Hand drawingA PRISON BARGE ON THE OBI RIVER.
A PRISON BARGE ON THE OBI RIVER.
A PRISON BARGE ON THE OBI RIVER.
Most of the convict barges are of the same size, while all are on the same principle. The one we visited,The Irtish, was about two hundred and fifty feet in length, by forty in width, the upper deck being supported by two large deck-houses,one of which formed a hospital and dispensary, the other quarters for the officers of the convoy, and exiles belonging to the noble or privileged class. No objection was shown by the sentry to our going on board. Indeed we were not even asked for our passports.
I was certainly agreeably surprised. The cells were sweet and clean, though, I must add, they had not been occupied for more than a month, the vessel having been towed back empty from Tomsk in preparation for her next cargo in the spring. “You should visit one of these ships on her arrival at Tomsk,” said our guide, with a sinister smile. “I do not think then you would be quite so impressed with the cleanliness and comfort. The voyage is seldom made without at least five per cent. dying of typhus, and who can wonder? Human beings were never intended to be herded together like swine.”
The large iron cage on deck amidships, in which the convicts are allowed to take exercise, certainly did give one rather the idea of a menagerie, and more fitted for the reception of monkeys than human beings; and considering that its dimensions were only seventy-five feet long by forty wide,and that these prison ships carry eight hundred a trip, certainly seemed rather wanting in its arrangements for fresh air. Companion-ladders led down from this into the sleeping-quarters, of which there were three, ranging in length from forty to seventy feet, with a uniform width of forty feet, and a height of about seven. One of these cabins is given up for the accommodation of women and children, the others occupied by the men. Through the centre of each runs longitudinally two tiers of double sleeping-platforms, upon which the prisoners lie athwart-ships in four closely packed rows, with their heads together over the line of the keel. These sleeping-platforms are made of wooden boards. There are not even wooden pillows, but prisoners are not debarred from making use of their great-coats for that purpose, or any linen bags or cloths they may have about them. Indeed, all the prisoners we met seemed to carry exactly what they liked, from a tin saucepan to a gingham umbrella.
We got rid of our guide with some difficulty, for he was anxious that we should visit the prison under his auspices. This we thought wise to decline, not relishing the idea of being “detained on suspicion,”as we probably should have been, by the Tiumen authorities, if seen lurking round the prison gates in the society of a “discharged Katorgi.” A couple of roubles, however, consoled him, and we left him standing in the middle of the muddy road, making deep obeisances and calling down numberless blessings on the heads of the “Ingliski gospodin.” Passing the same spot two hours later, we found him flat on his back by the roadside, dead drunk, with two empty vodka bottles beside him!
Tiumen must be a cheap place to live in, judging from the price of provisions and grain. Beef and mutton are as cheap again as in most parts of England, while wheat, which is always cheap, became in 1887 a veritable drug in the market, and was selling at Semipalatinsk, in Southern Siberia, for eight kopeks a pood. One speculator from that city went to the expense of exporting a quantity to Vernoe, four hundred miles off, on the borders of China, but then only managed to get twenty-five kopeks a pood, the harvests having been equally good. He had only got rid of about half, when the earthquake occurred, which the reader may recollect destroyed the whole city, and more than half the population in September, 1887.
Many people are under the impression that the Oural Mountains are of great altitude, and the scenery very grand. Though the length of the chain is something over one thousand seven hundred miles, its highest peak does not attain to more than six thousand feet, and at the point where the line crosses them, barely two thousand feet above sea-level. No part of the Ourals is permanently covered with snow. Hard by the town of Ekaterinburg, by the side of the Great Post-Road to Siberia, is a large stone pillar, on one side of which is carved the word “Europe,” upon the other “Asia,” and this marks the boundary between the two quarters of the globe. There is probably no spot in the whole breadth and length of Siberia more full of painful associations than this, for no less than eighteen hundred thousand exiles have passed it since 1878, more than half a million men, women, and children since the beginning of the present century. The base of the pillar is covered with inscriptions, letters rudely carved by those who have here looked their last on their native land. It is the custom to make a halt and allow the exiles to bid good-bye, many of them for ever, to Europe. Travellers no longerpass the spot, now that the railway has obviated the long, lonely drive from Perm to Tiumen. The frontier on the line is marked by three stations, at intervals of ten miles or so, “Asia, Oural, and Europe.” At ten o’clock on the morning of the 29th of September, we passedby railfrom one quarter of the globe into another, and reached at mid-day the town of Ekaterinburg.
We here bade adieu, with much regret, to the Sourikoffs, who were proceeding direct to Perm, and took up our quarters at the comfortableAmerikanske Gostinza, or American Hotel, so called, perhaps, because but two Americans have ever set foot in the place. It was evident that we had left Asia. The broad, stone-paved streets and boulevards, the handsome hotels, private houses enclosed in large well-kept gardens, and last, but not least, the well-dressed men and women in the streets, were signs that we had done with sombre, sad Siberia for good and all. Ekaterinburg was the first really civilized place we had seen since leaving Shanghai, it seemed ages ago, and here for the first time since leaving Pekin we enjoyed the unwonted luxuries of a real bath, and a clean bed with sheets and pillow-cases.
