AN ARTIST'S VIEW OF SIBERIA.*
Tins is a picture-book, and a remarkably good one, done with pen as well as pencil, superficial as a picture-book must be, but still full of instruction and amusement. Mr. Price is an artist who in 1890 was sent by the Illustrated London News to join the expedition with which Captain Wiggins intended, for the third time, to attempt to open a direct trade by water with the interior of Siberia. Captain Wiggins was prevented by an unfortunate accident from going, but the Biscaya ' sailed on July 18th, 1890, and after a risky but uneventful voyage through the floating ice of the Arctic Ocean and the Kara, Sea, arrived on August 13th off the mouth of the Yenisei. This mighty Arctic river, of which so little is known in England, is almost as vast as the Amazon ; "greater than the -Volga, Danube, Rhone, and Rhine all taken together ;" and but for some impassable rapids below Lake Baikal, which the millionaires of Siberia propose to blow up or turn, would be navigable from the ocean, by specially built steamers, almost throughout its course ; while fuel would never fall, a vast pine-forest stretching along its banks five thousand miles long and two thousand broad, being probably the most extensive acreage of wood now existing in the world. Four hundred miles from its mouth, the Yenisei is still ten miles wide; "its water system covers an area of nearly 1,950,000 English square miles ; and it stretches through the interior of Northern Asia for five thousand miles fairly into China." At the mouth of the river the Phcenix ' met the Biscaya,' and in her Mr. Price steamed up the silent river, with its desert or forest covered banks, for fifteen hundred miles until he reached the capital of this part of Siberia, Yeniseisk, to find amid the desolate bleakness a city where the thermometer is often in August 28° below zero (R6aumur), but where the houses are always too warm, and the people enjoy the highest luxuries of civilisation. The neighbouring gold-mines, which occupy eight thousand labourers, pour wealth into the town; it has wide streets, fine buildings, and a society of the most strangely mixed description :—" There is a capital club-house, which would pass muster anywhere, to which is attached a theatre and a ball-room, with a delightful floor,' and performances or dances take place two or three times a week. I shall long remember my first evening at Yeniseisk, when I was taken to see the club ; there was a dance on, and in the large, brilliantly lighted rooms, with an excellent band playing a familiar waltz, it was hard to believe one's self nearly two thousand miles from a railroad, and in the very heart of Asia. Society in Yeniseisk, of course, consists principally of the wealthy, mine. owners, or merchants, and their families, and the Government officials and theirs. These are sufficient pretty well to fill the club on big dance nights. Exiles, who naturally form an im- portant contingent, are only allowed to enter subject to certain restrictions. For instance, the criminal ones are only permitted to come to the performances in the theatre, and are obliged to leave immediately after; while the political ones are permitted to remain after the performance, but on no account to dance." Mr. Price, we should remark, does not believe that the exiles in Siberia are harshly treated. He in- spected the prisons, he cross-questioned every one who would tell him anything, and he found no harshness; while with his artist-eyes he at once detected the fact, so constantly forgotten in England, that the majority of those under sentence are the worst criminals of an Empire, sinister-looking scoundrels usually steeped to the lips in crime. His narrative, however, accidentally admits a statement at variance with its con- elusion, the occurrence of incessant attempts to escape, hundreds of prisoners annually risking the awful journey on foot back into Russia, a journey it is almost impossible to survive.
From Yeniseisk, Mr. Price set out to cross the whole of Siberia into China, a drive of three thousand miles in • Pram the Arctic Ocean to the Yellow Sea. By J. M. Prioe, London: Sampson Low and Co. a sledge ; and during the entire journey, which occupied four months, he seems to have met with no hardship greater than the frightful cold, usually 35° below zero (Reaumur), which froze his moustache, turned his spittle to ice as it fell, and but for an ample provision of furs, a sound constitution, and, we should fancy, unalterable spirits and courage, would doubtless have sent him to sleep, which in the Siberian open means inevitable death. The great road was fairly good, or at least passable, while horses were always pro- curable ; and of danger from human beings there seems to have been absolutely none, the Russian government being felt as completely in Siberia as in the European provinces of the Empire. The caravans of tea are some- times plundered of their bales ; but passengers—who, of course, are usually officials—seem to be absolutely safe. The grand drawback, always excepting the cold, is the terrible monotony :—" The novelty of sledge-travelling soon wears off, especially on a road like this, where there is so little to vary the eternal monotony of the dense forests or rolling plains on either side of one. The same dreary aspects seemed to repeat themselves over and over again almost at every turn of the road, whilst the various villages resembled each other so much that it was at times hard to believe we were not returning to the one we had just left. I do not propose wearying you with a detailed account of the forty-three stations between Kras- noiarsk and Irkutsk, for a description of one, which I have already given, suffices for all—so much so, in fact, that although I tried hard to see something more to sketch, I could discover nothing I had not already seen and sketched on our journey up the Yenisei or in Yeniseisk or Krasnoiarsk. Where, for instance, in France every little 'pays' has its individual character, so to speak, here in Siberia from one end to the other of this enormous continent all is the same, and if you have studied one portion of it, you have studied all (of course, with the exception of the aborigines, who naturally differ according to their tribes). For my own part, I can assert that I saw absolutely no difference, either in the build of the houses, or the dress or customs of the inhabitants, all the way from Golchika, the tiny settlement on the tundras far away within the Arctic circle, and Kiakhta, a distance of nearly three thousand miles." The villages are all bounded by wooden fences, and outside those fences there are no houses or other signs of life, and so few travellers, that Mr. Price only met them on three occasions between Krasnoiarsk and Irkutsk, a distance of more than five hundred miles.
