Part 15 (1/2)
Paderin shrugged his shoulders expressively and said that he believed what he saw. He then proceeded to relate to us further and still more incredible particulars as to the symptoms of the disease, and the mysterious powers which it developed in the persons attacked, ill.u.s.trating his statements by reference to the case of his own daughter. He was evidently a firm believer in the reality of the sickness, but would not say to what agency he ascribed the phenomena of second sight and the ability to speak strange languages, which were its most remarkable symptoms.
During the day we happened to call upon the ispravnik or Russian governor, and in course of conversation mentioned the ”Anadyrski bol,”
and related some of the stories which we had heard from Paderin. The ispravnik--skeptical upon all subjects, and especially upon this--said that he had often heard of the disease, and that his wife was a firm believer in it, but that in his opinion it was a humbug, which deserved no other treatment than severe corporal punishment. The Russian peasantry, he said, were very superst.i.tious and would believe almost anything, and the ”Anadyrski bol” was partly a delusion and partly an imposition practised by the women upon their male relatives to further some selfish purpose. A woman who wanted a new bonnet, and who could not obtain it by the ordinary method of teasing, found it very convenient as a _dernier ressort_ to fall into a trance state and demand a bonnet as a physiological necessity. If the husband still remained obdurate, a few well-executed convulsions and a song or two in the so-called Yakut language were generally sufficient to bring him to terms. He then related an instance of a Russian merchant whose wife was attacked by the ”Anadyrski bol,” and who actually made a winter journey from Gizhiga to Yamsk--a distance of 300 versts--to procure a silk dress for which she had asked and which could not be elsewhere obtained! Of course the women do not always ask for articles which they might be supposed to want in a state of health. If they did, it would soon arouse the suspicions of their deluded husbands, fathers, and brothers, and lead to inconvenient inquiries, if not to still more unpleasant experiment, upon the character of the mysterious disease.
To avoid this, and to blind the men to the real nature of the deception, the women frequently ask for dogs, sledges, axes, and other similar articles of which they can make no possible use, and thus persuade their credulous male relatives that their demands are governed only by diseased caprice and have in view no definite object.
Such was the rationalistic explanation which the ispravnik gave of the curious delusion known as the ”Anadyrski bol”; and although it argued more subtlety on the part of the women and more credulity on the part of the men than I had supposed either s.e.x to be capable of, I could not but admit that the explanation was a plausible one, and accounted satisfactorily for most of the phenomena.
In view of this remarkable piece of feminine strategy, our strong-minded women in America must admit that their Siberian sisters show greater ingenuity in obtaining their rights and throwing dust in the eyes of their lords and masters than has yet been exhibited by all the Women's Rights a.s.sociations in Christendom. To invent an imaginary disease with such peculiar symptoms, cause it to prevail as an epidemic throughout a whole country, and use it as a lever to open the masculine pocketbooks and supply feminine wants, is the greatest triumph which woman's craft has ever achieved over man's stupidity.
The effect of the ispravnik's revelation upon Dodd was very singular.
He declared that he felt the premonitory symptoms of the ”Anadyrski bol” coming on, and was sure that he was destined to be a victim to the insidious disease. He therefore requested the Major not to be surprised if he should come home some day and find him in strong convulsions, singing ”Yankee Doodle” in the Yakut language, and demanding his back pay! The Major a.s.sured him that, in a case of such desperate emergency, he should be compelled to apply the ispravnik's remedy, viz., twenty lashes on the bare back, and advised him to postpone his convulsions until the exchequer of the Siberian Division should be in a condition to meet his demands.
Our life at Gizhiga during the early part of June was a very decided improvement upon the experience of the previous six months. The weather was generally warm and pleasant, the hills and valleys were green with luxuriant vegetation, daylight had become perpetual, and we had nothing to do but ramble about the country in pursuit of game, row down to the mouth of the river occasionally to look for vessels, and plan all sorts of amus.e.m.e.nts to pa.s.s away the time.
The nights were the most glorious parts of the days, but the perpetual light seemed even more strange to us at first than the almost perpetual darkness of winter. We could never decide to our own satisfaction when one day ended and another began, or when it was time to go to bed. It seemed ridiculous to make any preparations for retiring before the sun had set; and yet, if we did not, it was sure to rise again before we could possibly get to sleep, and then it seemed just as preposterous to lie in bed as it did in the first place. We finally compromised the matter by putting tight wooden shutters over all our windows, and then, by lighting candles inside, succeeded in persuading our unbelieving senses that it was night, although the sun outside was s.h.i.+ning with noonday brilliancy. When we awoke, however, another difficulty presented itself. Did we go to bed today? or was it yesterday? And what time is it now? Today, yesterday, and to-morrow were all mixed up, and we found it almost impossible to distinguish one from the other. I caught myself repeatedly making two entries in my journal in the course of twenty-four hours, with the mistaken impression that two days had pa.s.sed.
