Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar Part 13

The Goldees do not engage in agriculture as a business. Now and then there was a small garden, but it was of very little importance. Since the Russian occupation the natives have changed their allegiance from China to the 'White Czar,' as they call the Muscovite emperor.

Formerly they were much oppressed by the Manjour officials, who displayed great rapacity in collecting tribute. It was no unusual occurrence for a native to be tied up and whipped to compel him to bring out all his treasures. The Goldees call the Manjours 'rats,' in consequence of their greediness and destructive powers.

The Goldees are superior to the Gilyaks in numbers and intelligence, and the Manjours of Igoon and vicinity are in turn superior to the Goldees. The Chinese are more civilized than the Manjours, and call the latter 'dogs.' The Manjours take revenge by applying the epithet to the Goldees, and these transfer it to Mangoons and Gilyaks. The Mangoons are not in large numbers, and live along the river between the Gilyaks and Goldees. Many of the Russian officials include them with the latter, and the captain of the InG.o.dah was almost unaware of their existence.

A peculiar kind of fence employed by the Russian settlers on this part of the Amoor attracted my attention. Stakes were driven into the ground a foot apart and seven feet high. Willow sticks were then woven between these stakes in a sort of basket work. The fence was impervious to any thing larger than a rat, and no sensible man would attempt climbing it, unless pursued by a bull or a sheriff, as the upper ends of the sticks were very sharp and about as convenient to sit upon as a row of harrow-teeth.

It reminded me of a fence in an American village where I once lived, that an enterprising fruit-grower had put around his orchard,--a structure of upright pickets, and each picket armed with a nail in the top. One night four individuals bent on stealing apples, were confronted by the owner and a bull-dog and forced to surrender or leap the fence. Three of them were "treed" by the dog; the fourth sprang over the fence, but left the seat of his trousers and the rear section of his shirt, the latter bearing in indelible ink the name of the wearer. The circ.u.mstantial evidence was so strong against him that he did not attempt an alibi, and he was unable to sit down for nearly a fortnight.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TAIL PIECE--THE NET]

CHAPTER XIV.

I took the first opportunity to enter a Goldee house and study the customs of the people. A Goldee dwelling for permanent habitation has four walls and a roof. The sides and ends are of hewn boards or small poles made into a close fence, which is generally double and has a s.p.a.ce six or eight inches wide filled with gra.s.s and leaves. Inside and out the dwelling is plastered with mud, and the roofs are thatch or bark held in place by poles and stones. Sometimes they are entirely of poles. The doors are of hewn plank, and can be fastened on the inside.

The dwellings are from fifteen to forty feet square, according to the size of the family. In one I found a grandfather and his descendants; thirty persons at least. There are usually two windows, made of fish skin or thin paper over lattices. Some windows were closed with mats that could be rolled up or lowered at will.

The fire-place has a deep pan or kettle fixed over it, and there is room for a pot suspended from a rafter. Around the room is a divan, or low bench of boards or wicker work, serving as a sofa by day and a bed at night. When dogs are kept in the house a portion of the divan belongs to them, and among the Mangoons there is a table in the center specially reserved for feeding the dogs.

I found the floors of clay, smooth and hard. Near the fire-place a little fire of charcoal is kept constantly burning in a shallow hole.

Pipes are lighted at this fire, and small things can be warmed over it. Household articles were hung upon the rafters and cross beams, and there was generally a closet for table ware and other valuables. The cross-beams were sufficiently close to afford stowage room for considerable property. Fish-nets, sledges, and canoes were the most bulky articles I saw there.

Part of one wall was reserved for religious purposes, and covered with bear-skulls and bones, horse-hair, wooden idols, and pieces of colored cloth. Occasionally there were badly-painted pictures, purchased from the Chinese at enormous prices. Sometimes poles shaped like small idols are fixed before the houses.

