Part 40

All the criminals who are condemned to the mines are brought thither in chains, and are obliged to perform the same amount of work in their fetters as the miners who are free. The intelligent overseer of the mine, under whose command and surveillance they are, treats them well if only to secure his own life and the lives of his family, for he has not sufficient forces at his disposal to quell an insurrection should one arise. The crime of each convict is made known to him; so he asks no questions of the convict himself with regard to his past. But after some time the great majority pour out their hearts to him and beg for a mitigation of punishment. The families of a criminal condemned to the mines are also allowed to follow him, or he is not prevented from forming family ties. If he is bound to humanity in this way, he often, very often, becomes penitent, and with repentance awakens the hope that the past may be forgotten, followed by the endeavour to make it so. He works one, two years in chains, conducts himself well, and thus awakens confidence. His superior orders his fetters to be removed. He remains true to his resolutions, continues to work diligently, and begins to take thought for his family. This binds him fast to the land he had dreaded so unspeakably at first; it turns out not so bad as he had expected, and he begins to grow contented. Now is the time to restore him to society. The overseer gives him permission to till the soil. Years have passed since his crime was committed; he only remembers it like an evil dream. Before him he sees a growing peasant-estate, behind him his chains. His native land seems strange to him now, and he has become reconciled to the foreign one. He becomes a peasant, works, earns money, and dies a reformed man. With his death the bondage of his children ceases, and they continue as free Siberian subjects to till the piece of land with which the government presents them. This is no invention, but reality.

Not every criminal, however, thus submits to his fate. Full of resentment against it and against all mankind, discontented with everything and everyone, tired of work, perhaps also tortured by home-sickness, or at least pining for freedom, one finds out another in similar mood, and both, or several, resolve on flight. For weeks and months, perhaps for years, they watch for a favourable opportunity; one relates to the other over and over again the story of his life, describes to him in the most minute detail his native village, the locality and the house in which he spent his childhood, teaches him the names of his relations, of the people in the village, of the neighbouring villages and the nearest towns, omitting nothing, and impressing it all deeply on the mind of his comrade, who does the same to him, for they intend to exchange names and histories to render identification less easy in case of capture. A smith is bribed, won, persuaded to flight, and a tool to break the fetters is found, or, if need be, stolen. Spring has become a reality, the day of flight has come, and escaping without much probability of being missed for a few hours is very easy under the present system in the mines. If the fugitives reach the forests they are safe from recapture, but by no means from other dangers. For a wandering native Yakoot or Tungus hunting in the forest may be tempted by the sight of a fur-coat better than his own, and for its sake his sure bullet remorselessly ends a human life. Apart from such misadventures, the fugitive meets with scarcely any hindrance. For every Siberian, from innate good-nature, or compassion wrongly bestowed, perhaps also from fear or laziness, is more ready to help a fugitive than to hinder his flight. In all, or at any rate in many of the villages on the route, the villagers place a can of milk, a large piece of bread, and perhaps even a piece of meat behind an open window to furnish the fugitive who may pass through their village by night with food, and thus to prevent his stealing. So long as the fugitive takes only what is freely offered to him, so long as he begs for what he needs, refrains from seizing things forcibly, and neither steals nor robs, even the district-governor shuts an eye when unknown people travel by night through his village, appropriate the food intended for unfortunates, and seek and find a night’s rest in the baths, which are always warm, and always stand apart from the other buildings. And though an “unfortunate” should beg in broad daylight, no one will betray him; should the same “unfortunate” beg for a bridle, no one will refuse it who has one to spare. What he wants the bridle for they know well enough. Outside of the village the horses are grazing, untended by anyone notwithstanding wolves and bears. The fugitive walks up to the herd, throws the bridle over the head of a capable stallion, swings himself up on its broad back, and trots comfortably away.

“Nikolai Alexandrovitch,” someone announces to the owner of the horse, “an unfortunate has just seized hold of your best black horse, and ridden away towards Romanowskaja; shall we follow him?”

“Nitschewo,” answers Nikolai, “the little horse will come back; it is probably an unfortunate. Let him ride.”

And the little horse does come back; for in the meadow behind Romanowskaja the “unfortunate” had exchanged it for a fresh one on which to continue his journey, while the black horse trots complacently home along the familiar road.

