* * *
Popular proverb: as goes to the cradle, goes to the grave I found complete justification in the history of my life. If we take into account my thirty years of trials, the many varied hardships I have experienced, which fell to the lot of probably only a very few, the seven years of my life spent in peace and contentment, and finally my old age - if we remember that I have experienced the life of an average class in all its forms and found out which of them can most easily bring complete happiness to a person - then, it seemed, one would think that the natural inclination towards vagrancy, as I already said, which took possession of me from the very moment I was born, should would have weakened, its volatile elements would have evaporated or at least thickened, and that at the age of 61 I should have had a desire for a settled life and kept me from adventures that threatened my life and my condition.
Moreover, for me there was no motive that usually prompts me to go on long journeys: I had nothing to achieve wealth, there was nothing to look for. If I had gained ten thousand pounds sterling more, I would not have become richer, since I already had quite enough for myself and for those whom I needed to provide for. At the same time, my capital apparently increased, since, not having a large family, I could not even spend all my income, unless I began to spend the money on the maintenance of many servants, carriages, entertainment and the like, which I do not mention. had no idea and for which I did not feel the slightest inclination. Thus, all I could do was sit quietly, use what I had acquired and observe the constant increase in my wealth.
However, all this had no effect on me and could not suppress my desire to wander, which positively developed in me into a chronic illness. I had a particularly strong desire to take another look at my plantations on the island and at the colony that I had left on it. Every night I saw my island in my dreams and dreamed about it for days on end. This thought hovered above all the others, and my imagination worked it out so diligently and intensely that I even talked about it in my sleep. In a word, nothing could knock the intention of going to the island out of my head; it broke out so often in my speeches that it became boring to talk to me; I could not talk about anything else: all my conversations boiled down to the same thing; I'm boring everyone and I noticed it myself.
I have often heard from sensible people that all sorts of stories about ghosts and spirits arise as a result of the ardor of the imagination and the intense work of the imagination, that no spirits and ghosts exist, etc. According to them, people, recalling their past conversations with dead friends, they imagine them so vividly that in some exceptional cases they are able to imagine that they see them, talk to them and receive answers from them, whereas in reality there is nothing of the kind, and all this is only imaginary to them.
To this day, I myself don’t know whether ghosts exist, whether people appear differently after their death, and whether such stories have a more serious basis than nerves, the delirium of a free mind and a disordered imagination, but I know that my imagination has often brought me to this point. that it seemed to me as if I was again on the island near my castle, as if the old Spaniard, Friday’s father and the mutinous sailors whom I had left on the island were standing in front of me. It seemed to me that I was talking to them and seeing them as clearly as if they were actually before my eyes. Often I myself felt terrified - my imagination painted all these pictures so vividly. One day I dreamed with astonishing vividness that the first Spaniard and Friday's father were telling me about the vile deeds of three pirates, how these pirates tried to barbarously kill all the Spaniards and how they set fire to the entire stock of provisions laid aside by the Spaniards in order to moderate their hunger. I had never heard of anything like this, and yet all of this was factually true. In a dream, this appeared to me with such clarity and plausibility that until the moment when I actually saw my colony, it was impossible to convince me that all this was not true. And how indignant and indignant I was in my dream, listening to the complaints of the Spaniard, what a harsh trial I inflicted on the guilty, interrogated them and ordered all three to be hanged. How much truth there was in all this will become clear in due course. I will only say that, although I do not know how I got to this in a dream and what inspired such assumptions in me, there was a lot of truth in them. I cannot say that my dream was correct in all the details, but in general there was so much truth in it, the vile and base behavior of these three scoundrels was such that the similarity with reality turned out to be striking, and I actually had to punish them severely. Even if I hanged them, I would have acted justly and would have been right before the law of God and man. But back to my story. I lived like this for several years. For me there were no other pleasures, no pleasant pastime, no entertainment, except dreams of the island; my wife, seeing that my thoughts were occupied with him alone, told me one evening that, in her opinion, a voice from above was heard in my soul, commanding me to go again to the island. The only obstacle to this was, according to her, my responsibilities to my wife and children. She said that she could not allow the thought of separation from me, but since she was sure that if she had died, I would have gone to the island first and that this had already been decided up there, she did not want to be a hindrance to me. And therefore, if I really consider it necessary and have already decided to go... - then she noticed that I was listening carefully to her words and looking closely at her; which confused her and she stopped. I asked her why she didn’t finish the story and asked her to continue. But I noticed that she was too excited and that there were tears in her eyes. “Tell me, dear,” I began, “do you want me to go?” “No,” she answered affectionately, “I am far from wishing for it. But if you decide to go, then I’d rather go with you than be a hindrance to you. Although I think that at your age and in your position it is too risky to think about this,” she continued with tears in her eyes, “but since it is already destined to be so, I will not leave you. If this is the will of heaven, there is no point in resisting. And if heaven wants you to go to the island, then it also shows me that it is my duty to go with you or to arrange it so that I do not serve as an obstacle for you.”
My wife's tenderness sobered me up somewhat; Having reflected on my course of action, I curbed my passion for travel and began to reason with myself what meaning it could have for a sixty-year-old man, behind whom lay a life full of so many hardships and hardships and ending so happily - what meaning, I say, could have for such a person to go out again in search of adventure and abandon himself to the will of chance, which only young people and the poor go to meet?
I also thought about the new obligations I had assumed - that I had a wife and a child and that my wife was carrying another child under her heart - that I had everything that life could give me, and that I did not the need to risk oneself for money. I told myself that I was already in my declining years and it was more fitting for me to think about the fact that I would soon have to part with everything I had acquired, rather than about increasing my wealth. I thought about my wife's words that this is the will of heaven and that therefore I must to go to the island, but personally I was not at all sure about this. Therefore, after much thought, I began to struggle with my imagination and ended up reasoning with myself, as probably everyone can do in similar cases, if they only want to. In a word, I suppressed my desires; I overcame them with the help of arguments of reason, which, in my position at that time, could have been given a lot. I especially tried to direct my thoughts to other subjects and decided to start some business that could distract me from dreams of a trip to the island, since I noticed that they took possession of me mainly when I indulged in idleness, when I had no business at all, or at least no immediate business.
For this purpose I purchased a small farm in Bedford County and decided to move there. There was a small comfortable house there, and significant improvements could be made to the farm. Such an occupation in many respects corresponded to my inclinations, moreover, this area was not adjacent to the sea, and there I could be calm that I would not have to see ships, sailors and everything that reminded me of distant lands.
I settled on my farm, moved my family there, bought plows, harrows, a cart, a wagon, horses, cows, sheep, and began to work seriously. Six months later I became a real farmer. My mind was entirely absorbed in supervising the workers, cultivating the land, building fences, planting trees, etc. And this way of life seemed to me the most pleasant of all that could be given to a person who had experienced nothing but hardships in life.
I managed my own land - I did not have to pay rent, I was not constrained by any conditions, I could build or destroy at my discretion; everything I did and undertook was for the benefit of me and my family. Having given up the idea of traveling, I did not tolerate any inconvenience in my life. Now it seemed to me that I had reached that golden mean that my father so warmly recommended to me, a blissful life similar to that which the poet describes when he sings of rural life:
Free from vices, free from worries,
Where old age knows no illness, and youth knows no temptations.
But in the midst of all this bliss, I was struck by a heavy blow, which not only irreparably shattered my life, but also revived my dreams of travel again. And these dreams took possession of me with an irresistible force, like a serious illness that suddenly returned late. And nothing could drive them away now. This blow was the death of my wife.
I am not going to write an elegy on the death of my wife, describe her virtues and flatter the weaker sex in general in a funeral speech. I will only say that she was the soul of all my affairs, the center of all my enterprises, that with her prudence she constantly distracted me from the most reckless and risky plans swarming in my head, as mentioned above, and returned me to happy moderation; she knew how to tame my restless spirit; her tears and requests influenced me more than the tears of my mother, the instructions of my father, the advice of friends and all the arguments of my own mind could influence. I felt happy to give in to her, and completely dejected and unsettled by my loss.
After her death, everything around me began to seem joyless and unsightly. I felt even more alien in my soul. Here than in the forests of Brazil when I first set foot on its shores, and as lonely as on my island, although I was surrounded by a crowd of servants. I didn't know what to do and what not to do. I saw people bustling around me; some of them worked for their daily bread, while others squandered what they had acquired in vile debauchery or vain pleasures, equally pitiful, because the goal to which they strived was constantly moving away from them. People who pursued amusements became fed up with their vice every day and accumulated material for repentance and regret, while working people wasted their strength in the daily struggle for a piece of bread. And so life passed in a constant alternation of sorrows; they lived only in order to work, and worked in order to live, as if obtaining their daily bread was the only goal of their arduous life and as if their working life had only the goal of delivering their daily bread.
I remembered then the life I had led in my kingdom, on the island, where I had to cultivate no more grain and raise no more goats than I needed, and where money lay in chests until it rusted, as for twenty years I never even deigned to look at them.
All these observations, if I had used them as reason and religion told me, should have shown me that in order to achieve complete happiness one should not seek pleasure alone, that there is something higher that constitutes the true meaning and purpose of life, and that we can achieve possession or hope to possess this meaning even before the grave.
But my wise adviser was no longer alive, and I was like a ship without a helmsman, rushing at the will of the wind. My thoughts again turned to the same topics, and dreams of traveling to distant lands again began to spin my head. And everything that previously served as a source of innocent pleasure for me. The farm, the garden, the livestock, the family, which previously completely owned my soul, have lost all meaning and all attractiveness for me. Now they were to me what music is to a deaf man, or food to a man who has lost taste: in short, I decided to give up farming, rent out my farm and return to London. And a few months later I did just that.
Moving to London did not improve my state of mind. I didn’t like this city, I had nothing to do there and I wandered the streets like an idle person, about whom it can be said that he is completely useless in the universe because no one cares whether he lives or dies. Such idle spending of time was extremely disgusting to me, as a person who has always led a very active life, and I often said to myself: “There is no more humiliating state in life than idleness.” And indeed, it seemed to me that I spent my time more profitably when I made one board for twenty-six days.
At the beginning of 1693, my nephew returned home from his first short trip to Bilbao, whom, as I said earlier, I made a sailor and captain of the ship. He came to me and said that merchants he knew were inviting him to go to the East Indies and China to buy goods. “If you, uncle,” he told me, “will go with me, then I can land you on your island, since we will go to Brazil.”
The most convincing proof of the existence of a future life and the invisible world is the coincidence of external reasons that prompt us to act as our thoughts inspire us, which we create in our souls completely independently and without informing anyone about them.
My nephew knew nothing about the fact that my morbid desire for wandering had awakened in me with renewed vigor, and I did not at all expect that he would come to me with such a proposal. But this very morning, after long reflection, I came to the decision to go to Lisbon and consult with my old friend the captain, and then, if he thought it feasible and reasonable, to go again to the island to see what had become of my people. I was rushing around with projects to populate the island and attract settlers from England, dreamed of taking out a patent for land and everything else I dreamed of. And just at this moment my nephew appears with an offer to take me to the island on the way to the East Indies.
Fixing my gaze on him, I asked: “What devil gave you this disastrous thought?” This at first stunned my nephew, but he soon noticed that his proposal did not cause me any particular displeasure, and took heart: “I hope it will not be disastrous,” he said, “and you will probably be pleased to see a colony that has arisen on island where you once reigned more happily than most monarchs in this world."
In a word, his project fully corresponded to my mood, that is, to the dreams that possessed me and which I have already spoken about in detail; and I answered him in a few words that if he comes to an agreement with his merchants, then I am ready to go with him, but perhaps I will not go further than my island. “Do you really want to stay there again?” he asked. “Can’t you pick me up on the way back?” He replied that the merchants would under no circumstances allow him to make such a detour with a ship loaded with goods of great value, since it would take at least a month, and maybe three or four months. “Moreover, I could be wrecked and not return at all,” he added, “then you will find yourself in the same position as you were before.”
It was very reasonable. But the two of us found a way to help the grief: we decided to take a disassembled boat with us to the ship, which, with the help of several carpenters we hired, could be assembled on the island and launched into the water in a few days.
I didn't think twice about it. My nephew's unexpected proposal was so consistent with my own aspirations that nothing could prevent me from accepting it. On the other hand, after the death of my wife, there was no one to care about me enough to persuade me to do one way or another, with the exception of my good friend, the captain’s widow, who seriously dissuaded me from traveling and urged me to take into account my years, material security, and the dangers of a long stay. travel undertaken unnecessarily, and especially for my small children. But all this did not have the slightest effect on me. I felt an irresistible desire to visit the island and answered my friend that my thoughts about this trip were of such an extraordinary nature that to remain at home would mean rebelling against Providence. After that, she stopped dissuading me and even began to help me herself, not only in preparations for departure, but even in the troubles of arranging my family affairs and in worries about raising my children.
To provide for them, I made a will and placed my capital in the right hands, taking all measures to ensure that my children could not be offended, no matter what fate befell me. I completely entrusted their upbringing to my widow friend, assigning her sufficient compensation for her labors. She fully deserved this, for even my mother could not have taken more care of my children and better directed their upbringing, and just as she lived to see my return, so I lived to thank her.
