Part 21

So the affairs of internal administration, the collecting of tribute, hunting and fishing, the returns from which were indispensable in a country without architecture, occupied Iermak until the month of April. Then a mirza informed him that the bold Mahmetkul had again approached the Irtysh and encamped near Vagai with a small band. The occasion was favorable; but in order to exterminate this indefatigable enemy, secrecy and celerity were more necessary than force. Consequently the Cossack leaders, having chosen sixty of their braves, furtively approached the camp of the Tartars, cut the throats of many in their sleep, took Mahmetkul prisoner, and led him in triumph to Isker. This capture caused Iermak great joy, for he was rid of an enemy full of audacity and courage, whom he might consider as an important hostage in his relations with the fugitive Kutchum. Although Mahmetkul was covered with the blood of Iermak's brothers-in-arms, the latter, abjuring all idea of personal vengeance, treated him with flattering consideration, while yet holding him under close watch. As Iermak already had his spies in the distant sections of Isker, he learned that Kutchum, struck with the reverses of Mahmetkul, was wandering in the deserts beyond the Ischim. This usurper was about to be attacked by Seidek--son of Bekbulat, Prince of Siberia, one of his victims--who was marching against him with numerous bands of Usbeks. Upon another side he found himself weakened by the defection of the mirza Karatcha, who, abandoning him in his misfortune, had drawn away a great part of his troops, and was getting ready to encamp in the country of Lym, near a large lake, above the junction of the Tara with the Irtysh. The news was of the nature to cause a lively satisfaction to the leader of the Cossacks, whose new enterprises were to be favored by the weakness of the principal enemy of Russia, as well as by the approach of spring.

Iermak, leaving a part of his troop at Isker, embarked with the other part on the Irtysh, which he descended, navigating toward the north. The tribes of the neighborhood already recognized his power, so that he advanced without obstacles as far as the mouth of the Armidzianka, where he was stopped by Tartars who were still independent, and who, ensconced in a fortress, refused to surrender. The fortress was taken by assault, and the Cossack leaders shot or hanged the principal authors of an obstinacy dangerous for the Russians. Terrified, the rest of the inhabitants swore submission and fidelity to Russia, kissing a sabre dipped in blood. The present cantons of Ratzin, Karbin, and Turtass dared oppose no resistance. Farther on began the encampments of the Ostiaks and the Vogules of the Kuda. There, on the steep bank of the Irtysh their prince Demian, who had taken refuge in a fort with two thousand warriors ready to fight, rejected all Icrmak's propositions. According to the report of the annalist: "This little town possessed within its walls a golden idol which was supposed to have been brought from ancient Russia at the epoch when she embraced Christianity. The Ostiaks kept it in a vase filled with water which they drank to revive their courage. The Cossack leaders, having driven away the besieged forces with their artillery, entered the town, but they could not discover this precious idol."

The conquerers now continued their navigation. They perceived a crowd of soothsayers who were offering a sacrifice to their famous idol of Ratscha, conjuring it to save them from these terrible strangers. The idol remained mute, the Russians advanced with their "thunder," and the frightened soothsayers ran to hide themselves in the thickness of the forests. It is there that the colony of Ratscha is found to-day, above the Demiansk. Farther on in the canton of Tzingal, at the place where the Irtysh, contracted by the mountains, precipitates its rapid course, a multitude of armed men awaited the Cossacks. But a discharge of musketry put them to flight, and the Cossacks took the little town of Nazym, where they found only women and children, stricken with terror and awaiting death. Iermak treated them with so much kindness that their fathers and husbands did not delay in coming to find him with a tribute.

