CHAPTER XVII.

LOOKING WESTWARD.

For the next two weeks matters went on smoothly at our encampment. Days spent in labour, and evenings relieved by reading or the occasional visit from some neighbouring miner. How the world was getting on we had not the slightest idea, for, since leaving Moscow, we had received no word from those at home. We were now eagerly looking forward to the time when we should receive the first batch of correspondence. Arrangements had been made to forward our post from Minusinsk by horseback, and when, on the eventful morning, the news was brought up to our hut that the postboy was seen approaching, the excitement amongst us all was great. We almost fell upon the bundles of letters and newspapers which the faithful messenger had brought, sent work to the winds for the rest of that day, neglected our meals, and did nothing but devour the intelligence which cold print conveyed.

Signs were not wanting that it would not be very long before the break up of the winter would come about. The sun was daily getting warmer, and here and there the ice and snow were melting. The postboy told us that the River Armeul was thawing rapidly, and that if it was our intention to get back to Minusinsk on the winter road it would be necessary to speedily bring our operations to a close. There was, indeed, but little to detain us. Our expedition had been practically completed, and we needed now only the visit of the mining inspector to relieve us of the responsibility of our present position by handing over to him the enormous number of books and papers with which it had been necessary to burden ourselves in order to undertake our project.

Gaskell and I were to return straight to England, but Scawell and Asprey had other fish to fry, as they were to go further eastward into the provinces of Northern Manchuria. As the time approached for our departure our eagerness to be off became chronic. Visions of other lands and other peoples, of more cheerful surroundings, were ever before us--anything, now, to get out of this dreary waste of snow which for more than three months had enveloped us.

Our camp was the scene of some mild excitement when one day the Government inspector, attended by several servants and a whole string of horses, arrived. It was a great to-do, for he was an important-looking personage, very much epauletted and be-buttoned and extremely officious. His first duty was the inspection of our gold-book, and, as bad luck would have it, a couple of trivial mistakes had crept in, and within half an hour of the inspector’s arrival we had to pay out fifty roubles as fines. It was a scene, too, later on in the day, when we called up our men for their pay and gave them their discharge. Criminals of the worst class though they were, we had got to like our little staff, and I think they in return reciprocated the feeling. Several of the men had made tremendous inroads on their wages in the matter of purchases of vodki and clothing, and one cheerful individual, after his sheet had been reckoned up, owed us a bit, although he humorously remarked that our chances of getting it were rather remote.

This was our last night in camp. On the morrow we were to depart on our westward journey, and to signalize the event our men got up an impromptu concert, which lasted well into the small hours, meanwhile that they drank themselves into a maudlin state.

Morning broke--just the same sort of morning as we had experienced during the whole time we had been in Siberia--cloudless, brilliant, white. Our little caravan was already ranged up outside the hut. The mining inspector was there to see us off. Asprey and Scawell had risen betimes, and had loaded us with messages to friends at home. It was a break indeed to part with those two good fellows who had been our boon companions for so many weeks in this cheerless land. The Siberians, I think, wondered why it was that we did not fall on each other’s necks and kiss each other rapturously, as is the custom there. “You English have cold blood,” said Schultz, “that you can part with your comrades like this!” For a hurried shake of the hand, “Good-bye, old boy, and good luck,” was all. We ambled out of the camp, and then down the narrow pathway through the property. At the bend of the river we surmounted a small hill and looked back. Asprey and Scawell were on the roof of the hut, waving their scarves at us. The sound of a pistol-shot reached our ears. It was the parting salute, and we fired our revolvers in reply. Then we passed the brow and went down the great dip towards the Armeul, and we saw no more of our camp in the mountains, or of our comrades.

It took us five days to reach Karatuski, for it was now late in March, and the ice on the Armeul was breaking up right and left, rendering our passage one of extreme danger and difficulty. How welcome that little village seemed after the roughing-it we had experienced in the mountains! A man’s appreciation of comfort depends considerably on where he has come from, and though Karatuski might be voted one of the most miserable spots on the face of the earth by he just fresh from Europe, it was a veritable city of plenty to us now.

From Karatuski to Minusinsk, and from Minusinsk to Atchinsk, with galloping horses night and day; for every morning saw the snow getting less and the great Yenesei cracking on all sides. Once, in the night, while travelling up the river, the ice broke under us, and we lost one of our horses. Only the fact that we were on the side, and not in the centre, of the river saved us from complete destruction. How welcome was the sound of the locomotive’s whistle at the station of Atchinsk! and again when, as the cars rolled slowly in, what a link they seemed with the civilization of the West!

