CHAPTER V.

ACROSS THE STEPPE.

But uninteresting as Omsk appeared as a town, it is unique in being the extreme northward point where migrate the wandering tribes of Khirghiz Cossacks. The term Cossack seems to be very little understood outside Siberia or Russia. One is prone to associate it with a soldier, but Cossacks in Russia simply means a tribe that receives special concessions from the Czar for services rendered or likely to be rendered. The Don, Ural, and Khirghiz Cossacks are exempt from certain points of taxation by reason of the military ability of the male members of the tribe. The Khirghiz, for instance, are born soldiers and born horsemen. They look with no uncertain disdain on the Russian moujik, who, poor fellow, is taxed up to his eyes, and who is but a foot soldier when conscription claims him for its own. The Cossack of the Khirghiz steppe is a servant of the Czar possessing such privileges that make him independent of the Russian altogether.

Some few Khirghiz there are who have settled in the various towns of South-Western Siberia--at Akmolinsk, Semipalatinsk, and at Omsk--but the great bulk of the tribe is nomadic. The steppe, which extend northwards for thousands of miles into the regions of Turkestan, forms their home. They move their “kibitkas,” or tents, about from place to place, pay no rent, know nothing of taxation, ignore the Russian language, worship Mahomet, live by the gun, and have a good time generally. As a conquered race it appears to me they are exceptionally fortunate; but the Czar, with his far-seeing eye, knows their worth. In time of war and trouble no soldier of the empire is likely to serve him so well as this fierce and warlike horseman.

Next to the Buriats, the Khirghiz are, perhaps, the most interesting of Siberian nomads. The Buriats are Buddhists or Shamists; the Khirghiz are Mohammedans. So far as my observation goes, I do not think that they possess the mosques as do the Tartars, but nevertheless they are fervent followers of the Prophet. The vast steppe is their home. They are rarely or never seen in the mountains, but on the steppe, that vast melancholy plain, with its stunted grass and its far-reaching horizon, they live, multiply, and die; their only business, beyond the hope of fighting, being in the breeding of horses, which they sell at ridiculously small prices either to the Government or to Siberian traders.

During my stay in Omsk I had occasion to visit a Khirghiz encampment, and although I had been told I should find them an exceedingly ill-tempered and ill-favoured crowd, I must confess that the reception I received was one which rather prejudiced me in their favour. It was a kibitka on the steppe; three or four tents made of rough canvas supported on birch poles, and with a corral outside for innumerable horses, all hobbled by the hind leg. The tent itself, black and unprepossessing on the outside, was a revelation inside. Gimcrack and gaudy perhaps, but nevertheless picturesque. I can only compare it to the interior of a canvas circus--cut down to small proportions, but of the same shape and possessing much of its gaudiness. Latticework, painted a brilliant red, blue, or pink, surrounded the sides. Shields of various colours were hung on the walls, together with festoons of antidiluvian weapons in the shape of knives, arrows, bows, clubs, long swords, and old guns. The floor of the kibitka was covered with the foliage of the fir tree, and in the centre a little raised platform formed the table of the inhabitants.

I went to this kibitka under escort, and was glad to find that at least one of the tribe was able to speak to me, in spite of the short stock of Russian I possessed. Amiable as he was, yet I detected in the sunken black eye of this nomad the fire of a latent warlike spirit, which needed very little to arouse, and which would make him a formidable antagonist.

The Khirghiz are essentially horsemen, and in the streets of Omsk one never sees a Cossack but what he is riding. What they do, how they live, what is their ambition,--all alike seems more or less wrapped in mystery. The Russian population ignore them, and in return the Cossack ignores the Russian. It is the bayonet of the conscript, however, which keeps them in their place; and it is very rare that they do anything against law and order. Every year the governor of the province will go amongst them, and from the number of their tribe will select one who shall be the headman, and responsible for the doings of his flock for the time being.

Strangely enough the Russians seemed ever willing to warn us against the Cossacks. They are thieves, murderers, anything you like, according to the Siberian, but when one considers that the Khirghiz Cossacks are merely a conquered race, and that seventy-five per cent. of the Russian population of Siberia consists of convicts, exiled for all sorts of crimes, one is apt to think and compare.

In a former journey through Siberia I had closer acquaintance with the Khirghiz than many men have had the opportunity of. I had slept in their tents, I had drunk their “koumiss,” and had eaten with them from the same pot, but never once did I have occasion to complain of their treatment.

We were getting tired of the Grand Hotel Moscow. There was nothing about it which was attractive enough for us to prolong our stay within its shelter. As soon as our business had been completed it was the train again. Back over that dreary road to the station; the same old familiar buffet; the same white-aproned porters; the same officious soldier-policeman, ceremonious conductors, and all-important engine-drivers; the same slow-moving cars; the same heat and smell and general discomfort of those miserable _coupés_.

