Tent Life in Siberia Part 14

[Ill.u.s.tration: A TUNGUSE SUMMER TENT]

The pictures from these papers are sometimes put to curious uses. In the hut of a Christianised but ignorant native near Anadyrsk, I once saw an engraved portrait, cut from _Harper's Weekly_, of Major General Dix, framed, hung up in a corner of the room and worshipped as a Russian saint! A gilded candle was burning before his smoky features, and every night and morning a dozen natives crossed themselves and said their prayers to a major-general in the United States Army! It is the only instance, I believe, on record, where a major-general has been raised to the dignity of a saint without even being dead.

St. George of England, we are told, was originally a corrupt army contractor of Cappadocia, but he was not canonised until long after his death, when the memory of his contracts was no more. For Major-General Dix was reserved the peculiar privilege of being at the same time United States Minister in Paris and a saint in Siberia!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Woman's fur lined Hood]

CHAPTER x.x.x

AN ARCTIC AURORA--ORDERS FROM THE MAJOR--ADVENTURES OF MACRAE AND ARNOLD WITH THE CHUKCHIS--RETURN TO GIZHIGA--REVIEW OF WINTER'S WORK

Among the few pleasures which reward the traveller for the hardships and dangers of life in the Far North, there are none which are brighter or longer remembered than the magnificent auroral displays which occasionally illumine the darkness of the long polar night, and light up with a celestial glory the whole blue vault of heaven. No other natural phenomenon is so grand, so mysterious, so terrible in its unearthly splendour as this. The veil which conceals from mortal eyes the glory of the eternal throne seems drawn aside, and the awed beholder is lifted out of the atmosphere of his daily life into the immediate presence of G.o.d.

On the 20th of February, while we were all yet living together at Anadyrsk, there occurred one of the grandest displays of the arctic aurora which had been observed there for more than fifty years, and which exhibited such unusual and extraordinary brilliancy as to astonish and frighten even the natives. It was a cold, dark, but clear winter's night, and the sky in the earlier part of the evening showed no signs of the magnificent illumination which was already being prepared. A few streamers wavered now and then in the north, and a faint radiance like that of the rising moon shone above the dark belt of shrubbery which bordered the river; but these were common occurrences, and excited no notice or remark. Late in the evening, just as we were preparing to go to bed, Dodd happened to go outside for a moment to look after his dogs; but no sooner had he reached the outer door of the entry than he came rushing back, his face ablaze with excitement, shouting: "Kennan! Robinson! Come out, quick!" With a vague impression that the village must be on fire, I sprang up, and without stopping to put on my furs, fan hastily out, followed closely by Robinson, Harder, and Smith. As we emerged into the open air there burst suddenly upon our startled eyes the grandest exhibition of vivid dazzling light and colour of which the mind can conceive. The whole universe seemed to be on fire. A broad arch of brilliant prismatic colours spanned the heavens from east to west like a gigantic rainbow, with a long fringe of crimson and yellow streamers stretching up from its convex edge to the very zenith. At intervals of one or two seconds, wide, luminous bands, parallel with the arch, rose suddenly out of the northern horizon and swept with a swift, steady majesty across the whole heavens, like long breakers of phosph.o.r.escent light rolling in from some limitless ocean of s.p.a.ce.

Every portion of the vast arch was momentarily wavering, trembling, and changing colour, and the brilliant streamers which fringed its edge swept back and forth in great curves, like the fiery sword of the angel at the gate of Eden. In a moment the great auroral rainbow, with all its wavering streamers, began to move slowly up toward the zenith, and a second arch of equal brilliancy formed directly under it, shooting up a long serried row of slender, coloured lances toward the North Star, like a battalion of the celestial host presenting arms to its commanding angel. Every instant the display increased in unearthly grandeur. The luminous bands revolved swiftly, like the spokes of a great wheel of light, across the heavens; the streamers hurried back and forth with swift, tremulous motion from the ends of the arches to the centre; and now and then a great wave of crimson would surge up from the north and fairly deluge the whole sky with colour, tingeing the white snowy earth far and wide with its rosy reflection. But as the words of the prophecy, "And the heavens shall be turned to blood,"

