Read Ebook: Through Siberia and Manchuria By Rail by Ready Oliver George

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Ebook has 90 lines and 10923 words, and 2 pages

OLIVER G. READY

NOTE

Now, however, that war has broken out between Russia and Japan, and that it may be years before this, the longest railway in the world, is again open to international traffic, I feel that any information, however slight, concerning so stupendous an undertaking, as well as about the remote region which it traverses, may be of interest to the general public.

I wish to emphasize that much of what is herein described was seen only from the windows of a moving train, and must therefore be lacking in that accuracy and detail which closer inspection could alone insure.

EASTWARD HO!

It was a lovely day with fair wind and smooth sea, and had only the vessel's bows been pointed in the opposite direction, I should have been perfectly happy, but they were not, so I had to make the best of things, which consisted in watching over the stern Old England's chalk cliffs, gleaming white in the brilliant sunshine, slowly sink and disappear into the heaving main. . . . . . . Good-bye. Eastward ho!

The day was fine and the country pretty, without being beautiful. In places it was well wooded with firs and silver birches. For many miles I noticed sorrel growing alongside the line almost as thickly as grass.

The frontier town of Alexandrowo was reached at 3 o'clock, and there we passed from German to Russian control. At the German end of the long platform officials and porters were wearing the German uniform. At the Russian end of the platform, all porters were clad in long, white cotton smocks with leather girdles, while officials wore the uniform of the Czar. As the two nationalities were here contrasted, I think the Russians showed to greater advantage, being generally taller and having a more natural bearing than the over-drilled Teuton.

Our luggage was examined by the Customs officers, and our passports taken away, vis?d, and returned, before the train was allowed to proceed.

It was getting dark as we steamed into Russia, so that not much of the country could be seen, but as far as I could make out, it looked flat and gloomy enough.

We reached Warsaw at about 8 o'clock, and as the train stopped here, it being a terminus, I drove to the Hotel Bristol.

The general impression I had received while on this rapid journey across half of Europe in little more than 24 hours, was that in Belgium things looked slip-shod, in Germany organized, and in Russia potential.

The hotel I found to be first-class and up-to-date in every way, while prices were moderate and the cuisine excellent.

The dining room was a perfect blaze, being illuminated by more than 1,000 electric lights, let into the walls and screened by round, opaque glasses, so that the effect was something like that of so many bull's-eye lanterns.

Many beautiful churches raise their lofty spires and oriental domes, painted green or gilded with gold and surmounted by crosses, for Russians are of the Greek faith. The principal streets were crowded with fine soldiers in gay uniforms, the slums were packed with repulsive looking Jews, who, in long black coats and little peaked caps, sneaked about as though in constant dread of persecution, their hooked noses, pale faces and black beards giving them that furtive and crafty appearance for which the Polish Jew is so well known. Objects of pity, their history is written on their faces.

The horses, though fine-drawn, looked strong, well-bred and good goers.

Cigars were very dear--about eighteen pence for a medium one--and each separate cigar was sold in a kind of glass or gelatine air-tight tube.

Roads were wretched, being mere tracks a foot deep in mud, and looked as though they had never been repaired, or even made.

Houses built low with no upper storey, walls of wooden beams and roofs of thatch. Men mostly clad in sheep skins, and women in red dresses with a red cloth over the head, bare legs and sandals. Winter wheat well grown.

Hardly any good houses. Peasants with hair four or five inches long and wearing sheep skin coats and knee-boots, came to stations to look at the train. The women had shawls over their heads, and squelched through the mud and slush with bare feet. All looked cold and dejected, while the landscape was most depressing.

With the exception of a few wild and tame pigeons, saw hardly any birds, but turkeys at a farm.

Arrived in Moscow at 4 p.m., and drove in a droski to the Slavianski Hotel, where my passport was again required.

In the evening, after an excellent dinner, I went to a first-class variety entertainment at the Aquarium theatre.

My bedroom at the hotel was warmed in a curious manner. There was neither stove nor hot-water-pipe, but in one of the walls at some seven feet from the floor was a round hole about three inches in diameter.

Being curious to know what this hole could be for, I put my hand up to it, and was greatly surprised to find a current of hot air pouring into the room, which was thereby kept at a most comfortable temperature both by day and night.

