an early stage, I had to manage serious enterprises and to deal with men, and when each mistake would lead at once to heavy consequences, I began to appreciate the difference between acting on the principle of command and discipline and acting on the principle of common understanding. The former works admirably in a military parade, but it is worth nothing where real life is concerned, and the aim ean be achieved only through the severe effort of many converging wills. Although I did not then formulate my observations LESSONS FROM LIFE IN SIBERIA 217 in terms borrowed from party struggles, I may say now that I lost in Siberia whatever faith in state discipline I had cherished before. I was prepared to become an anarchist.
From the age of nineteen to twenty-five I had to work out important schemes of reform, to deal with hundreds of men on the Amur, to prepare and to make risky expeditions with ridiculously small means, and so on; and if all these things ended more or less successfully, I account for it only by the fact that I soon understood that in serious work command- ing and discipline are of little avail. Men of initiative are, required everywhere; but once the impulse has been given, the enterprise must be conducted, especially in Russia, not in military fashion, but in a sort of communal way, by means of common understanding. I wish that all framers of plans of state discipline could pass through the school of real life before they begin to frame their state Utopias. We should then hear far less than at present of schemes of military and pyramidal organization of society.
With all that, life in Siberia became less and less attract- ive to me, although my brother Alexander had joined me in 1864 at Irktitsk, where he commanded a squadron of Cossacks. We were happy to be together; we read a great deal, and discussed all the philosophical, scientific, and sociological questions of the day; but we both longed after intellectual life, and there was none in Siberia. The occasional passage through Irkutsk of Raphael Pumpelly or of Adolph Bastian—the only two men of science who visited our capital during my stay there —was quite an event for both of us. The scientific and especially the political life of Western Europe, of which we heard through the papers, attracted us, and the return to Russia was the subject to which we continually came back in our conver- sations. Finally, the insurrection of the Polish exiles in 1866 opened our eyes to the false position we both occupied as officers of the Russian army.
VIII VIII I was far away, in the Vitim mountains, when the Polish exiles, who were employed in excavating a new road in the cliffs round Lake Baikal, made a desperate attempt to break their chains, and to force their way to China across Mongolia. Troops were sent out—against them, and a Russian officer — whom Iwill call Pétaloff — was killed by the insurgents. I heard of it on my return to Irkutsk, where some fifty Poles were to be tried by court-martial. The sittings of courts-martial being open in Russia, I fol- lowed this, taking detailed notes of the proceedings, which I sent to a St. Petersburg paper, and which were published in full, to the great dissatisfaction of the governor-general.
Eleven thousand Poles, men and women, had been trans- ported to East Siberia alone, in consequence of the insur- rection of 1863. They were chiefly students, artists, ex- officers, nobles, and especially skilled artisans from the intelligent and highly developed workers’ population of Warsaw and other towns. <A great number of them were.
kept at hard labor, while the remainder were settled all over the country, in villages where they could find no work whatever, and lived in a state of semi-starvation. ‘Those who were at hard labor worked either at Chita, building the barges for the Amur, — these were the happiest, — or in iron works of the Crown, or in salt works. I saw some of the latter, on the Léna, standing half-naked in a shanty, around an immense cauldron filled with salt-brine, and | mixing the thick, boiling brine with long shovels, in an | infernal temperature, while the gates of the shanty were wide open, to make a strong current of glacial air. | After POLISH EXILES IN SIBERIA 219 two years of such work these martyrs were sure to die from consumption.
Afterward, a considerable number of Polish exiles were employed as navvies building a road along the southern coast of Lake Baikal. This narrow Alpine lake, four hundred miles long, surrounded by beautiful mountains rising three to five thousand feet above its level, cuts off Transbaikélia and the Amur from Irktitsk. In winter it may be crossed upon the ice, and in summer there are steamers; but for six weeks in the spring and another six weeks in the autumn the only way to reach Chitd and Kydkhta (for Pekin) from Irktitsk is to travel on horse- back a long, circuitous route, across mountains 7000 to 8000 feet in altitude. I once traveled along this track, greatly enjoying the scenery of the mountains, which were snow-clad in May, but otherwise the journey was really awful. To climb eight miles only, to the top of the main pass, Khamar-dabdn, it took me the whole day from three in the morning till eight at night. Our horses continually fell through the thawing snow, plunging with their riders many times a day into the icy water which flowed under- neath the snow crust. It was decided accordingly to build a permanent road along the southern coast of the lake, blasting out a passage in the steep, almost vertical cliffs which rise along the shore, and spanning with bridges a hun- dred wild torrents that furiously rush from the mountains into the lake. Polish exiles were employed at this hard work.