formed themselves upon my lips, the crimson suddenly vanished, and a lightning flash of vivid orange startled us with its wide, all-pervading glare, which extended even to the southern horizon, as if the whole volume of the atmosphere had suddenly taken fire. I even held my breath a moment, as I listened for the tremendous crash of thunder which it seemed to me must follow this sudden burst of vivid light; but in heaven or earth there was not a sound to break the stillness of midnight save the hastily muttered prayers of the frightened native at my side, as he crossed himself and kneeled down before the visible majesty of G.o.d. I could not imagine any possible addition which even Almighty power could make to the grandeur of the aurora as it now appeared. The rapid alternations of crimson, blue, green, and yellow in the sky were reflected so vividly from the white surface of the snow, that the whole world seemed now steeped in blood, and then quivering in an atmosphere of pale, ghastly green, through which shone the unspeakable glories of the two mighty crimson and yellow arches. But the end was not yet. As we watched with upturned faces the swift ebb and flow of these great celestial tides of coloured light, the last seal of the glorious revelation was suddenly broken, and both arches were simultaneously shivered into a thousand parallel perpendicular bars, every one of which displayed in regular order, from top to bottom, the primary colours of the solar spectrum.

From horizon to horizon there now stretched two vast curving bridges of coloured bars, across which we almost expected to see, pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing, the bright inhabitants of another world. Amid cries of astonishment and exclamations of "G.o.d have mercy!" from the startled natives, these innumerable bars began to move back and forth, with a swift dancing motion, along the whole extent of both arches, pa.s.sing one another from side to side with such bewildering rapidity that the eye was lost in the attempt to follow them. The whole concave of heaven seemed transformed into one great revolving kaleidoscope of shattered rainbows. Never had I even dreamed of such an aurora as _this_, and I am not ashamed to confess that its magnificence for a moment overawed and almost frightened me. The whole sky, from zenith to horizon, was "one molten mantling sea of colour and fire;--crimson and purple, and scarlet and green, and colours for which there are no words in language and no ideas in the mind--things which can only be conceived while they are visible." The "signs and portents" in the heavens were grand enough to herald the destruction of a world; flashes of rich quivering colour, covering half the sky for an instant and then vanishing like summer lightning; brilliant green streamers shooting swiftly but silently up across the zenith; thousands of variegated bars sweeping past one another in two magnificent arches, and great luminous waves rolling in from the inter-planetary s.p.a.ces and breaking in long lines of radiant glory upon the shallow atmosphere of a darkened world.

With the separation of the two arches into bars the aurora reached its utmost magnificence, and from that time its supernatural beauty slowly but steadily faded. The first arch broke up, and soon after it the second; the flashes of colour appeared less and less frequently; the luminous bands ceased to revolve across the zenith; and in an hour nothing remained in the dark starry heavens to remind us of the aurora, except a few faint Magellan clouds of luminous vapour.

The month of February wore slowly away, and March found us still living in Anadyrsk, without any news from the Major, or from the missing men, Arnold and Macrae. Fifty-seven days had now elapsed since they left their camp on the lower Anadyr, and we began to fear that they would never again be seen. Whether they had starved, or frozen to death on some great desolate plain south of Bering Strait, or been murdered by the Chukchis, we could not conjecture, but their long absence was a proof that they had met with some misfortune.

I was not at all satisfied with the route over which we had pa.s.sed from Shestakova to Anadyrsk, on account of its barrenness, and the impossibility of transporting heavy telegraph poles over its great snowy steppes from the few wooded rivers by which it was traversed. I accordingly started from Anadyrsk with five dog-sledges on March 4th, to try to find a better route between the Anadyr and the head-waters of the Penzhina River. Three days after our departure we met, on the road to Penzhina, a special messenger from Gizhiga, bringing a letter from the Major dated Okhotsk, January 19th. Enclosed were letters from Colonel Bulkley, announcing the landing of the Anadyr River party under Lieutenant Macrae, and a map showing the location of their camp.

