Read Ebook: Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian Chinese and Tartar Life by Knox Thomas Wallace

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1756 lines and 187802 words, and 36 pages

Beggars at Krasnoyarsk--A wealthy city--Gold mining on the Yenesei--Its extent and the value of the mines--How the mining is conducted--Explorations, surveys, and the preparation of the ground--Wages and treatment of laborers--Machines for gold washing--Regulations to prevent thefts--Mining in frozen earth--Antiquity of the mines--The native population--An Eastern legend--The adventures of "Swan's Wing"--Visit to lower regions--Moral of the story

A philosophic companion--Traveling with the remains of a mammoth--Talking against time--Sleighs on wheels--The advantages of "cheek"--A moonlight transfer--Keeping the feast days--Getting drunk as a religious duty--A slight smash up--A cold night--An abominable road--Hunting a mammoth--Journey to the Arctic Circle--Natives on the coast--A mammoth's hide and hair--Ivory hunting in the frozen North--A perilous adventure--Cast away in the Arctic ocean--Fight with a polar bear--A dangerous situation--Frozen to the ice--Reaching the shore

A runaway horse--Discussion with a driver--A modest breakfast--A convoy of exiles--Hotels for the exiles--Charity to the unfortunate--Their rate of travel--An encounter at night--No whips in the land of horses--Russian drivers and their horses--Niagara in Siberia--Eggs by the dizaine--Caught in a storm--A beautiful night--Arrival at Tomsk--An obliging landlord--A crammed sleigh--Visiting the governor--Description of Tomsk--A steamboat line to Tumen--Schools in Siberia

A frozen river--On the road to Barnaool--An unpleasant night--Posts at the road side--Very high wind--A Russian bouran--A poor hotel--Greeted with American music--The gold mines of the Altai mountains--Survey of the mining-district--General management of the business--The museum at Barnaool--The imperial zavod--Reducing the ores--Government tax on mines--A strange coincidence

Society at Barnaool--A native coachman--An Asiatic eagle--The Kirghese--The original Tartars--Russian diplomacy among the natives--Advance of civilization--Railway building in Central Asia--Product of the Kirghese country--Fairs in Siberia--Caravans from Bokhara--An adventure among the natives--Capture of a native prince--A love story and an elopement--A pursuit, fight, and tragic end of the journey

Interview with a Persian officer--A slow conversation--Seven years of captivity--A scientific explorer--Relics of past ages--An Asiatic dinner--Cossack dances--Tossed up as a mark of honor--Trotting horses in Siberia--Washing a paper collar--On the Baraba steppe--A long-ride--A walking ice statue--Traveling by private teams--Excitement of a race--How to secure honesty in a public solicitor--Prescription for rheumatism

A monotonous country--Advantages of winter travel--Fertility of the steppe--Rules for the haying season--Breakfasting on nothing--A Siberian apple--Delays in changing horses--Universal tea drinking--Tartars on the steppe--Siberian villages--Mode of spinning in Russia--An unsuccessful conspiracy--How a revolt was organized--A conspirator flogged to death--The city of Tobolsk--The story of Elizabeth--The conquest of Siberia--Yermak and his career

Another snow storm--Wolves in sight--Unwelcome visitors--Going on a wolf chase--An unlucky pig--Hunting at night--A hungry pack--Wolves in every direction--The pursuers and the pursued--A dangerous turn in the road--A driver lost and devoured--A narrow escape--Forest guards against bears and wolves--A courageous horse--The story of David Crockett

Among the stone workers--A bewildering collection--Visit to a private "Fabric"--The mode of stone cutting--Crossing the mountains--Boundary between Europe and Asia--Standing in two continents at once--Entering Europe by the back door--In the valley of the Kama--Touching appeal by a beggar--The great fair at Irbit--An improved road--A city of thieves--Tanning in Russia--Evidence of European civilization--Perm--Pleasures of sleigh riding--The road fever--The Emperor Nicholas and a courier--A Russian sleighing song

