CORNELL
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
THE
CHARLES WILLIAM WASON
COLLECTION ON CHINA
AND THE CHINESE
Cornell University Library
DK 771.S2H39 1904
3 1924 023 036 266
AN OKOCHUN WOMAN.
\Fro//lisJ'iu
The original of tiiis book is in
tile Cornell University Library.
There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023036266
IN THE
UTTERMOST EAST
BEING
AN ACCOUNT OF INVESTIGATIONS AMONG THE
NATIVES AND RUSSIAN CONVICTS OF THE
ISLAND OF SAKHALIN, WITH NOTES
OF TRAVEL IN KOREA, SIBERIA,
AND MANCHURIA
BY
CHARLES H. HAWES
IflTH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
,53-157 FIFTH AVENUE
1904
PREFACE
Many books on Siberia have appeared during the last
two decades, most of which fall into one of two categories ;
the earlier, into what we may label "exile literature," and
the later, " Siberian railway sketches."
The present work belongs in part to both of these
classes, but deals chiefly with a portion of Siberia far
beyond the terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway— the
little-known island of Sakhalin. Such a terra incognita
has Sakhalin been in the history of exploration, that until
the year 1849 it was believed to be a peninsula even by
the Russians ; and six years later, in 1855, an English
naval commander was outwitted owing to the prevailing
ignorance of its insularity.*
It is therefore not surprising that, even as late as this
twentieth century, I should have been the first English
traveller to explore the northern interior. The sources
of our knowledge of Sakhalin, even in Russian, are few
and in English, if little has been heard of the convicts
there, nothing has been written about the Gilyak and
Orochon natives. With the expansion of the penal settle-
ments, and the future, though not impending, development
of the resources of the island, must follow the decay of the
* See post^ p. 100.
viii PREFACE
native in the presence of the white man. Already the
former is modifying or abandoning his religious rites and
ceremonies. It therefore behoved me to place these on
record before they became lost to the investigator or buried
in tradition.
If in the course of the narrative faunal and floral
species have been noted, this is only what every traveller
owes to the scientist and the ever-increasing body of
students. At the same time no one regrets more than I
do, that I was so inadequately equipped for my task
among almost unknown peoples and amid strange physical
conditions.
Of the faulty state of the penal administration, and the
unfortunate condition of the "exile-settlers" described in
these pages, it is devoutly to be hoped that in any future
investigations no trace may be found. At the same time
a word of warning is due, lest the reader should found a
generalization for Siberia upon this particular settlement.
Sakhalin is the colony to which all Russia's worst criminals
are despatched, and the very name of the island is banned
in St. Petersburg. Moreover, it is a far cry to the capital
— ^the sign-post in front of the post-office at Alexandrovsk
says io,i86 versts (6752 miles) — and the threads of control
cannot be pulled tight. Since the publication of Mr. George
Kennan's two volumes,* great improvements have been
made in the conditions of prisoners, throughout Siberia,
not excepting Sakhalin ; but that island still lags, as ever,
many years behind the average penal settlement on the
mainland.
In Chapter VI. will be found a brief risum6 of the
* " Siberia and the Exile System."
PREFACE ix
history and general features of Sakhalin. The rest of the
book, including the notes on Korea and Manchuria, consists
mainly of a personal narrative. It makes no claim to
an exhaustive account of Sakhalin or the neighbouring
regions, for the author's object has been to place before
the reader pictures. Incidents, trivial in themselves, illus-
trate and bring home to the mind the everyday life of.
native and white man in this far eastern world, more
effectively than any detailed statement of habits and
customs.
The incognito of five or six persons who figure in the
narrative has been preserved. Courtesy, if not fairness,
to certain exiles and officials demanded this; and not to
have done so could have served no good purpose, and
perhaps embarrassed or injured them. Should this book
find its way to Sakhalin or Eastern Siberia, these persons
will be recognized, and, indeed, two or three of them are
well-known in European Russia.
My thanks are due first of all to Mr. X., my interpreter
on the island of Sakhalin, a man of rank and education
and a convict, without whom these investigations could
never have been made. A few days before these words
were penned, I received a letter telling of his escape to
Japan — after many exciting experiences — "packed up in
a cupboard."
To Mr. Ellinsky, I am also deeply indebted, not only
for the meteorological records of Alexandrovsk, but for
many notes, which he had made on the subject of the
natives.
In confirming my own observations of the fauna and
flora of the island, I have derived assistance from the
X PREFACE
work of two St. Petersburg professors, A. M. Nikolsky
and Fr. Schmidt.
In the matter of illustrations, I have a like pleasant
duty to fulfil. Those appearing in the text have been
sketched from articles in my possession, but the plates
are in all cases from photographs. For those not taken
by myself I am indebted to Mr. A. von Friken, Inspector
of Agriculture on the island of Sakhalin, to Mr. Kuznetsov
and to Mr. EUinsky. For seven out of the eight (the first
was by the author) forming the remarkable and unique
series of the bear f^te, I can only here record my thanks
to one whom I met on the island, but who wishes to
remain anonymous.
Cambridge,
October, 1903.
CONTENTS
I'AGE
List of Illustrations . xvii
Glossary xxi
CHAPTER I
FROM NAGASAKI TO GENSAN
Bound for the Russian Empire — A dangerous coast — Korea a land of
mystery — Where are the i:, 000,000? — Fusan — City gentlemen
from mud-huts — The site of a great invasion — Gensan — A difficult
arithmetical problem — 800 mung for a pair of hinges . . i
CHAPTER II
AT VLADIVOSTOK
Russia, Japan, and Korea — Vladivostok — Siberian hotels — Search for an
ice-free port — Tariff imposition and its results — Difficulties of travel 15
CHAPTER III
FROM VLADIVOSTOK TO KHABAROVSK
The railway journey — The Ussuri region — The terrible massacre at
Blagovestchensk — Stories of eye-wilnesses — Khabarovsk . 30
CHAPTER IV
ON THE AMUR
A lonely post — On the broad bosom of the Amur — Village scenes —
A 2000-mile sledge journey — Nikolaevsk — A visit to the prison —
A night affray — "If he moves, shoot him"— Bound for Sakhalin
at last ........... 48
xii CONTENTS
CHAPTER V
NIKOLAEVSK TO ALEXANDROVSK
FAGB
A treacherous passage — A lonely coast — Sakhalin at last — I am put
under guard — Am I a spy? — Strange story of an ex-convict mer-
chant—A drunken host to the rescue— The terrible deed of a
student— Alexandrovsk— An interview with the Governor— A ride
to Arkovo and a warning — Armed outlaws — The mail held up —
Preparations for a 750-mile journey ....•• 74
CHAPTER VI
THE ISLAND OF SAKHALIN
History of the discovery of the island — Captain Vries in search of the
"Gout en Siiverycke eylant" — Believed to be a peninsula — The
Jesuit Fathers' quaint reports — How the island got its name — La
P&ouse's discoveries — Captain Nevelsky settles the question of
its insularity — Native legends of a deluge — Was it a peninsula? —
A forest-clad land, the home of the great brown bear — S5° below
zero — Mails by dog-sledge across the frozen sea — A mystery of
the ice-bound straits — Geology — Strange races — Who were the
aborigines ? — Dwellers in pits — The Russian occupation . . 93
CHAPTER VH
ALEXANDROVSK TO SLAVO
Into the interior by kibitka — A " Free-command " — Miserable crops
— A tragedy by the wayside — The famous Robin Hood of Sakhalin
and his escapades — On the track of iraiiya^' . . . .118
CHAPTER VIII
SLAVO TO ADO TIM
A start is made on the 6oo-mile canoe journey — A settlement of ill-repute
— So-called " civil marriage " — A terrible environment for children
— ^Doubtful quarters .... . -135
CONTENTS xHi
CHAPTER IX
ON THE RIVER TIM
PAGE
" Each facing our man with arms loaded " — A notorious thief and Ivan
Dontremember — An ex-naval captain shot — A native's idea of
measurement — A village possessing seven bears — Dug-outs in course
of making . ........ 148
CHAPTER X
TO THE MOUTH OF THE TIM
" A departed spirit " — The big brown bear — Salmon for the spearing —
Sun-dried fish — Eagle's wings to aid the flight of the soul of the
murdered — We pass brodyagi encamped — I miss 5000 rubles — We
join a bear in a seal hunt — A night in the swamps . . . 163
CHAPTER XI
IN THE BAY OF NI
A curious coast-line — Gilyak huts and their origin — An interior —
" Give something to the god " — The great bear fete — A unique
band and artiste — The Cham's adjuration — The bear not a pious
Gilyak — Signification of the festival 186
CHAPTER XII
CHAIVO BAY AND BEYOND
An Orochon village — Strange surroundings — A monopolist — Prepara-
tions for a great feast — The New Year's festival — Barter — Our
host "the richest man in the world" — The value of a needle —
Petroleum lakes — The tundra — An unwritten tragedy . . . 204
CHAPTER XIII
WITH THE "CHAM" AT CHAIVO
An "inter-continental" boat-race — The Cha7n and the Shaman —
Exorcising the evil spirit — Why the Gilyaks are without written
characters — The journeys of a soul after death — Strange rites at
the funeral pyre 22S
l>
xiv CONTENTS
CHAPTER XIV
NIVO
PAGE
The powerful Tol ni vaakh—Avi fauna— The great sea-holiday— The
Black Killer— Fish in " posts "—The Grand Old Beggar— A "great
city" — The "Lord Mayor" — Polygamy — An elopement — Gilyak
maiden's song — A scorned lover — Curious marriage ceremony —
Causes of the decrease of the Gilyaks ..... 248
CHAPTER XV
FROM NIVO TO IRR KIRR
An aristocrat — A party intent on buying a bear — Five brodyagi on our
path — ^A memorable escape — A two months' campaign — Canni-
balism— Migration of birds — Seal added to the menu — Tol ni
vookh delivers us — Tracking a bear — A winter duel with Bruin —
Reindeer hunting in the buran 277
CHAPTER XVI
A RIDE THROUGH THE "TAIGA"
Irr Kirr — The bears' constitutional — A salmon for \d. — Ado Tim —
The difficulties of riding in a telyega — Miserable settlements —
An exciting ride— The 19th of the month — Rikovsk prison —
Sophie Bluffstein — An extraordinary career — Refuge from a storm
— A convict home ......... 300
CHAPTER XVII
SCENES AND PERSONS IN ALEXANDROVSK
Flans for departure — A broken cable — Rumours of war with Japan —
A reply telegram in nineteen days — Chief buildings of Alexan-
drovsk — Classification of prisoners— Flogging — The plet — Putrid
prison rations — The painful story of Mrs. A. — Twenty years in
the dungeons — " Who are you ? " — Arrival of prisoners — A tale of
murders ........... 227
CONTENTS XV
CHAPTER XVIII
STORIES OF PRISONERS
FACE
A show of arms necessary — A murderer with nineteen victims — I am
warned — Black crosses by the wayside — "What do you think of
Patrin?" — A fearful struggle — A saintly old prisoner — Eight
years' hard labour for stealing a loaf — The ' ' game " of the super-
intendent and the " exile-settlers " 3SS
CHAPTER XIX
STORIES OF CRIMES IN ALEXANDROVSK
Chinese prisoners — An armed escort — Church service — A night for
deeds of darkness — Tunnelling and firing houses — An employer
of assassins — Sakhalin ; the Utopia of no taxes — The power of
the ruble .... 372
CHAPTER XX
SAKHALIN TO VLADIVOSTOK
The Russian priest — The prisoner's hope — Sister de Mayer — Her story
— Heroic efforts — Her solution of the unemployed problem —
Sakhalin coal — Farewell to the island — De Castries Bay — I am to
cross Manchuria as a " book-keeper " ..... 388
CHAPTER XXI
ACROSS MANCHURIA
A brief historic sketch — Area and resources — Railway route — Scenery
— Journey in a construction train — Kharbin — Difficulty of finding
the train — The steppe — ^Approaching Tsitsikar — A poor railroad . 407
CHAPTER XXII
MANCHURIA TO CHITA
The river Nonni — Overtaking the train — A Chinese village— The
Khingans — A two and a half days' stop — Six thousand miles of
snow — Curious dwellings — Manchuria station — Tickets obtained
under difficulties— Struggles at buffets— Chita .... 428
xvi CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXIII
TRANS-BAIKALIA TO MOSCOW
PAGE
The Burials — Nomads — Lamas — Gelung Nor Lamaserai — A " living
god " — Mystery play — English missionaries — Lake Baikal — Irkutsk
— Pictures en route — Boundary of two continents — The Ural
mountains — Isolation of villages 446
Index . . . 465
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TO FACE PAGE
An Orochon Woman . . . . Frontispiece
The "Bazar," Fusan, Korea 8
The Korean Post-office, Gensan lo
Korean Bureau Hinges. Korean Hat-box. Korean Bamboo
Under-vest and Horsehair Cuffs 12
Members of the Gold Tribe 35
"Trenches were hastily dug around the Town'' (Blago-
vestchensk) 38
Statue of Count Muraviev-Amursky and House of Governor-
general Grodekov, Khabarovsk 44
Striking off the Fetters 68
The Governor of Sakhalin 85
The " Pristan " (Jetty), Alexandrovsk go
An Attack on the Post. Repairing the Bridge cut by the
" Brodyagi " 90
Alexandrovsk Prison and Offices 91
A Map of Sakhalin 93
Map by d'Anville, 1737. By the " Isle du Fl(euve) Noir," is
meant Sakhalin 98
Arrival of the Dog-sledge Mail from the Mainland . . 108
10,186 Versts to St. Petersburg. Departure of the Dog-sledge
Mail for the Mainland no
A Sakhalin Ainu Family at Home 114
Map of Northern Sakhalin 120
A Sakhalin Murderer 129
The Famous Barratasvili . . 129
Reading the Death Sentence 132
xvii
xviii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TO FACE PAGa
A Sakhalin Murderess 141
A Gilyak Tracker of "Brodyagi" I54
Gilyak Wife and Maiden 158
Gilyak Storehouses for Dried Fish 174
Gilyak Summer Hut . 192
The Bear F6te 196, 198
Feeding Bruin [p. 195) — " He emerges too readily " (/. 197)
— "The Gilyaks proceed to muzzle him" (J). 197) — ^"Led
to the Hut of his Owner" {p. 197) — "To the Strains of a
Unique Band " {p. 197) — " Left tied up to ruminate over
his Position " {p. 198) — " A Few . . . shoot Blunt, Wooden-
ended Arrows" {p. 199) — "The Arrow had missed the
Heart" (/. 200)
An Orochon Man (Mainland) 206
" Our Supper of Fish was spitted before the Fire " . . . 233
A Tungus "Shaman" 235
Setting out for an Afternoon Call 252
A Group of Tungus 257
An Unrecorded Tragedy {see p. 227) 259
Pillaniitsich, or the " Grand old Beggar '' 259
The " Lord Mayor " (on the left) and the two " Lady
Mayoresses " of Nivo 272
" By the cleared Track from Onor to Nay-ero "... 280
The Village of Hamdasa II 284
Vasiliv, " The Cannibal " 286
Off to the Bear-hunt . 294
A Sakhalin Bridge 312
A Gang of Murderers, of whom the Four to the Left were hanged 316
The Famous Sophie Bliififstein, or " Golden Hand," being
Manacled 320
The Stockade of the Alexandrovsk Prison .... 324
A Gang from the " Testing " Prison Road-making . . . 337
The "Reformatory" Prison, Alexandrovsk. The "Testing"
Prison is in the Background 338
Convicts under Guard hauling Logs 339
Chained to Wheelbarrows Night and Day . . . . 340
The "Kabila" (Flogging Bench), "Rozgi" (Birch rods), and.
the " Plet " at Rikovsk 341
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xix
TO FACE PAGE
Golinsky, the present " Palach,'' or Executioner, with the
" Plet," Alexandrovsk 342
Political Exiles, Rikovsk 344
The Arrival of Convicts from Russia 348
A Night Watchman, Alexandrovsk 358
A Desperate Character 363
The Dark Cells (or " Cachots Noirs "), Alexandrovsk Prison . 365
" In the Market-place are several Ramshackle Shelters " . 386
Farewell to Sakhalin 400
Inhabitants of Kirin, Manchuria 412
The Author 429
Chinese General at Tsitsikar receives the Russian Governor-
general Grodekov 436
A Buriat . . 441
Buriat Family and "Yurta" (Tent) ... -447
Buriat Wife and Maiden in Festive Attire .... 448
The Late Kan-po, or Grand Lama of the Buriats . . . 449
Taranatha, a Buriat " Khubilgan," or " Living Buddha " . 450
The Actors (Lamas) in the Mystery Play . . . .452
Summons to the Temple Service 453
Baikal Station on the Lake, with the two Ice-breakers . . 456
At a Wayside Station, Trans-Siberian Railway . . ,461
" An Obelisk bearing the Inscription on one Side Asia, and
on the other Europe " 461
Map of North-East Asia .... ... At end
GLOSSARY
An adequate transliteration of Russian words, giving their exact
phonetic equivalents in English seems to me impossible, and the
following is an admittedly faulty attempt; yet, such as it is, its
value will be increased to the reader by a few words on the
pronunciation of the transliterations. The following remarks may
be taken to apply not only to the Russian but also to the Gilyak
and Ainu words.
The vowel sounds have the value of the Italian
a is pronounced as in ia'Caex.
e „ „ „ th(?re.
i „ „ ee „ ieeA..
o „ „ „ c^d.
u „ „ 00 „ iooA.
The letter i in the following transliterations, B/t, Gotov/,
Isp«'tuem»kh, Isp/tovat, Kabila, R?ba and V«, has the sound of
a shortened td.
Double vowels are not diphthongs, but are pronounced separ-
ately, e.g. Due and Manue (names of Sakhalin villages) are
respectively Doo-e (like the French town Douai) and Ma-noo-e.
Of the consonants g is always hard, and s as in awew, but
never like z; ch is pronounced as in chnxck, and never as in
German ; shtch as shed ch in ia.rm.shed chi[6. ; and finally zh
as z in azure.
RUSSIAN WORDS.
Al^n, plural alhii . Deer, used in Sakhalin to denote reindeer.
Arestdnt, plural i . Prisoner.
Artel .... A guild or workmen's association.
Balshdy . . . Great.
XXll
GLOSSARY
Edrin .
Blin, i .
Bog .
Bdyka .
Brdtsky
Brodydga, i
BAdet .
Burdn .
Chai .
Chas .
Chto .
Dek&br
Desyatina, i
Do
Ddkha .
Dugd
Etape
Eto .
Familiya
Gilydkskiy
CorMsha
GSrod .
GotSvi .
GrScha .
Gubirnski
Guslnoy
I .
IkSna, i
Jkrd .
IntelUginti
Gentleman.
Pancake.
God. Dat. case, Bogu.
"Pidgin" Russian (in the East) for "boy,"
i.e. waiter, etc.
Fraternal. See p. 455, n.
Vagabond, a passportless vagrant ; gener-
ally in Eastern Siberia an escaped
convict.
Will be ; 3rd pers. sing, future of bit, to be.
Snowstorm.
Tea.
Hour ; sey chas, lit. this hour, immediately.
What?
December.
Square measure = 27 acres (nearly).
Till, to. Do ox da sviddniya. Seesviddnie.
A term current in Eastern Siberia for a
long and ample coat lined inside and
outside with fur.
An arc, hence the bow-shaped yoke span-
ning the shafts.
Prisoners' resting-place en route, where
they sleep two consecutive nights.
A .p6lu dtape accommodates them for
one night only.
This, that.
Family, surname.
Adj., of or belonging to the Gilyaks.
A term current in Eastern Siberia, Kam-
chatka, and North America, for Salmo
proteus.
Town, city.
Ready.
Buckwheat, generally cooked or steamed
like boiled rice.
Local (gaol).
An adj. formed from Gus, a goose. Gusi-
noy 6zero, Goose Lake.
And.
Image, sacred picture.
Caviare, roe of sturgeon.
The educated classes.
GLOSSARY
XXIU
Ispitiiemikh .
Ispravly&yushtchikhsya
Ispravnik
Izvdstchik, i
Kabargd
Kabila .
Kak .
Kdmera, i .
Kanddlnaya
Kantselydriya
Kavkdz
Kdya .
Khaldt, i
Khlyeb
Kibltka
Kita .
Kitdesky
Knut .
Kopyiyka
Kto
Limdn .
Lyodokdl
Ldshad, i
Lund .
Mdlenkiy
Mdtushka
Razry&d ispituemikh, the division or cate-
gory of those being tested ; " testing "
prison. Gen. plural of the pres. part,
pass, of ispitovat, to test.
Gen. plural of pres. part, of the reflective
verb ispravlyatsya ; razry&d isprav-
lydyushtchikhsya, the division or cate-
gory of those (prisoners) being re-
formed. " Reformatory " prison.
Chief of the police in a district.
Cabman, or driver of hired vehicle.
Musk-deer.
Lit. mare, hence a bench to which the
prisonerabout to be flogged is strapped.
How, in what manner.
A room, a prison-ward.
Fern, of adj. kanddlnoy, chained. Kan-
ddlnaya tyurmd, lit. chained prison,
the prison of the chained.
Chancellerie.
The Caucasus.
An Eastern Siberian term for the driver
of a n&ria.
Lit. a morning gown, but used for the
long overcoat worn by the prisoners
in summer.
Bread, a loaf.
A rude little four-wheeled vehicle with a
seat for two behind the driver.
A term current in Eastern Siberia, Kam-
chatka, and North America, for Salmo
lagocephalus.
Chinese, from Kitdi, China.
Whip. See p. 340.
A kopyek ; one-hundredth part of a ruble,
or one farthing in value.
Who?
Estuary.
Ice-breaker.
Horse.
The moon.
Little, small.
Dim. of mat^ mother, mother dear!
XXIV
GLOSSARY
Mayd .
Adj. fem. of moy, my.
Medvyet
Lit. honey eater, bear.
Mishka
Colloquial for bear. Dim. of Mikhael.
Muzhik, i .
Peasant.
NacMlnik .
Superintendent or chief, whether of an
officer or men.
Ndrta .
An Eastern Siberian term for a dog-
sledge.
Ne . . .
Not.
Nichevo
Nothing, it matters not.
Nyet .
No.
Oblast .
Province or " territory."
Okrug, i
District.
Oknizhni .
Adj. from okrug, of a district.
Ostrov .
Island.
bzero .
Lake.
Paldch
Executioner, flogger.
Pardsha
Excrement bucket.
Pazhdl'sta, ipazhdluista
, Please, if you please.
Perestlnt
A forwarding prison. See p. 66.
PirasMk, •^\.pirashki
Pasty, dough-nut with minced meat inside.
put .
Whip. See p. 340.
Polu- .
Half.
Pos{/)eUmts
" Exile-settler."
PoseUnie
Exile-settlement.
Prdzdnik .
Holiday, feast-day.
Pristan
Wharf, jetty.
Prolyotka .
Small Victoria (carriage).
Pud .
40 lbs. Russian, or 36"ii lbs. English.
Razry&d
Section, category.
Razydzd
Lit. passing place. Kit&esky razyisd.
Chinese junction.
Riba .
Fish.
Rdzga, i
Rod, birch rods.
Rubdshka .
Shirt.
Rubl .
A ruble. The exchange value fluctuates
about IS. id.
Sabdka
Dog.
Samovdr
Kettle in the form of a tea urn.
S&zhen, i
Lineal measurement = 7 ft.
Serdiiiy
Angry.
S^y . . . .
This.
ShtcJii . . . .
Cabbage soup.
GLOSSARY
XXV
Shiiba, i
Fur coat, generally applied to the peasants'
sheepskin coats.
Skolko .
How much ?
SkSro .
Quickly.
Sldva .
Glory. S/dva Bogit, thank God.
Smotritel
Superintendent.
Sdlntse .
Sun.
Stakdn
Glass, tumbler.
Stdntsiya, sii
Station, post-station.
Stdrosta
Bailiff, headman of a village.
Stoit
Costs, or is worth.
Stryelyiiy
Shoot ! Imperat. 2nd pers. sing, of
stryelydt, to shoot.
Stupay .
Go away ! Imperat. 2nd pers. sing of
stiip&t, to go.
Sviddnie
Meeting, da sviddniya, tiU we meet again.
Taigd .
The Siberian forest or jungle.
Takoy .
Such, chio eto takoy, what is it ?
Tarn .
There.
Telyiga, i .
Cart. See p. 308.
Titerev
Capercailzie.
Tishe .
Gently !
Troika, i
Team of three horses abreast.
Ti'mdra
The northern belt of Siberia, a treeless
waste of swamps. See p. 224.
Tyttrmd
Prison.
Tyotushka ,
Auntie, dim. of tyotka, aunt.
Tyuleniy
Adj. from tyulin, a seal, Ostrov tyuldniy.
Seal Island.
Ukdz .
Edict, Imperial proclamation.
Versta .
A verst = 3500 feet, or -663 mile nearly.
Vi
You.
YamshtcMk .
Post-boy, but here driver of a telyega.
Ynkola
A Kamchatkan term for dried or cured
fish, used generally throughout Siberia.
Y-Arta, i
Nomad's tent.
Zakt'iska
Snack, hors-d'oeuvre.
Zaryd .
Dawn.
Zdrdvstvueie
Good morning ! 2nd pers. plural imperat.
of Zdr&vstvovat, to be in good health.
Zndytt .
I know.
Zolotnik, i .
A weight, one-ninety-sixth of a Russian lb..
or 'IS oz. avoirdupois.
XXVI
GLOSSARY
GILYAK WORDS
(Mainly forms of the Tim and Tro Gilyaks, but including some
in use by the West Coast tribe).
Cha or chai
A bay.
Chak vi hunch . . See Tol vi hunch.
Cham .
Medicine-man of the Gilyaks. See pp.
234-S-
Cham-gash
Seal-harpoon of great length.
Ch'khnai
Wooden images used by the cham in
exorcising. See p. 237.
Chookh
Thou, God !
CMuff .
Bear.
Dghakho
Knife ; used as the men's hunting and
general purposes knife.
Gazhu .
A remedy. A piece of a wasp's nest.
Genich .
To buy. Umgu genich, to buy {i.e. to
marry) a wife.
Hakhpisakh
Woman's wadded hat with lappets, from
Manchuria.
I .
River,
Jigind .
To quit a hut. See p. 191.
Kakh .
Bear-spear.
Kanga
A rude Jew's harp of wood.
Kan-hi
Haddock (jGadus ceglefinus or Vachnyci).
Karr-long
Crow month. On Sakhalin March.
Kashk .
Lily {Fritillaria Kamchatkensis).
Kau .
To the right (hand).
Kaur .
Iron-tipped sticks for guiding and arrest-
ing the dog-sledges.
Kaukray
No, nothing.
Khal, pi. a
Clan.
Kham-long
Eagle month. On Sakhalin February.
KKm .
Quiver.
Kikkik.
Hooper swan {Cygnus musicus).
Kiskh .
God, the creator or judge of good and
evil, but used also in a vague and
general way for all gods.
Kiskh ni mui
'h . . God give.
Klenu .
The council of village elders.
Koiba .
Rings (finger).
GLOSSARY
XXVll
Koscka
A tambourine covered with fish-skins.
Ku
Arrows.
Kuni ,
" Many Fish and Bears River," a tributary
of the Tim.
ICttsind
To enter a hut. See p. 191.
J\wvi .
" Many Sables River," a tributary of the
Tim.
Langerr
Hair seal [Phoca vitulind).
Locha .
Russians.
Marikh
Fish-spear.
Meskh .
Earrings
Mligh-vo
The " other world " village whither the
spirits of those who died a natural
death journey.
Moshun-totn
ash . . Field camomile.
Nakh .
The bench that surrounds three sides of
the Gilyak hut.
Ni vookh
A god or lord. See Pal ni vookh, etc.
Nookh-tses
Carved bone needle-cases.
Olf-rega
A remedy. Squirrel's tail.
Of'nish
The name by which the Orochons are
known to the Gilyaks.
Paff .
Box in which the ashes of deceased are
placed.
Pal .
Mountain, forest.
Pal ni vookh
Lord or god of the (mountain or) forest.
Pal ni vookh chi-sonch The prayer to the lord of the forest (Sable
holiday).
Pal rush
Forest daimones.
Pilencho
Halibut (Pleuronectes hippoglossus').
Pis
Heracleum barbatum.
Pore.' .
Stop !
Puchi .
Tangle seaweed {Laminaria esculenta).
Punch .
Bow.
Raff .
The tiny hut for the temporary sojourn
of the soul of the deceased.
Rik .
Cuckoo {Cuculus canorus).
Ru-er .
Cousins.
Takh! .
On!
Tif .
Forward !
Tim .
Cranberry. The name given to one of
the two great rivers of Sakhalin.
Tin kirn
A rude fiddle of one string.
xxvm
GLOSSARY
Tlo .
Tol .
Tolf an
Tolftuf
Tol ni vookh
Tol vi hiinch
Torif .
Tiilf an
Tul-noss
Tur ....
Tur ni vookh
Tu-tut ....
Tzakh ....
Uich ....
Uichka rush
Umgu, or ungu dzkakho
Vibuis ....
Vo . . . .
Yu-rii ....
Heaven, whither the spirits of the
murdered and suicides fly direct.
Water.
Summer year, which includes spring and
summer, and is inaugurated by the
seal hunt and Tol vi hiinch.
Gilyak summer hut.
Lord or god of water (sea and rivers).
" Water or sea holiday."
Gilyak winter hut.
Winter year, which includes autumn and
winter, and is inaugurated by the sable
holiday, Pal ni vookh chi-sonch.
A remedy. A piece of a squirrel's ear.
Fire.
Lord or god of fire.
Eastern turtle-dove (Turtur orientalis)
A twig with whittled shavings at the top.
Unlucky, ill-omened.
Water daimones.
Woman's (fish and domestic) knife.
Belt with gunpowder, skin flask, shot
horn, flint and tinder pouch, etc.
A village.
Automatic bow-and-arrow snare.
Chi
Inao
Kotan
Nai
Poro
Toi
AINU WORDS
Baked or dried.
A twig with whittled shavings depending
from the top.
A village.
River.
Great. Poronai, great river.
Clay. Toichi, makers of baked clay. See
pp. 114-S.
IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
CHAPTER I
FROM NAGASAKI TO GENSAN
Bound for the Russian Empire — A dangerous coast — Korea a land of
mystery — Where are the 11,000,000? — Fusan — City gentlemen
from mud-huts — The site of a great invasion — Gensan — A difficult
arithmetical problem — 800 mung for a pair of hinges.
AFTER many wanderings in the Orient, I found
myself at length on board a Japanese steamer
at Nagasaki, bound for Vladivostok.
There was some stir in the harbour as a Russian vessel,
filled with homeward-bound troops from Port Arthur,
steamed slowly in and let go her anchor. Rumour had
it that this was the Yaroslav, of the Russian "Volunteer
Fleet," bound for the island of Sakhalin with its sad freight
of convicts, but it was not so, for she had not left Odessa
then, and more than two months were to elapse before I
was to see her and her cargo. All doubt was set at rest
when the Russian Tommy was seen in his great jack-boots
wandering through the narrow streets of the Japanese
town, lost in amazement at the dapper little light-hearted
people, and their numberless shops gay with a thousand
and one strange novelties.
The last sampan had left our side, steam was up, and
our bow turned to the west ere the setting sun warned us
1 B
2 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
to be alert. Even as we got under weigh a charming
sight met our gaze. Far off, silhouetted against the sky,
picturesque junks with spreading sail were returning
through the golden gateway of the harbour.
One by one great ironclads were passed, for the Powers
were but slowly evacuating Peking, and here, as off Taku
and in the Yang-tse-Kiang, the great battleships of Europe
flew their different flags. The verdant and richly wooded
slopes of Nagasaki harbour left behind, a respectable berth
was given to the isle of Pappenberg (Japanese, Takoboko),
which a mistaken tradition has assigned as the scene of
the martyrdom of native Christians in the seventeenth
century.
Our course lay north-north-west, and as darkness set
in, a pleasant surprise awaited those who, familiar with
the coasts of China, Korea, and the Orient generally, gazed
for the first time upon the coast-line of Japan by night.
Hundreds, nay, thousands of twinkling lights like myriad
glow-worms decked the shores, telling of busy villages and
hinting at the populousness of Japan. The traveller re-
cently arrived from the Philippines, Australia or Korea,
and steaming by night through the Inland Sea, with its
gaily lit shores, is as much taken aback as was the Suffolk
farmer who, driving up to London, and struck by the sight
of so many people as he reached Shoreditch, asked, " Be
there a fair here to-day ? "
The general reader, who thinks of New Zealand as
separated from Australia by merely a channel instead
of a 1 200 knots' steam, probably makes the opposite
mistake in the relative positions of Korea and Japan.
Though by no means the nearest points, Nagasaki, from
which I had started, and Fusan, for which I was bound,
are only 100 knots apart, and even this distance is halved
by the intermediate islands of Tsushima. " The Twins,"
as they are also called, have this peculiarity — that at
low tide they form one island. Tsushima is beautifully
FROM NAGASAKI TO GENSAN 3
wooded and mountainous, possesses a magnificent natural
harbour and promises to become a great health resort.
Early on the following morning, the mountainous east
coast of Korea, with its striking contrast to the low sand-
flats of the western shores, broke upon our view ; but as
I approached this, the south-eastern corner of the penin-
sula, I missed the charming picture of a sea dotted with
green islets, which one enjoys off the south-western coast.
Several weeks earlier, in travelling from Chifu to Na-
gasaki, our vessel had threaded its way for some hours
through a maze of islands gay with patches of green
barley and paddy fields, and the hill slopes dotted with
tiny clusters of thatched huts. Suddenly a fog drove
down upon us, darkness descended, and we were compelled
to heave to. The next morning we awoke to find our-
selves still in the net-work of verdant islands and barren
rocks, some of which were but a stone's throw from our
starboard bow. It was a difScult coast, only partially
surveyed, and the scene of many a wreck — a coast rendered
more dangerous by an entire absence of light-houses, a
feature of modern civilization of which Korea is devoid.
It was with keen expectation I looked forward to really
setting foot in Korea, that land of mystery which lured
the wanderer with its promises of secret surprises, and drew
him with all the glamour of an unknown country. With
such a feeling did I gaze upon the scene before me as we
entered the port of Pusan, or rather Fusan, the Japanese
name by which it is more generally known.
The harbour, backed by great bluff hills, offers a
sheltered anchorage. The least depth of the entrance
at low-water springs is twenty-eight feet. There is
a noticeable absence of trees, a barrenness accentuated
by a clump or two of cryptomerias (Japanese cedars)
brought over by the Japanese settlers voluntarily
exiled from the land of their birth ; but this dearth of
foliage was by no means displeasing to the visitor from
4 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Japan, for the breezy hills with their short grass, inviting
to a run and a climb, were a pleasant contrast to the damp-
ness and smell of the paddy fields and the suffocating
closeness of the thickets one had left behind.
But my surprise was great when I saw such an in-
significant settlement. On maps and in statistics of
Korea, the ports Fusan, Gensan, and Chemulpho loom
large and important, and what now lay before us in the
bay was a mere collection of thatched mud-huts. Such
was the Korean " town " of Fusan ! In front of us was
a busier settlement of several hundred Japanese homes, the
Japanese Fusan or Sorio ; but if this was one of the first
ports of Korea, where were the 11,000,000 of popula-
tion, and what did they do for a living? It is true one
heard much about the exports of rice, for Japan and
Korea were almost on the eve of a quarrel, a bad harvest
having determined the latter to consider the question
of prohibiting the export of rice, a proceeding which
threatened to spell famine for Japan. Mention was made
also of gold, beans, seaweed, and ginseng (from Chemulpho),
and figures told of an increasing trade. The import of
foreign cottons and kerosene had grown so rapidly that it
was within human possibility that this influx might disturb
the immemorial reposefulness of the Korean character.
Was not an economic upheaval possible when the peasant,
largely dependent on the proceeds of his hemp crop, which
he sold to native weavers, and his castor-oil beans, which
went to native oil-refiners, found his means of livelihood
rapidly going? But where were the signs of a great
trade ?
Another puzzle stared one in the face. What was to
be made of the anomaly that this country claimed to have
given Japan her art at the end of the sixteenth century ;
that from that time Japanese painting, faience,* and
* It is interesting to note that in the village of Tsuboya, in the
Japanese province of Satsuma, the manufacture of the famous " Satsuma
FROM NAGASAKI TO GENSAN 5
metal-work took on a new lease of life ; and yet, in a
short campaign from 1593 to 1598, the latter nation so abso-
lutely crushed the former that she presents the lamentable
spectacle of to-day ?
The Japanese settlement lies at the foot of abruptly
sloping hills of imposing height, and bears a no distant
resemblance to the site of Hobart in Tasmania, though
the latter is situated at the base of a much deeper inlet.
By the kindly intervention of the Japanese ex-Consul of
Hankau, who was bound for his new post at Gensan,
kagos, or palanquins, were secured for myself and a fellow-
passenger, in which to make the three-mile journey along
the coast to the native "city " of Fusan, which we had
already espied from the ship. Our way was a pleasant
marly track, with the beautiful harbour on our right, and
the grand verdant hills on our left. We found the kagos
awaiting us at the Chinese settlement of Sinsorio. They
were not nearly so comfortable as those in use in South
China, and resembled small meat-safes, with green gauze
curtains. The passenger had to sit screwed up tailor-
fashion, and the three stalwart bearers, unlike the Chinese
or Japanese, insisted on a rest at about every half-mile.
The road was evidently a much-used one, for we met
numbers of foot-passengers, and one notable personage
on horseback. He was a sedate Korean, perched on a
couple of band-boxes, on top of a diminutive pony, be-
spectacled— the man, not the pony — with great saucer-like
horn goggles, such as one sees in old collections. But his
confrh'es on foot astonished me. I felt I was but in
dhhabilU compared with these swell-dressed beaux — fine
tall men, with tufty beards and bronzed countenances,
clad in spotless white, and Welsh-shaped black hats
perched on the top of coils of glossy hair, and tied under
faience " is still carried on by the descendants of the Korean captives
brought over by Shimadzu Yoshihiro, the feudal lord of Satsuma,
in 1598.
6 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
the chin, sauntering past, long pipe in hand. I remarked
to my acquaintance that these must be the " ten to four
frock-coated, silk-hatted city gents" of Fusan. But as
we neared their homes in the native city, our wonderment
increased. These were no double-fronted villas, with
" tradesmen's entrance " in staring capitals on the further
gate, but a collection of mud hovels, with thatched roofs.
No chimney broke the outline, nor relieved the dead level
of seeming ant-heaps, for the chimneys rose from the
ground at the end of little tunnels, or were simply pipes
emerging low down from the wall of the hut. Adjoining
the one living-room was a tiny strip of a kitchen on a
lower level, so that the fire might be kindled from here
under the floor of the living-room, as with a Chinese bed ;
a very economical method of heating the room, though
perhaps an Englishman, who sleeps for the first time in
winter above one of these stoke-holes (agimg), might in
his dreams fancy he had left this world for another, but
not better ! But if we were surprised at the poverty of
their homes, we were more puzzled to know how, in these
low-roofed hovel-rooms of 8 X 8 X 6 feet, the white-robed
gentry could be turned out so clean. The problem was
partially solved for me two days later, when, wandering
in the native village or town of Gensan, I observed a
Korean gentleman taking a siesta, his legs in the hut, and
the rest of him in the street, his coiffure and " top hat"
undisturbed, as his head was resting on a wooden pillow.
The husbands of the lower classes are frequently supported
by their wives, which perhaps accounted for the number
of loungers we met along the coast road and in the village
street. Thus the poor wife does not only the cooking,
sewing, washing, and multifarious home duties, but, espe-
cially in remote parts, the weeding, reaping and general
field work. Needlework takes up no inconsiderable
portion of her time, for her lord has all his clothes made
at home, and this means a heavy tax on her, for unless he
FROM NAGASAKI TO GENSAN 7
be turned out spotless, she will be known as a slattern.
The amount of work this involves in unpicking, washing,
and sewing is astonishing, for all his clothes are washable ;
and his garments are so voluminous that one writer, who
has lived in Korea for years, has said that his " pantaloons
would provide a loose under-garment for the statue of
Liberty, New York harbour."
After this, it is needless to say, that the qualities sought
for in a wife are not beauty or charm of manner, but those
of a good " hausfrau." The goal of life of the Korean, the
Korean male at least, is not to accomplish some great
work, but rather to get along without working at all. This
is to be a gentleman of the true aristocratic school.
Passing through the native " town " of Fusan, we came
by narrow alleys to the back of it, and began to climb the
great hill which sheltered it from the north wind. A
clamber up the red marly slopes, covered with the greenest
of grasses and dotted with tiny quartz fragments, brought
us to the summit. From here on that memorable day,
the 13th of the fourth month of the year 1 592, what a sight
must have met the eye ! A vast invading army of at least
1 30,000, possibly double that number, had set sail from the
shores of Japan, and landing here, probably on the site of
the present Japanese settlement, captured the Korean
town of Pusan and the neighbouring castle of Tong-nai.
And though victory was coy and favoured this year the
Japanese, and the next the Koreans and Chinese, that first
day was most surely the beginning of the end — the down-
fall of Korea. It could have been no virile state that fell
from its height so suddenly, but rather like the Roman
Empire, its fall had begun from within ere it was attacked
from without.
From where we stood could be descried the unique and
picturesque gate, erected after this memorable invasion,
giving entrance to the old walled city, which is being
deserted for the adjoining site to the west. Just inside were
8 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
later historical links in the shape of memorial stones, calling
to mind Celtic crosses, which we were told had been erected
to the memory of mandarins who had " squeezed " less
than was customary from the inhabitants.
Among the mud and thatch hovels of the new
" town " stood out a bungalow, the home of the Australian
Presbyterian Mission, whither we had been courteously
invited to a midday meal. On our way thither we passed
through the main street empty of buyers and offering no
tempting wares to the passer-by save some stiff hempen
muslin, brass bowls and chop-sticks. I noted little save
their somewhat conventional if not uncomfortable dress,
that betokened an earlier civilization. The illustration
shows the same street on a market or fair day, for, as
in England seven centuries ago, most of the buying and
selling is done at fairs. The bazars in the populous
cities of India are busy all the week through, but in
Korea, as in the Shan States, east of Burma, I found the
fairs were held on every fifth day, i.e. at one village in the
district on the first, sixth, eleventh, and so on, and at
another on the second, seventh, twelfth, etc., and on other
days they were practically deserted.
The next day was spent in watching the mountainous
east coast of Korea, the long rugged, jagged, dentelle range
with its deep, narrow and dark valleys. The razor-backed
ridges and deeply furrowed sides of the mountains testified
to the torrential nature of the streams, while their spurs,
ending in abrupt cliffs, defied the attack of tide and wave.
There could scarcely be a greater contrast to the low islet-
studded shores of the western coast, where a tide of more
than thirty feet sweeps in and out, alternately concealing
and exposing great expanses of sand. Dense forests, the
home of the tiger, " the old gentleman of the mountains,"
as the Koreans call him, clothed the steeps, and not to
miss any of the wild setting of this scene, pirates had
been captured here three or four weeks previously.
FROM NAGASAKI TO GENSAN 9
A shoal of whales was sighted, and some fine basaltic
columns on our port side, and then bending our course
shorewards we entered the beautiful natural harbour of
Wonsan (Chinese, Yuensan), or, as it is more commonly
called, Gensan (Japanese). Communications with the outer
world were irregular and not too frequent, but better, except
in the winter, than eight years before, when one of our
passengers, a Russian naval doctor, had been wrecked here,
and had to spend fifty-two days on shore before he could
get away. It was afternoon as we glided slowly in, and
there spread out before us a most beautiful, sheltered bay,
dotted with islets, a dreamland of fishing, yachting and
bathing. An out-of-the-world spot with a pleasant climate,
forests to explore, big game to hunt, a curious people to
study and the most glorious effects of light on land and sea ;
at any rate so appears to have thought an English gentle-
man, whose large house stands on an island about three or
four miles from the shore. Here, indeed, he could indulge
his love of quiet and be quit of the demands of Society.
On the mainland, scattered in the neighbourhood, were
three missionaries, the Commissioner of Customs and two
other Englishmen, besides a Russian and another European.
After a short spell on terra firma we put out at sun-
down to rejoin the steamer, and a most glorious scene
encircled us. Our sampan seemed to ride on a sea of
molten silver, backed by great purple-black mountains,
arched by a pale rose-shot sky.
The Japanese settlement at Gensan, off which vessels
anchor, is a rapidly growing one. The population could
not have numbered less than 2000, while it is estimated
that the Koreans total some 15,000, but this latter figure
includes inhabitants scattered over a considerable area.
The next morning we landed on the stone jetty, where
petroleum and Shanghai cotton stuffs were being unloaded,
and whence beans and rice were to be shipped at the end
of harvest.
10 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
As I wished to seek out any survivals of Korean art
and craftsmanship, if such existed, I took with me as
interpreter the secretary of the Japanese Consul, who
at the same time politely told off one of the Consulate
Guard to make a small collection.
Our first visit was to the Korean Post-office. We, my
American companion, an acquaintance made on board,
and the interpreter, passed through the " Magistrature ; "
a series of bow-roofed courts which to a Westerner sug-
gested stables, and in the furthest of them were politely
received by two white-robed and black-hatted officials.
Our wants were duly explained. We wished to purchase
a goodly number of stamps, for there were several issues
still extant, and the youthful stamp collectors at home
would expect us to do our duty that day. Our whole
attention was absorbed in a careful selection, and little
did we reck of the difficult work of calculation to follow.
The head official resorted as usual in the East to the abacus,
but such an abnormal purchase presented unusual difficulty.
The sum had been done in my head, and we differed.
The chief essayed again, and so did his assistant, but with
differing results. At last, discarding the abacus for a slate,
he commenced a long addition sum, for fifteen twos (a
portion of the calculation) apparently in Korea do not
make thirty by multiplication, but only by addition. To
our great mutual satisfaction the slate confirmed me in my
solution of this tremendous problem ! Our business trans-
acted, permission was willingly given me to photograph
the officials and the post-office. Two of them gravely sat
down, the chief stood, and the result is seen in the accom-
panying view. From here by the road we proceeded in a
southerly direction along the coast to the main body of the
Korean village or town.
A shaky bridge, with here and there a broken plank,
spanned the river, but pack-ponies found surer foothold
and saved their masters toll by wading the ford.
^t ^*
Nil'. kmri:\\ I'mm -dFuci , i":i\s\\, [ /;- /a.v/iyi' lo.
FROM NAGASAKI TO GENSAN ii
Peering into the huts as we threaded the long, straggling
street of the village, I observed an occasional chest of
drawers, painted a bright yellow, with handsome pierced
plate-iron clamps or hinges of considerable size. These
bureaux correspond to our old coffers or dowry chests,
being made for the reception of the trousseau of the Korean
bride. My cupidity was aroused. I could not transport
a bureau, but I might compass the portage of some hinges.
A Japanese official was appealed to for information, and a
youthful guide and interpreter was added to our " staff."
He wore a most extensive rush or bamboo hat, which for
three years forms part of the mourning costume. It
resembled an inverted flower-pot, with five scallops around
the edge. So huge was it that I found myself calculating
how many gallons of water it would hold were it water-
tight, and manfully resisting the temptation to knock on
the outside to inquire if the owner were within.
We had now a small cavalcade of the "unattached."
For about a mile and a half we proceeded thus by the
" High Street," which threaded its way between the huts.
From the neighbouring heights these must have looked
like a collection of ant-hills. Korean gentlemen were
stalking proudly down the street, or under the influence
of the noonday heat had retired to rest on the floors of
the small rooms, or lay partly in the street. Halting before
one of these huts, and withdrawing the hanging mat, I found
to my satisfaction a man squatted on the floor making
hinges.
But there was need for a considerable stock of patience.
What mattered it to the Englishman if the steamer did
leave without him ? Life is not worth living if you have
to rush through it as do these foreigners. In the first
place the difficulties of language had to be overcome. The
Consul's secretary understood English and Japanese, and
two of our youthful party claimed to know Japanese, but
I would not vouch that they knew more than their numbers
12 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
in that language. It took some considerable time to make
the Korean craftsman understand that I wanted to buy
some of his hinges. Then the question of price was
evidently a poser. Why, I do not know. Whether he was
wont to barter with his neighbours, or did not sell them
alone, but only affixed to the bureaux, or was staggered
at the prospect of getting a hitherto undreamt of price
from the "foreign devil," I cannot tell. The guide said
he had no fixed price. It was evidently a serious business
this, of making up a price on the spur of the moment, and
we must give the poor man time to think. Finally the
verdict came — 800 mung for one pair of hinges, at least
so it was interpreted to me. It sounded a great deal, but
600 cash coins being then the equivalent of a Japanese
yen (2s. id.), the price was about 2s. gd., probably at least
twice as much as a native would pay, but not exorbitant
in my eyes.
When I proceeded to pay for two or three pairs, I
remembered that I had only Russian money, and there-
fore a long squabble ensued as to the relative value of a
ruble and a yen. In the East the former was worth a
fraction more than the latter at that time, but an authority
in the shape of another tradesman was called in to pro-
nounce. By this time a large audience of Korean gentle-
men, hard at work (!) smoking their pipes, had arrived on
the scene ; but, notwithstanding, one shopkeeper averred
with delightful impartiality that Russian money was cheap,
and he would give me 80 sen (100 sen = i yen) for one
ruble, at the end of a battle, we agreed to regard them
as equivalents, and I proudly walked off with my hinges,
the purchase of which had been nearly a whole morning's
work.
On my way back I passed a coolie carrying money —
Korean cash — on his back. The Korean cash is a similar
coin to the Chinese, and in size is between a farthing and
a halfpenny, but thinner than either. In the centre is a
FROM NAGASAKI TO GENSAN 13
square hole, by which it is strung on straw ropes for con-
venience of carrying. In journeying into the country one
must employ a man to carry one's money thus, or if it be
for more than a week a mule will be necessary. A mis-
sionary whom I met made a fortnight's journey from Fusan,
and took with him 10,000 cash, and he could hardly have
been blamed for extravagance, for he had barely 3S.y. for
his expenses.
Silver and nickel coins have recently been put into
circulation, but in the country it would be more difficult
to change them than a five-pound note in a tiny English
village.
A few evidences or survivals of a past civilization were
forthcoming in the Korean's wardrobe. I obtained some
beautifully woven horse-hair cuffs, under-vests, and hats.
The object of the two former was to keep their white linen
from contact with their perspiring bodies in the heat of
summer. Less expensive substitutes were made of bamboo.
What might we not be saved in England in both purse And
temper if we could dispense with the services of the
laundress and wear bamboo underclothing !
The conventional headgear of a Korean gentleman is
an expensive item, for he will pay as much as £2 and £2,
for a horse-hair hat, with which to cover his precious top-
knot. Another refinement is noticeable in an oiled paper
folding cover, which is worn over the hat in the rain, making
of the whole a picturesque, conical-shaped head-dress.
This latter and a large hat-box of oiled yellow paper on
a bamboo frame, handsomely painted with Korean cha-
racters, were just as inexpensive, costing the equivalents
of \d. and 6d. respectively.
As we made our way back to the boat we passed the
village fields of millet (sorghum vulgare) stretching away
to the foot of the hills, and rising from out their midst the
little stagings so familiar in China and throughout India.
This stork-nest kind of erection is the family " look-out "
14 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
from which to warn ofif grain pilferers of the biped class,
both feathered and featherless. It is extremely hard work,
but absolutely necessary, if a farmer has several small
scattered lots, to keep watch day and night over the wide
area. He is not safe even from relations, for it is said that
poverty is so great " that it is necessary to work all day
and steal all night to make an honest living." The harvest,
however, was not yet ready, and neither the watchers nor
the poorer women whom the strenuous battle of life renders
impatient of the restrictions and seclusion of their richer
sisters had arrived on the scene, i
If the Korean coolie has not the reputation for industry
and energy at home, it is quite otherwise in Vladivostok.
Probably it is the energetic, the venturesome, who have
emigrated, but even so they are measured against a similar
class from China and Manchuria. The most obvious
explanation is that under Russian rule their earnings are
their own, whereas in their own country they are liable to
be squeezed, hence nothing is to be gained by persistent
industry and thrift, for that would mean an invitation to
official despoliation.
CHAPTER II
AT VLADIVOSTOK
Russia, Japan, and Korea — Vladivostok — Siberian hotels — Search for
an ice-free port — Tariff imposition and its results — Difficulties of
travel.
FROM Gensan north to Vladivostok is a twenty-four
hours' steam, the boundary between Korea and the
Russian Empire (Primorsk) being passed at the
mouth of the river Tum^n, about ninety miles before reach-
ing the latter town. The Russian maritime province of
the Primorsk and Korea are conterminous, save for the
river, for a few miles inland, thus squeezing Manchuria
into a wedge-shaped piece which fails to reach the coast.
Hereabouts the great rugged scarred mountains give
place to sloping hills, which fall gently to the sea.
This contiguity of Russia has had a great influence on
the attitude of Japan towards Korea. After the negotia-
tions, in which Japan, at the close of the Chino-Japanese
war, was prevented by Russia, Germany and France from
acquiring any territory on the Chinese mainland, feeling
ran high in the Island Empire, and there remained the
impression in Europe that Japan might soon come to
blows with Russia over Korea. The rapid and abnormal
increase of Japan's navy, and the supposed need for the
latter to attack Russia before her trans-continental railway
was finished, made a rupture, to European eyes, imminent.
As time went by, and Japan joined with the Powers in
the Peking expedition, these fears were somewhat allayed,
IS
i6 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
but not dispelled, as was evidenced by the refusal to lend
Japan money to prevent the financial crisis of 1901. And
yet, all the while, politicians in the West were labouring
under a misapprehension. Notwithstanding all our boasted
rapidity of communication, the telegraph and the press,
distance counts for very much as a factor of ignorance.
Youthful Japan was fired with patriotic enthusiasm,
and we heard the echoes of their rampings in the press,
but meanwhile the older heads at the helm knew and
realized fully the true situation. As one of them remarked
to me, " What is there to go to war with Russia about ?
Korea ? We are settled in Korea — witness our merchants,
our own settlements at Fusan, Gensan, etc. — just as truly
as Russia is in Manchuria. It is as futile for her to
attempt to turn us out of Korea, as for us to evict her
from Manchuria. Moreover, we older heads realize that
to go to war with Russia would be to stake our very
national existence on one throw of the dice."
This is interesting in the light of later events. Statis-
tics corroborate the strength of the mercantile position
of Japan in Korea. Whereas there are (I quote from
the figures of 1901) 16,142 Japanese in the country,
the Russians number only 97. Sixty-five per cent, of the
shipping trade is Japanese, and it is they who are con-
structing the railway from Seoul to Fusan. Foreign
correspondence is mainly done through the Japanese post-
offices, and, as I found, the Korean coinage was largely
supplemented by Japanese paper-money.
It is obvious, however, that with the absorption of
Manchuria, and the acceleration of communication by the
Trans-Siberian and Chinese Eastern railways, Russia's
position for an attack, commercial or military, is greatly
strengthened. She has certainly possessed herself of
another weapon, viz. her power to menace the indepen-
dence of Korea, which, like her attitude towards
Afghanistan, she finds so useful in the game of bluff.
AT VLADIVOSTOK 17
Nagasaki had been left on August 14, and Vladivo-
stok reached on August $. I do not mean that we
had performed the journey in minus nine days, but that
Russia is still thirteen days behind the rest of Europe
in her kalendar ; and some of her writers would have us
believe that she is not even this much behind the West in
civilization.
Vladivostok is picturesquely situated at the head of a
narrow inlet in the Muraviev-Amursky peninsula. This
inlet was first discovered by an English naval captain
in 1856, and named "Port May;" but it has been re-
christened by the Russians, Zolotoy Rog, or Golden
Horn.
To the south, the peninsula is separated from " Russian
Island " by the Eastern Bosphorus straits, and on the west
and east is bounded by the Gulf of Amur and the Ussuri
Gulf.
Threading the straits, our vessel entered the Golden
Horn, and shortly afterward the town came into view at
a bend of the coast. Its situation on the hilly slopes of a
haven with many ramifications, is certainly picturesque,
and had it not been for the total destruction of the trees,
the site would have been truly beautiful. The houses
showed painfully new in the brilliant afternoon sunshine,
and jostled each other in higgledy-piggledy fashion. The
white stone cathedral stood out glaringly against the red-
brick merchants' warehouses ; but most prominent of all
on entering the harbour were the fortifications and barracks.
These were visible in all directions, overflowing into en-
campments of white tents. On prominent spurs big guns
were mounted, and the next morning I counted eight
Russian ironclads at anchor.
Vladivostok has a population of between 40,000 and
50,000 inhabitants, of whom about half are Russians, and
the rest Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, with a sprinkling of
Europeans and Americans. From the point of view of
C
i8 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
buildings, it is still the finest town in Siberia, for while
Irkutsk, the Paris of Siberia, as it has been called, boasts
only a few public buildings in brick, the rest in wood,
Vladivostok possesses several streets of brick and stucco
buildings. At the same time, a Siberian town is always
full of contrasts. Imposing buildings line a road which
would disgrace an English farm. The trottoirs are of
wooden planks. Substantial erections jostle wooden
shanties. Hotels, illuminated with electric light, offer the
traveller filthy floors, and beds with no bed-linen, and
charge him extra for the use of a towel ! Telegrams were
exceedingly cheap, but there was no knowing when they
would get to their destination. The Vladivostok banks
allowed twenty-five days for the transmission of money
by telegram to St. Petersburg in calculating interest ; and
the bank manager, a Frenchman, at Nikolaevsk, at the
mouth of the river Amur, told me that it once took him
forty days to get a wire through to the capital. He was
dependent on a single wire for a great distance, and this
is not infrequently brought down by floods or a storm.
The accident having been located and the repairs at last
completed, there is an accumulation of official telegrams
which take precedence. An "urgent" telegram of mine
once lay undelivered on the counter of the telegraph-office
at Vladivostok for ten days, and for this triple prices had
been paid, in addition to the reply.
A foreign resident, who spoke Russian and was a
friend of the Governor of Vladivostok, told me that it
took him sometimes two hours to get an " urgent " tele-
gram accepted at the office, and then he had the satisfac-
tion of knowing that it might have to wait for a sufficient
number to accumulate before it was despatched to its
destination.
You are fortunate if you do not arrive to find yourself
at the end of a queue of people waiting. The clerk's
attention at length arrested, you hand him your telegram.
AT VLADIVOSTOK 19
He glances at it, and calls " boyka" * and orders "stakan
cfiai " (a glass of tea). This brought, he discovers there is
no sugar, and recalls the boy and scolds him. Again he
glances leisurely down the telegram, and begins to turn
over his book preparatory to making several copies of it.
Between whiles he pauses to drink tea, and at length
summons the boy again, this time for cigarettes and
matches. And so time wears on and your patience wears
out, for time is no object to the Russian, and he would
characterize our adage, "Time is money," as either mad-
ness or low principle.
Nevertheless, improvements on the line of travel march
quickly even in Siberia, especially since the Manchurian
railway has been completed, and it would be unfair to
post-date the above picture. I have recently received a
cable in England from Vladivostok in twenty-four hours.
As I have mentioned, the rates are very cheap, and
special efforts are now made to get telegrams from or to
Europe put through rapidly, and without murdering the
English or German spelling more than the officials can
possibly avoid.
As regards hotel accommodation, so obvious was the
lack of a decent hotel that a large building originally
designed for offices was going to be adapted as a " hotel
run on European lines," so that in this matter also ere
now, the above description, while still true of most Siberian
towns, ought no longer to be so of Vladivostok's best hotel.
Banking arrangements were not much in advance of
the postal and telegraphic. In the East, whether it be
at Hong Kong, Shanghai or Yokohama, one expects to
spend half an hour in getting a letter of credit cashed,
but I was warned that in Siberia it would be advisable to
leave one's letter in the morning and call again in the
afternoon. Even so I heard of the following incident with
some surprise. A foreign merchant stepped over to the
* Pidgin Russian for " boy."
20 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Russo-Chinese Bank in Vladivostok to deposit a few thou-
sand rubles. It was just after 9 o'clock in the morning.
It seems scarcely credible, but by 12 o'clock he had got
the matter finished ! A London cashier would have settled
the matter in less than two minutes. There was a passing
backwards and forwards to different departments. In
some the official was busy and delay occurred, then finally
after quantities of paper had been used and much ink had
flowed, the signatures of two directors were required, and
only one was present. The other had his own office else-
where, and had to be found.
It would be of course quite absurd to expect Western
smartness in Vladivostok, and in fairness we ought to com-
pare it with other towns in the East, where life is taken
easily ; but even so it suffers by contrast.
The Russians after all are only slowly developing a
commercial class. In 1861, they possessed no middle class,
the nation consisted of the aristocracy and the serfs. They
were an agricultural people, and the Jews were doing what
little trade and commerce existed.
I once asked a Russian official, " How is it you do not
allow the Americans or English to go up to Kharbin (in
Manchuria) to trade?" "Why," he replied, with the
greatest candour, "they are so quick that they would capture
all the trade before we Russians had a look in."
This patriotic feeling is having some curious results.
As I write, M. de Witte, the Russian Finance Minister, is
as anxious as Lord Curzon to encourage manufactures and
industrial developments, the one in Russia, the other in
India. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, M. de Witte
sees possibilities of increased revenue in flourishing manu-
factures, but we may credit him as we do our Indian
Viceroy with the desire to render the large mass of people
less dependent on agriculture, and therefore less subject to
famine.
The Russian Minister has not hesitated to invite English
AT VLADIVOSTOK 21
capital. I sometimes wonder whether his emissaries have
informed him that his underlings in Eastern Siberia, con-
sumed with the natural desire of " Russia and Siberia for
the Russians," are doing their best to oust the foreigner.
The imposition of the tariff at Vladivostok has been a
handy weapon, and under this pretext heavy fines may be
inflicted for non-observance of intricate regulations, the
duty on an article new to the import list stated on pre-
liminary inquiry to be so much may be raised to five times
the amount on the arrival of the consignment, and the
previous statement disclaimed.
Restrictions are hemming in enterprises more closely,
but these press scarcely more heavily on the foreigner than
they do upon the native, and are dictated by an empty
exchequer. With care and a careful observance of the
regulations laid down, I am inclined to believe that profit-
able ventures may yet be made by foreigners in Siberia.
Greater care is needed in dealing with local officials, and
I suspect that most of the troubles the foreigner encounters
are not due to the policy of the Government, but mainly
to new weapons of bureaucratic peculation.
But to resume my story. Having been visited on board
by the medical and police authorities, and no objection
taken to our passports, a sampan, rowed by a Korean, took
us ashore, and landed us in the market, or bazar. Here we
plunged into a medley of nationalities, Chinese, Manchu,
Koreans, Japanese, Golds (an Amur tribe), Russians, and,
not to be mistaken anywhere, a group of gipsies.
A Russian naval officer had already warned us that the
hotels throughout the empire were " abominable and dear,"
a generalization about as true as most. There are cer-
tainly exceptions in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and one
in Siberia at Blagovestchensk (kept by a Frenchman).
But at Vladivostok, the biggest, the " Tikiy Okean " (the
Pacific Ocean) hotel, with its dirty floors and its cafi
chantant from midnight until 4.30 a.m., was to be avoided.
22 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Fortunately, through friends, I found a quite " tolerably
clean" hostelry in the Moskovsky Padvarey, a family
hotel which had nothing, however, to boast of in its
restaurant, for the same friends, when they stayed at it,
had been wont to go out to a " patissier " to obtain their
breakfast. I fared boldly on, even after I had to give up
my one hope — eggs, which I began to suspect were
«' made," if not " in Germany," at least in China.
Meals, I must confess, especially in more out-of-the-way
places later on, were a difficulty in the Russian Empire.
The Russian revels in things tart and acid, and does not
object to chunks of food. Sour cream and small cucumbers
or large gherkins played a great part in Siberian menus.
At dinner and supper the latter regularly appeared, while
the soup contained a great cubical chunk of coarse beef.
It is only fair to say that the Russians do know how to
make soups, for these when well made are rich, thick, and
tasty. Vegetables of all kinds abound in them, and make
this first course to a Westerner almost a meal in itself.
Perhaps the national soup, which was the first viand placed
before me in the Russian Empire, would scarcely appeal
to an Englishman. It was swimming with chopped vege-
tables of all kinds, including cabbage, beetroot, carrot,
turnip, etc., and contained the usual solid piece of beef, on
the top of which rode a portion of sour cream, and, to
crown all, a lump of ice.
It was not without adventures that we reached the
Moscow Inn, for our izvostchik persisted in driving us
to the Moscow Restaurant, which was situated in the
lowest quarter of the town. On the way we encountered
some drunken Russian sailors, ashore for the Sunday
holiday, who were having a free fight in the street. Since
leaving Port Said, with the exception of Peshawur, I did
not remember to have been in such a rowdy place ; but we
were helped out of the difficulties our driver had plunged
us into by a fellow Britisher, who ran us to earth in the
AT VLADIVOSTOK 23
hole in which we now found ourselves and explained the
mistake. Then he asked me, "You carry your six-
chamber ? "
" I have it in my bag, but I suppose reports are
exaggerated, are they not ? "
" Well," he replied, " I hadn't been here a week when,
in broad daylight, at two o'clock in the afternoon, I heard
shots, I ran up a yard, and there saw a woman lying on
the ground shot, and a man reloading his pistol. I seized
him, calling a Russian passer-by to my assistance, and we
handed the culprit over to the police."
As the American rather forcibly put it, "You don't
want your revolver often, but when you do you want it
bad."
After the summer heat of Japan, Vladivostok is quite
a relief, for though it is situated on lat. 43° 6' and lies
south even of Florence and Nice, it experiences a cold
winter and not an excessively hot summer.
The winter is fine and dry, and the summer free from
the troublesome dust-storms of Peking. South-east winds
laden with moisture prevail in summer, and fogs occur in
May, June and July, but the months from October to
March are quite free from fog, and European residents
from Japan, Shanghai, etc., come up here to avoid the heat
of August and September. J"he monthly average tempera-
ture ranges from 5° Fahr. in January to 69° Fahr. in August.
In winter the harbour is frozen from the first week in
December until the last in March, and the Japanese mail-
steamers cease to run for two or three months, although
there are ice-crushers in the port. Otherwise it is a fine
almost land-locked haven, and could ride any Far Eastern
Fleet, though the natural position is scarcely a defensible
one.
The town has spread not only along the Golden Horn,
but over to the shores of the Gulf of Amur. Land has
risen rapidly in value ; and one gentleman whom I visited
24 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
told me he was paying for his flat of six rooms on the first
floor of a two-story wooden house ;£'i8o per annum.
The port has made very rapid strides. However, the
recent imposition of a customs tariff, and the determination
of the Imperial Government to make Dalni, which is less
than thirty miles by rail from Port Arthur, the great port
of the East and the direct route to Japan is already being
felt in the older town. It is the old story of the long
scheming for an ice-free port which has at last been
fulfilled.
Petropavlovsk, in Kamchatka, at one time a naval
station and the scene of the repulse of the Allies in the
Crimean War, is to-day a village ; for it had to give way,
after the cession of the Amur in 1858, to Nikolaevsk,
which was henceforth the naval base of Russia in the East.
In 1872 a removal was again made to Vladivostok, a site
over which we are told tigers roamed but a few years
before. To-day Nikolaevsk wears a partially deserted air,
though the process of decline has been arrested by the
discovery of gold on the Amgun river. Finally, Vladivo-
stok has to-day to give way to Dalni, which, according to
Russians, is to become the greatest sea-port of the East,
and to dwarf Hong Kong !
There was no question that Vladivostok up to the time
of the imposition of the tariff had been making great
strides ; but already the baneful effect of this was evident,
and since then matters have gone from bad to worse.
M. de Witte has been bombarded with petitions from the
Vladivostok Chamber of Commerce. To the injuries sus-
tained from the tariff imposition, trade was also suffering
from the competition for the Manchurian trade of the then
free ports of Dalni and Port Arthur. Such were the
delays and troubles of custom house formalities, that goods
in transit for Manchuria were diverted to these ports, and
for Sakhalin and North-Eastern Siberia to Japanese ports.
Local industries dependent upon imported ra!w material
AT VLADIVOSTOK 25
have been killed off, and the effects have been felt through-
out the Primorsk, though the chief cause of depression in
that region was the diversion of the traffic to the Chinese
Eastern (Manchurian) Railway.
I fear that the social life of few eastern ports would
bear looking into, and perhaps Vladivostok less than most.
At most of these the disease of the social body was
decently hidden, but here it was thrust upon you. Even
more than these others it is a place where men congregate
from various parts of the earth to do business, to make
ventures, but whither their women-folk do not generally
follow them. At the last census, of all towns in Siberia
this had the smallest proportion of females to males, viz.
1 5 6 per cent. In so distant a spot, amidst a strange
environment, amongst a mingling of different beliefs and
customs, where it is easier to cast all away than to find
common ground, tradition and convention are thrown to
the winds. And this is not confined to unknown people,
for you learn afterwards, with a shock, that the officials and
persons of distinction with whom you have been dining are
leading exponents of this life.
In pursuit of my plan to get to the island of Sakhalin,
I turned to the genial American Consul, Mr. Greener, who
kindly assisted wandering Britishers. Quite recently a
British commercial agent has been appointed ; but at that
time the Americans outnumbered the British residents,
as now, I believe. It was at the house of one of the former
that I met an interesting American Episcopalian clergy-
man. He was certainly not of the ordinary type, and
combining as he did a love of sport with his more serious
pursuits, his travels had taken him into various parts
of the world, including Japan and South Africa. Mention
of the latter led to an interesting story about Cecil
Rhodes, which is quite worth repeating. Dr. Z. confessed
that as a public man Rhodes had not attracted him, but
personal contact with the man had quite changed his
26 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
opinion of him ; thereupon he told us the following
story : —
"The first occasion I was staying with him," said
Dr. Z,, " was at the time of the Matabele War. Carrington's
troops had not been able to effect permanent results owing to
exceptional difficulties, and Rhodes had gone out unarmed,
parleyed with the big chief, and arranged a peace ; but as
yet the smaller chiefs had not given in. Every day he
and I rode out into their country ; but after the first day
I asked him to lend me a gun. He said, ' What for ? '
' Oh ! ' I said, ' I have seen some leopards and should like to
shoot one ; besides, you yourself admit that these smaller
chiefs are not to be trusted.' 'Well,' he replied, 'you
know our troops could do nothing with these tribes in their
natural fastnesses, and I must depend solely on moral
influence. I have agreed with these big chiefs for a peace,
and I want to show them that I trust them.' ' But,' I
asked, 'why not carry a revolver in your pocket, no one
would know, and I confess I should feel happier myself? '
' My dear fellow,' he replied, ' my servants know everything
that is in my baggage, and everybody else would soon
know also. Besides,' added he, ' if we were attacked on
one of these narrow ledges what could we do ? We
might send a few of these fellows to their account, and
certainly in the end be killed ourselves ; and would you
feel any better for having to render account for a dozen
natives ? ' "
From Vladivostok my intention was, if possible, to
visit the island of Sakhalin, and then traverse Siberia to
Europe. My original plans were based on catching a
coasting vessel putting in at Sakhalin on its way to
Nikolaevsk on the mainland ; but one of these had left
a few hours before I arrived. This was annoying, but I
guessed that if I took the train by the Ussuri railway, that
isolated piece of line which connects Vladivostok with
Khabarovsk on the Amur, and made connexions with a
AT VLADIVOSTOK 27
steamboat down the river to its mouth, I might at
Nikolaevsk yet catch the coasting steamer on its return,
and hope for its calling at Alexandrovsk in Sakhalin. Of
course I must take my chance of being allowed to land.
As will be seen, this plan did not wholly succeed, but
perhaps it was as well.
But even with success assured there were other difiR-
culties which I wished to avoid, if possible, by carefully
laying my plans beforehand. In the first place, no
reliance could be made on the dates of sailing or of con-
nexions in so-far-out-of-the-world a place as Sakhalin or
Nikolaevsk. If I left the island before the Straits of
Tartary froze I could get some vessel or other to take me
to Nikolaevsk, and so by steamboat for 2025 miles, frost
permitting, to Stretensk, the terminus of the Trans-Siberian
railway. The Manchurian railway, which might have been
an alternative, was still in course of construction. There
was one alternative for the first stage of the journey as far
as Khabarovsk, for I might by catching a steamer to
Vladivostok again take the Ussuri railway to Khabarovsk,
and from that point ascend the Amur to Stretensk, a
distance of only 1402 miles. Perhaps the choice of these
routes reads rather like deciding to go to Paris vid Calais
or Boulogne, but it was scarcely so ejisy or reliable a
performance.
Four Germans landed with me at Vladivostok, intend-
ing to cross Siberia. I asked them, " Did they know their
route — that it was highly important to get influence to bear
to obtain a berth on the steamboat at Khabarovsk before
leaving Vladivostok?" They asked, "Where is Kha-
barovsk } We never heard of it before ! " They had
come from Japan with the idea that they merely had to
take a ticket at Vladivostok and be whirled away to
Europe! I referred them to compatriots of theirs, the
great merchants Kunst and Albers, whose aegis, I trust,
was all-sufficient.
28 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Friends of mine, who had been well posted up, spent
twelve days in Vladivostok obtaining the promise of
berths on the steamboat at Khabarovsk, and when, two
days later, they arrived there, these had been annexed by
officers, who always take -precedence in means of com-
munication and transport. However, they got away in
a tiny steamer shortly after, and spent twenty-nine days
on board ascending the Amur and Shilka, sometimes on
sandbanks, and sometimes returning to fetch a third barge,
that had to be towed ! The Amur journey, under favour-
able conditions, should take about twelve days, but the
river is very fickle, and while Dr. Z. had come with
scarcely a hitch (perhaps Prince Khilkov's name was all-
powerful, not only with the officials, but with the river
deity), others had experienced unheard-of difficulties. One's
own countrymen told of crowded boats, of camping in
the gardens of an hotel waiting for connexions, of first-
class passengers, even ladies, sleeping thick on the deck,
and of one steamer passed that had spent eleven days on
a sandbank.
Arrived at length at Stretensk, I should have four days'
train and boat to Irkutsk, whence thrice a week a train
de luxe accomplished the 3390 miles to Moscow in eight
days. But my difficulties would be over if I could make
sure of getting so comparatively easy a journey as this.
What I had to fear was that the river Amur or its
tributary the Shilka would be frozen somewhere en route.
The steamboat would, as is usual, remain where it stuck for
six months, and the river being insufficiently frozen for
sledging, for nearly two months I might be stranded at
some lonely Siberian emigrant settlement on the Amur,
lucky if a poor stantsiya, or post-house, would give me
shelter, black bread and shtchi. The uncertainty as to
when the river would freeze, the doubt as to whether the
last steamer would take days or weeks, and if the latter,
when it would be frozen up, were insoluble even by the
AT VLADIVOSTOK 29
one or two people I sought out who had lived on the
Amur. "Was it possible," I asked, "to cover the 1400
miles between Khabarovsk and Stretensk supposing I got
frozen up ? " The only alternative suggested was to buy
horses on the spot, and get a Kazak * to accompany
me as guide. This was almost impracticable, because I
should require too many pack-horses for my effects and
food, not to mention the likelihood of parting company
with one's baggage in swimming semi-frozen tributaries
of the Amur, or in an encounter with brodyagi (escaped
convicts).
It was clear, therefore, that if I wanted to spend
Christmas in Europe, and not in Siberia, I must make
sure before crossing to Sakhalin of being able to catch
a river steamboat at Nikolaevsk that had ample time in
which to reach Stretensk before the Amur and Shilka
began to freeze.
This promised a very short stay on Sakhalin, but
events turned out otherwise.
* This and not Cossack is the correct transliteration of the Russian
word.
CHAPTER III
FROM VLADIVOSTOK TO KHABAROVSK
The railway journey — The Ussuri region — The terrible massacre at
Blagovestchensk — Stories of eye-witnesses — Khabarovsk.
THE Ussuri railroad, by which I was to reach the
river Amur, is 475 miles in length, and connects
Vladivostok with Khabarovsk.
This line, which was finished in 1897, was intended to
be the last stage of the Trans-Siberian railway traveller's
journey. Starting from Moscow, and having reached and
crossed Lake Baikal, he would then use the Trans-Baikalian
line as far as Stretensk, and thence the (as yet non-existent)
extension of that line along the banks of the rivers Shilka
and Amur vid Blagovestchensk to Khabarovsk,
This was still, at the time of my travel, the route for
the Trans-Siberian traveller, with this difference, that the
journey of 1402 miles between Stretensk and Khabarovsk
was accomplished by steamer and not by train.
The reason of this abrupt termination of the railway
at Stretensk was due to negotiations with China; for in
the autumn of 1896, the Russo-Chinese Bank and the
Chinese Government entered into an agreement whereby
the former was to form a company for the construction
of a railway through Manchuria, connecting the Trans-
Baikalian portion of the Trans-Siberian railway with a
branch of the southern section of the Ussuri railway at
Pogranichnaya.
The point of departure from the Trans-Baikalian line
30
FROM VLADIVOSTOK TO KHABAROVSK 31
has been shifted more than once in the official plans,
and reports vary even in authoritative publications. The
junction station for Manchuria is neither Chita nor Ner-
chensk, Onon, Kaidalovo nor Karimskaya, but a little
station called "Kitaesky Razyezd " (Chinese junction),
sixty-eight miles beyond Chita, going east. This new
line, which, as I write, is now available for trans-con-
tinental traiiSc, effects a saving of several hundred miles
over the originally projected route by the Amur.
The Ussuri railroad borders the Gulf of Amur, then
keeping to the east of the river Suifun as far as Nikolskoy,
which is the junction for the branch-line joining the Chinese
Eastern (Manchurian) railway at the frontier, makes for
Lake Hinka, or Khanka, which it leaves from fifteen to
thirty miles on the left. After this the Ussuri river is
crossed by a bridge of 840 feet, one verst (two-thirds or
■663 of a mile) beyond Ussuri station, and rather less than
halfway to Khabarovsk. Thereafter the line follows the
right bank of the Ussuri, keeping at a tolerably safe dis-
tance from the flood area, until its junction with the Amur
at Khabarovsk.
It was at 9 a.m. on the morning of August 24, 1901,
when my train started out of Vladivostok with eight
corridor carriages, including a buffet-car. An ascent up
the valley of the Suifun river had to be accomplished, and
notwithstanding our two big Baldwin (American) loco-
motives, these gradients were crawled at about three miles
an hour. From the top of this ascent an average speed
of twelve miles an hour was maintained, the line wisely
dispensing with engineering feats of skill, going round
hills and avoiding river-crossings as far as possible. Of
course, there are no tunnels ; in fact, between Vladivostok
and St. Petersburg there are but two and these very short ;
one is near Zlatoust and the other in that mountainous
region, Trans-Baikalia. In the course of a year, the
traveller from Europe to Vladivostok, Dalni, or Peking will
32 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
be able to note four exceptions to this rule on the Man-
churian railway, which are at present avoided by zig-zags
and reversing stations.
Passing, as the Ussuri line does, along a valley, the
scenery is mainly meadow-land, virgin pasture, with scrub
and scantily forest-clad undulating hills, occasionally
approaching and receding. Mountains are visible from
the line in the distance, but the great range of the Sikhota
Alin bordering the coast lies from 80 to 150 miles to
the east.
The immediate region of the railway is scarcely typical
of the rest of the country with its rugged scenery, wild
Tungusian peoples and its brigands. In the valley of
this river, Kazaks had been established for years to
defend the frontier between Manchuria and the Primorsk,
and they had been followed by other emigrants. Thus,
all along the line the land is settled for at least one-third
of the way, as far as Spaskaya, but by no means closely
settled. There are patches of cultivated land and occasion-
ally some cattle to be seen by a river's edge. Seldom is
a cottage to be descried, more seldom a village. Some-
times, when the train drew up at a station, one could
make out a so-called town about two or three miles off,
and pick out one by one the whitewashed wooden cottages,
two or three brick houses of officials and, towering above
all, the cupola of a church.
The colonization of the district was begun in 1855, but
proceeded slowly owing to the great difficulties of travel
and transport. By 1897, the population of the Primorsk
region, which has an area of just under 716,000 square
miles, or nearly seven times that of New Zealand, had not
attained to one-third of the number of that country's in-
habitants. Communication has improved of late, and
considerable inducements have been made by Government,
but the number of emigrant families from Odessa in 1898
totalled no more than 578, and even from this must be
FROM VLADIVOSTOK TO KHABAROVSK 33
deducted leakages, for in 1900 and 1901 a reverse stream
was to be noted, as immigrants were becoming emigrants,
and returning home across Siberia. It seemed strange
that they should be willing to throw up the chance of a
freer life than they could ever hope for in European
Russia, under a climate that was not more inhospitable ;
but it will appear less so when we remember that the
Russian peasant loves companionship, and picture to our-
selves the awful loneliness of outlying settlement life. It
is true that in Russia his village may be isolated by long
distances, but within his village 'he finds a world of fellow-
ship. Then, too, he has not the stock of energy of an
Anglo-Saxon. Hampered by want of sufficient capital,
and confronted by considerable natural difficulties, he gives
in, where others of a race less stoical to suffering, but more
energetic, would win.
Although the Ussuri district is rich in flora, and the
vegetation good, agriculture suffers from a delayed spring
and a wet summer. In July and August come the monsoon
winds, as we may call them, from the south-east, laden
with rain from the Pacific, preventing the ripening of the
crops, while spring lags at the heels of the frost and
impedes an early sowing. The great Lake Khanka, with
an area of 250 square miles, is frozen from the first half of
November until the first half of April. Oats, wheat and
rye are grown, and less commonly, buckwheat, millet and
barley, but the quality of the crops is poor and the fields
very weedy. An analysis of the imports of Vladivostok
for this and the Amur region shows a proportion of 1 5 per
cent, of corn and flour, which is in itself a sufficient com-
ment, when we think of the large available arable area
and the scanty population. Grazing is more successful,
and it is said that each household owns on an average
eight or nine head of cattle and two or three pigs and
goats, but the standard of quality of these leaves much
to be desired.
D
34 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
As I looked out on the scenery I was reminded of
New Zealand, and the development of that country. How
different the results ! True, the latter had had many
advantages, a more agreeable climate and a start of at
least fifteen years in colonization, but it had its disad-
vantages also in the large areas of thick bush, which even
to-day can only be cleared with great labour. Little did
these Russian settlers know of the huge difficulties of
clearing New Zealand bush, nor had they to burn off the
wild grasses, nor clean and nurse the land through several
seasons before they could sow the grass from home that
would yield good feed for sheep. Here in the Ussuri
country large areas of rich meadow-land await the herds
of cattle. The explanation is surely this, that New Zealand
has had sturdy, restless members of the Anglo-Saxon race,
and many a younger son of gentle family with a moderate
capital seeking his fortune and carving it out, whereas
in the Primorsk poor emigrants without capital and ex-
convicts with less hope have been imported to struggle
with nature in a wild mood.
The scenery altered little as the train entered on the
northern section of the Ussuri railway, save that the valley
opened out into a wider plain. These great stretches of
meadow-land seemed to invite American methods of agri-
culture. Many a stream rising in the Sikhota range, far
away to the east, was hurrying across the plain to join the
Ussuri, and as we crossed them I was reminded of the
Norfolk Broads, for their banks were gay with meadow-
sweet, white campanulas, gentians, Michaelmas daisies
and spiraea (5". betulafolia f). The trees, which at first were
mostly oak, ash, willow, walnut, hornbeam and cedar, gave
way to birch and spruce, and then to the elder, larch, elm,
maple and acacia.
To the north forests were more frequent and settle-
ments less so. Our train was making up for lost time, for
at the end of twenty-four hours we had averaged fifteen
FROM VLADIVOSTOK TO KHABAROVSK 35
miles an hour, making no allowance for some moderately
lengthy stoppages.
The stations were well built of wood, sometimes of
brick, and occasionally stood well back from the line, with
a garden between.
Curiously enough the station names were painted in
Slav characters, which for an ordinary Russian are more
difficult to read at a glance than old English characters
would be for us.
The halts were fully made use of by the third-class
passengers to procure food. As the train steamed in, a
few women, barefooted, with kerchiefed heads, were to be
seen hurrying from the railway-workers' huts with aprons
full of victuals — eggs, roast corn (maize), cucumbers, beans,
even cooked fowls and rude pots containing milk. A
lonely sort of life this, of two or three families at a wayside
station ; nothing but forest and plain, with no companions
for miles, but not to be compared with that of those who
had no passing trains to break the monotony, albeit they
did arouse envy of the happy travellers bound for home.
At Bikin, which we reached about 7 o'clock the next
morning, I descended into the midst of some natives,
members of the Gold tribe, who had attained to the exalted
rank of railway porters. They made picturesque figures,
especially their women, who had their two pig-tails re-
trotisies, bound with cord and adorned with many coloured
glass beads and shells. Their dress consisted of smocks
bordered with various gaily coloured cotton stuffs, and
strung round with " cash " coins, and leggings similarly
adorned.
A Russian colonel of the railway staff, seeing my interest
in them, politely offered to get the chief of the Golds and
his wife, who were on the train, to pose for a photograph.
It appeared that the chief had become semi-Europeanized,
but judging by the extraordinary and gaudy attire of the
wife, who looked like an Indian squaw in loud-coloured
36 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
shawls, she could scarcely claim to belong yet to the
Russian " intelligenti."
Until he had reached Bikin, the ordinary traveller could
hardly have realized that he was passing through the
country of the Fish-skin Tartars. To the east and to the
north live these wild tribes, hunting and fishing and main-
taining their strange old traditional customs and cere-
monies, of which I shall have more to say later on. And
though with the Orochons or Oroktis, the Golds and the
Gilyaks, the custom of clothing themselves in fish-skins,
which gained them their name of Yu-pi-ta-tse with the
Chinese, is going rapidly before the advent of the Manchu
trader with " ta-pu," or Chinese cloth, yet I myself have
mixed with Gilyaks and Orochons who still wore fish-skin
garments and who did me honour by spreading a rug of
fish-skins for me to recline upon.
Occupying the coupi facing mine was a fellow pas-
senger of whose familiarity with these parts I was glad
to avail myself. He was a Canadian of Russian descent,
settled at Vladivostok, and now travelling as far as
Blagovestchensk on the Amur. In the course of our
conversation he showed me with some pride a new rifle.
" I don't mean to be caught napping again," he said. I
asked him what he meant, and it appeared that he and
another Britisher, whom I had already met, were in
Blagovestchensk at the time of the panic and the terrible
massacre of the Chinese by the Russians. One had heard
so many reports at second hand of this shocking affair,
that I eagerly embraced the opportunity of correcting
former impressions. If all were true that I had heard,
this was the greatest blot on the record of any civilized
Power during the last century, not excepting the terrible
massacre at Geok Tepe twenty years earlier.
To go back to the events of the previous year (igcx)),
there seems no doubt that the outbreak in Peking came
as a complete surprise to the Russians in Manchuria.
FROM VLADIVOSTOK TO KHABAROVSK 37
Railway employees and settlers fled precipitately before
the advance of the Chinese forces, and embarking helter-
skelter on the Sungari, made their way up the Amur
to Khabarovsk and Blagovestchensk ; thereupon the few
troops that could be spared from these towns were hurried
up the Sungari to Kharbin.
This left Blagovestchensk partially denuded of soldiers
Now, on the opposite or south side of the Amur, was the
Chinese or Manchu town of Sahalien, or Heh-lung-kiang,
and twenty-four miles lower down, the town of Aigun.
One Sunday afternoon, as Mr. S., the other Britisher, was
walking on the " parade " along the river, shots were fired
by Chinamen from the opposite side. A few Russian
soldiers were bathing at the time, and one was hit, but
only slightly, and during the whole of the supposed bom-
bardment of the town, not a single Russian, according to
reliable reports, was wounded in Blagovestchensk. The
suddenness of the attack in Manchuria, and the fact that
all but a few soldiers had been withdrawn from the town,
threw the inhabitants into a panic. At once they besieged
the authorities, and ransacked the shops for arms. Even
so, there was great scarcity, and the town was policed by
men carrying axes. Out of a population of about 30,000,
5000 or 6000, including many servants, were Chinese.
Under the circumstances, perhaps it was not surprising
that the inhabitants of Blagovestchensk should suspect a
plot between the Chinese on the Manchurian side and
their compatriots in the town. What was to be done?
They were harbouring the enemy within their gates — in
their very homes. The authorities telegraphed to the
Governor-general at Khabarovsk for instructions, and it
is said that his reply was, " Kill as in war." Whatever that
meant, it certainly would not be interpreted by an officer of
a civilized nation as the slaughter of defenceless inhabitants.
Outside the town, in the neighbouring villages, were
about 25,000 Chinese, and it was felt that they might at
38 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
any time attack the town. Kazaks of the Reserve were
sent out, and those of the Chinese who had not fled were
simply massacred, and their homes burnt ; and Mr. S.
afterwards saw with disgust the Kazaks prodding the
dead bodies.
Meanwhile, trenches were hastily dug around the town,
and a thin line of defence formed by volunteers, but the
pressing question was, what was to be done with the
Sooo or 6000 Chinese in their midst? They must be
driven out, and not only driven out, but the river must
be put between them and the Russians. To send them
over in boats was to give the unknown Chinese forces on
the other side means of crossing and attacking the town
at close quarters. At last orders came, it is disputed from
whom, to collect and drive the Chinese to a narrow part
of the Amur above the town, where they were to be ferried
across. The scenes that followed were heart-rending.
The proprietor of the Grand Hotel, a Frenchman, had to
give up his Chinese concierge, a faithful servant, who had
been with him for seventeen years ; a rich old Chinaman,
who had had considerable transactions with the Russians,
many of whom had received striking kindnesses at his
hands, was hurried along in the crowd of doomed ones.
Arrived at the river, no ferries were there, and a panic
seized the small force of Kazaks who were driving the
5000 to 6000 wretches before them. It has been said by
Russian officials that rafts were made ; or was the order
given, and not carried out in the excitement? At the
point of the bayonet the defenceless victims were forced
like a flock of sheep into the river. Many, said an old
resident on the spot, were tied together in fours by their
queues, and driven up stream. How many thus met their
sad fate has been disputed, some saying 3000, others
10,000, but the number given by this same resident was
5300 driven into the river, of whom perhaps fifty or sixty,
he added, reached the other side.
FROM VLADIVOSTOK TO KHABAROVSK 39
The current bore the dead bodies down past the town,
but so many lodged on the banks that, for sanitary reasons
alone, men with long poles were sent down at night to
prod the corpses off into mid-stream. The river banks
for weeks after were strewn with swollen bodies, lying in
some places over one hundred together. Many travellers,
including an American professor, have testified to this
awful state of things ; but we may refer to an unwilling
witness in the person of General Gribsky, who, in en-
deavouring to cow the inhabitants of Northern Manchuria,
issued a proclamation {Times, September 25, 1900), in
the course of which he boasted that "the water of the
Amur is polluted by masses of dead bodies of Manchus."
A much more detailed account of this terrible affair
has recently appeared in the Russian journal Zarya
(Dawn), by one who signs himself " Eye-witness."
I give here a brief outline of it, as it supplements and
explains the reports of my informants, from which it
differs but slightly ; while I have purposely kept the
two accounts separate, in order that the reader may form
his own judgment from independent testimonies.
This writer refers, in the first place, to the withdrawal
of troops to the Sungari river, but adds that, roughly,
about 1000 regulars were left in Blagovestchensk. Am-
munition, however, was short. The disturbed state of
Manchuria found echo in the breasts of the inhabitants,
and a meeting was called, but the authorities did not
share these feelings, and rather laughed at their fears.
Meanwhile, at the Manchu village of Sahalien opposite,
the inhabitants could be seen drilling, mostly with obsolete
weapons. Messengers were sent over to inquire what
this meant, and the reply was that no offence was intended,
but owing to the disturbed condition of affairs they were
only making their town secure.
At this time, a steamboat or two arriving from Kha-
barovsk reported that they had been hit by stray rifle-
40 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
shots of the Chinese on the right bank. Nobody, however,
had been hurt. (If one refers to the Times telegrams of
the autumn of 1900 from St. Petersburg, there will be
found an account of bombardments, artillery attacks on
the steamers, and a glorious campaign ! Our Russian
writer characterizes these "official" telegrams, without
qualification, as fiction.)
Meanwhile, the Chinese in Blagovestchensk, who num-
bered, according to this writer, about 3000 or 4000, mostly
merchants and servants, also became alarmed at the anti-
Chinese feelings aroused, and in fear for their own safety,
sent a deputation to the Governor of the town. He pooh-
poohed any notion of danger. In the light of later events
we know they had only too much reason to fear ; but
what is not easily understood is, why, if there was no
such bombardment, as official telegrams afterwards led
us to suppose, the Russian inhabitants were in such a
panic. This our Russian eye-witness goes on to explain,
to clear up the mystery that has reigned here (but not in
Blagovestchensk, for it is no secret there) over this sad
affair. He says a number of the most unscrupulous in-
habitants, in league with the police officials, immediately
took advantage of the fears that first arose, fanned them
to a flame, and then, under cover of " definite measures,"
proceeded to do their dastardly work. And why ? In
order to spoil the Chinese merchants, and to absolve them-
selves from all debts to them under cover of war. It is
even said that many of the shops were previously honey-
combed so that, on the expulsion of the Chinese assistants,
the wares might be abstracted. The popular fear having
been sufficiently worked upon, the terrible work of
"defence" began. Harrowing scenes were enacted on
the river-side. All the Chinese in the town were hauled
out with the exception of perhaps forty. To their credit,
some of the richer Russian merchants did their utmost
to save their faithful Chinese servants, and by bribing or
FROM VLADIVOSTOK TO KHABAROVSK 41
disguise succeeded in saving a few from the awful fate
of their companions.
The wretched victims, men, women and children,
cripples, and mothers with babes in their arms, were driven
to the water-side — some begging not to be killed in this
dog-fashion, others entreating to be allowed to pray before
being slain, and yet others falling on their knees and
raising hands to heaven, offered to embrace Christianity
if only they were spared ; but one and all, mothers and
children, old men and cripples, received the one answer, a
watery grave or cold steel. Rifles and sabres were busy,
and if a wretch hesitated to plunge into the hopeless
waters, he was immediately bayoneted. This, our writer
remarks, is called in the official despatch, " an offer to
go over 1 "
This slaughter continued for days, and some of the
methods adopted are characterized as worthy of the
Inquisition.
The clergy and the " intelligenti," disgusted at heart,
adopted an apologetic attitude, for they dared not openly
criticize the action of the party who were in league with
the police. They excused the deed by the assertion that
"if they had not attacked first they would have been
attacked."
Meanwhile, the object of the unscrupulous section and
the police was clearly seen ; and our writer states that not
merely underlings, but high officials, were implicated.
The deserted shops and godowns of the Chinese were
surrounded, and simply looted under guise of protection.
Money and valuables were shared between the police and
the unscrupulous, rumours having been carefully spread
that gunpowder, arms and dynamite had been found in
the Chinese quarter.
It was an open secret that this administrative official
and that police officer had netted so many thousands
of rubles, even the Russo-Chinese Bank officials being
42 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
mentioned by name in this matter ; and I happen to know
that this is a matter of common talk in Blagovestchensk
to-day.
Their ghastly work completed, on August 3 the
Russians crossed the Amur and took Sahalien, which they
immediately fired, the blaze illuminating the country at
a great distance for two nights. They then advanced
into Manchuria, slaying men, women and children, first
violating and then killing the girls ; and when any criticism
on the action of the Russians is made in Blagovestchensk
to-day, the reply is, " Read the horrible doings of the
German, French and English soldiers in China, and don't
forget the German Emperor's address to his troops."
In judging the Russians in this terrible matter, it should
be remembered that this happened in a very far-off part of
their dominions, that such a thing could scarcely have
taken place in European Russia, and that at the time a
minority of Europeans inadequately armed, were sur-
rounded by thousands of Chinamen who, if they had
attacked and captured the town, would have committed
the most horrible and inconceivable barbarities in torturing
and killing their victims. Yet when all is said that in
fairness should be said in palliation of this lamentable
occurrence, it remains a terrible blot on the records of
a Power which is always claiming to be included within
the comity of civilized nations.
To return to the adventures of the Canadian and
Englishman whose unpleasant experience did not end in
Blagovestchensk. Disgusted with the state of affairs and
anxious to get back to Vladivostok, they determined to
run the gauntlet.
With two or three Russians they planned to escape
to Khabarovsk, which is rather over 600 miles down the
river. A tarantass and horses were bought, and the chief
of the police, although he gave his consent, warned them
of the madness of their venture. At the last moment the
FROM VLADIVOSTOK TO KHABAROVSK 43
Russians backed out of it, and the two were left to carry
out their plans alone.
Outside the town they found ruined and charred
villages, and sights too horrible to mention. They came
upon a Russian who was boasting of having killed three
Chinese, and at the moment was actually feeding his dog
on one of the bodies of his victims. When remonstrated
with, he said he could not get him other food. I have
seen a photograph of pleasure-parties of Russian ladies
and officers picnicking among the corpses of the razed
village of Sahalien.
Continuing their journey, the two Britishers found the
post-road and the Russian villages in a disturbed state.
At the best of times the food to be obtained at an Eastern
Siberian stantsiya is scanty, but now they suffered the
actual want of it. Their horses had to be left behind, and
others were not forthcoming. Skirting the river they
found a deserted " dug-out " (native canoe), and ventured
in this light craft on the current of the great Amur. They
were obliged to hug the northern or Russian shore, but
even so they had to proceed with great care lest they
should be shot by the Chinese on the southern shore, or in
mistake by the Russian sentries on the northern.
Eventually, worn out by all they had gone through,
they reached Khabarovsk, and finally Vladivostok, where
their friends would scarcely credit their story of escape,
such were the reports of the terrible state of the country
at the time.
To return to the Ussuri railway journey, Khabarovsk
was reached in thirty-one hours, and my fellow passenger
and I were met by two Americans, one of whom, the
manager of a store there, was in the habit of assisting
wandering Anglo-Saxons, and at the same time of enjoying
a chat with a passing countryman, before winter locked
him up from the outer world for six months.
As usual with the Ussuri railway stations, the town
44 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
was distant some two or three miles. A couple of
drozhkies were hailed, and in these we lurched and
bounded and all but overturned as they sped along a
broad, muddy, and deeply rutted track. To add to the
excitement of the drive some Golds, gaily clad and look-
ing much like Red Indians, had filled to overflowing
another drozhky, and were enjoying the fun of forcing
our izvostchik to race them.
Khabarovsk, or Khabarovka as it was called until
1893, was founded as a military post in 1858 by Count
Muraviev-Amursky. The name was chosen by him in
memory of Khabarov, a great explorer, who in 165 1 de-
scended the then unknown Amur,* and chose this spot
at the confluence of the Ussuri and Amur for his fortified
camp.
As we have already seen, Russia's naval base in the
East was transferred from Nikolaevsk to Vladivostok in
1872, and eight years later the administration of the
Pri-Amursky region was also removed from the former to
Khabarovka. This town had become a junction on the
line of transport from Europe and Siberia to Vladivostok
effecting a short cut as compared with that vi& its older
rival. Also in winter, while Nikolaevsk was cut off by an
unnavigable frozen strait, Khabarovsk was accessible from
the south by sledges on a post-road, and over the surface
of the Ussuri. Since 1897, the latter has had the additional
advantage of the railway south.
In 1884 came yet another promotion for the youthful
town, the " Pri-Amursky Oblast," or Amur and Maritime
region, including the island of Sakhalin, and the littoral
including Kamchatka, i.e. from Korea to the Arctic
Ocean, was cut off from the Oblast of Eastern Siberia, and
a Governor-general was appointed with his residence at
Khabarovsk. His house is seen in the illustration.
As the traveller from Europe approaches the town by
* Poyarkov discovered it seven years before (1644).
> 'i »;
V
,y^ .
, v
'^•^.^'
If
I.. *
'»' .;' i .
f ,'
FROM VLADIVOSTOK TO KHABAROVSK 45
the Amur, a tall statue stands out prominently from amidst
the foliage at the bend of the river. It is a striking
memorial to a no less striking figure in the history of
Siberia. Count Muraviev-Amursky alone in his day
realized the future value of the Russian advance in the
East. Laughed at for his enthusiasm even by his royal
master, he pushed on undismayed, and by organization
and diplomacy won in 1858 * the Amur region, i.e. the
country on the left bank of the Amur from the junction
of the Argun to the mouth of the Amur. While China
was occupied with the Anglo-French campaign in i860,
he with Count Ignatiev cleverly added thereto the Primorsk
or Maritime region, i.e. the country lying south of the
Amur, west of the Ussuri, and north of Korea.
