference between
the two being that the Russian bully beats his wife
with a whip, while the English one kicks her to death.
The Russian wives take very kindly to a moderate
amount of such treatment, and those of the lower class
do not murmur or complain, but consider the “master”
has a right to chastise them; and when things do not
go so far as this, they expect, when they do not please
their husbands, to be slapped and corrected accordingly.
In fact, the Russian wife among the lower classes does
not take what we think her proper position in a house.
The husband usually goes to market once a week, and
buys all he wants, business of such importance not
being entrusted to the wife, who therefore knows
nothing even of the cost of her household articles.
a


272
THROUGH SIBERIA.
(
Among the higher classes, also, the master usually
sends his chief servant to market, and pays for all that
is consumed in the house.
There came out of this quarrel between man and
wife another characteristic of the Russian peasantry,
which perhaps is a remnant of serfdom, and betrays
their want of manliness in the presence of their
superiors. My merchant friend, just referred to, had
a convict in the house whilst I was there, whom
once before he had dismissed for drunkenness. The
man came back entreating that he might be reinstated,
but his master said, “No, I have warned you con-
tinually, and done everything I could to keep you
sober, but in vain.” Yes, sir,” said the man; “but
then, sir, you should have given me a good thrashing.”
So with the fighting husband at Irkutsk: after receiving
his stripes he went away, but soon after came back,
thanking the gentleman for his thrashing, and pro-
mising to behave better in future. In the days of
serfdom, it was no uncommon thing for a gentleman
to box the ears of his droshky driver; but this cannot
now be done with impunity. My mercantile friend
told me he was one day driving in Petersburg with a
Russian gentleman, when the latter struck the isvost-
chik for doing something that displeased him; where-
upon the man turned round and said, “No more
of that, sir; those days are gone by, and if you strike
me again I shall return it,”—a threat quite un-
bearable to a blagorodni, or “noble”; and he was
about to go on as of old, when my friend said, “ Look!
you had better not; for if you are summoned, and I
am called as a witness, I shall be bound to say that you
began it”; whereupon he desisted.

IRKUTSK.
273
a
We took an early opportunity after the fire to deliver
up to General Khamenoff, its owner, the second taran-
tass we had borrowed at Tomsk, and in which my
companion and I had driven and slept for a thousand
miles. Our benefactor was in reality a rich merchant,
and had given, if I mistake not, very handsome sums
of money for educational purposes in Irkutsk. This
patriotic action had gained him the distinction of
“General.” His buildings had been saved, and we
thus had an opportunity of seeing the house of one
well-to-do merchant at Irkutsk.
The General was getting old, and appeared in a long
dressing-gown, coming out of his beautiful garden, and
seating us in a little secretarial chamber, which had
about it sundry marks of foreign influence and taste.
Before joining us, however, he bade adieu to a pre-
vious visitor, and called his footman to open the door.
There was something inexpressibly droll about his
manner of doing so, for he simply gave a prolonged
grunt-ugh!!—and as the footman did not come at grunt
number one, it was repeated, and the servant in passing
received from his master a cuff at the back of the head,
doing so with a grin and a duck of the noddle, as a
schoolboy receives a blow from his mother's palm,
knowing that he shall not be hurt. The old gentleman
then heard from us how we had escaped from the hotel,
and how we were making a sleeping chamber of his
tarantass, which he said we might continue to do until
we left the town.
I was anxious to learn something of the state of
ecclesiastical affairs in the province, and to inquire what
the Russian Church was doing in her missions to the
Buriats. The chief ecclesiastic of the province is one
18
VOL. I.


274
THROUGH SIBERIA.
Benjamin, Archbishop of Irkutsk and Nertchinsk, under
whom is a suffragan bishop, Meleti of Selenginsk. The
Diocese has 347 churches and chapels, 5 monasteries,
and one nunnery. One of the monasteries is near
Lake Baikal, and here lives, if I mistake not, the
Bishop of Selenginsk, who could have given information
about the Buriats, but the monastery lay too far out of
our way to allow of our visiting it. Nor were we
successful with the Archbishop; for on going to the
monastery, his official residence, which had narrowly
escaped the fire, we found him gone to his country
residence in the suburbs. * When will he return ?"
we asked. “God knows,” said our priest informant;
thereby using an expression which I observed to be
very common among all classes of Russians. *
On the Tuesday morning after the fire we were to
be presented, as I have said, to the acting Governor-
General of Eastern Siberia. The supreme Governor-
General was Baron Friedrichs, to whom I had two
private letters of introduction, besides my official docu-
ments; also we had made the acquaintance of his son
when travelling on the Obi. The Baron, who was in
ill-health, was at some mineral springs on the Mongolian
frontier, and his place was filled at the time of our visit
by M. Lochwitzky, the Governor of Yeneseisk, to
whom we were presented by General Ismailoff. We
met at the Governor-General's house, the finest in the
city, having been originally built and furnished, regard-
* The chief ecclesiastical shrine of Irkutsk is a large church a little
way out of the city. In it are the remains, gorgeously entombed, of St.
Innokente, said to be preserved as fresh as when he died. This man is
regarded as the apostle of Siberia. He was originally a missionary, who,
in 1721, was sent to China ; but the Chinese Government refusing him
admission to their country, he settled six years afterwards at Irkutsk.

IRKUTSK.
275
less of expense, by an enormously rich tea merchant.
We found M. Lochwitzky the first of the Siberian
Governors (except the Governor-General in the West)
who could converse in French. He entered readily
into my plans for the distribution of books, thanked
me for those I had left at Krasnoiarsk for his province,
and promised to do for me what was a great boon,
namely, to send some books to the town of Yakutsk,
to be distributed throughout that largest province of
the country. We were introduced to a Colonel Solovief,
whose brother was in London, as Secretary to the
Grand Duchess of Edinburgh; and after an assurance
from the Governor-General that he would do all he
could to further our wishes, we started to see the prisons,
under the conduct of the Procureur of the town.
We drove through the ruins of the fire, and then
crossed, by a wooden bridge 300 yards long, the
Uska-Kofka, by which one side of Irkutsk is bounded.
This stream divides the town from the prison and the
workshops, where a certain number of convicts are
employed.* Speaking generally, the prison seemed
to me to resemble others I had seen in Siberia, and to
call for no special remark. Perhaps, however, I ought
I
to add that before I left the town I had the opportunity
of hearing about the establishment from a prisoner's
point of view. Thus I heard that, at six o'clock on
the morning of our visit, the prisoners were told to
* There were 270 men in the prison, one room holding 21 murderers,
another 28 thieves, a third 20 forgers, a fourth 28 who had been exchanging
their names and punishments, and a fifth 39 who were “ without pass-
ports,” and so on. In one room they were making match-boxes, for whịch
they received for themselves a tenth of their earnings. Other prisoners
were making furniture, of which the materials were supplied by the prison
officers, and for which, of course, they recouped themselves.


276
THROUGH SIBERIA.
hidden away.
have all in order because some Englishmen were ex-
pected, and that certain objectionable things were
I thought, however, that it did not
speak much for my informant's candour when, on
pressing him to say what the objectionable things
were, he did not tell me. Again, my informant tried
.
to make it appear that the officers stole the prisoners'
food by giving them short quantity, though he said the
quality of the food was good enough. The Procureur
said the prisoners did not eat all the food allowed
them; and from the quantity of pieces of bread which
we so often saw lying about in Russian prisons, I
should be disposed to think this true. This seems
to be so common, that we were told at Tiumen the
prisoners may sell what they do not eat; but at Irkutsk
my informant said that they did not receive more than
half their allowance, and that a quarter of a pound only
of meat was given for io men—a quantity so ridiculously
small, that one could not but think that here exaggera-
tion must have overshot the mark. Moreover, my
informant told me that what he said was not from
personal experience, because he was not one of the
peasant prisoners whose circumstances he professed
to relate. *
* The citizen prisoners, he said, were allowed in money 17) kopecks a
day, which they could spend as they pleased, and with which they could
buy a pound of meat (10 kopecks), and 2} lbs. of bread (73 kopecks).
They have, however, in Irkutsk, a liberal prison committee, who help in
the matter of focd-the cabbage in the soup, for instance, being provided
by them ; and my informant, though grumbling about almost everything
else, allowed that the dinners given to the sick, which cost 20 kopecks,
and all the arrangements about the prison hospital, were exceedingly good.
There were even books provided for the patients, but this was through the
kindness of the doctor. My non-official informant also alleged that the
prison officials took from the pay of the workmen, giving them far less
than the value of their labour, and so unrighteously enriched themselves.

IRKUTSK.
277
I was told in the town that to take books to the
Irkutsk prison was a work of supererogation; and I
confess to a feeling of disappointment when, on asking
to see the library, I was taken to a cupboard full of
New Testaments and tracts, precisely the same as
some of those I was distributing, but all kept so fresh
and in such order that evidently no one had used
them. The committee was reported to have spent
as much as £30 on books for the prison, but the
officials had evidently not made the books accessible
to those for whom they were intended. Their excuse
was that the prisoners did not ask for them; but no
doubt the officials were afraid of their being torn, and
that trouble would ensue, and so had kept them locked
up. It reminded me of what my Finnish friend had
.
written, that when she went to the prison, the officials
said, “The books must be arranged in order, in case
the inspector should come”; and thus the books were
practically kept from the inmates. When the Governor
asked me what I thought of the prison, I did not fail
to point out the inconsistency of withholding the books;
His tone, however, was so exceedingly bitter, that had he not allowed that
there was one good thing in connection with the prison, I should have
discredited all he said, especially as he dealt so much in generals, and
avoided particulars. As it was, I thought perhaps he might have spoken
the truth in some respects. I heard subsequently, from another exile, that
the Director of the prison received only £40 a year for salary, whilst
from another I heard £120 or £ 150; and if either of these figures are true,
it is not difficult to see that a dishonest official may be strongly tempted
to take advantage (as the Russians say)“ of his opportunities.” These
opportunities,” however, are not confined to matters of food. I heard of
a prison director at Nijni Udinsk who had orders to send 30 prisoners to
Nikolaefsk, which for certain reasons is a favourite place with the convicts;
whereupon this director made his choice to fall upon those whose wives
could pay him 25 roubles, or 50 shillings. This looks a large amount for
a prisoner to pay, but my informant had in possession 50 roubles to be
transferred for this purpose.


278
THROUGH SIBERIA.
but of this he was ignorant, and he promised to look
into the matter. I endeavoured also to make clear, in
speech and by writing, that wherever my books or
tracts went throughout the province, they were to be
placed within reach at all times of the prisoners, and
not to be put away in any of the libraries.
Thus we inspected the two prisons, and also saw a
school built by the committee for prisoners' children ;
in it were 42 scholars. We visited likewise a gentle-
man named Sokoloff, who was the deputy-inspector of
schools for Eastern Siberia. There is also an inspector
of schools for Western Siberia, who lives at Omsk.
I was surprised to hear of the many schools and
scholars in the sparsely-populated and, for scholastic
purposes, exceedingly difficult country of Eastern
Siberia. * Our object in calling upon the inspector
was to ask him to distribute throughout the schools
copies of my tracts and periodicals, and to that end I
began by showing my credentials. But upon hearing
my object, he said that was quite sufficient; and he
needed to see no papers, but would willingly help.
He bought, moreover, on his own account, 200 New
Testaments for 40 roubles, to give as prizes to the
young schoolmasters on leaving the institution, by
which means the books would be scattered widely.t
* Mr. Sokoloff had under his inspection, in 1878, 13 classical schools,
I commercial, i industrial, i inferior, and 211 elementary schools,
attended by 6,000 boys and 1,500 girls. These figures, moreover, were
exclusive of the Amur district, and parts about the Sea of Okhotsk.
There were also under his inspection two training institutions, one of them
being the house at which we called--a new building for the training, at
one time, of 80 village schoolmasters. Its furniture and fittings were
admirable. It had an excellent museum, and a room for tutorial practice;
and I was particularly struck with the number of models and apparatus
for the teaching of natural science.
+ Besides these sent to the inspector, we confided to M. Lochwitzky,

IRKUTSK.
279
We now considered our next step. My original
idea, when leaving England, as already intimated, was
to proceed to Irkutsk; and then, after running on to
Kiakhta for the gratification of seeing a Chinese town,
to return to Europe, and come home by the Caucasus
and the Mediterranean. I had been warned before
quitting London that I should see nothing of the
severities of Siberian exile-life if I did not penetrate
the region beyond Lake Baikal; and, travelling on the
Obi, this statement was confirmed by a Russian officer
in the prison service. I feared, however, I could not
do this in a single summer, and that, if I went so far
east, I should be unable to return before winter set in.
It never occurred to me that there was any available
way of reaching the Pacific from Irkutsk other than
by crossing the Mongolian desert to China, and this I
was not disposed to do.
But when I learned that there was a service of
steamers on the Amur, this opened the way for other
possibilities; and on June 21st, as we rolled away from
Tomsk, there dawned upon my mind a thought, the
conception of which seemed at once to promise the
birth of great things.
great things. What, said I to myself
, if I
could go right across Asia and leave so many copies of
Scripture as would suffice for putting at least a New
for the government of Yakutsk, and for Eastern Siberia generally, about
170 New Testaments and portions of Scripture, and upwards of 3,000
tracts and periodicals; and with General Ismailoff, for the province of
Irkutsk, about the same number of Scriptures, but rather less of other
papers. We also left with General Ismailoff 500 Finnish tracts and
books for the German pastor, Ratcke ; these last I have since heard
from the pastor were specially acceptable, inasmuch as when he returned
to Irkutsk he found all his books burnt. I have heard, too, since my
return, from M. Lochwitzky, that those in his hands have been distributed
according to my directions.

280
THROUGH SIBERIA.
Testament or a copy of the Gospels in every room of
every prison, and in every ward of every hospital,
throughout the whole of Siberia! As I look back
upon it now as an accomplished fact, the matter seems
ordinary enough; but when the thought came into my
mind it looked like a consummation far beyond any-
thing I had hoped to accomplish, and a result which, if
it might be compassed, would be a cause of thankful-
ness for the rest of my life.
Accordingly I quietly nursed the idea till we reached
Irkutsk, thus far having given a sufficiency of books
answerable to the plan for all the provinces behind
me; and there yet remained three before me. Several
boxes of books were unopened, but these could not be
sent forward, because, in the first place, there was no
carrier, or, if there were, the fire had confounded all
order; and even if some one could be persuaded to
take the books, it was very doubtful if they would
reach the hands of the prisoners unless I went with
them in person and showed my credentials.
I determined, therefore, to journey onward and do my
best to carry out the scheme which had taken possession
of my mind. But to do this it was necessary to have
supplementary documents, for I had asked the Minister
of the Interior for letters only as far as Kiakhta. M.
Lochwitzky, however, most kindly helped in the matter,
and gave me the letters I needed for my extended
plans. We were then free to go forward again (which
the reader may do at once, if he prefers, by missing
the next two chapters); but something must first be
said of the routes by which former travellers have
proceeded eastwards.

CHAPTER XXIV.
THE LENA.
History of Russian invasion.-Former travellers to Okhotsk.-Cochrane,
Erman, and Hill.-Down the Lena to Yakutsk.- Prevalence of
goitre.- The Upper Lena and its tributaries.—The Lower Lena.-
Discoveries of mammoths.- New Siberian islands.- Nordenskjold's
passage.
WH
HEN, at the beginning of the 17th century,
the Cossack conquerors of Siberia had crossed
the Yenesei, and had pushed on as far as Lake Baikal,
they were met by the numerous and warlike tribe of
the Buriats, who opposed the invaders with considerable
force. Not waiting, therefore, for their entire subjec-
tion (which took 30 years to accomplish), the Cossacks
turned northwards to the basin of the Lena, and
descended the river more than half-way to the Arctic
Sea, where, coming in 1632 to the principal town of
the Yakutes, they built a fort and founded the city of
Yakutsk. After this they crossed the Aldan mountains,
and, seven years later, reached the Sea of Okhotsk.
For two centuries this was the route followed by those
who would cross Siberia from the Urals to the Pacific,
or vice versa.
In the present day there are two other
roads. All must go by the route we travelled from
Tomsk to Irkutsk, but from thence the Pacific can
be reached either by crossing the Mongolian desert
to Peking, or by traversing the Buriat steppe, and so


282
THROUGH SIBERIA.
descending the Amur. The second of these routes is
now the best, but not briefly to mention the old route
would be to omit much interesting information con-
cerning the Lena, with its native population and fos-
silized remains, as well as to miss the opportunity of
hearing a little of some of the most daring and adven-
turous journeys of previous travellers. *
The most remarkable of these was an English-
man named John Dundas Cochrane, a captain in the
Royal Navy, who, in 1820, proposed to the Lords
Commissioners of the Admiralty that they should
give their sanction and countenance to his under-
taking alone a journey into the interior of Africa,
with a view to ascertaining the course and determi-
nation of the river Niger. This they declined, where-
upon he procured two years' leave of absence, and
resolved to attempt “a walking tour round the
globe, as nearly as could be done by land, crossing
from Northern Asia to America at Behring's Straits,
his leading object being to trace the shores of the
Polar Sea along America by land, as Captain Parry
* I allude to the accounts of Strahlenberg, De Lesseps, Billings,
Ledyard, Dobell, Gordon, Cochrane, Erman, Cotterill, and Hill.
Strahlenberg was a Swedish officer, who, at the beginning of the 18th
century, was banished for 13 years to Siberia. He collected a vast amount
of information concerning the country generally, and compiled polyglot
tables of aboriginal languages, and amongst them that of the Yakutes
inhabiting the valley of the Lena, of whose Pagan condition he gives
many illustrations.
M. de Lesseps was French Consul and interpreter to Count de la Perouse,
the well-known circumnavigator. De Lesseps entered the country at
Kamchatka in 1788, and wrote an account of his travels across Siberia
and Europe to Paris.
Captain Billings was an Englishman, who, after sailing with the cele-
brated Captain Cook, was employed by the Empress Katharine II. to
make discoveries on the north-east coast of Siberia, and among the islands
in the Eastern Ocean stretching to the American coast. For this purpose

THE LENA.
283
was at the time attempting it by sea. Accordingly he
left London with his knapsack, crossed the Channel to
Dieppe, and then set out. This gentleman was endowed
with an unbounded reliance upon his own individual
exertions, and his knowledge of man when unfettered
by the frailties and misconduct of others. One man, he
said, might go anywhere he chose, fearlessly and alone,
and as safely trust himself in the hands of savages as
among his own friends. His favourite dictum was that
an individual might travel throughout the Russian
empire, except in the civilized parts between the
capitals, so long as his conduct was becoming, without
necessaries failing him. He put his principle rather
severely to the test, and it must be allowed that he did
so with very general success, for he states that in tra-
velling from Moscow to Irkutsk (4,000 miles by his
route) he spent less than a guinea. From Irkutsk he
descended the Lena to Yakutsk, from whence, accom-
panied by a single Cossack, he penetrated in a north-
easterly direction almost to the shores of the Ice Sea
at Nijni Kolimsk, where, having altered his plans, he
turned back by a most difficult route to Okhotsk.
he proceeded to North-Eastern Siberia in 1785, sailed down the river
Kolima, explored a portion of the country eastward, and then returned
by way of Yakutsk.
Another of Captain Cook's officers, John Ledyard, had the most romantic
enthusiasm for adventure, perhaps, of any man of his time. He conceived
the project of travelling across Europe, Asia, and America as far as
possible on foot, and to this end he set out from London with about £ 50
only in his pocket. He reached Yakutsk, where he met with Captain
Billings, and with him was hoping to proceed to America, when, by order
of the Russian Court, Ledyard was arrested on suspicion of being a French
spy, and was taken off to Moscow.
Another journey across Northern Asia was made after the time of
Billings by Peter Dobell, a counsellor of the Court of His Imperial
Majesty the Emperor of Russia. Dobell landed in Kamchatka in 1812,
and from thence proceeded overland to Europe.



284
THROUGH SIBERIA,
From this place he sailed to Kamchatka, and married
a native, whom he brought by sea back to Okhotsk, and
then in winter crossed the Aldan mountains to Yakutsk,
whence the happy pair proceeded to Irkutsk, and at
length reached England, where Mrs. Cochrane, as I
learn from the daughter of one who knew her, was
carefully educated, and passed as a lady in good society.
For enterprise and bravery this captain, I take it, easily
bears off the palm from all Siberian travellers.*
The writer who has added most, perhaps, to our
scientific knowledge of the valley of the Lena is M.
Adolph Erman, who crossed Siberia in 1828, in con-
junction, though not in company, with Professor
Hansteen, the first professor at the Magnetic Obser-
vatory at Christiania, in Norway, and famous for his
researches in terrestrial magnetism. They both tra-
velled for the purpose of making magnetic and other
observations; but, on arriving at Irkutsk, Professor
Hansteen returned to Europe, whilst Erman continued
down the Lena to Yakutsk, crossed to the Sea of
Okhotsk, and so continued round the world.
Later on, one more Englishman has reached the
Pacific by way of the Lena, namely, Mr. S. S. Hill,
who did so in 1848, and it is not unlikely that he may,
for some time, be the last of the intrepid travellers
who have accomplished this feat, since the Amur is
* Another journey from Okhotsk up the Lena to Irkutsk and Kiakhta,
and then across Siberia to Europe, was made about 1820 by a merchant
named Peter Gordon ; but his notes are very short, and appear only in
his “ Fragment of a Tour through Persia.”
† Professor Erman received the Patron's gold medal of the Royal
Geographical Society of London in 1844, for his scientific researches in
physical geography, meteorology, and magnetism around the globe in
1828-30. His researches in Northern Asia were of especial value, par-
ticularly in Eastern Siberia and Kamchatka.