After reducing the cantons of Tarkhan to submission, the Cossacks entered the country of the most considerable of the Ostiak princes, named Samar. Allied with eight hundred other little princes, he was waiting for the Russians with firmness, in order to decide, by a battle, the lot of all the ancient country of Yugorie. Samar boasted of his courage and of his strength, but he forgot prudence, for he, his army and his guards, were plunged in sleep when at the hour of dawn the Cossacks attacked his camp. Awakened by the tumult, he rose, seized his arms, and fell, shot to death at the first volley. In an instant his troops dispersed, and the inhabitants agreed to pay tribute to Russia. Already Iermak had reached the shore of the Obi, an important river, concerning the course of which the ancient Novgorodians had some notions, but whose source and mouth, according to the Muscovite travellers of 1567, were hidden in unknown regions. Master of Nazym, principal town of the Ostiaks, and of many other fortresses, having in his power the Prince of Siberia, Iermak had to deplore the loss of one of his brave companions-in-arms, the hetman Necetas Pan, killed in an assault with some of the most intrepid Cossacks.

He did not desire to penetrate farther into a country which only presented frozen deserts to him, places of desolation where during the summer the burning rays of the sun hardly warmed the surface of immense marshes covered with moss, and where bogs, hardened by the frost and strewed with the bones of mammoths, presented the aspect of a vast cemetery. Iermak appointed Alatscha, an Ostiak prince, as chief of the tribes of the Obi. Then he again took the road of the capital of Siberia, treated as a conqueror and a sovereign by his tributaries. He was received everywhere with demonstrations of absolute submission, as a redoubtable warrior endowed with a supernatural strength of soul. To the sound of warlike music, the Cossacks ascended the rivers. They disembarked clad in their finest raiment in order to astonish the inhabitants by their riches. Having thus assured the domination of Russia from Berezoff to Tobol, Iermak, satisfied and tranquil, arrived safely at Isker.

Then only he announced to the Stroganoffs that with the aid of God he had been able to conquer the Sultan, had taken his capital, his states, his nephew, and had made his people take the oath of allegiance to Russia. At the same time he wrote to the Czar that his poor Cossacks, proscribed, troubled in conscience and given up to repentance, had braved death to reunite a vast state to Russia, in the name of Christ and of their great monarch, for ages upon ages and for as long a time as it might please God to prolong the existence of the universe. "They awaited," he added, "the orders of the Russian waywodes, to whom they were ready to deliver over the kingdom of Siberia, without any sort of condition, disposed to die for glory or upon a scaffold, according as it should please God and their master." Charged with this missive, the second of the leaders, John Koltzo, first companion of Iermak in the combats and in the councils, departed for Moscow, where he had been condemned to severe punishment as a state criminal, without fearing the solemn decree which threatened his life.

Here we anticipate a question which seems natural enough. In announcing so late his successes to the Stroganoffs, did not Iermak, influenced by the easy conquest of Siberia, think, as some historians suppose, of reigning independently over that country? Although conqueror, his forces were diminishing every day, and was not the need of aid the only and true motive for his bearing toward Ivan? But how can it be imagined that this prudent leader should not have foreseen, at the beginning of his expedition, that a handful of rash men, abandoned by Russia, would in three or four years have been annihilated by battles or diseases; that in a rigorous climate they would succumb amid deserts and thick forests, impenetrable refuges of a savage and fierce population, whom fire-arms only could force to pay tribute to strangers? It is more probable that, not having been an eye-witness of the facts, the annalist established upon hypothesis the order in which they succeeded each other. Perhaps Iermak feared to boast too soon of his success, desiring, above all, to achieve the conquest of Siberia, which he thought he had done in driving Kutchum into the deserts and in establishing the limits of the Muscovite empire on the banks of the Obi.

Transported with joy at the news they had just received from the hetmans, the Stroganoffs set out at once for Moscow, eager to communicate to the Czar all the details of this glorious enterprise. They urged him to finish the reduction of Siberia, simple private citizens like themselves not possessing the means to preserve so vast a conquest. The envoys of Iermak, John Koltzo and his companions, also appeared before the Prince to offer him the realm of Siberia, as well as the precious furs of sables, black foxes, and castors.