Early in January, 1694, my nephew was ready to sail, and I, with my Friday, reported to the ship at the Downs on the 8th of January. In addition to the aforementioned boat, I took with me a significant amount of all kinds of things necessary for my colony, in case I found it in an unsatisfactory condition, for I decided at all costs to leave it flourishing.
First of all, I took care to take with me some workmen, whom I intended to settle on the island, or at least make them work at their own expense during their stay there, and then give them the choice of either remaining on the island or returning with me. . Among them were two carpenters, a blacksmith and one clever, clever fellow, a cooper by trade, but at the same time a master of all kinds of mechanical work. He knew how to make a wheel and a hand mill, was a good turner and potter, and could make absolutely anything that could be made from clay and wood. For this we nicknamed him the “jack of all trades.”
Moreover, I took with me a tailor, who volunteered to go with my nephew to the East Indies, but then agreed to go with us to our new plantation and turned out to be a most useful man, not only in what related to his craft, but also in many other things. . For, as I already said, need teaches everything.
The cargo I took on board the ship, as far as I can remember in general - I did not keep a detailed account - consisted of a significant supply of linen and a certain amount of fine English material for the clothing of the Spaniards whom I expected to meet on the island; All of this, according to my calculations, was enough to last for seven years. More than two hundred pounds' worth of gloves, hats, boots, stockings, and everything necessary for clothing, as far as I can remember, was taken, including several beds, bedding, and household utensils, especially kitchen utensils: pots, cauldrons, pewter and copper utensils. etc. In addition, I carried with me a hundred pounds worth of iron products, nails of all kinds, tools, staples, loops, hooks and various other necessary things that just came into my head at that time.
I also took with me a hundred cheap muskets and guns, several pistols, a considerable quantity of cartridges of all calibers, three or four tons of lead and two copper cannons. And since I did not know for how long I needed to stock up and what accidents might await me, I took a hundred barrels of gunpowder, a fair amount of sabers, cutlasses and iron tips for pikes and halberds, so that, in general, we had a large supply of all sorts of goods, persuaded his nephew to take with him two more small quarter-deck guns in reserve, in addition to those required for the ship, in order to unload them on the island and then build a fort that could protect us from attacks. At first I was sincerely convinced that all this would be necessary and, perhaps, would even be insufficient to keep the island in our hands. The reader will see later how right I was.
During this journey I did not have to experience as many misfortunes and adventures as usually happened to me, and therefore I will less often have to interrupt the story and divert the attention of the reader, who may want to quickly learn about the fate of my colony. However, this voyage was not without troubles, difficulties, nasty winds and bad weather, as a result of which the journey lasted longer than I expected, and since out of all my travels I only once - namely on my first trip to Guinea - arrived safely and returned at the appointed time, then even then I began to think that I was still haunted by an evil fate and that I was so constructed that I could not wait on land and was always unlucky at sea.
Opposite winds at first drove us northward, and we were forced to call at Doves, in Ireland, where we remained, by the mercy of unfavorable winds, for twenty-two days. But here at least there was one consolation: the extreme cheapness of provisions; Moreover, here it was possible to get anything you wanted, and during the entire stay we not only did not touch the ship’s supplies, but even increased them. Here I also bought several pigs and two cows with calves, which I hoped to land on my island if the move was favorable, but they had to be disposed of differently.
We left Ireland on the 5th of February, and for several days sailed with a fair wind. Around February 20, I remember, late in the evening the captain's assistant, who was on watch, came to the cabin and reported that he had seen fire and heard a cannon shot; Before he could finish the story, the cabin boy came running with the news that the boatswain also heard the shot. We all rushed to the quarterdeck. At first we heard nothing, but after a few minutes we saw a bright light and concluded that it must be a big fire. We calculated the position of the ship and unanimously decided that in the direction where the fire appeared (west-northwest), there could not be land even at a distance of five hundred miles. It was obvious that it was a ship burning on the open sea. And since we had previously heard cannon shots, we concluded that this ship must be nearby, and headed straight in the direction where we saw the light; as we moved forward, the bright spot became larger and larger, although due to the fog we could not distinguish anything other than this spot. We sailed with a fair, although not strong, wind, and after about half an hour, when the sky cleared a little, we clearly saw that it was a large ship burning on the open sea.
I was deeply moved by this misfortune, although I did not know the victims at all. I remembered the situation in which I myself was when the Portuguese captain rescued me, and I thought that the situation of the people on this ship was even more desperate if there was no other ship nearby. I immediately ordered five cannon shots fired at short intervals to let the victims know that help was close and that they could try to escape in boats. For although we could see the flames on the ship, we could not be seen from the burning ship in the darkness of the night.
We were content to drift off while waiting for dawn, coordinating our movements with those of the burning ship. Suddenly, to our great horror - although this was to be expected - there was an explosion, and after that the ship immediately plunged into the waves. It was a terrible and amazing sight. I decided that the people on the ship either all died, or threw themselves into boats and were now rushing along the waves of the ocean. In any case, their situation was desperate. It was impossible to see anything in the darkness. But in order to, if possible, help the victims find us and let them know that a ship was nearby, I ordered lit lanterns to be hung wherever possible and cannons to be fired throughout the night.
At about eight o'clock in the morning, with the help of telescopes, we saw boats in the sea. There were two of them; both were crowded with people and sat deep in the water. We noticed that they, heading against the wind, were rowing towards our ship and were making every effort to attract our attention. We immediately raised the stern flag and began to give signals that we were inviting them to our ship, and, having increased the sails, we went to meet them. Less than half an hour passed before we caught up with them and took them on board. There were sixty-four of them, men, women and children, for there were many passengers on the ship.
We learned that she was a French merchantman of three hundred tons, bound for France from Quebec in Canada. The captain told us in detail about the misfortunes that befell his ship. It caught fire near the steering wheel due to the negligence of the helmsman. The sailors who had come running to his call seemed to have completely extinguished the fire, but it was soon discovered that the sparks had hit such an inaccessible part of the ship that there was no way to fight the fire. Along the boards and along the lining, the flames made their way into the hold, and there no measures could stop its spread.
There was nothing left to do but lower the boats. Fortunately for those on the ship, the boats were quite spacious. They had a longboat, a large sloop and, in addition, a small skiff in which they stored supplies of fresh water and provisions. Getting into boats at such a great distance from land, they had only a faint hope of salvation; Most of all, they hoped that some ship would meet them and take them on board. They had sails, oars and a compass, and they intended to sail to Newfoundland. The wind was favorable to them. They had so much food and water that, using it in the amount necessary to maintain life, they could survive for about twelve days. And during this period, if stormy weather and nasty winds had not interfered, the captain hoped to reach the shores of Newfoundland. They also hoped that during this time they might be able to catch some fish. But at the same time they were threatened by so many unfavorable accidents, such as storms that could capsize and sink their boats, rains and colds that made their limbs go numb and numb, nasty winds that could keep them at sea for so long that they would all die from hunger that their salvation would be almost a miracle.
The captain, with tears in his eyes, told me how during their conferences, when everyone was close to despair and ready to lose all hope, they were suddenly startled by hearing a cannon shot, followed by four more. It was five cannon shots that I ordered fired when we saw the flames. These shots revived their hearts with hope and, as I expected, let them know that not far from them there was a ship coming to their aid.
Hearing the shots, they removed the masts and sails, since the sound was heard from the windward side, and decided to wait until the morning. After a while, no longer hearing any more shots, they themselves began to fire at long intervals from their muskets and fired three shots, but the wind carried the sound in the other direction, and we did not hear them.
These poor people were all the more pleasantly amazed when, after some time, they saw our lights and again heard cannon shots; as already shown, I ordered shooting throughout the night. This prompted them to take up the oars in order to quickly approach us. And finally, to their indescribable joy, they were convinced that we had noticed them.
It is impossible to describe the various movements and delights with which the rescued expressed their joy at such an unexpected deliverance from danger. It is easy to describe both grief and fear - sighs, tears, sobs and monotonous movements of the head and hands exhaust all their methods of expression; but excessive joy, delight, joyful amazement manifest themselves in a thousand ways. Some had tears in their eyes, others sobbed and moaned with such despair in their faces, as if they were experiencing the deepest sorrow. Some were violent and positively seemed crazy. Others ran around the ship, stamping their feet or cursing. Some danced, a few sang, others laughed hysterically, many remained dejectedly silent, unable to utter a single word. Some people were vomiting, several people were fainting. Few were baptized and thanked the Lord.
We must give them justice - there were many among them who later showed true gratitude, but at first the feeling of joy in them was so intense that they were not able to control it - most fell into a frenzy and some kind of madness. And only a very few remained calm and serious in their joy.
This was partly due to the fact that they belonged to the French nation, which is generally recognized to have a more changeable, passionate and lively temperament, since its vital spirits are more mobile than those of other peoples. I am not a philosopher and do not undertake to determine the cause of this phenomenon, but until then I had not seen anything like it. What came closest to these scenes was the joyful frenzy into which poor Friday, my faithful servant, fell when he found his father in the boat. They were also somewhat reminiscent of the delight of the captain and his companions, whom I rescued when the scoundrel sailors landed them ashore; neither one nor the other and nothing I had seen before could be compared with what was happening now.
Robinson Crusoe - 2
Constituting the second and last part of his life, and a fascinating account of his travels in three parts of the world, written by himself
The popular proverb: “What goes to the cradle, goes to the grave” found full justification in the story of my life. If we take into account my thirty years of trials, the many varied hardships I have experienced, which fell to the lot of probably only a very few, the seven years of my life spent in peace and contentment, and finally my old age - if we remember that I have experienced the life of an average class in all its forms and found out which of them can most easily bring complete happiness to a person - then, it seemed, one would think that the natural inclination towards vagrancy, as I already said, which took possession of me from the very moment I was born, should would have weakened, its volatile elements would have evaporated or at least thickened, and that at the age of 61 I should have had a desire for a settled life and kept me from adventures that threatened my life and my condition.
Moreover, for me there was no motive that usually prompts me to go on long journeys: I had nothing to achieve wealth, there was nothing to look for. If I had gained ten thousand pounds sterling more, I would not have become richer, since I already had quite enough for myself and for those whom I needed to provide for. At the same time, my capital apparently increased, since, not having a large family, I could not even spend all my income, unless I began to spend money on the maintenance of many servants, carriages, entertainment and the like, about which I had no idea and for which I did not feel the slightest inclination. Thus, all I could do was sit quietly, use what I had acquired and observe the constant increase in my wealth.
However, all this had no effect on me and could not suppress my desire to wander, which positively developed in me into a chronic illness. I had a particularly strong desire to take another look at my plantations on the island and at the colony that I had left on it. Every night I saw my island in my dreams and dreamed about it for days on end. This thought hovered above all the others, and my imagination worked it out so diligently and intensely that I even talked about it in my sleep. In a word, nothing could knock the intention of going to the island out of my head; it broke out so often in my speeches that it became boring to talk to me; I could not talk about anything else: all my conversations boiled down to the same thing; I'm boring everyone and I noticed it myself.
I have often heard from sensible people that all sorts of stories about ghosts and spirits arise as a result of the fervor of the imagination and the intense work of the imagination, that no spirits and ghosts exist, etc. According to them, people, recalling their past conversations with the dead friends, imagine them so vividly that in some exceptional cases they are able to imagine that they see them, talk to them and receive answers from them, whereas in reality there is nothing of the kind, and all this is only imaginary to them.
To this day, I myself don’t know whether ghosts exist, whether people appear differently after their death, and whether such stories have a more serious basis than nerves, the delirium of a free mind and a disordered imagination, but I know that my imagination has often brought me to this point. that it seemed to me as if I was again on the island near my castle, as if the old Spaniard, Friday’s father and the mutinous sailors whom I had left on the island were standing in front of me. It seemed to me that I was talking to them and seeing them as clearly as if they were actually before my eyes. Often I myself felt terrified - my imagination painted all these pictures so vividly. One day I dreamed with astonishing vividness that the first Spaniard and Friday's father were telling me about the vile deeds of three pirates, how these pirates tried to barbarously kill all the Spaniards and how they set fire to the entire stock of provisions laid aside by the Spaniards in order to moderate their hunger.
Daniel Defoe
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE,
which formed the second and last part of his life, as well as an extraordinary, amazing story about his travels around three-quarters of the globe, written by himself with the appendix of a world map on which the travels of Robinson Crusoe are indicated
(Translation from English by Vladimir Misyuchenko)
FROM THE TRANSLATOR
Since that very day on April 25, 1719, when the novel about the adventures of Robinson Crusoe was “born,” the book has been published everywhere and constantly. Of course, in Russia too. Although in our country, as, perhaps, in no other, the work of Daniel Defoe, according to the apt remark of the subtle connoisseur of literature Dmitry Urnov, “for most readers has been reduced in volume and content to a children’s version.”
Test yourself. Do you know how and when Friday died? What did the sailor from the English city of York, Robinson Crusoe, who spent 28 years alone on the Island find on the Island, returning there a few years later as Ruler? Did you know that Robinson visited China? And then in Russia (Muscovy)?
The popularity of the first volume of “The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe” (the same one that now exists in our magnificent children’s version) was no less great than that of the detective television series beloved by viewers today, and if, in response to the requests of the audience, the heroes of the Detective extend the seasons of communication (“... -2”, “…-3”… “…-6” and so on), then the readers of the first quarter of the 18th century. demanded from the publishers of Robinson 2. And it appeared under the title "The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Which Formed the Second and Last Part of His Life, and an Extraordinary and Astounding Narrative of His Travels Around Three-Quarters of the Globe."