Thus aided and abetted, ninety out of a hundred fugitive exiles reach Tjumen, Perm, and even Kasan. If they were more experienced in travel, or had some idea of geography, if they did not always keep to the same routes by which they travelled from Russia, very many, if not most of them, would reach their goal in safety. But in Tjumen, Perm, or Kasan nearly all are recaptured. And even if those who have exchanged names do not forget their rôle; or if others answer only “I don’t know” to every question, neither exchange of name nor obstinate ignorance will save them ultimately from the sentence to return to Siberia, nor from the strokes of the rod which are meted out to every recaptured fugitive. The captive has to traverse a second time the penal route, possibly only to make another attempt at escape shortly after his arrival. I am told that many exiles have travelled thus four, five, even six times through the greater part of Siberia.

Fugitives who yield to the temptation to steal or commit some other crime on the way, come to an untimely end. In such cases the good-nature of the peasant-villagers is transformed into revengeful anger. If he is taken, nothing will save him from an agonizing death. Then a corpse is found on which no marks of violence are noticed. The body is buried, and the finding and burial are duly notified to the magistrates, who inform the governor, and he, in his turn, communicates with the governor-general, but the unhappy victim of popular fury has rotted in his grave before the government medical officer could reach the spot, even if he wished to do so. Upon whom this vengeance has fallen no one knows. In this way, but not by order of the government, an exile may disappear, and no one can tell what has befallen him, no authorities are able to give any information. But every exile who is sent to Siberia knows what awaits him if he should steal or commit any crime when a fugitive. And for this reason it is possible to live here, in the midst of thousands of criminals, as securely as anywhere else, perhaps more securely than in our great towns which contain the scum of humanity.

I have attempted to give a faithful picture of the conditions which hold now, or which held in 1876. It has not been my intention to soften or embellish. Banishment to Siberia is in all cases a severe punishment. It is more severe in proportion to the culture of the person on whom it falls, and in the eyes of an educated man it must always seem terrible. But banishment to Siberia was never meant to be other than a punishment, and it was meant to fall more heavily on the educated than on the uneducated. The justice of such a principle may be disputed, but it cannot be entirely denied. It is only possible, however, to form a fair idea of the lot of exiles in Siberia when we compare it with that of our own criminals.

What becomes of the unhappy beings who people our prisons? What becomes of their families, their wives, their children? What fate awaits the prisoners when their time of imprisonment has expired; what have their families to look forward to?

Answers to these questions can be given by all who are acquainted with our penal institutions.

If the unhappy lot of our criminals be compared, honestly and without prejudice, with that of the exiles in Siberia, the result will not be doubtful. Every true friend of humanity must echo the wish which came to me in the distant East, and which has never since left me:

“If only we had a Siberia too: it would be better for our criminals, and better for ourselves”.

AN ORNITHOLOGIST ON THE DANUBE.

Hungary was, and is, and will continue to be one of the goals of the German ornithologist’s ambition. Situated more favourably than any other country in Europe, lying as it does between the North Sea and the Black Sea, the Baltic and the Mediterranean, the great northern plain and the Alps--including within its boundaries both the North and the South, steppes and mountains, forests, rivers, and marshes--it offers great advantages and attractions to resident and wandering birds alike, and thus possesses a richer bird-fauna perhaps than any other country in our quarter of the globe. Enthusiastic descriptions of this wealth, from the pen of our most illustrious investigators and masters, have contributed not a little to increase and strengthen the longing--I would almost call it inborn--that all the bird-lovers of Germany have to see Hungary. It is strange, however, that this beautiful, rich country, lying so near to us, has been so rarely visited by Germans.

I myself had seen only its capital and what one can see of the country from the railway; I therefore shared most thoroughly in the longing of which I have just spoken. It was to be fulfilled, but only to return even more ardently thereafter. “None walks unpunished beneath the palms”, and no lover of birds can spend May-tide in Fruskagora without having for ever after a longing to return.

“Would you like,” asked my gracious patron, the Crown Prince Rudolph, “to accompany me to South Hungary for some eagle-shooting? I have definite reports of perhaps twenty eyries, and I think that we should all be able to learn much, if we visited them and observed diligently.”

Twenty eyries! One must have been banished for long years on the dreary flats of North Germany, one must have gloated over the bright pictures raised in one’s mind by the glowing reports of some roaming ornithologist, to appreciate the joy with which I agreed to go. Twenty eyries, at no very great distance from Vienna and not far from Pesth: I should not have been my father’s son had I remained indifferent. The days seemed hours when we were busy with all sorts of preparations, and again they seemed to lengthen out into weeks, such was my impatient desire to be off.

