Korea & Her Neighbours/Chapter XVIII

AFTER the collapse of the rumor regarding the landing of the Japanese in force on the shores of the Gulf of Pe- chili, which obtained credence for nearly a fortnight in the Far East, fluttered every Cabinet in Europe, forced even so cool and well-informed a man as Sir Robert Hart into hasty action, and produced a hurried exodus of Europeans from Peking and a scare generally among the foreign residents in North China, I returned from Peking to Chefoo to await the course of events.

The war, its requirements, and its uncertainties disarranged the means of ocean transit so effectually that, after hanging on for some weeks, in the midst of daily rumors of great naval engagements, for a steamer for Wladivostok, I only succeeded in getting a passage in a small German boat which reluctantly carried one passenger, and in which I spent a very comfortless five days, in stormy weather, varied by the pleasant interlude of a day at Nagasaki, then in the full glory of the chrysan- themum season, and aflame with scarlet maples. Lighted, cleaned, and policed to perfection, without a hole or a heap, this trim city of dwarfs and dolls contrasts agreeably with the filth, squalor, loathsomeness, and general abominableness which are found in nearly all Chinese cities outside the foreign settlements.

Chinese moved about the streets with an air as of a ruling race, and worked at their trades and pursued the important calling of compradores with perfect freedom from annoyance, the only formality required of them being registration ; while from China all the Japanese had fled by the desire of their consuls, not always unmolested in person and property, and any stray “dwarf” then found in a Chinese city would have been all but certain to lose his life.

The enthusiasm for the war was still at a white heat. Gifts in money and kind fell in a continual shower on the Nagasaki authorities, nothing was talked of but military successes, and a theatre holding 3,000 was giving the profits of two daily performances to crowded audiences in aid of the War Fund. The fact that ships were only allowed to enter the port by day- light, and were then piloted by a Government steam-launch in charge of a “torpedo pilot,” was the only indication in the harbor of an exceptional state of things.

It was warm autumn weather at Nagasaki, but when I reached Wladivostok the hills which surround its superb har- bor were powdered with the first snows of winter, and a snow- storm two days later covered the country to a depth of 18 inches. Wooded islands, wooded bays, wooded hills, deep sheltered channels and inlets, wooded to the water's edge, bewilder a stranger, then comes Fort Godobin, and by a sharp turn the harbor is entered, one of the finest in the world, two and a half miles long by nearly one wide, with deep water everywhere, so deep that ships drawing 25 feet lie within a stone's throw of the wharves, and moor at the Government pier.

The first view of Wladivostok (“Possession of the East”) is very striking, although the vandalism of its builders has deprived it of its naturally artistic background of wood. Otherwise the purple tone of the land and the blue crystal of the water reminded me of some of our Nova Scotian harbors. There is nothing Asiatic about the aspect of this Pacific capital, and indeed it is rather Transatlantic than European. Seated on a deeply embayed and apparently landlocked harbor, along the shores of which it straggles for more than 3 miles, climbing audaciously up the barren sides of denuded hills, irregular, treeless — lofty buildings with bold fronts, Government House, “ Kuntz and Albers,” the glittering domes of a Greek cathedral, a Lutheran church, Government Administrative Offices, the Admiralty, the Arsenal, the Cadet School, the Naval Club, an Emigrant Home, and the grand and solid terminus and offices of the Siberian Railway, rising out of an irregularity which is not picturesque, attract and hold the voyager's attention.

Requesting to be taken at once to the Customs, the bewil- dered air of astonishment with which my request was met in- formed me that Wladivostok had up to that time been a, free port, and that I was at liberty to land unquestioned. After thumping about for some time among a number of stout sampans in the midst of an unspeakable Babel, I was hauled on shore by a number of laughing, shouting, dirty Korean youths, who, after exchanging pretty hard blows with each other for my coveted possessions, shouldered them and ran off with them in different directions, leaving me stranded with the tripod of my camera, to which I had clung desperately in the melee. There were droskies not far off, and four or five Koreans got hold of me, one dragging me towards one vehicle, others to another, yelling Korean into my ears, till a Cossack policeman came and thumped them into order. There were hundreds of them on the wharf, and except that they were noisier and more aggressive, it was like landing at Chemulpo. Getting into a drosky, I said, “Golden Horn Hotel,” in my most distinct English, then “ Hotel Corne d'or,” in my most distinct French. The moujik nodded and grinned out of his fur hood, and started at a gallop in the opposite direction ! I clutched him, and made emphatic signs, speech being useless, and he turned and galloped in a right direction, but stopped at the disreputable doorway of one of the lowest of the many drinking saloons with which Wladivostok is infested.