A Goldee house is warmed by means of wooden pipes under the divan and pa.s.sing out under ground to a chimney ten or fifteen feet from the building. Great economy is shown in using fuel and great care against conflagrations. I was not able to stand erect in any Goldee houses I entered.

Like all people of the Mongolian race, the natives pretended to have little curiosity. When we landed at their villages many continued their occupations and paid no attention to strangers. Above Gorin a Goldee gentleman took me into his house, where a woman placed a mat on the divan and motioned me to a seat. The man tendered me a piece of dried fish, which I ate out of courtesy to my hosts. Several children gathered to look at me, but retired on a gesture from _pater familias_. I am not able to say if the fact that my eyes were attracted to a pretty girl of seventeen had anything to do with the dispersal of the group. Curiosity dwells in Mongol b.r.e.a.s.t.s, but the Asiatics, like our Indians, consider its exhibition in bad taste.

Outside this man's house there were many scaffoldings for drying fish.

A tame eagle was fastened with a long chain to one of the scaffolds; he was supposed to keep other birds away and was a pet of his owner.

There were many dogs walking or lying around loose, while others were tied to the posts that supported the scaffolds.

The dogs of the Goldees are very intelligent. One morning Mr. Maack missed his pots which he had left the night before full of meat. After some search they were found in the woods near the village, overturned and empty. Several dogs were prowling about and had evidently committed the theft. Fearing to be interrupted at their meal they carried the pots where they could eat at leisure.

While steaming up the river I frequently saw temporary dwellings of poles and bark like our Indian wigwams. These were at the fishing stations upon sand bars or low islands. The afternoon following our departure from Gorin I counted about thirty huts, or _yourts_, on one island, and more than fifty boats on the river.

For half a mile the scene was animated and interesting. Some boats were near the sh.o.r.e, their inmates hauling seines or paddling up or down the stream. In one heavily laden boat there was one man steering with a paddle. Four men towed the craft against the current, and behind it was another drawn by six dogs. Out in the river were small skiffs and canoes in couples, engaged in holding nets across the direction of the current. The paddles wore struck regularly and slowly to prevent drifting down the stream.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TEN MILES AN HOUR.]

One boat with two men rowing and another steering attempted a race with the steamer and fairly pa.s.sed us, though we were making ten miles an hour. All these natives are very skillful in managing their boats.

When we pa.s.sed near a boat we were greeted with '_Mendow, mendow,'_ the Mongol word of welcome. Sometimes we were hailed with the Russian salutation of '_sdrastveteh_.' In one boat I saw a Goldee belle dressed with considerable taste and wearing a ring in the cartilage of her nose. How powerful are the mandates of Fashion! This damsel would scorn to wear her pendants after the manner of Paris and New York, while the ladies of Broadway and the Boulevards would equally reject the Goldee custom.

The natives of this part of the Amoor have a three-p.r.o.nged spear like a Neptune's trident, and handle it with much dexterity. The spear-head is attached to a long line, and when a fish is struck the handle is withdrawn. The fish runs out the line, which is either held in the hand or attached to a bladder floating on the water.

Ropes and nets are made from hemp and the common sting nettle, the latter being preferred. The nettle-stalks are soaked in water and then dried and pounded till the fibres separate. Ropes and cords are equal to those of civilized manufacture, though sometimes not quite as smooth. Thread for sewing and embroidery comes from China, and is purchased of Manjour traders.

The night after we left Gorin the boat took wood at the village of Doloe. It was midnight when we arrived, and as I walked through the village nearly all the inhabitants were sleeping. The only perambulating resident was very drunk and manifested a desire to embrace me, but as I did not know his language and could not claim relationship I declined the honor. Near the river there was a large building for government stores and a smaller one for the men guarding it. A few hundred yards distant there was a Goldee village, and for want of something better Borasdine proposed that we should call on one of its inhabitants. We took a Russian peasant to guide and introduce us, our credentials and pa.s.sports having been left on the steamer.

