Part 4 (2/2)

North of the village opens the long narrow valley of Genal--the most beautiful as well as the most fertile spot in all the Kamchatkan peninsula. It is about thirty miles in length, and averages three in breadth, and is bounded on both sides by chains of high snow-covered mountains, which stretch away from Malqua in a long vista of white ragged peaks and sharp cliffs, almost to the head-waters of the Kamchatka River. A small stream runs in a tortuous course through the valley, fringed with long wild gra.s.s four or five feet in height, and shaded here and there by clumps of birches, willows, and alders. The foliage was beginning already to a.s.sume the brilliant colours of early autumn, and broad stripes of crimson, yellow, and green ran horizontally along the mountain sides, marking on a splendid chromatic scale the successive zones of vegetation as they rose in regular gradation from the level of the valley to the pure glittering snows of the higher peaks.

As we approached the middle of the valley just before noon, the scenery a.s.sumed a vividness of colour and grandeur of outline which drew forth the most enthusiastic exclamations of delight from our little party. For twenty-five miles in each direction lay the sunny valley, through which the Genal River was stretched like a tangled chain of silver, linking together the scattered clumps of birch and thickets of alder, which at intervals diversified its banks. Like the Happy Valley of Ra.s.selas, it seemed to be shut out from the rest of the world by impa.s.sable mountains, whose snowy peaks and pinnacles rivalled in picturesque beauty, in variety and singularity of form, the wildest dream of eastern architect. Half down their sides was a broad horizontal belt of dark-green pines, thrown into strong and beautiful contrast with the pure white snow of the higher summits and the rich crimson of the mountain ash which flamed below. Here and there the mountains had been cleft asunder by some t.i.tanic power, leaving deep narrow gorges and wild ravines where the sunlight could hardly penetrate, and the eye was lost in soft purple haze. Imagine with all this, a warm fragrant atmosphere and a deep blue sky in which floated a few clouds, too ethereal even to cast shadows, and you will perhaps have a faint idea of one of the most beautiful landscapes in all Kamchatka. The Sierra Nevadas may afford views of more savage wildness, but nowhere in California or Nevada have I ever seen the distinctive features of both winter and summer--snow and roses, bare granite and brilliantly coloured foliage--blended into so harmonious a picture as that presented by the Genal valley on a suns.h.i.+ny day in early autumn.

Dodd and I devoted most of our leisure time during the afternoon to picking and eating berries. Galloping furiously ahead until we had left the caravan several miles behind, we would lie down in a particularly luxuriant thicket by the river bank, tie our horses to our feet, and bask in the suns.h.i.+ne and feast upon yellow honeyed ”moroshkas” (mo-ro'-shkas) and the dark purple globes of delicious blueberries, until our clothes were stained with crimson spots, and our faces and hands resembled those of a couple of Comanches painted for the war-path.

The sun was yet an hour high when we approached the native village of Genal. We pa.s.sed a field where men and women were engaged in cutting hay with rude sickles, returned their stare of amazement with unruffled serenity, and rode on until the trail suddenly broke off into a river beyond which stood the village.

Kneeling upon our saddles we succeeded in fording the shallow stream without getting wet, but in a moment we came to another of about the same size. We forded that, and were confronted by a third. This we also pa.s.sed, but at the appearance of the fourth river the Major shouted despairingly to Dodd, ”Ay! Dodd! How many _paganni_ rivers do we have to wade through in getting to this beastly village?” ”Only one,” replied Dodd composedly. ”One! Then how many times does this one river run past this one settlement?” ”Five times,” was the calm response. ”You see,” he explained soberly, ”these poor Kamchadals haven't got but one river to fish in, and that isn't a very big one, so they have made it run past their settlement five times, and by this ingenious contrivance they catch five times as many salmon as they would if it only pa.s.sed once!” The Major was surprised into silence, and seemed to be considering some abstruse problem. Finally he raised his eyes from the pommel of his saddle, transfixed the guilty Dodd with a glance of severe rebuke, and demanded solemnly, ”How many times must a given fish swim past a given settlement, in order to supply the population with food, provided the fish is caught every time he goes past?” This _reductio ad absurdum_ was too much for Dodd's gravity; he burst into a laugh, and digging his heels into his horse's ribs, dashed with a great splatter into the fourth arm or bend of the river, and rode up on the other side into the village of Genal.

