Northern Highway of the Tsar

N o rt h e r n Hi g h w a y

o f

T he T sar

BY AUBYN IREVOR- IjATTYE - r w - AUT HOR OF lcD BOUND 01! (014603?

” SAILOR.

W ITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR

N o rt h e r n Hi g h w a y

o f

T he T sar

BY AUBYN TREVOR BATTYE ﬂ- AUTHOR OF ICl -BOUND ON KODGUI V

” SAILOR.

W ITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR b D W E STM INSTER ARCH IBALD CONSTABLE 8: CO 2 W H ITE HALL GARDENS 1 898 Sh i r t)

BUTLER TANNB R. THE SELW D PRINTING W RK S OO O . FROMB AND L ND N . O O . INSCRIBED B Y G R A CIO U S PE R M ISS IO N TO

HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY

THE EMPEROR OF RUS S IA

PRE FACE

S OME o f the critics who reviewed Ice-bound on K ogmw were so kind as to express a wish that the author would write a sequel describing his subsequent journey through the tundras and forests o f high Northern f Russia, and many riends demanded the

The s e n same. latter was as plea ing an

u co rag e me nt as the other a pleasing surprise. Yet succeeding travels and much occupation have made it difﬁcult before this to put into a readable form the events recorded in the f o . f diary that journey One word, there ore, about this account.

There are ﬁve seasons in the year in

vii PREFACE

— f f Northern Russia our our, and a ﬁ th ,

Ras tn a Ra s u n a pu y by name . p t y means

“ o f literally the parting the ways, and is

fo r w u used a period bet een aut mn and winter.

Travelling by one o f the high northern trails is easy enough in summer when the ground f is dry and ﬁrm , is delight ul in winter when

i w v the sleighs gl de over the sno , and o er the ice o f lake or river ; but in Rasputnya it is n o t f easy , it is very di ﬁcult. and no one f f dreams o moving then . It is reezing one day and thawing the next, the ice charged

fo r all rivers are dangerous boats , and the land is morass and swamp. During the whole o f October the Government postal

o ff service is stopped , labour contracts are , and the keepers o f the stages are entirely freed from their usual obligation to supply T the traveller with horses or sleighs. his

x e plains why, when an inquiry as to my PREFACE

e fro m whereabouts was mad England, the inevitable answ er came that no new s could

w m f arrive till the s a ps were rozen up. Certainly no Russian could imagine any

person rash enough to try and travel then .

But an Englishman is proverbially obstinate ;

a I and me ntime , through these swamps was pushing on inch by inch by various shifts

o f and devices . It is these that the story

tells .

The experience taught me more o f the

’ Russian peasa nt s character than could pos

sib ly have been learnt u nder more favourable

o f If chances travel . the reader will bear

in mind that I was travelling in deﬁance o f

all tradition, custom, and common sense , and

that not one o f those I met was under any

com ulsion p to lend me a hand , he will then

ho w see good, on the whole, are the qualities

f far- to be ound even among this away, isolated PREFACE

' as Of the R o cza ls I pe antry. ussian ﬁi need T not speak. hey were, as I have always f m ound the , kindness , courtesy, and even f generosity itsel .

I hope this little book will not be found

uninteresting ; it rests its claims on Ras

utn a Ras utn a . p y , and on p y alone

As w A is well kno n , the late Emperor lex

III w ander . al ays had much at heart the

welfare o f the wild region here described ;

f s there is, there ore, a double intere t in the

acceptance o f the dedication o f this book

by His Imperial Majesty the Emperor

Nicholas .

It would ill become me not to add,

u nder a loyal sense o f a characteristic kind

ness, that this honour is directly due to the personal intervention o f His Royal Highness

the o f Duke York. C O N T E N T S

CHAPTER VII A TOWN or THE OLD BELI EVERS CHAPTER VIII

RASPUTNYA CONTENTS

PAG CHAPTER IX HEADING FOR HOME CHAPTER X

HAP r DE T A C TER o ACCI N S . CHAPTER XI HARD FACTS CHAPTER XII OLD FRIENDS AGAIN CHAPTER XIII A FRAGILE BRIDGE CHAPTER XIV A TRAGEDY CHAPTER XV

To THE WHITE SEA

CHAPTER XVI ARCHANGEL CHAPTER XVII To VOLOGDA CHAPTER XVIII

Ar rER NOTE

IN prepa ring Me accompa ny ing M ap of Me r iver

s t m o Nor M West Russia I Iza ve Mo u y s e f , g ltt it

better to omit all but Me more im orta nt n p a mes. l e na mes of Me va rious sma ll tr ibuta ries ref erred to in Me a ccount w ould only spoil Me clea rness of

Me la n a nd Me sa me ma be sa id o sto in p , y f pp g

For sa me rea son I Iza ve omitted places. Me Me

n e o b ill T[u se re v r low a Me b i /ze ra s s. a e t st g f y g . Tb e smaller rivers g enerally rise in sw a mp or lo w

It is a lw ay s diﬁicuIt to know w lteMe r to spell

ro er na mes a s Me sound to E n lislt ea rs o p p . y g , r

Tnus no tra veller w ould reco n ise i correctly . g n

‘ Askino a villag e un iversa lly called Obs/tin by

eo le Mere et Me ormer is corr ect B u Me . t p p y f ,

Me w /zo le it Iza s seemed best to kee as ne on , p a r Me R ussia n a s may be a nd I a m indebted to my

riend M r B r le H od etts a n accom lis/ze . a d f , y y g , p

R ussia n sc/zola r or kind overha ulin m R ussia n , f ly g y

na mes . LIST OF ILLU STRATIONS

“ ” THE AUTHOR

A NORTH RUSSIAN TRADER

A PEASANT GIRL

A CORNER o r THE FOREST ON SOLOVETSK

CAUGHT IN THE ICE

A TARANTASS

GATEWAY o r THE MONASTERY ON SOLOVETSK Fa ce pag e 1 68

PU SUE S AND PU SUED 7 R R R

GALLERY o r THE FORTI FICATIONS OF THE MONASTERY ON SOLOVETSK — ARCHANGE THE CATHEDRA AND QUAY 7 L L

A W INTER MARKET PLACE 5

At en d CHAPTE R I

T H E BELL -SHAPED G ULF

T is no w two years S ince I put down

o f my pen, having ﬁnished an account a considerable stay on the island Of Ko l

uev S f g , which is ituated in that part o the A ’ rctic Ocean known as Barent s Sea. My sojourn there , though happy enough, had

f o f - been en orced by the set the ice pack, which made it quite impossible fo r a ship to reach the island . I had two English com : T panions the ﬁrst my camp man , homas f f Hyland ; the other a aith ul old spaniel dog, a by name Sailor. Poor de r old Sailor ! death has removed him since then to other — hunting grounds, whether happier or not,

f r I do not know. I doubt it ; o he was a

o f true philosopher, and so enviable a dis position that nothing came to him amiss . 1 B A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

Whether the island was inhabited or n u inhabited had been very doubtful until this

v b ut f h isit ; I ound Samoyeds there, wit

e —ﬁft - in their wiv s and children, y nine souls

all T . hey tended reindeer, hunted such sea

as l a n bears came in winter, seals a so, and

c s oc asional walrus, and killed many thousand

o f s T f r wild gee e. hese they salted o winter f T ood . hey dwelt in movable wigwams, w m a hich they called y , but which are better

Mo m o . known to us by the Russian name , L t S iving hus with them , haring their f dwellings, their ood and their pursuits, I became much attached to these S imple f people, and le t them with many regrets . at For, when the ice length moved away, — two Russians traders in a small way v f isited the island in their wooden cra t. The secret o f the existence o f Samoyeds on Ko lguev had been so well kept by these men that it was unknown even to the sharp f f T intelligence o the Russian O ﬁcials . he n Of o f A ame one these traders was lexander, o f the other Alexis ; the surname o f either 2

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR Alexander’ s home was at Askino [pro nced as OkShin nou by these pe ants ], a little

o n o f village the Pechora. But because most

tempestuous weather, we were unable to run o f into the entry that great river, which is T badly locked by sandbars. here was a

n A seco d harbour known to lexander, behind S en eiskii d f n g Islan , where he had o te been

f a w as fo r be ore. But the we ther too bad this, f l Eve ntu so we ran past it be ore the ga e. ally we succeeded in entering a gulf called the Ko lo ko lkova f i e - Gul (. . the Bell shaped

f f S ix o f Gul ) , and a ter hard days warping the boat in the teeth o f the gale in that

l u r u sha low est a y, we came to an anchor nder o f a bank, on the top which was a Samo ’ o choom w y d s (or wig am).

n f n Now no E glishman but mysel has bee ,

far can no r so as I ascertain, on this spot, has made the journey thence to the great

Pechora River. The Ko lo ko lko va Gulf is the shallow — tidal estuary o f two small rivers the Kolo ko lko va Kamb alnitz a T a and the . hey re 4 THE BELL-SHAPED GULF

no t o f large, nor very productive ﬁsh ; but

fo r t all that his estuary, as a good sealing

f o f ground , is a considerable ocus Samoyed f li e. Alexander the Russian did not like being f here . He had never been here be ore . For thirty -ﬁve yea rs he had made the cross ing to Ko lg uev and back fo r the reindeer

o f skins and the oil seals, and always he had managed hitherto to run into the mouth

o f f S the Pechora itsel , or to ﬁnd a helter

n iski behind S e g e i Island. He liked this

o f fo r i better the two , the Pechora entry s

U w as not easy, and navigation p the river fa r f fo r - more di ﬁcult his rough, ﬂat bottomed

the Ti boat than navigation down. From ma nskii Schar (as the water behind the island is called) he also had a good track home,

Of and, laying up his boat under shelter the f island, could easily rejoin her a ter the winter broke up . But now he was as lost

r as a bagged hare in a st ange country,

o f - n o f where , instead the well beate runs

f its f itsel and ellows across the downlands, 5 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR there is only a maze o f uncertain tracks by f which the rabbits go to eed . The occupant o f the little choom on shore F proved to be one ronia, a young Samoyed, who n o ff a soo came to us in a bo t, and guided us through a difﬁcult tideway to the fe w - Shore. He told us that a sleigh marks which we saw were only made by a chance sealing Samoyed, and led nowhere ; and that we should not ﬁnd reindeer at all on

o f f this side the gul . The signiﬁcance o f this information will be understood when I say that the voyager who is cast on these desolate shores is little likely to see civilization again unless, by the f o f f f o f avour ortune, he alls in with some the wandering Samoyeds, ready to help him with their reindeer sleighs . But just as a man dropped into the desert from a balloon ma a a y strike a c ravan route, so had we in sense ; because we were encamped by a

n s tidal estuary, and to such spots these ative are wont to come fo r ﬁshing and sealing. Fronia said he had no reindeer o f his 6 THE BELL-SHAPED GULF own ; that he had Spent much o f the summer round this gulf catching ﬁsh ; but that if we f would cross the gul in the boats, we should probably fall in with some reindeer Samo eds w y , and could borro their sleighs, and so reach the Pechora . This Fronia was an exceedingly nice f w f young ello , with charmingly rank man u ners. He spoke much better R ssian than

Ko l uev our g Samoyeds ; or, at any rate, I

could understand him better. He was per

etuall p y asking questions, and learnt all the n f E glish he possibly could rom us . He would indicate each thing in turn and give its Samoyed name twice in the Russian ? way, and then end with, With you what Thus he would point to one Of his dead

N ier i seals and say, p in the Samoyed ; ” n r ? in the Samoyed ie pi. With you what

Having in this way got the name, he would k f wal round repeating it to himsel , correct

Sierrl ing his own pronunciation . , no — a a . siul, no se l ; seal, seal, se l Yes, yes, !

d S ea l. goo . A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

Alexander would have set sail and run

fo r Timanskii away Schar, but the wind still t r held strongly righ into the ent y, and it f the was oggy along land . It was there fore reluctantly decided to unload the boats

w S . at this point, and sto the things on hore

So the boom was used as a derrick, and f the barrels were brought out o the hold . Each o f the boats held a cargo Of a hun

a S . dred barrels, cont ining alted reindeer ﬂesh T a f his meat, obt ined rom the reindeer killed Ko l uev on g , was destined to be sold , and eventually to ﬁnd a market in the towns o f Russia The two boats lay then within a few f o f n eet one a other, and almost dry when the tide was out ; and all day long, in that strange solitude, the work went on . The nearest settlement was a hundred

o f As miles away, where the little villag e kino lay on the Pechora. We were now between the wilderness and the sea ; on one s o f w f ide the monotony the shallo gul , on the other sandhills and maram grasses and — the waste o f bog and willow scrub in 8 THE BELL-SHAPED GULF

The short, the typical tundra . ﬁve Samo yeds who had formed our crew threw them selves heart and soul into the work o f u nloading ; indeed, when I saw the cheer fu lness, perseverance, and skill they brought

f o f fo r to the task, I was ull admiration

A : fo r these little rctic men the Samoyed, though less diminutive than the Eskimo, is still small in stature .

The weather was really pretty miserable, fo r a cutting north wind came over the

- sea, and a ﬁne blizzard snow kept driving. F ronia had had bad luck, and had secured

o f but three seals, on one which the dogs f had g orged themselves the night be ore . Our

Old spaniel Sailor, I was relieved to ﬁnd,

fo r - AS did not care seal meat. there was

u little else to be done, I tho ght I might as w ell go and try my l uck with the seals . At the eastern point o f the entrance to the gulf

S o f o ut a pit sand ran into the waters , and F ’ here ronia s seals had landed . When a

a Samoyed goes se ling, he simply chooses a f fl avourable spot, loads his ri e, and, ﬁxing a 9 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR f f orked stick in the ground be ore him, squats down to wait . He has no need to conceal

f fo r Of Old himsel , the resemblance his skin garments to the mud about him is conceal f f And a ment su ﬁcient in itsel . the se ls swim by in the sea, and raise themselves quite high in the water to look at this new thing.

T tr fo r hey y to smell it, but cannot, the

' n o f wind sets wrongly, the hunter havi g course taken care that the wind shall blow

h is f And t in ace . at las they determine

t o f e r that it is jus a new lump mud , or p

o f haps a bit a dead whale, or a boulder

o f f ff. And o tumbled out a cli one them , grown more brave, comes nearer and nearer ] in, til at last he lies there on the sand,

lo w winking sleepy eyes at the sunbeams, with the hissing wash o f the tiniest wavelets

. T just lapping about his ﬂippers hen , but not — till then, the Samoyed who well knows the — great value o f every S hot stealthily lays his

ﬂint- in f old lock the orked stick, and , look

n ing very deliberately alo g the barrels, pulls. Th S e hot ﬁred, in a moment the motionless , IO

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

in . plaintively, and attract them that way I have frequently tried this plan with suc

b ut s cess ; on this occa ion , although several seals put their heads up high and listened , they evidently mistrusted appearances. Near the point where we sat fo r the seals

- o f was a high sand bank , on the top which

bolva n f was a stone , or idol, about a oot f and a hal high, surrounded as usual by f many horns and bones o reindeer. It was only a stone, though the Samoyeds thought “ ” “ o f us it a great deal it, beca e, they said , ” SO is very old. The Samoyed religion is a form o f

i T f t the Shaman sm . heir chie dei y is god ” am N . Figures intended to represent this god are cut out o f wood or stone and ﬁxed up upon hills or mounds held to be

o f sacred . Many these images are exceed in l g y old, and proportionately held in great veneration .

T balva n his one had been there as a , they

fo r u o f told me, a very great n mber years . f I examined it very care ully, but could not 1 2 THE BELL-SHAPED GULF se e that it had ever been chipped or carved f Th by the hand o man . e Samoyeds insisted f f t that it had a ace, and pointed to its ea ures ;

r fo r but these were quite imagina y, I could f detect nothing o the kind . A little stream ra n out o f a bog and

f AS a cross the sand to the gul . it went

o f down the last slope the sand, it hurried v ery much ; and here I saw a black water

o f - beetle, who had come out the bog water d a n had been carried down by the stream . It was swimming very hard against the ff current, but with its best e orts could not hold its own . Inch by inch it was carried

w a S back ards, till at l st it was wept into the f it salt water, and about a yard rom the edge

Old sank. It was, I suppose , the story f dissatis action with humble surroundings, and — a long ing to see the world : a start all hopefulness a long struggle against adverse

ﬁnall — ? L circumstances, and, y what et us hO e - p he is a salt water beetle by this time, fo r the water w as really only brackish (at lo w

u tide) where he went in, and you can ed cate 13 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR a beetle to almost anything if you g ive it hi m bit by bit . The next morning (September 26th) found f the rigging all ice, the land hard rozen, and a thin skim o f ice along the sands where the

A - tide had sta yed. bout mid day all the Th work was ﬁnished . e barrels were piled

u in two heaps upon the t ndra, and about T them the sealskins were laid . hen the A lexa nder and the M ichael were both s ru n c bbed dow , and we brought our things ashore . The ﬁnding o f a place where tw o boats could he through the winter was a question f o some moment. When the ice breaks up

S —W in the pring hen the river, swollen by the melting snow, comes tearing down, breaking f up the heavy ice , till the whole gul is a confused mass o f immense ice-blocks crash ing up and down between stream and tide, woe be to the boat that has been carelessly laid up ! The Russians walked up and dow n the bank fo r a long time considering this At f point. last they pitched upon a airly I4 THE BELL-SHAPED GULF

s e to th s ecur spot, and this e boat were and e f t to S hauled, mad as the hore with

chain and kedge . ’ As Fronia s little choom a wigwam covered with reindeer skin—was not large fo r all a enough us , we rigged up tent with ar f o s and sails which took us com ortably. Our breakfast on this day consisted o f flat — — fish Arctic flo unde rs which Fronia had — taken with a net from the g ulf and tea so ff we were well o . We were sitting at this

S meal , when a black peck appeared on the f water across the gul . It came nearer and m two nearer, till we could ake out Samoyeds rowing a canoe in their favourite fashion

The face to the bows. boat touched the and two shore, wizened old men got out. They were SO much interested in examining Hyland and myself that fo r a long time they did not speak, only they listened to all that was explained as to who we were and what o f f m doing. One them, whose ace see ed f no t strangely amiliar to me, though I could imagine why, explained that they had been I5 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

n fo r a o f lyi g up se ls, when they caught sight

’ the vessel s mast moving against the sky. And then I found out why his face had

fo r w a s o f Marrk struck me so, he a brother

Ardéo ff , an old Samoyed whom I had known

KOl ue v ‘ Who upon g Island, was in many

a a ways an interesting ch racter. He m naged Alexander’ s brother’ s reindeer away in the

i f o l u Go b sta hills o K g ev . I had li ved some days alone with him and his o ld wife on the occasion o f a visit to some Holy Hills in his

u . neighbo rhood On that occasion, when I proposed to climb a sacred hill in order to

c u Old Marrk inspe t the idols on its s mmit, had thrown himself face downwards on the

u earth , remaining in this posture d ring the

o f f o f whole my visit, earing the vengeance

o d no w w his g . I told our visitor that I kne his

fo r brother well , and what respect I had the him old man . I told how I had visited him

f Go b ista and his wi e on the , and how kind they were ; ho w Old Hare tina had insisted on lying out all one night that I might have their

ier suh Ma rrk little tent, or y , and that had 16

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR o f snow-buntings and lapland-buntings hunt ing all the grassy, sandy ground, and along the edge o f the water hundreds o f sanderlings and f T f ran ed. hey were eeding on small medusa and on a pteropod,o f which great numbers were cast up by the waves . I tried to ﬁnd out from Pro nia something ’ about the Samoyeds o f Yalmal (or Yelme rt s L and), a Siberian peninsula, long known to be one o f their most ancient homes . But he only waved his hand to the east, and said they were very bad, wild people over there, T who used knives, and would kill you . his curious idea, which seems to be generally s hared by the western Samoyeds, must point, At I suppose, to old tribal wars . the same time, it is worth remembering that perhaps the only instance o f unfriendliness among these people o f which we have any record is that given by Stephen Burrough o f the Yalmal Samoyeds who Shot at the early n Norwegia s with bows and arrows . CHAPTER I I

SE ARCH ING FOR SA MOY EDS

H URS DAY 2 th o f e , the 7 Septemb r, broke with a ﬁne light wind from the

s . w The ea t We ere to move away. little gro up in which in Ko lguev days we had held together was to b e broken up by the o f loss the Samoyeds . T here were great farewells that morning. T f hey shook our hands o ten, and said they if would see us again, or not, they would

a T remember us lways . hese Samoyeds

Onas ka Kol uev Sto b ka ( the g prophet, , and three others) had formed our crew They had no reindeer, no boats ; they were going f to walk round the head O the gulf. It was

o ff curious to see them going like this, the men we had know n so intimately and well, I9 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

and brought back to me vividly an occasion on the prairies when we had put an old chief dow n from the train and he walked straight

aw ay from us into distance and void. It

was the same now with these poor Samoyeds. For a little time between us and them the extremes had met o f advanced and o f primi

no w t. tive existence, and it was pas From m the waste they had co e, to the waste they

were going, and they went to their own l T e fo r . n imaf people O y came with us, he

' n A S ama roko ﬂ mer was henchma to lexis ,

f Timafe chant o Askino. In my readers ma f- y remember the hideous, hal witted

all o f Samoyed, who during the time our f di ﬁculties , and especially during those days

fo when we had been held prisoners by g , had reiterated his wearisome chanting taunt o f a far fa r I Engl nd , away so that I used to call him Solomon Eagle. 50 we left in the two small boats and pulled fo r the head o f the bell - Shaped gulf. A In the boat which led were lexander, 20 SEARCHING FOR SAMOYEDS

' ’ Yako ff Po o ﬁ Marrk s e r w ho p , old broth , f came as pilot, Hyland, mysel , and old

Th b fo l Sailor the spaniel . e oat which o A man Andre lowed to k lexis, Vasili, his , Tim f w as no k and a e. It t easy wor ; a

ats e strong east wind got up , the bo wer

a heavily l den, we grounded once or twice

and we shipped much water, but we landed at last o ff a tongue o f land which ran o ut b etween the Ko lo ko lko va a nd Kamb alnitz a

rivers .

a u o f al ess o f th a r Bec se the sh lown e w te , we had to unload the boats some thirty yards in out the water and carry the things ashore . T t no t a his was a long opera ion, and pleasant one with much surf brea king on a

We f f lee shore there ore ormed a line , I taking the things from the boat and carrying

s them to the next man, who pa sed them on.

a u Had the boat been ste dier, it wo ld have

been comparatively easy work, but she was always being lifted and knocked about by

the breakers.

AS n soo as all were landed, I set out with 2 1 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

Alexander and Alexis to try and ﬁnd a ’ party o f Samoyeds whom old Marrk s brother as sured us were encamped in the

w as no t neighbourhood, though he certain

e Af fo r wher . ter we had wandered a long o f time over a very swampy tract tundra,

c f - fo l we ame upon a resh sleigh track, and at a w a lowed this until l st, to rds evening , sweeping the horizon with my telescope, I detected against the distant sky-line a spike or point, which experience told me was ’

s . Of no t a Samoyed choom course, it could na be seen with the ked eye, and my com panions had never mastered the focussing o f my telescope, nor could they ever hold

fo r it still enough observation . But it had so often been a good friend to them before f that they had aith in its powers, and were u f w q ite ready to ollo my lead . On we went, f there ore, until at last it came more clearly

S into ight, and soon we were walking up to a choom surrounded by many reindeer. T w his d elling was occupied by Samoyeds, a who seemed ple sant people, and expressed 22 SEARCHING FOR SAMOYEDS themselves at o nce quite ready to go fo r our belongings if w e wo uld give them time to make up some sleighs ; fo r they had no sleighs that would do fo r carrying boxes

But or any weights . this is not a matter f o much moment to a Sa mo yed . Seizing o f o on a heap ﬁrew od, they all went to work the o f o f with a will, and at end a couple o f o hours had made up , out this r ugh wood

r o and some old runners , th ee go d strong freight sleighs which would carry all our t o ff in proper y well and, going at a gallop, ’ a few hours time they came back in ﬁne

and style, the baggage well packed, Hyland

o n The perched up gaily the top . willing ness which these Samoyeds showed to help was no doubt partly due to the credentials which I carried ; but at the same time it is only fair to them to say that I always found a kind readiness to be o f service o ne o f the most unfailing characteristics o f this m simple no adic race . There were several children about this f choom, and they had bells astened to their 23 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

- clothes, which tinkled like sheep bells and told o f their whereabouts wherever they went. I make the idea a present to mothers in England . The reindeer were much more forward

o n Ko l uev fo r o f here than g , the horns all nearly the bulls were quite clean, and they had their thick white winter coats with beautiful full necks like those in the picture T books . here was a young reindeer whose mother had died just about the time it began f The to feed itsel . children had taken it in

w as no w - hand, and it a well grown , thriving youngster, with sprouting horns . It was ridiculously tame, and would come up and

f r f poke its nose into our hands o ood. It w as fo r really rather a nuisance, it would not keep out o f the choom ; and it is a trial to have a big reindeer calf walking about over you when you are sitting on the ground l at meals. Outside there was a so a privi le ed a co w g old deer as t me as any , who ’ reminded me o f little Wa nka s pet deer on

o l uev . K g Wanka, my readers may remem 24

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

We ate here a kind o f bread which did

no t a v r o f t ste e y well. It was made the u r e sual y dough , but putrid ﬁsh was mixed

T a h m r sa . with it. his bread they called The meal ﬁnished , each person crawled

’ n f The u der a skin with eet to the ﬁre.

women and children kept together, and the

n rest lay in a co tinuous ring all around. f fo r It was not at all com ortable, it rained all night and the rain came dripping through

the choom. I was particularly badly placed , Since a constant stream came through a f w hole above me and ormed a runnel belo . But I could not change my position without

o f fo r spoiling the rest some one else, the

u choom co ld only just hold us all, and we check were lying literally by jowl all round it. There was no silence in the choom un

til far on into the night. It seemed as if they would never stop talking. We were,

o f The as usual, the one topic conversation . whole o f o ur Ko lg uev history was told and f retold o r the twentieth time. Every little point was canvassed and discussed . Ho w

26 SEARCHING FOR SAMOYEDS

t the boa s had gone away, and we had walked across the land ; how we had slept on the bar e ground ; how my eyes had been frozen f m n together ; how we had come ro E gland ,

f o ff n an island even arther tha Norway, right across the sea : o f the way we Shot o f birds, quicker than any themselves ; how o ur dog with such long curly ears brought

in u back his mo th the birds we killed, never e biting them, but yielding th m up to us ; ho w all we collected all ﬂowers and birds, And and even had many bits o f stone. then they ended as they always did This ” w one, pointing to me, all things kno s and all things understands . With that I roared out laughing, and asked whether they would no t like me to make a little kingdom in the ” North here by the Pechora. Yes, yes, t o ne shouted the little Samoyeds wi h acclaim . But Alexander the Russian crossed himself “ The T and said, sar is our king and our ” f ather. He is good. The talking stopped at last, and soon all w ere asleep . 27 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

Alexander had insisted that I should Share with him a large pillow which he ca rried on T his voyages. his I should have declined but fo r fear o f hurting his feelings ; b ut I had

n fo r a n bee asleep about hour or so, when I w as o f awakened by a chorus snoring, and

u A a n f w as partic larly by lex der, whose ace few f Af t but a inches rom my own . ter tha The I did not get to sleep again . choom (with every aperture but the smoke-hole at ff f o f the apex bunged up, and stu ed ull old skins and human beings) became intolerable, difﬁ and presently, steering my way with culty between the outs tretched legs o f the

The a sleepers, I went out into the night. r in

f fo had li ted, there was a g , and it was very

u cold . It wo ld be difﬁcult to imagine any T thing much wilder. hrough a thin place in the fo g -roof the moonbeams found an un

certain way, and whitened a long reach on

e o f the wat rs the lake behind the choom. High overhead you could hear the cries o f

u birds, belated in their jo rney South, and from far away across the tundra came no w 28 SEARCHING FOR SAMOYEDS

a n d n then a hissi g wash, as a larger wave than ordinary broke on the stones o f the

u f And beach by the g l . always, incessant

a nd o f deﬁant, out the white, cold mists that

swept the waste, sounded the hoarse belling

o f b u s fo r n a the reindeer ll , the rutti g se son

f o f was now on, or came more so tly the cry

its a cow to calf. I walked round on the plateau fo r some

time, listening to all these things, and pre

se ntl am f f y c e upon the pet cal , who was eed

f o f ing all by itsel at the edge a creek . It immediately came up and followed me

o in about , p king its nose under my arm s o f f Af f earch ood . ter a little I li ted the ﬂap o f the choom and looked inside ; but the conditions were so much worse after the f f resh outside air that my courage ailed me, so o f w , turning a couple sleighs upside do n , a I crawled underne th , and was presently asleep . CHAPTER III