As we approached the first house we were greeted by at least a dozen dogs. They barked on all keys and our guide thought it judicious to provide himself with a stick; but I must do the brutes the justice to say that they made no attempt at dentistry upon our legs. Some of them were large enough to consume ten pounds of beef at a sitting, and some too small for any but ornamental purposes.

The door was not locked and the peasant entered without warning, while we stood outside among the dogs. Our guide aroused the chief of the establishment and made a light; a strip of birch bark was used, and it took a good deal of blowing on the fire coals before a flame was produced. When we entered we found the proprietor standing in a short garment and rubbing his oblique eyes to get himself thoroughly awake.

Near the place he had vacated, the lady of the house was huddled under a coverlid about as large as a postage stamp, and did not appear enc.u.mbered with much clothing. Three or four others had waked and made some attempt to cover themselves. At least a dozen remained asleep and lay in a charming condition of nudity. The Goldee houses are heated to a high degree, and their inmates sleep without clothing. The delay in admitting us was to permit the head of the house to dress in reception costume, which he did by putting on his shirt.

After wishing this aboriginal a long and happy life, and thanking him for his courtesy, we departed. I b.u.mped my head against the rafters both in entering and leaving, and found considerable difference between the temperature in the house and out of it. The peasant offered to guide us to visit more Goldees, but we returned to the boat and retired to sleep.

The Russian peasants and the natives live in perfect harmony and are of mutual advantage and a.s.sistance. The peasant furnishes the native with salt, flour, and other things, while the latter catches fish, enough for both. Each has a peaceable disposition, and I was told that quarrels were of rare occurrence.

The Chinese call the natives _Yu-pi-ta-tze_, which in English means 'wearers of fish-skins.' I saw many garments of fish-skins, most of them for summer use. The operation of preparing them is quite simple.

The skins are dried and afterward pounded, the blows making them flexible and removing the scales. This done they are ready to be sewn into garments.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GOLDEE HOUSE]

A coat of this material embroidered and otherwise decorated is far from ugly, and sheds water like India rubber. Fish skins are used in making sails for boats and for the windows of houses. A Russian who had worn a Goldee coat said it was both warm and waterproof, and he suggested that it would be well to adopt fish-skin garments in America.

The Goldees and Mangoons practice Shamanism in its general features, and have a few customs peculiar to themselves. At a Goldee village I saw a man wearing a wooden representation of an arm, and learned that it is the practice to wear amulets to cure disease, the amulet being shaped like the part affected. A lame person carries a small leg of wood, an individual suffering from dyspepsia a little stomach, and so on through a variety of disorders. A hypochondriac who thought himself afflicted all over had covered himself with these wooden devices, and looked like a museum of anatomy on its travels. I thought the custom not unknown in America, as I had seen ladies in New York wearing hearts of coral and other substances on their watch-chains. Evidently the fashion comes from l'Amour.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.]

The morning after leaving Doloe we had a rain-storm with high wind that blew us on a lee sh.o.r.e. The river was four or five miles wide where the gale caught us, and the banks on both sides were low. The islands in this part of the river were numerous and extensive. At one place there are three channels, each a mile and a half wide and all navigable. From one bank to the other straight across the islands is a distance of nineteen miles.

The wind and weather prevented our making much progress on that day; as the night was cloudy we tied up near a Russian village and economised the darkness by taking wood. At a peasant's house near the landing four white-headed children were taking their suppers of bread and soup under the supervision of their mother. Light was furnished from an apparatus like a fishing jack attached to the wall; every few minutes the woman fed it with a splinter of pine wood. Very few of the peasants on the Amoor can afford the expense of candles, and as they rarely have fire-places they must burn pine splinters in this way.

