Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar Part 31

The village is wholly devoted to religious purposes, and occupied exclusively by Bouriats. I was anxious to visit it, but circ.u.mstances did not favor my desires.

We made both crossings of the Selenga on the ice without difficulty.

It was only a single day from the time the ferry ceased running until the ice was safe for teams. We reached Verkne Udinsk late in the evening, and drove to a house where my companion had friends. The good lady brought some excellent nalifka of her own preparation, and the more we praised it the more she urged us to drink. What with tea, nalifka, and a variety of solid food, we were pretty well filled during a halt of two hours.

It was toward midnight when we emerged from the house to continue our journey. Maack found his taranta.s.s at Verkne Udinsk, and as it was larger and better than mine we a.s.signed the latter to Evan and the baggage, and took the best to ourselves. Evan was a Yakut whom my friend brought from the Lena country. He was intelligent and active, and a.s.sisted greatly to soften the asperities of the route. With my few words of Russian, and his quick comprehension, we understood each other very well.

During the first few hours from Verkne Udinsk the sky was obscured and the air warm. My furs were designed for cold weather, and their weight in the temperature then prevailing threw me into perspiration. In my dehar I was unpleasantly warm, and without it I s.h.i.+vered. I kept alternately opening and closing the garment, and obtained very little sleep up to our arrival at the first station. While we were changing horses the clouds blew away and the temperature fell several degrees.

Under the influence of the cold I fell into a sound sleep, and did not heed the rough, grater-like surface of the recently frozen road.

From Verkne Udinsk to Lake Baikal, the road follows the Selenga valley, which gradually widens as one descends it. The land appears fertile and well adapted to farming purposes but only a small portion is under cultivation. The inhabitants are pretty well rewarded for their labor if I may judge by the appearance of their farms and villages. Until reaching Ilyensk, I found the cliffs and mountains extending quite near the river. In some places the road is cut into the rocks in such a way as to afford excitement to a nervous traveler.

The villages were numerous and had an air of prosperity. Here and there new houses were going up, and made quite a contrast to the old and decaying habitations near them. My attention was drawn to the well-sweeps exactly resembling those in the rural districts of New England. From the size of the sweeps, I concluded the wells were deep.

The soil in the fields had a loose, friable appearance that reminded me of the farming lands around Cleveland, Ohio.

One of the villages where we changed horses is called Kabansk from the Russian word '_Kaban_' (wild boar). This animal abounds in the vicinity and is occasionally hunted for sport. The chase of the wild boar is said to be nearly as dangerous as that of the bear, the brute frequently turning upon his pursuer and making a determined fight. We pa.s.sed the Monastery of Troitska founded in 1681 for the conversion of the Bouriats. It is an imposing edifice built like a Russian church in the middle of a large area surrounded by a high wall. Though it must have impressed the natives by its architectural effects it was powerless to change their faith.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILD BOAR HUNT.]

As it approaches Lake Baikal the Selenga divides into several branches, and encloses a large and very fertile delta. The afternoon following our departure from Verkne Udinsk, we came in sight of the lake, and looked over the blue surface of the largest body of fresh water in Northern Asia. The mountains on the western sh.o.r.e appeared about eight or ten miles away, though they were really more than thirty. We skirted the sh.o.r.e of the lake, turning our horses' heads to the southward. The clear water reminded me of Lake Michigan as one sees it on approaching Chicago by railway from the East. Its waves broke gently on a pebbly beach, where the cold of commencing winter had changed much of the spray to ice.

There was no steamer waiting at Posolsky, but we were told that one was hourly expected. Maack was radiant at finding a letter from his wife awaiting him at the station. I enquired for letters but did not obtain any. Unlike my companion. I had no wife at Irkutsk.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WIFE AT IRKUTSK.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: NO WIFE AT IRKUTSK.]

The steamboat landing is nine versts below the town, and as the post route ended at Posolsky, we were obliged to engage horses at a high rate, to take us to the port. The alternate freezing and thawing of the road--its last act was to freeze--had rendered it something like the rough way in a Son-of-Malta Lodge. The agent a.s.sured us the steamer would arrive during the night. Was there ever a steamboat agent who did not promise more than his employers performed?