These were, since a long time, the first transports of joy in gloomy Moscow. The Czar and the nation seemed to wake up. At court, on the great square, was repeated with intoxication, "God has sent a new empire to Russia!" Bells were rung, solemn thanks were returned to heaven, as at the epoch of Kazan and of Astrakhan, the happy time of the Czar's youth! Rumor exaggerated the glory of this conquest.

There was no talk but of huge armies destroyed by the Cossacks, of a great number of peoples subjected by their valor, of the immense riches which they had found. In a word, Siberia seemed to have fallen from the sky for the Russians, and, to set off still further Iermak's success, it was forgotten that from time immemorial this country had been known to the Russians. The disgrace of the Cossacks gave place to honors. John Koltzo, bowing his head in humility before the Czar and the boyars, heard nothing but expressions of good-will, and of praise for his conduct and the name of valiant warrior. Greatly moved, he kissed the hand of the Czar, who caused to be given to him, as well as to the other envoys of Siberia, silver, cloth, and stuffs of value. Ivan immediately sent to Iermak Prince Simeon Bolkovsky and the officer John Glukoff with five hundred strelitz (infantry). He authorized John Koltzo to raise volunteers to go and establish himself in the new countries of Tobol, and ordered the Bishop of Vologda to send ten priests thither for the purpose of celebrating divine service. Prince Bolkovsky was ordered to take, in the spring, the boats of the Stroganoffs and embark on the Tchusovaya (river), to follow the traces of the hero of Siberia. These illustrious citizens, the real authors of this important acquisition to Russia, yielded it to the state. But in recompense, and as a reward for their services and their zeal, Ivan made to Simeon Bolkovsky a concession of two borough towns, the Great and Little Sol, on the Volga. Maxime and Necetas obtained the privilege of carrying on commerce in all their cities without paying any tax or duty.

While awaiting good news from Russia, the conquerors of Siberia did not give themselves up to a sterile repose. They advanced by the Tavda as far as the country of the Vogulitches, and near the mouth of that river where the Tartar princes Labutan and Petschenieg held sway. In a bloody engagement Iermak put them to flight on the shores of a lake; and the annalist reports that at his time many human bones were still to be seen there. But the timid inhabitants of the cantons of Koschutz and of Tabarin paid the tribute demanded by the Cossack leader without a murmur. These peaceful savages lived in an absolute independence, having neither princes nor chiefs. They only gave their respect to certain rich men, whose wisdom was generally recognized, and took them as judges in their quarrels. They yielded an equal esteem to some pretended soothsayers. One of these, gazing upon Iermak with a holy terror, predicted long glory for him, but kept silence about his approaching death. Here fable creates new giants among the dwarfs of Vogulie, who are scarcely two archines in height. According to one of these stories, the Russians saw with surprise, near the town of Tabarin, a giant two fathoms tall, who seized a dozen men at a time and smothered them in his arms. Not being able to take him alive, they killed him with gunshots.

On the whole, the relation of this latter expedition is not very authentic, and is only found in the supplement to the _Chronicles of Siberia_. One may also read there that, after having reached the marshes and forests of Pelim, dispersed the Vogulitches, and made numerous prisoners, Iermak sought to gather from the latter certain information regarding the roads which lead from the banks of the Upper Tavda to Perm, across a chain of rocky mountains, in order to discover a less dangerous and less difficult communication with Russia, but that it was impossible to open a road in deserts swampy in summer and buried under deep snows in winter. Iermak succeeded in increasing the number of his tributaries, and in extending his domains as far as the shore of Sosva, in the ancient country of Yugorie. He had enclosed in their limits the country of Kondinie, little known up to that time, although long placed among the titles of the Muscovite sovereigns. He then returned to the capital of Siberia, where he awaited the recompense of his glorious works.