A JOURNEY WITH REINDEER SLEIGHS

T w as still dark the next morning when a warm tongue licked my face and woke me up. Dear old Sailor the spaniel had come round to tell me it was time to be moving, as f we had a long day be ore us. o f f f So I rolled out my re uge, eeling

fo r still rather sleepy, it had been a very broken night. The women made a great fuss over parting with Sailor. Wherever he went, and long

f the o f u w as a ter this in north R ssia, it the T same. hey had never seen a dog o f that

f -c type be ore, all their dogs being prick ared w olﬁsh n and in appeara ce. His long, silky

n e ears were a consta t d light to them, and his invariable friendliness won their hearts

T o f k at once. hey were never tired stro ing 30 A JOURNEY WITH REINDEER SLEIGHS

a in ca atois a his e rs and saying , their lo l p , t Of o e t mix ure Russian and Sam y d, Pret y ” o er and o n and dog, pretty dog, v ver agai ; it and the Sailor took all as his right, had impudence to growl warningly at any dog o f w ho the place ca me nea r him then . ’ — Soon after six o clock we left ten sleighs

and ft n s f ﬁ y rei deer. We oon ound tha t we

ba d o f to the had a very bit country cross, and o f experiences this one day gave me, I think, a clearer idea o f what reindeer actually ca n do than I had gained from all my previous

rf acquaintance with these wonde ul animals. For the ﬁrst tw o or three hours after the start we never crossed any solid ground at

w as o f all, the whole country either bog or lake. When you are engaged with a long

o f is f n train sleighs in boggy ground, it o te n s r the eces ary to sepa ate and spread out, or crust o f the bog would be broken and the

o n t track hopelessly churned up. But his day we came to a place where this was not possible . n the On the right hand lay a lo g lake, on 31 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

f — — a le t a swamp not a bog, but a swamp wide tract o f land covered with reed -beds and - H i ur zs horse tail ( pp ) , growing in water f rom one to three feet deep . Here and there were also those curious lanes o f deep water which so often form themselves by some Al natural process in a swampy country. though the deer could have eas ily crossed the swamp, the sleighs, drivers, and baggage

n would have become soaki g wet. But the lake was separated from the swamp by a

r w o f na row cause ay higher ground . In places

f e f it may have been six e t wide, but o ten

f u T it was not more than three or o r. his

fo r causeway we had to traverse . It ran about a mile ; sometimes it was formed o f f airly solid peat, but was more usually very

f f the k so t and boggy rom soa age o f the lake.

o f Where it was widest, a team reindeer, ﬁve

as da abre t (as each team was this y) , by crowding up together could j ust ﬁnd a footing ; but at the narrow parts the right

w a r rhu hand deer, or (to use the Samoyed

the ef - word), had to swim in the lake, l t hand 32

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

f f hal that distance , when I heard a shout rom

Hyland, who was just behind me, and, look

w as saw ing back, this what I . His middle f deer had allen , and had all but disappeared

- in a mud hole, and the sleigh had run over f on to the top o it . Its head was underneath the mud , so that you could only see the ff horns sticking up . It took the united e orts o f f Hyland, a Samoyed , and mysel to move ff The the sleigh o the top o f the deer. ground was so soft that we worked nearly up to our waists in liquid mud. I suppose it scarcely took us three minutes, though the

As time seemed much longer. soon as we

n had the sleigh clear, I struggled to the ear

f n est ree reindeer, intendi g to hitch it on to ’ the buried deer s horns and haul it out ; I

fo r scarcely hoped that the animal would live , I felt sure that it must by this time have been

ffo su cated . But the creature soon dispelled all anxiety ; w ith a plunge a nd a struggle it

o f f rose its own accord rom its muddy bed ,

w o f t f ble the mud out its nos rils, shook itsel , A a nd began quietly nibbling at some moss . 34 A JOURNEY WITH REINDEER SLEIGHS horse who had been as badly bogged as this if would, even not disabled, have come out

s r helple s and trembling, and would p oba bly have been useless fo r the remainder Of the day ; but so little w as this deer affected that f fo r f n a ter we had led it a mile or so, aste ed o f to the back the sleigh, we hitched it in

again and w ent gaily on . For now we had

o ut n r r got into a sou der, d ier count y, and

f e u r went on hour a t r ho r in silence, elieved only by the Samoyed grunt that does duty “ r -u Of fo gee p, by the clicking the rein ’ deers hoofs and the Singing o f the sleighs a upon the gr ss. But the going was not

always equally smooth . We came to one

big ditch, in which I thought I saw a pretty f air crossing, though the banks sloped very r suddenly down . You can gene ally get over these places all right if you keep your team

straight, put them at it quickly, and lie right Of back on the sleigh . But one my deer

l Of pu led a little unevenly, and the point the sleigh catching in the ground just as w e w as rea ched the bottom, the whole concern 35 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

f shot over, and I was hal buried in water,

. t snow, and mud I had, however, kept tigh hold o f the driving rein (fo r only a single rein

u is sed), and instinctively seizing the back

o f the sleigh , was hauled out by the team, and

o f d ragged up to the top the bank . Here I m brought y team to a standstill, collected my

un ff g , cartridges, and other e ects, which had ff ﬂown in di erent directions, emptied the

f m n water rom y boots, wru g out my socks a nd u tro sers, and was soon ready to go on a n u f u nco m gai , tho gh I elt very cold and

bl f r o f fo rta e o the rest the day. AS we had no t the least idea where we

r should meet with any Samoyeds, eve y little bit o f rising ground found us anxiously scan A ning the tundra . t last I made o ut with o ne o f w my glass the little conical points hich ,

f choom as I have said be ore, a distant or

fo r wigwam resembles , and this we steered . It proved to be the most spacious and the f best choom we had yet seen . Per ectly new, its birch -bark covering was beautifully red

w e th in colour, and the ﬂap hich conceal d e 36 A JOURNEY WITH REINDEER SLEIGHS

Of the entrance was made same material, instead Of the reindeer skin to which we had

T - hitherto been accustomed. his birch bark c urtain had been so skilfully manipulated

that it w as as ﬂexible as a Persian hanging. The choom belonged to one Michael

Ta leo ff d- ma n , a goo looking young with light ﬂaxen hair ; and though his young f w as difﬁ wi e was a pure Samoyed, it not cult to see that he had Russian blood in

his veins. At m this choom we re ained that night, and Michael asked me through Alexander the Russian whether I would mind going w ith him the follow ing morning to doctor his ’ f f fe w f wi e s ather, who a weeks be ore had cut A his knee very badly with an axe. lexander had told him ho w I had cured complaints upon Kolg ue v ; and although pills and com mon sense had met nearly all these cases, they w S f m ere enough to pread my a e as a doctor.

o f ft So in the grey the morning we le , he and

tw o Of I , with splendid teams deer, and went f s e ull gallop sixteen versts across the wa t . 37 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

fo r It was a crooked journey, we were con stantly winding in and out among little lakes ; s f but at la t we came upon a couple o chooms . ’ All was strangely S ilent ; not a dog s voice

u greeted us, not a child was running abo t.

One choom was standing open and empty, the ﬂap over the door o f the other was

closed. My guide raised it, and we entered . As soon as my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light which came through the opening

- in the top (the smoke hole), I was able to see an old Samoyed lying full length upon

S - in- a reindeer kin . His son law bent over

w ho him, and explained I was and why I

The had come. poor old man regarded me

with much curiosity, as the ﬁrst Englishman f he had ever seen, and a ter asking many

Ko l uev questions about g Island, proceeded

to explain his accident. He had been cut

fo r S ting out a runner his leigh, when the axe

S The lipped and injured his knee. bone

had evidently been injured, and the whole in knee had swollen badly, and was much m f he a t ﬂa ed . His wi e, told me, had been 38 A JOURNEY WITH REINDEER SLEIGHS

no w tending to him, but had gone across the r iver with dogs to bring up the reindeer .

o f fo r She evidently knew nothing doctoring, the man ’s knee was quite bare and exposed to the cold . I had come provided with lint

S and bandag es , which I gave him, and howed him how to make a bread-and-water com

T o f press, and to put it on . hey had, course,

b ut no white bread, only the rye bread which

w u they bake on sticks, which I hoped o ld do

’ as well . The old man s gratitude was most

touching to see. He held my hand long in “ u T his own, and repeated in R ssian, hank ” you much ; yes, yes, very much, over and f over again, so that it was quite di ﬁcult to f get away. But I le t at last, hoping most S incerely that the poor old fellow would him recover. I warned that he must be

fo r ff prepared a sti knee ; but that, he said, if he should not mind, he could only get the

ft o f pain away. I have o en thought the old

man since, and have wondered whether he

recovered . A beautiful Sight awaited me as I left the 39 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

A choom. wide river ran some hundred

fo r u yards away, which, except some c rling o f no w wreaths mist, was ﬂashing in the

morning sun . Several ﬁne reindeer were w swimming across, to ing three boats, on

a o f w as A e ch which a sleigh packed . f t Samoyed woman was sculling a ourth boa ,

c and encouraging the deer with her voi e . They had no t come half-way across before

the entire herd , numbering several hundreds,

w ho and driven by the dogs , barked wildly f behind, plunged in and ollowed .

The morning sun , the mist, the wild — surroundings, the deer some landing and shaking the water from their splendid winter coats, and calling to the remainder, who with horns laid back were gallantly swimming — across made up a picture one cannot easily

d S I was still stan ing lost in the ight, when

I heard a voice behind me saying, in broken “ T fo r Russian, his is him who came to us in our trouble ; this is fo r our friend ; and

d Tale o ff turning roun , there stood Michael , 4o

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR we looked right over the Ko lo ko lko va River

f saw and Gul , and in the distance white glimpses which we were told marked the

o f course the Pechora . The snow fell thickly as we continued our journey, and that evening we came upon a choom, where we were glad to ﬁnd a willow fo r wood ﬁre, and to make ourselves warm

The of the night. occupants this choom T were very unpleasant people. hey were

f- — f f m hal breeds hal Russian , hal Sa oyed f and gave us but a surly welcome . I ancied that they knew Alexander (though he would not admit this), and had had perhaps some w At trading quarrel ith him . any rate, it was clear they did not want us, though they could not well refuse us lodging fo r the A night. white dog crept in to the ﬁre f m while we were there, and ro his laboured breathing and other symptoms I saw at once

' that he was suﬂe ring from internal inﬂa m The o f mation . man, who in spite my pro test seemed quite unable to understand that

o f the dog was ill, told one the children to 42 A JOURNEY WITH REINDEER SLEIGHS

take it out and tie it up with the others . “ ” If u you t rn that dog out into the cold, I “ told him, it will be dead by the morning. s But he only laughed, and said the dog alway

it. had been out, and that it would not hurt The next morning o f course the poor dog

T n r was dead . he they were so ry, and all “ talked angrily and at once. It was the be st reindeer dog they had ; they would ” rather have lost all the others than this, and A so on. What they said to lexander about

n us us I could ever learn, but they talked S over most excitedly with him, and I hall al ways believe that they somehow associated me with the dog’ s death whereas the dog’ s previous condition would have been as clear

as daylight to any yokel here at home. These people were what we S hould call a A f bad lot. lexander was a raid they would do some injury to our reindeer ; so as soon

fo r as it was light, without waiting any break

f o ff ast, we harnessed up and were . We travelled on under rather trying cir

cumstances fo r t , a ﬁne cu ting blizzard snow 43 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

da f drove all that y , and made it very di ﬁcult A f to see . lso because we le t without break

f ca t ast, and had nothing to by the way but

a dried st le bread, which the Russians call

suha r r f , we were not well ortiﬁed against

the cold. But by the evening we came to

Go lo dna f f the Gul , and here we ell in with some Russian peasants at another Samoyed

T f b u t choom . hey had come up rom a little

o f f by the side the gul , where they stayed

fo r f u the ﬁshing. I o nd them there when I

was wandering in the dark that evening, and

T v o f went in . hey ga e me some their

ch sour cream and bread, and little cakes, whi

fo r seemed excellent to me, we had now been fo r a considerable time upon worse

f The b ut u t t e than prison are . was b il en ir ly o f f tur s, and in the middle was a raised

o f S mud square tones and , on which the ﬁre

The s was laid . Ru sian was very hospitable . ” Eat, eat, he said, whenever I paused , as we all sat round one bowl in the Russian

f a nd d n peasant ashion, ipped our bread i to the bowl . 44

A JOURNEY WITH REINDEER SLEIGHS

They told me it had been a very poor

ﬁshing season, and that things generally were

T - n bad with them. hey were hale looki g, f industrious ellows, and the elder man had

u — a f - f his da ghter with him air haired, resh f aced girl, not pretty, but very pleasant in a ppearance as a change from the Samoyed type.

o f It was a night piercing cold, and the

f w u the n snow ell itho t a pause . In morni g old Sailor had a tOuch Of rheumatism in his

. e ft shoulder How ver, when we le we packed

u he him p very warmly on a sleigh, and

S ff soon hook it o . It is remarkable that, t o f u hough an old dog, this , in spite the ro gh w as times through which he passed, the only occasion in all our travels on which he was ever sick or sorry fo r an hour. There was a ﬁne fo x tied up at this choom, remarkable as being entirely red ; not f w as The even on its ace there any black hair. hair on its belly was yellow and not white . There w as no white in its back or brush

nd a only a very little about the muzzle. 45 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

We had seen hundreds o f willow grouse

s o f on the previous day, mo t them so white

a in their winter plum ge that, would they have squatted instead o f standing with heads out stretched, you never could have seen them T against the snow. hese and a single pair o f ravens were all the birds I saw that day . It was now the first o f October by our f English reckoning, and the bird li e was increasing. High up over o ur heads two flights o f f wild swans, fi teen in the first flock, twenty

e the in the next, passed on th ir way to

o f south, and several parties grey and hooded crows Showed that we were nearing

The w o f b e a new country. illow the days f ore had already given place to juniper, and soon we were among the spruce . It was f very cold ; the snow, which drove be ore a

n f north cutti g wind, did not all in ﬂakes, but

e a o f in those s p rate, small , crystalline atoms

u fu s c a re e starry and bea ti l pattern , whi h n ver

n h s see here in England, but are c aracteri tic f s O great drynes and cold . On the ground 46

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR and all were soon deposited in the snow ; the Samoyeds were paid ten roubles fo r their

e trouble, and jumping on their sleighs, th se hardy children o f the waste were soon out o f sight on their way back to the Bell-sha ped f T Gul . here was just one boat lying on our

o f e unsea side the str am ; it was a small,

- f worthy looking cra t, but the Russians thought

e a nd that th y could manage a crossing in it, send a bigger boat back ; and indeed it did fﬁ A not look a very di cult job. So lexander,

Yako ff A . But lexis, , and I embarked we had

f o f been deceived . In ront us was a long w f island, which protected the ide stretch o f water on the nearer side rom the wind, and all went well till we reached this. No sooner, however, had we rounded its northern point than we could see we were in fo r a bad

n n thi g. Our boat would have taken over o e

f w s person well enough , but with our in it a f r in a too heavily laden, her gunwale being ’ w And deed close do n to the water s edge. the river that no w lay betwee n Askino and o urselves was coming along in front o f the 48 A JOURNEY WITH REINDEER SLEIGHS

r n gale, torn into great rollers with ang y, broke

o f tops. We shipped a good deal water, but

all f got through right at last, a ter a severe pull, with nothing worse than a soaking ; but

r f although it really was ather a doubt ul time, I

u co ld not help being amused at the Russians ,

r who, whenever a bigger wave than ordina y threatened to overwhelm us, shouted at it all

if As together, as that could do any good . the proper landing place was too exposed and it too dangerous, we dared not attempt ; but passing on, we presently managed to pull in o f i behind a spit sand, and haul ng up the b As oat, began to walk up to the village .

w e we reached the proper landing place, f o f f ound a crew our men , who had seen us

o ff crossing, just ready to put in a large boat f r f o those we had le t behind . It was not

f all long be ore were brought across, and so we reached the town o f Askino- the ﬁrst point o f civilization we had seen since we

o f o S n sailed out Vard harbour in the pri g. CHAPT E R IV

ASKINO

E in England, and in these days, can perhaps hardly conceive o f the con dition o f life in a high northern Russian vil — lage Here in E ngland where the daily pulse o f the markets is synchronous with that o f Rio or Ceylon ; w here thought is trans ferred but a trace less quickly than thought is formed Where the hind in the tap - room o f the remotest seaport keeps touch with labour movements through the daily press ; Where the clerk takes his holiday in Switzerland or e t Spain , and y by a strange contradiction a neighbour ten miles distant seems a neigh — bour far away here we cannot now conceive

f . o living with these conditions changed Nor,

indeed, could we go back in thought down the ages o f our history should we come upon 50 ASKINO

an exact parallel to the life lived tod ay in

these small settlements. For nearly half the year the sun never

S m ! T hines. No daylight ; i agine it hink

o f o f disco m these months darkness, not as a

f t fo r inse a r or , one winter, or two or three, p

f A re able rom an rctic expedition, but as a current feature in every year throughout the

f A n whole o f your li e. d then the isolation — ﬁve hundred miles from your nearest town ; a thousand miles from the nearest railw ay station ; separated from these by

t o f a f belt on bel waste, mor ss, and orest, dependent on a voyage certainly o f three if f days, and the weather is un avourable

o f a week or even more, up a river to the “ ” nearest road, and this but a track cleared A o in the wilderness. skin in these respects is like a dozen other little villages in Arctic

u s R s ia.

Yet these people, isolated in this way f m o f f o f ro the heart the li e their country, are at least as advanced as corresponding

c o w n a . T lasses in our l nd hey read, they 51 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

t o f wri e, they are keen men business ; they if have their municipal government, that is o f the word ; at any rate, they have a sort — mayor a sta r shina he is called . Vasili

ff A S a maro koff Popo , servant to lexis , who

Ko l uev starshina was with us on g , was to be this year ; he had been elected then, but had not as yet, so to say, taken over the seals. But nearly all their trade is referable to the sea and the tundra. For the sealskins and furs o f all kinds collected by the Samo yeds pass through the hands o f these small o f northern traders, who, like the servants

’ the Hudson s Bay Company, are middlemen between the trappers and the dealers in the towns.

A o h v o f skin , w ich is a illage seventy

e eight houses, is p rhaps more markedly a Samoyed centre than any other town o n the

Pechora. Here alone one ﬁnds the Samo yed tongue spoken by the Russians them selves ; fo r here the Russian lads between the ages o f fourteen and nineteen are sent a d the m o f way to live on the tun ra, in choo s 52 ASKING

the Samoyeds, to acquire their language and to learn their ways .

A o On the whole, skin on its island is more actually out o f the world than any town or ’ v illage I have seen in the Tsar s dominions . Ust Tsilma is a metropolis compared w ith it ; but the n Ust Tsilma is distant a ﬁve ’ fo r days voyage by water, there is no road

its worth name between the two. You will

r o ft natu ally ask how the people subsist, cut f rom the world like this. In the ﬁrst place the labour is almost entirely done by Samo

e ds f fo r y , and is as o ten paid in vodka, tea, T or clothing material as in money . here appeared to me to be a constant running account between the Samoyeds a nd their

employers , the balance always against the

A o f f Samoyeds. ctual want ood there

The ﬁsh never is . Pechora abounds in , o f which Alexander gave me the following

n e : o m l list (I spell the ames phon tically) y ,

na hlim s o m a ie le t S chirr, sik, , y g , p y , hukar,

n e lma o rkhun sa ild ko o mz ha y , , yass, , goletz , ,

rrz sh m o . Of s s o a y the e the y g , or salmon, is 53 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

accounted the best ; while from o myl (Sa lmo amy l) and Sik (ﬁsh resembling bream) they

hr i T ee a . e. . make , caviare his caviare we often ate quite fresh ; it is o f a light

o f A o yellow colour. Most the skin mer

b u chants own reindeer, and they also y rein A deer meat from the Samoyeds . little rye

is grown round the village, and so they get T a their black bread . here is a we lthy mer

Sib iria ko ff o f . chant St . Petersburg, M , who sends a steamer up round the coasts once or

v in ff twice e ery year, sell g to the people snu , ff ﬂour, sugar, tea, and cotton stu s, and cheap

T b u ornaments. hese the little merchants y, dealing them out again in exchange fo r

But labour and skins. there is no shop f A o ront in skin . Everything is stored out

o f S A f m ight. airish trade see s to be done

- T in cloud berries. hese are packed in bar

rels and boxes, and ﬁnd their way down

h T r w sout hese wild ber ies, hich are like

in e e raspberries app aranc , but rather taste

r s less, are considered to be, when p e erved

m ff o f u ru . in , an e ective preventive sc rvy 54

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

o f own home , one the best houses in the

f u place . His greeting with his wi e, abo t whom he had SO often spoken to us on Ko l

uev w as ff g , most a ectionate, though he took no notice o f her or o f his little children until he ha d said prayers before the ihan in the

. T ih n i o f room hese o are pictures saints, f T be ore which burn lamps or candles . hey always occupy a prominent place in the S it

- f . ting room , and o ten every room has one

T o f his, the ﬁrst duty every good Greek h Catholic on entering a ouse, is in my ex pe rience no where so faithfully observed as among the northern peasantry . I do not think that you could ﬁnd anywhere a more

’ f A ha d united amily than lexander s. He

e b en married twice, and by his ﬁrst marriage

no w o f had one son, a lad about nineteen,

S f who came in on a leigh to greet his ather, f rom the choom away on the tundra, where fo r the last seven years he had been living

the d in de m with Samoye s, or r that he ight thoroughly speak their language and be a skilled reindeer manager. He was a good 56 ASKING

f e r a looking young ellow, with ch e y and ple sant manners. Four months had now gone by S ince I had

fo r a n a a e had a good bath, occ sion l hurri d dip in the sea between the ice ﬂo es or in an icy stream was but a poor substitute for a n English tub and Hyland had not eve n done f as much . I elt therefore that a ba th w as

r f necessa y be ore anything else, and insisted

s w as on Hyland having one also. While thi preparing, they promised us tea, and already the samovar was steaming very pleasantly ’ m r k ff . Sa a o o s m The in Mrs roo . things we ate seemed very good to us then, though

m The smeta na it was but a si ple meal . ,

ha llatch or junket, appeared again , with ,

collab the hard ring bread, and , the scones

T hva ss or cakes. hen there was (the

o f - weakest swipes like beer) , and tea with f f lemon, resh milk, bee , and reindeer meat,

ff o f and di erent kinds ﬁsh . The news o f our arrival had already h spread, and w ile we were at tea an old

u s t n w R s ian wi h a lo g hite beard appeared . 57 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

S ee I have come to them, he explained, “ f o w as he entered . I said to my wi e, N ’ And I go quickly to look. look he did

with a vengeance. We might have been A m f o . ztecs, or so e other sort show It was

rather discomposing to be stared at like this. Poor Hyland found it particularly trying fo r

o n the old man, standing with his hands his

u f knees, stared hard p into his ace. Pre

sentl h f A y he raised imsel , and said to lex “ ’ ’ i ” “ ” ander, What s this one s name Hyland ,

A H lum lexander returned. y , said the old

reﬂe ctivel e man y, as he dropp d into his former attitude fo r another long deliberate ’ H lu m m look ; y why, he s a Sa oyed

A t n o f f The s ri g visitors ollowed . priest

m locum ca e, Father Nicholas. He was a tenens f fo r AskinO rom Pustozersk, the priest

T s had died . his prie t was a young, good looking, and very intelligent man. He ate nuts and smoked cigarettes, and told us all f the news o these parts. He was particularly f inquisitive about Ox ord University. No thing would convince him that I was no t 58 ASKING

f e s a Pro essor. He p rsi ted in attributing my deprecation o f that honour to my native “ f m modesty. But you have a degree ro there ; you have come o ut now to inquire

f l u v into the natural sciences o Ko g e . You

u es Pro will write abo t this ; y , you are a ” fo s Af f s or. ter this I ancy my importance ’ in Alexander s eyes fe ll conside rably. He had never believe d that I had come all this way simply to ﬁnd out about birds and

u ﬂowers. He could never nderstand that any grown man could possibly conce rn him self with such triﬂes ; and had alw ays been trying to ind uce me to admit that I was

a n o f really emissary the Governor, who was going to fortify Ko lg ue v fo r military purposes .

And sometimes, on the other hand , he had betrayed a suspicion that I had been sent to report on the trade which the island did ; and as his family had kept this so very quiet fo r f n v orty years and more, he aturally iewed

u Bu such an inq iry with some dismay. t now the priest’ s assurance had evidently eased his mind . 59 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

‘ ’ After the priest came the priest s clerk .

He ca me several times. I never exactly determined w hat his functions were . I saw

n him in a cassock, and I saw him cryi g something in the street ; not shrimps or

f o f oranges, but I ancy an account something that had been lost ; so probably he was the w to n crier as well as clerk . Wherever he

he o f came brought with him a pen, a bundle

r f m yellow pape s, ramed al anacks emblazoned w o f n ith pictures, chieﬂy saints (but i cluding

Mr. Gladstone) , and a mysterious cloth w covered box, hich were apparently insignia o f f n a nd o ﬁce . He had very lo g hair, a

s o f v most a tonishing cast countenance. I ha e just been looking at a sketch I made o f him ;

fo r n it is all the world like a stage assassi , or the wicked uncle in the Babes in the ” Wood. He annoyed me very much by

suf constantly wanting to kiss my hand . I fered a great deal in Russia through people n who wa ted to kiss me . It is meant well, n but it is irritati g, and opposed to our ideas .

n n w as and By the eve i g the bath ready, 60 ASKINO we turned o ut again across the snow to have a Russian bath . The bath -house in AskinO is primitive a log hut, the crevices ﬁlled in with moss, for two compartments, an outer a dressing

- T room, and an inner, the bath room . his f f room was urnished only with a urnace,

u S The f a b cket and a lab. urnace , open at

The the top , was filled with charcoal . bucket held water and a bundle o f birch twigs, and on the slab we lay like flat fish . The o f damp heat, characteristic Russian

w as baths, insured by the very simple device o f sprinkling water on the hot cha rcoal with the broom. By repeating this at intervals you gradually raised the temperature to the

f - It o . neighbourhood boiling point was best,

o u as y swished the broom at the charcoal, to escape rapidly backwards in the same

if o f movement, you could, because the - f w bursting steam cloud which ollo ed . So you melted away, ﬁnishing up with a bucket ful o f o t cold water, and ﬁnally came u into the snow a ne w creature . 6I A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR After this we were clothed in Russian peasant costume until our own clothing had

fo r - been washed . It needed it, washing day in Ko lg uev with snow-water a nd no soap

‘ w had al ays been a very disappointing event . The dresses that we no w assumed were those commonly worn by the traders and

: f - S f peasants long elt knee boots , kin ca tan

Th S r . e (or coat) , trousers, and shirt hi t is m f f the ost striking eature, though its ull beauty is only obvious indoors. For then, f with the ca tan removed, the shirt is the

T o f outer garment. hese shirts are usually w hite or brown calico ; the tails (worn out side the trousers) are embroidered in coloured

ﬂowers, which run also round the neck and w f A the wrists and do n the ront. ltogether they are very pretty. Life d uring the few days we spent in

AskinO no t f A was particularly event ul. lex f f ander had visits rom all his riends, and in every case the same etiquette was o b ll . A served callers were given tea, and while it was brewing v isitor and host sa t o n 62

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR happened that I had locked in my box a

bolva n Samoyed idol, or , and while on the ship, during the crossing, the severe storms which we experienced were attributed by the supersti tious crew to my possession o f this

Y k ff u thing. a o in partic lar had been most t troublesome abou it, and on one occasion f had tried to steal it rom me . It was curious

f n a ter this to come upon him here, e gaged

f u o f in the peace ul occ pation shoemaking ,

it m was which see ed his trade. I could not

w t b o lva n help just t i ting him about the , but he took it very well . You would have throw n me and my b o lva n into the sea if ’ Yako ff ? you could , wouldn t you , I said ; f but we are both here, you see, quite sa e . ” f The b lvan m . o is in y box, a ter all Poor

Ya ko ff a , he only shook his head , and s id ,

b o lva n t Bad storm , bad , and wen on sew

S ing hoes . It occurred to me that it would be inter esting to have some o f the Samoyeds wi th their reindeer, chooms, and general belong A ings on exhibition in London . ccordingly 64 ASKING

I asked Alexander w hat could be done in

. Af that way ter talking it over, it seemed

1 f r 1 R 00 o 000 . that reindeer could be bought , and that each head o f a family would expect

00 f f r ee o . A 3 R . as a coming lexander said he could bring them all to Mezen on the

White Sea, where a boat could meet them, and that he would come as manager and

But o f interpreter. course the idea came to nothing.

