• A SINGULAR PLEASURE-TRIP.*
WHY will people who presumably desire to be extensively read, defeat their own object by publishing such heavy books that to be perused with any comfort they require to be placed upon a desk? In the case of books of reference there is a fair excuse ; for a mere record of travel, none. Mr. de Windt might have condensed, and thus lightened his big volume, with great advantage, though it is but fair to say that by the general reader its contents will be found both novel and entertaining. The author and a friend, "a fellow-traveller in many lands," smitten with the desire to accomplish a journey that very few Europeans had ever undertaken, started from England for Shanghai on April 7th, 1887, and reached Calais on October 27th of the same year, having crossed the Desert of Gobi and traversed Siberia. "Would you care to do it again P" says a casual acquaintance on board the Channel steamer as they neared our coast ; and to him "Lancaster," De Windt's companion, answers, "Not for ten thousand pounds ;" while the author avers that his principal object in writing is to deter others from following their example, although he afterwards adds :—" As a ray of sun shines out of the mist, lighting up the white cliffs of England, bright augur of the comfort and civilisation we are nearing, I cannot help thinking that to experience such a moment as this is well worth even the discomfort and privations that have attended our long, weary voyage from Pekin to Calais by land." When one remembers that this "voyage," as the writer calls it, was undertaken with no useful object, scientific or otherwise, that it was very expensive, and that it may almost be said to have been a succession of miseries from end to end, one can only marvel that the mere desire of doing something singular could have afforded sufficient stimulus, and it is difficult to discern the difference between these erratic wanderers and the " globe-trotters " they so much despise. Mr. de Windt gives the generality of English people credit for being quite in ignorance of all that relates to Siberia. It may be so ; but certainly Atkinson did his best to enlighten us and to show us by his beautiful sketches what that country is really like. His books and his pictures have very much passed out of memory, and though Mr. de Windt casually alludes to the former, it would seem that he had been unacquainted with them when he started, as he speaks of gathering his ideas from Michael Strogof and Called Back, and was vastly astonished by finding at Irkoutsk a four-storied, gorgeously furnished hotel, with a lift, electric bells, and "Table d'hote 1 6 heures ;" and, more surprising yet, two theatres where opera-bouffe was performed very creditably; while in the establishments of a " Universal Provider" in that city, as well as at Tomksk, Atchinsk, Krasnoiarsk, and Tobolsk, almost anything may be purchased, from a Water- bury watch to a ship's anchor, at most reasonable prices, a box of revolver cartridges, for instance, being cheaper than the • Prom Pain to Calais by Land. By H. do Windt. London : Chapman and HAIL
same articles in either London or Paris. This does not imply that much is not wanting even in the largest towns that we should consider indispensable to the decencies of life. Moreover, travelling, whether in a telega or a tarantass, shaken to pieces by day and night, stopping, as one is obliged to do, at the wretched post-houses, where vermin and other horrors are never absent, and good food and beds are unobtainable, tries the strength and endurance of the most robust, setting apart dangers from escaped convicts who infest a .great part of the road, as well as accidents at ferries, floods, and tropical rainfalls. This is how Mr. de Windt describes his "twenty-two days in the open, half-starved and wet through the greater part of the time :"—
" No one can thoroughly understand the meaning of the word 'monotony' who has not visited Siberia, and travelled for hour after hour, day after day, week alter week, along its dark pine- girt roads. Along the whole of the post-road from Irkoutsk, distances are marked by wooden posts, painted black and white, placed at every verst, while at every post-station a large board indicates the distance from the chief towns. My heart sank whenever I looked at these and saw the word Petersburg, with the appalling number of oughts under it. The few versts from station to station were bad enough, but when it came to the six thousand odd separating us from Petersburg, one almost gave up all hope of ever seeing Europe again I have never, even in the depths of a Bornean forest, felt so utterly lonely and cut off from the rest of the civilised world as when crossing Siberia Everything after the first week became mechanical. Drinking tea at the stations, going to sleep at a moment's notice, if there were no horses, harnessing them at once if there were, and returning to the depths of our gloomy vehicle, there to lie hour after hour, day after day, with nothing to look at but the black road and eternal pine-forests, nothing to think of save fair, civilised Europe, so far away, but to which one felt, with a kind of gloomy satisfaction, every jingle of the collar- bells was bringing us nearer. Even the scenery does not atone for all these drawbacks. The Siberian forests are not grand, but the trees have a dwarfish look produced by the immense plains. Not a bird, not a sound, is heard in these vast solitudes, and when the horses atop and the bells are silent, the stillness becomes almost oppressive."
The only break in the monotony seems to have consisted in meeting the large gangs of prisoners on their way to the various districts to which Russian convicts are exiled; and here, indeed, most of us will learn something unexpected, for so far as Mr. de Windt's knowledge goes—and he had considerable intercourse with those unfortunate people—the stories of ill-treatment are grossly exaggerated ; indeed, he does not hesitate to say that, personally, he would very much rather undergo punishment for a criminal offence in Russia than in England. In point of fact, such offences are sometimes committed precisely in order to be sent to Siberia, for it is well known that when his term of imprisonment is over, a prisoner, if well behaved, obtains a grant of land and a house, and can begin life again with his wife and children around him, perhaps in better circumstances than he was in before, the object of this being the colonisation of this vast province. It must be understood that the case of political offenders is very different ; they are sent under the care of gensclarines, and not allowed to communicate with any one ; moreover, they are denied the use of books and writing materials. Black Nihilists are sent to Kara and Sakalien, places described as hells upon earth, where they receive nothing but insult, harsh treatment, and injustice ; but those convicted of lesser political offences are simply required to live in some town or village of Siberia till their term of punish- ment is over, and afterwards they can settle in the capital and carry on their profession or trade. Mr. de Windt confesses that his first sight of a gang of from three to four hundred prisoners en route for the mines of Nertchinsk, was one he will never forget; but he afterwards found out that their situation was much less deplorable than it appeared. These poor creatures march two days and rest one at the ostrog, or road- prison. They are described as being well clothed, and better fed than our English prisoners, and in addition to the very
fair allowance of food, they may make what they can by begging, and thus provide themselves with small luxuries ; and, strange to say, each village prison has its recreation- ground, where there are trapezes and other gymnastic appliances for the amusement of prisoners during the long
winter months.