We took up our quarters at the house of the ”starosta” (stah'-ro-stah) or head man of the village, and spread our bearskins out on the clean white floor of a low room, papered in a funny way with old copies of the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_. A coloured American lithograph, representing the kiss of reconciliation between two offended lovers, hung against the wall on one side, and was evidently regarded with a good deal of pride by the proprietor, as affording incontestable evidence of culture and refined taste, and proving his familiar acquaintance with American art, and the manners and customs of American society.

Dodd and I, notwithstanding our fatigue, devoted the evening entirely to literary pursuits; searching diligently with tallow candles over the wall and ceiling for consecutive numbers of the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_, reading court gossip from a birch plank in the corner, and obituaries of distinguished Englishmen from the back of a door. By dint of industry and perseverance we finished one whole side of the house before bedtime, and having gained a vast amount of valuable information with regard to the war in New Zealand, we were encouraged to pursue our investigations in the morning upon the three remaining sides and the ceiling. To our great regret, however, we were obliged to start on our pilgrimage without having time to find out how that war terminated, and we have never been able to ascertain to this day!

Long before six o'clock we were off with fresh horses for a long ride of ninety versts to Pushchin (poosh'-chin).

The costumes of our little party had now a.s.sumed a very motley and brigandish appearance, every individual having discarded from time to time, such articles of his civilised dress as proved to be inconvenient or uncomfortable, and adopted various picturesque subst.i.tutes, which filled more nearly the requirements of a barbarous life. Dodd had thrown away his cap, and tied a scarlet and yellow handkerchief around his head. Vius.h.i.+n had ornamented his hat with a long streamer of crimson ribbon, which floated gayly in the wind like a whip-pennant. A blue hunting-s.h.i.+rt and a red Turkish fez had superseded my uniform coat and cap. We all carried rifles slung across our backs, and revolvers belted around our waists, and were transformed generally into as fantastic brigands as ever sallied forth from the pa.s.ses of the Apennines to levy blackmail upon unwary travellers. A timid tourist, meeting us as we galloped furiously across the plain toward Pushchin would have fallen on his knees and pulled out his purse without asking any unnecessary questions.

Being well mounted on fresh, spirited horses, the Major, Dodd, Vius.h.i.+n, and I rode far in advance of the rest of the party throughout the day. Late in the afternoon, as we were going at a slas.h.i.+ng rate across the level plain known as the Kamchatkan _tundra_, [Footnote: A treeless expanse carpeted with moss and low berry-bushes.] the Major suddenly drew his horse violently back on his haunches, wheeled half round, and shouted, ”Medveid! medveid!” and a large black bear rose silently out of the long gra.s.s at his very feet.

The excitement, I can conscientiously affirm, was terrific. Vius.h.i.+n unslung his double-barrelled fowling-piece, and proceeded to pepper him with duck-shot; Dodd tugged at his revolver with frantic energy while his horse ran away with him over the plain; the Major dropped his bridle, and implored me by all I held sacred not to shoot _him_, while the horses plunged, kicked, and snorted in the most animated manner. The only calm and self-possessed individual in the whole party was the bear! He surveyed the situation coolly for a few seconds, and then started at an awkward gallop for the woods. In an instant our party recovered its conjoint presence of mind, and charged with the most reckless heroism upon his flying footsteps, shouting frantically to ”stop him!” popping away in the most determined and unterrified manner with four revolvers and a shotgun, and performing prodigies of valour in the endeavour to capture the ferocious beast, without getting in his way or coming nearer to him than a hundred yards. All was in vain. The bear vanished in the forest like a flying shadow; and, presuming from his known ferocity and vindictiveness that he had prepared an ambuscade for us in the woods, we deemed it the better part of valour to abandon the pursuit. Upon comparing notes, we found that we had all been similarly impressed with his enormous size, his s.h.a.gginess, and his generally savage appearance, and had all been inspired at the same moment with an irresistible inclination to take him by the throat and rip him open with a bowie-knife, in a manner so beautifully ill.u.s.trated by the old geographies. Nothing but the fractiousness of our horses and the rapidity of his flight had prevented this desirable consummation. The Major even declared positively that he had seen the bear a long time before, and only rode over him ”to scare him up,” and said almost in the words of the redoubtable Falstaff, ”that if we would do him honour for it, so; if not, we might scare up the next bear ourselves.” Looking at the matter calmly and dispa.s.sionately afterward, I thought it extremely probable that if another bear did not scare the Major up, he never would go out of his way to scare up another bear. We felt it to be our duty, however, to caution him against imperilling the success of our expedition by such reckless exploits in the way of scaring up wild beasts.