There all my Koreans reappeared, vociferating and excited. I started the moujik off again at a gallop, the drosky jumping ruts and bounding out of holes with an energy of elasticity which took my breath away, the Koreans racing. More gallops, more stoppages at pothouses, and in this fashion I reached at last the Golded Horn Hotel — a long, rambling, “ disjaskit ” building, with a shady air of disreputableness hanging about it, — the escort of Koreans still good-natured and vociferous. The landlady emerged. I tried her in English and French, but she knew neither. The moujik shouted at us both in Russian, a little crowd assembled, each man trying to put matters straight, and when every moment made them more entangled, and the moujik was gathering up his reins to gallop off on a further quest, a Russian officer came up, and in excellent English asked if he could help me, inter- preted my needs to the lady, lent me some kopecks with which to appease the Koreans and the moujik, and gave me the en- joyment of listening to my own blessed tongue, which I had not heard for five days.

By a long flight of stairs, past a great bar and dining-room, where vodka was much en evidence, even in the forenoon, past a billiard-room, occupied even at that early hour, and through a large, dark, and dusty theatre, I attained my rooms, a “parlor” and bedroom en suite, opening on and looking out upon a yard with pigsties. There were five doors, not one of which would lock. The rooms were furnished in Louis Quatorze style, much gilding and velvet, all ancient and dusty. They looked as if they had known tragedies, and might know them again. The barrier of language was impass- able, and I must be unskilled in the use of signs, for I quite failed to make any one understand that I wanted food.

I went out, cashed a circular note at the great German house of Kuntz and Albers, the “ Whiteleys ” of Eastern Siberia, where all the information that I then needed was given in the most polite way, found it impossible anywhere else to make myself understood in English or French, failed in an attempt to buy postage stamps or to get food, delivered the single letter of introduction which I had somewhat ungraciously accepted, and returned to my meludramatic domicile to consider the possibilities of travel, which at that moment were not en- couraging.

Before long Mr. Charles Smith, the oldest foreign resident in Wladivostok, to whom my letter was addressed, called, a kindly and genial presence, and, as I afterwards found, full of good deeds and benevolence. He took me at once to call on General Unterberger, the Governor of the Maratime Province. I think I never saw so gigantic a man — military, too, from his spurs to his coat collar. As he rose to receive me he looked as if his head might eventually touch the lofty ceiling.

Mr. Smith is a persona grata in Wladivostok, and very much so with the Governor, who consequently received me with much friendliness, and asked me to let him know my plans. I explained what I wanted to do, subject to his ap- proval, and presented my credentials, which were of the best. He said that he quite approved of my project, and would do anything he could to help me, and wrote on the spot a letter to the Frontier Commissioner, but he added that the disorgan- ized and undisciplined state of the Chinese army near the frontier might render some modification of my plan neces- sary, as I afterwards found. The Governor and his wife speak excellent English, and the social intercourse which I had with them afterwards was most agreeable and instructive.

During the afternoon Mr. Smith returned, and saying that he and his wife could not endure my staying in that hotel, took me away to his home high up on a steep hillside, with a glorious view of the city and harbor, and of which it is diffi- cult to say whether the sunshine were brighter within or with- out. Under such propitious circumstances my two visits became full of sunny memories, and I may be pardoned if I see Wladivostok a little cottleur de rose ; for the extraordinary kindness which dogs and shadows the traveller in the Far East were met with there in perfection, and where I was received by strangers I left highly valued friends.