According to the tourist's phrase the port of Posolsky can be 'done'

in about five minutes. The entire settlement comprised two buildings, one a hotel, and the other a storehouse and stable. A large quant.i.ty of merchandise was piled in the open air, and awaited removal.

It included tea from Kiachta, and vodki or native whiskey from Irkutsk. There are several distilleries in the Trans-Baikal province, but they are unable to meet the demand in the country east of the lake. From what I saw _in transitu_ the consumption must be enormous.

The government has a tax on vodki equal to about fifty cents a gallon, which is paid by the manufacturers. The law is very strict, and the penalties are so great that I was told no one dared attempt an evasion of the excise duties, except by bribing the collector.

The hotel was full of people waiting for the boat, and the accommodations were quite limited. We thought the taranta.s.s preferable to the hotel, and retired early to sleep in our carriage. A teamster tied his horses to our wheels, and as the brutes fell to kicking during the night, and attempted to break away, they disturbed our slumbers. I rose at daybreak and watched the yems.h.i.+cks making their toilet. The whole operation was performed by tightening the girdle and rubbing the half-opened eyes.

Morning brought no boat. There was nothing very interesting after we had breakfasted, and as we might be detained there a whole week, the prospect was not charming. We organized a hunting excursion, Maack with his gun and I with my revolver. I a.s.saulted the magpies which were numerous and impertinent, and succeeded in frightening them.

Gulls were flying over the lake; Maack desired one for his cabinet at Irkutsk, but couldn't get him. He brought down an enormous crow, and an imprudent hawk that pursued a small bird in our vicinity. His last exploit was in shooting a partridge which alighted, strange to say, on the roof of the hotel within twenty feet of a noisy crowd of yems.h.i.+cks. The bird was of a snowy whiteness, the Siberian partridge changing from brown to white at the beginning of winter, and from white to brown again as the snow disappears.

A "soudna" or sailing barge was anch.o.r.ed at the entrance of a little bay, and was being filled with tea to be transported to Irkutsk. The soudna is a bluff-bowed, broad sterned craft, a sort of cross between Noah's Ark and a Chinese junk. It is strong but not elegant, and might sail backward or sidewise nearly as well as ahead. Its carrying capacity is great in proportion to its length, as it is very wide and its sides rise very high above the water. Every soudna I saw had but one mast which carried a square sail. These vessels can only sail with the wind, and then not very rapidly. An American pilot boat could pa.s.s a thousand of them without half trying.

About noon we saw a thin wreath of smoke betokening the approach of the steamer. In joy at this welcome sight we dined and bought tickets for the pa.s.sage, ours of the first cla.s.s being printed in gold, while Evan's billet for the deck was in Democratic black. It cost fifteen roubles for the transport of each taranta.s.s, but our baggage was taken free, and we were not even required to unload it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SOUDNA.]

There is no wharf at Posolsky and no harbor, the steamers anchoring in the open water half a mile from sh.o.r.e. Pa.s.sengers, mails, and baggage are taken to the steamer in large row boats, while heavy freight is carried in soudnas. The boat that took us brought a convoy of exiles before we embarked. They formed a double line at the edge of the lake where they were closely watched by their guards. When we reached the steamer we found another party of prisoners waiting to go on sh.o.r.e.

All were clad in sheepskin pelisses and some carried extra garments.

Several women and children accompanied the party, and I observed two or three old men who appeared little able to make a long journey. One sick man too feeble to walk, was supported by his guards and his fellow prisoners.

Though there was little wind, and that little blew from sh.o.r.e, the boat danced uneasily on the waves. Our carriages came off on the last trip of the boat, and were hoisted by means of a running tackle on one of the steamer's yards.

While our embarkation was progressing a crew of Russians and Bouriats towed the now laden soudna to a position near our stern. When all was ready, we took her hawser, hoisted our anchor and steamed away. For some time I watched the low eastern sh.o.r.e of the lake until it disappeared in the distance. Posolsky has a monastery built on the spot where a Russian emba.s.sador with his suite was murdered by Bouriats about the year 1680. The last objects I saw behind me were the walls, domes, and turrets of this monastery glistening in the afternoon sunlight. They rose clear and distinct on the horizon, an outwork of Christianity against the paganism of Eastern Asia.

The steamer was the _Ignalienif_, a side wheel boat of about 300 tons.