We have written at much length about Mr. de Windt's experiences in Siberia, yet have not alluded to his account of its Holy Sea, the fathomless Lake Baikal, said to be the only sheet of fresh water where seals are found. We must leave this and many other matters of interest for the reader to discover, and go back to the earlier portion of the journey, which deals
with parts of China and Mongolia. Mr. de Windt's starting- point, Shanghai, the dirtiest city in the Chinese Empire," yet, strange to say, lighted by electricity, did not augur favour- ably for prolonged dealings with Celestials ; but as regards the European part of the town and its kindly hospitable inhabitants, he has nothing but praise to offer. At Shanghai the travellers purchased stores for the" Great Hungry Desert" at an exorbitant price, and consigned them to eight strong wooden chests that could be carried by camels, as these animals would be in use from Kalgan to Kiakhta. The journey was made by water as far as Tungchow, and by Pekin carts to the Chinese capital. There they purchased a couple of wiry Mongolian ponies, and hired mule-litters and a " boy " or servant with the euphonious name of Jee Boo, who proved to be an excellent cook and a very good fellow, and able, moreover, to speak English, Russian, and Mongolian. Of course, the writer has much to say of Pekin, where a long detention took place, as the Ambassador would not hear of the travellers attempting to start without an efficient guide, and until Jee Boo at last turned up, it almost seemed as if they would have to forego their enterprise, every one trying to dissuade them from it, and to get them to turn their steps to "delightful Japan." It may be new to many readers to hear that the far-famed Summer Palace is by no means Chinese in style, but a beautiful building more like a perfect imitation in miniature of the Tuileries; and the chapter on Pekin will be found of decided interest to those who have not a clear idea of the place and its people, though they may be hardly willing to accept the author's dictum that, notwith- standing his cruelty, "there exists no kinder-hearted or more liberal being than the Chinaman." The scenery passed through was at times wild and grand, at others lovely and pastoral— so-called villages of the size and population of Birmingham being met with at Short intervals. Chinese inns did not prove delightful, albeit on a rare occasion a capital Irish stew was served up on plates of the most delicately tinted violet porce- lain, which the owner would not part with at any price. Tea and tea-merchants naturally figure conspicuously in Mr. de Windt's pages, the latter (Russians) being always ready to afford unlimited hospitality in their charming and thoroughly comfortable dwellings. It was something of a wrench to leave one of these kind hosts and enter upon the silent Desert of Gobi, —desert in the sense of being more or less destitute of water, but consisting, except about fifty miles of sandy waste midway across, of a vast plain or steppe reaching from the Great Wall of China to the Russian frontier town of Kiakhta, a distance of more than eight hundred miles, requiring twenty-three days to traverse it, the days consisting of about eighteen hours' march, divided by a rest of five. The camel-cart, an almost unendurable vehicle, constructed to carry but one Person, was abandoned as much as possible by each traveller for his pony ; but still a good deal of time, especially during heavy rain or the still worse dust storms, had to be passed in it. "I do not wish my bitterest enemy a worse fate," says Mr. de Windt, "than a night of rough caravan work in Mongolia." In the day-time there was little to diversify the scene,—a Mongol yonrt at rare intervals ; a region covered with Gobi rats, soft, pretty little creatures with feathery tails, that you could not avoid treading on; another in the possession of black and yellow lizards, or of thousands of red-and-black striped beetles as large as cock- roaches ; and another swarming with creatures something like badgers. Between Ourga and Kiakhta, however, the mountain scenery was lovely, game abundant, and ferns and wild flowers luxuriant. But even in Gobi flowers constantly gladdened the eye. Of course the travellers had not the remotest chance of seeing the Kootookta, the human deity of the Mongols; they could only look at the outside of his palace, "all white, gold, and vermilion, like an ornament off a twelfth- cake," but they were allowed to visit the temple attached to it. They made a short stay at the house of the Russian Consul, just outside Ourga„ in order to get a fresh relay of camels, and during that time made an inspection of the sacred city, which is really what the Mongols call it, "The Great Encampment," being, in fact, a huge cluster of white tents, which, with the blue and gold temples and gaudy prayer-flags, give it exactly the appearance of a fair. A most remarkable but horrible sight is the Ourgan "Golgotha," but this we forbear to treat of. Indeed, we have not been able even to indicate much of the curious matter to be found in Mr. de Windt's big volume, and will close our notice by drawing attention to his account of the comfortable arrange- ments of Russian railways, even in the most remote parts, excellent buffets being met with at every third or fourth station, and kept open throughout the night, so that the weary traveller may comfort himself with a steaming bowl of café- au-lait, and even more substantial nourishment, during the chilly, dreary hours of early morning.
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