THE YEN-E-SAY

HENRY SEEBOHM

WE left London on Thursday, the 1st of March, at 8:25 P. M., and reached Nishni Novgorod on Saturday, the 9th inst., at 10 A. M., having travelled by rail a distance of 2,400 miles. We stopped three days in St. Petersburg to present our letters of introduction and to pay some other visits. At Nishni we bought a sledge, and travelled over the snow 3,240 English miles, employing for this purpose about a thousand horses, eighteen dogs, and forty reindeer. We left Nishni on the evening of the 10th of March, and travelled day and night in a generally easterly direction, stopping a couple of days at Tyu-main, and a day at Omsk, and reached Kras-no-yarsk on the morning of the 2d of April, soon after crossing the meridian of Calcutta. We rested a day in Kras-no-yarsk, and sledged thence nearly due north, spending four days in Yen-e-saisk and three days in Toor-o-kansk.

The Yen-e-say is said to be the third largest river in the world, being only exceeded in size by the Amazon and the Mississippi. The principal stream rises in the mountains of Central Mongolia, enters Siberia near the famous town of Kyakh-ta, on the Chinese frontier, and flowing through Lake By-kal, passes Eer-kutsk (Irkutsk) the capital of Siberia, under the name of the An-go-ra or Vairkh-nya, Tun-goosk, and enters the smaller stream, whose name it subsequently bears, a few miles south of Yen-e-saisk. Up to this point its length may be roughly estimated at 2,000 miles, and judging from the time it takes to sledge across the river at Yen-e-saisk, its width must exceed an English mile. Following the windings of the river from the latter town to the Arctic Circle, the road is calculated as a journey of 800 miles, during which the waters are augmented by two important tributaries, the Pod-kah-min-a-Tun-goosk and the Nizh-ni-Tun-goosk, which increase the width of the river to more than three English miles. On the Arctic Circle it receives an important tributary, the Koo-ray-i-ka, about a mile wide, and, somewhat more circuitously than appears on our maps, travels to the islands of the delta, a distance possibly slightly over-estimated, during which the average width may be about four miles. The delta and lagoon of the Yen-e-say are about 400 miles in length, and must average twenty miles in width; making the total length of the river about 4,000 miles.

Throughout the whole extent of the river, from Yen-e-saisk, in latitude 58° to Gol-chee-ka in latitude 71½°, the banks are generally steep and lofty, from sixty to one hundred feet above the water-level, and so far as I could learn, comparatively little land is covered by the summer floods. The villages on the banks are from twenty to thirty versts (fifteen to twenty miles) apart, and are of course built upon high ground. As we sledged down the river, we had always a heavy climb up to the port stations; and in descending again into the bed of the river, it sometimes almost made our hearts jump into our mouths to look down the precipice, which our horses took at a gallop, with half-a-dozen villagers hanging on the sledge to prevent an upset, a feat they performed so cleverly, that although many a peasant got a roll in the snow, we always escaped without any serious accident. We found a good supply of horses as far as Too-ro-kansk. The second stage from this town we travelled by dogs, and completed the rest of the journey by reindeer. Soon after leaving Yen-e-saisk agriculture practically ceases. A few cows graze on the meadows near the villages, and hay is cut for their use during winter, but the villagers are too busy fishing during the short summer to till the land.

The banks of the Yen-e-say are clothed with magnificent forests up to the Arctic Circle, but northwards the trees rapidly diminish in size, and disappear altogether soon after leaving Doo-din-ka, in latitude 69½°. These forests are principally pine of various species. We reached the Koo-ray-i-ka on the 23d of April, and found the crew of the Thames in excellent health.

The winter quarters chosen by Captain Wiggins were very picturesque. Standing at the door of the peasant’s house on the brow of the hill, we looked down on to the “crow’s nest” of the Thames. To the left the Koo-ray-i-ka, a mile wide, stretched away some four or five miles, until a sudden bend concealed it from view; whilst to the right the eye wandered across the snow-fields of the Yen-e-say, and by the help of a binocular the little village of Koo-ray-i-ka might be discerned about four miles off, on the opposite bank of the great river. The land was undulating rather than hilly, and everywhere covered with forest, the trees reaching frequently two, and in some rare instances three feet in diameter. The depth of the snow varied from four to six feet; and travelling without snow-shoes, except on the hard-trodden roads, was of course utterly impossible.

