USA > Oregon > The Oregon native son, 1900-1901 > Part 18
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A peculiar feature of living in these countries is the table service at railroad eating-houses and on steamboats; and by the way, Scandinavians are hearty eaters. Tourists from the world over constitute an important part of the gen- eral procession of travel, and inevitably there is more or less linguistic trouble to be encountered. The street names of Helsingsfors are posted in Swedish, Finnish and Russian, for the conveni- ence of strangers and its mixed popula- tion. To overcome such difficulties and get travelers properly scrved at meal stations, there is a centre-table of liberal dimensions on which are placed all the eatables prepared, from soup to cheese and coffee, and seats are arranged about it, while on side tables, conveni-
ently located, are found the requi-
site' plates, knives, forks, etc.
The traveler, on emerging from the cars or on shipboard walks up to the center-table, with plate and cutlery in hand, scans the promiscuous array there- on, selects what he fancies, and sits down to eat. When a change of plate from one course to another is thought desirable. he gets up and waits upon himself; and so on to the end. It is by no means a bad method, and is certainly expeditious.
We left Helsingfors by train at 9:30 A. M., Nov. 14th, and traveled generally eastward to Viborg, thence northward to Smatra. I can best describe the country and the appearance of the station houses by saying they are like those of north- eastern Maine-even to a similarity of forest growth, including birch every- where. Finland is a great water-shed and Southern Quebec and Northern Maine are much like it; however much farther north Finland is, extending, as it does, from 60 deg. to 70 deg. north latitude. and from the Gulf ot Bothnia on the west to Lake Ladoga, near St. Petersburg, on the east. The population is said to be about 2,000,000. At the Falls of Smatra -more exactly described as Rapids. caused by the discharge of one lake into another on a lower level not far distant -the volume of water rushes forward furiously and tumultuously over an in- tervening rocky slope. The rapids are not so wide in extent as those which con- stitute the Falls of Niagara, nor as that which surges under the old Suspension Bridge there; nor yet arc they exactly like the Shoshone Falls in Idaho, though of equal volume and force compared with the last. I have never b.cheld any- thing just like them, and they are well worth the detour of two and a half hours from'Viborg (a prosperous town of 30,- 000) to see. A number of travelers on the boat to Helingfors advised us to visit them, as they are said to be the most notable Falls in Europe. Whether they are or not I do not know; but willingly contribute my testimony that they present a striking and awe-inspiring scene. We liad two views of them-one by moon-
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light last evening, from the bridge which crosses the Rapids at the foot of the lake where they begin, and the other today, when all the landscape was covered with snow.
ST. PETERSBURG.
Moscow, November 24, 1899.
My last budget concluded my observa- tions on Scandinavia. I may mention here that the eastern customs-frontier of Finland extends to within a few miles of St. Petersburg, the old geographical lines of Finland, continuing, as stated in the letter preceding this, up to Lake Ladoga, some fifty miles further, from whence the Neva takes its rise and flows into the Gulf of Finland. The St. Petersburg station of the Finnish Railway, upon which we reached the city, is on the north bank of the Neva, and the outlying parts of the city with their flat, monotonous aspects and modern wooden houses, as seen from there, reminded me of the approaches to Chicago on a windy day.
A tourist's letter description of St. Petersburg must unavoidably be the merest outline sketch. The city was founded by Peter the Great, about 1703. His log cabin built at that time on the north side of the river, still stands intact, covered over by a larger building, which encloses also for safe-keeping the skiff used by him for crossing the Neva. In this connection I may mention that Peter's palace, located on the opposite side of the river is not far distant-to outward appearances nothing more than an ordinary dwelling house; not better, in point of splendor and magnitude, than thousands of dwellings in San Francisco, and by no means to be compared with hundreds of California's private resi- dences. However, not only has the city . grown within the two hundred years elapsed since the great Founder infused into his countrymen his own enterprising spirit, and laid the foundation of nation- ality, prosperity and progress before un- known to them, but so have its palaces. In the neighborhood of the royal cabin stands also the citadel, no longer impor- tant except for what it shelters within
its spacious walls. Among those is an unpretentious red brick building with iron-barred windows, which is the polit- ical prison of St. Petersburg, about which so much has been written that I refrain from offering further remarks. Another and more notable feature within this fortress is the cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul; not remarkable for size, but of special interest because of its be- ing the repository of the royal remains of Russia's emperors, empresses, etc., beginning with those of Peter the Great, and for the extraordinary number of costly wreaths or chaplets of precious metals-gold, silver, etc., inlaid with costliest stones of every description. They bedizen every column and the pan- els of the walls and a large number of them are tributes to the memory of Alex- ander II, the kindly monarch who freed the serfs, yet soon after was shot at by a would-be assasin, and finally killed by a Nihilist bomb.
