letter I enclosed to the Minister of the Interior, when writing to
thank his Excellency for the great kindness and attention his letter had secured for me.[14]
My “work” was now almost done, and I looked forward with hope, for I regard the Russian people as presenting a promising field for the diffusion of a more spiritual religion than they now possess. Many, it is true, do not cease to speak of Russian bribery and untruthfulness, gambling and dishonesty. But, however that may be, there seemed to me to be a general willingness in Russia to learn better things. The sceptics we met were few and far between. In Western Siberia a Polish veterinary surgeon--a Romanist--argued as if he would like to upset Christianity, but he ended by giving money for a New Testament, and acknowledged that he envied the experience of his antagonist. In Eastern Siberia I met a Protestant gentleman who said that most educated people in Siberia were materialists; but I had afterwards reason to suspect he was measuring by his own bushel, for so material was his creed that, though holding a high position in the Government, with a large salary, he was not above suspicion of asking a bribe. I ought, however, to add that a Russian critic, by no means unfriendly, lamented to me that, owing to the want of teaching power in the priests, men of the educated classes in Russia are, as a rule, perfectly _indifferent_ to religion, and therefore tolerant to all and every creed, though jealous of the orthodox Church as a national institution.
A good type of a religious gentleman--a devotee perhaps some would say--was an officer I met, who goes to mass every morning at five; or, again, a lady of high rank, who, whilst continuing strictly “orthodox,” learns to look at the errors of her Church in their least objectionable form, and to separate the good from the bad. Another educated man, an advocate, was typical, I should judge, of many in his rank of life. All are required to attend church on certain occasions, and beyond this he acknowledged that he did so very little; but it was because he got no teaching there. He went, he said, on the festivals, from six to twelve times a year, and oftener whilst his children were young; but he was ready to go every Sunday if something could be learned thereby. As for the uneducated Russians, the distances they will go, amounting to literally thousands of miles, for religious purposes, manifests at least something intensely earnest about religious affairs. Never--certainly, in any other country--have I met with such eagerness to get Scriptures and good books. This extends to both clergy and laity. When, on one occasion, my friend who edited the _Russian Workman_ thought of giving it up, some of the priests sent their subscriptions again, and implored that it might be continued; and some of those interested in the religious societies at work in the empire have told me that, in spite of the obstacles put in their way, they have far more opportunities of usefulness than they can use. I agree, therefore, with those who look upon Russia as a promising field for Christian effort.
On Sunday afternoon the officer returned to Rasdolnoi, and I began immediately to question him. There was no ship sailing to Japan, he said, for a fortnight; and then, by way of preface to information respecting Vladivostock, he asked my standing, and whether I was rich or poor. Having classed myself with those who have neither poverty nor riches, he said that, as for himself, he was a man of means, and that he took the journeys to the Caucasus and Egypt (of which he had told me) because he had money in pocket, and so on--tall talk which sank down wonderfully when I searched him out at Vladivostock.[15] He appeared well posted, however, in his professional studies, and willing to give me information; so, as we were to start very early in the morning, we boarded the steamer towards sunset. The Suifun is 120 yards wide. It varies in summer from 30 inches to 7 feet in depth, and in winter rises 20 feet. Our vessel was named _Suifun_, after the stream, and drew 2 feet of water, and could steam 8 or 10 miles an hour. Vladivostock was only 50 miles distant, but the boat was not suited for the sea, and therefore, on reaching the mouth of the river at Richnoi, 30 miles distant, we were to be transhipped to a sea-going steamer, the _Amur_, and so landed at Vladivostock. The _Suifun_ was not a passenger vessel in the ordinary sense of the word, but belonged to the Government. It was used for bringing the mails from Khabarofka, and if there happened to be passengers accompanying them, they travelled the 50 miles free. They were, moreover, so obliging, that, if travellers arrived and telegraphed to the post as I had done, the two ships were put in motion; and as if that were not enough, an allowance was made to the officers to feed hungry passengers free of expense, so that, on the whole, this was the cheapest 50 miles I travelled.
