In Search of a Siberian Klondike Part 5

It was now late in October, and it was necessary for me to stop in Ghijiga while my winter outfit of clothes was being prepared. The snow was already deep and the river frozen solid, excepting at the rapids.

But cold as it was, my work was but just beginning, for it is only in winter that long distance travel is possible. In summer you may struggle across six or eight miles of spongy tundra a day, but in winter you can easily cover from sixty to ninety miles, depending upon the quality of your teams and the number of your relays.

By this time the natives were beginning to bring in their furs and other valuables to exchange with the merchants of the trading company.

It may be of interest to give the prevailing prices.

The native, ordinarily, does not take money for his skins, but various kinds of necessaries. Reducing it all, however, to a monetary basis, we find that he receives for sable skin ten to thirteen roubles; red-fox skin, two to three roubles; white-fox skin, one and a half roubles; black-fox skin, fifty to one hundred and fifty roubles; blue-squirrel skin, thirty-five cents; unborn-deer skin, twelve cents; turbogan (kind of c.o.o.n), fifteen cents; yearling-deer skin, seventy-five cents; sea-dog skin, one rouble; black-bear skin, seven roubles; brown-bear skin, five roubles; white-bear skin, twenty-five roubles; walrus rope, two cents a yard; walrus ivory, from five cents to one and a half roubles a tusk; mammoth tusk, five to six roubles; fur coats, one and a half to five roubles; boots, twenty-five cents to seventy-five cents a pair. For an ermine skin he is wont to receive two needles or a piece of sugar as large as a thimble.

In exchange for these commodities the traders give tea, sugar, powder, lead, cartridges, tobacco, bar iron one inch wide by a quarter of an inch thick, needles, beads, and various other trinkets.

When the goods are marketed it is found that the company makes anywhere from one hundred to one thousand per cent. profit. Tea, the article most called for, allows only one hundred per cent. profit. On sugar some three hundred per cent. is made, and on the trinkets and other miscellaneous goods anywhere from five hundred to one thousand per cent. is made.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ghijiga River in Winter.]

Several significant facts are to be deduced from this list: first, the low price that is paid for sables compared with the prices they bring in the European market; second, the comparatively high price the skin of the black fox brings, although it is only a fraction of what it costs at home (a single skin has brought as high as four thousand dollars in Paris); third, the extremely low cost of ermine; and fourth, the fact that there is no active trade in mammoth tusks, although they are plentiful. They are often ten feet in length, and it might be supposed that they would contain ivory enough to make them worth much more than they bring; but the fact is that it is fossil ivory, and the outside of each tusk is so far broken and decayed that only the very center of the tusk contains marketable ivory.

The common rule is to give the natives one year's credit; the tea, sugar, tobacco, and other articles which they receive this year being paid for by the skins which they bring next year. The plan works well, for the natives are scrupulous in the payment of their debts. And furthermore, the traders, being on the spot, have a wide personal acquaintance among the natives and know just whom they can depend upon.

Of course the most valuable portion of the produce of this north country is sable skins. There are four kinds, or rather grades, of sables. The finest come from the Lena River district; the second grade from the territory of which we are writing and within a radius of five hundred miles about the head of the Okhotsk Sea; the third grade from the Amur River district, and the fourth from Manchuria. Generally, the farther north one goes the better the sables.

Before Siberia was conquered by Russia, sables were extremely common, but gradually they were pushed back by the coming of settlers, for they will not remain in the vicinity of human dwellings. They live in holes, as do the martens or ermines, but those who have studied their habits say that they frequently build nests of sticks and gra.s.s in the branches of trees, and use them alternately with their holes. They usually sleep about half the day, and roam about in search of food the other half. In the early spring they live on hares, though they will also eat weasles or ermine. When the berries are in season they subsist solely on cranberries, blueberries, and especially the berries of the shad-bush. The natives say that eating these last causes them to itch and rub themselves against the trees, which for the time being spoils their fur; so that while the shad-bush is in berry no sables are caught.

About the end of March the sable brings forth its young, from three to five in the litter, and suckles them from four to six weeks.