Among the Votiaks--Malmouish--Advice to a traveler--Dress and habits of the Tartars--Tartar villages and mosques--A long night--Overturned and stopped--Arrival at Kazan--New Year's festivities--Russian soldiers on parade--Military spirit of the Romanoff family--Anecdote of the Grand Duke Michel--The conquest of Kazan--An evening in a ball-room--Enterprise of Tartar peddlers--Manufactures and schools--A police secret--The police in Russia

Leaving Kazan--A Russian companion--Conversation with a phrase book--A sloshy street--Steamboats frozen in the ice--Navigation of the Volga--The Cheramess--Pity the unfortunate--A road on the ice--Merchandise going Westward--Villages along the Volga--A baptism through the ice--Religion in Russia--Toleration and tyranny--The Catholics in Poland--The Old Believers--The Skoptsi, or mutilators--Devotional character of the Russian peasantry--Diminishing the priestly power--Church and state--End of a long sleigh ride--Nijne Novgorod--At the wrong hotel--Historical monuments--Entertained by the police

It is said that an old sailor looking at the first ocean steamer, exclaimed, "There's an end to seamanship." More correctly he might have predicted the end of the romance of ocean travel. Steam abridges time and space to such a degree that the world grows rapidly prosaic. Countries once distant and little known are at this day near and familiar. Railways on land and steamships on the ocean, will transport us, at frequent and regular intervals, around the entire globe. From New York to San Francisco and thence to our antipodes in Japan and China, one may travel in defiance of propitious breezes formerly so essential to an ocean voyage. The same untiring power that bears us thither will bring us home again by way of Suez and Gibraltar to any desired port on the Atlantic coast. Scarcely more than a hundred days will be required for such a voyage, a dozen changes of conveyance and a land travel of less than a single week.

Wishing to make a journey round the world, I did not look favorably upon the ocean route. The proportions of water and land were much like the relative quantities of sack and bread in Falstaff's hotel bill. Whether on the Atlantic or the Pacific, the Indian, or the Arctic, the appearance of Ocean's blue expanse is very much the same. It is water and sky in one place, and sky and water in another. You may vary the monotony by seeing ships or shipping seas, but such occurrences are not peculiar to any one ocean. Desiring a reasonable amount of land travel, I selected the route that included Asiatic and European Russia. My passport properly endorsed at the Russian embassy, authorized me to enter the empire by the way of the Amoor river.

A few days before the time fixed for my departure, I visited a Wall street banking house, and asked if I could obtain a letter of credit to be used in foreign travel.

"Certainly sir," was the response.

"Will it be available in Asia?"

"Yes, sir. You can use it in China, India, or Australia, at your pleasure." "Can I use it in Irkutsk?"

"Where, sir?"

"In Irkutsk."

"It is the capital of Eastern Siberia."

The person with whom I conversed, changed from gay to grave, and from lively to severe. With calm dignity he remarked, "I am unable to say, if our letters can be used at the place you mention. They are good all over the civilized world, but I don't know anything about Irkutsk. Never heard of the place before."

I bowed myself out of the establishment, with a fresh conviction of the unknown character of the country whither I was bound. I obtained a letter of credit at the opposition shop, but without a guarantee of its availability in Northern Asia.

After leaving the dock, I found my cabin room-mate a gaunt, sallow-visaged person, who seemed perfectly at home on a steamer. On my mentioning the subject of sea-sickness, he eyed me curiously and then ventured an opinion.

"I see," said he, "you are of bilious temperament and will be very ill. As for myself, I have been a dozen times over the route and am rarely affected by the ship's motion."

The voyage from New York to San Francisco has been so often 'done' and is so well watered, that I shall not describe it in detail. Most of the passengers on the steamer were old Californians and assisted in endeavoring to make the time pass pleasantly. There was plenty of whist-playing, story telling, reading, singing, flirtation, and a very large amount of sleeping. So far as I knew, nobody quarreled or manifested any disposition to be riotous. There was one passenger, a heavy, burly Englishman, whose sole occupation was in drinking "arf and arf." He took it on rising, then another drink before breakfast, then another between Iris steak and his buttered roll, and so on every half hour until midnight, when he swallowed a double dose and went to bed. He had a large quantity in care of the baggage master, and every day or two he would get up a few dozen pint bottles of pale ale and an equal quantity of porter. He emptied a bottle of each into a pitcher and swallowed the whole as easily as an ordinary man would take down a dose of peppermint. The empty bottles were thrown overboard, and the captain said that if this man were a frequent passenger there would be danger of a reef of bottles in the ocean all the way from New York to Aspinwall. I never saw his equal for swallowing malt liquors. To quote from Shakspeare, with a slight alteration:

"He was a man, take him for half and half, I ne'er shall look upon his like again."

