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Birdseye Views of Far Lands

<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> <h3>The Land of Sorrow—Siberia</h3> Away yonder in eastern Siberia, on the banks of the Amur River, high on the projecting cliff stands a huge iron cross which can be seen many miles away. Upon this Christian emblem is inscribed one of the greatest sentences in all the literature of the world. Here it is: "Power lies not in force but in love." Strange it is indeed that such an emblem and such an inscription should be found in the wilds of this country. But many are the strange sights one beholds on a journey across this great lonely, strange, and sad land. Having crossed this country it is my purpose to recount some of the observations and experiences of the journey. But few people today realize the immensity of Siberia. You could take a map of the whole United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, and add to it a map of Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Austria (before the war), Holland, Denmark, the Turkish Empire, Greece, Roumania, and Bulgaria, and lay all these together down on Siberia alone and have territory left. Nearly five thousand miles of the main line of the great Trans-Siberian railway are in this one country. The building of this railroad was a gigantic undertaking and its construction cost the Russian Government four hundred million dollars. With all our boasted American hustle it took twenty years to build the Canadian Pacific railway from coast to coast. The Trans-Siberian is more than twice as long and was completed in half that length of time. Before the war there was hardly ever an accident on this railway. Every verst (about two-thirds of a mile) there is a little guardhouse and there was always a man or woman, generally a woman, standing with a flag as the train passed. I crossed on the International Sleeping Car train. It took ten days and ten nights and the average speed was more than twenty miles per hour. The berths on this train were very comfortable. They were crosswise of the car while ours are lengthwise. The train consisted of two first-class, two second-class sleepers, a diner and a baggage car. These international trains ran once a week each way before the war and sometimes one had to purchase a ticket weeks in advance to go at a given time. When all berths were sold those who had none simply had to wait a week for the next train. I was the lone American on the train all the way across. There were a number of Englishmen and many Frenchmen on board. My roommate was an old sea captain from Scotland. He had been on the sea forty-six years. Unfortunately his baggage was left at Harbin. He asked the chief of the train to wire back that it be forwarded on the next train, giving or rather offering a tip of a few shillings, but the chief would not give him any satisfaction. The next day the captain tried again, offering a tip of an English pound. This had the desired effect. In a few days we discovered that the English Consul from Yokohama was on board and laid the matter before him. Not long after this the train chief came and apologized and gave back the tip. I have wondered many times whether or not the captain ever received his baggage. The dining car was a regular saloon on wheels. The first thirty minutes were spent by the waiters in soliciting orders for drinks. If you did not order anything to drink you were always served last. I had heard that it was almost impossible to get anything to eat on this train unless you were liberal in giving tips. So I started out to break the record—to cross Siberia without giving a tip on the diner. All went well for a couple of days. I was served all right. In fact, as long as I had the exact change everything was lovely. But when I gave the collector a bill he never came back with any change and I had to give it up. Such a feat as crossing Siberia without giving a tip in the diner could not be performed. The prices were not exorbitant, however, for one could get a fairly good meal for a dollar at that time. Some of the great rivers of the world are in Siberia. It is said that if all the steel bridges on this main line were placed end to end they would make a great steel structure more than thirty miles long. These were all built too by Russian engineers. Lake Baikal is a long, narrow body of water in the heart of Siberia. It is said to be the most elevated lake on the globe and has the distinction of being the only body of fresh water in which seals will live. In some places no bottom has been found. When the railroad was first built trains were taken across this lake on gigantic ferries. As the winters are long and cold, great ice-breakers were built to take the trains across during the winter time. It is actually said that these ice-breakers would slowly plow their way through thirty-six inches of ice. During the Russian-Japanese war these were too slow so they laid down heavy steel rails on the ice and all winter long trains were speeded across on this ice railway. Some time ago I made this statement in a lecture and as soon as the last word was spoken a Russian came forward saying: "I was a soldier in the Russian army and walked across this lake on the ice and saw them laying the rails at the time. It was then nearly sixty below zero." Siberia is the greatest wheat country on earth. All our great northwest, with Canada thrown in, is but a mere garden spot as compared with Siberia. There are multiplied millions of acres of the finest wheat fields in the world in this great country that are as yet untouched. The Siberian women make the best bread of any cooks the world around. It is as white as the driven snow and so good and nourishing that no one who eats it can ever forget the taste. Siberia is also one of the greatest dairy countries in the world. When the war broke out Siberia was actually supplying a large portion of Europe with dairy products. In two Siberian cities there were thirty-four large butter and dairy establishments. The Russian Government sent a professor of agriculture around the world to study the science and art of buttermaking. The results of his investigation were published in pamphlet form and sent to buttermakers and agriculturists. It is said that sometimes a thousand tons of Siberian butter have been delivered in London in a single week. It is also said that Great