John Koltzo had arrived at Isker, charged with the bounties of the Czar, followed by Prince Bolkovsky with his warriors. The former gave rich presents to the leaders as well as to the soldiers. He was the bearer, for Iermak, of two cuirasses, a cup of silver, and a cloak which the Czar had worn himself. In a letter full of goodness, Ivan announced to the Cossacks his entire forgetfulness of their faults and the eternal recognition of Russia for their important services. He affirmed that he appointed Iermak prince of Siberia, commanding him to administer and govern that country, as he had already done up to that time; to establish order there, and, in fine, to consolidate there the supreme power of the Czar. On their side, the Cossacks rendered honors to the waywodes of Ivan as well as to all the strelitz. They made them presents of sables and treated them with all the luxury which their position permitted, preparing together for new enterprises. However, this happiness of Iermak and his companions was not of long duration; we touch upon the beginning of their reverses.

In the first place, a fearful scurvy showed itself among the troops, a disease common to those who arrive in cold and damp climates, in savage and almost uninhabited countries. The strelitz were attacked first. Soon it was communicated to the Cossacks, many of whom lost their strength and their life. Next, winter brought a great dearth of food. The excessive cold, tempests, snow-storms, hindered the hunting and fishing as well as the arrival of grain from the neighboring encampments, some inhabitants of which occupied themselves with a poorly productive agriculture. Famine began to be felt; disease made progress and continually took off many victims, among whom was Prince Bolkovsky. They gave him an honorable funeral at Isker. The general weakness seized the heart of Iermak also. He feared not death, long accustomed to brave it, but he was afflicted with the idea of losing his conquest, of betraying the hopes of the Czar and of Russia. Happily this calamity ceased with spring. The atmospheric heat helped the cure of the diseases, and convoys of provisions restored plenty among the Russians. Then Iermak made Prince Mahmetkul start for Moscow, announcing to the Czar that, while all was going on well in Siberia, yet he asked immediately for more considerable aids than the first, in order to preserve his conquests and to be able to make new ones. Mahmetkul, faithful observer of the law of Mahomet, served afterward in the Russian armies.

Iermak resolved to intimidate his enemies and to guarantee his safety for the future. To this effect, although he had but a feeble troop left, he undertook to pursue Karatcha, ascending the Irtysh in order to extend the possessions of Russia toward the east. He overthrew Prince Beghiche and captured his city, of which the ruins may still be seen on the shores of a sinuous lake, near the mouth of the Vogai. He made himself master of all the country which stretches as far as the Ischim, terrifying by his vengeance those who dared resist him, and sparing those who lay down their arms. In the country of Sargaty there lived an illustrious old man, a former Tartar chief, a hereditary judge of all the tribes since the first khan of Siberia. He made the act of submission as well as Prince Etichai, who governed the city of Tehend. The latter, bearing tribute to Iermak, presented his young daughter, betrothed to the son of Kutchum. But the hetman, a rigid observer of the laws of chastity, sent the young girl home. Near the mouth of the Ischim, a bloody quarrel arose between the soldiers of Iermak and the wild inhabitants of that wretched country, in which five brave Cossacks lost their lives. Their memory is still celebrated in the melancholy songs of Siberia. The little town of Tachatkan also fell into the power of the Russians. Their chief did not judge it advisable to attack a more important place, founded by Kutchum, on the banks of the lake Aussaklu. He penetrated as far as the shore of Chische, where the deserts begin; imposed tributes on this new conquest, and returned to take to Isker the spoils which were to be his last trophies.

FIRST COLONY OF ENGLAND BEYOND SEAS

A.D. 1583

MOSES HARVEY

In the Elizabethan era, when maritime discovery was being actively pursued by England's adventurous spirits, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, the founder of Virginia, took possession of Newfoundland, with feudal ceremony, in the name of the Virgin Queen. Sir Humphrey's expedition was barren of results in the way of colonization, and even in the way of discovery on the island; while it proved fatal to its leader, and those who sailed with him on the Squirrel, for on the return voyage to England the vessel foundered at sea, and only the companion-ship, the Golden Hind, reached the port of Falmouth, Devon. But the formal occupation of Newfoundland at that early period makes it the most ancient colony of the British crown, English settlement beginning shortly after Sir Humphrey Gilbert's visit, though interrupted between the years 1692 and 1713 by French attempts at conquest.

