Chapter XV: Out of Asia Into Europe 180 (2)

For hours these familiar forests lined the railway, and then the train emerged into the fertile plains that border the Amour. Here the snow fences, piled up in their summer quarters, reminded one of the prairies of our own Northwest, and showed that in the Siberian winter the railway has the same great enemy to fight. The telegraph poles, often braced by two supports until they look like so many tripods, also testify to the strength of Siberian winds. At length, at noon of the second day, twenty-nine hours after leaving Vladivostock, the spires and chimneys of Khabaroffsk appear across the prairie, and we realize that the first stage, and a very pleasant one, of our trans-Siberian journey was nearly finished.

Scarcely had the train pulled into the station of Khabaroffsk, and before I could get to the door of the car, when a police official in gorgeous raiment crowded in and inquired anxiously for “Pastor Clark from America.” When I confessed to being, in all probability, the individual that he sought, the official seemed much relieved, and at once took charge of me and mine, bag and baggage, and summoned a small squad of soldiers, or sub-police, to assist him. Evidently the kindly telegram of Governor Tchitchagoff was doing its beneficent work, and, like expectant American politicians, we were “in the hands of our friends.”

V

THE _BARON KORFF_

Our friend in need proved a friend indeed, for it would have been no easy thing, knowing scarcely a word of the language, to disentangle our baggage, secure a cart to carry it, and droskies to carry ourselves, and make our way through the city of Khabaroffsk to the steamboat landing two miles away in season to catch the mail steamer, which, with steam up and whistle shrieking, was waiting to start on her long journey up the mighty Amour. But our official accomplished it all for us with celerity and despatch. He picked out our baggage, hired our droskies, took another himself, and drove to the steamer, saw our baggage safely bestowed in a state-room which had been secured for us at the governor’s orders, and did not leave us until we were fairly established in our comfortable and commodious quarters on the _Baron Korff_. We appreciated this courtesy the more fully when we learned that the steamer was exceedingly crowded, that it went only once in five days, and that some people had already been waiting fifteen days for the coveted passage. Our rapid flight through Khabaroffsk was made in a cloud of dust which would have done honor to Peking itself, the dustiest city in the world. Through the dust, however, we were able to catch glimpses of a frontier American-like town, with some good business blocks of brick and a fine cathedral church. We afterwards learned that Khabaroffsk contains about fifteen thousand inhabitants, and its importance is derived from the fact that it is the highest seat of government for all this vast section of the Amour River. Sitting on a high bluff at the juncture of the Amour and the Ussuri, a great stream which here joins its forces with its greater rival, the town occupies a commanding position and is regally situated to dominate the traffic of both rivers. In any other land the Ussuri itself would be a notable river, but in this country of great rivers, though it is nearly a mile wide at its juncture with the Amour, it is only a branch of eastern Siberia’s greater waterway.

Since the _Baron Korff_ was to be our home for the next week, and, in a literal as well as figurative sense, we were to be “all in the same boat” with the rest of her passengers, we were naturally anxious to know something of them and of her, if it is proper to speak of a baron as belonging to the feminine sex. A hasty inspection showed us that the _Baron Korff_ was a stately side-wheeler, such as might have done duty on the Mississippi before the railroads robbed her of her commercial glory. The first-class accommodations were well forward, and consisted of roomy and comfortably furnished staterooms for about twenty people on the upper deck, each room having berths for two people, a long dining-saloon, into which the state-rooms opened, and a pleasant saloon in front, handsomely furnished and provided with a good German piano. This saloon made a delightful sitting-room for the passengers, for its abundant glass furnished a splendid view of the river and the banks on either side, between which the _Baron_ made her devious way. Behind the first-class cabins was a large open space, sheltered from the wind, and suitable for a promenade. Here was a restaurant and bar, frequently patronized by some of our thirsty fellow-passengers, while behind it were the second-class cabins, which looked to me nearly as comfortable as those at the other end of the ship. Down below were huddled together a miscellaneous crowd of peasants--men, women, and children--with their scant piles of bedding and all their worldly possessions; sturdy men in top-boots and figured gowns belted at the waist, often with a sleeveless vest worn outside; women in gay calicoes and hobnailed shoes; children clad in little more than nature’s original raiment--all were here. On the hard iron floor they spread out their quilts, piled their household goods about them, and prepared to make the best of their six days in the bowels of the _Baron Korff_.

Their accommodations were not luxurious, certainly, but when we remember that they paid but three roubles and six kopeks for the entire 918 versts, more than six hundred miles, to Blagavestchensk, or only about one dollar and a half, we cannot think that the accommodations were disproportionate to the price.

The chief rival of our friends in the steerage was the great pile of wood, for which the _Baron Korff_ had an insatiate maw, and which, when first put on board, occupied fully one-half the space of the steerage, but which, every hour, sensibly diminished until we came to a station, where a new supply was taken on board.

The second-class fare was four times the third-class, or thirteen roubles and ninety-seven kopeks, and the first-class more than seven times the third, or twenty-two roubles and ninety-six kopeks. I am constrained to admit, however, that the first-class accommodations are fully seven times as good as the third, though I do not think they are twice as good as the second.

