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Title: From North Pole to Equator: Studies of Wild Life and Scenes in Many Lands
Author: Brehm, Alfred Edmund
Language: English
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EQUATOR ***
[Illustration: A E Brehm]
BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED, LONDON, GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH.
FROM
NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR
[Illustration]
FROM
NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR
STUDIES OF WILD LIFE AND SCENES
IN MANY LANDS
BY THE NATURALIST-TRAVELLER
ALFRED EDMUND BREHM
AUTHOR OF “BIRD-LIFE”, “TIERLEBEN”, ETC. ETC.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY
MARGARET R. THOMSON
EDITED BY
J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A., F.R.S.E.
_WITH EIGHTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS_
[Illustration]
LONDON
BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED, 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C.
GLASGOW AND DUBLIN
1896
PREFACE
TO THE GERMAN EDITION.
Six years have passed since the grave at Renthendorf closed over the
remains of my esteemed father, whose death--all too early--was as
great a loss to Science as to those who loved and honoured him. It
was strange that his eventful and adventurous life, in the course of
which he visited and explored four quarters of the globe, should have
ended at the little spot in green Thuringia where he was born. He had
just reached his fifty-fifth year when his lips, so apt in speech,
were silenced, and the pen which he held so masterfully dropped from
his hand. He was full of great plans as to various works, and it is
much to be regretted that the notes which he had collected towards
the realization of these were too fragmentary for anyone but their
author to utilize. But the manuscripts which he left contained many a
treasure, and it seemed to me a duty, both to the author and to all
friends of thoughtful observation, to make these available to the
reading public.
The following pages form the first book of the kind, and contain the
most valuable part of the legacy--Alfred Edmund Brehm’s lectures,
once so universally popular. I believe that, in giving these pages to
the world, I am offering a gift which will be warmly welcomed, and I
need add no commendatory words of mine, for they speak adequately for
themselves. Writing replaces spoken words very imperfectly, and my
father, who was never tied down to his paper, may often have delivered
the same matter in different forms according to the responsiveness of
his audience, abbreviating here, expanding there--yet to anyone who
has heard him the following pages will recall his presence and the
tones of his sonorous voice; everyone will not only recognize in them
the individuality of the author of the _Tierleben_ (Animal Life) and
_Bird Life_, but will learn to know him in a new and attractive side
of his character. For it is my father’s lectures almost more than
any other of his works which show the wealth of his experiences, the
many-sidedness of his knowledge, his masterly powers of observation
and description, and not least his delicate kindly humour and the
sympathetic interpretation of animate and inanimate nature which arose
from his deeply poetic temperament.
Therefore I send these pages forth into the world with the pleasant
confidence that they will add many to the author’s already numerous
friends. May they also gain new and unprejudiced sympathizers for the
animal world which he loved so warmly and understood so thoroughly;
and may they, in every house where the love of literature, and of the
beautiful is cherished, open eyes and hearts to perceive the beauty of
nature, the universal mother; then will the highest and noblest aim of
their author be achieved.
So may all success attend these pages, may they receive a joyful
welcome, and wherever they gain an entrance may they remain as a prized
possession.
HORST BREHM,
Doctor of Medicine.
BERLIN, _September, 1890_.
PREFATORY NOTE
TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION.
It has been a privilege to make available to English readers a book
which shows a great naturalist at his best--a book that presents the
reader with a series of vivid pictures of wild life and scenery,
painted from actual observation, and with all the truth and accuracy
that belong to the artist and man of science combined. It consists of
a number of papers or articles that were originally read as public
lectures and were afterwards collected into a volume that has met
with much success in Germany. The subjects treated range over a wide
and varied field. Some of them are unfamiliar to the ordinary reader,
and besides their inherent interest have the added charm of novelty;
others, if more familiar, are here invested with a freshness and charm
that such a trained observer and practised writer as the author could
alone impart.
To the translation of the German original have been added
an introductory essay, showing Brehm’s position among
naturalist-travellers, an extended table of contents, an appendix
containing a number of editorial notes, and an index. The number of
pictorial illustrations has also been increased.
For a notice of the Author and his labours see the concluding part of
the Introductory Essay.
M. R. T.
J. A. T.
UNIVERSITY HALL,
EDINBURGH, _December, 1895_.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
Page
PREFACE TO GERMAN EDITION, v
PREFATORY NOTE TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION, vii
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY THE EDITOR, xv
THE BIRD-BERGS OF LAPLAND.
The legend of Scandinavia’s origin--The harvest of the sea--The
doves of Scandinavia--Eider-holms and bird-bergs--The nesting of the
eider-duck--Razor-bills and robber-gulls--Millions of birds--(Notes,
pp. 565-566), 33
THE TUNDRA AND ITS ANIMAL LIFE.
High tundra and low tundra--The jewels of the tundra--The flora of the
tundra--The Arctic fox--The lemming--The reindeer--The birds of the
tundra--Mosquitoes--(Notes, pp. 566-568), 63
THE ASIATIC STEPPES AND THEIR FAUNA.
The steppe in summer and in winter--The coming of spring--The
rendezvous in the reeds--The marsh-harrier--The home of larks--Jerboa
and souslik--The archar sheep--The kulan and the ancestry of the
horse--(Notes, pp. 568-571), 86
THE FORESTS AND SPORT OF SIBERIA.
An ice-wilderness or not--The forest zone--Axe and fire--The
pines--Hunting and trapping--The elk, the wolf, and the lynx--Sable
and other furred beasts--Bear-hunting and bear-stories--(Notes, pp.
571-573), 120
THE STEPPES OF INNER AFRICA.
The progress of the seasons--A tropical thunderstorm--Night in
the steppes--Spiders, scorpions, and snakes--Mudfish and other
sleepers--Cleopatra’s asp--Geckos--The children of the air--The
bateleur eagle--The ostrich--The night-jar--The mammals of the
steppe--Stampede before a steppe-fire--(Notes, pp. 573-576), 168
THE PRIMEVAL FORESTS OF CENTRAL AFRICA.
Spring in the forest--The beautiful Hassanie--The baobab--Climbers and
twiners--The forest birds and their voices--Sociable birds--Conjugal
tenderness--Salt’s antelope--River monsters--A rain-lake--Hosanna in
the highest--(Notes, pp. 576-578), 201
MIGRATIONS OF MAMMALS.
Black rats and brown--Cousin man’s kindness to the monkeys--Migration
of mountain animals--The restlessness of the reindeer--Wandering herds
of buffaloes--The life of the kulan--Travellers by sea--Flights of
bats--The march of the lemmings--(Notes, pp. 578-581), 234
LOVE AND COURTSHIP AMONG BIRDS.
Are birds automata?--The battles of love--Different modes of
courtship--Polygamy--Life-long devotion--(Notes, p. 581), 259
APES AND MONKEYS.
Sheikh Kemal’s story--The monkey question--A general picture of monkey
life--Marmosets and other New World monkeys--Dog-like and man-like Old
World monkeys--Monkeys as pets--The true position of monkeys--(Notes,
pp. 581-583), 282
DESERT JOURNEYS.
An appreciation of the desert--The start of the caravan--The character
of the camel--A day’s journey--Oases--Simoom and sand storms--Fata
morgana--The peace of night--(Note, p. 583), 318
NUBIA AND THE NILE RAPIDS.
Egypt and Nubia contrasted--Wady Halfa and Philæ--The three great
cataracts--Journey up and down stream--The Nile boatmen--History of
Nubia--(Notes, pp. 583-584), 356
A JOURNEY IN SIBERIA.
Russian hospitality--A tedious journey--An excursion into Chinese
territory--Sport among the mountains--Journeying northwards--On the
track of splenic fever--(Notes, p. 584), 390
THE HEATHEN OSTIAKS.
Racial affinities--Christians and heathen--The dress of the
Ostiaks--The tshum of the wandering Ostiaks--The life of the
herdsmen--A fishing village--The Ostiak at the fair--An Ostiak
wedding--An interview with a Shaman--Funeral rites--(Notes, pp.
584-585), 416
NOMAD HERDSMEN AND HERDS OF THE STEPPES.
The name Kirghiz--Conditions of life on the steppe--Winter
dwellings--Breaking up the camp--In praise of the yurt--The herds
of the Kirghiz--The Kirghiz horse--Summer wanderings--“A sheep’s
journey”--Returning flocks--Evening in the aul--(Note, p. 585), 451
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE AMONG THE KIRGHIZ.
The Kirghiz as horsemen--Racing and wrestling--Hunting with eagles and
greyhounds--A sheep-drive--The “red tongue”--Kirghiz bards--Education
and character--Kirghiz etiquette--The price of a bride--The
children--Funeral ceremonies, 482
COLONISTS AND EXILES IN SIBERIA.
Mistaken impressions--Impartial observation--The emancipation of the
serfs--The Altai--Compulsory service--Condition of the peasants--The
superabundant harvest--Romance in Siberia--Domestic life open
to the convicts--The way of sighs--General picture of Siberian
life--Runaways--(Notes, pp. 585-586), 510
AN ORNITHOLOGIST ON THE DANUBE.
Twenty eyries--The voyage down the river--The woods on the banks--A
heronry--Sea-eagles--A paradise of birds--The marsh of Hullo--The black
vultures of Fruškagora--Homeward once more--(Note, p.586), 540
INDEX, 587
[Illustration]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FIG. Page
PORTRAIT OF ALFRED EDMUND BREHM, _Frontispiece_.
1. Scene on the Sogne Fjord, Norway, 35
2. Colony of Eider-ducks, 44
3. The Bird-bergs of Lapland, 51
4. Razor-bills, 61
5. The High Tundra in Northern Siberia, 65
6. Peregrine Falcons and Lemmings, 70
7. The White or Arctic Fox (_Canis lagopus_), 73
8. The Reindeer (_Tarandus rangifer_), 76
9. Skuas, Phalathrope, and Golden Plovers, 80
10. View in the Asiatic Steppes, 89
11. A Salt Marsh in the Steppes, 90
12. A Herd of Horses during a Snowstorm on the Asiatic Steppes, 94
13. Lake Scene and Waterfowl in an Asiatic Steppe, 99
14. The Souslik (_Spermophilus citillus_), 108
15. The Jerboa (_Alactaga jaculus_), 108
16. Archar Sheep or Argali (_Ovis Argali_), 111
17. Pallas’s Sand-grouse (_Syrrhaptes paradoxus_), 113
18. The Kulan (_Equus hemionus_), 118
19. Reindeer Flocking to Drink, 133
20. Elk and Black-cock in a Siberian Forest, 137
21. The Maral Stag, 145
22. The Elk Hunter--A Successful Shot, 148
23. A Siberian Method of Wolf-shooting, 153
24. Sable and Hazel-grouse in a Siberian Forest, 159
25. The Bed of an Intermittent River, Central Africa, 175
26. Hills of African Termites, or White Ants, 179
27. Secretary-bird and Aspis, 184
28. On an Ostrich Farm in South Africa, 190
29. Hyæna-dogs pursuing Antelope, 196
30. Zebras, Quaggas, and Ostriches flying before a Steppe Fire, 199
31. The Baobab Tree, Central Africa, 211
32. Long-tailed Monkeys, 222
33. Salt’s Antelope (_Antilope Saltiana_), 224
34. Crocodile and Crocodile-birds (_Pluxianus ægyptius_), 228
35. A Wild Duck defending her Brood from a Brown Rat, 236
36. A Herd of American Bison or Buffalo, 243
37. Wild Horses crossing a River during a Storm, 246
38. Flying Foxes, 251
39. Springbok Antelopes, 258
40. The Strutting of the Tragopan in Pairing-time, 269
41. Cock Chaffinches Fighting, 274
42. Entellus Monkeys (_Semnopithecus Entellus_), 285
43. Common Marmoset or Ouistiti (_Hapale Jacchus_), 292
44. Red Howling Monkeys (_Mycetis seniculus_), 295
45. Old Baboon Rescuing Young One, 301
46. Macaque or Bonnet-monkey (_Macacus sinicus_) and Snake, 307
47. The Hoolock (_Hylobates leuciscus_), one of the Gibbons, 310
48. Chimpanzee (_Troglodytes niger_), 313
49. Caravan in the African Desert, 323
50. An Encampment in the Sahara, 328
51. Gazelles lying near a Mimosa, 332
52. An Oasis in the Desert of Sahara, 343
53. Band of Mounted Bedouins, 353
54. An Egyptian _Sakieh_ or Water-wheel, 365
55. A Nubian Village on the Nile, 374
56. Nubian Children at Play, 377
57. A Passage through the Nile Rapids, 385
58. A Post Station in Siberia, 395
59. Imperial Eagle, Marmot, and Souslik, 407
60. An Ostiak Settlement on the Banks of the Obi, 409
61. Huts and Winter Costume of the Christian Ostiaks, 419
62. “Heathen” Ostiaks, Reindeer, and Tshums, 424
63. Ostiaks with Reindeer and Sledge, 427
64. Interior of an Ostiak Dwelling (Tshum), 435
65. The Burial of an Ostiak, 449
66. The Home of a Wealthy Kirghiz, 455
67. Life among the Kirghiz--the Return from the Chase, 461
68. Kirghiz with Camels, 467
69. Kirghiz and their Herds on the March in the Mountains, 471
70. Kirghiz Aul, or Group of Tents, 478
71. Hunting the Wolf with the Golden Eagle, 487
72. Kirghiz in pursuit of Wild Sheep, 489
73. Frolic at a Kirghiz Wedding, 505
74. Miners in the Altai returning from Work, 517
75. Exiles on the Way to Siberia, 527
76. Interior of a Siberian Peasant’s Dwelling, 532
77. Types of Siberian Convicts--“Condemned to the Mines”, 535
78. Flight of an Exile in Siberia, 538
79. Herons and their Nests, 544
80. Rooks and their Nests, 546
81. Sea-eagles and Nest in a Danube Forest, 550
82. Nest of the Penduline Titmouse (_Parus Pendulinus_), 562
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.
BY J. ARTHUR THOMSON.
BREHM’S PLACE AMONG NATURALIST-TRAVELLERS.
Though Brehm’s lectures might well be left, as his son has said,
to speak for themselves, it seems useful to introduce them in
their English dress with some notes on the evolution of the
naturalist-traveller and on Brehm’s place in the honourable list; for
an adequate appreciation of a book like this depends in part on a
recognition of the position it occupies among analogous works, and on
having some picture of the illustrious author himself.
In sketching the history of the naturalist-traveller it is not
necessary to go very far back; for though it is interesting to recall
how men of old followed their migrating herds, as the Lapp or Ostiak
does his reindeer, and were led by them to fresh fields and new
conquests, or how others followed the salmon down the rivers and became
the toilers of the sea, this ancient lore is full of uncertainty, and
is, besides, of more moment to the sociologist than to the naturalist.
What we attempt here is merely to indicate the various types of
naturalist-traveller who have in the course of time succeeded one
another in the quest for the new.
I.
The foundations of zoology were laid by Aristotle some three hundred
years before Christ, but they remained unbuilt on for nearly eighteen
centuries. Here and there some enthusiast strove unaided, but only a
fragmentary superstructure was reared. In fact, men were pre-occupied
with tasks of civilization more serious than the prosecution of
zoology, though that is not trivial. Gradually, however, great social
movements, such as the Crusades and the collapse of Feudalism; great
intellectual and emotional movements, such as those of the Renaissance;
great inventions, such as that of printing, gave new life to Europe,
and zoology shared in the re-awakening. Yet the natural history of the
Middle Ages was in great part mystical; fancy and superstition ran riot
along paths where science afterwards established order, and, for all
practical purposes, the history of zoology, apart from the efforts of a
few pioneers, may be said to date from the sixteenth century.
Now, one indubitable factor in the scientific renaissance of the
sixteenth century was the enthusiasm of the early travellers, and this
stimulus, periodically recurrent, has never failed to have a similar
effect--of giving new life to science. But while science, and zoology
as a branch of it, has been evolving during the last three centuries,
the traveller, too, has shared in the evolution. It is this which we
wish to trace.
I. THE ROMANTIC TYPE. Many of the old travellers, from Herodotus
onwards, were observant and enthusiastic; most were credulous and
garrulous. In days when the critical spirit was young, and verification
hardly possible, there could not but be a strong temptation to tell
extraordinary “travellers’ tales”. And they did. Nor need we scoff at
them loudly, for the type dies hard; every year such tales are told.
Oderico de Pordenone and other mediæval travellers who give some
substance to the mythical Sir John de Maundeville were travellers of
this genial type. Oderico describes an interesting connecting link
between the animal and vegetable kingdom, a literal “zoophyte”, the
“vegetable lamb”, which seems to have been a woolly Scythian fern, with
its counterpart in the large fungus which colonials sometimes speak of
as the “vegetable sheep”. As for the pretended Sir John, he had in his
power of swallowing marvels a gape hardly less than that of the great
snakes which he describes. But even now do we not see his snakes in
at least the picture-books on which innocent youth is nurtured? The
basilisk (one of the most harmless of lizards) “sleyeth men beholding
it”; the “cocodrilles also sley men”--they do indeed--“and eate them
weeping, and they have no tongue”. “The griffin of Bactria hath a body
greater than eight lyons and stall worthier than a hundred egles, for
certainly he will beare to his nest flying, a horse and a man upon his
back.” He was not readily daunted, Sir John, for when they told him of
the lamb-tree which bears lambs in its pods, his British pluck did not
desert him, and he gave answer that he “held it for no marvayle, for in
his country are trees which bear fruit which become birds flying, and
they are good to eate, and that that falleth on the water, liveth, and
that that falleth on earth, dyeth; and _they_ marvailed much thereat”.
The tale of the barnacle-tree was a trump card in those days!
Another example of this type, but rising distinctly above it in
trustworthiness, was the Venetian Marco Polo, who in the thirteenth
century explored Asia from the Black Sea to Pekin, from the Altai
to Sumatra, and doubtless saw much, though not quite so much as he
describes. He will correct the fables of his predecessors, he tells us,
demonstrating gravely that the unicorn or rhinoceros does _not_ allow
himself to be captured by a gentle maiden, but he proceeds to describe
tailed men, yea, headless men, without, so far as can be seen, any
touch of sarcasm. Of how many marvels, from porcupines throwing off
their spines and snakes with clawed fore-feet, to the great Rukh, which
could bear not merely a poor Sinbad but an elephant through the air, is
it not written in the books of Ser Marco Polo of Venezia?
II. THE ENCYCLOPÆDIST TYPE.--This unwieldy title, suggestive of
an omnivorous hunger for knowledge, is conveniently, as well as
technically, descriptive of a type of naturalist characteristic of the
early years of the scientific renaissance. Edward Wotton (d. 1555),
the Swiss Gesner (d. 1565), the Italian Aldrovandi (d. 1605), the
Scotsman Johnson (d. 1675), are good examples. These encyclopædists
were at least impressed with the necessity of getting close to the
facts of nature, of observing for themselves, and we cannot blame them
much if their critical faculties were dulled by the strength of their
enthusiasm. They could not all at once forget the mediæval dreams, nor
did they make any strenuous effort to rationalize the materials which
they so industriously gathered. They harvested but did not thrash.
Ostrich-like, their appetite was greater than their power of digesting.
A hasty judgment might call them mere compilers, for they gathered all
possible information from all sources, but, on closer acquaintance,
the encyclopædists grow upon one. Their industry was astounding, their
ambition lofty; and they prepared the way for men like Ray and Linnæus,
in whom was the genius of order.
Associated with this period there were many naturalist-travellers,
most of whom are hardly now remembered, save perhaps when we repeat
the name of some plant or animal which commemorates its discoverer.
José d’Acosta (d. 1600), a missionary in Peru, described some of the
gigantic fossils of South America; Francesco Hernanded published about
1615 a book on the natural history of Mexico with 1200 illustrations;
Marcgrav and Piso explored Brazil; Jacob Bontius, the East Indies;
Prosper Alpinus, Egypt; Belon, the Mediterranean region; and there were
many others. But it is useless to multiply what must here remain mere
citations of names. The point is simply this, that, associated with
the marvellous accumulative industry of the encyclopædists and with
the renaissance of zoology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
there were numerous naturalist-travellers who described what they saw,
and not what they fancied might be seen.
III. THE GENERAL NATURALIST TYPE.--As Ray (d. 1705) and Linnæus (d.
1778) began to reduce to order the accumulations of the encyclopædists,
and as the anatomists and physiologists began the precise study of
structure and function, the naturalist-travellers became more definite
in their aims and more accurate in their observations. Linnæus
himself sent several of his pupils on precisely scientific journeys.
Moreover, in the eighteenth century there were not a few expeditions
of geographical and physical purpose which occasionally condescended
to take a zoologist on board. Thus Captain Cook was accompanied
on his first voyage (1768-1781) by Banks and Solander, and on his
second voyage by the Forsters, father and son. On his third voyage he
expressly forbade the intrusion of any naturalist, but from all that we
can gather it would have been better for himself if he had not done so.
In these combined voyages there was nascent the idea of co-operative
expeditions, of which the greatest has been that of the _Challenger_.
In illustration of travellers who were not specialists, but in varying
degrees widely interested naturalists, it will be sufficient to cite
three names--Thomas Pennant, Peter Pallas, and, greatest of all,
Alexander von Humboldt.
Of Thomas Pennant (1726-1798) we may note that he was one of the early
travellers in Scotland, which was then, as he says, almost as unknown
as Kamchatka, and that he extorted from Dr. Johnson the admission,
“He’s a Whig, sir, a sad dog; but he’s the best traveller I ever read;
he observes more things than any one else does”. He knew Buffon and
corresponded with Linnæus, and was the author of several works on
British and North American zoology. His so-called _Arctic Zoology_ is
mainly a sketch of the fauna in the northern regions of North America,
begun “when the empire of Great Britain was entire, and possessed the
northern part of the New World with envied splendour”. His perspective
is excellent! the botanist, the fossilist, the historian, the
geographer must, he says, accompany him on his zoological tours, “to
trace the gradual increase of the animal world from the scanty pittance
given to the rocks of Spitzbergen to the swarms of beings which enliven
the vegetating plains of Senegal; to point out the causes of the local
niggardness of certain places, and the prodigious plenty in others”.
It was about the same time (1777) that E. A. W. Zimmermann, Professor
of Mathematics at Brunswick, published a quarto in Latin, entitled
_Specimen Zoologiæ Geographicæ Quadrupedum_, “with a most curious
map”, says Pennant, “in which is given the name of every animal in
its proper climate, so that a view of the whole quadruped creation is
placed before one’s eyes, in a manner perfectly new and instructive”.
It was wonderful then, but the map in question looks commonplace enough
nowadays.
Peter Simon Pallas (1741-1811) was a student of medicine and natural
science, and did good work as a systematic and anatomical zoologist.
He was the first, we believe, to express the relationships of animals
in a genealogical tree, but his interest for us here lies in his
zoological exploration of Russia and Siberia, the results of which
are embodied in a series of bulky volumes, admirable in their careful
thoroughness. We rank him rather as one of the forerunners of Humboldt
than as a zoologist, for his services to ethnology and geology were of
great importance. He pondered over the results of his explorations, and
many of his questionings in regard to geographical distribution, the
influence of climate, the variation of animals, and similar problems,
were prophetic of the light which was soon to dawn on biological
science.
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was undoubtedly one of the greatest
naturalists of the century which his life well nigh covered. Geologist,
botanist, zoologist, and more, he was almost the last of the all-round
naturalists. In this indeed lay his weakness as well as his strength,
for great breadth of view is apt to imply a lack of precision as to
details. In boyhood, “when life”, as he says, “appears an unlimited
horizon”, he had strong desires after travel, which were in part
gratified by excursions with George Forster and by Swiss explorations
with the sagacious old geographer Leopold von Buch. These, however,
only whetted his enthusiasm for journeys with a larger radius. At
length, after many discouragements, he sailed in 1799 from Corunna,
with Aimé Bonpland as companion, and spent five years in exploring the
equinoctial regions of the New World. The full record of his voyage
one cannot be expected to read, for there are about thirty volumes of
it in the complete edition, but what we should all know is Humboldt’s
_Personal Narrative_, in which the chief results of his explorations
are charmingly set forth. Later in life (1829) he went with Ehrenberg
and Rose to North Asia, and his crowning work was the publication of
_Cosmos_ (1845-58), which originated in a series of lectures delivered
in the University of Berlin. In front of that building his statue now
stands, along with that of his not less famous brother Wilhelm.
We think of Humboldt not so much as an early explorer of tropical
America, nor because he described the habits of the condor and made
observations on electric eels, nor because he furnished Cuvier and
Latreille with many new specimens, but rather as a magnificent type
of the naturalist-traveller, observant, widely interested, and
thoughtful, who pointed forward to Darwin in the success with which
he realized the complexity of inter-relations in nature. Many a
traveller, even among his contemporaries, discovered more new plants
and animals than the author of _Cosmos_, but none approached him as
an all-round naturalist, able to look out on all orders of facts with
keenly intelligent eyes, a man, moreover, in whom devotion to science
never dulled poetic feeling. His work is of real importance in the
history of geographical distribution, for he endeavoured to interpret
the peculiarities of the various faunas in connection with the peculiar
environment of the different regions--a consideration which is at least
an element in the solution of some of the problems of distribution. It
is especially important in regard to plants, and one may perhaps say
that Humboldt, by his vivid pictures of the vegetable “physiognomy” of
different regions, and by his observations on the relations between
climate and flora, laid the foundations of the scientific study of
the geographical distribution of plants. We find in some of his
_Charakterbilder_, for example in his _Views of Nature_, the prototype
of those synthetic pictures which give Brehm’s popular lectures their
peculiar interest and value.
IV. THE SPECIALIST TYPE.--It would say little for scientific discipline
if it were true that a man learned, let us say, in zoology, could
spend years in a new country without having something fresh to tell us
about matters outside of his specialism--the rocks, the plants, and
the people. But it is not true. There have been few great travellers
who have been narrow specialists, and one might find more than one
case of a naturalist starting on his travels as a zoologist and
returning an anthropologist as well. Yet it is evident enough that
few men can be master of more than one craft. There have been few
travellers like Humboldt, few records like Darwin’s _Voyage of the
Beagle_ (1831-6). Hence we recognize more and more as we approach our
own day that naturalist-travellers have been successful either as
specialists, or, on the other hand, in so far as they have furnished
material for generalization (Type V.). The specialism may of course
take various forms: a journey may be undertaken by one who is purely an
ornithologist, or it may be undertaken with one particular problem in
view, or it may be organized, like the _Challenger_ expedition, with
the co-operation of a number of specialists.
The French took the lead in organizing zoological expeditions. As early
as 1800 they sent out the _Géographe_, _Naturaliste_, and _Casuarina_,
zoologically conducted by Bury de St. Vincent, Péron, and Lesueur.
Further expeditions followed with Quoy and Gaimard, Lesson, Eydoux,
Souleyet, Dupetit-Thouars, and others as zoological guides. The English
whaling industry gave early opportunity to not a few naturalists; and
it is now a long time since Hooker went with Sir James Ross on the
South Polar expedition and Huxley went on the _Rattlesnake_ to the
Australian Barrier Reef. The Russians were also active, one of the more
famous travellers being Kotzebue, who was accompanied on one of his
two voyages (1823-6) round the world by Chamisso and Eschscholtz. In
the early part of this century the Americans were also enterprising,
the work of Dana being perhaps the most noteworthy. It would require
several pages to mention even the names of the naturalists who have had
their years of wandering, and have added their pages and sketches to
the book of the world’s fauna and flora, but such an enumeration would
serve no useful purpose here.
There is, however, one form of zoological exploration which deserves
a chapter to itself, that is the exploration of the Deep Sea. Several
generations of marine zoologists had been at work before a zoology of
the deep sea was dreamed of even as a possibility. It is true that in
1818 Sir John Ross had found a star-fish (_Astrophyton_) at a depth of
800-1000 fathoms, but this was forgotten; and in 1841 Edward Forbes
dredged to no purpose in fairly deep water in the Ægean Sea. Indeed
those who thought about the great depths at all deemed it unlikely that
there could be life there, and if it had not been for the practical
affair of laying the ocean cables, we might possibly have been still in
ignorance of the abyssal fauna.
But the cables had to be laid--no easy task--and it became important
to know at least the topography of the depths. Cables broke, too, and
had to be fished up again, and when that which ran between Sardinia
and Algiers was lifted, in 1860, from a depth of 60-1000 fathoms,
no less than 15 different species of animals were found on it. This
was a discovery to fire enthusiasm, and Britain led the way in
following it up. In 1868 Wyville Thomson began his explorations on the
_Lightning_, and proved that most of the types of backboneless animals
were represented at depths of at least 600 fathoms. Soon followed
the similar cruise of the _Porcupine_, famous _inter alia_ for the
discovery of Bathybius, which many sceptics regard as a mare’s nest.
From various quarters the quest after the deep-sea fauna began to be
prosecuted.
It is now more than a score of years since the world-famous
_Challenger_ sailed from Portsmouth with Wyville Thomson, Moseley,
John Murray, and Willemoes-Suhm as naturalists. During three and a
half years the explorers cruised over 68,900 nautical miles, crossed
the Atlantic no less than five times, reached with the long arm of the
dredge to depths equal to reversed Himalayas, raised treasures of life
from over 500 stations, and brought home spoils over which the savants
of Europe have hardly ceased to be busy, and the records of which, now
completed under Dr. Murray’s editorship, form a library of about forty
huge volumes.
The _Challenger_ expedition was important not only in itself, but in
the wave of scientific enthusiasm which it raised. From Germany went
forth the _Gazelle_; Norway sent the _Vöringen_ to Spitzbergen; America
has despatched the _Tuscarora_, the _Blake_, and the _Albatross_;
from Sweden the _Vega_ and the _Sophia_ sailed to Arctic seas: Count
Liechtenstein’s yacht _Hertha_ explored Adria; the Prince of Monaco’s
_Hirondelle_ darted hither and thither; the French sent forth the
_Travailleur_ and _Talisman_; the Italians the _Vettor Pisani_ and
_Washington_; Austria and Hungary organized the _Poli_ for work in
the Mediterranean; the Germans again have recently specialized in
investigating the Plankton, or surface-life of the ocean; and so, with
a range even wider than we have indicated, the wave of enthusiasm has
spread, one of the latest barques which it has borne being the Prince
of Monaco’s, which was specially built for marine exploration.
Specialism in travelling has, of course, gone much further. Thus to
cite only three examples, we have Semper’s zoological work on the
Philippines, the researches of the Sarasins in Ceylon, and the first
results of Semon’s recent visit to Australasia, all of them passing
far beyond records of zoological exploration into monographs on the
structure and development of characteristic members of the fauna
of these countries. And it is no exaggeration to say that private
enterprise, Royal Society subsidies, British Association grants, and
the like have sent scores of naturalists from Britain half round the
world in order to solve special problems, as to the larva of a worm,
for instance, or as to the bird-fauna of some little island.
V. THE BIOLOGICAL TYPE. In some ways the most important scientific
journey ever made was Darwin’s voyage on the _Beagle_. It was the
Columbus-voyage of zoology. There is a great deal to be said for the
_Wanderjahre_ of the old students, for to have time to think is one of
the conditions of intellectual progress. Not that the _Beagle_ voyage
was one of idleness, but it gave Darwin, at the age of twenty-two, a
wealth of impressions and some measure of enforced leisure wherein
to gloat intellectually over what he saw. He has said, indeed, that
various sets of facts observed on his voyage, such as the aspect of the
Galapagos Islands, started him on paths of pondering which eventually
led to his theory of the origin of species.
We take Darwin as the type of the biological, or, we may almost
say, evolutionist travellers; but he must share this position with
his magnanimous colleague, Alfred Russel Wallace, whose journeyings
were more prolonged and not less fruitful. Before Darwin the
naturalist-travellers had been, for the most part, describers,
systematists, and analysts, and it goes without saying that such work
is indispensable, and must continue; but in the light of the conception
of evolution all things had become new; the present world of life was
henceforth seen as a stage in a process, as a passing act in a drama,
not merely as a phantasmagoria to be admired and pictured, but as a
growth to be understood.
It is within this group of biological travellers, which includes
such men as Bates and Belt, that we must also place Brehm. For
although he perhaps had not the firmness of grasp or the fineness of
touch necessary for the successful handling of the more intricate
biological problems, especially those which centre around the factors
of evolution, he had unusual power as an observer of the habits of
animals. His contributions, which must be judged, of course, from his
great _Tierleben_,[A] as well as from his popular lectures, were rather
to the old natural history than to biology in the stricter sense. His
works show that he was as much interested in men as in beasts, that he
was specially an ornithologist, that he was beneath the naturalist a
sportsman; but so scores of other travellers have been. His particular
excellence is his power of observing and picturing animal life _as
it is lived in nature_, without taking account of which biology is a
mockery and any theory of evolution a one-sided dogma.
[A] This well-known treasure-house of Natural History appeared
originally in 1863-69 in six big volumes, which have since increased
to ten. Even the first edition took a foremost place among similar
works on the Natural History of Animals. With a wealth of personal
observation on the habits of animals in their native haunts, it
combined the further charm of very beautiful pictorial illustration.
Let us now bring together briefly the outstanding facts of this
historical outline.
In early days men followed their wandering herds or pursued their prey
from region to region, or were driven by force of competition or of
hunger to new lands. Many of the most eventful journeys have been among
those which had to be taken.
I. Gradually, intellectual curiosity rather than practical need became
the prompter, and men travelled with all manner of mixed aims seeking
what was new. When they returned they told travellers’ tales, mostly
in as good faith as their hunting ancestors had done in the caves of
a winter night, or as the modern traveller does after dinner still.
We pass insensibly from Herodotus to Marco Polo, from “Sir John
Maundeville” to Mr. X. Y. Z., whose book was published last spring.
This is the type romantic.
II. But when science shared in the renaissance there ensued the
extraordinary industry of the encyclopædist school, with which many
naturalist-travellers were associated. Some of these were great
men--perhaps Gesner was greatest of all--but all had the defects of
their qualities. They gathered into stackyards both wheat and tares,
and seldom found time to thrash. The type survives afield in the mere
collector, and its degenerate sedentary representatives are called
compilers.
III. Just as Buffon represents the climax of the encyclopædists, and
is yet something more, for he thrashed his wheat, so Humboldt, while
as ambitious as any encyclopædist traveller, transcended them all by
vitalizing the wealth of impressions which he gathered. He was _the_
general naturalist-traveller, who took all nature for his province, and
does not seem to have been embarrassed. Of successful representatives
of this type there are few, since Darwin perhaps none.
IV. Meanwhile Linnæus had brought order, Cuvier had founded his school
of anatomists, Haller had re-organized physiology, the microscope
had deepened analysis, and zoology came of age as a specialism.
Henceforth travellers’ tales were at a discount; even a Humboldt might
be contradicted, and platitudinarian narratives of a voyage round the
world ceased to find the publisher sympathetic or the public appetized.
The naturalist-traveller was now a zoologist, or a botanist, or an
ornithologist, or an entomologist; at any rate, a specialist. But it
was sometimes found profitable to work in companies, as in the case of
the _Challenger_ expedition.
V. Lastly, we find that on the travellers, too, “evolution” cast its
spell, and we have Darwin and Wallace as the types of the biological
travellers, whose results go directly towards the working out of a
cosmology. From Bates and Belt and Brehm there is a long list down
to Dr. Hickson, _The Naturalist in Celebes_, and Mr. Hudson, _The
Naturalist in La Plata_. Not, of course, that most are not specialists,
but the particular interest of their work is biological or bionomical.
I have added to this essay a list of some of the most important works
of the more recent naturalist-travellers with which I am directly
acquainted, being convinced that it is with these that the general, and
perhaps also the professional student of natural history should begin,
as it is with them that his studies must also end. For, not only do
they introduce us, in a manner usually full of interest, to the nature
of animal life, but they lead us to face one of the ultimate problems
of biology--the evolution of faunas.
II.
Alfred Edmund Brehm (1829-1884) was born at Unter-Renthendorf in
Sachsen-Weimar, where his father--an accomplished ornithologist--was
pastor. Brought up among birds, learning to watch from his earliest
boyhood, accompanying his father in rambles through the Thuringian
forest, questioning and being questioned about all the sights and
sounds of the woods, listening to the experts who came to see the
famous collection in the _Pfarr-haus_, and to argue over questions of
species with the kindly pastor, young Brehm was almost bound to become
a naturalist. And while the father stuffed his birds in the evenings
the mother read aloud from Goethe and Schiller, and her poetic feeling
was echoed in her son. Yet, so crooked are life’s ways, the youth
became an architect’s apprentice, and acted as such for four years!
But an opportunity presented itself which called him, doubtless most
willing, from the desk and workshop. Baron John Wilhelm von Müller, a
keen sportsman and lover of birds, sought an assistant to accompany him
on an ornithological expedition to Africa, and with him the youth, not
yet out of his teens, set forth in 1847. It was a great opportunity,
but the price paid for it was heavy, for Brehm did not see his home
again for full five years, and was forced to bear strains, to incur
responsibilities, and to suffer privations, which left their mark on
him for life. Only those who know the story of his African journeys,
and what African travel may be with repeated fevers and inconsiderately
crippled resources, can adequately appreciate the restraint which Brehm
displays in those popular lectures, here translated, where there is so
much of everything but himself.
After he returned, in 1852, rich in spoils and experience, if otherwise
poor, he spent several sessions at the universities of Jena and Vienna.
Though earnestly busy in equipping himself for further work, he was not
too old to enjoy the pleasures of a student life. When he took his
doctor’s degree he published an account of his travels (_Reiseskizzen
aus Nordostafrica._ Jena, 1855, 3 vols.).
After a zoological holiday in Spain with his like-minded brother
Reinhold--a physician in Madrid--he settled for a time in Leipzig,
writing for the famous “_Gartenlaube_”, co-operating with Rossmässler
in bringing out _Die Tiere des Waldes_, expressing his very self in his
_Bird-Life_ (1861), and teaching in the schools. It was during this
period that he visited Lapland, of whose bird-bergs the first lecture
gives such a vivid description. In 1861 he married Matthilde Reiz, who
proved herself the best possible helpmeet.
In 1862, Brehm went as scientific guide on an excursion to Abyssinia
undertaken by the Duke of Coburg-Gotha, and subsequently published a
characteristic account of his observations _Ergebnisse einer Reise nach
Habesch_: Results of a Journey to Abyssinia (Hamburg, 1863). On his
return he began his world-famous _Tierleben_ (Animal Life), which has
been a treasure-house to so many naturalists. With the collaboration
of Professors Taschenberg and Oscar Schmidt, he completed the first
edition of this great work, in six volumes, in 1869.
Meanwhile he had gone to Hamburg as Director of the Zoological Gardens
there, but the organizing work seems to have suited him ill, and he
soon resigned. With a freer hand, he then undertook the establishment
of the famous Berlin Aquarium, in which he partly realized his dream of
a microcosmic living museum of nature. But, apart from his actual work,
the business-relations were ever irksome, and in 1874 he was forced by
ill-health and social friction to abandon his position.
After recovery from serious illness he took up his rôle as popular
lecturer and writer, and as such he had many years of happy success. A
book on Cage Birds (1872-1876), and a second edition of the _Tierleben_
date from this period, which was also interrupted by his Siberian
journeys (1876) and by numerous ornithological expeditions, for
instance to Hungary and Spain, along with the Crown Prince Rudolph
of Austria. But hard work, family sorrows, and finally, perhaps, the
strain of a long lecturing tour in America aged Brehm before his time,
and he died in 1884.
For these notes I am indebted to a delightful appreciation of Brehm
which Ernest Krause has written in introduction to the third edition
of the _Tierleben_, edited by Pechuel-Loesche, and as regards
the naturalist’s character I can only refer to that essay. As to
his published work, however, every naturalist knows at least the
_Tierleben_, and on that a judgment may be safely based. It is a
monumental work on the habits of animals, founded in great part on
personal observation, which was always keen and yet sympathetic. It is
a classic on the natural history of animals, and readers of Darwin will
remember how the master honoured it.
Doubtless Brehm had the defects of his qualities. He was, it is said,
too generous to animals, and sometimes read the man into the beast
unwarrantably. But that is an anthropomorphism which easily besets the
sympathetic naturalist. He was sometimes extravagant and occasionally
credulous. He did not exactly grip some of the subjects he tackled,
such as, if I must specify, what he calls “the monkey-question”.
It is frankly allowed that he was no modern biologist, erudite as
regards evolution-factors, nor did he profess to attempt what is called
zoological analysis, and what is often mere necrology, but his merit
is that he had seen more than most of us, and had seen, above all, the
naturalist’s supreme vision--the vibrating web of life. And he would
have us see it also.
III.
The success of the pictures which Brehm has given us--of bird-bergs
and tundra, of steppes and desert, of river fauna and tropical
forest--raises the wish that they had been complete enough to embrace
the whole world. As this ideal, so desirable both from an educational
and an artistic standpoint, has not been realized by any one volume,
we have ventured to insert here a list of some more or less analogous
English works by naturalist-travellers, sportsmen, and others--
Adams, A. Leith. _Notes of a Naturalist in the Nile Valley and Malta_
(Edinburgh, 1870).
Agassiz, A. _Three Cruises of the “Blake”_ (Boston and New York,
1888).
Baker, S. W. _Wild Beasts and their Ways: Reminiscences of Europe,
Asia, Africa, and America_ (London, 1890).
Bates, H. W. _Naturalist on the Amazons_ (6th Ed. London, 1893).
Belt, T. _Naturalist in Nicaragua_ (2nd Ed. London, 1888).
Bickmore, A. S. _Travels in the East Indian Archipelago_ (1868).
Blanford, W. T. _Observations on the Geology and Zoology of Abyssinia_
(London, 1870).
Bryden, H. A. _Gun and Camera in Southern Africa_ (London, 1893).
_Kloof and Karroo_ (1889).
Burnaby, F. _A Ride to Khiva_ (8th Ed. London, 1877).
Buxton, E. N. _Short Stalks, or Hunting Camps, North, South, East, and
West_ (London, 1893).
Chapman, A. and C. M. Buck. _Wild Spain_ (London, 1892).
Cunningham, R. O. _Notes on the Natural History of the Straits of
Magellan_ (Edinburgh, 1871).
Darwin, C. _Voyage of the “Beagle”_ (1844, New Ed. London, 1890).
Distant, W. L. _A Naturalist in the Transvaal_ (London, 1892).
Drummond, H. _Tropical Africa_ (London, 1888).
Du Chaillu, P. B. _Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa_
(London, 1861). _Ashango Land_ (1867).
Eha. _A Naturalist on the Prowl, or in the Jungle_ (London, 1894).
Forbes, H. O. _A Naturalist’s Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago_
(London, 1885).
Guillemard. _Cruise of the “Marchesa”_ (London, 1886).
Heilprin, A. _The Bermuda Islands_ (Philadelphia, 1889).
Hickson, S. J. _A Naturalist in North Celebes_ (London, 1889).
Holub, Emil. _Seven Years in South Africa_ (1881).
Hudson, W. H. _The Naturalist in La Plata_ (London, 1892). _Idle Days
in Patagonia_ (London, 1893).
Humboldt, A. von. _Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial
Regions of America._ _Views of Nature_ (Trans. 1849). _Cosmos_ (Trans.
1849-58).
Johnston, H. H. _Kilima Ndjaro Expedition_ (1885).
Kingsley, C. _At last! A Christmas in the West Indies_ (1889).
Lumholtz. _Among Cannibals_ (London, 1889).
Moseley, H. N. _Notes by a Naturalist on the “Challenger”_ (London,
1879. New Ed. 1892).
Nordenskiöld, A. E. _Voyage of the “Vega”_ (London, 1881).
Oates, F., Ed. by C. G. Oates. _Matabele Land, the Victoria Falls, a
Naturalist’s Wanderings in the Interior of South Africa_ (1881).
Phillipps-Wolley. _Big-Game Shooting_ (Badminton Libr. London, 1893).
Rodway, J. _In the Guiana Forest_ (London, 1894). _British Guiana_
(London, 1893).
Roosevelt, Th., and G. B. Grinell. _American Big-Game Hunting_
(Edinburgh, 1893).
Schweinfurth, G. _The Heart of Africa_ (1878).
Seebohm, H. _Siberia in Europe_ (London, 1880), _Siberia in Asia_
(London, 1882).
Selous, F. C. _A Hunter’s Wanderings_ (1881). _Travel and Adventure in
South-East Africa_ (London, 1893).
Sibree, Rev. J. _The Great African Island_ (1879).
Solymos, B. (B. E. Falkenberg). _Desert Life_ (London, 1880).
Stanley, H. M. _How I Found Livingstone_ (1872, New Ed. 1885). _The
Congo_ (1885). _Through the Dark Continent_ (1890). _In Darkest
Africa_ (1890).
Swayne, H. G. C. _Seventeen Trips through Somaliland_ (London, 1895).
Tennent, J. E. _Natural History of Ceylon_ (London, 1861).
Thomson, Wyville. _The Depths of the Sea_ (London, 1873). _Narrative
of the Voyage of the “Challenger”_ (1885). And, in this connection,
see S. J. Hickson. _Fauna of the Deep Sea_ (London, 1894).
Tristram, H. B. _The Land of Israel_ (1876). _The Land of Moab_
(1873). _The Great Sahara_ (1860).
Wallace, A. R. _Malay Archipelago_ (London 1869). _Tropical Nature_
(1878). _Island Life_ (1880). _Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro_
(1889).
Waterton, Ch. _Wanderings in South America_ (Ed. by J. G. Wood, 1878).
Woodford, C. M. _Naturalist among the Head-hunters_ (London, 1890).
FROM
NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR.
THE BIRD-BERGS OF LAPLAND.
“When the Creator of the worlds had made the earth, best loved of
all, and was rejoicing in His perfect work, the devil was seized with
a desire to bring it all to nought. Not yet banished from heaven, he
lived among the archangels in the abodes of the blessed. Up to the
seventh heaven he flew, and, seizing a great stone, hurled it with
might down on the earth exulting in the beauty of its youth. But the
Creator saw the ruthless deed, and sent one of His archangels to avert
the evil. The angel flew even more swiftly than the stone to the earth
beneath, and succeeded in saving the land. The huge stone plunged
thundering into the sea, and hissing waves flooded all the shores for
many a mile. The fall shattered the crust of the stone, and thousands
of splinters sank on either side, some disappearing into the depths,
and some rising above the surface, bare and bleak like the rock itself.
Then God took pity, and in His infinite goodness resolved to clothe
even this naked rock with life. But the fruitful soil was all but
exhausted in His hand; there remained scarce enough to lay a little
here and there upon the stone.”
So runs an ancient legend still current among the Lapps. The stone
which the devil threw is Scandinavia; the splinters which fell into
the sea on either side are the skerries which form a richly varied
wreath around the peninsula. The rents and cracks in the rock are the
fjords and the valleys; the sprinkling of life-giving soil which fell
from the gracious Creator’s hand forms the few fertile tracts which
Scandinavia possesses. To appreciate the full depth and meaning of
the childish story one must one’s self have visited Scandinavia, and
especially Norway, have steered a boat among the skerries, and have
sailed round the country from the extreme south to the farthest north.
Marvellous, indeed, is the country; marvellous are its fjords; still
more marvellous is the encircling wreath of islands and reefs.
Scandinavia is an alpine country like Switzerland and the Tyrol, yet
it differs in a hundred ways from both of these. Like our Alps it has
lofty mountains, glaciers, torrents, clear, still alpine lakes, dark
pine and fir forests low down in the gorges, bright green birch woods
on the heights, far-stretching moors--or more strictly tundras--on the
broad shoulders of the mountains, log-huts on the slopes, and the huts
of the cowherds in the upland valleys. And yet all is very different
from our Alps, as is obvious to anyone who has seen both. The reason
of this difference lies in the wonderful way in which two such grand
and impressive features of scenery as lofty mountains and the sea are
associated and harmonized.
The general aspect of Scandinavia is at once grave and gay. Stern
grandeur and soft beauty go hand in hand; gloom alternates with
cheerfulness; with the dead and disquieting is linked the living and
exhilarating. Black masses of rock rear themselves perpendicularly
out of the sea, rise directly from the deeply-cut fjords, and, riven
and cleft, tower precipitously upwards and lean threateningly over.
On their heads lie masses of ice stretching for miles, covering
whole districts and scaring away all life save the torrents to which
they themselves have given birth. These torrents spread themselves
everywhere in ribbons of silver over the dark masses, and not only
give pleasure to the eye, but murmur to the ear the sublime melody of
the mountains. They rush down through every cleft to the depths below,
they burst forth from every gorge, or plunge in mad career from rock
to rock, forming waterfall after waterfall, and awakening echoes from
the farthest mountain sides. These rushing mountain-streams which hurry
down to the valley through every channel, the gleaming bands of water
on every wall of rock, the ascending smoke-like spray which betrays
the most secluded falls--these call forth life even in the most dread
wilderness, in places where otherwise nought can be seen but rocks and
sky--and they are most truly characteristic of the scenery of the
interior.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Scene on the Sogne Fjord, Norway.]
But, majestic as this beauty is, bewildering and overwhelming as are
the fjords with their precipitous walls, their ravines and valleys,
headlands and peaks, they are yet less characteristic than the islands
and skerries lying out in the sea, stretching from the south of the
country up to the far north, and forming a maze of bays, sounds, and
straits such as can hardly be seen elsewhere in the wide world.
The larger islands reproduce more or less faithfully the characters
of the mainland; the smaller ones and the skerries present, under all
circumstances, an aspect of their own. But, as one travels towards the
north, this aspect changes more or less with every degree of latitude.
Like the sea, the islands lack the richness of the south, but are,
nevertheless, by no means devoid of beauty. Especially in the midnight
hours, when the low midsummer sun stands large and blood-red on the
horizon, its veiled brilliance reflected alike from the ice-covered
mountain-tops and from the sea, they have an irresistible charm. This
is enhanced by the homesteads which are dotted everywhere over the
landscape--dwellings built of wood and roofed with turf, glowing in
a strange, blood-red colour which contrasts sharply with the green
turf roof, the black darkness of the adjacent mountain-side, and the
ice-blue of the glaciers in the background of the picture.
The southerner remarks, with some surprise, that these homesteads
become larger, handsomer, and more roomy the farther north he travels;
that, though no longer surrounded by fields, but at the most by small
gardens, they far excel in size and equipment the hut-like buildings
of southern Scandinavia; and that the most pretentious of all may
be on comparatively small islands, where the rocks are covered only
with turf, and where not even a little garden can be won from the
inhospitable soil.
The seeming riddle is solved when we remember that in Norland and
Finland it is not the land but the sea that is ploughed; that there
men do not sow and wield the scythe in summer, but reap in midwinter
without having sowed; that it is in the months in which the long night
holds its undisputed sway, when the light of the sun has given place to
that of the moon, and the rosy flush of dawn and sunset to the glow of
the Northern Lights, that the dwellers in the far north gather in the
rich harvest of the sea.
About the time of the autumnal equinox strong men are preparing
themselves all along the coasts of Norway to secure the harvest of
the North. Every town, every village, every hamlet sends one or more
well-manned ships to the islands and skerries within the Polar Circle,
to anchor for months in every suitable bay. Making the ships or the
homesteads on shore their head-quarters, the fishermen proceed to
gather in the abundant booty. In the height of summer the whole country
is still and deserted, but in winter the bays, islands, and sounds are
teeming with busy men, and laborious hands are toiling night and day.
Spacious as the dwelling-houses appear, they cannot contain the crowds
of people who have assembled; many must remain in the ships, or even
seek a rough-and-ready shelter in rudely-constructed turf-covered huts
on the shore.
The bustle is at its height about the time of the winter solstice,
when we celebrate our Christmas, and the Norsemen their Yule festival.
For weeks the sea has been yielding its treasures. Impelled by the
strongest impulse which moves living beings, guided by irresistible
instinct to sow the seed of future generations, there rise from the
depths of the sea innumerable shoals of fishes--cod, haddock, and
the like. They ascend to the upper strata of the water, approach the
coasts, and throng into the straits, sounds, and fjords in such numbers
that they cover the surface of the sea for many miles. Animated,
almost maddened, by one impulse, the fish swim so thickly that the
boat has literally to force a way among them, that the overweighted
net baffles the combined strength of the fishermen or breaks under
its burden, that an oar placed upright among the densely packed crowd
of swimmers remains for a few moments in its position before falling
to one side.[1] Wherever the rocky islands are washed bare by the
raging high tides, from the mean tide-mark to the lower edge of the
turf which covers their summits, the naked rocks are covered by an
unbroken ring of fish split open and laid out to dry, while trestles
are also erected that other fish may be exposed for the same purpose to
the sharp and drying air. From time to time the rocks and frames are
cleared of dried fish, which are packed in bundles and stored in sheds,
but only that room may be found for others which in the meantime have
been caught and prepared.
For months the bustle continues, and the traffic is uninterrupted; for
months the North continues to exchange its treasures with the South.
Then in the days when about noon a clear light in the south heralds
the coming of the sun still hidden, or when the first rays of sunlight
fall for a brief space upon the land, the rich catch comes gradually to
an end. The dried cod and ling are carried from the storing sheds to
the ships, all available space from keel to deck is filled up, and the
fishermen prepare to journey homewards, or abroad into the wide world.
One ship after another hoists its brown-edged sails and steers away.
The North becomes quieter again, more deserted the land, desolate
the sea. At last, by the time of the spring equinox, all the migrant
fishermen have left the fishing grounds, and all the fish have returned
to the depths of the sea. But the sea is already sending forth other
children to people afresh the straits and sounds, and along with them
the skerries and islands; and soon from those same cliffs, at whose
base there was but lately all the bustle of the winter, millions of
bright bird eyes look down upon the waves.
It is a deeply-affecting trait in the life of all true sea-birds that
only two causes can move them to visit the land: the joyous spring-time
sense of new-awakening love, and the mournful foreboding of approaching
death. Not even Winter with its long night, its cold, and its storms
can drive them to the land; they are proof against all the terrors of
the North, and seek their food upon or under the waves; not even the
threatening jaws of voracious fish scare them ashore. They may alight
occasionally, but only for a short time, often on a solitary island in
the sea, to oil their feathers more thoroughly than can be done in the
water. But when, with the sun’s first brightness, love stirs in their
breasts, all, old and young alike, though they may have to swim and fly
thousands of miles, strive to reach the place where they themselves
first saw the light of day. And if, in mid-winter, months after the
breeding-places have been left desolate, a sea-bird feels death in his
heart, he hastens as long as his strength holds out, that he may, if
possible, die in the place where he was cradled.
The annual assembling of innumerable birds at the breeding-places fills
these for several months with a most marvellous life. The communities
differ like the sea-birds themselves, and the places, or _bergs_ (as
the Norsemen call them), which they people vary also. While some choose
only those reefs which rise just above the high-tide mark, and bear
no more vegetation than is enough to provide scanty material for the
nest hollowed out in the sea-weed heaps, others select islands which
rear themselves straight and steep for several hundred feet above the
sea, and are either rich in shelves, ledges, cavities, fissures, and
other hiding-places, or are covered by a thick layer of peat-like
plant remains. The Norseman calls the lower islets ‘eider-holms’ (or
eider bird-hills, as the German would say), for they are the favourite
brooding-places of what is to him the most valuable, and, what is the
same thing, the most useful of all sea-birds. The higher islands which
rise precipitously from the sea, and are chiefly peopled by auks and
gulls, are included under the general name of _bird-bergs_.
The observant naturalist is of course tempted to study and describe in
detail each individual brooding bird of the sea, but the rich variety
of the inhabitants of the bird-bergs of the far north and the variety
of their habits impose certain limits. Similarly, lest I exceed the
time allowed to me, I must refrain from giving detailed pictures of
the habits of all the berg birds, though I think it well at least
to outline those of a few in order to bring into prominence some of
the chief characteristics of sea-bird life. Selection is difficult,
but one, at any rate--the eider-duck, which returns every spring to
these islands, and helps to beautify them and their surroundings so
marvellously--must not be left undescribed.
Three species of these beautiful ducks inhabit or visit European
shores; one of these, the true eider-bird, is to be found every
summer, even on the north-western islands of Germany, especially
Sylt. Its plumage is a faithful mirror of the northern sea. Black and
red, ash-gray, ice-green, white, brown, and yellow are the colours
harmoniously blended in it. The eider-duck proper is the least
beautiful species, but it is nevertheless a handsome bird. The neck and
back, a band over the wings, and a spot on the sides of the body are
white as the crests of the waves; throat and crop have a white ground
faintly flushed with rose-colour as though the glow of the midnight sun
had been caught there; a belt on the cheeks is delicate green like the
ice of the glacier; breast and belly, wings and tail, the lower part of
the back and the rump are black as the depths of the sea itself. This
splendour belongs only to the male; the female, like all ducks, wears a
more modest yet not less pleasing garb, which I may call a house-dress.
The prevailing rust-coloured ground, shading more or less into brown,
is marked with longitudinal and transverse spots, lines and spirals,
with a beauty and variety that words cannot adequately describe.
No other species of duck is so thoroughly a child of the sea as
the eider-duck; no species waddles more clumsily on land, or flies
less gracefully, but none swims more rapidly or dives more deftly
and deeply. In search of food it sinks fully fifty yards below the
surface of the sea, and is said to be able to remain five minutes--an
extraordinarily long time--under water. Before the beginning of the
brooding season it does not leave the open sea at all, or does so very
rarely; following a whim rather than driven by necessity. Towards the
end of winter the flocks in which they congregate break up into pairs,
and only those males who have not succeeded in securing mates swim
about in little groups. Between two mates the most perfect unanimity
reigns. One will, undoubtedly that of the duck, determines the actions
of both. If she rises from the surface of the water to fly for a
hundred yards through the air, the drake follows her; if she dives
into the sea, he disappears directly afterwards; wherever she turns
he follows faithfully; whatever she does seems to express his wishes.
The pair still live out on the sea, though only where the depth is not
greater than twenty-five fathoms, and where edible mussels and other
bivalves are found in rich abundance on the rocks and the sea-bottom.
These molluscs often form the sole food of eider-ducks, and to procure
them they may have to dive to considerable depths. But it is the
abundance of this food which preserves the eiders from the scarcity
from which so many other species of duck often suffer severely.
In April, or at the latest in the beginning of May, the pairs approach
nearer and nearer the fringe of reefs and the shores of the mainland.
Maternal cares are stirring in the breast of the duck, and to these
everything else is subordinated. Out at sea the pair were so shy that
they never allowed a ship or boat to get near them, and feared man,
if he ever happened to approach them, more than any other living
creature; now in the neighbourhood of the islands their behaviour
changes entirely. Obeying her maternal instincts, and these only, the
duck swims to one of the brooding-places, and paying no attention to
the human inhabitants, waddles on to the land. Anxiously the drake
follows her, not without uttering his warning “Ahua, ahua”, not without
visible hesitation, for every now and then he remains behind as if
reflecting for a while, and then swims forward once more. The duck,
however, pays no heed to all this. Careless of the whole world around
her, she wanders over the island seeking a suitable brooding-place.
Being somewhat fastidious, she is not satisfied with the first good
heap of sea-weed cast up by the tide, with the low juniper-bush whose
branches straggling on the ground offer safe concealment, with the
half-broken box which the owner of the island has placed as a shelter
for her, or with the heaps of twigs and brushwood which he has gathered
to entice her, but approaches the owner’s dwelling as fearlessly as if
she were a domestic bird. She enters it, walks about the floor, follows
the housewife through rooms and kitchen, and capriciously selects, it
may be, the inside of the oven as her resting-place, thereby forcing
the housewife to have her bread baked for weeks on another island.
With manifest alarm the faithful drake follows her as far as he dares;
but when she, in his opinion, so far neglects all considerations of
safety as to dwell under the same roof with human beings, he no longer
tries to struggle against her wayward whim, but leaves her to follow
it alone, and flies out to the safety of the sea, there longingly
to await her daily visit. His mate is in no wise distracted by his
departure, but proceeds to collect twigs and brushwood--a task in
which she willingly accepts the Norseman’s help--and to pile up into a
heap her nest materials, which include sea-weed as well as twigs. She
hollows out a trough with her wings and makes it circular by turning
round and round in it with her smooth breast. Then she sets about
procuring the lining and incorporating it with the nest. Thinking only
of her brood, she plucks the incomparably soft down from her breast and
makes with it a sort of felt, which not only lines the whole hollow
but forms such a thick border at its upper edge that it serves as a
cover to protect the eggs from cold when the mother leaves the nest.
Before the work of lining is quite completed, the duck begins laying
her comparatively small, smooth-shelled, clouded-green or grayish-green
eggs. The clutch consists of from six to eight, seldom more or fewer.
This is the time for which the Norseman has been waiting, for it was
self-interest that prompted all his hospitality to the bird. The host
now becomes the robber. Ruthlessly he takes the eggs and the nest with
its inner lining of costly down. From twenty-four to thirty nests yield
about two pounds of down, worth at least thirty shillings on the spot.
This price is sufficient explanation of the Norseman’s way of acting.
[Illustration: Fig. 2.--Colony of Eider-ducks.]
With a heavy heart the duck sees the downfall of her hopes for that
year. Perturbed and frightened, she flies out to sea, where her mate
awaits her. Whether he takes the opportunity of repeating his warnings
more urgently I cannot say, but I can testify that he very soon
succeeds in consoling her. The joy and spirit of the spring-time still
live in the hearts of both; and in a very few days our duck waddles on
land again as though nothing had happened, to build a second nest! This
time she probably avoids her former position and contents herself with
the first available heap of tangle which is not fully taken up by other
birds. Again she digs and rounds a hollow; again she begins to probe
among her plumage in order to procure the lining of down which seems
to her indispensable. But, however much she exert herself, stretching
her neck and twisting it in intricate snake-like curves, she can find
no more. Yet when was a mother, even a duck mother, at a loss when
her children had to be provided for? Our duck is certainly at none.
She herself has no more down, but her mate bears it untouched on his
breast and back. Now it is his turn. And though he may perhaps rebel,
having a lively recollection of former years, he is the husband and
she the wife, therefore he must obey. Without compunction the anxious
mother rifles his plumage, and in a few hours, or at most within two
days, she has plucked him as bare as herself. That the drake, after
such treatment, should fly out to the open sea as soon as possible, and
associate for some months only with his fellows, troubling himself not
in the least about his mate and her coming brood, seems to me quite
comprehensible. And when, as happens on every nesting island, a drake
is to be seen standing by the brooding duck, I think he must be one who
has not yet been plucked![2]
Our duck broods once more assiduously. And now her house-dress is
seen to be the only suitable, I might say the only possible, garment
which she could wear. Among the tangle which surrounds the nest she
is completely hidden even from the sharp eyes of the falcon or the
sea-eagle. Not only the general colouring, but every point and every
line is so harmonious with the dried sea-weed, that the brooding-bird,
when she has drawn down her neck and slightly spread out her wings,
seems to become almost a part of her surroundings. Many a time it has
happened that I, searching with the practised eye of a sportsman and
naturalist, have walked across eider-holms and only become aware of
the brooding duck at my feet, when she warned me off by pecking at my
shoes. No one who knows the self-forgetting devotion with which the
birds brood will be surprised that it is possible to come so near an
eider-duck sitting in her nest, but it may well excite the astonishment
of even an experienced naturalist to learn that the duck suffers one to
handle the eggs under her breast without flying away, and that she does
not even allow herself to be diverted from her brooding when one lifts
her from the nest and places her upon it again, or lays her on the
ground at some little distance in order to see the charmingly quaint
way in which she waddles back to her brood.
The eider-duck’s maternal self-surrender and desire for offspring show
themselves in another way. Every female eider-duck, perhaps every duck
of whatever species, desires not only the bliss of bearing children,
but wishes to have as many nestlings as possible under her motherly
eye. Prompted by this desire, she has no scruples in robbing, whenever
possible, other eiders brooding near her. Devoted as she is in her
brooding, she must nevertheless forsake her nest once a day to procure
her own food, and to cleanse, oil, and smooth her plumage, which
suffers considerably from the heat developed in brooding. Throwing a
suspicious glance at her neighbours to right and left, she rises early
in the forenoon, after having perhaps suffered the pangs of hunger
for some hours, stands beside her nest and carefully spreads the
surrounding fringe of down with her bill, so that it forms a concealing
and protecting cover for the eggs. Then she flies quickly out to the
sea, dives repeatedly, and hastily fills crop and gullet to the full
with mussels, bathes, cleans, and oils herself, and returns to land,
drying and smoothing her feathers continuously as she walks towards
her nest. Both her neighbours sit seemingly as innocent as before,
but in the interval a theft has been perpetrated by at least one of
them. As soon as the first had flown away, one of them rose from her
nest, and lifting the cover of her neighbour’s nest, quickly rolled
one, two, three, or four eggs with her feet into her own nest, then
carefully replaced the cover, and resumed her place, rejoicing over her
unrighteously-increased clutch. The returning duck probably notices the
trick that has been played, but she makes not the slightest sign, and
calmly settles down to brood again as though she thought, “Just wait,
neighbour, you must go to the sea, too, and then I’ll do to you what
you have done to me”. As a matter of fact, the eggs of several nests
standing close together are shifted continuously from one to another.
Whether it is her own or another’s children that come to life under her
motherly breast seems to matter very little to the eider-duck--they are
children, at any rate!
The duck sits about twenty-six days before the eggs are hatched. The
Norseman, who goes to work intelligently, lets her do as she pleases
this time, and not only refrains from disturbing her, but assists her
as far as possible by keeping away from the island all enemies who
might harass the bird. He knows his ducks, if not personally, at least
to this extent, that he can tell about what time this or that one will
have finished brooding, and will set out with her ducklings to seek
the safety of the sea. The journey thither brings sudden destruction
to many unwatched young eider-ducks. Not only the falcons breeding
on or visiting the island, but even more the ravens, the skuas, and
the larger gulls watch for the first appearance of the ducklings,
attack them on the way, and carry off one or more of them. The owner
of the island seeks to prevent this in a manner which enables one
to appreciate how thoroughly the duck, ordinarily so wild and shy,
has become a domestic bird during the breeding season. Every morning
towards the end of the brooding-time he inspects the island in order
to help the mothers and to gather in a second harvest of down. On his
back hangs a hamper, and on one arm a wide hand-basket. Going from
nest to nest he lifts each duck, and looks to see whether the young
are hatched and are sufficiently dry. If this be the case, he packs
the whole waddling company in his hand-basket, and with adroit grasp
divests the nest of its downy lining, which he throws into his hamper,
and proceeds to another nest. Trustfully the duck waddles after him
or rather after her piping offspring, and a second, third, tenth nest
is thus emptied, in fact the work goes on as long as the basket will
accommodate more nestlings, and one mother after another joins the
procession, exchanging opinions with her companions in suffering on
the way. Arrived at the sea, the man turns the basket upside down and
simply shakes the whole crowd of ducklings into the water. Immediately
all the ducks throw themselves after their piping young ones; coaxing,
calling, displaying all manner of maternal tenderness, they swim about
among the flock, each trying to collect as many ducklings as possible
behind herself. With obvious pride one swims about with a long train
behind her, but soon a second, less favoured, crosses the procession
and seeks to detach as many of the ducklings as she can, and again a
third endeavours to divert a few in her own favour. So all the mothers
swim about, quacking and calling, cackling and coaxing, till at length
each one has behind her a troop of young ones, whether her own or
another’s who can tell? The duck in question certainly does not know,
but her mother-love does not suffer on that account--they are in any
case ducklings who are swimming behind her!
In every case the flock thus collected follows the mother or
foster-mother faithfully even in the first hours of free life. The
mother leads them to places where edible mussels cover the rocks up to
low-water mark, gathers as many as she and her family require, breaks
the shells of the smallest and lays the contents before her brood. On
the first day of their lives the ducklings are able to swim and dive as
well as their parents, and they even excel them in one respect, for
they are incomparably more nimble on land, being able to move about
with surprising activity. If they become tired near an island the
mother leads them on to it, and they run about like young partridges,
and, by simply crouching down at the first warning cry, conceal
themselves so effectively that they can only be found after long
searching. If they get fatigued when they are far from land, the mother
spreads out her wings a little and offers them these and her back as
a resting-place. As they never know want they grow with extraordinary
rapidity, and at the end of two months will have attained nearly the
size, certainly all the adroitness, of their mother. The father soon
joins them in order to pass the winter with his family--usually in
company with many other families, so that a flock of thousands may
occasionally be formed.
The high and annually increasing price of its incomparable down makes
the eider-duck the most valuable of all berg-birds. A thousand pairs
of ducks form a possession well worth having. At least three or four
thousand pairs brood on each island, and the fortunate possessor of
still more numerously visited breeding-places derives revenues through
his birds which many a German land-owner might envy. But besides the
eider-ducks there breed also on the holms oyster-catchers and black
guillemots, whose eggs are preserved and used for food for months, or
are exported to a distance. Furthermore, the flesh of the young birds
is sometimes salted for winter use, and thus the holms yield a rich
harvest. They are therefore strictly preserved and protected by special
laws.[3]
A brooding island peopled by eider-ducks and other sea birds presents a
spectacle as unique as it is fascinating. A more or less thick cloud of
brilliantly white sea-gulls veils such an island. Without intermission
troops and swarms of brooding birds arrive and fly out to sea again,
visiting the neighbouring reefs also, and sometimes marvellously
adorning the drained moorland, now covered with green turf, in front
of the red log-huts. With justifiable pride a dweller on the Lofodens
pointed to several hundred gulls which were assembled directly before
his door seeking for insects. “Our land is too poor, too cold, and
too rough”, he said, “for us to be able to keep domestic birds as
you do in the south. But the sea sends us our doves, and, I ask, have
you ever seen more beautiful?” I could but answer in the negative,
for the picture of the dazzling white and delicate blue-gray gulls on
the luxuriant green turf amid the grand environment of the northern
mountains was indeed magnificent. It is these gulls chiefly which make
the brooding holms conspicuous from a distance, and distinguish them
from others which are physically the same. The other members of the
feathered population are but little noticed, though they number many
thousands. Only when one of the admirable light boats of the country
is pushed off from the inhabited shores and rowed towards the holm
does the quiet life of the birds change. Some oyster-catchers, which
have been feeding directly above the high-water mark, have observed
the boat and fly hastily towards it. These birds, which are absent
from none of the larger islands, scarcely from any of the skerries,
are the guardians of the safety and welfare of the peacefully united
colony. More inquisitive and active than any other birds known to
me, self-possessed, cautious, and deliberate, they possess all the
qualities necessary to make them the sentinels of a mixed colony.
Every new, unusual, or extraordinary event arouses their curiosity,
and incites them to make closer examination. Thus they fly to meet
the boat, sweep round it five or six times in ever-narrowing circles,
screaming uninterruptedly the while, thus attracting others of their
own species to the spot, and rousing the attention of all the cautious
birds in the colony. As soon as they have convinced themselves of the
presence of actual danger, they fly quickly back, and, with warning
notes, communicate the result of their investigation to all the other
birds on the berg who will pay any attention, as indeed many do. Some
gulls now resolve to investigate the cause of the disturbance for
themselves. Five or six of them fly towards the boat, hover falcon-like
in the air, perhaps even dart boldly down upon the intruders, and
return to the holm more quickly than they came. Just as if their report
was mistrusted, twice, three, four--ten times the number take wing,
proceeding exactly as the first spies had done, and soon a cloud of
birds forms above the boat. This cloud becomes thicker and thicker,
more and more threatening, for the birds not only endeavour with
continually increasing boldness to strike against the intruders in the
boat, but they bestow upon them stuff which does not exactly tend to
adorn faces and clothing. In the neighbourhood of the breeding-place
the excitement increases to an apparently distracted confusion, the
cries of individuals unite to form a maddening noise a thousand times
repeated. Before the boat has touched the land the eider-drakes, who
have been visiting their mates, have waddled to the shore and are
now swimming out to sea with a warning “Ahua-ahua”. The cormorants
and mergansers follow them, but the oyster-catchers, plovers, black
guillemots, eider-ducks, gulls, and terns, as well as the stone-chats
and water-wagtails, cannot make up their minds to forsake the island.
Running birds innumerable rush up and down the shore as if pursued by
the evil one; the black guillemots, which had glided up the slanting
blocks of rock, squat flat down upon them and stare in innocent wonder
at the strangers, and the eider-ducks prepare to make themselves
invisible after their fashion when the right moment comes.
The boat touches the shore. We step upon the holm. A screech rises from
thousands of voices at once, the cloud of flying birds thickens to
opaqueness; hundreds of brooding gulls rise croaking to join those in
flight; dozens of oyster-catchers scream loudly, and the maze of moving
birds and the noise of their screeching become so bewildering that one
feels as if one perceived with the bodily senses the din and riot of
the witches’ revel on the Blocksberg.
“Voices o’er us dost thou hear?
Voices far, and voices near?
All the mountain-range along
Streams a raving Witches’ Song.”
Mephisto’s words are realized. The noise and tumult, the confusion of
forms and cries, fatigue all the senses; everything swims and flickers
before our eyes; there is singing and ringing in our ears, till at
length we are conscious of neither colour nor noise, scarcely even
of the usually very penetrating odour. In whatever direction we may
turn the cloud covers the island; nothing is to be seen but birds, and
when thousands alight to rest thousands more take wing, their care and
anxiety for their brood making them forget their own powerlessness,
and encouraging them to a defence which, though not dangerous, is
certainly embarrassing to the explorers.
[Illustration: Fig. 3.--The Bird-bergs of Lapland.]
Essentially different from the life--after all very inoffensive--on an
eider-holm is the picture presented by an island peopled by silver,
herring, or great black-backed gulls. These also congregate on certain
islands for the breeding season in hundreds and hundreds of pairs, one
such island being sometimes inhabited by from three to five thousand
pairs. The island presents quite as beautiful and noble a spectacle
as the eider-holm. The large, dazzling white, and light or dark gray
forms contrast wonderfully with the whole surroundings, and their
movements possess much of the grace which characterizes all gulls. But
these strong, powerful, rapacious gulls, though gregarious, are not
peaceable neighbours. No member of such a colony trusts any other. Each
pair lives by itself, marks out a definite brooding-ground, however
small its diameter, allows no other pair within its boundaries, and
both birds never leave the nest at the same time. If they have been
disturbed by a powerful common enemy they hasten back as quickly as
possible to the nest to protect it from others of their own species.
Less noisy, but certainly not less impressive, is the life on the
real bird-bergs, the breeding-grounds of razor-bills, guillemots, and
puffins, with at most here and there one or other of the gulls or of
the cormorants. It will suffice if I attempt to describe one such berg
in narrative form.
To the north of the large island belonging to the Lofoden group, and
about three hundred yards from its shore, lie three bell-shaped rocky
islands (the Nyken), rising rugged and steep for about three hundred
feet above the surface of the sea, and closely surrounded by a circle
of little reefs. One of these rocky cones is a bird-berg, and one can
hardly imagine a finer of its kind.
We prepared to visit the island on a beautiful summer day when the
sea was unusually smooth and calm, the sky clear and blue, the air
warm and pleasant. Powerful Norsemen rowed our light boat in and out
among innumerable skerries. Look where we would, we saw birds. Almost
every rock which rose above the surface of the water was peopled with
them. Some of the reefs were coated with white by the excrement of
the cormorants which regularly spent a portion of each day there in
rest. Arranged in rows, like soldiers drawn up, they sat in tens,
twenties, or hundreds, in the most extraordinary positions, their necks
stretched, their wings spread out so that every part of their bodies
might have full benefit of the sunshine, waving their wings also as
if to fan each other, and all the while casting watchful glances in
every direction. On our approach, they threw themselves heavily with
hollow cries into the sea, and then, swimming and diving, defied all
our attempts to get near them. Other reefs were covered with gulls,
hundreds and thousands of the same species; or with male eiders, which
had probably come from some eider-holm or other, to amuse themselves
after the fashion of their sex while their mates were busied with
maternal cares. Around other rocky islands the dazzling eider-birds,
perhaps newly-plucked males, had congregated and arranged themselves
in a circle, suggestive of the great white water-lilies of our quiet
freshwater lakes. In the sounds that were not too deep one could see
the fishing mergansers and divers, one or other of which would every
now and then give full vent to its shrill, far-reaching cry--a cry so
long-drawn-out and so varied in tone that one might call it a song,
were it not rather a wild melody such as can only be executed by a
child of the North Sea who has listened to the howling and blustering
of winter storms, and has echoed the roar of the surging waves. Proud
as a prince upon his throne sat here and there a sea-eagle, the terror
of all the feathered creatures of the sea; sometimes we saw a whole
company of these robbers gorged with prey; the jerfalcon, who had his
eyrie on one of the steep precipices, flew through his wide domain
with the swiftness of an arrow; fluttering gulls and kittiwakes and
fishing terns darted up and down; oyster-catchers greeted us with their
trilling cries; razor-bills and guillemots appeared and disappeared all
about us as they rose to the surface or dived underneath.
In such company we proceeded on our way. When we had traversed about
ten nautical miles we came within range of the Nyke. In whatever
direction we looked we saw some of the temporary dwellers on the berg,
fishing and diving in the sea, or, startled by our boat, flying along
so close to the surface of the water that their bright red webbed feet
struck spray from the waves. We saw swarms of from thirty to fifty or
a hundred birds streaming from or towards the berg, and we could not
doubt that we were approaching a very populous breeding-colony. But
we had been told of millions of brooding birds, and as yet we could
see nothing of such numbers. At length, after we had rowed round a
projecting ridge, the Nyke lay before us. In the sea, all around, were
black points, at the foot of the hill white ones. The former were
without order or regularity, the latter generally in rows, or sharply
defined troops; the one set consisted of razor-bills swimming, with
head, throat, and neck above the water, the others were the same birds
sitting on the hill with their white breasts turned towards the sea.
There were certainly many thousands, but not millions.
After we had landed at the opposite island and refreshed ourselves
in the house of the proprietor of the Nyke, we crossed over to it,
and choosing a place round which the seething waves did not surge
too violently, we sprang out on the rock and climbed quickly up to
the turf which covers the whole Nyke, with the exception of a few
protruding peaks, ledges, and angles. There we found that the whole
turf was so pierced with nest-hollows something like rabbit holes,
that on the whole hill not a single place the size of a table could be
found free from such openings. We made our way upwards in a spiral,
clambering rather than walking to the top of the berg. The undermined
turf trembled under our feet, and from every hole there peeped, crept,
glided, or flew out birds rather larger than pigeons, slate-coloured on
the upper part of the body, dazzlingly white on breast and belly, with
fantastic bills and faces, short, narrow, pointed wings, and stumpy
tails. Out of every hole they appeared and even out of the fissures and
clefts in the rocks. Whichever way we turned we saw only birds, heard
only the low droning noise of their combined weak cries. Every step
onwards brought new flocks out of the bowels of the earth. From the
berg down to the sea, from the sea up to the berg there flew swarms
innumerable. The dozens became hundreds, the hundreds became thousands,
and hundreds of thousands sprang incessantly from the brown-green turf.
A cloud not less thick than that over the holm enveloped us, enveloped
the island, so that it--magically indeed, but in a way perceptible by
the senses--seemed transformed into a gigantic bee-hive, round which
not less gigantic bees, humming and buzzing, hovered and fluttered.
The farther we went, the more magnificent became the spectacle. The
whole hill was alive. Hundreds of thousands of eyes looked down upon
us intruders. From every hole and corner, from every peak and ledge,
out of every cleft, burrow, or opening, they hurried forth, right,
left, above, beneath; the air, like the ground, teemed with birds. From
the sides and from the summit of the berg thousands threw themselves
like a continuous cataract into the sea in a throng so dense that
they seemed to the eye to form an almost solid mass. Thousands came,
thousands went, thousands fluttered in a wondrous mazy dance; hundreds
of thousands flew, hundreds of thousands swam and dived, and yet
other hundreds of thousands awaited the footsteps which should rouse
them also. There was such a swarming, whirring, rustling, dancing,
flying, and creeping all about us that we almost lost our senses; the
eye refused duty, and his wonted skill failed even the marksman who
attempted to gain a prize at random among the thousands. Bewildered,
hardly conscious, we pushed on our way until at length we reached the
summit. Our expectation here at last to regain quietness, composure,
and power of observation, was not at once realized. Even here there was
the same swarming and whirring as further down the slope, and the cloud
of birds around us was so thick that we only saw the sea dimly and
indefinitely as in twilight. But a pair of jerfalcons, who had their
eyrie in a neighbouring precipice, and had seen the unusual bustle,
suddenly changed the wonderful scene. The razor-bills, guillemots,
and puffins were not afraid of us; but on the appearance of their
well-known and irresistible enemies, the whole cloud threw themselves
with one accord, as at the command of a magician, into the sea, and
the outlook was clear and free. Innumerable black points, the heads of
the birds swimming in the sea, stood out distinctly from the water,
and broke up the blue-green colouring of the waves. Their number was
so great that from the top of the berg, which was over three hundred
feet high, we could not see where the swarm ended, could not discover
where the sea was clear from birds. In order to make a calculation, I
measured out a small square with my eye, and began to count the points
in it. There were more than a hundred. Then I endeavoured mentally to
place several similar squares together, and soon came to thousands
of points. But I might have imagined many thousands of such squares
together and yet not exhausted the space covered by birds. The millions
of which I had been told were really there. This picture of apparent
quiet only lasted for a few moments. The birds soon began to fly
upwards again, and as before, hundreds of thousands rose simultaneously
from the water to ascend the hill, as before a cloud formed round it,
and our senses were again bewildered. Unable to see, and deafened by
the indescribable noise about me, I threw myself on the ground, and
the birds streamed by on all sides. New ones crept constantly out of
their holes, while those we had previously startled now crept back
again; they settled all about me, looking with comical amazement at the
strange form among them, and approaching with mincing gait so close
to me that I attempted to seize them. The beauty and charm of life
showed themselves in every movement of these remarkable birds. With
astonishment I saw that even the best pictures of them are stiff and
cold, for I remarked in their quaint forms a mobility and liveliness
with which I had not credited them. They did not remain still a single
instant, their heads and necks at least were moved incessantly to
all sides, and their contours often showed most graceful lines. It
seemed as though the inoffensiveness with which I had given myself
up to observing them, had been rewarded by unlimited confidence on
their part. The thousands just about me were like domestic birds; the
millions paid me no more attention than if I had been one of themselves.
I spent eighteen hours on this bird-berg in order to study the life of
the auks.[4] When the midnight sun stood large and blood-red in the sky
and cast its rosy light on the sides of the hill there came the peace
which midnight brings even in the far North. The sea was deserted; all
the birds which had been fishing and diving in it had flown up to the
berg. There they sat wherever there was room to sit in long rows of
tens, of hundreds, of hundreds of thousands, forming dazzling white
lines as all, without exception, sat facing the sea. Their ‘arr’ and
‘err’, which had deafened our ears notwithstanding the weakness of
the individual voices, were silent now, and only the roar of the surf
breaking on the rocks far below resounded as before. Not till the sun
rose again did the old bewildering bustle begin anew, and as we at
length descended the hill by the way we had climbed it, we were once
more surrounded by a thick cloud of startled birds.
It is not because of their enormous numbers alone that the auks are so
fascinating; there is much that is attractive in their life and habits.
During the brooding time their social virtues reach an extraordinary
height. Till the beginning of that season they live entirely on the
open sea, defying the severest winter and the wildest storms. Even
in the long night of winter very few of them forsake their northern
home, but they range, in flocks of hundreds and thousands, from one
fishing-ground to another, finding all the open spaces among the ice
as unfailingly as they do other promising feeding-grounds in the open
sea. But when the sun reappears they are animated by one feeling--love,
by one longing--to reach as soon as possible the hill where their
own cradle stood. Then somewhere about Easter-time they all set out,
swimming more than flying, for the bird-berg. But among the auks there
are more males than females, and not every male is fortunate enough
to secure a wife. Among other birds such a disproportion gives rise
to ceaseless strife, yet among these auks peace is not disturbed. The
much-to-be-pitied beings whom, making use of a human analogy, we may
call bachelors, migrate to the berg as well as the fortunate pairs, who
coquette and caress by the way; they fly up with these to the heights
and accompany them on their hunting expeditions to the surrounding sea.
As soon as the weather permits, the pairs begin to get the old holes
in order; they clear them out, deepen them, enlarge their chambers,
and, if necessary, hollow out a new brooding-place. As soon as this
has been done the female lays, on the bare ground at the further end
of the hollowed-out brooding-chamber, a single very large, top-shaped,
brightly-spotted egg, and begins to brood alternately with the male.
The poor bachelors have a sad time of it now. They, too, would dearly
like to take parental cares upon themselves if they could only find
a mate who would share them. But all the females are appropriated,
and wooing is in vain. So they resolve to give practical proof of
their good-will, at least in so far that they force themselves on the
fortunate pair as friends of the family. In the hours about midnight,
when the female broods on the nest, they sit with the male as he keeps
watch before it, and, when the male relieves his mate that she may
fish in the sea, they mount guard in his stead. But when both parents
visit the sea at once the bachelors hasten to reap some reward for
their faithfulness. Without delay they thrust themselves into the
interior of the cavity, and sit for the time upon the forsaken egg.
The poor birds who are condemned to celibacy want at least to brood a
little! This unselfish devotion has one result for which men might envy
the auks--there are no orphans on these bird-bergs. Should the male
of a pair come to grief, his widow immediately consoles herself with
another mate, and in the rarer case of both parents losing their lives
at once the good-natured supernumeraries are quite ready to finish
hatching the egg and to rear the young one. The young ones differ
materially from those of the ducks and gulls. They are ‘altrices’, not
‘præcoces’ as the ornithologists say;[5] in plain language, they are
not ready for active life as soon as they are hatched. In a dress of
thick gray down the young auk slips from the egg in which it awakes
to life, but it must spend many weeks in the hole before it is ready
to attempt its first flight to the sea. This first flight is always a
hazardous undertaking, as is proved by the countless dead bodies on
the cliffs at the foot of the berg. The young bird, nervously using
its unpractised legs, hardly less timidly its newly-developed wings,
follows its parents as they lead the way down the hill towards some
place from which the leap into the sea may be attempted with as little
danger as possible. On a suitable ledge the parents often remain a
long time with their young one before they can induce it to take
a spring. Both father and mother persuade it coaxingly; the little
one, usually obedient like all young birds, pays no heed to their
commands. The father throws himself into the sea before the eyes of
his hesitating offspring; the inexperienced young one remains where he
was. More attempts, more coaxing, urgent pressure: at length he risks
the great leap and plunges like a falling stone deep into the sea;
then, unconsciously obeying his instincts, he works his way to the
surface, looks all around over the unending sea, and--is a sea-bird who
thenceforth shuns no danger.
Different again is the life and activity on the bergs chosen as
brooding-places by the kittiwakes. Such a hill is the promontory
Swärtholm, high up in the north between the Laxen and the Porsanger
fjord, not far from the North Cape. I knew well how these gulls appear
on their brooding-places. Faber, with his excellent knowledge of the
birds of the far North, has depicted it, as usual, in a few vivid words:
“They hide the sun when they fly, they cover the skerries when they
sit, they drown the thunder of the surf when they cry, they colour the
rocks white when they brood.” I believed the excellent Faber after I
had seen the eider-holms and auk-bergs, and yet I doubted, as every
naturalist must, and therefore I ardently desired to visit Swärtholm
for myself. An amiable Norseman with whom I became friendly, the pilot
of the mail steamer by which I travelled, readily agreed to row me
over to the breeding-place, and we approached the promontory late one
evening. At a distance of six or eight nautical miles we were overtaken
by flocks of from thirty to a hundred, sometimes even two hundred
kittiwakes flying to their nesting-place. The nearer we approached to
Swärtholm the more rapid was the succession of these swarms, and the
larger did they become. At last the promontory became visible, a rocky
wall about eight hundred yards long, pierced by innumerable holes,
rising almost perpendicularly from the sea to a height of from four
hundred and fifty to six hundred feet. It looked gray in the distance,
but with a telescope one could discern innumerable points and lines.
It looked as though a gigantic slate had been scratched all over with
all sorts of marks by a playful giant child, as though the whole rock
bore a wondrous decoration of chains, rings, and stars. From the dark
depths of large and small cavities there gleamed a brilliant white; the
shelving ledges stood out in more conspicuous brightness. The brooding
gulls on their nests formed the white pattern, and we realized the
truth of Faber’s words, “they cover the rocks when they sit”.
[Illustration: Fig. 4.--Razor-bills.]
Our boat, as it grated on the rocky shore, startled a number of the
gulls, and I saw a picture such as I had seen on many eider-holms
and gull-islands. A shot from my friend’s gun thundered against
the precipice. As a raging winter storm rushes through the air and
breaks up the snow-laden clouds till they fall in flakes, so now it
snowed living birds. One saw neither hill nor sky, nothing but an
indescribable confusion. A thick cloud darkened the whole horizon,
justifying the description “they hide the sun when they fly”. The north
wind blew violently and the icy sea surged wildly against the foot of
the cliffs, but more loudly still resounded the shrill cries of the
birds, so that the truth of the last part also of Faber’s description
was fully proved, “they drown the thunder of the surf when they cry”.
At length the cloud sank down upon the sea, the hitherto dim outlines
of Swärtholm became distinct again, and a new spectacle enchained our
gaze. On the precipices there seemed to sit quite as many birds as
before, and thousands were still flying up and down. A second shot
scared new flocks, a second time it snowed birds down upon the sea,
and still the hillsides were covered with hundreds of thousands.
But on the sea, as far as the eye could reach, lay gulls like light
foam-balls rocking up and down with the waves. How shall I describe the
magnificent spectacle? Shall I say that the sea had woven millions and
millions of bright pearls into her dark wave-robe? Or shall I compare
the gulls to stars; and the ocean to the dome of heaven? I know not;
but I know that I have seen nothing more gorgeous even on the sea.
And as if the charm were not already great enough, the midnight sun,
erewhile clouded over, suddenly shed its rosy light over promontory and
sea and birds, lighting up every wave-crest as if a golden, wide-meshed
net had been thrown over the water, and making the rose-tinted
dazzling gulls appear more brilliant than before. We stood speechless
at the sight! And we, with all our company, even the sailors of our
boat, remained motionless for a long, long time, deeply moved by the
wonderful picture before us, till at last one of us broke the silence,
and, rather to recover himself through the sound of his own voice than
to express his inner feeling, softly uttered the poet’s words:
Over the bergs the sun blood-red
Shone through the night;
Nor day nor dark was over head,
But weird twilight.
THE TUNDRA AND ITS ANIMAL LIFE.
Around the North Pole lies a broad belt of inhospitable land, a desert
which owes its special character rather to the water than to the sun.
Towards the Pole this desert gradually loses itself in fields of ice,
towards the south in dwarfed woods, becoming itself a field of snow
and ice when the long winter sets in, while stunted trees attempt the
struggle for existence only in the deepest valleys or on the sunniest
slopes. This region is the Tundra.[6]
It is a monotonous picture which I attempt to sketch when I seek to
describe the tundra, a picture gray on gray, yet not devoid of all
beauty; it is a desert with which we have to do, but a desert in which
life, though for many months slumbering and apparently banished, stirs
periodically in wondrous fulness.
Our language possesses no synonym for the word tundra, because our
Fatherland possesses no such tract of country. For the tundra is
neither heath nor moor, neither marsh nor fen, neither highlands nor
sand-dunes, neither moss nor morass, though in many places it may
resemble one or other of these. “Moss-steppes” someone has attempted
to name it, but the expression is only satisfactory to those who have
grasped the idea of steppe in its widest sense. In my opinion the
tundra most resembles one of those moors which we find--and avoid--on
the broad saddles of our lofty mountains; but it differs in many and
important respects even from these boggy plateaus; indeed its character
is in every respect unique. The region is sometimes divided into low
and high tundra, though the differences between the land under three
hundred feet above sea-level and that above this line are in the tundra
more apparent than real.
The low tundra is bounded by flat, wavy outlines; its valleys are
shallow troughs, and even the heights, which, from a distance, look
like hills or even mountains, turn out to be only flat hillocks when
one approaches their base. Flatness, uniformity, expressionlessness
prevail, yet that there is a certain variety in the landscape, a
diversity in some of its individual features, cannot be disputed. As
one wanders through the tundra for days at a time, one’s attention
is often arrested by dainty, even charming little pictures, but such
pictures rarely stamp themselves on the memory, since on closer
examination they prove, in all important details, in setting and
surroundings, in contour and colour, like too many other scenes to
make a distinct impression. Notwithstanding this monotony, the general
aspect of the tundra has little unity, still less grandeur, and on this
account one does not become enthusiastic about the region, does not
reach to the heights of emotion which other landscapes awaken, perhaps
does not even attain to full enjoyment of the real beauties which, it
must be admitted, even this desert possesses.
The tundra receives its greatest beauty from the sky, its greatest
charm from the water. The sky is seldom quite clear and bright, though
even here the sun, shining uninterruptedly for months together, can
beat down hot and oppressive on the flat hills and damp valleys. The
blue sky is usually seen only in isolated places through light, white,
loose-layered clouds; these are often massed together into cloud-banks
which form on all sides of the apparently immeasurable horizon,
continually changing, shifting, assuming new forms, appearing and
vanishing again, so ravishing the eye with their changeful brilliance
that one almost forgets the landscape underneath. When a thunder-storm
threatens after a hot day the sky darkens here and there to the deepest
gray-blue, the vapour-laden clouds sink beneath the lighter ones,
and the sun shines through, clear and brilliant; then the dreary,
monotonous landscape is magically beautified. For light and shade
now diversify the hill-tops and valleys, and the wearisome monotony
of their colour gains variety and life. And when, in the middle of a
midsummer night, the sun stands large and blood-red in the heavens,
when all the clouds are flushed with purple from beneath, when those
hill-tops which hide the luminary bear a far-reaching flaming crown of
rays, when a delicate rosy haze lies over the brown-green landscape,
when, in a word, the indescribable magic of the midnight sun casts its
spell over the soul: then this wilderness is transformed into enchanted
fields, and a blissful awe fills the heart.
[Illustration: Fig. 5.--The High Tundra in Northern Siberia.]
But variety and life are also given by the jewels of the tundra--its
innumerable lakes. Distributed singly or in groups, lying beside
or rising above each other, stretching out into water-basins miles in
breadth, or shrinking into little pools, they occupy the centre of
every hollow, beautify every valley, almost every glen, sparkle in
the all-enlivening sunshine, and gray and colourless though they may
be, assume, if seen from the top of a hill, the deep blue of mountain
lakes. And when the sunlight flashes and twinkles on their mirroring
waves, or when they, too, are touched by the rosy glow of midnight,
they stand out from the surrounding gloom like living lights, on which
the eye delights to linger.
Much grander, though still gloomy and monotonous, is the spectacle
presented by the high tundra. Here the mountains--for such they
are--have all the charms of height. They almost always rise
precipitously, and the chains they form have much-broken lines, and in
all suitable places the snowy sheets which cover them become glaciers.
Tundra in the strict sense is only to be found where the water does
not find rapid outlet; the whole remaining country seems so different
from the low grounds that only the essentially similar vegetation
proclaims it tundra. The boulders, which in the low grounds are
turfed over with thick layers of dead plant remains, are here almost
everywhere exposed; endless heaps of gigantic blocks cover the slopes
and fill the valleys; boulders form the substratum of wide, almost flat
surfaces on which the traveller treads hesitatingly, as he ponders
over the difficult riddle regarding the forces which have distributed
the blocks over these vast surfaces with almost unvarying regularity.
But everywhere between them the water trickles and glides, ripples and
swells, rushes and roars, rages and thunders down to the low ground.
From the slopes it flows in trickling threads, converging runlets, and
murmuring brooklets; from the crevices of the glaciers it breaks forth
in milky torrents; it enters the water-basins in turbid rivulets; it
escapes from the purifying lakes in crystalline streams, and whirling
and foaming, hissing and raging, it hurries onwards down the valleys,
forming alternate waterfalls and whirlpools, till it reaches the low
tundra, a river, or the sea. But the sun, as often as it breaks through
the clouds, floods this unique mountain region also with its magic
colours, defines every hill and valley, illumines every snowfield,
makes every glacier and ravine conspicuous and telling, gives effect to
every peak, ridge and cliff, shows every lake as a clear and smiling
mountain eye, spreads, morning and evening, the blue haze of distance
like a delicate veil over the background of the picture, and, at
midnight, floods the whole with its deepest rays, so that it is bathed
in rosy light. Surely even the tundra is not without its charms.
In some places, though very rarely, the vegetation gives a certain form
and beauty to the scenery. Pines and firs, if not altogether confined
to the south, are only to be found in the most sheltered valleys. The
few firs which are to be seen look as if they had been seized by a
giant hand and twisted like a screw, and they do not thrive in the
higher districts. The birches penetrate farther, but even they are
stunted and bent like grizzled dwarfs. The larches alone here and
there hold the field, and grow to be really trees, but they cannot be
described as characteristic of the tundra. The most characteristic
plant is certainly the dwarf-birch. Only under exceptionally favourable
circumstances attaining to a yard in height, it predominates over by
far the greater part of the tundra so absolutely that all other bushes
and shrubs seem only to have sprung up between the birches. It spreads
over all tracts where it can take root, from the shore of the sea or
river to the tops of the mountains, a more or less thick covering so
equal in height that great stretches look as if they had been shorn
along the top; it recedes only where the ground is so soaked with water
that it forms swamp or morass; it is stunted only where the heights are
covered with infertile quartz or with stiff clay, which hardens readily
in the sun; but it strives for mastery with the bog-moss on all the
low grounds and with the reindeer-moss on every height. Areas of many
square miles are so thickly clothed--one might almost say felted--that
only the indestructible bog-moss ventures to assert its claim to
the soil beside, or rather under the birches. In other less moist
places we find dwarf-birches, sweet-willow, and marsh-andromeda mixed
together. In the same way various berry-bearing bushes are often mixed,
especially cowberries, crowberries, cranberries, and whortleberries.
If the ground lies below the level of the surrounding plains, and
is therefore very moist, the bog-moss gains the day, and, gradually
crowding out the dwarf-birch, forms great swelling cushions. As the
root-parts rapidly die away into peat, these cushions become higher
and more extensive until the water impedes any further advance, or
else they break up into dome-like hillocks. If the basin be very flat,
the accumulated water rarely forms a lake or pond, scarcely even a
pool, but soaks through the soil to an indefinite depth, and so forms
a morass whose thin but tough covering of interlacing sedge-roots can
only be trodden in safety by the broad-hoofed reindeer; and even his
steps, and the deeply-sinking runners of the sledge, make it yield and
tremble like jelly.
When the depression becomes a short confined trough, without outlet,
into which a streamlet flows, however slowly, the morass becomes a
bog, or lower down, a swamp. In the first of these, reeds, in the
second downy willows (sallows), a second characteristic plant of the
tundra, attain to luxuriant growth. Though only in very favourable
circumstances becoming as tall as a man, these plants form thickets
which may be literally impenetrable. Their branches and roots interlace
to an even greater extent than do those of the dwarf-firs on the
mountains, forming an inextricable maze which can best be compared
to a felt compacted out of all the different parts of the willow. It
withstands the strongest arm, when one tries to clear a path through
it, and it offers so much obstruction to the foot that the most
persistent explorer soon gives up the attempt to pierce it, and turns
aside, or retraces his steps. This he does the more readily as the
substratum is in most cases morass or an almost continuous series of
marshy, slimy pools whose fathomableness one is unwilling even to try.
As the traveller journeys through the tundra, he recognizes that the
whole region presents to the eye the individual features already
described, in regular alternation and monotonous repetition. Only where
a large river of considerable volume flows through the low tundra is
there any real change. Such a river deposits on its banks the masses
of sand it has carried down; and the wind, which blows constantly and
usually violently, piles these gradually up into dunes along the
banks; thus a soil foreign to the tundra is formed. On these sand-hills
the larch grows, even in the tundra of Siberia, to a stately tree,
and becomes, in association with willows and dwarf alder bushes, an
ornament to the landscape. In the neighbourhood of small lakes the
trees may even be grouped together, and, with the shrubs already named,
form a natural park which would not escape observation even in a much
richer and more fertile district, and is here so very remarkable that
it leaves a lasting impression.
[Illustration: Fig. 6.--Peregrine Falcons and Lemmings.]
When the larch has taken root in the sand-hills, there grow up under
its sheltering branches other tall-stemmed plants such as sharp-leaved
willows, mountain ash, black alder, and woodbine bushes, and there
spring from the sand many flowers which one thought to have left far
behind in the south. The surprised southerner is cheered by the red
glory of the willow-herb; the charming wild rose clings close to the
motherly earth, decorating it with its slender stems and its flowers;
the bright forget-me-not looks up with home-like greeting; here
hellebore and chives, valerian and thyme, carnations and blue-bells,
bird-vetch and alpine vetch, ranunculus and immortelles, lady’s-smock,
Jacob’s-ladder, cinquefoil, love-lies-bleeding, and others find a home
in the desert. In such places more plants grow than one had expected,
but the traveller is certainly modest in his expectations when he has
seen the same poverty all around for days and weeks together, always
dwarf-birches and sallows, marsh-andromeda and sedge, reindeer-moss
and bog-moss; has refreshed himself with the stunted crowberries and
cranberries half-hidden in the moss, half-creeping on the ground,
and has been obliged to take the cloudberries which decorate the
moss-cushion as flowers; when he has tramped over them and among
them for days together always hoping for a change, and always being
disappointed. Every familiar plant from the south reminds him of
happier regions; he greets it as a dear friend whose value is only
realized when he has begun to fear losing him.[7]
It seems strange that the plants above-named and many others should
spring only from the dry sand of the dunes, but the apparent riddle
is solved when we know that it is only the sand thus piled up, that
becomes sufficiently warmed in the months of uninterrupted sunshine
for these plants to flourish. Nowhere else throughout the tundra is
this the case. Moor and bog, morass and swamp, even the lakes with
water several yards in depth only form a thin summer covering over
the eternal winter which reigns in the tundra, with destructive as
well as with preserving power. Wherever one tries to penetrate to any
depth in the soil one comes--in most cases scarcely a yard from the
surface--upon ice, or at least on frozen soil, and it is said that one
must dig about a hundred yards before breaking through the ice-crust
of the earth. It is this crust which prevents the higher plants from
vigorous growth, and allows only such to live as are content with
the dry layer of soil which thaws in summer. It is only by digging
that one can know the tundra for what it is: an immeasurable and
unchangeable ice-vault which has endured, and will continue to endure,
for hundreds of thousands of years. That it has thus endured is proved
indisputably by the remains of prehistoric animals embedded in it, and
thus preserved for us. In 1807 Adams dug from the ice of the tundras
the giant mammoth, with whose flesh the dogs of the Yakuts sated their
hunger, although it must have died many thousands of years before,
for the race became extinct in the incalculably distant past. The icy
tundra had faithfully preserved the carcase of this primitive elephant
all through these hundreds of thousands of years.[8]
Many similar animals, and others of a more modern time, are embedded
in the ice, though it is not to be supposed that the tundra was ever
able to sustain a much richer fauna than it has now. Bison and musk-ox
traversed it long after the time of the mammoth; giant-elk and moose
belonged to it once. Now its animal life is as poor and monotonous as
its vegetation--as itself. This holds true, however, only with regard
to species, not to individuals, for the tundra is, at least in summer,
the home of numerous animals.
The year is well advanced before the tundra begins to be visibly
peopled. Of the species which never leave it one sees very little in
winter. The fish which ascend its rivers from the sea are concealed by
the ice; the mammals and birds which winter in it are hidden by the
snow, under which they live, or whose colour they wear. Not until the
snow begins to melt on the southern slopes does the animal life begin
to stir. Hesitatingly the summer visitors make their appearance. The
wolf follows the wild reindeer, the army of summer birds follows the
drifting ice blocks on the streams. Some of the birds remain still
undecided in the regions to the South, behave as if they would breed
there, then suddenly disappear from their resting-place by the way, fly
hastily to the tundra, begin to build directly on their arrival, lay
their eggs, and brood eagerly, as though they wished to make up for
the time gained by their relatives in the South. Their summer life is
compressed into few weeks. They arrive already united, paired for life,
or at least for the summer; their hearts stirred by all-powerful love,
they proceed, singing and rejoicing, to build a nest; unceasingly they
give themselves up to their parental duties, brood, rear, and educate
their young, moult, and migrate abroad again.
[Illustration: Fig. 7.--The White or Arctic Fox (_Canis lagopus_).]
The number of species which may be looked upon as native to the tundra
is small indeed, yet it is much greater than that of those which may
be regarded as characteristic of the region. As the first of these, I
should like to place the Arctic fox. He ranges over the whole extent
of the tundra, and is sure of maintenance and food in the south at
least, where he occurs along with our fox and other allied species.
Like some other creatures he wears the colours of his home, in summer
a rock-coloured dress, in winter a snow-white robe, for the hairs
of his thick fur coat are at first stone-gray or grayish-blue, and
become snow-white in winter.[9] He struggles through life with ups
and downs like other foxes, but his whole character and conduct are
quite different from those of our reynard and his near relatives. One
scarcely does him injustice in describing him as a degenerate member of
a distinguished family, unusually gifted, intelligent, and ingenious.
Of the slyness and ingenuity, the calculating craft, the never-failing
presence of mind of his congeners he evinces hardly any trace. His
disposition is bold and forward, his manner officious, his behaviour
foolish. He may be a bold beggar, an impudent vagabond, but he is
never a cunning thief or robber, weighing all circumstances, and using
all available means to attain his end. Unconcernedly he stares at the
huntsman’s gun; unwarned by the ball, which passes whistling over his
body, he follows his worst enemy; unhesitatingly he forces his way into
the birch-bark hut of the wandering reindeer-herdsmen; without fear he
approaches a man sleeping in the open, to steal the game he has caught,
or even to snap at a naked limb. On one occasion an Arctic fox at which
I had several times fired in vain in the dusk, kept following my steps
like a dog. My old sporting friend, Erik Swenson of Dovrefjeld, relates
that one night a fox nibbled the fur rug on which he lay, and old
Steller vouches for many other pranks which this animal plays, pranks
which every one would declare incredible were they not thoroughly
guaranteed by corroborating observations. An insufficient knowledge of
human beings, so sparsely represented in the tundra, may to some extent
account for the extraordinary behaviour of this fox, but it is not the
only reason. For neither the red fox nor any other mammal of the tundra
behaves with so little caution; not even the lemming approaches him in
this respect.
A strange creature certainly is this last inhabitant of our region
whatever species of his family we consider. He, or at least his tracks,
may be seen everywhere throughout the tundra. The tracks run in all
directions, often through places overgrown by dwarf-birches, narrow,
smooth, neatly-kept paths in the moss, going straight for several
hundred yards, then diverging to right or left, and only returning to
the main path after many circuits. On these we may often see, in great
numbers during a dry summer, a little, short-tailed, hamster-like
animal nimbly pattering along and soon disappearing out of sight. This
is the lemming, a rodent smaller than a rat, but larger than a mouse,
and with brightly but irregularly marked skin, usually brown, yellow,
gray, and black. If we dissect the animal we see, not without surprise,
that it consists almost entirely of skin and viscera. Its bones and
muscles are fine and tender; its viscera, especially the alimentary
and the reproductive organs, are enormously developed. This state of
things explains some phenomena of its life which were long considered
unintelligible: the almost abrupt occurrence of well-nigh unlimited
fertility, and the vast, apparently organized migrations of the animal.
In ordinary circumstances the lemming leads a very comfortable life.
Neither in summer nor in winter has he any anxiety about subsistence.
In winter he devours all sorts of vegetable matter,--moss-tips,
lichen, and bark; in summer he lives in his burrow, in winter in
a warm, thick-walled, softly-lined nest. Danger indeed threatens
from all sides, for not only beasts and birds of prey, but even the
reindeer devour hundreds and thousands of lemmings;[10] nevertheless
they increase steadily and rapidly, until special circumstances arise
when millions, which have come into existence within a few weeks, are
annihilated within a few days. Spring sets in early, and a more than
usually dry summer prevails in the tundra. All the young of the first
litter of the various lemming females thrive, and six weeks later, at
the most, these also multiply. Meantime the parents have brought forth
a second and a third litter, and these in their turn bring forth young.
Within three months the heights and low grounds of the tundra teem with
lemmings, just as our fields do with mice under similar circumstances.
Whichever way we turn, we see the busy little creatures, dozens at a
single glance, thousands in the course of an hour. They run about on
all the paths and roads; driven to extremity, they turn, snarling and
sharpening their teeth, on the defensive even against man, as if their
countless numbers lent to each individual a defiant courage. But the
countless and still-increasing numbers prove their own destruction.
Soon the lean tundra ceases to afford employment enough for their
greedy teeth. Famine threatens, perhaps actually sets in. The anxious
animals crowd together and begin their march. Hundreds join with
hundreds, thousands with other thousands: the troops become swarms, the
swarms armies. They travel in a definite direction, at first following
old tracks, but soon striking out new ones; in unending files--defying
all computation--they hasten onwards; over the cliffs they plunge into
the water. Thousands fall victims to want and hunger; the army behind
streams on over their corpses; hundreds of thousands are drowned in
the water, or are shattered at the foot of the cliffs; the remainder
speed on; other hundreds and thousands fall victims to the voracity of
Arctic and red foxes, wolves and gluttons, rough-legged buzzards and
ravens, owls and skuas which have followed them; the survivors pay no
heed. Where these go, how they end, none can say, but certain it is
that the tundra behind them is as if dead, that a number of years pass
ere the few who have remained behind, and have managed to survive,
slowly multiply, and visibly re-people their native fields.[11]
[Illustration: Fig. 8.--The Reindeer (_Tarandus rangifer_).]
A third animal characteristic of the tundra is the reindeer. Those who
know this deer, in itself by no means beautiful, only in a state of
captivity and slavery, can form no idea of what it is under natural
conditions. Here in the tundra one learns to appreciate the reindeer,
to recognize and value him as a member of a family which he does not
disgrace. He belongs to the tundra, body and soul. Over the immense
glacier and the quivering crust of the unfathomable morass, over
the boulder-heaps and the matted tops of the dwarf-birches or over
the mossy hillocks, over rivers and lakes he runs or swims with his
broad-hoofed, shovel-like, extraordinarily mobile feet, which crackle
at every step. In the deepest snow he uses his foot to dig for food.
He is protected against the deadly cold of the long northern night
by his thick skin, which the arrows of winter cannot pierce, against
the pangs of hunger by the indiscriminateness of his appetite. From
the wolf, which invariably follows close on his heels, he is, in some
measure at least, saved by the acuteness of his senses, by his speed
and endurance. He passes the summer on the clear heights of the tundra,
where, on the slopes just beside the glaciers, the soil, belted over
with reindeer-moss, also brings forth juicy, delicate alpine plants;
in winter he ranges through the low tundra from hill to hill seeking
spots from which the snow has been cleared off by the wind.[12] Shortly
before this, having attained to his full strength and fully grown his
branching antlers, he had in passionate violence engaged in deadly
combat with like-minded rivals as strong as himself until the still
tundra resounded with the clashing of their horns. Now, worn out with
fighting and with love, he ranges peacefully through his territory with
others of his kind, associated in large herds, seeking only to maintain
the struggle with winter. The reindeer is certainly far behind the stag
in beauty and nobility, but when one sees the great herds, unhampered
by the fetters of slavery, on the mountains of their native tundra, in
vivid contrast to the blue of the sky and the whiteness of the snowy
carpet, one must acknowledge that he, too, takes rank among noble wild
beasts, and that he has more power than is usually supposed to quicken
the beating of the sportsman’s heart.
The tundra also possesses many characteristic birds. Whoever has
traversed the northern desert must have met one, at least, of these,
the ptarmigan:
“In summer gay from top to toe,
In winter whiter than the snow”.
I do not allude to the ptarmigan of our mountains, which is here
also restricted to the glacier region, but to the much more abundant
willow-grouse. Wherever the dwarf-birch thrives it is to be found, and
it is always visible, but especially when the silence of night has
fallen upon the tundra, even though the sun be shining overhead. It
never entirely forsakes its haunts, but, at the most, descends from
the heights to the low grounds in winter. It is lively and nimble,
pert and self-possessed, jealous and quarrelsome towards its rivals,
affectionate and devoted towards its mate and young. Its life resembles
that of our partridge, but its general behaviour has a much greater
charm. It is the embodiment of life in the desert. Its challenging
call rings out through the still summer night, and the coveys enliven
the wintry tundra, forsaken by almost all other birds. Its presence
gladdens and charms naturalist and sportsman alike.
During summer the golden plover, which also must be described as a
faithful child of the tundra, is to be met almost everywhere. As the
swift ostrich to the desert, the sand-grouse to the steppes, the
rock-partridge to the mountains, the lark to the corn-fields, so the
golden plover belongs to the tundra. Gay as its dress may be, they are
the colours of the tundra which it wears; its melancholy cry is the
sound most in keeping with this dreary region. Much as we like to see
it in our own country, we greet it without pleasure here, for its cry
uttered day and night makes us as sad as the tundra itself.
With much greater pleasure does one listen to the voice of another
summer guest of the region. I do not refer to the tender melodies
of the blue-throated warbler, which is here one of the commonest of
brooding birds and justly named the “hundred-tongued singer”, nor to
the ringing notes of the fieldfare, which also extends to the tundra,
nor to the short song of the snow bunting, nor to the shrill cries of
the peregrine falcon or the rough-legged buzzard, nor to the exultant
hooting of the sea-eagle or the similar cry of the snowy owl, nor
to the resounding trumpet-call of the musical swan or the plaintive
bugle-like note of the Arctic duck, but to the pairing and love cry of
one or other of the divers--a wild, unregulated, unrestrained, yet
sonorous and tuneful, resonant and ringing northern melody, comparable
to the roar of the surge or to the thunder of a waterfall as it rushes
to the deep. Wherever a lake rich in fish is to be found, with a secret
place in the reeds thick enough to conceal a floating nest, we find
these children of the tundra and the sea, these soberly-joyous fishers
in the calm fresh waters and fearless divers in the northern sea.
Thence they have come to the tundra to brood, and back thither they
will lead their young as soon as these are able, like themselves, to
master the waves. Over the whole extent of the tundra they visit its
waters, but they prefer to the broad inland lakes the little ponds on
the hills along the coast, whence they can daily plunge, with their
wildly jubilant sea song, into the heaving, bountiful ocean, which is
their home.
From the sea come other two birds very characteristic of the tundra.
The eye follows every movement of the robber-gulls with real delight,
of the phalarope with actual rapture. Both breed in the tundra: the
one on open mossy moors, the other on the banks of the most hidden
ponds and pools among the sallows. If other gulls be the “ravens of the
sea” the skuas may well be called the “sea-falcons”. With full justice
do they bear the names of robber and parasitic gulls, for they are
excellent birds of prey when there is no opportunity for parasitism,
and they become parasites when their own hunting has been unsuccessful.
Falcon-like they fly in summer through the tundra, in winter along
the coast regions of the North Sea; they hover over land or sea to
find their prey, then swoop down skilfully and gracefully and seize
without fail the victim they have sighted. But even these capable
hunters do not scruple, under some circumstances, to become bold
beggars. Woe to the gull or other sea-bird which seizes its prey within
sight of a skua! With arrow-like swiftness he follows the fortunate
possessor uttering barking cries, dances, as if playfully, round him
on all sides, cunningly prevents any attempt at flight, resists all
defence, and untiringly and ceaselessly teases him till he gives up
his prize, even though it has to be regurgitated from his crop. The
life and habits of the Arctic skua, its skill and agility, its courage
and impudence, untiring watchfulness and irresistible importunity
are extraordinarily fascinating; even its begging can be excused, so
great are its charms. Yet the phalarope is still more attractive. It
is a shore bird, which unites in itself the qualities of its own order
and those of the swimming birds, living, as it does, partly on land,
partly in the water, even in the sea. Buoyant and agile, surpassing
all other swimming birds in grace of motion, it glides upon the waves;
quickly and nimbly it runs along the shore; with the speed of a snipe
it wings its zigzag flight through the air. Confidently and without
fear it allows itself to be observed quite closely, and in its anxiety
for the safety of its brood usually betrays its own nest, with the
four pear-shaped eggs, however carefully it has been concealed among
the reeds. It is perhaps the most pleasing of all the birds of the
tundra.[13]
[Illustration: Fig. 9.--Skuas, Phalarope, and Golden Plovers.]
Likewise characteristic of the tundra are the birds of prey, or, at
least, their manner of life there is characteristic. For it is only on
the southern boundary of the region or among the heights that there
are trees or rocks on which they can build their eyries, and they are
perforce obliged to brood on the ground. Among the winding branches of
the dwarf-birch is the nest of the marsh-owl, on its crown that of the
rough-legged buzzard; on the bare ground lie the eggs of the snowy-owl
and the peregrine falcon, though the latter chooses a place as near as
possible to the edge of a gully, as though he would deceive himself by
vainly attempting to make up for the lack of heights. That it and all
the others are fully conscious of the insecurity of their nesting-place
is shown by their behaviour on the approach of man. From a distance the
traveller is watched suspiciously and is greeted with loud cries; the
nearer he approaches the greater grows the fear of the anxious parents.
Hitherto they have been circling at a safe distance, about twice as far
as a shot would carry, over the unfamiliar but dreaded enemy; now they
swoop boldly down, and fly so closely past his head that he distinctly
hears the sharp whirr of their wings, sometimes indeed he has reason
to fear that he will be actually attacked. Meanwhile the young birds,
which are visible even from a distance as white balls, bend timidly
down and await the approach of this enemy,--suspected at least, if not
known as such,--sitting so still in their chosen, or perhaps forced
position that one can sketch them without fear of being disturbed by a
single movement--a charming picture!
Many other animals might be enumerated if I thought them necessary
to a picture of the tundra. At least one more is characteristic--the
mosquito. To call it the most important living creature of the tundra
would be scarcely an exaggeration. It enables not a few of the higher
animals, especially birds and fishes, to live; it forces others, like
man, to periodic wanderings; and it is in itself enough to make the
tundra uninhabitable in summer by civilized beings. Its numbers are
beyond all conception; its power conquers man and beast; the torture it
causes beggars description.