The method of trapping sables has been well described by a quaint writer near the beginning of the nineteenth century, and, as there have been very few changes during the interval, he is worth quoting:

The sable hunters, whether Russian or native, begin to set out for hunting about the beginning of September. Some Russians go themselves, and others hire people to hunt for them, giving them proper clothes and instruments for hunting, and provisions for the time of their being out.

When they return from the chase they give their masters all the game, and restore them likewise all that they received, except the provisions.

A company that agrees to hunt together a.s.sembles from six to forty men, though formerly there were sometimes even fifty.

They provide a small boat for every three or four men, which they cover over; and take with them such persons as understand the language of the people among whom they go to hunt, and likewise the places properest for hunting. These persons they maintain at the public charge, and give them, besides, an equal share of the game.

In these boats every hunter lays thirty poods of rye-flour, one pood[2] of wheat-flour, one pood of salt, and a quarter of a pood of groats. Every two men must have a net, a dog, and several poods of provisions for the dog, a bed and covering, a vessel for preparing their bread, and a vessel to hold leaven. They carry with them very few firearms.

[2] Russian weight equivalent to thirty-six pounds avoirdupois.

The boats are then drawn up-stream as far as they can go, where the hunters build for themselves. Here they all a.s.semble and live until the river is frozen over. In the mean time they choose for their chief leader one who has been oftenest upon these expeditions; and to his orders they profess an entire obedience. He divides the company into several small parties, and names a leader to each, except his own, which he himself directs; he also appoints the places where each party is to hunt. As soon as the season begins, this division into small parties is unalterable, even though the whole company consists of only eight or nine, for they never all go toward the same place. When their leaders have given them their orders, every small company digs pits upon the road by which they must go. In these pits they lay up for every two men three bags of flour against their return, when they shall have consumed all their other provisions; and whatever they have left in the huts they are obliged to hide also in pits, lest the wild inhabitants should steal it.

As soon as the rivers are frozen over and the season is proper for the sable hunting, the chief of the leaders calls all the huntsmen into the hut, and, having prayed to G.o.d, gives orders to every chief of each small company, and despatches them the same road which was before a.s.signed them. Then the leader sets out one day before the rest to provide lodging-places for them.

When the chief leader despatches the under-leaders he gives them several orders; one of which is that each should build his first lodging in honor of some church, which he names, and the other lodgings to some such saint whose image he has with him, and that the first sable they catch should be laid aside in the quarter of the church, and at their return be presented to it. These sables they call "G.o.d's Sables," or the church's. The first sable that is caught in the quarter of each saint is given to the person who brought the image of that saint with him.

On their march they support themselves with a wooden crutch about four feet long; upon the end of which they put a cow's horn, to keep it from being split by the ice, and a little above they bind it around with thongs to keep it from sinking too deep in the snow. The upper part is broad like a spade, and serves to shovel away the snow or to take it up and put it into their kettles, for they must use snow, as they have frequently no water. The princ.i.p.al chief having sent out the small parties, starts with his own. When they come to the places of lodging they build little huts of logs, and bank them up with snow round about. They hew several trees upon the road, that they may the more easily find their way in the winter. Near every quarter they prepare their trap-pits, each of which is surrounded with sharp stakes, about six or seven feet high, and about four feet distant, and is covered over with boards to prevent the snow from falling in. The entrance through the stakes is narrow, and over it a board is hung so nicely that by the least touch of the sables it turns and throws them into the trap; and they must absolutely go this way to reach a piece of fish or flesh with which the trap is baited. The hunters stay in a station till they have a sufficient number of traps set, every hunter being obliged to make twenty in a day. When they have pa.s.sed ten of these quarters the leader sends back half of his company to bring up the provisions that were left behind, and with the remainder he advances to build more huts and set more traps.

These carriers must stop at all the lodging-places to see that the traps are in order, and take out any sables they may find in them, and skin them, which none must pretend to do but the chief man of the company.

If the sables are frozen they thaw them out by putting them under the bedclothes with them. When the skins are taken off, all present sit down and are silent, being careful that nothing is hanging on the stakes. The body of the sable is laid upon dried sticks, and these are afterward lighted, the body of the animal smoked, and then buried in the snow or the earth. Often when they apprehend that the Tunguses may meet them and take away their booty, they put the skins into hollow pieces of wood and seal up the ends with snow, which being wetted soon freezes. These they hide in the snow near their huts, and gather them up when they return in a body.

