Chapter X: Irkoutsk to Tomsk (1)

LET the reader picture the neighbourhood of Aldershot with its undulating pine-clad hills suddenly transplanted into the depths of the black country lying around Newcastle-on-Tyne. For stone buildings let him substitute filthy, tumble-down houses of unpainted wood, almost undistinguishable at a distance from the dark, greasy soil around them. People these villages with dirty, wild-looking men clad in sheepskins and gaudy-coloured rags, and still dirtier, half-naked women. Conceive a sickly smell (peculiar to Asiatic Russia) of old skins, wood, smoke, turpentine, and sewage, and a Siberian landscape is before you. In fine weather a fine grey dust that creeps into your hair, chokes up eyes and nostrils, and renders life almost unbearable; on a wet day thick, greasy, black mud that is everywhere. In the post-house, in the tarantass, there was no keeping it out. I do not know which was worse——the dust or the mud——perhaps the latter, for it smelt abominably, and stained like ink.

We had looked forward to fine scenery in Siberia, lofty, picturesque ranges, wooded valleys, and glorious panoramas of forest and plain, but were grievously disappointed, for the scenery between Irkoutsk and Tomsk is, with one or two exceptions, intolerably monotonous and depressing. My recollections of that weary journey are neither pleasant nor interesting. Eastern Siberia, as I remember it, is simply one long and varying succession of three colours: Dark green, brown, and yellow——pines, mud, and occasional cornfields. Of the fifty odd villages lying between the capitals of Eastern and Western Siberia, not more than a dozen contained over 400 inhabitants. Save in these villages we saw no signs of life but occasional gangs of prisoners, or a stray tarantass or téléga. The poet’s lines——

“Miles, on miles, on miles, of desolation,
Leagues, on leagues, on leagues, without a change,”

fitly describe the country through which we travelled for three weeks after leaving Irkoutsk.

A description of one Siberian village will suffice for all. The houses, for the most part of rough unpainted wood, have an untidy, unfinished appearance, the majority of them being dangerously out of the perpendicular. The effect produced by their appearance was exactly like that of ships rolling and tumbling about in a high sea, some with their sterns high up out of the water, others with their bows buried in the waves. This phenomenon is caused by the depression of the ground in spring, when the snow melts, and when their foundations being very insecure, the houses fall about in all directions. I saw one at Kloutchefskaya, near Kansk, that had sunk to such a degree that the inmates had to enter it on all fours. The entire absence of colour in these villages was fearfully depressing. I do not think I saw a single flower-garden throughout the whole journey. In some of the larger villages faint attempts at decoration were made by cutting down a fir-tree and sticking it (rootless) into the ground on either side of the road; but as this had been done in early summer, the dark green of the firs had usually faded, scorched by the sun into a dirty drab, making the surroundings, if possible, more desolate and cheerless than before. In every Siberian village, however small, are three Government buildings; the church, prison, and post-house; also, situated at one extremity of the place a huge wooden barn, in which a quantity of grain is stored annually by the villagers as a precaution against famine.

We found the post-houses (which are situated at intervals of every twenty or twenty-five versts) vary considerably in comfort and cleanliness, the best being about on a par with a decently kept labourer’s cottage in England. All are built on the same model, and of wood, two black and white pillars at the door, and the Imperial arms over the gateway alone distinguishing this building from the other rough wooden huts. Two rooms, or partitions, each about twenty feet by eighteen feet, are set apart for the use of travellers, a huge brick stove in the wall heating them equally. The floor was invariably carpetless, while the sole furniture consisted of a small table and two hard wooden chairs, sometimes, but not often, an equally hard wooden sofa; and for ornament a few woodcuts from the newspapers, or cheap tawdrily coloured portraits of the Czar and Czarina were pinned on the greasy, whitewashed walls. In one corner on a shelf is kept the “Black Book,” a volume in which travellers are invited to write any complaints, immediately over this a gaudy brass “Ikon,” or picture of the Holy Virgin or Saviour, which no Russian’s room, from Czar to peasant, is ever without. There were usually two windows——double ones——kept hermetically sealed even on the hottest day. Washing appliances were, of course, nil. I should hardly like to own how often I washed my face and hands between Irkoutsk and Tomsk! Ablutions were almost entirely dispensed with except for a handkerchief dipped into a tea-glass from the “Samovar,” and passed over the face and hands. With this “lick and a promise,” one had to be satisfied. The post-houses differed a good deal in comfort and accommodation, some being as clean and well found as those east of Lake Baikal, others little better than human pigstyes. Curiously enough, the dirtiest were invariably situated near the large towns, and while we met with nothing but civility and kindness from officials in the wilder districts, those within forty versts or so of Tomsk and Irkoutsk were as arrogant and extortionate as only a Siberian post-master can be.