The Major wrote as follows: "In case--what G.o.d forbid--Macrae and party have not arrived at Anadyrsk, you will immediately, upon the receipt of this letter, do your utmost to deliver them from their too long winter quarters at the mouth of the Anadyr, where they were landed in September. I was told that Macrae would be landed _only in case of perfect certainty_ to reach Anadyrsk in boats, and I confess I don't like such surprises as Colonel Bulkley has made me now. For the present our duty consists in doing our utmost to extricate them from where they are, and you must get every dog-sledge you can, stuff them with dog-food and provisions, and go at once in search of Macrae's camp." These directions I had already antic.i.p.ated and carried out, and Macrae's party, or at least all I could find of it, was now living in Anadyrsk. When the Major wrote this letter, however, he did not suppose that Dodd and I would hear of the landing of the party through the Wandering Chukchis, or that we would think of going in search of them without orders. He knew that he had told us particularly not to attempt to explore the Anadyr River until another season, and did not expect that we would go beyond the last settlement. I wrote a hasty note to Dodd upon the icy runner of my overturned sledge--freezing two fingers in the operation--and sent the courier on to Anadyrsk with the letters. The mail also included letters to me from Captain Scammon, commander of the Company's fleet, and one from my friend W.H. Dall, who had returned with the vessels to San Francisco, and had written me while stopping a few days at Petropavlovsk. He begged me, by all the sacred interests of Science, not to let a single bug or living thing of any kind escape my vigilant eye; but, as I read his letter that night by the camp-fire, I thought with a smile that snowy Siberian steppes and temperatures of 30 and 40 below zero were not very favourable to the growth and dispersion of bugs, nor to efforts for their capture and preservation.

I will not go into a detailed account of the explorations which Lieutenant Robinson and I made in search of a more practicable route for our line between the Penzhina River and Anadyrsk. We found that the river system of the Anadyrsk was divided from that of the Penzhina only by a low mountain ridge, which could be easily pa.s.sed, and that, by following up certain tributaries of the latter, crossing the watershed, and descending one of the branches of the Anadyr, we should have almost unbroken water communication between the Okhotsk Sea and Bering Strait. Along these rivers timber was generally abundant, and where there was none, poles could be distributed easily in rafts. The route thus indicated was everything which could be desired; and, much gratified by the results of our labours, we returned on March 13th to Anadyrsk.

We were overjoyed to learn from the first man who met us after we entered the settlement that Macrae and Arnold had arrived, and in five minutes we were shaking them by the hand, congratulating them, upon their safe arrival, and overwhelming them with questions as to their travels and adventures, and the reasons of their long absence.

For sixty-four days they had been living with the Wandering Chukchis, and making their way slowly and by a circuitous route towards Anadyrsk. They had generally been well treated, but the band with which they travelled had been in no hurry to reach the settlement, and had been carrying them at the rate of ten or twelve miles a day all over the great desolate steppes which lie south of the Anadyr River.

They had experienced great hardships; had lived upon reindeer's entrails and tallow for weeks at a time; had been alive almost constantly with vermin; had spent the greater part of two long months in smoky Chukchi _pologs_, and had despaired, sometimes, of ever reaching a Russian settlement or seeing again a civilised human being; but hope and courage had sustained them through it all, and they had finally arrived at Anadyrsk safe and well. The sum-total of their baggage when they drove into the settlement was a quart bottle of whisky wrapped up in an American flag! As soon as we were all together, we raised the flag on a pole over our little log house, made a whisky punch out of the liquor which had traversed half north-eastern Siberia, and drank it in honour of the men who had lived sixty-four days with the Wandering Chukchis, and carried the stars and stripes through the wildest, least known region on the face of the globe.

Having now accomplished all that could be done in the way of exploration, we began making preparations for a return to Gizhiga. The Major had directed me to meet him there with Macrae, Arnold, Robinson, and Dodd, as soon as the first of April, and the month of March was now rapidly drawing to a close.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CHUKCHI RUG OF REINDEER SKIN]

On the 20th we packed up our stores, and bidding good-bye to the kind-hearted, hospitable people of Anadyrsk, we set out with a long train of sledges for the coast of the Okhotsk Sea.

Our journey was monotonous and uneventful, and on the second of April, late at night, we left behind us the white desolate steppe of the Paren, and drew near the little flat-topped _yurt_ on the Malmofka, which was only twenty-five versts from Gizhiga. Here we met fresh men, dogs, and sledges, sent out to meet us by the Major, and, abandoning our loaded sledges and tired dogs, we took seats upon the light _narts_ of the Gizhiga Cossacks, and dashed away by the light of a brilliant aurora toward the settlement.

