THE HOLY SEA

On the fifth day after leaving Stretinsk we were aroused at two o’clock in the morning, just as the faint dawn began to streak the east, by a guard going through the train and crying out: “Misovaia, all change.” Eagerly we rubbed our sleepy eyes open, for now we had reached Lake Baikal, and we fondly hoped that the most trying part of our journey was over. But again we were doomed to disappointment, for we waited and waited and waited, and still there was no sign of departure to the other side of the lake. The sun rose, ascended high in the heavens, reached the zenith, and began to decline, and still we sat about miserably upon our baggage, not daring to go far lest at any moment the “ice-breaker” from the other side of the lake might come to transfer us across.

The station-master was eagerly importuned, but knew nothing. No official had the slightest information. Our Russian fellow-travellers only shrugged their shoulders when asked when we should start. At length patience ceased to be a virtue, and a telegram was prepared for the governor of Irkutsk, asking why a trainload of inoffensive passengers of all nationalities were kept in anxious suspense for so many hours at a miserable little station which had been eaten bare of provisions long ago.

Just as this telegram was about to go came word that the “ice-breaker” on the other side was waiting for the minister of justice, and that when he got ready to start the boat would come. This proved to be the case, and at last, fourteen hours after we had reached Misovaia, the great steamer which should carry us across was seen approaching. Then it took hours more to unload and reload her, and finally, in the middle of the night, twenty-two hours after we should have started, we got under way for the other side of the lake.

I dwell for a moment on this irritating experience, for it represents one phase of Russian life which is very foreign to life in free, constitutional countries. For twenty-two hours three hundred people were made to wait upon the convenience of one official. Hungry passengers were allowed to half starve; sick and crying babies, who had with difficulty survived a week of hard journeying amid unnamable privations; weary mothers, trying to comfort the babies; business and professional men with important engagements to keep, and whose connections with other roads were seriously imperilled by this delay, all must wait and suffer while this one official finished his morning nap, or ate an elaborate dinner, or otherwise made himself ready to start for the other side of Lake Baikal.

Had this happened in any free country, such a howl would have arisen as would have insured the decapitation of this minister of justice (minister of justice indeed! minister of injustice rather) at the first possible election.

How the _New York Tribune_ or the _London Times_ would have blazed with indignant protests had such an affair taken place in America or Great Britain! But in Siberia such an event is quite a matter of course. We were still more surprised by the utter indifference and nonchalance of our Russian fellow-passengers. There was nothing to be said and nothing to be done. “Whatever is, is right,” especially if it is done by one high in authority, seemed to be their motto.

The contrast between the foreign passengers and the Russians during this exasperating delay was marked and amusing. The former champed at the bit, and fretted and fumed and (it is feared) swore in their different tongues. They would gather together in little groups and discuss the situation. They haunted the telegraph office. They interviewed every promising official. They tried to get another steamer. They exhausted every possibility of progress.

The Russians placidly sipped their tumblers of tea, gathered about the steaming samovar, quietly curled up on their luggage, and went to sleep as though they had not an irritating care in the world. Why should they fret? The official had all power. They had no appeal. No protest was open to them. No _Times_ would thunder in St. Petersburg. No _Tribune_ would voice their complaints in Moscow. “Let it go; life is too short to wear it out with such worries,” seemed to be their mental attitude.

The irritations of those hours of waiting, however, could not destroy the beauty of the placid lake, the Holy Sea (Bai-Kal), on whose shores we were waiting.

Baikal is one of the great lakes of the world. It covers thirteen thousand five hundred square miles of surface. Only Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron, of our own great lakes, surpass it in size. It is half as large again as Lake Erie, and twice as large as Lake Ontario, and being long and narrow, and surrounded by high, precipitous hills, is more picturesque than any of them. Its waters are crystal clear, and, at a depth of forty feet, every pebble upon the bottom can be seen. Drop a stone into its clear waters from the steamer’s deck, and you can see it fluttering and zigzagging its way down as a feather falls through the air. The water is as cold, too, as it is clear, as a delicious bath that I took testified. Even on the last days of June the water cannot be far above the freezing point.

The peasants who live on the shores of the lake regard it with almost superstitious reverence and love. There is in their estimation no lake in all the world like the Baikal. Its rock-bound shores, its wooded steeps, green with larch, and fir, and pine, and birch; its limestone and marbles glistening in the sun; its shores strewn with bright pebbles, washed smooth and round by countless centuries of the lapping waves, all combine to make the Baikal worthy of the love and reverence with which the true Siberian regards it.