If it’s difficult for you to answer the questions asked above, then you haven’t read the second volume of Robinson’s adventures. As, indeed, are the majority of Russian readers.
In this regard, the proposed passage may well be of interest, especially since it covers the last year and a half of the almost eleven years of travel of Robinson Crusoe, no longer a sailor, but a merchant.
I note that there is interest in both Robinson and Defoe.
I won’t lie, I personally find Defoe more interesting. A thinker, a professional writer (one of the first in Europe to try to earn a living with a pen!), he caught the fact that the wave of great discoveries and unity of mankind carried with it foam - greed, predation, the deep depravity of people, which made it possible to justify the extermination of millions by “high "reasons of civilization. He caught it and expressed it in literary images, enriching the genre of travel writing with the merits of the novel. Those who saw themselves in these mirrors did not remain in debt: Defoe was persecuted and disgraced, accused of corruption, hypocrisy, rashness, and even ignorance. He took up the pen and... This is how, for example, he answered (speaking, as usual, about himself in the third person) to those who blasphemed him for his lack of education:
"1. He speaks French as fluently as his native English. He knows Spanish, Italian and a little Slavic, for he has often been among Poles and Muscovites. He knows a little Portuguese, but is still considered to be uneducated.
2. Has sufficient knowledge in the field of experimental sciences, has a solid scientific collection, and yet is uneducated.
3. He is an expert in geography, he can imagine the whole world at his fingertips. He can give an overview of any European country about the situation, nature, rivers, main cities, trade, and not only that, but also tell something about the history and political interests of this country, but still he is uneducated.
4. He is skilled in astronomy, understands all the movements of celestial bodies like a specialist, but still he is uneducated.
5. A connoisseur of history, and, perhaps, he can be called a universal historian, for he read all historical works written in his native language and translated, and those that are not translated are available to him in French or Italian. But no, he is uneducated.
6. As for his own country, he is simply a walking geographical map. He traveled around the entire island, and many parts of it several times, he wrote about his country, therefore, when he travels abroad, he cannot be blamed for the sin of most English travelers who strive to get to know foreign countries, although they do not know their own . And yet this man is uneducated.
Meanwhile, many people who are considered educated are completely unfit for anything. These are just pedants chewing Greek and Latin. Our educated people seem to me to be something like educated mechanics, for they go through words and conjugations like a junk dealer with his stuff in a landfill.”
He, Defoe, has his own “norm” in literature: a simple and clear (“homely”) style, the ability to look at “modernity” soberly and insightfully, the ability to show “modern man” as a piece of history.
Robinson is such a particle, this romantic of the most prosaic of all human activities - trade and entrepreneurship. His path to Russia is difficult. An ineradicable passion for travel led him, accompanied by Friday, across the Atlantic to the shores of Canada and then North and South America. Off the coast of Brazil, Robinson again visited his Island, already being the holder of a patent from its owner and ruler. And this visit did not bring him much joy... From Brazil, Robinson’s ship headed for the Cape of Good Hope, from there to Madagascar, Sumatra, Siam, the Philippine Islands and China. And already from Beijing, as part of a merchant caravan, Robinson moved to Russia.
A check of Robinson's routes along Siberian rivers, carried out today, confirms their amazing accuracy day after day. Robinson showed accuracy by describing the Amur extremely sparingly: this river was little known at that time. And no matter how his memory failed him (he drowned his notebook in some Siberian river), we still understand his names of Yenisei, Tobolsk, and Solikamsk.
Of course, much of what Defoe wrote about Russia now gives the impression not of information, but of fairy tales. Those who saw Defoe as an ignoramus insisted that he had never been to Russia and in fact knew nothing really about it. Academician Mikhail Pavlovich Alekseev (1896-1981), an in-depth expert on Western European literature, at one time examined Defoe’s “Russian pages” historically, and here is his conclusion: Defoe “happily avoided the fables” that were then spreading about Russia, and carefully reproduced everything more reliably, what could I learn about our country?
It is impossible not to pay attention to how the writer Defoe solves the problem of Robinson's attitude towards this harsh, wild, ignorant country inhabited by pagans. Read the dialogues between the former hermit of the Island of Despair and the Russian prince exiled to Siberia! A truly amazing heart-to-heart conversation between two people who have had “extraordinary adventures,” cruel trials, and separation from the world. He simply breathes goodwill towards the Russians. Yes, Defoe called our ancestors “bears” and said that they were “more reckless than the Spaniards.” It's like that. But his hero reveals his soul not to just anyone, but to a Russian exile, “Robinson of Siberia,” whom he calls a great man without any quotation marks for the wisdom of his soul...
Moscow
... We now found ourselves on the shore in China. If in Bengal, which, thanks to money, I largely considered my home, I felt abandoned and cut off from my homeland, then what should I think about myself now? After all, I climbed another thousand leagues further from home and completely lost all possibility of returning.
All that remained for us was to wait for the next fair to take place in about four months in the place where we were, and then we might be able to buy all sorts of products from that country, and in addition we would be able to find among the Chinese junks or ships from Tonkin , who will announce for sale something suitable on which to transport ourselves and our goods wherever we want. I liked this opportunity, so I decided to wait. In addition, since we ourselves were not reprehensible, if any of the English or Dutch ships happened to come here, we would probably have the opportunity to load all our goods and move to some place in India, closer to home.
Relying on these hopes, we decided to stay where we were, but to please ourselves by taking two or three trips into the interior of the country. First, we went for ten days to see the city of Nanjing, and, to tell the truth, this city was worth visiting: they say that it has a million inhabitants, which, however, I don’t believe, it is built measuredly, all its streets are straight and intersect each other in straight lines lines, which has a very beneficial effect on his entire appearance.
But, as soon as I begin to compare the poor people of these countries with ours, the products of their hands, the customs of their life, their government, their religion, their wealth and their bliss, as some call it, then I must admit that I have no idea that this deserves remembrance, or is worth my labors to talk about this, or the efforts of any people who will live after me, to read about this.
It is very noticeable that we marvel at the greatness, wealth, pomp, ceremonies, government, products, trade and way of life of this people, not because there is really something to marvel at or, frankly speaking, something to pay even the slightest attention to, but because , that initially, having truly established ourselves in the barbarity of these lands, in the savagery and ignorance prevailing there, we do not expect to find in such a wilderness anything above ignorance and savagery.
Otherwise, what are their buildings next to the palaces and royal buildings of Europe? What is their trade compared to the universal commerce of England, Holland, France and Spain? What are their cities next to ours with their wealth, power and gaiety of decoration, luxurious decoration and endless variety? What are their ports, equipped with a few junks and barges, in comparison with our navigation, our merchant fleets, our large and powerful naval forces? There is more trade in our city of London than in their entire powerful empire. One English, or Dutch, or French 80-gun warship is capable of fighting and destroying the entire Chinese naval fleet. However, we are still amazed by the enormity of their wealth, and their trade, and the power of their rulers, and the strength of their armies, since, as I have already said, we, considering them a barbarous nation of pagans, little better than savages, do not expect all this from them, and this really encourages us to imagine all their greatness and all their power, although in fact this in itself does not represent anything at all, because what I have already said about their ships can be said about their armies and troops, all the armed forces of their empire, even if all two million of them enter the battlefield, they are unable to do anything except ruin the country and die of hunger themselves. If they were to besiege some strong town in Flanders or fight with a trained army, one chain of German cuirassiers or French cavalry would overthrow the entire cavalry of China, a million of their infantrymen would not be able to withstand one part of our infantry prepared for battle, built in such a way that it cannot be surrounded , even if the numerical ratio is twenty to one, but whatever! - I will not boast if I say that 30,000 German or English infantry with 10,000 French cavalry will completely defeat all the forces of China. The same is with our fortified cities, and with the skill of our sappers in storming and defending cities; in China there is no such fortified city that could withstand even a month against the batteries and attacks of any European army, and at the same time all the armies of China never take a city like Dunkirk, provided that its defenders do not starve to death, no, they will not take it, even if they besiege it for ten years. They have firearms, it’s true, but they are disgusting, clumsy and fail when shooting. They also have gunpowder, but there is no strength in it; They have neither combat formation, nor training in using weapons, nor the ability to attack, nor the endurance to retreat. Therefore, I must confess, it seems strange to me when I return home and hear my compatriots speak so highly of the power, wealth, bliss, splendor and trade of the Chinese, because I saw with my own eyes that they are a despicable horde or a crowd of ignorant vile people. slaves, given over to the power of such rulers who are only capable of ruling such a people. In a word, since I have strayed so far from my plan, then, if the distance from Muscovy had not been so incomprehensibly great and if the Muscovite empire had not been almost the same rude, helpless and poorly governed crowd of slaves, the Tsar of Muscovy could with great ease drive all the Chinese from country and conquer it in one military campaign. And if the king, who, as I heard, is a sovereign who is growing up and, apparently, beginning to acquire significance in the world, had chosen this path, instead of attacking the warlike Swedes, which attempt was not envied by any of the European powers and not a single had not been dissuaded from her, perhaps by this time he would have already been the emperor of China, instead of being beaten by the king of Sweden at Narva, when the latter’s forces were six times inferior in number1. Just as their power and greatness, their navigation, their trade, their agriculture are imperfect and helpless in comparison with what is in Europe, as well as their knowledge, their teachings, their skills in the sciences. They have globes and celestial spheres, a taste for knowledge of mathematics, however, when you delve into the state of their knowledge, how short-sighted their scientists seem! They know nothing about the movement of the celestial bodies, their ignorance is so great that even when the sun is eclipsed, they believe that it was the great dragon that attacked him and fled with him, then throughout the country they begin to bang drums and cauldrons, scaring away the monster - just like we do when we plant a swarm of bees in a hive.
Since the trip was the only one of its kind that I made during all my travels, which I am talking about, I will no longer give descriptions of countries and peoples, this is not my business and my intentions do not include anything other than a story about my own adventures during a life full of incomparable wanderings, about a long series of changes, and perhaps few of those who will live after me will hear anything like that. So I will expand very little about all these vast expanses, desert lands and numerous peoples, although I will have to tell more than just telling my own story when something that interests me about them requires it. I was now, as far as I could calculate, almost in the very heart of China, approximately on the line of thirty degrees north latitude, and since we were returning from Nanjing, to tell the truth, it came to my mind to look at the city of Peking, about which I had heard so much , and Father Simon pestered me every day with persuasion to go there. In the end, the time of his departure was determined, and another missionary who was to go with him arrived from Macau, it was necessary to decide whether we were going or not, and I sent the monk to my partner, leaving everything to the latter’s choice, who after much deliberation, he agreed, and we got ready for the trip. From the very beginning we were very lucky with the way we set off:
we were allowed to travel in the retinue of one of their mandarins, a kind of viceroy or high official in his province, occupying a very high position, moving with great congestion and great veneration of the very people whom these rulers sometimes plunged into great need, because in all the lands through which they passed, the inhabitants were obliged to supply themselves and their entire retinue with provisions. The mandarin whom I happened to observe with my own eyes while traveling in his convoy was such that, although we, as accompanying the mandarin, received enough provisions, both for ourselves and for our horses, we were still obliged to We had to pay for everything we received at the market prices of the country, and the mandarin's servant, in charge of food, duly collected payment from us, so that traveling in the mandarin's retinue, although it was a great benefit for us, was still not a very generous favor for us, and to tell the truth, a great benefit for him, if we take into account that, besides us, more than thirty people traveled in the same manner, because the residents provided provisions free of charge, and he took for himself all our money intended for them.
We reached Beijing for twenty-five days through a land endlessly populated, but pathetically well-groomed, despite the fact that the Chinese boast so much about the zeal of the people, pathetic, I say, in the sense that we would have to endure this, who understands how to live, or when compare with what we ourselves have, but not for these unfortunate poor creatures themselves, who know nothing else. The pride of this people is infinitely great, there is nothing higher than it except their poverty, which aggravates what I call their torment, and I should think that the naked savages of America live much happier, because since they have nothing, so I wish them nothing, while the Chinese are proud and arrogant, and basically they are ordinary poor people and hard workers, their ostentatious boasting is indescribable and mainly finds expression in their clothes and buildings, as well as in the maintenance of many servants and slaves and, to the last degree ridiculous in their contempt for everything in the world except themselves.
I must confess that later I had more pleasure in traveling in the deserts and vast wild spaces of Great Tartary than here, and yet the roads in China are well paved, well maintained and very convenient for travelers, but nothing struck me so rudely as arrogance , the lust for power and arrogance of a people living in the most blatant unpretentiousness and ignorance, for all their vaunted skill no longer exists. And my friend Father Simon and I had a lot of fun when we encountered the beggarly pride of this people. For example, about ten leagues from the city of Nanking we arrive at the house of a local nobleman, as Father Simon called him. First of all, we have the honor of riding about two miles1 along with the owner of the house, and he on his horse looks like a real Don Quixote from -for mixing pomp and poverty.
The outfit of this greasy don would have been very suitable for some scaramouche, or buffoon, and consisted of dirty calico and all the tinsel that is an indispensable decoration of a buffoon's robe, such as hanging sleeves, tassels, slits and slits on almost all sides, and on top of all this a vest of taffeta, greasy like a butcher's, and indicating that His Grace is the most complete slob.