THE LENA.
285
now open to the Russians, and presents a far easier
way of crossing the continent.
To follow the older route, the first portion had to be
traversed by post vehicles from Irkutsk, a distance of
160 miles in a north-easterly direction. The road
crosses the water-parting of the Lena basin at or near
the station Khogotskaya, which is about 90 geographical
miles from Irkutsk. The traveller journeys through
a hilly country, where there is abundant pasture, and
where the land is to some extent cultivated, to the
village of Kachugskoe, situated on the banks of the
Lena. Here various sorts of merchandise are embarked
in large flat-bottomed boats, which are floated down
the river. These goods are exchanged with the natives
for furs, the boats at the end of the journey being
broken up in districts where timber is scarce, and the
furs brought back in smaller craft. *
The descent of the Upper Lena to Yakutsk by
water was undertaken by Mr. Hill in spring, and by
Captain Cochrane in autumn, but Mr. Erman accom-
plished it on the ice in winter, by a 20 days' sledge
journey of nearly 1,900 miles. As he passed along he
observed, first in the village of Petrovsk, several of
the women largely affected with goitre, and learned
* It was in one of these flat-bottomed boats that Mr. Hill descended
the stream, in company with a Russian merchant, accomplishing the
journey to Yakutsk in 21 days, with no worse mishaps by water than
occasionally being driven on sand or mud banks, or into a forest of trees,
all but submerged by the height of the spring floods.
Captain Cochrane chose a more independent course. Being furnished
with a Cossack, he drove from Irkutsk to the Lena, and, having procured
an open canoe and two men, paddled down the stream. Proceeding day
and night, they usually made from 100 to 120 miles a day, finding hos-
pitable villages at intervals of from 15 to 18 miles, as far as Kirensk, and
so arrived on the eighth day at Vitimsk. It was now late in the autumn,
and the ice began to come down the river, which sometimes compelled
a

286
THROUGH SIBERIA.
with surprise that this malady, which in Europe cha-
racterises the valleys of the Alps, is frequent on the
Lena. As he proceeded he found goitre in men also,
and asking an exile at Turutsk, who appeared the only
healthy person in the place, how he had protected
himself from goitre, was told that adults arriving from
Europe were never attacked by the disease, but that
the goitre was born with the children of the district,
and grew up with them. Medical men in Switzerland
say that goitre proceeds from deposits in chemical com-
bination, washed down by mountain streams that supply
the inhabitants of the neighbourhood with drinking
water, and that it attacks children on account of their
mucous membranes being very tender and easily dis-
tended. Mr. Erman inquired carefully, as he went on,
respecting the prevalency of goitre, and having made
barometrical and other observations along the way,
came at length to the conclusion that the disease was
traceable, in part, to the formation and altitude of
various places along the valley of the river, where the
air, being confined, is, in summer, heated to an extra-
ordinary degree, and loaded with moisture.
With regard to the stream of the Upper Lena, its
head waters have their sources spread out for 200
geographical miles along the counter slopes of the hills
the natives to strip, and, up to their waists in water, to track the boat, and
this with the thermometer below freezing-point. At length the captain,
in consequence of the difficulties of boating, was requested at one of the
villages to proceed on horseback, which he did, and, being unable at the
next station to get either horses or boat, he had to shoulder his knapsack
and walk; and so, by means of walking, riding, and paddling, he reached
Olekminsk. From thence to Yakutsk is about 400 miles, which, except-
ing the two last stages, the captain completed in a canoé, arriving on
the 6th October. The weather was cold, snow was falling, and on
approaching Yakutsk the canoe was caught in the ice, so that he was
compelled to make the remainder of his journey on foot.
he

THE LENA.
287
that form the western bank of Lake Baikal, and the
main stream rises within seven miles of the lake.
At Kachugskoe, about 60 geographical miles from
the Baikal, and not less than 75 geographical miles in
a straight line from its source, the Lena measures about
the width of the Thames in London. The water, deep
and clear, has in spring a very rapid current, though
Captain Cochrane speaks of the rate lower down, in
autumn, as only 1} or 2 knots per hour. The next
station after Kachugskoé is Vercholensk, a town of
1,000 inhabitants, the first of that size on the north-east
of Irkutsk, and is the chief town of the uyezd. After
flowing 500 miles further through a hilly country, with
high banks always on one and sometimes on both sides,
on which are 35 post-stations and more villages, the
river passes Kirensk, which again is the chief town of
an uyezd, and has a population of 800.* Here culti-
vation practically ceases, except for vegetables. At
this point, too, the river receives on its right the
Kirenga, which has run nearly as long a course as the
Lena. The stream thus enlarged now flows on for 300
miles more to Vitimsk, where it is joined by its second
great tributary, the Vitim, from the mountains east of
Lake Baikal. Another stretch of 460 miles, through a
country still hilly, but with villages less frequent, brings
the traveller to Olekminsk, the capital of another uyezd,
a town of 500 inhabitants; there the Lena receives from
the south the Olekma, which rises near the Amur river.
It then continues for 400 miles through a sparsely-
* The difference of latitude, as pointed out by Mr. Trelawney Saunders,
between Verko (or upper) Lensk (54° 8') and Kirensk (57° 47') is only
3° 39', or 219 geographical miles. The latter place is but little east of
north from the former, so that the 500 miles must be mainly due to the
windings of the stream.
V


288
THROUGH SIBERIA.
populated district, till it reaches Yakutsk, where it is
4 miles wide in summer, and 2} in winter, the river
being usually frozen about the ist October, and not
free from ice till about May 25th.
Hitherto the course of the river has been to the
north-east, but at Yakutsk the stream makes a bend
and runs due north, receiving on its right, 100 miles
below Yakutsk, one of its largest tributaries, the Aldan,
which rises in the Stanovoi range bordering on the
Sea of Okhotsk. Yakutsk is only 270 feet above
the sea, and the current of the river henceforth is
sluggish. About 50 miles further the Lena receives
its largest tributary from the left, the Vilui, and then
proceeds majestically through a flat country with an
enormous body of water to the Arctic Ocean, into
which it enters among a delta of islands formed of
the débris brought down by the river.
In the region of the Lower Lena, and to the west-
ward, have been found the remains of a huge rhinoceros,
and an elephant larger than that now existing—the
elephas primigenius, popularly called the mammoth.
It is so named from the Russian mamont, or Tatar
mamma (the earth), because the Yakutes believed that
this animal worked its way in the earth like a mole;
and a Chinese story represents the mamentova as a
rat of the size of an elephant which always burrowed
underground, and died on coming in contact with the
outer air. The tusks of the mammoth are remarkable
for exhibiting a double curve, first inwards, then out-
wards, and then inwards again; and Professor Ramsay
gives it me as the opinion of several able naturalists
that the so-called mammoth is of the same species as
the Indian elephant, only much altered by the change
a

THE LENA.
289
of climatic conditions. The Samoyedes say that the
mammoth still exists wandering upon the shores of the
Frozen Ocean, and subsisting on dead bodies thrown
up by the surf.
As for the rhinoceros, they say it
was a gigantic bird, and that the horns which the ivory-
merchants purchase were its talons. Their legends tell
of fearful combats between their ancestors and this
enormous winged animal.
A trade in mammoth ivory has been carried on for
hundreds of years between the tribes of Northern Asia
and the Chinese ; but it was a long time before Euro-
pean naturalists took a marked interest in the evidence
of an extinct order of animals which these remains
undeniably recorded. The Siberian mammoth agrees
exactly with the specimens unearthed in various parts
of England, especially at Ilford in the valley of the
Thames, near London, and on the coast of Norfolk ;
but whereas on European soil there remain but frag-
ments of the skeleton, there have been found in Siberia
bones of the rhinoceros and mammoth covered with
pieces of flesh and skin. These discoveries date back
more than a century.*
* In December, 1771, a party of Yakutes hunting on the Vilui, near
its junction with the Lower Lena, discovered an unknown animal half-
buried in the sand, but still retaining its flesh, covered with a thick skin.
The carcase was too much decomposed to allow of more than the head
and two feet being forwarded to Irkutsk ; but they were seen by the
great traveller and naturalist, Peter Simon Pallas, who pronounced the
animal a rhinoceros, not particularly large of its kind, which might
perchance have been born in Central Asia.
In the year 1799 a bank of frozen earth near the mouth of the Lena
broke away, and revealed to a Tunguse, named Schumachoff, the body
of a mammoth. Hair, skin, flesh and all had been preserved by the
frost ; and seven years later Mr. Adams, of the Petersburg Academy,
hearing of the discovery at Yakutsk, visited the spot. He found, how-
ever, that the greater part of the flesh had been eaten by wild animals
and the dogs of the natives, though the eyes and brains remained. The
19


VOL. I.

290
THROUGH SIBERIA. .
In 1865 the captain of a Yenesei steamer learnt
that some natives had discovered the preserved remains
of a mammoth in latitude 67°, about 100 versts west of
the river. Intelligence was sent to Petersburg, and
Dr. Schmidt was commissioned to go and examine
into the matter. Accordingly he proceeded down the
Yenesei to Turukhansk, and thence to the landing-
place nearest the mammoth deposit, hoping to obtain
the animal's stomach, and, from the character of the
leaves within, infer the creature's habitat, since it is
known that the beast lived upon vegetable food, but
of what exact character no one has yet determined.
Unfortunately the stomach was wanting.
In examining, under the microscope, fragments of
vegetable food picked out of the grooves of the molar
teeth of the Siberian rhinoceros at Irkutsk, naturalists
have recognised fibres of the pitch-pine, larch, birch,
and willow, resembling those of trees of the same
kind which still grow in Southern Siberia. This
seems to confirm the opinion, expressed long ago, that
the rhinoceros and other large pachyderms found in
the alluvial soil of the north used to inhabit Middle
Siberia, south of the extreme northern regions where
entire carcase measured 9 ft. 4 in. high, and 16 ft. 4 in. from the point
of the nose to the end of the tail, without including the tusks, which
were 9 ft. 6 in. in length if measured along the curves.
The two tusks
weighed 360 lbs., and the head and tusks together 414 lbs. The skin
was of such extraordinary weight that ten persons found great difficulty
in carrying it. About 40 lbs. of hair, too, were collected, though much
more of this was trodden into the sand by the feet of bears which had
eaten the flesh. This skeleton is now in the Museum of the Academy
at Petersburg.
Again, in 1843, M. Middendorf found a mammoth on the Taz, between
the Obi and the Yenesei, with some of the flesh in so perfect a condition
that it was found possible to remove the ball of the eye, which is pre-
served in the Museum at Moscow.

THE LENA.
291
their skeletons are now found ; but Mr. Knox, who
travelled for some distance with Schmidt on his return
journey, says that the doctor estimated that the beast
had been frozen many thousands of years, and that his
natural dwelling-place was in the north, at a period
when perhaps the Arctic regions were warmer than
they now are. Covered with long hair, the animal
could certainly resist an Arctic climate ; but how on
the tundras of the north could the animal have found
the foliage of trees necessary for its subsistence ?
Must we conclude that formerly the country was
wooded, or that the mammoth did not live where its
skeletons are now found, but further south, whence its
carcase has been carried northward by rivers, and
frozen into the soil ? These are questions debated
among geologists, and still awaiting solution.
The fact, however, remains, that mammoth ivory
is still an important branch of native commerce,
and all travellers bear witness to the quantities of
fossil bones found throughout the frozen regions of
Siberia.*
Each year, in early summer, fishermen's barques
* It has been suggested that the abundant supplies of ivory which were
at the command of the ancient Greek sculptors came by way of the Black
Sea from the Siberian deposits. So far back as the time of Captain
Billings, Martin Sauer, his secretary, tells us of one of the Arctic islands
near the Siberian mainland, that “it is a mixture of sand and ice, so that
when the thaw sets in and its banks begin to fall, many mammoth bones
are found, and that all the isle is formed of the bones of this extraordinary
animal.” This account is to some extent corroborated by Figuier, who
tells us that New Siberia and the Isle of Liakov are for the most part
only an agglomeration of sand, ice, and elephants' teeth ; and at every
tempest the sea casts ashore new quantities of mammoths' tusks. Reclus
speaks of an annual find of 15 tons of mammoth ivory, representing
about 200 mammoths; and, about 1840, Middendorf estimated the number
of mammoths discovered up to that time at 20,000.

292
THROUGH SIBERIA.
direct their course to the New Siberian group, to the
isles of bones ”; and, during winter, caravans drawn
by dogs take the same route, and return charged with
tusks of the mammoth, each weighing from 150 lbs.
to 200 lbs. The fossil ivory thus obtained is imported
into China and Europe, and is used for the same
purposes as the ordinary ivory of the elephant and
hippopotamus.
We cannot leave the Lower Lena and the neigh-
bouring shores of the Arctic Ocean without alluding
to the wonderful sight those shores witnessed in 1878,
for the first time in the history of the world. It was
no less a sight than that of two steam vessels that
had ploughed their way from Europe round Cape
Cheliuskin. One of them was the Vega, in which
was Professor Nordenskjold, whose intention had been
to anchor off the mouth of the Lena, but a favourable
wind and an open sea offered so splendid an oppor-
tunity of continuing his voyage that he did not neglect
it. He sailed away, therefore, on the 28th of August,
direct for Fadievskoi, one of the New Siberian islands,
where he intended to remain some days, and to examine
scientifically the remains of mammoths, rhinoceroses,
horses, aurochs, bisons, sheep, etc., with which these
islands are said to be covered. The Vega made excel-
lent progress, but though, on the 30th, Liakov Island
was reached, the professor was unable to land, owing
to the rotten ice which surrounded it, and the danger
to which the vessel would have been exposed in case
of a storm in such shallow water.
After the Vega, with Nordenskjold on board, had
left its sister ship the Lena, the latter vessel, under
the command of Captain Johannesen, started to ascend

THE LENA.
293
the river of its own name. A pilot had been engaged
to descend the river and await the arrival of the Lena,
but as neither he nor his signals were visible, the
captain, after considerable difficulty, from the shallow-
ness of the water, made his way through the delta, and
on the 7th September reached the main stream, where
the navigation was less difficult. Yakutsk was reached
.
on the 21st September, dispatches were sent on to
Irkutsk, and from thence it was telegraphed to Europe
that the rounding of Cape Cheliuskin and the navi-
gation of the Lena by a steamer from the Atlantic
had been accomplished.

ADY
MELO
LIBRARY
NET


CHAPTER XXV.
YAKUTSK.
The province of Yakutsk.-Rivers.-.Minerals. The town of Yakutsk.--
Its temperature.--Inhabitants.- The Yukaghirs.—The Yakutes, -
Their dwellings.-Food.-Dress.- Products.-Occupations.-Indus-
tries.- Language.- Religion.-Route from Yakutsk to Okhotsk.-
Reindeer riding.–Summer journey.—Treatment of horses.
-
-
T
,
HE province of Yakutsk is the largest in Siberia,
and covers an area of no less than a million and
a half of square miles, and is therefore nearly as large
as the whole of Europe, omitting Russia.* The total
population of this enormous province is 235,000,—that
is to say, it has about one-seventh part of an inhabitant
to each square mile. The yearly number of marriages
is 5,000, and the births 12,000. The Russian town
,
population in 1876 numbered about 2,000, and the
* It is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the west by the
Yeneseisk, and on the east by the Sea-coast provinces; whilst on its south
lie the three provinces of Irkutsk, Trans-Baikal, and the Amur.
The
northern and western portions of the province are flat, but towards the
south and south-east are the Yablonoi and Stanovoi mountain ranges,
continuations, in a north-easterly direction, of the mighty Altai chain.
The great river of the province is the Lena, whose waters are drained
from an area of 800,000 square miles. From the slopes on the western
side of Baikal its upper portion runs in a north-easterly direction as far as
Yakutsk, after which the Lower Lena runs due north to the Arctic Ocean.
The total length of the river is about 2,500 miles, with a fall of 3,000
feet. East of the Lower Lena are the rivers Yana, Indigirka, and Kolima,
all of which are navigable and of considerable size, though small by
comparison with their gigantic sister.


YAKUTSK.
295
country population 5,000; of which there were heredi-
tary nobles, 100 ; personal nobles, 450; ecclesiastical
persons, 600; military, 1,700; and the rest, upwards of
220,000, were natives—that is to say, Tunguses, Yuka-
ghirs, and Yakutes. The natives are divided into
communities, under golovahs, or mayors, of their own
race, who are, however, subject to the Russian autho-
rities. The province is divided into five uyezds.
The chief mineral product is gold, which has fre-
quently to be procured from frozen ground. The
valleys of the Vitim and Olekma especially are rich in
this mineral. In the valley of the Vitim, about 200
versts from its mouth, are quarries of mica, from which
the whole of Siberia was formerly supplied with a sub-
stitute for window-glass. Mr. Erman procured plates
of brown mica from one to two feet square. As, how-
ever, I saw glass used everywhere, I presume that the
demand for mica must have diminished greatly.
In the forests of the Vitim and Olekma are caught
the smallest sables, with the finest, blackest, and hence
most valuable furs. The squirrels of the district are
hunted only in winter, when they are sometimes black
and sometimes bright grey, their fur in summer being
red, the hair loose, and skin valueless. The black realize
the highest price, and are frequently met with south
of the river, while north of the Lena none but grey are
captured. The hunters think that this difference de-
pends upon the nature of the forest.*
* There are, says M. Reclus, nearly 50 species of fur animals, and
millions of specimens killed during the hunting season. The annual
export of furs from Siberia, not including those taken from sea animals,
represents a gross value of nearly half a million sterling. The fur which
regulates the price of all others is that of the sable, which is worth at least
from 16s. to £1, and sometimes commands, even in Siberia, as much as

296
THROUGH SIBERIA.
The town of Yakutsk, which the natives proudly
call “the city of the Yakutes,” presents a curious medley
of dwellings; for there are seen not only the Govern-
ment buildings, and the wooden houses of the Russians,
but also the less pretentious winter dwellings of the
Yakutes, and even their summer yourts. Oxen here
take the place of horses. Women and girls ride them
astride; their sledges also are often drawn by them,
the driver being mounted on one of the animals. The
cathedral is built of stone, and dedicated to St. Nicolas;
and there are in the town some half-dozen churches,
in which certain parts of the service, if not the whole,
are performed in the Yakute language. The chief
ecclesiastic is Dionysius, Bishop of Yakutsk and Viluisk,
who has in his hyperborean diocese 49 churches and
chapels, and one monastery containing 13 monks.
Yakutsk has the credit of being the coldest place
upon the face of the earth. The mean temperature of
the air is 18·5 Fahrenheit. A degree of cold takes
place there every year between the 17th December
and 18th February, exceeding 58° below zero. During
Mr. Erman's stay the cold reached even 71'5 below
Mercury, therefore, is frozen at Yakutsk for
zero.
£6 a skin. Only the back of the animal is used for the best garments, one
of which may contain 80 skins, and rise to the value of nearly £ 500. The
fur of the black fox is still more appreciated, and a single skin sometimes
fetches £30. Squirrel skins by themselves constitute about a third of the
Siberian revenue from furs ; ten, twelve, and even fifteen millions of these
animals being killed during their migrations in a single year. China
receives a considerable number of these skins at Kiakhta, but more find
their way to Europe. The furs brought to the fair of Irbit in the Urals
in 1876 were as follows :-
Grey squirrels 5,000,000 skins Martens of various kinds 750,000 skins
Ermines
.
215,000 »
Sables.
12,000,
Hares
300,000 »
Others
· 200,000,
Foxes
82,000,
2

YAKUTSK.
297
one-sixth of the year. An exceedingly warm summer
follows this cold winter, and continues from about the
12th May to the 17th September. The ground is then
thawed three feet deep, and though the crops rest on
perpetually frozen strata, yet they produce fifteen-fold
on an average, and in particular places forty-fold. *
Yakutsk has a population of 4,800, some of whom
are political exiles, Scoptsi, etc., who live both here and
in the villages along the river. It would require no
great stretch of the imagination, however, to call all the
Russian inhabitants exiles, for they are upwards of 5,000
miles from Petersburg.† As we travelled on the Obi
we had for fellow-passengers an official with four children
and a woman, bound for Yakutsk; and when, outside
Tomsk, we saw the party stowed into one tarantass, we
* It is well known that in the northern parts of Siberia the ground is
always frost-bound, but to what depth is not so easily determined. During
the stay, however, of Mr. Erman at Yakutsk it happened that a resident was
digging a well, down which the man of science went, and pronounced
that he found the soil frozen to a depth of 50 feet below the surface. So
accustomed, however, do the natives become to the cold, that with the
thermometer at unheard-of degrees below freezing point, the Yakute women,
with bare arms, stand in the open-air markets, chattering and joking as
pleasantly as if in genial spring. Inside their houses, in the heated part
of the rooms, they get the temperature up to 65° or 750 ; but one day,
when the thermometer stood at 9°, Mr. Erman found the children of both
sexes running about quite naked, not only in the house, but even in the
open air. In fact, the great cold is not thought a grievance in Siberia,
for a man clothed in furs may sleep at night in an open sledge when the
mercury freezes in the thermometer; and, wrapped up in his pelisse, he
can lie without inconvenience on the snow under a thin tent when the
temperature of the air is 30° below zero.
+ I was told by a legal authority that some of the political exiles are
sent to the province of Yakutsk, but, after the figures just quoted, it would
seem that their number cannot be very large ; of hereditary nobles in the
province there were said to be, in 1876, only 100, and of personal nobles
only 450. If, then, there be deducted from these the Governor and his
staff, military officers, and tchinovniks of all grades, there would not be
left a large margin for the class from which political exiles are thought to
come, supposing, that is, that they are included in this return.



298
THROUGH SIBERIA.
pitied them in prospect of the remainder of their 3,000
miles journey.
The Russian population of the province is confined
almost exclusively to the banks of the Upper Lena,
Yakutsk, and its neighbourhood. The Tunguses are
found at the extreme east and west of the province,
and have been already spoken of in a previous chapter.
Of another race, the Yukaghirs, it may suffice to
say that they were computed, in 1876, at only 1,600
in number, and that very little is known of them. They
roam over a tract on the shores of the Northern Ocean
lying between the Yana and the Kolima. They were
once powerful, and on the rivers Yana and Indigirka
tumuli and ancient burial-places are pointed out, con-
taining corpses armed with bows, arrows, and spears.
With these, too, lies buried the magic drum, well known
in Lapland. At one time there were more hearths of
the Yukaghirs on the banks of the Kolima than stars in
the sky—so their legend says. These people maintain
themselves during the whole year on the reindeer they
kill in spring and autumn. At such seasons the mos-
quitoes drive the tormented animals to take refuge in
the rivers, and not until winter is coming do they return
to the woods, the stags leading the way, followed by the
hinds and their young. Posted under cover, the Yuka-
ghirs discover the place where the herd will make the
passage of a stream, and conceal their canoes under the
banks till the animals take the water. Then they push
out, and, having cut the helpless deer off from either
shore, proceed to slaughter them, whilst swimming, with
long spears, which they use with marvellous skill.
The Yukaghirs are great smokers; their tobacco-
the coarse species of the Ukraine—they mix with chips


YAKUTSK.
299
to make it go further; and in smoking not a whiff is
allowed to escape into the air, but all is inhaled and
swallowed, producing an effect somewhat similar to
a mild dose of opium. Tobacco is considered their
first and greatest luxury. Women and children all
smoke, the latter learning to do so as soon as they are
able to toddle. Any funds remaining after the supply of
tobacco has been laid in are devoted to the purchase of
brandy. A Yukaghir, it is said, never intoxicates him-
self alone, but calls upon his family to share the drink,
even children in arms being supplied with a portion.
In the centre of the Yakutsk province, occupying the
valley of the Lena, roam the Yakutes, some of whom I
met as far off as Nikolaefsk. They are of middle
height, and of a light copper colour, with black hair,
which the men cut close. The sharp lines of their
faces express indolent and amiable gentleness rather
than vigour and passion. They reminded me of North
American Indians; and I agree with Erman, who says
that their appearance is that of a people who have
grown wild rather than of a thoroughly and originally
rude race. Those I saw, however, having been long
settled among the Russians, had perhaps become some-
what more polished than their wandering brethren.
As a race they are good-tempered, orderly, hospitable,
and capable of enduring great privation with patience;
but in independence of character they contrast unfavour-
ably with their Tunguse neighbours. Lay a finger in
anger on one of the Tunguses, and nothing will induce
him to forget the insult; whereas with the Yakutes, the
more they are thrashed the better they work. *
* Strahlenberg divides them into 1o tribes, and Syboreen's Almanack
for 1876 gives their number at 210,000. They belong to the great Turk
family, and hence their Siberian locality is remarkable, because the Turks


300
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
The winter dwellings of the people have doors of
raw hides, and log or wicker walls calked with cow-
dung, and flanked with banks of earth to the height of
the windows. The latter are made of sheets of ice,
kept in their place from the outside by a slanting pole,
the lower end of which is fixed in the ground. They
are rendered air-tight by pouring on water, which
quickly freezes round the edges; and the fact that it
takes a long time to melt these blocks of ice thus fixed
is highly suggestive of what the temperature must be,
both without and within. The flat roof is covered with
earth, and over the door, facing the east, the boards
project, making a covered place in front, like the
natives' houses in the Caucasus. Under the same roof
are the winter shelters for the cows and for the people,
the former being the larger. The fireplace consists of
a wicker frame plastered over with clay, room being
left for a man to pass between the fireplace and the
wall. The hearth is made of beaten earth, and on it
there is at all times a blazing fire, and logs of larch-
wood throw up showers of sparks to the roof. Young
calves, like children, are often brought into the house
to the fire, whilst their mothers cast a contented look
through the open door at the back of the fireplace.
Behind the fireplace, too, are the sleeping-places of the
people, which in the poorer dwellings consist only of a
continuation of the straw laid in the cow-house.
In the winter they have but about five hours of day-
light, which penetrates as best it can through the icy
windows; and in the evening all the party sit round
have ever been the people to displace others, whereas the Yakutes have
been themselves displaced, and driven into this inhospitable climate, it is
supposed, by the stronger Buriats.

YAKUTSK.
301
a
the fire on low stools, men and women smoking. The
summer yourts of these people are formed of poles
about 20 feet long, which are united at the top into a
roomy cone, covered with pieces of bright yellow and
perfectly flexible birch bark, which are not merely
joined together, but are also handsomely worked along
the seams with horsehair thread.
The houses are not overstocked with furniture, and
the chief cooking utensil is a large iron pot. At the
time of the invasion of the Russians, this article was
deemed such a treasure that the price asked for a pot
was as many sable-skins as would fill it. They use also
in winter a bowl-shaped frame of wicker-work, plastered
with frozen cow-dung, in which they pound their por-
ridge. With regard to their food, the Yakutes, if they
have their choice, love to eat horse-flesh; and their
adage says that to eat much meat, and grow fat upon
it, is the highest destiny of man. They are the greatest
gluttons. So far back as the days of Strahlenberg, it
was said that four Yakutes would eat a horse. They
rarely kill their oxen for food; and at a wedding, the
favourite dish served up by the bride to her future
lord is a boiled horse's head, with horse-flesh sausages.
When, however, horse-flesh or beef is wanting, they
are not at all nice as to what they consume, for they
eat the animals they take for fur, and woe to the unfor-
tunate horse that becomes seriously injured in travel !
It is killed and eaten then and there, the men taking
off their girdles to give fair play to their stomachs,
which swell after the fashion of a boa-constrictor. Thus
earnestly do they aspire to their notion of the highest
destiny of man! Milk is in general request among
them, whether from cows or mares; and when they are



302
THROUGH SIBERIA. .
in the neighbourhood of the Russians, and can get flour,
they do so; but far away in the forests they make a
sort of porridge or bread, not exactly of sawdust, but
of the under bark of the spruce, fir, and larch, which
they cut in small pieces, or pound in a mortar, mixing
it with milk, or with dried fish, or boiling it with
glutinous tops of the young sprouts. In spring, when
the sap is rising, they gather their bark harvest. They
make also fermented beverages of milk; and in the
height of summer, when the mares foal, an orgie is
held, at which the men drain enormous bowls of this
intoxicating liquor; whilst the women, denied the privi-
lege of intoxication, solace themselves by getting as near
to it as they can by smoking tobacco. The distillation
of sour milk is also practised, producing a coarse spirit
known as arigui. They devour likewise enormous
quantities of melted butter. This also can be prepared
in such a way as to cause intoxication when taken in
sufficient quantities.
The dress of the Yakutes resembles in its main
features that of the other natives of Siberia, save,
perhaps, that they are fonder of ornaments.
Both
sexes riding a good deal on oxen and horses, a perpen-
dicular slit is made up the back from the bottom of the
sanayakh, or upper garment, in order to render the
wearer comfortable in the saddle, and some of the
women add behind them a cushion or pad, to save
them from the rough motion of the animals. During
the milder part of the year a robe, made of very pliable
leather, stained yellow, is worn, which indoors is
frequently laid aside, and males and females sit by the
fire, leaving the upper part of the body naked. I
bought a pair of women's Yakute boots of this leather.