We found it in a peaceful mood, but it is not always so by any means. “No man has ever said his prayers until he has ventured on Lake Baikal,” is a common saying of the peasants on the shore. Lying, as it does, in a comparatively narrow valley, between the mountain ranges, the terrible gales which have their homes between the mountain peaks are often let loose with but scant warning. Then woe betide the little fisherman’s craft that is caught far from shore, and even the passengers on the stout steamer may well tremble.

To unite the two shores with a strong, substantial ferry-boat which can run throughout the winter months, the railway has had constructed in England and brought out piecemeal the huge “ice-breaker,” so called. Several of the parts of this great craft were lost, strayed, or stolen on the way, and infinite difficulty was experienced in putting it together again when it reached the lake. Even now some tell me that it is no great success as an ice-breaker.

On a fine day, with a smooth sea, nothing could be more delightful than a little journey on the great ships. Into the hold of the steamer runs the whole train without unloading; or, rather, that is to be the way when the railway is in running order. Three parallel tracks throughout the entire length of the boat afford ample room for the longest trains. Above are elegant accommodations for first-class passengers, while the steerage people dispose of themselves in the hold as best they can.

Four great stacks belch out smoke and cinders, and the engines are of the most powerful pattern. A half acre of deck room over all gives the passenger unrivalled opportunities of viewing the magnificent lake, whose southern end he is about to traverse.

A fine breakwater of wooden piles, nearly half a mile long, provides a safe little harbor on the eastern side of the lake, while another, not quite so large, affords a refuge from the winds on the other side. Between these harbors the ice-breaker plies back and forth, making the distance of about fifty miles in four hours.

As we approach the western shore, the scenery grows more lovely than on the eastern side. The crystal lake, fifty feet deep at the shore, dashes in places against precipitous cliffs; the banks are clad in freshest grass, dotted with poppies and lilies and blue honeysuckles, while a little village nestles in a cove beneath a frowning cliff. Rarely have I seen in all my travels a scene more lovely than is presented as the ice-breaker makes her way cautiously into the little artificial harbor of Listvinitschnoie, at the southwestern end of the Holy Sea.

In the early morning we could see, as we thought, the seals disporting themselves in the icy waters, for it is a singular fact that in Lake Baikal alone, of all the fresh-water lakes in the world, are seals found. It is thought by some that in prehistoric times they made their way up the River Yenisei, that flows from the lake into the Arctic Ocean, two thousand miles away. At any rate, they have made themselves very much at home in the Baikal, and have increased and multiplied and replenished the lake.

The determination of the Russian government to have through steam communication between the oceans is shown by the fact that while such sums have been spent for an ice-breaker and for harbors to make the link across the Baikal possible, the railway is also being pushed around the southern end of the lake, only a short distance away. Both of these routes will be needed, I understand, to facilitate the mobilization of her armies--the supreme object which Russia has in mind in the construction of this great iron road.

At the village of Listvinitschnoie, on the western side of the lake, we had another exasperating delay of eight hours, while passengers and baggage were being transferred to the other train, a transfer which would have been made in America in half an hour. For half a day we sat about on our baggage in the broiling sun, surrounded by filthy Moujiks, while the leisurely engines puffed back and forth, and the still more leisurely porters loaded the train. At length all was ready, and we steamed in a leisurely fashion to Irkutsk, the great city of Central Siberia.

Here we arrived after being six days, within a few hours, on the road since leaving Stretinsk. In those six days we had travelled less than eight hundred miles, and less than six miles an hour, including the stops. We had endured many discomforts, some of them entirely unnecessary had a little system and forethought been used. Even in the present incomplete state of the equipment of the road the journey ought to be made in two days, and decent cars might be provided for decent people.

I must say that this experience somewhat weakened my faith in the boasted energy and enterprise of Russian railway construction. How a road that is so slow and halting in peace can be great in war, I do not see. How a line that cannot carry a few hundred passengers and their luggage without interminable delays can be used to mobilize a hundred thousand soldiers at short notice is difficult to comprehend. It is fortunate for Russia that she has a slow, stupid opponent on the other side of the world to contend with, an opponent that not only has no slow railroads, but no railroads at all, of her own.

As it is, the Trans-Baikal railway, poor as it is, will undoubtedly prove a very important instrument in forcing beneficent Russian fetters upon poor, decrepit, worn-out China.