In the beginning of the year 1920 I happened to be living in theSiberian town of Krasnoyarsk, situated on the shores of the RiverYenisei, that noble stream which is cradled in the sun-bathedmountains of Mongolia to pour its warming life into the ArcticOcean and to whose mouth Nansen has twice come to open the shortestroad for commerce from Europe to the heart of Asia. There in thedepths of the still Siberian winter I was suddenly caught up in thewhirling storm of mad revolution raging all over Russia, sowing inthis peaceful and rich land vengeance, hate, bloodshed and crimesthat go unpunished by the law. No one could tell the hour of hisfate. The people lived from day to day and left their homes notknowing whether they should return to them or whether they shouldbe dragged from the streets and thrown into the dungeons of thattravesty of courts, the Revolutionary Committee, more terrible andmore bloody than those of the Mediaeval Inquisition. We who werestrangers in this distraught land were not saved from itspersecutions and I personally lived through them.
One morning, when I had gone out to see a friend, I suddenlyreceived the news that twenty Red soldiers had surrounded my houseto arrest me and that I must escape. I quickly put on one of myfriend's old hunting suits, took some money and hurried away onfoot along the back ways of the town till I struck the open road,where I engaged a peasant, who in four hours had driven me twentymiles from the town and set me down in the midst of a deeplyforested region. On the way I bought a rifle, three hundredcartridges, an ax, a knife, a sheepskin overcoat, tea, salt, drybread and a kettle. I penetrated into the heart of the wood to anabandoned half-burned hut. From this day I became a genuinetrapper but I never dreamed that I should follow this role as longas I did. The next morning I went hunting and had the good fortuneto kill two heathcock. I found deer tracks in plenty and felt surethat I should not want for food. However, my sojourn in this placewas not for long. Five days later when I returned from hunting Inoticed smoke curling up out of the chimney of my hut. Istealthily crept along closer to the cabin and discovered twosaddled horses with soldiers' rifles slung to the saddles. Twodisarmed men were not dangerous for me with a weapon, so I quicklyrushed across the open and entered the hut. From the bench twosoldiers started up in fright. They were Bolsheviki. On their bigAstrakhan caps I made out the red stars of Bolshevism and on theirblouses the dirty red bands. We greeted each other and sat down.
The soldiers had already prepared tea and so we drank this everwelcome hot beverage and chatted, suspiciously eyeing one anotherthe while. To disarm this suspicion on their part, I told themthat I was a hunter from a distant place and was living therebecause I found it good country for sables. They announced to methat they were soldiers of a detachment sent from a town into thewoods to pursue all suspicious people.
Do you understand, 'Comrade,' said one of them to me, "we arelooking for counter-revolutionists to shoot them?"I knew it without his explanations. All my forces were directed toassuring them by my conduct that I was a simple peasant hunter andthat I had nothing in common with the counter-revolutionists. Iwas thinking also all the time of where I should go after thedeparture of my unwelcome guests. It grew dark. In the darknesstheir faces were even less attractive. They took out bottles ofvodka and drank and the alcohol began to act very noticeably. Theytalked loudly and constantly interrupted each other, boasting howmany bourgeoisie they had killed in Krasnoyarsk and how manyCossacks they had slid under the ice in the river. Afterwards theybegan to quarrel but soon they were tired and prepared to sleep.
All of a sudden and without any warning the door of the hut swungwide open and the steam of the heated room rolled out in a greatcloud, out of which seemed to rise like a genie, as the steamsettled, the figure of a tall, gaunt peasant impressively crownedwith the high Astrakhan cap and wrapped in the great sheepskinovercoat that added to the massiveness of his figure. He stoodwith his rifle ready to fire. Under his girdle lay the sharp axwithout which the Siberian peasant cannot exist. Eyes, quick andglimmering like those of a wild beast, fixed themselves alternatelyon each of us. In a moment he took off his cap, made the sign ofthe cross on his breast and asked of us: "Who is the master here?"I answered him.
May I stop the night?"Yes, I replied, "places enough for all. Take a cup of tea. Itis still hot."The stranger, running his eyes constantly over all of us and overeverything about the room, began to take off his skin coat afterputting his rifle in the corner. He was dressed in an old leatherblouse with trousers of the same material tucked in high feltboots. His face was quite young, fine and tinged with somethingakin to mockery. His white, sharp teeth glimmered as his eyespenetrated everything they rested upon. I noticed the locks ofgrey in his shaggy head. Lines of bitterness circled his mouth.
They showed his life had been very stormy and full of danger. Hetook a seat beside his rifle and laid his ax on the floor below.
