Part 15 (2/2)

It was late in the afternoon when the signal of a vessel in sight had been given, and by the time we reached the mouth of the river, it was nearly sunset. The s.h.i.+p, which was a good-sized bark, lay quietly at anchor near the middle of the gulf, about twelve miles distant, with a small American flag flying at her peak. We could see the government whale-boat towing astern, and knew that Arnold and Robinson must be on board; but the s.h.i.+p's boats still hung at the davits, and no preparations were apparently being made to come ash.o.r.e. The Russian governor had made us promise, when we left the settlement, that if the reported vessel turned out a reality and not a delusion, we would fire three more guns. Frequent disappointment had taught him the fallibility of human testimony touching the arrival of s.h.i.+ps at that particular port, and he did not propose to make a journey to the lighthouse in a leaky canoe, unless further intelligence should fully justify it. As there could no longer be any doubt about the fact, we loaded up the old rusty cannon once more, stuffed it full of wet gra.s.s to strengthen its voice, and gave the desired signals, which echoed in successive crashes from every rocky promontory along the coast, and died away to a faint mutter far out at sea.

In the course of an hour the governor made his appearance, and as it was beginning to grow dark, we all climbed once more to the summit of the bluff to take a last look at the s.h.i.+p before she should be hidden from sight. There was no appearance of activity on board, and the lateness of the hour made it improbable that Arnold and Robinson would return before morning. We went back therefore to the empty government house, or ”kazarm,” and spent half the night in fruitless conjectures as to the cause of the vessel's late arrival and the nature of the news which she would bring.

With the earliest morning twilight, Dodd and I clambered again to the crest of the bluff, to a.s.sure ourselves by actual observation that the s.h.i.+p had not vanished like the _Flying Dutchman_ under cover of darkness, and left us to mourn another disappointment. There was little ground for fear. Not only was the bark still in the position which she had previously occupied, but there had been another arrival during the night. A large three-masted steamer, of apparently 2000 tons, was lying in the offing, and three small boats could be seen a few miles distant pulling swiftly toward the mouth of the river.

Great was the excitement which this discovery produced. Dodd rushed furiously down the hill to the _kazarm_, shouting to the Major that there was a steamer in the gulf, and that boats were within five miles of the lighthouse. In a few moments we were all gathered in a group on the highest point of the bluff, speculating upon the character of the mysterious steamer which had thus taken us by surprise, and watching the approach of the boats. The largest of these was now within three miles, and our gla.s.ses enabled us to distinguish in the long, regular sweep of its oars, the practised stroke of a man-of-war's crew, and in its stem-sheets the peculiar shoulder-straps of Russian officers. The steamer was evidently a large war-s.h.i.+p, but what had, brought her to that remote, unfrequented part of the world we could not conjecture.

In half an hour more, two of the boats were abreast of lighthouse bluff, and we descended to the landing-place to meet them in a state of excitement not easily imagined. Fourteen months had elapsed since we had heard from home, and the prospect of receiving letters and of getting once more to work was a sufficient excuse for unusual excitement. The smallest boat was the first to reach the sh.o.r.e, and as it grated on the sandy beach an officer in blue naval uniform sprang out and introduced himself as Captain Sutton, of the Russian-American Telegraph Company's bark _Clara Bell_, two months from San Francisco, with men and material for the construction of the line. ”Where have you been all summer?” demanded the Major as he shook hands with the captain; ”we have been looking for you ever since June, and had about come to the conclusion that the work was abandoned.” Captain Sutton replied that all of the Company's vessels had been late in leaving San Francisco, and that he had also been detained some time in Petropavlovsk by circ.u.mstances explained in his letters. ”What steamer is that lying at anchor beyond the _Clara Bell_?” inquired the Major.

