Thomas Wallace Knox

“ I remained in Irkutsk until snow fell, and the winter roads were suitable for travel. One day the moving portion of the city was on wheels: the next saw it gliding on runners. The little sleighs of the isvoshchiks are exactly like those of St. Petersburg and Moscow,—miniature affairs where you sit with your face within six inches of the driver’s back, and cannot take a friend at your side without much crowding. They move rapidly, and it is a fortunate provision that they are cheap. In all large cities and towns of Russia many isvoshchiks go to spend the winter. ”

“ In a clear morning or evening of the coldest days the smoke from the chimneys in the villages rises very slowly. Gaining a certain height, it spreads out as if unable to ascend farther. It is always light in color and density, and when touched by the sun’s rays appears faintly crimsoned or gilded. Once when we reached a small hill dominating a village, I could see the cloud of smoke below me agitated like the ground swell of the ocean. ”

“ But the summers, though short, are sufficiently hot to make up for the cold of winter. Vegetation is wonderfully rapid, the grasses, trees and plants growing as much in a hundred days as in six months of a New England summer. Hardly has the snow disappeared before the trees put forth their buds and blossoms, and the hillsides are in all the verdure of an American spring. Men tell me they have seen in a single week the snows disappear, ice break in the streams, the grass spring up, and the trees beginning to bud. Nature adapts herself to all her conditions. ”

“ But in China a coffin is a thing to be made a show of, like a piano. In many houses there is a room set apart for the coffins of the members of the family, and the owners point them out with pride. They practice economy to lay themselves out better than their rivals, and sometimes a man who has made a good thing by swindling or robbing somebody, will use the profits in buying a coffin, just as an American would treat himself to a gold watch or diamond pin. The most elegant gift that a child can make to his sick father is a coffin that he has paid for out of his own labor ”

“ A view of this quilt when the heads are protruding is suggestive of an apartment where dozens of dilapidated Chinese have been decapitated. All night long the lodgers keep up a frightful noise; the proprietor, like the individual in the same business in New York, will tell you, “I sells the place to sleep, but begar, I no sells the sleep with it.” The couch is a lively one, as the feathers are a convenient warren for a miscellaneous lot of living things not often mentioned in polite society. In the southern cities of China one sees fewer women in the street than in the north. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The servants who brought my cutlets and tea, the woman who washed my linen, or the dvornik who guarded the door, may have been spies upon me; but, if so, I didn’t see it. Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.
People talk politics in Russia with apparent freedom, more so than I expected to find. Men and women expressed their opinions with candor (as I believe,) and criticised what they saw wrong in their government. The Russian journals possess more freedom than those of Paris, and the theatres can play pretty nearly what they like. ”

“ I found at Krasnoyarsk more beggars than in Irkutsk, in proportion to the population. Like beggars in all parts of the empire, they made the sign of the cross on receiving donations. A few were young, but the great majority were old, tattered, and decrepid, who shivered in the frosty air, and turned purple visages upon their benefactors. The peasantry in Russia are liberal to the poor, and in many localities they have abundant opportunities to practice charity. ”

“ Steam abridges time and space to such a degree that the world grows rapidly prosaic. Countries once distant and little known are at this day near and familiar. Railways on land and steamships on the ocean, will transport us, at frequent and regular intervals, around the entire globe. From New York to San Francisco and thence to our antipodes in Japan and China, one may travel in defiance of propitious breezes formerly so essential to an ocean voyage. The same untiring power that bears us thither will bring us home again by way of Suez and Gibraltar to any desired port on the Atlantic coast. ”

“ Siberia has received a great many individuals of high culture in the persons of its political exiles. Men of liberal education, active intellects, and refined manners have been in large proportion among the banished Poles, and the exiles of 1825 included many of Russia’s ablest minds. The influence of these exiles upon the intelligence, habits, and manners of the Siberians, has left an indelible mark. As a new civilization is more plastic than an old one, so the society of Northern Asia may have become more polished than that of Ancient Russia. ”

“ At present four or five thousand peasants are settled along the Zeya, with excellent agricultural prospects. As I came on deck rubbing my half-opened eyes, I saw a well-built town on the Russian shore.
“Blagoveshchensk,” said the steward, as he waved his arm in that direction.
I well knew that the capital of the Province of the Amoor was just above the mouth of the Zeya. It stands on a prairie fifteen or twenty feet above the river, and when approached from the south its appearance is pleasing. The houses are large and well built, and each has plenty of space around it. ”