Irkutsk, the capital of Eastern Siberia, is a large town of forty thousand people, absolutely European in its society, its buildings, and its shops, with a millionaire Mayor who has a vast picture-gallery crammed with examples of the best- known Continental artists, and so many public edifices, that Mr. Price declares it has more for its size than any other city in the world. The millionaires vie with each other in building public edifices, and the result is that here, in the midst of Siberia, besides two cathedrals and twenty-two handsome churches, there are "of public schools no less than nineteen, all under the supervision of a Government Educational Com- mittee. Then there are six hospitals—namely, three town hospitals ; a foundling hospital, on the usual Russian system ; a military hospital, and a madhouse. Of homes 'for children there are at least four ; three asylums for the aged and infirm ; a monastery for men and one for women ; a convict and a civil prison ; a geographical institute ; a large observatory (with an English telescope) ; and two clubs—one military, the other for merchants—making a total of over forty important public institutions for a population of less than forty thousand." The millionaires make their fortunes apparently chiefly in gold—though one is mentioned who was a mighty distiller— the gold obtained from the mines being sold compulsorily to the State, which chooses this method of levying its royalties. On the road from Irkutsk to Kiakhta, the frontier town of the Chinese Empire, the terrible monotony was broken, for Mr. Price had to cross Lake Baikal, the wonderful lake frozen for nine months in the year, which has sixty times the area of the Lake of Geneva, or 12,441 square miles, and has an average depth of no less than 5,404 ft., or more than a mile. Its origin, says Mr. Price, is undoubtedly volcanic. The cold is so terrible, that when a hurricane stirs the waters, the waves often freeze as waves, remaining in hummocks above the sur- face; but when Mr. Price crossed, the cold had caught the
lake asleep, and the ice was perfectly smooth. He had thirty miles to drive on the solidified water :—
"For about a mile from the shore the ice had a thin layer of snow over it, but we gradually left this sort of dazzling white carpet, and at length reached the clear ice, when I saw around me the most wonderful and bewitching sight lever beheld. Owing to the marvellous transparency of the water, the ice presented everywhere the appearance of polished crystal, and, although un- doubtedly of great thickness, was so colourless that it was like passing over space. It gave me at first quite an uncanny feeling to look over the aide of the sledge down into the black abyss beneath ; this feeling, however, gradually changed to one of fas- cination, till at last I found it positively difficult to withdraw my gaze from the awful depths, with nothing but this sheet of crystal between me and eternity. I believe that most travellers, on crossing the lake on the ice for the first time, experience the same weird and fascinating influence. About half-way across I stopped to make a sketch and take some photographs. It was no easy matter, as I found on getting out of the sledge, for the ice was so slippery that in spite of my having felt snow-boots on I could hardly stand. The death-like silence of the surroundings re- minded me not a little of my experiences in the ice of the Kara Sea. This wonderful stillness was occasionally broken, however, by curious sounds, as though big guns were being fired at some little distance. They were caused by the cracking of the ice here and there. I was told that in some parts of the lake were huge fissures, through which the water could be seen. It is for this reason that it is always advisable to do the journey by daylight. We reached Moufshkaya, on the opposite coast, exactly four and a half hours after leaving Liestvenitz, the horses having done the whole distance of over thirty miles with only two stoppages of a, few minutes each. It was evidently an easy bit of work for them, as they seemed as fresh when we drew up in the post-yard as when they started in the morning."