Near the citadel is a litle chapel- "Peter the Great's Church"-and notic- ing, as we drove past it on a Sunday af- ternoon, that it was lighted, the guide remarked that he believed a wedding was in progress within. As we had a pretty good looking turnout-a hand- some carriage and a pair of stylish horses-he thought we might drive up and be admitted; which we were, and there witnessed a Russian wedding. Neither the bride nor the groom was youthful; the gentleman's head having a good-sized bald spot on top, and the bride being fair, fat, and-probably about-forty; but they were a comely, prepossessing couple, and we stayed to the end of the ceremony, which was quite long.
On the north side of the Neva, the least populous section of the city, stands the School of Mines and Geology, and also a museum of artillery; both institu- tions of importance, and interesting to a tourist, but lack of time and space con- strain me to pass them without further description. Crossing the river to the south side, where the main city is locat- ed, the public buildings of special note
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are so numerous that they also must necessarily be mentioned with great brevity. Taking the churches in the or- der visited: First, "The Alexander- Nefsky Monastery," which is a large group of buildings, under the patronage and in fact supported by the Russian church. In one of the chapels of this group, lie buried public functionaries of the empire not of royal lineage. In an- other, the monks happened to be engag- ed at Vespers; and there I heard the finest chanting I ever listened to-the bass voices in particular excelling all my previous experience in that line of vocal music. In this chapel I saw also the tomb of the humane ministerial officer or spiritual adviser whose earnest plead- ings finally induced Alexander II to is- sue the royal ukase freeing the serfs- 1861.
Next in order is the Kazan Cathedral. the approach to the main entrance of which is somewhat after the manner of St. Peter's at Rome, the semi-circular peristyle, dignified and impressive by reason of the stately columns constitut- ing it. There are in this structure be- tween fifty and sixty polished columns of red Finnish granite, 31/2 to 4 feet in diameter, and probably between thirty and forty feet in height. A feature of all Russian churches is a sarcophagus- usually of silver-representing the tomb of our Lord; and this cathedral of course contains a very elegantly wrought speci- men. We saw one in our travels among the churches containing thirty hundred weight of sterling silver. Besides this, Russian churches contain what. are call- ed Icons-"holy pictures" or images-a term from whence has been derived the word Iconoclast-"image breakers." The Icon in this cathedral is famous, and we made our way eagerly to its par- ticular station or niche, but it was not there; it had been sent out to some sick person to perform its functions of heal- ing-Icons being supposed to possess that virtue.
Passing from "Our Lady of Kazan" to the Church of St. Isaac of Dalmatia, I saw highly polished red granite col-
umns not less than 71/2 feet in diameter, and fully fifty feet high. This church, in its just proportions and architectural embellishment impressed me very pow- erfully. The interior is all finished in expensive stone-there being columns of marble, malachite, jasper, rhodonite, porphyry, etc .- all the product of Rus- sia's quarries. They are all of the grand- est proportions, and the wooden panels of the walls are decorated with finest mosaics. The magnificent chancel win- dow contains a colossal figure of Christ in stained glass, said to have cost $40,- 000. We attended service here-10:00 A. M. to 12:30 P. M. The auditorium was filled with standing worshippers, while we were accorded chairs-prac- tically in the chancel, and immediately to the left of the choir-the latter all male ·singers, boys from five years of age to grey-haired men. And here again the singing, especially the bass, was worthy of highest commendation. The boy so- pranos were excellent, also, though I have heard their voices equalled in New York churches-both Episcopal and Catholic. To adequately describe the in- terior finish and richness of these church- es is impossible under the circumstances, and I will content myself with little more than saying that in them beauty, gran- deur and solemnity are successfully com- bined.