It was but a small travelling party that started from Vienna on the second day of the Easter holidays (1878), but we were merry and hopeful, eager for sport and energetic. Besides the august lord of the chase and his illustrious brother-in-law, there were but three--Obersthofmeister Count Bombelles, Eugen von Homeyer, and myself. A day later, at Pesth, we got aboard the swift and comfortable vessel which carried us towards the mouth of the “blonde” Danube. In Lenten mist suffused with morning sunlight, the proud Kaiserburg stood out before us, and the gardens of the Bloxberg were bright with the first green of the young year, as we took leave of the capital of Hungary.

With the scenery of the Rhine, of the Upper, or even, it is said, of the Lower Danube, the stretch of country through which we were now rapidly borne cannot be compared. A few kilometres below the sister towns the banks become flat, the hills on the right side of the stream sink into featureless heights, and only in the dim blue distance does the eye catch the gently curved lines of moderately high ranges. From the left bank extends the broad plain. Without end, without change, it stretches in uniform monotony; hardly one of the large, rich villages is conspicuous enough to catch the eye. Here and there a herdsman in shepherd’s dress leans on his strong staff, but his charge is not a flock of simple sheep; grunting, bristly pigs crowd around him--how brown with the sun he is!--or lie in rows about him enjoying comfortable rest. Around the pools filled by the floods the lapwing flutters; over the broad flats the hen-harrier wings its unsteady flight; the martins sweep in and out of their nests burrowed in the steep banks; dainty water-wagtails trip about on the shingle-roofs of the innumerable boatmills; ducks and cormorants rise in noisy alarm from the stream; while kites and hooded crows fly in circles over its surface. Such is a picture of this region.

Soon, however, the landscape changes. The alluvial plain, traversed by the river which made it, broadens out. Over the flats, not yet protected by dikes, and submerged by every flood, the river extends in numerous, for the most part nameless branches. A luxuriant growth of wood clothes the banks and islands, and as the fringe is too dense to allow any glimpse of the interior, this meadow-wood bounds the view for mile after mile. Variable and yet monotonous are the pictures which appear and disappear, as in a dissolving view, while the ship follows the windings of the stream. Willows and poplars--white, silvery, and black--elms and oaks, the first predominating, the last often sparse in their occurrence, form the material of these pictures. Above the dense fringe, which consists almost wholly of willow, there rise older trees of the same kind; beyond these in the woods, which often extend far inland, rise the impressive crowns of lofty silver poplars and black poplars, and the bald heads of old gnarled oaks. A single glance embraces all phases of tree-life from the sprouting willow-shoot to the dying giant--trees living, sprouting, growing, and exultant in the fulness of their strength; trees withered at the top, victims of fire from the heavens or from the earth and half reduced to tinder; trees prostrate on the ground, crumbling and rotting. Between these we see the gleams of flowing or standing water; above all is the great dome of heaven. In the secret shades we hear the song of the nightingale and the finches, the lyrics of the thrush, the shrill cry of falcon or eagle, the laugh of the woodpecker, the raven’s croak, and the heron’s shrill shriek.

Here and there is a glade not yet overgrown, a gap in the wood and through which we catch a glimpse of the landscape in the background,--of the broad plain on the right bank of the stream, and the fringe of hills in the distance, of an apparently endless succession of fields, from which at distant intervals rise the church spires which mark the scattered villages or, it may be, townships. In summer, when all is of one predominantly green hue, in late autumn, winter, and early spring, when the trees are leafless, this shore landscape may seem almost dull; now it is monotonous, but yet not unattractive, for all the willows and poplars have young leaves, or in many cases catkins, and, here and there at least, they make the woods gay and gladsome.

Only at a few places is such a wood as this accessible; for the most part it is a huge morass. If one attempts, either on land or by waterways, to penetrate into the interior, one, sooner or later, reaches a jungle which has no parallel in Germany. Only on those spots which are raised above the level of the river, and which have a rich, in part muddy soil, is one reminded of German vegetation. Here lilies of the valley, with their soft, green leaves and fragrant, white bells, form a most decorative carpeting, covering the ground for wide stretches; but even here the nettles and bramble-bushes grow in wanton luxuriance, and various climbing plants spread their tangled net over wide areas of the forest, so that almost insuperable obstacles and barriers prevent further progress. In other places the wood is literally a bog out of which the giant trees rear their stems. Mighty stems indeed, but many--victims of old age, tempest, thunderbolt, and the careless herdsman’s fire--lie rotting in the water, already forming, in many cases, the soil from which rises a younger and vigorous growth of underwood. Other trees, which have not yet succumbed to decay, lie prostrate and bar the way. The wind has swept the fallen wood, both thick branches and delicate twigs, into floating islands and obtrusive snags, which present to the small boat obstacles not less difficult than those which obstruct the explorer on foot. Similar floating islands, composed of reeds and sedges, form a deceptive covering over wide stretches of water. Raised mud-banks, on which willows and poplars have found a suitable soil for their seeds, have become impenetrable thickets, disputing the possession of the ground even with the forests of reeds which are often many square miles in extent. Dwarf willows, at once youthful and senile forests, form dark patches in the heart of the reed-beds. What may be concealed in the gloomy wood, with its bogs and thickets, or by the reeds, remains almost quite hidden from the searching eye of the naturalist, for he can see through no more than the fringe of this wilderness, nor traverse it except along the broader waterways.

