Part 5 (2/2)
The volcano, so far as I know, has never been ascended, and its reported height, 16,500 feet, is probably the approximative estimate of some Russian officer. It is certainly, however, the highest peak of the Kamchatkan peninsula, and is more likely to exceed 16,000 feet than fall below it. We felt a strong temptation to try to scale its smooth snowy sides and peer over into its smoking crater; but it would have been folly to make the attempt without two or three weeks'
training, and we had not the time to spare. The mountain is nearly a perfect cone, and from the village of Kluchei it is so deceitfully foreshortened that the last 3,000 feet appear to be absolutely perpendicular. There is another volcano whose name, if it have any, I could not ascertain, standing a short distance south-east of the Kluchefskoi, and connected with it by an irregular broken ridge. It does not approach the latter in height, but it seems to draw its fiery supplies from the same source, and is constantly puffing out black vapour, which an east wind drives in great clouds across the white sides of Kluchefskoi until it is sometimes almost hidden from sight.
We were entertained at Kluchei in the large comfortable house of the _starosta_, or local magistrate of the village. The walls of our room were gayly hung with figured calico, the ceiling was covered with white cotton drill, and the rude pine furniture was scoured with soap and sand to the last attainable degree of cleanliness. A coa.r.s.ely executed picture, which I took to be Moses, hung in a gilt frame in the corner; but the sensible prophet had apparently shut his eyes to avoid the smoke of the innumerable candles which had been burned in his honour, and the expression of his face was somewhat marred in consequence. Table-cloths of American manufacture were spread on the tables, pots of flowers stood in the curtained windows, a little mirror hung against the wall opposite the door, and all the little fixtures and rude ornaments of the room were disposed with a taste and a view to general effect which the masculine mind may admire but never can imitate. American art, too, had lent a grace to this cottage in the wilderness, for the back of one of the doors was embellished with pictorial sketches of Virginian life and scenery from the skilful pencil of Porte Crayon. I thought of the well-known lines of Pope:
”The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the d---- they came there.”
In such comfortable, not to say luxurious, quarters as these, we succeeded, of course, in pa.s.sing away pleasantly the remainder of the day.
At Kluchei we were called upon to decide what route we would adopt in our journey to the northward. The shortest, and in many respects the best, was that usually taken by the Russian traders--crossing the central range of mountains to Tigil (tee-gill'), by the pa.s.s of the Yolofka (yo-loff'-ka), and then following up the west coast of the peninsula to the head of the Okhotsk Sea. The only objections to this were the lateness of the season and the probability of finding deep snow in the mountain pa.s.ses. Our only alternative was to continue our journey from Kluchei up the eastern coast to a settlement called Dranka (dran'-kah), where the mountains sank into insignificant hills, and cross there to the Kamchadal village of Lesnoi (less-noi') on the Okhotsk Sea. This route was considerably longer than the one by the Yolofka pa.s.s, but its practicability was much more certain.
After a great many prolonged consultations with sundry natives, who were supposed to know something about the country, but who carefully avoided responsibility by telling as little as possible, the Major concluded to try the Yolofka pa.s.s, and ordered canoes to be ready on Sat.u.r.day morning to carry us up the Yolofka River.
At the worst, we could only fail to get over the mountains, and there would be time enough then to return to Kluchei, and try the other route before the opening of winter.
As soon as we had decided the momentous question of our route, we gave ourselves up to the unrestrained enjoyment of the few pleasures which the small and sedate village of Kluchei afforded. There was no afternoon promenade where we could, as the Russians say, ”show ourselves and see the people”; nor would an exhibition of our tattered and weather-stained garments on a public promenade have been quite the proper thing, had it been possible. We must try something else. The only places of amus.e.m.e.nt of which we could hear were the village bath-house and the church; and the Major and I started out, late in the afternoon, with the intention of ”doing” these points of interest in the most approved style of modern tourists. For obvious reasons we took the bath-house first. Taking a steam-bath was a very mild sort of dissipation; and if it were true that ”cleanliness was next to G.o.dliness,” the bath-house certainly should precede the church. I had often heard Dodd speak of the ”black baths” of the Kamchadals; and without knowing definitely what he meant, I had a sort of vague impression that these ”black baths” were taken in some inky fluid of Kamchatkan manufacture, which possessed peculiar detersive properties.