When the carriers are come with provisions, then the other half are sent for more; and thus they are employed in hunting, the leader always going before to build traps. When they find few sables in their traps they hunt with nets, which they can only do when they find the fresh tracks of sables in the snow. These they follow till it brings them to the hole where the sable has entered; or if they lose it near other holes, they put smoking pieces of rotten wood to them, which generally forces the sable to leave the hole.

The hunter at the same time has spread his net, into which the animal usually falls; and for precaution his dog is generally near at hand. Thus the hunter sits and waits sometimes two or three days. They know when the sable falls into the net by the sound of two small bells which are fastened to it. They never put smoky pieces of wood into those holes which have only one opening, for the sable would sooner be smothered than come towards the smoke, in which case it is lost.

When the chief leader and all the hunters are gathered together, then the leaders of the small parties report to the chief how many sables or other beasts their party has killed, and if any of the parties have done anything contrary to his orders and the common laws. These crimes they punish in different ways. Some of the culprits they tie to a stake; others they oblige to ask pardon from every one in the company; a thief they beat severely, and allow him no part of the booty; nay, they even take his own baggage from him and divide it among themselves. They remain in their headquarters until the rivers are free of ice; and after the hunting they spend their time preparing the skins. Then they set out in the boats they came in, and when they get home they give the sables to the several churches to which they promised them; and then, having paid their fur-tax, they sell the rest, dividing equally the money or goods which they receive for them.

Before Kamchatka was conquered by the Russians the sables were so plentiful that a hunter could easily take seventy or eighty in a season, but they were esteemed more for their flesh than for their fur. At first the natives paid their tribute in sables, and would give eight skins for a knife and eighteen for an ax.

CHAPTER IX

OFF FOR THE NORTH--A RUNAWAY

My winter wardrobe of deerskin--Shoes that keep the feet warm when it is sixty degrees below zero--_Plemania_, a curious native food in tabloid form--Other provisions--Outline of proposed exploration about the sources of the Ghijiga River--Four hours of sun a day--When dog meets deer--A race for life and a ludicrous denouement--More queer native dishes--Curious habits of the sledge-dog.

I now set about preparing my winter wardrobe. With the aid of my good friend Mrs. Braggin, several native women were set at work to make a complete suit of native clothes, for I knew that only in these would I be able to endure the rigors of their arctic winter. The trousers were made of yearling-deer skin tanned soft on the inside, and the short hair left on the outside. A short jacket of the same material completed the inner suit. The socks were made of the same skin with the fur left on the inside. They reached well to the knee. Over these came a pair of boots made from skin taken from reindeer's legs, with soles of seal-hide. A cushion of gra.s.s is used in the boot. The skin taken from the reindeer's leg is better adapted to the manufacture of boots than any other part of the skin, because the hair is shorter and denser in growth. I also had boots with soles made of the fur which grows between the toes of the reindeer, and which is of such a texture that it prevents slipping on the ice. On each foot of the reindeer there is a tuft of this hair about as large as a silver dollar, and it takes twelve of them to make the sole of a single boot. These boots are used only in extremely cold weather. Even with the thermometer sixty degrees below zero they prevent cold feet.

For an overcoat I had a great koklanka made. It was shaped like a huge night-gown, reaching to the knee. It was made of two thicknesses of yearling-deer skin, and was provided with an ample hood. It is too heavy to wear when walking, but is used in the dog- or deer-sledge and when sleeping. It is usually belted in with a gay-colored woolen scarf. For head-gear I wore a "Nansen" woolen hat capable of being drawn down over the face. Without it my nose would have been severely punished. My heavy mittens were made of fur from the deer's leg, with the hair outside. Even in the worst of weather they were a complete protection from cold. Of snow-shoes I took three pairs, two being designed for use in soft snow. They measured five feet and ten inches long by eight inches wide, being pointed and curved up in front and gathered to a point at the back. They were shod with reindeer fur, with the hair pointing back, thus preventing slipping. One pair for use on hard snow were three feet long and eight inches wide.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Deer crossing River.]