Several batches of Russian political exiles had been sent during the last century to Siberia, but with the sub- missiveness to fate which is characteristic of the Russians, they never revolted; they allowed themselves to be killed inch by inch without ever attempting to free themselves. The Poles, on the contrary, — to their honor be it said, — were never so submissive as that, and this time they broke 220 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST into open revolt. It was evident that they had no chance of success, but they revolted nevertheless. They had before them the great lake, and behind them a girdle of absolutely impracticable mountains, beyond which spread the wilder- nesses of North Mongolia; but they conceived the idea of disarming the soldiers who guarded them, forging those terrible weapons of the Polish insurrections, — scythes fastened as pikes on long poles, and making their way across the mountains and across Mongolia, towards China, where they would find English ships to take them. One day the news came to Irkutsk that part of those Poles who were at work on the Baikal road had disarmed a dozen soldiers and broken out into revolt. Highty soldiers were all that could be dispatched against them from Irkutsk; crossing the Baikal in a steamer, they went to meet the insurgents on the other side of the lake.
The winter of 1866 had been unusually dull at Irkutsk. In the Siberian capital there is no such distinction between the different classes as one sees in Russian provincial towns, and Irktitsk “ society,’’? composed of numerous officers and officials, together with the wives and daughters of local traders and even clergymen, met during the winter, every Thursday, at the Assembly rooms. This winter, however, there was no “go” in the evening parties. Amateur the- atricals, too, were not successful; and gambling, which usu- ally flourished on a grand scale at Irkutsk, only dragged along; a serious want of money was felt among the offi- cials, and even the arrival of several mining officers was not signalized by the heaps of banknotes with which these privileged gentlemen commonly enlivened the knights of the green tables. The season was decidedly dull, — just the season for starting spiritualistic experiences with talk- ing tables and talkative spirits. A gentleman who had been the pet of Irktitsk society the previous winter for the tales from popular life which he recited with great talent, | A HOPELESS REVOLT 221 seeing that interest in himself and his tales was failing, took now to spiritualism as a new amusement. He was clever, and in a week’s time all Irkutsk society was mad over talking spirits. A new life was infused into those who did not know how to kill time. ‘Talking tables ap- peared in every drawing-room, and love-making went hand in hand with spirit rapping. Lieutenant Potaloff took it all in deadly earnest, — talking tables and love. Per- haps he was less fortunate with the latter than with the tables; at any rate, when the news of the Polish insurrection came, he asked to be sent to the spot with the eighty soldiers. He hoped to return with a halo of military glory.
“I go against the Poles,’ he wrote in his diary; “ it would be so interesting to be slightly wounded! ” He was killed. He rode on horseback by the side of the colonel who commanded the soldiers, when “ the battle with the insurgents’? — the glowing description of which may be found in the annals of the general staff— began. The soldiers were slowly advancing along the road when they met some fifty Poles, five or six of whom were armed with rifles and the remainder with sticks and scythes. The Poles occupied the forest and from time to time fired their guns. The file of soldiers returned the fire. Pétaloff twice asked the permission of the colonel to dismount and dash into the forest. The colonel very angrily ordered him to stay where he was. Notwithstanding this, the next moment the lieutenant had disappeared. Several shots re- sounded in the wood in succession, followed by wild cries; the soldiers rushed that way, and found the lieutenant bleeding on the grass. The Poles fired their last shots and surrendered; the battle was over, and Potaloff was dead. He had rushed, revolver in hand, into the thicket, where he found several Poles armed with scythes. He fired upon them all his shots, in a haphazard way, wounding one of them, whereupon the others rushed upon him with their scythes. | 222 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST At the other end of the road, on this side of the lake, two Russian officers behaved in the most abominable way towards the Poles who were building the same road, but took no part in the insurrection. One of the two officers rushed into their tent, swearing and firing his revolver at the peaceful exiles, two of whom he badly wounded.