Seen from the Amur, up stream, the town in summer
presents a picturesque appearance from its situation on
hilly ground ; but my experience of it was under quite
different circumstances. Approached from the back under
a pouring rain, which lasted throughout my stay, I had a
view of vast muddy stretches called roads, and of a far-
* Treaty of Aigun. In the delimitation of the new boundaries of
the Russian and Chinese Empires, the French text of this treaty says,
" La rive gauche du fleuve Amour, k partir de la riviere Argoun
jusqu'k I'embouchure de rAmour, appartiendra k I'Empire de Russie,
et sa droite en aval jusqu'k la rivifere Oussouri appartiendra k I'Empire
Ta-Tsing." The Chinese text, however, instead of saying the left
bank of the sea-going (fleuve) river Amur to its mouth shall belong to
Russia, has, " The territory on the left bank of the Amur and Sungari
rivers from the Argun river to the sea-mouth of the Sungari river
shall belong to Russia," etc.
According to European cartographers, the Chinese text would
have given thus early an undefined area of Manchuria to Russia, and
Mr. A. Hosie, in his excellent book, " Manchuria," calls attention to
this " mistake.'' It was no mistake on the part of the Chinese, nor
did it involve the giving away of Manchuria. It was only a difference
of geographical terms. The Chinese regarded the Sungari as the
more important river, and the Amur, or Weak Water, as they sometimes
called it, as a tributary. From their junction to the sea, the combined
river was known to them, not as the Amur, but as the Sungari.
46 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
west American township. Scattered over a large area are
a few brick buildings, including the fine railway offices,
the Governor-general's house, the church and other State
erections, and a thousand or more wooden houses, from
the merchants' stores to the Manchu's pkdnza. An un-
developed place, like most Siberian towns, yet it had the
makings of a fine town, had not Fortune already deserted
it in the deviation of the Trans-Siberian route through
Manchuria.
The population numbers about 16,000, of whom a
quarter are Chinese, Korean and Gold, The males out-
number the females by seven to three.
Life here offers few attractions, a severe winter which
lasts for seven months, slender communication with the
outside world, a lack of intellectual society, poor homes,
and a high rate of living increased by the cost of lengthy
transport. The average winter temperature is 7° below
zero Fahr., and the average summer temperature 68° Fahr.
The river remains frozen from about November 8 or 9 until
April II or 12.
Such is the " capital of Greater Russia," as it has been
rather unhappily termed. Fate has no immediate future
for it. Trade and commerce are deserting it, stores have
been closed up, and it is scarcely likely that the Governor-
general will be able to resist following suit. He cannot
afford to remain in a place left high and dry by the
retreating tide of commerce, and must place himself on
the main line of communications. A great shuffling of
cards is no doubt going on, though the secret has been
well kept. It would, indeed, be an amusing commentary
on the numerous professions and declarations by Russia
that Manchuria belongs to China, and that she has no
designs upon the integrity of that Empire, if the seat of
administration of Russia's possessions in the East should
be removed, as is most probable, to a town in her neigh-
bour's territory.
FROM VLADIVOSTOK TO KHABAROVSK 47
Floundering about in the streets in torrential rains,
walking for 300 yards along the planked and fossed foot-
ways of the main street in order to find other planks
upon which to cross the lOO-feet sea of mud, was none
too pleasant an occupation, and determined one to lose
no time in getting into a pair of Russian top-boots.
Things looked as dreary indoors. It is true I had been
assigned " No. i " room in the first hotel, which was
superior to anything I had yet seen in Siberia, although
I was expected to supply bed-linen. Breakfast was
hardly up to this standard, for neither milk nor butter was
forthcoming, and I was fain to make the best of dry bread
and a glass of tea. For this magnificence I had to pay.
My bedroom cost me 1 3J. for one night, plus a charge of
IS. "id. for candles, meals of course being extra. There
were four tallow candles in the room, of which I had used
a small portion of two. This obnoxious if somewhat
amusing charge for candles used or unused, not unknown
to travellers on the Continent, but fast dying out there, is
also doomed in Russia before the introduction of electric
light, therefore it behoves me not to allow the following
incident to be lost. An English nobleman staying in a St.
Petersburg hotel was given a bedroom with a candelabra
and galaxy of candles. He had used but a fraction of the
number when he came to leave, but found to his surprise
that he had been charged for them all, and at twenty
kopyeks (5^.) each. Putting the unused ones in his pocket
he descended the stairs, at the foot of which his departure
was awaited by the usual crowd of would-be tip-receivers
in a Russian hotel. To their astonishment he presented
each with a candle, adding, "These candles are very valu-
able ; they cost me twenty kopyeks each ! "
CHAPTER IV
ON THE AMUR
A lonely post — On the broad bosom of the Amur — Village scenes —
A 2000-mile sledge journey — Nikolaevsk — A visit to the prison —
A night affray — " If he moves, shoot him " — Bound for Sakhalin
at last.
MY Canadian-Russian acquaintance had driven
straight to the river, and there through influence
managed to squeeze on to an already filled boat
going up to Blagovestchensk. The river was reported full,
which, however, could not have been the case, for higher
up, a few days later, steamboats were aground on sand-
banks. I was in easier case ; there would be no crowded
cabins or sleeping on deck for me, as I was bound down
the river on the comparatively little used route to Niko-
laevsk, or Sakhalin, and "no further." In fact, on the
second day, I found myself alone with an official who
was, to put it politely, muddle-headed, and at times
aggressively so.
The first day our number was increased by one of the
Americans met with at Khabarovsk, a Californian. At
one of the few villages passed, Malmizhkoy by name, we
dropped him. Here the tributary stream was in flood,
and he could not get rowed up even in a primitive flat-
bottomed boat, but had to wait on the chance of being
sent for. At the gold mine for which he was bound, he
had no companions but poor Russian emigrants or ex-
convicts and a few natives. His Russian vocabulary was
ON THE AMUR 49
of the meagrest, and there in this out-of-the-world spot in
Eastern Siberia, frozen up for seven months in the year,
he had spent a whole year without seeing a person to
whom he could talk freely. Living like this on poor food,
mostly fish, he had fallen ill, and in a state of depression
had determined to throw up his post, but a ten days' stay
at Khabarovsk had recuperated him, and he was now ready
to face another winter's banishment. A superintendent
engineer for an old-established English gold-mining com-
pany, with its offices — it did sound rather odd — in Token-
house Yard, he had not always been stationed so long in
one spot, but had travelled in the Okhotsk district among
its many wild tribes, the dog-Tungus, the Manguns, the
Koryaks, and the Chukchis.
How impossible it is to convey the impression this
mighty river makes upon one ! If we include its main
tributary, the Argun, it is over 30CX5 miles long, and
navigable for steamboats as far as Stretensk on its other
great tributary, the Shilka, i.e. for 2050 miles.
At Khabarovsk, which is 650 miles from its mouth,
it is more than a mile wide, and on the way it opens out,
spreads into many channels, forms islands, and in some
places broadens to five or six miles in width. A wonderful
sight is this vast expanse of water, with a low-lying black
line on the horizon, encircling us as if we were in the
centre of a great lake.
Four days I spent on this great river, with the delight-
ful feeling that one was moving ever into the unknown.
The banks were low and swampy, lined with willows, and
backed by limitless forests of birch, poplar and larch.
No hills were in sight, only miles upon miles of forest,
untrodden save for the foot of the native hunter or more
rarely a venturesome gold-seeker.
The first day was a time of pouring rain and of rough,
wind-swept waters, followed on the morrow by a cloudless
sky and a still surface. There is yet another aspect, which
E
50 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
I expected to see later, when — frozen hard and ice-bound
— a deep white mantle covers it and all the country
round, and more than ever makes of the scene one great
lone land.
The third day brought us glorious sunshine and hills,
for the Sikhota Alin range from the south began to send its
spurs as outriders to meet us, and suddenly, at a bend where
lies the village of Bor, they pushed their way down to the
river, narrowing it to about two-thirds of a mile. At this
abrupt bend, a gale of wind met us, and we could make
out a storm cone-signal in this wild spot on the top of
the towering cliff. The river had become a tossing sea,
which lasted for about a quarter of an hour, when almost
at once we were in still water again.
At night, a light or two at the head of a swampy islet
warned our steersman of the shifting channels, and some-
times by day we would spy the tiny boat of the lantern-
trimmer on his lonely round.
Villages were few and far between. We stopped about
every sixty miles for fuel, a lengthy business, as we had
to turn and head up the river to allow our four barges to
swing round and lie down stream. Soon after leaving
Khabarovsk we had attached four barges, two of them
laden with 300 convicts bound for Sakhalin. A few wig-
wams of the Gold tribe, and very rarely a tiny hamlet, were
passed. The villages of log-huts, each with its brightly
painted green and white church and posting-inn, or
stantsiya, looked their best in the brilliant sunshine, and
I forgot the loneliness of the long frost-bound winter, the
thousands of miles separation from friends and home.
Long boats, made of three planks only, curving high at
bow and stern, and copied from the native canoe, pushed
off as we anchored a few yards from the shore. They
were paddled by rough-bearded men in jack-boots and
red rubashka (shirt), and women barefooted, with gaily
kerchiefed head, or by Golds decked out in their brightly
ON THE AMUR 51
embroidered toggery. The third-class passengers on our
steamboat, mostly emigrants or peasants, leaned over the
rail of the lower deck eagerly scanning the contents of
the boats. As the latter came alongside, there was a
chattering and bargaining and a passing from above
and below of greasy ruble notes, bottles of milk, eggs,
and slabs of smoked fish two feet long. It was just
such a scene, though under a very different sky, as I
had witnessed off the Malabar coast of India, where,
putting into some palm-girt, sandy bay, canoes manned
by semi-naked figures put out to barter with the hungry
and thirsty third-class passengers who crowded the lower
decks of the coasting vessel bound for Goa, offering
green cocoanuts for drink, and stalks of sugar-cane for
meat.
At one village the vessel was able to approach near
enough to connect the shore with planks, and while stacks
of fuel were being slowly transferred to our decks, the
women-folk with their babes gladly went ashore, kindled
a fire, and made a hearty breakfast on terra firma. At
another village, the priest, with his long locks and rusty,
threadbare cassock, put off to help unload and count the
sacks of flour for the winter's supply. The land was too
wet here to allow of corn being grown. The poor colonists
therefore relied on fish, vegetables grown in their patches
of garden, and the produce of their cattle, pigs, or poultry ;
and last, but not least, the arrival of winter provisions by
the boat. An occasional failure of transport in past years
had resulted in terrible privations.
The settlements occupy a mere strip on the edge of
the bank, carved out, or more literally, burnt out, of the
forest, just broad enough to stand their log-houses on,
and to give feed to their cows. In summer the one event
of the week is the calling steamer, but in winter even this
is denied them. Outside, deep snow covers everything on
river and banks alike, and there is nought to be done in
52 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
field or garden. Rarely is the sleeping village disturbed
by the mails, or by an official travelling in hot haste, who
arrives at the little post-station on his looo or 2000 miles'
sledge journey upon the ice-bound river, changes horses,
and is gone as swiftly as he came.
As we glided eastward and ever eastward on the broad
bosom of the mighty Amur, to the right and left stretched
the same limitless forests, the home of the bear and the
deer, with a few huts of the Golds or Gilyaks making the
loneliness more lonely by contrast. This, the third day
of our river journey, had been brilliant throughout, and
now the sun was setting in all its glory. How can one
describe a sunset on the Amur ! We were floating on a
silvery expanse under a harvest-golden sky, on which a
celestial hand in gathering had left a few dusky, fleecy
clouds. Below stretched an undulating horizon of moun-
tains, limned in black, and between us and them rose an
ever-heightening slope, crowned with a fringe of firs
filigreed against the steely blue into which the gold was
paling.
We had reached and passed Sophisk, where the river,
running thus far in a north-easterly direction, suddenly
trends north. If the reader looks at the map, he will
see that, if this were not so, the Amur would find outlet
between Sophisk and Marinsk in De Castries Bay. As it
is, it turns north, flows parallel with the coast, and delays
its discharge into the Straits of Tartary for more than 200
miles. How narrowly it escapes emptying itself into De
Castries Bay is not generally known.
Later on I had opportunities of landing twice in this
bay ; and there I learned that a hill of only 1 50 feet
separates through water-communication between the Amur
and the Straits of Tartary. This does not, of course
represent the barrier to be destroyed to permit of com-
munication by canal. It simply means that natives pro-
ceeding from Lake Kizi, into which the Amur overflows at
ON THE AMUR S3
Marinsk, up a stream which descends from a hill on the
east, have only to drag their canoes over a crest of 150
feet, to find another stream running down on the western
slope into the Straits of Tartary, near De Castries Bay.
Marinsk is about thirty miles as the crow flies from the
sea, and a track connects this and Sophisk with the
telegraph-station in the bay. Communication is made in
winter, so the telegraph-chief at De Castries told me, by
dog-sledges. Lake Kizi, which is 27 miles long, has
doubtless been formed by great floods on the river Amur
at some time unknown.
A fog settled down upon us soon after leaving
Marinsk, and compelled us to anchor for the night, for
the land on the left bank was low and flooded for miles,
and the shifting of currents rendered navigation difficult.
The fourth day our course was north-westerly for
twenty miles or so, until we came to a sudden bend of
the river at the native village of Tir, whence the river
flows due east. At Tir, on some rocks on the hilltop, are
strange inscriptions, which have been variously interpreted.
Some have asserted that they are Chinese characters,
and witness to the ancient limits of that great Empire ;
others, and this seems more probable, hold that they are
a Nii-chen or Mongolian inscription of the famous Buddhist
invocation, " Om mani padmi hom " (Oh, the jewel in the
lotus).
At Tir, a great tributary, the Amgun river, on which
there are gold workings, joins the parent stream. Four
hours later, on the afternoon of the fourth day, our vessel,
casting off its sorry burden of convicts, crept up to the
pristan or wharf at Nikolaevsk.
Here I learnt to my chagrin that the steamer for
Vladivostok vi& Sakhalin had already departed, the fog
of the previous night having cost me my connexion.
Hope dawned again when I bethought me of the mails
and convicts, and I inquired how they would be despatched.
54 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
" Oh ! " was the reply, " We expect another vessel in
sixteen days ! " If there is one thing to be learnt in the
East, it is never to hurry, but to take things as they come.
It takes a long time to become proficient, and to cure one's
self of the besetting sin of making definite plans. Bred
up in the ignorance of the West, I had always regarded
mails with awe and respect. Visions floated before my
eyes of the daring deed of Mr. Gladstone, stopping the
Irish Mail near Hawarden one night, despite all warnings
of the signalman, in order to obey the command of the
Queen ; and of the Pennsylvanian and New York Central
railways racing for the mail contracts.
To wait sixteen days was out of the question. " Could
I not," I asked, in my ignorance, " cross the river and post
down the coast to the narrowest part of the Straits of
Tartary (which separate the mainland from Sakhalin), and
there cross over in a native boat and continue my journey
by post to Alexandrovsk, the chief place on the island ? "
It was their turn to be astonished now. " You would be
killed and eaten by the natives ! " they said. I little knew
then that impenetrable forests barred my way to Cape
Lazarev on the mainland, and that no posting track existed
either there, or on the island from Cape Pogobi. That
natives might mistake me without escort for a brodyaga
(a passportless vagabond or escaped convict), and capture,
or even shoot me, was just possible, but that they were
cannibal was either pure invention or legend born of
ignorance.
" No ! don't worry yourself," was the advice of the
manager of the branch of the Russo-Chinese Bank ; " we
shall hear if a steamer puts in that is likely to call at
Sakhalin, though few do, as there is nothing for them to go
for, excepting coal, and the lading of that is always an
uncertain business." This did not sound hopeful. Mean-
while, what was to be done ? To wait possibly sixteen
days, probably more — for dates are elastic in East Siberia —
ON THE AMUR 55
would involve being stopped by the frozen river at some
out-of-the-way spot on the return journey up the Amur.
The river naturally freezes earlier at its upper waters than
at the mouth. Towards the end of October * floating
blocks of ice are met with, and almost suddenly, with little
other warning, the steamer finds itself ice-bound. Six
weeks or two months must elapse before the surface
throughout its length, in the lower reaches as well as the
upper, can be declared safe for troiki (three-horse teams,
attached in winter to sledges). Heavy snowfalls are
experienced at Nikolaevsk and in the coastal region,
mainly in December, the white pall lying from three to
nine feet deep. Three feet of snow present considerable
difficulties to progress, and render it impossible for horses
to flounder any distance through it. In December, there-
fore, the post-master of each little Government stantsiya,
or post-house, twenty to twenty-five versts (13 to \6\ miles)
apart, stakes out a course, with pine branches on the snow-
covered frozen surface of the river, when it is sufficiently
hard. In doing this he is assisted by the village to village
traffic, which is somewhat insignificant it is true, and a
narrow track within this course gets beaten down. This
done the authorities give notice that the road is open, and
a few military officers, and here and there a merchant or
engineer whose business will not wait, venture on their
long and trying journey. Sledging over the smooth white
surface to the galloping of three spirited steeds and the
merry peal of bells, sounds a most delightful experience,
and so it is if taken in small doses for pleasure ; but it is
another story when long distances are travelled. In that
case you go on day after day, night after night, stiff and
sore, cold and numb, seizing the opportunity of the two-
hourly change of horses — and of sledges if you have not
* The dates given throughout are according to the English style,
unless otherwise stated. The difference is thirteen days, e.g. October 8,
Russian or old style (o.S.) = October 21, English or new style (N.s.)-
56 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
been wise enough to buy one — to drink a glass of hot tea,
chafing at a delay which, nevertheless, is all too short to get
thawed in. By day, by night, unhasting you go, counting
the weary versts which, though they speed by at the rate
of two hundred a day, seem so slow in mounting to thou-
sands. Then comes a check, and you arrive at a stantsiya
to find the post-horses already taken by officials. There
is nought to be done. The night must be spent here. At
least you will have the opportunity of a rest, for hitherto
you have had to snatch an hour or two's sleep when
travelling on smooth stretches. But peering into the room
you find the floor crowded with the sleeping forms of
muzhiki, and an atmosphere that is staggering. There is
not a vacant space, and even if there were, you reflect that
if Russians are immune to asphyxia an Englishman is not.
Stiff and cold you wrap yourself in furs and elect to 'pass
the night outside. A Russian, whom I met in Sakhalin, and
whom I will call Mr. Y., set out only this last winter (January
1903) to sledge this journey which I had just completed
by steamer — the 623 miles from Khabarovsk to Nikolaevsk.
He was making the journey in the opposite direction, and
so bad was the weather that he only accomplished it in
twelve days. Soon after he had left Nikolaevsk a buran,
or great snowstorm, enveloped him, his team, and every-
thing around. The horses struggled on gallantly, the
izvostchik whipping and urging them on ; but the snow
grew deeper and deeper as they proceeded, until the poor
floundering creatures could go no further. There was
nothing to be done but to loose the horses, mount them bare-
backed, leaving the sledge and baggage in the snow, and
make their way as best they could through the blinding
fall to the nearest stantsiya. This is' slow travelling for
sledges, as the mails reckon to cover on the Amur, despite
all delays for changing horses, on an average 250 versts, or
166 miles, in the twenty-four hours ; while in the journey
from St. Petersburg to Yakutsk before railways existed, the
ON THE AMUR 57
9000 versts (nearly 6000 miles) was performed in twenty-
eight days, or at the rate of 2 1 3 miles a day. But for long
distances such rapid journeys are not to be attempted
by the traveller, unless he wishes to become a wreck ;
it is advisable to sleep at nights where stantsii offer
possible accommodation. Mr. S., the Englishman who
escaped from Blagovestchensk, undertook, before the time
of railways, the tremendous journey from the Ural moun-
tains to Yakutsk, and managed it in this fashion in six
weeks.
In severe winters, however, there are times when the
cold at night is too intense for one to proceed. When the
thermometer records — 35° Fahr., and your izvostchik gets
frost-bitten, and the frozen breath of the horses chokes
their nostrils, compelling the driver to descend every
quarter of an hour to free them, then it is time to give
up and wait for the sharp spell to abate.
There was little time in which to decide whether to
return at once or run all the risks that delay would involve,
for the steamboat by which I had come was leaving in four
hours. The question, however, was decided for me, for the
berths had all been taken by those who were anxious
to return before navigation became uncertain.
The town of Nikolaevsk, in which I now found my-
self stranded for an unknown period, was founded on
August 6, 1850, by Captain Nevelskoy, acting without
instructions from headquarters, for it was not until 1858
that the Treaty of Aigun gave this, the left bank of the
Amur, to Russia. I have already referred to the severe
blow it received when, in 1872, the naval base was trans-
ferred to Vladivostok, and again when the administration
of the province was removed to Khabarovsk.
The town, which is perched on the rugged slope of the
northern bank of the Amur, consists mainly of one broad
street or road with one offshoot down to the pristan, and
a few parallel green tracks. The main street contains half
58 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
a dozen well-built wooden structures, including the church
the Russo-Chinese Bank, and some merchants' stores. There
are a few shops and residences of officials, the rest are log-
houses straggling away into the scrub and forest, out of
which the site of Nikolaevsk has been carved. At the foot
is the collection of wooden wharves, which in the autumn
present quite a busy scene. An Amur steamboat is in,
three or four steamers bringing provisions, tea, flour, etc.,
for the winter are lying in mid-stream, huge lighters, which
I am told were made in England, are being tugged ashore,
while a small fleet of schooners rides at anchor higher up
stream waiting for their annual load of fish for Japan.
Yet Nikolaevsk wears a iriste look. The two prison
buildings, with their dingy, forbidding-looking stockades,
frown upon you, and the deserted old rambling wooden
houses of the admiral and military officials tell of its
fallen fortunes. As I wandered about the place, I could
not resist the feeling of oppression in the air. It was, as if
the inhabitants were allowed their liberty — a very modified
form of it — by the officials, only on sufferance. What a
contrast to merry, happy Japan, and the gay village scenes
there, and the Japanese pride in their police and military !
Of course, it should be remembered that besides officials
there were scarcely fifty Russians who were not ex-convicts.
This explained the presence of strange-visaged Jehus,
whose faces haunted me until I remembered pictures of
these Judas-looking countenances, and wrote them down
at once as Kirghiz from Trans-Caspia.
By one of these I was driven up in a " fiddle-back " to
the chief inn of the place. The " fiddle-back " I should
describe without exaggeration as a car specially designed
for the discomfort of the passenger. It has a cloth-covered
ridge, or backbone, with a step on each side. I proposed
to sit astride, on seeing it, en cavalier, but I soon learnt
that it was customary to squat on whatever space was
left by a passenger on the opposite side, and to cling on
ON THE AMUR 59
as successfully or unsuccessfully as might be, while the
horses bounded over tracks that reminded one of a building
estate.
At the ramshackle wooden inn of one storey, I again
had the honour of occupying " No. i " room. Two windows
gave on to a yard, in which the presence and music of pigs
contributed to the pleasures of existence. The room
was comfortably furnished for these parts, that is, there
were some chairs, a couple of tables and a bedstead, for
which I supplied my own bedding. Of course, the floor
was bare, and as I found decent food difficult to obtain, I
camped out in my room, drawing largely on my stores of
tinned foods.
Strolling out in the evening, I met a band of sorrowful
women and children, some carrying babes, escorted by
soldiers. These were the wives and families of convicts
going out to Sakhalin.
This feeling of oppression dogged me still, and I sought
relief in wandering on to the neighbouring moorlands,
where I could breathe freely, and gaze with forgetfulness
on the broad flowing river beneath, and the great forest-
clad hills opposite.
It was one of those first impressions which are soon
lost It is strange how quickly one becomes accus-
tomed unconsciously to new situations. Those who have
travelled know this well, but those who have not been
far from their native land make a great mistake if they
imagine that the novel impressions of strange conditions
last long. I have gone ashore in Korea, and had to pull
myself up suddenly with the reminder that I was not
sauntering in a Surrey or Devonshire lane, but that thou-
sands of miles separated me from old England. So it
was, that first evening at Nikolaevsk ; I returned to the
inn, where not a soul spoke anything but Russian, and
mechanically sat down with my books, quite unconscious
of the 12,000 versts which separated me from London.
6o IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
The next morning, in strolling down to the wharves
at the foot of the town, I came across some rude shanties
which I will dignify with the title of market. People were
trudging along carrying great circular nine-pound loaves
of black bread, or gleaming salmon, freshly caught. I
wondered if there was any beef to be had — there are no
sheep hereabouts — for the previous day not a scrap of meat
was to be obtained. The shanties exhibited a mixed lot
of articles. Each was a " Whiteley " on a small scale,
decked out with a motley collection — Russian long boots,
horses' collars, dirty furs, kettles and hardware, and a toy
bagatelle board ! Perhaps they tickled my sense of the
fitness of things less than the native bazar at Darjiling,
where, within a hundred miles of the borders of Tibet,
and surrounded by natives of many lands, Tibetans,
Bhotans, Bhotanese, Nepaulese and Hindus, amid a col-
lection of charm-boxes, prayer- wheels, etc., stood two
plaster statuettes of Gladstone and Disraeli !
By the pristan were moored some barges, with flights
of steps inviting would-be customers to descend. A fox-
skin or a pair of felt top-boots for winter's snows,
dangled from a line on deck to tempt purchasers. The
owners of these are the modern representatives of the
old-time pedlars, with this difference, that they travel with
a barge instead of a basket. Starting in spring from
Stretensk, 2025 miles up the river, and leisurely drifting
down stream, calling at the little villages en rouU — a great
event in the village economy, especially to the female
inhabitants — they finally fetch up at Nikolaevsk, where
they moor for the last time. There a trade is done until
autumn warns the pedlars to be gone, when, jobbing off
the rest of their stock, including the barges, the timbers
of which come in useful for trottoirs, they catch the steamer
back to Stretensk ere the river freezes. I believe that the
corn-barges of Western Siberia and the coal-barges on the
Mississippi are similarly disposed of at the journey's end.
ON THE AMUR 6i
I had not been more than a day or two in Nikolaevsk,
before I discovered an old white-haired American, who had
been a captain in the employ of the long-extinct Russian-
American Company, which, founded under Imperial
patronage in 1798, played a similar rdle to that of the
Hudson's Bay Company, until 1868, a year after the cession
of Alaska to the United States.
As he was about to pay a visit to a fishery at the mouth
of the Amur, near Pronge Point, he offered to take me.
For thirty-nine years he had been voyaging in these parts,
and seventeen of these he had spent whaling in the
Okhotsk Sea, where his home and family were, for he
had married a Tungus woman. In those days, when his
vessel was frozen up in the Bay of Okhotsk, clad in
furs and snow-shoes, he would start out to traverse the
wilds of this almost unknown country between Okhotsk
and Nikolaevsk. Taking with him a small store of flour,
sugar and tea, he relied on his gun for the flesh of deer,
wolf, or bear. Such a journey generally occupied about
twenty-five days, and often, he said, he went for as many
as sixteen days without meeting a single soul.
Now he had command of a tiny steamer which plied
up and down the Amgun, taking provisions and fetching
gold from the mine, when the state of the river allowed.
On the forecastle, just below the bridge, was a heavily
clamped iron coffer, which held the gold-dust and nuggets.
This, with the rough, drunken, and lawless-looking crew, put
the finishing touch to it as the picture of a pirate vessel.
At the mouth of the Amur, the owners of the vessel
(the chief partner was the son of a convict) were making
the first attempt at salmon-canning in Siberia. The chief
occupation of the poor is fishing, and in the month of
August, at spawning-time, salmon {Salmo lagocephaliis) and
shad swarm. Some idea of their abundance may be
gathered from the fact that the prices fixed by the
municipality at Nikolaevsk for a moderate-sized salmon,
62 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
say eighteen pounds, was six kopyeks (i|a?.). Salted, it
forms the staple food of the natives and poor Russians.
To lack of variety, the absence of vegetables, which will
not grow in Nikolaevsk, and the unhealthy conditions
of living, must be attributed the leprosy among the Rus-
sians on the Amur. A few years back there was no
accommodation for these lepers, and many suffered from
want of food, or lay untended, but now there is a properly
constructed leper-house two or three miles from Niko-
laevsk. So plentiful are the fish that I have seen Rus-
sians spearing the salmon from the banks ; but on the
journey from Khabarovsk down the Amur, the usual
method appeared to be to build a wattle-weir projecting
into the stream, and just visible above the surface of the
water. At the mid-stream end was fixed a "set" net,
into which the fish crowded as they hurried round the
corner. A boatman sat waiting until the net was heavy
with its living freight, when he hauled it up, and emptied
the catch into his boat. At Pronge, seine-nets were being
used, a good average haul of the net yielding 3000. The
native village of Pronge is really in the Straits of Tartary,
just round the southern foreland at the mouth of the Amur,
but the temporary Russian fishing settlement is situated
on the right or southern bank of the river just before one
reaches the headland. Our little vessel threaded its way
very gingerly between the sandbanks and shoals, past the
batteries, and then by miles of forest-clad slopes, the home
of the bear and reindeer, to the little settlement where the
great river broadens out until it is eight miles wide from
head to head.
A few log-huts, and a native shelter or two of pine-
branches, and a wooden jetty in embryo, told of our arrival
at the curing-station. Until then, I had thought our crew
were a rough lot, but they were quiet and respectable com-
pared with the ex-convicts on shore. Several boarded our
vessel, and three of them burst into my cabin, but satisfied
ON THE AMUR 63
themselves with staring long at me as though I were a
strange new animal, and departed.
On shore we found them busily cutting up and cleaning
the salmon before plunging them into the pickling vats.
Most of this salted salmon goes to supply Eastern Siberia,
the emigrant population, and the convicts, and some is
exported to Japan in casks. The scrupulous cleanliness
which the English public demands in the preparation of
food to-day, and which machinery ensures, could not be
expected here.
If similar methods are to be employed in the canning
of salmon that were used in the curing of the salted article
then tinned salmon, at least the Russian article, will be-
come a food to be avoided more than ever. The Siberian,
I had almost said Russian, is well known for his want of
personal cleanliness of living, notwithstanding the weekly
bath that we are constantly reminded of. Russian writers
may point to this as evidence of the cleanliness of the
mtishik, but no one can accuse the poorer population — and
their number is legion — of cleanly personal habits, and to
have your food prepared on a wild spot with no con-
veniences, and by the lowest rabble of Russia, is sufficient
disqualification for the article in question.
We landed a large number of tins of vodka for the
men, who would not have worked without it any more than
English harvesters without their beer or cider. These
were stored for safety in the wooden hut of the foreman,
under our eyes, and as I sat on a box watching this opera-
tion, I didn't envy the position of that man. What was
there to prevent these rough, cut-throat-looking individuals
from taking his life and helping themselves ?
Outside the scene was a wild though picturesque one.
The sun was setting, the broad expanse of water was
silvering, and behind us darkness was shrouding in mystety
the primeval forest. On the shore strange uncouth figures,
in great boots and shaggy astrakhan caps were gathering
64 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
round the fires. A great pot of fish hung in the flames,
and a solitary woman was griddling greasy blini (pan-
cakes).
The captain and I put off with a freshly caught salmon
to our vessel, and after a repast prepared by the Chinese
" boy," I lay down and tried to sleep, the while a drunken
party from the shore grumbled and thumped and swore
over my head. The next morning, as soon as daylight
allowed us, we threaded our way back.
It seemed a comparatively civilized life to come back
to in Nikolaevsk, though when told that the single line of
telegraph wire has been broken for a week, and that tele-
grams to St. Petersburg take not infrequently a month,
and letters two and a half months, you do not feel in
closest touch with the civilized world.
On the following morning, as I was down on the wharf,
I found that the convicts, whom we had towed down the
river, were being disembarked. Their names, crimes, and
sentences were being called out, and the prisoners came
forward in turn and marched out of the shed to join their
companions, who were lined up with soldiers in front and
to the rear of them. As each came forward, I had leisure
to examine his face and general appearance. All wore
unbleached cotton rubashka and trousers, shoes and socks,
or strips of cloth wound '' putty "-fashion round their legs.
Over all they had the khalat, or long ulster-like garment of
frieze, excepting one or two, who may have bartered it for
a mess of pottage.
Some had diamond-shaped coloured patches let in to
the back of their khalati, the colour indicating the prison
district from which they came ; yellow, for instance, being
the Moscow colour. On their heads were brown frieze
caps, and round their ankles chains. These are long but
not heavy, weighing barely seven pounds, and they can be
hitched up to the waist, so as not seriously to impede
walking. On their shoulders they bore their worldly
ON THE AMUR 65
possessions, in bundles of varying sizes, and in their hands
or at their belts were the inevitable samovars or kettles,
and pots.
Their faces were not prepossessing, though very few had
the villainous features one might have expected to see. I
thought I descried some Jews, and more than one follower
of the Prophet, these latter, Kirghiz, from Tashkend and
neighbourhood. As they came forward to join the lines,
laughing and talking or calling to their companions, and
interchanging remarks with the sentries, I wondered at the
freedom allowed. One raised a laugh all round. He was
the solitary proud possessor of a box, padlocked and all,
which he bore on his head. A titter went round when a
soldier, asking what it contained, the prisoner replied " Gold."
When the 300 had all passed out and ranged up, four
deep, facing me, the seventy odd soldiers took up position
— right turn — and with a sudden painful jangling of
chains, the miserable column moved off and up the street
to the prison. One only of the convicts did I see who
was without boots. The march was not hurried, and the
soldiers considerately allowed the prisoners to pick their
way along the muddy road.
Official strictness is considerably relaxed as one gets
further east in Siberia. Three weeks before, the famous
student Gubermann had arrived, and the inhabitants, struck
by his story and his fine erect bearing, which marked him
out among the slouching figures of criminals, collected
twenty guineas on the spot for him.
His was a marvellous story of imprisonment and escape.
According to my informant, and I give the story as he told
it me, Gubermann was incarcerated in the Schliisselburg
near St. Petersburg, in 1896, for taking part in political
disturbances. Released after one year and a half, he was
again involved in 1898, and sent with a batch of students
to the Baikal region. They decided to send one of
their number with messages to their former companions
F
66 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
in Moscow. The lot fell upon him, and, notwithstanding
the truly remarkable vigilance of the Russian police, he
escaped, and once more joined in the riots of 1900. Arrested
yet again, he was sent to Sakhalin. There one morning I
was hurrying past the prison at Alexandrovsk, when I saw
a crowd gathering and officials driving up in haste. Going
over to make inquiries, I learnt that Gubermann had been
creating a disturbance, in the course of which he had
accused the Chief of the prison of theft.
His brother exiles thought he was suffering from over-
strain. The accusation may have been true, but no good
would come of making it, and all might suffer for his
ill-timed protests.
The second day after their disembarkation, by permis-
sion of the Ispravnik, I visited some of the prisoners
in their new quarters. Some had been taken to the new,
but more to the old prison. The former combined the
functions of an etape ox peresilni, and agubernski.
The ^tape is a resting-place en route where the prisoners
generally sleep two nights, while at a polu etape, or half
(way) itape, they spend one night. A peresilni serves a
similar purpose, but for a longer time. A stay of weeks or
months is sometimes necessitated by irregular communica-
tions, or some other reason, preventing immediate continua-
tion of the journey. A gubernski is a gaol for local
offenders. The new prison was constructed for sixty-
seven, but with a few local offenders now contained 120.
The old prison was described by Mr. H. de Windt as he
saw it seven years earlier, in 1894, as "a rickety wooden
structure, rotting with age, and by no means weather-proof.
It is now seldom used," he adds, " save for local offenders.
I found only nine inmates." This was now crowded out
with 300. The Chief of the police did not wish me to
see it, as can readily be imagined, and he procrastinated
with such success that before I could bring him to the
point, I had to seize the opportunity of getting over
ON THE AMUR 67
to Sakhalin ; but the description I received on the spot
of the filthy condition of this forwarding station was
too disgusting for me to repeat. This state of things
was what met the miserable wretches in past years.
Hungry and weary after a long day's march, hopeless
and fearful, failing in the scramble to obtain one of the
miserable plank resting-places, they had to lie on the filthy
floor, thankful if there a stronger neighbour didn't crush
them, for the most brutal-tongued and hard-fisted got the
best place, the timid and weak went to the wall.
But this is no longer a true picture of Siberian prisons
or Stapes, or only in very exceptional cases ; and here a
special cause was at work producing, let us hope, exceptional
conditions.
The ukaz abolishing deportation was to come into
force on January i (O.S.), 1902, necessitating considerable
alterations in the prison buildings throughout the Empire.
There wanted but four months to January i, and prisoners
bound for Sakhalin were being hurried on before the frost
set in to block navigation.
Driving up with a Russian companion to the house of
the Chief of the prison, we were ushered in. There we
waited for a considerable time, during which I suppose
finishing touches were being made in theprison for thebenefit
of the English visitor. At last the chief appeared, and we
walked across to the sombre-looking building. A stockade
of pine poles, twenty feet high, like gigantic pencils with
sharpened ends upwards, formed the outer enclosure, the
entrance to which was guarded by saluting sentries. Inside
the square was the long prison building, divided lengthwise
by a corridor, off which doors heavily bolted and padlocked
opened into different-sized rooms or kameri.
We entered this building, the prison master, my com-
panion and myself, guarded by three soldiers armed, twa
of them with bayonets and the other with pistol and sword.
The first room which the warder unlocked was small, as
68 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
nearly as I could judge 14 X 16 feet, and contained nine
local accused waiting their trial for minor offences. They
included natives (Gilyaks) and Koreans, and wore their
ordinary dress.
Their beds were of sloping planks with straw mattresses
and pillow, a dirty-looking sheet and frieze blanket, yet
these were doubtless quite as good as anything they were
used to. The air was heavy, and in nearly all the kameri
the iron-barred windows were tightly closed, for the Russian
does love warmth.
The next cell contained a very different class of inhabi-
tants, viz. convicted criminals going on to Sakhalin. Some
had already been here a long time, others had just arrived
the day before. Several of them had rough, repellent
faces, with lowering brows, piercing eyes, unkempt hair,
and wore dirty clothes, and iron fetters polished bright by
much wear. Altogether they presented the picture of
abasement. I experienced a curious sensation as the door
of the kamera was flung open, and the prisoners rose clank-
ing their chains ere the soldiers had time to close around
us. The prison master made some remarks, and one man
complained that " he had not had a bath for six months,
and was covered with vermin." The master flew into a
passion, and swore at him. The visit of a stranger is an
opportunity for prisoners to make complaints, whether
genuine or not, but the behaviour of the master lent con-
firmation rather than otherwise to the convict's statement,
and caused me to take his own remarks cum grano, when
showing me the bath-house, he declared that the prisoners
had baths twice a week.
Another prisoner of gentler disposition, who wore
spectacles, asked if he might have his chains struck off,
and be permitted to help in the kitchen. His term had
expired, and he might have gone free in Nikolaevsk, but
what would he have done there in an utterly strange place ?
He might even have required protection himself.
ON THE AMUR 69
The next room was about 20 X 16 feet, and contained
as many as twenty-five. The inmates slept on the floor,
covered by whatever their bundles yielded. I asked whether
they had a blanket in winter, but was assured that the
rooms were sufficiently heated. The prisoners crowded
round us, and I learned in answer to questions of the
prison master that they had been three months tramping
from Nerchensk, 2075 miles, with an occasional lift on
barges towed by a steamer.
Just as we were turning to leave, a tall not unpleasant-
looking prisoner stepped forward and asked, " Where does
the barin come from .' " " America," replied the master.
I corrected him. " Don't they treat the prisoners better in
England ? " To which I believe the reply was, " No, they
hang such as you ! " — which was probably true.
Some of the men complained that they wanted more
to eat. To this came the indignant reply, " They have
plenty, the ruffians ! " The regulations for food in Russian
prisons are good, and compare well as to quantity with
other countries, but the quantity and quality of food which
reaches the prisoner is quite another story in far Siberia.
There are two causes which tend to bring this about ; an
insufficient monetary allowance in the face of local con-
ditions, in other words, scarcity or dearness of foods,
and " leakages," for which officials are responsible. At
Nikolaevsk meat is dear and vegetables are scarce, there-
fore salted fish and black bread form the staple diet of the
criminals. Owing to the absence of transport during
winter, the accumulation of provisions results sometimes
in the fish being a year old before it is consumed, and,
unfortunately, it is less palatable (I use the word in a
comparative sense) to the European Russian than to
Nikolaevsk-bred persons.
Knowing this, I was not surprised to find in a small,
narrow room, two men suffering from scurvy. They both
looked dreadfully sallow, which was partly due to their
70 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
confinement, and one of them had been ill since April (it
was then August 23, O.S.)-
Leaving the kameri the prison master showed me the
bathroom, whence several prisoners had once made their
escape, of whom only one had been recaptured ; the
exercise-ground, a small grass court with a rectangular
and diagonal path, around and across which slip-shod
figures were drearily pacing, who, at the sight of the master,
immediately doffed their caps ; and finally the kitchen,
where I met the only free inmate of the prison, to wit,
the cat.
It seemed to me that this forwarding prison reflected
the normal state of things to-day. There are better, and
there are worse. Here, at least, the sanitary arrangements,
the state of which is sometimes inconceivable, are probably
better than in their own homes. The food is certainly
a deplorably weak point, and the absence of variety
baneful ; and so is the herding together of a mixed lot of
prisoners, the lowest type naturally tending to drag the
others down ; but in judging this state of things, and in
condemning the forced inactivity, one extenuating cir-
cumstance should be borne in mind, viz. that their gaol is
a temporary one, an Hape in which it is intended that they
should stay only a short while.
As the days elapsed I grew impatient to be off to
Sakhalin, an impatience only accentuated by the un-
pleasantness of my present quarters. It was not that
the course of life in a ramshackle old wooden inn, with
" switchback" floors, whence I could study to my heart's
content the life and manners of Siberian pigs, ran too
smoothly. On the contrary, there were times when one
would have preferred a more even course. Two strolling
minstrel girls appeared in the inn for several evenings to
regale the habituis with music ; whence they came and
whither they were going in this out-of-the-world place I
wot not. I had retired to rest one night while this
ON THE AMUR 71
" music " was still progressing, when, between twelve and
one, I was startled by a big struggle outside in the
passage, then a great rattling of the door, and the noise
of some one trying to force an entrance. I seized my
revolver and waited, but, fortunately, my door was pad-
locked, and the would-be intruders, whoever they were,
soon desisted, and I heard the sound of their footsteps
as they hurried down the passage. The disturbance in
the neighbouring room, however, did not cease, but con-
tinued until it culminated between two and three, when a
rush was made for the yard ; but fortunately the shutters
gave protection against attacks from that quarter.
The next morning I learnt from a Dane, Mr. N.,
an engineer from Vladivostok, who had been present
as a spectator of the previous night's fracas, that three
or four of the officers of a small German steamer had
come ashore, and had been drinking with the Russians
and listening to the harpist. A quarrel shortly ensued as
to who should sit next the girls, which soon developed into
an international dispute ! One German tore part of the
beard of a Russian out, another a portion of his coat, and
these were flourished around, while yet another drew his
revolver. The struggle soon involved them all, and con-
tinued down my passage and eventually into the yard ;
and some of them seemed to have made up their minds,
or the soldiers who arrived on the scene had, that the
fugitive, whoever he was, had taken refuge in my room.
Meanwhile, no news had reached the bank of any vessel
bound for Sakhalin, but one day, observing a strange
steamer standing up the river, I made inquiries. The
agent, whom I sought out, said that it was a tramp steamer,
that it was certainly in want of coal and might put in at
Sakhalin for it on its return to the south, and, as a favour,
he would take me, but I must say nothing about it. The
vessel could not sail for a few days, because the weather
was not favourable for unlading. As it was, I do not know
72 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
whether he wanted to put me off or not, but the steamer
started very shortly and rather suddenly, and it was only
through my importunity that late one afternoon I learnt
of its intended departure in a few hours. I fled pre-
cipitately, managed to get money from the bank in rather
under two hours (!), and had packed ready to start at
IO.IO p.m. on a dark stormy night in the pouring rain.
A Russian acquaintance kindly accompanied me to
the wharf, insisting by the way that my revolver should
be transferred from an inside to an outer breast-pocket,
in order, as he said, to enable me to draw it at a
moment's notice. " My dear fellow," he continued, " you'll
have a Chinaman in a sampan, and he may do anything to
a stranger who he knows won't be missed. One's sufficient,
don't take two. The moment you see him move, fire over
his head, and if he attempts it again, shoot him. No
inquiries will be made, one Chinaman more or less doesn't
matter." The prospect was not pleasant, but it was an
incident in travel that one gets accustomed to by degrees.
I must confess, however, that I didn't approve of the
Russian's ethics. As it was, I had no occasion to solve
the question from a British point of view, and to defend
myself without mortally wounding the attacking China-
man ; for we found no sampan owners there. It was late,
the night was stormy. Our izvostchik called in vain to
invisible Chinamen on dimly silhouetted sampans.
"Perhaps he is asleep, or peradventure he is on a
journey ; " and my Russian companion, having adjured
the izvostchik not to stand there speaking politely, but to
go down into the boat and kick the Chinaman, discovered
that he was on a journey. After about twenty minutes
of this, things looked certainly dark. It was towards
I I o'clock ; no sampan, my steamer lay somewhere out
there in the dark watery waste a mile or more away. I
had been told to board it that night, as it was to start
early in the morning. What was to be done ? At last an
ON THE AMUR 73
idea occurred to us ; a small steam-tug, which had arrived
from up the river that day, was lying by the quay. All
was dark, but we boarded her, and stumbling over the
sleeping form of the " bosun," effectually roused him up ;
and after wearing down the captain's refusal, got him to
agree to allow three of his now sleeping crew to row me
out to the German tramp steamer. My baggage was
pitched into the boat, and bidding my friend good-bye,
I set off, feeling comparatively safe with my Russian
crew, who were not drunk, or at least not superlatively so.
It was a puzzle in the darkness to single out from the
lights of many lighters, fishing-boats and steamers those
of the tramp steamer I was bound for, but a guess proved
happily correct ; and after a mile and a halPs rowing
we were close under the hull of a vessel from which, in
answer to my shout, " Sind Sie das Tsintau f " came the
welcome, " Ja ! Das Tsintazi." Scaling the side by a rope-
ladder, I at last boarded a steamer bound for Sakhalin.
CHAPTER V
NIKOLAEVSK TO ALEXANDROVSK
A treacherous passage — A lonely coast — Sakhalin at last — I am put
under guard — Am I a spy ? — Strange story of an ex-convict mer-
chant— A drunken host to the rescue — The terrible deed of a
student — Alexandrovsk — An interview with the Governor — A ride
to Arkovo and a warning — Armed outlaws — The mail held up —
Preparations for a 750-mile journey.
INCOMPREHENSIBLE as it may seem, it was a
translation to a land of luxury from Russian fare
in a Siberian inn to tinned foods on a German tramp
steamer.
At the evening meal we actually indulged in the luxury
and novelty of fresh mutton, for the solitary sheep which
had been visible on deck in the morning was the only one
I have ever seen in these parts. The Russian dislikes
mutton, and to keep sheep on Sakhalin would be to feed
the bears. Perhaps a menu in the English language, on a
German steamer in the far East might be considered a
further luxury ; but it was only another witness to the fact
that English (or rather pidgin-English) is the language of
commerce and travel in the Orient, and one soon gets
accustomed to hearing the German or Russian captain
shouting orders from the bridge in pidgin-English to his
Chinese crew.
Our course was to descend the river to its mouth, a
distance of twenty-seven miles, then, turning south, to
thread the Straits of Tartary for about 120 knots, putting
into De Castries Bay on the mainland, and thence to
74
NIKOLAEVSK TO ALEXANDROVSK 75
cross to the island of Sakhalin, which is a sixty knots'
journey.
At early morning we began to thread our way through
the narrow winding channels of the Amur to the liman,
or delta-like embouchure of the river, where it broadens
out from the one and a half to three miles at Nikolaevsk
to eight at the heads. Very awkward and difficult is
this passage of the Amur and the northern half of the
Straits of Tartary ; and in one place the narrow channel,
which gives passage through the treacherous shoals and
sandbanks, becomes so shallow that at neap tides only
thirteen feet of water is to be found, and hence only
vessels of moderate draught can ascend, even with more
favourable tides. Similar devious passages, through shoals
slightly less shallow, extend to the north and to the
south of the mouth of the river, even as far as the S2nd
parallel.
Our vessel had therefore to proceed slowly, with anchor
ready to drop at a moment's notice, and a look-out was
kept for a couple of large lighters, which were said to have
been in danger of going aground on a sandbank, as the
Tsintaic was on its way up. The officers made merry
over the incident, but it was not always a laughing matter
for the poor helmsman on the lighter. Stranded on a
sandbank in the dreary delta, with little hope of rescue —
for there was no altering a ship's course in this terrible
maze of sand — he stood considerable chances of being
starved or drowned. Indeed, there were many stories of
loss of life hereabouts, and we made out quantities of
wreckage at the mouth. The chief pilot of De Castries,
who was on board, had many a story to tell of adventures
during the seventeen years he had been stationed on this
coast. On one occasion the vessel he was piloting was
wrecked in the Straits, but with four others he had
managed to escape, though without provisions. For four
days, he said, they rowed 138 miles (versts ?) along this
76 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
lonely, inhospitable coast, until exhausted, they reached
De Castries Bay.
Darkness descended before we had cleared the narrow-
channel, and forced us to anchor for the night, and another
delay occurred the next morning, when a small tug, at the
mercy of wind and weather, begged some coal of us.
We had kept within sight of the coast of the mainland
all along. A bold coast it is, with hills of about looo feet,
rising at De Castries to 1540, and covered with dense
forests. A few native inhabitants, Gilyaks, are found just
to the south of the river mouth at Pronge and Mi, but
otherwise it is uninhabited save by bears, foxes, etc.
At De Castries, a beautiful natural harbour opens out
to the view with a couple of islets, Observatory Island and
Basalt Island, reposing in the smooth water. This haven
was discovered and named by La P^rouse in 1787. There
is a small Russian post here, consisting of the dwellings
of a telegraph chief, his assistants, and a few soldiers, for
the cable to Sakhalin crosses from this point.* I was to
set foot here again, but for the present we did not enter
the bay, but merely landed the pilot at the foot of the
southern headland, some miles from the post, on which
stands a fine, strikingly built lighthouse. It is a lonely
post, and only occupied by the pilots during the summer,
for navigation ceases with the freezing of the Straits,
The dim outline of the Sakhalin mountain range had
been faintly discernible soon after we left the Amur, and
at the narrow neck of the Straits of Tartary, where they
are but five miles wide, the low sandy shore running out
from the foot of the mountains was plainly visible.
Our course was now steered east-south-east for the
* This cable, which was broken in June, 1901, has now been
abandoned, and a fresh one laid between Capes Lazarev and Pogobi.
The post is to be maintained at De Castries, because it has communi-
cation by telegraph with Vladivostok, and is the only safe haven for
ships passing through the Straits of Tartary,
NIKOLAEVSK TO ALEXANDROVSK ^^
"isle of the banished," where we arrived, and anchored
within two miles of Alexandrovsk, at about 6 o'clock in
the evening.
Unfortunately for its development, the island of Sak-
halin has no safe anchorage. On the west coast, where
the coalfields occur, the sea has a pebbly bottom, and the
emerging funnel of a sunken steamer near the beach at
Alexandrovsk warns the navigator of the danger of stand-
ing in with a shoreward breeze. Indeed, I was fortunate,
for often since, I have seen a vessel approach within a
couple of miles of the shore, and then reluctantly turn
round and flee over to De Castries for refuge from a west
wind. However, I was not yet ashore, and the captain's
signals for a launch were apparently disregarded. Was
there too much sea on for the tiny tugs, which put out to
tow the lighters, laden with convicts or provisions, from the
incoming vessels ? Yes, the captain thought so, and gave
me no hope of being able to land. However, he promised
to wait half an hour. As a doubtful encouragement he
related how recently a French professor (M. Chaillet),
making a tour in the East, had arrived off Vladivostok
with the intention of returning to Europe across Siberia,
and had been refused permission to land. His crime
appeared to have been an acquaintanceship made with
some Russian students in a German university, and
a written promise to visit them en route to Paris vid
Siberia !
My good fortune had not, however, deserted me, and
before the half-hour had elapsed and the captain's patience
had been exhausted, a launch put out to us, and, rather to
my surprise, I was allowed to board it without question.
I had not, however, mounted the steps of the pristan,
before a loud official voice inquired where I was going,
and what was my business. My very slender acquaint-
ance with the Russian language stood me in good stead.
I understood better than I could speak. Partly in Russian,
78 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
and partly in German, I made them understand that I had
a letter for Mr. Y., who was an ex-convict, a merchant,
and acted as agent for the Russo-Chinese Bank.
His was a strange story, which I will tell later. It was
evident that I was viewed with suspicion. In fact, recent
events all tended to make them think that I was a military
spy. Mr. y. was at the coal-mine, they said, and I must
remain in that room (on the jetty) for twenty-four hours
at least, and, on his return, they would know what to do
with me.
I had been in much worse places than this, and a
traveller ought to accustom himself to sleeping anywhere.
The main point was gained. I was on the island, and the
Tsintau was about to depart to coal elsewhere, so the
officials might lock me up if they pleased. However, I
wanted my books, and going to the door, I found my exit
barred by a soldier. Having demanded ray baggage,
which was brought in, I settled down by the light of the
lamp to study my Russian grammar.
At last I had landed on the island of punishment, and
for the nonce I was a prisoner myself. As I gazed out of
the window seawards, the sun was setting behind a cloud-
bank of fiery red as of live coal. To me it pictured the
passionate longing of the exiles, whose eyes were straining
ever westward to the land of the sunset, to the homeland,
the abode of friends and loved ones so long ago left behind ;
but whose hopes, like the sun, sank into the dark waters
of despair.
Meanwhile, I was called to the realization of my position
by the sound of telephoning which was going on between
the officers on the jetty and the Governor. I could hear
enough to make out that they were talking about me. I
was also being watched from outside.
My main object in coming to the island at all was to
visit the Ainus, whom I believed I should find more
primitive here than on the island of Yezo ; also, incidentally,
NIKOLAEVSK TO ALEXANDROVSK ^^
I hoped to observe the treatment of convicts on what was
well-known in Russia to be the worst penal settlement, the
very name of which is not to be mentioned in St. Petersburg.
If the authorities were determined to watch me closely,
I, too, would be circumspect. I had, therefore, no need to
advertise my secondary object, and to dwell only on my
purpose to visit the natives.
It was neither surprising nor unreasonable that I should
be arrested and detained while inquiries were made. Twice
during my stay rumours were afloat, telegrams had actually
been received, I was told, that Japan had declared war
with Russia, and my position was rendered less comfort-
able since it was taken for granted that England was the
ally of Japan. Only recently, guns and ammunition had
been sent over from the mainland, followed by a Russian
major-general, who had held a field-day. There was
another reason which in fairness should be credited to
them, and that was the protection of my person. Such
was the state of things on the island, the number of out-
laws and criminals at large, that while the officials might
be held responsible for my life, they could not assure my
safety. Before I reached the island I had been told that I
should certainly be shot, that a pair of boots or twenty
kopyeks (s^.) was sufficient bait for a convict to murder
one, and that on landing after 6 o'clock in the evening,
an escort was necessary. I knew from more authoritative
reports that there were dangers to be prepared for, but
these statements I regarded as considerably exaggerated.
My " durance vile " lasted but a few hours. Scarcely an
hour had passed, when the door opened and in walked a
short, gentlemanly looking man in semi-undress military
uniform, who, with a politeness of manner noticeably absent
from my previous interrogators, addressed me in English.
He apologized for asking me personal questions, but he
had been bidden to, I explained that I had an introduction
to Mr. Y., and had come to visit the Ainus, Then my
8o IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
good fortune pursued me. My interrogator, Mr. X., turned
out to be himself a convict, the son of a very high
official in St. Petersburg, and the husband of the Countess
of . A highly educated man, speaking English,
French and German, besides his native tongue, he was
surprisingly au courant with English literature. I seized
the opportunity of free speech, made all the inquiries I
could about the Ainus, produced my maps, and discussed
the geography of the island. That my earnestness im-
pressed the under-officials was evident, and they were
drawn in to contribute their quota of knowledge. By this
time arrived the Chief of the district and Mr. Y. I handed
my letter to the latter, and it was strange to see in this
tall, fine, military-looking man, well-educated and refined,
who addressed me in excellent French — a murderer and
convict of twenty years' standing.
His story is well-known throughout Siberia and
European Russia. The details differ slightly with the
narrator, but the main facts are, I believe, as follows : — He
was left an orphan, heir to large estates which the traveller
by rail from Berlin to St. Petersburg, vid Eydtkunen,
passes. One day he had an interview with his trustee, an
old uncle, in which the latter refused to pay a debt of
honour, or, as some accounts say, refused his consent to
his marriage, and in a fit of anger the younger struck the
elder, and to his great misfortune the blow ended fatally.
Other accounts make him guilty of murder rather than
manslaughter, and of strangling an old servant who
attempted to defend her master. Mr. Y. was sentenced
to twenty years' hard labour on Sakhalin, where he worked
in the mines with gangs of the most debased criminals,
and in those early days must have witnessed awful cruelties
on the part of the officials, for those were bad times indeed.
How he had gone through it, and come out unscathed in
manner and carriage, is almost inconceivable. His good
behaviour had gained him rapid promotion through the
NIKOLAEVSK TO ALEXANDROVSK 8r
various stages, and his term had already expired some
years ago, but he had elected to remain in a part of the
world where he had earned the respect of his neighbours,
rather than become an outcast in more civilized society.
He is a store-owner and a concession-holder, and his position
is peculiar in this, that, while he is regarded by the con-
victs as one of themselves, he nevertheless enjoys the con-
sideration of the highest officials. Yet this position could
not be maintained without considerable circumspection in
his attitude to the latter, and perhaps this was why he
only offered generally to render me any assistance in his
power, although I was without the prospect of any shelter.
That he faithfully kept his promise in this, I gratefully
acknowledge. However, the question was still to be
settled, what was to be done with me. It was, indeed, a
puzzle. To me it mattered not, so that they dilly-dallied
a while longer, for then the vessel would have gone and
they could not send me away.
Suddenly there arrived,post-haste,myand their deliverer
from the quandary, in a mud-covered, travel-stained,
drunken individual. He had posted from the interior in
haste to transact business with the captain of the unexpected
vessel, for he was the agent of the biggest German firm in
the East. With good-natured hospitality he offered to give
me a bed on the couch in his office. The officials discussed
the matter and finally made no demur, since I was equally
under surveillance there. My new acquaintance, having
further imbibed on sea and on shore, was ready to start at
10.30 p.m. After four hours my detention had come to
an end, and we were whirled away to Alexandrovsk. The
distance traversed was about a mile and a half, and lay
first through a straggling pine wood and then through the
town. My companion was of doubtful use as an escort,
for he had now so much champagne and vodka "on board "
as to be stretched full length in t\it prolyotka,* shouting. I
* A small victoria.
G
82 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
therefore kept my hand on my revolver and peered into
the darkness. Here and there I made out a solitary
figure standing stationary and rigid, and I guessed that
they were watchmen or sentries.
My host was not yet content with the quantity of
liquor he had consumed, and notwithstanding all my
attempts at dissuasion, an adjournment was made to what
was called "the club," where we found several officials
beginning their evening at midnight. They had only just
ordered supper, which was to be followed by drinking
and cards until 3 or 4 a.m. One, a high officer of the
Kantselyariya (Chancellerie), in gorgeous uniform of green
and gold, sat with his head resting on the table, snoring
loudly. It was in vain that the others attempted to arouse
him to introduce me, for he remained in that posture until
after we left. The night was spent in the log-house of my
new and hospitable, if somewhat muddled, acquaintance,
and we were well waited upon by ex-convicts, one of
whom was a Kirghiz.
The next day opened gloriously. It was September 8,
the fields were green and the sea was "brilling" in the
sun. I could hardly believe myself to be on Sakhalin.
An early caller appeared — it was the interpreter, Mr. X.
I had requested him to make application to the chief of
the Alexandrovsk district, Mr. Semevsky, to be allowed to
become my interpreter. All through my stay I had reason
to be grateful to this official, who as nachalnik of the
Alexdndrovskiy Okrug ranked next to the Governor on the
island. He spoke French well j and I sometimes wondered
if the fact of his sister having married an Englishman
influenced him favourably towards me.
It may seem surprising that a convict, such as Mr. X.,
should be allowed to do so light a duty, and further that
he should be told off for my use ; but several things had
conspired to give him the comparative liberty he was
then enjoying. He was not strong, and had been in the
NIKOLAEVSK TO ALEXANDROVSK 83
earlier days transferred from his cavalry regiment to the
War OfiSce on account of ill-health. On arrival on Sakhalin,
he was placed in the prison with criminals, and an attempt
was made to enforce his hard labour sentence, but a com-
mission, composed in part of doctors, declared him unfit.
He was, therefore, put on half duty, and for some time
became doctor in a native village, to and from which he
had to walk altogether twenty miles, and later on he was
schoolmaster in Due, where he received ten rubles (a guinea)
a month, during the school terms, on which to feed, clothe
and house himself. His sentence would expire in three
months, and these were now the holidays, and partly for
one and partly for another reason my application had been
granted.
My passport had been produced and given up ; but no
one of the officials could read English, which appears to
have stood me in good stead, for I was told they were
much impressed by the lithographed signature at the
bottom, naifvely remarking that here was a person of im-
portance who had a letter from the Marquis of Salisbury !
However, before three or four days had passed, and I
was about to set out for the interior, where I should be
out of sight and mind, my companion was warned that if
I turned out to be a spy his fate would not be enviable.
Slipping my revolver, as bidden, into my pocket, we
made our way past the gaily painted wooden church to the
house of a student -convict, of whom I hoped to procure some
photographs to add to those I proposed to take myself.
I could scarcely believe the story of this man when I met
him. He had a tall figure, delicate features, and a mass
of hair ; in fact, was altogether the artist in appearance
and manner. How could he have committed the horrible
deed attributed to him ? The son of a general, and at the
time a university student, he had joined a society of youths
of " reforming tendencies." An outsider obtained somehow
or other information which endangered the whole society.
84 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
It was determined to compass his death, and lots were
drawn, and it fell to this one to do the deed. The victim
was thereupon killed, and, horrible to relate, his body cut
up and distributed among the members. The murderer
was sentenced to twenty years on Sakhalin, of which
seven were yet unexpired. He had spent the earlier
portion of his sentence in the mines, and now, largely
owing to the dearth of educated men, for the officials
are only in exceptional cases so, he was installed as
meteorological observer. To earn a living he had borrowed
money for the purchase of a camera, and executed the
orders mainly of the officials. Like Mr. X., he had pre-
served all his society deportment, though he was nervous,
apprehensive and very cowed in his manner, a noticeable
result of contact with the prison officials.
The town of Alexandrovsk, or rather Post Alexan-
drovskiy, as it is called, for it has no municipal authority,
and comprises a population of only 6000, lies mainly in a
hollow at the foot of the mountains, worn by the two
streams, the Great and the Little Alexandrovka rivers,
which here break the line of sea-cliff" for about half a mile.
Marshy land stretches between the town and the sea.
Two principal streets cross at right angles in the centre
of the town, one containing the church, the chief officials'
houses and the post-office and leading to the bazar or
market, and the other, beginning on the hill slopes, con-
tinues past the prison down to the jetty.
Though the former street is wide and planted in part
with young trees, the log buildings give it a dingy and
sombre look. These two streets boast plank "street
walks," which the foot passenger does well to avoid at
night, owing to the occasional absence of a plank. Out-
side of these two streets the rest are tracks, wide and
grassy, as in all Russian villages, with ditches on either side.
The laying out of the place resembles that of a poor far-
west American township. Each hut, with its small windows.
lui i;^ ivi K\i ii; ni ,\Ki[\ii\. [/'' /r/i-i-/.7,;(. S5.
NIKOLAEVSK TO ALEXANDROVSK 85
looking as if it feared either robbers or the cold hand of
Jack Frost, had a tiny yard fenced in with a shed forming
two sides of the square. In late autumn this little court
would be scantily roofed with pine-branches to catch the
snow and form a warm covering.
The 6000 inhabitants of Alexandrovsk consist of con-
victs and ex-convicts, their wives and children, and officials
and their families. Besides these there are probably not
a dozen free-born individuals, whose business here is that
of merchants' agents, etc.
I will not stop here to tell of the life of the place, for I
was to experience much more of it on my return from an
expedition to the north-east coast ; suffice it to say, that
the Russian population of the island consists of convicts
and officials. Out of a total of the former actually engaged
in hard labour — 7080 (January i, 1898) — the murderers
numbered 2836, of whom 634 were women. The number
of convicts and ex-convicts at the same date was 22,167,
so that a moderate estimate would give 8000 of these as
murderers.
Lying off the main street, in which stands the church
is the Governor's house, and I now proposed to beard him.
My companion was, naturally, very nervous at the thought
of the coming interview, and though by this time I was
becoming quite Russian in a stoical indifference as to
what happened next, and in the frequent use of the word
nichavo {n'importe), I realized that my journey into the
interior depended on this interview. If the Governor were
drunk or in one of his fits of violent temper, I was assured
by all, even by officials, that I should fail, and perhaps
bring down his unreasoning wrath upon my head. Mr.
Semevsky had allowed me my interpreter ; I had now to
gain permission to travel in the island, which is entirely
under martial law, the military Governor being responsible
only to the Governor-general at Khabarovsk. However,
again fortune favoured me, and the Governor proved most
86 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
courteous, and with true Russian politeness regretted that
my projected stay was so short for the object I had in view.
I congratulated myself on finding him in such an ex-
cellent mood. On my return he was by no means so
compliant, and the higher officials let me know that he
was no exception to the generality in Sakhalin, whose
indulgence in fits of drunkenness and uncontrollable bursts
of temper were taken as a matter of course. It would be
unfair not to mention that during the last year there has
been an improvement on the part of the Governor. I have
received reports to this effect, though to what to attribute
the change I do not know. It is, however, true that one
cannot expect any great improvement in the administra-
tion from his initiative ; for he is a .'man of weak will, and
easily swayed. His term has now nearly expired, and I
trust he will be followed by no worse a choice, but by
one strong enough to carry out reforms ; for with a firm
but beneficent governor, what might not be done? We
have only to turn to the work of the nachalnik of the
Alexandrovsky Central prison, near Irkutsk, to see.
It must be remembered that the term of official life in
Sakhalin is almost as much a banishment for them as for
those under their charge ; and, excepting to those appointed
in the cause of science and agriculture, it is considered as
a reflexion. The result of my interview was to leave me
free to travel on the island, and I believe the authorities
were thankful to have me out of their way in the interior
among the natives, where I could of course make no
observations on their administration of the penal system.
Meanwhile, my passport was retained as a check against
any attempt on my part surreptitiously to aid my inter-
preter in escaping ; though, when some 250 miles on my
journey, I met two high officials returning from an ex-
pedition, I was in the position of a brodyaga, or passport-
less vagabond, subject to arrest, and had to make my
explanations.
NIKOLAEVSK TO ALEXANDROVSK 87
On the evening of my arrival on the island, in talking
about the Ainus, the officials had declared to me that it
was impossible to get to them overland from Alexandrovsk.
The dangers and difficulties at this time of the year were
practically insurmountable. This I found afterwards to
be true, and as my time was limited, by the fear of being
cut off from the mainland by the cessation of navigation,
I was forced to give up any attempt which, whether success-
ful or not, would involve the expenditure of too much
time. I was the more easily reconciled to this, because
the opportunity was offered of visiting another tribe, the
Gilyaks. This people, I was told, I might reach in their
own domain by a land journey of about fifty miles, and
visit en route in the course of a river and sea trip of about
600 miles in native canoes. With threats from the chief
of the Timovsk district, in which their territory lay, and by
openly carrying arms, the officials said, I might safely
mix with them. I must be prepared to meet bears, but a
greater danger, which they made much of and seemed to
think prohibitive, was the escape of a batch of convicts
armed. News of this escape was brought by my drunken
acquaintance of the first night, who added that this was
serious news, for such was the harshness of their treatment,
that for a few kopyeks they would kill you, and that in broad
daylight in Alexandrovsk. Regarding these statements
as probably exaggerated, and soon becoming acclima-
tized, as any one similarly situated would, to an atmo-
sphere of ready defence, I and my interpreter began to
make preparations for an expedition to the Gilyaks on the
river Tim, and the north-east coast of the island.
Meanwhile, an opportunity presented itself of visiting
a village of this tribe, of the west coast division of the
people, who were somewhat Russianized, at Arkovo, ten
miles north of Alexandrovsk, along the coast.
A couple of raw Siberian ponies were procured — they
had never felt the weight of a saddle before — and we made
88 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
for the coast, following the Great Alexandrovka river until
it lost itself in meanderings in the sands, and then steer-
ing north for the remaining nine miles ; Mr. X. warning
me to give a wide berth to seals, which had a fondness
for jumping up and biting the horses' feet. It was indeed
a wild coast, and the cold, grey-green sea, which stretched
away to the frozen north, to the Okhotsk Sea, ice-bound
for two-thirds of the year, frowned drear and inhos-
pitable. On our right were argillaceous cliffs slipping
away, and making descent easy for the brodyagi from
the Alexandrovsk prison, who haunted the for ests above,
descending at night, and if opportunity favoured, by day,
to waylay travellers. Keeping together, and maintaining
a sharp look-out, nothing happened to us, save that about
halfway, our ponies suddenly bolted. At the time we
took little notice of it, but that same week a youth was
murdered here, who lived in the house we did — in fact, was
the brother of our landlady — and at this spot his body,
covered over with leaves, was found several weeks after. A
rude shelter told of the habitation of the murderer, or one
of them who was most likely in hiding here when we
passed, and whose presence had scared our steeds.
Arrived at the Gilyak village of Arkovo, to my dis-
appointment the natives had departed for the salmon-
fishing, ascending a river higher up the coast to take
advantage of the spawning season. We therefore pushed
on inland, past the strange native huts built on piles, to the
Russian settlement called Arkovo the First
A stranger from Europe, suddenly dropped down here
would certainly ask, " Is this Sakhalin, the dreary isle
of punishment, the Hades of Russia ? " Outwardly, this
village wore a look of contentment, with its cosy log
cottages and gardens, in which flourished potatoes and
cabbages. Sunflowers I saw also, and was told that wild
roses {rosa rugosd) perfumed the air in early summer ;
while away in the distance, forest-clad heights and grand
NIKOLAEVSK TO ALEXANDROVSK 89
purple mountains reminded me of some of the finer scenery
of Japan.
My interpreter had been schoolmaster here for a while,
and as we entered the village, through a gateway intended
to keep out straying cattle, he was recognized all along
by the villagers as the barin who was, like them, a convict,
and yet not like them in speech and manner.
Halfway down the " street " he pointed out his little
log-hut, where, though one of themselves, he had been
robbed of his clothes, and even his wedding-ring, of which
we were to hear more afterwards.
Stopping at a rich farmer's (for he owned three cows !),
we entered the high-fenced yard, above which were strewn
already long pine-poles and branches to catch the snow
and form the winter roof. Our ponies being duly hitched
up, we ensconced ourselves in the kitchen, which also did
duty for parlour and bedroom. A great brick oven, on
which the children slept, a wooden structure in the corner,
with a bundle of rags on, politely termed a bed, a table,
and two benches, comprised the furniture. But I must
not omit to mention two mural decorations, the one an
advertisement picture of the Tsar, so often met with, even
in the most unexpected places, and the other a representa-
tion of an equally distant object, machine-made boots.
The children gathered round the stranger ; and telling
them of some of the countries I had visited, pleasantly
surprised me with their geographical knowledge.
Our frugal supper over, we thought of returning by
the forest road, as the tide was now high, and barred our
passage ; but our host, who had spent fifteen years on the
island as convict and " exile-settler," tried for some reason
to dissuade us. We were aware that the forest road de-
manded defence on two sides, while the route by the sands
was only dangerous from the cliff-side ; but as we both
carried revolvers, and my companion a heavy police one,
and were mounted, we still thought we might risk it. Our
90 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
host, however, becoming very earnest in his entreaties,
Mr. X. remarked to me, "I believe there's something
behind this. You know, there's a freemasonry among the
convicts and ex-convicts, and I believe he knows more
than he dare tell." And to add weight to his warnings,
the farmer told us that the brodyagi were armed with
rifles, for which our revolvers were, he added, no match.
To my surprise, I learned from him that the post which
travels up to Rikovsk from Alexandrovsk (forty-four
miles) every Friday had recently been held up, and this
notwithstanding that it carries an armed official, and two
soldiers with fixed bayonets. Nevertheless, a few miles
out of the jchief place on the island, it was stopped by
brodyagi. One of the soldiers behaved with great coolness
and presence of mind. Dropping off the kibitkd, he
crept into a ditch, whence he kept up a fusillade, moving
about to deceive his opponents, while the post hurried
back to fetch up reinforcements.
This determined us, and as by this time it was already
dark, and later than we had expected, we rode off to the
sea, hoping that the tide would not long delay us. Thread-
ing a mile or so of wood, we reached the sea, and splashing
through the retreating tide, finally made Alexandrovsk
without hindrance. True, it was eerie work watching, in
the dark, the dimly outlined cliffs for the possible forms
of outlaws, but we met only one, and he was no match for
the two of us.
Not wishing to be a burden to my drunken, but good-
natured host, I looked about me for some other shelter.
There was no inn of any description in Alexandrovsk, not
even for the poorest, but Mr. X. found an ex-overseer of
the prison, Mr. M,, an honest-faced, good-natured official,
in good repute with the convicts, who offered me his spare
room. A special effort had been made to provide me with
a bedstead. A wooden frame four-square had been pro-
cured— perhaps made by a prisoner — and the vacuum was
f:'s^:^
i*..,
ISIW" (JKIIV), \LI X \MiKw\'SK.
A.\ AIIWJK nN llic, pi is 1. KII'MKIM.; Ill
:i 'II \:y Mil, ■■ l;m in\ \GI.
[7,'/;/, ■■/,/.,', CIO.
NIKOLAEVSK TO ALEXANDROVSK 91
bridged over by some box-lids. The choice was to lie on
the box-lids or the floor, and I elected to do the former.
But let not the reader think this reflects on my host and
hostess, who were kindly, simple people doing their utmost
to make the stranger comfortable, and the procuring of a
bedstead at all was evidence of that. The great difficulty
had been to find a place in which my goods and chattels
would be secure, and here I was assured they would be.
The next two days were spent in preparations for the
journey to the north-east coast of the island, and these
took me into the prison offices and about the town in
several directions, where much of the life of the place stood
revealed. Here I met in so doing gangs of convicts, the
worst among them chained, shuffling off" to the mines, or
dragging trailing loads of wood or provisions ; there I saw
through the barred windows of the eastern wing of the
prison front, convict women and girls at work, sewing.
These represented those not chosen as wives by the
" exile-settlers," but were really the ones selected by
officials for their appearance, though nominally to do the
sewing and cleaning of the prisons. For it is too true
that the majority of the officials live in drunkenness and
open adultery.
A little way beyond this eastern end of the prison I
came upon an old man, moving with difficulty, and about
to sink down upon the grass. I could not help being struck
by the difference between his intelligent face and those of
the criminals one saw everywhere in the streets, and I
asked my companion who he was. "Yes, you're right,"
he replied, " he is an intelligent man. He was a millionaire
(in rubles), but his big ' fabrik,' heavily insured, was burnt
down, and he was accused of incendiarism. Sentenced to
fifteen years' hard labour on Sakhalin, he had no means of
leaving the island at its expiration. He is now between
sixty-five and seventy, and is broken down and ailing,
after his degrading sentence. He must now earn his
92 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
living or starve, but is paralyzed, and subsists on a scanty
charity."
Truly the place was redolent of sad stories of lives
wrecked, and this island was the last place in which to
expect any ray of hope to brighten their horizon and once
more give hope of regeneration.
Our preparations consisted of food, clothing, and arms.
For barter with the natives we laid in twenty pounds of
coarse leaf tobacco, bricks of tea (tea-dust and twigs
pounded and compressed and probably mixed with ox-
blood), gunpowder and shot, etc., pipes, needles, cotton,
matches, coloured handkerchiefs, cloth, sweets, rice, sugar,
etc., etc.
Provisions presented considerable difficulties. A Rus-
sian engineer, who had been prospecting petroleum lakes
on the north-east coast, had been delayed in ascending the
river on his return, and his stores having given out, he and
his men had arrived in a terrible plight, having been
starved for three days and terribly bitten by mosquitoes.
It was therefore desirable to err on the side of excess, but
the difficulties of transport prevented this, for besides the
uncertainties of land carriage, native canoes could carry
but light cargoes. Our tent canvas, shubi (great over-
coats lined with sheepskin or fur), mackintoshes, bedding,
etc., besides guns and ammunition, were no light weight.
We could, therefore, only add to these, small quantities of
tinned foods, baked pulled black bread, rice, etc., and rely
upon the chances of shooting ducks or bear, and bartering
with natives for reindeer's flesh to make up the deficiencies
of our larder.
11-a
^'^°E.o{GrKnu„ch '^g
[ To face p. 93.
CHAPTER VI
THE ISLAND OF SAKHALIN
History of the discovery of the island — Captain Vries in search of the
" Gout en Silverycke eylant " — Believed to be a peninsula — ^The
Jesuit Fathers' quaint reports — How the island got its name — La
Pdrouse's discoveries — Captain Nevelsky settles the question of
its insularity — Native legends of a deluge — Was it a peninsula ? —
A forest-clad land, the home of the great brown bear — 55° below
zero — Mails by dog-sledge across the frozen sea — A mystery of
the ice-bound straits — Geology — Strange races — Who were the
aborigines ? — Dwellers in pits — The Russian occupation
BEFORE narrating my experiences on the journey
to the north-east coast, I propose to give the
reader some idea of the general conditions of the
island, a brief rhumi of its history, and a slight sketch of
its inhabitants and physical features. Unless ancient
Chinese annals, yet untranslated, contain some reference
to Sakhalin, the earliest record in existence concerning it,
is the report of an expedition made by a few Japanese
in the year 161 3. On their return they drew a map of the
southern portion, the only part they had seen, and called it
Karafto,* by which we may conclude that they imagined
it to be a portion of the mainland of China (Eastern
Tartary), Kara being the old Japanese name for that
country.
* Kara in many languages of the East, Mongol, Urdu, and Manchu,
etc., means black, and it is tempting to see in this name the same
signification as Sahalien, a Manchu word also meaning black, but the
probabilities are in favour of the interpretation adopted in the text.
93
94 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Thirty years later, a Dutch captain, Martin Vries, sent
by the famous Governor-general of the East Indies
Antonio van Diemen, to discover the " Gout en Silverycke
eylant," i.e. a legendary island rich in gold and silver,
sailing north-west from the coast of Yezo anchored in
Aniva Bay, the southernmost bay of the island, being the
first European to land on this terra incognita. Rounding
Cape Aniva he reat:hed the 49th parallel, and named a
prominent headland on the east coast. Cape Patience,
which name it bears to-day.
Nothing had been known by the Russians, before this
date, of the north-eastern extremities of Asia, for Yermak,
the pioneer of Russia in Siberia, had only crossed the
border in 1581. Yet within less than seventy years the
vast continent had been crossed, and Vasili Poyarkov,
in 1645, having descended the Amur, reported confused
rumours from the natives of an island lying at the mouth
of the river. One other reference to it about this time was
made in an old Russian record of the seventeenth century,
which says that, " On a great island lying over against the
mouth of the river dwell a people, the Gilyaks ; who keep
in their villages 500 to 1000 dogs; all possible animals
they eat, and bring up bears to do peaceful work,"
It is therefore strange that after a lapse of 200 years,
notwithstanding all reports to the contrary, the island
should still be thought a peninsula as late as the middle
of the nineteenth century.
The first authentic information on the subject came
from the Jesuit Fathers at the court of the great Chinese
Emperor K'angshi. This indefatigable ruler, who prose-
cuted so seriously his study of mathematics, astronomy,
etc., with the reverend fathers, proposed that they should
make a map of the district in which the nearer portion of
the Great Wall lay. This region he knew well from his
frequent hunting expeditions, and he was so well pleased
with the work of his tutors that he deputed them to
THE ISLAND OF SAKHALIN 95
go out in couples and map out the whole of his vast
empire.
It was in the year 1709 that the three PP. Regis,
Jartoux and Fredelli set out to traverse Manchuria, or as
it was then called. Eastern Tartary ; and, though they
never reached Sakhalin, they managed to get as far as
the village of Tondon (to-day called Dundun), which is on
the right bank, about 400 miles from the mouth of the
Amur, and had something to say of the island.
I will let them tell their story in their own words.
" We felt it very sharp at the beginning of September ;
and the eighth of that Month, on which we were at Tondon,
the first Village of the Ke tching ta se Tartars, we were
oblig'd to get us Habits lin'd with Lamb-skins, which we
wore all the Winter. They also began to fear that the
Saghalien oula (Amur), though so large and deep a River,
would be froze over, and that the Ice would stop our Boats ;
accordingly it was froze every Morning to a certain distance
from its Banks, and the Inhabitants assured us that in a
few Days the Navigation would become dangerous by
reason of the Quarries of Ice which fell down the River :
The Cold is also very much prolong'd by the great Forests
in this Country, which are more numerous and thicker of
Wood the nearer you advance to the Eastern Ocean :
We were nine Days in passing through one of them, and
obliged to have several Trees cut down, by the Mantcheou
Soldiers, to make room for our Observations of the Sun's
Meridian." *
The good father runs on in his interesting way, telling
of strange peoples with curious dress and food, but closely
resembling the Gilyaks, the Golds, and the Orochons, who
still inhabit the banks of the lower Amur to-day. And,
though they never reached Sakhalin, he has something to
relate of it which he learnt from the Ke tcheng ta se, whose
country, he says, " extends along the Saghalien oula, from
* Du Halde's " History of China," translated by R. Brooks, 1736.
96 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Tondon to the Ocean. . . . They were the first that
inform'd us, of what we did not know before, that opposite
to the Mouth of Saghah'en oula was a great Island inhabited
by People like themselves ; the Emperor afterwards sent
some Mantcheoux thither, who passed over in Barks of
these Ke tcheng ta se, who live by the Sea-side, and trade
with the Inhabitants of the Western Parts of the Island.
" Had these Gentlemen been as careful in measuring
the South Part as they were in traversing the East, and had
returned by the North to the Place from whence they set
out, we should have had a compleat Knowledge of this
Island ; but they neither brought us the Measure of the
South Coast, nor the names of the Villages there ; where-
fore we could only describe that Part from the Reports
of some of the Inhabitants. ... It is variously named
by the Inhabitants of the Continent, according to the
different Villages which they frequent ; but the Name
by which it is generally distinguished is Saghalien anga
hata,* the Island at the mouth of the Black River. . . .
The Mantcheoux who were sent thither learned only the
Names of the Villages through which they passed, for the
want of necessaries obliged them to return much sooner
than they could have wish'd, they told us that these
Islanders fed no Horses, nor any other Beasts of burthen,
but that in several Parts they had seen a sort of tame Stag
which drew their Sledges, and which, according to their
descriptions, were like those used in Norway."
So far as the description goes it tallies with the con-
ditions to-day, saving only the occupation of portions of
the west and south coast by the Russians.
It was owing incidentally to the reverend fathers, and
the great geographer d'Anville, that the island received its
: * This is Manchu, and the words mean —
Saghalien, or Sahalien, black,
(oula, or ula, understood, river.)
anga, mouth,
hata, rock.
THE ISLAND OF SAKHALIN 97
present name, for it has had many, as the following list will
show : — Tarakai, Repun (Ainu), Khuye (Chinese), Karafto
Kita-sima (Japanese), Tun (Manchu), and Tchoka (native,
Orochon). The name by which it was known among the
Manchus was Tun, or Toung, which means, "a hole dug
in the ground, to which retreat certain wild men," possibly
a reference to the pre- Ainu race, which is believed to have
inhabited Sakhalin, or even to the present northern tribes
who used to live in mounds, and still do so in winter. This
name, however, does not appear to be mentioned by the
Jesuit explorers, perhaps because they regarded it as
equally fabulous with the statements of the Chinese geo-
graphers, who wrote of the "northern crab barbarians"
as inhabiting a region evidently intended for Sakhalin ;
and of their neighbours on Yezo as having "Bodies
covered with Hair, Whiskers that hung down to their
Breasts, and their Swords tied by the Point behind their
Heads." Their information was, indeed, out of date, for
we may perhaps see in these so-called fabulous tales, re-
ference to the prehistoric pit-dwellers of Yezo (the Goro-
pok-guru), and the warlike Ainus of the eleventh and
twelfth centuries.
The reverend fathers appear, on the other hand, to have
been impressed by the mention of Saghalien aula anga
hata, or the rocks at the mouth of the black river ; and on
the copy of the map of the Chinese Empire, sent home to
the King of France, only a very few of the Chinese, Man-
chu, and Khalka names of places, mountains, and rivers,
were transliterated into Latin characters, the island re-
maining unnamed ; but at the mouth of the Amur
appeared this legend, "Saghalien oula anga hata." The
copyists employed by d'Anville in 1734 found this too
long, and simply wrote Saghalien,* thinking it was meant
* Sakhalin, is the official Russian name of the island, and, accord-
ing to the Manchu scholar, Mr. M. F. A. Fraser, " gets very near to
the Manchu pronunciation " of the characters, which he transhterates
H
98 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
to apply to the island, to which it has ever since stuck.
It is a coincidence that such a curiously apt name —
"black" — for the penal island to which Russia's worst
criminals are despatched, should have thus accidentally
been given to it.
The illustration in the text is a reproduction of a map,
d'Anville appended to a letter he published in 1737, ex-
plaining why he had so constructed his map of this much-
debated region, and particularly his reasons for making
Yezo an island.
It will be noticed that Sakhalin is about half its true
size, and that Capes Aniva and Patience, of which d'Anville
had heard, through a report of Captain Vries' expedition
just to hand, are added by him to the mainland, instead
of being placed on the southern half of the island, which
should extend southwards for another 4°.
In 1787, the famous explorer La Pdrouse, following the
coast of Tartary, with d'Anville's map before him, deter-
mined to steer eastwards to reconnoitre the Kurile islands.
He was then in latitude 48°, and, to his surprise, soon
encountered land, though the map marked nothing nearer
than the southern end of Sakhalin at 49^°. Neither to
the south-east nor to the north-east could he find a channel,
and he came to the conclusion that this was the island
called Saghalien by the geographers, and that it stretched
much further to the south than they had imagined.
Proceeding in a northerly direction along the coast, he
landed in three bays ; and has left us an interesting account
of his meetings with the natives, who from his description
are recognizable as Ainus.
Beyond latitude 51°, the Straits becoming shallower,
he made over to the coast of Tartary, and found and named
the De Castries Bay. In answer to his inquiries here,
Nwhether there was a passage between the isle and the
Sa-kha-li-yen. "The stress," he adds, "is diffused as in Japanese
or French."
MAP BY D'ANVILLE, 1737. BY THE "ISLE DU FL(eUVE) NOIR," IS MEANT
SAKHALIN.
[ To face page 98.
THE ISLAND OF SAKHALIN 99
mainland, the natives indicated that there were sandbanks,
that marine flora grew thereupon, and that they had to
drag their canoes over the shoals. He therefore turned
south, and navigated the strait which divides Yezo from
Sakhalin, to which he gave his name.
Nine years later an English captain, W. Broughton,
attempted to pass, but failed, although his brig drew only
ten feet. Krusenstern met with no greater success during
his three years' expedition in East Siberian waters, from
1803 to 1806 ; but a Japanese surveyor, Mamia Rinzo, two
years later, succeeded where all others had failed.
He was despatched by the Japanese Government,
whose suspicions had been aroused by the arrival of a
Russian embassy at the Mikado's Court in 1805, and in
1808 an expedition was fitted out to survey the coasts
of Eastern Tartary. Mamia Rinzo navigated the Straits
(hitherto called the Gulf) of Tartary, and returned with
carefully drawn up plans and charts. These were pigeon-
holed in the archives at Yeddo, and only discovered many
years later by P. von Siebold.
The insularity, of Sakhalin therefore still remained a
secret. As late as 1846 Lieutenant Gavrilov, who was
despatched on a Government expedition, and was wrecked,,
wrote, " Sakhalin is a peninsula." It was left to Captain
Nevelskoy to establish once and for all the insularity of
Sakhalin.
The great Count Muraviev, whose brilliant administra-
tion I have already referred to, in conjunction with
Captain Nevelskoy at sea, had been searching for a suit-
able naval base on the Eastern Siberian coast, with a view
to strengthening the Russian position and hold on the
Amur. They had parted in Europe in the year 1848,
both bound for the East. No news of the latter had been
received for months, and fears were entertained of the
loss of his vessel, when on September 3, 1849, she appeared
on the horizon off Ayan (Sea of Okhotsk). It is said that
100 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Muraviev, impatient to hear the news, set out to meet
him in a row-boat, and was hailed through a speaking-
trumpet by Nevelskoy in the following words : — " God has
assisted us . . . the main question is happily solved . . .
Saghalien is an island, and sea-going ships can penetrate
into the estuary of the Amur both from the north and
the south. An ancient error is completely dissipated ; I
now report to you that the truth has been discovered." *
This discovery, however, did not become public pro-
perty at once, for, in 1855, during the Anglo-French
war with Russia, an English commander, with a small
squadron, coming upon six Russian vessels in De Castries
Bay, retired to the south to block their exit and await
reinforcements, thinking that an isthmus to the north
had rendered the Russian position a cul de sac. Mean-
while, the Russian squadron slipped out of the bay, and,
steering north, navigated the narrow strait between Capes
Lazarev and Pogobi, and reached the mouth of the Amur.
It is interesting to note, in regard to the reported
connexion of the island and mainland in historical times,
that the Gilyak natives have a legend telling of the
destruction of the isthmus which is said to have united
them. It is one of the deluge stories that are so curiously
world prevalent.
The story tells how, " In the good old times no boat
was needed to go to and from the Amur land (mainland
at the mouth of Amur), for then dry land united it with
Sakhalin, but once there came water from the sea — much,
much water — then only were seen the tops of the mountains.
During that flood many Gilyak hunters perished, but one
found himself, by chance, on the top of a mountain, sharing
it with a bear. The beast did him no harm, and even
allowed him to sit upon its back while he swam to the
tops of other mountains, where more refugees from the
flood were congregated. When the waters receded and
* Vladimir. " Russia on the Pacific."
THE ISLAND OF SAKHALIN loi
life went on as usual, the Gilyaks wanted to return whence
they had come, to sell the furs they had saved ; but on
arrival at the familiar spot, lo ! the isthmus was gone,
swept away by the flood, and in its place was the narrow
strait, which remains to this day. At the time of this
catastrophe," they added, " the river Amur overflowed,
and large numbers of our brethren on its banks perished."
I asked them where this mountain was, and they in-
dicated a peak about forty miles south of Alexandrovsk,
called Ktaiisi pal (pal = peak or mountain), and named
by La Pdrouse, " Pic la Martini^re," after the botanist of
his expedition.* When the natives see this peak, my
Gilyak informant said, they always make an offering to
the god of the mountain.
I have wondered whether the following had anything
to do with the Gilyak story, or was only a coincidence. I
happened to be passing down the Straits of Tartary on a
small Russian cargo steamer, and talking to the captain
about the weather encountered there, when he said, " There
are frequent fogs here, and you know how difiScult naviga-
tion is, but there is always one guide. In the thickest of
fogs can always be seen the top, just the summit, of a
mountain in Sakhalin." Is this the mountain, towering
above the heavenly floods, the clouds and fog, on which
the Gilyak and bear found themselves ?
Another legend bearing on the point is told by their
old men, who say that " their fathers or grandfathers
* La Pdrouse says, in his account of his voyage round the world,
" Le 22 (juillet, 1787) au soir, je mouillai h. una lieue de terre, par
trente — sept brasses (fathoms) fond de vase. J'etais par le travers
d'une petite rivifere ; on voyait k trois lieues au Nord xssx. pic iris —
remarquable ; sa base est sur le bord de la mer, et son sommet, de
quelque c6td qu'on I'apergoive, conserve la forme la plus r^gulifere ; il
est couvert d'arbres et de verdure jusqu'k le cime : je lui ai donn^
le nom de pic la Martinierc, parce qu'il offre un beau champ aux
recherches de la botanique, dont le savant de ce nom fait son
occupation principale."
102 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
remembered the time when on the island there were no
Russians, and it was very hot. The Russians came, and
brought with them the cold and snowstorms. Before this,
grapes ripened on the island, and now only in the south,
and even there they are very sour, and not really ripe. In
the north there is only the plant, and it bears no fruit."
Such is not an uncommon tale of primitive folk, who,
like their more civilized neighbours, look back upon " the
good old times," and unconsciously gild earlier days with
"memory's sunset ray." But taking these two legends
together, and translating the time to which they relate to
a period not later than three or four centuries ago, there
seems some probability, or at least possibility, of a basis
of fact. The strange intermixture, observable in the fauna
and flora, arctic, temperate, and sub-tropical, and even
more noticeable in the Primorsk, the coast region of the
mainland opposite, suggests a chapter in the history of
these regions when their climate approximated to that of
Central Japan to-day.
The tiger, larger and with longer fur than his Bengal
brother, is found where the elk wanders ; and though I do
not credit the Gilyak's reports to Dr. Schrenck, of traces of
it found on Sakhalin, it is met with every winter between
Khabarovsk and Nikolaevsk, and crosses the Amur on the
ice, when wild boars are scarce, and the horses of the
Russians or the Soluns are to be had. I have seen the
little striped ground-squirrel which is so common among
the mosques of India, in the bushes of the interior of Sak-
halin, and not far off the reindeer nibbling the lichen
growing on the tundra, which in winter is a solitary frozen
waste.
It has been calculated that 15 per cent, of the species
of birds observed on the isjand are from the polar regions,
and 12 per cent, sub-tropical. The long-tailed rosefinch
from the south {Uragus sanguinolentus) and the osprey
{Pandion halicetus) of the arctic regions are both found on
THE ISLAND OF SAKHALIN 103
Sakhalin. The flora exhibits as great a diversity. Bam-
boos {Arundinaria kurilensis) and Swiss pines {Pinus
cembra pumila), hydrangeas, the cork- (Phellodendron amu-
rense) and spindle-trees {Euonymus macropterus) are here,
with the Betula ermani, and the gnarled larch {Larix
dauricd), and birch, and the berry-laden bushes of the
Siberian tundra.
Now, if we suppose that a neck of land once united
Sakhalin with the mainland, the cold current from the
Okhotsk Sea — which runs strong through the Straits of
Tartary, forcing back a weaker branch of the Kuro Siwo
or Gulf Stream of the East — must then have found its way
blocked. The warm current flowing north from the Japan
Sea would have pursued its course up the Gulf of Tartary
without the active opposition of the colder one, and wash-
ing first the shores of the mainland, or Primorsk, would,
on reaching the isthmus, have swept round in a southerly
trend, laving the west coast of Sakhalin. This might
account for the partial survival of sub-tropical vegetation.
The present configuration of the shoals and sandbanks
immediately to the north of the "funnel" of the Straits
of Tartary seemed to me, when travelling through them
and studying the charts, also to support the theory of the
existence at some time, not remote, of an isthmus joining
Capes Lazarev and Pogobi. The great accumulation in
the form of sandbanks, and one in particular in mid-
channel, but three-quarters of a fathom deep and imme-
diately to the north of the " narrows," could be much more
easily accounted for by the previous existence of a neck
of land, and,the consequent check and deposition of alluvium
in a quiet bend, than by the present conditions of a strong
current from the north at four knots an hour.
Nor is it difficult to conceive how the catastrophe,
pictured by the Gilyaks, might have taken place. Peter
Dobell, writing in the year 181 3, has described for us the
circumstances which brought about the insulation of the
I04 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
town of Okhotsk. He pictures the then site as a long
narrow island sandbank, and adds, " a few years ago the
river became choaked (sic) at the mouth by a more than
ordinary quantity of ice. The strength of the stream not
being sufficient to force it out by the usual channel, it sank
to the bottom, and at length completely obstructed the
egress of the waters. Thus repelled, they swelled to an
enormous height, covering all the country round, and forced
themselves at length through the sandy beach, by what
is called the new channel, insulating the town on the spot
I have already described."
The island of Sakhalin is 590 miles long, or the dis-
tance from Land's End to Cape Wrath, and from 17
to 100 miles broad, with an area of 29,336 miles, or a
trifle less than that of Scotland ; while its population on
January i, 1898, was about 36,000, or scarcely one-eighth
of the population of the city of Edinburgh. It is separated
from the most northerly of the large islands of Japan,
Yezo, by La Perouse Strait, which presents to the mariner
a difficult and dangerous crossing, though only twenty-
eight miles in width.
It is a mountainous country, a long backbone or ridge
running from north to south, and keeping near to the
western coast; and three spurs stretching to the east
coast. The longest ends in Cape Patience, with Mount
Tiara, 2000 feet in height, rising about midway ; and
the other two in the extreme south, one at Cape
Aniva, and the latter a few miles to the north-west of
Korsakovsk. The ridge maintains an average altitude
of about 2500 feet, culminating in Ichara pal or Pic
Lamanon, 4860 feet in height, about fifty miles to the
north of the narrowest part of the island. Two main
rivers, each with a course of about 300 miles, have their
watershed about the centre of the island ; one, the Poronai
(Ainu, poro = great ; and nai = river), flowing south into
the Bay of Patience, and the other the Tim (in the Gilyak
THE ISLAND OF SAKHALIN 105
tongue, tint means cranberry, which is abundant on the
banks), which I descended, finding outlet in the Bay of
Ni, on the north-east coast. Short torrential streams there
are in great numbers, especially on the west and south-
east coasts.
The land is for the greater part covered with primeval
forest. So dense is this, that the natives depend for high-
way upon the rivers, which they traverse in summer in
canoes dug out of tree-trunks, and in winter in dog- or rein-
deer-sledges over the frozen surfaces.
The commonest trees in the forests in the northern
half are larch {Larix dauricd) and hiTch(Be(ula alba), and in
the south spruce (Piccea ajanensis), and ^t {Abies sachalinensis).
In addition to these are the less common aspen, willow,
elm, maple, nut, Swiss pine, mountain ash, etc.
The forests naturally change their personnel with their
situation. On the mountain-side, and down in swampy
places, where cold winds prevail, the flora is limited, and
the sparse vegetation, the hoary moss-hung trees, and the
almost snow-white; lichen-sprinkled ground, the home of
the reindeer, hint of approaching arctic conditions.
In sheltered valleys, on the other hand, I have found
lofty larch trees measuring, as nearly as I could tell by
pacing a fallen giant, 145 feet, and in the south, as already
mentioned, are found the spindle- and cork-trees, the
bamboo, hydrangea, and the heracleum.
The thick undergrowth was chiefly composed of wild
rose, spiraea {betulcefolia ? ) and berried bushes, including
the cloudberry {Rubus chamcemortis), cranberry {Oxycoccus
falustris), crowberry {Empetrum nigrum), and the red
whortleberry or cowberry ( Vaccinium vitis idcea).
On the whole it is the taiga, the Siberian " jungle " or
belt of trackless forests of birch, larch, and spruce that
prevails on Sakhalin ; and the tundra, with its meres and
swamps, covered with dank grass, gnarled and stunted
larch and birch, low clusters of berry-laden brushwood,
io6 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
shrouded in a drear sunlit mist in summer, or a frozen waste
in winter, is only met with in parts, more especially in the
north on the west coast.
If the human population of Sakhalin is small in number,
the four-footed inhabitants are many. It was probably as
a happy hunting-ground that the island appealed to the
Gilyak pioneers from the Amur, whose descendants are
settled to-day on the east and west coasts and the banks
of the river Tim.
The most striking of all the animals on Sakhalin is,
without doubt, the big brown bear ( Ursus arctos), which is
found in great numbers. Wolves also haunt the forests,
but chiefly in the south, and even there not in any great
numbers to-day. Foxes are, however, prolific, and the skins
of these, the reindeer, the sable, and the otter, go to make
up the bulk of the fur trade to the mainland.
Though situated in the temperate zone, Sakhalin,
certainly in its northern half, has a climate similar to that
of Lapland and southern Greenland. Alexandrovsk, the
chief place on the island, lying about sixty miles north of
the centre on the west coast, has exactly the same latitude,
even to the second, as Brighton ; yet its mean annual
temperature is just below freezing-point (31 "64° Fahr.).
