The Adventures of a Special Correspondent: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I am always suspicious of a traveler's "impressions." These impressions
are subjective--a word I use because it is the fashion, although I am
not quite sure what it means. A cheerful man looks at things
cheerfully, a sorrowful man looks at them sorrowfully. Democritus would
have found something enchanting about the banks of the Jordan and the
shores of the Dead Sea. Heraclitus would have found something
disagreeable about the Bay of Naples and the beach of the Bosphorus. I
am of a happy nature--you must really pardon me if I am rather
egotistic in this history, for it is so seldom that an author's
personality is so mixed up with what he is writing about--like Hugo,
Dumas, Lamartine, and so many others. Shakespeare is an exception, and
I am not Shakespeare--and, as far as that goes, I am not Lamartine, nor
Dumas, nor Hugo.

However, opposed as I am to the doctrines of Schopenhauer and Leopardi,
I will admit that the shores of the Caspian did seem rather gloomy and
dispiriting. There seemed to be nothing alive on the coast; no
vegetation, no birds. There was nothing to make you think you were on a
great sea. True, the Caspian is only a lake about eighty feet below the
level of the Mediterranean, but this lake is often troubled by violent
storms. A ship cannot "get away," as sailors say: it is only about a
hundred leagues wide. The coast is quickly reached eastward or
westward, and harbors of refuge are not numerous on either the Asiatic
or the European side.

There are a hundred passengers on board the _Astara_--a large number of
them Caucasians trading with Turkestan, and who will be with us all the
way to the eastern provinces of the Celestial Empire.

For some years now the Transcaspian has been running between Uzun Ada
and the Chinese frontier. Even between this part and Samarkand it has
no less than sixty-three stations; and it is in this section of the
line that most of the passengers will alight. I need not worry about
them, and I will lose no time in studying them. Suppose one of them
proves interesting, I may pump him and peg away at him, and just at the
critical moment he will get out.

No! All my attention I must devote to those who are going through with
me. I have already secured Ephrinell, and perhaps that charming
Englishwoman, who seems to me to be going to Pekin. I shall meet with
other traveling companions at Uzun Ada. With regard to the French
couple, there is nothing more at present, but the passage of the
Caspian will not be accomplished before I know something about them.
There are also these two Chinamen who are evidently going to China. If
I only knew a hundred words of the "Kouan-hoa," which is the language
spoken in the Celestial Empire, I might perhaps make something out of
these curious guys. What I really want is some personage with a story,
some mysterious hero traveling _incognito_, a lord or a bandit. I must
not forget my trade as a reporter of occurrences and an interviewer of
mankind--at so much a line and well selected. He who makes a good
choice has a good chance.

I go down the stairs to the saloon aft. There is not a place vacant.
The cabins are already occupied by the passengers who are afraid of the
pitching and rolling. They went to bed as soon as they came on board,
and they will not get up until the boat is alongside the wharf at Uzun
Ada. The cabins being full, other travelers have installed themselves
on the couches, amid a lot of little packages, and they will not move
from there.

As I am going to pass the night on deck, I return up the cabin stairs.
The American is there, just finishing the repacking of his case.

"Would you believe it!" he exclaims, "that that drunken moujik actually
asked me for something to drink?"

"I hope you have lost nothing, Monsieur Ephrinell?" I reply.

"No; fortunately."

"May I ask how many teeth you are importing into China in those cases?"

"Eighteen hundred thousand, without counting the wisdom teeth!"

And Ephrinell began to laugh at this little joke, which he fired off on
several other occasions during the voyage. I left him and went onto the
bridge between the paddle boxes.

It is a beautiful night, with the northerly wind beginning to freshen.
In the offing, long, greenish streaks are sweeping over the surface of
the sea. It is possible that the night may be rougher than we expect.
In the forepart of the steamer are many passengers, Turkomans in rags,
Kirghizes wrapped up to the eyes, moujiks in emigrant costume--poor
fellows, in fact, stretched on the spare spars, against the sides, and
along the tarpaulins. They are almost all smoking or nibbling at the
provisions they have brought for the voyage. The others are trying to
sleep and forget their fatigue, and perhaps their hunger.

It occurs to me to take a stroll among these groups. I am like a hunter
beating the brushwood before getting into the hiding place. And I go
among this heap of packages, looking them over as if I were a custom
house officer.