Now, the logic of the Siberian military authorities was that as a Russian officer had been killed, several Poles must be executed. The court-martial condemned five of them to death: Szaraméwicz, a pianist, a fine looking man of thirty, who was the leader of the insurrection; Celinski, a man of sixty, who had once been an officer in the Russian army; and three others whose names I do not remember.
The governor-general telegraphed to St. Petersburg ask- ing permission to reprieve the condemned insurgents; but no answer came. He had promised us not to execute them, but after having waited several days for the reply, he ordered the sentence to be carried out in secrecy, early in the morning. ‘The reply from St. Petersburg came four — weeks later, by post: the governor was left to act ‘accord- ing to the best of his understanding.” In the mean time five brave men had been shot.
The insurrection, people said, was fonda And yet this brave handful of insurgents had obtained something. The news of it reached Europe. The executions, the bru- talities of the two officers, which became known through the proceedings of the court, produced a commotion in Austria, and Austria interfered in favor of the Galicians who had taken part in the revolution of 1863 and had been sent to Siberia. Soon after the insurrection, the fate of the Polish exiles in Siberia was substantially bet- tered, and they owed it to the insurgents, — to those five brave men who were shot at Irkutsk, and those who had taken arms by their side.
For my brother and myself this insurrection was a great LEAVING THE MILITARY SERVICE 228, lesson. We realized what it meant to belong in any Way (4 to the army. I was far away, but my brother was at Irkutsk, and his squadron was dispatched against the insur- gents. Happily, the commander of the regiment to which my brother belonged knew him well, and, under some pre- text, he ordered another officer to take command of the mobilized part of the squadron. Otherwise, Alexander, of course, would have refused to march. If I had been at Irkuitsk, I should have done the same.
We decided then to leave the military service and to return to Russia. This was not an easy matter, especially as Alexander had married in Siberia; but at last all was arranged, and early in 1867 we were on our way to St. Petersburg.
PART FOURTH | ST. PETERSBURG; FIRST JOURNEY TO WEST- ERN EUROPE : Harty in the autumn of 1867 my brother and I, with his family, were settled at St. Petersburg. I entered the university, and sat on the benches among young men, al- most boys, much younger than myself. What I so longed for five years before was accomplished, —I could study; and, acting upon the idea that a thorough training in math- ematics is the only solid basis for all subsequent work and thought, I joined the physico-mathematical faculty in its mathematical section. My brother entered the military academy for jurisprudence, whilst I entirely gave up military | service, to the great dissatisfaction of my father, who hated | the very sight of a civilian dress. We both had now to rely entirely upon ourselves, | Study at the university and scientific work absorbed all: my time for the next five years. A student of the mathe- | matical faculty has, of course, very much to do, but my previous studies in higher mathematics permitted me to de- | vote part of my time to geography; and, moreover, I had | not lost in Siberia the habit of hard work.
The report of my last expedition was in print; but in the | meantime a vast problem rose before me. The journeys that I had made in Siberia had convinced me that the mountains which at that time were drawn on the maps of Northern Asia were mostly fantastic, and gave no idea what- | ever of the structure of the country. The great plateaus” MAPS OF NORTHERN ASIA 225 which are so prominent a feature of Asia were not even suspected by those who drew the maps. Instead of them, several great ridges, such as, for instance, the eastern por- ion of the Stanovéi, which used to be drawn on the maps as a black worm creeping eastward, had grown up in the jopographic bureaus, contrary to the indications and even to she sketches of such explorers as L. Schwartz. These ridges nave no existence in nature. The heads of the rivers which flow toward the Arctic Ocean on the one side, and oward the Pacific on the other, lie intermingled on the sur- ace of a vast plateau; they rise in the same marshes. But, n the European topographer’s imagination, the highest mountain ridges must run along the chief water-partings, ind the topographers had drawn there the highest Alps, of Which there is no trace in reality. Many such imaginary nountains were made to intersect the maps of Northern Asia in all directions.
To discover the true leading principles in the disposition af the mountains of Asia— the harmony of mountain for- nation —now became a question which for years absorbed ny attention. or a considerable time the old maps, and till more the generalizations of Alexander von Humboldt, vho, after a long study of Chinese sources, had covered Asia with a network of mountains running along the merid- ans and parallels, hampered me in my researches, until at ast I saw that even Humboldt’s generalizations, stimulating hough they had been, did not agree with the facts.
