Harry De Windt

“ There is here none of the hum or bustle usually found in a place where some thousands of human beings are gathered together. No sound, even at mid-day, breaks the solemn stillness but the eternal creak of prayer-wheels and tolling of deep-toned gongs, save when a discordant blast of horns announces the celebration of some ceremony at the Kootookta’s Palace, or a tea-caravan jingles and rattles noisily through the quiet streets and squares on its way to Siberia or China. ”

“ It was evident that we had left Asia. The broad, stone-paved streets and boulevards, the handsome hotels, private houses enclosed in large well-kept gardens, and last, but not least, the well-dressed men and women in the streets, were signs that we had done with sombre, sad Siberia for good and all. Ekaterinburg was the first really civilized place we had seen since leaving Shanghai, it seemed ages ago, and here for the first time since leaving Pekin we enjoyed the unwonted luxuries of a real bath, and a clean bed with sheets and pillow-cases. ”

“ As Moscow follows Petersburg in fashions and customs, so does Warsaw Vienna. The Russian tongue in Warsaw is seldom heard. No longer is the sacred ikon seen in apartments and bedrooms. Tea is drunk in cups, not glasses; but coffee is the favourite beverage of all classes. We had evidently done with Russia for good, though the town swarmed with the Czar’s troops in their ugly pea-soup-coloured coats and white caps. Here, unlike most Russian and Siberian towns, the soldiers are encouraged to walk about and show themselves, but I do not think I saw a dozen uniforms the whole time I was in Moscow. ”

“ By-and-by a torch flashed on the gold-laced cap of a courier standing up in a tarantass and superintending the proceedings. It was the mail! “No horses till five to-morrow afternoon, monsieur,” said the old post-master, as he and the courier, a smart stalwart young fellow, armed with a long cavalry sabre and brace of revolvers, sat down to a glass of tea and cigarette while the relays were put in. A quarter of an hour more, and they were away again, leaving us to grumble and curse our ill-luck, as the sound of their collar-bells died away on the clear, frosty air. ”

“ Had it not been for the motley crowd of Russians, Chinese, Mongolians, Bouriattes, and other queer races in their bright, gaudy costumes, one might have been in the gardens of some garrison-town in France or Germany, so civilized were all but the human surroundings. It was amusing to watch the female élite of Kiakhta, the wives and daughters of wealthy tea-merchants, dressed in the latest Paris fashions, flirting, talking scandal, and ruining their neighbours’ reputations, just like their more civilized sisters ten thousand miles away in London or Paris. ”

“ The veiled faces of the women, the fierce, swarthy Tartars in wild, barbaric costume, bristling with daggers and cartridge-belts, the mosques, minarets, and oriental-looking houses, mingling in strange incongruity with the modern stone houses of the Russian population, à la mode de Paris, four stories high, with balconies, porte cochères, and carved façades, made one almost wonder whether the long journey from China had not turned one’s head and indelibly mixed Europe and Asia in our minds, even to the objects around us. ”

“ Kiakhta is a terrible place for bells. They were eternally going, morning, noon, and night——not a lively, cheery peal, but a slow, solemn tolling, like a continual passing-bell. But for this Troitzkosavsk is the sleepiest and most dead-alive town imaginable. Except, towards evening, when the population turn out en masse for a breath of fresh air, there is seldom a sound to break the dead silence that reigns in the unpaved, dusty street that constitutes its main thoroughfare, from morning till night. ”

“ Not a solitary object, animate or inanimate, broke the dull, desolate landscape save when at rare intervals we sighted a Tartar tent, gleaming white in the sunshine, and looking in the far distance like some white sea-bird asleep on the billows of this huge sea of verdure. Beyond the capital, however, the country becomes more accentuated, and there are woods, mountains, and rivers, to gladden the eye after the long, monotonous desert journey, of which we were heartily sick long before we reached the sacred city of the Kootookta. ”

“ The immediate neighbourhood of Atchinsk, too, is free of forest. The town stands in the middle of a large grass plain watered by the Chulim river——a plain composed of large enclosed grass meadows, where, as we drove by that bright sunshiny morning, cattle and sheep were browsing, knee deep in rich, luxuriant pasture, and wild flowers. Atchinsk is the one bright spot of that weary journey——an oasis of flowers and sunshine in the dark, dreary desert of gloom and monotony lying between Tomsk and Irkoutsk. ”

“ Alas! it was pouring harder than ever. Still the same sodden grey sky of yesterday, with sooty-coloured clouds driving over it, still the same desolate landscape, dripping houses, and distant forest shrouded in white mist. Another day at Touloung! Cursing Siberia and everything connected with it, I wrapped myself in my pelisse, and lay down again on the filthy worm-eaten floor, nor did I wake again till past ten o’clock, to find a new arrival seated, in front of the hissing samovar, and the rain coming down harder than ever. ”