Along the Amoor nearly every peasant house contains hundreds, and I think thousands, of c.o.c.kroaches. They are quiet in the day but do not fail to make themselves known at night. The table where these children were eating swarmed with them, and I can safely say there wore five dozen on a s.p.a.ce three feet square. They ran everywhere about the premises except into the fire. Walls, beds, tables, and floors were plentifully covered with these disagreeable insects. The Russians do not appear to mind them, and probably any one residing in that region would soon be accustomed to their presence. Occasionally they are found in bread and soup, and do not improve the flavor.

Life on the steamboat was a trifle monotonous, but I found something new daily. Our steward (who is called _Boofetchee_ in Russian) brought me water for washing when I rose in the morning, and the samovar with tea when I was dressed. Borasdine rose about the time I did and joined me at tea. Then we had breakfast of beef and bread with potatoes about eleven or twelve o'clock, and dinner at six.

The intervals between meals were variously filled. I watched the land, talked with Borasdine, read, wrote, smoked, and contemplated the steward, but never imagined him a disguised angel. I looked at the steerage pa.s.sengers and the crew, and think their faces are pretty well fixed in memory. Had I only been able to converse in Russian I should have found much more enjoyment. As for the cook it is needless to say that I never penetrated the mysteries of his realm. Little games of cards wore played daily by all save myself; I used to look on occasionally but never learned the games.

One of the Russian games at cards is called poker, and is not much unlike that seductive amus.e.m.e.nt so familiar to the United States.

Whence it came I could not ascertain, but it was probably taken there by some enterprising American. Some years ago a western actor who was able to play Hamlet, Richelieu, Richard III., Claude Melnotte, and draw-poker, made his way to Australia, where he delighted the natives with his dramatic genius. But though he drew crowded houses his cash box was empty, as the treasurer stole the most of the receipts. He did not discharge him as there was little prospect of finding a better man in that country; but he taught him draw-poker, borrowed five dollars to start the game, and then every morning won from the treasurer the money taken at the door on the previous night.

As we approached the Ousuree there was a superior magnificence in the forest. The trees on the southern bank grew to an enormous size in comparison, with those lower down the river. Naturalists say that within a short distance in this region may be found all the trees peculiar to the Amoor. Some of them are three or four feet in diameter and very tall and straight. The elm and larch attain the greatest size, while the ash and oak are but little inferior. The cork-tree is two feet through, and the maackia--a species of oak with a brown, firm wood--grows to the diameter of a foot or more.

In summer the foliage is so dense that the sun's rays hardly penetrate, and there is a thick 'chapparel' that makes locomotion difficult. Just below the Ousuree the settlers had removed the under growth over a small s.p.a.ce and left the trees appearing taller than ever. In a great deal of travel I have never seen a finer forest than on this part of the Amoor. I do not remember anything on the lower Mississippi that could surpa.s.s it. Tigers and leopards abound in these forests, and bears are more numerous than agreeable.

Occasionally one of these animals dines upon a Goldee, but the custom is not in favor with the natives. It is considered remarkable that the Bengal tiger, belonging properly to a region nearer the equator, should range so far north. On some of its excursions it reaches 53 North Lat.i.tude, and feeds upon reindeer and sables. The valley of the Amoor is the only place in the world outside of a menagerie where all these animals are found together. The tropical ones go farther north and the Arctic ones farther south than elsewhere.

It is the same with the vegetable kingdom. The mahogany and cork tree grow here, and the bark of the latter is largely used by the natives.

On the slopes of the mountains a few miles away are the Siberian pine, the Ayan spruce, and here and there a larch tree. Cedars and fir trees are abundant and grow to a great size. The whole appearance of the region is one of luxuriance and fertility.

The mouth of the Ousuree is a mile wide, and the stream is said to be magnificent through its whole length. Its sources are in Lat.i.tude 44, and its length is about five hundred miles. While I was at Nicolayevsk Admiral Fulyelm said to me:

"I have just returned from a voyage on the Ousuree. It is one of the loveliest rivers I ever saw. The valley bears such a resemblance to a settled country with alternate parks and open country that I almost looked to see some grand old mansion at every bend of the stream."