Chapter 11

At Yakutsk Mr. Dobell embarked in a large covered boat on the Lena, which he ascended on his way to Irkutsk. He left the former place on the 29th of August, being drawn by horses, with the assistance of six peasants, whom he hired to go fifteen hundred versts to Kiringee, and who were employed at places where it was difficult for the horses. The banks of the river were varied and picturesque; sometimes steep cliffs and uncouth heaps of rock, in the most fantastic shapes, rose to a great height; sometimes the shores sloped away into mountains covered with thick forests of pine and spruce.

On the 5th of October he arrived at Olekma, a town six hundred versts above Yakutsk, in latitude 60 deg. 22', and east longitude 89 deg. 15' from St. Petersburg. He found it to contain four or five hundred inhabitants. It was, in former times, the place whence the Cossacks set out, when they waged their wars against the Chinese, and carried their depredations as far as the Amour. It is said, that three hundred and fifty of these barbarian warriors were once besieged in a fortress by twenty-two thousand Chinese, and held out against them a whole year, until a capitulation was agreed upon, at a period when their force was reduced to one hundred and fifty men.

At Olekma, the season had become so cold, and there was so much floating ice in the Lena, as to render it impossible to proceed any longer by water. The road lay along the shores of the river, frequently obstructed by half frozen torrents rushing into it, and occasionally cut off by points and precipices which compelled the party to venture on the ice.

"At Matcha, I found a clean, comfortable dwelling, and a hospitable reception from the hostess, an old woman, who said she had been seventeen years in Siberia, having been sent by the Government from Archangel, to assist in increasing the population; but she thanked God, at the same time, that she had not been banished for misconduct. She told me she had always lived much better than she did in Russia, and had been so happily situated as to have never felt a wish to return. Having received from her a fine fat fowl, some cream, vegetables, &c. I asked her in the morning what I must pay for them. She replied, 'a little tea and sugar, a piece of soap, and above all, a few glasses of watky--though I would not have you suppose I am addicted to liquor, for I only take a little now and then to preserve my health.' Her emaciated frame and sallow countenance belied her assertion. Complying with her request, I begged her to preserve her health by using as little of the spirit as possible, as it often had the opposite effect to that of assisting the health. She laughed, and drinking a bumper to my advice, wished me a safe journey."

Passing Veeteem and Kiringee, two considerable towns on the Lena, Mr. Dobell found the country improve gradually, and the post-houses throughout comfortable, clean, and convenient; much more so than could have been expected in remote Siberia. The horses were also furnished with great alacrity, and the inhabitants generally were kind and hospitable. On the 30th of October he passed Katchuk, the place where all the merchandise is embarked in the spring for Yakutsk and other towns on the Lena. The river is generally free enough from ice by the 5th to the 12th of May, and but fourteen days are required for the voyage. From Katchuk to Irkutsk, the road leaves the Lena, and passes through a fine extensive plain, bounded on either side by well cultivated hills, and having villages and farm houses dispersed over it in all directions. This plain is principally inhabited by a horde called Burettas, who are, for the most part, Christians, and have taken to agriculture with a great deal of industry and zeal. The richer class live in log houses, but the great part dwell in cabins, similar to the winter jourtas of the more eastern hordes. Their clothing consists of a pelisse of dressed goat or sheep skin, with the wool inside, trimmed with fur, and painted in black and white stripes round the shoulders.

Irkutsk, the capital of eastern Siberia, is in latitude 52 deg. 16' 41", and east longitude from St. Petersburg, 73 deg. 51' 48". It is built on the margin of the river Angarra, and contains a population now probably exceeding twenty thousand souls. The markets are good, the society is pleasant, and a traveller finds in the very heart of Siberia almost all the luxuries of life. In visiting the public works, the governor took Mr. Dobell to an immense brick building, where he found the workshops of the exiles.

"In that large range, one sees joiners, carpenters, carriage-makers, saddlers, blacksmiths, and in short, all sorts of tradesmen, busily occupied, and all provided with comfortable apartments, clean clothing, and wholesome food. From this we passed to the cloth factory, the contemplation of which afforded me much pleasure, when I recollected that those beings before me, who were once the victims of depravity, exhibited no longer any thing to inspire me with the idea of their having been criminals. All was gaiety and cheerfulness. There I saw men, women, and children, all industriously employed in weaving, spinning, carding, picking wool, &c. They were arranged in several large, clean, warm, and comfortable apartments; and they really appeared as contented as any labourers I ever saw; for they looked fat and healthy.

