Empires and Emperors of Russia, China, Korea, and Japan Part 3

[A] It is needless to add that since this was written Prince Chilkoff has earned a world-wide reputation by his management of the railway transport during the Russo-j.a.panese war.

His study is a large room in the Ministry of Railways, which is a country-like residence, standing in extensive grounds. In the centre of his famous office are two large tables, covered, as are also the walls, with books, plans, and railway charts; and as he kindly explains the route I shall take, he gets up and points it out on a geographical map opposite his writing-table. What an enormous territory this Asiatic continent is! I look at it with a kind of amazement and a sort of fear.

Shall I really get across it in a comfortable railway carriage, as you would go on a trip into the country? My host seems to divine my thoughts, and with a smile a.s.sures me that from one end to another the line is entirely under the same central management, and a telegraph apparatus from the head office brings him unbroken news throughout the entire length. "I quite understand it might seem strange and unusual to other countries, but you must not forget our tendencies and our force consist in centralization." He has made the Siberian journey again and again, and gives me most valuable information respecting what to see, and where to stop, and what is really of interest. It is a grand work, and, considering the s.p.a.ce of time in which it was achieved, and its extent, it seems nearly incredible. Including the branch lines, the Siberian Railway is over ten thousand kilometres long, and its construction was begun only twelve years ago. Prince Chilkoff has, moreover, under his management, 10,400 post offices, and over 100,000 miles of telegraph line.

I leave his house charged with valuable hints and a packet of letters and recommendations; and Prince Chilkoff, with a cordial hand-shake, repeats, "Good luck! and don't forget to let me know if anything should prove unsatisfactory."

My last day at St. Petersburg is even more crowded than the rest of the week has been. Calls of farewell, final preparations, leaving cards and inscribing my name in visiting-books, occupy the greater part of it. But this going to and fro gives me opportunity of seeing it again from end to end in all its immensity before I leave. What an extraordinary idea to build a town in the midst of a mars.h.!.+ to dig ca.n.a.ls where one cannot build roads, and to be surrounded with a plain as flat as a table. Peter the Great must have been very much impressed by Amsterdam! There are corners in St. Petersburg drenched and misty as on the borders of the Zuyder Zee. But if it has reminiscences of quiet, home-like Holland, again there are brilliant thoroughfares like a Parisian boulevard. The Nevsky Prospect, in its bustle and traffic, full of colour and of life, is unique. Nevsky is the main artery of the capital--palaces belonging to the Imperial family and the grandees, public buildings, bazaars, workshops, and every edifice you can think of. And each is of different style, each of different height, and each is painted in a different hue of the rainbow. Its main feature--I dare say attraction--is its incoherence.

During this last week the Russian metropolis presented itself to me from a thousand different sides, and in how many different lights too! Trying to remember them all before I depart for good, I do so with preference for what was pleasant, instructive, and good. Besides, I do not come to criticize, I merely come to pa.s.s through, and so I prefer to put down in my diary what might prove instructive. I fully understand the great attraction which St. Petersburg always has for foreigners. I admit it also, though I should not choose it for my residence or for my sphere of labour. The polish is perfect, and of course, if one does not belong to a country, as a pa.s.sing visitor one scarcely requires more. The conditions of life--at least, for the well-to-do--are most agreeable; manners all that can be desired; refinement exquisite. I do not think you can come in contact anywhere with better informed and more richly equipped people than here. Some of the scientific inst.i.tutions, like the Naval Academy and the Public Library, are quite remarkable; and the new Polytechnic School--a regular town in itself, with its five faculties and its laboratories--stands alone. Then the museums and galleries contain the most celebrated art treasures. The famous Hermitage, large as it is, can scarcely hold them all. Antiques, gems, jewels, weapons, vases, engravings, and pictures, all of the first order; and I must say they appreciate what they do possess, and the arrangements of the museums are excellent. Unquestionably there is a highly intellectual current, or, if you would prefer to call it so, undercurrent, which comes to brilliant manifestations here and there; sometimes most unexpectedly, amid squalor and debris.

