an arctic aurora—orders from the major—adventures of macrae and arnold with the chukchis—return to gizhiga—review of winter's work
among the few pleasures which reward the traveller for the hardships and dangers of life in the far north, there are none which are brighter or longer remembered than the magnificent auroral displays which occasionally illumine the darkness of the long polar night, and light up with a celestial glory the whole blue vault of heaven. no other natural phenomenon is so grand, so mysterious, so terrible in its unearthly splendour as this. the veil which conceals from mortal eyes the glory of the eternal throne seems drawn aside, and the awed beholder is lifted out of the atmosphere of his daily life into the immediate presence of god.
on the 20th of february, while we were all yet living together at anadyrsk, there occurred one of the grandest displays of the arctic aurora which had been observed there for more than fifty years, and which exhibited such unusual and extraordinary brilliancy as to astonish and frighten even the natives. it was a cold, dark, but clear winter's night, and the sky in the earlier part of the evening showed no signs of the magnificent illumination which was already being prepared. a few streamers wavered now and then in the north, and a faint radiance like that of the rising moon shone above the dark belt of shrubbery which bordered the river; but these were common occurrences, and excited no notice or remark. late in the evening, just as we were preparing to go to bed, dodd happened to go outside for a moment to look after his dogs; but no sooner had he reached the outer door of the entry than he came rushing back, his face ablaze with excitement, shouting: "kennan! robinson! come out, quick!" with a vague impression that the village must be on fire, i sprang up, and without stopping to put on my furs, fan hastily out, followed closely by robinson, harder, and smith. as we emerged into the open air there burst suddenly upon our startled eyes the grandest exhibition of vivid dazzling light and colour of which the mind can conceive. the whole universe seemed to be on fire. a broad arch of brilliant prismatic colours spanned the heavens from east to west like a gigantic rainbow, with a long fringe of crimson and yellow streamers stretching up from its convex edge to the very zenith. at intervals of one or two seconds, wide, luminous bands, parallel with the arch, rose suddenly out of the northern horizon and swept with a swift, steady majesty across the whole heavens, like long breakers of phosphorescent light rolling in from some limitless ocean of space.
every portion of the vast arch was momentarily wavering, trembling, and changing colour, and the brilliant streamers which fringed its edge swept back and forth in great curves, like the fiery sword of the angel at the gate of eden. in a moment the great auroral rainbow, with all its wavering streamers, began to move slowly up toward the zenith, and a second arch of equal brilliancy formed directly under it, shooting up a long serried row of slender, coloured lances toward the north star, like a battalion of the celestial host presenting arms to its commanding angel. every instant the display increased in unearthly grandeur. the luminous bands revolved swiftly, like the spokes of a great wheel of light, across the heavens; the streamers hurried back and forth with swift, tremulous motion from the ends of the arches to the centre; and now and then a great wave of crimson would surge up from the north and fairly deluge the whole sky with colour, tingeing the white snowy earth far and wide with its rosy reflection. but as the words of the prophecy, "and the heavens shall be turned to blood," formed themselves upon my lips, the crimson suddenly vanished, and a lightning flash of vivid orange startled us with its wide, all-pervading glare, which extended even to the southern horizon, as if the whole volume of the atmosphere had suddenly taken fire. i even held my breath a moment, as i listened for the tremendous crash of thunder which it seemed to me must follow this sudden burst of vivid light; but in heaven or earth there was not a sound to break the stillness of midnight save the hastily muttered prayers of the frightened native at my side, as he crossed himself and kneeled down before the visible majesty of god. i could not imagine any possible addition which even almighty power could make to the grandeur of the aurora as it now appeared. the rapid alternations of crimson, blue, green, and yellow in the sky were reflected so vividly from the white surface of the snow, that the whole world seemed now steeped in blood, and then quivering in an atmosphere of pale, ghastly green, through which shone the unspeakable glories of the two mighty crimson and yellow arches. but the end was not yet. as we watched with upturned faces the swift ebb and flow of these great celestial tides of coloured light, the last seal of the glorious revelation was suddenly broken, and both arches were simultaneously shivered into a thousand parallel perpendicular bars, every one of which displayed in regular order, from top to bottom, the primary colours of the solar spectrum. from horizon to horizon there now stretched two vast curving bridges of coloured bars, across which we almost expected to see, passing and repassing, the bright inhabitants of another world. amid cries of astonishment and exclamations of "god have mercy!" from the startled natives, these innumerable bars began to move back and forth, with a swift dancing motion, along the whole extent of both arches, passing one another from side to side with such bewildering rapidity that the eye was lost in the attempt to follow them. the whole concave of heaven seemed transformed into one great revolving kaleidoscope of shattered rainbows. never had i even dreamed of such an aurora as this, and i am not ashamed to confess that its magnificence for a moment overawed and almost frightened me. the whole sky, from zenith to horizon, was "one molten mantling sea of colour and fire;—crimson and purple, and scarlet and green, and colours for which there are no words in language and no ideas in the mind—things which can only be conceived while they are visible." the "signs and portents" in the heavens were grand enough to herald the destruction of a world; flashes of rich quivering colour, covering half the sky for an instant and then vanishing like summer lightning; brilliant green streamers shooting swiftly but silently up across the zenith; thousands of variegated bars sweeping past one another in two magnificent arches, and great luminous waves rolling in from the inter-planetary spaces and breaking in long lines of radiant glory upon the shallow atmosphere of a darkened world.
