Lena River

“ Everybody knocks at the doors he passes, be they his friends' or a stranger's; and calls out the magic word 'The Lena is breaking!' These words spread like wildfire in many tongues through far-off houses, yurtas and Yakut settlements, and whoever is able to move puts on his furs and runs to the banks of the Lena.
A dense crowd is thronging the banks, watching in fascination one of the most beautiful natural phenomena in Siberia.
Gigantic blocks of ice, driven down by the powerful waves of the broad river, are packed to the height of houses—of mountains; they break, they crash ”

“ It was a forlorn scene as De Long and his men took leave of the Polar Sea which for two years had held them prisoner—to the west flowed the Lena, a broad swift stream tumbling on its swirling bosom broken floes from further up the frozen river; to the north spread the Arctic Ocean, covered as far as eye could reach with young ice, through which, sticking up gaunt and bare, the only objects visible on its desolate surface, were the mast and the low gunwales of the abandoned cutter. ”

“ The delta arms sometimes remain blocked with ice the whole year round. At Yakutsk navigation is generally practicable from the middle of May to the end of October, and at Kirensk, at the confluence of the Lena and the Kirenga, from the beginning of May to about the same time. Between these two towns there is during the season regular steamboat communication. The area of the river basin is calculated at 895,500 sq. m. Gold is washed out of the sands of the Vitim and the Olekma, and tusks of the mammoth are dug out of the delta. ”

“ We heard the roaring of waves to the east, so there must certainly be open water in that direction, which indeed we had expected. It was plain that the Lena, with its masses of warm water, was beginning to assert its influence. The sea here was browner, and showed signs of some mixture of muddy river-water. It was also much less salt.
“It would be foolish,” I write in my diary for this day (September 15th) , “to go in to the Olenek, now that we are so late. Even if there were no danger from shoals, it would cost us too much time—probably a year. ”

“ Lena is the name of the little friend of mine I am going to tell you about. You may see by the picture that she is not an English child, nor does she belong to the class which we call gentlefolk. Lena is German, and the daughter of a fisherman; nevertheless she is one of my dearest little friends. She lives in a cottage on the banks of the river Rhine, a short distance from the city of Coblenz. Her father earns his living as a boatman and fisherman upon the river; her mother takes care of the cottage, of their only child, and of the poultry: she finds plenty of time for making lace besides. ”

“ Were the Yakutsk province an American State the now desolate shores of the Lena would swarm with prosperous towns, and [Pg 71] the city would long ere this have become a Siberian El Dorado of the merchant and miner. [13] As it is the trade of this place is nothing to what it could be made, in capable and energetic hands, within a very short space of time. Here, as everywhere else on the river, the summer is the busiest season. In August a fair is held on the Lena in barges, which drift down the river from the Ust-kutsk with European merchandise of every description. ”

“ Birds are fond of the environs and the borders of the Lena, where they very much abound. The clouds of gnats which cover it, account for this. To keep off these insects, we had taken care to furnish ourselves with a quantity of horse-dung, with which we keep up a continual fire in our boat; but another unavoidable inconvenience on this river is the vermin it engenders; the more we bathe, the faster they multiply.
[Pg 336]
Four hundred wersts from Peledoui I passed by a small town called Kirinsk, or Kiringui, at the bottom of which the Lena flows, and farther on the Kiringa. ”

“ Lena's home was in Texas, away up among the little mountains on the Pedernales River, in a little town called Fredericksburg [108] . They are all German people who live in Fredericksburg. Of evenings they sit at little tables along the sidewalk and drink beer and play pinochle and scat [109] . They are very thrifty people.
Thriftiest among them was Peter Hildesmuller, Lena's father. And that is why Lena was sent to work in the hotel at the quarries, thirty miles away. She earned three dollars every week there, and Peter added her wages to his well-guarded store. ”

