Through Siberia

From Nikolaefsk to Khabarofka.—Proposal to move the port.—Military forces in the province.—Departure for Kamen Ruiboloff.—The Ussuri.—Visit to a parish priest.—The native Goldi.—Missions of the Russian Church.—Pay of missionaries.—Head waters of Ussuri.—The Sungacha.—Cossacks.—Visit to a Cossack stanitza.—Chinese houses.—Lake Khanka.—Arrival at Kamen Ruiboloff.

On Saturday night, August 30th, I left Nikolaefsk for Khabarofka, pleased with the prospect of travelling 700 miles where no English or American author had gone before. By Sunday morning we reached Tyr, and Mariinsk and Sophiisk were passed on Monday.⁠[1]

As we approached Khabarofka, on Thursday evening, summer appeared to have returned. The small steamer bound for the Ussuri did not start for 24 hours after our arrival, and so I had another day in Khabarofka, which just then was in a state of excitement. General Tichmeneff was there, with a commission sent to the Sea-coast government, to consider whether or not it was desirable to move the port from Vladivostock. In early years Ayan, and next Petropavlovsk, was the Russian port in the Pacific; then it was removed to Nijni Kamchatka, afterwards to Nikolaefsk, and from thence, in 1865, to Vladivostock. From a strategic point of view the situation of Vladivostock was considered unsatisfactory, and when it looked possible, in 1878, that England and Russia might go to war, the apprehensions of the authorities were aroused, and some of the foreign merchants of the port, preferring not to run the chance of a siege, decamped to Japan. The question then was whether the Government should spend some £300,000 or £400,000 in the defence of Vladivostock, to make it a military as well as a naval stronghold, or move to another harbour that could be more easily fortified. This was the talk of the province during my stay, and steam, telegraph, and postal services seemed busy in doing the behests of the commission. I caught sight of the general as he and his staff embarked on the Onon for Nikolaefsk; and I have since heard that he has been appointed military governor of the province, to live at Khabarofka, whilst Vladivostock continues as the head-quarters of the fleet, and Admiral Erdmann has been recalled to Russia, and is now Governor of the Port of Reval.

I made it my business to call upon Major Evfanoff, the commandant, as I wished to place Scriptures in the barracks, and to give other reading material for distribution among soldiers and Cossacks. At Nikolaefsk I had entrusted upwards of 1,200 books and tracts to Colonel Ossipoff, which he distributed during my stay; also at Sophiisk I left a parcel of 500 with Colonel Ussufovitch.⁠[2] The major expressed his willingness to carry out my wishes at Khabarofka, though he did not see how the books could be allowed to lie safely in the barrack-rooms for every one’s use. I was therefore obliged to ask him to carry out my intentions in the way that was most feasible, and he subsequently told me that the soldiers were highly pleased, and thankful for the distribution.

Besides the books left for the barracks and hospital, I did a stroke of business with the merchant Plusnin, selling him a bundle of 250 tracts, hoping thereby to get them distributed; and had not my stock failed, I would gladly have sold to him, or sent to Blagovestchensk, some copies of the Scriptures for the Molokans, who, I heard, are the largest purchasers, as I suppose they are the greatest readers, of the Scriptures on the Amur. Thus, having done what I could for Khabarofka, I prepared to leave it on Friday night, September 5th.

The steamboat agents and officials were exceedingly kind to me, apparently out of regard to what I was doing. A man said at Nikolaefsk that the chief director had been staying with him, and had he known that I was coming on such an errand, he should certainly have asked for me a free passage. As it was, the clerk would not hear of taking anything for the carriage of “the holy books,” and a first-class cabin was given for my sole use at a second-class fare, and this was repeated on the Ussuri.⁠[3] The great General Tichmeneff had been the last occupant of my cabin, and it was draped with Brussels carpet, apparently new, the stately proportions of the room being 6 feet long by 4 broad and 7 high, which I feared his Excellency, who was bigger than I in more senses than one, must have found exceedingly small.