We had six hours at Aspinwall, a city that could be done in fifteen minutes, but were allowed no time on shore at Panama. It was late at night when we left the latter port. The waters were beautifully phosphorescent, and when disturbed by our motion they flashed and glittered like a river of stars. Looking over the stern one could half imagine our track a path of fire, and the bay, ruffled by a gentle breeze, a waving sheet of light. The Pacific did not belie its name. More than half the way to San Francisco we steamed as calmly and with as little motion as upon a narrow lake. Sometimes there was no sensation to indicate we were moving at all.

Even varied by glimpses of the Mexican coast, the occasional appearance of a whale with its column of water thrown high into the air, and the sportive action of schools of porpoises which is constantly met with, the passage was slightly monotonous. On the twenty-third day from New York we ended the voyage at San Francisco.

On arriving in California I was surprised at the number of old acquaintances I encountered. When leaving New York I could think of only two or three persons I knew in San Francisco, but I met at least a dozen before being on shore twelve hours. Through these individuals, I became known to many others, by a rapidity of introduction almost bewildering. Californians are among the most genial and hospitable people in America, and there is no part of our republic where a stranger receives a kinder and more cordial greeting. There is no Eastern iciness of manner, or dignified indifference at San Francisco. Residents of the Pacific coast have told me that when visiting their old homes they feel as if dropped into a refrigerator. After learning the customs of the Occident, one can fully appreciate the sensations of a returned Californian.

Montgomery street, the great avenue of San Francisco, is not surpassed any where on the continent in the variety of physiognomy it presents. There are men from all parts of America, and there is no lack of European representatives. China has many delegates, and Japan also claims a place. There are merchants of all grades and conditions, and professional and unprofessional men of every variety, with a long array of miscellaneous characters. Commerce, mining, agriculture, and manufactures, are all represented. At the wharves there are ships of all nations. A traveler would find little difficulty, if he so willed it, in sailing away to Greenland's icy mountains or India's coral strand. The cosmopolitan character of San Francisco is the first thing that impresses a visitor. Almost from one stand-point he may see the church, the synagogue, and the pagoda. The mosque is by no means impossible in the future.

In 1848, San Francisco was a village of little importance. The city commenced in '49, and fifteen years later it claimed a population of a hundred and twenty thousand. No one who looks at this city, would suppose it still in its minority. The architecture is substantial and elegant; the hotels vie with those of New York in expense and luxury; the streets present both good and bad pavements and are well gridironed with railways; houses, stores, shops, wharves, all indicate a permanent and prosperous community. There are gas-works and foundries and factories, as in older communities. There are the Mission Mills, making the warmest blankets in the world, from the wool of the California sheep. There are the fruit and market gardens whose products have a Brobdignagian character. There are the immense stores of wine from California vineyards that are already competing with those of France and Germany. There are--I may as well stop now, since I cannot tell half the story in the limits of this chapter.

During my stay in California, I visited the principal gold, copper, and quicksilver mines in the state, not omitting the famous or infamous Mariposa tract. In company with Mr. Burlingame and General Van Valkenburg, our ministers to China and Japan, I made an excursion to the Yosemite Valley, and the Big Tree Grove. With the same gentlemen I went over the then completed portion of the railway which now unites the Atlantic with the Pacific coast, and attended the banquet given by the Chinese merchants of San Francisco to the ambassadors on the eve of their departure. A Chinese dinner, served with Chinese customs;--it was a prelude to the Asiatic life toward which my journey led me.