The Great Post-Road from Irkoutsk to Tomsk, would scarcely be called a road in any other country. In wet weather it becomes a morass, in dry seasons the thick grey dust is up to the axles, while in early autumn the centre track is often so cut up by caravans as to make wheel traffic quite impossible. The yemstchiks then diverge to the right or left, where, though the going is not so heavy, the numerous tree-stumps, watercourses, felled logs, &c., render it anything but safe. I often wondered our tarantass did not come to pieces altogether long before reaching Tomsk. No European carriage would have stood the work twenty-four hours. A triple telegraph wire runs the entire length of the road, and is carried on eastwards from Irkoutsk to Wladivostok, a town of about 2000 inhabitants, and the headquarters of the Russian Naval Squadron in Siberian waters. There is no telegraph direct to Pekin. I was surprised, at times, to miss the wires altogether for twenty or thirty versts but found, on inquiry, that they are sometimes laid under ground on account of the violent storms that sweep across the steppes, chiefly near Krasnoiarsk and Marinsk. Telegraphing in the Russian Empire is cheap enough in all conscience. A message may be sent from Petersburg to Wladivostok for fifteen kopeks, or about 2½_d._ a word; from the capital to all parts of European Russia, for a third of that sum.

We dashed along gaily the first two stages out of Irkoutsk, passing, a few versts out, the monastery of St. Innocent, a huge stone building erected at the cost of many million roubles by the gold-merchants of the capital. This saint is supposed to protect travellers, and none of the wealthier mine-owners ever dream of taking a journey without first making a substantial offering at his shrine. Such voyages are necessarily frequent enough, and the sum total at the end of the year is considerable. It was almost like a glimpse of Italy or Southern France to peep in through the open gateway, the priests in their brown and white robes, strolling bareheaded about the sunny, vine-clad gardens, and shady cloisters. The tower at the eastern side of the building, is lofty, and of graceful architecture, but the fine effect is entirely spoilt by a large sham clock, just beneath the steeple, its painted hands pointing eternally to half-past twelve. The Siberians apparently have a mania for these, for I afterwards noticed them on many public and Government buildings at Tomsk, Krasnoiarsk, and Tobolsk.

We reached Bokovskaya, the first post-station out of Irkoutsk, a little after two o’clock, and were lucky enough to obtain horses at once, a circumstance that did not then strike one as out of the way, but we had as yet but little experience of Siberian post-masters and their ways. It was getting dusk as we reached the little village of Tielminskaya, where our first check occurred. Though we had covered but little ground, bright sunshine, a comfortable tarantass, and good horses, made our first day’s posting so pleasant that we began to think the discomforts of Siberian travel had been exaggerated by our Danish friends. To be sure we had only come thirty versts, and over one thousand five hundred lay between us and the good city of Tomsk!

The waiting-room at Tielminskaya had just been vacated by a Siberian family _en route_ for Irkoutsk. Its appearance was, to say the least of it, uninviting, and did not give one a very high opinion of the cleanliness of the Siberian _en voyage_. No horses were obtainable till four o’clock next morning, so we spread our furs and rugs on the floor, resolving to sleep in the waiting-room, filthy as it was. One might, to use a slang expression, have cut the atmosphere with a knife. Though it had been oppressively warm all day, every window was tightly closed, while a huge fire roared in the brick stove. The dirty, worm-eaten floor, strewn as it was with mud, straw, scraps of paper, fish-bones, egg-shells, and other abominations, was anything but appetizing to look at, to say nothing of the stench of stale cigarette smoke, furs, and salt fish, but we managed to make a good meal notwithstanding, and thoroughly enjoyed the fresh-laid eggs, clotted cream, and preserved berries that the post-master’s wife provided. We little knew then that a time was coming when even eggs and milk would be unobtainable luxuries.

A “Pope” (as priests of the Greek Church are called) made his appearance about ten o’clock, just as we were thinking of turning in——a noisy, bustling fellow, who put further rest out of the question; for he was of a communicative turn of mind, and would talk, whether one answered him or not, so I made the best of a bad job, and got out my dictionary, with a view to picking up a little Russian. The conversation was somewhat laboured, and consisted chiefly of pantomime. Lancaster did not join in, but slumbered away peacefully in a corner. I verily believe he would have slept through an earthquake.

A word constantly made use of by my clerical friend was _Katorgi_. I do not know whether the reader has ever attempted to look out a Russian word, having but a slight knowledge of the language. If so, it will not surprise him that it took me a considerable time to discover that the word, in English, means “Convicts.” By dint of hard work I managed at the end of an hour to glean that, firstly, the road between Koutoulik and Nijni Udinsk was infested with robbers; secondly, that on no account must we travel at night through these districts; and, thirdly, that a whole family on their way to Irkoutsk from Krasnoiarsk had been murdered by thieves (escaped convicts) but a week previously.

This was scarcely encouraging our first day out. Referring to the Posting-book, I found that Koutoulik lay fifty versts further on, which would probably land us there about 2 p.m. the following day, always supposing there was no delay at Maltinskaya or Polovilnaya, the intervening stations. We were well armed, as I took care to show the clerical stranger, who, for all I knew, might himself be in league with the thieves. Siberia makes one very suspicious. At any rate we resolved to travel as little as possible by night, and when doing so to keep a good look-out, sleeping only one at a time while on the road.

It was past 2 a.m. before the loquacious “Pope” allowed me to snatch a few hours’ rest. The wind had now risen, and the rain, which had threatened at intervals through the day, was pouring down in torrents, and rattling against the window-panes with a force that boded ill for our next day’s journey. Given fine weather and average luck in obtaining horses, I had not the slightest doubt of being able to reach Tomsk in time for the last steamer to Tiumen, but a week of steady rain would upset all our plans, and probably result in our being kept prisoners at Tomsk through the mists and fogs of early autumn, until the roads set for sleighing. To post through Siberia in October is next to impossible.