Leaving the churches I will mention as of special interest "the Hermitage," so called after the cottage still occupying the site, formerly the residence of Cath- erine II-now really a part of the royal palace, but used only as a repository of choice specimens of art-of paintings. nearly 2000 famous ones: and statuary, including Houdin's famous "Diana, the Huntress," for which Mme. du Barry posed-and crown treasures of every in- aginable description. Here are dia- monds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, to- pazes, and other precious stones of every known variety, and in a profusion scarcely to be conceived of-long cor- ridors being filled with show cases in which they are displayed. Any attempt to describe the vast and varied accumu-
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lation of royal treasures at St. Peters- burg would convey but a faint concep- tion of their numbers, richness and val- ue. In this Hermitage alone there are doubtless hundreds of millions of dollars worth represented in the way of tapes- tries, paintings, statuary, bronzes, porce- lains, jewels, etc., gathered from every region under the sun; to say nothing of the priceless numismatic collection, con- taining coins dating back to the reign of Artarexres.
But what interested me most was an unusual exhibit known as the Kertch Collection-exhumed treasures and arti- cles of feminine adornment from the town of Kertch, on the Black Sea, a place of some importance already in the time of Mithridates. The delicacy and beauty of gold ornaments here exposed to view are truly remarkable-more par- ticularly in view of the fact that some authorities claim the Russians are de- scendants of the Scythians-a race to which the occupants of the sarcophagi from which these treasures were remov- ed belonged. It is said, "There is noth- ing new under the sun!" and a silver bas relief in this collection verifies the say- ing. Years ago the horse-tamer. Rarey, in his methods for subduing fractious horse resorted to the device of pulling the rein of the off-jaw while he grasped the near fore-leg (any horseman will un- derstand) and the same sleight o' hand is portrayed in this bas-relief, executed more than two thousand years ago. This is not all: in another ancient collection I noticed a Roman safety-pin, made ex- actly on the plan of those in use today by ladies and children; also, for that matter, by gentlemen.
One of the most prominent features in the various public buildings is the number of portraits and statutes of Rus- sian notables, and of these "Ivan, the Terrible," Peter the Great and Catherine II are forever in evidence. Our guide, a typical cockney Englishman, served them up to us much after the plan of the Britisher's interpretation of a bill of fare headed "Oysters in all styles." Point- ing to the object in view he would say:
"'Ere you 'av Peter the Great-six times! One-two-three-four-five- six! See! Look at 'em! You arn't looking! Peter the Great six times!" Or again: "See the malachite! Ob- serve the Gobelin tapestry !- hall-and work. Silk panels-b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u -!! Look at 'em !! Come along !!! " Such rallying ejaculations were repeated inces- santly. During one of our drives I no- ticed a very large handsome five-story brick building, plastered front, and said: "What's that?" "'Is Majesty's wash- 'ouse," replied my guide; i. e., the royal laundry-an enormous establishment.
From royal palaces within and without the city, there being one at Tsarskoe-Selo, sixteen miles out, and an- other at Peterhof, I will refer for a mo- ment to the Baron Steglitz Academy of Art, one of the three solitary stone build- ings in the city of St. Petersburg. Bar- on Steglitz was a philanthropic Jew, and a director of the Imperial Bank of Rus- sia. At his death he left property to the amount of five million dollars, the in- come alone of which has been steadily devoted to the construction of a palatial museum of art and antiquity, as a school of design. Its interior is one of the rich- est, most tasteful and beautiful to be met with anywhere. Of the city itself: It lies as flat as a pancake, and its 1,200,000 population are scattered up and down on both sides of the Neva. The river is spanned at the present time by stone, iron and pontoon bridges. It flows through the city in the form of a horse- shoe bend, and a canal has been cut across it from heel to heel-a distance of nine miles-with intersecting branches, constituting some thirty miles of water- ways, and dividing the city into a num- ber of islands. The streets are generally broad and altogether modern in their appearance, paving, etc. The chief and finest of the three
main thoroughfares or avenues is
Nefsky, Prospect-the Broadway of St. Petersburg. The houses rarely exceed four stories in height-none are five stories, and as a whole, their plaster- ed, cemented or stuccoed fronts
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(though mostly built of brick) many of them painted an ochre yellow, present a wilderness of dreary sameness, which is relieved only by the royal and govern- mental buildings, by churches and cathe- drals with their gilded domes, spires and minarets; and, at odd places and street intersections, by kiosks or shrines-the latter containing the omnipresent Icon, where the way-worn and weary may en- ter for prayer or praise. Small shrines with lighted tapers, are met with in every nook and corner-in railway stations, in hotels, and other public resorts. As to places of amusements: The exterior of the Imperial Opera House is as devoid of architectural effect or merit as the Metropolitan in New York, and the cor- ridors and foyer are no better; but the auditorium, including four galleries, is good; and the stage excellent-equal to
La Scala, in Milan. The Circus is in- ferior to the Madison Square Garden Hippodrome, and the Vaudeville Varie- ties not as good as in New York, Lon- don, Berlin or Vienna. The population, in appearance does not differ materially from that of other European cities far- ther south and west.