I did not know of these arrangements at first, and heard that there were no provisions to be had on board, and no sleeping accommodation. My fellow-passenger slept in the open air, on deck, and I thought I should be compelled to do the same; but the captain gave me an excellent cabin, with plenty of room, which the officer, however, would not share. I had not been long on board when my clerical services were asked for a second time. We were to pass a saw-mill where lived a Protestant family, and the captain, knowing that the children were unbaptized, thought my coming very opportune, and asked whether, if he stopped the steamer, I would go ashore and officiate. As we approached Richnoi we came in sight of the mill, built, as I afterwards ascertained, by Captain de Vries, and subsequently sold to the Government. There are three such mills near Vladivostock, employing 39 workmen, chiefly Chinese, who earn £4,500 a year. The manager was a Swede, named Lovelius, his wife, if I mistake not, being one of the whaling community who had come from Finland. The father spoke a little English, calling me “parson”; and after I had christened his three children he placed a fee in my hand. When I demurred to take it, he said he wished to stand indebted to no man, and added that I had saved him a “lot of trouble,” for otherwise he must have brought all the children into Vladivostock, when there chanced to arrive a minister or chaplain.[16]
The saw-mill was prettily situated, and the manager received good remuneration, but he was not much in love with his position; for one thing, the mosquitoes troubled him, as on the previous evening they did me.[17] Fear of the Manza robbers, however, troubled the manager more, and he pointed to a house across the river where they had lately murdered an old man of seventy.
On reaching the mouth of the Suifun we met the _Amur_, and the two vessels exchanged passengers, whereupon I discovered, to my surprise, that some of our new officers were those I had travelled with on the Shilka. I had breakfasted that morning, not very comfortably, in the open air, and was, therefore, ready for dinner in the officers’ cabin, after which it was I learned that I had eaten at the expense of the Emperor; and then, steaming down the Amur Gulf, and rounding the promontory into the Golden Horn, we dropped anchor before Vladivostock.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The merchant Plusnin had on one occasion been attacked in his sledge by one of these animals; and Mr. Emery told me that, when a tiger had been seen on the road, he had sometimes found it very difficult to make the post-boys set out on a journey.
[2] When he left America he brought eight of a choice sort in his portmanteau, and in three years had as many as he needed, and so fine that they weighed 1 lb. each. The Chinese have since planted them, but cultivate them so badly that their size has greatly diminished. On the same land the captain sowed maize, and from one grain grew a stalk with three heads and 900 grains. This he thought exceptional, but considered 500 grains for one an average return. He sowed in drills, and cleaned the land with a cultivator drawn by an ox. This plan in the Western States of America, he said, yielded six bushels an acre more than ordinarily.
[3] This reminds me of what Mr. Emery said at Nikolaefsk, that if I put hay into the soles of the Yakute boots I purchased, I should never suffer from cold feet.
[4] Ginseng is found chiefly in the valleys of the Upper Ussuri, where it is cultivated in beds, planted in rows. The earth must be a rich black mould, and loose; and when the plant has attained the height of 4 or 5 inches, it is supported by a stick. The beds are carefully weeded and watered, and protected from the sun by tents or sheds of wood. Wild ginseng is said to be the best. From May to September, hundreds go out to seek the plant; and when I asked for the Goldi natives at some of the stations on the Ussuri, I learnt that many of them were gone to seek for ginseng. The prices named by the French missionaries for this root were almost fabulous, a single root being valued in Manchuria at from £250 to £300. The plantations belong to Chinese merchants living at a distance, and Venyukoff found the guards strictly forbidden to sell it. He was able, however, by stealth to procure 12 roots for £4, and his native interpreter subsequently procured 20 for 30_s._ I was told on the river that ginseng sells for £30 per Russian lb., but that in a bad year the Chinese count it as valuable as gold, and give up to £40 per lb. If, therefore, these prices be paid to those who find it, no doubt it is very expensive when sold in China, where no chemist’s shop is without it. The root is straight, spindle-shaped, knotty, and up to half an inch in diameter, and 8 inches in length. The leaves are cut off, and the root is boiled in water, apparently to remove some injurious quality; and when it has undergone fitting preparation its colour is a transparent white, with sometimes a slight red or orange tinge; its appearance then is that of a stalactite. It is carefully dried, wrapped in unsized paper, and sent to market. On the Ussuri it is used, boiled, for cold, fever, headache or stomach-ache.
[5] The first three stations--Mo, Vstrechni, and Utosni--were single post-houses, with no other habitation in sight. The accommodation was of the poorest; the couch at Vstrechni consisting of three boards, and the table-cloth of linen tick. I gave the children some nuts, but not one said “thank you,” and none could read.
[6] Mr. Ravenstein speaks of the walnut of the Ussuri as seldom bearing fruit, and he suggests that the whole growing power may be absorbed by the trunk and leaves; but I saw walnuts on the trees at Khabarofka, and, when speaking of them to Baron Stackelberg, heard nothing of their failure in fruit.
[7] The Chinese employ men in the interior to slaughter these animals, simply for the sake of their antlers. These soft horns are exported yearly to China in large quantities. Captain de Vries told me that on one occasion he carried on his little schooner a load of them to the value of £2,000, one extra good pair being worth £60. Erman states that the jelly made of these horns is much esteemed by Chinese gourmands, whilst Ravenstein quotes their medicinal use by the Chinese as a remedy in female diseases. A Russian doctor, to whom I spoke upon the subject, however, knew only of their general sedative properties, the jelly being used, he thought, as a comforting medicine in weakness.