A rather large deal case, covered with a tarpaulin, attracts my
attention. It measures about a yard and a half in height, and a yard in
width and depth. It has been placed here with the care required by
these words in Russian, written on the side, "Glass--Fragile--Keep from
damp," and then directions, "Top--Bottom," which have been respected.
And then there is the address, "Mademoiselle Zinca Klork, Avenue
Cha-Coua, Pekin, Petchili, China."

This Zinca Klork--her name showed it--ought to be a Roumanian, and she
was taking advantage of this through train on the Grand Transasiatic to
get her glass forwarded. Was this an article in request at the shops of
the Middle Kingdom? How otherwise could the fair Celestials admire
their almond eyes and their elaborate hair?

The bell rang and announced the six-o'clock dinner. The dining-room is
forward. I went down to it, and found it already occupied by some forty
people.

Ephrinell had installed himself nearly in the middle. There was a
vacant seat near him; he beckoned to me to occupy it, and I hastened to
take possession.

Was it by chance? I know not; but the Englishwoman was seated on
Ephrinell's left and talking to him. He introduced me.

"Miss Horatia Bluett," he said.

Opposite I saw the French couple conscientiously studying the bill of
fare.

At the other end of the table, close to where the food came from--and
where the people got served first--was the German passenger, a man
strongly built and with a ruddy face, fair hair, reddish beard, clumsy
hands, and a very long nose which reminded one of the proboscidean
feature of the plantigrades. He had that peculiar look of the officers
of the Landsturm threatened with premature obesity.

"He is not late this time," said I to Ephrinell.

"The dinner hour is never forgotten in the German Empire!" replied the
American.

"Do you know that German's name?"

"Baron Weissschnitzerd�rfer."

"And with that name is he going to Pekin?"

"To Pekin, like that Russian major who is sitting near the captain of
the _Astara_."

I looked at the man indicated. He was about fifty years of age, of true
Muscovite type, beard and hair turning gray, face prepossessing. I knew
Russian: he ought to know French. Perhaps he was the fellow traveler of
whom I had dreamed.

"You said he was a major, Mr. Ephrinell?"

"Yes, a doctor in the Russian army, and they call him Major Noltitz."

Evidently the American was some distance ahead of me, and yet he was
not a reporter by profession.

As the rolling was not yet very great, we could dine in comfort.
Ephrinell chatted with Miss Horatia Bluett, and I understood that there
was an understanding between these two perfectly Anglo-Saxon natures.

In fact, one was a traveler in teeth and the other was a traveler in
hair. Miss Horatia Bluett represented an important firm in London,
Messrs. Holmes-Holme, to whom the Celestial Empire annually exports two
millions of female heads of hair. She was going to Pekin on account of
the said firm, to open an office as a center for the collection of the
Chinese hair crop. It seemed a promising enterprise, as the secret
society of the Blue Lotus was agitating for the abolition of the
pigtail, which is the emblem of the servitude of the Chinese to the
Manchu Tartars. "Come," thought I, "if China sends her hair to England,
America sends her teeth: that is a capital exchange, and everything is
for the best."

We had been at the table for a quarter of an hour, and nothing had
happened. The traveler with the smooth complexion and his blonde
companion seemed to listen to us when we spoke in French. It evidently
pleased them, and they were already showing an inclination to join in
our talk. I was not mistaken, then; they are compatriots, but of what
class?

At this moment the _Astara_ gave a lurch. The plates rattled on the
table; the covers slipped; the glasses upset some of their contents;
the hanging lamps swung out of the vertical--or rather our seats and
the table moved in accordance with the roll of the ship. It is a
curious effect, when one is sailor enough to bear it without alarm.

"Eh!" said the American; "here is the good old Caspian shaking her
skin."

"Are you subject to seasickness?" I asked.

"No more than a porpoise," said he. "Are you ever seasick?" he
continued to his neighbor.

"Never," said Miss Horatia Bluett.

On the other side of the table there was an interchange of a few words
in French.

"You are not unwell, Madame Caterna?"

"No, Adolphe, not yet; but if this continues, I am afraid--"

"Well, Caroline, we had better go on deck. The wind has hauled a point
to the eastward, and the _Astara_ will soon be sticking her nose in the
feathers."

His way of expressing himself shows that "Monsieur Caterna"--if that
was his name--was a sailor, or ought to have been one. That explains
the way he rolls his hips as he walks.

