CHAPTER XV.

LIFE AT THE MINE.

Although somewhat rough and primitive, our quarters at the mine were by no means uncomfortable. There were in all four log houses, tolerably large, two of which were for the workmen, and the other two for ourselves. Of course there was not the slightest attempt in the way of luxury; rough wooden walls, dirt floors, hard benches for beds, a board resting on a tree-stump for a table, and an iron stove, with several feet of piping, as our heating accommodation. A little ingenuity on our part, however, soon rigged up things in businesslike fashion. Some roughly made shelves were requisitioned, and with other boarding and the assistance of Schultz we made a tiny office, and spread around our books in ostentatious display. We made up our beds with the spare clothing we possessed, and that was ample. We provided a tablecloth out of a huge towel which was fished from the bottom of Asprey’s trunk, and we decorated the walls with various pictures cut from old comic papers. We got one of the men to go into the forest and bring us several armsful of fir foliage, and thus, after an hour or two’s hard work was done we had succeeded in completely altering the appearance of the interior of our quarters, and to its general improvement.

It was a sight to see the manner in which our men hogged in together in one hut. Instead of doing the slightest in the way of improving their situation, they simply laid around on the floor, as closely as possible to each other, in order to get warmth, and covered with their sheepskins. By the regulations laid down by the Mining Department we had to allow each man so many poods of meat per week, so many candles each, tea, butter, and cabbage. We had brought with us three frozen oxen, four sheep, and forty poods of cabbage, and the task of weighing out the various portions to each man was by no means a light one, which, as it devolved upon me, I speedily found. As well as providing the men with food, we had to supply them with certain portions of clothing, should they require them, writing off against their wages the cost of such articles. It is astonishing how minutely the Russian Government goes into these matters, providing a schedule of prices which shows how much a pair of boots or articles of clothing must be charged the workmen. If nothing else, the authorities fully protect the peasants from extortion on the part of the mine-owner.

For several days we did little else but get things shipshape. Wood had to be cut in order to provide firing. Several of the men were kept hard at work cutting pathways through the deep snow down to the river-bed. The stream, as a matter of fact, was solid ice nearly to the bottom, and only near the sluice-house, where the channel had been cut deep, could we find much water. Our first endeavour was to discover whether or not in the tailings, which had been idly thrown away after nearly thirty years of washing, there was sufficient gold to warrant its exploitation on European plans. To the reader it may seem rather incongruous that we should have to conduct an inspection as this in such weather; but time was pressing. Whatever was done in the district had to be finished before the ice broke. If this occurred, the transportation of men and provisions from Minusinsk to the gold-fields would be delayed until the summer roads were ready, which, by the way, rarely happened before the beginning of July.

It is not my intention to weary the reader with a detailed description of our work, conducted as it was under such difficulties of weather and with but scant assistance from the local officials. The statements which were made by one and the other were so conflicting that the greatest care had to be exercised, while we had not been long in the district before we found that the gentle art of “salting” was not entirely unknown to the apparently guileless Siberian. What freezing work it was to be from daybreak to sundown on the banks of the river, pan-washing the pay dirt, which had to be got out from under tons of ice and snow, and dug out bit by bit with light steel picks! We commenced at the bottom of the mine, and worked gradually up by burrowing in through the snow to the scene of summer operations, and there only to find the earth frozen as hard as granite, necessitating occasional blasting and much hard and unprofitable labour.

The particular mine we were on, during the whole course of its existence, had been mismanaged to a terrible degree. It had been worked for the most part by tribute labour, and, in consequence, the richest parts of it were encumbered with tons of débris which would all have to be removed before the virgin alluvial could be got out. Frequently we had to work with snowshoes on, for some portions of the mine, where drifts had occurred, were under ten to fifteen feet of light snow. Snowshoeing at the best of times is a laborious undertaking, but to work with them on is a feat which requires some patience and a tolerable amount of agility.

One of our little experiences of snowshoeing was amusing, as well as being somewhat uncomfortable. Desiring a sample from the head of the mine, I had gone out with Gaskell and two of the men. The men were loaded up with picks, bags, shovels, and other mining paraphernalia, and, being more expert on the “skis” than we, soon outstripped us. It took us nearly an hour to do a little over a mile, for, what with frequent falling, our progress was one of labour and confusion. Snowshoes have a happy knack of sliding away from you when you least expect them, so that you come down with a thump on your back, and bury yourself up to the armpits in snow. No matter how you struggle, it is impossible to get up again, for the long shoes prevent that. The only thing is to unstrap the shoes, kneel on them, gradually insert one foot and then the other into the straps, and then by an equilibristic effort assume the perpendicular. The slightest want of balance and over you go again. The snow affords no foothold, for you sink into it the moment the shoes are off.

The spot from which we desired the sample was reckoned to be one of the richest portions of the mine. It was a tunnel cut into the river-side, but which was now completely covered with snow, so much so, in fact, that we could not even see the entrance. Our men, Merkoff and Nikeveroff, set to work spading out the snow, and gradually got to the tunnel entrance. Merkoff was in advance of his companion when, with a suddenness which made us gasp with astonishment, he disappeared completely from sight. Where he had gone none of us knew. The snow before us showed no trace of his disappearance, for there was no hole. Presently, however, we saw a hand come up through the snow and wave about frantically. In another second the whole bank on which we were standing, gave way with a rush, and down we went, snowshoes, picks, shovels, bags, candles, and everything in one confused heap, sliding and slipping some twenty or thirty feet below the level.