We had already been two hours on the road when day broke. By eight o’clock the thick woolly clouds had rolled away, and the sun burst forth clear and cloudless, which soon dried our wet, shivering frames, for the tarantass hood leaked badly, and we had been lying in a pool of water all the morning. About mid-day we sighted the Angara for the last time. The river here presents the appearance of a vast lake (so broad is the distance from shore to shore), its blue waters fringed with massive rocks and boulders of grey granite, while further inland a fertile plain of hay and corn fields stretched away to where on the horizon a low dark green line marked the recommencement of forest. Men, women, and children, were working in the fields, and it seemed strange to a European eye to see the peasantry gathering the harvest and making hay at the same time. This part of the country teems with game, wild fowl, and a very large species of hare.

Being detained for five hours at Polovilnaya, we did not reach Koutoulik until nine o’clock p.m. The post-house being fairly comfortable, we resolved to sleep here, and make a start at daybreak next day. We had the place to ourselves till about 11 p.m., when a loud cracking of whips and jingling of collar-bells announced a fresh arrival, and one of no little importance, to judge by the bustle and confusion displayed by the yemstchiks.

“The gospodin will perhaps kindly vacate the bed,” whispered the old post-master. “It is an officer of high degree and his lady.” The “bed” being composed of hard planks and about two feet broad, I took the floor without demur; for there was little difference; and a few moments after the new arrivals entered the waiting-room, one a tall, handsome man in uniform, his companion a pretty little woman of the true Russian type, with violet eyes and finely cut features.

“You are English, the post-master informs me,” said our new acquaintance in French. “Will you do my wife and myself the pleasure of supping with us? I conclude, you, like ourselves, are detained here till to-morrow morning.”

I have seldom enjoyed a meal more than that supper in the wilds of Siberia, for, apart from the fact that we had tasted no solid food for two days, our new friends were capital company. Madame had left school in Paris only seven short months before, to marry the gay Cossack, whose military duties called him to the dreary convict settlement of Nertchinsk, in Trans-Baikal. “Un drôle de voyage de noces, n’est-ce pas, messieurs,” said he, laughing heartily, while his poor little wife, who looked tired to death, tried hard to screw up a smile at the joke. A good supper and two or three glasses of Kümmel, however, worked wonders, and a merrier party could scarcely be found than we were that night. It was such a relief to meet a fellow-creature with whom one could converse without racking the brain over Reiff’s dictionary and dialogue-book, and we chatted away far into the early hours. While the Cossack enlarged upon Petersburg and its delights to Lancaster, little Madame V. and myself had a long talk over the delights of Paris, the opera, the “Bois,” Sara Bernhardt, and a thousand other subjects connected with the beautiful city so far away. She was a bright, plucky little thing, though worn to a shadow, and haggard from constant travel and fatigue. I could not help wondering now long that pretty face and expression would last in dreary, desolate Nertchinsk.

Madame having retired to rest (tucking up on the hard, cushionless sofa in the most matter-of-fact way), Colonel V. did not attempt to conceal his satisfaction at having come unscathed through the Katorgi infested district. “There have been two more murders since the ones you speak of,” he said in a low tone, on our telling him of my conversation with the priest at Tielminskaya. “One that of a Jew pedlar from Kansk, the other, T., the contractor at Krasnoiarsk, who was found dead in his tarantass two days ago, near Touloung, his throat cut from ear to ear. I saw the body myself, and it was not a pleasant sight, I assure you. His yemstchik and the horses have since disappeared, which proves to me that the drivers have a good deal to do with it. No, well armed though you be, take my advice and travel only by day, till you have left the town of Nijni Udinsk far behind you.”[12]

“Their mode of attack is simple,” said V., in answer to my inquiry, and pouring himself out a huge tumbler of vodka (his fifth). “Travellers are never molested in the day-time. It is only at night that these blackguards (of whom there are sixty or seventy) attack wayfarers. The most dangerous hours are between 3 and 6 a.m., when travellers who have been on the _qui-vive_ all night, somewhat relax their vigilance. A couple of the thieves are told off to cut the traces, two more to seize and bind the yemstchik (accomplice or not), and three or four others at the same moment to climb over the back of the tarantass, and falling suddenly in front of the hood, despatch the passengers with a blow from a heavy bludgeon. According to report, they have no firearms. Most of the victims are first stunned, and then their throats are cut. In no case of late has a traveller’s life been spared.” But, as V. remarked, it was a significant fact, that not a single yemstchik had lost his life, while no less than twelve travellers had been brutally murdered.

The sun was high in the heavens when we rose the next morning, V.’s entertaining conversation having kept us up till past five o’clock. Yet we woke to find them both gone, for they had left, the post-master informed us, a little after seven o’clock. For staying powers in the sitting-up line, commend me to a Russian Cossack. It is my firm belief that many never sleep at all. Perhaps vodka is the secret.

We were anxious, if possible, to reach Tiretskaya, fifty versts distant, before sundown, and make the latter our sleeping-place. It would not be a difficult task, the post-master said. There was but one relay at Zalarinsk, twenty versts off, and unless we fell in with the mail from Petersburg, then about due, we were sure to be able to get horses without delay. The troika was therefore put in at once, and we were hastily swallowing a couple of glasses of tea, preparatory to a fast of twelve hours, when a shouting and cracking of whips was heard in the village street, and in another minute in galloped the mail, four mud-splashed carts, followed by a tarantass, in which, armed to the teeth and resplendent in green and gold, reclined the courier in charge.