Day succeeded night and night succeeded day with us ever journeying westward. Familiar now were the names of the stations--Tigre, Kreveschokovo, Kainsk, Omsk, Kurgan, Chelabinsk. Only drifts of snow now in the mountain passes; buds to be seen on wayside trees; everything betokening the rapid approach of the Asiatic summer. Late one evening Gaskell awakened me from the nap into which I had fallen. The train was slowly grinding through a defile in the Ural Mountains. He looked at his watch. “In three minutes,” said he, “we shall be in Europe.” The minutes slowly ticked off, and then, rounding a bend, the sluggish train passed slowly the stone monument which separates Europe from Asia.

There is nothing more of moment to tell in connection with our journey to the Syansk Mountains. With the exception, probably, of the Captain Wiggins’ expedition, we constituted, I think, the first English party to enter Siberia in order to inquire into the commercial resources of that vast country. The general impressions created by our visit I have endeavoured to set down as clearly as possible, and at a time when considerable attention is being directed towards Asiatic Russia it is possible they may be of some value. Travellers to Siberia hitherto have mainly consisted of those who have travelled through the country with the express desire of writing a book, and have confined themselves principally to the standard questions of the day; in which prisons, exiles, wolves, and bears form no inconsiderable part. The lasting impression which Siberia has upon me is that, while it is undoubtedly a land of promise, yet some few years must elapse before Europe can be brought into direct commercial contact with it. Anxious as the Government is to promote trade in Siberia, the distance and the primitiveness of the country will do much to delay matters; while, so far as Englishmen are concerned, the autocratic laws of the great White Czar can never be palatable. That there exists in Siberia a big field for the investment of foreign capital goes without saying, but whether Englishmen will grasp the opportunity is another matter. Ten years may see Siberia a far different country to what it is at the present time, and in this connection nothing will have tended more to remove the mystery and gloom of that great country than that magnificent State enterprise--the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

INDEX

Armeul, The river, 182, 191

Atchinsk, The town of, 107

Baraba steppe, The, 20

Chelabinsk, 1-13

Chulim river, The, 104

Colonization, Russia’s scheme, 21

Criminal workmen, 170

Czar, The late, and the Siberian railway, 23

Emigrants’ fares to Russia, 26

Emigrants’ train, 27

English language in Russia, 15

Exiles, Condition of, 113

Frozen river, The, 72

Gobi desert, The, 228

Gold averages, 94

Gold-miners, Amusements of, 174, 222

Gold-miners, Siberian, 174

Gold-mining, Account of, 195

Gold-receiving depôts, 94

Grants of land to emigrants, 26

Irtish river, The, 19

Kansk, 69

Kara sea route, 114

Karatuski, Village of, 166

Khirghiz Cossacks, The, 55

Khirghiz horsemanship, 59

Khirghiz Kibitkas, or tents, 58

Krasnoiarsk, Population of, 112

Krasnoiarsk, The city of, 101, 110

Krasnoiarsk, The valley of, 108

Kurgan, 21

Machinery for gold-mining, 199

Merchandise, Siberian, 116

Millionaires of Tomsk, The, 87

Mining concessions, 97, 172

Mining laws, 98

Minusinsk, 133, 162

Moujiks, Siberian, 145

Nomadic tribes, 21

Ob, The station of, 74

Obi bridge, 69

Obi river, The, 69

Obi valley, The, 68

Omsk, 31

River sledging, 70

Russian Church, The, 32

Russian corruption, 102

Russian curiosity, 14

Russian incivility, 16

Russian railway travelling, Economy of, 128

Russian trade with Siberia, 51

Russian vigilance, 165

Sable hunting, 235

Siberian cabmen, The, 40

Siberian food, 82

Siberian forest, A, 75

Siberian hospitality, 88

Siberian hotels, 43

Siberian posting stations, 45

Siberian railway station, Description of, 5

Siberian trains, Slowness of, 62

Siberikoff, M., 86

Sledging, 129, 139

Sledging, Dangers of, 153, 182

Sledging, Discomforts of, 186, 192

Snowshoeing, 215

Syansk mountains, 100, 181

Syots, The, 234

Tartar Steppe, The, 19

Tea-trade of Siberia, The, 116

Tigre, The station of, 74

Tom, The river, 86

Tomsk and the railroad, 52

Tomsk mining laboratory, The, 92

Tomsk, The city of, 76

Tomsk university, 87

Trans-Siberian Railway, Description of, 101, 120

Trans-Siberian Railway, Importance of, 126, 128

Transport, 202

Ural mountains, 1

Vladivostock, 24

Wiggins’ expedition, 113

Yenesei, The valley of, 108

Yenesei river, The, 138

THE END.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

Transcriber's Notes:

Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.

Perceived typographical errors have been changed.