Such was the district in which our sport began. The eagles, the royal rulers of the air, which formed the primary object of our quest, did not, indeed, come within range, nor even within sight, on the first day of our journey; but, on the other hand, we visited the famous heronry on the island of Adony, and had abundant opportunities of observing the life of the brooding birds. For two generations, herons and cormorants have nested on the tall trees of the island, among the much older residents--the rooks; and, though the cormorants have greatly diminished in numbers since the beginning of the sixties, they have not yet entirely disappeared. Forty years ago, according to Landbeck’s estimate, there nested here about one thousand pairs of night-herons, two hundred and fifty pairs of common herons, fifty pairs of little egrets, and a hundred pairs of cormorants; but now the rooks, of which there are from fifteen hundred to two thousand pairs, form the great bulk of the colony, while the common herons have dwindled to about a hundred and fifty, the night-herons to thirty or forty pairs, the egrets have disappeared entirely, and only the cormorants remain in approximately the same numbers as formerly. Yet at least an echo of the former life rang in our ears as we set foot on the island, and here and there the forest still presents the old picture almost unchanged.

The various birds in such a mixed heronry appear to live in the best accord, yet there is neither peace nor friendliness among them. One oppresses and supports, plunders and feeds the other. The herons invade the rooks’ colonies to save themselves the labour of nest-building; the rooks collect twigs and build their nests, and the herons drive them away, that they may take forcible possession of the nests, or at any rate of the building material; the cormorants dispute with the herons the possession of the stolen booty, and finally assume despotic authority over the entire colony. But even they, thieves and robbers as they are, are plundered and robbed in their turn, for the crows and kites--the last being seldom absent from such settlements--feed themselves and their young to no slight extent on the fish which the herons and cormorants have brought for the sustenance of their mates and young. The first meeting of the various kinds of brooding birds is hostile. Violent and protracted battles are fought, and the ten times vanquished renews hostilities for the eleventh time before he learns to submit to the inevitable. But in time the inter-relations are better adjusted, as the individual members of the colony recognize that there are advantages in social life, and that there is room enough for peaceable neighbours. Fighting and quarrelling never cease entirely, but the bitter war of species against species gives place gradually to conditions which are at least endurable. The birds become accustomed to each other, and make use of the capabilities of their adversaries as far as may be. It may even happen, indeed, that those who have been plundered follow those who have robbed them when the latter find it necessary to change their brooding-places.

The spectacle of a mixed heronry is fascinating in the highest degree. “There is hardly anything”, writes Baldamus, “more varied, more attractive, more beautiful, than these Hungarian marshes with their bird-life, which is remarkable both for the number of individuals and for their variety of form and colouring. Let any one look at the most conspicuous of these marsh-dwellers in a collection, and then let him endeavour to picture them to himself standing, walking, running, climbing, flying, in short, living, and he will be obliged to admit that such bird-life is marvellously attractive.” This description is correct even if it be applied to the impoverished island of Adony. Much as its once teeming population has dwindled, there are still thousands and thousands of birds. For long stretches of the forest every high tree bears nests, many having twenty or thirty, and all about these is the noisy bustle of sociable bird-life. Upon the nests sit the female rooks, common herons, night-herons, and cormorants, looking out with dark, sulphur-yellow, blood-red, and sea-green eyes upon the intruder who has invaded their sanctuary; sitting and climbing on the topmost boughs of the giant trees, or fluttering, flying, floating above them are black, brown, gray, one-coloured and many-coloured, dull and shimmering bird forms; above these, kites are circling; on the trunks woodpeckers are hanging, hard at work; sleek, gleaming white-throats are seeking their daily bread among the blossom of a pear-tree, finches and willow-wrens among the fresh foliage of the bird-cherry. The beautiful carpet of woodruff which covers the ground in many places is spattered and soiled with the excrement of birds, and disfigured by broken eggs or their shells, and by decomposing fish which have fallen from the nests.