It is well known that the eggs of all mosquitoes are laid in the water,
and that the larvæ which creep forth in a few days remain in the water
till their metamorphosis is accomplished. This explains why the tundra
is more favourable than any other region to their development, and to
their occurrence in enormous numbers. As soon as the sun, once more
ascending, has thawed the snow, the ice, and the upper crust of the
earth, the life of the mosquito, latent in winter but not extinguished,
begins to stir again. The larvæ escape from the eggs which have been
buried, but not destroyed, in the frozen mud; in a few days these larvæ
become pupæ, the pupæ become winged insects, and generation follows
generation in quick succession. The heyday of the terrible pests lasts
from before the beginning of the summer solstice until the middle of
August.
During the whole of this time they are present on the heights as in the
low grounds, on the mountains or hills as in the valleys, among the
dwarf-birches and sallow bushes as on the banks of rivers and lakes.
Every grass-stalk, every moss-blade, every twig, every branch, every
little leaf sends forth hundreds and thousands of them all day long.
The mosquitoes of tropical countries, of the forests and marshes of
South America, the interior of Africa, India, and the Sunda islands,
so much dreaded by travellers, swarm only at night; the mosquitoes
of the tundra fly for ten weeks, for six of these actually without
interruption. They form swarms which look like thick black smoke; they
surround, as with a fog, every creature which ventures into their
domains; they fill the air in such numbers that one hardly dares to
breathe; they baffle every attempt to drive them off; they transform
the strongest man into an irresolute weakling, his anger into fear, his
curses into groans.
As soon as the traveller sets foot on the tundra their buzzing is
heard, now like the singing of a tea-kettle, now like the sound of
a vibrating metal rod, and, a few minutes later, he is surrounded
by thousands and thousands. A cloud of them swarms round head and
shoulders, body and limbs, follows his steps, however quickly he moves,
and cannot possibly be dispersed. If he remain standing, the cloud
thickens; if he move on, it draws itself out; if he run as quickly as
possible, it stretches into a long train, but does not remain behind.
If a moderate wind is blowing against them, the insects hasten their
flight to make headway against the current of air; when the wind
is more violent all the members of the swarm strain themselves to
the utmost so as not to lose their victim, and pounce like pricking
hailstones on head and neck. Before he knows, he is covered from head
to foot with mosquitoes. In a dense swarm, blackening gray clothes,
giving dark ones a strange spotted appearance, they settle down and
creep slowly about, looking for an unappropriated spot from which
to suck blood. They creep noiselessly and without being felt to the
unprotected face and neck, the bare hands and the feet covered only
with stockings, and a moment later they slowly sink their sting into
the skin, and pour the irritant poison into the wound. Furiously the
victim beats the blood-sucker to a pulp, but while the chastising
hand still moves, three, four, ten other gnats fasten on it, while
others begin work on the face, neck, and feet, ready to do exactly as
the slain ones had done. For when blood has once flowed, when several
insects have met their death on the same place, all the rest seek out
that very spot, even though the surface becomes gradually covered with
bodies. Specially favourite points of attack are the temples, the
forehead just under the hat-brim, the neck and the wrist, places, in
short, which can be least well protected.
If an observer can so far restrain himself as to watch them at their
work of blood, without driving them away or disturbing them, he
notices that neither their settling nor their moving about is felt in
the least. Immediately after alighting they set to work. Leisurely
they walk up and down on the skin, carefully feeling it with their
proboscis; suddenly they stand still and with surprising ease pierce
the skin. While they suck, they lift one of the hind-legs and wave it
with evident satisfaction backwards and forwards, the more emphatically
the more the translucent body becomes filled with blood. As soon as
they have tasted blood they pay no heed to anything else, and seem
scarcely to feel though they are molested and tortured. If one draws
the proboscis out of the wound with forceps, they feel about for a
moment, and then bore again in the same or a new place; if one cuts
the proboscis quickly through with sharp scissors, they usually remain
still as if they must think for a minute, then pass the forelegs
gently over the remaining portion and make a prolonged examination to
assure themselves that the organ is no longer present; if one suddenly
cuts off one of their hind-legs, they go on sucking as if nothing had
happened and continue to move the stump; if one cuts the blood-filled
body in half, they proceed like Münchausen’s horse at the well, but at
length they withdraw the proboscis from the wound, fly staggeringly
away and die within a few minutes.
Careful observation of their habits places it beyond doubt that, in the
discovery of their victim, they are guided less by sight than by smell,
or perhaps, more correctly, by a sense which unites smell and tactile
sensitiveness.[14] It can be observed with certainty that, if a human
being approach within five yards of their resting-place, they rise and
fly to their prey without hesitating or diverging. If anyone crosses a
bare sand-bank usually free from them he can observe how they gather
about their victim. Apparently half carried by the wind, half moving by
their own exertions, but at any rate wandering aimlessly, some float
continually over even this place of pilgrimage, and a few thus reach
the neighbourhood of the observer. At once their seeming inactivity
is at an end. Abruptly they alter their course, and make straight for
the happily-found object of their longing. Others soon join them, and
before five minutes have passed, the martyr is again surrounded by
a nimbus. They find their way less easily through different strata
of air. While observing them on a high dune I had been followed and
tormented for some time by thousands, so I led the swarm to the edge of
the steep slope, let it thicken there, and then sprang suddenly to the
foot. With much satisfaction I saw that I had shaken off the greater
number of my tormentors. They swarmed in bewildered confusion on the
top of the dune, forming a dense cloud for some time over the place
from which I had leaped. A few hundreds had, however, followed me to
the lower ground.
Though the naturalist knows that it is only the female mosquitoes which
suck blood, and that their activity in this respect is indubitably
connected with reproduction, and is probably necessary to the ripening
of the fertilized eggs, yet even he is finally overcome by the tortures
caused by these demons of the tundra, though he be the most equable
philosopher under the sun. It is not the pain caused by the sting, or
still more, by the resulting swelling; it is the continual annoyance,
the everlastingly recurring discomfort under which one suffers. One can
endure the pain of the sting without complaint even at first, still
more easily when the skin has become less sensitive to the repeatedly
instilled poison; thus one can hold out for a long time. But sooner
or later every man is bound to confess himself conquered and beaten
by these terrible torturing spirits of the tundra. All resistance is
gradually paralysed by the innumerable, omnipresent armies always
ready for combat. The foot refuses its duty; the mind receives no
impressions; the tundra becomes a hell, and its pests an unutterable
torture. Not winter with its snows, not the ice with its cold, not
poverty, not inhospitality, but the mosquitoes are the curse of the
tundra.[15]
During the height of their season the mosquitoes fly almost
uninterruptedly, during sunshine and calm weather with evident
satisfaction, in a moderate wind quite comfortably, in slightly warm
weather gaily, before threatening rain most boisterously of all, in
cool weather very little, in cold, not at all. A violent storm banishes
them to the bushes and moss, but, as soon as it moderates, they are
once more lively and active, and in all places sheltered from the wind
they are ready for attack even while the storm is raging. A night of
hoar-frost plays obvious havoc among them, but does not rid us of them;
cold damp days thin their armies, but succeeding warmth brings hosts of
newly developed individuals on the field. The autumn fogs finally bring
deliverance for that year.
Autumn in the tundra comes on as quickly as spring came slowly. A
single cold night, generally in August, or at the latest in September,
puts an end to its summer life. The berries, which, in the middle of
August, looked as if they would scarcely ripen at all, have become as
juicy and sweet as possible by the end of the month; a few damp, cold
nights, which lightly cover the hills with snow, hasten their ripening
more than the sun, which is already clouded over all day long. The
leaves of the dwarf-birch become a pale but brilliant lake-red on the
upper surface, a bright yellow beneath; all the other bushes and shrubs
undergo a similar transformation: and the gloomy brown-green of the
tundra becomes such a vivid brown-red that even the yellow-green of
the reindeer-moss is no longer conspicuous. The winged summer guests
fly southwards or towards the sea, the fishes of the tundra swim down
the rivers. From the hills the reindeer, followed by the wolf, comes
down to the low grounds; the ptarmigan, now congregated in flocks of
thousands, fly up to the heights to remain until winter again drives
them down to the low tundra.
After a few days this winter, as much dreaded by us as by the migratory
birds, yet longed for by the human inhabitants of the tundra, sets
in on the inhospitable land, to maintain its supremacy longer, much
longer than spring, summer, and autumn together. For days and weeks in
succession snow falls, sometimes coming down lightly in sharp-cornered
crystals, or sometimes in large flakes, driven by a raging storm. Hills
and valleys, rivers and lakes are gradually shrouded in the same winter
dress. A brief ray of sunshine still gleams occasionally at mid-day
over the snowy expanse; but soon only a pale brightness in the south
proclaims that there the sunny day is half-gone. The long night of
winter has begun. For months only the faint reflection of the stars
twinkles in the snow, only the moon gives tidings of the vitalizing
centre of our system. But when the sun has quite disappeared from the
tundra another light rises radiant: far up in the north there flickers
and flashes “Soweidud”, the fire of God, the flaming Northern Light.
THE ASIATIC STEPPES AND THEIR FAUNA.
There is perhaps monotony, but there is also the interest of a
well-marked individuality in that immense tract of country which
includes the whole of Central Asia, and extends into Southern Europe,
and which forms the region of the steppes. To the superficial observer
it may seem an easy thing to characterize these steppes, but the
difficulty of the task is soon felt by the careful observer. For the
steppes are not so invariably uniform, so absolutely changeless as is
usually supposed. They have their time of blooming and their time of
withering, their summer and their winter aspects, and some variety
at every season is implied in the fact that there are mountains and
valleys, streams and rivers, lakes and marshes. The monotony is really
due to the thousand-fold repetition of the same picture, what pleased
and even charmed when first seen becoming tame by everyday familiarity.
The Russian applies the word steppe, which we have borrowed from his
language, to all unwooded tracts in middle latitudes, when they are
of considerable extent, and bear useful vegetation. It matters not
whether they be perfectly flat or gently undulating plains, highlands
or mountains, whether there be patches of fat, black soil, admitting
of profitable agriculture, or merely great tracts of poor soil covered
with such vegetation as grows without man’s aid, and is useful only
to the nomadic herdsman. This wide usage of the term is convenient,
for throughout the whole region we find the same plants rising from
the ground, the same types of animal life, and approximately the same
phenomena of seasonal change.
Unwooded the steppe-lands must be called, but they are not absolutely
treeless. Neither shrubs nor trees are awanting where the beds of the
streams and rivers form broad and deep valleys. In very favourable
circumstances, willows, white and silver poplars, grow to be lofty
trees, which may unite in a thick fringe by the river banks, or birches
may establish themselves and form groves and woods, or pines may plant
their feet firmly on the sand-dunes, and form small settlements, which,
though not comparable to true forests, are, at least, compact little
woods, like the growths along the river-banks. But, after all, such
wooded spots are exceptions, they constitute to some extent a foreign
element in the steppe scenery, and suggest oases in a desert.
At one place the steppe may stretch before the eye as a boundless
plain, here and there gently undulating; at another place the
region has been much upheaved, is full of variety, and may even be
mountainous. Generally the horizon is bounded on all sides by ranges of
hills of variable height, and often these hills inclose a trough-like
valley from which it seems as if the water must be puzzled to find its
way out, if, indeed, it does so at all. From the longer cross valleys
of the often much-ramified ranges a small stream may flow towards the
lowest part of the basin and end in a lake, whose salt-covered shores
sparkle in the distance as if the winter snow still lay upon them.
Viewed from afar, the hills look like lofty mountains, for on these
vast plains the eye loses its standard for estimating magnitude; and
when the rocks stand out above the surface and form domes and cones,
sharp peaks and jagged pinnacles on their summits, even the practised
observer is readily deceived. Of course there are some genuinely lofty
mountains, for, apart from those near the Chinese boundary, there are
others on the Kirghiz steppes, which even on close view lose little
of the impressiveness that the ruggedness of their peaks and slopes
gives them when seen from a distance. The higher and more ramified
the mountains, the more numerous are the streams which they send down
to the lower grounds, and the larger are the lakes that occupy the
depressions at their base--basins which their feeders are unable to
fill, even though unable to find a way through the surrounding banks.
The more extensive, also, are the salt-steppes around these lakes--salt
because they have no outlet. But apart from these variations, the
characteristics of the steppes are uniform; though the composition of
the picture is often changed, its theme remains the same.
[Illustration: Fig. 10.--View in the Asiatic Steppes.]
We should convey a false impression if we denied charm, or even
grandeur, to the scenery of the steppes. The North German moorland is
drearier, Brandenburg is more monotonous. In the gently undulating
plain the eye rests gratefully on the lakes which fill all the deeper
hollows; in the highlands or among the loftier mountains the gleaming
water-basins are a real ornament to the landscape. It is true that the
lake is, in most cases, though not invariably, without the charm of
surrounding verdure, often without so much as a fringe of bushes. But,
even when it lies naked and bare, it brightens the steppes. For the
blue sky, mirrored on its surface, smiles kindly towards us, and the
enlivening effect of water makes itself felt even here. And when a lake
is ringed round by hills, or framed, as at Alakul, by lofty mountains;
when the steppes are sharply and picturesquely contrasted with the
glittering water-surface, the dark mountain-sides, and the snowy
summits; when the soft haze of distance lies like a delicate veil over
hill and plain, suggesting a hidden beauty richer than there really
is; then we acknowledge readily and gladly that there is a witchery of
landscape even in the steppes.
[Illustration: Fig. 11.--A Salt Marsh in the Steppes.]
Even when we traverse the monotonous valleys many miles in breadth,
or the almost unbroken plains, whose far horizon is but an undulating
line, when we see one almost identical picture to north, south, east,
and west, when the apparent infinitude raises a feeling of loneliness
and abandonment, even then we must allow that the steppes have more
to show than our heaths, for the vegetation is much richer, more
brilliant, and more changeful. Indeed, it is only here and there,
where the salt-steppes broaden out around a lake, that the landscape
seems dreary and desolate. In such places none of the steppe plants
flourish, and their place is taken by a small, scrubby saltwort, not
unlike stunted heather, only here and there attaining the size of low
bushes. The salt lies as a more or less thick layer on the ground,
filling the hollows between the bushes so that they look like pools
covered with ice. Salt covers the whole land, keeping the mud beneath
permanently moist, adhering firmly to the ground, and hardly separable
from it. Great balls of salt and mud are raised by the traveller’s
feet and the horses’ hoofs at every step, just as if the ground were
covered with slushy snow. The waggon makes a deep track in the tough
substratum, and the trundling wheels sometimes leave marks on the salt
like those left on snow in time of hard frost. Such regions are in
truth indescribably dismal and depressing, but elsewhere it is not so.
The vegetation of the steppes is much richer in species than is usually
supposed, much richer indeed than I, not being a botanist, am able to
compute. On the black soil, the tschi-grass, the thyrsa-grass, and the
spiræa in some places choke off almost all other plants; but in the
spaces between these, and on leaner soil, all sorts of gay flowers
spring up. In the hollows, too, the vegetation becomes gradually that
of the marsh, and reeds and rushes, which here predominate, leave
abundant room for the development of a varied plant-life. But the time
of blooming is short, and the time of withering and dying is long in
the steppes.[16]
Perhaps it is not too much to say that the contrasts of the seasons
are nowhere more vivid than in the steppes. Wealth of bright flowers
and desert-like sterility, the charms of autumn and the desolation of
winter, succeed one another; the disruptive forces are as strong as
those which recreate, the sun’s heat destroys as surely as the cold.
But what has been smitten by the heat and swept away by raging storms
is replaced in the first sunshine of spring; and even the devouring
fire is not potent enough wholly to destroy what has been spared by the
sun and the storms. The spring may seem more potent in tropical lands,
but nowhere is it more marvellous than in the steppes, where in its
power it stands--alone--opposed to summer, autumn, and winter.
The steppes are still green when summer steals upon them, but already
their full splendour has sped. Only a few plants have yet to attain
their maturity, and they wither in the first days of the burning
heat; soon the gay garment of spring is exchanged for one of gray and
yellow. The sappy, green thyrsa-grass still withstands the drought;
but its fine, flowing, thickly-haired beards have already attained
their full growth, and wave about in the gentlest breeze, casting a
silvery veil over the green beneath. A few days more, and both leaves
and awns are as dry as the already yellowed tschi-grass, which appears
in spring like sprouting corn, and is now like that which awaits the
sickle. The broad leaves of the rhubarb lie dried on the ground, the
spiræa is withered, the Caragan pea-tree is leafless, honeysuckle and
dwarf-almond show autumnal tints; the thistle tops are hoary; only the
wormwoods and mugworts preserve their gray-green leaves unchanged.
Bright uninterrupted sunshine beats down upon the thirsty land, for it
is but rarely that the clouds gather into wool-packs on the sky, and
even if they are occasionally heavy with rain, the downpour is scarce
enough to lay the whirling dust which every breath of wind raises.
The animals still keep to their summer quarters, but the songs of the
birds are already hushed. Creeping things there are in abundance, such
as lizards and snakes, mostly vipers; and the grasshoppers swarm in
countless hosts, forming clouds when they take wing over the steppes.
Before the summer has ended, the steppes have put on their autumnal
garb, a variously shaded gray-yellow, but without variety and without
charm. All the brittle plants are snapped to the ground by the first
storm, and the next blast scatters them in a whirling dance over the
steppes. Grappling one another with their branches and twigs, they are
rolled together into balls, skipping and leaping like spooks before the
raging wind, half-hidden in clouds of drifting dust with which the dark
or snow-laden packs in the sky above seem to be running a race. The
summer land-birds have long since flown southwards; the water-birds,
of which there are hosts on every lake, are preparing for flight; the
migratory mammals wend in crowded troops from one promise of food to
another; the winter-sleepers have closed the doors of their retreats;
reptiles and insects have withdrawn into their winter hiding-places.
A single night’s frost covers all the water-basins with thin ice;
a few more days of cold and the fetters of winter are laid heavily
on the lakes and pools; and only the rivers and streams, longer
able to withstand the frost, afford a briefly prolonged shelter to
the migratory birds which have still delayed their farewell. Gentle
north-west winds sweep dark clouds across the land, and the snow
drizzles down in small flakes. The mountains have already thrown on
their snowy mantles; and now the low ground of the steppes puts on
its garment of white. The wolf, apprehensive of storms, leaves the
reed-thickets and the spiræa shrubberies which have hitherto served
him well as hiding-places, and slinks hungrily around the villages and
the winter quarters of the nomad herdsman, who now seeks out the most
sheltered and least exhausted of the low grounds, in order to save his
herds, as far as may be, from the scarcity, hardship, and misery of the
winter. Against the greedy wolf the herdsman acts on the aggressive, as
do the Cossack settlers and peasants; he rides out in pursuit, follows
the thief’s tell-tale track to his lair, drives him out, and gives
chase. With exultant shouts he spurs on his horse and terrifies the
fugitive, all the while brandishing in his right hand a strong sapling
with knobbed roots. The snow whirls around wolf, horse, and rider; the
keen frost bites the huntsman’s face, but he cares not. After a chase
of an hour, or at most of two hours, the wolf, which may have run a
dozen or twenty miles, can go no further, and turns upon its pursuer.
Its tongue hangs far out from its throat, the ice-tipped hairs of its
reeking hide stand up stiffly, in its mad eyes is expressed the dread
of death. Only for a moment does the noble horse hesitate, then, urged
on by shout and knout, makes a rush at the fell enemy. High in the air
the hunter swings his fatal club, down it whizzes, and the wolf lies
gasping and quivering in its death agony. Wild horses and antelopes,
impelled by hunger, like the wolf, shift their quarters at this season,
in the endeavour to eke out a bare subsistence; even the wild sheep of
the mountains wend from one hillside to another; only the hares and
the imperturbable sand-grouse hold their ground, the former feeding on
stems and bark, the latter on seeds and buds, but both finding only a
scant subsistence.
[Illustration: Fig. 12.--A Herd of Horses during a Snowstorm on the
Asiatic Steppes.]
For many days in succession the fall of snow continues; then the
wind, which brought the clouds, dies away, but the sky remains as
dark as ever. The wind changes and blows harder and harder from east,
south-east, south, or south-west. A thin cloud sweeps over the white
ground--it is formed of whirling snow; the wind becomes a tempest;
the cloud rises up to heaven: and, maddening, bewildering even to the
most weather-hardened, dangerous in the extreme to all things living,
the _buran_ rages across the steppes, a snow-hurricane, as terrible as
the typhoon or the simoom with its poisonous breath. For two or three
days such a snow-storm may rage with uninterrupted fury, and both man
and beast are absolutely storm-stayed. A man overtaken in the open
country is lost, unless some special providence save him; nay, more,
even in the village or steppe-town, he who ventures out of doors when
the buran is at its height may perish, as indeed not rarely happens.
When February is past, man and beast are fairly safe, and may breathe
freely, though the winter still continues to press heavily on the
steppes.
The sun rises higher in the heavens; its rays fall more warmly on the
southern slopes of the mountains and hills, and dark patches of clear
ground appear everywhere, growing larger day by day, except when an
occasional fresh fall of snow hides them for a little. The first breath
of spring comes at last, but only slowly can it free the land from
winter’s shackles. Only when the life-giving sunshine is accompanied by
the soft south wind, at the earliest in the beginning of April, usually
about the middle of the month, does the snow disappear quickly from the
lower slopes of the mountains and from the deep valleys rich in black
earth. Only in gorges and steep-walled hollows, behind precipitous
hills, and amid thick bushes, do the snow-wreaths linger for almost
another month. In all other places the newly-awakened life bursts forth
in strength. The thirsty soil sucks in the moisture which the melting
snow supplies, and the two magicians--sun and water--now unite their
irresistible powers. Even before the last snow-wreaths have vanished,
before the rotten ice-blocks have melted on the lakes, the bulbous
plants, and others which live through the winter, put forth their
leaves and raise their flower-stalks to the sun. Among the sere yellow
grass and the dry gray stems of all herbs which were not snapped by the
autumnal storm, the first green shimmers. It is at this time that the
settlers and the nomads set fire to the thick herbage of various sorts,
and what the storms have spared the flames devour. But soon after the
fire has cleared the ground, the plant-life reappears, in patches at
least, in all its vigour. From the apparently sterile earth herbaceous
and bulbous growths shoot up; buds are unpacked, flowers unfold, and
the steppe arrays itself in indescribable splendour. Boundless tracts
are resplendent with tulips, yellow, dark red, white, white and red.
It is true that they rise singly or in twos and threes, but they are
spread over the whole steppe-land, and flower at the same time, so that
one sees them everywhere. Immediately after the tulips come the lilies,
and new, even more charming colours appear wherever these lovely
children of the steppes find the fit conditions for growth, on the
hillsides and in the deep valleys, along the banks of all the streams,
and in the marshes. More gregarious and richer in species than the
tulips, they appear in much more impressive multitudes; they completely
dominate wide stretches of country, and in different places remind
one of a rye-field overgrown with corn-flowers, or of a rape-field
in full blossom. Usually each species or variety is by itself, but
here and there blue lilies and yellow are gaily intermingled, the two
complementary colours producing a most impressive effect--a vision for
rapture.
While these first-born children of the spring are adorning the earth,
the heavens also begin to smile. Unclouded the spring sky certainly is
not, rather it is covered with clouds of all sorts, even in the finest
weather with bedded clouds and wool-packs, which stretch more or less
thickly over the whole dome of heaven, and around the horizon appear
to touch the ground. When these clouds thicken the heavens darken,
and only here and there does the sunlight pierce the curtain and show
the steppes warmed by the first breath of spring, and flushed with
inconceivable wealth of colour.
But every day adds some new tint. There is less and less of the
yellowish tone which last year’s withered stalks give even in spring
to the steppes; the garment already so bright continues to gain in
freshness and brightness. After a few weeks, the steppe-land lies like
a gay carpet in which all tints show distinctly, from dark green to
bright yellow-green, the predominant gray-green of the wormwoods being
relieved by the deeper and brighter tones of more prominent herbs and
dwarf-shrubs. The dwarf-almond, which, alone or in association with the
pea-tree and the honeysuckle, covers broad stretches of low ground, is
now, along with its above-mentioned associates, in all its glory. Its
twigs are literally covered all over with blossom; the whole effect is
a shimmer of peach-red, in lively contrast to the green of the grass
and herbage, to the bloom of the pea-trees, and even to the delicate
rose-red or reddish-white of the woodbine. In suitable places the
woodbine forms quite a thicket, and, when in full bloom, seems to make
of all surrounding colour but a groundwork on which to display its own
brilliancy. Various, and to me unknown, shrubs and herbs give high and
low tones to the picture, and the leaves of others, which wither as
rapidly as they unfold, become spots of yellow-green and gold. Seen
from a distance, all the colours do indeed merge into an almost uniform
gray-green; but near at hand each colour tells, and one sees the
countless individual flowers which have now opened, sees them singly
everywhere, but also massed together in more favourable spots, where
they make the shades of the bushes glorious. Amid the infinite variety
of bulbous plants there are exquisite vetches; among many that are
unfamiliar there are old friends well known in our flower-gardens; more
and more does the feeling of enchantment grow on one, until at last it
seems as if one had wandered into an unending, uncared-for garden of
flowers.
With the spring and the flowers the animal life of the steppes appears
also to awaken. Even before the last traces of winter are gone, the
migratory birds, which fled in autumn, have returned, and when the
spring has begun in earnest the winter sleepers open the doors of the
burrows within which they have slumbered in death-like trance through
all the evil days. As the migratory birds rejoin the residents, so the
sleepers come forth and join those mammals which are either careless of
winter or know how to survive it at least awake. At the same time the
insects celebrate their Easter, hastening from their hidden shelters
or accomplishing the last phase of their metamorphosis; and now, too,
the newts and frogs, lizards and snakes leave their winter quarters to
enjoy in the spring sunshine the warmth indispensable to their activity
and full life, and to dream of the summer which will bring them an
apathetic happiness.
The steppe now becomes full of life. Not that the animal life is of
many types, but it is abundant and everywhere distributed. The same
forms are met with everywhere, and missed nowhere. There are here no
hosts of mammals comparable to the herds of antelopes on the steppes
of Central Africa, nor to the troops of zebras and quaggas[17] in the
South African karoo, nor to the immeasurable trains of buffaloes on
the North American prairies;[18] nor are the birds of the steppes so
numerous as those on the continental shores or on single islands, or
on the African steppes, or in equatorial forests. But both birds and
mammals enter into the composition of a steppe landscape; they help to
form and complete the peculiarity of this region; in short, the steppes
also have their characteristic fauna.
The places at which the animals chiefly congregate are the lakes and
pools, rivers and brooks. Before the existence of a lake is revealed
by the periodically or permanently flooded reed-forests surrounding
it, hundreds and thousands of marsh-birds and swimmers have told the
practised observer of the still invisible sheet of water. In manifoldly
varied flight, fishing-gulls, common gulls, and herring-gulls sweep
and glide over its surface; more rapidly and less steadily do the
terns pursue the chase over the reeds and the pools which these
inclose; in mid-air the screaming eagles circle; ducks, geese, and
swans fly from one part of the lake to another; kites hover over the
reeds; even sea-eagles and pelicans now and then show face. As to the
actual inhabitants of these lakes, as to the number of species and
individuals, one can only surmise until one has stationed oneself on
the banks, or penetrated into the thicket of reeds. In the salt-steppe,
as is readily intelligible, the animal life is sparser. With hasty
flight most of the water-birds pass over the inhospitable, salt-covered
shores, as they wend from lake to lake; only the black-headed gulls and
fishing-gulls are willing to rest for a time by the not wholly dry,
but shallow, briny basins; only the sheldrake fishes there in company
with the charming avocet, who seeks out just these very places, and,
living in pairs or small companies, spends his days stirring up the
salt water, swinging his delicate head with upturned bill from side to
side indefatigably. Of other birds I only saw a few, a yellow or white
wagtail, a lapwing, a plover; the rest seem to avoid the uninviting
desolateness of these brine pools, all the more that infinitely more
promising swamps and pools are to be found quite near them. About the
lake itself abundant food seems to be promised to all comers. Thus
not only do thousands of marsh and water birds settle on its surface,
but even the little songsters and passerine birds, unprovided for by
the dry steppes, come hither. Not the fishers alone, but other hungry
birds of prey find here their daily bread. The steppe-lakes cannot
indeed be compared with those of North Africa, where, during winter,
the feathered tribes of three-quarters of the globe have their great
rendezvous, nor with the equatorial water-basins, which are thronged
by hundreds of thousands of birds at every season, nor even with the
marsh-lands of the Danube, where, all through the summer, countless
children of the air find rest; in proportion to the extent of water
in the steppes the number of winged settlers may seem small, but the
bird-fauna is really very considerable, and the lakes of the steppes
have also a certain uniqueness in regard to the nesting-places chosen
by the birds.
[Illustration: Fig. 13.--Lake Scene and Water-fowl in an Asiatic
Steppe.]
Here every creature has its home among the reeds: the wolf and the
boar, the eagle and the wild-goose, the kite and the swan, the raven
and the mallard, the gadwall or teal, the thrush and the white-throat,
the reed-tit and the sparrow, the reed-bunting and the ortolan, the
willow wren and the blue-throated warbler, the lesser kestrel and
the red-footed falcon, the crane and the lapwing, the shrike and the
snipe, the starling, the yellow and white wagtails, the quail and the
kingfisher, the great white heron and the spoonbill, the cormorant and
the pelican. The reed-thickets afford home and shelter to all; they
take the place of woods in affording hiding and security; in their
retreats the secrets of love are told, and the joys of family life are
expressed, exuberant rejoicings are uttered, and the tenderest cares
are fulfilled; they are the cradles and the schools of the young.
Of the mammals which congregate among the reeds one usually sees only
the tracks, provided, of course, that one does not resort to forceful
measures and ransack the thicket with dogs. Of the flitting bird-life,
however, in its general features at least, the practised eye of the
naturalist may at any time obtain a lively picture.
When we leave the dry steppes and approach a lake, the
widely-distributed larks disappear, and their place is taken by the
plovers, whose plaintive cries fall mournfully on the ear. One of
them may be seen running by fits and starts along the ground, with
the characteristic industry of its race, stopping here and there to
pick up some minute booty, and then running off again as swiftly
as ever. Before we reach the reeds we see the black-headed gulls,
probably also the common gulls, and, in favourable circumstances,
even a great black-backed gull. The first fly far into the steppes
to seek out the grazing herds, and are equally decorative whether
they sweep gracefully over and around them in thick crowds, catching
in their flight the insects which the grazing beasts have disturbed,
or whether they run behind the herd like white pigeons seeking their
food in the fields. Near the reeds we also see one or other of the
wild-geese--a male who for a short time has left his mate sitting
upon the eggs, to graze, while it is still possible, on the grassy
patches near the reed-thicket. Soon, however, parental cares, in
which all ganders share, will recall him to the recesses of the
willows close by the lake, to the nook where the careful parents
have their gray-greenish-yellow goslings well hidden. Over all the
flooded shallows there is a more active life. On the margins of the
pools small littoral birds have their well-chosen fighting-grounds.
Fighting-ruffs,[19] now arrayed in their gayest dress, meet there in
combat; with depressed head each directs his beak like a couched lance
against the bright neck-collar which serves his foe for shield. The
combatants stand in most defiant attitudes, irresistibly amusing to us;
for a moment they look at one another with their sharp eyes and then
make a rush, each making a thrust, and at the same time receiving one
on his feathery shield. But none of the heroes is in any way injured,
and none allows the duelling to interfere with less exciting business;
for if, during the onslaught, one see a fly just settling on a stem, he
does not allow it to escape him, and his opponent is equally attentive
to the swimming beetle darting about on the surface of a small pool;
hastily they run, one here and the other there, seize the booty which
they spied, and return refreshed to the fray. Meantime, however,
other combatants have taken the field, and the fight seems as if it
would never have an end. But suddenly a marsh-harrier comes swooping
along, and the heroes hastily quit the field; they rise together in
close-packed flight, and hurry to another pond, there to repeat the
same old game. The dreaded harrier is the terror of all the other
birds of the lake. At his approach the weaker ducks rise noisily,
and, a moment later, their stronger relatives, more disturbed by the
ducks than by the bird of prey, rise impetuously, and with whizzing
beating of wings, circle several times over the lake and sink again
in detachments. With trilling call the redshanks also rise, and with
them the snipe, whose cry, though tuneless, is audible from afar. The
robber sweeps past all too near, but both redshank and snipe forget
his menace as soon as they reach a safe height; they seem to feel only
the golden spring-tide and the joy of love which now dominates them.
For the redshank sinks suddenly to the water far beneath, flutters,
and hovers with his wings hanging downwards and forwards, rises again
with insistent calls and sinks once more, until a response from his
mate near by invites him to cease from his love-play and to hasten
to her. So is it also with the snipe, who, after he has ended his
zigzag flight, and ascended to twice the height of a tower, lets
himself fall suddenly. In the precipitous descent he broadens out
his tail, and opposes the flexible, narrow, pointed lateral feathers
to the resisting air, thus giving rise to that bleating noise to
which he owes his quaint name of sky-goat.[20] Only a pair of the
exceedingly long-legged black-winged stilts, which were pursuing their
business in apparently aristocratic isolation from the throng, have
remained undisturbed by the marsh-harrier; perhaps they saw the bold
black-headed gulls hastening to drive off the disturber of the peace.
Moreover, a Montagu’s harrier and a steppe-harrier have united their
strength against the marsh-harrier, whom they hate with a bitterness
proportionate to his near relationship. Without hesitation the robber
makes for the open country, and next minute there is the wonted
whistling and warbling, scolding and cackling over the water. Already
there is a fresh arrival of visitors, drawn by that curiosity common to
all social birds, and also, of course, by the rich table which these
lakes afford.
When at length we reach the thicket of reeds the smaller birds become
more conspicuous, the larger forms being more effectively concealed.
The crane, which breeds on the most inaccessible spots, the great
white heron, which fishes on the inner margin of the thicket, the
spoonbill, which forages for food on the shallowest stretches among the
reeds, all these keep themselves as far as possible in concealment,
and of the presence of the bittern in the very heart of the reeds we
are aware only by his muffled booming. On the other hand, all the
small birds to which I have referred expose themselves to view almost
without any wariness, singing and exulting in their loudest notes. The
yellow wagtails run about confidently on the meadow-like plots of grass
around the outer margin of the thicket; that marvel of prettiness, the
bearded titmouse, climbs fearlessly up and down on the reeds, whose
tops are graced here by a redbreast and there by a gray shrike. From
all sides the cheerful, though but slightly melodious song of the
sedge-warblers strikes the ear, and we listen with pleasure to the lay
of the black-throated thrush, to the lovely singing of the blue-throat,
the wood-wren, and the icterine warbler, and to the call of the cuckoo.
On the open pools among the reeds there is sure to be a pair of coots
swimming with their young brood, and where the water is deeper there
is perchance an eared grebe among the various kinds of ducks. When
it draws to evening the red-footed falcon, the lesser kestrel, the
starlings and the rose-starlings also seek the thicket for the night,
and of chattering and fussing there is no end. Even the spotted eagle,
the raven, and the hooded-crow appear as guests for the night, and, on
the inner margins at least, the cormorant and the pelican rest from
their fishing.
Finally, over the surface of the lake the gulls fly and hover, the
terns dart hither and thither, the ernes and ospreys pursue their prey,
and, where the water is not too deep, the pelicans and swans vie in
their fishing industry with the greedy cormorants and grebes.
The beds of streams fringed with trees and bushes are hardly less rich
in life. The trees bear the nests of large and small birds of prey, and
serve also for their perches. From their tops may be heard the resonant
call of the golden oriole, the song of the thrush, the laughter of the
woodpecker, and the cooing of the ring-dove and stock-dove; while from
the thick undergrowth the glorious song of the nightingale is poured
forth with such clearness and power, that even the fastidious ear of
the critic listens in rapture to the rare music. On the surface of the
stream many different kinds of water-birds swim about as on the lake;
among the bushes on the banks there is the same gay company that we saw
among the reeds; the lesser white-throat chatters, the white-throat
and the barred warbler sing their familiar songs.
When we traverse the dry stretches of the steppes we see another
aspect of animal life. Again it is the bird-life which first claims
attention. At least six, and perhaps eight species of larks inhabit the
steppes, and give life to even the dreariest regions. Uninterruptedly
does their song fall on the traveller’s ear; from the ground and from
the tops of the small bushes it rises; from morning to evening the
rich melody is poured forth from the sky. It seems to be only one song
which one hears, for the polyphonous calandra lark takes the strophes
of our sky-lark and of the white-winged lark and combines them with
its own, nor despises certain notes of the black lark, the red lark,
and the short-toed lark, but blends all the single songs with its own,
yet without drowning the song of its relatives, no matter how loudly
it may pour forth its own and its borrowed melodies. When, in spring,
we listen enraptured to our own sky-larks in the meadows, and note
how one sweet singer starts up after another in untiring sequence,
heralding the spring with inspired and inspiring song, we hardly fancy
that all that we can hear at home is surpassed a hundredfold on the
steppes. Yet so it is, for here is the true home of the larks; one
pair close beside another, one species and then another, or different
kinds living together, and in such numbers that the broad steppes seem
to have scarce room enough to hold them all. But the larks are not the
only inhabitants of these regions. For proportionately numerous are
the lark’s worst enemies, full of menace to the dearly loved young
brood--the harriers, characteristic birds of the steppes. Whatever
region we visit we are sure to see one or another of these birds of
prey, in the north Montagu’s harrier, in the south the steppe-harrier,
hurrying over his province, sweeping along near the ground in wavy,
vacillating flight. Not unfrequently, over a broad hollow, four, six,
eight or more may be seen at once absorbed in the chase. Even more
abundant, but not quite so widely distributed, are two other children
of the steppes, almost identical in nature and habits, and vieing with
one another in beauty, grace of form, and vigour of movement,--the
lesser kestrel and the red-footed falcon. Wherever there is a
perching-place for these charming creatures, where a telegraph-line
traverses the country, or where a rocky hillock rises from the plain,
there they are sure to be seen. As good-natured as they are gregarious,
unenvious of each other’s gain, though they pursue the same booty,
these falcons wage indefatigable war against insects of all sorts,
from the voracious grasshopper to the small beetle. There they sit,
resting and digesting, yet keeping a sharp look-out meanwhile; as soon
as they spy booty they rise, and after an easy and dexterous flight
begin to glide, then, stopping, they hover, with scarce perceptible
vibrations, right over one spot, until, from the height, they are able
to fasten their eyes surely on their prey. This done, they precipitate
themselves like a falling stone, seize, if they are fortunate, the
luckless insect, tear it and devour it as they fly, and, again swinging
themselves aloft, proceed as before. Not unfrequently ten or twelve of
both species may be seen hunting over the same spot, and their animated
behaviour cannot fail to attract and fascinate the observer’s gaze.
Every day and all day one comes across them, for hours at a time one
may watch them, and always there is a fresh charm in studying their
play; they are as characteristic parts of the steppe picture as the
salt lake, the tulip or the lily, as the dwarf shrub, the tschi-grass,
or the white wool-packs in the heavens. Characteristic also is the
rose-starling, beautifully coloured representative of the familiar
frequenter of our houses and gardens. He is the eager and successful
enemy of the greedy grasshopper, the truest friend of the grazing
herds, the untiring guardian of the crops and thus man’s sworn ally,
an almost sacred bird in the eyes of those who inhabit the steppes.
Notable also is the sand-grouse, a connecting link between fowl and
pigeon,[21] which, with other members of its family, is especially at
home in the desert. Not less noteworthy are the great bustard, its
handsomer relative the ruffed bustard, and the little bustard. The
last-named is of special interest to us, because a few years ago it
wandered into Germany as far as Thuringia, where it now, as in the
steppe, adds a unique charm to the landscape as it discloses its full
beauty in whizzing flight. Other beautifully coloured, and indeed
really splendid birds inhabit the steppes--the lovely bee-eater and
roller, which live on the steep banks of the streams along with falcons
and pigeons, the bunting and the scarlet bullfinch, which shelter among
the tschi-grass and herbage, and many others. Even the swallows are
not absent from this region in which stable human dwellings are so
rare. That the sand-martin should make its burrows in all the steeper
banks of the lakes will not seem strange to the ornithologist, but it
is worthy of note that the swallow and martins are still in process of
transition from free-living to semi-domesticated birds, that they still
fix their nests to the cliffs, but leave these to establish themselves
wherever the Kirghiz rear a tomb, and that the martins seek hospitality
even in the tent or _yurt_.[22] They find it, too, when the Kirghiz is
able to settle long enough to allow the eggs to hatch and the young to
become fledged, in a nest fixed to the cupola ring of his hut.
But in these regions, whose bird-life I have been describing, there are
other animals. Apart from the troublesome mosquitoes, flies, gadflies,
wasps, and other such pests, there are only a few species of insects,
but most of these are very numerous and are distributed over the whole
of the wide area. The same is true of the reptiles; thus in the region
which we traversed we found only a few species of lizards and snakes.
Among the latter we noted especially two venomous species, our common
viper and the halys-viper; neither indeed occurred in multitudes like
the lizards, but both were none the less remarkably abundant. Several
times every day as we rode through the steppe would one and the other
of the Kirghiz who accompanied us bend from his horse with drawn knife,
and slash the head off one of these snakes. I remember, too, that, at a
little hill-town in the northern Altai, a place called “Schlangenberg”
[or Snakemount], we wished to know whether the place had a good right
to its name, and that the answer was almost embarrassingly convincing,
so abundant was the booty with which those whom we had sent in quest
soon returned. We had no longer any reason to doubt the truth of the
tale according to which the place owed its name to the fact that,
before the town was founded, the people collected thousands and
thousands of venomous snakes and burned them. Amphibians and small
mammals seem much rarer than reptiles; of the former we saw only a
species of toad, and of the latter, several mice, a souslik, two blind
mole-rats, and the dainty jerboa, popularly known as the jumping-mouse.
[Illustration: Fig. 14.--The Souslik (_Spermophilus citillus_). (⅓
natural size.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 15.--The Jerboa (_Alactaga jaculus_). (⅓ natural
size.)]
The sousliks and the jerboas are most charming creatures. The former
especially are often characteristic features of steppe-life, for
in favourable places they readily become gregarious, and, like the
related marmots, form important settlements. It is usually towards
evening that one sees them, each sitting at the door of his burrow.
On the approach of the waggon or train of riders they hastily beat a
retreat, inquisitively they raise their heads once more, and then, at
the proper moment, they vanish like a flash into their burrows, only
to reappear, however, a few minutes later, peering out cautiously
as if to see whether the threatened danger had passed safely by.
Their behaviour expresses a continual wavering between curiosity and
timidity, and the latter is fully justified, since, apart from man,
there are always wolves and foxes, imperial eagles and spotted eagles,
on their track. Indeed one may be sure that the sousliks are abundant
when one sees an imperial eagle perching on the posts by the wayside
or on the trees by a village. The jerboa--by far the prettiest of the
steppe-mammals--is much less frequently seen, not indeed because he
occurs less frequently, but because, as a nocturnal animal, he only
shows himself after sunset. About this time, or later if the moon be
favourable, one may see the charming creature steal cautiously from his
hole. He stretches himself, and then, with his pigmy fore-limbs pressed
close to his breast, trots off on his kangaroo-like hind-legs, going
as if on stilts, balancing his slim erect body by help of his long
hair-fringed tail. Jerkily and not very rapidly the jerboa jumps along
the ground, resting here and there for a little, sniffing at things and
touching them with its long whisker-hairs, as he seeks for suitable
food. Here he picks out a grain of seed, and there he digs out a bulb;
they say of him also that he will not disdain carrion, that he will
plunder a bird’s nest, steal the eggs and young of those which nest on
the ground, and even hunt smaller rodents, from all which accusations
I cannot venture to vindicate him. Precise and detailed observation
of his natural life is difficult, for, his senses being keen and his
intelligence slight, timidity and shyness are his most prominent
qualities. As soon as man appears in what seems dangerous proximity,
the creature takes to flight, and it is useless to try to follow;
even on horseback one could scarce overtake him. With great bounds
he hurries on, jerking out his long hind-legs, with his long tail
stretched out as a rudder; bound after bound he goes, and, before one
has rightly seen how he began or whither he went, he has disappeared in
the darkness.[23]
The fauna of the steppe-mountains differs from that of the low-grounds,
differs at least, when, instead of gentle slopes or precipitous rocky
walls, there are debris-covered hillsides, wild deeply-cut gorges, and
rugged plantless summits. In the narrow, green valleys, through which a
brook flows or trickles, the sheldrake feeds--an exceedingly graceful,
beautiful, lively bird, scarce larger than a duck--the characteristic
duck of the central Asiatic mountains. From the niches of the rocks is
heard the cooing of a near relative of the rock-dove, which is well
known to be ancestor of our domestic pigeons; from the rough blocks
on which the wheatear, the rock-bunting, and the rock-grosbeak flit
busily, the melodious song of the rock-thrush streams forth. Around
the peaks the cheerful choughs flutter; above them the golden-eagle
circles by day, and the horned owl flies silently as a ghost by night,
both bent on catching one of the exceedingly abundant rock ptarmigan,
or, it may be, a careless marmot. More noteworthy, however, is the
_Archar_ of the Kirghiz, one of the giant wild sheep of Central Asia,
the same animal that I had the good fortune to shoot on the Arkat
mountains.
According to the reports which I gathered after careful
cross-examination of the Kirghiz, the archar occurs not only here, but
also on other not very lofty ranges of the western Siberian steppes.
They are said to go in small troops of five to fifteen head, rams and
ewes living in separate companies until the breeding season. Each
troop keeps its own ground unless it be startled or disturbed; in
which case it hastens from one range to another, yet never very far.
Towards sunset the herd ascends, under the guidance of the leader,
to the highest peaks, there to sleep in places scarce accessible to
other creatures; at sunrise, both old and young descend to the valleys
to graze and to drink at chosen springs; at noon, they lie down to
rest and ruminate in the shade of the rocks, in places which admit of
open outlook; towards evening they descend again to graze. Such is
their daily routine both in summer and winter. They eat such plants
as domesticated sheep are fond of, and they are, when needs must,
easily satisfied; but even in winter they rarely suffer from want, and
in spring they become so vigorous that from that season until autumn
they are fastidious, and will eat only the most palatable herbs. Their
usual mode of motion is a rapid, exceedingly expeditious trot; and even
when frightened they do not quicken their steps very markedly unless a
horseman pursue them. Then they always take to the rocks and soon make
their escape. When in flight either on the plain or on the mountains
they almost always keep in line, one running close behind another,
and, if suddenly surprised and scattered, they re-form in linear order
as speedily as possible. Among the rocks they move, whether going
upwards or downwards, with surprising ease, agility, and confidence.
Without any apparent strain, without any trace of hurry, they clamber
up and down almost vertical paths, leap wide chasms, and pass from
the heights to the valley almost as if they were birds and could fly.
When they find themselves pursued, they stand still from time to time,
clamber to a loftier peak to secure a wider prospect, and then go on
their way so calmly that it seems as if they mocked their pursuer.
Consciousness of their strength and climbing powers seems to give them
a proud composure. They never hurry, and have no cause to regret their
deliberation except when they come within shot of the lurking ambuscade
or the stealthy stalker.
[Illustration: Fig. 16.--Archar Sheep or Argali (_Ovis Argali_).]
The sheep live at peace together throughout the year, and the rams only
fight towards the breeding season. This occurs in the second half of
October and lasts for almost a month. At this time the high-spirited,
combative rams become greatly excited. The seniors make a stand and
drive off all their weaker fellows. With their equals they fight
for life or death. The rivals stand opposed in menacing attitudes;
rearing on their hind-legs they rush at one another, and the crash of
powerful horns is echoed in a dull rumble among the rocks. Sometimes
it happens that they entangle one another, for the horns may interlock
inseparably, and both perish miserably; or one ram may hurl the other
over a precipice, where he is surely dashed to pieces.
During the last days of April or the first of May the ewe brings forth
a single lamb or a pair. These lambs, as we found out from captive
ones, are able in a few hours to run with their mother, and in a few
days they follow her over all the paths, wherever she leads them, with
the innate agility and surefootedness characteristic of their race.
When serious danger threatens, the mother hides them in the nooks of
the rocks, where the enemy may perchance overlook their presence. She
returns, of course, after she has successfully eluded the foe. The
lambkin, pressed close to the ground, lies as still as a mouse, and,
looking almost like a stone, may often escape detection; but not by
any means always is he safe, least of all from the golden eagle, which
often seizes and kills a lamb which the mother has left unprotected.
So we observed when hunting on the Arkat Mountains. Captive archar
lambs which we got from the Kirghiz were most delightful creatures,
and showed by the ready way in which they took to the udders of their
foster-mothers that they might have been reared without special
difficulty. Should it prove possible to bring the proud creatures into
domestication the acquisition would be one of the greatest value. But
of this the Kirghiz does not dream, he thinks only of how he may shoot
this wild sheep or the other. Not that the chase of this powerful
animal is what one could call a passion with him; indeed the sheep’s
most formidable enemy is the wolf, and it is only in the deep snow in
winter that even he manages to catch an archar.
[Illustration: Fig. 17.--Pallas’s Sand-grouse (_Syrrhaptes paradoxus_).]
As on the mountains, so on the driest, dreariest stretches of the
steppes, which even in spring suggest African deserts, there are
characteristic animals. In such places almost all the plants of the
highlands and valleys disappear except the low tufted grass and
diminutive bushes of wormwood. Here, however, grows a remarkable shrub
which one does not see elsewhere, a shrub called _ramwood_ on
account of its extreme hardness and toughness, which baffles the axe.
It roots on those rare spots in the wilderness where the rain-storms
have washed together some poor red clay. There it sometimes grows into
bushwork of considerable extent, affording shelter and shade to other
plants, so that these green spots come to look like little oases in
the desert. But these oases are no more lively than the dreary steppes
around, for apart from a shrike, the white-throat, and a wood-wren, one
sees no bird, and still less any mammal. On the other hand, amid the
desolation there live some of the most notable of the steppe animals,
along with others which occur everywhere; besides the short-toed
lark and calandra lark there is the coal-black Tartar lark, which
those aware of the general colour-resemblance between ground-birds
and the ground would naturally look for on the black earth. Along
with the small plover there is the gregarious lapwing, along with
the great bustard the slender ruffed bustard, which the Kirghiz call
the ambler, along with the sand-grouse there is Pallas’s sand-grouse
or steppe-grouse.[24] It was this last bird which some years ago
migrated in large numbers into Germany and settled on the dunes and
sandy places, but was so inhospitably received by us, so ruthlessly
persecuted with guns, snares, and even poison, that it forsook our
inhuman country and probably returned to its home. Here, too, along
with the specially abundant souslik, there are steppe antelopes and the
_Kulan_, the fleet wild horse of the steppes. I must restrict myself to
giving a brief sketch of the last, so as not to overstep too far the
limits of the time allowed me.
If Darwin’s general conclusions be reliable, we may perhaps regard the
kulan as the ancestor of our horse, which has been gradually improved
by thousands of years of breeding and selection. This supposition is
more satisfactory than the vague and unsupported assertion that the
ancestor of our noblest domestic animal has been lost, and to me it
is more credible than the opinion which finds in the Tarpan which
roams to-day over the Dnieper steppes an original wild horse, and not
merely one that has reverted to wildness.[25] As recent investigations
in regard to our dogs, whose various breeds we cannot compute with
even approximate accuracy, point to their origin from still existing
species of wolf and jackal, my conclusion in regard to the horse
acquires collateral corroboration. Moreover, the ancestor of our
domestic cat, now at last recognized, still lives in Africa, and the
ancestor of our goat in Asia Minor and in Crete.[26] As to the pedigree
of our sheep and cattle we cannot yet decide with certainty, but I have
consistent information from three different quarters, including the
report of a Kirghiz who declared that he had himself hunted the animal,
to the effect that in the heart of the steppes of Mongolia there still
lives a camel with all the characteristics of wildness.[27] I cannot
doubt the truth of the reports which I received, and the only question
is, whether this camel represents the original stock still living in
a wild state, or whether, like the tarpan, it be only an offshoot of
the domesticated race which has returned to wild life. As the veil is
slowly being lifted which hid, and still hides, the full truth from our
inquiring eyes, as the ancestors of our domesticated animals are being
discovered one after the other, and that among species still living,
why should we suppose that the ancestor of the horse, the conditions of
whose life correspond so thoroughly with those of the broad measureless
steppes, has died out without leaving a trace? It is, I maintain, among
the still living wild horses of the Old World that we must look for the
progenitor of our horse, and among these none has more claims to the
honour of being regarded as the ancestor of this noble creature than
the kulan. It may be that the tarpan more closely resembles our horse,
but, if it be true that the Hyksos brought the horse to the ancient
Egyptians (from whose stone records we have our first knowledge of the
domesticated animal), or that the Egyptians themselves tamed the horse
before the time of the Hyksos, and therefore at least one and a half
thousand years before our era, then certainly the race had not its
origin in the steppes of the Dnieper and the Don. For nearer at hand,
namely in the steppes and deserts of Asia Minor, Palestine, and Persia,
and in several valleys of Arabia and India, they had a wild horse full
of promise, one which still lives, our kulan. This differs indeed in
several features from our horse, but not more than the greyhound,
the poodle, or the Newfoundland differs from the wolf or any other
wild dog, not more than the dachshund, the terrier, or the spaniel
from the jackal, not more than the pony from the Arabian horse, or
the Belgian-French cart-horse from the English racer. The differences
between our domesticated horse and the wild form which seems to me its
most probable ancestor are indeed important, but horse and kulan seem
to regard themselves as belonging to the same blood, since they seek
each other’s company.
When, on the 3rd June, 1876, we were riding through the dreary desert
steppes between the Saisan lake and the Altai--a region from which
I have drawn the main features of the above sketch--we saw in the
course of the forenoon no fewer than fifteen kulans. Among these we
observed one pair in particular. They stood on the broad crest of a
near hillock, their forms sharply defined against the blue sky, and
powerfully did they raise the desire for the chase in us and in our
companion Kirghiz. One of them made off as we appeared, and trotted
towards the mountain; the other stood quietly, and seemed as if
considering a dilemma, then raised its head once and again, and at last
came running towards us. All guns were at once in hand; the Kirghiz
slowly and carefully formed a wide semicircle with the intention of
driving the strangely stupid and inconceivably careless creature
towards us. Nearer and nearer, halting now and then, but still steadily
nearer he came, and we already looked upon him as a sure captive. But
a smile broke over the face of the Kirghiz riding beside me; he had
not only discovered the motive of the creature’s apparently foolish
behaviour, he had recognized the animal itself. It was a Kirghiz horse,
dappled like a kulan, which, having strayed from his master’s herd, had
fallen in with wild horses, and, for lack of better company, had stayed
with them. In our horses he had recognized his kin, and had therefore
forsaken his friends in need. Having come quite near to the Kirghiz, he
stopped again as if to reflect whether he should once more yield his
newly-healed back to the galling saddle; but the first steps towards
return were followed by others, and without an attempt at flight he
allowed them to halter him, and in a few minutes he was trotting as
docilely by the side of one of the horsemen as if he had never known
the free life of his ancestors. Thus we were able to confirm by
personal experience the already accepted fact, that horse and kulan do
sometimes keep company.
The kulan is a proud, fascinating creature, full of dignity, strength,
and high spirits. He stares curiously at the horseman who approaches
him; and then, as if deriding the pursuer, trots off leisurely,
playfully lashing his flanks with his tail. If the rider spurs his
horse to full speed, the kulan takes to a gallop as easy as it is
swift, which bears him like the wind over the steppes and soon carries
him out of sight. But even when at full speed he now and again suddenly
pulls himself up, halts for a moment, jerks round with his face to the
pursuer, neighs, and then, turning, kicks his heels defiantly in the
air, and bounds off with the same ease as before. A fugitive troop
always orders itself in line, and it is beautiful to see them suddenly
halt at a signal from the leader, face round, and again take to flight.
[Illustration: Fig. 18.--The Kulan (_Equus hemionus_).]
As among all horses, each troop of kulans has a stallion for leader,
and he is the absolute master of them all. He leads the troop to
pasture as well as in flight, he turns boldly on carnivores which are
not superior in force, he permits no quarrelling among his followers,
and tolerates no rival, indeed no other adult male in the herd. In
every district which the kulans frequent, solitary individuals are
to be seen unaccompanied by any troop; they are stallions which have
been vanquished and driven off after furious and protracted combats,
and which must roam about alone until the next breeding season. In
September they again approach the herds, from which the old stallion
now drives off the newly-matured stallions, and a fierce battle begins
when they catch sight of an opponent. For hours at this season they
stand on the crests of steep ridges, with widely-open nostrils raised
to the wind, with their eyes on the valley before them. As soon as the
banished one sees another stallion, he rushes down at full gallop, and
fights to exhaustion with both teeth and hoofs. Should he conquer the
leader of a herd, he enters upon his rights, and the mares follow him
as they did his predecessor. After the battles are over comes the time
of wandering, for the hard winter drives the herds from one place to
another, and it is only when spring has fully come that they return
to their old quarters. Here, in the end of May or in the beginning of
June the mare brings forth her foal, which in every respect resembles
that of the domestic horse--a somewhat awkward-looking, but very nimble
and lively creature. We had the good fortune to be able to make its
acquaintance.
On climbing one of the elongated hillocks of these desert-steppes, we
suddenly saw at a short distance three old kulans and a foal, which
seemed to be only a few days old. Our Russian companion fired a shot,
and away rushed the wild horses, with their hoofs scarce touching the
ground, yet exerting their incomparable agility almost with the ease
of play, and obviously keeping themselves in check for the sake of
the foal. Down rushed all the Kirghiz and Cossacks of our company;
our attendants, carried away with the general excitement, also gave
chase; and down we also rushed. It was a wild chase. Still playing
with their strength, the wild horses made for the distant mountains,
while all the riders urged on their steeds to their utmost, till their
bellies seemed almost to touch the ground. The desert resounded with
the jubilant cries of the Kirghiz, the thundering of their horses at
full gallop, the neighing of our slower horses which gnashed at their
bridles; fluttering cloaks and kaftans and whirling clouds of dust
filled and enlivened the solitudes. Further and further rushed the
chase. Then the foal separated itself from its older companions and
fell behind; the distance increased between it and the anxious glance
which the mother repeatedly cast back; the distance between it and
our horsemen decreased; and in a few minutes it was taken. Without
resistance it gave itself up to its pursuers; it showed no trace of the
characteristic qualities of the adults--wildness, hardly governable
self-will, and inconquerable roguishness, which often degenerates
into downright spite. Innocently it gazed at us with its large lively
eyes, with apparent pleasure it allowed us to stroke its soft skin,
without resistance it allowed itself to be led along with a halter,
in child-like carelessness it lay down beside us seeking obviously
much-needed rest after the heat of the chase. The charming creature at
once captivated every one. But who was to find a milk-mare to be its
foster-mother, who was to give it rest and care? Both were impossible,
and on the second day the lovable creature was dead. With the passion
of sportsmen would we have killed a full-grown kulan, but to see the
foal die gave us genuine sorrow.
In vain we tried to capture one of the adults; in vain we lay in ambush
beside the bound foal in hopes of inveigling its mother; in vain we
tried to effect something by driving; none of us had any luck. As a
sportsman, I left the dreary solitudes with regret, but as a naturalist
I was in the highest degree satisfied, for there I had come to know the
noblest creature of the steppes.
THE FORESTS AND SPORT OF SIBERIA.
Siberian scenery gives one an impression of uniformity and monotony,
which is mainly due to the fact that the whole country consists of
three zones, each more or less homogeneous within itself, though
distinct from the other two. Each of these zones preserves its special
character everywhere, and the same picture is repeated a hundred times,
satiating and blunting the senses till one becomes almost incapable
of recognizing or appreciating the charms of any scene. Thus it is
that we seldom hear anyone speak with appreciation, much less with
enthusiasm, of the scenery of this wide region,--although it certainly
deserves both--and, thus, gradually there has become fixed in our minds
an impression of Siberia which refuses correction with an obstinacy
proportionate to its falseness. Siberia is thought of as a terrible
ice-desert, without life, without variety, without charm, as a frozen
land under the curse of heaven and of miserable exiles. But it is
entirely forgotten that Siberia includes a full third of Asia, and that
a region which is almost twice as large as the whole of Europe, which
extends from the Ural to the Pacific Ocean, from the Arctic sea to the
latitude of Palermo, cannot possibly be excessively monotonous nor
uniform in all its parts. But people usually picture only one district
of Siberia, and even that in a false light.
In truth the country is richer in variety than any one has hitherto
described it. Mountains interrupt and bound the plains, both are
brightened by flowing and standing water, the sun floods hills and
valleys with shimmering light and gleaming colour, lofty trees and
beautiful flowers adorn the whole land, and men live happily, joyous in
their homes.
Of course there are undeniable wildernesses even now in Siberia, and
these, along with the likewise real ice-deserts, the tundras, do, to
a certain extent, justify the popular impression. Dreary also are
the forests which lie between the tundra and the steppes, and form
the third zone. In them man never ventures to establish himself; on
them the industry of the settlers along their borders make relatively
little impression; within them the forces of nature hold absolute sway,
creating and destroying without interference. The flame of heaven sets
the trees ablaze, the raging winter-storm hurls them to the ground;
the forests rise and disappear without any human control, and may in
the fullest sense of the word be called primeval. Full of mystery
they attract, and at the same time inhospitably repel; inviting they
seem to the hunter, but resistant they bar his steps; rich gain they
promise the eager merchant, but postpone the fulfilment of his wishes
to the future. This girdle of forest extends, as we have mentioned,
between the steppes and the tundra. Here and there it encroaches on
both; here and there they intrude upon it. At certain places in both
the unwooded zones, a compact wood may dispute possession with the
characteristic vegetation of steppes or of tundra, as the case may be,
but such isolated woods are almost always like islands in the sea,
for whose presence there is no obvious justification. In the steppes
they are restricted to the northern slopes of the mountains and to the
valleys, in the tundra to the deepest depressions. But in both cases
they are unimportant in comparison with the measureless extent of
the forest zone, in which it is only here and there that a stream, a
lake, or a swamp interrupts the continuity of the wilderness of trees
which extends on all sides. A conflagration may make a clearing, or,
at the extreme fringe, man may make a gap, but otherwise there is no
interruption. Whole countries, as we know them, might find space in one
of these immense forest tracts; and there are kingdoms of smaller area
than some of them. What the interior is like no one can tell, for not
even by the streams which flow from them can one penetrate far, and
even the boldest sable-hunters do not know more than a margin of at
most fifty or sixty miles.
The general impression which the Siberian forests make on the German
traveller is by no means favourable. At the apparently boundless
tracts which are wooded, he is of course astonished, but he cannot
be enthusiastic, or at least very rarely. The creative, productive,
renewing power of the North does not seem to be adequate to balance the
destructive forces. Hoary age stands side by side with fresh youth, but
somehow there is no vitality in the combination; incomputable wealth
appears in beggar’s garb; and moribund life without any promise of
vigorous rejuvenescence inhibits any feeling of joy. Everywhere we seem
to perceive the hard struggle for existence, but nowhere are we really
fascinated or attracted by the spirit of the woods, nowhere does the
interior fulfil the expectations which the external aspect suggested.
The splendour of the primitive forests in lower latitudes is entirely
and absolutely lacking in this derelict, uncared-for woodland. The life
which stirs within them seems as if it had already fallen under the
shadow of death.[28]
True forest, full of fresh life, with continuance amid a regular
succession of changes, is rare. The devastation wrought by fire is a
much more frequent spectacle. Sooner or later a lightning-flash, or
the culpable carelessness of the Siberian, sets the forest in a blaze.
Favoured by the season and the weather the conflagration spreads in
a manner scarce conceivable. Not for hours, but for days, or even
for weeks, the destruction rages. On the mossy and turfy ground the
flames smoulder and creep further and further; the quantities of dry
and mouldy débris on the ground feed them, dry branches hanging down
to the ground, or dead trunks, still upright, lead them to the tops of
the living trees. Hissing and cracking the resinous needles fall, and
a gigantic spray of sparks rises to heaven. In a few minutes the giant
tree is dead, and the destruction spreads; the rockets which radiate
from it fall in thousands of sparks, and all around fresh flames spring
from the glowing seed. Thus every minute the fire gains ground, and
destruction spreads on all sides uncontrolled. In a few hours square
miles of the forest are ablaze. Over hundreds of square _versts_
steaming clouds of smoke darken the sun; slowly, but thickly, and
ever more thickly, the ashes drizzle down, and tell by day to distant
settlers, as the glow reflected in the sky proclaims by night, that
there is a fire in the forest. Affrighted animals carry terror into
the surrounding townships. Immediately after great forest-fires, bears
appear in districts where they have not been seen for years; wolves
wander over the open country in formidable troops as if it were winter;
elks, stags, roedeer and reindeer seek new homes in distant forests;
and squirrels in countless swarms hurry through wood and plain, field
and meadow, village and town. How many of the terror-stricken beasts
fall victims to the fire no one can estimate, but it has been found
that woodlands desolated by conflagration remain for many years
thereafter without fresh settlers, and that the valuable beasts of
the chase have entirely disappeared from many of these desolated
districts. The devastation is sometimes on a scale of vast magnitude;
thus, in 1870, a fire which raged for about fourteen days destroyed a
million and a quarter acres of valuable forest in the government of
Tobolsk, while clouds of smoke and showers of ashes were borne to a
distance of a thousand miles from the seat of the conflagration.
For many years the devastated woodland remains like an immense
succession of ruins; even after a generation or two the limits of the
conflagration may be recognized and defined. The flames destroy the
life of almost all the trees, but they devour only those which were
already dry; thus stems more smoked than charred remain standing, and
even their tops may remain bereft only of their needles, young shoots,
and dry twigs. But they are dead and their destruction is in process.
Sooner or later they are bound to fall before the storm. One after
another is hurled to the ground, and one after another is robbed of
its branches, its crown, or a third or a fourth of the trunk is broken
off from the top. Across one another, at all angles, and at different
levels, thousands of these tree-corpses lie prostrate on the ground
already thickly covered with piles of débris. Some rest on their roots
and top-branches, others lean on the still upright stems of their
neighbours, and others already lie crumbling among the fallen branches,
their tops often far from their trunks, their branches scattered all
around. To the lover of the woods, those stems which still withstand
the storm have perhaps an even more doleful appearance than those which
have fallen. They stand up in nakedness like bare masts. Only a few
retain their tops, or parts of them, for several years after the fire;
but the weather-beaten twigless branches of the crowns rather increase
than lessen the mournfulness of the picture. Gradually all the crowns
sink to the ground, and the still upright trunks become more and more
rotten. Woodpeckers attack them on all sides, chisel out nesting-holes,
and make yard-long passages leading into the tree’s heart, thus
allowing the moisture free entrance and accelerating the process of
decay. In the course of years even the largest trunk has mouldered so
completely that it is really one huge homogeneous mass of rotten tinder
which has lost all stability. Indeed, a rough shake from a man’s hand
is sufficient to make it fall into a heap of shapeless débris. Finally,
even this disappears, and there is left a treeless expanse, broken only
here and there by the last traces of a trunk.
But even here a new life begins to rise from amid the ruins. Some years
after the conflagration, the charred ground, manured by ashes and
decayed débris, begins once more to be adorned. Lichens and mosses,
ferns and heaths, and above all various berry-bearing bushes cover the
ground and the débris of the trees. These flourish more luxuriantly
here than anywhere else, and they begin to attract animals as various
as those which the flames had banished. Seeds of birch borne by the
wind germinate and become seedlings, which gradually form, at first
exclusively, a thicket as dense as if it had sprung from man’s sowing.
After some years a young undergrowth has covered the field of the
dead; after a longer interval other forest trees gradually arise in
the room of their predecessors. Every forest-fire spares some parts of
the region which it embraces; even isolated trees may survive in the
midst of the burned area, and effect the re-sowing of the desolated
tract. Sheets of water and deep gorges may set limits to the fire, and
it may even happen that the flames, leaping over a gulley, continue
their devastation on the opposite bank without injuring the trees in
the depths beneath. Moreover, individual larch-trees which have been
attacked by the fire may escape destruction. The bases of the trunks
are charred and all the needles are shrivelled up, but often the crown
bursts forth afresh, and for a time the tree continues, though somewhat
miserably, to live.
In comparison with the ravages of the flames, the devastations for
which man is directly responsible seem trivial, but in themselves
they are of no slight importance. Of forest-culture the Siberian has
no conception. The forest belongs to God, and what is His is also
the peasant’s; thus, in view of the practically infinite wealth, he
never thinks of sparing, but does what he pleases, what the needs
of the moment seem to him to demand. Every Siberian fells and roots
out, where and as he pleases, and everyone destroys infinitely more
than he really requires. For a few cones he will fell a pine, even if
it be in the prime of growth; to obtain building wood he will cut
down three or four times the quantity required, leaving the residue
without a thought, often not even using it for fuel. Already, such
careless procedure has entailed serious consequences. The woods in the
neighbourhood of townships, and here and there even those near the
highways, are worked out, and appear scarce better than those which
the fire has devastated; and still the work of destruction goes on.
It is only since 1875 that there have been forest-officers in Western
Siberia, and even they give their attention rather to the exploitation
than to the renewal of the woods.
Even where neither man nor fire has ravaged them the forests present an
appearance essentially different from ours--an appearance of complete,
absolutely uncontrolled naturalness. It is but rarely, however, that
this attracts us. At first, perhaps, we are impressed by seeing at
one glance all stages of growth and decay; but the dead soon becomes
more conspicuous than the living, and this depresses instead of
stimulating.[29] In forests thus left in their natural state, thick
growth alternates with clearing, tall trees with mere thicket, hoary
senility with vigorous youth. Mouldering trees stand or lean, hang or
lie everywhere. From the remains of fallen stems young shoots sprout;
gigantic corpses bar the way within the thickets. Willows and aspens,
which, with the birch, are the most abundant foliage-trees of Western
Siberia, appear at times in irreproachable perfection, and at times as
if they had been persistently hindered from full growth. Stems thicker
than a man’s waist bear tangled crowns of small size, on which, year
after year, fresh twigs break forth without being able to grow into
branches; other apparently aged trees remain not more than bushes;
and others, broken across the middle, have their split, cracked, and
twisted upper parts connected to the trunk only by the splintered bark.
Rarely does one get a complete picture; everything looks as if it were
going to ruin, and could advance only in decay.
Yet this sketch is not true of all the woods in this vast region;
there are indeed woodlands, especially in the south of the zone, on
which the eye rests with satisfaction. Locality, situation, soil, and
other conditions are sometimes alike propitious and combine to produce
pleasing results. The growth of the individual trees becomes vigorous,
and the general composition of the wood changes; the undergrowth, which
is luxuriant everywhere, becomes diversified in the most unexpected
manner. Gladly one welcomes each new species of tree or bush which
reduces the marked poverty of species in these forests, but even from
the richest tracts many trees are awanting which we rarely miss in
Europe at the same latitude. It must be confessed that the forests of
Siberia are uniform and monotonous, like the steppes, and like the
tundra.
In the river-valleys of the forest zone the uniformity is perhaps most
conspicuous. Here the willows predominate, forming often extensive
woods by the banks and on the islands, almost to the complete exclusion
of other trees. Over wide stretches willows alone form the woods of the
valley, and in many places the trees rise to a stately height, yet even
then without often gaining in impressiveness or charm. For the isolated
willow-tree is not more, but rather less picturesque than the willow
bushes; its crown is always thin and irregular, it is not close-set
but loose and open, in fact almost scraggy. On frequent repetition it
becomes wearisome. When the willows stand, as is usual, close beside
one another, they form a dense thicket, and then, even more than the
isolated tree, they lack character, for all the stems rise like posts
and all the crowns fuse into a close, straight-contoured mass of
foliage, suggestive of a clipped hedge, in which the individual trees
are entirely merged. As pleasing additions to such monotonous woods we
welcome the sprinkling of poplars, the silver poplar in the south, the
aspen in the north, both of them giving some animation to the willows.
In the valley of the stream too, but only in those places which are not
subject to regularly-recurring floods, the birch appears in addition
to the trees already noticed; indeed birch-covered tracts occur with
some constancy as connecting links between the willow-woods and the
pine-forests. But it is only in the south of the zone that the birch
attains its full size and vigour; it is as unresisting a victim to the
flames as the most resinous pine, and is therefore incapable of greatly
affecting the general aspect of the forest. More or less unmixed birch
woods bound the forest zone to the south, and sometimes intrude far
into the steppes, yet it is but rarely that they form thick, compact,
well-established stretches of timber; and they are, when one sets foot
in them, disappointing.
On the other hand, the pine-forests which cover all the regions
between the river-courses often fascinate and satisfy the traveller
from the west. If the tundra has not gained upon them or begun to
make its desolating mark, they consist in the main of vigorous pines
and Norway spruce firs, the pichta or Siberian silver fir, the
cembra pine, and more rarely larches. Among these there are aspens
and willows, with occasional mountain-ash and bird-cherry, while
birches often appear in as great vigour as in woods which consist
exclusively of this accommodating tree. The pichta and the cembra
pine are the characteristic trees of all West Siberian pine-forests,
and vie with one another in beauty and vigour of growth. The pichta
is a particularly beautiful tree. Nearly related to our silver fir,
and representing it in all East Russian and West Siberian woodlands,
even from a distance it catches the eye, standing out impressively
from among all the other conifers. From the silver fir and from the
Norway spruce fir the pichta is distinguished by the stateliness of its
slender conical crown and by the rich, delicate, bright green needles.
Almost always it overtops the other trees of the forest; usually,
indeed, the topmost third is above the crowns of its neighbours,
thus effectively breaking the sky-line of the forest and giving an
individual character to certain regions. The cembra or stone pine,
which flourishes especially in the south of the forest zone, though it
also occurs far to the north, has round, smooth, usually compact tops
which contrast well with those of the other pines and firs; and it
also contributes not a little to the external adornment of the forest,
towards making it seem more attractive than it is. Pines and spruce
firs are nowhere absent, but they do not flourish everywhere as they
do in the mountains of Central Germany; towards the north they sink
rapidly into crippled senility. And so is it also with the larches,
whose true home is Siberia; it is only in the south of the forest zone,
especially on the mountains, that they attain the stately height of
those in our country.
The above-named species include almost all those which occur regularly
in the woodlands of Western Siberia. There seems to be a complete
absence of oak and beech, elm and ash, lime and maple, silver fir and
yew, hornbeam and black poplar. On the other hand, there are many kinds
of bushes and shrubs in abundance everywhere. Even in the north the
undergrowth of the forests is surprisingly rich and luxuriant. Currants
and raspberries flourish to a latitude of 58°, a species of woodbine
occurs up to 67°; juniper, white alder, sallow, crowberry, bilberry,
cranberry, and cloudberries increase rather than decrease as one goes
north; and even on the margins of the tundra, where dwarf-birches and
marsh-andromedas, mosses, and cowberries insinuate themselves into the
interior of the woods, the ground is still everywhere thickly covered,
for the mosses thrive the more luxuriantly the poorer the woods become.
The steppes also contribute to enrich the woods, for in the south
of the forest zone, not only most of the steppe-bushes and shrubs,
but also various herbs and flowers, enter or fringe the forest. Thus
certain wooded stretches of this border-land become natural parks,
which in spring and early summer display a surprising splendour of
blossom.
As an instance of a forest glorious in such charms, I may mention that
region known as “Taiga,”[30] which lies between the towns Schlangenberg
and Salain, in the domain of Altai. In the broad tract which this
beautiful forest covers there is a most pleasing succession of long
ridges and rounded hills, valleys, troughs, and basins. One hill rises
beyond and above another, and everywhere one sees a sky-line of forest.
Pines and pichta firs, aspen and willow, mountain-ash and bird-cherry,
are in the majority among the high trees, and are mingled in most
pleasing contrasts of bright and dark colour, of light and shade. The
soft lines of the foliage trees are pleasingly broken by the conical
summits of the pichta firs which overtop them. The two species of
Siberian pea-tree, guelder-rose and woodbine, wild rose and currant are
combined in the brightly blooming undergrowth; Umbellifers as tall as
a man, especially hemlock; spiræa; ferns such as maidenhair, larkspur
and foxglove, bluebell and hellebore all shooting up in unparalleled
luxuriance, weave a gay carpet, from which the wild hops climb and
twine up to the tall trees. It is as if the art of the landscape
gardener had been intelligently exercised, as if man had fashioned the
whole with an eye to scenic effect.
In the south, the forests show their greatest beauty in spring, in the
north, in autumn. By the first days of September the leaves of the
foliage trees begin to turn yellow here, and by the middle of the month
the north Siberian forest is more brilliant than any of ours. From the
darkest green to the most flaming red, through green and light green,
light yellow and orange yellow, pale red and carmine, all the shades of
colour are represented. The dark Norway spruce firs and pichta firs are
followed by the cembra pines and larches; and next in order come the
few birches which are not yet yellowed. The white alders display all
gradations from dark to light green and to greenish yellow; the aspen
leaves are bright cinnabar red, the mountain-ash and the bird-cherry
are carmine. So rich and yet so harmonious is the mingling of all these
colours that sense and sentiment are satisfied to the full.
Such are the pictures which the woodlands of Western Siberia display
to the traveller. But all the sketches we have attempted to give have
been taken from within a narrow fringe. To penetrate further into the
primeval forests, in summer at least, seems to the western traveller
absolutely impossible. On the slopes of the mountains he is hindered
by thickets and masses of débris, on highland and plain alike by
prostrate trees and a tangle of bushes, in the hollows and valleys by
standing and flowing water, by brooks and swamps. Wide-spread talus
from the rocks, blocks and boulders rolled into heaps and layers
form barriers on all the hills; lichens and mosses form a web over
the rocks, and treacherously conceal the numerous gaps and clefts
between them; a young undergrowth is rooted between and upon the old
possessors of the soil; and the old trees as well as the young increase
the risk of attempting to traverse these regions. On the low ground
the obstacles which the forests present are hardly less formidable.
Literally impenetrable thickets such as exist in the virgin forests of
equatorial countries there are none, but there are obstacles enough.
The prostrated trunks are all the more troublesome because most of
them lie, not on the untrodden path, but at an inconvenient height
above it; they are turnpikes in the most unpleasant sense of the word.
Sometimes it is possible to climb over them or to creep under them; but
equally often neither is possible, and one is forced to make a circuit,
which is the more unwelcome, since, without constant reference to the
compass, it is only too easy to stray from the intended direction. Real
clearings are met with but rarely, and if one tries to walk across
them, deep holes and pools full of mud and decayed débris soon show
that here also the greatest caution is necessary. If the traveller
trusts to one of the many cattle-tracks, which, in the south of the
forest-zone, lead from every village to the forest, and penetrate
into it for some distance, even then sooner or later he finds himself
at fault. It is impossible to tell, or even to guess, whither such a
path leads, for it intersects hundreds of others, and runs through
tangled brushwood, through tall grass concealing unpleasant débris of
trees, through moss and marsh; in short, they are not paths for human
foot. Thus, though there are not everywhere insuperable obstacles, one
meets everywhere and continuously with hindrances so numerous and so
vexatious, that even where the plague of mosquitoes is not intolerable,
the traveller is apt to return much sooner than he had intended. Only
in winter, when hard frost has covered all the pools, bogs, and swamps
with a trustworthy crust, when deep snow has smoothed off most of the
roughnesses, and is itself coated with a hard layer of ice, only then
are the forests accessible to the hunter equipped with snow-shoes, and
accompanied by weather-hardened dogs; only then can even the natives
think of making long expeditions.
Siberian forests are dumb and dead, “dead to the point of starvation”,
as Middendorf most justly says. The silence which reigns within them
is a positive torture. When the pairing of the black-cock is past one
may hear the song of the fieldfare and the black-throated thrush,
the warbling of the white-throat, the linnet, and the pine grosbeak,
the melody of the wood-wren, and the call of the cuckoo, but hardly
ever all these voices at once. The trilling call of the greenshank
and redshank becomes a song, the chattering of the magpie gains a
new charm, even the cawing of the hooded crow and the raven seem
cheerful, and the call of a woodpecker or a titmouse most refreshing.
The silence expresses the desolateness of the woods. He who hopes to
be able to lead in them a joyous sportsman’s life will be bitterly
disappointed. Doubtless all the immense woods of this region have more
tenants, especially birds and mammals, than we are at first inclined
to believe, but these animals are so unequally distributed over the
immeasurable area, and probably also wander so widely, that we can
arrive at no standard for estimating their numbers. Miles and miles
are, or appear to be for a time at least, so lifeless and desolate that
naturalist and sportsman alike are almost driven to despair, their
expectations are so continually disappointed. All the reports of even
experienced observers who have sojourned there leave one still in the
dark. Districts which seem to combine all the conditions necessary
for the vigorous and comfortable life of certain species of animals,
shelter, to all appearance, not a single pair, not even a male,
naturally fond of roving. In such woods, far from human settlements,
and to some extent beyond the limits of human traffic, one cannot
but hope at length to fall in with the species which should frequent
such places, but the hope is as fallacious as the supposition that
one is more likely to meet with them in the heart of the forest than
on its outskirts. The fact is that the regions under man’s influence,
which he has modified, and to some extent cultivated, seem often to
exhibit a more abundant and diverse life than the interior of the
forest-wilderness. Wherever man has founded stable settlements, rooted
out trees, and laid out fields and pasture-lands, there gradually
arises a greater diversity of animal life than is to be seen in the
vast untouched regions which remain in their original monotony. It
seems as if many animals find suitable localities for settlement only
after the ground is brought under cultivation. Of course the fact that
certain animals are more abundant in the neighbourhood of man, where
they are ruthlessly hunted, than they are in the inaccessible forest,
where danger scarce threatens them, implies a gradual reinforcement
from without. At certain seasons at least there must be migrations
of more or less considerable extent, and in these most of the West
Siberian animals take part. All the observations hitherto made
corroborate this view.
[Illustration: Fig. 19.--Reindeer Flocking to Drink.]
The only stationary animals, in the usual sense of the word, seem to
be certain mountain species and those which hibernate in caves and
holes; all the rest migrate more or less regularly. At the pairing and
nesting time all the West Siberian animals segregate themselves, except
those which are gregarious during the breeding season. Later on, the
parents and their young combine with their fellows in herds or flocks,
which, impelled by the need for more readily obtainable food, and
perhaps also driven off by the plague of mosquitoes, set out on their
wanderings together. Localities rich in fodder attract the herbivorous
creatures, which are the first to arrive, but on their heels come
others, and finally their enemies. Thus certain parts of the woodland
are depopulated and others are peopled, and there occur actual blocks
in the migratory stream, which must be the more striking in contrast
to the usual desolateness and emptiness of the forest. The scenes of
old conflagrations are favourite rendezvous, for, on the fertilized
soil, berry-bearing bushes of various sorts have sprung up and attained
luxuriant growth. Here, in autumn, the Siberian herbivores find a
rich harvest, and not only they, but wolves and foxes, martens and
gluttons, sables and bears, primarily attracted by the collected herds,
may be seen banqueting, devouring the berries with evident pleasure.
The different animals thus brought together seem to remain for a time
in a certain correlation. The herbivores, as observant sportsmen have
noticed, keep with unmistakable constancy to the berries; and the
carnivores follow closely in their tracks.
These migrations explain how it is that during certain years some of
the woods are filled with all kinds of beasts of the chase, while
during other years they are entirely forsaken. The traveller from the
west, who journeys in late winter or early spring in Western Siberia,
beholds with astonishment a flock of three to five hundred black-game
rise in crowded flight from the highway through the forest, and learns
with not less astonishment a little later that the same or even more
favourable woods are but sparsely stocked with these birds. In summer
he searches in the most suitable localities for the hazel-grouse, and
is discouraged because his search is continually futile; in autumn he
is pleasantly surprised to see, in the same places, abundance of the
same game.
So peculiar are the conditions due to the monotonous uniformity of wide
stretches, that the huntsman who will make sure of his booty must be
very familiar with them; indeed, even the most skilful and experienced
sportsman is always and everywhere in the measureless forests at
the mercy of chance. Whatever be the game he pursues, he never can
predict where he will find it. Yesterday the goddess of the chase was
kind to extravagance; to-day she refuses him every aid. There is no
lack of game, but the huntsman who had to live on what he shot would
starve. A sportsman’s life, such as is possible in other latitudes,
is inconceivable in Western Siberia; the profit to be derived from
the forest chase is inconsiderable. Some animals, for example the
beaver,[31] seem already to have been exterminated; and others,
especially the much-prized sable, have withdrawn from the inhabited
districts into the interior of the forest. Everywhere in Siberia one
hears the common complaint, that game becomes scarcer every year; and
it is certain that from one decennium to another the diminution is
perceptible. For this man is not wholly responsible; the forest-fires
and the devastating epidemics which now and then break out are probably
as much, if not more, to blame. At the same time, no Siberian ever
realizes that a temporary sparing of the game is the first condition of
its preservation. Sportsman-like hunting is unknown; the most varied
means are used to kill as many animals as possible. Gun and rifle are
mere accessories; pitfalls and nets, spring-guns and poison are the
most important agents employed by natives and immigrants alike.
“Game” to the Siberian means every animal which he can in any way use
after its death, the elk and the flying squirrel, the tiger and the
weasel, the capercaillie and the magpie. What the superstition of one
race spares falls as a booty to the other; animals whose flesh the
Russians despise are delicacies to the Mongolian palate. Ostiaks and
Samoyedes take young foxes, martens, bears, owls, swans, geese, and
other creatures, treat them tenderly as long as they are young, care
for them sedulously until the fur or plumage is fully developed, and
then kill them, eating the flesh and selling the skin. The number
of skins brought from Siberia to the markets there and in Europe is
computed in millions: the number used in the country itself is much
smaller, but still very considerable. The quantity of furred, and
especially of feathered game, which is transported to a distance in
a frozen state, also mounts up to many hundreds of thousands. Along
with the furs of mammals the skins of certain birds are at present
much exported, especially those of swans, geese, gulls, grebes, and
magpies, which, like the furs, are used in making muffs, collars, and
hat trimmings. A single merchant in the unimportant town of Tjukalinsk
passes through his hands every year thirty thousand plover-skins, ten
thousand swan-skins, and about a hundred thousand magpies; and some
years ago his sale was much larger.[32] That the total traffic in
skins must involve a yearly diminution of the animals is certain; and
that only the inaccessibility of the wildernesses of forest and water
preserves the affected species from utter destruction will be plain to
everyone who knows the unsparing hand of the Siberian huntsman.
Although it is plain from what we have said that the Siberian’s
conception of game is a very wide one, the animals looked upon as
worthy of hunting are really those which we ourselves regard as furred
and feathered game, or would so regard if they occurred in Germany.
In our sense of the term, the game of the forest girdle includes the
Maral stag and the roe-deer, the elk and the reindeer, the wolf, the
fox, the Arctic fox, the lynx and the bear, the Arctic hare, the
squirrel, the striped and flying squirrel, but above all, the martens,
viz., sable, pine-marten and stone-marten, pole-cat, kolonok, ermine,
weasel, glutton, and otter; besides the capercaillie, black-grouse, and
hazel-grouse. In the south must be added the tiger, which now and then
prowls within this region, the ounce, the musk-deer, and the wild boar
of the mountain forest; while the north also yields the willow grouse,
occasionally found at least on the outskirts of the forest. These
animals everyone hunts, and the more civilized do so in a regular,
if not always sportsmanlike, fashion; for most of them ingenious and
effective snares are also laid.
Of the latter the much-used “fall-trap” is most worthy of notice.
Its arrangement is as follows:--Across clear spaces in the forest,
especially those which afford a clear view, a low and very
inconspicuous fence is stretched, and in the middle of this an opening
is left, or there may be two or three if the fence be long. Each
opening is laterally bounded by two firm stakes which bear a cross-beam
above, and are meant to guide the falling beam, which consists of
two long, moderately thick tree-stems, bound side by side. A long
lever rests on the cross-beam, on its short arm the falling beam is
suspended, while a cord from the long arm forms the connection with a
peg-arrangement. The latter is contrived as follows. A short stick,
forked at one end and pointed at the other, is fixed with the fork
against a notch in one of the stakes, and with its pointed end fastened
against another longer peg whose forked end rests lightly on the other
stake. The two pegs keep one another in position, but on the slightest
pressure they fall asunder. When the trap is set, the peg arrangement
which corresponds to the trigger is covered with numerous light, dry
twigs, not so much to conceal it, as to form a larger surface of
possible contact. When an animal, even a small bird, steps upon the
twigs, the two pegs fall asunder, and the beam drops, killing the
animal under it. If it be set for a beast of prey, bait is laid beside
the triggers; all other kinds of game are simply guided to the trap by
the direction of the fence. In many woods all the haunts, paths, and
clear spaces are beset with these traps in hundreds and thousands, so
that the huntsman is often compensated by abundant booty for the slight
trouble which it takes to arrange his effective apparatus. Grouse,
hares, squirrels, and ermine are the commonest victims; polecat,
pine-marten, and sable, the rarest. Gluttons also and wolves often lose
their lives, but the survivors learn like dogs, and anxiously avoid the
set traps, though neither is at all afraid to steal or gnaw at and thus
destroy the booty caught in one which has sprung.
[Illustration: Fig. 20.--Elk and Black-cock in a Siberian Forest.]
Besides the “fall-trap”, the Ostiaks and Samoyedes are fond of using
a spring-gun arrangement, fitted with bow and arrow or automatic
cross-bow. As the bow is very strong and the arrow well made, the
murderous contrivance is very effective, and exceedingly dangerous
to the inattentive explorer. Ingenious arrangements hold the bow
stretched, and keep it and the arrow in position; a wooden clasp
relaxes the bow whenever a line stretched across the animal’s run is
touched. In order to direct the arrow so that it may pierce the heart
of the victim, the ingenious people use a pillar-like perforated
target the size of the desired booty. When this is placed on the run
it has the perforation at the precise level of the beast’s heart, and
according to the distance between the heart and the collar-bone, the
hunters determine the distance between the mark and the trigger. As all
the natives are well acquainted with the tracks of various kinds of
game, the spring-gun only fails when a creature comes along entirely
different in size from that for which the arrow was destined. Usually
they are set for foxes, and with hardly less success for wolves, or
even for elk and reindeer, while the automatic cross-bow is arranged
for smaller game, especially ermine and squirrels. For both of these,
bait is spread which can only be got at when the animal creeps through
a narrow hole in front of the lower part of the set cross-bow. In so
doing the creature touches a trigger, and is forthwith crushed by a
broad, chisel-like arrow which the cross-bow shoots forcibly down on
its appointed course.
As an important addition to these old-fashioned contrivances, fire-arms
have recently come more and more into vogue among the natives of
Western Siberia, but they do not displace the bow and arrow. Powder
and bullets are dear, and the people prefer small-bored matchlocks and
flint-locks, which are exceedingly bad; but they use these defective
weapons with remarkable skill. A fork fastened in front to the
barrel, and used as a rest, is to be seen on every gun, and even the
educated sportsmen use it as indispensable to the effective use of the
matchlock. Fowling-pieces are used by the officials and well-to-do
townsfolk, but not by the natives, who have to make a profit by the
chase, and to measure their powder, as it were, by the grain. They
fill a small horn with the expensive material, wind a leaden wire of
the diameter of their bore twice or thrice round their waists, and
thus equipped set out on the chase. The leaden wire serves for making
bullets, which are not cast but simply cut, or, even more simply,
bitten off the wire; the resulting peg-like shot is laid without any
wad directly on the powder, and thus the gun is loaded. Of course the
native huntsmen do not shoot from a distance except when forced to, but
to the height of medium-sized trees their aim is so sure that they take
the eye of the sable or squirrel for their mark and seldom miss it.
The various species of grouse are more generally hunted than any other
creatures, and are caught and killed in hundreds of thousands. During
the pairing season capercaillie and black-grouse are almost everywhere
left unmolested. The sportsman’s joy as we know it when the pairing
grouse take wing can scarcely be experienced in Siberia, owing to the
inaccessibility of the woodland; not even for the pairing black-grouse
does one rise betimes in May; the hazel-grouse alone is sought after by
mimicking his love-call. But who would put himself to so much trouble
and discomfort for so uncertain a prize? Only in autumn and winter does
the chase reward the Siberian as he desires and expects; when the young
birds change their plumage, when the coveys unite in large flocks, and
when these wander through the forest in search of berries, then is the
huntsman’s opportunity. Whoever is not afraid of discomforts of all
kinds pursues the migrating flocks with his dogs--usually pitiable
helpers--and generally returns with rich booty; those who know how to
use snow-shoes hunt capercaillie and black-game even in winter. After
the first heavy snowfall the migrations are stopped, and each flock
seeks out a resting-place which promises abundant food for a few days
at least. In the beginning of winter the still ungathered cranberries
afford sufficient food, and afterwards the juniper berries; when both
these supplies are exhausted the easily satisfied birds take to the
leaves of larch, and finally of pine and fir, and to the young cones of
all these conifers. As long as possible they continue their wanderings
on foot, and often cover seven or eight miles in a day; occasionally
they come within a few hundred paces of a settlement, and leave such
distinct footprints on the fresh snow that the huntsman is bound to
discover them. When they are forced to take to a diet of pine-needles,
the sportsman is able to track them, at first by their droppings, and
eventually by their sleeping-places. For the Siberian capercaillie
and black-game differ in habit from their relatives in Germany, and
make more or less deep burrows, usually reaching from the surface of
the snow down to the ground. They leave these in the morning, or when
danger threatens, breaking with beating wings through the coverlet of
snow. These shelters are, therefore, readily recognizable, and as they
also afford sure indication of the night on which they were used, they
are most valuable guides to the experienced sportsman. Amid continuous
snowfall the birds sometimes remain beneath the snow till towards
mid-day, and then, after they have taken to the trees and are eating,
they will allow the huntsman to come within range, for they are not
scared by the barking of his dogs, and, while watching the cur at the
foot of the tree, often overlook the marksman. The first condition of
success in such hunting is, that the snow have not only smoothed off
most of the roughness of the ground, and thus removed the greatest
obstacles to progress, but that it be sufficiently firm to afford the
necessary resistance to the huntsman’s snow-shoes.
With incomparably greater comfort, and usually with more success, the
black-grouse may be hunted by means of the decoy or _bulban_. When
using this the huntsman sets out before dawn in autumn, hides in the
forest in a previously-prepared or rapidly-constructed hut, and there
fixes up the _bulban_. This is a stuffed decoy-bird or one fashioned
of wood and tow, with black, white, and red cloth at appropriate
places, a deceptive imitation of the living bird. It is perched by
means of a pole on the highest of the surrounding trees, with its head
to the wind, and while the sportsman hides in the hut, men and dogs
drive the adjacent forest. All the young black-game, or all which have
not learned wisdom from previous experience, fly, when disturbed, to
the bulban, which, to all appearance, is a fellow-bird sitting in
reassuring security. They crowd on to the same tree, and the sportsman
beneath, equipped with a small-bored and but slightly noisy rifle, or
sometimes also with a fowling-piece, often has the pick of dozens of
silly birds. In woods which are undisturbed throughout the summer,
the black-grouse are so heedless of the slight report of the rifle,
that after a bird has fallen dead from the tree the others do not fly
away, but stretching their necks gaze at their fallen comrade, and wait
quietly until the marksman has reloaded and claimed a second or a third
victim. So abundant are these birds that the assertion that a single
sportsman may, in the course of the morning, bring down twenty or more
without leaving his hut is perfectly credible.
Not less effective than the decoying of black-game, fascinating
moreover, and satisfactory to every sportsman, is the hunting of the
hazel-grouse as practised in Siberia. No special equipment of any
kind is required, not even trained dogs--useful auxiliaries none the
less--are indispensable. The hazel-grouse is very abundant in all
suitable parts of the West Siberian forests, perhaps more abundant
than the capercaillie and black-grouse, but it is so noiseless that one
may often miss it although there are numerous coveys in the wood. It
never forms such large flocks as its relatives, nor does it undertake
such long migrations, but it is more uniformly distributed throughout
the wide forest-wilderness, and the sportsman who knows its ways gets
more readily within shot of it than in the case of any other bird of
the woods. During spring and summer it seems to the inexperienced to
have wholly disappeared; but in autumn it occurs everywhere, even in
those places where, a few months before, it might have been sought for
in vain. It is as fond of berries as are its relatives, and to secure
these it visits the larger clearings, which, in spring and summer, it
seems to avoid. But even there it knows how to escape observation. It
lies much more closely than capercaillie or black-cock, and, without
anxiously concealing itself on the approach of an intruder, remains
as long as possible motionless, only rising when the enemy is almost
touching it. Even then its flight is so noiseless and inconspicuous
that one may readily fail to hear or see it; even a partridge or a
wood-cock makes more noise than this charming bird, of whose flight
only a gentle whirring is perceptible. When startled, it usually,
though by no means always, flies to the nearest fir-tree and alights
on the first convenient branch, but there it sits so quietly that it
is once more as inconspicuous as it was on the ground. The sportsman
often tries for a long time in vain to discover the bird’s whereabouts,
and when he has finally decided that it has secretly flown off, he is
suddenly nonplussed by a start or movement which betrays its presence
on the very branch on which he had looked for it repeatedly. The
cleverness with which all birds of this sort hide themselves from
observation has reached a rare perfection in the hazel-grouse. For
its haunts it prefers the boggy and mossy parts of the forest, which
abound in bilberries and cranberries and are surrounded by old dead
trees and young growths. Here it knows so skilfully how to use the
cover, that one rarely perceives it until it has flown for security
to one of the lifeless giants. When it does not move, it appears most
deceptively like a knot on the tree, and it behaves as if it knew that
it could trust to the colour-resemblance between its plumage and its
surroundings. Nevertheless, whenever it shows itself freely it keeps
looking anxiously all round, and, if it suspects danger, leaves its
perch as silently as it gained it. Hazel-grouse shooting is a true
pleasure to the sportsman. He may expect the bird almost everywhere in
the forest, and can never tell how it will show itself; he must usually
dispense with all auxiliaries, but his success is not prejudiced
by awkward companions; and he is even more richly rewarded by the
continuous tension and pleasurable excitement than by the exquisite
dish afforded by this best-flavoured of game-birds.
Compared with the importance of game-birds to the sportsman, and
indeed to the community generally, the chase and exploitation of big
game in West Siberia must seem inconsiderable. The four species of
stag found in this region are for various, but equally unsatisfactory
reasons, much less appreciated than they deserve. They are treated in
a manner which, if not actually barbarous, seems to us disagreeable or
even repulsive. This is especially true in regard to the Maral stag.
This splendid creature, according to some naturalists a large-sized
red-deer, according to others a nearly related species with larger body
and stronger antlers, lives in all the southern forests, especially on
the mountains, and is probably by no means so rare as the untiring lust
for the chase on the part of both natives and strangers has made it
seem. For a strange reason the said lust for the chase endangers this
stag most seriously just at the time when he needs most to be spared.
For he is hunted by all the North Asiatic hunters not for his flesh
nor his skin, nor for his fully-branched head, but solely and wholly
for the growing, incompletely tined, and still velvety antlers.[33]
Out of this the Chinese physicians or quacks prepare a specific, which
is greatly sought after by rich debilitated Celestials, and is sold
for its weight in gold. It is esteemed as a stimulant of rare virtue,
and believed to be replaceable by no other. Most sought after are the
half-branched, six-tined antlers, still richly filled with blood; for
these the price is from £10 to £15, while completely formed antlers,
with twelve or fourteen tines, and bared of their velvet, may be bought
for six to twelve shillings. Not only the Mongols of North and Central
Asia, but also the Siberians of Russian origin, exert themselves to
procure these valuable antlers, which, when obtained in the proper
condition, are despatched as quickly as possible, especially by post,
to Kiachta, whence, through special merchants, thousands are sent
every year to China without satisfying the demand. Siberian peasants
also keep the Maral stag in captivity for the sole purpose of cutting
off the blood-charged antlers at the proper time and selling them.
Now, since all stags when growing their antlers avoid the dense
thickets, and are less wary than at other seasons, and as the one- and
two-year-old stags are as little spared as those with crown antlers,
it is obvious that the numerical strength of the race must be notably
impoverished, and that the breeding must also be appreciably affected.
The flesh and the skin obtained in the slaughter are but rarely taken
into consideration; if it would involve any trouble to remove the
carcase, it is usually left without reluctance to the wolves and foxes.
[Illustration: Fig. 21.--The Maral Stag.]
As the Maral stag excels ours, so is it with the Siberian or large
roe-deer, which differs from ours in its larger growth and by the
high antlers with weakly developed burrs. Its specific independence,
however, is still a subject of controversy among taxonomists. In
Siberia it prefers the stretches of woodland which have begun to
recover from the effects of a conflagration, and in which the pichta
fir is abundant. It also frequents the fringes of the forest and
small woods, and ascends the mountains to considerable heights, not
unfrequently above the forest-line; it may likewise pass into the open
steppes, associating on the heights with the steinbock and wild sheep,
and on the plains with the antelope. According to the nature of the
country, it undertakes more or less regular migrations, even without
being forced to these by forest fires, and in its wanderings it will
traverse wide stretches and cross broad rivers without hesitation.
In certain circumstances it appears in regions in which it has not
been seen for years, and from these centres it makes excursions round
about. In its wanderings it usually keeps to definite roads, but is
now and then forced to follow narrow paths. The rocky and precipitous
river-banks of the larger streams compel it to make its way through a
few cross-valleys and gorges, and this necessity is often the animal’s
ruin, for the trapper rarely omits to stretch his leading-fence across
these runs, and to lay his pitfalls fatally. Wolf and lynx press upon
it at every season; Russians and native Siberians likewise. Like other
game it is hunted unsparingly; every circumstance is utilized and every
trick is tried to effect its capture. At the beginning of the thaw,
when cold nights have frozen the top layer of snow into a thin crust
of ice, the hunter sets off on horseback or on snow-shoes with a pack
of nimble dogs; he rouses the stag with his shouts and runs it down,
fatiguing it the sooner the harder the ice is, for, as the stag bounds,
the crust breaks under its slender hoofs, and its ankles are cut. In
spring, the hunters entice the doe by imitating the cry of the fawn,
and the buck is similarly allured in the leafy season by a skilful echo
of the doe’s call; in the intermediate season and later, both sexes are
inveigled by special dainties; in autumn a drive is organized, or the
migrating deer is pursued in boats as he swims across the streams,
and is killed in the water; in early winter he is shot from the swift
sledge. In fact the only method of capture which is not resorted to is
that of snaring, so common a practice with knavish hunters at home; but
in all probability the reason for this abstinence is simply that the
spring-bow is more effective.
[Illustration: Fig. 22.--The Elk Hunter--A Successful Shot.]
The elk[34] exists under decidedly more favourable conditions, and
has a firmer footing in the struggle for existence. Its haunts and
habits, its strength and power of self-defence, secure it from many,
if not most pursuers. A forest animal in the full sense of the word,
as much at home in swamp and bog as in thicket or wood, overcoming
with equal ease all obstacles of forest and morass, assured by the
nature of its diet from the scarcity of winter, it escapes more
readily than any other beast of the chase from pursuit either by man
or by other dangerous enemies. The latter include wolves, lynxes,
bears, and gluttons; but it may be doubted whether all these beasts
of prey together very seriously affect the elk. For it is as strong
as it is courageous, it has in its sharp hoofs even more formidable
weapons than its antlers, and it knows right well how to use both of
them. It may fall victim to a bear who surprises and overcomes it;
but it undoubtedly hurls a single wolf to the ground, and may even be
victorious over a pack of these eternally hungry creatures. As to lynx
and glutton, the old story that these are able to leap on the elk’s
neck and sever the jugular vein does not seem to have been proved. Only
against human weapons are the elk’s resources ineffective. But its
pursuit in Siberian forests is a precarious undertaking, and is little
practised except by the natives. During summer the water-loving beast
is hardly to be got at; it spends the greater part of the season in the
marsh, browsing by night and resting by day among the high marsh-plants
in a place accessible only to itself. The juicy water-plants and their
roots suit it better than the sharp sedges, and it therefore browses
in the deeper parts of the bog, where it pulls the plants out of the
water, dipping its uncouth head in the muddy moisture as far as the
roots of its donkey-like ears. When it lifts its head it blows from
its nose and mouth the mud and moisture which necessarily entered its
nostrils as it grubbed, and this makes a loud snorting noise which
can be heard from afar. Experienced hunters have based a peculiar
trick of the chase on the elk’s method of feeding. They listen to the
usually watchful animal for several nights in succession, and mark
his whereabouts; thither in the daylight they quietly carry a light,
shallow-water boat; by night, guided by the snorting, they row with
muffled oars towards the browsing creature, whose scent and hearing
are dulled by his grubbing; at close range they send a bullet through
him. The clearness of the northern summer night facilitates operations,
though it renders close approach more difficult; yet the sport is all
the more exciting, and by eager lovers of the chase it is pursued
passionately, and usually with success. On the advent of frost the elk
leaves the swamps, for the brittle coat of ice hinders his movements,
and hies to the drier parts of the forest until the thickly falling
snow forces him to wander in search of specially favourable localities.
At this season the chase of the elk, with well-trained and, above
all, silent dogs, is preferred to all other sport. In its wanderings
the elk does not avoid human settlements, and betraying itself by its
unmistakable footprints, soon has the huntsman on its heels. Now is
the time to send the dogs after it. Their duty is to keep the creature
continually agog, but never to chase it. They must never attack it
in the rear, nor ever come too near it, but must rather bark at it
continually, and keep its attention unceasingly engrossed. When the
elk sees itself thus threatened in front it stops after a short trot,
looks angrily at the dogs, seems trying to make up its mind to attack
them, but only in rare cases succeeds in carrying out the resolution
so slowly arrived at, and thus gives the sportsmen time to get within
easy range, and to take sure aim. If a small herd of elk is suddenly
surprised by the dogs and driven into a narrow defile, they may be so
nonplussed that several may fall before a well-handled rifle. But when
old experienced elks are pursued for some time during a heavy snowfall
they take the first trodden path which they come across, and trot along
it whether it lead to the recesses of the forest or to the township;
thus they are not unfrequently led quite close to inhabited houses, on
seeing which they diverge into the woods. A hard crust of snow is not
less dangerous to the elks than to the roe-deer; and then the spirited
and experienced huntsmen pursue them even with boar-spears, speeding
along on snow-shoes, outrunning and fatiguing the impeded animals till
they can use the ancient weapons to good effect. The flesh is readily
eaten both by immigrants and natives, but it has no great market
value; the skin, on the other hand, finds ready sale at six to eight
roubles[35] a hide, and affords the professional huntsman sufficient
recompense for his trouble and exertions.
The wild reindeer belongs strictly to the tundra, but it also occurs
throughout the whole extent of the forest-zone. Along the eastern
slopes of the Urals it is frequent both in the depths of the forest and
on the mountain heights, and the huntsmen of these parts accordingly
speak with a certain emphasis of forest-reindeer and mountain-reindeer,
and seem inclined to attribute different characteristics to the two
kinds, though they cannot define their distinctive marks. The reindeer
is less shy of populated districts than any other deer, which perhaps
best explains the fact that every year among those living in freedom
individuals are captured with slit ears and brand-marks. These have
probably escaped from the herds of the Samoyedes and Ostiaks during
the breeding season, and have wandered southwards till they met a wild
stock to which they attached themselves. Once free from bondage, they
very rapidly assume all the habits of wild life. But neither these
escaped truants nor the wild forms are regarded by the forest-folk
as of much moment among the beasts of the chase. Reindeer are indeed
captured wherever, whenever, or however that may be possible; but apart
from a few specially keen hunters of Russian origin only the natives
pursue them with persistence and eagerness.
Excepting the Semites and the Russians, all sensible people include
hares among edible game. In consequence of this exception, the variable
hare of Western Siberia is hunted only by educated and unprejudiced
Siberians of Russian origin, and by the natives of the North, who are
uninfluenced by any laws of diet. Even the skin of the snowy hare,
since it loses its fur very readily, has little value in the eyes of
the huntsman, and perhaps for this reason is presented by the heathen
peoples as an offering to the gods. Yet in spite of the indifference
with which the forest-folk regard this rodent so highly prized by us,
the hare is nowhere plentiful. Many perish in the traps; the majority
are caught by wolves, foxes, and lynxes; and the severe winter, which
often impels them to long migrations, thins them sadly. The hare is
certainly not important among the beasts of the chase.
Among the non-edible furred beasts of the forest the first place may be
given to the wolf, since it is most bitterly hated and most generally
hunted. For although it is said that the direct injury which it does
to man is not very considerable, or at any rate not insufferable, he
misses no opportunity of destroying it. It is certain that in West
Siberia wolves only exceptionally appear in large packs, and that they
even more rarely venture to attack man, but it is equally certain that
they do much damage to domestic animals. This is very considerable when
we take into account the destruction caused by wolves among the herds
of the nomads on the steppes and the tundra. There is no possibility
of computing the numbers of wolves in the forest-zone. They are found
everywhere and yet nowhere; to-day they fall upon the herds of a
village, where there has been no trace of them for years, and to-morrow
they ravage the sheepfolds somewhere else; they leave certain districts
suddenly, and establish themselves in them again just as unexpectedly;
here they defy their persecutors, and there precautions against them
are almost superfluous.
Broad, much-used highways and settlements rich in meadows attract
them, for on the former they find the carcasses of horses, and by the
latter they find an easy booty in the herds which wander unhindered
by any herdsman, and often stray far into the woods. But they are not
absent from those parts of the forest which lie beyond the limits of
traffic. Sometimes in broad daylight they are seen singly or in small
packs prowling near the settlements; by night they not unfrequently
pass through villages or even towns. In a single night they destroy
dozens of sheep, attack horses and cattle also, and more rarely dogs
(for which in other countries they show a preference). The only animals
which they avoid are the courageous swine, for here and elsewhere these
at once show fight, and invariably get the best of it.
Like the Russians, the Siberians hold to the superstition that the
she-wolf suckling young carefully avoids ravaging in the neighbourhood
of her litter, but that if she be robbed of her whelps, she avenges
herself terribly, following the robber to his village home, and falling
with unbounded rage upon all his herds. For fear of this revenge,
every Siberian passes by any wolf-litter which he finds, and only now
and then does he dare to cut the Achilles tendon of the whelps, thus
laming them and keeping them near their birthplace until the time of
the autumn hunt. For, as they grow up, the mother’s love is supposed to
disappear, at least her thirst for revenge grows less, and the skins of
the young wolves caught in autumn reward the clever foresight of the
cunning peasant.
According to locality and opportunity, the methods employed in the
capture of the wolf vary greatly. Pitfalls, traps, strychnine, and the
spring-bows already described do good service; actual driving is seldom
successful. A favourite method is to pursue the wolf with sledges,
and to shoot him from the sledge. To attract the wolf within range an
ingenious device is resorted to. An old, steady, or worn-out horse
is yoked to a large sledge, in which four comrades--the driver, two
marksmen, and a fair-sized sucking-pig--take their places. The driver,
whose sole duty is to look after his horse, takes the front seat; the
marksmen sit behind, and the pig lies in a bag between their feet.
Towards evening the mixed company sets off along a well-beaten road
to a part of the forest where during the day fresh wolf-tracks were
seen. On to the track one of the hunters throws a bag stuffed with hay,
and fastened to the sledge by a long line; while this trails along,
the other hunter teases the young pig, and makes it squeal. Isegrim
hears the complaint, and probably thinking that it comes from a young
boar separated from its mother, draws near quietly and carefully,
that is, as far as possible hidden from the road. He perceives the
bundle trailing behind the sledge, supposes this to be the squealing
pig, and, after some consideration, determines to put an end to its
sufferings. With a great bound he leaps upon the course, and eagerly
rushes after the sledge. What does he care for the threatening forms
which it bears? Such he has often inspected close at hand, and robbed
before their very eyes. Nearer and nearer he comes, gaining on the now
quickened sledge; crueller tormenting makes the pig utter louder and
more clamant squeals; they are maddening to the robber; just another
bound, and--two rifles ring out, and the wolf rolls gasping in death.
[Illustration: Fig. 23.--A Siberian Method of Wolf-shooting.]
Equally artful is the circular trap much used in the Ural district.
At a short distance from the village a circular space about two yards
in diameter is enclosed with close-set deep-sunk stakes; around this
is formed a second similar circle at an interval of about a foot and
a half from the first. Two specially strong posts support a solid
deal door moving on firm hinges, furnished with a spring-catch, and
so arranged that it opens only inwards, pressure outwards causing
the spring-catch to shut. Both circles are roofed over, not thickly,
indeed, but firmly, and a trapdoor in the roof admits to the inner
circle. When it is perceived that the wolves are beginning to visit the
village by night, the trap is set by placing a live goat in the inner
enclosure and opening the door of the outer ring. The pitiful bleating
of the goat, frightened by being taken from his usual surroundings,
attracts Isegrim. He does not in the least like the look of the
strange enclosure, but the frantic behaviour of the goat, still more
terrified by the wolf’s appearance on the scene, makes him forget his
habitual caution, and he begins to try to get at the welcome booty.
Several times does he prowl round the outer fence, ever more quickly
and eagerly, twisting and snuffing, sometimes coming quite near, and
again retreating, till at last he discovers the only door by which it
is possible for him to get near the goat. His appetite gets the better
of his natural cunning. Still hesitating, but yet advancing, he pushes
his head and body through the narrow doorway. With despairing cries the
goat springs to the opposite side of the inner fence. Without further
consideration or hesitation the robber follows. The goat rushes round
in a circle, and the wolf does the same, with this difference, that he
has to move between the two rows of stakes. Then the projecting door
impedes his progress. But the victim is now so near, and apparently
so sure, that the wolf dashes furiously forwards, pressing the door
outwards; the spring-catch falls with a snap into its groove, and
the distrustful, cautious dupe is trapped--trapped without being
able to get a step nearer the tempting booty. Unable to turn round,
boiling over with rage, he runs and trots and jumps, ever forwards,
ever in a circle, hurrying without a pause on his endless circuit.
The intelligent goat soon appreciates the situation, and though still
crying and trembling, remains standing in the middle of the inner
circle. The wolf also begins to see the fruitlessness of his circling,
and tries to recover his freedom, tearing splinters a foot long out
of the stakes with his teeth, howling with rage and fear, but all in
vain. After a night of torment, the daylight appears--the wolf’s last
morning. The villagers begin to move about, and voices mingle with
the barking of dogs. Dark men, accompanied by noisy dogs, approach
the scene of the tragedy. Motionless, like a corpse, the wolf lies;
scarce a wink of his eyes betrays that there is still life in him. With
furious barking the dogs press round the outer fence, but he does not
move; with mocking welcome the men call to him, but he heeds not. But
neither dogs nor men are deceived by his shamming death. The former,
pressing between the stakes, try to get a grip of him; the latter slip
the much-used horse-noose or _arkan_ over his head. Once more the beast
springs up, once more he rages on his path of torture, howling he seeks
to terrify, gnashing his teeth he attempts defiance, but in vain--there
is no escape from the dread noose, and in a few minutes he is throttled.
The fox is everywhere attacked, hunted, killed, and devoured, or at
least hard pressed, by the wolf, and is therefore not abundant in
Siberia, but neither his hostile relative nor man have as yet been
able to exterminate him. In the eastern parts of the forest-zone he
sometimes undertakes long migrations, following the hares or the
grouse; in the west, observations on this point do not appear to be
recorded. They do not complain in Siberia of the damage he does,
nevertheless they hunt him eagerly, for his fur is prized by natives
and Russians alike, and is always dear. It fetches an especially high
price when it is of a certain much-appreciated colour. As a beast of
the chase, only the sable takes higher rank. For the sake of the fox
alone professional hunters undertake winter expeditions which often
take them as far into the heart of the forest as the sable-hunters are
wont to penetrate. Especially for it do the Ostiaks and Samoyedes set
their spring-bows, and they spare no trouble in their search for the
burrow where the young are hidden, not in order to kill them, but that
they may rear them carefully and tenderly till they become large and
strong, and gain, in their first or second winter, their beautiful fur.
For that the fosterers care more than for the life of their winsome
charges, and they give them over remorselessly to the fatal noose.
The Arctic fox may be included conditionally among the forest animals,
but it never actually penetrates into the forest. Sometimes, however,
in winter, in pursuit of hares and moor-fowl, it follows the course of
the large rivers beyond the southern limits of the tundra, its true
home.
The lynx, on the other hand, is a forest animal in the strictest sense
of the word. But in Siberia it only occurs singly, and is very rarely
captured. Its true home is in the thickest parts in the interior of
the forest, and these it probably never leaves except when scarcity
of food or the calls of love prompt it to wander to the outskirts.
Experienced hunters of the Eastern Ural say that the lynxes not only
live in the same locality as the bear, but that they remain in the
neighbourhood of the bear’s winter-quarters after he has gone to sleep.
They assert, moreover, that the preference the lynxes show for these
winter-quarters betrays the bears, since search has only to be made
where most lynx-tracks cross, and especially where there is a circular
track, for that always surrounds a bear’s sleeping-place. The lynx’s
habit of keeping to his old paths with almost anxious carefulness must
greatly facilitate the discovery of the bear’s quarters. Moreover, it
may be added that in Siberia the lynxes show themselves very fond of
fresh meat, and that they possibly seek the neighbourhood of a bear in
the hope of occasionally sharing his booty. For, although it may be
urged that the lynx is able enough on his own account to bring down big
game without any help from so doubtful a friend as the bear, and that
he hunts the reindeer and the roe, and may in a short time overpower
them, yet the fact remains that his booty chiefly consists of small
animals, such as hares, ground-squirrels, tree-squirrels, black-cock,
capercaillie, hazel-grouse, young birds, mice, and the like. Of this
there is no doubt, and it explains satisfactorily why the lynx is so
rare in the fringes of the forest which are accessible to man. As long
as squirrels and game birds abound in the interior of the forest, the
lynx has no temptation to stray from this unvisited wilderness; when
his prey migrates, he is forced to follow. How much he is feared by the
game birds one can discern from the fact that every wooing capercaillie
or black-cock is instantaneously dumb when a lynx lets himself be heard.