“ Stuart had an engagement with her dentist and was compelled to leave Lena alone with Waggy. A kind neighbor had lent Lena a wheel-chair so that she could travel from one part of the house to the other. At two o'clock she began to watch for the picnickers and at last saw them—five in all—run down the hill and get into her Cousin Rob's boat and row out to the pretty island in the middle of the river. Everyone knew that Cousin Rob was a good boatman and so fathers and mothers did not worry when their sons and daughters went on the water with him. ”

“ Money, he knew, would purchase almost everything, and if ever Durward Bellmont felt glad that he was rich, it was when he found ’Lena Rivers sick and alone at the not very comfortable inn of Laurel Hill.
As he was entering the dining-room, he saw Jerry—whose long, lank figure and original manner had afforded him much amusement during his ride—handing a dozen or more oranges to Mrs. Aldergrass, saying, as he did so, “They are for Miss ’Lena. I thought mebby they’d taste good, this hot weather, and I ransacked the hull town to find the nicest and best.” ”

“ From Boxley to Lenham the plain beneath the Old Road is drained by a stream called the Len, tributary to the Medway. Just before or at Lenham is the watershed: a parting of no moment, not a ridge, hardly observable to one standing above it on the hillside. It is the dividing line between the basins of the Medway and the Stour. All the hydrography of south-eastern England presents this peculiarity. The watersheds are low; the bold ranges do not divide the river-basins, because the water system is geologically older than the Chalk Hills. ”

“ Douglass’s,” answered Mrs. Livingstone, “and your son is in the constant habit of visiting there; besides that, he invited her to ride with him when they all went to Frankfort—’Lena upon the gray pony which your husband gave her as a Christmas present.”
Mrs. Livingstone had touched the right spot. ’Twas the first intimation of Vesta which Mrs. Graham had received, and now sitting bolt upright, she demanded what Mrs. Livingstone meant. “My husband give ’Lena Rivers a pony! Harry Graham do such a thing! It can’t be possible. There must be some mistake.” ”

“ Lena's face, rosy-flushing; Hiram's, bright, wide-eyed; Don's, resolute and high and strong. Again that flashing vision, the Titan Sleiter tottering to his fall, the black horse racing forever across the blazing sunset.
He could not see the stars—warm tears were in his eyes. Not of sorrow—of love and pride.
The far-off, measured beat of soft footsteps; they came nearer to him—the trampling of many feet. The moon rose radiant over the crater's low rim; the rocky circle became a shore, bordered on a pool of dancing, rippling light; the soft air was sweet and pure and cool. ”

“ Livingstone told of Mabel’s prospects, and Mrs. Atkins told how folks who were at Mr. Graham’s party praised ’Lena Rivers’ beauty, and predicted a match between her and Mr. Bellmont, the former rose to go; and calling upon one or two others, and by dint of quizzing and hinting, getting them to say “they shouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Wilbur did like Nellie Douglas,” she started for home, exulting to think how everything seemed working together for her good, and how, in the denouement, nothing particular could be laid to her charge. ”

“ A moment afterward a strange, faint voice was heard to call: "Mamma!" Frau Hildesmuller at first thought it was Lena's spirit calling, and then she rushed to the rear of Fritz's covered wagon, and, with a loud shriek of joy, caught up Lena herself, covering her pale little face with kisses and smothering her with hugs. Lena's eyes were heavy with the deep slumber of exhaustion, but she smiled and lay close to the one she had longed to see. There among the mail sacks, covered in a nest of strange blankets and comforters, she had lain asleep until wakened by the voices around her. ”

“ Graham seemed to like her, and Durward too——”
“A great ways off, you mean,” interrupted Carrie. “For my part, I see nothing strange in the omission. It is no worse to leave her out than scores of others who will not be invited.”
“But to come into the house and ask all but her,” said Anna. “It does not seem right. She is as good as we are.”
“That’s as people think,” returned Carrie, while John Jr., who was just going out to ride, and had stopped a moment at the door, exclaimed, “Zounds, Cad, I wonder if you fancy yourself better than ’Lena Rivers. ”

