442 
^FOREST AND STREAM/ 
[Dec. 6, igo2. 
Two Years' Outing Across Siberia 
(.Continued from page 403.") 
Life aad Spoft on the Trans-Baikal. 
From the headwaters of the Amur, the route lay 
over the labloni range, thence across the valley of the 
Baikal, to the vast lake of that name — a beautiful jour- 
ney. Negotiating the road-passes of the labloni Ciepa 
(pronounced ciera), little difficulty is experienced: the 
worst parts of the roads are on the upper ranges, and are 
almost knee deep in a coarse sand. It is cruel Avork on the 
horses, most all the year round, to pull telegas and taran- 
tases over those shifty seashore-like dopori. In wet 
vv-eather is, of course, the worst, when the adhering sand 
presents a "cling-surface" to everything enough to make 
even a leather-belting cling-surface specialist hate the 
very words which are one of his talking points. And, 
again, in winter, little snow falls in this region; sledges 
are seldom seen except on the frozen rivers, and the in- 
tense dry cold takes every particle of moisture out of 
the sandy roads and leaves them as soft and powdery as 
in the piping hot summer. If snow does fall, the Arctic 
temperature and the winds keep it on the move; for the 
flakes congeal into crystals, which in turn are expanded 
and exploded by the cold to an almost impalpable powder. 
Try to make a snowball of that snow, and you will fail ; 
in pressing it together in jour hands it will run through 
your fingers like silver smd. 
A Lonely Station on the Trans-Cibitiao. 
The circum-Baikal route is probably the best sports- 
man's chance in Cibiria off the now open trans-Asiatic 
railroad system. There you will find bears and black 
foxes of a type whose skins are much sought for in fur- 
riery — and a combination of pleasure and money-making 
is never amiss. I have always held it is quite proper 
(whether you need the money or not) to make money 
honestly — to put, if possible, the spice ©f commercialism 
into your sport — to (if you will, in fact) respect and 
even love money. My experience with carping cynics who 
talk about "money muck" and profess to be "above it," 
that they're not above "borrowing" your "money muck"; 
and, worst of all, never think of repaying it. Oh, no! 
it's not their "principle" to repay "money muck." I am 
induced to jot doAvn this reflection on money by recalling 
an unfortunate central Cibirian experience, west of the 
Baikal; and still worse disappointments elsewhere in the 
world. However, should this paragraph reach the eyes 
of the Cibirski delinquent, I would say the debt has been 
"written off"; but he won't get another chancel 
Boxing-in a Ofairlan Foresi: The Huge^t Pole Fence 
Known. 
In the approaches to the valley of the Baikal, as you 
near the dirtv big village of HijHi-ydinck (pronounced 
Nijni-ydingkj, it will be noticed that the dense forests on 
either side ar for scores of miles roughly fenced in. 
Why? The forests are never used for anything— not even 
touched for timber or firewood. The villages are thirty 
to fifty verstas apart, and even the natives rarely venture 
into those black depths. So why the fenced-in protection? 
It had to be explained to me. The villagers' horses and 
cattle, in search of pasture, would stray miles and rniles 
from the depebni— mostly along the great trans-Asiatic 
highway, and then turn off into the forest glades, and get 
remote into the forest depths. Thus far, so well. If 
let alone, the cattle would instinctively have found their 
way out and home again — if they wanted to. But prob- 
ably many of the hard-worked horses found grassy dells 
beside tranquil lakelets, and preferred to stay there. Win- 
ter's approach would have reminded them that the snug 
village stables were (for six months of the year) better 
than the glacial depths of the forests, and accordingly they 
would have turned up at their stations by force of circum- 
stsnccs- 
But, of course, their owners could not wait such a 
pleasure of theirs — I mean the horses. So men and chil- 
dren would start to explore the forests in search of the 
errants, and a comedy would turn into a tragedy ! Divers 
of the searchers for the lost would hopelessly lose them- 
selves. Without compass, a sky may be overcast for days 
and obscuring the sun— -without woodcraft knowledge — 
running short of food (if they had the prevision to take 
any)_various of the younger folk have disappeared for- 
ever, in the years gone by ; and even some of the older 
people have never been able to relate their experiences. 
Any animal, no matter how unacquainted with water, 
will wriggle to land somehow if flung into a pond. Can 
the same be said of human beings? Our boating fatali- 
ties prove the contrary. A boatload of half a dozen per- 
sons, a poodle, a capsize and lo ! the poodle proves the 
"noblest of them all"— i.e., he doesn't lose his head. 