It was some time before we sorted ourselves out and got over the shock of our descent. We then found ourselves in a narrow gallery supported by beams, and which ran for some considerable distance into the earth. For a minute or two we could only sit and laugh, for our entrance of the tunnel had been highly successful if somewhat precipitous. The floor of the gallery was covered with ice, formed by the oozing of water through the bank, and for some time it was impossible to get at the alluvial owing to the excessive hardness of the ice flooring, which we were compelled to break with hammers. Strangely enough, although we had all got down so cleverly, none of us gave a thought as to how we were to get back. The samples obtained, this difficulty at once presented itself, and we could only gaze at each other blankly.

We were twenty or twenty-five feet below the level of the snow, and it was a matter of impossibility to think of climbing to the top of that fleecy substance. There was only one thing to do, and that was to batten the snow as hard as possible and to get up inch by inch to the surface. This was a long and laborious undertaking, and occupied us well into the afternoon, but ultimately Merkoff reached the top, and, his snowshoes having been thrown after him, he was able to stand up. Then the samples, by aid of rope, we got up, and eventually we all managed to get out of the hole.

The next thing to do was to get the samples back to the camp, a distance of a mile. Each was as much as one man could carry, provided that the roadway was hard. The weight of one, however, on Merkoff’s back, sent the snowshoes so deep that it was impossible for him to move. We tried various ways, but none succeeded until it was decided to form a temporary sledge of the snowshoes, and for one of the men to drag the bags in this manner to the camp. At the time we did not think, when we gave up the shoes so cheerfully and sat down in the snow in order to prevent going in deeper, how we were ourselves going to get back to the camp. We formed the sledge by tying the shoes together, then fixed the bags and tools on top of them, and away went Merkoff, with Nikeveroff behind, crawling on his hands and knees, and giving the improvised sledge an occasional push. Gaskell and I attempted to walk. We might as well have tried walking on the sea. Every effort landed us deeper in the snow. There was only one way and that was to go down on all fours and wriggle along as best we could. Only then could we make progress by carefully beating down the snow as we went, to put the whole length of the arm down in one place, and drag the body after with a squirming motion. That mile was one of the hardest miles I have ever travelled, for darkness was falling when we came in sight of the huts. In spite of the cold, we were sweating with the labour, and to add insult to injury, our companions came down on the bank and howled with laughter as we progressed inch by inch along the surface of the snow.

A little incident like this will give some idea of the difficulties under which we worked. Another stumbling-block was the inability to wash the pay-dirt with ordinary water. Close by the sluice-house we had a huge iron cauldron suspended over a roaring fire. One man was kept continually employed dumping in snow, while another was ladling out buckets of hot water. The process was then to dump so many poods of earth on the wash-table and to break it up by continual basting with hot water. The washer (who stood on the table, and with his rake or wooden shovel kept the mass in motion) frequently got frozen to the wood, in spite of the fact that the water which flowed around his feet had only a few seconds before been thrown boiling hot on the dirt.

During our stay we were able to make several little excursions to neighbouring mines, and with the exception of one or two we found a shocking want of system everywhere. In the best-conducted gold-fields the disposal of the tailings is always a matter of grave moment, but in Siberia it is one of the least considerations until it is too late, and the property is ruined. There is, however, some hope that the future may be better, for the St. Petersburg Department, being now brought into closer contract with Siberia by means of the railroad, intends to formulate a better system of inspection, which, provided Siberian miners will only endeavour to look at matters in a broader spirit, should increase the revenue considerably.

A pleasing feature in connection with mining in Siberia is made by the little courtesies which one owner extends to the other. Thus we were continually receiving invitations to dinner at some mine or the other, and would drive over in our sledges to be welcomed literally with open arms by the rough but hospitable miners, to be kissed on both cheeks, and to be liberally supplied with everything the owner possessed in an eating way. Very pleasant indeed were these little functions, for, out of touch of anything like civilization, the grotesque customs which obtain in the towns of “dress” went to the winds, and the Siberian appeared for what he really was. There was perhaps a little bit too much drinking, and at times a want of manners which jarred unpleasantly, still one could not help but appreciate the hospitality which was extended to us, rough as it was. It was gratifying on those evenings after we had gone through the long dinner which is invariably the rule in Russian houses, to sit around and listen to the harmonica and to watch, between the puffs of our cigarette smoke, some big-booted miner going through that extraordinary dance made famous by the Little Russians. Considering what a clumsy, heavy, and ungainly lot the Russians generally are, one can scarcely associate them with the graceful mazurka, a dance of which they are passionately fond and perform creditably.

These visits of ours to neighbouring mines tended much to take away the monotony of our three weeks’ stay in the mountains, and we had the pleasure, too, of receiving in our own camp the mine-owners who would pay us return visits. They had a happy way, some of them, of bringing whole cargoes of vodki, cigarettes, meat, vegetables, and, in short, everything deemed necessary for the occasion. Every man would lend his hand at the culinary arrangements; songs and dances interspersing various items of the menu; while, to add to our enjoyment, our own men would range up outside the hut and sing with lusty voice one of those peculiar national songs, the cadence of which once heard can never be forgotten.