His horse is an unkempt, thin, hungry, lame nag, the kind that sells in England for 30-40 shillings, and he also has two slaves who follow the master on their own two feet to urge on his unfortunate nag, in the hand of His Grace holds a whip, with which he trims the animal from the head as fervently as his slaves do from the tail. So he rides next to us with ten or twelve servants, and, as we were told, he is riding from the city to his estate about half a league ahead of us. We continue our leisurely journey, and this example of a nobleman got ahead of us, and when an hour later we stopped to rest in the village, then, passing the estate of this great man, we saw him on the threshold of a small house having a meal, the house was surrounded by something like a garden, but the owner was easy to see and, as they explained to us, the more we looked at him, the more pleasure we gave him.
He was sitting under a tree that looked like a miniature palm tree, which covered him with shadow from above, from his head, and from the south side, however, under the tree there was also a large umbrella, which gave this place a completely decent appearance, a nobleman, a corpulent man, sat lounging in a large chair with armrests, and food was served to him by two female slaves, he also had two more, whose duties, I think, very few nobles in Europe would accept as a service: one fed the landowner with a spoon, and the other held the dish with one hand, and the other picked up everything that His Grace allowed himself to pass by his mouth and that fell on his beard and taffeta waistcoat, because this great fat beast considered it beneath his dignity to use his own hands where kings and monarchs would prefer to do so, just not to endure the clumsy fingers of his servants.
I took the time to reflect on the misery to which pride plunges men, and how, in the eyes of a reasonable man, an arrogant disposition, so badly manifested, is fraught with trouble. Having allowed this pitiful man to experience the pleasure of us looking at him, as if admiring his magnificence, we, to tell the truth, pitied and despised him. We continued our movement, only Father Simon’s curiosity delayed him, he wanted to know what kind of dishes the justice of the country tastes in all its position, and he assured that he had the honor of tasting a drug that, in my opinion, hardly any English dog would eat, if they would treat him to it. Judge for yourself: a mess of boiled rice with a large clove of garlic in it, a small bag filled with green pepper, some other local plant that looks like our ginger, but smells like musk and tastes like mustard, all this falls into one heap and in this small pieces or slices of lean mutton are boiled. Such was His Grace's meal, which was being prepared at a distance by four or five more servants. If he fed them even more meagerly than he ate himself, not counting spices, then their nutrition must truly be very inconspicuous.
As for the mandarin, with whom we were traveling, he was given honors like a king: invariably surrounded by a retinue of nobles, at each of his appearance surrounded by such splendor that I saw little of him, and only from afar, but I managed to notice that in his entire retinue there was not a horse much more beautiful than which, in my opinion, our post horses in England would not look, but the Chinese are so covered with equipment, capes, harnesses and other similar tinsel that it is impossible to distinguish whether they are fat or skinny, in a word, we hardly saw them, except perhaps their legs and heads.
I was at ease in my soul, all my troubles and difficulties, which I talked about, were left behind, thinking about myself, I did not feel anxiety, which made the journey seem even more pleasant to me, and no troubles happened to me, except perhaps when we were fording a small river, my horse fell and, as they sometimes say, knocked the ground out from under my feet, in other words, threw me into the water; the place turned out to be shallow, but I was soaked through: I mention this because just then my notebook, which contained the names of some people and the names of places that I wanted to remember, was washed away by water; I couldn’t dry the book properly, its pages were rotten and nothing could be made out on them, which was a great loss for me, especially because of the names of some of the places that I mention when telling about this journey.
After a long journey, we finally arrived in Beijing. There was no one with me except the young man whom my nephew, the captain, had given me into my service and who turned out to be very reliable and diligent, and my partner also had no one, except one servant who was his relative. As for the Portuguese pilot, he really wanted to see the imperial court, and we, so to speak, paid his passage, that is, we bore his expenses associated with his stay in our company, and used him as an interpreter, since he understood the language of this country , spoke French well and a little English, to tell the truth, he turned out to be a most useful person everywhere. So, not even a week of our stay in Beijing had passed when he came to me, laughing:
“Ah, Senor Anglese,” he says, “what am I going to tell you, which will make your heart rejoice!”
“My heart rejoices,” I say. - What could it be? In this country I do not know anything that could seriously please or sadden me.
“Yes, yes,” said the old man in broken English, “it will make you happy, sad for me, forgive me,” that was his speech. I became even more curious.
“Why,” I said, “would you be sad?”
“And because,” he answered, “you brought me here for twenty-five days, and leave me to return alone, and where should I go to get to my port, without a ship, without a horse, without a reccune1?” - That’s what he called money in his broken Latin, which amused us a lot all the time.
In short, he told us that there was a large caravan of Muscovite and Polish merchants in the city and in four or five weeks they were going to travel overland to Muscovy, and he, the pilot, was sure that we would take advantage of this opportunity to go with the caravan and leave it returning all alone. I admit, his news surprised me, a secret joy of its own filled my soul, I cannot even describe it, because I have never felt such joy, either before or since. For quite a long time I was unable to utter a word, but in the end I turned to the old man:
“How did you know about this,” I asked, “are you sure it’s true?”
“Yes,” he says, “this morning I met an old friend of mine on the street, an Armenian, one of those whom you call Greeks, and he was with them in a caravan, the last time he came from Astrakhan and was going to go to Tonkin, where I I knew him once, but changed my mind and now decided to go with a caravan to Moscow, and then down the Volga River to Astrakhan.
“Well, senor,” I say, “don’t worry about being left to return alone, if this is a way for me to return to England, then the blame will fall entirely on you if you intend to return to Macau.”
After which we discussed together what to do, and I asked my partner what he thought about the news that the pilot brought, did it correspond to the state of his affairs? He said that he had settled all his affairs in Bengal so well and left his property in such reliable hands that since we had made an excellent trip here and if he could acquire Chinese silk, both woven and raw, such that it would be worth transporting , then he would happily go to England, and then sail back to Bengal on the ships of the East India Company.
Having decided on this, we agreed that the Portuguese pilot would go with us and we would pay his expenses on the journey to Moscow or to England, as he wished. To tell the truth, it would not be worth considering us too generous because of this, if we had not rewarded him even more for all the services he provided us and which were really worth all that, or even more, because he not only was our pilot at sea, but also our intermediary on shore, and his getting us a Japanese merchant would have cost us several hundred pounds out of our pocket. So we consulted and were willingly ready to thank him, or rather, to tell the truth, to give him justice, since he was the most necessary person for us in all cases. We agreed to give him gold in specie, which I calculated cost us both about £175, and to bear all his expenses both for himself and for the horse, excepting only the pack-horse with his goods.
Having agreed on this among ourselves, we called the pilot and informed him of our decision. He complained, I told him that we were leaving him to return alone, so I must tell him that we decided that he had no need to return at all, that we, having agreed to go to Europe with a caravan, decided that he should go with us, so we called him to find out what he thought about it. The pilot shook his head and said that the journey was long, and he had no recune to get there or support himself when he got there. We said that we assumed so, and therefore decided to do something for him, so that he would be convinced how much we valued the services he provided and how pleasant he was to us. Then I told him how much we had decided to give him right here and that he could put it aside, just as we would do with our money, and as for his spending, if he came with us, then we would get him safely to the shore (matters of life and accidents are not considered), whether in Muscovy or in England at his choice, at our own expense, with the exception of payment for the carriage of his goods.
The pilot greeted our proposal with such an outburst of feelings that he expressed his readiness to go around the whole world with us, so, in short, we all prepared for the journey. At the same time, there was a lot of fiddling around both with us and with the other merchants, and instead of being ready in five weeks, it took four months and several more days before everything was assembled and ready.
Only at the beginning of February, according to our style, we left Beijing, my partner and the old pilot managed to quickly visit the port where we landed and sold the goods we left there, and I, together with the Chinese merchant, with whom I made some acquaintance in Nanjing and who came to Beijing on business, visited Nanjing, where he bought ninety pieces of beautiful patterned fabric and about two hundred pieces of excellent silk of several types, some with woven gold threads, and brought it all to Peking in time for the return of my partner. In addition to this, we bought a large quantity of raw silk and some other goods, our cargo with all these goods totaled three thousand five hundred pounds sterling, which, together with tea and dressed calicoes and three camel luggage of nutmeg and spices, was loaded on all eighteen camels allocated to us, not counting those that we ourselves rode, and each of us had two or three spare horses and two horses loaded with provisions, so in total we had 26 camels and horses.
The company was very large, as far as I remember, it had from three to four hundred horses and consisted of one hundred and twenty people, very well armed and provided for all occasions, because just as the Arabs attack the eastern caravans, the local ones are attacked the Tartars, although in general not as dangerous as the Arabs, and not so barbaric when they win.
The company consisted of people of several nationalities, mainly Muscovites, of whom there were more than sixty, merchants and residents of Moscow, although some of them were Livonians, were in it, to our special satisfaction, and five Scots, apparently people of great experience in business and very wealthy.
After one of the day's marches, the guides, and there were five of them, called all the noble gentlemen and merchants, in other words, all the travelers, with the exception of servants, to a great council, as they called it. At this great council, everyone contributed a certain amount of money to the common pot for the necessary expenses for purchasing forage along the way where it could not be obtained otherwise, for paying for the services of guides, purchasing horses, and so on. A campaign was established on it, as the guides called it, namely: captains and officers were named, who in the event of an attack were supposed to gather us all and give commands, each was assigned his own turn to command. It cannot be said that this brought us to greater order than was required of us along the way, as will be noted in due time.
The road along its entire length to the border of the country is very, very populated, for the most part by potters and clay mixers, in other words, people who knead clay to make porcelain. Our Portuguese pilot, who always had something in stock to amuse us in one way or another, when I caught up, grinned and promised to show me the greatest rarity in this country, after which, speaking about China, I will have to, following all the bad things already said, say, they say, I saw one thing that cannot be seen anywhere else in the whole world. I was really eager to find out what it was. Finally, the pilot said: this is the house of a nobleman, all built from Chinese material.
“Well,” I say, “isn’t what their buildings are made of a product of their own country, and therefore all these are Chinese materials, isn’t it?”
“No, no,” he says, “I mean, this is a house made entirely of that Chinese material that you call porcelain in England, and we call it in our country too.”
“Well,” I say, “it’s possible.” How big is it? Can we put it in a box and strap it on the camel's back? If so, we'll buy it.
- On a camel! - exclaims the old pilot and raises both hands up. - Yes, a family of thirty people lives in it!
Then I became completely curious to look at the house. When I drove up, I didn’t see anything special: a log house, or a house built, as we say in England, with paneling and plaster, but all the plaster was indeed porcelain, in other words, the house was covered with the clay from which porcelain is made.
The outer side, which was hot in the sun, was covered with glaze and looked beautiful: completely white, painted with blue figures, as large porcelain pieces are painted in England, and durable, as if fired. Inside, all the walls, instead of wooden paneling, were lined with burnt and painted tiles (similar to the small square tiles that we call kitchen tiles in England), all made of the most beautiful porcelain, and figures, beautiful, to tell the truth, beyond all measure, in an unusually varied variety of colors. , mixed with gold. Many of the tiles make up just one figure, they are connected so skillfully, despite the fact that the mortar is prepared from the same clay, that it is very difficult to see where the joints of the tiles are. The floors in the rooms are made with the same pattern and they are as hard as the clay floors that are in use in some parts of England, especially in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, etc., hard as stone and smooth, but the tiles on They are not burned or painted, except in smaller rooms, like storerooms, which seem to be entirely lined with the same tiles. The ceilings and, by the way, all the plastering throughout the house are made of the same clay, and, finally, the roof is covered with the same tiles, only shiny and completely black.
Needless to say, it was truly the Porcelain House, so called for certain and literally, and if I had not made the transition, I would have stayed for several days to take a good look at all its features. As I was told, in the garden there were fountains and ponds with fish, all laid out in exactly the same way along the bottom and walls, and along the paths stood beautiful statues, sculpted from porcelain clay and entirely fired.
Since this is one of the attractions of China, then here they can afford to achieve perfection, but I am more than sure that the Chinese exaggerate their importance. For example, they told me such incredible things about their skill in making earthenware that I am unable to convey, because I know that this cannot be true. They told me, for example, about a certain worker who made a ship with all the rigging, masts and sails from clay, large enough to accommodate fifty people, if the narrator told me that the master launched the ship and sailed on it to Japan, I might have said something to this, but I knew that this whole story, to put it briefly and to apologize for the expression, was a complete lie, and therefore I just smiled and said nothing to it .
The unusual Porcelain House detained me, and I was two hours behind the caravan, for which the commander of the caravan that day fined me an amount equal to three shillings, and notified me: if this had happened on the third day of the journey, when we would have been beyond the Wall, before which still takes three days to get there, he should have fined me four times that amount and forced me to ask for forgiveness at the next council meeting; so I promised to adhere to order in the future, because, to tell the truth, I was later convinced that the order established in order to keep us all together was absolutely necessary for our general safety.
Two more days later we passed the Great Wall of China, built as a fortification against the Tatars. The structure is truly great, stretching along a useless path through the hills and mountains, where the rocks are impassable and the abysses are such that no enemy can approach or climb up, and even if he climbs, no wall will stop him. As we were told, the wall stretches for almost a thousand English miles, while the length of the entire country, which this wall with all its twists and turns delimits, is five hundred in a straight line, its height is about four fathoms, and in some places it reaches the same width.