The ball-room in the new palace is of immense size and of most majestic proportions, the walls being entirely of mirrors and gold gilt, and the floor richly inlaid with many kinds of beautiful woods. Columns built of malachite, crystal, and precious stones. Stairways of marble and jade, while countless ornaments of pure gold adorned the various apartments. The old palace, which adjoins the new, is smaller, less magnificent, being of cloister like build, but intensely interesting. Here I saw the bedroom and the bed in which Napoleon slept for a few nights before Moscow was laid in ashes by her own inhabitants, and the French invaders driven out to die like flies in the snow.

In the afternoon I visited several beautiful churches, a museum, and an exhibition of Verestchagin's famous war pictures.

The bazaars of Moscow are far-famed, though more so in Asia than in Europe. I passed through the newest and largest. It struck me as being more extensive than the Crystal Palace, though not so lofty, and I was told that it contained under its roof a thousand shops of the best class.

Another passenger was a Chinese Secretary of Legation from Rome, who, not being able to speak anything but his own language, hailed me with delight, and we had long conversations in Mandarin.

Grouped round towns and villages were enormous stack-yards, representing what must have been the entire wheat crop of the surrounding country, for I saw no other stacks in the fields. It seemed to me a very dangerous plan, for if one stack caught fire, the others would be almost sure to go too. There may have been as many as a thousand stacks close together. I saw numerous turkeys at the farms.

No ice on lake. We cast off at a quarter to three in the afternoon and reached Missova?a on the other side at 5.35, a distance of only 40 miles, this being the narrowest part of the lake, the length of which exceeds 300 miles.

The water was clear and of a steel-gray colour. Hills of perhaps 2,000 feet lined either shore as far as the eye could reach. Presently the setting sun lit up the snow on these mountains with every colour of the rainbow, and we steamed along, as it were, between walls of flaming brilliancy. Soon the placid waters took on the colouring as reflected from the hills, and we were indeed moving in a basin of liquid fire. Many seagulls, appearing as quite old Norfolk friends, followed in our wake.

It was already dark and the train had not yet started, when I saw a band of armed soldiers surrounding some thirty people carrying bundles, coming along the dimly-lighted platform, and then form up at one end of it, the people being always surrounded by the soldiers. What had especially attracted my attention, or I might not have noticed in the uncertain light of what the band consisted, was a little boy of about 10 or 12 years of age, who was carrying a large bundle which looked like clothing, trying to pass on the wrong side of some palings, when he was roughly seized by the ear by one of the Cossack guards and quickly brought back.

Wishing to post some letters, I tried to pass along that end of the platform in search of the pillar-box, but was at once stopped by the guard. The steam from our engine, congealed by the sharp post, fell in a fine snow about this luckless band, and glistened white on their clothes in the station lights, and it almost seemed to add an uncalled-for insult to the misery of their lot. I could not help wondering as to what their thoughts might be as they watched our waiting train, replete with every comfort and blazing with electric light. I have never before seen the extremes of misery and captivity on the one hand, and the extremes of freedom and luxury on the other, brought into such close and striking contrast, and I hope never to see it again. Subsequently the dejected looking throng, in which I fancied I saw women, were marched through a doorway into a darkened passage in the station, and so disappeared from sight.

Probably they were all criminals who deserved their fate. Possibly not. Preconceived ideas and old tradition, however, stirred one's sympathies, and left an unpleasant feeling in the mind for some time. I was constrained to compare our lots, and be thankful for mine. I, free to go my way in every comfort. They .............................. ?

After crossing the Ural mountains I noticed numbers of magpies, through in European Russia I also saw a few.

The scenery to-day has been very good, having at times a park-like appearance, with rolling downs and scattered fir trees. In the afternoon we climbed the Nertchinsk mountains, and by dark had reached a considerable altitude, the air being very keen. At Khilok station, where we stopped for a few minutes, I got out and ran up and down for exercise, but found the cold so great that I was glad to get on board again for fear of having my ears frost bitten, they having become perfectly numb.