Likely as not he proves the sole survivor ; and, not con- 
tent with swimming ashore, the noble canine wiU for 
hours— perhaps days— patrol the bank with his plaintive 
cries to get assistance for those for whom it will avail not. 
So the Cibirian villagers, after repeated heartrending 
distresses over their lost ones, decided, "in extraordinary 
convention assembled," to take in hand the (for them) big 
task of actually fencing in the forests for scores bf miles. 
Stop the cause: the effect will take care of itself. Of 
their own initiative, in their own time, the widely parted 
communes set to work to box in the forests. Each had 
its allotted sections to pole up. The process was rough, 
simple, but effective. Slim long firs were selected, a 
dozen blows of the hatchet, and down they came with a 
run. Speedily were the branches lopped off, which last 
were subsequently rounded up, bunched, and dragged to 
the villages for the winter's firewood: So the mujiks 
at least got the best part of their long winter's fire supply 
for their pains. 
Now the slim trefe lengths (without troubling to split 
them for timber is too plentiful for that) were nailed 
bodily on to the skirting forest trees from tree to tree. 
There are three tiers of these tree-poles— high enough to 
prevent a trouble-meaning horse to clear, when being 
rounded up; and low enough to prevent colts and calves 
wandering thereunder, _ 
^ The unique fence has well seryed its purpose. Without 
fence po.sts to rot (for, as just stated, the fence is nailed 
from tree to tree), in a pure, dry climate, that, the (I be- 
lieve) hugest timber fence on the globe, will probably last 
another half-century. 
And as you ride along day after day in the tarantas, and 
see that Cibirian "Chinese wall" (of wood) facing the 
black depths of the forests, j-ou get to like it, and com- 
pare its comfortable top bar — just right for sitting on — 
to the inconvenience of the inhospitable American barbed- 
wire fence. For, personally, I consider the Yankee 
barbed-wire fence the most cussedestly uncomfortable seat 
to swing on that was ever conceived out of 1:he brain of a 
depraved genius. 
Sport on the Lake Baikal. 
This is the greatest fresh-water lake in the universe, 
barring our own inland seas. It covers nearly 13,500 
square miles. Baikal is an Arabic or Tatar word, meaning 
"rich water," or lake. Fresher-tasting lake water I never 
drank in my life: its freshness you seem to taste as an 
aromatic odor. Throughout the year — even in midsum- 
mer — ^the water is always under or little above zero centt- 
grado. In the afternoons of the warm days of August, I 
would endeavor to bathe therein from the extreme south- 
western shores, but the water remained so benumbingly 
cool, I could not .stand it over a couple of minutes. 
This low temperature is accounted for by the lake re- 
ceiving its supply always from the snows of the Altai 
range. So pure is the supply, you can see the big white 
stones at the lake bottom through a score feet of water— 
and deeper still when the lake is frozen. The greatest 
depth of the Baikal has never yet beeen ascertained: 
soundings of over a mile deen have been made, yet without 
— in some places — touching bottom. 
In fish, it is exceedingly rich. The neighboring towns 
and districts look to it for their fish supplies, and there 
is an organized fishing industry on a certain scale of mag- 
nitude. I often passed the ruins of fish cureries — ^^showing 
how the scene of operations was often on the shift. Tlie 
(i:ibirian towns depend on the Baikal for their kaviar 
(which they call, in Russian, ikra). This is obtained from 
the sturgeon; and the highest grade of isinglass comes 
from the same source. (It is, by the way, both comical 
and provoking how many ignorant people in America will 
persist in misapplying the word isinglass to and for mika, 
or mica.) 
The sporting angler, then, touring across Cibiria, has in 
the great Baikal all the unexplored field he will need for 
years. No elaborate equipment is necessary: the village 
boys do wonders with a few feet of string and a bent pin ; 
whereas the son of the governor-general at Ipkytck (pro- 
nounced Irkutsk), who came along with a 200-ruble outfit, 
and who had read up a petty library on fishology, and ex- 
pected to stagger the benighted natives with his piscicul- 
tural hauls — this "know-all-about-it" book angler had such 
poor luck he wasn't above resorting (in his despair) to 
the subterfuge of buying up some of the villagers' bent-pin 
catches, and returning to Ipkytck and proudly showing 
them off as his own ! 
Silkworm gut is always useful in an angler's outfit— not 
alone for deceiving the cutest of fish, but also as a surgical 
ligature in case of need, or as an auxiliary guitar or violin 
string; or as forming the strongest emergency binding 
twine one could have. Therefore some of it could ad- 
vantageously be carried by any sportsman visiting the land 
of dreadful distance. 