What? Is it your wife? asked one of the drunken soldiers,pointing to the ax.
The tall peasant looked calmly at him from the quiet eyes undertheir heavy brows and as calmly answered:
One meets a different folk these days and with an ax it is muchsafer.He began to drink tea very greedily, while his eyes looked at memany times with sharp inquiry in them and ran often round the wholecabin in search of the answer to his doubts. Very slowly and witha guarded drawl he answered all the questions of the soldiersbetween gulps of the hot tea, then he turned his glass upside downas evidence of having finished, placed on the top of it the smalllump of sugar left and remarked to the soldiers:
I am going out to look after my horse and will unsaddle yourhorses for you also."All right, exclaimed the half-sleeping young soldier, "bring inour rifles as well."The soldiers were lying on the benches and thus left for us onlythe floor. The stranger soon came back, brought the rifles and setthem in the dark corner. He dropped the saddle pads on the floor,sat down on them and began to take off his boots. The soldiers andmy guest soon were snoring but I did not sleep for thinking of whatnext to do. Finally as dawn was breaking, I dozed off only toawake in the broad daylight and find my stranger gone. I wentoutside the hut and discovered him saddling a fine bay stallion.
Are you going away? I asked.
Yes, but I want to go together with these ---- comrades,' hewhispered, "and afterwards I shall come back."I did not ask him anything further and told him only that I wouldwait for him. He took off the bags that had been hanging on hissaddle, put them away out of sight in the burned corner of thecabin, looked over the stirrups and bridle and, as he finishedsaddling, smiled and said:
I am ready. I'm going to awake my 'comrades.' Half an hourafter the morning drink of tea, my three guests took their leave.
I remained out of doors and was engaged in splitting wood for mystove. Suddenly, from a distance, rifle shots rang through thewoods, first one, then a second. Afterwards all was still. Fromthe place near the shots a frightened covey of blackcock broke andcame over me. At the top of a high pine a jay cried out. Ilistened for a long time to see if anyone was approaching my hutbut everything was still.
On the lower Yenisei it grows dark very early. I built a fire inmy stove and began to cook my soup, constantly listening for everynoise that came from beyond the cabin walls. Certainly Iunderstood at all times very clearly that death was ever beside meand might claim me by means of either man, beast, cold, accident ordisease. I knew that nobody was near me to assist and that all myhelp was in the hands of God, in the power of my hands and feet, inthe accuracy of my aim and in my presence of mind. However, Ilistened in vain. I did not notice the return of my stranger.
Like yesterday he appeared all at once on the threshold. Throughthe steam I made out his laughing eyes and his fine face. Hestepped into the hut and dropped with a good deal of noise threerifles into the corner.
Two horses, two rifles, two saddles, two boxes of dry bread, halfa brick of tea, a small bag of salt, fifty cartridges, twoovercoats, two pairs of boots, laughingly he counted out. "Intruth today I had a very successful hunt."In astonishment I looked at him.
What are you surprised at? he laughed. "Komu nujny etitovarischi? Who's got any use for these fellows? Let us have teaand go to sleep. Tomorrow I will guide you to another safer placeand then go on."
At the dawn of day we started forth, leaving my first place ofrefuge. Into the bags we packed our personal estate and fastenedthem on one of the saddles.
We must go four or five hundred versts, very calmly announced myfellow traveler, who called himself "Ivan," a name that meantnothing to my mind or heart in this land where every second manbore the same.
We shall travel then for a very long time, I remarkedregretfully.
Not more than one week, perhaps even less, he answered.
That night we spent in the woods under the wide spreading branchesof the fir trees. It was my first night in the forest under theopen sky. How many like this I was destined to spend in the yearand a half of my wanderings! During the day there was very sharpcold. Under the hoofs of the horses the frozen snow crunched andthe balls that formed and broke from their hoofs rolled away overthe crust with a sound like crackling glass. The heathcock flewfrom the trees very idly, hares loped slowly down the beds ofsummer streams. At night the wind began to sigh and whistle as itbent the tops of the trees over our heads; while below it was stilland calm. We stopped in a deep ravine bordered by heavy trees,where we found fallen firs, cut them into logs for the fire and,after having boiled our tea, dined.
Ivan dragged in two tree trunks, squared them on one side with hisax, laid one on the other with the squared faces together and thendrove in a big wedge at the butt ends which separated them three orfour inches. Then we placed live coals in this opening and watchedthe fire run rapidly the whole length of the squared faces vis-a-vis.
Now there will be a fire in the morning, he announced. "This isthe 'naida' of the gold prospectors. We prospectors wandering inthe woods summer and winter always sleep beside this 'naida.'