”That is the Russian corvette _Varag_, from j.a.pan.”--”But what is she doing up here?” ”Why,” said the captain with a quizzical smile, ”you ought to know, sir; I understand that she reports to you for orders. I believe she has been detailed by the Russian Government to a.s.sist in the construction of the line; at least that was what I was told when we met her at Petropavlovsk. She has a Russian Commissioner on board, and a correspondent of the _New York Herald_.” This was unexpected news. We had heard that the Navy Departments of Russia and the United States had been instructed to send s.h.i.+ps to Bering Sea to a.s.sist the Company in making soundings and laying down the cable between the American and Siberian coasts, but we had never expected to see either of these vessels at Gizhiga. The simultaneous arrival of a loaded bark, a steam corvette, a Russian Commissioner, and a correspondent of the _New York Herald_ certainly looked like business, and we congratulated ourselves and each other upon the improving prospects of the Siberian Division.

The corvette's boat by this time had reached the sh.o.r.e, and after making the acquaintance of Mr. Anossof, Colonel Knox, the _Herald_ correspondent, and half a dozen Russian officers who spoke English with the greatest fluency, we proceeded to open and read our long-delayed mail.

The news, as far as it related to the affairs of the Company and the prospects of the enterprise, was very satisfactory. Colonel Bulkley, the engineer-in-chief, had touched at Petropavlovsk on his way north, and had written us from there, by the _Varag_ and the _Clara Bell_, full particulars as to his movements and dispositions. Three vessels--the _Clara Bell, Palmetto_, and _Onward_--had been sent from San Francisco to Gizhiga with a force of about sixty men, and large a.s.sorted cargoes to the value of sixty thousand dollars. One of these, the _Clara Bell_, loaded with brackets and insulators, had already arrived; and the other two, with commissary stores, wire, instruments, and men, were _en route_. A fourth vessel with thirty officers and workmen, a small river-steamer, and a full supply of tools and provisions, had also been sent to the mouth of the Anadyr River, where it would be received by Lieutenant Bush. The corvette _Varag_ had been detailed by the Russian Navy Department to a.s.sist in laying the cable across Bering Strait; but as the cable, which was ordered in England, had not arrived, there was nothing in particular for the _Varag_ to do, and Colonel Bulkley had sent her with the Russian Commissioner to Gizhiga. Owing to her great draught of water--twenty-two feet--she could not safely come within less than fifteen or twenty miles of the Okhotsk Sea coast, and could not, of course, give us much a.s.sistance; but her very presence, with a special Russian Commissioner on board, invested our enterprise with a sort of governmental authority and sanction, which enabled us to deal more successfully with the local authorities and people than would otherwise have been possible.

It had been Major Abaza's intention, as soon as one of the Company's vessels should arrive, to go to the Russian city and province of Yakutsk, on the Lena River, engage there five or six hundred native labourers, purchase three hundred horses, and make arrangements for their distribution along the whole route of the line. The peculiar state of affairs, however, at the time the _Varag_ and the _Clara Bell_ reached Gizhiga, made it almost impossible for him to leave.

Two vessels--the _Onward_ and the _Palmetto_--were yet to arrive with large and valuable cargoes, whose distribution along the coast of the Okhotsk Sea he wished to superintend in person. He decided, therefore, to postpone his trip to Yakutsk until later in the fall, and to do what he could in the meantime with the two vessels already at his disposal. The _Clara Bell_, in addition to her cargo of brackets and insulators, brought a foreman and three or four men as pa.s.sengers, and these Major Abaza determined to send under command of Lieutenant Arnold to Yamsk, with orders to hire as many native labourers as possible and begin at once the work of cutting poles and preparing station-houses. The _Varag_ he proposed to send with stores and despatches to Mahood, who had been living alone at Okhotsk almost five months without news, money, or provisions, and who it was presumed must be nearly discouraged.

On the day previous to the _Varag's_ departure, we were all invited by her social and warm-hearted officers to a last complimentary dinner; and although we had not been and should not be able with our scanty means to reciprocate such attentions, we felt no hesitation in accepting the invitation and tasting once more the pleasures of civilised life. Nearly all the officers of the _Varag_, some thirty in number, spoke English; the s.h.i.+p itself was luxuriously fitted up; a fine military band welcomed us with ”Hail, Columbia!” when we came on board, and played selections from _Martha, Traviata_, and _Der Freischutz_ while we dined, and all things contributed to make our visit to the _Varag_ a bright spot in our Siberian experience.