Long before we reached Pushchin it grew dark; but our tired horses freshened up after sunset, with the cool evening air, and about eight o'clock we heard the distant howling of dogs, which we had already come to a.s.sociate with hot tea, rest, and sleep. In twenty minutes we were lying comfortably on our bearskins in a Kamchadal house.

We had made sixty miles since daybreak; but the road had been good.

We were becoming more accustomed to horseback riding, and were by no means so tired as we had been at Malqua. Only thirty versts now intervened between us and the head-waters of the Kamchatka River, where we were to abandon our horses and float down two hundred and fifty miles on rafts or in native canoes.

A sharp trot of four hours over a level plain brought us on the following morning to Sherom (sheh-rome'), where rafts had already been prepared for our use.

It was with no little regret that I ended for the present my horseback travel. The life suited me in every respect, and I could not recall any previous journey which had ever afforded me more pure, healthful enjoyment, or seemed more like a delightful pleasure excursion than this. All Siberia, however, lay before us; and our regret at leaving scenes which we should never again revisit was relieved by antic.i.p.ations of future adventures equally novel, and prospective scenery grander even than anything which we had yet witnessed.

CHAPTER X

THE KAMCHATKA RIVER--LIFE ON A CANOE RAFT--RECEPTION AT MILKOVA--MISTAKEN FOR THE TSAR

To a person of an indolent disposition there is something particularly pleasant in floating in a boat down a river. One has all the advantages of variety, and change of incident and scenery, without any exertion; all the lazy pleasures--for such they must be called--of boat life, without any of the monotony which makes a long sea voyage so unendurable. I think it was Gray who said that his idea of paradise was ”To lie on a sofa and read eternally new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon.” Could the author of the ”Elegy” have stretched himself out on the open deck of a Kamchadal boat, covered to a depth of six inches with fragrant flowers and freshly cut hay; could he have floated slowly down a broad, tranquil river through ranges of snow-clad mountains, past forests glowing with yellow and crimson, and vast steppes waving with tall, wild gra.s.s; could he have watched the full moon rise over the lonely, snowy peak of the Kluchefskoi (kloo'-chef-skoi') volcano, bridging the river with a narrow trail of quivering light, and have listened to the plash of the boatman's paddles, and the low melancholy song to which they kept time--he would have thrown Marivaux and Crebillon overboard, and have given a better example of the pleasures of paradise.

I know that I am laying myself open to the charge of exaggeration by thus praising Kamchatkan scenery, and that my enthusiasm will perhaps elicit a smile of amus.e.m.e.nt from the more experienced traveller who has seen Italy and the Alps; still, I am describing things as they appeared to me, and do not a.s.sert that the impressions they made were those that should or would have been made upon a man of more extensive experience and wider observation. To use the words of a Spanish writer, which I have somewhere read, ”The man who has never seen the glory of the sun cannot be blamed for thinking that there is no glory like that of the moon; nor he who has never seen the moon, for talking of the unrivalled brightness of the morning star.” Had I ever sailed down the Rhine, climbed the Matterhorn, or seen the moon rise over the Bay of Naples, I should have taken perhaps a juster and less enthusiastic view of Kamchatka; but, compared with anything that I had previously seen or imagined, the mountain landscapes of southern and central Kamchatka were superb.

At Sherom, thanks to the courier who had preceded us, we found a boat, or Kamchatkan raft, ready for our reception. It was composed of three large dugout canoes placed parallel to one another at distances of about three feet, and lashed with sealskin thongs to stout transverse poles. Over these was laid a floor or platform about ten feet by twelve, leaving room at the bow and stern of each canoe for men with paddles who were to guide and propel the unwieldy craft in some unknown, but, doubtless, satisfactory manner. On the platform, which was covered to a depth of six inches with freshly cut gra.s.s, we pitched our little cotton tent, and transformed it with bearskins, blankets, and pillows into a very cosy subst.i.tute for a stateroom.