[8] How long this abundance of game will last is an interesting problem, for it is a well-known fact, says M. Réclus, that the distribution of animals over Siberia has been markedly affected by the advent of Russian hunters. The region of the reindeer, for instance, ought to impinge upon that of the camel; and the reindeer used to be found on the mountains of Southern Siberia, but it now runs wild only in the low forests and tundras of the north. The argali, or wild sheep, is no longer found in the plains and mountains of Siberia, as it was in the last century, but has fled southwards into Mongolia. The antelopes and wild horses, driven from the steppes of the Gobi by cold and lack of pasture, descend in troops in autumn towards the plains of Siberia, followed by tigers and wolves, and hunted by men; and the slaughter lasts till the spring allows their return to the solitudes of Mongolia. Neither animals nor birds need a map to show them the frontier of the two countries. It has been remarked that the same birds which permit a stranger to approach them without fear in Mongolia, flee in terror at the least noise on Siberian soil. Especially is this the case with water-fowl, for the Mongols never allow birds to be shot upon the sacred element, believing that, if the blood of a bird mixes with the water, the flocks that drink it will speedily die.
[9] A lady in Petersburg told me that the peasantry near her country house live for a large part of the year almost without bread, weave in winter by the dim flame of a piece of lighted wood, and often go to bed supperless. With a sufficiency of rye bread all the year round they think themselves rich.
[10] I heard on the Kama in European Russia, from a Belgian, that whereas he, as a foreigner, was free from taxation, having to pay only 1_s._ 3_d._ a year for his passport, some of the peasants have to pay as much as 28_s._ Servants of the Crown, including priests, pay no taxes, though their children begin to do so at the age of 21. In Western Siberia no man (except convicts deprived of all their rights) is free from direct taxation, the manner of collecting the tax being similar to that followed in Russia. A census is taken every 20 years or oftener, and a number of villages are classed together into a _mir_ (a world), from which a certain tax has to be raised. The _mir_ settle among themselves in a kind of local parliament the proportion each family shall pay, and then, whether the members of a family increase or diminish, this fixed proportion goes on till the next census is taken. This causes great inequalities. Thus a father with a large family will be made liable for a large sum, which, so long as he has children at home to work, he can pay; but should his sons be drawn for soldiers, or be cut off by death, he is in a different position; though, on the other hand, a man with a family of small children at the time of taking the census is lightly taxed, whereas, when his children grow up and work, he could well afford to pay more. In European Russia the census is taken every seven or nine years, and the tax to be paid by each family is revised oftener.
Each village receives land according to the number of its inhabitants, but so that each “soul,” or able-bodied male or head of a family, gets about 15 acres, a space which, properly cultivated, should suffice for his support; but if not, land in the Primorsk government costs only 2_s._ an acre; in fact, at Nikolaefsk, the government _gave_ land under certain restrictions for building, and up to 1875 charged no property-tax, nor even for licences during the first ten years of Russian occupation. When this land has been allotted to a man in Russia with its accompanying tax, he cannot get quit of the bargain so far as the tax is concerned. Should he find the land unprofitable he may give up its cultivation, but he must continue to pay the tax, and hence it often happens that a man leaves his commune and goes to a neighbouring town for employment, but still pays taxes for the land in some remote village he has left.
[11] In the early days of the Russian occupation tigers used to come into the town of Vladivostock, and my host had a horse eaten by them. His young boy once came home saying that he had seen “such a pretty calf,” but that he could not hold in his pony, such haste did it make to get away. Sixty-five tigers were said to have been killed in the district the year before my arrival, and Captain de Vries told me that on the road by which I travelled he was proceeding, early one morning, with a farmer and his dog, when the royal beast appeared on the road a few yards before them, at which they shouted, and the animal retired into the forest. They went forward, the dog preceding them, whereupon the tiger sprang out and seized the dog and bore it away. The farmer began to mourn his loss, but the captain said, “Why, you donkey! if the tiger had not taken the dog for his breakfast he might have taken _you_!” I heard these things, however, _after_ my journey; and the only tangible reminders of tigers I saw were some of their skins, offered at Khabarofka and Vladivostock from £2, for that of a cub, to £5 for those of full size. Prejevalsky speaks of the tiger of the district as being equal to the royal tiger of Bengal, but, judging from the skins I saw, it is not so handsomely marked.
