Siberia.—Its immense Extent and Capabilities.—The Exiles.—Mentschikoff.—Dolgorouky.—Münich.—The Criminals.—The free Siberian Peasant.—Extremes of Heat and Cold.—Fur-bearing Animals.—The Sable.—The Ermine.—The Siberian Weasel.—The Sea-otter.—The black Fox.—The Lynx.—The Squirrel.—The varying Hare.—The Suslik.—Importance of the Fur-trade for the Northern Provinces of the Russian Empire.—The Gold-diggings of Eastern Siberia.—The Taiga.—Expenses and Difficulties of searching Expeditions.—Costs of Produce, and enormous Profits of successful Speculators.—Their senseless Extravagance.—First Discovery of Gold in the Ural Mountains.—Jakowlew and Demidow.—Nishne-Tagilsk.
Siberia is at least thirty times more extensive than Great Britain and Ireland, but its scanty population forms a miserable contrast to its enormous size. Containing scarcely three millions of inhabitants, it is comparatively three hundred times less peopled than the British Islands. This small population is, moreover, very unequally distributed, consisting chiefly of Russians and Tartars, who have settled in the south or in the milder west, along the rivers and the principal thoroughfares which lead from the territory of one large stream to the other. In the northern and eastern districts, as far as they are occupied, the settlements are likewise almost entirely confined to the river-banks; and thus the greater part of the enormous forest-lands, and of the interminable tundras, are either entirely uninhabited by man, or visited only by the huntsman, the gold-digger, or the migratory savage.
And yet Siberia has not been so niggardly treated by Nature as not to be205 able to sustain a far more considerable population. In the south there are thousands of square miles fit for cultivation; the numbers of the herds and flocks might be increased a hundred-fold, and even the climate would become milder after the labor of man had subdued the chilling influences of the forest and the swamp. But it is easier to express than to realize the wish to see Siberia more populous, for its reputation is hardly such as to tempt the free colonists to settle within its limits; and thus the Russian Government, which would willingly see its more temperate regions covered with flourishing towns and villages, can only expect an increase of population from the slow growth of time, aided by the annual influx of the involuntary emigrants which it sends across the Ural to the East.
Many a celebrated personage has already been doomed to trace this melancholy path, particularly during the last century, when the all-powerful favorite of one period was not seldom doomed to exile by the next palace revolution. This fate befell, among others, the famous Prince Mentschikoff. In a covered cart, and in the dress of a peasant, the confidential minister of Peter the Great, the man who for years had ruled the vast Russian Empire, was conveyed into perpetual banishment. His dwelling was now a simple hut, and the spade of the laborer replaced the pen of the statesman. Domestic misfortunes aggravated his cruel lot. His wife died from the fatigues of the journey; one of his daughters soon after fell a victim to the smallpox; his two other children, who were attacked by the same malady, recovered. He himself died in the year 1729, and was buried near his daughter at Beresow, the seat of his exile. Like Cardinal Wolsey, after his fall he remembered God, whom he had forgotten during the swelling tide of his prosperity. He considered his punishment as a blessing, which showed him the way to everlasting happiness. He built a chapel, assisting in its erection with his own hands, and after the services gave instruction to the congregation. The inhabitants of Beresow still honor his memory, and revere him as a saint. They were confirmed in this belief by the circumstance that his body, having been disinterred in 1821, was found in a state of perfect preservation, after a lapse of ninety-two years.
One day, as his daughter walked through the village, she was accosted by a peasant from the window of a hut. This peasant was Prince Dolgorouky, her father’s enemy—the man who had caused his banishment, and was now, in his turn, doomed to taste the bitterness of exile. Soon after the princess and her brother were pardoned by the Empress Anna, and Dolgorouky took possession of their hut. Young Mentschikoff was finally reinstated in all the honors and riches of his father, and from him descends, in a direct line, the famous defender of Sebastopol.
