Tent-life in Siberia and adventures among the Koraks and other tribes in Kamtchatka and northern Asia

Preface

The attempt which was made by the Western Union Telegraph Company, in 1865-6 and '7, to build an overland line to Europe via Alaska, Behring's Straits, and Siberia, was in some respects the most remarkable undertaking of the present century. Bold in its conception, a^d important in the ends at which it aimed, it attracted I one time the attention of the whole civilized world, and was regarded as the greatest telegraphic enterprise which had ever engaged American capital. like all unsuccessful ventures, however, in this progressive age, it has been speedily forgotten, and the brilliant success of the Atlantic Cable has driven it entirely out of the public mind. Most readers are familiar with the principal facts in the history of this enterprise, from its organization to its ultimate abandonment ; but only a few, even of its original projectors, know anything about the work which it accomplished in British Columbia, Alaska, and Siberia ; the obstacles which were met and overcome by its exploring and working parties ; and the contributions which it made to our knowledge of an hitherto untravelled, unvisited region. Its employes, in the course of two years, explored nearly six thousand miles of unbroken wilderness,

IV PREFACE.

extending from Vancouver's Island on the American coast to Behring's Straits, and from Behring's Straits to the Chinese frontier in Asia. The traces of their deserted camps may be found in the wildest mountain fastnesses of Kamtchatka, on the vast desolate plains of Northeastern Siberia, and throughout the gloomy pine forests of Alaska and British Columbia. Mounted on reindeer, they traversed the most rugged passes of the north Asiatic mountains ; they floated in skin canoes down the great rivers of the north ; slept in the smoky pologs of the Siberian Chookchees ; and camped out upon desolate northern plains in temperatures of 50 and 6o° below zero. The poles which they erected and the houses which they built now stand alone in an encircling wilderness, — the only results of their three years' labor and suffering, and the only monuments of an abandoned enterprise.

It is not my purpose to write a history of the Russo- American Telegraph. The success of its rival, the Atlantic Cable, has completely overshadowed its early importance, and its own failure has deprived it of all its interest for American readers. Though its history, however, be unimportant, the surveys and explorations which were planned and executed under its auspices have a value and an interest of their own, aside from the object for which they were undertaken. The territory which they covered is little known to the reading world, and its nomadic inhabitants have been rarely visited by civilized man. Only a few adventurous traders and fur-hunters have ever penetrated its almost unbroken solitudes, and it is not probable that civilized men will ever follow in their steps. The

PREFACE. *

country holds out to the ordinary traveller no inducement commensurate with the risk and hardship which its exploration involves.

Two of the employes of the Russo-American Telegraph Company, Messrs. Whymper and Dall, have already published accounts of their travels in various parts of British Columbia and Alaska ; and believing that a history of the Company's explorations on the other side of Behring's Straits will possess equal interest, I have written the following narrative of two years' life in Northeastern Siberia. It makes no pretensions whatever to fulness of scientific information, nor to any very extraordinary researches of any kind. It is intended simply to convey as clear and accurate an idea as possible of the inhabitants, scenery, customs, and general external features of a new and comparatively unknown country. It is essentially a personal narrative of life in Siberia and Kamtchatka ; and its claim to attention lies rather in the freshness of the subject, than in any special devotion to science or skill of treatment

Contents

CKA2TER JAG9

I. The Russo- American Telegraph — The "Olga"' sails

from San Francisco for Kamtchatka and the Amoor. s

Chapter I

The Russo-American Telegraph Company, or, as it was more properly called, the "Western Union Extension," was organized at New York in the summer of 1864. The idea of a line from America to Europe, by way of Behring's Straits, had existed for many years in the minds of several prominent telegraphers, and had been proposed by Perry McD. Collins, Esq., as early as 1857, when he made his trip across Northern Asia. It was never seriously considered, however, until after the failure of the first Atlantic cable, when the expediency of an overland line between the two continents began to be earnestly discussed. The plan of Mr. Collins, which was submitted to the Western Union Telegraph Company of New York as early as 1863, seemed to be the most practicable of all the projects which were suggested for inter-continental communication. It proposed to unite the telegraphic systems of America and Russia by a line through British Columbia, Russian America, and North-eastern Siberia, meeting the Russian lines at the mouth of the Amoor River on the Asiatic coast, and forming one continuous girdle of wire nearly round the globe.