The huge electric globes cast a cold and glaring light over the gloomy square in front of the Moscow station. A dense crowd invades pa.s.sages, halls, and waiting-rooms, and, like the swelling tide, groans, surges, and finally overflows the platforms. Travelling in Russia has a different meaning altogether from that which it possesses elsewhere--it really means a removal: a regular deplacement. Then, people seem to leave for ever: all their belongings appear to follow them, so enormous and so diverse is their kit. From simple boxes and knapsacks to kitchen utensils and even furniture, it embraces everything one could desire in one's own abode. And afterwards, when they take leave, their shaking of hands, embracing, and tears, give the impression that they never are to meet again. And this is only the local train, taking me as far as Moscow. What will it be there, at the Siberian terminus?

The journey lasts only one night, across the famous wheat-growing plains, and to-morrow, in the early hours of the morn, I hope to reach the ancient capital of the Tsars. I want to break my journey to see the ancient metropolis of the mighty rulers, to revisit all the famous scenes where so many important chapters of eastern history were once displayed to view. I want to see again the towering Kremlin, with its mosaic basilicas and treasure-houses, slumbering at present in quiet dreams of the past under their golden domes. And I want to get prepared and acclimatized to a certain extent for Siberia; for Moscow belongs altogether to the other continent; it is really the capital of Asia.

III

THROUGH EUROPEAN RUSSIA

The fading disc of the sinking sun disappears slowly beneath the horizon of the waving corn-fields. The first day of the journey is over. It was uneventful, calm, but it has not lacked interest. We have ploughed through endless fields of rich land, with a peaceful agricultural aspect. Here and there a few scattered villages of dark mud huts, and large white churches. Sometimes there is a country seat of some landed gentleman, buildings which remind me very much of an Indian bungalow.

They are very long and of only one storey high, half hidden by ancient trees. On the high roads peasants are just returning in endless streams, with carts and kettles, from their daily work. However far off they may have been working, they always return home for the night, for Russian peasants seldom live on their farms. The whole picture speaks of such perfect peace: the slowly moving and singing workmen, and the little villages bathed in the afterglow, express such simple happiness, that I can scarcely realize that some of those very districts have been the scene of violence and cruel outrages. It is indeed difficult to believe the reports of the latest troubles and dissatisfaction which have burst forth in the midst of the quietest of mujiks. How difficult it is to understand the inner feelings of these quaint folk! Sleepy as they may look, uncultured, and a couple of centuries behind the rest of the world, they can yet occasionally awaken; and when they awake, their pa.s.sions burst out like as a stream of lava without restraint.

During the day we stop at many smaller and larger places, nearly all insignificant, and generally very far from the station--sometimes so far that I can scarcely understand the reason of our stopping. For miles and miles around there is no human habitation, and we wonder by whose hands all those fields are worked. The most important towns.h.i.+p seemed to be Marsanka. It is a typical Russian country town, with its wooden houses, each surrounded by a flower-garden, and each garden fenced by lattice-work. The houses and gates are all painted in bright colours. A river encloses the entire place like a loop, and beyond the river are low-lying hills. The main feature of the place is given by innumerable windmills, of all sizes and of every imaginable construction--all equally conspicuous, equally high, and equally equipped with gigantic sails. They all whirl--they all work as if they would never stop. I do not think I ever saw so many windmills within view at one time; I counted more than a hundred. What a fertile country it must be, to keep so many busy!

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARSANKA AFTER A WATER COLOUR DRAWING BY THE AUTHOR "The main feature of the place is given by innumerable windmills" To face page 28]

It is night as we arrive at Pienza, and we can see nothing except the railway station; but, as I hear, this is the main sight of the place. A fine building, though constructed of wood. I must also add that the stations all along the line are fine and convenient. They are well kept, a great many have restaurants, abundantly stocked, with richly laid out tables, and fair attendance. Prices are high, but this is to be expected, considering the distance from which they sometimes procure their provisions. Here at Pienza I find even luxury. Grapes and peaches from the Crimea, wine from Germany and France, and all kinds of American and English conserves; and, as ornamentation, fine old French candelabra, derived probably from some ruined n.o.ble's residence.

The station is animated. A great many officers and a great many officials, all dressed in uniform. Some are travellers, some have just come from the town for mere amus.e.m.e.nt. The great express has not yet lost its novelty, and twice a week is the object of universal admiration. Our train consists of two first-cla.s.s and three second-cla.s.s carriages, a dining-car, luggage-van, tender, and engine. A long corridor leads from one end to the other, and affords a convenient walk for daily exercise. The compartments are nicely fitted up; the one I occupy, a so-called saloon, affords me a comfortable home during the journey. The dining-car is fitted up in American style; and, as I see, all the seats are taken from morning till night. To my fellow-pa.s.sengers their meals seem to be their only occupation, for if the train stops, and there is a restaurant, they alight and commence each time a fresh meal. Indeed, my fellow-pa.s.sengers are great eaters and great talkers; they seem to speak about everything with the same ease and unreserve.