Marshal Münich, the favorite of the Empress Anna, was doomed, in his sixtieth year, to a Siberian exile, when Elizabeth ascended the throne. His prison consisted of three rooms—one for his guards or jailers, the second for their kitchen, the third for his own use. A wall twenty feet high prevented him from enjoying the view even of the sky. The man who had once governed Russia had but half a rouble daily to spend; but the love of his wife—who,206 although fifty-five years old, had the courage and the self-denial to accompany him in his banishment—alleviated the sorrows of his exile. The venerable couple spent twenty-one years in Siberia, and on their return from exile, fifty-two children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, were assembled to meet them at Moscow. The revolution which placed Catherine the Second on the throne had nearly once more doomed the octogenarian statesman to banishment, but he fortunately weathered the storm, and died as governor of St. Petersburg.
In this century, also, many an unfortunate exile, guiltless at least of ignoble crimes, has been doomed to wander to Siberia. There many a soldier of the grande armée has ended his life; there still lives many a patriotic Pole, banished for having loved his country “not wisely but too well;” there also the conspirators who marked with so bloody an episode the accession of Nicholas, have had time to reflect on the dangers of plotting against the Czar.
Most of the Siberian exiles are, however, common criminals—such as in our country would be hung or transported, or sentenced to the treadmill: the assassin, the robber—to Siberia; the smuggler on the frontier, whose free-trade principles injure the imperial exchequer—to Siberia; even the vagabond who is caught roaming, and can give no satisfactory account of his doings and intentions, receives a fresh passport—to Siberia.
Thus the annual number of the exiles amounts to about 12,000, who, according to the gravity of their offenses, are sent farther and farther eastward. On an average, every week sees a transport of about 300 of these “unfortunates,” as they are termed by popular compassion, pass through Tobolsk. About one-sixth are immediately pardoned, and the others sorted. Murderers and burglars are sent to the mines of Nertschinsk, after having been treated in Russia, before they set out on their travels, with fifty lashes of the knout. In former times their nostrils used to be torn off, a barbarity which is now no longer practised.
According to Sir George Simpson’s “Narrative of a Journey Round the World” (1847), Siberia is the best penitentiary in the world. Every exile who is not considered bad enough for the mines—those black abysses, at whose entrance, as at that of Dante’s hell, all hope must be left behind—receives a piece of land, a hut, a horse, two cows, the necessary agricultural implements, and provisions for a year. The first three years he has no taxes to pay, and, during the following ten, only the half of the usual assessment. Thus, if he choose to exert himself, he has every reason to hope for an improvement in his condition, and at the same time fear contributes to keep him in the right path; for he well knows that his first trespass would infallibly conduct him to the mines, a by no means agreeable prospect. Under the influence of these stimulants, many an exile attains a degree of prosperity which would have been quite beyond his reach had he remained in European Russia.
Hofmann gives a less favorable account of the Siberian exiles. In his opinion, the prosperity and civilization of the country has no greater obstacle than the mass of criminals sent to swell its population. In the province of Tomsk, which seems to be richly stocked with culprits of the worst description, all the207 wagoners belong to this class. They endeavored to excite his compassion by hypocrisy. “It was the will of God!” is their standing phrase, to which they tried to give a greater emphasis by turning up the whites of their eyes. But, in spite of this pious resignation to the Divine will, Hofmann never met with a worse set of drunkards, liars, and thieves.
86. SIBERIAN PEASANT.
As to the free Siberian peasant, who is generally of exile extraction, all travellers are agreed in his praise. “As soon as one crosses the Ural,” says Wrangell, “one is surprised by the extreme friendliness and good-nature of the inhabitants, as much as by the rich vegetation, the well-cultivated fields, and the excellent state of the roads in the southern part of the government of Tobolsk. Our luggage could be left without a guard in the open air. ‘Ne-boss!’ ‘Fear not!’ was the answer when we expressed some apprehension;208 ‘there are no thieves among us.’ This may appear strange, but it must be remembered that the Tomsk wagoners, described above, are located far more to the east, and that every exiled criminal has his prescribed circuit, the bounds of which he may not pass without incurring the penalty of being sent to the mines.