For the meals on the Amour steamers one pays separately, at the rate of two roubles a day, not an extravagant sum, indeed; but they were not extravagant meals, and they cost all they were worth.

In the morning, about eight, tea was served, with the inevitable samovar occupying the place of honor in the centre. Slices of lemon and sugar were provided, according to the Russian style, but no milk. Soft bread and zweiback, without butter, completed the first meal of the day.

The second, and principal, meal was served promptly at noon, and consisted of a thick, greasy soup, a course of meat with no potatoes, and very scanty vegetables of any kind, and a pudding. On rare occasions ice-cream took the place of the pudding. Tea was served again at four o’clock, and supper, which consisted of one meat course without vegetables, and more tea, completed the menus for the day. If one wished to supplement these meals with orders from the restaurant of caviare or smoked fish or boiled eggs, of course he was at liberty to do so.

The first meal served on the _Baron Korff_ on our voyage was supper. Fifteen foreigners and five Russians sat down to the table together. None of the foreigners, at least, knew what to expect from the culinary department. The meat was served, and was sparingly partaken of, on the supposition that, after the fashion of other steamers, four or five other courses would follow. Then came a long wait. The plates were removed, and still we waited. The minutes lengthened into a full quarter of an hour, and at length the one overworked waiter appeared, bearing, not the expected fish or vegetables or salad or dessert, but _the brass samovar_, and we knew a tumbler of tea was all that was to be expected. The craning of necks as the long-delayed waiter entered the room, and the expressions of disappointment when his sole burden was discovered, were amusing. But though some went hungry to bed the first night, Experience, the mother of wisdom, taught a needed lesson for all travellers on the Amour River--to lay in a sufficient store from the first platter, and not trust to the “hereafter.” After that no one omitted the first course.

I dwell somewhat at length on these details, because, so far as my experience of Siberian river-steamers goes--and this experience became somewhat large and varied before we reached Stretinsk, twenty days later--they are characteristic of all river travel in Siberia.

The steward, to whom I have already alluded, was a sadly overworked individual. He was waiter, cook, bell-boy, chambermaid, boots, and man-of-all-work for all the twenty first-class passengers, and, as can be imagined, no grass was allowed to grow under his feet. To be sure, his duties as chambermaid were merely nominal, for every one took care of his own room, furnished his own bedding, and made his own bed, and all had to wash in a common lavatory and furnish their own towel, soap, and, of course, all toilet articles. This common washroom arrangement was the most unpleasant feature of the _Baron Korff_, and we had occasionally to remind ourselves that we were in the extreme boundaries of Siberia. Who, then, had a right to look for all the luxuries of the latest civilization?

At length we were embarked on the long river journey to which we had so long been looking forward, and about which we had heard such various and contradictory reports. For months we had made it a point to inquire of every one likely to know concerning the trans-Siberian route. No two people agreed concerning it, or came within sight of agreement. “It can’t be done,” “You can do it easily,” “It will take two months,” “You can go through in twenty-two days,” “You will get stuck on the sand-bars for weeks,” “You will have no difficulty whatsoever,” “The steamers run only occasionally, and do not begin until the 11th of June,” “They run every day, and the river is open early in May,” “You will need heavy clothes, and all your winter furs,” “You will find delightful summer weather,” “You will have to ride in cattle-cars when you get to the end of your boat journey,” “You will have the most luxurious railway accommodations in the world.”

Such were the varied and miscellaneous bits of misinformation which we had been able to pick up in America, Japan, China, and even in Vladivostock itself. But now the journey on the great waterway of Siberia had begun. The paddle-wheels of the _Baron Korff_ had begun to revolve, we were to be among the first few score of people who had crossed the Russias by steam, and we should soon know which of these conflicting stories were correct, or whether they were all alike untrustworthy.

VI

THE LORDLY AMOUR

Fair as was the scene that first bright June day on the Amour, we could not altogether forget that we were in Siberia, for, as the lines of the _Baron Korff_ were cast off, another steamer of like pattern anchored just beyond moved out of our way, and we saw that she was towing a convict barge, and the faces of the poor fellows bound for dismal exile could be seen, pressing close up to the bars of their floating cage. These prisoners were bound for Saghalien Island, a thousand miles away, at the mouth of the Amour.

No sooner had the _Baron Korff_ gotten clear of the pier than we found that she, too, towed a convict barge, and henceforth, for days and days, for hundreds of miles, one of these grewsome ships followed in our wake, tugged by the same steam-power that carried us along. But what a difference! We were journeying in comparative luxury, with pleasant company, and all the freedom that a roomy steamer can furnish, to friends in Europe, and then to our home in the home land.

They, shut up in a white, floating cage, in narrow quarters, were facing exile and misery, and perhaps death, far from their homes and kindred. Every revolution of the paddle-wheels was carrying us nearer home, and them farther away. What a mockery the bright sunshine and green, tree-clad banks, and boundless, free prairies, stretching beyond, must have seemed to these cabined, cribbed, confined, hemmed-in voyagers!

It must be confessed that these particular convict barges from a distance did not look either filthy or overcrowded, and closer inspection afterwards convinced me that if prisoners must be exiled, they could scarcely have expected more comfortable conveyance. Still the thought of those fellow-travellers, so near and yet so far from the view-point of freedom, hope, and good cheer, cast a shadow on the journey whenever we looked at their white prison trailing on behind.