WJ
TUNGUSE GIRIS IN WINTER COSTUME.
Page 303.


YAKUTSK.
303
a
They fit tight to the leg, and have at the top a flap of
black velvet with red cloth trimming, which can be
turned down and exposed for show in fair weather, or
turned up, bringing the boots to the thighs. On each
boot are two broad leather thongs, five or six feet long,
to wind round the leg. Waterproof boots are here
.
made, called by the Russians torbasis. These are cut
from horse-hide, steeped in sour milk, then smoked,
and finally rubbed well with fat and fine soot. They
last exceedingly well, and are an inestimable comfort
to the wearer, enabling him to tramp through snow,
water, and mud without inconvenience.
The Yakute women are clever in making up fur
garments. When visiting a Yakute family, I was look-
ing about for a souvenir, and could at first see nothing
to buy. - In the room hung à curious cradle, very
nearly resembling a coal-scuttle, which, when travelling,
they suspend at the side of a reindeer; but this was too
large for me to bring away. At length the mater-
familias drew out a box in which she kept her treasures.
Among these were some large pieces of fur, each con-
sisting of an immense number of the small pieces of
white skin that are found under the squirrel's neck.
No piece was so large as the palm of the hand, and
she had sewn them together with great industry.
These I bought, much to the disgust of her daughter,
for whom they were to have made a dandy garment.
I purchased also of the old lady what I prized more,
namely, an itti,” or large cap, coming down with flaps
at the ears.
The crown is made of the skins of sables'
feet, and it has a border all round of the fur of sables
tails. The sight of this, since my return, has often
excited the admiration of my lady friends.

a


304
THROUGH SIBERIA.
The Yakutes who inhabit the inclement region
adjacent to the Frozen Ocean have neither horses nor
oxen, but breed large numbers of dogs, which draw
them to and fro on their fishing excursions. Even
those living on the 62nd parallel keep cattle under
far greater difficulties than usual, for they have
to make long journeys to collect hay, and do not
always find enough. The cold prevents their breed-
ing sheep, goats, or poultry. Nevertheless, cattle
and hunting are their chief means of subsistence, for
they do not in general cultivate the land, though in
the gardens at Yakutsk are grown potatoes, cabbages,
radishes, and turnips; gherkins, too, are reared in
hot-beds.
Some products of Yakutsk industry are purchased
by the Russians, particularly floor-cloths of white and
coloured felts, which are cut in strips and sewed
together like mosaic. From the earliest times they
have been able to procure and work for themselves
metals. *
The language of the Yakutes, which is largely spoken
by the Russians who live among them, is one of the
principal means by which we are led to assume their
Turkish origin, for Latham says their speech is in-
telligible at Constantinople, and their traditions (for
literature they have none) bespeak a southern origin.
a
* The iron ore of the Vilui was smelted by the Yakutes long before the
advent of the Russians, and the other tribes got from them iron axes,
awls, and tools for stripping and dressing hides. The Yakutes also make
copper ornaments for clothes and harness, and the metal plates which
they sew on their girdles. Even now, although they use European guns,
they still make for themselves the great knife, or dagger, which is worn
at the waist. The Yakutsk steel is more flexible than the Russian, and
yet blades made of it will cut copper or pewter as easily as European
blades.
YAKUTSK.
305
Here are
Turkish :
some Yakute words compared with
English.
Yes
No
Well
Bad
Bread
Water
Beef
Horse
Road
Man
Woman
Tree
Rain
Yakute.
Turk.
Sittee
Evet
Socht
Yokh
Outchigey
Peky, Aee
Thoosahane Fené
Astobitt Ek-mek
On
Soo
Augauss Seyir
Att
Att
Coll
Yol
Kissi
Kissi, Adami
Faiktorr Aorat
Marss
Samirr Yaghmoor
English
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Twenty
Yakute.
Bare
Akee
Oose
Terte
Baiss
Alta
Sett
Agaouss
Togouss
Owni
Onordoubis
Okorduchi
Surbia
Turk.
Bir
Eekee
Ootch
Dort
Besh
Altee
Yedee
Autuz
Tokuz
On
On-bir
On-eekee
Igirme
Strahlenberg calls these people Pagans, but the
latest writers call them Christians; and the method of
their conversion was, it is said, extraordinary, for the
Russian priests not making much headway against
their superstitions, an ukase was one day issued setting
forth that the good and loyal nation of the Yakutes
were thought worthy to enter, and were consequently
admitted into, the Russian Church, to become a part
of the Tsar's Christian family, and entitled to all the
privileges of the rest of his children. Such was the
tenor of this strange proclamation, and success attended
the measure. The new Christians showed perfect
sincerity in the adoption of their novel faith, and the
Russian priests have established their sway over the
Yakute race, though amongst the outlying portion a
lingering belief in Shamanism still survives, of which
travellers from Yakutsk to Okhotsk have been made
aware by their Yakute guides leaving them awhile in
foggy weather, and stealing off into the forest to per-
form certain mysterious rites.
The distance from Yakutsk to Okhotsk is 800 miles,


VOL. I.
20

306
THROUGH SIBERIA.
and the journey, whether undertaken in summer or
winter, is one of the severest. The map gives one
the idea that it might almost be accomplished by
ascending the river Aldan and one of its affluents to
the Stanovoi mountains. The usual plan, however,
is to leave Yakutsk on horseback, with all the luggage
on pack-saddles. Some estimate may be formed of
the traffic once passing on this route from the fact
that there were formerly employed in it from 20,000
to 30,000 horses. The postal service is still continued
between Irkutsk and the Sea of Okhotsk; but there
is no telegraph; hence the fact of Professor Nordensk-
jold having been frozen in the ice on the north-east
coast of Siberia was brought a long way by courier
before it could be made known by telegram to Europe.
One of the difficulties of the winter journey is the
insufficient sleeping accommodation on the route. The
houses, when they exist, are very bad, and when they
fail, travellers sleep in a tent, or else upon furs and
wraps in the open air. They usually lie, however, by
a roaring fire, and so roast on one side whilst they
freeze on the other—changing their position when
need requires.
After proceeding for some distance the traveller has
to exchange his horse for a novel kind of steed—a
reindeer, on which the mere gaining of one's seat, to
say nothing of keeping it, is by no means so easy as
might be supposed. * Having gained his reindeer
* To get on the animal's back, as one would mount a donkey, would
probably cripple the deer for life. The saddle is therefore placed on its
shoulder close to the neck, and to mount, the rider, holding the bridle,
stands at the right side of the animal, with his face turned forwards. He
then raises his left foot to the saddle, which he never touches with his
hands, and springing with the right leg, and aided also by a pole, which

YAKUTSK.
307
a
seat, the English traveller may keep it—if he can. He
will most likely fall off half-a-dozen times in the first
quarter of an hour, until he discovers that he must
poise himself in such a manner that his body may
continually, and with ease, lend itself to a swinging
motion.* There is a second lesson to be learned by
the uninitiated, which is usually imparted in a very
impressive manner; for should the cavalier attempt
to hold with the knees, and the cushion consequently
slip back, the moment the weight is felt on the animal's
back, he bends under his haunches and lets the rider
slip to the ground, and that perhaps in ice, snow, or a
pool of water.
As the traveller approaches Okhotsk he has again
to change his mode of conveyance, to be drawn this
time by dogs. All three methods of travel have their
delights on this lonely journey, the tedium of which
is sometimes relieved by an extemporary hunting
scene.
he holds in his right hand, he gains his seat. The native girls and
women are as expert in this jumping as the men, and rarely want assist-
ance in mounting.
* The practised reindeer riders acquire the habit of striking gently
with the heel, alternately right and left, at every step, just behind the
animals shoulders. This is done, not for the purpose of stimulating the
deer, but because the motion described is the surest means of main-
taining equilibrium. The staff, too, with which the rider mounts is carried
in his hand, and is used for maintaining an equipoise in riding ; but any
attempt of the rider, in the first critical moment, to support himself by
resting the staff on the ground, is sure to end in his being unseated.
+ Mr. Erman describes the killing, during his journey, of a wild sheep,
and the joy of the Yakutes at the prospect of getting fresh meat for supper.
One of them cried out characteristically, “I will stay awake the whole
night, and eat till we set out.” Whilst the carcase was being prepared,
every one cut for himself some thin wooden skewers, on which he spitted
a row of little bits of meat. These were only appetizers, to be followed
by large pieces boiled in the pot. The hunter, however, who had killed
the sheep claimed as his perquisite the animal's head; the brains, as a


308
THROUGH SIBERIA.
The difficulties of the summer journey are somewhat
different in character. A large part of the way lies
over swampy ground, on which the causeways are not
kept in repair, and where the horses flounder in mud
and water, into which they occasionally pitch the rider.
It is no uncommon thing for horses to die under the
fatigues of the way. The Yakutes, moreover, have a
cruel fashion of giving their horses little food whilst
journeying A similar custom obtains farther east,
among the Gilyaks, where I found that, though they
gave a dog two pieces of fish daily when at home,
yet, when travelling, they gave him only one, because
the dogs immediately after eating are always lazy and
feeble. *
These, then, are some of the difficulties of the old
route, from Irkutsk to the Pacific, which happily it did
not fall to my lot to be obliged to encounter; but I
crossed the Baikal instead, and, after making a détour
to the Chinese frontier, continued across the Buriat
steppe to the Amur.
special delicacy, he sucked out raw, and cut out the eyes to be dressed
for his own exclusive benefit.
* It does not appear that the Yakutes are otherwise cruel to their
horses, for Erman relates that, on going up to a horse that had
carried him many miles, to pat his neck by way of saying adieu, the
Yakutes came up and embraced the other horses, putting their arms
round their necks and hugging them like children. Mr. Hill, too, dis-
covered in a very practical way the regard of the Yakutes for their
horses, when, food having run short, and after a dinner of only cranberries
and nuts, he proposed that one of the animals should be killed and eaten,
the Yakutes replied that they never killed one of their horses until they had
passed five whole days together without any sort of food. It would be a
shame, they said, that while they had tea and a morsel of sugar, and the
prospect before them of getting other food, one of the poor creatures
should be slain. Mr. Hill, therefore, and his merchant friend had to take
their guns and hunt for game, with a keenness which they had never
known before,
CHAPTER XXVI.
ACROSS LAKE BAIKAL TO TROITZKOSAVSK.
-
Leaving Irkutsk.—The Angara.-Approach to the Baikal.-Its shores
and fish. — Steaming across. — - Seizing post-horses. — Arrival at
Verchne Udinsk.—Smuggling at the prison.- Arrival at Selenginsk.
English mission to Buriats.- English graves.-Old scholars. -Story
of the mission.- Journey to Troitzkosavsk.
WE
E left Irkutsk on Thursday, July 1oth, after a
stay that could hardly be called enjoyable,
though amid the confusion we met with much more
consideration than could have been expected. For
the first night we slept, as already stated, in our
tarantass, and I took my morning bath in the pantry.
What a treat, too, was that bath, deliciously cold from
the Angara, to a man who had not taken his clothes
off for more than a week! During our stay we made
the acquaintance of several officers, of whom there is
no lack at Irkutsk, as there are usually in barracks
about 2,000 troops. It was very difficult to procure
provisions. On sending out on the morning of our
departure, all the white bread that could be found was
one penny loaf, and that somewhat stale. It seemed,
therefore, that I should have to come down to rye
bread; but some pancakes were made for me, the
difficulty was thus surmounted, and by two o'clock
we had fairly begun our 300 miles to Kiakhta. Our
baggage and remaining books were still too heavy to

310
THROUGH SIBERIA.
re-
be taken on the same vehicle, and we therefore
stowed away ourselves and our personal effects in the
tarantass, and the boxes followed in a post-conveyance,
out of which they were changed at every station. We
wished to make only 40 miles before night, to Lake
Baikal, and then wait till morning at Listvenitznaya
for the steamer.
We had not proceeded far before we drove along
the banks of the Angara, which is, in some
spects, the most remarkable river in Siberia. There
are scores of streams and rivulets running into Lake
Baikal, of which the more important are the Upper
Angara, the Barguzin, and the Selenga; but the
Angara is the only one that runs out, and it does
so with such impetuosity that the rapid by which the
water leaves the lake never freezes even with the
temperature of the air at 24° below zero; and though
the ice is six feet thick on the lake, yet, all the winter
through, ducks float on the bosom of the rapid. I
have heard it suggested that there may be hot-springs
just there ; but whether this is so or not, the waters of
the lake and the Angara are particularly cold. *
Shortly after leaving Irkutsk the road enters a
wooded part of the Angara valley, and as the road
winds along it, many points are passed presenting
magnificent views. In some parts enormous sand-
* As we approached Telma my thermometer at noon in the shade stood
at 85°, and when crossing a stream called the Ija, the temperature of the
water was 70°; but coming on the same day to the Angara, nearly 100
miles from Baikal, the temperature of the river was only 50°; and when
crossing the Baikal itself, the atmosphere registered 45° and the water
only 40°. The Angara is the last river in Siberia to close, which it does
about New Year's Day (sometimes not till the middle of January); and
the first to open, namely, about the 11th April. The lake is 1,200 feet
above the sea level, and the current of the river is remarkably swift, as

ACROSS LAKE BAIKAL TO TROITZKOSAVSK.
311
a
stone cliffs arise out of the water, crowned with dark
pines and cedars; in others the thick forest descends
to the river's brink, and the broad sheet of water is
seen rushing madly onwards. Afterwards the valley
becomes more rugged, with deep ravines running up
into the mountains. Beyond this the road has been
cut along the edge of a cliff at a considerable height
above the river, and, about five miles before reaching
the Baikal, a scene is presented that may well cause
the traveller to stop. The valley becomes wider, and
the mountains rise abruptly to a much greater eleva-
tion. The Angara is here more than a mile in width,
and this great body of water is seen rolling down a
steep incline, forming a rapid nearly four miles in
length. At the head of this, and in the centre of the
stream, a great mass of rock rises, called the Shaman
Kamen, or Priest,” or “spirit's stone,” held sacred
by the followers of Shamanism, and not to be passed
by them without an act of devotion. When Shaman-
ism prevailed in this neighbourhood, human sacrifices
were made at the sacred rock, the victim with his hands
tied being tossed into the torrent below. Beyond is
the broad expanse of the Baikal, extending about 50
miles, to where its waves wash the foot of Amar
Daban, whose summit, even in June, is usually covered
with snow. The mighty torrent throwing up its jets
of spray, the rugged rocks with their fringes of
the traveller will infer should he overtake a barge being towed against
the stream by perhaps 20 horses. Though the distance is only 40
miles from Irkutsk, a barge takes three days to be dragged up to the
rapid, and then for the rapid itself it requires another day, even with
double the number of horses. This refers, however, to a large soudno,
or vessel, with a bluff bow and broad stern, which might almost as well
sail sideways as speed ahead, and usually carries 600 chests and 25,000
bricks of tea.


312
THROUGH SIBERIA.
>
a
,
pendent birch overtopped by lofty pines, and the
colouring on the mountains, produce a picture of ex-
traordinary beauty and grandeur. A few miles further,
and the Baikal is seen spreading out like a sea, and
its waves are heard beating on the rocky shore.
The storms on the lake are very severe. They say,
at Irkutsk, it is only upon the Baikal in the autumn
that a man learns to pray from his heart. The most
dangerous wind is the north west. It is called the
mountain wind, whilst that from the south-west is
called the deep sea-breeze.” Formerly, in crossing,
"
it was no uncommon occurrence for a boat or barge to
be detained three weeks on à voyage of 40 miles,
without being able to land on either shore. This
.
induced an enterprising merchant to have a hull built
on the lake, and engines, boiler, and machinery
brought 4,000 miles overland from Petersburg ; and
when the new vessel steamed across in a gale, both
Siberians and Mongols looked on with not a little
astonishment.
The fish of the Baikal are abundant, and are caught
in variety, such as the omullé, somewhat like the
herring; the suig, which resembles but is smaller than
the sturgeon; the askina, the pike, the carp, the
lavaret, and a white fish called the tymain. Travellers
* The basin of the lake is about 400 miles in length and 35 miles in
width, covering an area of 14,000 square miles. It has a circumference
of nearly 1,200 miles. This, therefore, is the largest fresh-water lake in
the Old World ; and, next to the Caspian and the Aral, is the largest
inland sheet of water in Asia. Several travellers have crossed the lake
en route from or to Irkutsk, but Mr. Atkinson did more.
He spent
several days exploring its coasts, and, turning to the east from Listvenitz-
naya, he found the shore became exceedingly abrupt for 20 miles, with
many striking scenes, in which waterfalls played a part. The north shore
is the most lofty. In some parts the precipices rise 900 feet, and, a little
beyond the Arga, to 1,200 feet. Basaltic cliffs also appear rising from

M.
RUSSIAN BARGES.
Page 312.


ACROSS LAKE BAIKAL TO TROITZKOSAVSK.
313
also tell of a remarkable fish called the golomain,
which is only seen when thrown on shore during a
violent tempest, and is of so oily a nature that it melts
in the sun, or on the approach of heat, leaving only
its skeleton and skin. It is a remarkable fact also
that the seal of the ocean is found in the lake. About
2,000 are killed yearly.
The natives call the lake Svyatoe More, the “Holy
Sea," and aver that no one was
was ever lost in its
waters; for when a person is drowned therein, the
waves invariably throw his body on shore. It must
be a pleasant sensation to cross this lake in winter.
The ice is as clear, transparent, and as smooth
as glass, so that travellers describe the difficulty of
realizing that they are not gliding on
The
journey across is made in a remarkably short time.
Mr. Erman travelled thus 7 German miles (or 27
English) in 24 hours, which for horse travelling must
be allowed to be extraordinary. Formerly there was a
winter station on the ice, half-way across, for changing
horses ; but as the ice on one occasion gave way, and
allowed the whole concern to disappear, they now
cross the lake at a single stage.
There is a road
round the south end of the lake, but in summer the
crossing by steamer is usually preferred.
water.
deep water to an elevation of 700 feet. A little more than a boat's length
from shore, soundings have been taken to the depth of 900 feet. Greater
depths than this, however, have been reached. The captain of the
steamer informed Mr. Atkinson that on one occasion he had run out
2,100 feet of line without finding bottom ; and in 1872 soundings were
taken at the south-west end, showing 3,600 feet : hence the common
saying that the Baikal has no bottom. The shore exhibits, besides the
basalt just named, other unquestionable evidences of volcanic action,
and in some of the ravines are great masses of lava. Hot mineral
springs likewise exist in several parts of the surrounding mountain-chain.

314
THROUGH SIBERIA.
We reached the station about six or eight hours
after leaving Irkutsk, and, passing the night at a
rough hotel, next morning got our tarantass on board,
among half-a-dozen others, and steamed across. The
steamer was called the General Korsakoff. It made a
loud grunting, and out of its tall chimney emitted a
cloud of sparks like the tail of a comet.
I went
below to see the engines, and found them of the most
primitive kind—a huge boiler simply laid in a wooden
hull. I offered for sale on board some of my books,
and gave others away. This soon got me friends, and
the engineer honoured me by playing a tune on his
concertina. I went also into the captain's cabin, and
he was glad to buy some New Testaments. It was
so chilly, however, on deck that I put on my ulster,
and stowed myself away in the tarantass ; after doing
which, on the inth of July, it was not difficult to
believe what I had heard, that pigeons flying across
the lake in winter sometimes drop dead from cold.
As we drew near to the shore, we had the enjoy-
ment of a mild piece of something like revenge.
I
have already observed that the traveller who has a
crown podorojna takes precedence; but if two travel-
lers come to a station, both having crown podorojnas,
he who arrives first takes the horses. Moreover, “the
rule of the road” is that one set of post-horses must
not outstrip one that has started before ; which rule,
however, an extra tip to the yemstchik will sometimes
evade. Now, as we came towards Irkutsk, we had
been outstripped by a military officer travelling with
his wife, who took the fresh horses we should have
had ; so that, when we arrived, it was feared we should
be without. Whereupon the officer's wife, addressing

ACROSS LAKE BAIKAL TO TROITZKOSAVSK.
315
me in French, asked half-triumphantly, and half in a
mischievous joke, whether I did not find myself
" without horses”? She happened, however, to be
wrong. We obtained horses, and, at night, overtook
our friends, broken down, with their tarantass under-
going repairs at another station. We therefore got
ahead, till, on the Baikal, they overtook us again.
We saw at a glance that there would be a rush for
horses, and, therefore, immediately the boat touched,
I
sprang ashore, presented to the post-master my
podorojna, and secured my team ; whereas the officer,
not knowing that I had more than an ordinary civilian's
paper, or relying, perhaps, upon the power of his
crown podorojna, was not so quick, and failed to get
his steeds; and as we rolled away we heard him
storming at the post-master for allowing us to have
them before he had been served.
We drove for some distance on an elevated plateau
beside the eastern shore of the lake, from which we got
many good views of its waters, and where we observed
at the roadside red Turk's-head lilies, similar to but
smaller than those seen in English gardens, and yellow
lilies. There were likewise in the neighbourhood
abundance of strawberries, raspberries, and whortle-
berries. Among the trees were cedars up to 120 feet
in height; also the balsam poplar, which here attains a
growth sufficiently large to allow the natives of the coast
to make their canoes of a single log; likewise the cherry-
tree and the Siberian apple. A black and white jack-
daw, as my companion called it, made its appearance;
and the birds of prey appeared more numerous, as they
well might be in the vicinity of a larger animal popula-
tion; for in these Baikal forests are found martens,

a


316
THROUGH SIBERIA.
squirrels, foxes, wolves, the lynx, the elk, the wild
boar, and the bear—the last feeding on berries in
summer, and on cedar-nuts raked up from beneath the
snow in winter.
Having taken the lead on the road from the Baikal,
we were anxious to keep it, though things looked
threatening on arriving at the first station, where the
post-master said there were no horses. We brought
our crown podorojna to bear, and then the letter of
the Minister at Petersburg, but to no purpose. There
were no post-horses, he said, though there was a man
standing near who would lend us private horses at
double fares. To this we should have had to agree,
but we pulled out lastly our blanco letter, and this
gained the day; for the post-master, on seeing that, said
to the would-be extortioner, “You must let them have
the horses ”; and so on we trotted through a country
more hilly than anything we had passed, till at six
o'clock we arrived at Verchne Udinsk. This place
might very well be called “the Amur and China Junc-
tion,” for to turn to the left brings the traveller to the
Pacific, and to turn to the right leads to Peking.
It was now Saturday afternoon, and we were anxious
to get on, if possible, a few stations further, to Selenginsk,
which was the scene of the labours of some English
missionaries, and there to spend the Sunday to inquire
about their work. The old difficulty of horses, how-
ever, cropped up, for they could let us have none on
the instant, and every one was on tiptoe expecting
the passing through of the Governor-General, Baron
Friedrichs. I have already mentioned that his Excel-
lency was at some mineral springs on the Mongolian
frontier, and, having heard of the fire at Irkutsk, he


ACROSS LAKE BAIKAL TO TROITZKOSAVSK.
317
was now returning. Everything, therefore, had to be
in readiness. The post-house was swept and garnished,
and we were requested not to go into the large guest-
room, where the tables and chairs were arranged for
his Excellency's visit. Horses, however, were pro-
mised quickly as a favour, and meanwhile we strolled
into the town.
Verchne—that is, Upper-Udinsk is the capital of
an uyezd, and has a population of 3,500. It is a clean
little town, and, upon entering the market square, it
was easy to see that we were approaching the borders
of the Celestial Empire—for here was John Chinaman,
with open shop, standing behind the counter selling
tea. We found also, to our great satisfaction, a baker's
shop, where was not only white bread, but all manner
of bake-meats, of which we proceeded to make havoc
then and there. The white bread was 75 per cent.
dearer than at Tobolsk, but I was only too thankful to
get a store at any price, my pancakes being all but
gone. For lemonade they asked 6s. a bottle, or 6d. a
glass. It was like watered lemon syrup. Fresh butter
cost a rouble a pound, and was obtained with difficulty.
There is a prison in Verchne Udinsk, which we
passed at the side of the road, and the prisoners were
looking from the windows. Here had recently occurred
an incident illustrative of Goryantchikoff's statement,
in his “Buried Alive,” that some of his fellow-prisoners
were spirit-dealers, and frequently smuggled liquor into
the prison in the entrails of cows or oxen.
For this
purpose the entrails were washed and filled with water,
to keep them damp and ready to receive the liquor.
When filled, they were wound by the smuggler round
his body and thighs, and so brought into the prison.