On the following morning at ten o'clock, we returned to the _Clara Bell_ in one of the latter's small-boats, and the corvette steamed slowly out to sea, her officers waving their hats from the quarter-deck in mute farewell, and her band playing the Pirate's Chorus--”Ever be happy and blest as thou art”--as if in mockery of our lonely, cheerless exile! It was a gloomy party of men which returned that afternoon to a supper of reindeer-meat and cabbage in the bare deserted rooms of the government storehouse at Gizhiga! We realised then, if never before, the difference between _life_ in ”G.o.d's country” and _existence_ in north-eastern Asia.

As soon as possible after the departure of the _Varag_, the _Clara Bell_ was brought into the mouth of the river, her cargo of brackets and insulators discharged, Lieutenant Arnold and party sent on board, and with the next high tide, August 26th, she sailed for Yamsk and San Francisco, leaving no one at Gizhiga but the original Kamchatkan party, Dodd, the Major, and myself.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

ARRIVAL OF BARK ”PALMETTO”--DRIVEN ASh.o.r.e BY GALE--DISCHARGING CARGO UNDER DIFFICULTIES--NEGRO CREW MUTINIES--LONELY TRIP TO ANADYRSK--STUPID KORAKS--EXPLOSIVE PROVISIONS

The brief excitement produced by the arrival of the _Varag_ and the _Clara Bell_ was succeeded by another long, dreary month of waiting, during which we lived as before in lonely discomfort at the mouth of the Gizhiga River. Week after week pa.s.sed away without bringing any tidings from the missing s.h.i.+ps, and at last the brief northern summer closed, snow appeared upon the mountains, and heavy long-continued storms announced the speedy approach of another winter. More than three months had elapsed since the supposed departure of the _Onward_ and _Palmetto_ from San Francisco, and we could account for their non-appearance only by the supposition that they had either been disabled or lost at sea. On the 18th of September, Major Abaza determined to send a messenger to the Siberian capital, to telegraph the Company for instructions. Left as we were at the beginning of a second winter without men, tools, or materials of any kind, except 50,000 insulators and brackets, we could do nothing toward the construction of the line, and our only resource was to make our unpleasant situation known to the Company. On the 19th, however, before this resolution could be carried into effect, the long-expected bark _Palmetto_ arrived, followed closely by the Russian supply-steamer _Saghalin_, from Nikolaievsk. The latter, being independent of wind and drawing very little water, had no difficulty in crossing the bar and gaining the shelter of the river; but the _Palmetto_ was compelled to anchor outside and await a higher tide.

The weather, which for several days had been cold and threatening, grew momentarily worse, and on the 22d the wind was blowing a close-reefed-topsail gale from the south-east, and rolling a tremendous sea into the unprotected gulf. We felt the most serious apprehensions for the safety of the unfortunate bark; but as the water would not permit her to cross the bar at the mouth of the river, nothing could be done until another high tide. On the 23d, it became evident that the _Palmetto_--upon which now rested all our hopes--must inevitably go ash.o.r.e. She had broken her heaviest anchor, and was drifting slowly but surely against the rocky, precipitous coast on the eastern side of the river, where nothing could prevent her from being dashed to pieces. As there was now no other alternative, Captain Arthur slipped his cable, got his s.h.i.+p under way, and stood directly in for the mouth of the river. He could no longer avoid going ash.o.r.e somewhere, and it was better to strike on a yielding bar of sand than to drift helplessly against a black perpendicular wall of rock, where destruction would be certain. The bark came gallantly in until she was only half a mile distant from the lighthouse, and then grounded heavily in about seven feet of water. As soon as she struck she began pounding with tremendous violence against the bottom while the seas broke in great white clouds of spray entirely over her quarter-deck.