Both immigrants and natives hold the hunting of the lynx to be right
noble sport. This proud cat’s rarity, caution, agility, and powers of
defence raise the enthusiasm of every sportsman, and both skin and
flesh are of no small value. The former is preferably sent from West
Siberia to China, where it fetches a good price; the latter, when
roasted, is highly esteemed not only by the Mongolian peoples but also
by most of the Russian settlers. The lynx is but seldom captured in
the fall-traps, but he often renders them useless by walking along
the beam and stepping on the lever; he is but rarely a victim to the
spring-bow, and he usually leaps over the steel traps in his path. So
there is only the rifle left. Only in winter can he be hunted, when
the snow betrays his tracks and admits of the use of snow-shoes. The
courageous dogs, having sighted their game, drive it with difficulty to
a tree or bait it on the ground, but they often suffer cruelly, or may
even be killed. The hunter himself runs a risk of being attacked by a
furious lynx at bay.
The wild cat, which the lynx persecutes as pitilessly as the wolf does
the fox, is absent from the forest-zone of West Siberia, but now and
then the region is visited by the most perfect of all cats,--the tiger.
Two which were killed in 1838 and 1848 at Baesk and Schlangenberg
now stand stuffed in the museum of Barnaul; another, killed in the
beginning of the seventies, is preserved in the school museum at Omsk.
Towards the end of the sixties a tiger terrified the inhabitants of
the Tschelaba district (on the European boundary of the Ural) by
attacking, without provocation, a number of peasants, from whom it was
only frightened off when one of the men threw his red cap in its face.
In the steppe-mountains of Turkestan, and throughout the south of East
Siberia, the “king of beasts”, as the Daurs call the tiger, is found
everywhere and permanently in suitable localities, and from both sides
it may pass, oftener than can be proved, to the western forest-zone,
remaining perhaps for some time unobserved and retiring unnoticed. Yet
on the whole it occurs so rarely and irregularly that we cannot do more
than name it, without reckoning it among the beasts of this region.
It is far otherwise with the most precious of the furred beasts, the
various species of marten. Their decrease is more lamented than that
of all other beasts of the chase, but most of them are still regularly
caught, if not everywhere, at any rate in certain parts of the forest
region. Only the sable has in the last few decennia become really rare.
Old huntsmen of the middle Ural remember having caught sable every
winter in the vicinity of Tagilsk; nowadays, at this latitude of the
mountain-land, only an occasional stray specimen is to be met with.
A great forest fire in the central part of East Ural is said to have
driven off the highly-prized and much-hunted creature. We hear the same
story in the forest villages of the lower Ob, where the hunting of the
sable is still pursued, and yields, for instance, at the Yelisaroff
market, about a score of skins every winter.
In all the forests of West Siberia the pine-marten is notably more
abundant than the sable. In the fairly extensive hunting-ground around
the already-mentioned town of Tagilsk from thirty to eighty are still
captured every winter. It is said that the pine-marten, much more than
the sable, is associated with the squirrel, and that the two appear and
disappear together. But the greedy marten is by no means content with
making the beautiful squirrel its prey; indeed it kills every creature
which it can master, and is an especially dangerous foe of black-cock
and capercaillie. Even in summer a clever spring often enables him to
capture the watchful bird; while in winter the habit the black game
birds have of sleeping in holes in the snow greatly facilitates his
stealthy operations. Sneaking almost noiselessly from branch to branch,
he comes within springing distance of the buried bird, and springs on
it from above, crushing down the snowy roof by the force of his bound,
and seizing the sleeper by the neck before it has any chance to escape.
The stone-marten also occurs everywhere in the mountain forests, but
it is rarer than its relative. Polecat, ermine, and weasel are also
widely distributed and locally very abundant; the mink is confined to
the western side of the Ural, and is also absent from its tributaries,
the Irtish and Ob, which harbour the otter in considerable numbers; the
badger is hardly ever mentioned in West Siberia; and the universally
distributed glutton is less thought of than any other of the martens,
being hunted not so much for his skin as because of his thefts from the
traps.
[Illustration: Fig. 24.--Sable and Hazel-grouse in a Siberian Forest.]
Although the west of Siberia is regarded as altogether over-shot, the
forest-folk prepare every year to hunt for sable and other martens.
Some huntsmen undertake expeditions and explorations, which compare
with those of the North American trappers. Of course, they do not
confine their attention to martens, but are prepared to bag all
kinds of game; the main objects of their quest, however, are martens
and squirrels. According to the time of colour-change in the latter
the huntsmen arrange their departure from the village home, for the
change of colour in the squirrels is regarded as an indication of the
approaching winter, whether it is to be early or late, severe or mild.
Armed and equipped as we have already described, the sable-hunters
set out, after the first snowfall, in companies of three to five.
Besides gun and ammunition each of them carries a sack on his back,
snow-shoes and a hatchet on his shoulders, and a whip in his girdle.
The sack contains the indispensable provisions:--bread, meal, bacon,
and “brick-tea”,[36] also a few utensils, such as a pan, tea-kettle,
drinking-vessel, spoons, and the like, and less frequently a flask of
spirits. The whip is used to drive out the squirrels and to bring them
into sight. Four to six dogs, which offend the eye of every German
sportsman, join the company.
Guided by the sun, which, however, is often hidden for days, and by
the known stars, the weather-beaten huntsmen traverse the inhospitable
wilds, camping out at night, feeding themselves and their dogs on
the flesh of the game they shoot, and sparing their small store
of provisions as carefully as possible. The ungainly but clever
and wide-awake dogs not only scent the tracks of game, but, spying
unfailingly the martens or squirrels hidden on the trees, bark at them
and keep them in sight till the huntsman is on the spot. He approaches
with the imperturbable quietness of all forest sportsmen, rests his
long musket carefully on a branch, or, if need be, on the fork fastened
to the barrel, takes a slow aim, and fires. At the outset of the hunt,
the squirrels and even the pine-martens are so much disturbed by the
dogs that they allow the sportsman to approach to within a few yards;
soon, however, they become wiser, and a sure and steady aim becomes
difficult. If the huntsman gets this, and succeeds in sending a ball
through the animal’s eye, then he is well-pleased, for not only has he
secured an undamaged skin, but he can recover his precious leaden shot.
As soon as he has got possession of his fallen booty he skins it, in
the case of martens and squirrels forcing the viscera through the mouth
opening. The skull is broken open to recover the shot, and skin and
body, separated from one another, are consigned to the bag.
When squirrels are plentiful, the hunt is as profitable as it is
entertaining. Everyone utilizes the short day to the utmost; one
shot quickly follows another; and the pile of skins rapidly grows.
Loading the gun is a tedious matter, but the skinning is done all the
more quickly; and every huntsman faithfully does his utmost. Without
resting, without eating, without even smoking, the huntsmen go forward
while they may. As the dogs call, the comrades draw together or
separate; the sharp report of their guns and the cheerful barking of
the dogs is to them a stimulating entertainment. They count the shots,
and welcome or envy their neighbours’ luck. But if the winter’s yield
be a poor one, if the oft-repeated cracking of the whip calls forth
no squirrel, if there be no tracks of sable or noble marten, of elk
or reindeer to be seen, huntsmen and dogs trudge silently and moodily
through the forest, and short commons put the finishing touch to their
ill-humour.
When night comes on, our sportsmen have to think of preparing their
beds. From under an old, thick, fallen tree each shovels out the snow,
makes a trough the size of a man, and kindles a strong fire in it.
One of them then clears the snow from a circular patch as nearly as
possible in the middle of all the hollows, and under the shelter of
thick firs or pines; another gathers fuel; a third heaps up in the
clearing a still stronger fire, and a fourth prepares supper. So many
squirrels have been shot that there is no lack of strong meat soup
with which to give a relish to the porridge and bread. The sportsmen
have their supper and go shares with the dogs, refresh themselves with
tea and a pipe made of twisted paper and then, after the fashion of
their kind, discuss the exploits and experiences of the day. Meantime
the fire in each hole has melted the snow, dried up the moisture,
caught hold of the old tree-trunk above, and thus thoroughly warmed
the chamber. Carefully each sleepy hunter pushes the still glowing
fragments of wood to one end of the hole, and into this, avoiding the
side-wall of snow, he creeps, calling his dogs after him that they too
may share the warm bed, and soon he is asleep. It is true that glowing
sparks from the smouldering tree-trunk fall throughout the night alike
on the hunter and his dogs, but a Siberian’s fur hunting-coat can stand
as much as a Siberian dog’s skin; and it is evident that a log like
this will give much more heat than a much larger free fire. It is to
the hole what the stove is to the room; it alone makes it possible for
the sportsman to camp out in the forest.
In the gray dawn the huntsmen arise refreshed, have breakfast, and go
on their way. If they reach a good hunting-ground, which is visited
every winter, they stay as long as they think fit. Here and there
they find a log-hut built in previous years and still serviceable for
shelter; in any case there are old and new fall-traps, which have to
be put in order and visited every morning. This takes time, for the
traps are often distributed over a wide range, and so it may be that
the company stay a week or more in one part of the forest, and hunt it
thoroughly, before they continue their wanderings.
On these hunting expeditions many Siberians pass the greater part of
the winter in the forest. Before he sets out, the huntsman usually
makes a bargain with a merchant. He promises the merchant all the skins
he gets at a certain average price, provided the merchant will buy all
without selection. If the hunter has good luck he may, even nowadays,
make enough out of it to keep him alive, or at least to defray the
expenses of the winter; usually, however, he has little recompense for
his hardships and privations, and no one less modest in his demands
than the Siberian huntsman could make it a means of livelihood.
Hunting the bear is regarded by the West Siberians as the most
honourable and the most arduous kind of sport. For in this region Bruin
is by no means the good-natured, simple creature he still is here and
there in East Siberia; he is rather, as in most regions, a rough,
uncouth fellow, who usually runs away from man, but who, when wounded
or driven into a corner, will show fight savagely and prove himself
exceedingly formidable. In spite of all persecution, he is still far
from extermination; his occurrence may be spoken of as frequent, or,
at any rate, as not uncommon. Always and everywhere, however, he goes
his own way, and does not too often cross man’s path. Not that he is
shy of human settlements, for he often stations himself not far from
these, and sometimes falls upon domestic animals under the very eyes
of their possessors; but he shows himself so sporadically that many
Siberians have never seen him face to face, nor met him in the forest.
It seems likely that he goes a-touring all the summer. He traverses
the woods with a disregard of paths, but keeps to more or less beaten
tracks when he ascends to the heights of the mountains in late summer,
or returns to lower ground at the beginning of winter. When the corn
is ripe, he stations himself in the fringes of the forest that he
may steal comfortably from the adjacent fields; sometimes he leaves
the wood entirely and visits the steppes, or the mountain-sides with
steppe characters; he will stay a long time in one district and hurry
through another without stopping, always and everywhere keeping a sharp
look-out for the constantly recurring opportunities of securing his
favourite foods. In most districts he is emphatically a vegetarian;
here and there he becomes a formidable carnivore; in other places he
seeks after carrion. In spring he is on short commons, and takes what
he can get; he sneaks stealthily on the herds grazing in the woodland,
makes a sudden bound on a victim, or pursues it with surprising
rapidity, seizes it, drags it to the ground, kills it, and, after
satiating himself, buries the remainder for a future meal. When a
cattle plague rages, he visits the burial-places in order to secure the
carcasses, and he is even accused of being a body-snatcher. In summer
he plunders the fields of rye, wheat, and oats, robs bee-hives, and the
nests of wild-bees and wasps, destroys ant-hills for the sake of the
pupæ, rolls old trunks over to get at the beetles and grubs beneath,
and even breaks up mouldering trees to capture the larvæ which live in
rotting wood. In autumn he lives almost exclusively on berries of all
sorts, and even on those fruits which he can gather from such trees as
the bird-cherry; when the cembra-cones are ripe he goes after these,
climbing lofty trees, and breaking off not only branches but the very
tops; nor can he refrain from persistently prowling round the stores
in which the cones are temporarily collected, or from trying to find
his way in. Moreover, at all seasons he tries his hand at fishing, and
not unfrequently with success. From man he usually runs away, but
sometimes he will attack him without further ado, not hesitating even
at superior force. According to the weather he times his winter-sleep.
For his bed he selects a suitable place under a fallen giant tree;
there he scrapes out a shallow hole, covers the floor with fine
pine-twigs and moss a foot and a half deep, cushions the side-walls
with the same material, covers the outside with branches and pieces of
stem, creeps into the interior, and allows himself to be snowed up. If
the first snowfall surprise him on the mountains, he does not always
descend, but hides in a rock-cave which he furnishes as best he can,
or else expands a marmot’s burrow till it is just big enough to hold
him, and there sleeps through the winter. Once sunk into deep sleep,
he lies dormant so obstinately that many efforts are often necessary
to rouse him; he bites savagely at the poles with which the huntsman
tries to poke him up, he growls and roars, and only surrenders when
rockets or fire-brands are thrown on his refuge. Then, if he be not
wounded, he rushes forth like a startled boar, and seeks safety in
rapid flight. According to the consistent evidence of all experienced
huntsmen, the she-bear brings forth young only every second winter, and
does not awake from her deep sleep until a short time before the birth;
she licks her cubs clean and dry, sets them to suck, and continues her
sleep in snatches. At the end of May or in June she seeks out her older
children, of two or even four years’ growth, and compels them to do
service as nurses.[37]
Although the flesh of the bear is by no means unpalatable, it is
but little esteemed in West Siberia, where bear-hams are served up
rather in obedience to fashion than from appreciation of the dish.
Nevertheless, the bear-hunt brings in rich gain. The skin is in great
demand for sledge-rugs and fetches a high price; teeth and claws serve
not only among the Ostiaks and Samoyedes, but also among the West
Siberian peasants, as potent charms; even the bones are now and then
used. The canine of a bear slain in honourable combat brings to the
Ostiak hunter, so he believes, supernatural gifts, especially courage,
strength, and even invulnerability. A claw, especially the fourth of
the right fore-foot, which corresponds to the ring finger, is prized
by the love-lorn maiden of the Ural, for the youth whom she secretly
scratches with it is bound to return her love ardently. Teeth and claws
have, therefore, a high value, and have more effect in inciting the
huntsman to pursue the most formidable carnivore of the forest, than
any damage which Bruin does. But the chase is neither easy nor without
danger. Traps do not seem to be of any avail. The hunter must seek
out the bear, and, weapon in hand, helped by his practised dogs, must
do battle. During the summer the restless habits of the bear make the
chase very difficult; during winter there is the chance of finding a
lair and of killing the sleeper in or near it. The poor peasant who
discovers a lair sells the bear _in situ_ to any well-to-do sportsman,
who, on a suitable day, goes with him and the requisite associates and
surrounds the sleeper with sure marksmen. Beaters rouse the creature
from his slumbers and bring him into view, and the huntsman shoots from
the nearest possible distance. It is thus that the great majority of
the bears are secured, and to good shots there is little danger. In
summer and autumn they track the bear with small dogs, and while these
bait him on all sides, the sportsman seizes a good opportunity for a
telling shot. Or he may use the bear-spear, as the bold Ostiaks do, and
charge the animal. Or else he may wind birch-bark several times round
his left arm, and, holding this as a shield against the angry bear, may
plunge a long, broad knife into his heart as he snaps at the bark. In
these modes of attack accidents do, indeed, often happen; but in the
course of time some hunters become so expert and cold-blooded that they
prefer the spear or knife to any other weapon. Indeed, a peasant girl
in the village of Morschowa is famous all over West Siberia for having
killed more than thirty bears with the knife.
Of undesired encounters with bears many stories are told. A hunter,
armed only with a pea-rifle, came across a large bear in the forest,
but did not dare to shoot, knowing that his weapon was too small for
such big game. He therefore remained still, so as not to irritate the
bear. But Bruin came along, raised himself, snuffed at the huntsman’s
face, and then gave him a blow which stretched him senseless on the
ground. Thereupon the bear ran away as quickly as possible, just as if
he thought that he had played a naughty trick. Two Swedes, Aberg and
Erland, were hunting hazel-grouse on the Urals. The former approached
a bramble bush in the hope of raising a bird, when to his surprise a
huge bear jumped up and made for him at once. As flight was impossible,
Aberg raised his fowling-piece to his shoulder, aimed at the bear’s
eye, fired, and was fortunate enough to blind him. Maddened with the
pain, the bear covered the bleeding eye with his paw, roared loudly,
and rushed on at the undismayed huntsman. But the latter coolly took
aim at the other eye and fired again with equal effect. Then he called
for his comrade, and they fired alternately at the blinded bear until
he was dead.
But the merriest tale had its scene in the village of Tomski Sawod
in the district of Salair. One of the peasants was leading a load of
cembra-cones through the forest, and did not notice that the cones were
falling out of one of his sacks. A bear, who was wandering through the
forest in the rear of the cart, crossed the road, and finding some of
the cones looked for more, and followed the track unnoticed. After a
time the peasant left the horse and cart standing, and diverged into
the wood to fetch another sack which he had left filled with cones. But
before he returned with his burden, the bear, still gathering cones,
had reached the cart and climbed into it, there to feast to his heart’s
content. With no little dismay the peasant perceived as he drew near
what passenger had taken possession, and not daring to dispute his
right, left him with the horse and cart. The horse, becoming uneasy,
looked back, recognized the bear, and forthwith trotted off as fast
as he could go. But the undesired jolting frightened the bear and
prevented him from leaping off. He was forced to sit still and hold
on, venting his increasing discontent in loud roars. The roaring only
served to increase the pace; the more the bear stormed, the faster
the horse hastened to the village. Now the village-folk had been for
several hours expecting a visit from the bishop, and were standing
at their doors in holiday attire, ready to greet his reverence when
he appeared. Already sharp-eyed boys had been posted on the outlook
on the church-tower, with instructions to toll the bells when the
bishop’s company came in sight. In the distance was seen a whirling
cloud of dust; the boys sprang to the bells, men and women arranged
themselves in rows, the priest appeared with incense before the door of
the church, every soul stood ready to give a worthy reception to the
dignitary of the church. On came the rattling cart, and right through
the festive village tore horse and driver, the former covered with
dust, sweating and panting, the latter roaring and snorting, their
mad career only ending when they reached the peasant’s yard. Instead
of the beautiful Russian psalm, the terrified cries of half-senseless
women rang out through the air, and the men, instead of doing dutiful
reverence, rushed about astonished and affrighted. Only the church
bells continued to peal. Before these had ceased, the men had recovered
presence of mind and got hold of their weapons. The cart was followed,
and the bear, who seemed to have lost all his wits, was soon stretched
dead on the throne which he had himself chosen.
Those who know the ways of bears will allow that all might have
happened as I have described, though we may be inclined to regard the
humorous story as one of the sportsman’s budget. For even the most
serious and honourable forest-folk sometimes mingle truth and fancy
when they tell of the forests and woodcraft of Siberia.
THE STEPPES OF INNER AFRICA.
The north of Africa is desert, must be desert, and will be desert
for ever. For between the Red Sea and the Atlantic, the land-area
exposed to the scorching sun is so extensive that the surrounding
seas have not their usual climatic importance. The Red Sea is out of
account altogether; even the Mediterranean is too small to have great
influence, and the Atlantic Ocean affects only a narrow belt along the
west coast. Over regions so vast and so hot, every cloud is dispersed
without moistening or fertilizing the parched ground. Only when we go
much further south, near the equator, do the conditions change. On the
one side, the Atlantic Ocean sweeps in with a great curve; on the other
side, the Indian Ocean washes the African shores, the two oceans, as
it were, stretching their hands across the continent. Here, moreover,
at certain times, thunder-storms bring downpours of rain so heavy that
the desert has to give way to the more living steppe, and the year is
divided into two essentially different seasons--of life and of death,
of rain and of drought, whereas in the barren desert only the periodic
winds bear tidings of the seasonal changes in progress elsewhere.
In order to understand the steppe-lands it is necessary to give a
rapid sketch of their seasons. For every country reflects its dominant
climate, and the general aspect of a region is in great part an
expression of the conflicting forces of its seasons, apart from which
it cannot be understood.
Almost as soon as the rains are over, the season of destruction and
death begins--the long and terrible winter of the African interior--a
winter which brings about by heat the same dire effects as are wrought
in the North by cold. Before the sky, hitherto often clouded, has
become quite clear, some of the trees, which had become green in
spring, throw off their foliage, and with the wind-swept leaves go the
wandering birds. These had brooded here in the spring, but now they
seek other fields. The stems of the cereals turn yellow before the
rains have ceased; the low grasses wither and dry. The intermittent
water-courses cease to have any flow; the rain-filled pools are dried
up; and not only the reptiles and amphibians, but even the fishes
peculiar to them, are forced to burrow and seek winter-quarters in the
damp clay. The seeds of plants, and the eggs or larvæ of insects are
also hidden away in the earth.
As the sun travels to the north, the winter sets in rapidly. Autumn
lasts but for a few days. It causes no withering nor gradual death of
leaves, no glow of red and gold such as we see at home, but exercises,
through its hot winds, such a destructive power that the leaves are
dried up like mown grass under the sun’s rays, and either fall to the
ground green, or crumble away on the stalk, so that the trees, with few
exceptions, assume their winter aspect with extreme suddenness. Over
the plains, on which, a few days before, the tall grass still waved
in the wind, dust clouds now whirl; in the partially or wholly dried
up water-courses and water-basins the ground gapes in deep cracks.
Everything that is pleasing vanishes; everything that is unpleasing
becomes painfully obtrusive: leaves and flowers, birds and butterflies
fade away, or migrate, or die; thorns, spines, and burs are left;
snakes, scorpions, and “tarantulas” have their heyday. Indescribable
heat by day and enervating sultriness by night make this season almost
unbearable, and against neither heat nor sultriness is there any
remedy. The torments are inconceivable to those who know nothing of
such weather, when the thermometer registers up to 122° Fahr. in the
shade;[38] when one is in a constant sweat, yet without being conscious
of it, so drying is the heat; when one cloud of dust after another
whirls up to heaven, or parching thirst weighs on one like lead. Nor
can anyone who has not groaned through these nights, when one tosses
on the couch, prevented by the sultriness from resting or sleeping,
adequately sympathize with the torments to which men and animals are
subjected at this season. Even the sky exchanges its hitherto but
rarely clouded blue for a dun colour, for the vapour often hides the
sun for half a day at a time, yet without diminishing the oppressive
heat; indeed the sultriness seems to increase when the horizon is
obscured by such mists. One day follows another without any refreshing
of body or soul. No cooling breeze from the north fans the forehead;
and the soul is not refreshed by any fragrance of flowers, or song of
birds, or enchanting pictures with bright colour and deep shade, such
as the flooding light of heaven elsewhere paints in the equatorial
regions. Everything living, everything coloured, everything poetical,
is gone, sunk into death-like sleep--too dismal to awaken any fancy.
Men and beasts seem to wither as the grass and leaves withered; and
like them many a man and many a beast sinks down for ever. In vain does
manly courage endeavour to bear up under the burden of these days: the
most resolute will give way to sighs and moans. Every piece of work
fatigues, even the lightest covering is too heavy, every movement is an
effort, every wound becomes a virulent sore.
But even this winter must at length yield to spring, yet the incoming
of this season also is terrible. For the same wind, which, in the
desert, becomes the simoom, raises its wings as herald of the spring.
It rages through the fissures in the ground, sweeps out more dust,
whirls it aloft in thick masses, and builds it into wall-like clouds,
which it drives roaring and howling through the land, and forces
through the latticed windows of the comfortable town-houses as well
as through the low doorways of the native huts, adding a new plague
to the existing torments. At last the wind gains complete mastery and
exerts its force without restraint, as though it would annihilate
everything that still resisted; but it is this same wind that, farther
south, piles up the clouds heavy with rain, and sweeps them towards
the scorched land. Soon it seems as if the sultriness began to grow
less oppressive as the wind gathered strength; it seems even as if
it sometimes blew no longer hotly but refreshingly. And this is no
deception; the spring is preparing for its coming, and on the wings of
the storm the rain-clouds are borne. In a short time, in the south,
they darken the dome of heaven; in a few days quivering flashes lighten
the dull cloud-banks; in a few weeks the distant thunder heralds the
life-giving rain.
Then all the streams from the south rise and surge and overflow. They
are scarcely yet turbid, but they have life now; they continue to rise,
and through all the deeper rents and fissures of their muddy banks the
life-giving moisture is diffused into the adjacent country. The birds
of passage begin to appear, and day by day their numbers increase. To
the lands of the Upper Nile the storks return to take possession of
their old nests on the conical straw huts of the natives, and with them
comes the sacred ibis to perform to-day the duty which has been his for
thousands of years,--to be the messenger and herald assuring all that
the old Nile-god will again open the fountain of his mercy, and pour
forth his horn of blessing on the lands which own his sway.
At length the first thunder-storm draws near. Sultriness more painful
than ever oppresses the dead, scorched land. An eerie stillness fills
man and beast with uneasiness. Every song, nay, almost every voice of
birds is hushed, and they hide themselves amid the thickest foliage of
the evergreens. In the camp of the nomad herdsmen, in the village,
in the town, all life seems as if under a spell. The dogs, usually
so lively, slink quietly away to some safe hiding-place; the other
domestic animals become uneasy or else wild, the horses have to be
hobbled, and the cattle are driven into the pen. In town, the merchant
closes his stall, the artisan his workshop, the officials their divan;
everyone takes refuge at home. And yet not a breeze stirs the air;
there is not a rustle among the leaves of the few trees which still
have foliage. But everyone knows that the storm is gathering and is
drawing near.
In the south is built up a great wall of cloud, dark and at the same
time lurid, like the fire-cloud over a burning town or over a forest in
flames. Fiery red, purple, dark red, and brown, dull yellow, deep blue,
and black seem to move in a dance of colour; they mingle and separate;
they fade into the darkness and appear again in vivid prominence. The
great cloud-bank rests upon the earth and reaches up to the heavens;
now it seems to stand still, and now it rushes on like a tempest;
from minute to minute it narrows the range of vision; more and more
completely it throws an impenetrable shroud over all. A whistling,
hissing sound issues from it, but around the observer all is still,
quiet, and noiseless.
Then suddenly a brief and violent blast of wind bursts forth. Strong
trees bend before it like weak reeds; the slender palms bow down their
crowns. With ever-increasing rapidity one blast follows another; the
wind becomes a tempest, and the tempest a hurricane, raging with
unexampled fury. Its noise is so terrible that the spoken word does
not reach the speaker’s ear; every other sound is drowned and lost.
It rages and roars, blusters and hisses, pipes and howls, rumbles and
rattles, in the air, along the ground, among the tops of the trees, as
if all the elements were in battle, as if the heavens were falling, as
if the very foundations of the earth itself were being shattered. The
irresistible storm dashes against the trees, and tears off half of the
leaves, if there are any left; while stems as thick as a man’s waist
are snapped like brittle glass. Breaking off the crowns, the hurricane
whirls them like light balls over the plain, and buries them head
downwards in the loose earth or sand, with the miserable fragment of
trunk sticking up, a prey to the destructive termites.[39] Hungrily
the wind rushes through the clefts and fissures of the earth, sweeps
out dust, sand, and gravel, hurls this even into the clouds, and bears
it onwards with such force that it recoils stinging and rattling from
hard surfaces. With this dust the tempest hides the heavens and covers
the earth, and turns the day into dread night, while the anxious
inhabitants in their dust-filled houses light lanterns to gain what
encouragement and consolation they may from the sight of living flame.
But even the roaring hurricane may be out-roared. The crashing,
rumbling thunder is yet more mighty; it drowns the howling and
bellowing of the wind. The clouds of dust are still too thick to allow
the lightning flashes to be seen; but soon to the confusion of sounds
and noises a hitherto unheard rattling is added, and the unnatural
night begins to be relieved by gleams of light. It seems as if heavy
hailstones were rattling down, but they are only rain-drops which bear
with them in falling the up-whirled dust and sand. Now the flashes are
seen. One follows so quickly upon another that we are forced to close
our dazzled, well-nigh blinded, eyes, and to follow the storm only
by listening to the uninterrupted roll of the thunder. The downpour
becomes a cloud-burst; from the hills the water rushes down everywhere
in streams; in the hollows it forms lakes; in the valleys there are
rivers in flood. For hours the downpour continues, but with the coming
of the rain the tempest abates, and a fresh cooling breeze refreshes
man and beast and plant. Gradually the flashes become fewer and the
peals of thunder less violent, the rain-spout becomes a shower, and
this ends in a gentle drizzle; the sky clears, the clouds scatter,
and the sun breaks forth in splendour. Mirthfully the brown children,
naked as they were born, run out from the houses and huts to bathe in
the pools which the spring rain has filled; and not less gladly do
the reptiles, amphibians, and fishes rise from their muddy beds. Even
the first night after the rain one hears everywhere the clear, loud
voice of a little frog, of whom one saw nothing before, for he, like
some of the crocodiles, many turtles, and all the fishes, had sought
winter-quarters deep in the mud bottom of the periodically dried-up
lakes, and had just been awakened by the first spring rain.[40]
Everywhere the newly-awakened life arises in strength. The thirsty
earth eagerly sucks in the moisture which has been bestowed upon her;
but after a few days the heavens again open their flood-gates and a
fresh supply of rain awakens any germs which are still slumbering. A
second thunder-storm causes the buds to burst on all the trees which
shed their leaves, and liberates the sprouting grasses from the ground.
A third downpour of rain calls forth blossoms and flowers, and clothes
the whole land in luxuriant green. Magical as spring’s coming is the
subsequent rush of life. What with us requires a month here completes
its life-cycle in a week; what develops but slowly in temperate zones
here unfolds itself in days and hours.
But within a few weeks the spring is once more past; the hardly
distinguishable summer follows in the annual pageant; and is as
rapidly succeeded by the short autumn; so that, strictly speaking,
all three--spring, summer, and autumn--make but one season. Again
the destructive winter is at the doors, and prevents that continuous
germinating, growing, and flourishing which is possible in other
equatorial countries where the water-supply is more abundant. Here,
however, the rainfall is at least sufficient to keep the barren desert
from gaining the mastery, and to spread a more or less rich carpet of
vegetation over the ground--in other words, to produce steppe-land
instead of desert.
I use the word steppe to designate those lands peculiar to the interior
of Africa which the Arabs call “Chala”, which means “lands bearing
fresh green plants”. It is true that the chala is as little like the
steppes of South Russia and Central Asia as the prairies of North
America, or the pampas or llanos of South America, yet in certain
important respects it does resemble the first-named, so that I need
scarcely make any excuse for preferring a known to an unknown term.
The steppe extends over the whole interior of Africa, from the Sahara
to the Karroo,[41] from east coast to west, surrounding all the high
mountains and enclosing all the extensive virgin forests which stretch
on their slopes, or occupy in greater luxuriance the low grounds where
water is plentiful. In fact it includes all the lands in the heart of
Africa, beginning a few hundred paces beyond the last house of the
towns, and directly behind the last houses of the villages; it includes
the fields of the settlers, and supports the flocks of the nomads.
Where the desert ends to the south, where the forest ceases, where the
mountain flattens, there is steppe-land; where the forest is destroyed
by fire, the steppe first gains possession of the clearing; where men
abandon a village the steppe encroaches, and in a few years destroys
every trace of habitation; where the farmer relinquishes his fields the
steppe impresses its character upon them in the space of a year or two.
[Illustration: Fig. 25.--The Bed of an Intermittent River, Central
Africa.]
Inhospitable and monotonous the steppe seems to one who sees it for the
first time. A wide, often immeasurable plain stretches before his eye;
only exceptionally is this interrupted by isolated conical hills, yet
more rarely do these unite to form mountain ranges. More frequently,
low, undulating hills alternate with flat valleys; or sometimes they
combine in a strange mazy network of ranges which enclose deep-sunk
basins, where pools, ponds, and lakes are formed during the rainy
season, while during winter the clayey soil is rent with thousands of
fissures. In the deepest and longest depressions there is, instead
of standing water, a “Chôr” or rain-torrent, that is to say, a
water-course which even in the spring is only occasionally in flow, but
which, under specially favourable circumstances, may be flooded to the
brim in a few hours, and does not merely flow, but rushes--a moving
wall of water--hissing and thundering down the valley, often, however,
disappearing before it reaches a true river. Except where there are
these water-basins and water-courses, a relatively rich vegetation
covers the whole surface of the steppe. Grasses of various kinds,
from lowly plants which creep along the ground to great cereal-like
stems as tall as a man, form the basis of the vegetation. Trees and
shrubs, especially mimosas, baobabs, doum-palms, and christ-thorns,
combine here and there, especially near the water, to form thickets
or groves, but elsewhere they are but sparsely scattered amid the
grasses which so uniformly cover the flats, and it is only at a few
spots that they form even a thin wood. Never do the trees show vigour
of growth like that seen in the valleys with true river courses, where
the blessings of spring are always retained; on the contrary, they
are often stunted, usually low and with scraggy crowns with rarely
even a twiner struggling upwards. They all suffer from the severity of
the long torrid winter, which hardly allows them to gain subsistence,
and keeps off almost all parasitic plants. It is different with the
grasses which, in the short but abundantly moist spring, shoot up
luxuriantly, bloom, and ripen their seeds, and in fact attain to a
thoroughly vigorous life. To them the monotonous aspect of the steppe
is in great part due, for, humble as they are, they obliterate many of
the contrasts which would otherwise be apparent, and the uniformity of
their colouring becomes oppressively wearisome. Not even man succeeds
in introducing variety into this eternal sameness, for the fields
which he tills in the midst of the grass-land seem from a distance so
like their surroundings that one can scarce distinguish grain from
grass. Even the round huts made of slender stakes, with conical roofs
thatched with steppe-grass, are, in the dry season at least, so
closely congruent with the surrounding flats that one must come very
near before one sees that they are there. Only the seasons can change
the sameness of the picture, and even they do not remove much of its
monotony.
Inhospitable, too, is the reception which awaits the traveller in the
steppe. Perched on a camel he rides through the fields. Some game or
other invites him to the chase, and induces him to penetrate into the
grass-forest. Then he finds out that between the apparently smooth
grasses there grow plants much more formidable than the thorny mimosas.
On the ground flourishes the “tarba”, whose seed-capsules are so sharp
that they cut through the soles of light riding-boots; above it grows
the “essek”, whose burrs insinuate themselves almost inextricably into
all clothing; and somewhat higher the “askanit” rises, most formidable
of the three, for its fine prickles are loosened by the slightest
touch, and, penetrating one’s clothes, bore into the skin and cause
ulcerations small enough individually, but in their incomputable
numbers most oppressive. These three plants make any prolonged sojourn
or extensive exploration impossible, and are such a torture to man and
beast that one can readily understand why the natives always carry,
as an indispensable instrument, a fine pair of pincers. As among the
monkeys, the greatest kindness which one man can do his neighbour is to
pull out the fine, hardly-visible, needle-like spines from his skin.
Apart from the three formidable antagonists which we have mentioned,
most of the other steppe-plants, especially the trees and shrubs, are
covered with more or less repellent thorns and spines, as one soon
discovers if one tries to penetrate a thicket or even comes to close
quarters with a tree.
Other even more unpleasant characteristics of the steppes make
themselves felt at night. It is often necessary to ride for days
without reaching a village, and one must therefore camp out on the
plain. A suitable sandy place free from obnoxious plants is sought
out, the beasts are unloaded and hobbled, a bed is made by spreading a
mat on the ground, and a huge fire is lighted to scare off beasts of
prey. The sun goes down, and a few minutes later the night falls on
the steppes; only the fire lightens the camp. But by the fire and about
the couch things soon become lively. Attracted by the light, noxious
creatures come running and creeping, first one and then another, but
soon in tens and in hundreds. First appear gigantic spiders, which,
with their eight legs spread out, cover a surface as large as an
outstretched hand. After the spiders, or sometimes along with them,
the scorpions come hurrying. Both spiders and scorpions rush with
sinister rapidity to the fire, clambering over carpet and coverlet,
among the dishes of our simple supper, retreating when the radiating
heat becomes too strong for them, turning back again under its mesmeric
influence--in truth a fearsome invasion. For these spiders, with
their dangerous, or at least painful bites, are not less dreaded than
the scorpions, and they are as ready to bite as the scorpions are
to sting. Angrily we seize another instrument which an experienced
traveller had forewarned us was indispensable--a long-legged pair of
tongs, and with these we grip as many of the intruders as possible,
and throw them without mercy into the crackling fire. By the united
efforts of the party most of the hellish brood are soon in the flames;
their successors are similarly treated, until the invasion slackens,
and we begin to breathe--but it is too soon! For new and more uncanny
visitors draw near the fire--venomous snakes, apparently fascinated
like the spiders. Among them the naturalist recognizes as the most
abundant species an exceedingly interesting creature well deserving
his attention: it is the sandy-yellow horned viper, the famous or
infamous Cerastes of the ancients, the Fi engraved on so many Egyptian
monuments, the asp from whose fangs Cleopatra sought death.[42] It may
be interesting to the zoologist, but the wearied traveller consigns
it to the depths of hell. The whole company becomes lively when this
visitor is announced; everyone seizes his tongs with much greater
haste and anxiety than before. Whoever sees the snake approaches it
cautiously, grips it behind the neck, presses the tongs firmly lest
it escape, and throws it into the glowing fire. There its destruction
is watched with no small satisfaction. In many parts of the steppe
these vipers drive one almost to despair. Thanks to their scaly coat,
whose markings correspond to a jot with the sandy soil, thanks also
to their habit of burying themselves during the day, or during their
resting hours, with only their short tactile horns protruding from
the sand, one usually searches for them in vain during daylight. But
as soon as night comes, and the camp-fire burns brightly, they are
unmistakably on the spot, coiling and hissing all around. Sometimes
they appear in terrifying numbers and keep the tired traveller awake
till towards midnight, for all those which have been resting within
the range of the fire, or have been attracted to it on their nocturnal
rambles, come gliding towards the flames. At last, wearied out and
heavy with sleep, we throw down the tongs and betake ourselves to bed,
but we never know how many of the reptiles will come creeping over us
in the night, and we often discover evidence of their visits when the
carpet is lifted in the morning. For under its folds one or more may
be found lurking, or may be seen quickly disappearing into the sand.
Little wonder that it was on this steppe-land that I first became
impressed with the fact, which no one had at that time stated, that,
with few exceptions, the venomous snakes, and certainly all the vipers
and crotaline snakes, are nocturnal in habit.
[Illustration: Fig. 26.--Hills of African Termites, or White Ants.]
But the above-mentioned animals do not by any means complete the list
of those which are troublesome in the steppe. There is one, among the
smallest of all, which, though giving no direct cause for anxiety as
far as life is concerned, is of immense importance in relation to
the property of these who live or travel in this region. I mean the
termite, a little insect not unlike an ant, which, in spite of its
minuteness, does more damage than the voracious locust (still able to
constitute a plague), and may work more destruction than a troop of
elephants devastating the fields. It is one of the most omnipresent
and persistent of injurious insects. Whatever the vigour of plant life
creates will fall before the sharp jaws of the termites, and they are
not less unsparing of the products of human art and industry. High
above the grass-forest of the steppe they rear their conical earthen
towers; on the ground and on the trees they make their tunnels and
passages. They begin and end their destructive work at night or in
darkness. First they cover the object of their attack with a crust of
earth which shuts out the light, and under this cover they go about
their work, whose end and object is always destruction. Things lying
on the ground or hung on mud walls are most likely to be attacked. The
careless traveller, oppressed by the overpowering sultriness, throws
one of his garments on the ground which forms his bed, and finds it in
the morning perforated like a sieve and rendered quite useless! The
naturalist who is unaware of the ways of the land shuts up his hard-won
spoils in a wooden box, and neglects to place this on stones or the
like so as to raise it off the ground; in a few days his treasures
are gone! The sportsman hangs his rifle on a clay wall, and discovers
to his disgust that the destructive insects have covered butt and
barrel with their tunnels, and have already gnawed deep channels in
the stock. The tree which they select is lost; the woodwork of houses
in which they effect a settlement is doomed. From the ground to the
highest branches they make their covered ways; they eat through stem,
branches, and twigs, and leave but a dead honey-combed skeleton,
which becomes the prey of the first storm, and is scattered abroad
in dust. On the earth-walls or on the supporting beams of the houses
the termites likewise ascend, riddling the woodwork, and in a short
time making a wreck of everything. Even under the firmly stamped
floors of the better-class houses they form a maze of branched burrows
whence they occasionally break forth in millions bent on destruction.
In these and many other ways they work ruin, and are among the most
troublesome plagues of the interior of Africa, and especially of the
steppe-land.[43]
Did this region offer nought else, were it not one of the most thickly
populated and most frequented of animal haunts, the naturalist would
perhaps avoid it as carefully as does the mercantile traveller, who
knows only its repellent aspects and none of its attractions.
But he who sojourns here for a time and really explores the region
is soon reconciled. For the steppe abounds in life; it is not poor
like the desert, but rather rich like the primitive forest. For it
too shelters a fauna abounding alike in species and in individuals,
and including many forms which are regarded as distinctive of this
geographical region. Of some of these we shall give rapid sketches.
Among the most remarkable steppe animals are those fishes found in the
water-courses and water-basins which are only periodically filled. Even
Aristotle speaks of fishes which burrow in the mud when the pools are
dried up, and though Seneca sought to throw ridicule on the statement
by suggesting scoffingly that one should henceforth go a-fishing not
with hook and line but with pick and shovel, Aristotle recorded a fact
which is beyond either doubt or ridicule.
The mud-fish,[44] which lives in the steppe basins and streams in the
interior of Africa, is an eel-like creature, about 3 feet in length,
with a long dorsal fin continuous with that of the tail, with two
narrow pectoral fins far forward, and two long pelvic fins far back,
and with this most important characteristic, that, besides the gills,
there are also functional lung-sacs. This remarkable connecting link
between fish and amphibian lives, even in the wet season, more in the
mud than in the water, and likes to hide in holes which it seems to dig
out for itself. When the supply of water threatens to disappear, the
fish burrows deeply in the mud, rolls itself into the smallest possible
bulk, and forms, apparently by frequent turning, an air-tight capsule,
shut in on all sides, and lined internally with mucus. Within this the
animal remains motionless throughout the winter. If we carefully dig
out these capsules and pack them well, we can send the fish without
risk where we please, and it may be readily recalled to life by placing
the capsule in lukewarm water. As the reviving water soaks in, the
creature still remains quiet, just as if it were heavy with sleep; but
in the course of an hour or so it becomes quite lively, and in a few
days its voracious hunger also awakes. For some months its behaviour
remains unaltered, but at the season when it prepares in its native
haunts for winter-sleep, it seeks to do the same in captivity, or at
least becomes restless, and secretes an extraordinary quantity of
mucus. If opportunity be afforded, it burrows; if not, it soon masters
its inclination, and continues to thrive as before in the open water.
[Illustration: Fig. 27.--Secretary-bird and Aspis.]
Sheat-fish or siluroids also pass the winter in the steppe as the
mud-fish does. The amphibians too, along with some reptiles,
especially water-turtles and crocodiles, burrow in the mud, and wile
away the deadly winter in sleep. On the other hand, all the terrestrial
reptiles are at their liveliest throughout the torrid season, and
contribute not a little to enliven the dreary steppe which they inhabit
in extraordinary numbers. Besides the vipers which we have already
mentioned, there is another venomous snake of the steppe--the royal
Aspis or Uräus--one of the deadliest of all.[45] It was with this
creature, more famous or infamous than the horned viper, that Moses
juggled before Pharaoh, as the snake-charmers still do; the same, too,
whose image in gold the ancient kings of Egypt wore as a diadem to
express their irresistible power, and which they used in the punishment
of criminals, or in executing revenge on enemies,--a creature in regard
to which the old authors tell many gruesome, and not always untrue,
tales. In contrast to other venomous snakes it is active during the
day; when unexcited it looks very harmless, but it is extremely agile,
irritable, and bold, and combines all the qualities which render
venomous serpents dangerous. Usually unseen, for its colour closely
resembles that of the sand and the withered grass, it glides, often
with uncanny rapidity, through the grass-forest, conscious of its
terrible weapons, and ready for attack whenever it fancies danger.
In attitude of defence it raises the anterior fifth or sixth of its
body, and expands the neck ribs so as to form a sort of shield, above
which lies the small head, with lively sparkling eyes. It fastens its
sharp gaze on its opponent, and prepares for the bite which is quick
as lightning and almost without exception fatal. Then its appearance
is dreadful but yet beautiful, bewildering and terrifying to man and
beast. It is generally asserted that this snake may kill without
biting, by spitting or shooting its venom at its enemy;[46] and it is
at any rate true that the poison-glands secrete the dread juice so
copiously that great drops trickle from the openings of the perforated
fangs. Little wonder that both natives and Europeans are much more
afraid of this asp than of the sluggish horned viper which visits
their bed by night. Nor is it difficult to understand why the stranger
fires at every snake, even the most harmless, which comes within his
sight, or why every rustling in the grass or foliage gives one a slight
shock, or at least induces careful circumspection. But the rustling is
continually to be heard in the steppe, for there are many other snakes
no less common than the asp--many, from the huge python or hieroglyphic
snake, sometimes nearly twenty feet in length, down to harmless
grass-snakes of minute size. Besides these there is a countless host of
lizards of all kinds.
Whoever has a horror of snakes may perhaps be reconciled to the class
of reptiles by the agile, beautifully-coloured lizards, for creatures
more attractive than these are not to be found in the steppe. They dart
to and fro on the ground; they clamber on the branches of the shrubs
and trees; they look down from the hills of the termites and from the
roofs of the houses; they make their way even under the sand. Some
species vie with the humming-birds in the brightness and glitter of
their colours; others fascinate by the swiftness and grace of their
movements; others attract by the quaintness of their forms. Even after
the sun, in whose light they live and move, has set, and most of
these active creatures have gone to rest, the geckos are still left
to the naturalist. During the day these lizards remain quietly fixed
to the tree-boles and the rafters, but as night sets in they begin
their activity. With loud and musical calls (to which they owe their
name “Gecko”) they hunt about without any fear of man. The ancients
libelled them and placed them among the most venomous of animals, and
even to-day this superstition lurks in the minds of the ignorant. They
are nocturnal animals, and as such somewhat different from the diurnal
members of the lizard race. Thus one of their peculiar characteristics
is the cushion-like expansion of the fingers and toes, whose soles
are furnished with numerous closely appressed plaits of skin, which
act like suckers and give the geckos extraordinary climbing powers.
These plaited cushions were long ago erroneously interpreted as
poison-secreting glands,--an idea which now seems absurd enough.[47]
In truth the geckos are as harmless as they are attractive, and in a
very short time they win the affection of every unprejudiced observer.
Most valuable domestic pets they are, for they pursue with eagerness
and success all kinds of troublesome insects. In every room of the
mud and straw houses their nightly activity may be observed; they
climb about with all but unfailing security, adhering by their plaited
feet to almost anything; head up or head down they run on vertical or
on horizontal surfaces, teasing and chasing one another in pleasant
fashion, making one merry too with their musical notes; they give one
nothing but pleasure and do nothing but good; what reasonable man can
fail to become their friend?
But they are reptiles still, and must remain under the curse; they
cannot vie with the children of the air--the birds. And one may
perhaps say that the birds are the first creatures to make a thoroughly
favourable impression on the visitor to the steppe, and to reconcile
him to the forbidding aspects of other animals.
The bird-fauna of the steppes is rich alike in species and in
individuals. Wherever we wander we are sure to hear and see birds. From
the densest forest of grasses resounds the loud call of a bustard;
from the thickets by the water-courses is heard the trumpeting of
the guinea-fowl or the loud cry of the francolin; from the trees
comes a medley of sound--the cooing and moaning of the doves, the
shouts and hammering of the woodpecker, the melodious call of the
barbets, the simple music of various weaver-finches and thrush-like
songsters. The high branches of trees or other prominent positions
serve as watch-towers for serpent-eagles, chanting goshawks, rollers,
drongos, and bee-eaters, which sit there on the outlook for prey. The
secretary-bird, which the natives call the Bird of Fate, runs about
among the tall grass stems or hovers above them; in higher strata of
the air one sees the whirling swallows and other birds which catch
their prey on the wing; higher still the eagles and vultures are
circling. No spot is untenanted, in fact almost every place is thickly
peopled; and when our winter begins to reign it sends hither many of
our birds, especially kestrels and harriers, shrikes and rollers,
quails and storks, who find in the steppe a hospitable refuge during
the evil days in the north.
Few of the birds which live in the steppes can be regarded as
distinctive, nor is the general character of the bird-fauna so clearly
and sharply defined that one could at once recognize a steppe bird,
as is possible with those of the desert. To some extent, however, the
careful observer will notice that the birds of the steppe are congruent
with their environment. The secretary-bird--a great bird of prey in
the guise of a crane; the “snake-harrier”--a sluggish, slow-flying
hawk clothed in rich, soft, large-feathered plumage; a straw-yellow
night-jar, and another with decorative wing-feathers, a guinea-fowl
or a francolin, a bustard or an ostrich: of these we might perhaps
venture to say that they belong to the steppe, and are only there at
home. It is not the case that the steppe is richer in colour than the
desert, but it affords much more cover, and its tenants are therefore
more freely coloured and marked. There are two colours to which it
seems as if a preference were given; the one is a more or less shaded
straw-yellow, the other is a hardly definable gray-blue. Both appear
on the plumage of birds of prey and game-birds alike, but without, of
course, excluding other darker, lighter, or more vivid colours. It
seems to me worthy of note that the greater freedom of colouring and
marking is also observable on those birds whose near relations are
characteristic of the desert.
We should like to give a more detailed description of some of the
steppe birds which are most distinctive of the region, but selection is
difficult, for almost every one of those which we have mentioned claims
and merits close attention. But my limits force me to a choice, and it
must suffice if I select a bird of the upper air, a bird of the ground,
and a bird of the night, in order through them to add a few touches to
our general picture of the steppe.
No one who stays for any length of time in the steppe-land can fail to
observe a large bird of prey, whose appearance as he flies, owing to
the beautiful contour of the long pointed wings and exceedingly short
tail, mark him off from every other feathered robber, whose flight
moreover surpasses that of all creatures which fly. High above the
ground he flies, hovers, glides, tumbles, flutters, dances, and throws
himself headlong. As large as an eagle, he expands his great wings,
and remains for a moment in the same position without any movement; he
beats them violently, raises them high above his body, twists them and
whirls them; he closes them and is precipitated almost to the ground;
he gives a few powerful strokes, and in a few minutes has ascended to
immeasurable heights. As he approaches the ground we see his vividly
contrasted colours--the velvet black of the head, neck, breast, and
belly, the silver white on the under surface of his wings, the light
chestnut-brown of his tail; he throws himself headlong, and we notice
the bright colour of the back resembling that of the tail and a broad
light band on the wings; he comes still nearer, and we may perhaps
detect the coral-red beak and cheeks and talons. If we question one
of the nomad herdsmen observant of the animal life of the steppe in
regard to this striking and altogether remarkable bird of prey, we
may hear from his lips this significant and suggestive story. “To
him,” he says, “the goodness of the All-merciful has given rich gifts,
and, above all, high wisdom. For he is a physician among the birds of
heaven, familiar with the diseases which visit the children of the
Creator, and knowing all the herbs and roots with which to heal them.
From far-off lands thou mayest see him bear the roots, but in vain dost
thou seek to discover whither he is summoned to heal the sick. The
working of his remedies is unfailing; to partake of them brings life,
to reject them is to invite death; they are as the Hedijah written by
the hand of God’s messenger, a precept of Mohammed, whom we reverence
in humility. To the poor in the eyes of the Lord, to the sons of
Adam, it is not forbidden to make use of them. Take note of where the
physician-eagle has his dwelling, refrain from injuring his eggs, wait
till the feathers of his young no longer draw any blood, and then go
to his home and wound the body of one of his children. Thereupon shalt
thou perceive the father fly towards morning in the direction in which
thou turnest to pray. Be not discouraged in waiting for his return,
have patience! He will appear bearing with him a root; frighten him so
that he may leave it to thee, take it without fear; for it comes from
the Lord, in whose hand are the issues of life, and it is free from all
witchcraft. Then hasten to heal thy sick; they shall all recover, for
so it is appointed to them by the Father of Mercies.”
The bird which forms the subject of this poetic legend is the bateleur
or short-tailed African eagle--the “Heaven’s ape” of the Abyssinians.
The roots which, according to the legend, it carries, are snakes, which
it picks up. Seldom does one see the bird rest; usually it flies, as
has been described, until the sight of a snake induces it to hurl
itself downwards and to engage in battle. Like all the snake-eating
birds of prey, it is well protected against the venomous fangs by
the thick horny plates on its talons and by its dense plumage; it is
therefore unafraid of the most deadly snake, and is a true benefactor
of the steppe-land. It is not this beneficence, however, but its
marvellous flight that has won renown for the African eagle in the eyes
of all the peoples among whom it has its home.
[Illustration: Fig. 28.--On an Ostrich Farm in South Africa.]
The ostrich, which is bound to the earth, stands in striking contrast
to the short-tailed eagle. He also is the hero of an Arabian legend,
which, however, instead of glorifying him, brings him down to the dust;
for the story is that the ostrich wished, in the exuberance of his
vanity, to fly to the sun, but was in his attempt miserably burned, and
hurled in his present form to the ground. To us his life is all the
more worthy of consideration, that many false ideas still prevail both
in regard to it and in regard to the bird himself.
Although occurring in those low grounds of the African and West
Asiatic deserts which are richest in vegetation, the ostrich becomes
abundant only in the steppe. Here one is almost continually crossing
his unmistakable “spoor”, though it is but rarely that one sees the
bird. He is tall enough to see over the lofty grasses which conceal
him, he is far-sighted and shy, and can therefore usually conceal
himself from the approaching traveller. If one succeeds in observing
him from a distance, one sees that, except at the breeding season, he
is fond of a comfortable and easy-going life. In the early morning, and
in the evening, the troop feed busily; at noon they all lie resting
and digesting on the ground; sometimes they go together to water or
to bathe (even in the sea); later on, they amuse themselves with
marvellous dances,[48] jumping round in a circle as if out of their
senses, fanning with their wing-plumes as if they would attempt to fly;
at sunset they betake themselves to rest, but without neglecting to
secure their safety. If a formidable enemy threaten them they rush off
in wild flight, and soon leave him far behind; if a weaker carnivore
sneak upon them, they strike him to the ground with their extremely
powerful legs. Thus the course of their life runs smoothly, provided
that there be no lack of food. Of this they require an enormous
quantity. Their voracity is astounding, and not less is the capacity of
their stomach to receive vast quantities of all sorts of things, which
are either digested, or are retained without injury. Almost everything
vegetable, from root-tubers to fruits, is accepted by their stomachs,
which have now become proverbial; and so is it with small animals,
both vertebrate and invertebrate. But such things by no means exhaust
their menu. The ostrich swallows whatever can be swallowed, gulping
down stones a pound in weight, and in captivity not disdaining pieces
of tiles, oakum, rags, knives, single keys and bunches of keys, nails,
pieces of glass and crockery, leaden balls, bells, and many other such
things. Indeed, it may fall a victim to its indiscriminating appetite
by devouring such stuff as unslaked lime. In the stomach of one which
died in captivity there was found a heterogeneous mass weighing in
all about nine pounds. In the poultry-yard the greedy bird swallows
ducklings and chickens as if they were oysters; it dismantles walls
to fill its gizzard with the loose mortar; in short, it will eat
anything which is not a fixture. In proportion to the amount of food
which it requires--and that is not out of proportion to its size and
activity--so is its thirst. Thus it frequents those places where it
finds not only abundance of nutritious plants, but also water-basins or
springs. If both fail, the ostriches are forced to migrate, and in such
cases they often cover great distances.
With the coming of spring the mating instinct awakens in the heart of
the ostrich, and then it changes its habit of life in a remarkable
manner. The troops or herds break up into small groups, and the adult
males begin their long-continued combats for mates. Excited to the
highest pitch, as is outwardly indicated by the vivid reddening of
neck and legs, two rivals stand opposed; they fan their wings so
that the full splendour of their fluffy white plumes is displayed;
they move their long necks in a scarce describable fashion, twisting
and bending now forwards, now sideways; they utter deep and hoarse
sounds, sometimes suggestive of a muffled drum, sometimes even of the
roaring of lions; they stare at one another; they bend down on the
soles of their feet, and move their necks and wings more rapidly and
persistently than before; then they spring up again and rush at one
another, seeking, in the swift encounter, to strike their opponent
a powerful blow with the foot, and with the sharp-cutting toe-nail
to make long, deep gashes on body and legs. The victor in the combat
is not more gentle to the mate or mates which he has won, in fact he
abuses them shamefully with bullying and blows. It is not at present
perfectly certain whether a male keeps company with one female or
with several;[49] it may be accepted as a fact, however, that several
females often lay in the same nest, and it has been observed that the
female does not undertake the whole responsibility of sitting on the
eggs, but leaves much of this to the male, who, after about eight
weeks’ brooding, also leads about the young and tends them. In both
brooding and tending, the female does assist, but the male always
has the larger share, and in leading about the young brood he shows
more carefulness and solicitude than does the mother-bird. The young
ostriches, when hatched, are about the size of an average hen, and
come into the world with a remarkable suit of feathers, more like the
bristly coat of a mammal than the customary down of young birds. As
they exhibit the characteristic voracity of their race from the day
of their birth, they grow quickly, and after two or three months they
change their plumage and put on a garb resembling that of the female.
At least three years must pass, however, before they are fully grown or
ready for pairing.
Such, in briefest statement, are the essential facts in regard to the
life-history of the giant bird of the steppe; all the stories which are
inconsistent with my summary are more or less fabulous.
The bird of the night in regard to which I wish to say a few words is
the night-jar or goat-sucker, whose race is represented at home by
one species, but in the steppe by several somewhat remarkable forms.
When the first star is seen in the evening sky these gayest and most
charming of nocturnal birds begin to be active. During the day it is
only by chance that we ever see one, and we scarce believe in its
powers of enlivening the steppe-land. But, when night falls, at least
one is sure to make its appearance. Attracted to the camp-fire like the
scorpion and the viper, the softly-flying bird flits in ever-changing
course around the watchers, alights near them for a moment, delivers a
few strophes of its whirring night-song, which reminds one of a cat’s
purring, is off again into the dusk, only to reappear in a few minutes,
and so on until morning. One species is especially fascinating, the
flag-winged night-jar, or “four-winged bird” of the natives. Its
decorative peculiarity consists of a long feather which grows out
between the primaries and secondaries[50] of each wing, without any
vane except at the broad tip, and far exceeding all the other feathers
in length, being in fact almost exactly half a yard in length. Eerily,
like some ghost, this night-jar flies and flutters. It looks as if it
were being constantly pursued by two others of smaller size, or as if
it could divide itself into two or three birds, or as if it had indeed
four wings. But it has all the charms of its race, and soon becomes
a welcome visitor, contributing, like its fellows, not a little to
alleviate most pleasantly the discomforts of the night.
Like the birds, the mammals of the steppe are rich alike in numbers
and in species. The abundant vegetation supports not only countless
herds of antelopes, which are justly regarded as most characteristic
of this region, but also buffaloes and wild boars, zebras and wild
asses, elephants and rhinoceroses, the “serafe”, or giraffes, as we
call them, besides a host of rodents with which we have only a general
acquaintance. Against this dense population of herbivores, the numerous
carnivores of the steppe wage unceasing war, and this is probably
even to the advantage of the former, since, without some such check,
the ruminants and rodents would tend to multiply beyond the limits of
subsistence afforded even by the rich vegetation of this region. The
uniformity of the North African steppes and the relatively (though
not really) frequent occurrence of standing and flowing water hinder
the formation of those immense mobs of antelopes which are observed
in the Karroo of South Africa; everywhere, however, we come across
these elegant, fine-eyed ruminants, singly, in small herds, or in
considerable companies, and they seem to keep to approximately the same
spots in summer and winter. Zebras and wild asses, on the other hand,
are only found on the dry heights; the giraffe lives exclusively in
the thin woods, while the rhinoceros almost always seeks the densest
growths; the elephant entirely avoids broad open tracts, and the
ill-tempered buffaloes cling to the moist low ground. On these last, as
on the tame herds of cattle, the lion preys, while the cunning leopard
and the nimble, untiring cheetah, are more given to stalking the
antelopes; the jackals and steppe-wolves prefer the hares; the foxes,
civets, and polecats seek the small rodents and those birds which live
on the ground.
From this abundant fauna I must select some for special notice, but
I shall withstand the temptation of choosing lion or cheetah, hyæna
or ratel, zebra or other wild horse, giraffe or buffalo, elephant
or rhinoceros, for there are some others which seem to me more
truly distinctive of the steppe. Among these I place in the first
rank the ant-eater, or aard-vark, and the pangolin--the old-world
representatives of the Edentates--which have their head-quarters in
the western hemisphere, and belong to an order whose golden age lies
many ages behind us. Both aard-vark and pangolin are, in North Africa
at least, distinctively steppe animals, for it is only there that the
ant-hills and termitaries are sufficiently numerous to afford them
comfortable maintenance. Like all ant-eaters they lie during the day
rolled up almost in a ball, sleeping in deep burrows which they have
dug out, and which one sees opening alike on the broad, treeless,
grass plain and among the sparse trees and shrubs. Only when night
has set in do they become lively; with clumsy gait they hobble and
jump about in search of food, progressing chiefly by means of their
powerful hind-limbs, resting on the great burrowing claws of their
fore-limbs and on their heavy tail. Their food consists exclusively
of small creatures of all kinds, but especially of the larvæ of ants
and termites, and of worms. Continually jerking its depressed nose
and snuffing about, the ant-eater trots along, and, having discovered
a pathway of the ants or termites, follows this home. Without much
difficulty it makes an opening for its long snout, pushes this into
the hole, and feels about with its tongue for the passages along which
the insects hurry and scurry. Having stretched the tongue, which is
viscid and thread-like, along one of the chief passages, it waits
until it is covered with ants or termites, and then retracts it into
the narrow mouth. So minute are the individual morsels that this may
seem a somewhat miserable mode of making a meal, but the tongue is, in
its way, just as effective as the powerful claws, and the ant-eater
makes its way through life very comfortably. Nor are the animals by any
means so helpless as they seem. The weak pangolin is protected more
effectively by his armour, which is strong enough to turn a sword, than
by the weapons on its feet; the aard-vark is able to use its claws most
effectively, and can also give such smart side-blows with its heavy
tail that it readily gets rid of an antagonist who is not of superior
strength. But if a really formidable enemy draws near and is detected
in time, the aard-vark burrows with the utmost rapidity, throwing out
sand and dust with such force and in such quantities that an almost
impenetrable, because blinding, veil saves it from attack until it is
at a safe depth underground. Only to man with his far-reaching weapons
does it fall an easy prey, for he stabs it asleep in its burrow, and
kills it almost infallibly if the entrance to the hole be fairly
straight and not too long. Thus, fate is too strong for even this
old-world creature, and will sooner or later wipe out its name from the
book of the living.
[Illustration: Fig. 29.--Hyæna-dogs pursuing Antelope.]
Among the steppe beasts of prey one of the best known and most
distinctive is a dog. A connecting link between the dogs and the
hyænas, not only in form but to a certain extent in its markings,
this animal--the hyæna-dog or Cape hunting-dog--is one of the most
noteworthy figures in the steppe-picture, and also in its nature
and habits one of the most interesting of all the carnivores of
this region. Excepting certain monkeys, I know of no mammal so
self-assertive, so wantonly aggressive, so emulous of exploits as
this dog is, or, at any rate, seems to be. There is no limit to his
ambition; no other mammal is quite secure from his attack. In large
packs they traverse the broad steppe-land on eager outlook for booty.
They ravage the sheep-flocks of the settlers and nomads; they follow
persistently at the heels of the swiftest and most agile antelopes;
audaciously they press in even upon men; fearlessly they dislodge,
thanks perhaps to their noisy bravado, the other carnivores of the
region which they frequent. Behind the strongest and most formidable
antelope a pack rushes in full cry, barking, howling, whining, and
now and then uttering a clear note of triumph. The antelope exerts
all its strength, but the murderous dogs lose no ground, they cut off
corners and prevent it doubling back, they come nearer and nearer
and force it to stand at bay. Conscious of its strength and of its
powers of defence, the antelope uses its pointed horns with skill
and good effect; one dog after another may be hurled to the ground
fatally transfixed; but the others fix on its throat and body, and
the noble creature’s death-rattle soon puts an end to their howling.
Without fear of man these dogs fall upon domestic animals of all kinds,
tearing up the smaller sorts with the bloodthirstiness of martens,
and mutilating those which are too large to be readily mastered. Nor
are they afraid of domestic dogs, but fight with them to the death
and leave them lifeless on the field. Thoroughly broken in and tamed,
trained for several generations, they should become the most excellent
of sporting-hounds; but the task of subjugation is certainly not an
easy one. They do indeed become used to their master, and display some
liking, even a certain fondness for him, but all in their own way.
When called from their kennel, they jump up and down in the highest
of spirits, fight with one another out of sheer joy, rush at their
approaching master, leap up on him, try to show their gladness in the
most extravagant ways, and are finally unable to express it except by
biting him. A boisterous mischievousness and an uncontrollable impulse
to bite are characteristic of almost all their doings. More excitable
than almost any other creature, they move every member, they quiver in
every fibre, when any novel occurrence attracts or occupies them; their
mercurial vivacity is expressed in exaggerated gaiety and next moment
in savage wildness. For they bite whatever comes in their way, without
any provocation, probably without any ill-will, simply for fun. They
are the most marvellous creatures in all the steppes.
In those parts of the steppe which I have been more particularly
considering--the Kordofan, Sennaar, and Taka regions--the animal life
is not subject to destructive or disturbing influences to the same
extent as in the south of Africa or in Central Asia. To those animals
which do not migrate, or do not lie in death-like sleep for months, the
winter may bring privations or even sharp want, but it does not involve
the pangs of starvation or the torments of thirst; it does not force
desperate creatures to leave an impoverished home, or seek for happier
lands in mad flight. It is true that the animals of the North African
steppes have their migrations and journeyings; but they do not flee
in a panic as do those which inhabit other steppe-lands, and forsake
them in hundreds of thousands before a threatened destruction. Of the
immense herds of antelopes, such as crowd together in the south of
Africa, one never hears in the north. All the gregarious mammals and
birds gather together when the winter sets in, and disband when the
spring draws near; all the migratory birds go and come about the same
time; but all this takes place in an orderly, old-established fashion,
not spasmodically nor without definite ends. There is, however, one
power from whose influence the animal life of these steppe-lands is not
exempt,--and that is fire.
Every year, at the time when the dark clouds in the south and the
lightning which flashes from them announce the approach of spring,
during days when the south wind rages over the steppe, the nomad
herdsman takes a firebrand and hurls it into the waving grass. Rapidly
and beyond all stopping the fire catches. It spreads over broad
stretches; smoke and steam by day, a lurid cloud by night, proclaim its
destructive and yet eventually beneficial progress. Not unfrequently it
reaches the primeval forest, and the flames send their forked tongues
up the dry climbing-plants to the crowns of the trees, devouring the
remaining leaves or charring the outer bark. Sometimes, though more
rarely, the fire surrounds a village and showers its burning arrows on
the straw huts, which flare up almost in a moment.
[Illustration: Fig. 30.--Zebras, Quaggas, and Ostriches flying before a
Steppe-fire.]
Although a steppe-fire, in spite of the abundance of combustible
material, is rarely fatal to horsemen or to those who meet fire by
fire, and just as rarely to the swift mammals, it exerts, nevertheless,
a most exciting influence on the animal world, and puts to flight
everything that lives hidden in the grass-forest. And sometimes the
flight becomes a stampede, to hasten which the panic of the fugitives
contributes more than the steady advance of the flames. Antelopes,
zebras, and ostriches speed across the plain more quickly than the
wind; cheetahs and leopards follow them and mingle with them without
thinking of booty; the hunting-dog forgets his lust for blood; and
the lion succumbs to the terror which has conquered the others. Only
those which live in burrows are undismayed, for they betake themselves
to their safe retreats and let the sea of fire roll over them.
Otherwise it fares hardly with everything that creeps or is fettered
to the ground. Few snakes and hardly the most agile of the lizards are
able to outrun the fire. Scorpions, tarantulas, and centipedes either
fall victims to the flames, or become, like the affrighted swarms of
insects, the prey of enemies which are able to defy the conflagration.
For as soon as a cloud of smoke ascends to the sky and gradually
grows in volume, the birds of prey hasten thither from all quarters,
especially serpent-eagles, chanting goshawks, harriers, kestrels,
storks, bee-eaters, and swifts. They come to capture the lizards,
snakes, scorpions, spiders, beetles, and locusts, which are startled
into flight before the flames. In front of the line the storks and the
secretary-birds stalk about undaunted; above them amid the clouds of
smoke sweep the light-winged falcons, bee-eaters, and swifts; and for
all there is booty enough. These birds continue the chase as long as
the steppe burns, and the flames find food as long as they are fanned
by the storms. Only when the winds die down do the flames cease.
It is thus that the nomad clears his pasture of weeds and vermin,
and prepares it for fresh growth. The ashes remain as manure, the
life-giving rains carry this into the soil, and after the first
thunder-storm all is covered with fresh green. All the former tenants,
driven away in fear, return to their old haunts, to enjoy, after the
hardships of winter and the recent panic, the pleasures of ease and
comfort.
THE PRIMEVAL FORESTS OF CENTRAL AFRICA.
Rich as the African steppe really is, incomparably rich as it seems
when compared with the desert, it nowhere exhibits the full luxuriance
of tropical vegetation. It indeed receives everywhere the blessing of
life-giving water; but this lasts too short a time to have a permanent
influence. With the cessation of the rains the power of growth comes
to an end, and heat and drought destroy what the rains have produced.
Therefore only those plants can flourish in the steppe the course
of whose life is run within a few weeks; those which are capable of
outlasting centuries never attain to full development. Only in the
low grounds, traversed by streams which never dry up, and watered
by these as well as by the rains, where sunlight and water, warmth
and moisture, work together, does the magic wealth of tropical lands
develop and endure. Here have arisen forests which, in magnificence
and beauty, grandeur and luxuriance, are scarce inferior to those of
the most favoured lands of lower latitudes. They are primeval forests
in the true sense of the word, for they grow and disappear, become old
and renew their youth without help of man; even to this day they are
sufficient unto themselves, and they support an extraordinary wealth of
animal life.
The storms of spring carry the rain-laden clouds from the south over
the African countries lying north of the equator. Accordingly, these
forests do not burst suddenly on the eye of the traveller journeying
from the north, but become gradually more characteristic the farther
south he penetrates. The nearer he approaches to the equator the more
brilliantly the lightning flashes, the louder and more continuously
the thunder rolls, the more noisily the rain-torrents fall, so much
the more luxuriantly do all plants thrive, so much the richer in
forms does the fauna become; the earlier the rainy season sets in
the longer it lasts, and so much the greater is the charm it works.
In exact proportion to the increase of moisture, the forest becomes
denser, loftier, and more extensive. From the banks of the streams the
plant-growth spreads into the interior, and takes possession of every
available space, from the thickly-covered ground to the tops of the
highest trees. Trees which are only dwarfs elsewhere, become giants
here; known species become the hosts of still unknown parasites, and
between them a plant-world hitherto unseen struggles towards the light.
Even here, however, at least in the northern belt of the forest, the
heat and drought of winter have still so strong an influence that they
periodically destroy the foliage of the trees and condemn at least most
of them to some weeks of complete inactivity. But the awakening call
of spring rings the more clearly through the sleeping wood; the life
which the first rains of the fertilizing season call forth stirs the
more powerfully after the rest of winter.
I shall select spring-time in these countries to depict the primeval
forest as best I can. The south wind, herald and bearer of the
rain-clouds, must still be in contest with the cooling breezes from the
north if the forest is to reveal all its possible magnificence, and one
must penetrate to its heart by one of its arteries, the rivers, if one
wishes to see the fulness of its life. Let us take the Azrek or “Blue
Nile”, rising in the mountains of Habesh, as our highway; for with it
are linked the most exquisite pictures which a long life of travel have
won for me, and I may prove a better guide on it than on another. I
very much doubt, however, whether I shall prove such an interpreter of
the forest as I should like to be. For the primeval forest is a world
full of splendour, and brilliance, and fairy-like beauty; a land of
marvels whose wealth no man has been able fully to know, much less to
carry away; a treasure-house which scatters infinitely more than one
can gather; a paradise in which the creation seems to take shape anew
day by day; an enchanted circle which unfolds before him who enters
it pictures, grand and lovely, grave and gay, bright as daylight and
sombre as night; a thousand integral parts making up a whole infinitely
complex, yet unified and harmonious, which baffles all description.
One of the light little craft which one sees at Khartoum (the capital
of the Eastern Soudan, lying at the junction of the two Nile streams)
is transformed into a travelling boat, and bears us against the waves
of the much-swollen Azrek. The gardens of the last houses of the
capital disappear, and the steppe reaches down to the very bank of the
river. Here and there we still see a village, or isolated huts lying
prettily under mimosas and often surrounded by creeping and climbing
plants which hang from the trees; nothing else is visible save the
waving grass-forest and the few steppe trees and shrubs which rise
from its midst. But after a short journey the forest takes possession
of the bank, and spreads out its thorny or spine-covered branches
even beyond it. Thenceforward our progress is slow. The wind blowing
against us prevents sailing, the forest renders towing impossible.
With the boat-hook the crew pull the little craft foot by foot, yard
by yard, farther up the stream, till one of their number espies a gap
where he can gain a foothold in the thick hedge-wall of the bank, and,
committing his mortal body to the care of Muhsa, the patron-saint of
all sailors, and praying for protection from the crocodiles which are
here abundant, he takes the towing-rope between his teeth, plunges
into the water, swims to the desired spot, fastens the rope round the
trunk of a tree, and lets his companions pull the boat up to it. Thus
the boatmen toil from early morning till late in the evening, yet they
only speed the traveller perhaps five, or at most ten miles on his way.
Nevertheless the days fly past, and none who have learned to see and
hear need suffer from weariness there. To the naturalist, as to every
thoughtful observer, every day offers something new; to the collector,
a wealth of material of every kind.
Every now and again one comes upon traces of human beings. If one
follows them from the bank, along narrow paths hemmed in on either side
by the dense undergrowth, one arrives at the abodes of a remarkable
little tribe. They are the Hassanie who dwell there. Where the forest
is less dense, and where the trees do not form a three-or four-fold
roof with their crowns, but consist of tall, shady mimosas, Kigelias,
tamarinds, and baobabs, these folk erect their most delightful tent-or
booth-like huts, so different from all the other dwellings one sees
in the Soudan. “Hassanie” means the descendants of Hassan, and Hassan
means the Beautiful; and not without reason does this tribe bear this
name. For the Hassanie are indisputably the handsomest people who
dwell in the lower and middle regions of the river-basin, and the
women in particular surpass almost all other Soudanese in beauty of
form, regularity of feature, and clearness of skin. Both men and women
faithfully observe certain exceedingly singular customs, which among
other people are, with reason, considered immoral. The Hassanie are
therefore at once famous and notorious, sought out and avoided, praised
and scoffed at, extolled and abused. To the unprejudiced traveller,
eager to study manners and customs, they afford much delight, if not
by their beauty at least by their desire for approbation, which must
please even the least susceptible of men. This trait is much more
conspicuous in them than even the self-consciousness which beauty
gives: they must and will please. The preservation of their beauty is
their highest aim, and counts for more than any other gain. To avoid
sunburning, which would darken their clear brown skins, they live
in the shade of the forest, contenting themselves with a few goats,
their only domestic animals except dogs, and foregoing the wealth that
numerous herds of cattle and camels afford their nomadic relatives.
That their charms may be in no way spoiled, they strive above all to
become possessed of female slaves, who relieve them of all hard work;
to decorate face and cheeks they endure heroically, even as little
girls, the pain inflicted by the mother as she cuts with a knife three
deep, parallel, vertical wounds in the cheeks, that as many thick,
swollen scars may be formed, or as she pricks forehead, temples, and
chin with a needle and rubs indigo powder into the wounds, so producing
blue spirals or other devices; to avoid injury to their dazzling white,
almost sparkling teeth, they eat only lukewarm food; to preserve as
long as possible their most elaborate coiffure, which consists of
hundreds of fine braids, stiffened with gum arabic and richly oiled,
they use no pillow save a narrow, crescent-shaped, wooden stand, on
which they rest their heads while sleeping. To satisfy their sense of
beauty, or perhaps in order that they may be seen and admired by every
inhabitant or visitor, they have thought out the singular construction
of their huts.
These huts may be perhaps best compared to the booths to be seen at
fairs. The floor, which consists of rods as thick as one’s thumb bound
closely together, rests upon a framework of stakes rising about a
yard from the ground, thus making the dwelling difficult of access to
creeping pests, and raising it from the damp ground. The walls consist
of mats; the roof, overhanging on the north side, which is left open,
is made of a waterproof stuff woven from goat’s hair. Neatly plaited
mats of palm-leaf strips cover the floor; prettily-wrought wicker-work,
festoons of shells, water-tight plaited baskets, earthen vessels,
drinking-cups made from half a bottle-gourd, gaily-coloured utensils
also plaited, lids, and other such things decorate the walls. Each
vessel is daintily wrought and cleanly kept; the order and cleanliness
of the whole hut impress one the more that both are so uncommon.
In such a hut the Hassanie dreams away the day. Dressed in her best,
her hair and skin oiled with perfumed ointment, a long, lightly-woven,
and therefore translucent piece of cloth enveloping the upper part of
her body, a piece of stuff hanging petticoat-like from the waist, her
feet adorned with daintily-worked sandals, neck and bosom hung with
chains and amulets, arms with bracelets of amber, her nose possibly
decorated with a silver, or even a gold ring, she sits hidden in
the shade and rejoices in her beauty. Her little hand is busy with
a piece of plaiting, some house utensil or article of dress, or
perhaps it holds only her tooth-brush, a root teased out at both ends,
and admirably adapted to its purpose. All the work of the house is
done by her slave, all the labour of looking after the little flock
by her obliging husband. The carefully thought-out and remarkable
marriage-relations customary in the tribe, and adhered to in defiance
of all the decrees and interference of the ruler of the land, guarantee
her unheard-of rights. She is mistress in the most unlimited sense
of the word, mistress also of her husband, at least as long as her
charms remain; only when she is old and withered does she also learn
the transitoriness of all earthly pleasure. Till then, she does what
seems good in her eyes, her freedom bounded only by the limits which
she has herself laid down. As long as the crowns of the trees do not
afford complete shade around her hut she does not go out of doors, but
offers every passer-by, particularly any stranger who calls upon her, a
hearty welcome, and with or without her husband’s aid, does the honours
of the tribe with almost boundless hospitality. Yet it is only when
the evening sets in that her real life begins. Even before the sun has
set, there is a stir and bustle in the settlement. One friend visits
her neighbour, others join them; drum and zither entice the rest, and
soon slender, lithe, supple figures arrange themselves for a merry
dance. Delicate hands dip the drinking-cups into the big-bellied urn,
filled with Merieza or dhurra beer, that the hearts of the men also may
be glad. Old and young are assembled, and they celebrate the evening
festival the more joyfully that it is honoured by the presence of
strangers. The hospitality of all the Soudanese is extraordinary, but
in no other race is it so remarkable as among the Hassanie.
In the course of our journey we come upon other settlements of these
forest-shepherds, sometimes also on the villages of other Soudanese,
and at length, after travelling nearly a month, we reach the desired
region. The dense forest on both banks of the river prevents our
searching gaze from seeing farther into the country. In this region
there are no settlements of men, neither fields nor villages, not
even temporarily inhabited camps; the ring of the axe has not yet
echoed through these forests, for man has not yet attempted to
exploit them; in them there dwell, still almost unmolested, only
wild beasts. Impenetrable hedges shut off the forests, and resist
any attempt to force a way from the stream to the interior. Every
shade of green combines to form an enchanting picture, which now
reminds one of home, and again appears entirely foreign. Bright green
mimosas form the groundwork, and with them contrast vividly the silver
glittering palm-leaves, the dark green tamarinds, and the bright green
Christ-thorn bushes; leaves of endless variety wave and tremble in
the wind, exposing first one side and then the other, shimmering and
glittering before the surfeited and dazzled eye, which seeks in vain
to analyse the leafy maze, to distinguish any part from the whole.
For miles both banks present the same appearance, the same denseness
of forest, the same grandeur, everywhere equally uninterrupted and
impenetrable.
At last we come upon a path, perhaps even on a broad road, which seems
to lead into the depths of the forest. But we search in vain for any
traces of human footprints. Man did not make this path; the beasts
of the forest have cleared it. A herd of elephants tramped through
the matted thicket from the dry heights of the bank to the stream.
One after another in long procession the mighty beasts broke through
the undergrowth, intertwined a thousand-fold, letting nought save the
strongest trees divert them from their course. If branches or stems
as thick as a man’s leg stood in the way they were snapped across,
stripped of twigs and leaves, all that was eatable devoured, and
the remainder thrown aside, the bushes which covered the ground so
luxuriantly were torn up by the roots, and used or thrown aside in the
same manner, grass and plants were trodden under foot. What the first
comers left fell to those behind, and thus arose a passable road often
stretching deep into the heart of the forest. Other animals have taken
advantage of it, treading it down more thoroughly, and keeping it in
passable condition. By it the hippopotamus makes his way at night when
he tramps from the river to feed in the woods; the rhinoceros uses it
as he comes from the forest to drink; by it the raging buffalo descends
to the valley and returns to the heights; along it the lion strides
through his territory; and there one may meet the leopard, the hyæna,
and other wild beasts of the forest. We set foot on it, and press
forwards.
After a few steps the magnificent forest surrounds us on all sides.
But, here also, it seems in vain to attempt to unravel the confusion of
stems and branches, twigs and shoots, tendrils and leaves. The forest
hems in such a path on both sides like a wall. The ground is everywhere
covered with thickly-matted bushes, which one cannot even see through;
but, struggling through these, all sorts of grasses have sprung up,
forming a second undergrowth; just above that, tall-stemmed bushes and
low trees spread their branches on all sides; over these again rise
taller trees, and above them all tower the giants of the forest. By far
the greater number of bushes in the undergrowth are thickly covered
with thorns, while the mimosas towering above them are armed with long,
hard, sharp spines, and even the grasses have burr-like seed-capsules
covered with fine prickles, or ears set with sharp hooks, so that every
attempt to penetrate the forest from the path is foiled by a thousand
obstacles. The bird the huntsman’s gun has brought down is lost to him
because in falling it is caught in a bush which he cannot reach without
an amount of exertion quite out of proportion to the object; the game
which conceals itself in a shrub before our very eyes is saved because
we can no longer perceive it; a crocodile about three yards long,
which we startled in the wood, escapes us by withdrawing itself into
an isolated bush so completely that we cannot see a scale of it, and
accordingly cannot fire a shot to any purpose.
Still we continue striving vainly to master the wealth of impressions,
to separate one picture from another, to see any one tree from the
ground to its top, to distinguish the leaves of one from those of
another. From the stream it had been possible to distinguish some
of the fresh green tamarinds from the mimosas of various species
surrounding them, to recognize the magnificent kigelias, reminding
us slightly of our own elms, to delight in the palm-crowns towering
over the rest of the trees: here, in the depths of the forest, all the
individual parts are fused into an inseparable whole. All the senses
are claimed at once. From the leafy dome which the eye attempts to
penetrate is wafted the balsamic fragrance of some mimosas now in
bloom; and hence also there rings continually in the ear a medley
of the most varied sounds and notes, from the guttural cries of the
monkeys or the screeching of parrots, to the modulated songs of birds
and the buzzing of the insects flying about the blossoming trees. The
sense of touch is no less fully, if not quite agreeably stimulated by
the innumerable thorns, while that of taste may regale itself with the
few attainable, but more or less unpalatable fruits.
But at last we do come upon a distinct and definite picture. A tree,
mighty in its whole structure, gigantic even in its minor branches,
rises above the innumerable plants surrounding its base; like a
giant it presses upwards and takes possession of space for its
trunk and crown. It is the elephant, the pachyderm among the trees,
the Adansonia, the _tabaldie_ of the natives, the baobab. We stand
in amazement to gaze on it; for the eye must become accustomed to
the sight before it can take in the details. Picture a tree, the
circumference of whose trunk, at a man’s height from the ground, may
measure a hundred and twenty feet, whose lower branches are thicker
than the trunks of our largest trees; whose twigs are like strong
branches, and whose youngest shoots are thicker than one’s thumb;
remember that this mighty giant of the plant-world rises to a height
of about one hundred and thirty feet, and that its lowest branches
spread out to almost sixty, and you will be able to form some idea
of the impression it makes on the beholder. Of all the trees of the
primeval forests in this region, the baobab is the first to lose its
leaves, and it remains longest in its winter repose; during this season
all its branches and twigs stretch out leafless into the air, while
from most of them there hang, by long flexible stalks, fruits about
the size of a melon, containing a mealy, slightly sour pulp between
the seeds--the whole a sight which stamps itself ineffaceably on the
memory. But, after the first rains of spring, great, five-lobed leaves
unfold, enhancing the charm of this wondrous tree, and when, between
the leaves, the long-stalked buds disclose white flowers as large as
roses, this incomparable giant is transformed, as if by magic, into an
enormous rose-bush of indescribable beauty, the sight of which stirs
the heart of even the most matter-of-fact of men with admiration.
No other tree in the forest can be compared with the baobab; even the
duleb-palm, which raises its head above all the surrounding trees,
cannot bear comparison with it in charm and impressiveness. Yet the
duleb-palm is one of the most splendid trees found in the interior of
Africa, and one of the finest palms in the world; its trunk is a pillar
which no artist could have surpassed; its crown a capital worthy of
such a pillar. The upright trunk thickens just above the ground, and
thins in a remarkable manner to about half its height, then begins
to bulge out, then again diminishes, and swells out once more just
under the crown. This consists of broad, fan-like leaves, hardly less
than a square yard in extent, whose stalks stand out straight on all
sides round a middle point, thus giving the tree a most impressive
individuality. The fruits attain to about the size of a child’s head,
and the clusters hanging among the leaves greatly enhance the beauty of
the crown, which is, indeed, an ornament to the whole forest.
[Illustration: Fig. 31.--The Baobab Tree--Central Africa.]
The legendary always clings about the gigantic; it lives on it, and
takes form and meaning from it. This thought occurs to one when one
sees, as frequently happens, the baobab overgrown with the tendrils
of one of the climbing plants which beautify these forests in rich
abundance. Climbing plants have always seemed to me a fitting emblem
of the Arabian fairy tales. For as they appear to require no soil,
although they have sprung from it, but to take their chief nourishment
from the air; as they wind their flexible stems from tree to tree,
attaching themselves firmly to each, yet struggling on, until, at
length, they unfold on some flowerless tree-top, covering it with
radiant, fragrant blossoms: so the fairy tale, though it may have
been firmly rooted in fact, is not sustained by any real connection
therewith, but reaches up to heaven for strength, and sends its poetry
over all the world until it finds a heart which beats responsive. When
I speak of climbing plants I do not mean any one species, but include
under the term all those plants which here thickly cover a trunk with
their tortuous coils, and there spread their tendrils over a bare
tree-top; which in one place link many trees together, and in another
cover a single tree with wreaths of green; which in one part of the
forest link branch to branch with bridges of naked tendrils, and in
another region combine to render the way impassable; occurring in a
hundred different forms, but always twining and climbing. Their beauty,
the charm they exercise on the northerner may be felt but cannot be
described, for words to begin or end a satisfactory description would
be as difficult to find as the beginnings and ends of the climbers
themselves. These climbing plants, though within reach of one’s hand,
yet do not allow of close observation; one follows the course of their
tendrils admiringly, but without being able to say whence they come and
whither they go; one revels in the sight of their flowers without being
able to reach them, or often do more than guess to what plants they
belong. These climbers, above all else, impress on the woodlands the
stamp and seal of the primitive forest.
But they have other ornaments than the blossoms which they themselves
unfold. Their tendrils are the favourite perches of many of the most
beautiful birds of the forest, living flowers which far surpass those
of the plant in beauty and charm. Sometimes it happens that a sudden
flash, like a sun-ray reflected from a smooth, bright surface, catches
the eye and guides it to the spot from which it emanated. The shimmer
is indeed a sunbeam--a sunbeam reflected from the glossy plumage
of a metallic starling, now in one direction, now in another, with
every movement. Delighted by the wonderful beauty of this bird, one
would gladly observe it carefully, and learn something of its life
and habits; but one’s attention is continually being claimed by new
phenomena. For here, too, picture crowds upon picture. Where the
metallic starling sat a few moments before, there appears a no less
brilliant golden cuckoo, a sun-bird or honey-sucker rivalling the
humming-birds in beauty of plumage, a pair of charming bee-eaters,
a roller displaying his brilliant feathers, a halcyon no less
beautiful, a paradise fly-catcher, whose long, drooping, median
tail-feathers give the little creature such a surprising splendour, a
turaco unfolding his deep purple-red feathers at every stroke of his
wings, a shrike whose flaming red breast excels even these wings in
brightness, a quaintly-shaped hornbill, a golden weaver-bird, a vidua
or “widow-bird”, a wood-hoopoe with its metallic brilliance, a dainty
woodpecker, a leaf-green dove, a flight of similarly coloured parrots,
and many other feathered inhabitants of the forest. This is a specially
favoured home of birds, affording food and shelter to many hundreds
and thousands of different species, so that one sees them much sooner
and much more frequently than any of the other creatures which have
their home in the forest. Birds animate every part, from the ground
to the tops of the tallest trees, from the most impenetrable bushes
to the leafless branches of the baobab. Among the grasses and other
plants growing luxuriantly on the ground the well-trodden paths of
francolin and perhaps also guinea-fowl twine and intertwine in every
direction; the leafy spaces just above the root-stocks of the bushes
are occupied by little doves, the spreading portion of their tops
by various beautiful birds, especially sun-birds and finches, while
families of colies shoot down, like arrows from a bow, to where the
bush-tops are so thickly matted and thoroughly interwoven that they
seem quite impenetrable, and, by creeping and clinging, pushing through
every possible gap and opening, succeed in forcing their way into the
centre, there to seek for food; wood-hoopoes, titmice, and woodpeckers
hang or climb about, examining every crevice in the bark of the trunks
which rise just above the bushes; delightful bee-eaters or rollers,
paradise fly-catchers and drongos sit on the lower twigs of the second
layer of tree-tops awaiting their flying prey; on the stronger branches
of the third layer turacos hop about, small herons walk with dignity
backwards and forwards, horned and other owls cling closely to the
stems and sleep; parrots and barbets flit about among the thick foliage
of the tallest trees, while eagles, falcons, and vultures have settled
on their topmost boughs. Wherever one casts one’s eye there is a bird.
As might be expected from this universal distribution, or indeed
omnipresence, we hear continually the most varied bird-voices. They
coax and call, pipe and whistle, chirp and twitter, trill and warble,
coo and chatter, scream and crow, screech and cackle, cry and sing
on all sides of us, above and beneath, early and late, and all day
long. A hundred different voices sound together, now blending into a
wonderful harmony, now into a bewildering maze of sounds which one
seeks in vain to analyse, in which only long practice enables one
to differentiate individual voices. With the exception of thrushes,
bulbuls, several species of warblers, and drongos, there are no
true songsters, but there are many pleasing babblers and delightful
chatterers, and an endless number who scream, cackle, croak, and utter
various more or less shrill sounds. Taken collectively, therefore,
the bird-notes of the primitive forest cannot for a moment compare
in tunefulness and sweetness with the spring songs of our own woods,
but the individual voices are most remarkable. Wild doves coo, moan,
laugh, and call from the tree-tops and the thickest bushes, francolins
and guinea-fowl cackle loudly from their midst, parrots screech,
ravens croak, plantain-eaters succeed in most accurately mimicking
the strange guttural cries of a troop of long-tailed monkeys, while
the turacos utter sounds like those made by a ventriloquist; barbets
whistle loudly in slurred notes, their voices together making a
ringing song, so intricate, yet so full of expression that it must
be reckoned one of the most distinctive sounds of the forest; the
shimmering metallic starlings sing, and though they can only compass a
few rough sounds, now croaking, now screeching, now squeaking, these
are arranged, combined, blended, and allowed to die away in endless
repetition; the magnificent screaming sea-eagle, resident beside
all the water-courses and water-basins of the forest, justifies his
name. High on a tree-top sits the “abu tok” (producer of the sound
“tok”) of the natives, a small hornbill, calling his “tok” loudly and
accompanying each sound with a nod of his head, weighted with its
disproportionately large bill. Only this one sound does his unpliant
voice produce, yet with it he expresses his love to the mate he is
wooing, or has won, as intelligibly as the nightingale tells its tale
in its bewitching song. The emotion swelling in his breast struggles
for expression. The cries follow each other in more and more rapid
succession, the appropriate movements become more and more rapid, until
the heavy head is too tired to accompany any longer, and one phrase of
this singular love-song comes to an end, to be begun and sung through
again in precisely the same manner a few minutes later. From the
unapproachable thicket sounds the voice of the _hagedash_ or wood-ibis,
and a slight shudder seizes the listener. The song of this bird is a
lamentation of the most pitiful kind; it sounds as if a little child
were being painfully tortured, perhaps slowly roasted over a small
fire, and were crying out in its anguish; for long-drawn plaintive
sounds alternate with shrill cries, sudden shrieks with faint moanings.
From the high-lying parts of the forest, where there are small bare
patches, resound the far-reaching metallic trumpet-tones with which
the crested crane accompanies his graceful, lively dances in honour
of his mate, and these awaken an echo in the forest, as well as in
the throat of every bird possessed, like himself, of a ringing voice,
so that his cry is the signal for a simultaneous outburst of song
from a large number of other birds. Thus incited, every bird with any
voice at all gives utterance to it, and for a time a flood of varied
sounds drowns the individual voices. But it is not only the different
species of feathered inhabitants of the forest who thus take different
parts in the piece; sometimes even the two sexes of one species
each sing a different part. The babbling thrushes, plantain-eaters,
francolins, and guinea-fowl scream together like the barbets already
described, and thus evoke those strange complex phrases, which ring out
distinctly from the general confusion of voices. But in a few species,
particularly in the bush-shrikes, the male and female each sing a
distinct part. In one species which I observed--the scarlet shrike--the
male sings a short strophe, reminding one of the intricate whistle
of our golden oriole. In another--the flute-shrike--the male utters
three bell-like flute-notes, striking third, key-note, and octave.
Immediately following comes the answer of the female, in both cases a
disagreeable croaking not easily described, but as unfailingly correct
in time as if the birds had been instructed by a musician. Sometimes it
happens that the female begins, and croaks four or five times before
the answer comes; then the male strikes in again, and they alternate
with their usual regularity. I have convinced myself experimentally
as to this co-operation of the sexes, by shooting now the male and
now the female, and in every case only the notes of the surviving sex
could be heard. It must be allowed that these notes, enchanting as they
are at first, lack the richness and variety, as the collective voices
lack the tunefulness and harmony, of the bird songs in our woods at
home; nevertheless it is a grand and impressive melody which one hears
in the primitive forest in spring-time when hundreds and thousands of
voices mingle together, millions of insects swarm with loud bumming and
buzzing round the blossom-laden trees, countless lizards and snakes
rustle through the dry foliage, and every now and then the shrill yet
sonorous call of the eagle sounds down from above, the trumpet notes
of the crested crane or the guinea-fowl are heard for the time above
all other voices, immediately afterwards a warbler sings his charming
song quite close to the listener’s ear, and again, one of the screamers
gives the key-note, which awakes an echo from a thousand throats.
If the naturalist succeeds in becoming more at home in the forest than
he had at first ventured to hope, he gets many delightful glimpses
of the domestic life of animals, and more particularly of birds. It
is still spring-time, and love reigns in all hearts. The birds sing
and caress, build their nests, and brood. Even from the boat one can
observe the brooding colonies of some species.
On a perpendicular part of the river bank, at a safe distance above
the high-water mark, the bee-eaters have hollowed out their deep
brooding burrows, narrow at the entrance, but widening out into
an oven-like form at the inner end. The whole colony only covers a
few square yards, though it consists of at least thirty, and more
frequently from eighty to a hundred pairs. The circular openings to
the various holes, measuring only from one and a half to two inches in
diameter, are not more than six inches distant from each other. It is
difficult to understand how each pair knows the entrance to its own
hole; yet even when they come from a distance the delicately-winged
active birds fly straight to the proper holes without hesitation or
apparent consideration; their incomparably sharp eyes, which can detect
a passing fly a hundred paces away, never mislead them. The bustling
life about the colony is a fascinating sight. Every tree or bush in the
neighbourhood is decorated with at least one pair of the beautiful,
sociable birds; on every branch which affords an outlook sits a pair,
and each mate takes a tender interest in all that concerns the other.
In front of the nest-holes the bustle is like that about a bee-hive;
some glide in, others glide out; some come, others go; many hover
continually around the entrance to their brooding-places. Only when
night draws on do they disappear into their holes; then all is quiet
and still.
At a different part of the bank, where tall trees droop over the
water, or are surrounded by it when it is very high, the golden
weaver-birds have established a colony. They, too, brood in companies,
but they build hanging nests cleverly plaited from stalks or fibres,
and attached to the points of the outermost branches of the trees. No
covetous monkey or other egg-robber, not even a snake, can approach
these nests without running a risk of falling into the water. At least
thirty, but more frequently forty to sixty, weaver-birds build on a
single tree, and their nests give it a most characteristic aspect;
indeed, they have a striking effect on the whole landscape. Unlike
other birds, it is in this case not the females but the males who build
the nest, and they do it with such unstinted eagerness that they make
work for themselves after they have finished what is really necessary.
Carrying in their bills a stalk newly bitten off, or a teased-out
fibre, they hang by their feet to a twig, or to the nest itself, keep
themselves in position by fluttering their wings, and work in their
material, singing all the while. When one nest is built and finished
inside, they proceed to make a second and a third; indeed, they may
even pull a finished work to pieces again to satisfy their love of
building. Thus they go on until the female, who has meanwhile been
brooding, claims their assistance in the rearing of the young ones.
This activity animates the whole colony, and the golden-yellow, mobile,
active birds sitting or hanging in the most varied positions, are an
ornament to the tree already decorated with their nests.
On the mimosas, which are leafless just at the general brooding time,
the cow-weaver birds have erected structures very large for the size
of the birds, which are scarcely so large as our starlings. Their
nests are placed among the thickest branches at the top of the thorny
mimosas, and as they are made entirely of thorny twigs on the outside,
they have much the appearance of a scrubbing-brush; they are often
more than a yard long, half as high and broad, and enclose roomy
brooding-chambers entered by winding tunnels corresponding to the size
of the birds, and impassable to other animals. On these trees, and
about these nests, too, there is much lively and noisy bustle.
In the heart of the forest itself an attentive observer finds nests
everywhere, though it is often difficult to recognize them. Little
finches, for instance, build nests which are deceptively like heaps
of dried grass blown together by the wind, but inside there is a
soft, warm brooding-chamber lined with feathers; other birds choose
building materials the colour of which is deceptively like that of
the surroundings, while others do not build at all, but lay their
earth-coloured eggs on the bare ground. Every cavity in the trees is
now inhabited, and woodpeckers, barbets, and parrots are constantly at
work making new chambers, or widening and adapting already existing
cavities into brooding-holes, while the hornbills, on the other hand,
busy themselves plastering up the too-wide entrances. The last-named
birds are specially distinctive in their brooding habits, and deserve
to be mentioned first.
When the hornbill by ardent wooing has won a mate, he helps her to
seek out a suitable hole to serve as a nest. This found, he labours
painfully with his clumsy bill to enlarge it to the required size.
Then the female prepares to lay her eggs, and both mates plaster up
the entrance, the female working from the inside, the male from the
outside, until all is closed up save an opening large enough for the
female to force her bill through. Shut off from the outer world in this
isolated brooding-chamber, the female sits on her eggs, and the male
has to feed not only his imprisoned mate, but later the quickly-growing
ever hungry young ones, which remain in captivity until they are fully
fledged. Then the mother breaks open the entrance from within, and the
whole family emerges to the world fat and in good feather, thereby
relieving from further toil the husband and father, who is reduced to a
skeleton with the labour and anxiety of filling so many mouths.[51]
Similar conjugal and paternal tenderness is exhibited by the
umber-bird, a stork-like bird about the size of a raven, which leads
a quiet, nocturnal life in the forest, and builds an enormous nest,
one of the most remarkable built by any bird. These nests are usually
placed at but a short distance from the ground, in forks of the trunk,
or on any thick boughs of the lower part of the crown that are strong
enough to bear them; for they exceed the nests of the largest birds of
prey in circumference and weight, being often from one and a half to
two yards in diameter and not much less in height, and consisting of
fairly thick branches and twigs, which are neatly stuck together or
mortared with clay. If one does not happen to notice how the umber-bird
slips out and in one would never imagine that these structures were
hollow, but would rather take them for the eyrie of a bird of prey,
especially as eagles and horned owls frequently nest on the top of
them. But when one has seen the real owner enter, and has inspected
the nest closely, one finds that the interior is divided into three
compartments, connected by holes which serve as doors, and further
observation reveals that these three compartments answer the purpose of
hall, reception or dining room, and brooding-chamber. This last room,
the farthest back, is slightly higher than the rest, so that if any
water should get in it can flow away; but the whole structure is so
excellently built that even heavy and long-continuing showers of rain
do very little damage. Within the brooding-chamber, on a soft cushion
of sedge and other materials, lie the three, four, or five white eggs
on which the female sits; in the middle chamber the male meantime
stores up all sorts of provisions, a bountiful supply of fish, frogs,
lizards, and other dainties which he has caught, so that his mate can
choose from these stores, and has only to reach forward to satisfy her
hunger; in the entrance chamber the male stands or sits, whenever he
is not busy hunting for food, to keep guard and to cheer his mate with
his society, until the growing offspring take up the whole attention of
both.[52]
The association of umber-bird and eagle or horned owl is not a solitary
instance of friendly companionship on the part of birds belonging
to different species and totally unlike in their habits. On the
broad, fan-like leaves of the magnificent duleb-palm, which stand out
horizontally from the trunk, the nests of the dwarf peregrine falcon
and the guinea-dove often stand so close together that the falcon could
easily grasp one of his neighbour’s young ones. But he does not touch
them, for he is only accustomed to attack birds on the wing, and thus
the little doves grow up in safety beside the little falcons, and the
parents of both often sit peacefully beside each other, near their
respective nests.[53]
Another palm gave me an opportunity of observing birds whose brooding
surprised and fascinated me greatly. Round a single tom-palm there
flew, with constant cries, small-sized swifts, nearly related to our
own swifts, and my attention was thus directed to the tree itself. On
close observation I saw that the birds frequently repaired between the
leaves, and I then discovered on the grooves of the leaf-stalks light
points which I took to be nests. I climbed the tree, bent one of the
leaves towards me, and saw that each nest, which was made chiefly of
cotton, was plastered firmly in the angle between the stalk and the
midrib of the leaf, cemented by salivary secretion, after the method
usually followed by swifts. But the hollow of the nest appeared to me
so flat that I wondered how the two eggs could remain lying when the
leaf was shaken by the wind. And it must have shaken with the slightest
breath, not to speak of the storms which often raged here! Carefully I
reached out my hand to take out the eggs; then I saw with astonishment
that the mother had glued them firmly to the nest. And as I examined
newly-hatched, tiny, helpless young birds, I saw, with increasing
astonishment, that they, too, were attached to the nest in the same
way, and were thus secured from falling out.
[Illustration: Fig. 32.--Long-tailed Monkeys.]
Apart from the birds, which continually attract the naturalist’s
attention by their omnipresence, beauty, vivacity and nimbleness, as
well as by their songs, or rather cries; apart also from the very
numerous lizards and snakes, or the abundant insects, even a careful
observer can see very little of the other denizens of the primeval
forest, and especially little of its mammals. But one can hardly
fail to see a band of long-tailed monkeys, for the liveliness and
restlessness characteristic of these and of all the African monkeys is
sure to bring them sooner or later before the most unobservant eye, and
their continual gurgling noises must reach the ear; yet one may pass
within a few yards of most of the other mammals without having any idea
that they are near. The great majority of the mammals inhabiting the
primeval forest become active only after sundown, and return to their
lairs before daybreak; but even those which are active and busy in full
sunlight in the morning and evening are by no means so easily seen as
might be imagined, for the thickness of the forest stands them in good
stead. A European with whom I hunted in the primeval forest said to
me: “Did you see that leopard that bounded from me towards you a few
minutes ago? I could not shoot for I had not my gun in order; but you
must have seen him.” He was wrong; I had not seen the great beast, so
dense was the undergrowth in the forest. Where it is less dense another
fact has its importance: the colour-resemblance between the mammals and
their surroundings. The grayish lemur, which sits or sleeps huddled
up high up on a branch spun over with lichens, resembles a knob or
protuberance so clearly and convincingly that its form is only made
out when the sportsman, taught by former experience, uses his glass
and observes it keenly; the bat, which hangs high up in the crown of
another tree, also looks like an outgrowth or a withered leaf; even the
spotted skin of the leopard may be a faithful mimicry of the dry leaves
and flowering euphorbias, and I myself once had to advance with cocked
rifle to within fifteen paces of a bush in which a leopard had taken
shelter before I could distinguish the animal from his surroundings.
The same holds true of the forest antelopes, and indeed of all the
mammals, and they know that this is so.[54] Not everywhere, but here
and there throughout the forest, and then always abundantly, there
lives a little antelope, the bush or Salt’s antelope. It is one of
the most charming of all ruminants, most gracefully built, not bigger
than a fawn a few days old, and of a foxy, gray-blue colour. It lives
with a mate in the thickest undergrowth of the forest, choosing for
its lair or habitual resting-place a bush which is branched and leafy
to the ground, and thence treading out narrow paths in all directions
through the thicket. I have often shot the animal; but at first it
escaped me as it escapes all the travellers and sportsmen who make
its acquaintance. I could never see it except when, if startled, it
flew past me like an arrow. “Look, sir, there, in front of you in the
nearest bush is a little antelope; it is down there in the gap between
the two thickly-leaved branches,” whispered my native guide in my ear.
I strained every nerve, penetrated every part of the bush with my gaze,
and saw nothing but branches and leaves, for the graceful legs had
become twigs, the head and body a leafy bough. But the sportsman’s eye
becomes accustomed in time even to the primeval forest. When one has
become familiar with the dainty creature’s habits, one learns to find
it as well as the sharp-sighted natives do. Its acute hearing warns
it of the approach of a man long before he can see any trace of its
presence. Scared by the rustle of heavy human footsteps it starts up
from its lair, takes a few steps forwards, and steps into some gap from
which to see what happens. Like a bronze statue it stands stiff and
motionless, without even moving an ear or turning an eye, but looking
and listening; the leg which was raised to step onwards remains in that
position, not a sign betrays life. Now is the time for the sportsman to
raise his gun quickly, take aim and shoot; a moment later the cunning
antelope has gained the cover of a neighbouring bush at a single bound,
or has bent slowly down and crept away so quietly that scarcely a leaf
stirs, scarcely a blade of grass moves.
[Illustration: Fig. 33.--Salt’s Antelope (_Antilope Saltiana_).]
The primeval forest thus presents a succession of varied pictures
to the traveller’s eye. If one has learnt to see, and attempts to
understand, one finds more in every part of the forest at every season
than one can master. But one does not see the same things at every
spot, and at every season. Here, where spring lasts only a few weeks,
and summer and autumn are counted by days, the long reign of winter
sets in directly after the rainy season, just as in the steppe, and the
full, rich, overflowing life of animals and plants is crowded into a
very short time. As soon as the birds have finished brooding they begin
to migrate; as soon as the mammals have exhausted the food-supply in
one part of the forest they betake themselves to another. Consequently
one meets different animals in the same spot at different times,
or at least one sees different aspects of animal life. The river,
for instance, becomes animated in proportion as the forest becomes
depopulated.
While the river is high, one does not see much of the animals which
live in and about the water. All the islands are deeply buried under
the water, the banks are likewise flooded, and the birds which usually
inhabit them are crowded out for the time. And if a crocodile should
raise his head and part of his scaly back above the water, he must be
close to the boat if one sees him at all. Strictly speaking, there
remain only the hippopotamuses, which are comparatively abundant in
some parts, the birds flying about over the water, and perhaps a few
diving-birds to prove that any higher vertebrates live in and about
the river. But, when the rain has ceased, the river falls, and all
the islands, sand-banks, and the river-banks themselves stand out
once more. The scene is changed also as far as the animal world is
concerned. The hippopotamuses retire to the deepest parts of the
river, associating in troops sometimes of considerable strength, and
making themselves very conspicuous as they come to the surface to
breathe, each breath being inhaled with a snort which can be heard a
long way off. During the day they land on islands or sand-banks to
rest or stretch themselves in the sun, and they can then be seen from
a distance of more than half a mile. The crocodiles eagerly enjoy a
pleasure they had to forego while the river was high, that of sunning
themselves for hours in the heat of the day. To this end they creep
out about mid-day on a flat, sandy island, fall heavily with an
audible plump on the sand, open their formidably-toothed jaws wide,
and sleep till evening; there may be ten, twenty, or thirty of them
on a single sand-bank. Now the sand-banks, both river-banks, and the
shores of the larger islands are covered with flocks of birds whose
numerical strength is most impressive. For, by this time of year most
of the native shore-birds and swimming-birds have ended their brooding
labours, and frequent the shores of the river with their young to
enjoy, while they are moulting, the abundant and easily-procured food.
About the same time, too, the migratory birds from the north arrive to
pass the winter here. The last-named are also to be found in every part
of the primeval forest, but are not nearly so much in evidence there
as by the river, whose banks and islands are covered by the largest
and most conspicuous species. It may even happen that the available
space by the river is too small, the rich supply of food insufficient
for the number of claimants. Thus every space is more than fully
occupied, every promising hunting-ground is visited by thousands, every
sleeping-place even is fought over. For three days I sailed, in an
excellent boat and with a very good wind, up the White Nile, and during
the whole long journey both banks were uninterruptedly covered with a
gay and motley throng of littoral and aquatic birds. In the midst of
the forests about the Blue Nile one can see a similar sight. Extensive
sand-banks are completely covered by gray and demoiselle cranes,
but they only serve these winter visitors as resting, sleeping, and
moulting places, from whence they fly out every morning into the steppe
in search of food, returning about mid-day to drink, bathe, dress
their feathers, and to spend the night, though they are in continual
danger from the crocodiles. Regularly about mid-day they are joined by
several crowned cranes whose visit always causes lively excitement,
for they are, if not better, at least more ardent dancers than the
other cranes, and on their arrival they never fail to exhibit their
skill, and thus to incite the others to rivalry. On the same sand-banks
one may often see tantalus-ibises, magnificent stork-like birds, with
rosy-white plumage and brilliant rose-red wings, which take possession
of the extreme edge of the island or the neighbouring damp places. In a
good light they literally glow, and they are at all times beautiful,
contrasting wonderfully with the light gray cranes, and decorating
the whole neighbourhood. Splendid giant or saddle-billed storks step
proudly along the shores; ugly, but curiously-formed marabous walk up
and down with an air of dignity; glittering, open-bill storks stand in
large companies; giant and great white herons wade about in search of
fish; and everywhere standing and lying, swimming and diving, grazing
and grubbing, cackling and chattering are thousands of Spur-winged,
Egyptian, and other geese, widow and pintail ducks, African darters,
ibises, curlews, sandpipers, dunlins, redshanks, and many more, a
motley throng which decorates the stream even more than the tantalus
ibises. But, in addition to all those mentioned, some of whom are
constantly coming and going, there fly terns and gulls, sand-martins
and bee-eaters, while splendid sea-eagles wheel in circles high up in
the air.
[Illustration: Fig. 34.--Crocodile and Crocodile-birds (_Pluxianus
ægyptius_).]
There are some members of this bird-fauna, so rich in every respect,
who have to wait till the water is at its lowest before they can begin
to brood, for, when the river is full, they are quite unable to find
such nesting-places as they desire. Among these is a running bird,
prettily and gaily coloured, clever and vivacious by nature, which was
well known to the ancients as the Crocodile-bird or the Trochilus of
Herodotus. Of it the old historian relates, as Pliny repeats on his
authority, that it lives in true friendship with the crocodile. And
this old story is no fable, as one might be inclined to suppose, but
is based on solid facts, which I have myself been able to verify.[55]
The crocodile-bird, whose image is so often represented on the ancient
Egyptian monuments, and stands for U in the hieroglyphic alphabet,
occurs in Egypt and Nubia, but nowadays it seems to be only in the
Soudan that it discharges, on the crocodile’s behalf, those sentinel
duties for which it was famous among the ancient peoples. But the
service it renders is not to the crocodile alone, but to all other
creatures who are willing to take advantage of its watchfulness.
Observant, inquisitive, excitable, clamorous, and gifted with a
far-reaching voice, it is well fitted to serve as watchman to all less
careful creatures. No approach, whether of beast of prey or of man,
escapes its suspicious observation; every sailing-boat or rowing-boat
on the river attracts its attention; and it never fails to tell of
its discovery in loud cries. Thus it brings under the notice of all
the other creatures who share its home or resting-place the unusual
occurrence, enabling them either to find out for themselves if there
is really any danger, or to make good their escape on the strength of
its warning. Thus it discharges the duties of a sentinel. Its friendly
relations with the crocodile can hardly be called mutual, for to credit
the crocodile with friendship is going rather far. Certainly the
reptile treats the bird as a harmless creature, but this is not out of
any benevolence, but simply because he has a thorough knowledge and
a correct estimate of his partner. And as to the bird, it is at home
on the sand-banks where the crocodile is wont to rest, and has been
from its youth accustomed to the monster; it busies itself about him
and associates itself with him, as if he were the master and itself
the servant. Without hesitation it hops on his back as he rests;
without apprehension it approaches his gaping jaws to see if there be
perchance a leech sucking his lips, or if there be some morsel of food
sticking between his teeth; and without misgiving it darts off with
either. All this the crocodile quietly allows, for doubtless he has
learned by experience that he cannot get at the ever watchful, agile,
and clever little rogue. I once saw a crocodile-bird having a meal
along with a screaming sea-eagle off a fish, which the latter had
caught and borne to a sand-bank. While the eagle, which held its booty
firmly in its talons or stood upon it, was breaking off pieces of the
flesh, the parasite at the lordly bird’s table kept at a respectful
distance; but as soon as the eagle raised its head to swallow, the
crocodile-bird ran forward, seized one of the prepared fragments, and
was off again to his old position, there to enjoy his stolen goods.
Not less astonishing than this self-possessed audacity is the way in
which the crocodile-bird hides its eggs from prying eyes. For long I
searched in vain for the nest. When the brooding period set in was
readily enough discovered by dissecting a specimen which I killed; and
that the bird must nest on the sand-bank I was already convinced from
my observation of its mode of life. But it was in vain that I searched
their favourite spots; not a hint of a nest could I find. At last I
observed a pair, one sitting on the ground, the other busying itself
round about; I brought my field-glass to bear upon the sitting bird and
made straight for it. As I came near it rose, hastily scraped some sand
together, and flew off, uttering its usual cry, but without any other
signs of excitement. I was not diverted from my purpose, but advanced
carefully, keeping the exact spot always in view. But even when I
reached the place I could see no nest, and it was not till I noticed a
slight unevenness in the sand, and dug carefully with my fingers, that
I found what I sought, two eggs most deceptively like the sand in their
colour and markings. Had the mother-bird been allowed more time than I
gave her, it is not likely that I should ever have noticed the slight
unevenness in the sand.
Even richer, if that be possible, than the fauna of the river, and at
any rate more diverse, is that to be found at the proper season on
the shores and surface of all the lakes and larger water-pools which
lie within the forest and are filled either by the spring rains or
by the full floods of the river. Surrounded by the forest, and not
unfrequently so thickly hedged round that one cannot reach them without
great difficulty, and more immediately fringed by a scarcely less rich
vegetation of canes and reed-thickets, where the papyrus and the lotos
still flourish, these rain-lakes, or _Fulat_ as the natives call them,
afford most excellent resting-stations and breeding-places for the most
diverse kinds of beasts and birds.
Their safe seclusion pleases even the hippopotamus so well that it
seeks them out as fit places where to bring forth and suckle, tend and
rear its young, safe from dangerous intruders, and without trouble as
to food, which the water supplies in abundance. Wild hogs and buffaloes
are also attracted to the luxuriant fringe of vegetation and to the
creeks which gradually pass into swamp and bog. To all the thirsty race
of antelopes the quiet pools afford welcome supplies. On the surface
thousands of pelicans gather in the evenings, and fish greedily before
they go to roost on the tall trees near by; all day long the darters
dive; many ducks and geese swim about, both native species and those
which have come from the north to these comfortable winter-quarters;
in the creeks and shallows the giant-herons and the beautiful little
bush-herons secure rich booty at small cost of exertion; countless
hosts of little birds are sheltered among the green, sappy herbage of
the shore, and many other shore-and water-birds find resting-places and
build their nests on the overtowering trees of the forest.
It is no wonder, then, that these lakes should periodically swarm with
birds; and it is likewise plain that such great wealth of booty must
also attract all sorts of enemies. The smaller birds are followed by
the falcons and owls, the larger birds by the eagle and horned owl, the
mammals by the fox and jackal, the leopard and the lion. Sometimes,
too, an army of voracious locusts coming in from the steppe falls upon
the fresh green girdle around such a lake and ravages it in a few
days, devouring all the leaves. Or one should rather say threatening
to devour, for at such a time the assemblage of birds becomes even
larger than before. From far and near they come flocking--falcons
and owls, ravens and rollers, francolins and guinea-fowl, storks and
ibises, coots and ducks. Every bird that ever eats insects now confines
itself exclusively to the pertinacious visitors. Hundreds of kestrels
and lesser kestrels, which are then in these winter-quarters, sweep
over the invaded forest, and swoop down upon the locusts, seizing
and devouring them, with scarce an interruption in their flight.
Ravens, rollers, hornbills, ibises, and storks pick them off the
branches of the trees and shake down hundreds which fall victims to
the guinea-fowl, ducks, and other birds waiting underneath. Harriers
and chanting hawks circle around the trees on which the “defoliating”
insects soon take the place of the leaves that were. Even the sedate
marabous and saddle-billed storks do not disdain to avail themselves
of booty whose abundance compensates for the paltry size of the
individual victims. All this bustle greatly enhances the liveliness of
a scene which is at no time dull, and makes the lake more than ever a
rendezvous of the most diverse forms of life.