When we arrived at the ship, we found that it was still winter, and were told that there had not been a sign of rain since last autumn. April went by and May came in, but still there was no sign of summer, except the arrival of some of the earliest migratory birds. We generally had a cloudless sky; and the sun was often burning hot. On the 9th, 10th, and 11th of May we had rain for the first time, and the prospects of summer looked a little more hopeful. The rest of May, however, was more dreary and wintry than ever, alternations of hard frosts and driving snow-storms; but the river was slowly rising, and outside the thick centre ice was a strip of thin, newly-frozen ice. There was, however, little or no change in the appearance of the snow. Up to the end of May the forces of winter had gallantly withstood the fiercest attacks of the sun, baffled at all points, and entered into an alliance with the south wind, and a combined attack was made upon the winter forces. The battle raged for fourteen days, the battle of the Yen-e-say, the great event of the year in this cold country, and certainly the most stupendous display of the powers of nature that it has ever been my lot to witness. On the morning of the 1st of June the pressure underneath the ice caused a large field, about a mile long and a third of a mile wide, opposite the lower angle of junction of the Koo-ray-i-ka and the Yen-e-say, to break away. About half the mass found a passage down the strip of newly-formed thin ice, leaving open water behind it. The other half rushed headlong on to the steep banks of the river. The result of the collision was a little range of mountains, fifty or sixty feet high, and picturesque in the extreme. Huge blocks of ice, six feet thick and twenty feet long, in many places, were standing perpendicular, whilst others were crushed up into fragments like broken glass; and in many other places the ice was piled up in layers one over the other. The real ice on the river did not appear to have been thicker than two or three feet, clear as a glass, and blue as an Italian sky. Upon the top of this was about four feet of white ice. This was as hard as a rock, and had, no doubt, been caused by the flooding of the snow when the waters of the river had risen, and its subsequent freezing. Upon the top of the white ice was eighteen inches of clean snow, which had evidently never been flooded. When we turned into our berths in the evening the captain thought it best to institute an anchor-watch. We had scarcely been asleep an hour before the watch called us up with the intelligence that the river was rising rapidly, and that the ice was beginning to crack. We immediately dressed and went on deck. We saw at once that the Yen-e-say was rising so rapidly that it was beginning to flow up its tributaries. A strong current was setting up the Koo-ray-i-ka, and small floes were detaching themselves from the main body of the ice and were running up the open water. By and by the whole body of the Koo-ray-i-ka broke up and began to move up stream. Some of the floes struck the ship some very ugly blows on the stern, doing considerable damage to the rudder; but open water was beyond, and we were soon out of the press of ice, with, we hoped, no irretrievable injury. All this time we had been getting steam up as fast as possible, to be ready for any emergency. It was hopeless to attempt to enter the creek opposite which we were moored, and which was now only just beginning to fill with water; but on the other side of the river, across only a mile of open water, was a haven of perfect safety. But, alas! when the ice had passed us, before we could get up sufficient steam, the river suddenly fell three feet, and left aground by the stern, and immovable as a rock. Nor was it possible, with a swift current running up the river at the rate of four knots an hour, to swing the ship round so as to secure the rudder against any further attacks of the ice. Half a mile ahead of us, as we looked down the river, was the edge of the Yen-e-say ice. The river was rising again; but before the stern was afloat we discovered, to our dismay, that another large field of ice had broken up; and the Koo-ray-i-ka was soon full of ice again. In the course of the night the whole of the ice of Yen-e-say, as far as we could see, broke up with a tremendous crash, and a dense mass of ice-floes, pack-ice, and icebergs backed up the Koo-ray-i-ka, and with irresistible force drove the Koo-ray-i-ka ice before it. When it reached the ship, we had but one alternative, to slip the anchor and let her drive with the ice. For about a mile we had an exciting ride, pitching and rolling as the floes of ice squeezed the ship, and tried to lift her bodily out of the water, or crawl up her sides like a snake. The rudder was soon broken to pieces, and finally carried away. Some of the sailors jumped on to the ice and scrambled ashore, whilst others began to throw overboard their goods and chattels. Away we went up the Koo-ray-i-ka, the ice rolling and tumbling and squeezing along side, huge lumps climbing one on the top of another, until we were finally jammed in a slight bay, along with a lot of pack-ice. Early in the morning the stream slackened, the river fell some five or six feet, and the ice stood still. The ship went through the terrible ordeal bravely. She made no water, and there was no evidence of injury beyond the loss of the rudder. In the evening the ship was lying amidst huge hummocks of ice, almost high and dry. The Koo-ray-i-ka, and right across the Yen-e-say, and southwards as far as the eye could reach was one immense field of pack-ice, white, black, brown, blue, green, piled in wild confusion as close as it could be jammed. Northwards the Yen-e-say was not yet broken up. All this time the weather was warm and foggy, with very little wind, and occasional slight rain. There was a perfect Babel of birds as an accompaniment to the crashing of the ice. Gulls, geese, and swans were flying about in all directions; and their wild cries vied with the still wilder screams of the divers. Flocks of red polls and shore larks, and bramblings and wagtails in pairs, arrived, and added to the interest of the scene. On the 2d of June there was little or no movement in the ice until midnight, when an enormous pressure from above came on somewhat suddenly, and broke up the great field of ice to the north of the Koo-ray-i-ka, but not to a sufficient extent to relieve the whole of the pressure. The water in the Koo-ray-i-ka rose rapidly. The immense field of pack-ice began to move up stream at the rate of five or six knots an hour. The poor ship was knocked and bumped along the rocky shore, and a stream of water began to flow into the hold. At nine o’clock all hands left her, and stood upon the snow on the bank, expecting her instant destruction. The stream rose and fell during the day; but the leak, which was apparently caused by the twisting of the stern-post, choked up. Late in the evening an opportunity occurred of a few hours’ open water, during which steam was got up; and by the help of a couple of ropes ashore, the rudderless ship was steered into the little creek opposite to which she had wintered, and run ashore. Here the leak was afterwards repaired and a new rudder made. We calculated that about 50,000 acres of ice passed the ship up stream during these two days; and we afterwards learned that most of this ice got away some miles up the Koo-ray-i-ka, where the banks are low, and was lost in the forest.