This plan possessed many very obvious advantages. It called for no long cables. It provided for a line which would run everywhere overland, except for a shcrt distance at Behring's Straits, and which could be easily repaired when injured by accident or storm. It promised also to extend its line eventually down the Asiatic coast to Pekin, and to develop a large and profitable business with China. All these considerations recommended it strongly to the favor of capitalists and practical telegraph men, and it was finally adopted by the Western Union Telegraph Co. in 1863. It was, of course, foreseen that the next Atlantic cable might succeed, and that such success would prove very damaging, if not fatal, to the prospects of the proposed overland line. Such an event, however, did not seem probable, and in view of ail the circumstances, the company decided to assume the inevitable risk.

A contract was entered into with the Russian Government, providing for the extension of the latter' s line through Siberia to the mouth of the Amoor River, and granting to the Company certain extraordinary privileges in Russian territory. Similar concessions were obtained in 1864 from the British Government ; assistance was promised by oui own Congress ; and the "Western Union Extension Company " was immediately organized, with a nominal capital of $10,000,000. The stock was rapidly taken, principally by the stockholders of the original Western Union Company, and an assessment of five per cent, was immediately made to provide funds for the prosecution of the work. Such was the faith at this time in the ultimate success of the enterprise, that its stock sold in two months for seven ty-five dollars per share, with only one assessment of five dollars paid in.

In August, 1864, Col. Chas. S. Bulkley, formerly Superintendent of Military Telegraphs in the Department of the Gulf, was appointed Engineer-in-chief of the proposed line, and in December he sailed from New York for San Francisco, to organize and fit out exploring parties, and begin active operations.

Led by a desire of identifying myself with so novel and important an enterprise, as well as by a natural love of travel and adventure which I had never before been able to gratify, I offered my services as an explorer soon aftei the projection of the line. My application was favorably considered, and on the 13th of December I sailed from New York with the Engineer-in-chief, for the proposed headquarters of the company at San Francisco. Col. Bulkley, immediately after his arrival, opened an office in Montgomery street, and began organizing exploring parties to make a preliminary survey of the route of the line. No sooner did it become noised about the city that men were wanted to explore the unknown regions of British Columbia, Russian America, and Siberia, than the company's office was thronged with eager applicants for positions, in any and every capacity.

Adventurous Micawliers, who had long been waiting for something of this kind to turn up ; broken down miners, who hoped to retrieve their fortunes in new gold fields yet to be discovered in the north ; and returned soldiers thirsting for fresh excitement, — all hastened to offer their services as pioneers in the great work. Trained and skilled engineers were in active demand ; but the supply of only ordinary men, w'.io made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in experience, was unlimited.

Month after month passed slowly away in the selection, organization, and equipment of parties, until at last, in June, 1865, the company's vessels were reported ready for sea.

The plan of operations, as far as it had then been decided upon, was to land one party in British Columbia, near the mouth of the Frazer River ; one in Russian America, at Norton's Sound; and one on the Asiatic side of Behring's Straits, at the mouth of the Anadyr River. These parties, under the direction respectively of Messrs. Pope, Kennicott, and Macrae, were directed to push back into the interior, following as far as practicable the courses of the rivers upon which they were landed; to obtain all possible information with regard to the climate, soil, timber, and inhabitants of the regions traversed ; and to locate, in a general way, a route for the proposed line.

The two American parties would have comparatively advantageous bases of operations at Victoria and Fort St. Michael ; but the Siberian party, if left on the Asiatic coast at all, must be landed near Behring's Straits, on the edge of a barren, desolate region, nearly a thousand miles from any known settlement. Thrown thus upon its own resources, in an unknown country, and among nomadic tribes of hostile natives, without any means of interior transportation except canoes, the safety and success of this party were by no means assured. It was even asserted by many friends of the enterprise, that to leave men in such a situation, and under such circumstances, was to abandon them to almost certain death ; and the Russian Consul at San Francisco wrote a letter to Colonel Bulkley, advising him strongly not to land a party on the Asiatic coast oi the North Pacific, but to send it instead to one of the Russian ports of the Okhotsk Sea, where it could establish a base of supplies, obtain information with regard to the interior, and procure horses or dog-sledges for overland explorations in any desired direction.