Fine! You shall see for yourself," he continued.
He cut fir branches and made a sloping roof out of them, resting iton two uprights toward the naida. Above our roof of boughs and ournaida spread the branches of protecting fir. More branches werebrought and spread on the snow under the roof, on these were placedthe saddle cloths and together they made a seat for Ivan to rest onand to take off his outer garments down to his blouse. Soon Inoticed his forehead was wet with perspiration and that he waswiping it and his neck on his sleeves.
Now it is good and warm! he exclaimed.
In a short time I was also forced to take off my overcoat and soonlay down to sleep without any covering at all, while through thebranches of the fir trees and our roof glimmered the cold brightstars and just beyond the naida raged a stinging cold, from whichwe were cosily defended. After this night I was no longerfrightened by the cold. Frozen during the days on horseback, I wasthoroughly warmed through by the genial naida at night and restedfrom my heavy overcoat, sitting only in my blouse under the roofsof pine and fir and sipping the ever welcome tea.
During our daily treks Ivan related to me the stories of hiswanderings through the mountains and woods of Transbaikalia in thesearch for gold. These stories were very lively, full ofattractive adventure, danger and struggle. Ivan was a type ofthese prospectors who have discovered in Russia, and perhaps inother countries, the richest gold mines, while they themselvesremain beggars. He evaded telling me why he left Transbaikalia tocome to the Yenisei. I understood from his manner that he wishedto keep his own counsel and so did not press him. However, theblanket of secrecy covering this part of his mysterious life wasone day quite fortuitously lifted a bit. We were already at theobjective point of our trip. The whole day we had traveled withdifficulty through a thick growth of willow, approaching the shoreof the big right branch of the Yenisei, the Mana. Everywhere wesaw runways packed hard by the feet of the hares living in thisbush. These small white denizens of the wood ran to and fro infront of us. Another time we saw the red tail of a fox hidingbehind a rock, watching us and the unsuspecting hares at the sametime.
Ivan had been silent for a long while. Then he spoke up and toldme that not far from there was a small branch of the Mana, at themouth of which was a hut.
What do you say? Shall we push on there or spend the night by thenaida?I suggested going to the hut, because I wanted to wash and becauseit would be agreeable to spend the night under a genuine roofagain. Ivan knitted his brows but acceded.
It was growing dark when we approached a hut surrounded by thedense wood and wild raspberry bushes. It contained one small roomwith two microscopic windows and a gigantic Russian stove. Againstthe building were the remains of a shed and a cellar. We fired thestove and prepared our modest dinner. Ivan drank from the bottleinherited from the soldiers and in a short time was very eloquent,with brilliant eyes and with hands that coursed frequently andrapidly through his long locks. He began relating to me the storyof one of his adventures, but suddenly stopped and, with fear inhis eyes, squinted into a dark corner.
Is it a rat? he asked.
I did not see anything, I replied.
He again became silent and reflected with knitted brow. Often wewere silent through long hours and consequently I was notastonished. Ivan leaned over near to me and began to whisper.
"I want to tell you an old story. I had a friend in Transbaikalia. He was a banished convict. His name was Gavronsky. Through manywoods and over many mountains we traveled in search of gold and wehad an agreement to divide all we got into even shares. ButGavronsky suddenly went out to the 'Taiga' on the Yenisei anddisappeared. After five years we heard that he had found a veryrich gold mine and had become a rich man; then later that he andhis wife with him had been murdered. . . . Ivan was still for amoment and then continued:
"This is their old hut. Here he lived with his wife and somewhereon this river he took out his gold. But he told nobody where. Allthe peasants around here know that he had a lot of money in thebank and that he had been selling gold to the Government. Herethey were murdered.Ivan stepped to the stove, took out a flaming stick and, bendingover, lighted a spot on the floor.
Do you see these spots on the floor and on the wall? It is theirblood, the blood of Gavronsky. They died but they did not disclosethe whereabouts of the gold. It was taken out of a deep hole whichthey had drifted into the bank of the river and was hidden in thecellar under the shed. But Gavronsky gave nothing away. . . . ANDLORD HOW I TORTURED THEM! I burned them with fire; I bent backtheir fingers; I gouged out their eyes; but Gavronsky died insilence.He thought for a moment, then quickly said to me:
I have heard all this from the peasants. He threw the log intothe stove and flopped down on the bench. "It's time to sleep," hesnapped out, and was still.
I listened for a long time to his breathing and his whispering tohimself, as he turned from one side to the other and smoked hispipe.
