Read Ebook: Tent Life in Siberia A New Account of an Old Undertaking; Adventures among the Koraks and Other Tribes In Kamchatka and Northern Asia by Kennan George

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HOUR-GLASS HOUSES OF THE SETTLED KORAKS From a model in The American Museum of Natural History.

INTERIOR OF A KORAK YURT. GETTING FIRE WITH THE FIRE DRILL From a photograph in The American Museum of Natural History.

A WOMAN ENTERING A YURT OF THE SETTLED KORAKS

SETTLED KORAKS IN A TRIAL OF STRENGTH

AN OLD MAN OF THE SETTLED KORAKS From a photograph in The American Museum of Natural History.

YURT AND DOG-TEAM OF THE SETTLED KORAKS From a painting by George A. Frost.

A WOMAN FEEDING A DOG-TEAM IN GIZHIGA From a, painting by George A. Frost.

INTERIOR OF A YURT OF THE SETTLED KORAKS

DOG-TEAMS DESCENDING A STEEP MOUNTAIN SLOPE

CHUKCHIS ASSEMBLING AT ANADYRSK FOR THE WINTER FAIR

ANADYRSK IN WINTER

A MAN OF THE YUKAGIRS

A MAN OF THE WANDERING CHUKCHIS

TUNGUSE MAN AND WOMAN IN BEST SUMMER DRESS

A TUNGUSE SUMMER TENT

A CHUKCHI RUG OF REINDEER SKIN

TUNGUSES ON REINDEER-BACK MOVING THEIR ENCAMPMENT From a photograph in The American Museum of Natural History.

A YURT OF THE SETTLED KORAKS IN MIDWINTER

AN ARCTIC FUNERAL

THE YURT IN THE "STORMY GORGE OF THE VILIGA" From a painting by George A. Frost.

MAPS

TENT LIFE IN SIBERIA

THE OVERLAND TELEGRAPH LINE TO RUSSIA--SAILING OF THE FIRST SIBERIAN EXPLORING PARTY FROM SAN FRANCISCO.

The Russian-American Telegraph Company, otherwise known as the "Western Union Extension," was organised at New York in the summer of 1864. The idea of a line from America to Europe, by way of Bering Strait, had existed for many years in the minds of several prominent telegraphers, and had been proposed by Perry McD. Collins, as early as 1857, when he made his trip across northern Asia. It was never seriously considered, however, until after the failure of the first Atlantic cable, when the expediency of an overland line between the two continents began to be earnestly discussed. The plan of Mr. Collins, which was submitted to the Western Union Telegraph Company of New York as early as 1863, seemed to be the most practicable of all the projects which were suggested for intercontinental communication. It proposed to unite the telegraphic systems of America and Russia by a line through British Columbia, Russian America, and north-eastern Siberia, meeting the Russian lines at the mouth of the Amur River on the Asiatic coast, and forming one continuous girdle of wire nearly round the globe.

This plan possessed many very obvious advantages. It called for no long cables. It provided for a line which would run everywhere overland, except for a short distance at Bering Strait, and which could be easily repaired when injured by accident or storm. It promised also to extend its line eventually down the Asiatic coast to Peking, and to develop a large and profitable business with China. All these considerations recommended it strongly to the favour of capitalists and practical telegraph men, and it was finally adopted by the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1863. It was foreseen, of course, that the next Atlantic cable might succeed, and that such success would prove very damaging, if not fatal, to the prospects of the proposed overland line. Such an event, however, did not seem probable, and in view of all the circumstances, the Company decided to assume the inevitable risk.

A contract was entered into with the Russian Government, providing for the extension of the latter's line through Siberia to the mouth of the Amur River, and granting to the Company certain extraordinary privileges in Russian territory. Similar concessions were obtained in 1864 from the British Government; assistance was promised by the United States Congress; and the Western Union Extension Company was immediately organised, with a nominal capital of ,000,000. The stock was rapidly taken, principally by the stockholders of the original Western Union Company, and an assessment of five per cent. was immediately made to provide funds for the prosecution of the work. Such was the faith at this time in the ultimate success of the enterprise that in less than two months its stock sold for seventy-five dollars per share, with only one assessment of five dollars paid in.

In August, 1864, Colonel Charles S. Bulkley, formerly Superintendent of Military Telegraphs in the Department of the Gulf, was appointed engineer-in-chief of the proposed line, and in December he sailed from New York for San Francisco, to organise and fit out exploring parties, and to begin active operations.

Led by a desire of identifying myself with so novel and important an enterprise, as well as by a natural love of travel and adventure which I had never before been able to gratify, I offered my services as an explorer soon after the projection of the line. My application was favourably considered, and on the 13th of December I sailed from New York with the engineer-in-chief, for the proposed headquarters of the Company at San Francisco. Colonel Bulkley, immediately after his arrival, opened an office in Montgomery Street, and began organising exploring parties to make a preliminary survey of the route of the line. No sooner did it become noised about the city that men were wanted to explore the unknown regions of British Columbia, Russian America, and Siberia, than the Company's office was thronged with eager applicants for positions, in any and every capacity.