“Lochade scorei” (horses quickly), shouted the latter, as he leapt from the tarantass, and brushed past us into the waiting-room, where a few moments after, we saw him pouring down tumbler after tumbler of scalding tea. To appeal to his finer feelings was, we knew, useless. Sadly we watched, as our troika was ruthlessly taken out and harnessed to a mail-cart, to the evident satisfaction and amusement of the courier, who, having finished his tea, was smoking a cigarette and watching our discomfiture with no little amusement. “Sibiri, gospodin!” he said, as he climbed into his tarantass, and the cortège dashed off again on its way to China. It was indeed Siberia! and we realized to the full that patience is a virtue, when the post-master told us that under no circumstances could we hope to get horses till five o’clock that evening.

The long sunny day wore slowly away. There was absolutely nothing to do, or look at, and time hung fearfully heavy on our hands. Towards mid-day we strolled up to the prison, situate as usual about a hundred yards outside the village.

The village prisons, or temporary resting-places for prisoners on the road to the mines, are square or rather oblong wooden buildings, three sides of which form quarters for the convicts and their guards, while the remaining wing, a little detached from the main building, is used for washing and cooking purposes. The open courtyard in the centre of the building is used for exercise. It is rough and unpaved, and in wet weather often knee-deep in mud and slush. This yard is entered by a pair of high gates, the only entrance to the building, the whole being surrounded by a high palisade, at every corner of which is posted, night and day, a sentry with a loaded rifle. This vigilance, however, is only maintained during the summer months. From April to October it is a very different matter; and as the sentries often sleep upon their posts, and the bars and gratings of the windows are so rickety and insecure that a child could dislodge them, escape becomes comparatively easy. An escape or attempted escape does not increase the length of a prisoner’s sentence. There is a chance of a sound flogging with rods if the runaway is brought back, but that is all. Without the connivance of their guards, I doubt if prisoners would ever attempt to break out at all, and were the prison officials more careful, not to say conscientious, in the discharge of their duties, the Siberian roads would be comparatively safe, instead of being, as they now are, infested with thieves and desperadoes of the worst description. There is another and still more powerful reason, which was explained to us by our travelling acquaintance V., and one that clearly demonstrates that the highest as well as the lowest officials connected with Siberian prisons are very far from being _sans reproche_. The practice I am about to describe, however, takes place only in the remoter districts of Eastern Siberia, whence no whisper of the scandal is ever likely to reach the ears of the Petersburg authorities.

It is marvellously simple. Lieutenant A., of the Imperial Guard, having lived not wisely but too well in the Russian capital, is compelled to exchange, and finds himself transferred in five or six short mouths from the gaiety and gilded salons of Petersburg to some desolate convict settlement in the Trans-Baikal, his only society the Cossacks under his command; his sole occupation, maintaining order among the two or three hundred convicts in his charge. The next station, thirty versts off, is under the command of his friend and brother officer in misfortune, Lieutenant B., who to lighten the long, wintry evenings, makes periodical visits to A. Heavy drinking, high play, and other little amusements, which I need not mention, but which will continue so long as female prisoners exist in Siberia, are the result of these meetings; very frequently, also, one of the guardsmen loses considerably more than he is able to pay. A Russian would sooner die than owe a debt of honour, but the pockets of both these dashing guardsmen are probably sadly deficient of that necessary commodity, “ready money.” There is but one way out of the difficulty. Early in spring, a batch of fifty or sixty convicts are liberated (upon the understanding that they return before the end of September) to get their living as best they can upon the roads. Some have been known to reach Tomsk from Nertchinsk on these summer excursions. Nor do they ever fail to return, for none but a lunatic would ever think twice of escaping outright from Siberia. During the absence of the gang, M. le Lieutenant draws the money for their rations, &c. from Petersburg, and discharges his just debts. “Cela n’est pas plus difficile que cela!”

Though I visited three “ostrogs,” it was only with considerable difficulty and a lavish expenditure of roubles that I succeeded in doing so. It seems strange that the Russian Government should show such a strong dislike to strangers visiting their convict establishments, for I must confess to being most agreeably disappointed by what I saw. Notwithstanding all the blood-curdling and revolting accounts so vividly set forth by the authors of “Called Back,” “The Russians of To-day,” and similar works, I found the prisons of Siberia clean and comfortable, though perhaps not so sweet-smelling as our convict establishments at Chatham or Dartmoor. It would be hard to keep them so, considering that every twenty-four hours brings in a fresh batch of prisoners, each in wet weather, with a pound or so of black, stinking mud on his feet. At one village only (Rasgonnaia) along the whole post-road from Irkoutsk to Tomsk was the ostrog (a very old one) almost uninhabitable. It swarmed with rats, the post-master told us, and convicts, in winter, were sometimes severely bitten; while they were forced to sleep in the daytime, rest at night being rendered impossible by the swarms of vermin. Let me in justice add that this was the only really bad ostrog I heard of or saw during the whole journey, and the authorities were on the point of pulling it down and building a new one. We hear a deal in England of wretched hovels, where convicts are housed together like sheep in a pen, human pigstyes reeking with filth of every description, where not a day passes but a prisoner is carried off by typhus or some other malignant fever. As a matter of fact I have seldom seen neater buildings. But for the black and white sentry boxes, the barred windows, and imperial eagle over the gate, one would never take them for prisons at all, and they were often, with their bright yellow walls, red roof, and neatly kept gardens, the only cheerful-looking building in the squalid villages through which we passed. The ostrog at Koutoulik was empty, but a gang was expected that afternoon, a Cossack told us. Preparations for their arrival were already being made in the shape of cakes, cream, eggs, apples, sweetmeats, and cigarettes spread out on snowy linen cloths for the delectation of lucky convicts who had made a few kopeks on the road.