An indispensable part of my equipment was a sleeping-bag made of the thick winter fur of the reindeer, with the fur inside. It was provided with a hood that, when pulled down, completely shut out the cold. One would suppose that the sleeper must smother in such a case; but, although at first it seemed rather close, I suffered no inconvenience.

Enough air found its way in around the edge of the hood for respiration.

For provisions I first laid in several hundred pounds of _plemania_, as the Russians call it. It consists of little b.a.l.l.s of reindeer meat chopped fine, and surrounded with a casing of dough. Each ball was about the size of an English walnut. These froze immediately and remained so till thrown into a pot of boiling water. Ten minutes then sufficed to make a most tempting dish. To this I added several hundred pounds of hard rye bread, which had been cut in slices and dried on the top of the oven to the consistency of stone. Tea, sugar, and tobacco were added as luxuries, though the first is well-nigh a necessity, and all of them are potent levers in opening the hearts of the native Korak or Tunguse. I took a small quant.i.ty of dried fruits, which, of course, proved most useful in a land where food is almost all of an animal nature.

It was my intention to explore first the mountains in which the Ghijiga River has its source, together with the tributary streams; and after that to cross over the mountains and explore the head waters of the rivers flowing north into the Arctic Ocean. I antic.i.p.ated that this would take at least two months.

Old Chrisoffsky furnished six dog-sledges; he himself and two of his sons acted as drivers. The other three drivers were hired from Ghijiga. My party consisted, then, of the following members: my faithful Kim, who stuck to me through thick and thin, though, at first, he little dreamed how far I would take him from the pleasant hills and valleys of his beloved Chosun; my Tunguse guide, Fronyo, who had proved such a valuable help in my trip into his district; the six drivers, myself, and the eighty-four dogs. I had left behind all my Russian help, as they would have been of no value on such an expedition as this.

The reader may imagine that our stock of food was small for such a party, but we were going into a reindeer country where we were sure of securing all the meat we wanted. So all the available s.p.a.ce on the sledges was loaded with dog-food--namely, salmon heads and backs. It was now November, and there were only four hours of sunlight--from ten to two. But the northerner does not depend on the sun. The glistening snow and the stars overhead give sufficient light for ordinary travel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Reindeer.]

We were off with a dash and a happy howl of mingled dogs and village children, at one in the afternoon, and that night we spent at Chrisoffsky's village. The next morning we were off again in the gray light at seven o'clock, up the bed of the Ghijiga River. The third day out we neared the yourta of a wealthy Tunguse magistrate. At four o'clock in the afternoon the dogs suddenly broke into a swift run, and we knew they had scented something that interested them. We soon perceived that we had struck a deer trail and that we were nearing an encampment. We turned a bend in the road and there, a hundred yards ahead of us, saw the cause of the dogs' excitement. A team of reindeer were running for their lives. Their Tunguse driver was lashing them with the whip and urging them on with all his might, for he knew as well as we that if our dogs overtook them before the camp was reached, we seven men would be utterly powerless to prevent the dogs from tearing the deer to pieces. Chrisoffsky put on the brake with all his might, but it had not the least effect. Our fourteen dogs had become wolves in the turn of a hand and no brake could stop them. There were many stumps and other obstructions along our path, and my driver had great difficulty in preventing a smash-up. For a short time the deer held their own, and, in fact, gained on us, but before the yourta came in sight we were gaining rapidly. While we were still at some distance the people of the village, warned by the cries of the dogs, comprehended what was the matter, and, arming themselves with sticks and spears, came running toward us. As they came on they spread out in a fan-like formation across the trail. When the terrified deer reached them they opened and let the team through, and instantly closed again to dispute the pa.s.sage of our dogs. Chrisoffsky was in no wise minded to let these natives club his dogs and perhaps injure the valuable animals, so he resorted to the last expedient. Giving a shout of warning to me he suddenly, by a deft motion, turned our sledge completely over, landing me in a snow-drift on my head. In this position the sledge was all brake and the dogs were forced to stop, leaping in their harness and yelling like fiends incarnate. I sat up in the snow-bank and laughed. The other drivers had followed our example, and the struggling tangle of sledges, harness, dogs and men formed a scene that to the novice at least was highly ludicrous. The drivers and the village people were belaboring the dogs, and the entire herd of reindeer belonging to the village were escaping in all directions up the hills.