I stood for an hour, without leaving our formation, since the caravan passing through the gate was so long, I stood, I say, in place for a whole hour, looking at it in both directions, both close and far, that is, as far as the eye could see, and our guide the caravan, which extolled the wall as a wonder of the world, was eagerly awaiting what I would say about it. I told him that this is the most magnificent thing that can keep the Tatars at a distance, and it seems that he did not understand in what sense I said this, and therefore took it as praise. However, the old pilot laughed:
“Ah, Senor Anglese,” he says, “you express yourself flowerily!”
- Flowery? - I asked again. - What are you trying to say?
- Why, your speech looks so white, and yet black, so cheerful, but boring in another way. You tell him that this wall is good for keeping the Tatars at a distance, and by this you convince me that it is good for nothing except keeping the Tatars at a distance, and will not stop anyone else except the Tatars. “I understand you, Senor Anglese, I understand you,” he says, “only, Senor Chinese understood you in his own way.”
“Well,” I say, “senor, you believe that it will withstand any army of our compatriots, well trained in artillery, or our sappers with two companies of miners; won't they bring it down in ten days so that the army can form into battle formations and enter the country, or tear it into the air with all its foundations and everything so that not a trace will remain of it?
“That’s how it is,” he says, “that’s clear to me.”
The Chinese was terrified to know what I said, and I gave the pilot permission to convey my words to him in a few days, since by that time we had almost left this country and the Chinese was soon to leave us, but when he learned what I said, Then we drove the rest of the way in silence, and while he remained with us, we no longer heard any wonderful stories about Chinese power and greatness.
After we passed this powerful Nothing called a wall, something like the Pictish Wall, so famous in the county of Northumberland and erected by the Romans, we began to notice that the area was becoming sparsely populated, and people preferred to live in fortified towns and cities for fear of becoming victims of the devastating raids of the Tatars, who plundered in huge armies, and therefore met no resistance from the naked inhabitants of this open land.
And here I began to be convinced of the need to stay with the caravan during the campaign, for we saw several armed detachments of Tatars wandering around, however, having looked at them well, I was more amazed that the Chinese empire could be conquered by such rabble, for there were the Tatars are simply a horde, or a crowd of wild men, who maintain neither formation nor order, who know neither discipline nor battle tactics.
Their horses, unfortunate thin nags, are not trained for anything, are not suitable for anything - this is what we said on the very first day when we saw them, what happened after we set foot on land less cultivated by man. Our commander of the caravan gave permission to about sixteen of us to go on what is called a hunt, which consisted simply of chasing sheep. However, it could also be called hunting, because in my life I have never seen animals of this breed that are wilder and quicker on their feet, except that they are not capable of running long distances, so once you just start baiting, you can be sure of the catch , because they roam in herds of thirty to forty heads and, as befits true sheep, they stick together when they run away.
Just while pursuing prey in this strange hunt, we met about forty Tatars, whether they, like us, hunted sheep or were looking for other kinds of prey, I don’t know, but as soon as we appeared, one of them was very loud blew a kind of horn that made a barbaric sound that I had never heard before and, by the way, don’t ever want to hear again. We all decided that this was a signal calling all our people, and so it turned out: less than half an hour had passed when another detachment of forty to fifty people appeared at a distance of a mile, but by this time we had already finished our hunt.
One Scottish merchant from Moscow, who found himself among us, barely heard the horn, said in a nutshell that now we have no choice but to immediately, without wasting time, attack the Tatars; lining us up in battle formation, he asked if we had enough resolve, to which we replied that we were ready to follow him; so he galloped straight towards the Tatars, they stood without taking their eyes off us, like some crowd of onlookers, not lining up in any formation, not showing any semblance of order at all, but soon, realizing that we were advancing, they began to throw arrows, which, fortunately, flew past, apparently, the arrows did not choose the wrong target, but incorrectly took into account the distance, because their arrows fell in front of us, but were aimed so accurately at the target that if we were twenty yards closer, we lost several people would be wounded, if not killed.
We immediately stood up, and, although the distance was great, we fired, sending lead bullets to the Tatars in exchange for their wooden arrows, and immediately after the volley we rushed into a gallop to fall on them with a sword in our hand, for so the Brave Scotsman who led us ordered , to tell the truth, he was just a merchant, but in this case he behaved with such determination and courage and at the same time with such cold-blooded courage that I have never seen in battle in any of the men more suitable for command. As soon as we galloped up, we immediately fired point-blank at the Tatars with pistols and retreated, however, they rushed to run away in the greatest panic imaginable. If anyone remained in place, it was the three who stood against our right flank and with signs calling on everyone else to return and stand next to them, this trio had crooked sabers in their hands, bows hung on their backs. Our brave commander, without calling on anyone to follow him, galloped up to them and with his fusée knocked one of the Tatars off his horse, killed the second with a pistol shot, and the third ran away. That was the end of our battle. For us, however, it was accompanied by the misfortune that all our sheep, which we were chasing, ran away. Not a single person was wounded or killed among us, and as for the Tatars, they left five people dead; we didn’t know how many of them were wounded, but we knew: their second detachment was so frightened by the thunder of our rifles and pistols, that he hastened to hide and no longer tried to attack us.
All this time we were in Chinese possessions, and therefore the Tatars were not as brave as they would be later, but after five days we entered a vast, completely uninhabited desert, which did not let us go during three marches day and night, so we had to carry water with you in large leather flasks and camp all night - just as I have heard they do in the Arabian desert.
I asked whose possessions this was, and they told me that this was a kind of border, which could be called “no man's land,” since the desert is part of Karakatai, or Great Tartary, although all of it is considered to belong to China, yet no one cares , to protect it from the attacks of thieves, and therefore it is considered the worst of the deserts in the whole world, although we had to go through much larger deserts.
I must admit that at first, when we walked through these wild places, I was very scared. Two or three times we saw small detachments of Tatars, but they seemed to be minding their own business and did not make any intrigues for us, and therefore everything was like when a person meets the Devil: if evil does not touch us, then there is no need for us to cling to it , - we allowed the Tatars to go their own way.
One day, however, a detachment of them got so close that they lined up and stared at us, whether in order to decide what to do: attack us or not attack us - we did not know, however, when we moved away from them some distance, we formed a rearguard of forty men and were ready to meet the Tatars, allowing the caravan to move half a mile or so away from us. But after some time the Tatars left, greeting us goodbye with five arrows, one of which hit the horse and disabled it; the next day we had to leave this poor animal, which really needed a good blacksmith. We thought that more arrows had been fired, they just didn’t reach us, but that time we didn’t see any more arrows or Tatars.
After that, we walked for about another month, the paths were no longer as easy as at first, although we were still in the domain of the Emperor of China, and we mostly passed by villages, some of which were fortified due to Tatar raids. When we arrived at one of these settlements (it took two and a half days to cross before we got to the city of Naum), I needed to buy a camel, of which they sold in abundance along the road, as well as horses, since so many caravans passed through here, that both were often in demand. The man with whom I agreed to deliver the camel was supposed to drive off and find it for me, but I, in my stupidity, had to intervene and go with him myself. It was necessary to drive about two miles from the village, to where, obviously, camels and horses were kept and grazed under guard.
I went there on foot with my old pilot, eager for at least some variety. When we reached the place, it turned out to be a low-lying, swampy area of land, surrounded like a park by a wall of stones stacked on top of each other, without any kind of bonding mortar or clay in the cracks, and with a small guard of Chinese soldiers at the entrance. Having bought a camel and bargained on the price, I left, and the Chinese who came with me led the camel behind. Suddenly five Tatars on horses jumped out, two of them grabbed the Chinese, took away his camel, and the other three approached us with the old pilot, seeing that we were unarmed, which, in general, was so, since I had no no weapon except the sword, which would in no way protect me from the three horsemen. The first of those who approached stood rooted to the spot as soon as I pulled out my sword (for the Tatars are notorious cowards), but the second, who jumped up from the left, dealt me a blow to the head, which I felt only later and kept wondering, when I came to my senses, what had happened to me and where am I, because the attacker threw me flat on the ground, but the old pilot, this Portuguese, who will never disappear anywhere (so unexpected Providence takes care of salvation from dangers unforeseen by us), had a pistol in his pocket, about which Neither I knew anything, nor the Tatars, if they had known, I believe they would not have attacked us, however, when there is no danger, cowards become bolder.
Seeing that I was defeated, the old man with a brave heart approached the robber who had hit me and, grabbing him by the arm with one hand, with the other he pulled him down with force and shot him in the head, killing him on the spot, after which he immediately went to the one who stopped us. as I said, and, not allowing the Tatar to move forward again (everything was done in a matter of moments), struck him with a saber, which was also with him, the blade did not touch the man, but crashed into the horse’s head, tearing off the ear with the root and a considerable piece on the side of the muzzle, the poor animal was mad from the wound, no longer obeyed the rider, although he was holding on well, the horse rushed and carried the Tatar out from under the pilot’s blow, but, having bounced a little, reared up, threw the Tatar to the ground and collapsed on him.
At this time, the poor Chinese, who had been deprived of his camel, came to his senses, but he did not have any weapons, however, seeing how the Tatar fell and his horse collapsed on him, the Chinese quickly ran up and grabbed the vile weapon of ill-repute hanging from the Tatar’s side , which looked like a butcher's hammer, but was not actually a hammer, grabbed it and swung it to knock the Tatar brains out with it. However, my old man still had to compete with the third of the attackers; seeing that he did not run away, as the pilot expected, and did not rush to fight him, which the pilot feared, but stood rooted to the spot, the old Portuguese also stood up and began to tinker with the accessories necessary to reload the pistol, however , as soon as he saw the pistol, the Tatar (whether he mistook the pistol for the same one or for another, I don’t know) rushed away, leaving my pilot, my warrior-defender, as I called him after that, a complete winner.
By that time, I was gradually waking up, because at first I believed that I was starting to wake up, breaking away from a sweet dream, but, as I already said, I could not figure out where I was, how I ended up on the ground and what had happened. In a word, it took time for my feelings to return, I felt pain, although I did not understand where, I touched my head with my hand and took away my bloody palm, then the pain engulfed my head, and a moment later my memory returned, and I again found myself in full consciousness.
I immediately jumped to my feet and grabbed my sword, but there was already no trace of the enemies: I saw that one Tatar was lying dead, and his horse was standing quietly next to the body, a little further away I saw my warrior-defender and savior, who went to see what the Chinese had done, and returned holding a dirk in his hand. Seeing that I was already on my feet, the old man ran to me, hugged me, not hiding his great joy, because before that he was afraid that I was killed, and when he saw that I was covered in blood, he examined the wound and found out that it was not so It’s scary, it’s just that, as they say, my head was broken, and subsequently I didn’t experience any discomfort from the blow, except that the place where the blow landed hurt and it went away in three or four days.
This victory, however, did not bring us much benefit: we lost a camel and gained a horse, but it is noteworthy that when we returned to the village, the man with whom we bargained demanded payment for the camel. I argued and the matter went to the local Chinese judge, or in my native language, we were brought before the justice of the peace. We must give the judge his due, he acted with great prudence and impartiality and, after listening to both sides, he sensibly turned to the Chinese who went with me to buy a camel, whose servant he was.
“I’m not a servant,” he says, “I just went with this stranger.”
- At whose request? - asks the judge.
“At the request of a stranger,” the Chinese replies.
“So, in this case,” says the judge, “at that time you were a stranger’s servant, and the camel was handed over to the servant, which means it was handed over to him, and he must pay for it.”
I confess that everything was so clear that I had nothing to say, but with great pleasure having observed such a fair discussion of the facts and consequences from them and such an accurate presentation of the case, I willingly paid for the camel and sent for another, however, how could you Note that I sent for him, and did not go personally - once was enough for me.
The city of Naum is the border of the Chinese empire, they say that it is fortified, so it is, since fortifications stand there, and, I will take the liberty of saying, all the Tatars of Karakitai, of whom, it seems to me, are several million, are not able to bring them down walls with their bows and arrows, but to call these fortifications powerful, if, let’s say, attack them with cannons, means giving people who understand themselves a reason to laugh at themselves.
It took us, as I have already said, two days' journey to this city, when fast messengers were sent along the entire road to warn all travelers and caravans to stop and wait for the sent guard to reach them, since an extraordinary crowd of Tatars totaling ten thousand appeared about thirty miles outside the city.
For those traveling, this was sad news, however, the local ruler treated this with care and we were very happy when we heard that we would have security. And sure enough, two days later two hundred soldiers appeared, sent to us from some Chinese garrison on our left, and another three hundred from the city of Naum, and together with him we bravely moved forward. Three hundred soldiers from Nahum walked in front of us, two hundred walked behind, and our people were on both sides of the line of camels with our belongings, while the whole caravan was in the middle. With this order and full readiness for battle, we considered ourselves a worthy opponent for all ten thousand Mongol-Tatars, if they appeared. However, the next day, when they actually appeared, everything was completely different.
It was early morning when, having left a small, well-located town called Changzhu, we were forced to cross the river, moreover, wait for the ferry, and if the Tatars had intelligence, it would have been precisely at such a time that they should have attacked us, when the caravan was already crossed, and the guard from the rear remained behind the river; however, the Tatars never appeared.
