CHAPTER XV.
When I rose in the morning after leaving Habarofka the steward was ready with his usual pitcher of water and basin. In Siberia they have a novel way of performing ablutions. They rarely furnish a wash-bowl, but in place of it bring a large basin of brass or other metal. If you wish to wash hands or face the basin is placed where you can lean over it. A servant pours from a pitcher into your hands, and if you are skillful you catch enough water to moisten your face. Frequently the peasants have a water-can attached to the wall of the house in some out-of-the-way locality. The can has a valve in the bottom opened from below like a trapdoor in a roof. By lifting a brass pin that projects from this valve one can fill his hands with water without the aid of a servant.
While I was arranging my toilet the steward pointed out of the cabin window and uttered the single word “Kitie”—emphasizing the last syllable. I looked where he directed and had my first view of the Chinese empire.
“Kitie” is the Russian name of China, and is identical with the Cathay of Marco Polo and other early travelers. I could not see any difference between Kitie on one hand and Russia on the other; there were trees and bushes, grass and sand, just as on the opposite shore. In the region immediately above the Ousuree there are no mountains visible from the river, but only the low banks on either hand covered with trees and bushes. Here and there were open spaces appearing as if cleared for cultivation. With occasional sand bars and low islands, and the banks frequently broken and shelving, the resemblance to the lower Mississippi was almost perfect.
Mr. Maack says of this region:
“In the early part of the year when the yellow blossoms of the Lonicera chrysantha fill the air with their fragrance, when the syringas bloom and the Hylonecon bedecks large tracts with a bright golden hue, when corydales, violets, and pasque flowers are open, the forests near the Ousuree may bear comparison in variety of richness and coloring with the open woods of the prairie country. Later in the year, the scarcity of flowers is compensated by the richness of the herbage, and after a shower of rain delicious perfumes are wafted towards us from the tops of the walnut and cork trees.”
A little past noon we touched at the Russian village of Petrovsky. At this place the river was rapidly washing the banks, and I was told that during three years nearly four hundred feet in front of the village had been carried away. The single row of houses forming the settlement stands with a narrow street between it and the edge of the bank. The whole population, men, women, and children, turned out to meet us. The day was cool and the men were generally in their sheepskin coats. The women wore gowns of coarse cloth of different colors, and each had a shawl over her head. Some wore coats of sheepskin like those of the men, and several were barefooted. Two women walked into the river and stood with utter nonchalance where the water was fifteen inches deep. I immersed my thermometer and found it indicated 51°.
Walking on shore I was nearly overturned by a small hog running between my legs. The brute, with a dozen of his companions, had pretty much his own way at Petrovsky, and after this introduction I was careful about my steps. These hogs are modelled something like blockade runners: with great length, narrow beam, and light draft. They are capable of high speed, and would make excellent time if pursued by a bull-dog or pursuing a swill-bucket.
RECEPTION AT PETROVSKY.
RECEPTION AT PETROVSKY.
A peasant told us there were wild geese in a pond near by, and as the boat remained an hour or more to take wood, Borasdine and I improvised a hunting excursion. It proved in every sense a wild-goose chase, as the birds flew away before we were in shooting distance. Not wishing to return empty-handed we purchased two geese a few hundred yards from the village, and assumed an air of great dignity as we approached the boat. We subsequently ascertained that the same geese were offered to the steward for half the price we paid.
Just above Petrovsky we passed the steamer Amoor, which left Nicolayevsk a week before us with three barges in tow. With such a heavy load her progress was very slow. Barges on the Amoor river are generally built of iron, and nearly as large as the steamers. They are not towed alongside as on the Mississippi, but astern. The rope from the steamer to the first barge is about two hundred feet long, and the barges follow each other at similar distances. Looking at this steamer struggling against the current and impeded by the barges, brought to mind Pope’s needless Alexandrine:
“That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.”
“That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.”
Each barge has a crew, subordinate, of course, to the captain of the tow-boat. This crew steers the barge in accordance with the course of the steamer, looks after its welfare, and watches over the freight on board. In case it fastens on a sand bar the crew remains with it, and sometimes has the pleasure of wintering there. The barge is decked like a ship, and has two or three hatchways for receiving and discharging freight. Over each hatchway is a derrick that appears at a distance not unlike a mast.
Above Petrovsky the banks generally retain their level character on the Russian side. Cliffs and hills frequently extend to the water on the Chinese shore, most of the land being covered with forests of foliferous trees. Some of the mountains are furrowed along their sides as regularly as if turned with a gigantic plow. Near the villages of Ettoo and Dyrki the cliffs are precipitous and several hundred feet high; at their base the water is deep and the current very strong. On the north shore the plain is generally free from tall trees, but has a dense growth of grass and bushes. Sand-banks are frequent, and the islands are large and numerous.
This region is much frequented during the fishing season, and the huts of the natives, their canoes and drying scaffolds are quite numerous. There are but few fixed villages, the country not being desirable for permanent habitation. Near one village there was a gently sloping hillside about a mile square with a forest of oak so scattered that it had a close resemblance to an American apple-orchard.
The treaty between Russia and China, fixing the boundaries between the two empires, contains a strange oversight. Dated on the 14th of November, 1860, it says:
“Henceforth the eastern frontier between the two empires shall commence from the junction of the rivers Shilka and Argoon, and will follow the course of the River Amoor to the junction of the river Ousuree with the latter. The land on the left bank (to the north) of the River Amoor belongs to the empire of Russia, and the territory on the right bank (to the south) to the junction of the River Ousuree, to the empire of China.”
The treaty further establishes the boundaries from the mouth of the Ousuree to the sea of Japan, and along the western region toward Central Asia. It provides for commissioners to examine the frontier line.
It declares that trade shall be free of duty along the entire line, and removes all commercial restrictions. It gives the merchants of Kiachta the right of going to Pekin, Oorga, and Kalgan; allows a Russian consulate at Oorga, and permits Russian merchants to travel anywhere in China. It annuls former treaties, and establishes a postal arrangement between Pekin and Kiachta.
I presume the oversight in the treaty was on the part of the Chinese, as the Russians are too shrewd in diplomacy to omit any point of advantage. Nothing is said about the land in the Amoor. “The land on the north bank is Russian, and on the south bank Chinese.” What is to be the nationality of the islands in the river? Some of them are large enough to hold a population of importance, or be used, as the sites of fortifications. There are duchies and principalities in Europe of less territorial extent than some islands of the Amoor.
When Russia desires them she will doubtless extend her protection, and I observed during my voyage that several islands were occupied by Russian settlers for hay-cutting and other purposes. Why could not an enterprising man of destiny like the grey-eyed Walker or unhappy Maximilian penetrate the Amoor and found a new government on an island that nobody owns? Quite likely his adventure would result like the conquests of Mexico and Nicaragua, but this probability should not cause a man of noble blood to hesitate.
Below the Ousuree the Russian villages were generally on the south bank of the river, but after passing that stream I found them all on the north side. The villages tributary to China consisted only of the settlements of Goldees and Mangoons, or their temporary fishing stations. The Chinese empire contains much territory still open to colonization, and I imagine that it would be to the interest of the Celestial government to scatter its population more evenly over its dominions. Possibly it does not wish to send its subjects into regions that may hereafter fall into the hands of the emperor of Russia. There is a great deal of land in Manjouria adapted to agriculture, richly timbered and watered, but containing a very small population. Millions of people could find homes where there are now but a few thousands.
A Russian village and military post seventeen miles below the mouth of the Songaree is named Michael Semenof, in honor of the Governor General of Eastern Siberia. We landed before the commandant’s house, where two iron guns pointed over the river in the direction of China. However threatening they appeared I was informed they were unserviceable for purposes of war, and only employed in firing salutes. A military force was maintained there, and doubtless kept a sharp watch over the Chinese frontier.
The soldiers appeared under good sanitary regulations, and the quarters of the Commandant indicated an appreciation of the comforts of life. The peasants that gathered on the bank were better dressed than those of Petrovsky and other villages. The town is on a plain covered with a scattered growth of oaks. Below this place the wood furnished us was generally ash or poplar; here it was oak, somewhat gnarly and crooked, but very good for steamboat fuel. One design of the colonization of the Amoor is to furnish a regular supply of wood to the government steamers. The peasants cut the wood and bring it to the bank of the river. Private steamers pay cash for what they purchase; the captains of the government boats gives vouchers for the wood they take, and these vouchers are redeemed at the end of the season of navigation. About sixty thousand roubles worth of wood is consumed annually by government, and twelve thousand on private account.
While the boat took wood Borasdine and I resumed our hunting, he carrying a shot-gun and I an opera glass; with this division of labor we managed to bag a single snipe and kill another, which was lost in the river. My opera glass was of assistance in finding the birds in the grass; they were quite abundant almost within rifle-shot of town, and it seemed strange that the officers of the post did not devote their leisure to snipe hunting.
Our snipe was cooked, for dinner, and equalled any I ever saw at Delmonico’s. We had a wild goose at the same meal, and after a careful trial I can pronounce the Siberian goose an edible bird. He is not less cunning than wild geese elsewhere, but with all his adroitness he frequently falls into the hands of man and graces his dinner table.
On the northern horizon, twenty or thirty miles from Michael Semenof, there is a range of high and rugged mountains. As we left the town, near the close of day, the clouds broke in the west and the sunshine lighted up these mountains and seemed to lift them above their real position. With the red and golden colors of the clouds; the lights and shadows of the mountains; the yellow forests of autumn, and the green plains near the river; the stillness broken only by our own motion or the rippling of the river, the scene was ‘most fair to look upon.’ I have never seen sunsets more beautiful than those of the Amoor.
ARMED AND EQUIPPED.
ARMED AND EQUIPPED.
I rose early in the morning to look at the mouth of the Songaree. Under a cloudy moon I could distinguish little beyond the outline of the land and the long low water line where the Amoor and Songaree sweep at right angles from their respective valleys. Even though it was not daylight I could distinguish the line of separation, or union, between the waters of the two streams, just as one can observe it where the Missouri and Mississippi unite above Saint Louis. I would have given much to see this place in full daylight, but the fates willed it otherwise.
This river is destined at some time to play an important part in Russian and Chinese diplomacy. At present it is entirely controlled by China, but it appears on all the late maps of Eastern Siberia with such minuteness as to indicate that the Russians expect to obtain it before long. Formerly the Chinese claimed the Songaree as the real Amoor, and based their argument on the fact that it follows the general course of the united stream and carried a volume of water as large as the other. They have now abandoned this claim, which the Russians are entirely willing to concede. Once the fact established that the Songaree is the real Amoor, the Russians would turn to the treaty which gives them “all the land north of the Amoor.” Their next step would be to occupy the best part of Manjouria, which would be theirs by the treaty.
By far the larger portion of Manjouria is drained by the Songaree and its tributaries. The sources of this river are in the Shanalin mountains, that separate Corea from Manjouria, and are ten or twelve thousand feet high. They resemble the Sierra Nevadas in having a lake twelve miles in circumference as high in air as Lake Tahoe. The affluents of the Songaree run through a plateau in some places densely wooded while in others it has wide belts of prairie and marshy ground. A large part of the valley consists of low, fertile lands, through which the river winds with very few impediments to navigation.
Very little is known concerning the valley, but it is said to be pretty well peopled and to produce abundantly. M. De la Bruniere when traveling to the country of the Gilyaks in 1845, crossed this valley, and found a dense population along the river, but a smaller one farther inland. The principal cities are Kirin and Sansin on the main stream, and Sit-si-gar on the Nonni, one of its tributaries. The Songaree is navigable to Kirin, about thirteen hundred versts from the Amoor, and it is thought the Nonni can be ascended to Sit-si-gar. The three cities have each a population of about a hundred thousand.
According to the treaty of 1860 Russian merchants with proper passports may enter Chinese territory, but no more than two hundred can congregate in one locality. Russian merchants have been to all the cities in Manjouria, but the difficulties of travel are not small. The Chinese authorities are jealous of foreigners, and restrict their movements as much as possible.
The Russians desire to open the Songaree to commerce, but the Chinese prefer seclusion. A month before my visit a party ascended the river to ascertain its resources. A gentleman told me the Chinese used every means except actual force to hinder the progress of the steamer and prevent the explorers seeing much of the country. Whenever any one went on shore the people crowded around in such numbers that nothing else could be seen. Almost the whole result of the expedition was to ascertain that the river was navigable and its banks well peopled.
In the dim light of morning I saw some houses at the junction of the rivers, and learned they were formerly the quarters of a Manjour guard. Until 1864 a military force, with two or three war junks, was kept at the mouth of the Songaree to prevent Russian boats ascending. Mr. Maximowicz, the naturalist, endeavored in 1859 to explore the river as far as the mouth of the Nonni. Though his passport was correct, the Manjour guard ordered him to stop, and when he insisted upon proceeding the Celestial raised his matchlock. Maximowicz exhibited a rifle and revolver and forced a passage.
He was not molested until within forty miles of San-Sin, when the natives came out with flails, but prudently held aloof on seeing the firearms in the boat. Finding he could not safely proceed, the gentleman turned about when only twenty-five miles below the city.
After passing the Songaree I found a flat country with wide prairies on either side of the river. In the forest primeval the trees were dense and large, and where no trees grew the grass was luxuriant. The banks were alluvial and evidently washed by the river during times of freshet. There were many islands, but the windings of the river were more regular than farther down. I saw no native villages and only two or three fishing stations. Those acquainted with the river say its banks have fewer inhabitants there than in any other portion.
On the Russian shore there were only the villages established by government, but notwithstanding its lack of population, the country was beautiful. With towns, plantations, and sugar-mills, it would greatly resemble the region between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. I could perceive that the volume of the river was much diminished above its junction with the Songaree.
At long and rare intervals snags were visible, but not in the navigable channel. We took soundings with a seven foot pole attached to a rope fastened to the rail of the boat. A man threw the pole as if he were spearing fish, and watched the depth to which it descended. The depth of water was shouted in a monotonous drawl. “Sheiste; sheiste polivinnay; sem; sem polivinnay;” and so on through the various quantities indicated. I thought the manner more convenient than that in use on some of our western rivers.
While smoking a cigar on the bridge I was roused by the cry of “tigre! tigre!” from Borasdine. I looked to where he pointed on the Chinese shore and could see an animal moving slowly through the grass. It may have been a tiger, and so it was pronounced by the Russians who saw it; I have never looked upon a real tiger outside of a menagerie, and am not qualified to give an opinion. I brought my opera glass and Borasdine Iris rifle, but the beast did not again show himself. Provoked by this glimpse my companions retired to the cabin and made a theoretical combat with the animal until dinner time.
The day was made memorable by a decent dinner; the special reason for it was the fact that Borasdine had presented our caterer with an old coat. I regretted I could not afford to reduce my wardrobe, else we would have secured another comfortable repast. Both steward and cook were somewhat negligently clad, and possibly a spare garment or two might have opened their hearts and larders.
Of course the sight of the tiger led to stories about his kindred, and we whiled away a portion of the evening in narrating incidents of a more or less personal character. An officer, who was temporarily our fellow-passenger, on his way to one of the Cossack posts, a few miles above, gave an account of his experience with a tiger on the Ousuree.
I was out (said he) on a survey that we were making on behalf of the government to establish the boundary between Russia and China. The country was then less known than now; there were no settlements along the river, and with the exception of the villages of the natives, thirty or forty miles apart, the whole country was a wilderness. At one village we were warned that a large tiger had within a month killed two men and attacked a third, who was saved only by the sudden and unexpected appearance of a party of friends. We prepared our rifles and pistols, to avoid the possibility of their missing fire in case of an encounter with the man-stealing beast. Rather reluctantly some of the natives consented to serve us as guides to the next village. We generally found them ready enough to assist us, as we paid pretty liberally for their services, and made love to all the young women that the villages contained. With an eye to a successful campaign, I laid in a liberal supply of trinkets to please these aboriginals, and found that they served their purposes admirably. So the natives were almost universally kind to us, and their reluctance to accompany us on this occasion showed the great fear they entertained of the tiger.