According to Professor Hansteen, the Siberian peasants are the finest men of all Russia, with constitutions of iron. With a sheepskin over their shirt, and their thin linen trowsers, they bid defiance to a cold of 30° and more. They have nothing of the dirty avarice of the European Russian boor; they have as much land as they choose for cultivation, and the soil furnishes all they require for their nourishment and clothing. Their cleanliness is exemplary. Within the last thirty years the gold-diggings have somewhat spoilt this state of primitive simplicity, yet even Hofmann allows that the West-Siberian peasant has retained much of the honesty and hospitality for which he was justly celebrated.
Besides agriculture, mining, fishing, and hunting, the carriage of merchandise is one of the chief occupations of the Siberians, and probably, in proportion to the population, no other country employs so large a number of wagoners and carriers. The enormous masses of copper, lead, iron, and silver produced by the Altai and the Nertschinsk mountains, have to be conveyed from an immense distance to the Russian markets. The gold from the East-Siberian diggings is indeed easier to transport, but the provisions required by the thousands of workmen employed during the summer in working the auriferous sands, have to be brought to them, frequently from a distance of many hundred versts.
The millions of furs, from the squirrel to the bear, likewise require considerable means of transport; and, finally, the highly important caravan-trade with China conveys thousands of bales of tea from Kiachta to Irbit. Siberia has indeed many navigable rivers, but a glance at the map shows us at once that they are so situated as to afford far less facilities to commerce than would be the case in a more temperate climate. They all flow northward into an inhospitable sea, which is forever closed to navigation, and are themselves ice-bound during the greater part of the year. Enormous distances separate them from each other, and there are no navigable canals to unite them.
On some of the larger rivers steam-boats have indeed been introduced, and railroads are talked of; but there can be no doubt that, for many a year to come, the cart and the sledge will continue to be the chief means of transport in a country which, in consequence of its peculiar geographical position, is even in its more southern parts exposed to all the rigors of an Arctic winter.
Thus at Jakutsk (62° N. lat.), which is situated but six degrees farther to the north than Edinburgh (55° 58´), the mean temperature of the coldest month is -40°, and mercury a solid body during one-sixth part of the year; while at Irkutsk (52° 16´ N. lat.), situated but little farther to the north than Oxford (51° 46´), the thermometer frequently falls to -30°, or even -40°; temperatures which are of course quite unheard of on the banks of the Isis. For these dreadful winters in the heart of Siberia, and under comparatively low degrees of latitude, there are various causes. The land is, in the first place, an immense209 plain slanting to the north; moreover, it is situated at such a distance from the Atlantic, that beyond the Ural the western sea-winds, which bring warmth to our winters, assume the character of cold land-winds; and, finally, it merges in the south into the high Mongolian plateau, which, situated 4000 feet above the level of the sea, has of course but little warmth to impart to it in winter; so that, from whatever side the wind may blow at that season, it constantly conveys cold. But in summer the scene undergoes a total change. Under the influence of the sun circling for months round the North Pole, floods of warmth are poured into Central Siberia, and rapidly cause the thermometer to rise; no neighboring sea refreshes the air with a cooling breeze; whether the wind come from the heated Mongolian deserts, or sweep over the Siberian plains, it imbibes warmth on every side. Thus the terrible winter of Jakutsk is followed by an equally immoderate summer (58° 3´), so that rye and barley are able to ripen on a soil which a few feet below the surface is perpetually frozen.