In the morning we left this scene of so much suffering and crimeand on the seventh day of our journey we came to the dense cedarwood growing on the foothills of a long chain of mountains.
From here, Ivan explained to me, "it is eighty versts to the nextpeasant settlement. The people come to these woods to gather cedarnuts but only in the autumn. Before then you will not meet anyone.
Also you will find many birds and beasts and a plentiful supply ofnuts, so that it will be possible for you to live here. Do you seethis river? When you want to find the peasants, follow along thisstream and it will guide you to them."Ivan helped me build my mud hut. But it was not the genuine mudhut. It was one formed by the tearing out of the roots of a greatcedar, that had probably fallen in some wild storm, which made forme the deep hole as the room for my house and flanked this on oneside with a wall of mud held fast among the upturned roots.
Overhanging ones formed also the framework into which we interlacedthe poles and branches to make a roof, finished off with stones forstability and snow for warmth. The front of the hut was ever openbut was constantly protected by the guardian naida. In that snow-covered den I spent two months like summer without seeing any otherhuman being and without touch with the outer world where suchimportant events were transpiring. In that grave under the rootsof the fallen tree I lived before the face of nature with my trialsand my anxiety about my family as my constant companions, and inthe hard struggle for my life. Ivan went off the second day,leaving for me a bag of dry bread and a little sugar. I never sawhim again.
Then I was alone. Around me only the wood of eternally greencedars covered with snow, the bare bushes, the frozen river and, asfar as I could see out through the branches and the trunks of thetrees, only the great ocean of cedars and snow. Siberian taiga!
How long shall I be forced to live here? Will the Bolsheviki findme here or not? Will my friends know where I am? What ishappening to my family? These questions were constantly as burningfires in my brain. Soon I understood why Ivan guided me so long.
We passed many secluded places on the journey, far away from allpeople, where Ivan could have safely left me but he always saidthat he would take me to a place where it would be easier to live.
And it was so. The charm of my lone refuge was in the cedar woodand in the mountains covered with these forests which stretched toevery horizon. The cedar is a splendid, powerful tree with wide-spreading branches, an eternally green tent, attracting to itsshelter every living being. Among the cedars was alwayseffervescent life. There the squirrels were continually kicking upa row, jumping from tree to tree; the nut-jobbers cried shrilly; aflock of bullfinches with carmine breasts swept through the treeslike a flame; or a small army of goldfinches broke in and filledthe amphitheatre of trees with their whistling; a hare scooted fromone tree trunk to another and behind him stole up the hardlyvisible shadow of a white ermine, crawling on the snow, and Iwatched for a long time the black spot which I knew to be the tipof his tail; carefully treading the hard crusted snow approached anoble deer; at last there visited me from the top of the mountainthe king of the Siberian forest, the brown bear. All thisdistracted me and carried away the black thoughts from my brain,encouraging me to persevere. It was good for me also, thoughdifficult, to climb to the top of my mountain, which reached up outof the forest and from which I could look away to the range of redon the horizon. It was the red cliff on the farther bank of theYenisei. There lay the country, the towns, the enemies and thefriends; and there was even the point which I located as the placeof my family. It was the reason why Ivan had guided me here. Andas the days in this solitude slipped by I began to miss sorely thiscompanion who, though the murderer of Gavronsky, had taken care ofme like a father, always saddling my horse for me, cutting the woodand doing everything to make me comfortable. He had spent manywinters alone with nothing except his thoughts, face to face withnature--I should say, before the face of God. He had tried thehorrors of solitude and had acquired facility in bearing them. Ithought sometimes, if I had to meet my end in this place, that Iwould spend my last strength to drag myself to the top of themountain to die there, looking away over the infinite sea ofmountains and forest toward the point where my loved ones were.
However, the same life gave me much matter for reflection and yetmore occupation for the physical side. It was a continuousstruggle for existence, hard and severe. The hardest work was thepreparation of the big logs for the naida. The fallen trunks ofthe trees were covered with snow and frozen to the ground. I wasforced to dig them out and afterwards, with the help of a longstick as a lever, to move them from their place. For facilitatingthis work I chose the mountain for my supplies, where, althoughdifficult to climb, it was easy to roll the logs down. Soon I madea splendid discovery. I found near my den a great quantity oflarch, this beautiful yet sad forest giant, fallen during a bigstorm. The trunks were covered with snow but remained attached totheir stumps, where they had broken off. When I cut into thesestumps with the ax, the head buried itself and could withdifficulty be drawn and, investigating the reason, I found themfilled with pitch. Chips of this wood needed only a spark to setthem aflame and ever afterward I always had a stock of them tolight up quickly for warming my hands on returning from the hunt orfor boiling my tea.