Beginning, then, with the beginning, in a purely induc- ive way, I collected all the barometrical observations of Tevious travelers, and from them calculated hundreds of ltvcudes; I marked on a large scale map all geological and ysical observations that had been made by different travts, — the facts, not the hypotheses; and I tried to find t what structural lines would answer best to the observed Jalities. This preparatory work took me more than tye 226 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST years; and then followed months of intense thought, in ) order to find out what all the bewildering chaos of scattered observations meant, until one day, all of a sudden, the whole became clear and comprehensible, as if it were illu-. minated with a flash of light. The main structural lines of | Asia are not north and south, or west and east; they are from the southwest to the northeast, —just as, in the: Rocky Mountains and the plateaus of America, the lines: are northwest to southeast; only secondary ridges shoot, out northwest. Moreover, the mountains of Asia are not. bundles of independent ridges, like the Alps, but are sub- ordinated to an immense plateau, an old continent which) once pointed toward Behring Strait. High border ridges have towered up along its fringes, and in the course of ages, terraces, formed by later sediments, have emerged. {rom the sea, thus adding on both sides to the width of the primitive backbone of Asia.
There are not many joys in human life equal to the joy, of the sudden birth of a generalization, illuminating the mind after a long period of patient research. What has seemed for years so chaotic, so contradictory, and so pro- blematic takes at once its proper position within an harmo: nious whole. Out of a wild confusion of facts and from) behind the fog of guesses, — contradicted almost as soon at they are born, —a stately picture makes its appearance, like an Alpine chain suddenly emerging in all its grandeur from the mists which concealed it the moment before, glittering under the rays of the sun in all its simplicity and variety in all its mightiness and beauty. And when the general ization is put to a test, by applying it to hundreds c* sepa’ rate facts which had seemed to be hopelessly contradictory the moment before, each of them assumes its due position} increasing the impressiveness of the picture, accentuatin; some characteristic outline, or adding an unsuspected detai full of meaning. ‘The generalization gains in strength an‘ MY CHIEF CONTRIBUTION TO SCIENCE 227 extent; its foundations grow in width and solidity; while in the distance, through the far-off mist on the horizon, the eye detects the outlines of new and still wider generaliza- tions.
He who has once in his life experienced this joy of scien- tific creation will never forget it; he will be longing to renew it; and he cannot but feel with pain that this sort of happiness is the lot of so few of us, while so many could also live through it, — on a small or on a grand scale, — if ‘scientific methods and leisure were not limited to a handful of men.
This work I consider my chief contribution to science. My first intention was to produce a bulky volume, in which the new ideas about the mountains and plateaus of Northern Asia should be supported by a detailed examination of each separate region; but in 1873, when I saw that I should soon be arrested, I only prepared a map which embodied my views and wrote an explanatory paper. Both were published by the Geographical Society, under the supervision of my bro- ther, while I was already in the fortress of St. Peter and ‘St. Paul. Petermann, who was then preparing a map of Asia, and knew my preliminary work, adopted my scheme for his map, and it has been accepted since by most carto- ‘graphers. The map of Asia, as it is now understood, ex- plains, I believe, the main physical features of the great continent, as well as the distribution of its climates, faunas, and floras, and even its history. It reveals, also, as I was able to see during my last journey to America, striking analogies between the structure and the geological growth of the two continents of the northern hemisphere. Very few cartographers could say now whence all these changes in the map of Asia have come; but in science it is’ better that new ideas should make their way independently of any Name attached to them. The errors, which are unavoidable in a first generalization, are easier to rectify.
Il Il At the same time I worked a great deal for the Russian | Geographical Society in my capacity of secretary to its sec- | tion of physical geography.