About three hours later, when we set foot on the desert land, which stretched for fifteen to sixteen miles1, through a thick cloud of raised dust we discovered the enemy very close to us, the Tatars were really just a stone's throw away, because they were coming at us with lava at full speed. I'm galloping.
The Chinese, our guard in front, who just a day ago were so brave in words, were confused, the soldiers began to look around, which is a sure sign that the soldier was about to take off. My old pilot, who was thinking like me and was nearby, called out:
“Senor Anglese,” he says, “these boys need to be encouraged, otherwise they will destroy us all, because if the Tatars continue to advance, the Chinese will never survive.”
“I agree with you,” I said, “but what should I do?”
- Do! - he says. “Send fifty of our people forward, let them position themselves on both flanks of the Chinese, encourage them, and they will fight like brave men in the company of brave men, otherwise they will all show their backs to the enemy.”
I immediately galloped to our commander and told him everything, he completely agreed with me, and, accordingly, fifty of us moved to the right flank and fifty to the left, the rest formed the line of salvation. We moved out, leaving the last two hundred people to form their detachment and guard the camels, only in case of extreme need they should send a hundred people to help the last fifty.
In a word, the Tatars were approaching in a countless cloud; it’s hard to say how many there were, but, we thought, ten thousand, that’s at least. Some of them, who were in front, approached and saw our formation, tearing up the ground with their hooves in front of our line of defense. When we saw that the enemy had approached within shooting distance, our commander ordered both flanks to quickly move forward and fire a volley at the Tatars from each side, which was done, but the Tatars rode off, I believe, to report how they were met. And, to tell the truth, our salute made the Tatars’ stomachs turn, because they immediately stopped and began to confer, and then went to the left, abandoning their plan and then not hurting us in any way, which in our circumstances could not but please us, because the battle with an enemy of such numbers it did not bode well.
Two days after this, we came to the city of Naun, or Naum, thanked the local ruler for taking care of us, collected gifts for a hundred crowns or so and distributed them to the soldiers sent to guard us, while we ourselves remained in the town for a day to rest. In general, it was a garrison, where there were nine hundred soldiers, but the reason for this was that the Muscovite borders had previously been closer than they are now, the Muscovites abandoned this part of the area (it extended from this city to the west for about two hundred miles) as barren and unusable, and even more so because it was very remote, so it was difficult to send troops here to protect it, since we were still separated from Muscovy by more than two thousand miles1.
After this we crossed several rivers, passed two terrible deserts, one of which took sixteen days to cross - all this through territory which, as I have already said, should be called "no man's land", and on April 13 we came to borders of Muscovite possessions. In my opinion, the first city, or town, or fortress (call it what you want), which belonged to the Tsar of Muscovy and was located on the western bank of the Argun River, was called Argun.
I simply couldn’t be happier that I had so quickly reached what I called a Christian country, because although the Muscovites, in my opinion, barely deserve the name Christians, they still pretend that they are such and are very devout in their own way. I am sure that it would occur to any person who wanders around the world, like me, and who is endowed with the ability to reflect, that it would prompt him, I say, to reflect on what kind of grace it is to get into a world where the Name of God and the Redeemer is known, where it is revered and where it is worshiped, and not where people are denied heavenly grace and they are given over to strong delusions, worship the Devil and prostrate before stumps and stones, idolize monsters, the elements, terrifying animals and statues or images of monsters. There was not a town or city through which we passed that did not have its pagodas, its idols and its temples, where ignorant people did not worship even the products of their own hands.
Now we have arrived where, at least apparently, Christian worship appeared, where they bowed their knees before Jesus, where, whether out of ignorance or not, the Christian religion was recognized, the name of the True God was invoked and worshiped, and at the sight of this My soul was filled with joy to its most secluded corners. I shared my first confession of this with our brave Scots merchant, whom I spoke about above, and, taking him by the hand, said:
Blessed is the Lord, once again we find ourselves among Christians.
The Scot smiled and replied:
- Do not rejoice ahead of time, fellow countryman, these Muscovites are strange Christians and, apart from the name alone, you will see very little that is essentially Christian in the few months that our campaign will last.
“Well,” I say, “it’s still better than paganism and the worship of the Devil.”
“I’ll tell you what,” he says, “apart from the Russian soldiers in the garrisons and the few inhabitants of the cities on our way, the rest of this country, more than a thousand miles further, is inhabited by the worst and most ignorant pagans.”
That's how it actually turned out.
Now we have reached the greatest part of the earth’s surface; if I understand anything about the surface of the globe, you won’t find another like it on the rest of the globe. We were at least twelve hundred miles from the sea to the east; two thousand miles from the bottom of the Baltic Sea in the west; more than three thousand miles, if we pass the Baltic Sea, from the British and French Canals1. Fully five thousand miles separated us from the Indian, or Persian, Sea in the south and about eight hundred miles from the Arctic Sea in the north. Moreover, if you believe some people, then in the northeast, maybe there is no sea at all, until you go around the pole, and then further to the northwest, God knows how far along the continental land until America itself, although I can give some -what are the reasons why I am convinced that these people are wrong.
Having entered the possessions of the Muscovites, it took us a long time to get to any significant cities, and we had nothing to see except this: firstly, all the rivers flowing to the east (as far as I understood from the maps, some of the caravan were taking with them ), all these rivers, and it was clear, flowed into the large river Yamur, or Gammur. This river, judging by its natural course, must flow into the East Sea, or the Chinese Ocean; as we were told, the mouth of this river was completely overgrown with sedge and reeds of monstrous sizes, for example, three feet in girth and twenty to thirty feet in height. I must be allowed to say that I did not believe any of this, and then this river was of no use for navigation, since no trade was carried on along it; the Tatars, the only ones to whom it was a home, were not interested in anything other than cattle, so I have never heard of anyone being curious enough to go to the mouth of the river in boats or to approach the mouth from the sea in ships; but this is certain: this river, flowing properly to the east along its latitude, absorbs a great many rivers and flows into the ocean at this latitude - so we are sure that the sea is there.
Several leagues north of this river flow several large rivers, floating along the flow of which you get to the north in the same way as when sailing along the Yamur you get to the east, and they all merge their waters with the mighty Tartarus River, so named after those living on in the far north to the Mughal Tatar tribes, who, according to the Chinese, were the first Tatars in the world and who, according to our geographers, are Gog and Magog mentioned in the Holy Scriptures.
These rivers, flowing to the north, like all the other rivers of which I happen to speak, clearly confirm that the Northern Ocean borders on land in this direction, so that, apparently, it is not in the least reasonable to believe that the firmament of the earth stretches in that direction until it connects with America, or that there is no communication between the Northern and Eastern oceans. However, I will not say more about this: this was my conclusion at that time, which is why I mentioned it in this place. We have already advanced from the Argun River by easy and moderate transitions and were personally obliged to the care of the Tsar of Muscovy to lay out and rebuild cities and towns in as many places as possible where they could be placed, where soldiers stood in garrisons, like the legionaries whom the Romans left in place in their remote provinces empires, some of them, as I have read, in particular, were located in Britain for the security of trade and to provide shelter for travelers. So it is here: wherever we came, even though in these towns and fortresses the garrisons and rulers were Russian and professed Christianity, yet the local residents were entirely pagans, made sacrifices to idols, worshiped the Sun, Moon and stars or the entire Heavenly Host, yes not just, but they were the most barbaric of all the savages and pagans I met, except that they did not eat human flesh, as our savages do in America.
We came across several examples of this in the expanse from Argun, where we entered the Muscovite possessions, to the city of the Tatars and Russians together, called Norchinskaya, to which we traveled for twenty days through endless deserts and forests. In a village near the last of these towns, I was overcome with curiosity to see what kind of life people lead here, and it turned out to be the most brutal and unbearable. On that day, apparently, the locals made a great sacrifice, because they dug into the ground an old tree trunk, an Idol made of wood and as scary as the Devil, in any case, like anything that could represent, in our opinion, the Devil: he had a head that certainly did not resemble any creature seen in the world, ears as large as a goat’s horns and as high, eyes the size of a one-crown coin, a nose like a curved ram’s horn, and an elongated mouth from ear to ear, like a lion, with terrible fangs, curved like the lower beak of a parrot; The Idol was dressed in such a way that you couldn’t imagine anything more disgusting: sheep skins on top with the fur facing out, a large Tatar cap on his head with two horns protruding from it. The entire Idol was about eight feet high, and yet it had no legs at all, nor any proportion in the parts of the body.
This scarecrow was installed on the outskirts of the village, and when I approached, sixteen or seventeen of these creatures had gathered near it (either men or women - I can’t say, because there was no difference in their outfits, what was on the body, what was on head), they all stretched out on the ground around this monstrous shapeless log. I didn’t notice any movement among them, as if they themselves were logs like the Idol, to tell the truth, I took them for logs, but when I came a little closer, they jumped to their feet and let out a howling cry, like a flock of many dogs with tinned throats howled at once, and stepped aside, as if unhappy that we had disturbed them. Not far from this place, at the door of a hut, or hut, made from the dried skins of sheep and cows, stood three butchers (I took them for such), when I came closer to them, I saw long knives in their hands, and inside huts could be seen killed three sheep and one bull or ox - it seems that they were intended to be sacrificed to the senseless log-Idol, and these three were its priests, while seventeen prostrate pitiful people were those who brought offerings and said prayers to this wooden block .
I confess that I was more touched by their stupidity and crude worship of this Scarecrow than by anything else in my life: to see the most glorious and best creations of God, to which He bestowed so many advantages, already by the very creation, before the rest of the creations of His hands, breathed into them the spirit mind, and this spirit was decorated with qualities and abilities designed both to honor the Creator and to be revered by the created ones themselves, fallen and corrupted to such a degree, much greater than stupidity, to prostrate before the terrifying Nothing - just an imaginary object, dressed by themselves , their own imagination created for them is terrible, endowed with only rags and rags, to see that all this is the result of simple ignorance, turned into devilish worship by the Devil himself, jealous of (his Creator) respect and adoration. Creatures prone to such riots, excesses, abominations and rudeness, if you think about it, are capable of disgusting Nature itself.
However, the symbol of all amazement and reproach in thoughts - here it is, I saw it with my own eyes, and there was no room in my mind to marvel at it or consider it implausible. All my delight turned into rage, I rushed to the statue or monster (call it what you like) and with my sword I cut the cap sitting on its head in half, so that it hung on one of the horns, and one of our caravan men, who was with next to me, grabbed the sheepskin that covered the Idol, and tore it off. Then I heard the most disgusting scream and howl of two or three hundred people fleeing from the village, so I was glad to run away, since some of us had bows and arrows, however, at that moment I was determined to pay a visit here again.
Our caravan stayed for three nights near the town, about four miles away, to rest, and at the same time to replace several horses that were lame or exhausted due to the lack of roads and the long journey through the recent desert, so we had a little free time for to fulfill my plans. I reported my plan to a Scottish merchant from Moscow, of whose courage I had already become sufficiently convinced (as was said above), I told him what I saw, and did not hide my indignation that until then I could not even imagine how Human nature can fall low. I decided, I told him, that if I select four or five well-armed people who agree to go with me, then I will go and destroy the vile disgusting Idol and show these creatures: since he does not have the strength to help himself, then he cannot he cannot be the subject of worship or prayer, and cannot at all help those who make sacrifices to him.
In response, the Scot laughed at me.
“Your zeal,” he says, “may be commendable, but what is your own intention?”
“The intention,” I said, “is to defend the honor of the Lord, insulted by this devilish worship.”
- How to defend the honor of the Lord? - he asks. - If people do not know what caused and what your actions mean, if you do not tell, do not explain this to them in advance, then they will fight with you and beat you, I assure you, because they are a desperate people, especially when defending the Idol that they worship .
“Can’t we,” I remarked, “do this at night, and then leave to them all our arguments and reasons, written in their own language?”
- Written! - he exclaimed. - Yes, here you can’t find one person in five tribes who can at least understand something in letters or can even read a word in any language, even in his native one.
- Contemptible ignorance! - I remarked to him. “And yet I am determined to carry out my plans: probably, Nature will push them to draw conclusions from this, will make them understand how rude they are for worshiping such abominations.”
“Listen, sir,” said the merchant, “since you are so inflamed in your zeal, you must do this, at the same time I would urge you to think about the fact that these wild tribes are by force subjugated to the possession of the Tsar of Muscovy and, if you If you do, then ten to one that they will come in thousands to the ruler of Nerchinsky, complain and demand retribution, and if he does not give them retribution, then ten to one that they will start a rebellion, which will give rise to a new war with all the Tatars in the country.
This, I admit, occupied my head with other thoughts for some time, only the mood in me remained the same, and I spent the whole day tormented by how to bring my plan to fruition. Towards evening, a Scots merchant happened to meet me while walking around the town and wanted to talk to me.
“I hope,” he said, “I turned your thoughts away from your virtuous intention, otherwise I’ve been a little worried about it since then, because the Idol and idolatry are as disgusting to me as they are to you.”
“Truly,” I say, “as far as execution is concerned, you have put me on edge a little, but you have not turned me away from such thoughts at all: I am sure that I will still do so before I leave this place, even if they hand me over to them.” for the sake of retribution.
“No, no,” he says, “God will not allow you to be handed over to this gang of monsters, otherwise this would mean putting you to death.”
