FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 8, 1904. 
EMS IMUEMT 
On the Tundras of Siberia* 
What are termed "ball-fields" by some, are termed 
by the native Cibiriaks, "tundra." To the American 
mind, "ball-fields" is the most expressive term. For 
if you have had a walk of thirty miles over one ball- 
field stretch in a single day (and the writer has had 
many such), you will have a knocked-out feeling by 
camping time that will make you think you have had 
enough for a month. But when it comes to having to 
resume on the morrow — and on the morrows for an 
entire week — that infernal walking-jolt over the ball- 
fields or marshes, you get all the "ups and downs" of 
life in that week sufficient to serve for the "hard time" 
memories of a career. For one week of this harassing 
ball-field stumping is literally a mental strain on the 
tourist. Then there are the trillions of mosquitoes 
which follow you, obliging you to cover up the entire 
body, which naturally increases your body-heat to an 
enervating degree. Even so, the insects will settle on 
your back, and bore their proboscis through both coat 
and shirt, and still draw blood! 
The Cibirian mosquito is probably the biggest in the 
universe. It is three times larger than the New Jersey 
pet — or pest. Flattened down on a half-dollar piece, 
its lanky -legs will just reach to the milled edge. It is 
a light nut-brown in color; and they make no attempt 
to escape from the descending hand, which crushes them 
by the dozen as they settle on the exposed skin. 
Cibirian mujiks, when intoxicated and asleep in the 
a house, or in the darkened barns or stables, bristling 
nearly all over with gently-crackling luminous electricity. 
It sometimes resembles a miniature pyrotechnic display 
—like hundreds of tiny fireflies shedding their momen- 
tary scintillations of sparking light. 
The Cibirian trapper has probably the only really 
waterproof clothing in the world. It is throughout 
pure wool, undyed, yet a dull brown-black, inasmuch as 
the black-fleece wools are alone used. It is a home- 
made knitted fabric, yet so close-stitched you can't see 
da}dight through it; consequently, it is elastic, and 
lasts years, although not an over-thick material— weigh- 
ing about one pound to the square yard. . It is unob- 
tainable commercially in Cibiria; to get it, means a 
hunt to the villages to purchase a few yards — if they 
are disposed to accommodate you. Nor can it be 
procured in any other country "of the globe — to the 
writer's knowledge. 
As a traveler who has had fifteen years of outing ex- 
perience, in most every country of the universe, I have 
tried every conceivable kind of waterproof clothing, but 
found the rough Cibirian all-wool goods the sole satis- 
factory article. Rubber is unhealthy, because non- 
porous; hot and evil-smelling in summer, and icy-cold 
to the touch in winter — unless faced with wool. More- 
over, it can never be relied on; it is always liable to 
"go" unexpectedly — the rubber oxidizes, crumbling into 
sand-like particles. This is particularly true of the 
one-side-rubber-faced silk overcoating. 
Oilskins, mackintoshes, pantasote, are all unhealthy 
proofing does not even possess capillary attraction. You, 
of course, know what capillary attraction means, when, 
after a long day's outing in the rain, you become con- 
scious of the wet creeping up the inside of your coat 
sleeve (begins to rain even up your sleeve), and it may 
even reach the elbow ere nightfall; just as, if not wear- 
ing long boots, the wet will gradually capillarate up the 
interior of your trousers to the knees, or even to the 
groin, despite the rubber coat which reaches almost to 
your ankles. This capillarity is due to the heat of the 
body drawing up the moisture. But the mujik's recipe 
for waterproofing even bars out the capillarity. 
The native name is laha, or cholk. It is extraordinarily 
strong, as may be judged by this fact, that one of those 
overcoats, buttoned up, and two slim poles run through 
the interior, often serve for a hammock, laid on a trestle 
or a couple of forked boughs, and the 200-pound mujik 
trappist will snore comfortably thereon till morn. 
Examine the coat next day, and you will find not even a 
seam has started; but there are only three seams in the 
whole garment; hence its strength. Then the mujik 
breaks camp, dons the coat that was his bed, and literally 
goes off "with his bed on his back" all day. 
But the Cibirian cholk has its fault even. It has been 
said it is porous ; so it lets the dread, searching arctic 
blasts filter through, more deadly, if unchecked, than any 
rain; for death from exposure (sheer loss of animal heat) 
is liable to supervene. I have been twice nearly that way 
myself in central Cibiria. 
So to keep out the polaric blasts, the Cibiriak wears the 
chyba or skin furs, through which no air can go; or the 
r 
ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILROAD. 
forests, have been known to sleep and never wake again. 
Millions of mosquitoes had. settled on them, and had 
drained them of blood till exhaustion and death ensued. 
I got this information from Russian medicos themselves, 
who, making an autopsy of the bodies, found them 
bloodless. 
The ball-fields, or tundra, are formed by the workings 
of the rainfalls of centuries on flat expanses. The grass 
grows for ages in rank growths; and the water, in fol- 
lowing the law of gravity till it reaches the river, 
meanders over and about the field, trickling through the 
long rotting herbal growths of former years. In course 
of time, the erosion wears channels between the grass- 
tufts, which are gradually added to every year, till they 
reach a height of one and a half to two feet above the 
waterline of the marsh. In time, again, these become 
top-heavy, rot at the base, and fall over; or the tramp- 
ing sportsman, putting his weight on one, often hastens 
the fall. This tuft sinks into one of the narrow channels, 
and finally makes the peat of coming generations, while 
another ball begins to form in its place. Thus is the 
genesis continued. 