After a snowstorm splendid weather set in. The snow pre- vented dust blasts, the ordinary drawback of an Eastern Siberian winter, the skies were brilliant and unclouded, the sunsets carnivals of color, the air exhilarating, the mercury at night averaging 20°, there was light without heat, the main road was full of sleighs going at a gallop, their bells making low music, all that is unsightly was hidden, and this weather continued for five weeks !

“The Possession of the East” is nothing if not military and naval. Forts, earthworks, at which it is prudent not to look too long or intently, great military hospitals, huge red brick barracks in every direction, offices of military adminis- tration, squads of soldiers in brown ulsters and peaked pasha- liks, carrying pickaxes or spades on their shoulders,1 sappers with their tools, in small parties, officers, mostly with port- folios or despatch boxes under their arms, dashing about in sleighs, and the prohibition of photography, all indicate its fortress character. Certainly two out of every three people in the streets are in uniform, and the Cossack police, who abound, are practically soldiers.

Naval it is also. There are ships of war in and out of com- mission, a brand-new admiralty, a navy yard, a floating dock, a magnificent dry dock, only just completed, and a naval clubhouse, which is one of the finest buildings in Wladivos- tok. No matter that Nature closes the harbor from Christmas to the end of March ! Science has won the victory, and the port has been kept open for the last two winters by means of a powerful ice-breaker and the services of the troops in towing the blocks of ice out to sea. Large steamers of the "Volun- teer Fleet" leave Odessa and Wladivostok monthly or fort- nightly. As the eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian Rail- way, Wladivostok aspires to be what she surely will be — at once the Gibraltar and Odessa of the Far East, one of the most important of commercial emporiums, as the "distribu- ting point" for the commerce of that vast area of prolific country which lies south of the Amur. Possibly a branch line to Port Shestakoff in Ham-gyong Do may enable the Government to dispense with the services of the ice-breaker !

The progress of the city is remarkable. The site, then a forest, was only surveyed in i860. In 1863 many of the trees were felled and some shanties were erected. Later than that a tiger was shot on the site of the new Government House, and a man leaving two horses to be shod outside the smithy had them both devoured by tigers. Gradually the big oaks and pines were cleared away, and wooden houses were slowly added, until 1872, when the removal of the naval establish- ment of 60 men from Nicolaeffk on the Amur to the new set- tlement gave it a decided start. In 1878 it had a population of 1,400. In 1897 its estimated civil population was 25,000, including 3,000 Koreans, who have their own settlement a mile from the city, and are its draymen and porters, and 2,000 Chinese. The latter keep most of the shops, and have ob- tained a monopoly of the business in meat, fish, game, fruit, vegetables, and other perishable commodities, their guild be- ing strong enough to squeeze the Russians out of the trade in these articles, which are sold in four large wooden buildings by the harbor known as the “ Bazar.” There are some good Japanese shops, but the Japanese are usually domestic servants at high wages, and after a few years return to enjoy their savings in their own country. A naturalized German is the only British subject, and my host and his family are the only Americans.

The capital has two subsidized and two independent lines of steamers, 700 families of Russian assisted emigrants enter Primorsk annually, each head of a household being required to be the possessor of 600 roubles (£6o), and from 8,000 to 10,000 Chinese from the Shan-tung province arrive every spring to fulfil labor contracts, returning to China in Decem- ber, carrying out of the country from 25 to 50 dollars each, convict labor from the penal settlement of Saghalien having been abandoned as impracticable.

The Chinese shops, which are a feature of Wladivostok, un- dersell both Russians and Germans, and have an increasing trade. Kuntz and Albers, a Hamburg firm of importers, bankers, shipping agents, and Whiteleyism in general, with sixty clerks, mostly German, with a few Russians, Danes, and Koreans, conduct an enormous wholesale and retail business in a "palatial" pile of brick and stone buildings, and has sixteen branch houses in Eastern Siberia, and the German firm of Langalutje runs them very closely.