“How is it,” I say, “what would they do with me?”
“We would do it,” he says. - I’ll tell you what they did to the unfortunate Russian, who openly insulted their beliefs, just like you, and whom they made their prisoner. To begin with, they flogged him with an arrow so that he could not escape, then they stripped him completely naked and put him on top of their monster Idol, and they themselves stood in a circle and began to shoot arrows at him until they peppered his entire body with them, and therefore They burned him along with the protruding arrows as a sacrifice to the Idol.
- This very Idol?
“Yes,” says the merchant, “to this very one.”
“Well,” I say, “I’ll tell you something too.”
And he told him the story of our sailors in Madagascar, how they burned and plundered an entire village there, killing men, women and children, avenging the murder of one of our sailors (which I already told), and when he finished, he added:
- For me, we should do the same with this village.
The Scot listened attentively to my story, but when I started talking about carrying out a massacre in this village, he said:
- You are very much mistaken: that incident did not occur in this village, but almost a hundred miles from here, although the Idol is the same, because the pagans organized a procession and carried it across this entire area.
“In that case,” I say, “the Idol must be punished for this, and he will be punished if I survive this night.”
In a word, realizing that I was determined, the Scot approved my plan and said that I should not go alone, that he would go with me and also persuade one strong fellow to go with us, his compatriot, he explained, who is known for his zeal , which each of the people would like to wish, against everything that bears the imprint of the devil. In a word, he brought me his comrade, a Scot, whom he certified as Captain Richardson, to whom I presented a full report of what I had witnessed and, in a word, of all my intentions. He readily agreed to go with me, even if it cost him his life. So, we agreed to go just the three of us. To tell the truth, I offered it to my partner, but he refused, saying that he was ready to assist me in all cases when it comes to my protection, and here an adventure lies ahead that is not at all in his spirit. So, I say, we decided to go on business, just the three of us (and also my servant) and carry out our intention that same night at about midnight, keeping everything secret in every possible way.
However, after thinking carefully, we decided to postpone it until the next night, because the caravan had to set off in the morning: we hoped that the local ruler would not take advantage of compensating the idolaters for the loss at our expense when we were out of his power. A Scots merchant, as steadfast in his determination to carry out our undertaking as he was courageous in its execution, procured for me a Tartar outfit made of sheep skins with a cap, as well as a bow and arrows, and dressed himself and his compatriot in the same, so that no one , having noticed us, did not make out who we were.
We spent the entire previous night mixing what could burn with Aqua-vitæ1, gunpowder and similar materials that were at hand, and already on the night when we set out on our campaign, we collected a sufficient amount of resin in a small pot.
We arrived at the place at about eleven o'clock, finding that the local inhabitants were not in the least aware of the danger hanging over their Idol. The night turned out to be cloudy, but there was enough light from the moon to see: the Idol, where and how it stood before, still stands there. All the people seemed to be sleeping, and only in the big hut, or, as we called it, a hut, where we saw three priests, whom we took for butchers, the light was on, and when we got to the door, we heard a conversation behind it, which There were five or six people leading. Well, we decided: if we surrounded the Idol with our flammable firecrackers and set them on fire, then these people would immediately run outside to save the Idol from the fire we had set for its destruction, but we didn’t know what to do with them. At first they even thought of taking it away to the side and setting it on fire, but when they got closer, they realized: it was too big for us to carry it away, and again we were somewhat confused. The second Scot suggested setting fire to the hut, or hut, and knocking down everyone running out of it to the ground with blows to the head, but I did not agree with this, because I was against murder and wanted, if possible, to avoid it.
Well,” said the Scots merchant, “then this is what I’ll say needs to be done: let’s try to capture them, tie their hands behind their backs and make them stand still and watch their Idol perish.”
It so happened that we had with us enough ropes or twines with which we tied firecrackers, so we decided to attack these people first, making as little noise as possible. The first thing we did was knock on the door, which was arranged in the best possible way: one of the priests of the Idol came up to the door, we immediately grabbed him, gagged him, tied his hands behind his back and took him to the Idol, where, threatening him not to dare making no noise, they also tied his legs and left him on the ground.
After which two of us stood at the door, waiting for someone else to come out to find out what was the matter, but we waited so long that our third returned, and since no one came out, we knocked quietly - and immediately two came out at once , which we processed in the same manner, but we were forced to all go with them and lay them down near the Idol at some distance from each other. When we went back, we saw that two more had left the hut and a third was standing in the doorway behind them. We grabbed two, immediately tied them up, then the third backed away and screamed, my Scots merchant rushed at him and, snatching the mess we had prepared, which could only create smoke and stench, set it on fire and threw it right at those in the hut. By that time, the second Scot and my servant took care of the two whose hands we had already tied, and took them to the Idol, so that they could see whether the Idol could help them out, and quickly returned to us.
When the fuse we threw filled the hut with smoke so much that the people in it were almost suffocating, we threw in a leather bag of a different kind, which burned like a candle, and, walking into its light, we discovered that there were four more people left, of whom, it turned out that two were men and two were women, some of them, as we assumed, intended for barbaric devilish victims. They appeared, in short, scared to death, at least so much so that they just sat numbly and trembled, unable to utter a word because of the smoke.
In a word, we took them, tied them up, like the others - and all this without any noise. I should have said that at first we took them out of the hut, because, to tell the truth, we ourselves, like them, could no longer stand the thick smoke. Having done this, we took them all to the Idol. Arriving there, we set to work on this log: at first we smeared it all together with his clothes with pitch and everything else that we had, namely, fat mixed with sulfur, then they stuffed his eyes, ears and mouth with gunpowder, and then wrapped him up. put a huge fire cracker into his cap, after which they stuck to it everything that could burn that they brought with them. Then they began to look around for something that would help the Idol burn to the ground, and then my servant remembered that near the hut where the people were, there was a whole heap of dry feed for livestock (either straw or hay, I don’t remember), Immediately he and one of the Scots ran and brought armfuls of it. Having finished with the preparations, we untied our captives' legs, freed their mouths and forced them to stand facing their monstrous Idol, after which we set it on fire.
We stood for a quarter of an hour or so until the gunpowder exploded in the eyes, ears and mouth of the Idol and, as far as we could understand, split and disfigured his image, in a word, until we saw that the fire had turned him into an ordinary block or log , then the dry food began to work and we, making sure that this log would burn thoroughly, thought about leaving, however, the Scotsman restrained us, saying that we should not leave, because these lost creatures would all rush into the fire at once and burn themselves together with the Idol, so we decided to linger until all the hay burned out. After which we left, leaving the pagans.
In the morning we were no different from our fellow travelers in the caravan, who were overly busy preparing for the continuation of our journey; no one could have imagined that we spent the night anywhere other than our beds, as travelers would have to do in order to gain strength before the hardships of a day's march.
But that's not the end of the matter. The next day, a great number of villagers, not only from this village, but also from hundreds of others, as far as I know, approached the city gates and in a very violent manner demanded retribution from the Russian ruler for insulting their priest and for burning their Great Cham-Chi-Taungu (they gave such an unpronounceable name to the monstrous creature they worshiped). At first, the residents of Nerchinsky were in great fear, because, as they say, at least thirty thousand Tatars had gathered, and in a few more days there would probably have been one hundred thousand.
The Russian ruler sent his messengers to calm the Tatars and promise them everything they wanted. He assured them that he knew nothing about what had happened, that not a single soul from his garrison had left the city, that none of the townspeople could have done such a thing, and if they told him who did it, then the perpetrators would be roughly punished. The Tatars arrogantly replied that the whole country revered the great Cham-Chi-Taung, who lived on the Sun, and not a single mortal would dare to harm his image, except for some Christian infidels (that’s what the Tatars seemed to call them), and therefore They declare war on the ruler, and at the same time on all Russians, who, according to them, are infidels and Christians.
The ruler, still patient and not wanting to be accused of having given rise to war or of violating the instructions of the king, who strictly ordered that the conquered lands be treated with care and courtesy, still promised the Tatars everything he could, and finally told them , that in the morning a caravan headed from the city to Russia, so, probably, one of the travelers inflicted such an insult on them, also said that if the Tatars were satisfied with this, he would send after the caravan and investigate the matter. This seemed to calm the Tatars somewhat, and the ruler, therefore, sent for us and informed us in detail about how things were, and in addition also hinted that if someone from our caravan did this, then it was best for them to flee, however, regardless of whether we did it or not, we all had to move forward with great haste, and he, the ruler, meanwhile would try to hold off the Tatars as much as possible.
On the part of the ruler, this was very friendly, however, when it came to the caravan, no one in it knew anything about what had happened and that we were to blame for this: we were the least suspected of this, no one even asked us asked about this. At the same time, the person in charge of the caravan at that time took advantage of the hint that the ruler gave us, and we marched without significant stops for two days and two nights, until we made a halt near a village called Plotus, and even that was not for long, but we hurried on to Yarovna, another colony of the Tsar of Moscow, where they expected to be safe. However, it should be noted that from there we embarked on a two- or three-day march and emerged into a vast nameless desert, about which I will tell more in another place, and if we had not done this, it is more than likely that we would all have been destroyed.
It was the second day of march after Plotus, when clouds of dust rose behind us at a great distance from us, some of our people were convinced that we were being pursued. We headed into the desert, and when we passed by a large lake called Shax Lake, we noticed how a great many horses appeared on the other side of the lake, heading north (our caravan was heading west). We saw how they turned to the west, like us, but they thought that we would go along the same shore of the lake, while we, fortunately, went along the southern shore and did not see them for two more days, since they were sure that we - still in front of them, and moved forward until they came to the Udda River, a very large river upstream to the north, in the same place where we approached it, the river turned out to be narrow and could be forded.
On the third day, either the pursuers realized their mistake, or their reconnaissance reported us, they came after us when evening twilight came. We managed, to our great satisfaction, to camp in a place very convenient for spending the night, since we were in a desert, albeit at the very beginning of it, stretching for more than five hundred miles, and along all this length there was not a single town in which we could If only we could get up to rest, to tell the truth, we did not expect any housing until the city of Yarovna, which was still two days away. In this same side of the desert there were a few forests and several small rivers flowed into the large river Udda, which carried its waters in a narrow channel between two small but very dense forests, where we set up our small camp for the night, expecting an attack at night.
No one except ourselves knew why we were being persecuted, but it was common for the Mughal Tatars to scour that desert, huddled in armed detachments, so that the caravans always turned their camps into fortifications every night against them as against armies of robbers, so that the persecution itself was nothing new.
But that night we pitched the most advantageous camp of all the nights of our marches, since we were located between two forests with a small stream running right in front of us, so that we could not be surrounded or attacked from anywhere except in front or behind, we also took care to fortify ourselves as strongly as possible in front, placing all our luggage, along with camels and horses, in one line along the near bank of the river and constructing fences behind from fallen trees.
In this position we camped overnight, however, the enemies attacked us before we left it, and they did not attack like thieves, as we expected, but sent us three messengers demanding that we hand over those people who had insulted them priests and burned their God Cham-Chi-Taungu with fire, so that they too could burn those responsible in the fire, after which, the Tatars promised, they would go home and not cause us any more harm, otherwise they would burn us all with fire.
Our people seemed to be very puzzled by such a message and began to peer at each other to understand whose faces would show the guilt most noticeably. But there was only one answer: “no one” - no one did this. The commander of the caravan sent to report that he was completely convinced: no one from our camp was involved in what happened, we are peaceful merchants traveling on our trade business, and we did not cause any harm to either the Tatars or anyone else, and therefore they should look for their We are not enemies who insulted them in another place, and therefore we want them not to disturb us, because if they disturb us, we will have to defend ourselves.
The Tatars were far from satisfied with the answer, and in the morning at dawn a huge crowd came to our camp, however, seeing that it was not easy to approach us, they did not dare to advance further than the stream in front of us. There they stood, terrifying us with their sheer numbers, because there were, according to the most conservative estimate, ten thousand. They stood like that, looking at us, and then, emitting a terrible howl, they bombarded us with a cloud of arrows, but we were quite reliably protected from them, since we hid under our luggage, and I don’t remember that any of us were wounded.
After some time, we noticed how the Tatars moved a little to the right, and began to wait for them from behind. But then one smart fellow, a Cossack, as they are called, from Yarovna, who was in the service of the Muscovites, turned to the commander of the caravan with the words: “I will go and send all these people right up to Sibilka itself,” - that is, to the city that was , at least four or five days' journey to the south and quite far behind us. Taking his bow and arrows, the little one mounts and gallops straight away from the back of our camp, as if back to Nerchinskaya, after which he makes a long detour and approaches the Tatar army, as if he had been sent urgently after them to tell a long story, as if people, who burned Cham-Chi-Taunga, went to Sibilka with a caravan of infidels (as the Cossack called them), that is, Christians, and that they intended to burn the God Shal-Isar, who belonged to the Tungus.
Since this Cossack himself was a simple Tatar and spoke their language perfectly, he so misled our pursuers that they believed his story and rushed at full gallop to Sibilka, which, it seems, was five days' journey to the north, and already After three hours, all trace of them disappeared and we never heard from them again and never found out whether they reached the city called Sibilka or not.
So, we safely reached the city of Yarovna, where the Muscovite garrison was stationed and where we rested for five days, since the caravan was completely exhausted after the last day's march and due to lack of rest at night.
