Part 12 (2/2)
After we had passed this desert we came into a country pretty well inhabited--that is to say, we found towns and castles, settled by the Czar with garrisons of stationary soldiers, to protect the caravans and defend the country against the Tartars, ould otherwise ; and his czarishthe caravans, that, if there are any Tartars heard of in the country, detacharrison are always sent to see the travellers safe froovernor of Adinskoy, whom I had an opportunity to make a visit to, by means of the Scots uard of fifty er, to the next station
I thought, long before this, that as we came nearer to Europe we should find the country better inhabited, and the people more civilised; but I found uses to pass through, wherethe saanism and barbarity as before; only, as they were conquered by the Muscovites, they were not so dangerous, but for rudeness of manners and idolatry no people in the world ever went beyond them They are all clothed in skins of beasts, and their houses are built of the saedness of their countenances nor their clothes; and in the winter, when the ground is covered with snow, they live underground in vaults, which have cavities going frou for a whole village or country, these had idols in every hut and every cave This country, I reckon, was, from the desert I spoke of last, at least four hundredanother desert, which took us up twelve days' severe travelling, without house or tree; and ere obliged again to carry our own provisions, as ater as bread After ere out of this desert and had travelled two days, we careat river Janezay, which, they told us there, parted Europe from Asia
All the country between the river Oby and the river Janezay is as entirely pagan, and the people as barbarous, as the remotest of the Tartars I also found, which I observed to the Muscovite governors whoans are notunder the Muscovite governh--but that, as they said, was none of their business; that if the Czar expected to convert his Siberian, Tonguse, or Tartar subjects, it should be done by sending clergy them, not soldiers; and they added, with more sincerity than I expected, that it was not so much the concern of their monarch to make the people Christians as to make them subjects
From this river to the Oby we crossed a wild uncultivated country, barren of people and good ereeable country What inhabitants we found in it are all pagans, except such as are sent a them from Russia; for this is the country--I mean on both sides the river Oby--whither the Muscovite criminals that are not put to death are banished, and froet away I have nothing material to say of my particular affairs till I came to Tobolski, the capital city of Siberia, where I continued so account
We had now been alan to come on apace; whereupon my partner and I called a council about our particular affairs, in which we found it proper, as ere bound for England, to consider how to dispose of ourselves They told us of sledges and reindeer to carry us over the snow in the winter time, by which means, indeed, the Russians travel es they are able to run night and day: the snow, being frozen, is one universal covering to nature, by which the hills, vales, rivers, and lakes are all smooth and hard is a stone, and they run upon the surface, without any regard to what is underneath
But I had no occasion to urge a winter journey of this kind I was bound to England, not to Moscow, and o on as the caravan went, till I cao off west for Narva and the Gulf of Finland, and so on to Dantzic, where I e; or I must leave the caravan at a little town on the Dwina, froel, and froland, Holland, or Hao any one of these journeys in the winter would have been preposterous; for as to Dantzic, the Baltic would have been frozen up and I could not get passage; and to go by land in those countries was far less safe than ael in October, all the shi+ps would be gone from thence, and even the merchants ell there in summer retire south to Moscow in the winter, when the shi+ps are gone; so that I could have nothing but extremity of cold to encounter, with a scarcity of provisions, and must lie in an eht it o, and make provision to winter where I was, at Tobolski, in Siberia, in the latitude of about sixty degrees, where I was sure of three things to wear out a cold winter with, viz plenty of provisions, such as the country afforded, a warh, and excellent company
I was now in quite a different climate from my beloved island, where I never felt cold, except when I had ue; on the contrary, I had much to do to bear any clothes on my back, and never made any fire but without doors, which was necessary for dressing owns over the down to the feet, and button close to the wrists; and all these lined with furs, to make thereatly dislike our way in England offires in every room of the house in open chimneys, which, when the fire is out, always keeps the air in the rooood house in the town, and ordered a chimney to be built like a furnace, in the centre of six several rooms, like a stove; the funnel to carry the smoke went up one way, the door to come at the fire went in another, and all the rooms were kept equally warland By this means we had always the same climate in all the rooms, and an equal heat was preserved, and yetno fire, nor were ever inco of all was, that it should be possible to ood company here, in a country so barbarous as this--one of thethe country where the state criminals of Muscovy, as I observed before, are all banished, the city was full of Russian nobleentlemen, soldiers, and courtiers