In stumping or stalking across tundra, you have the 
option of stepping from tuft to tuft, or of sinking knee- 
deep in the boggy little channels encircling them. 
You feel "between the two devils," but decide on the 
lesser evil— from tuft to tuft. And as you step from 
ball to ball, you may miss, or a rotten one will cave 
over, and the heavy lunge will send you sprawling igno- 
miniously, with the marshy water dashing up into your 
face and neck. Such is the camping-outer's experience 
of the ball-fields, or tundra, of Cibiria ! 
A graceful, domestic feature of Cibirian farmhouses, 
are the long-haired pussies— hair so long that you can 
sink and run your- fingers through it, so you cannot see 
them. This is a wise precaution of nature against the 
intense wintry cold of half a year. The cats are ex- 
ceedingly affectionate-natured, "and love to be fondled, 
and to lay ©,ri your breast, vvith, their fore-paws reaching 
half-way round your neck. 
In the mid-winter, (Juring the extremely dry cold 
Weather, you can see them ;n the dark passage ways of 
and uncomfortable, because non-porous, and icy-cold to 
the touch in winter. They are also very noisy brushing 
through the still forests; and no hunter has any use for 
articles that will frighten his quarry. 
The woolen and silk goods, known as "cravenet," are 
really not waterproof; they may turn off a slight shower, 
but rainfalls are seldom so gently accommodating. 
When it rains "cats and dogs," the hydrostatic force of 
the descending torrents literally hammers the rain 
through the "cravenet," and in half an hour you have 
"all the starch" taken out of you. In the thickest 
winter-weight cravenet, even (22-24 ounces to the square 
yard), the pelting rain will finally hammer through, and 
completely soak the coat. Then you have the further 
discomfort of knowing you are uselessly carrying 
around a half-dozen pounds of water soaked into that 
supposed "waterproof." For by actual test, I have 
found that a 9-pound winter waterproof, after being out 
in it all day on the go, in the alternately drizzling and 
pelting rain, weighed by evening fifteen pounds. Hang- 
ing up in the tent, it took five days to completely dry 
out. 
The secret of the Cibirian really waterproof pure 
wool clothing, is that it is made up of merely lukewarm- 
water-cleaned long-fiber wool, but not scoured, so that 
much of the lanolin, or "cyok," remains in the wool 
and preserves its strength, and even moths won't harbor 
in it. Then, after being as close weave-knitted as the 
primitive frames of the villagers will permit, it is placed 
for a couple of days in an almost neutral pickle, which 
serves a double purpose — shrinks the cloth (correspond- 
ing to our sponging), so that it may be washed hereafter 
with a minimum of shrinkage — is that — and, most import- 
ant of all, insolublizes the lanolin in the wool so that the 
whole texture becomes water repellant, and the coat does 
not even allow any rain to spread or saturate on or in it ; 
the water simply "beads" off as it falls. Therefore your 
coat is always dry, with the exception of pin-head-like 
particles of rain which lodge in the roughnesses and in- 
terstices of the cloth, but which drop off on shaking your 
coat'— as sea sand drops off a handkerchief which has 
been laid thereon to dry. 
Jn other words, thej ideal Cibirian all pure wool water- 
much lighter kleunka, a black, oil-dried waterproofing, 
which is entirely wind-proof, but, if you are standing 
about, as poor an insulator against cold as rubber boots. 
The leather, chamois, and canvas coats you see in 
America are never seen in Cibiria, and no sporting goods 
stores in any of the towns would handle them. They are 
all too icy cold for the climate; 40 degrees below zero, on 
and off, for months, seems to stiffen them with an extra 
penetrating cold. 
The most concentrated article of wearing apparel the 
Cibiriak wears is his chapka — a sort of forage cap some- 
what resembling our own various named neglige caps used 
on long distance train riding. It can be used as cap, night- 
cap, gauntlet glove, cuff, socks, mitten, waist belt, bathing 
drawers, satchel, hammock rope, and maybe for three 
or four other purposes. It is woven circular, all wool, 
both ends open, and its use as a hammock rope, sus- 
taining a 200-pound person all night, is its limit before it 
can be used successfully for another duty; for the heavy 
weight has stretched it nearly treble. But, to overcome 
this, the mujik just uses that provisional hammock rope 
instead of a flannel when he takes his morning face wash; 
this at once shrinks it to normal. He presses the water 
out between his vise-like, horny hands, and dons the cap 
while still quite humid. In summer it is dry in about 
three hours; in winter, after three minutes in the open, 
it freezes rock-hard on his head, but of course without 
adhering to his usually naturally greasy shock head of 
hair, and 'will be dried out by the intensely dry cold in 
about four hours. 
A peculiar institution Cibirian is for a native, if want- 
ing to make a thin overcoat both cold-proof and wind- 
proof— to provide for an emergency of a few hours, 
maybe — to soak it for about five minutes in warm water, 
squeeze (never wring) all the water out possible, put it 
on, and walk out into the cold. It promptly freezes stiff 
as a . board about him, the ice filling all the pores, and 
effectually barring the most searching winds. This will 
suffice for an outing of four or five hours, the proofing 
gradually disappearing with the evaporation of the coat 
of icy mail, by which, time the wearer calculates to be 
back home again* _ L, Lodian. 
