The Ammunition Wagon
We left the road near the village and passed through a field in the direction of the hunting ground. Two men were at work with a yoke of oxen and a plough, whose beam rested on the axle of a pair of wheels. The yoke was like the one in use everywhere along the Amoor, and was made of two pieces of thick plank, one above and the other below the animals’ necks, with wooden pins to join them and bear the strain. The plough was quite primitive and did not stir the soil like an American or English plough. At the hunting ground we alighted and took our stations. The governor stood under a small oak, and the ladies rested on the grass near him. I went to the next post up the hollow, and the other hunters completed the line. Dr. Snider went to aid me in taking
“a dear gazelle,
To glad me with its soft black eye.”
He was armed with a cigar, while I had a double-barreled gun, loaded at (not to) the muzzle.
The Cossacks went to rouse the game, but their first drive resulted in nothing beyond a prodigious noise. When they started for the second drive I followed the doctor in a temporary visit to the ladies. During this absence from duty a large gazelle passed within ten steps of my station. I ran toward my post, but was not as nimble as the frightened deer.
“Tirez” commanded the governor.
“Fire,” shouted the doctor.
And I obeyed the double injunction. The distance was great and the animal not stationary. I fired, and the governor fired, but the only effect was to quicken the speed of our game. I never knew a gazelle to run faster. Three weeks later I saw a beast greatly resembling him running on a meadow a thousand miles from Blagoveshchensk. Whether it was the same or another I will not attempt to say.
A few minutes after this failure the horn of the hunter was heard on the hill, and two gazelles passed the line, but no game was secured. The governor proposed a change of base, and led us where the mysterious wagon had halted. The ‘ammunition’ was revealed. There were carpets and cloths on the grass, plates, knives and forks, edibles in variety, wine, ale, and other liquids, and the samovar steaming merrily at our side. I think we acquitted ourselves better at this part of the hunt than at any other. The picnic did not differ much from an American one, the most noticeable feature being the substantial character of solids and liquids. Most of us sat on the grass and stumps, the number of camp-stools not exceeding half a dozen.
Finishing the lunch we took a new hunting spot and managed to kill a gazelle and a large hare. A fourth drive brought no game, and we returned to enjoy another lunch and drink a Russian beverage called ‘jonca.’ In its preparation a pound or two of loaf sugar in a single lump is fixed on a wire frame above a copper pan. A bottle of cognac is poured over the sugar and set on fire. The sugar melts, and when the fire is almost extinguished a bottle of claret and one of champagne are added. The compound is taken hot, and has a sweet and very smooth taste. The Russians are fond of producing this beverage when they have foreign guests, and if taken freely it has a weakening tendency. The captain of the Variag told me he had placed several British officers under his table by employing this article, and there was a rumor that the Fox embassy to St. Petersburg was quite severely laid out by means of ‘jonca.’
The lunch finished we discharged our guns and returned to town at a rapid pace. While descending the bank of a brook our horses turned suddenly and nearly overset the carriage. The doctor and I jumped out to lighten the lower side, and were just in season to keep the wheels on the ground. Madame Pedeshenk followed into the arms of the strong doctor, but the governor, true to the martial instinct, remained in his place and gave instructions to the driver. We did not re-enter the carriage until it was across the brook; the horses were exercised rather violently during the remainder of the journey.
I think the gazelle we killed was identical with the antelope of our western plains. He had a skin of the same color and a white tail, that retreating flag-of-truce so familiar to our overland emigrants. His feet, head, and body were shaped like the antelope’s, and his eye had that liquid tenderness so often observed in the agile rover near the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Gazelles abound through the Amoor valley to within a hundred miles of the sea-coast. Many are killed every autumn and winter in the valley of the Zeya and along the middle Amoor. The flesh is eaten and the skin used for winter coats and similar articles.