“ Many a time, when delayed on the road, have I smelt the savoury fumes from the ostrog cook-house with envy, as I slunk back disgusted to my stale egg and black bread at the post-house. Sad though their lot undoubtedly is, the Siberian convicts are not only well clad, but considerably better fed than our own criminals in England. Be it understood that I speak of criminals, and not political prisoners or nihilists, to whom, notwithstanding all that ardent Russophiles may say, Siberia is a veritable hell upon earth. ”

“ Sometimes, when we had the post-house to ourselves, it was bearable enough, but on most occasions our sufferings were shared by a number of other travellers. Sitting or standing in a bare, whitewashed room for half a dozen hours together, is not conducive to good temper or conversation, and on these occasions the waiting-room reminded me of nothing so much as a cage of wild beasts, each eyeing the other with envy, hatred, and malice, the women especially looking as if they would like to tear each other’s eyes out. ”

“ The city of Kalgan proper, reminds one more of an Egyptian or Arab town than a Chinese one. The dwellings are of baked mud, unwhitewashed, and flat roofed. Some are ornamented with arabesques, and gaily-striped awnings, many of their façades being half hidden with clustering vines. The “Yamen,” or court-house, is the only building of pure Chinese architecture in the whole place, and one felt, when taking a stroll through its busy streets and covered bazaars, as if one had been suddenly transplanted from the heart of the Chinese Empire to some town in Central Asia. ”

“ In less than five minutes the mercenary old wretch had summoned help from the tea-shop, which was still blazing with light, and crowded with people. After much difficulty and labour, unbolting and unbarring, the heavy gates, guided by the efforts of six men, swung slowly back upon their hinges and let us out, stiff, cramped, and in a fiendish temper, but free, and followed by the ragged rabble who had been our fellow-captives, and who luckily for us led us direct for Batouyeff’s house, for we should never have found our way alone. ”

“ The whole place looked like a gigantic fair. Street tumblers, jugglers, and fortune-tellers plied a brisk trade in the middle of the roadway, heedless of yelling, wild-looking Mongols galloping madly about on ponies, while the shopkeepers at the top of their voices cried out from their doors the excellence of their wares, each trying to outyell his neighbour. Add to this the clashing of cymbals and beating of gongs from a theatre hard by, and you have a faint idea of a street in Kalgan at midday. ”

“ Between the villages there is absolutely nothing to look at but the dreary sand-coloured road——the endless vista of dark green forest. A cottage is never found alone in Siberia or outside a village enceinte. Except in the villages, usually twenty to thirty versts apart, one sees no dwelling of any sort or kind. The monotony, after a week or so, becomes absolutely maddening. What must it be to the wretched exiles who sometimes take two years to reach their destination! ”

“ No wonder that most of the gangs we met on the road were composed of cheery, happy-go-lucky fellows, chaffing their guards, singing, smoking, and laughing, a striking contrast to the dozen or so of wretched men and women in plain clothes jolting along the rough road in tumbrils behind them, some of the women pale, delicate-looking creatures with a baby at the breast, who looked as if death, and not the gloomy prison-gates of Irkoutsk or Kara, would end their journey. ”

“ No one ever dreams of entering a shop or restaurant covered, and the very beggars in the streets salute each other with the air of nobles. On the whole I have seldom seen a city I liked more on a short acquaintance than Moscow, perhaps for the reason that it is utterly unlike any other I have ever beheld. It is fairly clean, for Russia, but although the two principal thoroughfares are asphalte-paved, the smaller streets would disgrace a third-rate country town in England, and are in summer ankle deep in dust, in winter a sea of mud and mire. ”

“ If so, let him substitute pines for oak and beech-trees, unpaved paths for cobbled streets, wooden huts for stone houses, and he has seen Monshafskaya as I saw it that bright August morning, when for the first time I looked on the waters of the Holy Sea of Siberia, for by this name alone is Lake Baikal known by the natives inhabiting its shores. To call it a lake to a Siberian is an insult. He will invariably correct you with the rebuke, “I suppose you mean our Sea.” Among the peasantry it is believed to bring dire misfortune on any one daring to call it by any other name. ”

“ It was hard to say which depressed one most, the dirty village street, knee-deep in mud and filth, the dirty dilapidated houses; the only signs of life half a dozen mangy-looking ducks splashing and wallowing in the rain, and a couple of shivering post-horses crouching under shelter of our tarantass;——or the lonely, drab-coloured road, winding away like a great snake over the common, past the prison, and into a green mass of forest just beyond ”

“ It always struck me as curious that, although wild flowers are so plentiful in Siberia, it is hopeless to try and grow roses or garden flowers. The market was the only place in Irkoutsk which showed any signs of life or animation. Even at mid-day the place looked as if everybody was either dead or asleep. The only signs of life visible were when a squad of soldiers, returning from drill, marched past with a cracked trumpet at their head, or a tea-caravan rattled and jingled across the square. ”