The battle of the Yen-e-say raged for about a fortnight. The sun was generally burning hot in the daytime; but every night there was more or less frost. The ice came down the Yen-e-say at various speeds. Sometimes we could see gigantic masses of pack-ice, estimated at twenty to thirty feet in height, driven down the river at an incredible pace, not less than twenty miles an hour. In the Koo-ray-i-ka the scene was constantly changing. The river rose and fell. Sometimes the pack-ice and floes were jammed so tight together that it looked as if one might scramble across the river without difficulty. At other times there was a good deal of open water, and the icebergs “calved” as they went along with much commotion and splashing, that could be heard half a mile off. Underlayers of the iceberg ground; and after the velocity of the enormous mass has caused it to pass on, the pieces left behind rise to the surface, like a whale coming up to breathe. Some of these “calves” must come up from a considerable depth. They rise up out of the water with a great splash, and rock about for some time before they settle down to their floating level. At last the final march past of the beaten winter-forces in this great fourteen days’ battle took place and for seven days more the rag, tag, and bob-tail of the great Arctic army come straggling down—warm and weather-beaten little icebergs, dirty ice-floes that looked like mud-banks floating down, and straggling pack-ice in the last stages of consumption. The total rise of the river was upwards of seventy feet.

The moment that the snow disappeared vegetation sprang up as if by magic, and the birds made preparations for breeding. As we passed through Yen-e-saisk I bought a schooner off a ship-builder of the name of Boiling, a Heligolander. I christened it the Ibis; and on the 29th of June we left the Koo-ray-i-ka with this little craft in tow. Our progress down the river, however, was one catalogue of disasters, ending in our leaving the Thames on the 9th of July a hopeless wreck, lying high and dry on a sand-bank, in latitude 67°. As we sailed northwards in the Ibis, the forests became smaller and smaller, and disappeared altogether about latitude 70°. The highest point we reached was latitude 71½°, where I sold the Ibis to the captain of a Russian schooner, which had been totally wrecked during the break-up of the ice.

On the 23rd of July I left Gol-chee-ka in the last Russian steamer up the river; and reached Yen-e-saisk on the 14th of August. After a few days’ delay I drove across country to Tomsk, stopping a day or two in Kras-no-yarsk. In Tomsk I found an excellent iron steamer, in which I sailed down the river Tom into the Obb, down which we steamed to its junction with the Eer-tish, up which we proceeded until we entered the Tob-ol, and afterwards steamed up the Too-ra to Tyu-main, a distance by water of 2,200 miles. From the Tyu-main I drove through Ekatereenburg across the Urals to Perm, where I took my passage on board the Sam-o-lot, or self-flyer, down the Kama, and up the Volga, to Nishni Novgorod.