Especially when they start on their own countrymen and government, there is no end to their sarcasm and witty remarks. To any one liking to hear about the local conditions, the Siberian journey gives an exceptional opportunity. People soon become acquainted, and if so they are delighted to find somebody to whom to grumble. Before twenty-four hours had pa.s.sed I learnt more about the corn-fields and little villages we skirted; about Russian agricultural and industrial aspirations; about agrarian Plehve and M. de Witte's commercial enterprises than I ever should have expected.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAMARA "I shall make a short stay at Samara" To face page 30]

It seems that Russia is at present pa.s.sing through a serious crisis which affects everybody, rich and poor--especially the latter. The conditions of the peasantry are often very hard, though the reports we read are generally exaggerated. Education and moral training might do a great deal to lift them out of their stagnant state, to inspire self-reliance, and awaken sound ambitions; but this is exactly what appears to be lacking, and where so much good could be done. And the people deserve education, for these Russian peasants, as a whole, are a fine stock--strong and healthy, easy to lead, and not difficult to improve. Even more, they have generally an unspoilt heart, and are capable of grat.i.tude. What I hear unanimously abused is the local administration. If I were to believe half what I heard about the unworthiness of the official employes, their untruthfulness and bribery, it would be bad enough, and would easily explain the reason of the continuous outbreaks. The antagonism between the so-called Progressives and Conservatives is becoming more intolerant, and strivings for reform on a smaller or larger scale seem to be universal.

Some are hopeful, some pessimistic; some see Russia's future secured on the same old patriarchal and primitive foundations, others believe in commercial prosperity, trade, and advance. It is a great problem, and it is equally interesting to listen to the advocate of one or other theory.

Yet I am afraid that in their sanguine antic.i.p.ations they are equally far from what will prove to be the reality.

All the talk I listen to serves as a description of, or comment on, the uninterrupted panorama which unfolds itself without ceasing before us as we glide swiftly along. It is a kind of prologue to the epic of this land which we shall soon leave altogether.

To-morrow we shall cross the Volga by the famous steel bridge of nearly a mile. I shall make a short stay at Samara, and shall visit its well-known orphanages, asylums, and other charitable establishments which the town is so proud of; and, somewhat farther towards the east, the train will wind along the Ural Mountains to Siberia.

IV

WESTERN SIBERIA

At half-past nine in the morning we cross the boundary of the two continents. We are in Asia. A kind of mysterious feeling impresses itself on my mind. New sensations infuse themselves into me. Encouraging hopes awaken, which I trust will give me endurance to carry out my work and aims.

Asia! What a field for exploration! What an unlimited area for higher aspirations! Modest as our endeavours may be, the result may prove incalculable in the future. From a commercial, civilizing, or spiritual point of view, there is an equally vast field for action.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE VOLGA "The famous steel bridge of nearly a mile"

To face page 32]

Our last day in Europe pa.s.sed on the Baskir land--a high plateau, a severe and cold region, covered with rich pasture and inhabited by a semi-nomadic race of the same name. Fine people they are, of heavy countenance and magnificent frame; very conservative in their habits, very clannish in their intimacies, and even today living from preference in tents. They wear sheepskins; cover their heads, like Eskimos, with furs; and, instead of boots, roll round their feet and legs skins fastened like a cla.s.sic sandal with endless straps of leather. They look uncouth, but picturesque. Their movements are unquestionably plastic.

This race is one of the finest of the Tartar stock, and I am sorry to learn that they are slowly dying out.

We stop at different places, and on each platform there are many Baskirs, men and women all looking very much alike. They are bringing from their encampments milk, eggs, and poultry, to sell. I ask several of them the prices of their goods, and I am astonished at the cheapness of the market. The price of meat per pound amounts to the trifle of five kopecks; while for twenty roubles one may buy a horse, and a good one too. The soil is rich, its fertility is exceptional, and it possesses every quality for agricultural purposes. The future of the district is bound to be prosperous, and, what is more, the climate is most invigorating--raw and windy, but withal reminding me very much of the northern Scottish moors. Even the scenery, when it becomes a little more hilly, has a certain likeness to Scotland, and the same charm of solitude and melancholy. All this district impressed me very much, both from a geographical and an ethnological point of view, and by its magnitude it cannot fail to appeal to our minds.