The wisdom and good sense of this advice were apparent to all ; but unfortunately the Engineer-in-chief had no vessel which he could send with a party into the Okhotsk Sea ; and if men were landed at all that summer on the Asiatic coast, they must be landed near Behring's Straits.

Late in June, however, Col. Bulkley learned that a small Russian trading vessel, called the " Olga," was about to sail from San Francisco for Kamtchatka and the southwest coast of the Okhotsk Sea, and he succeeded in prevailing upon the owners to take four men as passengers to the Russian settlement of Nikolas vsk, at the mouth of the Amoor River. This, although not as desirable a point for beginning operations as some others on the north coast of the sea, was still much better than any which could be selected on the Asiatic coast of the North Pacific ; and a party was soon organized to sail in the " Olga" for Kamtchatka and the mouth of the Amoor. This party consisted of Major S. Abaza, a Russian gentleman who had been appointed superintendent of the work, and Generalissimo of the forces in Siberia ; James A. Mahood, a civil engineer of reputation in California ; R. J. Bush, who had just re« turned from three years' active service in the Carolinas ; and myself, — not a very formidable force in point of numbers, nor a very remarkable one in point of experience, but strong in hope, self-reliance, and enthusiasm.

On the 28th of June we were notified that " the brig Olga" had nearly all her cargo aboard, and would have " immediate dispatch"

This marine metaphor, as we afterward learned, meant only that she would sail some time in the course of the summer ; but we, in our trustful inexperience, supposed that the brig must be all ready to cast off her moorings, and the announcement threw us into all the excitement and confusion of hasty preparation for a start. Dress coats, linen shirts, and fine boots were recklessly thrown or given away; blankets, heavy shoes, and over-shuts of flannel were purchased in large quantities ; Ballard & Sharpes' rifles, revolvers, and bowie-knives of formidable dimensions gave our room the appearance of a disorganized arsenal ; pots of arsenic, jars of alcohol, butterfly-nets, snake-bags, pillboxes, and a dozen other implements and appliances of science about which we knew nothing, were given to us by our enthusiastic naturalists and packed away in big boxes ; Vrangell's Travels, Gray's Botany, and a few scientific works were added to our small library ; and before night we were able to report ourselves ready — armed and equip ped for any adventure, from the capture of a new species of bug, to the conquest of Kamtchatka !

As it was against all precedent to go to sea without looking at the ship, Bush and I appointed ourselves au examining committee for the party, and walked down to the wharf where she lay. The Captain, a bluff Americanized German, met us at the gangway and guided us through the little brig from stem to stern. Our limited marine experience wouldn't have qualified us to pass an ex cathedrd judgment upon the sea-worthiness of a mud scow; but Bush, with characteristic impudence and versatility of talent, discoursed learnedly to the Captain upon the beauty of his vessel's "lines" (whatever those were), her spread of canvas and build generally, — discussed the comparative merits of single and double topsails, and new patent yard-slings, and reefing-tackle, and altogether displayed such an amount of nautical learning that it completely crushed me and staggered even the Captain.