I could think of no other reason than this for calling a bath ”black.”
Upon entering the ”black bath,” however, at Kluchei, I saw my mistake, and acknowledged at once the appropriateness of the adjective. Leaving our clothes in a little rude entry, which answered the purposes without affording any of the conveniences of a dressing-room, we stooped to a low fur-clad door and entered the bath-room proper, which was certainly dark enough and black enough to justify the gloomiest, murkiest adjective in the language. A tallow candle, which was burning feebly on the floor, gave just light enough to distinguish the outlines of a low, bare apartment, about ten feet square, built solidly of unhewn logs, without a single opening for the admission of air or light. Every square inch of the walls and ceiling was perfectly black with a sooty deposit from the clouds of smoke with which the room had been filled in the process of heating. A large pile of stones, with a hollow place underneath for a fire, stood in one end of the room, and a series of broad steps, which did not seem to lead anywhere, occupied the other. As soon as the fire had gone out, the chimney-hole had been closed and hermetically sealed, and the pile of hot stones was now radiating a fierce dry heat, which made _res_piration a painful duty, and _per_spiration an unpleasant necessity. The presiding spirit of this dark, infernal place of torture soon made his appearance in the shape of a long-haired, naked Kamchadal, and proceeded to throw water upon the pile of red-hot stones until they hissed like a locomotive, and the candle burned blue in the centre of a steamy halo. I thought it was hot before, but it was a Siberian winter compared with the temperature which this manoeuvre produced. My very bones seemed melting with fervent heat.
After getting the air of the room as nearly as possible up to 212, the native seized me by the arm, spread me out on the lowest of the flight of steps, poured boiling suds over my face and feet with reckless impartiality, and proceeded to knead me up, as if he fully intended to separate me into my original elements. I will not attempt to describe the number, the variety, and the diabolical ingenuity of the tortures to which I was subjected during the next twenty minutes.
I was scrubbed, rolled, pounded, drenched with cold water and scalded with hot, beaten with bundles of birch twigs, rubbed down with wads of hemp which sc.r.a.ped like brickbats, and finally left to recover my breath upon the highest and hottest step of the whole stairway. A douse of cold water finally put an end to the ordeal and to my misery; and, groping my way out into the entry, I proceeded, with chattering teeth, to dress. In a moment I was joined by the Major, and we resumed our walk, feeling like disembodied spirits.
Owing to the lateness of the hour, we were compelled to postpone indefinitely our visit to the church; but we had been sufficiently amused for one day, and returned to the house satisfied, if not delighted, with our experience of Kamchatkan black baths.
The evening was spent in questioning the inhabitants of the village about the northern part of the peninsula, and the facilities for travel among the wandering Koraks; and before nine o'clock we went to bed, in order that we might make an early start on the following morning.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Wooden Mortar used for grinding Tobacco]
CHAPTER XII
CANOE TRAVEL ON THE YOLOFKA--VOLCANIC CONVERSATION--”O SUSANNA!”--TALKING ”AMERICAN”--A DIFFICULT ASCENT
There was a great variety in the different methods of transportation which we were compelled to adopt in our journey through Kamchatka; and to this fact was attributable perhaps, in a great degree, the sense of novelty and freshness which during our three months' travel in the peninsula never entirely wore off. We experienced in turn the pleasures and discomforts of whale-boats, horses, rafts, canoes, dog-sledges, reindeer-sledges, and snow-shoes; and no sooner did we begin to tire of the pleasures and ascertain the discomforts of one, than we were introduced to another.