We strolled back to the post-house after our inspection, and called in sheer desperation for the Samovar. There was literally nothing else to do. Seven long hours must be got through before we could hope to get horses and proceed on our journey. It is this eternal delay, this irksome waiting that makes Siberian travel so monotonous and dispiriting. The fatigue and privation were trifling compared to the long weary days of boredom and inaction. We got into a habit at last of calling mechanically for tea at every station. Fifteen or twenty glasses were, after the first week, our daily allowance, and I verily believe I drank tea enough during the two months I was in Siberia to keep a dozen old maids going for a year.

Koutoulik consists of some eighteen or twenty houses and presented a depressing appearance enough even that bright sunny afternoon, for the village was deserted by all save women, children, dogs, and pigs, the men being busy in the fields getting in the harvest. Under the guidance of the post-master, a Pole who spoke a few words of French, I visited one of the cottages. Most of the women were dirty, bedraggled creatures, but some of the younger girls were good-looking, and the children many of them beautiful, with fair flaxen hair and light blue eyes that made one wonder how such thoroughly northern types of beauty could have been born and reared so far east. The mistress of the cottage we entered (a young and rather pretty woman) apologized for her costume, which consisted simply and solely of a thin and almost transparent muslin nightgown reaching a little below the knee; the only garment worn indoors by peasant women in the brief but tropical Siberian summer. We begged her not to apologize, assuring her that the costume, though scanty, suited her remarkably well.

The interior of the cottage was, though primitive, scrupulously clean. In one corner hung the sacred “Ikon,” or image of the Holy Virgin, a huge brick stove immediately facing it. Half a dozen wooden chairs and a rough pine table comprised the furniture, the flooring of the room was at an angle of about forty-five degrees, which made sitting down a somewhat dangerous experiment. From the centre of the roof hung a Siberian cradle, a kind of linen bag secured by a long rope to a hook in the ceiling, to which our hostess gave a swing every twenty minutes or so, the length of the cord keeping it (and her last born) in motion for quite that length of time.

While we were smoking a cigarette and regaling ourselves with a glass of iced “Quass,”[13] the pretty housewife, who soon lost her shyness, produced a Russian guitar, and sang to us (in a sweet, clear voice) two or three national airs. One, a Volga boat-song, seems an especial favourite, for we heard it continually the whole way from Kiakhta to Nijni Novgorod, sung by peasants, prisoners, and yemstchiks alike. The Siberian peasantry appear to have a good ear for music, but their airs are nearly all in minor, and intensely depressing, after a time, to a European ear.

The Siberian peasant cannot be called overtaxed, all that the imperial Government exacts being a poll-tax of seventeen roubles. Those living on the Great Post-Road are exempt from this even, if they breed and provide horses for the postal service, of course receiving a remuneration for the same. The men are cheery, good-tempered fellows enough, with, as a rule, but one vice, drunkenness; when they do take too much, it is done in a good-tempered way, and they become more urbane and benevolent than when sober. I have never once seen a Siberian quarrelsome in his cups, though I met many the worse for vodka in every town we passed through. As regards the women, they are clean, thrifty, and very religious, but at the same time rather lax in their morals, a mixture of qualities not peculiar, I imagine, to Siberia.

It was nearly seven o’clock before we left Koutoulik, so we had to abandon all hopes of getting further than Zalarinsk (the next station, twenty-eight versts distant) that night. We looked to our pistols before starting, and took care to let the yemstchik see we were armed, for it was a desolate, cutthroat-looking road, and the forest so thick, one could hardly see a foot either side of the tarantass, but we kept a bright look-out, with revolvers at half-cock, and had we been attacked, our assailants would have met with a warm reception. About ten o’clock some twinkling lights ahead heralded the approach of Zalarinsk, and by half-past ten we were safe for the night.

The succeeding two days were, as regards weather, perfect, a blue cloudless sky and bright sun, which at mid-day was sometimes too hot to be pleasant; on more than one occasion the thermometer rose to over 90° Fahr., although the instant the sun set it sometimes dropped to only a few degrees above Zero, so rapid are the changes of temperature. On the 26th of August the country became more cultivated, and the thick forest gave place to large clearings of corn, maize, and mustard. This was on the eastern side of Tiretskaya. The latter village passed, the landscape again changed, and we returned to dull, monotonous pine forests, varied by occasional silver-birch-trees or bushes with bright red and white berries. Siberia is noted for the latter. There are no less than twenty different kinds, and in parts of the country they form, with black bread, the staple food of the inhabitants in summer-time. We found most of them insipid, flavourless things, with the exception of the “Brousniki,” a kind of bilberry, which eaten with cream and sugar was delicious. The “Brousniki” is also very efficacious as a febrifuge.

