Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar Part 17

We dropped anchor and threw a line that was made fast by a young Manjour. On sh.o.r.e we met several residents, who greeted us civilly and addressed the captain in Russian. Most of the Manjour merchants have learned enough Russian to make a general conversation, especially in transacting business.

I was introduced as an American who had come a long distance purposely to see Igoon. The governor was absent, so that it was not possible to call on him. We were shown to a temple near at hand, a building fifteen feet by thirty, with a red curtain at the door and a thick carpet of matting over a brick pavement. The altar was veiled, but its covering was lifted to allow me to read, if I could, the inscription upon it. It stood close to the entrance, like the screen near the door of a New York bar-room. There were several pictures on the walls, a few idols, and some lanterns painted in gaudy colors. Outside there were paintings over the door, some representing Chinese landscapes.

The windows were of lattice work, the roof had a dragon's head at each end of the ridge, and a mosaic pavement extended like a sidewalk around the entire building.

Our guide, who lived near, invited us to his house. We entered it through his office, which contained a table, three or four chairs, and a few account books. Out of this we walked into a large apartment used for lounging by day and sleeping at night. Its princ.i.p.al furniture was a wide divan, at one side, where the bed clothing of three or four persons was rolled into neat bundles. It turned out on inquiry that the man lived in two houses, the princ.i.p.al part of his family being domiciled several squares away. As time pressed we did not stop longer than to thank him for his attention.

The streets of Igoon reminded me of New York under the contract system four or five years ago. We walked through one street upon a narrow log fixed in the mud, and steadied ourselves against a high fence. On a larger thoroughfare there were some dry spots, but as there were two logs to walk upon we balanced very well. Chinese streets rarely have sidewalks, and every pedestrian must care for himself the best way he can. The rains the week before my visit had reduced the public ways to a disagreeable condition. Were I to describe the measurement of the Broadway of Igoon, I should say its length was two miles, more or less, its width fifty feet, and its depth two feet.

Our captain carried a sword cane which confused him a little as the lower part occasionally stuck in the mud and came off. This exposition of weapons he evidently wished to avoid. On the princ.i.p.al street I found several stores, and, true to the instinct of the American abroad, stopped to buy something. The stores had the front open to the street, so that one could stand before the counter and make his purchases without entering. The first store I saw had six or seven clerks and very little else, and as I did not wish a Chinese clerk I moved to another shop.

For the articles purchased I paid only five times their actual value, as I afterward learned. The merchants and their employees appeared to talk Russian quite fluently, and were earnest in urging me to buy. One of them imitated the tactics of Chatham street, and became very voluble over things I did not want.

Holding up an article he praised its good qualities and named its price.

"Five roubles; very good; five roubles."

I shook my head.

"Four roubles; yes; good; four roubles."

Again I made a negation.

"Three roubles; very good; yes."

I continued shaking my head as he fell to two and a half, two, and finally to one rouble. I left him at that figure, or it is possible he would have gone still lower.

"They are great rascals," said Borasdine as we walked away. "They ask ten times the real price and hope to cheat you in some way. It is difficult to buy anything here for its actual value."

We went through more streets and more mud, pa.s.sing butchers' shops where savage dogs growled with that amiable tone peculiar to butcher dogs everywhere. We pa.s.sed tea shops, shoe shops, drug stores, and other establishments, each with a liberal number of clerks. Labor must be cheap, profits large, or business brisk, to enable the merchants to maintain so many employees.

At the end of a long street we came to the guard-house, near the entrance of the military quarters. We entered the dirty barrack, but saw nothing particularly interesting. I attempted to go inside the room where the instruments of punishment were kept, but the guard stood in the way and would not move. The soldiers in this establishment had evidently partaken of a beverage stronger than tea, as they were inclined to too much familiarity. One patted me on the shoulder and pressed my hand affectionately, indulging the while in s.n.a.t.c.hes of Chinese songs.

In the prison were two or three unfortunates with their feet shackled so as to prevent their stepping more than four inches at a time. While we stood there a gaily dressed officer rode past us on a magnificent horse, reminding me of an American militia hero on training day. We looked at the fence of palisades, and stepped under the gateway leading to the government quarter. Over the gate was a small room like the drawbridge room in a castle of the middle ages. Twenty men could be lodged there to throw arrows, hot water, or Chinese perfumery on the invading foe.

A Manjour acquaintance of our captain invited us to visit his house.

We entered through the kitchen, where there was a man frying a kind of 'twisted doughnut' in vegetable oil. The flour he used was ground in the Manjour mills, and lacked the fineness of European or American flour. Judging by the quant.i.ty of food visible the family must have been a large one.

The head of the household proclaimed himself a Tartar, and said he was the proprietor of four wives. I smoked a cigar with him, and during our interview Borasdine hinted that we would like to inspect his harem. After a little decorous hesitation, he led us across an open and muddy courtyard to a house where a dozen women were in the confusion of preparing and eating supper. With four wives one must have a proportionate number of servants and retainers, else he cannot maintain 'style.'

Such a scene of confusion I never saw before in one man's family.