Up to this time no attempt had been made to colonize Newfoundland or any of the neighboring lands. The hardy fishermen of various nationalities, among whom Englishmen were now much more numerous than formerly, were in the habit of frequenting the shores of the island during the summer and using the harbors and coves for the cure of their fish, returning home with the products of their toil on the approach of winter. Eighty-six years had passed away since Cabot's discovery, and we now arrive at the year 1583, a memorable date in the history of Newfoundland. On August 5th of that year there were lying in the harbor of St. John's thirty-six vessels belonging to various nations, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English, all employed in fishing. In addition to these there were four English warships which had arrived the day before. They were the Delight, the Golden Hind, the Swallow, and the Squirrel. Early on this morning boats were lowered from the English ships, and the commanders and officers went on shore. Soon a goodly company had assembled on the beach, then lined by a few rough wooden huts and "flakes," or stages for drying cod. The rude inmates of these huts gathered round the company that landed from the English ships; and the captains and officers of the other vessels were there by special summons. A very curious and motley group was that which then stood on the beach of St. John's harbor--swarthy, bronzed sailors and fishermen of Spain, Portugal, and France, in the costumes of the sixteenth century. Soon a circle formed round one commanding figure--a man of noble presence, wearing the richly slashed and laced doublet, velvet cloak, trunk-hose, and gay hat and feather which constituted the dress of gentlemen in the days of Queen Elizabeth. This was no other than Sir Humphrey Gilbert, one of the gallant knights of Devonshire. He unrolled a parchment scroll, and proceeded to read the royal patent authorizing him to take possession of Newfoundland on behalf of his royal mistress, and exercise jurisdiction over it and all other possessions of the crown in the same quarter. Twig and sod were presented to him in feudal fashion, and, in the name of Queen Elizabeth, he solemnly annexed the island to the British Empire. The banner of England was then twisted on a flag-staff; the royal arms, cut in lead, were affixed to a wooden pillar, near the water's edge, and the ceremony was complete. The grant gave Sir Humphrey Gilbert jurisdiction for two hundred leagues in every direction, so that the limits included Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, part of Labrador, as well as the islands of Newfoundland, Cape Breton, and Prince Edward Island--a right royal principality.

This Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the first settler in Newfoundland, who, with some two hundred fifty followers from Devonshire, had arrived with the view of making the western wilderness a home for Englishmen, was a son of Sir Otho Gilbert, of Compton castle, Torbay. His mother was a Champernoun of purest Norman descent, and "could probably boast of having in her veins the blood of Courtneys, Emperors of Byzant." Sir Otho had three sons by this lady, John, Humphrey, and Adrian, who all proved to be men of superior abilities. They were all three knighted by Elizabeth, a distinction which, coming from the hands of the great Queen, marked its recipient as a gentleman and a brave warrior. Sir Otho died, and his widow married Walter Raleigh, a gentleman of ancient blood but impoverished, and at the time living at Hayes, Devon. To her second husband the fair Champernoun bore a son whose fame was destined to be world-wide, and who, in a period more prolific of great men and great events than any before or since, played a gallant part, and was also knighted, as Sir Walter Raleigh, by Queen Bess. Thus Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh were half-brothers, each being trained in the simple and manly yet high-bred ways of English gentlemen. When Humphrey Gilbert grew up he embraced the profession of arms, and won high distinction in Continental and Irish wars. At length, in his mature manhood, he and his distinguished half-brother Raleigh formed the design of first colonizing Newfoundland, and then the neighboring islands and continent. Hence we find him on August 5, 1583, standing on the beach in the harbor of St. John's. Sir Walter Raleigh had embarked on the same expedition, but a contagious disease broke out on board his ship which compelled his return.