Two large caravans were passed between Zalarinsk and Tiretskaya; one laden with calico, ironmongery, and Manchester goods——the other with tea——the former eastward, the latter westward bound. Each consisted of over two hundred carts, in charge of about eight or ten men, who, till our driver had roused the foremost with a cut of his whip, were fast asleep when we came up to them, the horses rolling about the road from side to side, and threatening every moment to dash the clumsy heavy carts into our tarantass. The tea-caravans travel day and night, only halting five hours out of the twenty-four, from 1 p.m. till 3 p.m., and midnight till three o’clock in the morning. Yet the horses looked sleek and fat, and not in the least out of condition, the reason, perhaps, being that they never exceed a speed of three miles an hour.

We rarely passed more than two or three conveyances in a day, and this is what makes posting in Siberia so irksome and monotonous. Between the villages there is absolutely nothing to look at but the dreary sand-coloured road——the endless vista of dark green forest. A cottage is never found alone in Siberia or outside a village _enceinte_. Except in the villages, usually twenty to thirty versts apart, one sees no dwelling of any sort or kind. The monotony, after a week or so, becomes absolutely maddening. What must it be to the wretched exiles who sometimes take two years to reach their destination!

We reached Tiretskaya at sunset. A large river just beyond this station was swollen by the rains to a considerable, not to say dangerous, extent. Only that evening the ferry had been carried away and washed down-stream, the Petersburg mail having to wait out in the open, on the river-bank, till it was repaired. This was not pleasant news, but we derived some consolation from the fact that the weather was fine and the glass rising. We had the waiting-room to ourselves till midnight, when a téléga clattered into the yard, and out clambered an enormously fat man and a small, wizened woman, who informed us, before they had been in the room five minutes, that they were newly married, and had come straight through from Irkoutsk. Divested of their furs, I discovered that the man was clad in a bran-new suit of shining broadcloth, the woman in what had evidently been her bridal array, a white muslin dress, covered with sprays of orange blossom, but terribly soiled and creased by travel and the amorous advances of her bridegroom, to say nothing of the mud and dirty straw of the téléga. When the partner of his joys and sorrows had retired to rest (on two chairs), the unhappy bridegroom became confidential, and confided to me, in a low tone, that he would much rather have remained quietly in Irkoutsk, that he did not like this sort of thing at all, and was only doing it to amuse his bride! I could not help, like Mr. Pickwick, envying the facility with which the lady was amused. “I shall take her as far as Nijni Udinsk, if her strength holds out,” he said resignedly, “if not, we shall return to Irkoutsk.” What a honeymoon! Next morning, when I woke, they were gone.

I shall never forget my first night in a Siberian post-house. Unless the traveller falls asleep at once, it is long odds against his getting any rest at all, for tarantasses and télégas are arriving and leaving at all hours of the night. There is (by order) a lamp kept burning till morning, and the jingle of bells, shouting of yemstchiks and stamping of heavy feet on the carpetless floor, that goes on at intervals through the night, would waken the dead. There is another powerful antidote to sleep in every Siberian post, be it ever so clean——vermin——to say nothing of cockroaches and rats, who subsist on the scraps of food dropped on the floor by travellers, and who run about the floor and over one’s face and body with supreme indifference during the quieter moments of the night. Till I went to Siberia, I had the most unutterable loathing for rats; but now, like the Yankee and the snake, I almost feel lonely without them.

About 2 a.m. the cocks commenced crowing, and were promptly answered by the dogs of the village. Long before daylight the inhabitants of the post-house were astir and bustling about, cleaning up, lighting fires, chopping wood, &c. I usually rose about 4 a.m., and, lighting a cigarette, amused myself by studying the strange types of humanity around me till the samovar made its appearance. They were a strange, motley crew, as a rule. Men and women lying about pell-mell, and looking, in the weird half-light between night and day, like a lot of corpses in a _fosse commune_. One could always tell at a glance, the new hands at the game; the Russian official’s wife travelling the post-road for the first time in smart, tailor-made gown, beaver toque, and costly furs, or the Siberian with her awkward, ill-cut dress in the fashion of thirty years ago. It was second nature to the latter to remain unwashed for a couple of weeks, and sleep on the filthy floor, with, perhaps, a greasy, ragged Jew pedler for a neighbour, but one could not help pitying the better class,[14] travelling from St. Petersburg or Moscow to rejoin their husbands in Eastern Siberia or the Amour district, sitting, if they could get them, on the hard, stiff-backed, wooden chairs all through the night, and almost falling off them at times from sheer weariness. The prettiest looked hideous in the early morning hours, with tangled hair, disordered dress, and pale, pasty faces, while their diamond rings only served to show off the blackness of their hands and nails, which they had probably been unable to wash for days. Few women look well, even in England, at six in the morning after a ball. Imagine their appearance after a dozen nights and days of Siberian travel. Many of the post-houses are worse than that I have described, but few are better. I have seen sights in these waiting-rooms that will not bear description. They are better left to the reader’s imagination; for in matters of decency the Siberian, _pur et simple_, is inferior to the Chinese.