The Ussuri, after the Sungari, is the most considerable of the rivers which join the Amur from the south. It flows from the south-west to the north-east in the valley that separates the two parallel ridges of the Shan-alin and the Sikhota-Alin mountains. At Khabarofka it measures nearly two miles wide, having at its mouth three islands and two sandbanks, with an ordinary depth of 10 feet, though after the summer rains it rises to 19 feet. Ascending 25 miles, the width diminishes to a mile and a half, the depth never exceeding 20 feet. The Ussuri was chosen in 1860 for a frontier, so that we now had Russian territory on the left, and Chinese territory on the right. The Chinese bank is for the most part flat, but the horizon is bounded by low mountain peaks. The Russian bank is mountainous and richly wooded, being formed of the western slopes of the coast range, which give birth to a number of streams, the Chirka, Bikin, Por, and others, which flow in on the eastern bank of the Ussuri. The largest of the streams flowing in on the western bank are the Nor, Muren, and Sungacha. At the confluence of the Chirka the river is a mile and a quarter wide. For 30 miles further the mountains retire, and the bottom land thus left is richly, though not thickly, wooded with aspens, willows, oaks, and elms. Opposite the mouth of the Por, which flows in on the Russian bank, were a few Chinese houses called Sunchui. We had passed a similar group on the first day’s travel, and subsequently came to three others, one of which, opposite Graphskaya, was called Vikul Uima. The right bank was almost uninhabited. Within 70 miles from Khabarofka we passed, on the Russian bank, six stations, and among them Kazakevich (where was a military post, at which I gave some books to Colonel Glen); Dyachenkova, a village of seven houses; and Trëkh-svyateeteley, or the “station of three saints.” Another euphonious name was given further on to a collection of houses called Vidnaya, or “the beautiful,” where the Ussuri divides into three channels.

On Sunday morning we arrived at Kozloffskaya, or the Goat station, having a telegraph office and a church. Service was over, and I called on the priest, John Voskresenskie (which means resurrection), a man who, if not—

His parish extended along the river’s bank, 30 miles to the north and 50 to the south, and he ministered to 10 villages. To the most distant he goes eight times a year, to the others once a month.⁠[4]

Most of the houses at Kozloffskaya had gardens, in some of which maize was growing. There was also a private chapel, erected by one of the tradesmen. At the next station, Vasilyeva, the Bekin flows in on the Russian bank, and the mountains here reach their highest.

On Sunday evening we passed a deserted village of 10 log houses, called Pashkova, from which the inhabitants had migrated in a body further south. On the Chinese bank the hills, well wooded to the top, approached the river. In the course of Sunday night we were delayed nine hours by fog, and during the next day stopped for a chat with a steam launch, used, if I mistake not, for the telegraph service. This was the only craft, excepting the canoes of the natives, that we met. Seven stations more were passed, and on Monday evening we arrived at Krasnoiarskaia, having completed half our voyage.

The principal natives of the Ussuri are the Goldi. In addition to what I read and saw of these people, I acquired a great deal of information from Alexander Protodiakonoff, the priest of Khabarofka, who has been a missionary hereabouts for 23 years. At Malmuish a missionary, who had 3,000 Goldi in his district, came on board the Onon, from whom I gathered that he had been a priest only a year, during which time he had baptized 50 persons. This man called one of the Goldi passengers to explain to me the use of my Gilyak idols.

The Goldi are of the Tunguse family, and belong to the Mongolian race. Their number was estimated by Collins at 2,560, but a missionary gave it me as about 6,000. Their habitat extends along the Amur to the country of the Gilyaks on the north, and on the south to the Upper Ussuri, whilst laterally it extends from the mouth of the Sungari to the sea coast. The mortality among them, as among the Gilyaks, is great, but they are, nevertheless, thought to be on the increase. Their physiognomy is distinctly Mongolian. They imitate some of the customs of the neighbouring Manchu, amongst others that of shaving off the hair, with the exception of a tail, which they wear on the top of the head. They do not, as a rule, cultivate the ground, even for garden produce; and such vegetable food as they use, millet or rice, they get in exchange for furs. We did, however, pass two or three Goldi huts where millet was under cultivation, and where the natives looked unusually dirty. Their houses and clothing I have already spoken of as resembling those of the Gilyaks.