When order was at last restored, which was not accomplished till every deer was out of sight, we made our way to the yourta, which was large and comfortable, and, as usual, the women set about making tea. The reader may well ask how the natives can use both dogs and reindeer if the very sight of a deer has such a maddening effect on the dogs. The explanation is simple. The two never go together. There is the dog country and the deer country, and the two do not impinge upon each other. Even among the same tribe there may be a clear division. For instance, there are the "Deer Koraks" and the "Dog Koraks." In some of the villages of the former there may occasionally be seen a few low-bred curs which are not used for sledging and have been trained not to worry deer. Confusion is often unavoidably caused by traveling with dogs through a deer country, but the natives do not take it in ill part, knowing that if they themselves have to travel with deer through a dog country they will cause quite as much inconvenience.

While we were drinking tea and eating hard bread I noted that the settlement contained some thirty men, with their wives and children.

The women hastened to prepare a dinner of unborn-deer's flesh and deer tongues. Frozen marrow bones, uncooked, were broken and the marrow, in the shape of sticks or candles, was pa.s.sed around as a great delicacy.

These dishes, together with frozen cranberries, formed our repast, and a very good one we voted it.

When we were done I went outside and found, to my surprise, that the dogs had not yet been fed. I remonstrated with Chrisoffsky, but he answered that they had not yet finished their evening toilet. Then I saw that the dogs were busy licking themselves and biting the pieces of frozen snow out from between their toes. My driver explained that if they were fed before performing this very necessary task, they would immediately lie down to sleep and wake up in the morning with sore feet and rheumatism, and then they would be useless for several days. It takes the dogs a good hour before they have groomed themselves fit for dinner. They seem to know that they can get nothing to eat before this work is done, but the minute they have finished they sit up and begin to howl for their meal. Each dog receives two or three salmon backs and heads. This is a fairly good amount considering that the salmon were originally eighteen- or twenty-pound fish. The dogs were all left in harness and still attached to the main tug.

This is pulled taut and anch.o.r.ed at the front with the polka, which prevents the dogs from fighting, for no more than two can reach each other at a time. As they feed, the drivers watch them to see that they do not steal each other's food. After they finish their dinner they scratch a shallow place in the snow, curl up with their backs to the wind and go to sleep. They are never unfastened from the sledge from one end of the journey to the other. They literally live in the harness. While the dogs were eating, the mongrel curs belonging to the encampment (an entirely different breed from the sledge-dog) stood around and yelped saucily at the big intruders, but the sledge-dogs gave them no notice whatever.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Theodosia Chrisoffsky, Guide.]

The dogs sleep quietly all night unless one of them happens to raise his nose and emit a long-drawn howl. At this signal they all join in the howl for about three minutes, stopping at the same instant. If some puppy happens to give an additional yelp, all the others turn a disgusted look at him as if, indeed, he ought to display better manners. This howling concert generally comes off two or three times a night. We do not know what causes it, but probably it is some subconscious recollection of their ancestral wolfhood. The same thing happens whenever the team stops on the road. They all sit and howl for several minutes.

On the road the dogs are fed simply with the dried fish heads and backs; but at home a more elaborate meal is prepared for them. Water is put into a sort of trough, and then rotten fish, which has been kept in pits, is added, with a few of the dried fish, and the whole is cooked by throwing in red-hot stones. This is fed to the dogs only at night. In the summer-time the dogs have to forage for themselves, which they do by digging out tundra-rats. By the time summer is over the dogs are so fat that they have to be tied up and systematically starved till brought into condition for the sledge again. This period is one long concert of howls, but the natives do not seem to mind it.

The food of the dogs is entirely carnivorous, for they would rather live by gnawing their own harness than to eat bread, even if the latter could be supplied. The instinct by which these animals foresee the coming of a blizzard is truly wonderful. The unfailing sign of a coming storm is the pawing of the snow. For what reason they paw the snow will probably never be known. This, too, may be some residual taint of their original savage state.