Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar Life. Thomas Wallace Knox
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with a sign language, until I picked up enough Russian to ask for tea, water, bread, and other necessary things. At eleven we had breakfast in the captain's cabin, where we discussed steaks, cutlets, tea, and cigars, until nearly noon. Dinner at six o'clock was opened with the never failing zakushka, or lunch, the universal preparative of the empire, and closed with tea and cigars. At eight o'clock tea was served again. After it, any one who chose could partake of the cup which cheers and inebriates.
Illustration: RUSSIAN OFFICERS AT MESS. Click to view.
One morning during my voyage a sailor died. The ocean burial occurred on the following day, and was conducted according to the ceremonial of the Eastern Church. At the appointed time, I went with Captain Lund to the place of worship, between decks. The corpse was in a canvas coffin, its head and breast being visible. The coffin, partially covered with the naval ensign, lay on a wide plank about two feet above the deck. At its head the priest was reading the burial service, while near him there was a group of sailors forming the choir. Captain Lund and several officers stood at the foot of the coffin, each holding a burning taper.
The service lasted about twenty minutes, and consisted of reading by the priest and responses by the choir. The censer was repeatedly swung, as in Catholic ceremonials, the priest bowing at the same time toward the sacred picture. Simultaneously all the candles were extinguished, and their several men advanced and kissed a small cross lying upon the coffin. The priest read a few lines from a written paper and placed it with the cross on the breast of the corpse. The coffin was then closed and carried upon the plank to the stern of the ship.
After a final chant by the choir, one end of the plank was lifted, and a single splash in the water showed where the body went down. During the service the flag floated at half mast. It was soon lowered amid appropriate music, which ended the burial at sea.
On the third day after leaving the Pacific we were shrouded in fog, but with it we had a fine southerly breeze that carried us rapidly on our course. The fog was so dense that we obtained no observation for four days, but so accurate was the sailing master's computation that the difference between our observed and estimated positions was less than two miles.
When the fog rose we were fairly in Ghijiga Bay, a body of water shaped like a narrow V. Sharp eyes looking ahead discovered a vessel at anchor, and all hoped it was the Clara Bell. As we approached she developed into a barque, and gave us comfort, till her flag completed our delight. We threw the lead and began looking for anchorage.
Nine, eight, seven fathoms were successively reported, and for some minutes the depth remained at six and a half. A mile from the Clara Bell we dropped anchor, the ship trembling from, stem to stern as the huge chain ran through the hawse-hole. We were at the end of a nine days voyage.
CHAPTER VII.
We were fifteen miles from the mouth of Ghijiga river, the shoals forbidding nearer approach. The tide rises twenty-two feet in Ghijiga Bay, and to reach the lighthouse and settlement near the river, even with small boats, it is necessary to go with the tide. We learned that Major Abasa, of the Telegraph service, was at the light-house awaiting our arrival, and that we must start before midnight to reach the landing at the proper time.
Captain Lund ordered a huge box filled with provisions and other table ware, and threw in a few bottles of wine as ballast. I was too old a traveler to neglect my blankets and rubber coat, and found that Anossoff was as cautious as myself.
We prolonged our tea-drinking to ten o'clock and then started. Descending the ship's side was no easy matter. It was at least three feet from the bottom of the gang-way ladder to the water, and the boat was dancing on the chopping sea like a pea on a hot shovel. Captain Lund descended first, followed by Anossoff. Then I made my effort, and behind me was a grim Cossack. Just as I reached the lowest step a wave swung the boat from the ship and left me hanging over the water. The Cossack, unmindful of things below, was backing steadily toward my head. I could not think of the Russian phrase for the occasion and was in some dilemma how to act. I shouted 'Look out' with such emphasis that the man understood me and halted with his heavy boots about two inches above my face. Clinging to the side ropes and watching my opportunity, I jumped at the right moment and happily hit the boat. The Cossack jumped into the lap of a sailor and received a variety of epithets for his carelessness. There are fourteen ways in the Russian language of calling a man a—— fool, and I think all of them were used.
Illustration: ASCENDING THE BAY. Click to view.
Wind and tide opposed each other and tossed us rather uncomfortably. The waves breaking over the bow saturated the Cossack and sprinkled some of the sailors. At the stern we managed to protect ourselves, though we caught occasionally a few drops of spray. Wrapped in my overcoat and holding a bear-skin on my knees, I studied the summer night in that high northern latitude. At midnight it seemed like day break, and I half imagined we had wrongly calculated the hours and were later than we supposed. Between sunset and sunrise the twilight crept along the horizon from Occident to Orient. Further north the inhabitants of the Arctic circle were enjoying the light of their long summer day. What a contrast to the bleak night of cold and darkness that stretches with faint glimmerings of dawn through nearly half the year. The shores of the bay were high perpendicular banks, sharply cut like the bluffs at Vicksburg. There are several head-lands, but none project far enough to form harbors behind them. The bottom furnishes good anchoring ground, but the bay is quite open to southerly winds.
Captain Lund dropped his chin to his breast and slept soundly. Anossoff raised his coat collar and drew in his head like a tortoise returning into his shell, but with all his efforts he did not sleep. I was wakeful and found that time dragged slowly. The light-house had no light and needed none, as the darkness was far from profound. In approaching the mouth of the river we discovered a cluster of buildings, and close at hand two beacons, like crosses, marking the direction of the channel.
There was a little surf breaking along the beach as our keel touched the ground. Our blankets came dripping from the bottom of the boat, and my satchel had taken water enough to spoil my paper collars and a dozen cigars. My greatest calamity on that night was the sudden and persistent stoppage of my watch. An occurrence of little moment in New York or London was decidedly unpleasant when no trusty watchmaker lived within four thousand miles.
Major Abasa and the Ispravnik of Ghijiga escorted us from the landing to their quarters, where we soon warmed ourselves with hot tea, and I took opportunity and a couple of bearskins and went to sleep. Late in the day we had a dinner of soup, pork and peas, reindeer meat, and berry pudding. The deer's flesh was sweet and tender, with a flavor like that of the American elk.
In this part of Siberia there are many wide plains (tundras) covered with moss and destitute of trees. The blueberry grows there, but is less abundant than the "maroska," a berry that I never saw in America. It is yellow when ripe, has an acid flavor, and resembles the raspberry in shape and size. We ate the maroska in as many forms as it could be prepared, and they told us that it grew in Scotland, Scandinavia, and Northern Russia.
Illustration: TAKING THE CENSUS. Click to view.
The ordinary residents at the mouth of Ghijiga river were the pilot and his family, with three or four Cossacks to row boats on the bay. The natives of the vicinity came there occasionally, but none were permanent citizens. The arrival of the Variag and Clara Bell gave unusual activity to the settlement, and the Ispravnik might have returned a large population had he imitated the practice of those western towns that take their census during the stay of a railway train or a steamboat. There was once, according to a rural historian, an aspiring politician in Tennessee who wanted to go to Congress. There were not inhabitants enough in his district to send him, and so he placed a couple of his friends at the railway station to take the names of passengers as they visited the refreshment saloon and entered or left the depot. In a short time the requisite constituency was secured and sworn to, so that the aspirant for official honor accomplished the wish of his heart.
Illustration: LIGHT-HOUSE AT GHIJIGA.