87. IRKUTSK.
The boundless woods of Siberia harbor a number of fur-bearing animals whose skins form one of the chief products of the country. Among these persecuted denizens of the forest, the sable (Martes zibellina), which closely resembles the pine-marten (Martes abietum) in shape and size, deserves to be particularly noticed, both for the beauty of its pelt, and its importance in the fur-trade. Sleeping by day, the sable hunts his prey by night; but though he chiefly relishes animal food, such as hares, young birds, mice, and eggs, he also feeds on berries, and the tasteful seeds of the Pinus cembra. His favorite abode is near the banks of some river, in holes of the earth, or beneath the roots of trees. Incessant persecution has gradually driven him into the most inaccessible forests;210 the days are no more when the Tunguse hunter willingly gave for a copper kettle as many sable skins as it would hold, or when the Kamchatkan trapper, could easily catch seventy or eighty sables in one winter; but Von Baer still estimates the annual produce of all Siberia at 45,000 skins. The finest are caught in the forests between the Lena and the Eastern Sea, but Kamchatka furnishes the greater number. A skin of the finest quality is worth about forty roubles on the spot, and at least twice as much in St. Petersburg or Moscow, particularly when the hair is long, close, and of a deep blackish-brown, with a thick brown underwool. Skins with long dark hair tipped with white are highly esteemed, but still more so those which are entirely black—a color to which the Russians give the preference, while the Chinese have no objection to reddish tints. In consequence of this difference of taste, the sables from the Obi, which are generally larger but of a lighter color, are sent to Kiachta, while the darker skins, from Eastern Siberia, are directed to St. Petersburg and Leipsic.
The chase of the sable is attended with many hardships and dangers. The skins are in the highest perfection at the commencement of the winter; accordingly, towards the end of October, the hunters assemble in small companies, and proceed along the rivers in boats, or travel in sledges to the place of rendezvous—taking with them provisions for three or four months. In the deep and solitary forest they erect their huts, made of branches of trees, and bank up the snow round them, as a further protection against the piercing wind. They now roam and seek everywhere for the traces of the sable, and lay traps or snares for his destruction. These are generally pitfalls, with loose boards placed over them, baited with fish or flesh; fire-arms or cross-bows are more rarely used, as they damage the skins. The traps must be frequently visited, and even then the hunter often finds that a fox has preceded him, and left but a few worthless remnants of the sable in the snare. Or sometimes a snow-storm overtakes him, and then his care must be to save his own life. Thus sable-hunting is a continual chain of disappointments and perils, and at the end of the season it is frequently found that the expenses are hardly paid. Until now the sable has been but rarely tamed. One kept in the palace of the Arch-bishop of Tobolsk was so perfectly domesticated, that it was allowed to stroll about the town as it liked. It was an arch-enemy of cats, raising itself furiously on its hind-legs as soon as it saw one, and showing the greatest desire to fight it.
In former times the ermine (Mustela erminea) ranked next to the sable as the most valuable fur-bearing animal of the Siberian woods; at present the skin is worth no more than from five to eight silver kopeks at Tobolsk, so that the whole produce of its chase hardly amounts to 200,000 roubles. This little animal resembles in its general appearance the weasel, but is considerably larger, as it attains a length of from twelve to fourteen inches. Its color, which is reddish-brown in summer, becomes milk-white during the winter in the northern regions, with the exception of the tip of the tail, which always remains black. Its habits likewise greatly resemble those of the weasel; it is equally alert in all its movements, and equally courageous in defending itself when attacked. It lives on birds, poultry, rats, rabbits, leverets, and all kinds of smaller animals,211 and will not hesitate to attack a prey of much greater size than itself. Although various species of ermine are distributed over the whole forest region of the north, yet Siberia produces the finest skins. The largest come from the Kolyma, or are brought to the fair of Ostrownoje by the Tchutchi, who obtain them from the coldest regions of America.
The Siberian weasel (Viverra siberica), which is much smaller than the ermine, is likewise hunted for its soft and perfectly snow-white winter dress—the tip of the tail not being black, as in the latter.