The summer heat is considerable, and hence a great
range is experienced. The figures for 1900, which were
not then (1901) published, but kindly given me by the
student-convict and meteorological observer, showed a
maximum of 81° Fahr. in July, and — 38° Fahr. in January,
or a range of 1 19° Fahr. In the interior, at Rikovsk, this
has been increased to 149° Fahr., the thermometer rising
to 94° (1897) above and falling to 55° below zero Fahr.
(1890).
This falls considerably short of the low temperatures
experienced in the extreme north of Siberia, notably at the
reputed pole of cold, Verkhoyansk, on the river Yana,
where it is said that —81° Fahr. have been registered.
THE ISLAND OF SAKHALIN
107
A more instructive comparison, however, may be made
from monthly averages. In the following table are re-
corded the averages of mean readings for the coldest and
warmest months of the year, and the ranges between.
Lat. N.
Jan.
July.
Range.
0 1 II
F.
F.
F.
SO 49 so
Alexandrovsk (Sakhalin, W. coast)
-3°
62°
6>;°
50 43 [circa\
Rikovsk ( „ interior)
-8
63
71
46 39
Korsakovsk ( ,, S. coast)
13
64
51
67 20
Verkhoyansk (Siberian mainland,
E. Siberia)
-56
58
114
51 1
Chita (Siberian mainland, Trans-
Baikalia)
-IS
66
81
48 28
Khabarovsk (Siberian mainland,
Primorsk)
-7
70
77
43 6
Vladivostok (Siberian mainland,
Primorsk)
S
69
64
59 57
St. Petersburg
IS
m
SI
SI 29
London ..>.••...
37
64
27
It will be seen that, whereas Sakhalin experiences nearly
the same temperature during July as do other places in
Siberia, and even St. Petersburg and London, during
January the cold is less intense than in the interior, on the
mainland, but much more so than in the two European
towns.
Korsakovsk in the south, though suffering as does the
rest of the island from keen north winds, shows a striking
contrast to other Sakhalin places in its winter records.
Winter lasts long, and the figures for 1900 recorded
208 days on which frost occurred, and on 141 of these no
thaw took place. Late in September, or early in October,
the snow begins to fall. At first it lies only on the tops of
the mountains. Soon, however, it creeps down the sides,
and the old men of Alexandrovsk told me that from
October 13 (October 26, N.s,) it should come to stay.
Thence onwards for nearly six months the land is covered
with a white pall, on an average for 170 days, but in
1895 it remained for no less than 203 days. Its depth
io8 IN THE UTTERMOST. EAST
varies from one to three feet (at Rikovsk 34J inches were
recorded in 1896), being deeper in the tundra valleys of the
rivers and shallower on the mountains, but almost anywhere
one may come unexpectedly upon drifts of seven feet, from
which it is not easy to extricate one's self.
With the opening of winter comes the closing of the
Straits of Tartary to navigation. From the middle of
November until May no ships are seen, and communica-
tion is absolutely cut off, save for the cable, excepting
during two months in midwinter. Even this slender and
uncertain means of communication was denied the inhabi-
tants, for in June, 1901, the cable was broken, thus rendering
their isolation complete during the following winter.
Towards the end of December, or the beginning of
January, the sea is suiificiently frozen for natives to under-
take the arduous task of sledging to Nikolaevsk with the
mails. At Alexandrovsk, and generally to the south of the
" funnel " of the Straits, only the coastal fringe of the sea is
frozen, but to the north of that all is covered save for
occasional holes. It is no easy journey along the ice-
bound fringe of the coast, northwards to Cape Pogobi, and
thence across the snow-covered frozen sea to the mainland.
To the narta, as the sledge is called, are harnessed
thirteen dogs of the Arctic type No. i is the leader, a
valuable animal, the cleverest and most experienced. He
has shoulder-straps, and one also passing between his legs
is attached to the sledge. To this strap the others are
joined by thongs on either side, and should any shirk
their work, they are pounced upon by the leader or their
fellows, and severely bitten. No reins, nothing but the
strap connects the team with the sledge and its driver. The
narta is a lightly constructed framework of wood, about
fourteen inches high and fourteen feet long. Higgledy-
piggledy lie the dogs outside the post-office at Alex-
androvsk, their master in furs, mocassins and long skin
hood, from out which peeps his pigtail. But already the
THE ISLAND OF SAKHALIN 109
mails are out and on the narta, and the Gilyak, seizing the
dogs, casts them to right and left. Throwing himself
quickly astride of the sledge, feet on rails, clasping his two
short iron-shod sticks, and calling, Ti ti, i.e. "Forward,"
to the dogs, the mail is away. A dash down the hill, and
less than a mile's run brings them to the sea ; but which
is sea and which is land ? All is covered with snow. For
100 miles they pursue their course over the frozen fringe
of the sea.
Should they meet a traveller, the driver digs his
sticks {kaur) into the snow, and calls, " Pore ! " (Stop !) or
" Kau ! Kau ! " (Right ! Right !) The dogs swerve, the left
leg of the Gilyak is seen oddly in the air, but the sticks
maintain his balance, and the equipage is quickly turned
aside. Should the owner, however, fail to see the traveller,
the dogs may fly at the stranger and do him grievous
injury, for in order to keep them running they are only
half fed until the end of the journey.
From Cape Pogobi the crossing of the Straits is made
in a north-westerly direction, threading the Khazeliv Islands
to a Gilyak village Mi on the opposite shore, nearly fifty
miles distant This part of the journey must be compassed
in daylight, and an early start (5 a.m.) is made. At first
the dogs speed along over the smooth snow-covered surface
at about seven miles an hour, with halts of five or ten
minutes at every ten versts (6| miles) to give them breath.
As the middle is neared rougher going is met with, for
hummocky ice has been piled up by the wind in open
water, and detours have to be made to avoid dangerous
holes. So strong is the wind that the narrow strait between
Capes Lazarev and Pogobi, though barely five miles across,
is always kept open, the ice being swept onwards as quickly
as it forms, to cling to the fringe further south, therefore
it is that the crossing lengthens out to nearly fifty miles.
Halfway across a halt is called, and the dogs are given
half a dried fish each. Time presses, however, the days
no IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
are short, and soon they are off again, the driver calling to
his team, " Takhl takh ! " (On ! on !) to hasten their steps.
At last the islands are reached and threaded, but the sun
has already set, and darkness has descended ere the glad
sounds of barking announce the arrival at the Gilyak
village of Mi.
The next day the coast must be skirted again, and the
, Amur ascended, unless the driver is venturesome and takes
a short cut, clambering over the Pronge headland, before
Nikolaevsk can be reached.
It is by no means an easy journey, and not to be
attempted without an experienced kaya (driver), for
open water or a thinly frozen surface may swallow the
unwary.
Two men this winter (1902-3) made an attempt to
cross on a horse-sledge. They were, I believe, ex-convict
merchants, but nothing has been heard of them since, up
to the time of writing. The two horses were found in the
Straits, one frozen to death, and the other nearly so ; but
no trace of their masters at all. It seemed most likely
that they had been drowned, but how they had met this
fate, and the horses escaped, was a mystery. Possibly,
overtaken by darkness, they ventured on foot to find a
way, and were engulfed in a hole or in the open sea to
the south.
Such are the dangers and difficulties of the journey of
the mails, and of any venturous passenger during midwinter
from Sakhalin to the mainland.
We can picture the excitement of the first arrival, after
the many weeks' absence of news, as the team of dogs
dashes up the hill to the post-office. Outside stands a sign-
post, as if to remind the inhabitants of their exile and
hopeless separation from civilization, with the inscription,
"St Petersburg, 10,186 versts" (6752 miles).
Another interval of six weeks' or two months' isolation
follows midwinter communication, during which no ship
^Silliii
THE ISLAND OF SAKHALIN m
can plough the ice-laden strait nor sledge venture across
the treacherous ice.
Although it is common knowledge that the farther east
of Paris one goes, the more extreme is the climate, a fact
which Napoleon did not seem to have realized in 1812,
yet we should scarcely expect such extremes of climate as
a range of 149° Fahr. on an island in the same latitude.
There appear to be two main causes. The first is the pre-
valence of northerly and north-westerly winds in winter, and
of southerly and south-easterly in summer ; the second is
the presence of a cold current from the Okhotsk Sea flowing
down both sides of the island. The ice, led by the current
and driven by the wind from this great reservoir of frost,
fills up all the northern portion of the Straits of Tartary,
and makes of it a continuation of the sub-arctic region
of frost.
The winter's cold is, however, fine and dry, and though
it has been said that Sakhalin does not know the calm
days that prevail throughout the winter in Eastern Siberia,
yet during the latter half of January and the month of
February, beautiful bright windless days succeed one
another on the island, and the dog-sledges and reindeer
are brought out, and the natives make their journeys for
the barter of skins.
The climate has been much maligned, and the notion
of a land of fog and snow still holds the popular imagina-
tion. For such ideas we are largely indebted to navigators.
The truth is that there is a great deal of fog at sea, but
the mariners were not aware that it generally remains —
like themselves, at sea — leaving a margin of about four
miles from the land clear. The thawing of the river
Amur, the floating down the Straits of great ice-blocks,
and the mingling of cold and warm currents, or a keen
northerly blast on the summer sea, are the causes which
contribute to this state of things.
Mr. H. de Windt, after a flying visit to the island, has
512 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
written, "There are fogs throughout the year, except in
the interior." Dr. James Y. Simpson, in his admirable
book on Siberia, gives us a chapter on Sakhalin, compiled
from statistics, and in it he remarks, " In the Alexan-
drovsky district there were only five days free from rain,
cloud, or fog in 1895, and in no year has there ever been
more than nine or ten. The island is therefore almost
unsuitable for ordinary settlers, and forms only a penal
colony." I have before me the meteorological reports for
several years, and reference to them shows the number
of clear days (and the sky has to undergo a very strict
examination before the meteorological authorities will
pass it as clear) in the year 1895 was no less than forty.
There is less annual cloudiness, in other words, more sun-
shine recorded on the island than in England, and the
rainfall also averages less, being but 22^ inches.
My own experience, as well as the meteorological
records, runs counter to the above-mentioned authors'
remarks.
At the time when the break-up of the weather is
expected, i.e. in September and early October, I enjoyed
brilliantly sunny days on Sakhalin, such as one seldom
gets in England. During the whole of the fifty days I
spent on the island I never saw a fog, but on several
occasions the coast-line of the mainland, sixty miles dis-
tant, was visible.
The southern portion of the island, having a more
temperate, or rather, less extreme climate, experiences, in
parts, more fog and humidity than the northern half
If I had almost omitted in this brief resume of the
history and physical conditions of Sakhalin to say any-
thing of its geological formation, it would have been
because so little is known. The island is attributed to the
Tertiary period, although the Secondary is represented in
the south by green sandstone, containing cretaceous sea-
urchins; and I have observed on the coast, at Alexandrovsk,
THE ISLAND OF SAKHALIN 113
just to the north of Jonqui^re Point, huge ammonites in
the ferruginous marl.
Attempts have been made to find traces of geologically
recent volcanic action, but so far they have not met with
success. Posting one day along the sands south of the
headland just mentioned, I descended to examine some-
thing that caught my attention, and found what I thought
to be a piece of lava. On inquiry, however, I learned that
an adjoining coal-mine had been set on fire, accidentally
or wilfully, by convicts, and had been smouldering for
thirty years ; hence my discovery ! It seems much more
probable that, while the line of volcanic action runs down
from Kamchatka through the Kurile Islands and Japan,
Sakhalin represents the remaining outcrop of the line
of weakness. In general, exposures — the cliffs to the
north of Alexandrovsk and the banks of the river Tim —
showed conglomerate resting on a hard argillaceous sand-
stone, and occasionally calcareous schist. Marine fossils
have been found at eight feet elevation above low-water
mark, and the natural conclusion is that the island is
undergoing a period of emergence. The presence of nearly
completed lagoons on the north-east and south-west coasts
are also evidence of this emergence.
The story of the earliest occupation of Sakhalin carries
us back to prehistoric times. To-day, in addition to the
latest comers — the Russians — five different peoples are
found on the island. They are the Ainus, Gilyaks,
Orochons, Tungus and Yakuts. Of the last, a Turki
tribe whose habitat is Eastern Siberia with the town of
Yakutsk as a centre, there are only ten men and three
women on Sakhalin.
Which of these five peoples, it will be asked, were
the aborigines .' The Tungus, whose home is also in
Eastern Siberia, and who roam from the borders of
Korea to the Arctic Ocean, and from the Yenisei river
to the Okhotsk Sea, are certainly not, for they have
I
114 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
arrived since the Russians. The Gilyak hunters pro-
bably came over from the mainland before the Orochon,
and whether we are right in conjecturing their first settle-
ment to have been made not earlier than two and a half
centuries ago, it is certain that their traditions testify to
their meeting the Ainus already in occupation of the
island.
Whence did the Ainus come, and are we to regard
them as the aborigines of Sakhalin? This race, finding
itself among Mongol peoples, one of whose striking cha-
racteristics is their comparatively hairless faces, has struck
the imagination of strangers by its possession of abundant
hair and full beards. Their patriarchal look and absence
of any marked Mongoloid features have further puzzled
the ethnologist in attempting to classify them. Some of
their customs are similar to those of northern tribes, and
have induced a belief in their northern origin ; but there
are others, e.g. the habit of tattooing, which savour of the
south, and we know by history and the old Ainu place-
names in the south of Japan that they have been driven
north thence to the island of Yezo. Probably the origin
of the Sakhalin Ainus must be sought either in the flight
of refugees from Yezo on the imposition of the Japanese
yoke, or the early and original migrations of the race from
the mainland (now the Primorsk).
They themselves, like their brethren in Yezo, have a
legend that a pit-dwelling race were in possession before
them ; and they point to the scooped-out holes and kitchen-
middens which are near their own villages of Siraroka and
Tikmenev, on the east coast of Sakhalin. In these have
been found obsidian and diorite implements, and clay
potsherds. The Ainus have not been known to make
stone implements, and diorite and obsidian do not as far
as we know exist on the island. Moreover, the Ainus
disclaim the knowledge and art of making clay vessels,
and call the dwellers in these holes the Tontchi or Toichi.
THE ISLAND OF SAKHALIN 115
In Ainu toi means clay, and chi baked or dried, i.e.
" Makers of baked clay vessels."
In recent years we have been continually meeting with
further evidence of the existence of a prehistoric dwarf
race in our own land and elsewhere. Kamchatkan legends
seem to indicate the comparatively recent (400 years)
existence of a dwarf people in that peninsula, and if that
be so, then further links are added to the chain of pigmies
stretching from Africa to Bering Straits, through the
Andaman Islands, the Malay Peninsula, Formosa, Yezo,
Sakhalin and Kamchatka.
Of the origins of the other three tribes it is almost
as difficult to conjecture as of the Ainus. The Tungus,
so-called, we may class as the most backward — the wildest
offshoots of the race, of which the Manchu is the most
civilized representative to-day, the people that has given
China her reigning dynasty for the last two and a half
centuries. A thousand years ago, according to Chinese
records, these tribes were beyond the limits of even the
peoples who brought yearly tribute of skins and arrows
to the Court of China; and even in 1586 the annalist
described them as " wild men of the northern mountains
who ride about on deer." To go back further is to lose
ourselves in conjecture.
Philologists, who handle milleniums as ordinary his-
torians centuries, tell us that from the seat of the Asiatic
peoples in the Altai region, on the borders of Siberia and
Western Mongolia, occurred several wanderungen some-
where between 5000 and 7000 years ago, and the offshoots
which were to become the Chinese and the Japanese
peoples were followed by the Mongols, Turks, and Manchus
or Tungus.
A study of the Orochons suggest that they are a tribe
which has mostly Tungus blood in its veins, mingled by
intermarriage with various neighbours, such as the Gilyaks,
Golds, etc.
ii6 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
The Gilyaks are even more difficult to classify racially.
Separated in speech, manners and customs from their
neighbours, they yet have some affinities in feature. This
only adds to the puzzle; for while many have scarcely
any hair on their faces, others, whose ancestors, perhaps,
have intermarried with Ainus, have bushy beards and
copious heads of hair. The most plausible suggestion is
that they are of a semi-Tungus, semi-Mongol race. Phi-
lologists of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, and
of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, hold
that their language knits them in origin to the dwellers
on the Pacific coast of Northern Asia, and America, and
the Aleutian isles.
The total number of natives on the island is between
4000 and 5000, of whom about 1 300 are Ainus, more than 20CX)
Gilyaks, at least 750 Orochons, and perhaps 200 Tungus.
The island is therefore very sparsely populated ; and how
sparsely may be judged from the fact that during more
than three days' journeying on the river Tim, the native
highway to the east coast, I saw not a solitary person or
dwelling.
The Russian occupation is practically confined to the
district enclosed in a radius of thirty miles from Alexan-
drovsk on the west coast, and another smaller one around
Korsakovsk in the south.
The island is divided into three administrative districts
— the Alexandrovsk, Timovsk, and Korsakovsk okrugi.
Each of these is presided over by a chief of the district, or
okruzhni nachalnik, over whom is the military Governor of
the island. The latter has great authority, but in his turn is
subject to the Governor-general of the Pri-Amursky oblast.
The biggest prison centre is at Alexandrovsk. The
next is at Korsakovsk, and the Timovsk district has two,
one at Derbensk and the other at Rikovsk, thirty-five
and forty-four miles, respectively, by road inland from
Alexandrovsk.
THE ISLAND OF SAKHALIN 117
Immediately around these centres clearings have been
made, and beyond are a few villages dotted about in
the forest, with a population varying from 200 to none
at all ! I came across one, poverty-stricken, with huts
roofed with bark and a liberal allowance of holes (!), which
contained six men only. In the late Governor's report he
mentions the arrival of soldiers, who were tracking escaped
convicts, at one that had the large total of two, and yet
another that had none at all !
The Russian connection with the island dates from
1852, when Lieutenant Boshniak was sent to explore
Sakhalin, the possession of which had become necessary
in order to guard the entrance to the Amur, at which a
year before 'the Russian flag had been planted. During
the following year Ilinsky Post (Kusunai), on the west
coast, and Muravievsk Post, in the Bay of Aniva, were
formed. In 1858, forty convicts were at work in the coal-
mines at Dui, on the west coast, and in 1869, 800 were
forwarded from Trans-Baikalia.
The Japanese, who had been alarmed at the landing of
the Russians in Aniva Bay at the beginning of the century,
were now considerably disturbed by this fresh activity.
For decades back, Japanese fishers and traders in
skins, etc., had haunted the coasts of Sakhalin. Now
Russia wanted to claim the whole island. For the time
an amicable arrangement was come to, with a joint owner-
ship and freedom to occupy unoccupied territory. This, of
course, could not last, and finally, in 1875, negotiations
were completed by which Japan gave up her claim to the
southern half of the island. In lieu thereof she received
the cession of the Kurile islands, and an annual payment
for a fixed number of years. A Japanese consul has his
residence at Korsakovsk to receive this, and to pay a pro
rata tax levied on the Japanese fishermen who still ply
their trade in Sakhalin waters.
CHAPTER VII
ALEXANDROVSK TO SLAVO
Into the interior hy kibitka — A " Free-command " — Miserable crops
— A tragedy by the wayside — The famous Robin Hood of Sak-
halin and his escapades — On the track of brodyagi.
TO resume my narrative where I left off at the end
of Chapter V. ; the morning of September 1 1
my interpreter and I were ready prepared with
arms, provisions, outfit, and articles of barter for the
expedition to the north-east coast of the island.
To compass my object of visiting the native tribes on
the banks of the Tim and along the coast, it was necessary
to make for the nearest spot on the river where it was
navigable for native canoes, and then to descend it for
about 200 miles. So dense was the primeval forest, that
the river alone afforded a route to us and to the natives
to the east coast.
A preliminary journey of thirty-five miles by a convict-
made road to the prison centre of Derbensk lay before us,
followed by fifteen miles of forest, threaded by a track,
which must be traversed somehow, we knew not how.
At the end of this was the village of Slavo, on the Tim,
where we hoped to find natives to take us in a canoe
down to the sea and along the coast. This much we had
been able to glean beforehand of our route, and the rest
had to be gathered as we went along.
A troika (team of three horses) was ordered for 6 a.m.,
118
ALEXANDROVSK TO SLAVO 119
and with Russian punctuality, a drozhky, or, more strictly
speaking, a kibitka, of primitive description, with three
rough steeds, dashed up two hours later.
It was a most unaccommodating vehicle in which to
stow ourselves and baggage. In front sat the izvostchik,
and parallel to his seat was ours, giving just room for two.
A bare board with three or four inches of back, scarcely
sufficient to prevent us being jerked off or slipping off
backwards, is not the most comfortable seat for a day
and a half's journey, and we retained reminiscences, for
longer than we cared, of our intimate acquaintance with a
Sakhalin kibitka.
In addition to our two selves, six puds * of baggage,
chiefly in sacks, had to be stowed away somehow. Most
of it was roped on behind, while the rest was packed with
difficulty between our feet. That which was behind de-
manded a constant look-out, lest by much jolting it should
drop by the way or fall a prey to the unnoticed brodyaga
experienced in the stealthy abstraction of passengers'
luggage.
The centre horse of a troika is strapped in an arched
yoke (dugd), which holds his head erect in a somewhat
vice-like grip, while the outside horses are held by an
off-rein apiece only. When you chance to be flying along
the even sands of the seashore, the centre horse stepping
high and the outside horses galloping, and the three bells
on the duga merrily ringing, the sensation is indeed
delightful.
It was nearly 9 o'clock before all was securely packed
on to the kibitka; and we were off and away past the
prison, the church, and the post-office and down the hill
towards the Little Alexandrovka river. Here at Mr. Y.'s
house and stores we stopped to leave parting instructions.
With his usual politeness he offered to telegraph forward
to the Nachalnik Derbenskoy iyurmi (the chief of the
* A pud=4o lbs. Russian, or 36"ii lbs. English.
I20 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
prison at Derbensk), to smooth the way for us, an action
which was duly appreciated the next day.
On leaving the house we followed the river, passing on
our right the hill to the north, with its dreary cemetery
and terrible records of crime, our route lying along the
seashore to Arkovo, the place of our previous visit on
horseback. Guiding our vehicle over the drier parts,
avoiding the snake-like channels in which the river lost
itself before reaching the sea, about half a mile farther, we
came to an old pirate vessel (Korean, I believe) lying high
and dry. A head suddenly appeared over the taffrail,
and the owner of it, quickly taking stock of us, of our
guns, revolvers, and daggers, wished us, " ZdravstvueteJ"
(Good morning !)
Two days later he was arrested with another already
referred to who was in hiding, for having murdered a youth
who had gone out shooting, and with whom we had just
parted.
Outlawed and ekeing out a miserable existence on
provisions saved from his prison rations, with the surrep-
titious aid of confreres who were now settled, or by
threatening lonely passers-by along the shore at nights,
the murderer had come at length to the end of his tether.
This was an opportunity of procuring a gun, which meant
also a supply of food in the taiga.
What hope of escape is there for such? Very little.
Many trust that they will get as far north as Pogobi, where
the straits narrow, and, evading the cordons of soldiers,
the many dangers of detection, the meeting with trackers,
there be able to procure a boat from the Gilyaks in which
to cross over to the mainland. Few succeed in these
later times, and, if they do, their case is only one stage
less bad in the lonely taiga of the mainland or in the
vicinity of the prison officials of the Amur. But often
before Pogobi is reached the guns, axes, or clothes with
which they had hoped to purchase a boat from the natives,
»+a
MAP OF
NORTHERN SAKHALIN
au^bor'sConoe)
Routt i
Unexblored Coast-
I- 1,680,000.
Eaf>t of Ortenuiih. '^S
[To face p. 120.
ALEXANDROVSK TO SLAVO 121
have gone in barter for food, and winter is upon them.
There is then only one course open, for winter is more
relentless than the trackers whom they have successfully
evaded hitherto, and starvation and death from cold stare
them in the face ; they must give themselves up, undergo the
flogging, and be re-installed in prison with an additional
sentence.
Further along the shore we met a miserable wretch, a
"free command," dragging a tree trunk through the sea.
Up to his waist in the cold water, it was his task to haul
this for ten miles from Arkovo to Alexandrovsk. When
the steam-tug is not at liberty, five or six convicts are
thus engaged in cold or warm weather for hours. It is
no wonder, as my companion said, that many die ulti-
mately from exposure. These " free-commands " are
convicts who have gone through the first two stages of
prison life in the "probationary," or "testing" and "re-
formatory" gaols, and are now allowed to live out in
barracks. If married, and his wife has followed him, the
" free command " may live with her outside of the prison
in a hut, on condition that he does his hard labour
duty. If the latter is log-dragging, then he is respon-
sible for taking 120 into Alexandrovsk during the year.
Whether this one was undergoing further punishment,
that he should be subjected to this hard, and, in cold
weather, dangerous toil, I do not know, but for this my
companion said the ill-famed Chief of the Alexandrovsk
Prison was responsible.
Turning inland at the Gilyak village, we passed through
the Russian Arkovo, the first, for there are three hamlets
of that name, where we had experienced the hospitality
of the convict-farmer three days since. Our journey now
took us beyond, by a road winding through a beautiful
valley. If the little gardens, with their cabbages and
potatoes, had astonished me before with their look of
contentment, so did now the reverse side of the picture.
122 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
the miserably poor cereal crops standing in the little
strips of clearings which fringed the road — crops that
could not have yielded more than a two or threefold
return on the sowings. Referring to the official records
for the year 1898, I find that wheat and oats, which were
the chief cereals sown in this village, yielded 37 and
4'4-fold harvests, against a 15 -fold average in England.
Potatoes showed better results with 67-fold crop. In the
village of Slavo, which we reached the following day, the
record was terrible, the wheat yield for the same year
being eleven grains for every ten sown ! And, as if to
make more obvious the settlers' inability or culpable
failure to grow enough corn to satisfy their needs, we
overtook several telyegi (primitive springless carts), drawn
by oxen and Siberian ponies, laden with sacks of Ameri-
can flour from Portland, Oregon. A political exile, writing
in the official Sakhalin Kalendar of 1896, lays most of the
blame for the unsatisfactory state of the outlying settle-
ments at the officials' doors. He claims that the system,
under which the " exile-settlers " * are sent to found new
villages in the foi-ests, is not given a fair trial, and adds
that it is the worst men who are shipped off to these parts,
because they ai'e as sores in the eyes of the officials.
Furthermore, the "exile-settlers" are often despatched to
places that no sane man would have chosen, thus making,
what was at best a hard life, an impossible one. Colonel
Garnak, in the eighties, sent out to scientifically explore
the island, is said to have come to the conclusion that
colonization was in a very bad state owing to the " faulty
administration."
On the other hand, the ex-convicts do not make the
best of their circumstances. Small love have they for the
island which is their prison-land, and, even if reconciled to
it, the industry and perseverance needed in a struggle with
* One whose sentence has expired, but who must remain on the
island for six more years without legal rights.
ALEXANDROVSK TO SLAVO 123
nature are not forthcoming from those who have sought
in their days of freedom to live by avoiding honest work.
Some weeks later I met a Caucasian Kazak, who was
a striking exception to the ordinary run of Sakhalin
criminals. Whatever his crime may have been, probably
insurrection, he was very energetic, and most successful.
Living at the village of Uskovo, in the interior, in the
midst of forest which involved no little labour in clearing,
and harboured many a destructive enemy of his cattle, he
owned, he told us, no less than fifty cows, and sowed his
150 puds of corn. He claimed to get a twelve-fold crop,
which, even if we make some allowance for exaggeration,
was really no less extraordinary for Sakhalin than his
unwonted energy. In speaking of agriculture on the island,
he attributed the small crops usually obtained to the
laziness of the " peasants " * and their carelessness in sowing
the seed, " scattering here," as he said, " in excess, and there
insufficiently." " Yes," he added, " I know of one who has
sown wheat on the same patch of ground for seven years
consecutively, and reaped a good harvest each year ; but
the "peasants" don't love the land, they take from it,
but gave her back nothing." A picture true enough of
the majority, for whom life means the obtaining of just a
bare existence.
Conditions of soil, and natural drainage of course vary
very widely, and the Caucasian was fortunate in the occupa-
tion of a hilly and comparatively dry region, such as he was
used to in his home-land ; but very different is it in the
swamps, where bitter winds prevail, and the sowing is
delayed, and the early frosts nip the ear while its contents
are yet soft. Continuing our journey, and leaving behind
the carts laden with flour and barrels of salted fish bound
for the prisons, we saw an empty telyega approaching
* A " peasant " is an ex-convict who has completed his six years of
" exile-settlership," and now has the return of certain elementary civil
rights, including those of the right to move from place to place.
124 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
from the opposite direction, on the side of which sat a man
to whom my companion called my attention. It appeared
that he was a Swede, and I inquired how it was that he
came to be a convict on Sakhalin. My interpreter replied,
"He was a lieutenant in the Finland Army, and his
colonel, having made some insulting remark about his
subaltern's j?««c/g, the lieutenant boxed his senior ofificer's
ears on parade ; and was therefore sentenced to fifteen
years' hard labour on Sakhalin." This means that he must
spend six years in addition as " exile-settler " on Sakhalin,
and six more as " peasant " (with freedom to move in
Siberia), before he will be allowed to return to Europe. He
may get away earlier to Siberia, if he can obtain sufficient
money to travel and buy himself into a commune, or should
an employer on the mainland send for him — always
supposing that he can get the permission of the Chief of
his district on the island. As a matter of fact, ninety-nine
out of every hundred fail to get away.
But the way, if one could forget the terrible social
atmosphere, was wildly beautiful. The winding road
reminded me of the last rickshaw ride in Japan down to
pleasant little Mogi. Here, however, were no luscious green
patches of growing paddy, picked out by dark clumps of
cypresses,or hidden momentarilyfrom our view by an avenue
of graceful bamboos. Nevertheless, the shades of green were
almost as varied among the birches and pines, the aspen
and spruce, the mountain-ash, the willows and the elms,
which clothed the fine hill slopes. On the hedges the wild
rose had done its work of garlanding, and had now given
way to the wild raspberry, and the lavish prodigality of the
red elderberry {Sambucus racemosa), which literally decked
the route with scarlet. Butterflies flitted in the sunshine,
fritillaries, peacocks and Camberwell beauties, and nothing
told of coming autumn save a few falling leaves.
At the first post-station, the village of Arkovo the third,
we found the horses had been taken, but my companion's
ALEXANDROVSK TO SLAVO 125
manner and a pourboire soon produced some — lent by
the villagers. Unroping, unlading and relading one's
baggage at each stage was a troublesome business, but it
had to be done, and careful watch had to be kept lest the
izvostchik, or a companion in league, might mistake some of
it for his own. While the horses were being found, we
discussed a midday meal, congratulating ourselves that we
had not to spend the night here, for a room absolutely
bare, save a table and bench, did not offer attractive
accommodation. Khlyeb i chai — black bread and tea (in a
tumbler) — were forthcoming, but anything further, including
sugar, had to be supplied by ourselves.
On starting again, the road crossed the stream which
had cut its way up the valley. As we neared the wooden
bridge, Mr. X. pointed it out as the scene of many tragedies.
One of these had happened while he was doctor at
Arkovo the first. Hither had come one day an "exile-
settler" on his way to Alexandrovsk, for his time had
expired and he had saved sufficient to enable him to
realize his great longing to quit the prison island for ever.
As he was resting on the bridge, there came along the road
another villager, a " free command," who sat down beside
him, and began chatting. Suddenly, without warning, the
latter struck the exile a heavy blow on his head, stunning
him, and then, finishing his terrible work, dropped the body
into the stream. Having possessed himself of his victim's
" book," or certificate, showing that his time of exileship
had expired and entitling him to leave the island if he had
sufficient means, he made his way to a village, where he
thought he would be unknown, and asked for work.
However, Fate pursued him, for it happened that the
original owner of the certificate was known there, suspicion
was aroused, and the murderer was clapped into prison
pending the inquiries which duly brought his crime to
light.
Our izvostchik was also a convict, a "free command," and
126 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
we judged it wise to keep an eye upon him, lest he should
be in concert with erstwhile companions in prison now at
large in the forest ; yet I was glad that the Russian system
on the island admitted of a man who was still undergoing
his sentence of hard labour, being allowed to do pro-
ductive work outside of the prison walls. Surely this
is a chance, other things being favourable, for the man
to rise to better things — only one has reluctantly to come to
the conclusion, I fear, that other things are not favourable.
Our road continued to rise until it reached a level of
about 700 feet. The backbone of the island is crossed by
practically only three passes, of which this is the chief.
Another, used by the natives, leads from the river Tim to
the west coast, north of Arkovo, and the third lies 200 miles
to the south, between Kusunai and Manue. Rumour told
of one in the extreme north, used by the native Gilyaks ;
but I believe no white man has ever trodden it. Arriving
at the top of the pass, our route led us across an undu-
lating plateau for several miles, until finally it descended
to the bed of the upper reaches of the river Tim.
The next post-house at which we changed horses was
Verkhniy Armudan. It was a poor-looking settlement, and
when we called for the usual glass of tea, and for a spoon to
stir our own sugar in it, a child had to be sent to borrow
one in the village. Possibly sugar was a luxury here, or
more probably they were accustomed to economize it in
Siberian fashion, by holding the lump between the teeth,
as the golden liquid was swallowed.
Resuming again we made rapid progress, for our
izvostchik of the previous stage had no doubt informed
our present one that we " tipped " well, and we — well we
had calculated on that.
Speeding down from the plateau to the valley of the Tim,
it was already dusk ere we reached the clearing in which
the prison settlement of Derbensk stood ; and, thundering
across the timber bridge, drew up on the grassy fringe of
ALEXANDROVSK TO SLAVO 127
the road before a new log-built store. The question of
night shelter was quickly settled, for we had been recom-
mended by my landlady in Alexandrovsk to ask for her
sister, whose husband, until lately an overseer and tracker
of convicts, had recently set up a little store. We were
welcomed ; and there was no difficulty made about putting
us up, for was there not the full extent of the floor
of the living room. What wall-paper could equal the
fresh-smelling pine-logs, with alternating pattern of moss-
filled crevices, and what bed the fresh, clean, plank-boarded
floor ? A skin and a rug, and revolvers by our heads, and
we were soon oblivious of its uncompromising levelness.
But much had to be done before retiring. The problem
of transport to the village of Slavo on the morrow was yet
unsolved. So without further delay we started off to
interview the Chief of the prison, who, though apparently
rather bored, issued orders that we were to be allowed
to post to Slavo. To the north of Derbensk such methods
of progress were not usual, for the road only extended
a few miles, and then became a track ; however, the influ-
ence of the chief of the prison was sufficient for the
occasion. But Mr. X. thought it desirable to go off and
see the orders carried out, and found the telegraph chief
lying flat on his back, drunk, in the garden in front of his
office, regardless of the fact that he presented excellent
booty for thieves. Apparently this was a favourite posture
in Derbensk ; for it was reported here that the major-
general, sent over that summer to organize the military
forces and to hold a field-day, had been found in a similar
position, but in his case he had scorned the privacy of his
own retreat, and occupied a public position, as befitted his
rank, in the middle of the road !
Our host and hostess proved a very worthy couple.
Their new venture was by no means an easy or encouraging
one. There was already the Crown store (an institution
peculiar to Sakhalin) to compete with, and the "gentle
128 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
art" of shopkeeping was not without its dangers. The
door of the shop had always to be kept locked, and a
watch maintained from the windows fot the approach of
customers. Truly a terrible life of suspicion and of acting
continually on the defensive, terrible for parents and
children alike. I played with the little son of the house-
hold, and we pitted our Russian each against the other's.
He was the apple of his mother's eye, and many an anxious
hour she passed lest, as she said, he should stray out of the
house into the road, " and then, you know, he might be
done away with in a moment for the sake of his clothes."
The next morning, with parting hints as to Gilyak
etiquette — for our host had come a good deal into con-
tact with the natives in the course of his former duties —
and many an addition to our stock of provisions, we left
Derbensk for a plunge into the wild interior of the island.
A very primitive kibitka, even for Sakhalin, laden with
the various sacks, and increased by recent additions to our
larder, bore us away, guns in hand, towards the forest.
Turning northwards at the prison, we left the dreary
stockade on our right, and sped down the long village of
convicts' and ex-convicts' huts, which line the wide grassy
track. In front of the smithy a horse was being shod,
strung up by the legs, topsy-turvy, quite helpless and
harmless, and probably not over comfortable. Women
were drawing water at wells, that reminded me of the
skadoufs of Egypt, or lats of North- West India, which
are like the letter T in shape, the crosspiece see-sawing in
the act of drawing up and letting down the bucket. It
was only one of the many touches in Russia that strike
the observer as Eastern ; from the cleanly custom of washing
in running water, poured from a can, to the less admired
habit of equivocation in diplomacy.
Leaving the village behind, the way passed through a
mile or so of clearing before plunging into the forest.
Here the open valley and hillsides were so many fields
ALEXANDROVSK TO SLAVO 129
and slopes of giant stubble, for axe and fire had left the
stumps of larch, birch, and spruce on the neutral-tinted
slopes.
A deserted saw- mill, built over a torrential stream,
witnessed to the lumber work done in the past here by the
convicts. It was close by this mill that the famous
Barratasvili, the Robin Hood of Sakhalin, met his death.
In a moment of weariness he forgot his usual precautions,
and taken off his guard, met with the fate he had often
meted out to others. Many a story is told over the supper-
table of this daring leader ; and the reader will see from
his portrait, reproduced here, that he was a striking excep-
tion to the dull heavy type of Sakhalin criminal. I believe,
but am not quite sure, that the crime for which he was
despatched to Sakhalin was forgery. My landlord, Mr.
M., who had been an overseer in the Alexandrovsk prison,
said of him : " During the three and a half years of his
incarceration he was well-behaved, and gave no trouble.
There were many prisoners with whom I dared not walk a
few yards, but with Barratasvili I did not hesitate. After he
was let out of gaol as a ' free command ' he became a servant
in a family, and was most kindly with the children." Sud-
denly, and to the astonishment of the officials, he escaped
and fled to the mainland. Warning, however, was given,
and he was arrested at Nikolaevsk and sent back. No
sooner was he on shore again, than, midway between the
pristan and the town, on the road I was so often warned to
keep a look-out on, he gave his guard the slip and escaped
into the forest Hard pushed for food, he murdered a
merchant who was proceeding from Due to Alexandrovsk
with the proceeds of the sale of some horses to the military
regiment upon him.
Then, gathering around him three or four companions,
he and his band struck terror into many a heart, yet their
deeds were aimed against the rich, and he showed himself
always willing to aid the poor who in their turned helped
K
130 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
him. Another wayfarer on the road to Due was killed for
his gun, and yet another near to my lodging in Alex-
androvsk. News of his daring feats were common talk,
and many an unsuccessful hunt was made by the authori-
ties. The overseers, too, were on the alert, for such a
daring organizer and skilful tactician was a rare prey.
Meanwhile, Barratasvili continued to evade the net spread
for him, and with consummate daring ventured into the
enemy's territory.
One evening my companion told me he was spending
the time at Dr. P.'s, when a lieutenant, detained by
official duties, arrived about ii p.m. Apologizing for the
lateness of his arrival, he explained that the Governor had
ordered him to take one hundred soldiers and search the
houses in Alexandrovsk at 3 a.m. for Barratasvili. At the
same time he begged of his host secrecy, since his in-
structions were not to be divulged. The search was
unavailing, yet my interpreter met Barratasvili, muffled up
in a shuba (skin-lined coat), within two paces of the doctor's
house, at 7 o'clock the next morning, four hours after
the search had commenced !
On another occasion, with four companions partially
disguised in their long shubi, under which they concealed
their revolvers and rifles, he entered the stores kept by Mr.
Borradin, which are up the hill towards the back of the
town. Posting one of his men at the door to keep watch,
he ordered the others to fire. This was merely intended to
frighten Mr. Borradin and his assistants, who naturally
fled. The robbers then helped themselves to the jewellery
from a counter-case, and emptied the till and desk of
all the cash, in all about 2000 rubles worth. Emerging
into the street, they made good their retreat into the forest,
firing a shot or two to warn off venturesome pursuers.
Fortunately for them the scene of this escapade was not in
the centre of the place, and the noise of shots, if theirs
reached that distance, is not an uncommon occurrence in
ALEXANDROVSK TO SLAVO 131
Alexandrovsk. There are frequent brawls, of which the
officials take little notice, and revolvers discharged after an
escaping convict, or to signal a fire to the man in the
fire-tower. The temerity of this gang did not stop here,
for they actually went into the town and had their photo-
graphs taken — of course by an ex-convict.
But the net was closing round Barratasvili. His
escapades were notorious, and on all sides he was a
marked man. It was winter-time when the end came.
One day, overcome with fatigue, he ventured off the road
into the forest close to the deserted saw-mill, and with
his companions fell asleep. An overseer trudging along
the road noticed the tracks of his skis, and they aroused
his suspicions. Ordinary travellers do not leave the road
to plunge into the deep snow of the dense forest. He too
was tired, but he went back to Derbensk and got a posse
of soldiers. Following up the track, step by step through
the forest, they came upon the long-sought robbers, resting.
The alarm was given. Firing began on both sides. The
leader of the gang was hit in the left shoulder, but still
continued to fire. The soldiers sought shelter behind
tree-trunks ; but Barratasvili in taking aim exposed his
head, and in so doing was shot in the forehead. Their
leader killed, his companions threw down their arms, were
taken and beaten by the soldiers with the butt-ends of
their muskets. In encounters of this kind, the soldiers,
furious at the loss of their comrades, treat their captives
most brutally, and in some cases the latter have died
from the injuries thus received. On the other hand, it is
scarcely more than the convicts expect, nor more than
they mete out to a comrade who has broken the rules of
their artel*
* Artels, or guilds, are formed with binding rules and regulations,
and a foreman elected to negotiate with the authorities, as among all
other crafts. In case of betrayal, the traitor may be sentenced to be
" roofed," i.e, strangled under a khalat.
132 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Three of the four companions of Barratasvili were
hanged, two at the south-east corner, and one at the
north-west corner of the yard of the " Testing " prison
at Alexandrovsk. Such an event, local as it may seem,
was one of great rarity in the Russian Empire. Jews may
be murdered by the dozen, or peasants shot down in a
strike, but murderers have the sacred right of not being
executed. At the time a friend was in Alexandrovsk,
and between the stockade poles of the testing prison,
he saw the body of one of these poor wretches hanging.
They were all really strangled, he said, not hanged. A
rope, looped round the neck of the condemned, was led
over a cross-piece supported by two upright poles ; a box
was kicked away from the feet of the miserable wretch,
and he took his chance of instantaneous death or of
strangulation. This one was a minute and a half in the
death-struggle.
Russians are very proud of the fact that capital punish-
ment, except for regicide — it amounts to this — does not
exist in their country. Sakhalin is, however, under martial
law, and while executions are very rare, the murderer of
an official, the members of a long-defiant band, and one
who has committed an exceptionally atrocious murder
know that they may expect a hanging if caught.
Leaving the mill we plunged into the thick forest. It
was a beautiful sunny day, and though the ferns were
growing golden, there was scarcely a sign of night frosts
twelve inches above the ground. The birds appeared
few in number, and could scarcely have been reduced by
migrations southwards yet. The commonest were the
white (Motacilla lugens) and the yellow wagtails (M.
taivana). Occasionally a jay {Garrulus brandtit) flitted
before us from tree to tree, a kingfisher {Alcedo bengalensis)
busied himself by the stream, or a gravelly cliff was
passed, riddled with the homes of sand-martins {Cotyle
riparid). Overhead a hawk soared, or a crow cawed on
ALEXANDROVSK TO SLAVO 133
his lonely way ; underfoot, or under wheel rather, the track
became a swamp. For a quarter of a mile or so our way
was a floating layer of pine-logs, over which we rattled
and bumped and thumped.
The forest was continuous and dense. The most con-
spicuous trees were birch, larch, elm, and nut {Panax
ricinifolid), while below was a thick undergrowth of spiraea
{Betulmfolia ?), which refuses to grow beneath the needle-
trees, but keeps company with the larch, wild raspberry,
elder, the red whortleberry (Vaccinium vitis idcea), wild
rose, and great horse-tails (Equisetum sylvaticum).
Loudly rang out our drozhky bells through the taiga,
announcing our presence to any lurking brodyagi; but in
Sakhalin, where the post is almost entirely used by officials,
warning them also of the heavy penalty attached to the
attack on an official. Nevertheless, we had our loaded rifles
upon our knees.
A few miles on, two soldiers were passed, trudging
gamely along, tracking escaped convicts, a miserable and
dangerous business, though they were armed with bayonets.
In the previous May and June, of the many brodyagi at
large, according to the official report, five had been killed
by soldiers in that district (Timovsk okrug), and thirteen
during April, May, and June in the Korsakovsk okrug.
Eighteen officially admitted to have been shot, during
attempted capture, in less than three months, testified to
the number at large. Our way became nothing but a
grass track, and occasionally at the base of a valley a
stream had to be crossed by a primitive bridge of loose pine-
poles, laid on cross-pieces, which rattled and slipped under
our horses' hoofs. As we neared a small village our
izvostchik, a careless fellow, drove into the midst of five or
six swine, and one of the horses kicked over the traces and
fell, but we, leaping out, saved ourselves from an overthrow
into the miUe of kicking and struggling steeds. The
two soldiers, overtaking us, helped to extricate the
134 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
frightened animal, which was bleeding at the mouth.
Annoying as it was, we strongly urged the driver to return,
for the sake of the horse, but he refused, regarding it as a
slight injury.
Arrived at Slavo about midday, our further progress in
this manner was barred, and other means had to be sought,
if indeed any other were forthcoming, which seemed doubt-
ful ; for it was not there, as in India with its trains, whereof
the simple lama in " Kim " had heard in his Tibetan lama-
serai, that " one but asks a question and pays money, and
the appointed persons despatch all to the appointed
place,"
CHAPTER VIII
SLAVO TO ADO TIM
A start is made on the 600-mile canoe journey — A settlement of ill-
repute — So-called " civil marriage " — A terrible environment for
children — Doubtful quarters.
DUMPING our miscellaneous baggage at the house
that did duty for a stantsiya, or post-house, we
made our way on foot through the forest edge to
the river. Here, coming upon an encampment of Gilyak
natives for the first time, I was struck with their re-
semblance to the North-American Indians ; their swarthy
figures, high cheek-bones, raven hair and mocassined
legs, the impression being heightened by their paddling a
dug-out canoe. From the huts emerged one or two of
their women-folk, short and stunted, and some black-haired,
gipsy-looking children, who stared shyly at us.
Accosting one of the three men who appeared to be the
senior, we made known our wish to descend the river to its
mouth (about 200 miles). Would he take us ? A Russian
youth, who had guided us to the river, made himself under-
stood partly in Russian and partly in the Gilyak tongue.
A categorical " No ! " was the answer. It was spawning-
time, and he must lay in provisions oi yukola (dried fish)
against the winter. " Well, then, will you take us as far as
Ado Tim, where, perhaps, we may find another Gilyak
willing to paddle us further ? " Ado Tim was the next
village, about twenty miles down the river.
" No ; not for 1000 rubles ! " But after considerable
13s
136 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
haggling, his demands fell in a degree unparalleled except
in the East ; for from looo rubles his fee dropped to three
rubles " per nose " (6 r.), and finally he agreed to undertake
the trip for four rubles (8s. 6d.), which we considered a
handsome reduction on his first demand.
Returning to the Russian village, we found a peasant's
cart and an earless pony, wherewith to get our baggage
down to the river. The poor pony had been robbed of its
ears by a bear ; how the rest of it escaped I never heard.
It was probably the same bear of which the villagers com-
plained to us, Mishka, as they nicknamed him, was in
the habit of paying nightly visits to their outhouses, and
making free with their live-stock. They had lain in wait
for him, but all their efforts had been unsuccessful. Bruin
proving quite equal to his reputation for 'cuteness.
The volume and weight of our baggage called forth
some murmurings on the part of the Gilyaks. Indeed,
they were not unreasonable in this, for their craft are
slight and keel-less, and easily upset. However, by stow-
ing all our chattels away in the middle, and ourselves
likewise at the bottom of the canoe, towards the ends —
for there are, of course, no seats — with the two Gilyaks
at the extreme ends, we managed to satisfy our native
" paddlers."
At last our 6oo-mile canoe journey had really com-
menced; at least, so we hoped, though we were as yet
only sure of accomplishing twenty miles of it. However,
one does not trouble one's head about possibilities in such
circumstances, but just meets difificulties as they arise.
It was a lovely afternoon as our primitive bark, paddled
by strange pigtailed creatures, glided down the still reaches
of the river into the unknown. Overhead was a glorious
blue sky, to right and left a virgin forest, and over all a
stillness unbroken save by the plash of salmon, or the
quiet word of command in an unknown tongue. Occa-
sionally a phalanx of wild geese flew silently across the
SLAVO TO ADO TIM 137
blue, or a fleet of wild ducks rising from the water fled
onward, skimming the surface, to a safe distance.
Then silent enjoyment gave place to expectation, for
word was passed to have our guns ready for the appearance
of Bruin. Keeping close watch on the banks, and looking
ahead to the bend of the river if haply we might spy him
undisturbed, my camera was got ready for action at the
same time as my gun ; but, as might be expected with all
such preparations perfect, " Master Petz " did not put in an
appearance. It was not until late in the evening that he
was observed by our natives, who followed him up the next
morning. Many a footprint of his kind we saw on the
sandy edge, but he was 'cute enough to frequent the river
for fishing and drinking at night, excepting occasionally
when the desire for a snack or a drink overcame his
prudence.
Our light craft sped quickly onwards, and many a
rapid was skilfully shot, and rattling pebbly shoal safely
overpassed, for our Gilyak elder had lived on this part of
the Tim all his life, and knew every bend and every rapid
" as he did his five fingers," so he said. Before sunset we
were nearing Ado Tim, the last Russian penal settlement
of all in the northern interior. The native village of that
name was situated on the banks lower down, but the
settlement lay half a verst from the river.
We had no wish to arrest our progress here, the settle-
ment had a very bad reputation, and we would rather
camp in the open, or among the natives, from what we
had heard ; but the natives refused to take us further
except at a prohibitive price, and we went ashore, hoping
that time would settle our difference. This was not to
be, however, and we once more found our way blocked.
Having made preparations, and bought stores, etc., for
three or four weeks' journey, at the end of the second
day we were threatened with " no thoroughfare." It was
unfortunate that our journey should coincide with the
138 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
spawning season, for it was a serious matter to the Gilyaks
to forego their period of winter's provisioning.
But for the nonce we had to find a resting-place for
ourselves and baggage ; so pressing two soldiers, who had
been bathing, into our service, and taking our natives, we
formed a small cavalcade across the swampy track leading
to the village. On either side of the broad grass track of
the settlement was a row of higgledy-piggledy, miserably
poor, out-of-repair log-huts, with tiny windows, some roofed
with boards, others with loose pieces of bark. Pigs, a foal
or two, and a few children, miserably clad, were indis-
criminately scattered on the " road." Kita * hung curing
in the smoke of a fire kindled beneath, and bunches of
withering green leaves by the hutside in the sun betokened
tobacco drying. Women wandered about barefooted, and
they and the men were in the scantiest of clothing, the
latter in a cotton shirt and trousers, and the former simply
in a frock and an extra bodice. It was always a matter
of wonder to me how in autumn mornings and late after-
noons they could stand the cold so miserably clothed.
Each village has its overseer, who is a soldier. In
rank he may be compared to a sergeant, but his duties are
as varied as those of a prefect in France, or even a deputy-
commissioner in India. Police, military, the census, agri-
culture, and " roads," all these and more come within
his cares ; and for this he is paid the magnificent sum of
thirty rubles (three guineas) a month. Tracking escaped
convicts was not the least important of his functions at
Ado Tim, and he was away down the river on this
errand when we arrived. Entering his hut at the head
of the village we found seven soldiers ; including the
two we had passed in the morning, who had arrived, hot
and dusty, by the road which effected a short cut over the
river route.
The question of our night quarters had first to be
* The East Siberian name for Salmo lagocephalus.
SLAVO TO ADO TIM 139
settled. The soldiers, somewhat impressed by my com-
panion, who still wore on his chain the silver eagle of the
Imperial cavalry regiment, to which he had in the old days
belonged, offered us a share of their room. The prospect
might not have troubled a Russian, but to sleep nine in a
room of about 14 x 12 feet, with doors shut and windows
shuttered, was not calculated to appeal to an Englishman.
We were devouring some black bread and drinking a glass
of tea while discussing the situation, when through a
window we caught sight of the round, honest face of a
woman, barefooted, driving a few cows into the village.
Mr. X. called out in Russian fashion, " Maya tyotushka !
(My auntie !) will you give us some milk ? " When she
had seen the cows home, she arrived with her hands full,
carrying not only milk but butter. What did it matter
that it was prolific of undissolved salt crystals, like a section
of conglomerate clay with fragments of imbedded quartz ?
For us it was a welcome luxury in our slender larder for
days. While she was weighing out the salt crystal butter
on primitive scales, consisting of a tiny thin rod of iron
poised by a piece of string, the loop being shifted along
the bar to determine the exact measure, I stood watching
her jolly face, and it suddenly occurred to me that she
might help us out of our difficulty of obtaining a night's
lodging. I had just mentioned the matter to Mr. X.,
when our attention was called off to the natives, who were
still lingering around the door of the hut demanding a
prohibitive price for the journey to the sea. We resumed
the discussion, but they would abate nothing, and evidently
were not keen on going.
Moving on as we talked to the middle of the village, a
crowd gathered around us, a motley group of Gilyaks, men
and children, pigtailed and unwashed, and of Russian
convicts for the most part of a low, brutal type. We had
been warned to be on the alert with these villagers, and as
I stood an onlooker of the scene, while my interpreter
140 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
talked with them, I involuntarily found my attention
drawn to two or three suspiciously cruel-looking loungers
on the outskirts of the crowd, some of whom wore ugly-
looking knives at their belts.
It appeared from the talk that there was a flat-bottomed
semi-boat, semi-punt, down at the river, which belonged to
the Crown. His Imperial Majesty the Tsar is probably
not aware of the fact, and whether he would have objected
or not, the men of the village had no scruples in offering to
take us in it. One black -haired, dark visaged individual,
a Little Russian * obviously, with a pleasant expression,
inviting yet at the same time repelling our confidence,
a doubtful face, offered with four others to take us to the
sea and back in an impossible time for a reasonable sum.
It seemed a way out of our difficulty, but I had my doubts
about the prudence of trusting our lives day and night
to five strange convicts from this penal settlement of ill-
repute.
In our difficulties we turned to our newly adopted
" aunt," in front of whose log-hut we were then standing.
A long discussion ensued. She said "it is difficult to
know what to do for the best. There are awful characters
in the place, who will simply take the first opportunity of
murdering you for your stores." She and her husband would
long ago have been killed, for it was known that they had
saved a little, had it not been for their fierce watch-dog.
Anyhow, what she should say was this, " take two of them —
you are two and well-armed, and would be a match for
them — yes, take two of them, but don't let them go far
with you — get Gilyaks as soon as you can — for these men
(convicts) capsized Mr. K. (a Russian prospector) in the
rapids. They don't know the river as do the natives."
We thanked her, but asked did she know anything
about this Little Russian, personally ?
* Little Russia is that portion of south-western European Russia
which lies around Kiev.
\ -. \Kil \LIN Ml l;DI KE^
'/'.:.: /,;,> 14I.
SLAVO TO ADO TIM 141
Well, she wasn't sure — of course she knew him — but
she would ask her man, and would tell the other to come
at 6 o'clock in the morning.
More and more impressed with her jolly face, and not
disappointed with her partner, who appeared to be quiet
and respectable, we decided to ask the shelter of their
roof. Sending word of our decision to the soldiers, they
brought round our baggage, and also a message, delivered
aside to Mr. X., that " it was hardly safe to trust ourselves
where we were, for we might be robbed in the night."
What had been the crimes of this woman and her man
I do not know, but the law provides that any female
criminal under forty, whose sentence is not less than two
years, may be sent from Russia to Sakhalin. On arrival
at Alexandrovsk they are placed altogether in the kamera
at the south-east corner of the prison buildings. I have
often seen them — those of them that had been retained by
the officials, nominally for cleaning and sewing purposes,
I say nominally, because the real purpose was openly
known ; the others, chosen by " exile-settlers," who are
allowed thus to take a helpmate, are released from con-
finement within barracks, and live with their " men," though
they are still obliged to do their hard-labour task.
There is no marriage ceremony. The choice being
made with the sanction of the nachalnik of the okrug,
their names are written in a book, and henceforth the
couple dwell together. A policy such as this, which
violates our notions of the sacredness of the marriage tie,
and directly encourages a criminal breed, must be regarded
in the light of an attempt on the part of the Government
to settle and colonize Sakhalin. A previous scheme had
been tried, and failed. In 1862, and again in 1869, a few
free colonists had been sent to the island, but they all
ultimately left for a less lonely and arduous life.
By settling the exiles down with partners in life and
families, the Government also hoped to avoid theletting loose
142 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
of large numbers of ex-convicts of Sakhalin on the main-
land. That might again have raised the expressed dislike of
the Siberians, particularly the Russians of Western Siberia,
to their land being over-run with the worst characters.
The cry is one that we are familiar with in the history of
our Australian Colonies. It became really importunate in
Russia in the late eighties. Brodyagi — passportless vaga-
bonds— had been despatched wholesale across the border
into Siberia, and the country was over-run with escap-
ing members of this fraternity. On this subject, A.
Leroy-Beaulieu, quoting official figures, says, "... on
January i, 1876, over 5i,0CX) persons were entered on the
registers of the government of Tobolsk as penal colonists,
and only 34,000 could be produced by the local adminis-
tration. . . . These figures, together with the carelessness
of the local authorities, bear witness to the inefficiency of
the system. ... In the 'governments' of Tomsk and
Yeniseisk, in 1883, there were, out of 20,000 exiles (all
classes exiled, not merely ' exile-settlers ') registered in
different communes, only 2600 actually residing in the
places assigned them ; over 17,000 were fugitives." That
this state of things has improved with the advancing
settlement of the country is true, though let not the reader
think for a moment that the brodyaga fraternity fails to
number its thousands to-day. Irkutsk which competes
with Tomsk for the title of premier city of Siberia, like
London, attracts large numbers of that profession generally
dubbed the "light-fingered." This is a misnomer for the
Siberian members. Hard life in the taiga does not conduce
to delicate fingering, and the murder of their victim is a
sine qud non in the pursuit of the profession. It is said
that two murders in the nucleus of the city, and fourteen
in the outskirts, is the weekly average of Irkutsk. And
daylight or publicity are not shunned either, for just
previous to my visit two had taken place in the high street
in the daytime.
SLAVO TO ADO TIM 143
Security of life and property spell for the Exchequer
greater potential receipts, and this was another reason why
the importunities of the Siberians should be listened to.
Hence it was that in 1888, Mr. Galkin Vrassky, afterwards
head of the general prison administration, recommended
that all brodyagi should be sent, not to the Siberian
mainland, but to the island of Sakhalin, where, escaping
from control, they could do little harm at large in the
taiga, while the sea and ice would be effective prison walls.
This was tantamount to a declaration that in future
Siberia was to be first and foremost a colony, while the
convicts must be more and more confined to restricted
areas. This policy has culminated in the ukaz of 1900,
which nominally abolished deportation from January i,
1902 (O.S.).
The attempt to settle free colonists on Sakhalin having
failed, what has been the result of the second method of
" civil marriage " ? On the whole, even the officials, I
think, would admit it to be a failure.
That the couples remain is true, but it is because they
cannot get away, and are practically forced exiles ; the
majority, regarding the land as their prison-island, strive
no more than is necessary to gain a bare existence. How
those few bright exceptions to this crushed, energyless
majority long to put an end to their exile, was brought
home to me when, returning from Arkovo, where we had
supped with the farmer who was "passing rich" as the
owner of three cows, I remarked to my companion, " I
suppose an exile-settler, such as he, who has been here
fifteen years, has a wife and children, and is doing well,
very well as Sakhalin standards are, is quite content to
live here ? "
" Why ! " he replied, " he only asked me just now, ' Did I
think there was any hope of his getting away back home
to Russia?'" With the second generation, it is possible,
this may not be so.
144 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
There are other results that have to be taken into
account, and which ought to give the Government pause.
In the first place, the moral effect on the woman who is
chosen as a mate, is, in the majority of cases, terrible ; and
in the second place, the offspring of such a union is convict
by heredity and demoralized by environment.
On this subject, Mr. Zhook, quoting Mr. P. A. Salomon,
who was Director-in-Chief of Russian Prisons from 1896
says, "The so-called concubines, i.e. the exiled women
who are given to the settlers to help them, and for the
mutual management of their households, consider them-
selves as having the right freely to dispose of themselves ;
and they leave their partners if the latter try to prevent
them admitting outside visitors. Usually, however, this
is not the case, as the co-habitants share all their earnings."
Mr. Zhook adds, "Deprived of all civil rights, she loses
by law the right to have a family; but it is impossible
to deprive her of the right to feel disgust towards the
forced co-habitation ; and once she forsakes her ' master '
there is no other way open to her but to settle down with
another one. This, indeed, is that ' hard labour ' to which
criminal women are subjected." At the same time, it
should be pointed out, that the women being in the
minority,* the power to leave their " men " has a restrain-
ing effect, and in the event of their doing so they have
a choice, miserable as that may be.
There is even a sadder aspect of this matter. It is
the effect upon the free population, the wives of convicts
who have joined them, but more especially the free-born
children. All around them are openly vicious practices
* The numbers of men and women on the island who had been
sent out as convicts were, on January i, 1898, respectively 19,770, and
3397, or in round numbers in the proportion of 8 to i. The ratio is
reduced by the presence of 1308 women who followed their condemned
husbands to the island. Only six men did this in the case of their
wives being despatched to Sakhalin as criminals.
SLAVO TO ADO TIM 145
and scenes of unblushing prostitution. The very " game "
of concubinage is in vogue in the mixed schools. To say
that fathers traded with their daughters is to say little.
I had great difficulty, I am not sure that I succeeded, in
convincing a highly educated prisoner of rank, familiar
with English literature, that fathers did not stand in the
streets of London offering their daughters for sale. His
experience on Sakhalin only confirmed some garbled reports
of London life retailed by Russian papers. It would be
impossible — and probably incredible to the reader — for
me to mention the many terrible things I heard, but I
feel it only due to the children of Sakhalin, if any reform
is to be brought about, to quote a statement which I
should not have dared to make myself, but which comes
from one of unquestioned authority. What more awful
charge against the officials and the criminal population
can be made than in these words, "There is not a girl
over nine years of age on the island who is a virgin."
The question of heredity in crime is still engaging
the attention of criminologists, but there is a growing
opinion in favour of the enforced celibacy of the worst
criminals. Mr. Geo. Griffith, in his vivid narrative of a
visit to the French penal settlement of New Caledonia,
speaks with no uncertain voice on this subject. After
describing the courtship and marriage of convicts there,
he shows us pictures of contented couples with prosperous
homes; but he will not spare the truth, and adds, "The
administration claimed success for it on the ground that
none of the children of such marriages have ever been
convicted of an offence against the law. Nevertheless, the
Government have most wisely put a stop to this revolting
parody on the most sacred of human institutions, and now
wife-murderers may no longer marry prisoners or infan-
ticides, with full liberty to reproduce their species and
have them educated by the State, to afterwards take their
place as free citizens of the colony. . . ." And later,
L
346 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
"When the boys (children of convicts) were lined up
before us in the playground, I saw about seventy-six
separate and distinct reasons for the abolition of convict
marriages. On every face and form were stamped the
unmistakable brands of criminality, imbecility, moral
crookedness, and general degeneration, not all on each
one, but there were none without some."
The unwisdom of continuing the breed of criminals
is, I believe, forcing itself on the minds of the Russian
authorities, but in Russia reforms move slowly through
the vast machinery of bureaucracy.
The re-marriage, if so the civil contract can be called,
of wives who have been deported to Sakhalin, depends on
their husbands remaining in Russia ; but since there were
only six on the island who had followed their wives, the
chance, therefore, of a wife on Sakhalin ever being joined
by her husband is extremely small, as is her return to
Russia ; hence the " civil marriage " or concubinage. In
very many cases the deported wife has herself destroyed
the chance by murdering her husband, for which crime
she finds herself on Sakhalin. For out of the number
of murderers on January I, 1898, then engaged in hard
labour (2836 and there were probably three or more times
this number if we include ex-convicts), 634 were women,
most of whom had murdered their husbands. Strictly
speaking, the priests on Sakhalin refuse to give the sanc-
tion of a religious ceremony to such unions, unless a formal
dissolution has been taken out by the innocent spouse left
behind in Russia.
Madame Gregoriev, our hostess at Ado Tim, was a
rare exception to her class, and with her "better half,"
known far and wide, I afterwards learned, as honest and
thrifty. She was equally far removed from the slow, time-
3s-no-object Russian. Her day began at dawn, and included
the tending of the cows and work in the fields, as well as
her domestic duties. At dusk the shutters were duly
SLAVO TO ADO TIM 147
barred for safety before attempting to light up. A rich
feast of a platter of rice and milk was placed before
my companion and myself, which we shared in primitive
fashion. Conversation ranged from the news of the village
and the last brodyaga shot by the trackers, to the country
of my origin ; after which our hosts, with true politeness,
offered us their only bed ; but, refusing to disturb them,
we elected to sleep on the floor. Hay was brought, our
rugs spread, and we lay down with revolvers under our
extemporized pillows, trusting that if an enemy came it
might not be one of " our own household."
Strange it seemed when one's thoughts did wing home-
wards to England to be lying here on the floor of a
hut, in the depths of the taiga, with two convicts whose
crime for all we knew was murder, stranger still when the
flickering light of a tallow candle showed two reverently
bowed figures repeating inaudible prayers before the ikoni
Truly a picture for a Russian Millet !
CHAPTER IX
ON THE RIVER TIM
" Each facing our man with arms loaded " — A notorious thief and Ivan
Dontremember — An ex-naval captain shot — A native's idea of
measurement — A village possessing seven bears — Dug-outs in
course of making.
THE night passed without incident, and an early rise
enabled us to interview our overnight acquaint-
ance, the Little Russian, despatch breakfast, and
make a start by 6.45 a.m.
We finally arranged that our crew should consist of
two men only, and that they were to paddle us down
stream in the hope of our finding Gilyaks at one of their
villages on the banks, who would be willing to take us to
the coast. It was agreed that we should go a day's
journey at least in the attempt, and if we failed by sunset
— well — we left the future, a la Russe, to Providence. Our
men were obliging, but they gave us to understand that
they could only go a few hours down the river ; and made
much of the many days the return journey would take
them against stream.
Once more we marched to the river bank, an imposing
cavalcade including Madame Gregoriev herself, who in-
sisted on carrying by no means the lightest of our many
bundles. Here a curious phenomenon, which I have wit-
nessed nowhere else, appeared. An arc of mist, rainbow-
like but white, dense and broad, rose and fell in the river,
with a chord, as well as I could judge, of about one to
148
ON THE RIVER TIM 149
one and a half miles. This was at 6.50 a.m., and in ten
minutes it had disappeared before the sun's rays. I can
only attribute the phenomenon to air currents, but how or
why I am unable to explain.
On the bank was our native crew of the previous day
just setting off to track a bear up stream. A little lower
down were some Russian villagers spearing salmon from
the bank. A well-aimed thrust, followed by a moment or
two of wriggling, while the thong-held hook gripped tight,
and the great struggling, gleaming fish was on the bank.
In less than five minutes another followed, and so on, for
they were literally romping, splashing, swimming with
dorsal fin above the surface, and cutting all sorts of mad
capers in the river.
Others ageing, as could be seen by their dirty colour,
distorted jaws, and large hooked teeth, and exhausted by
the long journey from the sea against the strong current,
were pitifully gasping with gills above water, shortly to
join their companions lying dead in numbers on the
shoals.
Bidding our hostess "Da svidaniya" (till we meet
again), we took our seats, each facing our man with arms
loaded. It was a nuisance to have to keep such a close
watch on our oarsmen, but it was not unnatural that our
arms and baggage should be a source of great temptation
to them.
The object of all those who escape from prison or from
police surveillance is to get enough money or stores to
enable them to escape from the island. Some successful
attempts have been made to get away to Japan or America,
but they are mostly matters of past history, and the priva-
tions suffered have been almost greater than on their prison
island.
Mr. A. H. S. Landor mentions that the Ainus of Yezo
told him of four Russians from Sakhalin, who escaped in
an open boat and landed half-starved and unable to make
ISO IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
themselves understood on the coast near Cape Soya ; and,
he adds, that the natives told him of many dead bodies,
probably of unfortunate convicts, washed ashore there.
Many years ago a party of fugitives were picked up in
the Pacific and landed in America ; and Mr. D., a Scotch-
man, and partner in a Russian firm exporting beche-de-
mer, etc., from South Sakhalin, whom I met in Vladivostok,
gave me an account of his meeting them there and recog-
nizing some who had worked for him.
More commonly efforts are made by a gang to cross
the narrowest part of the Straits of Tartary to the main-
land between Capes Pogobi and Lazarev. It seems a
terrible risk, and not worth the escape from confinement,
to run the gauntlet of being tracked down or shot, or to
die of starvation, cold, or shipwreck ; but as a doctor on
the island said to me, so great is their longing to be
free, that many of the prisoners would willingly exchange
their hard fare and confinement "for two or three days'
freedom and the breath of fresh air with the risk of being
shot."
Those in the kandalnaya tjurma, or " chained prison,"
at Alexandrovsk, are kept in idleness, an idleness and
ennui only relieved by surreptitious gambling. If they
have no money or secret store of food, and there are extra-
ordinary underground ways of possessing themselves of
these, the Crown tools lent them to repair their boots will
be staked, then their clothes, and finally their rations even
to a month ahead. Should the gamester lose all these, he
regards the last as a debt of honour, and he succeeds in
paying it in a novel manner. In fact, it reflects a standard
of honour that even Monte Carlo could not exceed. The
loser is put into a cell, and with his own consent starved
for every two days, and fed on the third, thus accumulating
rations to his credit which are taken in payment of his
debt.
But even relieved by an occasional game of cards, the
ON THE RIVER TIM 151
ennui of years of confinement in idleness is terrible. Is it
surprising that the prisoner feels anything is better than
that ? With the spring comes the longing, increasing with
the lengthening days, to breathe the air of freedom, to go
where he pleases, and to rest where he chooses. The taiga
matushka — the dear mother taiga — is calling. Oh ! the
passionate desire to stretch one's limbs full length on the
sweet-smelling earth and listen to the rustling of the
leaves, the music of the woods, the merry voice of stream
and bird. Oh! to live and die in the arms of "Mother
Forest," free as the bird that cleaves the air with joyous
wing.
And so the risk is lost to sight in the passionate longing
to be once more free ; but this is not all, for there is yet
another chance for the poor brodyaga even if he be cap-
tured. Should he escape being shot by the trackers, or if
he give himself up voluntarily, as many do on the approach
of winter, he will be flogged and once more imprisoned,
but he may possibly get off with a diminution of his
original sentence. It happens in this way. If identified,
he will have his sentence lengthened by an addition ; but
if he professes to have forgotten his name and family, and
whence he comes, and he cannot be identified, there is
nothing to be done but to sentence him as a brodyaga
to four years' hard labour. On Sakhalin it is not so easy
to outwit the authorities as in the vast region of the
mainland, but should he succeed, this "Mr. Ivan Dont-
remember " scores considerably.
This was the story of the Little Russian now sitting
face to face with me. It was truly astonishing to me
how these men expanded when away from the officials.
My interpreter, himself a convict, they regarded as one of
themselves. Our " captain," as we called him, was a bright,
intelligent individual, with a good fund of stories ; and
obviously he would have been the life of our party, until
such time as he chose to compass the death of it. According
152 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
to his version, he was forty-seven years old, an "exile-
settler," and his name was Marokin. Originally sentenced
to twenty-two years' hard labour, he had succeeded in
making his escape on the mainland. Captured at large,
and recognized, five years were added to his sentence. Of
this whole twenty-seven years he had done but one and a
half before he again made a bid for freedom in Siberia.
Yet again he was recaptured, but on this occasion he
had forgotten his commune and his familiya (surname),
and was therefore despatched to Sakhalin for four years.
He could now chuckle over his success in outwitting the
officials, having done but five and a half instead of twenty-
seven years. All this and much more he told us ; and
some days later we had his story corroborated by other
convicts, old companions of his, whom we came upon —
excepting in one particular. His name, they said, was not
Marokin, but Grodiyanka, the famous thief of Kiev.
The river, which was about one hundred to one
hundred and fifty feet wide at Slavo, was broadening
steadily as we descended. Shoals and rapids, however, still
testified to its shallowness, and necessitated the use of
paddles for yet two more days' journey. The pebbly
bottomed rapids were shot safely, though not with the skill
of the natives. Our boat, a cross between a boat and a
punt, was a clumsier affair than the native dug-out canoe,
and our men had only a nodding acquaintance with the
river. It leaked out in the course of conversation that
there was another reason why they were not anxious to
take us far. They had no right to the Crown boat, and an
official was expected who would require it.
There had been a sad affair of hrodyaga shooting down
the river, and in accordance with regulations the prison
doctor from Derbensk had to make a post-mortem. He
was expected in our wake, and his only means of progress
was the Crown boat which we, unofficial persons, were using.
The picture of this doctor, kicking his heels and perhaps
ON THE RIVER TIM 153
portions of the anatomy of other people as well at Ado
Tim, for a few days, did not harrow my feelings as much as
might be expected, at least the kicking of his own person
did not, since we had heard from the lips of the good
wife of the ex-overseer at Derbensk the following story
about him. It appears that the son of a comparatively
well-to-do man, an ex-convict merchant, came to him to
ask him to go to his father, who was very ill. The doctor
refused point-blank. It was after 2 o'clock, and his
official hours ceased then. The poor man offered him
money, but to no purpose, and going home in despair
found his father already dead. Our informant added that
the doctor was certainly cruel, but that on this occasion, to
do him justice, he was probably drunk. At any rate, one
hopes that, long as are doctors' hours in this country,
for the sake of us poor patients the medical profession
will not form a trade union or join the early closing
association.
The story of the death of the brodyaga, which he was
now on his way to investigate, or rather report on, for it was
merely a formal proceeding, had been the chief topic of
conversation at Ado Tim, the affair being recent, and the
actors in the scene present. The story assumed different
aspects with our various informants. According to the
soldiers' tale, he had been caught beyond the mouth of the
river on the north-east coast, and their overseer from Ado
Tim had been despatched with two or three of their
number to bring him back. It is several days' journey up
the river, but they had scarcely gone two, when he made
his escape, the soldiers having left him with the boatmen
while they went off to shoot their dinner. The boatmen
were themselves ex-convicts, in fact one was Grodiyanka
(alias Marokin) himself, and they wouldn't put themselves
in the way of an escape of a brodyaga, especially as he was
a barin in their eyes ; for he had been a naval captain, so
I learned later, and spoke French fluently. These men.
1 54 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
therefore, left the boat, and were of course overcome with
surprise on their return to find the prisoner flown ! Taking
with him the bag of biscuits, or rather roasted pulled black
bread, he fled into the forest. The soldiers, coming back,
were naturally wroth, but they could do nothing at
once, for tracking in this virgin forest and swamp-land is
difficult and dangerous. How well-nigh impossible it is to
find one's way in this dense Siberian taiga one realizes in
tracking a bear. A Gilyak village was therefore sought,
and natives and their dogs brought to track down the
unfortunate ex-captain. The soldiers' version of the
sequel was that, coming up with him, one of their number
fell upon him and tried to make him captive, but the
brodyaga, attempting to wrest the soldier's gun from him,
was shot in self-defence by his would-be captor. " Then,"
they added, " the Gilyak tracker fired the fatal shot."
Grodiyanka, however, said the shots were in the back,
and he believed that the soldiers merely picked off the
fugitive when they sighted him so as to save further
trouble, Se non h vera, h ben trovato. Gilyaks, whom we
afterwards met, said that Grodiyanka and his fellow-
oarsmen had not only indirectly assisted the ex-captain
to escape, but had stolen forty military cartridges from the
overseer to give the prisoner. They added that the latter
had built himself a wooden shelter, roofed with grass, and
when the soldiers came upon him, knowing they would
probably shoot him, he rushed out and embraced the
nearest soldier, so that it was with difficulty he could get
his gun free and shoot. The natives affirmed that the
prisoner wa!s shot in the breast.
Four days later we passed the spot where the body
lay and has since been interred, a lonely grave in the
solitude of the primeval forest, one of so many hundreds
of lone lost ones of whom few received this last act of
fellow-man — a friendly covering of earth to protect them
from the prowling beast or the eagles that hovered high
A GII.VAk Tk.M Kl l;
I /;./,„, /,,v<' 154-
ON THE RIVER TIM 155
over the scene of their death struggle. Outlawed and
degraded, driven to depths of cold unfeeling cruelty, did
they remember in that hour their childhood's days and a
mother's tender care ? Now no hand was there to smooth
the aching brow or moisten the parched lips of the helpless
one lost, alone in the vast forest — none save the taiga,
matushka herself !
The banks of the river were low for the most part,
broken by the rise of an occasional limestone cliff of about
thirty feet in height Bending over from the tops of these,
toppling headlong, halfway down or already lying prone
in the water, were larches and birches ; while the stretches
of low bank were thickly dotted with poplars and nut-
trees ; and overhanging the river's edge were willows
and alders, giving hiding-place to a fleet of ducks here
and there.
Though we had left behind the last Russian settlement
at Ado Tim, three or four rude shelters were passed in the
course of the morning, which were occupied during the
spawning season by a few Russian " exile-settlers " for the
catching and salting down of salmon against the winter's
needs. At a bend of the river we came upon one of these
shelters, and five men dragging a seine-net, about two
hundred feet long, which contained one hundred or so of
plunging and splashing kita. At another of these rude
huts, which housed a solitary Russian and some barrels of
salt and dried grass, we stopped to discuss our midday
meal — a duck we had shot during the morning. Our men
behaved very well, and though the keen edge of our dis-
trust was wearing off, we did not look forward to spend-
ing a night with them or to the prospect of night watches.
Occasionally we came upon a Gilyak village, consisting
of half a dozen huts or so, and at each one hailed any
visible member of the community, inquiring if there were
not men who would take us ; but they all with one accord
made excuses. Either the able-bodied were away fishing.
IS6 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
or the only person available was ill or had no safe canoe ;
and so our hopes of a native crew, and even of the prosecu-
tion of our journey, were growing ominously less, when
about 4 o'clock we espied a native canoe paddled by a
single Gilyak arrayed in all the glory of mocassins, pigtail,
and Manchu hat. We hailed him, asking —
"Will you take us to the mouth of the river and
back?"
"No."
" We will give you twenty rubles."
" No, I must catch fish for the winter stores."
" Yes, but if we give you money you can buy stores."
This shaft of logic winged its way, for it produced some
slight hesitation on his part, and his canoe was edged a
little nearer to ours. We were not brodyagi, or " exile-
settlers," evidently by our quantities of baggage. But
still — no — he was not at all keen for the business. There
followed more eloquent persuasion on our part, and he
relented so far as to offer to take us for thirty rubles, which
after considerable haggling was reduced to twenty-five ;
not an exorbitant sum for the eighteen days during which
he and a companion were to be at our service, and on
twelve of which they were to paddle, row, and punt us.
This was the "market price," however, and though no
perquisites had been part of the stipulation, the frequent
request, " Will the ' princes ' give some gunpowder, brick-
tea, sugar, or tobacco ? " was seldom refused.
Our new acquaintance's name was Vanka,* and he
must go down stream to the next village of Irr Kirr to
fetch a companion, his cousin — how many times removed
I am not in a position to state. The cousin's name was
Armunka, that is as near to it as we could get in Russian.
I am afraid we never really appreciated Armunka at
his true social position — at least, not until we found him
* This is really Russian nomenclature, Vanka being a diminutive
of Ivan, as Bertie of Herbert.
ON THE RIVER TIM 157
half-drunk, and then we learnt his aristocratic claims. But
that comes later in the story. Lashing the canoe to ours,
we proceeded to descend the river to Irr Kirr. Time
passed, and still we did not sight the village, and so we
asked how far off it was.
" Six bends of the river ! "
There are bends and bends, and the information lacked
something of definiteness, as the countryman's mile in
England, or the peasant's stunde in Germany ; but after we
had been assured more than once that there was but one
bend more, we tried a different tack, and asked, " How
many versts is it ? "
" One," came the answer, and a little later, " Two ! "
This mode of progression was, to say the least of it, not
satisfactory, and we harked back to the beginning of the
book of weights and measures.
" How many sazhen* are there in a verst ? "
" Thirty ! " And then he added triumphantly, " A verst
is not long, hut very narrow ! "
And with this Euclidean definition we were fain to be
content. It wanted yet an hour to sunset when we reached
Irr Kirr. Here, with some relief, we dismissed our Rus-
sians, who were undisguisedly delighted with a pay of
twelve rubles, and picked up our fresh crew.
Something has been already said of the Gilyaks as a
race in Chapter VI. The illustrations will give the reader
a better idea than any detailed description. I will, therefore,
merely refer to a few points. The Gilyak is short of
stature, about 5 feet 3 inches in height, spare of limb, and,
though often wiry, scarcely robust. His women-folk
scarcely exceed 4 feet 6 inches. His complexion is tawny,
gipsy-like, but not yellow, and his hair, which he wears in
a pigtail, is raven black. Altogether his features betoken
a mixed race. Though he has the brachycephalic (round)
head, the broad face, and high cheek-bones of the Mongol,
* I sazhen = 7 feet, sew sazh. = i verst.
158 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
yet the slight brow ridges, big mouth, prominent lips, and
flattened nasal bridge of the latter are considerably modified
in his case. The majority of Gilyaks possess the hairless
faces of the Mongol, and perhaps the exceptions who
have bushy beards are descendants of Ainu and Gilyak
ancestors.
In summer they used to dress in fish-skins,* and in
winter in seal- or dog-skins. Gradually Chinese cotton
{ta-fu) has filtered in through Manchuria, and largely taken
the place of fish-skins, though this material is still used for
parts of the dress, especially of the Gilyak woman ; and
when visiting a Gilyak headman I found a mat of salmon-
skins, stitched together, spread in my honour. In winter
the men wear coats of dog-skins, but the women favour
seal-skin, the short bristly hair being less in the way iii
their domestic occupations. The men add to their coat
in winter a short petticoat of seal-skin. In summer they
go bare-footed, except on journeys when, as in winter,
they use mocassins of seal-skin, the hair on the outside
of the leg portion only.
For underclothing, a ta-pu shirt, "shorts," and long
gaiters, or spatter-dashes, like the Chinese, are worn by
the men ; and by the women long gaiters only, and a
shirt or two of cotton or fish-skin. The outer tunic of
the Gilyak woman, or rather frock, for it possesses sleeves,
has Chinese cash coins strung round the border, which
reaches just below the knees.
The Gilyaks are veritable children of the forest, finding
their home, food, and gods therein. Cultivation of the
soil is unknown to them, and they live mainly on fish and
the flesh of beasts that fall to their snares. By bartering
the skins of such animals they obtain tobacco, brick-tea,
etc. They have both summer and winter dwellings,
* Salmon {Salnto lagocephalus and S. proteus, which are known
in Eastern Siberia as kita and gorbusha respectively).
GliA" \K \VI|. !■ \\|i M Ml i| \.
\ I \- /.!..■ t"::^ 15^
ON THE RIVER TIM 159
constructed of timber and bark, a full description of which
I will leave until later.
Vanka having found his cousin, a man of rather bigger
build than himself, and informed him of our proposed, they
declared themselves ready within a few minutes. So natural
is it for these people to be wandering, so much at home
are they on river and in forest, that scarcely any prepara-
tion was necessary for this journey of nearly three weeks.
It reminded me of a story of a friend's experience in the
far west of Canada. He was on a survey party, and in
the forest they came one day upon a solitary Indian, who
had evidently strayed far from his home. They said,
" Why, you are lost ! " " No," he replied, " me no lost,
wigwam lost."
Their preparations did not include P. and O. overland
trunks or hat-cases, familiarly labelled " Not Wanted," but
simply a seal's stomach filled with oil, a scraggy bit of
dried fish, a few leaves of tobacco, an old double-barrelled
fowling-piece, in a home-made seal-skin cover, a fish-spear,
and an outer garment each — this was the sum total of
their baggage. Established as before in our new craft,
each of us sitting at the bottom of the canoe, and facing
our men with the baggage in the centre between us, we
set ofT once more to advance our journey by a few more
versts before twilight compelled us to camp.
How different, however, was our progress, and with
what buoyancy we rode the surface of the now silvering
waters of the broad river. Our craft was about twenty-
live feet long and two and a half broad, light, keel-less, and
though easily capsized a racing craft in speed. More than
once I came across one of these " dug-outs " in course of
making. A suitable tree near the river edge is chosen,
and cut down. This, and all the other work on it, is done
by means of an axe, which the natives obtain either by
bartering skins with the Russians, or, as at Pogobi, in part
payment for a boat made over to a gang of brodyagi. On
i6o IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
the stump of the tree left is placed a tzakh — that is, a twig
with whittled shavings adhering to the top such as the
Ainus call an Inao. This, like the cross (jf) stuck in
the ground beside a house in course of building by the
Russians, is to keep away the evil spirits, the daimones,
which here haunt the forest, and especially the swampy
regions. The bark is chipped off, and very little hewing and
trimming suffices on the outside, as will be seen from the
illustration opposite p. 252. The hollowing process follows,
and about one-third or one-fourth of the circumference
of the log is cut into, the remaining two-thirds or three-
quarters forming the outer surface of the boat. When
duly hollowed to a thickness at the gunwale of about an
inch, a cross-section will thus give about three-quarters of
the circumference of a circle. The sides or lips of the boat
leaning to each other are then stretched outwards, by
means of sticks placed crosswise inside, so that the sides
may become vertical, and the final form of a cross-section
of the boat be that of the letter U.
All the work is performed with a couple of hatchets,
though I once saw among the Orochon tribe a primitive
plane. A thin rim is affixed to the gunwale, and at the
bow and stern, which are often exactly similar, are short
flat projections used in punting. When dried and stretched,
two or three rungs keep the sides rigid. The whole
process takes, under favourable circumstances, one month,
but in winter two.
In the management of them, their makers were as skilful
as in their manufacture. They would stand at bow and stern
of our frail craft, punting up stream, and not disturb its
equilibrium one iota ; albeit they were so careful, that if I
leaned over in shooting a duck or firing at a seal, or shifted
my position a trifle, to ease cramped limbs, Vanka's sharp
eye would detect it, and I should be called back to the
status quo.
The low limestone cliffs of the morning now gave way
ON THE RIVER TIM i6i
to conglomerate resting on hardened argillaceous sand-
stone, which, though not attractive for the practical purpose
of a bed for weary limbs, offered an excellent illustration
of simple geological action — the draining off of rain-water
through a pervious bed at the line of junction with the
impervious. From a ledge of the latter, midway in the
low cliff, it was pouring as a miniature waterfall into the
river below. So simple, so small a matter here, those
who have moved among the victims of the famines know
how terribly important a feature it is in India. What
thousands, millions, of lives would have been spared were
it not so. Unfortunately for famine-stricken Central India,
this pervious stratum, in its case the famous "Dekkan
trap," is in parts 6000 and possibly 10,000 feet thick. To
bore is useless, for it is impossible to pump from that
depth. Rivers cannot form, and therefore irrigation is
impracticable. Tanks or lakes are a last resource, but
enormously expensive and scarcely satisfactory.
The yelping of sledge-dogs, and the smell from strings
of fish drying in the sun, and just visible at the bend of
the river, aroused us to the contemplation of another Gilyak
village, if I may so dignify a collection of half a dozen
huts with that name. Two unfinished canoes lay in their
beds of fragrant chips ; and beyond, on the " floor " of the
village, were women cleaning fish preparatory to stringing it
Huts of larch or pine planks, rectangular in shape, with
obliquely sloping bark roofs, and doors about three feet
high, a few similarly shaped but quite small erections on
piles, for storing the winter provisions of dried fish, and
three bear cages made up the village of Ukavo.
Nevertheless, Ukavo was at the time of my visit a rich,
or at least a potentially rich, village. The basis of its
affluence present, or to come, was even more assured than
that of the new township in Australia which, possessing
400 inhabitants, a town hall, a telephone union, and a
collection of galvanized-iron roofed cabins of unvarying
M
i62 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
pattern, promised soon to throw Ballarat into the shade !
No mines, gold or otherwise, entered into the Gilyaks'
calculation, but they possessed a far more important asset
in the shape of seven bears. Such a form of wealth, or
rather capital, may require some explanation, even to an
economist.
The object of the capture and feeding of the bear is the
holding of a great yearly semi-religious festival, in which
the slaughter of the beast plays the chief part. It is more
probable, that in the older times a full-grown bear was
captured just previous to the fete, and that to-day the letter
rather than the spirit of the sacrifice is kept up by seizing
cubs and rearing them for three or four years. The
feeding is a matter of no difficulty, as will be seen when we
come to the preparation of the Gilyak's winter stores. To
the owner or capturer of the bear, the feast turns out a
very profitable investment, for visitors from neighbouring
villages flock in, and while necessaries are provided by the
owner, luxuries are on sale, and bring him in a handsome
profit.
The animals are kept in stout log cages, adorned with a
pine-branch at each corner. Wishing to see, and if possible
to photograph one of the occupants, I desired the villagers
to bring one out, or at least unroof him. There were,
however, too few men-folk at home, and the adult bears
were very fierce, as indeed we gathered from their move-
ments and remarks within ; so two of the five little cubs
were partially unroofed. The poor little orphans snarled,
and shrank frightened into a corner, tumbling over one
another, and trying in their terror to hide each beneath the
other. Ere the month of January, 1905, is passed, or
perhaps before, their spirits will have been released to
carry messages to the great Pal ni vookk.
CHAPTER X
TO THE MOUTH OF THE TIM
A departed spirit " — The big brown bear — Salmon for the spearing —
Sun-dried fish — Eagle's wings to aid the flight of the soul of the
murdered — We pass brodyagi encamped — I miss 5000 rubles —
We join a bear in a seal hunt — A night in the swamps.
RESUMING our journey again, we were still casting
about for a low, level, sandy bed, and the twilight
was fast gathering, when my attention was called
from the terrestrial to the supernatural. From out of the
now dark and gloomy forest came a half moan, half cry.
It was uncanny beyond words. A cry from the un-
known, a moan from the depths of undisturbed regions.
Our Gilyaks ceased paddling, and we asked, " What is it ?
It must be some animal. Perhaps it is in the claws of
a bear."
" Kaukray ! kaukray ! * No ! no ! It is no animal.
It is the shade of a dead man wandering in the forest."
For the Gilyaks not only believe in a future world, but
their conceptions really connote immortality. The mem-
bers of their race on the mainland, who live on the banks
of the Amur, hold that the spirit of the departed one
reaches after several days' journey a great village in the
centre of the earth called Mligh-vo, where life is much the
same as on earth, with this difference, that there the hunt-
ing and fishing are unstinted. In fact, it is the familiar
* A Gilyak word, meaning " no " or " nothing."
16
i64 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
"happy hunting ground" of the Indian. A distinction is
made between those who die a natural and a violent death,
for the spirits of the murdered and suicides fly to heaven
{tld) direct, thus avoiding the long journey, and therefore
not requiring food to be placed at their grave. How and
in what Mligh-vo differs from tlo they cannot explain, but
the differentiation marks their conception of the sacredness
of the soul of the murdered or suicide.
The Gilyaks of Sakhalin, being descendants of pioneers
who long ago left the " Old country," are more free-think-
ing than those of the elder clans on the Amur. Probably
a closer intercourse and possibly intermarriages with the
Ainus have also helped to modify their views. At any
rate, one finds considerable divergence in practice from the
old traditions, and many differences of custom and thought,
not only between them and their Amur brethren, but be-
tween the Tim and Tro * Gilyaks and their brethren on
the west coast of the island.
Vanka declared that the spirit of a good man went to
the Great Spirit (to the East, where the sun rises), but that
of a bad man into grass. Whether or not he was giving
us the general conception of his tribe we could not make
out. Some days later, in conversation with their Cham, or
" medicine man," and some of the elders of the Tro
Gilyaks, we were informed that " a good man's spirit goes
into the ground into the middle of the earth (evidently to
Mligh-vo) ; but a bad man's is disturbed, and drifts about
like air round the huts of the village."
The spirits of the deceased occasionally hold communi-
cation with their earthly relations ; for, endowed with super-
natural capacities, they can in moments of dulness pay
visits to their kindred, give them useful counsel and warn
them against unknown troubles. If they desire to show
* The Tim Gilyaks are those living on the river Tim, while the
Tro Gilyaks are settled at the mouth in the Bays of Ni, Nabil, and
Chaivo.
TO THE MOUTH OF THE TIM 165
themselves to any one they can ; but it is only given to
man to see them in a state approaching death, i.e. in a
dream. Talking on this subject to an old Gilyak, he said,
" Spirits of the departed knock at the door sometimes.
They come to warn us of some misfortune."
" But," I asked, " how are you to know that it is the
spirit of the deceased that knocks > "
" Why, of course, you call, and if there is no answer
you know that it is a departed spirit, and then you must
throw out some food."
" Have you ever seen such ? "
"No."
The Ainus of Yezo have a similar belief in the earthly
visits of the departed ones. Among them, according to
the Rev. J. Batchelor, the terrestrial and celestial in-
habitants mutually appear as ghosts, but to their fellows
as substantial.
The word ghosts is even too material a conception, for
their presence cannot be detected by mortal sense. Only
the dogs are able to apprehend their approach, and you
may at once know of their proximity by the animals
howling.
The reader will smile, but the Gilyak would say, let
him only hear and he may be converted from his ignorant
unbelief. My conversion took place at the village of Dagi,
on the Okhotsk coast, where my interpreter and I lay
awake one night in the hut of an Orotchon. Perhaps the
fact that we were ill with ptomaine poisoning may have
predisposed us to thoughts of Mligh-vo. Certain it is that
at about 2 a.m. a low howl began, echoed and varied by
thirty or forty other members of the canine race, a low
peculiar cry of pain growing into a long drawn-out wail,
rising and swelling until at last it ended in almost a
scream. An unholy, ill-omened proceeding which surely
nought earthly could account for !
But to return to the river and our Gilyak oarsmen, the
166 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
departed spirit on this occasion, with all due deference
to their weighty traditions, was a snowy owl {Syrnium
uralense).
If spirits were already abroad it was high time for
material bodies to retire, and another consideration in-
duced us to choose our camp. Master Bruin regarded
these sandy shoals as his particular preserves, which was
clear from the number of his footprints we had already
seen. It must be about the time of his rising, probably
he was at his toilet at the moment preparatory to his
night's fishing, and it behoved us if we wished to avoid
legal disputes to take possession at once. Beaching our
canoe at a pleasant, clean, sandy shoal, dry from the recent
fall of the river, Vanka leapt out to take the omens, in
other words, to note if there were signs of brodyagi in the
near neighbourhood.
Satisfied that there was nothing more than the foot-
prints of Master Petz, who had been down to drink and
fish during the previous night, we landed. The shoal was
of considerable length, but narrowed to about twenty feet
in depth by the willows, which formed here the van of the
forest. Our natives ran into the taiga to cut down willow
branches for our bed, and stakes for the tent and fire
The tent, which consisted of supports with a piece of
canvas thrown over, was quickly erected and the fire lighted
with marvellous despatch, we meanwhile unloading the
canoe and spreading the rugs. One end of the open
tabernacle, where our heads were to lie, was barricaded
with our baggage, as we preferred, if Bruin's curiosity
overcame his prudence, that he should be introduced to
our feet first. These operations were not concluded with-
out alarms and an occasional run for our guns, but neither
bear nor brodyagi followed up the signals.
The brown bear {Ursus arctos), in whose habitat we
found ourselves, attains to a great size in Sakhalin, in fact
he gets bigger the further east one goes from European
TO THE MOUTH OF THE TIM 167
Russia. In colour he varies from black to brown, but the
latter is the more common form. Writers have differed as
to the attitude he adopts towards man. Dr. Schrenck,
writing of the Amur and Sakhalin bears, speaks of their
" bos artiges Naturell ; " while Mr. Sternberg, who was a
political exile on Sakhalin for many years, has declared
that they are " wenig aggressiver Natur und es ist nichts
Ungewohnliches, in nachster Nahe weidender Heerden
oder im Walde Beeren suchender Weiber Meister Petz
umher wandeln zu sehen, ohne dass er die Einen oder die
Anderen behelligt oder auch nur in Schrecken setzt."
The truth appears to me to lie between these two
statements. Should you come suddenly unawares upon
the she bear with her young, a fatal blow from her paw or a
final embrace will be yours. Even Mr. Sternberg admits
that through hunger he "sometimes attacks the natives,
and not seldom one of the latter is killed in the attack."
On the other hand, it is true, that should Master Petz see
you passing at some distance, and he be not in evil case,
and you do not molest him, he may merely pursue his
own course as even a satisfied lion or tiger will do. The
taiga yields him abundance of berries, and the river quan-
tities of fish, while — stolen fruits being sweet, even to
bears — ^he will occasionally add to these a sable or hare
caught in the snares of the Gilyaks.
The Caucasian farmer, whose agricultural success I
have already chronicled, told us many a story of the
adventures of himself and his neighbours with the bears
which roamed in the primeval forest around his village of
Uskovo. He had known no less than seven men attacked
and mauled by bears, but, he added, " the bear is, after all,
cowardly, for not one of the men was killed ! "
The farmer and " dairyman " of Sakhalin still labours
under difficulties from which his English representative
has been for centuries immune. One of these seven men
belonging to Uskovo was driving his cows to pasture, and
168 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
stopped on his way to make tea. Continuing again, he
came suddenly upon his two cows lying dead, and stand-
ing over one of them, which he had already half devoured,
was a big bear, defiant and angry at being disturbed.
The man was so taken aback, that he stood rooted to
the spot, though a gun was in his hand ; but not so Bruin,
who, leaving his prey with a growl of rage, fell upon the
man, and before he could escape planted his great claws
in his shoulder, making such holes that you could get
several of your fingers into them.
Among the Gilyaks the CKuff, as they call the bear
on Sakhalin, plays the greatest rdle in the animal world.
He is regarded with peculiar sentiments, and the beliefs
and ceremonies which cluster around his sacrifice are
unique and interesting. The natives are fully aware of
the CKuff^s cunning, and regard him almost as a Gilyak,
certainly as a competitor, and love to tell stories of his
knowing ways. They describe how he will go a-fishing,
by preference at night, but if by day, he will stand with
his right paw held close to his breast lest the sun should
cast a shadow on the water and frighten the fish; how
he will get up on his hind-legs to fight, and parry a spear-
thrust, or shield his heart from a shot, with his paw.
After all, Bruin is very human in many of his ways,
and the brotherly feeling of the Russian peasant towards
him is expressed in the pet names they give him — Mishka
and Master Petz. On the mainland one not infrequently
comes across the cubs kept as pets. I have seen them
housed in a kennel in a yard, and even tied up to the
side of a shanty by the wayside, where the bystander
might be seen trying to give a friendly pat before
receiving a less amicable return. The Caucasian farmer
of Uskovo once caught three cubs and put them in a big
box in his yard. One day one of them succeeded in
making his escape by gnawing through the wood. The
alarm was immediately raised by the wife of the farmer.
TO THE MOUTH OF THE TIM 169
but the men of the village were in the fields. The for-
tunate cub, however, did not make off at once, but, seeing
that his companions had not been able to follow him,
went back to the box and literally "lent a hand just as
a man would." Unfortunately number two was clumsy,
or else too fat to squeeze through, and all his attempts
were fruitless ; yet number one did not relax his efforts
until the cries of the men, now fast nearing the court-
yard, warned him to be off. Curiously enough, the little
animal, on emerging from the yard, immediately made
straight to the spot where he had been captured, and then
disappeared into the taiga.
As soon as our luxurious repast of boiled rice and
cocoa was finished, the fire was allowed to die out, for,
though a protection against prowling Master Bruin, it
might prove an ally to more dangerous foes. By its
light the brodyagi could have easily picked us off while
remaining invisible themselves.
The night passed without incident, and, awaking before
sunrise, I found Vanka already abroad and in the act
of throwing a burning faggot into the water, exclaiming,
with childish delight as it smoked and steamed, "There
goes a steamer." He had come into contact with Russians
more than, perhaps, any other Gilyak that I met, with one
exception, and had probably made a visit to the west
coast, where he would have seen a steamer. His cousin
was no such traveller, and knew only a dozen or so Russian
words. As Vanka was preparing to put off alone in the
canoe, I asked him, " Are you going to catch fish ? " There
was no answer. I repeated my question.