T - f AskinO The here was little bird li e at .

r ﬂ grey or hoodie crows were eve ywhere, y ing in long strings up the river side and wrangling in any odd corner among the houses o f the village over such choice mor sels as they could ﬁnd . Magpies also sat on the drying-lines and picked at the reindeer skins till they had clea red o ff the scantiest

o f fa bits t.

d The I took Hyland to a village wed ing. daughter o f one o f the merchants was m m n f Pus sersk arrying a young a rom to . A wedding in Arctic Russia is not different f m t ro a Greek Ca holic wedding elsewhere, 65 F A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR a nd the quaint features o f this ceremony are well known no w to every one. One part o f the function is particularly impres sive, that where the bride and bridegroom , w with crowns on their heads, are led ith joined hands by the priest three times round

o f T the book the Gospels . hat evening we went by invitation to the wedding supper, at w e ma f o hich th re were ny curious o ds, and d w o f vo ka played a great part . We ere, h T t e o f . course, subject much interest hey told us they had not had an E nglishman

fo r n -ﬁ t in the place twe ty ve years . In hat year there was a wreck on the coast, and

in ff the English crew were brought , su ering

f f - terribly rom rost bites, and remained in A o skin till well enough to be sent on .

The m v v erchants were ery inquisiti e , wanting to know the exact cost o f our boots and clothes . Incessant curiosity like this becomes very

a t t tiring, and las , when they tried to ﬁnd

o f out the price a ring I was wearing, I told it them that really I did not know, as had 66 ASKINO

fa r f a s been a present. But that was rom s ti f in n y g them, so I me tioned laughingly some T it small sum in kopeks . his, appeared, annoyed them so much that the following mo rning a deputation arrived and had a long and noisy palaver w ith Alexander about it. t t I sat in my room wri ing, un il he came in

d fo r to say that they wante an apology, they considered it very rude that a stranger

e t should com and accep their hospitality, and then refuse to give them such simple

f o f in ormation as the price his clothes . The same morning Alexander came into m m “ w y roo and said , I kno you are anxious to be going home. It is necessary that you should start from Ust Tsilma ; b ut it is 200 f if versts rom here, and we were to set you on the other side o f the river you would be ff The f no better O . swamps are not rozen

s up, and there is no road through the den e f m T o orest. You ust go to Ust silma by b at. It often takes us more than a week if the

f b ut n wind is un avourable, with the wi d ” northw est you may do it in ﬁve days. 67 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

n f Had I been alo e, I should have elt no concern about hurrying my departure ; but I could not escape from a sense o f responsi ’ b ilit u y on Hyland s acco nt. Hyland was a young man who had served his apprentice ’ ln f ship a grocer s store . He was urther gifted with those instincts in the securing o f ” ame w hich g , while they occasionally get their

o f a possessor into trouble, are yet sure meas ure o f sympathy in a sporting country

. r such as ours He was a ve y good trapper,

f un and a air shot with a g , and did a little bird stuﬂi n g in odd moments. Having tried his f f in ortunes , not very success ully, the United

States, he had returned to England, and, led n by the desire to get married, had just ope ed

n t o f a little gree grocery store. In spi e this, he was very anxious to engage himself as camp-servant and bird-skinner to the expedi

fo r s f tion , he had assured him el that he could

b usmess leave his in capable hands. He f fo r had there ore been engaged three months,

e en o f d n the intend d l gth the expe itio . Had all gone well we should have been home long 68 ASKINO ago ; b ut the ice having cut us o ff from o ur

no w A u n ship , we were in rctic R ssia, with a lo g fﬁ f and di cult journey still be ore us . Hyland had al ways been reckoning upon the trade which Christmas would bring as the turning t point in his business, and expressed grea anxiety lest he Should lose it by not being on

f v the spot. I had there ore gi en him my

e t word that, come what might, I would g him home in time fo r this ; fo r I realized ho w seriou sly it migh t affect his praiseworthy f f T attempt to make a resh start in li e. his digression has been necessary to explai n once and fo r all why it was that I made so much effort to keep pushing on under cir cu mstances too difﬁcult to be attempted o n

f r any lesser excuse. Not that I claim o a moment the smallest credit fo r this resolution

u on any grounds on the contrary, I am q ite s ure that I welcomed this excuse o f a pro mise to Hyland as one that [ ﬁtted in excel le n l w t o w n m k t y i h my hu our. I ma e no

w fo r doubt I should have pushed on anyho , at the bottom o f all this was frankly that love 69 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

o f weathering difﬁculties which is an instinct

n with every E glishman . A So now, to begin with, I told lexander to engage a boat, and that we would start that very evening.

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

e t to g out aga in w as a serious undertaking.

However, we had on the ﬂoor several rein S A t deer kins, which lexander had len us, so The at all events we hoped to keep warm . old dog Sailor was, at any rate, quite clear on this point. He quickly found out the

fo r cosiest corner and was instantly asleep, by this time he was fa r too accomplished a

triﬂeS S traveller to be concerned at ; leigh , it or sea, or river boat, was all one to him . S A It is a plendid thing to be a dog. dog

n can ﬁt i to any corner, is never troubled by fo r w ff thought the morro , and never su ers f o f rom want sleep . Though t fo r the morrow reminds me o f our stores. T hey were not very varied. We had tea,

r t A t d ied ﬁsh , butter, and li tle cakes . the ’ very las t moment Alexander s son came ’ w e e - l do n with a r ind er s hind eg . I took -b t it as a possible stand y, and li tle guessed ho w u inval able it was destined to prove. I had given Alexander fo r his trouble all the money I possessed, with the exception 72 ON THE PECHORA o f fa f r I o s the re o the boat. Besides s rouble

n him and some Norwegia money, I gave my aneroid and the little compass which had

us Ko l u v T t carried across g e . his las was the one thing I would have kept, but he was so anxious to have it that I could not f f u . S re se I elt, indeed , that, as we hould have been doomed to spend a winter on desolate

Ko l uev fo r g but him, nothing that I could

f n To do in return should be le t u done. his f wi e I gave my one English sovereign, that

But she might wear it as a brooch . these t f n presen s le t me absolutely pe niless, and ho w we were to get on henceforward I T really did not know. For Ust silma, I o f was well aware, was now out touch with T all the world . here was no post, no com municatio n u with anywhere, because d ring this time between the autumn and the winter all the roads were impassable and closed .

fu - It was not a cheer l look out, but circum m stances had ade me a philosopher , and at any rate nothing more could be done .

no w th o f It was the 4 October, and on 73 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

° this day the thermometer fell through I 5 o f f All w t rost. day a strong wind ble agains w us, with much sno , and the water on the oars froze up at once and had to be chipped o ff fo r f the blades, rom accumulating ice, r grew round and heavy as clubs. I was sor y fo r the poor old helmsman , he looked so blue ; but our kettle had been forgotten by some carelessness, and we had no spirits, so I could Th not warm him up . e three men at the

r fo r oa s were less to be pitied, the motion kept them warm . Only three men could row

w a at once, but ith two Russi ns and two

S Samoyeds we had one pare man, and I had

a mshstchik bargained with our y , Vasili, that we should not stop till we reached our point . T It his day we passed a willow tree .

fo r came upon me quite as a surprise, I had not seen a single tree since leaving Norway

in the spring. Early in the following morning we stopped a t a v a Purlimet little ill ge named , and here I bought a kettle. 74 ON THE PECHORA

All t a the next day we wen up the Pechor .

The scenery had suddenly changed. Instead o f the lo w shore line with patches o f scrub no w f s willow, we were in between lo ty bank f with a dense orest on the top. Very splendid in its autumn dress the forest looked to our

u unaccustomed eyes . Great spruce ﬁrs p shed

f a their tops into the sky, and rom their rms streamed the lichen like locks o f tangled

- grey green hair, as you only see it in these A northern lands . gainst this sombre back f ground larches shone, as it were, till their so t fringes seemed like rays o f light ; fo r winter w as e f t a ] clos upon them, and the ros had ready turned their green to gold . Below

- - this again dog wood, bramble, mountain ash, and all the wealth o f the forest tangle ﬂamed

o f in a blaze colour. Under it all lay the s now like a sheet under the damson trees at f f time o berrying. But only in corners o the little bays behind the backw aters could you see this in perfection ; fo r where the rive r ran in long straight reaches o f a league or more a ruder sight met the eye . 75 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

You know abo ut the Pechora You know how this great wa terway (beside which our T m in own hames is a sum er brook) , rising

fo r a the Urals, winds down a thous nd miles o f f mountain and orest and flat, till it breaks up into a delta o f rivers and islands and finds the Arctic Ocean ? For half the year it is f z n f ro e solid, and becomes the great tra fic f l highway through the wastes o al that land . But in early summer comes a great and f destructive change . For the water, reed earliest in the warmer districts near its source, rapidly rises , and is banked up against

w It is fo the ice belo . not very long be re these barriers are altogether too feeble fo r f The the tremendous orce behind them. water raging down cuts out great channels w beneath the ice, and at last breaks up ards

o f T with the noise a itanic cannonade, crack ing and rending the ice- cover which had held it T o f down . hen begins a period havoc ir

its resistible and immense . Nothing but own

- O n exhaustion can stay the ice laden ﬂoo d . ward it sweeps, widening out on either hand 76 ON THE PECHORA

Of far The ten into the forest lands. largest trees go down before it and are washed like r in straws into eddies, where they st and piled f con usion . Here they will remain, the brush wood pushing up amongst them and dying t there, leaves accumulating about hem year

e u s by y ar, the tr nks themselve slowly rotting and new mounds being added thus to the con

f o f s f ormation the ground, until perhap a ter ’ f many years interval, ollowing the changes in

s n . the levels, the water come agai that way T hen they are once more unearthed, and — carried o ff the rotten wood all turned to — mud to be thinly spread as alluvial soil fo r new h o f f growt orest seeds . The amazing force o f this yearly devasta tion w as abundantly evident in w hat lay f no w The ff be ore us . river cli s, carved into

n fo r e nd great co tinuous terraces miles on , marked wi th unmistakable accuracy the

r o f f va ying heights the ﬂood . Into the orest itself above the cliffs the torrent o f water

and ice had swept, levelling the giant trees n and everythi g which came in its pathway, 77 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR so that often this wreckage lay like swathes o f - hay grass a mile inland on either side . Far in the forest I found the remains o f a f ﬂ boat, carried and le t there by the ood . For I

n Old la ded once or twice to give Sailor a run,

w as and see what game about. But besides f blue hares I ound very little to shoot. Among the undergrowth I came upon m o f any patches black and red currants . The bushes were covered w ith bunches o f t the berries, though they were all hard wi h f the rost. I was surprised to ﬁnd how large

a these grew . Even the black curr nts were fa f ir in size, but the red currants were o ten not smalle r than the best in our E nglish gardens . “ We caught a nahlim with a hook and

w e t line as wen along one day, and ate it fo r w as u co dﬁsh lunch . It m ch like a in

no t s a appearance, and did ta te particul rly well .

t f o n - e s Wi h a strong wind r m the orth w t,

w w a s which , though it brought much sno , all

fa f w a . in our vour, we made air y 78

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

u . The me p boat had stopped, and every thing seemed still only from a corner by my f eet came a rhythmic sound o f snoring. h f w Somet ing also lay heavy on my eet, hich

I judged must be old Sailor. With that I struck a light and kicked my feet about to move the dog .

The result w as as surprising as unexpected . f Up at my eet scrambled our steersman ,

o f Vasili, protesting in a voluble jumble pro “ vincia l Russian that he had barrels to land , ? barrels , did I understand he had not been ’ b ut asleep, and he didn t want to stop, nothing f d could be done be ore aylight, with much more which I could only half make out. The f act was that the poor man, not yet

o f the well awake , was scared out his wits by f shaking and the sudden light, and a raid o f fo r being punished stopping the boat, afraid also o f losing his money ; fo r his con “ tract strictly enjoined no stopping till Ust

T a silma was re ched. ’ - I don t think I am hard hearted . I know,

ff a in short, that I have su ered again and gain 80 ON THE PECHORA on my travels from treating too kindly the

men . I have employed But, I reﬂected in a

n moment, this was a juncture in the jour ey

S which hould not be let go by. For every one insisted that the roads being literally impassable we should never get further T if than Ust silma, or that we went on f f rom there we must inevitably come to grie , and probably lose all we possessed. It was clear enough to me that an estimate o f my character would ﬁlter ahead from

a mshstchik amshstchik wa y to y , as the y is

if d no w in such a country, and that I yiel ed

I should be considered a greenhorn , and humbugged accordingly. So that men could go to sleep without permission could clearly

o f. f ln not be thought While, there ore, I w a rdly determined that I would stop in the morni ng and let them rest (fo r they had already been working hard fo r very many

no w u hours), I insisted that they sho ld land

o ff S the barrels and be , or I hould only pay f them hal the contract money. f Here we were met by another di ﬁculty. 8 1 G A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

W men hen the began to move, I dis covered to my disgust that tw o Samoyeds who f rm o f o f o ed part our crew ﬁve men, having reached the village where they were em

o ff ployed, had already crept into darkness, without the slightest intention o f coming

f f a o f back. With great di ﬁculty rom w nt light we managed between us to land the

o n - barrels, and then moved , short handed by o f w o the loss t men .

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

s could be seen . Sometime I made him sing, and then he launched o ff into one of the e a xtraordinary nas l chants that, among

fo r . the northern Russians, do duty a song But the music came through the fur wrappers ‘ o f muﬂled n d his hood with a , conﬁde tial soun ,

f o u like a raven talking to himsel , as y hear

in Z A o o . t them the night, too, he would o ff o f r sometimes start his own acco d , and then

f fo r he apparently reed his mouth, he sang much more loudly, and it was not a little weird to hear, in the darkness, these barbaric cadences rising and falling in time to the oars . ’ Vasili s chief diversion lay in del uding me

d no t about istances . He did do this mali cio usl o f y, but by way encouragement and to At keep his charges in good tempers. every group o f huts we passed he would tell ” the distance from Okshin in versts (a verst

- o f is about three quarters a mile) , and , accord

u ing to his prono ncements, we were by this

tw o - o f T time thirds the way to Ust silma, ’ had in f whereas we still, act, a three days 84 ARRIVAL AT UST TSILMA

f Th w n journey be ore us. e distance bet ee the two towns was originally to have been

1 0 Kemo vka 9 versts . But when we reached , o n 6th Saturday, October , Vasili , in the

o f f me best spirits, in ormed we were doing

fo r f-w a very well, we were now exactly hal y , “ ” a nd T had only 1 20 versts before us . his

f- in was at hal past eight the morning, and no w I told the men we would wait here and

But a o f S . that they might go to leep , inste d

o ff f this, they went to see their riends, and returned later on with evident symptoms o f too much vodka drinking.

Ke mo vka o f , a village some twenty huts, f o f . The was ull dogs and salmon nets dogs,

o f r a ﬁne jumble cu s, paid just as great

’ respect to old Sailor s deep bass growl as

l K mo vk the dogs used to do in Ko g ue v. e a

fo r - -u was remarkable its well set p, handsome

The w m men . omen, who work in the roo

- f f bare legged, requently went rom house m to house with no additional rai ent, except

a o f n a p ir loose woode clogs, and yet seemed happy enough in spite o f the freezing 85 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

c fo r n f ea fo r old, it had bee reezing st dily now s nd th The a e r . day , ground ang like iron e e f people here w r charming and riendly, and

all had a kind word to say. In one house I f the ound woman knitting in many colours,

f in - and the man making string o r ﬁsh g nets . A simpler contrivance fo r string- making

could scarcely be devised. Pulling out f o f to w w strands rom a bundle , he t irled them in his ﬁngers and wound them round a

o f T f conical bit wood hen, astening one o f S end the strands to the ceiling, he pun the w wood between his ﬁngers, drawing it do n d f war s at the same time, and rom this simple

o f ﬁne - action resulted yards drawn twine , as even and as regula rly formed as any you T may buy in the shops at home. hey were

- - w f a well to do couple, o ning our horses and f w fo r our co s, and here, the ﬁrst time in our

ne w . wanderings, we drank real milk

Hyland, who had long ere this lost all

s f w a s intere t in Russian li e, sleeping in the boat ; but when I woke him up with the advice that he should come and have 86

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

S to leep, while I landed and prowled in the f orest. “ ” The silence o f the great forest ! What a trite expression it has become ! One wo uld be led to think that the depth o f the forest

f . T was a soundless, li eless void here is just

o f o f a touch truth in this, but more want

o u —he observation . He who only pushes , whose ca r has not been trained to listen nor his eye to catch the small, quick movements o f w f t ild animal li e, may very well pass righ

u o ut o f f - thro gh and the orest land, haunted by an abiding sense o f silence and solitude

ma n w h and almost death . But the o has friends in the birds and other creatures may

if n if always ﬁnd them he will ; and, i deed, he knows their w ays and ho w to keep them

f o f rom alarm, many them will come to meet him in a curiosity which seems half a companionship and half a resentment o f

intrusion . — Leave the village o ur village o f Ke — movka fo r an instance and wander straight back into the forest Round about every ARRIVAL AT UST TSILMA

n i little huma centre, such as this, certa n birds w t w al ays ga her, o ning an existence semi T dependent upon man . he grey crow s come in here, keeping in ﬂocks like the rooks

r o f England, and searching eve y inch ground fo r f f n the smallest bits o ood. Eve in the village itself they cater absol utely without f ear, sitting on the lines and picking the drying reindeer skins clean o f every bit o f fat T or meat. hey do no damage to the f skins, and are there ore welcomed as very us fu l r e l tanners . Magpies a so sha e their

in w interests, keeping t os or threes or T scarcely larger companies. hey may haunt

’ s f f f al o the orest s ringe, but are never ound f r a inside .

f e Entering the or st, the wind , which has so fa r l blended all noises into one genera chord,

o ff is suddenly shut , and the village sounds f e m ade out, as the tre s and the distance kill the

u e s one by one. H man voic s are the ﬁr t to cease ; but fo r long a fter these have stopped comes the regular fall Of hammer and axe ; then these are less and less, until nothing 89 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

meets the ea r but perhaps the ﬁtful voice o f a do t the wandering g , and hen village is lost T entirely. his is the silent moment , just this o f passing from the last touch o f human care and interest to the unchallenged liberty

o f an f f another though ordered li e. For li e

in enough there is, ringed about not, truth,

b ut w o f s d with silence, ith a hush uspende

a u sound . It is as though the gre t g ardian a trees , which st nd around , turn their backs to the clamour and the uglinesses o f human things, and shoulder to shoulder close in a charmed exclusive ground, where the drama that has run on unchanging through all the s o f centurie outside change, is played and watched and lived unweariedly through the moonlights and the suns . There is a little chucke ting voice up in tha t

Old w w pine , hich increases, ith sharp jerky interludes, as you creep nearer through the

f . S ern It is the ilver squirrel, who, annoyed l at your intrusion, cha lenges in this way the

u liberty you take . Sho ld you remain quite ff ff h still and a ect indi erence, he will run rig t 90

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

a f le rnt rom one another, yet their manners AS are the same. soon as they ﬁnd that a human be ing is about (and they very quickly discover it) they come round and talk to him f as to an old riend . Quite close they come and ﬂy from bough to bough o f the nearest n bushes, even hopping alo g the ground and

n f taking a y ood he may put in their way. And all the while they are talking incessantly

nd f a with the most astonishing range o note. T hey are accomplished mimics, and not only

o f n treat you to the voices ma y birds, but also pipe musically through the whole o f the gamut.

th fo r On the 7 we pounded up our milk, it f f was rozen solid , and such a gale blew rom the north from noon on that day till midnight that the men were thoroughly beaten. I therefore sent two o f them to sleep while

I took my place at the oar, and directed

r H yland to do the same . I was ve y glad to have this opportunity o f giving

n fo r Hyland some occupatio , the poor fellow had become thoroughly attacked by 92 ARRIVAL AT UST TSILMA home-sickness and found the greatest difﬁ

in f S culty rousing himsel , constantly leeping

fo r during the day many hours on end . A w l ays a heavy man, he had become very fat f f o f rom inactivity, and I was a raid his getting ill . Early the next morning I had to rouse the

fo r men again, we had suddenly entered ice . Vasili said we had only twelve versts before s if us, but twelve verst were twelve too many

o f they meant that length ice. However, it

fo r was not to be so bad as that, we struggled

fo r with it a mile or so, and then entered a

n n stro g ope channel and made good way,

o f T until at last we came in sight Ust silma . T o f hen, indeed, we met a barrier ice which was like to prove an impassable Ob l sta c e. This ice w as from three to four inches

r o f thick, and eve y yard it had to be broken fo r the boat. But we worked wi th a will and f all together, and little by little we orced a A t passage through . lit le crowd had col lected at the landing- place to see our coming 93 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

through the ice . We were there at last. Things did not look very encouraging fo r

o f the rest our journey, but at all events we T had reached Ust silma.

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR the ice in its present condition was almost if impossible to cross, he said ; and , even we

managed that, there was a second river — beyond it the Pizhma— which was running

a nd o f very rapidly, , being ﬁlled with blocks B . e ice, would be exceedingly dangerous

yond this again were other rivers, and, what

fo r was almost worse , bogs and swamps miles

u im and miles, which would be absol tely passable until the frost had thoroughly taken ” f o . hold them You must know, he added, that passage o f every kind is suspended

u n v n d ri g this time, and that e en the Gover d ment Postal Service is stoppe . It looked

o f bad . By way passing the time I went f out through the snow, which ell heavily, f and saw w hat I could o the town . It presents the usual collection o f wooden

o f s houses, rough street and wooden side Of e walks, characteristic north rn Russia, and the church w ith its crest o f cupolas is the

central feature that there it alw ays is . As this town is the ce ntre o f the Ras

i e m kolniki (. . Schismatics), who call the 96 A TOWN OF THE OLD BELIEVERS

r selves the Old Believe s, you may like to T hear something about this sect. heir r ashol , or schism, originated in the celebrated

o f S o lo vetsk f Monastery , which I mysel 1 8 visited in 93. On that occasion I stayed

fo r there some days, meeting with great o f A kindness at the hands the rchimandrite, who ga ve much o f the information which f w ollo s . But ﬁrst as to the monastery itself In the lower third o f the White Sea lies a group o f small islands known as the Solo ” ve tskii o f Isles, and on the largest these is situate what is now by fa r the most northerly

T r monastery in the world . his monaste y is self-supporting ; its members number about

in three hundred, and addition to these

u there are always another three h ndred, or

o f t so, lay workers, men who as a vo ive return fo r mercy during trouble or sickness are content to work there fo r periods o f time — T f fo r a year perhaps or longer. hey arm the islands, tend the cattle, do repairs, and furnish a crew fo r the steamers fo r the mon 97 H A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR a ste r w y o ns two little passenger steamers , w A hich ply between the islands and rchangel , a nd is proud in the possession o f its own f f f dry dock . In spite o the act that o r some seven months or longer in each year their f home is ast bound in big sea ice , the monks are apparently very cheerful and happy. They make beautiful pictures and images ; they sell wooden Spoons on which is a

n o f t am l Sa lmo painti g heir emblem, the y ( am l o f - y ), and the Siberian herring gull

L a r us a nis ( ﬁ ) , which nests about the place in numbers and is protected most religiously. These birds are so tame that I was able to

in pick up one my arms, which had ﬂown down to beg fo r food at the bakehouse door.

it n n I brought alive to E gla d, where it is

ﬂourishing now. S o lo vetsk in the whole course o f its his tory has been the subject o f but two epoch making disturbances ; that which I will ﬁrst touch upon (though it is by far the more recent) was its bombardme nt by the British during the Crimean War. 98

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR shells were thrown into the fort at a range o f m 1 200 yards . Finding that my ti e and resources were inadequate fo r the reduction ” o f fo r . the place, I proceeded Onega Such ’ is a sailor s laconic account o f an affair which

r was a ve y serious matter to the poor monks . Many o f the bombs ﬁred then have been

f o f care ully preserved , ﬁxed in the walls the

f u re ectory, the g est house, and elsewhere where they struck . One especially which struck the painted Madonna over the a cathedr l door made a considerable hole , w f t f hich is there still , and to this the ai h ul ’ point as evidence o f the Holy Mother s T . s S protection his was the la t hot ﬁred, and the legend under it runs ’ o f Call upon Me in the day trouble. The Heavenly Mother defended the ’ S o lo vetsk Obitel during a nine hours

n bombardment by the E glish, and was pleased to receive in the ikon a blow from a 96-pound ball ; this last Shot was ﬁred

w f h 1 o r t 8 . hile ringing Vespers, July 7 , 54

o f f his Mother God, vouchsa e victory over 1 00

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR li io us u n g retreat, where they laid the i Af corrupted remains o f old Savo ati . ter

f o f Z some ﬁ ty years labour osima died , leaving behind him a well established

s mona tery, destined to hold a unique dignity i o f in Russ a, and so wealthy that at the time the Crimean War it was able to send fo r protection to Moscow treasure amounting to

1; sterling. Great glory came to

So lo ve tsk a o f T in the d ys Ivan the errible, d when its Superior, Filip the monk, was raise to be Metropolitan o f Moscow and all T Russia . his is that St. Philip the Martyr who was afterw ards slain by an emissary o f T the sar who had raised him to his dignity,

fo r daring, like John Baptist, to reprove

fo r in the ruler misdeeds, which in this

n stance were cruel raids upon in ocent poor. Then about the middle o f the seventeenth

u A o f cent ry, Nikon became rchimandrite

S o lo vetsk , and, like St. Philip, was elevated to

be Metropolitan Of all Russia. He removed

f f l v tsk o . S o o e the remains St Philip rom , whither they had been taken all the way 1 02 A TOWN OF THE OLD BELIEVERS f w n U s e nsku rom Mosco , back agai to the p w Cathedral in Mosco , where they remain o to this day. But a small part f these relics w w in S olo vetsk ere allo ed to remain behind ,

l S where they stil lie in a splendid hrine. In the course o f ages the old Greek service books had become much cha nged f f n rom their original orm . Many additio s l had crept into the iturgy, which had there

n no authoritative place. It seemed to Niko that the time had come fo r the old purer f o f orm the services to be restored. He therefore went back to old Greek and

Slavonic manuscripts, and ﬁnally shaped the form o f Ofﬁce - book which the Greek

Bu n s Church uses to d ay. t whe the revi ed S o lo vetsk o f books were sent to , some the illiterate monks regarded them as an innova

e . tion , and absolutely d clined to receive them

o f w Out this act gre endless dissensions, and

n ﬁ ally open rebellion against authority, which fo r a time put the monastery into a sta te Th o f siege . e outcome o f this was the

o f direct secession the Old Believers, who 1 03 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

S u have ince s bdivided into many sects, and numbe r many thousands who are scattered

over high northern Russia. f r It so chanced that our riend the isp avnik ,

o f Ko l uev in talking g , told me that he had heard that the Samoyeds had a tradition o f a

a king on that island . I was natur lly anxious o f to hear something more this, whereupon he kindly sent o ut to see if any one could be found in the tow n who could Speak the

To Samoyed language. my great astonish

f u r ment not one could be o nd . It was st ange f T indeed . In the whole o Ust silma there t d was not one person who could alk Samoye , or knew anything worth hearing about their A ways or traditions ; and yet in skino, but

few those miles away, every one could speak o f that tongue, and the interests the village were at least as greatly Samoyed as Russian .

Samoyeds would come later on, we were told, but they remained outside the town fo r the most part, and at any rate they were only visitors, a people apart, and no one saw much o f their life When I told my friend 1 04

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

for if e e me ; even we cross d the riv r, such a journey lay beyond as no one used to the country would ever drea m o f attempting at

such a time. Wait at least till the swamps are f e rozen , and then you can go asily and u quickly in sleighs over the snow, as yo r e Englishman Jackson did, whom I rememb r ” e n r se i g here. I need sca cely say that, had a I been alone, nothing would have ple sed

me better. But there was my promise to f Hyland, and so I turned a dea ear to all s allurement . When once our host saw that I was

a n determined on st rti g, nothing could exceed The the kindness he spent upon our case. hospitality o f this good couple had been

no w most unsparing, and they won my

f fo r gratitude by an act I can never orget ; , on learning that the stopping o f the post entirely prevented me from getting any

s 1 00 money, they insi ted on my taking f roubles rom themselves , asking only a pro f n mise o repayment in retur . I have often thought since what a remarkable test o f 1 06 A TOWN OF THE OLD BELIEVERS

t - The trus and kind heartedness this was .

o f f pay these police o ﬁcials is not great, and f ff my riend could ill a ord to risk such a sum . t it f Yet they len to a per ect stranger, and

s lent it with evident plea ure. A new way had lately been cleared which hit the old Archangel trail a t abo ut 1 00 versts f m T it ro the start. his, seemed, was the best fo r us to try. But, in order to reach the

o f o ﬁnished part this road , it would be n ces f sary to take rough sleighs with us, and a ter the passage o f the Pechora and Tsilma rivers to go across country fo r about Sixteen versts

- a till we reached the ﬁrst post st tion, or, to

sta nts ia use the Russian name, y .

tw o Yako ff In the village were peasants,

La revo rno ff icho la i and his son N , who had f m f come in ro the orest, and had been

T u stopped in Ust silma, s rprised by the

f o f T sudden orming the ice . hey were now waiting till the river should be frozen firm enough fo r a passage fo r their home lay on t the other side . When they heard abou us , a nd understood that they would be well paid 1 07 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR fo r f their trouble, the plucky ellows were f rea dy to risk a trial o the crossing. We should have to take sleighs and horses with us and the difficulty was to find horses

fo r which would be quiet in the boat, the boat would be heavily laden , and we should have quite enough work with the ice , let f f alone a couple o rightened horses . In the

o f course the morning, however, two horses,

a nd f a sorrel a brown , were ound, who cer tainl And no w y seemed staid enough . the ispravnik showed once again his kindness o f A thought. ttached to his person was a

- semi policeman , one Yagor, which is George .

r a s He was really not a policeman , but a silni , which, as well as I could gather, meant T f a sort o f beadle . his man our kind riend

n w o f insisted on sendi g ith us part the way. ” For, said he, there is no settled service

a nd yet on this new route, he will be able to

fo r arrange you about horses and wheels.