About one o'clock we heard the distant barking of dogs, and in a few moments we rushed furiously into the silent village, and stopped before the house of the Russian merchant Vorrebeof (vor'-re-be-off') where we had lived the previous fall, and where we expected to find the Major. I sprang from my sledge, and groping my way through the entry into a warm dark room I shouted "Fstavaitia!" to arouse the sleeping inmates. Suddenly some one rose up from the floor at my feet, and, grasping me by the arm, exclaimed in a strangely familiar voice, "Kennan, is that you?" Startled and bewildered with half-incredulous recognition, I could only reply, "Bush, is that you?" and, when a sleepy boy came in with a light, he was astonished to find a man dressed in heavy frosty furs embracing another who was clad only in a linen shirt and drawers.

There was a joyful time in that log house when the Major, Bush, Macrae, Arnold, Robinson, Dodd, and I gathered around a steaming samovar or tea-urn which stood on a pine table in the centre of the room, and discussed the adventures, haps, and mishaps of our first arctic winter. Some of us had come from the extremity of Kamchatka, some from the frontier of China, and some from Bering Strait, and we all met that night in Gizhiga, and congratulated ourselves and one another upon the successful exploration of the whole route of the proposed Russian-American telegraph line from Anadyr Bay to the Amur River. The different members of the party there a.s.sembled had, in seven months, travelled in the aggregate almost ten thousand miles.

The results of our winter's work were briefly as follows: Bush and Mahood, after leaving the Major and me at Petropavlovsk, had gone on to the Russian settlement of Nikolaievsk, at the mouth of the Amur River, and had entered promptly upon the exploration of the west coast of the Okhotsk Sea. They had travelled with the Wandering Tunguses through the densely timbered region between Nikolaievsk and Aian, ridden on the backs of reindeer over the rugged mountains of the Stanavoi range south of Okhotsk, and had finally met the Major at the latter place on the 22d. of February. The Major, alone, had explored the whole north coast of the Okhotsk Sea and had made a visit to the Russian city of Yakutsk, six hundred versts west of Okhotsk, in quest of labourers and horses. He had ascertained the possibility of hiring a thousand Yakut labourers in the settlements along the Lena River, at the rate of sixty dollars a year for each man, and of purchasing there as many Siberian horses as we should require at very reasonable prices. He had located a route for the line from Gizhiga to Okhotsk, and had superintended generally the whole work of exploration. Macrae and Arnold had explored nearly all the region lying south of the Anadyr and along the lower Myan, and had gained much valuable information concerning the little-known tribe of Wandering Chukchis.

Dodd, Robinson, and I had explored two routes from Gizhiga to Anadyrsk, and had found a chain of wooded rivers connecting the Okhotsk Sea with the Pacific Ocean near Bering Strait. The natives we had everywhere found to be peaceable and well disposed, and many of them along the route of the line were already engaged in cutting poles. The country, although by no means favourable to the construction of a telegraph line, presented no obstacles which energy and perseverance could not overcome; and, as we reviewed our winter's work, we felt satisfied that the enterprise in which we were engaged, if not altogether an easy one, held out at least a fair prospect of success.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

LAST WORK OF THE WINTER--BIRDS AND FLOWERS OF SPRING CONTINUOUS DAYLIGHT--SOCIAL LIFE IN GIZHIGA--A CURIOUS SICKNESS--SUMMER DAYS AND NIGHTS--NEWS FROM AMERICA

The months of April and May, owing to the great length of the days and the comparative mildness of the weather, are the most favourable months in north-eastern Siberia for outdoor work and travel; and as the Company's vessels could not be expected to arrive at Gizhiga before the early part of June, Major Abaza determined to make the most of the intervening time. As soon as he had recovered a little, therefore, from the fatigue of his journey, he started with Bush, Macrae, and the Russian governor, for Anadyrsk, intending to engage there fifty or sixty native labourers and begin at once the construction of station-houses and the cutting and distribution of poles along the Anadyr River. My own efforts to that end, owing to the laziness of the Anadyrsk people, had been unsuccessful; but it was hoped that through the influence and cooperation of the civil authority something might perhaps be done.

