Part 2 (1/2)
At dark last night we were distant, as we supposed, about fifteen miles from Cape Povorotnoi (po-vo-rote'-noi) and as the fog had closed in again denser than ever, the captain dared not venture any nearer.
The s.h.i.+p was accordingly put about, and we stood off and on all night, waiting for sunrise and a clear atmosphere, to enable us to approach the coast in safety. At five o'clock I was on deck. The fog was colder and denser than ever, and out of it rolled the white-capped waves raised by a fresh south-easterly breeze. Shortly before six o'clock it began to grow light, the brig was headed for the land, and under foresail, jib, and topsails, began to forge steadily through the water. The captain, gla.s.s in hand, anxiously paced the quarterdeck, ever and anon reconnoitring the horizon, and casting a glance up to windward to see if there were any prospect of better weather. Several times he was upon the point of putting the s.h.i.+p about, fearing to run on a lee sh.o.r.e in that impenetrable mist; but it finally lightened up, the fog disappeared, and the horizon line came out clear and distinct.
To our utter astonishment, not a foot of land could be seen in any direction! The long range of blue mountains which had seemed the previous night to be within an hour's sail--the lofty snowy peaks--the deep gorges and the bold headlands, had all
”--melted into thin air, Leaving not a rack behind.”
There was nothing to indicate the existence of land within a thousand miles, save the number and variety of the birds that wheeled curiously around our wake, or flew away with a spattering noise from under our bows. Many were the theories which were suggested to account for the sudden disappearance of the high bold land. The captain attempted to explain it by the supposition that a strong current, sweeping off sh.o.r.e, had during the night carried us away to the south-east. Bush accused the mate of being asleep on his watch, and letting the s.h.i.+p run over the land, while the mate declared solemnly that he did not believe that there had been any land there at all; that it was only a mirage. The Major said it was ”paganni” (abominable) and ”a curious thing,” but did not volunteer any solution of the problem. So there we were.
We had a fine leading wind from the south-east, and were now going through the water at the rate of seven knots. Eight o'clock, nine o'clock, ten o'clock, and still no appearance of land, although we had made since daylight more than thirty miles. At eleven o'clock, however, the horizon gradually darkened, and all at once a bold headland, terminating in a precipitous cliff, loomed up out of a thin mist at a distance of only four miles. All was at once excitement. The topgallant sails were clewed up to reduce the vessel's speed, and her course was changed so that we swept round in a curve broadside to the coast, about three miles distant. The mountain peaks, by which we might have ascertained our position, were hidden by the clouds and fog, and it was no easy matter to ascertain exactly where we were.
Away to the left, dimly defined in the mist, were two or three more high blue headlands, but what they were, and where the harbour of Petropavlovsk might be, were questions that no one could answer. The captain brought his charts, compa.s.s, and drawing instruments on deck, laid them on the cabin skylight, and began taking the bearings of the different headlands, while we eagerly scanned the sh.o.r.e with gla.s.ses, and gave free expressions to our several opinions as to our situation.
The Russian chart which the captain had of the coast was fortunately a good one, and he soon determined our position, and the names of the headlands first seen. We were just north of Cape Povorotnoi, about nine miles south of the entrance of Avacha Bay. The yards were now squared, and we went off on the new tack before a steady breeze from the south-east. In less than an hour we sighted the high isolated rocks known as the ”Three Brothers,” pa.s.sed a rocky precipitous island, surrounded by clouds of shrieking gulls and parrot-billed ducks, and by two o'clock were off ”the heads” of Avacha Bay, on which is situated the village of Petropavlovsk. The scenery at the entrance more than equalled our highest antic.i.p.ations. Green gra.s.sy valleys stretched away from openings in the rocky coast until they were lost in the distant mountains; the rounded bluffs were covered with clumps of yellow birch and thickets of dark-green chaparral; patches of flowers could be seen on the warm sheltered slopes of the hills; and as we pa.s.sed close under the lighthouse bluff, Bush shouted joyously, ”Hurrah, there's clover!” ”Clover!” exclaimed the captain contemptuously, ”there ain't any clover in the Ar'tic Regions!” ”How do you know, you've never been there,” retorted Bush caustically; ”it _looks_ like clover, and”--looking through a gla.s.s--”it _is_ clover”; and his face lighted up as if the discovery of clover had relieved his mind of a great deal of anxiety as to the severity of the Kamchatkan climate. It was a sort of vegetable exponent of temperature, and out of a little patch of clover, Bush's imagination developed, in a style undreamt of by Darwin, the whole luxuriant flora of the temperate zone.
The very name of Kamchatka had always been a.s.sociated in our minds with everything barren and inhospitable, and we did not entertain for a moment the thought that such a country could afford beautiful scenery and luxuriant vegetation. In fact, with us all it was a mooted question whether anything more than mosses, lichens, and perhaps a little gra.s.s maintained the unequal struggle for existence in that frozen clime. It may be imagined with what delight and surprise we looked upon green hills covered with trees and verdant thickets; upon valleys white with clover and diversified with little groves of silver-barked birch, and even the rocks nodding with wild roses and columbine, which had taken root in their clefts as if nature strove to hide with a garment of flowers the evidences of past convulsions.