The greater part of my days was occupied with the hunt. I came tounderstand that I must distribute my work over every day, for itdistracted me from my sad and depressing thoughts. Generally,after my morning tea, I went into the forest to seek heathcock orblackcock. After killing one or two I began to prepare my dinner,which never had an extensive menu. It was constantly game soupwith a handful of dried bread and afterwards endless cups of tea,this essential beverage of the woods. Once, during my search forbirds, I heard a rustle in the dense shrubs and, carefully peeringabout, I discovered the points of a deer's horns. I crawled alongtoward the spot but the watchful animal heard my approach. With agreat noise he rushed from the bush and I saw him very clearly,after he had run about three hundred steps, stop on the slope ofthe mountain. It was a splendid animal with dark grey coat, withalmost a black spine and as large as a small cow. I laid my rifleacross a branch and fired. The animal made a great leap, ranseveral steps and fell. With all my strength I ran to him but hegot up again and half jumped, half dragged himself up the mountain.
The second shot stopped him. I had won a warm carpet for my denand a large stock of meat. The horns I fastened up among thebranches of my wall, where they made a fine hat rack.
I cannot forget one very interesting but wild picture, which wasstaged for me several kilometres from my den. There was a smallswamp covered with grass and cranberries scattered through it,where the blackcock and sand partridges usually came to feed on theberries. I approached noiselessly behind the bushes and saw awhole flock of blackcock scratching in the snow and picking out theberries. While I was surveying this scene, suddenly one of theblackcock jumped up and the rest of the frightened flockimmediately flew away. To my astonishment the first bird begangoing straight up in a spiral flight and afterwards droppeddirectly down dead. When I approached there sprang from the bodyof the slain cock a rapacious ermine that hid under the trunk of afallen tree. The bird's neck was badly torn. I then understoodthat the ermine had charged the cock, fastened itself on his neckand had been carried by the bird into the air, as he sucked theblood from its throat, and had been the cause of the heavy fallback to the earth. Thanks to his aeronautic ability I saved onecartridge.
So I lived fighting for the morrow and more and more poisoned byhard and bitter thoughts. The days and weeks passed and soon Ifelt the breath of warmer winds. On the open places the snow beganto thaw. In spots the little rivulets of water appeared. Anotherday I saw a fly or a spider awakened after the hard winter. Thespring was coming. I realized that in spring it was impossible togo out from the forest. Every river overflowed its banks; theswamps became impassable; all the runways of the animals turnedinto beds for streams of running water. I understood that untilsummer I was condemned to a continuation of my solitude. Springvery quickly came into her rights and soon my mountain was freefrom snow and was covered only with stones, the trunks of birch andaspen trees and the high cones of ant hills; the river in placesbroke its covering of ice and was coursing full with foam andbubbles.
One day during the hunt, I approached the bank of the river andnoticed many very large fish with red backs, as though filled withblood. They were swimming on the surface enjoying the rays of thesun. When the river was entirely free from ice, these fishappeared in enormous quantities. Soon I realized that they wereworking up-stream for the spawning season in the smaller rivers. Ithought to use a plundering method of catching, forbidden by thelaw of all countries; but all the lawyers and legislators should belenient to one who lives in a den under the roots of a fallen treeand dares to break their rational laws.
Gathering many thin birch and aspen trees I built in the bed of thestream a weir which the fish could not pass and soon I found themtrying to jump over it. Near the bank I left a hole in my barrierabout eighteen inches below the surface and fastened on the up-stream side a high basket plaited from soft willow twigs, intowhich the fish came as they passed the hole. Then I stood cruellyby and hit them on the head with a strong stick. All my catch wereover thirty pounds, some more than eighty. This variety of fish iscalled the taimen, is of the trout family and is the best in theYenisei.
After two weeks the fish had passed and my basket gave me no moretreasure, so I began anew the hunt.
The hunt became more and more profitable and enjoyable, as springanimated everything. In the morning at the break of day the forestwas full of voices, strange and undiscernible to the inhabitant ofthe town. There the heathcock clucked and sang his song of love,as he sat on the top branches of the cedar and admired the grey henscratching in the fallen leaves below. It was very easy toapproach this full-feathered Caruso and with a shot to bring himdown from his more poetic to his more utilitarian duties. Hisgoing out was an euthanasia, for he was in love and heard nothing.