Ko ina s fo r He can leave you at , there you hit the old track and should have no further t trouble in that respec . Only I think you 1 08

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

a o f were ﬁnished, ne rly the whole Ust T silma must have been there. It must, no doubt, have seemed a mad thing to these

u n q iet northerners. Hurry is an unknow

its v word to them, equi alent in Russian is

- The only used in horse driving. river

f fo r f would be sa e enough tra ﬁc, and the bogs be solid in a month or so ; why on earth should people want to risk their lives fo r the sake o f gaining a little time ? Truly these Englishmen are mad . Our peasants also w ere the butt o f much chaff and o f more remonstrance, but they pluckily stuck to their guns . We loaded the boats with the

r greatest care, and with eve y heed to balance A and trim . midship we stored our baggage

aft o f and the sleighs, and this we made the horses stand . I have called them horses, but these northern horses do not run higher

f n T than about ourteen ha ds . hey entered

fo r the boat quietly enough , they were well

a nd o f used to going by water, in spite all that followed they fortunately remained quite

S b um d till ; only they pe up their backs, I Io A TOWN OF THE OLD BELIEVERS

m t tre bled a little, and closed heir noses quite f e tight, as horses will when they do not e l A d secure . n then our men declared them

s At a t selve ready. the l s moment I per suaded them to change the long o ars o f the

fo r boat short strong sculls , which would be f r use a handier to . The men quite a greed that these would be better ; b ut when I suggested that we ought also to take some good strong poles, they raised many objections, saying that these would prove quite useless and only lie in the f way. I elt it was but natural that these local peasants should resent a foreigner coming and presuming to teach them the way to tackle their own river ; but I was not f to be moved rom my point . Sitting down ’ on the boat s gunwale , I sent Yagor to get f poles, and orbade him to return without them . t He was gone a long while , but even ually

f o f returned with our good, stout poles pine . At length all was ready, and among the hearty farewells o f our friends we shoved

The o f away. passage the Pechora was not 1 1 1 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR more difﬁcult than our entry o f the day f T h t . e t be ore ice, it is rue, was a lit le

diﬂﬁcult thicker, but we broke it without y and progressed well enough until we came abreas t o f the point o f land which separates the Pechora from the Pizhma River that n ru s into it here . Here things looked very f t f r . doub ul, and the men we re o turning back

The T m v al sil a, deep and ery rapid, was so

t a swirling down in a hre tening manner,

s o f packed with great masse broken ice, which ground against each other and spun round and round and looked as if they would crack

m s us like a nut . It would be evidently i po

- sible to cross to the usual landing place, but my glass showed me a point some half-mile further down which seemed to offer a fair T . he e u landing danger was lest, getting

a in t ngled the ice, we should be carried down past this point to where the banks are

run fo r straight and steep , and on so many a mile. f We all ought hard and with a will . We

a nd f shoved here and hung on there, ended 1 1 2

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

tr . w as apped It impossible to see clearly, with the boat so low in the water. So I

n resigned my pole to Hyland, who had bee

a nd keeping an eye on the horses hitherto,

o f o f climbed up to the top the pile sleighs ,

a nd hay, and baggage which lay amidships, “ issued orders from there : N a pr a va (to “ ” N a lieva l f so the right) ; (to the le t) , and on. But the men were getting tired , and

r though I had encou aged them all I could, I must confess I was very glad w hen we had fought our way to the last lead o f water and there were but a few yards between us and a the bank. I was in const nt apprehension also lest the horses should begin to plunge and upset our crank craft but fortunately they b e f haved well , seeming to be quiet through ear. At last the nose o f the boat touched the ice fringe o f the bank one man jumped o ut with

o u the painter, the b at sw ng round in the cur rent, and rested so . We had considerable trouble in landing the horses and baggage ; but by breaking the ice and getting the boa t

u s nearer in, we s cceeded in this at la t. 1 1 4 CHAPTE R VIII

RA S PU TNY A

NCE s pa t the rivers, we loaded up the ’ sleigh a nd set o ff fo r the peasants home. We were not to reach it without

T w as several mishaps. rack there none ; we f went through the orest as best we could, W and what with inding through the trees, w f clearing a ay allen timber, and mending the s t harne s, which was very rot en and broke

o f several times, we had plenty incident.

u o f Once we tr sted the ice a small river, which broke and let us through but it w as not deep, so there was nothing worse than a wetting, yet this was unpleasant enough in that cold weather. We were not sorry to ’ reach the peasants hut, where all our things e could thaw and dry. Let m describe the 1 1 5 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR b ut o f a Russian peasant We shall see a

o f f a nd good deal them be ore we have done, one is much like another.

o f o f Built logs, that is pine trees trimmed o f their branches and cut into suitable o f lengths, the corners the walls are dove

f S tailed, with a oot or more to pare , so that these ends stand out in a V shape at the A corners. groove is run along under each log u ntil it ﬁts more or less closely upon the one on which it lies. Each log is then dropped into place upon a bed o f dry b og moss, which ﬁlls up any chink against the cold .

The f o f - roo is birch bark covered with sods , and supports in summer a ﬁne crop o f grass

a nd r . ﬂowe s Inside are two rooms an outer,

where the oven is, and a small inner cham

ber, where the master and mistress sleep . Every one else sleeps in the outer compart o f ment, some on the top the oven and some T upon the ﬂoor. here is nothing in this room

beyond some wooden settles, a table, and

If a some shelves. the pe sant is rich enough w f to keep a cow, you ill ﬁnd up in the ra ters 1 1 6

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

fo r built on landing. In Spitsbergen, ex

f S o f ample, as I have mysel seen, the ites the ’ old Russian sealers temporary huts are still marked by the ruined brick ovens brought T there a century or more ago. hese ovens

no t are domed inside , and are usually closed The by any door. top is ﬂat, and so large that ﬁve or six men can comfortably lie

there. One learns to be very cautious on r ﬁ st entering an apparently empty room , lest some one should be hidden away upon the dark oven top and overhea r any personal

remarks . The men on entering did not forget to bow and cross themselves before the little smoke

ihon fo r stained , which occupied one corner, f f their sa e deliverance rom water and ice. Then began a clamorous chatter about our

fu adventures and our ture plans, which was

prolonged until a late hour. Not a person in the hut, except one, but was agreed that the journey we were taking was absolute mad ness, and that we should not stand a chance

f n furt stants ia o getti g her than the second y , 1 1 8 RASPUTNYA

if fa r as as that . Only Yagor the beadle was re very much on his dignity, as became the

o f presentative the ispravnik, and several

times he said to me, You will tell the Governor when you reach Archangel that I

r have done well ; yes , ve y well I promised

S if that I hould do so indeed he did do well,

w as f but care ul to add , But we have not ” To got there yet . this Yagor protested that it was as good as done if he were with us ; f that he was as the ispravnik himsel , and all

had to do exactly as he commanded, with much to the same effect ; which would have been very comforting but that he blustered

fo r ma n too much me . I reﬂected that a who made so noisy a Show o f his authority when

fo r there was no occasion it, was likely to find his influence worthless when the occasion T came . here seemed too much altogether o f the tap - room boaster about our friend w Yagor, and events will sho that I was not wrong. It was during our stay in this hut that I first began to notice the use o f that 1 1 9 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

mysterious w ord which forms the hea ding o f l te . a this chap r Never again, I hope, sh l I

ea s a . h r it, or never at lea t in the same c se I its f learnt it very g radually, and ull meaning was only driven home thoroughly by the re ea d f At p te blows o hard struggle. ﬁrst it cropped up at intervals in the men’s conver T s . ation, like plums in a school pudding hen , as nt argume waxed hotter, it was bandied about from one to the other with every gesture and facial twist that could be mar

shalled s to express hopele sness, impossibility, f f mania itsel . Finally, and o ten all along

the road , it was hurled at my obstinate in British head as the one immeasurable, f At superable act. ﬁrst I was utterly at sea

about this remarkable word . Who or what

Ra s utn a was this p y , that he or it should f bar my way Was he a big, very big o ﬁcial , fo r or a brigand perhaps , or was it an edict ’ bidding trafﬁc on the isprav nik s ne w track ” R n s o f . as ut a a It was none these p y , f l I have been since in ormed, means iterally ” o f the separation the roads, but by some 1 20

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

n S maki g a dead set, as they ometimes did, w Im against our moving another step , ith possible ; no ma n ca n move no w no horse ” ca n m move, I would eet it with the same — “ invincible argu ment a smile a nd I a m ” O n w o n going on. the whole, these tactics

n f the day, though , o ce at least, acts were too

fo r strong even them . But this you shall

presently see . On the following day we were all up

f o f early, and, a ter a taste hard bread and

fo r Po o ffsk sour cream, ready to start the p ” s n ia n w ta ts e . y , the ﬁrst on the road We reached this place in the course o f the after

s The noon , but not without some mishap . most serious o f these w as at the Tsilma

River. T his river, which is wide and rapid, was

f r laden with heavy ice. It looked so o

w a s w bidding, and the boat so low do n in the

s water, that it was evidently too ri ky to try

and take our three ponies over at once . We therefore put two sleighs and tw o ponies o n

f —a — board, and le t the third grey tied up 1 22 RASPUTNYA

f till it could be etched . In order to clear k the ice, we were obliged to ma e a diagonal

crossing, which landed us , at last, under a

n w high , steep ba k, up hich we had great

f an d di ﬁculty in hauling the sleighs, baggage ,

The f horses . horses could get no oothold

f o f ff on the rozen sides the cli , and stood helplessly just where we had landed them, afraid to move fo r fear o f slipping right down

a fo r . into the stre m , they were not roughed

The s n peasants looked on helple sly, and eve Yagor the boaster protested that there was

o f f no chance taking the horses arther, and that we must get back into the boats again and

e r cross . I was, however, quite determined not to yield w ithout an effort. With con side ra b le diffi culty I scrambled up to the top o f ff f a the cli . Here I ound some small spen

a nd trees growing, it at once struck me that it might be just possible to pass a rope round these and haul the horses up. Wha t ropes had we fo r the purpose There were those

o f which bound the baggage, and many yards

o f long Samoyed thongs raw seal hide, which 1 23 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

t f Ko l uev I had brough rom g , and the heavy rO e s o f The p rein the sleighs . ropes were and w new, I kne I could. at any rate, trust

e fo r ft n the s al hide, o en I had swung in a rei deer sleigh over the Sloping side o f a snow

n o f bank, entirely depe dent on these strips

hide, and I had never known one to break . So I told the men I Should not dream O f

S the turning back, but that we hould get f the horses up with these. I mysel adjusted ’ t a gear round the smaller horse s gir h , making o f sort breastplate, so that it could not slip,

o f ff and then , climbing to the top the cli ,

f o f passed the cable, now ormed rope and t leather, round the neares tree trunk, and T made the men lay hold . hen I got down

o f again, took hold the horse , and gave

the signal to haul , while I urged the animal

The to sta rt. poor brute looked round

appealingly, and tried several times to bolt

down . But with every plunge he was

hauled a little higher up, and, to make a long

r f o f t fo r sto y short, a ter a time great anxie y ( it looked as if the thongs must part when he 1 24

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

Working up against the stream, they broke their way through a thin skim o f ne w ice

and reached the open channel . It was

- f shaped like a horse shoe, and they ollowed f it round , alling with it down and down

At s f the river. la t they reached the urther

o f bank, some quarter a mile or so below

where the grey horse was tethered . We saw

them go up the bank, and get the grey horse

and lead him and put him in the boat. T hey started to come back. For a time

U they got on well, working p against the

stream, through loose ice or any little open f lead . But we, rom our vantage point, could T see what they could not. hey entered a

o f wide bit open water, which doubtless f seemed to them to promise a sa e way over.

cul de sac We knew they were entering a , and

a very bad one . For this open lead narrowed down to come to an end just where the ice

was heaviest and worst, right in the middle f o . the current Here, the great blocks were

spinning round and round , churning their sides together till the powdered debr is was 1 26 RASPUTNYA piled on their backs like heaps o f snow and set when they spun into a chink, they to f t m gether and roze, going down the s rea in

— tu a solid mass a pack in minia re . o ur We shouted, we waved hands, we did all that men could do ; but either they could not hear fo r the noise o f the ice and the dis f w as tance rom us, or they thought their plan

best . For a moment or two they were bat

tling with the ice ﬂoes, and the next the boat

was caught and wedged into a hollow space .

f ﬂo e Floe a ter came down upon her, and she

in t o f T e was the hear the ice . her was h nothing to be done. T e men who had

o f handled her could do nothing, and we

The b course could not help . oat, the men, and the grey horse were carried down the

stream . My ﬁrst impulse was to take a long rope f and ollow down the bank. But this proved to The f be beyond my power. orest was impas

at The w sable, except crawling pace. sno

t f s r lay in it in grea dri t , and eve ywhere were f f Af lying allen trees in piled con usion . ter 1 27 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR struggling on for a little dista nce through a ll

s w as u these impediment , I most rel ctantly u T w as obliged to give it p. here nothing fo r its f it but to leave the boat to ate, and struggle on ourselves to the Sta ntsyia Po o ffsk f p , rom which we might send help . But w ho could tell where the boat might be

? And o f f by then , as I thought it, I elt much troubled fo r those two poor fellows ; fo r if we ﬁve had barely managed to defeat the o ? heavy ice, how would things g with them

However, there was nothing whatever to be f fo r done, and all that was le t was to hope the

T fo r o f best. hat, the present, was the end the two peasants and the grey horse.

1 28

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

T n u are the u g s to the west, and lower still and nearer Manchuria the O ro tchis or Fish T T ski n arta rs. hese roughly represent the nomadic races o f northern Russia. But

far as now, as our own journey went, we had done with the tu ndra proper ; and from

T f n Ust silma went west, partly on the ri ge w ra f fo r here tund and orest met, but by fa r the greater distance through forest land . There are two main ways by which you ca n cover the distance between Ust Tsilma

A The wa a and rchangel . ﬁrst, the old y, t kes you partly by water up the Tsilma and

e u down the M zen rivers, and so thro gh Pinega ; the other is by a southern route

n ! which ru s to Pinega, and into which the Ko inas 2 0 f new track opens at , 5 versts rom

AS Ust Tsilma. the White Sea would now be closed by ice, we . should have to travel on to Vologda before we could hit the rail way ; so there still lay before us versts, or over one thousand English miles . It is quite clear that no Government could 1 30 HEADING FOR HOME

a the make a hard, beaten ro d through thinly populated districts o f these immense dis

an s the s n r n h t ce . What Rus ia Gove nme t as — done is this Along a given track it has cut f e f r o n h down the or st trees, set er y boats t e s h big stream , or corduroy bridges over t e m s all ones, and where the ground is more S has o f than usually wampy, laid layers pine A trees side by side. corduroy bridge,

a w f m Sim as you prob bly kno , is or ed by the ple plan o f throw ing two tall trees across a S t t stream, and laying hor er leng hs trans

r l A ve se y on them . road such as this is m w ad irable in winter, when the s amps are f its rozen hard, and when roughnesses have disappeared under a hard, thick coating o f a snow. In the summer, lso, it may become f fo r dr airly good , then the ground is y. But t in Oc ober it is simply a slough, so bad that the traveller must often turn o ff fo r consider is f f able d tances into the orest itsel . At intervals along the road the Govern

l sta nts i s ment put up log buildings ca led y a . T B hey are at variable distances apart. e 1 31 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

T a nd A n fo r tween Ust silma rcha gel , ex

- n o f . ample, there are thirty ni e these The post stations are in charge o f a y a m shstchih (or driver) , who is bound to supply horses and conveyances fo r travellers on production o f a printed permission called a

od r o na p o j . But such Government contracts

all o ff o f are during the month October, as I f T ound out to my cost. his month is a month o f idleness , or, as the Russian peasants say,

f h all o sr o . That I was able to travel at dur ing the time w as due to the fact that I was armed with special papers . It was by the merest good fortune that I w as possessed o f As f these . I had le t England with the single intention o f going to the desolate island o f

Ko l uev m t g and back again by sea, it igh have seemed unnecessary to take even an o r

na r f di y passport. But I had elt so strongly the wisdom o f being provided against any emergency, that I had taken the trouble to make a voyage in a timber boat the whole w ay from England to the White Sea in the w previous year to get hat credentials I could . 1 32

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

The s n eco d document, coloured red, was o f m re o r a fo r h o imp t nce, it was one whic is only granted as a rule to high Russian

Offi s cials. It ran as follow

II. A ( REGULATION. )

FOR TH - E OFFICIAL POST RATE.

er Open Lett . h m The b earer o f t is, a em b er o f the Linnean a nd Zo o o ica Societies o f o ndon l g l L , Archa n l - e . A. Trevor Batt e is entit ed g y , l , o n his journey through the In the Chancelr . echora. co untr to ta e y P y, k ’ fro m the district and settlers 1 Se tember 1 8 tat a a time 3 p , 93, s io ns two horses t ,

No. 1 9 1 8 with a driver fo r the oﬁicial

0 - a 44 postal rate without del y. Which I conﬁrm by my

Town o Archan el. si nature and b afﬁ in the f g g , y x g s a e l of State. s n d GOVERNOR (ig e ). ' l - l t n For the Oﬁ a a Post Ra te (Regu a io ) .

1 34 HEADING FOR HOME

As soon as we drew into more settled f districts, these documents were care ully studied by any to whom they were shown ‘ m f diﬂicult fa r in mo ents o y . But in the north the scholarship Of the pea santry w as not equal to this task and the Government seal had to produce what impression it t migh unaided.

To S ta nts ia P o ffsk return to the y o p . We had a consultation with the ya mshstchik

there about the men and the grey horse . It T seemed that nothing could be done. here was just hope that the boats might be extri ca ted in the neighbourhood o f the crossing o f the main track, in which case they would if not be long in coming back. But the boat had been carried beyond this point it would

fo r scarcely be worth while to wait, the men , if even they were not lost altogether, as was f u f quite possible, would have a di ﬁc lt orest

fo r journey, and might not arrive a long

time. t However, about midnight, while we wai ed e a a nd and talk d, we he rd a shout outside, on I35 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

going out found the two peasants just f b coming up, ollowed at a little distance y

r n . the grey ho se, goi g very lame

This was their story. Down with the ice ff they had gone, all their e orts to hack a

n ff f way out proving i e ective . But a ter a while the ice ﬂo es round the boat became T frozen together and safe to sta nd on . hen o f they got out the boat on to the ice, and ﬂo es pushing with their oars against other , h and helped by the diagonal current, t ey succeeded in working this mass o f ice which r su rounded the boat nearer the land, until at last it became wedged with a great accumula tion o f packed ice which set against the river

bank . Then they drove the grey horse on

fo r . to the ice , and made shore themselves

The f wa grey ound his own y across, jump f ﬂo ﬂ e All ing most cleverly rom e to o . at

length reached land, though the horse had cut his fetlock badly against the sharp edge

o f The f r . o the ice boat was lost, no sooner had they reached land than the whole mass o f s ice loosened and ﬂoated down the tream , 1 36

HEADING FOR HOME

T m taking the boat with it . hey ight well congratulate themselves on a fortunate

a esc pe . Old Sailor was the only one o f the three w h fo r o did not regret the delay, I had ﬁlled

n fo r A up the evening by hunti g rctic hares, ’ a nd the old dog s pleasure at being free once more to follow his tastes was delightful to

s f n e e . Be ore settling dow to work, he

ca reered about wildly in the snow. We set out pretty early on the day follow At ing with four sleighs and four horses.

u starting, all went well ; the sleighs, tho gh e h avily and clumsily built, ran over the snow

a . e sily enough . But this was not to last long The o ut wind went round, the sun came , a nd in less than three hours we were in a

S T lough . owards evening it was worse . O ver a great part o f the track the snow had a Th re ne rly melted. e ispravnik who was sponsible fo r this ne w road had tried to m ake it a particularly superior one, by throw ing down fo r long distances about a foot o f

- T f glue like clay. his hal thawed , and now I37 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR free a a a e zing g in, ccumulat d on the sleigh runners until the horses could not pull the i s ll re sle gh at a . Everything had to be moved w hile the sleighs were turned over n T and the runners clea ed. his could only be done with the axe ; and the process had to be repeated every few hundred yards . o u b e s e ar So y will not urpris d to le n that, though the dista nce from station to station was but sixtee n versts (or about twelve m it us the o f English iles), took whole a day f a o h rd toil to cover it. There was no bedstead o f any kind in this Stantsyia . Going to bed involved no thing more than the simple Operation o f lying down upon the ﬂoor and going to sleep . But there was nothing new in this,

ef t r o f th and it was not long b ore, the s o y e m v boat being well worn out, y arious com panions were snoring, and I writing up my “ ” c diary by a dimly shining lip ; this done,

. T no a I too curled up here was st ble, and the poor horses stood outside without even a cloth, and as I lay I could hear them 1 38

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR which I a fterwards found hidden under the ha y with which the bottom o f the Sleigh was But f ﬁlled. I knew nothing o this ; and it was not until I turned back to see what w as S e wrong with the leigh, which dragg d

e f a b hind, that I ound the g llant Yagor prone a nd f e ast asl ep inside. So I pitched him f w as out into the clay and le t him . He a

ma n r big , and ve y heavy, and the peasants — were afraid to help me fo r to lay a hand upon a uniformed Ofﬁcial in Russia is a very — serious offence but by getting Hyland to tilt up the sleig h a bit, I worked Yagor on o f f to the edge the rame, and then he tipped

a The over quite e sily into the mud . cold evening air eventually woke him up, and he overtook us at the next station in the course o f the night. The following morning opened warm and muggy . Being very anxious to start, I got m u a . the men p at . , and we made some

The f tea. men , as be ore, did all they could o f to prevent my moving, and a sort war council was held which lasted fully an hour. 1 40 HEADING FOR HOME

It was only by harnessing the teams my

f S w o f a sel , and making a ho st rting, that by we got under way with our sleighs ;

ff fo r f r but I gained little by this e ort, a te a mile or two we found it impossible to pro o c a n e d, and were compelled to go b ck agai and change the sleighs fo r a couple o f taran s o f s ta ses . Four kinds vehicle are used

o f upon these tracks, and three them are machines which have evidently been evolved f rom forest conditions. One peculiarity is common to the three, namely this, that a minimum o f meta l is used in their co nstruc f tion, and they can there ore be repaired with an axe from the nearest tree as often as they break down ; which in our cas e w as Of always once, and ten several times, on

u A a n as f - the jo rney. t ra t s is a our wheeled A o a - vehicle. b ve the wooden xle trees are

-f stout wooden block rames, connected by

- s two rough hewn pole . On these is laid

w - r a willo or pine wood c adle, about eight f d f ra eet long. Over one en o the c dle is ’ h The a canvas ood. traveller s belongings 1 41 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

o f r are packed into the bottom the c adle, o f and are covered with hay, on the top T which the traveller lies . hree horses pull this contrivance : one in the shafts (long

f r poles , astened by withies), and ca rying the

-f high collar rame with its bells , the others f f right and le t, and able to move very reely, since the outer ropes, which serve as traces, are attached to that part o f the axle which

o f projects beyond the box the wheels. In f o f ront the cradle is a little box, on which

amshstchik S the y its, wrapped up in his

ca ta n fur- sheepskin f or coat, and hooded against the cold.

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

New f Forest bog, and you will have a air o f idea our experience. For a time we struggled gamely on ; the r f ho ses were resh , and bad as the road was,

n what with hauling, shovi g, and levering the wheels , we managed to get along. But very soon we were brought up short by a

e total collaps . The way had become so hopelessly bad that there was nothing fo r it but to tu rn Off

f s r u an into the ore t. Fo t nately we had axe

and with us, so I kept a little ahead, cleared a way by throwing some o f the smaller

T fo r trees . his went on some time AS long as the horses could be kept in hand, it was always possible to steer round bad places and the big trees. When they b e f came nervous in the so t ground, or plunged badly as the taranta ss hung back against a stump , they were apt to bring the wheels f against allen trees, or into water holes, T with disastrous consequences. hree times already a tarantass had been in this way

o u and co mpletely vert rned, much time been 1 44 A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS lost in righting it and collecting all the At things that were scattered about. one o f these crises the o ff-horse snapped his

a - o ff tr ce and his collar check, and was at a f A gallop into the orest. stern chase at last

- brought us up to him , sunk in a bog hole a nd Th absolutely unable to move. e yam shstchiki f , a ter a cursory inspection, shook a their heads sagaciously, and decl red that

s w as his ca e hopeless . It was curious to see ho w readily they yielded to the inevit

t it e o f able, as hey deemed ; the prosp ct losing a horse seemed to trouble them little. The f act is they were tired , and gladly wel comed the chance o f a good long sleep ; wha t was to come after they neither knew no r Bu w as cared . t I not going to lose a

ff t As horse without an e or . they could not,

n or would not, understand my meani g, I f un ound my way back to the tarantass,

two hitched the horses, brought these up, and having with some difﬁculty reached the

fo r n prisoner, the grou d was very treacher o us f , I astened his companions to him with 1 45 L A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

x a nd e tra ropes, , to make a long story short, they hauled him out. Our next mishap was rather o f a more serious kind . We had got back again on

n a b e to the track , when the leadi g tarant ss

s o f came ﬁxed in the deepe t clay. We dug

o ut f f it with considerable di ﬁculty, and a ter that I saw clearly that w e must resort to some other device if we were to get on a t f all that day. We there ore unhitched two o f the horses from the second ta rantas s and f attached them to the one in ront, and so with ﬁve horses we were able to make some

f t n f o f hal a mile at a time ; he , taking out our r these, we led them back to whe e the second vehicle was standing, and brought that also

n Th f n o . e di ﬁculty in such cases is to i duce T all the horses to pull together. hree times

u the leaders, snatching nexpectedly at the

- f r rope traces, broke away. On a ou th trial t f re they all started together, but wi h dire ul

ul f s ts . A u pl nge, a strain, a urious struggle, al and the tarantass parted into two h ves .

he w e a nd d T box, the front h els, the cra le 1 46

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR b ined in myself precept and initiative with

a mshstchiki example . Our y , moreover, were

r f ve y poor things on their eet, and had no f m idea beyond driving ro the box, and Yagor was in every way worse than useless so that every device fo r extrica ting the taran tasses and fo r urging on the teams had fallen

A a mshstchik on my own shoulders . y is an

u inert creat re, almost as hard to move as a f oundered tarantass. Night was coming on as we unha me ssed the horses and led them back into a clea r f t place in the orest. Here we gave hem

o f le nti their hay, which we had brought a p ful tea . supply. lit a ﬁre, and made ourselves

It was pleasant enough then. What a grand thing is a huge ca mp ﬁre ! We did not economize wood ; there was no need to do

so , it was lying round us on every side. Pic

tures ue q enough it looked, that scene . Our

three drivers, in their sheepskin coats, or

ma litsas , the six horses munching at their

o f its hay, and the light the ﬁre ﬂashing way out into the hollows among the pine -trees 1 48 A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS

w and lighting their trunks to red. You kno

s how ome sights, sounds, and especially some

S o f cents , have the power carrying you back far f o f s out o the reach present thing . It f f is so o ten with mysel . In certa in moods

I have but thoughtlessly to open a drawer, where perhaps a little Moorish bag is hidden w hich has never lost the native smell derived f m f ro its ormer state, and instantly I am out

o f the body, as it were, and away once more A among the rabs, among camels, and haiks,

- A f and silver inlaid guns . breath rom a garden where they are burning weeds will take me back into the mountains o f Cali fo rnia sun , where the ﬁrst is looking through the pine-tops and the smoke is setting up And no w wards towards the snow. I had but to lie back among the blaeberries to

be lost in a reverie such as this . Once more I was by the camp ﬁre with Tiah the Sioux

f- t and Baptiste the hal breed, who were wi h

far - T me in the North West. hey were telling me again about Captain Sherman ﬁ And and the ght at Silver Creek . the 1 49 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

snowy owls came sailing into the light o f the f co o ttes . ﬁre, and out in the orests the y called But with this last recollection we were all

u f fo r f in a moment pon our eet ; , indeed, rom far away among the pine- trees came the long

o f O ur drawn howl a timber wolf. horses heard it, and plunged suddenly. I , who had

o f never thought wolves, had not secured all at the horse I led , thinking he would be only too glad to munch and rest. Now, in

o f his alarm, he was on the point bolting, when I just managed to catch his head, T and hung on till he settled down . hese f horses, amiliar as they must be with the b o wlin o f ff g wolves, never become indi erent to f it. Ours never heard a wol s howl with

S out starting, sometimes stopping hort and snorting, and sometimes trying to bolt.

o f Several times the voices distant wolves,

a quite beyond our he ring, made them snort and stare in a most unmistakable way . We

fo r f had rested, I suppose, an hour and a hal , when it seemed time to make an effort to f get the men again upon their eet. 1 50

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR and their drivers with Yagor and Hyland

a o ut fo r b ck to the ﬁre, and set alone the i next sta ntsy a . Dear old Sailor was very anxious to come with me ; but the old dog

r fo r had had a ve y tiring day, though we b had carried him as much as possi le, he had still been obliged to travel through much o f the mud and wet ; so I left him in Hy ’ T u land s care. here was no danger in th s leaving the track blocked wi th our tara n

fo r f e a tasses, it was per ectly c rt in that no

wa d other vehicle would come that y . Indee , during the whole o f this early part o f the journey we only met a passer-b y on two

occasions. Once a soldier came along in e his big gr y coat, going , Yagor said, to see

sta nts ia his mother, who kept a y on the trail,

tchinovnih fﬁ and once we met a , or o cial,

a who, however, remained at the next st n

ts ia f w r e t y , as we heard a ter a ds, unable to g

n a lo g. It was a lovely starlight night as I trudged Th fo r . e w as away walking very rough, w f there was no sno , and the way was rozen 1 52 A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS

into hard lumps. It was not uninteresting

r S to travel this lonely oad, the ilence only broken by the howl o f a wolf or the hooting f o f . r fo r e a orest owl I did not hur y, I lik d to pause and listen to the forest sounds and

f w as r thoug h the rost ve y keen , no wind w t At ble , so it was not a all distressing.