f-I strongly suspected that Bush had acquired most of his knowledge of sea terms from a cursory perusal of " Bowditch's Navigator," which I had seen lying on the office table, and I privately resolved to procure a compact edition of Marryat's sea tales as soon as I should go ashore, and just overwhelm him next time with such accumulated stores of nautical erudition that he would hide his diminished head. I had a dim recollection of reading something in Cooper's novels about a ship's dead heads and cat's eyes, or cat heads and dead eyes, I couldn't remember which, and, determined not to be ignored as an inexperienced landlubber, I gazed in a vague sort of way into the rigging, and made a few very general observations upcn the nature of dead-eyes and spanker-booms. The Captain, however, promptly annihilated me by demanding categorically whether I had ever seen the spanker-boom jammed with the fore tops' 1-yard, with the wind abeam. J replied meekly that I believed such a catastiophe had never occurred under my immediate observation, and as he turned to Bush with a smile of commiseration for my ignorance I ground my teeth and went below to inspect I he pantry. Here I felt more at home. The long rows of canned provisions, beef stock, concentrated milk, pie fruits, and a small keg, bearing the quaint inscription, " Zante cur.," soon soothed my perturbed spirit and convinced me beyond the shadow of a doubt that the " Olga" was stanch and sea-worthy, and built in the latest and most improved style of marine architecture.

I therefore went up to tell Bush that I had made a careful and critical examination of the vessel below, and that she would undoubtedly do. I omitted to state the nature of the observations upon which this conclusion was founded, but he asked no troublesome questions, and we returned to the office with a favorable report of the ship's build, capacity, and outfit.

On Saturday, July ist, the "Olga" took in the last of her cargo, and was hauled out into the stream.

Our farewell letters were hastily written home, our final preparations made, and at nine o'clock on Monday morning we assembled s t the Howard street wharf, where the steam-tug lay which was to tow us out to sea.

A large party of friends had gathered to bid us good-by ; and the pier, covered with bright dresses and blue uniforms, presented quite a holiday appearance in the warm clear sunshine of a California morning

Our last instructions were delivered to us by Colonel Bulkley, with many hearty wishes for our health and suecess ; laughing invitations to " come and see us " were extended to our less fortunate comrades who were left behind ; requests to send back specimens of the North Pole and the Aurora Borealis were intermingled with direction? for preserving birds and collecting bugs ; and amid a general confusion of congratulations, good wishes, cautions, bantering challenges, and tearful farewells, the steamer's bell rang. Dall, ever alive to the interests of his beloved science, grasped me cordially by the hand, saying, " Goodbv, George. God bless you ! Keep your eye out for land snails and skulls of the wild animals !"

Miss B said pleadingly, "Take care of my dear

brother ; " and as I promised to care for him as if he were my own, I thought of another sister far away, who, could she be present, would echo the request, " Take care of my dear brother." With waving handkerchiefs and repeated good-byes, we moved slowly from the wharf, and, steaming round in a great semicircle to where the "Olga" was lying, we were transferred to the little brig, which, for the next two months, was to be our home.

The steamer towed us outside the "heads" of the Golden Gate, and then cast off; and as she passed us on her way back, our friends gathered in a little group on the forward deck, with the Colonel at their head, and gave three generous cheers for the " First Siberian exploring party." We replied with three more, — our last farewell to civilization, — and silently watched the lessening figure of the steamer, until the white handkerchief which Arnold had tied to the backstays could no longer be seen, and we were rocking alone on the long swells of the Pacific.

Chapter II

'* lie tcok great .ontent and exceeding delight in his voyage, as who doth 1108 US shall attempt thi like." — Burton.

At Sea, 700 Miles N. W. of San Francisco.

Wednesday, Jtily 12th, 1 865.

Ten days ago, on the eve of our departure for the Asiatic coast, full of high hopes and joyful anticipations of pleasure, I wrote in a fair round hand on this opening page of my journal, the above sentence from Burton ; never once doubting, in my enthusiasm, the complete realization of those "future joys," which to "fancy's eye" lay in such " bright uncertainty," or suspecting that " a life on the ocean wave " was not a state of the highest felicity attainable on earth. The quotation seemed to me an extremely happy one, and I mentally blessed the quaint old Anatomist of Melancholy for providing me with a motto at once so simple and so appropriate. Of course "he took great content and exceeding delight in his voyage; " and the wholly unwarranted assumption that because "he" did. every one else necessarily must, did not strike me as being in the least absurd.

