Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar Part 1

Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar Life.

by Thomas Wallace Knox.

PREFACE.

Fourteen years ago Major Perry McD. Collins traversed Northern Asia, and wrote an account, of his journey, ent.i.tled "A Voyage Down the Amoor." With the exception of that volume no other work on this little known region has appeared from the pen of an American writer. In view of this fact, the author of "Overland Through Asia" indulges the hope that his book will not be considered a superfluous addition to the literature of his country.

The journey herein recorded was undertaken partly as a pleasure trip, partly as a journalistic enterprise, and partly in the interest of the company that attempted to carry out the plans of Major Collins to make an electric connection between Europe and the United States by way of Asia and Bering's Straits. In the service of the Russo-American Telegraph Company, it may not be improper to state that the author's official duties were so few, and his pleasures so numerous, as to leave the kindest recollections of the many persons connected with the enterprise.

Portions of this book have appeared in Harper's, Putnam's, The Atlantic, The Galaxy, and the Overland Monthlies, and in Frank Leslie's Ill.u.s.trated Newspaper. They have been received with such favor as to encourage their reproduction wherever they could be introduced in the narrative of the journey. The largest part of the book has been written from a carefully recorded journal, and is now in print for the first time. The ill.u.s.trations have been made from photographs and pencil sketches, and in all cases great care has been exercised to represent correctly the costumes of the country. To Frederick Whymper, Esq., artist of the Telegraph Expedition, and to August Hoffman, (Photographer,) of Irkutsk, Eastern Siberia, the author is specially indebted.

The orthography of geographical names is after the Russian model. The author hopes it will not be difficult to convince his countrymen that the shortest form of spelling is the best, especially when it represents the p.r.o.nunciation more accurately than does the old method.

A frontier justice once remarked, when a lawyer ridiculed his way of writing ordinary words, that a man was not properly educated who could spell a word in only one way. On the same broad principle I will not quarrel with those who insist upon retaining an extra letter in Bering and Ohotsk and two superfluous letters in Kamchatka.

Among those not mentioned in the volume, thanks are due to Frederick Macrellish, Esq., of San Francisco, Hon. F.F. Low of Sacramento, Alfred Whymper, Esq., of London, and the many gentlemen connected with the Telegraph Expedition. There are dozens and hundreds of individuals in Siberia and elsewhere, of all grades and conditions in life, who have placed me under numberless obligations. Wherever I traveled the most uniform courtesy was shown me, and though conscious that few of those dozens and hundreds will ever read these lines, I should consider myself ungrateful did I fail to acknowledge their kindness to a wandering American.

T.W.K.

ASTOR HOUSE, N.Y., Sept. 15, 1870.

CHAPTER I.

It is said that an old sailor looking at the first ocean steamer, exclaimed, "There's an end to seamanship." More correctly he might have predicted the end of the romance of ocean travel. Steam abridges time and s.p.a.ce 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 j.a.pan 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. Scarcely more than a hundred days will be required for such a voyage, a dozen changes of conveyance and a land travel of less than a single week.

The tour of the world thus performed might be found monotonous. Its most salient features beyond the overland journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific, would be the study of the ocean in breeze or gale or storm, a knowledge of steamship life, and a revelation of the peculiarities of men and women when cribbed, cabined, and confined in a floating prison. Next to matrimony there is nothing better than a few months at sea for developing the realities of human character in either s.e.x. I have sometimes fancied that the Greek temple over whose door "Know thyself" was written, was really the pa.s.sage office of some Black Ball clipper line of ancient days. Man is generally desirous of the company of his fellow man or woman, but on a long sea voyage he is in danger of having too much of it. He has the alternative of shutting himself in his room and appearing only at meal times, but as solitude has few charms, and cabins are badly ventilated, seclusion is accompanied by _ennui_ and headache in about equal proportions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARACTER DEVELOPED.]

Wishing to make a journey round the world, I did not look favorably upon the ocean route. The proportions of water and land were much like the relative quant.i.ties of sack and bread in Falstaff's hotel bill.