Their communications with the outside world are extremely limited. The only foreigners they know are Russians and Chinese. When, therefore, the natives asked who I was, it was exceedingly difficult to make them understand, as they had never seen an Englishman before.⁠[5] The Goldi, long used to dealing with the Manchu, still use their money, weights, and measures, also their musical instruments. I was told they do not sing. Each village has its chief or elder, as formerly, under Manchu rule, but they are gradually becoming Russianized. Twenty years ago they used to have drunken fights, village with village, but this practice is now abandoned, and their treatment of the dead is growing more decent; not that they used, like their Mongolian congeners, the interior of their dogs for burying-places, the corpse being cut up and eaten, but they had in each village a house for the dead, which, in summer, stank so horribly as fairly to drive the people away. In these buildings the clothes and arms were placed with the corpse, and children and friends entered from time to time to mourn. A missionary told me he had seen one of these houses within the past 10 years, but that now the Goldi bury their dead, as do the Russians.

I spent part of my last evening at Khabarofka at the house of Peter Alexander, protodiakonoff, or arch deacon, of that town and two neighbouring villages, with a population of 260. He told me that the missionary district he superintended, in addition to his parish, extended from Orlofsk to Ekaterin-Nicolsk on the Amur, and from Busse on the Ussuri to Khabarofka, a river line of about 700 miles. At the time of my visit the priest and his brother were engaged on a translation of the Gospels, and as he did not appear to know how to get it printed, I recommended him to apply to the British and Foreign Bible Society, whose obliging and energetic agent in Petersburg, Mr. Nicolson, had desired me to be on the look-out for new Siberian translations. The Russian liturgy had been already translated into Goldi. The priest gave me a photograph of a group of Goldi Christians, wearing ear and nose rings, and embroidered garments of fish-skin. I set great store by the picture, for it is a rarity. The natives have not yet become vain of their faces, and do not like to be photographed. This group had been taken for the priest who baptized them. In the background is the village starosta, and in front the patriarch of the group, whilst a large number of the other figures are women. I know not whether many of them were the patriarch’s wives, of whom, before baptism, he intended to have a sale. If so, he must have been rich, for one of the Goldi, of whom I inquired the price of wives, said that if paid in money they cost from £50 to £70; and if in goods, then from four to seven pieces of “stuff,” but he did not say whether it was to be silk, linen, or blue nankeen.

Peter Alexander, the archdeacon, in 23 years up to October 1878, had baptized 2,000 natives; 403 were Orochons (he computed them at 3,000 in his district), and 1,501 were Goldi.⁠[6]

I had heard it stated that the Russian missionaries pay the heathen to be baptized. One of the missionaries told me that he believed there were priests who gave rewards to their converts, though he had not done so, and he thought it possible that a few natives presented themselves more than once to different priests for baptism, hoping to gain thereby. Another allegation, that of a nobleman, was that the converts were “bribed.” But this kind of statement is so frequently made by those who look coldly on mission work that I did not regard it as proven. My informant said that he had seen at Irkutsk that they gave to the Buriats shirts, crosses, and a few roubles; and that often the same Buriats came again for baptism the following year. Also an Ispravnik, interested in the Buriat missions, told me they sometimes gave converts five roubles or so when poor and privately persecuted. Accordingly, I inquired concerning this of the archdeacon, and he explained by telling me that the last 400 he had baptized had received nothing, but that previously each candidate had been supplied, at the expense of the Missionary Society at Blagovestchensk, with a new shirt, a cross to hang on the neck, and an ikon. The reason for this would be evident to any one who knows Siberia. There would be no towns near, where the Gilyaks, for instance, could buy crosses or ikons, and without the possession of these I suppose it is doubtful whether a Russian could be persuaded that he was a Christian at all. Again, the new shirt might represent the chrisom, or baptismal robe; and even if not, the people’s ordinary garments (of fish-skin and dog-skin) are so filthy that it would be only becoming that for once in their lives, at their baptism, they should look decently clean. The Protodiakonoff told me that on his journeys he used to take two or three hundred shirts and crosses, stay in a village for two or three days, and then sometimes baptize as many as 40 at once, especially when he could bring over a rich man, for then the poorer ones followed.