“ In crossing Mongolia, heavy baggage is carried on camels, but every traveler takes a cart for riding purposes, and alternates between it and his saddle horse. The cart is a sort of dog-house on two wheels; its frame is of wood, and has a covering of felt cloth, thick enough to ward off a light fall of rain, and embarrass a heavy one. It is barely high enough to allow a man to sit erect, but not sufficiently long to enable him to lie at full length. The body rests directly upon the axle, so that the passenger gets the full benefit of every jolt. ”

“ In the morning the cabin, with all it contained, was thoroughly lathered, as if preparing for a colossal shave.
Half way across the ocean we were followed by sea-birds that, curiously enough, were always thickest at meal times. Gulls kept with us the first two days and then disappeared, their places being taken by boobies. The gull is a pretty and graceful bird, somewhat resembling the pigeon in shape and agility. The booby has a little resemblance to the duck, but his bill is sharp pointed and curved like a hawk’s. ”

“ I shall never forget its forests where the yellow hues of autumn contrasted with the evergreen pine and its kindred, and which nature has lavishly spread to shield the earth from the pitiless storm and give man wherewith to erect his habitation and light his hearthstone with generous fire. ”

“ What I have said of the church in Siberia will apply throughout all Russia. The government is far more tolerant in the matter of religion than that of any Roman Catholic country in Europe, and might reprove Great Britain pretty sharply for its religious tyrannies in unhappy Ireland. Every one in Russia can worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, provided he does not shock the moral sense of civilization in so doing. Every respectable form of Christian worship enjoys full liberty, and so does every respectable form of paganism and anti-Christianity. ”

“ We pitched into a great many oukhabas, analagous to American “hog wallows” or “cradle holes.” To dash into one of these at full speed gives a shock like a boat’s thumping on the shore. It is only with pillows, furs, and hay that a traveler can escape contusions. In mild doses oukhabas are an excellent tonic, but the traveler who takes them in excess may easily imagine himself enjoying a field-day at Donnybrook Fair.
JUMPING CRADLE HOLES.
An hour before reaching Kansk one of our horses fell dead and brought us to a sudden halt. ”

“ On the upper waters of the Chulim there is a cascade of considerable beauty, according to the statement of some who never saw it. A few years ago a Siberian gold miner discovered a cataract on the river Hook, in the Irkutsk government, that he thought equal to Niagara, and engaged an artist to make a drawing of the curiosity. On reaching the spot, the latter individual found the cascade a very small affair. Throughout Russia, Niagara is considered one of the great wonders of the world, and nothing could have been more pleasing to the Siberians than to find its rival in their own country. ”

“ The best parts of Russia for wolf-hunting are in the western governments, where there is less game and more population than in Siberia. It is in these regions that travelers are sometimes pursued by wolves, but such incidents are not frequent. It is only in the severest winters, when driven to desperation by hunger, that the wolves dare to attack men. The horses are the real objects of their pursuit, but when once a party is overtaken the wolves make no nice distinctions, and horses and men are alike devoured. ”

“ We were just crossing the course from Ayan to Ghijiga, and were in the Danzig’s track. The strange vessel shortened sail and stood to meet us, and before long we were satisfied it was our old acquaintance. At sunset we were several miles apart and nearing very slowly. The night was one of the finest I ever witnessed at sea; the moon full and not a cloud visible, and the wind carrying us four or five miles an hour. The brig was lying to, and we passed close under her stern, shortening our sail as we approached her. Everybody was on deck and curious to learn the news. ”

“ We divided the little food that remained, men and dogs sharing alike, and tried to rest upon the ice. We had no means of making a fire, our clothing was soaked with water, and, during the night, the wind shifted suddenly to the northward and became cold. I was lying down, and fell asleep from utter exhaustion; though the cold was severe, I did not think it dangerous, and felt quite unable to exercise to keep warm. The Yakuts, with Nicolai, huddled among the dogs, and were less wearied than I. When they shouted to me at daybreak, I slowly opened my eyes, and found that I could not move. ”

“ The final stretch of road toward the Siberian frontier is across a sandy plain, six or eight miles wide. On emerging from the hills at its southern edge the dome of the church in Kiachta appears in sight, and announces the end of Mongolian travel. No lighthouse is more welcome to a mariner than is the view of this Russian town to a traveler who has suffered the hardships of a journey from Pekin. ”