At one of these rain-lakes--very treasure-house of the forest’s
riches--we spent several days, hunting, observing, and collecting,
almost wild with delight in, and admiration of the splendid flora and
fauna. We amused ourselves with hunting hippopotamus, and executed
justice on the crocodile; we enjoyed to the full the pleasures of
exploration and of the chase, forgetful of everything else, even of
the time we spent. But when the sun went down and tinged with gold the
varied greens of the forest; when the chattering of the parrots was
hushed and only the ecstatic song of a thrush floated down to us; when,
over there on the opposite bank, the sea-eagle, which a moment ago
had seemed like some wonderful blossom on the top of his green perch,
drowsily drew his white head between his shoulders; when silence fell
even on the guttural gossip of a band of long-tailed monkeys, who had
gone to rest on the nearest lofty mimosa; when the night came on with
its clear pleasant twilight, cool and mild, melodious and fragrant,
as it always is at this season: then would all the wealth of colour,
all the splendour and glamour of to-day’s and yesterday’s pictures
fade away. Our thoughts flew homewards, and irresistible home-sickness
filled our hearts, for in the Fatherland they were celebrating
Christmas. We had prepared our punch and filled our pipes with the most
precious of tobaccos; our Albanian companion sang his soft melancholy
song; the beauty of the night soothed our hearts and senses; but the
glasses remained unemptied, “the clouds of smoke did not bear the
clouds of melancholy with them”; the songs awoke no responsive echo,
and the night brought no solace. But it _must_ bring us a Christmas
gift, and it did!
Night in the primeval forest is always grand: the sky above may be
illumined with flaming lightning, the thunder may roll, and the
wind may rage through the trees; or it may be that the dark starless
heaven is relieved only by the slender rays of far-distant suns,
while no leaf or blade of grass is stirred. A few minutes after
sunset, night descends upon the forest. What was clearly seen by day
is now veiled by darkness, what was seen in its true proportions in
the sunlight now becomes gigantic. Familiar trees become phantasms,
the hedge-like bushes thicken to dark walls. The noise of a thousand
voices is stilled, and for a few minutes a deep silence prevails. Then
life begins to stir again, the river and the forest are again alive.
Hundreds of cicadas raise their chirping, like the jingle of many
badly-tuned little bells heard from a distance; thousands of restless
beetles, some very large, whirr about the flowering trees with a deep
humming, fit accompaniment to the cicadas’ chirping. Frogs add their
single note, surprisingly loud for their size, and their voices ring
through the forest, like the sound of a slowly-beaten Chinese gong. A
great owl greets the night with its dull hooting; a little screech-owl
responds with shrill laughter; a goat-sucker spins off the single
strophe of his rattling song. From the river come the plaintive cries
of a nocturnal member of the gull family, the skimmer or shearwater,
which begins to plough the waves, skimming along the surface of the
water; from the islands and banks sound the somewhat screeching cries
of the thickknee or stone-curlew, and the rich, melodious, song-like
trills of the redshank or the plover; among the reeds and sedges of a
neighbouring pool croaks a night-heron. Hundreds of glowworms sparkle
among the bushes and the tree-tops; a gigantic crocodile, which had
left its sand-bank before sundown to bathe its heated coat of mail in
the tepid water, is swimming half beneath and half above the surface
of the water, and making long streaks of silver which shine in the
moonlight, or at least glitter in the flickering light of the stars.
Above the tallest trees float noiseless companies of horned and other
owls; long-tailed night-jars fly with graceful curves along the river
bank; bats describe their tortuous course among the trees; fox-bats
and fruit-eating bats cross from bank to bank, sometimes in flocks.
This is the time of activity among the other mammals too. A jackal
utters its varied call, now plaintive, now merry, and continues
with equal expressiveness and persistence; a dozen others join in at
once, and strive in eager rivalry for the victor’s crown; some hyænas
who seem just to have been waiting for these unrivalled leaders to
begin, join the chorus. They howl and laugh, moan piteously, and shout
triumphantly; a panther grunts, a lion roars; even a hippopotamus in
the river lifts up his paltry voice and grunts.
Thus does night reveal itself in the primeval forest; thus did it claim
ear and eye on that never-to-be-forgotten day. Beetles and cicadas,
owls and goat-suckers had begun: then a loud, rumbling noise, as of
trumpets blown by unskilful mouths, resounded through the forest. At
once the songs of our Albanian, and the chattering of our servants
and sailors were hushed; all listened as we did. Once more came
the trumpeting and rumbling from the opposite bank. “_El fiuhl, el
fiuhl!_” called the natives; “Elephants, elephants!” we, too, exclaimed
triumphantly. It was the first time that we had seen and heard the
giant pachyderms, though we had constantly trodden their paths and
followed their traces. From the opposite bank the great forms, which
could be plainly enough seen in the twilight, descended leisurely and
confidently to the water, to drink and bathe. One after another dipped
his supple trunk in the water, to fill it, and discharge it into his
wide mouth, or over his back and shoulders; one after another descended
into the river to refresh himself in the cooling flood. Then the
noises became so great that it seemed as if the elephants’ trumpeting
had acted as an awakening call. Earlier than ever before, the king of
the wilderness raised his thundering voice; a second and a third lion
responded to the kingly greeting. The sleep-drunken monkeys and the
timid antelopes cried out in terror. A hippopotamus reared his uncouth
head quite close to our boat, and growled as if he would emulate the
lion’s roar; a leopard also made himself heard; jackals gave vent
to the most varied song we had ever heard from them, the striped
hyænas howled, the spotted ones uttered their hellish, blood-curdling
laughter, and, careless of the uproar which the heralds and the king
of the forest had conjured up, the frogs continued to utter their
monotonous call, and the cicadas their bell-like chirping.
Thus was the “Hosanna in the Highest” sung in our ears by the primeval
forest.
THE MIGRATIONS OF MAMMALS.
The love of travel, as we understand it, is not found among animals,
not even among the birds, whose sublime powers of flight over land and
sea so much excite our envy. For no animals wander, careless and free,
like the travellers who go forth to study the manners and customs of
other lands; they cling to the soil even more closely than we do, and
they are bound to the place of their birth, by habit or indolence, more
closely than we are by our love of home. When it does happen that they
forsake their birthplace, it is in obedience to stern necessity,--to
escape impending starvation. But want and misery are too often their
lot in the joyless lands to which they migrate, and so they experience
little but the pain and toil of travel.
This holds true of wandering fishes and of migrating birds, but more
particularly of those mammals which undertake periodic migrations. Few
of them do this with the same regularity, but all do it for the same
reasons, as fishes and birds. They migrate to escape from scarcity of
food, already felt or at least threatening, and their journeying is
therefore rather a flight from destruction than a striving to reach
happier fields.
By the migrations of mammals I mean neither the excursions which result
in an extension of their range of distribution, nor the ordinary
expeditions in search of food, but those journeys which lead certain
mammals, at regular or irregular intervals, far beyond the boundaries
of their home, into countries where they are compelled to adopt a mode
of life which is foreign to them, and which they will abandon as soon
as it is possible, or seems possible to do so. Such journeys correspond
closely to the regular migrations of fishes and birds, and a knowledge
of the former helps us to an understanding of the latter.
Excursions beyond their actual place of sojourn are made by all
mammals for various reasons. Males, particularly old males, are
more inclined to roam about than the females and the young of their
species, and forsake one district for another without apparent reason;
the younger males among gregarious species are often driven out and
forced to wander by the old leaders of the herd; mothers with their
young are fond of rambling about the neighbourhood where the latter
were born; and the two sexes wander about in search of one another.
During such expeditions the animal chances to light on what seems to
him a promising dwelling-place, a district rich in food, a sheltering
thicket, or a safe hiding-hole. He stays there for some time, and,
finally, it may be, settles down in this new Canaan. Experienced
sportsmen know that a preserve in which all the game has been shot
will sooner or later receive reinforcements from without, and, under
favourable circumstances, will be peopled anew; and all must have
noticed that a fox or badger burrow is not easily destroyed, for it
finds new occupants again and again, however ruthless the persecution
to which they may be subjected. As it is with game, whose coming and
going, appearing and disappearing are noted by thousands, so is it with
other mammals which are less eagerly watched. A constant emigration
and immigration cannot be denied. In consequence of this, the range
of distribution of any species is constantly being extended, unless
hindered by physical conditions, or by human and other enemies.
[Illustration: Fig. 35.--A Wild Duck defending her Brood from a Brown
Rat.]
Till the end of the first half of last century our forefathers
shared their dwellings with the black rat, and knew the brown rat
only by hearsay, if at all. The first was a rat with many, but not
all the vices of its race. It lived in our houses, ate grain, fat,
and all kinds of provisions, gnawed doors, boards, and furniture,
racketed at night like a noisy ghost through old castles and other
spook-favouring buildings, caused much annoyance, many a fright,
strengthened superstition and the fear of ghosts in many a mind; but
it was possible to live with it, one could manage to get along. A
capable cat held it in check; a skilful rat-catcher was more than a
match for it. Then its most terrible enemy appeared, and its star began
to wane. In 1727, swarms of brown rats, which seem to have come from
India, either directly or by way of Persia, were seen to swim the
Volga, and we soon learned what awaited Europe. Following canals and
rivers, the brown rats reached villages and towns, entered, in spite
of men and cats, the lower stories of our dwellings, filled vaults and
cellars, ascended gradually to the garrets, ousted its relative after
long and inexorable warfare, made itself master in our own houses, and
showed us in a thousand ways what a rat could do. It possessed and
exercised _all_ the vices of its family, mocked at all our attempts to
drive it away, and remained in possession of the field, which, up till
now, we have tried to wrest from it with dogs and cats, by traps and
snares, poison and shooting. Almost at the same time as it swam over
the Volga, it reached Europe by another route, coming from the East
Indies to England on board ship. Then began its world-wanderings. In
East Prussia it appeared as early as 1750, in Paris three years later,
Central Germany was conquered in 1780, and here, as everywhere else,
the towns were first colonized, and the flat country round taken in
by degrees. Villages not easily reached, that is to say, not lying on
river-banks, were only invaded in the last decade of this century: in
my boyhood it was still unknown in my native village, and the black
rat, now being crowded out even there, held undisputed possession of
many places where its rival now reigns supreme. Many isolated farms
were only reached later, about the middle of the present century, but
the victorious march still goes on. Not content with having discovered
and conquered Europe, towards the end of last century the brown rat
set out on new journeys. In the sea-ports already colonized, the rats
swam out to the ships, climbed on board by the anchor chains, cables,
or any other available ladders, took possession of the dark, protecting
hold, crossed all seas, landed on all coasts, and peopled every country
and island, where its chosen protector and compulsory host--civilized
man--has founded homesteads. Against our will we have helped it, or at
any rate made it possible for it, to carry out a greater extension of
range than has been attained by any other mammal not in subjection to
man.[56]
Another remarkable illustration of wandering is afforded by the
souslik, a destructive rodent about the size of a hamster, belonging
to the family of squirrels and sub-family of marmots. Eastern Europe
and Western Siberia are its head-quarters. Albertus Magnus observed
it in the neighbourhood of Ratisbon, where it is now no longer found,
though it has recently appeared in Silesia. Forty or fifty years ago it
was unknown here, but, at the end of the forties or beginning of the
fifties, it appeared no one could tell whence, and from that time it
has pressed slowly westward. Its migrations, too, have been helped by
man, for, though it is not confined to cultivated fields, these afford
the habitat most suited to its taste.
The same holds true of many species of mice, which extend their
territories as the soil is cultivated. On the other hand, man narrows
the possible range of many mammals by deforesting, by draining
marshes, and by otherwise changing the character of whole tracts of
country. In this way, far more than by direct persecution, he does
much to influence the migration of the mammals which have established
themselves in these areas. For the fundamental law holds good for
mammals as for other creatures, that suitable districts, and these
only, will be colonized sooner or later, notwithstanding the arbitrary
and usually rough and cruel interference of man.
Quite different from such wanderings are the expeditions made
by mammals to secure a temporary betterment. These are probably
undertaken, if not by all species, at least by representatives of
every family in the class; they vary in duration and distance, and
may even have the character of true migrations, but they always come
to an end after a certain time, and the wanderer ultimately returns
to his original place of abode. The intention or hope of reaching
better grazing or hunting grounds, the desire to profit by some casual
opportunity for making life more comfortable, may be said to be the
chief motive of such expeditions. They take place all the year round,
in every latitude and longitude, even in districts where the conditions
of life do not vary materially at different times. The mammal begins
and ends them either alone or in bands, companies or herds, according
as it is wont to live with its fellows; it follows the same routes with
more or less regularity, and appears at certain places at approximately
the same time, yet it is always guided by chance circumstances.
When the fruits of the sacred fig and other trees surrounding the
temples of the Hindoos are beginning to ripen, the Brahmins who tend
temple and trees await with unctuous devotion the arrival of their
four-footed gods. And not in vain, for the two divinities, Hulman and
Bunder, two species of monkey, unfailingly appear to strip the luscious
fruits from the trees piously planted and tended for their benefit,
and also to rob and plunder in the neighbouring fields and gardens as
long as it is worth while. Then they disappear again, to the sorrow
of their worshippers and the joy of the other inhabitants of India,
whose possessions they have ravaged, as they gathered in their spoils
in their usual ruthless fashion. In Central Africa, when the chief
cereal of that country, the dhurra or Kaffir-millet, comes to maturity,
a dignified and inventive baboon, tried and experienced in all the
critical situations of life, leads down the flock of which, as leader,
he is justifiably proud, to see whether Cousin Man has been good
enough to sow the nutritive grain for him this year also. Or, about
the same time, a band of long-tailed monkeys, under not less excellent
leadership, approaches the edge of the forest in order not to miss the
right moment for a profitable, and, as far as possible, undisturbed
ravaging of the fields. When the golden orange glows among the dark
foliage in South American plantations, the capuchin monkeys make their
appearance, often from a great distance, to share the fruit with
the owner. Other plant-eaters too are led by the hope of gaining an
easier livelihood into regions and districts which they usually avoid;
insectivores periodically follow the insects when they are for the time
abundant at this place or that, and large beasts of prey keep in the
wake of herbivorous mammals, especially of the herds belonging to man.
The lion journeys from place to place, following the wandering herdsmen
on the steppes of Africa; Russian wolves followed close on the retreat
of Napoleon’s defeated army, pursuing the unfortunate fugitives as far
as the middle of Germany. Otters undertake land journeys to get from
one river-basin to another; lynxes and wolves in winter often traverse
very wide stretches of country. Such journeys bring about a change of
residence, but they do not constitute a migration in the true sense
of the word. It is only exceptionally, too, that they are undertaken
from real necessity, which we must look upon as the cause of all true
migrations; in most cases they are undertaken simply to gratify a
passing desire.
Quite otherwise is it with those mammals which, every year about the
same time, leave their habitat for some other region often far distant,
from which at a definite time they will return to their former abode.
These migrate; for they do not seize a chance opportunity, but obey,
consciously or unconsciously, a compelling necessity.
The fundamental cause of all true migration among mammals, is some
very distinct and decided seasonal change. In countries of everlasting
spring true migrations do not take place, for want is never imminent.
Summer must contrast with winter, whether the latter bring frost and
snow, or heat and drought; scarcity must alternate with superfluity
before the sluggish mammal makes up its mind to migrate.
To a slight extent migrations take place among all mountain animals.
The chamois, the steinbock, the Alpine hare, the marmot all migrate
when the snow begins to melt, or a little later; they clamber over
hillsides and glaciers to the heights above, where the pasturage, now
laid bare, promises rich and abundant nourishment, and they return to
the lower slopes of the mountain before winter sets in. The bear, by
nature omnivorous, by habit a thief, undertakes a similar migration at
the same season, and completes it before winter sets in,--at least so
it is in the mountains of Siberia; the various wild cats and dogs which
live among the mountains do the same. Such changes of residence occur
also on the mountains of southern countries, even of those lying within
the tropics. In India and Africa certain species of monkey ascend and
descend the mountains at regular intervals; elephants seek the high
grounds on the approach of summer, the low grounds in winter; on the
Andes in South America the guanacos flee before the snow into the
valleys, and before the summer-heat to the shoulders of the mountains.
All these migrations are confined by the mountains within comparatively
narrow limits. They only involve a change of altitude of from three
to nine thousand feet, or a journey which may be accomplished in
a few hours, or, at most, in a few days. They have, however, the
regularity characteristic of true migrations, especially in the precise
periodicity of their occurrence, and not less in the constant choice of
the same routes.
Highlands and plain, sea and air, offer a much wider field than the
mountains, and therefore the migrations of the animals inhabiting, or
temporarily traversing these can be more easily observed, and they are
more appropriately termed migratory animals than the dwellers among
the mountains. In the tundras of Russia and Siberia, the reindeer,
which, in Scandinavia, never leaves the mountains, migrates to a great
distance every autumn and returns the following spring to his former
summer haunts.[57] About the same time it leaves Greenland, and,
crossing the sea on a bridge of ice, reaches the continent of America,
where it spends the whole winter, only returning to the hills of its
native peninsula the following April. In both cases, dread of the
approaching winter does not seem to be the sole cause of migration;
there is at the same time a further incentive supplied by a plague
much feared in the far north. For the short summer on these expanses
calls to life an insect-world poor in species, but endlessly rich in
individuals, particularly an indescribable number of mosquitoes and
bot-flies, which make life a burden to the reindeer, as well as to man.
To escape these the reindeer forsakes the marshy tundra, over which
dense clouds of mosquitoes hover during summer, and hies to where the
scourge is less severely felt--to the Alpine heights, which, in the
summer season afford their most fragrant pasturage. From inherited
habit, the reindeer migrate not only at the same time, but along
the same paths, thus forming tracks which may be distinctly traced,
traversing the tundra for many miles, and crossing streams and rivers
at definite places. At the beginning of the journey, the cows with
their calves arrange themselves in herds of from ten to a hundred, and
precede the young stags and hinds, which are followed again by the old
stags. One troop follows directly behind another, and the observer can
count thousands as they pass. All hurry incessantly on, turning aside
neither for the mountains nor the broad streams which cross their path,
and resting only when they have reached their winter-quarters. Packs
of wolves, bears, and gluttons follow close on their heels and often
pursue them no small part of the way. In spring, on the return journey,
the animals keep to the same order, but the herds are much smaller, and
they travel in a much more leisurely fashion, and keep less strictly to
the paths by which they went.
Journeys still longer than those of the reindeer are taken by the
American bison, the “buffalo” of the prairies.[58] What distance
individual animals travel cannot be stated with certainty, but herds
in course of migrating have been met from Canada to Mexico, from
the Missouri to the Rocky Mountains, and it may be assumed that
a single herd traverses a considerable part of the country lying
between these limits. The bisons have been seen in summer scattered
over the boundless prairie, and in winter in the same places, but
assembled in many thousands; their migrations have been observed, for
they have been followed for hundreds of miles along the tracks--the
so-called “buffalo-paths”, trodden out straight across plains and over
mountains. We learn from eye-witnesses that a stream a mile wide is to
them no barrier, scarcely even a hindrance, for they throw themselves
into it like an irresistible avalanche, so that the water is covered
with the dark, moving throng; that the animals associate and separate
again, the herds increase and diminish; that old, surly, tyrannous,
malevolent bulls avoid the other bisons, having perhaps been expelled
from the herd, and compelled, probably only after protracted struggles,
to live in hermit-fashion until the following summer; and that, during
heavy snowfalls, the herds take shelter in the forests or on the
slopes of the mountains. From July onwards they begin their migrations
from the north towards the south. Small companies, which, till then,
have been leading a comfortable summer life, combine with others and
set out on the journey with them; other troops join the band, which
grows as it presses on, until there is, at length, formed one of those
extraordinary herds which, united till the next spring, moves and acts
as if animated by one soul. When the winter is safely past, the army
gradually breaks up, probably in exactly reverse order, into herds,
and these divide more and more until at length only small companies
are left. This breaking-up takes place during the course of the return
journey. Both in going and returning, one herd follows another at some
distance, but more or less along the same paths. Specially favourable
places, such as low grounds covered with rich grass, cause a temporary
damming up of the living stream. In such places incalculable herds
assemble together, spend days in the same spot, and break up only again
when all the grass has been eaten, and hunger urges them to continue
their journey. As they march the wolves and bears follow their track,
while eagles and vultures, birds of ill omen, circle over their heads.
[Illustration: Fig. 36.--A Herd of American Bison or Buffalo.]
Scarcity of water, as well as of food, is often a cause of regular
migrations. When winter approaches in the south-east of Siberia, more
particularly in the high Gobi steppe, all the non-hibernating mammals
are compelled, by the peculiar circumstances of these highlands, to
seek refuge in lower-lying regions. The winter in these high grounds
of Central Asia is not more severe than in districts lying further to
the north or north-east, but it is usually almost snowless, and such
pools of water as have been formed by the extremely slight fall of rain
or snow, are covered with a thick sheet of ice. As soon as this sheet
becomes so strong that the animals inhabiting the Gobi are unable to
break it, they are obliged to change their quarters, and they travel
not only to southern but to northern lands, whose only advantage is
that they are covered with snow, for this affords ready refreshment to
the parched tongues of the wanderers, and offers less resistance to
their weak feet than the hard, unbreakable, and less easily melted ice.
This is the explanation of the fact that the antelope, of which great
numbers are found in the Gobi, forsakes a land which, save for the
lack of snow and therefore of available water, is exactly the same as
that which it chooses for its winter quarters. Not hunger, but thirst,
drives it from its home. At the beginning of winter, the antelopes, at
all times gregarious, assemble in herds of many thousands, spreading
over all the low grounds around their native plateau; they often travel
at the rate of fifty or sixty miles in a single night, and extend
their wanderings many hundreds of miles beyond the boundaries of their
proper habitat. The observer who follows them can detect their tracks
everywhere, and in such numbers that it seems as though vast herds of
sheep, far exceeding in number any ordinary flock, had just passed by.
[Illustration: Fig. 37.--Wild Horses crossing a River during a Storm.]
Before the Chinese antelope begins its migration, restlessness seizes
the kulan or dziggetai, probably the ancestor of our horse, and
certainly the most beautiful and the proudest of all wild horses. The
foals of the summer are by autumn strong enough to be able to endure
a long journey with quick marches, and to bid defiance to all the
accidents and dangers of a wandering life. The young stallions attain
their full strength at the end of their fourth year, and towards the
end of September they leave the parent-herd and press forward. Finally,
the impulse to mate begins to animate the older stallions and mares,
and with it comes unrest and the desire to wander. Thus the fleet,
enterprising animals begin their annual migration long before winter
has set in, before even its approach has become at all apparent; and on
this account their migrations at first lack steadiness and regularity,
and have something of the character of journeys in search of
adventure. With the intention of shaking off the burdensome yoke of the
leader and absolute lord of the herd, and of becoming independent and
in their turn equally despotic, the young stallions forsake the herd,
and thenceforward traverse the sandy steppes singly. All the younger
mares who are mature, and even many of the older ones, seem to be
animated by the same feeling as the young stallions, and they attempt
to escape from the rule of their tyrant and join his young rival, to
fall immediately under his dominion. But not without a struggle does
the new candidate for leadership gain his troop of mares; the old
leader does not readily relinquish his rights. For hours together the
stallion stands on the top of a hill or on the shoulder of a ridge,
keenly scanning the country around. His eye wanders over the desert,
his dilated nostrils are turned towards the wind, his ears are directed
forwards on the alert. Eager for battle, he rushes at full gallop
towards every herd which approaches, every adversary who shows himself;
and a furious struggle takes place for the possession of the mares,
who always attach themselves to the victor. Such combats and strife
set the herd in motion, detach it from the place where the summer has
been spent, and lead on to migrations which become gradually regular,
prolonged, persistent, and almost uninterrupted. In the course of
these, if not before the end of the combats just described, the kulan
troops assemble in ever-growing numbers, until at length herds of more
than a thousand head set out together for fields which give promise of
pasturage. They do not break up while in their winter quarters, and
they are thus compelled to be continually on the move in order to find
sufficient nourishment. The combined tread of the army, as they gallop
on in their usual furious fashion, rings dully out, and more than once,
in Russia, the sound has called the Cossacks of the military cordon to
arms. No wolf ventures to attack such a herd, for the courageous wild
horses know so well how to use their hoofs against him that he soon
gives up any attempt; it is only the sick and exhausted horses which
become his prey, as he follows the wandering herd. Even man can do them
no great damage, for their caution and shyness render them difficult
of approach. But winter, especially if much snow falls, brings them
much suffering. The pasture, at all times scanty, is exhausted the more
quickly the more numerous the herd which feeds on it. Then the animals
devour indiscriminately all the vegetable substances they can find.
For months together they have to maintain life on leafless shoots.
Their bodies cease to be fat and plump, till at length they are like
wandering skeletons. The mother, herself starving, is no longer able to
nourish her foal, for the milk-yielding udder dries up in times of such
need. Many a one whose tender youth is unable to endure the hard fare
dies of starvation. Even the old horses suffer from the poverty and
treachery of the winter. Snow-storms blowing over their feeding-ground
for days at a time depress their usually cheerful courage, and increase
the boldness of the wolves, which, even if they do not fall upon the
already exhausted horses, persecute and annoy to the utmost those who
are not yet worn out. But as soon as circumstances begin to improve,
the wiry, weather-hardened, enduring creatures recover their high
spirits, and, when the snow begins to melt, they set out on the return
journey, reaching their summer home in about a month’s time. There they
break up into single herds, recuperate among the luxuriantly sprouting,
fragrant pasture, and, in a surprisingly short time, become fat and
plump again. Soon the want and misery of the winter are forgotten.
Great as are the distances often traversed by all the mammals already
mentioned, they can scarcely be compared with those covered by seals
and whales. The water favours all the movements of animals adapted to
aquatic life, and offers everywhere the same general conditions of
life and the same amenities. Thus it renders the migrations of its
inhabitants easier, less toilsome and hazardous than those of any other
wanderers. Nevertheless it is somewhat surprising to learn that many
sea-mammals, and particularly the whales, are among the most nomadic
of all creatures; in fact that many, if not most of them, pass their
whole life in travelling. Strictly speaking, no whale has a permanent
place of sojourn for the whole year, but passes singly, in pairs,
with its young, or in more or less numerous companies--the so-called
schools--from one part of the ocean to another, visiting certain
favourite haunts in regular order, and choosing different haunts in
summer and in winter. The seas inhabited by the same species of whale
in winter and in summer often lie farther apart than people seem to
suppose, for some whales travel, twice a year, more than a quarter of
the earth’s circumference; they are to be found in summer among the
ice-floes of the Arctic Ocean, and in winter on the other side of the
Equator. The female whales, who are in the highest degree sociable,
and attached to their young with the tenderest, most devoted love,
assemble together in surprising numbers, and under the guidance of a
few males, traverse the ocean by definite routes and at definite times,
some keeping to the open sea, others making their way along the coasts.
Storms may force them to change their route, or delay in the appearance
of the animals on which they feed, whose occurrence and disappearance
is obviously the chief cause of their migration, may to some extent
influence their course and the time of their visiting certain spots;
but, as a general rule, their migrations are so systematic that on
northern and southern coasts people look for the arrival of the whale
on a particular day, and place watches so that they may be able to
begin the long-desired chase without loss of time. Whales, which are
recognized by the dwellers on the coast by some mark, such as mutilated
fins, and which have been several times pursued in vain, have been
known to appear several years in succession at the same time and at
the same place; and the chase after these most valuable and therefore
increasingly persecuted animals takes place with the same regularity as
do hare-hunts on land, though at any other time of the year it would
be vain to look for them. “After Twelfth Day,” says old Pontoppidan,
“the Norwegians watch from all the hills for the whale, whose arrival
is announced by the herring.” First appears the killer, then, three
or four days, or at the most a fortnight later, the rorqual, though,
apparently, one comes from Davis Straits and the other from Greenland.
On the south coasts of the Faroë Islands, and especially in the
Qualbenfjord, from three to six bottle-nose whales still appear
every year about Michaelmas, as they did a hundred and ninety years
ago. In a Scottish bay there appeared twenty years in succession a
rorqual, which was generally known by the name of “Hollie Pyke”, and
was pursued every year and finally captured. On the coast of Iceland
single whales choose the same bays for a temporary sojourn every year
in the same months, and even weeks, so that the inhabitants have got
to know them individually, and have given them special names. Certain
well-known mother-whales visit the same bays every year to bring forth
their young, and they themselves are spared, but they have to purchase
their own lives, dearly enough, at the cost of that of their young
ones, which are regularly taken captive. It is very unusual for the
migrating whales to keep neither to time nor to route; in general,
their journeys are as regular as if they were arranged according to the
position of the stars, and as if they took place along laid-out paths
bounded on both sides. No other mammal migrates more regularly; indeed,
their wanderings may be compared with the migrations of birds.
The seals, like the whales, migrate every year, on the whole with
great regularity, though not to such a distance. Those species which
inhabit inland seas cannot, of course, leave these, but they traverse
them every year in regular order, or at certain times ascend the rivers
flowing into them; all the ocean species, on the other hand, set out
every autumn and spring, by definite routes, to certain regions or
localities. All the seals in the far north, as well as those in the
seas about the South Pole, are forced to migrate by the extension of
the ice in winter, and may travel with it towards temperate zones,
returning towards the poles again as the ice melts. But they, like all
other members of their order, are impelled to travel for another not
less weighty reason; they require the mainland, or at least large,
spreading, fixed masses of ice, on which to bring forth and nurture
their young, until these are able to follow them into the water, there
to shift for themselves. Thus every year thousands and hundreds of
thousands of seals appear on certain islands and ice-banks, covering
some of these birth-places of their race in such crowds that every
available spot must be utilized in order to secure space for all to
bring forth their young. They pass weeks, even months, on land or on
the ice without hunting, descending into the sea, or taking food; they
suckle their young, then mate, and by degrees break up their great
assemblage, distributing themselves over the wide ocean to resume their
former manner of life, or setting out with their young, who still
require training, on more or less extensive foraging expeditions.[59]
[Illustration: Fig. 38.--Flying Foxes.]
As is well known, there are many mammals which have the habit of
hibernating, which pass the severe part of the year well protected in
deep and carefully closed burrows, and are thus spared the necessity of
leaving their haunts. Even among these, however, at least among those
living in the temperate zones, there are some which migrate during
their waking time, namely, the bats. Defective as the wing of a bat
must appear when compared with that of a bird, it is nevertheless of
such assistance in flight, that it makes journeys possible which seem
out of all proportion to the size of the animal. Another fact makes
travelling easier to the restless bat; it is not tied down by its
offspring to any particular spot, for the young one attaches itself
directly after birth to the breast of the mother, and is borne by her
through the air till it is capable of independent life. The bat is
thus one of the best-adapted of migratory mammals, and, under some
circumstances, it makes full use of its advantages. As a general rule,
the wanderings of the different species of bat are to be regarded
simply as excursions made with a view to taking advantage of any
district which is, for the time being, particularly rich in food; but
they do sometimes become really long journeys, which lead some species
to far distant lands, and they are then not without the regularity
characteristic of all true migrations. The largest bats, the flying
foxes, fly long distances every evening in search of the fruits on
which they chiefly subsist; they do not hesitate to cross an arm of the
sea fifty or sixty miles in breadth, and they must even have traversed
the distance between Southern Asia and the East of Africa, as certain
species occur in both these regions. The bats proper accomplish at
least as much. Following the reappearance of the insects, which occurs
at different times in regions of different altitude, they ascend from
the plains to the mountain heights, and descend in autumn to the low
grounds again; they pursue the numerous flies which congregate about
the wandering cattle-herds of Central Africa, and they migrate also
from the south towards the north and return southwards again, or in
reverse order. The boreal bat appears at the beginning of the bright
nights in the north of Scandinavia and Russia, and leaves these
districts, which may be considered its head-quarters, towards the end
of summer, to spend the winter among the mountains of Central Germany
and the Alps. The pond-bat is regularly seen on the plains of North
Germany during summer, but only exceptionally at that period among the
mountains of Central Germany, in whose caverns it spends the winter.
That other species of bat occurring in Germany change their place of
abode in a similar manner can scarcely be doubted.
In the cases cited, which have been selected from a mass of available
material, I have given examples of those migrations of mammals which
we may call voluntary, because of their regularity; but in so doing I
have by no means completed my task. Hunger and thirst, the poverty and
temporary inhospitableness of a particular region, sometimes press so
severely on certain mammals that they endeavour, as if despairing, to
save themselves by flight. Abundant nourishment and good weather favour
the increase of all animals, and affect that of a few plant-eating
mammals to such an extraordinary degree, that, even under propitious
conditions, their habitat must be extended. But if one or more rich
years--in some cases a few favourable months--be followed by a sudden
reverse, the famine soon passes all bounds, and robs the creatures not
only of the possibility of subsistence, but also of all hope, or at
least of all presence of mind.
It is under circumstances such as these that the field-voles of our
own country, and the Siberian voles, assemble in enormous multitudes,
leave their native haunts and migrate to other districts, turning
back for no obstacles, avoiding the water as little as the forbidding
mountains or the gloomy forest, fighting to the last against hunger
and misery, but perishing hopelessly from diseases and epidemics which
rage among them like plagues, reducing armies of millions to a few
hundreds. Thus, too, the squirrels of Siberia, which, in ordinary
years, undertake, at the most, only short excursions, assemble in vast
armies, hurry in troops or companies from tree to tree, in compact
masses from forest to forest, swim across rivers and streams, throng
into towns and villages, lose their lives by thousands; but suffer no
obstacle or hindrance--not even the most obvious dangers--to delay
them or divert them from their path. The soles of their feet become
worn and cracked, their nails ground down, the hairs of their usually
smooth fur rough and matted. Through the forest lynxes and sables, in
the open fields gluttons, foxes and wolves, eagles, falcons, owls and
ravens follow them closely; pestilence claims more victims from their
ranks than the teeth and claws of beast of prey or the guns and cudgels
of men, yet they press on and on, apparently without hope of return.
A Siberian sportsman of my acquaintance gave me a verbal account of
the appearance of such an army of squirrels, in August 1869, in the
town of Tapilsk, among the Ural Mountains. It was only one wing of a
migrating army, of which the main body travelled through the forest
about five miles farther north. Sometimes in single file, sometimes
in companies of varying strength, but in unbroken succession, the
animals pressed on, crowding as densely through the town as through the
neighbouring forest; used the streets, as well as the hedges, and the
roofs of buildings as paths; filled every court-yard, thronged through
windows and doors into the houses, and created quite an uproar among
the inhabitants--much more among the dogs, which killed thousands of
them, evincing an unbridled bloodthirstiness till then unsuspected. The
squirrels, however, did not seem to concern themselves in the least
about the innumerable victims falling in their midst; in fact, they
took no notice of anything, and allowed nothing to divert them from
their route. The procession lasted for three whole days, from early
morning till late in the evening, and only after nightfall each day was
there a break in the continuity of the stream. All travelled in exactly
the same direction, from south to north, and those that came last took
the same paths as their predecessors. The rushing Tchussoveia proved no
obstacle, for all that reached the bank of that rapid mountain-river
plunged without hesitation into its whirling and seething waters, and
swam, deeply sunk and with their tails laid across their backs, to
the opposite bank. My informant, who had been watching the procession
with growing attention and sympathy, rowed out into the midst of the
throng. The tired swimmers, to whom he stretched out an oar, climbed up
by it into the boat, where, apparently exhausted, they sat quietly and
confidingly, until it came alongside a larger vessel, when they climbed
into that, and remained on it for some time as indifferent as before.
As soon as the boat touched the bank they sprang ashore, and proceeded
on their journey as unconcernedly as if it had suffered no interruption.
It must be similar circumstances which compel the lemmings to the
migrations which have been known for centuries. For many successive
years the heights in the tundras of Scandinavia, North Russia, and
the North of Siberia afford them comfortable quarters and abundant
nourishment; for the broad ridges of the fjelds and the extensive
plains between them, the highlands and the low grounds, offer room and
maintenance for millions of them. But not every year do they enjoy the
accustomed abundance for the whole summer. If a winter in which much
snow falls, and which is therefore favourable to them, as they live
safely below the snow, be followed by an early, warm, and agreeable
spring, their extraordinary fertility and power of increase seem to
have almost no bounds, and the tundra literally teems with lemmings. A
fine warm summer increases their numbers past computing, but it also
accelerates the life-course of all the plants on which they feed, and
before it is over these are partly withered, partly devoured by the
greedy teeth of the insatiable rodents. Scarcity of food begins to
be felt, and their comfortable life comes to an end in panic. Their
fearless, bold demeanour gives place to a general uneasiness, and
soon a mad anxiety for the future takes possession of them. Then they
assemble together and begin to migrate. The same impulse animates many
simultaneously, and from them it spreads to others; the swarms become
armies; they arrange themselves in ranks, and a living stream flows
like running water from the heights to the low grounds. All hurry
onwards in a definite direction, but this often changes according to
locality and circumstances. Gradually long trains are formed in which
lemming follows lemming so closely that the head of one seems to rest
on the back of the one in front of it; and the continuous tread of the
light, little creatures hollows out paths deep enough to be visible
from a long distance in the mossy carpet of the tundra. The longer the
march lasts, the greater becomes the haste of the wandering lemmings.
Eagerly they fall upon the plants on and about their path and devour
whatever is edible; but their numbers impoverish even a fresh district
within a few hours, and though a few in front may pick up a little
food, nothing is left for those behind; the hunger increases every
minute, and the speed of the march quickens in proportion; every
obstacle seems surmountable, every danger trifling, and thousands rush
on to death. If men come in their way they run between their legs;
they face ravens and other powerful birds of prey defiantly; they gnaw
through hay-stacks, climb over mountains and rocks, swim across rivers,
and even across broad lakes, arms of the sea, and fjords. A hostile
company, like that behind the migrating squirrels, follows in their
wake: wolves and foxes, gluttons, martens and weasels, the ravenous
dogs of the Lapps and Samoyedes, eagles, buzzards, and snowy owls,
ravens and hooded crows fatten on the innumerable victims which they
seize without trouble from the moving army; gulls and fishes feast
on those which cross the water. Diseases and epidemics, too, are not
awanting, and probably destroy more than all their enemies together.
Thousands of carcasses lie rotting on the wayside, thousands are
carried away by the waves; whether indeed any are left, and whether
these return later to their native Alpine heights, or whether all,
without exception, perish in the course of their journey, no one can
say with certainty; but so much I know, that I have traversed great
tracts of the tundra of Lapland where the paths and other traces of
a great migrating army were to be seen almost everywhere, while not
a single lemming could be discovered. Such tracts, I have been told,
remain thus for several successive years, and only after long periods
become gradually repeopled with the busy little rodents.[60]
What hunger causes in the North is brought about by the tortures of
thirst in the richer South. As the brackish pools which have afforded
water to the zebras, quaggas, antelopes, buffaloes, ostriches, and
other animals of the steppes, dry up more and more under the burning
heat of a South African winter, all the animals whose necessities have
hitherto been supplied by the steppes assemble about the pools which
still contain a little water, and these become scenes of stirring,
active life. But when these, too, evaporate, the animals which have
congregated around them are compelled to migrate, and it may happen
that despair takes possession of them, as it did of the little rodents
already described, and that, collecting in herds like the wild horses
and Chinese antelopes (dzieren) of the steppes of Central Asia, or
the bisons of the North American prairies, they rush straight on for
hundreds of miles, to escape the hardships of winter.
In the South, too, the wild horses are the first to turn their
backs on the inhospitable country. Till the drought sets in, these
beautifully-marked, strong, swift, self-confident children of the
Karroo, the zebra, quagga, and dauw, wander careless and free through
their vast domain, each herd going its own way under the guidance of
an old, experienced, and battle-tried stallion. Then the cares of the
winter season begin to make themselves felt. One water-pool after
another disappears, and the herds which gather about those which
remain become more and more numerous. The general distress makes even
the combative stallions forget to quarrel and fight. Instead of small
companies, herds of more than a hundred head are formed, and these move
and act collectively, and finally forsake the wintry region altogether
before want has enfeebled their powers or broken their stubborn wills.
Travellers describe with enthusiasm the spectacle presented by such
a herd of wild horses on the march. Far into the distance stretches
the sandy plain, its shimmering red ground-colour interrupted here
and there by patches of sunburnt grass, its scanty shade supplied by
a few feathery-leaved mimosas, and, as far away as the eye can reach,
the horizon is bounded by the sharp lines of mountains quivering in a
bluish haze. In the midst of this landscape appears a cloud of dust
which, disturbed by no breath of air, ascends to the blue heavens like
a pillar of smoke. Nearer and nearer the cloud approaches, until at
length the eye can distinguish living creatures moving within it. Soon
the brightly-coloured and strangely-marked animals present themselves
clearly to the spectator’s gaze; in densely thronged ranks, with heads
and tails raised, neck and neck with the quaintly-shaped gnus and
ostriches which have joined their company, they rush by on their way to
a new, and possibly far-distant feeding-ground, and ere the onlooker
has recovered himself, the wild army has passed by and is lost from
view in the immeasurable steppe.
[Illustration: Fig. 39.--Springbok Antelopes.]
The antelopes, which are also driven out by winter, do not always
follow the same paths, but usually travel in the same direction. None
is more numerous or more frequently seen than the springbok, one of
the most graceful and beautiful gazelles with which we are acquainted.
Its unusual beauty and agility strike everyone who sees it in its wild
state, now walking with elastic step, now standing still to feed, now
springing about in playful leaps, and thus disclosing its greatest
ornament, a mane-like snow-white tuft of hair, which at a quieter pace
is hidden in a longitudinal groove of the back. None of the other
antelopes, when forced to migrate, assemble in such numerous herds as
this one. Even the most vivid description cannot convey to one who has
not seen a herd of springboks on their journey any adequate idea of
the wonderful spectacle. After having congregated for weeks, perhaps
waiting for the first shower of rain, the springboks at last resolve to
migrate. Hundreds of the species join other hundreds, thousands other
thousands, and the more threatening the scarcity, the more torturing
the thirst, the longer the distances which they cover; the flocks
become herds, the herds armies, and these resemble the swarms of
locusts which darken the sun. In the plains they cover square miles;
in the passes between the mountains they throng together in a compact
mass which no other creature can resist; over the low grounds they
pour, like a stream which has overflowed its banks and carries all
before it. Bewildering, intoxicating, and stupefying even the calmest
of men, the throng surges past for hours, perhaps days together.[61]
Like the greedy locusts, the famishing animals fall upon grass and
leaves, grain, and other fruits of the field; where they have passed,
not a blade is left. The man who comes in contact with them is at once
thrown to the ground, and so sorely wounded by the tread of their
hoofs, light indeed, but a thousand times repeated, that he may be glad
if he escapes with his life; a herd of sheep feeding in the way is
surrounded and carried off, never to be seen again; a lion, who thought
to gain an easy prey, finds himself forced to relinquish his victim,
and to travel with the stream. Unceasingly those behind press forward,
and those in front yield slowly to the pressure; those cooped up in the
middle strive continually to reach the wings, and their efforts are
strenuously resisted. Above the clouds of dust raised by the rushing
army the vultures circle; flanks and rear are attended by a funeral
procession of various beasts of prey; in the passes lurk sportsmen, who
send shot after shot into the throng. So the tortured animals travel
for many miles, till at length spring sets in and their armies are
broken up.
Shall I go on to consider other compulsory migrations, such as those of
the arctic foxes and polar bears when an ice-floe on which they were
hunting is loosened and floated off by the waves till, under favourable
circumstances, it touches some island? I think not, for journeys such
as these are not migrations, they are simply passive driftings.
LOVE AND COURTSHIP AMONG BIRDS.
An irresistible instinct, an all-compelling law of nature, moves every
living creature to seek a mate of its own species but of opposite sex,
to unite a second existence with its own, to awaken responsive emotions
through complete self-surrender, and thus to form the closest bond
which links being to being, life to life. No power is strong enough to
set aside this law, no command authoritative enough to influence it.
Yielding to no hindrance this instinct overcomes every obstacle, and
presses victorious to its goal.
The almighty power through which this law works we call Love, when
we speak of its influence on man; we describe it as Instinct when we
discuss its operation on the lower animals. But this is a mere play
upon words, nothing more; unless by the former word we intend to imply
that every natural instinct in man should by man himself be ennobled
and moralized. If it be not so, it will be difficult to distinguish
between the two. Man and beast are subject to the same law, but the
beast yields it a more absolute obedience. The animal does not weigh or
reflect, but gives itself up without resistance to the sway of love,
which man often fondly imagines he can withstand or escape.
Of course, he who ventures at the outset to dispute man’s belonging to
the animal world at all, sees in an animal nothing more than a machine
which is moved and guided, stimulated to action, incited to sue for the
favour of the opposite sex, impelled to songs of rejoicing, provoked to
combat with rivals, by forces outside of itself; and, naturally enough,
he denies to such a machine all freedom and discretion, all conflict
between opposing motives, all emotional and intellectual life. Without
raising himself by thus claiming a monopoly of intelligent action, or
at least of intellectual freedom, he degrades the lower animals to
false creations of his own hollow vanity, suggesting that they lead a
seeming rather than a real life, and that they are without any of the
joys of existence.[62]
An exactly contrary position would be undoubtedly more just, as it
certainly is more accurate. Indeed, it is scarcely too much to say
that he who refuses to credit the lower animals with intelligence
raises anxiety on the score of his own, and that he who denies them
all emotional life has himself no experience of what emotional life
is. Whoever observes without prejudice is sooner or later forced to
admit that the mental activity of all animal beings, diverse as its
expression may be, is based upon the same laws, and that every animal,
within its own allotted life-circle and under the same circumstances,
thinks, feels, and acts like any other, and is not, in contrast to
man, impelled to quite definite actions by so-called higher laws. The
causes of the actions of animals may perhaps be termed laws, but, if
so, we must not forget that man is subject to the same. His intellect
may enable him to make some of these laws of nature subservient to his
purposes, to modify others, sometimes even to evade them, but never to
break or annul them.
Let me attempt to prove the correctness of these opinions by giving
examples to show how essentially the expressions of life in man and
in the lower animals may resemble each other, how both are alike
all-powerfully influenced by the most important of the laws of nature,
that which has for its aim, or its consequence, the continuance of
the species. Man and bird: how wide the gulf which separates them
and their lives! how vast the differences between their habits and
behaviour! Is there a power which can bridge over this gulf? Are
conditions conceivable which can incite them to essentially similar
expressions of life? We shall see.
The birds are more unreservedly dependent on the rotation of the
seasons than man is. “They sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather
into barns”, and they must perforce adapt themselves to the seasons if
they are to find sufficient food, if they are to live at all. Therefore
they blossom in spring, bring forth their fruits in summer, conceal
these and themselves in autumn, and rest in winter like the motherly
earth. The chapters of their life-history are closely bound up with the
seasonal progress of the year.
In this respect they are indeed governed by an iron law which, within
a certain limit, renders anything like freedom and caprice impossible.
But whither should spontaneity tend save to want and misery, to the
imperilling of their own lives and those of their young? So they bow
submissively to nature’s law, and enjoy, in consequence, a freedom
which we men might envy them, and should envy them, were we not more
capable of withdrawing ourselves from the influence of the seasons than
they. But do not we also blossom in spring, and rest in winter? And
must not we, too, bow before iron necessity?
If the birds are in bondage in certain respects, they preserve their
freedom and power of choice in others, and they exercise both more
joyously and unrestrainedly than man himself.
No bird voluntarily renounces the joys of love; very few evade the
bonds of marriage; but everyone seeks to attain to and enjoy love as
early as possible. Before it has laid aside its youthful dress the
young bird has learnt to recognize and respect the distinctions of
sex; much earlier than that, the young male fights with his fellows as
if in boyish wantonness; as soon as he is full-grown he woos ardently
and persistently some female of his own species. No male bird condemns
himself to bachelorhood, no female bird hardens her heart against a
deserving suitor. For lack of a mate, the male wanders restlessly and
aimlessly over land and sea; for a worthy mate the female forgets pain
and oppressive grief, however deep these may have been; for the wooer
who seems to her most worthy she breaks even her conjugal bonds.
Every female bird attains to the possession of a husband, but not
every male readily succeeds in gaining a wife. Even among birds so
great a good must be sought after and striven for. On an average,
there are more males than females, and many males are obliged to
suffer the severest misfortune which can befall them, and to live, at
least temporarily, unmated. For the great majority of birds, celibacy
is a state of torment from which they strive with all their strength
to escape. So they traverse wide tracts in search of a mate, seeking
diligently, and when they imagine they have found one, wooing with
equal ardour, whether she be maid, wife, or widow. If these wanderings
were usually fruitless, they would not take place so regularly as they
do.
In wooing their mates, the males exhaust all the charms with which
nature has endowed them. According to his species and capacity each
brings his best gifts into play, each seeks to show his best side, to
reveal all his amiability, to surpass in brilliance others of his kind.
This desire increases with the hope of fulfilment; his love intoxicates
him, throws him into ecstasies. The older he is the more remarkably
does he conduct himself, the more self-confident does he appear, the
more impetuously does he strive for the reward of love. The proverb,
“There are no fools like old fools”, does not apply in his case, for
it is but rarely that age condemns him to weakness and incapacity;
on the contrary, it strengthens all his capabilities and increases
his energy by mature experience. Little wonder then that at least the
younger females prefer the older males, and that these woo, if not more
ardently, at least more confidently than their younger rivals.
The means by which a male bird declares his love and conducts his
courtship are very various, but, naturally, they always accord with his
most prominent gifts. One woos with his song, another with his wings,
this one with his bill, and that with his foot; one displays all the
magnificence of his plumage, another some special decoration, and a
third some otherwise unused accomplishment. Serious birds indulge in
play and joke and dignified pranks; silent ones chatter, quiet ones
become restless, gentle ones combative, timid ones bold, cautious ones
careless: in short, all show themselves in an unwonted light. Their
whole nature appears changed, for all their movements are more active,
more excited than usual, and their conduct differs from their ordinary
behaviour in every respect; they are possessed by an intoxication
which increases the elasticity of their nature to such a degree that
no flagging is ever perceptible. They deprive themselves of sleep, or
reduce it to a minimum without weariness, and while awake they exert
all their powers to the utmost without fatigue.
All birds with a voice utter clear, articulate notes in their
courtship, and their song is nothing more than a supplication or
exultation of love. Our poet’s words:
“Hushed is the nightingale’s lay,
Which gladdened our hearts in spring;
’Tis only in love’s heyday
That we hear its minstrels sing”,
are literally true; for the song of the nightingale, and those of all
other birds which delight us with their lays, begin with the first
stirrings of love, and come to an end when the intoxication is past,
and other emotions and cares have taken its place. Singing, the bird
flies forth on his quest for a mate; in song he tells the female of
his approach, and invites her to join him; in passionate song he gives
expression to his delight when he has found her, and to his desires,
and longings, and hopes; through his song he reveals his strength, and
exalts his own bliss to the heavens; and through it, too, he challenges
all other males of his species who would presume to disturb his
happiness. Only so long as he is inspired by the intoxication of love
is the bird’s song full of fire and strength, and if he sing at other
times, his lay is certainly a reminiscence of the great joy which once
was his. Whoever maintains, as has really been maintained, that a bird
sings without any personal feeling whatever, that it sings at a given
time simply because it must, and that at another time it could not if
it would, has never understood, or sought to understand, the song of
birds, but has simply given petulant expression to his own prejudice.
A dispassionate observer must soon perceive that a bird’s song, though
it remains essentially the same, varies with every emotion, that it
flows quietly on, ascends, bursts out triumphantly, and dies away
again, according to the prevailing mood, and that it awakens an echo
in the breast of other males. If the view referred to were correct,
each bird would sing exactly like every other of the same species; it
would pour forth its appointed lay as mechanically as a musical box
emits the tunes plugged up in its rotating cylinder; none could change
or improve his song, or strive to surpass his fellows. Our own view
is exactly the opposite, for we are convinced that a bird sings with
perfect consciousness, that in his song he lays bare his soul. He is
a poet, who, within his own limits, invents, creates, and struggles
for utterance; and the motive throughout is love for the opposite sex.
Dominated by this love, the jay sings, whistles, and murmurs, the
magpie chatters, the croaking raven transforms its rough sounds into
gentle, soft notes, the usually silent grebe lets its voice be heard,
the diver sings its wild yet tuneful ocean-song, the bittern dips its
bill under water that the only cry at its command may become a dull,
far-sounding booming. A bird does indeed sing only at a certain season,
but it is not because it cannot do so at other times, but because it
has then no inducement, no inclination to sing. It is silent when it
no longer loves; to speak more prosaically, when the pairing-time
is past. This is clearly proved in the case of the familiar cuckoo.
Three-fourths of the year go by and its call is not once heard; spring
comes round in the revolution of the seasons and it sounds forth
almost incessantly from early morning till late in the evening, as
long as the pairing-time lasts. But it is silent sooner in the south
than in the north, sooner in the plains than in the mountains, exactly
corresponding to the brooding-time of the foster-parents, which begin
their nest-building earlier, and finish the rearing of their young
sooner in the south and in the plains than in the north and in the
highlands.
During courtship many birds supplement their vocal efforts by pleasing
movements, whether executed with the help of the wings or of the feet;
others by peculiar attitudes in which they display themselves, or
strut before the females; others, again, by special noises which they
produce.
While a few falcons, and all owls, express their desires chiefly, if
not exclusively, by means of loud cries, other birds of prey indulge,
either alone or in company with their mates, in a magnificent play
of wings, which is now a kind of round dance, and anon becomes a
perfect frenzy. Eagles, buzzards, peregrine falcons, kestrels, and
lesser kestrels circle round each other for hours at a time, ascend
spirally to giddy heights, exercise, obviously to their mutual pleasure
and satisfaction, all the arts of flight of which they are capable,
utter shrill cries from time to time, spread out their plumage in
the sunlight, and, finally, glide slowly down and assume a dignified
sitting posture, there to resume their caressings. Kites, which behave
in an essentially similar manner, let themselves suddenly down, with
half-closed wings, from a very considerable height, until they are
just over the ground, or a sheet of water, then begin, more quickly
than usual, to describe a series of curves, remain hovering for some
time over a particular spot, or execute other wonderful movements,
then slowly soar again to their former height. Harriers fly for some
time with apparent indifference behind the desired mate, then begin to
circle round her, describe with her a series of intersecting curves,
and, suddenly leaving her, soar, with head directed upwards, almost
perpendicularly up to a considerable height, increasing, at the same
time, the speed of their ordinarily leisurely flight to a surprising
rapidity; then, tumbling precipitately over, fall with almost closed
wings to near the ground, circle there once, twice, or oftener, ascend
again and proceed as before, till at last the female makes up her
mind to follow their example. But all these which we have mentioned
are surpassed by the bateleur, or mountebank, a harrier about the
size of an eagle, living in the interior of Africa, and one of the
most remarkable of birds of prey in form and behaviour (p. 188). Its
marvellous flight is at all times likely to attract the attention of
observers, but during the pairing-time this becomes an incomparable
mountebank performance in the air, a bewildering acrobatic display,
which seems to unite in itself all the arts of flight practised by the
other birds of prey.
Many other birds which are not specially skilful in flight act in much
the same way as the wooing birds of prey. That they call in the aid
of their wings when they strive to win the love of a mate, or wish to
express their delight in a possession already won, is intelligible
enough after what has been related. The swallow, sitting beside his
desired or chosen mate, eagerly warbles his melodious lay; but the
emotion within his breast is much too strong to allow him to sit still
during the progress of his song, so he flies upwards, singing in his
flight, and hovers and circles about the female who has followed him.
The goatsucker sits for a time lengthwise on a bough, often at some
distance from his mate, spins off his whirring strophes for some
minutes, then rises, flies about his mate in graceful curves, flapping
his wings, and calling to her such a tender “haït”, that one wonders
how a sound so soft can possibly be produced by his rough throat. The
bee-eater, whose voice is also unmelodious, sits for a long time on
his perch, pressing closely to his mate, uttering scarcely a sound,
sometimes none whatever, but apparently contenting himself with casting
tender glances from his beautiful bright red eyes; but he, too, takes
fire, moves his wings abruptly, rises high into the air, describes
a circle, utters a jubilant cry, and returns to his mate, who has
remained sitting where he left her. In the midst of its most ardent
love-song--call it cooing, murmuring, moaning, or what you will--the
dove breaks off suddenly as if inspired by its own music, then claps
its wings loudly and sharply several times, soars aloft, spreads its
wings and floats slowly down to a tree-top, there to begin its song
anew. Tree-pipits and rock-pipits, white-throats, and garden warblers
behave exactly like the doves; the wood-warblers precipitate themselves
from their high perches without ceasing to sing, fly up again to
another branch, where they finish their song, to begin it again a few
minutes later, and bring it to a conclusion with a similar play of
wings. Greenfinches, siskins, and common buntings, in the enthusiasm
of love, tumble through the air as if they had no control over their
wings; the larks soar to heaven singing their song of love; the serin
behaves as if it had taken lessons from a bat.
A similar intoxication possesses those birds which declare their love
by dancing. They, too, act contrary to all their usual habits during
the dance, and fall finally into a transport which makes them almost
forget the outside world. Few birds dance silently, most of them
utter peculiar sounds, never heard at other times, at the same time
displaying all their adornments, and often bringing the performance to
a close with a sort of round dance.
Particularly zealous dancers are the scratchers or fowls in the
widest acceptation of the term. Our domestic cock contents himself
with strutting proudly about, crowing and flapping his wings; his
companions in the yard, the peacock and the turkey, do more, for they
dance. Much more vigorous dancers than either of these are all the
grouse-like birds and some pheasants. Whoever has watched the dance of
the capercaillie in the grey morning hours, has listened to the liquid
cooing of the black-grouse, has seen the willow-grouse dancing on the
snowy plains of the tundra in the dusk of a northern spring, will agree
with me that such homage as these cocks offer to the hens must be as
irresistible as that paid by our own peacock when he transforms his
chief ornament into a canopy for his desired mate. More remarkable than
all the rest is the behaviour of the male tragopans or horned pheasants
of Southern Asia, magnificently decorative birds, distinguished by two
brightly-coloured horn-like tubes of skin on the sides of the head, and
by brilliantly-coloured extensible wattles. After the cock has walked
round the hen several times without appearing to pay any attention to
her, he stands still at a particular spot, and begins to bow. More
and more quickly the courtesies follow each other, the horns meantime
swelling and tossing, the wattles dilating and collapsing again, till
all are literally flying about the head of the love-crazed bird. Now
he unfolds and spreads his wings, rounds and droops his tail, sinks
down with bent feet, and, spitting and hissing, lets his wings sweep
along the ground. Suddenly every movement ceases. Bent low, his plumage
ruffled, his wings and tail pressed against the ground, his eyes
closed, his breathing audible, he remains for a while in motionless
ecstasy. His fully-unfolded decorations gleam with dazzling brightness.
Abruptly he rises again, spits and hisses, trembles, smooths his
feathers, scratches, throws up his tail, flaps his wings, jerks
himself up to his full height, rushes upon the female, and, suddenly
checking his wild career, appears before her in olympic majesty, stands
still for a moment, trembles, twitches, hisses, and all at once lets
all his glory vanish, smooths his feathers, draws in his horns and
wattles, and goes about his business as if nothing had happened.
With head slightly bent, with wings and tail spread out, the former
moving tremulously, the wagtails trip with dainty steps about their
chosen mates, bowing, advancing, and retreating again; the fire-finch
looks like a brilliant flame of incense as he turns about, singing
gaily and spreading his beautiful feathers in the sunlight, on the
top of an ear of the Kaffir millet, among which he and his loved one
have made their home; tenderly, with mouth pressed to mouth and breast
to breast, like the children of men, the dove and his mate together
execute a slow dance; the cranes dance passionately, with nimble leaps;
not less ardently, even in sight of apparently admiring spectators,
does the beautiful cock of the rock of Tropical America disport
himself; even the condor, whose powers of flight are of the first
order, who sails through the air thousands of feet above the highest
peaks of the Andes, whom one would scarcely expect to conduct his
wooing otherwise than with his wings, ventures on a little dance, and
with head sunk upon his breast, and with wings fully spread, circles
slowly and with mincing steps around his mate, to an accompaniment of
strange drumming, murmuring sounds.
Other birds, again, instead of dancing, spring impetuously up
and down, and hop hither and thither among the branches, at the
same time displaying whatever beauty they possess: thus, the male
birds-of-paradise assemble in crowds on certain trees during the early
morning hours, and with the aforesaid movements and tremulous quivering
of their wings, display their wonderful plumage in honour of the other
sex. Others even build bower-like structures, which they decorate with
all kinds of coloured, shimmering, and glittering objects, and within
which they perform their dances. Finally, a few birds with no special
accomplishments either of voice or of flight or of dance, make use of
their bills to produce singular sounds. Thus all the storks woo by
quickly clapping the two halves of the bill together, so producing
a clatter which makes up for their lack of voice; thus, too, the
woodpeckers hammer so fast on a dry tree-top or branch that the wood
flies about in splinters, and a drumming sound is caused which resounds
throughout the forest.
[Illustration: Fig. 40.--The Strutting of the Tragopan in Pairing-time.]
Although it cannot be said that the female coquettishly repels any
advances and declarations of love, it is only in cases of necessity
that she accepts a suitor without exercising selection. At first she
listens to the tenderest love-songs apparently with the greatest
indifference, and looks on unconcernedly at all the play of wings,
the dances executed in her honour, and all the beauty displayed to
do her homage. For the most part she behaves as if all the display
of fascinations on the part of the males had no relation to her at
all. Leisurely, and seemingly quite uninterested in their doings, she
goes about her daily business of seeking food. In many, though by
no means in all cases, she is ultimately enticed by the song in her
glorification, the dances to her praise, but by no action does she give
a sign of complaisant response. Many female birds, especially the hens
of all polygamous species, do not even come to the “playing” grounds
of the cocks, though they are anything but coy, and often by their
inviting cries inflame the strutting cocks to the height of passion.
If a male becomes more importunate than is agreeable to the female she
takes refuge in flight. In very rare cases this may perhaps be meant in
earnest, but it is usually continued with such energy and persistence
that it is not always easy to determine whether it takes place without
any secondary intention or whether it is merely a pretence. If it
aims at nothing, it certainly achieves something: a heightening of
the desire, a straining to the utmost of all the powers and resources
of the wooing male. More excited than ever, regardless of all
considerations, and bent only on attaining his object, he pursues the
flying female as if he meant to force her to grant his suit; he sings
with more fire, struts, dances, and plays with more agility than ever,
and exercises his arts of flight whenever the female stops to rest, and
more eagerly than ever he follows her if she takes to fresh flight.
Probably the females would be more compliant than they generally are if
one male were the only suitor. But the fact that the males are in most
species in the majority gives the female bird the boon of freedom of
choice. Several males, sometimes even a considerable number of them,
pay court to her at the same time, and thus justify her deliberation
and selectiveness. Intentionally or unintentionally, she obeys the
law of selection; among several she tries to pick out the best, the
strongest, the healthiest, the most excellent in every respect.[63] She
can afford to be fastidious. The reaction of her conduct on the males
finds expression in boundless jealousy, which results, not unnaturally,
in prolonged, often mortal, combat. Every bird, harmless as he may
appear to us, is a hero in fighting for his loved one, and everyone
understands so well how to use the weapons he is provided with, whether
bill, claws, spurred feet, or even wings armed with horny spines, that
the battle in many cases comes to an end only with the death of one of
the combatants.
The combat takes place in the air, on the ground, among the branches,
or in the water, according to the species of bird. Eagles and falcons
fight their adversaries in the air with beak and talons. Magnificent
curves, rival flights to attain to a height suitable for attack, swift
thrust, brilliant parry, mutual persecution and courageous persistence
are the chief features of such duels. If one of the kingly champions
succeeds in seizing his foe, the latter strikes his talons into his
opponent’s breast, and both, unable properly to use their wings, fall
whirling through the air. When the ground is reached the fight is,
of course, interrupted; but, as soon as one rises, the other follows
him, and hostilities begin anew. If one becomes exhausted, perhaps in
consequence of wounds received, he beats a retreat, and, hotly pursued
by the victor, flies hastily and without attempting resistance, beyond
the limits of the domain which the female bird has chosen for herself;
but, in spite of defeat, he does not finally relinquish the strife
until she has declared decidedly in favour of the conqueror. Such duels
sometimes, though not very often, have a fatal issue, for the eagle,
whose jealousy is provoked by love and ambition, shows no mercy towards
a conquered foe, but remorselessly kills the adversary who has been
incapacitated for further combat or for flight. Even those apparently
most harmless creatures, the swifts, occasionally kill their rivals,
for in their struggles, which are precisely like those of the eagles
and falcons, they strike their sharp claws into the breasts of their
foes, and tear the flesh so that the death of the wounded one often
results.
Among all birds with voices the combat is preceded by a definite
challenge. Even the song of a singing bird is a weapon with which
he may gain a bloodless victory; the pairing-cry, which so well
expresses wooing, always excites jealousy. Whoever can imitate the
call of the cuckoo may entice the usually cautious bird to the very
tree under which he is standing. Whoever can adequately mimic the
complex whistle of the golden oriole, the cooing of the wild pigeon and
turtle-dove, the drumming of the woodpeckers--in a word, the wooing
song or call-note of any bird--may achieve a similar result. When a
second suitor appears on the scene he announces his arrival by calling
or singing. But he soon proceeds to action; and thenceforward there
rages between him and his rival a strife as violent as those already
described. In mad fury, calling, screaming, and screeching, one chases
the other hither and thither, high in mid-air or in lower strata of the
atmosphere, between tree-tops or among the bushes, and just as in the
pursuit of the female, so in this chase one male provokes the other to
passionate rage by challenging calls, and even by song, by displaying
his decorations, and by other mocking behaviour. If the pursuer
succeeds in catching his flying foe, he pecks him so hard with his bill
that the feathers fly about; if he lets him go, the pursued one turns
in a trice and renews the attack; if neither gives way they maul one
another thoroughly, whether they are in the air, among the branches, or
on the ground. Among them, too, the struggle is finally abandoned only
when the female declares for one or other of the combatants.
[Illustration: Fig. 41.--Cock Chaffinches Fighting.]
Ground-birds always fight on the ground, swimming-birds only in the
water. How obstinately the gallinaceous birds may do battle is known
to everyone who has watched two cocks fighting. Their duels, too, are
a matter of life and death, though a fatal result does not often take
place except when the natural weapons have been sharpened and the means
of protection weakened by man’s cruel interference. Rival ostriches
fight with their strong legs, and, striking forwards, tear deep wounds
with their sharp toe-nails in the breast, body, and legs of their
opponent. Jealous bustards, after spending a long time challenging
each other with throat inflated, wings and tail outspread, and much
grumbling and hissing, make use of their bills with very considerable
effect. Sandpipers and other shore-birds, particularly the fighting
ruffs, which fight about everything, about a mate or about a fly, about
sun and light, or about their standing-ground, run against each other
with bills like poised lances, and receive the thrusts among their
breast-feathers, which in the case of the ruffs are developed into what
serves as a shield. Coots rush at each other on an unsteady surface of
water-plants, and strike each other with their legs. Swans, geese, and
ducks chase each other till one of the combatants succeeds in seizing
the other by the head and holding him under water, till he is in danger
of suffocating, or at least until he is so much exhausted that he is
unable to continue the struggle. Swans, like spur-winged birds, seem
also to use the hard, sharp, thorn-like horny quills at the angle of
the wing to give effective strokes.
As long as the female has not decided for either of the combatants, she
takes no part in such struggles, does not appear even to be interested,
though she must observe them closely, as she usually declares for the
winner, or at least accepts his suit. How her decision or declaration
is actually brought about I cannot say, I cannot even guess. While
the battles described are in progress she makes her choice, and
from thenceforward she gives herself unreservedly to the favoured
male, follows him wherever he goes, accepts his demonstrations of
affection with obvious pleasure, and returns his caresses with the
most self-forgetting tenderness. She calls longingly after him, greets
him joyously, and submits unresistingly to his desires and fondlings.
Parrot pairs sit with their bodies closely pressed together, though
hundreds may have settled on the same tree; the most complete unison
is observable in all their doings; they are as if guided by one will.
Does the husband take food, the wife takes it too; does he seek a new
perch, she follows him; does he utter a cry, she joins her voice to
his. Caressingly they nestle in each other’s plumage, and the passive
female willingly offers head and neck to the eager male, thus to
receive proofs of his tenderness. Every other female bird receives the
caresses of her mate with similar, if somewhat less obvious devotion.
She knows neither moods nor vexatious humours, neither sulking nor
anger, neither scolding nor upbraiding, neither displeasure nor
discontent--nothing but love, tenderness, and devotion, while the male
thinks of nothing but his happiness in his newly-acquired treasure,
and has no desire but to retain it. While he sometimes arranges or
decides for her, he yields to the wishes of his mate; when she rises,
he, too, leaves his perch; when she wanders abroad, he follows her;
when she returns, he also comes back to the home of his youth. Little
wonder that the wedlock of birds is happy and blameless. If the birds
united for life grow old themselves, their love does not grow old with
them, but remains ever young; and every spring-time fresh oil is poured
upon the flame; their mutual tenderness does not diminish during the
longest wedded life. Both mates faithfully take their share of the
domestic cares at the time of nest-building, hatching the eggs, and
bringing up the young. The male devotedly assists the female in all the
labours required by their brood; he defends her courageously, and will
unhesitatingly rush into obvious danger, even to death, to rescue her.
In a word, from the beginning of their union they share each other’s
joys and sorrows, and, except in unusual circumstances, this intimate
bond lasts throughout life. There is no lack of direct evidence in
proof of this. Keen-eyed naturalists, who have observed certain birds
for many successive years, and have at length come to know them so well
that they could not confuse them with others of the same species, have
given us their guarantee for the birds’ devotion, and all of us who
have given special attention to the birds which have come under our
notice must be led to the same conclusion. A pair of storks on the roof
of a house give the owner so many opportunities for observing them and
distinguishing them from other storks that error is almost out of the
question; and whoever watches his storks will find that the same pair
occupy the nest every year as long as both live. And every naturalist
or sportsman, who carefully notes wandering bird-pairs, or shoots them
if the differences of sex are not readily distinguishable, will find
that they are really male and female. In the course of my travels in
Africa I often saw pairs of migrating birds which there, too, lived in
the close fellowship so characteristic of bird-wedlock, and were as
inseparable as in the thicket at home, doing all and enduring all in
common. Pairs of booted eagles were easily recognizable as mates even
when they travelled or took shelter in company with others of their
species; the whistling swans which I saw on the Menzaleh Lake in Egypt
appeared in pairs and flew away again in pairs; all the other united
pairs which I observed on my way illustrated the same habit. That they
share misfortunes as well as pleasures together, I learned from a pair
of storks I observed on a pool in South Nubia, to whom my attention
was attracted because they were there at a time long after all others
of their species had sought a refuge in the interior of Africa. To
discover the cause of this prolonged stay I had them shot, and I found
that the female had a broken wing which prevented her travelling
farther, and that the male, himself thoroughly sound, had remained,
for love of her, in a region where all the conditions of comfortable
wintering were awanting. The close and faithful bond between pairing
birds is severed only by death.
This is the rule, but it is subject to exceptions. Even among
monogamous birds unfaithfulness occurs sometimes, though rarely.
Firmly as the females are wont to keep faith with their mates, and
little as they are inclined to cast furtive glances at other males,
or even to accept them as friends when they obtrude themselves, the
specially brilliant gifts of some stranger may exercise a seductive
influence. A master-singer who far surpasses the husband in song, an
eagle who excels in all or at least in many respects the one selected
by a female, may seriously disturb the happiness of a nightingale
or eagle marriage, may perhaps even entice the female away from her
rightful spouse. This is evidenced by the bachelors who fly about
before and during the brooding-time, intruding audaciously into the
domain of a wedded pair and boldly sueing for the favour of the female,
and by the jealous fights which begin at once between the lawful
husband and the intruder, and which are usually fought out without
the aid of the female. The conduct of a suddenly widowed female, who
not only immediately consoles herself by pairing again, but sometimes
even accepts the assassin of her first mate, points, at least to a
certain extent, in the same direction. On the roof of the manor of
Ebensee, near Erfürt, there brooded for years a pair of storks who,
though they lived in complete harmony, were never without contests,
suffering perpetually from the intrusion of strangers, who attempted
to get possession of nest and female. One spring there came upon the
scene a male who far surpassed all previous suitors in assertiveness
and persistence, and forced the paterfamilias to be always fighting,
or at least to be constantly on the watch. One day, wearied with his
struggles, he sat upon the nest apparently asleep, with his head
under his wing, when suddenly the intruder swooped down upon him,
transfixed him with his bill, and hurled him lifeless from the roof.
And the widow? She did not drive the infamous assassin from her, but
unhesitatingly allowed him to fill his victim’s place, and went on with
her brooding as if nothing had happened.
This and the facts already mentioned are not to the credit of the
females, but I should like to emphasize that they are so much
outweighed by the evidence on the other side, that they must be
considered as exceptions which prove the rule. And if the females
should be judged apparently or actually guilty, it must not be
forgotten that the males, with far more reason to be faithful than
the less numerous females, sometimes forget their conjugal ties.
Whoever thoroughly knows pigeons, which are erroneously regarded as
the type of all conceivable virtues, is aware that they are far from
deserving the reputation which has been handed down in the legends of
the ancients. Their tenderness is captivating, but it is not constant;
their faithfulness to wife and children is extolled, but it does not
stand a test. Quite apart from their unfatherliness, the male pigeons
are only too often guilty of transgressions against the inviolable
laws of marriage, and not seldom employ the time in which their mates
are brooding in dallying with other females. Drakes are even more
blamable, and the male red-legged partridges are no better. As soon
as the ducks have settled down to brood, the drakes assemble and pass
the time together as best they can, leaving their mates to toil, and
worry, and undertake all the cares for the coming generation, and only
returning to the ducks, perhaps not to their own mates, when the young
have grown big and self-reliant and no longer need their help. But
the red-legged partridges, and probably our partridges also, during
the pairing-time, put in an appearance wherever another cock announces
himself in order to fight a round with him, and they are often allured
and killed by the Spaniards, with the help of tame cocks of their own
species. Later, however, when brooding has begun and they have no
longer any inclination to fight, they respond to the call of the hens,
if possible, more readily than before.
But, as has been said, such cases form exceptions to the rule, and
cannot be compared in any way with what occurs among polygamous birds.
Many have tried in vain to explain the polygamy of cowbirds, cuckoos,
pheasants, woodcocks, turkeys, quails, peacocks, and ruffs, but as
yet no satisfactory explanation has been offered. To say that the
cuckoo and its nearest relations do not brood nor live in wedlock
and rear their own offspring because they must always be ready to
direct their flight towards a caterpillar horde, wherever that may
appear, is to talk at large, not to explain--for the cowbirds, too,
intrust their brood to the care of foster-parents; and with regard to
the supposition that polygamy, occurring among a few exceptionally
persecuted species of fowl, is a provision of Nature for securing to
these a numerous progeny, it is difficult to see why that end might not
have been attained in the same way as among other fowls, which, though
monogamous, are not less prolific.[64]
While employing the expression polygamy, I am quite aware that it is
usual to speak of plurality of wives among birds. Such a state is
unknown to me, and its existence, to my knowledge, is not corroborated
by any observations of indisputable accuracy. For the passion is
mutual, and the longing of the females is as boundless as that of
the males. The female cuckoo mates with one male to-day and another
to-morrow, may indeed bestow her affections on several in the course
of an hour, and the hen yields herself to one cock as readily as to
another. It is simply out of the question to talk of mating among
them at all. The males only concern themselves temporarily about the
females, and the females about the males; each sex goes its own way,
even separating entirely from the other, and taking no interest in
its lot beyond the limits of the pairing-time. Boundless desire, and
consequently excessive jealousy, imperious demands submissively acceded
to, mad wooing readily accepted, and thereafter complete indifference
towards each other, are the main characteristics of the intercourse
between the sexes of these birds. These explain, too, the fact that
among them much oftener than among other birds crossing takes place,
and mongrels or hybrids are produced, which lead a miserable existence,
and either pine away without progeny, or, by mating with the true
offspring of the race, lead back to the type again. Cross-pairing does
indeed occur among other, that is monogamous, birds, but only when
the absence of a mate of their own species impels them to seek one of
another; whereas among polygamous birds chance and tempting opportunity
seem as determinative as such a dilemma.
It may be necessity, the absolute necessity of providing for the brood
just hatched or still slumbering within the egg, which compels the
female of monogamous birds to change her widowhood for a new alliance
more quickly than the male can console himself for the loss of his
wife. Whether her grief is really less than the widower’s may be
doubted, emphatically against her though appearances are. Other female
birds act exactly like the stork on the Ebensee. A pair of magpies
brooding in our garden were to be killed because we feared for the
safety of the numerous singing-birds which we protected and encouraged
in the same garden. At seven o’clock in the morning the male bird was
shot, and barely two hours later the female had taken another mate;
in an hour he too fell a victim; at eleven o’clock the female had
contracted a third alliance. The same thing would have occurred again,
but that the alarmed female, with her last-annexed mate, flew away from
the garden. One spring my father shot a cock partridge; the hen flew
up, but soon alighted and was immediately wooed by another cock, whom
she accepted without more ado. Tchusi-Schmidthofen took away no fewer
than twenty males from the nest of a black redstart within eight days,
and only then left the twenty-times widowed and just as often consoled
bird to the undisturbed enjoyment of her connubial bliss.
Exactly the opposite of such apparent inconstancy is seen in the case
of a male bird that has lost his mate. Screaming loudly, complaining
piteously, demonstrating his grief by voice and actions, he flies
about the corpse of his loved one, touches it perhaps with his bill
as though he would move it to rise and fly away with him, raises anew
his heart-rending cries, which are intelligible even to man; wanders
within his range from place to place, pausing awhile, calling, coaxing,
and complaining, now in one favourite spot, now in another; neglects
to take food, throws himself angrily on other males of his species
as if he envied them their happiness and would make them share his
own misfortune; finds no rest anywhere, begins without finishing, and
acts without knowing what he does. So he goes on for days, perhaps
weeks, in succession, and often he remains as long as possible on the
scene of his misfortune, without making any expeditions in search of
a fresh mate.[65] Certain species, by no means only those parrots so
appropriately named “inseparables”, but finches and others, even horned
owls, after such a severe blow lose all joy in life, mourn quietly, and
literally pine away until released by death.
One of the chief causes, if not the sole cause, of such deep grief may
be the great difficulty, sometimes the impossibility, of finding and
winning another mate. The female has often no time for grief, for,
sooner or later, sometimes immediately, new suitors appear and so
overwhelm her with attention and tenderness that she must let herself
be consoled whether she will or not. And if, in addition, anxiety about
her brood fills her motherly heart, all other thoughts give place to
that, and no room is left for enduring grief. But if she, too, has a
difficulty in replacing her loss, she expresses her sorrow no less
distinctly than the male. But sometimes she does even more, for she may
voluntarily forego a new alliance. A sparrow widow, carefully observed
by my father, though she had eggs to hatch, and, later, young ones
to rear, accepted none of her suitors but remained unmated, and fed
her clamouring brood alone with indescribable toil. Another touching
incident proving the grief of widowed birds is vouched for by Eugen
von Homeyer. The wedded bliss of a pair of storks, nesting on the roof
of that experienced naturalist’s house, was brought to a sudden end by
one of those detestable bird-shooters or would-be sportsmen who killed
the male. The sorrowing widow fulfilled her maternal duties without
choosing another mate, and migrated in autumn to Africa with her brood
and others of her species. The following spring she reappeared on
the old nest, unmated as she had left. She was much wooed, but drove
all suitors away with vicious digs of her bill; she mended her nest
busily, but only to preserve her right to occupy it. In autumn she
migrated with the rest, returning in spring, and proceeding as before.
This occurred eleven years in succession. In the twelfth, another pair
attempted to take forcible possession of her nest; she fought bravely
for her property, but did not attempt to secure it by taking another
mate. The nest was seized, and she remained single. The interlopers
retained and made use of the nest, and the rightful owner was seen
no more, but, as afterwards transpired, she passed the whole summer
alone in a district about ten miles distant. Scarcely had the other
storks departed, when she returned to her nest, spent a few days in it,
and then set out on her journey. She was known throughout the whole
district as “the solitary”, and her misfortune and behaviour won for
her the friendly sympathy of all kind-hearted men.
And such behaviour is only the movement of a machine obedient to some
external guiding force? All these expressions of a warm and living
emotion which we have depicted occur without consciousness? Believe
that who can, maintain it who will. We believe and maintain the
opposite; the conscious happiness of the love and wedded life of birds
appears to us worthy of our envy.
APES AND MONKEYS.
Sheikh Kemal el Din Demiri, a learned Arab, who died at Damascus about
the year 1405, according to our reckoning, relates in his book, _Heiat
el Heivan_; or, _The Life of Animals_, the following wonderful story,
which is based on one of the Prophet’s utterances:--
“Long before Mohammed, the Prophet and Messenger of God the
All-merciful, had kindled the light of Faith, before Issa or Jesus
of Nazareth had lived and taught, the town Aila, on the Red Sea, was
inhabited by a numerous population who professed the Jewish faith.
But they were sinners and unrighteous in the eyes of the Lord, for
they desecrated continually the sacred day of the All-merciful, the
Sabbath. In vain did pious and wise men warn the sinful inhabitants
of the godless city; they disregarded the command of the Almighty
as before. Then those who had warned them forsook the unholy place,
shook the dust off their feet, and resolved to serve Elohim elsewhere.
But, after three days had passed, the longing for home and friends
drove them back to Aila. There a wonderful sight met their gaze. The
gates of the town were shut, but the battlements of the walls were
unguarded, so that they were not hindered from climbing over them. But
the streets and market-place of the unhappy town were deserted. Where
formerly the restless sea of human life had surged and swelled, where
buyers and sellers, priests and officials, artisans and fishermen, had
mingled in a motley throng, gigantic baboons now sat and crouched,
ran and climbed; and from the windows and recesses, the terraces and
roofs, where dark-eyed women had tarried, she-baboons now looked
down upon the streets. And all the giant monkeys and their comely
mates were sad and downcast, and they gazed with troubled eyes on the
returned pilgrims, pressing closely to them with complaining moans and
prayerful cries. With surprise and sadness the pious pilgrims gazed
upon the strange sight, until to one of them came the comfortless
thought that these might be their former relatives degraded to
monkeys. To make certain, the wise man went straight to his own house.
In the door of it, likewise, there sat a baboon; but this one, when
he saw the righteous man, cast his eyes with pain and shame to the
ground. ‘Tell me, by Allah the All-merciful, O Baboon,’ said the wise
man, ‘art thou my son-in-law Ibrahim?’ And sadly the baboon answered,
‘Eva, Eva’ (I am). Then all doubt vanished from the mind of the pious
man, and he recognized that, by God’s heavy judgment, the impious
Sabbath-breakers had been transformed into ‘monkeys’.”
Sheikh Kemal el Din does not indeed venture to call this miracle in
question, but as a thinking man he cannot refrain from expressing the
opinion that perhaps the baboons may have existed before there were any
Jews.
We, for our part, prettily imagined and related as the story is,
accept this interpretation the more readily, that the apes with which
the pious zealots of Aila may have had to do are old acquaintances of
ours. For in Arabia there occur only the Hamadryas or sacred baboons;
and we find the same excellently depicted on very ancient Egyptian
monuments. It was the arrangement of their hair which appeared to the
ancient Egyptians so remarkable that they chose it as a model for their
sphinxes; while to this day it serves as a pattern for the coiffure of
the dusky beauties of the Eastern Soudan. The sacred baboon holds a
very important place in ancient Egyptian theology, as we learn, among
other things, from Horapollon, interpreter of hieroglyphs. According
to him the monkey was kept in the temples and embalmed after death.
He was considered the inventor of writing, and was therefore not only
sacred to Thoth or Mercury, the founder of all science, but a near
relative of the Egyptian priests, and, on his ceremonious entrance into
the sanctuary, he was subjected to an examination, in which the priest
thrust a writing tablet, ink, and pen into his hand, and called upon
him to write, that they might see whether he were worthy to be received
or not. It was also maintained that he stood in secret relations with
the moon, and that the latter exercised an extraordinary influence over
him; and, finally, he was credited with the faculty of dividing time in
so obvious a manner, that Trismegistus took his actions as the model
after which he constructed his water-clock, which, like the monkey,
divided day and night into twelve equal parts.
It is worthy of note that, while the ancient Egyptians regarded a
relationship with the monkeys as probable, they did not deem it
possible that they should be descended from a monkey stock. Such a view
of the degree of relationship between man and monkey is first met with
among the Indians. From very ancient times until the present day there
has prevailed among them a belief that at least a few royal families
are descended from one of the sacred monkeys, the Hanumân or Entellus,
which, in India, is held as sacred, in a certain sense even as divine,
and that the souls of departed kings return to the bodies of these
monkeys. One of the reigning families, in particular, shows its pride
in this descent through its adopted title of honour--“tailed Rana”.[66]
[Illustration: Fig. 42.--Entellus Monkeys (_Semnopithecus Entellus_).]
Similar views to those prevailing among the Indians have come into
vogue among ourselves in recent times, and the monkey question, which I
should like to discuss shortly, yet so as to be generally understood,
has raised much dust. A scientific question, of little general interest
to the laity, has not only fanned pious anger to blazing flames, but
has divided serious naturalists into two different parties who defend
their respective positions with excited warmth. Circles, altogether
alien to scientific investigation, have taken up the strife, without
knowing or suspecting its real import and bearing, have even carried
it into realms where it could only be productive of mischief, and have
thereby caused a confusion which will not readily be cleared up. To
discuss monkeys at all has therefore become a bold undertaking, for,
in speaking of them, one runs a risk either of degrading the reputed
ancestor, or, through him, of offending the supposed descendants--to
say nothing of the inevitable abuse of the most pitiable kind which
ill-mannered fanatics, blindly struggling against the spirit of the
age, hurl at him who ventures to utter the word monkey. Nevertheless,
the monkey question will not readily disappear from the order of the
day; for these animals, so evidently our nearest relatives in the
animal kingdom, are much too deserving of our sympathy, to allow of our
being deterred by sentimental considerations from investigating their
life and habits and comparing them with our own, that we may so enlarge
our knowledge at once of monkeys and of men.
The following is a contribution to such knowledge:-
A general life-picture such as I wish to sketch is not easily condensed
into few words, since the different species of monkeys vary so widely.
There are about four hundred, or, at any rate, considerably more
than three hundred species, and they inhabit every part of the world
with the single exception of Australia; but they are found chiefly
in the countries within the tropics. In America their range extends
from twenty-eight degrees of southern latitude to the Caribbean Sea;
in Africa it stretches from thirty-five degrees southern latitude
to the Straits of Gibraltar; in Europe their occurrence is limited
to the Rock of Gibraltar, where, from time immemorial, a troop of
about twenty magots or Barbary macaques have existed, and are now
protected and preserved by the garrison of the Fort.[67] Forests and
rocky mountains, which they ascend to a height of more than 8000
feet, are their favourite habitats. In such places they remain, with
the exception of a few species, year in year out, giving heed to the
rotation of the seasons only to the extent of undertaking more or less
extensive expeditions through the forest in search of ripening fruits,
or ascending the mountains at the beginning of the warm season, and
descending again before cold weather sets in; for, though they may be
met with even in snow-covered regions, they are as fond of warmth
as they are of abundant and varied diet. Something to bite and crack
there must be if they are to remain permanently or for any length of
time in a place; failing that, they shift their quarters. Woods in
the neighbourhood of human settlements are to them a paradise; the
forbidden tree therein troubles them not at all. Maize and sugar-cane
fields, orchards, banana, plantain, and melon plantations they regard
as their rightful and peculiar feeding-grounds, and districts where
they are protected by the piety of the inhabitants they also consider
very agreeable places of abode.
All monkeys, with perhaps the exception of the so-called anthropoid
apes, live in bands of considerable strength under the leadership
of an old male. The occupant of this post of dignity rises to it by
recognized all-round ability; the strongest arms and longest teeth
decide the matter. While among those mammals which are led by a
female member of the herd the rest obey willingly, the monkey-leader
is an absolute despot of the worst type, who compels his subjects to
unconditional obedience. If anyone refuses submission, he is brought to
a sense of his duty by bites, pinchings, and blows. The monkey-leader
requires the most slavish submission from all the monkeys of his herd,
females as well as males. He shows no chivalry towards the weaker
sex--“In Sturm erringt er der Minne Sold”.
His discipline is strict, his will unbending. No young monkey dare
presume to make love to one of the females of his herd; no female
may venture to show favour to any male except himself. He rules
despotically over his harem, and his seed, like that of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, is like the sand of the sea-shore for multitude.
If the herd becomes too large, a troop separates itself, under the
leadership of a full-grown male, to form a new community. Till then
the leader is obeyed by all, and is as much honoured as feared. Old
experienced mothers, as well as young scarcely grown-up females, strive
to flatter him; exerting themselves especially to show him continually
that highest favour one monkey can render to another--cleansing his
hairy coat from all things not appertaining thereto. He, on his part,
accepts such homage with the demeanour of a pasha whose favourite
slave tickles his feet. The esteem which he has been able to evoke
gives him confidence and dignity of bearing; the battles in which
he has constantly to take part give him watchfulness, courage, and
self-control; the necessity of maintaining his authority develops
circumspection, astuteness, and cunning. These qualities are certainly
used in the first place for his own advantage, but the rest of the
community also benefit by them, and his unchallenged supremacy thus
receives some justification and stability. Ruled and guided by him, the
herd, though violent storms may rage within it, leads on the whole a
very secure, and therefore a comfortable life.
All monkeys, except the few nocturnal species, are active by day and
rest at night. Some time after sunrise they awake from sleep. Their
first business is to sun and clean themselves. If the night is cold
and inhospitable, they attempt to improve their comfortless couch by
thronging together in a heap, or rather a cluster; but are still so
cold in the morning that a long sun-bath seems absolutely necessary. As
soon as the dew is dry, they leave their sleeping-places, climb to the
tree-top or to the highest point of the rock, select a sunny seat, and
leisurely turn themselves about on it till every part of their bodies
has been exposed to the sun. When the fur is dried and thoroughly warm
it is ready for cleaning, and each monkey sets to work eagerly and
carefully, or requests and receives from one of his fellows the service
which he, in his turn, is always ready to do to others.
When the fur has been cleaned, and, if necessary, brushed into
sleekness, the monkeys begin to think of breakfast. This presents no
difficulty, for they refuse nothing that is edible, and a tax is levied
on the animal and the vegetable kingdom alike. Forest and mountainous
districts afford fruits, leaf and flower buds, birds’ nests with eggs
or young, snails and grubs; gardens yield fruit and vegetables, fields
supply cereals and pulses. Here a ripening ear is broken off, there a
juicy fruit is gathered, in the tree a bird’s nest is plundered, on the
ground a stone is turned over, in a settlement a garden is stripped or
a field robbed, and something is carried away from all. If he has time,
every single monkey destroys ten times as much as he eats, and can
therefore very materially damage the produce of the farmer, gardener,
or fruit-grower. At the beginning of an expedition each monkey, in
his anxiety to secure himself a meal whatever may happen, devours
almost indiscriminately whatever he can reach; then, if he possesses
cheek-pouches, he stuffs these as full as possible; but as soon as his
most pressing necessities are relieved, he selects and criticises every
bite, carefully examining and smelling every fruit he plucks, every ear
he breaks, before eating it, and indeed in most cases simply throwing
one thing after another carelessly away to seize something different,
which as often as not is rejected in its turn. “We sow, and the monkeys
reap,” the inhabitants of the Eastern Soudan complained to me, and
with justice. Against thieves like these, neither fence nor wall, lock
nor bolt, are sufficient protection; they climb the first, and open
the last; and what they cannot eat they carry away. It is at once
amusing and painful to watch them feeding, for then, as at all times,
their behaviour is a mixture of boldness and artfulness, bravado and
cunning, love of enjoyment and caution, and indeed also of trickery and
spitefulness, impudence and malevolence. All their skill and dexterity
is brought into play when an undertaking seems dangerous. They run,
climb, leap, if need be even swim to overcome obstacles; but in no case
do they forget their care for their individual safety. The commander
always leads the way, and coaxes, calls, chides, warns, cries, scolds,
and punishes as seems to him good; the herd follows and obeys, but
without ever entirely trusting him. In danger every member of the
herd looks out for its own safety, rejoining the leader after that is
assured; the mothers with a young one at their breasts, or on their
backs, are an exception, for they are, or seem to be, less concerned
about their own safety than that of their child.
When their expeditions are not attended with danger they often rest,
and give the young ones opportunity to amuse themselves together; but
when there is any danger they finish their expedition and then enjoy
a period of rest and relaxation, during which they often indulge in
a siesta to help their digestion. In the afternoon they set out on
another foraging expedition; towards sundown they repair to their
usual sleeping-place, which is as far as possible out of the reach of
beasts of prey, and, after prolonged wrangling and disputing, scolding
and brawling, they seek their well-earned rest.
Apart from occasional compulsory or apparently profitable migrations,
the order of the day above described suffers little change.
Reproduction, which brings about such marked changes in the lives
of other animals, has very little influence on that of the monkeys,
for it is limited to no special time, and the mothers carry their
young ones with them wherever they go. The young ones, of which
most species produce only one at a birth, come into the world as
well-developed creatures, with open eyes, but according to our ideas
they are extremely ugly, and, notwithstanding their comparatively
advanced development, very helpless creatures.[68] They appear ugly
because their wrinkled faces and wide open, lively eyes give them the
expression of an old man, and their short hair makes their long fore
limbs look longer than they really are; they show themselves helpless
in that they can make no use of these limbs except to attach themselves
to their mother’s breast. Here they hang, with arms and hands round her
neck, legs and feet round her hips, without seeming to move anything
but their heads for weeks together, and the mother is therefore able,
without being appreciably burdened, to go about her ordinary affairs,
and wanders as usual along the most breakneck paths, or indulges in
the boldest leaps. After some time, rarely within a month, the little
ones begin to attempt some movements, but perform them so awkwardly
that they excite pity rather than laughter. Perhaps because of this
very helplessness, the little monsters are watched and handled by their
mothers with such tenderness that the expression “monkey-love” is fully
justified. Every monkey mother finds constant occupation in looking
after her baby. Now she licks it, now cleans its coat, now lays it to
her breast, now holds it in both hands as if she wished to feast her
eyes on it, and now she rocks it as if to lull it to sleep. If she
sees that she is watched she turns away, as if she grudged anyone else
a sight of her darling. When it is older and able to move about it is
sometimes allowed to leave its mother’s breast for a little, and to
play with others like itself, but it remains meanwhile under strict
control, and, if it does not obey instantly, is punished with slaps
and pinches. The maternal care extends even to the food. Greedy as the
mother generally is, she divides every bite with her young one, yet she
does not allow it to hurt itself by too hasty or immoderate eating, but
interferes, in such a case, with motherly prudence. But there is rarely
any necessity for such interference or for severe punishment, for the
monkey-child is obedient enough to be held up as an example to many a
human one. Very touching is the conduct of the mother when her little
one is obviously suffering; if it dies she is in despair. For hours,
even days, she carries the little corpse about with her, refuses all
nourishment, sits indifferently in the same spot, and often literally
pines to death.[69] The young monkey itself is incapable of such deep
grief, and it is also better taken care of than most other animals if
it loses its mother. For the next best member of the band, whether male
or female, possessed by that love of mothering something, which is
strong in all monkeys, takes charge of the little orphan and caresses
it warmly. Unfortunately, however, the foster-parent is often at war
with its better self about its beloved food, and it may leave a young
one, not old enough to help itself, to pine with hunger, perhaps even
to die of starvation.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to say anything of general
application about the talents of monkeys, because these vary as
widely as the animals themselves. Some traits are indeed common to
all, but most of their characteristics vary considerably in the
different species. A disposition which in one is scarcely observable is
pronounced in another, a trait which is prominent here is sought for
in vain there. But if we compare the different families, groups, and
species together, we shall observe a surprising, because unsuspected
gradation of talents and abilities. It is instructive to proceed in
this way.
[Illustration: Fig. 43.--Common Marmoset or Ouistiti (_Hapale
Jacchus_).]
We must regard the graceful, little, clawed monkeys or marmosets of
South and Central America as the least developed members of the monkey
order. They have the same dentition as the higher monkeys, but they
have flat nails only on the large toe, while on all the other toes
and the fingers they have narrow claw-like nails, which place their
hands and feet, or the former at any rate, on the level of paws. These
outward features correspond to their mental endowments. Monkeyhood,
we may say, has not reached its full development in the family of
marmosets. Not only in form and colour, but in their carriage, in their
whole character and behaviour, even in their voice, they remind us of
the rodents. They seldom sit upright, and at the best are rather like
squirrels than like other monkeys; they prefer to stand on all-fours
with the body horizontal; they do not climb easily and freely, with
hands and feet clasping the branch, like others of their order, but,
sticking their claws into it, they press close to it and glide along,
not of course slowly or unskilfully, but rather as rodents than as
monkeys. Their voice, too, is quite different from that of all the
higher monkeys; it is a whistling in high notes which now reminds
one of the chirping of a bird, now of the squeaking of rats and
mice, but perhaps most of all of the sound made by the guinea-pig.
Their behaviour generally is decidedly rodent-like. They exhibit the
uneasiness and restlessness, the curiosity, shyness, and timidity,
the inconstancy of squirrels. Their little heads only remain a few
seconds in one position, and their dark eyes are directed now towards
this object now towards that, but always hastily, and obviously
without comprehension, although they seem to look out on the world
intelligently enough. Every action they perform shows their slight
power of judgment. As if without will, they act on the suggestion of
the moment; they forget what they have just been doing as soon as their
attention is diverted, and they prove just as fickle in the expression
of their contentment as of their displeasure. At one moment they are
good-humoured, apparently quite satisfied with their lot, perhaps
grateful for caresses from a friendly hand, the next they are snarling
at their keeper just as if their lives were in danger, showing their
teeth, and trying to bite. As irritable and excitable as all monkeys
and rodents, they yet lack the individuality which every higher monkey
exhibits, for one acts exactly like another, without originality and
always in a somewhat commonplace fashion. They have all the attributes
of cowards--the complaining voice, the reluctance to adapt themselves
to the inevitable, the whining acceptance of all circumstances, the
morbidly suspicious habit of finding in every action of another
creature some hostility to themselves, the desire to swagger while in
reality they carefully keep out of the way of every real or supposed
danger, and an incapacity either to make resolutions or to carry them
out. Just because there is so little of the true monkey about them they
are preferred by women and despised by men.
On a decidedly higher level stand the Broad-nosed or New-World
monkeys, which also inhabit America, though even in these, the full
character of the true monkey is not attained. The dentition numbers
a molar more on each side of the jaws than in the higher apes, thus
there are thirty-six teeth instead of thirty-two; all the fingers
and toes have flat nails; the body seems more slender than it is,
because the limbs are very long; the tail is used, in many cases, as
a powerful grasping-organ. The one-sidedness of their development is
very characteristic. Exclusively arboreal like the marmosets, they are
awkward, even clumsy when away from the branches of the trees. On the
ground their gait is extremely ungainly, uncertain, and tottering,
particularly in those species which have a prehensile tail, but even
their climbing does not come at all near that of the Old-World monkeys.
For increase of the number of organs of locomotion does not necessarily
result in increased power, still less in greater variety of movement;
on the contrary, it often means one-sidedness, and it certainly does
so in the case of the New-World monkeys. Their prehensile tail is not
to them a fifth, but a first hand, used in hanging or fixing the body,
in lifting things or dragging them along, and so on; but it does not
make their movements more rapid or free, it adds to safety but not to
agility. Thanks to the constant use of the tail, its owner never runs
a risk of falling from the lofty branches--safe because high--to the
dangerous ground beneath, but neither is he able to make any free or
daring movement. Slowly he sends his prehensile tail in advance of
every step, always catching hold with it first, and only then letting
go with hands or feet. Thus he binds himself to the branch rather than
climbs upon it, and never thinks of attempting a leap whose success
is in the least doubtful. In this constant carefulness for his own
precious person the broad-nosed monkey impresses one not so much with
his prudence as with his slowness, and it is noteworthy that the whole
character of the New-World monkeys bears this out. Their voice is not
quite so monotonous as that of the marmosets, but it is unpleasant,
not to say tiresome. It runs through many grades, from a whine to a
roar, but it has, invariably, a mournful character, and the whole
demeanour of the animal, when it cries, is pessimistic. After a cool,
dewy night, the morning sun shines warm and golden through the trees,
and a thousand-toned song of joy and greeting leaps forth in welcome
from a million throats. The howlers prepare to offer their tribute of
praise also. But how? They have climbed to the dry top branches of a
giant tree which rises high above its fellows, have fastened themselves
securely by their tails, and are warming themselves comfortably in
the sunshine. Then a feeling of well-being moves them to raise their
voices. One of them, distinguished, it is said, by a specially high,
shrill voice, acts as leader, and, looking fixedly at his companions,
begins to chant. The rest look at him with the same motionless vacant
stare and join in; and frightfully their song resounds through the
forest, now grunting, now howling, now snarling, now rattling, as
if all the beasts of the forest were waging deadly warfare. The
astounding performance begins with a bellowing solo; these bellowings
become louder, follow each other more rapidly as the excitement of
the singer--which is probably present though not apparent--increases
and spreads to other members of the community; then they change into
howling and roaring, and they end as they began. If one looks at the
long-bearded, serious singers one can scarcely keep from smiling;
but soon the indescribable discords they produce become as wearisome
as their monotonous climbing, or rather creeping movements. What one
does another imitates, but whatever they may do, howsoever they may
act, their behaviour is always monotonous. Very much like these, or
not essentially different, are all the monkeys with prehensile tails;
though a few prominent members of the family, the Capuchin monkeys for
instance, are rather more free and independent. In general, they are as
heavy mentally as physically--usually very gentle, good-natured, and
confiding, but stupid, peevish, fretful, and some of them obstinate,
malicious, and spiteful. They thus stand considerably higher than the
marmosets, but far below the Old-World monkeys. Probably it would
hardly be doing them injustice to say that they possess the bad
qualities without the good qualities of their Old-World cousins. Their
gentleness and good-nature--apart from the fact that these are not
found in all the species, do not in the least make up for their general
lack of enterprise, boldness, cheerfulness, liveliness, and decision,
circumspection and ingenuity--qualities which place the Old-World
monkeys so high--while their everlasting whining and complaining
counterbalance, in our eyes, all the qualities which might attract us
to them.
[Illustration: Fig. 44.--Red Howling Monkeys (_Mycetes seniculus_).]
The monkeys of the Old World, like those of the New, fall into two
groups to which the rank of families may perhaps be granted, although
the dentition is essentially alike in both. We call the one type
Dog-like, the other Man-like, and we may go the length of saying that
the former teach us what monkeyhood really is, while the latter rise
above it. For the first group especially, my opening remarks hold
good. Among them we find monkeys beautiful and ugly, attractive and
repulsive, lively and serious, good-natured and malicious. Really
misshapen monkeys there are none, for we must admit that even those
which appear to us ugly are symmetrical in form. Yet some of them
are, in many respects, odd-looking creatures. Their chief external
characteristics are, the more or less protruding muzzle, reminding one
of a dog’s, the proportionately short arms, the tail, always present
though often shortened to a mere stump, the more or less developed
ischial callosities, and the cheek-pouches present in most species. The
dentition includes the usual number of thirty-two teeth arranged in an
unbroken series. They occur in all three continents of the Old World,
and are most numerous in Africa.
Their endowments and characteristics place them far above the marmosets
and New-World monkeys. They usually walk very well, though some
of them hobble along in a comical fashion; they are able, without
difficulty, to stand on their legs alone, thus raising themselves to
their full height, and in that position they can walk more or less
easily. They climb well under all circumstances, though some do so only
among trees, others among the rocks; some of them are also excellent
swimmers. The climbing of the arboreal species is almost like flight,
if I may so speak--for their skill among the branches surpasses all
expectation. Leaps of from eight to ten yards are to them quite
possible achievements. From the topmost boughs of a tree they leap to
a lower one, which is forcibly bent downwards by the shock, from this
at the moment of rebound they give themselves a strong impetus, and,
stretching tail and hind-legs out behind them to steer their course,
shoot like an arrow through the air. The branch of a tree, even if it
be covered with the sharpest thorns, is to them a well-made road, a
climbing plant is a path or a ladder according to its position. They
climb forwards or backwards, on the under or upper side of a branch;
in leaping or falling they catch a thin twig with one hand, and remain
hanging as long as they please in every imaginable position; then they
climb leisurely on the branch, and proceed on their way as coolly as
if they were on level ground. If the hand misses the desired twig it
is caught by the foot; if it breaks under the sudden shock they catch
in falling at a second, a third, and if all break they spring to
the ground, no matter the distance, and climb up again by the first
available trunk or climbing-plant. Compared with the clinging and
creeping of their relatives in the New World theirs appears, and really
is, a free, unfettered motion which surmounts all obstacles. The former
are blunderers, the latter finished artists; the former slaves of the
trees, the latter lords of the branches.
Their voice is as highly developed as their power of movement. Theirs
is no chirping or whistling, no whining or howling; on the contrary,
they utter many different sounds expressing the mood of the moment,
and quite intelligible even to us. Comfort or discomfort, desire or
satisfaction, good-will or ill-will, love or hate, indifference or
anger, joy or pain, confidence or mistrust, attraction or repugnance,
affection or dislike, submissiveness or defiance, but above all any
sudden emotion, such as fear or horror, find adequate expression,
comparatively limited though the voice may be.[70]
What we may call their mental endowments correspond to their physical
powers. It may be well to emphasize that the hand, which among them
first attains to full development, gives them a considerable advantage
over other animals, and makes some of their actions appear more
remarkable than they really are; for instance, it renders them capable
of many skilful devices which would be impossible to a dog and to any
of those animals which we are wont to reckon among the cleverest of
mammals. A high degree of deliberateness must be conceded to them.
Their excellent memory treasures up the most various impressions, and
their discriminating intelligence makes these a store of experiences,
which are turned to good account as opportunity offers. Thus they
act with full consciousness of what they are doing, according
to circumstances, and not as impotent slaves of a power outside
themselves, but with independence, freedom, and variety, cunningly
seizing every advantage, and making use of every expedient which they
believe will further their end. They distinguish between cause and
effect, and attempt to achieve or nullify the latter by applying or
removing the former. They not only recognize what benefits or injures
them, but they know whether they do right or wrong, judging either
from the standard of some loved one, or that of some master.[71] It
is not blind chance, but a recognition of what is profitable that
regulates and guides their actions, makes them submit to the judgment
of the most capable, moves them to live and act together, teaches
them to form communities for the weal or woe of the individual, to
share joy and sorrow, good fortune and misfortune, safety and danger,
plenty and scarcity,--in other words, to form an alliance based on
reciprocity--which teaches them to employ powers and means not theirs
by inheritance, and, finally, presses into their hands weapons with
which Nature did not supply them. Passions of all kinds, it is true,
often gain a victory over their circumspection; but these very passions
are proof of the liveliness of their sensations, or, what comes to
the same thing, of their mental activity. They are as susceptible as
children, as irritable as weak-minded men, and thus very sensitive
to every kind of treatment they may receive; to love and dislike,
to encouraging praise and chilling blame, to pleasant flattery and
wounding ridicule, to caresses and chastisement. Nevertheless they are
not so easily managed, still less so easily trained to anything, as
a dog or any other clever domestic animal, for they are self-willed
in a high degree, and almost as conceited as human beings. They learn
without difficulty, but only when they wish to, and by no means
always when they ought to, for their self-conceit rebels against any
submission which they do not see to be to their own advantage. They
are quite aware that they are liable to be punished, and may loudly
express their disapprobation of the expected chastisement beforehand,
yet still refuse to do what is required of them; while, on the other
hand, they will execute it willingly and with the liveliest expressions
of understanding, when the task happens to suit their humour. Whoever
ventures to doubt their self-esteem has only to watch their way
of treating other animals. Unless terrified by their strength and
dangerousness, they invariably regard other animals as playthings,
whether they tease them and play tricks upon them, or fondle them and
load them with caresses.
Some examples, for which I myself can vouch, or which I know to be
thoroughly authentic, may strengthen the assertions I have just made.
As I was travelling in Bogosland, on my first ride into the mountains
I fell in with a large band of the Hamadryas baboons, referred to by
Sheikh Kemal el Din Demiri in his narrative. Drying their streaming
hair in the sunshine, they sat picturesquely grouped on the highest
points of a cliff, and, on being greeted with rifle bullets, they
beat an organized retreat and fled. Continuing my journey through
the narrow, winding, rocky valley of the Mensa, I came upon them
some time later, this time in the valley itself, just as they were
preparing to ascend the rocky wall of the other side to seek safety
from such annoying disturbances. A considerable number had already
crossed the valley; the majority were in the act of crossing. Our dogs,
beautiful, slender greyhounds, accustomed to fight successfully with
hyænas and other beasts of prey, rushed towards the baboons, which,
from a distance, looked more like beasts of prey than monkeys, and
drove them hastily up the precipices to right and left. But only the
females took to flight; the males, on the other hand, turned to face
the dogs, growled, beat the ground fiercely with their hands, opened
their mouths wide and showed their glittering teeth, and looked at
their adversaries so furiously and maliciously that the hounds, usually
bold and battle-hardened, shrank back discomfited, and almost timidly
sought safety beside us. Before we had succeeded in stirring them up
to show fight, the position of the monkeys had changed considerably,
and when the dogs charged a second time nearly all the herd were in
safety. But one little monkey about half a year old had been left
behind. It shrieked loudly as the dogs rushed towards it, but succeeded
in gaining the top of a rock before they had arrived. Our dogs placed
themselves cleverly, so as to cut off its retreat, and we hoped that
we might be able to catch it. But that was not to be. Proudly and with
dignity, without hurrying in the least, or paying any heed to us,
an old male stepped down from the security of the rocks towards the
hard-pressed little one, walked towards the dogs without betraying
the slightest fear, held them in check with glances, gestures, and
quite intelligible sounds, slowly climbed the rock, picked up the
baby-monkey, and retreated with it, before we could reach the spot,
and without the visibly disconcerted dogs making the slightest attempt
to prevent him. While the patriarch of the troop performed this brave
and self-sacrificing deed, the other members, densely crowded on the
cliff, uttered sounds which I had never before heard from baboons. Old
and young, males and females, roared, screeched, snarled, and bellowed
all together, so that one would have thought they were struggling with
leopards or other dangerous beasts. I learned later that this was
the monkeys’ battle-cry: it was intended obviously to intimidate us
and the dogs, possibly also to encourage the brave old giant, who was
running into such evident danger before their eyes.[72]
[Illustration: Fig. 45.--Old Baboon Rescuing Young One.]
A few days later I learned by experience that these self-reliant
animals are a match even for men. On our return from the Bogosland, we
fell in with a large herd, possibly the same one, and we opened fire
upon them from the valley with seven double rifles. Our shots had an
indescribable effect. The same battle-cry which I had heard before
rang out again, and, as if at the command of a general, they prepared
for resistance. While the screaming females with the young ones fled
in all haste over the crest of the rock beyond range of our guns, the
adult males, casting furious glances, beating the ground with their
hands, and barking rather than roaring, sprang upon projecting stones
and ledges, looked down on the valley for a few moments, continually
growling, snarling, or screaming, and then began to roll stones down
upon us with so much vigour and adroitness that we immediately saw
that our lives were in danger and took to flight. If it had not been
possible for us to clamber up the opposite wall of the narrow valley,
and so to escape the monkeys’ fire, we should have been utterly routed.
The clever animals not only conducted their defence on a definite plan,
but they acted in co-operation, striving for a common end, and exerting
all their united strength to attain it. One of our number saw one
monkey drag his stone up a tree that he might hurl it down with more
effect; I myself saw two combining their strength to set a heavy stone
a-rolling.
No animals but the higher apes adopt such means of defence, and
no other male animal runs into danger to rescue a helpless young
one of his species. Such traits must not be ignored, and cannot be
misinterpreted, for they speak for themselves better and more loudly
than all the sophistical analysis which refuses to admit that animals
have intelligence and the power of spontaneous action.
That the dog-like monkeys recognize and distinguish between cause and
effect can be certified by every unprejudiced observer. They open doors
and windows, drawers, cupboards, and boxes, untie knots, and overcome
other obstacles when they have once seen how to set about it; but they
also invent means to attain similar ends. A female baboon, which I
brought up in my family, got hold of a kitten with the intention of
making a pet of it and mothering it, but was scratched by the terrified
bundling. The monkey carefully examined the kitten’s paws, pressed
the claws forward, looked at them from above, from beneath, and from
the side, and then bit them off to secure herself against further
scratches. My brother and I used to startle the same baboon by pouring
a little heap of powder on the ground in front of her, and setting
it alight by means of a piece of burning tinder. The sudden blazing
up of the powder gave our baboon such a fright every time that she
screamed loudly and sprang back as far as her tether would allow. After
this trick had been played upon her several times in succession, she
protected herself from further annoyance by beating the glowing tinder
with her hand till the spark was extinguished, and then eating up the
powder. In another case she conjured up fear and horror for herself.
Like all monkeys without exception, she regarded creeping things, and
above all snakes, with a boundless horror which was most amusing. We
often teased her by putting a snake, live, dead, or stuffed, into a
broad tin box, which was handed to her closed. After a time she knew
the box and its contents perfectly, but her curiosity always mastered
her, and she opened it every time, to run away screaming directly
afterwards.
Not content with recognizing causes really present, this monkey,
when she suffered any annoyance, sought for probable ones. Something
or someone must bear the blame of her discomfort. Thus her anger
was directed against the first person who came in sight. If she was
chastised, she was not angry with her master and keeper, but with
anyone else who was present during her punishment; such a one must have
been the cause of the harsh treatment she received from her usually
kind master. She had thus exactly the same suspicions as small-minded
human beings are apt to have in like circumstances.
Notwithstanding her own extreme sensitiveness to any punishment, even
if only threatened, and also to quizzing and teasing, the baboon
in question could never refrain from tormenting, annoying, and even
ill-treating other animals. Our crabbed old badger-dog was lying
comfortably in the sun enjoying his mid-day nap. The baboon saw this,
slipped quietly up to him, looked with a sly twinkle of her little
eyes into the dog’s face to make sure that he was really asleep,
then suddenly seized the sleeper’s tail and brought him back with a
violent pull from dreamland to reality. The dog angrily rushed at the
disturber of his peace to avenge the insult. But the monkey escaped
the threatened punishment with a single leap over the advancing dog,
and in the next instant she had seized the tail and repeated the
outrage, obviously enjoying the powerlessness of her furious opponent,
until the latter, almost beside himself with anger and excitement,
unable even to bark, but gasping and foaming, tucked his tail between
his legs and fled, leaving the enemy in possession of the field. If
the baboon could have laughed, the parallel between her behaviour
and that of a mischievous boy would have been complete. As it was,
the scorn and ridicule with which the vanquished dog was overwhelmed
were intelligible enough. The baboon herself took teasing very ill,
would even become furious if laughed at by an unprivileged person, and
never omitted to take her revenge on the first opportunity, even if
that should not occur for weeks. But then she was a monkey, and felt
herself such, therefore regarded a dog as a creature of a lower order,
her insolence towards which was as pardonable as that of every other
creature towards herself was reprehensible and worthy of punishment.
Of this self-esteem, or rather over-esteem, the dog-like monkeys give
daily proofs to every careful observer. The baboon in question, like
all monkeys, was exceedingly fond of pets, and in particular of a
long-tailed monkey which shared her cage, and could be trusted even
out of the cage with it, because it was always by the baboon’s side
as if under a charm. It slept in her arms, and obeyed her slavishly.
The baboon expected such obedience and took it as a matter of course;
but she demanded the most absolute subjection at meal-times. While the
good-natured and obedient long-tailed monkey unresistingly allowed its
foster-mother to pick out all the titbits, the latter only left for
the little one what was absolutely necessary, and if it did succeed
in storing something in its pouches, simply opened these again and
appropriated the contents to her own use.
Unbounded as is the arrogance and self-esteem of the dog-like monkeys,
they are thoroughly well aware when they have done wrong, that is,
have done something deserving of punishment. Schomburgk gives a most
instructive example of this. In the Zoological division of the Botanic
Gardens at Adelaide an old sacred macaque lived in a cage with two
younger members of the same species, over whom, as a matter of course,
he ruled despotically. One day, irritated by something or other, he
attacked his keeper and wounded him dangerously by biting through an
artery on the wrist. For this Schomburgk condemned him to death, and
commissioned another keeper to carry out the sentence by shooting
him. The monkeys were quite accustomed to fire-arms, which were often
used in the gardens for killing injurious animals, and though they
knew their effect they were not disquieted in the least when these
were brought into their immediate neighbourhood. The day after the
misconduct of the old tyrant the two young monkeys remained quietly
at the food-trough on the appearance of the keeper intrusted with the
execution of their comrade, but the criminal himself fled with the
utmost haste into his sleeping cage, and no amount of coaxing could
entice him out of it. An attempt was made to lure him forth by setting
down food; but he did what he had never done before, saw his two
subjects eat up the dainty fare and did not venture to take part in
the meal. Not till the suspected keeper had retired did he venture to
creep forth, seize a few crumbs, and retire in fear and trembling to
his hiding-place again. At length he was persuaded to come out a second
time, and the door of his retreat was closed. When he saw the keeper
with his weapon approaching, he knew that he was lost. Frantically he
threw himself on the door of his sleeping cage to open it if possible,
and not succeeding he rushed through the whole cage examining every
corner and space in the hope of finding a means of escape; at last,
seeing that there was no possibility of flight, he threw himself
despairingly on the ground and surrendered himself, his whole body
trembling and shuddering, to the fate which overtook him a moment later.
[Illustration: Fig. 46.--Macaque or Bonnet-monkey (_Macacus sinicus_)
and Snake.]