with the separation of the two arches into bars the aurora reached its utmost magnificence, and from that time its supernatural beauty slowly but steadily faded. the first arch broke up, and soon after it the second; the flashes of colour appeared less and less frequently; the luminous bands ceased to revolve across the zenith; and in an hour nothing remained in the dark starry heavens to remind us of the aurora, except a few faint magellan clouds of luminous vapour.
the month of february wore slowly away, and march found us still living in anadyrsk, without any news from the major, or from the missing men, arnold and macrae. fifty-seven days had now elapsed since they left their camp on the lower anadyr, and we began to fear that they would never again be seen. whether they had starved, or frozen to death on some great desolate plain south of bering strait, or been murdered by the chukchis, we could not conjecture, but their long absence was a proof that they had met with some misfortune.
i was not at all satisfied with the route over which we had passed from shestakóva to anadyrsk, on account of its barrenness, and the impossibility of transporting heavy telegraph poles over its great snowy steppes from the few wooded rivers by which it was traversed. i accordingly started from anadyrsk with five dog-sledges on march 4th, to try to find a better route between the anadyr and the head-waters of the penzhina river. three days after our departure we met, on the road to penzhina, a special messenger from gizhiga, bringing a letter from the major dated okhotsk, january 19th. enclosed were letters from colonel bulkley, announcing the landing of the anadyr river party under lieutenant macrae, and a map showing the location of their camp. the major wrote as follows: "in case—what god forbid—macrae and party have not arrived at anadyrsk, you will immediately, upon the receipt of this letter, do your utmost to deliver them from their too long winter quarters at the mouth of the anadyr, where they were landed in september. i was told that macrae would be landed only in case of perfect certainty to reach anadyrsk in boats, and i confess i don't like such surprises as colonel bulkley has made me now. for the present our duty consists in doing our utmost to extricate them from where they are, and you must get every dog-sledge you can, stuff them with dog-food and provisions, and go at once in search of macrae's camp." these directions i had already anticipated and carried out, and macrae's party, or at least all i could find of it, was now living in anadyrsk. when the major wrote this letter, however, he did not suppose that dodd and i would hear of the landing of the party through the wandering chukchis, or that we would think of going in search of them without orders. he knew that he had told us particularly not to attempt to explore the anadyr river until another season, and did not expect that we would go beyond the last settlement. i wrote a hasty note to dodd upon the icy runner of my overturned sledge—freezing two fingers in the operation—and sent the courier on to anadyrsk with the letters. the mail also included letters to me from captain scammon, commander of the company's fleet, and one from my friend w.h. dall, who had returned with the vessels to san francisco, and had written me while stopping a few days at petropavlovsk. he begged me, by all the sacred interests of science, not to let a single bug or living thing of any kind escape my vigilant eye; but, as i read his letter that night by the camp-fire, i thought with a smile that snowy siberian steppes and temperatures of 30° and 40° below zero were not very favourable to the growth and dispersion of bugs, nor to efforts for their capture and preservation.
i will not go into a detailed account of the explorations which lieutenant robinson and i made in search of a more practicable route for our line between the penzhina river and anadyrsk. we found that the river system of the anadyrsk was divided from that of the penzhina only by a low mountain ridge, which could be easily passed, and that, by following up certain tributaries of the latter, crossing the watershed, and descending one of the branches of the anadyr, we should have almost unbroken water communication between the okhotsk sea and bering strait. along these rivers timber was generally abundant, and where there was none, poles could be distributed easily in rafts. the route thus indicated was everything which could be desired; and, much gratified by the results of our labours, we returned on march 13th to anadyrsk.
we were overjoyed to learn from the first man who met us after we entered the settlement that macrae and arnold had arrived, and in five minutes we were shaking them by the hand, congratulating them, upon their safe arrival, and overwhelming them with questions as to their travels and adventures, and the reasons of their long absence.