' t Ouska a sta nts ia last I walked in o the y y , told

a b my story, and sent two peas nts ack with

o f iron bars, the best kind implement that T they could produce . hey also took two f more horses, and a orest cart, called a tele a g , against another probable break A down . bout midnight the whole party returned ; the tarantasses had travelled better, though the way was very rough . On the following day we left with sleighs f f and resh horses . No snow had allen , and

r the road was ve y rugged, and so hard that,

though we could only go at a walking pace, we made fa r better progress than on the day f be ore with wheels. We crossed without mishap the li ttle

u u u river O ssa, j st above its j nction with I5S A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

the Chilma, which was still running ice . In one o f the sleighs we had a remarkably smart The o f O uska a grey horse. keeper the y stantsyia had thrown every difﬁculty in the f t d way o my taking horses at all he protes e ,

w as as the others had done, that it madness

o n to go ; but, like the others, he protested

u o f in vain . He was rightly very pro d this

r grey ho se, and he told me that the winter f ak be ore this horse had t en an Englishman, f Mr. Jackson, the whole way rom this

s ia . sta nt y to Pinega in six days Mr. Jack ’ a mshstchik no w son s y was with us , and described graphically to me their ﬂying journey when the sleigh sped over the frozen

w as t e snow . Mr. Frederick Jackson then

u T turning from his Siberian jo rney. here If was tempta tion in this story, I admit. we could only wait until the winter, we too

f fo r should have a com ortable time, nothing is more delightful than to sit in a sleigh in m f good war urs, and be whirled along over

f w fa r the rozen sno . But I had gone too no w fo r retreat ; there was nothing fo r it 1 54

CHAPTER X I

HARD FACTS

were now in the country Of the

Z e . irians, a rac allied to the Finns T o f hey have a language their own, which is said to bear resemblance to Finnish but al though I fancied I heard them talking to each a other in peculiar tongue , they also spoke Russian at least as well as the Russian peasants. Moreover, except that their cheek bones were possibly a little more pronounced,

I could not detect any other distinction . They seemed to have no characteristics o f T dress. heir women were very active, riding horses astride, and bringing in timber on sleighs without help . We were brought up short ; fo r though we

no w t h were in a little set lement, t ere was not

stan s i a man about the place , and at the t y a 1 56 HARD FACTS

n The not a si g le horse . women told us that f the men were away in the orest, but some

T w s might be here on the morrow. here a nothing fo r it but to wait in patience and go out shooting capercaillie . So I made

o ff Hyland unpack his gun , and we went into f T the orest. hese ﬁne birds were fairly

a fo r numerous, but not very e sy to approach , the males would sit on the very tip-top o f the ﬁr-trees and command every movement down

w us belo . None the less, between we got two or three blackcocks and one capercaillie

a nd hen, were much disappointed to ﬁnd later on that the half-starved dogs o f the place had thieved our game from the nail where we had foolishly hung it against the wall o f the

o ff fo r hut. We were really rather badly f f food . N 0 ood o any kind can be obtained T at these resting places . heir keepers are only bound to provide a samovar, teapot, and

a - tumblers . When a tr veller arrives, red hot

ut charcoal is p into the samovar, and into the resulting hot water he must put his own tea ,

’ IIm l rs which is drunk in t b e . We had with I57 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR us a sa cha r tea, c kes, dried bread (called ), - T hard boiled eggs, and our reindeer leg . his f w e no w f are had been attacking fo r our days . ’ The - o u reindeer s hind leg, y may remember, was part o f our original supply from AskinO

a o fed nine days g . We had on it a good

S deal ince that, and it was getting sensibly w e smaller and also more tender. used to fry pieces in the top o f a biscuit tin in the st n ts ia a y ovens. Old Sailor was not so badly o ff b as you might suppose, ecause his long and silky ears invariably won him attention

v from the women where er he went. Several o f the people in this small settle

co w ment kept a little , in every case so thin ’ Tw if that, like Mark ain s horse, it looked as ” ha d it swallowed a spiral spring. The day following (October 1 3th by our I st reckoning, but October by the old style as used in Russia) promised to bring us better luck There arrived at this sta ntsyia a postman out o f work . He had been along ’ the track with the ispra vnik s notice that from this day there would be no post fo r a month ; 1 58

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

he would not lend his horses, I should take r them . He looked unutte able things, but

- oe said nothing. But I was out man uvred ; fo r a little later all the harness was gone

f a mshstchik f rom the stable, and the y himsel “ f was away in hiding in the orest, waiting

l re til the clouds rolled by. I could only proach myself fo r my stupidity in not keeping

U f a sharper watch pon him, and elt that I d eserved to be outwitted .

But then the postman came out well . He e s had been considering the matt r, he aid, o f with one the peasants, and they had agreed if together that, I would pay them double

r o on ia ff p g (tari ), they would ﬁnd horses and undertake to see us through to the Bara ko vska sta ntsyia ; and we should make a T start that evening. o this I was only too

glad to assent. The a ! evening came, but, al s the peasant o f had repented his words . He too was gone

f a nd into the orest, the postman could not f T f s etch him back . he orest in North Rus ia f is the great appeal rom all that is misliked. 1 60 HARD FACTS

Because o f the forest you can hold no one to

his fo r the f r bargain , orest lies at his ve y

A fo r f door. man need but slip away ﬁ ty f paces, double a little to right and le t, and f you might as well be running a wol .

Our postman was very much annoyed, as f became a man o his word . He vowed he

us amshstchik would yet ﬁnd a y , and should

not again let him escape. Meantime, in

f o f f proo his solicitude, he unearthed rom somewhere a wooden bedstead and brought

fo r that in, he said it would be so much T better than lying on the ﬂoor. here was no mattress : it was a plank bed . Per so nally I had got so well used to ﬂoor and ground sleeping that I was quite content.

To d please him, however, I tried his bedstea , but it creaked and sank and broke , and I was once more on the ﬂoor.

w a s f f I just alling asleep , when our riend came in to say that he had found another peasant who was ready to come , and that we should leave very early on the following morning w ith ﬁve horses and three reindeer 161 M A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

e T sl ighs which the horses should draw . his w as f cheer ul news . k So I was up at daybrea , only to ﬁnd the r But eindeer sleighs could not be had .

n eventually we did start with a mixed trai ,

e f s : compos d as ollow one tarantass, one

- sleigh, and one timber cart. if Now I have begun to reflect that, I am o f s to give the details each day, my reader may find them perhaps as tiring and as diffi cult to struggle through as the very obstacles f as they describe. I will there ore p s lightly over all b ut instances which stand out most sharply ; fo r if my friends have been with

me to this point, I desire nothing less than to be voted a bore by those who have been so

patient. Our henchman Yagor had been growing r ff r mo e and more insu e able, and this day

sealed his doom . I had provided a spare in ha horse, order t t when we came to an ex ceptio nally bad place we might at least be a ble to hitch on an extra and fairly fresh f horse . I had there ore directed that it 1 62

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF TIE TSAR

ispravnik, which would mean his ruin, as he

o ff well knew, he slunk , while we lit a fire and awaited his return . He was back with the collar in about two hours, and then I dis f missed him o r good and all . At first he whined and went into tears, trying to kiss my n hand ; but fi ding me obdurate, he changed his tune and turned away back along the boggy trail, vowing many bad things in his

a o o n be rd . I was sure we sh uld get better fo r without him , his swagger and his bully ing manner towards the ya mshstchiki were f f f sources o riction rom morning to night.

f a f w Soon a ter Y gor le t, the hole cavalcade was brought to a sta ndstill in a curious way.

We had been obliged to leave the track, and h f were winding throug the orest, when the leading horse suddenly began snorting, struck f f out his orelegs, and re used to budge . He was staring wildly at a dark hollow by the

o f . thiS I base a bog tree On going up to , f the o f a f o f ound lair bear. It was ormed

! leaves, moss, and rubbish , and was quite com pact and round. From its appearance it had 1 64 HARD FACTS

evidently been lately inhabited, and indeed we could track the bear away from it by f f resh ootprints . We could not ourselves ’ smell anything ; but the horses senses were

f u sharper than ours, and it was only a ter m ch f t di ﬁculty hat we got them past .

It snowed steadily all this day, and our sleigh travelled fa irly well ; the timber- cart

n also, though its wheels sa k deeply, at any ra te kept movi ng along ; but the tarantass w as n n s a nd co sta tly in a hopeles plight, broke

a f down sever l times. We were all there ore profoundly glad to reach Fa tievskaya sta n

s ia f e e t y . It was the same story as be ore th r

The were no men about the place. women told us that the men we re Off in the forest shooting capercaillie a nd black -game ; that they were going to colle ct their bag at the — next sta ntsyia the Valso ovska ya sta ntsyia and that now the snow had fallen and the f a nd e u rost come, horses light sl ighs wo ld be coming from the sta ntsyia beyond to pick up

O ur the bag . only chance o f fresh horses would therefore be to push on at once and 1 65 A NORTHERN HIGHIVAY OF THE TSAR

me n fo r f all catch the should it reeze night,

' as Oﬂ seemed probable, they would be again with the ﬁrst daylight. As there seemed everyprospect o f our pro

f —fo r - o f visions ailing, the hard boiled eggs, which I had brought several dozen from Ust T silma, were all but ﬁnished, the little cakes f were dwindling ast, and our reindeer leg (which had been food fo r Sailor as well as

r ourselves) was little more than ba e bone, I felt there was need to look to the com

i b u m ssa riat. I went round from wooden t to o f wooden hut, but could hear nothing till I came to an Open shed where that morning o f they had cut up one the thin little cows.

f o f Hal the back was still hanging, undis

f fo r o a . posed , gainst the wall I bargained T this, and secured it. hat it looked hope lessly hard and stringy was a detail no t

worth considering under the circumstances.

r f I bore it away and was g ate ul . We had travelled this day about twelve f n miles, so a ter a short rest I agai pushed on amid much grumbling from the men a nd de 1 66

CHAPT E R X II

OL D FR IENDS A G A IN

ILE H the others collected wood , I hacked up with the axe some o f the ’ Fa tievska a cow s back which I had bought at y , fo r f a nd it was rozen hard , then explored the

- hut. w as n fo r It pitch dark i side , night had f e t allen, y the place was warmer than the air ff outside, and very stu y too.

Striking a match , I groped my way about

o f n the room, in the hope ﬁndi g a samovar and teac ups or tumblers. In this I was n disappointed . I could, indeed, light upo nothing which co uld be o f the slightest use

f n d A fﬁ to us in cookery o any ki . para n lamp hanging from the ceiling was the o ne article which promised better thing s. But w en r h I t ied to light it, the wick spluttered 1 68

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

e beyond this point, and we had arriv d at a night, in bitter weather, to ﬁnd the st tion dark a nd deserted by those who should have

no w welcomed us there. But this was

s changed . Suddenly to come upon the e two

f The r little nomads was a real relie . ve y ﬁrst glimpse o f their little twinkling eyes and o f S the sound their ﬁrst leepy welcome, ’ Sdorava (How d ye do), put one in better S spirits. Old Sailor, the paniel , was wild with delight ; indeed , he startled the poor

u r little men by rushing in pon them, sc am f bling all over them and licking their aces, and testifying generally by boisterous behaviour f It that every Samoyed was his riend. is no t u he a little curio s that this dog, who, when

Ko l uev — ﬁrst met the Samoyeds upon g , shy,

u - n I suppose, at their curio s smell, had bee k f extremely cautious in ma ing riends, should f f have learnt to be so ond o them. He never took to the Russians in the same

et u way, and y all the R ssians were kind to him .

I w as the only one o f our party who could 1 70 OLD FRIENDS AGAIN

t speak any Samoyed , and hough that was

u little enough, it quickly won pon our two f T riends . hey took the most intense interest in all I told them about their Ko lg uev ki ns r men, and said they wanted ve y much to go

ho w . there, but did not know to cross How ” is it, I asked them, that you have wandered

fa r f ra t so away rom the tund , and wha are yo u doing here ? They told me then that they had a large reindeer encampment about

o f a mile away on the top a bare hill , and that they were gradually working their way

A S to rchangel to sell kins . But it would take a long time, because the rivers were not pro ” f And e t. perly rozen y you, they added s in most decided tones, you go next tan ts ia no y ; you go no more, no, , you stop then

es : . y , yes, stop ; river no good bad river f if the Well, I thought to mysel , we get to stants ia fo r next y it will be much , our horses f A could take us no arther. north Russian horse is a remarkable beast . It never enters ’ a yamshstchik s hea d to put any clothing on fo r his horse, and that matter we had not 1 7 1 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR with us a single thing which could be used — h . in that way, not so muc as an old sack T f here were our horses at this moment, a ter

n m havi g co e in steaming hot, standing out

ln w side the bitter wind and the sno , which

f f a nd was now alling ast, there they would f f stand till morning. O ten and o ten have I gone outside in the piercing cold o f the daw n f t and ound the poor horses white wi h rime, and ' with dry and staring coats standing meekly ta il to wind and looking as if they

An u must die. English horse wo ld go e arly

to his grave, but no chill or inﬂammation

ever seems to attack these hardy beasts . T tif hey might start a little s ﬂy at ﬁrst, per

fe w o f haps, but a minutes exercise would

invariably put them all righ t.

- We very soon had a red hot oven , and in f ’ it I cooked a bit o the cow s back. But it

- u t proved to be no tenderer than cat g , so we had again to fall back upon the reindeer’s

T f o f hind leg. hough we ailed a samovar our Samoyeds lent US a little tin pot in which we made some tea. Everything had to be 1 72

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF TIE TSAR

u f f old, curio s conversations, hal Russian, hal

o f o f Samoyed, by the light a succession f matches. Our riends said that the Samoyed who owned the reindeer would not hear o f

r The their going on any conside ation . con versation, which was whispered, was much like this “ Nab da Well, (his name), reindeer going ? Reindeer go Barakovskaya

im o s No, no, impossible ; Samoyed say p ” sible ; no, no. far Why impossible It is not .

es v r far es Yes, y , e y ; Samoyed rich , y ,

es fo r no y Samoyed not work Russian man, ” fo r n no ; not Russia man, no, no . I explained with no apparent success that the Russian men were at that moment snoring l Of the oudly in a corner room, and I wish I could convey an idea o f the monkey-like ’ twinkle o f little Nab da s eye as he glanced

at them, apprehensive lest they should wake

and hear . If this had been my ﬁrst meeting with a d Samoye , I should have been taken in ; but 1 74 OLD FRIENDS AGAIN

I knew well enough the ways o f these little was men, and saw clearly there something behind. “ r Ve y well, I said in a loud voice, then we Start with the horses at once fo r Bara ” k ska s s ia o v ya tant y . Up woke the poor u the eas R ssians, p ant and the postman, and f as i f hal leep, st ll looking stupidly on, only hal w as u understa nding. For I stamping abo t

S o f with a ﬁne how energy. It seemed cruel to turn these poor fellows o ut into the cold “ ” r L fo . nothing ie still, I told them, I will harness the horses a nd let you know when ” S ut they are ready. O I stumbled o into the — — snow and bitter cold it was and seizing some harness had already got it on to the a f o ne o f s b ck o the horse , when Nabda, who f was watching rom the door, could contain e f n hims l no lo ger, but came tumbling along k all in a heap li e a Chinese doll . u Yes, yes, Samoyed say ﬁve ro ble ; r S amoyed ve y good man . English very Barako vska a good man Samoyed go y , rein ”

es . deer go quick, y , yes I7S A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

’ Off came the horse s harness Na bda and I ratiﬁed the ba rgain with a S ideways shake ’ o f the hand held at arm s -length and shaken

a . A slowly, as their custom is over a b rgain bargain conﬁrmed in this way is inviolable.

And away he went to get the reindeer, while

in f o f I returned to sleep per ect peace mind, fo r I have never known a S ingle instance o f a bargain being repudiated after the ﬁnal

- hand shaking.

ca n You sleep pretty soundly, even upon

o f b ut the ﬂoor an empty log , and it only seemed ﬁve minutes before the Samoyeds f were back again with their headman, our

To f w ho sleighs, and eight reindeer. mysel , had done so much reindeer -driving upon

Ko l uev g , and yet had never been used to

o f f driving teams ewer than ﬁve reindeer,

i few two deer to a sle gh seemed curiously .

But then, I had only driven in summer, whereas the ground now was covered with

f o f snow and hard rozen , which, course, ff made all the di erence . Old Sailor, who was

Old f again delighted to meet more riends, 1 76

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

fo r o f mine, I made a point taking the rear most sleigh because Odds a nd ends o f baggage S Off are apt to lip now and then, and I desired to have all under my o w n eye . Mine was a

S big baggage leigh and very heavily laden , a nd w e n whenever went down an i cline, and there were very many steep ones on this —m journey, y sleigh took occasion to speed o ff by its own momentum, and I had no A means whatever o f checking its course . t ﬁrst I was afraid that my deer’ s hind legs

u fo r wo ld be broken, the sleigh quite over

ran them and knocked them cruelly about. f But a ter this had happened once or twice,

f w a they met the di ﬁculty in the cleverest y. As the sleigh ca me down behind them they

f a nd separated to right and le t, the sleigh rushing on between them charged full into ’ the back o f Hyland s sleigh with a con cussio n which would have broken anything ’ else but a Samoyed s sleigh .

f a m We had le t at . . , and now it was

u j st getting light ; we stopped, ate some o f bread, lit cigarettes (some those that the 1 78 OLD FRIENDS AGAIN

k Ust T a nd ind silma ispravnik had given me), m T n stamped about a little to get war . he on we went again, and soon entered a very — curious place Some agent water, no doubt — had cut a deep hollow through a hill . On

either side the banks rose high, and the trees m m t e see ed al ost to meet overhead. But h

strangest thing about it was this, that just

where it should have been driest it was bog . 50 fe d strong were the springs which it, that

a here, where the wind had no entry bec use o f the banks and the trees, our reindeer,

n u o f s breaki g through a thin cr st ice, quirted

up the water with every step they took .

e Had we been dependent upon hors s then, we Should indeed have been in a pretty

plight . At last we came to a stream which was swollen so badly that we had to leave the track and trace Up the bank to ﬁnd a

tw o crossing. We tried or three places f f be ore we could ﬁnd a ordable shallow, though here the deer were up to their bellies ff and nearly carried o their legs . On reach I79 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF TIE TSAR ing the other side we were in a forest o f a cut very dense character, through which we our way very S low ly with axes. So that it w as well on towards mid-day when we

Bara ko vska a s nts ia reached y ta y .

1 80

A NORTIE RN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

r a nd ho ses, I got up, roused Hyland, went a o f out to shoot rip , which were now, course ,

in fo r their white winter dress, and, but their

- black beaks and the red eye streak, would

in have been very hard to see the snow.

u f We str ck straight into the orest, up to w At r our knees in sno . eve y touch the snow showered down from the pine branches

t u in a ﬁne, dry, pene rating d st. We saw

r o f f s and the t acks many hares and oxe , we followed the big footprint o f a wolf round

o f f f At the edge a rozen orest lake. the end o f some two hours I suddenly as ked my o companion to sh w me the way back, and he amused me much by pointing in exactly the opposite direction . So convinced was he that he followed me most reluctantly and scepti al c ly as I led him the other way, and could scarcely believe his eyes when I brought him across our own tracks and so out into the road near the hut. It is always like this

r t with the unp ac ised. Forest travelling is

f n f curious work, and a man will o te eel the most profound conviction o f the right direc 1 82 A FRAGILE BRIDGE

in tion, when, reality, he has been walking in a circle and is quite wrong. Surprised as Hyland w as when I pointed out how I had t it known the way, there was li tle really in ,

o nothing m re, indeed, than that I had noticed

w n u that the sno , in drivi g, had cl ng more thickly to one side o f the trees than to the other. “ We often hear o f the instinct o f direc ” a v tion, as we may c ll it, possessed so mar el l usl f o y by savage races. People pro ess to

l o f exp ain it in one two ways . It is either said that the Indian actually does take note o f o f the sun , the wind, the lie the land, or

o f — f the course the streams , which, as a act, it f f fo r is o ten , in the dense orest, impossible him —o r S i to do, else it is set down mply as ” s instinct, and thi , though it is nearer the mark, is, in a sense, to beg the question.

it in o f Instinct, however may be the case

e x e ri animals, is here, no doubt, hereditary p The ence. sun , the wind, the streams, are

n b ut The inﬂue ces ; only that. Indian does

o v m not consci usly obser e the . Just as you , 1 83 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

n n in usi g an experience gai ed daylight, can follow without hands in the dark a winding staircase between the bannisters and the wall, “ f o h so with the Indian in his orest. His

n u nco n servation is e tirely subjective , an

u o f scio s impression, the sum small inﬂuences to which, by heredity, his senses are alive, as the retina to light pictures . In the same way I had not consciously remarked the lie o f

a ct the snow on the trees, yet the f kept me

f s . rom going astray. But thi is a digression We came o n the 1 7th o f October to a

o f the u tributary Mezen q ite small, and

no w crossed by a bridge, which , however,

w as . e broken Its n arer end was sunk, and great masses o f ice were charging up against the frame and swirling through the breach .

f u I had o r sleighs and ﬁve horses , and the — ya mshstchiki there we re two and a boy

n at once decided we could o t cross. But I

Set them an example and made them work , l though much against their wil . Judging a f the dist nce very care ully, it seemed to me

o f al if l that some the t lest trees , thrown, wou d 1 84

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

- rs much too short handed to raise these popla , and had we not been the risk that they would dislodge the spruces was too great. We therefore fastened a long rope to the

o f r thin end the ﬁ st poplar, and secured the

n No w butt end to a stump with a other. came the difﬁculty o f laying the poplars

so n o f across . We had with us the the head

amshstchik o f f T y , a lad about ourteen his plucky boy was quite ready to venture across the water on the spruces . We believed that

o f they would carry him, though the weight a grown ma n would certainly have sunk the

o f head the ﬂoating tree . It was nervous e work at the b st, with a ducking threatened but there was plenty o f hand-hold on the f t branches, though I may rankly admi that I should have be en sorry to have personally To tested it . travel in soaking clothes in such a temperature was not a pleasant look out. But the boy succeeded pluckily and

n f well, landi g sa ely on the broken bridge, to f . fa r which he astened his rope So , so good ; b ut the poplars had yet to be fastened 1 86 A FRAGILE BRIDGE

w in position. Belo the bridge was a wide w o ur shallo , and as rampart had stopped the fo r f w w ice a time rom coming do n, the ater

f o ne was now ree. Here I with man crossed ,

o f r riding two the ho ses, while the others m The re ained to start the sleighs. water ’ w as higher than our horses bellies, the stream was strong and the bottom stony, and they

ﬂ n But o u dered about a good deal . we got n r w et over with nothi g wo se than legs, hurried up to the bridge, and hauling the

o f u - f ends the poplars p stream, astened them h parallel to each other, and about eig teen inches apart, so that they should be in w bet een the runners, and the sleighs could

u f run on them, prevented by the r nners rom

r f sliding to ight or le t. I still had with me the long coil o f green hide cut from the blue ] fo r sea , which the Samoyeds use their sleigh — traces the same with which we had hauled the horses up the river bank, as related

T no w earlier in this account. his came in

n fu land agai most use lly. H y and the second ya mshstchik brought the sleighs to the edge 1 87 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF TIE TSAR o f the water and got their noses straight o n

f The t the allen trees . boy crossed and brough over what rope and thongs still remained , but these were no w so Short that we had to resort to the expedient o f fastening birch

Tw o poles to them, which we cut near by. ’ poles length and the thongs added to the f length o the S leig h just spanned the space . N Th o w all was ready. e horses stood on f the bridge, as close to its allen end as we dared bring them ; they were joined to the

i t o f sleigh by a nondescr pt attachmen rope, string, thongs, and poles ; the sleigh rested its nose on the poplar trunks, and on either side stood Hyland and a ya mshstchik ready Th to steady it o ff. e idea was that the yamshstchik should ke ep behind the sleigh

in T and steady it crossing . his ﬁrst sleigh “ contained my tw o tin air-tight uniform ” f n cases, our ood , boots, te t, and hardware ” T ’ generally. hings that wouldn t hurt, as

it fo r we gaily put , we never stopped to think how we were to get them up from the bottom

s o f the river in the event o f a pill . 1 88

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

o f w point starting, when a s ishing sound m U The ade S all look round . ice and the currents had won their way, and our wonder ful bridge was whirling down the river like

n o f w a thi g stra . The following day we were temporarily stopped by another river, where the ice was

the just strong enough to carry us, but not difﬁ horses or sleighs . We got over this ’ f a culty, a ter many hours labour, by breaking track across the ice and ﬁlling it with spruce

r s f b anche and poles . By the ollowing morn

ing it had all set hard, and we were able to

cross.