It must be admitted that no mammal of any other order, not even the
dog, who has associated with us, and been educated, and, strictly
speaking, formed by us for thousands of years, acts in the manner
described, or exhibits such a high degree of intelligence. And yet a
wide gulf lies between the dog-like monkeys and the anthropoid apes, of
which I have said that they rise even above the average of monkeyhood.
By the anthropoid apes we understand those which in their structure
most resemble man, but are externally distinguished from him by the
very prominent canine teeth, the relatively long arms and short legs,
the structure of the hand, the ischial callosities present in some
species, and the hairy covering of the body. They inhabit the tropical
countries of Asia and Africa (the former being richer in species),
and they are divided into three families, of which one is confined
to Africa. Each of these families embraces only a few species, but
probably we do not know nearly all of them as yet.
The structure of the anthropoid apes points to an arboreal life;
they are most excellent climbers, though by no means slaves to the
tree any more than the langurs, long-tailed monkeys, and macaques.
Their movements, however, both among the branches and on the ground,
are quite different from those of all other monkeys. In climbing up
a tree, particularly a smooth trunk without branches, they take the
same position as a man would do, but, thanks to their long arms and
short legs, they make much more rapid progress than the most expert
human climber; and when they have reached the branches they put every
gymnast to shame by the variety and security of their movements. With
outstretched arms they seize one branch, with the feet they clasp a
parallel one, about half their height lower down, and, using the upper
branch as a rail, they walk along the lower one so quickly, though
without the least sign of effort, that a man walking underneath must
exert himself vigorously to keep pace with them. On reaching the end of
the branch, they seize any available bough or twig of the next tree and
proceed on their way in the same manner, with undiminished speed, yet
without hurry. In ascending they seize hold of any branch strong enough
to bear their weight, and swing themselves upwards with equal ease
whether they are holding the branch with both hands or only with one;
in descending, they let themselves hang with both arms and search about
for a new foothold. Sometimes they amuse themselves by swinging freely
for some minutes; sometimes, clasping a branch with arms and feet,
they walk, for a change, on its lower surface; in short, they assume
every imaginable position, and execute every possible movement. Quite
unrivalled masters of climbing are the long-armed apes or gibbons,
anthropoid apes with arms so disproportionately long that, when
outstretched, they measure thrice as much as their upright bodies. With
incomparable speed and security they climb up a tree or bamboo-stem,
set it, or a suitable branch swinging, and on its rebound spring over
spaces of from eight to twelve yards, so lightly and swiftly, that they
seem to fly like a shot arrow or an alighting bird. They are also able
to alter the direction of a leap while actually springing, or to cut
it suddenly short by seizing a branch and clinging to it--swinging,
rocking, and finally climbing up by it, either to rest for a little,
or to begin the old game anew. Sometimes they spring through the air
in this manner three, four, or five times in succession, so that one
almost forgets that they are subject to the law of gravity. Their
walking is as awkward as their climbing is excellent. Other anthropoid
apes are able to traverse a considerable distance in an upright
position--that is, on their feet alone, without special difficulty,
though when in haste they always fall on all-fours, resting on the
inturned knuckles of the fingers and the outer edges of the feet, and
throwing the body laboriously and clumsily forward between the extended
arms. But the long-armed apes move in an upright position only in cases
of extreme necessity, and then they hop rather than walk. When the
distance to be covered is a short one they raise themselves to their
full height, and preserving their balance by extending their arms,
now more, now less, spread out the great toes as far as possible, and
patter pitiably along with short, quick steps. Their power of movement
must therefore be characterized as one-sided, for their superiority
over the other anthropoid apes in climbing does not counterbalance
their helplessness on the ground.
[Illustration: Fig. 47.--The Hoolock (_Hylobates leuciscus_), one of
the Gibbons.]
The voice-power of the anthropoid apes is very noteworthy. We find that
the most active and agile species have the loudest voices, while those
of the more widely developed, though less nimble, anthropoid apes are
capable of greater variety of expression. I do not say too much when I
assert that I have never heard the voice of any mammal--man, of course,
always excepted--which was more full-toned and sonorous than that of a
long-armed ape which I observed in captivity. I was first astonished,
then delighted, with these deep notes, uttered with full strength, and
by no means disagreeable, because perfectly clear and well-rounded. In
one species the ringing call, which I should describe as a song rather
than a cry, begins on the key-note E, ascends and descends in semitones
through the chromatic scale for a full octave, sometimes ending with a
shrill cry, which seems to be uttered with the animal’s whole strength.
The key-note remains audible throughout, and serves as a grace-note
to each of the succeeding ones, which, in ascending the scale, follow
each other more and more slowly, in descending more and more quickly,
at last with extreme rapidity, but always with perfect regularity. The
notes of some species of the group are said to be less clear, but all
are so loud that, in the open air, one can hear them distinctly at a
distance of an English mile. The same correlation between agility of
motion and voice-power can be observed in other anthropoid apes. The
slow-moving, awkward-looking orang-utan utters, as far as I know, only
a strong, deep throat sound; the lively, active, sprightly chimpanzee,
with only a few notes, understands so well how to give them variety of
emphasis and intelligible expression that one is tempted to concede
to him the power of speech. He does not indeed speak with words, but
with sounds, and even syllables, of the constancy of whose meaning the
observer who has much acquaintance with the chimpanzee can have no
doubt. Other anthropoid apes of the same family are probably not far
behind him in this respect.
Anyone who wishes to learn to what a height the mental qualities of
a monkey may reach must select the chimpanzee or one of his nearest
relatives for observation, and must associate closely with it for a
lengthened period, as I have done. He will then discover with wonder
and amazement, perhaps with slight horror, how much the gulf between
man and beast can be diminished. The other anthropoid apes, too, are
highly gifted creatures; they, too, surpass all other monkeys in this
respect; but the talents of the long-armed gibbons or the orang-utans
do not attain to the same universally intelligible expression--I may
say, the same impressiveness, as those of the chimpanzees and their
relatives. They--the pongos, the gorilla, the _tschiego_, and the
chimpanzee--cannot be treated as animals, but must be associated
with as men, if their mental powers are to be known and appreciated.
Their intelligence is not far behind that of a rude, undisciplined,
uneducated human being. They are, and remain animals, but they behave
so humanly that one can almost lose sight of the beast.
For years in succession I have kept chimpanzees, have observed them
closely and, as far as possible, without prejudice, have associated
intimately with them, taken them into my family, brought them up as
playmates for my children, let them eat at my table, taught and trained
them, waited upon them in sickness, and not forsaken them in the hour
of death. I have therefore a right to believe that I know them as well
as anyone, and that I am justified in pronouncing an authoritative
opinion. For these reasons I select the chimpanzee, in order to show to
what height the mental power of an animal may rise.
The chimpanzee is not only one of the cleverest of all creatures,
he is a being capable of deliberation and judgment. Everything he
does is done consciously and deliberately. He imitates, but he does
so with intelligence and on due consideration; he allows himself to
be taught, and learns. He knows himself and his surroundings, and
he can appreciate his position. In association with man he yields
submission to superior intelligence; in his relations with animals he
exhibits a self-conceit similar to our own. What is merely hinted at
among other apes is quite pronounced in him. He regards himself as
better, as standing higher than other animals, even other monkeys; he
rates even human beings exactly according to their standing; thus he
treats children quite differently from grown-up people; the latter he
respects, the former he looks upon as comrades and equals. He shows
an interest in animals with which he can form no friendship or other
tie, and also in objects which have no connection with his natural
wants; for he is not merely inquisitive, he is greedy of knowledge;
an object which has attracted his attention increases in value in
his eyes when he has found out its use. He can draw conclusions, can
reason from one to another, and apply the results of experience to new
circumstances, is cunning, even wily, has flashes of wit, and indulges
in practical jokes, exhibits humours and moods, is entertained in one
company and bored in another, enters into the spirit of some jokes and
scorns others, is self-willed but not stubborn, good-natured but not
wanting in independence. He expresses his emotions like a human being.
When in a gay mood he smirks with satisfaction, when depressed his
face is drawn into wrinkles which speak for themselves, and he gives
utterance to his grief by plaintive sounds. In sickness he behaves
like one in despair, distorts his face, screams, throws himself on his
back, beats with his hands and feet, and tears his hair. To a friendly
voice he responds with sounds expressive of pleasure, to chiding with
cries of distress. He is active and busy from morning till late in
the evening, seeks constant occupation, and when he comes to an end of
his usual employments he invents new ones, even if it should only be
slapping his feet with his hands, or knocking against hollow boards,
and thus producing sounds which give him evident pleasure. In a room
he occupies himself with carefully examining everything that attracts
his attention, opens drawers and rummages among their contents,
opens the stove door to look at the fire and shuts it again, holds a
key properly, stands before the mirror and amuses himself with the
reflection of his own gestures and grimaces, uses brush and duster as
he has been taught, puts on blankets and clothing, and so on.
[Illustration: Fig. 48.--Chimpanzee (_Troglodytes niger_).]
His acuteness of observation is strikingly proved by his almost
unfailingly correct judgment of persons. Not only does he recognize
and distinguish his friends from other people, but well-meaning from
evil-intentioned persons so thoroughly that the keeper of a chimpanzee
was convinced that anyone with whom his _protégé_ refused to make
friends was really a good-for-nothing or a scoundrel. A thorough but
accomplished hypocrite who deceived me and others was all along a
horror to our chimpanzee, just as if he had seen through the red-headed
rascal from the first. Every chimpanzee who has been much in human
society likes best to be a member of a family circle. There he behaves
as though he felt himself among equals. He carefully observes the
manners and customs of the house, notices immediately whether he is
being watched or not, and does in the former case what he ought to, in
the latter what pleases him. In contrast to other monkeys, he learns
very easily and with real eagerness whatever is taught to him, as, for
instance, to sit upright at table, to eat with knife, fork, and spoon,
to drink from a glass or cup, to stir the sugar in his tea, to touch
glasses with his neighbour, to use his napkin, and so on; with equal
case he becomes accustomed to clothing, beds, and blankets; without
great difficulty he gains after a time an understanding of human speech
which far surpasses that of a well-trained dog, for he follows not
merely the emphasis but the meaning of words, and executes commissions
or obeys commands with equal correctness. Exceedingly appreciative of
every caress and flattery, and even of praise, he is equally sensitive
to unfriendly treatment or blame; he is also capable of deep gratitude,
and he expresses it by shaking hands or kissing without being asked
to do so. He evinces a special fondness for children. Being neither
spiteful nor vicious, he treats children with great friendliness as
long as they do not tease him, and behaves to helpless infants with
really touching tenderness, though towards others of his own species,
monkeys of a different species, and animals generally, he is often
rough and harsh. I lay special stress on this characteristic, which I
have observed in every chimpanzee I have brought up, because it seems
to prove that the chimpanzee recognizes and respects the human even in
the youngest child.
The behaviour of a sick and suffering anthropoid ape is most touching.
Begging piteously, almost humanly, he looks into his keeper’s face,
receives every attempt to help him with warm thanks, and soon looks
upon the physician as a benefactor, holds out his arm to him, or
stretches out his tongue as soon as he is told, and even does so of
his own accord after a few visits from the physician. He swallows
medicine readily, submits even to a surgical operation, and, in a word,
behaves very like a human patient in similar circumstances. As his end
approaches he becomes more gentle, the animal in him is lost sight of,
and the nobler traits of his character stand out prominently.
The chimpanzee which I kept longest, and with the help of an
intelligent, animal-loving keeper educated most carefully, was taken
ill with inflammation of the lungs, accompanied by suppuration of the
lymphatic glands of the neck. Surgical treatment of the glands was
found necessary. Two surgeons, friends of mine who were on good terms
with the chimpanzee, undertook to open the tumour on the neck, the more
readily that the monkey believed that to be the cause of his suffering,
and continually guided the surgeon’s hand towards it. But how was the
necessary operation in such a dangerous spot to be performed without
imperilling the monkey’s life? Anæsthetics were out of the question
because of the lung disease, and the attempt to have the chimpanzee
held down by several strong men had to be abandoned because of his
intense excitement, and the strenuous resistance he offered. But where
force failed persuasion succeeded. When the monkey was quieted and
reassured by the coaxing and endearments of his keeper, he allowed
a further examination of the swelling, and even submitted, without
twitching an eyelid or uttering a complaint, to the use of the knife,
and other painful treatment, including the emptying of the opened
tumour. When this was done the distressingly laboured breathing became
instantly less oppressive, an unmistakable expression of relief passed
over the sufferer’s face, and he gratefully held out his hand to both
physicians, and embraced his keeper, without having been asked to do
either.
Unfortunately, the removal of the one trouble did not succeed in saving
the animal’s life. The neck wound healed, but the inflammation of the
lungs increased and killed him. He died fully conscious, gently and
peacefully, not as an animal, but as a man dies.
These are features of the character and conduct of anthropoid apes
which can neither be misunderstood nor cavilled at. When one considers
that they can be observed in all anthropoids not yet full-grown but
beyond the stage of childhood, one must undoubtedly grant those animals
a very high place. For the opinion expressed by some one incapable
observer, and thoughtlessly repeated by hundreds, that the monkey loses
mental power with increasing age, that he retrogrades and becomes
stupid, is completely false, and is disproved by every ape which is
observed carefully, and without prejudice, from youth to age.[73] Even
if we knew nothing more about full-grown anthropoids than that they
erect shelters resembling huts rather than nests, in which to pass a
single night, and that they drum on hollow trees for amusement, it
would be enough to lead us to the same conclusion as we have arrived
at by observation of the young members of this group; that is, that
they must be regarded as by far the most gifted and highly developed of
animals, and as our nearest relatives.
And the ape question? I might say that I have just answered it in what
I have said; but I have no hesitation in expressing a more definite
opinion.
Everyone must admit that man is not the representative of a new order
of being, but is simply a member of the animal kingdom, and every
unprejudiced person will also describe apes as the creatures most
resembling man. If we compare them with one another, and then with
man, the conviction is forced upon us, however we may strive against
it, that there is a greater difference between the marmosets and the
anthropoid apes than between the latter group and man. Zoologically,
therefore, one cannot even relegate the apes and man to different
orders of the highest class of animals. This has indeed been done,
and is still done, man being classed as two-handed and monkeys as
four-handed animals, but this leaves the most important aid to the
classification of a mammal, the dentition, out of the question. For the
dentition of man and monkeys is so essentially similar that it points
imperatively to the necessity of placing the two types together. Nor
is the distinction between two-handed and four-handed tenable, for
although as regards the structure of hands and feet man and monkeys
are certainly different, the difference does not imply any opposition;
and the monkeys are just as much two-handed as we are. If we keep to
the basis of classification adhered to without exception elsewhere,
we are forced to place both in one order. I have given to it the name
_Hochtiere_.
But though the characteristics which belong to all the higher animals
as members of one order correspond thus accurately, a closer comparison
reveals differences between man and apes which absolutely forbid a
fusion of the two groups such as has been attempted in modern times.
The symmetry of form, the comparative shortness of the arms, the
breadth and mobility of the hands, the length and strength of the
legs, as well as the flatness of the feet, the naked skin, and the
less-developed canine teeth are external marks of man which must not be
under-estimated, for they are important enough to justify putting him
and the apes in different families, perhaps even different sub-orders.
If, in addition, we take man’s endowments into due consideration,
compare his movements, his articulate speech, his mental capacities
with the corresponding gifts in the ape, the need for insisting on the
boundaries between the two is confirmed.
Blind disciples of the Doctrine of Descent, as Darwin founded it
and others developed it, do indeed cross these boundaries without
hesitation, but they cannot possibly be regarded as giving a carefully
thought-out and authoritative judgment on the actual state of the case.
Satisfactory, not to say probable, as this doctrine is, it has not yet
risen above the level of an ingenious hypothesis; and incontrovertible
evidence for the correctness of this hypothesis has not yet been
produced. Variation within the limits of species and breed can be
proved, can even be brought about; but transformation of one species
into another cannot be established in any case. As long as this is so
we are justified in regarding man and apes as creatures of different
nature, and disputing the descent of one from the other. No attempt
to discover or establish a common ancestor, no undertaking to draw
up a pedigree for man, alters this in the slightest; for true natural
science is not satisfied with interpretative theories, it demands
proofs; it does not want to believe, but to know.[74]
So we may without scruple give the apes the place in the scale of being
which unprejudiced investigation points out. We may look upon them as
the animals most resembling ourselves, and as our nearest relatives
in the zoological sense; anything more than this we must deny. Much
that is characteristic of man is to be found in the apes also; but a
wide gulf still remains between them and true humanity. Physically and
mentally they have many of the characteristics of man, but by no means
all.
DESERT JOURNEYS.
On the fringe of the desert, under a thick group of palms, a small tent
is pitched. Around it is a motley collection of bales and boxes, built
into a sort of barricade. Outside this some Nubian boys are lounging
or squatting. They are in holiday garb, so to speak, for their glossy
skins have been freshly smeared with grease.
The travellers whom the tent shelters have come so far on a Nile boat,
but as the river now describes a huge curve and abounds in rocks and
rapids, they have decided to cut across the desert.
It is about noon. The sun stands almost vertically above the tent, in a
cloudless deep blue sky, and his scorching rays are but slightly warded
off by the loose open foliage of the date-palms. On the plain between
the river and the desert the heat is oppressive, and the strata of air
above the burning ground are heaving unsteadily, so that every picture
is distorted and blurred.
A troop of horsemen, evidently hailing from the desert, appears on the
horizon. They pay no heed to the village which lies further inland,
but make straight for the tent. The horses are thin, but plainly of no
ignoble breed; the riders are dark brown and poorly clad, with long
loose burnooses more gray than white. Reaching the cluster of palms
they dismount. One of them approaches the tent and enters with the
dignity of a king. He is the chief of the camel-drivers (Sheikh el
Djemali), to whom we, the travellers, had sent a messenger, asking him
to provide us with the necessary guides, drivers, and camels.
“Peace be with you,” he says on entering, and lays his hand on his
mouth, his forehead, and his heart.
“Peace be with thee, O Sheikh,” we answer, “the mercy of God and his
blessing.”
“Great has been my desire to see you, ye strangers, and to learn your
wishes,” he assures us, as he takes his seat on a cushion in the place
of honour at our right hand.
“May God, the Almighty, reward thy goodness, O Sheikh, and bless thee,”
we answer; and we order our servants to bring him coffee and a freshly
lit pipe before serving ourselves.
With half-shut eyes he comforts his mortal body with the coffee and
his immortal soul with the pipe; and thick clouds of smoke veil his
expressive features. There is almost perfect stillness in the tent,
which is pervaded with the fragrance of the exquisite Djebelit tobacco
and a thin smoke by no means unpleasant. At last we think that we
may venture to begin business without violating any of the rites of
hospitality.
“Is it well with thee, O Sheikh?”
“The Giver of all Good be praised, it is well with your servant. And
how is it with thee?”
“To the Lord of all be honour and glory, it is well with me. Great was
our longing to see thee, O Sheikh.”
“May God in His compassion fulfil your desire and bless you. Are ye in
your state of health well content?”
“Glory be to Allah and to His Prophet, on whom is His grace.”
“Amen, be it as thou hast said.”
Fresh pipes revive the immortal soul; renewed, almost interminable
courtesies are interchanged; and at last the rigid conditions of
etiquette have been fulfilled, and it is permissible to turn to
business matters.
“O Sheikh, with the help of the All-merciful, I would travel through
this stretch of desert.”
“May Allah give thee good speed.”
“Art thou in possession of camels both to run and to carry burdens?” we
ask.
“I am. Is it well with thee, my brother?”
“The Almighty be praised, it is well. How many camels canst thou
provide for me?”
Instead of an answer only countless clouds of smoke issue from the
Sheikh’s mouth, and it is not until we repeat our question that he lays
aside his pipe for some moments and says with dignity, “Sir, the number
of the camels of Beni Said is known to Allah alone; no son of Adam has
ever counted them.”
“Well, then, send me twenty-five beasts, and among them six trotters.
And I have besides need of ten large water-bags.”
The Sheikh smokes afresh without giving answer.
“Wilt thou send the beasts we desire?” we repeat with emphasis.
“I shall do so to serve thee,” he answers, “but their owners require a
high price.”
“How much?”
“At least four times the customary wages and hire will be necessary.”
“But Sheikh, Allah, the Most High, preserve thee: these are demands
which no one will be willing to grant. Praise the Prophet!”
“God, the Preserver of all, be glorified and His messengers blessed!
Thou art in error, my friend: the merchant who has his camp over there
has offered me double what I ask; only my friendship for thee has
allowed me to make so small a demand.”
In vain seems all haggling, all further business. Fresh pipes are
brought and are smoked; renewed courtesies are exchanged; the names of
Allah and His Prophet are freely misused on both sides; most precise
inquiries after health and comfort are made mutually; until at length
the studied courtesy of the native begins to waver and the traveller
from the North loses patience.
“Then know, Sheikh, that I am in possession of a letter authorizing a
demand for means of convoy from the Khedive and likewise one from the
Sheikh Soliman; here are both of them, what dost thou demand now?”
“But, sir, if thou holdest a safe-conduct from his high majesty, why
dost thou not demand the head of thy slave? It is at thy service, on
his orders. I take thy wishes on my eyes and on my head. Command and
thy servant obeys. Thou knowest the government prices. Allah protect
thee; in the morning I shall send thee men, beasts, and water-skins.”
If any one imagines that all the preparations for the desert journey
were thus brought to a satisfactory conclusion, he is indeed totally
ignorant of the manners and customs of the people. In the morning none
of the promised drivers or beasts had put in their appearance; only by
afternoon did they begin to come in; not even on the following morning,
but at soonest about the time of afternoon prayer, could one think of
starting. “Bukra inshallah--to-morrow, if God will”--is their motto,
and it baffles all commands. Indeed, there is much to do, much to
arrange, and much to be planned before the journey can be undertaken.
In course of time the tent is the centre of a gay and lively picture.
The sunburnt children of the desert bustle about among the baggage.
Their activity is unbusiness-like to a degree, but they seem to try to
make up for this by incredible noisiness. The baggage, which had been
arranged in a sort of barricade, is scattered about; individual pieces
are lifted and tested as regards both weight and bulk; one package is
compared with another, selected and then rejected, strapped together
and then pulled apart again. Each driver tries to outwit his neighbour,
each endeavouring to secure the lightest load for his own beast; each
one rushes about in opposition to the rest, and all are shouting and
roaring, screaming and scolding, swearing and cursing, entreating and
execrating. In anticipation of what is coming the camels also add to
the noise right lustily, and if, instead of roaring, and growling and
grumbling, they should keep silence for a while, that only means:
Our time has not yet come, but it is coming! Anyhow, with or without
the camels’ accompaniment, the stranger’s ear is harassed, literally
tortured, by all the medley of sounds which fall upon it at once. For
hours together the bustle, the racket, the uproar continues; the men
scold and quarrel over the loads until they have had enough or more
than enough; and at last the prelude comes to an end.
After peace is concluded they begin to twist the bast fibres of the
date-palm into cords and ropes. With these they sling the bales and
boxes cleverly together; they make hooks and eyes so that the two
bundles may be fastened quickly to the saddle and as quickly loosened;
they mend the ready-made nets which they have brought to hold the
smaller packages; and they test the large and small skin bags, patching
them where need be, and finally smearing them with ill-smelling varnish
of colocynth. Lastly, they examine the sun-dried flesh, fill several
bast bags with Kaffir-millet or dhurra, others with wood-charcoal, and
some perhaps with camels’ dung, rinse out the skin-bags and fill them
with water fresh from the stream. As the tedious business is brought to
a close one hears each utter a hearty “Thank God”--“El hamdu lillahi”.
To look after all these preparations is the duty of the _Chabir_ or
leader of the caravan. According to its importance is his rank, but in
all cases he must be what his title signifies--one who knows the way
and the existing conditions. Experience, honesty, cleverness, mettle,
and bravery are the requirements of his difficult, and not rarely
dangerous office. He knows the desert as a mariner the sea, he can read
the stars, he is familiar with every oasis and every spring on the
course of the journey, he is welcome to the tent of every Bedouin or
nomad chief, he understands all sort of precautions against break-down
or peril by the way, he can cure snake-bite and scorpion-sting, or at
least alleviate the sufferings of the injured, he wields the weapons
of the warrior and of the huntsman with equal skill, he has the word
of the Prophet not only on his lips but in his heart, he utters the
“_Fatiha_” at starting, and discharges the obligations of Mueddin
and Iman at the appointed times; in a word, he is the head of the
many-membered body which travels through the desert. In the solitudes
where nothing seems to point the way which other caravans have taken,
where the wind obliterates every track almost as soon as the last camel
has passed, he finds signs unseen by others which guide him aright.
When the dry, ill-boding dust of the desert hides the everlasting
heavens, his genius is his guiding star; he tests the drifting
sand, measures its waves, and estimates their direction; he reads the
points of the compass on a stem of grass. On him every caravan, every
traveller depends without mistrust. Ancient and in part most remarkable
laws, inscribed in no charter, yet known to all, make him responsible
for the welfare of the journey and for the life of each traveller,
except in so far as any inevitable dispensation of the Ordainer of
destiny may decree otherwise.
[Illustration: Fig. 49.--Caravan in the African Desert.]
At the sacred hour, the time of afternoon prayer, the leader announces
to travellers and drivers that all is ready for the start. The brown
men rush around, catching, leading, saddling, and loading the camels.
Resisting to the utmost the beasts are forced to obey; they seem to
have a vivid foreboding of a stretch of toilsome days. Their time has
now come. Roaring, screaming, snarling, and grumbling, in obedience to
the inimitable guttural commands of their masters and sundry gentle
hints from the whips, they sink down on their bended knees; bellowing
they adjust themselves to receive the unwelcome burden on their humped
backs, and still bellowing they rise with their load. Not a few kick
and bite in their efforts to resist being loaded, and it indeed
requires all the inexhaustible patience of the drivers to subdue the
obstinate creatures. But patience and tact master even camels. As soon
as the rebellious beast has consented to kneel, one of the drivers
stands up on its bent fore-legs, and with a quick grip seizes the upper
part of the muzzle so that by pressing the nose he can stop the camel’s
breathing; meanwhile two others from opposite sides lift the equally
poised burden on to the saddle; a fourth runs fastening pegs through
the loops of the ropes; and the fractious camel is loaded before he has
quite regained his senses. As soon as all are loaded, the march begins.
It is now the turn of the well-saddled trotting camels. Each traveller
fastens his weapons and indispensable personal luggage to the high,
trough-shaped saddle fixed over the hump. He then proceeds to mount
his steed. For the novice this is usually a critical business. With a
bold spring he must leap into the saddle, and, as soon as he touches
this, the camel bolts up. He rises backwards, first on his fore-knees,
immediately afterwards on his long hind-legs, and finally on his
fore-legs. To the second jerk the novice in camel-riding usually falls
a victim, he is hurled out of the saddle and either kisses mother
earth or falls on the beast’s neck and holds on tightly. The camel
is much too ill-humoured to treat this as a joke or an accident. An
angry cry bursts from its ugly lips; it flies into a passion with the
poor traveller, hanging in a most unenviable position on its neck, and
proceeds to shake itself free both of him and his baggage. It takes
some time before the traveller from the North learns to bend his body
forwards and backwards at the right moment so as to keep his seat as
the camel springs up.
For our own part, we swing ourselves into the saddle with the agility
of natives. Urging on our steed with a few strokes of the whip, and
keeping it in due check by means of a fine nose-rein, we hasten after
the leader. Our camel, a lank, loosely-built, long-legged creature,
falls at once into that uniform, persistent, long-stepping, and most
effective trot, to which it is trained from earliest youth, and which
raises it high above all beasts of burden, and closely follows the
leaders. The small head is stretched far in front; the long legs swing
quickly backwards and forwards; behind them sand and small stones rise
into the air. The burnooses of the riders flutter in the wind; weapons
and utensils clatter together; with loud calls we spur on the beasts;
the joy of travel seems to give our spirits wings. Soon we overtake
the caravan of baggage-camels which had preceded us; soon every trace
of human settlement disappears; and on all sides there stretches in
apparent infinitude--the desert.
Sharply defined all around, this immense and unique region covers
the greater part of North Africa, from the Red Sea to the Atlantic,
from the Mediterranean to the Soudan, including whole countries in
its range, embracing tracts of fertile land; presenting a thousand
varieties, and yet always and everywhere the same in its essential
features. In area, this wonderful region is nine or ten times larger
than the whole of the German Empire, and three or four times larger
than the Mediterranean. No mortal has thoroughly explored or even
traversed it; but every son of earth who has set foot on it and crossed
some part of it, is in his inmost heart impressed with its size and
grandeur, its charm and its horror. Even on the most matter-of-fact
Northerner who sojourns in the desert a lasting, ineffaceable
impression is left by the glowing splendour of the sunlight and the
parching heat of its days, by the heavenly peacefulness and the magical
phantoms of its nights, by the witchery of the radiant atmosphere, by
the dreadfulness of its mountain-moving storms; and many a one may have
experienced, what the children of the desert so acutely feel--a longing
to return, to breathe its air for a day, an hour, to see its pictures
again with the bodily eye, to experience again that “unutterable
harmony” whose echoes the desert awakens in the poetic soul. In short,
there is a home-sickness for the desert.
It is literally and truly “El Bahhr bela maa”--the sea without
water--the sea’s antithesis. To the sea the desert is not subject
as are other parts of the earth; the might of the vitalizing and
sustaining element is here annulled. “Water silently embraces all
things”--the desert alone excepted. Over the whole earth the winds bear
the clouds, the sea’s messengers, but these fade away before the glow
of the desert. It is rarely that one sees there even a thin, hardly
perceptible vapour; rarely can one detect on a leaf in the morning the
damp breath of the night. The flush of dawn and the red glow of sunset
are indeed seen, but only, as it were, in a breath which is scarce
formed when it passes away. Wherever water gains the mastery, the
desert changes into fertile land, which may, indeed, be poor enough,
but the limits between them are always sharply defined. Where the last
wave of the sacred Nile, raised above its level by man’s ingenuity,
loses itself in the sand, the contrast is seen; the traveller, whose
way lies from the river to the hills adjacent, may stand with one foot
on a field of sprouting grain, and with the other touch the desert. It
is not the sand itself which hinders the growth of plants, but solely
the scorching heat which radiates through it. For, wherever it is
irrigated or periodically watered, there, amid the otherwise plantless
desert, a green carpet of vegetation is spread, and even shrubs and
trees may grow.
[Illustration: Fig. 50.--An Encampment in the Sahara.]
Barren, pitifully barren is the desert, but it is not dead--not, at
least, to those who have eyes to see its life. Whoever looks with
a dull eye sees nothing but sandy plains and rocky cones, bare low
grounds and naked hills, may even overlook the sparse reed-like grasses
and shrubby trees of the deeper hollows, and the few animals which
occur here and there. But he who really wishes to see can discover
infinitely more. To the dull-eyed the desert is a land of horrors; they
allow themselves to be so depressed by the glowing heat of the day
that the blissfulness of the night brings them no comfort or strength;
they ride into the desert trembling, and leave it shuddering; their
sensations are all for the terrible, their feelings for the annoyances
attendant on the journey; for the infinite sublimity of the desert such
hearts are too small. But those who have really learned to know the
desert judge otherwise.
Barren the desert is, we confess, but it is not dead. Thus, although
the general aspect is uniform, the nature of the surface varies
greatly. For wide stretches the desert is like a rocky sea, with
strangely-shaped cones, abrupt precipitous walls, deeply-riven gorges,
sharp-angled ridges, and wondrous towering domes. Over these the
ceaselessly-blowing wind drifts the sand, now filling up hollows,
now emptying them again, but always grinding, polishing, hollowing
out, sharpening, and pointing. Black masses of sandstone, granite,
or syenite, more rarely of limestone or slate, and here and there
of volcanic rock glow in the sun, and rise in expressively-outlined
ranges. On one side the wind robs these of every covering, driving the
fine sand uninterruptedly over their summits, completely enveloping
them in a veil in times of storm, and leaving no particle of sand
at rest until it has been blown across the ridge. On the lee side,
protected from the wind, lie golden yellow beds of the finest rolled
sand, which form terraces one above another, each about a yard in
height. But they also are in ceaseless movement, continually displacing
one another from above downwards, and being renewed from the other
side of the range. Strikingly contrasted with the black walls of the
exposed side, these terraces of sand are visible from afar, and in
certain lights they sparkle like broad golden ribbons on the hills.
We may venture to call such ranges the regalia of the desert. No one
unacquainted with the glowing South can picture the marvellous wealth
of colour, the splendour and glamour, and the infinite charm which
the overflowing sunlight can create on the dreariest and wildest
mountains of the desert. Their sides are never clothed with the welcome
green of woodland, at most the highest peaks bear a scant covering of
bushes, to which the precipitation of vapour at this height allows a
bare subsistence and a stunted growth. One misses the whispering of
the beeches, and the rustling of the firs and pines; there is none of
the familiar murmuring, or joyous chatter, or echoing roar of running
water, which lays silver ribbons on our mountains at home, fringing
them here with verdure, while in another place the sun shining upon
rushing waterfall and whirlpool enhaloes them with rainbow colours;
there is no mantle of ice and snow which the sun can transfigure into
purple at dawn and sunset, or into glowing brightness at noon; and
there is no fresh green from any mead. In short, all the witchery and
charm of Northern mountain scenery is absent; and yet the desert
mountains are not deficient in wealth of colour, and certainly not
in majesty. Every individual layer and its own peculiar colour comes
into prominence and has its effect. And yet, brilliant as may be the
brightly-coloured and sometimes sharply-contrasted strata, it is on the
continuously sand-polished, grandly-sculptured cones, peaks, gullies,
and gorges that the light of heaven produces the finest play of colour.
The alternations of light and shade are so frequent, the flushing and
fading of colours so continuous, that a very intoxication of delight
besets the soul. Nor do the first and last rays of the sun fail to
clothe the desert mountains in purple; and distance sheds over them its
blue ethereal haze. They, too, live, for the light gives them life.
In other regions the desert is for wide stretches either flat or gently
undulating. For miles it is covered with fine-grained, golden-yellow
sand, into which man and beast sink for several centimetres. Here one
often sees not a single stem of grass nor living creature of any kind.
The uniformly blue sky roofs in this golden surface, and contributes
not a little to suggest the sea. In such places the track of the “ship
of the desert” is lost as it is made; they are pathless as the sea; for
them as for the ocean was the compass discovered. Less monotonous, but
not more pleasant, are those regions on which loose, earthy, or dusty
sand forms a soil for poisonous colocynth-gourds and the wholesome
senna. Long low hills alternate with shallow and narrow hollows, and
a carpet of the above-named plants, which from a distance seems green
and fresh, covers both alike. Such places are avoided by both man and
beast, for the camel and his driver often sink a foot deep into the
loose surface-soil. Other tracts are covered with coarse gravel or
flints, and others with hollow sand-filled balls, rich in iron, which
look almost as if they had been made by human hands, and whose origin
has not yet been very satisfactorily explained.[75] On such stretches,
where the camel-paths are almost like definite highways, thousands of
quartz crystals are sometimes exposed, either singly or in groups, like
clusters of diamonds set by an artist hand. With these the sun plays
magically, and such stretches gleam and sparkle till the dazzled eye is
forced to turn away from them. In the deepest hollows, finally, the
dust forms a soil, and there one is sure to find the reed-like, but
very hard, dry, sharp, dark-green alfa, umbrella-shaped mimosas, and
perhaps even tom-palms, pleasant assurances of life.
But of animal life also there is distinct evidence. To think of the
desert as a dead solitude is as erroneous as to call it the home
of lions. It is too poor to support lions, but it is rich enough
for thousands of other animals. And all these are in a high degree
remarkable, for in every respect they prove themselves the true
children of the desert.
It is not merely that their colouring is always most precisely
congruent with the dominant colour of the ground, that is generally
tawny, but the desert animals are marked by their light and delicate
build, by their strikingly large and unusually acute eyes and ears, and
by a behaviour which is as unassuming as it is self-possessed. It is
the lot of all creatures born in the desert to be restless wanderers,
for sufficient food cannot be found all the year round at one place,
and the children of the desert are endowed with incomparable agility,
indefatigable endurance, untiring persistence; their senses are
sharpened so that the pittance which is offered is never overlooked,
and their clothing is adapted to conceal them alike in flight or in
attack. If their life is perhaps somewhat hard, it is certainly not
joyless.
The fact that almost all the desert animals agree in colouring
with their surroundings explains why the traveller, who is not an
experienced observer, often sees, at first at least, but little of the
animal life. Moreover, the desert seems far poorer than it is, since it
is not till dusk that most of its tenants leave their places of rest
and concealment and begin to be lively. Some, however, force themselves
on the attention of the least observant. Even though the traveller may
fail to notice the various species of desert-lark which cross his path
everywhere, and are noteworthy for their likeness to the ground and for
their extraordinarily developed powers of flight, he cannot possibly
overlook the sand-grouse; and though he may ride unobserving over the
burrows of the jerboas, he is sure to observe a gazelle feeding not far
from his path.
[Illustration: Fig. 51.--Gazelles lying near a Mimosa.]
This antelope may be regarded as typically a desert animal. Although
it is proportionate in all its parts, the head and sense-organs seem
almost too large, and the limbs too delicate, in fact almost fragile.
But this head carries a brain of unusual cleverness for a ruminant, and
those limbs are as if made of steel, exceedingly strong and elastic,
admirably suited for agility and untiring endurance. One must not judge
the gazelle of the desert from its appearance in captivity, cooped
up in a narrow space. What activity, adroitness, suppleness, grace,
and spirit, it displays in its native haunts! How well it deserves
to have been chosen alike by the Oriental and by the native of the
desert as the image of feminine beauty. Trusting to its tawny coat, as
well as to its incomparable agility and speed, it gazes with clear,
untroubled eyes at the camels and their riders. Without seeming to be
disturbed by the approaching caravan, it continues to browse. From the
blossoming mimosa it takes a bud or a juicy shoot; between the sharp
alfa leaves it finds a delicate young stem. Nearer and nearer comes the
caravan. The creature raises its head, listens, sniffs the air, gazes
round again, moves a few steps, and browses as before. But suddenly
the elastic hoofs strike the ground, and the gazelle is off, quickly,
lightly, and nimbly, as if its almost unexcelled speed were but play.
Over the sandy plain it skims, quick as thought, leaping over the
larger stones and tamarisk bushes as if it had wings. It seems almost
to have left the earth, so surprisingly beautiful is its flight; it
seems as if a poem of the desert were embodied in it, so fascinating
is its beauty and swiftness. A few minutes of persistent flight carry
it out of reach of any danger with which the travellers can threaten
it, for the best trotter would pursue in vain, and not even a greyhound
could overtake it. Soon it slackens its speed, and in a few moments it
is browsing as before. And if the bloodthirsty traveller begins the
chase in earnest, the sly creature has a tantalizing way of allowing
him to get near it again; a second and a third time it cleverly gets
out of range of his murderous weapons, until at length, becoming
scared, it leaves all danger far behind. The further it gallops the
more slender seem its body and limbs; its outline begins to swim
before the eyes; at length it disappears on the sandy flat, merging
into it and seeming to melt away like a breath of vapour. Its home has
received and concealed the fugitive, removed it, as if magically, from
vision, and left not a trace behind. But if the vision is lost to the
eye it remains in the heart, and even the Western can now understand
why the gazelle has become such a richly-flowering bud in the poesy
of the East, why the Oriental gives it so high a rank among beasts,
why he compares the eyes which kindle fires in his heart to those of
the gazelle, why he likens the neck around which he throws his arms in
love’s secret hour to that of the swiftest of the desert’s children,
why the nomad brings a tame gazelle to the tent of his gladly-expectant
spouse, that she may gaze into its tender eyes and reflect their beauty
on the hoped-for pledge of their wedlock, and why even the sacred poet
finds in the fair creature a visible emblem of his longing after the
Most High. For even he, removed from the world, must have felt a breath
of the passion which has purified the words and made smooth the verses
and rhymes of the fiery songs in praise of the gazelle.
Less attractive, but by no means less interesting, are some other
desert animals. Among the sparsely sprouting alfa there is a numerous
flock of birds about the size of pigeons. Tripping hither and thither,
scratching and scraping with their bills, they seek for food. Without
anxiety they allow the rider to approach within a distance of a hundred
paces. A good field-glass enables one to see not only every movement,
but also the more prominent colours of their plumage. With depressed
head, retracted neck, and body held almost horizontally, they run
about in search of seeds, the few grains which the desert grasses
bear, freshly unfolded panicles, and insects. Some stretch out their
necks from time to time and peer circumspectly around, others, quite
careless, paddle in the sand, preening their feathers, or lie at ease,
half sideways, in the sun. All this one can distinctly see, and one
can count that there are over fifty, perhaps nearly a hundred. What
sportsman would their presence not excite? Sure of his booty, the
inexperienced traveller shuts up his field-glass, gets hold of his
gun, and slowly approaches the gay company. But the birds disappear
before his eyes. None has run or flown, yet none is to be seen. It
seems as if the earth had swallowed them. The fact is that, trusting
to the likeness between their plumage and the ground, they have simply
squatted. In a moment they have become stones and little heaps of sand.
Ignorant of this, the sportsman rides in upon them, and is startled
when they rise with simultaneous suddenness, and loudly calling and
scolding, take wing and fly noisily away. But if he should succeed in
bringing one down, he will not fail to be struck by their colouring and
marking, which is as remarkable as their behaviour. The sand-coloured
upper surface, shading sometimes into gray, sometimes towards bright
yellow, is broken and adorned by broad bands, narrower bars, delicate
lines, by dots, spots, points, streaks, and blurs, so that one might
fancy at first sight that birds so marked must be conspicuous from a
distance. But all this colour-medley is simply the most precise copy of
the ground; every dark and light spot, every little stone, every grain
of sand seems to have its counterpart on the plumage. It is no wonder
then that the earth can, as it were, make the bird part of itself, and
secure its safety, which is further assured by the creature’s strong
wings, which are capable of incomparably swift flight. And so it is
that the poetic feeling of the Arabs has idealized these sand-grouse in
luxuriant fancy and flowery words, for their beauty fascinates the eye,
and their marvellous swiftness awakens longing in the heart of mortals
who are bound to the earth.
All other desert animals display characters like the two which we have
described. Thus there is a lynx, the caracal, leaner and lanker, with
longer ears and larger eyes than the rest of his race, moreover not
striped nor spotted, but sand-coloured all except his black ear-tips,
eye-stripes, and lip-spots. His hue varies slightly, being lighter or
darker, and with more or less red, according to the locality in which
he lives. There is also a desert fox, the fenec, the dwarf of the dog
family, with dun-yellow fur, and extraordinarily large ears. The desert
also harbours a small rodent, the so-called jumping-mouse, the jerboa:
he suggests a miniature kangaroo, and has exceedingly long hind-legs,
diminutive fore-legs, and a tail longer than the body with hairs in two
rows. He is more harmless and good-natured, but also swifter and more
agile than any other rodent.
The birds, the reptiles, and even the insects show the same stamp,
though form and colouring may vary greatly. When any other colour
besides sandy-yellow becomes prominent, if hair, feather, or scale
be marked with black or white, ashy-gray or brown, red or blue, such
decorations occur only in places where they are not noticeable when
looked at from above or from the side. But where a mountain rises in
the midst of the desert, it shows its varied character also in the
animal life. On the gray rocks of the mountains in Arabia the steinbok
clambers, the hyrax has its home, the bearded vultures nest, and not a
few other birds are to be found on the peaks and cliffs, in the chasms
and valleys. But from the dark rocks of more low-lying deserts the only
sound one hears is the loud but tuneful song of the deep-black wheatear.
Thus the desert exhibits harmony in all its parts and in every one of
its creatures, and this fact goes far to strengthen the impression
made on every thoughtful, sensitive, and healthy mind--an impression
received on the first day in the desert, and confirmed on every
succeeding one.
If one would really know the desert and become in any measure at home
there, one must have a vigorous constitution, a receptive mind, and
some poetic feeling. Whoever shrinks from enduring the discomforts
of the journey, whoever fears either sun or sand, should avoid the
desert altogether. Even if the sky be clear, and the atmosphere pure
and bright, even if a cooling breeze come from the north, the day in
the desert is hard to bear. Almost suddenly, with scarce any dawn, the
sun begins to exert his masterful power. It is only near the sea or
large rivers that the dawn is heralded by a purple flush on the eastern
horizon; amid the vast sand-plains the sun appears with the first
reddening in the east. It rises over the flats like a ball of fire,
which seems as if it would burst forth on all sides. The coolness of
the morning is at once past. Directly after sunrise the glowing beams
beat down as if it were already noon. And though the north wind, which
may blow for months at a time and is often refreshing, may prevent the
unequally expanded layers of air from shaping themselves into a mirage,
yet it does not bring sufficient cooling to annul the peculiar heaving
and quivering of the atmosphere which is seen over the sand. Heaven
and earth seem to float in a flood of light, and an indescribable heat
streams from the sun, and is reflected again from the sand. With each
hour the light and heat increase, and from neither is there any escape.
The caravan starts at daybreak and proceeds without a sound. The
baggage-camels step out briskly and their drivers keep pace with
elastic steps; the riding-camels hasten at full trot, urged according
to their strength, and soon leave the burden-bearers far behind. With
unslackened speed they hurry on. All one’s bones seem to crack with the
jerks and jolting caused by the rapid pace of the riding-camels. The
sun beats down, piercing through all the garments with which one tries
to protect oneself. Under the thicker clothing perspiration pours all
over the body, on the more lightly clad arms and legs it evaporates
as it is formed. The tongue cleaves to the roof of the mouth. Water,
water, water! is the one idea left to those unaccustomed to these
discomforts. But the water, instead of being in iron vessels or flasks,
is in the characteristic skin-bags of the country; it has been carried
for days in the full sun on the camel’s back, it is more than lukewarm,
of evil odour, thick, brown in colour, and tastes so vilely of leather
and colocynth varnish that it produces nausea or even vomiting. But it
seems as impossible to improve it as to do without it. Its penetrating
taste and smell baffle all attempts to enjoy it in coffee or tea, or
mixed with wine or brandy. Undiluted wine or brandy simply increase the
burning thirst and oppressive heat. The traveller’s condition becomes
one of torture before the sun reaches the zenith, and his distress is
the greater the worse the water. But it has to be and is endured. And
although the Northerner can never conquer his repugnance to the kind
of water which we have described, he grows used to the heat, at first
so unbearable, and, as he begins to be at home with his steed, other
discomforts are also lessened. In the future he will make sure of water
which is at least clean, and will soon cease to complain of its warmth
or of any other inevitable inconveniences of his journey.
Resting comfortably, though rudely wakened by the loud grumbling of
the baggage-camels, the experienced travellers allow the caravan
to go on ahead while they comfort body and soul with coffee and
tobacco. Thereafter they mount the dromedaries and speed along as
quickly as these trotters will go. Not a word is exchanged, the
only sounds are the crunching of the sand under the elastic hoofs,
the loud breathing, and hollow, deep grunting of the camels. In a
short time the baggage-train is overtaken, and we shoot on ahead. A
gazelle browses near our course and raises hopes of welcome booty.
With spirited movements the graceful creature--image of the desert
poet’s fancy--skips and dances before its pursuers; the gasping,
sharply-spurred camels rush on with gigantic strides. The gazelle seems
careless and allows near approach; the riders act as if they would pass
it, they rein in their beasts and ride more moderately. But one slips
from the saddle to the ground, stops his beast for a moment, and from
under cover of its body fires a deadly shot. In a trice the leader has
sprung from his saddle to make sure of the fallen game; triumphantly he
drags it along, fastens it dexterously to his saddle, and on goes our
cavalcade.
Towards noon a halt is called. If there is a hollow near, it will
probably contain an umbrella-like mimosa, whose thin foliage will
afford some slight shade; but if the sandy plain stretches unbroken on
all sides, all that can be done is to fix four lances in the sand and
stretch a blanket over them. Though the sand on which one must lie is
glowing, and the air one breathes is oppressive, languor and weariness
overpower even the natives, how much more the Northerner. One seeks
rest, but it comes not, and refreshment, but one cannot enjoy it.
Blinded by the overflowing light and the tremulous atmosphere, we shut
our eyes; but, tormented by scorching heat, and tortured by feverish
thirst, we toss about sleepless. The hours go by on leaden feet.
The baggage-train winds slowly past and disappears in a vapourous sea
on whose heaving waves the camels seem to float. Still one lingers, and
continues to suffer the same agonies. The sun has long since passed the
zenith, but his glowing beams are as fierce as ever. It is not till
late in the afternoon that a fresh start is made. And again there is a
rapid ride, whose swiftness seems almost to create a cooling breeze of
air. The baggage-camels come in sight again, and are soon overtaken.
The drivers stride behind them, singing; one leads the song, and the
rest join in at the end of each verse in regular refrain.
When one knows the toilsome labour of the camel-driver in the desert,
one wonders indeed to hear him singing. Before daybreak he loaded his
camel, after he had shared with it a few handfuls of soft-boiled dhurra
grains--the sole food of both; all through the long day he strides
behind his beast, without a bite to eat, with at most an occasional
mouthful of ill-smelling water; the sun scorches his head, the glowing
sand burns his feet, the hot air parches his sweating body; for him
there is no time to pause or rest; he may perhaps have had to change
the loads of some of the beasts, or to catch one or other which had
bolted; and yet he sings! It is the approach of night which inspires
him.
When the sun goes to rest, the limbs of these wizened children of the
desert seem to become supple again; in this, as in all else, they are
like their mother. Like her they are parched at noon, like her they
revive at night. As the sun declines, their poetic gifts weave golden
dreams even in waking hours. The singer praises the well-springs rich
in water, the groups of palms around them, and the dark tents in the
shade; he greets a brown maiden in one of the tents, who hails him
with welcome; he extols her beauty, likens her eyes to those of the
gazelle, and her mouth to a rose, whose fragrance is as her words, and
these as pearls in his ear; for her sake he rejects the sultan’s eldest
daughter, and longs for the hours when fate shall permit him to share
her tent. But his comrades admonish him to seek after higher joys, and
raise his thoughts to the Prophet, “who satisfies all longing”.
Such is the song which falls on the Northerner’s ears, and the songs of
home rise to his lips, and when the last rosy flush of the setting sun
fades away, when night stretches her robe of witchery over the desert,
then it seems to him as if the hardest had been easy, as though he had
suffered no thirst in the heat, nor discomfort by the way. Cheerfully
he leaps from the saddle, and while the drivers unload and tether the
camels, he heaps and smooths the sand for his bed, spreads his carpet
and coverlet, and gives himself over with delight to the rest he had
longed for.
The small camp-fire illumines the plain only for a few paces. Around it
the dark, half-naked sons of the desert move about busily; the flame
casts a weird light on them, and in the half-darkness they look like
shadows. The bales and boxes, saddles and utensils assume strange
shapes; and the camels, lying in a wide circle outside the baggage,
become ghostly figures when their eyes gleam with the reflection of the
firelight. It becomes quieter and quieter in the camp. One driver after
another leaves the camels, with whom he has shared his frugal supper,
wraps himself in his long body-cloth, sinks to the ground, and becomes
one with the sand. The fire flares up for the last time, loses its
glow, and goes out. It is night in the camp.
He who would describe a night in the desert should be, by the grace
of God, a poet. For how can its beauty be described, even by one who
has watched, revelled, and dreamed through it all? After the heat of
the day it comes as the gentle, compensating, reconciling bestower
of unspeakable comfort and inspiration, bringing peace and joy, for
which a man longs as for his beloved who atones to him for his long
waiting. “Leïla”, the starry night of the desert, Leïla is with justice
the Arab’s image of all that is fair and joyous. Leïla he calls his
daughter; with the words, “my starry night”, he embraces his beloved;
“Leïla, O Leïla!” is the musical refrain of his songs. And what a night
it is, which here in the desert, after all the burden and discomfort
of the day, soothes every sense and feeling! In undreamt-of purity and
brightness the stars shine forth from the dark dome of heaven: the
light of the nearest is strong enough to cast slight shadows on the
pale ground. With full chest one breathes the pure, fresh, cooling,
and invigorating air; with delight one gazes from star to star, and
as their light seems to come nearer and nearer, the soul breaks
through the fetters which bind it to the dust and holds converse with
other worlds. Not a sound, not a rustle, not even the chirping of a
grasshopper interrupts the current of thought and feeling. The majesty,
the sublimity of the desert is now for the first time appreciated;
its unutterable peace steals into the traveller’s heart. But what
proud self-consciousness also fills his breast: here, in the midst
of the infinite solitude, so alone, apart from all human society and
help, reliant on himself only, his confidence, courage, and hope are
strengthened. Dream-pictures full of infinite charm pass before his
wakeful eyes, and merge in ever fresh and fascinating combinations,
and as the stars begin to twinkle and tremble, his thoughts become
dreams, and his eyes close in sleep.
After the refreshment which the desert night brings both to body and
soul, the discomforts of the next day seem lighter, however much effort
it may require to drink the water, which becomes more vile every hour.
Perfect rest, unclouded comfort is only to be had at one of the desert
wells. Always menaced by dearth of the most essential necessaries of
life, every desert journey is a ceaseless anxiety, a restless hastening
on; it is therefore entirely devoid of that ease and comfort with which
one would prefer to travel. One day passes like another; each night,
in favourable seasons at least, is like that which I have described.
But in the oasis, the day becomes a holiday, the evening is a joyous
festival, and the night brings perfect rest.
The essential condition for the formation of an oasis is a basin-like
or valley-like depression. Without a gushing spring, without at least
an artificial well, rich vegetation is impossible, and water is found
in the desert only on the lofty mountains or in the deepest hollows.
As the sea of sand is in so many respects the counterpart of the
ocean, so its oases are counterparts of islands, but they do not rise
above the surface, they are sunk beneath it. The water may either rise
in a visible spring, or it may be found at a slight depth below the
surface. Its abundance and its quality determine the character of the
oasis. In the minority the water is pure and cool, but in most cases
it is salt, ferruginous, or sulphurous, and on that account probably
very healthful. But it is by no means always drinkable or conducive
to fertility. Perhaps there is hardly one oasis which produces fresh,
green sward. And it is only in very favourable places that the water is
evident at all; in most cases it collects drop by drop in clefts of the
rock or in shafts which have been dug for it; at times at least it has
to be artificially forced. Even where the water wells up copiously it
would soon lose itself in the sand, if it were not carefully collected
and distributed. At the same time it always evokes a refreshing life,
doubly welcome amid such sterility.
Around the spring, long before men appeared to take possession, a
company of green plants had effected settlement. Who can tell how
they got there? Perhaps the sand-storm sowed the seeds, which first
germinated by the well, and grew into plants, with leaves, flowers, and
another generation of seeds which were scattered through whole valleys.
It is certain, at least, that they were not planted by men, for the
mimosas which form the greater part of the little colony occur also in
springless hollows, where one sees them sometimes singly, sometimes
forming a small thicket of ten or twenty. They alone are able to keep
life awake in the desert; they put forth green leaves, they blossom and
send forth fragrance--how fresh and balmy! In their pleasant shade the
gazelle rests; from their tops resound the songs of the few feathered
songsters of the desert. The sappy leaves, seen amid the stiff masses
of limestone, the cones of black granite, and the dazzling sand, do the
eyes good like a meadow in May; their flowers as well as their shade
refresh the soul.
In the larger, more copiously watered oases, men have planted palms,
which lend a fresh charm to the settlement. The palm is here all in
all: it is the queen of trees, the giver of fruit which sustains man
and binds him to his little spot of earth, the tree around which saga
and song are twined, the tree of life. What would an oasis be without
palms? A tent without a roof, a house without inmate, a well without
water, a poem without words, a song without tune, a picture without
colour. The palm’s fruits feed the nomad herdsman and the settler
alike, they become wheat or barley in his hand, they satisfy even the
tax-gatherer of his lord and master. Its stems, its crown, its narrow
leaves supply him with shelter and utensils, mats, baskets, and sacks,
ropes and cords. In the sandy desert one first appreciates its full
worth and importance, it becomes the visible emblem of Arabian poetry,
which rises like it from frequently barren ground, which grows strong
and fades not, which raises itself on high, and there only bears sweet
fruit.
[Illustration: Fig. 52.--An Oasis in the Desert of Sahara.]
Mimosas and palms are the characteristic trees of all oases, and are
never absent from those which have so many springs or wells that
gardens and fields become possible. Here they are restricted, like
outposts against the invading sand, to the outer fringe of the desert
island, while the interior is adorned with more exacting plants
which require more water. Thus around the springs or wells there
are often charming gardens in which grow almost all the fruit-bearing
plants of North Africa. Here the vine clambers, the orange glows amid
its dark foliage, the pomegranate opens its rosy mouth, the banana
expands its fan-shaped leaf clusters, the melons straggle among the
beds of vegetables, prickly-pears and olives, perhaps even figs,
apricots, and almonds, complete the picture of fruitfulness. At a
greater distance from the centre lie the fields, bearing at least
Kaffir-millet, and, in favourable conditions, wheat, or even rice.
In oases so rich man finds a permanent home, while in those which are
poorer he is but a sojourner, or a more or less periodic guest. The
village or small township of a large oasis is essentially like that
of the nearest cultivated country; like it it has its mosques, its
bazaars, its coffee-houses; but the inhabitants are children of a
different spirit from that which marks the peasants or townsfolk in
the Nile valley or along the coast. Although usually of diverse race
among themselves they all exhibit the same customs and habits. The
desert has shaped and fashioned them. Their slender build, sharply-cut
features, and keen eyes, gleaming from under bushy brows, mark them at
once as sons of the desert; but their habits and customs are even more
characteristic. They are unexacting and readily contented, energetic
and full of resource, hospitable and open-hearted, honourable and
loyal, but proud, irritable, and passionate, inclined to robbery and
acts of violence, like the Bedouins, though not their equals either in
good or evil. A caravan entering their settlement is a welcome sight,
but they expect the traveller to pay them toll.
Very different from such oases are those valleys in which a
much-desired well is only to be found at times. The Arabian nomads
are well pleased if the supply of drinking-water for themselves and
their herds is sufficient for a few months or even weeks; and the
caravan, which rests in such a place, may be content if its demands are
satisfied within a few days. The well is usually a deep shaft, from
whose walls the water oozes rather than trickles. A few tom-palms rise
among the sparse mimosas and saltworts which surround the well; a few
stems of grass break through the hard ground.
Unutterably poor are these nomad herdsmen, who pitch their tents here
as long as their small flocks of goats can find anything to eat. Their
struggle for existence is a continuous succession of toil, and want,
and misery. Their tent is of the simplest; a long dark web of cloth,
made of goats’ hair, is laid across a simple framework, and its ends
pinned to the ground; a piece of the same stuff forms the back-wall,
and a mat of palm-leaves forms the door in front. The web is the wife’s
self-made dowry, the materials for which she gathered, spun, and wove
from her eighth to her sixteenth year. A few mats which serve as beds,
a block of granite and a grindstone for pounding the grain got in
barter, a flat plate of clay to roast the cakes, two large jars, some
leather sacks and skins, an axe and several lances, form the total
furnishings. A herd of twenty goats is counted a rich possession for a
family. But these people are as brave as they are poor, as lovable as
they are well-built, as good-natured as they are beautiful, as generous
as they are frugal, as hospitable as they are honourable, as chaste as
they are devout. Ancient pictures rise in the mind of the Occidental
who meets with these folk for the first time; he sees biblical
characters face to face, and hears them speak in a manner with which he
has been familiar from his childhood. Thousands of years have been to
these nomads of the desert as one day; to-day they think, and speak,
and act as did the patriarchs of old. The very greeting which Abraham
uttered meets the stranger’s ear; the very words which Rebecca spoke
to Abraham’s servant were addressed to me, when, tortured with thirst,
I sprang from my camel at the well of Bahiuda, and begged a beautiful
brown damsel for a drink of fresh water. There she stood before me, the
Rebecca of thousands of years ago, alive and in unfading youth, another
and yet the same.
On the arrival of the caravan the whole population of the temporary
settlement assembles. The chief steps forward from their midst, and
utters the greeting of peace; all the rest bid the strangers welcome.
Then they offer the most precious of gifts, fresh water; it is all
that they have to give, and it is given with dignified friendliness,
ungrudgingly, yet without urgency. Eagerly the travellers drink in
long refreshing draughts; the camels also press in riotously upon the
watering-place, although they might know from experience that they
must first be unloaded, tethered, and turned on the grass before they
are allowed to quench an unbroken thirst of four or six days. Even
at the well not a drop is wasted, therefore the camels first get any
water that remains in the skins, and it is not till these are filled up
again that the beasts get a fresh draught, and that with more respect
to the existing supplies than their actual needs. Only at the copious
wells can one satisfy their apparently unbounded desires, and see, not
without amusement, how they swallow without ever looking up, and then
hasten from the well to the not less eagerly desired pasture, forced
by their hobbles to grotesque and clumsy movements, which make their
stomachs rumble like half-filled casks.
And now begins a festival both for travellers and settlers. The former
find fresh water, perhaps even milk and meat, to increase the delight
of the longed-for resting-time; the latter gladly welcome any break
in their life, which, in good seasons, is very monotonous. One of the
camel-drivers finds in the nearest tent the favourite instrument of
those who live in the desert, the _tambura_ or five-stringed zither,
and he knows right well how to use it in accompaniment to his simple
song. The music allures the daughters of the camp, and slim, beautiful
women and girls press inquisitively around the strangers, fastening
their dark eyes on them and their possessions, inquiring curiously
about this and that. Steel thy heart, stranger; else these eyes may set
it on fire. They are more beautiful than those of the gazelle, the lips
beneath put corals to shame, and the dazzling teeth excel any pearls
which thou couldst give these daughters of the desert. And soon all
yields to music and to song. Around the zither-player groups arrange
themselves for the dance; hands both hard and soft beat time to the
tune, the words, and the regular swaying movements. New forms come and
those we have become familiar with disappear; there is a constantly
changing bustle and crowd around the strangers, who are wise if they
regard all with the same innocence and simplicity which their hosts
display. All the discomforts of the journey are forgotten, and all
longings are satisfied, for water flows abundantly and takes the place
of all that one might desire in other places or at other seasons.
Such a rest revives body and soul. Strengthened and encouraged the
caravan goes on its way, and if the days bring nothing worse than
scorching, thirst, and fatigue, a second, and a third well is safely
reached, and finally the goal of the journey--the first township on the
other side of the desert. But the desert--the sea of sand--is like the
all-embracing ocean also in that it is fickle. For here too there are
raging storms, which wreck its ships and raise destruction-bringing
billows. When the north wind, which blows continuously for months,
comes into conflict with currents from the south, or yields them the
mastery, the traveller suddenly sees the sand become alive, rising
in huge pillars as thick as they are high, which whirl more or less
rapidly over the plain. The sun’s rays sometimes lend them the
ruddy gleam of flames, at another time they seem almost colourless,
yet again, portentously dark, the furious storm weakens them and
strengthens them, splits them and unites them, sometimes merging two or
more into one huge sand-spout which reaches to the clouds. Well might
the Occidental exclaim at the sublimity of the spectacle, did not the
anxious looks and words of his escort make him dumb. Woe to the caravan
which is overtaken by one of these raging whirlwinds, it will be good
fortune if man and beast escape alive. And even if the inexorable
messenger of fate pass over the party without doing harm, danger is by
no means over, for behind the sand-spouts usually comes the Simoom or
poisonous storm.
This ever-dreaded wind, which blows as the _Chamasin_ through Egypt,
as the Sirocco towards Italy, as the _Föhn_ through the Alps, as the
_Tauwind_ in North Europe, does not always rise into a storm; not
unfrequently it is hardly noticeable, and yet it makes many a man’s
heart tremble. Of course much that is fabulous is told of it, but this
much is true, that it is in certain conditions extremely dangerous to
the caravan, and that it is responsible for the bleached skeletons of
camels and the half-buried, half-mummified, corpses of men that one
sees by the wayside. It is not its strength, but its character, its
electric potential, which brings suffering and destruction to man and
beast wandering on the sandy sea.
The natives and the observant can foretell the coming of the sand-storm
at least one day, often several days, ahead. Unfailing symptoms tell of
its approach. The air becomes sultry and oppressive; a light, grayish
or reddish vapour obscures the sky; and there is not a breath of wind.
All living creatures suffer visibly under the gradually increasing
sultriness; men grumble and groan; the wild animals are shyer than
usual; the camels become restless and cross, jostling one another,
jibbing stubbornly, even lying down on the ground. The sun sets without
any colour; no red-glow fringes the evening sky; every light is veiled
in a vaporous shroud. Night brings neither coolness nor refreshment,
rather an aggravation of the sultriness, the lassitude, the discomfort;
in spite of all weariness one cannot sleep. If men and beasts are still
able to move, no rest is taken, but they hurry on with the most anxious
haste as long as the leader can see any of the heavenly bodies. But the
vapour becomes a dry fog, obscuring one constellation after another,
hiding moon and sun, though in the most favourable conditions these
may be visible, about half their normal size, pale in colour and of
ill-defined contour.
Sometimes it is at midnight that the wind begins to raise its wings;
more commonly about noon. Without a watch no one could tell the time,
for the fog has become so thick that the sun is completely hidden. A
gloomy twilight covers the desert, and everything even within a short
radius is hazy and indistinct. Gently, hardly perceptibly the air at
length begins to move. It is not a breeze, but the merest breath. But
this breath scorches, pierces like an icy wind into bone and marrow,
producing dull headache, enervation, and uneasiness. The first breath
is followed by a more perceptible gust, equally piercing and deadening.
Several brief blasts rage howling across the plain.
It is now high time to encamp. Even the camels know this, for no whip
will make them take another step. Panic-stricken they sink down,
stretch out their long necks in front of them, press them closely on
the sand, and shut their eyes. Their drivers unload them as rapidly
as possible, build the baggage into a barricade, and heap all the
water-bags closely together, so as to present the least possible
surface to the wind, and cover them with any available mats. This
accomplished, they wrap themselves as closely as may be in their robes,
moisten the part which surrounds the head, and take refuge behind the
baggage. All this is done with the utmost despatch, for the sand-storm
never leaves one long to wait.
Following one another in more rapid succession, the blasts soon become
continuous, and the storm rages. The wind roars and rumbles, pipes and
howls in the firmament; the sand rushes and rages along the ground;
there is creaking and crackling and crashing among the baggage as the
planks of the boxes burst. The prevailing sultriness increases till
the limit of endurance seems all but reached; all moisture leaves the
sweat-covered body; the mucous membranes begin to crack and bleed;
the parched tongue lies like a piece of lead in the mouth; the pulse
quickens, the heart throbs convulsively; the skin begins to peel, and
into the lacerations the raging storm bears fine sand, producing new
tortures. The sons of the desert pray and groan, the stranger murmurs
and complains.
The severest raging of the sand-storm does not usually last long, it
may be only for an hour, or for two or three, just like the analogous
thunder-storm in the north. As it assuages the dust sinks, the air
clears, perhaps a counter-breeze sets in from the north; the caravan
rearranges itself and goes on its way. But if the Simoom last for half
a day or for a whole day, then it may fare with the traveller as it
did with an acquaintance of mine, the French traveller Thibaut, as he
journeyed through the Northern Bahiuda desert. He found the last well
dry, and with almost exhausted water-bags he was forced to push on
towards the Nile, four days’ journey off. On him and his panic-stricken
caravan, which had left every dispensable piece of baggage at the
dry well, the deadly storm broke loose. The unfortunate company
encamped, hoped for the end of the storm, but waited in vain, mourning,
desponding, desperate. One of Thibaut’s servants sprang up maddened,
howled down the storm, raged, and raved, and at last, utterly spent,
fell prostrate on his master, gasped, and died. A second fell victim
to sunstroke, and when the storm at last abated was found dead in his
resting-place. A third lingered behind the rest after they had started
again on their life-or-death race, and he also perished. Half of the
camels were lost. With the remnant of his company Thibaut reached the
Nile, but in two days his coal-black hair had become white as snow.
To such storms are due the mummied corpses which one sees by the path
of the caravan. The storm which killed them also buries them in the
drifting sand; this removes all moisture so quickly that the body,
instead of decaying, dries up into a mummy. Over them one wind casts
a shroud of sand, which another strips away. Then the corpse is seen
stretching its hand, its foot, or its face towards the traveller, and
one of the drivers answers the petition of the dead, covers him again
with sand, and goes on his way, saying, “Sleep, servant of God, sleep
in peace.”
To such storms are also due the dream-pictures of the Fata Morgana
which arise in the minds of the survivors. As long as a man pursues his
way with full, undiminished strength and with sound senses, the mirage
appears to him merely as a remarkable natural phenomenon, and in no
wise as Fata Morgana. During the hot season, especially about noon,
but from nine in the morning until three o’clock, the “devil’s sea” is
to be seen daily in the desert. A gray surface like a lake, or more
accurately like a flooded district, is formed on every plantless flat
at a certain distance in front of or around the traveller; it heaves
and swells, glitters and shimmers, leaves all actually existing objects
visible, but raises them apparently to the level of its uppermost
stratum and reflects them down again. Camels or horses disappearing
in the distance appear, like the angels in pictures, as if floating
on clouds, and if one can distinguish their movements, it seems as
if they were about to set down each limb on a cushion of vapour. The
distance which limits the phenomenon remains always the same, as long
as the observer does not change his angle of vision; and thus it varies
for the rider and the pedestrian. The whole phenomenon depends on the
well-known law, that a ray of light passing through a medium which
is not homogeneous is refracted, and thus it is inevitable, since
the lower strata of air become expanded by reflection of heat from
the glowing sand. No Arab hides his face when he sees a mirage, as
fanciful travellers assure their credulous readers; none puts any deep
interpretation on the phrase which he likes to use--“the devil’s sea”.
But when the anxiety, distress, enervation, and misery consequent on a
sand-storm beset and weaken him, and the mirage appears, then it may
become a Fata Morgana, for the abnormally excited imagination forms
pictures which are in most perfect harmony with the most urgent desire
of the moment--the desire for water and for rest. Even to me, who have
observed the mirage hundreds of times, the Fata Morgana appeared once.
It was after four-and-twenty hours of torturing thirst that I saw the
devil’s sea sparkling and gleaming before me. I really thought I saw
the sacred Nile and boats with full-bellied sails, palm-groves and
woods, and country-houses. But where my abnormal senses perceived a
flourishing palm-grove, my equally abnormal comrade saw sailing-boats,
and where I fancied I recognized gardens, he saw not less imaginary
woodland. And all the deceptive phantasms vanished as soon as we were
refreshed with an unexpected draught of water; only the nebulous gray
sea remained in sight.
Perhaps every one who crosses a stretch of desert in the Nile-lands
sees the devil’s sea; but there is a real and most living desert
picture, a sight of which is not granted to all. On the extreme
limit of vision, raised perhaps by the mirage and veiled in vapour,
a number of riders appear; they are mounted on steeds swift as the
wind, with limbs like those of deer; they approach rapidly, and urging
to full gallop the steeds which till then they had restrained, they
rush down upon the caravan. It always gave me pleasure to meet these
haggard, picturesquely-clad men; they and their horses seemed to be
so thoroughly harmonious with the desert. The Bedouin is indeed the
true son of the desert, and his steed is his counterpart. He is stern
and terrible as the desert day, gentle and friendly as the desert
night. True to his pledged word, unswerving in obedience to the laws
and customs of his race, dignified in bearing, lofty in discourse,
unsurpassed in self-restraint and endurance, more sensitive than almost
any other man to deeds of prowess, to glory and honour, and not less
to the golden web of fancy into which his poetic genius weaves such
wondrous pictures and twines such tender fragrant flowers; yet is he
cunning and crafty towards his enemies, a bounden slave to his customs,
unscrupulous in his demands, mean and paltry in his exactions, greedy
in his pleasures, unrestrained in cruelty, terrible in revenge, to-day
the noble host, to-morrow a threatening and shameless beggar, now a
proud robber and again a pitiable thief. In short he is to the stranger
as fickle and changeful as the desert itself. His horse has the same
keen, fiery, expressive eyes, the same strength and agility in its
thin, almost fragile limbs, the same endurance, the same frugality, the
same nature as his master, for they grew up together under the same
tent, they rest and dwell beneath the same roof. The animal is not the
slave but the companion, the friend of its master, the playmate of his
children. Proud, spirited, and even savage in the open desert, it is as
quiet as a lamb in the tent; it seems altogether inseparable from its
master.
[Illustration: Fig. 53.--Band of Mounted Bedouins.]
In all the deserts which are, in name at least, under the sway of the
Khedive of Egypt, the Bedouins no longer fill the rôle which was theirs
in earlier times, and still belongs to them in Arabia and in North-west
Africa. For between them and the Egyptian government there is a strict
treaty which binds them to allow caravans to pass through their haunts
unmolested. Thus robberies in the desert are of the rarest occurrence,
and an encounter with the Bedouins raises the less apprehension, since
these children of the desert are usually the owners of the hired
camels. At the same time the true lords of the waste still love to
cling to the old customs and to retain a semblance of their dominion,
so that it is prudent before setting out on a desert journey to claim
safe-conduct from some recognized chief. With this in possession, an
encounter took form somewhat as follows.
One of the sunburnt horsemen sprang forward from the troop, and turned
to the leader or head of our caravan.
“Peace be with thee, O stranger!”
“And with thee, O chief, be the grace of God, His mercy, and His
compassion!”
“Whither journey ye, sirs?”
“To Belled-Aali, O Sheikh.”
“Do ye journey under protection?”
“We journey under the safe-conduct of his Excellency, the Khedive.”
“And no other?”
“Also Sheikh Soliman, Mohammed Cheir Allah, Ibn Sidi Aulad Aali, has
granted us protection and peace.”
“Then are ye welcome and blessed.”
“The Giver of all blessings bless thee and thy father, O chief!”
“Have ye need of ought? My men will supply it. In Wadi Ghitere are our
tents, and ye are welcome there if ye seek rest. If not, may Allah
grant a prosperous journey!”
“He will be with us, for He is merciful.”
“And the Guide on all good ways.”
“Amen, O chief!”
And the troop wheels off; rider and steed become one; the light hoofs
seem scarce to touch the sand, the white burnooses flutter in the wind,
and the poet’s words rise into memory--
“Bedouin, on thy steed, thou art a poem in thyself!”
Such are some of the fascinating pictures shown to the receptive eye.
The more intimately one comes to know the desert, the more it grows
upon one, alleviating and lessening all toil and discomfort. Yet the
last hours of the journey are those of greatest joy. When the first
palm-village of cultivated land appears in sight, when the silver line
of the sacred river is once more visible, gladness fills the heart.
Men and beasts hasten as if to prove that the glad reality is not an
illusion which may vanish in the mist. But the goal becomes more and
more distinct; it seems as if we had never seen fresher colours, we
fancy that nowhere else can there be trees so green, water so cool.
With a final effort the camels push on, far too slowly for their
impatient riders. Friendly greetings reach our ears. The village on
the Nile is reached at last. From all the huts throng men and women,
the aged and the children. Inquisitively they crowd around the camp,
men and women curiously questioning, youths and maidens eager for
the dance. Tambura and tarabuka, the zither and drum of the country,
invite to motion; and the dancing-girls gladden the eyes of strangers
and countrymen alike. Even the creaking of the water-wheel on the
river, formerly a thousand times cursed, seems musical to-day. The
evening brings fresh joys. Comfortably couched on the cool and elastic
divan, the foreigner pledges the native in palm-wine or merieza--the
nectar of the land; while the sound of zither and drum, and the
rhythmic hand-clapping of the dancing youths and maidens form a merry
accompaniment to the dainty banquet. But at length the approaching
night begins to press its claims. Tambura and tarabuka sink into
silence and the dance comes to an end; one after another, refreshed and
well-content, the travellers seek rest. At length only one is left, a
son of Khahira, the mother of the world, whom sleep still refuses to
bless. From beside the flickering camp-fire comes his simple, tremulous
song--
Sweet night, dear night, thou mak’st me sad,
Longer thou seem’st and alway longer;
No peace from thee I ever had,
With thee day’s pain grows ever stronger.
Oh, gentle night, how long, how long,
Since these poor eyes last saw her beauty!
Seeing aught else they do her wrong;
When will she come to claim their duty?
Oh, tender night, now hovering near,
Lighten Love’s load, and my undoing!
Bring Peace to me, Peace to my Dear,
Shelter my Sweet, and speed my wooing!
But this lover’s plaint also dies away, and the silence of the night is
unbroken save by the murmurings of the wavelets on the sacred river.
NUBIA AND THE NILE RAPIDS.[B]
[B] In order to understand and appreciate this chapter the reader
should bear in mind that the Nile is in flood from June to about the
end of September, being at its highest in the latter month, and at
its lowest in April. At low Nile the rapids present a very different
appearance from what they do at high Nile.
Egypt and Nubia, though immediately adjacent, and closely connected
by a river common to both, are essentially different countries.
Through Egypt the sacred Nile flows with leisurely dignity, through
Nubia it rushes in furious haste; over Egypt it distributes its
blessings widely, in Nubia it is hemmed in by high rocky banks; in
Egypt it triumphs over the desert, in Nubia the desert is supreme;
Egypt is a garden which the river has formed after thousands of years
of ceaseless labour, Nubia is a desert which it cannot conquer. Of
course this desert has its oases like any other, but they are few and
scarcely worth considering in comparison with the lands on both sides
of the stream which remain in unchangeable sterility and desolation.
Throughout the greater part of the long winding valley which forms what
we call Nubia, dark, gleaming masses of rock rise from the bed of the
river or from its immediate vicinity, and over wide tracts prevent the
growth of almost all vegetation. They have for their sole adornment the
waves of golden yellow sand which are blown from the deserts on east
and west, and gradually slide down the rocks into the river. The sun
beats from the deep-blue and rarely cloudy sky; for many years together
not a single shower refreshes the thirsty ground. In the deeply cut
gorges the life-giving waves of the fertilizing stream contend in vain
with the unimpressionable rocks, on which they hurl themselves roaring
and foaming, blustering and thundering, as if enraged that their
generosity is met with ingratitude and their beneficence with disdain.
The field on which this battle is waged is the region of the rapids.
Very few travellers who visit the lower valley of the Nile ever reach
the rapids of its middle course. A few go beyond the so-called first
cataract, scarcely one in a hundred passes the second. Wady Halfa, a
village immediately below the second group of rapids, is the usual
goal of travellers; only purposes of exploration, the passion for the
chase, or some commercial enterprise, leads any one further south.
For it is at Wady Haifa that the difficulties of a journey into the
interior really begin, and it is therefore not surprising that the
great majority turn the prow of the boat homewards at that village of
palms. But no one who is young and vigorous, energetic, and not too
luxuriously inclined, will ever regret if he pushes farther south.
In the Nile valley, which is by no means rich in picturesqueness,
the region of the rapids is quite unique. Grandeur and beauty,
sombreness and gaiety, desolation and overflowing life mark the scenes
that here follow one another in quick succession; but they are all
desert pictures which this landscape presents, and one must forget
conventional standards in order to appreciate them as they deserve.
The man who is unable to appreciate the desert, to revel in its wealth
of colour, to endure its scorching heat, and to find refreshment in
its solemn night, would do well to avoid the desert of the Nile. But
he who travels through the country of the rapids with open eye and
receptive heart, who in his frail boat engages, wherever possible, in
the struggle with the furiously foaming waves, will have his whole
life enriched with precious memories. For never will the impressive
spectacle that his eye has looked on fade from his mental vision, never
will the sublime melody the stream has sung in his ear cease to echo
in his soul. Such, at least, is my experience, and I have journeyed
through the rocky valley of Nubia on land and on water, up the river
and down, contending with the waves, ay, and with hunger and want, and
looking down on the rapids from the tops of high cliffs as well as from
the camel’s back.
It is customary to speak of three cataracts. Each consists of a series
of rapids, which, for about a mile, make navigation in the highest
degree difficult and dangerous. At the first cataract there is properly
but one rapid; taking the second and third together there are about
thirty which the Nubian boatmen call by special names. There are no
waterfalls which make navigation of any kind impossible, not at least
on the regular route where, in addition to passing vessels, there ply
boats specially built and equipped for the rapids.[76]
When the traveller in his progress up the sacred river has traversed
the north-easterly tract where the river is hemmed in between the
Rocks of the Chain (_Jebel Silsileh_), the scenery changes abruptly.
Behind him lies Egypt, in other words the low-lying valley, broadening
seawards into a boundless plain; before him rises the rocky threshold
of Nubia. The contrast is most striking. Monotony is replaced by
diversity. It is indeed true that even the scenery of Egypt presents
many a picture which is stimulating to the eye and refreshing to the
soul; it is true that its beauty is enhanced, especially in the morning
and evening hours, by the wondrous brilliance of southern light; but
taken as a whole it seems monotonous, for everywhere the prospect is
alike, whether the eye rests on rocks of sandstone and limestone by
the margin of the valley, or takes a wider survey over the river and
the fields. One and the same picture, with little variety, is repeated
a hundred times: hills and fruitful plains, river-banks and islands,
thickets of mimosa, groves of palms and sycamores, towns and villages,
everywhere bear essentially the same stamp. But at the rock-masses of
the first cataract, which form the last barrier overcome by the stream
as it presses towards the sea, Egypt really ends and Nubia begins. No
longer does the boat glide smoothly on a surface majestically calm; it
has to fight its way among low masses of rock, and among rocky cones
that rear themselves above the waves.
Nearing the first cataract, we see, high on a precipitous headland
on the left bank, a wretched and yet impressive piece of Arabic
architecture, the sepulchre of Sheikh Musas, the patron saint of the
first rapids. Further on lies the island of Elephantine, rich in palms,
and immediately beyond is Assuan. The way is hemmed in by masses of
rock, from whose surface the waves, storming for thousands of years,
have not succeeded in obliterating hieroglyphics graven in the time of
the Pharaohs. These rocks compel the boat to follow a tortuous course,
till at length it finds a safe landing-place in a calm creek, which is,
however, so near the rapids that it is resonant with their raging.
It is venerable ground on which we stand. Through the inscriptions
in the sacred characters of the ancient Egyptian people, past ages
converse with us in intelligible speech. “Ab”, or ivory-store, was
the name of the town Elephantine on the island of that name, and the
island remains though even the ruins of the town have almost completely
disappeared: “Sun” or Syene was the township on the right bank where
the modern Assuan stands. Elephantine was the most southerly harbour of
the old Egyptians and the capital of the southern Nile district; it was
the ancient depot for produce from the interior, especially for ivory,
highly prized then as now. “Sun” was probably only a village of working
people, but as such by no means of less importance than Elephantine.
For near here, from the earliest times, the “Mat” or “Ethiopian stone”
of Herodotus was quarried, and was brought to the river-banks to be
loaded on the boats, which bore it to its destination. It was from
this place that the valuable stone derived the name of Syenite, which
it still bears.[77] Inscriptions which are found on monuments dating
from the oldest dynasties of Egyptian kings, that is to say from
two or three thousand years before the Christian era, make repeated
mention of “Sun”, and countless other hieroglyphics in the adjacent
quarries testify to the importance of this industrial village. These
quarries extend over many square miles of the desert to the east of
the cataract. From them were hewn those immense blocks which form the
columns, obelisks, cornices, and lintels of the temples, and fill us
with wonder and admiration. With them, too, the ancients roofed in the
sepulchral chambers of the pyramids, confident that they would bear
the stupendous burden piled above them. “All around us here”, says my
learned friend Dümichen, “we see how human hands laboured to loosen the
valuable stone from the wall of rock, and to immortalize this or that
event in sculpture or inscription. Everywhere the rock has become a
memorial of the past, and numerous inscriptions, often on the highest
peaks of the mountains, proclaim the glory of the divine trinity
worshipped by the first province of Upper Egypt--the Cataract-god
Chnum-Ra, and his two consorts Sati and Anuke--or celebrate the
exploits of Egyptian kings and high officers of state. Some of these
go back to the oldest historic times, and yet how young they seem in
comparison with the work, which through innumerable ages the Egyptian
Sun-god Ra has wrought upon the stone. For the rocks, all around which
are as yet untouched by human hand, present to us a surface covered
with a dark crust gleaming like enamel; while the cut surfaces of the
syenite (to many of which we may certainly ascribe an age of four
thousand years) still show, like the blocks in the quarries, the
characteristic red of the granite in its pristine vividness--they are
still too young to show the impress of Time’s hand.”
From any of the higher peaks on the banks one can get a survey of a
part of the cataract. Two deserts meet at the Nile, and join hands
across it by means of hundreds of small rocky islands. Every island
splits the stream, forcing it into a narrower channel, through which,
however, it rushes all the more violently, ceaselessly dashing against
the ruins of the rocky barrier through which it burst hundreds of
thousands of years ago. The river seems to be intent on sweeping them
away to utter destruction, and to be enraged at finding its opponents
still invincible. The thunder of its waters resounds in the ears of
the spectator above, and seems to him a fit accompaniment to the
magnificent scene beneath him. Restless as the ever-flowing waves, the
eye travels over the chaos of rocks; it embraces hundreds of single
pictures in one glance, and then combines these into one sublime,
harmonious whole, the stiff masses of gleaming rock contrasting sharply
with the white foam of the hissing water, the golden-yellow deserts
that bound them on either side, and the dark, cloudless sky overhead.
The upper region of the rapids is especially charming. A chain of black
rocks, the natural boundary-wall between Egypt and Nubia, stretches
obliquely across the river, and sweeps out on both right and left
bank in a wide curve, thus forming before the eye of the spectator
a great basin almost completely surrounded by rocky ramparts. These
walls consist in part of continuous masses, but in part also of loose
blocks--round, oval, and angular--lying one upon the other as though
piled up by the hand of some giant. Here and there portions of this
wonderful rampart project and again recede; here and there they rise
like islands from the bed of the ancient lake which they encircled
before the mighty stream broke its way through.
In the midst of these prehistoric ruins lies the green, palm-clad
island of Philæ with its stately temple. I know of no more impressive
picture than this. Surrounded by dark, rugged rocks, encompassed by the
ceaseless roar of the waves as they beat on its foundations, bedecked
with fruitful palms and fragrant mimosas, the temple stands--a striking
emblem of inner peace amid raging strife. The river shouts its mighty
battle-song; the palms wave back an answer of peace. A worthier place
could scarcely be found for the worship of the great god to whom it was
dedicated. Amid such solitude, and in such an environment, the spirit
of the youths whom the wise priests taught must surely have found both
nurture and life, must surely have turned to what is high and holy,
have recognized the kernel within the sensory symbolism of their cult,
and have beheld the veiled image of Sais.
In the sacred trinity--Isis, Osiris, and Horus--to whom the temple of
Philæ was dedicated, Isis stood supreme. “Isis, the great goddess, the
queen of heaven, sovereign of all gods and goddesses, who with her son
Horus and her brother Osiris is worshipped in every city; the exalted,
divine mother, the spouse of Osiris, she is the queen of Philæ.” Such
is the tenor of the inscriptions in the temple itself. But records in
all the different kinds of writing that were in use at various epochs
of Egyptian history tell also of the changes which have befallen the
temple in the course of ages, down to the time when the Christian
priests, who had succeeded the servants of Isis, were driven from the
sanctuary by hordes of immigrant Arabs.
To-day the greater part of Philæ is in ruins. Instead of the
solemn chant of the priests, one hears only the simple song of the
desert-lark; but the waves of the stream still roar in their strength
as they did thousands of years ago. The island is desolate, but the
peace of the temple has remained to it. And, in spite of all changes,
island and temple are still the jewel of the first cataract.[78]
For some distance upwards from this point the Nile is free from
rocks, yet quite incapable of bestowing its blessing upon the shore.
Laboriously man endeavours to force from the stream what is elsewhere
so lavishly bestowed. Wheel after wheel creaks as it raises the
life-giving water to the narrow fringe of cultivation along the banks.
But in most places the desert and the rocks press so closely on the
river that no space is left for field or grove of palms. For long
stretches one sees nothing but stunted weeds, between which the yellow
drift-sand rolls ceaselessly down, as though it would help the desert
even here to a victory over the sacred giver of fruitful land.
To the south of Wady Halfa, the most southern village of the tract
above mentioned, the stream again rages among impeding rocky islands.
Countless masses of stone, blocks and cones of rock, compel the river
to divide its forces; the eye is bewildered by a chaos of rock and
water, the like of which is to be seen nowhere else. When the water
is high, the roar of the waves whirling and surging between the rocks
drowns the human voice; the river rumbles and thunders, rages and
blusters, dashes and hisses, so that the very rocks appear to quake.
Beyond the rapids and whirlpools, which at this point are almost
continuous, the full-swollen Nile lies like a broad, calm lake; but
this pleasant picture, enhanced by the presence of several green
islands, is circumscribed by narrow limits. For, further up, the bed of
the stream is again divided by countless rocky islands, which mark the
beginning of the “Batte el Hadjar”, or “rocky valley” of the boatmen,
in which lie no less than ten considerable rapids. It is by far the
dreariest region in Nubia, or in the whole Nile valley. From the river
there is usually nothing to be seen but sky and water, rock and sand.
The rocks rise steeply, sometimes almost vertically, on either bank,
and between them and the countless islands the Nile is so cooped up
that during its flood-time it reaches a height of 40 to 50 feet above
its lowest level.
The rocky banks of the stream are as smooth as if they had been
polished; they gleam and glow by day as if they had just left the
earth’s fiery interior. The beneficent stream rushes over them,
leaving scarcely a trace behind; indeed, only in a very few places
can it possibly exercise its prerogative of blessing. Here and there,
in receding creeks, or behind projecting bastions, which divert the
violent current, the river deposits its fertile mud and may carry a
few seeds to a resting-place. Then, even in this wilderness, there
is germination and growth, foliage and flowers. On all the islands
in whose rocky clefts mud has been caught and kept, and in all the
inlets which the current does not sweep, there is a growth of willows
and scattered mimosas, evidences of life in the realm of death. When
a willow has found a foothold it sends out root after root, shoot
after shoot, and soon the naked ground is clothed in enlivening green.
While the water is low the willows gradually spread; when the flood
comes the waves roll over both island and willow-beds. Higher and
higher rises the stream, fiercer and stronger press the waves; the
willows bow before them, but keep firm hold of the rocks. For months
the flood buries them, all but a few twigs which project above the
boiling, hissing waves; yet the roots hold fast, and the shrubs sprout
with renewed vigour as soon as the flood subsides. In such pleasant
spots, amid the dreary waste, signs of animal life are to be seen,
as in some other parts of the Nile valley. Here and there among the
willows a pair of Nile-geese have settled, lively and clamorous; on the
rock above, the pretty water-wagtail has made its home; from the shore
cliffs sounds the song of the blue rock-thrush or the black wheatear;
on the blossoming mimosas a gorgeous sun-bird--the first tropical bird
one meets--is busily at work; and now and then one may come upon a
flock of pretty little rock-partridges. These, and a few others, form
the sparse fauna of the rocky valley, but during the migrating season
they are often joined by large flocks of birds, who make the course
of the stream their highway to the interior, and rest here and there
on the journey. But they hasten on again at their utmost speed, since
the rocky valley is incapable of supporting them even for a few days;
indeed, it is often difficult to understand where they find their daily
bread.
But these are not the only settlers in this wilderness of waters. Even
men are able to find a home here. At intervals of a mile or more one
comes upon a miserable straw hut, in which a Nubian and his family eke
out a meagre subsistence. A small creek between the precipices on the
shore filled with fertile mud, or it may be only a deposit of mud upon
the rocks themselves, forms the paltry farm which he cultivates. The
owner of a creek is rich compared with his poor neighbour who can call
himself master only of a mere mud-bed. At the risk of his life the
latter swims to spots which are inaccessible on foot, and sows some
beans on the mud-plot from which the falling stream has just receded.
Some days later, when the river has sunk still lower, he repeats his
visit and his sowing operations, and so proceeds on the parts of the
mud-bank successively uncovered as long as the river continues to
fall. Thus at such places one sees fields of beans at all stages of
growth, becoming broader as the water sinks; and the frugal husbandman
is engaged at once with sowing and reaping. In the most favourable
circumstances a deeply receding inlet, filled with Nile mud, makes it
possible for the farmer to erect a water-wheel and to irrigate a field
a few acres in extent. The fortunate possessor is then able to keep a
cow, and to live at least in tolerable comfort, although he is still so
poor that even the Egyptian government does not venture to burden him
with taxes. But such places are rare oases in this forbidding waste.
The boatman, fighting his way up-stream, welcomes every bush; he greets
a palm-tree with manifest joy, a bean-field, perhaps hoped for all day
long, with exultation, a water-wheel with thanks to the All-merciful.
For it is not merely that his bold spirit has learned to know fear in
this valley of rocks, but also because he knows well that, should his
supply of provisions fail, bitter want would befall him, and starvation
stare him in the face. Down-stream the well-steered boat speeds rapidly
through this land of desolation and poverty; but sailing up-stream it
often lies, as if spell-bound, for hours, or even days, at a time,
waiting for a favourable wind, sheltered by a rock from the force of a
rapid. The boatman, who becomes “sea-sick” with the incessant rocking
of his craft, may roam or swim for miles without coming upon men or
fields.
[Illustration: Fig. 54.--An Egyptian _Sakieh_ or Water-wheel.]
At its southern limit the rocky valley passes almost abruptly into the
fertile country of middle Nubia. Before the traveller lies a narrow
basin shut in by two deserts, and with several large islands in its
midst. The basin is filled with mud, and of this the islands are
composed. Though we do not yet find all the wealth of tropical life,
there are hints of it in the freshness and vigour of both fauna and
flora. Almost continuous palm-groves, in which ripen the most delicious
dates in the world, border this pleasant oasis in which the labours
of the husbandman are rewarded by rich harvests. Christ-thorns and
various mimosas, not hitherto seen, give evidence that we have crossed
the equator. Besides the sun-bird already mentioned, there are now
other birds characteristic of the interior of Africa. In the first
dhurra-field which one carefully observes, the eyes are gladdened by
a sight of the fiery weaver-bird, as beautiful as it is agile, which
has its home among the stems, and from time to time appears like a
flash of fire on the top of an ear, uttering from this perch its simple
whirring and buzzing song, and inciting others of its kind to a like
display. In the holes and crevices of the mud-huts other members of the
family, especially steel-finches and blood-finches, have established
themselves; in the gardens round the houses the cape-pigeons have
settled; on the sand-banks in the stream have been hollowed out the
shallow mud-nests of the shear-waters or skimmers--night-terns, of
peculiar habit, who do not begin to seek their prey until the twilight,
and fish, not by diving, but by skimming over the waves and rapidly
ploughing the water with their bills, thus catching small creatures
which swim on or near the surface.
But this cheerful region has narrow limits. Below the ruined temple
of Barkal the desolate and barren hills again encroach on the river,
excluding fertile land and steppe alike. The last group of rapids
now lies before the traveller who is making his way up-stream. The
region of the third group of cataracts is not so unutterably poor as
the rocky valley. Well-tilled, though narrow, strips of land lie on
either bank, and there are fertile islands in mid-stream; thus there
is not that look of hopeless poverty which is characteristic of the
region already traversed. The masses of rock on the banks are more
broken up than those in the rocky valley, and there are many of the
so-called “stone-seas”, hillocks and walls of wildly jumbled blocks
and rolled stones, such as mighty streams leave behind when they dig
their bed deeper in the valley. On each side, usually on the top of
the cliff next the stream, there are great blocks of more than a
hundred cubic yards in bulk, which rest so loosely on their substratum
that they oscillate in violent wind, and could be hurled down by a
few men with levers. In many places these stone-seas present a most
extraordinary appearance. It seems just as if giants had for a whim
amused themselves by erecting cones and pyramids, mounds and ramparts
to form a weirdly-disordered parapet on the river’s rocky embankment.
But it is not so much to this strange natural architecture as to
ancient works of man’s own hand, that the third group of rapids owes
its characteristic appearance. On all suitable rock-projections, and
especially on the larger islands, rise buildings with inclosing walls,
towers, and jagged battlements, such as are not seen elsewhere in the
Nile valley. These are fortifications of ancient days, castles of the
river-chiefs, erected for protection and defiance, to secure life and
property against the invasions of hostile neighbouring tribes. The
ramparts and battlements are built of unhewn stones, rudely piled one
upon the other, usually cemented only with Nile mud; the thick walls
of the superstructure, roofed with sun-dried mud-tiles, have for the
most part fallen or are still falling. These fortresses impress one not
so much by their architecture as by the boldness of their position.
A naked, deep-black, glistening rock rises from the midst of the
rushing waters, and bears on its summit one of these forts. The waves
beat wildly around its base, but it stands absolutely unshaken by any
flood, and towers aloft, an impregnable refuge. On the down-stream
side, in the shelter of the rock, the life-giving stream has added
beauty to sublimity. For in the course of ages the mud accumulated in
the still-water, and an island gradually rose above the flood. On this
fertile island man planted palms and laid out fields; and thus, among
the rocks there arose a pleasing scene of security and comfort, all the
more impressive in its contrast to the wilderness of restless water and
barren rock.
At the southern boundary of the third group of rapids begin the steppes
and forests of tropical Africa, in which rocks are found only here and
there on the banks of the main stream and its great tributaries. For
over 450 miles the Bahr-el-Abiad and Bahr-el-Azrek, the White and the
Blue Nile, flow through a fruitful and almost flat country; thereafter
there are again some rapids. But they do not belong to the picture
whose chief outlines I have been endeavouring to sketch: Nubia alone is
the land of the Nile cataracts.
While it is difficult to tell to what degree the Nubian has been
influenced by his surroundings, or made by them the manner of man
he is, this at least may be safely said, that he is as markedly
differentiated from his neighbour, the modern Egyptian, as his home is
different from the land of Egypt. The truth is, they have nothing in
common, neither race nor speech, neither customs nor habits, scarcely
even religion, although both to-day repeat the creed, “There is but one
God, and Mohammed is His prophet”.
The modern Egyptians are of mixed blood, being descended from the
ancient Egyptians and the immigrant Arabic hordes from Yemen and
Hedjaz, who amalgamated with the earlier inhabitants of the lower Nile
valley. The Nubians are descendants of the “wild Blemyes”, with whom
the Pharaohs of the ancient, middle, and more recent dynasties, as well
as the Egyptian governors of the Ptolemies, contended ceaselessly, and
by no means always successfully. The former use the language in which
the “Revelations” of Mohammed are recorded, the latter use an old
Ethiopian speech now split up into several dialects; the former employ
an ancient mode of writing, the latter never have had any which has
taken organic root in their own language. The former still preserve
the seriousness at once characteristic of the old Egyptians, and of
the sons of the desert from whom they sprang. Like all Orientals they
give themselves, throughout their whole life, deep anxiety about the
world to come, and order their customs and habits according to their
fantastic notions of it. The Nubians, on the other hand, have preserved
the cheerful joyousness of the Ethiopians, living like children for the
present, taking what is pleasant without thanks and what is painful
with loud complainings, and under the influence of the moment readily
forgetting both. The yoke of foreign masters rests heavily on both
alike; the Egyptian bears it with groaning and grumbling, the Nubian
with equanimity and without resistance; the former is a sullen slave,
the latter a willing servant. Every Egyptian fancies himself high above
the Nubian, regards himself as nobler in race, speech, and customs;
boasts of his culture, though that is restricted to but a few of the
people, and seeks to oppress the dark-skinned race as completely as
he himself is oppressed. The Nubian recognizes the general physical
superiority of the Egyptian, and thoroughly acknowledges the
intellectual culture of the prominent members of the neighbour-people,
but he seems to be scarcely conscious of his own deficiency in culture,
and is even inclined, in his turn, to enslave the less strong or less
gifted people of the interior. Yet even with the purchased negro he is
on a brotherly footing, and seems to have patiently submitted to his
burdensome fate, after having tried in vain to contend successfully
against a superior force. In every fibre of his being he is still a
child of nature, while the Egyptian seems the sad type of a decayed
and still decadent people. The Nubian, in the most barren country in
the world, still retains a measure of freedom; the Egyptian, on the
richest of soils, has become a slave, who is not likely ever to venture
to shake off his chains, though he still talks vaingloriously of the
greatness of his past.
In point of fact, the Nubian has as much right, if not more, to glory
in the exploits of his ancestors and to fortify his soul in recounting
their prowess. For these ancestors fought bravely not only with the
Pharaohs and the Romans, but also with the Turks and the Arabs--the
governing and subject races of modern Egypt[79]--nor would they have
been overcome had they not been without fire-arms. At the time of my
first visit to the Nile, eye-witnesses of some of the last battles were
still alive, and from their lips I learned enough to enable me to do
justice, in one respect at least, to a manly, much misjudged people.
The events to which I refer took place in the beginning of the third
decade of this century.
After Mohammed-Aali, the energetic but unscrupulous and even cruel
founder of the family now ruling in Egypt, had, in March 1811,
treacherously fallen upon and massacred the chiefs of the Mamelukes
whom he had invited to meet him, his mastery of the Lower Nile seemed
assured. But the proud warriors, whose leaders had been done to
death by shameful stratagem and unworthy breach of faith, were not
completely subjugated. Brooding revenge, the Mamelukes chose new
leaders and betook themselves to Nubia, there to collect their forces,
to renew the combat with their artful foe, or at least to threaten
him. Mohammed-Aali recognized the danger, and delayed not to meet
it. His army followed the still-scattered troops of the Mamelukes.
The latter, too weak to venture open battle, were forced to take to
the river-forts, where, fighting desperately and defiant of death,
they fell to a man. The Nubians were conquered at the same time,
and, submitting to their fate, were condemned to servitude. Only
the brave race of the warlike Sheikier resisted. In 1820 they met
the Turkish-Egyptian army near the village of Korti--an heroic but
undisciplined people, accustomed to win victory with lance, sword,
and shield, against well-drilled soldiers equipped with fire-arms.
According to ancient custom the women were present at the battle to
stimulate the combatants with their shrill battle-cry, to raise the
children aloft in their arms, that the fathers, seeing them, might be
fired to deeds defiant of death.
The Nubians fought in a manner worthy of their sires; bravely they
pressed forward against the artillery, which wrought fell destruction
in their ranks. Mightily they smote with their long swords at the
supposed monsters, leaving the deep impress of their sharp blades on
the brazen barrels of the cannons; but the Egyptians conquered. Not
bravery, but superiority of weapons won the day. Amid screams of woe
from the women, the brown warriors took to flight. But the former,
possessed by a wild despair, preferring glorious death to shameful
servitude, pressed their children to their breasts and threw themselves
in hundreds into the river, which the blood of their husbands had
reddened. The deserts on both sides of the stream prevented the
fugitives from reaching any refuge, and finally there was nothing left
to them but to surrender and to bend their hitherto unbowed necks under
the yoke of the conqueror.
Only once again did the old heroic spirit burst into clear flames. One
of the chiefs, who is already celebrated in the saga of Melik el Nimmr,
or “the panther-king”, collected his people at Shendy in South Nubia,
for the lash of the cruel conqueror had become unbearable. Suspicious
of his intentions, Ismael Pasha, son of the Egyptian governor and
commander of the forces, set out against him, and making use of all
available boats, appeared at Shendy before Melik Nimmr had by any means
completed his preparations. Impossible demands were made in order
to compel Melik Nimmr to absolute subjection. He, recognizing the
impending ruin, braced himself for action. While he feigned submission,
his messengers hastened from hut to hut stirring into flames the sparks
of insurrection which glimmered everywhere beneath the ashes. By crafty
representations he induced Ismael Pasha to leave the security of his
ship. He lured him to the roomy though straw-thatched royal dwelling,
surrounded by a thick hedge of thorns and by immense heaps of straw
which, according to the panther-king’s assurance, were intended to
supply the camel-fodder which the Pasha demanded.
A splendid feast, such as Ismael has never seen, will Melik Nimmr
give to his lord and master. He begs leave to invite all the officers
of the Egyptian army, and receives the Pasha’s permission. Captains,
officers, and staff are gathered to the feast in the king’s humble
palace. Outside the fence of thorns sounds the tarabuka, the drum
of the country which calls to the dance, as also to the battle. The
young folk, festively anointed, engage in a merry war-dance. Hurled
lances whirr through the air, and are deftly caught on the small
shields of the company of dancers ranged opposite. Long swords are
whirled dexterously, and as skilfully warded off. Ismael is mightily
delighted with the handsome, dusky youths, the graceful movements of
their supple limbs, the boldness of their attack, the security of their
defence. Thicker and thicker becomes the whirling throng in front of
the banquet-hall, more and more sword-dancers appear, more violent and
riotous become their movements, and more rapidly beat the drums. Then
suddenly the tarabuka changes its tone; it is echoed a hundred-fold in
all quarters of Shendy, and not less in the neighbouring villages on
this side and on that side of the river. A great cry of rage in the
highest notes of women’s voices fills the air; and women naked to the
loins, with dust and ashes on their oil-soaked hair, bearing firebrands
in their hands, rush upon the king’s hall, hurling their brands on the
walls and on the surrounding heaps of straw. A monstrous sheaf of fire
shoots up to heaven, and amid the flames, resounding with cries of
horror and woe, of execration and rage, the death-dealing lances of the
dancers fly in thousands. Neither Ismael Pasha nor any of his feasting
comrades escape a horrible death.
It was as if champions of the down-trodden people had risen from the
ground. Whoever could bear weapons turned against the cruel enemy;
women, forgetful of their sex, joined the ranks of the combatants;
girls and boys strove with the strength and endurance of men towards
the common end. Shendy and Metamme were in one night freed of all their
foes. Only a few of the Egyptians, quartered in the distant villages,
escaped the bath of blood, and brought the gruesome news to the second
commander, then stationed in Kordofan.
He, Mohammed-Bei el Defterdar, still spoken of by the Nubians as “el
Djelad” or the devil, hastened with all his forces to Shendy, defeated
the Nubians for the second time, and glutted his revenge by the
slaughter of more than half the population of the unhappy country. The
“panther-king” succeeded in escaping to Abyssinia; but his subjects had
to bow under the foreign yoke, and their children “grew up”, to use
the expression of my informant, “in the blood of their fathers”. Since
these misfortunes the Nubians have remained submissive thralls of their
oppressors.
The Nubians, or, as they call themselves, the Barabra, are a people
of medium height, slim, and well-proportioned, with relatively
small, well-formed hands and feet, with generally pleasant features,
characterized by almond-shaped eyes, a high, straight or curved nose,
slightly broadened only at the lobes, a small mouth, fleshy lips,
an arched forehead, and a long chin. Their hair is fine, slightly
curled but not woolly; the colour of their skin varies from bronze
to dark-brown. They have a good carriage, their walk is light and
elastic, and their other movements nimble and graceful. Thus they
contrast very favourably with the negroes of the Upper Nile valley,
and even with the Fungis of Eastern Soudan. The men shave the hair of
the head either altogether, or all but a tuft at the top, and wear a
tightly-fitting white cap, the _takhie_, over which on holidays a white
cloth may be twisted like a turban. The clothing consists of a shawl,
six to nine yards in length, wound around the upper part of the body,
short breeches and sandals, and an additional blue or white robe-like
garment on holidays. A dagger is carried on the left arm, and, when
journeying, they also carry a lance. Leather rolls, which are said to
contain amulets, and a little pocket, hung round the neck with cords,
are the only ornaments worn by the men. The women arrange their hair in
hundreds of small thin plaits, which they soak with mutton fat, butter,
or castor-oil, thus diffusing an odour which to our nostrils seems
almost unendurable; they tattoo various parts of their face and body
with indigo; their lips are often dyed blue, and their palms always
red. They adorn their necks with beads of glass, amber, and cornelian,
amulet-pockets, and the like, their ankles with bangles of tinware,
ivory, or horn, their ears, nostrils, and fingers with rings of
silver. An apron reaching to the ankle is worn round the loins instead
of trousers, and the shawl is wound in picturesque folds around breast
and shoulders. The boys go naked until their sixth or eighth year; the
girls wear from their fourth year an exceedingly becoming tassel-apron,
made of fine strips of leather, and often decorated with glass-beads or
shells.
[Illustration: Fig. 55.--A Nubian Village on the Nile.]
All the Nubians settled in the valley of the river live in
four-cornered huts, more or less cubical in form. The walls are
sometimes built of sun-dried bricks, and then they slope slightly
inwards as they ascend, or the house may consist of a light wooden
framework covered with straw. Usually there is but one room with a low
door, and often the windows are represented only by air-holes: in fact
the whole arrangements are of the simplest. The furnishings consist
of a raised couch--the _aukareb_--with a cover of interwoven strips
of leather or bast; simple chests; well-finished, even water-tight
baskets; leather-bags; vessels for holding water, dhurra beer, and
palm wine; hand-mills or stones for grinding the grain; iron or earthen
plates, slightly hollowed on the surface, for baking bread; hollow
gourds, a hatchet, a gimlet, several mattocks, and the like. Mats,
curtains, screens, and coverlets are accessories; bowls, flat woven
dishes and their lids are luxuries which not every house possesses.
The food consists chiefly, sometimes almost exclusively, of vegetable
produce, milk, butter, and eggs. The grain, which is more frequently
rubbed than ground, is worked into dough, and baked into a doughy
bread. This may be eaten alone without any relish, or along with milk,
or with thick mucilaginous soups made of various plants. To the latter
may be added numerous pungent spices and some shreds of flesh, which
has been dried in strips in the sun. The Nubian is more keen for drink
than for food, and of every intoxicating liquor, whether of native
or foreign origin, he always shows an eager, not to say excessive,
appreciation.
The habits and customs of the inhabitants of the middle Nile valley
display a remarkable amalgamation of inherited and acquired characters.
Taciturn and carelessly pliant, the Nubian seems as willing to adapt
himself to what is new as to forget the traditions of his home.
Worshipper of Islam more in name than in reality, he is as innocent of
strict adherence to the tenets of his creed as of intolerance towards
those of another faith. Until he has reached mature manhood or old
age, he seldom or never respects the commandments of the Prophet with
the conscientiousness of Arab or Turk. He circumcises his boys, gives
his daughters in marriage, treats his wives, buries his dead, and
celebrates the feasts according to the laws of Islam; but he thinks
that he has done quite enough if he observes the external regulations
of his cult. Song and dance, amusing conversation, jokes, and a
drinking revel, please him better than the precepts and commandments of
the Koran; he has no mind to engage in monastic exercises of faith and
penitence, nor even in the fasts which other Mohammedans hold so sacred.
At the same time, no one can call the Nubian weak-willed, fickle,
servile, untrustworthy, treacherous, or, in short, bad. In lower Nubia,
where he constantly meets with hundreds of travellers, rich in his
eyes, and free-handed, he of course frequently becomes a shameless,
indeed an unendurable beggar; and the strangers whom he importunes,
because his poor land will not support him, do not tend to ennoble
him. On the whole, however, he may fairly be called an honest fellow.
One misses, it is true, the strength of will characteristic of his
fathers, but spirit and courage are by no means lacking. He is gentler
and more good-natured than the Egyptian, and not less trustworthy and
enduring when he has to face difficult or dangerous tasks. In his poor,
unproductive country his whole being is rooted. Of it he thinks with
pathetic constancy when in a strange land; he labours, pinches, and
saves with the one desire to pass his manhood and old age at home; and
this desire, which compels him to a ceaseless struggle for existence,
gives strength to both body and soul. The raging stream, with which he
contends not less persistently than with the rocky land, arouses and
preserves his courage and self-reliance, just as it develops his calm
confidence in face of danger. Thanks to the qualities thus acquired,
the Nubian is a trusty servant, a reliable companion, a restless
_djellabi_ or merchant, and, above all, an adventurous, fearless
boatman.
It almost seems as if the parents disciplined their sons from their
earliest years in all the services which they may have to discharge
when grown up. As in Egypt, so in Nubia the children of the poor are
hardly educated at all; they are at most urged to work, or rather are
utilized according to the measure of their strength. However small
the boy, he must do his work and fulfil his allotted task; however
tender the girl, she must help her mother in the many duties which are
laid upon the women of the land. But whereas in Egypt they scarcely
allow the children any recreation, in Nubia merry games are as far as
possible encouraged. In Egypt the boy becomes a thrall and the girl his
slave, without ever knowing the joys of childhood; in Nubia even those
who are more than half grown-up are often still children alike in their
disposition and in their ways. Thus the Egyptian youths seem to us as
unnaturally serious as their fathers, while the Nubians are as joyous
as their mothers.
[Illustration: Fig. 56.--Nubian Children at Play.]
Every traveller becomes familiar with a favourite game, which he
cannot watch without delight, for it displays agility and grace of
movement in combination with endurance and the spirit of adventure.
It is the universal game of “Hare and Hounds” or “Follow my leader”.
After their work is done the boys and girls unite in play. The boys
leave the water-wheel around which they have driven the oxen from early
morning till dusk, or the field in which they have worked with their
father, or the young camel which they have been teaching to trot. The
girls leave the younger brothers and sisters whom they have dragged
rather than carried about all day, or the dough whose leavening they
had to superintend, or the grinding-mill over which they have exerted
their young strength. All hasten to the bank of the river. The boys
are naked; the girls wear only their tasselled aprons. Laughing and
chattering they go; like black ants they swarm on the golden yellow
sand, running over and between the dark rocks. Those who are to chase
stand picturesquely grouped, until the fugitive gets the requisite
start. He gives the sign for the chase to begin, and they are all
at his heels. Like a gazelle he speeds over the sandy plain to the
nearest rocks, and like hounds in full cry his comrades give chase;
like a chamois he climbs aloft upon the rocks, and not less nimbly
do his pursuers follow; like a startled beaver he plunges into the
stream to hide himself by diving, to escape by swimming, but there
too they follow excitedly, both boys and girls, kicking like swimming
dogs, halloing and screaming, chattering, laughing, chuckling, like a
flock of gabbling ducks. For long the result remains undecided, and
it not unfrequently happens that the bold fugitive swims right across
the broad river before he falls into the hands of his pursuers. The
parents of the merry company look on from the banks, and rejoice in the
agility, courage, and endurance which their children display, and even
the European is compelled to admit that he never saw creatures more
joyous or more vigorous than those slim, dusky, sleek-skinned Nubian
children.
From boys who play thus boldly come the men who dare to ply the
boatman’s craft among the rapids, to steer their boat down the river
hurrying through the valley, with rushing, swirling, boiling, raging
waves, and even to sail upwards against these. On many of their
journeyings they do not even use a boat, but trust to frail floats of
dhurra-stems, or swim with the help of inflated, air-tight skin-bags.
These Nubian boatmen and swimmers have looked danger in the face so
firmly, and so often, that the waves have never whispered either myth
or saga in their ears. They know of no nixies or water-sprites, of
no genii, good or bad, and the protecting powers whose help they ask
before or during dangerous journeys have but the solemn might of fate,
none of the spite of fickle spirits. Thus the saga is dumb in the
rapids, in “the Belly of the Rocks”, in the plunging, whirling “Mother
of Stones”, in the “Shatterer”, the “Camel’s Neck”, the “Coral”, or
whatever the rapid may be called; the saga is dumb, though the whole
region seems the fittest home of legends, and the boatman has too often
reason to be tempted to believe in spirits who wish ill to human kind.
_The rapids are navigated down-stream at high and middle water,
up-stream at middle and low water._ When the Nile is lowest any boat
going down-stream would be shattered; when the flood comes not even
the largest sail would impel a vessel of considerable size against the
current. At low water hundreds of men are requisitioned to haul one
of the all-powerful government’s medium-sized barks up-stream; at the
time of flood, they would scarcely be able to find footing on the few
unflooded rock-islands on either side of the navigable channel. Full
flood is the best time for going down-stream, and middle-water is best
for going up, since at this time the regular north winds have set in
and render practicable the use of sails.
All the craft specially intended for the rapids are distinguished from
other Nile boats by their small size and by peculiarities of build
and of rigging. The hull has but few timbers, and the boards are held
together by nails driven in obliquely. The sail is not triangular, but
four-sided, and fastened to two yards in such a way that from the lower
more or less canvas can be unfurled, or spread to the wind. The build
and rigging are thoroughly adapted to the conditions. The smallness,
especially the shortness of the boat, is adapted to the necessity for
sharp turnings; the manner in which the boards are joined gives the
hull an elastic flexibility and pliancy which are valuable when the
vessel runs aground; the adaptability of the canvas to the strength
of the wind and of the current makes it possible to maintain a fairly
successful contest against a most variable resistance. Nevertheless
no one would willingly go up or down stream alone; the boatmen wisely
prefer to go in companies, so that they may aid one another whenever
occasion demands.
A fleet of boats plying up-stream presents a beautiful, inspiring
picture as it sails away from a landing-place, or from some quiet
creek, in which it has rested by night. All the navigable portions
of the river show white sails, of which one can see twenty or more
gliding among the dark rocks; at first all the craft are about the
same distance apart, but soon the variable currents and breezes break
their order. One and then another lags farther and farther behind, one
and then another shoots ahead of the main body of the fleet, and in
the course of an hour there is a wide interval between the first boat
and the last. Yet, even with a strong and constant wind, the progress
of the voyage is much less than it seems. The waves, indeed, break
impetuously on the bow, but the boat has to contend with so strong an
opposing current that its forward movement is really slow. It is an art
to steer under such conditions, so that the boat may sail as straight
as possible, consistent with avoiding the rocks hidden beneath the
surface. For every tack means a change in the position of the unwieldy
sail, and every time the boat touches a rock a leak is caused. Captain
and crew have thus constant employment. Yet their work only begins
in earnest when they near one of the countless rapids which have to
be overcome. The sail, hitherto but partially unfurled, is now given
fully to the wind; the bark pushes its way like a strong steamship
through the chaos of rocks and reaches the whirlpool which is found
beneath almost all rapids. All the men stand with oars outstretched
and ropes in readiness, awaiting the inevitable moment when the boat
will be gripped by the whirlpool and drawn into its vortex. At the
skipper’s bidding the oars on one side dip into the water, on the
other side long poles are thrust out to keep the boat off the rocks,
while the sail, skilfully handled by the most experienced sailors, is
taken in or let out, turned and twisted, as the circumstances demand.