"The cloth is made from the wool and hair of the Buretta sheep, camels, and goats. It stands the Government in about a rouble the arshin, and sells for two roubles. This profit, after paying the expenses of the manufactory, leaves a surplus that is used to furnish the hospitals, and for other laudable purposes. Such an institution does honour to any country; nor can there be a more praiseworthy application of the industry of those exiles than that which operates to relieve the sick, the fatherless, and the widow.

"There is every reason to conclude, from the examples which have been furnished by those countries which have adopted this system, that the idea of confinement and hard labour is a more powerful preventive of the commission of crimes than the fear of death."

At the public ship yard, Mr. Dobell saw a brig on the stocks, destined to navigate the Baikal. The vessels generally used on that sea are built on its shores, on account of the difficulty of ascending against the current of the Angarra. Those belonging to the government are employed principally to carry convicts and stores to Nerchinsk, where there are mines of silver, gold, and precious stones, as well as a fine grain country. The neighbourhood of Irkutsk is fertile and prolific, and the population increasing. The climate is the mildest of Siberia, the thermometer of Reaumur seldom exceeding 30 deg. to 34 deg. of cold, and that but for short intervals.

On the 25th of November, having taken leave of his hospitable acquaintances, Mr. Dobell left Irkutsk on his journey towards St. Petersburg. He had fresh occasion to notice the kindness and simplicity of the people, which his subsequent visits to the country tended to confirm. On one occasion, at the village of Krasnoyesk, in this province, he took, at the recommendation of the governor, instead of the usual Cossack guides, two soldiers, one a grenadier of the guards of the regiment of Moscow, and the other of the Semenofsky, who, having been allowed a certain time to go and see their friends in Siberia, from whom they had been absent eleven years, were anxious to return to St. Petersburg, and had not money to hire a conveyance.

"They had travelled from Russia on foot, near five thousand versts, to see their relations. The elder of the two had a wife and two children. He related to me that when he returned to his family, his wife, who knew him immediately, was so frightened that she fell into a swoon; and it was nearly an hour before she recovered her senses. His parting with his wife and children again affected us exceedingly; but he seemed to bear it with firmness, and said, 'God bless you, put your trust in God: I shall return to you.' Both those men, but particularly the married one, were the most faithful, obedient, well-behaved men I ever saw, and proved of infinite service to me on the road, as I travelled not with the post-horses, but with those of the common peasants. This gives me an opportunity of expatiating again on the moral and religious character of the Siberians, as well as their intelligence, generosity, and hospitality. I found on the road, even amongst the peasants, a sympathy, a kindness and attention to the wants of my family and myself, and a disinterestedness, that I have no where else experienced. Many times it occurred that we lodged in a house for the night, were furnished with bread, milk, cream, and a supper for four servants, and I had a difficulty to make the man of the house accept of a couple of roubles. The demand was fifty to seventy kopeks; and sometimes payment was refused altogether. I met a carrier who was conveying goods from Tumen to Tomsk, a distance of about one thousand five hundred versts, for two and a half roubles per pood! On questioning him, how he could possibly afford to take merchandise at so cheap a rate, he said, 'the people of my country are kind and hospitable. I live about Tomsk, so that I must return thither; and I get a man and a horse found a whole day for fifteen kopeks.' The grenadier also assured me that the only expense his journey on foot to see his family had cost him, was about twenty-five roubles; and those were spent between St. Petersburg and Ecatherineburg. 'After getting fairly into Siberia,' said he, 'no one would ever receive a kopek from me for either food or lodging.'

"After we got into Russia, and began to suffer certain impositions which are put upon travellers on the great roads in every country, he would often exclaim, 'God be with me and my beloved Siberia! There people have their consciences and their hearts in the right place!'"

Tomsk is fifteen hundred versts from Irkutsk, and four thousand five hundred from St. Petersburg, being in latitude 56 deg. 29' 6", and longitude 54 deg. 50' 6" from the latter place. Its population is about ten thousand. It has many manufactories, and a number of handsome houses, with a pleasant though small society. After leaving it, the traveller passes the vast and fertile plain of Baraba, where he is whirled along at the rate of two hundred and seventy versts a day.