As soon as the ice was fairly out of Gizhiginsk Gulf, so that vessels might be expected to enter, Major Abaza caused a number of Cossacks to be stationed at the mouth of the river, with orders to watch night and day for sails and warn us at once if any appeared.
On the 18th of June the trading brig _Hallie Jackson_, belonging to W.H. Bordman, of Boston, entered the gulf, and, as soon as the tide permitted, ran into the mouth of the river to discharge her cargo.
This vessel brought us the first news from the great outside world which we had received in more than eleven months, and her arrival was hailed with the greatest enthusiasm by both Russians and Americans.
Half the population of the village came hurrying down to the mouth of the river as soon as it became known that a s.h.i.+p had arrived and the landing-place for several days was a scene of unwonted activity and excitement. The _Jackson_ could give us no information with regard to the vessels of our Company, except that when she sailed from San Francisco in March they were being rapidly loaded and fitted for sea. She brought, however, all the stores which we had left at Petropavlovsk the previous fall, as well as a large cargo of tea, sugar, tobacco, and sundries for the Siberian trade.
We had found by our winter's experience that money could not be used to advantage in payment for native labour, except in the settlements of Okhotsk, Gizhiga, and Anadyrsk; and that tea, sugar, and tobacco were in every way preferable, on account of the universal consumption of those articles throughout the country and the high price which they commanded during the winter months. A labourer or teamster, who would demand _twenty_ roubles _in money_ for a month's work, was entirely satisfied if we gave him eight pounds of tea and ten pounds of sugar in its stead; and as the latter cost us only _ten_ roubles, we made a saving of one-half in all our expenditures. In view of this fact, Major Abaza determined to use as little money as possible, and pay for labour in merchandise at current rates. He accordingly purchased from the _Jackson_ 10,000 lbs. of tea and 15,000 or 20,000 lbs. of white loaf-sugar, which he stored away in the government magazines, to be used during the coming winter instead of money.
The _Jackson_ discharged all the cargo that she intended to leave at Gizhiga, and as soon as the tide was sufficiently high to enable her to cross the bar at the mouth of the river, she sailed for Petropavlovsk and left us again alone.
CHAPTER x.x.xII
DULL LIFE--ARCTIC MOSQUITOES--WAITING FOR SUPPLIES--s.h.i.+PS SIGNALLED--BARK ”CLARA BELL”--RUSSIAN CORVETTE ”VARAG”
After the departure of the _Jackson_, we began to look forward with eager antic.i.p.ation to the arrival of our own vessels and the termination of our long imprisonment at Gizhiga. Eight months of nomadic camp life had given us a taste for adventure and excitement which nothing but constant travel could gratify, and as soon as the first novelty of idleness wore off we began to tire of our compulsory inactivity, and became impatient for work. We had exhausted all the amus.e.m.e.nts of Gizhiga, read all the newspapers which had been brought by the _Jackson_, discussed their contents to the minutest details, explored every foot of ground in the vicinity of the settlement, and tried everything which our ingenuity could devise to pa.s.s away the time, but all to no avail. The days seemed interminable, the long-expected s.h.i.+ps did not come, and the mosquitoes and gnats made our life a burden. About the tenth of July, the mosquito--that curse of the northern summer--rises out of the damp moss of the lower plains, and winds his shrill horn to apprise all animated nature of his triumphant resurrection and his willingness to furnish musical entertainment to man and beast upon extremely reasonable terms. In three or four days, if the weather be still and warm, the whole atmosphere will be literally filled with clouds of mosquitoes and from that time until the 10th of August they persecute every living thing with a bloodthirsty eagerness which knows no rest and feels no pity.
Escape is impossible and defence useless; they follow their unhappy victims everywhere, and their untiring perseverance overcomes every obstacle which human ingenuity can throw in their way. Smoke of any ordinary density they treat with contemptuous indifference; mosquito-bars they either evade or carry by a.s.sault, and only by burying himself alive can man hope to finally escape their relentless persecution. In vain we wore gauze veils over our heads and concealed ourselves under calico _pologs_. The mult.i.tude of our tiny a.s.sailants was so great that some of them sooner or later were sure to find an unguarded opening, and just when we thought ourselves most secure we were suddenly surprised and driven out of our shelter by a fresh and unexpected attack. Mosquitoes, I know, do not enter into the popular conception of Siberia; but never in any tropical country have I seen them in such immense numbers as in north-eastern Siberia during the month of July. They make the great moss tundras in some places utterly uninhabitable, and force even the reindeer to seek the shelter and the cooler atmosphere of the mountains. In the Russian settlements they torment dogs and cattle until the latter run furiously about in a perfect frenzy of pain, and fight desperately for a place to stand in the smoke of a fire. As far north as the settlement of Kolyma, on the coast of the Arctic Ocean, the natives are compelled, in still, warm weather, to surround their houses with a circle of smudges, to protect themselves and their domestic animals from the ceaseless persecution of mosquitoes.