318
THROUGH SIBERIA.
On the afternoon of our arrival, a drunken woman had
been detected thus carrying in vodka. We did not
visit the building, but left with the Ispravnik half-a-
dozen New Testaments, and the same number of
Gospels for Tatars, and of Scripture portions in
Mongolian. The present was not unappreciated, for
the Ispravnik, learning that I was going to the far east,
gave me an introduction to his son-in-law at Blagovest-
chensk, which afterwards proved useful.
At last we started, and trotted on through the night
to Selenginsk, and spent there the remainder of the
following day. We called on the Ispravnik, who, with
his wife, received us politely; and the latter, finding
that we had good books to dispose of, wished to pur-
chase some, which I allowed her to do to the value of
three roubles. We also asked the Ispravnik's accept-
ance of some portions of Scripture in Mongolian for
distribution among the surrounding Buriats. Then
conversation followed about the English mission, of
which Selenginsk was for 13 years the head-quarters,
but ceased to be so about 40 years ago.
The Ispravnik had nothing to say of the missionaries
but what was good and kind,—a repetition of what I
had heard elsewhere. A house, he told us, was still
standing on the spot where the missionaries lived,
and he furnished us with the names of persons who
could give us further information. We went, there-
fore, direct to the site of the mission station, where we
found some out-buildings, very much like those of an
English farmyard, and strongly suggestive of home.
There was also a nice house, which had been built
near the spot on which formerly stood the one inhabited
by the Englishmen. The garden remained, and in it

ACROSS LAKE BAIKAL TO TROITZKOSAVSK.
319
we were taken to a walled enclosure—a little grave-
yard—in which were five graves: those of Mrs. Yule,
Mrs. Stallybrass, and three children. The place had
been recently renovated, at the expense of a missionary
in China, and we were pleased to see the resting-place
of our compatriots looking so neat and orderly. The
garden commanded a pretty view of the valley of the
Selenga, and there was pointed out across the river
the site on which the town stood in the early part of
the century, till, being destroyed by fire, it was rebuilt
on the opposite side. The lady who occupied the
house told us that now and then a traveller turns aside
to see the spot, and that the ignorant people say that
the English people come out of their graves at night-
a report she is at no pains to contradict, on the plea
that, as the house is in a lonely position, the idea may
conduce to protect her from thieves.
After having been shown what there was of interest
about the place, we called on an old man—a Russian-
named Ivlampi Melnikoff, who, in his boyhood, had
attended the mission school. When he heard that one
of the missionaries, Mr. Stallybrass, was still living,
and that I had seen him just before leaving England,
he seemed much pleased, and spoke with affection of
his teachers. He had not opened a book for 40 years,
and so had forgotten how to read, but he remembered,
and inquired particularly for, some of the missionaries
sons, and sent to them his respects. The old man
had lost sight of his Buriat schoolfellows, and thought
that not one of them became a Christian, though he
afterwards remembered that one was baptized into
the Russian Church. Besides this old Russian we
saw the nephew of one who had been a pupil in the


320
THROUGH SIBERIA.
*
school, and heard of an old man living some 35 versts
distant, still a Buriat, who, as a boy, had been a
scholar. We had the same testimony from both wit-
nesses, that has been repeated by several travellers,
that the missionaries did not baptize a single convert.
None of them, however, said what I did not know
until I returned to England, and spoke to Mr. Stally-
brass upon the subject, namely, that the missionaries
were under agreement with the Russian Government
not to baptize any converts.
We continued our journey from Selenginsk for twelve
hours more, through a country which gave me my first
* The story of the mission seemed to be this :-At the beginning of the
present century there were four parties of foreign Protestant missionaries
working in the Russian dominions, namely, (1) the Presbyterians, in the
south of European Russia ; (2) the Moravians, on the Volga ; (3) some
Swiss missionaries from Basle, who took the place of the Presbyterians,
and worked upon their ground ; and (4) the London Missionary Society,
which was allowed to send men to the Buriats in Siberia. Among the
last company were Messrs. Stallybrass, Swan, and Yule, who saw at
once that the first thing to be done was to translate the Scriptures. Mr.
Stallybrass left England in 1817, and lived in Irkutsk for a year and a
half to learn the Mongolian language. In due time the translation was
commenced, from the original Hebrew and Greek, and with such success
did the work go on that they actually printed the Old Testament in their
Siberian wilderness at Verchne Udinsk, to which place the missionaries
removed from Selenginsk, and where they remained till they were sent
home in 1840. The New Testament was printed in London. Their work
was, therefore, of a preparatory and fundamental, rather than an aggres-
sive, character. Nevertheless, they had a school, numbering, sometimes,
from 15 to 20 scholars; but there was found a special difficulty in inducing
children to attend, for not only were their parents utterly ignorant of the
value of education, but they wanted the children to help them tend their
flocks, grazing, not on settled pasturage, but as they wandered over the
vast extent of the Trans-Baikal and the Mongolian steppes. Hence the
children were at school to-day and gone to-morrow; and even when
parents could be induced to leave their children with the missionaries
during their own absence with their flocks, these children had to be kept
and fed as boarders, and even then the parents begrudged the loss of
their services. The object, however, of the Englishmen began to be
appreciated, and tokens of success appeared. Then came the difficulty

ACROSS LAKE BAIKAL TO TROITZKOSAVSK.
321
experience of a Russian steppe, a tract of undulating
land with a sandy soil, covered with a little grass and
a reedy-looking herb, but suffering from a lack of
humidity, as the tundra suffers from lack of warmth.
Trees were visible only here and there, but water was
abundant, sometimes in large lakes ; so that the hilly
roads, the expanse of water, and the treeless waste,
reminded me sometimes of the scenery of our Wiltshire
downs, and, in one or two places, of the English lakes,
As we approached our destination the road became
more and more sandy, and very heavy for the horses;
but at last, on Monday, the 14th July, we reached
Kiakhta.
which all along had loomed in the distance. The Russian Synod, in its
jealousy for its own Church, had expressly stipulated that the missionaries
should receive no converts by baptism, and this had been agreed to, and,
of course, kept. But when certain of the Buriats showed signs of having
received the truth, in the love of it, the missionaries found themselves in
a dilemma. The Russians wished the converts to be handed over for
baptism to their Church, and, on these terms, were willing that the
English should stay and work as hard as they pleased; but this did not
satisfy the men, nor the committee of the London Missionary Society, and
neither party was disposed to give way. About this time, however, great
political changes had taken place. Alexander I., who favoured Christian
missions, had died, and was succeeded by the iron Nicolas, who does not
seem to have been particularly opposed to missions ; but the Synod was
jealous of foreign interference, and an occasion was found for dismissing
all foreign missionaries from the Russian dominions, under the pretext
that the Synod wished to do all its own mission work for its own heathen.
The Imperial ukase to this effect was issued in 1840, and thus a mission
was stopped whose foundations were laid by the English, and which pro-
duced a translation of the whole Bible printed in Buriat Mongolian. It
had taught some few scholars of great promise, one of whom, at least,
named Shagder, it was known (and probably many more did so unknown),
was afterwards baptized into the Russian Church. How far the Russian
missionaries among this people owe any portion of their success to the
foundation thus laid I cannot say. Of the Russian mission I shall speak
hereafter.
a
a


VOL. I.
21

CHAPTER XXVII.
THE SIBERIAN FRONTIER AT KIAKHTA.
Hospitable reception.-History of Kiakhta.--Treaties between Russians
and Chinese.-Early trading.--Decline of commerce. --The tea trade.
-Troitzkosavsk church.—Miraculous ikons.-Kiakhta church.-
Russian churches in general.-Bells.- Valuable ikons.-- Climate of
Kiakhta.--Drive to Ust-Keran.
I
HAVE said in the previous chapter that we reached
Kiakhta. It would have been more accurate to
have said Troitzkosavsk, which is within sight of and
may be called a suburb of Kiakhta, situated on the
Siberian frontier. Here we were lodged, for by the
terms of a treaty between Chinese and Russians, no
officer or stranger may sleep in Kiakhta proper. On
arriving, we learned, to our dismay, that there was no
hotel or guest house in either town. We therefore went
to the office of the Ispravnik, and in his absence showed
our documents, which served so far to establish our
respectability, that we were told we might have accom-
modation at the police-station. For this offer of course
we were grateful, but, before accepting it, we thought
we would present some of our letters of introduction.
One was addressed to Mr. Tokmakoff, a first-class
merchant in the place; but he was away in Mongolia,
and his wife and family were living at their summer
house “in the country.” We had another letter, given
me by Mr. Larsen, the telegraphist at Irkutsk, to Mr.
>

THE SIBERIAN FRONTIER AT KIAKHTA.
323
Koecher, the principal of - the real or commercial
school, who lived in one of the best houses of the town,
and who, upon our presenting the letter, immediately
pressed us to take up our abode with him. We were
only too thankful to do so, and, after a fortnight's
inconveniences in sleeping, to find ourselves in quarters
with
proper and comfortable beds. Our host was living
bachelor fashion, and was expecting to leave shortly
for Petersburg; his wife had already preceded him.
He spared no pains to make us comfortable, and, being
thus settled, we had time to look about the place,
which, on leaving England, had been the utmost bound
to which my travelling imagination had carried me.
The Mohammedans say, “See Mecca and expire”;
the Italians, “ See Naples and die”; and in somewhat
of the same spirit I had fixed upon Kiakhta as the
ultima thule of my Siberian wanderings: not that there
is much that is remarkable in the physical aspect of the
place, but from Kiakhta one walks out of Siberia into
China and sees the blue hills of Mongolia. The town,
moreover, has a history, and was the scene of a treaty
between the two largest empires in the world.
So far back as the 17th century, trade was carried
on, though not protected by Government, between the
Siberians and their southern neighbours the Chinese. *
* In 1655 a Russian embassy was sent to Peking, with a view to the
arrangement of a commercial treaty. The route then lay from Tobolsk
up the Irtish to its source, over the Altai mountains, through the vast
domain of the Kalmuks, and across the Mongolian steppes. The Russian
envoy, however, refused to lie down and submit to Chinese etiquette in
approaching the Emperor, and was sent away, partly, perhaps, for his want
of obsequiousness, and more, perhaps, because the Chinese did not see the
need of a treaty, the boundaries of the two empires being then not so
perfectly in contact as now. A second embassy, sent in 1675, proved
also a failure ; but after this there happened a series of events which
caused the Chinese to realize that the Russians were nearer neighbours

324
THROUGH SIBERIA.
But in 1692 a treaty was made at Nertchinsk, open-
ing the way to regular and permanent commerce
between the two countries, though subject to certain
vexatious forms and restrictions. Subsequently Peter
the Great, seeing the advantage of this treaty, desired
that the privilege of trading with China, then confined
to individuals, should be extended to caravans; and,
the Emperor approving, the right of trading thus was
appropriated as a monopoly by the Russian Crown.
So things went on till 1722, when, the Russians offend-
ing their celestial neighbours, the Chinese Emperor ex-
pelled all Muscovites from his dominions, and brought
trading affairs to a standstill. Six years later the
treaty of Kiakhta was concluded, which stipulated that
a caravan of not more than 200 persons should visit
Peking every three years, and that the subjects of
each nation, though not allowed to cross the frontier
with their wares, might dispose of them to each other
at two places on the border-Kiakhta, and Tsuru-
khaitu on the Argun, about 60 miles from Nertchinsk.
This led to the foundation of the town of Kiakhta;
and as there were certain conditions in the treaty
limiting the number of persons, and imposing various
restrictions upon those who should live there, another
town was built a mile off, and called Troitzkosavsk, in
which these restrictions were evaded. *
than they had been accustomed to regard them. This was brought about
by the advances of the Siberians in the region of the Amur, where they
had taken up their abode among the Daurians and other tribes, whom
they so far encroached upon as to cause the Daurians to appeal for aid
to the Chinese. This aid was given, and thus the Chinese and the
Russians came first to blows in 1684.
* Kiakhta became the centre of Russo-Chinese commerce, which was
greatly increased after 1762, when Catherine II. abolished the Crown
monopoly of the fur trade, together with the exclusive privilege of sending

THE SIBERIAN FRONTIER AT KIAKHTA.
325
6
The traveller of to-day does not see Kiakhta as it
was in palmy times, though a considerable trade is
still carried on between China and Eastern Siberia,
and large consignments are sent to Nijni Novgorod
and Moscow. The tradition is still kept up that the
sea passage injures the flavour of the herb, and that
caravan tea is the best, which commands, accordingly,
prices up to ten shillings per pound. I have heard
quite recently of "yellow” tea, which even at Kiakhta
costs this sum, and which, brought overland, would
probably command in Petersburg 16s. or 18s. per
pound. One hears also in Russia of “blossom ” tea,
which consists of only the dried flowers of the tea
plant, and of other choice growths, the best of which
are not brought to England at all. There is one kind
of yellow tea, I am told, costing as much as five
guineas a pound. The Emperor of China is sup-
posed to enjoy its monopoly. A friend of mine, who
received a few pounds as a present, tells me she did
not think it distinguishable from that sold at 55. a
pound. Blossom tea is well known throughout Russia,
and is mixed in the proportion of two ounces to one
pound of ordinary tea. *
caravans to Peking. These concessions increased the traffic enormously,
and the influence of the business transacted on the frontier extended from
Kiakhta all across Siberia and Russia, and even to the middle of Germany.
Thus, from 1728 to 1860, the Kiakhta merchants enjoyed almost a mono-
poly of Chinese trade, and made fortunes estimated by millions of roubles.
The treaty of 1860, however, opened Chinese ports to Russian ships, and
thus dealt a severe blow to the Kiakhta trade ; for up to that time only a
single cargo of tea was carried annually into Russia by water. Before
1860, the importation of tea at Kiakhta was about one million chests
annually, without taking any account of brick tea, and, previous to 1850,
all trade done at Kiakhta was in barter, tea being exchanged for Russian
furs and other goods, because the Russian Government prohibited the
export of gold and silver money.
* When crossing the Pacific I fell in with a tea merchant homeward


326
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
In addition to ordinary and superior sorts, the
Russians import, chiefly for consumption by the
military and native populations, immense quantities
of tea pressed into the form of tablets, or bricks, each
of which weighs about 2 lbs. These bricks are made
of tea-dust mixed with a common coarse sort made
of twigs, stalks, and tea refuse, the whole being first
submitted for a minute to the action of steam and then
pressed into a mould. Some say that bullocks' or
other blood is also mixed with brick tea, but I have
not heard this corroborated. The tea-dust used for
brick tea costs in China about 5d. per pound, the
manufacture about ijd. more, and the article bears
a handsome profit. In 1878 the Russian manufac-
turers in China were said to have realized a profit
of 75 per cent. This they cannot do, however, all
the year round, for the making of the bricks goes on
only from the middle of June to the end of September,
during which season they work at it night and day.
Apart, however, from the trade which passes over the
Siberian frontier, there is much in Kiakhta and Troitz-
kosavsk to interest the western traveller. "Among other
novelties are to be seen Mongolian cavalry dashing
about the streets, the soldiers being known mainly by
a piece of ribbon streaming from their hats. The
united population of the two places amounts to nearly
bound from China, and from him I gathered that three-fourths of the
Russian trade is done in medium and common teas, such as are sold in
London in bond from is. 2d. down to 8d. per English pound, exclusive
of the home duty. The remaining fourth of their trade includes some
of the very best teas grown in the Ning Chow districts—teas which the
Russians will have at any price, and for which, in a bad year, they may
have to pay as much as 35. a pound in China, though in ordinary years
they cost from 2s. upwards. The flowery Pekoe, or blossom tea, costs
also about 35. in China.

THE SIBERIAN FRONTIER AT KIAKHTA.
327
5,000, who are supplied with provisions by both
Russians and Chinese. There may be seen coming
from their farms and gardens numbers of peasant
wagons, as well as clumsy Mongolian carts, the latter
on wheels without spokes, formed of large wooden
discs, which oxen cause to wabble along. Common
vegetables are to be had in abundance.
A large
square in the centre of Troitzkosavsk is used for a
corn and hay market, and is provided in Russian
fashion with a huge pair of scales sanctioned by the
authorities. Here the vendors of agricultural and
garden produce assemble, and generally manage to
get rid of their stock and garden produce early in
the day. Young chickens cost 4d. each, lemons in
winter 15. a-piece, and occasionally even double that
price, and Cognac brandy 95. per bottle. Troitzkosavsk
is also supplied with excellent fish, but we found it
difficult to get good fruit. Besides the market square
at Troitzkosavsk, there are two public gardens at
Kiakhta, and also a cemetery.
We went to the small prison, and found it a poor
affair. The police master told us he had received a
letter concerning our intended visit long before, and
had been expecting us.
Where the information came
from he did not say; but it served to remind us again
that, though more than 4,000 miles from the capital,
we were not lost sight of. This was the last place
at which I heard of our coming having been announced
beforehand, though a general at Petersburg had told
me that I might usually expect this; for how, said
he, are the Governors to whom your letter is ad-
dressed to know that your document is not forged
unless they are advised that a letter has been given
с


LIBRARY

328
THROUGH SIBERIA.
you? and then, to illustrate his remark, he said that,
on one occasion, a man, dressed like a gendarme,
presented himself at Irkutsk with a forged letter and
got a prisoner released.
I may add to the foregoing that Kiakhta was the
last, and almost the only, place other than Petersburg
where symptoms of a disaffected or revolutionary spirit
came under my notice; and this in the solitary instance,
that when an educated man in the town was shown in
an English newspaper a portrait of Vera Sassulitch,
the would-be murderess of Trepoff, I heard that he
admired and praised her. As for Nihilism, I heard, in
crossing Russia, so little about it that I am ashamed
to say I left the country with very vague ideas as to
what it is. I am not sure that I know much about it
now, but an Englishman who has spent a large portion
of his life in Russia and Siberia tells me there are
various kinds of Nihilists. The mildest type, if they can
be called such, simply want free speech and a free
press, as do, I am told, all the “ Slavophils ”; the next
wish for a ministry responsible to the people; but both
these classes (which are supposed to be numerous)
think the time not yet come, and that they must wait
for further enlightenment of the people. With this
opinion my friend agreed, feeling sure that at present
the educated Russian and the moujik would quarrel, he
said, if one were dependent on the other. The third
class are the “black” Nihilists, who want the dethrone-
ment of the reigning dynasty and a republic, and who
are willing to adopt any means, even the most criminal,
to gain their end.
Of all this and its like I heard next to nothing after
leaving Petersburg; there, however, great excitement
a


THE SIBERIAN FRONTIER AT KIAKHTA.
329
a
prevailed. I arrived only a few days after one of the
attempts on the late Emperor's life, and a friend called
to tell me they were at their wits' end to know what
to do. Turning back his coat collar, he showed me
sewn thereon the certified badge of his calling, so
placed that it might be ready to show the police, if
required, at a moment’s notice. The English, he said,
were strongly suspected, and he doubted whether he
should be safe in affording me his usual protection and
kindly services. He had told one of his Russian
friends that I had arrived in the country for the
purpose of distributing books and tracts, but the
Russian did not believe that I could be come for
such a charitable object, but thought I must be sent
by the English Government. The rumours afloat
respecting the English were both numerous and ridi-
culous. The authorities had not then succeeded in
finding the press from which were issued the Nihilist
placards and papers, and, as the ambassadors' residences
are privileged places, supposed to be closed against
the police, it was affirmed that the secret press must
be there. My friend told me he heard it said that
“ proclamations” against the Russian Government could
be bought at the English Embassy for a rouble each.
Another rumour said that the Russians were persuaded
that the centre of the revolution was in the English
Embassy, and that they had even thought of setting
fire thereto, with the hope of securing, in the con-
fusion, the revolutionary papers. I smiled on hearing
this, and concluded that it could be only the most
ignorant of the people who believed such puerilities;
but on repeating it as a joke to a Russian fellow-
traveller from Moscow, he said he quite believed that

330
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
the forbidden press was in the Ambassador's house,
and that the revolutionists obtained their money from
the English Government. I heard, too, in Petersburg
that it was thought by the lower orders that the
Nihilists obtained a large portion of their funds from
the “ International” in England.
All this smoke and rumour, however, we left behind
on quitting Moscow, and though we may perchance
have been watched, I was never conscious of it. I
mention this because as some were surprised at my
going to Russia when in such a disturbed condition,
so others may be curious to know how this disturbance
affected me as a traveller; and though I am far from
supposing that my very limited and isolated experience
is worth much, or perhaps anything, in showing the
political condition of Russia and Siberia at the time
of my visit, yet I wish to convey the impression that
Russian atrocities and inflamed horrors, as posted on
placards and shouted by London newsboys, shrink
into very much smaller dimensions when the scene of
action is reached. Such at least has been my inva-
riable experience, and to this I shall further allude
hereafter.
They have also at Troitzkosavsk a church in which
“a miracle” seemed about to be recognised during
our sojourn ; for, on the first night of our stay, after
I had gone to bed, a woman came to the party of
friends with whom I had left Mr. Interpreter, and
told them that she could see a strange halo of light
in the church, but whether caused by celestial radiance
or angels' wings she did not say. The party turned
out, therefore, my interpreter included, and made for
the church, into which they could not gain admittance,

THE SIBERIAN FRONTIER AT KIAKHTA.
331
and which was apparently empty, though they managed
at last, by looking through a crevice or window, to
descry a lamp burning before a glass ikon, which hap-
pened to slant at such an angle as dimly to reflect
through the darkness the rays of light to the spot
where they had been seen by the woman. This took
away the sense of the miraculous, not altogether to the
satisfaction of some of the party, who seemed to think
there was something in it.” *
* In Russia one continually meets with these sacred pictures, said
to work miracles : and sometimes relics, though the latter not so often as
in Roman countries. In two places I have been curious enough to inquire
for the evidence that might be given to substantiate the so-called miracles.
Of course, in many cases, the wonderful things said to have been per-
formed are enveloped in the mist of antiquity, but one explanation offered
at Novgorod, in the Yuryef monastery, was to the effect that the very man
who had shown us the bells, many years ago, saw two women arrive at
the place, who were screaming and possessed of the devil, but that on
coming to the grave of Father Fochi (the great saint of the place) they
were made whole. The second explanation offered me, at the Spasski
monastery in Yaroslaf, was of a similar character. A certain ikon, before
which I was standing, was alleged to have been placed in the church in
1828. A girl, 17 years of age, was seized by demoniacal possession, and
dreamed that she saw a certain picture. On waking, she was said to
have searched through the town for the picture, which, on looking
through the church window, she recognized in the ikon before us, and
from that day she was made whole ! Such are some of the stories upon
which rest the alleged power of ikons to work miracles. But, as I have
said before, the Russians are by no means “sceptical.” Consequently,
if a church or a monastery only possesses a well-known miracle-working
ikon, the fortune of the place is made. Persons come from far and near
to pray before it, bringing, of course, a present, and not unfrequently
adding a thank-offering if the prayer be heard. A poor man, having a
diseased leg or a sick cow, purchases a little silver model of his leg or his
cow, and hangs it upon the ikon (I have seen several such), or, if the
offerer be rich, he brings gems to adorn the wonder-working picture.
These pictures, on special occasions, are taken to the houses of the
faithful, being carried through the streets in procession, the people doffing
their caps ; and I have seen the more devout, in the hope of receiving a
blessing, run between the bearers and under the picture carried upon
their shoulders. At Kasan we saw the coffin of Bishop Gregory, from
which chips are cut by sufferers to place on their wounds to be healed.
a


332
THROUGH SIBERIA.
The great ecclesiastical wonder of Kiakhta is its
cathedral, said to be the finest in Eastern Siberia,
and to have cost 1,400,000 roubles, equal at the time
of building to at least £150,000. It was built at
the expense of the Kiakhta merchants, and possesses
some excellent bells. *
In bells, the Russian Church is the richest in the
world—so far, at least, as regards their size. The
largest we have in England—that of Christ Church,
"
The monk who accompanied us, and who was, intellectually, superior to
some I have met, said that it was a well-known fact, and believed by all,
that the relics of saints placed upon diseased parts of the body, and used
with faith, are good for healing. The bishop, he said, died 200 years ago,
but the wood of the alleged coffin did not appear to me to have reached
the age of 200 weeks, and the whole concern looked modern.
* This reminds me that, though allusions have often been made to
churches, I have not yet described what a Russian church is like. It
should be premised, then, that the ideas of an Englishman and a Russian
differ widely as to what a grand church should be. Given an English
committee, money in hand, and they say, “Go to ; let us build a church
to the praise and glory of the architect;" whereas a Russian merchant,
his pocket full of roubles, seeks him out a lapidary, to whom he takes
emeralds, rubies, diamonds, and pearls; a smith, to whom he consigns
poods of silver; and a cunning workman, who can emblazon and
embroider priestly robes and ecclesiastical garments. The consequence
is that the English ecclesiologist, standing before “a fine church” in
a
Russia, finds almost nothing upon which to expend his vocabulary of
architectural terms. He sees merely wood, stone, or brick and plaster
buildings, not too evenly finished, and whitewashed over in such a fashion
that, but for their proportions, they would not be thought too good for
an English homestead.
The Russian churches are so far alike that they are all modelled on
the Byzantine style of architecture--a Byzantine church having been
described as a “gabled Greek cross, with central dome inscribed in a
square.” On the exterior, besides the central, there is sometimes a
western dome ; often there is one at each angle of the square, and,
occasionally, one at each end of the cross. Accordingly, instead of
spires, the eye of a traveller in Russia becomes accustomed to cross-
crowned domes, which, as they are brightly painted and sometimes
covered even with gold, and furnished with bells, affect both eye and ear
not unpleasingly
On entering a Russian church from the west, the internal arrangement


11
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THE GREAT BELL OF MOSCOW AND IVAN VELIKI TOWER.
Page 333

THE SIBERIAN FRONTIER AT KIAKHTA.
333
Oxford, weighing 7 tons—is but a baby compared
with many in Russia. The largest in Petersburg
weighs 23 tons; “Great John,” in the older capital,
weighs 96 tons; whilst the old .“ Tsar Kolokol,” or
the King of Bells, in Moscow, weighed originally
nearly 200 tons, or 432,000 lbs. Reckoning their
value at 18 silver roubles per pood, we get a price for
our Oxford bell of £1,100; and for that of the largest
one of Moscow of £32,000. This monster bell is
26 ft. high, and 67 ft. round!
It was neither its bells, however, nor its architecture
that made Kiakhta cathedral “a fine church,” but
rather its costly fittings. It has two altars, both of
silver; a candlestick with numerous rubies and emeralds,
and a large chandelier studded with precious stones.
More striking still, perhaps, was the profusion of
objects made of solid silver, such as the “royal doors,”
which are said to weigh 2,000 lbs. ; and, above all, the
a
is seen to be fourfold : first, the narthex, or porch, which was anciently
for catechumens and penitents ; next the nave, or body of the church ;
then a narrow platform, raised by steps, answering to the choir; and,
beyond that, the sanctuary. The sanctuary is divided into three
chambers : the central one being called “the altar," in which stands
the holy table, and behind it the bishop's throne ; the southern chamber
forming the sacristy, where are kept the vestments and treasures; whilst
that on the north is for preparing the sacramental elements. The sanc-
tuary is parted off from the choir by a high panelled screen, called the
ikonostasis, pierced by three doors, the centre opening being called the
"royal gates," on the north side of which hangs a gilded sacred picture
of the Virgin, and on the south side a picture of our Saviour, and the
patron saint of the church. The remaining parts of the screen are
covered with other pictures, upon the frames and coverings of which,
apart from their artistic value, an almost fabulous amount is sometimes
lavished. The precious stones on the picture of Our Lady of Kasan, for
instance, in Petersburg, are valued at £15,000 ; whilst, at Moscow, one
emerald on the picture of the Holy Virgin of Vladimir is valued at
£10,000—the value of the whole of those on this latter ikon being
estimated at £45,000.