" Hush ! hush ! " he said, " it is as Tol ni voohh wishes.
You must not say that, or I may catch none." Which
reminded one of friends nearer home, who check one in
the act of congratulating one's self on an escape from
misfortune, with a full belief in the sinister effects conse-
quent on such foolhardy boastfulness.
170 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
The performance of our morning ablutions was to
them a source of considerable interest and astonishment.
They never went through such an extraordinary perform-
ance. What could be the object of such rites? What
occult motive could induce the two white men to go
through with such an unpleasant function at 5.30 a.m.
on an autumn morning? Possibly the explanation was
to be sought in ceremonial, or maybe we suffered from
some foul disease !
Breakfast despatched, tent struck, and all the rolling
up and stowing away of sacks, skins, etc., accomplished,
an early start was made. The sun soon gained power,
and a magnificently cloudless day smiled once more upon
us. In vain we scanned the heavens for a cloud, and
laughed in our sleeve in spite of Tol ni vookh, and statis-
ticians or quoters of statistics, in far Europe, who should
say that Sakhalin had only five days free from fog, cloud,
or rain in the year. I had already seen five such days
during the week I had spent on the island.
How glorious to be floating ever onward into the
unknown. Virgin forest to right and left, and ever a
fresh vista with each bend of the river. Now it was low-
lying banks bordered with sallow and willow backed by
tall grass, that hid alike the distant, high-reaching hills
and the low-stealing fox. Then it was a lovely quest-
enticing creek, the home of the otter and the bear, spanned
by many a fallen trunk and many a bridge of branches,
the pathways of sables and martens. To creep and wade
up these was a veritable Arabian Nights venture, for what
habitants of the forest might one not meet, to say nothing
of the glorious sky-pictures seen through the interlacing
branches overhead ?
At the next bend sandy cliffs hove in view, loftier now,
for we were approaching the defile of the eastern spur
of mountains, which ends southwards in Cape Patience.
Birches and firs were overhanging th edge, or fallen
TO THE MOUTH OF THE TIM 171
headlong with their topmost branches touching the water.
Driftwood, caught by overhanging bushes or bowing trees,
or arrested by a grassy island in mid-stream, lay piled up
as if by some giant hand.
Beside the tiny creeks a few tributaries were passed,
but none of any importance. They bore names among
the Gilyaks recording their value to the native hunter,
e.g. Kuvi* many sables river ; Kuni, many fish and bears
river ; Pilviskuri and Kondzhbung-gangi, etc.
Buoyantly speeding over the bosom of the water under
a glorious September sun, and wrapt as we were in con-
templation of the scene, the needs of the flesh had to be
remembered, especially with the fate of the previous party
of the Russian prospector and his escort fresh in mind. It
was most desirable to husband, if possible, our small stock
of provisions against the return journey. Vanka, there-
fore, got out his long fish-spear {marikh), and, balancing
himself on the prow of the boat, skilfully lunged at passing
salmon. His weapon, which is one of a kind used by
many of the tribes of North-Eastern Siberia, was of a
peculiar character. To the shaft, which was about four-
teen feet long, a large iron hook was loosely fastened by
a thong. Close to the end was also another thong, bound
round three or four times, but just loosely enough to allow
of the hook being temporarily slid into it, the " business "
end free and pointing with the shaft. Ready now for
action, the weapon was like a magnified letter b. On
sighting the gleam in the limpid depths beneath, the
skilful harpooner gives a rapid thrust, and the belly of
the salmon is pierced. The action of piercing looses the
hook from the threefold thong, and the struggles of the
fish now only serve the hook, which is dangling from
the first thong, to gain a firmer grip.
The first lunge by Vanka proved unsuccessful, as a
cry of " Kaukray " announced ; again a silvery gleam, and
• z in the Gilyak tongue means river, as vo village.
172 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
a second attempt had happier results, for a kita of fifteen
to twenty pounds was hauled in, splashing and somer-
saulting. A blow on its head, and the fish lay dead ;
whereupon our Gilyaks whipped out their knives, and,
like the Red Queen in " Alice in Wonderland," " offed with
its head," and with teeth and knife devoured their tasty
morsel raw, leaving nothing but the jaws. The natives
regard the head of a salmon as a great delicacy, especially
the cartilaginous parts, and in this they can claim kinship
with the bear, for during the spawning-season Master Petz
will come down to the river's edge, and in one night spoil
a score of kita, devouring the heads, and throwing away
the bodies. We preferred to keep up some of the habits
of the civilization we had left behind, and waited until
midday should give us pause to camp, and cook our share
of the catch.
Meanwhile, another village, Auk-vun-wauk by name,
hove in sight, and, paddling in, we stepped gingerly from
our unstable craft. Vanka insisted on accompanying me
because of the crowd of yelping dogs, although the most
savage were tied up to a pole underneath a hut built on
piles. These animals are fierce towards strangers, and
especially white men, although I believe it is on the whole
true the world over, that, if you show no sign of fear,
dogs may yelp and growl, but will stop short of actual
attack. My present position reminded me of an incident
in Southern China — a sahib obliged to appeal to a
piccaninny for protection from a buffalo, whose discri-
mination between the white man and the yellow is well
known.
These dogs are used by natives in hunting bears and
in tracking brodyagi. In winter, harnessed to the sledges,
they are not fed until the end of the journey, and are
then much more dangerous to encounter. A scarcely less
unpleasant experience than unexpectedly meeting a team
of these hungry, savage creatures in winter, befell a
TO THE MOUTH OF THE TIM
173
traveller who, driving his own team, came upon a bear stirred
by hunger to a premature sortie from his winter quarters.
The dogs, spying him, and urged by instincts of the chase,
swerved aside, and dashed between the trees after the
beast. The luckless traveller clutched at the sides of the
light sledge, hanging on as long as possible, instead of
throwing himself off before he was tumbled out gunless
in front of the bear.
Striding through the crowd of yelping animals, we
came upon an old Gilyak and his wife, who sat slicing
and cleaning kita. With a long rakish knife, which is the
men's hunting and "general-purposes" knife {dzhakho), the
fish was split open, and with a short-bladed and curved
edition of the former — the woman's fish and domestic
knife {tmgu dzhakho) — the kita was cleaned. Two slices
were then cut from each side, leaving for remainder the
head and tail and backbone, with some flesh adhering.
All these were then hung up to dry in the sun, this drying-
ground being the "village green," or "market-place," of
the Gilyaks. The slices were for human consumption,
and woe betide the Gilyaks if August (o.S.), which is the
chief season of fish-drying, prove a rainy month, for then
only a small quantity of their staple food will be prepared
against the winter, and stores will give out early, and
many will die of starvation. Fortunately, sunny weather
174 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
had this year attended their efforts, and goodly quantities
of sun-dried fish were hanging in rows upon rows, to be
eventually consigned to those strange-looking coffin erec-
tions, consisting of a short log hollowed out and perched
on forked stakes. These stakes were, in "well-regulated
establishments," encircled with pieces of bark, umbrella-
shaped, to prevent the ravages of rats and other vermin.
The roe is regarded as a great delicacy, and was being
scraped into interesting looking wooden vessels resembling
a butcher's tray, which also serve to receive the blood
from the slain bear at the great festival. On feast-days,
such as at the beginning of the sable and seal hunts, which
inaugurate a New Year (the Gilyaks having two years to
our one), the roe is mixed and pounded with whortle-
berries, etc., and made into a much appreciated mess.
The tail and head-pieces of the kita are intended for the
dogs and the bear, and the former came in for a few bits
of fresh fish as perquisites while the operations were going
on before us, though for the most part they feed them-
selves in summer. Some of them were at the moment
engaged in catching fish at the river's edge, one or two
less particular than the others seizing a dead fish cast up
on the shoals.
We did no bartering here, Vanka having landed to beg
or borrow some seal-oil, for apparently his stock of that
great Gilyak delicacy, and (to us) horrible-smelling impedi-
mmtum, had run out. Our next stop was for the midday
meal at a bank opposite a fine sandy cliff, crowned with
larch-trees. Stepping out of the canoe, I espied some
fresh footprints of Master Bruin, which our natives, with
a discrimination remarkable to our untrained eyes, de-
clared were those of a Ck'uff that we had disturbed fishing
at the moment. Examining the tracks more closely, I
was sorely tempted to spare one of my fast diminishing
photograph films. The impression of the balls of the toes
and the five claws in the sand was perfect, and to complete
4^: .
^ A."
TO THE MOUTH OF THE TIM 175
all were the marks made by his claws as he slid involun-
tarily into the water.
Clambering up the bank, I found Vanka and Armunka
had the slices of the salmon already grilling in front of a fire.
Running into the forest, they had deftly cut and prepared
two willow twigs, stripping off the leaves, and slitting them
lengthwise. In each of these was inserted a slice of fish,
extended by two cross-pieces, the slit- ends at the same
time being bound up with the green rind. But it must
be confessed that, though I admired their rapid methods in
the culinary department, I had scarcely the same respect
for our Gilyaks' other domestic ways. They occasionally
assisted at washing up, but we thought it high time to
reduce their share of it to the French interpretation of
that word, when our spoons were " finished " off on their
mocassins, on which they wiped their fishy and clayey
hands.
In the course of the afternoon we came to yet another
Gilyak settlement, the last in fact before we reached the
mouth of the river, some hundred miles distant. Here
we were hailed in the Gilyak tongue.
" Have the Lo-cha (Russians) any ' brick tea ' ? "
" Yes. Have you any seal-skins ? "
Stepping ashore, haggling began, and finally a seal-skin
was obtained for a brick of tea,* some shot, and caps.
These seal-skins were not from the fur seals (Callorhinus
ursinus), but from the common hair seal (Phoca vitulind),
and in some cases the banded seal {Histriophoca fusciatd).
The fur seal has a thick, downy under-fur, which is what
we are familiar with in caps and jackets after the longer
and sparser hairs have been pulled out, a treatment more
commonly known in connection with beaver skins. The
hair seal has a bristly, silverish, straw-coloured skin, with
dark-grey or black spots, and is commonly used on the
* Weighing one kilogramme, and costing us at Alexandrovsk half
a ruble, or, say, t^d. per lb.
176 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Continent for children's satchels. The fur seal is now very
rare on Sakhalin, though in earlier years large numbers
used to be caught off Robben Island, now known by its
Russian name of Ostrov Tyuleniy, or Seal Island, and lying
a little to the south of Cape Patience. The hair seal is
quite common, and we met several ascending the river
after the salmon. The great hunting-season is, however,
the spring, and this begins the new or summer year among
the Gilyaks.
Again continuing our route, it was interesting to ob-
serve that the cliffs were recurring much more frequently
on the right bank than on the left of this northerly flowing
river, which adds one more to the illustrations of Ferrel's
law of the more rapid erosion of the right banks of rivers
in the northern hemisphere, due to the rotation of the
earth. The effect of this deflexion of the water is, of
course, greater in these high latitudes than in low.
Wild swans occasionally flew across high overhead,
and a woodpecker could be heard tap-tapping the trees.
Our natives eagerly asked us to shoot the eagles which
soared aloft or settled on the top of a high tree, only to
fly away as we approached within gunshot. These were
the white-tailed eagles {Halietus albicillus), prized by the
natives for their tail-feathers, for which they declared the
Chinese gave them three dollars (about 6j.). The Japanese
(in Yezo) are said to use them to indicate the residence
of a person of importance by placing them over his door ;
in any case, the Gilyaks themselves value the feathers,
which they use for arrow-heads. The wings are also
prized by them, being placed at the grave of a Gilyak who
has been murdered or has committed suicide, to aid his
soul in its flight to heaven.
Having left all habitations behind us, even the last of
these " children of the forest," the sbenery grew ever wilder.
The footprints of the bears increased ; already we had
seen, since the morning, between thirty and forty. Once
TO THE MOUTH OF THE TIM 177
or twice we passed a rude raft composed of a few pine-
logs, roughly bound together, telling of brodyagi who were
attempting to steal down the river by night; or a few
ashes on a shoal indicating their temporary camping-place ;
but that afternoon we were to come to still closer quarters
with them. At about half-past five we were keeping a
look-out for a likely halting-place, when a thin column of
smoke, just appearing above the trees on our right bank,
warned us to be on the alert. Word was passed in a
whisper to have guns ready, and, our natives paddling
silently but quickly, we shot by unobserved — at least,
we trusted so. The brodyagi had built their fire behind
some willows a few feet from the bank, which screened
their merrily crackling fire, but not the smoke, from our
view.
That evening we camped lower down the river, sepa-
rated from our unpleasant neighbours by about two miles ;
but we spent by no means an undisturbed night The
fire had been put out, and we had rolled ourselves up in
rugs and placed our guns loaded by our sides, and re-
volvers under our improvised pillows ; scarcely ten minutes
had elapsed when the alarm was given by my interpreter.
Sitting up, I listened ; but no sound was to be heard, and
we lay down again. Once more I was roused, and this
time I seized my gun and listened outside. Was it a
bear ? No ; he thought he had heard the sound of a
paddle above the bend there — probably the hrodyagivi\iom.
we had passed. Our natives asked us to fire our revolvers.
If it were bears they would be sufficiently scared, and if
it were outlaws they would know we were on the qrci vive.
This we did ; but I was impatient of continued alarms,
and decided to go on watch for half the night. Slipping
on a shuba, or rather dokha* I planted myself, gun in hand,
outside the tent. If the reader has been in a similar
* A long coat reaching to the feet, lined with fur inside and
outside, and especially suitable for sledging.
N
178 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
position, he will realize the eeriness of the situation. A
pitch darkness enveloped everything, for it wanted but
two or three days to the new moon, and the heavens
were overcast with clouds which descended later in rain.
Peering first in the direction of the forest, was that the
sparkle of two glassy eyes I saw ? and, straining my ears
towards the river, did I hear the light plash of an oar ?
After an interval of reassuring silence, a strange sound
would once more quicken my senses — the splash of a
salmon or the far-off cry of a wild swan disturbed by
some prowling beast. A light drizzle began and forced
me to cover my rifle. At length the three hours (or
was it three days ?) came to an end, and my companion
relieved me.
The dawn waked our natives, and the morning opened
with sunshine after the night's showers. Our method of
propulsion was altered this morning. We had got beyond
the region of rapids, and were now on a full flowing river,
A pair of native sculls, with a hole bored in the flat bulging
part below the haft, were brought to light from the bottom
of the boat. A minute or two sufficed to make rowlocks,
from forked branches cut and trimmed and bound to the
gunwale with seal thongs. Vanka used these sculls at the
bow, rowing (not sculling) with them one after the other,
while Armunka steered with a paddle in the stern. Bear
footprints continued to be as common as on the previous
day, our oarsmen delighting to point them out to me, at
the same time making amusing attempts to mouth the
English word " bear " — attempts which resulted in ha, b'a,
baa, and finally bar. With their intimate knowledge of
Bruin, they would tell us that this one, whose footprints
we saw, was here yesterday, that early this morning, and
that, again, we had just disturbed.
To the wild geese, ducks, swans, crows, and snipe of the
swamps and the river was added to-day another inhabitant
— the seal. A log — a great snag — lay in midstream a
TO THE MOUTH OF THE TIM 179
couple of hundred yards ahead, where the river swept
round a sandy beach. Vanka began to load up, and I
wondered what was now in progress. Drifting silently on,
I could just make out a sleeping, almost shapeless, mass
lying upon the log. At that distance it was impossible to
distinguish the head from the tail. A loud report from
Vanka's and my companion's rifles — for they had fired
together — a plash, and their prey had escaped They
had missed, which was not surprising considering the
instability of the canoe.
The meeting with yet another denizen of these parts
that day has been a source of congratulation and com-
miseration on the part of my friends ever since — congratu-
lation that I was allowed to see it, and commiseration that
I did not shoot it. We had arrived at a part of the river
where the banks, rising about ten feet above the water,
were covered, as was the adjoining land, with tall rushes
and long grass about six feet in height. Gazing carelessly
at the bank, I espied a head peeping out of the long grass,
and called to my interpreter and the natives in a low voice,
" Malenkiy medvyet!" (A little bear!). Seeing nothing,
they smiled ; but on my reiterating and pointing, Vanka
caught sight of it, and called to me, " Nyet stryelyay !
Gilyakskiy sdbaka " (Don't shoot ; it is a Gilyak dog). Now,
occasionally we had seen a native dog sitting alone at a
distance from a village, fishing or waiting for his master,
and we therefore hesitated ; but before we had realized
the mistake the animal had got up and trotted off,
disappearing into the tall rushes and grass, giving us,
however, one clear view of a beautiful coal-black fox
with a white tip to his great brush. Even as he dis-
appeared, Vanka was calling to us, " Nyet stryelyay ! Nyet
stryelyay! Pal ni vookh budet serditiy" (Don't shoot!
Don't shoot ! The god of the mountains will be angry),
and much more as to the fate the lord of this region
would have in store for us should we cross his will. I
i8o IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
went ashore, but it was hopeless to expect to come up
with the animal.
According to Vanka, if we had killed it, its brethren
would have been informed, and when we set out for the
winter's hunt they would have banded together to kill us.
If Vanka was really sincere, I think it far more likely
that he feared lest his winter's hunt should suffer, because,
by killing thus in a haphazard fashion, it had not been
inaugurated with the usual ceremonies. To seize of the
provision of the great Pal ni vookh (he is lord of the
forest and all therein) before acknowledging in due form
his sovereignty and bounty, was to risk bringing down his
wrath upon our heads. But yet I have strong doubts as
to Vanka's sincerity. He was very faithful to us, yet the
possibility of getting 200 rubles in the next few months
was a consideration which few Gilyaks or Russians
would have hesitated to risk by truth-telling. We
taxed him afterwards with this, but he still stood to his
guns.
Many weeks later, when at Vladivostok, Mr. S., a
partner in an English firm who have large dealings in furs,
told me that the last skin of this description had sold for
5000 rubles (£$36). Several varieties of foxes, including
the common species, the red, the silver-black, and the
black, are found on the island. All are larger than their
English brother, and possess very fine brushes.
For some time we had been keeping a look-out in vain
for a sandy reach whereon to camp. They had grown
scarcer, the river being more constant here, and the banks
being low and grassy. Our custom was to stop while
there was light enough to plunge into the forest, cut our
tent-stakes and fuel, and get our shelter up. But on this
occasion the stars began to peep, the banks to grow dim
and indistinct, and the trees to loom black and threatening
before we sighted a big, curved, sandy beach. We hailed
it with delight, for how infinitely preferable a bed it
TO THE MOUTH OF THE TIM i8i
makes to a hummocky clearing in a forest. And in the
morning, in tramping round, one appreciates the dry, hard
sand instead of the wet grass and the weakly penetrating
sun-rays obscured by interlacing thickets. But even as
we were about to beach the boat an angry growling and
snarling were heard. Had it been daytime, here had been
our chance for a hunt, but even the natives do not attempt
a night attack. We had camped before on Bruin's private
preserves, but never when he was in actual possession.
Quietly our natives paddled round the curving reach, the
growling and snarling growing louder and louder. They
suggested the high grassy bank on the right as an alterna-
tive camping-ground, but I was too enamoured of a sandy
bed to acquiesce, so they paddled on, the oars being dis-
carded for the occasion. Then preparations were made
for action. The double-barrelled gun was passed forward
to Armunka, a redoubtable hunter, as we learnt afterwards.
He loaded, and knelt in the boat, rifle in hand ; I did
likewise, wondering "what was to do next," as my in-
terpreter said, in copying us. The noises had now
assumed a different note, a most weird mixture of growl
and howl and wail, at times a half-human cry, quite
unlike a bear's. The darkness thickened ; we could but
dimly descry the nearer bank. Suddenly Armunka rose
to full height in the prow, took aim into the darkness, I
watching and wondering, for I could perceive nought
Then arose a shriek, followed by a great plunge. I
could dimly make out a rising column of water, and im-
mediately we were swept along with a rush by the swift
and rapid strokes of the two paddles, in hot pursuit of a
pair of seals ! The snarling and growling had proceeded
from the bear, who, in unconscious co-operation with us,
was pursuing the seals as they emitted their strange
amatory cries. As we neared the latter. Bruin had ceased
to growl, though just before Armunka fired I had
caught the cry of wild swans disturbed by the bear.
i82 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
and his plash — splash — ^plash as he prowled along the
left bank.
Another camping-ground was found a mile or two
further on, where we spent the night unmolested, though
not without alarms. The clouds had been gathering since
the previous night, and the following morning opened wet.
Despite all our efforts to cover our baggage and ourselves,
a couple of hours in an open canoe in pouring rain left
us wet and sitting in water. If it had been delightful
beyond words to float on the bosom of the broad river into
the unknown, with a clear sky and brilliant sun, it was most
miserable and wretched to sit stiff and wet in the bottom
of a canoe with no hope of shelter but the forest, with its
dank grass underfoot and tree-droppings overhead. How-
ever, we held on our way until midday, when we disem-
barked, and dragging our baggage up the bank, scattered
it on the wet grass, for there was not a dry spot to be
found. This done, our natives at length accomplished the
apparently impossible, and coaxed a fire to light. While
we were yet stamping around, cold and stiff, trying to
rejoice in the potentialities of a fire, a slight noise was
heard from the river. It was forty-eight hours since we
had seen any human being, and, picking up our guns, we
ran to the edge of the bank, to find a canoe, well-laden,
and manned by two Gilyaks, shoot under the bank. This
was followed by two more, containing some Kazaks, Mr.
S., the Chief of the Timovsk District, and Mr. von
Friken, the Inspector of Forests and Agriculture from
Alexandrovsk.
Explanations had to be made by my interpreter, as
I was in the position of a brodyaga discovered by the
nachalnik in his own okrug without a passport. We had
heard from the natives of their journey, and it appeared
that they had, for the first time in their long abode on
the island, decided to descend the Tim to make per-
sonal acquaintanceship with the district in their charge.
TO THE MOUTH OF THE TIM 183
and to visit the engineers who were at the recently dis-
covered petroleum lake. They were very polite, and shared
with us a wild goose shot by one of the soldiers. Mr. von
Friken was especially friendly, and, speaking in French,
he gave me the benefit of his observations of the tribes
of the island, having, in the course of his duties, parcouru
over a large portion of South Sakhalin. Stationed for
several years at Korsakovsk, he had moved recently to
Alexandrovsk, where he politely invited me to call upon
him, as did also the Chief, at his residence at Rikovsk.
Mr. von F., I found educated, friendly, and courteous, and
an exception among the Sakhalin officials ; in fact, his
office was a special one, partaking rather of the nature
of a scientific than an administrative one. With military
despatch their retinue repacked, and our new acquaintances,
with a " Da svidaniya" were gone.
It was still raining steadily, but we now felt ready for
a fresh start, and embarked without delay to continue the
descent of the river. The Tim was getting broader,
averaging now about 300 or 400 feet in width, the sandy
reaches had disappeared, and the level of the land was
growing lower and the forest more broken. With the
diminution of timber, bears and their tracks began to
disappear also. That evening we were compelled to camp
in a thicket, a performance no less uncomfortable than our
midday halt.
On one advantage we congratulated ourselves, viz., our
natives were more than usually tractable. Once or twice
there had been slight friction, but an incident had occurred,
unknown to me, which had settled all that. It appears
that my nationality had puzzled them. They knew the
Russians, but this stranger spoke another language.
Possibly this racial difference accounted for my proclivity
for washing ; but, anyhow, what was I .^ I travelled with
much baggage and many stores. Was I a great prince
among my own people ? " Yes ! " was the unblushing
1 84 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
answer of my interpreter. Henceforth all our difficulties
were at an end, at least as far as Vanka was concerned.
After that the request became quite familiar, " Would the
princes give some gunpowder ? "
The night was an uncomfortably wet one, and the
next morning we looked forward to ending our river
journey and reaching a native village in the bay, where
we could get shelter from the elements and dry our now
sodden baggage. Our natives reported that it was but
half a day's journey to the mouth ; but they had reckoned
without the wind. A storm swept up the river from the
Okhotsk Sea, and it was madness to attempt to ride the
bay when our canoe even shipped water in the river.
Loth as we were to camp in this dreary, shelterless spot,
it must be done. No forest was here — that had been left
behind — nothing but low-lying swamp, the tundra of the
north. Cold, wet, and hungry, we scrambled ashore, found
a piece of firm ground — an island in the midst of marshes —
stamped down the long wet grass, and proceeded to
search for fuel. Some rotting driftwood rewarded our
hunt, and, happily, a log left by a flood gave us a little
shelter from the wind, which swept in from the sea.
With the bears had gone also the wild ducks, and our
larder had not been replenished for two days. Armunka
was therefore sent over to the right bank to shoot, if
possible, some form of flesh. It was of no use to fire at
an occasional flock of wild geese, for our quarry was
nearly certain to fall in un-get-at-able swamps. Fortu-
nately, Armunka was more successful, and brought back
a solitary wild duck, which, however, shrank remarkably
in the roasting, at least in the opinion of two hungry
men.
In vain, before retiring, we tried to dry our sodden
rugs, only succeeding, beyond our best hopes, in filling our
eyes with smoke. The sun went down in a wild sky
amid clouds of angry red ; the distant roar of the wild
TO THE MOUTH OF THE TIM 185
breakers of the Okhotsk Sea boomed in our ears, bringing
no sense of peace, nought but a feeling of cold and storm.
Crouched under our open shelter, we slept between the
intervals of trying to avoid the tricklings of rain through
our canvas roof.
CHAPTER XI
IN THE BAY OF NI
A curious coast-line — Gilyak huts and their origin — An interior —
" Give something to the god " — The great bear fete — A unique
band and artiste — The Cham's adjuration — The bear not a pious
Gilyak — Signification of the festival.
IT was yet dark, 3.30 a.m., when I heard noises pro-
ceeding from Vanka. He declared that he was sing-
ing. It was not an occasion on which to discuss
the point, or to state the laws of harmony as understood
in the West, so I kept silence ; and, feeling most un-
comfortably wet from rain-drippings, lay still and watched
his preparations for a fire. This done, he directed his
superfluous energy upon us, urging the necessity of starting
early, before the wind, awaking with the sun, roused the
waves in the bay to action. So we "stood up," as my
interpreter rather literally translated the Russian word,
which, however, accurately described our morning toilet.
A frugal breakfast by the light of a fire, a hurried
packing of wet baggage, and we were slipping down the
last league of our river journey. At the mouth is a
delta, but our oarsmen knew the river " as their five fingers,"
and piloted us unerringly by the deep channel to the Bay
of Ni, into which the river Tim empties. This bay and
the whole coast-line for many miles are of such curious
formation that a word or two of description will be
necessary to render clear my further journeyings.
Reference was casually made in Chapter VI., in dwelling
186
IN THE BAY OF NI 187
on the geological aspect of the island, to its gradual
emergence in current geological time. This is the central
fact which explains the formation of the lagoon-studded
coast in the north-east and south-west of the island.
On our left, as we entered the bay travelling north-
ward, was a low-lying swampy shore — tundra, as it is
called in Siberia ; and on our right stretched a sand dune,
varying in width from a few yards to a verst or more, and
keeping parallel with the coast-line. This formation ex-
tended northwards for 100 miles or more, for no white man
had penetrated beyond about 80 miles, and the natives
could only retail hearsay concerning the " beyond." From
the mouth of the Tim, the Bay of Ni extended for about
20 miles northward, then narrowed to a passage-way,
which opened out into the Bay of Chaivo, beyond which
no names had been given to the yet unexplored bays.
This wall of protecting sand-dune was pierced by three
narrow straits, giving access to the sea, in the course of
the 80 miles.
The coast-line on our left represented the prehistoric
shore, and the terrace above it the original sea-level.
The sand-dunes, due to deposition by the alluvium-laden
waters of the Tim flowing north, checked by the Okhotsk
cold current flowing south, had found their way above
the surface of the water in the course of the gradual
emergence of the island already referred to. From that
time seeds carried by wind or bird had been deposited,
and the growth of coarse grass, Swiss pine {Pintis
cembra pumild), and even wild rose {Rosa rugosa) had
helped to bind the sand and establish these long sandy
islets.
From the delta of the Tim we made across the bay
in a north-easterly direction to a cluster of huts on the
inner side of the dune. The wind was already making
itself felt ; our light craft rocked, and the morning air
struck cold on our damp clothes. The villages of Nivo
i88 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
(the first, for there are two) and Kamavo, with their bear-
cages adorned with pine branches, stood out prominently
on the sandy level, and a crowd of dogs, barking and
splashing, stopped their fishing to show resentment at
the appearance of strangers. A verst or two beyond
Kamavo our boat was beached, where stood a tent, and
as we waded ashore we were accosted by two or three
Kazaks, who led us into the presence of a Russian police
officer.
It was a strange, out-of-the-way place to be stationed
at, and only exceptional circumstances accounted for his
practical banishment to this far-away spot, Japanese
schooners, of the adventuring junk class, from the island
of Yezo, had been wont to come up here to the mouth of
the Tim to barter rice, kettles and cauldrons, rifles, ear-
rings, etc., for furs, and to fish and salt salmon during the
spawning season. This had been going on here certainly
since 1868, when a scramble was made by Japanese and
Russians for unoccupied spots, and probably from long
before that, but this year a Russian vessel or vessels
had been expected to visit the bay, and for fear of any
disturbance, or connivance with escaped convicts, this
officer had been despatched hither in July, It was now
September ; no Russian vessel had appeared, and he was
preparing to end his exile and take his departure in a
couple of days.
Delighted to meet arrivals from the outer world, he
overloaded us with hospitality, drew for us a rough chart
of the bay, and eagerly devoured our news. From him
we heard more details of the story of the ex-captain and
brodyaga, whose untimely death the officer was sincerely
sorry for. He had found him pleasant company when
under his charge, and had allowed him his freedom on
parole. He surmised that there had been bad blood
between their captive and the soldiers. So far as I had
observed, the treatment of the convicts by the soldiers
IN THE BAY OF NI 189
on the way out to Sakhalin was friendly, but the
desperate criminals and their general surroundings on the
island naturally harden them against all and sundry. A
man lagging behind in doing his hard-labour duty of
dragging logs, through weakness or illness, will get the
butt end of a rifle in his back ; and it is scarcely surprising,
so far away from the central administration, and in view
of the difficulty of distinguishing between shams and
genuine cases of illness. The time was when matters were
infinitely worse, when there was but one doctor on the
island, and brutal soldiers had the opportunity to lord it
over poor prisoners in their charge, to vent their spite on
them, and to kill, under the guise of correction, and report
under the head of accident.
We were squatted within the narrow compass of the
tent when the Japanese agent, who looked after the storing
of the fish preparatory to its lading, appeared, and we
were invited to visit the two schooners. Rowing out to
one of them, we clambered over the taffrail, strode into the
little low cabin, and, after due salutations of " 0 hayo I "
(Honourably early !), leaned our rifles against the side, and
sank cross-legged on the matted floor. Over our glasses
of tea d la Russe, we made the proposal that they should
take us down south ; for the prospect of their early
departure had opened to us the possibility of either visit-
ing the Orochons and Gilyaks around Nabil Bay, a short
day's sail south, where we hoped to find some means of
ascending the Nabil river, and thence by native guidance
to reach Derbensk ; or of sailing to the southern portion
of the island, to the Bay of Patience, and visiting the Ainus.
This was a sudden alteration in our plans, but, in regions
where means of communication and transport are so un-
certain, a by no means unusual occurrence. The Japanese
captain, however, objected that he had his orders to return
direct ; moreover, the weather was fickle, and he could not
tell how many days might elapse before he could land us.
190 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Eventually the uncertainty, and the possibility of my
missing communication with the mainland later, added to
the risk of being stranded on the Nabil river, without
means of transport, and with insufficient food, determined
us to give up the idea, and adhere to our first plan, and
proceed northwards.
For this journey it was necessary to have a larger
canoe, and a crew who knew the coast -line and, if possible,
were known to the natives, for the bays were occupied
not only by the Gilyaks, but also by another tribe, called
by the Russians Orochons. While preparations were going
forward, we strolled to the nearest Gilyak village of
Kamavo, How welcome was the sun now ! Warmed
within by a good meal, and our clothes dried, it was new
life to run or bask on the sand in the warm noonday sun.
I made a dash across the quarter-mile of sand-dune to
get a glimpse of the great breakers, which had not ceased
their booming throughout the wild, drear night. They
were still thundering in, but how gloriously now in the
brilliant sunshine. These were the waters of the vast
Pacific, though after sweeping through the slight crescent
barrier of the Kurile islands one chose to call them the
Okhotsk Sea. To the east, 500 miles distant, stretched
down the peninsula of Kamchatka, that acme of cold to
the English schoolboy.
Turning back again to the bay, and reaching the village
of Kamavo, I entered one of the Gilyak huts. The
Gilyaks boast of two kinds of huts, destined the one for
summer and called tolftuf, and the other for winter residence
named torif. The extremes of climate, and contact with
their neighbours h^ve led to the adoption of dual dwellings,
but until recent times, probably as late as the beginning of
the nineteenth century on the mainland, and later on the
island, the winter hut was their only style of dwelling.
Protection against the wind and cold being the chief
requisites of a winter abode, a site is chosen in the forest.
IN THE BAY OF NI 191
which has the added advantage of being handy for the
winter's hunting. A quadrangular pit is dug to the depth
of about three feet. At the corners of a smaller quad-
rangle within this pit are erected four stout poles, which
are united at the tops by four other poles. This forms
the main framework of the hut. From the level ground,
i.e. three feet above the floor of the hut, smaller poles,
generally of larch, are rested against the framework all
round, thus forming a tent-shaped erection with its conical
top cut off. The whole of the structure is covered up with
the earth dug out of the pit, saving only a hole in the top
for chimney. A covered entrance or tunnel, likewise com-
posed of timber supports covered in with earth, forms the
approach to the dwelling. This is on the level ground,
and the stranger having penetrated it, finds the end blocked,
but slipping aside a sliding door, or, more accurately, a
panel, a little earthen stairway is revealed, by which he
descends to the floor of the hut.
It will be seen from this that the winter huts, when
covered with snow and lit up by a blazing fire inside, are
very cosy. Dr. Schrenck and Mr. Sternberg have surmised
from this pattern of hut, and from the survival of a custom
in the bear festival indicating that their entrance and exit
was originally only by the chimney, that the Gilyaks'
ancestors came from the North. The words used for
entering and leaving the hut, kusind and jigind, implying
to sink and to emerge, also witness to the use of the
chimney as entrance and exit. Such authorities are not
lightly to be differed from, but it should be remembered
that pit-dwellings of this kind have been used over wide
areas by differing peoples, whose northern origin has not
been attested, e.g. in Yezo, the Primorsk, and Manchuria,
to mention only the surrounding regions ; and what is
also important in this connexion, the early inhabitants
of Manchuria, the Yih-len, are described in the Chinese
annals of the After Han dynasty (a.d. 25-219) as
192 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
"Troglodytes living in caves, their rank marked by the
depth of their dwellings, the most honourable having a
descent of nine steps," and (later chronicles) the " entrance
being at the summit."
Whatever may have been the origin of the winter hut,
it is fairly certain that the Gilyak summer dwelling is trace-
able to Northern China through Manchuria. It is easy to
see how it would have appealed to the Gilyak. The melting
snow in spring renders his winter hut damp and wet, and the
increasing heat of the sun makes it stuffy and hot.
The possession of two houses for the different seasons
is also found to be an advantage from the point of view
of their occupations. In winter it is convenient to be in
the forest to pursue the hunting of the bear, fox, etc., while
in the summer fishing points to the river bank or sea-coast
as the most handy. In shape the summer hut resembles
a rudely constructed Swiss chalet. Some were built on
piles, but these were few, and this was apparently a doomed
fashion. The one which we now entered, in Kamavo, was
not large — about i6 feet long and 13 feet wide; the side
timbers rose to a height of about 4 feet 6 inches, and from
these sprang the obliquely sloping roof of poles for rafters,
and slips of bark for tiles. Stooping low, we advanced to
the 3 feet doorway, cautiously assuming a half-erect position,
and unsuccessfully attempting to avoid knocking our heads.
Accustoming our eyes to the darkness, for there was but
a hole in the roof for window and chimney, we made out
in the centre a large earth and ash box, 4 feet long and
2j feet broad, on the smouldering logs of which was a
kettle, and from a rafter above depended a cauldron.
Around the two sides and further end of the hut ran a
rude bench or dais {nakh), 15 inches from the ground
and about 4 feet in width, leaving a narrow gangway
between it and the fire {tur). On the nakh were seated
several Gilyaks, a mother with a baby, a girl smoking, and
three or four men. Above hung a meUe of articles, from
IN THE BAY OF NI 193
a baby's cradle to a rude axe for hewing out canoes. The
cradle, of wood, shaped like a scoop without the handle,
was strung to a cross-pole by thongs of seal-hide. On
the bench and hanging above were fishing-nets, birch-bark
bowls for water or seal-oil (p. 203), dried fish-skins, dog-
skins, winter clothes, seal -oil in seal's stomachs, etc. Perhaps
the state of the atmosphere is best left to the reader's
imagination. Having photographed the interior, though
with but poor result, owing to the prevailing darkness, I
turned my attention to two or three " works of art." Two
small flat pieces of wood cut into the forms of a disc and
a crescent hung from a beam. These represented the sun
and the moon, and were used as charms. There were also
two sticks, with shavings on, similar to the one I have
described as protecting the canoe during its construction
from evil spirits ; but these particular ones, I learnt, were
for placing over a sick child, and would ensure its recovery.
But no signs of worship were there, no graven images,
for the great " Kiskh " is invisible to mortal eyes. Charms
there are, though with the decline of the cham's influence
and the contact with Russians these are losing their value
in the eyes of the Gilyaks, and they laugh when questioned
about them by the foreigner, yet not without a lurking
sense of fear at the bottom of their hearts.
Later on we shall see that the cham, or medicine-man,
exorcises spirits which take up a temporary abode in
charms made in the shape of a human being. Otherwise
even this anthropoid kind was used as an amulet. A
pair of these, carved from wood, which I have (p. 194), are
intended to be worn on the limb or part of the body
affected ; for a sore throat, for instance, the little figures
would be tied round the neck.
Only on one occasion did I hear of anything approach-
ing what is vaguely termed " idol- worship."
It was told me by the ex-overseer at Derbensk, whose
duties in the previous years had taken him down the
O
194
IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
river Tim, On one of his journeyings a severe snowstorm
drove him to seek refuge at a Gilyak village where he was
a stranger. As he was sitting down in the headman's hut,
and about to make a meal, the Gilyaks said, " Give some-
thing to the god (lord)." The overseer therefore placed
some little cakes in the birch basket hanging in a corner
before a wooden figure, such as I have described, which
had its hands crossed on its
breast and wore a belt On the
morrow the Russian observed
that the basket was empty, the
cakes had vanished. In the even-
ing, therefore, he made offering
of more, and lay down pretend-
ing to sleep. Keeping careful
but unsuspected watch, he saw
a Gilyak come forward and take
the cakes and eat them ; so he
called out, "What are you doing?
Let the god eat them ! " Where-
upon the Gilyak, as may be
imagined, was highly offended.
As a rule, offerings were
made in the open air, always
on deserting our camp-fires, and left for the consumption
of the deity. Not only were they the god's due, but the
fulfilment of the rite brought good luck, and the omission
ill-luck. All misfortunes are attributed to the anger of
the god. If the Gilyak is unconscious of guilt, then it
must have been some of his kindred who provoked the
god to righteous anger ; perhaps it was his wife, who had
failed to guard the honour due to the hearth by allowing
somebody to spit upon it, or to leave the hut with his pipe
lighted from the sacred fire,
Dr, Laufer, a member of the recent Jesup Expedition,
despatched from Washington, U.S.A., and the greatest
IN THE BAY OF NI 195
authority on the art of the Amur tribes, has declared of
the Gilyaks and Golds that their art is lacking in realistic
representations. Their purely decorative work — and he
excludes from this all wooden objects, animals, etc., carved
as charms or toys — he alleges, is confined to copies of
Chinese representations of animals which these natives
have never seen, such, for instance, as the cock, the tor-
toise, and the mythical phoenix. It is interesting in this
connexion to note that in this particular hut in the village
of Kamavo, I found several carvings on the timbers of
the wall of the hut of bears, as well as other crude mural
decorations of a chess-board pattern. Perhaps these may
be regarded as the exception which proves the rule.
Emerging from the hut into a crowd of yelping dogs, we
were attracted by the bear-cage. In front hung a birch-bark
basket, as seen in the illustration (opposite p. 196), containing
fresh water for Bruin. His owner fetched a piece of dried
fish, and holding it before a hole in the cage, the bear,
who was of full size, thrust his great paw out to grasp
the fish, the while I snapped him with my camera. This
animal, having already attained his majority, was due to
play the chief rdle at a festival in the following January.
The bear fSte, which probably originated as a purely
religious festival, has become a "Bank Holiday" in the
Gilyak calendar, the great break in the monotony of the
long winter. The proceedings are unique and interesting.
196 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
The animal having been captured young, and fed up until
he attains the age of four, a f^te is decided upon for the
following January. Invitations are then sent round to
neighbouring villages, whose inhabitants, however, need no
such announcement, for they are already well aware of the
coming event. On the morning before the fete the village
presents a busy scene as the guests arrive in great numbers,
their sledges, drawn by teams of dogs, dashing up from all
parts of the snow-mantled forest.
Great preparations of food have been made for days
past. The huts are crowded, and hospitality is freely
dispensed. At the same time the owner of the bear and
his neighbours will be gainers by the feast, for luxuries
such as tobacco, rice, vodka, etc., are on sale, and will bring
in a goodly profit. The staple article of the feast is of
conrse yukola, or dried fish, but a variety of dishes is con-
cocted by the Gilyak housewife, with this as a base. Dried
and frozen hard, it is grated to fine powder and mixed with
seal-oil and whortleberries ; and when you add to these
three ingredients rice, salmon-roe, and roots, the possible
combination of messes are many, and the results to the
Gilyak highly palatable. The roots in most common use
are pu-chi and/w {Heracleum barbatum and Laminaria escu-
lenta). These are in demand for flavouring their stew of
bear's, deer's or seal's flesh ; while a lily, which they name
kashk, is eaten generally with fish-roe. At special feasts
and near Russian settlements, the guests may be regaled
with potatoes, in which case they are doled out sparingly,
and not a particle of them or their skins must be wasted.
The day before the feast a rehearsal is held. Several
men of the village go with the owner to the cage and pro-
ceed to lift off" one or two of the roofing logs. Inserting a
thong in the form of a loop at the end of a stick, they
skilfully slip this over the head of the bear, and then over
a paw and shoulder to prevent strangling him when the
strap is tightened. To this loop are attached other thongs,
IN THE BAY OF NI 197
and the men can now proceed to unroof further and haul
him out. In the case of the bigger bears the hauling is
generally unnecessary, for he emerges too readily with a
snarl and a growl ; and the one thing desirable now is to
pull all the thongs taut, to prevent him attacking one or
other of his captors. Methods differ slightly in different
parts of the island ; but in this case the reader will see by
the illustration that native-made ropes of grass were looped
over his paws ; and to prevent his doing harm these ropes
were carried under a pole placed between his fore- and
hind-legs, and projecting on each side of him, on which
several men stood. Held thus it was impossible for him to
move his paws, and now the Gilyaks could proceed to
muzzle him. Taking a piece of stick with a rope attached
they teased him until he took it in his mouth, whereupon
his muzzle was quickly and tightly bound to this "bit."
To complete his toilet, in place of the leather band round
his neck and shoulder, a seal-skin collar with two short
lengths of chain was slipped over his neck. To the ends
of the chains were attached thongs, which served for him to
be led about by.
The animal was then taken for a short walk to test his
new "dress," and afterwards tied up and eventually put
back again in the cage. Thus ended the rehearsal. It is
quickly described, but the actual process takes a long
time, the getting of the animal ready for evacuating the
cage occupying half an hour.
The following day the same performance was gone
through, and the animal led to the hut of his owner and
around it three times. Each time that he passed the door
the master poked him with a tzakh, or twig adorned with
shavings, and broke it with the force of the thrust. This
circumambulation was done to the strains of a unique
band. Three or four young women, keeping time, beat
with sticks on a log supported on short uprights. This
highly varied " musical " performance was accompanied by
198 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
dancing. Although the "artiste" in this case was the
oldest woman of the village, the display was far more
interesting than the ritualistic dancing which the traveller
in the East meets with generally, such for instance as that
of young girls in the sacred temple of Nara in Japan.
First of all the old lady, dressed in seal-skins, stamped
down the deep snow, and formed a little level square plat.
Then taking two pieces of evergreens she threw herself
into queer postures, using the branches as fans. Her
movements were not rapid, but occasionally, and all un-
wittingly, she overstepped the limit of the plat and fell
floundering in the deep snow, to the amusement of band
and spectators too ; but this in no way disconcerted her
for she came up laughing to renew the performance.
The bear was then paraded down an avenue of tzakhs
stuck in the ground, to the place of execution. On the
mainland there is much more merciless teasing of the
animal than on Sakhalin. On the banks of the Amur
the poor brute is dragged round for three days, and visits
each hut in turn, where he is tied up and poked and
teased, not always without danger to his tormentors. The
smallness of the Sakhalin dwellings prevent such exhibi-
tions on the part of the bear. While the poor animal was
left tied up to ruminate over his position, the natives went
off to feast ; but first they took of their luxuries, rice,
whortleberries, etc., and fed their victim until he could
eat no more. This is a characteristic trait of their attitude
towards Bruin. They were about to kill him, yet they
f^ted him. It was an attitude of apology. They realized
that their conduct must appear ambiguous to him, and
therefore, though he had to die at their hands, yet they
would do all that they could to retain his good-will. There-
fore they feast him loyally with all manner of dainties
before he meets his fate at their hands.
When the feasting, drinking, smoking, and talking were
at an end, a start was made for the execution-ground. On
t^d^
■^wsr?:
IN THE BAY OF NI 199
their way the company halted at the beginning of the avenue
to allow a few of their number to shoot blunt, wooden-
ended arrows towards the bear. There seemed no attempt
on their part to hit the animal, or else they ignominiously
failed, for the shots were lamentably short of or beyond
the mark. This appears to be only another example of
the weakening of traditional custom, for the shooting with
blunted arrows at the poor bear was one of the greatest
pieces of " fun " in olden times. Arrived at the ground the
crowd grouped itself in front of the animal in a semicircle.
I have already said that customs differ from coast to
coast, and from village to village, and here is a point of
divergence. In many cases I believe the cham, or medicine-
man, is not called in to officiate, possibly because the
influence of his office is on the wane, and as the Tro
Gilyaks told me "we have no great cham now." The
following, however, is the part played by this functionary at
this juncture, as given me by an observer on the island.
The cham, with a pine-twig in his hand, amid the deep
silence of the spectators, goes close to the bear and
whispers in its ear —
" You have eaten many berries,
" You have caught many fish,
" You have frightened many people ;
" Your ancestors and your comrades have ' broken ' many Gilyaks :
" Therefore you must die for it.
" But your ' host ' has fed you three whole years, not stinting the
delicious yukola (dried fish),
" He has given you the best water,
" He has taken you for walks,
" He has bathed you thrice a day * in the ' summer year,'
" And three ' winter years ' you have lived in a nice warm lodging ;
" He, your host, will not kill you :
" Therefore you must not complain about him to the great lord of the
mountains."
* I am afraid this is imposing on the bear's memory. It is such a
difficult business getting him out of his cage ; and those I saw were
not taken out more frequently, it was then autumn, than once a
fortnight for a constitutional.
200 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
At the end of this adjuration the cham moves a little to
one side, still holding the pine-twig over the bear's head.
At this point the accounts agree. An archer now came
forward, and at a couple of yards or so from the bear
fitted his iron-tipped arrow to the bow. The animal,
however, would not expose his heart, and had to be teased
until he turned round, when the archer let fly. Strangely
enough poor Bruin emitted no sound, but simply tried to
rub the arrow out with his paw, and failing to do so, sat
looking round as if nothing had happened. The arrow had
missed the heart, but pierced the lung, and the animal, still
making no sign of pain, only coughed. Another arrow
was shot, but this time merely hit the collar. The first
was then pulled out, and the blood now finding vent, the
poor beast sank down and died. When quite dead, the
women came forward with sticks and lifted up the paws,
and the carcase was dragged round the execution-ground
three times.
When the cham is present, he first cuts out the heart
of the bear, and dividing it, gives the pieces to the most
honoured members present. To these partakers of the
heart of the sacrificed beast will be assured successful
hunts during the whole of the season.
The skin having been quickly stripped in this case, the
carcase was cut up and the cauldrons were soon steaming
with bear stew. All the delicacies of dried fish, rice, roots,
roe, seal-oil, etc., were brought forth, and the feasting again
began. The men sat in groups, the women waited upon
them and then took part in the feast. The youths com-
peted in archery, wrestling, and running, while primitive
musical instruments were brought forth and songs were
sung, telling of the exploits of heroes of the hunt. A
favourite sport with them is a game of ball. The aim is
to keep it bounding in the air without its touching the
ground. Only the hands may be used. The ball is made
from the fungus of a tree.
IN THE BAY OF NI 201
The original signification of the whole ceremony of the
feast is largely lost, but the religious motive in the minds
of the Gilyaks of to-day seems to be the sending of a
messenger to the great lord of the mountains, Pal ni
vookh, to witness to their punctilious observances of the
rites of offerings ; and, in order that their messenger may
not miss his destination, it was usual, and is, I believe, still
so among some villages to assist the spirit of the bear in
finding his way to Pal ni vookh. Two aids were given
him, one the planting of a stick on the execution-ground,
pointing to the east where the great lord lived, and the
other, the killing of two dogs, whose spirits were to hunt
Bruin's spirit to Pal ni vookh. For it was explained that
the bear, though he was a Gilyak was not a pious Gilyak
He would eat of the provisions made for him and all
dwellers in the taiga by Pal ni vookh and Tol ni vookh, the
lords of the forest and water, but in nothing would he
give thanks ; whereas a true Gilyak always made offerings
after every meal, therefore it could not be expected that he
should know where to find Pal ni vookh, or if knowing
should be inclined to go to him. Even Vanka was always
most punctilious in placing some fish or tobacco on the
ashes of our camp-fire as offerings to Pal ni vookh, and on
one occasion we owed, so he assured us, our preservation
from a watery grave to this timely act of his.
Probably the fact of the bear being the most difficult
and dangerous animal to capture adds to the value of the
offering, of which the bear's spirit would be a witness.
There is another consideration which lurks, however un-
consciously, behind this ceremony. Not only is the bear
the most dangerous animal to capture, although now the
custom has deteriorated to the seizure of cubs and the
rearing of them ; but he is also the strongest rival of the
Gilyaks. He lives, as they do, on the fish of the river, the
berries of the forest ; and even robs the Gilyaks' snares of
the small animals caught therein. Therefore on every
202 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
count he must die. It is useless to ask the Gilyaks of
to-day the raison ditre of the custom, for they do not
know ; and, in any case, they would not reveal to a stranger
the hidden meaning of their rites. The following is how a
Russian fared when he tried to find out the signification of
the ceremony, and I met with no more success.
Gilyak. It means the offering to Pal ni vookh.
Russian. Why do you not recite about it during the
killing of the bear ?
Gilyak. I don't know.
Russian. Do the Gilyaks punish the bear for his
crimes ?
Gilyak. No.
Russian, Why does the cham recite these charges in
the bear's ear ?
Gilyak. The Gilyaks have done this from ancient timesi
Ask the old men, perhaps they know something about it.
The old men, however, on being asked, knew no more.
There is one incident in the ceremonial which I have
not mentioned, but which possesses some special sig-
nificance. This is the saving of the bear's head, which is
never on any account eaten. A skin offered to me, and
the fells of the dogs which I bartered for were all minus
the heads.
It is noticeable that while the bear's head is not eaten,
the heart is. The latter will bring success and courage to
the hunters, but I gathered that the Gilyak believes the
eating of the brain would render the consumer bear-like,
and an enemy to his fellows. The skull is relegated at
length to the Gilyak cemetery, and there, with skulls of
dolphins, etc., placed on sticks. This is a habit common
among the Ainus, who, however, place theirs near their
huts and make offerings of sake (spirit), etc., to pacificate
them and gain their protection ; whereas the Gilyaks'
cemeteries are in the secret recesses of the woods, and are
not frequented by them. What the idea that lies at the
IN THE BAY OF NI
203
root of these golgothas, is, I do not know ; but it seems
probable that they think the remains of the animals
whose spirits have gone back to the great Pal ni vookh
should rest near those of the Gilyak ; or that the spirits of
these animals will come back to these spots and either
guard the remains of the Gilyak or at least refrain from
haunting the living.
CHAPTER XII
CHAIVO BAY AND BEYOND
An Orochon village — Strange surroundings — A monopolist — Prepara-
tions for a great feast — The New Year's festival — Barter— Our
host " the richest man in the world " — The value of a needle —
Petroleum lakes — The tundra — An unwritten tragedy.
LEAVING this Bruin at Kamavo, who was soon
destined to be chief actor in a spectacle such as
I have described, we returned to pick up a new crew,
and continue our journey northwards. We were now bound
for a spot lying three or four miles from the coast in the
tundra, where two engineers were prospecting, about eighty
miles distant, and we expected to take two or three
days in getting to it. In reaching this locality we should
have passed beyond the last known settlement of the
Gilyaks and Orochons. Our crew consisted of a Gilyak
elder and two youths. The old man's name was Yungkin,
but we called him Captain, or Charon, indiscriminately,
for I could not look at him without his calling to mind
the famous ferryman of the river Styx.
We made good progress, for our new crew were good
oarsmen ; Yungkin was reputed to know every inch of
the coast, and, indeed, he had need to. On our left lay
the low, swampy shore, backed in the far distance by
forests, and a long range of hills. On our right were the
sand-dunes, bare or scantily covered with coarse rush-grass,
and stunted Swiss pine. Sandbanks were numerous, and
all the skill and knowledge of our "captain" were
204
CHAIVO BAY AND BEYOND 205
required to pilot us between them. Great flocks of gulls
flew up at our approach, and sandpipers and snipe were
wading and paddling in the ebbing sea. A couple of
villages were passed, and, landing on a sandy islet, we
shot a couple of snipe for our evening meal. By about
4 o'clock we were nearly opposite a narrow strait which
gave entrance to the sea. Here the smooth surface of
the bay was ruffled, and my interpreter, who, as a Russian,
had had little experience of the sea, was seized with
apprehension ; but the sensation was really novel and
delightful. It is impossible to describe the sense of buoy-
ancy in a keel-less canoe riding on the crests or dipping
into the troughs of the waves, but it was the nearest to
floating in the air I expect to experience. After an hour
or so the coast suddenly swerved inland for a considerable
distance, and our " captain " steered across this to the
distant shore. Darkness fell, and even he seemed to be
rather puzzled. Several more miles were made before, at
about 8.30 p.m., our " Charon" announced a village, and,
peering into the darkness, I made out dimly the silhouette
of some huts.
Firing my revolver twice, the customary signal in the
absence of bells and knockers in this part of the world,
the kindly Orochons hurried down to welcome us. They
had received news of our approach, though how or when
we did not know. The headman of Dagi, as this village
was called, led us through the crowd of yelping dogs to
his hut. Going on our hands and knees, we crept in, guns
in hand, and, standing half erect, dodged the cross-poles,
from which fish were hanging, until reaching the reindeer-
skin politely spread in our honour, we sank hurriedly down
on it. The reason of this hasty collapse was not far to
seek. The smoke of the fire which filled the hut blinded
us, and caused our eyes to stream. When I had mopped
my organs of vision, and could look round, the oddness,
the strangeness of the scene, impressed me ; and I asked
2o6 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
myself, Would my friends ever receive me into their clean
homes again ?
The atmosphere was not only smoky, but thick with
the greasy smell of fish hanging above our heads in the
various stages of curing. Around the fire, which occupied
the middle of the floor, or ground, were squatted about a
score of strange figures, curiously clad. Here, were grimy,
brown-faced women, suckling children, or smoking in turns
from a Japanese pipe— a novel form of labour co-operation ;
there, were men in groups devouring morsels of scraggy
dried fish from the same platter, and dipping them into
a common bowl, or, rather, birch-bark basket of seal-oil.
Close on my right was crouched an old woman, the grand-
mother apparently, clothed in skins, her unkempt raven
locks straggling unheeded over her face. Her sight had
almost forsaken her — small wonder with the decades of
smoke she had endured — and the long lashes of her closed
eyes alone were visible as she thrust forward her pipe for
a light It was promptly seized by a youngster of about
four, who, snatching a burning faggot from the fire, lighted
up, and gave three or four experimental puffs before passing
it to the old lady. Babies were being rocked violently in
cradles strung from the cross-poles, and tiny children were
attempting to grope their way out of the recesses of the
hut, where they were rolled up in a tent-covering, to peer
at the strange arrivals. But of all our surroundings the
most striking was that of the weird-looking faces, with
unkempt hair, seen for one moment in the flickering blaze
of the fire, and lost again in the gloom of the hut.
The Orochon summer-hut, which we now occupied for
the first time, was of different construction to that of the
Gilyaks'. In shape it was not unlike a tent, or a boat
turned keel uppermost. A simple scaffolding in the in-
terior supported a horizontal pole, against which were
leaned a great number of larch-poles from all sides, the
ground-plan of the hut being oval in shape. Pieces of
A.N ijRiii:iln\ M\\ (MMNIWD). [Ti'f.lit /a^'c 206.
CHAIVO BAY AND BEYOND 207
poplar bark were used as tiles, and outside these were
again placed a few more poles to keep them on. A low
entrance or exit of two or three feet, covered up at night,
was left at each end, and a displaced piece of bark in the
roof allowed some of the smoke to escape.
The Gilyak huts, with their crowd of inhabitants, their
insect population, and thick atmosphere, were not ideal
quarters for a fastidious person ; but to these disadvantages
the Orochon added the odour of slices, heads, and tails
of fish, rendered more powerful from a feebler attempt at
ventilation. And yet as I lay on the skins, and gazed at
the vaulted roof above me, I asked myself, Was there ever
hall of panelled oak that spelled more clearly the family
history, the story of its past dwellers. The poles and rich
bark lining literally glowed like polished ebony, with
more than the memory of many a thousand fish that
had smoked over that cheery fire, and exuded the odour
of generations of denizens of sea and river, which had fed
and clothed the dwellers therein.
However unpleasant to the stranger this smoke-curing
of fish by the Orochons while it lasts may be, it is
one of the few advantages that they can claim over the
Gilyaks. The latter is entirely dependent on a sunny
season for the drying of his catch, and if it should be
rainy, then he will be in danger of starvation before
winter is over, from an insufficient accumulation of stores ;
for dried fish is bread and meat to these tribes during the
long winter. The Orochon, on the other hand, after
hanging his fish to drain, slices and cuts them up anci cures
them in the shelter of his hut over his fire.
This curing only goes on during a portion of the
summer season, but the effect of the smokiness of their
huts seemed to me patent in the semi-closed eyes of the
Orochon, a feature which renders him much more strange-
looking than the Gilyak, whom he really surpasses in
intelligence. The latter is not a linguist, but the Orochon
2o8 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
is generally found to speak both tongues. Moreover, the
latter is a more energetic hunter and better trader. In
some of their journeys across the island the Orochons had
come into contact with the Russian priests. The effect
of their conversion to the Greek Orthodox Church was to
be seen in the severing of their pigtails, the abandon-
ment (in a few cases) of the keeping of bears, and last,
but not least, the transfer of many sable-skins to the
priests.
The name of these people seems to be of Tungus origin.
They are called by Dr. Schrenck, Oroken, but are known
officially as Orochons. In fact, these people and the
Orochis, or Oroktis (Dr. Schrenck calls them Orotschen)
of the Primorsk coast, the Oltschas of the Amgun river,
and the Orotschonen (Dr. S.) of the Upper Amur, are all
of a Tungus race, and scarcely distinguishable otherwise
from one another, than by the occupation of different
territories.
Among Tungus and Mongol peoples the letter "1"
often takes the place of "r," so that Oltscha may be
Orcha, Or'cha, or Orocha. Oronchun is the name by
which they were known among the Manchus, and oron,
or oro, is Tungus for a reindeer, hence what is meant is,
that all these people are reindeer folk, or people who use
reindeer.
This is the main distinction between the habits of the
Orochons and Gilyaks. The former use reindeer for
sledge-drawing, and the latter dogs; The last are kept
by the former for hunting only. The Gilyak name on
Sakhalin for the Orochon is Or'nisk, and the latter calls
himself Orumada.
We shall probably be near the truth in regarding them
as a branch of the great Tungus race, of which the Manchu
is the most civilized, and the so-called Tungus of Eastern
Siberia the wildest representative. The Orochon is only
a little less wild than the Tungus, but he appears to have
CHAIVO BAY AND BEYOND 209
come more into contact with surrounding tribes, e.g. the
Golds, Gilyaks, Samogirs, Daurians, Ainus, etc., and to
have been influenced to lead a rather less nomadic life
than the original stock. In summer he is settled as I
found him. In winter the hunt carries him and his rein-
deer, and his portable skin tents, into the depths of the
forest, and before spring arrives he is away with the spoils
of the chase to the mainland to barter.
Among these tribes there appeared to be no traditions
of a great chief or king. The Gilyaks are, as we have
seen, divided into tribes, viz. the Tim, Tro, and west coast
people, besides the mainland or Amur Gilyaks. These
tribes are sub-divided into khala, or clans. Each khal
consists of a family circle. The limits are vague, but
include grandfathers, uncles, etc. The eldest representative
of the khal is the chief, and the members are to be found
scattered in many villages. Each village has its council
of elders, to whom the injured apply. In cases of mortal
offence, both parties, the criminal and the eldest male of
the injured man's family, march out against one another
with bows and arrows ready strung, but the council sitting
around urge them to end the matter peacefully, and
ordinarily they succeed, the rivals embrace, talk peace,
and the criminal pays a heavy fine.
The Russian authorities wisely refrain from inter-
ference, and look to the richest man in each village, whom
they term the starosta, to keep order, etc.
In earlier days prowess and skill in the hunt led
to wealth and position in the village, but to-day, as with
feudalism in Japan, these are giving way to trade as the
stepping-stone. There is a Tungus known by the name
of Maxim who is probably the richest native in the
island, with all due deference to my friends, the brothers
Fizik, whom we met afterwards. His gains are made by
lending to other natives in the time of their need, and
thus gaining a lien on the proceeds of their hunt. In this
P
210 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
way he tries to obtain a monopoly, and preclude the sale of
skins to any but himself.
An amusing rencontre occurred between him and the
prospectors. These had left on their hands, after the
despatch of some of their convict workmen, some frieze
khalati, and so they offered them in barter to the natives,
who gladly accepted them. Maxim hearing of this, and,
regarding it as poaching on his preserves, circulated
stories of these two whites being brodyagi. The objects of
his discrediting stories got wind of the fact, and when one
day the monopolist arrived at their hut, he was allowed
to enter, and was given a meal. They refused, however,
to accept or purchase anything of him, and asked how
it was he allowed himself to enter the hut of brodyagi f
This dumfounded him, and he was taken ofif his
guard. In vain he became profusely apologetic. "He
had never thought them so. How could they think of such
a thing ? " etc.
But to return to the evening meal in the Orochon hut.
The men had been served, and the women, having supplied
their lords' wants, joined the children, and began their
supper. Evidently this starosta (as the Russians, following
their custom at home, chose to call the headman of the
village) was a rich man, for rice was on the platter of the
children, and one chubby little chap, of about three, was
vainly endeavouring to convey his mess of fish and rice
to his mouth by the aid of a cross between a chopstick
and a spoon ; but was fain to bring the left hand to bear
to bundle it in. Next to him was a mother who, having
finished hers, was preparing the platter for her neighbour.
This was accomplished by licking it all over, drying it
Tvith a bunch of grass, and finally polishing it on her
gaiters. After the meal the fire was banked up, and all
prepared to retire. Men and women slipped off their
gaiters, and rolled themselves in an extra tunic, and
stretched themselves on the floor or ground of the hut.
CHAIVO BAY AND BEYOND 211
Early morning saw the women astir, bringing fuel, and
water from the river in their bark baskets, and making
preparations for the meal of tea and yukola against the
rousing of their lords. After this there was a great stir in
the culinary department. As I lay on the reindeer-skin,
I only slowly took in the importance of the proceedings.
This was no less than the preparation of the Christmas
plum-puddings, or what corresponded to it in the Orochon
feastings. One woman was scraping off the scales from
salmon-skins, and putting them in the cauldron, while
another was busily pounding in a wooden trough, shaped
like a butcher's tray, rice, fish, and whortleberries, and
mixing with them seal-oil. This duly stirred and cooked
was, I understood, to be partaken of with a dash of sea-
water, to add, I suppose, the requisite delicate flavour.
These operations were of a very serious nature, and the
mixing and pounding lasted for hours. The importance of
the feast lay in its inauguration of the sable hunt.
Among the Gilyaks the hunt is preceded by an in-
teresting ceremony. The sable (Mustela zibellina) and
seal hunts commence each a new year in the Gilyak
kalendar, and thus he has two years to our one. If only
the Gilyak child kept " birthdays," he would be the envy
of his western compeers. These two years which begin in
October and April respectively, are called the winter year
(tulf-an) and summer year (Jolf-an), and are opened by
holiday festivals. The sable holiday goes by the name of
Pal ni vookk chi-sonch, or " the prayer to the lord of the
forest"
It is a wintry scene. The snares are set on logs and
branches spanning the narrow streams and forest creeks.
The first snows have fallen, covering all the forest with
a thin mantle of white. The cold north wind hurries
across the land. The trees stand silent in the sombre
depths, hanging their hoary, lichen-covered branches, and
amidst the hush a shadow steals quietly across the scene.
212 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
It is a sable. He goes by accustomed paths. He does
not care to swim the cold water, but seeks a fallen tree or
log whereon to pass. All unsuspectingly he creeps along
a trunk, only to find his way blocked by a tiny barrier
of sticks, arranged in the shape of a fan ; nevertheless a
way, one way, is left, and that through a loop in the centre.
Rising on his hind-legs and pushing through, he struggles,
and in so doing releases a peg hitched with a ratchet, and
a bent twig at one end of the cord flies back, tightening
the noose. Many trackers are out, but each brings his
first catch to one place, where due honour is then paid
to the great giver of them, the lord of the forest. It
would savour of greediness, of meat without grace, to
start off on the important hunt of the sables — creatures
whose skins are so valuable that anything, even in later
times " fire-drink," may be purchased with them — without
due acknowledgment to the giver. A feast is made ; for
what function can dispense with feasting? and pieces of
roasted flesh, tobacco, etc., are dug into the ground as
an offering to the god, just as in the seal festival, we
shall see, bones are cast into the sea. At this point it
is necessary, lest he be not observing or engaged else-
where, to call the attention of Pal ni vookh to their offering,
so they whisper, " Chookh, Chookh" i.e. " God, Thou God."
They do this in an undertone, lest the pal-rusk {daimones)
should hear ; for these evil spirits dwell in the swamps
and the depths of the forest, and might make off with
the offerings. For this reason, and because Pal ni vookh
generally walks among the mountains, the Gilyaks take
the precaution of making their offering on high ground.
When the hunting season is advanced, another method
for the capture of the sable is adopted. The native sets
out with his dogs, who quickly find the tracks of the
little animal, and drive it up a tree. The hunter then
lets fly a blunted arrow, and, if skilful, stuns his prey.
With fair success he may thus catch seven or eight sables
CHAIVO BAY AND BEYOND 213
in a day. He is careful so to kill them as not to injure
the skin, and in skinning he strips it ofif like a sock. Half
of the flesh he gives to the dogs, and the other half he
offers to Pal ni vookh.
The Orochons, though more advanced than the
Gilyaks, did not practise the art of washing, and, when
I proceeded to perform a portion of my toilet outside the
hut, there was considerable excitement. I refer, with
apologies, to the operation of cleaning my teeth. It was
sufficient to gather about ten of the tribe around me,
one in particular taking a specially good coign of vant-
age directly opposite me, and all talking volubly on
the subject. Unfortunately, I did not understand their
tongue, but I guessed that they had constituted themselves
an informal committee of anthropologists to discuss the
object, means, and probable origin of such an interesting
ceremony.
With strangers, both the Orochons and Gilyaks were
sober, rather solemn, and reserved ; but on becoming
familiar they expanded, and became at times jolly and
full of fun. On this occasion a mistake of theirs occa-
sioned much merriment, so much so that the incident,
simple as it was, has now no doubt become part of the
history handed down by tradition.
Our baggage had not recovered from the eflFects of
its soaking, and, producing from the depths thereof a
cricketing shirt, still wet, I asked them, in Russian, with
explanatory gesticulations, to dry it. Hastening off with
it they immediately plunged it into water ; but when the
mistake had been explained to them by our Gilyak " cap-
tain," they saw in it an excellent joke, and burst into loud
laughter. Their appreciation of it did not end here, for
some days after, when we had returned to our river-crew,
there was a good deal of merriment in the hut one evening,
and, in answer to my inquiry, I learnt that the story of
the shirt was being told again.
214 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Before pushing on from this village, I brought out cloth,
buttons, gunpowder, etc., in order to barter for utensils
and native clothing. At the time the women were busy
preparing fish-skins for dress material, and, indeed, they
seemed always to be busily occupied, whereas the men,
whose work was arduous at times, enjoyed long periods
of rest and laziness. The latter, all save a youth or two
who were hewing out a boat, and some who had gone to
drive in the reindeer from the forest, were squatted smoking
and chatting.
The proposal to barter brought all together, and an
old lady began proceedings by proudly displaying her ward-
robe to me. On my side, in addition to the buttons, etc.,
coloured neck-kerchiefs, needles, brick-tea, tobacco, etc.,
were forthcoming. The bargaining was severe, for the
headman of the hut was well-to-do, and stood out for good
prices. With the aid of four languages, viz. English,
Russian, Gilyak, and Orochon, bargains were arranged,
and I found myself the happy possessor of some child's
seal-hide shoes and the old lady's work-bag, such as one
imagines will be taken to an Orochon " sewing meeting "
when that point of civilization is reached ! I fear my
lady friends would scarcely appreciate it, though it is a
work of art. Composed entirely of fish-skins, it is rather
smelly ; but considerable ingenuity and skill have been
displayed in piecing together the skin of the lighter
(the belly) and the darker parts (the back) of the fish
into a pattern. In shape it is like an ordinary flap-purse
(p. 215).
Resuming our journey again, we found that the bay
beyond Dagi gradually narrowed to a mere passage, and
grew so shallow that we stuck several times on sandbanks,
although our canoe drew but three or four inches of
water. At last our natives were compelled to get out,
and go on voyages of discovery for the less shallow
channels through which to drag the canoe. We were
CHAIVO BAY AND BEYOND
215
thus slowly proceeding through this wild and desolate
region, with nought but sandhills and coarse rush grass
to be seen, when suddenly at a turn we came upon three
Russians. We were on the alert at once, but a suspicion
of the truth dawned upon us when we saw their boat.
They were convicts in the employ of the petroleum pro-
spector, and, having been sent to bring along some casing
left behind on account of the shallows, had got stuck here,
and were waiting for the incoming tide. With our lighter
craft we were more successful, and crept on until the
passage opened out into Chaivo Bay.* Here great flocks
of ducks and geese, gathering for migration south, warned
us of the approaching close of the short Siberian autumn.
As we emerged into the bay, our old "captain" steered
in a westerly direction for the prehistoric shore, and after
five or six hours of rowing, we expected to be nearing
our haven, the Orochon village of Val. We were looking
forward to great things here, for had not Yungkin, who
* Chaivo is, in the first place, the name of a village. Chai or cha
in Gilyak means bay, and -vo a village ; hence, the bay village.
2i6 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
is a Gilyak elder and an authority on all matters in the
Tro Gilyak world, informed us that we should sleep
that night in the home of the richest man in the world ?
Such an experience in this part of the globe we had
not expected — in fact, my dress-suit was ten or twelve
days' journey off. Our curiosity was aroused. What
would this Vanderbilt and his home be like.' Should
we find a galaxy of electric light and a host of liveried
servants ?
The two-days-old moon had set, and no sign did we
see of approaching magnificence. If we had marvelled
on the previous night how our old native had found his
way, it was even more astonishing on this occasion ;
but there came a point when even he had to confess
failure, and our chance of meeting with the great pluto-
crat seemed fast diminishing. Where were we ? That
was the question. A low cliff, visible until now, had
disappeared in the darkness ; but we began to feel a
slight current, and, surely, that on our left was the mouth
of a river ? We tried and found it to be so. We could
dimly descry trees and bushes silhouetted against the
sky. The river had many arms, perhaps we were in a
delta? If so, which was the main stream? We could
not tell ; so chose as we might, and rowed on for about
a verst. Peering into the darkness, not a sign of huts'
could be made out. At last, in the hope of awakening
some answering cry or the howl of their dogs, we hallooed,
and then discharged our revolvers. Once — twice — thrice ;
but no answer came borne on the night-breeze save the
cry of some startled water-fowl. Cold, stiff, and hungry
on a waste of waters, was it to end in our camping shelter-
less in this swamp ? The situation was discussed, and we
resolved to descend the river again to its mouth and grope
along the coast in the darkness. Half an hour or more
passed when, creeping along, we fired again ; and soon
after, to our relief, the glimmer of a light was seen,
CHAIVO BAY AND BEYOND 217
followed by the barking of dogs. Steering for the spot and
firing our revolvers, dark figures were soon running down
the banks to help beach the canoe and carry our impedi-
menta up to the huts. What was the palace of this
Vanderbilt, or rather Vanderbilts, for there were two
brothers, like? It differed nothing in appearance from
the other huts, saving only that it was a little larger,
measuring perhaps 22 x 16 feet. Wherein, then, con-
sisted their wealth? They possessed, we were assured,
more than sufficient fish, roots, rice, tea, tobacco to last
them through the winter, and many skins ; but, above
all, they owned at least seventy reindeer between them,
more than all the other Orochons together, so our
Gilyak interpreter told us. To my inquiries did this
wealthy family live any differently from others of the
tribe, and how did they enjoy their wealth, the reply was,
" They ate similar food because it was the ' law ' (custom),
but they had more sledges, and went more frequently in
winter to Nikolaevsk to dispose of their greater quantity
of reindeer, furs, etc."
I suspect that luxuries, including rice and gaudy
material such as Chinese silk brocade, kept partly as
an investment of capital and sometimes for the lying in
state, were the indulgences their superior possessions
allowed them. Then, too, the rich had the privilege of
dispensing to the poor, and of being held in repute for
their hospitality which brought not only satisfaction in
this world and the next, but power over the recipients.
We gave a lot of trouble here, as I thought, but our
host — ^Vanderbilt, or, to give him his proper name, Fizik
— and the various members of the family, were most
obliging; and without the slightest objection the lower
cross-poles were cleared of fish and wiped, at our request,
so that our still sodden rugs might be hung up to dry.
The interior presented a similar scene to that of the night
before. As usual, there were the representatives of three
2i8 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
generations in the hut, including the old grandmother,
her married sons, their wives and children, besides guests.
By the glow of the fire one could see several men rending
raw fishes' heads with their teeth, others at another course
of dried fish and seal-oil, and yet others smoking sedately,
criticizing at intervals the white strangers, or watching the
children, to whom they seemed much attached. On our
right was the wife of our host's brother, who was away
in the forest minding the reindeer, and we had our atten-
tion specially called to her as the prettiest woman in
Sakhalin, and one with whom all the men fell in love!
The privilege of gazing on her unrivalled beauty was, I am
afraid, lost upon us, for we lamentably failed to appreciate
her charms.
Throwing myself on the reindeer-skin for the night,
my last waking glance was at line upon line, row upon
row of drying fish, as far as the eye could penetrate into
the dim recesses of the roof.
The next morning, having breakfasted upon black
bread, the last of some week-old butter, and cocoa, we
set out to inspect the vast possessions of our host, to wit,
the herd of reindeer. Stepping into a canoe, we had the
honour of being paddled for a mile or so by the " richest
man in the world." In ascending the river, which wound
among the lowlands, I was struck by the great contrast
in the scenery. Instead of sandy wastes, dwarf and stunted
Swiss pine, wild swamps or dense forests, we were now on
a river that seemed to wind through meadows and parks.
Sheltered from the rude blasts and the cold current of the
Okhotsk Sea, the banks were rich in flowers and rushes.
Willows and nut-trees bending over the water's edge made
shady reaches, where, in the cool mysterious depths, fish
hid ; and stately firs, graceful mountain-ash, or a dark
group of Swiss pine stood in ornamental relief against
the light green of the meadows. At a spot known to our
guide we disembarked, and, guns in hand, strode through
CHAIVO BAY AND BEYOND 219
low scrub until we came upon a knoll-covered clearing.
From here we caught sight of the distant herd, feeding
on the lichen-covered moorland. The more restless were
tethered, others, including the young, were free. Members
of a herd occasionally get astray, but they are marked, to
distinguish them from wild game, which, however, does not
always prevent their being shot, accidentally or otherwise.
Large, powerfully built animals, of a grey-buff colour, and
occasionally all white, one understands, on seeing them,
their power to support a rider or draw a sledge.
Creeping round to leeward of the herd we found our
host's brother lodged in a little drill-tent. Our larder
being low, we proposed to buy a couple of haunches of
venison, but they refused to kill unless we took the whole
carcase, and this at the exorbitant price of thirty rubles.
In Nikolaevsk, in winter, when fresh meat is very scarce,
and at the end of several hundred miles' journey, a
reindeer is sold for twenty-five rubles. Moreover, as we
learnt afterwards, they had disposed of one recently for
eight rubles, and had only three days before killed another
for their own use. Evidently they thought we were legiti-
mate spoil ; but we were not to be done, and ultimately
secured a haunch on our return at a reasonable price,
the payment for which included, I remember, two reels
of cotton.
We induced one of the brothers to milk a doe, one
of the herd, as I had always been curious to taste rein-
deer's milk. I found it very thick, sweet, and exceedingly
rich. Having photographed "the richest man in the
world " we returned to the village. A little bartering
was done before our departure, and one particularly finely
worked piece of reindeer harness I was fortunate enough
to secure. The maker of it, an old lady, was very loth
to part with what had taken her, she avowed, three years
to work — three years of very few spare moments I should
opine. It is a wide strap of seal-skin embroidered with
220
IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
white reindeer hair in the Gilyak fashion, with cockerel-
like convolutions which are probably Gold, or rather,
Chinese in origin. Hair from the reindeer's mane, fish-gut,
and nettle-fibre are the sewing material of these tribes.
How important a part sewing must have played in
the domestic economy can be imagined, when clothing con-
sisted of salmon-skins, a material which could not be
ordered over the counter by the yard, but had to be dili-
gently stitched together to form an adequate covering.
In early times bone needles were used, but when, by acci-
dent or by barter, a big ship's canvas-needle came into
their hands, it was a priceless treasure. How eagerly
CHAIVO BAY AND BEYOND 221
such was sought after and seldom obtained. The happy
possessor handed it down as a family heirloom. In those
days they tell us a needle was of such value that a wife
could be bought with it ; whereas to-day a helpmeet may
cost as much as a narta (sledge) and team of thirteen
dogs. To keep the needle safe, bone cases {nookh-tses),
curiously carved, were made ; and it is interesting to note
that the principle on which they work is exactly the same
as that of the little silk ones made to-day in Korea.
The following shows the value they used to put upon
the needle. A Russian came upon a Gilyak family crying
and howling.
" Why are you crying ? " he asked. " Is somebody
dead ? "
" No ! What is death ? It would have been better
had somebody died. The needle is lost ! "
The afternoon saw us once more pursuing a northerly
course. On the opposite shores of Chaivo Bay, on the
sandbanks, were Vurkovo and Chaivo, both Gilyak settle-
ments, and New Val, an Orochon village. North of these
there were none known, save only a solitary hut or two
occupied occasionally merely for the fishing.
These we could visit on our return, our present objec-
tive was the hut of a prospector four miles inland from
the coast. A couple of hours' rowing brought us within
sight of another river, known as the Khagdasa. As we
approached it two figures on the left bank were moving
about and disappearing rather suspiciously, but as we
neared land they showed themselves quite openly, and we
saw that one of them was a soldier, though his uniform was
222 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
old, shabby, and much the worse for wear. Having landed
our baggage with some difficulty, for the tide was still on
the ebb, we found it impossible to carry all of it the six
versts (four miles) to the hut, and therefore stowed all the
heavier articles in a cave close by. Our " captain " would
not desert his canoe, so we left him on guard while we
distributed the baggage among our retinue.
Our Gilyaks had showed extraordinary powers of en-
durance in rowing, but they were ill-fitted to carry loads
on shore. We therefore arranged our cavalcade accordingly,
the soldier leading the way, followed by his companion,
the exile who had been responsible for two murders, then
Mr. X., my interpreter, and the two Gilyaks — I bringing up
the rear. Our way lay through what had been dense
forest a short while since, but was now denuded of its
undergrowth. At first I blamed this wanton destruction,
but, when I had made the acquaintance of the surviving
mosquitoes, I sympathized with those who had fired their
way through the forest. We passed over hill slopes, almost
snow-clad in appearance, covered with the lichen which the
reindeer loves, and among hoary-looking trees hung with
a capillary lichen which he also favours. The slopes gave
way at length to swamps temporarily bridged with larch-
poles, along which it was necessary to walk Blondin-like.
We were met and heartily welcomed by the prospector's
son, and, strange as it may seem, by an English youth
who by a series of curious chances found himself in this
wild out-of-the-world spot. They had preceded us by about
two months.
Petroleum, known for a long time to the natives, and
reported on by the Government expert, Mr. Bazevich, in
1894, had been discovered to the prospector, who had
extended his search until he had found, not only exusions
of it on this spot, but lakes Of it a few miles north near the
Nutovo river. One of these, which had a diameter of
about eighteen feet, was in a state of bubbling upheaval.
CHAIVO BAY AND BEYOND 223
The others had a surface of bituminous mud, owing to the
evaporation of the oil, which was soft, but at the same
time offered sufficient resistance to allow of walking upon
it In boring at a spot four miles north of the Boatassin
river, eternally frozen ground had been found at a depth
of ten and a half metres. This is very low, and accounts
for the tundra hereabouts being less pronounced than on
the north-west shores. On the west coast Dr. Poliakov
reported it in midsummer, on July i, at half a metre's depth,
in the valley of the Duika (Great Alexandrovka) river.
A year after I reached this spot, a Russian petroleum
expert, Mr. R. S. Platonov, despatched by the Baku
Manufacturers Trust, visited and inspected the neighbour-
hood. On the same trip he had already paid a visit to the
Texas and Pennsylvanian oil-fields. According to the
Russian newspaper, the Kavkaz (Caucasus) of June, 1903,
he takes a very optimistic view of the wealth and extent of
the Sakhalin fields. He is reported as saying that all he
had seen in America was as nothing compared to that
which he had found in Sakhalin. He is even made to
assert that the fields situated on the banks of the river
Nutovo exceed those of Baku in all respects. The oil is
said to contain no benzine, and therefore to be capable of
immediate use as fuel. Such a discovery may prove of
use both to the Russian Fleet, the Manchurian and Ussuri
railways ; and by refining to the vast hordes of consumers
of lamp-oil in China, Korea, and Japan.
It is to be hoped that Mr. Platonov's hopeful report
may not be belied, and that the supplies may prove to be
deep-lying ; for should they be actively worked, they will
prove incidentally a god-send to the " exile settlers," who,
from the absence of employment, drift in large numbers
of cases into their old ways.
In 1898, a discovery of gold was made, and a company
was formed, which soon however gave up. It was rumoured
that eternally frozen earth was struck, and proceedings
224 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
stopped. Frozen soil presents no insuperable difficulties,
but probably the gravels were situated at a considerable
depth (in the Vitim district * they are said to be frozen to
a depth of 150 feet), and therefore were quite unprofitable
to work.
Owing to the frozen subsoil of the tundra, in summer
the surface water cannot drain ofif, and the land presents
a region of swamps and meres shrouded in a sun-lit mist,
covered with coarse dank grass, gnarled and stunted
bushes of larch and birch, and low clusters of berry-
ladened brushwood ; and in winter a frozen waste, over
which the Tungus course with their reindeer sledges.
The two nights following were spent in the log-hut,
which accommodated the prospectors and the convicts
whom they employed. Through a long low room, with
beaten earth for floor, occupied by the latter, we reached
the living and sleeping quarters of the masters. Adjoining
these was the store-room, containing kegs of salt beef,
potatoes, flour, etc., for it was necessary to provision as for
a siege. Externally this store-room resembled an earth-
work, a form of erection common in Siberia, and designed
to exclude the extreme cold and heat.
It was a rude life and lonely, separated as they were
by a journey of 300 miles by sea and river from even
the nearest Russian penal settlement In sickness, acci-
dent, or danger from brodyagi, they had themselves alone
to rely upon. Their convicts behaved fairly well, and
proved moderately faithful since they were treated well,
and knew that they were ever so much better off than
they would be in the hands of officials ; but in the
event of any brodyagi coming along, the masters had to
be prepared to find their men neutral ; but that is a story
which comes later.
Winter, which would have added to the dreariness of
their situation, brought them release, for without proper
* North-east of Lake Baikal.
CHAIVO BAY AND BEYOND 225
buildings as protection against a cold of — 40° or — 50°
(Fahr.), work could not be carried on.
It was six or seven weeks later that they started to
return to Derbensk. By punting, rowing, and towing, the
convicts got the boat as far as the shallows which connect
the Bays of Chaivo and Ni. Here they were brought to a
standstill by ice, which for some distance they had already
broken through. There was nothing for it but to return,
which was more easily said than done, for the ice had
meanwhile drifted, and was congealing between them and
their point of embarkation. They, therefore, made land at
a nearer point, the Orochon village of Old Val, and found
their way overland to their hut. On their way they came
across a Gilyak hut, in which reclined in various postures
six skeletons. An inquiry was afterwards made as to the
manner of their death, whether it was the work of brodyagi ;
but it was generally concluded that they had died of eating
bad fish.
The position of the prospectors was now difficult, for
the provisions would not last them and their men more
than a few weeks, and means of transport there were none.
Much against their wish, but rather than risk starvation,
ten of the convicts were given as much stores as they
could carry, and started ofT to make their way on foot. A
Gilyak guided them by tracks known to him, and along
the frozen river, until after many weary days they reached
their destination. Their employers had meanwhile waited
in the hope of finding Gilyaks who would take them on
their sledges as soon as the bays and river would allow it.
For some time the thermometer had registered below zero
(Fahr.), and after considerable trouble Gilyaks were found
who took them on sledges drawn by thirteen dogs round
the bays and up the Tim to a village called Ishir, whence
they made their way through the forest to Ado Tim, sleep-
ing on the way in the open, with the thermometer register-
ing 49° of frost (Fahr.). Sledging on the river, the guiding
Q
226 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
poles occasionally penetrated the ice, and where the current
was exceptionally fast was open water. It is a curious fact
that in places the upper waters of the Tim, with a tem-
perature of 40° to 50° below zero, do not freeze, and here
comes the whiteheaded eagle (Hali'etus albicillus) to fish.
In fact the Gilyaks call the' month of February Khant'long,
or eagle month, as they name March Karr-long, or crow
month.
The day following our arrival at the petroleum well we
essayed to continue northwards, to visit the oil-lakes on
the Nutovo river. Retracing our steps to our canoe, we
started with our crew to go round by the bay, intending to
ascend the river. However, we had gone but five miles
when "white horses," or as the Russians say, "white
sheep," were descried ahead. We were loth to be
baulked by a storm, and ignored the protestations of our
crew until the waves, threatening to swamp the canoe,
forced us to desist from our purpose, and reluctantly turn
back from attempting to penetrate farther along the north-
eastern coast than any white man had hitherto done. For
seven miles our " bark " was driven before the storm, but
our skilful " captain," with his paddle, kept us from drifting
broadside. Wetted through to the skin we landed once
more at the mouth of the Khagdasa. Here we were met
by two or three Orochons, with a message of welcome from
the headman of the village of New Val, across the bay.
Pushing on once more to the hut, we spent that night
with our hospitable hosts, and the next morning were
accompanied by them on land and sea as far as the village
of New Val. Time would not allow of my pressing on
further to the north ; there were no natives to be met
with, nor could we at this time of the year get our Gilyaks
to consent to delay their return longer ; already we had
overstayed our time, and we found on reaching the Bay of
Ni, two days later, that our river crejv were on the point of
departing without us.
CHAIVO BAY AND BEYOND 227
On our way through the forest one of our hosts led me
aside to seek the site of an unwritten tragedy. Searching
for some time in different directions, and hallooing to one
another, we at last hit upon it. What we saw is pictured
in our illustration (p. 258) — a rude Russian cross made from
three stakes. The story, though unrecorded in the pages
of history, was clearly revealed on the' spot. A small band
of brodyagi, pushed hard by soldiers, and perhaps attracted
by the presence of the prospectors' stores, had found their
way as far north as this. They had managed to exist on
reindeer, and one of their number must have fallen ill, as
was evidenced by their staying a long time, a dangerously
long time in one place. For they had been here long
enough to consume several reindeer, obviously, from the
quantity of antlers and bones, and the little footpath worn
in the forest. Their sick companion may possibly have
been injured in an encounter with a bear, or more probably
had fallen ill owing to exposure ; in either case he had
lingered until dying they buried him in the taiga, neglect-
ing not to raise the protecting ^ over the grave of their
poor outcast brother. It was a story as melancholy and
pessimistic as any from the pen of a Russian novelist, but
here Providence and Nature had been the writers.
CHAPTER XIII
WITH THE "CHAM" AT CHAIVO
An "inter-continental" boat-race — The Cham and the Shaman —
Exorcising the evil spirit — Why the Gilyaks are without written
characters — The journeys of a soul after death — Strange rites at
the funeral pyre.
AT the mouth of the Khagdasa river was a canoe
from the Orochon village of New Val, and our
hosts, the prospectors, getting into this with a
native to steer, challenged us to a race. It was Gilyak
versus European, and I doubt if the five versts across
Chaivo Bay, from the mouth of the Khagdasa to the
village of New Val, have ever been covered in faster time.
The tide had turned, and it was with considerable diffi-
culty that the less shallow channels were found and
navigated ; but this accomplished, all put their backs into
the work. There were no crowds of spectators watching
the great struggle between Europe and Asia, none of the
old familiar shouts from the tow-path, with all manner
of musical (?) instruments, nor the well-known cries from
the "coach," nor the hoarse, "One — two — three" of the
cox. Europe had a smaller canoe, no baggage, and a
cox only, beside her two oarsmen ; but she was handi-
capped with two oars only. Asia had a longer canoe, two
passengers with six or seven puds of baggage, beside
her cox and two oarsmen ; but then she had two pairs of
sculls going.
Our Gilyak crew entered into the fun with great
228
WITH THE "CHAM" AT CHAIVO 229
enthusiasm. We — that is, Asia — had got a start in clear-
ing the network of channels, and managed to hold our
own for half the race. Europe, however, came steadily
on, hand over hand, until both were level. Then, taking
advantage of their cox's knowledge of the approach to his
village, they swept round and landed, while Asia's crew
were still hesitating where to beach their boat.
After all, this is but an allegory of the racial struggle
for existence between the native and the white man. The
Gilyak on Sakhalin has had a lead by two or three cen-
turies, but he has already been far outnumbered, and will
surely die out with the further inroad of the European.
The chief causes of the dying out of the natives are disease,
the narrowing limits of their hunting-ground, the decay
of the spirit of the race, and their inability to adapt
themselves to another mode of living which is gradually
but surely being forced upon them. The Government's
attitude towards them is a " correct " one. It recognizes
them as Russian subjects, interferes as little as possible
with their scant organization, and prohibits the sale of
intoxicants to them. What is really required now, but
hardly to be expected from officials whose function is the
safeguarding of criminals, is a patriarchal government
which shall interest itself in the race and its changing
conditions.
If there were more friends of the Gilyaks like Mr.
Pilsudski, who was a political exile on the island, they
indeed might yet be saved from extinction. He recog-
nized that their means of livelihood, hunting and fishing,
were beginning to fail them, and therefore endeavoured
to induce those who dwelt near the Russian settlements to
cultivate potatoes and to salt fish. To the natives utterly
unused to it, the work was extraordinarily exhausting ;
and one gave it up after two hours because "his back
ached," while others eagerly sought permission to eat
the seed potatoes ! I fear, unaided and not followed up.
230 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
his efforts have failed, though after a great amount of
persuasion he got several puds sown.
After being welcomed by the starosta of New Val, and
introduced to the "belles" of the Orochons, whose rare
beauty left much to be desired in our humble and un-
educated opinion ; we were ushered into a hut where not
only were fish-skins spread for us, but to our surprise two
pieces of handsome Chinese silk brocade. To tread with
our great dirty boots upon these was out of the question,
so, turning up a corner, we sank on to the fish-skins
beneath. I leave the reader to picture the oddness of the
contrast between pale blue and gold brocade and smoked
fish, greasy timbers, and dirt-encrusted forms around.
The explanation of its presence here was a prospective
Russian church, of which this was intended to be the
altar-cloth. Very prospective, I should imagine. It was
said that a Russian priest had visited Chaivo Bay four
years previously, and had collected 489 rubles for the
building of the church, but, so far, they had nothing but a
handbell. I believe Sakhalin has been rid of the presence
of this pope, whose true mission, by all accounts, appeared
to have been to gather sable-skins. A priest comes once
a year in winter during the hunting season, to a central
spot of the island, generally Ado Tim (about 250 miles
distant by river), and word is sent to the headmen of the
Orochons. Of those who respond, some receive the Com-
munion, or hear the Burial Service read for members
of the family deceased during the previous year. The
summons, however, is not liked, since, as is the custom
in the Russian Church, the rites must be paid for, and the
Orochons find themselves relieved of many sable-skins.
Russians declared to me that the priest brought vodka
and traded for skins. The accusation, I fear, was true ;
and the excuse that he was poorly paid, a very lame one
in extenuation of a crime punishable by law. Of course
he was not alone in yielding to the temptation to use such
WITH THE "CHAM" AT CHAIVO 231
an unfailing key to riches as bartering vodka with the
natives.
That no interest should have been taken by the priests
in the natives, other than for the sake of gain, is most
regrettable ; but in judging them we must remember that
they are not missionaries, nor even parish priests, but
practically in the position of prison or military chaplains.
It would be as reasonable to blame the chaplain of a
regiment stationed, say, at Bombay, for not doing mission-
ary work in India, as these priests in Sakhalin. As for
their relation to their own flock, we shall see something
of that when we come to my stay at Alexandrovsk.
Leaving the Orochon village of New Val, we rowed
over in a south-easterly direction to the Gilyak settlement
of Chaivo, situated on the northern side of the strait which
here gives entrance to the sea. This was a village of some
size, for there were about thirty canoes drawn up on the
beach, and the population was said to number about a
hundred. Landing here, we were taken to see the bear
in its cage, two captive foxes, which were being bred for
their skins, and three large white-tailed eagles tethered to
corners of a log structure. Magnificent birds they were,
whose great powerful wings and formidable beaks looked
as if they should have won them freedom ere this. They
had been captured when young, and were the contents of
a nest robbed after the mother bird had been shot. The
natives were rearing them with a view to selling their
tails to the Japanese.
From the first meeting with the Gilyaks I had made
inquiries as to where I could find a chain, or " medicine-
man" of the tribe. I was anxious to do so, because I
hoped to learn from him more than I could from the
Gilyak " man-in-the-street," or rather, " man-in-the-canoe."
All the replies had indicated the village of Chaivo as the
residence of their cham. On reaching New Val, which
was close by, I thought it prudent to make inquiries if
232 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
the great man were at home. The answer was in the
affirmative. Arrived at Chaivo, however, I was informed
he had gone to New Val. This would not do. I suspected
evasion, and therefore put my foot down and insisted
on our crew going to fetch him. This had the desired
effect, and, shortly after, a man of about thirty or thirty-
five, of less wild appearance than the others — in fact, a
rather mild-looking individual — came hesitatingly towards
us. I offered him a few tobacco-leaves, and to disarm
his suspicions, for the natives are shy of talking about
their religion, explained through the interpreters that I
was a friend of the Gilyaks, and that I had come a great
way from over the sea and would like to know about
them and their forefathers.
The traveller, in his wanderings, too soon loses the
novelty and strangeness of his environment, and it is
seldom after the first blush that he does not take things
as they come, without surprise. It is a useful habit, and
saves much trouble, but there are occasions when he is
transported in thought to his home and friends, and
awakens with a shock to his present surroundings. It
was such a moment now, this meeting with the Giiyak
cham, and perhaps in giving the scene as it appealed to
me, I may succeed in transporting the reader for one
moment to that far-away spot.
It was evening, and we were squatted on the sand-
dune dividing the bay before us from the Pacific, which
was rolling in its great booming breakers hard by. A
glorious sunset met our gaze westward, angry masses of
black cloud were fired by reddening rays as they gathered
behind the distant blue mountains, between which and us
stretched vast forests. It was a Sunday evening, and
calm as an English village scene, but yet how different.
By what a gulf were we separated from the civilized world.
Between us and England lay impenetrable forests, the
home of the bear, and the escaped convict armed and
WITH THE "CHAM" AT CHAIVO 233
desperate with starvation. Only by days and days of
punting up rapids could these forests be passed, followed
by weeks before the mainland could be reached, and then
there remained the whole of snow-bound Siberia to be
crossed. Around us were squatted swarthy natives, pig-
tailed and unwashed, women and children strangely clad
adorned with hoops in their ears and fish-knives at their
belts. Our supper of fish was spitted before the fire. The
strange figures gathered closer round us, dogs as well, ac
we talked of the Gilyak ancestors, the gods of their fathers,
and the home of their departed ones ; they wondering the
while why the white men from a strange land should want
to know these things. Could we be ignorant of what was
common knowledge, or were we laughing at them .'
After preliminary politenesses, I began by asking the
chant —
" Has your father, or your father's father, ever told you
anything about the place whence the earliest Gilyaks
came ? "
"No. They came from over there," pointing to the
west, to the mainland, which we know by tradition to
have been their home. But before he would answer my
question, he had asked me — •
" How is it the Russians have come here, and why do
they live in big villages and not in the forest } "
What a revelation of a totally different economic world
was here ! Surely a question suitable for the new Economic
Tripos at Cambridge.
The complexity of our economic life, the interdepen-
dence of country upon country — nay, hemisphere upon
hemisphere — the vast network of communication in the
civilized world upon which it was based, how could I, in
a few words, make this member of a primitive tribe
understand .■"
These " children of the forest," who found their food,
their clothing, their homes, even their gods provided
234 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
therein, how was it possible for them to conceive of any
other conditions of existence? Tradition even claimed
that the Orochons had sprung from a male a,nd female
birch tree.
" How could we live together in towns, and yet manage
to catch enough fish in the neighbourhood for the winter's
store; and shoot sufficient animals to provide the skins
wherein to clothe ourselves ? "
I leave the reader to fill up the picture, and imagine
the respectable citizens of London, clad in skins, streaming
forth to St. John's Wood, to hunt the bear and reindeer,
or, deftly balanced on the prows of their dug-out canoes,
spearing salmon and harpooning seals in the "pellucid
waters " of the Thames at London Bridge.
I put many questions to the cham, but they were
scarcely answered satisfactorily^; either he was not as
intelligent as we had hoped, or else, for fear of being
laughed at, he was beating about the bush. The Gilyaks
themselves declared, " We have no great cham now. We
had one. He died last winter. He was great indeed !
If a man wanted to fish, and there was no wind to drive
in the fish, he went to the cham and fell on his knees, and
immediately his prayer was granted, and the wind began
to blow." His successor, indeed, claimed the power of
being able to locate a bear. " When the Gilyak wants to
find one," he told us, " I hear a voice of the spirit, saying,
' There is a bear in the forest,' and I go into the forest, and
there I discover a bear."
The cham of the Gilyaks resembles, in many respects,
the shaman of the Oroktis, the Golds, and the Tungus
on the mainland. Both are addicted to superstitious
practices ; but the primary function of the cham would
appear to be the judicial executive, and for that purpose
he is elected. He it is who pronounces sentence in the
criminal "court" of elders, and afterwards carries it out.
Legally these were the limits of his function ; but
A TL'NGUJi " Ml \M \X.
/;'_/;(.-.■/,;;■. J3
WITH THE "CHAM" AT CHAIVO 235
actually his moral influence does not stop there, and the
criminal's fate largely depends upon him. Probably he
was chosen because the death of a murderer, though
necessary in olden times, was much against the grain of
the kindly, jolly Gilyaks ; and the cham, with his powers
of exorcism, could clear himself of any sin which they
involuntarily felt must attach to the killing of a human
being. The penalty of death now no longer obtains, but
is commuted in practice to a fine.