Once, twice, six times, ten times, they try in vain to cut through the
whirlpool; at last they succeed and the boat reaches the lower end of
the water-rush. But here it stops as if spell-bound; the pressure of
the current equals that on the sails. The wind rises, and the vessel
moves on a few yards; the pressure on the sail slackens again, and the
waves drive it back to its former place. The contest with the whirling
waves recommences, and again the boat is worsted. At last it reaches
the desired goal, and must hold to it. One of the crew grips a rope in
his teeth, plunges into the midst of the wild surge, and dragging the
heavy rope behind him seeks to gain a rock which rises above the raging
waves some little distance ahead. The waves hurl him back, cover and
overwhelm him, but he continues his efforts, until it becomes plain
that he must yield to the superior force of the stream. He gives up the
struggle and is pulled by the rope back to the boat. Again the whirling
waves, so strong to destroy, play with the frail structure which
ventures to oppose them; and at last the wind gives the victory to the
boat. But suddenly a portentous crash is heard; the steersman loses his
footing and is projected into the stream; the boat has struck on one
of the hidden rocks. With the utmost speed one of the crew gets hold
of the rudder, a second throws a rope and a bladder to the struggling
steersman, and without a moment’s delay the rest jump into the hold,
and with hammer, chisel, and tow seek to repair the leak which they
are sure to find. The man at the rudder endeavours to save the vessel
from further mischance; the drenched steersman clambers up with an “_El
hamdi lillahi!_” or “Thank God!” more grumbling than grateful; the rest
hammer and plug the gaping leak, one even surrendering his shirt to eke
out the scanty tow. Once more the boat sails through whirl and wave,
rocking, creaking, groaning like a storm-tossed ship; once more it
reaches the rapids; once more it is arrested between wind and current.
Two sailors spring overboard at once, and, fighting against the stream
with all their strength, at last succeed in gaining the rock. They
surround it with one end of the rope and signal to the others to pull
the boat up. This done, the vessel is moored to the rock, and there it
hangs in the midst of the wild rush of waters, rocking so violently
and continuously that it causes nausea. A second boat draws near and
asks for assistance. A rope is floated down on a bladder, and thus
time and trouble are saved. Soon the second also reaches the rock, a
third follows, and a fourth, and all dance up and down together in
the tumult. And now the united strength of the crews is sufficient to
effect a successful passage. One of the boats is manned with double the
normal crew; the other boatmen swim, and wade, and climb, dragging the
rope to another rock further ahead, and, with all the help that the
sail can give, one boat after another is pulled through the rushing
waters of the rapid. Now and then at certain places the sail alone is
sufficient to carry the boat up, but in such cases a lull of the wind
not unfrequently endangers both craft and crew. Often, too, boats are
forced to linger in the midst of the tumult for hours or even days,
waiting for a favourable wind. Then one may see a tiny bark hanging
behind every jagged rock, all alike unable to help their neighbours.
Several times I have been forced to make my bed on one of the black
rocks amid-stream, for the violent rocking of the boat in the rapids
made sleep an impossibility. A stranger sleeping-place can scarcely
be imagined. The ground on which one lies seems to tremble before
the assaults of the flood; the roaring and bellowing, hissing and
splashing, rumbling and thundering of the waves drowns every other
sound; one sits or lies on a rug with his comrades without uttering a
word. Every blast of wind drives the spray like a fleeting mist across
the rock island. The glowing camp-fire throws a weird light on the
rock, and on the dark water foaming around its ragged edges; the falls
and whirlpools in the shade seem even more gruesome than they are. At
times one cannot help fancying that they open a hundred jaws to engulf
the poor child of man. But his confidence is firm as the rock on which
he rests. The mighty stream may thunder as it will, the seething waves
may rage and foam, he is safe on a rock which has defied the flood for
ages. But what if the rope break, and the boat be hurled and shattered
on the nearest rocks? Then another will come to take the shipwrecked
crew ashore! In spite of these and similar thoughts, and in spite of
the ceaseless roar, the traveller can sleep, and sleep tranquilly
too. For danger lends courage, and courage brings confidence, and the
thunder of the waves becomes at length a lullaby to the wearied ear.
And on the ensuing morning what an awakening! In the east the sky is
suffused with red, the ancient giant-rocks wear a purple cloak on
their shoulders, and shine in gleaming light, as if they were clad
in burnished steel. Sunshine and shadow flit over the dark reefs and
through the gullies filled with golden-yellow sand, and over all is
thrown the marvellous, indescribably beautiful, colour-garment of the
desert. Thousands and thousands of water-pearls shine and sparkle,
and the mighty river rolls out its mighty melody, which is ever the
same and yet eternally new. Such a glory, such a harmony, fills the
heart with contentment and rapture. The morning is spent in devotional
contemplation of this glorious spectacle, for it is not till forenoon
that the wind begins to blow from the north and fill the sails. Work
and danger, toil and struggle, hazard and anxiety, begin anew; and thus
one day follows another, and rapid after rapid is at length overcome.
The voyage up-stream is dangerous and tedious; the voyage down-stream
has no parallel in perilousness, such a mad rush is it through flood
and rapid, whirlpool and eddy, cataract and gorge,--an exciting game in
which life is the stake.
Voyages down-stream through the region of the rapids are only
undertaken by the special boats which are made for the purpose in the
Soudan. About ten per cent are smashed on the voyage, and that the
percentage of deaths is not equally high is simply due to the matchless
swimming powers of the Nubian boatmen. Even when they are dashed by the
waves against a rock they do not always drown; usually they are like
ducks in the water, and reach the shore in safety.
Let me try to give a faithful picture of one of these down-stream
voyages.
Six new boats, built of the much-prized heavy mimosa-wood which sinks
in water, are moored to the shore at the southern limit of the third
group of rapids. The men who compose their crews are lying on sandy
places between the black rocks, where they have spent the night. It is
still early morning and the camp is quiet; only the river roars and
murmurs in the solitude. As day dawns the sleepers awake; one after
another descends to the stream, and performs the ablutions ordained to
accompany morning prayer. After the prescribed prayer has been uttered
from “preface” to “conclusion”, they refresh themselves with a frugal
breakfast. Then old and young betake themselves to the tomb of a sheikh
or saint, whose white dome gleams among the light-green mimosas, there
to offer a special petition for a fortunate voyage. In this they are
led by the eldest _Reis_, or steersman, who represents the Imam.
Returning to the river, they observe an ancient heathen custom of
throwing some dates, as an offering, into the waves.
At length each skipper orders his men to their posts. “Let go the sail!
Row, men, row--row in the name of God, the All-Merciful,” he shouts.
Thereupon he strikes up a song, with an ever-recurring refrain; one of
the rowers takes it up and sings verse after verse; and all the rest
accompany him with the rhythmically repeated words: “Help us, help us,
O Mohammed, help us, God’s messenger and prophet!”
Slowly the bark gains the middle of the stream; quicker and ever
quicker it glides onwards; in a few minutes it is rushing, more swiftly
than ever, among the rocky islands above the rapid. “O Said, give us
good cheer,” says the Reis, while the sailors go on singing as before.
More and more quickly the oars dip into the turbid flood; the men,
who were freshly anointed yesterday, are naked to the loins, and the
sweat pours down their bodies as they strain every muscle. Praise and
blame, flattery and reproaches, promises and threats, blessings and
curses, fall from the skipper’s mouth according as the boat fulfils
or disappoints his wishes. The strokes of the oars, pulled at full
strength, follow each other more quickly still, though their purpose is
solely to direct the otherwise exceedingly rapid course of the boat,
and, as they often increase the danger they seek to avoid, the Reis may
be excused if he exhausts all the hortatory vocabulary at his command
in his desire to stimulate his crew. “Bend to your oars; work, work,
my sons: show your strength, ye children and grandchildren of heroes;
display your prowess, ye brave; exert your strength, ye giants; do
honour to the prophet, all ye faithful! Oh, for the _merieza_! Oh,
for the scented damsels of Dongola! Oh, for the delights of Cairo;
all shall be yours. Larboard, I say, ye dogs, ye children of dogs,
ye grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and litter of dogs, ye
Christians, ye heathen, ye Jews, ye Kaffres, ye fire-worshippers. Ah!
ye rascals, ye swindlers, ye thieves, ye villains, ye vagabonds, do
you call this rowing? First oar, starboard! are there women hanging
about you? Third oar, larboard! throw overboard the weaklings who are
misleading you. That’s right, well done; bravo, ye strong, supple,
clever youths; God bless you, brave fellows, and give your fathers joy
and your children His blessing. Better, better, better yet, ye cowards,
ye strengthless, ye sapless, ye miserable, ye pitiable--Allah damn you
all in His righteous wrath, ye--ye--Help us, help us, O Mohammed.” Such
is the torrent which rushes uninterruptedly from the skipper’s lips,
and all his commands and cries, entreaties and execrations, are uttered
with the utmost seriousness, and enforced with appropriate gestures of
hand, and foot, and head.
[Illustration: Fig. 57.--A Passage through the Nile Rapids.]
The boat sweeps into the first part of the rapid. The rocks on both
sides seem to whirl round; the surge floods the deck, and its thunder
drowns every order. Unresisting the frail craft is borne towards a
neck of rock--fear, anxiety, dismay may be read on every face, but
there--the dreaded spot is already behind the stern, the foaming
backwash has saved the imperilled boat, only a couple of oars have
been shivered like thin glass. Their loss hinders the right management
of the bark, and it sweeps on without answering to the rudder, on to
a formidable waterfall. A general cry, expressing horror and despair;
a sign from the Reis standing in the bow with trembling knees, and
all throw themselves flat on the deck, and hold on like grim death; a
deafening crash and an overwhelming rush of hissing, gurgling waves;
for the space of a moment nothing but water, and then the boat gives
a leap upward; they have passed the cataract and escaped the jaws
of death. “El hamdi lillahi!” (God be thanked) rings out from every
breast; some hurry to the hold to find the leak and plug it, others lay
out new oars, and on they go.
Behind the first boat comes a second, hurrying through the dangerous
rapid. The oarsmen are labouring with extraordinary, ever-accelerating
velocity; then, suddenly, all are thrown prostrate, all but one, who
describes a high curve through the air into the river. He seems lost,
buried in the raging depth; but no, while his comrades wring their
hands in dismay, the matchless swimmer appears on the surface in the
middle of the foaming whirlpool beneath the rapid. As a third boat
shoots past the second, which has stuck on a rock, and reaches the
whirlpool, the swimmer catches one of the oars, swings himself cleverly
on board, and is saved. A fourth boat also hurries past; the beseeching
gestures from the crew of the second boat implore for help; but a hand
raised to heaven is the only answer. In truth, no human help could be
given, for no craft is here under man’s control; the stream itself must
help, if it will not destroy,--and it does help. The boat oscillates
violently on the rock; its prow and stern dip deep in the water; but
suddenly there is a whirl, and once more it is borne on through the
surging current. Some of the crew row, others bale out the water, as
do two women journeying with them, others hammer, and plug, and caulk
in the attempt to repair the damage done. Half-full of water, scarce
keeping afloat at all, the boat reaches the shore and is emptied of her
cargo. But half of this, consisting of gum-arabic, is spoilt, and the
owner, a poor merchant, tears his beard, moaning, lamenting, weeping,
and cursing the two women passengers. The two women are to blame for
all. How could they, who brought ruin to the first man in paradise,
bring any blessing to faithful Mussulmans? Woe, woe upon the women and
all their kind!
Next day the bark is repaired, new caulked, and reloaded; it speeds on
with the rest to the next rapids, passes through these without further
mischance, and reaches the fertile valley of middle Nubia, which is
free from rocks and gives a hospitable welcome to every voyager. The
cares, lately so grievous, are as soon forgotten; like children, the
brown men laugh and joke, and drink with content great draughts of palm
wine and _merieza_. Much too quickly for their taste does the stream
bear the boat through this happy land.
Again the desert spreads its golden-yellow sand over the rocky banks;
again rocky islands narrow, divide, and impede the river; the barks are
entering the second group of rapids. One after another the dangerous
currents, the dreaded whirlpools, the perilous straits and corners, are
safely passed and left behind; only the last and wildest of the rapids
lie between the boats and the palmy Wady Halfa. And below that village
all is smooth sailing except at one place below Philæ, where the river
is once more broken up by rocks. Above these last rapids--Gaskol,
Moedyana, Abu-sir, and Hambol--which are truly dreadful, the boats seek
for a quiet bay; and here all encamp to gain strength for the work and
warfare, cares and trials of the coming day. The northerners also enjoy
the prospect of a quiet night’s rest.
Night draws its veil over the desert land. The rushing waves thunder
in the rocky valley; the stars are reflected in the peaceful creek;
the blossoming mimosas make the shore fragrant. An old gray-haired
Reis, born and bred among the rapids, approaches the strangers from the
north. A snow-white beard ennobles his impressive features; his flowing
cloak suggests a priest’s robe. “Sons of strangers,” he says, “men from
the land of the Franks, difficult things have ye overcome along with
us, but there is harder still before you. I am a child of this land,
seventy years has the sun shone upon me, and at last he has whitened my
hair: I am an old man, and ye might be my children. Therefore take ye
heed to my warning, and draw back from what ye propose--to accompany
us on the morrow. Witless ye go to the danger, but I know it. Had ye
seen, as I have seen, those rocks which bar the way of the waves; did
ye know, as I know, how these waves storm and rage for entrance and
passage, how they overwhelm the rocks, and hurl themselves roaring into
the depths below, ye would see that only the grace of God, whom we
praise and glorify, can guide our poor boat aright, ye would yield to
me. Would not the heart of your mother break should the All-merciful
refuse us His compassion? Ye will not stay? Then may the grace of the
Father of mercies be with us all.”
Before sunrise the shore becomes a scene of activity. Devoutly as
before the boatmen offer the prayer of the dawn. Serious, experienced
steersmen, who know the river well, and young, strong-limbed,
adventurous oarsmen, offer their services to the ancient. Carefully he
chooses the most skilful steersmen and the strongest oarsmen; he sets
three men to the rudder; and then he gives orders to start. “Men and
sons of the land, children of the river, pray the Fatiha,” he orders.
And all repeat the words of the first Sura of the Koran. “Praise and
honour to the Lord of the world, the All-merciful, He who ruleth at
the day of judgment. Thee would we serve, to Thee would we pray, that
Thou wouldest guide us in the way that is right, in the way of those
who enjoy Thy favour, and not in the way of those with whom Thou art
displeased.” “Amen, my children, in the name of the All-merciful! Let
go the sail, and bend to the oars.” With rhythmic stroke these dip into
the water.
Slowly the pent-up stream bears the boat towards the first rapid.
Again, as it nears the rocks, the boat refuses to obey either rudder
or oars, but creaking and groaning in every joint, it rushes through
the overwhelming waves and boiling foam, through eddy and whirlpool,
through narrow channels and abruptly-winding courses, drenched and
flooded with water, shaving rocky corners by an arm’s-length, almost
touching the teeth of hidden reefs. On it rushes to the second rapid.
From the height of the cataract the eye looks down with dismay at the
dreadful violence of the torrent, and one sees at the lower end of
the rapid a round block of rock surrounded by foaming waves as if it
were the head of a white-haired giant rising above the surface. Like
an arrow to its mark our fragile ungovernable boat rushes towards this
giant’s head. “In the name of the All-merciful, row, row, ye men,
ye strong, brave, noble men, ye children of the stream!” cries the
steersman. “Larboard, larboard the rudder with all your strength!”
But the boat answers neither to oars nor to rudder. It is not indeed
the giant block which endangers the craft, but a narrow channel to
the starboard into which we are swept and in which we are hurried on
towards a labyrinth of rocks through which no possible pathway can
be seen. The men already leave their oars, and throw off any clothes
they have on, so that they may be unhampered in swimming. A fearful
crash turns all eyes backward: the giant’s head has caught the next
boat, which was longer and less pliant, and holds it oscillating over
the seething flood. This increases the dismay. All our men regard the
crew of the second boat as doomed, and as for themselves they prepare
to plunge into the torrent. Then the voice of the ancient pilot rings
out sharp and clear: “Are ye mad, are ye God-forsaken, ye children
of heathen? Work, work, ye boys, ye men, ye heroes, ye giants, ye
faithful! In the hand of the Almighty rests all power and strength;
give Him the glory, and bend to your oars, ye sons of heroes!” And he
himself takes the rudder, and in a few minutes directs the misguided
boat from the “way of sinners” into the “right way”. One boat after
another appears in the open water: but not all. The giant’s head
still bears his victim, and will most likely bear it until next
year’s flood. The ill-fated boat with the women on board was shivered
to pieces at the uppermost of this group of rapids. With the crews,
happily saved, the skipper prays, as he did before departure, “Glory
and honour to the Lord of the World.”
Before the village of Wady Halfa, overshadowed with palms, the boats
are moored; the men have gone ashore, and lie in picturesque groups
around the camp-fire. Big-bellied flagons, filled with _merieza_,
invite the thirsty; in other vessels the flesh of new-killed sheep is
boiling under the care of women and girls who have quickly gathered
round. Reeking of castor-oil, they are by no means welcome visitors to
Europeans. The notes of the zither and the beating of the drum announce
the beginning of the “fantasia”, the feast and the revel. Unutterable
comfort takes possession of the boatman’s heart, joyous contentment is
expressed in every look and gesture. At length, however, the inevitable
fatigue after the heavy anxious work of the day asserts itself. The
tarabuka sinks from the wearied arm, the tambura falls from sleepy
fingers, and all the voices, which but a few moments ago were so loud,
become silent.
Then the voices of the night are heard. The thunder of the rapids
resounds down the valley, there is whispering among the crowns of the
palm-trees with which the night-wind plays, and on the flat shore the
waves splash in rhythmic cadence. The thundering waves and the rippling
water, the rushing wind and the whispering palms unite their music in
an exquisite lullaby, which leads all the sleepers to the happy land of
golden dreams.
A JOURNEY IN SIBERIA.
We had left the populous streets of St. Petersburg and the gilded
domes of Moscow far behind us; and before us rose the towers of
Nijni-Novgorod on the further bank of the Oka. We had reason to be
grateful for the manner of our reception in the two capitals of the
Russian Empire. We had respectfully taken leave of his Majesty our own
noble Emperor in Berlin, had received cordial recommendations from the
German Foreign Office, and had met with a friendly welcome from the
German Embassy in St. Petersburg, so we had hoped for a favourable
reception in Russia, but the hospitality accorded us far exceeded our
boldest expectations. His Majesty the Czar was pleased to give us an
audience; princes and princesses of the imperial house deigned to
receive us; the chancellor, the ministers, and high officers of state,
had all met us with that thoughtful courtesy and obliging complaisance
for which educated Russians are noted; and we were furnished with the
introductions whose importance we afterwards realized.
As far as Nijni-Novgorod we had enjoyed the modern conveniences of
travel; thenceforward we were to learn how Russians traverse distances
of thousands of kilometres or versts, how they travel in summer and in
winter, by day and by night, in furious storm and in smiling sunshine,
in splashing rain, icy snow, and dusty drought, in sledges and in
wagons. Before us stood a huge and massive travelling sledge, clamped
at all its joints, with broadly projecting stays to guard against
overturning, with a hood to shelter the travellers from rain and snow,
and drawn by three horses on whose yoke a little bell tinkled.
On the 19th of March we began a rapid journey over the frozen surface
of the Volga, but it was not without its hindrances. For a thaw had
accompanied us from Germany to Russia, and had warned us to hasten from
St. Petersburg and Moscow, and a thaw remained our constant companion,
as if we were heralds of the spring. Holes in the ice filled with
water, warning us of the yawning depth beneath, drenched the horses,
the sledge, and ourselves, or forced us to make tiresome circuits; the
cracking and groaning of the ice made the danger seem worse than it
really was, and both drivers and postmasters became so anxious, that
after a short journey we were forced to exchange the smooth surface of
ice for the as yet unbeaten summer highway. But this highway, traversed
by thousands and thousands of freight wagons and by an equal number of
exiles to dread Siberia, soon became to us, as to the prisoners, a way
of sighs. Loose or slushy snow about three feet deep, covered the road;
to right and left rushed little streams, wherever, in fact, they could
find a course; the horses, now yoked in a line, one behind the other,
strove, in a pitiable way, to keep their footing; with leaps and bounds
they would try to keep the tracks of those who had gone in front, and
at every false step they would sink up to the breast in the snow or in
the icy water. Behind them floundered the sledge, creaking in every
joint, as it plunged with a jerk from height to hollow; for hours
sometimes it remained stuck in a hole, baffling the most strenuous
exertions of the horses. On such occasions the wolf-scaring bell,
the gift of the mysterious Faldine, seemed to sound most eerily. In
vain the driver threatened, entreated, swore, groaned, yelled, cried,
roared, cursed, and whipped; in most cases we did not get under weigh
again until other travellers came to our assistance.
Painfully the journey lengthened to four and five times the proper
time for the distance. To look out of the sledge to right or left
was scarce worth the trouble, for the flat country was dreary and
featureless; only in the villages was there anything visible and
interesting, and that only to those who knew how to look. For the
winter still kept the people in their small, neatly built, but often
sadly dilapidated log-huts; only fur-clad boys ran barefoot through the
slushy snow and filthy mud which older boys and girls sought to avoid
by help of stilts; only some old, white-bearded beggars loafed round
the post-houses and taverns, beggars, however, whom every artist must
have found as charming as I did. When they asked for alms, and stood
in the majesty of old age, with uncovered bald heads and flowing hoary
beards, disclosing the filthiness of their body and the raggedness of
their clothes, they seemed to me such marvellous pictures and types of
world-renouncing saints, that I could not keep myself from giving to
them again and again, if only to get in thanks the sign of the cross,
repeated from three to nine times in a manner so expressive and devout
that only a real saint could equal it.
In the villages we also saw more of the animal life than we did in
the fields or even in the forests which we traversed. For in the open
country winter still kept its fetters on life and all was quiet and
death-like; we saw hardly any birds except the hooded crow and the
yellow bunting; and the snow showed scarce any tracks of mammals. In
the villages, however, we were welcomed at least by the delightful
jackdaws, which adorned the roofs of the log-houses, by the ravens,
which with us at home are the shy frequenters of mountain and forest,
but are here the most confident companions of the villagers, by magpies
and other birds, not to speak of domestic animals, among which the
numerous pigs were especially obtrusive.
After an uninterrupted journey of four days, without refreshing
sleep, without any real rest, without sufficient food, we felt as if
we had been beaten in every limb, and were, indeed, glad to reach
Kazan--the old capital of the Tartars. We crossed the Volga on foot,
picking our steps over the much-broken ice, and drew near to the city
of sixty towers, which we had seen the day before shining in the
distance. I fancied myself once more in the East. From the minarets
and the spire-like wooden towers I heard again the notes which call
every faithful follower of Islam to prayer; dark-eyed women bustled
about among the turbaned men, veiling themselves anxiously from their
country folk, but unveiling inquisitively before us, and picking their
steps, on account of their dainty but not waterproof saffron shoes,
along the steps of the houses protected by the overhanging eaves. In
the uproar of the bazaar young and old thronged and bustled without
restraint. Everything was just as it is in the East. Only the numerous
stately churches--among which we saw the convent of “the black Madonna
of Kasan not made by human hands”, conspicuous both in site and
architecture--were out of keeping with the Eastern picture, though they
showed plainly enough that Christians and Mohammedans were here living
in mutual tolerance.
On lighter sledges, but over even more unsubstantial highways, we
journeyed onwards towards Perm and the Ural. The road led through
Tartar and Russian villages and the fields around them, and again
through extensive forests. The Tartar villages usually compared
favourably with those of the Russians, not only in the absence of
swine, which the Tartars hold unclean, but even more in the always
well-cared-for cemeteries, usually surrounded by lofty trees. For the
Tartar respects the resting-place of his dead, the Russian at most
those of his saints. The woodlands, though divided up, are really
primeval forests, which rise and flourish, grow old and disappear,
without human interference, for they are too far from navigable rivers
to be as yet of much commercial value.
Two large rivers, however, the Viatka and the Kama, cross our route.
The winter holds them bound, though the approach of spring is beginning
to loosen their fetters. The banks are flooded, and the horses of the
carriers, who scorn the temporary bridges, are now and then forced to
swim and to drag the sledge like a boat behind them.
Before we reached Perm we had to exchange the sledge for the wagon,
and in this we trundled along towards the Ural, which separates Europe
from Asia. The highway leads over long ranges of hills, with easy
slopes, but gradually ascending. The landscape changes; the mountain
scenery presents many pictures, which are beautiful if they are not
grand. Small woods, with fields and meadows between, remind us of the
spurs of the Styrian Alps. Most of the woods are thin and scraggy, like
those of Brandenburg, others are more luxuriant and varied, and cover
wide areas without interruption. Here they consist of low pines and
birches, and there of the same trees mingled with limes, aspens, black
and silver poplars, above whose rounded crowns the cypress-like tops
of the beautiful pichta or Siberian silver-fir tapers upwards. On an
average the villages are larger and the houses more spacious than in
the districts previously traversed, but the roads are bad beyond all
description. Thousands of freight wagons creep wearily along, or rather
in, the deep miry ruts: slowly and painfully we also jog along until,
after three days’ journeying, we reach the watershed between the two
great basins of the Volga and the Ob, and learn from the milestone,
which bears “Europe” on the west side and “Asia” on the east, that we
have reached the boundary. Amid the clinking of glasses we think of our
loved ones at home.
The pleasant town of Yekaterinburg, with its gold-smelting and
gem-cutting industries, could not long detain us in spite of the
hospitality of its inhabitants. For the spring was gaining strength,
and the bridges of ice on the rivers and streams, which we had to cross
on our way to distant Omsk, were melting and crumbling. So we pushed
hastily onwards through the Asiatic region of the Perm government till
we reached its boundary and entered Western Siberia.
[Illustration: Fig. 58.--A Post Station in Siberia.]
Here, at the first post-house, we were met by the district officer
of Tiumen, who greeted us in the name of the governor, and offered
us escort through his district. In the chief town of the district
we found the house of one of the rich inhabitants prepared for our
reception. Thenceforth we were to learn what Russian hospitality meant.
Hitherto, indeed, we had been everywhere received and treated most
hospitably, but now the chief officials of the district or province
exerted themselves unsparingly on our behalf, and the best houses were
thrown open to us. In fact, we were treated like princes, simply
on account of our scientific mission. Words fail me to express our
gratitude with adequate warmth. Beyond Tiumen, in which we stayed
three days, inspecting the prisons of the exiles, the tanneries, and
other sights of this first Siberian town, the peasants showed us their
mastery even of the rivers. For the approaching spring had melted the
ice on the Pyshma and the blocks had begun to move; we, however, had
to get across before this happened. At the village of Romanoffskoye
the inhabitants with bared heads stood waiting for us on the bank of
the Pyshma, and even the river had to wait before it was permitted to
shake off its icy bonds. Boldly and cleverly the peasants had thrown a
makeshift bridge across the half-melted stream, using a large boat as a
centre pier, above and around which they had fettered the treacherous
ice with strong hawsers and ropes. Willing hands unyoked the team of
five required for our day’s journey, seized spokes and axles, and bore
one wagon after another across the yielding bridge, which groaned and
creaked under its burden. The task was safely accomplished, and on we
went merrily through water and snow, mud and mire, over log-roads and
ice.
The Tobol, which we wished to cross on Good Friday, the 14th April,
the first day of true spring, was less accommodating. Here also all
requisite arrangements had been made to secure our passage: one of the
wagons was unyoked and rolled on to the ice, but this suddenly cracked
and split, and forced a hasty retreat. The bells on the cross-trees had
tinkled merrily when we left Yalutoroffsk; they sounded sadly as we
drove back again, and it was not till Easter-day that we were able to
cross the great river with the help of a ferry-boat.
So we continued on our way. Before and behind us the rivers threw off
the yoke of winter; only the dreaded Irtish lay still hard-bound and
secure under our feet, and thus, after more than a month’s journey
without further adventure, we reached Omsk, the capital of Western
Siberia.
After we had seen what was to be seen in Omsk,--the streets and the
houses, the military academy, the museum, the hospital, the military
prison, and so on, we continued our journey toward Semipalatinsk,
along the highway which runs along the right bank of the Irtish,
connecting the villages of the so-called Cossack line. Already,
in passing from Yalutoroffsk to Omsk, we had journeyed through a
steppe--that of Ishim; now the steppe surrounded us on all sides, and
almost every night the heavens were red with the flames of last year’s
grass and herbage, which was now being burnt. Troops of migrating birds
followed the river directly behind the ice as it drifted northwards;
crowds of aquatic birds peopled all the steppe streams and lakes;
various species of lark flew hither and thither in flocks; the dainty
falcons of the steppe had already betaken themselves to their summer
quarters; the spring had indeed come.
In Semipalatinsk we had the good fortune to find in the governor,
General von Poltoratski, a warm friend, ready to aid us in all our
endeavours, and in his lady the most amiable of hostesses. Not content
with having secured our hospitable reception, the general most kindly
proposed to make us acquainted with the Kirghiz, who form a great part
of the population of his district, and to this end organized a great
hunting expedition after archars, the wild sheep of Siberia, which are
almost twice the size of our domestic animals.[80]
On the 3rd of May we started on the chase, crossing the Irtish and
following the post-road to Taschkent, in the Kirghiz steppe. After a
journey of sixteen hours we reached the region of the chase--a rocky
part of the steppe, and soon we were standing before the _aul_ or
_yurt_-camp which had been prepared for us. There we were welcomed
by the general’s wife, who had gone on ahead of us the day before,
and cordially also by about a score of Kirghiz sultans and district
governors, and their numerous followers.
During the next three days there was great sport on the Arkat
mountains. It was holiday with the Kirghiz, who are always eager for
fun, and it was not less so for us. Hill and valley resounded with the
hoofs of fourscore or more horsemen, who took part in the two-days’
hunt; the sun, when he was pleased to show himself, shone down on
strange, gay garments which had been hitherto hidden under furs;
there was a merry bustle over hill and dale. The Kirghiz, once so
much dreaded, whose very name means robber, are now the most faithful
and contented Russian subjects, and there they were with their
best horses--their most precious pacers, their tamed golden-eagles,
greyhounds, and camels, their zither-musicians and impromptu poets,
their wrestlers and other gymnasts--a merry crew. They sat together
in groups and companies; they darted hither and thither, singly or
in troops, wheeling their horses in sheer high spirits; with the
keenest interest they watched the wrestling bouts or the boys racing
on horseback; they led the chase with astuteness and good judgment,
and listened with delight to the words of the extempore singer who
celebrated its fortunes. One of the Kirghiz had already killed an
archar before our arrival; good luck brought a second victim to my
rifle. It was this good fortune which inspired the poet. His verses
were not particularly full of ideas, but they were none the less so
characteristic that I recorded them as a first sample of Kirghiz
poetry. While the poet sang, an interpreter translated his words into
Russian, and the General rendered them in German, while I took them
down in shorthand:--
“Speak, red tongue, speak while thou hast life, for after death thou
shalt be dumb.
Speak, red tongue, which God hath given me, for after death thou shalt
be silent.
Words such as thou now utterest will no longer flow from thee after
death.
I see before me people rising like the mountains, to them I will
declare the truth.
I seem to see the rocks and mountains, to the reindeer I would liken
them.
Greater are they than boats, like a steamship on the waves of Irtish.
But I see in thee, oh Ruler, after the majesty of the Emperor, the
highest, to be compared to a mountain, precious as an ambling reindeer.
It was my mother who bore me, but my tongue hath God given.
If I should not now speak before thee, to whom should I ever speak?
Full freedom have I to speak, let me speak as if to my own folk.
Prosperity to thee, sir, all hail and blessing to thy guests, among
them noble men, though they have thus unbent among us.
Each guest of the General is also ours, and assured of our friendship.
God alone gave me my tongue, let me speak further.
On the mountains we saw huntsmen, marksmen, and drivers, but with one
only was there good fortune.
As the top of the highest mountain towers above all others, so did
he excel all, for he sent two well-aimed balls into the body of the
archar and brought it to the yurt.
Every huntsman wished to bring in booty, but only one had his wish
fulfilled: to us was joy, and to thee, noble lady, whom I now address.
All the people are delighted, not the men only, to see thee, to greet
thee; all of us wish thee joy, and a thousand years of life and health.
And of thy good pleasure receive our homage. Thou mayest well have
seen a better people, but no truer has ever offered greeting and
welcome.
May God bless thee, thee and thy house and thy children. I cannot find
words enough to praise thee, but God has given me my tongue, and it
has spoken, the red tongue, what sprang from the heart.”
We left the Arkat mountains, and soon thereafter the district governed
by our kind host, whom we left at the hunting-ground; and very shortly
afterwards we were welcomed in Sergiopol, the first town in Turkestan,
by Colonel Friedrichs, who greeted us in the name of the governor of
this great province, and gave us escort on our way. Kirghiz chiefs
became our guard of honour, and supplied us with draught-horses which
could never before have done duty as such, so madly did they at
first try to run off with the heavy wagon. Kirghiz sultans showed us
hospitality, looked after our food and shelter, and erected yurts at
every place where we wished to rest, or were expected to do so. Kirghiz
also caught snakes and other creeping things for our collections, threw
their nets on our behalf into the steppe-lakes, and followed us like
faithful dogs on our hunting expeditions. Thus we journeyed through the
steppe-land, now gorgeous in the full beauty of spring, delaying for
a time to hunt and collect at Alakul (“the shining lake”), crossing
valleys full of blossom and smiling hills, to Lepsa, the Cossack
settlement on the Alatau, one of the grandest of the steppe mountains.
We traversed the settled region, a little paradise, flowing with milk
and honey; ascended the high mountains, rejoicing in the rushing
torrents, the green Alpine lakes, and the lovely vistas, and finally
directed our course to the north-east towards the Chinese frontier, for
the shortest and most convenient route to the Altai led us through a
portion of the Celestial Empire.
In Bakti, the last Russian outpost, news was brought to us that
His Ineffability the Jandsun Dyun, the Governor of the province
Tarabagatai, sent to greet us in the name of China, and invited us to a
banquet. To meet the hospitable wishes of the noble mandarin, we rode
on the 21st May to Tchukutchak or Tchautchak, the capital of the said
province.
The company which rode through the summer glory of the steppe was
larger and more splendid than ever. Partly in order to have a quite
necessary security in a country disquieted by insurrection, partly
in order to appear with dignity, not to say with pomp, before
his Highness, we had added to our ranks. For, besides the thirty
Cossacks from Sachan, under the leadership of our new escort, Major
Tichanoff, and besides our old Kirghiz friends, we had with us a half
sotnia of Cossacks from Bakti. The beating hoofs of our small army
sounded strangely in the otherwise desolate steppe. All our Kirghiz
were arrayed in holiday dress, and their black, blue, yellow, and
red kaftans, covered with gold and silver braid, vied in sheen and
splendour with the uniforms of the Russian officers. At the boundary,
which had recently been agreed upon, a Chinese warrior of high rank
waited to greet us. Thereupon he wheeled round and galloped off as fast
as his horse would bear him to inform his commander of our approach.
Stumbling over rubbish heaps, between half-ruined and half-built
houses, but also between blossoming gardens, our horses bore us towards
the town. There apish Mongolian faces grinned at us, and appallingly
ugly women outraged my sense of beauty. Our cavalcade drew up in
front of the Governor’s house, and we craved admission at the broad
portal. Opposite it rose a wall of beautiful workmanship, with some
strange animal figure in the centre; while to right and left on the
ground lay some Chinese instruments of torture. An official of the
house bade us enter, but indicated at the same time that the Cossacks
and Kirghiz were to remain outside. The governor received us with the
greatest solemnity in what seemed at once his sitting-room, office,
and court of justice. Preserving all the dignity of a high mandarin,
sparse of speech, in fact, uttering but a few disjointed words, always
accompanied, however, with a cheerful, grinning smile, he gave us his
hand, and bade us sit down at the breakfast-table. This gave promise
of tea, and bore innumerable small dishes with strange delicacies, and
“we raised our hands to the daintily prepared meal”. The food consisted
of rice, various fruits dried and preserved in oil, slices of ham as
thin as parchment, dried shrimp-tails, and a multitude of unknown, or,
at any rate, unrecognizable tit-bits and sweets; the drinks consisted
of excellent tea and sickeningly sweet rice-brandy of the strength
of spirits of wine. After the meal, which I, at least, managed to
get through with impunity, having fortified myself beforehand with a
substantial snack of a less doubtful kind, the hookahs were produced,
and we were shown various intelligible and unintelligible objects
of interest in that room and the one adjoining. Among these were
landscapes and pictures of animals, commendatory letters from the
government, the great seal of state wrapped up with comical carefulness
in brightly coloured silk, extraordinary arrows of an import which only
a Chinese mind can fathom, samples of European industry, and so forth.
The conversation was extremely limited, and unspeakably dignified. Our
addresses had to be translated from French to Russian, from Russian to
Kirghiz, and from Kirghiz into Chinese; and the answers had to pass
through the reverse process. Little wonder, then, that the speeches
acquired a tone of great solemnity! After breakfast some Chinese
archers came in to display their warlike valour and skill; thereafter
the Jandsun himself in all his glory led us to his kitchen-garden
to let us taste its produce. At length he bade us farewell, and we
rode again through the streets and markets of the town, and found
hospitality in the house of a Tartar, where we enjoyed an excellent
meal, especially graced by the presence of a young wife, as pretty as a
picture, who was summoned to the men’s apartments to do us honour. It
was towards sunset that we left the town, which is not without historic
interest.
Tchukutchak is that town which in 1867, after a prolonged siege, fell
into the hands of the Dungani, a Mongolian tribe, of Mohammedan faith,
who had been for long in persistent insurrection against the Chinese
rule. It was razed to the ground and no living creature spared. Of
the thirty thousand souls who are said to have inhabited the town,
over a third had found refuge in flight; the rest, confident in the
success with which repeated assaults had been repulsed, remained to
their destruction. When the Dungani succeeded in storming the town,
they showed the same inhuman cruelty which the Chinese had shown to
them. What the sword did not claim was destroyed by fire. When our
escort, Captain Friedrichs, visited the place some fourteen days after
the town had been stormed, the clouds of smoke had cleared from the
charred ruins. Wolves and dogs, with bellies swollen from eating human
flesh, slunk away sated, or refused to be disturbed in their horrible
festival, and continued to gnaw at the bones of their old foes or
masters. Eagles, kites, ravens, and crows shared the spoil. In places
where the insurgents had made space for themselves, the corpses were
thrown together in heaps, dozens and hundreds together; in other parts
of the town, in the streets, courts, and houses, corpses lay singly, in
couples, in tens,--husband and wife, great-grandparents, grandmothers,
mothers, and children, whole families and neighbours who had sought
refuge with them. Their foreheads were gashed with sword-cuts, their
features decayed and burned, their limbs gnawed and torn by the teeth
of dogs and wolves, their bodies headless and handless. Whatever horror
the maddest imagination ever pictured was here realized.
At the present day there are at most a thousand inhabitants in
Tchukutchak, and the newly-erected battlemented fort is actually under
the protection of the small Russian picket of Bakti. That the Dungani
have not yet laid down their arms nor been subdued, was sufficiently
proved by the recent march of a Chinese army into the valley of the
Emil, where insurrection is again threatened.
Under the escort of Major Tichanoff and his thirty Cossacks we
traversed this valley without seeing a single Dungani, indeed without
meeting a human being for days. The Emil, arising from the Zaur, flows
between the Tarabagatai and Semistan--two mountain ranges which meet
at an acute angle--and receives numberless small tributaries on either
side. The genius which the Chinese have for irrigation had utilized all
the streams, and made a fruitful garden of the whole valley till the
Dungani broke into and devastated the fertile land, and surrendered
it once more to the steppe-land from which it had been won. In the
neighbourhood of the town we passed through several small villages, and
we came across a Kalmuck aul, but apart from these we saw only the ruin
of former possession, comfort, and industry. Over the fields Nature
herself had drawn a veil with gentle hand, but the ruined villages,
not yet destroyed by storm and tempest, cried aloud to heaven. When
we visited these villages, the tragedy of bygone days was appallingly
clear. Between the crumbling walls, whose roofs had been burnt and
whose gables had wholly or partially fallen in, on the mouldering
rubbish over which poisonous fungi ran riot, amid remnants of Chinese
porcelain, and half-charred and thus preserved plenishings, we came
everywhere on human remains, crumbling skulls, bones broken by the
teeth of carnivores, and certain parts of the skeletons of domesticated
animals, especially of the dog. The skulls still bore traces of the
heavy blows which shattered them. The inhabitants had fallen before the
rage of their murderous foes, and the dogs had shared the fate of their
masters whom they may have been trying to protect; the other domestic
animals had been driven away, plundered like the rest of the useful
property, and the apparently useless residue had been broken up and
burnt. Only two semi-domesticated animals remain, the swallow and the
sparrow; the rest are replaced by ruin-loving birds.
We passed cheerlessly through the desolate valley. Not one of the
Dungani was to be seen, for behind our thirty Cossacks was the great
power of Russia. The first human beings we came across were Russian
Kirghiz, who, though in Chinese territory, were pasturing their flocks
and tilling their fields as usual, and had even erected a monument to
one of their dead.
From the valley of the Emil we crossed the Tarabagatai by one of the
lowest passes of the range, and thence descended to the almost flat
plateau of Tchilikti, which lies over five thousand feet above the sea,
surrounded by the Tarabagatai, Zaur, Manrak, Terserik, Mustau, and
Urkashar. Crossing the plateau, passing some enormously large _Kurgans_
or sepulchral mounds of the natives, we followed the serpentine valleys
of the infinitely irregular Manrak mountains in order to reach the
plain of Zaizan and the delightful town of the same name which had been
erected as an outpost some four years previously. Here, close to the
Chinese-Russian boundary, we found European comfort and civilization
for the first time since leaving Lepsa. In the society which we enjoyed
we seemed to be back again in St. Petersburg or Berlin. There was
talking, playing, singing, and dancing both within the family circle
and in the public gardens. The melody of nightingales accompanied the
dance and song; one forgot where one was.
I used the time of our sojourn here to hunt “ullars”, mountain-fowl
resembling partridges, but as large as black-cock, and in so doing not
only became acquainted with the wild grandeur of the Manrak mountains,
but saw the life of the poorer Kirghiz herdsmen in a light new to me,
and returned much satisfied with my excursion.
On the afternoon of the 31st May we again set off in our wagon, making
for the Black Irtish in order to meet General Poltoratski at an
appointed rendezvous in the Altai mountains. We drove rapidly through
the rich steppe-land, over coal-black soil, and afterwards over the
drier high-steppes till we came to the river, whose rolling waves bore
us next day to the lake of Zaizan. Hitherto all the Siberian rivers and
streams had seemed rather tedious; but on the Black Irtish it was far
otherwise. We got lovely views of the two great mountains--Zaur and
Altai--and the adjacent ranges, while the fresh green banks, cheerful
with singing birds, gladdened our eyes and ears. A rapid cast of the
net brought us an abundant catch of delicious fishes, and proved that
the river was as rich as it was beautiful. On the 2nd June we crossed
the shallow and muddy lake, exceedingly rich in fishes, but attractive
only in the peeps of distant scenery which were to be got from its
surface, and on the next day we traversed the dreariest part of the
steppe which we had yet seen. Here, however, we made the acquaintance
of three most noteworthy steppe animals--the wild horse or kulan, the
saiga antelope, and Pallas’ sand-grouse. Our Kirghiz secured a kulan
foal and shot one of the birds. In the evening we rested among the
spurs of Altai, and next day we met our former hosts at the appointed
place, and continued our journey under their guidance.
It was a delightful journey, though wind, snow, and rain were all too
frequent, and robbed the pleasant yurt (which we carried with us)
of much of its comfort, though torrents barred our path, and though
we had to find our way along precipitous slopes such as at home a
chamois-hunter, but certainly no horseman would attempt. A Russian
Governor does not travel like an ordinary mortal, least of all when
he journeys through uninhabited territory. He is accompanied by the
district-officers and their subordinates, by the elders and clerks
of the community, by the _elite_ of the district which he visits,
by a troop of Cossacks and their officers including the captain, by
his own servants and those of his escort, &c. And when, as in this
case, the expedition is to a comparatively unknown country, when it
is necessary to consult with Kirghiz communities, the cavalcade is
enormously increased. For not only have yurts and tents to be carried,
as is usual on steppe journeys, but flocks of sheep have to go on in
front of the little army to feed the hundreds on their way through the
barren wilderness. Since leaving the Zaizan lake we had been once more
in China, and a journey of several days had to be faced before we could
hope to come across human settlements, which are confined to the deeper
valleys among the mountains.
At first we were accompanied by more than two hundred men, mostly
Kirghiz, who had been summoned to receive an imperial order relating
to the suspension of their pasture-rights in the crown-lands of the
Altai, and to come to an agreement as to consequent changes in their
wanderings. But even after the deliberations were ended, our retinue
still numbered over a hundred horses and sixty men. In the early
morning the yurts were raised from over our heads and sent on in
front with the baggage; then we followed in companies, riding slowly
until the ladies, the General’s amiable wife and daughter, overtook
us. We breakfasted at some suitable spot, waited till the last of the
pack-horses had gone ahead, and then went on, usually reaching our
halting-place along with the daily dwindling flock of sheep which
always started first. Thus, every evening, we had an opportunity
of watching the pleasant picture of camp-life take form before us.
Lovely verdant valleys full of spring’s fragrance invited us; from the
lofty precipitous mountains, still snow-capped, we got glimpses of
the distant highlands and of the steppe-land, which we had traversed,
stretching to the Zaur and the Tarabagatai; and at last we caught sight
of Markakul--the pearl among the mountain lakes of the Altai--and
entered the highlands proper. For three long days we journeyed along
the lake, hindered by bad roads and bad weather, and delayed by a
Chinese embassy sent to the Governor; then we rode through dense
forests and over scarce surmountable passes, and down by breakneck
paths towards the Russian frontier, and into the fertile valley of
the Buchtarma. There in the newly-established Cossack settlement the
Altaiskaya-Stanitza, we were again able to enjoy Russian hospitality
and to rest in comfort.
The officers of the Stanitza were kind enough to present us with
samples of the produce of the district, and we continued our journey
on the 12th of June. The sun shone cheerfully down from a cloudless
sky on the splendid landscape, now for the first time unveiled.
Immense park-like valleys, surrounded by steeply towering, snow-capped
mountains, suffused with bewitching colours, beautiful trees on the
meadows, blossoming bushes on the slopes, and an infinite wealth of
flowers, beautiful beyond description, and as it were exultant in the
sunlight long denied to them, newly unfolded wild roses, the call of
the cuckoo and songs from a hundred throats, the auls of the Kirghiz
in the broader valleys, and the Russian villages surrounded by green
shrubs, grazing herds, fruitful fields, rushing brooks, and jagged
rocks, mild air and the balmy fragrance breathing of spring--such were
some of the elements which intoxicated the senses and made our journey
a continual delight. Soon we crossed the boundaries of the crown-lands
of the Altai, a property not much smaller than France! At the end of a
day’s journey we reached the little town of Serianoffsk with its silver
mines. After we had been hospitably entertained and had inspected
all the works, we turned again to the Irtish, and were borne by the
rapid stream through deep and picturesque gorges past Buchtarminsk to
Ustkamenogorsk, whence we journeyed in wagons once more through these
crown-lands which give promise of a rich future. Steppe-like plains
adjoin the pleasant tracts which lie along the spurs of the mountains;
extensive forests alternate with cultivated land. Large prosperous
villages; valuable, fertile fields of coal-black soil; well-built men
with a look of conscious prosperity, beautiful women in picturesque
costume, both child-like in their inquisitiveness and in their
good-nature; excellent, serviceable, untiring horses, and powerful,
shapely oxen lying at ease in large herds; an endless succession of
caravans bearing ore and coal along well-made roads, marmots on the
slopes of the mountains, souslik on the plains, imperial eagles on the
guide-posts by the highway, charming little gulls on the water-basins
and about the townships--such cheerful pictures enlivened our route. We
hastened through the country as if in flight, paying a passing visit
to the mining town appropriately called Schlangenberg (Snake-town),
and allowing ourselves but a short rest in the country-town of Barnaul.
Thence we journeyed to the little hill-town of Zalair, and thence to
the great government-town of Tomsk.
[Illustration: Fig. 59.--Imperial Eagle, Marmot, and Souslik.]
Before we came to Barnaul we had reached the Obi; at Barnaul we crossed
it, and at Tomsk we embarked on board a boat. Through its tributary the
Tom we entered this giant river, whose basin is larger than that of
all the west European rivers taken together, and sailed for about 1700
miles, towards the north. For four days and nights the river--flooded
to its highest water-mark--bore us at a rate almost twice as quick
as a steamboat hastening up-stream; we required eleven full days and
nights to cover the distance between the mouth of the Irtish and that
of the Shtchutshya, although we only rested a few hours in Samarowo
and Bereosoff, and did not include in our reckoning the two days which
we spent in Obdorsk, the last Russian village on the river. The river
is gigantic and most impressive, dreary and monotonous though it be
called. In one valley, whose breadth varied from six to sixteen miles,
it split up into numerous branches surrounding countless islands, and
often broadening out into extensive lake-like shallows; near its mouth
the depth of water in the main stream--miles in breadth--was on an
average about 90 feet. Primeval forests, hardly broken by clearings,
into whose heart not even the natives have penetrated, clothed the true
banks of the river; willow-woods in all stages of growth covered the
islands, which are continually carved at by the floods, eaten away, and
built up afresh. The further down we went the poorer became the land,
the thinner and more scanty the woods, the more miserable the villages,
though as the river nears its mouth the water liberally supplies the
food which the land itself denies. Not far below Tomsk, beyond Tobolsk,
the soil ceases to reward cultivation, further down the grazing of
cattle gradually ceases; but the river teems with shoals of valuable
fishes, and the primeval forests along its shores yield rich spoil to
the huntsman. Fisher-folk and huntsmen replace the peasants, and the
reindeer herdsmen the cattle tenders. Russian settlements become more
and more rare, the homes of the Ostiaks become more frequent, until
at length the only visible signs of man’s presence are the movable,
conical, birch-bark huts or “tshums” of the Ostiaks, and occasional
exceedingly miserable log-huts, the temporary shelters of Russian
fishermen.
[Illustration: Fig. 60.--An Ostiak Settlement on the Banks of the Obi.]
We had determined to explore a tundra or moss-steppe, and had therefore
fixed upon the Samoyede peninsula between the Ob and the Kara Sea, all
the more because a solution of certain important commercial problems
was to be looked for in this portion of the broad treeless zone which
encircles the pole--a region, moreover, on which Europeans had scarcely
as yet set foot. In Obdorsk and further down-stream we hired for this
journey several Russians, Syryanians, Ostiaks, and Samoyedes, and set
out on the 15th of July.
From the northern heights of the Ural range, which is here represented
by lofty mountains, three rivers arise near one another, the Ussa, a
tributary of the Petchora, the Bodarata, which enters the Kara Sea,
and the Shtchutshya, which flows into the Obi. It was the basin of the
last, Shtchutshya, which we determined to visit. But no one could tell
us what the country was like, how we should fare, whether we might hope
to find reindeer or be forced to go afoot.
To the mouth of the Shtchutshya river we journeyed in the usual
fashion, paying off our oarsmen at each Ostiak settlement and hiring
others; when we reached the river our own followers began their work.
For eight days we worked slowly up the stream, following its countless
serpentine windings further into the monotonous, indeed dismally
tedious tundra, now approaching the Ural range, and again diverging
from it. For eight long days we saw no human beings, but only traces
of their presence,--their necessary property packed on sledges for the
winter, and their burial-places. Treacherous swamps on both sides of
the river prevented us from making inland excursions, and millions of
bloodthirsty mosquitoes tormented us without ceasing. On the seventh
day we saw a dog--quite an event for us and our crew; on the eighth day
we came upon an inhabited tshum, and in it the only man who could tell
us about the country before us. We took him with us as a guide, and
with him, three days later, we set out on an expedition which proved as
dangerous as it was fatiguing.
We were told that reindeer were to be found nine full days’ journey
from us, on the pasturage of Saddabei in the Ural range; at this season
there was not one to be got near the Shtchutshya. There was nothing
for it but to set off on foot, and to face, as best we might, the
difficulties and hardships of a journey through a pathless, barren,
mosquito-plagued district, altogether hostile to man, and worst of
all--unknown!
After careful and prolonged consultation with the natives our
preparations were made, the burdens which each one was to bear were
carefully weighed, for the spectre of starvation loomed before us. Full
well we knew that only the nomad herdsman--but no huntsman--was able
to keep body and soul together on the tundra; well we knew by previous
experience all the trials of the pathless way, all the torments which
the army of mosquitoes promised, the inconstancy of the weather, and
the general inhospitability of the tundra, and we made our preparations
with due consideration of all these. But we could not prepare for
what we did not know and could not foretell, and for what, in fact,
eventually befell us. Not that we wished to turn back, though, had we
foreseen what was to happen, we might well have done so.
Dressed in short fur, heavily laden with knapsack, weapons, and
ammunition, we set off on the 29th of July, leaving our boat in the
charge of two of our company. Painfully we tramped, gasping under
our burdens, stopping every hour and half hour, and at length every
thousand paces, but finding no rest on account of the mosquitoes,
which tortured us day and night without ceasing. We ascended countless
hills, and traversed as many valleys, we waded through as many marshes
and morasses; we passed by hundreds of nameless lakes, and crossed a
multitude of swamps and streams.
As it happened, the tundra could not well have been more inhospitable.
The wind beat the drizzling rain into our faces; drenched to the skin
we lay down on the soaking soil, without roof to cover us, or fire
to warm us, and unceasingly tormented by mosquitoes. But the sun
dried us again, gave us new courage and strength, and on we went. A
piece of good news did us more good than sun or sleep. Our followers
discovered two tshums, and with our field-glasses we distinctly saw the
reindeer around them. Heartily delighted, we already pictured ourselves
stretched comfortably in the sledge, the only possible vehicle in such
a district, and we seemed to see the quickly-stepping antlered team. We
reached the tshum and the reindeer; a dismal sight met our eyes. For
among the herds splenic fever was raging--the most dreadful, and for
man also the most dangerous of plagues, the most inexorable messenger
of death, unsparing and merciless. Against its ruin-bringing attacks
man is powerless; it reduces peoples to poverty, and claims its victims
as surely from among men as among beasts.[81]
I counted seventy-six dead reindeer in the immediate neighbourhood
of the tshum. Wherever the eye turned it lighted on carcasses or on
beasts, both young and old, lying at their last gasp. Others came, with
death at their heart, to the sledges already loaded for departure, as
if they hoped to find help and safety in the neighbourhood of man.
They would not be driven away, but remained stock-still for a couple
of minutes with staring eyes and crossed fore-legs, then swayed from
side to side, groaned and fell; a white foam issued from mouth and
nose, a few convulsions, and another was dead. Milk-giving mothers and
their calves separated themselves from the herd; the mothers succumbed
with similar symptoms; the calves looked on curiously, as if amazed
at their mother’s strange behaviour, or grazed unconcernedly beside
the death-bed. When they came near, and found instead of their devoted
mother a corpse, they snuffed at this, recoiled in terror, and hastened
away, straying hither and thither and crying. They sought to approach
one or other of the adults, but were repulsed by all, and continued
lowing and searching until they found what they did not seek--death,
from an arrow sped by the hand of their owner, who sought to save at
least their skin. Death was equally unsparing of old and young; before
the destroying angel the strongest and stateliest stags fell as surely
as the yearlings of both sexes.
Schungei, the owner of the herd, his relatives and servants, hurried
to and fro among the dead and dying beasts, seeking with mad eagerness
to save whatever was possible. Although not unaware of the dreadful
danger to which they exposed themselves if the minutest drop of blood
or a particle of the infected foam should enter their system, knowing
well that hundreds of their race had died in agony from the incurable
plague, they worked with all their strength skinning the poisoned
corpses. A blow from a hatchet ended the sufferings of the dying deer,
an arrow killed the calves, and in a few minutes the skin--which for
weeks is quite capable of spreading the infection--was off and lying
beside the others. With blood-stained hands the men dipped morsels
cut from the bodies of the calves into the blood collected in the
chest-cavity, and swallowed them raw. The men seemed like executioners,
the women like horrible harpies, and both like blood-smeared hyænas
wallowing in carrion. Careless of the sword of death which hung over
their heads, rather by a gossamer thread than by a hair, they grubbed
and wallowed, helped even by their children, from half-grown boys down
to a little girl hardly more than a suckling.
The tshums were shifted to an adjacent hill. The unfortunate herd,
which had started from the Ural two thousand strong, and had now
dwindled to a couple of hundred, whose path was marked by a line of
carcasses, was collected afresh around the tshum; but next morning
there were again forty corpses around the resting-place.
We knew the danger of infection from animals with splenic fever or
anthrax, but we had not adequately appreciated its extent. Thus we
bought some fresh, apparently quite healthy reindeer, harnessed them to
three sledges, loaded these with our baggage, and striding beside them
went on our way lightened. The plague forbade us from getting reindeer
flesh to eat, as we had hoped, and we began to look around more
carefully and anxiously for some small game, a willow grouse, a great
snipe, a golden plover, or a duck. Sparing our slender supplies to the
utmost, we crouched around the miserable fire, whenever the least of
Diana’s nymphs had been propitious, and collectively roasted our paltry
spoil as best we might. Of satisfying our hunger there was no longer
any possibility.
After we had crossed the way of death which Schungei had followed, we
reached the first goal, the Bodarata. There we had the inestimable good
fortune to find more tshums and reindeer. Thus aided we made for the
sea, but we were forced to turn without setting foot on the shore. For
before us lay not only a pathless morass, but again a countless heap of
reindeer carcasses; we were once more on the path by which Schungei had
fled homewards, and our new acquaintance, the herdsman Zanda, would not
dare to cross it.
For in his herd also death had been busy with his scythe; the
destroyer had visited his house, and yet more disastrously those of
his neighbours. The man who had been his companion on his wanderings
had eaten of an infected fat reindeer which he had hastily killed, and
he had paid for his rashness with his own life and that of his family.
Thrice had the herd Zanda shifted his tshum, and thrice he had dug
a grave among the corpses of the reindeer. First, two children fell
victims to the dread disease, then the thoughtless man’s servant, on
the third day the man himself. Another child was still ill, groaning in
its agony, when we set out on our journey to the sea; its cries were
silenced when we returned to the tshum, for the grave had received a
fifth victim. And this was not to be the last.
One of our men, the Ostiak Hadt, a willing, cheerful fellow, who had
endeared himself to us, had been complaining since the day before of
torturing pains which became ever more severe. He complained especially
of an increasing sensation of cold. We had placed him on one of the
sledges when we reached the herdsman’s tshum, and thus we bore him when
the tshum was shifted for the fifth time. He lay at the fire moaning
and whining in our midst. From time to time he raised himself and bared
his body to the warmth of the fire. Similarly he pushed his numb feet
against the flames, and seemed to care not that they singed. At length
we fell asleep, perhaps he did also, but when we awoke next morning his
bed was empty. Outside, in front of the tshum, he sat quietly leaning
on a sledge, with his face to the sun, whose warmth he sought. Hadt was
dead.
Some hours later we buried him according to the customs of his people.
He was a true “heathen”, and in heathenish fashion he should be buried.
Our “orthodox” companions hesitated to do this; our “heathen” followers
helped us in the ceremony, which, though not Christian, was at any rate
dignified and human. The grave received its sixth victim.
Should this be the last? Involuntarily this question arose; it
was gruesome for us all to have death as a travelling companion.
Fortunately for us, Hadt’s grave was the last on this journey.
Seriously, very seriously, still oppressed by increasing dearth of
provisions, we turned again towards the Shtchutshya. Zanda provided
a scant diet for our followers, while we relied on what we could
shoot, and were pinched enough. But one forenoon we captured a family
of geese, and shot several willow grouse, snipe, and plovers, and
celebrated a feast, for it was pleasant to be able to eat without
counting the mouthfuls. But without the help of our host it would
hardly have been possible for us to have survived.
We reached the river, and, almost at the end of our stores, we regained
our boat. Here we feasted on fare which was poor enough, though, after
a fortnight’s privation, it seemed most sumptuous. We said farewell for
ever to the tundra.
A Shaman, whom we had found busy fishing further up the Obi, and had
asked to give us a sample of his art and wisdom, had duly beaten his
dull-sounding drum to summon Yamaul, the messenger of the gods, who
befriended him, and had told us that we should next year revisit the
inhospitable country which we had just left, but that we should then
go to the region where the Shtchutshya, Bodarata, and Ussa have their
source. For two emperors would reward us, and the elders of our people
would be satisfied with our report, and send us forth again. Moreover,
on our journey no further misfortune would befall us. So the messenger
of the gods, perceived by him alone, had said.
The last part of his prophecy was true enough. Slowly but without
mishap or accident we journeyed for twenty-three days up the Obi,
and after long delay we fortunately reached a steamboat, on which
we ascended the Irtish for three days. Without misfortune, though
not without hindrance, we crossed the Ural, in a comfortable steamer
we glided swiftly down the Kama, more slowly we ascended the Volga.
In Nijni-Novgorod, in Moscow, in St. Petersburg, we were hospitably
received, as before, and were joyously welcomed at home. Our “elders”
seem to have been well pleased with our report, but to the tundra I at
least shall never return.
THE HEATHEN OSTIAKS.
The struggle for existence which man has to maintain in Siberia is
easy and toilless now, and will probably remain so for centuries to
come--easy and toilless especially among the lavishly endowed lands
in the south of the country, and not too hard or laborious even
in those regions which we are wont to picture as an icy waste, an
inhospitable desert, which we still regard in this light if we only
travel hastily and unwillingly through them. In the far north of West
Siberia the climate is harsh and severe; the earth which, a little
below the surface, is frozen and stiffened for ever, refuses to bring
forth fruit; the sun will not ripen the bread-yielding grain; but even
here Nature has bountifully shaken her horn of plenty, for what the
land denies, is yielded by the water. The people who have dwelt for
centuries in these latitudes, which we so carefully avoid, may appear
poor and miserable in our eyes; in reality they are neither. They are
able to procure all they need; they can even secure many luxuries,
for their country yields them much more than is enough merely to
sustain life. They do of course struggle, more or less consciously,
for “an existence worthy of man”, but not with any grudge, outspoken
or suppressed, against those whose lot is happier. Indeed they are
happier than we think, for they are more modest, more easily satisfied
than we are; they are utterly ignorant of what we call passion in the
stricter sense; they accept the pleasures within their reach with a
childlike joy, and the sorrows which visit them, with that deeply felt
but quickly forgotten grief which is characteristic of childhood.
Black care may stand beside their bed; but they banish it whenever
they perceive a ray of joy, and they forget affliction whenever the
sun of good fortune once more shines upon them. They rejoice in wealth
and complain of poverty, but they see their riches disappear without
giving way to despair, and their poverty turn to wealth without losing
their equanimity. Even in mature age they remain children in thought,
feeling, and behaviour; they are happier than we.
The Ostiaks with whom we came most frequently in contact on the lower
Obi, whose society we preferred, and whom we learned to know best,
belong to the Finnish family, and profess the same religion as another
branch of the same family, the Samoyedes, while their manners, customs,
and way of life generally, are approximately the same as those of all
the Finns in a restricted sense, and therefore also of the Lapps. They
are wandering herdsmen and fisher-folk, huntsmen and fowlers, like the
Samoyedes and like the Lapps. Apart from their religion, and perhaps
also their language, they resemble the Lapps more than the Samoyedes,
for there are among them dwellers in fixed homes as well as nomadic
herdsmen, while the Samoyedes, even when engaged in fishing, very
rarely exchange their movable hut for a fixed log-house, at least in
the parts of Siberia through which we travelled.
It may be that the Ostiak tribe was more numerous at one time than it
is now, but it was probably never a people in our sense of the word. In
some parts of the territory inhabited, or at least traversed by them,
the population is said to be continually decreasing, while in others
it is slightly on the increase; but the extent of increase or decrease
seems inconsiderable. To reckon the whole number of these people at
fifty thousand individuals is probably a high estimate. In the whole of
the great district of Obdorsk, which extends from 65 degrees northern
latitude to the northern end of the Samoyede peninsula, and from the
Ural to the upper Chass river, there live at present, according to
official statistics, not more than five thousand three hundred and
eighty-two male Ostiaks, of whom not more than one thousand three
hundred and seventy-six are able-bodied or assessable men. If we take
for granted that there are as many women and girls, the whole number
does not reach eleven thousand; and the above estimate is rather too
high than too low, even though the tract inhabited by our people
extends up the Obi to the district of Surgut, and up the Irtish to the
neighbourhood of Tobolsk.
All the Ostiaks on the upper Irtish and middle Obi live in fixed
log-houses, very simple, but resembling those of the Russians, and only
here and there among these permanent dwellings, which indicate a higher
degree of civilization, do we come upon a birch-bark tent or tshum. On
the other hand, on the lower Obi, and especially between Obdorsk and
the mouth of the stream, only birch-tents are to be seen, and they are,
naturally, the only homes of the nomadic reindeer herdsman. Almost,
if not exactly in agreement with this difference in dwelling, is the
difference in religion, for the Ostiaks inhabiting settled villages
belong to the Orthodox Greek Catholic Church, and are reckoned among
its members, as they have been baptized, while those dwelling in the
tshum are still true to their ancient faith, which, although regarded
by the Russian priests and their followers as blind heathenism, is by
no means devoid of poetic grandeur, still less of moral worth. The
tent-dwellers certainly practise their religion with more ardour and
conviction than the settled villagers do their so-called Christianity,
which, as far as can be observed, seems to an unbiassed onlooker rather
a superstitious idolatry than a nobler substitute for the religion
which grew out of a childlike mood, and finds expression in childlike
ways. With the adoption of log-houses and of Christianity, the Ostiaks
of the central Obi and lower Irtish regions have, to a certain extent,
given up their own dress in favour of that of the neighbouring Russian
fisher-folk, and in their intercourse with these, have adopted many of
their manners and customs. In part, too, they have lost their purity
of race, and have retained only the inalienable characteristics, the
language and all peculiarities preserved by it, perhaps also the
skill, dexterity, and harmless good-nature common to all the Ostiaks.
But one cannot venture to assert that their morals have improved
with their civilization, or that their purity of life has increased
with Christianity; and in any case it is more satisfactory to get
to know the heathen Ostiaks, and to come into close contact with a
still primitive people, than to concern ourselves with that portion
of the tribe which gives us but a dim picture of what they once
were, or others still are. I shall, therefore, limit my remarks to a
consideration of those Ostiaks who worship the divinity Ohrt, who live
in polygamy when their means permit, who bury their dead exactly as
their fathers did. My sketch will lose nothing, and will gain in unity,
if it takes account of these alone, and leaves the others out.
[Illustration: Fig. 61.--Huts and Winter Costume of the Christian
Ostiaks.]
It is difficult to speak of a common type among the Ostiaks, and still
more difficult to describe it. I have repeatedly attempted to do
this, but have always been forced to recognize the impossibility of
adequately describing a face in words, or of satisfactorily delineating
with the pen those tribal peculiarities which are evident enough
to the eye. In shape of face, colour of skin, hair, and eyes, they
vary greatly; their racial affinity, that is, their Mongol origin,
is by no means always very apparent, in fact, it is often difficult
to detect, and when at last one imagines one has formulated certain
definite average characteristics, one learns from other members of the
same stock that their applicability is only relative and by no means
unconditional. In what follows I shall attempt to give a comprehensive
idea of what I saw among the Ostiaks whom we observed.
The Ostiaks are of middle height, somewhat slender in general build,
their hands, feet, and limbs generally well-proportioned, the hands
perhaps rather large, the calves of the legs almost always thin; their
features seem intermediate between those of the other Mongols and
those of the North American Indians: for their brown eyes are small
and always set obliquely, though by no means very strikingly so; the
cheek-bones are not very prominent, but the lower portion of the
face is so compressed towards the narrow pointed chin that the whole
has an angular appearance, indeed, as the lips are also sharply cut,
it is often really cat-like, especially among women and children,
though the nose is, on the whole, slightly, and in many cases not at
all flattened. The rich, smooth, but not stiff, hair is usually dark
brown or black, rarely light brown, and still more rarely blonde; the
beard is scanty, but this is chiefly in consequence of the habit young
dandies have of pulling out the hairs; the eyebrows are thick, often
bushy. The colour of the skin is not much less white than that of a
European who is much in the open air and exposed to wind and weather,
and the yellowish look which it usually has is sometimes entirely
awanting.
Though the above holds good of most Ostiaks, I do not mean to imply
that one can have any doubt about their racial affinities if one
examines them closely. In a few individuals the Mongolian traits are
apparent on the most cursory glance; these types are small in stature,
the lively brown eyes are elongated and obliquely set, the cheek-bones
are very prominent, the stiff hair is deep black, and all the exposed
parts of the body have a decided copper-red or leather-brown colour.
I can offer no opinion as to the language of the Ostiaks; I can only
say that it embraces two dialects which can be readily distinguished
even by strangers. That in use on the middle Obi is euphonious, if
somewhat drawling and sing-song, while that prevailing on the lower
Obi, probably because of the general habit of preferring the softer
Samoyede tongue, is much more rapid and flowing, though there is still
distinct enunciation of the syllables.
The Christian Ostiaks, as has already been mentioned, imitate the dress
of the Russians, and the clothing of their women only differs from that
of the Russian fisher-women in being decorated in many places with
glass beads, and in the addition of special sash-like ribbons, like
the stole of a Catholic priest, embroidered all over with such beads.
The heathen Ostiaks, on the other hand, use nothing but the skin of
the reindeer for clothing, and only employ the furs of other animals
for the occasional decoration of the reindeer, or, as the Russians
call them, stag skins. Their dress consists of a close-fitting skin
coat reaching to the knee; in the men it is slit down the breast, in
the women it is open down the whole front, but held together with
leather thongs; a hood of the same material is usually attached to or
forms part of the dress; mittens also are sewn on; leather breeches
reach below the knee; and leather stockings, which fasten over the
knee, complete the attire. The fur garment worn by the women is
edged down the sides of the opening with a carefully pieced border of
variously-coloured little squares of short-haired fur, and has always a
broad band of dog-skin round the foot; that worn by the men has at most
a border of dog-skin, and has always a hood; the leather stockings,
if they are decorated at all, are composed of many prettily-combined,
diversely-coloured stripes of skin from the leg of a reindeer, with a
stout shoe partly sewn on, partly laced over the foot. A broad leather
belt, usually studded with metal buttons, confines the man’s garment at
the waist and holds his knife; a gaily-coloured head-wrap, with long
fringes, which replaces the hood in summer, falls down over the woman’s
dress. Shirts are unknown; but, on the other hand, the woman wears a
girdle, of a kind unknown among us. By way of ornament, the woman puts
on her fingers as many brass, or, where circumstances permit, silver
rings as the lower joint will wear, so that that portion of the hand is
literally mailed; a more or less handsome string of glass beads is hung
round the neck, and very heavy tassel-like ear-rings of glass beads,
twisted wire, and metal buttons, are hung rather over than in the ear;
finally, the hair is plaited into two rope-like braids reaching to the
middle of the calf, and interwoven with woollen threads. The Ostiak
dandy dresses his hair in the same way--a proof that fools are alike
all the world over--while the ordinary man usually wears his hair long,
but loose.
[Illustration: Fig. 62.--“Heathen” Ostiaks, Reindeer, and Tshums.]
Still simpler than the dress, but equally well adapted to its
purpose,--for their costume, though not beautiful, is suited alike for
summer and winter use,--is the dwelling of the Ostiak, a cone-shaped,
movable hut covered with birch-bark, the tshum of the fisher-folk and
wandering herdsmen. The framework is formed of twenty or thirty thin,
smooth poles, from four to six yards in length, and pointed at both
ends. These are fixed in a circle, which is very exact though measured
only by the eye, two of them bent towards each other are fastened near
their tops with a short cord, and serve as a support for all the rest.
The outer covering consists of from five to eight sheets cut to the
convex curve of the cone, and composed of little pieces of birch-bark
previously boiled and thus rendered pliant. On the least exposed side
is an opening which serves as a door, and which can be closed at will
with another sheet of bark; the pointed top of the tent is always
left uncovered to admit of the free passage of smoke. From the door
straight to the opposite side of the hut runs a passage, in the middle
of which the fire is built; over this two horizontal poles, fastened
to the supports of the hut, serve as a drying-stand, from which also
the cooking-kettle hangs. To right and left of the passage, boards,
or at least mats, are laid down, and serve as flooring and also to
mark off the sleeping places, whose head-end is towards the wall.
Mats, made of bundles of sedge, long-haired, soft reindeer skins, and
cushions stuffed with reindeer hair or dried moss, form the bed, and
its coverings are of fur. A mosquito tent, under which the whole family
creeps in summer, protects the sleepers more effectually against the
winged tormentors than the smoky fire of rotten willow wood which is
kept constantly burning in the entrance of the tshum. Cooking vessels,
tea and drinking kettles, bowls, leather bags for holding flour and
hard-baked bread, little chests with locks for holding the most
valuable possessions, especially the tea-set, an axe, a gimlet, leather
scrapers, a bowl-like work-box, a bow, crossbow or gun, snow-shoes, and
various implements of the chase, make up the domestic plenishings. A
household god replaces the crucifix, which is rarely absent from the
huts of the Christian Ostiaks.
The tshum is protected against the cold and storms of winter by a
leather covering of worn-out skins sewn together, or, more effectually,
by spreading a second layer of sheets of birch-bark over the first.
If the owner of the tshum be a fisherman, one may see in front of his
dwelling drying-stands for hanging up the nets, and others for drying
fish, all very carefully made; also exceedingly light, daintily-wrought
fishing-baskets, several excellent little boats, and other fishing
apparatus; if he be also a huntsman there are in addition all kinds
of implements of the chase, such as bows and spring-crossbows; if he
be a reindeer-herdsman there are several well-made sledges with their
appropriate harness, and the boat which is also indispensable.
Every Ostiak is experienced in fishing, almost all hunt or set snares,
but not all are herdsmen. To possess reindeer means, among them, to be
well-to-do, to possess many is to be rich; to live by fishing alone is
poverty. Horses and cows are to be seen in some of their settlements,
though in very small numbers, and only in the district about the
middle of the river-basin; sheep, and sometimes even a cat may be kept;
but the real domestic animals are the reindeer and dog. Without these,
especially without the reindeer, a well-to-do man would scarcely think
life possible, and it is indeed to them he owes all that makes up what
he looks on as the joy of existence. As the Bedouin, the wandering
herdsman of Central Africa, deems himself superior to those of his race
who till the fields; as the Kirghiz looks down almost contemptuously on
those who strive to wrest subsistence from the soil, so the possessor,
or even the herdsman of reindeer, only uses net and hook to supply
his own necessities, while the fisherman casts his nets and sets his
baskets not for himself alone, but in the service of others. The wealth
of a man is calculated by the number of his reindeer; with them his
prosperity and his happiness are alike bound up. And when the deadly
murrain annihilates his herds, he loses not wealth and happiness
alone, but much more: esteem and rank, self-respect and confidence,
even, it may be, his religion, manners, and morals, in short--himself.
“As long as the plague did not ravage our herds,” said the district
governor, Mamru, the most intelligent Ostiak whom we met, “we lived
joyously and were rich, but since we have begun to lose them, we are
gradually becoming poor fishermen; without the reindeer we cannot
hold out, we cannot live.” Poor Ostiaks! in these words your doom
is pronounced. Even now the reindeer, which once were counted by
hundreds of thousands, have dwindled to a total of fifty thousand, and
still the Destroying Angel passes almost yearly through the antlered
herds. What will be the end? The Russian priests will gain more and
more Christians, the Russian fishermen more and more hirelings, but
the Ostiaks will be Ostiaks only in name, and that at no far distant
time.[82]
[Illustration: Fig. 63.--Ostiaks with Reindeer and Sledge.]
The reindeer of Northern Asia is an essentially different creature from
that of Lapland, for it is not only larger and more stately, but it
is a domestic animal in the best sense of that term. We all imagined
we knew the reindeer; for in Lapland we had examined it precisely
and carefully with the eye of the naturalist; but in Siberia we were
obliged to admit that till then we had gained a very imperfect idea of
this most remarkable of domestic animals. In Lapland we had known
the deer ceaselessly resisting, submitting with visible reluctance to
the yoke of the little men, and always apparently bent on regaining its
freedom; here in Siberia we found a docile, willing animal, attached to
man, and trusting in him. Certainly the Ostiak knows well how to deal
with it. Though he does not treat it with the tenderness he bestows
on his dog, he is, on the whole, not unkind to it, and he is very
rarely rough or brutal. Unlike the Laplander, he refrains from milking
it, but he harnesses it more frequently; for, winter and summer, it
must draw him and his family, the tshum with its appurtenances, and
all the other requisites for the continual migrations. The Lapp, on
the other hand, only harnesses the reindeer to his sledge in winter.
Like the Lapp, the Ostiak makes use of every portion of the carcase
of a slaughtered animal, with the sole exception of the stomach and
intestines. The flesh serves him as food, the bones and horns make all
sorts of implements, the tendons supply twine for sewing his clothing,
that, and whatever else he requires in the way of leather, is furnished
by the skin; even the hoofs are utilized. On a light sledge, drawn by
the reindeer, the Ostiak travels, in summer and in winter, from place
to place--to weddings, to festivals, to the chase, and to the burial
of his friends; with it he draws his dead to their last resting-place;
he slaughters the reindeer and eats it with his guests, or in honour
of his dead, whom he wraps up in its skin, as he does himself. Truly,
without the reindeer he cannot endure, cannot live.
Of scarcely less importance than his horned herds is the Ostiak’s
second domestic animal, the dog. It is possessed and cared for not
only by the wandering herdsman, but by every Ostiak--fisher as well as
huntsman, settler as well as nomad. The Ostiak dog is represented by
two different breeds, whose chief difference, however, is only in size.
Whether our dog-fanciers would find it beautiful I cannot say. For my
part, I must pronounce it beautiful, because, with the sole exception
of the colour, it possesses all the characteristics of a wild dog. It
most resembles the Pomeranian dog, but is usually larger; indeed, it
is often so large as to approach the wolf in size; and its slender
build also distinguishes it from the Pomeranian. The head is elongated,
the muzzle moderately long, the neck short, the body long, the limbs
slender, the tail moderately long, the brassy eyes obliquely set,
the short pointed ears held erect, the hair extraordinarily long and
thick, consisting of a mixture of decidedly woolly and bristly hairs.
The colour varies, but is predominantly pure white, or white with deep
black, usually regular markings on both sides of the head, including
the ears, on the back and on the sides of the body; or it may be wolf
or mouse gray, or dun-coloured, watered and waved, but never striped.
The slightly bushy tail is always carried hanging, or extended, but
never curled, and the resemblance to a wild dog is thereby greatly
increased.
Constant and intimate association with man has transformed the Ostiak
dog into an exceedingly good-natured animal. He is watchful but not
given to biting, brave but not pugnacious, faithful and eager but not
hostile to strangers nor violent. Though he hastens suspiciously,
if not exactly with unfriendliness, towards a stranger, he becomes
confiding as soon as he hears him speak with his master, or sees him
step into the tshum. He is in no way pampered, for though he loves
to share the dwelling of his master or mistress, he exposes himself
without apparent discomfort to wind and weather, throws himself
unhesitatingly into the cold water of the river and swims straight
across a broad arm, or, when on a journey, trots on uncomplainingly
under the sledge to which he is chained, whether the way lead over bog
or morass, among dwarf-birch bushes or through water. Intelligent and
cunning, ingenious and inventive, clever and active, he knows how to
make his life comfortable, and to adapt himself to all situations. In
the tshum he lies self-denyingly beside much-desired foods; outside of
his master’s hut he is a bold and greedy thief; among the dwarf-birches
of the tundra he trots indifferently under the sledge, but over smooth
or other easy ground he places himself with all four legs together on
the runners of the sledge and lets himself be carried. While hunting
he is a faithful and useful assistant to his master, but he snaps away
the game which he has scented and a stranger shot, and devours it with
such an air of inoffensive enjoyment that one cannot be angry with
him. In tending the herds he shows himself acquainted with all the
peculiarities and tricks of the reindeer, and he is docile enough;
but he is never quite so trustworthy as our sheep-dog, for he allows
himself an opinion of his own, and only yields his services without
resisting when it appears to him absolutely necessary.
The Ostiak dog is at once playmate, sentinel of the tshum, guardian of
the herds, and draught animal, and he is made use of even after death.
He is only harnessed to the sledge in winter, but the harness is so
awkward that if he has to exert himself much he becomes in a few years
weak in the loins or hip-shot. After death his splendid coat is much
prized; indeed, many of the Ostiaks evidently keep a disproportionately
large number of dogs solely to have skins at their disposal every
winter.
It is probably for the same or some similar reason that the various
mammals and birds, such as foxes, bears, owls, crows, cranes, swans,
&c., which one sees chained in or before the tent of the fisherman
or the herdsman, are taken from the nest and reared. As long as they
are young they are tended carefully and kindly; whenever they are
full-grown and in good fur or feather they are killed, the edible parts
are eaten, and the skin or feathers made use of or sold, the former
especially often fetching an astonishingly high price.
Here, as everywhere else, the dog submits to man’s will, but man must
adapt himself to the requirements of the reindeer. These requirements,
and not the will or humour of the herdsman, determine the wanderings
of the nomad Ostiak, as the coming and going of the fishes influences
the doings of his relatives in fixed abodes, to a considerable extent
at least. The migrations of the reindeer herdsmen and their herds take
place for almost the same reasons and in the same direction as those
of the Kirghiz, and are distinguished from them chiefly by the fact
that they do not cease in winter, but rather become more constant and
varied. When the snow begins to melt, the Ostiak herdsman travels
slowly towards the mountains; when the mosquito plague begins he
ascends their sides, or at least betakes himself to the shoulders of
the ranges; when it ceases again--and even the open heights are not
entirely free from it--he gradually descends to the low tundra to pass
the winter, if possible on his native river-bank. This is the course
of his life one year after another, unless he is visited by that most
terrible of disasters, the reindeer plague.
Before the short summer comes to the inhospitable land, before even
the first breath of spring is stirring, when a thick sheet of ice
lies still unbroken over the mighty river, its tributaries, and the
innumerable lakes of the tundra, the reindeer bring forth their calves;
it is therefore more than ever necessary to seek out a place which
offers sufficient pasture for both mothers and young. Our herdsman
migrates, therefore, not to the deepest valleys, but to the heights
from whose crests the raging storms of winter have blown away much of
the snow, and here, in the best available spot, he erects his tshum.
For days, even weeks, he remains there until all the exposed reindeer
moss has been eaten up, and the broad hoof of the reindeer itself,
which has been used to clear away the snow, almost refuses duty. Then
the herdsman breaks up his camp, and wends his way to some not far
distant spot, which offers the same attractions as the first. Here,
too, he remains until pasturage becomes too scarce, for this is still
what he looks on as the good season. The herds feed in dense troops;
among the stags, whose antlers have just begun to sprout, the deepest
peace reigns; the calves are never lost sight of by their anxious
parents; the herd neither scatters nor wanders out of hearing of the
loud call which summons them to the tshum at sundown. At night, indeed,
the greedy wolf, which has been driven by winter from the mountains,
prowls around them, but the brave dogs keep sharp watch, and resist the
cowardly robber; and our herdsman therefore is as little troubled about
the wolves as he is about winter, which he, like all the peoples of the
far north, looks on as the best season of the year. The days--still
very short--are gradually lengthening, the nights becoming shorter,
and the dangers threatening his defenceless herds are gradually
diminishing. The river throws off its winter covering; and with the
floods warmed in the steppes of the south, soft winds blow through the
land; one hill-top after another is laid bare of snow, and here, as
well as in the valleys, where the buds are sprouting luxuriantly, the
weather-hardened animals find food in abundance. The low tundra has
become a paradise in the eyes of our herdsman. But this comfortable
life lasts only a short time. The quickly-rising sun, which shines
longer and becomes hotter every day, soon melts the snow in the more
level valleys and the ice in the broad lakes, thaws even the surface
of the frozen earth, and calls into life, along with other harmless
children of the spring, milliards of torturing gnats and persecuting
gadflies, whose larvæ were snorted out of the reindeers’ nostrils only
a few weeks before.[83] Now wandering begins in earnest; the herdsman
travels, in short daily marches, but still hastily, towards the
mountains.
As soon as the dew is dry on the moss, lichens, grasses, and the young
leaves of the dwarf bushes, the women take to pieces the tshum they
erected only the day before, and load the sledges which were only then
unladen. In the meantime the herdsman himself, on his light sledge
drawn by four strong stags, goes in search of the herd scattered about
to find pasture, or resting contentedly in groups, collects them and
drives them towards the camping ground, where the rest of the family
are prepared to receive them. Holding in their hands a thin rope, over
which the reindeer seldom venture to jump, they form a circle round the
herd; the herdsman, with his lasso in his right hand, goes in among
the reindeer, throws his noose almost unfailingly round the neck or
antlers of the chosen stags, secures and harnesses them, orders that
all the others be let loose, mounts his sledge again and drives away
in the direction of the next camping-ground. All the other sledges,
driven by different members of the family, follow him in a long train,
the whole free herd follows them, lowing or grunting, their hoofs
crackling at every step. The dogs run about the whole procession,
barking continually and collecting the animals that are inclined to
wander. They cannot, however, prevent a few from breaking off from the
sides of the herd and remaining behind. The herd spreads out more and
more, picturesquely adorning all the heights; now and again they pause
in groups over some favourite food; importuned by the calves the mother
deer perform their maternal duties, and then, to please their satisfied
offspring, lie down beside them till the eagle eye of the herdsman
spies them, and, taking a wide circuit round the laggards, he drives
them by a word of command, or by the help of the dogs, to join their
fellows trotting briskly on ahead. Amid renewed general grunting, and
loud barking from the dogs, the reassembled herd surges onwards; a very
forest of antlers presses forwards, and something akin to sportsman’s
joy stirs the heart of the spectator who is unfamiliar with the sight.
The sun is declining; the draught animals groan heavily, their tongues
hanging far out of their mouths; it is time to allow them rest. At a
short distance, beside one of the innumerable lakes, there rises a
low flat hill. Towards it the herdsman directs his course, and on its
summit he brings his antlered team to a stand. One sledge after another
arrives; the herd also soon comes up and immediately betakes itself to
the best grazing-ground, quickly followed by the unharnessed draught
animals.
The women select a suitable spot for erecting the tshum, place the
poles upright in a circle, and cover them with the sheets of bark; the
herdsman in the meantime takes his already prepared noose, and with
experienced eye picks out a young, fat stag from the herd. Quickly he
casts the lasso over its horns and neck. In vain the animal struggles
for his freedom; the huntsman comes nearer and nearer, and the reindeer
follows him unresisting towards the tshum, which has now been erected.
An axe-stroke on the back of the head fells the victim to the ground,
and a knife is plunged into his heart. In a couple of minutes the
animal is skinned and dexterously cut up. A minute later all the
members of the family, who have assembled hastily, are dipping strips
of cut-up liver into the blood collected in the breast-cavity, and the
“bloody meal” begins. Crouching in a circle round the still warm stag,
each cuts himself a rib or a piece of the back or haunch; lips become
red as if they had been badly painted; drops of blood flow down over
chin and breast; the hands, too, are stained, and, dripping with blood,
they smear the nose and cheeks; and blood-stained countenances meet
the astonished stranger’s gaze. The baby leaves its mother’s breast to
share in the meal, and after he has swallowed a piece of liver, and
reddened face, hands, and whatever else he can reach, he crows with
joy as his careful mother breaks a marrow-bone and gives it to him to
suck. The dogs sit in a circle behind the feasting company, ready to
snap up the bones which are thrown to them. One after another rises
satisfied from the meal, wipes his blood-stained hands on the moss,
cleans his knife in the same way, and retires into the tshum to rest.
But the housewife fills the cooking-kettle with water, puts into it as
much of the flesh of the half-eaten animal as it will hold, and lights
the fire to prepare the evening meal.
[Illustration: Fig. 64.--Interior of an Ostiak Dwelling (Tshum).]
Meantime the herdsman has thrown off his upper garment and looked
through it hastily, yet not without result, and he has drawn near
the fire so that the flames may play with full effect on the naked
upper portion of his body. He feels comfortable, and begins to think
of another enjoyment. A wonderful man who is travelling towards the
mountains in his company, a German, perhaps even a member of the Bremen
exploring expedition to West Siberia, has not only presented him with
tobacco--horrible stuff, it is true, yet at any rate strong--but he has
also given him a great sheet of paper, a whole _Kölnische Zeitung_.
From this he carefully tears off a small square piece, twists it to
a pointed cornet, fills this with tobacco, bends it in the middle,
and the pipe is ready. A moment later it is alight, and it smells so
pleasant that the wife distends her nostrils, and begs to share the
enjoyment. Her wish is at once granted, and the little pipe wanders
round so that every member of the family may enjoy it in turn.
But the contents of the pot begin to bubble, the supper is ready,
and all “raise their hands to the daintily prepared meal”. Then the
herdsman stands outside the door and utters a far-sounding call of
long-drawn notes, to collect the restless herd once more. This done, he
returns content into the tshum. Here his wife has spread the mosquito
tent and is still busy stuffing its lower edge under the coverlets.
While waiting for this work to be finished the man on his couch amuses
himself by seizing one of the dogs and nursing it like a baby, the
dog enduring it patiently in the consciousness that it is a high
honour. Then the man creeps half-naked under the mosquito net, his
fifteen-year-old son follows his example, the little thirteen-year-old
wife of the latter does the same, the anxious mother sees to the safety
of the little one in the cradle, the nursling already mentioned, lays
more decayed wood on the smoky fire at the entrance to the tshum, shuts
the door, and lies down like the rest. A few minutes later loud snoring
announces that all are sleeping the sleep of the just.
The next morning the same daily round begins again, and so it goes on
until the mountain heights permit of a longer sojourn in one place. The
snow, which falls very early, warns them to return even in August, and
again, this time more slowly and leisurely, herdsmen and herds journey
back to the low grounds.
With the disappearance of the ice the activity of the fishermen on the
river begins. Many of the Ostiak fishermen work in the pay of, or at
least in partnership with the Russians, others only sell to them the
superfluous portion of their catch, and fish on their own account.
Immediately after the ice has broken up, the former class pitch their
tshums beside the fisher huts of the Russians, and the others settle
by the river banks in their summer dwellings--log-huts of the simplest
construction. Where a tributary flows into the river, they raise across
it, or across the mouth of an arm of the stream, a barricade which
leaves only one channel, and in the deep water they place baskets and
set bottom-lines; beyond that they use only drag- and seine-nets.
Bustling activity prevails about all the fishing-stations when the
catch is good. On a shaky stand above the opening in the barricade the
young men, more boys than men, are crouching, peering keenly into the
dark flood beneath them to see whether the fish are going into the
draw-net which they are holding so as to close the channel. From time
to time they lift their burdened net, and empty its contents into their
little boat. The men fish together on a sand-bank with the drag-net, or
in shallower parts of the river with the seine. In the afternoon, or
towards evening the fishermen return home, and the fish are distributed
among the different households. Next morning the women’s work begins.
Singly, or in groups, they sit beside a great fish heap, each provided
with a board and a sharp knife, and scale, gut, split, and crimp the
fish, afterwards stringing them on long thin sticks, which are hung up
on the drying-stands to dry. With dexterous and certain strokes the
abdominal cavity is opened and the side muscles separated from the
backbone, a few touches more separate the liver and other viscera from
the head, ribs, and more valuable side portions of the body. Liver
after liver slips between the smacking lips; for the women have not yet
broken their fast and they take the titbits as a preliminary snack. If
they are still unsatisfied, a fish is scaled, gutted, and cut in long
strips, the end of one of these is dipped into the trickling blood and,
thus seasoned, is put into the mouth, divided into suitable mouthfuls
with quick knife-strokes which seem to pass perilously near the point
of the eater’s nose. The children playing about their busy mothers
receive pieces of liver or strips of muscle according to their size;
four-year-olds use the knife to cut the pieces almost as cleverly as
their elders, who invariably divide their fish or strips of reindeer
flesh in this manner. Soon the faces of mothers and children shine
with fish blood and liver oil, and the hands glisten with adhering
fish-scales. When all the fishes are scaled, split, and hung up to dry,
the dogs which have been sitting, covetous but not importunate, beside
the women, receive their portion also--the scales and debris, which are
thrown into a heap amid which the black muzzles burrow eagerly.
The morning work is over, and a short period of rest has been earned.
The mothers take their children on their laps, suckle the nurslings,
and then proceed to a work which is absolutely necessary, not only to
the little ones’ comfort but to their own--the hunt for parasites. One
child after another lays its head in its mother’s lap, and finally
she lays her own in that of her eldest daughter or of a friend who
hopes for a similar service, and the hunt proves productive. That the
booty secured is put between the lips, and if not actually eaten, at
least bitten to death, is nothing new to a naturalist who has observed
monkeys, and it confirms those who see more than a mere hypothesis in
Darwin’s doctrine, or in the belief that men may exhibit atavism, or a
reversion to the habits of a remote ancestor.
The sun is sinking, the men, youths, and boys come back with a new
and rich harvest. They have eaten raw fish as they required, but now
their souls long for warm food. A great steaming kettle of cooked fish,
delicious salmonoids (genus Coregonus), the nearest relative of the
salmon, is set before them; its accompaniment is bread dipped in and
thoroughly saturated with fish fat. Brick-tea,[84] put on the fire with
cold water and boiled for a long time, brings the meal to an end.
“But when the desire for food and drink is appeased” the spirit also
longs for satisfaction, and the musician with harp or zither of his own
manufacture is eagerly welcomed, whether to play one of their strange,
old, indescribable melodies, or an accompaniment to the quaint dance of
the women, in which they raise themselves and sink again, throw one arm
round the other, stretch both out, and drop them to their sides. These
amusements last until the mosquito-curtain is prepared, then here, too,
old and young disappear beneath its folds.
The summer is past, and winter follows the short autumn. A new activity
comes into play with the migration of the birds; a new, indeed the
full, true life of the Ostiaks begins with winter. For the departing
summer guests the treacherous net is spread. Gaps are cut in the dense
willow growth of the banks on the direct course between two large
sheets of water, and in each space is spread a thin, easily-moved limed
net, into which fly not only ducks, but geese, swans, and cranes. These
are welcome booty, both on account of flesh and feathers, for birds
of all kinds form a considerable portion of the food not only of the
Ostiaks but of all the dwellers in the river-basin. At the time when
the bird-catcher begins his work the nomad herdsman sets out on the
chase, and sets his fall-traps in the tundra for the red and Arctic
foxes, or in the forest, in company with his more settled relatives,
he sets snares, spring-bows, and self-acting cross-bows for wolves
and foxes, sables and ermines, gluttons and squirrels. If snow has
fallen, the experienced huntsman buckles on his snow-shoes, puts on his
snow-spectacles, and betakes himself with his fleet dog to the tundra
or the forest to seek out the bear in his den, to follow the track of
the lynx, to chase the elk and the wild reindeer, now impeded by the
snow, which will not bear their weight though it bears the huntsman’s.
He has never lied, never sworn falsely by the bear’s tooth, never done
a wrong, and the bear is therefore powerless against him, the elk and
the reindeer are not fleet enough to escape him! When a bear has been
shot he returns triumphantly to the village, neighbours and friends
gather round him in the tshum, rejoicing, and as the general jubilation
infects him, he slips quietly away, disguises himself, puts on a
mask, and begins the bear-dance, executing wonderful movements, which
are meant to mimic and illustrate those of the bear in all the varied
circumstances of his life.
The huts of the fisher-folk soon contain a rich treasure of skins,
the tshum of the herdsman a still richer, for he has stored up the
skins of all the reindeer slaughtered throughout the year. Now it is
time to get rid of them. Everyone, far and near, prepares for the fair
which is held every year, in the second half of January, in Obdorsk,
the last Russian village, and the most important trading centre on
the lower Obi. The fair is attended by natives and strangers, and
during its progress the Russian government officials collect taxes
from the Ostiaks and Samoyedes, settle disputes, and deal out justice
generally; the Russian merchants are on the outlook for buyers and
sellers, the dishonest ones among them, and the swindling Syryani, for
thoughtless drunkards, and the clergy for heathen to be converted.
Among the Ostiaks and Samoyedes all sorts of agreements are made,
weddings arranged, enemies reconciled, friends gained, compacts with
the Russians formed, debts paid and new ones contracted. From all
sides appear long trains of sledges drawn by reindeer, and one tshum
after another grows up beside the market-place, each tshum surrounded
by heavily-laden sledges containing the saleable acquisitions of the
year. Every morning the owner, with his favourite wife in gala attire,
proceeds to the booths to sell his skins and buy other commodities.
They bargain, haggle, and attempt to cheat, and Mercury, as powerful
as of yore, shows his might not only as the god of merchants but
of thieves. Alcohol, though its retail sale is forbidden by the
government, is to be had not only at every merchant’s, but in
almost every house in Obdorsk, and it blunts the senses and dulls
the intelligence of Ostiak and Samoyede, and impoverishes them even
more than the much-dreaded reindeer plague. Brandy rouses all the
passions in the ordinarily calm, good-tempered, inoffensive Ostiak,
and transforms the peaceable, friendly, honest fellows into raging,
senseless animals. Man and wife alike long for brandy; the father
pours it down his boy’s throat, the mother forces it on her daughter,
should they begin by rebelling against the destructive poison. For
brandy the Ostiak squanders his laboriously-gained treasures, his
whole possessions; for it he binds himself as a slave, or at least
as a servant; for it he sells his soul, and denies the faith of his
fathers. Brandy is an indispensable accompaniment to the conclusion
of every business, even to conversion to the orthodox church. With
the help of brandy a dishonest merchant can get possession of all an
Ostiak’s skins, and without these, with empty purse and confused head,
the man who arrived in Obdorsk full of hope and pride, returns to his
tshum cheated, not to say plundered. He repents his folly and weakness,
makes the best of resolutions, becomes tranquil in doing so, and soon
remembers nothing except that he enjoyed himself excellently with his
fellow tribesmen. First they had drunk together; then men and women had
kissed each other, then the men had beaten their wives, had tried their
strength on each other, had even drawn their sharp knives, and, with
flashing eyes, had threatened each other with death; but no blood had
been shed; there had been a reconciliation; the women who had fallen on
the ground, stupefied with blows and brandy, were lifted up tenderly,
and were tended by other women; to celebrate the reconciliation an
important compact had been made, a bridegroom was sought for the
daughter, a little bride for the son; even a widow had been married,
and they drank again to the occasion; in short, they had had a splendid
time. That the government officials had shut up all those who were dead
drunk, that all, all their money had gone the way of things perishable,
had certainly been disagreeable, very disagreeable. However, the prison
had opened again; after a time, the loss of the money had been got
over, and only the golden recollection, over which they could gloat
for a whole year, and the betrothal, so satisfactory to all parties,
remained as permanent gain from the delightful festival.
The bridegroom and bride had also been at the fair, had drunk with the
rest, and thus made each other’s acquaintance, and the bridegroom had
agreed with his parents to choose the maiden as his wife, or rather
had agreed to receive her. For it is the parents’ decision, not the
consent of the couple themselves, that concludes a marriage among
the Ostiaks. They may perhaps have some regard for the bridegroom’s
wishes, may allow him to cast his affections on one or other of the
daughters of his people, but they only send an agent to treat with
the girl’s father if their own circumstances correspond with his. The
maiden herself is not consulted, perhaps because, at the time of her
betrothal, she is much too young to be able to decide upon her own
future with discretion. Even the future husband has not reached his
fifteenth year when the agent begins to treat for the twelve-year-old
bride. In this case the general exhilaration of fair-time had
considerably hastened the course of proceedings. The matrimonial
agent had gained an immediate consent; the negotiations, often very
protracted, had been at once begun, and thanks to brandy, which
usually proves an evil demon, but in this case expedited matters, they
were brought to a speedy conclusion. It had been agreed that Sandor,
the young bridegroom, should pay for his little bride, Malla, sixty
reindeer, twenty skins of the white and ten of the red fox, a piece
of coloured cloth, and various trifles such as rings, buttons, glass
beads, head-dresses, and the like. That was little, much less than the
district governor, Mamru, who was scarcely better off, had to give for
his wife; for his payment consisted of a hundred and fifty reindeer,
sixty skins of the Arctic and twenty of the red fox, a large piece of
stuff for clothes, several head-dresses, and the customary trifles. But
times were better then, and Mamru might well pay what was equivalent
to more than a thousand silver roubles for his wife, who was stately,
rich, and of good family.
The amount agreed on is paid; the nuptials of the young couple are
celebrated. The relatives of the bride’s family come to her father’s
tent to bring presents and to receive others from the bridegroom’s
gift, which is laid out for everyone to see. The bride is arrayed in
festive garments, and she and her friends prepare for the drive to the
tshum of the bridegroom or of his father. Beforehand they have eaten
abundantly of the flesh of a reindeer, fresh killed, according to
custom. Only a few fish caught under the ice have been cooked to-day;
the flesh of the reindeer was eaten raw, and when one began to grow
cold a second was slaughtered. The bride weeps, as becomes departing
brides, and refuses to leave the tshum in which she was brought up, but
she is consoled and coaxed by all, and at last she is ready. A prayer
before the domestic idol solicits the blessing of the heavenly Ohrt,
whose sign, the divine fire Sornidud--in our eyes only the flaming
northern light--had shone blood-red in the sky the evening before. The
daughter is accompanied by her mother, who keeps close by her side, and
even remains near her during the night. Mother and daughter mount one
sledge, the rest of the invited kinsfolk mount theirs, and, in festive
pomp, to the sound of the bells which all the reindeer wear on their
harness, the wedding procession sets forth.
In his father’s tent the bridegroom awaits the bride, who modestly
veils her face with her head-dress in the presence of her future father
and brothers-in-law. This she continues to do after the marriage is
consummated. A new banquet begins, and the guests, who have been joined
by the bridegroom’s relatives, do not disperse till late at night. But
the next day the mother brings the young wife back to her father’s
tent. A day later all the bridegroom’s relatives appear to demand
her back again for him. Once more the low hut is filled with festive
sounds; then the bride leaves it for ever, and is again conducted with
pomp to the tshum which she is thenceforward to share with her husband,
or with him and his father and brothers and sisters, or later on with
another wife.
The sons of poor people pay at most ten reindeer for their brides;
those of the fisher-folk only the most necessary furnishings of the
tshum, and even these are often shared among several families; but
their weddings, too, are made the occasion of a joyful festival, and
there is as much banqueting as circumstances will allow.
The poorer Ostiaks marry only one wife, but the rich look upon it as
one of the rights of their position to have two or more. But the first
wife always retains her privileges, and the others appear to be rather
her servants than her equals. It is otherwise, however, if she should
have no children; for childlessness is a disgrace to the man, and a
childless wife in the tshum, as elsewhere, is much to be pitied.
The parents are proud of their children, and treat them with great
tenderness. It is with unmistakable happiness in look and gesture that
the young mother lays her first-born in her bosom, or on the soft moss
in the neat birch-bark cradle with its lining of mouldered willow-wood
and shavings; carefully she fastens the cover to both sides of the
cradle, and envelops the head-end of the little bed with the mosquito
curtain; but her ideal of cleanliness leaves much to be desired. As
long as the baby is small and helpless she washes and cleanses it
when she thinks it absolutely necessary. But when it grows bigger she
only washes its face and hands once a day, using a handful of fine
willow fibres as sponge, and a dry handful as towel, and afterwards
looks on quite complacently when the little creature, who finds many
opportunities for soiling itself, goes about in a state of dirt, to us
almost inconceivable. This state of things comes gradually to an end
when the young Ostiak is able to take care of himself; but even then,
hardly anyone considers it necessary to wash after every meal, even
should it have left stains of blood. The children are as much attached,
and as faithful to their parents as these are to them, and their
obedience and submission is worthy of mention. To reverence parents is
the first and chief commandment among the Ostiaks, to reverence their
god is only the second. When we advised Mamru, the district governor
already mentioned, to have his children taught the Russian language
and writing, he replied that he saw the advantage of such knowledge,
but feared that his children might forget the respect due to their
father and mother, and thus break the most important commandment of
their religion. This may be the reason why no Ostiak, who clings to
the faith of his fathers, learns to do more than make his mark, a sort
of scrawl binding on him and others, drawn upon paper, or cut in wood
or reindeer-skin. Yet the Ostiak is capable and dexterous, able to
learn whatever he is taught so quickly and easily that, at the early
age at which he marries, he understands everything connected with the
establishment and maintenance of his household. It is only in religious
matters that he seems unwilling to trust to his own judgment, and
on this account he, in most cases, shows unmerited respect for the
shamans,[85] who profess to know more about religion than he does.
For our part, we regard the shaman, who claims the status of a priest
among the Ostiaks as among the other Mongolian peoples of Siberia,
as nothing short of an impostor. The sole member of the precious
brotherhood with whom we came in contact, a baptized Samoyede, bore the
sign of Christianity on his breast; according to report he had even
been a deacon in the orthodox church, and yet he did duty as a shaman
among the heathen Ostiaks. I learned later, on good authority, that he
was no exception to the general rule; for all the shamans met with by
my informant, Herr von Middendorf, during years of travel in Siberia,
were Christians. I have already mentioned in the report of my travels
that the shaman whom we met took us also for believers; but I have
reserved my account of his performances and prophecies for to-day, as
this description seems to me a fitting frame for such a picture.
To begin with, he demanded brandy as a fee, but was satisfied with the
promise of a gift, and retired into a tent, saying that he would let
us know when his preparations were finished. Among these preparations,
apparently, was the muffled beating of a drum which we heard after a
considerable time; of other arrangements we discovered nothing. On a
given signal we entered the tshum.
The whole space within the birch-bark hut was filled with people, who
sat round in a circle pressing closely against the walls. Among the
Ostiaks and Samoyedes, who were there with wives and children, there
were also Russians with their families. On a raised seat to the left
of the entrance sat the shaman Vidli; at his right, crouching on the
floor, was an Ostiak, the master’s disciple at the time. Vidli wore a
brown upper garment, and over it a kind of robe, originally white, but
soiled and shabbily trimmed with gold braid; in his left hand he held
a little tambour-like drum, in such a way that it shaded his face; in
his right hand was a drum-stick; his head was uncovered, his tonsured
hair freshly oiled. In the middle of the tshum a fire was burning, and
now and again it blazed up and shed bright light on the motley throng,
in the midst of which we sat down in the places reserved for us. A
thrice-repeated, long-drawn cry, like a song from many voices, preluded
by beating of the drum, greeted our entrance, and marked the beginning
of the proceedings.
“That you may see that I am a man of truth,” said the master’s voice,
“I shall now adjure the messenger of the heavenly will, who is at my
behest, to appear among us and communicate to me what the gods have
determined concerning your future. Later, you yourselves will be able
to determine whether I have told you the truth or not.”
After this introduction, which was translated to us by two
interpreters, the favourite of the gods struck the calf-skin, or
rather reindeer-skin of his drum, with quick strokes which followed
one another at equal intervals, but were indefinitely grouped, and
accompanied his drumming with a song which, in the usual Samoyede
fashion, was half-spoken, or rather muttered, and half-sung, and was
faithfully repeated by the youth, whom we may call the clerk. The
master held the drum so as to keep his face in shadow, and he also shut
his eyes that nothing might distract his inward vision; the clerk, on
the other hand, smoked even while he sang, and spat from time to time,
just as he had been doing before. Three slow, decided strokes brought
the drumming and the song to an end.
“I have now,” said the master with dignity, “adjured Yamaul, the
heavenly messenger, to appear among us, but I cannot say how much time
must pass before he arrives, for he may be far off.”
And again he beat his drum and sang his incantation, concluding both
song and accompaniment as before.
“I see two emperors before me; they will send you a writing,” spoke the
messenger of the gods through his lips.
So Yamaul had been kind enough to appear in the tshum to oblige his
favourite. Then the individual sentences of the heavenly message, with
the invariable prelude of drumming and song, were uttered as follows:--
“Once again, next summer, you will traverse the same route as this
year.”
“Then you will visit the summit of the Ural, where the rivers Ussa,
Bodarata, and Shtchutshya begin their course.”
“On this journey something will befall you, whether good or evil I
cannot tell.”
“Nothing is to be achieved at the Bodarata, for wood and pasture are
lacking; here something might be accomplished.”
“You will have to render an account to your superiors; they will
examine you and will be satisfied.”
“You will also have to answer to the three elders of your tribe; they
also will examine your writings, and then come to a decision about the
new journey.”
“The course of your journey will henceforward be happy and without
accident; and you will find your loved ones at home in the best of
health.”
“If the statements of the Russians who are still at Bodarata
corroborate yours, two emperors will reward you.”
“I see no other face.”
The performance was at an end. On the Ural Mountains lay the last
glow of midnight. Everyone left the tent, the faces of the Russians
showing the same credulity as those of the Ostiaks and Samoyedes. But
we invited the shaman to accompany us to our boat, loosened his tongue
and that of his disciple with brandy, and plied him with all manner
of cross-questions, some of them of the subtlest kind. He answered
them all, without exception, without ever getting into a difficulty,
without hesitation, without even reflection; he answered them full of
conviction, and convincingly, clearly, definitely, tersely, and to
the point, so that we recognized more clearly than before the extreme
craftiness of the man with whom we had to deal.
He described to us how, even in his boyhood, the spirit had come upon
him and had tortured him till he became the disciple of a shaman; how
he had become more and more intimate with Yamaul, the messenger of the
gods, who appears to him as a friendly man, riding on a swift horse,
and carrying a staff in his hand; how Yamaul hastened to his help, and
even, if need were, called down aid from heaven when he, the shaman,
was struggling with evil spirits often for several days at a time; how
the messenger of the gods must always communicate the message to him
just as he received it, for that otherwise he felt every drum-beat as
a painful stroke; how Yamaul, even to-day, though visible to him only,
sat behind him in the tshum and whispered the words in his ear. He
also informed us that, by his own art, or by the grace bestowed upon
him, which even his conversion to Christianity could not weaken, he
could reveal what was hidden, find what was stolen, recognize diseases,
prophesy the death or recovery of the sick, see and banish the ghosts
of the dead, work much evil, and prevent much evil, but that he did
nothing but good, because he feared the gods; he gave us a clear and
detailed, if not quite correct picture of the religion of the Ostiaks
and Samoyedes; he assured us that all his people, as well as the
Ostiaks, came to him in their troubles to ask advice, or to have the
future unveiled, and that they did not doubt, but trusted in him and
believed him.
The last statement is not correct. The great mass of the people may
regard the shaman as a wise man, perhaps even as an intermediary
between men and the gods, and possibly as the possessor of mysterious
power; but many believe his words and works as little as other races
do those of their priests. The real faith of the people is simpler and
more child-like than the shaman approves of. It is here as elsewhere;
the priest, or whoever acts as such, peoples heaven with gods, and
councillors and servants of the gods, but the people know nothing of
this celestial court.
According to the belief of the people there is enthroned in heaven
Ohrt, whose name signifies “the end of the world”. He is an
all-powerful spirit, who rules over everything but Death, and he is
benevolently inclined towards men. He is the giver of all good, the
bestower of reindeer, fish, and furred animals, the preventer of evil,
and the avenger of lies, severe only when promises made to him are
not fulfilled. Feasts are held in his honour, sacrifices and prayers
are offered to him; the suppliant who prostrates himself before a
sacred symbol thinks of him. The symbol, called a _longch_, may be of
carved wood, a bundle of cloth, a stone, a skin, or anything else: it
possesses no powers, affords no protection, it is in no sense a fetish!
People assemble before a _longch_, place it in front of the tshum, lay
dishes of fish, reindeer flesh, or other offering before it, place
valuables before it, or even pack them inside it; but they always look
up to heaven, and both their offerings and their prayers are intended
for their god. Evil spirits dwell in heaven as on earth; but Ohrt is
more powerful than they all; only Death is mightier than he. There is
no everlasting life after death, and no resurrection; but the dead
still wander as ghosts over the face of the earth, and have still power
to do good or evil.
[Illustration: Fig. 65.--The Burial of an Ostiak.]
When an Ostiak dies his spirit-life begins at once; so his friends
proceed immediately to arrange for his burial. They had all assembled
before his death, and as soon as life is extinct they kindle a fire in
the tshum in which the body lies, and keep it burning until they set
out for the burial-place. A shaman is called to ask the dead where he
wishes to lie. This is done by naming a place, and attempting to raise
the head of the corpse. If the dead man approves he lets his head be
raised; if he does not, three men cannot move it. Then the question
must be repeated until the man gives his consent. Skilled persons are
despatched to the chosen spot to prepare the grave, for this work often
requires several days.
The burial-places are always in the tundra, on elevated spots, usually
on a long ridge; the coffins are more or less artistically wrought
chests, which are placed above the ground. Failing solid planks to
construct the coffin, a boat is cut up and the corpse is laid in that;
only the very poor people dig in the ground a shallow hollow in which
to bury their dead.
The corpse is not washed, but is arrayed in festive garments, the
hair anointed, and the face covered with a cloth. All the rest of the
deceased’s clothing is given to the poor. The Ostiaks never touch the
dead body of a stranger with their hands, but they do not hesitate to
touch a loved relative, and even to kiss his cold face with tears in
their eyes. The corpse is brought to the burial-place on a sledge,
or in a boat, and is accompanied by all the relatives and friends. A
reindeer-skin, on which the dead is to rest, is laid in the chest or
coffin. At the head and sides are placed tobacco, pipes, and all manner
of implements which the dead man was wont to use in his lifetime. Then
the corpse is lifted with cords, carried to the chest, and laid on
the bed thus prepared; the face is covered for the last time, a piece
of birch-bark is spread over the open top of the chest, which, if the
family be a rich one, is perhaps first covered with costly skins and
cloths, the lid of the chest is put on above the sheet of bark, or at
least heavy branches are laid close together upon it. Around and under
the chest are laid such implements as could not be placed within it,
but they are first broken up and thus rendered useless for the living,
or, according to Ostiak ideas, made the ghosts of what they were.
Meanwhile, a fire has been kindled in the neighbourhood of the grave,
and one or more reindeer slaughtered, and now the flesh is eaten, raw
or cooked, by the funeral company. After the meal, the skulls of the
slaughtered reindeer are fixed upon a pole, their harness is hung on
the pole or on a tree, the bells they have worn on this, as on all
solemn occasions, are hung on the top of the coffin itself, the sledge
is broken to pieces and thrown beside the grave as its last ornament.
Then the company travels homewards. Mourning is now silenced, and the
daily round of life begins again.
But in the shades of night the ghost of the dead, equipped with his
ghostly tools, begins his mysterious spirit-life. What he did while he
walked among the living, he continues to do. Invisible to all he leads
his reindeer to pasture, guides his boat through the waves, buckles
on his snow-shoes, draws his bow, spreads his net, shoots the ghosts
of former game, catches the ghosts of former fishes. During night he
visits the tshum of his wife and children, causing them joy or sorrow.
His reward is to be able to show beneficence to his own flesh and
blood; his punishment, to be obliged continually to do them injury.
Such in outline is the religion of the Ostiaks, whom the Greek
Catholics despise as heathen. But a just estimate of these honest
people, with their child-like nature, inclines us rather to wish that
they may ever remain heathen, or at least may never be other than they
are.
THE NOMAD HERDSMEN AND HERDS OF THE STEPPES.
Though the steppe of Central Asia is really rich, and may even seem gay
to one who visits it in spring, and though it contains much fruitful
land, it is nevertheless only its most favoured portions which admit of
a settled life, of a continued residence on any one particular spot.
Constant wandering, coming and going, appearing and disappearing,
is the lot of all the children of the steppe, men and animals alike.
Certain portions submit to the labours of the husbandman; in others,
towns and villages may be established, but the steppe as a whole must
for ever remain the possession of the nomadic herdsman, who knows how
to adapt himself to all its conditions of life.
Among these nomadic herdsmen the Kirghiz take the first rank, by virtue
both of numbers and of civilization. Their domain extends from the Don
and the Volga to the mountains of Thianshan, and from the middle Irtish
to south of the Balkhash Lake, indeed, almost to Khiva and Bokhara;
they are divided into tribes and hordes, into steppe and mountain
herdsmen, but they are one in descent, in language and religion, in
manners and customs, however much the various tribes may appear to
differ. The smallest or youngest horde wanders throughout the steppe
of Orenburg; a branch of the same, calling itself the Buka tribe,
traverses the steppe between the Volga and Ural rivers, especially in
the governments of Turgai and Ural; the middle or elder horde inhabits
the steppes and mountains of the Irtish and Balkhash regions; and
finally, extending from beyond the river Ili towards Khiva and Bokhara
are to be found the ever-changing dwelling-places of the mountain
Kirghiz, who describe themselves as the great, or eldest horde. No
branch of these people applies the name Kirgis or Kirghiz to itself,
for that is a term of infamy equivalent to “freebooters”. The proper
designation of our people is Kaisak, Kasak, or, as we should read it,
Cossack, although even the Russians apply the name Cossack to a people
quite distinct from the inhabitants of the steppe.
The Kirghiz, as I shall call them nevertheless, are a Turkish people,
about whose racial affinities different opinions are held. Many, if
not most, travellers look upon them as true Mongolians, while others
regard them, probably more correctly, as a mixed race, suggestive of
the Mongolians in some particulars, but, on the whole, exhibiting
the characteristics of Indo-Germans, and especially resembling the
Turkomans. All the Kirghiz I saw belonged to the middle horde, and
were well-built people, small, or of medium height, with faces, not
beautiful indeed, but not of the caricature-like Mongolian type,
neat hands and feet, clear or transparent light-brown or yellowish
complexions, brown eyes, and black hair. The cheek-bones are seldom
so prominent, or the chin so pointed, as to give an angular or
cat-faced appearance; the eye, of medium size, is usually most arched
centrally, and drawn out horizontally at the outer angle; it is thus
almond-shaped, but not obliquely set; the nose is usually straight,
more rarely hooked; the mouth moderate in size and sharply cut, the
beard thin, without being actually scanty. True Mongolian features are
certainly to be met with also, more especially among the women and
children of the poorer class; but, though I have seen very few really
beautiful Kirghiz women, I have met with quite as few of the grotesque
faces so common among other undoubted Mongols. The characteristics are
unmistakably more suggestive of a mixed race than of any one sharply
defined stock. I have seen men whom I should unhesitatingly have
pronounced to belong to the nobler Indo-Germans if I had known nothing
of their kinship, and I have become acquainted with others about the
Mongolian cut of whose faces there could be no possible doubt. The
members of the older families usually possess all the essential marks
of the Indo-Germans, while men of lower descent and meaner extraction
often remind one of the Mongols in many details, and may sometimes
resemble them completely. The power of Islam, which permits to slaves
who have become converts all the rights of the tribe, may in the course
of time have made Kirghiz out of many heathen Mongols, and thus not
only have influenced, but actually destroyed the racial characteristics
of the Kirghiz.
