empty plain.
There seemed, indeed, no obvious reason why the plain and the journey might
not go on for ever. The temperature was fifty below zero. A.J. had noticed
that for some hours the guards had been muttering to each other, which was
unusual, for in such cold air it was painful to speak. Suddenly, out of the
silver gloom, appeared the hazy shapes of a few snow-covered roofs; the
guards gave a cry; the dogs barked; a few answering cries came from the
dimness ahead. They had reached Russkoe Yansk.
It was smaller and more desolate than he had imagined. There were only
four Russians in exile there, none of them educated men; the rest of the
population consisted of a score or more natives of very low intelligence. The
native men, under the direction of the guards, began to dig an entry through
the snow into an unoccupied timber hut that was to belong to the new exile;
there were several of these deserted huts, for the settlement had formerly
been larger. The natives looked on in amazement when A.J. began to unpack the
bundle that he had not been allowed to touch since leaving Petersburg; they
had never before seen such things as books, writing-paper, or a
kerosene-lamp. The Russians looked on also with a curiosity scarcely less
childlike; they had seen no strange face for years, and their eagerness
bordered on almost maniacal excitement. A.J. addressed them with a few
cordial words and they were all around him in a moment, shaking his hands and
picking up one after another of his belongings; they had evidently been half
afraid of him at first. One of them said: “This shows that the
Government has not forgotten us—they know we are still here, or they
would not have sent you.”
A fire was made, and the two Cossack guards stayed the night in the hut.
The next morning they hitched up their dog teams, shook hands cordially
enough, and began the long return journey. A.J. watched them till the
distance swallowed up their sleigh and the hoarse barking of the animals.
Then he set to work to make his habitation more comfortable.
Russkoe Yansk was close to but not actually on the Arctic Ocean; the
nearest settlements, not much larger, were four hundred and four hundred and
fifty miles to west and east respectively. There was no communication of any
regular kind with the civilised world; sometimes a fur-trapper would take a
message and pass it on to someone else who might be going to Yakutsk, but
even in most favourable circumstances an answer could scarcely arrive in less
than twenty months. The nearest railway and telegraph stations were over
three thousand miles away.
The year was composed of day and night; the day lasted from June to
September only. In winter the temperature sometimes fell to seventy below
zero, and there were week-long blizzards in which no living human being could
stir a yard out of his hut. During the short summer the climate became mild
and moist; the river thawed and overflowed, causing vast swamps and floodings
that cut off the settlement from the world outside even more effectively than
did the winter cold and darkness.
A.J. had brought a fair supply of tea and tobacco, and with small gifts of
these he could secure the manual services of as many natives as he wanted,
apart from the four Russians, who would have lived their whole lives as
personal slaves in his hut if he had wished it. He did not feel particularly
sad, but he did begin to feel a strange Robinson-Crusoe kind of majesty that
was rather like an ache gnawing at him all the time. He was the only person
in Russkoe Yansk who could read, write, work a simple sum, or understand a
rough map. The most intelligent of the Russians had no more than the mind of
a peasant, with all its abysmal ignorance and with only a touch of its
shrewdness. The others were less than half-witted, perhaps as a result of
their long exile. They remembered the names of the villages from which they
had been banished, but
There seemed, indeed, no obvious reason why the plain and the journey might
not go on for ever. The temperature was fifty below zero. A.J. had noticed
that for some hours the guards had been muttering to each other, which was
unusual, for in such cold air it was painful to speak. Suddenly, out of the
silver gloom, appeared the hazy shapes of a few snow-covered roofs; the
guards gave a cry; the dogs barked; a few answering cries came from the
dimness ahead. They had reached Russkoe Yansk.
It was smaller and more desolate than he had imagined. There were only
four Russians in exile there, none of them educated men; the rest of the
population consisted of a score or more natives of very low intelligence. The
native men, under the direction of the guards, began to dig an entry through
the snow into an unoccupied timber hut that was to belong to the new exile;
there were several of these deserted huts, for the settlement had formerly
been larger. The natives looked on in amazement when A.J. began to unpack the
bundle that he had not been allowed to touch since leaving Petersburg; they
had never before seen such things as books, writing-paper, or a
kerosene-lamp. The Russians looked on also with a curiosity scarcely less
childlike; they had seen no strange face for years, and their eagerness
bordered on almost maniacal excitement. A.J. addressed them with a few
cordial words and they were all around him in a moment, shaking his hands and
picking up one after another of his belongings; they had evidently been half
afraid of him at first. One of them said: “This shows that the
Government has not forgotten us—they know we are still here, or they
would not have sent you.”
A fire was made, and the two Cossack guards stayed the night in the hut.
The next morning they hitched up their dog teams, shook hands cordially
enough, and began the long return journey. A.J. watched them till the
distance swallowed up their sleigh and the hoarse barking of the animals.
Then he set to work to make his habitation more comfortable.
Russkoe Yansk was close to but not actually on the Arctic Ocean; the
nearest settlements, not much larger, were four hundred and four hundred and
fifty miles to west and east respectively. There was no communication of any
regular kind with the civilised world; sometimes a fur-trapper would take a
message and pass it on to someone else who might be going to Yakutsk, but
even in most favourable circumstances an answer could scarcely arrive in less
than twenty months. The nearest railway and telegraph stations were over
three thousand miles away.
The year was composed of day and night; the day lasted from June to
September only. In winter the temperature sometimes fell to seventy below
zero, and there were week-long blizzards in which no living human being could
stir a yard out of his hut. During the short summer the climate became mild
and moist; the river thawed and overflowed, causing vast swamps and floodings
that cut off the settlement from the world outside even more effectively than
did the winter cold and darkness.
A.J. had brought a fair supply of tea and tobacco, and with small gifts of
these he could secure the manual services of as many natives as he wanted,
apart from the four Russians, who would have lived their whole lives as
personal slaves in his hut if he had wished it. He did not feel particularly
sad, but he did begin to feel a strange Robinson-Crusoe kind of majesty that
was rather like an ache gnawing at him all the time. He was the only person
in Russkoe Yansk who could read, write, work a simple sum, or understand a
rough map. The most intelligent of the Russians had no more than the mind of
a peasant, with all its abysmal ignorance and with only a touch of its
shrewdness. The others were less than half-witted, perhaps as a result of
their long exile. They remembered the names of the villages from which they
had been banished, but
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