The shaman, on the other hand, is not chosen, but
wins his position by force of character and in face of no
little ridicule. If he succeeds, he becomes the Oracle of
the tribe. To him come those who want to know where
a lost article is to be found, what the catch of fish will be
next season, or how to avoid impending misfortune. But
it is as a healer of sickness and exorciser of evil spirits
that he is in most request. Mr. V. P. Margaritov, in a
monograph on the Oroktis (translated by Mr. M. F. A.
Fraser *), has given a vivid description of the performance
of a shaman in the district of the Primorsk. He first
proceeded to dress himself in the style of my illustra-
tion. A petticoat was tied round his waist, and from this
depended a remarkable collection of " mineral wealth," in
the shape of metal bells, steels (flint and steel), metal
discs, chains, portions of tin pots, and scraps of iron.
The dress that I saw seemed to me to represent a collec-
tion of curios, from the point of view of the Orokti, in the
amassing of which civilized countries — chiefly England,
and Birmingham for preference — had been ransacked for
their domestic utensils. The head-dress consisted of the
antler of a deer, and depending from it again bells, rings,
and plates of metal and rags. In fact, I could not better
describe the shaman, so arrayed, than as a peripatetic
kitchen-midden. Having burnt grass in his hut until there
was a stifling, blinding smoke, he took a reindeer-skin
* Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, China Branch, 1894.
236 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
tambourine in his hand, and, going to the entrance,
announced the shaman fit. Then he began howling,
emitting mysterious noises, whirling wildly round the
smoke-filled hut, beating the tambourine and himself,
until, exhausted by this maniacal conduct, he hurled him-
self on the couch. The awed onlookers then awaited with
expectation the revelation on the following day.
Being anxious to know what claims the cham had to
healing power, I asked him whether he could cure illnesses.
To which he replied, "If a child or person is ill, I, the
cham, pray and make offerings of tobacco to the lord of
fire and cast some rice or tea out of the door to the
spirits (of the forest and water). There is one god —
Nature," he added, " and we off'er to fire at one time and
to water and the forest at others." But the whole cere-
mony of a cure is well worth a description.
If a Gilyak is so ill that all domestic resources fail,
then the cham is sent for. He arrives, followed by one
of the elder representatives of the hut, who has been
told off" to show honour and courtesy to the healer.
An inspection of the patient is generally sufficient for
him to determine whether the sufferer will recover or no ;
but before he decides upon his measures, the cham tries
to find out from the relatives what the patient has been
doing prior to his illness. Then he tells them that the
evil spirit is angry with the sick man, and has sent this
illness as a punishment ; but he will speak to the spirit
about it, and ask him how his anger may be appeased.
Nothing, however, can be done before the evening, for
the element in which the spirit lives is the night.
When the sun has set, the cham appears, and drives out
of the hut all unnecessary persons, and proceeds to place
upon his head a band of birch bark, with three little
rustling rosettes of papery bark lining. These, it is said,
are to aid him in the expulsion of the evil spirit from the
sick one ; but are more probably to enhance the mystery
WITH THE "CHAM" AT CHAIVO 237
and authority of the exorcist. He then places in the
corner of the hearth three little bowls, containing respec-
tively fish, tobacco, and roots ; and close to these, two
wooden images, ch'khnai, bound together back to back ;
one having the face of a laughing man, and the other
that of a weeping woman. The ch'khnai are there to
provide something for the evil spirit to enter, when he
leaves the body of the sick man. Note here how clever
the cham is. He so places the ch'khnai that the image
of the weeping woman faces the cups containing the food ;
and the evil spirit, summoned from the body of the patient
by exorcism and attracted by delicacies, naturally enters
into the image so placed ; and, having taken this form, will
be himself kind-hearted and weak as a weeping woman.
The good spirit is then exorcised, and takes refuge in the
other image ; where he becomes jolly and strong as a
laughing man, especially when the cham draws nearer to
him one of the bowls of food.
The evil and good spirits finding themselves in close
proximity, begin to fight ; but there is never any doubt
of the result, for victory must be to the stronger — the
good spirit. Then commence negotiations between the
cliam and the evil spirit as to how much or what offering
he will accept to keep away from the sick man.
During all these exorcisms and negotiations the hut
has been the scene of an awe-inspiring spectacle. While
the sick man lay on the nakh, or bench, the cham has
been whirling round the hut, beating the kos-cha, a fish-
skin tambourine, uttering all manner of strange sounds,
and quickening his wild gyrations in order to prevent the
escape of the evil spirit from his reach. By the time of
the dombat of the good and evil spirits, the wild dance
has reached its climax ; and when negotiations commence
the cham is in an ecstatic state. His exorcisms are begun
in almost a whisper, and to the slow-measured strokes of
the tambourine. He improvises his prayers, conforming
238 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
them to the circumstailces ; and by degrees working himself
into an ecstasy, he babbles with hoarse voice, howls, and
even shrieks. From the great strain his voice sometimes
cracks ; but he draws off attention, and with amazing
dexterity whirls around in the semi-darkness, his feet
appearing to leave the ground as his wild circlings in the
air increase and the flames leap in answering flickerings
to his wild springings. Black shadows fitfully race over
the walls of the hut, and quicker and quicker grow the
wild howls and the thuds of the tambourine. The hearts
of the spectators sink with fright, and even the most
sceptical of the Gilyaks is involuntarily bewitched.
The eyes of the chain are like flames ; he foams at
the mouth, and sings the orders of the evil spirit —
/' Take two great dogs,
One black,
The other white ;
Kill these two offerings
There,
Where is kept the bear ;
That will make the sick man well."
The first syllable in each line is articulated quickly, and
the last vowels in the line slowly, merging into a howl.*
If the cham is angry with the sick man, or has any
spite against him or his relatives, he may ruin the whole
family by his interpretation of the spirit's demands, forcing
them to bring all their dogs and everything that they
value most. It is even said that in olden times human
offerings were demanded.
On the following day, the head of the hut takes the
offerings, and goes as quickly as possible to the village
appointed where the bear is, even if it be a hundred miles
away. There he kills the dogs near the cage of the bear,
takes out the heart and liver and casts them in the forest
to the east, and sings, "Make so that the sick man may
* Each line in the Gilyak original is made to end in a — aa.
WITH THE "CHAM" AT CHAIVO 239
be quite well." The offering is made near the bear because
the evil spirit is a great friend of the bear, and therefore
is to be found near at hand.
The cham having been liberally rewarded for his pains,
the matter is ended.
One old Gilyak in reply to my question as to what
happened if the patient died, said, with stoical submissive-
ness, "We make offerings, and if the child recovers, it
is well ; but if the spirit does not restore it, it is well
also."
The Gilyaks explain the visitation of disease in this
way. The sick man must have offended the good spirit
kiskh, who thereupon deserts him and leaves him in the
power of the evil spirit. The offering made to the latter
is a bribe, whereby the sufferer coaxes the evil spirit to
quit him.
The Gilyak makes no offering to kiskh, the creator,
the great spirit, the god of the moral world, for he does
not know where he is ; in fact, so vague is his notion of
him that it can only be said to exist in his mind as a
nebulous conception. With regard to the position of the
cham, the evil spirit cannot but be angry at the trick he
has been played, and the want of respect paid to him ;
but we need not be anxious for the healer, since he is
secure in his knowledge of many exorcisms.
His moral influence among his tribe is certainly losing
ground, as the Gilyaks come more into contact with the
Russians. One of them said to a Russian, " A cJiam tells
very many lies."
" Then why do you call him in ? "
" He is needed. If he got angry it would be bad for
us," was the answer.
It is true that it may result badly for the Gilyak, not
because the cham can cause the divine anger to fall upon
his head ; but when the Gilyak has a misunderstanding,
or is accused of crime, the cham may remember his
240 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
omission or insult, and as he has the last word, he can
make the punishment very severe.
Among the group of strange folk squatted on the beach
by the fading light of the day, was a particularly intelligent
elder, who had evidently seen more of the Russians than
any of the others. He had overheard the first question
which I had put to the cham about the home of his fore-
fathers, and in an impressive way he exclaimed, "How
can I tell ? Neither my father nor my father's father
could write, and therefore they have left me no writing
to tell, and even if they had, I cannot read ; hence how
can you expect me to know ? "
The Gilyaks have no written language, but they have
a legend to account for the want of it. I learnt it from
one of their number, Imdin by name, the only Sakhalin
Gilyak known to have been brought up and educated by
the Russians. He is an intelligent youth, and had been
sent to a school at Vladivostok, where I met him in
the charge of a political exile, to whom he owed nearly
everything.
" The legend current among my tribe," he said, with a
smile, " tells how a Gilyak and a Chinaman were talking
together one day on the shore. The former was showing
his books and letters (characters) to the latter, when most
unfortunately a great wind arose, and blew away all the
letters save five ; and to complete this great catastrophe,
when the Gilyak's back was turned the Chinaman meanly
made off with the small remnant."
The Ainus have a not dissimilar legend, in which,
according to one version, their letters and records were
stolen by their guest from Japan, while they were yet
recovering from after-dinner effects. Dr. Laufer * gives
the Gilyak legend in another form. He says, " The first
living man and his wife had forty-seveH sons and forty-
seven daughters. The forty-seven sons married their
• American Anthropologist, April to June, 1900.
WITH THE "CHAM" AT CHAIVO 241
sisters. The legend runs that they once received some
white paper from the god Taighan,* and so were able to
write. One day when they returned home from hunting,
they could not understand one another, and talked in
forty-seven different languages. Seven of the brothers
remained in the country ; the other forty built canoes and
sailed out beyond the sea, carrying along the papers con-
taining their records. On the way they were separated,
and twenty of them encountered a heavy rain-storm, in
which their papers got wet. After a long trip these twenty
reached the shore. They prepared a meal, and spread the
papers out on the beach to dry, but suddenly it began to
thunder and lighten, and sad to relate their annals were
utterly destroyed. The Gilyaks and Tungusian tribes
are the descendants of those brothers who lost their
papers and forgot the art of writing. The other twenty
brothers, favoured by good weather, brought their written
treasures safely into a new country, and became the
ancestors of the Chinese and Japanese, who are still able
to write."
"This tradition," adds Dr. Laufer, "points to the
fact that the Gilyaks regard themselves as closely re-
lated to the Tungusians, and also the Chinese and
Japanese."
Our talk then drifted on to the passing of mortals into
the next world, and the elder made a rather remarkable
statement ; but I was not sure then, nor am I now, as to
how much of the form of it was due to the interpreter,
who in this case was unfortunately not Mr. X., on whose
accuracy and appreciation of the points raised, I could
always depend.
He said, " When a man dies, he does not change. He
has ears, eyes, nose, hands, and heart just as before, and
only his spirit is missing. If this were to come back the
man would be alive. Therefore, I believe the spirit lives,
* Perhaps by this is meant the god of the taiga, i.e. Palnivookh.
R
242 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
if not here then elsewhere, I expect to see my father,
but where I cannot say." Our "captain" Yungkin de-
clared that when his father died his grandfather came in
the fire and took him, and Yungkin waited in expec-
tation of his father coming for him in the same way.
A pretty touch, and a belief with no small power of
consolation.
In talking of their departed, they never called them by
their name. That would be uick, i.e. unlucky, ill-omened.
Filial piety as among the Chinese is a cardinal virtue, and
the elder before us was no exception to the rule. He had
killed no less than ten dogs at his father's funeral pyre, his
father being a well-to-do man, and therefore it was neces-
sary for his spirit to travel with an honourable cortege in
the next world.
If a Gilyak dies in the winter, it is usual to wrap
the body in bark and keep it, which is an easy matter
in this frost-bound world, until the breaking up of
winter, when the ceremonies may more easily be carried
out.
Let me describe, first, the rites observed on the death of
a woman, premising that with this, as with many other of
the more curious customs I describe, there is a difference
in detail among tribes (of Gilyaks), and even between one
khal (clan) and another. Where the khal has been much
influenced by Russian contact there is considerable modi-
fication. With some of the latter, such is the influence
of example that the natives are giving up cremation for
burial.
Four garments — short-skirted frocks — are placed upon
the corpse of the woman. Only the best may be selected,
and in case of a "wealthy" Gilyak the rare Chinese
brocade, I have mentioned, will be used. Over all the
corpse is robed in a shuha. The reason of the four gar-
ments is this. The spirit of the dead woman must appear
before each of the gods or lords in turn, Tol ni vookh, the
WITH THE "CHAM" AT CHAIVO 243
lord of the water (sea and rivers) ; Pal ni vookh, the lord
of the forest ; Tiir ni vookh, the lord of fire ; and Kiskh,
the judge of good and evil ; and as her duty on earth vi^as
to keep the hearth, i.e. look after the fire, so Tur ni vookh
is her most intimate deity. Since she must appear before
each one, and the road is long and difficult, four dresses
are necessary, as one only suffices for a journey, and she
must not appear before the god in torn garments. Of
course, if the family of the deceased is poor, the god will
overlook that little want of delicacy ; but woe to the light-
minded members of a rich family, if they omit to place
four garments on their dead. She and her kindred will
indeed have a bad time ; her life in the next world will be
poverty-stricken even as she has shown herself in miserable
condition, and her kindred will suffer many misfortunes
from the hands of those gods whose majesty has been
insulted.
For four days the corpse of the dead woman lies on the
nakh of the hut, and during this time her soul pays visits
to the four gods, renders an account of her earthly life, and
receives instructions for the life after death. All her
kindred must come together and not leave the hut during
this period, and with all their powers they strive to call to
mind and loudly recite all the virtues of their deceased
kinswoman. This is done in order to prompt her spirit,
lest her etherealized self should omit some of them in its
viv& voce. The lord of fire, as the junior god, serves in this
case as messenger, and is therefore strictly kept going in
all his force.
Crying and loud talking fill the hut. The mourners
loose their hair from the pigtails, and all vie with each
other in showing their abandonment of pleasure. Luxuries
are eschewed, pipes are broken in pieces, and the tobacco
is allowed to fall out.
If the deceased be a man, similar ceremonies are gone
through, but as he is not the maintainer of the hearth, he
244 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
has to give an account of his doings to three gods only ;
and therefore his body requires only three garments, and
lies in the hut but three days. As with the woman, over
the other garments is worn a shuba ; for their spirits have
not yet gained that supernatural capacity which defies the
elements, and warm raiment is necessary on their long
journeys.
At the end of the lying-in-state, i.e. on the fifth day for
the woman and on the fourth for the man, the corpse is
taken out of the hut and laid on a narta, a. sledge drawn
by a team of dogs. The skuda is taken off, for although
the soul has not yet its divine faculties, the journeys have
been made, and it is no longer needed. These are now
to be gained by purification.
At this juncture some of the followers leave the crowd
and run quickly to the cemetery, which every village
possesses in the secluded depths of the forest, in a spot
quite impossible for a stranger to find. There on a site
chosen by the family, a funeraj pyre is built of cleanly
stripped sticks of the height of a man. It is of diamond
shape, with the ends of the sticks projecting, and eight
layers in height. On the top are more dried sticks, moss,
twigs, and larch chips. At a few feet from the pyre these
friends of the family hastily construct with planks of
wood a little hut-like building called a raj^, about two
and a half feet long, broad and high, with a sloping roof.
This little structure has a hole in the side, or a little
door, which looks towards the pyre. Great haste has to
be made, for they are anxious to finish their work before
the procession arrives, and therefore they use material
which has been prepared by the friends of the dead
beforehand.
To erect the raff for the reception of the soul of the
deceased before the divine sanction has been given would
be an insult to the gods ; therefore the followers wait until
the cortige is about to start. The journeys to the gods
WITH THE "CHAM" AT CHAIVO 245
have been duly made, and the soul is now ready, and only
awaits the purification by fire, which shall assure to it
divine capacities.
The cortkge is followed by a crowd of kindred and
acquaintances, with dishevelled hair, loudly crying and
weeping tears of sincerity or convention. They vie with
each other in enumerating the virtues of their dead
comrade, hoping thereby to gain his protection.
The corpse is placed on the pyre ready for cremation,
and all is now ready save the fire, which must be procured
in a special manner. In memory of the earliest traditional
methods of obtaining it, flint and steel may not be used,
nor of course the Russian, or rather Japanese, matches.
A pointed stick is inserted in a hole made in a piece of
plank placed on the ground. Four men take each an end
of a thong attached to and twisted round the stick, and
pull it. This rotates, generates friction, and ignites the
dried tinder placed in close proximity. The top of the
stick is steadied by pressing on it a flat piece of wood, or
if need be a Gilyak applies his chest. Torches are lighted,
and fire is applied to the pyre, first by the widow, if the
deceased leave one.
As the flames lick up the pyre, the soul takes refuge
in the raff through the hole or opened door, thence to
emerge later and begin its long journey to that other
world village of Mligk-vo, which the Amur Gilyaks say
is in the centre of the earth, but the Sakhalin Tro and
Tim Gilyaks say is " There " — pointing to the east — " where
the sun rises."
Since it is necessary that the spirit of the deceased shall
travel as he was accustomed on earth, the spirits of the
dogs, the sledge, etc., must all be released. The dogs,
in number according to the wealth of the departed, are
all killed, being strangled or beaten to death. The sledge
is broken, and so are also his spear (kakh), his bow (punch),
and his arrows {ku), and quiver {klivi), or if the deceased
246 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
be a woman, then her ear-rings (meskk), rings (koi-ba), and
her fish-knife {ungu-dzhakhd). All these articles will be
needed by the deceased in the future life ; but they must
be broken in order to finish their earthly existence, and
to give release to their spirits. Every object has its
soul, which resembles it. This is set free in the case of
inanimate objects only on being broken, and is then used
by the soul of the <ieceased. To burn them is not to be
thought of, because they cannot have that honour done
them.
Camping out on the banks of the river Tim in the
forest, we were casting around one night for fuel, when
Mr. X. came upon a bit of shaped board which he was
about to throw on the fire, when Vanka stopped him,
crying out, " No, no ! Uich, uich ! It is a piece of a
Gilyak canoe." Purification by fire is reserved only for
the human being. The dogs are not shot, nor are their
throats cut, for if any of them had his skin broken he
would appear in the next world with this grave personal
defect.
The ashes of the cremated corpse are gathered together
and put into a coffin-like box {paff), and buried on the
site of the fire. Sometimes, as on the mainland, the ashes
are burled beneath a hole in the floor of the raff. A stick
with pieces of the garments of the deceased is stuck into
the ground by the raff, and serves apparently as memorial
to the kindred, and perhaps as a landmark for the return
of the soul of the departed.
In front of the hole or door of the raff are raised two
poles and a cross-piece, an erection resembling a miniature
goal-post, and on the cross-bar are hung all manner
of provisions, tobacco, etc., for the use of the soul of
the deceased on its long journey. I have two wooden
boxes — one cylindrical and the other rectangular in
shape, interestingly carved with scroll pattern, albeit
very smelly — which originally hung at such a grave,
WITH THE "CHAM" AT CHAIVO 247
containing rice, fish, etc., and a pair of wooden chop-
sticks. All these provisions are covered with pieces of
bark to protect them from the ravages of birds and wild
animals.
CHAPTER XIV
NIVO
The powerful Tol ni vookh — Avi fauna — The great sea-holiday — The
Black Killer— Fish in "posts"— The Grand Old Beggar— A "great
city " — The " Lord Mayor " — Polygamy — An elopement — Gilyak
maiden's song — -A scorned lover — Curious marriage ceremony —
Causes of the decrease of the Gilyaks.
MENTION has been made of four gods — the lords
of the forest, sea, and fire, and the creator, or
judge of right and wrong ; but these do not
exhaust the whole polytheistic conception of the Gilyak.
They are his nearest protectors, the most intimate among
a crowd who are too numerous to maintain communica-
tions with. The sun, moon, and stars each has its ni
vookh, but the Gilyak has no intercourse with them.
All the four gods are Gilyaks, have wives, wear Gilyak
garments, and have much in common with men ; in fact,
they are the Greek gods in Gilyak dress. How strong is
the belief of the Gilyak in the existence of his gods the
following talk will show. It is also an illustration of the
subtlety needed in questioning a native about his religion,
the mysteries of which he is, as a rule, so reluctant to
disclose. A Russian asked —
" How do the Gilyaks catch fish ? and why at one time
do they catch more, at another time less, and at another
none at all ? "
Gilyak. Well, at one time the fish come into the net
and at another time not.
24S
NIVO 249
Russian. That is not the reason. How can a fish go
by itself into the net ? It would never enter of its own
accord into the net. You Gilyaks know that it is God
who sends it there, the God who has created everything
and lives in the sky.
Gilyak. No, it is you Russians who don't know. How
can a god who lives in the sky send into the net the fish
which live in the water ? No, not in the sky lives the god,
but in the water. He, the god in the water, has created
nothing, and only commands the fish, and where he wishes,
there he sends them.
Russian. What sort of a god can there be in the water?
If he is a Gilyak, he will drown. There of course he is
not, and the Gilyaks only think so in their stupidity !
Gilyak. It is untrue. All is untrue what you are
saying. The Gilyak knows very well. Myself knows.
There are such (striking) things have happened. A
Gilyak was drowned in his clothes ; but afterwards he was
found on the bank without clothes. How do you think
that came about ?
Russian. I don't know. Perhaps somebody robbed
him.
Gilyak. Hey ! Kaukray I Nobody had robbed him.
You yourself don't know. It was done by Tol ni vookh,
kiskh !
Russian. Then why has he done it ?
Gilyak. Because the Gilyak offended him in something,
therefore the god has drowned him, and his garments he
has taken for himself, and the naked corpse he has cast on
the shore so that all should know that this Gilyak had
offended the god. May all be frightened to offend the
powerful Tol ni vookh.
Our conversation with the cham and the native elder
on matters terrestrial and celestial had to be cut short, as
our "captain" had for some time past been impatient
to start. We had once more to navigate the narrow and
250 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
shallow passage among the sand-dunes and banks which
connects the bays of Chaivo and Ni. This could only be
done at high water at night, and there was but one tide in
twenty-four hours, hence Yungkin's importunity. Dark-
ness came on, and muffling ourselves in furs, we lay down
as best we could in our frail craft, dozing to the sound
of the lap, lap of the waters. For six hours our natives
rowed on, until at midnight, when we had sunk into a
sound sleep, there came a rude awakening. The shallowest
part of the passage was overpast, rain had begun to descend,
and there was no alternative but to camp. Yawning and
stretching we clambered ashore and stamped down the
coarse rushes. To be suddenly disturbed from a sound
sleep and plunged into the discomforts of camping in the
rain on a desolate sandbank was, to say the least, trying
to the temper, and we discreetly indulged in "profane
silence."
Fuel was found with difficulty, and a fire started. We
had still a modicum of fresh water with us and some brick-
tea ; and were raising our spirits with the " cup that cheers
but does not inebriate," when the plash of a paddle sounded
in our ears.
We had scarcely reached for our guns when Yungkin
announced Gilyaks. A party were returning to Chaivo,
and seeing our fire had stopped for a warm, a pipe, and
some tea. They joined us around the cheerful blaze, talk-
ing volubly, and taking some pleasure in pointing out to us
one of their number, who, they said, had a devil in him.
He was an idiot, one glance at his face was sufficient to
determine that, and without showing any violence con-
tinued to make the strangest contortions. His presence
completed the weirdness of the scene, this group of un-
couth figures of a primitive people crouched round a fire
on a desolate island on a wild night. The madman, who
was known as " Oto," lived in one of two huts which are
on the opposite side of the Strait of Chaivo. He was not
NIVO 251
allowed to work, but his comrades supplied all his wants,
for they regarded him as a kind of sacred person singled
out or set apart by the unseen powers. He was not,
however, permitted to have a wife.
The party departed as suddenly as they came, and we
were left to wrestle unsuccessfully with the elements
through the night, for the rain persisted in finding its way
through our poor shelter. The morning brought no
cheerier prospect, but by 1 1 o'clock, the rain showing signs
of abating its ardour, we once more prepared to embark.
The sandy flats and curving shores of the Bay of Ni
were alive with hundreds of sea-birds. The commonest,
and most frightened at our approach, were' the gulls
{Larus canus niveus), which winter in Japan. Much bolder
were the sandpipers, of which the common (Totanus
kypoleticus), the green (7'. ochropus), the wood (71 glareola),
and the terek species (T. terekid) have been shot in the
bay, as well as the redshank (T. calidris). Related to
these, but earlier in migration, for it is said that they winter
in Australia, are the stint {Tringa subminuta) and his
red-throated brother {T. ruficollis), the dunlin {T. cinclus)
and the eastern knot (T. crassirostris). These had made
their departure, but what drew my particular attention
was the handsome orange-footed oyster-catcher {Hcsma-
topus osculans) and the turnstone {Strepsilas interpres).
In our forage for food we had shot one or two common
snipe {Scolopax gallinagd), which was much more in
evidence than the pintail variety (.S". stenurd). The terns
{Sterna Kamchatica and Aleutid) had not yet departed,
and though the goosander {Mergus merganser) and the
smew {Mergellus albellus) were not observable, I saw
specimens of these which had been taken at the mouth
of the Tim.
This was a long day .for our oarsmen, who continued,
with only the intervals of landing at a village or two, until
9 o'clock at night. At one of these I was just in time
252 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
to take a snapshot of a family leaving in their canoe to
make an afternoon call, in other words, to borrow some
seal-oil and take a cup of (brick) tea. On the gunwale of
the canoe will be noticed what appears to be an outrigger,
but is really a Y'Piece for resting the seal harpoon in.
This cham-gash, which is the name the Gilyaks give the
harpoon, is used on the ice or manipulated from a canoe.
The sea on the east coast here is frozen in winter for two
to four versts out, and when this breaks up the great seal-
hunt commences. The great field of operations is, how-
ever, in the Straits of Tartary, opposite the mouth of the
Amur, and a busy scene it is.
Winter has long reigned over the land. The snow-
covered taiga, the frozen rivers, and ice-bound sea, have
been for six or seven months the only outlook. At length
with spring comes the wind from the mountains driving
the ice-floes out to sea. Then the Gilyak awaits with
patience the change in the wind, for he knows that this
time the ice-floes will be driven shorewards, not empty,
but laden with many a passenger. In a good year in the
Straits of Tartary a thousand seals {Phoca vitulina, Gilyak,
langerr) will lie upon the ice sunning themselves, un-
conscious of any danger.
On shore preparations are being made for the Chak vi
hUnch, or Tol vi hUnch, i.e. the water or sea holiday ; for
this is the inauguration of the tolf-an, or summer year.
Wild men, with raven pigtails and high cheek-bones,
are bustling about at the mouths of the rivers preparing to
receive the unsuspecting guests. Last year's provisions
are all consumed, and the Gilyaks await with suppressed
excitement the approach of their fat lazy visitors. The
wind from the sea increases in vehemence, ice-floes seen on
the horizon are being driven closer and closer to the shore.
Now they are quite near, forming great glistening fields.
The whole Gilyak village is alive, the inhabitants running
about on the swaying white floor quickly taking up
NIVO 253
positions, concealing themselves behind the bergs. Each
one has in his hand a harpoon similar to the fish-spear
already described on a larger scale. The pole consists of
five lengths jointed, each 7 metres long, and is therefore
at full length about 135 feet The end, to which the
harpoon is attached by a thong, is ski-shaped, with its end
bent upwards, the better to thrust into the side of the seal.
The thong itself is also 135 feet long, to allow the seal
sufficient play. This great length of weapon enables the
Gilyak to harpoon his unsuspecting prey at a considerable
distance. He stealthily approaches his victim, taking
cover behind the bergs, and placing the harpoon on the
ice slowly unwinds the thong. By a quick thrust the
animal is speared, and flings himself frightened into the
water. In so doing he frees the head of the harpoon from
the shaft, to which, however, he is now held by the thong.
His efforts to get away only serve to give the harpoon
a firmer grip, and the poor animal is hauled in and killed
by a blow on the head.
The first catch is collected and left on the shore. To
take it to their huts to be devoured there would be a
graceless, greedy thing to do, for there is as yet no divine
sanction to the domestic use of them. Such a proceeding
might result in a failure of the seal season, owing to the
god's anger. No ; the feasting must be done openly, and,
though at some inconvenience, in full view of the god's
province.
On the bank, therefore, fires are kindled ; and the
flesh of the seals is cooked, and with it is hashed up
anything left over from the winter's stores. When all
is prepared the feasting commences, and lasts all day.
Eating and drinking go on, not only on the banks, but
in the huts ; at the same time it is strictly observed that
the pieces of the newly caught seals shall not be brought
within the hut, nor left scattered about, nor even the blood
spilled. If the god has allowed seals to be caught, he has
254 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
permitted them to be consumed only on his premises, i.e.
the banks. By this courtesy and little attention on the
part of the Gilyaks, Tol ni vookh will be content, and in
future will send them abundance of seals and all manner
of inhabitants of the sea.
It often happens that by the time of the arrival of the
seals, the winter stores are quite exhausted, and hunger
reigns in the village ; nevertheless, the f^te must be cele-
brated with all due ceremony. On the following day the
whole village turns out, and the family groups begin to
gather up the " fragments," including the bones, which,
in deep silence and reverence, are cast into the sea. The
flesh and fat, boiled or roasted, for the god has plenty of
raw, are offerings to Tol ni vookh, with the request that
he will give them permission to use the products of his
domain, the sea ; and the bones are the thank-offering
in acknowledgment of the god's goodwill in sending the
seals and allowing the Gilyaks to open the New Year's
fete with the due and proper ceremonies. With these
bones the great Tol ni vookh will make many more seals.
It would be a sin to scatter the bones to the four winds,
thus making it more difficult to create for want of material.
Tol ni vookh would in that case have to recreate entirely,
whereas, given the bones, he has only to reclothe them
with flesh, and lo, the seals are complete, alive !
The offering is cast into the sea in complete silence,
because there are many Uichkha rush, or water daimones,
who, if they should overhear the Gilyak praying, would
spoil the whole affair, by seizing what was intended for
the god.
After the day of the offering, the Gilyak is free to
follow up the hunt, and so successful is he with his
harpoon that a canoe of five will sometimes take as many
as fifty young seals, which will be equally divided among
them. This continues until a south-east wind drives away
the ice-floes and their passengers.
NIVO 255
In autumn a few seals ascend the river, and these are
shot by the natives. They follow in the wake of the Salmo
lagoceptialus, or are driven before the attack of the dreaded
grampus, or black killer {Orca atra). This terrible enemy,
the largest of the dolphin family, is armed with a for-
midable dorsal fin, which in the case of the rectipinnia
species attains to the enormous length of six feet Not
content with smaller fry, these terrible wolves of the
ocean will even attack a large whale, gathering round it
and gashing its throat and lips, and finally hauling it to
the bottom of the sea to rise thence with great pieces of
its flesh in their maws. Even the fierce walrus will crawl
upon the rocks with its young to be out of the way
of these voracious creatures ; and when larger prey,
such as the smaller dolphins or seals are not to be had,
salmon and smaller fish furnish a meal for this hungry
animal.
Hence, before it are driven ashore and up the rivers
the seals, salmon, smelt, trout, etc., upon which the Gilyak
lives. It is, therefore, not unnatural that he should look
upon the "sword dolphin," as the Germans call it, as a
friend to whom he owes many a successful catch. The
grampus never meets with a hostile reception from the
natives, and if his lifeless carcase be cast up on shore,
rightful honours are paid it.
It is otherwise with the white fish or white whale
(Delphinapterus leucas) which haunts the mouths of rivers ;
for his flesh provides a feast for the Gilyaks. From the
skin, I believe, and certainly from that of the rarer seal
{Arciocephahis monteriensis), thongs of several hundred
feet are obtained by cutting it spirally. These are again
cut into lengths of about 130 feet, and much prized for
harpoons, dog harness, and straps generally.
In the autumn comes also another inhabitant of the
ocean, the sea-lion {Ettmetopias Stelleri). Gazing far out
to sea, the Gilyak has seen a black point disappearing and
2S6 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
re-appearing, and then a second and a third. This is
enough. He hastens to bring out his apparatus, his nets
with their floats of burnt wood shaped like the heads of
sea-lions. These he sets far away from shore, near great
rocks, while he lurks in his canoe behind them, patiently
awaiting results. A little wave breaks lazily on the
shore, and ripples on the pebbles. The black floats are
gently rocked, at one moment they appear on the crest,
at the next in the trough of the wave. Who could
doubt this to be a herd of sea-lions swimming near the
pebbles ? The midday sun has heated the surface of the
water, and beckons the herd outside to a sun-bath on
shore. Sighting these "comrades," who have preceded
them in this intention, they swim towards them all un-
suspectingly. But ere the first has discovered the decep-
tion, he is entangled in the net, a canoe shoots rapidly from
behind the rocks, and a skilful thrust quiets his fluttering
for ever.
There are many other inhabitants of the sea and rivers
which have interest for the Gilyak, especially the smaller
kinds ; and though to the cold current issuing from the
Okhotsk Sea is due his severe winter, yet he owes to
it the large schools of fish which arrive off the coast of
Sakhalin. They come in such rapid sequence that the
Russian fishermen say they come in " posts."
Fish being the staple article of food, the " bread " of
the Gilyaks, the summer supply is necessarily of great
importance to them. The winter stores of sun-dried kita
are generally consumed by December, and then comes
the hard time for them. Until the arrival of the seals
in April there is only one other visitant. This is the
haddock (Gadus ceglefinus, or Vachnya), or in the Gilyak
tongue, kan-ki. If one is sledging along the shore and
gazes seaward, he will see black specks among the gleam-
ing ice. They are the figures of men wrapped from head
to foot in skins, and they are hooking haddock. In their
NIVO 257
hands are sticks with big hooks attached, and the hungry
and stupid fish coming to the hole made in the ice, and
grabbing at the hook, is caught. By this means a man
has been known to catch as many as 300 in a day.
After the seals arrive the herrings {Clupea harengus),
and then the halibut {Pleuronectes hippoglossus), in Gilyak
pilencho, which is caught from a boat with a large hook
baited. The natives allow this powerful fish, which some-
times weighs over 100 lbs., to drag the boat until, its
strength exhausted, they haul it in and spear it.
Trout {Salmo farid) appear now in the rivers, but not
in large numbers, and the next big catch is of the ide *
{Idus melanotus). A weir is formed in the river pointing
up stream. Two lines of wattle are constructed so as to
form an acute angle, and at the point of meeting is a
large, long basket. The fish coming up stream find their
way in, and a Gilyak sitting near the entrance all night
beats with a mallet or oar, frightening them in and pre-
venting them from returning. In the morning he fastens
up the basket, and takes his catch ashore. The smelt
{Osmerus eperlanus) appears in such quantities that it is
caught with a hand-net, and simply ladled out of the
water. The spearing of the gorbusha {Salmo proteus) and
kita {S. lagocephalus), the most important fish of all to the
natives, has already been described.
Re-embarking at the village whence the family had
departed for seal-oil, we proceeded southwards for many
hours. Moonlight was silvering the broadening Bay of Ni,
and all was still and quiet, save for the passage of a
solitary canoe of natives returning to their village. Later
there passed another containing two men of a fresh tribe,
the Tungus, whose language none of us understood. We
mutually grunted salutations, though I never saw the
Gilyaks greet each other, this being quite contrary to the
* The common ide (Leuciscus idus) is a species of roach (JLeuciscus
rutilus),
S
258 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
habits of their neighbours to the south, the Ainus, with
whom the ceremony is both long and complicated.
The Tungus are the most nomadic race on Sakhalin, at
the same time they are the best hunters, and probably the
cleverest in carving, needlework, and metalwork. Their
home is the taiga, and with their reindeer and fine hunt-
ing dogs are sometimes seen following the river course
or the forest paths made by wild animals. Some of their
dogs, I was told, would catch three sables in a day, which
their masters would exchange at Derbensk for a pud of
gunpowder and a pud of shot.
Between them and the Gilyaks there are occasional mis-
understandings, and even the Orochons complain that the
latter sometimes steal their reindeer, which in view of the
dispersal of their herds in the forest is quite possible.
Neighbouring tribes are not in the habit of praising
each other, and even the citizens of such civilized places as
Tarascon and Beaucaire did not regard each other with
affection, if we are to accept Daudet's testimony. In
Mongolia, as you enter the territory of a fresh tribe, the
people on learning that you have traversed the country
of their neighbours, will congratulate you on your
lucky escape from such a cut-throat race, while you have
been previously warned in similar terms of your new
acquaintances.
" The Tungus," said our Vanka, " are wild people living
in the forest. They are not hospitable, and do not give
the Gilyaks food and drink when they call ; " and I believe
what he said was in the main true.
The Gilyak expects and finds a welcome almost every-
where, since he has relations, members of his khal, at every
other village. Hospitality is not a virtue, but an obliga-
tion, and few there are who take unfair advantage of it.
The guest of to-day may be the host of to-morrow. Those
who are too aged to hunt are supported by the exertions
of the younger generation, and even they can slice and
NIVO 259
clean fish in the season. There was one notable exception
to these old people, who did travel, and who having no
relations nearer than the mainland went about begging.
Of him the Gilyaks were very much ashamed, and I feel
almost guilty of a breach of confidence in making public
this skeleton in their cupboard. His proper name was
Poeikan, but he can no longer be called by that, for he has
disgraced it, and so he goes by the title Pillaniltsick, or
the " Grand Old Beggar."
That hospitality is not offered to the Gilyaks by the
Tungus is not surprising, for their relations are consider-
ably strained. The former accuse the latter of robbing
their snares, and of setting them on the Gilyaks' hunting-
grounds. They even declare that while it is dangerous
to meet a brodyaga man to man, to meet a Tungus is
certain death. Of course this is only true if there be
cause of hostility.
The Tungus told Mr. Sternberg that they despised the
Gilyaks and Orochons ; and with true Pharisaical scorn
added, " We are subjects of the Empire, and are baptized
and christened, but the Gilyaks and Orochons eat dogs."
It is true that the Gilyaks do eat their dogs, and even
sables, when driven to it in winter by starvation.
It was already long past the hour for camping, but our
" captain's " hopes were set on reaching Nivo. At about
8.30 p.m. we had passed the Strait of Ni and were opposite
the spot where the Russian police-officer, now departed, had
been encamped. As it was so late, I suggested we should
stop here, but to my amusement Yungkin replied in broken
Russian to the following effect, " Camp here ! Why, Nivo
is a great city {balshoy gorod), and there are many doubtful
characters on the outskirts, Tungus, Orochons and Gilyaks,
and they might kill you in the night." A half an hour
later we drew up in front of the "great city" of Nivo,
consisting of less than two dozen huts, dwellings which
would be reckoned miserable by the occupants of Irish
26o IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
hovels. At the usual signal, twelve pair of stalwart hands
were ready to haul up our canoe, and we strode up the
sands to meet the headman of the village, or, as my inter-
preter called him, the " Lord Mayor of the city of Nivo."
The " Mansion House " of the " Lord Mayor of Nivo,"
which I now entered in the usual humble fashion, was
rather larger than those we had seen hitherto, but in other
respects exactly similar. Outside, on either side of the
three-foot doorway, were two broad shelves sheltered by
an extension of the roof, and containing winter sledges
and all manner of tackle not required until later in the
year. Inside was a goodly gathering, some score, of
Gilyaks, who were to be our sleeping companions that
night. These comprised the starosta, his two wives, his
children and relatives, the latter including our Armunka,
who was a distant cousin.
The honoured place at the end of the hut, opposite the
door (the east end it happened to be in this case), was
reserved for me and my interpreter. Honourable as it
was, we took the precaution of sprinkling it freely with
iflsecticide, a proceeding in no way resented, and probably
not understood ; but when I came to shake a , cloth over
the fire, I was politely requested to refrain from an act
derogatory to Tur ni vookh, the lord of that element.
The importance that fire plays in the life of peoples
living in sub-arctic or arctic climes cannot be exaggerated.
It is small wonder, therefore, that the element which pro-
tects them in winter, and saves them from a diet of raw
and frozen food, should be elevated to the rank of a deity.
This protector is also a purifier, and to him they give
the bodies of their dead. Their loved ones vanish — depart
invisibly — and so they believe they may also return in-
visibly. Hence an added sacredness to the hearth. In
bygone times it was a sin to put out the fire. The
hostess on going to bed raked a small hole in the ashes,
and placed there the burning fuel, covering it up with
NIVO 261
more ashes. Thus the fire was conserved, and its con-
tinuity maintained. Even to-day I have seen this done,
though custom is less strict than it was. It is still a sin to
take even a spark from the fire outside of the hut, or to go
out of the hut with a pipe which has been lighted inside.
The headman of Nivo was counted rich among the
Gilyaks, his hut being littered with the weapons and pro-
duce of the chase. There were nets and snares, automatic
bows and arrows, bear-spears, strangely shaped knives,
seal-skins, dog-skins, as well as bark baskets, though of
a ruder make than those of the Orochons. Two other
objects attracted my special attention, one, a miniature of
the Tsar Alexander III, and the other, an old double-
barrelled fowling-piece mounted on a wooden biped, a
cumbersome affair, but used by these natives and the
Tungus in the winter hunts.
My rifle, which happened to be loaded, was a source of
keen interest, and the starosta, taking it up, began finger-
ing it, when it went off, fortunately over his shoulder and
hitting nobody ; but he was so astounded that he flung it
down, exclaiming, " It has a devil in it ! "
A greater witness to the wealth of this " Lord Mayor "
was the possession of two wives. Very few Gilyaks on
Sakhalin, perhaps two or three others, were wealthy
enough to have bought more than one wife. Polygamy
is no longer as common as it was, and this probably for
two reasons — the decline in the number of women, and the
growing poverty of the people. There are no adequate
statistics to which I can appeal in support of the first, but
evidence of the latter is met with at every turn. The
only censuses (informal) ever taken were the inquiries
of Mr. Sternberg in 1891 and 1895, among certain
villages on the west coast of Sakhalin ; where he found
that the population had increased from 1041 to 1049 i"
3J years, of which the increase of females was two and
of males six.
262 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
The Gilyaks treat their children remarkably well, and
though a girl is potential wealth, and will " fetch a wedding
price," the boy as an early bread-winner, or rather fish-
winner, is naturally of more account. The death-rate
among young children is, of course, very high. In the
villages on the west coast, north of Arkovo, Mr. Sternberg
gives the births in 3 J years as 130, out of which there were
34 deaths (in addition to 88 deaths among the older
persons), i.e. an average of more than 26 per cent. The
chief reason, however, of the decline in polygamy is more
probably growing poverty. A wife has to be bought, and
she is a moderately expensive article. Not that she is
an unremunerative investment, but few Gilyaks are in
a position to make the capital expenditure.
Dr. Schrenck, speaking of the Amur Gilyaks whom he
visited fifty years ago, says their word " to marry " {umgu
genicK) means "to buy a wife," and the value of the
articles given, such as bear-spears, kettles, boats, and dogs
amounts to large sums; in one case to as much as 310
rubles (31 guineas). The Sakhalin Gilyaks are much
poorer, and give a sledge with a team of dogs, or a
spear and two pieces of foreign stuffs. Sometimes an
additional arrangement obtains, where the husband, who,
unable to pay a handsome price, and in consideration of
the value of his wife as fish-cleaner and preparer, gives
his services to his father-in-law as hunter or fisherman
for one or two days in the season.
In olden times the Amur Gilyak bought slaves, who
were mostly Ainu women, but in both these practices of
polygamy and slavery the desire was not so much to
possess a harem as to have sufficient domestic help. In
one case it was to give the loved wife of his old age a
young and strong assistant.
The Gilyaks are not an incontinent race, and compare
very favourably with the Russian population of Sakhalin.
Of course there are individual exceptions, especially now
NIVO 263
that the pressing poverty prevents larger numbers of adult
males having their own establishments. Yungkin, our
" captain," had told us the very evening of our arrival at
Nivo that he was going ashore to steal a wife for the night.
We asked him if the husband would not object. " Oh,
perhaps. Yes ; he may slap her, but I shall give him
some tobacco." It is said that in earlier times cousins
(ru-er) had the juridic right of collective use of cousins,
and possibly some faint remembrance of this, sanctions
the more indiscriminate connexion of later days.
It is true that the wife works very hard, and, as with
all semi-wild and wild peoples, ages quickly ; yet among
the Gilyaks she by custom retains a certain independ-
ence ; and if objecting to her treatment, is free to divorce
herself and run away to her father, who cannot even be
called upon to refund the price originally paid him by her
husband.
Mr. Filsudski, whom I found to be a great and true
friend of the Gilyaks, tells how an intelligent member of
this tribe, whom he knew — one of those appointed as over-
seer by the Russian Government to track brodyagi — came
to him in difficulty one day about his wife. He had
migrated to a far-off village on the river Nabil* and
married. On the day that he arrived at Mr. P.'s hut,
his father-in-law accompanied him, and together they
told the story of the newly married wife's desertion and
elopement with another Gilyak to the Bay of Okhotsk.
This was hundreds of miles away, and Mr. P. was power-
less to do anything, and advised the young husband to
acquiesce in his fate, and let the wife live with the man
she loved ; but nothing would satisfy him save a paper
with writing upon it. He had seen such effect mighty
things ; buy (ruble notes) untold wealth, and bring about
the arrest of a criminal, and so he would have this magic.
* Which discharges on the east coast at a spot a few miles south
of the mouth of the Tim.
264 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
His importunity was such that at last Mr, P. gave him
a paper, on which he wrote, " It is not good to take away
he wife of another man." The Gilyak took the paper,
in an envelope, and went away; and afterwards on the
strength of this paper, the writing of which nobody in
the taiga could read, he got his wife back again.
Among the eighty-eight adults who died between 1891
and 1895 on the west coast, one was a young Gilyak
woman who hanged herself, because she had been given
in marriage to a man she disliked. Under this strange
wild exterior, this dirt-encased, skin-clad, unkempt, ill-
favoured form, we are startled by the "one touch of
nature ; " and yet the old, old songs of this people tell
mostly of such events — of the death of the disappointed
lovers, or of the impassioned appeal to the loved one.
Perhaps one day we may hope to have some of these
Gilyak lyrics from the pen of Mr. P. ; meanwhile, his kind-
ness enables me to give one here, and to tell the story of
another.
The usual motif of these lyrics is the betrothal of the
girl when young, and her subsequent violent and secret
attachment to another and youthful lover. If the mutual
passion is strong, then rather than become the wife of one
chosen by her parents for her, she and her lover will
commit suicide. This they do in the same manner, i.e.
by plunging a knife to the heart, or by strangling, since
those who thus kill themselves in the same way will be
together in heaven. There is one song, well known among
the Gilyaks, which tells how a young man loved a fair
maiden already betrothed in her childhood to another,
and how they agreed to commit suicide. This man, how-
ever, proved faithless, and not only did not fulfil his word,
but had never intended so to do. Until this day, it is said
the maiden's spirit has never ceased to upbraid him, calling
always, " Ah, you said you would kill yourself, and you
have not. You deceived me ! Men are liars ! "
NIVO 265
And to-day the reproachful tones of the cruelly de-
ceived maiden may be heard in the " swish of the sledge
and the howl of the dogs as the narta starts off" —
" You said you would kill yourself,
And you did not.
You are a deceiver !
Men are liars ! "
All Gilyaks, it is said, know the old, old songs, the epics
of their race, but with the lyrics it is otherwise, for they are
very numerous, and always being added to. These are
composed by the maidens of the tribe, who tell them to
their girl friends, and they again to the Gilyak world. It
may not be known who the authoress is, for that would be
considered a want of modesty. Sometimes one may be
heard to say, " There goes an old woman who made songs
in her youth ; " but it is not " good form." Woman's mission
is the manage. The Gilyak's notions of modesty are very
strict After they have passed the age of childhood
brothers and sisters are not allowed to speak to one
another. If the former attempted it, the latter would turn
away in injured modesty. The song that follows, which I
give in the original, with an English translation, reveals
the Gilyak maiden in quite another attitude. This is no
impassioned appeal, but a summary and cruel rejection of
her lover. She holds him up to ridicule in her song, pictur-
ing him as an owl. She will have none of his addresses,
and finishes with the words —
"Do not thou say of me
That thou art sorry for me."
i.e. admit that thou art unworthy of me, and cease to say
thou lovest me.
266 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
GILYAK MAIDEN'S SONG.*
Cheu zyau naklyo
Chakh pop chihro tivra
Chiziyon ihrirsh
Hiti tan chera.
Cheu zyau naklyo
Pyalin yaliun kahre
Siati kshi akh tivra
Nyoliyo kharra
Kat kbit lyo ne
Tarukh mindre.
Nyatin hosko pshtchazinko intint
Finenko tehre
Cheu zyau nonko
Ni fat shtchiv shtchivra
Chiziyon ihrirsh
Osiukh tokra
Chikh pokhitra.
Mkhilyan kut chinta
Msha kin vulke
Alif cheu mumko
Mkhilyan kanen nazlyo
Alif ziumpru
Nas char khiti
Chiziyon ihra
Cheu zyau naklyo
Ken oska khainkyo
Teni nav kharra
Nyokl visha khitlyo.
Finenko tehre
Ta ni lier itiya
Nerakh pefin tar itikh.
* The remarks on the pronunciation at the beginning of this book
apply also to the transliteration of this song.
NIVO 267
(TRANSLATION.)
The owl bird
Sat on top of a barkless tree
Hooting and trembling
And bending down.
Tiie owl bird raises his head and cries,
For various things he asks ;
On the end of Cape Siata he sat
Wrinkled up
And featherless,
From his forehead mud runs down.
Oh unhappy I ! I look round myself,
I am sorry for myself,
The owlet
Sat on my knees,*
Hooting and trembling ;
He lifts up
His head (all) white.
In a boat I saw thee,
On a level with the edge,
But the boat was without prow ;
A long whip (lay)
Across the bow,
I raised the whip
And cried,
" Owl bird.
Thy face is against the sun, and therefore
Wrinkled
Is thy high forehead."
I am sorry for myself,
But do not thou say of me
That thou art sorry for me.
• She is distressed because, in her mind's eye, she sees him come
and sit beside her or on her knees.
268 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
The meaning is not everywhere clear, and the tempta-
tion to read more into it than was intended is one that has
to be resisted. There is no doubt of her withering scorn.
Her disappointed lover is described as featherless (bald),
and with mud running down his forehead ; and, again, as
peevish in his cries for " various things."
In the third verse (the divisions are mine) she breaks
into her plaint, apparently because his attentions make
her miserable, and he persists in sitting down beside her,
whereupon she strikes a note of contempt in her epithet of
" owlet," or fledgeling.
Another picture rises without warning before us in the
fourth verse. It is like a child's story made up on the
spur of the moment. She is in a boat, a canoe apparently
(without prow), and a whip, a long dog's whip the words
imply, lies on the prow. Then she cries, "Thy face is
against the sun, and therefore wrinkled is thy high forehead,"
and one is tempted to see in them a warning to the suitor
that he looks too high — he, a denizen of the night, aspiring
to the sunlight of her countenance. But I think it is more
probable that the maiden authoress, having kept up her
metaphor so long, has at length slid off into narrative, and
drawn a picture from memory's portfolio.
A young man on marrying may make his home with
his father ; but if he be still in the single state and desire a
hut of his own, he must marry, for it is more than infra dig.
for him to do domestic work. For a Gilyak to take in his
hand the woman's fish-knife {ungu-dzkakko) is considered
a disgrace.
On Sakhalin, when the would-be husband — not the old
man who buys a second wife thirteen years old to assist
his ageing spouse — but the youth who aspires to set up
housekeeping, is in possession of wealth enough to pay the
price demanded, he is still confronted by a difficulty
if he wishes to have a separate establishment. He
may be content to live on in the paternal home, or, if
NIVO 269
not, he will probably be able to get his friends and
comrades to help him build a hut ; but this is not enough,
a cauldron is required, and this is a very expensive- item.
He may have to pay in skins the value of forty-five rubles
(4h guineas). I have even heard of them costing sixty
rubles. This was the difficulty with our Vanka, who was
a capable young man of fifteen, according to his own
estimate, but according to our notions about twenty-six or
twenty-eight. He was desirous of marrying, and offered to
take me and my interpreter during the following summer
to the " end of the world," with the aid of three of his
companions, for the moderate charge of forty rubles
apiece. With this sum he would be able to buy a cauldron,
and he had already saved sufficient for the purchase of a
wife. The offer was certainly reasonable, and one which
compares favourably with Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son's
"Round the World Tours ! " Indeed, contrasted with Vanka's
projected tour, I find Messrs. Cook & Son distinctly wanting
in enterprise and adventure. So far as I in my " lettered "
ignorance could ascertain, the end of the world is away
north, but how we were to reach it in the cockle-shells
of the Tim or Tro Gilyaks, I left to those who could
talk familiarly of what was hidden from the President of
the Royal Geographical Society himself, and to the great
Tol ni vookh, who had already looked with favour upon us.
There were legends which seemed to indicate that Cape
Maria (or Cape Elizabeth), in the extreme north of the
island, was regarded as the " end of the world." We heard
of " black men who were cannibals," * but beyond them and
their country, Vanka assured us lay our goal. The Gilyak
canoe seemed a poor sea-going craft, and the ignorance of
the stars shown by the natives stamped them as a land
race. On the other hand, they were noted for their
♦ What the origin of this report about black men was I do not
know, but in the old legends the Gilyak hero is often represented as
slaying his opponent and eating him.
270 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
excellent orientation in the dark. From Vanka we could
get no information about the moon, and so I asked if
he knew anything about the man in it. No, his father
had told him something about him once, but he had for-
gotten, and, though he knew he was there, he really couldn't
tell if he were a bad man, condemned to live there, or a
good man.
The cauldron plays an important part, not only in the
everyday domestic economy, but at the very threshold of
the new joint life — at the marriage ceremony itself. At
least, this is so among some of the clans on Sakhalin.
No religious function, as we understand it, graces the
occasion ; only a simple custom, which appears as a tradi-
tional sanction to this important departure in the Gilyak's
family life.
The payment having been made without formality to
the bride's father, a feast is prepared in his hut, to which
the bridegroom comes with his friends, bringing a new
Japanese cauldron. The marriage feast is then cooked in
this new vessel, and eaten with rejoicing, for the eating
together is part of the necessary function. This ended, the
two cauldrons, the new one and that pertaining to the hut,
are both cleaned and placed by the bridegroom's kindred
in front of the bride, who, with her partner, is standing with
her back turned to the fire, and face to the door of the hut.
She then places her left foot in the new vessel and her right
in the paternal, or rather maternal, cauldron, the two being
placed one step apart. The bridegroom then moves them
one by one, a step at a time, until the bride reaches the
door. Here the couple take up their own and go to their
new hut, amid the acclamations of their kindred.
We have already seen how sacred the hearth is to the
Gilyak, and in the rites adopted at the lying-in-state of a
deceased woman, her intimate relation and duty towards
Tur ni vookh, the god of fire. Even as the fire is her
rightful domain, so is the cauldron her special care, and
NIVO 271
hers alone ; not even her daughters may interfere in this
her private and sacred sphere. She alone has the right
of putting on the cauldron ; this is her right as hostess.
Whatever the putting of the feet into the cauldrons may
symbolize, the fact that the bride does it to both the
maternal and the new one evidently witnesses for the first
time to her equality with her mother, her rightful position
as a hausfrau and head of her own domestic establish-
ment Henceforth her status is also guaranteed among
her husband's kindred.
On the following morning I proceeded to barter at
Nivo for native snares {yu-ru), belts {vi-bu-is), with gun-
powder, skin-flask, shot-horn, flint and steel pouch, etc., and
what I was assured was, the marriage trousseau of one
of the " Lady Mayoresses," the elder wife of our host.
She was very astute, and drove a hard bargain, but I
succeeded in getting her seal-skin coat, a handsome gar-
ment having a pattern worked in by the employment of
different shades of skin, her fur gloves, and a Manchurian
silk wadded hat, which was probably in her younger days
the envy of all her friends.
The shubi, or fur coats of the men and women, are
often alike and taken in mistake by either, but the women
prefer seal-skin and the men dog-skin. Probably this is
because the former seldom go far from their huts, and it is
hot and inconvenient to have a great furry coat on (the
hair is worn outside) during domestic duties rather than a
light and smooth seal-skin. The woman's hat {hakk-fisakk)
is not unlike a sun-bonnet in shape, but has three lappets,
two for the ears and one for the coiffure, which is done up
prettily with rings in two pigtails. This shape of hat has
the advantage of protecting the ears from the cold, and yet
being easily removed without catching the earrings and
tearing the ears. Earrings {meskk) are in general use, and
mostly of Japanese and Chinese make. They are large
simple rings of silver, of one and a half or more inches in
2/2 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
diameter, with an agate or two. These, with the rare silk
brocade, sable-skin hats, shubi, and shoes are regarded as
family heirlooms. They are bought one after the other
with the surplus " wealth " of the Gilyak family, and repre-
sent the capital of the hut. A bundle of paper-money or
a heap of silver pieces has little attraction for the native,
whereas a sable-skin shuba or a piece of sky-blue silk is a
" thing of beauty and a joy for ever." Moreover, they are
just as useful in the business of exchange ; and the native,
long used to dealing in the concrete, knows exactly their
value, whereas money is unfamiliar ; and when he comes in
his travels to a Russian store, he has no standard by which
to measure the value of his ruble notes.
The reader would sympathize with his position if he
suddenly found himself dropped down in a Korean village
on the day of a fair with a pocketful of" cash." In such case
he might congratulate himself on having only paid double
the market value of his purchases. Hence it was that in
dealing with the Gilyaks and Orochons, we found that
they would ask much more in money than in goods from
us, and that our advantage lay in bartering.
The younger wife of our host was considered the belle
of all the Gilyaks, but I will let the reader judge of her
claims to beauty from the accompanying illustration, in
which she is represented playing a musical instrument.
Vanka, who claimed to be a cousin of hers, had brought
this forth from the recesses of the hut, and both he and she
played upon it. It is now in my possession ; but I must
confess the music appealed more to the imagination than
the ear, for when played with the tongue or even the hand
it was with difficulty we could hear it. It consists of one
string of fish-gut, strung along a stick and over a cylindrical
piece of birch bark ; and it goes by the scarcely euphonious
name of tin-kirn. Other musical instruments are a little
wooden Jew's harp called a kanga ; a small bag of fish-
skin stretched tightly on to a circular piece of wood like a
il \
NIVO 273
drumhead, containing bones which are rattled ; and the
fish-skin tambourine already mentioned.
At this village of Nivo, which with Chaivo is the best
known on the east coast, we heard much of the " good old
times," and the latter-day degeneration of the Gilyaks,
both in physique and in numbers. Yungkin told how they
used to be " big and strong as giants, but now were small,
short, and dry"
In explanation of this the Russians accuse them of
being lazy, and according to our notions there is a good
deal in the accusation. A Gilyak may be found sitting by
a river teeming with fish ; he has made a catch and wants
no more, yet before winter is over his stores will have
given out. For this state of things habit and tradition are
responsible. It would savour of greediness, and perhaps
even of distrust of Tol ni vookh, to exceed the usual custom.
" The Great Spirit does not wish us to catch so many "
is the reply to the stranger's inquiry. And probably in the
olden time such dependence on Providence was not mis-
placed, when their hunting-grounds and the wild denizens
thereof were practically limitless. It is said that twenty
years ago a Gilyak would spear, during spawning-time,
300 kita in a day, whereas now he secures but eighty.
After all, regrettable as it is, the decline of the race
must be attributed to contact with the white man. The
immediate result of the latter's presence has been the
curtailment of the native hunting preserves ; and though
it is true that the Russians have, outside of their main
settlements, made little impression on the taiga, yet the
best fishing-grounds, e.g. the river Tim and the west coast,
have naturally attracted the white man, and in so far
limited the possibilities of the Gilyak fishery. Then the
clearings, and especially the fires — in some cases carelessly
left to spread destruction — have naturally driven off or
destroyed the wild game and restricted it to smaller
compass.
T
274 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Some of their elders told us that " before the Russians
came there were plenty of bears, sables, and reindeer, but
since they arrived and burnt the woods the rich had
become poor. In those days the poor man could go into
the taiga as the rich man to-day" {j,.e. with as large a
following of helpers and as many snares to collect
from).
An example of the way in which the proximity of the
Russians incidentally renders the conditions of life harder
is seen in the feeding of the Gilyak dogs. These cannot
always be allowed their liberty, and the fiercer ones are
tied up, lest they should attack the cattle of Russian neigh-
bours— a certain casus belli. Accustomed to feed them-
selves the dogs have now to be fed, and their master's
winter stores naturally give out sooner. To avoid this the
natives migrate further afield to less favourable fishing-
grounds.*
The older Gilyaks say that during their time, and their
fathers' before them, but one famine had occurred before
the Russians came, about eighty years ago, but since then
there have been many repetitions. In the winter and early
spring of 1896, and again of 1897, there were successive
bad times, and around Rikovsk special assistance had to
be given to the natives by the authorities. In 1898,
a wet autumn prevented the accumulation of the usual
stores of dried fish, and was followed by another very bad
winter. The worthy ex-overseer at Derbensk, in whose
hut we had stayed, was on duty down the Tim during
that year. So terrible was the state of things that he found
" one or more dying in every hut," and in the hope of
stemming the tide of disease following on the ravages
of famine, he took upon himself the responsibility of giving
away the Crown stores ; but in most cases it was already
too late, and large numbers died of the grippe. The filthy
* Dr. Pogaevsky, in a report on the food of the GilyaJc, in the local
and official Sakhalin Kalendar, 1899.
NIVO 275
condition of the huts, and the accumulations of winter,
aggravated the effects of the ravages of disease and the
exposure to the severities of the climate.
Such a state of things presses hardly on the children,
and accounts for the high rate of mortality among them.
There being no statistics of the early years of Russian
occupation, we can only gather from tradition and the
shrinking of villages and from isolated statistics of recent
years, the gradual diminution of the Gilyak race on
Sakhalin.
The figures already quoted show, for the population of
the Gilyak villages lying between Arkovo and Cape Maria
on the west coast, the miserable increase of ^§- per cent, or
scarcely i per cent., per annum.
Lung and throat diseases and scurvy accounted for
most of the deaths among the older people, but four died
from accident, of whom one was frozen, another drowned,
one already mentioned hanged herself, and another was
beaten to death by her husband.
Coughs, colds, and pulmonary complaints are very
prevalent, and the methods of healing scarcely adequate.
For a sore throat, a concoction of moshun-tomash (field
camomile) is swallowed, and for inflammation of the lungs,
a diluted exusion from the fungi of trees is drunk in place
of tea.
Whether these herbal remedies are dictated by experi-
ence and the Gilyak knowledge of medicinal herbs, which
is said to be considerable, or is anything more than Sham-
anistic lore and a series of charms, I cannot say. The
treatment adopted for other ailments, such as toothache,
swellings, earache, and ulcer, is certainly of the latter kind.
For the first they apply some of the down of a hazel-grouse
(Tetrao bonasid) to the cheek ; for the second and third, the
squirrel's tail (plf-rega) and a piece of its ear (tul-noss)
are respectively tied to the parts affected ; and for the last,
gazhu, i.e. a piece of a wasp's nest, is placed on the ulcer.
276 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Many of the peoples of these northern climes make
intoxicating beverages, as for instance the Yakuts, who
manufacture a spirit from toadstools. The Gilyaks may
be considered an exception. There is, however, a decoc-
tion, but little heard of, made by them from the " burrs "
of birch-trees. These exude a black juice so strong that
a piece of the wood, of the size of a lump of sugar, is
sufficient to make a big cauldron of the beverage. The
decoction is sweet to the taste, and has a welcome softening
effect on the organs of respiration.
To-day Russian vodka, though prohibited by the
Government, is eagerly sought after and frequently
obtained.
CHAPTER XV
FROM NIVO TO IRR KIRR
An aristocrat — ^A party intent on buying a bear — Five irodya^i on our
path — A memorable escape — A two months' campaign — Canni-
balism— Migration of birds — Seal added to the menu — Tol ni
•vookk delivers us — Tracking a bear — ^A winter duel with Bruin —
Reindeer hunting in the buran.
FROM Nivo a start was made with our river crew,
Vanka and Armunka, to ascend the Tim. Both
had been ostentatiously pleased to welcome us
back, but when we came to pack I found Armunka averse
from helping. I remonstrated with him for leaving to
Vanka all the work, save what little I and my interpreter
were doing, but to no effect ; so going up to him I took
him by the shoulders and shook him. I was really angry,
and only refrained from boxing his ears at the request of
Vanka, and from doubt of the attitude of the dozen
Gilyaks who were looking on. Vanka good naturedly
apologized for his companion, explaining that he had been
making merry and the effect had not yet worn off. There
was, however, more than this in it ; and we were consider-
ably amused to learn later that Armunka was, as we
should say, of independent means, came of an aristocratic
family ; and therefore his pride of ancestry at times asserted
itself, and he refused to do menial service ! It was several
days later when we arrived at his home in the village
of Irr Kirr, but in vain I looked around for the paternal
acres, the vast estates of this Gilyak peer. The hut was
277
278 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
comparatively small and rather bare. I must do him
justice, however, for there was no doubt of his being
a great hunter. During the previous year he had killed
three bears and captured two, which had brought him
honour, and would gain him wealth.
It was with much opposition that I finally got the
canoe started. The sea was rough in the bay, "white
horses " still crested its surface, and rain had been threaten-
ing all day. Our host, with the wisdom of a weather
prophet, foretold our upset, and even Vanka all but point-
blank refused to start. And here I will confess that when
our frail craft danced in the midst of seething waters, I
began to ask myself if I had been foolhardy. Personally
I ran little risk, for I could swim ; but my interpreter and
the natives could not, and I had no right to endanger
their lives. Again, however. Fortune smiled on us, and we
gained at length the sheltered channel of the delta with no
more than a little water shipped, Vanka having wisely tied
down all the baggage by means of our tent canvas. At
the mouth of the river, on the islands of the delta, huge
logs of driftwood lay piled up like lazy giants waiting for
the floods to wake them to action. Choosing the deepest
channel we got into the main stream, and proceeded for
two or three miles before the sun set and forced us to
camp in the swamps.
Scarcely had we disembarked when a boat, impelled by
four pairs of sculls and a paddle astern, hove in sight. It
was a party of Gilyaks from Nivo going up to Derbensk
to buy a bear. The purchase-money was not in their
purses, indeed had they possessed them it would have
been somewhat difficult to get it in, for the price proposed
was one dog, a piece of Chinese silk, and some tobacco.
We were somewhat surprised at their arrival, for we had
not heard of their intention before, and I guessed that
they had not been quite ready, and this had been partly
the cause of their anxiety to delay us. It was evident
FROM NIVO TO IRR KIRR 279
that they wished to accompany us ; whether for their own
protection or, in accordance with secret instructions from
the police-officer, for ours, we knew not. The reason of this
move was a message delivered to us at Nivo by Vanka, and
sent to the starosta there through natives, by the police. It
was to the effect that five convicts had escaped (I believe
three really had escaped, and the other two had joined them
from a settlement), of whom three had managed to obtain
two soldiers' guns and a Winchester rifle, besides revolvers.
At the same time our Gilyaks were given permission to
shoot any Russian who approached our camp.
We welcomed the appearance of these five natives, for
in view of the possibility of a surprise, we had resolved to
take it in turns to keep watch at night. A few days later
the police-officer himself, whom we overtook, gave us more
details about these five hrodyagi, who, he said, were bent
on murdering our hosts the prospectors, or failing them
the Vanderbilts, i.e. the Orochon brothers Fizik, or the
captains of the Japanese brigs, all of whom were in
possession of stores. The Japanese captains had evidently
been warned, for their schooners, instead of riding in the
bay, had anchored in the strait when we passed them
on the evening of our arrival at Nivo.
Since the river Tim afforded the only route for the
outlaws, we must either meet or pass.
As with most of those who escape from the prisons,
these men were bent on reaching the north of the island,
beyond the cordons of soldiers, and getting across from
Cape Pogobi to the mainland. On the small chance of
their ultimate escape I have already enlarged ; but of the
comparatively large numbers who in summer make a bid
for freedom and are roaming at large on the island the
reader can have but little conception.
The importance of this factor, the brodyaga, in checking
the development of the resources of the island, and
rendering hard and insecure the lot of those who try to
28o IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
live a decent and thrifty life, can be gauged from the
following narrative. It is a story often told by the camp-
fire or at the evening meal in Sakhalin, but I give it
unabridged, at the risk of confusing the reader with the
names of insignificant places, in the exact words (trans-
lated) of the report of the Military Governor of Sakhalin
to his superior officer, the Governor-general of the Amur
district, a report which I need hardly say was not intended
to fall into my hands. Were it not for this unimpeachable
authority, such a state of things as is described, added to
the fear of the authorities lest a general uprising was at
hand, would seem impossible.
"In the summer of 1896, from the prisons of Rikovsk
and Alexandrovsk, nine convicts ran away, of whom two
were Russians, Krevenko and Vergulenko, and the other
seven, Caucasian mountaineers. Although they escaped
at different times, yet somewhere they joined forces and
became one gang, turning up in the Timovsk okrug neax
the Bay of Patience, where for 200 versts along the coast
are Japanese fishing-stations.* , 7
" As from the regiment at Korsakovsk very few soldiers ■■
could be spared, two patrols of five men each were
despatched. One of these was at Tikmenev, t 300 versts
from Korsakovsk, and the other at Manue, midway
between the two. The brodyagi came without hindrance,
by the cleared track from Onor, to Nay-ero, near to
Tikmenev, unaware of the patrol there, and were captured
before they could offer any resistance.
" On July 27 (o.S.) the convoy started with a guard
for Korsakovsk. The sub-ofiicer, Kuyat, who had but
four soldiers under him, appointed three of these, with
six 'exile-settlers,' five of whom had shot-guns, to form
the guard. By July 29 the convoy had safely reached"'
Salutora, a distance of sixty versts. Here they had a day's
* Occupied by the Japanese during summer,
t At the mouth of the Poronai river.
FROM NIVO TO IRR KIRR 281
rest, and the six ' exile-settlers ' were replaced by six from
Salutora, but these had only three shot-guns. On
July 3 1 they started again, and had proceeded for twelve
versts along the shore when the vagabonds, observing that
the soldiers' and exiles' watch was not strict, suddenly made
a concerted attack on their guard ; the convict Vergulenko
wrenching from the hands of an ' exile-settler ' his gun, and
shooting fatally a soldier, Dumnitsky. Another vagabond
seized the gun of the dead soldier and killed the exile
Kartovich, whereupon the other exiles ran away, leaving
the remaining two soldiers to combat the nine brodyagi.
In this unequal fight the soldier Liuchetsky received a
terrible blow from an oar. which rendered him unconscious,
his gun dropping from his hand before he had fired. The
last soldier, Vilzhus, was dreadfully beaten by the vaga-
bonds, and left unarmed. Having thus freed themselves,
the brodyagi cut the telegraph-wire between Salutora and
Korsakovsk, and being now in possession of three single-
barrelled rifles, with twenty-three military cartridges and
two shot-guns, they made an attack, on the evening of the
same day, on the Japanese fishermen at the village of
Kaspuchi. Here the gang killed one Japanese, wounded
another, and, beating many others, made off with their big
boat, with a view of getting away to a Japanese island * or
joining a pirate vessel. They failed, however, in this
attempt, for a great storm sprang up, and they found them-
selves cast ashore once more at Kaspuchi. The robber
band now disappeared with their Japanese loot, into the
taiga. Meanwhile the two wounded soldiers, Liuchetsky
and Vilzhus, having recovered consciousness, crawled
wearily back to Salutora, where their wounds were bound
up. Later on, a doctor, sent from Korsakovsk, was able to
put them on the road to recovery. The soldiers remaining
at Tikmenev (two), and the five at Manue, and some on
guard at the yacht Emilia, belonging to the merchants
* Yezo, or one of the Kuriles.
282 IN THE UTTERMOST 1EAST
Semeinov & Co., when they received word of what had
happened, joined as one company, and despatched five of
their party, four privates under the command of one
Skipchik.
" On August 3 they came upon the Japanese fishing-
station of Kaspuchi, which had been attacked ; and on
the next day followed up the track of the brodyagi into
the taiga. These they found about four versts distant
encamped on an inaccessible {sic) mountain, the sides of
which were densely covered with trees of one hundred
years' growth. Nevertheless, the party gave attack, and
the vagabonds ran, leaving all their booty behind them ;
but not without wounding two of their assailants. This
necessitated the party returning to Salutora, there to
deposit their wounded.
" On August 5 two of the vagabonds, Krevenko
and Vergulenko, gave themselves up, and the latter con-
fessed * that he had killed the soldier Dumnitsky. On the
same day also arrived the district doctor, Sorminsky, to
give aid to the wounded ; the officer Okula Khulak to
make an investigation ; and Lieutenant Merzhanov (of a
Kazak regiment) with a company of six soldiers.
" On the 8th another company of six soldiers was sent
as reinforcements from Korsakovsk,t and was posted at
Mogun-kotan % (forty-six versts from Salutora).
"To Lieutenant Merzhanov were given the following
orders : —
{a) to take under his command all the companies of
soldiers on the east coast of Sakhalin ;
' Probably under terrible beating.
f Evidently the authorities at the chief place of the district were
getting anxious lest the gang should direct their next attack upon it,
and the convicts should rise.
X This, like most of the place names on the Bay of Patience, is of
Ainu nomenclature. Kotan is the Ainu for village. There is a sug-
gestive likeness in this word to the Manchu khotun, which means
a city, e.g. Kirin ula khotun is the city of the river Kirin.
FROM NIVO TO IRR KIRR 283
{b) to track the brodyagi ;
(c) to protect from robbery the Japanese fisheries ;
(d) to prevent damage to the telegraph-wire ;
(fi) to protect persons sent to repair it.
He had under his command four companies, numbering in
all twenty-one men. With so small a force to follow the
vagabonds, to protect the coast-line for 2CX) versts, and
at the same time to keep guard over the two convicts
already arrested, was a difficult undertaking. Notwith-
standing that the Korsakovsk regiment had reduced its
number on guard, and all those on domestic service, it had
no power to send more reinforcements, therefore orders
were given * to add to the strength of the companies by
sending exiles and Ainus, who were to do ' second-rate '
field service. At the same time the chief of the Timovsk
district was ordered to send a company from Onor to
Tikmenevsk Post (Tikmenev).
" But as yet, before the companies had been able to
effect a junction, the gang had robbed a Japanese store-hut
near the fishing-station of Veng-kotan ; and on August 8,
at II p.m., had made an assault on the Japanese
fishery, Sung-kotan. Here they met with a repulse by the
little company under Lieutenant Merzhanov, who had
hurried to the spot ; but succeeded in making good their
escape into the taiga.
"After this the gang, hard pressed by the soldiers, were
seen in several spots on the east coast between Salutora
and Nay-ero, but they did not risk any more attacks on
the Japanese fisheries.
" On August 22, at two versts' distance from Nay-ero,
the soldiers came upon the gang in a dark corner of
the forest. It was a black night, and under cover of it
the brodyagi fled, but not without wounding two of their
pursuers, a Kazak, Buburikin, and an Ainu. These two
were sent to Salutora, where the regimental doctor, Sakalov,
* By the Military Governor.
284 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
attended to them. The gang, which was by such perti-
nacious following prevented from committing robberies
among the Japanese fishermen, now abandoned the sea-
coast and made for the north towards Onor j on the way
making an assault on Dal, a station thirty-five versts from
Nay-ero, containing only two inhabitants, an overseer and
a watchman, who were convicts from Korsakovsk prison.
The vagabonds had already set fire to the fuel which they
had placed around the habitation when they were overtaken
by Lieutenant Merzhanov and his company, but made good
their escape to the north again. On the following day the
lieutenant and his company continued the pursuit for
thirty-five versts to the ' village ' of Khoy, one of those
destitute of inhabitants and stores. Further the soldiers,
quite exhausted and without provisions, could not go, and,
having rested here one day, they returned.
" On August 25, by order of the Military Admin-
istration, six soldiers were despatched from Rikovsk with
extreme speed. By the evening of the 28th they had
reached the village of Hamdasa the Second, a distance of
100 versts. The vagabonds, ignorant of these movements,
made a night attack on the prison store of that very
village, which was defended by the soldiers. During
the operations one of the gang was killed. To bring the
matter to an end * two more companies of six soldiers
each were despatched on August 29, one to the village
of Taulan and the other to Palivo. Six days later, on
September $, the brodyagi, unaware of the presence of
the soldiers, attacked the village of Taulan, and were
repelled with a loss of one killed, one severely wounded,
and two taken prisoners, the remaining two disappearing,
with their guns, into the taiga.
"Ten days later, on September 15, these two vaga-
bonds reached the river Pilinga in the Alexandrovsk
district, where is a summer-hut. Here they suddenly
* And to forestall an attack on Rikovsk.
H<— ahj *f<>
FROM NIVO TO IRR KIRR 285
and unexpectedly met two soldiers, sent to kill a bear
in the neighbourhood. A fight ensued, in which one
brodyaga was severely wounded and succumbed to his
injuries,* and the other escaped into the taiga. At the
end of three days he was caught." The report ends here,
but the last of such a notorious band was no doubt
hanged.
Three years before this the road between Rikovsk and
Onor was the scene of tragic events, which even found
echo in England. Though the reports which reached the
London papers, of the processions of corpses of convicts
and horrible cruelties practised, were exaggerated, yet
the circumstances of the case were bad enough. Two
hundred convicts were ordered in the summer of 1892 to
make this road through the taiga. Unfortunately for
them and their guards it was not only the taiga but the
tundra which had to be penetrated, for the track was to
follow the Poronai river, which flows through a wide, level
and swampy valley. Large numbers of the gang died of
dysentery and fever, and starvation followed in their wake ;
for unexpected falls of rain rendered the swamps impass-
able and cut off parties from their base of supplies.
Towards the end of the following summer three of the
party, who could bear the privations no longer, planned an
escape into the taiga. In this they succeeded, but it was
only to prove for them a change for the worse. For many
days they eluded their pursuers, but in so doing got deeper
into the primaeval forest and found it more and more
difficult to get sustenance ; so that when two of the three
were ultimately captured, there was little doubt that they
had been driven, in their extremity, to kill and eat their
comrade. One of them was found to have a human bone
in his pouch, but already his mind had been unhinged by
his awful experience, and it was impossible to tell from his
own account whether their companion had died or whether
* Probably severely beaten by his assailant after the struggle.
286 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
they had murdered him. His insanity saved his life, and
he was put under treatment, and to this day goes by the
name of Vasiliv the Cannibal. The illustration is from a
photograph taken after his arrest. The other, Kalenik by
name, was sentenced to ninety-nine strokes of the plet,
from which he died.
As a rule, the convicts on Sakhalin are of a dull and
heavy type, absolutely wanting in power of organization ;
and it says much for these hardy Caucasian mountaineers
that they were able to avoid capture by their pursuers for
five or six weeks. Many are longer at large than this, but
being in twos or threes, are better able to find sufficient
supplies and to avoid the attentions of the trackers. They
are also not the object of extraordinary military tactics.
Our new acquaintances, the five Gilyaks who had just
joined us, camped alongside in Orochon tents. Whether
the Orochons had learnt to make these, as was reported, or
whether they in their turn obtained them from the Japanese
or Manchus, I do not know. They were tiny erections of
light drill, not more than three or four feet high and
shaped like a square marquee. A long stake was thrust
obliquely into the ground, and from this hung the tent, as
if it were a diving bell, the corners being tied to a bear-
spear, paddle, etc. How two or three people slept in this
without getting asphyxiated, I cannot explain.
I and my companion were secure from such a fate, as
our construction hardly merited even the name of a
shelter, and that night a hail-storm, followed by a keen
wind from the Okhotsk Sea, swept into it. The discomfort
of getting up at 6 a.m. to face a cold biting wind, with no
more clothes to put on, is something the ordinary dweller
in civilized places cannot readily realize, but an experience
even more unpleasant followed in sitting with limbs stiff
and " dead " for six long hours at the bottom of a canoe,
facing the wind and longing for gleams of sunshine to thaw
even one's hands.
VASILI\", 1 HI I WNin \l .
I /;>/;/,-,■/,/;'. 2S6.
FROM NIVO TO IRR KIRR 287
That night snow fell ; winter with its brusque manners
in these parts had suddenly arrived to stay, at least on this,
the east, side of the island. The mountains had put on their
white caps, and would refuse to doff them until July of
the following year. The next morning opened, however,
quite still though cold. Our larder was in a poor state
again, our tinned food was exhausted, and we had only
scraped along by the aid of a duck shot the day before and
the brick-like remains of a loaf of black bread given us by
the prospectors. Now, as Vanka put it, the wild ducks
had driven away south.
The autumn migration of birds takes place rather later
on Sakhalin than it does on the mainland. Travellers, like
Prjevalsky, and observers, such as Mr. Seebohm and Mr.
Harvie-Brown, have left us records of the passage of birds
in spring and autumn to and from Siberia over the Mongo-
lian sandy wastes. The feathered inhabitants who spend
their summer on Sakhalin have no vast waterless plains to
traverse, and no long detours in order to keep track, where
possible, of river valleys. Their journey is short because
they winter for the most part in Japan or China ; and
simple because the long backbone of Sakhalin is an un-
failing guide, and provides them with mountain torrents
by the way.
But by this time — the end of September — the bulk
of the avifaunal inhabitants had already departed for
southern climes. The ducks, the mallard (Anas boschas),
the harlequin duck {Clangula histrionica), and the golden
eye (C. glaucion) ; the teals, the garganey teal (Anas quer-
queduld), the Baikal teal {A.querq.formosd), and the crested
teal {A.falcota), which are to be shot in Ni Bay and up the
Tim, had been almost the last to go, and we sighted a
few and shot a mallard three or four days' journey up
the river. Gone was the hooper swan (jCygnus musicus),
whose cries had sometimes disturbed our rest at night.
Among the Gilyaks this feathered friend goes by the
288 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
onomatopoetic name of kikkik. The bean goose (Anser
segetum, Middendorfii), of which we had seen several
flocks on our outward journey, had also departed, for he,
like the ducks, winters in Japan or China.
Perhaps the earliest departing guest had been the
cuckoo {Cticulus canorus), called by the Gilyaks rik.
Having a long journey before him to the Southern hemi-
sphere, we never saw him, and indeed he is rather a rare
visitor to Sakhalin. If the cuckoo was the earliest the
snow bunting {Plectrophanes nivalis) is about the latest to
leave. Between the two limits a variety of smaller birds
take their flight southwards, most of which had already
set out. The sand martins {Cotile riparid) had gone ere
we commenced our journey, the wagtails {Motacilla lugens
and taivand) had flown since, and we saw neither the
white-rumped swift {Cypselus pacificus) nor the needle-
tailed variety {Chaetura caudacutd), which are certainly
uncommon on the Tim. The brambling {Fringilla mon-
tifringilld), the bullfinch {Pyrrhula rosacea), and many
other of the smaller birds had left, including the Japanese
lark {Alauda japonicd), the Siberian ruby-throated robin
{Erithacus calliope), and the whistling robin {E. sibilans).
We missed also, on our return, the eastern turtle dove
(Turtur orientalis), which the Gilyaks call the tu tut.
A few stragglers such as the Japanese wren {Troglo-
dytes fumigatus), the long-tailed titmouse {Acredula cau-
data), the red-throated and the eastern tree pipits {Anthus
cervinus and maculatus), and the dusky ouzel (Merula
fuscata) linger behind the main bodies.
Comparatively speaking, the forests seemed birdless,
and only a very occasional white-tailed eagle {Halietus
albicillus), staying behind to fish in the upper reaches of
the Tim, a solitary owl {Syrnium uralense), or a passing
crow {Corvus corone), was seen or heard.
Deep in the forest, if one ventured to follow up the
tracks of some wild animal, those nomads, rather than
FROM NIVO TO IRR KIRR 289
migrants, as Mr. Charles Dixon would call them, the
grouse family, were still to be found at home. We saw the
hazel gro\ise(Tetrao bonasia), the capercailzie {T. urogallus),
but not the willow grouse {Lagopus albus) though it is
also found there.
Our larder suffered in consequence of the departure of
ducks, snipe, and geese ; but we could still fall back upon a
cup of boiled rice, and that same morning saw another,
though scarcely tasty, addition to the menu. The other
canoe with its crew of five had been keeping just ahead of
us for some time, when they signalled to us to heave to and
keep quiet Evidently they had seen something, and we
watched them closely. First they paddled ashore and
landed one of their number with a gun, who clambering on
to the rush-covered bank and creeping as best he could
along the edge, was lost to sight higher up. Suddenly the
report of a gun sounded in our ears, followed by the plash
of the oars as they gripped the water, and the long but
quickening strokes as the canoe raced forward to catch the
prey.
We followed at a slower pace, and found them hauling
in the carcase of a seal {Phoca vitulina). It had been lying
asleep on a snag when sighted, and so soundly that they
had wisely risked delay in order to make sure of a shot
from terra firma.
Our supper was assured for that day, though we
scarcely expected to find in seal flesh a great delicacy.
The Gilyaks prefer the " bacon," but in this case scarcely
any of it remained uneaten. We, my interpreter and I,
decided that the brain would be the least objection-
able part, and hoped to deceive ourselves into imagining
that we were eating calves* sweet-breads ; but we little
knew how near we came to committing a mortal sin.
For it was a matter of common knowledge among the
Gilyaks that to eat the brain of a seal was indeed a
deadly sin.
U
290 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
In addition to any other terrors that the next world
might hold for us, to have put salt on a seal's brain,
roasted and eaten it, would have resulted in our never
killing a seal again. I am free to confess that we were still
unbelieving and rash enough to be willing to try our fate, but
all attempts to gain permission failed ; and we came to the
conclusion that our natives were quite sincere in their
belief, whatever was the raison d^itre of it. The moon,
peering down through the trees of the forest, shone upon a
strange scene that evening. Seven wild-looking figures,
with raven pigtails, squatted round a seething cauldron,
were tearing with teeth and fingers the flesh from the
bones of the seal. For ourselves, a piece of the flesh was
chosen and roasted separately on stakes ; and though under
such circumstances one can eat almost anything, I confess
when my friends, who lay some store on a menu recherchi,
ask me whether it was nice, my usual reply is that it
tasted not unlike black-game fried in a pan used previously
for herrings.
The day before, we had come across one or two deserted
camp-fires, and this day we passed a newly made raft, which
our natives declared to be that of the five brodyagi, who
must be hiding in the taiga. We were concerned for the
prospectors, whom a period of freedom from attack had
lured into a false security ; and as soon as was possible we
gave messages of warning to natives in the hope of their
reaching the ears of our late hosts. A month later we
heard of their safety, and several months after I received a
letter from one of them telling of the arrival of the five
brodyagi. Fortunately the engineers were duly prepared
for them, and insisted on their men, who were convicts and
ex-convicts themselves, and who immediately declared
their neutrality, not allowing any of the five to enter the
hut. Coming out from the inner room of the hut one
evening, they found two or three of the brodyagi sitting
among the workmen. There was only one course to be
FROM NIVO TO IRR KIRR 291
adopted, that of promptitude and firmness. Without hesi-
tation the masters cocked their revolvers and threatened to
shoot unless the outlaws left the hut and never appeared
there again. This determined attitude had its effect, and
finding that they could not persuade their mates to join
them in attacking their masters, the vagabonds left ; one,
who had merely joined them because he was penniless,
being persuaded to return to Derbensk, while the others
plunged into the taiga to wander in the direction of the
inhospitable north. My correspondent added they were
" either shot or taken prisoners again." The one soldier,
who was at the oil-wells, was anxious to have them arrested
and taken as far at least as Nivo ; but had he attempted
to do so he would certainly have been murdered, and to
have impressed one or two of the working convicts as guard
would have been worse than useless.
After more than three days' rowing and punting we
came to the first Gilyak village since leaving the bay. All
the men-folk were absent, for it was the end of the Gilyak
financial year ; and although! did not hear of any account-
ants being called in or auditors appointed, a strict account
of debts and payments was doubtless kept in the Gilyak
memory. The current coin was dried fish, and the
accumulation of this after spawning-time was now being
applied by the men, who had gone up the river, to the
payment of debts for rice and seal-oil borrowed, and in
exceptional cases for potatoes advanced by the Russians.
Camping a little higher up on the opposite side of the
river in the forest, our natives were very merry, notwith-
standing that the seal had been incontinently disposed of,,
and dried fish and seal-oil was the one course on their
■menu. To this, for breakfast on the following morning, were
added the seeds of the Swiss pine (Pinus cembra pumila).
A Gilyak youth of the party disappeared into the taiga,
and quickly re-appeared with a lapful of the cones, from
which they picked the seeds like monkeys, with teeth and
292 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
fingers. This day we overtook the police-officer, whom we
had met in the Bay of Ni. Though he and his soldiers
had started three or four days before us, they had got no
further than this. Handicapped by a heavily laden flat-
bottomed boat, they had to punt and tow it in turns, the
soldiers wading up to their middle and wearily dragging
it against stream. They presented a pitiable sight, their
boots were patched and tied together, and in some cases a
mere bundle of rags was all they had for "foot-wear."
So long had they already been, that they had not sufficient
salt meat to last another day.
We pushed on ahead, and as we neared the centre of
the island the wind dropped and the sun once more
asserting its power, existence was again not merely bear-
able but enjoyable. It was another glimpse of autumn
before winter should seize and hold us firmly in his cold
embrace. The shallows below were clear, the sky above
blue, and the banks, a mingling of silvering willows (Salix
■macrolepis and Sakhalinensis) and yellowing birches {Betula
alba), backed by the black forests of firs creeping up the
sides of the mountains. And as if life and action should
not be missing from the picture, five punting-poles were
going in rhythm, and five bodies bending and swinging as
the canoe swept on. It took me back to another picture,
of palm-girt sandy bays, ruined Mahratta forts, and the
even more graceful bend and swing of the lithe bodies of
the Ratnagari fishermen. Many a year may I remember
the sunlit evenings spent on the tranquil river Tim, the
haunt of the bear and the fox, with the simple, jolly Gilyaks,
full of fun and always ready to join in a joke, making
always the best of our situation, whether it was to camp
on a pleasant sandy reach, by the light of a golden sunset,
or to betake ourselves, soaked and stiff, to a swampy
stretch, swept by a biting wind. Not even when we were
in danger of crossing their sacred beliefs did they get
angry with us ; only putting us gently on the right way
FROM NIVO TO IRR KIRR 293
they saved us from deadly sin. Happily we had not
fallen into the hands of bigoted or orthodox civilized
peoples.
Tol ni vookk, the great lord of the element to which we
had entrusted ourselves, showed himself merciful even to
unbelievers. In the course of that afternoon, the canoe
with the five punters had gained considerably upon us, and
as we neared an enticing creek on our right, the haunt of
bears and sables, Vanka suggested this as a short cut.
We, nothing loth, gave our consent. Here through rapids
and between fallen logs we threaded our way until we got
to what appeared to be an impasse. Tree-trunks blocked
the way, and the current, suddenly impeded, rushed over
them. Even Vanka declared it to be impossible to go on,
we must return ; but, having put our hand to the plough,
we were averse from returning, and I suggested that even
if the canoe dragged a bit we could haul and push it
over the snag, and by clinging to the logs we could keep
the head straight for the rushing water, and get through.
Each was assigned his part. It was a critical moment,
and even Vanka turned pale, dusky as he was ; but a
heave and a turn and a rapid stroke or two, and we were
beyond the danger. Within two or three minutes we had
emerged on to the main stream of the Tim, several lengths
ahead of our competitors. Then Vanka gave way to his
joy of triumph, and declared that our salvation from a
watery grave and our success in the race was due to Tol
ni vookk and to the efficacy of his offering ; for at our last
halt he had sprinkled a little tobacco on the ashes of our
fire, whereas the other crew had not. The Gilyak, like a
child, trusts blindly in a beneficent result from his offer-
ing, and surely his prayer — his only prayer, Kiskh ni much,
God give (made sitting on his heels facing his offering) —
is not unanswered. He begins to be more hopeful, jolly
and patient, and what more than this is needed in
hunting ? Try to cause a Gilyak to disbelieve in the
294 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
efficacy of his offering, and he will recite to you scores
of names of those who were lazy and omitted to perform
the usual rites in hunting, and were unsuccessful. To
quote the words of one of them, " Once I ran away from a
bear. That happened because I forgot to give an offering
to the god. The god sent fear into my heart — and the
skin of a bear is worth ten or fifteen rubles. I was too
frightened to turn back and spear the beast as I had done
many a time before. I was afraid because I knew that
the god had sent him on purpose to remind me of my
insult to him. Oh how frightful it was. No, the offering
is very good. You are light-hearted and have no fear ! "
We had just lighted our camp-fire that night when the
sound of a distant shot sent us running for our guns ; but
Vanka assured us it was only Armunka's brother about
a mile up the river shooting a bear. How they knew,
except by a process of Gilyak logic, I do not know ; but
an hour or so later a short cough, followed by two canoes
shooting round the bend of the river, announced the arrival
of four Gilyaks, of whom one was Armunka's brother.
They joined our company round the fire, and the brother
of the great hunter proceeded to tell how he had seen
a bear drinking by the river's edge, and had wounded him
in the side ; but in the darkness it was out of the question
to follow him up, and therefore he would resume the hunt
in the morning.
That night was very cold and frosty. The next day
broke clear and sunny. The proposed bear-tracking was
a great temptation, and, though time was pressing, I
proposed to join our party of four to that of Armunka's
brother. The five Gilyaks, who were bent on purchasing
a bear, now left us to pursue their journey. Priming our
guns, we landed at the spot where Bruin's foot-marks were
still visible. My interpreter had a Gilyak bear-spear and
revolver, I had a small-bore rifle, and the seven Gilyaks
had two spears and three old rifles between them.
s
FROM NIVO TO IRR KIRR 295
Clambering up a steep and high bank, grasping tree-
stems with which to haul ourselves up, we followed the
natives through the taiga. The forest was thick with
elder, ash and mountain-ash, birch, poplar, and larch, and
a dense undergrowth of wild-rose, spiraea, and whortle-
berries. Great giants of the forest lay fallen at every
three or four steps, and our progress was a crashing
through scrub, clambering over fallen trunks, and leaping
into mossy dells, many of the latter having been un-
mistakably the resting-places of bears. The trees were
naturally tall, as they grew so thickly, and one fallen larch,
which I measured by stepping, was noted in my diary as
145 feet long.
The natives were very quick in following up the
tracks. A red stain on a leaf as Bruin brushed by, a
patch on the green moss where he had rested, or a mark
on a tree where, in his pain, he had tried to rub away
the irritation, every sign was quickly noted. At length,
however, even they came to an end of their reading of
bear-prints. A circle was formed, and we searched in
ever-widening range, but not a trace could be found.
They decided that it must be given up ; but learning
that there was a Gilyak village at no great distance up
the river, I insisted on their sending for the dogs. We
therefore returned guided through the jungle by the
natives, to our canoe, had a frugal midday meal, and
started out once more with the dogs and a reinforcement
of one or two old men and four guns. Now we had to
restrain our ardour, and not press forward, but let the
dogs find the scent. Their barking would be the signal
of their coming up with the bear. The dogs ran hither
and thither, and we watched and strained our eyes and
ears, holding ourself in readiness to follow up as quickly
as the obstacles in our path would allow us. Suddenly
the sound of a shot rang through the forest, and hastening
forward, to my disappointment, we came upon an old
296 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Gilyak who had shot a teterev, a capercailzie {Tetrao
urogallus). Another false alarm, this time from dogs,
and nothing further happened until our natives, coming
in from different directions, brought news that the bear
had not been so severely wounded as they thought.
He had gone a great distance, and it might take a
day or two before we could come up with him, and so
reluctantly we had to give up the hunt.
The autumn is not, of course, the season for bear-
hunting, since Bruin has only his poor summer-coat on,
which is of small value as fur. Early spring is the best
time, though hunger or venturous hunters may rouse him
from his torpor in mid-winter. When he comes forth
from his cave, half awake, and driven by the smoke of a
fire kindled in front, or by the sticks and stones of the
hunters, one of the surrounding circle of Gilyaks lets fly
an arrow at him, or the whole party attempt to drive him
down a favourite track, where is placed a yu-ru (an auto-
matic bow and arrow). As his foot touches the cord the
iron-pointed arrow is released and pierces his side. With
a snarl of pain he turns on his pursuers, who scatter in
all directions, some climbing trees. One, however, is too
late, and the bear is upon him, and has him already in
his deadly embrace. The unfortunate victim's companions
approach and try to attract the beast's attention. They
worry him with sticks and stones, and when he drops the
unfortunate man, one of them stands unflinchingly waiting
the onslaught of the infuriated animal. It seems madness
to stand thus, for he makes no attempt to thrust at Bruin
with his spear ; but it would be useless to do so, for he
knows too well that the bear is a master at the art of
parrying. He holds his spear apparently quite harmlessly,
for the shaft rests on the ground behind him, and the
point on a level with his chest is hidden beneath his
tunic. It is a terribly anxious moment. How can the
man escape ? The raging beast is now flinging himself
FROM NIVO TO IRR KIRR 297
upon him. All hope is gone. But no. What has
happened ? The bear is wounded and the man is safe,
for as the animal hurled himself at the hunter, the latter,
in the twinkling of an eye, stepped back a pace without
moving the spear, and the great beast impaled himself
upon it. The animal is still very dangerous ; but his
movements are impeded by the spear. On the shaft is a
crescent-shaped piece of iron, for such is Bruin's cunning
that he is said sometimes to push the spear further
through his body so that it may not hinder him in his
angry pursuit of the hunters. His efforts now grow
weaker from loss of blood, and finally he sinks down dead.
The real bear-hunting season is rather later. As soon
as the snow begins to thaw, and the tiny streams are let
loose in the high valleys, the chief inhabitant of the forest
emerges from his winter's sleep and seeks food, going
backwards and forwards among the mountains. This is
the opportunity of the native hunters. The Gilyaks
discover his favourite routes, and set their yu-ru. An
unsuspecting beast trips over the cord, which lets fly the
arrow automatically, and wounds, but does not kill him.
Nevertheless, he leaves his bloody tracks, and the hunters,
following these up, worry him until, exhausted, he falls a
prey to an archer or the owner of an old shot-gun. The
carcase is then drawn on a sledge to their village, and after
two or three days a feast is held. During the winter such
a lucky find is a welcome addition to their menu, to say
nothing of the prospective value of the skin.
In addition to the bear, there are three other of the
larger beasts which are welcome prey to the Gilyak hunters,
the musk deer {Moschus moschtferus), the fox {Cams vtdpes),
and the reindeer {Ca^vus tarandus).
On the tops of the mountains the native finds ^&kabarga,
as the Russians call the Moschiis mosckiferus, a very small
species of which is found on Sakhalin. Those I have seen
were about the size of a half-grown kid, and had two tusks.
298 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
similar to a wild boar's. Such is its agility in springing
from rock to rock, and its deftness in running along ledges
which yield room only for its tiny hoofs, that the Gilyak
knows, with all his skill and experience, it is impossible to
catch it in pursuit. He therefore sets snares, and, having
observed that this little animal has exceptionally cleanly
and regular habits, he is able to make sure of the track, and
to snare it.
About the same time of the year is set the kas-ma, or
fox-trap, and this is particularly interesting from its
extraordinary simplicity. The Gilyak takes a stick with a
fork in it, and cuts it very carefully to the required length.
In the fork of this piece he ties a piece of flesh, wrapped in
a rag to prevent the birds eating it. Master Reynard,
coming along, suddenly feels the pangs of hunger especially
poignant as his eyes fall on the meat. How good it smells !
Cautiously approaching, and raising himself hesitatingly on
his hind-legs, he sniffs, and tries in vain to reach the bait
with his mouth. It is too high. He then tries with his
paw, but the meat is firmly tied. Fairly roused now, he
tries again and again until, with a great effort, he " o'er
reaches himself," and lands his paw in the fork of the stick
and cannot withdraw it. There he stands, helpless, with
his paw up, until the Gilyak comes to examine his traps.
Poor Reynard ! His position is so ludicrous that one
cannot help laughing at him.
It reminds one of the description of his favourite
preacher by an enthusiastic admirer. He wished to
impress his hearer with the soundness, as well as the
spiritual eloquence, of the minister, and pictured him to
his delighted auditor as " having one foot planted firmly
on the earth, while with the other he pointed to heaven ! "
All these traps and snares of the Gilyaks are of use in
calm weather, especially at the beginning and end of winter,
when the snow- covering is yet thin, but with the arrival of
storms, snares and tracks are covered up. The native has
FROM NIVO TO IRR KIRR 299
learnt to know Nature in all her moods, and, recognizing
the approach of a gale, gathers up his traps before they
shall be lost, vowing in his heart that even the storms shall
yield their prey.