Major Abaza returned by the very last winter road in May. His expedition had been entirely successful; Mr. Bush had been put in command of the Northern District from Penzhina to Bering Strait, and he, together with Macrae, Harder, and Smith, had been left at Anadyrsk for the summer. As soon as the Anadyr River should open, this party was directed to descend it in canoes to its mouth, and there await the arrival of one of the Company's vessels from San Francisco, with reinforcements and supplies. In the meantime fifty native labourers from Anadyrsk, Osolkin, and Pokorukof, had been hired and placed at their disposal, and it was hoped that by the time the ice should be out of the river they would have six or eight station-houses prepared, and several thousand poles cut, ready for distribution in rafts between the settlements of Anadyrsk and the Pacific coast. Having thus accomplished all that it was possible to accomplish with the limited means and force at his disposal, Major Abaza returned to Gizhiga, to await the arrival of the promised vessels from America with men, material, and supplies, for the prosecution of the work.

The season for dog-sledge travel was now over; and as the country afforded no other means of interior transportation, we could not expect to do any more work, or have any further communication with our outlying parties at Anadyrsk and Okhotsk until the arrival of our vessels. We therefore rented for ourselves a little log house overlooking the valley, of the Gizhiga River, furnished it as comfortably as possible with a few plain wooden chairs and tables, hung up our maps and charts on the rough log-walls, displayed our small library of two books--Shakespeare and the New Testament--as advantageously as possible in one corner, and prepared for at least a month of luxurious idleness.

It was now June. The snow was rapidly disappearing under the influence of the warm long-continued sunshine; the ice in the river showed unmistakable signs of breaking up; patches of bare ground appeared here and there along the sunny hillsides, and everything foretold the speedy approach of the short but hot arctic summer. Winter in most parts of north-eastern Siberia begins to break up in May, and summer advances with rapid strides upon its retreating footsteps, covering instantly with gra.s.s and flowers the ground that it reclaims from the melting snow-drifts of winter. Hardly is the snow off the ground before the delicate wax-like petals of the blueberry and star-flower, and the great snowy cl.u.s.ters of labrador tea begin to whiten the mossy plains; the birches, willows, and alders burst suddenly into leaf, the river banks grow green with a soft carpet of gra.s.s, and the warm still air is filled all day with the trumpet-like cries of wild swans and geese, as they come in great triangular flocks from the sea and pa.s.s high overhead toward the far North. In three weeks after the disappearance of the last snow all Nature has put on the garments of midsummer and rejoices in almost perpetual sunshine. There is no long wet, lingering spring, no gradual unfolding of buds and leaves one by one as with us. The vegetation, which has been held in icy fetters for eight long months, bursts suddenly its bonds, and with one great irresistible sweep takes the world by storm. There is no longer any night; one day blends almost imperceptibly into another, with only a short interval of twilight, which has all the coolness and repose of night without its darkness. You may sit by your open window and read until twelve o'clock, inhaling the fragrance of flowers which is brought to you on the cool night wind, listening to the murmur and plash of the river in the valley below, and tracing the progress of the hidden sun by the flood of rosy light which streams up in the North from behind the purple mountains. It is broad daylight, and yet all Nature is asleep, and a strange mysterious stillness, like that of a solar eclipse, pervades heaven and earth. You can even hear the faint roar of the surf on the rocky coast ten miles away. Now and then a song-sparrow hidden in the alder thicket by the river bank dreams that it is morning and breaks out into a quick unconscious trill of melody; but as he wakes he stops himself suddenly and utters a few "peeps" of perplexity, as if not quite sure whether it be morning, or only last evening, and whether he ought to sing or go to sleep again.

He finally seems to decide upon the latter course, and all becomes silent once more save the murmur of the river over its rocky bed and the faint roar of the distant sea. Soon after one o'clock a glittering segment of the sun appears between the cloud-like peaks of the distant mountains, a sudden flash of golden light illumines the green dewy landscape, the little sparrow in the alder thicket triumphantly takes up again his unfinished song, the ducks, geese, and aquatic birds renew their harsh discordant cries from the marshy flats along the river, and all animated nature wakes suddenly to a consciousness of daylight as if it were a new thing. There has been no night--but it is another day.