Great interest was taken then in the exploration of Tur. — kestan and the Pamirs. Syévertsoff had just returned after several years of travel. A great zodlogist, a gifted geo-_ grapher, and one of the most intelligent men I ever came 1 across, he, like so many Russians, disliked writing. When | he had made an oral communication at a meeting of the | society, he could not be induced to write anything beyond I revising the reports of his communication, so that all that has been published over his signature is very far from | doing full justice to the real value of the observations and 1 the generalizations he had made. This reluctance to put down in writing the results of thought and observation is | unfortunately not uncommon in Russia. The remarks on the orography of Turkestan, on the geographical distribu-| tion of plants and animals, on the part played by hybrids! in the production of new species of birds, and so on, which|; I have heard Syévertsoff make, and the observations on the \ importance of mutual support in the progressive develop- | ment of species which I have found just mentioned in a couple of lines in some report of a meeting, — these bore) x the stamp of more than ordinary talent and originality;_ but he did not possess the exuberant force of exposition in an appropriately beautiful form which might have made of him one of the most prominent men of science of our time.
Miklukho-Maklay, well known in Australia, Rhich to.
MIKLUKHO-MAKLAY 229 wards the end of his life became the country of his adop- tion, belonged to the same order of men: the men who have had so much more to say than they have said in print. He was a tiny, nervous man, always suffering from malaria, who had just returned from the coasts of the Red Sea when I made his acquaintance. A follower of Haeckel, he had worked a great deal upon the marine invertebrates in their natural surroundings. The Geographical Society managed next to ‘get him taken on board a Russian man-of-war to some unknown part of the coast of New Guinea, where he wanted to study the most primitive savages. Accompanied by one sailor only, he was left on this inhospitable shore, the inhabitants of which had the reputation of terrible cannibals. A hut was built for the two Crusoes, and they lived eighteen months or more near a native village on excellent terms with the natives. Always to be straight- forward towards them, and never to deceive them, — not even in the most trifling matters, not even for scientific purposes, — was the point on which he was most scrupulous. When he was traveling some time later in the Malayan archi- pelago, he had with him a native who had entered into his service on the express condition of never being photographed. The natives, as every one knows, consider that something is taken out of them when their likeness is taken by photo- graphy. One day when the native was fast asleep, Maklay, who was collecting anthropological materials, confessed that he was awfully tempted to photograph his native, the more so as he was a typical representative of his tribe and would never have known that he had been photographed. But he remembered his agreement and refrained. When he left New Guinea, the natives made him promise to return; and a few years later, although he was severely ill, he kept his word and did return. This remarkable man has, however, published only an infinitesimal part of the truly invaluable observations he made.
230 3 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST Fédchenko, who had made extensive zoological observa- tions in Turkestan, —in company with his wife, Olga Fédchenko, also a naturalist, — was, as we used to say, a ‘6 West European.” He worked hard to bring out in an elaborated form the results of his observations; but he was, unfortunately, killed in climbing a mountain in Switzer- land. Glowing with youthful ardor after his journeys in the Turkestan highlands, and full of confidence in his own powers, he undertook an ascent without proper guides, and perished in a snowstorm. His wife, happily, completed the publication of his “‘ Travels” after his death, and I be- lieve she has now a son who continues the work of his father and mother. 7 | I also saw a great deal of Prjevalsky, or rather Prze- | walski, as his Polish name ought to be spelled, although he himself preferred to appear as a ‘ Russian patriot.” He | was a passionate hunter, and the enthusiasm with which he made his explorations of Central Asia was almost as much the result of his desire to hunt all sorts of difficult game, — bucks, wild camels, wild horses, and so on, —as of his desire to discover lands, new and difficult to ap- proach. When he was induced to speak of his discoveries, he would soon interrupt his modest descriptions with an enthusiastic exclamation: ‘‘ But what game there! What | hunting! ’’ And he would describe enthusiastically how he crept such and such a distance to approach a wild horse | within shooting range. No sooner was he back at St. | Petersburg than he planned a new expedition, and parsi- | moniously laying aside all his money, tried to increase it | by stock exchange operations for that purpose. He was — the type of a traveler in his strong physique, and in his | capacity for living for years the rough life of a mountain _ hunter. He delighted in leading such a life. He made | his first journey with only three comrades, and always kept | on excellent terms with the natives. However, as his | INTEREST IN ARCTIC EXPLORATION 231 subsequent expeditions took on more of a military charac- ter, he began unfortunately to rely more upon the force of his armed escort than upon peaceful intercourse with the natives, and I heard it said in well-informed quarters that even if he had not died at the very start of his Tibet ex- pedition, — so admirably and peacefully conducted after his death by his companions, Pyevtsdff, Robordvsky, and Kozl6ff, — he very probably would not have returned alive...| There was considerable activity at that time in “the Geo- graphical Society, and many were the geographical ques- tions in which our section, and consequently its secretary, took a lively interest. Most of them were too technical to be mentioned in this place, but I must allude to the awakening of interest in the Russian settlements, the fish- eries, and the trade in the Russian portion of the Arctic Ocean, which took place in these years. A Siberian mer- chant and gold miner, Sidoroff, made the most persevering efforts to awaken that interest. He foresaw that with alittle aid in the shape of naval schools, the exploration of the White Sea, and so on, the Russian fisheries and Russian navigation could be largely developed. But that little, unfortunately, had to be done entirely through St. Petersburg; and the ruling powers of that courtly, bureau- eratic, literary, artistic, and cosmopolitan city could not be moved to take an interest in anything provincial. Poor Sidoroff was simply ridiculed for his efforts. Interest in our far north had to be enforced upon the Russian Geo- graphical Society from abroad.