Rifles and revolvers were unstrapped from our tired bodies, and hung up against the tent poles; heavy riding boots were unceremoniously kicked off, and replaced by soft buckskin _torba.s.ses_ [Footnote: Moccasin boots.]; saddles were stored away in convenient nooks for future use; and all our things disposed with a view to the enjoyment of as much luxury as was compatible with our situation.

After a couple of hours' rest, during which our heavy baggage was transferred to another similar raft, we walked down to the sandy beach, bade good-bye to the crowd which had a.s.sembled to see us off, and swung slowly out into the current, the Kamchadals on the sh.o.r.e waving hats and handkerchiefs until a bend in the river hid them from sight. The scenery of the upper Kamchatka for the first twenty miles was comparatively tame and uninteresting, as the mountains were entirely concealed by a dense forest of pine, birch, and larch, which extended down to the water's edge. It was sufficient pleasure, however, at first, to lie back in the tent upon our soft bearskins, watching the brilliantly coloured and ever varying foliage of the banks, to sweep swiftly but silently around abrupt bends into long vistas of still water, startling the great Kamchatkan eagle from his lonely perch on some jutting rock, and frightening up clouds of clamorous waterfowl, which flew in long lines down the river until out of sight. The navigation of the upper Kamchatka is somewhat intricate and dangerous at night, on account of the rapidity of the current and the frequency of snags; and as soon as it grew dark our native boatmen considered it unsafe to go on. We accordingly beached our rafts and went ash.o.r.e to wait for moonrise.

A little semicircle was cut in the thick underbrush at the edge of the beach, fires were built, kettles of potatoes and fish hung over to boil, and we all gathered around the cheerful blaze to smoke, talk, and sing American songs until supper time. The scene to civilised eyes was strangely wild and picturesque. The dark, lonely river gurgling mournfully around sunken trees in its channel; the dense primeval forest whispering softly to the pa.s.sing wind its amazement at this invasion of its solitude; the huge flaming camp-fire throwing a red lurid glare over the still water, and lighting up weirdly the encircling woods; and the groups of strangely dressed men lounging carelessly about the blaze upon s.h.a.ggy bearskins--all made up a picture worthy of the pencil of Rembrandt.

After supper we amused ourselves by building an immense bonfire of driftwood on the beach, and hurling blazing firebrands at the leaping salmon as they pa.s.sed up the river, and the frightened ducks which had been roused from sleep by the unusual noise and light. When nothing remained of our bonfire but a heap of glowing embers, we spread our bearskins upon the soft, yielding sand by the water's edge, and lay staring up at the twinkling stars until consciousness faded away into dreams, and dreams into utter oblivion.

I was waked about midnight by the splas.h.i.+ng of rain in my face and the sobbing of the rising wind in the tree-tops, and upon crawling out of my water-soaked blankets found that Dodd and the Major had brought the tent ash.o.r.e, pitched it among the trees, and availed themselves of its shelter, but had treacherously left me exposed to a pelting rain-storm, as if it were a matter of no consequence whatever whether I slept in a tent or a mud-puddle! After mentally debating the question whether I had better go inside or revenge myself by pulling the tent down over their heads, I finally decided to escape from the rain first and seek revenge at some more propitious time. Hardly had I fallen asleep again when ”spat” came the wet canvas across my face, accompanied by a shout of ”Get up! it is time to start”; and crawling out from under the fallen tent I walked sullenly down to the raft, revolving in my mind various ingenious schemes for getting even with the Major and Dodd, who had first left me out in the rain, and then waked me up in the middle of the night by pulling a wet tent down over my head. It was one o'clock in the morning--dark, rainy, and dismal--but the moon was supposed to have risen, and our Kamchadal boatmen said that it was light enough to start. I didn't believe that it was, but my sleepily expressed opinions had no weight with the Major, and my protests were utterly ignored. Hoping in the bitterness of my heart that we _should_ run against a snag, I lay down sullenly in the rain on the wet soaking gra.s.s of our raft, and tried to forget my misery in sleep. On account of the contrary wind we could not put up our tent, and were obliged to cover ourselves as best we could with oilcloth blankets and s.h.i.+ver away the remainder of the night.

<script>