The traveller who has never before experienced an arctic summer, and who has been accustomed to think of Siberia as a land of eternal snow and ice, cannot help being astonished at the sudden and wonderful development of animal and vegetable life throughout that country in the month of June, and the rapidity of the transition from winter to summer in the course of a few short weeks. In the early part of June it is frequently possible to travel in the vicinity of Gizhiga upon dog-sledges, while by the last of the same month the trees are all in full leaf, primroses, cowslips, b.u.t.tercups, valerian, cinquefoil, and labrador tea, blossom everywhere upon the higher plains and river banks, and the thermometer at noon frequently reaches 70 Fahr. in the shade. There is no spring, in the usual acceptation of the word, at all. The disappearance of snow and the appearance of vegetation are almost simultaneous; and although the _tundras_ or moss steppes, continue for some time to hold water like a saturated sponge, they are covered with flowers and blossoming blueberry bushes, and show no traces of the long, cold winter which has so recently ended. In less than a month after the disappearance of snow in 1860, I collected from one high plain about five acres in extent, near the mouth of the Gizhiga River, more than sixty species of flowers. Animal life of all kinds is equally prompt in making its appearance. Long before the ice is out of the gulfs and bays along the coast, migratory birds begin to come in from the sea in immense numbers. Innumerable species of ducks, geese, and swans--many of them unknown to the American ornithologist--swarm about every little pool of water in the valleys and upon the lower plains; gulls, fish-hawks, and eagles, keep up a continual screaming about the mouths of the numerous rivers; and the rocky precipitous coast of the sea is literally alive with countless millions of red-beaked puffin or sea-parrots, which build their nests in the crevices and upon the ledges of the most inaccessible cliffs, and at the report of a pistol fly in clouds which fairly darken the air. Besides these predatory and aquatic birds, there are many others which are not so gregarious in their habits, and which, consequently, attract less notice. Among these are the common barn and chimney swallows, crows, ravens, magpies, thrushes, plover, ptarmigan, and a kind of grouse known to the Russians as "teteref." Only one singing-bird, as far as I know, is to be found in the country, and that is a species of small ground-sparrow which frequents the drier and more gra.s.sy plains in the vicinity of the Russian settlements.

The village of Gizhiga, where we had temporarily established our headquarters, was a small settlement of perhaps fifty or sixty plain log houses, situated upon the left bank of the Gizhiga River, eight or ten miles from the gulf. It was at that time one of the most important and flourishing settlements upon the coast of the Okhotsk Sea, and controlled all the trade of north-eastern Siberia as far north at the Anadyr and as far west as the village of Okhotsk. It was the residence of a local governor, the headquarters of four or five Russian merchants, and was visited annually by a government supply steamer, and several trading vessels belonging to wealthy American houses.

Its population consisted princ.i.p.ally of Siberian Cossacks and the descendants of compulsory emigrants from Russia proper, who had received their freedom as compensation for forcible expatriation.

Like all other _settled_ inhabitants of Siberia and Kamchatka, they depended for their subsistence princ.i.p.ally upon fish; but as the country abounded in game, and the climate and soil in the valley of the Gizhiga River permitted the cultivation of the hardier kinds of garden vegetables, their condition was undoubtedly much better than it would have been in Russia proper. They were perfectly free, could dispose of their time and services as they chose, and by hiring themselves and their dog-sledges to Russian traders in the winter, they earned money enough to keep themselves supplied with the simpler luxuries, such as tea, sugar, and tobacco, throughout the year. Like all the inhabitants of Siberia, and indeed like all Russians, they were extremely hospitable, good-natured, and obliging, and they contributed not a little to our comfort and amus.e.m.e.nt during the long months which we were obliged to spend in their far-away isolated settlement.