Although the chief features of the Kirghiz dress are Turkish, it is, as
a whole, by no means suited for displaying their figure to advantage.
In winter the fur cap, fur coat, and thick-legged boots hide all the
details of the figure, and even in summer these do not come into
prominence. The poorer Kirghiz, in addition to his fur coat and the
inevitable fur cap, wears a shirt, kaftan, and wide trousers; the
higher class rich man, on the other hand, wears a great many articles
of dress one above the other, like the Oriental; but he stuffs all
those which envelop the lower part of his body, with the exception of
his fur coat, into his wide trousers, so that he may not be impeded in
riding. Consequently, the more richly attired he is the more grotesque
he looks. They prefer dark colours to light or bright ones, though
they do not despise these, and they are fond of decorations of gay
embroideries or braiding. Nearly every Kirghiz wears at his girdle a
dainty little pocket, richly decorated with iron or silver mountings,
and a similarly ornamented knife; beyond these, and the indispensable
signet-ring, he wears no decoration unless the Emperor has bestowed one
upon him, in the shape of a commemorative medal.
Of the dress of the women I can say little, first, because modesty
forbade me to ask about more than I could see, and secondly, because
I did not see the women of the upper class at all, and never saw the
others in their gala attire. In addition to the fur coat, boots and
shoes, which are exactly like those of the men, the women wear trousers
which differ very slightly, a shift, and over it a robe-like upper
garment, falling below the knee and clasped in the middle; on the head
they wear either a cloth wound in turban-fashion, or a nun-like hood
which covers head, neck, shoulders, and breast.
The clothing of both sexes is coarse, except the riding-boots and
shoes, which are always well made. Very characteristic, and obviously
adapted to the climatic conditions, are the extraordinarily long
sleeves which both men and women wear on their upper garment; these
fall far beyond the hands, and cover them almost completely.
[Illustration: Fig. 66.--The Home of a Wealthy Kirghiz.]
The roving life to which the Kirghiz are compelled by the necessity
of finding sufficient pasturage for their numerous herds, involves a
style of dwelling which is easily constructed, can be taken down at
one spot and erected again at another without special difficulty, and
which must yet afford a sufficient protection against the hardness
and inclemency of the climate. These requirements are fulfilled more
thoroughly by the _yurt_ than by any other movable dwelling, and it
is not too much to say that this is the most perfect of all tents.
Thousands of years of experience has made the _yurt_ what it is--a
home for the nomadic herdsman, or any other wanderer,--which, in its
own way, cannot be surpassed. Light and easily moved, readily closed
against storms, or thrown open to admit air and sunshine, comfortable
and commodious, simple, yet admitting of rich decoration without
and within, it unites in itself so many excellent qualities that
one appreciates it ever more highly as time goes on, and finds it
more and more habitable the longer one lives in it. It consists of a
movable lattice-work which can be extended or contracted, and which
forms the lower upright circular walls of the framework, a coupling
ring which forms the arch at the top, spars inserted into both these,
and a door in the lattice-work; light mats of tschi-grass, and large
wads or sheets of felt, cut to shape, and most ingeniously laid on,
compose the outer covering of the whole framework, and thick carpets
of felt cover the floor. With the exception of the door-frames, which
are mortised together, and of the spars, the upper ends of which are
inserted into holes in the coupling-ring, the whole structure is held
together simply by means of cords and bands; and it is thus easily
taken to pieces, while its form--circular in cross section, and
cupola-like longitudinally--renders it capable of great resistance to
violent storms and bad weather of all sorts. The work of putting it up
scarcely requires more than half an hour, that of taking it down even
less; the strength of a single camel conveys it from place to place,
but its construction and decoration take up much of the time and all
the ingenuity of the housewife, to whose share falls the chief work of
making it, and the whole labour of setting it up.
The yurt forms an important part of the movable property of a
Kirghiz. A rich man owns six or eight, but he spends money rather on
the decoration of a few than on the construction of many, for he is
assessed and taxed not according to the size of his herds but the
number of his yurts. The high-class Kirghiz certainly shows his wealth
through his yurt, by fitting it up as richly as possible, making it out
of the most valuable felt, and decorating it without and within with
coloured pieces of cloth; but he sets store rather by the possession
of costly rugs, and beautifully sewn and embroidered silken coverlets,
with which he decorates the interior of the living-room on festive
occasions. Such rugs are handed down from father to son, and the
possession of them ranks scarcely below that of uncoined silver.
The real wealth of the nomadic herdsman cannot, however, be estimated
by such secondary things; it must be calculated by his herds. Even the
poorest owner of a yurt must possess numerous beasts to enable him
to live, or survive in the struggle for existence; for the herds he
tends form the one indispensable condition of life; they alone stand
between him and ruin. The rich man’s herds may number thousands upon
thousands, those of the poor man at least hundreds; but the richest may
become poor, if disease breaks out among his herds, and the poor man
may starve if death visits his beasts. Wide-spreading murrain reduces
whole tribes to destitution, causes thousands of human beings literally
to die of starvation. Little wonder, then, that every thought and
aspiration of the Kirghiz is bound up with his herds, that his manners
and customs correspond to this intimate connection between man and
beast, that the man is, in short, dependent on the animal.
Not the most useful, but the noblest and the most highly prized of all
the domesticated animals of the Kirghiz is the horse, which in the eyes
of its owner represents the sum and essence of domestication, and the
climax of all beauty; it is a standard by which to reckon, according to
which wealth or poverty is determined. He does not call it a horse, but
simply the domestic animal; instead of the words “left and right” he
uses the expressions, “the side on which one mounts a horse”, and “the
side on which one carries the knout”. The horse is the pride of youth
and maiden, of man and woman, whether young or old; to praise or find
fault with a horse is to praise or blame its rider, a blow given to a
horse one is not riding is aimed not at the horse but at its owner.
A large number of the Kirghiz songs refer to the horse; it is used as
a standard of comparison to give an estimate of the worth of men and
women, or to describe human beauty.
“Little bride, little bride,
Dear foal of the dark brood-mare!”
the singer calls to the bride who is being led into the bridegroom’s
yurt;
“Say where is the play of the white locks
And where the play of the foals,
For kind as is the new father,
He is not the old father to me,”
the bride answers to the youths who sing the “Jarjar”, the song of
consolation to the departing bride, referring by the words “Foal-play”
to the time of her first love.
The wealth of a man is expressed in the number of horses he possesses;
payment for a bride is made in the value of so many horses; the maiden
who is offered as a prize to the winner in a race is held as being
worth a hundred mares; horses are given as mutual presents; with
horses atonement is made for assassination or murder, limbs broken in
a struggle, an eye knocked out, or for any crime or misdemeanour; one
hundred horses release from ban and outlawry the assassin or murderer
of a man, fifty, of a woman, thirty, of a child. The fine imposed by
the tribe for injuring any one’s person or property is paid in horses;
for the sake of a horse even a respectable man becomes a thief. The
horse carries the lover to his loved one, the bridegroom to the bride,
the hero to battle, the saddle and clothing of the dead from one
camping-place to another; the horse carries man and woman from yurt to
yurt, the aged man as well as the child firmly bound to his saddle,
or the youthful rider who sits for the first time free. The rich man
estimates his herds as equivalent to so many horses; without a horse a
Kirghiz is what a man without a home is among us; without a horse he
deems himself the poorest under the sun.
The Kirghiz has thoroughly studied the horse, he knows all its habits,
its merits and defects, its virtues and vices, knows what benefits and
what injures it; sometimes, indeed, he expects an incredible amount
from it, but he never exacts it unless necessity compels him. He does
not treat it with the affectionate care of the Arab, but neither does
he ever show the want of consideration of many other peoples. One
does not see anything of that careful and intelligent breeding of
horses which is practised by Arabs and Persians, English and Germans,
but he does constantly endeavour to secure the improvement of his
favourite breeds by only placing the best stallions with the mares, and
castrating the rest. Unfortunately his choice of breeding-horses is
determined solely by form, and does not take colour into consideration
at all, the consequence being that many of his horses are exceedingly
ugly, because their colouring is so irregular and unequal. The training
of the horse leaves much to be desired; our wandering herdsman is much
too rich in horses for this to be otherwise.
We found the Kirghiz horse a pleasant and good-natured creature,
although it by no means fulfilled our ideal of beauty in all respects.
It is of medium size and slender build, with a head not ugly though
rather large, decidedly ram-nosed, and noticeably thickened by the
prominent lower jaw-bones, a moderately long and powerful neck, a long
body, fine limbs, and soft hair. Its eyes are large and fiery, its ears
somewhat large, but well-shaped. Mane and tail have fine, long hair,
always abundant, the hair of the tail growing so luxuriantly that it
sweeps the ground; the legs are well formed, but rather slim, the hoofs
are upright, but often rather too high. Light colours prevail and very
ugly piebalds often offend the eye. The commonest colours are brown,
light-brown, fox-coloured, dun, and bay, more rare are dark-brown and
black, and one only occasionally sees a gray. The mane and tail greatly
increase the beauty of all the light-coloured horses, because they are
either black or much lighter than the body hairs.
The temper of the animal is worthy of all praise. The Kirghiz horse
is fiery, yet extremely good-natured, courageous in the presence of
all known dangers, and only nervous, skittish, and timid when it is
bewildered for a moment by something unusual; it is spirited and eager
in its work, obedient, docile, willing, energetic, and very enduring,
but it is chiefly valuable for riding, and requires long breaking-in to
make it of use as a draught animal, in which capacity it is much less
valuable than as a riding-horse.
[Illustration: Fig. 67.--Life among the Kirghiz--the Return from the
Chase.]
It has a particularly disagreeable habit, for which the Kirghiz is
certainly more to blame than the animal, of constantly eating or at
least nibbling on the way; it even attempts to satisfy its appetite in
the most difficult situations, as in wading through rocky mountain
torrents or climbing steep precipices. It is as insatiable as all other
domesticated animals accustomed to roam freely over the steppe, but
in its association with others of its species, except in the breeding
season, it is as peaceable as it is obedient and submissive to its
master.
The poorer Kirghiz possess only horses enough to provide a mount for
each member of the family, and to ensure the continuance of their
stock. The richer dwellers on the steppe, on the other hand, have
four or five, indeed I have often been assured as many as ten or
twelve thousand head, which feed in separate herds, and at different
places, and therefore, naturally enough, thrive better than those
of their poorer brethren. Each herd consists of at least fifteen,
or at most fifty individuals; in the latter case it comprises one
fully-grown stallion, nine brood-mares, and as many young foals,
eight two-year-olds, six or eight three-year-olds, and five or six
four-year-olds, besides some older animals or geldings. The stallion
is absolute lord and master, guide, leader, and protector of the herd,
and he never lets himself be deprived of a single foal by the wolf, but
attacks that cowardly robber boldly and successfully, striking him to
the ground with his hoofs if he shows fight. But he will not tolerate
a rival, and drives out all other stallions from the herd as soon as
they come to maturity; when he enters on his leadership he drives away
his own mother, and later his own daughters. This proud wilfulness
necessitates the greatest watchfulness on the part of the herdsman
during the pairing time, lest he lose the expelled mares which are
seeking a new sultan, or the stallions which are striving for their
own independence. The young mare reaches maturity in her fifth year,
and the following spring, usually in March, she brings forth her first
foal. She is not at once separated from the rest of the herd, but in
May she and her foal are brought into the neighbourhood of the yurt,
and for four months she is regularly milked to provide the famous
koumiss or milk-wine. In autumn, mother and young are allowed to rejoin
the herd. Both are received without hesitation, and they enjoy their
newly-recovered freedom to the full.
Apart from the horse, the most useful, and therefore the most
important domestic animal of our nomadic herdsman, is the sheep. This
animal is very large and well-built, but very much disfigured by the
protuberances of fat on the rump. The massive body rests upon long
but powerful legs; the head is small, the nose narrow and blunt, the
ears pendulous or erect, the horns weak, the skin hard but thick,
the udder very much developed, the fat rump often so enormous that
the creature can no longer carry it, but bending its knees lets it
drag on the ground, unless the herdsman comes to its aid by fixing a
little two-wheeled cart under the tail, and placing the burdensome
appendage on that. When the Kirghiz rams are crossed with sheep without
this protuberance, their descendants acquire the singular appendage
in two or three generations, while if smooth-tailed rams be paired
continuously with fat-rumped sheep the reverse takes place.
Though the character of the Kirghiz sheep resembles that of our sheep
in all important respects, it cannot be disputed that the free life
on the steppes, the long journeys which have to be made, and the
difficulties which have to be surmounted in the course of these have
developed its physical and mental capacities to an incomparably higher
degree than is attained by our domestic sheep. Nevertheless, even in
the steppe the clever goat acts as leader and guide to the relatively
stupid sheep, and it is therefore only right that I should describe the
goat next.
The Kirghiz goat is of medium size, massive and well-built, the body
powerful, the neck short, the head small, the limbs well-proportioned,
the eye large and bright, the glance full of expression, the erect
ear pointed, the horns comparatively weak, and either directed
backwards and outwards or half turned on their axes, the hair abundant,
especially on beard and tail, that on the forehead being long and
curled; the prevailing colouring is beautiful pure white with black
markings.
The Kirghiz always treat sheep and goats exactly alike, and they feed
together in flocks. The poor Kirghiz of one aul make up a flock among
them, the rich man, whose beasts are numbered by many thousands, has
often several. The shepherd, usually a biggish boy, rides on an ox
beside his flock, but he understands so well how to manage his steed
and make it trot, that he can overtake the fleetest goat. Once as we
were returning from a hunting expedition, we met a shepherd who, by
way of amusement, rode along for quite a quarter of an hour beside our
briskly-trotting horses, yet his singular steed showed no signs of
fatigue. Only the shepherds belonging to the Tartar sheep-owners ride
on horses. In hazardous parts of their journeys, such as crossing a
rapid stream, or climbing among the mountains, the goats take the lead,
and here, as everywhere else, the sheep follow them blindly.
As hay can only be gathered and stacked in the most favoured spots,
the birth of lambs and kids in autumn is prevented; it therefore
always takes place in spring, and the young ones have thus every
chance to thrive well and grow rapidly. New-born lambs and kids are
taken into the yurt at once, and they soon become so well accustomed
to it that they only quit the comfortable tent with piteous bleatings
when circumstances render it necessary. Later on they are put into a
shelter near the winter-dwelling. In the open steppe this shelter is
a simple hollow in the ground, over which the cold wind blows almost
unfelt; finally they are secured to the rope called a _kögön_, which is
stretched between strong poles in front of every yurt. As soon as they
begin to graze they are driven out in flocks by themselves to the open
steppe, and brought back to the yurt towards evening. Thus they become
accustomed from their earliest youth to the free life of the steppes,
to wind and tempest, storm and rain.
In comparison with horses, sheep, and goats, cattle play a very
subordinate part. Herds of them are certainly to be seen in the
neighbourhood of every aul, but they are quite out of proportion to
the numbers of sheep and goats. The ox is larger and better built than
that of the Russian and Siberian peasants, but it is far behind the
Chinese ox, and cannot for a moment be compared with any noteworthy
breed of Western Europe. It is of medium size and fleshy, its coat is
short and smooth-haired, its horns long and curved, its prevailing
colour a beautiful, warm red-brown. The cattle are sent out to graze in
rather large herds, with no supervision of any kind, the milch cows
being enticed back to the yurt solely by the calves which are tied up
and tended there, while the bulls roam about as they please, and often
remain away from the aul for several days at a time.
Though all the large auls possess camels, by no means every Kirghiz
owns one, and even the richest among them seldom possess more than
fifty head. For the camel is rightly considered the most perishable of
all the stock owned by the nomadic herdsmen of this steppe; its real
home lies farther to the south and east. In the part of the steppe
through which we travelled only the two-humped camel is reared, but
south of the Balkhash Lake and in Central Asia preference is given to
the dromedary. The two species cross here and produce strange hybrids
in which the two humps are almost fused into one.
The camel of the central steppe belongs to one of the lighter breeds,
and is therefore not nearly so massive and awkward as those which are
to be seen in most zoological gardens, but it is quite as thickly
covered with hair. Nevertheless, it does not stand cold nearly so well
as the other domestic animals of the Kirghiz, and requires a felt mat
to kneel down or rest on, and even then it often takes cold and dies.
While shedding its hair it has to be enveloped in a felt covering, and
in summer it has to be protected from mosquitoes and gadflies else it
will succumb; in short, it is the object of constant anxiety, and is
therefore not suited to a poor man, who feels every loss with threefold
force. It resembles the dromedary in being easily satisfied in the
matter of food, and in displaying the blind rage characteristic of
the pairing-time, when it menaces even its usually loved master, but,
for the rest of the year, it differs from the dromedary, very much to
its own advantage, in docility and gentleness. Having been accustomed
to the dromedary for many years, I was particularly struck by these
excellent qualities in the steppe camel; I hardly recognized the race.
The camel allows itself to be caught without resisting, and kneels down
to be laden, if not altogether without grumbling, at least without the
horrible, nerve-shattering bellowing of the dromedary. Even at a trot
it carries light burdens uncomplainingly, covering twenty miles or more
in the course of a day; if its load slips, it stops of its own accord.
With a rider it can cover about thirty miles a day; with a weight of
eight cwts. on its back, compelling it to a slow but striding step,
it should manage at least half that distance. It grazes almost always
in the vicinity of the yurt, in company with all its fellows of the
aul, and in the eyes of the Kirghiz it is to a certain extent a sacred
animal.
[Illustration: Fig 68.--Kirghiz with Camels.]
The dog, which is the least valued animal owned by the Kirghiz, is
always large but not always beautiful, though the difference between
it and the hideous curs to be met with elsewhere in Siberia and
Turkestan is very marked and greatly in its favour. The head is long
but rather heavy, the limbs more like those of a greyhound than a
sheep-dog, the hair long and woolly, the colouring very varied.
Watchful and courageous in the highest degree, he is a worthy adversary
of the wolf, an efficient and careful protector of the weaker herds,
a suspicious sentinel towards strangers, the faithful slave of his
master, an unsociable recluse as far as grown-up people are concerned,
but the willing playmate of the children. He has many of the virtues
of his race, and is therefore to be found in every yurt or at least in
every aul.
The whole life of the Kirghiz centres in his herds,--making use of
them and their products, and to that end tending them carefully. The
former is the chief occupation of the women, the latter the most
important work of the men. With the exception of the bones, which
are thrown away unheeded, every portion of the body of every one of
their animals is used, just as every female among the live stock is
milked as long as possible. The quantity of vegetable food used by the
Kirghiz is extremely small; milk and meat form his chief diet in all
circumstances, and vegetable products are merely accessory. Bread,
in the real sense of the word, he scarcely uses at all, and even the
little lumps of dough which may be reckoned as such, are sodden in
fat, not baked. Flour and rice,--the latter a frequent dish only among
the rich,--also serve to give variety to the everlasting monotony of
milk and meat dishes. Little wonder then that death from starvation
threatens the Kirghiz, indeed too often overtakes him, when general
murrain breaks out among his beasts in the midst of the steppe.
The wealthier people keep the milk of sheep and goats separate from
that of cows, and of mares and camels; poor people mix all the milk in
one vessel, and thus get only the effect of sheep’s milk, while the
rich secure some differentiation of palatal pleasure. From the milk of
sheep and goats, which is invariably milked into the same vessel and
collected in the same leathern bottle, they prepare not only various
dishes, which are eaten at once with or without flour, but also butter,
small, sour or bitter, gritty cheeses, most distasteful to a European
palate, and a yellow curd very agreeable even to our taste, which,
like the cheese, is stored up for use in winter, when it is dissolved
in water to make a sort of soup. Cow’s milk, on the other hand, they
use chiefly as sour milk, and only rarely make into curds, cheese, or
butter, while that of mares and camels is used for making the koumiss
so often described. This is a milk-wine made by allowing milk to
ferment for four days, and by constantly shaking and beating it. It
is much appreciated, and indeed justly prized among the Kirghiz, and
the well-to-do among them often drink it to intoxication on festive
occasions.
During summer even the wealthier Kirghiz live almost entirely on milk
in various forms, for they only kill a member of their herd for a
festival or on some specially important occasion. When winter sets in,
however, sheep and goats, horses and cattle, even camels are killed.
The flesh of the horse, especially of the mare, is looked on as the
noblest, that of cattle as the worst and poorest food. The flesh of
sheep ranks next to horse flesh; camel flesh is good for the soul’s
health; goat flesh is a mark of poverty, or is set before a guest in
expression of contempt. Of the slaughtered horse the loins are most
highly prized, and the breast of the sheep. A dainty of the first order
is the belly fat of a young horse; this is therefore salted, made
into smoked sausages, and set before the honoured guest with as much
ceremony as the koumiss itself.
The Kirghiz turns to profit not only the edible portions but every
usable part of the animals he rears. From the wool of the sheep he
prepares the indispensable felt; he weaves and spins the hair of the
camel, and the mother lays her new-born babe in its soft down-like
under wool. The long hair of the goat is made into fringes for rugs
and cloths, or into tassels or cords; the short woolly hair is spun
and woven into bands for the yurt, and the hair of the horse’s mane
and tail is plaited into much-prized leading-reins or cords for the
yurt. Sheep-skin furnishes the ordinary winter fur coat; the skins of
lambs and kids make valuable fur-trimmings; the flocks of wool rubbed
off make good wadding for lining other garments, and the skins of all
the animals supply leather of different kinds. The Kirghiz barters
the superfluous or little-prized fat of his beasts, and some of his
sheep, cattle, and horses for various other commodities of the general
market; with the proceeds of the sale of his herds he pays his taxes
and tributes, buys the uncoined silver with which he loves to make a
display, the iron which he works, the rugs, garments, and silk stuffs
with which he decks his person and his yurt. The herds are and must
remain the sole support and source of wealth of the nomadic herdsman;
the little land which he occasionally ploughs, sows, waters, and reaps
is hardly worth taking into account.
It is not their own humour, but the necessity of satisfying the
requirements of their stock, that regulates the roamings and
sojournings of the Kirghiz, that compels them to wander this way to-day
and that to-morrow, to rest for a little in one place, and shortly
afterwards to leave it for another. The journeyings of these people are
therefore by no means aimless wanderings about the vast steppe, but
carefully-considered changes of residence determined by the season, and
by the species of animal requiring fresh pasture. The steppe allows no
planless roaming either in summer or winter, autumn or spring; aimless
roving would expose the herds in winter to the most terrible storms,
in summer to the danger of drought; in spring there would probably be
an embarrassing superfluity of fodder, and by autumn the supply would
have unpleasantly diminished. So the Kirghiz begins his journey from
the low-lying plains, ascends slowly to the higher ground and even to
the mountains, then moves slowly back to the low grounds again. But the
various herds have different needs: sheep and goats like hard, fragrant
plants such as are to be found on the salt steppe; horses prefer the
mountain plants, especially those growing among masses of rock, while
the favourite grazing-ground of cattle is soft meadow-land, and camels,
besides eating the hard salt steppe plants, appear to look upon thorns
and thistles as an indispensable part of their food. The well-to-do,
who can group the different animals in separate herds, let each herd
wander and feed by itself, and only the poorer people move from one
place to another with all their stock together. Finally, the movements
of one party are influenced by those of another. There are, indeed,
no landmarks nor boundary stones, but even in the open steppe
rights of possession and definite boundaries are recognized by ancient
agreement; every horde, every branch of a horde, every community, the
members of every aul, claim a right to the land traversed by their
forefathers, and suffer no strange herd or herdsman to encroach on it,
but take to arms and wage bloody warfare with every intruder, even
with other members of the same tribe. This explains the fact that the
nomad herdsman not only travels along definite routes, but restricts
himself to a strictly limited range. His path may occasionally cross
that of another herdsman, but it is never the same, for each respects
the rights of the other, and is prevented by the rest of his tribe from
encroaching upon them.
[Illustration: Fig. 69.--Kirghiz and their Herds on the March in the
Mountains.]
“Settled”, in our sense of the word, the Kirghiz never is, unless in
the grave, but he is not without a home. In the wide sense, his home
is the district through which he travels, in most cases the basin and
valley of a small stream or brook, or, in a more restricted sense, his
winter camping-ground from which he sets forth on his journeys, and to
which he always returns. In the neighbourhood of this camping-ground
rest nearly all, if not all his dead; here he may even have a fixed
dwelling; hither the government sends its messengers to collect his
taxes or appraise his possessions and count the members of his family
and of his herds; here he spends, if not the happiest, at least the
largest part of his life; here, gay and careless as he usually is,
he passes through his severest and most serious trials. The exact
locality of the winter dwelling may vary, but the camping-ground does
not. Indispensable conditions are, that it be as much as possible
protected from the cold, deadly, north and east winds, that the yurt
can be erected on a sunny spot, that fixed houses may be built without
much difficulty, that the necessary supply of water be certain,
and that sufficient pasturage be available within easy distance.
These conditions are best fulfilled by the valley of a river whose
tributaries have cut deeply into the surrounding country, where the
grass does not dry up in summer, so that hay can be cut at the proper
season and yet enough food be left for the herds in winter, and where,
in addition to the dung used for fire-lighting, fuel may be procured
from the willow-bushes and black poplars on the river-bank. Other
localities are only selected when it is a question of taking advantage
of some place, such as the salt steppe, which has to be avoided in
summer because it lacks water, that being supplied in sufficient
abundance for man and beast as soon as snow has fallen. Though the
winter dwelling may be a fixed one, it is always truly miserable, a
musty, damp, dark hut, so lightly built that the inmates depend on
the snow for thickening the walls and roof, and protecting them from
storms. These walls are occasionally made of piled-up tree-trunks,
oftener of rough stones, but most frequently of plaited willows or
bundles of reeds. The roof and thatch are always of reeds. Close beside
the dwelling-house is a similarly-constructed stable for the young
animals, and at some distance there is a shelter for the rest of the
herds.
In the beginning of winter the Kirghiz moves into such a winter
dwelling, unless, as is perhaps usually the case, he prefers the much
more comfortable yurt. The fuel for either has been long ago prepared,
for in the preceding spring he, or rather his wife, upon whom falls
all the heavier and more disagreeable work, mixed the dung of the herd
animals with straw, and worked it into square cakes, which were then
piled in heaps and dried in the sun. All the grass in the immediate
neighbourhood has been carefully spared, so that the herds may graze as
near the dwelling as possible; here, too, the hay which has been mown
at a distance has been collected. If the winter be a good one, that
is, if not much snow falls, the herds find food enough, but if it be
severe, it often renders all precautions futile, and levies a toll on
his herds heavier than is counterbalanced by the spring increase. Thus,
in a good winter, cheerfulness prevails even in the dark hut of the
wandering herdsman, but in a severe one, which reduces his beasts to
walking skeletons, black care and grief visit even the pleasant yurt.
In hut and yurt alike there is either comfort and plenty or bitter want
during that much-dreaded season of the year.
It is not till towards the end of April, in many years not before the
end of May, that the herdsman leaves his winter camp and begins to
travel. The horses, tended by special herdsmen, move on in advance,
so as not to annoy the smaller animals. It is not the lively foals,
born, like the kids, a few weeks before, that cause so much anxiety;
it is the young stallions and mares which are just reaching maturity.
The foals spring about the whole herd in wanton playfulness, but they
do not go far from the mother mares, who are quietly grazing, and
only look up at them now and again. The young stallions and mares, on
the other hand, cause continual uneasiness, and call for the greatest
watchfulness on the part of the herdsmen, whose numbers are doubled
for the time. Now the young males fight with the old, dignified, and
domineering leader of the herd; now the young females throng about the
sire till he is compelled to drive them away with bites; now one or
another of them attempts to escape, and rushes, with head against the
wind and dilated nostrils, out into the steppe. The herdsman at once
urges the horse he is riding to a gallop, and pursues the fugitive in
mad haste up hill and down dale; in his right hand he holds the long
herdsman’s crook, with a noose attached to one end; nearer and nearer
he presses on the young mare. The dreaded lasso is thrown, and is
about to descend on her head, when she suddenly swerves to one side,
and throwing her hind-legs into the air, as if teasing or mocking her
pursuer, she is off again with renewed speed, and the wild chase begins
anew, and goes on, until at length the herdsman succeeds in catching
her, and leading her slowly back to the herd. Entertaining though this
spectacle may be for the unconcerned spectator, perhaps even for the
herdsman himself, such mad hunts would disturb the quiet and regular
progress of the smaller animals, and therefore the owner does not let
his different herds travel together, if it can be avoided. Nor could
sheep and goats cover such distances as the horses do, for not only are
they much enfeebled by the hardships of winter, but the lambs and kids
are not yet strong enough. Separation of the herds is therefore doubly
necessary.
The Kirghiz, when journeying with his smaller animals, at first only
traverses a short distance, a so-called “sheep’s journey” each day, and
he stops wherever there is good pasture, as long as his flocks graze
with avidity. On the journey the flock of sheep, with its shepherd
riding on an ox, leads the way. The sheep proceed at a tolerably
quick pace, now crowding close together, now scattering widely, here
and there stopping their march to enjoy to the full some specially
dainty plant, but eating, or at least nibbling, all the time, and the
herdsman’s steed also grazes uninterruptedly. The flock of ewes and
mother-goats follows that of the lambs and kids, but at such a distance
that they see and hear nothing of each other. The flock of wethers, if
such still exists, or has just been formed, takes a different route.
After all the flocks and herds have set out, the women take down the
yurt, load camels or oxen with it and the few household requisites,
mount their own horses with their children and other members of the
family, and ride slowly after the milk-giving flocks. By mid-day they
overtake them, milk them, and, carrying the milk in leathern bottles,
continue their journey till sundown, when they set up the yurt again.
One day passes like another. When the spring has brought fresh verdure,
they remain for days, later on for weeks, in the same spot, until the
pasturage around is growing scarce; then they move on again. When
advancing spring calls to full life the slumbering insect larvæ, when
swarms innumerable of gnats, flies, gadflies, and other pests fill the
air, they direct their steps, if it be at all possible, towards the
mountains, and climb gradually to the highest plateaus just below the
snow-line. For the shepherd, who gets no assistance from the dogs, it
is a hard enough task to guide the flocks over the plains; but in the
mountains the difficulty of completing his daily “sheep’s journey”
is immense, and it is impossible for him to get over some obstacles
without the aid of other riders. As long as there is a beaten track the
journey goes smoothly on, whether the path winds through flowery plains
or over slopes and precipices. The leading goats survey such places
for a little, as if deliberating, then choosing their path they go on
their way, and the sheep follow them trustfully. But it is a different
matter when, instead of a murmuring brook, a rushing torrent bars the
way, and must be crossed. At sight of the decidedly hostile element
even the bold goats hesitate, ready though they are to adapt themselves
to all circumstances; but the sheep recoil from it in terror, and even
climb the nearest rocks as if to save themselves. In vain the shepherd
rides through the rushing flood; in vain he returns and collects his
flock on the banks. The sheep express their anxiety in loud bleatings,
even the goats bleat hesitatingly, till the shepherd’s patience is
exhausted. For one moment the fateful sling hangs over the head of one
of the sheep; the next, it feels itself caught by the neck, pulled
up to the saddle, and hurled into the seething waters. Now it must
shift for itself. Swimming spasmodically, or rather making a series of
springs, it struggles on from one mass of rock to another, but before
it can gain a footing, it is hurried on by the torrent, and kicks,
flounders, leaps, and swims again, is every now and then carried away
by the flood, but eventually reaches the opposite bank, exhausted more
by terror than by exertion. Trembling in every limb, it satisfies
itself that it is really on dry land again, shakes its dripping fleece,
looks back timidly once more, and then begins to feed greedily to make
up for the discomfort it has suffered. Meanwhile the rest of the flock
have crossed the torrent one after another, either of their own accord
or compulsorily, and when all have been collected again the march is
resumed. In this manner the nomadic herdsman gradually reaches the
mountains. When it begins to grow cold, when perhaps a slight fall of
snow suggests the approach of winter, herdsman and herd turn downwards
again, this time through the shadiest gorges, till the low-lying plain
is reached, and the circle is completed at the winter camping-ground.
This is the regular yearly routine.
All the Kirghiz domestic animals accustom themselves very quickly to
the different districts in which they graze, wherever the place may be.
After having gone to a pasture once or twice, all know the way thither
again, they find it unfailingly without the herdsman, and return of
their own accord to the yurt to be milked. There is certainly a strong
inducement for them to do so, for from May onwards the young of all
milk-yielding animals are kept from their mothers, and yet allowed to
graze in the neighbourhood of the aul, so that longing for their young
is kept alive in the maternal hearts. Thus milking can always take
place at the same hour, and the mistress of the yurt can regulate her
work and portion out her day.
[Illustration: Fig. 70.--Kirghiz Aul, or Group of Tents.]
With the exception of the mares, which are always milked by men, and
often require the attention of at least two, and not rarely of three
during the process, all the milking is done by the women. Early in
the morning the calves, lambs, and kids are allowed to suck a little
under strict supervision, and are then separated from the mothers, old
and young being driven to their respective pastures. At mid-day the
mothers, without the young, are brought to the yurt to be milked, and
again in the evening the mothers are brought in before the young for
the same purpose. With the help of the dogs, which render no other
service, the whole flock is gathered into a limited space, and the
work begins. The mistress and servants of a yurt, or those who live
together as neighbours in an aul, appear with their milk vessels,
and dexterously seizing one sheep after another, drag it to a rope
stretched between poles, pass a sling formed by the rope itself round
the neck of each, and thus force the animals to remain standing in rows
with the heads turned inwards, the udders outwards. In this manner
thirty or forty head of sheep and goats are fastened together in a few
minutes, and the so-called “kögön” is formed. Taught by experience,
the animals stand perfectly still as soon as they feel the string,
and submit passively to all that follows. The women, sitting opposite
each other, begin at one end, or if there are many sheep, at both
ends of the double row, seize the short teats between forefinger and
thumb, and exhaust the milk with rapid pulls. If it does not flow
freely they shake the udder with a blow from the left hand, exactly as
the sucking young ones do, and only when even by this means nothing
more can be obtained do they proceed to the next sheep. The men of
the yurt or aul, who may perhaps have helped to catch and fasten the
sheep and goats, sit about in all sorts of positions, impossible and
almost inconceivable to us, and allow their “red tongue” the fullest
freedom. Some of the little boys make their first venture at riding on
the sheep, unless they prefer the shoulders of their mothers for that
purpose. The latter are as little distracted by these doings of their
offspring as by any other little incidents. Whether they sit on the dry
ground or in fresh sheep’s dung, whether some of that falls into their
poplar-wood vessels, affects them little, for the vessel is in any
case as dirty as the hand which milks; and though sheep’s dung may be
unclean in our eyes it is not so in those of the Kirghiz, who believe
in the Koran. At length the milking is at an end and the animals, which
have been tethered all this time and have been ruminating for want of
better employment, can be released; a quick pull at one end of the
cord, all the slings are undone, and the sheep and goats are free.
A general, simultaneous bleating is the first expression of their
delight in their newly-recovered freedom; a short, quickly-repeated
shaking throws off the last recollections of their undignified
servitude; and then they run off as quickly as possible, in the plains
as far away from the yurt as the herdsman allows, in the mountainous
districts towards the hills, as if they could only there breathe the
air of freedom. In reality they are longing to meet their young ones as
soon as possible. All day long they have been away from them, but now,
according to all their experience, the little ones must appear. The
sheep run about bleating continuously, and even the intelligent goats
look longingly all around as if they wished to find out whether the
expected flock is already on the way, or at least whether it is visible
in the far distance. The bleating grows louder and louder, for every
newly-released row excites all the sheep assembled in the neighbourhood
of the aul; and the impatience of the mothers, which is increasing
every minute, finds vent in piteous, almost moaning bleatings. The
longer the suspense lasts the more restless do the mothers become.
Aimlessly they wander hither and thither, sniff at every blade of grass
on the way, but scarcely crop any, lift their heads expectantly and
joyously, let them droop again in disappointed sadness, bleat, and
bleat again. The restlessness increases almost to frenzy, the bleating
becomes a perfect bellowing.
From the distance are heard weak, shrill, bleating sounds. They do not
escape the attentive ears of the mothers. A loud and simultaneous call
from every throat is the answer; all the maternal longing, increased to
the utmost by the long waiting, is condensed in a single cry. And from
the distance, down from the hills towards the yurt, the eager lambs and
kids come rushing to find their mothers; the biggest and strongest in
front, the youngest and weakest behind, but all hurrying, running and
leaping, almost enveloped in a cloud of dust; and stretching out into
a longer procession the nearer they approach their goal. An apparently
inextricable confusion arises, old and young, united at last, run
hither and thither, touching each other lightly as they pass, to find
out, by touch as well as by smell, whether they have found their
own or not; both run on if this is not the case, the lambs and kids,
however, in most cases only after they have been made aware of their
mistake by a push or tread from the mother animal. Gradually the dense
crowd dissolves, for by degrees, in a much shorter time than one would
imagine, every mother has found her child, every child its mother, and
the young one now kneels down under its parent, eagerly drawing from
the udder what milk remains. And if the bleating still continues, the
sounds are now indicative only of the liveliest satisfaction.
But this state of mutual delight does not last long. The udders,
already milked, are quickly exhausted, and, in spite of all the thrusts
of the suckling, the fountain will flow no longer. But mother and young
still enjoy the pleasure of being together. The mixed flock spreads
out in all directions, the complaisant mother following the lively
youngster as it climbs the nearest height after the manner of its kind,
or looking contentedly on when a little kid tries its strength in
playful combat with another of its own age. The whole space round the
yurt is picturesquely decorated by the lively flocks, a most charming
picture of peaceful and comfortable pastoral life lies before the eyes
of those who have feeling and understanding to enjoy it.
The women now allow themselves a short rest, take their children in
their laps, and fulfil their maternal duties or desires. But more
work awaits them. A lowing announces the approach of the cows, also
eager for their share of maternal joy, and the industrious women rise
hastily, bring the calves which were tied up beforehand to the cows,
let them suck for a little, wrench them from the udder again, and only
after milking allow the calves full freedom. Meanwhile the shepherds
and dogs have once more collected the sheep and goats, and now old and
young, men and women, boys and girls, unite in the work of catching the
lambs and fastening them in rows, with nooses which are firm without
being too tight, to a cord in front of the yurt, so that the mothers
cannot suckle. As may be supposed, this is not completed without much
bleating and noise, and mingled with it are the cries and wailings of
the children wearying for their mothers, the lowing of cows, and the
barking of dogs. Only the lambs and kids just tied submit quietly to
the inevitable. A few kids still try their sprouting horns in playful
duels, but they soon tire, and lay themselves peaceably down opposite
their quondam rivals. Before the long row is fastened most of the young
ones have tucked in their legs and given themselves up to repose. One
mother-sheep and goat after another sniffs at the little ones till she
has found her own, but returns to the flock when she has satisfied
herself that it is impossible to lie down beside her offspring.
The sun has long since disappeared from the horizon, and twilight has
given place to darkness. It becomes quieter and quieter in the yurt.
Men and animals have sought and found rest; only the dogs begin their
rounds under the guidance of a watchful herdsman; but even they only
bark when there is a real reason for it, when it is necessary to scare
away some prowling wolf or other thief. A cool, but fragrant, dewy
summer night descends upon the steppe, and the refreshing slumber of
this richest and most beautiful season blots out the hardships of
winter from the memory of man and beast alike.
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE AMONG THE KIRGHIZ.
To escape the threatening hand of justice, four thieves fled from
the homes of honest men, and sought refuge and concealment in the
vast steppe. On their flight, they fell in with two beggar-women,
driven out, like themselves, from among their industrious fellows.
The beggar-women found favour in the eyes of the thieves, and they
married them, two thieves taking one woman. A great many children
resulted from these alliances, so contrary to the laws of God and man,
and the children became the parents of a numerous people who spread
over the hitherto uninhabited steppe. But they were faithful to their
origin--thieves like their fathers, beggars like their mothers, and
like both in being without religion or morals. This people is the
Kirghiz, whose name signifies “Robber”.
Thus a religious Tartar poet pictures the origin, and describes the
character of a people closely related to his own, who speak the same
language, and worship the same God according to the precepts of the
same prophet. He speaks thus, solely because the Kirghiz, in matters of
religion, cling less slavishly to words, and think less narrowly than
he does. His words simply illustrate the old and ever new story; the
offence which the poet’s words express is constantly repeated among
every people, the pious lie, which no sect has shrunk from uttering, to
lower the credit of those who think differently from themselves.
But the traveller who sojourns among the Kirghiz, the stranger
who seeks and receives hospitality under the light roof of their
yurt, the scholar who endeavours to investigate their manners and
customs, the official who lives among them as guardian of the law,
or as representative of the State; in a word, everyone who has much
intercourse with them, and is unprejudiced, gives an account of them
widely different from that of the Tartar poet.
There was a time when the Kirghiz in general justified their name,
but this time has long gone by, at least as far as most branches of
the different hordes are concerned. The sentiments, the adventurous
expeditions, and brigand exploits of their fathers may awaken an echo
in the breast of every Kirghiz; but, on the whole, these horsemen of
the steppe have submitted to the laws of their present rulers, live
at peace among themselves, as well as with their neighbours, respect
the rights of property, and do not rob and steal oftener or more than
other people, but rather more rarely and less. Under Russian dominion
the Kirghiz of to-day live in such satisfactory circumstances, that
their fellow-tribesmen beyond the boundaries look with envy on the
Russian subjects. Under the protection of their government they enjoy
quietness and peace, security of property, and religious freedom; they
are almost entirely exempt from military service, and are taxed in a
manner which must be acknowledged as reasonable in every respect; they
have the right of choosing their own district governors, and many other
privileges to the enjoyment of which the Russians themselves have not
as yet attained. Unfortunately, these governors are not so reasonable
as the government, and they hamper, oppress, and overreach the Kirghiz
whenever and in whatever way they can. But, happily, they have not
been able in any way to influence the manners and customs of the people.
The Kirghiz are a race of true horsemen, and can scarcely be thought
of apart from their horses; they grow up with the foal and live with
the horse till death. It is not, indeed, on horseback only that the
Kirghiz is at home, for he understands how to ride every kind of
animal which can bear him at all: but the horse is always, and under
all circumstances, his favourite bearer and most cherished companion.
He transacts all his business on horseback, and the horse is looked
upon as the only steed worthy of a man. Men and women ride in the same
fashion, not a few of the women with the same skill as the men. The
position of the rider is lazy and comfortable, not very pleasing to
the eye of the spectator. The Kirghiz rides in short buckled stirrups,
without a leg-guard, touching the front edge of the saddle with the
knees only, and thus balancing himself freely; trotting, he raises
himself in the stirrups, often standing upright in them, and bending
his head so far forward that it almost touches the horse’s neck; when
the horse walks or gallops, as it usually does, he holds himself
erect. He holds the reins with the whole hand. The knout, which is
held by the loop or knot, he uses with the thumb, index and middle
fingers. Falling out of the saddle is by no means a rare occurrence,
for he takes not the slightest heed of ways and paths, but leaves the
horse to find these for itself. And even if he be of more careful
mood, he will take any path which the beast can tread, with as little
hesitation as he mounts the wildest, most intractable horse. Difficult
paths do not exist for him; in fact, path simply means the distance
across a given area; what may lie between the beginning and the end
of the journey is to him a matter of the utmost indifference. As long
as he is in the saddle he expects incredible things of his steed,
and gallops uphill or downhill, over firm ground or through bog,
morass, or water; without giddiness or any of the fear which seizes
him when afoot, he climbs precipices which any other rider would deem
impassable, and looks calmly down from the saddle into the abyss by
the side of the goat-track, which he calls a road, where even the most
expert mountaineer would be unable to repress a shudder. When he has
dismounted, he acts upon all the rules deduced from long experience
for the care of an over-strained horse, and is as careful of it as he
had previously been inconsiderate. On festive occasions the Kirghiz
performs feats of horsemanship for the amusement of the spectators,
who are never awanting; he raises himself erect in the stirrups, which
are crossed over the saddle, and springs from them without falling,
he holds fast to the saddle or stirrups with his hands, and stretches
his legs into the air, or hangs from one side of the saddle, and
attempts to pick up some object from the ground, but he does not seem
to practise the military sports of his Turkish relatives. Racing is to
him the greatest of all pleasures, and every festival is celebrated by
a race.
To the race, which is called “Baika”, only the finest horses, and of
these only amblers are usually admitted. The distances to be traversed
are always considerable,--never less than twenty, and frequently forty
kilometres: the riders make for a certain point in the steppe, such
as a hillock, or a burial-place, and then return as they went. Boys
of seven, eight, or at most ten years of age, sit in the saddle, and
guide the horses with remarkable skill. The spectators ride slowly to
meet the returning horses, give help, called “guturma”, to the steed
which seems to have most chance of winning, by taking off the little
rider, seizing reins, stirrups, mane, and tail, and leading, or rather
dragging it to the goal between fresh horses. The prizes raced for
consist of various things, but are always reckoned as equivalent to
so many horses. Two or three thousand silver roubles are frequently
offered as the first prize: among the richer families the stakes are
one hundred horses or their equivalent. Young girls, too, are sometimes
offered as prizes, the winner of one being allowed to marry her without
making the usual payment to her family.
While the race-horses are on their way, the men often pass the time
by exercising their own physical powers. Two men divest themselves
of their outer garments, baring the shoulders and upper parts of the
body, and begin to wrestle. The mode of attack varies. The combatants
seize one another, bend towards one another, turn about in a circle,
each always watching the other carefully, and seeking to parry every
effort, real or feigned, till suddenly one of them exerts his full
strength, and the other, if he has not foreseen this, is thrown to the
ground. Others begin the attack more impetuously, but meet with such
strenuous resistance that the struggle lasts a long time before one
succeeds in vanquishing his opponent. The spectators encourage them,
praise and blame, cheer and scoff, betting among themselves the while,
and becoming more and more excited as the balance inclines to one side
or the other. At length, one lies on the ground, laughed at by the
whole company, ashamed and humiliated, in his secret heart probably
embittered. Cries from every throat fill the air, pieces of cloth,
perhaps only rags of cotton, are torn up and distributed to balance
accounts; reproaches mingle with shouts of applause, and the match is
over, unless the vanquished one suddenly seeks his revenge, and attacks
his Opponent once more. A wrestling match never comes to an end without
noise, screaming, and wrangling, but actual fighting seldom takes place.
[Illustration: Fig. 71.--Hunting the Wolf with the Golden Eagle.]
Hunting must be reckoned among the equestrian sports of the Kirghiz.
When a sportsman gets on the track Of a wolf, he follows it with such
eagerness and persistence that he takes little heed though the cold,
doubly felt when riding quickly, should seriously imperil him, that is,
if his face and hands should become frozen; for, if his horse holds
out, he almost certainly succeeds at length in throwing his heavy club
at his victim’s head. But his favourite mode of hunting is with eagles
and greyhounds. Like his forefathers, he understands how to tame and
carry the golden eagle, and with the bird sitting on his thickly-gloved
hand, which is supported on a wooden rest fastened to the saddle, he
ascends some hillock from which he can command a wide view. Meanwhile,
his companions beat the surrounding steppe for game. The game may be
wolf or fox, unless the eagle is not yet thoroughly trained, in which
case it is either a marmot or a fox. No very special training of the
eagle is required; it is only necessary that it be taken young from the
nest, that it be always fed by the sportsman himself, and that it be
taught to return to its master at his call: inherited habit does the
rest. As soon as the beaters have started a fox, the huntsman unhoods
and unchains his bird, and lets it fly. The eagle spreads its wings,
begins to circle, and rises in a spiral higher and higher, spies the
hard-pressed fox, flies after him, descends obliquely upon him with
half-closed wings, and strikes its outspread talons into its victim’s
body. The fox turns round in a fury, and attempts to seize his foe
with his sharp teeth; if he succeeds, the eagle is lost. But almost
all these birds of prey, which are as strong as they are bold, have an
instinctive feeling of such danger, and the skill to avoid it. The very
moment the fox turns, the eagle lets go its hold, and an instant later
its talons are fixed in its quarry’s face. Triumphant acclamations from
its much-loved master, who now draws near, encourage the eagle to hold
fast, and a few minutes later the fox, felled by the huntsman, lies
dying on the ground. Many an eagle has to pay for the boldness of its
first venture with its life; but if the first attempt is successful,
it soon becomes so skilful that it can be flown at a wolf. Though the
attack on the wolf is made in precisely the same manner, the eagle’s
bearing is, from the very beginning, perceptibly more cautious;
the size of the wolf teaches it that it has to do with a much more
dangerous foe. But it learns to vanquish even the wolf, and its fame,
as well as its master’s, spreads abroad among the people, and as its
renown becomes greater its value increases. An eagle which can kill a
fox is worth thirty or forty silver roubles; one which can vanquish a
wolf is valued at twice or three times as much, if, indeed, its master
would sell it at all. It is not possible to hunt with two eagles, as
one would disturb the other; but one alone often enters into the chase
with so much ardour that it makes it very difficult for its master to
help, especially if it will not willingly let go its hold of the quarry
it has seized.
If the Kirghiz who is hunting with an eagle requires to bring all his
powers of horsemanship into play, that is still more necessary when
hunting antelopes with greyhounds. These rather long-haired dogs run
like shot arrows when they have sighted the game, and the rider courses
after them up hill and down dale until he and they have overtaken
the fleet fugitive. If anyone falls on such a ride, he earns only a
half-pitying, half-mocking smile, as the mad hunt rushes past him.
[Illustration: Fig. 72.--Kirghiz in pursuit of Wild Sheep.]
Even when driving game among the mountains, the Kirghiz do not dismount
from their horses. It was a magnificent sight to see the horsemen who
were driving wild sheep for our guns in the Arkat mountains begin their
break-neck ride. Here and there on the highest points, as well as in
the hollows, valleys, and ravines between them, one horseman after
another showed up clearly against the clouds, and was lost to view
again between masses of rock, to appear shortly afterwards upon the
stony slopes. None dismounted, none hesitated an instant to choose his
path. It was easier for them to ride among the mountains than to walk.
The sportsman’s endurance is on a par with his boldness. Not only on
horseback, but while stalking and lying in wait for his game, he shows
marvellous perseverance. That he follows a trail for several days is
not remarkable, when we take his love of riding into account; but with
the matchlock, which he still uses as often as the flintlock, in his
hand, he will creep for five or six hundred yards along the ground like
a stealthy cat, or lie in wait for hours in storm and rain until the
game comes within range of his gun. He never shoots at long range, and
never without resting the barrel of his gun on the fork attached to it,
but he aims with certainty, and knows exactly where to send his bullet.
Though the Kirghiz is thus persistent and untiring as horseman,
sportsman, and herdsman, he is very unwilling to do any other kind of
work. He tills the fields, but in the most careless manner, and never
more than is absolutely imperative. Tilling the soil appears to him as
inglorious as every other employment not connected with his flocks and
herds. He is remarkably skilful in turning water aside for purposes of
irrigation, has a highly-developed sense of locality, and can mark out
his drains without using a surveyor’s table or water-level. But it is
only in his boyhood that he takes up such work with any willingness;
after he has attained to possessions of his own he never touches pick
or shovel again. Still less does he like to work at any trade. He knows
how to prepare leather, to fashion it into all kinds of straps and
saddlery, and to decorate these very tastefully with iron or silver
work, and he can even make knives and weapons, but when he does such
work, it is always unwillingly and without taking any pleasure in it.
Yet he is by no means a lazy or careless workman, but is diligent and
conscientious, and whoever has succeeded in gaining his skilful hand
has seldom reason to be dissatisfied with it.
He rates mental work much more highly than physical. His eager, active
mind demands occupation, and thus he likes not only light conversation,
but serious discussions of all kinds, chiefly, perhaps, because of
the variety they give to his monotonous life. So he amuses himself in
converse with others of his tribe, and he can become a perfect bore
to a stranger with his glibness of speech, which often degenerates
to mere chatter. With this love of talking is closely connected a
thirst for knowledge, which in the same way often degenerates into
inquisitiveness, for the “red tongue” is never allowed a holiday.
Whatever the wind blows over the steppe the listening ear of the
Kirghiz picks up and the “red tongue” clothes in words. If anything is
discussed which the Kirghiz understands or does not understand, if any
conversation takes place in a language with which he is acquainted,
he has no hesitation in making his way to the yurt and, invited or
otherwise, pressing his ear to its walls, so as to lose no syllable. To
keep to himself an occurrence which differs from the everyday routine
by a hair’s-breadth, an event of any kind, a piece of information, or
a secret, is to the Kirghiz an utter impossibility. Does the noble
horse keep silence when he sees anything which excites his interest,
or the sheep and the goat when they meet with their fellows? Does the
lark soar up from its nest on the steppe in silence? And shall the
lord of the steppe be more silent than they? Never! “Speak on, red
tongue, while thou hast life, for after death thou shalt be still.” An
uninterrupted stream of speech flows from the lips of every Kirghiz.
Two men never ride silently together, even though their journey lasts
for days. The whole time they find something to talk about, some
communication to make to each other. Usually it does not nearly satisfy
them to ride in pairs; three or four of them ride abreast wherever the
path admits of it. This way of riding is so deeply rooted in them that
the horses press close together of their own accord, and a European is
obliged to rein them in to prevent their doing so. In a yurt filled
with Kirghiz there is a buzzing like that about a bee-hive, for
everyone wishes to speak, and does everything he can to gain a hearing.
One good result of this love of talking, so unusual among men, is
the command of language which they acquire. In this they seem all
alike, rich and poor, high and low, educated and uneducated. Their
rich, sonorous, but rather hard language, though only a dialect of the
Tartar, is remarkably expressive. Even a foreigner who is unacquainted
with it can feel that every word is distinctly pronounced, every
syllable correctly accented, so that one can almost make out the sense
from the sound. Their way of speaking is very sprightly, the cadence
of each phrase corresponding to its meaning, and the pauses correctly
observed, so that a conversation sounds somewhat broken, though the
flow of speech is never arrested for a moment. An expression of face
which speaks for itself, and very lively gestures, add to the effect
of their speech. If the subject be particularly interesting, their
vivacity is apt to increase to such a pitch of excitement that one
begins to fear that from words they will go on to blows. But even the
most heated wordy strife invariably ends in quietness and peace.
It will be readily understood that the bard holds a prominent place
among such a people. Everyone who distinguishes himself above his
fellows by his fluency of speech gains respect and honour. The presence
of a singer who can improvise is indispensable to every festival. His
creative power need not be of a very high order; but his words must
flow without interruption and in a definite and familiar metre to gain
him the reputation of a poet. But every Kirghiz bard has at his command
a store of poetic ideas which is by no means scanty, and to clothe
these ideas in words is easy enough to him. The nomadic pastoral life,
though on the whole monotonous, has its charms, and certain chords only
require to be struck to give keen pleasure to every hearer. Numerous
sagas and legends, which live in the minds of all, yield abundant
material for filling up blanks; and thus the bard’s narrative flows on
like a calm stream whose springs never dry up: it is only necessary
to keep it in the proper metre to make him a poet for ever. Even this
is made easy to him; for every bard accompanies his recitative on the
three-stringed Kirghiz zither, and as he links on each measure to the
next by playing on this, he can make the interlude last until the next
verse has taken shape in his mind. The speed and skill with which this
is done determines his rank as a poet. But if a woman is inspired to
poetry she is sure of universal admiration, and if she consents to sing
in competition with a man, the enthusiastic listeners extol her above
all others of her sex.
The vast steppe is much less favourable to regular instruction than
it is to poetry. This explains why so few Kirghiz are able to write,
and why there is so little written literature. Only the sons of the
wealthiest and highest in rank among them are taught to read and write.
In the two schools founded by the government in Ustkamenegorsk and
Zaizan Kirghiz boys are taught,--indeed, they only are admitted to
that in the first-named town,--but the influence of these institutions
does not reach to the heart of the steppe. There a boy only learns if
he happens to come in contact with a mollah who has as much desire
to teach as the boy has to learn. But even then his instruction is
confined to the simplest things, and consists chiefly in learning to
read and form Arabic characters. The contents of the principal, if not
the only text-book, the Koran, are not usually intelligible to the
mollah himself; he reads the sentences without knowing their meaning. I
have only known one Kirghiz who understood Arabic, and he was a sultan.
Everyone else who was distinguished above his fellows by his knowledge
of the sacred writings, and who, as a faithful adherent of Islam,
performed the five prescribed prayers, understood at most the words
of the call to prayer and of the first sentences of the Koran; the
rest he repeated with the seriousness of all Mohammedans, but without
understanding the meaning. And yet I was deeply impressed when, in the
midst of the vast steppe, where no minaret towered up towards heaven,
the voice of the mueddin uttered the call to prayer, and the faithful
knelt in long rows behind the Iman or leader, and pressed their
foreheads to the ground in prayer, as the law of the Prophet ordains.
The consciousness of strength and dexterity, of skill in riding
and hunting, of poetic talent and general mental activity, and the
feeling of independence and freedom caused by the vastness of the
steppe gives confidence and dignity to the bearing of the Kirghiz.
The impression he makes upon an unprejudiced observer is therefore a
very favourable one, and it increases the more intimately one becomes
acquainted with him. So it was in my case, and it is also the opinion
of Russians who have associated with Kirghiz for years, in particular,
of the government officials, and of other travellers who have lived
among them. It is scarcely too much to say that the Kirghiz possesses
very many good qualities and very few bad ones, or reveals very few
to strangers. Mentally wide-awake, shrewd, vivacious, intelligent
where things known to him are concerned, good-humoured, obliging,
courteous, kindly, hospitable and compassionate, he is, of his kind,
a most excellent man, whose bad qualities one can easily overlook
if one studies him without prejudice. He is polite without being
servile, treats those above him respectfully but without cringing,
those beneath him affably but not contemptuously. He usually hesitates
a little before replying to a question, but his answer is quiet and
clear, and his sharply-accented way of speaking gives it an expression
of definiteness. He is obliging towards everyone, but does more from
ambition than from hope of gain, more to earn praise and approval than
money or money’s worth. The District Governor, Tamar Bey Metikoff, who
gave us his escort for almost a month, was the most obliging, polite,
kindly man under the sun, always ready to fulfil a wish of ours,
untiring in our service or for our benefit, and all this solely in the
hope of gaining our approval and that of the Governor-general. He told
us so in the clearest language when we tried to force presents upon him.
In harmony with such ambition is the pride of the higher-class Kirghiz
in his descent and family. He boasts of distant ancestors, and
occasionally traces back his pedigree to Chingis-Khan, only marries
with those of equally good birth, suffers no spot on his honour, and
forgives no insult to it. But in addition, he exhibits a personal
vanity which one would scarcely expect of him. Not only authority and
wealth, dignity and rank, but youth and beauty are, in his eyes, gifts
to be highly esteemed. But he differs from many handsome young men
among us in that he never descends to coxcombry. He boasts openly and
without reserve of the gifts bestowed on him by nature or acquired by
his own skill, but such boasting is quite natural to him, and is not
distorted by any show of false modesty. As far as his means will permit
he clothes himself richly, ornamenting his coat and trousers with
braiding, his fur cap with the feathers of the horned owl; but he never
becomes a mere dandy. The women, as may be imagined, are still more
anxious to set their charms in the best possible light, and I was not
at all surprised to learn that they prepare from the juice of a certain
root a delicate, fragrant, and lasting colouring which they apply to
their cheeks--in other words, that they paint their faces.
As a natural outcome of his desire to please, the Kirghiz gives a
willing adherence to all the manners and customs of his people. His
culture and good breeding manifest themselves chiefly in a strict
observance of all those customs which have been handed down to him from
the past, and have been materially influenced by Islam. This implies a
certain formality and ceremoniousness in all mutual intercourse, but it
also puts a check on undue arrogance, and banishes everything unseemly,
almost everything awkward, from their social relations, for everyone
knows exactly what he has to do to avoid giving offence or making
himself disagreeable.
Even mutual greeting is attended with a certain amount of ceremony
which is observed by everyone, and is therefore, of course, quite
clearly defined. If two parties of Kirghiz meet, a considerable time is
always taken up in the exchange of greetings. The members of both bands
simultaneously lay their right hands over the region of the heart, and
stretch the left hand towards the right of the other, whereupon each
draws his right hand from his heart and joins it with the left, so
that now for an instant all four hands are in contact. At the moment
of embracing, both pronounce the Arabic word “Amán” (peace), while
beforehand they exchanged the usual Mohammedan greeting, “Salám alëik”
or “alëikum” (Peace be with thee, or with you), and the reply, “Alëikum
el salám”. In this manner every member of one band greets every member
of the other; both bands, therefore, when they meet, range themselves
in rows, along which one after another runs hastily, so as to give the
temporarily-restrained “red tongue” its full freedom as quickly as
possible. The shorter method, which, however, is only used in the case
of large gatherings, is to stretch out the hands towards each other and
clasp them together.
If the Kirghiz visit each other in their auls, another form has to be
gone through before the customary greeting takes place. Within sight
of the yurt the approaching visitors rein in their horses, walk them
for a little, and finally stand still. At this sign some one comes to
meet them from the aul, greets them, and conducts them to the yurt,
which the women have in the meantime decorated by spreading out their
most valuable rugs. Strangers who are unknown in the aul must, before
greeting, answer inquiries as to their name, station, and whence they
have come; but they are received and hospitably treated in any case,
for the Kirghiz shows hospitality towards everyone, irrespective of
station and religion, though he always prefers distinguished guests.
The guest enters the yurt with the customary greeting, pulls off his
shoes at the door, but of course keeps on his soft riding-boots. If
he is of equal standing with his host, he sits down in the place of
honour; but if of humbler degree, he keeps modestly in the background,
and lets himself down on the rug in a kneeling posture.
In honour of an esteemed guest the host orders a sheep to be killed,
but has it first brought to the yurt to be blessed by the guest. At
this sign all the neighbours assemble to take part in the sumptuous
feast. The head and breast of the sheep are roasted on the spit, the
rest of the flesh is cut into pieces and boiled in a cauldron, and
loin, ribs, shoulders, and haunches, whenever they are cooked, are
set before the guest in a vessel. The guest washes his hands, cuts
the flesh from the bones, dips it in the salt broth, and says to the
host, who has till then remained standing, “It is only through the host
that the meat gains flavour; sit down”; but the host replies, “Thanks,
thanks, but eat”, and does not at once accept the invitation of the
guest. Thereupon the latter cuts a piece from the ribs, calls the host
to him, and puts it into his mouth; then cutting a second piece, he
lays it in a bowl and hands it to the housewife. The host then sits
down, but it is still the guest who distributes the meat to the members
of the company. He cuts it into pieces of a convenient size for the
mouth, mixes them with fat, dips three of them at a time into the
broth, and puts them into the mouth of one of his fellow-feasters after
another. It would be an insult to the giver if the receiver did not at
once swallow the pieces, even though, if they be large, he chokes so
frightfully that he becomes blue in the face, and urgently requires the
assistance, which his neighbours immediately give by striking him on
the back with their fists, to render the process of swallowing easier.
The guest, on the other hand, must never give more than three pieces,
for if he exceeds this number, if he stuffs five at a time into the
mouth of a man, and if the man is choked in the attempt to swallow
the too generous gift at once, the giver must compensate the bereaved
family to the value of one hundred horses, while if anyone chokes over
the three pieces, he is not held responsible. After the meat has been
consumed, the chief guest hands round the vessel containing the broth,
and each drinks from it according to his necessities or desires. At
the close of the meal, though not until all have washed their hands,
every well-to-do host, whose mares are yielding milk at the time, hands
round koumiss, and this much-loved beverage is received by everyone
with obvious reverence. If anyone has not yet taken part in the meal,
he comes now to refresh himself with this nectar. They drink to
intoxication, for the Kirghiz has as great a capacity for drinking this
highly-prized milk-wine as he has for eating, and in both respects he
is anything but modest or moderate.
But the ceremony attending ordinary visiting is nothing compared with
that observed in connection with all important family events, such as
weddings or burials. In the case of the former, the joy finds vent
in much practical joking; in the latter, mourning is accompanied by
ceremonies indicative of respect to the dead. Wooing and weddings,
burial and memorial celebrations give rise to a whole chain of
festivals.
As among all Mohammedans, the father woos on behalf of his son, and
pays the future father-in-law a varying, and often very considerable
sum. A matrimonial agent, who is proclaimed as such by the fact that he
wears one leg of his trousers over and the other under his boot, makes
his appearance in the yurt in which a daughter is blossoming into
womanhood, and prefers a request for her in the name of the father of a
marriageable youth. If the bride’s father is agreeable, he demands that
the sender of the message, with the elders of his aul, shall come to
treat with him on the subject. These comply, and, according to custom,
rein in their horses within sight of the aul. A messenger from the
bride’s father rides to meet them, greets them formally, and conducts
them to the festive yurt decorated in their honour. There they are at
once regaled with koumiss, and a bard arrives to contribute to their
entertainment. He is rewarded by loud applause, and incited to further
effort by magnificent promises. They praise the depth of his thought,
the finished style of his execution; they promise him a horse, an
_Iamba_, or four pounds of uncoined silver as his reward. The master of
the yurt protests against this, insisting that he alone has the right
to reward the singer; but the guests promise so much the more, for they
know that their host will not permit the fulfilment of their promises.
When the song is ended a lively conversation takes place between
the host and his neighbours and guests; they talk about everything
imaginable except the object of the visit, and at length they disperse,
and the guests ride to their homes again.
The next morning the father of the bride with his train return the
visit, and after being greeted and feasted in the same manner, request
to see the young man’s mother. They at once repair to the yurt of
the housewife, and greet her with much ceremony and courtesy. Then
the father produces the roasted brisket of a sheep, and distributes
pieces of this much-prized meat to his guests with the words, “Let this
sheep’s breast be a pledge that our plans will be successfully carried
out”. Then begins a discussion over the amount of the “kalüm” or price
to be paid for the bride. A mare of from three to five years of age is
the unit of calculation; an ambler or a camel is considered equivalent
to five mares, and six or seven sheep or goats make up the value of one.
The bride’s father demands 77 mares, but lets himself be beaten down to
57, 47, 37, 27, according to his means and those of the bridegroom’s
father. If both are poor they come even farther down till they are
agreed. As soon as the bargain is concluded, the bride’s father
declares the betrothal fixed, and prepares to go, leaving a present in
or before the yurt. But the bridegroom’s father, if it is possible at
all, sends half the kalüm with him, and pays the remaining half as soon
as may be.
A fortnight after payment of the kalüm, the bridegroom is at liberty
to visit his bride for the first time. Accompanied by as many friends
of his own age as possible, he sets out under the guidance of an older
friend of the family, who is familiar with all the customs to be
observed, but he dismounts in the neighbourhood of the bride’s aul,
erects a small tent, and retires into it, or conceals himself in some
other way. His followers go on to the aul, and, after having been
ceremoniously welcomed, enter it and distribute, amid much jesting, all
sorts of little presents, rings, necklaces, sweets, ribbons, and pieces
of coloured cloth, among the crowd of women and children. Then they
enter the festive yurt with all the young people of both sexes. The
host provides meat and drink; first, the breast of a sheep, which he
cuts with the words already mentioned, then “meibaur”--small pieces of
the heart, liver, and kidneys smeared with fat. The dishes are placed
before the elderly leader of the party, who, as chief guest, proceeds
in the manner before described, but as he puts the pieces into the
mouth of the first young man, he smears his face with the fat broth.
This is the signal for the beginning of all manner of practical jokes,
and the youths, maidens, and younger women indulge in them freely. A
very common one among the girls is to sew the clothing of the young men
with rapid stitches to the rugs on which they are sitting.
When the meal is over the youthful guests are allowed a short interval
of repose, but only to give them time to collect their ideas. Then
the girls and women challenge the young men to a singing competition,
and giving them the place of honour, sit down opposite them; then one
begins her song. It fares ill with the youth whom she addresses if he
is not ready with his reply. The merry troop falls upon him, they nip
him and pinch him, drive him from the yurt, and hand him over to the
young men of the aul, who are congregated outside on the watch for such
victims. A bucket of water is poured over the unfortunate blunderer,
and thus bathed and humiliated, he is led back to the yurt to undergo
another trial. If he fails in this also he is condemned to be dressed
as a woman, and put in the pillory. Woe to him if he is thin-skinned,
it will be a day of torture for him. Joking is the order of the day,
and no surly person will be tolerated. Whoever can best enter into the
spirit of it is the hero of the day; whoever is unable to take his
share is the general sacrificial lamb.
During these amusements the bride sits concealed behind a curtain in
the back of the yurt. The young people of the aul take advantage of her
solitude to steal her away, while the bridegroom’s friends are occupied
with the singing competition. They make an opening between the pieces
of felt covering the yurt, drag her through it, put her on horseback,
and carry her off unresisting to the yurt of one of her relatives,
where she is given into the hands of the assembled older women. If the
robbery succeeds, the robber challenges the youths to find the bride
and to deliver her from the women. The company hastily breaks up, and
they beg her guardians to restore the bride to them. But, however
persuasive their words may be, their request is refused. The bride sits
before their eyes in a yurt from which a portion of the felt cover has
been removed, but violence is out of the question, so the youths begin
to bargain. The women demand nine different dishes prepared by the
young men’s own hands, but, after a time, they agree to accept nine
gifts instead, and they give up the bride, stipulating that she shall
be taken back to her father’s yurt.
Meanwhile the bridegroom sits waiting in his tent. He has not been
quite alone, for some of the young married women had gone to seek him
as soon as his companions arrived, and had been received by him with
a respectful greeting called “taschim”. He had bowed so low before
them that his finger-tips had touched the ground, and had then raised
himself slowly, letting his hands glide up his shins until he had
reached his full height; the women had accepted his homage, and had
borne him company all day, giving him food and drink, and whiling away
the time with talk and jesting, but not allowing him to leave the
tent. Not before sundown, and only after much coaxing does he receive
permission to sing a song within the aul and before the bride’s
yurt. He mounts his horse, rides into the aul, sings his greeting to
the inhabitants, and, stopping before the yurt of his bride-elect,
expresses his lover’s plaint in a song, original or otherwise.
Sweetheart, my love brings me dule and pain,
For it’s thrice that I’ve tried to win thee;
Thou would’st not waken; my heart is fain;
For it’s thrice thou would’st not hear me.
But late in night, when the camels rest,
All fixed by their hairy tether,
My heart shall fly to its own warm nest,
Our hearts shall be one together.
Let me but see thy face, sweetheart,
And I shall be brave and strong;
Thou hast stolen away my peace, sweetheart,
And left me with only a song.
I pray for a draught of koumiss, love,
For dry and parched is my soul;
Thou wilt hearken and give me bliss, love,
And make my bleeding heart whole.
But should all my pleading tease thee,
And thine ear be deaf to my song,
The friends will help me to please thee,
And the wedding shall be ere long.
Without entering the yurt he returns to his tent. Soon an old woman
comes to him and promises that she will take him to the bride if he
will make her a present. He at once agrees, and they set out together.
But they do not attain their object without having to overcome various
obstacles. Another woman lays the fork which is used to lift the ring
of the yurt to its place, across his path; to step over it would be
unlucky, for the person who laid it down must take it away again. A
gift overcomes this difficulty, but a second is met with very soon. A
woman, apparently dead, lies on the path; but a second gift calls the
dead to life again, and the way is clear to within a short distance of
the yurt. But there stands a figure which snarls like a dog. Shall it
be said that the dog snarled at the bridegroom? Never! A third gift
closes the snarling mouth, and the much-tried youth reaches the yurt
without further hindrances. Two women keep the door shut, but do not
refuse to open it when a gift is offered; within, two others hold the
curtain fast; on the bride’s couch lies her younger sister; but he
succeeds in getting rid of them all; the yurt is almost empty; the old
woman lays the bridegroom’s hands in those of the bride and leaves
them. At last they are alone together.
Under the supervision of the old woman, who is called “dyenke”, the
bridegroom visits the bride many times, without, however, presenting
himself before her parents until what remains of the kalüm is paid.
Then he sends a messenger to the bride’s father to ask if he may take
his bride to his own yurt. Permission is given, and the bridegroom
sets out for the aul, once more with a large following and many gifts,
pitches his tent at a suitable distance, receives visits from the women
as before, spends the night alone in the tent, and, next morning, sends
from it to the aul all the necessary woodwork for the erection of a
yurt, which he has to provide. Thereupon the women assemble and hastily
finish the sewing together of the felt covering supplied by the bride,
if it is not already done, and then they set to work to erect the new
yurt. The favourite woman of the aul has the honour of lifting the
roof-ring, and holding it in position until the spars are fitted into
it; the others share the rest of the work of setting up and covering
it. While this is going on the bridegroom makes his appearance; the
bride, too, is brought upon the scene, and both are told to walk from
their places to the yurt to decide the great question as to who shall
be supreme within it. The mastery will fall to the lot of the one who
reaches it first.
A sheep brought by the bridegroom has been slaughtered, and a meal
prepared to be eaten within the new yurt. During the course of the
meal, the young master wraps up a bone in a piece of white cloth, and
throws it, without looking upwards, through the hole at the top of the
yurt into the open air. If he succeeds in doing so, it is a sign that
the smoke from this yurt will always rise straight to heaven, which
betokens happiness and prosperity for the inhabitants.
After the preliminary repast in the new yurt, the guests repair to that
of the bride’s father, where a second meal awaits them. The younger
people remain in the new yurt, and for them the bride’s mother prepares
food and drink; and she must provide it bountifully, lest the young
people should break up the light structure over their heads, and, to
punish her niggardliness, scatter its parts in all directions far away
in the steppe. Not even the abundantly filled dish itself is safe from
the boisterous spirits of these unruly wedding guests; one of them
pulls it from the hostess, and rides away with it; others attempt to
catch him and secure the spoil, and so the fun goes on till the dishes
are in danger of becoming cold.
The following morning the bride’s father asks for the first time to see
the bridegroom, invites him to his yurt, greets him warmly, praises his
looks and talents, wishes him happiness in his married life, and gives
him all sorts of presents as the bride’s dowry. This takes place in
the presence of the whole company who had assembled in the yurt before
the bridegroom’s entrance. Finally, the richly adorned bride enters it
also. If there is a mollah in the aul, or if one can be procured, he
pronounces a blessing over the young pain.
Then the farewell song, the “jar-jar”, is sung to the bride, and, with
tearful eyes, she responds to every verse, every strophe, with the
lament of departing brides.
When this is at an end, camels are brought up to be loaded with the
yurt and the bridal presents, and gaily caparisoned horses to carry the
bride and her mother to the bridegroom’s aul. The young man himself
rides in advance of the procession, and, assisted by his companions,
he urges the camels to their utmost speed, so as to have time to erect
the yurt in his aul with the same ceremonies as had been previously
observed. The bride, having taken tearful leave of her father,
relatives, and companions, the yurt, and the herds and flocks, rides
closely veiled by a curtain which completely envelopes her, and which
is carried by her attendant riders, till she reaches the yurt in which
she is henceforth to reign as mistress. Her father-in-law, who has
meantime inspected the dowry, and praised or found fault with it,
calls her soon after her arrival to his yurt, and she enters it with
three such deep inclinations, that she is obliged to support herself by
laying her hands on her knees; these are to signify that she will be
as obedient to her father and mother-in-law as to her lord and master.
During this greeting, her face remains veiled, as it does thenceforward
before her father and brothers-in-law, and for a year before every
stranger. Later, she veils herself in the presence of her husband’s
eldest brother, but of no one else, for she must marry the brother if
her husband dies, and she must not rouse or foster evil desires in his
heart.
[Illustration: Fig. 73.--Frolics at a Kirghiz Wedding.]
In the case of a second marriage, the Kirghiz woos for himself and
without special formalities. If he marries a second wife during the
life of his first, and lets her live in the same yurt, as usually
happens where the man is not very well-to-do, her lot is a pitiable
one. The first wife insists upon her rights, condemns the second to a
certain part of the yurt, and only allows her lord himself to exercise
his conjugal rights within strict limits. The wife is held in high
esteem among the Kirghiz: “We value our wives as we do our ambling
nags, both are priceless,” my Kirghiz friend Altibei said to me. The
men seldom leave their wives, the women still more rarely run away
from their husbands; but even in the steppe, love does sometimes break
all the bonds of tradition and custom. Abductions also occur, and
are not considered disgraceful. To carry off a maiden whose father’s
claims are exorbitant is considered by many as praiseworthy rather than
blameworthy on the part of both the abductor and abducted.
Among the Kirghiz, a new-born infant is washed in very salt water as
soon as it opens its eyes on the world. The washing is repeated for
forty days in succession, and then given up entirely. The suckling is
laid at first in a cradle filled with warm, soft, down-like camel wool,
so that it is completely covered, and does not suffer from cold in the
severest winter; later, it is dressed in a little woollen shirt, which
the mother holds over the fire about once in three days, to free it
from the parasites abundant in every yurt, but she never changes it for
another as long as it holds together. In winter, the careful mother
adds a pair of stockings, and, as soon as the child can walk, it is
dressed like a grown-up person.
Both parents are exceedingly fond of their children, treat them always
with the greatest tenderness, and never beat them, but they take a
pleasure in teaching them all kinds of ugly and unseemly words as soon
as they begin to speak, and when these are repeated by the child’s
innocent lips, they never fail to cause general amusement. The
different ages of the child are described by the name of some animal;
thus it may be “as old as a mouse, a marmot, a sheep, or a horse”. When
a boy reaches the age of four years, he is placed for the first time
on the back of a horse about the same age, richly adorned and saddled
with one of the children’s saddles which are usually heirlooms in a
family. The happy parents promise all sorts of pretty things to the
independent little rider, who has, for the first time, escaped from the
protecting arms of his mother. Then they call a servant or some willing
friend, and give horse and rider into his charge to be led from one
yurt to another, to announce the joyful event to all their relatives
and friends. Wherever the little boy goes, he is warmly welcomed and
overwhelmed with praises and dainties. A festival in the father’s yurt
celebrates the important day.
The child’s instruction in all that he requires to know begins
about his seventh year. The boy, who in the interval has become an
accomplished rider, learns to tend the grazing herds, the girl learns
to milk them, and to perform all the other work of a housewife; the son
of rich parents is taught to read and write by a mollah or anyone able
to impart such knowledge, and later he is instructed in the laws of his
religion. Before he has completed his twelfth year his instruction is
at an end, and he himself is ripe for life.
The Kirghiz honours his dead and their memory even more than he does
the living. Every family is ready to make the greatest sacrifices to
celebrate the funeral and memorial feast of a deceased member of the
family with as much pomp as possible; everyone, even the poorest,
strives to decorate as well as he can the grave of his departed loved
ones; everyone would consider it a disgrace to fail in paying full
respect to any dead person, whether relative or not. All this they have
in common with other Mohammedans; but the ceremonies observed at the
death and burial of a Kirghiz differ materially from those customary
among others of the same faith, and they are, therefore, worthy of
detailed description.
When a Kirghiz feels his last hour approaching, he summons all his
friends, that they may make sure that his soul gets into Paradise.
Pious Kirghiz, who are expecting death, have the Koran read to them
long before the end comes, though the words sounding in their ear may
be quite unintelligible. According to the custom among true believers,
the friends of a dying man gather round his bed and repeat to him the
first phrase of the confession of faith of all the Prophet’s followers,
“There is but one God”, until he responds with the second, “And
Mohammed is his prophet”. As soon as these words have passed his lips
the angel Munkir opens the gates of Paradise, and therefore all who
have heard the words exclaim, “El hamdu lillahi”,--Praise be to God!
As soon as the master of a yurt has closed his eyes in death,
messengers are sent in all directions to bear the tidings to his
relatives and friends, and, according to the rank and standing of the
dead man, these messengers may ride from ten to fifty or sixty miles
across the steppe from aul to aul. A relative in one aul may also carry
on the news to those in another. While the messengers are on their way,
the corpse is washed and enveloped in its “lailach”, which last every
Kirghiz procures during his lifetime, and stores up with his valuables.
When this duty has been fulfilled, the corpse is carried out of the
yurt and laid upon a bier formed by a half-extended yurt-trellis. The
mollah, who has been sent for, pronounces a blessing over the dead;
then the trellis with its burden is lifted up and fastened to the
saddle of a camel, and the train of assembled friends and kinsmen sets
out on its way to the burial-place, which is often far distant.
Whenever the dying man has breathed his last, the women begin the
lament for the dead. The one most nearly related to him begins the song
and gives vent to her heart’s grief in more or less deeply-felt words;
the others join in simultaneously at the end of every phrase or verse,
and one after another does her best to clothe her ideas in fit words.
The dirge becomes more and more mournful up till the moment when the
camel rises with his burden, and not by sounds and words only, but by
their whole conduct the women testify to their increasing grief. At
length they tear their hair and scratch their faces till blood flows.
Not till the funeral procession, in which the women take no part, has
disappeared from sight, do the cries and tears gradually cease.
Some men on swift horses have been sent in advance of the funeral train
to prepare the grave. This is an excavation, at most reaching only to a
man’s breast; at the end which points towards Mecca, it is vaulted to
receive the head and upper part of the body. When the corpse has been
laid to rest, the grave is covered with logs, planks, bundles of reeds,
or stones. It is not filled with earth, but a mound is heaped up on the
top of the covering and decorated with flags or the like, unless when
a dome-like structure of wood or bricks is built over the grave. When
a child dies its cradle is laid upon its grave. After the burial the
mollah pronounces a blessing over the corpse for the last time, and all
take part in heaping up the mound of earth. But the ceremonies do not
end here.
Whenever the head of a family dies, a white flag is planted beside the
yurt and left for a whole year in the same place. Every day during the
year the women assemble beside it to renew their lamentations. At the
time the flag is planted the dead man’s favourite horse is led up, and
half of its long tail is cut off. From that time forward no one mounts
it; it is “widowed”. Seven days after the death, all the friends and
relatives, even those from a distance, assemble in the yurt, hold a
funeral banquet together, distribute some of the dead man’s clothing
among the poor, and consult as to the future of those he has left
behind and the guardianship of the property. Then the bereaved family
is left alone with its sorrow.
When a woman dies almost the same ceremonies are observed, except that,
of course, the body is washed and dressed by women. But even in this
case the women remain within the aul to sing the mourning song. The
departed woman’s riding-horse has its tail cut, but no flag is planted.
When the aul is taken down, a youth selected for the honourable service
leads up the “widowed” riding-horse, puts the saddle of its former
master reversed on its back, loads it with his clothing, and leads it
by the bridle to its destination, carrying in his right hand the lance
which bears the mourning-flag.
On the anniversary of the death all the friends and relatives are
summoned once more to the bereaved yurt. After greeting and condoling
with the women, who are still shrouded in mourning garments, they fetch
the horse, saddle and load it in the same manner as when moving the
aul, and lead it before the mollah to be blessed. This done, two men
approach, seize its bridle, unsaddle it, throw it to the ground, and
stab it through the heart. Its flesh serves as a meal for the poor of
the company, its skin falls to the mollah. Immediately after the horse
has been killed, the lance is handed to the most important man among
the relatives; he takes it, pronounces a few words, breaks the shaft in
pieces, and throws these into the fire.
Now the horses come snorting up, eager to prove their speed in the
race; the young riders who guide and bridle them start off at a given
signal and disappear in the steppe. The bard takes the mollah’s place,
and commemorates the dead once more, but also extols the living and
seeks to gladden their hearts. The women lay aside the singular
head-dress, which serves as a sign of mourning, and don their gala
attire. After the abundant repast, the vessel of intoxicating milk-wine
circulates freely, and sounds of joy mingle with the tones of the
zither.
Mourning for the dead is over; life asserts its rights once more.
COLONISTS AND EXILES IN SIBERIA.
Those who regard Siberia as merely a vast prison are as far from the
truth as those who look upon it as one immeasurable waste of ice.
Russia does indeed send thousands of criminals or others under sentence
of punishment to Siberia every year; and there are among these some
who, having been convicted of serious crimes against life and property,
are not free during the whole of their enforced sojourn. But only a
very small proportion of all the criminals are really in confinement
for the whole period of their sentence, and every one of them has
it in his power to render this confinement less severe, or even to
free himself from it altogether by his behaviour, and thus he enjoys
advantages which do not fall to the lot of the inmates of our prisons
and houses of correction. Wide tracts of the vast territory which is
governed by the Russian sceptre, great countries according to our
ideas, have never been used as penal colonies at all, and will probably
always remain free of those forced immigrants, who cause the settled
population much more disagreeableness, not to say suffering, than they
have to endure themselves. And along the same paths, which formerly
were never trodden save in sorrow, there now pass many free human
beings, hoping and striving to better their lot in the distant East.
Voluntary colonists join the compulsory ones even in such districts
and tracts of country as were formerly dreaded and shunned as the most
inhospitable regions on earth. A new era is opening for Siberia; for
blinding fear is gradually being replaced by illuminating knowledge
even among those classes of society which are more prone to fear than
desirous of knowledge.
The descriptions of Siberia with which we are familiar come, for the
most part, from the mouth or the pen of educated exiles, that is to
say, from people whom the settled inhabitants call “unfortunate”,
and treat as such. Probably only a very small proportion of the
descriptions in question are untrue, but they are, nevertheless,
inaccurate in most cases. For misfortune clouds the eyes and the soul,
and destroys that impartiality which is the only possible basis of
a correct estimate of the conditions of life. These conditions are
much better than we are accustomed to believe, much better, indeed,
than they are in more than one of the mountainous districts of our
Fatherland; for the struggle for existence in Siberia is an easy one as
far as man is concerned. Want in the usual sense of the word, lack of
the ordinary necessaries of life, is here almost unknown, or at least,
only affects those whose power of work has been weakened by illness or
other misfortune. Compared with the hardships against which many a poor
German dwelling among the mountains has to contend during his whole
life, without ever emerging victorious from the struggle, the lot of
even the convict in Siberia appears in many cases enviable. Privation
oppresses only the mental, not the bodily life of the residents in
Siberia, for whoever is faithful to the soil receives from it more than
he needs, and if any one forsakes it for some of the other occupations
customary in the country, he can earn quite as much by the honest
work of his hands as he could have reaped from the soil itself. Thus
do the present conditions of life appear to one who studies them with
unprejudiced eyes.
I have honestly striven to form an unbiassed judgment on the present
conditions of life among the inhabitants of the parts of Siberia
through which we travelled. I have descended into the depths of misery,
and have sunned myself on the heights of prosperity, I have associated
with murderers, highwaymen, incendiaries, thieves, swindlers,
sharpers, vagabonds, scoundrels, insurgents and conspirators, as well
as with fishermen and huntsmen, shepherds and peasants, merchants
and tradesmen, officials and magistrates, with masters and servants,
educated and uneducated, rich and poor, contented and discontented,
so that I might confirm my observations, widen my knowledge, test my
conclusions, and correct erroneous impressions; I have begged the
police officers to describe the exiles’ lot to me, and have questioned
the exiles themselves; I have sought out criminals in their prisons,
and have observed them outside of these; I have conversed with
peasants, trades-people, and colonists generally, whenever and wherever
it was possible, and have compared the statements made to me by these
people with the detailed communications made to me by the government
officials: I may therefore believe that I gathered as much information
as was possible, taking into account the speed and shortness of our
journey. In any case, I have collected so much material that I may
confine myself solely to the results of my own investigations in
attempting to give a rapid sketch of the life of exiles in Siberia. My
description will not be free from errors, but it will certainly be a
just estimate of the state of affairs.
With the exception of government officials, soldiers, and enterprising
trades-people, chiefly merchants, the stream of emigrants from
Russia to Siberia was made up, until 1861, solely of those who went
under compulsion: serfs of the Czar who worked in his own mines, and
criminals who were sent, chiefly, to those of the state. With the
suppression of serfdom, which had a deeper influence on the state
of society than was supposed, or than is even now recognized, the
emigration of the former class ceased at once. Millions of men were set
free by a word from their mild and large-hearted ruler; thousands of
them forsook the mines and turned their attention to the fruitful soil,
which their relatives had already been cultivating; the Czar’s mines
were almost depopulated, and even now they have scarcely recovered from
the effects of the blow. But the great imperial or crown-estate of the
Altai gained, instead of its former colonists, a new element which it
had lacked, a free peasantry, not indeed possessing heritable property,
but yet at full liberty to cultivate the rich soil. The suppression of
serfdom also altered the condition of those tracts of country which
had been chiefly colonized by convict exiles, for there, too, it
became possible to establish a free peasantry. But here the continuous
emigration-stream proves rather a hindrance than an advantage; for
in most cases the convicts who are exiled to parts of the country
already peopled introduce an element of disquiet among the settled
inhabitants, and prevent such hopeful and prosperous colonization
as in the crown-estate of the Altai, which has never been used as a
convict settlement, and never will be so used as long as it remains the
property of the Czar. On the other hand, many voluntary emigrants make
their way to the Altai, and on that account the population increases
more rapidly there than in the rest of Siberia.
It is a magnificent tract of country this crown-estate of the Altai,
and, as a landed property, it is also remarkable as being the largest
which can be found anywhere. For its superficial area may be stated in
round numbers at 400,000 square versts, or about 176,000 English square
miles. It includes within itself mountain ranges and plains, hill
chains and table-lands; it lies between navigable rivers, and contains
others which could be made navigable without special difficulty; it
still contains vast and utilizable forests, and wealth immeasurable
above and beneath the ground. Ores of various kinds have been
discovered at no fewer than eight hundred and thirty different places
within its boundaries, without taking into account other two hundred
and seventy spots at which it has been found, but which have never been
thoroughly examined. In the Altai, one literally walks upon silver
and gold; for auriferous silver-ore as well as lead, copper, and iron
intersect the mountains in veins, more or less rich, but usually worth
working; and the rivers flowing from them carry down golden sand. A
stratum of coal, whose extent has not yet been determined, but in which
a depth of seven or eight yards has been proved in various places,
underlies such an extensive tract, that, judging from the composition
of the exposed masses of rock, one is justified in concluding that
the whole northern portion of the estate stands above a great
coal-basin.[86] And yet the real wealth of the estate of the Altai
lies, not in its subterranean treasures, but in its rich black soil,
which spreads over mountain slopes and plains, and is swept together in
river-basins and hollows, so that it covers them to the depth of a yard
and a half. Beautiful, often grand, mountain districts alternate with
pleasing hilly tracts of arable land, and gently-undulating plains,
which the farmer prefers above all else, steppe-like landscapes with
fruitful valleys watered by a brook or river, forests of luxuriantly
sprouting trees, low and tall, with groves or park-like shrubbery.
The climate, though not mild, is by no means intolerable, and nowhere
hinders profitable cultivation of the exceedingly fertile, and, for the
most part, virgin soil. Four months of hot, almost unvarying summer,
four months of severe continuous winter, two months of damp, cold,
and changeable spring, and a similar autumn, make up the year, and
though the mean warmth of the best half of the year is not sufficient
to mature the grape, it ripens all the kinds of grain which we grow in
Northern and Central Germany; and in all the southern portions of the
crown property the temperature is high enough to admit of melon culture.
Such is the character of the land which has been free, for more than
two generations, from exiled criminals, and which now harbours such
colonists as, within certain limits, one would like to see throughout
the whole remaining and not less rich and fertile southern portion
of Siberia. Of course these farmers of the Altai cannot be compared
with our peasants who inherit their land; but they compare favourably
with any ordinary Russian peasants. One can see that their fathers and
grandfathers have been serfs of the greatest and most exalted Lord of
the Empire, not half-slaves of a master who, powerless himself, demands
the most absolute subjection; one can also assure oneself in many ways
that the lack of landed property has in no wise hindered them from
becoming prosperous, that is, from earning more than enough to supply
their necessities.
From the time that the Altai was declared the property of the Czar, the
lot of its inhabitants was comparatively fortunate, not to say happy.
Until their release from serfdom, they had all been employed either
in mining, or in some work connected therewith. Those who were not
actually in the mines were occupied, some with the felling and charring
of trees, others with conveying of the charcoal to the smelting-houses,
and others again with the transport of the metal. With the increase
of the population the burden of compulsory service became lighter. In
the fifties, there were so many able-bodied men available, that the
compulsory service to their lord, the Czar, was limited to one month in
the year, with the condition, however, that each serf-workman should
furnish a horse. The distance which a workman had to cover with his
horse was taken into account according to its length. As compensation
for absence from home, each serf-workman received 75½ _kopeks_ for the
period of his work, but, in addition to this nominal pay, he had the
right to cultivate as much of the Czar’s land as he could, and to till
it as he pleased, as well as to cut down as much wood in the Czar’s
forests as he required for building his house, and for fuel, and he
was burdened with no taxes or tribute whatever. The number of workmen
which a village was obliged to furnish was in proportion to the number
of its inhabitants; the distribution of the burden of service among the
different heads of families was left to the members of the community
themselves.
The work of the miners was less easy. They were drawn from the towns
and villages of the crown-estate, instead of the soldiers levied
elsewhere, were treated like soldiers in every respect, and were only
freed after twenty-five years of service. They were divided into
two classes: the miners proper, who worked in regular relays, and
the workers connected with the mine, who were obliged to perform a
certain prescribed amount of work each year, the time being left to
their own choice. The latter were engaged in charcoal-burning, felling
trees, making bricks, transport, and the like, and they received 14
roubles yearly. Having yielded the required service, they were free
for the rest of the year, and might do as they pleased. Those who
worked in the mines, on the other hand, were compelled to give their
services year in, year out. They worked in twelve-hour relays, one
week by day, the next by night, and every third week they were free.
Each miner received, according to his capability, from six to twelve
roubles a year for such necessaries as had to be paid for in money,
but in addition he was allowed two _pood_ (72 lbs.) of flour a month
for himself, two _pood_ for his wife, and one _pood_ for each of his
children. He was also at liberty to till as much land, and breed and
keep as many cattle as he could. Each of his sons was obliged to attend
school from his seventh to his twelfth year; from his twelfth to his
eighteenth he was engaged as an apprentice, and rewarded at first
with one, later with two roubles a year. At the age of eighteen his
compulsory service in the mines began.
On the first of March, 1861, the day of the emancipation of all the
serfs in the Russian Empire, there were in the crown property of the
Altai 145,639 males, of whom 25,267 were at work in the mines or
smelting works. All these were released from their compulsory service,
not indeed in a single day, but within two years. No fewer than 12,626
of them forsook the mines, returned to their native villages and began
to till the soil; the rest remained in the mines as hired labourers.
[Illustration: Fig. 74.--Miners in the Altai returning from Work.]
I do not think I am mistaken in referring the more comfortable
conditions of life on the crown-property of the Altai, as compared
with the rest of West Siberia, back to its own past. The parents and
forefathers of the present inhabitants, notwithstanding their bondage,
never felt oppressed. They were serfs, but of the lord and ruler of the
vast land in which the cradle of their fathers stood. They were obliged
to labour for their master, and to yield up their sons for nearly a
generation to his service; but this master was the Czar, a being in
their eyes almost divine. In return, the Czar maintained them, freed
them from all the obligations of citizenship, permitted them to wrest
from his land what it would yield, placed no hindrances in the way
of their prosperity, protected them, as far as possible, from the
oppressions of unjust officials, and was, besides, a benefactor to
their children in that he compelled at least some of them to attend
school. The officials under whose superintendence they were, stood far
above the majority of the servants of the crown as regards culture;
nearly all had studied in Germany, not a few were even of German
extraction, and brought, if not German customs, at least widened views
into the country over which they ruled in the name of the Czar. Even
now, Barnaul, the capital of the crown-lands, is a centre of culture
such as can be found nowhere else in Siberia; and, while the mining
industry was at its best, it was the undisputed intellectual capital of
Northern and Central Asia, and the light emanating from it shone the
more brilliantly because it found in every mining centre a focus which
helped to spread it more widely. Thus the royal domain of the Altai has
always held a prominent position among the districts of Siberia.
It was probably never the intention of the administration of the
Altai to specially favour the peasant class. Until the suppression of
serfdom, at all events, the class was regarded much as a necessary
adjunct to the working of the mines. But times have changed. From the
day on which the serfs were emancipated, mining has retrograded as
steadily as agriculture has advanced. The authorities have not yet
been able to make up their minds to abandon the old routine of work,
but they have to pay such high sums to get it carried on that the
net profit from the mines is now inconsiderable. Throwing open the
mines freely to energetic workers, probably the only thorough means
of improving the present state of things, has been proposed in some
districts, but is still far from being an accomplished fact. The free
use of the soil, as far as the plough penetrates, has been customary so
long that it has become, to a certain extent, a prescriptive right. To
be sure, as I have already pointed out, no one owns the land he tills,
not even the spot on which his house stands, but, in the peasants’
eyes, what belongs to the Czar belongs to the “good Lord God”, and the
latter willingly permits every believer to make use of it. As a matter
of fact, the administration of the crown-lands levies forty _kopeks_ of
annual rent on every _hektar_ of land (2½ acres) which is brought under
the plough; but it is not particularly strict in the matter, and the
peasant on his side does not feel it at all incumbent on him to be very
precise. Thus each peasant, in reality, cultivates as much as he can,
and chooses it wherever he pleases.
It is doing the peasant of to-day on the crown-lands no more than
justice to describe him as well-built, wide-awake, handy, skilful,
intelligent, hospitable, good-natured and warm-hearted, and it is
not too much to say that his prosperity has given him considerable
self-esteem and a certain appreciation of freedom. His bearing is freer
and less depressed than that of the Russian peasants. He is polite
and obliging, submissive, and therefore easily managed; but he is not
servile, cringing or abject, and the impression he makes on a stranger
is by no means unfavourable. But he possesses all the qualities which
we call loutishness in a high degree, and several others as well, which
are calculated to weaken the first impression. Although he has had more
educational advantages than any others of his class in Siberia, he is
anything but in love with school. He is strictly religious and ready to
give up what he possesses to the Church, but he looks upon school as an
institution which spoils men rather than educates them. With a lasting
recollection of a former state of things, when the old discharged
soldiers, who held the educational sceptre in the times of his fathers,
did not scruple to send the scholars for “schnaps”, and even to
maltreat them while under its influence, he is exceedingly suspicious
of everything connected with “education”. He also clings, peasant-like,
to whatever has been in the past, and imagines that more knowledge than
he himself possesses will be injurious to his children, and it is by no
means easy to convert him from this opinion. The state of education is
thus very low. It is only exceptionally that he has acquired the art
of writing, and he invariably regards books as entirely superfluous
articles. But he clings, on that account, so much the more firmly to
the superstition which his Church countenances and promulgates. He
rarely knows the names of the months, but can always tell off the
names of the saints and their festivals on his fingers: God and the
saints, archangel and devil, death, heaven, and hell occupy his mind
more than all else. He cannot be described as easily satisfied, yet he
is perfectly contented. He does not wish for more than the necessaries
of life, and therefore only works as much as he absolutely must. But
neither his farm premises nor the fields which he calls his can be too
large, neither his family nor his flock too numerous.
“How is it with you here?” I asked, through an interpreter, one of the
heads of a village whom we picked up on the way.
“God still bears with our sins,” was the answer.
“Are your wives good, faithful, kindly, and helpful to you?”
“There are good and bad.”
“Are your children obedient, and do they cause you joy?”
“We have nothing to complain of in regard to them.”
“Is the land you till fruitful; does it yield you a rich harvest?”
“If it yields us corn tenfold, we are content.”
“Do your cattle thrive?”
“We are content.”
“How many horses have you?”
“Thirty-two; there may perhaps be thirty-five.”
“And how many of these do you require for your work?”
“Eight, ten, and sometimes twelve.”
“Then you bring up the rest to sell?”
“I may perhaps sell one of them some day.”
“And what shall you do with the others?”
“_Nitschewo._”
“How many cows and sheep have you?”
“I do not know. My wife takes charge of the cows, sheep, and pigs.”
“Have you heavy taxes to pay?”
“I am content.”
“Have you anything to complain of?”
“I am content.”
“So you have no complaints whatever to make; everything is quite
satisfactory?”
“No, not everything; I have one complaint.”
“What is that?”
“The land is becoming uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable; what does that mean?”
“Why, it is getting too small for us.”
“Too small; in what way?”
“Oh, the villages are springing up everywhere like mushrooms from the
soil. One has scarcely room to turn now, and does not know where to lay
out one’s fields. If I had not been too old I should have left this
part.”
“The villages spring up like mushrooms from the soil? But where? I see
none. How far is the next village from yours?”
“Fifteen _versts_” (ten miles).
Thus does the peasant of the crown estate speak and think. The vast
land is not spacious enough for him, and yet the twentieth part of what
he has at his disposal would suffice for him if he would cultivate it.
For the land is so fertile that it richly rewards even a very small
amount of labour. But if it does once fail, if the harvest does not
turn out as well as usual, if the peasant suffers from want instead of
from superfluity, he regards this not as the natural consequence of his
own laziness, but as a dispensation of God, as a punishment laid upon
him for his sins.
In reality, however, he is very comfortable in spite of his sins and
their punishment, and has more reason to talk of his reward. For not
scarcity but superfluity troubles him. The government allows each
peasant fifteen _hektars_ of the best land, usually at his own choice,
for every male member of his family; but of the 400,000 square _versts_
of the crown-estate, only 234,000 had been taken up till 1876, so it
does not matter much even now whether a peasant restricts himself
to what he has a right to or not. Some families use not less than
twelve or fifteen hundred _hektars_, and to these it is certainly a
matter of indifference whether they keep only the number of horses
necessary for their work, or twenty or thirty more. In reality, it
often happens that the superfluous animals relieve the peasants from a
heavy care--that of turning to account the over-abundant harvest which
the extremely deficient means of transport prevent his converting into
money. In a country in whose capital, under ordinary circumstances,
the _pood_ or thirty-six pounds of rye-meal is sold at sixpence, of
wheat-meal at ninepence, of beef in winter at about one shilling and
twopence at most; where a sheep costs four shillings, a weaned calf
ten, a pig eight, and an excellent horse seldom more than five pounds
of English money, an unusually good season lowers prices so far that
the too-abundant harvest becomes a burden. When the peasant, who in
any case works only when he must, can only get about one shilling and
twopence for about two hundredweights of grain, the flail becomes too
heavy in his hand, and the harvest, according to his limited ideas,
becomes a curse.
These conditions, which apply to the present day, explain most of the
vices as well as many of the virtues of our colonist: his laziness, his
incorrigible contentment, his indifference to losses, his liberality to
the needy, his compassion for the unfortunate. They also explain the
intense desire, innate in all Siberians, to increase the population.
The vast land is hungry for inhabitants, if I may so speak. Therefore
even now the Siberian looks with pride on a numerous family; and
there is no foundling asylum in the whole country. Why should there
be? Every woman who cannot bring up the child she has borne, or who
wants to be rid of it, finds someone willing and anxious to take the
little creature off her hands. “Give it to me,” says the peasant to
the faithless mother: “I will bring it up;” and he looks as pleased as
if a foal had just been added to his stock. In former times, when the
population was considerably less than it is now, children were married
while still immature, or scarcely mature, so that they might become
parents as soon as possible and gain other hands to help them; now
youths do not usually marry until the beginning of their eighteenth
year, but they frequently wed older women who give promise of early
child-bearing, and the designs of such women upon marriageable youths
are not only winked at but encouraged by the bridegroom’s parents.
In order that romance may not be altogether awanting, I may mention
that elopements of young girls with love-struck youths, and secret
marriages, are by no means rare occurrences among the peasants of the
Altai. But the great majority of these elopements take place with the
consent of all concerned, thus also of the parents of both bride and
bridegroom--to avoid the customary entertaining of the whole village at
a meal, simple in itself, but accompanied by a great deal of brandy. As
may be imagined, however, love overcomes all obstacles, particularly
the disapproval of parents, on the crown-lands as elsewhere. The
maiden, like every other on the round earth, is soon won over by the
youth who desires to run away with her; a holy servant of the Church
can also be procured at all times by the payment of an exorbitantly
high fee; but the angry parents are not so easily reconciled. The
mother curses her daughter, the father his son; both swear by all the
saints never to see their depraved children again.
“And Heaven, full of kindness,
Is patient with man’s blindness.”
But it is not from above that the reconciliation comes; that is brought
about by a magic power beyond compare, known as _schnaps_ among the
races who inhabit German territory, as _vodki_ among those living on
the sacred soil of Russia. As soon as the father-in-law drinks, the
young bridegroom has gained the day; for the mother-in-law drinks
too, and the luscious nectar softens her inflexible heart also. If
some friends arrive, as if by chance, to assist at the reconciliation
festival, they are not denied admittance, for the cost of entertaining
them is much less than if the whole village had assembled, and,
drinking fervently, had called down the blessing of Heaven upon the
newly-united pair. Who can deny after this that love, pure, holy love,
makes even a peasant youth of the Altai inventive?
The bride of the Altai receives no dowry; her mother, on the other
hand, expects a gift from the bridegroom, and sometimes demands it with
much storming, weeping and howling, after the manner of women. Only
under special circumstances, as, for instance, when, on the morning
after the wedding, the nuptial linen does not fulfil the expectations
of the assembled guests, the contrary takes place. The intelligent
and experienced father-in-law makes use of the magic means already
mentioned, produces an inspiriting number of bottles thoughtfully
laid in beforehand, promises the indignant, or at any rate downcast
son-in-law a foal, an ox, a sucking-pig, and the like; the minds of all
are made easy again, and the reconciliation is effected.
And why should the bridegroom be angry for ever? Others have fared no
better, and the future will equalize much. Paternal joys often blossom
even under irregular circumstances, and they are paternal joys all the
same. For even the poorest couple have no cares about their household
expenses, if they will use their hands at all; people are willing to
help them with this and that, and if a bountiful Heaven will only be
moderate enough for a few years in the outpouring of its blessings, so
that the price of grain and stock may not fall too low, a tea-caddy and
cups will adorn a corner table, and silk coverlets the big double-bed,
shining images the right-hand corner, and indescribably noble pictorial
representations of the hunting of the lion, tiger, bear, wolf,
elephant, stag, and crocodile the walls of the cleanly-kept “best
room”, which is never awanting in the better class of peasant houses.
A domestic life scarcely differing from that already described beckons
to every convict who is exiled to Siberia, to one sooner, to another
later, if he wishes to attain to it, if he lives long enough, and is to
a certain extent favoured by fortune. While in Siberia I came to have
views about exiles and banishment very different from those I had held
before visiting the country; but I may remark at the outset that I am
not one of those who bestow more sympathy upon a murderer, a robber, an
incendiary, a thief, or any other scoundrel, than upon the industrious
paterfamilias who strives, in the sweat of his brow, to bring up a
numerous family honestly, and that I have never been able to soar to
that loftiness of view which seeks to mitigate all punishment and relax
all confinement.
On an average, fifteen thousand people are sent from Russia,
“verschickt”, as the expression is among the German Russians. Those
who have been guilty of grave crimes are sentenced for life, of less
serious offences for a number of years. It is not within my province
to discuss the severities or deficiencies of the Russian penal code;
but the fact that the penalty of death is imposed only for the gravest
and rarest of all crimes does not suggest too great severity. But it
is undoubtedly a hardship that exiles sentenced for political causes
should be treated on the way to Siberia, and often when there, exactly
like common criminals.
Condemned exiles are first transferred from the prison in the district
town to that in the capital of the government, and thence transported
by rail or by the ordinary peasant-wagon to Nijni-Novgorod, Kasan,
or Perm. Whether criminals are still forced to march in chains, two
abreast, and thus to carry their fetters for the whole journey, I do
not know; I have never seen this, and I am firmly convinced that the
well-known mildness of the late Czar would never have suffered this
barbarous proceeding. In the towns already mentioned, as well as in
Tjumen and Tomsk, there are spacious prisons, and, at intervals along
such routes as have not been deserted because of the railway, there
are less roomy buildings for the safe housing of the exiles during
night. Whenever it can be avoided, the exiles are not compelled to
travel on foot, but are conveyed to their destination by rail, by the
wagons already referred to, or by regularly plying steamers: thus from
Nijni-Novgorod or Kasan to Perm, from Tjumen _via_ Thura, Tobolsk,
Irtish, Ob, and Tom, to Tomsk. The prisons are simple buildings, but
thoroughly clean; the hospitals connected with, but sufficiently far
apart from them, are model institutions; the river-boats are unusually
long, two-decked vessels, which may best be described as gigantic
floating cages, for the whole upper portion above the deck is latticed
after the fashion of a bird-cage. Each of these boats, which is towed
by a steamer, affords the necessary accommodation for six hundred
persons, and contains also a large kitchen, a sick-room, a small
dispensary, quarters for the accompanying soldiers and for the crew.
Between Perm and Tjumen run wagons, which also resemble bird-cages, and
which serve for the transport of dangerous criminals.
Every exile receives from government a cloak of heavy gray woollen
material, in the middle of the back of which is fastened a
diamond-shaped piece of cloth of colours varying with the length of
the sentence, so that the soldiers in charge may be acquainted with it
as far as is necessary. For procuring food on the journey, ten, or in
the case of “unfortunates” of higher social standing, fifteen _kopeks_
a day are allowed to each; but during a prolonged stay in prison the
rate is seven and fifteen respectively. This sum is so liberal that, if
spent with care, it suffices to procure all the necessaries of life,
although every day, except during Lent, three-quarters of a pound of
meat are served out to each. If wife and children accompany a condemned
criminal, each of these receives a similar sum. Additional earning is
permitted, and money gained by work or begging flows, though perhaps
not quite untaxed, into the pockets of the condemned himself, or down
his throat in the form of vodki.
[Illustration: Fig. 75.--Exiles on the Way to Siberia.]
I said that everyone was at liberty to take his wife and children with
him into exile, and I may add that he usually does so. A long sentence
of imprisonment for a serious crime is a ground of divorce even in
Russia; every married woman is, therefore, free to choose whether she
will accompany her husband into exile, or remain in her native land.
Even children who have attained their fourteenth year have the right to
decide for themselves whether they will leave Russia for Siberia with
their parents or not. But the government prefer that wife and children
should accompany the criminal, and they encourage it in every possible
way, therefore they give much consideration to the question of how far
it is practicable to lessen the difficulties and disagreeablenesses of
the journey.
That it is oppressive under all circumstances cannot be denied; but
the journey of the exiles is by no means so indescribably dreadful
as it has been depicted. Only those convicted of the gravest crimes
are conducted to their destination in chains; the rest enjoy more
freedom than our convicts. The portion of the journey which has to be
performed in the steamers or the boats they tow is the worst. Here all
the exiles and their families are cooped up together, and excesses of
all descriptions are committed by the most degraded criminals, who are
only, or can only, be kept under sufficient restraint in rare cases.
The expert thief steals from the bungler in the same disreputable
calling, the more violent overpowers the weaker, or takes the soles off
the boots of a sleeper to possess himself of the bank-notes supposed
to be hidden there; the incorrigible shakes the resolution of the
penitent, or destroys utterly those who had previously given ground for
hopes of improvement. Male and female criminals are now separated from
each other, but the members of a family remain with their head, and the
wife and daughters of an exile are always in danger during the journey,
no matter what attempts are made to avoid this. On the other hand,
the steamer shortens the journey tenfold, and thus removes those
who are not irretrievably ruined, and those who are not criminals,
so much the sooner from evil influences. More difficult, certainly,
yet less dangerous to the more hopeful criminals, is the journey by
land. Driving along Russian roads in a Russian peasant-wagon drawn by
galloping Russian horses is certainly a species of torture according
to our ideas; but it is not so to those who have, from their youth
upwards, been accustomed to no better conveyances or smoother roads. To
be sure, the exiles are more closely packed in a wagon holding six or
eight people than the peasant packs his when he drives with his family;
the driver or the accompanying soldier is in no way more comfortable
than the convicts, with the exception of the worst criminals, whose
chains jar more uncomfortably than usual on such a journey. An exile
belonging to a cultured family, and convicted, for instance, on
political grounds, cries out under the torture of such a journey, and
is fully justified in depicting it in the blackest possible colours
from his own point of view; but if we take into account the local
conditions, and the customs of the country, we must at least acquit
the directors of these forced journeyings from the charge of cruelty
under which they lie. And as for the journeys on foot, these never take
place in winter, it is only strong and able men who are forced to make
them, not more than forty _versts_ a day are traversed, and every third
day is spent in resting at one of the prisons on the way. The soldiers
in charge walk too, they must keep constant watch over the prisoners
for whom they are responsible, and must therefore exert themselves
much more; for if the murderer has to drag his chains, the soldier
has to carry his weapon, baggage, and ammunition. He, however, is the
irreproachable servant of the state, the other an outcast from society!
But it is certainly unjust that an exile of higher social position who
has been convicted of a common crime should, if he has still means
at his disposal, or can obtain them, be treated otherwise than one
of lower degree, who is sentenced for the same crime. The former is
permitted to travel to his place of banishment at his own time, and
with every comfort, guarded only by two Cossacks, whom he must pay for
the double journey.
While every unbiassed Russian or Siberian admits this injustice
frankly, officials and exiles alike deny that there is cruelty on the
part of the escorting soldiers, or of any other persons, whether of
high or inferior rank, who are intrusted with the guardianship and
government of the convicts. It does happen that mutinous exiles are
shot or killed in some way on the journey; but such events occur very
rarely, and only when all other means of quelling insubordination
have failed. The Russian is not cruel like the Spaniard, the Turk,
the Greek, or the Southern Slav; on the contrary, a mistaken
compassionateness and sluggishness makes him mild and considerate
rather than severe and harsh; he may force men and animals to exert
themselves to the utmost, but he does not torture them in order to
gloat over their torments. Even the name “unfortunate”, by which it is
customary to describe all exiles, originates in a feeling deeply rooted
among the people, and this feeling of compassion is shared by everyone,
including soldiers and police-officers, and the inspectors and warders
of the prisons. That even the most long-suffering and lamblike patience
may now and again be excited to angry rage by one or more miscreants is
intelligible enough; that miserable wretches at the convict stations
levy tax even on misfortune in order to gain more money than the state
promises them in salary, I was informed by some of the exiles; that the
rebels who were sentenced to exile after the last Polish rebellion were
treated by the accompanying soldiers more harshly than other exiles,
indeed with pitiless severity, was the complaint of a former gendarme
who told me the story of his life through a German-Russian interpreter.
But to make the present government responsible for such excesses, to
reproach them with constant barbarity, to persist in talking about the
knout, which was abolished years ago, and in general to represent our
Eastern neighbours as incorrigible barbarians, is simply senseless,
because in every respect untrue.
All the laws, regulations, and arrangements in force at present prove
that the government takes all possible thought for the exiles, and
strives to render their lot less hard, and moreover gives to each an
opportunity of sooner or later improving his lot. To treat exiles
with unjust severity is strictly forbidden and heavily punished;
to take anything unjustly away from them is looked upon as a grave
offence. Everywhere there reigns the desire to lessen the severity of
the punishment if it can be done, to give the convict back to human
society, if that be possible. But it is only those who really deserve
help that receive it, not those who pretend improvement. For they do
not make hypocrites in Siberia as we do in our prisons. The mania for
making prisoners canting hypocrites, which is too often seen among
us, is unknown among the Russians, for they take it for granted that
everyone honours and reveres the Church and the “dear saints”, fasts at
the proper season, and generally performs what little is demanded by a
church which is based wholly upon external forms. On the other hand,
they deal with evil in the right way, and they achieve results which we
might, nay, must envy.
Of the fifteen thousand banished, scarcely one thousand are sent
to work in the mines each year; the rest are distributed among the
different governments, being, as it is called, exiled to become
colonists. In the larger prisons not only are men and women separately
confined, but Christians, Mohammedans, and Jews are kept apart, and
religion is taken into consideration in distributing the colonists.
Whenever the convict sentenced to one of the lighter penalties has
reached the place of his destination, he is presented, on behalf of
the government, with a certificate of permission to reside there, and
is thenceforward free to pursue any lawful calling; but he may not
leave his district, or even his village, without the permission of the
authorities, and he is under the constant surveillance of the police.
About the reason for his banishment, or about his earlier life, he
is never questioned, at least never with malevolent intentions, for
“in the house of the hanged one does not speak of the hangman”. The
people among whom he lives are, or have been, themselves unfortunates,
or are descended from exiles; the few free settlers adopt the manners
and customs of the other Siberians. The “unfortunates” are helped
in every justifiable way. Even in the prisons on the way there are
workshops where industrious prisoners may earn a little; schools
also are established to prevent the ruin of the rising generation,
and the orphans of criminals are brought up at such an expenditure
of time and money that only the wilfully blind can fail to see this
gleam of light, only the maliciously dumb refrain from speaking of
it. In the prison at Tjumen we visited the prison school, in which a
young priest imparted instruction to Christian, Jewish, and Tartar
children alike, and it was a good face, a veritable head of Christ,
that this long-haired and bearded, though still youthful ecclesiastic
showed us. To be sure, the Jewish and Tartar boys had to read and
repeat the catechism of the Orthodox Church as well as the Christian
children, and a quiet hope of winning one or another of the former to
Christianity may perhaps have lived in the breast of the priest; but
what harm could priest or catechism do compared with the advantage
gained? The boys learned to read Russian by means of the catechism, and
they learned writing and arithmetic as well; that was the main thing.
In the same place we visited an orphan asylum founded, built, and for
the most part maintained and conducted, by a wealthy lady, and destined
for the children of exiles who died on the journey or in the town
prisons. It was a model institution in the best sense of the term, with
happy child-faces, beautiful school-rooms and dormitories, workshops
and play-rooms, a little theatre with all the necessary appurtenances,
the whole a work of mercy whose value cannot be gainsaid. But we were
to learn more than this.
[Illustration: Fig. 76.--Interior of a Siberian Peasant’s Dwelling.]