On the contrary, it carried all the weight of the severest logical demonstration, and I would have treated with contempt any suggestion of possible disappointment. Mj

| ideas of sea life had been derived principally from glowing descriptions of poetical marine sunsets, of " summei isles of Eden, lying in dark purple spheres of sea," and of those " moonlight nights on lonely waters " with which poets have for ages beguiled ignorant landsmen into ocean voyages. Fogs, storms, and sea-sickness did not enter at all into my conceptions of marine phenomena ; or if I did admit the possibility of a storm, it was only as a picturesque, highly poetical manifestation of wind and water in action, without any of the disagreeable features which attend those elements under more prosaic circumstances. I had, it is true, experienced a little rough weather on my voyage to California, but my memory had long since idealized it into something grand and poetical ; and I looked forward even to a storm on the Pacific as an experience not only pleasant, but highly desirable. The illusion was very pleasant while it lasted; but— it is over. Ten days of real sea life have converted the "bright uncertainty of future joys " into a dark and decided certainty of future misery, and left me to mourn the incompatibility of poetry and truth. Burton is a humbug, Tennyson a fraud, I'm a victim, and Byron and Procter are accessaries before the fact. Never again will I pin my faith to poets. They may tell the truth nearly enough for poetical consistency, but their judgment is hopelessly perverted and their imagination is too luxuriantly vivid for a truthful realistic delineation of sea life. Byron's " London Packet" is a trilliant exception, but I remember no other in the whole range of poetical literature.

Our life since we left port has certainly been anything but poetical.

For nearly a week we suffered all the indescribable miseries of sea-sickness, without any alleviating circumstances whatever. Day after day we lay in our narrow berths, too sick to read, too unhappy to talk, watching the cabin lamp as it swung uneasily in its well-oiled gimbals, and listening to the gurgle and swash of the water around the after dead-lights, and the regular clank, clank of the blocks of the trisail sheet as the rolling of the vessel swung the heavy boom from side to side.

We all professed to be enthusiastic supporters of the Tapleyan philosophy — jollity under all circumstances; but we failed most lamentably in reconciling our practice with our principles. There was not the faintest suggestion of jollity in the appearance of the four motionless, prostrate figures against the wall. Sea-sickness had triumphed over philosophy ! Prospective and retrospective revery of a decidedly gloomy character was our only occupation. I remember speculating curiously upon the probability of Noah's having ever been sea-sick ; wondering how the seagoing qualities of the ark would compare with those of our brig, and whether she had our brig's uncomfortable way of pitching about in a heavy swell.

If she had — and I almost smiled at the idea — what an unhappy experience it must have been for the pooi animals !

I wondered also if Jason and Ulysses were born with " sea legs," or whether they had to go through the same unpleasant process that we did to get them on.

TENT LIFE IN SIBERIA. I J

Concluded finally that " sea legs," like some diseases must be a diabolical invention of modern times, and that the ancients got along in some way without them. Then, looking intently at the fly-specks upon the painted boaids ten inches from my eyes, I would recall all the bright anticipations with which I had sailed from San Francisco, and turn over, with a groan of disgust, to the wall.

I wonder if any one has ever written down on paper / his sea-sick reveries. There are " Evening Reveries " " Reveries of a Bachelor," and " Sea-side Reveries " in abundance ; but no one, so far as I know, has ever even attempted to do his Sea-sick Reveries literary justice. It is a strange oversight, and I would respectfully suggest to any aspiring writer who has the revery faculty, that there is here an unworked field of boundless extent. One trip across the North Pacific in a small brig will furnish an inexhaustible supply of material.

Our life thus far has been too monotonous to afford a single noticeable incident. The weather has been cold, damp, and foggy, with light head winds and a heavy swell ; we have been confined closely to our seven by nine after-cabin ; and its close stifling atmosphere, redolent of bilgewater, lamp-oil, and tobacco-smoke, has had a most depressing influence upon our spirits. I am glad to see, however, that all our party are up to-day, and that there is a faint interest manifested in the prospect of dinner ; but even the inspiriting strains of the Faust march which the Captain is playing upon a wheezy old accordion, fail to put any expression of animation into the woe-begone faces around the cabin table. Mahood pretends that he is all

T4 TENT LIFE IN SIBERIA.

