From Paris to New York by Land

Two days' hard travelling brought us to Tandinskaya. This is the best stancia on the road, and we therefore seized the opportunity to make a good, substantial meal and snatch a few hours' sleep before proceeding to the next rest-house, which was nearly a hundred miles distant. At Tandinskaya we changed teams, successfully resenting the extortionate charges made by the postmaster. All the stancias on this road are leased by the Government to Yakute peasants, who are legally entitled to receive three kopeks a verst for every pair of deer. This sum includes post-house accommodation, such as it is; but as we always added a rouble or two for the use of these filthy hovels, Stepan was the more incensed at this postmaster's rascality. The latter claimed payment for about fifty versts more than we had actually covered, so Stepan averred, although the distances north of Yakutsk are very vague, and the Cossack was probably wrong. It was amusing to compare the mileage as given in the only post-book of this road (compiled in the reign of the Empress Catherine) with the real distances, which were invariably twice as long. The officials of those days probably reflected that, if three kopeks must be paid for a verst, the latter had better be a long one. And the Yakute, knowing no better, suffered in silence.

On leaving Tandinskaya, we travelled some miles along the river Aldan, a tributary of the Lena, which is dangerous in winter on account of numerous overflows. Our drivers, therefore, proceeded with caution, walking some distance ahead of the sleds, and frequently sounding the ice with their long poles. It was bitterly cold, for a breeze was blowing in our faces, and the deer, as usual, slipped and slithered in all directions, continually upsetting the sleds. This became such a common occurrence that, after a couple of days, we took it as a matter of course, and I would often awaken from a nap inside the hood to find myself proceeding face downwards, the sled having overturned. But the driver would merely halt the team and replace the narta, with its helpless inmate, on its runners, with the indifference of a child playing with a toy horse and cart. Luckily the deer never attempted to bolt on these occasions, but waited patiently until their burthen was placed "right side up."

To-day the wind became more boisterous, and the cold consequently more piercing every mile we travelled. We had left Tandinskaya about ten at night, and towards morning Stepan calculated that we had covered twenty miles in seven hours. The stars had now disappeared, and snow was falling fast, also the wind had risen to a gale, which percolated the felt hoods and furs like a stream of iced water. At daybreak the weather turned to a blizzard, which raged for twenty-four hours and nearly buried us in snow; but when the storm lulled a bit we struggled painfully on for about fifteen miles, and hailed the sight of a povarnia with delight, for it meant, at any rate, shelter and a fire. Povarnias are merely mud-huts erected at intervals along the track, when the stancias are long distances apart. They are dark, uninhabited hovels, generally half full of snow, and open to the winds, and yet these crazy shelters have saved many a traveller from death by cold and exposure on this lonely road. A povarnia contains no furniture whatever; merely a clay hearth and some firewood which previous travellers have left there, perhaps weeks before. For on leaving these places every one is expected to cut fuel ready for those who come after. Sanga-Ali was the povarnia we had now reached, and it was almost blocked by snow which had drifted in through the open doorway. But we set to with a will, and were soon crouching over a good fire on which a pot of deer-meat was fragrantly simmering. Here we remained until early next morning, taking it in turns to pile on fresh logs, for when the flame waned for an instant the cold became so intense that to sleep in it without a fire might have had unpleasant results.

Sordonnakia, the second povarnia, was reached after a journey of nine hours, by which time the weather had again become still and clear. Fortunately, bright calm days prevailed south of Verkhoyansk, although in mid-winter these are the realms of eternal darkness. But in our case spring was approaching, and on fine mornings I could throw open my narta and bask in warm sunshine while contemplating a sky of sapphire and smoking a cigar—one of the last, alas! I was likely to enjoy on this side of America. On such days the pure frosty air would exhilarate like champagne, and there was only one drawback to perfect enjoyment: the body would be baked on one side by the scorching rays, and frozen in the shade on the other. Another inconvenience was hunger, for there was never more than one square meal in the twenty-four hours, and often not that, and nothing resists cold like a well-lined stomach. Our sufferings were undoubtedly great from Yakutsk to the Arctic Ocean, but they were greatly alleviated by the fact that it was generally possible, even in the coldest weather, to enjoy a cigarette under cover of the hood. A pipe was, of course, out of the question, for the temperature (even under the felt covering) was never over 10° below zero, which would have instantly blocked the stem with frozen nicotine. But a Russian papirosh could always be enjoyed in peace, if not comfort, out of the wind, and I have derived relief through many an hour of misery through their soothing influence.