The Amour at Khabaroffsk, though we were more than five hundred miles from its mouth, was fully a mile and a half wide, and flowed in a strong, full current, which fact we realized for many a day thereafter, as we made our slow and toilsome way against it. The Amour is one of the few greatest rivers of the world. In length it is equalled by no river in Europe, and surpassed only by the Yang-tse-Kiang and Yenisei, in Asia, by the Nile and Congo, in Africa, and by the Amazon and Mackenzie, in America, though, if we reckon the Mississippi and Missouri as one river, it is longer than any of them except the Nile.

The basin drained by the Amour contains over 500,000 square miles. It is a singular fact that so many of the great rivers of the world are of nearly the same length. The Amour, Yenisei, Mekong, Obi, Hoangho, and Lena, in Asia, are all within two or three hundred miles of the same length, and all surpass 2500 miles.

The Congo, according to the geographers, is only about a hundred miles longer than the Amour, while the Niger is two hundred miles shorter. The Amazon is three hundred miles longer than the Amour, the Mackenzie a hundred miles longer, while the St. Lawrence falls short of it by six hundred miles.

But, in a general way, it may be said that a dozen of the great rivers of the world are practically of the same length. Of them all, few are more majestic and imperious in their flow, or drain a fairer country than the Amour.

Its water is somewhat muddy at Vladivostock, but nothing like the consistency of the Mississippi at St. Louis. It cannot not be said to be “both food and drink.” As we ascend its swift current it constantly grows clearer, until, a thousand miles farther up, it is about the color of white wine, and is sweet and wholesome to the taste.

The Amour is unique in the fact that it flows through a fertile country which is almost uninhabited, and yet is capable of supporting millions. No great cities line its banks, and not many towns that rank larger than hamlets. Even these are few and far between, and one journeys for half a day at a time without seeing even one little hut among the bushes. Its shores are still in their virgin greenery. For hundreds of miles at a time one sees not a cultivated field, though doubtless some such tilled land lies back from the river and out of sight. Great wood-piles for the use of the frequent river-steamers are the most common objects that show the hand of man, but even these are often in desperately lonely spots, so that one can scarcely believe that they were ever visited by human beings. And yet all this immense river basin of half a million square miles is apparently fertile and habitable, and, when we saw it, was glowing in rich and brilliant verdure. Surely the world is not yet over-peopled while such a lordly domain is waiting for the plough and the reaper.

To be sure, we saw the Amour Valley in early June, when everything in nature is at its freshest and best, and our judgment might have been modified had we seen it in December. Still, every country, like every man, should be judged at its best and not at its worst.

Promptly at four o’clock the _Baron Korff_ started on her long journey, and went zigzagging across the lordly river in order to stem the swift current as best she might. On the left-hand side was Chinese Manchuria, on the right Russian Siberia. But the Bear has her huge paw on all this country, and only by sufferance has she for many years allowed the Sick Man of Asia to nominally rule the left bank of the river.

It is a suggestive journey that we are taking on the broad ribbon of water that divides two of the greatest nations of the world--the one hoary and decrepit, with the weakness of her centuries heavy upon her, the other lusty and stout in comparative youth, like a strong young man lately come to the consciousness of virile powers.

Two hundred years ago and more China and Russia tried conclusions on these same plains of the Amour, and then China came off best. Russian garrisons were captured and carried off to Peking, and a treaty was concluded ceding all this land back to China. But during these two centuries China has daily been growing weaker and more corrupt in her senility. Russia has become mightier with each succeeding year.

In 1868, by the treaty of Aigun, so called because of the Chinese town on the banks of the Amour, where the treaty was signed, China ceded all the country north of the river to the Great Bear, who afterwards obtained concession after concession, until she was paramount in all Asia north of and including Peking. Then came the last uprising of China, which began the very month this journey was made, and which again threatened Russia’s domination, at least for a time. Thus the shuttlecock of dominion over northern Asia has been thrown back and forth between the battledore of Russia and China, and the end is not yet.

It will be seen that if this country through which we are making our zig-zag route is lonely, it is not devoid of historic interest. It has been and is a battle-ground for armies and diplomats, and is likely to play a still larger part on the world’s checker-board in the future.

All through the first afternoon and through the long twilight which, in these northern latitudes, leaves but a few hours to the night, the _Baron Korff_ ploughed her way along the mighty river which seemed to be vexed by no other paddles. But so great is its extent that, although there are hundreds of steamboats on the river, to meet one is still an event.

During the first part of the voyage the Manchurian shore presents the most striking scenery. Many bold and picturesque hills come down to the water’s edge, clothed from top to toe in living green, the graceful boles of the white birch, the most abundant tree, gleaming like pillars of silver against the dark background. On the Siberian shore the banks are less bold, but seem to present an endless stretch of rich bottom lands, where the cattle of the world might graze.