Her model was that of an ocean or coasting craft, she had two masts, and could spread a little sail if desired. Her engines were built at Ekaterineburg in the Ural Mountains, and hauled overland 2500 miles.

She and her sister boat, the _General Korsackoff_, are very profitable to their owners during the months of summer. They carry pa.s.sengers, mails, and light freight, and nearly always have one or two soudnas in tow. Their great disadvantage at present is the absence of a port on the eastern sh.o.r.e.

The navigation of Lake Baikal is very difficult. Storms arise with little warning, and are often severe. At times the boats are obliged to remain for days in the middle of the lake as they cannot always make the land while a gale continues. There was very little breeze when we crossed, but the steamer was tossed quite roughly. The winds blowing from the mountains along the lake, frequently sweep with great violence and drive unlucky soudnas upon the rocks.

The water of the lake is so clear that one can see to a very great depth. The lake is nearly four hundred miles long by about thirty or thirty-five in width; it is twelve hundred feet above the sea level, and receives nearly two hundred tributaries great and small. Its outlet, the Angara, is near the southwestern end, and is said to carry off not more than a tenth of the water that enters the lake. What becomes of the surplus is a problem no one has been able to solve. The natives believe there is an underground pa.s.sage to the sea, and sonic geologists favor this opinion. Soundings of 2000 feet have been made without finding bottom. On the western sh.o.r.e the mountains rise abruptly from the water, and in some places no bottom has been found at 400 feet depth, within pistol shot of the bank. This fact renders navigation dangerous, as a boat might be driven on sh.o.r.e in even a light breeze before her anchors found holding ground.

The natives have many superst.i.tions concerning Lake Baikal. In their language it is the "Holy Sea," and it would be sacrilege to term it a lake. Certainly it has several marine peculiarities. Gulls and other ocean birds frequent its sh.o.r.es, and it is the only body of fresh water on the globe where the seal abounds. Banks of coral like those in tropical seas exist in its depths.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE.]

The mountains on the western sh.o.r.e are evidently of volcanic origin, and earthquakes are not unfrequent. A few years ago the village of Stepnoi, about twenty miles from the mouth of the Selenga, was destroyed by an earthquake. Part of the village disappeared beneath the water while another part after sinking was lifted twenty or thirty feet above its original level. Irkutsk has been frequently shaken at the foundations, and on one occasion the walls of its churches were somewhat damaged. Around Lake Baikal there are several hot springs, some of which attract fas.h.i.+onable visitors from Irkutsk during the season.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LAKE BAIKAL IN WINTER]

The natives say n.o.body was ever lost in Lake Baikal. When a person is drowned there the waves invariably throw his body on sh.o.r.e.

The lake does not freeze until the middle of December, and sometimes later. Its temperature remains pretty nearly the same at all seasons, about 48 Fahrenheit. In winter it is crossed on the ice, the pa.s.sage ordinarily occupying about five hours. The lake generally freezes when the air is perfectly still so that the surface is of glossy smoothness until covered with snow. A gentleman in Irkutsk described to me his feelings when he crossed Lake Baikal in winter for the first time. The ice was six feet thick, but so perfectly transparent that he seemed driving over the surface of the water. The illusion was complete, and not wholly dispelled when he alighted. "Starting from the western side, the opposite coast was not visible, and I experienced" said my friend, "the sensation of setting out in a sleigh to cross the Atlantic from Liverpool to New York."

In summer and in winter communication is pretty regular, but there is a suspension of travel when the ice is forming, and another when it breaks up. This causes serious inconvenience, and has led the government to build a road around the southern extremity of the lake.

The mountains are lofty and precipitous, and the work is done at vast expense. The road winds over cliffs and crags sometimes near the lake and again two thousand feet above it. Largo numbers of peasants, Bouriats, and prisoners have been employed there for several years, but the route was not open for wheeled vehicles at the time I crossed the lake.

One mode of cutting the road through the mountains was to build large bonfires in winter when the temperature was very low. The heat caused the rock to crack so that large ma.s.ses could be removed, but the operation was necessarily slow. The insurrection of June, 1866, occurred on this road.