The a f f tr ck itsel , rozen and covered with ff snow, now o ered good travelling We

f sta nts ia ound at the Forminskaya y a merry,

a mshstchik The i niso o lska a pleasant y . N j y — stantsyia was clean and cheerful a welcome

At K umska sta nts ia change . ass ya y we ate

fo r potatoes the second time since June, so S on the whole we were in good pirits . I shall never forget the beauty o f a certain

n o f scene on the ba ks the river Neza, which 1 90 A FRAGILE BRIDGE

w e reached on the night o f the 20 th Octo ber. It was absolutely still ; a white and O f splendid moon hung ver the orest, and the

ﬁr trees glittered in the rime. From the forest’s edge a smooth and sparkling snow S u nrufﬂed lope, by a single track, led to the ’ f river s brink . One little round head o hay

k w s stuc out above the sno , and at thi the Th horses nibbled when we stopped . e river

wi o f was wide and laden th ﬂoes ice, and it was very doubtful whether we should get across . Over the other side we could make out a long dark line and the moonlight shin in f f g on roo s o houses .

o f o ur b ut We all yelled at the top voices, fo r n At a lo g time no answer came. last there was a responsive halloa, and then a shouted

To altercation sustained fo r many minutes. follow the subtleties o f this duet was far beyond me but one word stood promi nently out above all the rest, and I heard it now fo r the thousandth time since we left Ust

T f N elz ia h Im o s silma, our old riend y p sible So they absolutely declined to help 1 9 1 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

us was it likely indeed that they would ven ture in the night Upon the risks o f a cross — ing through the ice ? O ur ya mshstchik he f — tune , a nd was a capital ellow changed his , the word Governor cropped up more often

f ur f than be ore. O riend had authority to use the full weight o f the papers I carried

f a m rom the Governor, but I not at all certain that on this occasion he did no t go

cu a m f beyond his e. I really a raid that word went across the water to the effect tha t it was no less a person than the Governor f himsel who was here . At any rate there f f ollowed a silence, and a ter a time a little black speck o f a boat began to S how itself L coming through the ice. ong and risky m as the passage was , it ca e at last, manned by the three stout peasants who ha d pushed

it through the ice. Leaving the sleighs and

w a t drivers to ﬁnd their y home, we s owed

nd f the baggage a embarked. Very care ully w e h ad to go, with the gunwale now down to ’ the water s edge . We could not pull, the ice w as w a packed too close, but poled our y 1 92

CHAPT ER X IV

A TRAGEDY

E character o f the country had

changed . Spruce trees and swamp

lat ches had g iven place to , aspen, and broken i un o f ll n hes gro d . Bright ﬂocks Russian b u ﬁ c a n o w n f (l rger birds tha our ) were o ten seen , and green and red crossbills piped as they

ﬂew f - rom tree to tree, or hung back down the wards , prizing open larch cones with their h a . T e strong hooked be ks Siberian jay, too,

a nd became a more constant companion, co nﬁdin l more g y audacious than ever. We crossed another small arm o f the river

M f No skima ezen, and ound ourselves at . Something no w seemed to say that we were d The rawing nearer to a settled country. villagers had lost to a great extent the half 1 94 A TRAGEDY

r s s o f wild, almost ir e pon ible look the isolated

n r o f northern peasa t y, and had more the air

o f The and manners the villagers at home.

o f n village rang with the laughter childre , pla ying snow games and drawing small

u T sleighs abo t . hese little sleighs are very f d use ul ; the chil ren bring water on them,

m fo r f and use the other amily purposes . We heard English spoken here fo r the

m o . ﬁrst ti e, th ugh only by one person He t was an old, old man , wi h long white hair a d w n a long hite beard , whom I should have liked better if he had not alw ays been a t ss tempting to ki my hand . He called me ” Ca ita in w w as a o f p al ays, and that p rt his “ ” s Engli h . He said also, broken ship, and m T the nu erals up to nine . his was all the

s k o f Engli h he new, but he made the most f it, and repeated the ormula strung together “ Ca itain e f p , broken ship, one, two, thr e, our, ” e t r ﬁve, six, seven , igh , nine, ove and over e ss again whenever he cam acro me, like a fo r penance his soul . S o f w he was r I uppose, p or old ello , eally I95 A NORTIE RN HIGHWAY OF TIE TSAR

n m t not quite stro g in his ind, hough as a lingu ist he w as the Show man o f the village w e e while wer there . I imagined that he had once been concerned with some ship d f wrecke English crew, but ailed to ﬁnd out o f r anything certain his histo y. We had arrived at Shenago rskaya sta ntsyia af the soon ter midnight on Monday, October 22nd af r s o f the , te an exciting pas age big river ’ f r f w o e S . Mezen, and put up here a hours leep

Shena o rsk a v o ur g is quite a l rge illage, and e e o f t hors s, inst ad s anding out in the cold,

f u d a lo - o n better quarters in g built stable. ere fo r ﬁ t time w e co m H , too, the rs , . had fo rta ble lodging . Hyland and I had a ro om s a nd t b apiece upstair , here was a ed in each m . fo r did n t s room But so e time I o leep. had m I tried the bed, but I beco e so unused to that luxury that it felt positively unco m fo rtable There had evidently been a fete in fo r f s the neighbourhood, sleigh a ter leigh

in it r o f s kept coming with s ca go houting,

- a . un r singing, vodk happy villagers Just de w o men er m my indow, too, s me w e oving 1 96

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR short interval between the last light out and o f the n u l s r the daybreak, in spite u us a ti o f returning revellers in the early morning had l hours, wolves come, had deliberate y O -f pulled pen the badly astened stable door,

n had and had drive a horse away. I soon

r ma n two ho ses in a sleigh , and with one

t r fo r it e s a ted in pursuit, struck me that wher they pulled dow n their quarry I might S f e h possibly have a hot be or t ey got away, s or in any event I wanted to ee the end .

It was a piercingly cold morning, with a pale green streak just stealing across the Sk as y, we went at a gallop up the street . The wolves had the start o f us by at least two hours and a half ; but we knew we must r it come upon the dead ho se sooner or later, the chase had not struck into the forest where the sleighs could not find a way. For some little dista nce pursuers and pur f e sued had kept to a arm track, where ther had been little traffic since the snow ; into this the hoofs o f the terrified horse had struck so deeply that we could follow at a 1 98 A TRAGEDY

A nd good round pace . on either side were ’ the wolves tracks wide to the side o f the

r - —tw o the ca t road on one side, and one on — f f other the tracks o three . It was clear rom this that they had never been far behind ; they had evidently kept a pace or two o ft ’ the u horse s q arters on either side . It was a m ? grim ga e, was it not We could see it all there in the snow as plainly as words could

tell the maddened creature galloping blindly , o n w wildly, hopelessly , al ays at his ﬂank the b owl n r hunting and the hu g y eyes, always fo r m — not a oment slackening the loping, tire s t les , pi iless stride. Yet I think he was trying

u to make his point, as we say in h nting lan

guage . I suppose, poor beast, his instinct

bade him keep near man . He was thinking, no t o f fu I doubt , some stable or some re ge fu fo r s rther on, all thi time he was heading fo r a hamlet whose roof we could j ust discern o against the sky. My c mpanion thought ” the same . He has got there, he said , “ b now and the people are a out , so the ” n Bu wolves have ru away. t it was not so. 1 99 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

S en the t a r e to f udd ly r cks swe v d the le t, t en o ff the roa n and a a o ut h d they we t, w y n he The l es i to t open ground. wo v had turned the hunted horse ; they had bitten

him : there w as a little bloo d upon the snow . f o e ea no w fo r We ollowed n. W were h ding a belt o f forest which formed the horizon f m n in ront. My co pa nio would have “ s s he is a d topped. It is usele s ; de by ” t But e now, he pro ested . I urg d the horses T on. hey were going easily enough over s the f the hard now, sha t horse trotting n a quickly u der his bells, the ne r and the o ff a e We horses at a slow g llop alongsid . strained our eyes to make out some moving creature on the snowy expa nse that lay f u see And be ore us, but co ld nothing at all . yet it seemed absolutely imposs ible that any horse could live so long be fore hungry se had hunters such as the . Just when I reluctantly determined to give it up and turn

w as l . back, the question unexpectedly sett ed o f a f m We came to the bank rozen strea , ic f- a s and there, lying on the e hal way cros , 200

A TRAGEDY

w was the horse, pulled do n, poor beast, on

r v the slippe y ice . Short as the inter al had

n ne . The bee , the wolves had eaten and go quantity they had eaten was incredible and among other parts they had eaten the sides o f f f the ace. One act impressed me much they had fairly pulled several o f the ribs f m a m s To an away ro their att ch ent . y one who knows the strength o f the ligaments which u nite the head o f the rib to the ver ’ tebrae this evidence o f the power o f a wolf s

aw j must appear astonishing.

no w s We had come some eleven verst . The peasant who owned the animal was

o f fe d very proud him, saying he always fo r him very well, he was worth it. But, for t all hat, I was astonished that it should be capable o f susta ining fo r such a long

d e ra . distance so esp rate a ce I think, had the wolves been so minded , they must have run f ee into him long be ore . But they s med to have nursed him along at their pleasure ; e had t never running b hind, they kept heir f places to right and le t, as though they could 201 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF TIE TSAR b e e t s e the a e d pati n inc they had g m in han , s th u a f a t until at la t e nhappy nimal, ailing the ice-cr u f its ossing, had bro ght upon itsel

doom.

As w e a e stants ia o ur re ch d the y on return , f the snow began to all . It came down so a he vily, and with so strong a wind , that we

thought it wise to wait. But all that day it f th ell. It piled against e buildings till it

h S reached t e window ills, and when the door It was opened we beheld a wall o f snow .

filled the fir trees with a fine white powder, f f and fell rom them in a dust o atomic ice. Th e w as and w as at night ther a blizzard , it

no t well we had not ventured out . It was

r The cold inside ; I found it fa too hot.

r amshstchiks oven was kept bu ning, and the y t r how slep on the top . I used to wonde any human beings could exist under such But e conditions. it is the common practic h r The t with all t e northern peasant y. ﬁrs o f amshstchik e e act your y on ntering a hous , if he f m is devout, is to cross himsel any f r t b times be o e the ikon, and the nex to clim 202

CHAPT E R X V

TO THE W H ITE S E A

’ no t et E were y at our journey s end, w as a nd b ut the worst over. Bogs f b A f d morasses were le t ehind. air roa lay f o f us t w as in ront , and hough in places it m very deep in snow, so that we had uch f t s di ﬁculty in ge ting the horses through, thi ’ was child s play to what we had before e n The f dured . horses, too, were wonder ully

ﬂo undered patient, and, when they had into f f m w a dri t which nearly hid them ro vie , would quietly wait until we had dug them

T e a out. her was still one obstacle ahe d, o f which every ya mshstchik gloomily pro

stants ia a T phesied at each y we re ched. his T w was the big river Vashka. hey kne nothing dow n here o f the rivers we had The T already crossed. Pechora, the silma, 204 T0 THE WHITE SEA and all the wild regions through which we fo r e o f had come, were th m but ﬁgures the f o f speech . Just as trade and tra ﬁc the places further east had set towards Ust T silma and the Pechora towns, so now

ef Kho lmo o rr all had r erence to Pinega, g , and

A n h rcha gel . T e Vashka River was their d bogey ; we should never pass that, they sai . ” u Well, well, I told them, we sho ld see m meanti e we would push along. The o f m as stages, instead being arked before by the solitary wooden Government hut no w f a , ended requently in little vill ges , f in which li e was more homely and settled . O ur w English sparro was there, a little ff d c pu ed out by the col , but hirping and wrangling with all the self-assurance o f his kind at home A nd now from day to day

- S urnia uner ea we saw the hawk owl ( f ), a bird whose range is conﬁned to the higher f s o f ff orest the circumpolar area . It di ers, am m as the popular n e i plies, in certain par ticulars from the owls more familiar to us

h o f f fo r in Britain ; the c aracter the ace, 205 A NORTHERN HIGHWA Y OF THE TSAR

e e ffe e . Th fa i xampl , is di r nt e cial disc s very

incomplete, and the bill, though it curves

f a is e rom the b se, relatively longer and mor

in compressed than , say, our tawny owl , while the nostrils are round instead o f oval .

o f the h In short, the whole head is rat er - in The hawk like character. bird is also

it f o diurnal in s habits. I o ten had a go d lo ok at one o f these birds as we stopped in

f r h o n h o f the o est, perc ed the ighest twig

e f m a larch or spruce tr e , ro which it would s glide down, ometimes quite close to the s e in l igh , and take up some small mammal its e e s o f ur e e . talons, quite r gardl s o pr s nce I was no t at all surprised to ﬁnd the bird f fo r n f so riendly, I had bee amiliar with it in - s T r long ago the North We t e ritory, and recollected well how indiffe rent it w as

e u o f un. ther , even to the so nd my g

The e fu d weather was very b auti l, the col

b ut a b was extreme, the wind had dropped lu l T the s so te y. hrough still air a small now

fe a e . ft a e ll, or r ther ﬂoat d down So ly it c m se ma o s s s a e s f in tho rvell u cry tal , char ct ri tic o 206

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

’ vers s el w er f re s t o w t b o it. We th e o e t ork to drag o ne o f the sleighs over the snow to the to n w as b ut w . It tiring work, we were

f rce w n a f-wa fo r e rein o d by help he h l y, som as ts n The pe an ca me alo ng and le t a hand. r ere f ms a la e rs -s oe l rive h or rg ho e h , and ater o n sa e da w e cr a a n b ut , the m y, ossed it g i , s m o n ice a e thi ti e the , which was packed bov a e Th ic w as s t t e b nd. e e o thick ha ther

w as tt e dan e a e. The li l g r, with ordinary c r sma er eces w e o er ll pi er likely to tip v , but by keeping to the ridges formed b y the o f the s w e ro s e d grinding big ﬂoe , c s all r t As w as oo fo r s h we igh . it t rough leig s, r a nd l d r packed the ho ses e them ac o ss. At w e to Bo lchinichi o r length came g y, and here fo r the ﬁrst time we met the tele

u d. graph , and were really in to ch with the worl We a o f l a n then had series wild, exhi ar ti g es fo r amshstchiks v r the driv , the y took us o e frozen roads at a mad gallop without a bit on ’ th r e ho ses mouths. We were no w approa ching the town o f e w cros o f the Pin ga. We still had t o sings 208 TO THE WHITE SEA

f Bereo sta a Pinega River be ore us, and at the y sta ntsyia on October 2 5th we fell in with the n postma , who was waiting till the river f w as should be sa e enough to cross . He m uch surprised to hear that we had already ss a twice cro ed th t river, and said that he w ould go over with us the next day, but that s at night in the darknes he did not dare . Afte r our experiences it seemed to us but a m s in small atter to cro s anything the dark , let alone the Pinega River. However, our new f e t n fo r ri nd was a pleasan companio , he was by a long way the most intellige nt man

me t a T a nd we had since le ving Ust silma, T so we agreed to wait till the morrow. his n postman was a very splendid perso , who carried pistols and a sword . He told us r o f n stirring sto ies his encou ters with wolves, and how he had bow led them over from the f f w a back o his sleigh . But I ancied he s o f imaginative, and he certainly had a way clutching nervously at his pistols at any s ound on the road, which did not promise

f-re diﬂi cult much sel liance in a y. 209 IVe cro ssed the Pinega o n the day follo w in a nd afterwar s crossed it o nce a a n g , d g i , a nd w ere ga z ed upo n at each place w e came

as madmen o r as hero es I w as n ve to , , e r

ur w h h s e ic .

ven ua l w e a i ed the t w n o f n a E t l y vo d o Pi eg , a d m e fo r Kho lmo orr And so w e n ad g .

a che the nk o f the eat river v n re d ba s gr D i a, n a the e Sea e e w e re e r Whit , and h r we Th bro ught up short. e river w as fro z en over The to o t in the middl fo r . ice, hick e

eak w as e t k br ing with the boats, y too wea in places for a passage w ith ho rses o r w ith o sleighs. Our p stman asserte d tha t he could

no f th at as fo r co u e o f s go ur er le t a pl day . While I w as worrying over the delay I ca me

a eas ure me t if we upon p ant, who ass d hat,

and s would pack the horses give up the leighs, he could guide us through the forest until w e ca me out on the great road that runs from

A . h rchangel to St Petersburg . By t ese e r t r m ans we should avoid the rive al og ethe . w To this I assented. It as an exaspera ting for the ft e th journey, dri s wer deep, and e 2 1 0

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR mo ment was out s a e fo r I , and had cr mbl d w h e T he ward to lea rn w hat as t e matt r. horse (w e now had but one in each sleigh) k n o f d e had wal ed too ear the edge the bri g , and one runner o f the sleigh w as over o n

ice m the the , while the other re ained on

d f The e o f h n bri ge itsel . sl igh the nort er

f is Russian road, as I have be ore explained , s o f i w se t imply a large cradle woven w llo , and o n s f s ch runner . I ound everal packages whi

l o f to a n d had ro led out the sleigh on the ice, old Sailor the Spaniel had met with a simila r f fo r a u in a n d ate, he c me p the darkness licked my hand . I put the things back into

the a mshstchik e to the sleigh, and then y w nt ’ the horse s head and urged him on , while I w r s S h thre all my strength into ai ing the leig , and after much diffi culty it w as ba ck in its e m v plac . It had see ed to me very hea y , b ut I had entirely forgotten that Hylan d A was asleep inside . ponderous roll , as the f m f f h e o . sleigh rig ted itsel , reminded the act the But the next day, when I rallied him on w as a had subject, I mused to ﬁnd that he 2 1 2

CHAPT ER XVI

ARCHANGEL

COUNT RY sleigh more or less makes little stir as it comes in over the snow into the town ; the S ight o f the fur o d f ho de mujik. hal buried in the hay that

a o f s almost ﬁlls the cr dle his leigh , is a f m f w a iliar one o every day. We ere ordinary enough a nd dirty enough in a p peara nce by this time to pass in o ur fur hoods fo r travelling traders from the outside f orest, so no one looked at us twice as we came into the town through the gate way o f Peter the Great .

T no w here are no gates , nor any wall ; just the remains o f an old bastion and a dry f ditch . Between this and the town itsel lies now a wide stretch o f grass and wilder A ness. For rchangel has shrunk , and has 2 1 4

A NORTHERN HIGIIWAY OF TIE TSAR

s n On the a les o f e er t u e o r o o . g b v y hird ho s - h r s so hangs a b unch o f red mountain as be rie . — From this plant which the Russians call — by its scientiﬁc name r ubinia they make a favour te ueu and as su i liq r, this is why ( I p po se ) ro wan berries are the S ign o f the dea r s r s le in pi it . So w e w ent w inding through Archange l ’ t l h - e il w e came to t e Vice Consul s gat . H ere I learnt my ﬁrst bit o f English news i r f f n Mr n a u . ather nny way. My rie d

o the e - w as u C oke, Vic Consul, walking p a nd the o S - e down wo den ide walk by his driv , r n h t n in conve satio wit a Russian gen lema . At first no t r se in d he did ecogni the bearde , Skin -clad individual before him a tr im Eng lish friend o f the year before but I quickly s f d discovered my el to him , and was introduce f s h to his Russian riend, who poke Englis

very well.

Ah are f En you are English, you rom g ” b land, volu ly rattled this gentleman, going o ff ah ca n —a nd at score ; , then you tell me ” who is this your L a dy Cha nt ? 2 16 ARCHANGEL

A o f m if o f lady this na e, not this title, had just then been engaged in a difference L t T re with a ondon Varie y heatre, and the port o f the case had been copied into the

t P e r u Ga t f S . te sb rg z et e rom the French

Ko l u v w o f o f s papers . But g e kne none the e things, so I was not able to help .

Mr. Cooke, in his kind way, insisted that I sho uld stay w ith him ; and to this I could a not but consent. For Hyland I obt ined very comfortable quarters at the only hotel A rchangel boasts . Although boats can come up and lie along

o f - o f A side the market place rchangel proper, the greater part o f the shipping lies in the o ff o f S l mb l river Dvina the island o o o a . This island is connected with Archangel by a f wooden bridge some hal a mile in length . The bridge is so constructed that it can be taken to pieces and removed fo r the w o f winter ; other ise, on the breaking up the t a ice in the spring, it would be swep way. a A wreck . tentative trafﬁc was alrea dy beginning across the river ice ; but as yet 2 1 7 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

was o co s ed fe i n it nly n ider sa in one d rectio , a nd t at not stra te t h the igh s , to the other h M f Mr. t e side. y riend Wilton ( only other

En s man in Arc had c a e gli h hangel) , who h rg o f a saw -mill 011 a n island at some distance f the s e a k e rom hor , had s ed me to din with

s n t at the sa fe him, ayi g h ice was enough if ke to a rta ra I pt ce in t ck, which any guide nt o ut f o w could poi to me, or I could oll fo r f a s b o t mysel , it was marked y heaps

to o snow . But that evening it began sn w

and e a . again, the night was xceedingly d rk ’ I took a droski down to the water s edge , m f as but the man would co e no arther, the ice would not be ar a horse and sleigh . There w as u w s i e not a soul abo t, so I a obl g d

b f u to make the crossing y mysel . I co ld ’ see the lights o f Wilton s island tw inkling fa r a s f w away, I committed mysel , not ithout

m o f some isg ivings, to the chances this pas

. The u fi b ut sage ice was sually rm enough ,

e sometimes it seemed to bend, and it creak d f in an ominous way, and when I was hal way across I began to wish I had no t 2 18

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF TIE TSAR ever devoid a city may be o f public build o f t r ings and points larger in e est, a curious traveller will always extract something worth noticing from the lives and customs o f its inhabitants . f I must not orget the Fire Tower. if In a wooden town such as this, a ﬁre,

a not checked at once , would spre d with rapidity over a wide area, and might easily in a short time reduce the whole city to

At f s ashes. a central point, there ore, tands

e T . a t the Fir ower Here, a height perhaps

‘ o f 1 00 f eet, is stationed, night and day, a

m w ho watch an, walks round and round an outside gallery looking out fo r the ﬁrst Sign

f r n n o co nﬂag atio . Ready to his ha d are the electric buttons which call out the engines

f s w o . a in case need I one ﬁre, and can only say that the smartness o f the . Fire Brigade was no t inferior to that o f the f brigade o f one o our provincial towns. — There is no bustle in Archangel its trade f r so is not large enough now o that. It was once. Napoleon closed all the ports but 220 ARCHANGEL

A en this, and rchangel th did a roaring busi n All ess. along the quay at Solo mb o la are strong pyramidal erections whose sides are scored by the hawsers which the merchant men passed around them then . But the memory o f this is lost to the quay- men no w f , and is supplanted by the belie that these bits were meant as cover fo r sharp shooters ! Archangel is naturally not very much o f A abreast modern methods . walk at night in the S o lo mb o la quarter is not lightly to be fo r undertaken, the darkness is unchallenged n - by lamps, and the woode side walks are T f very treacherous. hese walks are o ten f v raised several eet abo e a ditch, are greasy , and when it rains, slippery in the extreme . Th n e planki g runs lengthways, and is sup u f ported o trestles. But at requent intervals f the trestles have rotted and allen, and the planking either behaves like a spring-board or threatens to break your leg through its

r s gaping holes. Each householder is e po n sible fo r the repair o f the piece immediately 22 1 A NORTIE RN HIGHWAY OF TIE TSAR

f u s in ront o f his holding. But many ho se in t are te a e s the tha quarter n ntl s , and here s d - e i e walk goes to pi ces. The nig ht watchman still goes his rounds

A a ha raoulshih in rch ngel . He is called a , and carries a clapper which sounds along He the streets throughout the night. has metal discs in his pocket, and has to deliver one o f these at the end o f each half-hour n o f a to the inspector at the cor er his be t. But very often the watchman cannot walk because o f vo dka ; then his wife has to e me n and go in his place. So thes old women go about the streets to keep o ft ” ’ the robbers. I don t suppose there is much A T are r robbing in rchangel. here regula too a re b e ed police , but they apt to claim by vodka ; and thus we found one individua l inside a smart uniform and girt with a sword ’ overcome in the Vice -Consul s garden beneath n a n-ash r to e a mou t i . When we t ied rous him r d up, he laid it quite esigne ly at the ” o f n door vodka, the o ly word he could then command . 222

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF TIE TSAR

the do no t believe there is. I think Rus sians are less fortunate in the liquor they

a se t ke, and I think that the public sen against it is less strongly marked than here. The market-place in Archangel is full o f

f e u a re local li e and pictur sq e interest. Here s f and turgeon and sterlet rom the Dvina, here on certain days in the week the salmon f m lie piled up in heaps, taken in the nets ro

K all the river ern . Nearly the marketing is done out o f doors ; the wares are e ither shown on movable stalls sometimes covered

a a e with c nvas, or are cont ined in the larg kennel-shaped trunks which every peasant

S o n possesses, or are imply displayed the

- t s r d cobble s one . Rough pottery, bi ch woo boxes, japanned and gilded ikoni, medals f f t and sacred pictures, urs, old iron, long el t f boots, and all tha the country olks can can f d want here be oun . In winter the f o r Samoyeds come in r m the tundra, t avel

ed o f ling hundr s miles , and any day their teams o f reindeer may b e seen about the streets. 224

CH APTE R XVII

T O V O LOGDA

HE railw ay is coming ; mea ntime tra v elle rs must go by sleigh fro m Arch

n n ch a g el to Vologda, the nearest poi t whi

The the railroad reaches . distance is 774 v r s f r is e st , and a verst, as I have said be o e,

o f about three quarters a mile.

f H e had Hyland was now eeling happy. received letters in Archangel from his s weet

rt w as u the hea , and no longer anxious abo t

f o f fo r to wel are his business ; , thanks my be persistence in pushing along, he would back in England in time to make all

r fo r i ar angements his Chr stmas trade. I had not intended to spend more than a day or tw o in Archangel ; but what with patch

o f ing clothes, answering budgets letters, 226 TO VOLOGDA and obtaining the necessary funds fo r the f uture, the days lengthened into a week . A Cheques could be cashed in rchangel, and it was with feelings o f great gratitude that I sent back to the good ispravnik o f Ust Tsilma the money he had lent me in so

Wa generous a y . On November 5th I left my kind friends

The no w with many regrets . snow was hard , and the sleighs travelled easily and D f well . Even the vina was well rozen by f now, and the natives had ound a crossing, very winding and circuitous , but strong enough to bear a sleigh drawn by only one horse. So we took the team to pieces , and f fo r ollowing a guide who carried a lantern , Th . e it was night, crossed in long single ﬁle Dvina at this point (not far from Kho lmo f gorr) is only a mile and a hal wide, but our crossing took us over three miles and a half o f river ice .

n o ne One day, as we were neari g a village, o f the horses was taken with a slight attack o f staggers , and again I was struck with the 227 A NORTIE RN IIIGHWAY OF TIE TSAR absolute want o f the most elementary v e teri I nary knowledge the peasa nts possess .

a amshstchik f him g ve the y my kni e, and told ’ ho w to do the bloo d-letting from the hors e s

— - palate a rough a nd- ready but most e fﬁ

ca cio us r w emedy, and well kno n to any

a in no t c rter Engla nd. But the man could be persuaded to do it or let me do it. “ N he said ; in the village there was a ve ry clever man who would be able to cure h if t e r . ho se, I would only wait till he came

This interested me much . I was anxious t d o see what reme ies would be employed.

o ff fo r r in I sent this celeb ated doctor, who due course a rrived in the person o f Ivan

Bulchiko ff , as cunning a blackguard, to all

w n f as appearance, as lived bet ee the our se . m His syste w as peculiar. Standing nea r

d f o f the horse, he aske to be blind olded , one the mujiks removing his woollen girdle fo r

T r hi that purpose. hen, g oping with s

hands , he said, Give me his ear, and I

u n will see abo t it. Having take the horse o f by the ear, he muttered a lot apparent 228 lea rnt tha t a tra in w ou ld lea ve at eleven ' c ck n th s rn n e f e o lo o e a me mo i g . W there or w ent to sleep at the sta ntsyia fo r a few ho urs w as cur se e ra i w e . It ious to a l ay onc more ; cu rious to have don e with sleigh a nd w th re n e r a nd a ll the w l l f o f the i i de , i d i e far n rt b ut t o h here was no doubt about it, fo r so o n a fter ten a ll the b agga g e w as piled in va n a nd b i u a n lo t was a , a g R ssi como ive

uffin ff its e ra t p g o xt s ea m . “ w as f rt rr tr b ut It a com o able co idor ain ,

r t x w At c ept along wi h e asperating slo ness. ’ o a rr ve ten o cl ck that night we i d at Yaroslavl , on the banks o f the Volga ; a nd here occu rred

fﬁ u f n the last di c lty o a y account.

Yaroslavl proper lay on the further bank . On o ur side w a s a large v illage which forms the terminus o f the railway ; fo r there is no

ro bridge over the river, but the c ssing is

a f r h v w made by a ste m er y. T e ri er as

f n solidly roze on either side, but in the

- middle was a considerable ice laden stream . A fo r w train would leave Yaroslavl Mosco , they told me, at that night . It needed 230 TO VOLOGDA immense efforts to get the baggage brought

. T dro skis down to the river here were no , — and no trucks o f any kind all had to be ’ f carried on men s shoulders, a distance o per o f haps a quarter a mile. Each man was the

o f and o f subject a separate bargain, some

f- w them stopped hal way, put do n their loads, and declared they could no t get o n unless they had more pay. With my extensive experience o f the weight o f each individual

r no a ticle, I knew well enough it was ex

fo r A few cuse this . dim lamps seemed only to increase the darkness as we stumbled At along. last I succeeded in getting my f ’ train o bearers down to the water s edge . At the ferry stage itself we were met by a n ominous silence—the ferry had been stopped

o f T because the ice . here was one rowing boat in its place, but this had just been

o f taken by the Governor Vologda, who was on his way to Moscow to attend the late ’ f t Emperor s uneral ; and, indeed, I could jus

f S o f hear the aint plash the oars, as the boat made its way in the darkness among the ice. 231 It w as ve r a nn o in fo r I w as a n if y y g, xious, ll ossib le to ta k e thi train. a p , s I did not at w elco me the a lterna tive o f spending a night “ ” in a dirty sheb ee n o n this side o f the

il w as s an n u ese w ate r. Wh e I t di g, t rning th th n s o v r in m n u a t i g e my i d, a voice so nded m b o w a nd a se w f y el , a ho r hisper ell on my “ l dka ea r ha lo h o d o . . v d a I e a (b at) , a goo ” w as I ta ke yo u over ; ta k e yo u quick. It a n eas v a nd w ma n unpl ant oice, I dre the awa y into the light o f a lamp that I might ha v him u e a look at . Ugly, slo ching, drink

t d nni n - w as dis orte , and cu g eyed , he a proper rufﬁa n o ur to look at, but he seemed only

a th r f f r ch nce. Now e p oper a re o a passage w as t s o f twenty kopeks (twen y cent ) , but

r w as a a cou se I prep red to p y more at night ,

o f th b and in view e ad crossing. ” Ho w much will you take us over fo r ? I asked .

the Six roubles replied man . ” To o much, I told him .