One important and interesting feature on all Amour River boats is the constant heaving of the lead, to tell of the treacherous shoals which, all up and down the length of the river, lie in wait for every passing steamer. Constantly, day and night, week in and week out, stands a man near the bow with a stick about ten feet long, loaded at the lower end. To the upper end of this pole a cord is attached, which is tied to the leadsman’s wrist, and this pole he constantly casts, once a minute on the average, to ascertain the depth of the water. The pole is divided into foot lengths, each painted a different color, so that he can tell at a glance how much water there is when the leaded end strikes bottom. When the water is deeper than his pole, he gives no warning cry, but when it comes down to nine, eight, seven, six feet, he calls out the depth with every cast, to the man at the wheel, and throughout half the day and half the night we hear his monotonous sing-song: “shest” (six), “shest polovina” (six and one-half), “pyat” (five), “pyat polovina” (five and one-half). When the leadsman calls out “pyat,” O helmsman, look out, for there is only five feet of water below your water-line, and when he calls out “chiteery polovina,” ring “half-speed” down to the engine-room, for there is only four feet and a half of water, and the _Baron Korff_, flat bottomed as she is, draws four feet.

These frequent shoals add a spice of excitement to the voyage, for one never knows when he may hear the bottom grating on the gravel, and find the steamer laid up for an hour or a day or a week on a sand-bar. The Amour River, like certain men, spreads itself out too thin, and gains breadth at the expense of depth.

The cry of the leadsman reminds one of Mark Twain’s days on the Mississippi, only they “mark dva,” and “tree,” and “chiteery,” and “pyat,” instead of “mark twain,” and “mark three,” and four, and five. When will the genius of the Amour come to the front? And when he comes will he call himself “Dva” or “Pyat”?

The second and third days on the _Baron Korff_ were much like the first--bright, beautiful, rare days in early June. The breath of the flowers came sweet and fresh from either shore, as the steamer swept from one side of the river to the other. No grand scenery marked these early days of the voyage, but much that was exceedingly beautiful, with a quiet loveliness all its own. The whole country has a peculiarly finished and cultivated appearance for such a wild and almost uninhabited land. Though there are few settlements and fewer farms visible from the steamer, there is little of the tangled wildwood of our American forests. Much of the country is open and treeless, and, where trees abound, they grow in stately ranks, with little undergrowth and no impenetrable thickets.

At night the helmsman steers by lights set along the shore at advantageous points and at a distance of a few hundred yards from each other. These lights are like kerosene street lamps, set on posts fifteen or twenty feet high. Some of the lamps are white and others red, and, though their light is feeble, they afford points to steer by, and boats are able to steam day and night, except when stuck upon a sand-bar.

A familiar sight towards evening is the lonely lamplighter in his little Rob Roy canoe, the paddles flashing alternately on either side in the evening sun. Often he is the only inhabitant along the shore for miles and miles, and he must make his solitary rounds alone day after day to fill and light his lamps, and is often obliged to scale almost inaccessible precipices to get at them, for, wherever it is possible, the lamps are placed upon a bluff or headland.

The voyager on the Amour has reason, indeed, to bless the lonely lamplighter, and to say to himself, as the steamer ploughs along through the darkness, guided by the minute points of light in the distance: “How far the little candle throws its beams!”

VII

BETWEEN TWO GREAT NATIONS

For three days longer we continued to steam on the _Baron Korff_ between China and Russia. On the third day out from Khabaroffsk the scenery grows more charming with every mile. The Amour here passes through a cleft in a spur of the Khingan Mountains, which close in on her on both the Manchurian and Siberian sides. The hills here are not very high, perhaps not more than five hundred feet, but their sides are often precipitous and present a sheer wall of rock to the view, through which it forces its way with many a swirl and eddy and with tremendous force of current, against which our good ship could make but slow headway.

We here remarked again the peculiar open, park-like effect of the forests, especially on the Manchurian side. I could scarcely believe that these trees in these far Eastern wilds had not been planted by man, and that they did not indicate some great baronial estate, whose castle, to be sure, was hidden behind the hills. Some beautiful hill slopes were covered with stately white birches, without a sign of underbrush, but with green grass forming a soft carpet beneath. In other places trees with black boles took the place of the white birch, but they were at such a distance that I could not determine the species, though they looked like oaks. For miles and miles these natural parks continued, and even where the park-like effect was not so pronounced and beautiful, the lovely open character of the forest continued, for nearly the whole of our fifteen hundred miles on the Amour. The cause of this beautiful effect I do not know. Perhaps in the severe Siberian winters only the fittest survive. The small wood, vines, and parasites of all kinds are killed off by the cold, and only the hardier and stronger trees remain. Whatever the cause, the resultant parks make the banks of the Amour singularly attractive during the brief summer.

The approach to a village was a matter of much interest, both to those on ship and those on shore. When within a quarter of a mile the captain would blow a tremendous blast on the whistle to summon every man, woman, and child to the banks. They would all respond with promptness and despatch, and come streaming down the bluff to the shore, each woman hugging two or three bottles of milk or carrying a pail of butter or a basket of eggs or a bowl of sour cream or a great loaf of black bread, with a hole in the middle like a huge doughnut. Sometimes a woman would appear holding a large goose in her arms as tenderly as though it were a baby, the body of the goose being concealed in the blouse that covered her ample bosom, while its long neck craned out, exhibiting as much interest in the passing show as any one on the shore.