334
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ikonostasis of gold and glass, or crystal—the value of
the last, no doubt, being considerably enhanced by the
cost of carriage to so remote a spot. There were also
several paintings, executed at great expense in Europe.
We mountech the tower, and from thence had a view
of the surrounding country and of the three towns of
Troitzkosavsk, Kiakhta, and the Chinese Maimatchin.
On a slight elevation, about a mile to the north, at the
head of an open sand-valley between two ranges of
moderately high hills, lay Troitzkosavsk, with its 4,600
inhabitants, its school, houses, shops, Government
buildings, and a number of persons and officials who
could not strictly be called merchants. There is also
a large building which formerly was the Custom
House, where the duties on tea were collected. *
Below us was Kiakhta, with about 400 inhabitants,
the abode of Russian mercantile aristocrats and their
belongings, making a population, according to Hoppe's
Almanack, of about 5,000. The town lies snugly in
a hollow, between hills of sand and fir-trees, well
sheltered from northerly winds, and opening out south-
wards towards Mongolia. A small rivulet, called the
Bura, runs through the hollow, and, turning westward
to the sandy plain, makes its way at last into the
Selenga. The country round looks sandy and dry,
which is in keeping with the meteorological conditions
of the place. Southerly winds prevail, and there is a
deficiency of moisture in the atmosphere ; hence they
have only a slight fall during the year either of rain or
of snow. So much is this the case that wheeled
* All duties are now arranged at Irkutsk, and the annual quantity of
leaf-tea (exclusive of brick-tea) that passes through is upwards of 5,000
tons.

THE SIBERIAN FRONTIER AT KIAKHTA.
335
a
vehicles are used all through the winter, and goods
and travellers at that season are thus driven some
miles out of Troitzkosavsk to the spot where snow
begins, and sledges are usable. Kiakhta is about
2,500 feet above the sea level. The greatest cold in
1877 was in February, when the thermometer stood at
42° below zero; whilst the greatest heat that year,
namely 100°:5, was in August.
On the first morning after our arrival, our host sent
us in his carriage for a drive of 20 miles to Ust-Keran,
the summer residence of Mr. Tokmakoff, where also we
expected to find a fellow-countryman, who, we heard,
was Professor of English in the gymnase at Troitz-
kosavsk. It was a fine day, and our horses dashed
along over a wide extent of country, somewhat sugges-
tive of Salisbury plain. We saw very few people, but,
happening to meet a vehicle, we pulled up, and my
interpreter, having descended, went to the carriage to
know if we were taking the right road. He called to
me that we were right for Madame Tokmakoff's, upon
which I shouted, “Ask him if the Englishman is there!”
whereupon someone in the carriage replied, “I am the
Englishman.” It was pleasant to hear this spoken in
my native tongue, and I hastened to make the acquaint-
ance of Mr. Frank M who was spending his
vacation as tutor, and teaching English, in the very
family to which we were going. He therefore turned
back, and accompanied us to Madame Tokmakoff's,
by whom we were heartily welcomed, and where we
were reminded of home by the sight of cricket-bats,
stumps, and sundry other English things.
The great event of the afternoon was driving some
miles further to a Buriat lamasery, or monastery,


336
THROUGH SIBERIA.
inhabited by priests, for whom I had taken some
Scriptures; but none of them spoke Russian, and as
we could not well make them understand, I left the
books with our friend to give when an interpreter
could explain, and this little commission he kindly per-
formed. I shall have occasion to speak of this lamasery
hereafter. On our way we had to cross a river, the
vehicle being put on a raft, and the horses swam
through the stream-not considered extraordinary in
these parts, for the same evening we saw a dozen
horses returning from their work, and when they came
to the river, they plunged in of their own accord, and
swam across.
One of the men on the bank was very much puzzled
to make me out, especially as I asked questions, and
made notes of the replies. He seemed to think there
might be “something up,” but said that “I wore no
"
official clothes, and so he could not tell what sort of a
*tchinovnik' I was.” His suspicions, however, abated,
and his vanity seemed tickled, when he was told that
I had come from a very far country, that I was anxious
to know about their manners and customs, and made
notes of what I heard and saw to tell my countrymen
on my return. After inspecting the monastery, we
drove back to Kiakhta the same evening, having spent
a particularly agreeable day.


CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE MONGOLIAN FRONTIER AT MAIMATCHIN.
Outlook into Mongolia.-Town of Maimatchin without women.- Visit
to a Chinese merchant.—Refreshments. -Attendants.—Purchases.-
Tea-bricks for coin.-The town.-Buddhist temple.-Chinese male-
factors.-Their punishments.—Chinese dinner.-Food.—Intoxicating
drinks.-Route to Peking.–Travellers.-Modes of conveyance.-
Manners of the desert.-Postal service.
A
S we stood on the top of Kiakhta church, we could
see, as already observed, the three towns of
Troitzkosavsk, Kiakhta, and Maimatchin. The former
two were like other Siberian towns, but southwards
there lay before us something decidedly new. Just
over the border was a veritable Chinese town; then
came a broad plain, covered with sand and herbage,
with the horizon bounded by the hills of Mongolia,
beyond which the imagination was left to picture its
capital, Urga, and, further south, the great wall of
China.
Before continuing our journey eastwards,
therefore, I shall describe our visit to Maimatchin,
and offer a few observations upon the route over the
Mongolian frontier to Peking.
Mai-ma-tchin signifies, in Chinese, “buy and sell,”
and so is applied to this border town as a “a place of
trade." It has a population, we were told, of 3,000,
and differs in one respect, at all events, from all the
cities upon the face of the earth, in that the inhabitants
a
VOL. I.
22

338
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
are all of the male sex. Not a woman is to be found
in the town, a baby's music is never heard there, and
the streets are void of girls and boys. Not that the
men, however, are all bachelors, for some of them have
wives and families in China proper. Nor are they all
woman-haters, or henpecked husbands. We did indeed
hear of one man, a British subject, who so far agreed
with Solomon as to the undesirability of living with a
brawling woman, even though it were in a wide house,
that he had fled from his island home, and retired to a
house-top in the wilds of Siberia, where he is living in
prosperity, and whither his spouse has not pursued
him. But the fact is, that among the curious arrange-
ments of the Chinese at the time of their early treaties
with the Russians, and in order that their celestial
subjects might not become rooted to the soil, but con-
sider themselves as sojourners only, they have forbidden
that women should live in Maimatchin. Hence a pater-
familias of Maimatchin, if he wishes to visit his wife
and children, must undertake a month's journey across
the desert on the back of a camel, and return by the
same means; so that a few such journeys may well give
wings to his desire speedily to make his fortune and
return home.
We took the opportunity of paying an afternoon
visit to Maimatchin on the first day of our arrival at
Kiakhta, Mr. Koecher kindly accompanying us. After
passing out of the wooden gate of Kiakhta we found
ourselves on a piece of neutral ground, about 500 yards
wide, between the two empires. On the south side is
a palisade pierced for the principal gate, shielded from
view by a high wooden screen some eight or ten paces
from the wall. Behind this screen we entered Mai-
a

THE MONGOLIAN FRONTIER AT MAIMATCHIN. 339
matchin, and found ourselves in a new world. The
town is built inside a strong wooden enclosure, about
400 yards square, with four or five mud-paved streets.
They are regular, however, tolerably clean, and, for
China, wide,—wide enough perhaps to allow of a
London omnibus being driven through them. The
houses are of one storey, built of unburnt bricks of mud
and wood, and are thus solid and tidy, and are sur-
rounded by courtyards. At the entrances are screens
that shut out the river from the street, which are painted
with diabolical-looking figures, to frighten away evil
spirits. This represents, however, the houses of the
well-to-do merchants. Towards the southern part of
the town are the mean, windowless houses of the
poor, which have little of the neatness and propriety
of the above.
We were taken first to visit one of the Chinese
merchants named Van-Tchan-Taï; and on entering his
courtyard we found it surrounded by a number of
doors, some entering the warehouses, the kitchen,
outhouses, etc., and one leading to the shop and dwell-
ing-place of the merchant. The door consisted of a
suspended transparent screen, admitting the air, and
yet keeping out flies and insects. The window-frames
were ornamented and covered with paper. . None
looked into the street, but all into the courtyard.
Inside the house were two compartments, an outer and
an inner. In the outer chamber we were seated on a
raised platform, or divan, which serves for a sleeping-
place for the clerks and assistants by night, and for a
dining-place by day, when the bedding and cushions
are neatly rolled up and ornamentally arranged. This
platform is heated by a flue beneath, and on the edge

340
THROUGH SIBERIA. .
in front is kept, always burning, a small charcoal fire,
which serves for lighting pipes and heating grog-
Round the wall hung illuminated texts, from the
writings of Confucius, and various pictures, one of
which we were told was a representation of the god
of happiness. And a very stout personage he looked!
But this is strictly in keeping with Chinese notions,
for they delight to load their deities with collops of fat,
prosperity and abundance of flesh in their eyes having
great affinity. A number of little birds were in the
room, not in cages, but on perches resembling those
on which parrots are kept in England.
The merchant invited us to drink tea, and told us
that the Chinese use this beverage without sugar or
milk three times a day; namely, at rising, at noon,
and at seven in the evening. They have substantial
meals at nine in the morning and four in the afternoon.
When they discovered I was English, they were curious
to know all about us, making various inquiries, trying
to imitate our words and sounds, even to laughing,
and examining carefully such things as were shown
them, as watches, pencils, and knives. We were no
less curious to pry into their affairs, and learn of them
all we could. The merchant employed 23 “ clerks,"
18 in Maimatchin, and the remainder at a branch
establishment in some other part of the world. We
did not make out, however, whether this number in-
cluded shop assistants, warehousemen, servants, cooks,
etc., or whether it consisted only of actual writers.
They seemed all dressed alike, from the master down-
wards; that is, in a suit of blue nankeen, and black
skull caps. Suspended on the wall, and covered with
paper to keep them from dust, were two or three white

THE MONGOLIAN FRONTIER AT MAIMATCHIN. 341
а
straw hats, of depressed conical shape, with a horsehair
tassel on the top, seemingly reserved for summer use
or gala days. One of the attendants had a black
dress edged with white, and on inquiry he was found
to be the coachman in half mourning. Chinese full
mourning must not be of silk, is all white, and worn
100 days after the death of a relative, during which
time the head is not shaved. Black and white is after-
wards worn for three years, one of its features being
a small white ball on the top of the cap. As the
servants stood about waiting on us, their discipline
appeared to be very much of the patriarchal character;
none seemed greater or less than another, except it
were the chief clerk, who received, we found, about
£30 a year; whilst the “boys” received from £ 5 and
upwards, their food being in all cases provided. This
chief clerk cultivated a straggling moustache, which is
the privilege of all Chinese men after they arrive at
30 years of age. He had also very long nails, pro-
truding, perhaps, half an inch, which evidently were
considered beautiful. It is the custom of Chinese
gentlemen and ladies to have long nails, that other
persons may be aware of their rank in society, for with
such impediments they could not labour. This senior
also seemed fond of his pipe, which held just so much
tobacco as enabled him to take five good strong whiffs
only, and he then blew out of the pipe, with a peculiar
noise, the remainder of the tobacco and ashes.
Whilst sipping our tea we proceeded to make pur-
chases. The principal articles of Chinese export into
Russia are teas, cottons, nankeens, silks, good satins,
rhubarb, and many articles of curiosity and ingenuity.
The exports from Siberia are generally furs. As we



342
THROUGH SIBERIA,
sat in the merchant's shop, it was a matter for conjecture
as to where the merchandise was kept, for it was not
visible. A number of articles, however, were brought
forth from mysterious cupboards and drawers, and we
heard that the Chinese allow as little of their property
as possible to be seen by the authorities, lest they
should be more highly taxed. So far, therefore, as
appearances go in a Chinese shop, the American
dealer's window-notice would be eminently appropriate:
“ If you don't see what you want, ask for it.” We did
this, and found it successful. My first purchase was
a piece of silk called Chin-chun-cha, supposed to be of
sufficient measure for two suits of clothes. This silk
is undyed, and washes and wears so well that it is a
favourite material throughout Siberia for gentlemen's
summer suits, and sometimes for ladies' dresses.
The Chinese are fond of having a couple of balls in
the hand, at idle times, to roll and rub one over the
other with the fingers, and so play with; for the same
reason, probably, that the Turks like to have beads in
the hand. Several of these balls were offered to me.
One pair was of Chinese jade, which, on being rubbed
together, emitted flashes of electric light. Gilt buttons,
too, were shown as a rarity, but their marks betrayed
that they came from Birmingham. We bought some
embroidered purses of native workmanship, and cups
and saucers. The saucers are of a lozenge-shape, and
of metal, with an indentation fitted to receive the bottom
of the cup, which has no handle. Hence, in drinking
the tea, it was not necessary to finger the cup, but
merely to hold the saucer and drink from the cup rest-
ing therein. Some of the drinking vessels were of
wood, but lacquered and covered with a varnish which
a

THE MONGOLIAN FRONTIER AT MAIMATCHIN. 343
a
>
made them quite capable of holding boiling water.
Our most comical purchase, perhaps, was a pair of
furred ear-pockets, connected by a piece of elastic, for
use in frosty weather.
After taking refreshment, we looked about the house
and yard, into the kitchen, which was clean enough,
and into the warehouse, with its piles of chests of tea,
and were amused to see them take a hollow iron auger,
something like a large cheese taster, and drive this into
the corner of a tea-chest to bring thereout a sample
handful of the fragrant herb. I contented myself, how-
I
ever, with buying a brick of tea, as a greater curiosity.
It measures about nine inches by six, and is three-
quarters of an inch thick, and might better be called,
as it once was in Germany, “tile” tea. This article
was formerly used for coin in certain parts of Siberia,
and is so still in Mongolia. The owner of a circus,
since my visit, made his way through Kiakhta to Urga.
The stud and its riders greatly delighted the Mon-
golians, who are excellent horsemen, and, as the pro-
prietor accepted the current coin of the realm,” his
cashier's office presented the unusual appearance of
being filled to overflowing with bricks of tea ! We
had cause, therefore, for congratulation, that we had
not to carry a quantity of this very inconvenient form
of cash.
After leaving the house we wandered through the
streets, examining the wares exposed for sale, like those
we had seen on the Chinese stalls in the market-place
of Troitzkosavsk, and the looking round at which, in
both places, gave us much amusement. We found all
sorts of Chinese knick-knacks; and the poorest attempts
at cutlery, in the shape of knives, scissors, and razors,

344
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that ever I saw. The razors bore a strong resemblance
to miniature hatchets, and, on steaming across the
Pacific, I observed that their use was not confined to
men, for the Chinese women think so much of having
the hair cut away smoothly from the back of the neck,
that one female on board was seen thus acting the
barber on behalf of her sister. Beads and hats were
likewise exposed for sale, brushes and combs, pieces
of flint and steel, and Buddhist rosaries; which last,
evidently, were considered finely perfumed, but we
thought the smell abominable. A piece of Chinese
vanity we saw consisted of circular felt pads, highly
dyed with rouge, with which the people rub, and so
redden, their faces. Several of these curiosities we
bought, bargaining for the price by signs, to the
mutual amusement of buyers and salesmen.
We were taken to the Buddhist temple, the precincts
of which appeared to comprise the houses of the
governor (or, as he is called, the zurgutchay), and the
chief priest; also a theatre, and something like a prison.
In the court of the temple were placed two or three
cannon, which are fired daily when the governor is
going to sleep. The theatre, we found, was open only
on fête days, and, if the report of travellers be true, the
plays are sometimes grossly obscene. This, however,
is only in keeping with the pictures seen in the houses,
and sold openly in the streets, which are too licentious
to bear description.
We saw in the court of the temple two malefactors,
who had iron rings round their necks, attached to
which were chains, about five feet long, with enormous
links, and of great weight, weighing, I should judge, in
all, upwards of 50 lbs. They had chains, too, upon

THE MONGOLIAN FRONTIER AT MAIMATCHIN. 345
their hands and legs, and, being exceedingly dirty and
ill clad, they looked somewhat ferocious. One of them
had his chain coiled about his shoulders for more con-
venient carriage, and when he saw that I was curious
he allowed it to drop towards the ground, showing me
the full length of his punishment. I bought the man's
rosary for a souvenir. We saw, also, in Maimatchin,
another kind of Chinese punishment, in the shape of a
wooden collar, made of 6-inch plank, about 21 feet
square, and put about a man's neck. It was said to be
more than 100 lbs. in weight, and the unfortunate
wearer was prevented by its size from putting his hand
to his mouth. He used therefore, in feeding himself,
a long wooden spoon, but he looked anything but
comfortable. His accusation was written on the collar,
setting forth his name and family, and he was to wear
his collar night and day for a month, and that for
fighting! but I am not clear whether it was for an
ordinary pugilistic encounter, or for attempted violence
to a superior.
As we walked about the streets it was plain that,
though we were distinctly in the Chinese empire and
not in Russia, yet that the people of the two border
towns were on the most friendly footing. Chinese
merchants visit the Russians freely, drink tea, smoke
cigarettes, and chatter,—not "pigeon English,” but
"pigeon Russian.” To this good feeling I presume
it was that we were indebted for an invitation to dine,
two days after, with the merchant upon whom we
called. We were particularly anxious to do this ; for
to eat a Chinese dinner at Maimatchin had been one
of the curious treats I had promised myself when
thinking of pushing on so far as Kiakhta. At the

346
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was
same time, Mr. Michie's declaring that a Chinese
dinner, to which Kiakhta merchants take their friends,
a feast most Europeans would rather undergo
the incipient stages of starvation than come within the
smell of it,” had rather terrified me as to the horrors
one might be expected to eat. I determined, however,
to place bread on one side of my plate and water on
the other, and then martyrise myself for the sake of
gaining experience, to say nothing of showing myself
a person of good breeding in Chinese eyes, by tasting
everything; and I hoped that, if anything particularly
nasty came into my mouth, it might be neutralized or
speedily swallowed by the aid of a piece of bread or
a draught of water. Things were not so bad, how-
ever, as I had feared, and we were none of us made
ill. Calling on our way to dinner at Mr. Tokmakoff's,
I begged a small loaf of half-white bread ; and, thus
prepared, we presented ourselves at the house of Van
Tchan Taï.
There were five in the party, which included Mr.
Koecher, our Russian host; Mr. M-, our fellow-
countryman ; Mr. Interpreter ; myself, and a Russian
friend. We were shown first into the inner compart-
ment, and seated on the divan, whilst they brought us
tea, dried fruits, and confections, such as candied
ginger, dried walnuts and Mandarin oranges, salted
almonds, and sugared ditto, melon seeds, etc., etc. We
then adjourned to the outer chamber, where the dinner
was spread on a table. But what a table! It was
just about three feet square, and on this were placed,
as a commencement, no less than 10 dishes, besides our
own plates. These dishes, or saucers, of meats were
replaced to the number of 30. Further east I met a

THE MONGOLIAN FRONTIER AT MAIMATCHIN. 347
man who told me that when he dined at Maimatchin
they gave him 64 dishes! At this tiny table we were
seated, and each was provided with a small saucer,
three inches in diameter, half filled with dark-looking
vinegar, into which we were supposed to dip every-
thing before carrying it to the mouth. Of this I soon
got tired, and began to eat things au naturel, that is as
far as possible ; but most of the courses were so dis-
guised by confectionery and culinary art that we had to
ask of almost every plate, What is this? Happily the
plates were so exceedingly small that to taste of each
did not seriously strain one's eating powers ; and by
tasting first, and then asking what it was, all prejudice
was taken away till it was too late to have any. But
we discovered that among the dishes we had eaten
were beans, garlic, a kind of sea-weed cooked like
seakale, and a green kind also ; likewise radishes cut
in slices, swallows' eggs boiled, and rissoles of meat ;
various sorts of marine vegetables, and, I think, birds’
Towards the end of the feast appeared a
samovar, but not like the Russian article of that
name,—the difference resembling that between an
“outside ” and an “inside” Dublin car, of which an
Irishman said that, with an outside car the wheels
were inside, whereas with an inside car the wheels
were outside. So with the Chinese samovar, the
boiling part was exposed to view, and contained the
soup, in which were small pieces of meat, vermicelli,
and rice puddings, the size of tennis balls, for the
eating of which they brought us chop-sticks—I sup-
pose, that we might try our hands, for at the earlier
part of the meal they had given us knives and forks.
Chop-sticks are a pair of cylindrical rods, rather
nests.
-