On leaving Irkutsk, Mr. Price decided not to travel by the Government road, but to take another constructed by the millionaires of Kiakhta—these men make their fortunes on tea—to Lake Baikal, and on this he had to travel in a car on wheels, or tarantass, instead of a sledge ; but though he was nearly drowned while crossing a frozen river, and was almost bumped to death, he reached Kiakhta in safety, and from thence entered Mongolia, which is Chinese, and the true Steppe where still dwell the Tartars who once conquered the world, but who are now, thinks Mr. Price, possibly a little hastily, tamed men. They remain, as of old, magnificent horsemen ; but they are submissive and orderly, and are, in fact, merging themselves among the Chinese :—
"As a distinct nation the Mongols are slowly disappearing, owing to gradual fusion with the Chinese, still there are many amongst the descendants of the old princes who yet cling to the idea that the glorious times of Genghis Khan will again return, and that some day another such leader will appear and restore to this once so mighty race its old prestige. In fact, there is one sect amongst the people who believe that Genghis Khan is not dead at all, but has only disappeared for a time, and will on some not very distant date again return to earth; and in the national songs the name of this hero and his great deeds are continually appearing. En attendant this millennium, however, the Mongols have lost all trace of the formidable warriors they were in the past, and have lapsed into such quiet and inoffensive beings that it is hard to realise they are descendants of the mighty horde which once conquered Russia, and threw all Europe into a state of panic. Of their old national characteristics but one really remains —their wonderful horsemanship ; for I believe that the Mongols as a nation enjoy the undisputed reputation of being the finest horsemen in the world, and this in spite of their, to European ideas, somewhat ungainly seat in consequence of the use of a
short stirrup. One can cr what magnificent cavalry these men must have made under their old leaders."
Their city par excellence is Ourga, the centre of their religion, Lamaist Buddhism, and the seat of its high priest, the Bogdor of Kurene, a being almost as sacred as the Dalai Lama himself, but kept by the Chinese Government under careful tutelage. Power, however, in Mr. Price's opinion, is passing away from
both :—
" I could not help feeling how much more under Russian than Chinese influence everything was in Mongolia. For instance, the consul at Ourga was undoubtedly a far more important personage than even the Chinese general himself, and from what I learnt, I believe the late consul, M. Shismaroff, was practically the leading man of Ourga, for he was not only very much esteemed and looked up to by the Mongols, but was actually consulted by them in most State affairs. The fact of all the trade of the country being- virtually in the hands of the Russians may to ei certain extent account for this ascendancy ; but be it what it nifty., one thing is certain, that a Cossack cap inspires an incredible amount of respect in these distant regions, not only among the Mongols, but also the Chinese themselves ; for there seems to be, as far as I could make out, a pretty general apprehension, or rather con- viction, of what would happen were a subject of the Czar to be offered any insult. During my subsequent journey through Chins I was much struck with the difference of the footing on which English and other nationalities are plazed with regard to the Chinese." It was not very easy to get out of Ourga, for before the Great Wall could be reached, the boundary of Chinese civilisation, the Desert of Gobi must be passed, and the most experienced Russians shook their heads. Mr. Price, however, was always well treated by officials. He was permitted to accompany the Mail, and he did actually cross the Desert of Gobi, a distance of eight hundred miles, in a cart drawn by camels. The rate never exceeded three and a half miles an hour, and the scene was one of bewildering desolation :— "As we slowly advanced we gradually left the hills behind, till at last, three days out, we reached the actual commencement of the great desert ; and I saw stretched out before me a vast, limit- less waste, so flat and unbroken that it looked exactly like the sea. A quiet, as though of death, reigned over it, for not even the slightest sign of life broke the oppressive stillness of the scene. Neither the Karoo or the Kalahara deserts in South Africa ever produced on me an impression so weird and indescribable as did that first glimpse of the awful Gobi, The Great Hungry Desert.' The mere look of the dreary waste recalled all I had ever read of the horrors of a lingering death, by thirst or starvation, which has so often befallen travellers who have been unfortunate enough to lose themselves on its almost trackless surface. Nothing, in fact, was wanting to complete the gloomy picture. Even the faintly marked trail before us was rendered more easily discernible by the bleached bones of camels lying here and there on either side."
Still, by dint of patience and endurance, the Great Wall was reached at last, and as Mr. Price passed under an archway of the structure, be re-entered civilisation, though only a Chinese one, and might congratulate himself on the completion of a wonderful journey, almost straight from the Arctic Ocean, over four thousand miles of river and steppe, into China itself. We have selected only its striking features ; but his narrative, though too mach stripped of detail, leaves throughout definite impressions of the wild regions through which he passed, im- pressions greatly assisted by a profusion of admirable sketches. How good a draughtsman. Mr. Price is, the reader will see at a glance if he turns to page 57, the sketch of some Siberians (Russians) on shore, in which every minute face reveals a character and a history. As we have said, the book is neces- sarily superficial, for Mr. Price records nothing but what he actually saw, and there must be much in Siberia which escaped his eyes, keen as they evidently are. Still, the strict limitation of his design adds to the value of what he records, and no one will leave his bright and entertaining volume without feeling that he comprehends something of what life really must be in the vast and terrible land which, we scarcely know why, has such a hold over English imaginations. Southern Siberia, which is now receiving a large Russian immigration, is a different place ; but Northern and Eastern Siberia would realise the popular English view, but that they are cloven by the Yenisei, and that, at vast distances from each other, industrial energy, made profitable by convict labour, has created four or five towns which are like small quarters cut from European cities.
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