The passengers on the ship would all congregate on the upper deck, many of them with empty bottles in their hands, to exchange, with ten kopeks added, for the full bottles on the shore. There are, of course, no docks or piers at these villages along the Amour, and to make fast to the shore in this swift and shallow water is a work of time and patience. First the anchor is thrown out about a hundred yards from the shore, and cable enough is paid out to allow the boat to drift within twenty feet of the bank. Then a bowline is carried ashore in the ship’s boat and made fast to a tree or a post. A stern line is treated in the same way, and by this time the steamer is near enough for the long gangplanks to be pulled ashore. A wooden horse is put underneath to steady them, and then the eager passengers stream ashore, and there is, for a time, a lively barter in milk and eggs and curd cheese and black bread, until the market is exhausted or the passengers’ wants satisfied.

The villages on the Amour all have a striking family resemblance, and usually consist of one or two streets of log-houses, often chinked with moss, one or two stores of general merchandise, and, if the village is of any size, a handsome Greek church, and a triumphal arch to indicate that the czarewitch, in his famous journey to the far East, stopped there. Sometimes the arch is anything but majestic in its proportions, a mere pitiful little affair of unpainted wood, ten feet high, but it indicates the loyalty of the Siberians and their love for their “Little Father” just as well as though it was a magnificent and imposing work of art. The larger towns, like Vladivostock, Khabaroffsk, and Blagavestchensk, all have lofty and imposing arches, blazing with colors or shining with burnished copper, as becomes the larger and wealthier municipalities.

Just at nightfall on the third day out we passed a Chinese village on the Manchurian shore, called into being by some rich gold-mines in the vicinity. It is only placer-mining that has yet been attempted, and the quartz awaits the enterprise and the machinery of the Western nations.

On the fourth day we passed the Chinese town of Aigun, a city of forty thousand inhabitants, and noted, as I have before said, as the place where the treaty was signed in 1868 which gave all eastern Siberia to Russia.

These places, even from the steamer’s deck, mellowed and sweetened as they were by distance, looked dirty and wretched and squalid, and showed none of the thrift, neatness, and prosperity of the towns on the Russian side. These were the only Chinese towns that border the Amour for a thousand miles from Khabaroffsk. Besides them we scarcely saw a hut or a wood-pile in Manchuria. Here are vast stretches of virgin soil, rich and productive, millions of acres of noble forest, great park-like estates, laid out by nature, without a single inhabitant. Yet there are uncounted millions of Celestials huddled together in hundreds of cities and thousands of reeking villages in China, who need this sweet air and the wide freedom of these Manchurian fields, which for centuries have belonged to the “Middle Kingdom.” That the Chinaman has not occupied his own domain is the more remarkable, for he is in a way an enterprising individual and often leaves home to seek “fresh fields and pastures new.” He finds his home in America and Australia, in the Sandwich Islands and Manila, in the Straits Settlement and Colombo, in Japan and Corea--even across the Amour into Russian territory he has wandered in large numbers, while much of his own country is still a wilderness. I suppose the fact is that the Chinaman knows a good thing in the way of a stable and just government when he sees it, as well as the rest of mankind, and that he does not propose to develop a country where he will be robbed and pillaged under the form of law, and the fruits of his toil taken away from him as soon as they are ripe.

Almost every day our steamer had to take on a fresh supply of wood, for she had a vast appetite for birch and pine. Fortunately there was enough to satisfy the most voracious of furnaces. When wooding-up time came at night, it was a most picturesque sight. Two great flares would be built of large logs on either side of the gangplank, a cord of the best wood being piled on at one time to light up the scene. Then the roustabouts from the steamer would tumble ashore, each with a long, stout pole and a strap to go over his shoulders. Two roustabouts, working in partnership, would then lay down their poles and pile the heavy sticks upon them till they had as much as they could carry. Then, hitching the straps over their shoulders, they would hoist their load hip high and rush it on board. The banks down which they had to carry the wood were often steep and slippery, and the gangplank was long and unsteady, and there was many a slip and a spill between the wood-pile and the steamer’s hold. But these minor accidents made the scene all the more interesting from the passengers’ point of view. How the roustabouts looked at the matter I cannot tell. At any rate, they good-naturedly made the best of it, without any profanity that English ears could understand, picked up themselves and their wood, and started on again.

The fourth and fifth days on the Amour were cold and rainy, but we comforted ourselves for the discomfort of the weather by remembering that the rain would raise the river, which was exceptionally low, and perhaps enable the _Baron Korff_ to reach Blagavestchensk.

On the afternoon of the fourth day we reached a little village, which consisted mostly of wood-pile, and here the wait continued hour after hour. No one knew the cause of the delay, and the Russian of none of the foreign passengers was equal to the strain of finding out. At last it was rumored that the _Baron Korff_ could go no farther, and that we must wait for a boat of lighter draught to take us up to Blagavestchensk. After several hours, two other steamers came sweeping down the river, and brought up with a graceful curve and flourish, like a stage-coach in the olden times, at our anchorage. They were little boats, cramped and dirty as compared with the _Baron Korff_, and many were the groans of the passengers that the change must be made. But low water is no respecter of persons, and we were told that at four o’clock in the morning we must make the transfer. At midnight, however, the captain changed his mind and concluded to scrape through if he could, so, getting up steam, at two o’clock he started. The critical shallows were reached. The _Baron_ scraped and grated on the sandy bottom. A half inch less of water and she would have been stranded, perhaps for a day. But the captain whistled down the speaking-tube for full speed ahead, the engineer opened the throttle-valve, the engine responded, and, with a mighty shove and jerk, our great leviathan pushed herself over the shallows and into the deeper water beyond. It was a “close call,” but on the Amour, as elsewhere, an inch is as good as an ell.