Out in the clearing the blackcocks with their wide-spread spottedtails were fighting, while the hens strutting near, craning andchattering, probably some gossip about their fighting swains,watched and were delighted with them. From the distance flowed ina stern and deep roar, yet full of tenderness and love, the matingcall of the deer; while from the crags above came down the shortand broken voice of the mountain buck. Among the bushes frolickedthe hares and often near them a red fox lay flattened to the groundwatching his chance. I never heard any wolves and they are usuallynot found in the Siberian regions covered with mountains andforest.
But there was another beast, who was my neighbor, and one of us had to goaway. One day, coming back from the hunt with a big heathcock, Isuddenly noticed among the trees a black, moving mass. I stoppedand, looking very attentively, saw a bear, digging away at an ant-hill. Smelling me, he snorted violently, and very quickly shuffledaway, astonishing me with the speed of his clumsy gait. Thefollowing morning, while still lying under my overcoat, I wasattracted by a noise behind my den. I peered out very carefullyand discovered the bear. He stood on his hind legs and was noisilysniffing, investigating the question as to what living creature hadadopted the custom of the bears of housing during the winter underthe trunks of fallen trees. I shouted and struck my kettle withthe ax. My early visitor made off with all his energy; but hisvisit did not please me. It was very early in the spring that thisoccurred and the bear should not yet have left his hibernatingplace. He was the so-called "ant-eater," an abnormal type of bearlacking in all the etiquette of the first families of the bearclan.
I knew that the "ant-eaters" were very irritable and audacious andquickly I prepared myself for both the defence and the charge. Mypreparations were short. I rubbed off the ends of five of mycartridges, thus making dum-dums out of them, a sufficientlyintelligible argument for so unwelcome a guest. Putting on my coatI went to the place where I had first met the bear and where therewere many ant-hills. I made a detour of the whole mountain, lookedin all the ravines but nowhere found my caller. Disappointed andtired, I was approaching my shelter quite off my guard when Isuddenly discovered the king of the forest himself just coming outof my lowly dwelling and sniffing all around the entrance to it. Ishot. The bullet pierced his side. He roared with pain and angerand stood up on his hind legs. As the second bullet broke one ofthese, he squatted down but immediately, dragging the leg andendeavoring to stand upright, moved to attack me. Only the thirdbullet in his breast stopped him. He weighed about two hundred totwo hundred fifty pounds, as near as I could guess, and was verytasty. He appeared at his best in cutlets but only a little lesswonderful in the Hamburg steaks which I rolled and roasted on hotstones, watching them swell out into great balls that were as lightas the finest souffle omelettes we used to have at the "Medved" inPetrograd. On this welcome addition to my larder I lived from thenuntil the ground dried out and the stream ran down enough so that Icould travel down along the river to the country whither Ivan haddirected me.
Ever traveling with the greatest precautions I made the journeydown along the river on foot, carrying from my winter quarters allmy household furniture and goods, wrapped up in the deerskin bagwhich I formed by tying the legs together in an awkward knot; andthus laden fording the small streams and wading through the swampsthat lay across my path. After fifty odd miles of this I came tothe country called Sifkova, where I found the cabin of a peasantnamed Tropoff, located closest to the forest that came to be mynatural environment. With him I lived for a time.
* * * * *Now in these unimaginable surroundings of safety and peace, summingup the total of my experience in the Siberian taiga, I make thefollowing deductions. In every healthy spiritual individual of ourtimes, occasions of necessity resurrect the traits of primitiveman, hunter and warrior, and help him in the struggle with nature.
It is the prerogative of the man with the trained mind and spiritover the untrained, who does not possess sufficient science andwill power to carry him through. But the price that the culturedman must pay is that for him there exists nothing more awful thanabsolute solitude and the knowledge of complete isolation fromhuman society and the life of moral and aesthetic culture. Onestep, one moment of weakness and dark madness will seize a man andcarry him to inevitable destruction. I spent awful days ofstruggle with the cold and hunger but I passed more terrible daysin the struggle of the will to kill weakening destructive thoughts.
The memories of these days freeze my heart and mind and even now,as I revive them so clearly by writing of my experiences, theythrow me back into a state of fear and apprehension. Moreover, Iam compelled to observe that the people in highly civilized statesgive too little regard to the training that is useful to man inprimitive conditions, in conditions incident to the struggleagainst nature for existence. It is the single normal way todevelop a new generation of strong, healthy, iron men, with at thesame time sensitive souls.
Nature destroys the weak but helps the strong, awakening in thesoul emotions which remain dormant under the urban conditions ofmodern life.