The neighbourhood of Ekaterinburg, which has a population of twenty-five thousand inhabitants, is rich in minerals and precious stones. Among the former iron preponderates; and there are many Englishmen settled here working it. It seemed strange to hear one’s own tongue again spoken in the streets and hotels, and to read in many cases the names of the latter and of shopkeepers written in French over their doors. The jewellers were almost as wearying and importunate as the Cinghalese sapphire-sellers at Colombo. We had scarcely been in our room at the hotel half an hour before we were assailed by a crowd of clamouring dealers, who would not be denied; but insisted, though we were performing our ablutions in a state of nudity, in laying out their wares on the floor, till the drugget was covered with a glittering mass of gems, among which were beryls, topaz, aquamarines, and chrysolites. Amongst them were also one or two Alexandrites, the recently discovered stone which shows two colours, crimson and green, the former by night, and the latter by day. It derives its name from the Emperor Alexander, and has also been found in Ceylon of late years. The stones were of moderate prices, but our fundswere too low to permit of our making any investments, perhaps luckily for ourselves, for here, as in Colombo, there are many worthless imitations.
We left Ekaterinburg on the afternoon of the 30th of September for Perm, whence we were to take the steamer down the Kama and Volga rivers to Nijni Novgorod. Though the railway between the two cities is worked by a different company to that we had come by from Tiumen, we found the comfort in every respect as great as on the other line. Each car had its lavatory, heating apparatus, and comfortable sleepingfauteuils. At every third or fourth station we found an excellent buffet, open throughout the night. At one of them, Nijni Tagilsk, where we stopped to dine, the dining-room of the station would not have disgraced a first-class hotel in Paris or London. Down the centre of the brilliantly lighted room ran a long table, covered with snowy table-cloth, and glittering with silver plate and glass. The waiters were all in evening dress, with spotless shirt fronts and white ties, and as they served one with an excellent dinner of four courses and dessert, it was difficult indeed to realize that one was yet but a few miles out of Asia. It was the same everywhere. Thereare twenty odd stations between Ekaterinburg and Perm, at every one of which was laid out, no matter what hour of the day or night, a cold, if not hot, meal, or towards the chilly morning hours steaming bowls ofcafé-au-laitor tea, with dainty rolls and tiny glasses of vodka and cognac to cheer the inner man. We passed Neviansk towards sunset, a picturesque village embowered in pine forest, and surrounded by three large lakes, about two hours out of Ekaterinburg. Neviansk is used as a summer resort and watering-place by the inhabitants of the city, when, during June and July the heat and dust become unbearable.
On the 1st of October, towards 6 a.m., we woke and looked out of the frost-dimmed windows, to find ourselves in a new world. Wooden rails and enclosures had given way to thick-set hedges and small fields, plank huts to stone houses with corrugated iron roofs, a mineral, in this district, as cheap as pine or fir. The pine and birch forests had entirely disappeared. We were now passing large plains of cultivated land, neat farm buildings surrounded by gardens and orchards, and occasionally a village or town, approached by a poplar-lined road, winding through the desertedfields. The landscape between Nijni Tagilsk and Perm might well be mistaken for that lying between Boulogne and Amiens on theChemin de Fer du Nord.
The Oural trains are as punctual as they are comfortable, and we reached Perm to the minute at the appointed time, 9 a.m. The scene at the station was all confusion. The boat was only advertised to leave at noon, and the scurry and excitement to get on board seemed very unnecessary. We here had to encounter an unexpected difficulty. Men were rushing about the platform with pink and yellow handbills, each advertising a steamer bound for Nijni Novgorod, both boats to leave at the same hour——noon. The question was which to go by, for both, outwardly, looked exactly the same, though flying different company flags. There was no one to help us, and my small stock of Russian was absolutely useless in the uproar. In vain I button-holed policemen, railway porters, soldiers——in vain gesticulated and shouted,“Loutchshi parohode?”(Best boat?) It was no use, so we determined to do as we had always done in the event of uncertainty, toss up. The steamerPermwas the one our coin settled on,and, fortunately for us, the right one. The other boat, theNijni Novgorod, was a wretched tub, and arrived at its destination only five days after us, when we were already comfortably settled in Moscow.
Perm is not a prepossessing city, though the day we saw it was perhaps not a favourable one. A dense fog shrouded everything in damp white mist, through which loomed the dome of the cathedral, and great, gaunt warehouses lining the banks of the river. A steady drizzle, which had commenced on our arrival and continued ever since with steady persistency, extinguished all our hopes of visiting the town, and we were glad to take refuge out of the cold and fog in the brilliantly lighted though somewhat stuffy saloon of the steamer, where several of the passengers (of which there were about a hundred) had already settled down to a good square meal of stchi (cabbage soup), sterlet, and beefsteak. A somewhat substantial menu for nine in the morning!
It was a relief to find that, by paying a few roubles extra, we could secure a cabin to ourselves, and one considerably roomier than those generally met with in ocean-going ships.At mid-day, punctual to the minute, the bell was rung, the whistle sounded, and in less than ten minutes the city of Perm was lost in a shroud of mist, and we were steadily ploughing our way through the broad yellow stream to the last stage of our homeward journey, Nijni Novgorod.
16. A kind of oatmeal cake.
16. A kind of oatmeal cake.
17. Eggs, tea, milk.
17. Eggs, tea, milk.
18. It is curious to note that, in 1761, theAbbé d’Autrochefound the population of Tobolsk to be 15,000 souls; in 1861, exactly one hundred years later, it was only 16,000.
18. It is curious to note that, in 1761, theAbbé d’Autrochefound the population of Tobolsk to be 15,000 souls; in 1861, exactly one hundred years later, it was only 16,000.