The sky is already wrapped in swaddling clothes of
snow. The north wind blows, and sweeps through the
forest with howls ; blast after blast succeeds, and clouds of
driven snow whirl by. The buran is upon him, and he
knows it will endure for a long time with its bitter cold. A
group of reindeer is huddled together on the borders of the
forest. They are standing with their heads to the ground,
for even they are cold to the bone. Blinded by the snow,
their keen sight and power of smell having failed them in
this weather, they have forgotten all caution, yet stand
shivering and trembling in fear of bear or man. But what
is happening? There is a slight stir. They have seen
some dark objects, and in a momentary lull of the storm
have fled helter-skelter into the forest. Their hoofs sink
deep into the snow, and, distracted by fear, their antlers do
not clear the trees with the unerring dexterity of calmer
moments. Dark figures, in shaggy skins, glide like
lightning after them. For long have they tracked this
herd on skis, and waited just this opportunity of the buran
to catch them. Each hunter has a knife in his hand. To
shoot in this weather, and while running, is impossible, but
a good knife will not betray him.
Suddenly a whitish-grey great buck is caught, Absalom-
wise, in a tree, and struggles in vain to free himself. Like a
bird the wild man is up with it, and, catching it by the
antlers, stabs it under the shoulder. With a gasp the animal
falls, and the hunter, quickly stripping off the skin, sits
quietly down and begins to feast. He was born, and has
his home, in the buran.
CHAPTER XVI
A RIDE THROUGH THE "TAIGA"
Irr Kirr— The bears' constitutional — A salmon for id. — Ado Tim—
The difficulties of riding in a /^/yeg-a— Miserable settlements —
An exciting ride — The 19th of the month — Rikovsk prison —
Sophie Bluflfstein — An extraordinary career — Refuge from a storm
— A convict home.
LATER in the afternoon of the bear tracking we
arrived at the village of Irr Kirr, the home of
Armunka. It was with some expectation that we
had looked forward to meeting the family, and seeing the
home and possessions of so renowned a hunter and scion
of a noble house. We were disappointed, however, for
nothing about the establishment or family, so far as we
could see, denoted its proud position. The hut was of
very moderate size, and rather scantily garnished with the
usual medley of snares, skins, and domestic utensils.
The paternal acres were not to be seen, for of the
possession of land in our sense of the word the Gilyaks
have no conception. The nearest approach to it was a
prescriptive right, sanctioned by immemorial custom, to
place snares along certain creeks. The right of all to roam
over the land in hunting was freely recognized ; but they
would have resented the placing of snares in chosen creeks
and backwaters by the Tungus and Orochons, although,
rather than provoke hostilities, they would have simply
gone elsewhere. As among themselves, the division of
the creeks and tracks for snaring had been made in olden
300
A RIDE THROUGH THE "TAIGA" 301
times ; and the customary boundaries sanctioned by time
are seldom transgressed. The abundance of game, coupled
with the prowess of the pioneers, yielded little cause for
quarrel, and spots were simply annexed according to the
number of snares which the owner of the hut possessed.
Here and there a dispute arose, and was settled by reference
to the klenuy the elders in council, or by duels. In the latter
case the disputants fought with a weapon like a hedge-bill,
with a straight blade ; but as they were always surrounded
by a goodly concourse, the combatants were parted when
either became exhausted, and the duel was not allowed to
have a fatal ending.
Of the inhabitants of the hut, neither the father of
Armunka nor his sister were in any way striking, but his
younger brother drew our attention on account of his
delicate, almost girlish features, the effect of which was
heightened perhaps in the eyes of a Westerner by the
hairlessness of his face and the wearing of his hair in a
queue. The wealth of the family consisted in the posses-
sion of several bears ; and as I was desirous of seeing these
creatures brought out for their constitutional, I suggested
that it was high time they had a walk. Here, however, as at
the village where we had called the evening before, the men
were mostly away ; and the remainder pleaded an insuffi-
cient force to tackle Bruin. Nevertheless, for half a ruble
they agreed to get out two of the three-months-old cubs.
Armunka and Vanka joined the party, and a few of the
roofing-logs having been removed from the cage, and nooses
of thongs having been let in and cleverly looped round
the animals' necks, two of the men began to haul. Unlike
the adult bears, which eagerly scramble out, the cubs were
somewhat frightened at first, struggled, and got the noose
uncomfortably tight so that one of the Gilyaks had to
come forward and warily assist them out from behind.
When once out, they lost all sense of fear, and became
frantically angry and spiteful. Held by four men, two to
302 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
each, they snarled and scratched and turned somersaults
in their attempts to get at us ; and forced us to retire again
and again before their threatened onslaughts. After they
had been photographed, as it was growing dusk, the Gilyakg
proceeded to get them back into their cage. It was no
easy matter, but an experienced elder coming up at the
critical moment, seized them one at a time just behind
the ears, and before they could scratch the cubs found
themselves on the floor of the cage. Having bartered for
two fine, but headless, dog-skins, whose owners had probably
been sacrificed at the bear festival or a funeral, we embarked
again, and paddled on past many shoals, now redolent of
dead fish cast up from the spawning hosts, in search of a
camping-ground.
The next morning found Vanka in excellent spirits, and
anxious to further his education. The English language
as indulged in by me, had already excited his curiosity,
and he had mastered the English words for the Russian
medvyet (bear) and riba (fish), and now he asked, pointing
upwards, what was the English for solntse (sun) and luna
(moon). The Russian custom of addressing a person by
his patronymic, and only officially by his surname, or as
they say, family name, is probably familiar to the reader.
Vanka having forgotten, after a few minutes' paddling, the
new English words we had taught him, stopped, leaned
forward and asked, " I forget, what did you say was the
family name of the solntse (sun) ? "
This day we halted at Vanka's native village, Kherivo,
where his mother came down to greet him. There was
apparently no outward sign of affection between them, but
the race is undemonstrative, and as I have already said,
does not salute. He fetched some more seal-oil, and
resumed the journey almost immediately.
For the last two days our larder had been low, we had
seen no ducks, and the capercailzie shot in the taiga by
the old Gilyak, and bought by us for half a pound of
A RIDE THROUGH THE "TAIGA" 303
tobacco, had sufficed for one meal ; and for the rest boiled
rice and brick-tea did duty. We therefore hailed with joy,
on the third day, a native canoe with an unexpected catch
of kita, the last of the season. Vanka, without a moment's
delay, whipped off the head of one, and was greedily
devouring it while we, choosing another, weighing about
18 or 20 lbs., paid the modest sum of four kopyeks {id)
for it.
We were now nearing Ado Tim, the village whence
we had started to descend the river with the Russian
ex-convicts. Our crew had agreed to take us thus far, but
for the twenty miles to Slavo, which we had done on our
outward journey by canoe, we must arrange as best we
could.
At 5 p.m. we landed at the already familiar spot, with
the prospect, after many cold nights on the river-bank, of
a comfortable night in the hut of Madame Gregoriev and
her " man." The Russian settlement lying a little distance
from the river, and our baggage being considerable, two
journeys had to be made. I elected to stay and guard
half of it, while the others carried off the other half and
warned our hostess of our arrival.
Standing thus alone and gazing around on the scene, I
was impressed with the beauty, rather than the wildness of
it ; for the untamedness of the scenery had been the
dominant note of all we had seen during the last three
weeks. Beyond the river stretched a wooded level, and
back of this rose the hills, thickly clad and gay with
autumn tints, and away behind all stood up the purple
mountains, crowned here and there in snowy whiteness.
The sky was a clear blue, flushed with the rose of sunset,
and a stillness rested on the scene broken only by the
plash of salmon leaping from the silvery surface of the
river. There was nothing to spoil the beauty and restful-
ness of the whole, save the poverty-stricken settlement of
criminals yonder.
304 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
A Russian official on the island, who had travelled,
remarked to me once, " If the English or Americans had
had this island, what would they not have made of it ? "
And now, as I stood on the banks of the Tim, I saw in
my mind's eye before me a hill-station in India. Yonder
wooded plain was now a smooth shaven level where
sports of all kinds were going on, girdled by the smiling
river, in which and on which bathers, anglers, and canoers
were disporting themselves. The wooded slopes were
dotted with the bungalows of the Governor and chief
officials, and last, but not least, the village behind me was
no longer plunged in poverty and crime.
Why was it not so ? The Russians would reply that
they could not afford it, their pay is so small ; and this has
come to be popularly accepted as an axiom, but when it is
investigated, and allowances are made for the cheap cost
of living, the free education of their children — even through
the university — the convict labour that is often theirs for
the asking on Sakhalin, I think there is not very much in
it. But if I yield the point for the sake of argument, the
amount of money spent on champagne, gambled away at
cards and spent in ways not to be mentioned, would in
most cases allow of the change to the " hills." The sporting
instinct is not however Russian, and in this they know not
how much they lose. If it has done so much for us
in India in keeping life sane, it is needed not only in
Siberia, but in Russia itself, where provincial life is
stagnant, and villages being separated by great distances,
the life of the officials is monotonous beyond measure.
Half an hour later saw us comfortably settled in the
hut of our ex-convict host and hostess, where we had been
expected two or three days previously. All our doings,
how much we had paid in rice, tobacco, etc., for this article
and for that, were common knowledge, the news having
travelled in that mysterious manner and with that extra-
ordinary rapidity common among natives.
A RIDE THROUGH THE "TAIGA" 305
Madame Gregoriev was soon in a whirl of preparations
befitting the status of her guests. It was the season of
the potato crop, and she had been busy since early morning
in digging and carrying her crop to the hut. Dropping on
her knees in her great top-boots, she lifted a trap-door in
the floor and displayed a store of hundreds of puds. She
had that day, so she told us, dug up no less than twenty
puds (722 lbs.). With pride she declared, " I am from
Little Russia. I work hard. I dig all around and beneath
the plants. I don't only scratch so (suiting the action to
the word), as the Great Russians do, and that is why I get
so many ! "
While supper was preparing, my interpreter, whose
boots had suffered during a three weeks' absence of black-
ing, inquired whether there was a cobbler in the village.
" Yes," replied Madame G., " but I would not trust him
with one of your boots to-night, for he is playing cards ! "
This was always one of the difficulties that met one,
whether in Alexandrovsk or in the smaller settlements, the
uncertainty of getting any article back that was taken to
be repaired or sent as a pattern. Frequently the craftsman
was too poor, or, at least, said he was, to buy the required
material, and there was no way out of it but to add to the
risk and make him a small advance of cash. The most
unlikely articles came in handy in gambling, and money
was by no means indispensable — clothes, rations, and even
" futures " being staked. Walking at night through
Alexandrovsk, I have often seen the flickering lights from
huts on the outskirts, where the gamblers, both men and
women, were busy. A woman will go dressed in half a
dozen coats, and stake and lose them, one by one, at the
game. Not only so, but even the officials' property, either
stolen or left for repair, will disappear in this way, and
there is no redress. The man can be put into prison, but
that does not produce the article or the money.
While we were awaiting supper, Vanka turned up to
X
3o6 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
receive payment for his services. He had had some
advances, and there remained twenty-one rubles to pay him.
Sitting on the window-sill together, I counted out, in
Russian, seven three-ruble notes. It naturally took him
some considerable time to verify the amount, and then,
having assured himself that it was correct, he began to
portion out, in prospective, various sums for luxuries and
necessaries. Two of the notes were for vodka, one was for
rice, and another for gunpowder. To my astonishment he
drew forth a Russian purse, and began to place in separate
divisions the notes assigned for the different purchases.
This was a very serious business, for I was told that, when
he came to make his purchases in the course of a day or
two, there would be great trouble, a terrible racking of
brains, to remember which ruble note had been assigned to
the particular purpose. It was probable that in the end
he would have to give up the solution of the problem and
-Start afresh.
At present, however, he was in high spirits, for two or
■three days since there had been a bear-hunt by his friends
of Ado Tim, in which a dam and two cubs had fallen to
their prowess. One old Gilyak described to me how the
hunt had gone. Starting out with the dogs, they had come
up with the cKuff and cubs in the forest, and the dogs
immediately began to worry the cubs, biting at their hind-
legs until the mother bear called to them to " take care,"
and run up a tree. This they did, but, meanwhile, the dam
was shot. An experienced hunter then proceeded to
follow the cubs with a seal-hide noose in his hand. With
this he lassoed them, and, descending, forced them to
climb down by degrees. The carcase of the dead animal
was then placed upon a sledge drawn by the dogs, and the
orphaned cubs were led, pushed, and dragged to the village.
Hence on the morrow there was to be a great holiday
fete, and Gilyaks from all around were coming in to
celebrate it.
A RIDE THROUGH THE "TAIGA" 307
Before retiring to rest that night our host and hostess,
with true politeness, offered to lend us their bed, and to
sleep in the next " room." Our curiosity was aroused as
to where this other room could be, but we were soon
enlightened when opening a tiny door near the stove, we
heard the unmistakable remarks, in the bass, of pigs !
To reach Alexandrovsk from Ado Tim it was necessary
to go first to Slavo, and thence to Derbensk, whence we
could post the rest of the way, There were no posting
arrangements between Ado Tim and Derbensk, a distance of
forty-three versts, and, considering that it was for the most
part a mere forest track, it was scarcely to be expected. The
officials, however, sometimes got horses sent on to Ado
Tim, and the police-officer whom we had overtaken and
passed gave us permission to use the horses he was expect-
ing ; but these never arrived, and the question of transport
once more stared us in the face. Money, however, had not
lost its power, and the offer of twelve rubles was sufficient
to provide a solution.
The day before, on our way up the river, some miles
below Ado Tim, we had seen some semi-wild ponies loose
in the forest. I had been surprised at this, because of the
neighbourhood of bears, but the sturdy little animals had
their methods of defence. They found their safety in
co-operation, like their masters, who must have their artel.
Keeping always near together at the scent of danger, they
form up in a ring, heels outwards, with the foals in the
centre, and lunge out at the approaching intruder.
It was proposed that the villagers should send into the
forest and catch a couple of these animals. Meanwhile a
telyega, or rough cart, was forthcoming, and a son of one of
the convicts proposed to drive us as far as Derbensk. In the
marvellously short time of two hours the ponies had been
captured and brought to the village, and, apparently
desirous that we should not underrate their powers, had
overturned the telyega in a ditch in front of the hut
308 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
I am tempted here to turn aside and write a dissertation
on how to pack a telyega, or on how not to pack one, in
case the reader should be meditating a trip into the wilds
of Eastern Siberia ; but I will relent, and only let him
have my experience. In the first place, the Sakhalin
telyegd is only a skeleton of half a boat on four wheels —
very shallow, and, of course, without springs. Into this
had to be packed all our luggage, our two selves, and the
driver. We began by duly placing all our chattels in the
available space, which was, unfortunately, so shallow that
they overtopped it. Remembering the solemn warnings of
the Siberian travellers that it is not upon the vehicle, but
upon one's baggage one must rely for a seat, we could not
but regard this arrangement as satisfactory and en rkgle.
All unsuspicious of the difficulties that awaited us, we
mounted. So long as the cart remained still our position
was passably comfortable. It is true there was no back,
and we were a bit cramped, but such things were only to
be expected. It was a different story, however, when the
ponies began to move. We were sitting on two rounded
hills, from which we threatened to shoot off at any moment.
We tried sitting up, drawing our knees up so as to allow
space for the driver to squat, and holding on to anything
stable to support ourselves. The difficulty was that our
road was a mere forest track, and the lurch and tilt of the
vessel over tree-roots, in and out of deep ruts, were the
normal signs of progress. We called a halt, altered
the position of our baggage, and tried lying down, but it
was somewhat like an attempt to lie on the top of an
unstable ball.
We lay back, arm in arm, balancing uneasily, and
shouting to each other in warning against the approaching
dangers of rut and root. Five times we halted to re-arrange
and adopt some new method of adhesion ; at the same time
not neglecting to speculate on the best mode of rolling off
so as to clear the wheels.
A RIDE THROUGH THE "TAIGA" 309
The axles of the cart were of wood, the poles of freshly
hewn pine, with the bark still adhering, and the harness
of rope. The track was simply a narrow way cleared by
fire, and so rough that, our spirited steeds notwithstanding,
the first twenty versts (13^ miles) took five hours, a speed
of barely two and three-quarter miles an hour. The forest
scenery was wild, but beautiful, the larch-trees with their
brilliant green and the birches paling to autumn gold
standing out in clear relief against the black pines. Pas-
sionate red leaves, deepening to purple, lit up the under-
growth of spiraea, mountain-ash, elder, and wild rose ;
black charred pine-stumps told of the recent making of
the track, and in the distance were easily mistaken, at
first sight, for bears.
Once or twice we passed a clearing, or rather a poor
attempt at a clearing, where stood a settlement of a few
log-huts and some rough meadow-land, almost in a virgin
state. One of them contained only six inhabitants, all
men. The huts were about twelve by eighteen feet in
size, the log walls letting in the cold through the crevices ;
and the miserable roofs of loose pieces of bark, with a
hole for chimney, offering poor protection against the rain.
Inside one would find a table, some boxes for a bed, and
a home-made stove ; the whole faintly lighted by a small
paper-mended window. It was a mystery how these poor
people managed to live, and indeed it was from such places
that the gangs of brodyagi were recruited. A few grew
potatoes, and in the larger settlements a " wealthy " settler
will own some cows or two or three ponies. Potatoes had
to be bartered for flour, tea, and rice ; and for fish to be
salted against the winter. Some, even by much scraping,
were unable to compass this, and, having borrowed in the
first place seed-potatoes or corn, etc., from the Crown, sank,
in company with the lazy or hopeless, deeper and deeper
into debt. In the villages that are large enough to have
a store, the shopkeeper is generally the rich man and the
310 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
money-lender. There is then nobody to prevent him
refusing to supply goods, if he has some petty spite to
avenge, or compelling the " peasant " to give twice the
usual quantity of potatoes in exchange for flour, rice, or
salt.
The poor " exile-settler " is also at the mercy of any
official who may choose to tyrannize over him, and un-
fortunately for those in the Alexandrovsk okrug, the
stnotritel poselenie, or Chief of the exile department, was
a man of very bad repute. It is not surprising therefore
that in many cases not only was the newly made exile
sent to spots unsuitable for the cultivation with which
he was familiar, as a Caucasian to lowlands and a Great
Russian to hilly country, but in many cases to swamps
where existence was impossible. So far away were some
of these spots that no stores, not even those due to them
as rations for the first two years, could ever reach them.
One, whose authority on the island was unquestioned, not
only confirmed this, but gave an instance of one settle-
ment which was so surrounded by swamps that no one
could get to or from it for two whole years. I leave the
reader to picture the condition of these poor wretches, who
had to depend upon potatoes and berries for food, and
ragged clothing for protection against a winter's cold
reaching to 40° and 50° below zero.
Slavo was not reached until four o'clock, and though
we had further to go than we had already come, a short
halt was called to eat a meal and partially dry our clothes.
It had rained for the last two or three hours, and we were
cramped, cold, and wet Choosing a house which looked
less poverty-stricken than the rest, we sent our driver to
inquire if we might drink tea there, and permission being
readily accorded, wet, muddy, and bedraggled we entered,
taking our provisions with us. In the kitchen were two or
three women and children, and we waited there while the
usual preliminary for a stranger, the hasty sweeping out
A RIDE THROUGH THE "TAIGA" 311
of the best room, was gone through. The " best " room,
the only one besides the kitchen, did duty as bed, sitting,
and dining room, and contained a cradle, a gun, a table,
two or three chairs, a shuba or two hanging from pegs,
and the usual prints of the Tsar and Tsaritsa, with the
additional mural decoration of a picture symbolizing the
progress of man from the cradle to the grave.
Warmed within and cleaned without, for the hostess
had poured a pail of water over me in order to get rid
of superfluous mud, we started again for Derbensk, twenty-
three versts distant. We might have known that it was
impossible to reach it at the pace we were going ; but
what was to be done ? Our only thought was to push on,
but we had inadequately estimated the difficulties. Our
driver, an inexperienced youth of about nineteen, grew
seriously alarmed ; he had not contemplated being on
the road after dark, and had hoped to have reached
Derbensk before dusk. Rain continued to fall ; the road
was difficult, and above all the bridges were a source of
fright to the ponies, for the loose pine-poles, laid on the
simple framework of a bridge, shifted and thundered under
their feet. The heavens clouded and darkness fell early ;
the forest grew denser and denser, and our yamshtchik,
the son of a convict himself, became more and more
nervous.
He had not bargained for this. We had been lolling
in the least uncomfortable positions we could assume,
holding on at critical points ; and now he begged us,
"Will the barini sit up, back to back, facing each into
the forest, and shoot the moment that they see anything
move," while he declared in anxious tones that he would
do his best to keep his scared animals in hand. That
did not promise much, for he was a poor driver, and had
little control over his half-savage horses. At a miserable
crawl of three miles an hour, we could place no hope in
the swiftness of our steeds. The road was dangerous
312 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
enough from brodyagi even by day, and our return had
been expected for two or three days.
A free fight in the open or by daylight, when you
could see your opponent, was one thing, but this was
quite another. It was anything but a comfortable sensa-
tion to feel that you might be picked off from any point
in this blank darkness ^without being able to single out
your assailant. To shoot at a moving object was easy,
for what doesn't move under such circumstances? But
in the blackness it was difficult to make out anything
definitely a few yards away, though we peered alternately
into the forest and back along the track. Unpleasant
as it was awaiting the chances of being shot, I think, if I
must confess, I disliked more the navigation of the bridges
that followed. These were convict-made with pine-poles
for supports, cross-pieces, and flooring. The last consisted,
as I have said, of poles just laid on the cross-pieces. To
add to the simplicity of the structure there was no rail,
and should the horses swerve to either side, a tilting
of the poles would land us, cart, baggage and all, in the
mountain-stream below. There was not wanting a further
addition to the excitement of negotiating these " bridges."
No attempt had been made at graduating the steep sides
of the ravines, and our primitive vehicle boasted no brake.
There was, therefore, nothing to be done but to let go
full speed down the steeps, and take the bridge at a gallop
in order to surmount the slopes on the other side. It
was more than exciting, calculating the chances, at express
speed, of our striking the middle of the bridge which lay
below, shrouded in darkness. Two hours of this exhilarating
kind of travel brought us to the settlement of Uskovo.
This was a village rather larger than the usual, containing
about two hundred souls, and we decided to try and
find shelter there.
Compared with the flickering dips in the other cottages,
the first house of the village was aglow with light, and
A RIDE THROUGH THE "TAIGA" 313
rightly guessing that it was the overseer's, we found him
full of alacrity in offering hospitality to the "eminent
travellers." Our driver was stowed in a loft, and we were
led into the family sitting and bedroom, where a stove
was quickly lighted, and our wet clothes and rugs hung
up to dry. Even the accommodation at the Waldorf
Astoria could not compare with the luxury that night
of a warm room, a supper of black bread and butter, and
a bed of hay on the floor.
Our host enjoyed the magnificent salary of twenty-five
rubles (2^ guineas) per month, and was responsible, as
already mentioned, for the multitudinous duties of the
administration and policing of his district.
The cottage was bare and poor-looking according to an
English labourer's notions, but by the peasants of the
village regarded as a well-to-do home. There was only
one bed in the room, on which the overseer and his wife
slept, while their child lay upon a couple of chairs ; and
when in the morning I paid them three rubles for our
supper, bed, and breakfast, they were overjoyed at the large-
ness of the sum.
I had proposed to give them a five-ruble note and ask
for change, but my intrepreter stopped me, saying —
" It is the nineteenth of the month."
" What do you mean ? "
"Why," replied he, "the twentieth is pay-day, and
didn't you notice that they took out the Ijist spoonful of
tea at breakfast ? "
Uskovo was considered a fairly well-to-do, in fact, a
large village, but the overseer plumbed its poverty when
he said, with much impressiveness, " The store has actually
no sweets whatever for the children ! "
Opposite our host's, at the entrance to the village, in
the green space where the road was understood to be, was
a wooden cross, protected by a tiny triangular fence. This
was the sacred spot of the village. As in the early Saxon
314 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
days in England, a cross marked the place where the
priest came occasionally from the minster or Mother
Church, to hold service in outlying districts, so it was here.
Very seldom, perhaps once or twice in the year, a Russian
priest passed this way and read the service at this spot.
If he happen to come on St. George's Day (April 23, O.S.),
he takes his stand by the cross and sprinkles the cows with
holy water, as they go out to pasture for the first time in
the season.
From Uskovo the journey to Derbensk was accomplished
before midday. Here we were welcomed by the ex-overseer,
with whom we had previously stayed ; and furbishing
ourselves up as best we might, we posted south for fifteen
versts to pay our promised visit to the Chief of the Timovsk
district at Rikovsk.
A beautiful day had succeeded the storm of the previous
day, and the change from the crawling telyega to a galloping
troika, covering the ten miles in just over the hour on a
very rough road, was most delightful. Several convoys of
provisions, drawn by oxen and guarded by soldiers, were
overtaken ; indeed our izvostchik seemed to think that
everything had to be passed, whether we went into the
ditches to do it or not ; and was only held back by the
" tishe, tishe ! " (gently, gently !) of my companion. Rikovsk,
our destination, is the centre of administration of the
Timovsk okrug, one of the three districts into which the
island is divided. The most prominent buildings are the
fine wooden church, built by the convicts, a large prison,
and the house of the chief. This official ranks as the third
or fourth man on the island, being responsible, like his
brother officers of the Alexandrovsk and Korsakovsk
okrugi, to the Governor only. We found him entertaining
several guests — officials — but he welcomed us, and we all
sat down to a table surprisingly well-spread for Sakhalin.
The Russians are excellent makers of soup, though a
Westerner finds this course, unlike his own, a meal in itself.
A RIDE THROUGH THE "TAIGA" 315
The same may be said of their zakuska, or preliminary
course of hors cfceuvres. Side dishes of delicacies, anchovies,
bacon, sardines, ikra (caviare), etc., freely partaken of as
the Russians do, would satisfy any ordinary Englishman,
before he entered upon the more serious portion of the
meal. After dinner, talk ran upon the native races which
inhabited the district ruled over by our host, their origin,
numbers, the causes of their dying out, etc. In the
course of the discussion of this last point a younger
official, who became interested, suggested that the Russians
had been responsible for introducing small-pox and diph-
theria. Whereupon the chief angrily quashed him with,
"The Englishman must not know that, or he will write
about it." It was not therefore likely, when the Chief
himself offered to take me over the prison, that I should be
shown the worst side of things ; in fact, the same under-
official suggested my visiting a portion of the older prison,
but the idea was immediately scouted. First we entered
the new portion, which contained the single cells, an innova-
tion which the Chief took some responsibility for, and was
evidently proud of. Certainly everything in this portion of
the prison was up-to-date. The prisoners had better and
cleaner accommodation than I had yet seen, including a
flap-table, flap-plank bed, and a stool, and were even
allowed an hour's exercise a day unless there were
many of them, in which case it was cut down to half
an hour.
Yet this single-cell system, which was the new and
improved method to be adopted throughout the Empire,
was by no means a satisfactory solution of the difficult
penal question. It might be better than the indiscriminate
mixing in the kameri if work, productive work, were allowed
them out of the cells ; but the long weary years of confine-
ment, the terrible ennui, more especially to an unlettered
person who could not avail himself of the scanty literature
of the prison library, were these likely to reform the
3i6 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
criminal? It would be indeed a miracle if he emerged
sane.
One of these we saw. He was under sentence of twenty
years, which might be shortened a little by good behaviour,
doubtful in his case, or by a Manifesto of the Tsar on
some great Imperial event. He was one of the Barratas-
vili band, indeed the only one who had not been executed.
Our party, including the gaolers, clanked along the
corridor, and brought up suddenly at one of the ominous-
looking doors. Uncovering the grille, the chief, who was
a very big man, peered in, the warder warning him that the
prisoner was dangerous. The nachalnik, with perhaps
pardonable show of courage, ordered the gaoler to unlock
and unbolt the door ; and I had a glance at the prisoner,
sullen and dreadfully pallid, cowering like a wild beast.
Despite another warning from the warder, his superior
entered, and was locked in for two or three minutes with
the prisoner.
Another, whom I was shown, was a member of a
gang of five pictured in the illustration, who had
attacked and murdered three soldiers camping in a shelter
in the forest. This one, who is on the extreme right in
the picture, alone escaped hanging. Yet another was
pointed out to me who, having previously escaped from
prison, presented himself boldly in broad daylight at a
house in Alexandrovsk, which was temporarily in charge
of a soldier. He said he had been sent by the kappellmeister
for the musical instruments, but before the soldier had
time to reply the brodyaga had felled him with an axe or
a club. Finishing his ghastly work with a knife, the
murderer dragged the corpse to a trap-door in the floor,
and dropped it into the potato-cellar. This happened
about midday, and the baker calling shortly afterwards,
and spying blood on the floor as he came in to deposit
the loaf, immediately suspected foul play, and shouted,
" Help, help ! " Two men hurried up in answer to his cries,
A RIDE THROUGH THE "TAIGA" 317
and held the doors. The prisoner then made for a window,
but the Military Governor (predecessor of the present) was
passing at the time, and seeing a disturbance, ran up just
in time to receive the prisoner as he leaped through the
window.
On the whole the prisoners were fortunate in having
Mr. S. as the nachalnik of the district in which their
prison lay. He was energetic, not unkindly disposed, and
clear-headed enough to see through attempts to deceive
him. Of his private life I do not intend to speak.
The following was told me by one who was no friend
of his, and therefore carries the more weight. A political
exile had been appointed school teacher in his district, and
the chief arranged to pay him twenty-five rubles a month.
The salary, like the rations given to an " exile-settler " in
his first or second year, was payable at the end of the
month. Any remonstrance, to the effect that a man might
starve before that time, was met by the official reply that
on the other hand, if the provisions or payment were made
in advance, and the man died before the end of the month,
the Crown would lose.
The chief, knowing the poverty of the political exile,
ordered him to be paid fifteen rubles at the outset, and
when the officials responsible urged that it was not safe,
and that a receipt ought to be taken, replied, " Nonsense,
dock five rubles a month off his salary until it is paid."
It is true that some of the prisoners in these single
cells give their gaolers considerable trouble, but the cruel
beatings that these same soldiers give on the sly cannot
always be accounted for thus. The prisoners all wore a
painfully cowed look, for the hand of the law does not
stretch out to Sakhalin as it does nearer home. Less than
a year previous the Chief of a Caucasian prison had beaten
a man nearly to death. The procureur happened to visit
this prison a week afterwards, and observing this prisoner
evidently ill, asked why he was not in the infirmary. The
3i8 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Chief replied that he had been well an hour previous.
"For shame," called out the convict, "you know you
yourself beat me, and nearly killed me a week ago." The
doctor was called, and on examination the man was found
to have three ribs broken; and the Chief of the prison was
sentenced to hard labour.
The procureur and judges are thus able to interfere in
favour of the prisoner or the accused, and the following is
an instance of such on Sakhalin, and was told me by the
thrifty and properous farmer of Uskovo. He was walking
along the road one day, when he saw an old man being
cruelly beaten by two soldiers. He watched them until he
could stand it no longer, and then called out —
" What are you doing ? "
They immediately left the old man, and coming up to him
said, " Go ! " " What do you mean ? " he asked ; but they
only repeated more loudly, " Go, go ! " at the same time
threatening him with the butt-ends of their rifles. He
remonstrated, and asked, " Where am I to go ? " But by
this time argument was of no avail, and he was forced to
march straight ahead. Arrived at the prison they accused
him of disobeying the authorities. The Chief of the prison
would hear nothing from such a " turbulent fellow," and
clapped him into gaol to await trial. He was then brought
up before the Chief of the district, who no doubt saw
through it, but in this case being very anxious, for
private reasons not to be mentioned, to keep on good
terms with the Chief of the prison, he reprimanded the
man and remanded him for trial. Fortunately the judge,
who arrived in due course from Vladivostpk, was a clever,
upright man, and he detected the fraud and dismissed the
prisoner.
The itinerary judges visit Sakhalin once a year, in July ;
hence most of those poor wretches who had been arrested,
and whom I saw herded together in a large bare room
behind iron bars, would have to wait ten months before
A RIDE THROUGH THE "TAIGA" 319
their trial came on. It was a miserable and demoralizing
company for those who were innocent. From this I went
over to the lazaret, where the rooms were well warmed,
lighted, and clean, and there were but few patients. One
poor miserable wretch, suffering from a horrible disease,
thinking I was a medical doctor, implored me to take him
to some mineral spring.
In the course of the evening, for the Chief had
hospitably dissuaded me from returning to Derbensk that
day, the nachalnik of the prison called on Mr. S. to make
up the report of the Crown lands. In England we are
accustomed to look upon officially compiled statistics, how-
ever much their interpretation may differ, as unimpeach-
able. The traveller learns that the same implicit trust
must be tempered with suspicion of party purposes in the
Antipodes, but in Russia — well, the following illustrates
the methods of compilation.
The prison-master proposed to write down twenty-two
and a half desyatini * as the Crown area under cultivation ;
but the Chief of the district said, " No, the Crown will
expect too much from that, write it down as eighteen."
As evening proceeded our host grew anxious, and not a
little irritable, and I began to wonder if I were the
unwitting cause. That was not so, however, but he was
worrying over the delay in the arrival of the weekly mail
from Alexandrovsk, already overdue, and was calculating
the chances of it having been attacked. Such is the
atmosphere of life on Sakhalin.
Rikovsk is famous as the erstwhile residence of a
convict whose name, a generation ago, was known
throughout Europe. Sophie Bluffstein, or the "Golden
Hand," as she was called, was living here at Rikovsk in
the early nineties. Hers was a remarkable career. Wan
and thin from long confinement, the reader will scarcely
credit, from the illustration, that she was once so beautiful
* A desyaiina — 27 acres (nearly).
320 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
as to bewitch even her gaolers. It is more than thirty
years ago since her escapades, which were to ring through
Europe, began. She had married, it is said, one of her
own race, a Jew, who was some sort of agent. His
affairs early became entangled, and from that time forth
she played her great rdle. Her stage was the capitals of
Europe, and her first victims the great shopkeepers.
Dressing up as befitted her assumed rank, and driving up
in style to the chief shops, she would order jewellery, etc.
to be sent to her address, which, needless to say, was a
temporary one. Before this was discovered she and her
husband were many hundreds of miles away ; St. Peters-
burg, Vienna, Paris, and even London sheltering her in
turn. She is said to have spent enormous sums of money,
and to have gained a high position in the fashionable
world. Young men were attracted by her beauty and
her remarkable eyes. They fell dupes to her, and she is
credited with decoying them and robbing them of their
valuables. Her greatest triumph, however, was yet to
come. Arrested and thrown into prison at Smolensk,
she gained such influence over the overseer, that he not
only connived at her escape, but, deserting wife and
children, fled with her. She soon, however, threw hira
over, and returned to her old practices. Report has it
that she was one night involved in one of these young
men's parties which ended fatally, and, being arrested,
was despatched to Siberia. Escaping again, she was
re-captured, and deported to Sakhalin.
Her escapes by no means ended with her landing on
the island. At first allowed to live out as a " free-com-
mand," so many and such serious deeds were laid to her
account, though never proved, so cleverly had she matured
her plans, that she was ultimately imprisoned in a single
cell in the "testing" prison at Alexandrovsk. Before
this she had leagued herself with many doubtful characters,
whom she employed as her tools ; and while yet at
A RIDE THROUGH THE "TAIGA" 321
liberty she and another murdered a merchant with
several thousand rubles upon him, down by the pirate
vessel I have described. She buried the money, and
it is reported that neither she nor any one else has been
able to find it since. Many other crimes, committed
during the time she spent outside the prison walls, were
believed to have owed their origin to her, and though
the authorities could never bring them home, she was
handcuffed and confined in the Alexandrovsk prison.
Seven years previous to my visit she had regained her
liberty in part, and was living at Rikovsk. The sequel
is not generally known. She was ultimately allowed to
go to Vladivostok, where she kept an inn until her
death.
The post eventually arrived safely that night, though
late ; and the next morning we in our turn took the same
route to Alexandrovsk. Reaching Derbensk in the course
of the morning we once more packed up, and started at
1.30 for Alexandrovsk, thirty-five miles distant, being
assured that we should find the tide favourable when we
reached Arkovo. The scenery had changed its summer
garb since we last passed over this road, and the autumn-
tinted leaves were fast falling. At the first stantsiya,
or little posting-inn, we found the chickens taken
in for the winter and living under the dresser ; yet I
noticed with surprise, as we drank our tumblers of tea,
a hydrangea and fuchsia in blossom in the window.
Nothing occurred to stop us on our way until Arkovo
was reached. We passed a few convicts loafing along
the road, but we were well armed, and they could see
it. Once, in the gathering darkness, we caught the
flicker of a spark in the forest like the flash of a gun,
followed by another, and we listened for the reports ;
but not a sound broke the stillness of the night, and,
approaching the spot, we laughed to think that we had
been deceived by a still smouldering tree-stump.
Y
322 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
As we were nearing Arkovo the Third, where came
our last change of horses, the procureur, in full uniform,
passed us going inland. With him went one of our
chances of fresh horses, but if nobody else had taken
those he had brought from Alexandrovsk, we might
have them after they had had a rest. In this we were
disappointed, for when we reached the stantsiya, the
Rikovsk doctor had engaged the remaining kibitka in
which to follow the procureur; and a merchant had
taken the other horses to return to Alexandrovsk. The
whole inn was in a stir, and not without reason, for the
merchant, who was the identical one who had befriended
me on the night of my arrival, had been in a similar, or
rather worse condition this evening. He had drunk so
much champagne and vodka that, though he was reputed
to do his business best when " muddled," on this occasion
he had completely lost his head, and on reaching the
inn, had fired three shots from his revolver as he sat in
a chair. The fresh marks were there in the ceiling and
walls when I came to occupy the same seat a few
minutes after. Everybody had naturally fled for their
lives, not knowing what such an irresponsible person
might do. The doctor declared that he had done all
he could, though he, naturally enough, had been con-
siderably frightened. He declared that he had fled from
Alexandrovsk because of the excessive drinking, which
he could scarcely avoid without offence. I found him
at the moment suspiciously over-amiable and spontaneous
in his welcome, and full of protestations of the greatest
friendship, and thus we parted, he to renew his journey,
and we to await possibilities. The post-master an-
nounced that the horses were all out, and there was no
kibitka available. This was doubly unfortunate, since
the tide was rising, and every moment diminished our
chances of being able to get through to Alexandrovsk.
A little firmness resulted in the appearance, about an hour
A RIDE THROUGH THE "TAIGA" 323
later, of a rude telyega and a couple of peasants' horses.
With a troika, under favourable conditions, we might have
done the sixteen miles in a couple of hours, or two hours
and a half, but with this poor substitute, which proceeded
at the rate of three or four miles an hour, it was impossible,
even if we breasted the tide, to reach Alexandrovsk until
long after the place was asleep. Our prospects were not
bright, for our previous place of abode in Alexandrovsk,
we had been told, was occupied, and if the finding of a
lodging — a safe lodging — by day were doubtful, it would
be impossible after the inhabitants were abed. Neverthe-
less, we pushed on in a sort of blind way. To add to the
unpleasantness of our situation, we had only heard the
night before of the murder of the brother of our former
landlady at Alexandrovsk, on the sands along which we
were now to pass. After eighteen days his torn jacket
had been found, and the watcher on the pirate ship had
been arrested for the murder, his accomplice of the hut
at the foot of the cliff being still at large.
Our way lay through a thickly clad valley, and the
overhanging trees lining the roadside added to the black-
ness of a dark night. To carry a lantern would have
been to invite attack, and yet I wondered how it was
possible for our yamshtchik to find the way. Indeed, I
rather think that the horses did it. Sitting back to back,
as we had done two nights before, my interpreter and I
kept a sharp look-out for moving objects, for we had
again been warned by the police. The growing darkness
was the precursor of a heavy storm, which descended upon
us before we had got halfway to the beach. This storm,
which, unknown to us then, favoured the designs of six
convicts in the great prison at Alexandrovsk, proved kind
to us also. It is ever on the night of a raging gale, under
cover of the roar of the ternpest, that the prisoners
make their attempts at escape. These six, we learnt the
next morning, had lassoed the tops of the fifteen-feet
324 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
stockade ; and, clambering up and over, had dropped down
and stolen away when the patrol was taking shelter in
the sentry-box. Stealing along in the darkness and
noise, they fled into the very forest which our sea-road
skirted.
To us the storm came as the last straw, and seeing
a hut by the wayside tenanted by a convict, whom my
companion had known when he had been schoolmaster
in the village, we sought refuge therein. The owner was
a " free-command," and a pleasing exception to the general
run of convicts. His wife had followed him from Europe,
and, as is the rule, he had been allowed to live outside the
prison with her on condition of his doing his allotted hard-
labour duty. This consisted of dragging 120 tree-trunks
to Alexandrovsk, He had proved himself thrifty, and by
the aid of a loan from the Crown had purchased ponies,
with which he managed to do his hard labour in a com-
paratively short time, thus leaving himself a large remainder
wherein he could work for himself and family. With a
foresight and energy that would have won him a position
anywhere, he had recognized a need in his village, and
provided for it. From the interior, by this one road,
passed all the traffic to the " capital," and those who had
oxen and ponies for sale, and were taking them to the
bazar or market-place in Alexandrovsk, made this the
end of one of their stages ; and very naturally so, since
they had generally to wait for the tide. The little court-
yard, which generally forms part of all Siberian cottages
or huts, in his case was extended to make room for the
cattle ; and the shelters enclosing it provided the drovers
with beds of hay. The cottage boasted two rooms, occupied
by our host, his wife, and three children. The eldest, a
daughter of about twenty, had joined them quite recently
from the Caucasus, and to her was evidently due a dainti-
ness, rare in Sakhalin huts, about the little room into which
we now entered from the kitchen. There was a bedstead
.^ ~ -t— f I
A RIDE THROUGH THE "TAIGA" 325
here also, always a sign of affluence on the island, which
was offered to us ; but we politely refused, electing to
sleep on the floor. Upon this the daughter went into
the cow-byre and fetched hay to spread on the floor,
and then standing by, watched, with a sense of amazement
stealing over her face, my interpreter spreading our rugs
and skins on the hay. When this was done, she turned
to my companion, and asked him —
" Is the English barin a very celebrated person ? "
"Why?"
"Oh," she said, "I have seen great generals in the
Caucasus, and they slept on the hay ; I have never seen
any one sleep on so many rugs before ! "
I was scarcely prepared for such primitive con-
ceptions among Russians, and I can assure the reader
that, had he met us after dark on an English high-
way, he would have taken us for foot-pads rather than
princes.
The next morning a troika galloped up from the post
to take us on to Alexandrovsk. Our way was through
a winding valley, hemmed in by pine-clad slopes ; in
summer it was knee-deep in flowers, and the hedges gay
with clusters of berries, but now all was bleak and cold.
We had not gone far before a stinging sleet, changing to
snow, drove down from the Okhotsk Sea. We wrapped
ourselves from head to foot, for the blast was armed with
needles, which seemed to pierce our skin. King Frost had
begun his seven months' reign. Leafless and bare stood
the great firs and poplars, hard and stern in the wintry
blast, relieved only by the passionate blood-red tints of
a tiny mountain-ash, whose clusters of red berries and
crimson -purple leaves defied the winter's numbing cold.
A few miles more and we were on the seashore, exposed
to the full force of the tempest from the north. Here,
turning our backs to it, we seemed to fly on the wings
of the storm. How jolly it was ! The lull and the
326 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
breathing-time after the struggle, and then the yielding
of one's self up to the strong element to be swept on
with a great rush. What could have been more enjoyable
than the gallop over the hard sand and through the sea
to the merry jingling of bells ?
CHAPTER XVII
SCENES AND PERSONS IN ALEXANDROVSK
Flans for departure — ^A broken cable — Rumours of war with Japan —
A reply telegram in nineteen days — Chief buildings of Alexan-
drovsk— Classification of prisoners — Flogging — The plet — Putrid
prison rations — The painful story of Mrs. A. — Twenty years in the
dungeons — " Who are you ? " — ^Arrival of prisoners — A tale of
murders.
ON arrival at Alexandrovsk I and my interpreter,
whose services I elected to retain until my
departure from the island, found a temporary
lodging at the ex-overseer's, as his expected guests had not
yet arrived. The family was plunged into grief for the
brother of the wife, and son of the old ex-convict father,
who had been murdered, but whose body had not yet been
found.
Again I had to adopt a Micawber-like attitude with
regard to my departure from the island. My plans for
getting back to England had been to return to Nikolaevsk,
and thence by steamboat up the Amur and Shilka to the
terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway at Stretensk ; or
failing that, I had a distant hope that the promised near
completion of the Manchurian Railway might allow of my
reaching the Trans-Siberian Railway by that means from
Vladivostok. Two things prevented my adopting the
former plan, which had to be followed up at once if at all,
and even then might result in my spending two months on
the Amur waiting for the sledging season to commence.
327
328 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
•
Half my baggage, including my travelling furs, had gone
astray, and my money had given out owing to an extended
stay.
The vessel which brought the baggage from Nikolaevsk
had failed in an attempt to land anything or anybody
at Alexandrovsk, and so had continued its journey to
Vladivostok, 800 miles beyond. Fortunately another vessel
returning was able to put in, and arrived some weeks after,
just before I was at last able to get away.
As to money, my bankers at Vladivostok had an agent,
but not a branch, on Sakhalin, in the person of the ex-convict
merchant, Mr. Y. My letter of credit was therefore useless
until I could get them to instruct their agent. A telegram
was therefore despatched asking them to order a payment
of 500 rubles. This perhaps was one of the incidents
which made those around me uneasy as to the safety of my
person, for telegrams are not secrets of the service, on
Sakhalin, but soon become public property. Mr. X. was
walking in Alexandrovsk one day when he was stopped
by two or three people with the remark —
" Have you heard the news ? "
"No. What is it?"
" Why, a telegram for 100 rubles has come for you."
The story of my telegram, and the reply, illustrates not
only the difficulties, but the unimportance of mere posts
and telegrams in Siberia. This is the more remarkable
when we remember the efforts of the Government, made
from the earliest years of Siberian conquest to establish
posting and postal communication at cheap rates. Political
and military considerations had doubtless paved the way,
and the possibilities of quick transmission were marvellous.
It is said, that in the eighteenth century messengers on
horseback circulated between the Courts of the White Tsar
and the Son of Heaven, a distance of over five thousand
miles, in twenty-eight days. A story is told of one who
accomplished the distance in the marvellously short time of
SCENES AND PERSONS IN ALEXANDROVSK 329
twenty-one days. It was the occasion of a very urgent
communication from Peking. The messenger, riding day
and night, speeding on without a moment's delay for sleep,
dozing at whiles when smooth stretches of the way allowed
it, arrived at St. Petersburg at the end of three weeks,
absolutely exhausted. Tumbling off his horse, he was
hurried, travel-stained as he was, into the presence of his
august master. His despatches safely and personally
delivered he was ushered into an ante-room, where he fell
into a deep sleep. Meanwhile the perusal of the despatches
had raised some question in the Tsar's mind, and he sent
for the messenger to interrogate him ; but the attendants,
finding the man so dead asleep that all their efforts to
rouse him were unsuccessful, had at last to explain the
situation to his Majesty. He, without a moment's hesita-
tion, said, " I will awaken him." Entering the ante-chamber,
he planted himself in front of the sleeper, and in a loud
voice called out, " Loshadi gotovi!" (The horses are
ready ! ) Immediately the man leaped to his feet, to the
astonishment of the court attendants.
To render my position more awkward, the cable from
the mainland (De Castries Bay) to the island (Alexan-
drovsk), which was the only link with the outer world during
the greater part of the winter, had been broken in the
previous June. Some said it was the work of a Japanese
vessel, but this was probably mere rumour ; for I was
shown pieces of it, by the engineer responsible for its
repair, and he stated that it was wearing out in several
places. This constant fear of Japan was reflected in the
military preparations — including the importation of
artillery — that had been recently made, and have con-
tinued to be made since my departure. Twice during my
stay telegrams were received stating that war had been
declared between Russia and Japan,
In its present undeveloped condition the island presents
no great commercial attraction. Japan draws supplies
330 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
of salted fish from Sakhalin as well as from the Amur,
and only in case of hostilities with Russia would these be
endangered. Coal is certainly mined, though not in large
quantities, and the supply is generally thought to be
limited. The fur trade is no longer of serious account,
and there remain only the petroleum springs, whose true
value has not yet transpired. Having regard to its present
population of criminals and ex-convicts, the island cannot
be said to exercise any great allurement. From a military
point of view it commands the entrance to the Amur, and
could be easily taken ; but as there is no port on Sakhalin
to give shelter to vessels, possession of the island would
be of little use excepting for massing troops, say, at
Pogobi, for transport in boats in calm weather across the
five miles of straits to the mainland. The Amur liman,
or estuary, as we have seen, is very difficult of navigation,
and the shallow depth and narrow channels would be even
more efficient protection than the present batteries and
mines. In winter the frost offers a sufficient hindrance
to military operations.
The rumour connecting Japan with the rupture of the
cable had no other foundation than the imagination of
the look-out man at the light on Jonqui^re Point, who
reported that he had seen a Japanese vessel passing north
up the Straits of Tartary just before the disconnexion.
Under the circumstances, this cable was of considerable
importance to the island administration. With no regular
communication owing to the want of a haven, and the
absolute absence of it during winter, save for two months
when dog-sledges had to be relied upon, it was a serious
matter in case of external complications as well as internal
and administrative crises. All telegrams from St. Peters-
burg, messages from the Governor-general at Khabarovsk,
and official or commercial instructions from Vladivostok,
had to suffer the delay of waiting for vessels to call at
De Castries for them, and Neptune's pleasure to allow the
SCENES AND PERSONS IN ALEXANDROVSK 331
said vessels to approach near enough to land them at
Alexandrovsk.
There is an official leaflet called Sakhalin Telegrams,
published at Alexandrovsk for the benefit of the officials.
It contains news and telegrams from St. Petersburg, and,
taking up a copy one day, I noticed that a news telegram
had taken eight days from St. Petersburg to De Castries
(over 6000 miles), and thirteen days from De Castries to
Alexandrovsk (sixty knots). Notwithstanding the import-
ance of the re-establishment of telegraphic communication
with the mainland, especially in view of the approaching
winter, the officials failed to unite the cable, rejecting the
offer of a properly equipped vessel from Shanghai, and
"muddling about" and not "through" with an ancient
gunboat, one of those handed over by America at the
time of the purchase of Alaska. Month after month
passed by ; winter came, and nothing was effected. Then
came a hiatus of communication ; Sakhalin was completely
cut off from the rest of the world until the freezing-up of
the strait allowed the despatch of dog-sledges, which it
was now determined to send every five days instead of
monthly or fortnightly as heretofore. Six months later,
in the summer of last year, the old cable was abandoned
and a new one laid over the funnel of the straits from
Cape Pogobi to Cape Lazarev, and a land-wire connecting
this with Alexandrovsk and Nikolaevsk.
Telegraph rates are very low in the Russian Empire ;
and, as in India, there are three rates according to speed,
so in Siberia there are two. It was little likely, under the
conditions then existing, that I could command express
transmission ; but I paid the urgent rate — triple the ordi-
nary— and prepaid a reply. The day after my message
was handed in at the office, a vessel was sent over with
it to De Castries, thence, in due course, it was wired to
Vladivostok, From that time I counted the days' and
watched and waited with expectation for vessels coming
332 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
from the mainland. At first, I hoped for a reply in three
or four days ; but no steamer came. A calm day ensued,
and a little tug ventured across, and, returning with no
news, I naturally comforted myself with the reflexion that
there had not been time for an answer. Then the mail
steamer returning to Vladivostok arrived, and successfully
delivered its despatches and cargo, and I hastened to the
post-office, but there was nothing for me. A storm then
broke upon us from the west, and the steamers, including
the gunboat, fled over to De Castries. Ten days had
already elapsed, and no reply had come. My cash had
disappeared, and my hopes of returning before winter set
in and blocked my exit, were getting lower. From day to
day I nursed expectations of the repair of the cable, and
the receipt of an immediate reply by that means ; but
this was not to be. On the sixteenth day a mail steamer
on its outward journey stood off the coast, and, besieging
the post-office later in the morning, I was again disap-
pointed. The Chief informed us, with no trace of regret
in his voice, that Sakhalin was now absolutely "cut off
from the civilized world, and afforded an excellent oppor-
tunity to explorers." In explanation, he said that a
written notice had come from De Castries to the effect
that the telegraph-station there had been closed owing
to the breaking of the wire on the mainland, which could
not be repaired until the following May or June (it was
accomplished, owing to the continued open weather, in a
few days). It appears that a storm or flood — a not un-
common occurrence — had brought down the wire, and an
engineer, with an escort of soldiers, having set out to
locate the damage and repair it, had been overtaken by
a snowstorm, and, unprepared for this sudden attack of
winter, had been obliged to retrace his steps. It was bad
news for us ; but not unforgetful of the courtesies due, we
congratulated the telegraph Chief on being able to close
his office and enjoy a holiday.
SCENES AND PERSONS IN ALEXANDROVSK 333
Some days later, when the line on the mainland had
been repaired, my hopes were raised again by receiving
a notice to the effect that a telegram awaited us at the
office. We set out for the bureau, a mile and a half
distant ; but, arriving there, the clerk declared, on looking
into the matter, that he could find no telegram, and added
with indifference that it was a mistake, the notice referred
to a telegram that had been delivered six weeks earlier.
Such little discrepancies in the telegraph administration
were of no moment.
Two days after our return from the interior, we had
found, lying on the counter of the office, a telegram which
we had sent from Derbensk, only thirty-five miles distant,
three days previously. It was awaiting the convenience
of the messenger, when he should have leisure to deliver
it. To our amusement, on another occasion, we noticed
a telegram for the Chief of the telegraph-office himself
lying on the counter, which had not been delivered to
him, though he resided on the premises, and had, since
its arrival, gone up to Derbensk.
At last, after nineteen days of waiting, a reply came
to hand, and when I ultimately reached Vladivostok, I
learned that nine days had been occupied in the trans-
mission of the telegram and reply, and for ten days the
original message had lain undelivered on the counter of
the head post-office in Vladivostok — this the authorities
admitted to my bankers !
Long ere this it was quite evident that I must place
my hopes on the Manchurian Railway, and trust for
permission to get through.
Meanwhile I had not given up the idea of visiting
the Ainus, and gaining all the information and some
photographs from officials who had been stationed among
them, I began to make plans during my forced inactivity
to visit them. By taking a vessel to Korsakovsk, I could
from there reach the south-east coast, and even venture
334 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
as far as the Bay of Patience, with good fortune. Com-
munications being open rather later between Korsakovsk
and Vladivostok or Japan, my departure might be delayed
sufficiently to allow of this. To do this I proposed to
take my interpreter, who was of great assistance to me,
The Governor was again interviewed for his permission,
but this time he proved unwilling, and raised a technical
excuse, which was ridiculed even by his subordinates. A
festive gathering was to be held at the Governor's house
the next day, and I therefore approached four of the most
influential people, the procureur, the Chief of the district,
the inspector of agriculture, and a doctor, who were all
favourable to my plans. They all promised to bring
their influence to bear on the Governor ; but he was one
of those weak men who have no definite conviction in
important affairs, but who occasionally are most obdurate
in a petty matter, lest they should be thought feeble.
This way being barred, I proposed, to avoid his technical
objection, to reach the Ainus by an overland journey vid
Derbensk, Rikovsk, and the river Poronai, but I had,
unfortunately, chosen one of the worst times of the
year. There were no available means of transport. The
Poronai was freezing, but not frozen, and no reindeer
could pass the swampy tracks until the coming January ;
but worse than this were the torrential streams on the
south-east coast. I should have to wait days for them
to subside, and many soldiers had lost their lives in
attempting to cross them ; this we were informed by
Mr. von Friken, who was one of the few officials who
had ever visited the northerly portion of the Bay of
Patience. The plan had therefore reluctantly to be
given up.
During the time of waiting and watching, of the
making and discarding of plans, I had an opportunity
no other English traveller had yet had, of observing
from day to day the life of this unique penal settlement,
SCENES AND PERSONS IN ALEXANDROVSK 335
in which more than half the convicts sentenced to hard
labour on the island are located.
In picturing Alexandrovsk, the reader must not think
of it as a town with busy shops and factories. The
chief feature, around which the whole place centres, is the
prison. If there are three or four merchants' stores, and
an iron foundry, these are for the prisoners ; if there are
well-to-do-looking wooden houses, the residences of the
officials, they exist because of the prisoners, and last, if
there is a museum containing a small ethnological and
natural history collection, that is a sign of the presence
of political exiles. The Siberian traveller cannot be
long ignorant of the debt science owes to these banished
ones. On the mainland at Minusinsk and at Chita every
one knows how much has been due to Mr. Kuznetsov,
and what worthy memorials he has raised in these two
excellent collections. To one of this class, who, thanks
to the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences is now
no longer exiled from Europe, is practically due the
museum at Alexandrovsk; a story in connexion with
its early founding reflects the crass ignorance displayed
by some of the officials under whom these exiles are
placed.
On a journey along the west coast this " political "
had made an interesting discovery of> stone implements
of the palaeolithic form, and on his return he ex-
hibited them to the Governor of the island, and to
the oiiScial who afterwards became the director of the
museum.
" What did you say they were ? " rejoined the officials.
"Stone implements used by one of the early races
in the island, for hewing and cutting."
" Nonsense. Whoever heard of such a thing as stone
knives ? They are sports, mere freaks of nature."
I have no doubt they had a good laugh over the
" madness " of the exile ; but, needless to say, the
336 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
specimens are treasured to-day, as well-accredited ob-
sidian and diorite "celts," adding one more valuable
link to the history of the habitation of the island.
In addition to the buildings mentioned, there is the
church in the main street, and overlooking the market-
place, or bazar, where an ill-assorted collection of huts
is huddled together, are the Muhammadan mosque and the
little Lutheran church. Beyond the bridge the road to the
jetty is bordered by long store-houses, guarded by patrols,
and close to the pristan, facing the sea, are quarantine and
bonded sheds, and the lazaret, where the maimed and the
halt, who can still work, do a little to earn their rations.
Outside of these, the chief buildings, is the great body
of small cottages or huts where the ex-convicts, and in
some cases married convicts, live.
In the early part of the morning, at midday, and
again at evening, the town is astir with gangs of convicts
going to and from their work. All are dressed in dirty
cotton clothing and leather shoes, and those that give
trouble are manacled. Some are engaged in pushing
trolleys, laden with great sacks of American flour, from
the jetty, others are going out to the coal-mines. At one
of the latter, the tunnel of which you can see as your
troika climbs the hill on the way to Due, there is a
gang of some twenty, who are stationed there with one
overseer only. They live and sleep there, or rather they
are meant to sleep there ; for it is said that in the night
some of them escape, and rob, and return with their
booty. They make it all right with their guard, for he
alone, is powerless to prevent it, even if he wanted to.
Before the present Governor came, this sort of thing was
commonly done from the prison itself — that is, the
reformatory portion {razryad ispravlyayushtchikhsyd).
Good-conduct prisoners in this section are still allowed
to go out with an overseer at their head to do sundry
work, such as painting, etc., and some of these slip away
SCENES AND PERSONS IN ALEXANDROVSK 337
if occasion serves, and return at evening to bribe the
overseer; but in the old days the gates were open, and
those who were left behind would fee the sentry, spend
the day outside, returning before nightfall with what they
had appropriated. Of course a search was then organized
to discover the thief or thieves, and even the Governor's
house was not free from the visits of the soldiers, while
the real offenders were secure in their " appartements
garnis " in the prison ! The gangs from the " testing "
prison (razryad ispituemikh) are always attended by
armed soldiers, as seen in the illustration ; where they
are engaged in making a new road leading up to the
prison, at a spot a few yards below the office of the
"muddled" merchant with whom I spent my first night
on the island.
There is another class of prisoners besides the soldier-
gang and the overseer-gang, the so-called " free-commands,"
or ticket-of-leave men, many of whom — men and women
— may be seen going to the prison to get their quota of
work every morning. On my way to the post I often
passed groups of these, the women in short skirts and
great top felt boots, long frieze khalati (overcoats), with
the diamond-shaped tell-tale patch of yellow cloth let in
the back. These were convicts who had become the
" wives " of " exile-settlers ; " the others, retained by the
officials nominally for cleaning the prison, were kept in
the building, where they could be seen through the bars
of the window to the right of the main entrance to the
prison offices.
The law provides that any criminal with a sentence of
not less than two years and eight months ; any woman,
not exceeding forty years of age, with a sentence of two
years or over ; and any political exile, at the discretion
of the Government, may be deported to Sakhalin. The
ukaz of 1900, in reference to exiles, has generally been
thought to have put an immediate stop to their deportation ;
z
338 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
but exiles with a sentence of hard labour are not con-
templated in the proclamation, therefore it is that criminal
and political exiles continue to arrive on Sakhalin. The
ukaz may be considered rather to register the desire of
the penal authorities ; to indicate the line they wish to
take, while reserving to themselves the right of dealing
with special cases in their own way, and realizing their
scheme in their own time.
Criminals on their arrival are classified according
to their sentence. Those with a sentence of twelve
years and upwards are put into the worst gaol, the
"testing" prison. These are mostly murderers, and, if
they have proved themselves recalcitrant, their chains are
not struck off after the journey, but they are confined
to that portion of it called the kandalnaya tyurma (chained
prison).
The " reformatory " prison contains those with a ternn
of four to twelve years, while those with less than four
years are treated, after a short sojourn, as " free-commands."
This latter division includes brodyagi from Russia, who
are sentenced to one and a half years, and the same class
from Siberia, who get four years' hard labour.
Promotion is from the " testing " to the " reformatory "
gaol, and from there to the " free-command " division, the
length of time spent in each depending upon the behaviour
of the prisoner. Under the most favourable conditions a
man may pass only four years in the "testing" prison,
whereas another may be confined for eight, or even more.
As a whole, one may say, that a third of the term is spent
in each section.
Strictly speaking, "free-command," according to Russian
terminology, includes all in the " reformatory " gaol, as well
as those outside, but I have adopted this distinction as
clearer.
The arrival of the free-born wife of a convict will
gain even a murderer release from prison, and he may
^
SCENES AND PERSONS IN ALEXANDROVSK 339
forthwith live as a " free-command ; " but, of course, having
his full term of hard labour to fulfil. On the part of
the female criminal a similar alleviation comes from
marriage — or, rather, her choice by an exile. This will
free her from the prison walls, and she may live, as we
have seen, with her "man" on condition that her hard
labour duty is done.
On the other hand, many incur additional sentences
by escape, theft, and deeds of violence. A prisoner who
escapes and is recaptured, not only receives a flogging
■with the plet, but may get an addition of anything
from a quarter to the whole of his original sentence.
In the year 1900 the prisoners on Sakhalin sentenced
to hard labour for life numbered 510, of whom 70 were
women ; but there were those who, Irish as it may seem,
had more than a life sentence. These were already well
advanced in life, and had yet to undergo a term of be-
tween 40 and 50 years. There were 13 such, while 51,
of whom one was a woman, had sentences between 30 and
40 years, and 240 had between 20 and 30 years to their
credit.
The expiration of a sentence does not bring with it
the long-hoped-for farewell to Sakhalin, for the ex-convict
regains his rights only by degrees. For six years more
he must remain on the island as an "exile-settler;" and
then, if he is in a position — which so few are — to get away,
he may go as a " peasant " to the mainland of Siberia for
another six years. Then only is he at liberty to return to
Russia.
The " testing " prison at Alexandrovsk held during my
stay about 600, many of them in chains, and most in
idleness. Only 100 of these, I was informed, were sent
out to do work such as mining, road-making, or log-
hauling, while the remainder dragged on a miserable
otiose existence. The authorities excused this unsatis-
factory state of things, declaring that these prisoners were
340 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
such bad characters that they dare not let them out to
work. It was this wearisome and demoralizing existence
which caused them to take matters into their own hands
and escape.
Two of the most notable characters were chained to
wheelbarrows night and day. This degrading form of
punishment, which has been done away with for some
years on the mainland, only survived on Sakhalin. During
the years 1894-96 there were five men so chained. They
were Kosulsky, Paschenko, Schirokolobov, Ogiirzov, and
a Caucasian.
"The rozgi (birch-rods dipped in salt) had not been
given there for three years, far less the plet" says Mr.
J. Y. Simpson in describing the famous model prison, the
Alexandrovsky Central, near Irkutsk. On Sakhalin both
were in use. Even women, who by law are immune from
corporal punishment, were flogged with the former in
February of 1902 ; and two defenceless female prisoners
were put in chains because they would not do the will of
their villainous overseers. Flogging with birch-rods is not
necessarily a cruel or unfitting punishment for hardened
criminals. The regrettable thing was that a quiet and
respectful prisoner might be arbitrarily ordered stripes by
Patrin, the Chief of the prison, or by officials of his stamp,
when in a mood or passion.
The plet is a modified form of the knut. The latter,
which has long been laid aside, is described as similar to
a plet, but with an iron hook at the end of the thongs.
The plet is a whip with a stout thick handle about eighteen
inches in length, and a six-foot thong branching into three.
These three thongs used to end in little bags filled with
lead. Only recently (since I was on the island) one of
these, such as I have described, was sent from Sakhalin
to St. Petersburg as a curiosity ; and, I believe, these
leaded ends are replaced to-day with knots. However,
my interpreter, who reached the island in 1897, said
If
l;'M>
SCENES AND PERSONS IN ALEXANDROVSK 341
that when he was in the "reformatory" gaol all the
prisoners paid tribute — soup, food, etc. — once a month to
the palach, or executioner, on condition that if they were
ordered the plet he would bring the leaded ends down
on the kabila (board) on which they were stretched,
instead of on their bare bodies. In doing this the palack
leaves himself open to punishment, but only in one case
did I hear of the penalty being imposed for the omis-
sion, and then he suffered terribly for it. It was the
ex-executioner Komeleva, and he was thrashed by his
enemy, Terslili, So awful was the flogging, that though
it occurred in 1882, a photograph of the wound was
taken in 1899 showing it still suppurating seventeen years
after.
So terrible a weapon was the leaden-ended ^/^^ that three
strokes were sufficient to cause death if the executioner
so pleased. The story is told of a Sakhalin prisoner who,
sentenced to one hundred strokes — ninety-nine are given —
promised the palach a bottle of vodka if he would not
hit him with the leaded ends. Even the thongs skin and
slice the flesh in a horrible manner, but the victim was a
hardened veteran, and when he had received ninety-five,
thinking he had escaped, he called out, " It's no matter,
you can't hurt me now, you needn't think you'll get
your vodka." But he had not reckoned with his man,
for after three more strokes he was dead. It was only
necessary to draw back the plet, as the stroke was spent,
for the ends to injure the liver and send a clot of blood to
the heart
Compared with the criminal population the number of
political exiles on Sakhalin is insignificant. According
to the census of January i, 1898, out of a total of seven
thousand and eighty engaged in hard labour they numbered
seventy-six. Their fate is bad enough, though not so
terrible as that of their friends in such a place as Sredni
Kolimsk, within the Arctic Circle. The greatest hardship
342 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
that awaits them on Sakhalin is the exile from their home-
land, and the banishment from anything like educated
society. In the cities of Tobolsk, Tomsk, and Irkutsk not
only are the exiles in touch with the civilized world, but
they are surrounded by educated people. On Sakhalin it
is different, the few who would make together a little
society, are scattered, and the so-called ilite, the officials,
prefer drinking and gambling to science and literature.
The old adage, that " it's an ill wind that blows nobody
any good," is, however, true in their case. The dearth of
educated people on the island accentuates the demand for
their services in school-mastering, doctoring, meteorological,
and book-keeping work, and thus they are provided with
congenial occupation. Such men were usually quiet in gaol,
and obtained the speediest promotion accorded to the well-
behaved. In the positions assigned them they had the
right to claim rations as prisoners, but none would risk the
unpleasant experience of having to apply for them, nor
indeed could they be expected to eat the salted fish which
was doled out to the criminals. It therefore depended
very much upon the official who had appointed them, and
the salary he chose to give, whether they could scrape
along or not.
Just before I left the island the Governor insisted on
my interpreter leaving me and going back to Due to be
schoolmaster there at a salary of five rubles (icw. 6^.) per
month. Of course this was an impossible sum on which to
keep body and soul together. He is now no longer, I am
glad to say, on Sakhalin.
For his private convenience in the distribution of the
prisoners' rations, the chief of the Alexandrovsk prison,
Patrin, doled them out in quantities sufficient for ten men,
leaving to them the division and distribution. This will
explain what follows. Returning one afternoon to the
house of the ex-overseer of the prison, where we were still
lodging, we found our landlady in trouble. One of the
G(J[.IXSKA", 1111
\ r •■ r \l, \M[, ■ mi; 1 \M I 1 h'NI K, Wl [H 1111- ''I'M, I,
\1 I X.WIiRi i\'nK.
\_Tol.u\' fag, _142.
SCENES AND PERSONS IN ALEXANDROVSK 343
convict-servants, a man from the " reformatory " gaol who
had been some time with them, was missing, and it was
reported that he had been arrested. He was a decent,
honest man-of-all-work, who did all the domestic work, the
washing-up and the waiting upon us. We immediately
went to inquire, and finding this was so, communi-
cated with our landlord, who was on the pristan. Some
hours afterwards he arrived, bringing the man with
him ; and we heard the explanation of his sudden dis-
appearance. He had gone for his usual allowance of food,
and Patrin, seeing him, had sent him away, telling him
curtly that he must join a " ten." He went off to find
nine others, but returned unsuccessful, and the chief in a
sharp voice called out, "You must go away and find
them, there are numbers 98 and 99 not belonging to a
ten." He then went in search of these men, and having
discovered them, learnt that they did already belong to a
" ten." This time Patrin was so irate that he ordered the
soldiers to clap him into a cell. Such was the treatment
accorded to a well-behaved convict who was simply
applying for the food to which he was entitled by law.
The ten arrangement was ultra vires, and had nothing
to do with the Government regulation.
I will not burden the reader with the details of the
prisoners' rations, with the number of zolotniki* and frac-
tions of a zolotnik of grecha, potatoes, etc., allowed him.
Suffice it to say that the long list which I have before me
provides amply for the wants of the convict, the menu
including black bread, grecha (buckwheat), salted meat,
and fish, brick-tea and soup. Unfortunately, what has
been said as to quantity does not apply to quality or
variety. Salted fish and salted meat prevail, and vege-
tables are scarce. Moreover, the list is a council of perfec-
tion. Salted meat is ordered three times a week — on one
of which it may be fresh — and salt fish for the remainder.
* A zolotnik — 'i^ lyi. avoirdupois. io6'34 zoL= i lb.
344 ■ IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
The frequent fasts in Russia often deprive the convict
of his claim even to salt meat, and the price of fresh meat
puts it almost out of question, except when a cow dies, or,
falling ill, has to be killed. Such an event is a boon and
a blessing, for it also saves something from the prison
allowance to the official pocket !
Again, the great distance of Sakhalin and the broken
communication in winter place it at a great disad-
vantage. Ample stores have to be laid in as a provision
against possible starvation ; and as a result the salted fish
is often a year old, evil-smelling and putrid by the time of
its distribution. But worse than this, it sometimes arrives
in that state, for ships' officers only corroborated what
Dr. Lansdell had heard twenty years before, that in taking
provisions across to the island, the smell of the fish on
board was insupportable.
It was unlikely therefore that the political exiles would
willingly apply for rations of this description, or run the
risk of treatment such as I have described ; and the Chief
was quite satisfied with an abstention which was profitable
to his pocket.
One of these exiles, whom I met on the island, was a
cultured lady who had gone through a most terrible ex-
perience. Her name is well known throughout Siberia,
and in Russia too ; but I will call her Mrs. A. She had
belonged to a secret society unknown to her husband, and
on the violent death of Alexander II., in l88i, it was
necessary for her to flee the country. Years passed, and
altering her appearance, she returned to Russia, trusting
that matters had quieted down. The police, however,
arrested her on suspicion, and casting about for some
means of proving her identity, they hit upon a brilliant
and most cruel test. They summoned her husband, who
was unaware of her return, and suddenly caused him to be
confronted by her. The ruse was as successful as cruel,
and the recognition instantaneous and spontaneous. From
roLiTii;\i I xii,i.~, i;iK''\^K. [^''/'''"''/'V-' 344-
SCENES AND PERSONS IN ALEXANDROVSK 345
that time the wife disappeared from the knowledge of the
world. Immured in the dungeons of the Schliisselberg
years went by, and absolute silence brooded over her fate.
This famous fortress, situated on a small island in Lake
Ladoga, near the issue of the river Neva, is the State prison
for dangerous political offenders. In those days a prisoner
within these frowning walls was seldom heard of again,
and Mr. A., at length believing her to be dead, married
again. Ten years and more had gone by when he was
suddenly startled by the news that his first wife was still
alive, and had been transported to Sakhalin. Matters
were explained to his second wife, they agreed to part,
and he immediately set out for Sakhalin, m& England and
America, arriving on the island a few months before myself,
where I met them both. I spent several evenings with
them, and it was a marvel to me how any one pent up
in those terrible dungeons for ten years could have pre-
served her reason ; but a preternatural quietness was all
that was singular about her. A brighter time has now
dawned upon her and her husband, for last year (1902) he
was allowed to take his wife as far as Vladivostok, where
they have now settled down.
On board the Yaroslav, among her load of convicts,
last year arrived a political exile of note, Mr. Trigoni. He
had been incarcerated in the Schliisselberg before Mrs. A.,
and she had left him still a prisoner within its walls. In
fact he had been arrested in 1882, the year of the great trial
of the members of the People's Will Party, and imprisoned
in the Alexeievsky Ravelin of the Petropavlovsk (opposite
the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg), from which he was
transferred with twenty-one others to the Schliisselberg in
1884, when the latter was converted into a State prison.
Of these twenty-two, P. S. PovHanov, in an open letter to
the Minister of Justice {Times, August 8, 1903), said,
"Seventeen have perished (in the prison), and only two,
after serving a twenty years' term, have lived to see exile.
346 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
The remaining three are under life-long sentences, and so
continue their confinement in this tomb, without any hope
of ever breathing a freer air." The two, who after twenty
years lived to see exile, were Povlianov himself and
Trigoni. The latter now alone survives, for Povlianov,
after cleverly escaping, in 1902, from the Yakutsk oblast
to Paris, recently committed suicide. Trigoni, after his
terrible spell in the dungeons, is now a " peasant " on
Sakhalin. He admitted to a friend of mine on the
island that the first ten or twelve years of silence and
loneliness were terrible, but after that, the severest restric-
tions were relaxed, and though he was never allowed to
see a relative, he was able to get books and to write a
letter once or twice a year. He is now about fifty years
old, but is grey, and looks nearer seventy. As a " peasant "
he must support himself, but he cannot legally be com-
pelled to settle where the Chief of the exile department
may choose.
It is proposed that he should take charge of the little
library that was being started in connexion with Sister
Mayer's work, to which I shall refer later.
One whom I got to know well on Sakhalin, had been
incarcerated in the Petropavlovsk, opposite the Winter
Palace in St. Petersburg, and he thus described his
experiences to me.
" I was driven," said he, " in a closed carriage, with
curtains drawn, to the frowning fortress, and then through
the gloomy portals past the barracks. There I was blind-
folded and led through a maze of passages, past the patrols
into the corridor, and from this into the gloomy, damp
cell, or rather vault, for this more aptly describes the
dungeon-like, semicircular roofed chamber." (He then
drew me plans and described the interior much as Prince
Kropotkin and others have painted it.) "Nervous and
frightened I gazed around like a hunted hare. The door
had hardly shut upon the soldier when I heard a gentle
SCENES AND PERSONS IN ALEXANDROVSK 347
tapping. What could it be ? I was well-nigh out of my
senses, and could hardly take in my situation. So great
was my prostration that I could not by effort remember
the alphabet. There was yet another thing that got upon
my nerves. In the door was an oval piece of glass with
an outside leather flap. Through this the warder could
silently and without warning observe any motion of mine.
Keeping my eye fearfully upon this oval disc, and noticing
that it had a mercurial, mirror-like look, I concluded that
there was no one watching me, and stepped upon a stool
in the corner whence I thought I heard sounds. Just
within my reach was a grating over the hole communicating
with the stove outside."
It appears that the authorities, who do everything they
possibly can to ensure secrecy, a death-like silence and
absolute isolation, had made a tactical mistake in econo-
mizing. One stove heated two cells, and the pipes com-
municating with them joined and became one before
reaching the stove. It was therefore possible for sounds
to pass through from one room to the adjoining.
" Listening, and keeping my eye upon the oval glass
I caught some indistinct sounds. At first I could not
understand, but by degrees I made out the question,
' Who are you ? ' I replied, ' I am A L ,'
" Back came the reply, ' Speak louder ; I cannot hear
you.'
" I answered, ' I will, but I am afraid of the soldier
hearing me. I am A L . Who are you ? '
" ' I am Taisia Yakimova ; ' and so the conversation
continued."
It transpired that his neighbour was but a girl of
nineteen. She was accused of having been found with
explosives in her possession at the coronation of the
present Tsar, and was condemned, in 1895, to five years*
detention in the Petropavlovsk. This, of course, was
not all communicated at one time. After the first few
348 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
sentences the terrible eye was upon the new prisoner. The
latter quickly dropped down. The door opened ; the
soldier entered and said, " Your honour will understand
it is forbidden to talk." After that, many knocks were
heard ; many conversations were held. Soon after a baby
was born in the next cell. Yi&x fianc^ had been arrested
also for implication in the same plot, but had pleaded
for pardon, promised loyalty, and been set free. She
had disdained to do this, and had tried to forget him.
At the end of five years, spent in the dungeon, she was
transported for life to the far-distant oblast of Yakutsk,
and as I write is dragging out a miserable existence in the
Arctic settlement of Sredni Kolimsk. The new prisoner
was kept in the dungeon-cell for one year and a half, and
then despatched on the Yaroslav to Sakhalin.
Twice a year this vessel reaches Sakhalin — in May
and October — bringing on each occasion about 800 male
convicts. An accident had delayed them that autumn,
and I found the steamer at Vladivostok departing for the
island not long before the cessation of navigation in the
Straits of Tartary. Owing to the new arrangements, con-
sequent on the ukaz of the Tsar coming into force on
January i (o.S.) following, increased numbers of prisoners
had been arriving from the Siberian mainland. Over 1000
disembarked at thepristan during my stay on the island
and how they were to be accommodated, with the 800
to follow in the Yaroslav, was a puzzle. At the last
moment a small wing was being added to the main prison,
which could hardly be ready, and certainly not dry, by the
arrival of the last batch. Overcrowding there must have
been somewhere.
Going down to the jetty one day I found a crowd of
prisoners just landed from the mail steamer. It was a
cold day, with a north wind blowing, and the convicts
were being searched, since some article had been missed
by the captain on board. It was a strange picture, the
SCENES AND PERSONS IN ALEXANDROVSK 349
rows of unkempt, grey-clad figures, with their fetters tied
up to their girdles, and bundles at their feet. Kazaks
stood on guard, looking quite as travel-stained in their
shapeless astrakhan caps, the woolly curls of which, be-
draggled, hung down, and, mingling with their hair, gave
them a wild-beast appearance.
Some of the soldiers were good-naturedly chatting
with the prisoners, and I more than suspected that, if there
was anything in the bundles which should not be there,
it was temporarily transferred to the soldiers' pockets.
Outside the gate of the pristan, through which a patrol
allowed me to pass, were grouped a number of poor exiles
waiting a chance of smuggling vodka under the gate.
On October 19 another batch of about 150 convicts
arrived from the mainland ; and on the night of October
20-21, about 700 more. I have spoken of the laxity of
the officials, and dwelt upon the unimportance of the post
and telegraph services ; but did any other country ever
have such things happen as the following }
On the arrival of the October 19th batch of convicts,
it was found that the ship's manifest, the captain's report,
and the check-over, or roll-call on the pristan, all differed
as to the number of prisoners. The totals were respectively
147, 149, and 137. Here was an excellent opportunity of
escape, a half a dozen more or less did not matter. If
numbers were of no importance, neither was time. This
particular vessel seemed bewitched. For a mail steamer
her behaviour was certainly extraordinary. The captain
discovered after he had left Alexandrovsk for Korsakovsk
that by mistake two sailors had been left behind on shore
at De Castries. He therefore put back for the mainland,
and the next day we learnt that he would have to return
again to Alexandrovsk, since the assistant engineer and
two men had been left on shore there.
The irregularities thus discovered in checking over the
prisoners might have favoured their escape had they known
350 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
it, but it was quite otherwise with the books of the prison
bureau. The Chief of the Chancellerie (of the Governor),
for a reason which I shrewdly suspect, in the spring of
last year boldly declared, that the books and official papers
were kept so badly in the office, that a number of prisoners
were retained in chains, and on the island, much longer
than the terms they were sentenced for, even to five and
six years !
The system of allowing convicts, "free commands," to
live outside the prison, though still under certain restraint,
has its difficulties ; and the necessity for economy insisted
upon in St. Petersburg, resulting in an insufficiency of
warders, adds considerably to these, and yet, if officials
would only spend less time in drinking and gambling,
much might be done towards rendering life and property
secure on the island.
During my stay on Sakhalin, three people whom I met,
and the father of a fourth, were murdered. The first was
the youth whose death I have already recorded, the next
occurred on October i (O.S.). I had moved to a little
house near th.Q pristan, where a petty customs officer lived,
and October i being a feast day or holiday, I was returning
from the church when I met my new landlady walking
down the road in company with a friend of her husband's
for protection. The man passed on to the town, and I
took his place, as she wished to return to the jetty. As
we went along, two poor creatures from the lazaret, which
was opposite to my new lodging, came down the road.
One of them was rolling about as if he found the road too
narrow, and my landlady pointing to him, made the preg-
nant remark, " Eto prazdnik " (" It is a holiday ").
Much has been said and written on the question whether
the Russian nation is to be credited with more or less
drunkenness than Western nations. Whether or not the
defenders of Russia are correct in maintaining that the
peasant is not frequently a victim of alcohol, and has not
SCENES AND PERSONS IN ALEXANDROVSK 351
the wherewithal to pay for it on ordinary working days,
there is no doubt that he excels himself and publishes his
failing abroad on holidays.
The man reeled towards us, and in his drunken, good-
natured way, called out, " Zdravstvuetel Kak vi pazhi-
vaete f " (" Good morning. How do you do ? "). At half-
past six that evening he lay a corpse in the market-place.
His companion had murdered him for the sake of the seven
or eight rubles upon him. This was in daylight, in a busy
spot where the soldiers and police ought to have been —
possibly even were ; but the very atmosphere of the place
seems criminal, and the officials, looking upon the convicts
as brutes, are tempted to let them fight out their own
quarrels, and if they happen to end fatally it is only one
" rascal " the less.
The third murder occurred three days later. A man
had called at my lodging and spent a little time in the
kitchen, and was accompanied home by our two convict
servants. His home lay just off the market-place, and
shortly after they left him, he sat down near the lamp,
when suddenly the outer shutters were forced open and
he was shot through the window. This appeared to be
the latest fashion in murdering, for it was the third by
this method within a few weeks. Another occurred in a
house just opposite ours near the customs sheds. The
fourth case was that of the father of a scholar of my
companion's at Due, to whom I had given some pence.
It was two days later that we saw soldiers bringing
along his parent's corpse, which had been washed up
on the beach close to us. The man had been returning
from Nikolaevsk with fifty or sixty rubles in his pocket,
the proceeds of his little commercial transactions, when
his comrades, in the middle of the strait, set upon him,
killed him, and threw his body overboard. The Straits
of Tartary could tell many a story of this kind.
One afternoon I set off with my interpreter for a short
352 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
walk, and we wandered up to the cemetery on a hill to the
north of the town, a spot just visible in the illustration
opposite page io8. It was a windy, bleak hillside, and
below lay the sands and the pirate vessel with its memories
of the recent murder. A sombre scene stretched before
us — a patch on the hill burnt out of the wind-swept forest,
wild and untended, and dotted with a scant remnant of
gaunt, straggling trees. Wooden crosses, black, brown, and
green, clustering thickly, told the same sad tale.
Here lies
Murdered i8 — .
What mattered it by whom ? For those that had not been
murdered by convicts had, in the " good old times," met
their death " accidentally " at the hands of the soldiers or
officials. Cross after cross repeated the tale of murder,
but here was a whole family group who had fallen to
the assassin's weapon at the same time. They were three
brothers, a wife, and a daughter, and had lived at the log-
house yonder, which is now going to ruin ; it was the
cemetery guard-house in their time, three years ago. And
surely if any one was free from attack one would think that
it was these keepers of the dead. But even the ghosts of
the departed were no protection to them ; for one day they
were missed by the baker who, setting out on the morrow
to call, found all five murdered.
Down in the market-place, or bazar, that scene of
terrible deeds, there are frequent quarrels, in which
knives, daggers, or revolvers are drawn, and the police
and soldiers are either absent or quite indifferent. I
give here a typical one that occurred during Easter of
last year (1902). It was told me by an eye-witness.
The only warning the passer-by had of anything wrong
was the sudden gathering of a crowd of Caucasian exiles.
At length, between the legs of the crowd, two of them
could be seen on the ground struggling, the one uppermost
SCENES AND PERSONS IN ALEXANDROVSK 353
digging his knife into the other. It was a case of
jealousy which had lasted for two years, and the victim
of the attempt had long ago asked for the protection of
the police ; but he was met with the ironical reply that
the law could do nothing for him until after something
had happened. Close by stood one of the police, a wit-
ness of the scuffle, who, instead of interfering, drew his
revolver and fired into the air ; and when asked why,
replied, " I did it to call my companions together." Two
or three hundred yards away the Chief and an overseer
of the police were walking together, but took no notice
of the disturbance. My informant hurried off to acquaint
an official, who in his turn informed the Military Governor.
He promptly ordered the Chief of the district to go and
see what was the matter. The latter assured him that he
had no doubt that it was only a quarrel, a matter of daily
occurrence ; but nevertheless went, saw the murder going
on, came back and said, " Oh, your Excellency, it is just
as I thought, merely a quarrel." The victim was taken
to the hospital, where he died of his wounds two days
afterwards ; and his assailant was set upon by the mob and
received five wounds in the head and twenty others, dying
in the hospital on the same day as the other.
No further comment is needed on the laxity and
indifference of officials. It was said when I was on
Sakhalin that the authorities at Alexandrovsk expressed
surprise if ten days elapsed without an escape from
prison. In fact they looked upon the island as a prison in
Itself, and so it was ; but fellow-prisoners on that same
island were made to suffer through this slackness.
Speaking one day to the Chief of the prison at Due
on this subject, I asked him, " Will the patrols at the
Alexandrovsk prison be condemned to a penal regiment
on account of the recent escapes of prisoners ? "
"Yes," he said, "if they are proved to have been
culpable."
2 A
354 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
"But," I replied, "you yourself have admitted that
there are not enough sentries and warders on the island,
and how in that case can they be held responsible ? "
The only answer was a shrug of his shoulders.
Under his regime the Due prison was beginning to
outlive its terrible reputation. He showed consideration
to his prisoners, and among other things, allowed those in
the mines to earn a little pocket-money by working on
holidays.
In the olden days there were many escapes from Due ;
prisoners clubbed together and fled northward to Pogobi,
and others smuggled themselves on board coaling-vessels.
The chief mate of an ocean-going steamer flying the
Japanese flag told me how, when engaged in ,the cojisting
trade north of Japan, his vessel had once coaled at Due,
and an exile had begged the captain to secrete him and
carry him away, offering at the same time a considerable
reward. The captain agreed, and the exile was put into a
cask. In order to avoid suspicion, for the Russian officials
were used to all manner of deceit, the cask was a quarter
filled with water, and when the daily search was made, the
cook would busy himself in tapping this same cask.
To-day Due contrasts well with Alexandrovsk, whence,
owing to the presence of Patrin and the dreadful ennui in
the kandalnaya tyurma (chained prison), escapes are many
and frequent.
CHAPTER XVIII
STORIES OF PRISONERS
A show of arms necessary — A murderer with nineteen victims — I am
warned — Black crosses by the wayside — " What do you think of
Patrin ? " — ^A fearful struggle — A saintly old prisoner — Eight
years' hard labour for stealing a loaf — The " game " of the super-
intendent and the " exile-settlers."
IF a purse is almost indispensable in Regent Street, a
revolver is absolutely so on Sakhalin. My interpreter,
who had had three years' experience of the island,
always insisted on my carrying it, whether I was going
into the town or only for a couple of yards outside the
door of our abode. There was only one occasion on which
I left it behind, and that was when I went to call upon
the Governor. It was morning, and I was in my dress-
suit ; and English tailors are not in the habit of supplying
revolver pockets to dress-suits, hence its absence on this
occasion. My companion, however, carried his, and we
had but a short way to go. Unbleached cotton, a frieze
khalat, and fetters form a more suitable costume for
Sakhalin than a dress-suit, I admit ; but etiquette demands
this for a civilian presenting himself to the Governor,
although a frock-coat suffices for an interview with his
Imperial Majesty the Tsar.
It seemed odd at first to take a revolver instead of a
Prayer-book to church, and a trifle out of place to make
an afternoon call with such an article. At night it was
355
3S6 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
desirable to carry it in your hand, for a couple of seconds'
delay might be fatal. In the streets of Alexandrovsk, after
dark, we held them in our pockets ; but on the road to the
jetty, through a bit of scrubby forest, it was well to have
them free, and to keep a sharp look-out up and down the
road.
In the day-time, I was advised, not to let anybody
overtake me without observing him over my shoulder, and
at night never to play the good Samaritan, for one of the
ruses of the would-be murderer was to lie in the road,
feigning to have been wounded.
Once warned of these many dodges, and well armed,
one's chances were pretty fair. Safety seemed to lie
in a good show of arms and watchfulness. Probably it
sounds dangerous in the ears of a reader whose experience
is confined to Western Europe, but it is not difficult to
acclimatize one's self to any atmosphere ; and I may assure
him that he would have found it so after a few days on
Sakhalin. I shall think, not that I have exaggerated, but
that I have presented a picture out of proportion, if, warned
and fully armed against danger as I was, the reader
imagines that I was in any greater peril than thousands
who returned from the South African war without a
scratch.
A Polish woman on Sakhalin once wished me God-
speed in the words, " May God give you to live long, and
have long nails to scratch your way through life," but
personally, it may be purely from a Western habit, I prefer
to keep my nails short; and another Russian proverb
current on Sakhalin was more to my liking, viz. " It is
better to have one friend than one hundred rubles."
Certainly I was indebted to many for friendly warnings.
One morning I passed on the road a man who had eight
murders to his credit, and half an hour later he was pointed
out hovering around our hut ; but, warned against letting
him approach me to ask for a light, I took up my
STORIES OF PRISONERS 357
revolver and steel stick and returned to the town without
hindrance.
It may seem inexplicable how a man could have
committed so many murders and be still at liberty. A
murderer of this stamp has generally committed more than
one before he is captured in the first instance, and, once
outside the prison walls in Siberia and on Sakhalin, the taiga
shelters him from the penalty of his further deeds. Time
passes by, and, if captured, he is either unidentified, or it
is impossible to get evidence to convict him ; and, besides,
it only involves a further addition to his sentence, and the
island itself is a prison. Unless the matter is likely to
reach the ears of the Governor-general, it does not matter
much if one " villain " murders another, and escapes
until the noise blows over. It is only " one of this brutal
crowd the less ; " but if it be an official who is killed,
prompt measures are at once taken. At Vladivostok I was
shown by an anthropologist. Dr. K., a photograph of a
Sakhalin assassin who had committed no less than nineteen
murders.
Another warning reached me one morning when I was
least expecting it. My interpreter came from the kitchen,
soon after our return from the interior, looking much
perturbed, and I asked him what was the matter. He said
he was afraid there was some plot on ; that I, as a stranger,
was of course believed to be rich ; and, further, that he and
I had been mistaken for the two prospectors, one of whom
was reported to have given a convict a beating for refusing
to do as he was told, and reprisals were being meditated.
This much he had pieced together from what he had heard
from the convict servant who had recently been rescued
from the claws of Patrin. The man could not be got to
say more, for he had already told enough to incriminate
himself with his companions, and bring down the punish-
ment of his artel upon him. But he had gone the length of
threatening my interpreter, that if he allowed me to go
358 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
out alone in the streets in daylight, and I were shot, he
would report him to the Governor. The servant evinced
his sincerity by insisting upon accompanying me himself
that night to Mr. A.*s, and wished to come for me on my
return, but my host promised to drive me home. In the
darkness — it was not safe to carry lights — we nearly drove
over a watchman, who suddenly sprang his rattle and leapt
out of the way. At the next turn, in swinging round the
corner by the barracks, one of a group of convicts fell upon
Mr. A. I was sitting upon his right, my hand on my
revolver at the time, but my companion was equal to the
occasion. He is a big, burly man, and with a loud " Stupay "
(" Get away ") he hurled the man off, and theprolyotka (little
victoria) swept on. From that time my interpreter and I
kept a rather sharper look-out, but nothing more than the
usual alarms occurred.
Outside of the town it was advisable to carry a rifle, in
addition to a revolver. We travelled thus accoutred even
to Due, which is distant only about four miles as the crow
flies, and eight by the road. It is an old and well-used
road, but continues to-day to add to its melancholy records.
Due itself, as the site of the oldest of the coal mines, was
for long the most important settlement on the island.
Our froika ascended the hills by a steep zigzag, which
yielded picturesque views of the open valley left behind,
of Alexandrovsk and the two silvery streaks of the Little
and the Great Alexandrovka rivers. Further inland was
the village of Korsakovsk, set in the midst of a chess-
board of gardens which supply Alexandrovsk and even
Nikolaevsk, on the mainland, with vegetables. Down at
the foot of the hill which we were climbing was a tunnel,
looking no bigger than a mouse-hole. This was the coal
mine where a score of convicts were at work in the intervals
of their marauding expeditions. The great hill slopes, in
process of being cleared, were brown with the tree-stumps left
as it were by some giant scythe. Our troika breasted hills
[7;._/;7,<-/,;.v;,5S.
STORIES OF PRISONERS 359
which no ordinary English hackney would have taken ;
until, Hearing the top, the gradient diminished, and the
road plunged into the taiga. Here we came upon a black
cross by the wayside, one of three erected to the
memory of persons murdered on the road during the
previous year (1900). The first was to a merchant who
had fallen under the hands of Barratasvili and his band.
The next was also to a merchant who had gone for a walk
from Alexandrovsk, and had sat down on a seat which
stands in front of the cross, when, without warning,
hrodyagi emerged from the taiga, and before he could
turn, knocked him down and killed him. Another cross
was passed just before reaching Due, but its story is
unknown to me.
Passing the mouth of one of the convict coal mines, and
following the trolley route down to the jetty, we came out
upon the beach, and dashing along, now upon dry sand
and then through the rising tide, the remainder of our ride
may be described as in a troika by land and sea.
Due, with its one little street in a narrow valley opening
to the sea, is a pleasant contrast to Alexandrovsk. It
wears the aspect of village life. As we sped up the street
one knew that at that house lived the doctor, there the
priest ; here was the school, there the baker's. There was
a feeling of family life in the air, and the houses, each
different in style, with their whitewashed fronts and bright
green shutters, were a relief to the sombre brownness and
greyness of Alexandrovsk. Our troika drew up at Mr.
X,'s cottage, a tiny box-like log-hut, consisting of one room
and a tiny ante-room for kitchen. It was his own, for he
had borrowed money to buy it against the time when his
sentence should expire ; otherwise, as an " exile settler," he
would have been liable to be sent anywhere at the will of
the Chief of the exile department. The ownership of a
house gives the right to dwell in the settlement in which it
is situated. He had two convict servants, who were on
36o IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
half duty, as they were not well ; and they gave their
services to Mr. X. in spare time for a small consideration.
My companion showed me with pride round his little
den, chief among the treasures of which were photographs
of his father and of his wife and children, whom he had not
seen for so many years. We had scarcely looked round
when a uniformed messenger stood at the door, with the
request of the Chief of the prison to know who the stranger
was.
As I have already mentioned, the nachalnik of the Due
prison bore a good reputation, and we found ourselves
welcomed to dinner by him and his good wife. The talk
began in a safe direction, the hostess and myself comparing
notes on the Koreans, she having met many in the course
of the years she had lived at Vladivostok. When, however,
a bowl of soup, a sample of that intended for the prisoners,
was brought in to be tasted by the Chief, conversation
drifted round to matters nearer home. We talked of the last
escape of prisoners from Alexandrovsk, he appealing for
excuse to the dearth of warders, whose numbers were not
by any means up to their tabulated strength, since many
allocated to Sakhalin were really engaged in the bureaux,
e.g. the Chancellerie, etc. The staff of warders is under-
manned, and St. Petersburg objects to increased expenditure.
The difficulties of the Russian penal administration have
largely been a question of expense, and yet if peculation
were not rife, and officials were less bent on gambling and
drinking, and more on obtaining even decent conditions
for the convicts in their charge, most of the evil could be
swept away.
Our conversation had not continued long before, rather
suddenly and pregnantly he put the question, " What do
you think of Patrin ? Is he as well known in England as
in America ? " The reputation of Patrin, the brutal Chief
of the Alexandrovsk prison, is by no means confined to
Siberia, for such is his fame in San Francisco that he
STORIES OF PRISONERS 361
has been represented on the stage there as the prison
demon.
The story is told on Sakhalin how a convict who
escaped from the island to America, was arrested there
and lay in prison accused of murder, where an enterprising
interviewer, thinking to learn some interesting and sen-
sational details from the accused, visited him. He obtained
disappointingly little from him, owing to the man's small
stock of English ; but to one of the questions the journalist
put," Would you prefer to go back to your pdtria f " came
the unexpected reply, " No, I would rather be hanged than
go back to Patrin ! "
So well known to his brother officials was Patrin's
character, that only because they were all in the same
boat can one account for his retaining his position. It is
even more surprising that he had not been assassinated;
Barratasvili had meant to accomplish it, but did not live
to fulfil his intentions. The Chief used to pass us, driving
furiously about Alexandrovsk, carrying a Winchester in
addition to his police pistol ; and in the prison he commonly
went about with a revolver in one hand, for, big man as he
was, he took all precautions when striking a prisoner.
Let me answer the nachalnik's question, "What do
you think of Patrin .' " by two or three stories concerning
him. The reader will hope, as I do, that the day may be
very near when the inmates of the Alexandrovsk prison
will be freed from his tyranny.
Not long before I landed on the island the story of his
criminal assault on a child of ten had even found its way
into the Vladivostok papers, but the affair was hushed up
by means of the powerful ruble. One whose authority on
Sakhalin stands unquestioned has said, "The officials
commit the very crimes for which the prisoners in their
charge are convicted," and if any confirmation of this were
needed we have it in the following Renter's telegram,
dated April 16, 1902. "The Irkutsk court proceeds to
362 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Saghalien to try almost the entire convict staff for forgery,
embezzlement, fraud, and offences against public morality."
I will not dwell upon Patrin's behaviour with the
women prisoners. Many were the stories current among
ofificials of his cruelty to prisoners, of his arbitrary con-
finement of them in the dark cells, of the plet ordered out
of spite, and of his fatal assaults on prisoners when he was
overseer.
I give here two stories of his behaviour to officials,
and it may be judged from these, what his conduct towards
convicts has been and is. The first incident happened
while I was at Alexandrovsk, and the other previously,
during my companion's incarceration in the prison.
The overseer of the post-house where we obtained our
troika found one afternoon two of his izvostchiki drunk
and fighting. He ran down into the courtyard and sepa-
rated them, but not before he had had to strike one of
them. The latter immediately went off to Patrin, and
complained that the overseer was drunk, and had made
a disturbance, etc. When the overseer, who had gone to
fetch his wife, returned, he found the Chief of the prison
there, who, without warning, struck him a blow in the
face. Blood flowed from his mouth, and in his half-
stunned condition he appeared to be making for the river
close by, but soon lost consciousness. When he came to,
he went to the Chief of the district, informed him, and
claimed damages, because for one officer to strike another,
like a convict, was no small offence. The district Chief,
however, deprecated any scandal, and advised him to let
it blow over.
Under such a man were the political exiles in prison ;
and to him those living in Alexandrovsk would have had
to apply for their rations, had they not foregone their claim,
and striven, by their own exertions, to keep body and
soul together. While my interpreter was yet in prison,
at the beginning of his term on Sakhalin, he had to
A lll,^^l■.l; \i I. Ill \K \'i i:i;
[^■■' /■"■'• /-"i^'' 363
STORIES OF PRISONERS 363
undergo several unpleasant interviews with Patrin. His
story not only illustrates the arbitrary and uncontrolled
behaviour of the prison-master towards officials ; but also
the class of obstinate criminal occasionally to be dealt
with, rendered more so in this case by the arbitrary con-
duct of the official before whom he had to appear.