Whether on the Atlantic or the Pacific, the Indian, or the Arctic, the appearance of Ocean's blue expanse is very much the same. It is water and sky in one place, and sky and water in another. You may vary the monotony by seeing ships or shipping seas, but such occurrences are not peculiar to any one ocean. Desiring a reasonable amount of land travel, I selected the route that included Asiatic and European Russia. My pa.s.sport properly endorsed at the Russian emba.s.sy, authorized me to enter the empire by the way of the Amoor river.

A few days before the time fixed for my departure, I visited a Wall street banking house, and asked if I could obtain a letter of credit to be used in foreign travel.

"Certainly sir," was the response.

"Will it be available in Asia?"

"Yes, sir. You can use it in China, India, or Australia, at your pleasure." "Can I use it in Irkutsk?"

"Where, sir?"

"In Irkutsk."

"Really, I can't say; what _is_ Irkutsk?"

"It is the capital of Eastern Siberia."

The person with whom I conversed, changed from gay to grave, and from lively to severe. With calm dignity he remarked, "I am unable to say, if our letters can be used at the place you mention. They are good all over the civilized world, but I don't know anything about Irkutsk.

Never heard of the place before."

I bowed myself out of the establishment, with a fresh conviction of the unknown character of the country whither I was bound. I obtained a letter of credit at the opposition shop, but without a guarantee of its availability in Northern Asia.

In a foggy atmosphere on the morning of March 21, 1866, I rode through muddy streets to the dock of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. There was a large party to see us off, the pa.s.sengers having about three times their number of friends. There were tears, kisses, embraces, choking sighs, which ne'er might be repeated; blessings and benedictions among the serious many, and gleeful words of farewell among the hilarious few. One party of half a dozen became merry over too much champagne, and when the steward's bell sounded its warning, there was confusion on the subject of ident.i.ty. One stout gentleman who protested that he _would_ go to sea, was led ash.o.r.e much against his will.

After leaving the dock, I found my cabin room-mate a gaunt, sallow-visaged person, who seemed perfectly at home on a steamer. On my mentioning the subject of sea-sickness, he eyed me curiously and then ventured an opinion.

"I see," said he, "you are of bilious temperament and will be very ill. As for myself, I have been a dozen times over the route and am rarely affected by the ship's motion."

Then he gave me some kind advice touching my conduct when I should feel the symptoms of approaching _mal du mer_. I thanked him and sought the deck. An hour after we pa.s.sed Sandy Hook, my new acquaintance succ.u.mbed to the evils that afflict landsmen who go down to the sea in ships. Without any qualm of stomach or conscience, I returned the advice he had proffered me. I did not suffer a moment from the marine malady during that voyage, or any subsequent one.[A]

[Footnote A: A few years ago a friend gave me a prescription which he said would prevent sea-sickness. I present it here as he wrote it.

"The night before going to sea, I take a blue pill (5 to 10 grains) in order to carry the bile from the liver into the stomach. When I rise on the following morning, a dose of citrate of magnesia or some kindred substance finishes my preparation. I take my breakfast and all other meals afterward as if nothing had happened."

I have used this prescription in my own case with success, and have known it to benefit others.]

The voyage from New York to San Francisco has been so often 'done' and is so well watered, that I shall not describe it in detail. Most of the pa.s.sengers on the steamer were old Californians and a.s.sisted in endeavoring to make the time pa.s.s pleasantly. There was plenty of whist-playing, story telling, reading, singing, flirtation, and a very large amount of sleeping. So far as I knew, n.o.body quarreled or manifested any disposition to be riotous. There was one pa.s.senger, a heavy, burly Englishman, whose sole occupation was in drinking "arf and arf." He took it on rising, then another drink before breakfast, then another between Iris steak and his b.u.t.tered roll, and so on every half hour until midnight, when he swallowed a double dose and went to bed. He had a large quant.i.ty in care of the baggage master, and every day or two he would get up a few dozen pint bottles of pale ale and an equal quant.i.ty of porter. He emptied a bottle of each into a pitcher and swallowed the whole as easily as an ordinary man would take down a dose of peppermint. The empty bottles were thrown overboard, and the captain said that if this man were a frequent pa.s.senger there would be danger of a reef of bottles in the ocean all the way from New York to Aspinwall. I never saw his equal for swallowing malt liquors. To quote from Shakspeare, with a slight alteration:

"He was a man, take him for half and half, I ne'er shall look upon his like again."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ASPINWALL TO PANAMA.]