I came, therefore, to the conclusion that the charge of bribery on the part of the missionaries was not well founded; but, on the other hand, it was equally plain, upon their own showing, that the Russian missionaries differ widely from the English as to what constitutes proper qualification for baptism.⁠[7] I asked the priest at Khabarofka concerning the pay of missionaries, to which he replied that he to whom I had spoken from Malmuish received £25 per annum, and he himself received £30 as a missionary, and 241 roubles 62 kopecks, or about £24, from another source—say £55 in all. Others had represented to me that he received £250 a year; so perhaps this was exclusive of his offerings, which I heard might vary from 6d. to £1 for baptisms, and from 6s. to £5 for a wedding. Also it is usual to call in the priest after a death to say a “panychid,” or office, the name of which suggests a prayer all night long, but which lasts an hour, and for which it is usual to give from 6d. up to £1. Offertories, too, are collected each Sunday for the priest, orphans, church, etc., according to the object, for which each of several plates is carried. I gathered that the support given by the natives to their pastors and the church consists of the purchase of candles to the extent of a few pence and an occasional sable-skin. The house and library of the Protodiakonoff did not look as if its owner had an income of £250 a year; but his home was neat and clean, though simply furnished, and his wife and daughters were becomingly dressed. I was glad to hear an excellent report of this missionary, who was said to be a good man and learned. It was his custom actually to preach or read a sermon every Sunday, and he had a crowded church in consequence. I suppose he did not profess that his sermons were all original; for when, on board the Onon, he caught sight of a tract I had given to the steward’s boy, he immediately seized it, and wrote thereon “for a sermon.”

I thought this missionary the most hard-working priest I met in Siberia, and I was very glad to have obtained from him what I consider such trustworthy information concerning the Goldi. The last representatives of this race I saw at the little village of Krasnoiarskaia, 260 miles from Khabarofka, where a man and woman were standing on the banks. The man had a Manchu matchlock with no butt, but having a handle something like that of a pistol. It had a flint and hammer, pulled by a very clumsy trigger. Of the woman I bought her ear- or nose-ring.

On the fourth day, Tuesday, we arrived early in the morning at Busse, where was another telegraph station. Up to this point we had passed on the river 10 tributaries on the right bank, and 17 on the left. About an hour before noon, we changed our course from the Ussuri to the Sungacha; but, before leaving the Ussuri, I would observe that its head waters are formed by the confluence of the Daibecha and the Ulache, together with several smaller streams. One of them, the Sandugu, rises only about 50 miles from the coast at Olga Bay, and on the banks of the Daibecha gold has been found. I learn, too, from the North China Herald, that a few miles from Vladivostock (in what direction is not stated) coal-mines on a large scale are being opened up by Mr. S. Morris, whom I met, if I mistake not, and that they promise to yield well. The Ussuri is navigable several miles higher than Busse, and could a railway be constructed (to which the country offers, I am told, no special obstacle) from Vladivostock to the most southern navigable point of the Ussuri, a means of communication would be made for the carriage of merchandise and passengers, which would be of the utmost importance to the Ussuri valley, the only military and commercial route leading from the Amur to the southern parts of Russian Manchuria.⁠[8]

On the morning of Tuesday, the 9th of September, we entered the Sungacha. It enters at right angles on the western bank of the Ussuri. The Sungacha, flowing out of Lake Khanka, is the largest of the Ussuri tributaries, and the most tortuous river on which I have been. A straight line from its source to its mouth measures but 60 miles, whereas along its channel it measures nearly 180 miles, and I do not think we traversed a single half mile without a bend. Great skill, therefore, was required in steering both steamer and barge. So sharp were some of the curves that, when the former had turned the bend, the two crafts appeared to be proceeding in opposite directions. The steamer at such times slackened speed, but even then, on the first day, the barge twice ran into the muddy bank, and temporarily stuck fast. The Sungacha is from 20 to 60 feet deep, from 100 to 110 feet wide, with a current of two knots. In some parts it is barely 100 feet wide, and in two places only from 8 to 12 feet deep.