It did not seem probable, that she would live through the night. As the tide rose, however, she drove farther and farther in toward the mouth of the river until, at full flood, she was only a quarter of a mile distant. Being a very strongly built s.h.i.+p, she suffered less damage than we had supposed, and, as the tide ran out, she lay high and dry on the bar, with no more serious injury than the loss of her false keel and a few sections of her copper sheathing.

As she was lying on her beam-ends, with her deck careened at an angle of forty-five degrees, it was impossible to hoist anything out of her hold, but we made preparations at once to discharge her cargo in boats as soon as another tide should raise her into an upright position.

We felt little hope of being able to save the s.h.i.+p, but it was all-important that her cargo should be discharged before she should go to pieces. Captain Tobezin, of the Russian steamer _Saghalin_, offered us the use of all his boats and the a.s.sistance of his crew, and on the following day we began work with six or seven boats, a large lighter, and about fifty men. The sea still continued to run very high; the bark recommenced her pounding against the bottom; the lighter swamped and sank with a full load about a hundred yards from sh.o.r.e, and a miscellaneous a.s.sortment of boxes, crates, and flour-barrels went swimming up the river with the tide. Notwithstanding all these misfortunes, we kept perseveringly at work with the boats as long as there was water enough around the bark to float them, and by the time the tide ran out we could congratulate ourselves upon having saved provisions enough to insure us against starvation, even though the s.h.i.+p should go to pieces that night. On the 25th, the wind abated somewhat in violence, the sea went down, and as the bark did not seem to be seriously injured we began to entertain some hope of saving both s.h.i.+p and cargo. From the 25th until the 29th of September, all the boats of the _Saghalin_ and of the _Palmetto_, with the crews of both vessels, were constantly engaged in transporting stores from the bark to the sh.o.r.e, and on the 30th at least half of the _Palmetto's_ cargo was safely discharged. So far as we could judge, there would be nothing to prevent her from going to sea with the first high tide in October. A careful examination proved that she had sustained no greater injury than the loss of her false keel, and this, in the opinion of the _Saghalin's_ officers, would not make her any the less seaworthy, or interfere to any extent with her sailing. A new difficulty, however, presented itself. The crew of the _Palmetto were_ all negroes; and as soon as they learned that Major Abaza intended to send the bark to San Francisco that fall, they promptly refused to go, declaring that the vessel was unseaworthy, and that they preferred to spend the winter in Siberia rather than risk a voyage in her to America. Major Abaza immediately called a commission of the officers of the _Saghalin_, and requested them to make another examination of the bark and give him their opinion in writing as to her seaworthiness. The examination was made, and the opinion given that she was entirely fit for a voyage to Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka, and probably to San Francisco. This decision was read to the negroes, but they still persisted in their refusal. After warning them of the consequences of mutiny, the Major ordered their ringleader to be put in irons, and he was conveyed on board the _Saghalin_ and imprisoned in the ”black hole”; but his comrades still held out. It was of vital importance that the _Palmetto_ should go to sea with the first high tide, because the season was already far advanced, and she must inevitably be wrecked by ice if she remained in the river later than the middle of October.

Besides this, Major Abaza would be compelled to leave for Yakutsk on the steamer _Saghalin_, and the latter was now ready to go to sea. On the afternoon of the 1st, just as the _Saghalin_ was getting up steam to start, the negroes sent word to the Major that if he would release the man whom he had caused to be put in irons, they would do their best to finish unloading the _Palmetto_ and to get her back to San Francisco. The man was promptly released, and two hours afterwards Major Abaza sailed on the _Saghalin_ for Okhotsk, leaving us to do the best we could with our half-wrecked stranded s.h.i.+p and her mutinous crew.

