September 2nd.—We leave Vladivostock with its mists and fogs to-day. I, for my part, shall be heartily glad when we can be comfortably by ourselves at Khabarovsk.
A great number of officers accompanied us as far as the boat on the Soungatcha river. We had a brilliant leave-taking. I received so many bouquets that I almost disappeared amongst the flowers. The railway-station was decked out with flags. A great crowd had assembled on the platform which was covered with red cloth; a special train, with a dinner-car attached to it, was awaiting us. Two sentinels were placed before our saloon-carriage. Whistles are given to signal our departure. The train steamed out of the station amid the ringing cheers of the crowd. Standing at the window we answer the salutes and hand-wavings. Our train crept along at the pace of a snail, making only twenty miles an hour. Our way leads along the sea-shore for some time, and then we enter a wide plain, disturbing the tiger with the locomotive.
At the first stoppage we are received in pomp. A triumphal arch has been raised, bearing our initials. A deputation of inhabitants came up to my husband and presented him with “Bread and Salt,” and the workmen of the railway-line handed me a bouquet almost too big to carry.
We move very cautiously and slowly, because yesterday the train which had been run on trial, went off the rails in this place. We see a number of mansas, Chinese workmen, repairing the line.
At five o’clock we arrived at the point at which the railway ended and stopped at Nikolskoe, a large military station. We were four hours late. Dr. Pokrovski and Mr. Koulomsine take from here the boat on the lake Khanka. They will await our arrival at a place called the “Third Post.” We chose to go by way of the carriage road, which will prolong our journey for at least a day or two.
My husband was received on the platform by General Kopanski, the commander of the troops, who drove us to his abode, situated about eight miles distant from the railway station. A group of peasants were awaiting my husband on the square before the church to offer up their petitions, very queer ones some of them. An old woman went on her knees holding her request on the top of her head, in which she asked Sergy to indicate to her the shortest way to Jerusalem! Our drive through the village caused a great sensation. The inhabitants stood on their thresholds and stared at us. I saw some peer at us from the windows, through opera-glasses. Before General Kopanski’s house a guard of honour presented arms to my husband, and a platoon of Cossacks defiled before him.
We are here for three days. Our host, though an old bachelor, knew how to make us as comfortable as possible.
September 3rd.—General Kopanski gave a grand dinner to-day in our honour. During the repast a military band played selections from “Faust.” The music led me to a far-away place; I had closed my eyes and saw St. Petersburg in vision. I kept back my tears with difficulty.
September 4th.—I did not leave my room until dinner-time, reading a heap of newspapers which had been forwarded from Khabarovsk; but the news was two months old. One is obliged to live behind date in this far-away country.
After dinner we went to the camp to assist at the evening retreat. The big camp, situated about five miles from Nikolskoe, was decorated with flags and lanterns of different colours. The soldiers received us with shouts and cheers. When prayers were ended, the drums beat the salute and a salvo of twenty-six cannons was fired, after which the spouse of the chief of the brigade offered us tea in a big tent.
September 5th.—To-day we are undertaking the most difficult part of our journey, and shall have to endure the misery of atrocious roads. At six o’clock in the morning our tarantass, a rattling post-chaise, was at the door. An escort of two hundred Cossacks on horseback is trotting close behind our carriage and on both sides of it, until our first stoppage where we have to change horses. A third hundred of Cossacks was sent on before, to be divided into parties of six men to escort us all the way.
Our cortège consists of seven carriages. Whilst we traverse the camp the soldiers forming a line on each side of us cheer us loudly; military bands play marches as we drive along. We plodded on steadily the whole morning and were shaken a good deal on the badly-made roads. The two first stations were kept by the post department, but at the third stopping-place a team of three horses, belonging to different Russian colonists, harnessed together with utter disregard to size, breed, and disposition, were awaiting us. The harness was rusty and mended with strings. The driver was with great difficulty inspired to action, and totally incapable of transmitting such inspiration to his animals, by coaxing words or whip. At last the poor hacks moved on, one pulling to the right, the other to the left. The road was completely deserted; we didn’t meet a living creature on our way. I was told that these spots were frequented by tigers, and when I asked a Cossack of our escort if we had no risk of meeting one, the man answered coolly that it might happen very easily. Not much comfort from that Cossack.
The roads were very bad, very hilly and rough. We climbed with difficulty the steep ascents, and descended with still greater difficulty. Our driver, a peasant boy of about sixteen, drove atrociously, cutting corners and racing down steep hills. At a descent, which he took at a tremendous pace, a part of the harness gave way and the horses became uncontrollable. I was on the act of jumping out of the carriage when the Cossack, who sat on the box, succeeded in holding in the horses.