Black and turbid as was the water of the Ussuri, it was limpid compared with that of the Sungacha, which was unusable for cooking. A supply of Ussuri water was therefore taken on board, and this implies a good deal, since the Siberians are not too nice in this respect, and are accustomed to the use of river and surface water only. I saw turtles in the Sungacha, and learned that this river, as well as Lake Khanka and the Ussuri, abounds with all kinds of fish, especially carp, sterlet, and salmon.⁠[9]

There joined us at Busse a telegraph officer named Adamson, who spoke German, and with whom I was able to employ my smattering of that tongue to good effect. Hitherto I had not exchanged many ideas with my four fellow first-class passengers, one of whom was a veterinary surgeon, and two others Russian and Polish officers. The horse-doctor and the Pole seemed to have no mental resources whatever; and regarding them as types of Siberian “society,” it was not difficult to understand the dismal complaint of a physician I met, that he had no congenial companions, there being nothing cared for in the town above the level of wine or cards. These two passengers played incessantly, and, excepting at meals and during sleep, I doubt if cards were out of their hands for a couple of hours during the passage. One night the Pole, even after he had gone to bed, got up to play another game. The captain was very obliging, and gave me a chart he had made of the Ussuri, which is valuable, there being only two original writers, as far as I know, on any considerable portion of this river—namely, Venyukoff and Prejevalsky.⁠[10]

On the day we entered the Sungacha, we came to one station only—Markova, which was the last collection of houses that could be dignified with the name of a village. All the stations beyond were Cossack pickets, and consisted of one or perhaps two houses, at which horses are kept for the postal service in winter. There were six of these pickets beyond Markova, making a total of 36 stations between Khabarofka and Kamen Ruiboloff. Among them are four villages only with a church—namely, Kazakevich, Ilyinska, Kozloffski, and Venyukova, with a resident priest to each of the first three. Among the stations were likewise 21 Cossack stanitzas or settlements, containing from one to a hundred houses each. Also, between Kamen Ruiboloff and Vladivostock are ten stanitzas and three churches. Markova was a Cossack stanitza, and as we stayed there for an hour or two, I enlisted the services of Mr. Adamson, and peeped at Cossack life.

Cossacks of old were warlike people, who lived a free-and-easy life on the border, frequently ravaging their neighbours’ herds, whom the Russians reduced to subjection, but left them many privileges. When the Amur came into the hands of the Tsar, it became necessary that the Russian frontier should be guarded, and, if possible, settled. General Muravieff therefore took many of the children of convicts, called them Cossacks, and placed them, together with voluntary emigrants from the Trans-Baikal province, in stations, about 10 miles apart, along the Amur and the Ussuri. Land was allotted to them, and they were supplied with cows, horses, farming-stock, and provisions for a year, after which time they were expected to take care of themselves.⁠[11] The mounted Cossacks are employed to keep the boundaries, and many of the foot Cossacks act as police. When not engaged in service they are free to farm, rear cattle, hunt, or, in fact, turn their hands to what they please, though they are liable to be called up in time of war, almost to the depopulation of a whole neighbourhood.⁠[12] This accounted for the deserted village of Pashkova, and I learned that the service is not unpopular; for when the Government wanted 800 men wherewith to found a colony on the shores of Lake Khanka, there was no lack of volunteers—a circumstance sufficiently explained by the fact that in such cases they get new farming stock and provisions.⁠[13]

On the Ussuri the Cossacks are expected to keep off the Chinese smugglers, and even traders, who are not allowed to settle on the Russian bank except under proper restrictions. Cossack habitations, therefore, represent the utmost bounds of Russian life.

Markova consisted of rather more than a dozen houses, of which only seven were inhabited. I entered some of them, and was struck with their cleanly and orderly arrangement, as compared with the houses of the Russian peasantry. In the first the floor was strewn with hay, the walls were whitewashed, and on one of them was displayed a quantity of table ware, consisting of seven forks, four spoons, and a ladle. On a plate-shelf stood a teapot, slop-basin, two dishes, and four plates, a mug, cup, and two glasses. Near the door hung two bundles of squirrel-skins, and a sheepskin coat, whilst in the corner was a well-known feature in every Cossack’s house,—a handmill for grinding corn, worked by the Cossack’s wife. A larger mill in the village was turned by horse-power, but with the slender result of grinding only 3 cwt. of meal a day. I saw, too, rope made of lime-tree bark, good for use in the water, and large fish-hooks on which the fish of the Sungacha hook themselves whilst playing with the float. In another house was a Cossack’s hunting gun, with a two-legged rest and a flint lock, which is said still to be preferred to more modern kinds. In a third house I bought some hazel-nuts. I had been unable to procure any fruit since leaving Khabarofka, nor could I succeed at Krasnoiarskaya in getting cucumbers.