I arrived in San Francisco on the thirteenth of April and expected to sail for Asia within a month. One thing after another delayed us, until we began to fear that we should never get away. For more than six weeks the time of departure was kept a few days ahead and regularly postponed. First, happened the failure of a contractor; next, the non-arrival of a ship; next, the purchase of supplies; and so on through a long list of hindrances. In the beginning I was vexed, but soon learned complacency and gave myself no uneasiness. Patience is an admirable quality in mankind, and can be very well practiced when, one is waiting for a ship to go to sea.

On the twenty-third of June we were notified to be on board at five o'clock in the evening, and to send heavy baggage before that hour. The vessel which was to receive us, lay two or three hundred yards from the wharf, in order to prevent the possible desertion of the crew. Punctual to the hour, I left the hotel and drove to the place of embarkation. My trunk, valise, and sundry boxes had gone in the forenoon, so that my only remaining effects were a satchel, a bundle of newspapers, a dog, and a bouquet. The weight of these combined articles was of little consequence, but I positively declare that I never handled a more inconvenient lot of baggage. While I was descending a perpendicular ladder to a small boat, some one abruptly asked if that lot of baggage had been cleared at the custom house. Think of walking through a custom house with my portable property! Happily the question did not come from an official.

It required at least an hour to get everything in readiness after we were on board. Then followed the leave taking of friends who had come to see us off and utter their wishes for a prosperous voyage and safe return. The anchor rose slowly from the muddy bottom; steam was put upon the engines, and the propeller whirling in the water, set us in motion. The gang-way steps were raised and the rail severed our connection with America.

It was night as we glided past the hills of San Francisco, spangled with a thousand lights, and left them growing fainter in the distance. Steaming through the Golden Gate we were soon on the open Pacific commencing a voyage of nearly four thousand miles. We felt the motion of the waves and became fully aware that we were at sea. The shore grew indistinct and then disappeared; the last visible objects being the lights at the entrance of the bay. Gradually their rays grew dim, and when daylight came, there were only sky and water around us.

"Far upon the unknown deep, With the billows circling round Where the tireless sea-birds sweep; Outward bound.

"Nothing but a speck we seem, In the waste of waters round, Floating, floating like a dream; Outward bound."

The G.S. Wright, on which we were embarked, was a screw steamer of two hundred tons burthen, a sort of pocket edition of the new boats of the Cunard line. She carried the flag and the person of Colonel Charles S. Bulkley, Engineer in Chief of the Russo-American Telegraph Expedition. She could sail or steam at the pleasure of her captain, provided circumstances were favorable. Compared with ocean steamers in general, she was a very small affair and displayed a great deal of activity. She could roll or pitch to a disagreeable extent, and continued her motion night and day, I often wished the eight-hour labor system applied to her, but my wishing was of no use.

Besides Colonel Bulkley, the party in the cabin consisted of Captain Patterson, Mr. Covert, Mr. Anossoff, and myself. Mr. Covert was the engineer of the steamer, and amused us at times with accounts of his captivity on the Alabama after the destruction of the Hatteras. Captain Patterson was an ancient mariner who had sailed the stormy seas from his boyhood, beginning on a whale ship and working his way from the fore-castle to the quarter deck. Mr. Anossoff was a Russian gentleman who joined us at San Francisco, in the capacity of commissioner from his government to the Telegraph Company. For our quintette there was a cabin six feet by twelve, and each person had a sleeping room to himself.

Colonel Bulkley planned the cabin of the Wright, and I shall always consider it a misfortune that the Engineer-in-Chief was only five feet seven in his boots rather than six feet and over like myself. The cabin roof was high enough for the colonel, but too low for me. Under the skylight was the only place below deck where I could stand erect. The sleeping rooms were too short for me, and before I could lie, at full length in my berth, it was necessary to pull away a partition near my head. The space thus gained was taken from a closet containing a few trifles, such as jugs of whiskey, and cans of powder. Fortunately no fire reached the combustibles at any time, or this book might not have appeared.

There was a forward cabin occupied by the chief clerk, the draughtsman, the interpreter, and the artist of the expedition, with the first and second officers of the vessel. Sailors, firemen, cook and cabin boys all included, there were forty-five persons on board. Everybody in the complement being masculine, we did not have a single flirtation during the voyage.