for sixty-four days they had been living with the wandering chukchis, and making their way slowly and by a circuitous route towards anadyrsk. they had generally been well treated, but the band with which they travelled had been in no hurry to reach the settlement, and had been carrying them at the rate of ten or twelve miles a day all over the great desolate steppes which lie south of the anadyr river. they had experienced great hardships; had lived upon reindeer's entrails and tallow for weeks at a time; had been alive almost constantly with vermin; had spent the greater part of two long months in smoky chukchi pologs, and had despaired, sometimes, of ever reaching a russian settlement or seeing again a civilised human being; but hope and courage had sustained them through it all, and they had finally arrived at anadyrsk safe and well. the sum-total of their baggage when they drove into the settlement was a quart bottle of whisky wrapped up in an american flag! as soon as we were all together, we raised the flag on a pole over our little log house, made a whisky punch out of the liquor which had traversed half north-eastern siberia, and drank it in honour of the men who had lived sixty-four days with the wandering chukchis, and carried the stars and stripes through the wildest, least known region on the face of the globe.
having now accomplished all that could be done in the way of exploration, we began making preparations for a return to gizhiga. the major had directed me to meet him there with macrae, arnold, robinson, and dodd, as soon as the first of april, and the month of march was now rapidly drawing to a close.
on the 20th we packed up our stores, and bidding good-bye to the kind-hearted, hospitable people of anadyrsk, we set out with a long train of sledges for the coast of the okhotsk sea.
our journey was monotonous and uneventful, and on the second of april, late at night, we left behind us the white desolate steppe of the paren, and drew near the little flat-topped yurt on the malmofka, which was only twenty-five versts from gizhiga. here we met fresh men, dogs, and sledges, sent out to meet us by the major, and, abandoning our loaded sledges and tired dogs, we took seats upon the light narts of the gizhiga cossacks, and dashed away by the light of a brilliant aurora toward the settlement.
about one o'clock we heard the distant barking of dogs, and in a few moments we rushed furiously into the silent village, and stopped before the house of the russian merchant vorrebeof (vor'-re-be-off') where we had lived the previous fall, and where we expected to find the major. i sprang from my sledge, and groping my way through the entry into a warm dark room i shouted "fstavaitia!" to arouse the sleeping inmates. suddenly some one rose up from the floor at my feet, and, grasping me by the arm, exclaimed in a strangely familiar voice, "kennan, is that you?" startled and bewildered with half-incredulous recognition, i could only reply, "bush, is that you?" and, when a sleepy boy came in with a light, he was astonished to find a man dressed in heavy frosty furs embracing another who was clad only in a linen shirt and drawers.
there was a joyful time in that log house when the major, bush, macrae, arnold, robinson, dodd, and i gathered around a steaming samovar or tea-urn which stood on a pine table in the centre of the room, and discussed the adventures, haps, and mishaps of our first arctic winter. some of us had come from the extremity of kamchatka, some from the frontier of china, and some from bering strait, and we all met that night in gizhiga, and congratulated ourselves and one another upon the successful exploration of the whole route of the proposed russian-american telegraph line from anadyr bay to the amur river. the different members of the party there assembled had, in seven months, travelled in the aggregate almost ten thousand miles.
the results of our winter's work were briefly as follows: bush and mahood, after leaving the major and me at petropavlovsk, had gone on to the russian settlement of nikolaievsk, at the mouth of the amur river, and had entered promptly upon the exploration of the west coast of the okhotsk sea. they had travelled with the wandering tunguses through the densely timbered region between nikolaievsk and aian, ridden on the backs of reindeer over the rugged mountains of the stanavoi range south of okhotsk, and had finally met the major at the latter place on the 22d. of february. the major, alone, had explored the whole north coast of the okhotsk sea and had made a visit to the russian city of yakutsk, six hundred versts west of okhotsk, in quest of labourers and horses. he had ascertained the possibility of hiring a thousand yakut labourers in the settlements along the lena river, at the rate of sixty dollars a year for each man, and of purchasing there as many siberian horses as we should require at very reasonable prices. he had located a route for the line from gizhiga to okhotsk, and had superintended generally the whole work of exploration. macrae and arnold had explored nearly all the region lying south of the anadyr and along the lower myan, and had gained much valuable information concerning the little-known tribe of wandering chukchis. dodd, robinson, and i had explored two routes from gizhiga to anadyrsk, and had found a chain of wooded rivers connecting the okhotsk sea with the pacific ocean near bering strait. the natives we had everywhere found to be peaceable and well disposed, and many of them along the route of the line were already engaged in cutting poles. the country, although by no means favourable to the construction of a telegraph line, presented no obstacles which energy and perseverance could not overcome; and, as we reviewed our winter's work, we felt satisfied that the enterprise in which we were engaged, if not altogether an easy one, held out at least a fair prospect of success.