The first place of importance which he reaches after crossing it, is Tobolsk, the chief town of the province of that name, and formerly of Siberia. Its latitude is 55 deg. 11' 14", and its longitude 37 deg. 46' 14" east from St. Petersburg, from which, and from Irkutsk, it is distant three thousand versts. Fourteen years ago its population amounted to thirty thousand inhabitants, since when it has in all probability very much increased. Its manufactories are numerous; its society is agreeable, and gives evidence of the same hospitality which is witnessed so generally and so gratefully by the traveller, in those remote regions; but has it not in its very name a charm to the reader who peruses an account of it, in its connexion with those incidents, fictitious or true, which have been formed into one of the most simple, beautiful, and touching tales, that have ever flowed from the imagination or the heart?

From Tobolsk, Mr. Dobell passed rapidly through the surrounding district of the same name, visited Ecatherineburg, where he admired, so far beyond the ordinary limits of the arts, works in marble, agate, and precious stones, which would have done honour to Italian artists; and arriving at the geographical boundary that divides Siberia from Russia, closes the narrative of his travels, which we would willingly have seen continued to the gates of the imperial capital of the north.

"I assure the reader," he says at the close of his truly interesting account, "that in my humble attempt to describe what I have seen and experienced, I have been governed by no partial motives whatever. On the contrary, I have laboured to represent every object faithfully as it has affected my senses. I am, however, conscious at the same time, that it requires an abler pen than mine to delineate adequately the sublime and majestic works of nature in the regions I have been describing, and to portray them to the imagination in all their simplicity, beauty, and grandeur. Siberia does not possess the climate of Italy, nor the luxurious productions of India; but she possesses a fertile soil, a climate much better than is generally believed, and natural resources of the highest value; and she presents to the traveller such a magnificent picture of natural objects, as is no where to be equalled except on the immense continent of America. There is no longer any doubt but the greater part of her territory is susceptible of high cultivation, having a strong fertile soil, covered with superb forests, and intersected by fine rivers, or watered by numerous lakes, many of which may fairly be called seas.

"The race of men produced there, are uncommonly tall, stout, and robust; certainly the best looking people I have ever seen, particularly those of the Western parts. My readers will now, I am sure, agree with me, that this country, hitherto considered the _Ultima Thule_, or the _finis mundi_, has been highly gifted by its Creator, and only wants population and improvement to render it the most valuable portion of his Imperial Majesty's dominions."

FOOTNOTES:

[6] The old English lawyers puzzled themselves greatly in tracing the origin of the feudal tenures. The truth is, they may be found in the incipient stages of society in nearly every nation. They existed, in fact, in Hindostan, China, and many other countries, for centuries before the time of the _comites_ of the German princes, mentioned by Tacitus, who are supposed to have founded them. The services of the tenant varied according to the character and condition of the people--the principle was every where the same.

[7] The tael is $1.66; the pecul, 133-1/3 pounds.

ART. IV.--_Precis de la Geographie Universelle ou Description de toutes les parties du Monde, sur un plan Nouveau D'apres les grandes divisions Naturelles du Globe, &c._ Par MALTE-BRUN: Bruxelles, 1829.

We place at the head of our article, which we mean to devote to Physical Geography, the title of the latest edition that we have seen of the great work of Malte-Brun. This, which has already become well known to our American public in translation, has received some additions from its Belgian editors, but has not been fully brought up to the present state of Science, nor does it contain all the new discoveries which have been made in that part, namely, physical geography, to which our attention is more immediately directed. We shall, however, endeavour to supply these deficiencies so far as lies in our power.

Physical geography stands in immediate connexion with subjects which have already been presented to the readers of this journal, namely with Celestial Mechanics,[8] and with the Phenomena of our Atmosphere.[9] It shall be our endeavour to proceed from the facts laid down in the first of the two articles to which we have referred, to the more particular consideration of the state, the structure, and the condition of the globe we inhabit.

The earth is a planet of the solar system, the third in distance from the sun, revolving upon its own axis, and around that central body attended by a satellite; circumstances which affect in a most important manner the phenomena that are observed upon its surface. Composed of material substances that mutually attract each other, each particle of which has a greater or less centrifugal force in proportion to its distance from the axis of rotation, it has a figure that is consistent with a state of equilibrium under the joint action of these two forces, and which is such as would have been assumed by a fluid body actuated by them. The figure that fulfils these conditions is an oblate spheroid, the axis of the generating ellipse coinciding with the polar diameter of the body. Had the earth a figure absolutely spherical, or less flattened than is consistent with the conditions of equilibrium, the ocean, by which so large a part of its surface is covered, would have arranged itself in a meniscoid zone around its equatorial regions; were the figure, on the other hand, one of greater oblateness, the waters would have been divided and accumulated at either pole, leaving the equatorial regions dry. But did its figure fulfil the conditions of equilibrium, the fluid mass would tend to distribute itself equally over the whole surface, unless prevented by irregularities in the solid mass. The last is the actual state of things; the ocean occupies a bed formed of cavities, lying below the mean surface of the spheroid, and the land presents to us those asperities and elevations, which rise, although to a comparatively small height, above the general level.

