Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar Life. Thomas Wallace Knox
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fluently, and was well acquainted with America and American affairs. During my voyage on the Variag I heard much of the charming manners of Madame Fulyelm, and regretted to learn she was spending the summer in the country.
The machine shops, foundries, and dock-yard are described in Russian by the single word 'port.' I visited the port of Nicolayevsk and found it more extensive than one might expect in this new region. There were machines for rolling, planing, cutting, casting, drilling, hammering, punching, and otherwise treating and maltreating iron. There were shops for sawing, planing, polishing, turning, and twisting all sorts of wood, and there were other shops where copper and brass could take any coppery or brassy shape desired. To sum up the port in a few words, its managers can make or repair marine and other engines, and produce any desired woodwork for house building or ship repairing. They build ships and equip them with machinery ready for sea.
The establishment is under the direct supervision of Mr. Woods, an American citizen of Scotch birth. Mr. Elliott, a Massachusetts Yankee, and Mr. Laney, an Englishman, are connected with the affair. Mr. Elliott had become a permanent fixture by marrying a Russian woman and purchasing a commodious house. The three men appeared to take great pride in what they had accomplished in perfecting the port.
It was a little curious to see at the mouth of the Amoor a steam fire engine from the Amoskeag Works at Manchester, N.H. The engine was labelled 'Amoor' in Russian characters, and appeared to be well treated. A house was assigned it, and watchmen were constantly on duty. The whole town being of wood it is highly important that the engine should act promptly in case of fire. The supply of hose was ample for all emergencies.
Several heavy guns were shown me, which were hauled overland from the Ural Mountains during the Crimean war and brought in boats down the Amoor. The expense of transporting them must have been enormous, their journey by roads to the head of the river being fully three thousand miles.
I spent a morning with Mr. Chase in calling upon several foreign merchants and their families. The most prominent of the merchants is Mr. Ludorf, a German, who went there in 1856, and has transacted a heavy business on the Amoor and in Japan and China. Mrs. Ludorf followed her husband in 1858, and was the first foreign lady to enter Nicolayevsk.
The most interesting topic to Mr. Chase and the ladies was that of cooks. Within two weeks there had been much trouble with the chefs de cuisine, and every housekeeper was in deep grief. Servants are the universal discomfort from the banks of the Hudson to those of the Amoor. Man to be happy must return to the primitive stages of society before cooks and housemaids were invented.
The hills around Nicolayevsk are covered with forests of small pines. Timber for house building purposes is rafted from points on the Amoor where trees are larger. Formerly the town was in the midst of a forest, but the vicinity is now pretty well cleared. Going back from the river, the streets begin grandly, and promise a great deal they do not perform. For one or two squares they are good, the third square is passable, the fourth is full of stumps, and when you reach the fifth and sixth, there is little street to be found. I never saw a better illustration of the road that commenced with a double row of shade trees, and steadily diminished in character until it became a squirrel-track and ran up a tree. There is very little agriculture in the vicinity, the soil and climate being unfavorable. The chief supply of vegetables comes from the settlements on the south bank of the river up to Lake Keezee, and along the shores of the lake. All the ordinary garden vegetables are raised, and in some localities they attain goodly size.
Every morning there was a lively scene at the river's edge in front of the town. Peasants from the farming settlements were there with articles for sale, and a vigorous chaffering was in progress. There were soldiers in grey coats, sailors from the ships in the harbor, laborers in clothing more or less shabby, and a fair sprinkling of aboriginals. To an American freshly arrived the natives were quite a study. They were of the Mongol type, their complexions dark, hair black, eyes obliquely set, noses flat, and cheek bones high. Most of them had the hair plaited in a queue after the Chinese fashion. Some wore boots of untanned skin, and a few had adopted those of Russian make. They generally wear blouses or frocks after the Chinese pattern, and the most of them could be readily taken for shabby Celestials.
Their hats were of two kinds, some of felt and turned up at the sides, and others of decorated birch bark shaped like a parasol. These hats were an excellent protection against sun and rain, but could hardly be trusted in a high wind. All these men were inveterate smokers, and carried their pipes and tobacco pouches at their waists. Most had sheath knives attached to belts, and some carried flint, steel, and tinder. They formed picturesque groups, some talking with purchasers and others collected around fires or near their piles of fish.
Illustration: BOAT LOAD OF SALMON. Click to view.
As I stood on the bank, a Gilyak boat came near me with a full cargo of salmon. The boat was built very high at bow and stern, and its bottom was a single plank, greatly curved. It was propelled by a woman manipulating a pair of oars with blades shaped like spoon-bowls, beaten flat, which she pulled alternately with a kind of 'hand-over-hand' process. This mode of rowing is universal among the Gilyaks, but does not prevail with other natives along the Amoor.
Whenever I approached a group of Gilyaks I was promptly hailed with 'reba! reba!' (fish! fish!) I shook my head and uttered nierte (no,) and our conversation ceased. The salmon were in piles along the shore or lying in the native boats. Fishing was not a monopoly of the Gilyaks, as I saw several Russians engaged in the business. They appeared on the best terms with their aboriginal neighbors.
Salmon are abundant in the Amoor and as much a necessity of life as in Northern Siberia. They are not as good as in Kamchatka, and I believe it is the rule that the salmon deteriorates as one goes toward the south. Possibly the quality of the Amoor salmon is owing to the time the fish remain in the brackish waters of the Straits of Tartary. The fishing season is the only busy portion of the year with the natives.
Illustration: AN EFFECTIVE PROTEST. Click to view.
The town is supplied with water by carts like those used in many places along our Western rivers. For convenience in filling the driver goes into the stream until the water is pretty well up his horse's sides. A bucket attached to a long handle is used for dipping, and moves very leisurely. I saw one driver go so far from shore that his horse protested in dumb but expressive show. The animal turned and walked to land, over-setting the cart and spilling the driver into the water. There was a volley of Russian epithets, but the horse did not observe them. At a photographic establishment I purchased several views of the city and surrounding region. I sought a watch dealer in the hope of replacing my broken time piece, but was unsuccessful. I finally succeeded in purchasing a cheap watch of so curious workmanship that it ran itself out and utterly stopped within a week.
One evening in the public garden a military band furnished creditable music, and I was told that it was formed by selecting men from the ranks, most of whom had never played a single note on any instrument. Writers on Russia twenty years ago said that men were frequently assigned to work they had never seen performed. If men were wanted for any government service a draft was made, just as for filling the army, and when the recruits arrived they were distributed. One was detailed for a blacksmith, and straightway went to his anvil and began. Another was told to be a machinist, and received his tools. He seated himself at his bench, watched his neighbor at work, and commenced with little delay. Another became a glass-blower, another a lapidary, another a musician, and so on through all the trades.
I have heard that an Ohio colonel in our late war had a fondness for never being outdone by rivals. One day his chaplain told him that a work of grace was going on in the army. "Fifteen men," said he, "were baptized last Sunday in Colonel Blank's regiment, and the reformation is still going on." Without replying the colonel called his adjutant.
"Captain," was the command, "detail twenty men for baptism at once. I won't be outdone by any other—— regiment in the army."
Near the river there are several large buildings, formerly belonging to the Amoor Company, an institution that closed its affairs in the summer of 1866. After the opening of the Amoor this company was formed in St. Petersburg with a paid up or guaranteed capital of nearly half a million