The sea-otter, or kalan (Enhydris lutris), the most valuable of all the Russian fur-bearing animals, as 110 silver roubles is the average price of a single skin, is nearly related to the weasel tribe. The enormous value set upon the glossy, jet-black, soft, and thick fur of the kalan sufficiently explains how the Russian hunters have followed his traces from Kamchatka to America, and almost entirely extirpated him on many of the coasts and islands of Bering’s Sea and the Northern Pacific, where he formerly abounded. His habits very much resemble those of the seal; he haunts sea-washed rocks, lives mostly in the water, and loves to bask in the sun. His hind feet have a membrane skirting the outside of the exterior toe, like that of a goose, and the elongated form of his flexible body enables him to swim with the greatest celerity. The love of the sea-otters for their young is so great that they reckon their own lives as nothing to protect them from danger; and Steller, who had more opportunities than any other naturalist for observing their habits, affirms that, when deprived of their offspring, their grief is so strong that in less than a fortnight they waste away to skeletons. On their flight they carry their young in their mouths, or drive them along before them. If they succeed in reaching the sea, they begin to mock their baffled pursuer, and express their joy by a variety of antics. Sometimes they raise themselves upright in the water, rising and falling with the waves, or holding a fore paw over their eyes, as if to look sharply at him; or they throw themselves on their back, rubbing their breast with their fore paws; or cast their young into the water, and catch them again, like a mother playing with her infant. The sea-otter not only surpasses the fish-otter by the beauty of his fur, but also in size, as he attains a length of from three to four feet, exclusive of the tail. His food consists of small fishes, molluscs, and crustaceous animals, whose hard calcareous covering his broad grinders are well adapted to crush.
Next to the sea-otter, the black fox, whose skin is of a rich and shining black or deep brown color, with the longer or exterior hairs of a silvery-white, furnishes the most costly of all the Siberian furs. The average price of a single skin amounts to 60 or 70 silver roubles, and rich amateurs will willingly pay 300 roubles, or even more, for those of first-rate quality. The skin of the Siberian red fox, which ranks next in value, is worth no more than 20 roubles; the steel-gray winter dress of the Siberian crossed fox (thus named from the black cross on his shoulders), from 10 to 12 roubles; and that of the Arctic fox, though very warm and close, no more than 6 or 8.
The bear family likewise furnishes many skins to the Siberian furrier. That of the young brown bear (Ursus arctos) is highly esteemed for the trimming212 of pelisses; but that of the older animal has little value, and is used, like that of the polar bear, as a rug or a foot-cloth in sledges.
The lynx is highly prized for its very thick, soft, rust-colored winter dress, striped with darker brown. It attains the size of the wolf, and is distinguished from all other members of the cat tribe, by the pencils of long black hair which tip its erect and pointed ears. It loves to lie in ambush for the passing reindeer or elk, on some thick branch at a considerable distance from the ground. With one prodigious bound it leaps upon the back of its victim, strikes its talons into its flesh, and opens with its sharp teeth the arteries of its neck.
Though singly of but little value, as a thousand of its skins are worth no more than one sea-otter, the squirrel plays in reality a far more important part in the Siberian fur-trade than any of the before-mentioned animals, as the total value of the gray peltry which it furnishes to trade is at least seven times greater than that of the sable. Four millions of gray squirrel skins are, on an average, annually exported to China, from two to three millions to Europe, and the home consumption of the Russian Empire is beyond all doubt still more considerable, as it is the fur most commonly used by the middle classes. The European squirrels are of inferior value, as the hair of their winter dress is still a mixture of red and gray; in the territory of the Petschora, the gray first becomes predominant, and increases in beauty on advancing towards the east. The squirrels are caught in snares or traps, or shot with blunted arrows. Among the fur-bearing animals of Siberia, we have further to notice the varying hare, whose winter dress is entirely white, except the tips of the ears, which are black; the Baikal hare; the ground-squirrel, whose fur has fine longitudinal dark-brown stripes, alternating with four light-yellow ones; and the suslik, a species of marmot, whose brown fur, with white spots and stripes, fetches a high price in China. It occurs over all Siberia as far as Kamchatka. Its burrows are frequently nine feet deep; this, however, does not prevent its being dug out by the hunters, who likewise entrap it in spring when it awakes from its winter sleep.
Summing to............