The presence of Americans in a village so little frequented by strangers as Gizhiga had a very enlivening influence upon society, and as soon as the inhabitants ascertained by experiment that these distinguished sojourners did not consider it beneath their dignity to a.s.sociate with the _prostoi narod_, or common people, they overwhelmed us with invitations to tea-parties and evening dances. Anxious to see more of the life of the people, and glad to do anything which would diversify our monotonous existence, we made it a point to accept every such invitation which we received, and many were the dances which Arnold and I attended during the absence of the Major and the Russian governor at Anadyrsk. We had no occasion to ask our Cossack Yagor when there was to be another dance. The question was rather, "Where is the dance to be tonight?" because we knew to a certainty that there would be one somewhere, and wished only to know whether the house in which it was to be held had a ceiling high enough to insure the safety of our heads. It would seem like a preposterous idea to invite people to dance the Russian jig in a room which was too low to permit a man of average stature to stand upright; but it did not seem at all so to these enthusiastic pleasure-seekers in Gizhiga, and night after night they would go hopping around a seven-by-nine room to the music of a crazy fiddle and a two-stringed guitar, stepping on one another's toes and b.u.mping their heads against the ceiling with the most cheerful equanimity imaginable. At these dancing parties the Americans always received a hearty welcome, and were fed with berries, black-bread, and tea, until they could eat and dance no more. Occasionally, however, Siberian hospitality took a form which, to say the least, was not altogether pleasant. For instance, Dodd and I were invited one evening to some kind of an entertainment at the house of one of the Cossacks, and, as was customary in such cases, our host set before us a plain lunch of black-bread, salt, raw frozen fish, and a small pepper-sauce bottle about half full of some liquid which he declared to be vodka.

Knowing that there was no liquor in the settlement except what we had, Dodd inquired where he had obtained it. He replied with evident embarra.s.sment that it was some which he had bought from a trading vessel the previous fall, and which he had reserved for cases of emergency! I didn't believe that there was a Cossack in all north-eastern Siberia who was capable of _reserving_ a bottle of liquor for any such length of time, and in view of his evident uneasiness we thought best to decline to partake of the liquid refreshments and to ask no further questions. It might be vodka, but it was not free from suspicion. Upon our return home I called our boy and inquired if he knew anything about the Cossack's liquor--how he obtained it, and where it came from at that season of the year, when none of the Russian merchants had any for sale. The boy hesitated a moment, but upon being questioned closely he explained the mystery. It appeared that the liquor was ours. Whenever any of the inhabitants of the village came to call upon us, as they frequently did, especially upon holidays, it was customary to give each one of them a drink.

Taking advantage of this custom, our friend the Cossack used to provide himself with a small bottle, hang it about his neck with a string, conceal it under his fur coat, and present himself at our house every now and then for the ostensible purpose of congratulating us upon some Russian holiday. Of course we were expected to reward this disinterested sociability with a drink. The Cossack would swallow all he could of the fiery stuff, and then holding as much as possible in his mouth he would make a terrible grimace, cover his face with one hand as if the liquor were very strong, and start hurriedly for the kitchen to get some water. As soon as he was secure from observation he would take out his bottle, deposit in it the last mouthful of liquor which he had _not_ swallowed, and return in a few-moments to thank us for our hospitality--and our vodka. This manoeuvre he had been practising at our expense for an unknown length of time, and had finally acc.u.mulated nearly a pint. He then had the unblushing audacity to set this half-swallowed vodka before us in an old pepper-sauce bottle, and pretend that it was some that he had reserved since the previous fall for cases of emergency! Could human impudence go farther?

I will relate one other incident which took place during the first month of our residence at Gizhiga, and which ill.u.s.trates another phase of the popular character, viz. extreme superst.i.tion. As I was sitting in the house one morning, drinking tea, I was interrupted by the sudden entrance of a Russian Cossack named Kolmagorof. He seemed to be unusually sober and anxious about something, and as soon as he had bowed and bade me good-morning, he turned to our Cossack, Viushin, and began in a low voice to relate to him something which had just occurred, and which seemed to be of great interest to them both. Owing to my imperfect knowledge of the language, and the low tone in which the conversation was carried on, I failed to catch its purport; but it closed with an earnest request from Kolmagorof that Viushin should give him some article of clothing, which I understood to be a scarf or tippet. Viushin immediately went to a little closet in one corner of the room, where he was in the habit of storing his personal effects, dragged out a large sealskin bag, and began searching in it for the desired article. After pulling out three or four pair of fur boots, a lump of tallow, some dogskin stockings, a hatchet, and a bundle of squirrelskins, he finally produced and held up in triumph one-half of an old, dirty, moth-eaten woollen tippet, and handing it to Kolmagorof, he resumed his search for the missing piece. This also he presently found, in a worse state of preservation, if possible, than the other. They looked as if they had been discovered in the bag of some poor rag-picker who had fished them up out of a gutter in the Five Points. Kolmagorof tied the two pieces together, wrapped them up carefully in an old newspaper, thanked Viushin for his trouble, and, with an air of great relief, bowed again to me and went out. Wondering what use he could make of such a worn, dirty, tattered article of clothing as that which he had received, I applied to Viushin for a solution of the mystery.