We had six hours at Aspinwall, a city that could be done in fifteen minutes, but were allowed no time on sh.o.r.e at Panama. It was late at night when we left the latter port. The waters were beautifully phosph.o.r.escent, and when disturbed by our motion they flashed and glittered like a river of stars. Looking over the stern one could half imagine our track a path of fire, and the bay, ruffled by a gentle breeze, a waving sheet of light. The Pacific did not belie its name.

More than half the way to San Francisco we steamed as calmly and with as little motion as upon a narrow lake. Sometimes there was no sensation to indicate we were moving at all.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SLIGHTLY MONOTONOUS.]

Even varied by glimpses of the Mexican coast, the occasional appearance of a whale with its column of water thrown high into the air, and the sportive action of schools of porpoises which is constantly met with, the pa.s.sage was slightly monotonous. On the twenty-third day from New York we ended the voyage at San Francisco.

On arriving in California I was surprised at the number of old acquaintances I encountered. When leaving New York I could think of only two or three persons I knew in San Francisco, but I met at least a dozen before being on sh.o.r.e twelve hours. Through these individuals, I became known to many others, by a rapidity of introduction almost bewildering. Californians are among the most genial and hospitable people in America, and there is no part of our republic where a stranger receives a kinder and more cordial greeting. There is no Eastern iciness of manner, or dignified indifference at San Francisco.

Residents of the Pacific coast have told me that when visiting their old homes they feel as if dropped into a refrigerator. After learning the customs of the Occident, one can fully appreciate the sensations of a returned Californian.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONTGOMERY STREET IN HOLIDAY DRESS.]

Montgomery street, the great avenue of San Francisco, is not surpa.s.sed any where on the continent in the variety of physiognomy it presents.

There are men from all parts of America, and there is no lack of European representatives. China has many delegates, and j.a.pan also claims a place. There are merchants of all grades and conditions, and professional and unprofessional men of every variety, with a long array of miscellaneous characters. Commerce, mining, agriculture, and manufactures, are all represented. At the wharves there are ships of all nations. A traveler would find little difficulty, if he so willed it, in sailing away to Greenland's icy mountains or India's coral strand. The cosmopolitan character of San Francisco is the first thing that impresses a visitor. Almost from one stand-point he may see the church, the synagogue, and the paG.o.da. The mosque is by no means impossible in the future.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAN FRANCISCO, 1848.]

In 1848, San Francisco was a village of little importance. The city commenced in '49, and fifteen years later it claimed a population of a hundred and twenty thousand.[B] No one who looks at this city, would suppose it still in its minority. The architecture is substantial and elegant; the hotels vie with those of New York in expense and luxury; the streets present both good and bad pavements and are well gridironed with railways; houses, stores, shops, wharves, all indicate a permanent and prosperous community. There are gas-works and foundries and factories, as in older communities. There are the Mission Mills, making the warmest blankets in the world, from the wool of the California sheep. There are the fruit and market gardens whose products have a Brobdignagian character. There are the immense stores of wine from California vineyards that are already competing with those of France and Germany. There are--I may as well stop now, since I cannot tell half the story in the limits of this chapter.

[Footnote B: I made many notes with a view to publishing two or three chapters upon California. I have relinquished this design, partly on account of the un-Siberian character of the Golden State, and partly because much that I had written is covered by the excellent book "Beyond the Mississippi," by Albert D. Richardson, my friend and a.s.sociate for several years. The particulars of his death by a.s.sa.s.sination are familiar to many readers.]