About eight o’clock in the evening, precisely five days after leaving Khabaroffsk, the beautiful spires of the great churches of Blagavestchensk appeared in sight above the tree-tops, and, sweeping around a bend in the river and heading due north, we were soon alongside the bustling wharf of the metropolis of eastern Siberia. In these five days from Khabaroffsk we had journeyed nine hundred and eighteen versts, or about six hundred miles, having made an average of less than five miles an hour, which is about the average rate of speed on the Amour River when there are no extraordinary delays. Here ended the first stage of our river journey, for now we must wait two days and then change to a smaller steamer that can more easily scrape over the shallows that are before us on the upper reaches of the river.

VIII

A SIBERIAN CAPITAL

Blagavestchensk, a mouthful of a name for any one but a Russian, is a surprising city to be found in the heart of the wild woods of eastern Siberia.

Almost immediately after our departure it was besieged by the Chinese and became well known the world around as one of the storm-centres of the Yellow Tempest. But I must confess that my knowledge of geography was so defective that I had scarcely heard the name of this city three weeks before I saw it.

Had I been particularly conceited on this point, my geographical pride would have received a severe blow, for here is the natural metropolis of a vast section, as large as all New England, with New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey thrown in. Here is a city of nearly 40,000 inhabitants, with wide streets, as fine blocks for its leading banks and stores as Portland, Maine, or Portland, Oregon, could show, or any of the smaller cities of the Union; very comfortable hotels, and at least five really fine churches.

The glories of Blagavestchensk, moreover, are not in the past by any means, but largely in the future, as is evidenced by the amount of new building going on. Piles of brick, masons and hod-carriers, and carpenters and stone-cutters, are seen everywhere, busy at their trades, and it is evident that Blagavestchensk is preparing for the time when the Siberian Railway will be completed from Stretinsk to Khabaroffsk, and still further add to her importance as the chief city on the Amour--indeed, the chief city between Lake Baikal and the Pacific.

We did not have time, however, to make these observations on the evening of our arrival, for before the _Baron Korff_ was made fast it was half-past nine o’clock, and nearly dark. Having heard of the Central Hotel, and knowing not whether it was good, bad, or indifferent, we directed the drosky man to drive thither, which he did, and soon set us down in front of a large brick building of imposing dimensions. But here our troubles began. No office could be discovered. No one seemed to be in charge. The register which hung in the front hall--a large blackboard with the numbers of the rooms written in chalk--indicated that every room, with one exception, was full. At last a peasant, in Russian blouse and top-boots, appeared who seemed to belong to the establishment; but, alas! he spoke a word of naught but Russian. To polyglot inquiries: “Do you speak English?” “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” “Parlez-vous français?” he responded with a “nyet,” and a helpless shake of the head. At length his instinct, or our bad Russian, enabled him to understand that we wished lodgings for the night, and he showed us to a large room with a single narrow bed, a sofa, and some chairs.

But there were four in this particular party that sought the shelter of the Central Hotel--two ladies, a small boy, and a man. It was evident that all could not be accommodated in these limited quarters. What could be done about it? All the other hotels were crowded. It was ten o’clock at night, and we were on the sidewalk outside of this thoroughly Russian hotel, with our baggage unloaded from the tarantass. At this opportune moment our good genius came to our rescue in the shape of a young Russian lieutenant who spoke French, and who insisted on my sharing his room with him, so that the ladies and the small boy might have the only vacant room. Moreover, he acted as translator, asked for another bed, arranged prices, and in every possible way became our guide, interpreter, and friend. I shared his room for two days, and when I tried to pay for my part of it he absolutely refused, saying, with the utmost delicacy, but with firm insistence: “I could not think of it. You are my guest.”

Would such graceful and delicate hospitality be found in New York, or Chicago, or London? I very much doubt it, or whether the average American, or even the exceptional American, would have taken a foreigner into his room, and, for a couple of days, concerned himself for the welfare of a party of absolute strangers.

Our good angel in military clothes had recently graduated at the Russian West Point, and had been stationed at Nikolskoie, on the Siberian frontier. He was on his way to visit his mother at St. Petersburg, and thence to the Paris Exposition. As I expected to travel farther with him, I neglected to learn his name. But he was detained at the last moment, and I shall not be able to send him my acknowledgment of his kindness by post, and I can scarcely hope that he will read them in this account of our travels. What I think will please him most, however, could he but see it in print, I will record here, that such kindness and delicate consideration I believe to be characteristic of the great people of whom he is such a worthy representative.