I date the commencement of our mishaps and difficulties from the morning of the 27th of August, when I awoke in the dirty, little waiting-room of Tiretskaya post-house to find the rain pouring down in torrents, the sky one mass of grey, woolly clouds. It had evidently been raining some hours, for the road in front of the post-house was one pool of water, almost half-way up to the axle of our tarantass, on the roof of which the rain was pelting down unmercifully. Instinct told me that the water inside was quite an inch deep by this time. Mentally thanking Providence that we had taken out the mattress, I rolled myself in my furs and went to sleep again. It was hopeless to think of starting with a dangerous river to cross and the next post twenty-five versts distant.

The weather cleared a little towards mid-day, and we resolved, though it was still raining hard, to make a start, and, if possible, reach Listvinskaya, seventy odd versts distant, that evening. The tarantass had to be baled out before we got in. A tarantass for Irkoutsk arrived as we were putting to, and reported the ferry in working order, though the river was rapid and swollen to a dangerous extent. We thanked our informants and set off. The latter were travelling _en famille_, Monsieur and madame, four children and a nurse, all packed into the same tarantass. I envied them, for they had, at any rate, the advantage of warmth, the weather having suddenly become raw and cold, with, every now and then, blinding showers of sleet.

Although the river Oka is situated only a mile or so from the village of Tiretskaya, it took us nearly an hour to reach the ferry. Parts of the road were entirely submerged, and our yemstchik had to find his way by guesswork. As we knew there was a broad, deep ditch on either side of the road, the work was, to say the least of it, exciting. It was impossible to go out of a walk, and even then it was as much as our five game little horses could do to drag the heavy, clumsy carriage along. We stuck fast twice, and all hands had to get out “to shove her off,” knee-deep in icy cold water. We were wet through by the time the ferry was reached, and shivering with cold, a somewhat unpleasant condition in which to embark on a stage of twenty-five versts, which it would in all probability take us several hours to accomplish, supposing we ever succeeded in reaching Ziminskaia at all. There were, the ferryman said, four bridges to cross before we reached it, and one or two, at least, would probably have been washed away by now, for the floods were worse there.

The appearance of the river Oka was highly picturesque, but not reassuring. A broad, swiftly flowing stream at any time, continuous rains had widened its waters to double the ordinary width, the torrent now being quite a mile across. The rotten and insecure ferry looked as if a touch from one of the snags or tree-trunks which were whirling madly along the surface of the stream would send it to the bottom in a second, and the ferryman was for some time inexorable, but the temptation of a 10r. note was too much for him, and with much muttering about “it would be our own fault if we were drowned,” we got the tarantass and horses aboard, and shoved off for the opposite shore. Scarcely were the chains let go when a loud shout from the bank attracted my attention. The crowd were shouting and gesticulating, running backwards and forwards on the bank like madmen, and pointing to a splashing, indistinct mass in the water which I presently made out to be a man and a horse. The latter had been brought down to water, but the bank, rotten with perpetual rain, gave way, precipitating the animal and its rider into deep water. I have seldom experienced a moment of more intense excitement. It quite took our thoughts away from our own danger——for all this time we were forging slowly ahead. The ferryman dare not stop, nor could we have rendered the poor fellow any help, for the current was rapidly carrying him further and further into the centre of the river. He was evidently a good swimmer, but could, we saw, do nothing against the terrific force of the current. Three times we saw him rise to the surface, when his screams were pitiful to hear, but the third time he was silent, and throwing up both arms, sank for the last time, in full view of us all. He was only twenty——the ferryman told us——a tall, good-looking fellow, who had stood by and given a hand to get our tarantass on board but three or four minutes before he met with his sad fate.

Crossing the river without mishap, we found the road on the other side in better order than the one we had left. At any rate it was not flooded, the yemstchiks could see where they were going, and there was not so much danger of being stranded ten miles from anywhere with a broken wheel or axle. Ziminskaia was reached at 3 p.m., and with a fresh relay of seven horses in (for which we had not to wait more than ten minutes), we continued our journey, hoping to reach Listvinskaya, fifty versts further on, some time that night, or the next morning.

Listvinskaya was reached at 11 p.m. The post-house was full of soldiers, who had been out all day in the rain, searching for prisoners, with no result, and no wonder. It was, indeed, a case of looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, to expect to find fugitives in these thick, impenetrable forests. We were not sorry when they had finished their vodka and departed, leaving us at 2 a.m. to snatch a few hours’ sleep, before again taking the road. The rain had now ceased, and the night was bright and starlit.

Our anticipations of a fine day were not disappointed, for we were awoke by the bright sun streaming into our faces, and the voice of our host inquiring how much longer we were going to sleep. And sure enough, worn out with fatigue and the anxieties of the previous day, we had slumbered on undisturbed by the noise of arrivals and departures, till past mid-day, or at least so the station clock said. But one was never quite sure about the time in Siberia. Every post-master has a time of his own. It seemed strange at first to leave, say, Tirestskaya station at nine in the morning, and arrive at Ziminskaia, twenty versts off, at half-past eight! But we soon got used to it, and after the first week never troubled our heads about the hour. It was but a minor detail.

We made good way that and the following day, and on the evening of the 29th of August reached the village of Touloung. But alas! good luck as regards weather was not destined to last. Just before sunset, the sky became overcast, and two hours before reaching our destination for the night the rain was falling in torrents. The hood was, as usual, worse than useless, and in a few minutes we were wet through to the skin. There were fortunately no more rivers between us and Nijni Udinsk, which town, all being well, we hoped to reach on the morrow.

