CHAPTER X.

DOWN THE YENESEI.

Night had already come on, but away behind us we could see the few pale lemon-coloured rays betokening the departure of the sun to other climes. Before us the river stretched, a great white mass with a low horizon and a mist beyond. We had got into a narrow cleft of the roadway, which zig-zagged in and out of gaunt pieces of ice, still and ghostly in the gloom.

Like the surface of the Obi, that of the Yenesei was all broken, jagged, and ragged, and the wonder was to me, as we passed swiftly over the bed of snow which concealed the ice beneath, how, in the first instance, the Siberian yemshiks had been able to make a passage over such a tumbled surface. The roadway was extremely rough, and we had not long been travelling before we began to feel how uneven was our bed, and how sharp were the corners of the boxes and bundles which made that up, comfortable indeed as it had seemed at the moment of setting out.

But there was a solemnity about it all which could not fail to make the experience one to inspire thought. The front of the sledge was open, but, in spite of the still air which reigned around, the speed of the horses caused a draught which sent quite a cutting wind in our faces, to leave congealations of frost on eyebrows, eyelashes, and beards. Wrapped up almost to our eyes in furs, and with such an amount of rugs on top of us that it was quite impossible to move, we did not, at least for the first hour or so, feel the cold. But how cold it was one could realize when looking out, with blinking eyes, at the expanse beyond; or, closer in, to the yemshik, whose burly figure was limned against the white and yet whose clothing was covered with hairs of frost; or upon the horses at the side, whose backs and whose legs were white. Beyond the jangle of those douga bells, beyond the crack of the yemshik’s knout, beyond the occasional wailing cry which he gave vent to in order to encourage his willing steeds, or beyond the crunch of the runners on the snow, or the patter of the hoofs when the snow was left for some expanse of bare ice, there was no sound to be heard. Dimly to the right and the left we could see the banks of the river, simply mounds rising above the surface. And thus on we went; the horses ever at a gallop, the yemshik sitting on one side of the sledge, feet dangling almost beneath the runners, whip trailing idly in the snow, head bowed, and face smothered in his sheepskin pelisse. Nothing to break the monotony of it all, unless it were sleep. Behind us every now and again, when some turn in the roadway brought us round, we could hear the tinkle of the bells of our companions’ troika. Occasionally, as if only to break the awful solitude which seemed to fill the very air, one or the other of us would shout, and shout back; occasions which called forth no resentment on the part of the yemshik, in spite of the fact that every shout made the horses go faster.

What a ride that was! My companion Gaskell sought slumber; but I, filled with the mood of reflection, could only sit and gaze upon--what? the nothingness around me! To listen to the musical clanging of the bells, to the hoof-beats of the horses, and to wonder what in the name of Heaven the yemshik was talking about.

For he had a peculiar way, this yemshik. The little I could catch of his talk referred to doves and pigs. He would address the starboard horse in the most affectionate terms, and a second later would bring his long knout with a swishing crack above the head of the beast to port, and hurl terrible invectives at it; meanwhile that the equine representative in the centre went along with great swinging strides, loaded down, as it seemed, with the great douga, and undoubtedly deafened with the noise of the bells around his ears.

Minutes went into hours, but there was no cessation in the pace; there was no alteration in the surroundings, unless it was that with the advent of the stars things became clearer and more distinct. Thus I could see on either side the greenish blue ice which stood up like points of rock all around us, and I could more distinctly perceive the rugged banks of the river which now began to tower on either side. Once, when we had travelled some two hours out of Krasnoiarsk, we burst suddenly on a plain of ice uncovered by snow, and over whose clear surface the horses scrambled at a mad pace, and the runners swished as a fast steamer would through water. Passing over such a surface as this could be compared to nothing so much as riding in a boat, for the ice beneath was black, and glittered like still water. But we were soon over that expanse, swept clean as it had been by blustering winds, and in among the hummocky ice again, on the bed of snow; ever tearing onward, the yemshik ever talking, the whip occasionally cracking, a periodical shout from our comrades, a far-off tinkle of the bells of their sledge, and the more clamorous tones of our own.

Three hours of this, and I saw the driver making a bee-line for the bank. As he approached nearer and nearer, he urged his horses to faster pace, stood up on the seat, shouted and gesticulated as a madman would; while his little horses tugged and strained at the traces, galloping like fury all the time, clouds of steam pouring from their nostrils and rising above their heads, and with every hair upon their bodies coated with white ice. The bank was reached, a short sharp clatter over the bare ice by the side, and then up the slope at a swinging pace, round the corner, and, almost before I knew it, we had passed a house, another, and then another, all black and sombre in this darkness. One more corner, and we swung into a street; not a light to be seen, not a sign of life; still on at that wild gallop, until, with a jerk and a huge side-slip, we pulled up before a small hut, which, to say the least, looked anything but hospitable.

“First station,” cried the yemshik, as he laboriously descended from his seat and went round to pick the ice from the nostrils of his horses. “First station, barins. Please go in and have the samovar.”

Out we bundled. The second troika had arrived, and out _they_ bundled. We asked each other what we all thought about it, and the general verdict was one of approval. Novelty is a great thing, and while variety is the spice of life, how could any one grumble, spite of hard corners and that biting cold?