"What did he want that tippet for?" I inquired; "it isn't good for anything."

"I know," replied Viushin, "it is a miserable old thing; but there is no other in the village, and his daughter has got the 'Anadyrski bol'"

(Anadyrsk sickness).

"Anadyrski bol!" I repeated in astonishment, never having heard of the disease in question; "what has the 'Anadyrski bol' got to do with an old tippet?"

"Why, you see, his daughter has asked for a tippet, and as she has the Anadyrsk sickness, they must get one for her. It don't make any difference about its being old."

This struck me as being a very singular explanation of a very curious performance, and I proceeded to question Viushin more closely as to the nature of this strange disease, and the manner in which an old moth-eaten tippet could afford relief. The information which I gathered was briefly as follows: The "Anadyrski bol," so called from its having originated at Anadyrsk, was a peculiar form of disease, resembling very much the modern spiritual "trance," which had long prevailed in north-eastern Siberia, and which defied all ordinary remedies and all usual methods of treatment. The persons attacked by it, who were generally women, became unconscious of all surrounding things, acquired suddenly an ability to speak languages which they had never heard, particularly the Yakut language, and were gifted temporarily with a sort of second sight or clairvoyance which enabled them to describe accurately objects that they could not see and never had seen. While in this state they would frequently ask for some particular thing, whose appearance and exact location they would describe, and unless it were brought to them they would apparently go into convulsions, sing in the Yakut language, utter strange cries, and behave generally as if they were insane. Nothing could quiet them until the article for which they had asked was produced. Thus Kolmagorof's daughter had imperatively demanded a woollen tippet, and as the poor Cossack had nothing of the sort in the house, he had started out through the village to find one. This was all the information that Viushin could give me. He had never seen one of these possessed persons himself, and had only heard of the disease from others; but he said that Paderin, the chief of the Gizhiga Cossacks, could undoubtedly tell me all about it, as his daughter had been similarly afflicted. Surprised to find among the ignorant peasantry of north-eastern Siberia a disease whose symptoms resembled so closely the phenomena of modern spiritualism, I determined to investigate the subject as far as possible, and as soon as the Major came in, I persuaded him to send for Paderin. The chief of the Cossacks--a simple, honest old fellow, whom it was impossible to suspect of intentional deception--confirmed all that Viushin had told me, and gave us many additional particulars. He said that he had frequently heard his daughter talk the Yakut language while in one of these trances, and had even known her to relate events which were occurring at a distance of several hundred miles. The Major inquired how he knew that it was the Yakut language which his daughter spoke. He said he did not know certainly that it was; but it was not Russian, nor Korak, nor any other native language with which he was familiar, and it sounded very much like Yakut. I inquired what was done in case the sick person demanded some article which it was impossible to obtain.

Paderin replied that he had never heard of such an instance; if the article asked for were an uncommon one, the girl always stated where it was to be found--frequently describing with the greatest minuteness things which, so far as he knew, she had never seen. On one occasion, he said his daughter asked for a particular spotted dog which he was accustomed to drive in his team. The dog was brought into the room, and the girl at once became quiet; but from that time the dog itself became so wild and restless as to be almost unmanageable, and he was finally obliged to kill him. "And do you believe in all this stuff?"

broke in the Major impatiently, as Paderin hesitated for a moment.

"I believe in G.o.d and in our Saviour Jesus Christ," replied the Cossack, as he crossed himself devoutly.

"That's all right, and so you ought," rejoined the Major; "but that has nothing whatever to do with the 'Anadyrski bol.' Do you really believe that these women talk in the Yakut language, which they have never heard, and describe things which they have never seen?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: TUNGUSES ON REINDEER-BACK MOVING THEIR ENCAMPMENT Photograph in The American Museum of Natural History]