Just before three o'clock we came in sight of the village of Petropavlovsk--a little cl.u.s.ter of red-roofed and bark-thatched log houses; a Greek church of curious architecture, with a green dome; a strip of beach, a half-ruined wharf, two whale-boats, and the dismantled wreck of a half-sunken vessel. High green hills swept in a great semicircle of foliage around the little village, and almost shut in the quiet pond-like harbour--an inlet of Avacha Bay--on which it was situated. Under foresail and maintopsail we glided silently under the shadow of the encircling hills into this landlocked mill-pond, and within a stone's throw of the nearest house the sails were suddenly clewed up, and with a quivering of the s.h.i.+p and a rattle of chain cable our anchor dropped into the soil of Asia.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Boy's Boots of Sealskin]
CHAPTER IV
THINGS RUSSIAN IN KAMCHATKA--A VERDANT AND FLOWERY LAND--THE VILLAGE OF TWO SAINTS.
It has been well observed by Irving, that to one about to visit foreign countries a long sea voyage is an excellent preparative.
To quote his words, ”The temporary absence of worldly scenes and employments produces a state of mind peculiarly fitted to receive new and vivid impressions.” And he might have added with equal truth--favourable impressions. The tiresome monotony of sea life predisposes the traveller to regard favourably anything that will quicken his stagnating faculties and perceptions and furnish new matter for thought; and the most commonplace scenery and circ.u.mstances afford him gratification and delight. For this reason one is apt, upon arriving after a long voyage in a strange country, to form a more favourable opinion of its people and scenery than his subsequent experience will sustain. But it seems to me particularly fortunate that our first impressions of a new country, which are most clear and vivid and therefore most lasting, are also most pleasant, so that in future years a retrospective glance over our past wanderings will show the most cheerful pictures drawn in the brightest and most enduring colours. I am sure that the recollection of my first view of the mountains of Kamchatka, the delight with which my eye drank in their bright aerial tints, and the romance with which my ardent fancy invested them, will long outlive the memory of the hards.h.i.+ps I have endured among them, the snow-storms that have pelted me on their summits, and the rains that have drenched me in their valleys.
Fanciful perhaps, but I believe true.
The longing for land which one feels after having been five or six weeks at sea is sometimes so strong as to be almost a pa.s.sion. I verily believe that if the first land we saw had been one of those immense barren moss steppes which I afterward came to hold in such detestation, I should have regarded it as nothing less than the original site of the Garden of Eden. Not all the charms which nature has lavished upon the Vale of Tempe could have given me more pleasure than did the little green valley in which nestled the red-roofed and bark-covered log houses of Petropavlovsk.
The arrival of a s.h.i.+p in that remote and unfrequented part of the world is an event of no little importance; and the rattling of our chain cable through the hawse-holes created a very perceptible sensation in the quiet village. Little children ran bareheaded out of doors, looked at us for a moment, and then ran hastily back to call the rest of the household; dark-haired natives and Russian peasants, in blue s.h.i.+rts and leather trousers, gathered in a group at the landing; and seventy-five or a hundred half-wild dogs broke out suddenly into a terrific chorus of howls in honour of our arrival.
It was already late in the afternoon, but we could not restrain our impatience to step once more upon dry land; and as soon as the captain's boat could be lowered, Bush, Mahood, and I went ash.o.r.e to look at the town.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Petropavlovsk is laid out in a style that is very irregular, without being at all picturesque. The idea of a street never seems to have suggested itself either to the original settlers or to their descendants; and the paths, such as they are, wander around aimlessly among the scattered houses, like erratic sheepwalks. It is impossible to go for a hundred yards in a straight line, in any direction, without either bringing up against the side of a house or trespa.s.sing upon somebody's backyard; and in the night one falls over a slumbering cow, upon a fair average, once every fifty feet. In other respects it is rather a pretty village, surrounded as it is by high green hills, and affording a fine view of the beautiful snowy peak of Avacha, which rises to a height of 11,000 feet directly behind the town.
Mr. Fluger, a German merchant of Petropavlovsk who had boarded us in a small boat outside the harbour, now const.i.tuted himself our guide; and after a short walk around the village, invited us to his house, where we sat in a cloud of fragrant cigar-smoke, talking over American war news, and the latest _on dit_ of Kamchatkan society, until it finally began to grow dark. I noticed, among other books lying upon Mr.
Fluger's table, _Life Thoughts_, by Beecher, and _The Schonberg-Cotta Family,_ and wondered that the latter had already found its way to the distant sh.o.r.es of Kamchatka.
As new-comers, it was our first duty to pay our respects to the Russian authorities; and, accompanied by Mr. Fluger and Mr. Bollman, we called upon Captain Sutkovoi (soot-ko-voi'), the resident ”Captain of the port.” His house, with its bright-red tin roof, was almost hidden by a large grove of thrifty oaks, through which tumbled, in a succession of little cascades, a clear, cold mountain stream. We entered the gate, walked up a broad travelled path under the shade of the interlocking branches, and, without knocking, entered the house.
Captain Sutkovoi welcomed us cordially, and notwithstanding our inability to speak any language but our own, soon made us feel quite at home. Conversation however languished, as every remark had to be translated through two languages before it could be understood by the person to whom it was addressed; and brilliant as it might have been in the first place, it lost its freshness in being pa.s.sed around through Russian, German, and English to us.
I was surprised to see so many evidences of cultivated and refined taste in this remote corner of the world, where I had expected barely the absolute necessaries of life, or at best a few of the most common comforts. A large piano of Russian manufacture occupied one corner of the room, and a choice a.s.sortment of Russian, German, and American music testified to the musical taste of its owner. A few choice paintings and lithographs adorned the walls, and on the centre-table rested a stereoscope with a large collection of photographic views, and an unfinished game of chess, from which Captain and Madame Sutkovoi had risen at our entrance.
After a pleasant visit of an hour we took our leave, receiving an invitation to dinner on the following day.