“ The block when formed would rise to the surface by virtue of its specific levity. This is what happens at the mouths of the great Siberian rivers. The Lena, in particular, pours out an enormous mass of warm water which overwhelms the salt waves from the polar regions. Even in the most favorable seasons, the navigator sails in the midst of floating ice-cakes that constitute a constant source of danger, while the thermometer dipped in the sea will indicate a temperature above the freezing-point. ”

“ There are no "down islands," and as there are no precipitous shore cliffs neither are there any looneries. A shoal of fish was seen in Lena Sound, and fish are probably exceedingly abundant. Seals and white whales also perhaps occur here at certain seasons of the year in no small numbers. It was doubtless with a view to hunt these animals that a hut was occupied, the remains of which are visible on one of the small rocky islands at the north entrance into the harbour. ”

“ They were to go in small parties, not more than twenty fighting men to any one of them. They were to change none of our landmarks, enter none of our towns without permission from the Town Council, and to keep between the lake and the great bend of the river, which the Lenni-Lenape called Allegheny, but was known to us as the River of the Tallegewi.
"Thus they had begun to come, few at first, like the trickle of melting ice in the moon of the Sun Returning, and at the last, like grasshoppers in the standing corn. They fished out our rivers and swept up the game like fire in the forest. ”

“ Never had heroic explorers a more fitting tomb. Amidst the Siberian snows, looking out over the Lena’s great bay at the desolate cape below which had witnessed their last agony, and northward across that Polar Sea which he had valiantly given his life to conquer, De Long and his men of the Jeannette lay at last beneath the huge cross on that rocky cairn, with the fierce Arctic gales they had so often bravely faced mournfully wailing their eternal dirge. ”

“ Lena would speak, but Erna stops her mouth with a kiss, takes the lamp and goes out. The scene is dark. Lena is barely distinguishable in her cozy corner. The brilliant moon shines through the bay window whenever it comes out from behind the clouds, which a strong wind chases across the sky. Lena finally appears in the stream of light. She feels along the table, then stops and sobs pitifully. She succeeds in finding the kitchen door, opens it, and stands in the flood of light from Bara’s lamp. Through the open door Bara is seen sitting with her elbows on the table and her face in her hands. ”

“ It feels its strength, spreads and preens itself, and is away to the forest to meet its fate.
Such was Lena in the first months of her marriage. The world’s warmth welcomed her, partly in curiosity, and partly because she was in truth Richard Percival’s wife, and the protégée of Mrs. Lenox, who took every pains to shield her and help her. The ways of that little sphere that calls itself society she found it not difficult to acquire, when to beauty she added the paraphernalia of luxury. ”

“ Here’s Lenape, and way off here in the corner is old Mount Kinnecut, where nine green-and-white pennants are flying. That’s where we’ve got to go, and we’ll make it in three days, if all goes well. The first day’s run—tomorrow—will be an easy stage, just to get in trim and harden up. And see that your feet are in good shape, for that’s what you’ll have to travel on most of the way. We’ll stop at Pot-Hole Glen at noon, and make the river before dark. The canoes left on a wagon this morning, and we’ll find them at Skinner’s Ferry when we get there. ”

“ One mingled look of apprehension and affection is exchanged, and, while the woods ring with the yells of the savages, Oronto and Lena plunge into the abyss in their white canoes. [1]
This wild legend was told me by the guide in full view of the cataract, and seemed so real and life-like that I was somewhat startled by being accosted thus, by a voice speaking in a sharp nasal down-cast twang: "Well, stranger, I guess that's the finest water-power you've ever set eyes on." ”

“ Their bodies were absolutely limp. Their hands dragged foolishly along the floor as they were carried. Their upward white faces dangled loosely upon their necks. Their crumpled fingers sagged in the planton’s arms. I recognised Lily and Renée. Lena I made out at a little distance tottering against the door of the kitchen opposite the cabinot, her hay-coloured head drooping and swaying slowly upon the open breast of her shirt-waist, her legs far apart and propping with difficulty her hinging body, her hands spasmodically searching for the knob of the door. ”