Since leaving Irkoutsk the houses have been better built, and the country has looked far more pleasing than in European Russia. I saw great piles of sleepers stacked alongside the line, and heavy metals lying by the track for many miles, so that the present light rails are apparently to be replaced, but so far, very few men at work. To-day we passed a waggon-church in a siding at a small village. This waggon-church moves about up and down the line to places where there are no churches, and there it is stopped, and mass said for the inhabitants by a Russian priest.

A few fat-tailed sheep were also seen. These animals have enormous tails of solid fat, about as large, and of much the same shape, as a small ham. During winter when the frozen ground is covered with snow and no pasturage is to be found, it is said that they live on the fat stored in these tails, in the same manner as camels exist for considerable periods on their humps, seals on their blubber, and bears by sucking their paws.

Here and there I observed mobs of China ponies, some nondescript dogs and a few ordinary-looking cattle.

Between Lake Baikal and Manchuria all food was much dearer, while only American beer could be obtained and that at the exorbitant price of one rouble and a quarter, say half-a-crown, the bottle, which was because of excessive import duty. We crossed many streams, the waters of which were clear, although generally frozen. The Buriat population of this region looked of a low type, fairly large in stature but hideous, and generally badly marked with small-pox. Saw one boy on skates. Bought postage stamps for 40 kopeks at a small station, but had to give another 10 kopeks as commission. Saw a Mongol with pigtail at one of the stations, which showed that we were approaching the borders of the Chinese Empire.

At Buriatskaia, which means capital of the Buriats, were two typical Mongols with pigtails and clad in skins. One of them was wearing an official tassel attached to his skin hood, but no official button to show his rank. To-day saw a flock of larks, a hawk and a magpie. From daylight till dark, during which time we travelled a distance of perhaps 300 miles, there was no vestige of either trees, shrubs, banks or hedges, and no cultivation, only the rolling grass lands slightly whitened with snow. Reached the town of Manchuria, which is on the Manchurian frontier, at 8 p.m., and changed one of the 1st Class cars, something having gone wrong with the axles.

This large town, which has entirely sprung up since advent of the railway, looked almost wholly Russian, there being a population of about 64,000 Russians and not so many Chinese. Russians here were even working as labourers, drivers of droskies, etc. Many European houses and several large brick-built factories in course of construction. The Russians are here with the intention of staying, and are making good their hold as quickly as possible.

The station is perhaps a mile from the river and of considerable size, though still in a rough stage, for Harbin is the junction of the line to Vladivostock and the line to Dalny and Port Arthur. Here was a great deal of rolling-stock--scores of cars and many engines.

After leaving Harbin armed guards along the line were more numerous, while every few miles were brick-built block-houses surrounded by loop-holed walls.

The country looked fertile and well cultivated, and the Manchu and Chinese inhabitants more prosperous. Rolling hills and a few trees. Much warmer. No snow.

At Moukden, which is the capital of Manchuria, the train only stopped for a few minutes, and as the station was outside the city walls, I could get no idea of what the place was like. From Moukden to Dalny I saw many and substantial traces of Russian occupation. At one point a mud fort crowned with guns, at another a large camp with half a dozen field-pieces, and so on.

The line all through seemed to be well laid, though rails far too light, which forbade running at high speeds. There appeared to be too few sidings. On one of the cars I saw the number 2,741, which may be some indication as to the amount of rolling-stock. Along entire length of the line I noticed overhead telegraph wires, which sometimes numbered six or seven and occasionally two or three.

For the whole journey the food on train was good, but owing to the large number of passengers, after giving the order one had oftentimes to wait from an hour to an hour and a half before getting served. After Baikal this considerably improved, there then being two restaurants, one for smokers and one for non-smokers, whereas before, men smoked without restraint while women and children were eating their meals. This dining-car was a perfect babel of tongues, for there were collected Russians, English, French, Japanese, Germans, Swiss, Chinese and Italians, generally all talking at once.

On the whole we rubbed along fairly well, although where so many nationalities were closely packed together for a fortnight, a certain amount of racial antipathy was occasionally bound to appear. When no Russians were about both the Japanese and Chinese would eagerly question me on the chances of war. When a Russian appeared, they immediately seemed to lose all interest in the subject. The Germans affected to despise the Russians, and the Russians said they hated the Germans, while they both suspected the English.

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