Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar Life. Thomas Wallace Knox
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subsistence while on board. Deck passengers generally support themselves, but can buy provisions on the boat if they wish. The steward may keep wines and other beverages for sale by the bottle, but he cannot maintain a bar. He has various little speculations of his own and does not feed his customers liberally. On the Ingodah the steward purchased eggs at every village, and expected to sell them at a large profit in Nicolayevsk. When we left him he had at least ten bushels on hand, but he never furnished eggs to us unless we paid extra for them.
One cabin was assigned to Borasdine and myself, save at meal times, when two other passengers were present. One end of it was filled with the mail, of which there were eight bags, each as large as a Saratoga trunk and as difficult to handle. The Russian government performs an 'express' service and transports freight by mail; it receives parcels in any part of the empire and agrees to deliver them in any other part desired. From Nicolayevsk to St. Petersburg the charges are twenty-five copecks (cents) a pound, the distance being seven thousand miles. It gives receipts for the articles, and will insure them at a charge of two per cent. on their value.
Goods of any kind can be sent by post through Russia just as by express in America. Captain Lund sent a package containing fifty sable skins to his brother in Cronstadt, and another with a silk dress pattern to a lady in St. Petersburg. In the mail on the Ingodah there were twelve hundred pounds of sable fur sent by Mr. Chase to his agent in St. Petersburg. Money to any amount can be remitted, and its delivery insured. I have known twenty thousand roubles sent on a single order.
Parcels for transportation by post must be carefully and securely packed. Furs, silks, clothing, and all things of that class are enveloped in repeated layers of oil cloth and canvas to exclude water and guard against abrasion. Light articles, like bonnets, must be packed with abundance of paper filling them to their proper shape, and very securely boxed. A Siberian lady once told me that a friend in St. Petersburg sent her a lot of bonnets, laces, and other finery purchased at great expense. She waited a long time with feminine anxiety, and was delighted when told her box was at the post office. What was her disappointment to find the articles had been packed in a light case which was completely smashed. She never made use of any part of its contents.
In crossing Siberian rivers the mail is sometimes wet, and it is a good precaution to make packages waterproof. A package of letters for New York from Nicolayevsk I enveloped in canvas, by advice of Russian friends, and it went through unharmed.
Illustration: SCENES ON THE AMOOR. Click to view.
The post wagons are changed at every station, and the mail while being transferred is not handled with care. Frail articles must be boxed so that no tossing will injure them. My lady friend told me of a bride who ordered her trousseau from St. Petersburg and prepared for a magnificent wedding. The precious property arrived forty-eight hours before the time fixed for the ceremony. Moving accidents by flood and field had occurred. The bridal paraphernalia was soaked, crushed, and reduced to a mass that no one could resolve into its original elements. The wedding was postponed and a new supply of goods ordered.
The mail is always in charge of a postillion, who is generally a Cossack, and his duty is much like that of a mail agent in other countries. He delivers and receives the sacks of matter at the post offices, and guards them on the road. During our voyage on the Ingodah there was no supervision over the mail bags after they were deposited in our cabin. I passed many hours in their companionship, and if Borasdine and I had chosen to rifle them we could have done so at our leisure. Possibly an escape from the penalties of the law would have been less easy.
Our cook was an elderly personage, with thin hair, a yellow beard, and a much neglected toilet. On the first morning I saw him at his ablutions, and was not altogether pleased with his manner. He took a half-tumbler of water in his mouth and then squirted the fluid over his hands, rubbing them meanwhile with invisible soap. He was quite skillful, but I could never relish his dinners if I had seen him any time within six hours. His general appearance was that of having slept in a gutter without being shaken afterwards.
The day of our departure from Nicolayevsk was like the best of our Indian summer. There was but little wind, the faintest breath coming now and then from the hills on the southern bank. The air was of a genial warmth, the sky free from clouds and only faintly dimmed with the haze around the horizon. The forest was in the mellow tints of autumn, and the wide expanse of foliferous trees, dotted at frequent intervals with the evergreen pine, rivalled the October hues of our New England landscape. Hills and low mountains rose on both banks of the river and made a beautiful picture. The hills, covered with forest from base to summit, sloped gently to the water's edge or retreated here and there behind bits of green meadow. In the distance was a background of blue mountains glowing in sunshine or dark in shadow, and varying in outline as we moved slowly along. The river was ruffled only by the ripples of the current or the motion of our boat through the water. Just a year earlier I descended the Saint Lawrence from Lake Ontario to Quebec. I saw nothing on the great Canadian river that equaled the scenery of my first day's voyage on the Amoor.
Soon after leaving Nicolayevsk we met several loads of hay floating with the current to a market at the town. On the meadows along the river the grass is luxuriant, and hay requires only the labor of cutting and curing. During the day we passed several points where haymaking was in progress. Cutting was performed with an instrument resembling the short scythe used in America for cutting bushes. After it was dried, the hay was brought to the river bank on dray-like carts. An American hay wagon would have accomplished twice as much, with equal labor.
The hay is like New England hay from natural meadows, and is delivered at Nicolayevsk for six or eight dollars a ton. Cattle and horses thrive upon it, if I may judge by the condition of the stock I saw. For its transportation two flat-bottomed boats are employed, and held about twelve feet apart by timbers. A floor on these timbers and over the boats serves to keep the hay dry. Men are stationed at both ends of the boats, and when once in the stream there is little to do beside floating with the current. A mile distant one of these barges appears like a haystack which an accident has set adrift.
We saw many Gilyak boats descending the river with the current or struggling to ascend it. The Gilyaks form the native population in this region and occupy thirty-nine villages with about two thousand inhabitants. The villages are on both banks from the mouth of the river to Mariensk, and out of the reach of all inundations. Distance lends enchantment to the view of their houses, which will not bear close inspection.
Illustration: A GILYAK VILLAGE. Click to view.
Some of the houses might contain a half dozen families of ordinary size, and were well adapted to the climate. While we took wood at a Gilyak village I embraced the opportunity to visit the aboriginals. The village contained a dozen dwellings and several fish-houses. The buildings were of logs or poles, split in halves or used whole, and were roofed with poles covered with a thatch of long grass to exclude rain and cold. Some of the dwelling houses had the solid earth for floors, while others had floorings of hewn planks.
The store houses were elevated on posts like those of an American 'corn barn,' and were wider and lower than the dwellings. Each storehouse had a platform in front where canoes, fishing nets, and other portable property were stowed. These buildings were the receptacles of dried fish for the winter use of dogs and their owners. The elevation of the floor serves to protect the contents from dogs and wild animals. I was told that no locks were used and that theft was a crime unknown.
The dwellings were generally divided into two apartments; one a sort of ante room and receptacle of house-keeping goods, and the other the place of residence. Pots, kettles, knives, and wooden pans were the principal articles of household use I discovered. At the storehouses there were several fish-baskets of birch or willow twigs. A Gilyak gentleman does not permit fire carried into or out of his house, not even in a pipe. This is not owing to his fear of conflagrations, but to a superstition that such an occurrence may bring him ill luck in hunting or fishing.
It was in the season of curing fish, and the stench that greeted my nostrils was by no means delightful. Visits to dwellings or magazines would have been much easier had I possessed a sponge saturated with cologne water. Fish were in various stages of preparation, some just hung upon poles, while others were nearly ready for the magazine. The manner