[12] It being the furthest navigable point on the Suifun from Vladivostock, the Russians in the early days of their occupation had posted soldiers here and built barracks. They subsequently removed the military to Nicolsk, and with them had migrated all the inhabitants except Mr. Rosenstrom and the people at the telegraph-office and post-house. There were plenty of log-houses still standing, to one of which my attention was directed, and I was told that my informant had purchased it for 10_s._--the cheapest house I had ever seen. Mr. Rosenstrom and his friend, I discovered, were of the party of Finns who had come to these parts to catch whales, so that he knew Captain Stjerncreutz with whom I had travelled. I was puzzled to know how a living could be made from a tiny shop near which there were but two inhabited houses visible, but I found that a small trade was done with travellers passing to and from Vladivostock, by hawking, and with workmen building a shed at the river side.
[13] The governors of Tobolsk, Tomsk, Akmolinsk, and Semipolatinsk, of Yeneseisk, Irkutsk, and Yakutsk, were requested to apportion the Scriptures to prisons, hospitals, poor-houses, and similar institutions, and to disperse the tracts in schools, as widely as possible. The governors of the Za-Baikal, Amur, and Sea-coast provinces, in addition to this, were asked also to distribute extra supplies to the army, navy, and Cossacks.
[14] I would take this opportunity of expressing my thanks to the Religious Tract Society of London and its colleagues in Russia for the gracious way in which the Committee has always accepted my offers of service, and for the kind manner in which I have been trusted to act in concert with their local agents as seemed best on the occasion. Not a little of my success (if it may be so called), especially in Russia, has been traceable to this; and my holiday distribution of more than 100,000 of their publications, I hope, I shall always remember with gratitude and pleasure. An extensive work is done in Russia by the Religious Tract Society. About 1,000,000 tracts were sold from 1875 to 1878 which is an indirect testimony that we hold more truth in common with the Russian Church than many are aware of. In Russia, as is well known, every book, every pamphlet, every leaflet, before it can be published and circulated, must receive the approval of the censor; and if the doctrine of what is printed, whether political or religious, be objectionable, its publication is forbidden. Further, it is pretty well known what kind of doctrine, and what kind only, the Committee of the Religious Tract Society approves. Hence, if these two things be put together, and it be remembered that tens of thousands of tracts are circulated in the empire which the Committee approves, and to which the Synod does not object, then surely it is pretty clear that the Russians and ourselves have in religious matters a great deal of common ground.
[15] My travels in Russia have led me to the conclusion that in the interior of that country it is not always wise to be too modest about divulging one’s income. An English officer in plain clothes, passing lonely through Kiakhta, was asked by a merchant, who had shown him some attention, what was his income; whereupon the officer told him that of a captain of Royal Engineers in full pay on foreign service, which greatly astonished the Siberiak. He said he would mention it to the chief man of the town, who, he felt sure, would call upon him. And so he did, and the captain received a marked increase of attention. Again, before starting last year for the Caucasus, I was told of the potency there of wearing arms and insignia of office, and of the difference it makes at the post-stations in getting horses, whether the traveller wears a plain hat, or one adorned with gold, or bearing the tchinovnik cockade. Accordingly, I so far profited by this information as to put on certain splendid array which I possess as I approached the stations, and (I will not say _therefore_) I obtained my horses.
This is further illustrated by the treatment received by an able correspondent of the _Times_, who has recently been in the Caucasus. On arriving at a station, he was informed that he could not have horses because they were detained for an English general, whose arrival was expected every minute. Somewhat chafed, the correspondent took to his legs, being anxious to secure a certain view before nightfall; and it was not till he reached the next station, tired and enraged, that his vexation was turned into mirth by discovering that the horses had all the while been intended for himself. The préfet had politely telegraphed to the post-masters to have horses ready for “a distinguished” Englishman; and as the one idea of distinction in the mind of a Russian peasant is the rank of a general, the post-master was expecting an officer in uniform, and the correspondent in plain clothes not coming up to this, he refused him the horses.
[16] I did not grasp the full meaning of this till some days after, and then I learned that every child in Russia must have a certificate of baptism, wanting which sundry civil difficulties may arise. It was well, therefore, that I chanced to give certificates on these two occasions, of which I sent notice, 6,000 miles off, to Moscow, to be copied into the register of “the nearest parish church.” The Russian certificate of baptism gives the sponsors’ names, and is signed over a 15_d._ stamp by the officiating priest and deacon. The certificate is then sent to the bishop’s registry for another stamp of like value, in addition to which, to expedite the matter, it is customary to add a rouble or two for the bishop’s clerk.
[17] I had been recommended sundry remedies against these insects, and small vermin generally,--such as the burning of incense, a mosquito mixture of _pyretum roseum_, and another, the essential oil of cloves. I was prevailed upon to take some of the last-named, and offered the bottle to the officer travelling with me to try the first experiment. It made his hands and face tingle, but not in vain; and I followed suit, to find that the little nuisances approached one’s skin, evidently with malicious intent, and then changed their minds and sailed away.