Adventurous Micawbers, who had long been waiting for something of this kind to turn up; broken-down miners, who hoped to retrieve their fortunes in new gold-fields yet to be discovered in the north; and returned soldiers thirsting for fresh excitement,--all hastened to offer their services as pioneers in the great work. Trained and skilled engineers were in active demand; but the supply of only ordinary men, who made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in experience, was unlimited.

Month after month passed slowly away in the selection, organisation, and equipment of parties, until at last, in June, 1865, the Company's vessels were reported ready for sea.

The plan of operations, so far as it had then been decided upon, was to land one party in British Columbia, near the mouth of the Frazer River; one in Russian-America, at Norton Sound; and one on the Asiatic side of Bering Strait, at the mouth of the Anadyr River. These parties, under the direction respectively of Messrs. Pope, Kennicott, and Macrae, were directed to push back into the interior, following as far as practicable the courses of the rivers near which they were landed; to obtain all possible information with regard to the climate, soil, timber, and inhabitants of the regions traversed; and to locate, in a general way, a route for the proposed line.

The two American parties would have comparatively advantageous bases of operations at Victoria and Fort St. Michael; but the Siberian party, if left on the Asiatic coast at all, must be landed near Bering Strait, on the edge of a barren, desolate region, nearly a thousand miles from any known settlement. Thrown thus upon its own resources, in an unknown country, and among nomadic tribes of hostile natives, without any means of interior transportation except canoes, the safety and success of this party were by no means assured. It was even asserted by many friends of the enterprise, that to leave men in such a situation, and under such circumstances, was to abandon them to almost certain death; and the Russian consul at San Francisco wrote a letter to Colonel Bulkley, advising him strongly not to land a party on the Asiatic coast of the North Pacific, but to send it instead to one of the Russian ports of the Okhotsk Sea, where it could establish a base of supplies, obtain information with regard to the interior, and procure horses or dog-sledges for overland explorations in any desired direction.

The wisdom and good sense of this advice were apparent to all; but unfortunately the engineer-in-chief had no vessel that he could send with a party into the Okhotsk Sea, and if men were landed at all that summer on the Asiatic coast, they must be landed near Bering Strait.

I therefore went up to tell Bush that I had made a careful and critical examination of the vessel below, and that she would undoubtedly do. I omitted to state the nature of the observations upon which this conclusion was founded, but he asked no troublesome questions, and we returned to the office with a favourable report of the ship's build, capacity, and outfit.

Our farewell letters were hastily written home, our final preparations made, and at nine o'clock on Monday morning we assembled at the Howard Street wharf, where the steam-tug lay which was to tow us out to sea.

A large party of friends had gathered to bid us good-bye; and the pier, covered with bright dresses and blue uniforms, presented quite a holiday appearance in the warm clear sunshine of a California morning.

Our last instructions were delivered to us by Colonel Bulkley, with many hearty wishes for our health and success; laughing invitations to "come and see us" were extended to our less fortunate comrades who were left behind; requests to send back specimens of the North pole and the aurora borealis were intermingled with directions for preserving birds and collecting bugs; and amid a general confusion of congratulations, good wishes, cautions, bantering challenges, and tearful farewells, the steamer's bell rang. Dall, ever alive to the interests of his beloved science, grasped me cordially by the hand, saying, "Good-bye, George. God bless you! Keep your eye out for land-snails and skulls of the wild animals!"

The steamer towed us outside the "heads" of the Golden Gate, and then cast off; and as she passed us on her way back, our friends gathered in a little group on the forward deck, with the colonel at their head, and gave three generous cheers for the "first Siberian exploring party." We replied with three more,--our last farewell to civilisation,--and silently watched the lessening figure of the steamer, until the white handkerchief which Arnold had tied to the backstays could no longer be seen, and we were rocking alone on the long swells of the Pacific.

CROSSING THE NORTH PACIFIC--SEVEN WEEKS IN A RUSSIAN BRIG

"He took great content and exceeding delight in his voyage, as who doth not as shall attempt the like."--BURTON.

Ten days ago, on the eve of our departure for the Asiatic coast, full of high hopes and joyful anticipations of pleasure, I wrote in a fair round hand on this opening page of my journal, the above sentence from Burton; never once doubting, in my enthusiasm, the complete realisation of those "future joys," which to "fancy's eye" lay in such "bright uncertainty," or suspecting that "a life on the ocean wave" was not a state of the highest felicity attainable on earth. The quotation seemed to me an extremely happy one, and I mentally blessed the quaint old Anatomist of Melancholy for providing me with a motto at once so simple and so appropriate. Of course "he took great content and exceeding delight in his voyage"; and the wholly unwarranted assumption that because "he" did, every one else necessarily must, did not strike me as being in the least absurd.