“ Although the sun had but just risen, the banks were crowded with people, and the keepers of hundreds of stalls and booths were already doing a brisk trade in the sale of cloths, pigtails, tea, sweetmeats, and fans to the junk population, while here and there a barber plied his trade, which in North China is anything but an appetizing one to look upon. Dirty as the place and people were, the bright, cloudless sky and sunshine lent a gaiety to the scene, which for colour and animation I have seldom seen equalled in the most picturesque Turkish cities or bazaars of the far East. ”

“ Ranged round the walls from floor to roof were a thousand small gilt idols, each in its own glass-covered niche, while from the dome hung some twenty or thirty large silk prayer-flags beautifully worked with Tibetan and Mongolian characters in gold. Some were fairly rotting with age. At the right of the figure stood the Kootookta’s throne, a tawdry-looking light green erection thickly covered with ill-painted flowers and landscapes, like a shooting-gallery at a fair, which detracted not a little from the beauty of the place. ”

“ T do not think I have ever seen finer mules, even in Spain, than in North China.
To describe the celestial capital is not difficult. One street is so exactly like another, that when you have seen a bit of the place you have seen the whole of it. The principal street of the Tartar city may be described in very few words. A broad straggling thoroughfare, knee deep in dust, with low, tumble-down houses on either side, hidden at intervals by dirty canvas booths, wherein fortune-tellers, sellers of sweetmeats, keepers of gambling-hells, and jugglers ply their trade. ”

“ The ravine leading to it was a kind of crack or fissure, evidently of volcanic origin, and pitch dark on the brightest day, save for a patch of bright blue sky seen through the narrow aperture overhead. Emerging from this, one came to a steep, almost perpendicular grass slope, crowned at its summit by a huge limestone rock literally riddled with caves, and occupied by thousands of huge black and white birds sitting motionless at their outlets, winking and blinking at the setting sun, and looking as if no human being had broken in upon their solitude for centuries. ”

“ I was no longer surprised after my visit to “Golgotha,” as Colonel Petroff facetiously termed the place where hundreds of corpses lay rotting above ground, that the city of Ourga did not smell as sweet as one could wish. My only surprise is, after visiting the spot in question, that plague is not always raging in a city where the inhabitants never dream of burying their dead, but carry them to a spot not three hundred yards from the gates, and there let them slowly decompose in the open air. ”

“ The dust of Pekin is, next to its smells, undoubtedly its greatest curse. There is no escaping from the fine, brown powder that chokes up eyes, nose and mouth, and finds its way into everything——your food, your clothes, your very boots. There is a saying among the Chinese, that it will worm its way into a watch-glass. Not only is it productive of considerable physical discomfort and annoyance, but it gives a depressing, gloomy look to everything, which on a really dusty day makes it impossible to discern objects one hundred yards off. ”

“ The dead in China are never put underground.
The quieter and less frequented streets of the city were not so bad; narrow, unpaved byways fringed on either side with high white walls of brick and plaster, enclosing the houses of well-to-do merchants, or the better class of tradesmen; quaint little dwellings, curiously carved and gorgeous with blue, vermilion, and gold façades, having neat flower-gardens in front, and willow-fringed ponds. ”

“ At daybreak on the 3rd of June we passed the celebrated Taku forts and entered the Peiho river. It was a bright lovely morning, and as a bend of the river hid it from our sight, and we looked at the blue sunlit ocean for the last time, it was not without some misgivings at the long land journey before us. The thought that when next we saw the sea, it would be at Calais, made us realize, perhaps more than we had as yet done, the difficulty and length of the voyage we had undertaken across the breadth of Europe and Asia. ”

“ It was curious to walk out of the squalid, filthy streets, knee-deep in dust and reeking with sewage, into the cool, luxurious rooms with their tesselated pavements, fountains, and flowers, and hundreds of pounds’ worth of beautiful wares laid out invitingly before one in cloisonné, jade, and porcelain. We found it hopeless as a rule, to think of getting anything at a reasonable price. Japan itself can produce nothing so beautiful and graceful as true Pekin work, though, like everything else, it is imitated, and there has been, of late years, a quantity of worthless trash in the market. ”

“ People these villages with dirty, wild-looking men clad in sheepskins and gaudy-coloured rags, and still dirtier, half-naked women. Conceive a sickly smell (peculiar to Asiatic Russia) of old skins, wood, smoke, turpentine, and sewage, and a Siberian landscape is before you. In fine weather a fine grey dust that creeps into your hair, chokes up eyes and nostrils, and renders life almost unbearable; on a wet day thick, greasy, black mud that is everywhere. In the post-house, in the tarantass, there was no keeping it out. ”