Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar Life. Thomas Wallace Knox
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Nicolayevsk there were horses, carts, and carriages, and I had my first experience of a horse harnessed with the Russian yoke. The theory of the yoke is, that it keeps the shafts away from the animal's sides, and enables him to exert more strength than when closely hedged. I cannot give a positive opinion on this point, but believe the Russians are correct. The yoke standing high above the horse's head and touching him nowhere, has a curious appearance when first seen. I never could get over the idea while looking at a dray in motion, that the horse was endeavoring to walk through an arched gateway and taking it along with him.
The shafts were wide apart and attached by straps to the horse's collar. All the tension came through the shafts, and these were strengthened by ropes that extended to the ends of the forward axle. Harnesses had a shabby, 'fixed up' appearance, with a good deal of rope in their composition. Why they did not go to pieces or crumble to nothing, like the deacon's One Horse Shay, was a mystery.
Before leaving Nicolayevsk I enjoyed a ride in one of its private carriages. The vehicle was open, its floor quite low, and the wheels small. We had two horses, one between the shafts and wearing the inevitable yoke. The other was outside, and attached to an iron single-tree over the forward wheel. Three horses can be driven abreast on this kind of carriage.
The shaft horse trotted, while the other galloped, holding his head very low and turned outward. This is due to a check rein, which keeps him in a position hardly natural. The orthodox mode in Russia is to have the shaft horse trotting while the other runs as described; the difference in the motion gives an attractive and dashy appearance to the turnout. Existence would be incomplete to a Russian without an equipage, and if he cannot own one he keeps it on hire. The gayety of Russian cities in winter and summer is largely due to the number of private vehicles in constant motion through the streets.
CHAPTER XI.
I arranged to ascend the Amoor on the steamer Ingodah, which was appointed to start on the eighteenth of September. My friend Anossoff remained at Nicolayevsk during the winter, instead of proceeding to Irkutsk as I had fondly hoped. I found a compagnon du voyage in Captain Borasdine, of General Korsackoff's staff. In a drenching rain on the afternoon of the seventeenth, we carried our baggage to the Ingodah, which lay half a mile from shore. We reached the steamer after about twenty minutes pulling in a whale-boat and shipping a barrel of water through the carelessness of an oarsman.
At Nicolayevsk the Amoor is about a mile and a half wide, with a depth of twenty to thirty-five feet in the channel. I asked a resident what he thought the average rapidity of the current in front of the town.
"When you look at it or float with it," said he, "I think it is about three and a half miles. If you go against it you find it not an inch less than five miles."
The rowers had no light task to stem the rapid stream, and I think it was about like the Mississippi at Memphis.
The boat was to leave early in the morning. I took a farewell dinner with Mr. Chase, and at ten o'clock received a note from Borasdine announcing his readiness to go to the steamer. Anossoff, Chase, and half a dozen others assembled to see us off, and after waking the echoes and watchmen on the pier, we secured a skiff and reached the Ingodah. The rain was over, and stars were peeping through occasional loop-holes in the clouds.
Illustration: SEEING OFF. Click to view.
'Seeing off' consumed much time and more champagne. As we left the house I observed Chase and Anossoff each putting a bottle in his pocket, and remarking the excellent character of their ballast. From the quantity that revealed itself afterward the two bottles must have multiplied, or other persons in the party were equally provided. To send off a friend in Russia requires an amount of health-drinking rarely witnessed in New York or Boston. If the journey is by land the wayfarer is escorted a short distance on his route, sometimes to the edge of the town, and sometimes to the first station. Adieus are uttered over champagne, tea, lunch—and champagne. It was nearly daybreak when our friends gave us the last hand-shake and went over the side. Watching till their boat disappeared in the gloom, I sought the cabin, and found the table covered with a beggarly array of empty bottles and a confused mass of fragmentary edibles. I retired to sleep, while the cabin boy cleared away the wreck.
The sun rose before our captain. When I followed their example we were still at anchor and our boilers cold as a refusal to a beggar. Late in the morning the captain appeared; about nine o'clock fire was kindled in the furnace, and a little past ten we were under way. As our anchor rose and the wheel began to move, most of the deck passengers turned in the direction of the church and devoutly made the sign of the cross. As we slowly stemmed the current the houses of Nicolayevsk and the shipping in its front, the smoking foundries, and the pine-covered hills, faded from view, and with my face to the westward I was fairly afloat on the Amoor.
The Ingodah was a plain, unvarnished boat, a hundred and ten feet long, and about fifteen feet beam. Her hull was of boiler iron, her bottom flat, and her prow sharp and perpendicular. Her iron, wood work, and engines were brought in a sailing ship to the Amoor and there put together. She had two cabins forward and one aft, all below deck. There was a small hold for storing baggage and freight, but the most of the latter was piled on deck. The pilot house was over the forward cabin, and contained a large wheel, two men, and a chart of the river. The rudder was about the size of a barn door, and required the strength of two men to control it. Had she ever refused to obey her helm she would have shown an example of remarkable obstinacy.
Over the after cabin there was a cook-house, where dwelt a shabby and unwholesome cuisinier. Between the wheels was a bridge, occupied by the captain when starting or stopping the boat; the engines, of thirty horse power, were below deck, under this bridge. The cabins, without state rooms, occupied the whole width of the boat. Wide seats with cushions extended around the cabins, and served as beds at night. Each passenger carried his own bedding and was his own chambermaid. The furniture consisted of a fixed table, two feet by ten, a dozen stools, a picture of a saint, a mirror, and a boy, the latter article not always at hand.
The cabins were unclean, and reminded me of the general condition of transports during our late war. Can any philosopher explain why boats in the service of government are nearly always dirty?
The personnel of the boat consisted of a captain, mate, engineer, two pilots, and eight or ten men. The captain and mate were in uniform when we left port, but within two hours they appeared in ordinary suits of grey. The crew were deck hands, roustabouts, or firemen, by turns, and when we took wood most of the male deck passengers were required to assist. On American steamboats the after cabin is the aristocratic one; on the Amoor the case is reversed. The steerage passengers lived, moved, and had their being and baggage aft the engine, while their betters were forward. This arrangement gave the steerage the benefit of all cinders and smoke, unless the wind was abeam or astern.
Steam navigation on the Amoor dates from 1854. In that year two wooden boats, the Shilka and the Argoon, were constructed on the Shilka river, preparatory to the grand expedition of General Mouravieff. Their timber was cut in the forests of the Shilka, and their engines were constructed at Petrovsky-Zavod. The Argoon was the first to descend, leaving Shilikinsk on the 27th of May, 1854, and bringing the Governor General and his staff. It was accompanied by fifty barges and a great many rafts loaded with military forces to occupy the Amoor, and with provisions for the Pacific fleet. The Shilka descended a few months later. She was running in 1866, but the Argoon, the pioneer, existed less than a decade. In 1866 there were twenty-two steamers on the Amoor, all but four belonging to the government.
The government boats are engaged in transporting freight, supplies, soldiers, and military stores generally, and carrying the mail. They carry passengers and private freight at fixed rates, but do not give insurance against fire or accidents of navigation. Passengers contract with the captain or steward