Victor Meignan
From Paris to Pekin over Siberian Snows
Published by Good Press, 2021
EAN 4064066248895
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I. FROM PARIS TO ST. PETERSBURG.
CHAPTER II. ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW.
CHAPTER III. MOSCOW—NIJNI-NOVGOROD.
CHAPTER IV. FROM NIJNI-NOVGOROD TO KAZAN.
CHAPTER V. KAZAN—JOURNEY TO PERM.
CHAPTER VI. PERM—THE ROAD TO CATHERINEBURG.
CHAPTER VII. OUR PARTY ON THE ROAD TO TUMEN.
CHAPTER VIII. A PERILOUS NIGHT ADVENTURE ON THE STEPPE OF OMSK.
CHAPTER IX. THE COLD ON THE WAY TO TOMSK.
CHAPTER X. THE GOVERNMENT OF YENISSEISK AND KRASNOIARSK.
CHAPTER XI. KRASNOIARSK TO IRKUTSK.
CHAPTER XIII. ATTEMPT AT ESCAPE BY A POLISH EXILE.
CHAPTER XIV. IRKUTSK TO LAKE BAIKAL.
CHAPTER XV. LAKE BAIKAL TO KIACHTA
CHAPTER XVI. KIACHTA TO MAIMATCHIN.
CHAPTER XVII. MAIMATCHIN TO URGA.
CHAPTER XVIII. URGA AND THE ENTRY INTO THE DESERT OF GOBI.
CHAPTER XIX. CARAVAN ACROSS THE DESERT OF GOBI.
CHAPTER XX. FROM THE GREAT WALL TO TCHAH-TAO.
CHAPTER XXI. TCHAH-TAO TO PEKIN.
CHAPTER XXII. PEKIN—DEPARTURE.
FROM PARIS TO PEKIN.
CHAPTER I.
FROM PARIS TO ST. PETERSBURG.
En route by rail—Berlin—Annoyances at the Russian Custom House—First aspect of European Russia—An evening on the banks of the Neva.
When I had quite made up my mind to pass my winter in Siberia and to proceed in the following spring to Pekin by Mongolia and the Desert of Gobi, my friends, hearing of my project, were incredulous of the steadfastness of my resolution; they shrugged their shoulders, quivering, perhaps at the prospect of frost-nipped limbs, and wondered what could induce me to quit the comfortably warmed salons at this season merely to brave the boreal blasts of so rigorous a climate. So far as it concerned me, however, this anticipatory cold was not at all catching, for, indeed, my resolution was then too firmly set to be shaken by a quivering void of sympathetic influence, or to yield to the allurements of the most inviting-Parisian cercle or boudoir.
Having therefore already well considered my project, I had decided on attempting to accomplish it for this reason: I had seen Syria and Nubia, lands of the Sun, in their full-blown summer radiance and glory, and I now longed to gaze on Siberia, the region of snow and ice, in its wondrous winter garb. When I am in the humour for a tour, I like to visit countries in their typical season, just as one likes to see a man in the exercise of his proper vocation. There is, undoubtedly, a feeling of satisfaction in contemplating the animate or inanimate world merely in its habitual phases, in so far as these are the normal and appropriate expression of a condition of established law and order—the harmonies of nature as well as the moral fitness of things. Siberia, as it is pictured to our imagination, is vividly associated with the stirring incidents of a rigorous arctic winter; it is in this, its most characteristic aspect, that we delight to regard it and muse over it; moreover, in winter only is it so remarkably dissimilar from the nature we are accustomed to see in milder and more genial climates, and in this season alone, with its mighty ice-bound rivers and boundless snow-capped forests, does it present to the wondering eye of the stranger the interest and attractiveness of a striking novelty.
I was in excellent spirits from the exhilarating anticipation of so much adventure, as the reader may imagine, and, busy with final preparations, my friends seeing me thus occupied, amused me with their diverse questions and suggestions. Every one puts questions in his own way according to his habitual ideas or occupation. The doctor with a grave look asks, “Are you sure your constitution is robust enough to bear so much cold?” the druggist, whether you have a good supply of quinine or chilblain ointment, or somebody’s magic pills—some comprehensive remedy for all human weaknesses, corporeal and mental, excepting, of course, the incurable one of belief in its efficacy; then ladies suggest a good supply of warm worsted stockings and knitted comforters; then others inquire whether you have a passport duly visé, a six-shot revolver, maps, a telescope, letters of credit, a belt for gold, and I really don’t know with what they would not considerately provide me. Some perhaps might have gone so far as to suggest a warming pan; and for my part, I think that a warming pan would not have been the least useful article suggested, inasmuch as it might serve as a stewing pan, and then I should be assured of a hot supper and a warm bed; then in inns its sonorous capacity might supply the want of bells, and on a journey serve to scare away the wolves, and finally, having no further use for this accommodating vade mecum, I might sell it in Mongolia, a land of honey, for a purpose to which, I have heard, it is sometimes applied in England, that is for swarming bees with its deep musical note, and this failing, at all events, dispose of it in China, on taking out the handle, as the latest