A brief halt only was made at Sordonnakia, for the povarnia had been left in such a disgusting state by its last occupants that we were compelled to eat in our sleds. The fifty versts between this place and the stancia of Beté-Kul were rapidly accomplished, and during this stage we came in sight of the Verkhoyansk range, a chain of precipitous mountains which would form one of the chief stumbling-blocks to the construction of the proposed All-World Railway. If the Paris-New York line is ever laid it will probably not run through Verkhoyansk. The direction would rather be east direct from Yakutsk to the Okhotsk Sea although that is also mountainous enough. Nearing Beté-Kul the landscape became yet wilder and more desolate, and we travelled along valleys of deep snow and across dark, lonely gorges, the depths of which even a brilliant sunshine could not penetrate. What this region may be like in summer-time I know not, but in winter the surface of the moon itself could scarcely present a more silent, spectral appearance.

At Beté-Kul we were kept some time waiting for reindeer, which had to be brought in from a considerable distance. Deer generally take some finding, as they stray sometimes fifteen or twenty miles from a stancia in search of moss, but, in our case, long delays had been avoided by the Cossack who preceded us. The stancia at Beté-Kul was kept by a more prosperous-looking Yakute than usual, and his wife was attired in bright silks and wore a profusion of massive gold jewellery. The Yakutes are expert goldsmiths, but chiefly excel in the manufacture of arms, especially a kind of yataghan, or huge dagger, which is stuck into the waistband. Yakute steel is much more flexible than Russian, although I have seen a knife made out of the former sever a copper coin as neatly as though it were a meat-lozenge.

We shared the postmaster's meal at Beté-Kul, and were introduced to a peculiar dish, which deserves mention as showing the extraordinary digestive powers of these people. It was a kind of jelly extracted from reindeer-horns and flavoured with the bark of the pine tree, which is scraped into a fine powder for the purpose. I was fated to subsist in after days on disgusting diet of the most varied description, but to this day the recollection of that Beté-Kul jelly produces a faint feeling of nausea, although I can recall other ghoulish repasts of raw seal-meat with comparative equanimity. Pure melted butter formed the second course of this Yakute déjeuner, each guest being expected to finish a large bowl. Stepan, however, alone partook of this tempting dish, but he merely sipped it, while our host and his wife drained the hot, oily mess as though it had been cold water. But Yakutes will consume any quantity of butter in this condition. Dobell, the explorer, says that a moderate Yakute butter-drinker will consume from twenty to thirty pounds at a sitting. The same traveller adds that "at other times these natives drink butter as a medicine, and declare it excellent for carrying away the bile." This was written nearly one hundred years ago, and it is curious to note that the most modern European treatment for gall-stones should now be olive oil, given in large quantities, presumably to produce a similar effect to that obtained by the butter of the Yakute. By the time this weird meal was over the deer had arrived, and I declined our host's offer of a pipe of Circassian tobacco, which would probably have finished me off completely. Both sexes here smoke a tiny Chinese pipe, with bronze bowl and wooden stem, which half a dozen whiffs suffice to finish. The stem is made to open so that the nicotine may be collected, mixed with wood shavings, and smoked again.

We left Beté-Kul at four in the morning, intending, if possible, to cross the mountains during the day, but the pass had lately been blocked with snow and the natives reported it in a terrible condition. But time would admit of no delay and I resolved to make the attempt at all hazards. Anna-sook, a miserable little povarnia near the foot of the mountain, was reached after a journey of five hours. The hut was, as usual, full of drifted snow, which we had to remove before breakfasting in an atmosphere of 12° below zero, upon which a roaring fire made no appreciable impression. Oddly enough, in this deserted shanty we came upon the sole sign of life which we had encountered (outside of the stancias) all the way from Yakutsk. This was a tiny field-mouse, which had survived the Arctic winter, curled up in a little mound of earth in a corner of this cold, dark shanty. The poor little half-frozen thing could scarcely move, but we gathered some fir-boughs and made it a nest, and left with it a goodly supply of biscuit-crumbs, which it devoured with avidity and a grateful look in its beady black eyes.

