Tent Life in Siberia. George F. Kennan
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of the most profane trooper of the army in Flanders.
"Oh! let my pray-er be-e-e (Here! you pig! Keep in the road!) set forth as the in-cense; and let the lifting up of my han-n-n-ds be—(Get up! you korova! You old, blind, broken-legged son of the Evil Spirit! Where you going to!)—an eve-n-ing sacrifice: let not my heart be inclined to—(Lie down again, will you! Thwack? Take that, you old sleepy-headed svinya proclatye!)—any e-vil thing; let me not be occupied with any evil works (Akh! What a horse! Bokh s'nim!). Set a watch before my mouth, and keep the do-o-o-r of my lips—(Whoa! You merzavitz! What did you run into that tree for? Ecca voron! Podletz! Slepoi takoi! Chart tibi vasmee!)"—and Maximof lapsed into a strain of such ingenious and metaphorical profanity that my imagination was left to supply the deficiencies of my imperfect comprehension. He did not seem to be conscious of any inconsistency between the chanted psalm and the profane interjections by which it was accompanied; but, even if he had been fully aware of it, he probably would have regarded the chanting as a fair offset to the profanity, and would have gone on his way with serene indifference, fully assured that if he sang a sacred verse every time he swore, his celestial account must necessarily balance!
The road, or rather trail, from Jerusalem turned away to the westward, and wound around the bases of a range of low bare mountains, through a dense forest of poplar and birch. Now and then we would come out into little grassy openings, where the ground was covered with blueberries, and every eye would be on the lookout for bears; but all was still and motionless—even the grasshoppers chirping sleepily and lazily, as if they too were about to yield to the somnolence which seemed to overpower all nature.
To escape the mosquitoes, whose relentless persecution became almost unendurable, we rode on more briskly through a broad, level valley, filled with a dense growth of tall umbelliferous plants, trotted swiftly up a little hill, and rode at a thundering gallop into the village of Korak, amid the howling and barking of a hundred and fifty half-wild dogs, the neighing of horses, running to and fro of men, and a scene of general confusion.
At Korak we changed most of our horses and men, ate an al fresco lunch under the projecting eaves of a mossy Kamchadal house, and started at two o'clock for Malqua, another village, fifty or sixty miles distant, across the watershed of the Kamchatka River. About sunset, after a brisk ride of fifteen or eighteen miles, we suddenly emerged from the dense forest of poplar, birch, and mountain ash which had shut in the trail, and came out into a little grassy opening, about an acre in extent, which seemed to have been made expressly with a view to camping out. It was surrounded on three sides by woods, and opened on the fourth into a wild mountain gorge, choked up with rocks, logs, and a dense growth of underbrush and weeds. A clear cold stream tumbled in a succession of tinkling cascades down the dark ravine, and ran in a sandy flower-bordered channel through the grassy glade, until it disappeared in the encircling forest. It was useless to look for a better place than this to spend the night, and we decided to stop while we still had daylight. To picket our horses, collect wood for a fire, hang over our teakettles, and pitch our little cotton tent, was the work of only a few moments, and we were soon lying at full length upon our warm bearskins, around our towel-covered candle-box, drinking hot tea, discussing Kamchatka, and watching the rosy flush of sunset as it slowly faded over the western mountains.
As I was lulled to sleep that night by the murmuring plash of falling water, and the tinkling of our horses' bells from the forest behind our tent, I thought that nothing could be more delightful than camp life in Kamchatka.
We reached Malqua on the following day, in a generally exhausted and used-up condition. The road had been terribly rough and broken, running through narrow ravines blocked up with rocks and fallen trees, across wet mossy swamps, and over rugged precipitous hills, where we dared not attempt to ride our horses. We were thrown repeatedly from our saddles; our provision-boxes were smashed against trees, and wet through by sinking in swamps; girths gave way, drivers swore, horses fell down, and we all came to grief, individually and collectively. The Major, unaccustomed as he was to these vicissitudes of Kamchatkan travel, held out like a Spartan; but I noticed that for the last ten miles he rode upon a pillow, and shouted at short intervals to Dodd, who, with stoical imperturbability, was riding quietly in advance: "Dodd! oh, Dodd! haven't we got most to that con-found-ed Malqua yet?" Dodd would strike his horse a sharp blow with a willow switch, turn half round in his saddle, and reply, with a quizzical smile, that we were "not most there yet, but would be soon!"—an equivocal sort of consolation which did not inspire us with much enthusiasm. At last, when it had already begun to grow dark, we saw a high column of white steam in the distance, which rose, Dodd and Viushin said, from the hot springs of Malqua; and in fifteen minutes we rode, tired, wet, and hungry, into the settlement. Supper was a secondary consideration with me that night. All I wanted was to crawl under a table where no one would step on me, and be let alone. I had never before felt such a vivid consciousness of my muscular and osseous system. Every separate bone and tendon in my body asserted its individual existence by a distinct and independent ache, and my back in twenty minutes was as inflexible as an iron ramrod. I felt a melancholy conviction that I never should measure five feet ten inches again, unless I could lie on some Procrustean bed and have my back stretched out to its original longitude. Repeated perpendicular concussions had, I confidently believed, telescoped my spinal vertebrae into each other, so that nothing short of a surgical operation would ever restore them to their original positions. Revolving in my mind such mournful considerations, I fell asleep under a table, without even pulling off my boots.
[Illustration: Cap of brown and white fur]
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