The cargo of the bark was still only half discharged, and we continued for the next five days to unload in boats, but it was hard, discouraging work, as there were only six hours in the twenty-four during which boats could reach the s.h.i.+p, and those six hours were from eleven o'clock P.M. to five in the morning. At all other times the s.h.i.+p lay on her beam-ends, and the water around her was too shallow to float even a plank. To add, if possible, to our difficulties and to our anxiety, the weather became suddenly colder, the thermometer fell to zero, ma.s.ses of floating ice came in with every tide and tore off great sheets of the vessel's copper as they drifted past, and the river soon became so choked up with icy fragments that we were obliged to haul the boats back and forth with ropes. In spite of weather, water, and ice, however, the vessel's cargo was slowly but steadily discharged, and by the 10th of October nothing remained on board except a few hogsheads of flour, some salt-beef and pork which we did not want, and seventy-five or a hundred tons of coal. These we determined to let her carry back to San Francisco as ballast. The tides were now getting successively higher and higher every day, and on the 11th the _Palmetto_ floated for the first time in almost three weeks. As soon as her keel cleared the bar she was swung around into the channel, head to sea, and moored with light kedge-anchors, ready for a start on the following day. Since the intensely cold weather of the previous week, her crew of negroes had expressed no further desire to spend a winter in Siberia, and, unless the wind should veer suddenly to the southward, we could see nothing to prevent her from getting safely out of the river. The wind for once proved favourable, and at 2 P.M. on the 12th of October the _Palmetto_ shook out her long-furled courses and topsails, cut the cables of her kedge-anchors, and with a light breeze from the north-east, moved slowly out into the gulf. Never was music more sweet to my ears than the hearty ”Yo heave ho!” of her negro crew as they sheeted home the topgallant sails outside the bar! The bark was safely at sea. She was not a day too soon in making her escape. In less than a week after her departure, the river and the upper part of the gulf were so packed with ice that it would have been impossible for her to move or to avoid total wreck.

The prospects of the enterprise at the opening of the second winter were more favourable than they had been at any time since its inception. The Company's vessels, it is true, had been very late in their arrival, and one of them, the _Onward_, had not come at all; but the _Palmetto_ had brought twelve or fourteen more men and a full supply of tools and provisions, Major Abaza had gone to Yakutsk to hire six or eight hundred native labourers and purchase three hundred horses, and we hoped that the first of February would find the work progressing rapidly along the whole extent of the line.

As soon as possible after the departure of the _Palmetto_, I sent Lieutenant Sandford and the twelve men whom she had brought into the woods on the Gizhiga River above the settlement, supplied them with axes, snow-shoes, dog-sledges, and provisions, and set them at work cutting poles and building houses, to be distributed across the steppes between Gizhiga and Penzhinsk Gulf. I also sent a small party of natives under Mr. Wheeler to Yamsk, with five or six sledge-loads of axes and provisions for Lieutenant Arnold, and despatches to be forwarded to Major Abaza. For the present, nothing more could be done on the coast of the Okhotsk Sea, and I prepared to start once more for the north. We had heard nothing whatever from Lieutenant Bush and party since the first of the previous May, and we were of course anxious to know what success he had met with in cutting and rafting poles down the Anadyr River, and what were his prospects and plans for the winter. The late arrival of the _Palmetto_ at Gizhiga had led us to fear that the vessel destined for the Anadyr might also have been detained and have placed Lieutenant Bush and party in a very unpleasant if not dangerous situation. Major Abaza had directed me, therefore, when he sailed for Okhotsk, to go by the first winter road to Anadyrsk and ascertain whether the Company's vessels had been at the mouth of the river, and whether Bush needed any a.s.sistance. As there was no longer anything to detain me at Gizhiga, I packed up my camp-equipage and extra fur clothes, loaded five sledges with tea, sugar, tobacco, and provisions, and on November 2d started with six Cossacks for my last journey to the Arctic Circle.

In all my Siberian experience I can recall no expedition which was so lonely and dismal as this. For the sake of saving transportation, I had decided not to take any of my American comrades with me; but by many a silent camp-fire did I regret my self-denying economy, and long for the hearty laugh and good-humoured raillery of my ”fidus Achates”--Dodd. During twenty-five days I did not meet a civilised being or speak a word of my native language, and at the end of that time I should have been glad to talk to an intelligent American dog.

”Aloneness,” says Beecher, ”is to social life what rests are to music”; but a journey made up entirely of ”aloneness” is no more entertaining than a piece of music made up entirely of rests--only a vivid imagination can make anything out of either.

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