The commerce of Blagoveshchensk is in the hands of half a dozen merchants, one French, one German, and the rest Russian. The Amoor company before its affairs were ended kept there one of its principal stores, which was bought, with stock and good will, by the company’s clerk. The wants of the officers, soldiers, and civilians in the town and its vicinity are sufficient to create a good local trade. Prices are high, nearly double those of Nicolayevsk, and the stocks of goods on hand are neither large nor well selected. Officers complained to me of combinations among the merchants to maintain prices at an exorbitant scale.
I staid four days at Blagoveshchensk, and as the season was growing late was quite anxious to depart. The days were charming, corresponding to our Indian Summer, and the nights cool and frosty. The passenger on our steamer from Igoon said ice would be running in the river in twenty-five days unless the season should be unusually mild. Russians and Chinese were preparing for cold weather, and I wished to do the same farther westward. Borasdine contemplated a land journey in case we were delayed more than five days. The Korsackoff was the only steamer to ascend the river, and she was waiting for the Constantine to bring her a barge. On the evening of the 5th October the governor informed me the Korsackoff would start on the next day, barge or no barge. This was cheering, and I celebrated the occasion by boiling myself in a Russian bath.
I look upon the bath as one of the blessings of Russia. At the end of a journey, when one is sore and stiff in the joints, it is an effectual medicine. After it the patient sleeps soundly, and rises in the morning thoroughly invigorated. Too much bathing deadens the complexion and enfeebles the body, but a judicious amount is beneficial. It is the Russian custom, not always observed, to bathe once a week. The injury from the bath is in consequence of too high temperature of steam and water, causing a severe shock to the system. Taken properly the bath has no bad effects, and will cure rheumatism, some forms of neuralgia, and several other acute diseases.
The bath-house is a building of two, and generally three, rooms. In the outer room you undress, and your chelavek, or servant, does the same. If there is but another room you are led directly into it, and find a hot fire in a large stove. There is a cauldron of hot water and a barrel of cold water close at hand. The tools of the operator are a bucket, two or three basins, a bar of soap, a switch of birch boughs, and a bunch of matting. If there are three apartments the second is only an ante-room, not very warm and calculated to prepare you for the last and hottest of all.
The chelavek begins by throwing a bucket of warm water over you. He follows this with another, and then a third, fourth, and fifth, each a little warmer than its predecessor. On one side of the room is a series of benches like a terrace or flight of large steps. You are placed horizontally on a bench, and with warm water, soap, and bunch of matting the servant scrubs you from head to foot with a manipulation more thorough than gentle. The temperature of the room is usually about 110° Fahrenheit, but it may be more or less. It induces vigorous perspiration, and sets the blood glowing and tingling, but it never melts the flesh nor breaks the smallest blood vessel. The finishing touch is to ascend the platform near the ceiling and allow the servant to throw water upon hot stones from the furnace. There is always a cloud of steam filling the room and making objects indistinct. You easily become accustomed to the ordinary heat, but when water is dropped upon the stones there is a rush of blistering steam. It catches you on the platform and you think how unfortunate is a lobster when he goes to pot and exchanges his green for scarlet.
I declined this coup de grace after a single experience. To my view it is the objectionable feature of the Russian bath. I was always content after that to retire before the last course, and only went about half way up the terrace. The birchen switch is to whip the patient during the washing process, but is not applied with unpleasant force. To finish the bath you are drenched with several buckets of water descending from hot to cold, but not, as some declare, terminating with ice water. This little fiction is to amuse the credulous, and would be ‘important if true.’ Men have sometimes rushed from the bath into a snow bank, but the occurrence is unusual. Sometimes the peasants leave the bath for a swim in the river, but they only do so in mild weather. In all the cities there are public bath rooms, where men are steamed, polished, and washed in large numbers. In bathing the Russians are more gregarious than English or Americans. A Russian would think no more of bathing with several others than of dining at a hotel table. Nearly every private house has its bath room, and its frequent use can hardly fail to be noticed by travelers.