The famous Ural range, I must simply confess, did not come up to my expectations. I understand the beauty of glaciers and snow-clad peaks, barren as they may be, and I fully appreciate all the beauty of a vast plain, or the charm of a sand-covered desert; but the medium--what is neither one nor the other, neither handsome nor grand, but what so many admire and call "pretty scenery"--never appeals to me. What interested me more was the economic possibility of this long stretch of slopes. The extent of the treasures of this range is yet unknown, though there are mines which were flouris.h.i.+ng in the eighteenth century. Suleta's shafts were sunk in 1757, and are still under the workman's tools. The mines belong largely to the Crown; they are partly worked by societies, and some are private property. The Strogonoffs and Beloselskys have all made their great wealth in these mines. Some of them seem to be inexhaustible. What is more, besides gold, silver, lead, iron, almost every mineral seems to be contained in their depths. We met a great many workmen as we stopped, apparently without any reason, on our way, winding up endless zigzags to the top of the mountain. I am rather astonished that they do not in the least look like miners. They are neither blackened by coal-dust or smoke, nor have they the gloomy expression and sad countenance of those people who are bound to work and live underground, deprived of the rays of the sun for the greater part of their lives. They look much more like farmers--people of bright disposition. I hear the wages are low; but their needs are small, so that they can easily procure all that seems necessary to their happiness. On the top of the mountain there stands a lofty granite obelisk, with a short but significant inscription. There are only two words: on one side "Europe," on the other "Asia."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIBERIAN HOME "Very conservative in their habits" To face page 34]

We are in Western Siberia, in the midst of an expanse of steppe. It seems to be boundless, and it has nothing to mark its s.p.a.ce. It is like a sea, with all the suggestiveness of the ocean. Our train crawls like a black reptile, like a monster of a fairy tale, breathing its steam and black smoke against the cloudless sky. What a sky it is! Pale blue, cold and without a single cloud. I am afraid I must again contradict the general opinion of travellers about this corner of the earth. I have repeatedly heard travellers tell of the gloom and tediousness of the journey across it. I cannot agree with either remark. Instead of gloom, I rather think repose would be a more appropriate expression to describe its true character; and tediousness is really a question of personal disposition.

I again break my journey at several places, and always find more of interest and more new material for study than I should have dared to antic.i.p.ate. Western Siberia is a marvellous territory, and it possesses all that is required to make a country flouris.h.i.+ng. I quite understand the great interest which it arouses, and it is natural that the country should invest money lavishly for the furtherance of its progress. They have built up in a comparatively short time some important towns.h.i.+ps.

Petropaulovsk, and especially Omsk, Tobolsk, and Tomsk, are already well-known centres, provided with richly endowed public inst.i.tutions.

The Government maintains some large schools and colleges, and does everything in its power to attract new settlers to the uninhabited regions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SIBERIAN TOWN "They have built up in a comparatively short time some important towns.h.i.+ps" To face page 36]

The colonization of Siberia is one of the most important national questions--to people thousands and thousands of square miles; to exploit all its resources; to make a country where there is now only surface and s.p.a.ce. And the Government knows how to offer attractions. Land is granted under the most favourable conditions; there is no taxation for the first three years, seed is provided on easy terms, and, if required, agricultural implements and machinery are sold on the instalment system.

The journey is nearly free, the fare being reduced to a few kopecks per hundreds of miles. Petropaulovsk is bound to become one day the junction of Central Asia, when railway lines will run to the north along the Obi valley and south _via_ Atmolinsk, to Tashkend and Bokhara. All this is well thought out, and already carefully planned. Its accomplishment seems to be a mere question of time, and, as indeed is well known as an historical fact, time has never seemed to be an obstacle to the achievement of any aspiration conceived by Russia.

The long line across the vast desert area is marked at intervals by smaller or larger railway stations. For whom, and what for? one might ask, as there is nothing in sight. No town, no village, not even one human habitation. But, we are told, Government will soon build a towns.h.i.+p. It already has a name, and some of those imaginary cities even have a small Greek basilica, surmounted with glaring green cupolas.