At Kluchei we abandoned our rafts, and took Kamchadal log canoes, which could be propelled more easily against the rapid current of the Yolofka River, which we had now to ascend. The most noticeable peculiarity of this species of craft, and a remarkable one it is, is a decided and chronic inclination to turn its bottom side upward and its upper side bottomward without the slightest apparent provocation.
I was informed by a reliable authority that a boat capsized on the Kamchatka, just previous to our arrival, through the carelessness of a Kamchadal in allowing a jack-knife to remain in his right-hand pocket without putting something of a corresponding weight into the other; and that the Kamchadal fas.h.i.+on of parting the hair in the middle originated in attempts to preserve personal equilibrium while navigating these canoes. I should have been somewhat inclined to doubt these remarkable and not altogether new stories, were it not for the reliability and unimpeachable veracity of my informant, Mr. Dodd. The seriousness of the subject is a sufficient guarantee that he would not trifle with my feelings by making it the pretext for a joke.
We indulged ourselves on Sat.u.r.day morning in a much later sleep than was consistent with our duty, and it was almost eight o'clock before we went down to the beach.
Upon first sight of the frail canoes, to which our destinies and the interests of the Russian-American Telegraph Company were to be intrusted, there was a very general expression of surprise and dissatisfaction. One of our party, with the rapid _a priori_ reasoning for which he was distinguished, came at once to the conclusion that a watery death would be the inevitable termination of a voyage made in such vessels, and he evinced a very marked disinclination to embark.
It is related of a great warrior, whose _Commentaries_ were the detestation of my early life, that during a very stormy pa.s.sage of the Ionian Sea he cheered up his sailors with the sublimely egotistical a.s.surance that they carried ”Caesar and his fortunes”; and that, consequently, nothing disastrous could possibly happen to them. The Kamchatkan Caesar, however, on this occasion seemed to distrust his own fortunes, and the attempts at consolation came from the opposite quarter. His boatman did not tell him, ”Cheer up, Caesar, a Kamchadal and his fortunes are carrying you,” but he _did_ a.s.sure him that he had navigated the river for several years, and had ”never been drowned _once_.” What more could Caesar ask!--After some demur we all took seats upon bearskins in the bottoms of the canoes, and pushed off.
All other features of natural scenery in the vicinity of Kluchei sink into subordination to the grand central figure of the Kluchefskoi volcano, the monarch of Siberian mountains, whose sharp summit, with its motionless streamer of golden smoke, can be seen anywhere within a radius of a hundred miles. All other neighbouring beauties of scenery are merely tributary to this, and are valued only according to their capability of relieving and setting forth this magnificent peak, whose colossal dimensions rise in one unbroken sweep of snow from the gra.s.sy valleys of the Kamchatka and Yolofka, which terminate at its base.
”Heir of the sunset and herald of morning,” its lofty crater is suffused with a roseate blush long before the morning mists and darkness are out of the valleys, and long after the sun has set behind the purple mountains of Tigil. At all times, under all circ.u.mstances, and in all its ever-varying moods, it is the most beautiful mountain I have ever seen. Now it lies bathed in the warm suns.h.i.+ne of an Indian summer's day, with a few fleecy clouds resting at the snow-line and dappling its sides with purple shadows; then it envelops itself in dense volumes of black volcanic smoke, and thunders out a hoa.r.s.e warning to the villages at its feet; and finally, toward evening, it gathers a mantle of grey mists around its summit, and rolls them in convulsed ma.s.ses down its sides, until it stands in the clear atmosphere a colossal pillar of cloud, sixteen thousand feet in height, resting upon fifty square miles of s.h.a.ggy pine forest.
You think nothing can be more beautiful than the delicate tender colour, like that of a wild-rose leaf, which tinges its snows as the sun sinks in a swirl of red vapours in the west; but ”visit it by the pale moonlight,” when its hood of mist is edged with silver, when black shadows gather in its deep ravines and white misty lights gleam from its snowy pinnacles, when the host of starry constellations seems to circle around its lofty peak, and the tangled silver chain of the Pleiades to hang upon one of its rocky spires--then say, if you can, that it is more beautiful by daylight.
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