348
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longer, and not quite so thick as lead pencils, which
are both held between the thumb and fingers of the
right hand, and are used as tongs to take the food and
carry it to the mouth—an operation by no means easy
to the unpractised. Our host did not sit at table, or eat
with us, but stood looking on, and giving orders to
his boys or “clerks.” Each guest was provided with
a tiny cup about an inch or a little more in diameter,
and perhaps half an inch deep. Into this, at an early
stage of the proceedings, was poured, from a diminu-
tive kettle, hot mai-ga-lo, or Chinese brandy, tasting,
it was said, somewhat like whisky. It is exceed-
ingly strong, though not so potent as another kind
of which we heard, called khanshin, and which not
only makes a man intoxicated on the day he drinks
it, but if he takes a glass of water only on the morrow,
the intoxicating effect is repeated. When they came
to pour me out brandy I declined, the propriety of
which our host recognised at once; for when my
friends told him I was a “lama,” or priest, he said
that “their lamas were not allowed to drink brandy."
It was comforting, therefore, to find that we had at
least one good thing in common.
Whilst we were in the house of Van Tchan Taï
there came in a Mongolian lama, to whom I was intro-
duced as an English lama. The Mongolian lamas do
not confine themselves to spiritual functions ; for this
man was a contractor for the carriage of goods across
the desert to and from China, which leads me to say
something of this curious journey. The Kiakhta-
Peking route was not that followed by the earliest
embassies sent overland from Siberia, nor by Marco
Polo in his marvellous travels in Tartary. In fact, it

THE MONGOLIAN FRONTIER AT MAIMATCHIN. 349
is remarkable how very little has been known, until
,
lately, concerning this part of Central Asia, and how
,
little is known still. *
After the building of Kiakhta and Maimatchin, the
route across the desert was of course extensively used
by the caravans, though I am not aware that it was
followed by any Englishman or celebrated traveller
till within the past quarter of a century.t
There are six Englishmen, four of whom I have
met, who, as well as some ladies, have travelled this
Mongolian route within the past 18 years. The
* We owe some of our early geographical information about Eastern
Mongolia to the rupture between the Russians and Chinese on the Amur.
The Chinese took several prisoners, and transported them to Peking,
subsequently allowing Russian priests to be sent to minister to their
spiritual necessities. When, in course of time, the prisoners might have
returned, they had learned so to like their quarters, that they chose to
remain ; whereupon “the spiritual mission” was kept up by sending new
priests at intervals of ten years, and thus the Russians learned some-
thing of the unknown country through which these functionaries travelled.
† Daniel De Foe made his celebrated “ Robinson Crusoe” to re-visit
his island, and afterwards land in China, where he met with a Jesuit
missionary who took him to Peking. Then, crossing the desert, he
came to the Argun and Nertchinsk, and so proceeded to Tobolsk and
crossed the Urals to Archangel. This, of course, is fiction ; but it may
be that De Foe, who was never abroad in his life, but who published his
“ Robinson Crusoe” in 1719, had heard of a route used in his day across
the Mongolian desert. When we come to the interesting writings of the
Roman missionary Huc, we have, of course, a good deal of information
about Mongolia ; but his route lay in the south along the great wall of
China towards the Himalayas, and not at all in the north.
| One is Mr. Howell, formerly a British resident in China, who crossed
from Shanghai to Kiakhta; another is Mr. Wylie, who was connected
with the British and Foreign Bible Society, and who crossed from Kiakhta
to Peking ; but neither of these gentlemen has favoured the public, as
far as I am aware, with information as to his wanderings. In 1863
Mr. Michie undertook “the Siberian overland route from Peking to St.
Petersburg,” and wrote an account of his Mongolian travels, which was
the first English book that had appeared on that part of Asia. Mr.
Michie has been followed by three other English writers. In 1869, by
Mr. William Athenry Whyte, F.R.G.S., who wrote, “A Land Journey from

350
THROUGH SIBERIA.
traveller, however, who has given us the most solid
and scientific information about the part of Mongolia
of which we are speaking is the Russian Colonel Preje-
valsky, who spent three years, beginning in 1870, by
travelling first from Kiakhta to Peking, then turning
northward to Manchuria, and afterwards following in
the tracks of Huc not quite to Lhassa, but as far as
the Blue River, or the Yang-tse-kiang; and then, turning
back, did the most daring thing of all, crossing the desert
of Gobi from Ala-shan to Urga and Kiakhta. This
journey had never before been attempted by a European,
and was accomplished in the height of summer, when
sometimes the party could obtain neither pasture nor
water.
The distance between Kiakhta and Peking is a
thousand miles, and Europeans who wish to make the
journey have the choice of two modes of conveyance,
either by post-horses or by caravan camels engaged
by special bargain with their owners. So, at least,
says Colonel Prejevalsky, though Mr. Milne tells a
different tale, for he had intended to cross Mongolia
in company with a Russian officer by courier horses;
but he found that, according to the agreement between
the Russian and Chinese Governments, it was allow-
Asia to Europe, being an account of a camel and sledge journey from
Canton to St. Petersburg, through the plains of Mongolia and Siberia ;"
in 1875-6, by Mr. John Milne, F.G.S., who crossed Europe and Siberia
to Kiakhta, Peking, and Shanghai, and read a paper concerning his journey
а
before the Asiatic Society of Japan; and, in 1877, by Captain W. Shep-
herd, R.E., who returned “homeward through Mongolia and Siberia,"
and wrote a short account in the Royal Engineers' Journal. I heard some
of these travellers spoken of by the residents in Siberia, and the Russians
seemed mightily surprised that Captain Shepherd should have taken such
a journey alone, and unable to speak a word of their language. I suppose
Messrs. Howell and Wylie did the same, but I have heard of Captain
Shepherd's exploit as far away as the Crimea, and so lately as last autumn,

THE MONGOLIAN FRONTIER AT MAIMATCHIN. 351
able only for such couriers as were Russian subjects
to take the horse road, and therefore he was obliged
to go the ordinary caravan route by camels. He made
an agreement with some Mongol carriers, that they
were to take him from Kiakhta to Kalgan, near the
great wall of China, in 30 days, for which he was to
pay them £15. For every day less than thirty he was
to pay ten shillings extra; for every day beyond that
time they were to pay him ten shillings. There was
also a clause that a tent, fire, and water should be
supplied. The ordinary procedure of the caravan in
winter is to be on the move till about seven or eight
in the evening, and then stop for tea, and travel on
till midnight or two in the morning. A halt is then
made for sleep, and all start again by eight or ten.
They eat in winter only once a day, and, according to
Mr. Milne's account, a winter journey across the
desert is anything but comfortable. Mr. Michie,
,
however, and Captain Shepherd, who travelled in
milder weather, give a very different account, and
speak in pleasant terms of a nomad life. It is so
utterly different from any European experience of
motion and living that, though it has several draw-
backs—and a month is rather too long to be wholly
agreeable—yet those who have passed through such
a phase of travel look back upon it as a pleasant change
from the humdrum life of a homeward voyage in a
P. and O. steamer.
The pace at which the caravan proceeds is pro-
vokingly slow, and the jolting of the rude, clumsy
camel-cart makes walking, for a great part of the day,
preferable to driving; but there is game to be shot,
and the solitude of the desert is now and then relieved
a

352
THROUGH SIBERIA.
by arrivals at Mongolian yourts, or tents, where,
conversation being the only form of newspaper they
know, there is a general wagging of tongues, and a
shower of questions to be asked. The Mongol's one
notion of wealth is the number of a man's flocks and
herds; and thus, if the Englishman is asked what he
is worth, he has to translate his riches into thousands
of sheep, horses, and bulls, and then explain his pos-
sessions. Again, the monotony of the way may be
relieved occasionally by meeting with the Russian post.
The manners and customs of the Mongolians are, in
many cases, exceedingly interesting, as taking one back
to the habits of a nomadic and pastoral people. But
it is not necessary to detail them here, as we shall have
before us, in a subsequent chapter, the Buriats, who are
a branch of the Mongolian race; and in treating of the
one we shall be in many respects treating also of the
other.
*
* Postal communication was established by treaty between the Russians
and Chinese in 1858 and 1860. The Russian Government organized, ät
its own expense, a- regular transmission of both light and heavy mails
between Kiakhta, Peking, and Tien-tsin. The Mongols contract to carry
the post as far as Kalgan, the Chinese the rest of the way. The Russians
have opened post-offices at four places, Urga, Kalgan, Peking, and Tien-
tsin. The light mails leave Kiakhta and Tien-tsin three times a month,
the heavy mails only once a month. The heavy mails are carried on
camels, escorted by two Cossacks from Kiakhta ; while the light mails
are accompanied only by Mongols, and are carried on horses. The light
mails are taken from Kiakhta to Peking in two weeks, whilst the heavy
mails take from 20 to 24 days; and the cost of all this to the Russian
Government is about £2,400 a year, the receipts at the four offices amount-
ing to about £430.

CHAPTER XXIX.
FROM KIAKHTA TO CHITA. .
Farewell ceremonies.—Writing home of changed plans.-Caravans.-An
iron foundry. - Buriat yemstchiks.—Methods of driving.–Salutations.
- Insignificant post-stations. --Visit to a missionary to the Buriats. -
Russian missions in Japan.-A remarkable meeting.– The Yablonoi
mountains.—Chita.–Visit to the Governor and prison.
-
-
Web
E had determined, after dining at Maimatchin,
to continue our journey eastwards. Mr.
Koecher, however, would not let us go without giving
us a supplementary dinner; for the Chinese spread is
looked upon as a matter of curiosity rather than of
genuine gastronomy, and we did not expect to get
another respectable meal for many hundreds of miles.
After this supplementary dinner, therefore, we prepared
to start. The hospitality and kindness of the Siberians
to departing friends is unbounded ; and, among other
customs, they have one method of doing honour to a
guest at a feast which is considered a mark of great
respect. It is called the podkeedovate, and is done by
seizing the unfortunate victim and laying him flat on
the extended and clasped hands of two rows of guests,
who toss him up and catch him. When Mr. Collins,
their first American visitor, was at Kiakhta, they tossed
him up in this manner to the ceiling, which he touched,
palpably. In our own case, happily, we were spared
this honour, and were dismissed with the repeated
23



VOL. I.

354
THROUGH SIBERIA.
shakings of the hand of which the Russians are so
fond ; provided, however, it be not over the threshold.
Twice I found myself transgressing in this respect-
once to an American, who had become half Russianized,
and once to a Russian lady. Both of them smiled, and
asked me to come right in before shaking hands. What
superstition they have upon the subject I know not.
Another Russian custom with departing friends is to
drive alongside for a few miles, perhaps to the first
post-station, and then take a last farewell. This our
host did when we left Kiakhta on the evening of
Wednesday, the 16th July, and we were then fairly
started for a drive of 600 miles. We passed along the
road by which we came as far as Verchne Udinsk, or,
as I have called it, “ the Amur and China junction.”
Here we took the opportunity to post letters to
England, to say that to return from hence would be to
leave my work half done, and that we were going on
to the Amur, from which Mr. Interpreter was to turn
back, whilst I was to continue to the Pacific, and so
reach home by completing the circle of the globe ; and
as I thought to finish the journey in person sooner than
a letter would cross Asia and Europe, and I did not
know what holes and corners I might get into, or how
be detained, my friends were exhorted not to be alarmed
if they heard nothing of me for many days. And the
exhortation was needed, for I subsequently got into
two places from which I could not stir, nor well com-
municate my whereabouts, so that, notwithstanding my
warning, serious and anxious doubts were entertained
for my safety.
Whilst travelling eastwards we had frequently
caravans of carts carrying tea. These caravans some.
;
met

FROM KIAKHTA TO CHITA.
355
times reach to upwards of 100 horses; and, as they go
at walking pace, and when they come to a river are
taken over by ferry, it is not matter for surprise that
merchandise should be three months in coming from
Irkutsk to Moscow. In winter the rivers, of course,
present no difficulty, and hence this season is on
some accounts preferred for transport. The number
of drivers required for a large convoy is not nu-
merous, and they lighten their work by hanging a
bundle of hay on the hinder part of every cart, so that
a horse, if hungry, takes good care to keep up with his
leader. As we proceeded from Verchne Udinsk we met
trains of two-wheeled carts with manufactured iron.*
There was one driver to every four or five carts, and
this driver had a dormitory on one of his loads, consist-
ing of a rude frame, two-and-a-half by six feet, with
a covering of birch-bark, and under this, clad in a
sheepskin coat, a man contrives to sleep for
many an
hour of the night and day. They usually travel about
16 hours (though not at a stretch) out of the 24, and
in the summer graze their horses at the side of the road.
We had now left the great highway between China
and Europe, and of this we were sternly reminded by
а
* It is not unlikely that the iron here alluded to had come from Petrov-
sky Zavod, which is about 100 miles south-east of Verchne Udinsk.
These ironworks were established during the reign of Peter the Great,
and at one time were worked by convicts; but, so far as they are in activity
now, free labour, I believe, is employed. This Zavod was formerly of
importance to the locality. The engines for the first steamers that Russia
placed on the Amur were made here. Guns, also, have been cast and
bored by Russian workmen. There is plenty of coal, too, in the neigh-
bourhood, but it is not much used, as wood is plentiful. I heard very
little of the operations carried on at present, but it seems that in the
whole Trans-Baikal province there were produced, in 1877, of cast iron
482 tons and of wrought iron 280 tons. Thirty years ago, Petrovski
wrought 18 tons of bar iron annually.

356
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
the amount of shaking to which we were forced to
submit. Also we were introduced to a new set of
yemstchiks; for most of our drivers now were Buriats,
who tie up their horse's mane like a horn between
his ears, and who, like the Russians, have a wonderful
knack of sending their horses along without harassing
them, the driving being done by the voice and by
threatening with the hand. Whip-cracking is unheard
in Siberia, and the long, slender, snapping whips of
Western Europe are unknown. The Siberian uses a
short stock with a lash of hemp, leather, or other
flexible substance, but having no snapper at its end.
The Russian drivers talk a great deal to their horses,
and the speech they use depends much upon the
character and performance of the animals. Do they
travel well? Then the driver calls them his “brothers,"
his “doves,” his “beauties,” his “jewels.” On the
“
contrary, an obstinate or lazy horse is called a variety
of names the reverse of endearing. He may be called
a sabaka, or dog, and his maternity disrespectfully
ascribed to the race canine. Sometimes the driver
rattles off his words as if the creatures understood
all the praise he is giving them, after which, on
proper occasion, he storms at and scolds them as the
veriest hags and jades he ever drove. But I do not
remember that this fashion of talking to the horses
was so observable among the Buriats, though they
drove exceedingly well.
These people have a curious method of salutation,
as have several of the peoples with whom we were
brought in contact. The Chinese, for instance, fold
the hands together, and raise them up and down
several times.
The Mongols hold up their thumb

FROM KIAKHTA TO CHITA.
.
357
to salute, and to clench a bargain one places his hand
on the sleeve of the other. The Buriats do much
the same, whilst the Russians shake hands for every-
thing, and if they are friends they also kiss.
As we drove along we saw abundance of black and
white jackdaws; small birds, like a cross between a
canary and a linnet ; and, on the distant hills, flocks
of sheep. Further south, I have been told, herds of
camels are reared, for the sake of their wool, which in
these parts grows to a considerable length. The post-
stations we passed were far apart and poor, and the
villages few. In these last live many Buriats, some
Russians, and a few Jews. In one village we saw
some very good-looking Jewish women, whom I saluted
with a word or two of Hebrew. This, and the show-
ing of our podorojna that we were English, attracted
attention to us as strangers. Not long before, some
Chinese ambassadors had passed the same way; and
one yemstchik, hearing that we were foreigners, thought
we too must be ambassadors, and inquired whether
he should go and put on his best suit, from which,
however, we excused him.
On the evening of the second day after leaving
Verchne Udinsk, we reached Koordinska, where lives
a Russian priest who is a missionary to the Buriats,
and upon whom I wished to call, though, as it was
getting towards midnight, I feared we might find the
good man in bed. But it was “now or never,” and
I therefore persisted in going to the house, notwith-
standing the Buriat yemstchik's remonstrances, which
I afterwards thought may have proceeded from the
fear that he should be bewitched, or in some way
influenced by the missionary, for I could not get him

))



358
THROUGH SIBERIA. .
to stop his horses within many yards of the house.
The missionary did not appear at first particularly
amiable on being visited at such an unusual hour; but,
when he found that we had good books to give him,
he began to change his demeanour, and readily im-
parted to us information respecting the progress of
the mission, telling us that during the previous year
300 Buriats had been baptized east of the Baikal, and
more than 1,000 on the west. He showed us, however,
that he had already a sufficiency of the Buriat Scrip-
tures—of the same edition, in fact, as those we were
distributing—and he did not care to accept more, which
rather led me to surmise, what was afterwards con-
firmed, that the amount of knowledge required by the
Russian priests of their converts before baptism is
very slender. I do not know either how far they
press upon the Buriats the study of the Scriptures, or
whether the Buriats are averse to the book. The
old man at Selenginsk, Ivlampi Melnikoff, told us
that many copies of the Scriptures were left in the
hands of his father when the English missionaries took
their departure, and that the Buriats would not receive
them. They were therefore handed over to a Russian
priest ; but he was speaking of things as they were
forty years ago.
When our missionary friend found that we were
really interested in his work, he pressed us, notwith-
standing the lateness of the hour, to drink tea; but
this we declined, as we could not keep the post-horses
standing. He was very eager to tell us, before we
went, that the Russians were carrying on a successful
mission to the Japanese (the liturgy being sung in
Russian style in the vernacular), under the directorship

FROM KIAKHTA TO CHITA.
359
of the Archimandrite Nicolai ; and the missionary,
dwelling in the Buriat wilderness, was considerably per-
turbed because someone in Japan had been writing a
book, attempting to show that Confucius was greater
that Jesus Christ; and as I said that I expected to pass
through Japan, he begged that I would get a copy of
the life of Confucius, and consult with the Archi-
mandrite how the heretical book might be extinguished.
This was the first I heard of the Archimandrite, but,
on reaching Nikolaefsk, I found him exceedingly well
spoken of by a Lieutenant Yakimoff, who gave me a
letter to him to deliver on my arrival in Japan.*
Accordingly I hoped to see the said Archimandrite
Nicolai, but, before I reached Yokohama, he had
returned home to be consecrated bishop. I therefore
thought no more of the matter till last autumn, when
my hopes were singularly and unexpectedly ful-
filled, whilst staying at Kieff on my way to the Cau-
My companion and I were trying to find
someone in the Pechersky monastery who could
speak English or French. At last appeared with the
casus.
* On my voyage I gathered from a Russian captain that there were in
Japan 7 priests, 95 catechists, and 2,000 members, all of whom, not
excepting even the priests, were converts to the orthodox Russian Church.
In 1876, £1,174 were spent on this mission, which is the only Pagan
mission, as far as I know, that the Russians have in foreign parts; and
they think their Japanese work a great success, for in the Oriental
Church Magazine for March 1880, the Russian editor says: “In 1879
the (Russian) Church in Japan numbered a total of 6,000 members, an
increase of 2,000 having taken place during one year”; and he adds,
“ Though the other Christian Churches control over 320 missionaries, and
have in their possession enormous pecuniary means, still our (Russian)
missionaries have succeeded in gaining full and exclusive control over
the northern part of the island of Nipouna, and compete most successfully
with their Roman Catholic and Protestant brethren in the central part of
the island.” “This brilliant success is mainly attributable to the chief of
our Japanese mission, Father Nicolai.”

360
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
(6
monks a tall man in a cassock, dressed like the others,
save that his cassock was brown. He said he could
speak English, and, after having taken us round to
see the sights, he inquired of me where I was
labouring in England, or, as he put it, “where I was
in service.” I told him, and then asked where he
was “in service.” “Oh,” said he, “very far off.”
Well,” I said, “where?” “In Japan,” he replied.
Then,” said I, “you must be the Father Nicolai, to
whom I had a letter last year from Siberia, and who
has lately been consecrated bishop.” And so it turned
out, and thus we had casually fallen in each other's
way, thousands of miles from the place of our expected
meeting. I dined with him, and we then parted, he to
continue his return journey to Japan, whilst I pushed
forward to Mount Ararat.
All this, however, was in the unknown future when
we were talking to the Russian missionary at Koor-
dinska, who regretted that our visit was so short, and
whom we left to continue our journey all night to
Chita. In doing so we traversed hilly roads, and on
the following day had some extended views as we
approached the Yablonoi, or Apple-tree Mountains.
This range runs in a north-easterly direction, right
through the Za-Baikal province; and when, after
gradually rising from Verchne Udinsk, which is 1,500
feet, we reached the summit of the range, 4,000 feet
above the sea, we were then about 20 miles from
Chita. Before us a well-defined
range
of moun-
tains bounded the horizon to the east, while to the
north and south the valley stretched away for miles.
We had a fine morning for the descent, and bounding
along over a rolling prairie, where herds of cattle were
a

FROM K’IAKHTA TO CHITA.
361
grazing, had a beautiful view as we approached the
town. Moreover, we were at last on the eastern side
of the great Altai chain, and consequently the rivers
before us differed from all that we had yet seen in
Siberia. All the others had been flowing northwards
to be emptied into the Arctic Ocean, whereas in the
river Chita, from the left, joining the Ingoda from the
right, the current was flowing eastward, through a
delightful valley, to find its way, 2,000 miles off, into
the Pacific. We had before us now, in fact, one of
the valleys of the head waters of the Amur, of which
valley Baron Rosen says that it is remarkable for its
flora, and is called the “garden of Siberia.”
Chita stands on the left bank of the Ingoda on a
height, bounded on two sides by lofty mountains. To
the north lies Lake Onon, on whose shores Genghis
Khan, as he marched westwards, held his court of
justice, and in whose waters he drowned the con-
demned. Below this point the Ingoda is navigable
for boats and rafts. During the early years of the
Amur occupation, much material was floated down
from Chita. The town was founded in 1851, when it
had a population of 2,600; now it has 3,000. Many
of the houses are large and well fitted, and all are of
wood. We found shops, at which, however, we had
to pay is. a pound for loaf-sugar, and white bread cost
just three times what we had paid for it at Tobolsk.
The Governor's house was the best in the place,
and there we presented our letters. His Excellency,
M. Pedashenko, gave us a kind reception. I had met
on the road, at a post-station, the father of Madame
Pedashenko, and he had given me an introduction to
his daughter; but Madame was unwell. The Governor,



362
THROUGH SIBERIA.
however, spared no pains to do for us all he could.
On learning that I wished to visit the penal colony
and gold-mines of Kara, he telegraphed that arrange-
ments might be made for my being conveyed thither ;
and after this we proceeded to inspect the prison in
the town. Outside the building was a black cart,
which might be placed in a similar category with our
old-fashioned English stocks. Formerly prisoners
were taken in this cart to the market-place, and there
exposed as outlaws and felons—their accusation being
carried on the breast, and a notification attached
that they had “lost all their rights.
lost all their rights.” This punish-
ment was said to be abolished now, but I heard of its
having been used at Blagovestchensk as lately as the
previous year.
The prison at Chita contained 169 prisoners, and
cannot, I suppose, be that in which the 30 Decem-
brists were confined in 1826; for Baron Rosen speaks
of Chita in his day as a little village of
At the time of our visit, they were expecting a new
place of confinement to be built-not a day before it
was wanted; for the Chita prison was apparently the
oldest, and I thought it the poorest and dirtiest, we had
The prisoners, too, were shabbily clad, and
dirty. One of them was reading a religious book lent
him, I think he said, by the priest ; but there was no
prison library. Indeed, it was very rare to find one,
though at Ekaterineburg we were told that a prisoner
who wished to read might have a prayer-book. Several
of the Chita prisoners were from Russia, and con-
demned to hard labour. There was a carpenters' shop,
in which some were forced to work, and others did so
for their own pleasure. Speaking generally, those in
300 people.
seen.
3

FROM KIAKHTA TO CHITA.
363
the building appeared to be enjoying an easy time;
for the doors of the wards were open to allow their
going in and out of the yard as they chose, and many
were lying about sleeping in the sun. We were told
that they found it difficult to sleep at night by reason
of vermin, and so were sleeping instead by day. This
illustrates a remark of Goryantchikoff in Buried
Alive,” to the effect that his prison was never free
from fleas even in winter, and that in summer they
increased. In the prison kitchen we saw them cutting
.
up rhubarb leaves to put in the soup (fresh cabbage
not being ready at the time of our visit), which
reminds me of another remark of Goryantchikoff, who
writes as if it were a normal thing with him to have
black-beetles swimming in his soup.
His remark
about fleas I can readily believe; but by “black-
beetles” I presume he refers to little brown insects,
about half an inch long, called Tarakans," which
swarm in the houses of the Siberian peasants. Happily,
however, they are non-belligerent, and I was told
by an Englishman that the people are not averse to
them. Why they should daily walk into the copper
to be boiled in Mr. Goryantchikoffs soup, I know
not ; but one thing about prison soup I do know, that,
in the irregular, uncomfortable (I was going to say
half-starved) condition in which I have sometimes
travelled in certain parts of Russia, I have more
than once tasted prison soup, of which, but for ap-
pearance sake, I would fain have eaten, not a mere
spoonful to give my opinion thereon, but a plateful
to satisfy my appetite. I should not have chosen
that, however, seasoned with rhubarb leaves.