Mr. X. said : " I had gone at the stated time when the
Chief held audience to beg permission to be let out of the
criminals' prison and live in lodgings, I could see Patrin
through the doorway, sitting at his table, and inquiring of
the overseers in the ante-room who were friendly if he
were in a good mood, they assured me that it was a favour-
able moment. ' Don't wait,' they said, ' until the convicts
come ; he is in a beautiful temper now ! ' As fate would
have it, however, whilst I was standing behind a soldier,
waiting my opportunity of a pause in the Chiefs writing,
an overseer entered, and, unfortunately, fell out with his
superior. I heard Patrin say, ' Hold your tongue ! '
" The overseer replied, ' I will not hold my tongue.
You must not speak to me like that. I am not a convict,
but an officer, like yourself.'
" The Chief, now roused, cried out, ' Hold your tongue ! '
The other, flushing up, drew his revolver, and flinging it
down excitedly on the table, exclaimed in an angry voice,
' I resign at once. I will not serve under such a ! '
" There seemed little hope for me now," continued my
interpreter, " but I still lurked behind the soldier, letting
several convicts come and go, in the hope that the Chief
would calm down. But once more fate was against me,
for there came along a young, slim convict, one difficult to
deal with, and possessed of an irascible temper.
" He entered, stepping boldly forward, and said, ' You
may say what you like, but I shall do what I like.'
" The Chief rose, and asked, ' What did you say ? '
"The other replied, as brazen-faced as ever, 'I can't
work, and I tell you I won't ! '
364 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
" At this, Patrin, who was standing scarcely a pace off,
struck him on the jaw with his right fist, and followed it
up by a blow with the left. I shrank back horrified," said
Mr. X., "and then ensued an extraordinary scene. The
young fellow, who was slight of build and not tall, seized
the Chief by his coat, and dragged him to the steps. For
the moment Patrin seemed powerless, but recovering him-
self, called to the overseers who were sitting motionless on
the bench. They roused up as if awakened from sleep, and
stepping forward, flung themselves upon the prisoner. For
a time I could see nothing but a forest of arms, at one
moment flung in the air, and the next coming down like
flails on the body of the convict, and still the Chief was in
the grasp of the prisoner. It was a terrible meUe, and the
whole group was unsuspectingly gravitating towards the
flight of stairs. It was impossible to stop the moving
mass, which drew nearer and nearer until it ultimately fell
headlong down the steps. Patrin was on the top, and
came off" practically unhurt, but the prisoner, who had
already been pounded and mauled, had several ribs broken."
All through his term the man had been very recalcitrant,
and during the spring of 1901 he seized the revolver of
one of the soldiers on duty and shot him. He made no
attempt to escape, but standing calmly there, said, " I did
not want to shoot him ; it was Patrin I wanted." And
then, pointing the weapon once more, shot himself in the
forehead.
Among the hundreds of undoubted villains on the
island there are naturally some of an extremely refractory
type, but at the same time there are several of the prisoners
who would be reckoned innocent in England. One of this
latter class was a very holy old man, of wide reading, who
had developed views after the type of Count Tolstoy's.
His home was in South Russia, and there he began to
teach the doctrine of non-resistance. The authorities im-
mediately pounced upon and arrested him for creating a riot,
]II|- DARK CJ-.LLS (riK '■ C \CHi iTS NdlKs''), Al I \ \ XHK' i\sK TKISUX.
[/iy;,.v/.'A-. 365-
STORIES OF PRISONERS 365
and sentenced him to eight years' hard labour. Thus he
found himself in prison at Alexandrovsk with the most
abandoned criminals. A saintly, dignified old man, a little
eccentric perhaps, he always refused to shake hands, even
with a barin, and with a courteous gesture of excuse would
hold up his right hand in blessing. A fellow-prisoner of
his said that he had never known him do a wrong or
unkind act ; and yet he had been condemned by Patrin
more than once to chains and the dark cell. The accom-
panying picture is an illustration of one of the dark cells
in the Alexandrovsk prison. It was described to me by
one who had often to pass it, as absolutely without any
accommodation, plank-bed or parasha, filthy and mal-
odorous beyond conception.
It is my impression that there is less of this sentencing
of religionists to hard labour to-day than there used to be.
I say " my impression," for I cannot appeal to statistics
of suflScient value. On Sakhalin there were (January i,
1898) sixty-seven of this class (of whom three were women)
undergoing hard labour. The cases that I came across
were all of some standing. I will quote one more, and
this time it is that of a Mussulman. He was a rich man, of
liberal thought and much learning, and hailed from Kazan.
Having studied Christian doctrine and been duly impressed
by it, he attempted to teach a kind of eclectic Islamism and
Christianity. It resulted in his being arrested for founding
a new sect, and sent for fifteen years' hard labour to
Sakhalin. His enemies accused him of fanaticism, yet it
could not be denied that, through all, he continued to
urge his brethren to live peaceably and honourably ; and
for this he was sentenced with criminals of the worst
description.
Here follow two cases of men condemned for criminal
acts, who can scarcely be said to have merited their punish-
ment. My informant had had access to the official prkis
of the cases from which he culled the following. The first
366 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
was that of a poor man in South Russia caught in the act
of stealing a loaf. The theft was admitted, but because he
had a knife in his pocket (what peasant does not carry a
knife ?) his crime was, technically, robbery under arms,
and his sentence eight years' hard labour on Sakhalin;
which really meant life-long punishment, for, as I have said
before, few ever get away from the island. It mattered not
that the man had been driven by hunger, perhaps by
starving children, to the petty theft, he must expiate it with
a life's exile. Surely such a punishment does not " fit the
crime." The accused is reckoned guilty until he can prove
himself innocent ; and to inculpate, not to do justice, is the
logical sequence of such a system. Circumstantial evidence
is sufficient to convict, and the benefit of the doubt is not
a Russian conception ; but the miscarriage of criminal
justice is as nothing to the great blot on the system, the
" administrative process " by which political offenders are
imprisoned or banished without trial, a system which is
obviously adopted because of the want of sufficient evidence
to convict.
The second criminal case was one in which the pro-
bability of innocence would have cleared the accused in
any English court of law. The subjects of it were two
Kazaks. Th&prdcis began with the story of the marriage of
a nephew of these two brothers. The young couple were
handsome and very well off, and everybody wondered why,
with the best prospects and everything they could wish for,
they were unhappy. One day the nephew came to his
uncles and complained that his life was embittered, for his
wife had become the mistress of her step-father. Taxed
with it she alleged that she had yielded simply to save
her mother from being ill-treated by the step-father. Soon
after this the latter was found murdered. The two Kazak
uncles were arrested, tried, and are now dragging out a
miserable existence on Sakhalin. On what evidence they
were convicted the precis states. Near by where the body
STORIES OF PRISONERS 367
of the victim was found, were cart-wheel tracks, and these
were claimed to coincide with those made by the carts
owned by the uncles. Doubtless this was so, for similar
country carts were owned by hundreds around. Further, a
piece of strap alleged to belong to the harness of the two
brothers was found near by. It probably did, but the
whole strap had been missing for some months, taken by
the nephew on one of his visits, and, not being of importance,
had not been inquired for.
Everything pointed to the nephew as the author of the
crime for which these two men were undergoing life-long
banishment; but the above evidence was sufficient to
condemn the two uncles for murder.
I do not intend the reader to take this case as typical
of Sakhalin convicts, for I do not believe it to be so. Not
the miscarriage of justice, but the faulty administration of
the penal system, is the glaring defect on the island ; yet
the glimpse which these cases, and one more which I shall
quote, give of the lives of those banished to Sakhalin was
one which the inquirer came across on the island, and
goes to make up the sum of the social cosmos.
The irony of the third case was that the prisoner's term
had expired on his arrival on Sakhalin, and when I met
him he had been three years on the island. When I
learned his crime, I thanked my stars that I was not a
Russian subject, for I might have been guilty, and perhaps
already had been guilty, unwittingly, of the same. He
had attempted to pass a forged three-ruble note. Now,
there are not a few forged notes about in Russia, and it is
easy to be deceived by them. The question should have
been, after all, one of intention. Mr. X., who knew him
very well, believed he was incapable of it. But even sup-
posing him to have been guilty, again the punishment could
scarcely be said to " fit the crime." My interpreter and I
found the man, a Caucasian, in a little wooden house with
clean whitewashed walls and muslin-curtained windows,
368 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
and the usual prints of the Tsar and Tsaritsa on the walls.
We were engaged in negotiations with him to join forces,
in pursuance of our plans to reach the Ainus overland. He
had been sent out from Odessa on the Yaroslav, upon
which my interpreter was likewise a passenger, in chains ;
and having been stricken down with fever during the sea
voyage, Mr. X. had attended him under the doctor's
instructions, and had been the means of saving his life.
He was therefore devoted to my companion, and while
we were talking a curious opportunity of showing his
gratitude presented itself. I have already referred to the
freemasonry which exists among the convicts. They have
their code of honour, and when Mr. Y., the ex-convict
merchant, had some six hundred rubles' worth of trinkets
stolen from a show-case in his stores, several of the
convicts personally expressed their regret that such a
thing should have happened to "one of themselves."
Hundreds of secrets were kept, at least from the officials,
though they were often told to us, or, rather, to my com-
panion. My interpreter happened to mention that when
most of his effects were stolen from him during the time
he was schoolmaster at the village of Arkovo, one thing
he had especially regretted the loss of, and that was a ring
given him by his wife. With a quick vehemence the
Caucasian exclaimed, "Why did you not tell me before?
I know the man who has it. I would have got it for you,
had I known. I will get it ! You have only to say the
word, and I'll get the devil for you ! " He had done all
but a couple of months of his term before leaving Russia,
which had expired on the journey out, and yet now, unless
he could accumulate money, he would never be able to get
back to Russia ; and even if successful, not before twelve
years had elapsed. He must go through his stage as an
" exile settler " for six years on Sakhalin, and as " peasant "
for another six years on the mainland, if he can get there.
After that the law allows him to return to Europe, but
STORIES OF PRISONERS 369
neither to St. Petersburg nor Moscow, if he hails from
either of those cities. The Chief of the district may give
permission to a prisoner soon after the termination of
his sentence to go to the mainland, if he has the promise
of employment ; but this does not affect the further twelve
years' absence from Russia.
The reason, as I have already mentioned, why ninety-
nine out of every hundred never get away from the island,
why the law in this respect is inoperative, is because the
prisoner has no one to influence a merchant or employer
to offer him a berth, or he has been unable to save
sufficient to travel to find one, or to buy himself into a
commune, the latter alone costing him perhaps fifty or
sixty rubles. Many have too hard a fight to get a living
at all, not to mention those who succumb under a load
of debt ; and yet the longing for home is there, deep and
enduring. Even if a man's time be legally up and he has
sufficient means, it does not follow that he will straightway
get off, and the following will explain in some cases why.
On my way to Mr. A.'s I had to pass by the school-
house, which is on the right-hand side, higher up the road
on to which the prison faces. The school is a mixed one,
and I cannot better describe one of the many games
played, which throws light on the treatment of "exile-
settlers " after their six years' further residence on
Sakhalin has expired, than in the words of the news-
paper Vladivostok, excerpted and translated by Mr. Zhook
in " Free Russia."
Here is the game of "superintendent of the settle-
ments " (Chief of the exile department).
" One of the boys, copying the manner of the superin-
tendent, sits down, stretching himself upon a chair ; another
comes up with an oral petition, saying —
'"Yer honour, show us God's grace, put us on the
peasants' list ; it's six years that I'm an exile (posselinets),
and have not been noticed for anything ! '
2 B
370 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
" ' I don't want to. Get away with you ! '
" ' Yer honour, I don't owe the Crown anything.'
" ' Warder, kick him out ! '
" ' Will you allow me to apply to the governor (Chief)
of the district ? '
" ' What ! To the governor ? Warder, take him under
arrest ! I will show you peasantry. Wait a bit ! ' he shouts.
' Let him be put to hard labour for fourteen days ! '
"The applicant pretends to be crying, and says, 'Yer
honour, don't ruin me ; forgive me, I'll go back home ! '
"Just then there resounds a slap on the face, and the
word ' Take him ! ' is uttered ; the culprit is taken away."
Some, in the hopelessness of despair, have drowned
their sorrows in drink. One such I met during the last
week of my stay. I had been to call on our landlady's
old parents to order, I believe, the little vehicle they kept
for hire, and there I found a lodger, a man still in the
prime of life, who was now in the eyes of the law a
^'peasant," but had been a judge in Siberia. There was
no doubt of his being an educated man, and I give his
story, which I had no means of verifying, as it was told me
by one who had heard it from his lips.
It appears that, during his occupation of the bench,
he and the wife of the president of his court became
enamoured of one another, and the lady intrigued to
get her husband removed to another part of Siberia,
whither she might, with some show of reason, refuse to
follow him. In order to compass her object, she destroyed
several papers referring to cases in hand, amongst which,
unknown to her, were some of the highest importance to
the judge, her lover. It was he, and not her husband, who
had to flee, and after many adventures, and in spite of all
the wonderful espionage of the Russian police, he suc-
ceeded in reaching the German frontier. But at the last
moment, when trying to pass in company with some
Jews, he was arrested for being without a passport. He
STORIES OF PRISONERS 371
disclaimed all knowledge of kindred and home, and was
sentenced as a brodyaga to one and a half years' hard
labour on Sakhalin. He had long since completed his
time, and was now trying to drown his sorrows in drink.
He accosted me with a "How d'ye do?" and wished
me "good-bye" in English, though with a very marked
accent.
Two or three days later I passed another exile who had
also been within an ace of escaping from his country. He
was driving his little telyega, bringing in farm produce to
Alexandrovsk. It was no less a person than Count
Marovsk, who had been transported to Siberia in the first
instance for a political crime. He had at one time not
only succeeded in escaping, but in getting as far as St.
Petersburg. Unfortunately, in the streets of that city he
met an officer of the gendarmerie, who instantly recognizing
him, greeted him with an astonished " You here ! Why,
how did you come all this distance ? "
With all the concentrated hatred of the old noblesse for
the nouveaiLv riches, the count quick as lightning drew his
revolver, and saying, " For that I came," shot him.
He was immediately arrested, and sentenced to fifteen
years on Sakhalin. He is an old man now. His time is
done, but he remains an " exile-settler," with his own little
house and plot of land.
CHAPTER XIX
STORIES OF CRIMES IN ALEXANDROVSK
Chinese prisoners — An armed escort — Church service — A night for
deeds of darkness — Tunnelling and firing houses — An employer
of assassins — Sakhalin ; the Utopia of no taxes — The power of
the ruble.
ABOUT a fortnight after the return from the interior,
the rooms which my interpreter and I were occu-
pying having been already promised to others, we
left our good host, the ex-overseer of the prison, and went
to share the little house belonging to the petty customs
officer, close to the pristan. A scrubby wood separated the
jetty from the town, and there were only one or two other
houses near by, besides the lazaret opposite, and the long
customs and quarantine sheds.
These latter had been the home of Chinese prisoners
during the previous winter. At the outbreak of the Boxer
insurrection the Russians had seized, near Port Arthur,
Hung Tung Shu, a military instructor who had studied in
England, and all his artillery school, consisting of 138
Chinese youths. These were all deported to Sakhalin, and
the authorities tried to make them work — some said actually
set them to labour in the mines, but this I cannot verify.
Hung Tung Shu was suflficiently au courant with inter-
national law to make effective representations, and the
prisoners of war were eventually supplied with food, and a
bullock to draw their loads. As might have been expected,
the latter was soon killed or stolen by brodyagi. I met one
372
STORIES OF CRIMES IN ALEXANDROVSK 373
of the prisoners at Alexandrovsk, but the rest had left
earlier in the year.
Our new host was engaged by day, and sometimes at
night, in duty on the jetty. For nineteen years he had
been in Government service, and for a great part of that
time responsible for the tracking of convicts. A strong,
sturdy, and rather fiery individual — a Little Russian, and
they are by repute quick tempered — he looked as if he
could give a good account of himself; and yet, accustomed
as he was for years to facing these outlaws of the taiga,
and protected by the fear of summary execution, which
was the fate of a murderer of officials, he had his times
when he was unnerved. One evening he left us to go down
the road to the town. He had scarcely gone a quarter
of a mile, not so far as the straggling wood, when he
discovered that he had forgotten his revolver. He confessed
to us afterwards — " I came all over hot, and in a fright
turned back ; then, thinking of all the years I had hunted
irodyagi, I was ashamed to return, and sat down on a
stone." Fortunately, his wife observing that he had left
his revolver behind, sent one of the two convict servants
whom she could trust, who found his master sitting by the
wayside.
The insecurity of life and property on Sakhalin presses
very hardly upon the thrifty and respectable peasant,
and upon the families of the officials. They can never
feel sure of their own or their children's lives. The wife
of the Little Russian with whom we were then lodging
had by long residence become emboldened sometimes to
delay her return home until after dark, but always with a
man-servant or friend as companion. Very occasionally,
taking her revolver, she would venture on to the jetty in
the evening to fetch her husband home ; but this was a
stone's throw off, and armed sentries guarded the approach
to the pristan.
On the evening before we moved to their abode she
374 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
had narrowly escaped being held up. She was being driven
to Alexandrovsk, with a woman friend, to visit her parents.
It was already dusk, and before they had got a quarter of
a mile from the house the horse shied and sprang aside,
and a head and shoulders popped out of the ditch by the
roadside. The izvostchik called out, " Who's there ? " and
the outlaw, who, in the darkness, had thought the women
were alone, made off into the wood.
On another occasion a thrifty, industrious ex-convict
came to me at my request to fetch some sealskins to be
dressed. It was the evening of October i6, and the
previous night there had been a storm, which I shall have
occasion to mention, for a gale on Sakhalin means the
opportunity for dark deeds. Everybody seemed to be in a
state of alarm after the doings of the previous night, and
this man was no exception, for though big and tall, and
with but a mile to go, he refused, even at 6 p.m., to take
the sealskins with him, lest he should be robbed.
Our new dwelling was a little square wooden house,
divided into four small rooms, opening the one into the
other. Our host was comfortably off, but even to the
eyes of an English cottager the place would have looked
bare. Of course there were no carpets, not even a mat ;
two or three tables and chairs and a form, with two cup-
boards containing the wardrobes and other effects of the
family, and a great wooden chest, made up the inventory.
The contents of the last-named article aroused my curiosity,
and, on inquiry, I learned that it contained a hundred-
weight of lump-sugar. Perhaps the most interesting room
of all was the kitchen, for our hostess kept open house. In
fact, on one day, she told us, she had made tea seventeen
times. It was a handy house of call for people arriving or
departing by sea.
The island of Sakhalin, both Russian and native, is
still in the old days of hospitality before such " modern "
notions as inns or hotels had taken shape, and our new
STORIES OF CRIMES IN ALEXANDROVSK 375
abode was found to be a handy place of call. The welcome
by no means spent itself at the end of a glass of tea, and this
for a very good reason, since the uncertainty of the arrival
of vessels sometimes stranded the would-be passengers at
our domicile. For people who regarded their time as
important, and there were one or two such on the island,
there was a most aggravating fickleness about the behaviour
of vessels.
One day, hearing that Mr, Y., who was taking messages
for me, was leaving for Vladivostok, I strolled down to
the end of the jetty to wish him " good speed." There I
found most of the official world assembled, including the
Chief of the district, the head pope, and several others
whose acquaintance I had made, busily engaged in the
usual accompaniment of farewells — drinking. Several of
the party were leaving, the Rikovsk doctor for Vladivostok,
somebody else for Japan, and others for the mainland,
before the cessation of navigation. The steamer had been
descried on the horizon, and was steadily nearing the shore.
Good-byes were said, and, stepping outside, I shook hands
with Mr. Y., and wished him " bon voyage]' when he turned
suddenly, and, pointing to the ship, said, " Mais, je ne vais
pas partir, voyez vous, le vaisseau s'est tourn^ et retourne
a De Castries ! " It was clear she dared not stand in closer,
the westerly breeze being too strong, in the absence of a
safe anchorage, and there remained nothing but to return
to the mainland for refuge. So there would be another
farewell later, with the usual accompaniment, and per-
haps, even a second and a third. Such glorious uncer-
tainty was responsible at times for filling our kitchen to
overflowing.
Sometimes it was a whole family — father, mother, and
children — who made their bed on the floor, while the convict
servants stretched themselves along the bench. At another
tinie it was a young woman with three or four children,
who had to be housed for two or three days, waiting for
376 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
their vessel. But of all the curious company which that
kitchen held during my stay, a party which dropped in for
refreshment one afternoon was the strangest. It was the
day before we had set out for Due. An ex-convict
merchant, having 3,000 rubles upon him, and fearing attack,
had cast about how to bring them safely from Due to
Alexandrovsk. I have already described the road, from
which the reader will see that he was wise to take precau-
tions. He had got together as escort three Caucasian con-
victs. It was these that I now saw gathered in the kitchen,
and a more sunken-eyed, deep-browed, cut-throat lot, armed
with rakish-looking daggers at their belts, I don't wish to
meet. I thought I would rather have taken my chance with
the brodyagi. The merchant certainly had cause to con-
gratulate himself on his escape, for his son had been passing
along the same road that very week, when two men armed
with guns leaped out upon him from the forest. For-
tunately, before they had seriously injured him, he was
recognized, and, with the delightful naiveU and sang-froid
of the Sakhalin brodyagi, they exclaimed, " It wasn't you
we wanted, but your father ! "
Immunity rendered the convicts bold. One morning I
passed two drunken men rolling up the street, within ear-
shot of an approaching official, talking loudly of a certain
robbery for which their mates had been imprisoned, and
boldly declaring that they would get them out. From their
talk I felt pretty sure that they had committed the offence,
and when I found them in Mr. Y.'s store making unusual
purchases of stuffs my suspicions were further confirmed.
We were still standing in the store waiting for a reply
to an inquiry about vessels, when two elderly convicts
came in. They were talking, and did not pause in their
conversation. One of them wanted to sell his hut, and
was offering it to the other, who, however, did not seem to
be much tempted, so, as a further inducement, the first
said, "Look here! I'll sell you the hut and the old
STORIES OF CRIMES IN ALEXANDROVSK 377
woman too ! " At first I thought it a bit of Sakhalin
humour, but it was grim reality.
Notwithstanding the vagaries of steamers, lodgers, how-
ever, were occasional, and in the ordinary course our two
convict servants slept in the kitchen alone. One of them
we trusted, but the other, having robbed our landlady, had
to be dismissed, and from that time we were continually
changing. Some of them were murderers, and our host,
being an under-official, had not, of course, the first choice
of these prison-birds.
The kitchen was entered through a porch from out-of-
doors, and opened by a door without latch into the room
in which I slept with my goods and chattels. Another
door gave access from my room into the next, but this had
a bolt. However, notwithstanding I and the convicts were
thus shut off to ourselves, and that they could communicate
undisturbed with friends outside, it is only fair to say that
they made no attempt to murder me or possess themselves
of my effects. For myself, I always slept with my loaded
six-chamber under my pillow, but perhaps it is as well
that they did not know I was a heavy sleeper.
Winter begins, or should do so on Sakhalin, on
October i (n.S. 14th), and the second windows, giving
double resistance to cold and draught, were duly put in
and caulked on that date.
Thenceforward we depended for fresh air on what
might filter through when the outer door was open. A
tiny pane, it is true, in one of the windows was opened by
the application of considerable force and at my special
request, and left ajar for a few minutes before breakfast.
The same day marked two other events in the Sakhalin
Kalendar, the doling out of winter clothing to the
prisoners, and the anniversary of the appearance of the
Virgin Mary to the Archbishop of Constantinople, when,
by holding a veil over the city, she signified her protection
of it against the heathen.
378 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
October i is therefore a feast-day, and on arriving in
the church, an ornate wooden structure, we found a full
congregation of officials and exiles. All were standing, as
is usual in Russian churches, many talking and chatting
about business matters or prison news ; while the service,
which began at eight and ended only at eleven, was going
on. Behind the rood screen, and barely visible through its
network of carving, moved three priests with long flowing
hair, in gorgeous crimson and golden robes. They were
intoning while a choir of small boys sang. There was a
considerable amount of bowing and of changing places, and
mixed with it all strange noises rising almost to howls
and falling to grunts. Then very impressively the gates
of the screen swung open, and the head pope, with whom
I had travelled down the Amur, came slowly forward,
holding a large gilt cross, with which he made the sign
of the cross to the congregation. The communion of wine,
mixed with water, and bread was next administered to
children under the age of six, and the congregation stood
silent while the priests poured the contents of the spoon
into the mouths of the babes-in-arms, who were screaming
and kicking. The priest meanwhile was looking furtively,
and rather irreverently, I thought, out of the corners of
his eyes in various directions. Then followed a short
sermon, quite a good address, my interpreter said, and a
collection. During the service Patrin, who towered head
and shoulders over most around him, was selling sacred
candles, for he was one of the churchwardens.
After the collection another portion of the service was
read, and then one of the priests, taking an aspergillus,
which was by no means a " little brush," but resembled a
whitewasher's, began to sprinkle the congregation in turn
with holy water. The first to go up was the Governor,
and, solemn as the rite was meant to be, I could not resist
the sense of the ludicrous when the great brush came down
with a smack upon his bald head.
STORIES OF CRIMES IN ALEXANDROVSK 379
The climate of Sakhalin has its extremes, as we have
seen in the short sketch given in Chapter VI., but the cold
is a dry cold. A doctor assured me that there were no
cases of consumption on the island, except among the
Kirghiz and South Asian races, who could not stand the
severity of winter ; and, though there are regions of
swamps, infectious diseases have not yet got a hold
sufficient to make these exhalations dangerous.
Fogs are less prevalent on the island than has been
generally believed, and, as the meteorological observer
remarked to me, owing to the presence of a branch of the
Kuro Siwo from Japan, and a cold stream from the
Okhotsk Sea, aerial currents are lively, and the fog cannot
stand still as in England, where a practically equable
temperature exists on the surrounding seas.
The weather for the most part during this, the middle
of October, had been cold and clear, with frosts at night.
The wind from the north was not unlike our east winds in
March ; then, with a veering to the south, would come
a day or two of showers, followed by an October day,
sunny and bright. No healthy Englishman would have
thought of wearing an overcoat on such a day, though
the soldiers huddled their great khalati around them, and
skubi had already begun to appear in the streets. Away
to the west, the coast of the mainland, sixty miles distant,
was clearly visible, and towards sundown, strolling out
alone on the jetty, I watched the great Sol bathing the
snow-capped mountains in his rosy light, and waited the
lead-colouring waves and the creeping shadows all along
the lone coast as he sank into the deep waters. At such
times the loneliness and separation of the exile from the
outer world came over me, and I had a glimpse into the
bitterness of his banishment, the dying down of long-
deferred hope into the colourless, dull leaven of despair.
The summits of the mountains had long been covered
with snow, but the white mantle crept but slowly down
38o IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
their sides. The old weather-wise said that they had
never known the snow so long delayed. It should have
fallen, according to their account, for good about October
26, not to disappear until the following April. They
did not know then that King Winter was goings to make
up in intensity for this short respite, for the winter of
1901-2 was extraordinarily severe throughout Siberia.
If Sakhalin has its bright and clear days, it also has its
storms, when men and women turn in their beds and
pray that no deeds of darkness shall endanger their
home. I remember more than one such night, but the
one which seemed to unnerve most was that of October
15-16. The wind had risen, and all the steamers had
bolted over to De Castries. Beginning earlier in the east,
it had worked round to a stiff south-westerly breeze, ending
at length in a north-westerly gale. The storm was howling
through the rafters, and the wild waves were dashing in
fury over the jetty. The great lighters, which were fastened
and refastened to the inner side of the T-shaped pristan,
were threatening every moment to break loose, snap their
bonds, and smash the jetty in their wild efforts to get loose.
Sea birds, driven in by the storm, were wheeling around the
great rugged promontory ; nobody was about that could be
in. The sentries at the landward end of the jetty were vainly
endeavouring to keep themselves warm, wrapping their
voluminous felt overcoats once and again round them.
With fingers numbed, they stood their bayonets in the
sentry-boxes, and stamped up and down. Behind our
dwelling, fifty yards away, was a roaring fire, in front of a
nondescript shelter, which it threatened to lick up in the
fury of the storm. Camped there were all sorts of dis-
reputable characters, for it was a refuge for the outlawed.
It was just such another night as that on which the six
prisoners escaped from the prison at Alexandrovsk. All
through the night the wind howled and the storm raged,
and our hostess lay awake until it was light, crying at
STORIES OF CRIMES IN ALEXANDROVSK 381
intervals, " I hear them ! I am sure I do ! They are
tunnelling under the house ! " Such a night, less than a
hundred years ago, the wreckers on the coast of Cornwall
found their opportunity. So it is on Sakhalin, only
it is from the land, and not the sea, that the wreckers
profit.
In the town the tunnellers and wreckers of shops were
at work. Of the many deeds of darkness revealed the next
morning, to mention only one, a little store at which I had
dealt, lying within a stone's throw of my first lodging, was
broken into and stripped. It was situated exactly opposite
the barracks on one side and the prison on the other;
and yet, notwithstanding this and the fact that the owner
and his family were sleeping in the house, some con-
victs in the middle of the night, and under cover of the
storm, dug under the house, beginning in the road and
coming to the floor, cut a hole in it, entered, and cleared
the place.
Eight days later a similar, but worse, event took place.
On the morning of October 24 we roused up about half-past
five to find a fire in full blaze in the town. Being more
than a mile distant from the scene, it at first looked as
though the greater part of the town was alight ; but as we
were gradually able to locate it, we saw that it proceeded
from the bazar. Our concern was not allayed by this, since
it seemed probable that the house of a Sister, who was
doing excellent work among the exiles, was involved ; but,
fortunately, as we learned from messengers, it was not so,
but was confined to the house next door. This was occupied
by an ex-convict merchant, against whom the incendiaries
appeared to have had a grudge. They proceeded by their
usual methods of tunnelling, and this notwithstanding the
scene of operations was the public market-place. Cutting
their way through the floor, and emerging in the store, they
found, to their disappointment, no vodka. In the absence
of any other spirit, they broke the necks of all the bottles of
3S2 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
eau de Cologne, drank the contents, and, seizing all they
could carry away, set fire to the premises. The owner, to
whom this was not a first experience, undisturbed by their
" burgling," but aroused by the smoke, seized his revolver
and rushed out into the market-place, firing several times
to attract the attention of the police. No notice had been
taken by the man on the watch-tower, a common institu-
tion in wooden-built towns in New Zealand and America,
as well as Russia, and probably he was asleep ; but the
shots, or the police, aroused him, and he clanged the
alarm-bell.
A fire-pump was sent down to the scene of the outbreak,
but, as luck would have it, there was no reserve of water,
although a store in buckets is supposed to be kept at the
station. It remained only for water-carts, i.e. barrels on
two wheels, to be found and sent down to the river to be
filled. Of course these means were hopelessly and
ludicrously inadequate.
By this time the Governor had arrived on the scene, and
it was clear that the whole house was doomed. The old
merchant, seeing that everything would be burnt, called to
the spectators that they might help themselves, but the
Governor would not allow it, and, ordering them to stand
back, stationed a cordon of soldiers around the fire until all
was consumed.
While, as I have said, a freemasonry does exist among
the convicts, the bond is much loosened in a large settle-
ment like Alexandrovsk, where the majority are strangers
to one another ; and this accounts for these attacks on
one another. The immediate cause is generally revenge
or spite, and sometimes envy of success or good fortune.
The chance of obtaining property of any description, even
to a pair of boots, is a sore temptation to the professional
criminal.
Two or three days after the storm a poor woman from
Korsakovsk village, near Alexandrovsk, called on our host.
STORIES OF CRIMES IN ALEXANDROVSK 383
and told her story between bursts of crying. Somebody
had stolen her all, her horse, which was worth, she said,
120 rubles, and her cow, which had cost ninety. She had
probably borrowed money to buy them, which made it all
the harder. We could not help her, but the officer promised
to prevent their being sent by sea to Nikolaevsk, which the
thieves might probably attempt to do.
Sometimes it is starvation, or the chance of escape, that
drives a convict to extremities. My interpreter told me
that many had said to him, as he put it, " We cry, but we
must kill," meaning, " We must murder, though we weep
for our victim."
The most horrible case of recent murder was that by a
man who called upon us one day to condole with him for
his " bad treatment at the hands of the officials ! " He
was a merchant, and had had a young and beautiful Tartar
wife. He grew suspicious, and accused her of flirting
with others, until one day she disappeared, as it was
generally supposed, with one of her lovers. Months passed
by, and the true story began to leak out. It appeared that
he had hired an assassin, at the current price of twenty-five
rubles, to murder her as a faithless spouse, who, according
to the law of Muhammad, merited death. The hired
assassin completed his ghastly work, but he and his
employer fell out about the terms. The merchant solved
the difficulty by hiring another assassin to murder the first ;
but the second was not so successful, and, his victim
recovering, tales began to circulate. Then a woman was
emboldened to come forward, and she told how when she
had been to get some bread of the merchant, she saw
him actually making the noose ready to hang his wife, and,
in a great fright, ran out of the shop, but not before he
had threatened her life if she breathed a word. Now that
the half-murdered man had told his version of the story, and
it had been decided to arrest the merchant on his return
from Nikolaevsk, she could no longer hold her tongue.
384 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
After all this had transpired, I passed the merchant
driving in the street, and even met him in our dwelling.
I inquired how it came about that he was free.
" Oh," was the reply, " the court does not come here
until next July from Vladivostok."
" But I have seen poor men waiting under arrest, for
their trial ten months hence, why not he .' "
" Oh, well, he has a house and is a merchant, and so
the officials let him loose. He cannot escape, and I expect
he has made it all right with them."
When he called upon us the day before I left the
island, he had been rearrested, and this time made to pay
a bail of 500 rubles, for which he openly declared that he
was very hardly treated.
A night or two previous one of his hired assassins
knocked at our outer door about 9.30 p.m. The convict
servant called out, " Kto tarn?" ("Who's there.?"), and
recognizing his voice parleyed with him, but refused to
open. He wanted a candle, he said, but they seemed to
think it was my 500 rubles that he and his companions in
league were after, and had chosen the opportunity of our
host and hostess' absence to acquire. We kept ourselves
in readiness for any attack through the windows, but we
had the advantage of being shuttered on the inside, and
the assassin had gained too little information to encourage
him in the attempt.
To those who feel crushed by taxation and regard
themselves as victims to the demands of a civilized Govern-
ment, I would recommend Sakhalin as that long-desired
land — a country free from taxes ! Not even does the rate-
collector haunt the doorsteps of unwilling ratepayers,
for there are no rates to pay. It is true if you don't care
for the well water you may pay a man sixpence a month
to bring you water from the river ; and if you value the
services of the watchman in disturbing you with his rattle
at night and apprising the burglars and thieves of his
STORIES OF CRIMES IN ALEXANDROVSK 385
whereabouts, you may give him a like sum. But strictly
speaking you need pay nothing in rates or taxes for the
privilege of residence on Sakhalin — nothing save insecurity
of life and property.
The island, because of its position and climate, has
sometimes been compared with Iceland, but in the matter
of crime a greater contrast could not be found. There
must be a larger number of crimes committed in proportion
to the population on Sakhalin than anywhere else, whereas
on Iceland the exact reverse would be true. It is said
that in 1000 years two cases, both of thefts, have been
recorded there. One was committed by a man who,
having broken his arm, was suddenly deprived of the
power to work. He was driven to the theft by hunger,
and this being recognized, he was placed under medical
care and put in the way of earning his living. The other
was by a German, who had no such excuse, and was told
to sell all his property, make good the damage done, and
then leave the country, or be executed.
Such stern treatment for theft did not obtain on
Sakhalin, and if one gilded the official palm he could
get off even with honour. At the beginning of last year
(1902) fifty pairs of peasants' shoes were stolen from the
Government stores at Alexandrovsk, but as the price they
fetched there was only thirty kopyeks, against one ruble in
Nikolaevsk, the thief started for the latter place to sell them
there. On his way, however, he was stopped by a soldier, his
goods examined, and the Government stamp found inside
them. He was therefore arrested and brought back to
Alexandrovsk to be tried. While locked up in the guard-
house the prisoner, who was a Caucasian, saw a friend and
compatriot pass the window, and made signs begging him
to get him free somehow. Thereupon this friend came to
the police-office and made an arrangement, for a sum of
ten rubles, to be allowed to change the Government shoes
in question for others. This was done to the satisfaction
2 c
386 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
of all the parties concerned, the overseer of the ispravnik
unlocking the door and superintending the exchange.
When the trial came on, the accused said there must have
been a mistake, the shoes were not Government ones, but
had been made by the settlers ; would the official examine
them ! The substituted shoes were brought in, and finding
no Government stamp on them, the official begged the
man's pardon for his wrongful arrest ?
One more instance of the power of the ruble, A little
while after the previous incident, fifteen tins of mutton-fat,
weighing a pud each, disappeared from the Government
stores. No trace of them could be found, and their loss
created some disturbance, as the fat is very scarce and
rather valuable on Sakhalin. Now in the market-place
are several ramshackle shelters of no good reputation, into
which thieves, being hard pressed, dive and vanish by
underground passages; for some reason or other a raid
was made on one of these, and in the cellar, amongst other
things, were found three tins of this mutton-fat. The
owner of the hut was arrested and brought before the
overseer of the police. With much whimpering and many
tears, the accused man begged him to take what he liked
of his property rather than imprison him. " My time on
Sakhalin will very soon be up, and if I am convicted again,
I shall have another term and never be able to get back to
the mainland."
" That is an old story," said the official in a stern tone,
" and won't pay." But, with a sudden change of tone, he
added, " How much will you give me if I make it all
right?"
The prisoner, taking hope, said, " I will give you one of
the tins and ten rubles."
" No, not enough," replied the official.
" Twenty-five rubles," the prisoner offered.
" All right, I will see to it," said the overseer ; and,
as if by magic, the tins of mutton-fat were changed to
STORIES OF CRIMES IN ALEXANDROVSK 387
common swine's fat, and when the trial came on the
overseer declared that "there had been a mistake. I
thought that they were mutton-fat, but I suppose that
I must have had a cold when I examined them the other
day!"
CHAPTER XX
SAKHALIN TO VLADIVOSTOK
The Russian priest — The prisoner's hope — Sister de Mayer — Her
story — Heroic efforts — Her solution of the unemployed problem —
Sakhalin coal — Farewell to the island — De Castries Bay — I am to
cross Manchuria as a " book-keeper."
THE Russian penal system, so far as it deals with
criminals, compares, on the whole, not unfavourably
with the regulations for the punishment and incarce-
ration of delinquents adopted by other European nations.
The provisions by which a prisoner may be promoted from
one class to another, and gain his freedom gradually, are
calculated to give hope and encourage reformation. It is
the obvious failure of the administration to carry out the
aim of the law, as revealed in the foregoing pages, that is
so lamentable.
The reader may ask, does the Government do anything
for the prisoner through the priests .? No direct attempt
at reform by the ministration of chaplains, as in England,
is contemplated on the island, and the priests are not likely
to go out of their way, even if their duties allowed it, to
visit the prisoners in gaol.
The Russian priest can scarcely be compared with his
English brother. The reader is familiar with the fact that
the social position of the French cur6 and the German
pastor is not that of the English clergyman. Such in-
feriority and social exclusion are only accentuated in the
case of the Russian pope, who is, speaking generally, un-
educated. History and custom have been responsible for
388
SAKHALIN TO VLADIVOSTOK 389
rendering the Russian clergy a separate class. The rural
priest, excluded by his bringing up from the society of the
cultured, has by his training and family been separated
from the peasant class.
His position is further differentiated from that of our
clergy, and his office rendered a difficult and even obnoxious
one, by the manner of his remuneration. Excepting in a
few cases, he is totally dependent upon fees, and this
naturally results in regrettable altercations and haggling
at confirmations, weddings, and burials. Scandals are
created, and stories are even current of secret interments
by poor peasants to evade the grasping hand of the pope.
If such a system of payment engenders in too many cases
greed, social functions tempt the priest to drunkenness.
The temptations are many and insidious. It is not always
the attraction which a feast has for a man living in poverty,
but the duties of his position which lure him into intoxica-
tion. As their priest, he is expected to make himself
sociable with his parishioners, and on certain occasions —
at Christmas, Easter, etc. — when he goes round the village
blessing each house, he would cause great offence if he did
not accept a glass of vodka at each. He is called in on
all popular festive occasions, and on Sakhalin when the
Government or Crown bank was opened, the pope was
there to inaugurate it, with the reading of a service, and
the sprinkling of the walls with holy water. A feast followed,
and of course the habit of drinking begun at functions does
not stop with them.
When I visited Due, my interpreter took me to see the
little schoolroom in which he taught his pupils, and, as we
were walking up the street talking about the school, he
remarked on the difficulty he had, in pursuance of his
instructions, to get the children to respect their priest.
"How can I do it," he said, "when they find the priest
lying drunk in the gutter .' Of course, their first impulse
is to pelt him with stones."
390 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
All I met in my travels spoke with a contempt of the
Russian pope, no less bitter than the hatred of a socialist
in Paris towards the Roman Catholic priest. It is con-
sidered in Russia to be unlucky to meet a pope on first
leaving home ; yet it is curious that, openly as the peasants
may deride and pour contempt upon him, the moment he
dons his robes their attitude is at once changed, and he is
their respected priest, the intercessor between them and the
Power above. But it would be unfair and untrue to accept
these dicta alone, and thus label all the Russian clergy.
There are many excellent and saintly exceptions, and the
Synod is now aiming at better discipline, and a higher
standard of education. Nor should we overlook the diffi-
culties of the rural priest, his social ostracism, his pecuniary
straits, and the temptations that his office occasions him.
His work is not always easy ; and sometimes at the peril
of his life he has to fight against the bitter cold and deep
snow-drifts, in ministering to the needs of his flock.
On Sakhalin it was not to be expected that the priests
would be superior to their brethren in Russia. With one
exception, at Derbensk, those whom I met and heard of
were scarcely a degree better than the rest of the officials,
either in regard to drinking or morality. I will not attempt
to repeat the stories I heard of them, but here is one con-
cerning rectitude in financial matters which was told me by
one of the chief actors in it. A prisoner of rank, who
arrived on the island in 1897, was approached by the pope
at . As a result of this interview, the prisoner, who
was of an obliging temperament, and thought it well to
cultivate friendly relations, went straight to Mr. Y. and
asked him, as a matter of business, for a loan of 300
rubles. Now Mr. Y., knowing the family of the prisoner,
was willing to do it, but, fully aware of the dangers of
plunging thus early into debt, politely inquired if the
loan was for his client's own use. The new arrival ex-
plained that it was a private matter, but was induced to
SAKHALIN TO VLADIVOSTOK 391
mention that the priest in question had asked him for an
advance. Whereupon Mr. Y., while not refusing the loan,
counselled his client not to oblige the pope, since he must
never expect to see it back again. Explanations followed,
and the true story transpired. The prisoner learned that
the priest had taken 300 rubles out of the poor-box in
the church, and as the annual opening of the box was
impending, he had to find that sum. In the end, the
pope prevailed upon some of the officials to advance him
the money, for they were all in the same boat.
The Russian law insists that every official — not be-
longing to any of the acknowledged religions other than
the Orthodox Catholic Church — shall receive the Com-
munion once a year ; but it is well known that this law is
frequently obeyed in the letter rather than the spirit. With
the connivance of the priest, the signature of the commu-
nicant in the book is sufficient ; the Communion is not
administered, but the priest gets his fee. Needless to say,
this is what happened with most of the convicts, and the
Government paid the fees. The only spiritual care that
the inmates of the prison received from the priests was on
a great feast-day, as on October i (O.S.), when a pro-
cession was made from the church to the prison, and there,
after a few minutes' service, the prisoners were allowed to
come forward and kiss the cross held up by the priest.
Not to the priests, but to a certain lady who had braved
hardship and peril, did the prisoners look for help. In her
a new hope had dawned upon Sakhalin, two years previous
to my visit. I found her living in a wooden house giving
off that unenviable spot, the market-place. It was after
dark when I called, and it was always a work of some time
and patience to gain an entrance anywhere after dark. A
side door of the adjacent courtyard, in which a couple of
savage dogs were raging to get at us, was stealthily opened,
after a parleying from behind it. Then an adjournment to
the other door followed, and the janitor, being satisfied as
392 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
to our amicable intentions, admitted me and Mr. X. to a
large room filled with books and magazines, undergoing
repair at the hands of exiles. We passed through this to
the inner sanctum of Sister de Mayer. She had not yet
returned, and we had leisure to glance round the simply
furnished room, and enjoy for once a blazing fire, d
Vanglaise, instead of the great closed but more effective
Russian stove. Miss Eugenie de Mayer is a young lady
of slight build, somewhat pale-looking, but with a face
expressive of great determination and enthusiasm. The
daughter of a well-known philanthropist. General de Mayer,
she comes from a wealthy home, where life around her held
every social attraction. It was the reading of Chekov's
description of the life of convicts on Sakhalin that awoke
her to the awful realities of that life, and inspired her with
the longing to go and help.
In England the desire to do benevolent work has free
scope, but in Russia it is by no means so ; help of this
kind borders dangerously on reform, and it was necessary
for Miss de Mayer to proceed gradually and prudently.
She had already qualified herself as nurse of the Red Cross
Society, a qualification which is high in a country of such
long distances, where the nurse has often to take the place
of the doctor ; and she took the first step towards reaching
Sakhalin by joining an emigrant train as medical attendant.
We can hardly conceive of the conditions into which she
now plunged. A lady born and bred, she spent months
attending these poor and filthy muzhiki, her home an
empty baggage van, which had in emergency to serve as
a hospital. While thus engaged, the position of matron
in the Sakhalin orphan home was offered to her, and thus
came the opportunity of reaching the island.
Several years previously some charitable ladies of St.
Petersburg, under the highest patronage, had established
a refuge and home on Sakhalin for the children of con-
victs born, on the road to Sakhalin, or in prison. The
SAKHALIN TO VLADIVOSTOK 393
management of this may have been comparatively satisfac-
tory at first, but soon became no exception to the rest of
the administration on the island ; for the state of this Home
in 1898 would have utterly shocked its charitable founders.
The sixty inmates of both sexes, some of them by that
time grown up men and women, were living indiscriminately
together.
Miss de Mayer's labour was entirely voluntary, and
with her unbounded enthusiasm she set to work to re-
organize the institution. The difficulties she met with can
scarcely be conceived ; but to mention only one, the staff
of teachers, who had care of the children and their morals,
was composed of ex-convicts, of whom some were murderers.
This reorganization completed, and the work set going
again, she was ready to follow up what had always been
her chief object. This was to render aid, temporal and
spiritual, to the prisoners. Their fate had weighed heavily
upon her heart, and now, turning her attention towards
them, she penetrated, with the consent of the Governor,
into the very worst gaol, the kandalnaya tyurnia, or
"chained prison." Such success is a surprise to any one
who knows Sakhalin and its officials, for any new schemes
or attempts at reform, even of the purely benevolent kind,
are looked at askance. But the Imperial Charity Society
of St. Petersburg, and the Tsaritsa herself, were behind
Miss de Mayer. On Sundays she was even allowed to
take occasionally the Protestant service in the little wooden
Lutheran church since the pastor visits the island but
once a year. Meanwhile the reader, who has perused the
previous chapters of this book, will realize the dangers
which surrounded this heroic lady. Among the thousands
of murderers at large, who are to be met in the forest, in
the street, and even in one's house, Miss de Mayer moved
unscathed, and many were the poor creatures helped by
her, who were willing to defend her against their own
kind with their lives. An incident which happened in the
394 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
summer of 1899 illustrates this, and shows of what stuff
Miss de Mayer is made. A convict gang of 200, with
three or four officers and several guards, was sent up to
Onor, a hamlet in the interior, to erect a telegraph-line
through the primeval forest southwards. In a previous
chapter (XVI.) the difficulties and perils attending the
making of the road as far as Onor have been described.
Notwithstanding all the obstacles and dangers of swamps
and mosquitoes. Miss de Mayer, unaccompanied by any
of her sex, joined these 200 convicts, nursing the sick,
teaching some to read, and ministering alike to their
physical and spiritual needs. One night, lying in her little
tent, a mere piece of canvas with birch bark at either end,
she thought she overheard voices outside, and peering out,
descried two convicts. They caught sight of her, and called
reassuringly, " All right, lady, we are watching to see that
you come to no harm."
Heroic as her effiDrts were in the " chained " prison, she
soon became convinced that her time and energy would
be better spent in preventing the prisons being filled by
recidivists, than by merely trying to raise those already
there. I have dwelt at length on the difficulties of the " exile-
settlers," the men who, their sentence having expired, have
to earn their own living on an island where opportunities
of employment are rare. Rations, it is true, are allowed
them for a year, though in practice they do not always
get them. In addition to those who give up the struggle
as hopeless, there are, of course, hundreds who easily lapse
and slide into a lawless, good-for-nothing life. Miss de
Mayer recognized at once the main want, and she saw
that, if only employment were forthcoming, there were a
great many who would avail themselves of the opportunity
of steady work to become decent citizens. The official
solution of the unemployed problem was simplicity itself —
to clap them into gaol. The Sister attempted a far more
difficult answer to the question. Her house was promptly
SAKHALIN TO VLADIVOSTOK 395
turned into a factory ; and on a second visit I found not
only books being sewn and bound, with a view to the
establishment of a reading-room, but men squatted on the
floors making brooms and sewing blouses.
Twelve months previously the work had been inter-
rupted by another and unexpected call, which deprived
it of Miss de Mayer's presence for more than a year, but,
fortunately, not for an indefinite period. In the summer
of 1900 the eyes of Europe were turned anxiously towards
the east, watching and waiting for news of the besieged
legations in Peking. In Sakhalin the news of the war
stirred their hearts. To Miss de Mayer came the
picture of the need of sick and dying soldiers ; and she
alone in the empire volunteered to go and nurse them.
Russia rang with her praises, but, with her usual modesty,
she was only anxious that any iclat she had gained
should redound to the benefit of her work on Sakhalin.
Having braved innumerable difficulties and dangers, and
made her way across Eastern Mongolia alone, on an
artillery waggon, she reached Europe only to begin work-
ing hard, lecturing, and collecting funds for the employment
of ex-convicts. Many gifts in money and kind were forth-
coming, from the Tsaritsa downwards, but perhaps the
most appreciated and the most touching of all was the
gift of forty kopyeks {\od^ from a poor prisoner in
Samarkand. The funds collected amounted to a few
hundred pounds, a totally inadequate sum to do half
what was pressingly needed ; and she had reason to be
only too conscious of the quick decline of interest in Russia.
About a month previous to my arrival on the island Miss
de Mayer had returned, according to reports, " laden with
tons of gold." This was unfortunate in attracting the
ne'er-do-well ; and the consequent disappointment on being
offered not gold, but work, was widespread. However,
" exile-settlers " began to apply in answer to her invitation,
until she had eventually to turn away large numbers, many
396 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
of whom came to earn only what was necessary to keep
body and soul together. At this time she was employing
about 150 ; the women wove and dyed mats, made fishing-
nets and sewed blouses, while the men made military boots
and baskets. Space and funds had limited the numbers
of employed, but, even so, Miss de Mayer discovered that
she had to face the difficulty of over-production. The
local demand for her products was soon satisfied, and
she found herself with a surplus stock. On Sakhalin and
the adjoining mainland, outside of the official class, there
are practically no residents, and therefore the continued
employment of these poor people was seriously jeopardized.
Last year she therefore took the opportunity which summer
gave, with its demand for out-door workers, of going over
to the mainland, partly to find a market for surplus stock,
and partly with another and very important object in
view.
I have already mentioned that about ninety-nine out of
every hundred convicts, sent to Sakhalin, fail to get away.
At the end of the six years following on the termination
of his sentence the "exile settler" becomes a "peasant,"
with the right to go to the mainland. In certain instances
the Chief of his district may even allow him to go earlier ;
but in either case the great difficulty to be overcome is the
obtaining of sufficient funds, or the personal interest of a
Siberian employer who will make a definite offer of em-
ployment. Miss de Mayer saw that the influence of the
prison island was baneful, even upon those who had the
" rights of motion ; " and with the transference to the main-
land new scenes and surroundings might bring hope.
One of her objects, therefore, in journeying to Nikolaevsk
was to establish there a labour bureau, and she hoped that,
by supplying it with a careful selection of men, the
employers in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria, would be
induced to engage these ex-convicts from Sakhalin. At
first the attitude of the officials on the island towards Miss
SAKHALIN TO VLADIVOSTOK 397
de Mayer's work and plans was purely objective, they
neither helped nor interfered, but perhaps the influence
of the Tsaritsa, or let us hope, the truly wonderful improve-
ment in the exiles, who came under the Sister's influence,
has produced a marked alteration in the officials' behaviour.
The change in the conduct of these ex-convicts has been
very remarkable. Men who were brutes, murdering for
the sake of a few kopyeks, whom nothing, not even the
lash, could subdue, gather on holidays in the Sister's room
to listen to the singing, recitation, the gramophone, and to
watch the magic-lantern slides, which friends in Russia have
now sent to them. They have quickly learned to respect
the law of kindness, and now there is neither excess nor
rowdyism.
" The Society for the Care of Convict-exiles' Families "
has showed its appreciation of Miss de Mayer's work
by a loan and a contribution to the work. There is crying
need for an extension of premises and for an increase of
the allotments of land. The foundress hopes, as the
establishment grows, to be able to dispose of surplus
production in Europe. To me. Miss de Mayer's arrival
on the island seems the greatest and most hopeful event
in the history of convict life there, and it would be a great
pity if her efforts should fail or be limited by want of
funds.
I was glad not to have left the island without the
knowledge of this one ray of hope for the poor prisoners.
My departure was now drawing nigh, for on the receipt of
the belated reply-telegram I once more found myself in
possession of funds, and in a position to consider how and
when I could get away from Sakhalin. It was late in the
season for navigation ; but there remained one more mail-
boat due to call, and if for any reason it failed, I could fall
back upon the convict ship the Yaroslav. Waiting thus
on possibilities, I was aroused at five o'clock one morning
with the news that a cargo vessel was standing in, and now
398 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
came my opportunity. A second messenger followed in
half an hour bringing news that the Tsitsikar was only
going on to the coal mines at Vladimirsk, twenty versts to
the north, and that the weather being clear, there was no
immediate likelihood of her having to take refuge over in
De Castries Bay. This gave me time to make "necessary
arrangements, for the vagaries of vessels off the coast of
Sakhalin were such that it was well to be prepared. In fact,
by evening a light breeze had sprung up, and fearing lest the
steamer should bolt over to the mainland, without calling
at Alexandrovsk, I boarded one of the two little steam-
tugs and made my way along the coast to join her at the
mines.
Coal is found at several places along the western coast,
but is chiefly worked at Due and Vladimirsk. I have even
seen a seam of brown coal in an exposure on the river
Tim. The coal worked is a good lignite, on the whole
superior to Japanese as a steam coal, and commands a
higher price. Were it not for the poverty of the lading
arrangements, and the consequent uncertainty of the fulfil-
ment of contracts, it would be better known and in greater
request. There have always been conflicting estimates of
its probable extent, but it would appear that the authori-
ties are now optimistic. A scheme which has been floating
in the air for years — the building of a mole from Jonqui^re
Head to the rocks called " The Three Brothers," so as to
afford shelter for shipping, and the laying down of a rail-
road between Vladimirsk, Alexandrovsk, and Mikhailovsk —
was revived in earnest last year, and contracts placed for
timber. This would render the process of loading simple,
regular and dependable.
The present means of lading are absurdly inadequate.
The rate of working is ludicrously slow. Twenty-five tons
had been shot into the bunkers of the Tsitsikar in one day,
and I counted more than that number of convicts at work.
Only one lighter was available, the others had been driven
SAKHALIN TO VLADIVOSTOK 399
on shore by bad weather. The most unsatisfactory feature
about it is the fickleness of the weather and the absence of
safe anchorage. The drawbacks of the present system
were fully exemplified in the case of the Tsitsikar. This
vessel, which was one of the fleet of the " Chinese Eastern
(Manchurian) Railway and Steam Shipping Company," had
been three weeks attempting to get two thousand tons on
board, and had so far succeeded in taking on one hundred
and fifty only.
There was no difficulty about the mining. The con-
victs simply approached the coal on the level and tunnelled
into it. Vladimirsk was like a rabbit warren. As soon
as the coal became poor, that particular spot was abandoned
and another chosen. The coal sells to merchants at about
six rubles a ton, and the convicts engaged in the mines
(and only these) get 10 per cent, of the value of their
output.
Clambering on board the Tsitsikar I found the captain,
who, with a surprised look, asked —
" Are you a passenger ? "
"Yes."
" Where do you want to go ? "
" To Vladivostok."
"Well, I don't know where I'm going." To further
inquiries he replied, " I shall cross over to De Castries, and
there I may find a telegram ordering me to Nagasaki,
Port Arthur, or Shanghai. You see I have no cargo, I
have not been able to load up with coal, so there is no
reason for me to go to Vladivostok."
This was unexpected ; but I decided to venture. The
next morning another attempt was made to get a little
more coal on board. Again the dirty ill-clad figures were
at work, with only a drill shirt and trousers and top-boots
in the cold raw morning air of an October day at sea ; and
I wondered, as I watched them, if these had gambled away
their warm clothes. The wind had begun by blowing from
400 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
the east, and, as the captain prophesied, worked round to
a fair south-westerly breeze culminating in a strong north-
westerly. It was soon too much for the lighter, and threat-
ened to be dangerous for us. The barge was loosed, an
official came on and counted off the convicts, on whom a
very sharp look had been kept ; the anchor was weighed,
and I bade farewell to Sakhalin. How enviable was my lot
compared with that of the twenty and odd thousand con-
demned ones whose hearts ever went out in longing for the
homeland, and who must live and die on this lonely prison
island. True, the majority of them had sinned, and done
evil in the sight of God and their fellow-men ; but one
could not restrain one's pity for the hopelessness of their
present situation ; and for those whose offence had been
light, it was cruel that they should be condemned to a life-
long banishment in such a degrading atmosphere.
As I have said before, the administration is answerable
for the majority of ills on Sakhalin. The system would be
bettered by the provision for a more careful classification
of the prisoners, and it is quite evident that the penalty of
death should be extended to the murderer of a civilian, as
well as an official on Sakhalin. Only by such means can
the security of the law-abiding inhabitant be ensured. But
the crying fault is the failure of the officials, their slackness
and arbitrariness, their open immorality and peculation.
Making all allowance for the demoralizing atmosphere of
the criminal population among whom their duty places
them, the state of things I have so meagrely sketched is a
terrible indictment.
Closer and more regular inspection from headquarters
is needed ; but above and before all, the appointment of a
strong, firm, but benevolent governor is desirable. He
must be strong enough to fear no cavilling reports from his
underlings, and must have power to dismiss and reform
without regard to the prescriptive right of long-standing,
evil-doing officials of the Patrin stamp. There are a few
I' \l;l WF.I.I, I'l N \KM \l I \.
\^y\'j'ih-i' j^ii^c 400.
SAKHALIN TO VLADIVOSTOK 401
well-intentioned, kindly men among them, but they are not
strong ; and the network woven by the arbitrary, peculating,
and immoral type is almost impossible to break through.
The morning after my departure saw the Tsitsikar
standing in for De Castries Bay. It is a well-sheltered
harbour, with a depth at entrance of fifty feet, diminish-
ing to thirty feet off Observatory Island, a bold islet so
named by La P^rouse, because his officers set up their
instruments on it, after a long interval, to determine their
exact position. To the south of this is a small islet called
Oyster Island, and to the north-east is Basalt Island. Near
the southern head stands up on the promontory of Kloster
Kamp a fine lighthouse, then about to be deserted by the
pilots with the cessation of navigation. On the north-
western shore of the bay, at the mouth of the river Somon,
is Alexandrovsk post, consisting of a telegraph-office, with
the houses of the Chief and his assistants, and a tiny
church and barracks for the small company of soldiers
stationed there. To the north and south stretch forests,
uninhabited save by a few roaming Oroktis. Around the
bay the hills rise to a height of 1 100 and even to 1 540 feet,
thickly clothed with trees, save where the tell-tale brown
slopes witnessed to fires carelessly lighted by the Russians.
It is a lonely spot at any time, and especially in winter.
Cut off by ice from all navigation, it is only accessible to the
post by dog-sledges from the river Amur, which is itself
served by relays of horse-sledges from distant parts. Only
in one respect was it at that time better off than Alexan-
drovsk ; the telegraph-wire connecting it with Vladivostok
was intact. In this secluded spot the Chinese Eastern
Railway and Steam Shipping Company had just stationed
an agent. What he could be doing in winter I do not
know ; but if his wish was to be " far from the madding
crowd," he could scarcely have chosen a better place. His
log-house was perched on the cliffs on the south side of the
river, about three miles distant from the "post." Below was
2 D
402 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
a tiny wharf, where a store of coal was supposed to be kept
for the fleet.
To my disappointment, a telegram had been received
ordering the Tsitsikar to return to Sakhalin with the
mail, and I felt that if we began this trotting to and fro,
there would be no certainty as to when it would end. I
had also received official rva'ac.&aas.t the Manchurian Railway
would be opened on the following Saturday. I may say
here that, so far from this being correct, through passenger
traffic has oijly been announced this year. As I was most
anxious to reach England by Christmas, and as time was
short, I determined to do what I could to prevent the
return to the island. I therefore represented to the agent
that the antiquated gunboat, the Tungus, which had already
wasted so much time in trying to mend the cable, lay in
the harbour ; and that the Governor of Sakhalin himself
had requested the Governor-general to allow him to use
that vessel for the transport of telegrams between the main-
land and the island, and therefore it might just as well take
the mails. Meanwhile, in either case, they had to be
fetched from the shore. The captain was remaining with
the agent to talk over his instructions, and the chief mate,
the only other person who talked enough English to be
understood by the Chinese crew, was in charge of the
vessel ; I was, therefore, asked to take a boat with the
Chinese bo'sun and two of the crew to the shore. It was
two to three miles distant, and all the directions for landing
that I could get from the chief mate were that I should
see a cliff-ladder on nearing the shore. It seemed odd that
I, who was regarded as a military spy, should now be sent
to fetch the Russian mails. But my functions, I found,
were to be confined to coxing the boat and acting as
interpreter between the bo'sun and the telegraph Chief.
This was done by means of pidgin English, some Russian,
and a little German. By good luck I sighted the rude
steps cut in the cliff, and leaving one of our crew in charge
SAKHALIN TO VLADIVOSTOK 403
of the boat, we clambered up the cliflf, and passing by the
church reached the post-office. A little way to the north-
east of this is a mound, with a cannon-ball on it, said to
commemorate the unsuccessful attempt of the English and
French during the Crimean War. In the post-office we
found the old postmaster, to whom I explained our mission.
Considering that we were not exactly on the hub of the
universe, and that letters did not pour in every few minutes,
but trickled in at intervals sometimes of weeks, the delay
in finishing off that mail could hardly be due to anxiety to
include the latest arrivals. Two hours elapsed before all
was ready, during which the old postmaster, who had lived
here seventeen years, waxed quite friendly ; charts and
maps were produced, and possible changes in the contour
of the land discussed.
As I made my way back to the boat, I came upon an
outflow of lava, as might be expected in its proximity to
Basalt Island, but interesting in view of its hitherto un-
discovered occurrence on Sakhalin. That this is not an
isolated flow, or exposure, is evident from the legend of the
Oroktis. They say that once upon a time there were three
suns in the sky. It was so hot then that men lived in the
water ; but one day a man determined to shoot these suns,
and, hiding in a hole, he managed to hit two of them,
which, falling into the water, hissed and spluttered out, and
thereafter the earth cooled. The "porous," or "sponge,"
stones still found are relics of these times.
On boarding the Tsitsikar, I found to my relief that my
suggestion had been adopted, and that the mails were to
be transferred to the Tungus. The best news of all was
that our vessel was ordered to call at Vladivostok. The
distance to be covered was about 720 knots, and we hugged
the coast for most of the way, giving it a respectable berth
at night, for the chart, though dated 1900 and based on an
English one, expressed itself uncertain to the extent of
nine miles as to the position of the coast-line. For 120
404 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
miles portions of the contour of Sakhalin were visible in
the east. To the west the coast of the mainland rose bold
and high, and inland stretched, seemingly, illimitable forests.
For long distances the coast-line is rugged and white, ex-
posing a hard limestone, and behind range deeply-furrowed
mountains, jagged and steep, running north-west and south-
east. This is the Sikhota Alin range. On the map several
settlements are marked, but scarcely any exist besides the
little one at Emperor's Bay, a beautiful bight where the
level of the land begins to be lower. The Chinese are en-
gaged in summer in fishing, and in the gathering of trepang
or b^che de mer {holothured) — an edible sea-worm and table
delicacy — and seaweed ; but since 190 1, I believe, a pro-
hibition against other than Russian subjects has hit them
hard. Our voyage began with bright sunshiny weather, and
in latitude 51° north the crew were mopping the decks,
but six degrees nearer the equator, in latitude 45°, they
were using marline-spikes to break up the ice — such was the
effect of a northerly wind in these parts. Our captain was
from the Baltic provinces, and, like all I have met with
from that part of Russia, was ready to freely criticize the
Government and all things Russian. It was not to be
expected that the chief engineer should escape his remarks.
"In these days any man who professed a knowledge of
nuts and screws could become a ship's engineer. What
was the result ? Here was a good ship, built in England
only six years ago, and it was being spoiled already." I
began to think there was something more than jealousy in
these words, when twice in one day we broke down. The
feeding-pump refused to work, sails were unfurled, and we
began to look forward to an extended voyage in the Straits
of Tartary. Progress was very slow, but on the evening of
the sixth day the Tsitsikar entered the Golden Horn. It
was 9 p.m., and as we approached a great light on our star-
board, a voice rang out through the darkness, " What ho !
Steamer there ! " It was a reminder that vessels are not
SAKHALIN TO VLADIVOSTOK 405
allowed to enter Vladivostok harbour between sunset and
sunrise.
According to the information sent to the agent on
Sakhalin, the Manchurian Railway was to be officially
opened on the following day, and as that day was Sunday,
and the day after that a holiday — how many " holy days "
there are in Russia! — I was anxious to make all arrange-
ments before the two feast-days intervened. It was cus-
tomary to wait for the visit of the police on board, but,
leaving my goods and chattels scattered about, I slipped
ashore to see the kindly American Consul, the railway
agent, and to visit the Russo-Chinese Bank, etc. The same
motley group of Chinese, Japanese, Manchus, Koreans,
gipsies. Golds, etc., was moving in kaleidoscopic fashion
in the bazar, as I stepped from the sampan. The only
difference since my last visit was that many of them had
donned winter costume, and were thickly girt about in
wadded cotton, and the Manchus and the Chinese from
Chifu crowned in martial-looking felt caps, with three
lappets adorned with balls of long fur.
I was soon disillusioned as to the opening of the Chinese
Eastern or Manchurian Railway. It was neither officially
opened nor even completed. There had been a gap in
the railroad of as much as 200 versts, but this it
was hoped would be bridged in the course of a day
or two. As to my getting through before the line was
thrown open, all Englishmen I well knew were refused, not
point-blank, but with that polite but oft-repeated reference
to another authority, which turns out to be an interminable
process. I had already met an English colonel who had
been turned back, and whose later movements had been
shadowed. I began by putting a bold face upon it, and
asking the engineer who dispensed passes for permission
to travel, but he referred me to the Governor. In another
quarter, I was strongly dissuaded from interviewing the
latter, who, I was informed, would not or could not give
4o6 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
me permission ; and by making my intention public, I
might defeat my object should I try some other method.
In this state of things there seemed but one course to
be adopted, that advised by an old traveller. This was to
take the train as far as the frontier between the Primorsk
and Manchuria, to descend there, hire a telyega and drive
across the boundary, then pick up the train wherever I
might, trusting to tips to the conductor to pass me through.
In the course of the day, while still seeking informa-
tion, I happened upon a merchant who, I learned, was
meditating going up as far as Kharbin. With great kind-
ness he agreed to do what he could to get me included in
his pass as his book-keeper. Through the medium of a friend
of the engineer this was accomplished, and in three or four
days I looked forward to starting. This interval was
passed pleasantly in visits to the museum, and to those
who were in office there, of whom, as is usual, several
were men who had been exiled for " having been overheard
thinking."
On November 7 my merchant " employer " and I pre-
sented ourselves at the station, he to reach Kharbin, 491
miles distant, I bound for London, over 7000 miles
away. To do this it was necessary first to reach the
frontier of the Primorsk, then to cross Manchuria, next
to take the branch-line of the Trans-Baikalian Railway,
and afterwards the main line to Lake Baikal. The lake
crossed, three and a half hours' journey would bring me to
Irkutsk, where I should be within eight days of Moscow.
From Vladivostok to St. Petersburg by this route is a
distance of 5680 miles, and now this journey may be
accomplished in sixteen days. But in November, 1901, it
took nearly this time (fifteen days) to cross Manchuria
itself, which is but a sixth part of the journey ; and I had
been told that Manchuria would be traversed in about six
days, but this was not the only surprise in railway travel
that awaited me.
CHAPTER XXI
ACROSS MANCHURIA
A brief historic sketch — Area and resources — Railway route — Scenery
—Journey in a construction train — Kharbin — Difficulty of finding
the train — The steppe — Approaching Tsitsikar — A poor railroad.
THE advance of Russia into Manchuria has focused
the attention of the student of politics in the fcir
East upon that country. It is a land whose
history would be difficult to write, its early story being
merged in the obscurity of unrecorded wanderings of wild
tribes. A stray reference or two in the many tomed
annals of the Chinese Empire but lifts the curtain to drop
it again and plunge us into darkness.
The present interest displayed in Manchuria, and the
absence of any history of the country, must be my excuse
for stopping at this point of the narrative of my journey to
sketch in faintest outline what we know of its story.
There seems no doubt that the present reigning
(Manchu) dynasty of China is descended from the people
called Nii-ch'ih. The Nu-ch'ih (or Nii-chen) in their turn
were descendants of the Suh-shen,* who are mentioned as
having brought " tribute of a famous description of arrow
in the year 1103 B.C." to the Chinese Court. For the
next 2000 years there is mention of an intermediate race
in the same genealogical line, the Yih-lou, who are
described as " a kind of Troglodytes " (200 A.D.), who
* Nil is considered to be a modification of Suh.
407
4o8 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
smeared their bodies with fat in winter, and whose
dwellings were "compared to grave mounds," with the
entrance at the summit (500 A.D.).*
But by the eleventh century the civilization of the
neighbouring Chinese Empire had made itself felt, and
already a section of the Nii-chens were known by the term
Civilized Nii-chens, as distinct from the "Wild NU-chens
who had retreated beyond the Sahalien (Amur) river."
Near neighbours, of the same Tungus stock,! the Si-tans
or Khitans had in the middle of the tenth century gained
considerable power, and spread their dominion over Liao-
Tung, and what is now the northern part of China, in-
cluding the provinces of Chi-li and Shen-si. This expansion
at the expense of the great southern power brought on
war. China, then ruled by the Sung dynasty, called in
the aid of the Nii-chens, who, under an able leader, Akuta,
proved victorious over the Khitans. This general took the
title of Emperor of the Kin (gold) Tartars (1115 A.D.), and
a quarrel ensuing with his allies, he carried the war into
their country, and not only conquered the provinces of
Chi-li and Shen-si, but for a long time held Honan. It
is clear that the Nii-chens had made great strides in
military organization ; though, unlike their neighbours the
Khitans, who had in the tenth century adopted a written
character for their language, their chiefs still issued orders
by the old device of an arrow with a notch in it, while
matters of urgency were distinguished by three notches.
However, with the establishment of the Kin dynasty, rapid
advance was made, and written characters were invented,
and during their short era of dominion we read of the
establishment of a Board of History.
A new and terrible enemy now arrived on the scene,
who threatened not only the Powers of the East, but even
those of the West, and advanced into Europe. The
* Et seq. A. Wylie's " Chinese Researches."
t Trans, of the Asiatic Soc. of Japan, vol. xviii. E. H. Parker.
ACROSS MANCHURIA 409
Mongols, under Chinghis Khan, swept down upon China
and its neighbours. Space will not allow me to detail the
events which brought about the overthrow of the Nu-chens,
but their fall was so absolute that they now receded
into the northern portions of the present Manchuria, and
gradually declined into their old ways of living.
In 1586, a Chinese author, Wang-K'e, in the supple-
ment* to the "Antiquarian Researches," t describes the
country in question in his time as occupied by the Wild
Nii-ch'ihs, who follow the hunt, and breed horses, and live
in portable tents much like the Mongol nomads to-day.
Some of the tribes, " 3000 li distant from Nu-wih-kan,"
figure their faces and fasten up their hair in a knot, etc.,
and generally appear to resemble the Golds of the Amur
to-day.
The Nii-chens, fallen back into their old state, were
only kept under, and their predatory excursions checked,
by strong military arrangements on the marches. 'Such
was the state of matters about 1580, when a man above
the ordinary stamp appeared on the arena,' in the
person of Nurhachu, afterwards known as T'ai-tsu. Born
in the present Manchu province of F6ng-t'ien, of an
obscure family, his military skill, undaunted courage and
perseverance united the tribes south of the Sahalien river.
Troubles soon arose with the Ming dynasty in China, and
in 1618 he published his grievances against that power,
and made an attack which was crowned with victory. In
1626 he died, but his son, following up his father's con-
quests, was proclaimed emperor, though his son, the grand-
son of Nurhachu, who ascended the throne in 1644, is
regarded as the first of the Ts'ing or Manchu dynasty.
The latter name was that of the tribe to which the family
belonged.
* The " Suh-wan-teen-t'ung-k'aou." 254 vols. A. Wylie, op. cit.
t The "Wan-heen-t'ung-K'aou." By Ma Twan-lin. 348 vols.
A. Wylie, op. cit. ,
410 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
During the reign of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644),
most of what is called to-day the Ffing-t'ien or southern
province of Manchuria had remained under Chinese juris-
diction, and large numbers of Chinese had settled here ;
in fact, it is said that the greater part of the present
population (i7,ooo,ocx)) of Manchuria are descendants of
these. Since the accession of the present, Ts'ing, dynasty
Chinese convicts have been despatched into Manchuria,
and many escaping have turned to the more lucrative
profession of brigandage. To them Russian policy to-day
owes a debt of gratitude ; for should the political con-
siderations of deep-laid schemes demand concentration
of troops, then it is only necessary to spread rumours
of the rising of the Khunhus brigands to allay the sus-
picions of other Powers. Latterly, the immigration of
the Chinese agricultural labourer has been the great
feature, a movement encouraged by the authorities in
face of the threatened advance of Russia.
The first definite step towards the Russian advance
into Manchuria was made in 1858, when the Treaty of
Aigun gave Russia the right of navigation of the Sungari
river. "Scientific" expeditions had previously voyaged
up the great river, and though the annexation of the
country was not within practical politics, and was left to
the "future and Providence," these were no doubt the
thin end of the wedge.
The rest is recent history. The idea became a definite
plan with the signing of the agreement between the
Russo-Chinese Bank and the Chinese Government in
1896, sanctioning the construction of the Chinese Eastern
Railway.
The area that to-day bears the name of Manchuria
is bounded on the north by the Amur river ; on the
west by the river Argun, Mongolia, and a part of the
Chi-li province ; on the south by the Pechi-li Gulf and
Yellow Sea ; and on the east by Korea and the Ussuri
ACROSS MANCHURIA 141
river.* Its seaboard is therefore confined to the southern
province, and chiefly to the Liao-tung peninsula, the eastern
coast between the river Tumen and the mouth of the Amur
having been ceded to Russia in i860.
The three provinces, the northern, central, and southern,
are respectively named Heh-lung-kiang,t Kirin, and F6ng-
t'ien or Shing-king,
The southern province, including the Liao-tung penin-
sula, at the end of which lies Port Arthur, is the richest,
the best developed, and the most populous of the three.
In area it is only one-sixth of the whole, and rejoices in
about the same square mileage as England and Wales,
while, roughly speaking, the central and northern provinces
are respectively double and treble that area.
Minerals are found in all three, the coal at present
obtained in F^ng-t'ien being in great demand, and far
superior to that from Kirin. The gold washings in Heh-
lung-kiang, on the tributaries of the Amur, have been so
far the most valuable, but it is possible that F^ng-t'ien
may yet rival it. The silk industry is confined to the
latter province, and the skin and fur trade is of least
importance in it, and of most in Heh-lung-kiang.
The hills and mountains are thickly covered with timber,
especially in the central and northern provinces, and there
is considerable traffic from the former down the Yalu
river.
Agriculture is naturally more advanced in Kirin and
F^ng-t'ien, though there are still large areas not yet
appropriated. In Heh-lung-kiang it is only in the richer
valleys that cultivation exists. Considerable areas of the
* For the exact boundaries, with the divisions of the provinces, the
reader is referred to the map at the end of the book.
t This is the Chinese name for the Amur river. Heh means
black, lung, dragon, and kiang, river ; the Chinese therefore call the
Black {Sahalien) river of the Manchus the Black Dragon river. The
dragon's presence remains unexplained.
412 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
last are of the nature of pure steppe, i.e. sandy, saliferous
soil, from which soda is extracted and transported in brick
form to China proper. This is the nature of the south-
west portion of Heh-lung-kiang, which is chiefly occupied by
Mongols, whose wandering herds find there scanty pasture.
Of all the rivers which bound or flow through Man-
churia, the Argun, the Sungari (with its important tributary
the Nonni), and the Ussuri discharge their waters into the
Amur in the north, and thus find outlet in the wrong
direction for the great trade of the south ; while it is the
smaller rivers, the Tumen, the Yalu, and the Liao, which
trend in this direction.
The river Nonni, rising in the Great Hsinghan or
Khingan mountains, which lie east of that portion of the
Argun river between lake Dalai Nor and its junction with
the Shilka, flows south to meet the Sungari coming from
the central province south of Kirin. From their confluence
these rivers, now called the Sungari, flow in a north-
easterly direction, joining the river Amur about i6o miles
above Khabarovsk. The Sungari, like the Amur, is
navigable for a great distance, even as far as Kirin,
where Mr. Hosie * speaks of having seen steamboats. At
Kharbin, where I crossed it, the river was half a mile wide.
The traveller, crossing Manchuria by railway from
Vladivostok, passes through only the central and northern
provinces, whereas the line from Port Arthur traverses all
three, joining the Vladivostok branch at Kharbin, on the
river Sungari. The latter line passes near Mukden, the
capital of F^ng-t'ien, and the former not far from Ninguta,
but leaves Kirin, the capital of the province of that name,
quite away on the upper Sungari. From Kharbin the
joint-line crosses the Sungari into Heh-lung-Kiang, and
runs within sixteen miles of the capital Tsitsikar, on the
Nonni, and ends within that province a few miles north-
west of lake Dalai Nor.
* Op. cit.
ACROSS MANCHURIA 413
From Vladivostok to Manchuria station, which is the
terminus, near the Siberian border, is a distance of 1071J
miles. From Port Arthur it is 124 miles longer. The actual
Chinese Eastern or Manchurian line (excluding the Kharbin
to Port Arthur section), is 943^ miles long, for from Vladi-
vostok to Grodekov, 128 miles, the railroad is a branch of
the Ussuri Railway, and traverses Russian territory.
From Manchuria station, twelve miles south of the
Siberian frontier, a loop-line of the Trans-Baikalian
Railway, reputed to have been in working for two years,
could be depended upon for connecting with the main line,
which would land the traveller in a definite time, if of
several days, at Irkutsk.
The duration of the journey from Vladivostok to
Manchuria station was a matter of guess-work, but I was
assured that I might reckon on the 107 1 J miles
being covered in about six days. Some still declared
that there remained nearly 200 versts of the railroad
unfinished, while others maintained that these had
been linked up. I was advised not to take provisions,
since they could be obtained at buffets or wayside
cottages. As for the condition of the line, reports
were not so rosy, a Russian Commodore, with whom I
discussed the condition of the railway on the night before
I left Vladivostok, criticized the construction very severely,
declaring that the engineers had repeated the mistake
made on the Siberian railway, of laying the road in the
valleys and of exposing it to the spring floods. If any
confirmation of this were needed, it is supplied by the
washing away of large portions of the line this summer
(1903), compelling passengers for Peking to make great
detours. He asked if I had heard of the collision near
Kharbin, in which three were killed and forty injured ;
or of one since, in which a train descending the zigzag
before the station Duzinza, had toppled over and killed
two of the passengers. We saw traces of these later on in
414 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
the shape of smashed trucks and an overturned engine,
but we reaped the benefit of these accidents in more
prudent driving. As far as Nikolskoy (sixty-eight miles)
we were still on the Ussuri Railway, and the accommoda-
tion was excellent, though the train was uncomfortably
crowded. Owing to the gradients up the valley of the
Suifun, the pace often dropped to six miles an hour, but
we accomplished the distance in fair time. As far as
Nikolskoy the outlook was of great rolling hills, river-worn
levels and forests much thinned by clearing. The country
now wore a very brown look, reminding one of the environs
of Adelaide at the end of summer. At Nikolskoy our
route diverged, and we followed the branch-line of the
Ussuri — the main line of which runs north to Khabarovsk —
as far as Grodekov (sixty miles), named after the present
Governor-general of the Pri-Amursky oblast. From this
point the hills melted away into the great bare plains, but
darkness shut out our view ere we reached Grodekov.
Here we bundled out and took our farewell of a railway
with scheduled times and ordinary trains. Henceforth we
must be at the mercy of our engine-driver, of agents
stationed at lonely spots on the way, and also of gangs of
Chinese coolies completing or repairing the line. An hour
later a train drew up at the station, consisting of a number
of trucks laden with merchandise and Chinese ; five horse
brakes, in one of which was a military doctor camping out
and other officers lying around on shelves and boxes ; and
one Russian fourth-class carriage, labelled third-class here,
into which we fought our way. My gun, bows and arrows,
and spears, Gilyak and Orochon clothing and other articles
for the musems I wished further ; and even bedding, which
ought to have proved useful, could not be utilized for want
of space. The carriage was about half the length of an
ordinary English carriage, arranged but not divided into
two compartments, giving seating room on the bare benches
for about fifteen. As we had a varying number from
ACROSS MANCHURIA 415
eighteen to twenty-four, and baggage occupied considerable
space, the passengers were accommodated with some diffi-
culty. My merchant friend and myself managed to occupy
seats, or rather to squat upon the top of our baggage on
the seats, while one man slept on our bundles between the
benches, and others were huddled up or scattered about
upon the floor. In vain we tried to sleep. It is astonishing
how inconvenient it is to possess a head under such circum-
stances. It drops to the right or left or to the front just as
you are dozing off, and forces you to rouse up and pull
yourself together again, and then you begin the same per-
formance, to repeat it a dozen times ; to say nothing of
other peoples' falling upon your shoulders. If only one
could have unscrewed it, and put it in the rack, the
difficulty would have been solved. As it was, I cast
envious looks upon the snoring forms upon the floor, and a
man and woman who had taken refuge in the racks. The
next night was passed in a similar manner, save that one
more seat was available, through the desertion of a
passenger who preferred a shelf in a horse-box to a seat in
our carriage ; but the prospect of this kind of " bed "
continuing indefinitely was not attractive. The nights
were frosty, and we mildly wondered how the Chinese, who
were crowded together on trucks, managed to endure the
exposure to the night cold.
The country at first presented a succession of rolling
hills of no great height, their sides shorn of the forests by
fire and axe ; but as we neared Kharbin the valleys narrowed,
and torrent streams, which had cleaved their way through
little ravines, were now silent under the hands of King
Frost In the early stages of the journey brick-built stations
were passed, but later on a few log-huts lying off the line did
duty. The rail was laid mostly in the valley-beds, but on
this section, which had been worked for nearly a year, a per-
manent way was already being constructed on a higher level,
and when this and the tunnels are completed the steepest
4i6 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
gradient, which was then i in 57, will be reduced to i in 100.
Between Vladivostok and Kharbin there was no serious
difficulty in obtaining food. When the regulation station
bufifets disappeared, an aubergiste was to be found catering
in rough-and-ready fashion in a hut, among the collection
that had grown up around a centre of railway construction.
It was true that the hut had to be found, and was generally
a quarter of a mile from the station, and that there was
always a doubt as to when the train would start ; but on the
whole meals were to be had though at irregular intervals.
At most of the merely wayside stations peasants or Chinese
appeared, to sell boiled eggs, black bread, and bottles of
milk. At a spot where the most serious accident had
occurred, where we negotiated several zigzags, with their
reversing stations, a tunnel was being constructed to obviate
the delay and danger of these. This is just before Duzinza
station, and more than halfway to Kharbin (333 miles from
Vladivostok). It is to measure about 330 yards, and was
being engineered by a Hungarian, with whom I travelled,
who had under him gangs of Italian workmen. The
distance from Vladivostok to Kharbin is 491 miles, and
this was performed in seventy hours, a speed of seven
miles an hour ; but we had stopped one night for eight
hours, since the line was not sufficiently safe to pro-
ceed in the darkness, and deducting other stoppages, we
had averaged about nine and a half miles per hour while
going.
Kharbin was reached at seven in the morning of the
fourth day. No station had yet been built, and we
descended just where the train had stopped, though nobody
else appeared to be getting out. Opening a window I
pitched the baggage out to the merchant standing below,
and finding a couple of Chinamen, with a team, we
chartered them to transport our baggage to the hotel. The
Chinamen's atelage was distinctly novel, the cart resembling
certain brewers' vehicles that have a ladder-like frame on
ACROSS MANCHURIA 417
two wheels, and in the shafts was a Mongolian pony, and
in the front of it three abreast. Later on I saw other
" tandems " with seven horses, three in front followed by
three and one in the shafts. My " employer," who had
exacted nothing more in the shape of services than con-
versation, knowing the ropes, led us to a long, dingy-
looking, wooden building, which he announced to be the
hotel. After trying by all known methods of knocking to
arouse the inmates, we took our way round to the back,
where we succeeded in gaining entrance to the yard, in the
middle of which was a big kennel and a bear tied up by a
rope. Further efforts on our part were rewarded by the
appearance of a factotum, disturbed from his slumbers, who
announced that the " hotel " was full. Notwithstanding
this discouraging statement, he managed to find us a room,
the like of which, however, I do not wish to inhabit again.
It was filthy, and without further accommodation than a bed-
stead with a mattress, the broken springs of which were
poking through the dirty covering ; and one or two chairs.
It was as well that we were expected to supply our own
bedding. A second bed they declared was not to be had,
but before evening a couch, which was also suffering from
broken " ribs," was begged, borrowed, or stolen. Washing
was regarded as a luxury, and a basin of water, or I should
say the basin, was brought only on ringing for it, and taken
away before one had finished, for some one else's use. In
the room in which we ate our meals was one of those showy-
looking automatic musical instruments — the name of which
I do not know, nor do I wish to — made in Germany. Never-
theless, I was indebted to it for the curious sensation of
hearing selections from the " Mikado " and the " Washing-
ton Post " in the heart of Manchuria.
Kharbin is practically a Russian creation ; the older
place lies about four and a half miles from New Kharbin,
on the river Sungari, after which it is called. New Kharbin,
where I was staying, was an uninteresting collection of
2 E
4i8 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
barrack-looking buildings of one story, built of brick and
thatch. The Russian portion of Old Kharbin, which lies
between New Kharbin and Sungari, presents the appearance
of a new building estate, and if any doubt exists in the
mind of any one as to the intentions of the Russians in
Manchuria, it would be dispelled at once on a visit to Old
Kharbin. Outside of Vladivostok it is an exception in
Siberia to come across many buildings of brick or stone,
and even in Irkutsk, the so-called Paris of Siberia, seven-
eighths of the erections are of wood. These solid red-brick
buildings of Kharbin, the detached houses of the ofiScials,
and the many public erections, had a special significance in
view of Russia's repeated promises to evacuate Manchuria.
Kharbin lies on a plain, and, notwithstanding that it
was only November lo, and we were wrapped in furs, we
suffered much from the cold in driving to Sungari. The
wind was terribly bitter, and our izvostchik, with his collar
turned up over his ears, sat sideways on his perch. Out-of-
door cafi resorts, however, looking very brown and tawdry
now, testified to the equally great heat of summer. Sungari
itself we found to be quite the business city. In summer
there is, and — notwithstanding the construction of the rail-
way— should be in future, considerable traffic on the river.
The fleet of the Sungari Steam Shipping Company had
played an important rdle during the outbreak of Chinese in
Manchuria the year before. Prince M. Khilkov, who had
been stationed here for four years, said that their settlement
had had a very narrow escape. I give the story as he told
it me. The reports of the campaign in Manchuria were so
exaggerated that it was impossible to know whom to
believe, but this much is true, that the repression of the
rising was not attended in the south and centre with the
atrocities committed in the north.
When the alarm was given Russian settlers, railway
workmen, and their families, had fled in all directions, but
mainly to Kharbin, where they had been put on board
ACROSS MANCHURIA 419
the Sungari steamers and taken to Khabarovsk. On
July 2, 1900, the Chinese troops appeared before Kharbin.
Fortunately for the defenders, the last two or three
days of their march had been rainy, and their guns had
lagged behind. This caused two or three days' delay,
and when they arrived the omens were discovered to be
unfavourable, and again several days elapsed before the
auspicious day came round. The delay was precious to the
Russians, who, on July 2, had but sixty rifles, and
enabled them by the 13th, when the attack commenced,
to reckon on no less than 6000. A successful sortie was
made, in which three of the Chinese Krupp guns were
captured and turned on them ; thus any immediate danger
was averted, although twenty-five days elapsed before
communications could be established with the outer world.
I had gone to Prince Khilkov, who is the nephew
of the Minister of Public Works and Railways, to
openly ask for a pass through to Siberia. My merchant
"employer" was going no further, and, as I was nearly
halfway through Manchuria, I guessed the authorities
would be comparatively indifferent as to whether they sent
me forward or back, since the fact that I had already
crossed the frontier relieved them of much responsibility.
Perhaps it was fortunate that Colonel Ugovich, the con-
trolling engineer, commonly known as the " King of
Manchuria," was engaged with the Governor-general in
touring the country. At any rate, after some hesitation,
and at the end of three interviews with the prince, who
was acting as secretary to Colonel Ugovich, he politely
handed me a pass, wrote upon it the usual courteous request
to officials to assist me, and gave me a letter to the super-
intendent at what was called Sungari station. Thirty-six
hours after our arrival at Kharbin I was ready to start on
the remainder of the journey through Manchuria, a distance
of 580^ miles.
I now regretfully took leave of my merchant friend. He
420 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
was anything but well ; we had both caught severe chills
before setting out from Vladivostok, and the cold, the
exposure, want of sleep, and precarious meals, had so
affected him that he went back to Vladivostok to be confined
to his room for two or three months.
From this point I had not estimated the difficulties that
lay before me, although I did not expect simply to order a
cab, drive to the station, purchase a ticket, and appropriate
a comfortable coupi. The first problem was to find the station,
or the site of the potential station. The train, I was informed,
would start, not from the spot at which I had left it, but about
six or seven miles further on, over on the other side of the
Sungari river. It was said to be leaving about nine o'clock
that night. When I ultimately reached it, I learnt that it was
the same train that I had come by, plus another from Port
Arthur, and that it had conveniently, though not intention-
ally, awaited my departure. I had engaged two izvostchiki,
the prolyotka in front containing all my baggage, and the
latter my own person. It had been carefully explained to
them where I wanted to go, and they had made profuse
assurances that they grasped the situation ; but I might
have known what was coming, for it is common experience
all over the eastern world. We had gone but three-quarters
of the way, across a wide, sweeping, empty plain, when
they pulled up. Now they were ex-convicts, and I knew
that I had to take a firm attitude, so I scolded them for
having said they knew exactly where I wanted to go, and
yet now, having come thus far, asked, "Where does the
barin wish to go ? " I repeated that I was bound for the
Sungari railway-station, on the other side of the river, where
I wished to see Mr. SvoUensky, the nachalnik. They shook
their heads, talked together, and drove off, whither I knew
not, except that it was not in the right direction. However,
to my relief we were going through the town of Sungari,
and though I was anxious about the time, I felt that at
least something was going to happen. Suddenly the
ACROSS MANCHURIA 421
izvostchiki turned down a lane which led to the river, and
drew up in front of a large wooden building standing in a
clump of trees.
A man was passing on the road, and, hoping to find
him more intelligent than my drivers, I accosted him and
explained the situation, whereupon he exonerated them
from blame, declaring that the bridge did not permit of
horse traffic, so that the vehicles could not cross to the other
side of the river. For the moment I was nonplussed. My
drivers wanted to take me somewhere — I don't know
where — but seeing that the building, in front of which we
were, was the office of the Sungari Steam Shipping Com-
pany, I ventured to make inquiries there. Entering, I
found, to my surprise, an office lighted by electric light,
and at least half a dozen clerks busily poring over ledgers.
Addressing one of the elder ones, I asked, in Russian, " Is
there anybody here who speaks French, German, or
English .' " but receiving a reply in the negative, I fell back
upon what Russian I could command A pleasant-looking,
rather more important, official entering at the moment, I
explained that I was bound for Manchuria station, when he
interrupted me with, " I am also going to Manchuria station ;
in fact, to St. Petersburg. My drozhky is outside. I am
starting at once." It was of a piece with all my good
fortune, for the difficulties of that evening, had I not had
his guidance, would have only just commenced. We drove
for a mile or two along the river, climbing over steep
embankments, up which our horses seemed to go like flies
on a wall, and then were turned out in the cold on the brink
of the river at the foot of a still greater embankment. The
Sungari here is 400 sazheni (2800 feet), or more than half
a mile wide. As the bridge was not yet safe for trains,
the passengers had to walk across on the ice. A group of
jabbering Chinese coolies gathered round us, whom my new
acquaintance engaged to take his baggage, leaving me with
the promise to return. It had been dark for two or three
422 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
hours, and, left alone, my isvostchiki thought it an excellent
opportunity to dun me, but I was not to be drawn, and told
them they would be paid later. Eventually I gave them
half as much again as their correct fare, but of course they
were dissatisfied, and one grasped me by the shoulder ; but,
laying my hand on my revolver, I warned him to stand off.
What we were going to do, or where going, I did not then
know. I was in the hands of my new companion, and I must
trust to him to get me through.
Tramping off in the wake of the coolies, I found myself
on the top of the embankment, with a group of soldiers.
It was bitterly cold, the stars shone out clearly, and the
frozen river lay silent below. We muffled ourselves in
furs, and stamped our feet until, twenty minutes having
elapsed, word was given to march. It appeared that we
were allowed to defile over the bridge, my companion
being a person of sufficient authority to get us by the
challenging sentries. It was a long cavalcade, in single
file, including all the coolies. Once an engine came along,
and we flattened ourselves against the rail. For two miles,
tumbling over stones and sleepers, we marched, the head of
our party continually calling " Skoro " (" Quickly ") to hurry
up the coolies. At length we came to a long train of trucks
standing in what appeared in the dark to be a siding,
with two or three baggage waggons, one third-class carriage,
and a service waggon, all occupied. Mr. SvoUensky was not
there, and half an hour elapsed before we could find any
place ; and it ended in my being thrust into an already full
third-class carriage. It was an awkward moment ; I was
a perfect stranger among Russians, and they resented my
intrusion, and looked not unnaturally with displeasure at my
baggage, which was now blocking the way, and preventing
the door from shutting. Fortunately, there was a sailor
or two among the score of persons who already crowded
the carriage, and, of whatever nationality, they are always
jolly, good-natured individuals. One or two of my packages
ACROSS MANCHURIA 423
were stowed under the seat, and the others afterwards came
in handy for those who propped themselves upon the floor.
I did not dream then that this was to be my home for the
best part of a fortnight. The first night was spent as usual,
in sitting upon a bare bench, trying to sleep, and as far as
ever from solving the problem as to what to do with one's
head. Three or four women were in the carriage, and I
unwittingly brought down their ire upon me, for in the
intervals between the shutting and the opening of the
door, a passenger next to me had been comparing the dis-
comforts of a seat on the bench with a sprawl on the floor,
and I had taken the opportunities of his temporary with-
drawals from the bench to put my feet there and half
recline. I was soon roused by " Englishman ! English-
man ! you are taking up all the space," from the women
who were lying across the bench and boxes between. My
neighbour, however, was not long in deciding on the superior
merits of the bench, where he was, at least, undisturbed ;
and the night dragged out in weary fashion. Two officers
chose to sleep in the racks, which they found so comfortable,
that they retained them until the end of our journey ; but,
considering the crowded state of the carriage, that we lived
in it day and night, and that no ventilation was possible,
except through the occasional opening of the door, I can
only marvel that they did not die of suffocation. Four
little double windows, like those in a gipsy cart, caulked
and seamed against the winter's cold, gave us light ; and
we were fortunate in the possession of a tiny little stove in
the far corner of the carriage, for although nothing could
be cooked on it, it saved us from extreme cold.
From Kharbin to Tsitsikar, a distance of 168 miles, the
line crosses the steppe and trenches on north-eastern Mon-
golia. Twice it crosses the boundary-line, and covers about
fifty miles within that territory.*
* Mr. Hosie, our latest authority on Manchuria, gives the western
boundary of Heh-lung-kiang, where it borders upon Mongolia, as
424 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
How can I adequately describe the limitless steppe —
its unbroken level, its treeless waste, its sandy floor, scarce
relieved by the scattered blades of coarse grass? For
miles, for 50 miles, for 100 miles, and even for 150 miles,
the same monotonous view unfolded itself.
How the traveller's eye is arrested by any moving
object, and what a relief it is to the monotonous emptiness
of the plain ! It may be a troop of long-haired Bactrian
camels, or a Mongol, seated high on his diminutive pony,
coursing like the wind, the animal's mane and long tail
streaming in the air ; or again, it is a caravan of little
covered carts, springless, and with solid wheels studded
with nails, so familiar a sight to the residents of Peking.
But how dry and clear was the air ; what glorious sun-
sets and starlight nights met the gaze of the tent-dweller
of these regions !
Across the great steppe the train found it easy going, and
the 168 miles, from Kharbin to Tsitsikar, were covered at
the rate of six miles, or, deducting stoppages, eight miles an
hour. It was as if we were on a calm tropical sea, save
that the horizon was near, since we were low down. Near-
ing Tsitsikar, I saw for the first time three trees, and in
a little while the plain assumed a rolling aspect with hills
twenty feet in height. Wandering from the line to look
closer at these mounds, I found tiny frozen meres at their
bases. At a spot about eight miles east of the river Nonni,
and sixteen miles from Tsitsikar — for the line leaves the
following the right bank of the Nonni river, from its junction with the
Choi to its confluence with the Sungari. If this were so, the line
would confine itself to Manchuria. I differ with diffidence from such
an authority, but the view adopted in the text is borne out by several
Russian maps of recent date. That the Russians would like to stretch
the boundary as far south as the Nonni river, as described by Mr^
Hosie, I have no doubt ; unless, indeed, their position in Mongolia be
already similar to that in Manchuria five years ago, in which case they
will be indifferent to the details of a frontier, which will in time
become the boundary of a province.
ACROSS MANCHURIA 425
walled Manchu city and capital of Heh-lung-kiang that
distance away — was a typical station ; that is to say,
it was a spot where fuel was stacked, and a water-tower
stood. It was midnight, and surmising from the fact of
the train stopping that this was a potential station,
though it was quite on the cards that the engine-driver
had stopped merely at his own sweet will, I went in
search of something to eat. Muffling myself in furs, I
dropped on to the line, and, stumbling over wires and
sleepers, made in the direction of a dimly lighted hut,
three or four hundred yards from the railroad. A plank
or two for seats, a couch of boxes, with a shuba over
them, a rough counter with a small stock of tinned goods,
vodka, etc., made up the inventory of the hut. The usual
shtchi soup was forthcoming, and the welcome tumbler
of tea. We hurried over our repast, and kept a look-out
on the train, lest it should move off without us, but if we
had known, we might have spared ourselves any anxiety
on that score, for the train made a lengthy stay. The
station-master, a few Kazaks and Chinese were helping to
unload timber and winter stores, and at eight o'clock the
next morning two officers rode up in haste from Tsitsikar
to catch the train ; they were certainly in time, for it did
not leave for another twenty-four hours.