Our next important point was Tomsk, one of the most celebrated of Siberian cities, and to reach which we had to pass over the full length of the Baraba steppe. We started at night, and the next morning found us out on the great white plain. The snow was deeper here, and the occasional long grass which we had seen on the Tartar steppe was absent. Nothing, look which way we would, was there to relieve the eye. A white plain, a circular horizon--the perspective so deceiving that we seemed ever to be at the bottom of a basin, and ever toiling upward.

We had two days of this, with nothing to relieve its drear monotony but the occasional halt at a wayside station. As we progressed further eastward, so things generally became more humble and more primitive. The stations dwindled down in size and in importance. The cockaded soldier gave way to a slouching policeman in rusty top boots, brown overcoat, battered sword, and dirty peaked cap. Our stoppages became longer--from minutes they went into half-hours and half-hours into hours. Nobody cared, we drifted on entirely at the mercy of the man who drove us, and, I must say, getting gradually habituated to Siberian ideas. Hurry is a thing not to be dreamt of. We would pull up at a station, which consisted of no platform and but a small hut combining both telegraph-office and sleeping quarters. Food, too, began to get scarce; but the inevitable sardine, and the equally inevitable tea were always to be had. Now and again, at some larger village station, we would almost shout for joy when an unexpected and long-since-despised edible would be placed ostentatiously before us. Cabbage soup, for instance, that nauseating compound which in Russia we had loathed. Now we swallowed it with relish, and smacked our lips in satisfaction. Vodki, too, which we had shuddered at in Russia, we were gradually beginning to think was not such bad stuff after all. Our little party, I perceived, were adopting Siberian manners to an alarming extent. It was the Siberian custom to always take a nip of vodki before eating, but we, being superior foreigners, had ignored this habit. I do not know who started it, but long before we reached Tomsk it was a settled custom amongst us to take that nip of vodki, and sometimes even to indulge in the grimace after swallowing which was orthodox amongst Siberians.

We got careless, we took little trouble now about our beds and our general comfort. Now and again we forgot to wash, and went around dirty, just as other Siberians did. Our boots had not been blackened for weeks, neither had our clothes been brushed, nor had our toilet arrangements been properly supervised. It was hard work to shave on such a rattling train as that, and those who sported the razor in their travelling trunks left it there for days together. It was not exactly wearisome, it was a something which was indescribable, a feeling that prompted a desire to go to sleep for at least three weeks on end and wake up at the end of the journey; but there was no Rip Van Winkle amongst us, and, although we did put in an enormous amount of time in somnolent attitude, Nature was not to be thwarted, and many hours had to be spent in loafing around and in conversational reiteration.

With what avidity we pounced upon anything which would disturb the even tenor of our way! I verily believe that a railway accident would have been welcome; and, once, something very near this did happen, although beyond giving us food for talk and a little healthy exercise, nothing more serious happened.

[Illustration: A STATION ON THE SIBERIAN RAILWAY.]

Bang out in the middle of the steppe, miles from anywhere, the train one day brought up suddenly, and stuck there for three hours. As there was only one train a day, it was hardly possible that we had been side tracked, waiting for a Siberian “Flying Scotchman” to come along. None of our Russian passengers ventured to inquire the cause of the train’s inertion, neither did the conductor, who periodically passed through the train with a face about as intelligible as a sphinx, volunteer any information on the subject. Gaskell and I, however, descended, walked along the line to the engine, and discovered that the tank had burst and the water was cheerfully washing away the track. The engineer was complacently leaning against the buffers smoking _papiros_, his fireman was asleep in the cab of the tender, nobody else was about, and the whole situation was so truly sublime that, being in the condition to laugh at anything, we both laughed heartily.

The engine had broken down, that was clear. How were we going to get on? The engineer didn’t know, and apparently didn’t care. Had anything been done? The engineer _thought_ that somebody had walked along the line to the next station, fifteen versts (ten miles) away, and would telegraph for a new engine. Did he know when a new engine would come? He hadn’t the slightest idea. To-day or to-morrow? It was possible, one or the other.

Back in the car we tackled the conductor, and he, too, evinced as much interest in the proceedings as an ordinary sheep does when it goes to the slaughter-stool. The opportunity for a walk, however, was too great, and so, in high spirits, Gaskell and I set off and walked that fifteen versts to the next station. The line ran dead straight across the steppe, and when we had traversed ten versts we looked back and saw the train still standing there, a tiny black mass on the shining metals, with as much life about it as would appear in a prison.

Our energy, however, was rewarded by forestalling the occupants of the train in regard to the buffet arrangements. The stationmaster had prepared quite a decent dinner, and he alone, of those concerned in the matter, seemed to be perturbed at the train’s delay. We had a very good time in the selection of the best dishes to be had, and on being assured that there was no possible hope of the train arriving that night, we curled ourselves up on benches and slept the sleep of the well satisfied.

Next morning the train rolled up, and hungry and cursing passengers descended and raided the buffet like so many wild beasts. The over-bearing spirit of the Russian came to the front in all its intensity. They jostled and pushed each other without a word of apology, but rather with a growl of resentment and aggression. And yet not one of all that crowd had been able to shake off the laziness inherited from centuries of lazy progenitors and to tramp the ten miles in order to secure a little food and comfort.