Formerly a winter station was kept on the ice half-way across the lake. By a sudden thaw at the close of one winter the men and horses of a station were swallowed up, and nothing was known of them until weeks afterward, when their bodies were washed ash.o.r.e. Since this catastrophe the entire pa.s.sage of the lake, about forty miles, is made without change of horses.

We left Posolsky and enjoyed a sunset on the lake. The mountains rise abruptly on the western and southeastern sh.o.r.es, and many of their snow covered peaks were beautifully tinged by the fading sunlight. The illusion regarding distances was difficult to overcome, and could only be realized by observing how very slowly we neared the mountains we were approaching. The atmosphere was of remarkable purity, and its powers of refraction reminded me of past experience in the Rocky Mountains. We had sunset and moon-rise at once. 'Adam had no more in Eden save the head of Eve upon his shoulder.'

The boat went directly across and then followed the edge of the lake to Listvenichna, our point of debarkation. There was no table on board. We ordered the samovar, made our own tea, and supped from the last of our commissary stores. Our fellow pa.s.sengers in the cabin were two officers traveling to Irkutsk, and a St. Petersburg merchant who had just finished the Amoor Company's affairs. We talked, ate, drank, smoked, and slept during the twelve hours' journey.

Congratulate us on our quick pa.s.sage! On her very next voyage the steamer was eight days on the lake, the wind blowing so that she could not come to either sh.o.r.e. To be cooped on this dirty and ill-provided boat long enough to cross the Atlantic is a fate I hope never to experience.

There is a little harbor at Listvenichna and we came alongside a wharf. Maack departed with our papers to procure horses, and left me to look at the vanis.h.i.+ng crowd. Take the pa.s.sengers from the steerage of a lake or river steamer in America, dress them in sheepskin coats and caps, let them talk a language you cannot understand, and walk them into a cloud of steam as if going overboard in a fog, and you have a pa.s.sable reproduction of the scene. A bright fire should be burning on sh.o.r.e to throw its contrast of light and shadow over the surroundings and heighten the picturesque effect.

Just as the deck hands were rolling our carriages on sh.o.r.e my companion returned, and announced our horses ready. We sought a little office near the head of the wharf where the chief of the '_tamojna_'

(custom house) held his court. This official was known to Mr. Maack, and on our declaring that we had no dutiable effects we were pa.s.sed without search.

As before remarked all the country east of Lake Baikal is open to free trade. This result has been secured by the efforts of the present governor general of Eastern Siberia. Under his liberal and enlightened policy he has done much to break down the old restrictions and develop the resources of a country over which he holds almost autocratic power. It was about three in the morning when we started over the frozen earth. Two miles from the landing we reached the custom house barrier where a pole painted with the government colors stretched across the road. Presenting our papers from the chief officer we were not detained. On the steamer when we were nearing harbor our conversation turned upon the custom house. It was positively a.s.serted that the officials were open to pecuniary compliments, much, I presume like those in other lands. The gentleman from the Amoor had considerable baggage, and prepared a five rouble note to facilitate his business. Evidently he gave too little or did not bribe the right man, as I left him vainly imploring to be let alone in the centre of a pile of open baggage, like Marius in the ruins of Carthage.

The road follows the right bank of the Angara from the point where it leaves the lake. The current here is very strong, and the river rushes and breaks like the rapids of the St. Lawrence. For several miles from its source it never freezes even in the coldest winters. During the season of ice this open s.p.a.ce is the resort of many waterfowl, and is generally enveloped in a cloud of mist. At the head of the river rises a ma.s.s of rock known as _Shaman Kamen_ (spirit's rock). It is held in great veneration by the natives, and is believed to be the abode of a spirit who constantly overlooks the lake. When shamanism prevailed in this region many human sacrifices were made at the sacred rock. The most popular method was by tying the hands of the victim and tossing him into the 'h.e.l.l of waters' below.

Many varieties of fish abound in the lake, and ascend its tributary rivers. The fishery forms quite a business for the inhabitants of the region, who find a good market at Irkutsk. The princ.i.p.al fish taken are two or three varieties of sturgeon, the herring, pike, carp, the _askina_, and a white fish called _tymain_. There is a remarkable fish consisting of a ma.s.s of fat that burns like a candle and melts away in the heat of the sun or a fire. It is found dead on the sh.o.r.es of the lake after violent storms. A live one has never been seen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SPECIMEN.]