Starting at midday we commenced the ascent of the mountain, which is crossed by probably the most remarkable pass in the world. From a distance it looked as though a perpendicular wall of ice, some hundreds of feet in height, must be scaled in order to gain the summit. Before ascending, the iron horse shoes brought from Yakutsk were fastened to our moccasins, ostensibly to afford secure foothold, but I discarded these awkward appendages after they had given me five or six bad falls, and my companions did likewise. About two hours of severe work, increased by deep snow and the rarefied atmosphere, brought us to the summit, the reindeer and sleds ascending by a longer but much less precipitous route. During the ascent there were places where a slip must have meant a dangerous, if not fatal, fall, for midway up a precipice of over a thousand feet was crossed by a slippery ledge of ice about three feet in width. Looking down on the northward side, a frozen snow-slope, about a mile in length, was so steep, that it seemed impossible to descend it without personal injury. We awaited the sleds for nearly three hours on the summit, almost perished with cold in a temperature of nearly 45° below zero, accompanied by a strong breeze which resembled one described by a friend of the writer, a Chantilly trainer, as a lazy wind, viz., one that prefers to go straight through the body instead of the longest way round. To descend, the deer were fastened behind the sleds, which we all held back as much as possible as they dashed down the incline. But nearing the valley the pace increased until all control was lost, and we landed in a deep snow-drift half-way down, men, deer, and sleds being muddled up in inextricable confusion. I remember thinking at the time what a fortune such a snow-slide would make for its proprietor at Earl's Court. Imagine an "ice chute" more than a mile in length. To stand upright was even now, half-way down the mountain, out of the question, so the rest of the perilous descent was ignominiously accomplished on all-fours. We reached the valley in safety, followed by the sleds, which were now restrained only by drivers and deer. From below they looked like flies crawling down a white wall. At this point the Verkhoyansk mountains are about 4500 ft. above the level of the sea.

Leaving the mountains we were soon lost in the forests again, and from here to Kangerak, the first station on the northern side of the range, the journey is one of wondrous beauty, for the country strikingly resembles Swiss Alpine scenery. In cloudless weather we glided swiftly and silently under arches of pine-boughs sparkling with hoar-frost, now skirting a dizzy precipice, now crossing a deep, dark gorge, rare rifts in the woods disclosing glimpses of snowy crag and summit glittering against a sky of cloudless blue. The sunny pastures and tinkling cow-bells of lovely Switzerland were wanting, but I can never forget the impressive grandeur of those desolate peaks, nor the weird, unearthly stillness of the lonely, pine-clad valleys at their feet.

We passed a comfortable night at Kangerak, for the long, fatiguing day had rendered us oblivious to the attacks of the vermin with which the stancia swarmed. My ears had been badly frost-bitten crossing the pass and caused me great pain, but I slept soundly, and so did my companions who had escaped scot-free. Only one circumstance marred my satisfaction at having successfully negotiated the pass; three of our deer had perished from exhaustion. From Kangerak we travelled some distance along the river Yana, which scatters itself into a series of lakes on either side of the main stream. There are dangerous overflows here, and twice we narrowly escaped a ducking, or perhaps a worse fate, although I fancy the river at this point is very shallow. Nevertheless I heard afterwards at Verkhoyansk that whole caravans, travellers, drivers and deer have occasionally been fatally submerged here, or frozen to death after their immersion. Our deer, as usual, fell about on the ice in all directions, and one, breaking its leg, had to be destroyed. The stage was a hard one, so much so that we halted at a povarnia (Mollahoi) for the night. Towards morning I was awakened by the stifling heat and a disgusting odour due to the fact that our drivers had discovered a dead horse in the neighbourhood and were cooking and discussing its remains. Stepan opined that the animal had expired some weeks previously, and I could well believe it. A couple of hours before reaching Mollahoi, Harding caught sight of some ptarmigan within a few yards of the track. I mention the fact as this was the only game we came across throughout the whole of the journey of nearly three months from Yakutsk to the Arctic Ocean.