Britain was purchasing five million dollars worth of eggs per year from Siberia when the war broke out. I learned something of the superstition of the Siberian peasant when cream separators were first introduced. It is said that when these hard working people were told of machines that would separate the cream from milk instantly they declared that only a machine with a devil in it could do such a thing. But an enterprising foreigner went ahead and built a factory and about the time he had some of the separators ready for delivery a mob gathered, wrecked the factory and smashed the separators into smithereens, declaring that they would not have machines with devils in them in their country. That was years ago, however, and they have long since learned to use and appreciate these machines. But the saddest sights I saw in Siberia were the trains loaded with exiles. These cars were not much better than stock cars and had iron bars across the windows. The sad faces within made one's heart ache to see them. As I rode in a comfortable car with a good bed to sleep in it was hard to keep from thinking of these unfortunate people who were herded like cattle in cold, dirty cars day after day and night after night for a month. Food was thrown to them almost as though they were pigs and at best this food was of the coarsest and most unsavory kind. But their journey, packed in these unwarmed and unsanitary cars was so much better than what exiles had endured before the railroad was built, that one can hardly make a comparison. Then the exiles had to make the long four thousand mile journey on foot. It took about two years. Most of the convicts wore chains on their ankles that weighed five pounds and chains on their wrists that weighed two pounds. Sometimes these chains wore the flesh from the bones and the pain, as they trudged along their way, was simply terrible. Men and women were herded in droves like cattle. They had to make so many miles each day through storm or sunshine. Often it was midnight before they reached the sheds in which were the sleeping benches. Here they had to lie down on bare planks without any covering. There was no ventilation in these sheds except a bare window or two in the gable. In summer they sweltered and in winter they nearly froze to death. As these unfortunate people slowly trudged along, the heartless guards on horseback whipped them and often prodded them with bayonets. Sometimes both men and women fell fainting and dying along the wayside. As two were nearly always chained together, the living was unlocked from the dead, the body kicked out of the way and even left unburied. In the heat of summer the dust nearly suffocated them and in the late autumn and early spring (they stopped in winter quarters in the coldest months), they often floundered along through mud nearly knee deep. Often the mud was frozen in the morning and their feet would break through. Perhaps their shoes were completely worn out, but no mercy was shown them and they had to make their way barefooted. There was one thing the guards could not do, however, and that was to keep them still. As they went on their way they kept up a kind of a wail that was said to be the saddest chant that human ears ever heard. For miles and miles this mournful wail could be heard by the few people who lived in villages along the way. Sometimes, however, these villages were fifty or a hundred miles apart. But this wail was kept up continually. Every plan imaginable was used to stop it, but this could not be done and the guards and officers grew accustomed to it and let it go. No wonder that even yet in Siberia the call of the milkmaid is something like the wail of the exiles. One of the most thrilling events during the war was the opening of the Siberian prison doors in the spring of 1917, when more than one hundred thousand exiles walked out as free men and women. In the great Irkutsk prison a company of men were watching some of their fellow prisoners being flogged when a man appeared at the door saying: "Russia is a republic and you are all free." Instantly all was excitement. The officers fled for their lives. Even the prison blacksmiths fled, for they had welded the shackles on thousands of prisoners and they feared vengeance. Other smiths were pressed into service and were compelled to work all night long cutting these iron chains. Many were chained to wheelbarrows and of course could not get away until their irons were broken. A committee of public safety was formed at once and precautions taken. A banquet was prepared in the dismissed governor's palace and sixty men whose chains had not been cut loose sat down at the table with their chains rattling. In one place the priest, while performing his duties in the church, heard the news and announced it. Fifty men rushed out to kill the local police captain who had been a regular tyrant. As they came to his home they were met by the captain's ten-year-old daughter, who stood in front of her father and calmly said: "You will have to kill me first," and thus she saved his life. In five days after the revolution, six thousand exiles had reached Irkutsk from other prisons. By the way, Irkutsk is the capital of eastern Siberia and here the greatest prisons were located. It is said that as many as one hundred thousand prisoners have been in the great prisons in and around this city at one time. There were no trains for these freed exiles and they camped along the railroad track. Every day the company became larger. At one time it was said that fifty thousand sledges were rushing toward the railroad as fast as horses, dogs and reindeer could drag them. The snow was already melting and they were determined to get to the railroad before it was too late. Those who think the great Russian Empire is nothing but cold, bleak, barren waste, will have to think again. In 1913 there were eleven million acres planted in potatoes, five and one-half million acres of flax and hemp and nearly two million acres in cotton. They even had one hundred and fifty thousand acres in tobacco. In all there were in cultivation nearly four hundred million acres of land. In 1914 Russia and Siberia possessed thirty-five million head of horses, fifty-two million head of cattle, seventy-two million sheep, and fifteen million head of hogs. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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