There were twelve or fifteen children of different ages and s.e.xes, and not one silent. Some were at table, some quarreling, some going to sleep, and some waking. Two women were in serious dispute, and the Tartar words poured out freely. The room was hot, stifling, and filled with as many odors as the city of Cologne, and we were glad to escape into the open air as soon as possible. I did not envy that Mongol gentleman his domestic bliss, and am inclined to think he considered it no joke to be as much married as he was.

I did not sec any pretty women at Igoon, but learned afterward that they exist there. The Manjour style of hair-dressing attracts the eye of a stranger. The men plait the hair after the Chinese manner, shaving the fore part of the head. The women wind theirs in a peculiar knot, in about the position of the French chignon. They pierce this knot with two long pins like knitting needles, and trim it with bright ribbons and real or artificial flowers. The fashion is becoming, and, excluding the needles, I would not be surprised to see it in vogue in Western civilization within half a dozen years.

The men wore long blue coats of cotton or silk, generally the former, loose linen trousers, fastened at the knee or made into leggings, and Chinese shoes or boots of skin. The women dress in pantaletts and blue cotton gowns with short, loose sleeves, above which they wear at times a silk cape or mantle. They have ear rings, bracelets, and finger rings in profusion, and frequently display considerable taste in their adornment. It was nearly sunset when we landed at Igoon, and when we finished our visit to the Tartar family the stars were out. The delay of the boat was entirely to give me a view of a Chinese-Manjour city.

Darkness put an end to sight-seeing, and so we hastened to the steamer, followed by a large crowd of natives.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CHINESE FAMILY PICTURE.]

We took three or four Manjour merchants as pa.s.sengers to Blagoveshchensk. One of them spent the evening in our cabin, but would neither drink alcoholic beverages nor smoke. This appeared rather odd among a people who smoke persistently and continually. Men, women, and children are addicted to the practice, and the amount of tobacco they burn is enormous.

CHAPTER XVIII.

At daylight on the morning after leaving Igoon, we were pa.s.sing the mouth of the Zeya, a river half a mile wide, flowing with a strong current. It was along this river that the first white men who saw the Amoor found their way. It is said to be practicable for steam navigation three or four hundred miles from its mouth. 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 sh.o.r.e.

"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 s.p.a.ce around it. Some of them have flower gardens in front, and a public park was well advanced toward completion at the time of my arrival.

A wharf extended into the river at an angle of forty degrees with the sh.o.r.e. The steamer Korsackoff was moored at this wharf, with a barge nearly her own size. The InG.o.dah tied to the bank just below the wharf, and was welcomed by the usual crowd of soldiers and citizens, with a fair number of Manjours from the other bank.

On landing, I called upon Colonel Pedeshenk, the governor of the Province, and delivered my letters of introduction. The Colonel invited me to dine with him that day, and stated that several officers of his command would be present. After this visit and a few others, I went with Captain Borasdine to attend the funeral of the late Major General Bussy. This gentleman was five years governor of the Province of the Amoor, and resigned in 1866 on account of ill-health. He died on his way to St. Petersburg, and the news of his death reached Blagoveshchensk three days before my arrival. I happened to reach the town on the morning appointed for the funeral service.

The church was crowded, everybody standing, according to the custom prevailing in Russia. Colonel Pedeshenk and his officers were in full uniform, and almost all present held lighted candles. Five or six priests, with an Archbishop, conducted the ceremonies. The services consisted of a ritual, read and intoned by the priests, with chanting by the choir of male voices. The Archbishop was in full robes belonging to his position, and his long gray beard and reverend face gave him a patriarchal appearance. When the ceremony was finished the congregation opened to the right and left to permit the governor and officers to pa.s.s out first. From beginning to end the service lasted about an hour.

Colonel Pedeshenk had been governor but a few months, and awaited confirmation in his position. Having served long on the staff of General Bussy, he was disposed to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor and carry out his plans for developing the resources of his district.

At the appointed hour I went to dine at the governor's, where I found eight or ten officers and the young wife of Colonel Pedeshenk. We spent a half-hour on the balcony, where there was a charming view of the river and the Chinese sh.o.r.e with its background of mountains. The governor's house was more like a mansion in a venerable town than in a settlement less than ten years old. The reception hall would have made a good ball-room anywhere out of the large cities.

The charming young madame did not speak English but was fluent in French. She was from Irkutsk, and had spent several years in the schools and society of St. Petersburg. She had many reminiscences of the capital, and declared herself delighted with her home on the Amoor. After dinner we retired to the balcony for prosaic tea drinking and a poetical study of the glories of an autumn sunset behind the hills of Manjouria.

There was no hotel in the town, and I had wondered where I should lodge. Before I had been half an hour on sh.o.r.e, I was invited by Dr.

Snider, the surgeon in chief of the province, to make my home at his house. The doctor spoke English fluently, and told me he learned it from a young American at Ayan several years before. He was ten years in government service at Ayan, and met there many of my countrymen.

Once he contemplated emigrating to New Bedford at the urgent solicitation of a whaling captain who frequently came to the Ohotsk sea.