Early in July all the inhabitants of Gizhiga, with the exception of the governor and a few Russian merchants, closed their winter-houses, and removed to their ”letovies” or summer fis.h.i.+ng-stations along the banks of the river, to await the arrival of the salmon. Finding the deserted village rather dull, Dodd, Robinson, Arnold, and I removed to the mouth of the river, and took up our quarters once more in the empty government storehouse which we had occupied during the stay of the _Hallie Jackson_.
I shall not dwell long upon the monotonous discomfort of the life which we led for the next month. It may all be comprised in four words--inactivity, disappointment, mosquitoes, and misery. Looking for vessels was our only duty, fighting mosquitoes our only diversion; and as the former never appeared and the latter never disappeared, both occupations were equally unprofitable and unsatisfactory. Twenty times a day we put on our gauze veils, tied our clothing down at the wrists and ankles, and climbed laboriously to the summit of a high bluff to look for vessels; but twenty times a day we returned disappointed to our bare, cheerless rooms, and vented our indignation indiscriminately upon the country, the Company, the s.h.i.+ps, and the mosquitoes. We could not help feeling as if we had dropped out of the great current of human affairs, as if our places in the distant busy world had been filled and our very existence forgotten.
The chief engineer of our enterprise had promised faithfully that s.h.i.+ps with men, material, and supplies for the immediate prosecution of the work, should be at Gizhiga and at the mouth of the Anadyr River as early in the season as ice would permit them to enter; but it was now August, and they had not yet made their appearance. Whether they had been lost, or whether the whole enterprise had been abandoned, we could only conjecture; but as week after week pa.s.sed away without bringing any news, we gradually lost all hope and began to discuss the advisability of sending some one to the Siberian capital to inform the Company by telegraph of our situation.
It is but justice to Major Abaza to say that during all these long weary months of waiting he never entirely gave up to discouragement, or allowed himself to doubt the perseverance of the Company in the work which it had undertaken. The s.h.i.+ps might have been belated or have met with some misfortune, but he did not think it possible that the work had been abandoned, and he continued throughout the summer to make such preparations as he could for another winter's campaign.
Early in August, Dodd and I, tired of looking for vessels which never came, and which we firmly believed never would come, returned on foot to the settlement, leaving Arnold and Robinson to maintain the watch at the mouth of the river.
Late in the afternoon of the 14th, while I was busily engaged in drawing maps to ill.u.s.trate the explorations of the previous winter, our Cossack servant came rus.h.i.+ng furiously into the house, breathless with haste and excitement, crying out: ”Pooshka! soodna!”--”A cannon!
a s.h.i.+p!” Knowing that three cannon-shots were the signals which Arnold and Robinson had been directed to make in case a vessel was seen entering the gulf, we ran hurriedly out of doors and listened eagerly for a second report. We had not long to wait. Another faint, dull explosion was heard in the direction of the lighthouse, followed at an interval of a moment by a third, leaving no room for a doubt that the long-expected s.h.i.+ps had arrived. Amid great excitement a canoe was hastily prepared and launched, and taking our seats upon bearskins in the bottom, we ordered our Cossack rowers to push off. At every _letoie_ or fis.h.i.+ng-station which we pa.s.sed in our rapid descent of the river, we were hailed with shouts of: ”Soodnat soodna”--”As.h.i.+p!
as.h.i.+p!” and at the last one--Volinkina (vo-lin'-kin-ah)--where we stopped for a moment to rest our men, we were told that the vessel was now in plain sight from the hills, and that she had anch.o.r.ed near an island known as the Matuga (mat'-oo-gah), about twelve miles distant from the mouth of the river. a.s.sured that it was no false alarm, we pushed on with redoubled speed, and in fifteen minutes more landed at the head of the gulf. Arnold and Robinson, with the Russian pilot, Kerrillof, had already gone off to the vessel in the government whale-boat, so that there remained nothing for us to do but climb to the summit of lighthouse bluff and watch impatiently for their return.