After leaving Markova the banks of the Sungacha continued flat, and were all but uninhabited. Our ceaseless windings on the river continued till Wednesday evening, when we arrived at Lon Mayo, on the edge of Lake Khanka, where, on the Chinese bank, were two small houses. They were inhabited, apparently, by men only, and those very dirty. Within the house I entered there was an inner compartment, where, among other objects, I observed a heavy stone for grinding corn, a well-made wicker shovel, and a huge brandy bottle, or cask, made of a sort of coarse papier-maché. The building was thatched, and at a distance of two or three yards stood the chimney, constructed of the hollowed trunk of a tree, and plastered with mud at the bottom. In the yard was a cart, with clumsy Chinese wheels, and troughs for cattle, hollowed, like canoes, from the trunks of trees. Bricks, made of mud and rushes, were drying in the sun, and men were busy pulling hemp into threads. In the garden was a small heathen temple, the size of a sentry-box, into which they did not object to my looking. Two poles stood in front, and inside, a table, with a picture over it, a pan and vase, with joss-sticks and some fish-hooks. Not far distant I noticed a field of “buddha” or millet growing, and attempted to approach it by crossing a boggy plot, but was compelled by mosquitoes to beat a speedy retreat. The Ussuri and Sungacha are famous for these insects, as was suggested by the mosquito blinds of the steamer; but a slight breeze and the comparative lateness of the season delivered us.

The Khanka Lake might be called a “Mediterranean,” for such is the meaning of the Chinese word “Khan-Kaï,” which the Russians have changed into Khanka, spelt also Khinka, Hinka, and Kenka.⁠[14] Its superficial extent is more than 1,200 square miles, but, notwithstanding its size and high-sounding name, it is little more than a huge inundation, for its depth is in no part more than seven feet. In early summer one can sometimes walk into the lake, half a mile from the bank, without finding more than 10 inches of water. Hence I had been warned that the steamer might possibly not be able to cross, in which case it would be necessary to proceed 40 miles through Chinese territory, round the north of the lake, by a road on which there is but one post-station, and so to re-enter Russian territory at a point on the north-west shore; for the frontier does not skirt the lake, but crosses it from Lon Mayo, at an angle of 45 degrees. My host at Nikolaefsk on one occasion was obliged to accomplish this journey on the back of a cow. This, however, I was spared, for the thunderstorms of June and July, with the south-east winds, had brought their usual supply of rain, and caused the lake to enlarge, so that it assumed the proportions of an inland sea. At ordinary times the Khanka is divided into two parts, the “great lake” and the “little lake,” which latter is also called “the Dobuka.” From the captain’s chart I calculated it to be 20 miles long by three wide. The two lakes are separated by a sandy strand, of regular proportions, bending towards the north in such a manner as to continue with exactness the curves of the banks from the east and west. This strand, developing its arc with geometrical precision, is only like many others found on the shores of the ocean; but few similar cases occur on the banks of a lake of such comparatively small extent. Such strands, for the most part, are formed when the locality is sheltered from the winds, which do not come regularly from the same quarter.⁠[15]

I suppose that the water is sometimes rough, for the good-natured captain kindly inquired whether I should be afraid if the boat rocked about. I had not at that time traversed two oceans, but was able to assure him, nevertheless, that I hoped for the best. The windows were as solemnly closed and battened as if we were about to cross the Atlantic; and towards night we steamed into the lake, to find it as calm as a mill-pond. After steering south-east for about 50 miles we arrived, at dawn, at Kamen Ruiboloff, or the Fisherman’s Stone, thus finishing a voyage from Khabarofka of 466 miles, or 510 if we had gone to the stations on the shores of the lake.

We had made a quicker passage than was expected; perhaps partly to be accounted for by an “attraction” which no doubt influenced the captain. He spoke a little French, and communicated to me that on the day after our arrival he was to be married to the niece of the merchant Plusnin, of Khabarofka. They have certain domestic and semi-religious preliminaries to a Russian wedding, as I have stated, which I was anxious to see, for we have nothing corresponding to them in England; but unfortunately I missed the opportunity at Kamen Ruiboloff, for although I rose soon after daylight, the captain had fled, and I hastened to proceed, remembering well that the foremost traveller at the post-house gets the untired horses.