Here was the famous Prince Galitzin, the old German Robostiski, and several other persons of note, and some ladies By means of my Scotch merchant, whom, nevertheless, I parted with here, I entlehts in which I stayed here, I received several very agreeable visits
CHAPTER XVI--SAFE ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND
It was talking one night with a certain prince, one of the banishedto the Czar, that the discourse ofnificence, the dominions, and the absolute power of the Emperor of the Russians: I interrupted hireater and h e, or randee looked a little surprised, and, fixing his eyes steadily upon an to wonder what I meant I said his wonder would cease when I had explainedin the island; and then how I ed both myself and the people that were under ly taken with the story, and especially the prince, who told reatness of life was to be ed such a state of life as mine to be Czar of Muscovy; and that he found more felicity in the retirement he seehest authority he enjoyed in the court of hisour tempers down to our circureatest storms without When he came first hither, he said, he used to tear the hair from his head, and the clothes from his back, as others had done before him; but a little time and consideration had s without; that he found the ht to reflect upon the state of universal life, and how little this world was concerned in its true felicity, was perfectly capable ofto itself, and suitable to its own best ends and desires, with but very little assistance fro now deprived of all the fancied felicity which he enjoyed in the full exercise of worldly pleasures, he said he was at leisure to look upon the dark side of them, where he found all manner of deformity; and was now convinced that virtue only reat, and preserves him in the way to a superior happiness in a future state; and in this, he said, they were more happy in their banishment than all their enemies were, who had the full possession of all the wealth and power they had left behind the my mind to this politically, from the necessity of my circu of h the Czar randeur”
He spoke this with so much warmth in his temper, so much earnestness and motion of his spirits, that it was evident it was the true sense of his soul; there was no rooht iven hiht he was not only a ot a victory over his own exorbitant desires, and the absolute dooverns his will, is certainly greater than he that conquers a city
I had been here eight ht it; the cold so intense that I could not sowrapped in furs, and a kind of mask of fur before ht: the little daylight we had was for three months not above five hours a day, and six at round continually, and the weather being clear, it was never quite dark Our horses were kept, or rather starved, underground; and as for our servants, e hired here to look after ourselves and horses, we had, every now and then, their fingers and toes to thaw and take care of, lest they should mortify and fall off
It is true, within doors ar close, the walls thick, the s slass all double Our food was chiefly the flesh of deer, dried and cured in the season; bread good enough, but baked as biscuits; dried fish of several sorts, and soood meat All the stores of provisions for the winter are laid up in the summer, and well cured: our drink ater, mixed with aqua vitae instead of brandy; and for a treat, ood The hunters, who venture abroad all weathers, frequently brought us in fine venison, and sometimes bear's flesh, but we did not ood stock of tea, hich we treated our friends, and we lived cheerfully and well, all things considered
It was now March, the days grown considerably longer, and the weather at least tolerable; so the other travellers began to prepare sledges to carry the; but el, and not for Muscovy or the Baltic, Ivery well that the shi+ps from the south do not set out for that part of the world till May or June, and that if I was there by the beginning of August, it would be as soon as any shi+ps would be ready to sail Therefore I reat o away before o from thence to Muscovy, for trade, to carry furs, and buy necessaries, which they bring back with them to furnish their shops: also others went on the saan tothis, it occurred toall these people were banished by the Czar to Siberia, and yet, when they cao whither they would, why they did not then go away to any part of the world, wherever they thought fit: and I began to exa such an attempt But my wonder was over when I entered upon that subject with the person I have mentioned, who answered me thus: ”Consider, first, sir,” said he, ”the place where we are; and, secondly, the condition we are in; especially the generality of the people who are banished thither We are surrounded with stronger things than bars or bolts; on the north side, an unnavigable ocean, where shi+p never sailed, and boat never swam; every other e have above a thousand h the Czar's own dominion, and by ways utterly iovernarrisoned by his troops; in short, we could neither pass undiscovered by the road, nor subsist any other way, so that it is in vain to attempt it”
