CHAPTER LII.

_VLADIVOSTOCK._

Situation of town.--Lodged with Captain de Vries.--Chinese labourers.--Chinese convicts.--Coreans.--Inhabitants of Vladivostock.--Presented at the Governor’s house.--Admiral Erdmann’s improvements.--Visit to barracks.--Boys’ high school.--Education in Russia, its cost and method.--Vladivostock Girls’ Institute; and Free School.--Statistics of crime.--Telegraph companies.--Sunday services.--Protestantism in Siberia.--Village of exiles.--General remarks on exiles.--Preparations for departure.

Vladivostock derives its lordly name from its supposed “command of the east.” The town overlooks an inlet, sheltered by islands, at the end of a promontory jutting out from the middle of the bay of Peter the Great. Behind the harbour rises a lofty hill, crowned by a watch-tower, to which I climbed during my stay, and was rewarded by a remarkably fine view. Northwards stretched the well-wooded Muravieff promontory. East and west lay the gulfs of the Amur and the Ussuri, down the former of which I had steamed from the Suifun; whilst to the south were mountainous islands with rocky headlands, separated from the mainland by the eastern “Bosphorus.” Descending from this elevated spot, and looking from the verandah of the Governor’s house, a less extensive view is obtained, but a very pretty one, comprising the entrance to the harbour called the “Bay of the Golden Horn,” with its two headlands forming the west and southern shores. The depth of water within the harbour is from 30 to 60 feet, and, at the entrance, about double these soundings. The “Bosphorus” is from 60 to 120 feet in depth, and after passing Kazakevich Island, this increases to 200 feet and upwards.

As I steamed into the harbour on Monday afternoon, the 15th September, it was well filled with the ships of many nations, including Chinese junks with their clumsy sails. A German gunboat had just replaced an English line-of-battle ship, and an Italian man-of-war arrived during my stay. There were Russian ships from the Siberian and Pacific fleets, merchant vessels (of which 50 a year visit the port), and a number of boats, many of which ply between Vladivostock, Olga, and Paseat bays. I found, however, no regular service to Japan, but was told that I could probably leave in a Russian man-of-war within a fortnight.

I sought a lodging with Captain de Vries, a Heligolander by birth, who, when in command of a passenger ship plying between England and New York, had become an American subject, and had again changed his nationality to Russian on settling in Siberia at the time of the annexation of the Amur. He had travelled over Siberia, and had a minute knowledge of the Amur and Russian Manchuria; so that from him I acquired a great deal of information, whilst his kind-hearted English wife spared no pains to make me comfortable. In fact, I found the 15 days of my stay at Vladivostock the pleasantest of my tour; for not only had I time to rest and write and acquire information, but I was almost daily received as a guest at the houses of the Governor, or of some of the many inhabitants who spoke English.

The population of Vladivostock in the Almanack is stated to be 8,431, but was estimated to me on the spot at 5,000. The births for 1878 were given by the priest as 184, marriages 13, and deaths 102, of which last 66 were males. The population, however, must fluctuate greatly, for during the previous year 8,000 troops had been quartered in and about the town; and I saw the earth batteries they had thrown up to receive the English, in case the treaty of Berlin had been settled the wrong way. Happily it went the right way; and when H.M.S. _Iron Duke_, on a northern cruise, steamed into Vladivostock, instead of being injured by torpedoes or fired upon, the officers were invited to dine at the admiral’s house. I judged the party must have been a pleasant one, for the commander of the Siberian fleet told me he had been immensely pleased with the English admiral, and the Governor’s wife and family had nothing to say of the officers but what was gracious and kind.

A large number of the inhabitants of Vladivostock are Manzas, Coreans, and Chinese, whose presence is looked upon in different lights. My host, for instance, thought their numbers a hindrance to Russian progress, because they outbid the Russians, work cheaper, and undersell them. In fact, this was one of the subjects upon which the captain used to wax warm. Accustomed to the high prices of American markets, he was sorely offended at the insignificant profits proposed to him by the Chinese, and, after speaking of their miserable offers for his goods or services, he used to wind up his orations by telling me, in not quite classical English, “There ain’t no footur for this country.” The Governor’s wife and other Russians thought differently, for, apart from the larger exports and imports,[1] they had the Chinese to thank for the vegetable market and the performance of a great deal of local work at a cheap rate, which otherwise would possibly not have been done at all.[2]

Emigrants from the Corea take refuge on Russian soil, in spite of the Corean death penalty attached. In 1868 there were 1,400 of these fugitives; but in the following year, when floods in the Corea drove additional multitudes to seek refuge on neighbouring soil, their further immigration was forbidden by the Russians, and some of the fugitives were sent back, and, on their return, decapitated.[3]

Sad accounts of the Manzas were heard at Vladivostock. My host employed, he said, an old man whom he one day missed, and found that he had been murdered, to be robbed of £10. The Manzas are pirates also. In their transactions with the Russians the Chinese demand to be paid in silver money, and this they take home by sea. Hence I saw more silver roubles in the Sea-coast province than I had observed in any other part of the empire. I saw too, at Khabarofka, a considerable sum of silver money in Mexican dollars. The Manza robbers, accordingly, watch for the boats, murder the crews, and secure the booty.