In Tjumen, Omsk, Tobolsk, and not only in the towns, but throughout the
various governments, we lived among and had constant intercourse with
exiles who had for the most part been convicted of lighter offences,
thieves, cheats, sharpers, tramps, and vagabonds, as well as with
seditious Poles and other rebels. The bank director who received us
hospitably was a Polish rebel sentenced to twelve years’ banishment,
and the joiner who made us some boxes had robbed the post; the coachman
who drove us had been guilty of a serious theft; the waiter who served
us had picked the pocket of a guest in an inn; the friendly man
from Riga who helped us to cross the Irtish had forged a document;
Goldmacher, our Jewish valet, had sold little Russian girls to Turkish
harems; the maid who cleaned our room had killed her child; the chemist
in Omsk was said to have dealt in poisons with no good intentions.
After a time we looked at every one in the light of the crime or
misdemeanour which he might have committed, and we had only to inquire
of the superintendent of police about some worthy men, among whom were
merchants, notaries, photographers, actors, to hear of false coining,
embezzlement, fraud, and so on. Yet all these people earned their daily
bread, and something over, and many a one who wished to remain unknown
would not have suffered inquiries as to his past to go unpunished,
because he had completely broken with it.
That an exile who has been a criminal can thus break with his past is
due entirely to his fellow-citizens and the government, who strive, by
every means in their power, to further all honest endeavours to begin
a new life. Those who desire work get it without mistrust; they are
taken into service without anxiety; the former thief is employed as
groom, coachman, or cook; the child-murderess is hired to wait upon
children; the convict artisan plies his own trade when his services are
required. And we are assured that those who employ them have seldom
reason to regret it. Thus many a criminal is gradually restored to
society as a respectable citizen, and his sins are not visited upon
his children to the fourth, indeed scarcely to the second generation.
What is practically impossible with us is quite possible in Siberia--to
transform a criminal into an honest man. That this does not always
succeed, that there are incorrigibles in Russia as well as among us,
is freely admitted by the Siberians themselves; but it is a noteworthy
fact that the idler who is cast off by his community in Siberia falls
into crime much more readily than the criminal who has suffered
punishment relapses into his former habits.
While the class of exiles whom we have hitherto considered are allowed
to follow any occupation they may choose, those who have committed
graver crimes are compelled to labour in the mines. With regard to
Nertschinsk, in which on an average four thousand of these unfortunate
exiles work, I have obtained through General von Eichwald, the present
superintendent of the mines on the crown-lands, the most precise
information, and what I learned about the convicts themselves may be
shortly related as follows:--
All the criminals who are condemned to the mines are brought thither
in chains, and are obliged to perform the same amount of work in their
fetters as the miners who are free. The intelligent overseer of the
mine, under whose command and surveillance they are, treats them well
if only to secure his own life and the lives of his family, for he has
not sufficient forces at his disposal to quell an insurrection should
one arise. The crime of each convict is made known to him; so he asks
no questions of the convict himself with regard to his past. But after
some time the great majority pour out their hearts to him and beg for
a mitigation of punishment. The families of a criminal condemned to
the mines are also allowed to follow him, or he is not prevented from
forming family ties. If he is bound to humanity in this way, he often,
very often, becomes penitent, and with repentance awakens the hope that
the past may be forgotten, followed by the endeavour to make it so. He
works one, two years in chains, conducts himself well, and thus awakens
confidence. His superior orders his fetters to be removed. He remains
true to his resolutions, continues to work diligently, and begins to
take thought for his family. This binds him fast to the land he had
dreaded so unspeakably at first; it turns out not so bad as he had
expected, and he begins to grow contented. Now is the time to restore
him to society. The overseer gives him permission to till the soil.
Years have passed since his crime was committed; he only remembers it
like an evil dream. Before him he sees a growing peasant-estate, behind
him his chains. His native land seems strange to him now, and he has
become reconciled to the foreign one. He becomes a peasant, works,
earns money, and dies a reformed man. With his death the bondage of his
children ceases, and they continue as free Siberian subjects to till
the piece of land with which the government presents them. This is no
invention, but reality.
[Illustration: Fig. 77.--Types of Siberian Convicts--“Condemned to the
Mines”.]
Not every criminal, however, thus submits to his fate. Full of
resentment against it and against all mankind, discontented with
everything and everyone, tired of work, perhaps also tortured by
home-sickness, or at least pining for freedom, one finds out another in
similar mood, and both, or several, resolve on flight. For weeks and
months, perhaps for years, they watch for a favourable opportunity;
one relates to the other over and over again the story of his life,
describes to him in the most minute detail his native village, the
locality and the house in which he spent his childhood, teaches him
the names of his relations, of the people in the village, of the
neighbouring villages and the nearest towns, omitting nothing, and
impressing it all deeply on the mind of his comrade, who does the same
to him, for they intend to exchange names and histories to render
identification less easy in case of capture. A smith is bribed, won,
persuaded to flight, and a tool to break the fetters is found, or,
if need be, stolen. Spring has become a reality, the day of flight
has come, and escaping without much probability of being missed for
a few hours is very easy under the present system in the mines. If
the fugitives reach the forests they are safe from recapture, but by
no means from other dangers. For a wandering native Yakoot or Tungus
hunting in the forest may be tempted by the sight of a fur-coat better
than his own, and for its sake his sure bullet remorselessly ends a
human life. Apart from such misadventures, the fugitive meets with
scarcely any hindrance. For every Siberian, from innate good-nature,
or compassion wrongly bestowed, perhaps also from fear or laziness, is
more ready to help a fugitive than to hinder his flight. In all, or at
any rate in many of the villages on the route, the villagers place a
can of milk, a large piece of bread, and perhaps even a piece of meat
behind an open window to furnish the fugitive who may pass through
their village by night with food, and thus to prevent his stealing. So
long as the fugitive takes only what is freely offered to him, so long
as he begs for what he needs, refrains from seizing things forcibly,
and neither steals nor robs, even the district-governor shuts an eye
when unknown people travel by night through his village, appropriate
the food intended for unfortunates, and seek and find a night’s rest in
the baths, which are always warm, and always stand apart from the other
buildings. And though an “unfortunate” should beg in broad daylight, no
one will betray him; should the same “unfortunate” beg for a bridle, no
one will refuse it who has one to spare. What he wants the bridle for
they know well enough. Outside of the village the horses are grazing,
untended by anyone notwithstanding wolves and bears. The fugitive walks
up to the herd, throws the bridle over the head of a capable stallion,
swings himself up on its broad back, and trots comfortably away.
“Nikolai Alexandrovitch,” someone announces to the owner of the horse,
“an unfortunate has just seized hold of your best black horse, and
ridden away towards Romanowskaja; shall we follow him?”
“_Nitschewo_,” answers Nikolai, “the little horse will come back; it is
probably an unfortunate. Let him ride.”
And the little horse does come back; for in the meadow behind
Romanowskaja the “unfortunate” had exchanged it for a fresh one on
which to continue his journey, while the black horse trots complacently
home along the familiar road.
[Illustration: Fig. 78.--Flight of an Exile in Siberia.]
Thus aided and abetted, ninety out of a hundred fugitive exiles reach
Tjumen, Perm, and even Kasan. If they were more experienced in travel,
or had some idea of geography, if they did not always keep to the same
routes by which they travelled from Russia, very many, if not most of
them, would reach their goal in safety. But in Tjumen, Perm, or Kasan
nearly all are recaptured. And even if those who have exchanged names
do not forget their _rôle_; or if others answer only “I don’t know”
to every question, neither exchange of name nor obstinate ignorance
will save them ultimately from the sentence to return to Siberia, nor
from the strokes of the rod which are meted out to every recaptured
fugitive. The captive has to traverse a second time the penal route,
possibly only to make another attempt at escape shortly after his
arrival. I am told that many exiles have travelled thus four, five,
even six times through the greater part of Siberia.
Fugitives who yield to the temptation to steal or commit some
other crime on the way, come to an untimely end. In such cases the
good-nature of the peasant-villagers is transformed into revengeful
anger. If he is taken, nothing will save him from an agonizing death.
Then a corpse is found on which no marks of violence are noticed. The
body is buried, and the finding and burial are duly notified to the
magistrates, who inform the governor, and he, in his turn, communicates
with the governor-general, but the unhappy victim of popular fury has
rotted in his grave before the government medical officer could reach
the spot, even if he wished to do so. Upon whom this vengeance has
fallen no one knows. In this way, but not by order of the government,
an exile may disappear, and no one can tell what has befallen him, no
authorities are able to give any information. But every exile who is
sent to Siberia knows what awaits him if he should steal or commit any
crime when a fugitive. And for this reason it is possible to live here,
in the midst of thousands of criminals, as securely as anywhere else,
perhaps more securely than in our great towns which contain the scum of
humanity.
I have attempted to give a faithful picture of the conditions which
hold now, or which held in 1876.[87] It has not been my intention to
soften or embellish. Banishment to Siberia is in all cases a severe
punishment. It is more severe in proportion to the culture of the
person on whom it falls, and in the eyes of an educated man it must
always seem terrible. But banishment to Siberia was never meant to be
other than a punishment, and it was meant to fall more heavily on the
educated than on the uneducated. The justice of such a principle may
be disputed, but it cannot be entirely denied. It is only possible,
however, to form a fair idea of the lot of exiles in Siberia when we
compare it with that of our own criminals.
What becomes of the unhappy beings who people our prisons? What becomes
of their families, their wives, their children? What fate awaits the
prisoners when their time of imprisonment has expired; what have their
families to look forward to?
Answers to these questions can be given by all who are acquainted with
our penal institutions.
If the unhappy lot of our criminals be compared, honestly and without
prejudice, with that of the exiles in Siberia, the result will not be
doubtful. Every true friend of humanity must echo the wish which came
to me in the distant East, and which has never since left me:
“If only we had a Siberia too: it would be better for our criminals,
and better for ourselves”.
AN ORNITHOLOGIST ON THE DANUBE.
Hungary was, and is, and will continue to be one of the goals of the
German ornithologist’s ambition. Situated more favourably than any
other country in Europe, lying as it does between the North Sea and the
Black Sea, the Baltic and the Mediterranean, the great northern plain
and the Alps--including within its boundaries both the North and the
South, steppes and mountains, forests, rivers, and marshes--it offers
great advantages and attractions to resident and wandering birds alike,
and thus possesses a richer bird-fauna perhaps than any other country
in our quarter of the globe. Enthusiastic descriptions of this wealth,
from the pen of our most illustrious investigators and masters, have
contributed not a little to increase and strengthen the longing--I
would almost call it inborn--that all the bird-lovers of Germany have
to see Hungary. It is strange, however, that this beautiful, rich
country, lying so near to us, has been so rarely visited by Germans.
I myself had seen only its capital and what one can see of the country
from the railway; I therefore shared most thoroughly in the longing of
which I have just spoken. It was to be fulfilled, but only to return
even more ardently thereafter. “None walks unpunished beneath the
palms”, and no lover of birds can spend May-tide in Fruskagora without
having for ever after a longing to return.
“Would you like,” asked my gracious patron, the Crown Prince Rudolph,
“to accompany me to South Hungary for some eagle-shooting? I have
definite reports of perhaps twenty eyries, and I think that we should
all be able to learn much, if we visited them and observed diligently.”
Twenty eyries! One must have been banished for long years on the
dreary flats of North Germany, one must have gloated over the bright
pictures raised in one’s mind by the glowing reports of some roaming
ornithologist, to appreciate the joy with which I agreed to go. Twenty
eyries, at no very great distance from Vienna and not far from Pesth:
I should not have been my father’s son had I remained indifferent. The
days seemed hours when we were busy with all sorts of preparations, and
again they seemed to lengthen out into weeks, such was my impatient
desire to be off.
It was but a small travelling party that started from Vienna on the
second day of the Easter holidays (1878), but we were merry and
hopeful, eager for sport and energetic. Besides the august lord
of the chase and his illustrious brother-in-law, there were but
three--Obersthofmeister Count Bombelles, Eugen von Homeyer, and myself.
A day later, at Pesth, we got aboard the swift and comfortable vessel
which carried us towards the mouth of the “blonde” Danube. In Lenten
mist suffused with morning sunlight, the proud Kaiserburg stood out
before us, and the gardens of the Bloxberg were bright with the first
green of the young year, as we took leave of the capital of Hungary.
With the scenery of the Rhine, of the Upper, or even, it is said, of
the Lower Danube, the stretch of country through which we were now
rapidly borne cannot be compared. A few kilometres below the sister
towns the banks become flat, the hills on the right side of the stream
sink into featureless heights, and only in the dim blue distance does
the eye catch the gently curved lines of moderately high ranges. From
the left bank extends the broad plain. Without end, without change, it
stretches in uniform monotony; hardly one of the large, rich villages
is conspicuous enough to catch the eye. Here and there a herdsman
in shepherd’s dress leans on his strong staff, but his charge is
not a flock of simple sheep; grunting, bristly pigs crowd around
him--how brown with the sun he is!--or lie in rows about him enjoying
comfortable rest. Around the pools filled by the floods the lapwing
flutters; over the broad flats the hen-harrier wings its unsteady
flight; the martins sweep in and out of their nests burrowed in the
steep banks; dainty water-wagtails trip about on the shingle-roofs of
the innumerable boatmills; ducks and cormorants rise in noisy alarm
from the stream; while kites and hooded crows fly in circles over its
surface. Such is a picture of this region.
Soon, however, the landscape changes. The alluvial plain, traversed
by the river which made it, broadens out. Over the flats, not yet
protected by dikes, and submerged by every flood, the river extends in
numerous, for the most part nameless branches. A luxuriant growth of
wood clothes the banks and islands, and as the fringe is too dense to
allow any glimpse of the interior, this meadow-wood bounds the view for
mile after mile. Variable and yet monotonous are the pictures which
appear and disappear, as in a dissolving view, while the ship follows
the windings of the stream. Willows and poplars--white, silvery, and
black--elms and oaks, the first predominating, the last often sparse
in their occurrence, form the material of these pictures. Above the
dense fringe, which consists almost wholly of willow, there rise older
trees of the same kind; beyond these in the woods, which often extend
far inland, rise the impressive crowns of lofty silver poplars and
black poplars, and the bald heads of old gnarled oaks. A single glance
embraces all phases of tree-life from the sprouting willow-shoot to
the dying giant--trees living, sprouting, growing, and exultant in the
fulness of their strength; trees withered at the top, victims of fire
from the heavens or from the earth and half reduced to tinder; trees
prostrate on the ground, crumbling and rotting. Between these we see
the gleams of flowing or standing water; above all is the great dome
of heaven. In the secret shades we hear the song of the nightingale
and the finches, the lyrics of the thrush, the shrill cry of falcon or
eagle, the laugh of the woodpecker, the raven’s croak, and the heron’s
shrill shriek.
Here and there is a glade not yet overgrown, a gap in the wood
and through which we catch a glimpse of the landscape in the
background,--of the broad plain on the right bank of the stream,
and the fringe of hills in the distance, of an apparently endless
succession of fields, from which at distant intervals rise the church
spires which mark the scattered villages or, it may be, townships. In
summer, when all is of one predominantly green hue, in late autumn,
winter, and early spring, when the trees are leafless, this shore
landscape may seem almost dull; now it is monotonous, but yet not
unattractive, for all the willows and poplars have young leaves, or in
many cases catkins, and, here and there at least, they make the woods
gay and gladsome.
Only at a few places is such a wood as this accessible; for the
most part it is a huge morass. If one attempts, either on land or
by waterways, to penetrate into the interior, one, sooner or later,
reaches a jungle which has no parallel in Germany. Only on those
spots which are raised above the level of the river, and which have a
rich, in part muddy soil, is one reminded of German vegetation. Here
lilies of the valley, with their soft, green leaves and fragrant,
white bells, form a most decorative carpeting, covering the ground
for wide stretches; but even here the nettles and bramble-bushes
grow in wanton luxuriance, and various climbing plants spread their
tangled net over wide areas of the forest, so that almost insuperable
obstacles and barriers prevent further progress. In other places
the wood is literally a bog out of which the giant trees rear their
stems. Mighty stems indeed, but many--victims of old age, tempest,
thunderbolt, and the careless herdsman’s fire--lie rotting in the
water, already forming, in many cases, the soil from which rises a
younger and vigorous growth of underwood. Other trees, which have not
yet succumbed to decay, lie prostrate and bar the way. The wind has
swept the fallen wood, both thick branches and delicate twigs, into
floating islands and obtrusive snags, which present to the small boat
obstacles not less difficult than those which obstruct the explorer on
foot. Similar floating islands, composed of reeds and sedges, form a
deceptive covering over wide stretches of water. Raised mud-banks, on
which willows and poplars have found a suitable soil for their seeds,
have become impenetrable thickets, disputing the possession of the
ground even with the forests of reeds which are often many square miles
in extent. Dwarf willows, at once youthful and senile forests, form
dark patches in the heart of the reed-beds. What may be concealed in
the gloomy wood, with its bogs and thickets, or by the reeds, remains
almost quite hidden from the searching eye of the naturalist, for
he can see through no more than the fringe of this wilderness, nor
traverse it except along the broader waterways.
[Illustration: Fig. 79.--Herons and their Nests.]
Such was the district in which our sport began. The eagles, the royal
rulers of the air, which formed the primary object of our quest, did
not, indeed, come within range, nor even within sight, on the first day
of our journey; but, on the other hand, we visited the famous heronry
on the island of Adony, and had abundant opportunities of observing
the life of the brooding birds. For two generations, herons and
cormorants have nested on the tall trees of the island, among the much
older residents--the rooks; and, though the cormorants have greatly
diminished in numbers since the beginning of the sixties, they have
not yet entirely disappeared. Forty years ago, according to Landbeck’s
estimate, there nested here about one thousand pairs of night-herons,
two hundred and fifty pairs of common herons, fifty pairs of little
egrets, and a hundred pairs of cormorants; but now the rooks, of which
there are from fifteen hundred to two thousand pairs, form the great
bulk of the colony, while the common herons have dwindled to about
a hundred and fifty, the night-herons to thirty or forty pairs, the
egrets have disappeared entirely, and only the cormorants remain in
approximately the same numbers as formerly. Yet at least an echo of the
former life rang in our ears as we set foot on the island, and here and
there the forest still presents the old picture almost unchanged.
The various birds in such a mixed heronry appear to live in the best
accord, yet there is neither peace nor friendliness among them. One
oppresses and supports, plunders and feeds the other. The herons invade
the rooks’ colonies to save themselves the labour of nest-building;
the rooks collect twigs and build their nests, and the herons drive
them away, that they may take forcible possession of the nests, or at
any rate of the building material; the cormorants dispute with the
herons the possession of the stolen booty, and finally assume despotic
authority over the entire colony. But even they, thieves and robbers
as they are, are plundered and robbed in their turn, for the crows
and kites--the last being seldom absent from such settlements--feed
themselves and their young to no slight extent on the fish which the
herons and cormorants have brought for the sustenance of their mates
and young. The first meeting of the various kinds of brooding birds
is hostile. Violent and protracted battles are fought, and the ten
times vanquished renews hostilities for the eleventh time before he
learns to submit to the inevitable. But in time the inter-relations are
better adjusted, as the individual members of the colony recognize that
there are advantages in social life, and that there is room enough for
peaceable neighbours. Fighting and quarrelling never cease entirely,
but the bitter war of species against species gives place gradually to
conditions which are at least endurable. The birds become accustomed
to each other, and make use of the capabilities of their adversaries
as far as may be. It may even happen, indeed, that those who have been
plundered follow those who have robbed them when the latter find it
necessary to change their brooding-places.
[Illustration: Fig. 80.--Rooks and their Nests.]
The spectacle of a mixed heronry is fascinating in the highest degree.
“There is hardly anything”, writes Baldamus, “more varied, more
attractive, more beautiful, than these Hungarian marshes with their
bird-life, which is remarkable both for the number of individuals
and for their variety of form and colouring. Let any one look at the
most conspicuous of these marsh-dwellers in a collection, and then let
him endeavour to picture them to himself standing, walking, running,
climbing, flying, in short, living, and he will be obliged to admit
that such bird-life is marvellously attractive.” This description is
correct even if it be applied to the impoverished island of Adony. Much
as its once teeming population has dwindled, there are still thousands
and thousands of birds. For long stretches of the forest every high
tree bears nests, many having twenty or thirty, and all about these is
the noisy bustle of sociable bird-life. Upon the nests sit the female
rooks, common herons, night-herons, and cormorants, looking out with
dark, sulphur-yellow, blood-red, and sea-green eyes upon the intruder
who has invaded their sanctuary; sitting and climbing on the topmost
boughs of the giant trees, or fluttering, flying, floating above them
are black, brown, gray, one-coloured and many-coloured, dull and
shimmering bird forms; above these, kites are circling; on the trunks
woodpeckers are hanging, hard at work; sleek, gleaming white-throats
are seeking their daily bread among the blossom of a pear-tree, finches
and willow-wrens among the fresh foliage of the bird-cherry. The
beautiful carpet of woodruff which covers the ground in many places is
spattered and soiled with the excrement of birds, and disfigured by
broken eggs or their shells, and by decomposing fish which have fallen
from the nests.
The first shot from the gun of our gracious patron caused an
indescribable confusion. The startled herons rose screaming, and the
rooks with stupefying croaking; the cormorants, too, forsook their
nests with angry screeches. A cloud of birds formed over the forest,
drifted hither and thither, up and down, became denser and overshadowed
the tree-tops, broke up into groups which sank hesitatingly down
towards their forsaken nests, enveloped these completely for a little,
and then united again with the main mass. Every single one screamed,
croaked, cawed, and screeched in the most ear-piercing fashion;
everyone took to flight, but was drawn back again by anxiety for nest
and eggs. The whole forest was in an uproar; yet, careless of the
terrifying noise, the finch warbled its spring greeting amidst the
trees, a woodpecker called joyously, the nightingales poured forth
their inspiring melody, and poetic souls revealed themselves even among
the thieves and robbers.
Richly laden with booty, we returned, after five hours’ sport, to
our comfortable quarters on board ship, and occupied ourselves as we
steamed further with the scientific arrangement of our newly-acquired
treasures. For hours we travelled through forests such as I have
depicted, now and then passing by large or small hamlets, villages,
and towns, until the gathering darkness forced us to moor our vessel.
In the early dawn of the following morning we reached Apatin. The
firing of cannon, music, and joyous acclamation greet the much-loved
heir to the throne. People of all sorts throng about the boat; native
hunting-assistants, nest-seekers, tree-climbers, and bird-skinners
come on board; more than a dozen of the little boats called “Ezikela”
are loaded. Then our steamer turns up stream again, to land us in the
neighbourhood of a broad arm of the river. Up this we penetrated for
the first time into the damp meadow-forests. All the little boats
which had joined us in Apatin followed our larger one, like ducklings
swimming after a mother duck. To-day the chase is directed solely
against the sea eagle which broods so abundantly in these forests that
no fewer than five eyries could be found within a radius of a square
mile. We separated with the sportsman’s salute, to approach these
eyries from different directions.
I was well acquainted with these bold and rapacious, if rather ignoble
birds of prey, for I had seen them in Norway and Lapland, in Siberia
and in Egypt, but I had never observed them beside their eyries; and
the opportunity of doing so was most welcome. As his name implies, the
favourite habitat of the sea-eagle is by the sea-coasts, or on the
banks of lakes and rivers rich in fish. If winter drives him from his
haunts, he migrates as far southwards as is necessary to enable him
to pick up a living during the cold months. In Hungary, this eagle is
the commonest of all the large birds of prey; he does not forsake the
country even in winter, and only makes long expeditions in his earlier
years before maturity, as though he wished to try the experiment of
living abroad. During spring, therefore, one sees in that district only
adult, or what comes to the same thing, full-grown birds capable of
reproduction, while in autumn and winter there are, in addition, the
young ones which left the nest only a few months before. Then also many
wanderers who have not settled down come to enliven the forest-shores
of the Danube. As long as the river is not covered with ice, they have
no difficulty in finding food; for they hunt in the water not less,
perhaps rather more skilfully than on land. They circle over the water
until they spy a fish, then throw themselves down upon it like a flash
of lightning, dive after it, sometimes disappearing completely beneath
the waves, but working their way quickly to the surface again by aid
of their powerful wings, carry off their victim, whose scaly armour
has been penetrated by their irresistible talons, and devour it at
their leisure. As their depredations are not so severely condemned in
Hungary as with us, and as they are treated generally with undeserved
forbearance, they regularly frequent the neighbourhood of the
fishermen’s huts, and sit among the trees close by until the fisherman
throws them stale fish or any refuse which they can eat. Like the
fishermen, the Hungarian, Servian, and Slav peasants help to provide
them with food, for, instead of burying animals which have died, they
let them lie exposed in the fields, and leave it to the eagles and the
vultures, or to dogs and wolves, to remove the carrion. If a covering
of ice protects his usual prey, and no carrion is available, the
sea-eagle need not yet starve; for, like the nobler and more courageous
golden eagle, he hunts all game which he has a chance of overpowering.
He attacks the fox as well as the hare, the hedgehog and the rat, the
diver and the wild goose, steals from the mother seal her sucking
young, and may even carry his blind rapacity so far as to strike his
powerful talons into the back of a dolphin or a sturgeon, by whom he
is carried down into the sea and drowned before he can free his claws.
Under some circumstances he will even attack human beings. Thus he need
hardly ever suffer want; and as he is not systematically hunted, he
leads quite an enviable life.
[Illustration: Fig. 81.--Sea-eagle and Nest in a Danube Forest.]
Until near the breeding-time, the sea-eagle lives at peace with his
fellows; but, as that season approaches, he becomes combative and
quarrelsome, in most cases through jealousy. For the sake of mate
and eyrie, he wages bitter war with others of his species. An eagle
pair, once united, remain so for life, but only if the male is able
to protect his mate from the wooing of others, and to defend his own
eyrie. A male eagle, which has just reached maturity and is exulting in
the consciousness of his strength, casts his eyes longingly upon the
mate and eyrie of another eagle, and both are lost to their owner if he
allows himself to be vanquished in fight by the intruder. The rightful
lord, therefore, fights to the death against everyone who attempts to
disturb his marital and domestic happiness. The battle begins high in
the air, but is often finished on the ground. With beak and claw, first
one, then the other ventures an assault; at length one succeeds in
getting a grip of his adversary, whose talons, in return, are promptly
fixed in his rival’s body. Like balls of feathers, the two fall to the
ground, or into the water, when both let go their hold, but only to
renew the attack. When they fight on the ground, the rivals challenge
one another like enraged cocks, and blood and feathers left behind show
the scene of the battle and bear witness to its deadly seriousness. The
female circles above the combatants or watches them from her high perch
with seeming indifference, but she never fails to caress the conqueror,
whether he be her lawful spouse or the new-comer. Woe to the eagle
if he does not succeed in repulsing the intruder! In the eyes of the
female, none but the strong deserves the fair.
After successfully repelled attacks and fights of that kind, from
which no eagle is exempt, and which are said to be repeated in Hungary
every year, the pair, probably long wedded, take possession of the old
eyrie, and begin, in February, to repair it. Both birds set to work
to collect the necessary material, picking it up from the ground, or
from the water, or breaking it off the trees, and carrying it in their
talons, often for a long distance, to the nest, to rebuild and improve
this as well as an eagle can. As this building up of the old nest takes
place every year, it gradually grows to a considerable height, and one
can tell from it the age of the birds, and may also guess the probable
duration of their wedded life; for the oldest nest contains the oldest
pair of eagles. The nest is not always placed among the highest
branches of the tree, but is in all cases high above the ground, more
or less near the trunk, and always on strong boughs which can bear its
heavy and ever-increasing weight. Both upper and lower tiers consist of
sticks and twigs laid loosely above and across one another; and many
pairs of hedge-sparrows, which approach the mighty birds quite boldly
and confidently, find among these twigs cavities suitable for nesting
or hiding.
Towards the end of February, or in the beginning of March, the female
lays two, or at most three eggs in the shallow nest-cavity, and begins
brooding assiduously. The male meantime supplies her with food, not,
however, making longer expeditions in search of it than are absolutely
necessary, but spending whatever time he can spare from the work of
providing for her and himself, sitting, a faithful and attentive
guardian, on a tree in the neighbourhood, which serves him at once
as perch and sleeping-place. After about four weeks of brooding, the
young emerge from the eggs, looking at first like soft balls of wool,
from which dark eyes peer forth, and a dark bill and very sharp claws
protrude. Even in their earliest youth the little creatures are as
pretty as they are self-possessed. Now there is work enough for both
father and mother. The two take turns in going forth to seek for prey,
and in mounting guard over the little ones; but it is the mother who
tends them. The father honestly performs his part in the rearing of
the brood; but the mother alone is capable of giving them that care
and attention which may be described as nursing. If she were torn from
them in the first days of their life, they would perish as surely as
young mammals robbed of their suckling mother. With her own breast the
eagle-mother protects them from frost and snow; from her own crop she
supplies them with warmed, softened, and partly-digested food. The
eagle-father does not render such nursing services as these, but if the
mother perish when the young are half-grown, he unhesitatingly takes
upon himself the task of rearing and feeding them, and often performs
it with the most self-sacrificing toil. The young eagles grow rapidly.
In the third week of their existence the upper surface of the body is
covered with feathers; towards the end of May they are full-grown and
fully fledged. Then they leave the nest, to prepare, under the guidance
of their parents, for the business of life.
This is a picture, drawn with hasty strokes, of the life of the eagle,
which, for the next few days, was the object of our expeditions. No
fewer than nineteen inhabited eyries were visited by us with varying
success. Now on foot, now in little boats, now jumping and wading, now
creeping and gliding, we endeavoured, unseen and unheard, to approach
the trees bearing the nests; for hours we crouched expectantly beneath
them in huts hastily built with branches, gazing eagerly up at the
eagles, which, startled by us or others, were wheeling and circling
high in the air, and showing no inclination to return to their nests,
but which we knew must return sometime, and would probably fall victims
to us. We were able to observe them very accurately and fully, and this
eagle-hunt gained, therefore, an indescribable charm for us all.
Except for the eagles and other birds of prey which we secured, the
forests, which looked so promising, proved, or at any rate seemed,
to be poor in feathered inhabitants. Of course it was early in the
year, and the stream of migration was still in full flood; nor did we
succeed in investigating more than the outskirts of the forest. But
even the number of birds which had returned and taken up their quarters
on the outskirts of the forest did not come up to our expectations.
And yet this apparent poverty disappointed me less than the lack of
good songsters. The song-thrush did indeed pour forth its rich music
through the woods fragrant with the breath of spring; here and there
a nightingale sang; the finch warbled its spring greeting everywhere;
and even a white-throat tried its notes, but none of these satisfied
our critical ear. All who sang or warbled seemed merely bunglers, not
masters. And at last we began to feel that real song did not belong
to those dark woods at all, that the cries of eagles and falcons, the
hooting of horned owls and screech-owls, the croaking of water-hens
and terns, the shrill cry of herons and the laughter of woodpeckers,
the cuckoos’ call and the cooing of stock-doves were the music best
befitting them, and that, besides these, the only bird that had a right
to sing was the sedge-warbler, who lived among the reeds and bulrushes,
and who had borrowed most of his intricate song from the frogs.
On the fourth day we hunted in the Keskender forest, a few miles from
the banks of the Danube. As we left the forests on the river banks, we
had to traverse a great plain bounded in the far distance by a chain of
hills. Our route lay through well-cultivated fields belonging to the
large estate of Bellye--a model of good management--and we made rapid
progress on swift horses. Here and there marshy meadows, with pools and
ditches, a little thicket, large farm-buildings surrounded by gnarled
oaks, a hamlet, a village, but for the most part treeless fields; this
was the character of the district through which we hastened. Larks
innumerable rose singing from the fields; dainty water-wagtails tripped
about the roads; shrikes and corn-buntings sat on every wayside hedge;
brooding jackdaws and starlings bustled and clamoured about their nests
in the crowns of the oaks; above the ponds ospreys were wheeling on the
outlook for fish, and graceful terns skimmed along in zigzag flight;
the lapwing busied itself in the marshes. Apart from these, we observed
very few birds. Even the Keskender wood, a well-kept forest, which we
reached after two hours’ riding, was poor in species, notwithstanding
its varied character. There, however, were the nests of spotted-eagles
and ospreys, short-toed eagles and common buzzards, falcons, owls, and,
above all, black storks in surprising numbers, and our expedition was
therefore successful beyond all expectation. And yet the foresters,
who, in anticipation of the Crown Prince’s visit, had, only a few days
before, searched the woods and noted the position of the various eyries
on a hastily constructed map, did not know of nearly all the birds
of prey and black storks nesting in the forest. “It is like Paradise
here,” remarked the Crown Prince Rudolf, and these words accurately
described the relations between men and animals in Hungary. Like the
Oriental, the Hungarian is happily not possessed by the mania for
killing which has caused the extreme shyness of the animals, and the
painfully evident poverty of animal life in Western Europe; he does
not grudge a home even to the bird of prey which settles on his land,
and he does not make constant and cruel raids on the animal world,
which lives and moves about him. Not even the low self-interest which
at present prompts covetous feather-dealers to make yearly expeditions
to the marshes of the lower Danube, and which sacrifices hundreds of
thousands of happy and interesting bird-lives for the sake of their
feathers, has had power to move the Magyar from his good old customs.
It may be that indifference to the animal life around him has something
to do with his hospitality; but the hospitality is there, and it
has not yet given place to a thirst for persecution. Animals, and
especially birds, remain quite confidently in the neighbourhood of men;
they go about their own affairs quite unconcerned as to what men may be
doing. The eagle has his eyrie by the roadside, the raven nests among
the trees in the field, the black or wood stork is hardly more shy than
the sacred house-stork; the deer does not rise from his lair when a
carriage passes within rifle-range. Verily, it is like Paradise.
But we found a state of paradise elsewhere than in the Keskender
forest. After we had roamed through the forest in many directions,
and had visited more than twenty eyries of buzzards and ospreys and
black storks, and had refreshed and strengthened ourselves with an
excellent breakfast provided for us, and still more with the delicious
wine of the district, we set out on our return journey to the ship,
urged to haste by threatening thunder-clouds, but still hunting and
collecting as time and opportunity allowed. Our route was different
from that which we had followed in coming to the forest; it was a good
high-road connecting a number of villages. We passed through several
of those, and again the road led us between houses. There was nothing
remarkable about the buildings, but the people were stranger than my
fancy could have pictured. The population of Dalyok consists almost
solely of _Schokazen_ or Catholic Servians, who migrated from the
Balkan Peninsula, or were brought thither by the Turks, during the
period of the Turkish supremacy. They are handsome, slender people
these Schokazen, the men tall and strong, the women at least equal to
the men, extremely well built and apparently rather pretty. We could
form a definite opinion with regard to their figures, but, as far as
their faces were concerned, we had to depend to some extent on our
own imagination. For the Schokaz women wear a style of dress which
will hardly be found elsewhere within the boundaries of Europe at the
present day: a dress which our princely patron, happy as usual in his
descriptions, called mythological. When I say that head and face were
almost entirely enveloped in quaintly yet not unpicturesquely wound and
knotted cloths, and that the skirt was replaced by two gaily-coloured
apron-like pieces of cloth, not connected with each other, I may leave
the rest to the most lively imagination without fearing that it will
be likely to exceed the actual state of things. For my own part I was
reminded of a camp of Arab nomad herdsmen which I had once seen in the
primitive forests of Central Africa.
At dusk, under pouring rain, we reached our comfortable vessel. Rain
fell the following morning also, the whole day was gloomy, and our
expedition was proportionately disappointing. All this impelled us to
continue our journey, though we look back gratefully on those pleasant
days on the Bellye estate, and though it would have been well worth
while to have observed and collected there a few days longer. With
warm and well-earned words of praise the Crown Prince bade farewell to
the officials on the archducal estate; one glance more at the woods
which had offered us so much, and our swift little vessel steams down
the Danube again. After a few hours we reach Draueck, the mouth of
the river Drau, which thenceforward seems to determine the direction
of the Danube bed. One of the grandest river pictures I have ever
seen presented itself to our gaze. A vast sheet of water spread out
before us; towards the south it is bounded by smiling hills, on all
the other sides by forests, such as we had already seen. Neither the
course of the main stream nor the bed of its tributary could be made
out; the whole enormous sheet of water was like an inclosed lake whose
banks were only visible at the chain of hills above mentioned; for
through the green vistas of the forest one saw more water, thickets,
and reed-beds, these last covering the great marsh of Hullo, which
stretches out in apparently endless extent. Giant tree-trunks, carried
down by both streams, and only partly submerged, assumed the most
fantastic shapes; it seemed as if fabled creatures of the primitive
world reared their scaly bodies above the dark flood. For the “blonde”
Danube looked dark, almost black, as we sped through the Draueck.
Grayish-black and dark-blue thunder-clouds hung in the heavens,
apparently also amidst the hundred-toned green of the forests, and
over the unvarying faded yellow of the reed-beds; flashes of lightning
illumined the whole picture vividly; the rain splashed down; the
thunder rolled; the wind howled through the tops of the tall old
trees, lashed up the surface of the water, and crowned the dark crests
of the waves with gray-white foam; but away in the south-east the sun
had broken through the dark clouds, edged them with purple and gold,
illumined them so that the black shadows grew yet blacker, and shone
brightly down on the smiling hills, which lead up to a mountain range
far away on the horizon. Below and beyond us lay hamlets and villages,
but, where we were, at most a cone-shaped, reed-covered fisher-hut
broke the primeval character of the magnificent scene, which, in its
wildness and in the weird effect of the momentary flashes of light, was
sublime beyond description.
The scarcity of birds was striking, as indeed was the desolateness of
the whole sheet of water. Not a gull floated over the mirror of the
Danube, not a tern winged its zigzag flight up and down; at most a
few drakes rose from the river. Now and then a common heron, a flight
of night-herons, an erne, and a few kites, hooded crows and ravens,
perhaps also a flock of lapwings, and the list of birds which one
usually sees is exhausted.
From the following day onwards we hunted and explored a wonderful
district. The blue mountains, upon which lay bright, golden sunlight
during the thunder-storm of the previous day, are the heights of
Fruskagora, a wooded hill range of the most delightful kind. Count
Rudolf Chotek had prepared everything for the fitting reception of our
Prince, and thus we enjoyed several days which can never be forgotten.
From the village of Čerewič, on the upper side of which our vessel lay,
we drove daily through the gorges, climbed the heights on foot or on
horseback, to return homewards each evening delighted and invigorated.
The golden May-tide refreshed heart and soul, and our host’s untiring
attention, complaisance, courtesy, and kindness went far to make the
days passed at Fruskagora the pleasantest and most valuable part of our
whole journey.
It was a charming district, about which we roamed every day. Around
the village was a range of fields; beyond these a girdle of vineyards
which reach to the very edge of the forest; in the valleys and gorges
between them the innumerable fruit trees were laden with fragrant
blossom, which brightened the whole landscape; on the banks, beside
the road which usually led through the valleys, there was a dense
growth of bushes, and the refreshing charm of the wealth of blossom was
enhanced by the murmuring brooks and trickling runlets of water. From
the first heights we reached the view was surprisingly beautiful. In
the foreground lay the picturesque village of Čerewič; then the broad
Danube, with its meadow-forests on the opposite shore; behind these
stretched the boundless Hungarian plain, exhibiting to the spectator
its fields and meadows, woods and marshes, villages and market towns in
an unsteady, changeful light, which gave them a peculiar charm; in the
east lay the stronghold of Peterwardein. Larks rose singing from the
fields; the nightingale poured forth its tuneful lay from the bushes;
the cheery song of the rock-thrush rang down from the vineyards; and
two species of vulture and three kinds of eagle were describing great
circles high in the air.
When we had gone a little farther we lost sight of river, villages,
and fields, and entered one of the secluded forest-valleys. The sides
of the mountain rise precipitously from it, and, like the ridges
and slopes, they are densely wooded, though the trees are not very
tall. Oaks and limes, elms and maples predominate in some places,
copper-beeches and hornbeams in others; thick, low bushes, which
shelter many a pair of nightingales, are scattered about the outskirts
of the forest. No magnificent far-reaching views reward the traveller
who climbs to the highest ridge to see Hungary lying to the north, and
Servia to the south; but the mysterious darkness of the forest soothes
soul and sense. From the main ridge, which is at most 3000 feet in
height, many chains branch off on either side almost at right angles,
and have a fine effect from whatever side one looks at them. Among
them are valleys or enclosed basins whose steep walls make transport
of felled wood impossible, and which therefore display all the natural
luxuriance of forest growth. Gigantic beeches, with straight trunks
smooth up to the spreading crown, rise from amid mouldering leaves
in which the huntsman sinks to the knee; gnarled oaks raise their
rugged heads into the air as if to invite the birds of prey to nest
there; dome-like limes form such a close roof of leaves, that only
a much-broken reflection of the sun’s rays trembles on the ground.
In addition to the nightingale, which is everywhere abundant, the
songsters of this forest are the song-thrush and blackbird, golden
oriole and red-breast, chaffinch and wood-wren; the cuckoo calls
its spring greeting from hill to hill; black and green woodpeckers,
nut-hatches and titmice, ring-doves and stock-doves may be heard in all
directions.
We had come here chiefly to hunt the largest European bird of prey,
the black vulture, Fruskagora being apparently the northern boundary
of its breeding region. The other large European vulture had recently
appeared in the district, probably attracted by the unfortunate victims
of the Servian war, and both species brooded here protected by the
lord of the estate, who was an enthusiastic naturalist. I was already
acquainted with both these species of vulture, for I had seen them on
former journeys, but it was a great pleasure to me to observe them in
their brooding-place, and hear the reports of my fellow-sportsmen and
of Count Chotek; for on this expedition also our main desire was to
increase our knowledge of animal life. Here again we were able to make
a long series of observations, and many aspects of the life of both
these giant birds, which had hitherto been obscure to us all, were
cleared up and explained by our investigations.
The crested black vulture, whose range of distribution is not confined
to the three southern peninsulas of Europe, but extends also through
West and Central Asia, to India and China, is resident in Fruskagora,
but after the brooding season he frequently makes long expeditions,
which bring him regularly to Northern Hungary, and frequently to
Moravia, Bohemia, and Silesia. His powerful wings enable him to
undertake such expeditions without the slightest difficulty. Unfettered
by eggs or helpless young, he flies early in the morning from the tree
on which he has passed the night, ascends spirally to a height to which
the human eye unaided cannot follow him, then with his incomparably
keen, mobile eye, whose focal distance can be rapidly altered, he scans
the horizon, detects unfailingly even small carrion, and alights to
devour and digest it, or to store it in his crop. After feeding he
returns to his accustomed place, or continues his pathless journeying.
Not only does he carefully scan the land lying beneath him, perhaps
for many square miles, but he keeps watch on the movements of others
of his species, or of any large carrion-eating birds, that he may
profit by their discoveries. Thus only can we explain the sudden and
simultaneous appearance of several, or even many vultures beside a
large carcass, even in a region not usually inhabited by these birds.
They are guided in their search for prey, not by their sense of smell,
which is dull, but by sight. One flies after another when he sees that
he has discovered carrion, and his swiftness of flight is so great that
he can usually be in time to share the feast, if he sees the finder
circling above his booty. Certainly he must lose no time, for it is
not for nothing that he and his kin are called “_geier_”; their greed
beggars description. Within a few minutes three or four vultures will
stow away the carcass of a sheep or a dog in their crops, leaving
only the most trifling remains; the meal-time therefore passes with
incredible rapidity, and whoever arrives late on the scene is doomed to
disappointment.
The country round Fruskagora yields a good deal more to the vultures
than an occasional feast of carrion, for in the stomachs of those which
we shot and dissected we found remains of souslik and large lizards,
which are scarcely likely to have been found dead, but were more
probably seized and killed.
On account of the northerly situation of Fruskagora, and the
well-ordered state of the surrounding country, which is not very
favourable to vultures, the black vultures were still brooding during
our visit, though others of the same species, whose haunts were farther
south, must undoubtedly have had young birds by that time. The eyries
were placed in the tallest trees, and most of them on the uppermost
third of the mountain side. Many were quite well known to Count Chotek
and his game-keepers, for they had been occupied as a brooding-place
by a pair of vultures, possibly the same pair, for at least twenty
years, and as they had been added to each year they had assumed very
considerable proportions. Others seemed of more recent origin, but all
were apparently the work of the vultures themselves. In the oldest and
largest of them, a full-grown man could have reclined without his head
or feet being seen projecting over the edge.
Under these eyries we sat watching, listening to the life and bustle of
the woods, and waiting in the hope of getting a shot at the vultures
which our approach had scared away. For four days we went to the
splendid woods every morning, and never did we return to our vessel
empty-handed. No fewer than eight large vultures, several eagles, and
numerous smaller birds fell to our guns, while valuable observations,
which fascinated us all, added zest and interest to our sport. But
when the last rays of the sun had disappeared, the younger portion of
the population assembled about our ship. Violin and bagpipes joined
in a wonderful but simple melody, and youths and maidens danced the
rhythmically undulating national round dances in honour of their august
guest.
After we had hunted successfully on both sides of the Danube, we took
leave, on the fifth day after our arrival in Čerewič, of our most
devoted host, the lord of the estates, and continued our journey down
the river. In three-quarters of an hour we passed Peterwardein, a
small, antiquated, but picturesquely situated stronghold, and an hour
and a half later, we reached Carlowitz, near which we spent the night.
The next morning we reached Kovil, the goal of our journey.
In the neighbourhood of this large village, and girdled by cultivated
fields, there are woods in which the oak predominates, but which have
such a dense undergrowth, that notwithstanding the many villages about,
the wolves and wild-cats lead a threatening but scarcely threatened
existence in them. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that birds
of prey of all kinds, especially sea-eagles, imperial eagles, spotted
eagles, and booted eagles, “short-toed eagles”, kites, hawks, horned
and other owls should have chosen them as a nesting-place, and that
they should also harbour all kinds of small birds. Sure of rich booty
the Crown Prince and his brother-in-law directed their steps to these
woods, while Eugen von Homeyer and I tried our luck up-stream beyond
the village, in a marsh which the flood, then at its height, had
transformed into a great lake.
[Illustration: Fig. 82.--Nest of the Penduline Titmouse (_Parus
pendulinus_).]
A surprisingly rich and varied life reigned in this marsh, though
only a very small fraction of the feathered population could be seen,
and indeed the tide of migration was still in full flood. Great
flocks of black terns flew in almost unbroken succession up the
river, sometimes assembling in compact swarms, sometimes distributing
themselves over the whole breadth of the flooded Danube; hundreds of
glossy or dark ibises wandered up and down the stream, flying in the
usual wedge-shaped order towards or away from the neighbouring river
Theiss, apparently still in search of suitable nesting-places; purple
herons, common herons, and squacco herons strode about fishing in all
accessible parts of the great expanse of water; marsh-barriers flew
along their accustomed routes carrying long reed-stalks to their nests;
ducks, mating a second time because the flood had robbed them of their
eggs, rose noisily from the water on the approach of our small flat
boat, while grebes and dabchicks dived for safety--in short, every
part of the vast expanse was peopled. A forester well acquainted with
all the paths through the submerged wood, awaited us in a house which
rose above the flood like an island, and acted as our guide through a
forest-wilderness which far surpassed all that we had hitherto seen,
for the water had added new obstacles to those always present. Brushing
past many branches which must usually be high above the ground, often
stooping beneath boughs which blocked our way, we attempted to find
a route between half or wholly fallen trees, logs, and drift-wood,
and to penetrate to the heart of the forest. Brooding mallards, whose
nests in the tops of the willows had been spared by the flood, did not
rise on our approach, even though we glided by within a yard of them.
Eared grebes, which were out on the open water, when they saw us,
swam sideways into the green thicket of tree-crowns, chiefly willows,
which rose just above the surface; water-wagtails ran from one piece
of drift-wood to another; spotted woodpeckers and nut-hatches clung to
the tree-trunks close to the water, and searched for food as usual. One
picture of bird-life crowded upon another; but all seemed unfamiliar,
because altered by the prevailing conditions. To reach a sea-eagle’s
eyrie we were obliged to wade a long distance; to visit a raven’s nest
we had to make a wide détour. Hunting in the approved fashion was
impossible under such circumstances, but our expedition rewarded us
richly. To me personally it afforded the pleasure of seeing one of the
best of the feathered architects of Europe, the penduline titmouse,
at work on its nest, and of observing for the first time its life and
habits.[88]
The following day our whole company assembled in one of the woods
already mentioned. A Hungarian forester had made preparations for a
wolf-drive on a grand scale, but had arranged it so unskilfully that
Friend Isegrim succeeded in slipping away unperceived. The unpromising
chase was therefore soon abandoned, and the short time which remained
to us was devoted to more profitable observation of the bird-life in
the forest.
In the course of the same afternoon we left Kovil, reached Peterwardein
the same evening, steamed past Fruskagora early in the night, left the
vessel once more the following day to hunt in the marsh of Hullo, saw
there the noble heron which we had until then sought for in vain, but
were obliged to hurry onwards so as not to miss the fast train for
Vienna. Gratefully looking back on the days we had spent, and lamenting
the swiftness with which they had sped, we steamed rapidly past all the
river forests, which had afforded us so much enjoyment, and, with the
ardent wish that we might some day return to spend a longer time in it,
we took leave of this rich and unique country.
NOTES BY THE EDITOR.
THE BIRD-BERGS OF LAPLAND.
For other pictures of Arctic Natural History the reader may profitably
consult the following works:--
Collett, R. _Bird Life in Arctic Norway._ Trans. by A. H. Cocks
(London, 1894).
Nordenskiöld, A. E. _The Voyage of the “Vega” Round Asia and Europe_,
with a Historical Review of Previous Journeys along the North Coast of
the Old World (Trans. by A. Leslie, 2 vols., London, 1881).
Gilder, W. H. _Ice-Pack and Tundra_, an Account of the Search for the
_Jeanette_, and a Sledge Journey through Siberia (8vo, London, 1883.
Chiefly personal, not scientific).
Hovgaard, A. _Nordenskiöld’s Voyage Round Asia and Europe_, a Popular
Account of the North-east Passage of the _Vega_, 1878-80 (Trans. by H.
L. Brækstad, 8vo, London, 1882).
Pennant’s _Arctic Zoology_ (1785).
Note 1: p. 38.--_Dense masses of fish._
I have consulted a Scandinavian pisciculturist, who, while not
corroborating the occurrence of such vast multitudes, admitted the
periodic appearance of dense local swarms, such as are sometimes seen
in the lochs in the west of Scotland.
Note 2: p. 45.--_The female eider-duck plucking the male._
The popular story of the male eider being made to furnish down for the
nest, after the mother-bird’s supply is exhausted, must, we fear, be
regarded as a misstatement. See Newton’s _Dictionary of Birds_ (London,
1893), and other authoritative works on ornithology. Perhaps the story
has some basis in the fact that for a short time after the breeding
season the males undergo a change of plumage, becoming less decorative
and more like the females.
Note 3: p. 48.--_Economic value of eider-down._
According to Stejneger, each nest yields about an ounce and a third.
From Greenland and Iceland alone, six thousand pounds, or the contents
of seventy-two thousand nests, are yearly exported. Nordenskiöld
notes that the quantity of eider-down brought from the polar lands to
Tromsöe amounted in 1868 to 540 kilogrammes, in 1869 to 963, in 1870
to 882, in 1871 to 630, in 1872 to 306, and that the total annual yield
may be probably estimated at three times as much.
Note 4: p. 57.--_Auks._
A graphic description of the King-auks (_Alle alle_), which breed in
Spitzbergen, is given by Nordenskiöld in the work above mentioned.
The name auk is oftenest applied only to the razor-bills, but is also
used collectively for other members of the family Alcidæ, such as
guillemots and puffins.
Note 5: p. 59.--_Altrices and Præcoces._
Altrices or nidicolæ are those birds which are more or less helpless
when hatched. They are often blind and naked, and unable to leave the
nest. The food-yolk has been mostly or wholly used up before birth, and
the young depend on what their parents bring them. Examples are doves,
hawks, and passerine birds.
Præcoces or nidifugæ are those birds which are more or less able to run
about when hatched. They are born with their eyes open, with a covering
of down, and with much of their yolk still unused. Examples are running
birds, fowl, gulls, and ducks.
THE TUNDRA AND ITS ANIMAL LIFE.
In addition to Nordenskiöld’s voyage, and other works already cited,
the following may be consulted by those who wish to amplify their
picture of the Tundra and its life:--
Seebohm. _Siberia in Asia_ (1882).
Jackson, F. G. _The Great Frozen Land_ (Bolshaia Zemelskija Tundra).
Narrative of a winter journey across the Tundras and a sojourn among
the Samoyedes (ed. from the author’s journal by A. Montefiore, 8vo,
London, 1895).
Note 6 and 7: pp. 63 and 71.--_The Tundra._
With Brehm’s picture of the Tundra, it is interesting to compare that
given by Mr. Seebohm in his address to the Geographical Section of the
British Association at Nottingham, 1893. (_Scottish Geogr. Magazine_,
ix. (1893), pp. 505-23, with map.)
“In exposed situations, especially in the higher latitudes, the tundra
does really merit its American name of Barren Ground, being little
else than gravel beds interspersed with bare patches of peat or
clay, and with scarcely a rush or a sedge to break the monotony. In
Siberia, at least, this is very exceptional. By far the greater part
of the tundra, both east and west of the Ural Mountains, is a gently
undulating plain, full of lakes, rivers, swamps, and bogs. The lakes
are diversified with patches of green water plants, amongst which ducks
and swans float and dive; the little rivers flow between banks of rush
and sedge; the swamps are masses of tall rushes and sedges of various
species, where phalaropes and ruffs breed, and the bogs are brilliant
with the white fluffy seeds of the cotton-grass. The groundwork of all
this variegated scenery is more beautiful and varied still--lichens
and moss of almost every conceivable colour, from the cream-coloured
reindeer-moss to the scarlet-cupped trumpet-moss, interspersed with a
brilliant alpine flora, gentians, anemones, saxifrages, and hundreds of
plants, each a picture in itself, the tall aconites, both the blue and
yellow species, the beautiful cloudberry, with its gay white blossom
and amber fruit, the flagrant _Ledum palustre_ and the delicate pink
_Andromeda polifolia_. In the sheltered valleys and deep water-courses
a few stunted birches, and sometimes large patches of willow scrub,
survive the long severe winter, and serve as cover for willow-grouse or
ptarmigan. The Lapland bunting and red-throated pipit are everywhere
to be seen, and certain favoured places are the breeding grounds of
plovers and sandpipers of many species. So far from meriting the name
of Barren Ground, the tundra is for the most part a veritable paradise
in summer. But it has one almost fatal drawback--it swarms with
millions of mosquitoes.”
Note 8: p. 72.--_The Mammoth._
The Mammoth (_Elephas primigenius_) was a near relative of the Indian
elephant, if not indeed a variety of the same species. One of its
characteristics was a woolly covering of brownish hair, rudimentary
traces of which have been found in the Indian species.
It was abundant in Europe before the glacial epoch, and seems to have
been especially common in Siberia. Lydekker’s _Royal Natural History_
gives a good account of the finding of the mammoth, and the striking
fact is noticed that the imports of fossil ivory into England prove
that, within a period of twenty years, over 20,000 mammoths must have
been discovered.
As Brehm describes, the carcasses are found frozen in the soil, to
all appearance just as the animals died, but the explanation of this
is obscure. The particular case to which he alludes was one of the
earliest finds--by Adams in 1806. Before Adams reached the carcass,
which had been known for some years, the dogs of the yakuts had eaten
most of the flesh.
See also Vogt’s _Natural History of Mammals_.
Note 9: p. 73.--_Colour of the Arctic Fox._
On the interesting question of the winter colour-change, Mr. Poulton’s
_Colours of Animals_ and Mr. Beddard’s _Animal Coloration_ should be
consulted.
Note 10: p. 75.--_Reindeer devouring Lemming._
With reference to Brehm’s statement as to reindeer eating lemming,
I may note a report on creditable authority that in the hard winter
1894-5 stags in Aberdeenshire were known to have eaten rabbits.
Note 11: p. 76.--_Migration of the Lemming._
A careful discussion of the strange migratory instinct of the lemming
will be found in the late Mr. Romanes’s _Mental Evolution in Animals_.
Note 12: p. 77.--_Food of the Reindeer._
Though the reindeer may eat grasses and aquatic plants, its great
resource is the so-called reindeer-moss, which is really a lichen,
common on the mountain heights of the interior where the herds pass the
winter.
Note 13: p. 80.--_The Phalarope._
Of the Grey Phalarope (_Phalaropus fulicarius_) and the Red-necked
Phalarope (_Phalaropus hyperboreus_), both occurring in Britain,
Professor Newton says: “A more entrancing sight to the ornithologist
can hardly be presented than by either of these species. Their graceful
form, their lively coloration, and the confidence with which both
are familiarly displayed in their breeding-quarters, can hardly be
exaggerated, and it is equally a delightful sight to watch the birds
gathering their food in the high--running surf, or, when that is done,
peacefully floating outside the breakers.” See also Collett’s _Bird
Life in Arctic Norway_.
Note 14: p. 84.--_Sense of smell and touch._
The somewhat mysterious reference which Brehm makes to a sense between
smell and touch is thoroughly justifiable. To the senses of many of the
lower animals--and even of fishes--it is exceedingly difficult to apply
our fairly definite human conceptions of smell, taste, touch, &c.
Note 15: p. 85.--_Mosquitoes._
This general term covers a large number of species belonging to the
gnat genus (_Culex_). They are very various in size, and are widely
distributed from the Tropics to the Poles. Their larvæ are aquatic, and
for their abundance the tundra obviously offers every opportunity.
THE ASIATIC STEPPES AND THEIR FAUNA.
See--
Bovalet, G. _Through the Heart of Asia_ (trans. by C. B. Pitman, 2
vols, London, 1889).
Jackson, F. G. _The Great Frozen Land_, cited above.
Note 16: p. 91.--_Flora of the steppe._
According to Seebohm (_op. cit._), “The cause of the treeless condition
of the steppes or prairies has given rise to much controversy. My own
experience in Siberia convinced me that the forests were rocky, and the
steppes covered with a deep layer of loose earth, and I came to the
conclusion that on the rocky ground the roots of the trees were able to
establish themselves firmly, so as to defy the strongest gales, which
tore them up when they were planted in loose soil. Other travellers
have formed other opinions. Some suppose that the prairies were once
covered with trees, which have been gradually destroyed by fires.
Others suggest that the earth on the treeless plains contains too much
salt or too little organic matter to be favourable to the growth of
trees. No one, so far as I know, has suggested a climatic explanation
of the circumstances. Want of drainage may produce a swamp, and the
deficiency of rainfall may cause a desert, both conditions being fatal
to forest growth, but no one can mistake either of these treeless
districts for a steppe or a prairie.” See also for general description
of steppe vegetation Kerner’s _Plant Life_ and Wiesner’s _Biologic der
Pflanzen_.
Note 17: p. 97.--_The Quagga._
The true quagga (_Equus quagga_), intermediate between zebras and
asses, is no longer known to exist, though it was described by Sir
Cornwallis Harris in 1839 as occurring in immense herds. The name
quagga is given by the Boers to Burchell’s zebra (_Equus burchelli_).
The same sad fact of approaching extermination must be noted in regard
to not a few noble animals, _e.g._ rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and
giraffe.
Selous writes in 1893: “To the best of my belief, the great white or
square-mouthed rhinoceros (_Rhinoceros simus_), the largest of modern
terrestrial mammals after the elephant, will, in the course of the next
few years, become absolutely extinct. Yet, twenty years ago, it was
a common animal over an enormous extent of country in Central South
Africa.
“Never again will the traveller be able to stand upon his wagon-box,
and, like Burchell, Andrew Smith, Cornwallis Harris, and Gordon
Cumming, scan plains literally darkened by thousands upon thousands of
wildebeests, quaggas, Burchell’s zebras, blesboks, hartebeests, and
spring-boks.”
Note 18: p. 97.--_The Buffalo._
The American bison or buffalo (_Bos americanus_) is now practically
exterminated.
Two sentences from _An Introduction to the Study of Mammals_, by Sir
W. H. Flower and Mr. R. Lydekker (London, 1891), put the case in a
nutshell.
“The multitudes in which the American bison formerly existed are almost
incredible; the prairies being absolutely black with them as far as the
eye could reach, the numbers in the herds being reckoned by millions.”
With the completion of the Kansas Branch of the Pacific Railway in
1871, the extraordinarily careless and ruthless slaughter began. In
less than ten years bison-shooting ceased to be profitable.
And now, “A herd of some two hundred wild individuals derived from the
northern herd is preserved in the Yellowstone National Park; and it
is believed that some five hundred of the race, known as Wood-Bison,
exist in British territory; _but with these exceptions this magnificent
species is exterminated_”.
A vivid account of the buffalo’s habits and of its rapid tragic
extermination will be found in Mr. Grinell’s essay “In Buffalo Days”
in _American Big-Game Hunting_ (Boone and Crockett Club), edited by Th.
Roosevelt and G. B. Grinell, Edinburgh, 1893.
See also Hornaday, _The Extirpation of the American Bison_, 1889, and
a monograph by J. A. Allen, “The American Bisons, Living and Extinct”:
_Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology_, Harvard, vol. iv., 1876.
Note 19: p. 102.--_Fighting-ruffs._
The ruff (_Machetes pugnax_) is in many ways a most interesting bird.
Thus, there is the rapid change of plumage, as the result of which the
male acquires his characteristic frill or ruff before the breeding
season. The indefatigable pugnacity of the males, the efficacy of
their shield, their assiduous polygamous courtship, their subsequent
carelessness as to the fate of the reeve and her young, and their
extraordinary “polymorphism”, are very remarkable. While the individual
peculiarities of plumage are very marked, each ruff is true season
after season to its own idiosyncrasy. Visitors to the National Museum
of Natural History in London will remember a beautiful case of ruffs in
the Entrance Hall.
Note 20: p. 103.--_Sky-goat._
Bleating of snipe. There has been much discussion as to the origin of
the peculiar drumming or bleating sound made by the snipe, to which it
owes its Scotch name of “heather-bleater”, but many at least agree with
Brehm.
Note 21: p. 106.--_Sand-grouse._
Sand-grouse (_Pterocles_ and _Syrrhaptes_), a group of birds quite
distinct from the grouse. One species, _Syrrhaptes paradoxus_, “ranging
from Northern China across Central Asia to the confines of Europe”,
has shown a tendency to extensive migration, visiting Britain, for
instance, in 1859, 1863, 1872, 1876, and abundantly in 1888. For a
concise account of these irregular invasions see Newton’s _Dictionary
of Birds_.
Note 22: p. 107.--_Yurt._
According to Radloff “jurte” or “yurt” is a general name for a more or
less transportable rough hut made of stakes, felt, bark, and the like,
varying slightly in construction in different districts. The ring to
which Brehm here refers is probably that through which the upper ends
of the converging stakes are thrust.
Note 23: p. 109.--_The Jerboa._
The rodent here referred to is the Kirghiz jerboa (_Alactaga
decumana_). What Brehm says as to its eating eggs and young birds is
confirmed by others.
Note 24: p. 115.--_The Sand-grouse or Steppe-grouse._
Pallas’s Sand-grouse (_Syrrhaptes paradoxus_), see note 21.
Note 25: p. 115--_Ancestry of the horse._
See Sir W. H. Flower’s little book on _The Horse_ (Modern Science
Series). The kulan or kiang is rather a wild ass than a wild horse,
and the balance of evidence in favour of regarding the Tarpan as in
the line of ancestry is greater than Brehm indicates. Flower suggests
that Przewalski’s horse, discovered some years ago in Central Asia, and
looked upon as a distinct species, may be a hybrid between the kiang
and the tarpan.
Note 26: p. 116.--_Ancestors of the cat and the goat._
It is very generally believed that our domestic cat is descended from
the sacred Egyptian or Caffre cat (_Felis caffra_). See St. George
Mivart’s monograph on the cat. Similarly, the breeds of domestic goat
are often referred to the Pasang or _Capra ægagrus_, found in Crete,
Asia Minor, Persia, &c. See a vivid essay by Buxton in his _Short
Stalks_, entitled “The Father of all the Goats”.
Note 27: p. 116.--_Wild camels._
An interesting note on wild camels in Spain--a strayed herd--is to be
found in _Wild Spain_ by Chapman and Buck. St. George Littledale has
recently discussed (_Proc. Zoological Society_, 1894) the question
whether the camels of Lob-nor, on the slope of Altyn Tag, are remains
of a wild stock or strayed. No wild dromedaries are known, and the same
is probably true of camels.
THE FORESTS AND SPORT OF SIBERIA.
See also--
W. Radloff, _Aus Sibirien_, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1884.
A. Th. von Middendorf, _Voyage dans l’extrême Nord et dams l’est de la
Sibérie_ (_St. Petersburg_, 1848).
Note 28: p. 123.--_The Life of the Forest._
With Brehm’s description of this minor forest, the reader should
compare that which Stanley gives of “The Great Central African Forest”
(chap. xxiii. of 2nd vol. of _In Darkest Africa_). He computes the size
of the main mass at 321,057 square miles. A few sentences from his
description may be quoted.
“Imagine the whole of France and the Iberian peninsula closely packed
with trees varying from 20 to 180 feet high, whose crowns of foliage
interlace and prevent any view of sky and sun, and each tree from a
few inches to four feet in diameter. Then from tree to tree run cables
from two inches to fifteen inches in diameter, up and down in loops
and festoons and W’s and badly-formed M’s; fold them round the trees
in great tight coils, until they have run up the entire height like
endless anacondas; let them flower and leaf luxuriantly, and mix up
above with the foliage of the trees to hide the sun, then from the
highest branches let fall the ends of the cables reaching near to the
ground by hundreds with frayed extremities, for these represent the air
roots of the epiphytes; let slender cords hang down also in tassels
with open threadwork at the ends. Work others through and through
as confusedly as possible, and pendent from branch to branch--with
absolute disregard of material, and at every fork and on every
horizontal branch plant cabbage-like lichens of the largest kind, and
broad spear-leaved plants--these would represent the elephant-eared
plant--and orchids and clusters of vegetable marvels, and a drapery of
delicate ferns which abound. Now cover tree, branch, twig, and creeper
with a thick moss like a green fur.”
He goes on to describe the rush of life to fill up each gap--the
struggle for existence--the crowding, crushing, and strangling--the
death and disease.
“To complete the mental picture of this ruthless forest, the ground
should be strewn thickly with half-formed humus of rotting twigs,
leaves, branches; every few yards there should be a prostrate giant, a
reeking compost of rotten fibres, and departed generations of insects,
and colonies of ants, half veiled with masses of vines and shrouded
by the leafage of a multitude of baby saplings, lengthy briars and
calamus in many fathom lengths, and every mile or so there should be
muddy streams, stagnant creeks, and shallow pools, green with duckweed,
leaves of lotus and lilies, and a greasy green scum composed of
millions of finite growths.”
Note 29: p. 126.--_Appearance of Decay in the Forests._
A closely similar picture is given by Mr. E. N. Buxton in recounting
a journey in the Rocky Mountains. He says: “This bane of pack-trains
is caused by forest fires, which have burnt out the life of the trees,
leaving only gaunt stems and blackened ground, followed by tempests
which have whirled these tottering giants in heaps to the ground. In
places the stems lie parallel to one another, and piled to the height
of many feet as though they had been laid in sheaves. Elsewhere, while
some have stood the shock and are still erect, their neighbours lie
prone at every conceivable angle to one another, and their branches
pierce the air as weathered snags. This ghastly waste, whether brought
about by natural causes, or the recklessness of man, will have to be
paid for some day, for are we not within measurable distance of the
inevitable world-wide timber-famine” (E. N. Buxton, _Short Stalks_,
1893).
See also Rodway’s _In the Guiana Forest_ (London, 1895), and article
“Death in the Forest” (_Natural Science_, Sept., 1892).
Note 30: p. 129.--_Taiga._
“A strip of Alpine region, 100-150 miles in breadth, consisting of
separate mountain-chains whose peaks rise from 4800-6500 feet above
sea-level, and beyond the limits of forest vegetation.” According to
Radloff, the name _taiga_ is also generally applied by the Kalmucks to
wooded and rocky mountain-land.
Note 31: p. 135.--_Extermination of the Beaver._
Mr. Martin, in his eulogy of the beaver (_Castorologia_, 1892),
describes the rapid diminution of numbers in Canada, largely as the
result of careless greed, but also through the spread of colonisation.
He believes that by the end of the century, none will be found except
in museums. Their rarity in Europe is well known.
Note 32: p. 136.--_Export of skins._
Radloff notes, in 1884, that the yearly sale of furs at the Irbitsch
fair amounts to between three and four millions of roubles.
Note 33: p. 144.--_Velvet of antlers._
An account of the various ways in which pounded antlers and the
vascular velvet were once used in medicine will be found in Prof. W.
Marshall’s recent _Arzenei-Kästlein_, Leipzig, 1894.
Note 34: p. 147.--_The Elk._
The elk (_Alces machlis_) is the largest of the land animals of Europe,
and is the same as the “moose” of Canada.
Note 35: p. 150.--_Rouble._
This varies from 3_s._ 8_d._ to 3_s._ 10_d._, but is usually reckoned
as 4_s._ Of the kopeks, afterwards referred to, a hundred go to the
rouble.
Note 36: p. 161.--_Brick Tea._
Broken or powdered tea-leaves mixed with the blood of the sheep or ox,
and formed into cakes. Other fragrant leaves are sometimes added.
Note 37: p. 165.--_The Bear rearing her cubs._
I have been unable to find any corroboration of this story as to the
she-bear employing her children of a former year as nurses.
THE STEPPES OF INNER AFRICA.
See--
Selous, F. C. _Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa_ (1893).
Solymos, B. (B. E. Falkenberg). _Desert Life: Recollections of an
Expedition in the Soudan._ London, 1880.
Foà, E. _Mes grandes Chasses dans l’Afrique Centrale._ Paris, 1895.
Lichtenstein, M. H. K. _Reise im Südlichen Africa._ Berlin, 1812.
G. Schweinfurth. _The Heart of Africa._
J. Thomson. _Through Masai Land._
_Emin Pasha in Central Africa._ Edited by Schweinfurth, Ratzel,
Felkin, and Hartlaub. London, 1885.
Also well-known works by Livingstone, Stanley, &c.
Note 38: p. 170.--_Heat in the Desert._
50° Celsius, or Centigrade = 122° Fahrenheit. Temperatures of 121°,
122°, 133° Fahr., and so on, have been repeatedly recorded in the
desert. Solymos, in his _Desert Life_, notes 115° Fahr. in the shade as
the maximum for his year. He also calls attention to the frost and ice!
“Duveyrier registered frost twenty-six times between December and March
in the plains of the Central Sahara.” His picture of the desert-well is
much less optimistic than Brehm’s.
Note 39: p. 173.--_The Termites._
Termites or “white ants” are very characteristic, wood-eating insects
of tropical Africa and other warm countries. Though not related to the
true ants, they have somewhat similar social organizations.
The reader will be rewarded who turns to Prof. Henry Drummond’s
_Tropical Africa_, where there is not only a graphic description of
the ways of the termites, but an interesting theory of their possible
agricultural importance. As they avoid the light, and travel on the
trees only under cover of their tunnels of finely-comminuted and
cemented earth, they must be continually pulverizing the soil. When
rain-storms come this fine dust is washed from the trees, and some of
it may go to swell the alluvium of distant valleys. Hence the termite
may be, like the earthworm, a soil-maker of considerable importance.
Mr. H. A. Bryden, in his _Gun and Camera in Southern Africa_ (London,
1893), writes as follows of the termites: “Our cases, portmanteaus,
&c., were arranged round, but not touching the walls. Every article
reposed on glass bottles, as the only known protection against the
depredations of white ants.... They will eat large holes in a thick
tweed coat in one night, and anything softer than metal left to their
tender mercies for a night or two is irretrievably ruined.... If the
huts are inspected every few days, the tunnels of self-made mortar
can be swept away, and the depredator kept at all events to the
flooring.... Most housewives have, at least once a year, to institute a
crusade against the marauders, dig up the flooring, and attempt to find
the queen. If the queen-ant can be successfully located and dug up, the
nuisance is ended; the rest of the ants, bereft of their sovereign, at
once quit the building, and for a season trouble no more.... In the
forests to the north and west the mischief done by these insects is
enormous. The tree is attacked, the tunnels are run up along the bole,
the wood is pierced and riddled, and the work of destruction is soon
completed.”
There is, however, a lack of precise observation as to the extent to
which termites attack trees which are altogether sound and living. In
great measure they merely hasten and complete a destruction for whose
initiation they are not responsible.
Note 40: p. 173.--_Summer Sleep._
Summer-sleep in torrid regions, affecting a few fishes, amphibians, and
reptiles, is a phenomenon analogous to hibernation elsewhere, but its
physiological explanation is even more obscure.
Note 41: p. 174.--_The Karroo._
Karroo, a general name for the highland steppes of South Africa. See H.
A. Bryden’s _Kloof and Karroo_ (1889).
Note 42: p. 178.--Cerastes (_Vipera hasselquistii_).
The horned viper is the most common viper of Northern Africa. It is
extremely poisonous. It is of a brownish-white colour with darker
markings, and has a scaly spine or horn over each eye. This species is
usually supposed to have been Cleopatra’s asp.
Note 43: p. 182. See Note 39.
Note 44: p. 183.--_The mud-fish._
This remarkable animal (_Protopterus_) is one of the Double-breathers
or Dipnoi, a member of a small class between Fishes and Amphibians,
represented by three genera--_Ceratodus_ in Queensland, _Lepidosiren_
in Brazil, and this _Protopterus_ in Africa. They differ in many ways
from other fishes, being physiologically intermediate between Fishes
and Amphibians. Hundreds of specimens have been brought within their
‘nests’ from Africa to Europe. Brehm speaks of the complete enclosure
of the capsule, but this is now known to communicate with the outer
world by a tubular passage through the mud. At the foot of this tube
the mud-fish keeps his nostrils. The lung is a specialization of the
swim-bladder which is present in most fishes.
Note 45: p. 184.--_The Royal Aspis or Uräus._
The Uräus snake or Aspis is the well-known Egyptian jugglers’ snake
(_Naja haje_). It may be over six feet in length, and is very deadly.
Note 46: p. 185.--_Spitting poison._
The poison of a snake is contained in the secretion of a specialized
salivary gland. The compression of this venom gland propels the fluid
along a duct which leads to the groove or canal of the fang. Infection
with the venom only occurs when, by more or less of a bite, the poison
is injected into the victim. No spitting of poison is known, nor would
it have effect without a wound.
Note 47: p. 186.--_The Gecko._
Figures and a brief description of the gecko’s clinging foot will be
found in Semper’s well-known _Animal Life_ (International Science
Series, 1881). The clinging power is due to numerous long bristle-like
hairs on the sole of the foot. These appear to be modifications of the
“casting-hairs” which are used in “skin-casting”.
Note 48: p. 191.--_Dance of Ostrich._
A vivid picture of the Ostrich dance will be found in Prof. Lloyd
Morgan’s _Animal Sketches_ (1892).
Note 49: p. 192.--_Ostrich._
Prof. Newton, in his _Dictionary of Birds_, notes that Ostriches,
though sometimes assembling in troops of 30-50, commonly live in
companies of four or five--one cock and the rest hens. This is
especially true at the breeding season. All the hens lay together; the
cock broods during the night; the hens take turns during the day, more,
it would seem, to guard their common treasure from jackals and small
beasts of prey than directly to forward the process of hatching, for
that is often left wholly to the sun. Some thirty eggs are laid in the
nest, and round it are scattered perhaps as many more, which are said
to be used as food for the newly-hatched chicks.
Compare works cited in that article: M. H. K. Lichtenstein, _Reise
im südlichen Africa_ (Berlin, 1812); Fursch and Hartlaub, _Vögel Ost
Afrikas_; De Mosenthal and Harting, _Ostrich and Ostrich Farming_;
also, Mrs. Martin, _Home Life on an Ostrich Farm_.
Note 50: p. 193.--_Primaries and Secondaries._
Primary feathers are the longer quill-feathers of the wing, and are
borne by the ‘hand’ of the bird; the secondaries are the quill-feathers
higher up, borne by the ulna of the arm.
THE PRIMEVAL FORESTS OF CENTRAL AFRICA.
Note 51: p. 220.--_Hornbills._
Members of the family Bucerotidæ, including some 60 species whose
generic arrangement is uncertain. Of their habits Prof. Newton says:
“They breed in holes of trees, laying large white eggs, and when the
hen begins to sit, the cock plasters up the entrance with mud or
clay, leaving only a small window, through which she receives the
food he brings her during her voluntary imprisonment”. He notes Mr.
Bartlett’s discovery, confirmed by others, that the hornbills cast out
at intervals the lining of their gizzard in the form of a bag, which is
filled with the fruit that the bird has been eating, and asks whether
“these castings are really intended to form the hen-bird’s food during
her confinement”.
Note 52: p. 221.--_Umber- or Umbre-bird._
This bird, whose name refers to the earthy-brown colour, is the
Hammer-head or _Scopus umbretta_ of ornithologists. Of the nest, Prof.
Newton says that “it is occasionally some six feet in diameter, a mass
of sticks, roots, grass, and rushes compactly piled together, with a
flat-topped roof, the interior being neatly lined with clay, and a hole
of entrance and exit”. It may be of interest to compare its nest with
that of the South American Oven-birds (_Furnarius_, &c.).
Note 53: p. 221.--_Doves beside falcons._
Those interested in the facts of nature which suggest the danger
of exaggerating the Darwinian idea of the struggle for existence
should consult two articles by Kropotkine, entitled “Mutual Aid Among
Animals”, in the _Nineteenth Century_, 1889. Kropotkine cites from Dr.
Coues, an American ornithologist, an observation in regard to some
little cliff swallows which nested quite near the home of a prairie
falcon. “The little peaceful birds had no fear of their rapacious
neighbour; they did not let it even approach to their colony. They
immediately surrounded it and chased it, so that it had to make off at
once.”
Note 54: p. 223.--_And they know that this is so._
Brehm suggests here and elsewhere what it would be difficult to prove,
that animals which have unconsciously acquired protective colouring,
and which instinctively crouch or lie still instead of trying to escape
by flight, are aware of their adaptation to concealment. There seem to
be but few cases which give countenance to this supposition.
Note 55: p. 227.--_Crocodile Bird._
This is usually regarded as _Pluvianus_ or _Hyas ægyptius_--one of the
“plovers” in the wide sense. Professor Newton observes, however, in a
note to the article “Plover” in his _Dictionary of Birds_ that there
is not perfect unanimity on the matter, as some have supposed that
the “crocodile bird” was a lapwing--_Hoplopterus spinosus_. But the
elder Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Brehm, who both saw the bird enter the
reptile’s mouth, regarded it as _Pluvianus ægyptius_.
Dr. Leith Adams notes (1870) that the crocodile is now rarely seen
below Beni Hassan, and is evidently receding everywhere below the
second cataract. Both Herodotus and Strabo speak of its domestication,
and it is tamed at the present day by certain religious sects in India.
On the lower Nile it is shy and difficult even to shoot.
“A sail, or the smoke and noise of a steamboat, suffice to warn the
crocodiles basking on the sand-banks, or their common companions,
the black-headed and spur-winged plovers (_Pluvianus ægyptius_ and
_Hoplopterus spinosus_), which are frequently seen perched on their
backs, and always prepared to give timely warning of approaching
danger, just as the Father of History noticed them 2300 years ago,
and, strange to say, his well-known story is current among the modern
Egyptians, who, as usual, have put a tail to the narrative. They say,
that in addition to its office of leech-catcher to the crocodile, it
occasionally does happen that the zic-zac--so called from its note of
alarm--in searching for the leeches, finds its way into the reptile’s
mouth when the latter is basking on a sand-bank, where it lies
generally with the jaws wide apart. Now this is possible and likely
enough, but the captain of our boat added, that occasionally the
crocodile falls asleep, when the jaws suddenly fall, and the zic-zac is
shut up in the mouth, when it immediately prods the crocodile with its
horny spurs, as if refreshing the memory of his reptilian majesty, who
opens his jaws and sets his favourite leech-catcher at liberty” (Leith
Adams).
MIGRATIONS OF MAMMALS.
Note 56: p. 237.--_Rats._
The brown rat (_Mus decumanus_) is much stronger than the black rat
(_Mus rattus_), and gains an easy victory. The rivalry between the two
species is one of the examples Darwin gives of his generalization that
the struggle for existence is most severe between allied forms, and
there seems no doubt that the brown rat has often ousted and will even
devour the black rat. The latter is now rare in Britain. It should be
noted, however, (1) that the two species are said sometimes to live
together on board ship, (2) that cases have been recorded where the
black rat returned and defeated its conquerors, and (3) that the black
rat keeps more about houses, stables, and barns, is therefore more
readily exterminated by man, whose efforts were doubtless increased
when a second species appeared on the scene. The case is of some
importance in connection with the generalization referred to above.
Note 57: p. 240.--_Migrations of Reindeer._
Of the reindeer in Spitzbergen, Nordenskiöld writes:--“During the
summer it betakes itself to the grassy plains in the ice-free valleys
of the island; in the late autumn it withdraws--according to the
walrus-hunter’s statements--to the sea-coast, in order to eat the
seaweed that is thrown up on the beach. In winter it goes back to the
lichen-clad mountain heights in the interior of the country, where it
appears to thrive exceedingly well, though the cold during winter must
be excessively severe; for when the reindeer in spring return to the
coast they are still very fat, but some weeks afterwards, when the
snow has frozen on the surface, and a crust of ice makes it difficult
for them to get at the mountain sides, they become so poor as to be
scarcely eatable. In summer, however, they speedily eat themselves back
into condition, and in autumn they are so fat that they would certainly
take prizes at an exhibition of fat cattle.”
Wrangel describes migrations of thousands of reindeer in Eastern
Siberia moving from the mountains to the forests, where they winter.
He mentions his guide’s assertion that each body is led by a female of
large size.
Perhaps we may take the liberty of quoting, with a tribute of
admiration, Mr. F. Marion Crawford’s eloquent description of a wild
rush of reindeer from the inland country to the shore. We confess to
incredulity in regard to the reindeer’s longing to drink of the Polar
Sea, but the splendid vividness of the description may excuse some
slight inaccuracy.
“In the distant northern plains, a hundred miles from the sea, in the
midst of the Laplander’s village, a young reindeer raises his broad
muzzle to the north wind, and stares at the limitless distance while a
man may count a hundred. He grows restless from that moment, but he is
yet alone. The next day a dozen of the herd look up from the cropping
of the moss, sniffing the breeze. Then the Laps nod to one another and
the camp grows daily more unquiet. At times the whole herd of young
deer stand at gaze, as it were, breathing hard through wide nostrils,
then jostling each other and stamping the soft ground. They grow
unruly, and it is hard to harness them in the light sledge. As the days
pass, the Laps watch them more and more closely, well knowing what will
happen sooner or later, and then at last, in the northern twilight, the
great herd begins to move. The impulse is simultaneous, irresistible,
their heads are all turned in one direction. They move slowly at
first, biting still, here and there, at the rich moss. Presently the
slow step becomes a trot, they crowd closely together, while the Laps
hasten to gather up their last unpacked possessions--their cooking
utensils and their wooden gods. The great herd break together from
a trot to a gallop, from a gallop to a breakneck race, the distant
thunder of their united tread reaches the camp during a few minutes,
and they are gone to drink of the Polar Sea. The Laps follow after
them, dragging painfully their laden sledges in the broad track left
by the thousands of galloping beasts--a day’s journey, and they are
yet far from the sea, and the trail is yet broad. On the second day it
grows narrower, and there are stains of blood to be seen; far on the
distant plain before them their sharp eyes distinguish in the direct
line a dark motionless object, another, and another. The race has grown
more desperate and more wild as the stampede neared the sea. The weaker
reindeer have been thrown down and trampled to death by their stronger
fellows. A thousand sharp hoofs have crushed and cut through hide and
flesh and bone. Ever swifter and more terrible in their motion, the
ruthless herd has raced onward, careless of the slain, careless of
food, careless of any drink but the sharp salt water ahead of them.
And when at last the Laplanders reach the shore their deer are once
more quietly grazing, once more tame and docile, once more ready to
drag the sledge whithersoever they are guided. Once in his life the
reindeer must taste of the sea in one long, satisfying draught, and if
he is hindered he perishes. Neither man nor beast dare stand before him
in the hundred miles of his arrow-like path.”--_A Cigarette-Maker’s
Romance_, vol. ii. pp. 23-25.
Note 58: p. 241.--_Migrations of Bisons._
In regard to the migration of the bison or buffalo, Mr. G. B. Grinnell
writes:--“It was once thought that the buffalo performed annually
extensive migrations, and it was even said that those which spent
the summer on the banks of the Saskatchewan wintered in Texas. There
is no reason for believing this to have been true. Undoubtedly there
were slight general movements north and south, and east and west,
at certain seasons of the year; but many of the accounts of these
movements are entirely misleading, because grossly exaggerated. In
one portion of the northern country I know that there was a decided
east-and-west seasonal migration, the herds tending in spring away from
the mountains, while in the autumn they worked back again, seeking
shelter in the rough, broken country of the foot-hills from the cold
west winds of the winter.”--_American Big-Game Hunting_ (Boone and
Crockett Club), edited by Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell,
Edin., 1893.
Note 59: p. 250.--_Migrations of Seals._
Much interesting information as to the migrations and habits of seals
will be found in J. A. Allen’s _History of North American Pinnipedia_.
The eared fur-seals (_Otaria_) and others travel periodically to the
breeding-places or “rookeries”, where they spend a considerable time,
but it should be noted that our common seal (_Phoca vitulina_) does not
make seasonal migrations.
Note 60: p. 256.--_Instinct of the Lemming._
A discussion of the strange instinct of the lemming, remarkable in its
apparent fatality, will be found in Romanes’s _Mental Evolution in
Animals_.
Note 61: p. 258.--_Numbers of Springbok._
“I beheld the plains and even the hillsides which stretched on every
side of me thickly covered, not with herds, but with one vast mass of
springboks; as far as the eye could strain the landscape was alive with
them, until they softened down into a dim red mass of living creatures.
To endeavour to form any idea of the number of antelopes which I had
that day beheld were vain, but I have no hesitation in saying that some
hundreds of thousands were within the compass of my vision.”--_Gordon
Cumming._ With this should be compared what other sportsmen and
travellers have in recent years told us of rapidly diminishing numbers.
Note 62: p. 260.--_The Monkey Question._
The position of evolutionists in regard to the relations of man and
monkeys is conveniently stated in Huxley’s _Man’s Place in Nature_.
A criticism of the thorough-going evolutionist position, from the
philosopher’s point of view, will be found in Professor Calderwood’s
_Evolution and Man’s Place in Nature_. A midway position is indicated
in Wallace’s _Darwinism_.
While most naturalists are now thoroughly evolutionist in regard to the
descent or ascent of man, as in regard to other problems, most would
probably agree with Lloyd Morgan’s cautious conclusion:--
“In denying to animals the perception of relations and the faculty
of reason, I do so in no dogmatic spirit, and not in support of any
preconceived theory or opinion, but because the evidence now before us
is not, in my opinion, sufficient to justify the hypothesis that any
animals have reached that stage of mental evolution at which they are
even incipiently rational.”
Probably all naturalists allow that animals who profit by experience
and adapt their actions to varying circumstances are _intelligent_.
But cases which force us to credit animals with general ideas, with
“thinking the therefore”, in short, with reason, are admitted by few.
LOVE AND COURTSHIP AMONG BIRDS.
While admiring the vigorous protest which Brehm makes in this chapter
against the interpretation which regards animals as automata, I
feel that he has hardly done justice to it. In general terms, the
interpretation is that animals act as they do in virtue of an inherited
organic mechanism which responds in a uniform manner to certain
stimuli. That this is true of many animal and even human actions,
especially in early youth, seems highly probable. That it only covers
a small fraction of animal behaviour is certain. But even those who go
furthest in extending the scope of animal automatism, do not say that
an automatic act may not be accompanied by consciousness, they only say
that it is not _controlled_ by consciousness. See Huxley, _Are Animals
automata?_ in his collected Essays: and Lloyd Morgan, _Introduction to
Comparative Psychology_.
Note 63: p. 272.--_Sexual Selection._
For a statement of the doctrine of sexual selection, the original
document--Darwin’s _Descent of Man_--should be consulted. But the
theory has met with strong criticism, _e.g._ on the part of Alfred
Russel Wallace, see his _Darwinism_. See also _The Evolution of
Sex_, by Geddes and Thomson, and Lloyd Morgan’s _Animal Life and
Intelligence_.
Note 64: p. 279.--_Polygamous Birds._
Darwin has discussed the question of polygamous birds in his _Descent
of Man_.
Note 65: p. 281.--_The Widowed Bird._
For one of the finest expressions in literature of the possible
emotions of the widowed bird, we may be allowed to refer to Walt
Whitman’s “Out of the cradle endlessly rocking” (_Leaves of Grass_).
APES AND MONKEYS.
Note 66: p. 285.--_Descent from Monkeys._
Hanumân, the sacred Hindoo long-tailed monkey, plays an important part
in Hindoo mythology. He was the friend of Vishnu during his incarnation
as Rama Chandra, and he aided the god greatly in the search for his
wife Sita, who had been carried off by Ravān. A female slave, who had
tended Sita kindly during her captivity, was married to Hanumân as
a reward, and this pair some Indian noble families proudly claim as
ancestors.
Note 67: p. 286.--_Monkeys on the Rock of Gibraltar._
A letter written in 1880 by an officer in Gibraltar to the _Field_
newspaper and quoted in vol. i. of the _Royal Natural History_ gives
the number living on the Rock at that time as twenty-five, among whom
were only two adult males. There had been several gangs of them at one
time, but they had done so much damage in the town gardens that they
had been nearly exterminated by means of traps and poison. But in 1856,
when their numbers had been reduced to four or five, a garrison order
was issued forbidding further destruction of them, and since that time
they have been strictly preserved and regularly counted. In 1863, four
were imported from Africa, and after a time were admitted as members of
the band. Another attempt was made in 1872 to reinforce their numbers,
but it was unsuccessful.
Note 68: p. 290.--_Habits of Monkeys._
See Mr. Garner’s observations on monkeys (_Speech of Monkeys_, 1893);
Hartmann’s _Apes and Monkeys_ (Internat. Science Series), Romanes’s
_Animal Intelligence_ and _Mental Evolution in Animals_. H. A. Forbes,
_A Handbook to the Primates_ (Allen’s Naturalist’s Library; Lond.
1894). Mr. Havelock Ellis in his _Man and Woman_ (Lond. 1894) has some
interesting notes on the relation of young monkeys and young children
to the adult forms.
Note 69: p. 291.--_Death from Grief._
Instances of death from grief are given in Romanes’s _Animal
Intelligence_. See also a paper by Mr. Garner in _Harper’s Monthly_,
1894.
Note 70: p. 298.--_Speech of Monkeys._
See Mr. Garner’s _Speech of Monkeys_ (Lond. 1893), which tends to
support Brehm’s view. But in reference to Garner’s work, Lloyd
Morgan says, “Of the nine sounds made by capuchins, not one is, so
far as the observations go, indubitably indicative of a particular
object of desire. All of them may be, and would seem to be, in the
emotional stage, and expressive of satisfaction, discontent, alarm,
apprehension, and so forth. Still they may be indicative of particular
objects of appetence or aversion; and experiments with the phonograph,
conducted with due care and under test-conditions, may do much to
throw light upon an interesting and important problem.” After careful
consideration, Prof. Lloyd Morgan says, “At present, however, there is
not, so far as I am aware, any evidence that animals possess powers of
descriptive intercommunication involving perception of relations”.
Note 71: p. 298.--_Right and Wrong in Monkeys._
What is said here should be compared with the discussion of the
subject in Darwin’s _Descent of Man_, Romanes’s _Mental Evolution in
Animals_, or perhaps most conveniently in Lloyd Morgan’s _Introduction
to Comparative Psychology_ (Lond. 1894). According to the last-named
authority the moral sense “involves a thinking of the _ought_; it
involves a more or less definite perception of the relation of a given
act to an ideal standard”. “In none of these cases (cited), is there
sufficient evidence to justify a belief that a standard of conduct
takes form in the animal mind.”
Note 72: p. 303.--_Mutual Aid among Monkeys._
Mr. Darwin quotes this case in his _Descent of Man_, and calls the
monkey “a true hero”. Similar examples of mutual aid will be found in
the same work, as also in a couple of articles by Prince Kropotkine,
“Mutual Aid among Animals”, _Nineteenth Century_, 1889.
Note 73: p. 316.--_Effect of age._
There are some who hold that observation favours the opposite view,
that the young ape is relatively more human and less simian than the
adult. With these, rather than with Brehm, we agree. There is, however,
need of more precise physiological and psychological observation.
Note 74: p. 318.--_Man’s Place in Nature._
It should be noted that the zoologist’s usual statement of his position
is that he believes that men and the higher apes have arisen from a
common stock. See Huxley’s _Man’s Place in Nature_. As the anthropoid
apes are believed to have diverged as distinct types in Miocene times,
the common stock is plainly in the almost inconceivably distant past.
A belief in descent from a common stock does not in the least affect
the demonstrable distinctiveness of man, nor does it explain how the
evolution, whose results we are, took place. See Darwin’s _Descent of
Man_, and Drummond’s _Ascent of Man_.
DESERT JOURNEYS.
Note 75: p. 330.--_Nodules in the Desert._
These seem to be the now well-known manganese nodules. The puzzling
question of their origin is discussed by Dr. John Murray in that
part of the _Challenger_ Reports which deals with marine deposits.
Solymos thus describes them, “Belted by higher hills, I have mounted
one, apparently consisting entirely of a lofty pile of hardened equal
sandstone balls, the size of peaches. They were as nearly globular as
anything in nature--a bubble, a drop, a planet.”
NUBIA AND THE NILE RAPIDS.
For some interesting geological and zoological observations see A.
Leith Adams, _Notes of a Naturalist in the Nile Valley and Malta_
(1870). J. H. Speke, _Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the
Nile_ (1864).
Note 76: p. 358,--_On the Nile and its Cataracts._
See Sir Samuel Baker’s _The Nile and its Tributaries_ (1867), and
Walter Budge, _The Nile: Notes for Travellers in Egypt_ (1890).
Note 77: p. 359.--_Syenite._
Syenite, a hard crystalline rock, resembling granite, and well adapted
for monuments. It is not known in Britain, but occurs in many parts of
Europe and America, as well as at the place to which it owes its name.
Note 78: p. 362.--_Philæ._
Philæ has recently been a centre of attention in connection with the
Egyptian waterworks. See Sir Benjamin Baker, “Nile Reservoirs and
Philæ”, _Nineteenth Century_, xxxv. (1894), pp. 863-72; J. P. Mahaffy,
“The Devastation of Nubia”, pp. 1013-18; Frank Dillon, “The Submergence
of Philæ”, pp. 1019-25; H. D. Pearsall, “The Nile Reservoirs”,
_Scottish Geographical Magazine_ (1895, August), pp. 393-402.
Note 79: p. 370.--_Government of Egypt._
The reader must bear in mind that Egypt has had a somewhat complex
political history since Brehm wrote.
A JOURNEY IN SIBERIA.
Note 80: p. 397.--_Archar Sheep._
Archar or arkal is the Kirghiz name for the Mongolian argali (_Ovis
ammon_). The animal is almost as large as a donkey, has enormous horns
and short coarse hair. It is said to be now restricted to Northern
Mongolia, and some districts of Southern Siberia. The Tibetan argali
(_Ovis hodgsoni_) is closely allied. See Sir V. Brooke, _Proc.
Zoological Society_, 1875.
Note 81: p. 412.--_Splenic Fever._
Anthrax or splenic fever is a rapidly fatal disease due to a microbe,
_Bacillus anthracis_. This was demonstrated by Koch, and corroborated
by Pasteur. The latter discovered how to attenuate the virus, and
secure immunity by inoculation. Cattle, sheep, and reindeer are among
the commonest victims; but, as the narrative shows, man himself is not
exempt.
THE HEATHEN OSTIAKS.
Note 82: p. 426.--_Present state of Ostiaks._
The Ostiak population was estimated in 1891 at about 27,000, and is
believed to be still decreasing. There is some interesting information
regarding them in Erman’s _Travels in Siberia_.
Note 83: p. 433--_Larvæ out of nostrils._
The reindeer is excessively troubled by the attacks of several insects,
related to the bot-flies (Œstridæ), which attack sheep, cattle, and
horses in this country. One lays its eggs in the skin, another in the
nostrils, whence the larvæ emerge. The reindeer have a great horror
of these insects, and are said to become weak and emaciated in their
efforts to avoid them. The disease due to the parasitic insects is
sometimes referred to as “germ”, and may destroy most of a herd.
Note 84: p. 438.--_Brick Tea._
See Note 36.
Note 85: p. 444.--_Shamans._
Some interesting details as to these in Hofgaard’s _Nordenskïold’s
Voyage_. He speaks of the preparatory asceticism: “solitude, watching,
fasting, exciting and narcotic remedies work upon his imagination; he
soon sees the spirits and the apparitions he heard about in his youth,
and believes firmly in them”.... “He is no cool, calculating deceiver,
no common conjuror.” “Sometimes they have been thrashed in order that
they might change a particular prophecy, but Wrangel relates a case in
1814, when their orders to kill a beloved chief, in order to stay a
plague, were at length obeyed. Though Christianity has been introduced
for more than a century, the Shamans have still (1882) much power.”
A scholarly account of the Shamans, which includes much interesting
material in regard to the customs which Brehm describes in this
chapter, will be found in the _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xxiv., August and September, 1894. “Shamanism in Siberia
and European Russia”, being the second part of “Shamantsvo,” by
Professor V. M. Mikhailovskii, translated by O. Wardrop.
NOMAD HERDSMEN AND HERDS OF THE STEPPES.
See F. Burnaby’s _Ride to Khiva_ (1876); H. Lansdell’s _Through
Siberia_ (1882), and _Russian Central Asia_ (1885); A. de Levchine,
_Description des Hordes et des Steppes des Kirghiz-Kazaks_ (Paris,
1840); Zaleskie, _La vie des Steppes Kirghizes_ (Paris, 1865).
COLONISTS AND EXILES IN SIBERIA.
Note 86: p. 514.--_Geology of the Altai._
“In the Altai the mountains are built up of granites, syenites, and
diorites covered with metamorphic slates belonging to the Laurentian,
Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous periods. The Jurassic strata on
the outskirts are all fresh-water deposits, and contain coal.”
“The Altai Mines (12,000 men) yielded in 1881, 16,670 lbs. of silver,
13,140 cwts. lead, 6708 cwts. copper, 3200 cwts. iron, 240,000 cwts.
coal, and 320,000 cwts. salt.”
Note 87: p. 539.--_The Exile System._
The reader should consult Dr. Lansdell’s _Through Siberia_ (London,
1882); H. de Windt’s _Siberia As It Is_ (London, 1892); Seebohm’s
_Siberia in Asia_ (1882). While some, _e.g._ de Windt, give an account
of the exile system which agrees with Brehm’s, it should be noted that
others think very differently; see Kennan’s _Siberia and the Exile
System_ (1891).
AN ORNITHOLOGIST ON THE DANUBE.
Note 88: p. 563.--_The Penduline Titmouse._
A very small species of titmouse occurring in Southern Europe and
Africa. Its remarkable nest (see figure) is formed of a felt woven of
hemp or wool often mixed with goat’s hair. It usually hangs on the
extreme end of a branch just over water. Both birds share in the work
of building, as also in that of hatching and rearing the young, of
which there are usually seven.
INDEX.
Aard-vark or ant-eater, 194.
Abiad, Bahr-el-, White Nile, 368.
Abu tok, a small hornbill, 216.
Adony, heronry on island of, 544.
Altai, crown-estate of the, 513, 585.
Altrices and præcoces, 59, 566.
Antelope, migrations of the, 245.
Anthropoid apes, 308.
Apes and Monkeys, 282;
an Arabic legend about baboons, 282;
ancient beliefs of Egypt and India, 284;
the “monkey question” discussed, 285, 580;
their distribution and habits, 286, 582;
talents and abilities, 291;
New-World monkeys, 293;
a concert of red howlers, 295;
Old-World monkeys, 296;
two types, the Dog-like and Man-like, 296;
endowments and characteristics of the Dog-like monkey, 296, 582;
examples of their bravery, intelligence, and self-esteem, 299, 582;
Man-like or anthropoid apes, 308;
their structure, habits, and voice-power, 308;
highest specimens of this type, 311;
the chimpanzee, 311;
differences between man and the ape, 317, 583.
Archar, a giant wild sheep, 110, 397, 584.
Arctic fox, 73, 155, 567.
Asiatic steppes, the, 86.
Aspis, a venomous snake, 184, 575.
Assuan, on the Nile, 359.
Auk, life and habits of the, 57, 566.
Aul of the Kirghiz, 464, 478, 497.
Azrek, Bahr-el-, Blue Nile, 203, 368.
Baboons in Central Africa, 238.
Baobab-tree, 209.
Bards among the Kirghiz, 493.
Barnaul, town of, 518.
Bat, migration of the, 251.
Bateleur, or short-tailed African eagle, 188;
poetic legend regarding, 189;
its remarkable flight during pairing-time, 265.
Bear, habits of the, 163;
value of its skin, 165;
its teeth and claws considered potent charms, 165;
methods of its capture, 166;
stories of encounters with bears, 166.
Beaver, extermination of the, 135, 573.
Bedouins of the desert, 352.
Bee-eater, courting of the, 266.
Bird-bergs of Scandinavia, 40, 51.
Birds, love and courtship among, 259;
methods of their wooing, 262;
combats of rival lovers, 272;
unfaithfulness among, 278.
Bird voices of the primitive forest, 215.
Bison, migrations of the, 241, 579.
Brehm, Alfred E., sketch of, xxvii.
Brick tea, 573, 585.
Brooding islands of Scandinavia described, 48, 53;
visits to, 49, 53.
Buffalo, the, 97, 569.
Bulban for decoying black grouse, 142.
Buran or snow-hurricane, 94.
Camel of the Kirghiz, 466, 571.
Capuchin monkeys, 239, 296.
Cat, ancestors of the, 116, 571.
Cataracts of the Nile, 358, 583;
navigation of the, 379.
Cattle of the Kirghiz, 466.
Cembra or stone-pine of Siberia, 128.
Cerastes or horned viper, 178, 575.
Chabir or leader of a caravan, 322.
Chimpanzee, character of the, 311;
story of one, 315.
Chinese breakfast, a, 400.
Climbing plants in primitive forests, 210.
Colonists and Exiles in Siberia, 510, 586;
their conditions of life, 511;
abolition of serfdom, 512;
the crown-estate of Altai, 513;
condition of its inhabitants, 515;
their character, 518;
a peasant’s views, 519;
over-abundant harvests, 521;
early marriages, 522;
marriage customs, 523;
the criminal classes, 524;
their transport and government allowances, 524;
their considerate treatment, 530;
a prison school, 532;
orphan asylum, 533;
among the criminals, 533;
their reformation sought, 534;
convict work in the mines, 534;
attempted escapes, 536.
Convicts in Siberia, 524.
Crested crane, notes of the, 216.
Crocodile, the, 225, 227, 577.
Crocodile-bird, the, 227, 577.
Cuckoo, courting of the, 264;
its polygamy, 279.
Danube, an Ornithologist on the, 540.
Darwin, Charles, xxiv;
his Doctrine of Descent, 317, 438.
Dauw, flight of the, 256.
Desert Journeys, 318;
bargaining with a sheikh, 318;
preparations for a start, 321;
camel-riding, 325;
the Sahara or Great Desert described, 326;
its animal life, 331;
discomforts of the desert journey, 336;
the camel-driver sketched, 338;
a night in the desert, 340;
the oasis, 341;
life at a well in the desert, 345;
a festival of nomads and travellers, 347;
coming of the Simoom, 348;
the mirage, 351;
an interview with Bedouins, 352;
the Nile reached, 355.
Diving-birds in the tundra, 78.
Dog-like monkeys, 296.
Dogs, of the Ostiaks, 429;
of the Kirghiz, 467.
Domesticated animals, ancestors of our, 115, 571.
Dove, courting of the, 266.
Dromedary, the, 466.
Duleb-palm, the, 210.
Dwarf-birch of the tundra, 68.
Eagle, hunting with the, 486.
Eider-duck, the, 40;
its appearance and habits, 41;
her search for a brooding-place, 42;
the nest robbed by the Norseman, 43;
she builds a second nest, 43;
value of the down on her breast, 43, 48, 565;
her remarkable tameness, 45;
the birds steal each other’s eggs, 45;
the ducklings protected and placed in the sea by the natives, 46.
Eider-holms, 40.
Elephant, the, 233.
Elephantine, on the Nile, 359.
Elk, hunting of the, 147; 573.
Exiles. See _Colonists_.
Faber’s description of a brooding-place, 60.
Fall-trap, used in Siberia, 136.
Family and Social Life among the Kirghiz, 482;
alleged origin of the people, 482;
their true character, 483;
their expert horsemanship, 484;
wrestling, 485;
hunting, 486;
their love of talking, 492;
language, 493;
bards, 493;
education and religious feeling, 494;
good qualities of the people, 494;
family pride and vanity, 495;
social customs and hospitality, 496;
wedding ceremonies, 497;
a lover’s song, 502;
treatment of children, 506;
funeral ceremonies, 507.
Fata Morgana or “devil’s sea”, 351.
Fighting-ruffs, combats of, 102; 570.
Forests of Siberia, 121;
of Africa and America, 571, 572;
forest-fires, 123.
Fox, hunted for its valuable fur, 155; 487.
Fruskagora, hunting and exploring in, 557.
Funeral ceremonies among the Kirghiz, 507.
Gazelle of the desert, 332.
Gecko lizard, the, 186, 575.
Goat of the Kirghiz, 464, 571.
Goat-sucker or night-jar, 193, 266.
Gobi steppe, migrations from the, 242.
Golden plover of the tundra, 78.
Gulls, breeding-places of, 53, 60.
Hare and Hounds, game of, in Nubia, 377.
Hare of Western Siberia, 150.
Hassanie, a Soudanese tribe, 204;
their appearance and singular customs, 204;
their huts, 205;
life of a Hassanie matron, 206.
Hazel-grouse, hunting of the, 142.
Heat in the desert, 170, 574.
Hippopotamus, the, 225, 230.
Hochtiere, an order including man and the monkey, 317.
Hornbill, the, 219, 576.
Horse, among the Kirghiz, 458, 484;
horse-racing, 485.
Hulman and Bunder, monkeys worshipped, 238.
Humboldt, Alexander von, xx.
Hungary, bird-fauna of, 540.
Hyæna-dog of African steppes, 195.
Instinct _versus_ Love, 259.
Isegrim, name for the wolf, 152, 154, 564.
Jerboa of the Asiatic steppes, 108, 570.
Journey, in the Desert, 318;
in Siberia, 390.
Kaisak, Kasak, or Cossack. See _Kirghiz_.
Kalüm, price of a Kirghiz bride, 499.
Kazan, town of, 393.
Kirghiz, the, 397;
a sample of their poetry, 398.
See _Nomad Herdsmen_, and _Family and Social Life_.
Kittiwake, brooding-places of the, 60.
Korti, the Nubians defeated at, 370.
Koumiss, 469, 498.
Kulan, ancestor of the domestic horse, 115, 404, 571;
migrations of the, 245.
Lark of the Asiatic steppes, 105, 115.
Lemming of the tundra, 74;
migrations of, 254, 568, 580.
Lizards in Africa, 185.
Locusts, 230.
Lofodens and their bird-life, 48.
Love and Courtship among Birds, 259;
intelligence and emotional life in animals, 260;
all birds seek to pair, 261;
various methods of bird-wooing, 262;
their songs are love-songs, 263;
their love-flights, 265;
love-dances, 266;
coyness of the female birds, 271, 581;
combats among the rival males, 272;
devotion of birds to their chosen mates, 275;
occasional unfaithfulness, 277;
polygamous birds, 279, 581;
bird widows and widowers, 280, 581.
Love _versus_ Instinct, 259.
Love-dances of birds, 266.
Love-flights of kites, harriers, &c., 265.
Love-song of birds, 263.
Lynx in Siberia, 155.
Mammals, migrations of, 234.
Man-like apes, 308.
Maral stag, hunting of the, 144;
value of his antlers for preparing a Chinese quack specific, 144, 573.
Marmoset, lowest of the monkey order, 291.
Marriage ceremonies among the Kirghiz, 498.
Marsh-harrier, a bird of prey, 102.
Melik el Nimmr, the “panther king”, 371.
Metallic starling, the, 214, 215.
Migrations of Mammals, 234;
causes of periodic migrations, 234;
wanderings of the brown rat, souslik, and mice, 235;
expeditions to obtain better food, 238;
fundamental cause of all true migration, 239;
scarcity of water a cause of migrations, 242;
migration of sea animals, 248;
mad flight of zebras and other animals in South Africa, 256.
Mines of Siberia, convicts in, 534.
Mohammed Aali subjugates the Nubians, 370.
Monkeys. See _Apes and Monkeys_.
Monkeys, long-tailed, 222, 581.
Mosquito, a terrible pest in the tundra, 81, 568.
Mud-fish of Africa, 183, 575.
Naturalist-travellers, list of works by, xxix.
Nests of birds, 217;
of the bee-eaters, 217;
of the golden weaver-birds, 218;
of the cow weaver-birds, 219;
of finches, 219;
of the hornbills, 219;
of the umber-bird, 220;
of the dwarf peregrine falcon and guinea-dove, 221;
of the African swift, 221;
of the crocodile-bird, 229.
New-World or broad-nosed monkeys, 293.
Nomad Herdsmen and Herds of the Steppes, 451;
domain and tribes of the Kirghiz, 452;
their racial affinities, 452;
physical features, 453;
dress, 453;
dwellings, 454;
wealth reckoned by their herds, 458;
importance of the horse, 458;
their sheep and goats, 464;
cattle, 465;
camels, 466;
dog, 467;
food of the people, 468;
their constant roamings, 470;
the winter camping-ground, 473;
manner of travelling, 474;
milking the animals, 477;
a charming picture of pastoral life, 480.
Northern Lights, the, 38, 86, 443.
Norway, harvest of the sea, 38.
Nubia and the Nile Rapids, 356;
the region of the rapids, 357;
its prehistoric ruins, 359;
vegetation and fauna, 363;
fertility of middle Nubia, 366;
the Nubian and Egyptian contrasted, 368;
Nubia subjugated by the Egyptians, 370;
sketch of the Nubian people, 373;
navigation of the rapids, 379;
a night on one of the rocks, 382;
the voyage down-stream, 383, 388;
a warning unheeded, 388.
Nyke, visit to the, 53;
its immense number of birds, 55.
Oases of the desert, 341.
Obdorsk, annual fair at, 440.
Ohrt, the Ostiak god, 421, 443, 448.
Old-World monkeys, 296.
Omsk, town of, 396.
Ornithologist (an) on the Danube, 540;
a tempting invitation, 541;
scenery on the Danube, 541;
a famous heronry, 544;
bird-life in the marshes, 546;
sea-eagle hunting, 548;
fighting and pairing of the birds, 549;
care for their young, 552;
protection of animal life in Hungary, 554;
a grand river picture, 556;
a wonderful district, 557;
vulture-shooting, 561;
a sail through a forest-wilderness, 563.
Ostiaks, the Heathen, 416;
condition of the people, 416;
probable number of the tribe, 417, 584;
contrasted with Ostiaks of the Greek Church, 418;
their physical features, 421;
language and dress, 422;
dwellings, 423;
employments, 425;
their reindeer and dogs, 426;
constant migrations, 431;
a “bloody meal”, 434;
at night in a tshum, 436;
at a fishing-station, 437;
hunting for game, 439;
the fair of Obdorsk, 440;
evils of brandy-drinking, 440;
marriage customs, 441;
domestic life, 445;
performances and prophecies of a shaman, 445;
religion of the people, 448;
their burial customs, 450.
Ostrich, legend regarding the, 190;
habits and omnivorous appetite of, 191, 576;
breeding of, 192.
Ox of the Kirghiz, 465.
Oyster-catcher, the, 49.
Pairing-cry of birds, 273.
Pallas’s sand-grouse or steppe-grouse, 115, 404.
Palm-tree of the desert, 342.
Pangolin of North Africa, 194.
Phalarope in the tundra, 80, 568.
Philæ, island of, 361, 584.
Pichta fir of Siberia, 128, 394.
Pine-marten, 158;
hunting of the, 161.
Polygamy of some birds, 279.
Primeval Forests of Central Africa, 201;
their magnificence in spring-time, 203;
sailing up the Blue Nile, 204;
a remarkable tribe, 204;
the forest reached, 207;
difficulty of penetrating it, 208;
the baobab-tree and duleb-palm, 209;
bird-fauna of the forest, 213;
varieties of nests, 217;
mammals of the forest, 222;
animal life on the river-banks and islands, 225;
rain-lakes and water-pools of the forest, 229;
visits of the locust, 230;
night in the primeval forest, 231.
Ptarmigan of the tundra, 77
Quagga, flight of the, 256; 569.
Ramwood of the Asiatic steppes, 112.
Rat, invasion of the, 235; 578.
Razor-bill or auk, 57, 61.
Reindeer, 76, 150, 240, 578;
ravages of disease among, 412, 426, 584.
Roe-deer, hunting of the, 146.
Rouble and kopek, 573.
Sable, rarity of the, 157;
hunting the, 161.
Sahara, the, 326.
Salt-steppes, 90, 98.
Salt’s antelope, 223.
Samoyedes, 417, 440.
Sand-grouse of the desert, 334, 570.
Scandinavia, ancient legend concerning, 33;
general aspect of the land, 34;
its fjords, 35;
islands and skerries, 37;
fisheries, 38;
bird-bergs, 40, 51.
Schlangenberg or Snakemount, 107, 129, 157, 408.
Schohazen or Catholic Servians, 555.
Sea-birds, habits of, 39;
value of their eggs and flesh as food, 48.
Sea-eagle hunting in Hungary, 548.
Seal, migrations of the, 250, 580.
Secretary-bird, 184, 187.
Serfdom, abolition of, 512.
Shaman or Ostiak priest, 445, 585.
Sheep of the Kirghiz, 464.
Shendy, massacre at, 371;
Nubians defeated at, 373.
Shrikes, different notes of male and female, 216.
Siberia, false ideas concerning, 120;
its vast forests, 121;
forest-fires, 123;
limited variety of trees, 127;
difficulty of traversing the primeval forests, 130;
their desolateness, 131;
uncertainty of finding game, 132;
Siberian methods of hunting, 135;
the trade in furs and birds’ skins, 135, 573;
game animals of the forests, 136;
hunting of game birds, 140, and of big and smaller game, 144.
Siberia, Journey in, 390;
travelling in winter, 391;
from Europe into Asia, 394;
Western Siberia reached, 395;
Russian hospitality, 395;
a great hunting expedition, 397;
entertained by a Chinese mandarin, 399;
a horrible massacre, 401;
at the Irtish river, 404;
in the Altai Mountains, 404;
camp-life with a Russian general, 405;
summer scene in the Altai, 406;
a voyage on the great river Obi, 408;
an unfortunate exploring expedition, 411;
ravages of disease, 412, 414;
the return home, 415.
Simoom, the, 171, 348.
Skua in the tundra, 79.
Sky-goat, 103, 570.
Souslik, the, 108, 237, 407.
Spiders and scorpions in a night-camp, 178.
Splenic fever, ravages of, 412, 584.
Springbok, flight of the, 257; 580.
Spring-gun of the Ostiaks and Samoyedes, 139.
Squirrels, migrations of, 253.
Steppe, origin and usage of the term, 87, 174.
Steppe-fires, 397.
Steppes, characteristics of the Asiatic, 87;
their scenery, 89;
vegetation, 91, 568;
beauty of the flowers in spring, 95;
animal life in the steppes, 97, 109, 115;
insects and reptiles, 107;
the giant wild sheep, 110;
the kulan or wild horse, 115;
a kulan hunt and capture of a foal, 119.
Steppes of Inner Africa, 168;
sketch of their seasons, 169;
miseries of the winter, 170;
spring heralded by terrible storm and rain, 171;
definition of the African steppe, 174;
inhospitable character of the region, 175;
its vegetation, 176;
difficulties of travelling, 177;
a night’s experience in camp, 177;
fauna of the country, 182;
the bird-fauna, 187;
mammals, 193;
stampede and destruction of animal life caused by the steppe-fire, 198.
Stone-seas in the Nile, 367.
Storks, stories regarding, 276, 277, 278, 281.
Swallow, courting of the, 266.
Swärtholm brooding-place, 60, 62.
Syene, or Sun, on the Nile, 359, 584.
Taiga region in Siberia, 129, 572.
Tarpan of the Dnieper steppes, 115, 571.
Tchukutchak stormed by the Dungani tribe, 401.
Termite or white ant in Africa, 181, 574.
Tiger, hunting of the, 157.
Titmouse, the penduline, 563, 586.
Tiumen, town of, 395.
Tragopan, wooing of the, 267.
Tshum or hut of the Ostiaks, 410, 423.
Tundra of the Polar region, described, 63, 566;
its lakes, 67;
vegetation, 68;
prehistoric animals embedded in its ice-crust, 72, 567;
fauna of the tundra, 72;
characteristic birds, 77;
the mosquito, 81;
autumn and winter in the tundra, 85;
an unhappy expedition to one, 411.
Umber-bird, the, 220, 576.
Ustkamenegorsk, school in, 494.
Vodki in Siberia, 524.
Voles, migrations of the, 253.
Vulture, the crested black, 559.
Wady Halfa, on the Nile, 357, 362, 387, 390.
Wallace, Alfred Russel, xxiv.
Whale, systematic migrations of the, 248.
Wild sheep hunting on the Arkat Mountains, 488.
Willows (sallows) of the tundra, 69.
Wolf, 93, 151, 152, 486, 488, 564.
Wood-ibis, song of the, 216.
Yamaul, messenger of the gods, 446, 447.
Yurt or Kirghiz house, 454, 570.
Zaizan, town of, 403, 494.
Zebra, flight of the, 256.
Zoology, history of, xv.
PRINTED BY BLACKIE AND SON, LIMITED, GLASGOW.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Small capitals have been capitalised.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "From North Pole to Equator: Studies of Wild Life and Scenes in Many Lands" ***
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