My presence in the Sifkova country was not for long but I used itin full measure. First, I sent a man in whom I had confidence andwhom I considered trustworthy to my friends in the town that I hadleft and received from them linen, boots, money and a small case offirst aid materials and essential medicines, and, what was mostimportant, a passport in another name, since I was dead for theBolsheviki. Secondly, in these more or less favorable conditions Ireflected upon the plan for my future actions. Soon in Sifkova thepeople heard that the Bolshevik commissar would come for therequisition of cattle for the Red Army. It was dangerous to remainlonger. I waited only until the Yenisei should lose its massivelock of ice, which kept it sealed long after the small rivulets hadopened and the trees had taken on their spring foliage. For onethousand roubles I engaged a fisherman who agreed to take me fifty-five miles up the river to an abandoned gold mine as soon as theriver, which had then only opened in places, should be entirelyclear of ice. At last one morning I heard a deafening roar like atremendous cannonade and ran out to find the river had lifted itsgreat bulk of ice and then given way to break it up. I rushed ondown to the bank, where I witnessed an awe-inspiring butmagnificent scene. The river had brought down the great volume ofice that had been dislodged in the south and was carrying itnorthward under the thick layer which still covered parts of thestream until finally its weight had broken the winter dam to thenorth and released the whole grand mass in one last rush for theArctic. The Yenisei, "Father Yenisei," "Hero Yenisei," is one ofthe longest rivers in Asia, deep and magnificent, especiallythrough the middle range of its course, where it is flanked andheld in canyon-like by great towering ranges. The huge stream hadbrought down whole miles of ice fields, breaking them up on therapids and on isolated rocks, twisting them with angry swirls,throwing up sections of the black winter roads, carrying down thetepees built for the use of passing caravans which in the Winteralways go from Minnusinsk to Krasnoyarsk on the frozen river. Fromtime to time the stream stopped in its flow, the roar began and thegreat fields of ice were squeezed and piled upward, sometimes ashigh as thirty feet, damming up the water behind, so that itrapidly rose and ran out over the low places, casting on the shoregreat masses of ice. Then the power of the reinforced watersconquered the towering dam of ice and carried it downward with asound like breaking glass. At the bends in the river and round thegreat rocks developed terrifying chaos. Huge blocks of ice jammedand jostled until some were thrown clear into the air, crashingagainst others already there, or were hurled against the curvingcliffs and banks, tearing out boulders, earth and trees high up thesides. All along the low embankments this giant of nature flungupward with a suddenness that leaves man but a pigmy in force agreat wall of ice fifteen to twenty feet high, which the peasantscall "Zaberega" and through which they cannot get to the riverwithout cutting out a road. One incredible feat I saw the giantperform, when a block many feet thick and many yards square washurled through the air and dropped to crush saplings and littletrees more than a half hundred feet from the bank.
Watching this glorious withdrawal of the ice, I was filled withterror and revolt at seeing the awful spoils which the Yenisei boreaway in this annual retreat. These were the bodies of the executedcounter-revolutionaries--officers, soldiers and Cossacks of theformer army of the Superior Governor of all anti-Bolshevik Russia,Admiral Kolchak. They were the results of the bloody work of the"Cheka" at Minnusinsk. Hundreds of these bodies with heads andhands cut off, with mutilated faces and bodies half burned, withbroken skulls, floated and mingled with the blocks of ice, lookingfor their graves; or, turning in the furious whirlpools among thejagged blocks, they were ground and torn to pieces into shapelessmasses, which the river, nauseated with its task, vomited out uponthe islands and projecting sand bars. I passed the whole length ofthe middle Yenisei and constantly came across these putrifying andterrifying reminders of the work of the Bolsheviki. In one placeat a turn of the river I saw a great heap of horses, which had beencast up by the ice and current, in number not less than threehundred. A verst below there I was sickened beyond endurance bythe discovery of a grove of willows along the bank which had rakedfrom the polluted stream and held in their finger-like droopingbranches human bodies in all shapes and attitudes with a semblanceof naturalness which made an everlasting picture on my distraughtmind. Of this pitiful gruesome company I counted seventy.