Our life since we left port has certainly been anything but poetical.

For nearly a week, we suffered all the indescribable miseries of seasickness, without any alleviating circumstances whatever. Day after day we lay in our narrow berths, too sick to read, too unhappy to talk, watching the cabin lamp as it swung uneasily in its well-oiled gimbals, and listening to the gurgle and swash of the water around the after dead-lights, and the regular clank, clank of the blocks of the try-sail sheet as the rolling of the vessel swung the heavy boom from side to side.

We all professed to be enthusiastic supporters of the Tapleyan philosophy--jollity under all circumstances; but we failed most lamentably in reconciling our practice with our principles. There was not the faintest suggestion of jollity in the appearance of the four motionless, prostrate figures against the wall. Seasickness had triumphed over philosophy! Prospective and retrospective reverie of a decidedly gloomy character was our only occupation. I remember speculating curiously upon the probability of Noah's having ever been seasick; wondering how the sea-going qualities of the Ark would compare with those of our brig, and whether she had our brig's uncomfortable way of pitching about in a heavy swell.

If she had--and I almost smiled at the idea--what an unhappy experience it must have been for the poor animals!

I wondered also if Jason and Ulysses were born with sea-legs, or whether they had to go through the same unpleasant process that we did to get them on.

Concluded finally that sea-legs, like some diseases must be a diabolical invention of modern times, and that the ancients got along in some way without them. Then, looking intently at the fly-specks upon the painted boards ten inches from my eyes, I would recall all the bright anticipations with which I had sailed from San Francisco, and turn over, with a groan of disgust, to the wall.

I wonder if any one has ever written down on paper his seasick reveries. There are "Evening Reveries," "Reveries of a Bachelor," and "Seaside Reveries" in abundance; but no one, so far as I know, has ever even attempted to do his seasick reveries literary justice. It is a strange oversight, and I would respectfully suggest to any aspiring writer who has the reverie faculty, that there is here an unworked field of boundless extent. One trip across the North Pacific in a small brig will furnish an inexhaustible supply of material.

Our life thus far has been too monotonous to afford a single noticeable incident. The weather has been cold, damp, and foggy, with light head winds and a heavy swell; we have been confined closely to our seven-by-nine after-cabin; and its close, stifling atmosphere, redolent of bilge-water, lamp oil, and tobacco smoke, has had a most depressing influence upon our spirits. I am glad to see, however, that all our party are up today, and that there is a faint interest manifested in the prospect of dinner; but even the inspiriting strains of the Faust march, which the captain is playing upon a wheezy old accordion, fail to put any expression of animation into the woebegone faces around the cabin table. Mahood pretends that he is all right, and plays checkers with the captain with an air of assumed tranquillity which approaches heroism, but he is observed at irregular intervals to go suddenly and unexpectedly on deck, and to return every time with a more ghastly and rueful countenance. When asked the object of these periodical visits to the quarter-deck, he replies, with a transparent affectation of cheerfulness, that he only goes up "to look at the compass and see how she's heading." I am surprised to find that looking at the compass is attended with such painful and melancholy emotions as those expressed in Mahood's face when he comes back; but he performs the self-imposed duty with unshrinking faithfulness, and relieves us of a great deal of anxiety about the safety of the ship. The captain seems a little negligent, and sometimes does not observe the compass once a day; but Mahood watches it with unsleeping vigilance.

The monotony of our lives was relieved night before last, and our seasickness aggravated, by a severe gale of wind from the north-west, which compelled us to lie to for twenty hours under one close-reefed maintopsail. The storm began late in the afternoon, and by nine o'clock the wind was at its height and the sea rapidly rising. The waves pounded like Titanic sledgehammers against the vessel's quivering timbers; the gale roared a deep diapason through the cordage; and the regular thud, thud, thud of the pumps, and the long melancholy whistling of the wind through the blocks, filled our minds with dismal forebodings, and banished all inclination for sleep.

I used often to wonder, while living in San Francisco, where the chilling fogs that toward night used to drift in over Lone Mountain and through the Golden Gate came from. I have discovered the laboratory. For the past two weeks we have been sailing continually in a dense, wet, grey cloud of mist, so thick at times as almost to hide the topgallant yards, and so penetrating as to find its way even into our little after-cabin, and condense in minute drops upon our clothes. It rises, I presume, from the warm water of the great Pacific Gulf Stream across which we are passing, and whose vapour is condensed into fog by the cold north-west winds from Siberia. It is the most disagreeable feature of our voyage.

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