I never sailed on a more active ship than the Wright. In ordinary seas, walking was a matter of difficulty, and when the wind freshened to a gale locomotion ceased to be a pastime. Frequently I wedged myself into my berth with books and cigar boxes. On the first day out, my dog was utterly bewildered, and evidently thought himself where he did not belong. After falling a dozen times upon his side, he succeeded in learning to keep his feet. The carpenter gave him a box for a sleeping room, but the space was so large that, his body did not fill it. On the second day from port he took the bit of carpet that formed his bed and used it as a wedge to keep him in position. From, that time he had no trouble, though he was not fairly on his sea legs for nearly a week.

Sometimes at dinner our soup poured into our laps and seemed engaged in reconstructing the laws of gravitation. The table furniture was very uneasy, and it was no uncommon occurrence for a tea cup or a tumbler to jump from its proper place and turn a somersault before stopping. We had no severe storm on the voyage, though constantly in expectation of one.

In 1865 the Wright experienced heavy gales with little interruption for twelve days. She lost her chimney with part of her sails, and lay for sixteen hours in the trough of the sea. The waves broke over her without hindrance and drenched every part of the ship. Covert gave an amusing account of the breaking of a box of soap one night during the storm. In the morning the cabin, with all it contained, was thoroughly lathered, as if preparing for a colossal shave.

Half way across the ocean we were followed by sea-birds that, curiously enough, were always thickest at meal times. Gulls kept with us the first two days and then disappeared, their places being taken by boobies. The gull is a pretty and graceful bird, somewhat resembling the pigeon in shape and agility. The booby has a little resemblance to the duck, but his bill is sharp pointed and curved like a hawk's. Beechey and one or two others speak of encountering the Albatross in the North Pacific, but their statements are disputed by mariners of the present day. The Albatross is peculiar to the south as the gull to the north. Gulls and boobies dart into the water when any thing is thrown overboard, and show great dexterity in catching whatever is edible. At night they are said to sleep on the waves, and occasionally we disturbed them at their rest.

One day we caught a booby by means of a hook and line, and found him unable to fly from the deck. It is said that nearly all sea-birds can rise only from the water. We detained our prize long enough to attach a medal to his neck and send him away with our date, location, and name. If kept an hour or more on the deck of a ship these birds become seasick, and manifest their illness just as an able-bodied landsman, exhibits an attack of marine malady. Strange they should be so affected when they are all their lives riding over the tossing waves.

About thirty miles from San Francisco are the Farralone Islands, a favorite resort of sea-birds. There they assemble in immense numbers, particularly at the commencement of their breeding season.

Parties go from San Francisco to gather sea-birds eggs at these islands, and for some weeks they supply the market. These eggs are largely used in pastry, omelettes, and other things, where their character can be disguised, but they are far inferior to hens' eggs for ordinary uses.

There were no islands in any part of our course, and we found but a single shoal marked on the chart. We passed far to the north of the newly discovered Brooks Island, and kept southward of the Aleutian chain. Since my return to America I have read the account of a curious discovery on an island of the North Pacific. In 1816, the ship Canton, belonging to the East India Company, sailed from Sitka and was supposed to have foundered at sea. Nothing was heard of her until 1867, when a portion of her wreck was found upon a coral island of the Sybille group. The remaining timbers were in excellent preservation, and the place where the crew had encamped was readily discernible. The frame of the main hatchway had been cast up whole, and a large tree was growing through it. The quarter board bearing the word "Canton," lay near it, and revealed the name of the lost ship. No writing or inscription to reveal the fate of her crew, could be found anywhere.

On Friday, July thirteenth, we crossed the meridian of 180? from London, or half around the world. We dropped a day from our reckoning according to the marine custom, and appeared in our Sunday dress on the morrow. Had we been sailing eastward, a day would have been added to our calendar. A naval officer once told me that he sailed eastward over this meridian on Sunday. On the following morning the chaplain was surprised to receive orders to hold divine service. He obeyed promptly, but could not understand the situation. With a puzzled look he said to an officer--

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet