Chapter XV: Out of Asia Into Europe 180 (1)

SOME FACTS AND FIGURES 194

ENGLISH-RUSSIAN GLOSSARY 201

ILLUSTRATIONS

FRANCIS E. CLARK _Frontispiece_

CATHEDRAL AT VLADIVOSTOCK _Facing p._ 4

DRY-DOCK AT VLADIVOSTOCK ” 6

HARBOR OF VLADIVOSTOCK ” 10

GROUP OF KOREAN WORKMEN, VLADIVOSTOCK ” 12

GENERAL TCHITCHAGOFF ” 18

GENERAL VIEW OF VLADIVOSTOCK ” 22

STATION OF KORFOVSKIA, EASTERN SIBERIA, SHOWING AMERICAN
LOCOMOTIVE ” 26

“WHO’LL BUY MY FLOWERS?” ” 30

VILLAGE OF VIAZEMSKOI, EASTERN SIBERIA ” 32

THROUGH THE FOREST IN EASTERN SIBERIA ” 34

CITY OF KHABAROFFSK, ON THE AMOUR RIVER ” 38

FATHER ALEXANDER AND STATION-MASTER AT NIKOLSKOIE ” 42

A PATHETIC SIBERIAN VILLAGE GRAVEYARD ” 46

THE OLD WAY BY THE “SHIP OF THE DESERT” ” 48

THE _BARON KORFF_ ” 50

EMBARKING ON AN AMOUR RIVER STEAMER ” 54

ON THE SHORE OF THE AMOUR ” 58

A PRISON BARGE ” 62

A SIBERIAN RIVER TOWN IN WINTER ” 66

A THUNDER-STORM BY NIGHT ON THE AMOUR ” 70

ON THE BANKS OF THE AMOUR ” 74

SOME OF OUR FELLOW-TRAVELLERS. SIBERIAN EMIGRANTS ON THE
AMOUR ” 78

SOME OTHER FELLOW-PASSENGERS. RUSSIAN OFFICERS AND THEIR
FAMILIES ” 80

A TRIUMPHAL ARCH IN HONOR OF THE CZAREWITCH’S JOURNEY
THROUGH SIBERIA ” 82

A MODEST TRIUMPHAL ARCH AT A LITTLE SIBERIAN VILLAGE ” 84

“EACH WOMAN HUGGING TWO OR THREE BOTTLES OF MILK” ” 86

THE LEADING HOTEL, BLAGAVESTCHENSK ” 90

THE CEMETERY AT BLAGAVESTCHENSK ” 92

ONE OF BLAGAVESTCHENSK’S BEAUTIFUL CHURCHES ” 94

A GREAT DEPARTMENT STORE IN BLAGAVESTCHENSK, WITH
MARKET-PLACE IN FRONT ” 96

AN UPPER AMOUR RIVER STEAMER ” 98

ON THE UPPER AMOUR ” 100

TUMBLING ASHORE FROM THE _ADMIRAL CHICACHOFF_ ” 102

CHILDREN OF EMIGRANTS PICKING WILD FLOWERS ON THE BANKS
OF THE AMOUR ” 106

AN EMIGRANT HOUSE ON THE UPPER AMOUR ” 108

THE MEN BEHIND THE BARS ON THE PRISON BARGE ” 110

THE HILL-SIDES WERE CARPETED WITH FLOWERS ” 114

A TYPICAL WATER-TOWER ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY ” 116

THE LIGNITE CLIFFS ON THE AMOUR ” 118

THE EVER-PRESENT SAMOVAR ” 122

SOME FIFTH-CLASS PEOPLE ” 124

A RAFT ON THE SHILKA ” 126

SIBERIAN RECRUITS BOUND FOR CHINA ” 130

FOR THIRTY-SIX MORTAL HOURS WE WAITED ” 132

A TRANS-BAIKAL TRAIN. PRISONERS CARRYING WATER ” 134

BOUND FOR FAR SIBERIA ” 138

FIFTEEN MINUTES AT EVERY STATION ” 140

PRISON CAR IN SIBERIA. FAMILIES OF PRISONERS AT THE WINDOWS ” 142

THE ELEPHANT’S NOSE, LAKE BAIKAL ” 146

THE ICE-BREAKER ON LAKE BAIKAL ” 150

THE SHORES OF LAKE BAIKAL ” 154

BURIATS FROM LAKE BAIKAL, WITH SEAL FROM THE LAKE ” 158

AN IRKUTSK DROSKY ” 160

GENERAL VIEW OF IRKUTSK ” 162

ONE OF THE BEAUTIFUL CHURCHES OF IRKUTSK ” 166

A PART OF OUR _TRAIN DE LUXE_ ” 170

A VIEW ON THE ANGARA, NEAR IRKUTSK ” 174

A TRAINMAN WHO HAS TAKEN THE VEIL ” 176

SIBERIAN RAILWAY NEAR THE ASIATIC BORDER ” 178

ZLATOOST, A BORDER TOWN BETWEEN EUROPE AND ASIA ” 182

IN THE URAL MOUNTAINS ” 186

THE KREMLIN IN WINTER ” 190

A SHRINE AT A RAILWAY STATION ” 194

RUSSIAN TYPES ” 196

MAP SHOWING THE AUTHOR’S ROUTE FROM VLADIVOSTOCK ACROSS
SIBERIA TO ST. PETERSBURG ” 200

BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION

This volume describes the last six weeks of a long journey undertaken in the interests of the Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor.

Mrs. Clark and myself having been invited to attend various conventions of the society in Japan and China, we started for the far East, accompanied by our little son Harold, a boy of twelve years, in the early days of January, 1900.

The conventions were, beyond our expectations, large in numbers, enthusiastic in interest, and important in their results; but they cannot be described in this volume.

Knowing that a new all-steam route around the world was to be opened by the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway to the head of navigation on the Shilka River, and having important engagements at the World’s Christian Endeavor Convention, which was to meet in London in July, we determined not to follow the beaten tracks around the world which we had before taken, but to attempt this new route, which binds Asia and Europe, the Pacific with the Atlantic.

The last meetings of the series we had gone to the far East to attend were held in north China, in Tientsin, Peking, Tungchow, and Poatingfu, only a few days before the terrible uprising which bids fair to make such momentous changes in the map of the world.

The meetings being over and our object in visiting China being accomplished, we left Taku, as it proved, by the last steamer that sailed for Corea before the bombardment of the forts of Taku and the siege of Tientsin.

For nearly two weeks we coasted around the peninsula of Corea, stopping at Chemulpo, Mokpo, Fusan, and Wonsan, or Gensan, as the last-named port is indifferently called.

At Fusan, at the southern extremity of Corea, we spent four days waiting for a steamer to take us up the coast, and here, in soil already prepared, the first Christian Endeavor Society of Corea was planted in a church of the Australian Presbyterian Mission.

At length we reached Vladivostock, and our long journey across the Siberian plains by rail and river began.

At Taku our party had been pleasantly enlarged by the addition of Miss Anna Northend Benjamin, of New York, a well-known lecturer and newspaper correspondent, on her way home from the Philippines.

At Wonsan, in Corea, Mr. J. M. Jordan, British Consul-General to Corea, and Mr. Burn Murdock, a mining expert, became our fellow-passengers.

At Khabaroffsk Mr. J. C. Smith, a leading merchant of Nagasaki, who was accompanied by Mrs. Smith, took the same steamer; also Baron Hartogensis, of Germany, and Herr Ritter, Swiss Consul-General to Japan, all of whom, with one or two other foreigners (non-Russians), afterwards formed themselves into the “Never Again Society,” to whom this book is dedicated.

Interest is perhaps added to this journey from the fact that we were the first Americans, and in all probability the first foreigners, to go around the world by the new route. The trans-Siberian all-steam route had been opened but a few days when we took passage at Vladivostock, as I have explained in an early chapter, and none of the few who had preceded us across Siberia by this route had completed the circuit of the globe.

If this fact is borne in mind, it will explain some of the difficulties inevitably incidental to a new and untried route.

I wish gratefully to acknowledge the courtesy of their Excellencies the Russian Ministers Plenipotentiary to Japan and China, and to General Tchitchagoff, the Governor of Vladivostock and the Primorskaia, for their kind assistance in a journey which, were it not for their aid, would have been far more difficult and tedious.

It is also fair to add that already, in the minds of some at least of the “Never Again Society,” the discomforts and delays of the journey have faded into the unremembered Past, which so kindly and so quickly touches our little woes with the finger of oblivion, while its novelties and pleasures stand out in ever-bolder and happier relief. If the above-mentioned society were canvassed to-day, it would not be at all surprising if its members should unanimously resolve themselves into a

“_Some Time Again Society_.”

BOSTON, _February 2, 1901_.

A NEW WAY AROUND AN OLD WORLD

I

FROM NEW YORK TO VLADIVOSTOCK

The completion of a new way around this old world is a matter of no little interest and moment. Such a new way has just been opened, and it was my fortune to be one of the first five passengers who took this journey.

On the 28th of December, 1899, the last rail was laid on the trans-Baikal section of the Siberian Railway, which for the present will stop at Stretinsk, and there connect with the steamers on the Shilka, a branch of the Amour River, for Khabaroffsk, where again railway communication is resumed for a further journey of five hundred miles to Vladivostock, on the Sea of Japan. Thus across all of Russia’s vast domain in Europe and Asia it is possible to go by steam, a distance of considerably more than six thousand miles, as the route is now traversed by river and by rail. My own route was in the other direction, from east to west--from Vladivostock to St. Petersburg.

Though, as I have said, the last rail of the trans-Baikal section of the road was laid on December 28, 1899, the Amour and its tributaries were then frozen, and no steam communication could be had until spring unloosed the icy fetters. The rivers did not open this year until the middle of May, and on the 31st day of May I reached Vladivostock, and on the 1st day of June took passage at Khabaroffsk, on the Amour River steamer _Baron Korff_, for the long journey across the Russias.

I mention this fact because the newness of the route will account for some of the crude and primitive accommodations that will be alluded to further on in this story.

To be sure, many other travellers had crossed Siberia from Vladivostock to St. Petersburg, but the journey could not, before May of 1900, be done by uninterrupted steam travel, and thus one more way of going around the world by the aid of the all-compelling steam-engine has been added to the two that already existed.

For many years it has been possible to steam around the Cape of Good Hope and stormy Cape Horn from New York back to New York again. For a generation it has been possible to take the shorter cut by rail across the American continent and by steamer through the Suez Canal. Now a third steam route has been opened which reduces the ocean journey to a minimum, and, for the first time in history, makes the portion of the journey by land considerably longer than the portion by sea.

This is surely good news for bad sailors.

Roughly speaking, this way around the world involves about thirteen thousand miles of railroad or river travel, and nine thousand miles of sea travel. Approximately, these distances may be divided as follows:

MILES.
By rail from New York to San Francisco 3000
By ocean from San Francisco to Yokohama 5000
By rail from Yokohama to Nagasaki 800
By ocean from Nagasaki to Vladivostock 1000
By rail (and river) from Vladivostock to Liverpool 9000
By ocean from Liverpool to New York 3000

I need dwell but briefly on our journey from New York to Vladivostock, for, so far as Nagasaki at least, it is getting to be as commonplace as a trip across the Atlantic steam ferry. As a matter of fact, it occupied us more than four months, owing to various detours in Japan and China for the sake of attending Christian Endeavor conventions which had called me to the far East. This part of the journey, however, might have been easily accomplished in twenty-five days--five days across the American continent, eighteen days from San Francisco to Yokohama, and two days from Yokohama to Nagasaki.

Here the novel part of the journey begins. We at once get out of the beaten path of the globe-trotter. He halts on the southern edge of Japan, or, perhaps, more often keeps on eastward across the choppy Yellow Sea to Shanghai, and thence, if he is really a _globe_-trotter, on to Hong Kong, the Straits, Colombo, and Suez.

In the future, however, the stream of world-encirclers is likely to divide at Nagasaki, one part of the stream flowing east and south over the old channel, the other flowing east and north over the new route which, less than three weeks ago as I write these words, was opened up around “this goodly frame the earth.”

By this latter route, which I am about to describe, the traveller sails from one glorious harbor to another--from Nagasaki to Fusan, Corea; to Wonsan, Corea; to Vladivostock, Russia. In all of them “the navies of the world might ride,” according to the old platitude, and on this coast, without much doubt, will be the naval battle-field of the future, when the Titans get ready to measure their sea-power one against another in the struggle for Corea or China.

We took passage on a little Japanese steamer, the _Ise Maru_, which runs between Kobe and Vladivostock, and which belongs to the Nippon Yushen Kaisha, the largest steamship company in the world, with steamers plying to America and Europe and Shanghai and Hong Kong, besides to the innumerable ports up and down the coast of Japan.

Many of the steamers are large and fine, but the _Ise Maru_ is not one of these. She is, however, clean and fairly comfortable, and we will not complain, as the journey is a short one of less than a thousand miles.

A prejudice against Japanese captains and chief officers exists among many foreigners, who will not sail, if they can help it, except on ships manned by European officers. I must say that I do not share this prejudice. I have sailed with more than one Japanese captain and crew, and I have invariably found them polite and exceedingly attentive to the comfort of their passengers, and, so far as I could judge, excellent seamen, leaning always to the side of caution in navigating the treacherous rock-bound coasts. As a matter of fact, the steamers that have been lost in these eastern seas have usually been officered by Europeans, and not by Japanese.

Half of the steamers of the Nippon Yushen Kaisha are officered by Japanese, and half by Europeans, and the latter have been by far the most unfortunate.

So, casting prejudice and fear to the winds, and trusting in Providence for a safe voyage, we set sail, and, twenty-four hours out of Nagasaki, approached the bold shores of Corea, no longer the hermit nation, but open now at a dozen doors to the commerce of the world.

Fusan, at the southwestern corner of the peninsula, is one of these open doors, a door, in fact, which has long been open, for the Japanese for three hundred years have here kept at least a foot in the doorway for their own ingress and egress.

Fusan is in every sense a Japanese port. The Japanese have been here so long that they have even trained the great pine-trees along the streets and on the temple hill to grow in picturesque Japanese fashion, and their shops, their banners, their Shinto shrines, their good roads, all proclaim their long occupation. The only Americans in Fusan are found in a small colony of faithful missionaries, whose homes, on a picturesque hill between the Japanese and Corean cities of Fusan, are conspicuous for miles around. The next day after her arrival the _Ise Maru_ weighed anchor again and, shaping her course due north, made for the port of Wonsan, on the Corean coast, midway between Fusan and Vladivostock, and about three hundred miles from either port.

Wonsan, like Fusan, possesses a magnificent harbor, entirely landlocked and surrounded by imposing hills. No wonder that Russia, as well as Japan, has cast covetous eyes upon this splendid port, but to all appearances Japan has the inside track, for here, as in Fusan, she has securely seated herself, has built her houses and shops and wharves and temples, and owns more of the shipping that visits the harbor than all other nations combined.

A few hours only were given to Wonsan, and again the whistle of the _Ise_ shrieked, the anchor was hoisted to the bows, and the little ship ploughed her way once more up the bold Corean coast, to make the last loop in her frequently interrupted voyage. One of these days Corea, I believe, will be a favorite haunt of pleasure-seekers and tourists. The coastline is magnificently indented with bays and gulfs, the interior is one series of grand mountains and lovely valleys, the west coast is lined with charming islands that form almost a continuous break to the winds and waves, while the east coast, though without many islands, furnishes equally fine scenery and unrivalled delights for the mountaineer on the shore and the yachtsman on the sea. The people are poor, primitive, and, it must be confessed, dirty, but are kind, courteous, and even courtly, and, in their white linen clothes and queer horse-hair hats, are most picturesque and interesting--far more so than their neighbors in China, _me judice_.

But we are bound for Siberia, and must not in this chapter linger in Corea. Early on the morning of May 29th, five days out from Nagasaki, the passengers of the _Ise Maru_ awoke to find themselves in still another magnificent landlocked harbor. One glance at the shore where stands Vladivostock, the “Magic City,” showed them that they had left Mongolia and Mongolians behind them, and, though still in Asia, and on the extreme eastern verge of Asia, were in an Asia owned and dominated by Europeans. Large blocks of brick and stone crown the hills on which the town is situated. A great white house flying the admiral’s flag occupies the most commanding site. A beautiful Greek church, with trim minarets, stands near by. The Russian tricolor is flying everywhere. We had left behind, as completely as though we had sailed to another planet, the mud huts of Corea, the slight one-story wooden houses of Japan, and the stone hovels and filthy streets of China, and suddenly found ourselves in a city of substantial brick and stone, wide paved streets, electric lights and telegraph wires, and railway trains snorting and puffing down to the very wharves. We could almost imagine that either Tacoma or Seattle had bodily taken passage across the Pacific and had planted itself on the eastern shore of Asia instead of the western shore of America. Only the droskies and tarantasses flying through the streets, with one horse under the huge Russian collar while another ran free to keep up with his trotting-mate, recalled us to the fact that we were about to step ashore in monarchical Russia instead of republican America.

A score of sampans, each manned by a long-cued Chinaman, were clamoring to take us ashore, and we were scarcely less anxious to accept their invitation, that we might plant our feet on _terra firma_, and realize that our long ocean voyage was over and our longer land journey over an unbeaten track was about to begin.

II

THE METROPOLIS OF THE NORTHEAST

Vladivostock, on nearer approach, unlike many towns, carries out its more distant promise. It is not a trim and finished town, but it is one of strong outlines, and evidently built for a great future. Its chief buildings are substantial. The town looks as though it had come to stay. To be sure, the new outlet which Russia has obtained through eastern China to the sea at Port Arthur will rob Vladivostock of its unique importance as Russia’s only open door on the Pacific, but her glory as the great natural port of Siberia, with a limitless country of vast resources behind her, can never be taken away. The huge ice-breaker which crunches up the harbor ice in winter with its sharp iron beak is a complete success, and it is no longer an ice-bound port for even three months of the year. The winter, though long, is not unusually severe, and the mercury, I am told, seldom or never sinks so low as it does in Boston or New York.

No sooner had we stepped on shore than we were treated to our first disillusionment concerning Russia and the Russians. We had heard much about the terrors of the Russian custom-house. We expected to have our baggage overhauled from turret to foundation-stone, and the feminine member of our party had pictured to herself a swarthy Cossack with sword and cutlass making hay of her feminine belongings, while he searched for dutiable goods. But our Chinese sampan-man landed us at the pier, and no customs officer appeared upon the scene. We waited, but he did not come. We inquired in two or three different languages for the custom-house, but no one knew what we meant. We wandered up and down the pier looking for some building that resembled the familiar office where duties are collected, but could find none. At length, having fully satisfied our consciences, we boldly loaded our _impedimenta_ into a drosky, and told the driver to take it to the Hôtel du Pacifique. This he successfully accomplished, and no officer of the law appeared to disturb our peace of mind, or to look into the innocent recesses of our trunks.

So far as I know we were subjected to no surveillance of any sort. We came and went as we pleased. We minded our own business, and every one else minded his. There seemed to be no such inspection of newly arrived strangers as one is often conscious of in Germany. And yet, here we were in autocratic Russia, and, more than that, in Siberia, the land of the exile and the prisoner--the land around whose name has clustered every synonym for oppression and cruelty.

I am inclined to think that what I have been told by an acute observer is very true, and that Russia is much more autocratic and inquisitorial on paper than in reality. Her laws are severe and may be enforced if needs must, but their iron hand is seldom felt by the well-disposed. There is much theoretical restriction, and much practical liberty.

The hotels of Vladivostock are not to be indiscriminately commended. When Baedeker writes his inevitable guide-book about Siberia he will not mark them with his familiar *, unless they greatly improve upon their present condition. It should be said, however, that the best one was recently destroyed by fire, and the chief one that still remains is probably suffering from lack of competition. The table was very good, and the chief fault was that the rooms and halls were dark and dirty, and clean linen was a scarce and precious article. One sheet for each bed seemed to be the full allowance, and one small towel for three people was apparently thought to be an ample supply. When one of our party righteously complained that her towel had evidently done duty before, the Japanese chambermaid, who did the English for the hotel, replied that it was _impossible_ to get another; it was not to be had. There was not a clean towel in the hotel. After much importunity, however, she was induced to loan a long, clean scarf from her own bureau to serve as a towel.

However, this was a minor matter. We reminded ourselves that we were in Siberia, and on the eastern edge of Siberia at that. Who could expect all the amenities of civilization? We were no sooner established in our hotel for the day than I sallied out to seek the governor of Vladivostock and of this whole eastern province, to whom I fortunately had a letter from the Russian minister of Japan.

Well was it that I found the governor armed with these credentials, as the sequel will show in another chapter. Governor Tchitchagoff received me with the utmost courtesy. The letter from the minister to Japan acted like an open sesame to his kindly attentions, and he at once despatched a secretary to secure berths on the train which left the next day for Khabaroffsk, and sent another to telegraph to Khabaroffsk to hold a state-room on the Amour River steamer for Blagovestchensk, as he knew the berths were in great demand. At the same time he gave me a letter to the chief of police in Khabaroffsk. While waiting for the preparation of this letter by his secretary he showed me a map of the vast province of Primorskaia, of which he is governor, a province which extends for two thousand miles up the shores of the Pacific, clear away to the North Pole, embracing Kamchatka and the famous Saghalien Island north of Japan, to which are banished the worst of Russian convicts.

Governor of Vladivostock and Primorskaia]

Governor Tchitchagoff is a man of commanding presence, but most urbane and gentlemanly, a trait which he shares with most Russians of the better class, so far as my observation goes. There is a certain courtly simplicity about them, free from all arrogance and brusqueness, which is the very essence of high breeding. The governor speaks fluently French and German, and English with a little hesitation. This, again, is a type of the educated Russian of the better class, who is usually a famous linguist.

Moreover, the governor is a Cossack, a name which, in my ignorance, I had hitherto associated largely with frontier troopers of the Buffalo Bill order. I confess my stupid misconception with contrition of spirit. Thus again came a happy disillusion concerning Russia and the Russians. This interview with the governor set my mind at rest in regard to any danger of losing the steamer on the first stage of our long river journey, for I knew that the word of General Tchitchagoff was as the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. He is the virtual czar of all this Eastern land. It was exceedingly necessary that we should incur no long delays, as a most important engagement awaited me in London within forty-four days. I had already cabled “London screaming,” which meant, according to the cable code, that I would be in London on the Fourth of July (a most appropriate cable word for the date in question), and there were very few days to spare over the shortest time on record. Mail steamers on the Amour River start on their various stages only once in five days, and it would not do to miss connections at the outset.

But now, with easy minds, we set out to “do” the town. It does not take long to exhaust its glories, for it is a new town, in the raw, half-baked stage of its existence, with most of its glories in the future. But these are evident enough to make up for any present deficiencies. Vladivostock is credited, in the latest published statistics, with about 29,000 inhabitants, but it is now said to have 40,000, chiefly Russians, Chinese, and Coreans, with a sprinkling of Japanese, Germans, French, Italians, English, and a very few Americans. It is a remarkably cosmopolitan little city to be found on the banks of an almost arctic sea, and it exhibits all the life and picturesqueness of a little cosmopolis. Russian droskies go flying about the streets in every direction, as though their occupants were pressed for the last second of time, and would be eternally too late unless they arrived somewhere within less than five minutes. Most harum-scarum, reckless drivers apparently are the drosky men. Their horses are given a loose rein, and they go flying down-hill at breakneck speed, over the rough roads, and galloping up the next incline with never a check on their mad career. The appearance of reckless haste is further increased by the fact that always one horse and often two horses are hitched to the vehicle outside the shafts, by loose ropes or leather thongs. These horses often pull away from the wheel-horse within the shafts so far as the harness will let them, and they dance and prance and gallop while he trots at full speed, and the drosky goes rattlety-bang over the stones and into the holes and over the “thank-ye-marms” in a way that the Russians seem to like, but which tires the patience and, let us hope, improves the liver of the foreign passengers.

Besides the drosky, the streets are full of another peculiarly Russian vehicle, the isvodschik, which resembles a small boat set on long poles, somewhat after the fashion of the body of a buckboard. This is used to carry luggage, and, in many parts of the country, passengers as well, who pile into it until it looks like a peasant’s cart in Naples or a Chinese wheelbarrow in Shanghai. The Chinese wheelbarrow is not wanting in Vladivostock either, and its familiar squeak is heard on every hand. Vladivostock, indeed, must be the paradise of the Celestial, for here he gets a wage of a rouble and a half a day, which is something like ten times the pay he would receive in his native land. Moreover, there seems to be unlimited work for him in grading and paving the streets, carrying brick and mortar, rowing the sampans, building the railways, and doing the other drudgery of a new colony. The Corean, in his dirty white garments and padded pillow-cushion shoes, is not far behind him in numbers, and competes for the manual work of this new country with his Chinese cousin on the same terms.

Vladivostock consists of one chief street, running up-hill and down-dale, with various branches climbing the hills on every side. The chief sights are easily done, as I have said, for they consist of a few fine stores and public buildings, a beautiful Greek church with its graceful domes, and a triumphal arch in honor of the visit of the czarewitch, a few years ago, when the first spadeful of earth, in breaking the eastern end of the new Siberian railway, was turned by the royal visitor.

But Vladivostock’s chief glories do not lie in her public or private buildings, or in the great fortresses which command the city and harbor, but in the magnificent scenery that greets the eye on every hand. Few cities in all the world are more beautiful for situation. The Amour Bay, on one side, and the Bay of Ussuri, on the other, clasp the city in their kind embrace, and constantly lave its feet with gentle ripples. Noble hills stretch off landwards, and from the main hill-tops within the city limits one gets glimpses of sea and shore and mountain and valley of surpassing loveliness. In view of the long journey to which we were looking forward, the railway station, prosaic as it is, was the most interesting building in all Vladivostock. Over its doorway is printed, in old Russian characters, a legend which may well stir the blood as we think of all that it means. It reads as follows:

VLADIVOSTOCK TO PETERSBURG
9877 VERSTS.

We were to begin to measure off these versts on the morrow.

III

RIDING ON THE RAIL IN SIBERIA

Our first introduction to a Siberian railway train was made under unusually pleasant circumstances. Hurrying to the station in ample season to secure what accommodations we could, and expecting to have a severe struggle with our tickets and our baggage in a strange language of which we knew scarcely a single word, what was our surprise to have a decorated official, in a handsome white uniform bound with gold lace, accost us by name and assure us that, at the governor’s orders, a first-class compartment had been reserved for us, and all we had to do was to buy our tickets and take our seats. As the train was very much crowded, and our lack of knowledge of the language made us almost as helpless as infants in looking out for our comfort and advantage, this was a favor which we most thoroughly appreciated. Before the train started we were favored with a call in our little state-room from the enterprising and energetic United States Consul, Richard T. Greener, and also from Mrs. Frederick Pray, a little American lady, who, a few years ago, transferred her home half around the world, from Berwick, Maine, to Vladivostock, Russia. Her husband is connected with a large American firm doing business in Vladivostock, that is introducing many products of American soil and a thousand Yankee conveniences to the Siberian public. Mrs. Pray had kindly prepared for us a list of common Russian phrases, with the English pronunciation, which proved to be exceedingly useful in calling for tea and bread-and-butter, and a carriage, and a room at a hotel, or any one of the necessities of life to the wanderer in Siberia, where French is scarce, and German scarcer, and English almost nil.

The Russian language is formidable enough even when one has time and opportunity to make a study of it; to the passing traveller it is absolutely appalling. It has thirty-six letters instead of twenty-six, and several of them seem absolutely superfluous, for they cannot be and never are pronounced. The Greek scholar at first hails the alphabet with delight, and tackles it with enthusiasm, for he recognizes several old friends. There is delta and lambda and phi and chi and theta and several other letters that he struggled with in his school-days. But, alas! his enthusiasm is soon quenched, for he finds that there are so many other letters that are neither Greek nor Roman that he is more confused than helped by the presence of his old friends in such strange company.

Moreover, several of the letters are exactly like Roman characters, but have a very different sound, which is very confusing. For instance, B is not B at all, but is V, as in vein, while the Russian B is an entirely different character. H is not our familiar aspirate, which Cockneys so sorely abuse, but is our N. P is equivalent to double R in hu_rr_y, while the Russian P is made like the Greek pi. C is always S, and there is no hard C in Russian. Y looks very familiar, certainly, but is really oo, as in m_oo_n, and a letter that looks like R wrong side before, Я, is the vowel ya, as in _ya_rd. Then there are certain italicized letters which still further bewilder the puzzled student, for u = i and n = p and m = t when written in italics, but not otherwise. Thus it will be seen that Russian, “as she is spoke” or as she is wrote, is not by any means a holiday affair, and the usefulness of Mrs. Pray’s extemporized phrase-book can be fully appreciated.

But the time has come for the start, of which we have been made fully aware by numerous bells and gongs and whistles. There is no excuse for any one to get left at a Siberian railway station. Five minutes before the train starts a large station bell is rung. Four minutes more the passengers stroll up and down the platform or visit the buffet. Then the bell is rung once more, the conductor blows his whistle, the engine shrieks a warning blast, and at last we are off, with St. Petersburg 9877 versts (more than 6250 miles) away.

The scenery for a few miles out of Vladivostock is superb. The railway skirts one of the great bays between which the city lies, high up above the water, while off in the distance, beyond the blue ripples, lie the blue mountains, only partially obscured by the morning haze. Chinese junks, loaded with firewood for the locomotives, are dancing on the waves, or unloading their cargo by throwing the pieces into the sea for the waves to wash ashore, since the shallow water prevents the junks from coming close to the bank. Occasionally the railway diverges from the shore and runs through a copse of birch or beech, fresh and bright in their new spring livery, and then returns once more to give us a glimpse of the bright blue sea. The day was charming. Our most delicious spring weather in America is no more delightful than this first day of June in frozen Siberia. Had James Russell Lowell lived in Siberia, he would have written with equal rapture his oft-quoted lines:

“What is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days.”

On one of these “perfect days” it was our good fortune to journey from Vladivostock. The spring seemed just about as far advanced as it would be in northern New England on the same date. The meadows were lush and rank in their growth, and the cattle waded knee-deep in their delicious fodder, and were, of course, as sleek and fat as cattle could be. The trees were nearly in full leaf, though some of the later varieties had not as yet donned their full suit of green. Great dandelions, almost as large as peonies, starred the fields with yellow, and bluebells and tiger-lilies made the roadway gay.

Lilies-of-the-valley at the railway station]

At the stations little girls with bare feet offered great bunches of lilies of the valley for sale, and I noticed that they were not unlike the rest of the world in taking advantage of the unsophisticated traveller, for, while I paid fifteen kopeks for a bunch, a Russian by my side, who knew how to dicker and bargain in the vernacular, paid but three kopeks for his lilies. But every traveller in a strange land must pay dear for his experience as well as for his lilies. Let me say, once for all, that one hundred kopeks make a rouble, and that a rouble, at the present rate of exchange, is worth a little more than fifty cents. Russian money is on the gold basis, and is in gold, silver, paper, and copper. National bills up to the value of five hundred roubles are good in any part of the empire, and are in denominations of three, five, ten, twenty-five, fifty, one hundred, and five hundred roubles. Gold is in common use in pieces of five, seven and one-half, ten, and fifteen roubles, and silver in roubles, half-roubles, and twenty-five, twenty, fifteen, ten, and five kopek pieces, while copper coins are of one, two, three, and five kopeks in value. In my opinion, there are too many coins of different values, and one and five kopek pieces in copper, and ten, twenty-five, and fifty kopek pieces in silver, and five and ten rouble pieces in gold would answer quite as well the purposes of trade as the larger variety now in use. As it is, the fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five kopeks are so nearly of the same size as to be confusing, especially as different issues of the same value are not always of exactly the same size. The older silver coins seem to be of debased metal, with a large admixture of copper, but the newer coins that bear the image and superscription of the present czar are of much better metal.

After the edge of the novelty of our first ride on a Siberian railway wore off we had time to examine the railway equipment and the carriages in which we were riding. The train was drawn by a sturdy Baldwin locomotive, fitted with a big bulbous smoke-stack for burning wood, and consisted of about a dozen cars of the first, second, and third classes, in which the third-class largely predominated. The third-class were painted green, the second-class yellow, and the first-class a dark shade of blue. Sometimes a single car was divided into two classes, first and second, one-half being painted blue and the other yellow, with very little difference between the two classes except the color of the paint and the price of the tickets. The second-class cars were, perhaps, upholstered a shade less luxuriously than the first, and were somewhat more crowded, though there was little to choose in this respect. The first-class fare was seventeen roubles (about eight dollars and a half), and the second-class about one-half that sum. We were told in advance that the trains were built on the “American plan,” but it is really a combination of the American and English, somewhat in vogue on the continent of Europe. All the first and second class cars are divided into compartments, but down their side runs a narrow corridor wide enough for only one person to squeeze through at a time. The compartments open on this corridor, and through it the conductor passes to collect his fares; passengers walk back and forth, babies escaped from their nurses toddle down, and it is the general thoroughfare for a heavy-laden train. Being exceedingly narrow, it is always “congested,” and a fat man finds it his “misery,” indeed. In order to get through at all he must turn sideways and go crab fashion. There seems to be a great social democracy in this aristocratic country, and passengers from the different classes visit back and forth with the utmost freedom, and occupy compartments of a higher class than their own for half a day at a time.

As a rule, the Russians are exceedingly polite and considerate of other people, and, for the most part, the rude and selfish people whom we have met on this journey have belonged to other nationalities. The third-class cars frequently have an aisle down the middle, with seats on either side. As all the coaches are meant for night travel, all provide what is called “lying-down room”--_i.e._, room is provided for each passenger to stretch out at full length either in the upper or lower berth. The first and second class cars are luxuriously upholstered, and, by a curious contrivance, the upper bed turns over and becomes, not “a chest of drawers,” but the back of the seat by day. The only real lack of a Siberian railway is suitable lavatory accommodations. The little toilet-room is often a wretched, filthy closet, with a single wash-basin and a very limited supply of water, and it answers for all, men and women alike. This fault is shared by all Siberian hotels and steamboats that I have seen. The one cramped and dirty spot is the wash-room (for many hotels have a common lavatory, and no water is brought to the rooms), and the one scarce article is fresh, cold water. Beer, wine, vodka, tea, especially tea, flows freely, but to order a glass of water to drink, or a basin of water, much more a tub of water for a bath, creates a commotion, and the water desired is often unattainable, except after strenuous effort. A Siberian writer remarks, naïvely, that “Englishmen have the bad habit of washing themselves all over every day. _As a consequence of this habit_, their bodies emit an unpleasant odor.” It must be said in all fairness, however, that hotels, cars, and steamers in Siberia are, outside of the wash-rooms, clean and wholesome for the most part. To one who has just come from China or Corea, and who has tasted the rare discomforts of travel in those countries, they seem to be beyond criticism.

Besides the cars already mentioned, a baggage-car and a dining-car completed our train equipment. The latter, at least three times a day, is a place of much interest, and deserves a few words of description.

Pullman would scarcely own the diner as an offspring of his invention. A long table down the middle, at which perhaps twenty people can sit at one time, and a bar at the end, at which all kinds of light and strong drinks are served, and toothsome delicacies dear to the Russian heart, like caviare, sardines, and other little fishes “biled in ile,” are eaten. At the long table _table d’hôte_ meals are served, consisting of three or four courses, and one can also order what he chooses, at a fixed price. The meals are usually one rouble each, and though not luxurious, from the American dining-car point of view, they are quite sufficient for the average traveller, and worth the price asked for them. To be sure, one must get used to the greasy Siberian soup and to the chunks of tough stewed meat, which may be beef, mutton, or pork, one is never certain which. But travellers who choose to go across Siberia should not be squeamish, and to think of eating in a dining-car, however primitive, while whirling across the plains a little south of Kamchatka, is enough to kill the spirit of criticism in the most confirmed growler who ever went around the world.

It only remains to be said that the road-bed of the Eastern Siberian railway is well made, but seems to lack permanent stone ballast, the bridges are substantial iron structures, the piers and culverts are thoroughly built of cut stone, the embankments are smooth and well sodded, but the rails are light, and, it would seem, must be replaced by heavier ones before any high rate of speed can be attained.

IV

FROM VLADIVOSTOCK TO KHABAROFFSK

The distance from Vladivostock to Khabaroffsk is a little less than five hundred miles, and it requires fully twenty-nine hours to cover it, so it will be seen that the trains are not run on the “Empire express” plan. However, before we had been many days in Siberia such a rate of progress had come to seem speed itself. The stations on the eastern end of the Siberian railway are not many, for the villages are few and far between, but we make up for the fewness of the stops by spending a long time at each station. Still we can occupy the waiting time very pleasantly by getting many, though fleeting, glimpses of Siberian life. The stations themselves are usually wooden buildings, neat and attractive and prettily painted. A picturesque water-tower is always a feature of the grounds, and usually an underground store-house, sodded over, that looks like an Oklahoma cyclone cellar. In this, doubtless, provisions are kept from freezing during the long Siberian winter. All the principal stations have buffets, where thirsty Russians refresh themselves with vodka, kvass, and other national drinks.

The villages usually consist of a few log-houses, with an occasional more pretentious frame house, but they are neat and attractive, and compare very favorably with the villages on our own Western frontier. The most interesting object at all these stations was the line of country men, women, and children who had brought the products of their farms to sell to the hungry travellers. Every station had its hucksters, not noisy or obtrusive, but waiting patiently in an orderly line for customers. Bottles of milk for ten kopeks, hard-boiled eggs for ten kopeks a dozen, huge loaves of black, sour bread in which the Siberian rejoices, chunks of fried meat and fried fish, huge pickled cucumbers, bottles of home-brewed kvass, a kind of innocent pop beer, were among the comestibles offered for sale. The hucksters were all hearty, healthy specimens of humanity, not refined or elegant in feature or dress--this could scarcely be expected in this new land--but wholesome, honest-faced settlers, capable, evidently, of laying deep and strong the foundations of an empire. I am told that many of them are dissenters from the Greek Church, and that they live godly and simple lives, and are much respected by their neighbors, and in this part of the country at least are unmolested by the government, unless they try to proselyte among adherents of the national faith. Most of them, too, are vegetarians. Every village has its church, often embowered in a little park of green, and the towers of blue and green, colors which the Siberians greatly affect for their churches, and bright copper domes, shining in the brilliant sun, always gave a touch of pleasing color to the scene, and showed that the people were not wholly given to buying and selling and getting gain in these little raw railway settlements.

The costumes of the people who flocked to the railway stations were most picturesque and interesting. Red was decidedly the favorite color with the women, and red of every shade and hue. Dull red and bright red, Turkey red and blood red, crimson, magenta, scarlet, and crushed strawberry. Often several, if not all, of these colors were combined in the same costume in a way which, I suppose, would have set the teeth of our fashion-plate ladies on edge, but which, after all, was undeniably picturesque.

The men were usually clad in a loose blouse, belted around the waist, and loose trousers tucked invariably into huge top-boots that reached nearly to the knee. Many times these boots looked to be by far the most expensive feature of the costume. As a Mexican peasant will often wear a sombrero, it is said, worth as much as his coat and trousers and boots, mule and saddle--in fact, the whole outfit combined--so the Siberian peasant clothes the other end of his anatomy with equal care, and even if he must go in rags, will bankrupt himself on his boots.

At all these stations the military were strongly in evidence, as is not unnatural, since this is a military road and the large places are all military headquarters. Everywhere, in the cars and out, officers and soldiers were to be seen. At least every other man you met seemed to be in uniform. But they, too, were invariably polite and showed nothing of the haughty arrogance and devil-may-care air often exhibited by the soldiery of Germany and other army-ridden countries. In fact, I was struck on this railway ride, and on all my other journeys in Siberia, by a certain quiet, dignified, self-contained air that the people displayed. The hucksters are not insistent on your buying their wares. The cabmen are not vociferous. The few beggars are not obtrusive. It is as though the vast, lonely stretches of their homeland had somehow impressed themselves upon the character of the people. The broad reach of upland and prairie, the noble hills, the wide stretch of blue heavens above them, the long, serious winter, the strenuous conditions of their life in this virgin land, have developed a national character, which seems never to have acquired the noise and bustle and artificial “hustle” of city-dwellers. On the whole, it is a pleasing, restful, and, I should think, likable type of character to which these surface indications point. I felt that I was back in the early days of New England, among the Pilgrim fathers and mothers of a new empire, as I looked into these earnest, frank, and serious faces, and as I looked I had large hope for the empire they are founding.

The parish priest is also a picturesque and interesting factor of village life. He often came to the station to take part in the one excitement of the day, the arrival of the daily passenger train. He was usually clad in flowing robes of black, with a close-fitting purple cap, while a huge gold or silver crucifix dangled from his neck. His hair is always long and curly. Whether the Greek priests were chosen for their curly hair or indulged in the use of curling-irons when preparing their morning toilet was a question which interested the ladies in our party. They seemed to mingle with their people on terms of benevolent equality, and their kindly and gracious presence shed a benediction even upon the railway platform. They were not averse to having their pictures taken, and the camera enthusiasts “snapped” the holy fathers with the greatest freedom.

The kodak is not unknown in Siberia, but it is evidently much more of a novelty than in the west, and always attracted crowds of staid peasants who wanted to look into the “finder” and see the resultant picture. Some were quite disappointed that the completed picture could not immediately be taken out of the camera and shown to them. One gorgeous railway official, much be-braided and be-spangled with gilt, insisted on having his black-bearded face transferred to the sensitive film. He posed with his most radiant expression, without any exhortation to “look pleasant.” He followed our party about, and apparently expressed every good wish for our successful journey, though our knowledge of Russian was not equal to his voluble good wishes, and, finally, just as the train pulled out of his station, he handed us a paper on which he had written a request that we telegraph him of our safe arrival at Blagavestchensk, a city on the Amour River, a thousand miles further west. A kindly fellow-feeling that, to be provoked while the train stopped “ten minutes for refreshments.”

Fifty miles after leaving Vladivostock the railway climbs to a considerable plateau, and the trees disappear, while open prairie land takes the place of the forests that crown and gird the hill-sides. For a couple of hundred miles, at a rough guess, the open prairie land continues. The soil mostly seemed to be a rich black loam, and one would think it was capable of supporting millions of people where it now supports hundreds.

On the second morning of our journey, twenty hours after leaving Vladivostock, we woke up in a heavily wooded, hilly region, and I had to rub my eyes to make sure that I was not dreaming and had really awaked in Siberia and not in northern Maine. Here was the Moosehead Lake region duplicated, apparently, in every stump and white birch-tree and corduroy road. Here were the same tree-clad hills and rocky ravines, with glimpses of other and higher hills peering above the tree-tops. Here were the same clear running brooks, babbling over their rocky beds, the same patches of charred timber burned to clear the land, the same flora down to the dandelions, blue-bells, butter-cups, and cowslips. To be sure, there was not such a predominance of spruce-trees as in northern Maine, but their places were taken by the larch and cedar and other evergreens, and white and yellow birch, beech, and poplar, which predominated, made me feel very much at home.