When the stancia of Siremskaya was reached on February 27, I realised with intense satisfaction that the journey, at any rate as far as Verkhoyansk, was practically over. For if this portion of the voyage had been successfully overcome in so short a time why should not the remainder as far as Sredni-Kolymsk be accomplished with equal facility?

And so we travelled on from Siremskaya with renewed hopes and in the best of spirits, although nearing Verkhoyansk the cold became intense—strong gales and heavy snowstorms prevailed—and we all suffered severely. Indeed once Clinchamp was carried out of his sled and into the povarnia, a journey of twenty consecutive hours having temporarily deprived him of the use of his limbs. The thermometer had marked 40° below zero even inside my closely covered sled, and one of my feet was also badly frozen, owing, however, to my carelessness in neglecting to change my foot-gear the previous night, for if this is not done the perspiration formed during the day congeals, during sleep, into solid ice. Harding escaped any ill effects, but in truth, although I have said little about physical sufferings, most of that journey was terrible work. I got into a way at last of classifying the various stages of frigidity on departure from a stancia, and this was their order: (1) the warm; (2) the chilly; and (3) the glacial. The first stage of comparative comfort was due to the effect of a fire and warm food and generally lasted for two or three hours. In stage No. 2, one gradually commenced to feel chilly with shivers down the back and a sensation of numbness in the extremities. No. 3 stage was one of rapidly increasing cold, until the face was covered by a thin mask of ice formed by the breath during the short intervals of sleep, or rather stupor. The awakening was the most painful part of it all, and when the time came to stagger into some filthy stancia, I would have often preferred to sleep on in the sled, although such an imprudence might have entailed the loss of a limb.

At last one bright morning in dazzling sunshine we reached Verkhoyansk, having made the journey from Yakutsk in eight days, a record trip under any circumstances, especially so under the adverse conditions under which we had travelled. I had looked forward to this place as a haven of warmth and rest, and perhaps of safety from the perilous blizzards that of late had obstructed our progress, but the sight of that desolate village, with its solitary row of filthy hovels, inspired such feelings of aversion and depression that my one object was to leave the place as soon as possible, even for the unknown perils and privations which might lie beyond it. It was absolutely necessary, however, to obtain fresh reindeer here, and a stay of at least a couple of days was compulsory. What we saw, therefore, and did in Verkhoyansk will be described in the following chapter.

CHAPTER VI

VERKHOYANSK

Loyal Russians call Verkhoyansk the heart of Siberia. Political exiles have another name for the place also commencing with the letter H, which I leave to the reader's imagination. Suffice it to say that it applies to a locality where the climate is presumably warmer than here. Anyway the simile is probably incorrect, as there are many worse places of banishment than Verkhoyansk, although, indeed, the latter is bad enough. For if prosperous villages near the borders of Europe impress the untrammelled Briton with a sense of unbearable loneliness, conceive the feelings of a Russian exile upon first beholding the squalid Arctic home and repulsive natives amongst whom he is destined, perhaps, to end his days. Forty or fifty mud-plastered log huts in various stages of decay and half buried in snow-drifts over which ice windows peer mournfully, a wooden church pushed by time and climate out of the perpendicular, with broken spire and golden crosses mouldering with rust—on the one hand, a dismal plain of snow fringed on the horizon by a dark pine forest; on the other, the frozen river Yana, across which an icy breeze moans mournfully—such is Verkhoyansk as we saw it on the morning of February 28, 1902. I thought that a more gloomy, God-forsaken spot than this could not exist on the face of the earth. But I had not seen Sredni-Kolymsk. And yet, if we were here forty-eight hours and it seemed a lifetime, what must an enforced sojourn of five or six years mean to the unhappy exiles, some of whom had been here for a quarter of a century. Let the reader imagine, if possible, the blank despair of existence under such conditions; day after day, year after year, nothing to do or look at of interest, tortured by heat and mosquitoes in summer, perished by cold and hunger in the dark, cruel winter, and cut off as completely as a corpse from all that makes life worth living. An exile here told me that the church was his only link with humanity, for it recalled other sacred buildings in which loved ones were worshipping, far away in the busy world of freedom. One could imagine a man entirely losing his identity after a few years here and forgetting that he was ever a human being. In truth Yakutsk was bad enough; but Yakutsk, compared to Verkhoyansk, is a little Paris. And yet, I repeat, this is by no means the worst place of banishment in North-Eastern Siberia.