While we are still at the hotel, it may give some idea of Siberian hostelries of the better class if I say that the rooms at the Central were large and comfortably furnished, but there were some peculiarities which strike a traveller as odd. A bed with a mattress upon it is provided, but no blankets, sheets, or pillows. A common wash-room, not over tidy, served all the guests, and such a thing as a bath-tub or a bath-room seemed unknown. Every guest is expected to bring his own bedding, towels, and soap. Not knowing this, we naturally asked for sheets and blankets and pillows and towels, which, after some delay, were brought, though only one sheet, blanket, and pillow apparently could be raised.

What was my surprise to have a lengthy bill brought when I came to leave, for I was conscious of having had but few “extras.” When I inquired for a translation of the items, the waiter pointed to the different articles ordered the night before, and then to the cabalistic words upon the bill, and I learned that the charge was: Blanket, 25 kopeks; sheet, 20 kopeks; pillow, 30 kopeks; towel, 15 kopeks. No wonder the bill was a long, if not a large, one. The room itself was only two roubles and a half, or one dollar and a quarter, for a large double room, and the _table d’hôte_ meals, which consisted of soup, meat, dessert, and tea, cost 80 kopeks (40 cents). Breakfast was served in our rooms, and normally consisted of tea made on the spot in a porcelain teapot, with water boiling hot from the samovar, very nice and refreshing, with lemon as a substitute for milk, and bread-and-butter. We did not attempt the coffee, which is not the national drink, and does not compare with the tea. On tea and bread-and-butter the Russian would be sure to break his fast, though eggs might be had by the Outlander, if he should insist upon it.

It so happened that the day after our arrival at Blagavestchensk was the emperor’s birthday, and all the city was in holiday mood. But it seemed to take its pleasure seriously, if not sadly, as the English are said to do. A few flags were flying, the churches were open, and the stores were closed, and a general air of solemnity pervaded the town. The great German store of Kunst & Albers was religiously closed in front and the curtains drawn, but I was told that it had a back door, like the saloons in Maine. As my conscience did not compel me to observe the emperor’s birthday sacredly, I sought the side entrance, where I made some necessary purchases.

I may mention for the benefit of future travellers that many of the necessaries of life cost about the same in eastern Siberia as in New York--linen collars two dollars a dozen, cuffs twice that sum, shirts, underclothing, and other dry goods in like proportion. Two of the stores in Blagavestchensk, Kunst & Albers and a Russian store nearly opposite, are really palatial in proportions and equipment. The department store has blossomed out in full proportions in Siberia, and it is far more surprising to find such a store as I have mentioned in Blagavestchensk than to find Wanamaker’s, in Philadelphia, or Jordan & Marsh, in Boston.

Here you find books and bric-à-brac, pipes and pickles, flowers and flat-irons, oil and oysters, waistcoats and watches, indigo and icons. Here were attentive clerks and cash-boys (Chinese cash-boys, by-the-way), cashier girls in their little elevated desks, receiving the money, and all the conveniences and appliances of the great modern establishments.

But the chief interest in Blagavestchensk centred in the churches on the day of our visit, especially in the blue and green military church. Here a high mass was held in honor of the emperor. The church was crowded with soldiers and peasants, and all were most devout and earnest. Old peasants would come in, and, though there was scarcely standing room, would spread down their bandannas, and, kneeling on them, would touch their grizzled forelocks to the floor, and then rise and join heartily in the service. This was conducted chiefly by a priest in beautiful robes of cloth of gold, whose magnificent bass voice chanted the service as I never heard it rendered before. A sweet-voiced choir of boys answered the priest, and the whole congregation joined reverentially, but in stentorian tones, in part of the service. Behind the altar and facing the officiating priest, whose back was to the audience, stood a figure clad, apparently, in pure gold, and with a golden mitre upon its head. Whether man or image I could not at first make out. But it stood so immovable, and was apparently so solidly built of gold, that I concluded it was an image, a huge icon, which did duty in the soldiers’ church. I thought that I detected the image solemnly winking, but the moment after I concluded that I was the victim of an optical illusion. Nothing so stately, solemn, and immovable could wink. It was almost sacrilegious to think of such a thing. But when I had fully made up my mind to the icon theory, the golden image stepped from behind the altar, and, coming to the front, an attendant took off his heavy mitre, and in a deep, rich voice, he intoned the part of the service that fell to his share.

Bowing to the cross, his golden garments wrinkled and bent like the scales of a fish, or like the chain-armor of an ancient knight whose corselet was of pure gold. Never have I seen in any church or temple, in Christendom or pagandom, such gorgeous vestments or a more stately service. I only hope that it was as intelligently devout as it was gorgeous and impressive.

Some of the Greek priests, whose writings I have read, like Father John, of Kronstadt, are as deeply imbued with the Spirit of God as Thomas à Kempis or John Tauler of old, or as Andrew Murray and F. B. Meyer of the present day. A fine, sweet, mystical vein runs through their writings, which shows that they have seen the Invisible and heard the Inaudible, and their writings are as refreshing as a draught of clear spring water in this thirsty commercial age.

So may it have been with the holy fathers of Blagavestchensk! I could not judge, for all their service was to me in an unknown tongue. I will give them the full benefit of the doubt.