At last the mountain of ice passed by, followed by the muddyfreshets that carried down the trunks of fallen trees, logs andbodies, bodies, bodies. The fisherman and his son put me and myluggage into their dugout made from an aspen tree and poledupstream along the bank. Poling in a swift current is very hardwork. At the sharp curves we were compelled to row, strugglingagainst the force of the stream and even in places hugging thecliffs and making headway only by clutching the rocks with ourhands and dragging along slowly. Sometimes it took us a long whileto do five or six metres through these rapid holes. In two days wereached the goal of our journey. I spent several days in this goldmine, where the watchman and his family were living. As they wereshort of food, they had nothing to spare for me and consequently myrifle again served to nourish me, as well as contributing somethingto my hosts. One day there appeared here a trainedagriculturalist. I did not hide because during my winter in thewoods I had raised a heavy beard, so that probably my own mothercould not have recognized me. However, our guest was very shrewdand at once deciphered me. I did not fear him because I saw thathe was not a Bolshevik and later had confirmation of this. Wefound common acquaintances and a common viewpoint on currentevents. He lived close to the gold mine in a small village wherehe superintended public works. We determined to escape togetherfrom Russia. For a long time I had puzzled over this matter andnow my plan was ready. Knowing the position in Siberia and itsgeography, I decided that the best way to safety was throughUrianhai, the northern part of Mongolia on the head waters of theYenisei, then through Mongolia and out to the Far East and thePacific. Before the overthrow of the Kolchak Government I hadreceived a commission to investigate Urianhai and Western Mongoliaand then, with great accuracy, I studied all the maps andliterature I could get on this question. To accomplish thisaudacious plan I had the great incentive of my own safety.
After several days we started through the forest on the left bankof the Yenisei toward the south, avoiding the villages as much aspossible in fear of leaving some trail by which we might befollowed. Whenever we did have to go into them, we had a goodreception at the hands of the peasants, who did not penetrate ourdisguise; and we saw that they hated the Bolsheviki, who haddestroyed many of their villages. In one place we were told that adetachment of Red troops had been sent out from Minnusinsk to chasethe Whites. We were forced to work far back from the shore of theYenisei and to hide in the woods and mountains. Here we remainednearly a fortnight, because all this time the Red soldiers weretraversing the country and capturing in the woods half-dressedunarmed officers who were in hiding from the atrocious vengeance ofthe Bolsheviki. Afterwards by accident we passed a meadow where wefound the bodies of twenty-eight officers hung to the trees, withtheir faces and bodies mutilated. There we determined never toallow ourselves to come alive into the hands of the Boisheviki. Toprevent this we had our weapons and a supply of cyanide ofpotassium.
Passing across one branch of the Yenisei, once we saw a narrow,miry pass, the entrance to which was strewn with the bodies of menand horses. A little farther along we found a broken sleigh withrifled boxes and papers scattered about. Near them were also torngarments and bodies. Who were these pitiful ones? What tragedywas staged in this wild wood? We tried to guess this enigma and webegan to investigate the documents and papers. These were officialpapers addressed to the Staff of General Pepelaieff. Probably onepart of the Staff during the retreat of Kolchak's army went throughthis wood, striving to hide from the enemy approaching from allsides; but here they were caught by the Reds and killed. Not farfrom here we found the body of a poor unfortunate woman, whosecondition proved clearly what had happened before relief camethrough the beneficent bullet. The body lay beside a shelter ofbranches, strewn with bottles and conserve tins, telling the taleof the bantering feast that had preceded the destruction of thislife.
The further we went to the south, the more pronouncedly hospitablethe people became toward us and the more hostile to the Bolsheviki.
At last we emerged from the forests and entered the spaciousvastness of the Minnusinsk steppes, crossed by the high redmountain range called the "Kizill-Kaiya" and dotted here and therewith salt lakes. It is a country of tombs, thousands of large andsmall dolmens, the tombs of the earliest proprietors of this land:
pyramids of stone ten metres high, the marks set by Jenghiz Khanalong his road of conquest and afterwards by the cripple Tamerlane-Temur. Thousands of these dolmens and stone pyramids stretch inendless rows to the north. In these plains the Tartars now live.
They were robbed by the Bolsheviki and therefore hated themardently. We openly told them that we were escaping. They gave usfood for nothing and supplied us with guides, telling us with whomwe might stop and where to hide in case of danger.
After several days we looked down from the high bank of the Yeniseiupon the first steamer, the "Oriol," from Krasnoyarsk toMinnusinsk, laden with Red soldiers. Soon we came to the mouth ofthe river Tuba, which we were to follow straight east to the Sayanmountains, where Urianhai begins. We thought the stage along theTuba and its branch, the Amyl, the most dangerous part of ourcourse, because the valleys of these two rivers had a densepopulation which had contributed large numbers of soldiers to thecelebrated Communist Partisans, Schetinkin and Krafcheno.
A Tartar ferried us and our horses over to the right bank of theYenisei and afterwards sent us some Cossacks at daybreak who guidedus to the mouth of the Tuba, where we spent the whole day in rest,gratifying ourselves with a feast of wild black currants andcherries.