One word more-regarding the insis- tant militarism of the nation, in spite of the recent professed aspirations and practical effort of the Czar for universal pacification : Whichever way you turn -front, flanks, and rear-the visitor to St. Petersburg is liable to encounter the diversified visages, uniforms, military ac- courtrements, and other racial character- istics of the 850,000 armed men gathered from her numerous and widely-scattered provinces and composing the standing army of the Muscovite empire.
@sopralentine
TALES OF THE MINES.
(Copyright 1900, by G. A. Waggoner.)
At Walla Walla I received news from home which did not please me very well. I was not pleased at all. In fact, I was disgusted. The first thing I did was to take a walk. This did not relieve me, and I came back and took a ride. Feel- ing no better, I went down town and got into a fight. My antagonist was severe- ly punished, but still I grew worse. When I reached camp my companions were asleep. I built up a large fire and sat down and whistled a few tunes. Then I tried a song. I sang all the old hymns I knew.
"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast," and after a while I grew calm and composed a few lines of pacific poetry. Here is a verse:
Come, Satan's muse and breathe a spell, In concord with these thoughts of mine; Come forth, ye savage wits of hell, And set hell's music to my rhyme.
For I have loved and all in vain; Have felt its bitter pangs full deep, And in my soul there is a pain Oe'r which the demons well might weep.
I wrote some twenty verses in this quiet strain, and finally finished with :
Time may try in vain to heal Wounds which laugh to scorn his art, Try in vain the pulse to feel, Which throbs around a broken heart.
I went away from camp so I could not be heard by my now-excited compan- ions, and repeated the lines I had con-
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posed, until my soul grew calm, then I came back and by the light of the fire wrote the following:
Breathes there a woman 'neath the skies Who dares to say she loves a man; Deep in her throat the vixen lies,
Man only loves, man only can.
The remainder of the night was passed in similar musings. In the morning I saddled my horse and rode into the hills to contemplate the situation. I was go- ing through the most trying ordeal of a young man's life. It was strange I was not disturbed. I contemplated my equa- nimity, and felt proud that nothing could disturb my serenity of mind.
I fired a couple of shots into an old ox, which was grazing on the hills, just to show that I felt superior to surround- ings. I spent the day among the hills. shooting at badgers and prairie chick- ens, and returned at night with my mind filled with the Nebulae of grand resolu- tions.
They were so indistinct that I could not discern what form they were likely to assume, but I felt a distinct presenti- ment that I was destined to ride on the topmost crest of something. I racked my brain to find out what this should be.
I thought a first-class desperado would attract attention, and make the world tremble. I was a good shot and knew many people I would like to kill-sev- eral old women in the valley being among the number. But this kind of amusement had its drawbacks. I had been on the frontier long enough to learn that even there "the way of the transgressor is hard."
Then I thought I would be a mission- ary and devote my life to converting the heathen; but, after thinking this over, I concluded not to devote my life any more, but go to the Boise mines, spend the winter mining, and then hunt buffalo on the plains; or do battle with the war- like Sioux.
I loaded my train with a general outfit of provisions and made my way over the Blue mountains to the Grande Ronde valley. Here I met William Brattain,
an old friend and schoolmate, who per- suaded me to camp until he had time to talk to me. He talked four days, at the end of which time I agreed to stay with him in the valley until spring. We locat- ed claims on the ground where Summer- ville now stands, built a comfortable cabin, and made preparations for a win- ter's stay among the immigrants who were settling up the land. One day I re- ceived a letter which pleased me. I was very much pleased, in fact, I was delight- ed. It proved the news I had heard at Walla Walla was false, and I abandoned all idea of hunting buffalo, turning des- perado or being a missionary. I would run my pack train another season, sell out and go home in the fall.