The moujik’s hut which we were bidden to enter was graced with one of the smallest doorways I have ever seen. It was certainly not more than four feet high. There was much banging of heads in order to get through, more banging in ascending a short flight of wooden stairs which led us into a small corridor, unlighted, but smelling very badly. By diligent groping, one of us managed to find the handle of a door, which door, owing to the enormous amount of padding on its edges, persistently refused to open until two of us had exerted our strength upon it, although it was no bigger than the one which gave entrance to the passage.

A burst of light and a cloud of steam preceded our entrance. Bending low we entered the single room of the moujik, a room not more than six feet high, and which poor Scawell, who was tall enough to be a Lifeguardsman, found to be particularly inconvenient. It was a veritable moujik’s apartment, and one which was so truly Russian that it deserves more than passing description.

As we entered, it was to perceive on one side a huge brick stove, which gave off a fierce heat, and upon the top of which the lord and master of the house reposed in slumber. A bench, in no wise dissimilar to the tap-room benches of the English public-house, occupied another side. Depending from the ceiling upon the end of a long birch pole was a curious arrangement, which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be a cradle. This was simply a shallow wooden dish, supported at each end by string, terminating in a knot tied upon the end of a rope, which in turn was attached to the birch pole. Little curtains hung on the rope and surrounded the peacefully sleeping infant in the dish, the limber pole above giving this primitive cradle a gentle motion, highly calculated to soothe the slumber of the moujik’s baby.

But the heat--pouf! it was terrible. Coming in as we had from that piercing cold right into a perfect hothouse, our beards and eyelashes thawed in a moment, and the water streamed down our faces. There was a smell of furs and skins, which did not improve the atmosphere. A little old woman was sleeping on the bench in one corner; a younger woman, in short red petticoat, a red shawl around her head, and a thin cotton blouse open at the front and exposing her whole bust, and with bare feet, had busied herself on our entry. Without signal or asking she had put some pieces of paper and sticks in the samovar and was engaged in lighting it.

Such is the way of the Siberian traveller. This was no post-station--it was simply a peasant’s hut; but it was the custom of travellers to enter unannounced, uninvited, any house in a village and demand accommodation.

It was while consuming the contents of the samovar, and some food which we had brought with us, that our yemshik, who by some manner of means had got rid of the thick coating of ice which covered his features on our arrival, entered, and, after laboriously crossing himself before the small ikon in the corner of the hut, requested to know if it was the wish of their excellencies to proceed to the next stage that night, or to remain until day broke. Anxious to get on, we plumped for proceeding without delay; and the yemshik departed in his search for horses.

We now began to see the folly of not having taken the main post-road, for it was some three hours before six horses could be found in that village to take us on to the next stage; even then it was only by paying exorbitant prices, and after much harangue with half a dozen sturdy and extremely vociferous moujiks, who crowded heavily into the chamber, that we were able to get horses at all.

Looking back at that scene--that tiny, low-pitched room; my lord of the house slumbering comfortably on top of the stove; the bare floor; those walls constructed of unplaned tree-trunks; the tiny windows; the bench with its ornament of a steaming samovar; the swinging cradle, and the general primitiveness of everything--it is hard to realize it all occurred so short a time ago. The remembrance comes vivid of the patient, yet indescribable look of the woman, her wondering eyes at our, to her, incomprehensible tongue. But with the discomfort of it all worn off by the swift hand of time, one comes to almost appreciate its primeval originality.

We paid a few kopecks for the accommodation we had had. The yemshik received his roubles and a few kopecks besides, which is humorously called “tea money” in Siberia, although it is safe to say it is always spent in vodki. Then off we went again.

A fleeting vision of village huts; down the bank and out upon the river once more; a different yemshik, but with precisely similar methods and mannerisms as characterized our first. Another three hours of it, during which I tried to snatch a little sleep; only to be awakened at intervals when the runners of the sledge would strike some obstruction, and force the corner of some more than particularly hard box into my ribs. Well into the night the second stage was reached; more horses procured, then on we went again, obtaining spells of sleep of ten minutes to a quarter of an hour’s duration, and thus we managed to get through the night. But, as the grey morning began to creep over the hilltops ahead of us, it was cold, weary, and sore that we were. In spite of our heavy clothing it had been an utter impossibility to keep out the cold, for it attacked us in all directions, and it was only by liberal doses of cognac that we seemed to manage to keep our circulation going at all.

It was a sublime sight to see the sun rise over the frosted peaks ahead, while the hummocky ice around assumed all the colours of the rainbow. As the sun’s rays became stronger, they tinged in glowing colours the hillsides, which now reared themselves up from the very banks of the river. We could perceive great stalactites of ice depending from rocks, and which were, in summer, cascades. The huge pieces of ice which crowded in on all sides of us, forming the surface of the river, at times assumed enormous proportions and most grotesque designs. Sometimes they would tower right above, or would appear as mounds; piece piled upon piece until they looked like small pyramids. The banks, too, were heaped with these broken lumps, not one of them less than three to four feet in thickness. When the sun finally burst over the hilltops it was a magnificent spectacle which met our gaze down that wide river, all hemmed in as it was by beetling rocks. One could realize then what this river was in summer; a great rushing waterway, passing through scenery majestic in its grandeur, but now with its water held tight and immovable in the grasp of the ice king.