Incidentally, I might mention that the process of manu- 
facture of silkworm gut was unknown to the world till I 
made it known over a dozen years ago. In '88 I was 
traveling in Iberia, where (in Murcia) the making of the 
gut had always been a mysterious secret ; and a letter came 
from R. Marston, editor of the Fishing Gazette (London), 
asking for an article telling all about the process. I got 
the information first-hand, personally handled much of the 
silvery-pearl threads, but decided to write out the account 
when it suited me, and to take my own time thereover; 
returned to America for six months, but did nothing; 
returned to Paris in the spring of '89, and from there 
wrote out "The Manufacture of Silkworm Gut." It duly 
appeared in one of the issues of the Gazette for May or 
June, and was credited world-wide for years. The last 
time it turned up was in a Chicago journal of technique, 
in May, '96. A couple of years after my first publication, 
the Carswell & Imbrie concern, Manhattan, came out 
with an independent account. "The cat was out of the 
bag," etc. 
The Black Snow of Qbiria. 
This phenomenon of nature was commented on by the 
writer when describing another of nature's little known 
phenomena in Cibiria, re the cold-expansion of metals, 
illustrated over a couple of years ago in the monthly Engi- 
neering Times (London). The curiosity is not unknown 
in the north of America ; but in northern Asia you see it 
on a big scale — here and there, whole patches of a funereal 
black. This is the cause of the singularity : The earth in 
parts is an intense bluish-black. We all know that a 
deep blue-black looks blacker than a pure black. You will 
notice this in print : a circular printed in a pronounced 
l)!ue-black is an intenser black (and is easier to read) than 
one printed with plain black ink, which, on drying, has a 
tinge of a dull gray in it. 
Now, the blue-black earth of sections of Cibiria Is first 
frozen by the cold, then the dry cold — getting intenser — 
dries every particle of moisture, and the clods of earth 
disintegrate to an almost impalpable powder. _ The result 
is you will occasionally see dust storms in Cibiria, in mid- 
^i^^ter — in districts where scarce any snow falls — as dense 
as on the Mojave desert, and intensively more disagree- 
able—since accompanied by, maybe, a cold of 35 below 
centigrado. 
Finally, along comes a blizzard of snow. For a couple 
of days there is a pretty churning up of those earth par- 
ticles and the snow flakes — or rather snow crystals; 
for the vise-like cold freezes the flakes into pow- 
der-like granules ere or almost as soon as they 
reach the earth. The result is a layer of black snow, from 
two to six inches deep. Take some of it in your hand : 
the result of melting will leave some dirty water in your 
palm, but no sediment — ^proving how thorough has been 
the atmospheric mixing of earth and snow. But, while 
the black snow, melted, will hold the earthy particles in 
solution for some time, if you melt a whole tumblerful, 
you will find in the morning the law of gravity will "a 
tale unfold"— and ther? \vi\l be the earthy sediment, 
There is nothing whiter than snow, and its intense 
whiteness is due to the bluish tinge of the flakes or 
crystals. Don't our own housewives insensibly copy na- 
ture's snow when, to whiten linen, they run the cleansed 
goods through the bluing tub? I mention the well-known 
whiteness of snow, as it is this very bluish tinge which, 
combining Avith the bluish-black earth, helps produce a 
snow ';vhich is the blackest thing in nature! I put it in 
italics— for there could be nothing blacker. The nearest 
approach to it artificially is the black crepe common at 
funerals. The black snow is not a glossy or glittering 
black, but has quite a somber or dull appearance. It has 
not at all the look of dirty snow — too black for that. 
There, as it lays in patches on the great steps of 
western Cibiria, hardened down by the cold so you can 
walk on it with scarce leaving an impression, you will 
notice the wind has gently furrowed it as the waves fur- 
row sand on the seashore. This queer wavy or ribbed 
effect at once puts you in mind of and makes you com- 
pare it to the intense dull black of crinkled or fuzzy crepe 
which widows like to wear. 
Sportsmen's Accommodations fn Cibiria. 
It goes without saying, these are unsatisfactory every- 
where. Judged by western standards, there is not a 
proper hotel in the country. But all outing people expect 
to have to rough it even in America, when camping out, 
but look forward to the town for "getting even" in creature 
comforts. In Cibiria, the outer must expect to rough it 
both in town and out of it. If he goes there prepared for 
thus roughing it, he will feel no disappointment. If he 
keeps to the line of the railway, he will find at all first and 
second class stations a respectable pectopaH (pronounced 
restoran), sometimes called byfct (meaning "laeefsteak") 
— for the American or British beefsteak is well known in 
Cibiria and Russia — in fact, the world over. 