In the meantime I heard of Thomas. Where was he and what had he been do- ing all this time? He has been neglect- ed, slighted and ignored, but not forgot- ten. Of course the reader has noticed this, and that for some time Thomas has appeared in the preamble of these sketches only. The fact is, not being a novelist, I cannot write of more than one man ata a time, and in this dilemma have been absolutely unable to tell of what Thomas did. But you shall know Thom- as had adventures.
He has been cast down and has been lifted up. He has fallen from grace; has rejoiced again. Hope beaming eyes have looked upon wealth. Despair laden orbs have turned to a life of pov- erty, and over his life, as over mine, sun- shine and shadow have held alternate sway.
Our preparations for winter were scarcely completed, when snow fell to the depth of two and one-half feet in the valley, while the mountains were covered with from six to ten feet, and all com- munication with the outside world was cut off. As soon as the snow settled so as to admit of sleighing, William and I extemporized a set of harness out of saddle cinches and bale rope, made a rude sleigh, harnessed up a couple of pack horses and made a tour of the val- ley. Our intention was to find out what our resources for comfort and amuse- ment were, and what kind of company
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we should have during the winter. In the north end of the valley near where we built our cabin was a settlement of Scotch immigrants; they spoke very lit- tle English and were nearly destitute of worldly goods, having exhausted their means in making the long journey over- land from the East. Further south, on the west side, was an Iowa encampment, consisting of about sixty Iowians who arrived late in the fall and encamped for the winter in the same manner in which they were accustomed to on the plains. Here we found some very pleas- ant people, among whom were Drs. Paten and Boswell, afterwards known in the Willamette valley, the former at Salem and the latter at this place. Half a dozen log houses in the southwest cor- ner of the valley formed the town of La- Grande, and a straggling settlement con- fined to the foothills completed the cir- cuit to our place of starting. The valley proper was almost entirely unoccupied. For some cause the first settlers of a country rarely ever select the best lands -witness this valley. The foothills were mostly settled between the year 1845 and 1849, while much of the beautiful prairie was located in the fifties. This was true, also, of the Walla Walla and Palouse countries, of Powder river and Boise valleys, and I am told similar mistakes were made in the early settlement in nearly all the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. Our trip complet- ed, we knew what our surroundings were, and prepared to have a grand time.
Our neighbors were weary from their long journey, having been very gradu- ally moved 2000 miles by the slowest of all work animals-the ox. The patient ox! He is very slow and very sure. but his race is run. He has hauled civiliza- tion around the earth. He started at the rising sun with a stick across his brow and traversed half his circuit with scarce- ly a pause. Then waited patiently until the stick was unbound from his throb- bing temples, an easy yoke was plac- ed upon his neck: waited until his mas- ters had learned to build ships and trav- erse oceans; then he came across the great waters and took up his line of
march across the American continent. Faithful and true, in the new world as in the old, he has crossed our mountains, traversed our deserts and at last has bathed his tired feet in the golden waters of the Pacific. His work is done. We shall never hear from him again. Peace to his bones.
William soon became a great favorite among the Scotch girls, who looked upon him as a prodigy of learning. He was, however, only educated at one end, being able to dance splendidly, but this answered all purposes. I was not anx- ious to make conquests myself, but took great pride in the way William seemed to capture old and young every where he went. After a while, and without any premonitory symptoms, I found myself much courted, and could not account for it. The whole affection of the settlement seemed to be transferred to me. After William had suffered by being slighted for some time, and I had rejoiced in my new-found popularity, we accident- ally discovered the cause of the change. Just before the snow had fallen I had brought fifty bushels of potatoes on my pack train from Walla Walla and had them all nicely stored away, intending to put in a large crop in the spring. By some means the people who knew about the potatoes being brought over came to believe they belonged to William, and they were all courting him with a view of securing a few bushels for seed. After it became known that I was the sole owner of those potatoes William was never mentioned again, and I enjoyed undisturbed my new and novel popu- larity.
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