At each stage the colonists welcomed us with “Bread and Salt.” My husband received a great number of petitions from the emigrants, for the greater part complaints from the new settlers against the colonists, who demanded one hundred roubles for the right of settling down with them, and oppressed them in every way.
Towards evening we reached a large village, and passed under a triumphal arch bearing the inscription “Welcome!” We had an hour’s stop at the village-inn, where we pulled up for dinner. We did honour to the frugal repast, consisting of cabbage-soup and roasted chicken, served by pretty village girls arrayed in their Sunday best.
After a drive of less than an hour, we came to a village where we stopped to rest for the night at the house of the Commissary of Rural Police.
September 6th.—We went in the morning to hear mass in the village chapel. The peasant girls were in their national dress, their long tresses interlaced with gay-coloured ribbons. After church, we continued our journey. We have yet many miles before us. At the next station we found a relay of four powerful horses belonging to the Prison Department. The Inspector of the Prisons, Mr. Komorski, was at the station to meet us. Our escort was increased by two Cossack officers. The horses fretted at standing, and I found them a bit over fresh; they started at a brisk pace. Our driver is a convict transported for life to Siberia, who had just terminated his ten years of penal servitude, and will be made a colonist in a short time. On the way we stopped at the house of a young engineer who is taking part in the construction of the railway-line beyond the Lake Baikal, after the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Aral, the largest lake in Asia. As soon as the horses were sufficiently rested, we proceeded on a road which had been growing from bad to worse. It is constructed on marshy ground and is full of ruts and holes in which we jolted and tossed about. The shocking roads aren’t like roads at all, more like ploughed fields, inches deep in mud, and so rough that our vehicle seemed to be propelled by a succession of earthquakes wallowing in mud half-way deep. Our horses had hard work, sinking almost to their shoulders at every step. Our Heir to the throne on his tour to the Orient, when passing this way, had to be drawn by oxen.
At last we reached the convict settlement where Mr. Kopanski resides, superintending the work on the railway-line of the convicts sentenced to hard labour. At the present moment he has under his command three thousand convicts, and one thousand soldiers to guard them.
Mr. Komorski’s house stands on a small eminence surrounded by barracks inhabited by convicts, dressed in long grey coats; the greater part are in chains. A long line of prisoners had half of their heads shaved, they were runaway convicts, who were brought back again to these parts. They cheered my husband gaily. A monk stood on the threshold of the chapel, where a Te Deum was sung by the convicts.
Mr. Komorski showed us a great deal of hospitality. He has contrived to give our apartment quite an air of cosiness. On my dressing-table I saw a bottle of scent bearing the name of “Bouquet d’Amour” quite a fitting denomination, for we are now in the provinces of the “Amour.”
All the servants in the house are convicts, who fulfil their duty perfectly well, nevertheless these surroundings made me feel so nervous and miserable, that I did not want to be present at dinner and went to bed immediately after our arrival, under the pretext of a bad headache. Oh! how horrid it was to hear the sounds of a gay waltz played by an orchestra of convicts during the repast! I buried my head in my pillow and had a good cry. I hated our host ferociously at that moment.
September 7th.—Early in the morning Sergy visited the prisons, and at eight o’clock we proceeded on our journey. The road had recently been laid out specially to transport provisions from the boat to Mr. Komorski’s abode. After a drive of two hours we arrived at a spot where a copious lunch awaited us in a pavilion set up near the railway-line. We suddenly came upon a gang of chained convicts breaking stones on the road, who worked under the eager eyes of guards with ever-ready revolvers. Whistles were heard giving the signal to these wretched men to take off their caps at our approach. I was told that work was assigned to them for twelve hours of labour. Their food is good, the daily rations consisting of a plate of soup with 250 grams of meat and a kilogram of bread. In a group of convicts we saw the son of a General we had known at St. Petersburg. That unfortunate young man had belonged to one of the brilliant Guard regiments, and had been sent to the galleys and put to hard labour for life, for having shot one of his comrades, (Cherchez la femme!) His pale, haggard face was so painful to behold.