The railway station and offices are solid and handsome ; an admirably built railroad, open to the Ussuri Bridge, 186 miles, and progressing towards the Amur with great rapidity, points to a new commercial future ; streets of shops and dwelling- houses, in which brick and stone are fast replacing wood, are extending to the north, east, and west, and along the Gulf of Peter the Great, for fully three miles ; and new and handsome official and private edifices of much pretension were being rapidly completed. One broad road, with houses sometimes on one, sometimes on both sides, running along the hillside for 2 miles at a considerable height, is the “ Main Street ” or “High Street” of Wladivostok. Along it are built most of the public buildings, and the great shops and mercantile offices. It is crossed by painfully steep roads climbing up the hill and descending with equal steepness to the sea. There are two or three parallel roads of small importance.

The builder was at work in all quarters, and the clink of the mason's trowel and the ring of the carpenter's hammer were only silent for a few hours during the night. Several of Government buildings were barely finished, and were occupied before they were painted and stuccoed. Building up and pulling down were going on simultaneously. Roads were being graded, culverts and retaining walls built, and wooden houses showed signs of disappearing from the principal thor- oughfare. There was a “ boom ” in real property. The value of land has risen fabulously. “Lots” which were bought in 1864 for 600 and 3,000 roubles are now worth 12,- 000 and 20,000, and in the centre of the town land is not to be bought at any price.

Newness, progress, hopefulness are characteristics of civil Wladivostok. It has the aspect of a growing city in the American Far West. Few things are finished and all are go- ing ahead. The sidewalks are mostly narrow, and composed of rough planks, with a tendency to tip up or down, but here and there is a fine piece of granite flagging 10 feet wide. The hotels have more of the shady character of “saloons” or barrooms than of anything reputable or established. Hand- some houses of brick and stone shoulder wooden shanties. Fashionable carriages or sleighs bounce over ungraded streets. The antediluvian ox-cart with its Korean driver bumps and creaks through the streets alongside of the troika, with its three galloping horses in showy harness, and its occupants in the latest and daintiest of Parisian costumes.

But the all-pervading flavor of militarism overpowers the suggestion of the American Far West. The first buildings on the barren coast are military hospitals and barracks, and bar- racks thicken as the city is approached. The female element is in a remarkable minority. The dull roll of artillery and commissariat wagons, the tramp, morning and night, of brown battalions, and the continual throb of drum and blare of trumpet and bugle, recall one to the fact that this is the capital of Russia's vast, growing, aspiring. Pacific Empire.

Theatricals, concerts, and balls fill up the winter season. Except on the few days on which snow falls, the skies are cloudless, the temperature is not seriously below zero, and the dryness of the air is very invigorating. In winters, happily somewhat exceptional, in which there is no snowfall, and the strong winds create dust-storms, the climate is less agreeable. Spring is abrupt and pleasant, and autumn is a fine season, but summer is hot, damp, and misty.

A fine Greek cathedral, with many domes and lofty gilded crosses, which gleam mysteriously in the sunset when the gloom of twilight has wrapped all else, a prominent Lutheran church, and a Chinese joss-house, provide for the religious needs of the population. The Governor of the Maritime Province, several of the leading, and many of the lower offi- cials are of German origin from the Baltic provinces, Luther- ans, and possibly imbued with a few liberal ideas. But among the kindly, cultured, and agreeable people whose acquaintance I made in Wladivostok one peculiarity impressed me forcibly — the absolute stagnation of thought, or the expression of it, on politics and all matters connected with them, the adminis- tration of government, religion, the orthodox church, dissent, home and foreign policy, etc. It is true that certain subjects, and these among the most interesting, are carefully eliminated from conversation, and that to introduce any one of them might subject the offender to social ostracism.

1 The Russian soldier does a great amount of day labor. Far from disporting himself in brilliant uniform before the admiring eyes of boys and " servant girls," he digs, builds, carpenters, makes shoes and harness, and does a good civil day's work in addition to his military duties, and is paid for this as “ piecework ” on a fixed scale, his daily earnings being duly entered in a book. When he has served his time these are handed over to him, and a steady, industrious man makes enough to set himself up in a small business or on a farm. Vodka and schnaps are the Russian soldier's great enemies.