The first shot from the gun of our gracious patron caused an indescribable confusion. The startled herons rose screaming, and the rooks with stupefying croaking; the cormorants, too, forsook their nests with angry screeches. A cloud of birds formed over the forest, drifted hither and thither, up and down, became denser and overshadowed the tree-tops, broke up into groups which sank hesitatingly down towards their forsaken nests, enveloped these completely for a little, and then united again with the main mass. Every single one screamed, croaked, cawed, and screeched in the most ear-piercing fashion; everyone took to flight, but was drawn back again by anxiety for nest and eggs. The whole forest was in an uproar; yet, careless of the terrifying noise, the finch warbled its spring greeting amidst the trees, a woodpecker called joyously, the nightingales poured forth their inspiring melody, and poetic souls revealed themselves even among the thieves and robbers.

Richly laden with booty, we returned, after five hours’ sport, to our comfortable quarters on board ship, and occupied ourselves as we steamed further with the scientific arrangement of our newly-acquired treasures. For hours we travelled through forests such as I have depicted, now and then passing by large or small hamlets, villages, and towns, until the gathering darkness forced us to moor our vessel. In the early dawn of the following morning we reached Apatin. The firing of cannon, music, and joyous acclamation greet the much-loved heir to the throne. People of all sorts throng about the boat; native hunting-assistants, nest-seekers, tree-climbers, and bird-skinners come on board; more than a dozen of the little boats called “Ezikela” are loaded. Then our steamer turns up stream again, to land us in the neighbourhood of a broad arm of the river. Up this we penetrated for the first time into the damp meadow-forests. All the little boats which had joined us in Apatin followed our larger one, like ducklings swimming after a mother duck. To-day the chase is directed solely against the sea eagle which broods so abundantly in these forests that no fewer than five eyries could be found within a radius of a square mile. We separated with the sportsman’s salute, to approach these eyries from different directions.

I was well acquainted with these bold and rapacious, if rather ignoble birds of prey, for I had seen them in Norway and Lapland, in Siberia and in Egypt, but I had never observed them beside their eyries; and the opportunity of doing so was most welcome. As his name implies, the favourite habitat of the sea-eagle is by the sea-coasts, or on the banks of lakes and rivers rich in fish. If winter drives him from his haunts, he migrates as far southwards as is necessary to enable him to pick up a living during the cold months. In Hungary, this eagle is the commonest of all the large birds of prey; he does not forsake the country even in winter, and only makes long expeditions in his earlier years before maturity, as though he wished to try the experiment of living abroad. During spring, therefore, one sees in that district only adult, or what comes to the same thing, full-grown birds capable of reproduction, while in autumn and winter there are, in addition, the young ones which left the nest only a few months before. Then also many wanderers who have not settled down come to enliven the forest-shores of the Danube. As long as the river is not covered with ice, they have no difficulty in finding food; for they hunt in the water not less, perhaps rather more skilfully than on land. They circle over the water until they spy a fish, then throw themselves down upon it like a flash of lightning, dive after it, sometimes disappearing completely beneath the waves, but working their way quickly to the surface again by aid of their powerful wings, carry off their victim, whose scaly armour has been penetrated by their irresistible talons, and devour it at their leisure. As their depredations are not so severely condemned in Hungary as with us, and as they are treated generally with undeserved forbearance, they regularly frequent the neighbourhood of the fishermen’s huts, and sit among the trees close by until the fisherman throws them stale fish or any refuse which they can eat. Like the fishermen, the Hungarian, Servian, and Slav peasants help to provide them with food, for, instead of burying animals which have died, they let them lie exposed in the fields, and leave it to the eagles and the vultures, or to dogs and wolves, to remove the carrion. If a covering of ice protects his usual prey, and no carrion is available, the sea-eagle need not yet starve; for, like the nobler and more courageous golden eagle, he hunts all game which he has a chance of overpowering. He attacks the fox as well as the hare, the hedgehog and the rat, the diver and the wild goose, steals from the mother seal her sucking young, and may even carry his blind rapacity so far as to strike his powerful talons into the back of a dolphin or a sturgeon, by whom he is carried down into the sea and drowned before he can free his claws. Under some circumstances he will even attack human beings. Thus he need hardly ever suffer want; and as he is not systematically hunted, he leads quite an enviable life.