The last miles leading to the boat were as bad as bad could be. We were tumbled about like nuts in a bag. We reached towards four p.m. the Third Post on the banks of the “Soungatcha,” with aching bones and stiffened limbs. There were our fellow-travellers on the quay awaiting us, and whom should I see among them but Mr. Li, the attaché of the Chinese Embassy at St. Petersburg, my summer cavalier of Music Halls. I must say I was surprised! And I thought I should never see him again. The world’s small! Mr. Li passed through Vladivostock on his way to China, on a holiday. When we met our companions on Lake Khanka, he decided to come all this long way to see us. He will return to Lake Khanka to-morrow morning. The director of the Navigation Company on the Amour-river was also on the quay to meet us. He presented my husband “Bread and Salt” on a beautiful silver dish, and I received an enormous bouquet.
We are going to travel now by water as far as Khabarovsk. A handsome steam-yacht named “Ingoda” was lying alongside the quay, ordered for our use—a vessel gaily tricked out with flags, with my husband’s standard floating on the overdeck. The yacht was apparently quite new, all white and gold, with steam-heating and electricity. We were to travel luxuriously on that dainty thing. I have a charming cabin with real windows and bed, not a hard shelf, but quite a wide, springy bed, and blue silk tapestries on the walls; the covering of the furniture and the curtains are of the same stuff. I have a toilet-table adorned with white muslin curtains tied with blue ribbon. The cookery on board is excellent; the head-cook is a Chinaman. The captain provided soft-moving Chinese waiters and a Russian maid for me.
We shall weigh anchor only to-morrow morning, because it is dangerous to sail on the “Soungatcha” by night, the river being very narrow and winding. After supper the sailors lighted up the boat with Bengal fires, and barrels of burning tar were placed along the banks of the river. I sat up half the night on deck, stretched in a basket-chair chatting with Mr. Li about St. Petersburg, and awakening so many far-off memories.
Sept. 8th.—We started at 8 o’clock in the morning. Our boat glided down the swift river advancing very slowly. Our way wound in cork-screw curves, and the raftsman had to do some clever piloting to make the turns. On the left side of the “Soungatcha” was China. Here and there appeared to sight Chinese thatched huts. Natives, with long tresses, floated in junks on the river. On our side there is no vestige of habitation; all around the silence was profound; we seemed to have the world to ourselves. Now we steam on along lovely green banks fringed with tall trees bending their branches low over the water and reflected in it as in a mirror. Wild ducks swept over us, and long-legged herons came quite near to the edge of the water.
By the time the moon rose we had come to the first halt, a Cossack settlement situated in the hollow of a valley, where we cast anchor for the night. Smoke rose over the thatched roofs of the village; church-bells were ringing for vespers. Two “atamans” (Cossack delegates) are standing on the quay, holding their huge staffs of command. A deputation of Cossacks presented “Bread and Salt” on a glass dish to my husband, and I received as a gift a wild kid. We saw two men advancing, carrying between them, across their shoulders, a long pole upon which hung an enormous sturgeon. There was scarcely room enough on board for the gigantic fish.
We took a stroll through the village, where we visited the home of a rich Cossack inhabitant. My husband signed himself as godfather to his little son, who lay shrieking in his cot. The wee Cossack was still unbaptised, as there was no priest in the neighbourhood.
Sept. 9th.—The captain waited for the sun to rise to weigh anchor. Towards ten o’clock we enter the river “Oussouri,” which is considerably broader than the “Soungatcha.” An eagle is ascending high up in the skies. The air is so transparent that mountains which are scores of miles away are distinctly visible. The freshness of the vegetation is surprising. The furze attains the height of three yards. We slide along rich verdant valleys strewn with sweet-smelling flowers. The fresh breeze brings us a penetrating perfume of new-mown hay.
The next stopping-place was Krasnoyarsk, a big Cossack settlement. The inhabitants presented us wine in bottles entwined with branches of grapes. I remained on deck till midnight, admiring the large river on which the full moon reflected its opal glimmer.
Sept. 10th.—The wind that had risen in the night brought rain. We intended pushing on to Khabarovsk for the night, but the fog being very dense, we dropped anchor before Kasakevitchi, a large village scattered on a hillock.
Sept. 11th.—We are passing the most shallow part of the “Oussouri.” The water is so shallow that we advance with great difficulty. We dropped anchor five miles off Khabarovsk. Two barges with sails were sent to meet us with an officer and thirty rowers, in case we could not advance further on our boat, and it came out that it was the barges that had to be helped, for during the night a squall arose, followed by a shower, which nearly submerged the barges. The officer and soldiers had to be taken on board.
Sept. 12th.—We are at our journey’s end. Our next station will be Khabarovsk. We advance very slowly in order not to arrive at Khabarovsk before the appointed hour—nine o’clock in the morning.