The pitching now becomes very violent. The majority of the company
cannot stand it. About thirty of the passengers have left the table for
the deck. I hope the fresh air will do them good. We are now only a
dozen in the dining room, including the captain, with whom Major
Noltitz is quietly conversing. Ephrinell and Miss Bluett seem to be
thoroughly accustomed to these inevitable incidents of navigation. The
German baron drinks and eats as if he had taken up his quarters in some
bier-halle at Munich, or Frankfort, holding his knife in his right
hand, his fork in his left, and making up little heaps of meat, which
he salts and peppers and covers with sauce, and then inserts under his
hairy lip on the point of his knife. Fie! What behavior! And yet he
gets on splendidly, and neither rolling nor pitching makes him lose a
mouthful of food or drink.

A little way off are the two Celestials, whom I watch with curiosity.

One is a young man of distinguished bearing, about twenty-five years
old, of pleasant physiognomy, in spite of his yellow skin and his
narrow eyes. A few years spent in Europe have evidently Europeanized
his manners and even his dress. His mustache is silky, his eye is
intelligent his hair is much more French than Chinese. He seems to me a
nice fellow, of a cheerful temperament, who would not ascend the "Tower
of Regret," as the Chinese have it, oftener than he could help.

His companion, on the contrary, whom he always appears to be making fun
of, is of the type of the true porcelain doll, with the moving head; he
is from fifty to fifty-five years old, like a monkey in the face, the
top of his head half shaven, the pigtail down his back, the traditional
costume, frock, vest, belt, baggy trousers, many-colored slippers; a
China vase of the Green family. He, however, could hold out no longer,
and after a tremendous pitch, accompanied by a long rattle of the
crockery, he got up and hurried on deck. And as he did so, the younger
Chinaman shouted after him, "Cornaro! Cornaro!" at the same time
holding out a little volume he had left on the table.

What was the meaning of this Italian word in an Oriental mouth? Did the
Chinaman speak the language of Boccaccio? The _Twentieth Century_ ought
to know, and it would know.

Madame Caterna arose, very pale, and Monsieur Caterna, a model husband,
followed her on deck.

The dinner over, leaving Ephrinell and Miss Bluett to talk of
brokerages and prices current, I went for a stroll on the poop of the
_Astara_. Night had nearly closed in. The hurrying clouds, driven from
the eastward, draped in deep folds the higher zones of the sky, with
here and there a few stars peeping through. The wind was rising. The
white light of the steamer clicked as it swung on the foremast. The red
and green lights rolled with the ship, and projected their long colored
rays onto the troubled waters.

I met Ephrinell, Miss Horatia Bluett having retired to her cabin; he
was going down into the saloon to find a comfortable corner on one of
the couches. I wished him good night, and he left me after gratifying
me with a similar wish.

As for me, I will wrap myself in my rug and lie down in a corner of the
deck, and sleep like a sailor during his watch below.

It is only eight o'clock. I light my cigar, and with my legs wide
apart, to assure my stability as the ship rolled, I begin to walk up
and down the deck. The deck is already abandoned by the first-class
passengers, and I am almost alone. On the bridge is the mate, pacing
backward and forward, and watching the course he has given to the man
at the wheel, who is close to him. The paddles are impetuously beating
into the sea, and now and then breaking into thunder, as one or the
other of the wheels runs wild, as the rolling lifts it clear of the
water. A thick smoke rises from the funnel, which occasionally belches
forth a shower of sparks.

At nine o'clock the night is very dark. I try to make out some
steamer's lights in the distance, but in vain, for the Caspian has not
many ships on it. I can hear only the cry of the sea birds, gulls and
scoters, who are abandoning themselves to the caprices of the wind.

During my promenade, one thought besets me: is the voyage to end
without my getting anything out of it as copy for my journal? My
instructions made me responsible for producing something, and surely
not without reason. What? Not an adventure from Tiflis to Pekin?
Evidently that could only be my fault! And I resolved to do everything
to avoid such a misfortune.

It is half-past ten when I sit down on one of the seats in the stern of
the _Astara_. But with this increasing wind it is impossible for me to
remain there. I rise, therefore, and make my way forward. Under the
bridge, between the paddle boxes, the wind is so strong that I seek
shelter among the packages covered by the tarpaulin. Stretched on one
of the boxes, wrapped in my rug, with my head resting against the
tarpaulin, I shall soon be asleep.

After some time, I do not exactly know how much, I am awakened by a
curious noise. Whence comes this noise? I listen more attentively. It
seems as though some one is snoring close to my ear.

"That is some steerage passenger," I think. "He has got under the
tarpaulin between the cases, and he will not do so badly in his
improvised cabin."