In the years 1869-71 the bold Norwegian seal-hunters aad quite unexpectedly opened the Kara Sea to navigation. lo our extreme astonishment, we learned one day at the society that that sea, which lies between the island of Noévaya Zemlya and the Siberian coast, and which we usec sonfidently to describe in our writings as “an ice cellar vermanently stocked with ice,” had been entered by anum- 232 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST ber of small Norwegian schooners and crossed by them in- all directions. Even the wintering place of the famous Dutchman Barentz, which we believed to be concealed forever from the eyes of man by ice fields hundreds of years old, had been visited by these adventurous Norse- men..
«Exceptional seasons and an exceptional state of the ice’ was what our old navigators said. But to a few of us it was quite evident that, with their small schooners and their small crews, the bold Norwegian hunters, who feel at home amidst the ice, had ventured to pierce the floating ice which usually bars the way to the Kara Sea, while the commanders of government ships, hampered by the respon- sibilities of the naval service, had never risked doing so.
A general interest in arctic exploration was awakened by these discoveries. In fact, it was the seal-hunters who opened the new era of arctic enthusiasm which culminated in Nordenskjild’s cireumnavigation of Asia, in the per- manent establishment of the northeastern passage to Siberia, | in Peary’s discovery of North Greenland, and in Nansen’s: Fram expedition. Our Russian Geographical Society also. began to move, and a committee was appointed to prepare. the scheme of a Russian arctic expedition, and to indicate the scientific work that could be done by it. Specialists undertook to write each of the special scientific chapters of this report; but, as often happens, a few chapters only, on botany, geology, and meteorology, were ready in time, and the secretary of the committee — that 1s, myself — had to write the remainder. Several subjects, such as marine zodlogy, the tides, pendulum observations, and terrestrial magnetism, were quite new to me; but the amount of work which a healthy man can accomplish in a short time, if he strains all his forces and goes straight to the root of the subject, no one would suppose beforehand, — and so my report was ready. i" PLANNING AN ARCTIC EXPLORATION 233 Tt concluded by advocating a great arctic expedition, which would awaken in Russia a permanent interest in arctic questions and arctic navigation, and in the meantime a reconnoitring expedition on board a schooner chartered in Norway with its captain, pushing north or northeast of N6- vaya Zemlyd. This expedition, we suggested, might also try to reach, or at least to sight, an unknown land which must be situated at no great distance from Novaya Zemlya. The probable existence of such a land had been indicated by an officer of the Russian navy, Baron Schilling, in an excellent but little known paper on the currents in the Arctic Ocean. When I read this paper, as also Liitke’s journey to Novaya Zemlya, and made myself acquainted with the general conditions of this part of the Arctic Ocean, I saw at once that the supposition must be correct. There must be a land to the northwest of Novaya Zemlya, and it must reach a higher latitude than Spitzbergen. The steady position of the ice at the west of Ndvaya Zemlya, the mud and stones on it, and various other smaller indications con- firmed the hypothesis. Besides, if such a land were not located there, the ice current which flows westward from the meridian of Behring Strait to Greenland (the current of the Fram’s drift) would, as Baron Schilling had truly remarked, reach the North Cape and cover the coasts of Laponia with masses of ice, just as it covers the northern extremity of Greenland. The warm current alone —a