. Yo u s Five roubles pay ﬁve rouble , and o I g . I go quick .

A NORTIE RN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

by my watch that the train would be o ff in

s se ven minutes. It would be barely pos ible

to catch it anyhow, but I must admit that the attractions o f a decent hotel in Yaroslavl r we e pretty strong just then . When one is thoroughly in the swim o f dirt and disagree

ableness, one scarcely gives it a thought but

now that one was washed , to go back, like

the sow in the proverb, to the mire, or in other words to the zoological tyranny o f a

- w un dirty drinking house, ould be doubly

n pleasant. But an E glishman cornered is w f al ay s an uncom ortable customer, and I had quite made up my mind not to pay the rascals a stiver more than the original bar

So gain . I made them put about, and then , when they began to realize that I really meant what I said, they reduced their ” demand to thirteen roubles . But they

- were a horrid looking lot, and I was angry f and disgusted, so taking up one thing a ter the other I pitched them down on the ice, and left Hyland and old Sailor the spaniel to watch them while I went to ﬁnd the 234 TO VOLOGDA

. af in police I succeeded, ter a long search , ﬁnding the “ police master at the railw ay a o f st tion, and with the invariable courtesy

f a Russian o ﬁci ls, he accompanied me back , r dispe sed the rabble that had collected, and had the baggage carried up to a tiny hostelry — f not such a bad place a ter all, but alive with ﬂeas . On the following morning we crossed by

-f the steam erry, which was again running, and were in Yaroslavl .

T w o f his to n , which lies on the right bank f o u . the Volga, is one the oldest in R ssia The f f f Volga itsel orms rom this point, as I

w - have been told , an interrupted ater way

The right down to the Caspian Sea . town was founded in the fourteenth century by f Yaroslavl the Great. It is ortiﬁed with high The a nd thick walls. most interesting build ing I came across duri ng my very short stay

o f was the church St. John the Baptist, which T was built by Ivan the errible . It is a

o f a marvel v ried design, and bears a very strong resemblance to the famous church o f 235 A NORTIE RN HIGHWAY OF TIE TSAR

as in a a t . S t. B il the Red Squ re Moscow Whether they were built by the same a rchi

et am sa . T te , I unable to y here is, how a t w ever, story in connection wi h the Mosco

u if t im o s ch rch, which, rue, would make it p S sible that the architect could have built t. ’ a John s in Yaroslavl at a later day. It is s id that when the architect had ﬁnished the g reat c sc n u hurch in Mo ow, Iva s mmoned him into r s his p e ence . You have indeed built a marvellous

b . uilding, said that monarch What think you ? Could you build another as ﬁne as that ? A a nd y, ﬁner, returned the architect, pleased with the prospect o f further chances

fo r his genius . T t ’ ha you shall never do, was Iva n s man answer, and he ordered the to lose his a he d . Y w f From aroslavl to Mosco , rom Moscow e to St. Petersburg, and thenc through Ger — many to the British coasts these parts o f r my journey home need not be he e detailed . 236

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

fo r all a ss Vat you come at , and no p port “ I did no t want to come ; I could n o t A f . help it. I was le t on an rctic island

The w as su poor man very angry, and p

n a t u posed I w a s laughi g him. Nor co ld I — blame him fo r this my reaso n must hav e

u sounded so strangely improbable. B t with the help o f my various papers I persuaded him at last, and he let me go with a Bah ” is n u he E glish, and a shr g most eloquent, that disclaimed all sort o f responsibility fo r s any such idiot .

238 CHAPT E R XVIII

A FTER

ACK A in England, and rctic Russia a f f thing o the past . Removed rom the

o f f petty worries a di ﬁcult journey, it is easy now to retrace the la rger and more general

s f f Al point o the impressions o that time . though a t ﬁrst sight it might seem impo s sible in so short a time as the space o f a few months to form anything like a fair view o f people and things, yet, when it is remem bered that the solitary circumstances o f my travel threw me into unusual intimacy with

f o f the li e the northern peasantry, the

And attempt may perhaps be excused . it

o f o f is only the northern peasantry, the

f m n small traders, ar ers and villagers ge erally, k f that I could make any claim to spea . O 239 A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

the a r o f o f f istocracy Russia, the educated li e,

o r o f n f , indeed, Russia li e at all, except in the a f-s as h l ettled north, I have only seen

much as many another Englishman . For the rest I believe the following to be a fair

estimate. To attempt a comparison o f this northern life even with that o f the peasantry in our remotest country districts would be labour

o f in lost. It would mean a consideration

ﬂue nces o f o f and traditions, the result long and close contact with the idea o f security in

r f mo al orces , which may grow in Russia, but A are not theirs yet . In rctic Russia, on the

other hand, the native has always an object

T o lesson in the Samoyed . rise may not o f mean more than the acquisition money, b ut to sink means to fall into line with the

The Samoyed . Samoyeds he regards as his v f natural ser ants, and the act that he is inseparably removed from them in class

o f gives him position and a sense superiority. The majority o f the Arctic Russians are able to read and write. Some cannot, and 240

A NORTHERN HIGHWAY OF TIE TSAR

The ceremonies o f the Greek Church a re e xactly suited to the semi Oriental nature o f n The o f its the Russia s. magniﬁcence

al ff o f e ritu , the grand e ect its vocal music (ther a re no organs nor any musical instruments

e nu ﬂexio n s in Russian churches), its many g ,

- the bowings and crossings, these enable worshipper to ta ke an active part in the Th s r and e t ff . e e vice, y entail no mental e ort northern Russian is no theologian ; he t e cognises little distinction o f degree between the l s o f . more popu ar the saints, St Nichola , for n example, and the Founder o f his religio . But he does hold to his Church as a whole ; the Church which has come down to him with its splendour o f unbroken tradition he t as accep s, he should, as containing the primitive unaltered faith inherited o f his f h at ers. The parish priests o f North Russia are very distinct from those o f the educated r o f s hie archy, the monasteries, universitie ,

T o f the and Church Government. hey are same social extraction as the peasantry n T f amo g whom they work . here is urther 242 AFTER one point which tends more than any other to bring the Greek priests into ordinary social relationship with their people ; and this is

m 0 arriage . N man can be a priest until m he is arried, and this wise and common

sense rule determines , no doubt, the calm and gentle regularity o f the life o f the parish m Th e . e priest, which impressed very much

r peasant y, as a whole, have the greatest “ affection fo r their Pope (as the priest ff fo unda is called) , an a ection which has its f tion in respect and not in ear. Of the reverence with which the Emperor, ” “ L their ittle Father, is regarded , there is

no need to speak . ” r has f Remembe , one o ten heard it said, “ that in Russia a man ﬁghts because he

o f A is told to ; he is the slave an utocrat. T he result in war o f this unwilling service must needs be very different from that o f the enthusiasm o f men who ﬁght fo r a throne

they love, and ﬁght willingly. There was never anything further from o f the truth, at least as regards the north the

country Here , and there is little doubt 243 A NORTIE RN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

T e verywhere, the sar is regarded with an affection and loyalty which can only be de

n f scribed as passio ate. He is their ather, o f o f the Head their Church , the keeper f her aith and traditions. Every Russian is f T taught rom his cradle , not that the sar is terrible and to be dreaded, but that he

n is good , and that he loves his childre . T f his bears its ruit. Every Russian seemed to me to live under an abiding sense o f the

r esence . Imperial p , so to say I have put A . s this strongly, but it impressed me so an illustration o f this I may instance a trivial f occurrence which I remember, on the rozen f edge o the Arctic Sea. Inside our tent a braggart was boasting o f his great strength ; he had S ingle- handed hauled a big seal up f a high bank rom the sand, and that is a severe task fo r any one ; the man had been drinking a little vodka and was beginning n A to be a uisance. lexander the Russian ,

' in a moment s pause , quietly remarked, Our T f sar can pull a china plate in two, re erring

r to the late Emperor, whose pe sonal strength

T S r was great. his imple emark told in the 244

A NORTIE RN HIGHWAY OF TIE TSAR

n a come, when the peasa t will grasp the ide o f individual responsibility and individual

O e independence, which btains more and mor f r s . in we tern countries When , rom whateve

has cause, this principle once been grasped

o f l to by any mass the peop e, one shudders

And n think what the result might be . o e most certa in factor in this change must b e “ ” u a that Free Ed cation , which even in Russi is now in the air. But no traveller can argue , f o f the rom the character, at any rate,

s northern pea antry, and be a pessimist as f f regards the uture o Russia . He will rather f f eel sure that resh intelligence, while it may

fo r add to the elements that make disorder, will act on the whole in the opposite dire c tion that it will but fan into even a brighter ’ ﬂame the Russian s devotion to the Tsar to whom he owes it.

The o f a II Emperor Russi , Nicholas . , de

it s n serves that hould be so. Followi g the n o f f A III traditio s his ather, lexander . , and o f ra n f f his g d ather, he has, by identi ying s f h him el with his people, already made im se f l justly popular. A s a boy he was e arly 246 AFTER distinguished fo r his quiet common sense and “ ” f An o o mnitz a —a power o study. wise — child his tutor said o f him to a friend o f the L f author. ater on, when his ather made

o f him preside at the Council State, he dis played most signal qualities o f tact a nd

T u temper. o these are due his pop larity

f e s with oreign peopl s, con picuously with

A . France, Germany, ustria, and England AS President o f the Imperial Commission to assist the peasants who ha d suffered from

f o f 1 8 1 — 2 o f the amine 9 9 , he gave evidence that charity and kindliness o f nature which

f e a terwards, when he had ascend d the throne, led to his taking very severe measures with certain ofﬁcials accused o f oppressing the poon

f a In his simple domestic li e , in his ﬁli l

o f treatment his revered mother, his manly

n f o f beari g towards the riends his boyhood , no less than by his general level -headed ” f o f ness, he has shown himsel worthy the great position which he has been called upon

“ And to ﬁll while still so young. consider. — He is truly an autocra t o n his shoulders 247 A NORTIE RN HIGHWAY OF THE TSAR

alone are borne the affairs o f that great

And u o f Empire . yet, s ch is the discretion

f fa r this youth ul ruler, he has not so made f one alse step . For us in England his must alw ays be a n

al fo r in exceptionally interesting person ity,

US a peculiar sense he seems to belong to . Was no t the scene o f his early courtship little Walton-o n- Thames ? Is not his beautiful Empress the favourite grand- daughter o f our

u o f t s Queen, and da ghter hat Royal Prince s

o f r whose death , noble in the pathos its sto y, this nation will never forget ? T hat early and romantic love, crystallized no w a in serenity and strength, is indeed happy augury fo r the future o f Russia . Well is it that at critical periods in her development (and the present may be one) her destinies Should be illumined by so admir d able an ideal an inﬂuence as is this.

THE END.

248

INDEX

F Basi the B ac 1 0 1 . l l k, nts ia ost Bereo staya sta y , P Fatievska a stants ia 1 6 . y y , 5 in at 20 . man wait g , 9 1 0 . Yamshstchik at, 9 Bir near No skima 1 . ds , 94 F rest disa earances i n ” o , pp “ h or in touch Bo lchinic ig y, to , 1 60. w ith wor d at, 208 . l Forest o n echora 88 . P , amo ed do 1 2. B olva n, S y , I l F rest trave in 1 8 2. o g, Brid e ma in and cross ll g , k g F x Red . o , , 45 i 1 8 . ng b y, 4

k . B risk at Solovets , 99 ' G Bulchiko ﬁ van curin , I , g horse o f sta ers 2 28 . German Rai wa Ofﬁcials gg , l y , ’ Burro u h Ste hen Ac o f g , p , Author s experience , co unt o f Yalmal Samo 2 37.

eds 1 8. Golodna Gu f Russian y , l ,

easants at . O p , 44 Go vernment Contracts o ff hoo tin 1 . apercai ie S g, 57 C ll in Octob er 1 2 1 . , 3 , 59 ausewa account of C y, Greek Church suited to crossin 2. g, 3 2 Russian nature, 24

aviare . , 54 - C Gree Ofﬁce b oo k 1 0 . k , 3 m Samo ed wi Choo , y g

wam 2. , H Description o f night

n 26. i , Hab i Ostia s on tundr a ( k ) ,

tundra 1 2 . hukchis on , 9 1 2 C 9 .

- in . oud b erries trade , 54 , ares b ue 8 . Cl H , l , 7 o o e Vice o nsu at k- C k , C l Haw owl (Surned f unerea ) Archan e 2 1 6. g , describ ed 20 . ”l , 5 rduro Brid e de Co y g Hermann helps to found 1 1 scrib ed, 3 . Solovetsk Monaster y,

a 8 . ro ws at R emo v , 9 1 C k 1 0 . ’ s re o r hoo die 20 . ro w , g y , 3 Ho Hi s Author s visit C ly ll , to , 1 6. H orse

i r crossin Accountof N. Russia n Dvina R ve , g, ,

c ed 2 1 0. 1 1 . 2 2 7; rea h , 7 250 INDEX

Ho rse Kassumska a stants ia o y y , p Hunted and eaten b tatoes at 1 0 y , 9 .

wo ves 1 8 . Kern Riv r m n e sa o 2 2 . l , 9 l , 4 Landing on b ank of Kemooka Village de T i m Ri 1 2 ib e s a ver . scr d 8 . l , 4 , 5 Rescued fro m b o Kholmo orr reached 2 1 0 g g , .

ho e 1 . Kho lmo orr tra fﬁc to 20 l , 45 g , , 5. Horse-tai fli uris row Ko inas track to Arch l( pp ), g , in in swam s 2 an e at 1 08 1 0 g p , 3 . g l, , , 3 . ’ H and Tho mas author s Kol uev author drivin yl , , g , g c m -m rein 1 a an 1 . de r on 6 p , e , 7 . ’ m - i k 2 Ko l ue Ho e s c . v author s , 9 g , stay

S etch of career 68 . o n 1 . k , , Kolokolkova Gulf (Bell sha ed u f p G l . ) i o n 6. F ora 1 . Ik , 5 l , 7 f c nstinct o dire tio n 1 8 . Good Sea in Gr un , 3 o d I l g , s ravnik hief o ice I p , C P l 5. Officia art eave 20 l P y l , . o s ita it and ind p y Swan huntin s etc. 1 8 . H l k g , , n 1 06 ess, , 1 08 . inion o f Samo e s L Op y d , La d h t 1 0 C a n 2 1 . 5. y , 6

Receives author . Larevornoff Nicholai ta es , 95 , , k

van the Terrib e 1 0 2 . autho r across echora I l , P , i hur t 1 08 Bu lt C ch o f S . . ohn the Ba tist Larevorno ff Yako ff ta es J p , , , k

Yaro slavl 2 . author across echora , 35 P ,

1 0 8 . J La ask i i v o v a e . ll g , 79 Lay-b ui dings b etween Ust ws 20 l ac da , 3. J k Tsi ma and Archan l ge , ackso n Frederic Sib eria n l , k, 1 1 J 3 . o urne 1 j y, 54. M

Ma ie in vi a es 20 K gp ll g , 3. Marit Vi a e Sa mo eds y ll g , y

K mbalnitz a River . desert b oat at 8 2 a , 4 , . 251 INDEX

’ artlt r 0 M Ardéoﬁ s b ro the ,

1 6; acts as i ot 2 1 . p l , Old Be ievers acco unt o f , Mez en River e f l , passag o , c . se t, 97 1 6 9 . Secession from Greek M z n Ri r te e e ve , water rou hurch 1 0 . C , 3 to Archa n el 1 0 . g , 3 n Admira b om Omman ey, , ae l M ch l, A exis Samaro l b ardin Solo ve tsk . ’ g , 99 ko ﬁ s b oa t, 3. 1 0 hetic o wer . Onaska, p p p , 3 Alb um at l k So o vets . , 99 Orotchis or Fishskin Tar

Mo sc w . o , hurch of St C tars 1 0. , 3 Basi stor of architect , y , i n tundra l Ostiahs Hab ) o , 6 ( 23 . 1 29. Muilsaya stantsyia o n d 2 1 . Onima reache , 3

Muila Riverreached 1 . , 55 - tants ia author Ous Kaya s y ,

wa s to 1 2 . N lk , 5 s River unctio n with Ou sa , j Nabda Samo e b ar ain , y d, g hi 1 . ma, 53 with author 1 C l , 75. Nez a River scene o n , p banks 1 0 , 9 . h N R ssia Nic o as II ch t r f . u . arac e rish riests o l , , Pa P ,

o u arit 2 6. 2 2 marria e 2 . p p l y, 4 4 g , 43 Nicho as Father at As easants and re horse l , , P g y

kin 8 f sca 1 6. O . e e , 5 Story o p , 3

Ni nisvo lska a stan s ia W d ed in ice 1 2 . j y t y , e g , 7 c an and ch rf 0 River e ee ul 1 . echora l , 9 P

Niko n Archimandrite o f ro ssin 1 1 2. , C g,

Solo vetsk Fish in . , , 53 Remo ves r m reakin in s rin e ains o f Ice b g p g, hi St. P lip to Mos 1 4

co w 1 0 2 . ourne o n 1 . , J y , 7

Revised Gree Ofﬁce art arrive at . k P y , 47

b o o 1 0 . Sandb ars . k , 3 , 4

No rth Russian easant c ner trees . p , S e y, , 75 attitude towards v k Tradin b o at de od a, g

2 2 . 1 3 scrib ed, 7 . No skim ﬂ o 6 a Vi a e 1 . Year o d . ll g , 94 ly , 7

20 2

INDEX

' Samo eds Sib iriakoﬂ Russian mer y , A f Russian chant ttitude o , 54. i easantr towards S e h of N. Russia 2 1 2 p y , l g , . 2 0 S ei h trave in 1 de 4 . l g ll g, 77 i Bread 26. hts Of 2 2 . , l g , 9

haract ri tics . Sn charac ri c n C e s , 9 ow, te sti s i

Childrenwearin b e s En and and N. Russia g ll , gl ,

2 206. 3. om e ed to conform So lomb ola s and con C p ll I l , to Gree hurch n ected with Archan e k C , g l

2 1 ri 2 1 . 4 . b y b dge, 7 De arture of 1 Sol sk b o mb ar b p ; 9. ovet ded y

E hibition in o ndo n British 8 . x L , , 9 ’ M Au h r id a f 6 . lo k n t o s e o , 4 So vets o astery han 2 i f 1 0 1 In Arc e 2 . H stor o . g l, 4 y ,

On Kol uev s and 2 . e end under Ma g I l , L g n dra 1 2 nna in 1 00 O tun o . , 9. d , Readiness to b e o f Old Believers origin i 2 serv ce . t d a , 3 a e t, 97. R i n 1 2 f M tr eli o . u ri r o o g , S pe o , e o eds o f Yalmal un o itan of Moscow y , p l ,

1 02. friend iness of 1 8 . l , Solo vetskn s es ac Savoatii Mon acco unt , , k, I l co unt f M nas er n o o t y o , o f, 1 0 1 . 97° Sea in Sa mo ed method l g, y , S arr n li h in N o w E s . p , g , 9. Russia 20 , 5. Sea s fond o f music 1 1 . l , uirr l si r in fo rest Sen eiskii s and harb our Sq e , ve , , g I l , , l 0. 4. 9 ’ Shena orsk Vi a e 1 6. Staal dc autho r s etter g ll g , 9 , , l m nts ia fro 1 . Shenagorskaya sta y , , 33 1 6 Stants ia Po offsk 1 28 9 . y p , ,

- 1 Sib erian herring gull(La rus 35. Strin -ma in at Kemooka g k g ,

i r n a 1 I 8 . S b e ia j y, 9 ; 94 5 5

mimic 2 Swans Wi d 6. , 9 . , l , 4 254 INDEX

Us ensku athedra Mos Taleoff Michael choom p C l , , , co w St. hi i b urie in , p d , descnbed 6. P l , 3 ' 1 0 . Taleoﬁ Micha l 3 , e , gives ’ Ust Tsi ma Autho r u f in , 53 b e ox 3S 1 . l k , 4 l Arriva a t Tarantass four whee ed l , , l i f Barr er o we at . vehicle , 93 De arture fr m o 1 1 1 . Describ ed 1 1 p , , 4 . D scrib d e e 6. ustratio n o f 1 2 , 9 Ill , 4 . o urne to 1 y , 7 . Overturned 1 . J , 44 No Samo eds at 1 0 arts in half 1 6 y , 4. , 4 . P Ust Tsi ma and Archan e Timafé ac oun f 20 g , c t o . l l , , routes b etween 1 0 Tima fé v rs n m , 3 . , e ed i o ens, 3. V Timansk h u Sc ar . , 5 Trans Siberian Rai wa Valso o vska a stants ia l y y y ,

near ﬁnished 2 2 . 1 6 . ly , 5 5 Trave in in N R ia Deserted 1 6 . uss . ll g , , 7 diffi cu ties o f 1 2 1 1 Findin Samo eds at l , , 37, g y , I 1 6 43 9. - V Trevor Batt e A. See ash a Ri ver 20 cr y , ( k , 4 oss in Autho r. 20 . ) g, 7 ' ' Tro Inos ham et tr i t Vehic es used in N a a . Russia l , l , l , 1 1 2 1 1 . 4 . Trufanavar Gorah o n Vi a e weddin 6 ll g g, 5 ka Visk i a e ash River 20 o V . V . , 7 ll g , 79 Tsar Russia n reverence Vo a Steam-ferr o ve r , lg , y , f r 2 2 0 o , 44. 3 . TsIIma RIver cro ssm Vo o da Ra i wa 1 0 , g, l g l y, 3 .

1 2 2 . Author takes tr i a n at,

Tsi ma River dee and 2 0. l , p 3 i 2 ra d 1 1 . p , W Tundra describ ed 1 2 , 9. T ra l Wan und t ica 8 . a Samo ed bo 2 , yp , k , y y, 4. Tun us Nomads o f N Whis e ac g , . k y J k, Russia 1 0 fri , 3 . end, 9 1 . 255 INDEX

White Sea closed b ice Yalmal Sib an n n ula y , , eri pe i s ,

0. 1 1 3 8. hi Wi ow Gro use w te 6. Yamshstchiki character ll , , 4 , ’ Wi to n author s friend o n istles 1 8 1 1 l , , 4 , 5 . is and near Archan e Yaros av l g l, l l

2 1 8 . Arriva at 2 0 l , 3 . W es 1 0 at Shena D i d 2 o v escr b e . l , 5 , 35

ors 1 . g k, 97 W c in forest 1 ood e ers . p k , 9

Y Yagor the Beadle ac co mpanies author acro ss Zirians ac u f 1 echora 1 08 . co nt o 6. P , , , 5

o nduct 1 . Zosima founds Solovetsk C , 39 6 M 0 1 1 . o nast r 1 Dismissed, 4 e y, .

Butler Tanner The Selwood Printin Works Frome and London. , g , , 256

e R ce ntly pub lishe d.

ICE- BOUND ON KOLGUEV

A CHAPTE R IN TH E EX PLO RATION OF RCTI E ROPE A C U .

TO W H ICH IS ADDE D A R ECORD OF THE NATURAL H ISTORY F H E D O T ISLAN .

AU BY N T REVO R

B A. ET . , C. , M EM BER O F T H E BR ITIS H ORN IT HOLOGISTS U NION

W ith nume ro us Illustra tio ns b y

’ ‘ H R LE W HYM PE R T . N IT IP S . E LE S H C A J , , H R AN D T HE A UT O . Th e S p e cta t o r . ” T h e Id e a o f t h e U n k n o w n .

Fro m b e i n nin to end the sto r o f this adven ture is o utside g g , y

th c m in The idea o the unknow n —this it w a s th a t e o m o n l es. f ’ a ttra d t ha t r a t d ma n le M r tt s ites . Ba e cte me a i s a t c e eo wr . , y p p y

n i i h n f l This He made up his mi d to v s t t e I sla d o Ko g uev . o dd co rner o f the w o r d is a harb o ur ess is a nd with a dan ero us co ast l l l g , ﬁft mi es n o rth o f the Russia n main and a nd no rth-east o f the y l l , m u h f h i a It i w w ithin h Ar ic rc i o t o t e Wh te Se . es e t e ct ci e n l ll l , ’ h a h r ic c a n Bar n h l t e p rt o f t e A ct O e ca lled e ts Sea. T e o d navigato rs had seen it w hen trying fo r the No rth-East Passage to

hina and no ted it a s a dan ero us a nd de so ate is a nd. C , g l l

Th e S ta n d a r d . ” A n A d v e n tu r o u s V o y a g e .

Qu ite o ne o f the mo st in teresting b o o ks o f rece nt travel is ’ ’ - - Ba s Ice b o un d o n Ko l v . It i i Mr . Trevo r tt e ue s n tru th a y g , ,

n o ra tio n o f Arc i ur Mr fr sh ch r i the e t c E o . Tr v e apte xpl pe . e o r Battye made a n a dven turo us vo yage thither in the su mmer o f last ear o n b o ard a acht o f ess tha n ﬁft to ns a n d remained ice y y l y , b o und o n the is a nd w ith o n e co m a nio n fo r the S a ce o f l , p p m h T l d a so rt o f R o in s n three o nt s. he e b o ruso e ife a nd y C l , a fter many exciting incide n ts a nd so me privatio ns they e nco untered a a rt o f ha f- sava e Samo eds w ith who m the co ntrived to p y l g y , y i n The a nn esta b lish frie ndly rela t o s. m ers a nd custo ms o f these peo ple are vividly a nd minutely describ ed in a b o o k w hich is full ” i n a d ea sa n t humo ur o f quick o b serva t o n pl .

Th e Ti m e s . ” S o me th i n g U n i q u e .

Even in these days o f Arctic Explo ra tio n the a dventures o f

A n Trevo r- Ba tt e sta n d o ut as so me thin uni u ub e . H i Mr. y y g q s b o k w il ta ke a n d ke e a n a utho r a iv i o l p it t e po s tio n . A mo de st a n d u nva rn ish e d i p cture o f pluck a n d e ndurance tha t do ” ho n o u r to the E n lish n g a me .

E xt re me ly In te r e s ti n g

Ice -b o un d o n Ko l uev is a w e o t-u we rinted a nd g ll g p, ll p Its u h r is a o o d om itho lo ist and w ell illustra ted b o o k . a t o g g b o ta nist and the e treme interestin no tes o f the entifu b ird , x ly g pl l life and o f the necessarily sca nt ﬂo ra o f this Arctic isla nd add ” r much to the plea sure o f an a lways lively n a rative .

Th e W e s tm i n ste r G a z e tt e . ” N o th i n g to b e De s i r e d .

Our readers must get the b o o k and go thro ugh it fo r them

r n se lves. To b o th the natura list and the ma n w ho likes a th illi g narrative it wi b e a i e interestin and the i ustratio ns an d the ll l k g , ll charming manner in which it has b een turned o ut b y the

ub ishers eav n o thin to b e desired e . p l , l g

Th e A th e n e u m . ” In th e In te r e s t s o f S ci e n ce .

The co ura e w ith w hich in the interests o f scie n ce g , ,

M r Tr vo r-Batt a n hi c m a nio n to o k the ir chanc o f . e ye d s o p e wo rs fo rtun s a i h s r eived the a dmira tio n f all e e deserve , s t a ec , o capab le o f apprecia ting wha t might have b een their fa te ha d m i ” the Sa o yed no t b een met w ith .

B the sa me Autho r y ,

W ill sho rt b e ub ishe d ly p l , AN AR TI HI F E C C GHWAY O TH TSAR.