By the light which filters down from the lower part of the binnacle, I
see nothing.

I listen again. The noise has ceased.

I look about. There is no one on this part of the deck, for the
second-class passengers are all forward.

Then I must have been dreaming, and I resume my position and try again
to sleep.

This time there is no mistake. The snoring has begun again, and I am
sure it is coming from the case against which I am leaning my head.

"Goodness!" I say. "There must be an animal in here!"

An animal? What? A dog? A cat? Why have they hidden a domestic animal
in this case? Is it a wild animal? A panther, a tiger, a lion?

Now I am off on the trail! It must be a wild animal on its way from
some menagerie to some sultan of Central Asia. This case is a cage, and
if the cage opens, if the animal springs out onto the deck--here is an
incident, here is something worth chronicling; and here I am with my
professional enthusiasm running mad. I must know at all costs to whom
this wild beast is being sent; is it going to Uzon Ada, or is it going
to China? The address ought to be on the case.

I light a wax vesta, and as I am sheltered from the wind, the flame
keeps upright.

By its light what do I read?

The case containing the wild beast is the very one with the address:

"_Mademoiselle Zinca Klork, Avenue Cha-Coua, Pekin, China."_

_Fragile_, my wild beast! _Keep from damp_, my lion! Quite so! But for
what does Miss Zinca Klork, this pretty--for the Roumanian ought to be
pretty, and she is certainly a Roumanian--for what does she want a wild
beast sent in this way?

Let us think about it and be reasonable. This animal, whatever it may
be, must eat and drink. From the time it starts from Uzon Ada it will
take eleven days to cross Asia, and reach the capital of the Celestial
Empire. Well, what do they give it to drink, what do they give it to
eat, if he is not going to get out of his cage, if he is going to be
shut up during the whole of the journey? The officials of the Grand
Transasiatic will be no more careful in their attentions to the said
wild beast than if he were a glass, for he is described as such; and he
will die of inanition!

All these things sent my brain whirling. My thoughts bewildered me. "Is
it a lovely dream that dazes me, or am I awake?" as Margaret says in
Faust, more lyrically than dramatically. To resist is impossible. I
have a two-pound weight on each eyelid. I lay down along by the
tarpaulin; my rug wraps me more closely, and I fall into a deep sleep.

How long have I slept? Perhaps for three or four hours. One thing is
certain, and that is that it is not yet daylight when I awake.

I rub my eyes, I rise, I go and lean against the rail.

The _Astara_ is not so lively, for the wind has shifted to the
northeast.

The night is cold. I warm myself by walking about briskly for half an
hour. I think no more of my wild beast. Suddenly remembrance returns to
me. Should I not call the attention of the stationmaster to this
disquieting case? But that is no business of mine. We shall see before
we start.

I look at my watch. It is only three o'clock in the morning. I will go
back to my place. And I do so with my head against the side of the
case. I shut my eyes.

Suddenly there is a new sound. This time I am not mistaken. A
half-stifled sneeze shakes the side of the case. Never did an animal
sneeze like that!

Is it possible? A human being is hidden in this case and is being
fraudulently carried by the Grand Transasiatic to the pretty Roumanian!
But is it a man or a woman? It seems as though the sneeze had a
masculine sound about it.

It is impossible to sleep now. How long the day is coming! How eager I
am to examine this box! I wanted incidents--well! and here is one, and
if I do not get five lines out of this--

The eastern horizon grows brighter. The clouds in the zenith are the
first to color. The sun appears at last all watery with the mists of
the sea.

I look; it is indeed the case addressed to Pekin. I notice that certain
holes are pierced here and there, by which the air inside can be
renewed. Perhaps two eyes are looking through these holes, watching
what is going on outside? Do not be indiscreet!

At breakfast gather all the passengers whom the sea has not affected:
the young Chinaman, Major Noltitz, Ephrinell, Miss Bluett, Monsieur
Caterna, the Baron Weissschnitzerd�rfer, and seven or eight other
passengers. I am careful not to let the American into the secret of the
case. He would be guilty of some indiscretion, and then good-by to my
news par!

About noon the land is reported to the eastward, a low, yellowish land,
with no rocky margin, but a few sandhills in the neighborhood of
Krasnovodsk.

In an hour we are in sight of Uzun Ada, and twenty-seven minutes
afterward we set foot in Asia.

Back to chapter list of: The Adventures of a Special Correspondent