The streets of Blagavestchensk on this holiday were full of soldiers, who marched in orderly file from their barracks to the church and back again. They were fine, stalwart, manly fellows, marching in perfect alignment, and with an easy swing which did one’s eyes good to see, after beholding for a few weeks the slouchy straggle of Chinese soldiers. They were an orderly, well-behaved lot, too, and I saw no rioting or drunkenness. The log-cabin which served as a soldiers’ guard-house seemed to have few occupants. The soldiers did not know how soon their holiday manners would be changed into grim and deadly warfare with the yellow men on the opposite bank of the Amour.

Blagavestchensk, though it has a few large and imposing buildings, is largely a log-built city. Nine-tenths of the houses are of hewn logs, but most of them are prettily painted and are not without appropriate ornamentation. I never had believed that a log-house city could be so picturesque and substantial in appearance.

Upon the churches the people have lavished their chief wealth. At least three of them are costly and beautiful buildings that would do honor to any European capital, and a fourth that is building will, when completed, surpass them all. It is really a building of remarkable stateliness and beauty.

Buriats’ hut in foreground]

In the cathedral I saw for the first time the Black Christ and the Black Virgin, which are often seen in Greek churches. The pictures in all the churches impressed me as a much higher grade of art than one sees in the ordinary church on the continent of Europe.

When we were in Blagavestchensk we had little thought that this obscure capital was so soon to figure in the world’s telegrams, or that it could be besieged and bombarded by the Chinese. But history in the far East was making itself rapidly about that time, and we had scarcely left Blagavestchensk a week behind, when the apparently peaceful Celestials, inspired from Peking, attacked and for a long time bombarded this inoffensive city.

As I write, the outcome of the immediate conflict is still in the balance, but it can scarcely be doubted that in the long run the Giant of the North will win his way through Siberia and Manchuria into the heart of China, and that the siege of Blagavestchensk will really hasten the awakening of China from her sleep of the ages.

On the evening of the second day, we were glad to take passage once more for the upper reaches of the Amour, the most difficult, uncertain, and tedious part of our journey.

“_If you have tears, prepare to shed them now_” might have been our motto as we went aboard the crowded little steamer and realized that Stretinsk, the terminus of our river journey, was 1197¼ versts away, and that, much of the way, less than four feet of water separated our keel from the sandy bottom of the Amour. But how we scraped over the sand-banks from Blagavestchensk to Stretinsk must be reserved for “another story.”

IX

AGROUND IN THE AMOUR

Two Mississippi River captains were once conversing as to the merits of their respective steamers as light-draught boats. One claimed that his steamer could run in a good heavy dew. The other, not to be outdone, claimed that that was nothing, for his boat could run on the sweat of an ice-pitcher. It is this latter kind of boat that is needed on the upper reaches of the Amour River, as we began to think before we were many miles from Blagavestchensk. We had scarcely gone five miles before we heard that peculiar crunching, scraping, gritty sound which we came to know so well. The paddle-wheels revolved fruitlessly for a few minutes, but it was no use, and we knew that we were hard and fast aground in less than three feet of water. For hours the boatmen worked with might and main, and at last we could feel that there was water under our keel and that we were making slow progress against the current once more. But we had scarcely been moving another hour when c-r-u-n-c-h, s-c-r-a-p-e, s-t-o-p, and there we were stuck on another sand-bank. The captain seemed to tear his hair in despair, and well he might, for Stretinsk was 1187 versts away, and we had scarcely come ten versts in ten hours from Blagavestchensk. If it requires ten hours to do ten versts, how long will it take to reach Stretinsk, was an appalling problem in mental arithmetic.

However, we made somewhat better progress after getting off the second time, and the hope that springs eternal in the human breast kept us from despair of reaching in time the important engagement at our journey’s end.

The _Ivan Vishnegradskie_ was a much smaller steamer than the _Baron Korff_, and consequently much more crowded. Especially were the third-class passengers much in evidence, for there were no steerage accommodations, and they were obliged to lie about anywhere as best they could, in the passages, on the companion-way, huddled on the boiler deck, lying out on the wood-pile or anchor chains; every available foot of deck room had its two human feet to occupy it.

It is said that the birth-rate of Siberia is higher than any other country in the world, amounting to fifty-six in the thousand. I could well believe it as I saw the uncounted, tow-headed babies tucked into every nook and cranny of the _Ivan Vishnegradskie_. Head to heel and heel to head, they lay, with their fathers and mothers and older brothers and sisters lying about them four square, building, as it were, a sort of living rampart around the family compound. It was pathetic to see a mother lay her three little children out in a row, with the croupy baby in the middle, while she herself sat in the draughty doorway all night long to shield them from the wind.

“She bared her bosom to the storm,
And smiled to think her babe was warm.”

For two days we sailed on this crowded little craft. The river turns almost due north after leaving Blagavestchensk. A very tortuous stream is the Amour from here on, turning and twisting and doubling on itself like a huge serpent writhing in agony. Following its twistings we made very little progress, even when we could steam all day long, which the treacherous shoals did not often allow us to do. The shores on either side were often picturesque and beautiful, and sometimes grand and striking, with bare cliffs of rock rising sheer from the water’s edge to a height of four or five hundred feet.