The ispravnik received us in the official grey and scarlet, reminding me that even in this remote corner of the Empire a traveller is well within reach of Petersburg and the secret police. But we found in Monsieur Katcherofsky a gentleman and not a jailer, like too many of his class, whose kindness and hospitality to the miserable survivors of the Arctic exploring ship Jeannette, some years ago, was suitably rewarded by the President of the United States.27 Katcherofsky's invaluable services for twenty years past might also have met, by now, with some substantial recognition at the hands of the Russian Government, for a more honest, conscientious and universally popular official is not to be found throughout the dominions of the Tsar.

The ispravnik's house, or rather hut, was no better, within or without, than others in Verkhoyansk, which consists of one street, or rather straggling avenue of mud hovels with ice windows and the usual low entrance guarded by a felt-covered door. The entire population does not exceed four hundred souls, of whom, perhaps, half were Yakutes and the remainder officials, Russian settlers and political exiles. Talking of exiles, I have found that, as a rule, very erroneous impressions exist in England as to the conditions under which they are sent to Siberia, a country which has often been greatly maligned by the English Press. For this great prison-land is not always one of dungeons and lifelong incarceration. The latter certainly awaits the active revolutionist, but, on the other hand, an erring journalist may, for an "imprudent" paragraph, be sent to vegetate for only a couple of months within sight of the Urals. As Gilbert's "Mikado" would say, "the punishment fits the crime." And in the towns of Western Siberia I have frequently met men originally banished for a short term who, rather than return to Russia, have elected to remain in a land where living is cheaper, and money more easily gained than at home. Olenin, of Yakutsk, was a case in point.

The exile of State offenders to Siberia is generally carried out by what is called the "Administrative Process," or, in other words, by a secret tribunal composed of civil and military members. There are no Press reports of the trial, which is held strictly in camera, and, as a rule, a political "suspect" vanishes as completely from the face of the earth as a pebble cast into the sea. Usually the blow falls unexpectedly. A man may be seated quietly at home with his family, in his office, or at some place of public entertainment when the fatal touch on the shoulder summonses him away, perhaps for ever. The sentence once passed, there is no appeal to a higher court, nor can a prisoner hold any communication whatever with the outer world. An exile's relatives, therefore, when ignorant of his fate, frequently ascribe his absence to voluntary motives, and years sometimes elapse before the truth is known. In some cases it never reaches his family, and the harassing thought that he is, perhaps, regarded by the latter as a heartless deserter has driven many a victim of the "Administrative Process" to self-destruction.

A term of imprisonment varying from six months to two years in a European fortress invariably precedes a term of exile, and this rule applies to both sexes. There are hundreds of towns and villages throughout Siberia where men and women are domiciled for various periods of their existence, but as we are now dealing only with the remoter settlements within the Arctic Circle we will follow the footsteps of a political exile deported to, say, Verkhoyansk. From the forwarding prison at Moscow to the city of Irkutsk in Eastern Siberia, politicals not sent by rail travel with a criminal gang, wear prison dress, and live practically the same as ordinary convicts. At night time, however, in the étapes28 a separate cell is set apart for their use. On arrival at Irkutsk prison-dress is discarded, and an exile may wear his own clothes, although he remains under lock and key and in close charge of the Cossack who is responsible for his safe delivery. In summer-time the two-thousand-miles' journey to the first stage northwards, Yakutsk, is made by river-steamer, but during the winter months this weary journey must be accomplished in uncovered sleighs, and is one of great severity and privation, especially for women. At Yakutsk reindeer-sledge conveys the ill-assorted pair ever northwards for another six hundred miles to Verkhoyansk. The reader has seen the difficulties which we experienced crossing the mountains, where delicate women on their way to exile are compelled to clamber unassisted over giddy places that would try the nerves of an experienced mountaineer. I should add that women never travel alone with a Cossack, but are always accompanied on the journey by another exile, either a man or one of their own sex. In the former case, an acquaintance is occasionally made which ends in a life-long liaison, if not marriage. Every year from three to six "politicals" arrive in each of the settlements north of Yakutsk.