We were camped on the bank of the Ousuree, about ten miles from the village, and passed the night without disturbance. In the morning, while we were preparing for breakfast, one of the natives went a few hundred yards away, to a little pond near, where he thought it possible to spear some salmon. He waded out till he was immersed to his waist, and then with his spear raised, stood motionless as a statue for several minutes. Suddenly he darted the spear into the water and drew out a large salmon, which he threw to the shore, and their resumed his stationary position. In twenty minutes he took three or four salmon, and then started to return to camp. Just as he climbed the bank and had gathered his fish, a large tiger darted from the underbrush near by, and sprung upon him as a cat would spring upon a mouse.
Stopping not a moment, the tiger ran up the hillside and disappeared. I was looking toward the river just as the tiger sprang upon him, and so were two of the natives; we all uttered a cry of astonishment, and were struck motionless for an instant, though only for an instant. The unfortunate man did not struggle with the beast, and as the latter did not stop to do more than seize him, I suspected that the fright and suddenness of the attack had caused a fainting fit. I and my Russian companion seized our rifles, and the natives their spears, and started in pursuit.
We tracked the tiger through the underbrush, partly by the marks left by his feet, but mainly by the drops of blood that had fallen from his victim. Going over a ridge, we lost the trail, and though we spread out and searched very carefully, it was nearly an hour before we could resume the pursuit. Every minute seemed an age, as we well knew that the tiger would thus gain time to devour his prey. Probably I was less agitated than the natives, but I freely and gladly admit that I have never had my nerves more unstrung than on that occasion, though I have been in much greater peril. We searched through several clumps of bushes, and examined several thickets, in the hope of finding where the tiger had concealed himself. The natives approached all these thickets with fear and trembling, so that most of the searching was done by the Russian members of the party.
Just as we were beating around a little clump of bushes, fifteen or twenty yards across, my companion on the other side shouted:
“Look out; the tiger is preparing to spring upon you.” Instantly I cocked my rifle and fired into the bushes; they were so dense that I could hardly discern the outline of the beast, who had me in full view, and was crouching preparatory to making a leap. I called to my friend to shoot, as the density of the thicket made it very probable that my fire would be lost, by the ball glancing among the shrubbery. But my friend was in the same predicament, and I quickly formed a plan of operations.
GENERAL ACTIVITY.
GENERAL ACTIVITY.
We were both good shots, and I thought our safety lay in killing the beast as he rose in the air. Aiming at his head, I stepped slowly backward, and shouted to my friend to cover the tiger and shoot as he sprang. All this occurred in less time than I tell of it. Hardly had I stepped two paces backward when the tiger leaped toward me. As he rose, his throat was exposed for a moment, and I planted a bullet in his breast. Simultaneously a ball from the other rifle struck his side. We fired so closely together that neither of us heard the report of the other’s weapon. The tiger gave a roar of agony, and despite the wounds he received, either of which would have been fatal, he completed his spring so nearly that he caught me by the foot and inflicted a wound that lamed me for several months, and left permanent scars.
The natives, hearing the report of our rifles, came to our assistance, and so great was their reverence for the tiger, that they prostrated themselves before his quivering body, and muttered some words which I could not understand.
Though assured that the beast was dead, they hesitated to enter the thicket to search for the body of their companion, and it was only on my leading the way that they entered it.
We found the remains of the poor native somewhat mutilated, though less so than I expected. There was no trace of suffering upon his features, and I was confirmed in my theory that he fainted the moment he was seized, and was not conscious afterward. His friends insisted upon burying the body where they found it, and said it was their custom to do so. They piled logs above the grave, and after the observance of certain pagan rites, to secure the repose of the deceased, they signified their readiness to proceed.
The tiger was one of the largest of his kind. I had his skin carefully removed, and sent it with my official report to St. Petersburg. A Chinese mandarin who met me near Lake Hinka offered me a high price for the skin, but I declined his offer, in order to show our Emperor what his Siberian possessions contained.
TAIL PIECE—FLASK