I nscrib ed b y g ra cio us p e rmissio n reat

A History o f the Russian Court and Empire from 1 69 7 to 1 740

R T A By . NISBE B IN

Author of Gusta vus III a nd His Co ntem ra ries Cha rles X II. r li Ha ns Christia n Anderse n A i og ap y W ITH PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE AND PORTRAITS

Dem 1 8 P ri e t c . y 3 At . m

OPINIONS OF THE PRE SS

LIGHT ON A LYCEUM PLAY. ’ v Mr. Nishet Ba in s new o lume a b o ut the makers o f Russia co uld no t ha ve a p pee red a t a time mo re Oppo rtune fo r the a ttra ctio n o f po pula r in terest than the mo ment w hen Sir Hen r Irvin ha s taken it u o n him to in ter ret fo r us o n th sta e o f y g p p , e g the

L ceum the cha ra cter o f Peter the Grea t. His fa miliarit with the histo r and olitics y , y y p o f No rthern Euro pe in the last century renders him pe culiarly fitted fo r the task o f presenting us w ith a picture o f the Russia n Co urt and Empire up to the death o f the ° m r Ann — k E p ess e . Da zly C B M r. a in ha s here put to g ether fro m a uthentic so urces a n interesting and useful Wi b o o k . tho ut a ttem in h ictures ue he ha s w ritten a b o o k tha t att ct the pt g t e p q , ra s reader his ud m nt is so und he is un re udiced and to lerant a nd he understands the j g e , p j , m rit stra n e w o rld tha t he is de ictin . His o rtraits ha ve the rea t e o f fidelit a nd g p g p g y , ' — m st r a he a n a fie e G a rd n . has g ood kno w ledg e o f co ntempo rary Euro pea po litics . M za An excellen iece o f h o ri tud fo un d entir l n ri in l re a r h b er t p ist ca l s y, de e y o o g a se c , so , b road a nd s m athetic in trea tment w ith a fine sense o f histo riea l ro o rtio n and most , y p , p p , illuminatin r ts th - an g as espec e light it thro w s o n a da rk a nd ill kn own time d co untry .

A lucid a nd masterly sketch o f the slo w develo pment o f the modern Russia n Sta te b e tw een the 1 6 n year 97 a d 1 740 . M r. Nishet Bain is w ithout uestio n the b est info rm dent o f No rthern histo r , q , ed stu y w ho no w w rites fo r the ritish Pub lic a nd the vo lume b efo re us w ill add to his re u ”— B , p ta tio n . M a m lzester Cour ier .

W E S T M I NS T E R Archibald Co nsta ble an d 2 WHITEHALL GARDENS 1 898 1 Bright N HAR L E B EDWARD BRAILSTON BR GHT C. E . A D S y I , , C

BR G T C. E . I H , ,

M a 2 v s . With man ustratio ns o rtraits an d s. o y Ill , P , p l b for ubli a t n D em 8 a d s n et to subscri ber s e e c io . 00 3. . 2 2 . y , 3 3 p )

Deb ateab le Claims A Se rie s o f Essays o n Se co nda ry Edu ca tio n B O N AR ES TARVER y J H CH L , AU HOR O F OM B ERVA IO S r A OS ER AREN Cr n 8 s T E S T N o T P T ow 0 6 . F . 0 S O ,

’ Dante s T en Heav ens A Stu dy in the Pa radiso A D R By EDMUND G R NE . m 8 D e y 00.

A French View o f English Contemporary A rt B E DE L . A SIZERAN E Tra n s a ted M O N ER N . b Y T y l y H . . P . n 8 0 Crow 0 .

Highland Dress a n d O rnament B ORD ARC BA D PB y L HI L CAM ELL . D em 8 y 00. z

B RTHUR TRAVERS CRAWFORD late Co mmissio ner o f Po o na . y A ,

r llu tr a t d Dem 800 1 5. Fulb I s e . y , 4

Few o f the tro ub les w e have had in India fro m time to time have assumed so se rio us an a s ect as the recent disturb a nces in Poo na b ut the extreme a la rmist view ta k en p , b y the press at ho me and the pub lic uttera nces o f certa in ill info rmed glob e trotters ha ve had a mischievo us effect in co nfusing the mind o f the British Publi c as to the vi a la ex rien o f ri h . Th utho r o f this k ha n r e ce g ts and w ro ng s o f the ease e A b o o , g g pe

th r n t w rk in o rde r to ma ke the situa tio n clea r. e districts affected, has w itte his o

Tw o N ativ e N arrativ es o f the M u tiny in Delhi TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINALS BY THE LATE

CHARLES THEOPHI LU S M ETCALFE C. S . I. Ben a Civi Se rvice . , ( g l l )

w 00 w ill: la r e M a . ust R ead . De y 8 , g p j y

Th w rra tives a re a uni ue a nd interestin co ntrib utio n to the litera tu re o f th e ese t o na— q g Indian Mutiny inasmuch as they a re the o nly o nes fro m a [ 1 1 e na tive so urce . One Is the dia r ke t da il th ro u ho ut the Sie e o f Del£1In 1 8 b Munshi ee w a n y , p y g g 57 y J ’ Lall. This ma n w ho was a n o fﬁcia l In the em lo o f the Governo r Genera l s A en t i n , p y g Delhi w as a l a lo n a nd r ma ined till hi dea th a n ho no ured rva nt o f th , l g loy l to us, a e , s , se e

ritish Go ve rnment. He a ve the o ri ina l dia r to the tra nsla to r o n the occasio n o f th e B g g y Im erial Assemb la e a t Delhi in 1 8 . The o ther na rrative is b a n educa ted na tiv e p — g 77 y no bleman Na w a b Ma inodin Hassa n han . H e threw in his lo t w ith the reb e ls a nd K , ha d eventua ll to fl w ith a rice o n his hea d. After so me ea rs o f exile he returned y y, p y to India stood his trial a nd w as a c uitted o f co m licit In murder a nd a rdo ned fo r his , , q p y , p ro ht a m r sha re In the fighting . This result was b ug b o ut ain ly th o ugh the influence o f Sir

T. Metca lfe w h life h ha ve d rin th i T N b ub s u ntl dre w , ose e d sa d u g e S eg e. he a w a s eq e y . u the na rrative fro m materia ls In his ossessi o n a n ve it in the o ri inal t the tra ns p p , d ga g o la to r. Mr. Metca lfe ha vin died b e fo re the a ers w e re read fo r ub licatio n the a re g p p y p , y no di w e ted and b ro ught o ut by his w ido w .

’ Constab le s Hand Atlas o f India A NEW SERIES OF SIXTY MAPS AND PLANS PREPARED FR O M ORDNANCE AND OTHER SURVEYS UNDER THE DIRECT ION OF

A T . . . P . . . G . &c . L J B R HO OMEW, F R G S R S E . - In ba morocco or cll bound lot/z ilt to I 5 . lf , ﬁ c , g p, 4 It is to lerab ly sa fe to p redict that no sensib le tra veller w ill go to India in fu ture ’ ’ itho u ro vidin him lf w ith nstab l f i No thin l w t p g se Co e s Hand Atlas o Ind a. g ha f so useful ha s b een do ne fo r many years to hel b o th the traveller in India and the ’ ’ p student a t ho me. Constab le 5 Hand Atlas i s a l ur t ho ld d r o p eas e o an to tu n ver .

A tb emeum. B O N T OMSON y J H H ,

ra ti n . F l ca One Guinea net. This w o rk o i With ab o ut 1 00 Illust o s o o s p 4to . c nta ns v u l pro b a b ly the ﬁnest se ries o f pictures o f China e er p b ished.

CON TE N TS . H R I A BRIEF KE CH n THE C N I I OF CHINA PAS AND P ESEN AP E S o O D ON . C . T T T , T R T N H ME II. THE HINAMA ABR A A D AT C N O D O . — — — — — hinese Guilds Ho n on Na tive Boa ts Sho ee ers Artists M usic Halls. C g k g pk p H E HI AMA ABR A AND AT H ME conti n ued III T C N N O D O . . ( ) b lin —T h —Th ﬂoa tin o ula tio n o f H o n - o n —North b ranch of th Gam g y p oo ns e g p p gk g e Pearl River .

- IV A AND K WANG U G PR VI CE. . C N ON N O N T— . T — Tea Fo re ign Ha ng s a nd Ho uses Schrodi ng.

V CAN ON con tinued . . T ( ) — - Its g e nera l a ppeara nce Its po pula tio n Stree ts Mode o f transacting b usiness S l r —W W — h w ll w rn ri e— uilin Go verno r- e n ifbf b oa ds o rk a nd ag e s T e i o atte b dg J G erz — — - i — w ei in f h — the tw o Kw ang Clan ﬁg hts Hak kas he my stic p lls D l g s o t e poo r The - — — Lo ha ng ta ng Buddhist mo nastic life On boa rd a junk . — - — VI AN ON con ti n ued . M ACAO . SW A OW . CHAO CHOW EU AMOY. . C ( ) T — T — — Th e cha rita b le institutions o f Chi na Ma ca o Descriptio n o f the to wn Its inha bitants — wa w o re i n settle ment Chao -chow -fu —Sw a tow fan - a inte rs Modellers S to —F g — — — p — Chinese art Vi lla g e w a rfa re Amo y The na tive qua rte r Abodes o f the poo r In i — - its—Huma n r n ars— —R nt c sce ne r —K - fa n—tic de M anure p ema ins i j Lekin oma i y u la ng su The fore ig n settlemen t.

VII. FORMOSA. ‘ Ta o w harb our o rmo sa—La -ma h-kai—Difliculties o f navi a tio n—Ta i-wa n -fu—The , g k — - F— — — Tao ta i IIis y a me n Ho w to ca nce l a sta te de b t The Dutch in 1 661 Sylva n la nes ‘ — — Me dica l Missions—A ourn e t the inte rio r Old w a te rco urses Bro en la nd—Halt y o — k ka se ttlers—Poa hb k e hoa n villa e—Ba ls a va lle The na me Isla ormo sa po g y F A lo n march—The entral mo un ta ins—Ba mb oo Brid es Pa u-a h-lia u villa e -The g c — — g phy sician a t wo rk Ka -san-po villa g e A w ine -feast nteri o r o f a hut Pe pohoa n dwe l lin —A va — a v e h ntin - rounds—La -lun villa e —Return rne g s sa g e da nce S ag u g g g g jou y . VI M IN II Foo cHo w AND TH E RIVER . — se f e nvasi n—The River Min - —The J a pa nese in Fo—rmosa Cau o th i o — Fooc—how Arsenal Chinese g unb oa ts Foochow city and ea t b ridg e A—City o f the dea d Its inha bi ta nts—Be a rs—Thieves—Le ers—Ku-sf a n Mo na ster The he rmit—Tea la nta tio n g g — p — — y — p o n Pa e ling hills Voy age up the Min Shui-ko w An up-co untry fa rm Ca pta in Sheng — — — - a nd his spo use Yen-pmg city Sacrificing to the dea d Shoo ting the Yen ping rapids A Na tive a sen e r-bo at p s g . 1x TH AN TSZ N I HANxo w . E Y G E. . HA HAI. S NG NGPO. t me in the hina Sea—In the w a e o f a t hoo n—Sha n hai—No tes Stea m ra C k yp g of its — — — - e a rly histo ry J a pa nese ra ids Shang ha i foreig n se ttle ment Pa ul SiI o r Su kw ang ki —ha n ha I It —Nin o —Na t ve soldiers—Sno w va lle —The M o un S — C y g i — y y ta ins Aza lea s l e monaste o the Sno wy Cre vice T—he tho usa nd-fa tho m precipice Buddhist M o n s—The a n tsz e Kia n —Ha n ow Th e U e r Ya n tsz e Icha n k g , g k pp g , g Th r es —The rea t Tsin -ta n ra id M stic fo unta n li hts —A n e r e Go g —g g— p — y i g — da g ous disa ster Kw ei-fu Our t e tu m Ki ukiang Na nking ; Its a rsenal The dea th of - - — Tsin kw o fan Chinese su erstitio n. g p W A X . EF PE KI T IE SI . T HE G EA LL. CH OO . N. NT N R T The fore i n settlement The Yellow River—Sil —Its oduction—Ta u — g fo rts The k r ' k Pe iho i r— hin r ress— lo ods in P i- hil-li pheir — — R ve C ese p og e c e fiects Tie ntsin The ’ F Sisters cha el—Co nditio n o f the ea le —A midni ht sto rm—Tun - ho w — p p g g C Pekin The Ta rta r and Chinese divisio ns o f t e metro o lis—Its ro a ds sho s a n d le h — p — , p p e fore ig n hotel Temple and do mestic a rchitecture The Tsun li Ya me n rince Kung a nd the hig h o fi oers of the em ire- Lite rary cha m io nship e Co nfucia n Te mple p p ’ The Obse rva to r —Ancie nt Chinese instruments—Ya n s ho use—Hab its o f h y — g t e ladi es Pe in enamelhn —Yue n-Min -Yuen Remar no ta h—A hi n a r — k g g g k p C ese my Li - — — H un Chan The inn of Pa trio tic Perfection The Grea t Wa ll—The Min g g g to mbs. 5 R N M . P. T HON. EO E N. RZO B the R . G G U y C ,

l i ns n t a ro wn 800 s. With numerous Il ustra t o a d Maps. E x r c , 7

This vo lume w ritten b the Unde r-Secreta r o f Sta te fo r Fo rei n Affa irs is o f unusua l , y y g , va lue a t resent n view o f the va ri us uestio ns which w ill arise in n o th th e p , i o q co necti n wi o it on o f th re rs and hina a nd a an in the Fa r East p s i e g a t Po w e C J p .

’ Ce rta inl the inﬂue nce o f M r. Curz o n tho u htful ene ra liza tio ns b a sed a s the a re u o n w ide y s g g , y p no w led e and ex ressed in clea r a nd ictures ue la n ua e ca nno t fa il to assist in so lvin the ro b le ms g , p q , g p k ! — p g g o f the Far East. M a nclwste r Co u r ier .

The Po pu lar Re ligio n an d Fo lk- lo re o f No rthe rn India By WILLIAM CROOKE

- us u a la s. 2 ls Dem 0 tb u F ll e P te Vo . lVi n mero 8 0 2 Is n t. p g y , . e

The b o ok is in ever res ect an admirab le o ne full o f insi ht a nd kno wled e a t ﬁ t ”— y p , g g rs ha nd. l e Times.

The Ho u se ho ld o f the Lafaye tte s

B ED TH S CHE . Dem 800. 1 s n t y I I L y s . e . ” Ma e w ml co mmended to e ver stude nt o f s h r — y b ar y y ocia l isto y . Globe . i r —Wor l A w o r o f no ta b le a b li t a nd st en th . d k y g . v m o f e a nd a the ti int re t . A o lu e d e p c e s no w a ny b oo w hich pre se nts ! k k r v u o f ren h Rev l ti n —Gla s ow a mo e vi id pict re the c o u o . g E very o ne w ho ta es a n in terest in the ra nce o f the last ua rte r o f the e ig hteenth century shou ld k ’ F q - - i w l wr tt n P ublislz r s Circula r . read th s el i e b ook. e M e dals an d De co ratio ns o f the British Army an d Navy By JOHN HORSLEY MAYO ta nt l tar cr t r t (La te Assis [ Mi i y S e e a y o tire India Oﬁ ce) .

Dedieated b Permissio n to Her Mo st Gra cio us Ma est VIC ORIA UEEN a nd EM PRESS y j y T , Q . -ﬁv la t rinted in o lo urs a nd man Illu ra i i With Fifty e P es P C y st t o ns n the text.

- 2 vols. S u cr Ro a l 800. O0cr 600 . s. n et p y pp £ 3 3 . Of the ma nner in w hich the w ork ha s b een ca rrie d o ut it is impo ssible to spea k e xcept in te rms o f w a rm raise . The meda ls a nd ribb o ns a re b ea utifull re roduced. To ro duce such a w o r so b ea u ti y p p k, ll l s d has ne e ssita ted much ex e nse a n d a co rres o ndin rice b u t w fu y l u tra te , c g e ca n scarce ly imag ine ’ p ” p p I - M a l a e n s ha t w ill b e lo n w itho ut i . P a l a et a ba rra cks o r Qu e s hip t g t t l G z te. An exha ustive record a nd it w ill b e stra n e if the in uirer searches its a e s for info rma tion o n , g q p g a ’ — l l o r deco ra t a nd is disa o in te d. S co tsma n pa rticu a r meda ion pp . Fo r b e a u ty a nd ﬁdelity the colo ured reproductio ns o f Army a nd Navy meda ls and decora tions surpa ss —Da l New n k w e h v v r se en . s a y thing o f the ind a e e e i y .

O ne ca n not to o hi hl raise th e nume ro us illustra tio ns. The letter ress to o is extra o rdinaril fu ll g y p p , , y a nd ela bo ra te . Alto e the r the w o r is a mIne o f a utho rita tive info rma tio n o n its su b ect a nd sh o u ld g ” j , k ' n l i f a t o n e th e milita e nth usia st a nd the s ia list i u mi ma tics — la s a b u da nt y sa t s y c ec n n s . G g ow ‘ p T h ese tw o vo lu mes a ea l o w e u lly to a ll w ho che rish the g rea t pa tri o tIc tra ditio ns of the E n lish pp p . ”— g ra ce a n d th e ir va lu e for o f cia l refe rence 15 more ove r inco ntesta b le . L eecls M ercu r , ﬁ , , y 6

By FRIDTJOF N ANSEN

A Few Copies o f the

Library Editio n o f Farthe st No rth

By FRIDTJOF NANSEN

f r l 2 8v 2 2 o . o s. Vols. Royal , net, are still sa e

The Library Edition conta ins

OVER ONE HUNDRED FULL-PAGE AND A LARGE NUMBER

TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS.

THREE PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES.

’ SIXTEEN COLOURED PLATES IN FACSIMILE OF DR. NANSEN S OWN

- WATER COLOUR PASTEL AND PENCIL S ETCHES. , , K

AN ETCHED PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR.

THREE MAPS.

A mast i c — er e e o f st r t in . T mes p o y ell g i .

A b ook for ever b od who oves a s r of ro mance and adventu r y y l to y e. Westminster a tt G z e e.

The genius o f Defoe cou d scarce y contrive a mo re ab sorb ing story l l ” than we have in h m — t e seco nd vo u e o f th o k S ecta tor . l e b o . p

’ - Dr. Nansen s Great Boo k contain s o ver 1 00 Fu l a e ustratio n s a l p g Ill , a rge n umb er o f Te t ustratio ns sixteen o oured ates fo ur L ar e l x Ill , C l Pl , g M a s tw o Pho to ravure P ates p , g and an Etched o rtra it. l , P 8 W W i LL D D AM AR L tt. D B A O US D . y LPH ILLI , ,

Princi al o f the Owens Co lle e Ma nchester Hon. Fello w Of Peterho use Camb rid e. p g , ; , g 7 R a 800. s. 60 . p . 3 — d i r h en rel w o r h f i a rab le sub ect . las ow H r a l A el ghtful monog ap ti y t y o ts dmi j G g e d.

E s c s 1 6— 1 ngli h S ho o l . 54 548

. M . A. B A. F EA y L CH , , ’ a e F llo w o f ohls xfo rd Ass ta n harit mmi n r L t e All S , O ; is t C y Co ssio e .

n h t s i En A ve ry remar ab le co trib ution to the is ory of eoon eduea tio n n g land, no t less novel in k m i ent r evi n Th Ti es . its conclu sions tha n mpo rta nt in the docu a y dence a d need to su stai them. e m This is the mo st valua b le bo o o n the histo r of En lish Educa tio n tha t has seen the li ht for ma n k y g g y

’ Spe nse r s Fae rie Qle e n e

m t x 8 l /z le e in i Volum s. Fca . c ot s n t. Co S e 0 . e p p 0 , , 9

I W D BY T M . AR E TED KA E REN. V m I. 1 6d t c o u es . and 11 . no w rea d . 1 s. . ne ea h . l , II , y 6 net Al elat/z ilt extra w it]: Pli oto r a onr e Fr nti s iece as. d. cacii . so g , g o p ,

l r ir For school use especia l y a nd as a poc et editio n this repri nt is just w hat the g enera lrea der equ es. P k L iverpool Da ily os t. Miss Wa rre n ho w ever rea ll ex la ins all tha t is necessar to an intelli en t understandin of the ” , , y p y g g — r r text. L ee¢ s M e cu y .

The text is o od there is a full and accura te lossar and the notes a re clear and to the o int. The g , g y , p ! — is n atl w ritt n. a ho li T m s . in troduction, to o , e y e C t c i e

So me O bse rva tio ns o f a Fo ste r Pare nt B N AR E RVER y JOH CH L S TA . Cr n 8 0 ow 0 . 6s.

r x l n u n h n h A ve y e cel e t b oo—k o n the ed catio o f t e E glish b oy . The b ook is one w ich all parents i l should dil gent y r ea Da ily M a il.

The Chro nicle o f Villan i

R BY RO E EL E T ANSLATED S E . S F . V W K E . D DITED BY THE R . P . I STEE E H C .

The boo ictures u e and instructive readin as it is is not less interestin and still more va lu , p q , g k ’ ”— g a b le r a s r t oe t S cots m n . fo re ders of Italy g ea tes p . n Dan e Pe rh—aps n o o ne b oo k is so Impo rtant to the stude t of t as the ch ronicle o f his contemporary Villani. A thene nm . A ve ntu re s 111 e ge n

W s i h ands. Tale s o f the e t H g l

A UIS OF LORNE K. T . M . P. By the M RQ , ,

6s. I ted. Crow n 800 Fully llustra ,

[ n st R eady . The Dark W ay o f Lo ve ’ ’ ‘ W R m m. b E . INGA IE m H L FFIC. Tra nsla ted By C AR ES A . GO y

00 s. 6d. Crow n 8 , 3

Ro aring Re u ss Idylls a nd Sto ries

B W . RIDGE BIRTT. y B S ' - With fo ur Full a e Illustrati ns. Crow n 800 s. p g o , 5

Odd Sto rie s T By FRANCES FORBES ROBER SON.

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- Bri ht a nd artistic some of them ori inal none co m n la ce . S ke tclc. mo g . g , p The b o o is in an a t m h f w e t th e e d e stee ed os e re o f a n tas , hich ma es u s f el a s if w e ha d b een o g k p p y ” k f he rl ﬂ w — r e w o d a nd elt h er w hi t a . o t sm t e o s ch g ro w here . L i ter tu

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ne f m n ‘ - r is n r ld O o the ost e thra llin n uni ue ro m n ver w ri t n T te Ch ti a Wo . g a d q a ces e te . / The ver d f — w eir est o w eird tal . P u ncb y es . — Its fa scina tio n is so rea im o ib l Tbe Lad . g t tha t it is p ss e to lay it aside. y The i ma n f v dea is so no vel tha t ne a s it we a t i o ri nali . A ro ce ar a b o e o g sp , as re , ts gi ty ! ' he o rdin — t a r ro ductio n . S t y p . P a u l s. M uch lo vin and ha human na ture muc m uch fa i ul s much da u ntle ss g ppy , h hero is , m thf nes , ho e so tha t o ne ha n ta m l n u io n the p , as p s a g hastli ess fo llo ws a no ther in ho rrid sW1ft s ccess ! reade r is alwa o m nied v n li — t s acc a b ima es o f de o tio n a d friend ness Li ver ool D a il Pos . y p y ” g . p y A mo st fa ina in na rra tiv —Du bli n B 0 n i n H er ld s c t e a . g e. g

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B A E DAN E y . . I LL Profusely illustrated b y ALEXANDE R ANSTE D

m I6mo 6s I erial . p ,

k t r f it o f Londo n. H e has A little time ag o Mr. Daniel] gave us a b o o on h e chu ches o the C y ’ h mes fro m Gree n w i ch to his a ttentio n t n Riv rside hurche s. He ta es t e Tha no w turne d o Lo ndo e C k k i s full l r ta b le h rches to u h his lin e . The b oo Kin sto n , a nd te ls the stories o f the va ious no c u c ed b y t y g ”— ' Da i CIzromcle . illustra ted fro m sketches by Alexa nder Ansted. ly

BY THE SAME AUTHOR London City Chu rches i W ith Numero us Illustrations and a Ma p sho w ing the po s tio n of ea ch Ch urch.

Im eria l I67720 65 p , .

’ Mr. Daniell s w or w ill ro ve ve r inte restin rea din as he ha s eviden tl ta en r ea t ca re in p y g g , y g k ! k o b ta n n all th fa cts con ernin h i t — e c t e C y churches, their histo ry an d a ssocia tio ns . L ondon . i i g g ” The illustra tions to this b oo are ood a nd it dese rves to be w ide l rea d —Mornin Pos t k g , y . g .

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EDITED BY AUGUSTINE B IRRE LL N TED A REP DUC I N F FRON ISPIECES BY ALEX . A S RO O O WI H , T T ’ T AI S IR JOSHUA REYNOLDS PORTR T .

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T he Paston L ette s I 2 I 0 r , 49 59

Edited b AME GAIRDNE R o f the Pub ic Re co rd Ofﬁce y J S , l

f vols . Fca . IVitlt P/zoto r avnr e Fron tis ieces clot/z ilt extr a or a er l 3 p 3 g p , g , p p la b e t u ncut , 1 65 . ne .

This e dition w hich w as rst ub lished so me tw e nt ea rs o is the sta nda rd editio n f these re a o , ﬁ p y y g , ma r a b le histo rica l do cuments a nd co nta ins u w a rds o f fo u r hu ndred lette rs in a dditio n to those ub k , p p lished b rere in 1 82 . The re rint is in thre e sma ll a nd co m a ct volu mes a nd sho uld be w e lcome to y F 3 p p ”— , his v im r w rm S co ts nra n . students o f to ry as g i ing an po ta nt o r in a convenie n t fo . k ” n — l r O e o f the monuments o f English historical scholarship that needs no co mmendation . M a nc ¢estc Gua rdia n . PO B T R Y

Selected Poems By GEORGE MEREDITH — A volume w hich ab ounds In imag ina tive visio n as w ell as intellectual stren S ” 1: ms are achievemen of th t llect — o e ts e in e there Is wit in the m a nd e nius. cct: p g S ma u . W ho e tha t a la r e ub lic will w a e to the hi h a n e p p up d serious b ea uties a nd the real g eniu s o f M r . ' ’ k g - g eredith s nest o etr S t a uea e Ga u tte . M ﬁ p y . j ’ '— These Selected Poems are a literary store. S co tr uea u . Songs o f L ove an d Empire I By E . NESB T

Now Read . Crow n 8710 clot/z lt ] , gi . N ew Poems By FRANCIS THOMPSON Fca 110 6 8 : net. p , There is in these new Poe ms a w ider o ut ook a reater b re a dth ot l , g i v r i ir — h than were d sco e ed n the re decesso rs Globe . sympat y p . “ A true o e t. At a n ra te h ere un uestio nab is a ne w o et a p y q —ly p , w ie de r o f b ea utifu wo rds a o ve r o f b ea utiful thin s. I. ZANGWILL In the l l , l g ,

lita n Se t. 1 8 Cosmopo , p 95 “ At lea st o ne b o o k o f oetry ha s b ee n pub lished this yea r tha t w e can ha nd o n co nﬁdently to 0 o r g e nera tio n s. It is no t inca uti o us to pro phe sy ’ r Fr cis Thom so n s o ems w ill las tha t M . a n p p “ ’ Tho m so n s new vo ume w il b e we co med b all stude nts M r. p l l l y and i m f t — f h mo b it o us fo r o o e r . l er a lovers o t e re am s p y G a.sg ow H ld.

W ma A S u B O N BURROU GHS hit n . t dy y J H lotb ilt t Iz mo. C g , ne . “ r the most om lete the most s m a the ti and th m t n etr a Alto ge the c , y c, e os e tin estima te o f Walt p ‘ p p g ri t - 1 M a i Whitma n that has y et been w t en . Da z y l. Fidelis an d Othe r Po e ms

By C. M. GEMMER

F sca clot/l lt 3. t. ool p gi , 3 6d. ne

It has unde niab le b eaut a nd it w o uld ha ve b e e n a it if this and so me o f the shorter o em ih y , p y p s t cluded In th e sa me co llectio n ha d n o t see n the lig ht. Dis ra ctio n o f to ne, ca re ful craftsma nshi a nd a ”— p, i ch voca b ula r cha ra cte rise mo st o f the m. M a n clzester Gua rdi a n . r y ” ‘ “ ” T e d w ith a da in ra ce is Ba b La nd. A Reverie in w ho se tende r a th o uch t o s a nd y g y ” p m. L i ter a tu r . sta tely mo ve me n t w e ﬁnd an a b iding cha r e A ‘ Tale o f Bo ccaccio a n d Othe r Po e ms E By ARTHUR COL S ARMSTRONG.

w n 71 c tk l Cr o 8 0, lo gi t, net. I 4

New Po pu lar Edi t i o

OF THE

W orks O f

George M eredit h

With Fro ntis ieces b E NA D PA IDGE HA ISON p y B R R RTR , RR MILLE R and Others.

Ordeal o f Richard O n e O f O u r Co n Pe ve rel qu e ro rs

Read Rho da Fle ming [ y . Lo rd O rmo nt a n d His

Read Sa ndra Be llo ni [ y . Aminta Vitto ria The Amaz ing Mar Dia na o f the Cro ss riage w ays The Shaving o f Shag

u t R a d The Ego ist [j s e y . pat Eva n Harringto n The Tragic Co me The Adve ntu re s Of dians Harry Richmo nd Sho rt Sto rie s