right, and plays checkers with the captain with an air of assumed tranquillity which approaches heroism, but he is observed at irregular intervals to go suddenly and unexpectedly on deck, and to return every time with a more ghastly and rueful countenance. When asked the object of these periodical visits to the quarter-deck, he replies, with a transparent affectation of cheerfulness, that he only goes up " to look at the compass and see how she's heading." I am surprised to find that " looking at the compass" is attended with such painful and melancholy emotions as those expressed inMahood's face when he comes back ; but he performs the self-imposed duty with unshrinking faithfulness, and relieves us of a great deal of a.nxiety about the safety of the ship. The Captain seems a little negligent, and sometimes does not observe the compass once a day ; but Mahood watches it with unsleeping vigilance.

Brig Olga, 800 Miles N. W. of San Francisco.

Sunday, yuly 16th, 1865.

.The monotony of our lives was relieved night before last, and our sea-sickness aggravated, by a severe gale of wind from the north-west, which compelled us to lie to for twenty hours under one close-reefed maintopsail. The storm began late in the afternoon, and by nine o'clock the wind was at its height and the sea rapidly rising. The waves pounded like Titanic sledge-hammers against the vessel's quivering timbers; the gale roared a deep diapason through the cordage ; and the regular thud, thud, thud of the pumps, and the long melancholy whistling of the wind through the blocks, filled our minds with lismal forebodings, and banished all inclination fol sleep .

M< >rning dawned gloomily and reluctantly, and its fust gray light, struggling through the film of water on the small rectangular deck-lights, revealed a comical scene of confusion and disorder. The ship was rolling and laboring heavily, and Mahood's trunk having in some way broken from its moorings, was sliding back and forth across the cabin floor. Bush's big meerschaum, in company with a corpulent sponge, had taker up temporary quarters in the tov.yi of niy best hat, and the Major's box of cigars revolved periodically from corner to corner in the close embrace of a dirty shirt. Sliding and rolling over the carpet in every direction were books, papers, cigars, brushes, dirty collars, stockings, empty wine-bottles, slippers, coats, and old boots ; and a large box of telegraph material threatened momentarily to break from its fastenings and demolish everything. The Major, who was the first to show any signs of animation, rose on one elbow in bed, gazed fixedly at the sliding and revolving articles, and shaking his head reflectively, said : " It is a c-u-r-ious thing ! It is a c-u r-ious thing ! " as if the migratory boots and cigar-boxes exhibited some new and perplexing phenomena not to be accounted for by any of the known laws of physics. A sudden roll in which the vessel indulged at that particular moment gave additional force to the sentiment of the soliloquy ; and with renewed convictions, I have no doubt, of the original and innate depravity of matter generally, and of the Pacific Ocean especially, he laid his head back upon the pillow.

It required no inconsiderable degree of resolution to i turn out " under such unpromising circumstances ; bul Bush, after two or three groans and a yawn, made the attempt to get up and dress. Climbing hurriedly down when the ship rolled to windward, he caught his boots in one hand and pants in the other, and began hopping about the cabin with surprising agility, dodging or jumping over the sliding trunk and rolling bottles, and making frantic efforts to put both legs simultaneously into one boot. Surprised in the midst of this arduous task by an unexpected lurch, he made an impetuous charge upon an 17 inoffensive washstand, stepped on an erratic bottle, fell on his head, and finally brought up a total wreck in the corner of the room. Convulsed with laughter, the Major could only ejaculate disconnectedly, " I tell you — it is a — curious thing how she — rolls!" "Yes," rejoined Bush savagely, as he rubbed one knee, " I should think it was ! Just get up and try it !" But the Major was entirely satisfied to see Bush try it, and did nothing but laugh at his misfortunes. The latter finally succeeded in getting dressed, and after some hesitation I concluded to follow his example. By dint of falling twice over the trunk, kneeling upon my heels, sitting on my elbows, and executing several other equally impracticable feats, I got my vest on inside out, both feet in the wrong boots respectively, and staggered up the companion-way on deck. The wind was still blowing a gale, and we showed no canvas but one close-reefed maintopsail.