CHAPTER XXX.
THE BURIATS.
Country of the Buriats. — Their physiognomy and costume. Habitations.
--Mongol yourts.- Hospitality. --Fuel. Possessions in cattle.-
Character of Buriats.—Their religions.- Buddhist Buriats.—The
soul of Buddha.—The lamas.— Their celibacy, classification, employ-
ments, disabilities.—Buddhist doctrines.—A prayer cylinder.-
Christian Buriats.- English missions.-Reports of English travellers.
-Results of Russian missions.-Distribution of Buriat Scriptures.
-
SOON
OON after leaving Verchne Udinsk, we entered
upon the vast steppe which occupies a large
portion of the Trans-Baikal. Here we found ourselves
in the heart of the Buriats' country. We first met
with these people a few miles on the western side of
Irkutsk, and their physiognomy at once told us they
belonged to a different race from any we had seen.
They have very large skulls, square faces, low and flat
foreheads; the cheek-bones are high and wide apart,
the nose flat, eyes elongated, the skin swarthy and
yellowish, and the hair jet black. . With the men
the hair is allowed to grow upon the crown of the
head, and is plaited into a queue that hangs down
their backs. What remains is cut close, but not shaved,
as with the Tatars. The head-dress of the women is
exceedingly rich, and consists of silver, coral, polished
beads of Ural malachite, and mother-of-pearl. They
wear their hair in two thick braids, which fall from the

THE BURIATS.
365
temples below the shoulders, and the unmarried girls
interweave their braids with strings of coral. Several
women had many silver ornaments hanging on their
breasts, and in some cases a straight rod at the back of
the head stuck out horizontally for several inches on
MISS BOU-TA-TYO, A BURIAT YOUNG LADY.
either side, and to this the hair was tied. I was desirous
to purchase one of these head-dresses for a curiosity,
but they were not to be had at shops. The stones and
metal are purchased, and made up by household skill.
I was, however, somewhat taken aback on finding that
their value frequently amounted to twenty or thirty

366
THROUGH SIBERIA.
W
pounds sterling. At a post-station we asked a Buriat
what he would take for his hat. To our surprise, he
asked the modest price of fifteen roubles merely for
the silver knob at the top. The Buriats are said to
wear no linen, but a wealthy bride's dowry sometimes
consists of 40 cases of the richest furs.
As for their habitations, the Buriats are such invete-
rate dwellers in tents that though they are supposed
now to be civilized where they come in contact with the
Russians, yet they make a tent of the house by piercing
a hole in the middle of the roof, and have the fire in
the centre of the floor. When visiting Madame Tok-
makoff, she had a Buriat man-servant, for whom a
Russian house was provided, but in which he could not
be happy until he had thus readjusted his dwelling.
We entered a Buriat house at Cheelantoui, although
only the woman was at home. There was within
a rude wooden bench, on which we were invited to
sit, and on it was lying a pair of coral ornaments
for the head. These the woman,
our noticing
them, immediately put on, and she then invited
us to drink tea. To have declined would have been
considered highly unpolite. Even among the Russians,
a general pleasantly, told me that he took a refusal to
eat food in his house like a slap in the face. Moreover,
we were anxious to stand well in the good graces of our
Buriat hostess, for we wished to be admitted to the
Buddhist temple, and she was the only person in the
place through whom we could communicate in Russian
with the lamas. But to see the tea served, and have
to drink it, was no small trial. Over the fire hung a
large open iron pot, full of a bubbling liquid covered
with scum.
In this was a ladle, which our fair hostess
on
a

THE BURIATS.
367
9)
filled and refilled, and emptied back into the pot.
Then, scraping the scum away, she took a ladleful of
the decoction, poured it into cups, and gave us to
drink. We were told it was tea flavoured with salt.
I only hope it was nothing worse, but it will hardly be
thought matter for surprise if, after tasting it, I had an
accident, upset the beverage, and declined a second cup.
We had a good look, however, at the furniture of the
dwelling, the most interesting item of which was a family
altar, something like a small sideboard with drawers.
On it were round bronze cups of liquor, and other offer-
ings. There were also about the room some objects of
ornamented metal, betokening clever workmanship.
This represents the Buriat in his civilized con-
dition. One gets a better idea of his native habits
and antecedents by going away from the haunts of the
Russians, or even into the “land of grass,” as their
Mongolian brothers call their desert. There they live
in tents, which, like those of other Siberian aborigines,
are constructed with poles meeting at the top, but covered
with felt instead of deerskins. The hospitality of all
Mongol tribes is unvarying. Every stranger is welcome,
and has the best his host can give; and the more he con-
sumes, the better will all be pleased. The staple dish of
the Mongol yourt is boiled mutton, but it is unaccom-
panied with capers, or any other kind of sauce or
seasoning. A sheep “goes to pot” immediately on
being killed, and when the meat is cooked, it is lifted
out of the hot water and handed, all dripping and
steaming, to the guests. Each man takes a large lump
on his lap, or any convenient support, and then cuts off
little pieces, which he tosses into his mouth. The best
piece is reserved for the guest of honour, and, as a mark

368
THROUGH SIBERIA.
of special attention, is frequently put into his mouth by
the greasy fingers of his host. After the meat is de-
voured, the broth is drunk, and this concludes the meal.
Knives and cups are the only aids to eating, and as
each man carries his own “outfit,” the dinner-cloth and
service does not take long to arrange. The entire
work consists in seating the party around a pot of
cooked meat. The Buriats are famous at drinking
brick tea, infusing with it rye meal, mutton fat, and
salt obtained from the lakes of the steppe. I suspect it
was this we had to taste at Cheelantoui. So important
an article of food is this tea to the Buriats, that they some-
times lay by stores of it as money. In dry situations,
this substance will remain a long time undeteriorated ;
and consequently on the steppe an accumulation of it is
often thought a better investment than herds and flocks.
In the northern parts, the Buriats procure wood for
fuel; but in the southern parts, and with the Mongols
in the desert, this article is scarce, and they use instead
sun-dried camels' dung, which they call argols, from a
Tatar word which signifies the droppings of animals
when dried and prepared for fuel.*
The Buriat implements for striking fire used to be
preferred to European, and commanded a high price
among the Russians. They are made of plates of the
best tempered steel, from four to six inches long,
* The collecting, pounding, moulding, and drying of dung is, further
south, an important branch of commerce. Argols are of four classes. In
the first rank are the argols of goats and sheep, which make so fierce a fire
that a bar of iron placed therein is soon brought to a white heat. The
argols of camels constitute the second class; they burn easily, and throw
out a fine flame, but the heat they give is less intense than that given by
the preceding. The third class comprises the argols of the bovine
species ; these, when thoroughly dry, burn readily, and produce no smoke.
Lastly come the argols of horses and other animals, which, not having

THE BURIATS.
369
stitched to a bag for holding the tinder, the bag being
of red leather, and tastefully ornamented with silver
and steel spangles. The English and Swedish matches
have now driven them out of the Russian market.
The ordinary occupation of the Buriats is that of
tending cattle, the number of their herds reminding
one of the flocks of the Hebrew patriarchs. Mr.
Stallybrass told me that, when he was living at Selen-
ginsk, he knew rich Buriats to possess as many as
6,000 or 7,000 sheep, 2,000 head of horned cattle, and
200 horses; and Captain Cochrane mentions the case
of the mother of a Buriat chief who possessed 40,000
sheep, 10,000 horses, and 3,000 horned cattle, besides
a large property in furs. In a sparsely-populated
country, therefore, a man's children are very useful in
looking after his cattle ; and since it is necessary to
be constantly removing to fresh pastures, it will be
understood that this state of things presented to the
missionaries a double educational difficulty, namely,
unwillingness on the part of the parents to lose their
children's services, and their constant change of resi-
dence. The same difficulty besets those still who would
carry on missionary and educational work among other
wandering tribes of Siberia. The Buriats, in 1876,
numbered 260,000—the largest of the native popula-
tions of Eastern Siberia. As yemstchiks we thought
them livelier than the Russians, and there was a manly
undergone the process of rumination, present nothing but a mass of straw
more or less triturated. They are soon consumed, but are useful for
lighting a fire. This fuel is called kiseek in Russia, and in the southern
governments was the only kind available for the poorer inhabitants, wood
being very scarce and dear. The discovery of coal, and the establishment
of manufactories, has wrought a complete change in the means of heating
in Ekaterinoslaf. Kiseek was made from the dung of cattle and sheep,
laboriously trodden under foot by women, and then sun-dried.
24


W
VOL. I.

370
THROUGH SIBERIA.
independence in their bearing, which easily accounted
for the difficulty the Russians had at first in subjugating
them. Moreover, they would seem not to be deficient
in intellectual power, for the English missionaries
taught some of them Latin, and had prepared an ele-
mentary work on geometry and trigonometry in the
Buriat language. Baron Rosen also mentions that they
play chess, having learnt it from the Chinese, and he
says that the best player among his comrades, who
were Russian officers, having on one occasion chal-
lenged a Buriat to a game, was beaten. The speech
of the Buriats is a dialect of Mongol, rough and un-
sophisticated, with Manchu, Chinese, and Turkish
corruptions. It is distinguished by its abundance of
guttural and nasal sounds. Instead of true Mongolian
letters they employ the Manchu alphabet, which is
written in vertical columns from the top to the bottom
of the page, the lines running from left to right. The
only versions of the Scriptures in the Mongolian lan-
guage are those of the Calmuck and Buriat dialects.
The religion of the Buriats is of three kinds: Sha-
manism, Buddhism, and Christianity. Shamanism,
more or less like that of the other tribes of Siberia,
would appear to have been their old religion; and it still
lingers most, I presume, in the northern parts of their
country, which are farthest from Buddhist influence.
Buddhism, however, holds sway over by far the
greater portion of the people, and was originally
imported from Thibet. *
* At Lhassa, the capital of Thibet, dwells the Dalai Lama, who is the
head of the Buddhist religion; and though his followers acknowledge him
to be mortal, they believe his soul to be an immediate emanation from the
essence of their supreme deity, Buddha. In places where this worship
prevails are found religious communities gathered round the temples


BURIAT LAMAS AND MONGOLIAN INTERPRETER.
Page 371.

THE BURIATS.
371
The lamas, or priests, are treated with great reverence,
and every Buddhist Buriat desires that one of his family
should follow the priestly calling. Hence it comes to
pass that the lamas compose a sixth-some say a fifth-
of the population. When in full dress they are clothed
in scarlet, and shave their heads all over, and their
large ears standing off from the skull give them a
curious appearance. They are supposed to observe
the strictest celibacy; hence Mr. Michie observes that
it is a tender point with a lama to be asked how his
wife and family are; but Mr. Erman points out that
their celibacy has the most prejudicial consequences.
The use of spirits is forbidden to them, lest excess
should disorder the brain of the student of the divine
oracles, and corrupt the heart by the bad passions it
might engender.” The use of tobacco also is denied
them, and that for one of the best of reasons against
smoking, because “it is conducive to indolence, and
tends to waste leisure hours which ought to be devoted
to pursuits affording instruction as well as amusement.
Besides their religious employments the lamas
dedicated to the rites of their faith, and monasteries, or, as they are
called, lamaseries, containing the various orders of priests. It was one
of these we visited at Cheelantoui. When the great lama dies, it is held
that his spirit immediately enters the body of another human being, who
thus becomes successor to all the rights and privileges held by his pre-
decessor, and some little difficulty often occurs in discovering who may
the favoured individual ; but as the priests are the chief actors in the
scene, their search is generally successful. Commonly the spirit is re-
cognized as having animated some new-born infant, who is at once taken
to the religious establishment and educated by the lamas in the mysteries
of their faith.
* The lamas are divided into four classes. Those of the first are
occupied with the study of doctrine, and with the tenets and mysteries
of their faith ; those of the second with the regulation of certain religious
rites and ceremonies ; those of the third busy themselves in the study and
direction of their worship; the fourth class study and practise medicine,
be

372
THROUGH SIBERIA.
engage in various branches of ordinary industry, espe-
cially in the manufacture of their own wearing apparel
and their ecclesiastical furniture. A lama labours
under one inconvenience, in that he is not allowed to
kill anything, through fear that what he slaughters
may contain the soul of a relative, or possibly that of
the divine Buddha. Even when he is annoyed, says
Mr. Knox, by fleas or similar creeping things, with
which their bodies are often thickly populated, he
must bear his infliction until patience is thoroughly
exhausted. He may then call in an unsanctified friend,
and place himself and his garments under thorough
examination. So again, in connection with this diffi-
culty about killing, Captain Shepherd relates an in-
stance in which the lamas did their best to keep the
law and yet evade it at the same time. The captain,
in crossing the desert, had bought a sheep, and was
somewhat in difficulty as to how the animal should
be slaughtered. There were four in the party. The
late owner was a lama, and could not take life; so
was the guide; the captain was unwilling to turn
butcher, and his Chinese servant did not know how.
The captain would have shot the animal, but the
owner protested. One of the lamas, therefore, took
the sheep aside, threw it down, tied its legs, explained
to the Chinaman the trick, and lent his own knife for
the deed to be done, after which he turned and walked
quickly to a distance. When the sheep was once
killed, the lamas soon cut it up, had it cooked, and,
of course, helped to eat it.
in which it would appear that some of them attain eminence, for when
we arrived at Kiakhta we found Mr. Tokmakoff, on account of his health,
was gone to Urga, the Mongolian capital, to be near a native doctor.

THE BURIATS.
373
The Buddhist books teach the people that they
will attain the highest wisdom if they honour the lama;
that the sun itself rises only that honour may be
rendered to the lamas; and that persons obtain pardon
for the most enormous sins by showing them respect.
Any offence against a lama annihilates the merit
acquired by a thousand generations. Whosoever shows
any contempt for these personages is said to be
punished by accident, sickness, and all kinds of mis-
fortunes, and so forth. One of their Siberian monas-
teries, or lamaseries, with a temple, is at Turgutu,
midway between Verchne Udinsk and Chita; and I
think I heard of schools there. I have said that we
visited a lamasery at Cheelantoui. It was a small one,
consisting of about half-a-dozen houses, one of which
was the temple, where, if I mistake not, they worship
daily at sunset, but into which, unfortunately, we could
not enter, as the chief was absent. There were younger
lamas present, some of them mere boys; but they
either could not or would not understand us, and
seemed afraid to grant favours. We saw, however,
the praying machine. It consisted of an upright
cylinder, from two to three feet high, and perhaps
two feet in diameter. It was fixed on a pivot, and
could be turned by a rope, to be pulled by the devotee,
who secured by each revolution some thousands of
invocations to Buddha. Sometimes these machines
are turned by mechanical power, like a wind or water
mill. This, of course, is easier, and as the quantity of
prayer is more important than the quality, the latter
method saves much trouble, and is popular.
a
* Inside the cylinder is placed the oft-used prayer of the Buddhist,
“ Om mani padme houm," of which a Russian near the monastery said

374
THROUGH SIBERIA.
a
The Buriats, who are Buddhists, have temples,
ritual, an order of priests, and a considerable literature.
With a religion so developed, it will not be difficult
to account for its overcoming the older Shamanistic
creed, nor will it be hard to understand what was told
us by the Ispravnik of Selenginsk,—that of the two
religions among the Buriats, with whom the Russian
missionaries come in contact, they find the conversion
of the Shaman 'Buriats tolerably easy, but the Bud-
dhists are greatly opposed to Christianity.
We now come to that part of the Buriat people who
are Christian. Perhaps it was an inquiry into the
false religion of Buddha, under which so many millions
of the human race are deluded, or perchance only a
timid belief in the power of their own creed, that led
our early travellers in Siberia, with one exception,
to look coldly and unbelievingly on the efforts of
the English mission to the Buriats; in connection
with which the thought arises for how little the
heathen world would have to thank the Christianity
the meaning was Gospodi pomilui,ếi.l., “Lord, have mercy upon us !”
Its real meaning, however, does not appear to be very clear. Klaproth
understood it to mean, “ O the gem in the lotus. Amen ! ” and Huc para-
phrases it into, “O that I may obtain perfection, and be absorbed in
Buddha. Amen." The lamas assert that the doctrine contained in the
marvellous words is immense, and that the whole life of man is insufficient
to measure its depth and extent. At Lhassa the formula is heard from
every mouth—is everywhere visible in the streets, in the interior of the
houses, and on every flag and streamer floating over the buildings, printed
in Tatar and Thibetan characters. Certain rich and zealous Buddhists
even entertain, at their own expense, companies of lamas for the propa-
gation of the mani; and these strange missionaries, chisel and hammer
in hand, traverse field, mountain, and desert to engrave the sacred formula
on the stones and rocks they encounter in their path. There was a stone
with inscriptions, in the temple yard at Cheelantoui ; and I found other
stones, bearing the mani, on the supposed site of a temple at Tyr, on the
Lower Amur.

THE BURIATS.
375
of England, if there were not some who take a
more believing view than the travellers who go
abroad, looking in a superficial way at what is being
done, or sometimes not looking at all, and then coming
home to pronounce missions a failure or an imposture.
Captain Cochrane, for instance, speaking of the mis-
sionaries at Selenginsk, goes so far as to say, “For
my own part, so small are my hopes of their success,
that I do not expect any one Buriat will be really and
truly converted.” *
I have shown, however, that the English mission-
aries laid a solid foundation, taught several scholars,
and translated the Scriptures, which translation the
Russian missionaries have in their hands to-day; and
whatever may have been the success or failures of the
English, it certainly cannot be said of the Russian
missionaries that they have no converts, for, such as
they are, they count them by thousands.
The Ispravnik at Selenginsk told me there were
about 40 men engaged in nine districts in the Russian
* He does, indeed, afterwards allow that what is impossible with man
is possible with God ; but goes on to insinuate that the missionaries
knew of the uselessness of their work, but that they had “too comfort-
able a berth to be given up," and then he thinks, forsooth, that justice is
not done to the people of England in so squandering money, etc., etc.
Mr. Atkinson contented himself with a passing compliment to the
character of the missionaries, and said that they were unable to make
converts among the Buriats; whilst Mr. Hill, who visited Selenginsk,
records that, “notwithstanding all their labours, not a single Buriat had
been converted by them ”; and then he quotes the testimony of a lady living
on the spot, who said, “ The missions only failed because the under-
taking was beyond the power of man to accomplish unaided by more
than his own genius. The missionaries had all the zeal and perseverance
of the Apostles, but they wanted their power of working miracles, or the
aid of some such startling circumstances as the history of religious
revolutions has often presented to us, and without which all efforts at all
times to convert the Buriats will be equally fruitless."

376
THROUGH SIBERIA.
mission to the Buriats, though I am not aware whether
some of them are not also parish priests. We called
upon a priest at Verchne Udinsk to ask about the
matter, and sold him some New Testaments and
Gospels. He informed us that there were 15 mission
stations among them, and that on the eastern side of
Lake Baikal there were baptized annually about 300
Buriats, and on the western side more than 1,000.
This was confirmed by the missionary upon whom we
called further on, and it agrees tolerably with the
general almanack of 1878, in which it is stated that
in the Irkutsk diocese there were baptized, in the
previous year, 1,505 of both sexes, including four
Buriat lamas; though the number of converts given
for the Trans-Baikal diocese for that year amounted
to only 52, there being one lama to every 20 persons.
We had brought with us a number of copies of the
Buriat Scriptures. Some of these we left at Irkutsk,
some with the Ispravniks of Selenginsk and Troitz-
kosavsk, and some for the lamasery of Cheelantoui.
Others we left at Chita with a view to spreading them
over the district, as well as placing them in the prisons.
I asked the Ispravnik at Selenginsk what he thought
the lamas would do with the books. He said he
thought they would first read them and then destroy
them ; but Mr. Stallybrass, on my return, was of
opinion that they were likely to be deterred from
destroying them by a feeling that they were holy
books. In any case we gave the copies we had
brought, and thus endeavoured to do what little we
could for this interesting people, who, I doubt not,
will gradually be absorbed into the Russian Church.

APPENDIX A.
THE HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH.
(From page 162.)
THE
-
HE history of the Russian Church may be treated under
the four periods of its foundation, consolidation, tran-
sition, and reformation. Its foundation period extends from
the end of the tenth century to the beginning of the four-
teenth. In the year 957 a Russian princess, named Olga,
visited Constantinople, was baptized, and returned with the
Christian name of Helena. About thirty years afterwards
there came to her grandson, Vladimir, envoys from the dif-
ferent religious communities of the known world, from the
Mussulmans, the Pope, the Jews, the Greeks,—inviting him
to adopt their respective creeds. To these he replied by
sending elders and nobles to examine their various religions ;
and shortly afterwards, in 988, he was baptized and joined
the Greek Church. Vladimir then gave orders for a whole-
sale baptism of his docile subjects at Kieff. A church was
built there, and the work of conversion advanced rapidly. The
Holy Scriptures had been translated into Sclavonic a century
before for the nations on the Danube ; so that the Greek
priests, on going to Russia, had this powerful lever ready to
hand in the language of the people.
The period of the consolidation of the Russian Church
dates from the beginning of the fourteenth century to the
middle of the seventeenth, during which time the local centre
of ecclesiastical history was transferred from Kieff to Moscow,
and three great powers came prominently forward—the
Tsars, the Metropolitans, and the Monks. The Tsar, in his
ecclesiastical position, represented the laity of the Church,

378
APPENDICES.
a
and received the unbounded veneration of the people ; and
the Metropolitans, second only to the Tsar, almost without
exception supported the authority of the Sovereign. In the
middle of the fifteenth century the Metropolitans became
independent of the See of Constantinople ; and in 1589,
Job, the Metropolitan of Moscow, was elevated to the dignity
of a patriarch. Again, the hermits and monks acquired an
immense influence. In 1338 was founded the famous
Troitza monastery—a seminary, cathedral, church, and
fortress all in one—the monks and clergy of which have
more than once taken an active part in the deliverance of
their country from the Tatars and Poles.
The transition period of the Russian Church extends
from the middle of the seventeenth to the beginning of the
eighteenth centuries, during which time lived Nikon, the
famous Patriarch of Moscow. He has been called a Russian
Chrysostom, a Russian Luther, a Russian Wolsey. Ivan
the Terrible, in his own savage way, had done something
towards rectifying the abuses of the Church. The Patriarch
did more ; he took in hand the Russian hierarchy, whom he
found idle and drunken. He set them a good example, on
one hand, by founding hospitals, feeding the hungry, visiting
prisons, and, above all, after the silence of many centuries,
by preaching ; but, on the other hand, he administered
clerical discipline with uncommon severity. He was per-
petually sending his officers round the city, with orders that,
if they found priest or monk in a state of intoxication, they
were to imprison, strip, and scourge him ; and numbers of
dissolute clergy he banished to Siberia. His name, however,
is chiefly remembered by reason of his innovations, or perhaps
resuscitation of forgotten details in ritual.
copyists' errors had crept into the service books, which were
in manuscript, he sent deputations to Mount Athos, and
throughout the Eastern Churches, for correct copies, put the
printing press to work to circulate new rubrics, and set on
foot a work of revision, which met with frantic opposition on
the part of the ignorant among the people, and was ulti-
mately made the occasion of the secession of a large part
Finding that

APPENDICES.
379
of what are
now known as the Russian raskolniks, or
dissenters.
The fourth period, which has been called--though, alas !
in only a very limited sense—the reformation of the Russian
Church, extends from the time of Peter the Great to our
own day. The patriarchate had attained to a position of
great power, and the great Peter was not the man to brook
such a rival as Nikon had been to his father Alexis ; accord-
ingly, on the death of the Patriarch Adrian, in 1700, his
chair was allowed to remain vacant for twenty years, at the
end of which time Peter abolished the patriarchate and
appointed a synod. He also carried out many reforms and
improvements, which he had the good sense to see were
sorely needed. He established schools for the children of
the clergy, abolished anchorites, reformed the monasteries,
and issued regulations enjoining bishops to read the Scrip-
tures carefully, and not to be absent from their dioceses
without permission of the synod. Many of his changes,
however, excited great dissatisfaction. The measures of
Nikon had sadly perturbed the orthodox Russians; those of
Peter drove them to desperation and to further schism.
Among the charges brought against the Tsar were such as
these : that he had introduced into the churches pictures by
Western artists; and this was said to be a mortal sin.
Besides this, at the opening of the eighteenth century, Peter
changed the calendar, gave his people the ist of January for
their New Year's Day, and began to reckon the year from
the birth of Christ instead of from the creation of the world.
This, among other like things, was regarded as the very sign
of Antichrist, inasmuch as he was "to change times and
laws"; and Peter the Great is still designated Antichrist by
a large proportion of the Russian dissenters. Since the time
of the great reformer the Russian Church has gone on very
much as he left it, the few minor reforms introduced by the
Emperors Alexander the First and Second being in the right
direction.