I was silenced at once, and found that they were in a prison every jot as secure as if they had been locked up in the castle at Moscoever, it caht certainly be made an instrument to procure the escape of this excellent person; and that, whatever hazard I ran, I would certainly try if I could carry hi to tell hihts I represented to hi no guard over hi to Moscow, but to Archangel, and that I went in the retinue of a caravan, by which I was not obliged to lie in the stationary towns in the desert, but could encaht easily pass uninterrupted to Archangel, where I would ilish shi+p, and carry hi with me; and as to his subsistence and other particulars, it should be my care till he could better supply himself
He heard me very attentively, and looked earnestly on me all the while I spoke; nay, I could see in his very face that what I said put his spirits into an exceeding fered, his eyes looked red, and his heart fluttered, till it ht be even perceived in his countenance; nor could he immediately answer me when I had done, and, as it were, hesitated what he would say to it; but after he had paused a little, he euarded creatures as we are, that even our greatest acts of friendshi+p are made snares unto us, and we are made tempters of one another!” He then heartily thanked ue him to set himself free He declared, in earnest ter where he was rather than seek to return to his forreatness, as he called it: where the seeds of pride, aain overwhelm him ”Let me remain, dear sir,” he said, in conclusion--”let me remain in this blessed confinement, banished from the crimes of life, rather than purchase a show of freedom at the expense of the liberty of my reason, and at the future happiness which I now have in ht of; for I am but flesh; a man, a mere man; and have passions and affections as likely to possess and overthrow ether!”
If I was surprised before, I was quite du at hile in his soul was so great that, though the weather was extremely cold, it put him into a most violent heat; so I said a word or two, that I would leave hiain, and then I withdrew to my own apartment
About two hours after I heard so to open the door, but he had opened it and come in ”My dear friend,” says he, ”you had almost overset me, but I am recovered Do not take it ill that I do not close with your offer I assure you it is not for want of sense of the kindness of it in you; and I caot the victory over myself”--”My lord,” said I, ”I hope you are fully satisfied that you do not resist the call of Heaven”--”Sir,” said he, ”if it had been from Heaven, the same poould have influenced me to have accepted it; but I hope, and am fully satisfied, that it is from Heaven that I decline it, and I have infinite satisfaction in the parting, that you shall leave h not a freeto do but to acquiesce, andno end in it but a sincere desire to serve him He embraced me very passionately, and assured e it; and with that he offered me a very fine present of sables--too much, indeed, for me to accept from a man in his circumstances, and I would have avoided the I sent my servant to his lordshi+p with a small present of tea, and two pieces of China daold, which did not all weigh above six ounces or thereabouts, but were far short of the value of his sables, which, when I caland, I found worth near two hundred pounds He accepted the tea, and one piece of the daold, which had a fine stae, which I found he took for the rarity of it, but would not take any more: and he sent word by my servant that he desired to speak with me
When I came to him he told me I knehat had passed between us, and hoped I would not move hienerous offer to hih to offer the same to another person that he would nareat share of concern In a word, he told h I had not seen him, was in the same condition with himself, and above two hundred miles from him, on the other side of the Oby; but that, if I consented, he would send for him
I made no hesitation, but told hi him understand that it holly on his account; and that, seeing I could not prevail on him, I would show my respect to him by my concern for his son He sent the next day for his son; and in about twenty days he ca six or seven horses, loaded with very rich furs, which, in the whole, aht the horses into the town, but left the young lord at a distance till night, when he canito into our apartment, and his father presented him to , and everything proper for the journey
I had bought a considerable quantity of sables, black fox-skins, fine ermines, and such other furs as are very rich in that city, in exchange for soht fros, of which I sold the greatest part here, and the rest afterwards at Archangel, for a ot at London; and my partner, as sensible of the profit, and whose business, htily pleased with our stay, on account of the traffic weof June when I left this remote place We were now reduced to a very s only thirty-two horses and cauest was proprietor of eleven of them It was natural also that I should takelord passed for reat man I passed for myself I know not, neither did it concern est desert to pass over that we met with in our whole journey; I call it the worst, because the as very deep in some places, and very uneven in others; the best we had to say for it was, that we thought we had no troops of Tartars or robbers to fear, as they never came on this side of the river Oby, or at least very seldom; but we found it otherwise