Again, some are partly finished, and their wide streets are bordered by a few wooden buildings. At the corners there are commodious shops; on the open square very likely a school; near it store-houses for wheat and temporary lodgings for settlers. It all looks so attractive from the railway station that I wonder if they do it on purpose to make it tempting.

Some of these new places do not entirely lack artistic beauty, and certainly they all have the same characteristic of appearing very national, holding firmly to the native taste and following the Muscovite style of architecture. Everything, it must be confessed, is in keeping with the surroundings, and at the same time practical and adequate to the locality. The new settler builds a small house of wood, and at the same time tries to make it look neat by carving it elaborately if he can, and never fails to paint the wood in all kinds of bright colours.

V

CENTRAL SIBERIA

From unlimited pastures we pa.s.s to endless forests. For days we are surrounded by magnificent vegetation, including beautiful trees of varied hues. There are dark oaks and pale elms, copper beeches and silver birches, the colour of which is just turning. The foliage is fading, and as one pierces through their depths the leaves shake and rustle and pour down in golden showers. Beautiful this Siberian woodland is! Unknown, unpenetrated, striking in its virgin prime.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RAILWAY CHURCH SERVICE "A rolling Greek basilica" To face page 38]

The railway cuts through in a straight line for hundreds of miles, and there is nothing to be seen on either side but centenarian trees and feathery ferns. What a field of exploration for a botanist! What a collection of beautiful herbs and mosses! What exquisite wild flowers!

The colour of them is so deep and glorious, and the green of the gra.s.s is of the richest shade. Many of the species are scarcely known yet, and it is quite astonis.h.i.+ng to find, in these far-away regions, plants belonging to families of quite different lat.i.tudes. If the flora is so surprising, the fauna is even more so: animals of every size and of every description, from large bears to tiny squirrels. There are many kinds of quadrupeds: wolves, foxes, snow-leopards, wild goats, martens, sables, ermines, and all the innumerable members of the feline race. But what are even more interesting than the animal nature are the fossils found along the banks of the rivers and deep in the gloom of the earth.

Some magnificent specimens of antediluvian skeletons have been excavated, and these are zealously kept in the museums of St.

Petersburg, Moscow, and Irkutsk. And for the ornithologist it is a perfect land for research. The birds and their lives seem to have in Siberia a most interesting past, and the laws of migration offer a special field of observation. Some come from as far as Australia, while others choose for their winter home New Zealand. The theories explaining this mystery of nature are rather conflicting, and scientists have devised various explanations of these far-distant wanderings. The b.u.t.terflies and beetles are unique also; in fact, it is a world in itself lost in far-away Siberia.

The long track between Tomsk and Irkutsk has the reputation of being the dreariest and the most desolate part of the journey. I did not expect to find much, which may very likely be the reason that I was so surprised to come across towns like Krasnoyark, Kanks, and Udinsk. The first, especially, is an important centre for trade and business.

Besides wheat and other cereals, it is the great depot for the increasing exportation of skins, furs, tallow, grease, and lately b.u.t.ter. The export of b.u.t.ter is becoming of the greatest importance in Siberia. Farming is increasing from day to day, and the Danes accomplish a great deal in this respect. The yearly export to Europe, especially to the English market, is quite astonis.h.i.+ng, even more so when we take into consideration that there are no winter pastures, and that all the cattle must be kept on stable food. It is easy to understand the amount of labour and care it requires, and yet it must pay, considering the number of Danish families which come yearly to settle down in Siberia. For some time Krasnoyark has been the terminus of the Western Siberian line, and it derives its present importance partly from this fact. Udinsk is growing rapidly too, and is the centre of a vast area. Around its station I saw an enormous encampment of small Russian tarantas, or cars, heavily laden with piles of sacks. Barns near the line were packed with wheat and corn; and yet these stores do not seem to remain there long, for all through the journey we constantly pa.s.sed trains loaded with cereals. What will it be when all of this enormous land, the whole of Siberia, is under cultivation!

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photo, Levitsky_ _Copyright, Nops Ltd._ M. DE PLEHVE To face page 40]

It was most interesting to watch all these and many other features; to realize all that has been done already since the railway was constructed, and to conjecture the country in its full development; for nature seems to have provided it with everything. I am more and more astonished to find "dreadful Siberia" in reality as rich as, or even richer than its neighbour across the sea--the beautiful Canada.