380
APPENDICES.
APPENDIX B.
THE DOCTRINES OF THE RUSSIAN, ROMAN, AND
ENGLISH CHURCHES.
(From page 163.)
THE doctrines of the Russian Church are not set forth in
any one public document like the “Thirty-Nine Articles of
Religion,” but must be sought in its creeds, councils, Church
services, and catechisms. Generally speaking, it may be said
that the Bible and tradition form the Russian rule of faith,
and excommunication is the penalty of heterodoxy. The
Nicene Creed we know the Russians receive, with the excep-
tion of the clause relating to the procession of the Holy
Ghost from the Son; and the Athanasian Creed finds a
place in their Church books, though it is not read in the
public services. There are likewise certain works by eminent
Russian divines which have been promulgated or received
with more or less authority by councils or the general consent
of the Eastern Church. Such are the treatise of St. John
Damascene on the Orthodox Faith ; the Answers of the
Patriarch Jeremiah to the Lutherans, 1574—1581 ; Peter
Mogila's Orthodox Confession of Faith of the Catholic and
Apostolic Church of the East, 1643—1662; the Eighteen
Articles of the Synod of Bethlehem, 1672; and the Orthodox
Doctrine of Platon, 1762. We get a better insight, how-
ever, into the doctrines of the Russian Church, as they are
taught in the present day, from Mr. Blackmore's translation
of the Russian Primer, the Catechisms, and the Treatise on
the Duty of Parish Priests—a perusal of which last seems to
me to bring the Russian Church nearer to the English, and
further from the Roman, than is generally supposed. Some
idea of the divergences of the three Churches will be obtained
by briefly enumerating their differences, thus :-
1. The principal differences between the Russian and
English Church are upon-

APPENDICES.
381
(1) The number of the Ecumenical Councils.
(2) The number of the sacraments.
(3) Confirmation by priests.
(4) Marriage of clergy after ordination.
(5) Consecration of married priests to the episcopate.
(6) Transubstantiation.
(7) Invocation of saints.
(8) Reverence to sacred pictures and relics.
(9) Prayer for the faithful departed.
(10) The procession of the Holy Ghost.
2. The differences between the Russian and English
Churches on one side, and the Roman on the other, are upon-
(1) Papal supremacy.
(2) Purgatory.
(3) Communion in one kind.
(4) Celibacy of priests and deacons.
(5) Indulgences.
(6) Works of supererogation.
(7) Judicial absolution.
(8) The doctrine of intention in priestly acts.
(9) The Apocrypha.
(10) Service in an unknown tongue.
(11) Withdrawal of the Scriptures from the laity.
(12) Use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist.
(13) The immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary.
(14) Papal infallibility.
3. Once more, the differences between the English Church
and the Russian and Roman combined are upon--
(1) The number of the sacraments.
(2) Married bishops.
(3) Invocation of saints.
(4) Reverence of pictures and relics.
(5) Prayer for the faithful departed.
(6) Compulsory confession.
These are some of the principal differences between the
three branches of the Catholic Church, besides which there
are others connected with usage and ritual.

382
APPENDICES.
APPENDIX C.
THE SCHISMS OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. .
(From page 163.)
a
It cannot be denied that there is a very considerable amount
of toleration of foreign religions in the Russian Empire.
The Tsar does not emulate the Roman Pontiff, who, as long
as he could prevent it, which was up to about 12 years
ago, would not allow a Protestant place of worship to be
built within the walls of his capital. On the contrary, at
the fair of Nijni Novgorod, the Mohammedan mosque and
the Armenian church stand side by side with the orthodox
cathedral, and I am not sure that I did not see in the Chinese
quarter a Buddhist temple. Notwithstanding all this, how-
ever, the religious toleration of the Tsar is of a somewhat
one-sided character. A man is usually left in peace to
practise the religion in which he was born, so long as he
does not try to proselytize. Again, should an English
Churchman, or any one else living in Russia, be convinced
that the Greek Church is more scriptural and catholic than
his own, the Greek Church will receive him into her com-
munion. But not vice versa. On the contrary, should a
Russian Churchman living in Russia be convinced that the
English Church is more scriptural and catholic than his
own, and should he attempt to carry out his convictions, he
would thereby render himself liable, I believe, to expatriation,
confiscation of property, and other pains and penalties too
dreadful to mention; and to receive the convert into the
English Church would be more than the Chaplain at Peters-
burg or Moscow dare do. Again, in mixed marriages—that
is, when either father or mother is "orthodox ”—the children
must be orthodox, and follow the religion of the State.
Russians abroad sometimes change their religious profession,

APPENDICES.
383
in which case they remain Russian subjects, but are not per-
mitted to return to their country unless they recant.
The matter therefore stands thus, that whilst the Russian
Church is ready to receive from all, she gives to none--that
is, if she can help it. Consequently, what she will not
give, there are some who choose to take. The rich, who
are possessed of broad acres, be they ever so convinced that
some of the doctrines of the Greek Church are unscriptural
and uncatholic, naturally think twice before they render their
estates liable to confiscation. But there are others, who have
less to lose, for whom confiscation has no such terrors; or,
if it has, dare to face them, and bid the law do its worst.
Persecution, however, such as we have known in England,
has never been a characteristic of the Church of Russia. I
do not mean that her repressive measures have never taken
a form which can with difficulty be distinguished from perse-
cution. But she has never had an Inquisition; neither
Petersburg nor Moscow, has a Smithfield ; and the plains of
Russia have never heard such cries as once resounded through
the valleys of Piedmont. On the whole, I am disposed to
think that, in religious matters at all events, the hug of the
bear is not so bad as might be expected from his growl;
and that the powers that be, when they see a religious point
cannot be carried, meet the difficulty half-way.
I left Siberia in a Russian man-of-war, and heard a story
that will illustrate this. Formerly the law obtained in the
Russian navy that all the seamen should have shaven chins.
Now, at the Council of Moscow in the seventeenth century,
to shave the beard was pronounced "a sin which even the
blood of martyrs could not expiate”; and some of the Russian
dissenters still believe that to cut the hair or the beard is
altogether unscriptural and unorthodox. Accordingly, one
fine day two recruits appeared in the navy with flowing
beards. They were ordered to cut them off, but they obsti-
nately refused. Their insubordination was reported to higher
quarters, and an order was returned that the men must shave
or be shaved. The men still refused, and in consequence
were shaved, to the saving of their consciences, but the loss

384
APPENDICES.
of their beards. But nature gave them new ones, and the
difficulty came up again, the men once more refusing to obey
orders. Their obstinacy was again reported, this time to
very high authorities—to one of the Grand Dukes, if not
to the Emperor himself—when it occurred to one of them,
in his wisdom, to ask why these men should be made to
shave ; and, no satisfactory answer being forthcoming,
another question followed—why should any of the men
be made to shave ? and shortly there went forth a regula-
tion that, throughout the whole of the navy, men should be
left to do as they liked with their beards. So in many
things respecting religion : when the Government of the
present day cannot carry a point, they not unfrequently
give it up, or cease what looks like active persecution.
The Russians have, however, certain fanatical sects to deal
with, whose tenets are so outrageous that no enlightened
Government could do otherwise than try to repress them. .
Some of their ideas are sufficiently ludicrous. “ Cursed be
the man,” said one of these people to an acquaintance of
mine—“Cursed be the man who presumes to pray to God
in a pair of trousers !” from which, I suppose, we are to infer
that in public worship these individuals think it right to divest
themselves of their nether garments. I am not aware, how-
ever, that persons such as these are persecuted. Among the
,
fanatical sects also are the Scoptsi, some of whom are banished
to a village on the Yenesei. There are certain sectarians also
who have no settled home, but wander about as strangers and
pilgrims. We met some of them in the Siberian wilds. The
great mass, however, of the Raskolniks, or Russian dissenters,
estimated at eight millions in number, are very different from
those I have mentioned.
When, in the seventeenth century, the Patriarch Nikon
began to have the Church books revised and corrected, he
met with fierce opposition. He was charged with interpo-
lating instead of correcting the books, and nothing would
persuade many of the ignorant people to the contrary. Many
thus became unsettled and broke away—not, they would say,
because they were leaving the Church, but because the Church,

APPENDICES.
385
ever.
with its new-fangled notions, was leaving them. Then when,
in addition to Nikon's changes, Peter the Great introduced
others, things were looked upon as becoming worse than
There was, accordingly, a large section of the most
ultra-Conservative Russians, both of priests and people, who
clung to old books, old pictures, and old ways, under the
impression that thus only could they worship God according
to the customs of their forefathers; and it is from these
secessionists that the great mass of the Staroveri, or Old
Believers, are descended. We heard, at Tiumen, that
some are very strict in their habits of living ; that, for
instance, they will not drink tea or wine, and will not
drink out of the same vessel with one who is not of their
sect. The Staroveri are split into two principal parties.
They had a bishop with them at the time of their secession,
and he ordained many priests; but as these priests died
they asked, How shall we fill their places ? They had no
second bishop to ordain more. Some decided that they
would do without priests, and these are called Bezpopoftschins,
or priestless. The others for a time got priests from the
Established Church as best they could, but eventually came
to a compromise with the Government, and, by certain con-
cessions made to them, saved their scruples and obtained
their priests. These are called Popoftschins. The differences, ,
however, between both parties on the one side, and the
Established Church on the other, were not questions of doc-
trine, but such points as these : the Starovers gave the bene-
diction holding up two fingers, the established clergy holding
up three, which latter practice was regarded by the Old
Believers as a mortal sin. The Starovers' form of the cross
had three transverse beams, instead of the Russian two or
the Latin one. Again, to say the name of Jesus in two
syllables instead of three (as in Greek) was condemned by
the Starovers, as was also the repetition of the hallelujah in
the service thrice instead of twice. It became also an alarm-
ing innovation to read or write, for ecclesiastical purposes, a
word in modern Russ. I had a reminder of this in 1878
on the Dwina, where Old Believers exist, for I sometimes
VOL. I.
25



386
APPENDICES.
found my tracts objected to because not printed in Scla-
vonic.
But there are many among the Raskolniks of Russia who
dissent from the Established Church on points less diminutive
than those of the Starovers; as the Dukhobortsi, or "wrestlers
with the Spirit,” who spiritualize to a high degree both doc-
trines and sacraments. Also they reject pictures, do not cross
themselves, nor observe the appointed fasts. In their meetings
they pray for one another, sing psalms, and explain the Word
of God. They call themselves “Christians," and their great
dogma is to worship God in spirit and in truth. They have
no magistrates, but govern their own society; they practise
brotherly love, have all things common, and are remarkable
for the orderly and cleanly manner in which they live. An
officer whom I met last year in the Caucasus spoke to me in
the highest terms of their blameless lives.
There are many other sects of the Russian Church, many
followers of which are found in Siberia, either because banished
or born there, or having migrated by their own choice for the
sake of greater liberty. Not the least interesting among
them are the Molokans, some of whom I found on the Amur,
and others more recently in the Trans-Caucasus.

APPENDICES.
387
APPENDIX D.
THE DISCOVERIES OF WIGGINS AND NORDENSKJOLD.
(From page 196.)
FROM various papers in the Proceedings of the Society for
the Promotion of Marine Enterprise and Trade in Russia,
together with information gathered by Mr. Oswald Cattley,
it seems that Mr. M. K. Sidoroff of Petersburg was the
agitator, and, in a certain sense, the originator, in modern
times, of sea-trading adventure in the north of the Russian
empire. He was largely interested in gold-mining in the
Yenesei, and his efforts to open up marine communication
with the north date from 1841. In 1860, thanks to
his enterprise, the first foreign vessel entered the Bay of
Petchora. At the Universal Exhibition of 1862, in London,
Mr. Sidoroff exhibited, and obtained two medals for, pro-
ducts from the Turukhansk district-graphite, skins, coal,
salt, mammoth tusks, etc.—all of which he presented to
the South Kensington Museum. In 1867 he began agitating
the possibility of communicating with Europe by sea viâ the
Yenesei and Obi rivers and the Arctic Ocean. In 1868
he communicated with the Norwegian whalers, and at his
initiative Captains Foyne, Carlsen, and others ventured into
the Kara Sea, but none reached to the mouth of either
of the two great rivers. This success was to be reaped
by Captain Wiggins, of Sunderland, who fitted out, at his
own expense, a small steamer, the Diana, in which he
reached the mouth of the Obi in 1874. He was resolved
upon repeating the voyage in 1875, and to that end invited
capitalists to assist him in organizing a trade between Siberia
and England. These overtures were not successful to any
considerable extent, though two gentlemen came forward
with subscriptions in Sunderland, and the captain added
more from his own means ; but the whole amounted to

388
APPENDICES.
less than was needed for efficient operations. Determined,
however, not to be baffled, Wiggins purchased a small cutter,
the Whim, that might have been put in a good-sized drawing-
room (it was only 45 feet long, and of 27 tons register !), and
in that he sailed direct for the Kara Sea. The weather was
adverse, and he was compelled to return in the autumn of
1875. Another explorer, however, had followed suit, for
Professor Nordenskjold, seeing what Wiggins had done in
1874, took the same track in 1875, and reached the mouth
of the Yenesei. Thence he sent back his walrus sloop to
Hammerfest, ascended the river, and returned overland to
Petersburg
Captain Wiggins was now asked to meet his brother
explorer, Nordenskjold, at Petersburg, where they both
addressed crowded audiences; after which the Russian mer-
chants offered subscriptions towards the equipment of another
expedition, under the command of Captain Wiggins, who
was to return at once to England and secure a steamer
suitable to the work. But jealousy of a “foreign element"
subsequently seized some of the Russian merchants, and they
desired that a Russian naval officer should head the expe-
dition—in other words, that Captain Wiggins should be
pilot, which he declined. Many of the Russian subscrip-
tions were in consequence withheld, but not that of Mr.
Sibiriakof, who placed his money in the hands of the
editor of the Times. This money, with the assistance
furnished by Mr. Gardiner, of Goring, enabled Wiggins to
attempt a third voyage, and he now purchased the screw-
steamer Thames—doing so, however, under protest, for she
was not the vessel he ought to have had. In this, in 1876,
he started for the mouth of the Obi, and reached it ; but,
owing to the unsuitability of his ship, he could not ascend
the river. He lay, therefore, in the Baidaratsky Gulf of the
Kara Sea, employing himself usefully in making nautical
surveys, dredging, etc. He then directed his course to the
Yenesei, entered the river, and reached the village of Du-
dinsk, about 400 miles from the ocean. Here he was
informed that the nearest port or river of safety was the


APPENDICES.
389
Kureika. I have since been told, by one in Siberia, that this
was a mistake, the river not being a suitable place for winter
quarters. But the captain proceeded without chart, without
pilot ; time was of importance; and he had not got his
steamer into the Kureika more than two or three days before
the ice formed, and she was locked up for eight months.
This had been anticipated ; and the captain now returned
overland, post-haste to London, which he reached in January
1877.
Meanwhile Professor Nordenskjold had also been following
up his discoveries, in proceeding again to the Yenesei, in
1876, with an object mostly, but not entirely, scientific. It
was arranged that his expedition, consisting of Swedish
geologists, botanists, zoologists, and men of science, should be
divided into two parties; one going with the Professor, in the
steamship Ymar, through the Kara Sea, was to enter the mouth
of the river and ascend to Mesenkin ; whilst the other party,
under the direction of M. Théel, was to proceed overland to
Krasnoiarsk, and then descend the river to meet their com-
rades. The Professor ascended to Mesenkin, but M. Théel
could not get so far. The two parties therefore failed to
effect a meeting ; but they added much valuable information
to what had been hitherto known of the natural history of
the Yenesei, and which was printed in two reports—the one
from Professor Nordenskjold, and the other from M. Théel,
addressed to Messrs. Oscar Dickson, of Gothenburg, and
Alexander Sibiriakoff, at whose joint expense the expedi-
tion had been sent.
In the spring of 1877 Wiggins went overland from
England through Siberia, and down the Yenesei to the
Thames, intending to steam back to Europe. But the vessel
was damaged by the breaking-up of the ice, and became a
wreck; and Wiggins was once more compelled to return by
land.
He had been accompanied on the outward journey
by Mr. Henry Seebohm, who proceeded to the Yenesei to
study its ornithology, and who has since published some of
the results of his researches, as well as a book called “Siberia
in Europe,” on the ornithology of North-eastern Russia and

a


390
APPENDICES.
part of Siberia. Besides these travellers and their journeys,
there have been several voyages undertaken, with a view to
bring Siberia into maritime contact with Europe. The
Newcastle Daily Chronicle for November 28th, 1878, records
several voyages as having been made up to that time, with
more or less success; and thus from the years 1875 to
1878 we learnt more than had ever been previously known
of these two ancient rivers, the Obi and the Yenesei—to
which latter, another vessel has made its way during the
present year.
That Western Siberia is capable of being made to play
an important part in the supply of European markets seems
certain. The country possesses immense stores of minerals,
from gold down to excellent coal, and agricultural produce
both of fibre and cereals, the latter including wheat, to be
purchased at from 12 to 15 shillings per quarter, first hand,
which in England commands from 45 to 50 shillings.
A thousand miles of land between the Tobol and the Obi is
capable of producing an almost unlimited supply of wheat,
oats, barley, rye, hay, linseed, flax, and hemp; and to these
might be added for export, to be purchased very cheaply,
hides, tallow, wool, and other products. Already, on the
rivers of the Obi system alone, there are no less than 46.
passenger and tug steamers plying annually, and ranging
from 30 up to 120 horse-power. If, then, two central ware-
houses could be established, at, say, Tiumen and Tomsk, it
would be easy from thence to purchase and carry produce
to the mouth of the Obi. The difficult part of the naviga-
tion lies between the mouth of the Obi and the Kara or the
Waigatz Straits, west of the Kara Sea; and what is required
is a powerful steamer, adapted for working among ice if
needed, to ply between the Obi Gulf and a depôt, say, on
Waigatz Island, or even at the North Cape, whence ordinary
vessels could bring the produce away. The ice steamer
might then, in her last voyage for the season, return with
foreign merchandise, to be sold at the establishments in the
interior, and, in February, at the annual fair of Irbit where
merchants congregate from all parts of Siberia. Mr. Seebohm
APPENDICES.
391
goes so far as to say that, could the talked-of canal be formed
from the Obi Gulf across the Yamal peninsula, it might
prove almost as important as that across the Isthmus of
Suez. Captain Wiggins thinks the canal impracticable, but
is sanguine as to the possibilities of trade on the Obi; and
it has been computed by Mr. Oswald Cattley that with a
strong steamer, a tug, six barges, and a couple of lighters,
there might be exported from Siberia, in a single navigation
season, 6,000 tons of wheat; but, of course, this would
involve the outlay of considerable capital, and the location
of responsible agents in the country.

MAR 1 5 1916
END OF VOLUME I.

Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury,


SIBERIA.
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Ras-shua
Brotona
Chandi
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Komilaman
Borissove son
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Lapte
Paris
maling
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TOBIOLSK
Tasheveva
van die bish
C.Elizabeth S E A Kompakovatza
Amoors
Tugowic
Gulf
Shipunskie A
ROLAJEVSK
blongri
palavele
Yavino le sukurit
Man. Chuhtugee
Started by Nyi B.
Kurilskii Str. YeLopatka
Sofriend
movsk
Ei Terpinya
IN
Wada
13B
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Lebi
SU
Ciganskia
Narit
Urakowie
Sigos
Povo Iinskoe
mugen
Olaip
А.
Artistes
OF
de Maksim
bilimsk
Chipbuk Keslemeler Dubrobekamo
Cherskaya
Petropavlovslade a
Kirense
of branchin-Má kozsko
IR KUSIK AY A.
Just kutskot 2
Tuale
Rybinske udhe
Prisa
ON
R
COR
Gare
Mexing
resumkova
Popili
Akio
Barcha
B. of Patience or Terpintya
My tartinakbay
skoe
Gulf of Taztarria
Chakiboro
Mithu
Birusa
Obze
Tira
Chansactions
Chazes
set
Amado
Tara
Dushkar gre per ingrand
Slatousty
Thalabinsk Petropatlayil
himdravinskaia
Teditsk. Ui Do Tanungulia
Trukana
Sopremika
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2
Pirmo
Sufirin
Er shurup
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B.
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o
mr Antra
Piko Choo (Yeteroplo
SUPE
Yustiskoe
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Vet Kemik
Keau seiska
Bogibech arisk
Toulskog
Tratchanskoeo)
Taseyevskou Ταλιείκοσι
Mariborskod
Troixki
Kausk
KRAJOTARSE
Barbaros
fire shantanovisko
Bernay
Raspadiskut
Nijmi Winsle
endo
Tulique
Kennedir
esse
On twee
in gaas
Korintesto
kimirka
29 Rake
ko babes
TRKT
YOUR
Globus
of macon
Strelacja
Ke Urupkownale
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Branko
oftognitari
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Mem
Ows
Terki
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or
kartekoer
Is set
Dalmator o Shotrok Ishtme
Jhilutorgisk Lalyglina
Dubrobie
chernod Pratata
Cleanskoooom
OMSKO
T. Thani
Ichpbakly
Robinska
Krudoyarska
Stand
Fliezinok slBobrovslaig
se Wangia kút 3 Mobanovskala
Kokehetavski
Kibengi
Ishim,
Atbaharskie
Tounova
pokazao Obinski Ko asorat
af Sari Kopa Logighkeitto
50 korabniak
Aknalinski
Pabai
prekinolta
Platinets besoakingle
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Soluca
Certahtansskoene
COM
Barghe
Granglutinele la
croiskal AB
shuntimundo
Chatlar
Good Hope B.
Tarpauktiones
eppe of Lлоизде Kalijskaria. Katchinsk
Mamins
Kaiast
abbuskool
Koloang Treskond
Ujurskole
M
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er lage
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Bejatskocke
Talianskoef Kuenetské
Makanan
Barnar
Tagittle
Cláuhaduráloves Biisk
Kogyakoredia
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Godkoep Beloglancobo
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Bespaaaysia
grlor etekusia
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Biran kay
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Tele
mm
19
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Gar
VIS
Soka
Naibu
simusis
Mordvinof B.
Nevelskaya B.
M. Ham
MK lokols Urup
La Perouse Str.
C.Irud
Pernai Bitinstri 1. Soya
Yanloestyi I.
Spanbag C.
Künasiri I.
Prasi
Siwtau I.
is Broughton C.
OF
Yerimo C.
ten
Ft Djargaragedia
Kos Kopa 1.9
Andata todete
Subகள்
a
l'orso tu
creare
40
Pariga கான
Stenos
SUED சிரம
slutakte
Subna
Tben
I Bch premte
acoitaasai
Di Korbena
ekur
Maker Borldoshgan Rgdiseskaya
Khemi
Ulu
Nomosyon
Tsitsibət
mengatingar Str
I Dergue
magna
Star
Peretoe
Poleh kosa
or Dala..Nor
Erabeo
ons
blower
Saratovo
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ວັນຈັນ
Heshte
Mänmatchu
Dj Bho
Futuri
Kobato
Elikarpovlar
Olanda
Tsi-tai-bar UTO2
Guluw stijor Strigore
San-sta
soráburg
Chor or
Motion
Kuokho
Horka
10
Kemchake
Chali
Holanachoka
Tanmola
BE
Sii
Tezoter
Baldrigous laiasa
nekirom.skhi Abagaitzig
Khailand
Kertah
vurbi-bodo
Gunnar
ladimir B.
Solga Bag
Strogonoff GSE E SE
SEA
Dico-siri I.
JAPAN
Mosteinn Fohsan
o the
Kedwo bui
Sedumer le
BE
Noen soura
siango
Victoria
Tes
Padivostock
Teorji-nobrir
Andynawskaid
Aler
Huseyn
Siebenguet
Chalbwillen
Keruten
Gamaley Cat Hirozelai
Krunt B.
band
B. Meriamens
Sa Nambu Harb.
pondent, iyagi
O
OL ATI'N
sarate
Minato
Dalai
SPA
alebeltinske
Kiris
Karther sw-tai
nes theoljer todo Tome
Krilimaiko
Dalai-khua
Arolipaks
Ofia
dirin
Trai
Bloots
Khota
Possue
res
Surratia
Mokov
Koplo
Napolem Roadstead
Kurore
Tolcano
Капалы
Tola
Karen
L.
Burquitton
Brdoa sad
Sono sholantil
Smattikha Fuorin
°Kholusi
Hara-margnai
a
terad har sepedai B.
70
140
a SC
k
130
80
100
110
120
90
ELLE Russians.
Chinese, Gilyalce, Ainos.
English Statute Miles. 69:16-Idegree
Voguls, Ostraks, Samoyedes.
Tatas, Kurghese, Kalmuks, Yakutes. Buriats, Tunguses, Goldi, Yukaghirs, Chukchees, Koriaks, kam chadales
100
30
400
600
800
W& A.K. Johnston,Edhnburgh & London,
pЙ
р

255
13
/Э
eeP/
9
SSL
d
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
DATE DUE
MAR 2 1987
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 01138 5179
Prilmed by Prezervating NEM 1992

BUHR
A
a 39015 01814230 Ob