Was then the earth originally in a fluid state, and has it assumed its present form under the strict action of mechanical laws, on a body of that class? are the bed of the ocean and the continents merely crusts formed upon the surface of a liquid globe? Does the interior still remain liquid, or has the induration proceeded until the whole internal mass has become solid? Nay, may not the interior be hollow, as we have recently seen gravely maintained, and heard sage legislatures recommend to the public attention?

Mathematical investigations of incontrovertible evidence, show us that were the earth of equal density throughout, the flattening at the poles would be 1/234 of the equatorial diameter; that in the hypothetical case of infinite density at the centre, and infinite rarity at the surface, the flattening would be no more than 1/578; while, were the surface more dense than the interior, or did a cavity exist within, the oblateness must be greater than 1/234. Actual measurements of portions of the surface, the variation in the length of the pendulum which beats seconds in different latitudes, and the effect of the earth's figure on the lunar motions, show us that the earth cannot be flattened more than 1/289, nor less than 1/312, or may, at a mean, be considered as a spheroid, whose polar and equatorial diameters are in the relation of 299 to 300.

Astronomers have ascertained the deflection of plumb lines from the vertical, by the action of mountains. The attraction of a projecting mass of known bulk and density, with one whose bulk alone is known, is thus determined, and hence the density of the latter may be calculated.

Even comparatively small masses of matter may be placed under such circumstances at the surface of the earth, that their mutual action can be observed uninfluenced by the preponderating attraction of the earth, and thus a new means of comparison obtained.

The pendulum whose vibrations ought to vary according to a definite law, as we recede from the surface of the earth, has that law affected by the elevated ground on which it is placed, and here again a comparison may be instituted between the general and local attractions.

All these modes of investigation concur in, and confirm the general result, that the mean density of the earth is about five times as great as that of water. Now as a great portion of the surface is composed of that fluid, and as the general density of the land is little more than twice as great as that of water, it follows incontestably that the interior of the earth is far more dense than its outer covering.

All material substances are capable of assuming, under proper modifications of latent heat, either the solid, the liquid, or the gaseous form; yet all are beyond doubt composed of atoms, solid, hard, and incapable of further division. Under their own mutual attraction these particles tend to unite, and cohere in solid masses, and to this attractive force the repulsive power of heat is constantly opposed, tending to prevent their aggregation, and retaining them, according to its intensity, in the gaseous or liquid form.

The heat necessary to maintain these states of existence in bodies, may be produced in various ways. Our usual experience leads us to consider it as more generally arising from two causes, radiation from the sun, and the chemical action causing combustion. The former could never have produced the temperature known to exist at present upon the surface of the globe, for the earth radiates as well as the sun, and is constantly throwing off heat into the surrounding space. We know that these two actions have for twenty centuries exactly balanced each other, and that the mean temperature of the earth has neither increased nor diminished in all that period. Had the solar radiation been, previously to that epoch, in excess, it must at the more recent periods, counted backwards, have been but slightly so, and ages unnumbered must have elapsed, before the state of equilibrium which now exists could have been reached. The earth too, at distant periods, must have been colder than at present, while that the contrary is true is shown by numerous observations.

Neither could chemical action have had any great agency in establishing the present temperature of the earth. The substances which burn are but a small portion of the crust of the earth, and their combustion, if all fired at a time, would cause no perceptible effect on the sensible heat of the surface of our globe. Were combustible bodies even infinitely more abundant, the supporters are insufficient to keep up their combustion for any length of time, without sensible diminution, and this would be the case, even were the whole of the oxygen that now exists as a component of the waters of the ocean added to their present amount. It is indeed possible that the outer shell of the earth, which is no more than a crust of oxidated matter, may have existed at first in the metallic state, but that crust has long intervened, and prevented any contact between the air or ocean, and the metallic bases of the earths, that in this case must lie beneath.

In spite of these obvious objections to their theory, some geologists have madly fancied to themselves a great internal fire, maintained by actual combustion, a fancy but little more rational than that which seeks, in the present order of things, precipitation from some vast quantity of a liquid menstruum, every trace of whose existence has now vanished.