The prices are soaring. For a glass of tea, 10 koneks 
(pronounced kopeks) ; coffee, 20 k. ; cacao, scarce obtain- 
able, but price would be about 25 or 30 k. ; glass milk, 10 
k. ; apple, 25 k. ; orange, 30 k. ; lemon, 40 to 50 k. ; beef- 
steak, 35 to so k. ; ham and eggs, 50 k. ; a little bread, 
10 k. ; cigar, 20 k. ; champagne, about 7 pybli the bottle. 
Legally, the konek and pybl (pronounced rubl) equals 
our dollar and cent; in exchange, the pybli is worth 75 
cents and the konek about % cent. The currency is paper, 
some silver, and old cumbersome coppers. The silver is 
heavily alloyed with tin, and scarce rings like silver. Alto- 
gether, it is a depraved currency. There is false money, too, 
and it behooves one to be on the alert. I Avas victim- 
ized, as at first I thought all the silver false, and some that 
were really false did thus creep in, Not wishing, when T 
found out the fraud, to palm it off on others (which is 
wrong both legally and morally — beside, consider the awk- 
ward assumed look of innocence you have to put on when 
the proffered spurio is detected and returned to you) — 
all false money I received in Cibiria, I would deposit, in a 
spirit of the purest philanthropy, in church collection 
boxes. 
Hotels in Cibiria have a fixed tariff posted in every 
room. You do at least know about what you will have 
to pay. The tariff is drawn up by a paternal administration 
thousands of miles away, at St. Petersburg. Thus, if you. 
want hot water, you can have the piping samovar brought 
in : 10 koneks. The tariff is rated fairly high ; but those 
printed figures prevent disputes. 
"Sweet Repose, Indeedl" 
At some of the Chino-Russian inns on the Manchuria- 
Cibiria frontier, the proprietors have yielded so much to 
Western ideas as to provide rough cane bedsteads for 
guests, instead of the straw mats most commonly used. 
They are made of a wizened or crinkled or very withered- 
looking gray cane, jointed like bamboo, but solid all 
through, and not liable to split like the hollow article. 
The fiber is of the toughest. I used to wonder what it 
was, especially as the boys about would surreptitiously 
slice pieces off the bed posts and chew them up. I tried, 
too, and found it sweet as maple sugar. 
It transpired that the material was nothing other than 
desiccated or sun-dried sorghum sugar cane — chosen for 
its lightness, elasticity and exceeding strength when dried 
with its natural juices retained; also insuring to sleepers 
the sweetest of repose. 
So, if you desired some candy when abed, all you had to 
do was to slice off and munch a little chunk of bed post ! 
SoKtode of Travel In CiWria* 
Some years ago, when touring among the Pyrenees, and, 
later, among the Sierra Madre range of western Mexico, 
I recorded my impressions of the solitude of travel in a 
world which is said to be "getting full." On the Iberian 
slope of the south-central Pyrenees, three days' jaunt with 
scarce seeing a soul — and this is supposedly "crowded 
Europe" ! In the land of la Mexicana, forty miles of rid- 
ing on a straight road — one of the main mesa highways of 
Mexico — without seeing life! But I had not seen 
Cibiria then! 
*' The Seven Cardinal Sinf.** 
There is one spot about midway on the Aniur River, 
where from village to village is some 300 versti (say, in 
round figures, turning 200 miles). Not a soul to be seen 
between, outside of the lonely posting stations, or ctancias 
(pronounced stancias). At those stancias reside the 
starosta, or storoj (chief), his family, and a helper. Day 
after day you travel without seeing life en route, excepting 
an occasional fleeing wolf or young deer^ or the wildest 
of goats. The road is tortuous at times, travel slow, but 
the scenery ravishing in its poetic effects of distant pros- 
pects and vast horizons. 
All travelers express themselves satisfied when, 
the last of the seven solitary stancias are passed. 
They have given to the isolated seven, the never- 
forgetable title of "The Seven Cardinal Sins." Nor 
will the occidental tourist forget it if (as happene 
to the scribe) he gets benighted between tho 
solitary stations — has the tarantas or harness bre 
down seven miles from the stancia you are trying to reach 
ere the pitch-black night comes on : the isvochik (driver) 
has to tramp those seven miles to the stancia for a new 
belly band or shaft or axle (mostly made of wood), or 
for whatever the breakdown may mean; then there is the 
seven miles to come back for you, your baggage, and to 
haul the tarantas to the stancia. (Soing and returning will 