The Coreans were described as very industrious. They dress in white, and tie up their hair in the shape of a horn. Their summer hats resemble those of the Gilyaks, except that they are hexagonal instead of circular. I went into some of their houses, the walls of which were of mud, plastered on a framework of straw. The floor was of beaten earth, with a mud fireplace in the centre, and a divan round the walls. In the best houses, the wife had a separate apartment. Fire burns in the centre by day, and the flues, under the divan, are heated morning and evening. The people live on millet and rice, and use a spoon of bronze, with a nearly circular flat bowl. Taking one from a man who was eating, I presented the spoon in one hand and a silver coin in the other, intimating that I wished to buy; and when he had taken the coin the master of the house came up, and, receiving from me the spoon and from the man the coin, he graciously returned them both, implying that he _gave_ me what I desired.

The Russian inhabitants of Vladivostock consist almost entirely of officers and persons connected with the army and navy, and there are several foreign inhabitants besides,--some of them Germans, Finns, and Americans. England was represented by an engineer, who went there, I believe, as a mechanic, and whose son-in-law, at the time of my visit, was mayor of the town.[4]

In 1878 there were in Vladivostock 80 merchants of the first guild, who pay in Russia a tax of £50 per annum; 185 of the second guild, who pay £6 per annum; 228 temporary merchants, and 99 street-hawkers; also 215 first-class and 209 second-class clerks.[5]

The junks of the Chinese, their little houses of wood, their sheds and implements, give to Vladivostock a different aspect from that of ordinary Siberian towns. The Russian houses are chiefly of wood, and among the public buildings are both barracks and winter quarters for the seamen of the fleet. To these must be added the Admiralty, an officers’ club, two high-class schools for boys and girls, a library, two free schools, a Russian and a Lutheran church, two telegraph stations, a dockyard, and the Governor’s house.

At this last I was presented, on the day after my arrival, by Captain Naumoff, the captain of the port. The Governor was away on a tour of inspection, but I was introduced to Madame Erdmann, who spoke excellent English, and had all the manners and charm of an English lady. She was a German-Russian from the Baltic provinces, and both she and her husband were Protestants--and zealous ones, too, for they had come out to Vladivostock with the intention of effecting some good in the place, and were evidently doing it. My host, Captain de Vries, bore testimony to the material improvements which had been made by the Governor; for, said he, until the admiral came, “we had no road for the buggy.” His Excellency made also a pretty pleasure-garden at his own cost, for which, now that it is finished, the Government allows a grant for maintenance. Admiral Erdmann, who combined the three offices of Admiral of the Fleet, Chief of the Military, and Civil Governor of the province, drew a stipend of about £2,000 a year, kept an establishment of 15 servants, and seemed to take pleasure in entertaining in vice-regal style the officers of men-of-war of all nations visiting the port.

But Admiral and Madame Erdmann have left other monuments than these to testify to their endeavours to promote the welfare of the town. When they arrived there was no system of poor relief, whereupon her Excellency called together the ladies of the place, and organized a society which has been an immense benefit. She proposed, in the first place, to build a free school, which was done. The institute or boarding-school for girls also was enlarged, and Madame had been the prime mover in another effort to build a Lutheran church and manse. The means by which funds were raised for these charitable objects were, in part, concerts and fancy fairs. One that took place during the first week I was there was described to me as resembling those in England, and I heard that by two such fêtes within a fortnight they cleared the sum of £500.

I was invited to dine at the admiral’s house soon after my arrival, and met there the officers of the Russian clipper _Djiguitt_, in which I afterwards left Siberia. A band performed during the evening, and fairly surprised me by its excellence; for I had met with nothing to equal it in Russia, and had heard little music of any kind in crossing Siberia. This dinner-party brought me into contact with several naval people, and I subsequently met a Commander Terentieff, who was exceedingly kind in translating for me. He accompanied me one morning to the temporary barracks of the first battalion, whose chief is the Grand Duke Alexei. Its standard was presented by Peter the Great, and the Commandant informed me with pride that it was this battalion that escorted the Russian Ambassador across the Mongolian desert to Peking in the seventeenth century. The barracks were shown me as something noteworthy, in that they were built of mud-bricks not burnt, after the fashion of the new ones at Tashkend. All inside was orderly, but the bedsteads were somewhat close together. Some of the extras in furniture, such as here and there a bright counterpane or quilt, had been purchased by the economies of the regiment. I tasted their soup, and found it excellent. The men varied in age from 22 to 26. Barracks of ordinary bricks for 200 men were in course of construction. Usually the Russian soldiers are their own builders, but in this instance accommodation, including a room for gymnastics convertible into a chapel, was being erected by Chinese labourers at a cost of £6,000.

From the barracks we went to the lock-up, where were 20 military and 21 civil prisoners, the latter being for the most part Manza brigands. At our entrance they went down on all-fours, and continued in that posture whilst one was deputed to ask how their trial was going on; and another, thinking, I suppose, to expedite matters, said that he wished to be baptized. They were a sorry-looking lot; but I must give them credit for keeping their chamber cleaner than the Russian prisoners