This long stop allowed us the opportunity of wandering
from the line, though it was never safe to stray far lest
the train should incontinently depart. On the western side
I found two forts flying the Russian flag. They consisted
of walled compounds, with rude bastions at each corner,
one of them enclosing a modest gymnasium. Kazaks were
stationed here, though not in great force.
The soil is not, as might be expected, of a loose sand,
but of a very friable sandstone, which falls to pieces at a
kick. It is very saliferous, and from it soda is extracted,
made up in the form of bricks, and sent into China. The
semi-sandy subsoil was being quarried by a party of
426 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Chinese coolies in railway employ, who were making lightly
baked bricks for the station buildings. It was the hour of
the midday meal, and they were gathered in groups round
the welcome fires, some stewing onions, and others rolling
dough with the dirtiest of hands.
The railroad itself had been hurriedly laid. But when
this excuse is made, that is all that can be said for the
responsible authorities. It was incredibly bad, the result
of the extraordinary defalcations in connexion with its
construction ; indeed, it is believed that the so-called
Chinese danger in Manchuria, during the year 1900, was
largely manufactured in order to prevent a commission
of inquiry from headquarters. The line had been laid in
many places at the base of valleys, and will have to be
shifted to a safe elevation above the flood area. Ballasting
was noticeably absent ; sleepers were sections of pine-
trunks, rounded edge uppermost, with the bark still
adhering, and, instead of being parallel to each other, lay
at all manner of angles. I pointed this out to an official,
and he shrugged his shoulders, replying, "What does it
matter?"
I tried walking upon the sleepers on many occasions,
and I found the intervals most irregular. A stride of four
feet would be followed by one of six inches, and I did
not wonder, after that, at the joltings we experienced in
transit.
The light rails were merely pinned to the sleepers,
which, in their turn, were not bedded, for I found them
literally rock under my feet as I walked on them. The
effect of a heavy Baldwin locomotive, weighing seventy to
eighty tons, passing over rails of twenty pounds to the
foot, can be imagined. Under such treatment they became
as ribbons, and, without any exaggeration, wriggled both
vertically and horizontally. Was there any wonder that
our rate of progress was so slow } Our long construction-
train, viewed from a distance, appeared like a modified
ACROSS MANCHURIA 427
switchback. Accidents were of common occurrence, but
we had to thank a prudent driver for nothing worse than
derailment. Even on the best-laid part of the line, between
Vladivostok and Kharbin, the gaping and yawning of the
carriages had disturbed our attempts at slumber, and this
was as nothing compared to my experience between
Kharbin and the Siberian frontier.
CHAPTER XXII
MANCHURIA TO CHITA
The river Nonni — Overtaking the train — A Chinese village — The
Khingans — A two and a half days' stop— Six thousand miles
of snow — Curious dwellings — Manchuria station — Tickets obtained
under difficulties — Struggles at buffets — Chita.
THE next morning a start was made from the
potential station of Tsitsikar towards the great
river Nonni, eight miles further on. A few solitary
trees stood out here and there, making the monotony of
the steppe more noticeable, but beyond the river one knew
that the scenery must change, as we approached the Great
Khingan or Hsinghan mountains. The Nonni is a tributary
of the Sungari, and is the only great river which flows
through the province of Heh-lung-kiang. It is navigable
as far as Tsitsikar, and for light junks beyond even to
Mergen. At the point where the line crosses, it is exactly
half a mile in width. The great iron bridge, designed in
Russia and made in America, was then in course of con-
struction, and as the temporary wooden structure did not
allow of our engine crossing, the trucks and horse-boxes had
to be pushed over by large numbers of Chinese workmen.
While this operation was in contemplation, and it took
several hours to bring it about, we, passengers, traversed
the structure on foot to the western bank of the river,
where I found the Russian town of New Tsitsikar spring-
ing up. Having obtained a midday meal at a rough sort
428
THE AUl IK IK
I /;./,>,-< 7.,;-,' 4^')-
MANCHURIA TO CHITA 429
of restaurant, I joined some officers, their wives, and other
passengers congregated at the western end of the bridge,
where we waited two or three hours for the arrival of the
train, pushed by its human motors. It was bitterly cold ;
the great river was frozen across, and peasants were about
on the ice. One was hauling wood, and a solitary woman
had made a hole in the ice, and was rinsing clothes — a
terribly cold process, for they froze as she slung them over
her shoulder. A small crowd of Chinese coolies, clothed
in wadded cotton garments, gathered round me, and,
with childish curiosity, began to feel my fur coat. They
had never seen anything like it before, and asked me,
" Chto eto takoyf" ("What is it.?") " Maknkiy aleni"
(" Young (rein)deer (skin) "), I replied. Then, without the
least hesitation — the Chinese and even the Russians put the
most direct questions — they asked, " Skolko stSit? " (" How
much is it worth ? ") I gave them a moderate figure, but
they frankly disbelieved me, and thought it a great joke.
Late in the afternoon a fresh start was made, but only
a few versts were covered before the train pulled up again.
Its movements were so erratic that we could only make
guesses as to what was going to happen in the near future ;
sometimes it went backwards for considerable distances,
but, on the whole, the forward movement prevailed, and
we eventually reached our destination, covering s8oJ miles
from Kharbin in ten days and a quarter ! From this time
onward it became difficult to get food and drink ; and
as shunting operations at this spot seemed likely to occupy
us, for at least a few minutes, I ran across to a distant
hut to obtain black bread and a kettle of water. In the
back room was a stove, and the opportunity of boiling
my kettle was not to be missed. A careful look-out had
meanwhile to be kept, lest the train should move off, and,
as it was, I had scarcely emerged from the hut when
the rattle of the trucks announced a start. Fortunately,
the speed was at no time very great, and running, with
430 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
loaf in one hand and kettle in the other, I managed
to overtake it ; a friendly hand was reached down to seize
my kettle, the loaf was thrown on board, and I leapt
safely up.
Among our passengers in the carriage were a military
captain land doctor, the former of whom had a Kazak
orderly in attendance. This last sat opposite to me, and
I found him useful, since he could forage better than I, and
for an occasional tip would relieve me of the washing-up,
after the primitive meals made in the carriage. But on
leaving Tsitsikar he was missed ; two or three hours had
passed, and we began to think that he had been left behind,
when he suddenly turned up, intoxicated. He told an
incoherent story, and, pulling out a pocket-book, flourished a
roll of ruble notes, exclaiming, " Slava Bogu ! Slava Bogu ! "
(" Thank God ! Thank God ! ") This put a new face on
matters, and the captain, who knew that he had not had
these in his possession before, turned to me, since I slept
near him, to ask if he had robbed me. The difficulties of
obtaining money in Siberia had dictated my carrying more
than I cared in this rough journey, and I had about 650
rubles in my pocket-book, but, on examining it, I found
them intact. The orderly must have come by them at
Tsitsikar. The captain severely scolded him, and the great
hulking fellow fell down on his knees in the most abject
manner, weeping copiously, and crying, " Pazhatsta ! Paz-
hatsta ! " (" Please ! Please ! ") In spite of his entreaties
to be forgiven he was dismissed to the horse-boxes, and
we were, for the time being, without his services. That
evening the train covered the quite extraordinary dis-
tance of about thirty-five miles, and then stopped for the
night.
We had already caught a glimpse of low hills on the
horizon, the spurs of the Great Khingan range. The
scenery was changing ; the steppe, with its scanty coarse
grass, where the Mongols find grazing ground for their
MANCHURIA TO CHITA 431
troops of ponies and herds of sheep, was giving way to
wide, open valleys, sheltered by low hills. In these vales
the soil is comparatively rich, and Chinese immigrants have
been pouring in of late years to till them. The chief
cereals grown are millet {Sorghum vulgare), but oats, wheat,
barley, and buckwheat {Polygonum fagopyrum) are culti-
vated, and all are spring-sown. The winter is extreme,
but the summer, though short, is hot, and ripens the crops
quickly. Very rarely did I see any sign of cultivation along
the route, and, even before the snow-clad regions were
reached, the rough, neglected arable land was scarcely to
be distinguished from the virgin soil.
The next morning found us in one of these open
valleys. The hills were covered with larch, spruce, and
birch, though somewhat thinned by railway demands for
sleepers and fuel ; and in the course of a short climb, to
obtain a view of this entrance into the Khingans, I saw a
few hazel grouse {Tetrao bonasid).
At the end of a nineteen hours' stop, it was announced
that we should not leave for another twenty-four ; and,
interpreting this to allow me, with safety, a two hours'
absence, I ventured to take a constitutional. Making my
way to the little colony of Russian log-houses, I secured a
midday meal, and then sauntered in a southerly direction
to a Manchu, or rather, Chinese village. In the wide
street were groups of Chinese peasants, and as I approached
there were signs of a disturbance, promptly quelled, how-
ever, by a Chinaman in gorgeous attire, with blue wadded
gaiters, and black velvet high boots, who rode up, mounted
on a sturdy Mongol pony. On stalls a medley of goods
was exposed for sale, including fur-lined Manchu hats,
gloves, boots, and wadded clothing, bricks of tea, and that
favourite delicacy, roast pork. The thatched houses, built
of mud, with chimneys on the ground, connected by tunnels,
were, externally, much neater than the Russian abodes.
Each stood in its yard, fenced by a paling of long twigs.
432 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Just off the street was a tiny Chinese temple in process
of completion. I was surprised at the skill displayed, both
in its structure and in the blending of the various colours
used in its decoration. What amused me, and perhaps
reflected the servile attitude of the Chinese here towards
the Russians, were two small paintings on the pediment.
They represented a street in a Russian town. The parallel
lines of houses approached each other in the distance with
exaggerated perspective. Each house was of a different
colour, white, blue, red, or green, and if only they had had
wheels under them, one would have taken the two rows
for trains, consisting of first, second, third, and fourth class
carriages, especially since one house in the foreground
possessed a queer-looking iron funnel, evidently meant for
a stove-flue. Between the lines of houses stretched the
broad, snow-covered street, down which a troika was
speeding ; but, most significant of all to appear on a
Chinese temple, was the picture of a Russian church, with
its unmistakable bulbous spire.
On my return to the carriage my fellow-passengers
were loud in their expressions of astonishment at my
venturing alone to the Chinese village, and congratulated
me on returning alive ; such were the notions of the
Russian " man in the street," fed on official reports, of the
bellicose attitude of the Chinese in Manchuria.
Our alarms lest the train should go off without warning
and strand us in this inhospitable country were not always
without cause. On my return I found that the train was
definitely announced to start at noon of the next day, and
on the strength of this th» captain and doctor went to
enjoy the festivities of an evening " ashore," but the next
morning at 7 o'clock the train departed, leaving them
behind. At our next stopping-place, a potential station,
we heaved their baggage out, trusting to their dropping
across it in the course of their progress. The rail now
plunged further into the Khingans, but the route demanded
MANCHURIA TO CHITA 433
no very difficult engineering work, since it followed river-
beds, and only here and there necessitated a small cutting
out of the side of a hill. The mountains, or rather hills,
for they did not exceed 2000 feet, were rounded, sparsely
wooded, and separated by wide valleys. The scenery re-
minded me of wilder parts of the north island of New
Zealand. Off the line of route the heights are thickly clad,
and abound in game, for the Khingans yield the best hunt-
ing in Manchuria, and are noted as the habitat of the
tiger, wild boar, bear, lynx, etc., and a goodly number of
feathered game.
A damaged section of the railroad delayed us for a few
hours, and only a few more versts were covered before dark.
Here the engine-driver slept for the night, and the next
morning being Sunday, got up late. Life in the railway
carriage on one day was so like any other, that it came as a
surprise to us when one of the party discovered that it was
Sunday. I do not know how many hundred miles off the
nearest church was, and in any case the train did not pro-
pose to rest, so failing the orthodox manner of celebrating
the day, they hit upon the plan of cleaning their boots.
Where blacking came from I do not know. Life was a
mere pigging, we slept in our clothes, swaddled in furs or
sheep-skins, and it was with the greatest difficulty that we
could get a kettle or two of water for the whole party to
wash with. The little stove had to be diligently fed with
scraps and ends of telegraph-poles and sleepers, which we
picked up on the road. We warmed ourselves, taking it in
turns chopping these up with the Kazak's sword, until we
broke it ; for its owner had been received back since his
captain had been left behind. At noon on the tenth day
since leaving Vladivostok, we reached the highest point
on the Manchurian Railway. The line ascends by a series
of zigzags to the (temporary) station, appropriately called
" Khingan," attaining an altitude of 1930 feet above sea-
level, but these zigzags are to be obviated by two tunnels,
2 F
434 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
each of rather more than half a mile in length (3150 and
3010 feet.)
From this point began the worst part of the journey,
and the passengers had to suffer long delays, intense cold
and the absence of any arrangements for food. Descending
from the summit, the train proceeded for half an hour and
stopped for the same time, again moving on for half an
hour it rested for two hours and a quarter, and so on ;
eventually coming to a standstill at 9 p.m. in an open
valley high up among the mountains in a snow-storm and
a howling wind. It is said that the Khingan mountains
have the unenviable reputation of furnishing the coldest
spot on their latitude. I can well believe it, for though it
was yet only November 19, the thermometer registered
63° of frost (Fahr.). A calm, clear, cold day in Siberia is
most enjoyable, but when you add to the extreme cold a
strong wind, and snow, dry as fine powder, driving like
needles at your face, you will not wonder that we exclaimed
at our engine-driver for choosing this particular spot in
which to make a stay of two a half days. The station
possessed a name, Mendukhey, but not much else. It was
represented by a log-hut in course of erection, where we
were told the railway agent " lived." The two soldiers on
duty slept in a box outside in this terrible cold.
To add to our miseries our supply of wood gave out,
and the morning found us with the stove fireless, and the
snow driving in between the match-boarding of the
carriage. Some hardy individuals were washing their
hands in the snow for want of water. Rumour had it that
nothing could be obtained here, but, fortunately, by paying
famine prices we got a little of both bread and water.
This was the beginning of a stretch of snow-clad country
extending to Berlin, a distance of more than 6000 miles.
The first day passed, and our expectations of departing
remained unfulfilled ; the next day we dared not hope for a
start, and learning that hot water was to be bought in the
MANCHURIA TO CHITA 435
agent's hut, I dashed over, kettle in hand, to take advantage
of this exceptional opportunity. A woman was retailing
hot water, but the samovar, being watched, naturally took a
long time to boil, and there being some movement of
shunting on the part of the train, I at length demanded of
an official if the train were starting, to which he replied,
" Sey chas ! " {" Immediately ! ") Gathering up my fur coat,
but minus my hot water, I made a dash for the train,
kettle in hand, for it had already begun to move. Some
of the horse-boxes had little platforms at the end, and
climbing on to one of these, I took my stand, congratulating
myself on not having been left behind, and trusting for a
later opportunity to join my carriage. The train, however,
had only proceeded a little way before I saw that it had
come in two, and the carriage with my fellow-passengers
in was left behind ; I therefore hastily clambered down
and leapt off, fortunately not a difficult process at the
speed at which we were going.
Early the next morning our portion of the train made
a start. What a relief it was to be moving, after two and
a half days at a standstill, even though at the rate of four
to six miles an hour ! The night had been spent in vainly
endeavouring to keep warm, though we had slept in furs
and felt top-boots. Inside, the snow penetrated between
the boards, outside, the wind whistled relentlessly, driving
the snow before it in whirling clouds, producing the effect
of a drifting fog.
After a few versts the engine stopped to drink, but not
for the passengers to do so. Two or three forms wrapped
in furs were seen, in face of the intense cold, trying to find
wood to warm their waggon. We continued to make
frequent stops, and stayed until midday at another station
site, Yashi by name, where there was no buffet.
Some of the horse-boxes had no stove, and others were
fireless for want of fuel. Women were crying with the
cold, and begging to be taken back. The future looked
436 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
very black. A crust of black bread four days old and a
lamb's tongue, carefully eked out, alone remained to me.
By the wayside were the dwellings of some Russian plate-
layers, and to them I wended my way in search of bread.
These homes reminded me of the Troglodyte Suh-shen,
who dwelt here 3000 years ago. I had to descend into
the " bowels of the earth " to find their inmates ; for the
ground was hollowed out to a depth of about six to ten
feet, and a roof of timber, sacks, earth, and snow kept them
sheltered and warm. To all my inquiries was given the
same answer ; they had no bread to spare. Matters were
going from bad to worse ; for even water had to be tapped
from the locomotive when the driver was not looking.
Fortune, however, again smiled upon us, for that evening
the train managed to reach Khailar station, and we had
the luxury of a good meal in a buffet.
At about a mile from the station is the Chinese town
which was taken by the Russians during their Manchurian
campaign ; and the illustration in the text represents the
Chinese generals receiving Governor-general Grodekov.
From here the railroad was in rather better condition,
having been one of the first sections constructed, and we
reached Ongun, forty miles distant, the next morning.
Here we were on a lower level, the wind had subsided, the
snow-storm ceased, and the sun shone with considerable
power at midday. Numerous magpies were hopping about
in the snow, and I counted at one spot twenty-four of these
winter frequenters of the post-roads of Siberia.
With the improvement in the line the end came sooner
than we had expected, and our only delays during the last
few hours had been to drop occasional lots of telegraph-
poles. The great hills had been left behind, and the
scenery had changed to a series of low broken mounds
scantily covered with Swiss pines. The train continued
through the night, until at 3 a.m. I was suddenly aroused
and informed that we had arrived at the terminus of the
MANCHURIA TO CHITA 437
Chinese Eastern Railway Company, Manchuria station.
So long had this carriage been my abode — this was the
eleventh day and the fifteenth of my connexion with that
train — that it was almost with a sense of homelessness I
said my farewells to it, and stepped out on to a wide and
unfamiliar plain of snow.
There were yet a dozen miles to cover before the
Siberian frontier would be crossed, and these were tra-
versed that same evening. Altogether, it had taken
exactly fifteen days to cross Manchuria, a distance of
943i miles, at an average speed of sixty-three miles a day.
Those of our passengers who had come from Port Arthur
had spent no less than three weeks in the train. But I
must hasten to explain that these conditions are com-
pletely altered to-day, and that the traveller can accomplish
this part of the journey in less than four days, in the comfort
of a first-class compartment, with no difficulties as to food
or heating arrangements.
The line itself, in its reckless bedding and light rails,
leaves much to be desired, but the excellent carriage-
springs save the passenger from the gapings and yawnings
of benches and partitions that I experienced. I had no
cause to grumble. Probably with the rest of the pas-
sengers I was a nuisance to the authorities during the
completion of the line. I paid nothing for my journey
over the Chinese Eastern Railway, for no charge was
allowed to be made until its opening, and I record my
thanks for the privilege I enjoyed.
It was a bitter night as I stood outside the carriage and
realized that the threads of travel had once more to be
gathered up. The first thing to do was to explore the
buffet, about a quarter of a mile distant. In the large
outer room were crowded about 200 muzhiki and third-class
passengers, through whom I made my way to one labelled
first-class. This contained a bar and a long dining-table ;
and by the light of three candles I could see that the
438 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
floor was covered with baggage and sleeping forms. The
chairs were also occupied by people in an attitude of
uncomfortable repose ; on one sat a man with his head in
his hands ; on another, his wife with her head on his
knees. A half a dozen were wide awake, and, looking
round, I asked, " Is there a porter here ? " A jolly-
faced, elderly woman sitting at the door, amused at such
a demand, smilingly replied, "No." Such an institution
as a porter was a thing of the future. I appealed to a
bystander for advice, but without result ; so going into the
third-class room offered a ruble to any one who would
fetch my baggage. This was successful, and, my mis-
cellaneous chattels being piled up on the floor of the
buffet, I climbed on top of the pile and tried in vain to
sleep.
At an early hour, for all were tired of watching out the
night, the restaurant-keeper was prevailed upon to boil
the samovar and make tea. It was still dark outside. The
occupiers of the mattresses, and those rolled in blankets on
the bare floor, began to rouse up. They must have become
accustomed to their conditions by this time, for they
had been waiting for four days for a train going west.
There had been a heavy snowfall, and the engine-driver
had run the train off the line and blocked it. We, new
arrivals, were very fortunate, for it was announced that the
train would leave at 5.15 that evening, only fifteen hours
after our arrival.
Only a few days afterwards, a telegram appeared in an
Irkutsk paper stating that this piece of line had been
blocked by snowdrifts, and would take 600 men fourteen
days to clear it. I congratulated myself on having
escaped a fortnight on the floor of the buffet at Manchuria
station, although I considerably discounted the news. It
probably represented the estimate of the official responsible
for the clearing of the line, who would not be averse from
receiving the pay of 600 Chinese coolies for fourteen days,
MANCHURIA TO CHITA 439
when a quarter of that number had been employed for
half the time !
Outside the buffet all was under snow, and a bitter
wind swept across the plain, for we were situated, as it
were, in a vast saucer, with the low distant hills repre-
senting the edges. A few log-houses, the homes of officials,
were in course of erection ; but the populous part of this
new settlement was the Mongol quarter. Snow-covered
mounds on closer inspection revealed dwellings within.
Around these were small yards bounded by walls of
snow, behind which shaggy ponies were sheltering. A
barrel on wheels, drawn by one of these steeds, and
attended by a dusky Mongol, clad in felt boots and a
long sheep-skin-lined dokha, passed to and fro. He was
hauling water, which was only kept from freezing by
the jolting, for externally the barrel was hoary with con-
gealed icicles, like stalactites. Many of my fellow-pas-
sengers, having learnt by bitter experience, were determined
not to be caught napping again. They were besieging
the rude little stores, and laying in a stock of tinned foods,
rye-bread, etc. We passengers, fresh from a train which
started indifferently five hours before the reported time
or two days after, regarded with considerable scepticism
a time-table which stated that the train for Lake Baikal
left at 5.15 p.m. It was necessary to ascertain, in the first
place, what time the railway kept here, whether Vladivo-
stok time, local, Irkutsk, or St. Petersburg, for between
the first and the last there is a difference of six hours and
forty-six minutes. This point settled, the booking-office
had to be found. Some said it was down the road, but
it was ultimately located in a certain back room behind the
third-class waiting-room.
The next process — ticket issuing — was a serious busi-
ness, both from the booking-clerk's and the passengers'
points of view. I had noted that there were but twelve
first-class seats in the train which was bound for Lake
440 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Baikal, and I fully realized the importance of an early
application. It was reported that the office would open at
4 p.m. About I o'clock I repeated my inquiries, and was
advised to go at once and apply. I found the outer room
filled with a crowd of surging, struggling, third-class pas-
sengers, vainly trying to get near the tiny opening. Two or
three better-dressed persons, wanting second or first class
tickets, were trying a side-door in a passage, and I followed
them ; but all were indignantly and angrily refused. Then
one of my fellow-passengers through Manchuria politely
offered to get mine as well as his own ticket. I thanked
him, and seeing by this time that a move had been made for
the first-class carriage, tipped a waiter to carry my baggage
to the line, and plant it opposite the carriage. Meanwhile,
climbing on to the train, I tried to get the conductor to
allot me a seat ; but he, poor man, besieged from all points,
was well-nigh beside himself. As I was being refused one
coupi, which was claimed as reserved, and had placed my
hand on the handle of the next, a Russian official, with a
violence and rudeness which the foreigner only experiences
when the velvet glove is involuntarily withdrawn, seized it,
and claimed that "this and that and the next were en-
gaged." At this juncture I appealed to the station-master,
and he led me into the booking-office. There I saw what
was going on behind the scenes, and why the distribution
of tickets was such a lengthy business. The price of each
was a matter of reference, followed by subtle calculations
on the abacus, after which there was much writing on the
paper and its counterfoil before a ticket could be issued.
Meanwhile, the crowd fought and struggled at the little
opening. For four hours some of them must have pushed
and scrimmaged before they obtained their tickets. To
my surprise, the station-master humbled himself before
the "great" booking-clerk, and begged a ticket for me,
a stranger; and it was full ten minutes before he would
consider the station-master's request, and only then by
MANCHURIA TO CHITA 441
the additional persuasion of placing the exact money before
him. The first-class being hopelessly full, I had to content
myself with a second-class ticket, but it was another matter
to obtain a seat.
The journey was one of four nights and three days to
Lake Baikal ; but, fortunately for me, I intended to stop
at Chita, which would give me only two nights and a day
in this crowded train, and the chance of getting a less full
one for the rest of the journey.
The second-class being also full, there was an alterca-
tion between the station-master and some officers, but facts
being too strong for them, the position had to be accepted,
and room made for all. The difficulty came at night to
accommodate us all, but it ended in one of the passengers,
a pleasant, rough, little Siberian tradesman, who told me
afterwards a good deal of his story, retiring into the rack
for the night, and a big official stretching himself on the
boxes and baggage between the seats.
The frontier was crossed at the end of an hour, smd we
entered again into a country of low rolling hills and frozen
rivers. The land was neither wooded nor cultivated, but
grazing ground, and as the train followed up the valleys
we could see Buriat horsemen tending their sheep and
camels. A youth was breaking a hole in the frozen surface
of the river to obtain water, and carrying it up to the dwell-
ings— little black holes — in the hillside, which looked not
unlike a rabbit-warren. The snow covering was thin on
the borders of the steppe region, and the herds were find-
ing pasture only by pawing at the grass beneath. As we
advanced into the mountainous region, where the snow-fall
is greater, the line was wreathed in white. In the cuttings
it was curious to observe the work of the wind in great
overhanging ledges, spirals, and odd shapes of snow. King
Frost had laid his seal on them, and fixed these fantastic
forms for months, for no thaw would loosen them.
What a luxury it was to be in a train which continued
442 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
on the move, with only a few minutes' stop at stated points.
We were proceeding at a fair speed, at eight and a half
miles, or, deducting stoppages, eleven miles an hour. The
distance from Manchuria station to Kitaesky razyeyd
(Chinese junction) is 340 versts, or 226 miles. Here we
should join the main Trans-Baikalian line, which runs from
Stretensk to Lake Baikal. It was still not an easy matter
to procure proper meals, for though there were buffets at
certain stations, the train was overcrowded, and the supply
of food was insufficient. At such times the Russian veneer
of politeness wore off, and the ordinary English visitor to
Russia who is impressed with the courtesy and attention he
receives, would have been completely taken aback. It was
a fight — officers, military and civil, merchants, and sailors,
all struggling in the first-class buffet — to get food. If one
were fortunate enough to order early a stakan chai, then
somebody laid claim to and seized it. The zakuska (Jwrs
(Tceuvres) and pirashki (a dough-nut with minced meat
inside) on the bar rapidly disappeared, and a uniformed
official would be seen stealing behind the bar into the
kitchen to take the pasties from the very frying-pan.
Under such circumstances the foreigner, who had yet to
learn the particular form of eatables offered for sale in this
part of Siberia, was severely handicapped. The train moved
off before half the passengers had secured supplies. The
lesson, however, was soon learned, and in future I knew how
to proceed. As the train neared a station I slipped on my
furs, stationed myself on the foot-board, and on the moment
of stopping dashed into the buffet and called aloud for
pirashki and chai. At two or three stations a stay of twenty
minutes or half an hour, as in India, was intended to allow
time for a meal, but the supply and accommodation were
hopelessly inadequate. Here a new plan had to be adopted.
Penetrating into the kitchen, I pacified the hurried and
worried women, sat down amid the pots and pans, dirty
plates and knives, quickly supped a basin of soup, and
rushed for the train.
MANCHURIA TO CHITA 443
After Aga station, about three-quarters of the way along
this loop-line from the frontier, we wound among low
mountains, the slopes of which were sparsely covered with
birch and firs. Several rivers — the Turga, Onon, Aga, and
Ingoda — all tributaries of the Shilka, were crossed before
reaching the main line. At the junction we arrived from
three to four hours late, moved on to Karimskaya, but had
then to await another six hours for the portion from
Stretensk, bringing a few passengers and empty arestanti
(prisoners') carriages.
It was not yet so cold here as in the Khingan mountains.
Each station boasted its thermometer, and I noted at 7.20
a.m. that morning one registering— 19° (R.), or 43° of frost
(Fiihr.). The sun shone brilliantly by day, but not a sign of
thaw was visible. It was a glorious panorama in the glad
sunlight, and again by cold moonlight, of endless snow
unspoiled by foot of man.
Chita was reached later in the same morning, and here
I descended to look over the museum. The town is
picturesquely situated near the confluence of two tributaries,
the Chita and the Kaidolovka, with the Ingoda. All around
are noble hills. It has a population of about 12,000, and
owes its development to the Dekabrists, the exiles of noble
family, who were arrested on December (jDekabr) 14, 1825,
and banished hither.
A couple of sledges transported me and my baggage to
a hostelry, which announced " furnished apartments." How
one appreciated the luxury of a decent wash and change.
Even the sight of the steaming samovar was not to be
compared with the pleasure of taking off one's clothes for
the first time for a fortnight. Outside, the town looked
drear and cold to a stranger. Not a soul in the place spoke
English, but, making my way to the director of the museum,
I was kindly rendered all assistance in an inspection of the
excellent ethnological and natural history collection.
I was often astonished at the want of observation
444 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
and intelligent interest shown by the Russian official in the
things about him. Questions about agriculture, manufacture,
distances, altitude, etc., were either answered by a " Ne
znayu" ("I don't know"), or by a ridiculously false statement.
The comparatively recent development of towns in Russia,
and consequently the fewer opportunities he has of rubbing
shoulders intellectually with others, would seem partly to
account for his inferiority to his German and English
brother. If I gave up expecting to get information of this
sort, at least I hoped to learn from officials something about
matters of which they claimed to be the public repository.
On this occasion I visited the Russo-Chinese Bank, to make
a few inquiries, and they politely offered to save me the drive
to the station by telephoning. Having been a wanderer
in the Orient and Southern hemisphere since I had left
Europe, more than a year before, I had not the latest
information as to the days of departure of the train de luxe
from Irkutsk for Moscow. This was the substance of the
question which was put to the station-master. " Ne znayu "
was the answer. I suggested that he might have a time-
table for me to purchase, or a time-sheet to which he could
refer. " Nyet " (" No "). There was nothing to do but to
proceed at once, lest I should miss the express, which ran,
I believed, thrice a week ; but it was as if the station-master
at Inverness did not know, and had no time-table to tell
him, when the Scotch express left Edinburgh for London.
From Chita I continued my journey towards Lake
Baikal, after the necessary preliminary inquiry as to what
time the 9.13 a.m. train would start. The train contained
no detachment from Manchuria, only passengers from
Stretensk and intermediate places. The visits to station
buffets were therefore attended with greater success and
comfort. The first-class cotip/, which I shared with a
merchant, was quite comfortable, but at dusk an incident in
its illumination reminded me of earlier experiences. The
conductor came round and inserted in a glass frame, giving
MANCHURIA TO CHITA 445
both on to the corridor and into our coup^, a piece of tallow
candle, lighted it, and then locked it up lest it should be
stolen ! The result in candle-power was about as poor as
the electric lighting of the train de luxe from Irkutsk is
good.
The country between Chita and Lake Baikal is exceed-
ingly mountainous, the railway following a sinuous or
zigzag course, and keeping to river valleys. The famous
Yablonoi range, which extends in a north-easterly direction
from Mongolia to the Yakutsk oblast, is here crossed, and
the highest elevation (3137 feet) of the railroad attained
beyond Yablonovaya station, nearly fifty miles from Chita.
Following the river Khilok, for 200 miles in a west-south-
westerly direction, the line trends north-westerly for nearly
seventy miles, and then returns to a west-south-westerly
course for twenty-one miles to Verkhne Udinsk. It is the
mountainous nature of Trans-Baikalia that compels this
devious course.
At Verkhne Udinsk the traveller will descend, if he is
interested in the Buriats, to visit that very interesting
Mongol people and their chief monastery.
CHAPTER XXm
TRANS-BAIKALIA TO MOSCOW
The Buriats — Nomads — Lamas — Gelung Nor Lamaserai — A " living
god" — Mystery play — English missionaries — Lake Baikal —
Irkutsk — Pictures en route — Boundary of two continents — The
Ural mountains — Isolation of villages.
OCCASIONALLY, at one of the wayside restaur-
ants, I had met members of the Buriat tribe, and
observed the Russian soldier or peasant regard-
ing them, like most ignorant people the world over, as a
legitimate field of curiosity, or a species of joke. When,
however, as I stood guarding my baggage in the buffet at
Manchuria station, the door opened, and a fine, tall figure,
dressed in a handsome, claret-coloured, fur-lined robe and
girdle, a crimson silk Chinese close-fitting hat, and long
scarlet silk tassel, stepped in, I asked myself, " Could this
indeed be a Buriat ? " He seemed out of place here
amongst us travel-stained voyagers. The House of Lords,
on the day of its opening by the king in person, was the
fitting place for him. That he should be a member of a
nomad tribe seemed scarcely credible. Yet it was so, and
there are many such as he rich in flocks and herds.
This tribe, which has been estimated to number at
least 200,000, has its habitat on the south-eastern side of
Lake Baikal, chiefly around Selenginsk, but is scattered
as far east as Nerchensk, and to the north around Barguzin.
Like the Iceni of Norfolk, they are a horse-breeding people,
though their herds of camels, cattle, and sheep are by
446
TRANS-BAIKALIA TO MOSCOW 447
no means insignificant. Living in portable felt tents, or
yurti, as the Russians call them, they are ever on the
move, roaming at large with their flocks and herds over
the vast steppe.
In the winter, when terribly cold and boisterous winds
sweep across the steppe, and the scant vegetation is dried
up, shelter is sought in the near hills. Then it is with
reluctance that they betake themselves to the " closeness "
of the valleys, where the hills hem them in ; but, with the
return of spring, comes the longing fulfilled for the freedom
of the far-reaching steppe, and the race, for the mere fun
of it, over the boundless expanse. Where else, but in this
dry, clear air of the almost rainless steppe, seated at the
tent-door, can one gaze on such glorious sunsets, or
watch the luminous stars steal out, one by one, like pen-
dants in the atmosphere, and not mere apertures in an
opaque hemisphere ?
Like many another Mongol tribe, their early history
is at present unknown to us. That they were Shamanists,
believers in witchcraft and sorcery, is certain ; and that
Buddhist missionaries from Urga, in 1676, began a suc-
cessful work of conversion, is also known. Only a few
thousand adhere to the old superstitions, though the
Lamaism, which the majority profess, has incorporated a
number of the superstitious practices of the older religion,
and merely re-labelled them.
The illustration shows a Buriat home. The structure
is generally about ten feet in height, and fifteen feet in
diameter, and consists of laths, forming a lattice-work
below, covered with thick felts, manufactured from the
produce of their own herds. On entering the three-foot
door the visitor finds strips of felt, or, if the owner be
well-to-do, rich mats, spread on the ground and hung
round the walls. A great trunk, handsomely arabesqued,
and containing all the holiday attire of the family, in-
cluding the silver ornaments, charm-boxes, etc., stands
448 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
against the wall. Near by is the altar, with its burkhans,
or statuettes of Buddhistic saints, prayer-wheels, altar vases,
and bell.
The fire is made, in this woodless country, as in parts
of India, with cakes of dung (argols), and over it hangs the
pot of boiling water, into which is thrown brick-tea, mutlton-
fat, salt, millet, and milk for the meal. The occupants of
the tent are arrayed, for their everyday duties, in rough
garb. The men wear long, full ulsters of tapu (Chinese
cloth), held up by a girdle, from which hang tobacco-pouch,
pipe, and tinder-box ; and Chinese top-boots. On festive
occasions the well-to-do dress themselves in richly figured
silks, trimmed with velvet. The women ordinarily wear
a short jacket over a tunic of coarse stuff, but on high
days and holidays these are exchanged for richly coloured
stuffs, beautifully embroidered; and their persons are decked
out, as in the illustration, with bracelets, silver charms,
ear-rings, and beads woven into their two pigtails.
The boys are taught by the lamas, and it is as much
the ambition of the Buriat parents that their son should
become a lama, and join the ranks of the educated and
ruling class, as it is that of the Scotch mother to have
her son become a " meenister," This tendency prevails to
such an extent that the Russian Government has had to
step in and prevent the undue increase of this body,
which, being unproductive materially, threatens to drain
the resources of the laity. The term " Lamaism " has been
given to that ritualistic form of Buddhism which prevails
in Tibet, Mongolia, and China, while the purer form is
alone found in Burma and Siam. The studies of a Buriat
lad under the lamas begin very early, strictly speaking,
at the age of eight, and last from ten to twelve years.
Beginning with the Tibetan alphabet, he learns by rote
proverbs and wise-saws, and gradually enters on his cur-
riculum of Tibetan theology, Mongol literature, Tibetan
medicine, astronomy, astrology, and Buddhistic philosophy.
llll. lAlK K \N'-r", UK i;i;\\|i I \\1 \ "\ Mil' lU'KIATS.
[^''./'""''/"^''■4;9-
TRANS-BAIKALIA TO MOSCOW 449
His examinations and disputations successfully passed, a
candidate may gain his B.D., and go on to his D.D., or the
titles which correspond thereto. Nevertheless, the great
bulk of the lamas are not educated men, and their know-
ledge is very superficial. There are notable exceptions to
this rule, and the late K'an-po, or Khamba Lama, or Grand
Lama of the Buriats at the Gelung Nor Datsan, whose
photograph I give, was a man of considerable education
and wide reading. The Gelung Nor (Lake of Priests), or
Gusinoy Ozero, i.e. Goose Lake, as the Russians call it, is
a sheet of water about fourteen miles long, separated
from the south-eastern end of Lake Baikal by the Khamar
Daban * range.
Here is the chief Datsan, Lamaserai, or monastery of
the Buriats. The traveller on the Trans-Baikalian Railway
descends at Verkhne Udinsk, and, posting for a full hun-
dred miles through the winter snow, reaches Novi (New)
Selenginsk. From here a track, leading westwards among
low hills, brings him, after sixteen miles, to the lake. At
the southern end rises a curious white temple, surrounded
by log-huts. The hillsides are strikingly bare of trees ;
and beyond appear the blue mountains of the Khama-
Daban, shutting off Lake Baikal.
The three-storied temple of the Lamaserai stands out
prominently above the surrounding buildings. Its style
is Chinese, and the white walls contrast with the brightly
painted, vari-coloured woodwork of the galleries, adorned
with gilt plates. Smaller temples, of one story only,
surmounted with a bowed roof, called sume, contain each
a sacred burkhan. The lamas are indignant at these being
called idols, and disclaim any notion of the worship of what
they regard as material representations of saints. Around
the sume clusters quite a little town, comprising the dwell-
ings of the lamas and the khouvarsks, or seminarists.
The head of the hierarchical order of the Buriats is an
* Daban is a Mongol word meaning a pass.
2 G
4SO IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Abbot, or Kan-po (also called Khamba) Lama, and he is
commonly given the title of Dalai, or Grand Lama of the
Buriats. The supreme title of Dalai (or ocean) strictly
belongs to the " Pope " at Tibet, and next in order to him
is the Pan-ch'en Rin-po-ch'e, also of Tibet, an ecclesiastic
held in greater spiritual reverence, though of less political
influence, than the Dalai Lama. After these follow in
order of rank two whose districts lie on the borders of
Tibet ; but the Mongols regard the Khutuktu, or Kan-po
Lama of Urga, as next to the Dalai Lama of Tibet. At
many of the Lamaserais are also khublighans, or re-
incarnations of Tibetan saints, and these are looked upon
with great reverence ; in fact, unless the Abbot himself
claims also to be a re-incarnation, the former takes spiritual
precedence.
The accompanying illustration shows one of these
re-incarnations, or "living gods," as they are sometimes
called. Chosen when a baby as the repository of the
re-born saint, the child is brought up under the charge of
the lamas. He is regarded as sinless, but pays dearly
for such a reputation. He has a poor time, and his
secluded life checks his development, and leaves him the
inferior and tool of the lamas.
It was with this re-incarnated saint that my friend,
M. Labb4 had an interview. The day was far advanced
when the traveller arrived, and quarters were found for him
in the village. The next morning, after due ceremony,
he was ushered into the presence of the khubligan, or
sinless one, Taranatha by name, a youth of pleasant
countenance, and splendidly arrayed in silks. The inter-
view that followed was eminently characteristic, both of
the Buddhistic saint and the Frenchman. The one was
all dignity and condescension, the other all suavity and
politeness. The gegen expressed the hope that his dis-
tinguished visitor from a far-off land had found his accom-
modation in the village to his taste. M. Labbd replied
"lARAXATlIA, \ lU'jaAT " K I] I'B I LG AN, " OR "LIVING rilUDlM."
TRANS-BAIKALIA TO MOSCOW 451
with ceremonious thanks, but could not refrain from men-
tioning that he had suffered from the attention of fleas.
" However," he added, " I killed about thirty of them." " I
regret it," said the gegen, gravely. " It was a sin to have
done so. How do you know, but that in your next
existence, you yourself may become a flea ? " " Then,"
replied M. Labb6, with true French politeness, " I should
never attack your reverence ! "
Lamaism has seen many incorporations of pagan deities
and customs. Shamanistic tribes, other than the Buriats,
were early received into the bosom of the Church, and, to
make their entrance easier, their gods and rites adopted
under new names or with slight modifications.
One such notable custom is the Mystery Play. In
Tibet it is called the Dance of the Red Tiger Devil, and
is said by Mr. Waddell * to have originated in the Shaman-
istic exorcisms of evil spirits, such as I have already
depicted among the Orochons, with the added human, and
perhaps cannibalistic, rites of earlier times. The motive
to-day is the assassination of the " Julian of Lamaism by a
lama disguised as a Shamanist dancer," but among the
Buriats a much simpler significance is attached to their
Mystery Play, or Tsam as they call it, viz. the triumph of
good over evil spirits.
Down in the space railed off in front of the temple is
to be seen a vast crowd. Thousands of Buriats have come
from great distances to witness the scene. As the audience
waits expectantly, the noise of many musical instruments is
heard. Big drums are booming, eight-feet trumpets are
blowing, conch shells are sounding, cymbals are clashing,
and triangles jangling, when suddenly several wild figures,
in the strangest of masks, rush upon the scene. Some
wear death's-head masks, or a combination of Father
Christmas and Neptune ; another a stag's head and antlers,
and yet others the heads of beasts, horned and not
* The Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism.
452 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
homed, that would puzzle even the President of the
Zoological Society. Grinning demons mingle in the crowd
of hideous figures, one wearing a great open-mouthed
devil mask, with little flags fluttering, and several other
actors, who are maskless, having on their heads great hats
with gilded filigree work. It is a strange but brilliant
cene. The flashing of jewels and the rapid mingling of
brocades, scarlet silks, purple velvet, and cords and tassels
of all hues produce a wonderful kaleidoscopic effect. The
spectator, dazzled by the brilliancy of the scene, and dazed
by the din of the musical instruments, at length makes out
that the lamas without masks and armed with daggers, who
appear to typify the good spirits, have vanquished the
death's heads and the miscellaneous demons and monsters
of evil, and been left victors on the field.
The musical instruments which do duty at the Tsam
are regularly in demand for the summons to the daily ser-
vice in the temple. The older lamas and highest dignitaries
have theirs in the privacy of their own abode, and only
attend on state occasions. By the third call of the trumpet
all the lamas must be in their places, the Kanpo taking
the post of honour, at the further end to the right of the
central passage-way. The service consists of the chanting
or intoning of prayers, and lasts ordinarily about a quarter
of an hour. In his " Vom Japanischen Meer zum Ural "
Graf Keyserling gives a translation of the remarkable creed
recited, which runs thus — " I believe in the (holy) Teacher,
in the existence of all beneficent Buddhas — present, past,
and future — and also in the lamas and their disciples. I
believe in Buddha (Gautama), his holy doctrine, the clergy,
the religious assembling of ourselves together in the temple,
and in the guardian spirits of the faith. I believe in
Buddha, in the high priest, and in the saints. I repent of
all the sins which I have committed, in general and in
particular. I serve the well-being of all created things and
rejoice therein, and in my heart I bear Buddha and all."
TRANS-BAIKALIA TO MOSCOW 453
It is an impressive declaration of faith, and a magnifi-
cent challenge to the powers of evil ; but, like more
civilized peoples, they can scarcely be said to live up to the
standard of it. As I have already mentioned, Shamanism
disguised still plays its part, and the traveller will come
across select spots where the spirit of the wood or of the
hills is propitiated by an array of rags fluttering in the
breeze. Even Buddhist and Shintoist Japan, with all its
modem dressing, can supply many similar examples. I
remember in my wanderings in that country coming across
a tiny altar to the deity of the forest, in the depth of a
wood. It contained offerings of two or three sen (farthings),
and we left them for the deputy of the god, the poor country
priest who should come from over the mountains.
The local deities are indeed hard to give up. There is
no knowing what they may do to you in revenge, and
" there's no harm done in hanging up a horse-shoe, even if
it doesn't bring good luck."
A friend of mine, an Englishman, was exploring in the
country of the Sayots, a little-known Mongol tribe, whose
habitat lies 500 miles to the west of the Buriats. From
Siberia he had crossed the Sayansk and the Tannu Ola
ranges into Mongolia, and was making in the direction of
Kobdo, Again and again he had to swim rivers on horse-
back, and coming one day to a larger one than usual, he
found it in flood. The current was alarmingly swift, and it
was a case of touch and go in mid-stream. His Mongol
guide had begun by muttering prayers, but as he neared
the middle his supplications to the presiding deity of the
river grew louder and louder, and his free hand was raised
higher and higher in entreaty, until his voice ended in
almost a scream. Fortunately for my friend, the genius of
the river was favourably disposed, and they reached the
other side half drowned, yet alive and safe. Turning to
his guide, who was a kind of deacon of his village temple,
my friend said, " But I thought you were a Buddhist ? "
454 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
" Yes, master," he replied, " but it is always well to keep on
good terms with the local god."
Early last century, with the sanction of Alexander I.,
three English missionaries were despatched by the London
Missionary Society to the Buriats. Mr. Stallybrass and
his wife, after a stay of a year and a half in Irkutsk, reached
Selenginsk in October, 1819, and were closely followed by
Messrs. Swan and Yuille and Mrs. Yuille. For twenty-two
years they continued their work, moving, in 1825, 200 miles
further into the centre of the field of operations. The
nomadic habits of the tribe rendered their work difficult and
precarious. In order to get hold of the children and educate
them they had to board and feed them, but even then their
absence was grudged. The missionaries plodded doggedly
on until, after about twenty years' labour, there were signs
of the " reception of truth " among some of their flock.
Then a serious difficulty arose. These promising disciples
were ready for baptism, but a pledge had been extracted
from the English missionaries by the Russian Synod, which
they had strictly kept, that no converts should be baptized.
The Russian Church had no objection to receive them into
her bosom, but it scarcely suited the purpose of the London
Society to win over converts for the Russian Orthodox
Church. Moreover, the liberal policy of Alexander I. was
now replaced by an ukaz of Nicolas I. to the effect that the
Synod in future would do all its own missionary work. In
1840, therefore, the English mission was abandoned, and
three graves of their loved ones mark the spot where these
voluntary exiles spent their strength. They have left to
themselves one great testimony in the excellent translation
of the Bible from the Hebrew and Greek into the Buriat
tongue, or, rather, the Mongol written language used by
the Buriats, a translation which the Russian priests use as
a basis of theirs.
The Russian Orthodox Church has not made very great
headway, and out of a total of 200,000 the Christian Buriats
TRANS-BAIKALIA TO MOSCOW 455
are said to number only 14,000. In the words of Graf
Keyserling, " They (the Russian priests) are opposed by a
faith that has struck deep into the roots of the nation, and
the moral principles of which are held as beyond all
doubt. They have to do with a Church which is more
firmly organized than their own, and they find in the lamas
opponents who are more variedly intellectual and — unfor-
tunately, it must be added — more moral than they."
Russian influence is beginning to tell on the nomadic
life of the Buriats, and the advantages of agriculture, and
the need for settlement to substantiate a claim to property
against the Russian immigrant, are gradually influencing
the former in the direction of a settled life. Already they
are building wooden huts, in which they dwell for a short
while. Occasionally, too, there is intermarriage between
the Russian peasant and the Buriat ; indeed, the latter is
known among the Russians locally by the term Bratsky.*
In some cases the children are even sent to Russian schools,
and at Moscow a half-caste Buriat, whom I saw at dinner
in my hotel, is a doctor with a large practice in that city.
But I must resist the temptation to linger over the
habits and customs of a tribe which has up to the present
received so little attention from students.
In approaching Lake Baikal from Verkhne Udinsk the
Trans-Baikalian line trends directly north for twenty-four
miles, following the Selenga river and avoiding the Khamar
Daban range, which rises to 6000 feet in height, and finally
takes a west-south-westerly direction, towards the lake at
Misovaya. The journey by the Trans-Siberian Railway has
been repeatedly described, and I will not weary the reader
with a repetition, or bore him with statistics of the con-
struction and working of the line. A few impressions shall
suffice. My journey was henceforward made with speed —
* Bratsky means " fraternal," from brat, " brother." The term is
intended as a diminutive of " brother," similarly to our use of " Sissy "
for " sister."
456 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Siberian speed — in order to reach England before Christ-
mas, which I accomplished with a margin of four days,
allowing a few days' rest in Moscow and St. Petersburg to
recover from the effects of the journey through Manchuria.
The only contrast this part of my trip offers to those
of others over the same route is the difference of season.
Most undertake the journey by the Trans-Siberian Rail-
way in summer.
Five thousand miles of snow, from the Khingan moun-
tains to St. Petersburg — no mere drifts, but a vast thick,
white mantle everywhere — was an impressive sight that no
words of mine will convey. Day after day, week after
week, the same white pall, the vast country asleep, the
forests unstirred by a whisper of breeze, the trees weighted
with their six months' burden of snow, the huts buried
deep, and nothing but a thin blue thread of smoke curl-
ing heavenwards, or a muffled figure crossing the yard,
told of life within. Friends ask, "Was it not monoto-
nous ? " No ; not at all. The glorious mountain scenery
of Trans-Baikalia, with its deep, fir-clad valleys, was
followed by Lake Baikal, that huge sheet of water sur-
rounded by a magnificent mountain range, snow-clad from
summit to base. " But was not the plain — the 2000-mile
plain between Irkutsk and the Urals — deadly dull ? "
Again, no. One day we were running through a 100-
mile forest, peering into the mysterious depths of the
tai^^a (it was as if you were riding through a narrow riding
in an unknown wood), and the next you were out upon
a low plateau, watching the caravans on a frozen river, or
the little log-built village in a distant hollow.
Lake Baikal, which marks the division between Eastern
and Western Siberia, is an extraordinary sheet of water in
more ways than one. Not only is it the largest fresh-water
lake in the Eastern hemisphere, but it boasts the deepest
soundings. In one spot the lead touches the bottom at
a depth of 3185 feet. The level of its surface is 1561 feet
TRANS-BAIKALIA TO MOSCOW 457
above the sea. The water is of wonderful limpidity, and
has given rise to many local legends. It goes by the
name of Dalai Nor (ocean lake), or Bai-kul (rich sea),
among the Mongols. Its length is 400 miles, and its
width where the great ferries cross from Misovaya to a
landing-station called Baikal 38^ miles.
Two ice-breakers, built by Messrs. Armstrong & Co. —
the Baikal and the smaller Angara — ply across the lake,
the former supposed to take the trains, but only doing so
on special occasions, when, for instance, an important
official is travelling. The surface is liable to sudden and
violent storms, and the passage is as much feared, and lasts
as long, as the Dover to Ostend crossing. I made the
crossing in the Angara, with a favourable wind ; but so
strong was it that, on attempting to return to Mysovaya,
she was beaten back, and had to give it up after an hour's
struggle. To the east the mountains drop to low hills as
they approach the lake, and on the west great cliffs,
larch-covered, rise out of the water ; but to the south, in
winter, is a remarkably imposing sight. A great jagged
wall of mountains, snow-clad from base to summit, like a
slice from the top of the Pyrenees in mid-winter, crowded
down to the shore, making the problem of railway con-
struction an extremely difficult one.
Such is the strength of the wind, that though it was
then the end of November, and ice filled the dock and
fringed the shores, the lake was not frozen over — not until
late in December do the ice-crushers come into play with
their treble screws (one in front and two behind), and
propelled on to the ice break it with their weight, to be
again forced forward on to the unbroken fringe. My
fellow-passengers waggishly named the Baikal vodokol
(water-breaker), instead of lyodokol (ice-breaker), because
it sometimes fails to make its way. The explanation
given me was to the effect that the authorities stipulated
for a vessel to break two and a half feet of ice, and the
458 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
Baikal Was constructed to make its way through four feet ;
but that the ice is sometimes found to be as much as
seven feet thick. Through the winter sledges still make
the journey across, and incredibly fast times have been
done. Captain Cochrane, in the account of his wonderful
pedestrian journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary
in 1820, says, "We crossed in two and a half hours. Such
is, however, the rapidity with which three horses abreast
cross this lake, that the late Governor of Irkutsk usually
did it in two hours." Under such conditions, it is of course
dangerous to attempt to stop the horses on it, and some-
times the sledge moves faster than the steeds, overtakes
them, and slews round. The surface, when frozen over,
presents many dangers in the shape of holes and weak
places, especially at the beginning and towards the end of
the sledging season. At these times the trip is undertaken
at considerable risk, and prices rise in proportion with the
danger, mounting, I was told, to as much as 400 rubles (;f 42).
Many lives are lost every winter. Two days later I was thus
precipitated into the water in crossing a river about a quarter
of a mile wide — sledge, horse, driver, and all went in ; but,
fortunately, we were in a comparatively shallow reach, and
we managed to scramble out and seize the affrighted
horse. So cold was it, however, that the water froze on us
at once.
A forty-mile journey over a line badly constructed and
subject to landslips brings the traveller from the lake to
Irkutsk. It is a town of nearly 60,000 inhabitants, with a
few imposing stone and brick buildings, including the
cathedral, museum, theatre, the two governors' houses,
schools, etc. For the rest, it presents the usual mixture
and anomalous condition of the Siberian town, with three
or four "first-class hotels," lighted by electric light, and
yet not one supplying really decent accommodation ;
streets upon streets of log buildings, including the home
of more than one millionaire, and a main artery with fine
TRANS-BAIKALIA TO MOSCOW 459
shops and lofty buildings, jostling wooden erections, or
frowning on empty sites.
One thing impressed itself upon me at Irkutsk which
is worthy of mention. I refer to the large and splendid
schools. Evidently it was an exceptional centre of educa-
tion. One met students everywhere, hurrying along with
books under their arms, and quite as many maidens as
youths. Many of the institutions owe their existence to
private munificence, and to the presence of large numbers
of educated exiles. I was told that at least 500 girls
attended the gymnasium and the other institutions for
secondary education. They came from all parts of Siberia ;
many of them boarded out in families, and proceeded from
here to the University of Tomsk.
On the evening of the day following my arrival, the
jubilee of the foundation of the museum was being cele-
brated, and a professor from Tomsk was delivering a
biological lecture. I was considerably astonished to find
the great lecture-room full of enthusiastic students, both
male and female. I felt for the moment translated to a
feriencursus in a German university. The contrast to all
this came when we got outside. I wa5 with a lady resident,
to whom I had brought letters from the son of an exile on
Sakhalin, and I naturally offered to drive her home, but she
laughingly replied, " Oh no, thank you ; I am a ' new
woman,' you see ; and besides, I have my revolver ! " Even
to my ears this sounded strange in a big populous city, for
I knew she had only to pass through main streets. On
Sakhalin it was so familiar as not to be remarked, but
here it was another thing.
A spirit of freedom seemed to reign in the town, espe-
cially in the educational realm. There was a breadth and
liberality about it that would not be permitted in Moscow,
Kiev, or St. Petersburg, and I was tempted to ask, " What
if the Government were to put its hand down so , and
restrict your aspirations and narrow your range of study
46o IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
as in the west, what would happen ? Would you rise ?
Are you strong enough ? " The only answer was a smile,
and a shrug of the shoulders.
From Irkutsk I resumed my journey, after waiting
two days for the train de luxe. To Moscow the distance
is 3390 miles, and we were timed to do it in eight
days. The way lies over a low plateau, and occasionally
follows a broad river valley. As far as Nizhni Udinsk the
forests are much thinned, but beyond, the line suddenly
plunges into the taiga for 100 miles. Krasnoyarsk and
the junction for Tomsk passed, and we were upon the
low level of the Baraba steppe, which stretches as far as
the Ural mountains.
The carriages were excellently fitted, and more luxuri-
ous because roomier than the European. Beginning with
a speed of fourteen miles an hour, we increased to twenty
by the time the Urals were reached. A white pall of snow
hid everything, but many a picture or little wayside drama
remains in my mind. At one time passing through the
taiga at sunrise, the great Sol scarcely awake was glinting
through the glades, lighting up the frosted silver birches
until they glistened fairy-like, or flecking the snow carpet
with crowns of light ; at another the great orb was wester-
ing, but he stayed awhile to paint the distant ridges a rosy
pink, and to fire the red-boled pines to a living glow. It
is a new source of joy to those accustomed to a more
humid climate, this play of light in an absolutely clear
atmosphere, and the brilliant sunshine without the
suggestion of a thaw. Another picture remains in my
mind. Outside the thermometer registered 37° of frost
(Fahr.), and the sky was a clear, passionless, greenish-blue.
The line ran along a ridge, from which we could see a
goodly distance on either side. The sun was setting, and
through the lace-like tracery of the graceful birches, decked
with frost diamonds, a glimpse was vouchsafed of a celes-
tial city rising far, far away out of a pure white snowy
TRANS-BAIKALIA TO MOSCOW 461
plain — or was it but the glistening cupolas and soaring
towers of a Siberian town ?
Frequent stoppages to pick up fuel yielded many
a picturesque glimpse by the wayside. Here, it was lines
of peasant women clad in shubi to their knees, and felt
top-boots, selling pine-cone seeds, butter, eggs, milk, etc.,
the latter carefully covered up to prevent its freezing.
There, it was a train of hay-laden sledges crawling along
a river, scarcely distinguishable except by its suspiciously
level surface from the rest of the snowy waste. At Petro-
pavlovsk, caravans of camels drawing sledges were starting
south for their long journey to Tashkend in Turkestan.
The frost has its advantages as well as its drawbacks.
It is the time of transit par excellence. It is true that water
for the stoves and the train in general had to be brought
hot, lest it should freeze on the way ; and men at the
stations had to chop off long icicles from the train ; but, on
the other hand, carcases of oxen were sent direct from the
slaughter-house to the station on sledges, and were simply
transferred direct to the railway-vans for transit to the
East. There was no need of cold chambers or refrigerators.
Roughly speaking, Omsk is the dividing-line for the
flow of natural products east and west. From places east
of Omsk, wheat, rye, barley, and oats, meat, skins, and even
dairy produce trend eastward to supply the needs of newer
and less advanced settlements ; but from Omsk they
begin to flow westward to St. Petersburg and Moscow
northward by the rivers to the Arctic ports, southward to
Odessa, and by caravan to Central Asia.
About twenty miles west of Kurgan, the line enters
European Russia, that is, administratively speaking, for the
old boundary-line between Europe and Asia is 250 miles
further west. High up among the Urals, a few miles east
of Zlato-ust is an obelisk bearing the inscription on one
side, Asia, and on the other, Europe. The original is on
the old post-road, and, if only it could speak, would have
462 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
many a heart-rending tragedy to tell. How many exiles
has it seen take their last long look on their homeland,
and how many friends and relatives parting in bitter
anguish with the banished, whose faces they were never to
see again ?
What a change it was to be among the mountains
again, the first that the line negotiates for 2400 miles ;
since indeed the Khamar Daban range on the further side
of Lake Baikal. Leaving behind the great level expanse
of white, broken only here and there by a thinned forest of
birch and pine, the train literally plunges into the Urals,
and though as a great mountain range they are as unim-
pressive in height as they are imposing in length, the
pleasure at being once more among the rocks and fir-clad
heights is in no way diminished. The trees are no longer
stunted or bent with the sweeping winds, but grow tall and
free as in a park. In the Yablonoi mountains of the
Amur oblast the valleys were broad, and we swept round
big curves, but here the hills hemmed us in and seemed to
threaten us. At one moment the train dived into a narrow
rocky cutting, at another it traversed an embankment with
vistas of range after range of snow-clad mountains with a
lace-like covering of fir copses, and of white plateaux
beyond. The snow was deep, soft, and woolly, unlike the
crisp, hard, ground-glass kind that we had left the other side
of Omsk. The frequent log-huts of the snow-clearers
looked cosy, set in sheltered nooks among the trees and
towering rocks. How inhospitable by contrast seemed
the villages on the bare exposed plains ; but the Kirghiz
and the Buriat would be as little content with the hill
homes. How stuffy and breathless to be shut up in the
valleys ; how baulking to have their view impeded by
mountain and hill, how homesick they would be for the
broad expanse of sky and the sunsets of the steppe.
At the summit of the Urals a snow-storm threatened to
block our way, but the wind abating saved us from
TRANS-BAIKALIA TO MOSCOW 463
impassable drifts. On the western side, the mountains
dropped in gentle declivities to the great plain of European
Russia. It was as if we were among the broad slopes of
an English park, dotted with graceful pines and firs. The
snow mantle lay deep and soft, smoothing out all rough-
nesses with a gentle hand and rendering all things
beautiful. The trees wore their warm winter garb of
fleecy white, and the hazel thickets with veritable blossoms
of snow looked like a cotton-field at harvest.
Another day passed, and I was on the vast plain
Hearing Samara, and crossing the great frozen Volga by
the fine bridge at Sizran. From Sizran less than two days'
journey brought me to Moscow, which was reached punctu-
ally to the minute. The roads, the rivers, and every other
physical boundary were indistinguishable, and pine-branches
had been placed along the routes to guide the infrequent
travellers. Hurdles bending down before the wind bordered
the line in exposed places to fend off the drifting snow.
The country was strikingly little altered, as far as one
could see, in entering Europe. The same great snowy
plain merging in sky at the indiscernible horizon, and the
same sparsely inhabited country.
Miles and miles intervened between the little villages,
whose kennel-like huts in the deep snow were scarcely
distinguishable save for the church of white stucco with
its green roof and octagonal tower, crowned by a cupola,
towering like Gulliver among the Liliputian homes of the
peasants. How dull, how cut off from the world must be
the life of such villages separated from their nearest neigh-
bours by twenty miles.
After having lived for centuries in isolated villages on
huge plains, with little or no communication with the outer
world, having had no Renaissance, no Reformation or Revo-
lution, the Russian peasant has at last made his discovery
of a new world, with some of the hopes and outgoings of
imagination that all these brought to us in Western Europe.
464 IN THE UTTERMOST EAST
It is difficult for us to conceive, to mentally sympathize with
the fatalistic element in the nature of the muzhik, living for
centuries his life of isolation, fighting with the energy, not
of hope but rather of despair, against the hard conditions
of cold and scarcity. Then there came to him suddenly
the great expectations raised by the emancipation, which
in so many cases proved a fraud. Now this opening up of
a new land of fabulous resources, gold and silver, copper,
coal, and iron, of agriculture, cattle breeding and dairy
produce, all this has come as the discovery of a new world,
and you feel it in the air. Even as you talk with the
people you are amused at their naiveti and credulity, but
the feeling is there.
INDEX
A., Mrs., 344, 345
Ado Tim, 13s, IS3, ISS>22S
, departure from, 307
, description, 137, et seg.
, priest comes to, 230
, return to, 304
Aga river, 443
station, 443
Aigun river, 37
Treaty of, 45 n., 57, 410
Ainns (Sakhalin), 113, 115, 160, 202,
283
difficulties of reaching, 87, 333, 334
La Pdrouse, 98
"loss" of written language, 240
numbers, 116
origin, 114
proposal to visit, 78-80
villages, 282 n., 283
(Yezo), 97, 165
Aleutian Isles, 1 16
Alexandrovka (Duika) river. Great,
84, 88, 223, 358
Little, 84, 119,358
Alexandrovsk, 121, 130, 376, 385, 398
arrival ofif, 77, 81
tear (market-place), 352, 3S3. 386
cemetery, 352
Chancellerie, 82, 350
church service, 378
climate, 106-108, 379, 380
convict-servants, 377
convict-student, 84
departure, 119
description, 84, et seq., 335, 336
Alexandrovsk — continued.
difficulties of leaving, 327-333, 375
district {okrug). Chief of, 82, 85,
112, 116
farewell, 400
geological formation, 113
journal, 331
population, 84
precautions in, 3S5-3S7. 373
prison centre, chief, 116
prisoners, arrival, 141, 348, 349
, classification, 338
, gangs, 91, 336, 337
, religious convictions, 364,
36S
prisons, 336-340. 348, 362-365
, rations, 343, 344, 394
, "reformatory," 336-338
, "testing," 337-339
return, 323-325
route to, 27, 54
scenes in, 336, 337, 351, 371, 376,
381-387
school games, 145, 369, 370
stormy nights, 380, 381
Alexandrovsky post (mainland), 401
Amgun river, S3> 61
Amur region {pblast), 44, 45, 462
river (Saghalien oula), 24, 95, 99,
102, 408, 409, 412
, Blj^ovestchensk, 37, 38, 42
boundary, 45, 410
, cession to Russia, 24
, description, 48, et seq.
— , escape by, 43
46s 2 H
466
INDEX
Amur liver — continued.
, Jesuit Fathers, 95
, Khabarov descends, 44
, Khabarovsk, 45
, mouth (liman), 18, 61, 75,
117.330
, navigation, 27, 28
, route by, 29-31, 327
, sledging, 55-37, no, 401
, thawing — ^floods, loi, in
Andaman Islands, 115
AnivaBay, 94, 98, 117
Cape, 94, 104
d'Anville, 96-98
Argun river, 45, 49, 412
Arkovo (Gilyak village), 87, 88
the First (Russian village), 89, 120,
121, 368
," rich " farmer of, 89, 90, 143
the Third (Russian village), 124,
322
Armunka, 156
hunter, 181
family, 277, 300, 301
Artel, 131, 307
Auk-vun-wauk, 172
Ayan, 99
Baikal, Lake, 30, 406, 441, 442, 449,
4SS
, description, 456-458
, ice-breakers, 457
, sledging, 458
Baraba steppe, 460
Barratasvili, 129-132
survivor of his band, 316
Basalt Island, 401
Batchelor, Rev. J., 165
Bazevich, Mr. L., 222
Bear fSte. See Gilyak.
Birds, migration of. See Fauna, Aves.
Blagovestchensk, 21, 30, 36, 48
massacre, 37, et seq.
Eliiffstein Sophie (the Golden Hand),
319, rfj^.
Bor, so
Boshniak, Lieut., 117
Bridges, 125,311, 312
Brodyagi, 29, 147, 159, 2lo, 309, 312
chances of, 120, 151, 152, 188, 339
check on development of Sakhalin,
279, 280
encamped, 1 77
ex-naval captain, 152-154
grave of, 227
great gang of 1896, 280, et seq.
mail attacked by, 90
natives and, 54, 259
numbers, 133, 142, 143
on the Due road, 376
prospectors and, 244, 279, 290, 291
seize merchant's son, 376
tracking, 133, 154
Broughton, Captain W., 99
Buran, 56, 299
Buriats, 441, 446, et seq., 462
conversion to Lamaism, 447
creed, 452
Datsan, 449
dress, 448
education of boys, 448
English missionaries to, 454
homes, 447
inter-marriage with Russians, 455
K'an-po, or Grand Lama, 449
Khouvarsks, 449
JChublighans, 450
Khutuktu, 450
lamas, 448-45°. 452. 455 ,
Mystery play (Tsam), 451, 452
numbers and habitat, 446, 447
Shamanistic practices, 447, 451,
453
Taranatha, 450
temple, 449
Cable, 76, 329-331
Canoes. See Gilyaks.
Capital punishment, 132
Castries Bay, De —
, allies visit in 1855, 100, 403
, Amur river and, 52, 53
, call at, 74-76. 401-403
— — , communications with, 331,
332
INDEX
467
Castries Bay, De — continued.
, description, 401-403
, discovery of, 76, 98
Chaillet, Professor, 77
Chaivo Bay, 164 n., 187, 230
arrival at, 215
shallows connecting with Ni Bay,
225, 250
Chaivo village, 231
Cham. See Gilyaks.
Chekov, Anton, 392
Chinese Eastern Railway (Manchurian
Railway), 27, 32, 413, et seq.
, agreements concerning, 30,
410
, completion, 19
, condition, 413, 422, 423,
426, 428
, construction train, 414, 422,
423. 428, 435
, laying of line, 426, 427
, opening, 405
, route and length, 412, 413,
419. 433
, stations, actual and potential,
41s, 416, 420, 42s, 433-437
massacre of, 38, 39, 41
prisoners, 372
silk brocade, 230, 272
, for lying in state, 278
, price of a bear, 217, 242
temple, 432
Chinghis Khan, 409
Chita, 31, 441, 443, 444
climate, 107
river, 443
Choi river, 424 n.
Coal —
mines, 113, 336, 348, 411
prisoners to work, 91, 117, 336,
399, 400
quality and extent, 330, 398, 399
Cochrane, Captain, 458
Colonization, 32, 141
Commercial enterprise and restrictions,
21
Convicts. See Alexandrovsk, Niko-
laevsk, and Sakhalin,
Crime, heredity of, 145, 146
Current, cold. See Okhotsk cold
current,
warm. See Kuro Siwo.
Dagi, 205
Dal, 284
Dalni, 24, 31
Dekabrists, 443
Dekkan trap, 161
" Departed spirit,'' a, 163
Derbensk, 131, 311, 314
description, 126-128
doctor, 152, 153
prison centre, 116, 118
DeWindt, Mr. H., 66, iii
Diemen, Antonio van, 91
Dobell, Peter, 103
Drunkenness, 350, 331
Due-
coal-mines, 117, 398
my interpreter schoolmaster at, 83,
342. 389
prison, 354
road to, 129, 130, 358, 359, 376
visit to, 358-360, 389
Duga, IJ9
Duzinza station, 413, 416
Elizabeth, Cafe, 269
Elopement, 263
Emperor's Bay, 404
Europe and Asia, boundary, 461
Execution, 132
" Exile-settler." See Sakhalin.
Exiles, political. See Sakhalin,
Ex-judge, story of, 370, 371
Ex-millionaire, 98
Exorcism, 235, et seq., 451
Fauna—
Aves, migration, 215, 251, 287-289
brambling (Fringilla montifrin-
gilld), 288
bullfinch {Pyrrhula rosacea), 288
capercailzie ( Tetrao urogallus), 289,
296
cxtyn {Corvus coram), 132, 226, 28S
468
INDEX
Fauna — ^Aves — continued.
cuckoo ( Cuculus canorus), 288
duck, 137, 184
, golden eye (Clangula glau-
cioti), 287
, harlequin (Clangula histrio-
nica), 2S7
dunlin {Tringa cinclus), 251
eagle, white-tailed (Halietus albi-
cillits), 176, 226, 231, 288
finch, long-tailed rose (Uragtis
sanguinolentus), 102
goosander (Mergus merganser), 251
goose, bean (Anser segeium Midd.),
136, 184, 288
grouse, hazel ( Tetrao botiasia), 289,
431
, willow (Lagopus alius), 289
%\s\\(Larus caniis niveus), 205, 251
hawk (Falco amurensisf), 132
jay (Garrulus Brandtii), 132
kingfisher (Alcedo bengalensis), 132
knot, eastern (Tnngacrassirostris),
251
lark, Japanese (Alauda japonica"),
288
magpie {pica candata), 436
mallard (Anas bosckas), 287
osprey (Pandion halitBtus), 102
ouzel, dusky (Merulafitscata), 288
owl, snowy {Syrnium uralense),
166, 288
oyster-catcher (Hamatopus oscu-
lans), 251
redshank (Tetanus calidris), 251
robin, Siberian (Erithacus calliope),
288
, whistling (Erithacus sibi-
lans), 288
sandmartin (Cotyle riparia), 132,
288
sandpiper, common (Totanus hypo-
leucus), 205, 251
, green (Totanus ochropns),
251
, terek (Totanus terekia), 251
, wood (Totanus glareold), 251
smew (Mergus albellus), 251
Fauna — Aves — continued.
sar^(Scolopax gallinago), 178, 205
snipe, pintail (Scolopax sienura),
25 J
snow-bunting (Plectrophanes niva-
lis), 288
stint (Tringa lubminuta), 251
, red-throated (Tringa rufi-
collis), 251
swan, hooper (Cygnus musicus),
176, 287
swift (Cypselus pacificus), 288
— , needle-tailed (Chaetura cau-
dacuta), 288
teal, Baikal (Anas querquedula
formosa), 287
, crested (Atias falcata), 287
— — , ^;ii^3.\^e:y (Anas querquedula),
287
tern (Terna Aleutia), 25 1
(Terna Kamchatica), 251
titmouse, long-tailed (Acredula
caudata), 288
tree-pipit, eastern (Anthus macu-
latus), 288
, red-throated (Anthus cer-
■vinus), 288
tumstone (Strepsilas interpres), 251
turtle-dove, eastern (Turtur orien-
talis), 288
wagtail, white (Motacilla lugens),
132, 288
, yellow (Motacilla taivana),
132, 288
woodpecker (Piaes pipra ?), 176
wren, Japanese (Troglodytes fumi-
gatus), 288
Echinodennata —
trepang (holothurea edulis), 404
Lepidoptera —
Camberwell beauty ( Vanessa anti-
opd), 124
ln\SS!i?iXj(MelitaaphabeV), 124
peacock (Vanessa lo), 124
Mammalia
bear, brown (Ursus arctos), 61-62,
106, 166-168, 176, 179-181,
433. See also Gilyak — bear.
INDEX
469
Fauna — Mammalia — continued.
boar, wild (stts scrofa ferus), 102,
433
elk (Cervus alces), 102
fox (Cants vulpes), 106, 170, 179,
297, 298
grampus (Orca atrd), 255
lynx (felis lynx), 433
marten (Mustela martes, f frminea),
170
musk deer (Moschus moschiferus),
297
otter (Lutra vulgaris), 106, 1 70
reindeer (Cervus tarandus), 62,
102, 106, 219, 297-299
sable (Mustela zibellina), 106, 1 70,
211,212. See also GW^eis. — sable,
seal (Arciocephalus monteriensis),
2SS
, banded (Histriopkoca ftisci-
aid), 17s
i\a (Callorhinus ursintis), 17S
hair (Phoca vitulina), 175,
181, 252, 289. See also Gilyak
— seal,
sea-lion (Eumetopias Stelleri), 255,
256. See also Gilyak — sea-lion
squirrel, ground ( Tamias siriaius),
102
tiger (Felis tigris), I02
whale, white (Delphinapterus leu-
cos), 255
■wolf (Canis lupus), 61, 106
Pisces —
haddock (Cadus ceglefinus or
Vachnyd), 256
halibut (Pleuronectes hippoglossus),
256
herring (Clupea harengus), 256
ide (Idus melanotus), 257
salmon (Salmo lagocephalus), 158
n-. 25S1 257, 303- See also
Kita.
, or gorbusha (Salmo proteus),
158 n., 257
shad (Clupea Alosafintd), 61
saiA\.(Osmerus eperlanus), 255-257
trout (Salmo fario), 255-257
Feast-days, Russian, 350, 377, 378, 391
Feng-t'ien (Shing-king), 409-412
Ferrel's law, 176
Fire, 381, 382
Fizik, brothers. See Orochons.
Flogging. See Sakhalin convicts, fe-
male, plet, and rmgi.
Flora, 102, 103, 105
acacia (Pobinia pseudacacia ?), 34
alder (Alnus imana), 155
ash (Fraxinus manchurica), 34,
29s
mountain (Pyrus aucuparia),
105, 124, 218, 29s
aspen (Populus tremula), 105, 124
bamboo (Arundinaria kurilensis),
103
birch (Betula alba), 105, 124, 133,
155, 170,290, 29s, 309
(Betula Ermani), 103
camomile, field (Ckamatmelam
tetragonaspermumi), 275
campanula ( C. glomerata ?), 34
cedar. See Swiss pine,
cloudberry (Rubus chamamorus),
105
cork-tree (Phellodendron amurense),
103
cowberry. See whortleberry,
cranberry (Oxycoccus palustris), 105
crowberry (Empetrum nigrum),
elder, red-berried (Sambucus race-
mosa), 34, 124, 133, 295, 309
elm (Ulmus campestris and mon-
tana), 105, 124, 133
fir (Abies Sakhalinensis), 105, 170,
218, 292
gentian (Centiana triflora?), 34
heracleum (H. barbatum), 105.
See also pis
hornbeam (Carpinus betulust), 34
horse-tails (Equisetum sylvaticum),
133
hydrangea (H. scandens and pani'
culata), 103
larch (Larix daurica), 103, 105,
133. 'S5. 295. 309
470
INDEX
Flora — continued.
lichen (not Cladonia rangiferina;
Usnea longissima and Alectoria
juhata), lOS, 211, 222
maple (Acer mono), lOS
meadow-sweet {Sfiinea ulmaria f),
34
Michaelmas daisies (Erigeron elon-
gatusi), 34
nettle ( Urtica dioica), 220
nut (Panax ricinifolia), lOJ, 133,
ISS. 218
oak (Quercus mongolica), 34
pine, Svnssi(Pinus cembra pumild),
34, 103, 124, 187, 2l8, 309, 436
poplar (Populus saaveolens), 155,
295
raspberry, wild (Rubus idceus), 124,
133
rose, wild (Rosa rugosa and cin-
namomea),?&, 124, 187, 309
sallow (Salix caprea), 170
spindle-tree (Euonymus macrop-
terus), 103
spirsea (S. betulafolia?), 34, 105,
133. 309
spruce (Picaa ajanensis), 105, 124
tangle seaweed (Laminaria escu-
lenta), 196. See also Ptuhi.
vine (Vith Thunbergit), 102
walnut (Juglans manchurica ?), 34
whortleberry ( Vaccinium vitis
idcea), 105, 133
willow (Salix macrolepis and Sak-
halinensis), 34, loj, 124, 155,
170, 218, 292
Foimosa, 115
Forts, Russian, 425
" Free-command." See Sakhalin.
"Free Russia," 369
Friken, Mr. A. von, 182, 183, 334
Fnsan, 2, 3, et seq., 16
Gambling, officials, 350, 360
prisoners, 150, 305
Garnak, Colonel, 122
Gavrilov, Lieut., 99
Gelung Nor. See Goose Lake.
Gensan (Wonsan or Yuensan), 6, 15, 16
description, 9, et seq.
Korean post-office, 10
Gilyak—
art, 19s
barter with, 175
bear and evil spirit, 238, 239
constitutional, 301, 302
fSte, 162, 19s, et seq.
tracking and capture, 136,
137, 172, 278, 294-297, 306
belief in next world, 163-165, 241,
et seq.
brodyagi and, 120, 154
burial rites, 242, ei seq.
canoes, 159, 160, 178
cauldron, 269
cemetery, 202, 244
dam, 164
at bear fSte, 199, 200
excorcism of evil spirit, 193,
236-238
interview with, 231, rf seq.
charms, 193
chronology, 2H, 226
clans (Ji^Aala), 209, 242, 258
clothing, 36, 158, 271
decay, causes of, 225, 229, 262,
273, ei seq.
diseases, 275, 315
disputes and duels, 301
dogs, 94
fierceness, 172, 173
food, 174, 274
ghosts and, 165
hunting, 258, 295
mail-sledge teams, io8-iio,
331
sacrifice of, 201, 238
elders (klenu), 209, 234, 301
elopement, 263
features, 135, 157, 158
food, 135, 158, 196, 256, 274, 290,
303
preparation of, 173, 174, 207.
See also JOta.
games, 200
INDEX
471
Gilyak — continutd.
gods, 248. See also Pal-, T0I-,
and Tur-ni-vookk and Kiskk.
huts, 52, 161, 198
, interior, I92, 193, 207, 260,
261, 300
, origin, 114, 116, 190, et seq.
kkala. See clans.
knives, 173, 246
land division, 300
language, no written, 240, 241
legends, lOO, 102, 240, 241
lovers' suicide, 264
lyrics, 264, 265
maiden's song, 266, 267
mainland, on, 76
marriage, 262, 263, 268, 269
rite, 270
musical instruments, 197, 272
needle, valued by, 221
needlework, 220
numbers, 116, 261, 262, 275
origin, 116, 191, 233
payment of debts, 291
pharmacopoeia, 275, 276
polygamy, 261
prisoners, 68
sable holiday, 211, et seq,
seal holiday, 252, et seq.
hunt, 252
sea-lion hunt, 256
tribes, Tim and Tro, 164, 209, 245
West coast, 209
tzakh, 160, 193, 197) 19^
villages, 88, 161, 172-174, 291
weapons and snares, 171, 245, 252,
296, 298
woman's position, 263, 271
worship, 193, 194, 211, 293
GJlyaks, 87, 94, 113, 115, 126
Golden Horn, 17
Gold mining, 24, 48, 49, 224, 41 1
Golds, 35, 36
influence on Gilyaks, 11 J, 220
on the Amur, 50, 52, 95
Goose Lake (Gelung Nor), 449
Gorbusha. See Fauna, salmon.
Gr^oriev, Madame, 139, 305
Griffith, Mr. Geo., 145
Grodekov, Governor-general, 37, 280,
402, 414, 436
station, 413, 414
Grodiyanka (Marokin), 152, 154
Gubermann, 65, 66
Hamdasa the Second, 284
Harvie-Brown, Mr., 287
Heh-lung-kiang, 411, 412, 424
Hinka, Lake. See Khanka, Lake.
Hosie, Mr. A., 45 n., 412, 423
Hung Tung Shu, 372
Iceland, 385
Ichara pal (Pic Lamanon), 104
Ignatiev, Count, 45
Ilinsky Post. See Kusunai.
Ingoda river, 443
Inland Sea, 2
Irkutsk, 28, 142, 406, 413, 456
an educational centre, 459
impressions of, 458, 459
Irr Kirr, 156, 157, 277, 3CXD
Ishir, 225
Japan, art of, 4
Russia and Korea, 15, 16
and Sakhalin, 99, 117, 188,
3291 330
schooners from, 188, 189
Jesuit Fathers, 94, et seq.
Jonquiere Point, 113, 330, 398
Kaidolovka river, 443 ,
Kalenik, 286
Kamavo, 188, 190, 192, et seq.
Kamchatka, 44, 1 13, I15
legends of, 115
Kandalnaya tyurma ("chained pri-
son"), ISO, 338, 393, 394
K'angshi, Emperor, 94
Karafto, 93, 97
Karimskaya station, 31, 443
Kaspuchi, 281, 282
Ke tching ta se Tartars, 95, 96
Key ser ling, Robert Graf, 452, 455
Khabarov, 44
472
INDEX
Khabarovsk, 42, 43, 49, 50, 62, 102, 412
climate, 46, 107
description, 44, 47
distance from Nikolaevsk, 56
Grovemor-general's residence, 37, 44
routes via, 27-31
Khagdasa river, 221, 226, 22S
Khailar, 436
Khamar Daban, 449, 455, 462
Khanka, Lake, 31, 33
Kharbin, 20, 406, 415
arrival at, 416
Chinese attack, 37, 419
hotel, 417
junction, 412
New, 417, 41S
Khazeliv Islands, 109
Kherivo, 302
Khilkov, Prince M., 418, 419
Khilok river, 445
Khingan mountains. Great (or Hsing-
han), 412, 433, 434
Khitans (or Sitans), 408
Khoy, 284
Khunhos, 410
Kibitka, 119, 128
Kiev, 140 n., 152, 459
Kirghiz, 58, 65, 82, 379, 462
Kirin city, 412
province, 411
Kiskh, 193, 239, 243
Kita. See also Fauna (Salmo lago-
cephaltis),
abundance, 61, 155
native preparation of, 138, 173
spearing, 149, 171, 273
Kitaesky Razyezd (Chinese junction),
31.442
Kitchen as a hostel, 375-377
Kitchen-middens, 114
Kizi, lake, 52
Kloster Kamp, 401
Knut, 340
Kobdo, 453
Korea, 2, 15, 16, 1 13
coast, 3, 8
crafts, 12, 13
crushed by Japan, 5, 7
Korea — continued.
dress, S-7i 13
fairs, 8
homes, 6
Japanese in, 16
kagos, S
population, 4
trade, 4
Korsakovsk (South Sakhalin), 104,
116, 117, 280-282
climate, 107
district (o/i^-a^), 116, 133
village (near Alexandrovsk), 3S2
Krasnoyarsk, 460
Krusenstern, 99
Ktatisi pal, loi
Kurgan, 461
Kurile Islands, 1 13, 117, 190
Kuro Siwo, 103
Kusunai (Ilinsky Post), 117, 126
Kuznetsov, Mr., 335
Labbe, M., 450, 451
Landor, Mr. A. H. S., 149
Lansdell, Dr. H., 344
La P6rouse, 76, 98, 101, 401
Strait, 99, 104
Lats. See Shadoufs.
Laufer, Dr., 194, 195, 240
Lava, 113, 403
Lazarev, Cape, 54, lOO, 103, 109
Lepers, 62
Leroy-Beaulieu, Mr. A., 142
Liao river, 412
Liao-Tung, 408, 411
Little Russians, 140, 14S, IJI, 152.
30s. 373
Mail, attack on, 90
Malay Peninsula, 115
Malmizbkoy, 48
Manchuria, 32, 191, 406
agriculture, 411, 431
area and boundaries, 15,410, 41 1,
423 n.
history, 407, et seq.
Japan, Russia and, 16
Jesuit Fathers in, 95
INDEX
473
Manchuria — conHuned.
minerals, 411
rivers, 412
Russians attacked in, 36, 37, 39,
42, 418, 419
station, 413, 421, 437, 440
Manchurian Railway. See Chinese
Eastern Railway.
Manchus (Mantcheoux) —
history, 407, et seq.
Jesuit Fathers' report, 9S-97
of Tungus stock, 115, 208, 408
Manue, 126, 280, 281
Maria, Cape, 269
Marinsk, 52, 53
Marokin. See Grodiyanka.
MaroTsk, Count, 371
Maxim, the Tungus, 209, 210
Mayer, Miss Eugenie de, 346, 381, 391,
et seq.
Mendukhey station, 434
Mi, 76, 109, no
Ming dynasty, 409, 410
Misovaya, 4S7
Mist phenomenon, 149
Mligh-vo, 163-165, 24s
Mogun-kotan, 282
Mongolia, 423, 44S, 4S3
Mongols, 409, 424, 439, 450, 4S3
Moscow, 21, 459
escape to, 65, 66
Trans-Siberian Railway and, 28,
30, 406, 444, 460, 463
Mukden, 412
Muraviev-Amursky, Count, 45, 99, 100
Muravievsk Post, 117
Murder, 366
by Barratasvili and band, 129, 130,
359
by Sophie Bliiffstein, 321
during my sojourn, 350-352
in Irkutsk, 142
in \!Ds.bazar, 351, 353
of an " exile-settler," 125
of a Tartar wife, 383, 384
of a youth, 88, 120, 323
of three soldiers, 316
on Due road, 359
Nabil Bay, 164 n., 189
river, 263
Nagasaki, 1-3, 17
Narta, 108, 221
Nay-ero, 280, 283
Nerchensk, 31, 69
Nevelskoy, Captain, 57, 99, 100
Ni, Bay of —
birds, 251, 287
connected with Chaivo Bay,
225, 250, 251
— — description, 186, et seq,
discharge of Tim into, 105
Nikolaevsk —
Amur at, 75
arrival at, 53
barges, 60
communications with Sakhalin
and the Upper Amur, 26, 27,
29> 48, 56, 108, no, 217
decline, 24, 44
description, 57, et seq,
fracas in the inn, 70, 71
"market," 60
prisons, 58, 66, et seq.
, escape from, 70
prisoners, landing of, 64, 65
, rations, 69
Nikolskoy, 31, 414
Ninguta, 412
Nivo, 188, 259
"Lord Mayor " of, 260, et seq,
Nizhni Udinsk, 460
Nonni river, 412, 413, 424, 428, 429
Novi Selenginsk, 449
Nii-chen (Nii-ch'ih), 53, 407, 408, 409
Nurhachu, 409
Nutovo river, 222, 223, 226
Observatory Island, 76, 401
Odessa, i, 32, 461
Officials' pay, Russian, 304
Okhotsk, 61, 103
cold current, 103, 111, 187, 256
Sea, 61, 114, 184, 190, 287, 325
frozen region of, 88
Omsk, 461
Ongun station, 436
474
INDEX
Onon river, 443
Onor, 283, 284
cleaied track, 280, 285
Mayer, Miss de, at, 394
Orochon, 95, 113, 190
barter with, 214
brothers Fizik, 209, 217, et seg.,
279
clothing, 36
comparison with Gilyak, 207-209
feast, 211
first meeting with, 205
food, 207, 21S
hut, 205, et seq., 217, 218, 230
origin and numbers, 114, 116, 208
Oto, the idiot, 250
relations with Gilyaks, 258, 300
Russian priests and, 208, 230, 231
tents, 286
Oroktis, 36, 208, 234, 401,403
Palack, 341
Palivo, 284
Pal ni vookfi, 1 80
bear's spirit to, 162, 201-203
deceased's spirit to, 243
offering to, 194, 212, 213
Pappenberg, 2
Patience, Bay of, 104, 189, 280, 334
Cape, 104, 170, 176
, d'Anville's map and, 98
— , discovery of, 94
Patrin, Chief of Alexandrovsk Prison,
121,342. 343. 360, rfJ??.
" Peasants." See Sakhalin.
Peking, 2, 31, 36, 329
Petroleum prospectors, 92, 204, 222,
224, 290, 291
Petropavlovsk (Kamchatka), 24
(Western Siberia), 461
fortress of (St. Petersburg), 345,
346
Pic Lamanon (Ichara pal), 104
Pic la Martiniere, lot
Pigmies, 115
Piljnga river, 284
Pillaniitsich, 259
Pilsudski, Mr. B., 229, 263
Pis (Hsracleum barbatum), 196
Platonov, Mr. R. S., 223
Pill, 339. 341
Pogaevsky, Dr., 274
Pogobi, Cape, 54, lOO
peninsula theory and, 103
— — prisoners' escapes vid, 120,
ISO, IS9. 279
sledge route vid, 108, 109
Pogranichnaya, 30
Poliakov, Dr., 223
Ponies, method of defi^ce, 307
Poronai river, 104, 280 n., 285, 334
Port Arthur, i, 24, 411
railway to, 412, 413, 437
Povlianov, Mr. P. S., 345, 346
Poyarkov, Vasil, 44 n., 94
Pre- Ainu race, 97, 114, 33S, 336
Pri-Amursky oblast, 44, 1 16, 414
Priests, Russian, 314, 388-391
, at Alexandrovsk, 378
, Buriat lamas and, 455
, Orochons and, 208, 230,
23>. 314
Primorsk, 15, 25, II4, 191
E^riculture, 33
Russian annexation, 45
through the, 32
Prisons. See Alexandrovsk, Due, Ni-
kolaevsk, Rikovsk.
Pijevalsky, 287
Pronge fishery, 62, 63
Point, 61, et seq,, IIO
Puchi (Laminaria esculenta), 196
Pusan. See Fusan.
Race, canoe, 228, 229
Rhodes, Cecil, 26
Rikovsk, 90, 284, 285, 314, et seq.
climate, 106, 107
prison, 116,315-317
Rinzo, Mamia, 99
Robben Island. See Seal Island.
^02^1, 340
Russian- American Company, 61
Russo-Chinese Bank, 18, 41, 54, 58,
444
INDEX
475
Russo-Chinese Bank — continued,
, Chinese Eastern Railway
and, 30, 410
, delays at, 20, 72
Saghalien aula. See Amur river.
Sahalien village (mainland), 37, 39, 42,
43
St. George's Day, 314
St. Petersburg, 21, 31, 80, 406, 459
climate, 107
convicts from, 79, 369
vast distance of, 56, 1 10, 328,
329
Sakhalin (Ss^halien or Sahalien), island
of. 24. 44, 48, 71, 74
aborigines and native races, 113,
et seq., 337
administration, 388, 400
administrative divisions, 116
^ricultore, 122, 133
area and population, 104
climate, 106, et seq., 170, 379, 380
colonize, attempts to, 143
commnnications with mainland, 27,
29. S3. 54. 108, 109, 331, 332,
37S
convicts bound for, I, 50, 59, 66,
68
, female, " civil marriage,"
141, 144, 146, 339
, conditions of, gi, 337,
339
, flogging of, 340
, numbers, 144 n., 146
numbers, 8$, 144 n., 341
sentences, duration, 339
discovery of, 93, 94
" exile-settler." iSS. 3^8, 394, 4o6
, allowed choice of criminal
wife, 141, 337
, arbitrary Chief of, 3 10
, a Swede, 124
, Count Marovsk, 371
, definition of, 122 n.
, Miss de Mayer and, 394
, murder of an, 125
, small hope for, 339
Sakhalin — continued.
exiles, political, 317, 333, 341,
342, 344, 346
" free-command," 125, 126, 350
, an energetic, 324
, his position, 126, 337, 338
geology, 112, 113, 161, 187
Gilyak legends about, 100-102
history of, 93, et seq.
home, a., 89
Japanese connexion with, 117
fisheries, 117, 188
Jesuit Fathers and, 94-97
journey into interior, 118, et seq.
across by canoe, 136, et seq.
judges, itinerary, 318
Military Governor of, 78, 116, 402
, interview with, 85,
86, 334
, report On prisoners'
escape, 280, et seq.
, type of, required, 400
military preparations, 79
mountain passes, 126
ranges, 76, 104, 126, 170
origin of name, 96-98
"peasants," 124, 339, 368, 396
, definition of, 123
prisoners, escapes of —
, gang of five, 279, 353
, great gang of 1896, 280
, Grodiyanka, 152
, six on our route, 323
rivers, 104, 105
Russian connexion with, 117
taxation, no, 384
Telegrams, 331
village overseer, 138, 313
was it a peninsula ? 94, 98, et seq.
See also Alexandrovsk, Brodyagi,
Fauna, Flora, Gilyak, Orochon,
etc.
Salmon-canning, 63
Salomon, Mr. P. A., 144
Salutora, 280, 282, 283
Samara, 463
Samarkand, 395
Sand-dunes, 187, 204
476
INDEX
Sayansk range, 453
Sayots, 453
Schlusselberg, 65, 345
Schrenck, Dr., 167, 191, 208
Seal Island, 176
Seebohm, Mr., 287
Selenga river, 455
Semevsky, Mr. See Alexandrovsk dis-
trict (Chief of).
Shadoufs, 128
Shaman, 234, et seq.
Shilka river, 28-30, 49, 412
Siebold, P. von., 99
Sikhota Alin, 32, 50, 404
Simpson, Dr. J. Y., 112
Siraroka, 1 14
Sizran, 463
Slavo, 118, 127, 152, 303
a stop at, 134-1361 310
Somon river, 401
Sophisk, 52, S3
Sorio. See Fusan.
Soups, Russian, 22, 314, 425
Soya, Cape, 150
Sredni Kolimsk, 342, 348
Stallybrass, Mr., 454
Steppe, 412, 423-425. 447. 460
Stemberg,'Mr., 167, 191, 2S9j 261, 262
Stone implements, 335, 336
Straits of Tartary, 27, 54, 62, 351
, Amur and, 52, 53
, cessation of navigation, 76,
108, 401
, currents, 103, III
, dog-sledge mail, 108, et seq.
, journey down, 74-76, 101
, navigators in, 98, 99, 401,
et seq.
, sealing in, 252
Stretensk, 27-30, 49, 60
Suh-shen, 407
Suifun river, 31, 414
Sungari river, 37, 39, 45 n., 412
crossing, 421, 422
, Russian navigation of, 410
Steam Shipping Company, 418
town, 417, 418
Swan, Mr., 454
Taiga, 120, 133
description, 105
plunge into, a, 295, 460
prisoners' longing for, iji
ride through, a, 308-313
Russian encroachments on, 273
under snow, 252
Tannu Ola range, 453
Tashkend, 65, 461
Taulan, 284
Tea, brick, 92, 175, 250, 252
Telegrams, l8, 19, 64, 328, et seq.,
402
Telyega, 123, 308, 371
Tiara, Mount, 104
Tikmenev, 114, 280, 281, 283
Tim, river, 87, 113, 118, 126
, ascent in canoe, 277, et seq.
, camping on banks, 166,
177, 180, 181, 184, 185, 291
, descent in canoe, 135, et
seq., 149, et seq,
, fishing in, 155, 171
, meaning of name, 104
, native highway, 1 16
native villages, 155, 161,
172, 300
, rapids, 137, 140, 152, 293
, scenery, 136, 137, 155, 161,
170, 171, 177, 278, 287, 292,
295. 303
— — , tributaries, 171
— — , upper reaches, 226
Timovsk district (okrug), n6, 133, 314
, Chief of, 87, 182, 283, 314,
et seq.
Tir, 53
Toichi, 114
Tol ni vookh, 169, 243, 273
, bear and, 20i
, deceased's spirit to, 243
, ofiering to, 254
, saved by, 293
-^— , the powerful, 249
Tomsk, 342, 459, 460
Tondon (Dundun), 95
Tonchi. See Toichi.
Trans-Baikalia, 31, 117,445, 45^
INDEX
477
Trans- Baikalian Railway, 30, 406, 413,
442. 455
Trans-Siberian Railway, 27,30,455-464
Trigoni, Mr., 345, 346
Tsintau, s.s., 73, 75, 78
Tsitsikar, 412, 423-428
New, 428, 429
S.S., 398-404
Tsushima, 2
Tumen river, 15, 411, 412
Tun or Tonng, 97
Tundra, 103, 108, 184, 204
causes of, 224
description, loj
of the Poronai valley, 285
Tungus, 113, 224
Maxim, the, 209, 210
numbers, 116
race, 115, 208, 257, 258, 408
relations with Gilyaks, 258, 259,
300
Tunnels, 31, 416
Turga river, 443
Tur ni vookh, 260, 270
, visit of deceased woman's
spirit to, 243
Ugovich, Colonel, 419
Ukavo, 161
Ukaz, 67, 337, 4S4
Ural mountains, 456, 460-462
Urga, 447, 450
Uskovo, 123, 167, 168, 312
Ussuri Railway, 26, 27, 30, et seq. , 43,
413. 414
Ussuri river, 44, 45, 412
Val, New, 221, 226, 228, 230, 231
Old, 215, 225
Vanka, 156, 157, 164, 169, 246, 277,
302, 306
Vasiliv the Cannibal, 286
Veng-kotan, 283
Verkhne Udinsk, 445, 449, 455
Verkhniy Armudan, 126
Verkhoyansk, 106, 107
Villages, Russian, isolation of, 463
Siberian, 50-52, 117, 126, 128, 309
Vitim district, 224
Vladimirsk, 398, 399
Vladivostok, i, 15, 77, 405
climate, 23, 107
connexion with Sakhalin, 53, 330,
401
description, 17, et seq.
escape to, from Blagovestchensk,
42,43
hotels, 19, 21, 22
imports, 33
Koreans at, 14
naval base, 24, 44, 57
routes from, 27-31, 412, 413
tariflFand, 24, 25
Volga, 463
Vrassky, Galkin, Mr., 143
Vries, Captain Martin, 94, 98
Vurkovo, 221
Waddell, Mr., 451
Warnings, 279, 323, 357, 358
Wheelbarrows, chained to, 340
Wonsan. See Gensan.
X., Mr., 80, 83, 88, 90, 139
, accompanies me to the north-
east coast of Sakhalin, 118,
ei seq.
, engaged as my interpreter,
82
, his cottage at Due, 359
, schoolmaster at Arkovo, 89
. Due, 389
, the Caucasian and, 368
Y., Mr., 119, 375, 391
, ex-convict and bank agent
328
, his story, 80, ei seq.
, sledging experience, 56
Yablonoi range, 445, 462
Yablonovaya station, 445
Yakimova, Taisia, 346
Yakuts, 113, 276
4;8
INDEX
Yakutsk, 56,57, 113
Yalu river, 412
Yamshtchik, 311, 323
Yaroslav, s.s., I, 345, 348, 368, 397
Yashi station, 435
Yeddo, 99
Yenesei river, 113
Yennaki 94
Yezo, 78, 94, 98, 99, 104, 188
Ainus, 97, 114, 16s
pigmies and dwellings, 97, 115, 191
Yih-len or Yih-lou, 191, 407
Yuensan. See Gensan.
Yuille, Mr. and Mrs., 454
Yukola, 135, 196, 211
Yungkin, 204, 216, 242, 273
his "great city," 259
steals a wife, 263
Zakuska, 315, 442
Zhook, Mr., 144, 369
Zlato-ust, 31, 461
THE END.
FRINTBD BT WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLBS.
So 85 90 95 ,00 IPS uo 115 130 IQ5 (30 13S |
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