Had we known that night that we were destined to be imprisoned in the filthy room in which we slept for two days, I doubt if we should have retired to rest in such good spirits. We had come to the end of our provisions, and should now have to subsist entirely on the meagre fare provided by the post-houses. I could stand everything well enough but the bread. Oh! that Siberian bread. My stomach recoils at the mere recollection of the sour, greasy substance, as black as ink, as heavy as lead, and in consistency so soft and damp, that one could pull it out like a piece of unbaked dough.

Swallowing a glass of tea, we rolled up in our furs, wet through as we were. Such a proceeding in England would probably have resulted in an attack of rheumatic fever, but a special providence seems to watch over one’s health in Siberia, and we never had a day’s sickness, hard though the work, and short the supply of food and (with the exception of tea) drink. We did not get much sleep that night, but lay awake, listening to the howling of the wind and pattering of the rain on the window-panes. About two in the morning I dropped into an uneasy dose, from which I awoke about an hour after, to find the old post-master replenishing the stove. “A terrible night, gospodin,” he muttered, tossing a huge pine log into the flame. “One almost pities the Katorgi, with no roof over their heads. Poor devils, they must be like drowned rats!” Too tired to answer, I was about to turn on my side, when a loud knock startled me into a sitting position, and brought the old man shuffling back from the kitchen in double quick time. It was no tarantass or téléga. There had been no bells or sound of wheels. Whoever the nightly visitor was, he had come on foot. The old man displayed no desire to open the door, and showed signs of such uneasiness, that then, for the first time, flashed across me the words of our Cossack friend at Koutoulik, “Keep a good look-out about Touloung. They are worse there than anywhere.”

A second knock, louder than the first, cut short my reflections, and induced me to make signs to the Pole that my revolver was loaded, and that Lancaster (who was still slumbering peacefully) had a similar weapon. Apparently reassured, he then went to the door, unbolted it, and let in the mysterious visitor.

A tall, spare man with reddish grey beard and moustache, apparently about sixty years of age, pushed rudely past the Pole and entered the room; and divesting himself of a huge bearskin pelisse, sank into a chair with a sigh of satisfaction. “Enfin!” he muttered in French, adding in Russian sharply, “I thought you were going to keep me out there all night. Why did you not open sooner? Come! quick, the samovar, and some eggs and bread. Don’t stand staring there like a fool.”

That the stranger had no earthly right to order provisions in a Government post-house, without a podarojna, I was well aware. This fact, however, did not seem to occur to the post-master, who slunk away without a word of remonstrance to get the refreshments. In the meantime, being unobserved, I had a good opportunity of taking stock of the new arrival from behind my dacha.

It was not a pleasing or reassuring countenance. One thing especially struck me as curious; he had not removed his cap on entering the room, and had, apparently, no intention of doing so. It is, as I have said, an unwritten law, that on entering an apartment in Russia the head shall be uncovered, more out of respect to the sacred Ikon, which always stands in one corner, than out of politeness to the occupants of the compartment. I had never yet seen the rule departed from, and felt sure that the man had some hidden motive in remaining covered. His dress was unique if not becoming: a pair of grey tweed trousers, surmounted by a Siberian peasant’s caftan, secured by a broad red sash round the waist, and a pair of high-heeled, buttoned boots. Save for a thick wooden cudgel, which lay on the table beside him, the stranger was apparently unarmed. Who could the man be? and where in Heaven’s name had he dropped from this wild stormy night, or rather morning? for I noticed with satisfaction that day was beginning to dawn.

Who he was, must remain a mystery. He left about 5 a.m., as suddenly as he had come, and the old post-master was either too frightened or too lazy to send up to the prison for a couple of Cossacks. One circumstance convinced me that my suspicions were well founded. Having made a hearty meal of tea, black bread, and sardines, he pushed his chair back, and resting both feet on the stove, lit a cigarette. While so doing his cap slipped off, and I distinctly saw that _one half of his head was partly shaved_, the distinguishing mark of the Siberian convict. That he was a “Katorgi” I do not for a moment doubt. He never once caught sight of me, lying as I was in the shadow of the table; but Lancaster, who slept calmly through the whole business, lay close to him, and my only wonder is that he did not take a fancy to the gold watch-chain lying so temptingly across my friend’s chest. He left the post-house very quietly without paying for his food, nor did the old post-master make any further remarks anent his strange visitor. It might have got him into trouble with the authorities.

The poor wretch had probably been starving for the past two or three days, afraid to show his face in the village near which so many brutal murders had been committed. Judging there would be few travellers abroad a night like this, he had made for the post-house, and seeing, as he thought, its only inmate the old Pole, had summoned up courage to enter. It seemed odd that with the dirty and ragged dress he wore, a large diamond ring, sparkled on the first finger of his left hand. We afterwards heard that the contractor had been robbed of one of unusual size and brilliancy.

Any hopes we had of pushing on to Nijni Udinsk the next day were soon dispelled, for at about ten o’clock the Imperial post clattered in, and every available horse was harnessed to the mail-carts. We were not altogether sorry, for the rain was coming down as hard as ever. Even the dirty, dreary post-house was preferable to a long drive of eighty odd versts, wet to the skin and chilled to the bone, with a filthy post-house and no food at the end of the journey.