Dr. Snider was from the German provinces of Russia, and his wife, a sister of Admiral Fulyelm, was born in Sweden. They usually conversed in German but addressed their children in Russian. They had a Swedish housemaid who spoke her own language in the family and only used Russian when she could not do otherwise. Madame Snider told me her children spoke Swedish and Russian with ease, and understood German very well. They intended having a French or English governess in course of time.

"I speak," said the doctor, "German with my wife, Swedish to the housemaid, Russian to my other servants, French with some of the officers, English with occasional travelers, and a little Chinese and Manjour with the natives over the river."

Blagoveshchensk has a pretty situation, and I should greatly prefer it to Nicolayevsk for permanent habitation. In the middle of the Amoor valley and at the mouth of the Zeya, its commercial advantages are good and its importance increases every year. It was founded in 1858 by General Mouravieff, but did not receive any population worthy of mention until after the treaty of Igoon in 1860. The government buildings are large and well constructed, logs being the material in almost universal use for making walls. A large unfinished house for the telegraph was pointed out to me, and several warehouses were in process of erection.

Late one afternoon the captain of the steamer Korsackoff invited me to visit Sakhalin-Oula-Hotun (city of the black river) on the opposite sh.o.r.e. Though called a city it cannot justly claim more than two thousand inhabitants. There was a crowd on the bank similar to the one at Igoon, most of the women and girls standing with their arms folded in their sleeves. Several were seated close to the water and met the same misfortune as those in similar positions at Igoon. The Korsackoff made a much greater swell than the InG.o.dah, and those who caught its effects were well moistened. We landed from, the steamer's boat and ascended the bank to the village. Several fat old Manjours eyed us closely and answered with great brevity our various questions.

Sakhalin-Oula stretches more than a mile along the bank, but extends only a few rods back from the river. Practically it consists of a single street, which is quite narrow in several places. The houses are like those of Igoon, with frames of logs and coverings of boards, or with log walls plastered with mud. The windows of stores and dwellings are of lattice work covered with oiled paper, gla.s.s being rarely used.

The roofs of the buildings were covered with thatch of wheat straw several inches thick, that must offer excellent facilities for taking fire. Probably the character of this thatch accounts for the chimneys rising ten or fifteen feet from, the buildings. I saw several men arranging one of these roofs. On a foundation of poles they laid bundles of straw, overlapping them as we overlap shingles, and cutting the boards to allow the straw to spread evenly. This kind of covering must be renewed every two or three years. Several thatches were very much decayed, and in one of them there was a fair growth of gra.s.s. The village was embowered in trees in contrast to the Russian sh.o.r.e where the only trees were those in the park. I endeavored to ascertain the cause of this difference, but could not. The Russians said there was often a variation of three or four degrees in the temperature of the two banks, the Chinese one being the milder. Timber for both Chinese and Russian use is cut in the forests up the Amoor and rafted down.

Sakhalin-Oula abounded in vegetable gardens, which supplied the market of Blagoveshchensk. The number of shops both there and at Igoon led me to consider the Manjours a population of shop-keepers. Dr. Snider said they brought him everything for ordinary table use, and would contract to furnish at less than the regular price, any article sold by the Russian merchants. In their enterprise and mode of dealing they were much like the Jews of Europe and America, which may account for their being called Manjours. Once a month during the full moon they come to Blagoveshchensk and open a fair, which continues seven days. They sell flour, buckwheat, beans, poultry, eggs, vegetables, and other edible articles. The Russians usually purchase a month's supply at these times, but when they wish anything out of the fair season the Manjours are ready to furnish it.

We walked along a narrow street, less muddy than the streets of Igoon, and pa.s.sed several cattle yards enclosed with high fences, like California corrals. In one yard there were cattle and horses, so densely packed that they could not kick freely. Groups of natives stared at us while smoking their little pipes, and doubtless wondered why we came there. Several eyed me closely and asked my companions who and what I could be. The explanation that I was American conveyed no information, as very few of them ever heard of the land of the free and the former home of the slave.

One large building with a yard in front and an inscription over its gate was pointed out as a government office. Several employees of the Emperor of China were standing at the gateway, all smoking and enjoying the evening air. At a hitching post outside the gate there were three saddled horses of a breed not unlike the 'Canadian.' The saddles would be uncomfortable to an American, cavalry officer, though not so to a Camanche Indian. According to my recollection of our equestrian savage I think his saddle is not much unlike the Mongolians'.

Beyond this establishment we entered a yard in front of a new and well-built house. Near the door was the traveling carriage of the governor of Igoon, who had arrived only an hour or two before. The carriage was a two-wheeled affair, not long enough to permit one to lie at full length nor high enough to sit bolt upright. It had no springs, the frame resting fairly on the axles. The top was rounded like that of a butcher's cart and the sides were curtained with blue cloth that had little windows or peep-holes. I looked behind the curtain and saw that the sides and bottom were cushioned to diminish the effect of jolting. Two or three small pillows, round and hard, evidently served to fill vacancies and wedge the occupant in his place.