After this city we entered a terrible desert, which required us to travel twenty-three days. At night, for lack of anything better, we took refuge in huts, and the commander of the caravan procured sixteen local carts to transport water and provisions, and every night these carts became our protection, lining up around a small camp, so that if the Tatars appeared (if only they appeared in very large numbers, to tell the truth), they could not harm us in any way.
We really needed rest after such a long journey, because in that desert we saw neither a house nor a tree, only sparse bushes. We met many sable hunters (as they call themselves), all of them were Tatars from Mogul-Tataria, of which this area was a part, and often attacked small caravans, but we did not come across several of them together. I was curious to look at the sable skins they had obtained, but I could not talk to them, since the hunters did not dare to approach us, and among us there were no daredevils to come closer to them.
After we passed this desert, the caravan entered an area that was very well inhabited, that is, we saw cities and fortresses erected by the Tsar of Muscovy with permanent garrisons of soldiers to guard the caravans and protect these lands from the Tatars, who otherwise would have become very dangerous for traveling. His Royal Majesty gave such strict orders for the sound protection of caravans and merchants that, as soon as they heard about the Tatars in those places, garrison detachments were always sent from one fortress to another to guard the safety of travelers.
And thus the ruler of Adinsky, to whom I had the opportunity to pay a visit through the medium of a Scots merchant who was acquainted with him, offered us a guard of fifty people, since we foresaw some danger when moving to another fortress.
Long before this, I believed that the closer we get to Europe, the more populated the lands and the more civilized the people will be, however, as I was convinced, I was wrong in both, since we still had to pass the Tungus tribe, where we saw the same, or even worse, signs of paganism and barbarism, only the Tungus were conquered by the Muscovites and completely suppressed and therefore did not pose such a danger, but in terms of rudeness of behavior, idolatry and polytheism, no one surpassed them people in the world. They were all dressed in animal skins, and their dwellings were built from the same skins; it is impossible to distinguish a man from a woman either by the coarseness of their features or by their clothing, and in winter, when the ground is covered with snow, they live underground in cellar-like dwellings, which connected to each other by underground passages.
If the Tatars have their own Cham-Chi-Taungu for the whole village, or even for the whole country, the Tungus have their own idols in every hut and in every cave, besides, they worship the Stars, the Sun, Water and Snow, in a word, everything, what they do not understand, they understand very little, so that almost every element, every unusual thing compels them to sacrifice.
However, I should not be more concerned with describing people than lands, going beyond the limits required for my own narrative. I myself did not find anything unusual in this whole land, I believe, because of that very desert that stretched, as I recently mentioned, at least 400 miles, half of which was occupied by another desert: without a single house , tree or bush - which we managed to overcome during a difficult 12-day journey, when we were again forced to carry with us our own supplies of provisions, as well as water and bread. When we left the desert and covered two more days of travel, we approached Yanizai, a Muscovite city or fortress on the wide Yanizai River. This river, as we were told here, divides Europe and Asia, although our cartographers, as far as I am informed, do not agree with this, at the same time, the river is definitely the eastern border of ancient Siberia, which is now only one of the provinces of the vast Muscovite empire, although most It is equal in size to the entire German Empire.
Yet even there I saw still prevailing ignorance and paganism outside the Muscovite garrisons, all this land between the Ob River and the Yanizai River is completely pagan, and its people are as barbaric as the most remote of the Tatars, moreover, like any of the ones known to me tribes in Asia or America. I also noticed, as I pointed out to the Muscovite rulers with whom I had the opportunity to talk, that the unfortunate pagans are no wiser and no closer to Christianity, being under the rule of the Muscovites; the rulers admitted that this was quite true, however, as they argued, this did not concern them at all: if it was the royal will to convert their subjects, the Siberians, or the Tungus, or the Tatars, then this should be done by sending priests here with them, and not soldiers, and at the same time they added with a sincerity that I did not expect that they themselves were of the opinion that the concern of their monarch was not so much to make them Christians from these tribes, but to make subjects of them.
From this river to the large Ob River we walked through wild, unkempt places; I can’t say that this soil was barren, it was simply devoid of people and kind care, but in itself it is the most pleasant, fertile and sweetest land. All its inhabitants, whom we saw, are pagans, with the exception of those who were sent to live among them from Russia, since these are places (I mean on both banks of the Ob River) where Muscovite criminals are sent, who are not put to death, and from where There is practically no way for them to escape.
I cannot report anything significant about my own affairs until the time when I arrived in Tobolsk, the capital city of Siberia, where I stayed for some time on the following occasion.
Our journey had already lasted almost seven months, winter was rapidly approaching, and my partner and I met in council to discuss our own affairs, during which we considered it necessary, since we were heading not to Moscow, but to England, to discuss what we should do next . We were told about sleighs and reindeer that could take us through the snow in winter, and in fact there were all sorts of things there, all the features of which are simply incredible to convey, which allow the Russians to travel more in winter than they have the opportunity to move around in summer, because they are able to drive on their sleighs night and day: all of nature is completely at the mercy of frozen snow, which makes all the hills, valleys, rivers and lakes smooth and hard as stone, and people ride on its surface, not paying any attention to what is underneath it.
Alas, I never had to embark on such a winter journey, my goal was England, not Moscow, and my path could run in two ways: either with a caravan to Yaroslav, and then west to Narva and the Gulf of Finland, and then by sea or by land to Dantzik, where I could sell my Chinese cargo at a good profit; or I should leave the caravan in a small town on the Dvina, from where in just six days you can get by water to the Archangel, and from there you could probably get by boat to England, Holland or Hamburg.
To embark on any such journey now, in winter, would be absurd, since the Baltic Sea is covered with ice right up to Dantzik, and in those parts I cannot find a passage by land that would be much safer than the path among the Mughal-Tatars, it is just as absurd to go to Archangel in October, when all the ships have already left there, and even those merchants who live in the city in the summer, in winter, when the ships leave, move south to Moscow, and therefore nothing awaits me there, except for the terrible cold, lack of provisions, and I will have to settle in an empty city for the whole winter. So, taking everything into account, I decided that it would be much better for me to say goodbye to the caravan, stock up on provisions for the winter where I was, (that is) in Tobolsk in Siberia, where I could be sure of three things: will allow you to survive the cold winter: an abundance of provisions that can be afforded in those parts, a warm house and enough fuel, and also excellent company, about which in its place I will tell everything in full.
Now I was in a completely different climate than on my beloved Island, where I never experienced cold, except for the cases when I was struck by chills from fever, on the contrary, it cost me a lot to wear any clothes at all, never to light a fire, otherwise than outside the house and only for the need to prepare food for oneself, etc. Now I had made myself three good waistcoats with loose robes over them, hanging down to the heels, and with buttons at the wrists - and all this was lined with fur to keep it warm enough.
As for a warm house, I must confess that I very much dislike our custom in England of building a fire in every room of the house in fireplaces with straight pipes, which always, when the fire went out, made the air in the room as cold as outside. And yet, having rented an apartment in a good city house, I ordered a fireplace to be built in the form of a hearth in the center of six separate rooms, like a stove, a chimney through which the smoke would rise upward, on one side, and a door giving access to the fire, on the other. another. At the same time, all the rooms were equally warm, but no fire was visible - just like in England they heat baths with steam rooms.
Thanks to this, we always had the same climate in all rooms, and the heat was equally preserved, and no matter how cold it was outside, it was always warm inside, even though we didn’t see the fire and didn’t experience any discomfort from the smoke.
The most wonderful thing was that worthy company could be found here, in a country as barbaric as the northernmost outskirts of Europe, near an ice-covered ocean, and only a few degrees from Nova Zembla.
However, in this country, where all state criminals of Muscovy, as I noted before, are sent into exile, this city was full of nobles, princes, noble people, colonels - in short, people of all ranks from the aristocracy, landowners, military and courtiers of Muscovy. There were the famous Prince Golliocen, the old General Robostsky and a number of other important persons, as well as several ladies.
Through my Scots merchant, with whom I nevertheless said goodbye here, I made acquaintances in the city with several of these nobles (and some of them belonged to the highest nobility), who, on long winter evenings, while I remained in Tobolski, paid me very pleasant visits. One evening I was talking with the prince, one of the exiled ministers of state of the Tsar of Muscovy, and it so happened that for the first time I spoke about what I had experienced. The prince generously shared with me all the delights of greatness, the splendor of his possessions and the absolute power of the Russian emperor, when I, interrupting him, said that I myself was a ruler much greater and more powerful than any of the kings of Moscow, even though my possessions were not so great, but my people are not so numerous. The Russian nobleman seemed somewhat surprised and, looking at me with wide eyes, began to ask what I meant by this.
I noticed that his surprise would diminish if I just explained myself. Firstly, I told the prince, the lives and destinies of all my subjects were at my absolute disposal. Further, despite my absolute power, I did not have a single person in all my possessions who was not satisfied with my rule or with me personally. At these words, the prince shook his head and said that here I had really surpassed the Tsar of Muscovy. All the lands of my kingdom, I told him, were my property, and all my subjects were not just my tenants, but tenants of their own free will: they would fight for me to the last drop of blood; There was no tyrant in the world (for I recognized myself as such) who was so unanimously loved and at the same time so terribly feared by his subjects.
After amusing my listeners for some time with similar mysteries of government, I revealed the secret and told them the full story of my life on the Island, how I managed to manage both myself and the people under my control, about which I have since managed to leave a description. The listeners were immensely shocked by my story, especially the prince, who told me with a sigh that the true greatness of life lies in being masters of ourselves, that he would exchange the position into which life had plunged me for the throne of the Tsar of Moscow and that here, in the exile to which he was doomed, he knew greater bliss than when he had the highest power at the court of his ruler, the king. The highest human wisdom, the prince noted, is to bring our disposition and the circumstances in which we find ourselves into harmony, to find peace within ourselves under the burden of the greatest mockery from the outside.
When he had just arrived here, the prince admitted, he used to tear the hair on his head and tear his clothes, as others had done the same before him, however, it took a little time and thought to make an effort and, looking into himself, to adapt to everything around. The prince realized that the human mind, once used to comprehend the state of universal life and how little true bliss depends on this world, is perfectly capable of creating bliss for itself, being completely satisfied with itself, and is suitable for its own best goals and desires , using perhaps little assistance from this world. According to the prince, air to breathe, food to support life, clothing to keep warm and freedom to exercise the body in order to be healthy - this is what limits everything that this world can give us. And let greatness, power, riches and pleasures, in which some find joy in this world, may fall to our lot, let much of it seem sweet to us, yet, as he was convinced after mature reflection, all this satisfies the most rude of our passions, such as our ambition, our fastidious pride, our greed, our vanity and our sensuality - all that, to tell the truth, are the fruit of the worst in man, are crimes in themselves and carry within themselves the seeds of all methods of crime, but they have no relation and are in no way connected with any of those virtues that make us wise people, or with those virtues that distinguish us as Christians.
Now, deprived of all sorts of far-fetched bliss, which the prince once rejoiced, completely surrendering to all these vices, he, as he admits, has found free time to peer into their dark side, where he discovered all types of ugliness, and is now convinced: only virtue makes a person truly wise, rich and great, keeps him on his earthly path for the highest happiness in the afterlife. And in this, the prince said, they are happier in their exile than all their enemies, who bathe in all sorts of luxury and power that they (the exiled) left in their past.
No, sir,” he says, “compelled by circumstances that are called pitiful, with my mind to approach all this politically, I, however, if I understand anything about myself, would never go back, even if the king , my lord, would call me and restore me to all my former greatness, I assure you, I would not strive back, just as I am sure my soul will not strive when it is allowed to leave this prison of the body and feel the taste of the goodness of the other life, to find herself again in the prison of flesh and blood, in which she now dwells, she will not leave Heaven in order to wallow in the filth and crimes of human affairs.
He said this with such fervor, with such conviction and such elation, clearly reflected in the expression of his face, that it was obvious: this was the true feeling of his soul, which left no room for doubt about his sincerity.
I admitted to the prince that somehow in my past existence I imagined myself to be something like a monarch, but I consider him not only a monarch, but also a great conqueror, for the one who won Victory over his own exorbitant desires and completely mastered himself, giving the mind to rule entirely by its own will is, of course, greater than the one who captured some city.
“However, my lord,” I asked, “will I be allowed to ask you a question?”
“I greet him with all my heart,” he replied.
“If the door of your liberation opens,” I said, “will you take advantage of it to rid yourself of this exile?”
“Wait,” said the prince, “your question is delicate and requires some serious clarification in order to give a sincere answer, and I will give it to you with all my heart.” Nothing I know in this world would motivate me to get rid of my current state of exile, except for two things. Firstly, the happiness of my loved ones and, secondly, a slightly warmer climate. But I will object to you this: if we are talking about a return to the pomp of the court, the honors, power and vanity of the minister of state, to wealth, fun and pleasure, in other words, to the whims of the courtier, if at this moment my lord announces that he is restoring everything that was taken away I have - I will object, if only I somehow know myself, I will not leave these wild places, these deserts, these frozen lakes for the sake of a palace in Moscow.
“However, my lord,” I said, “you seem to be deprived not only of the pleasures of the court, the power, influence and wealth that you previously enjoyed, but you may be deprived of some of the comforts of life, your estate may have been confiscated, your property plundered.” , and what you have left here may not be enough to cover the usual needs of life?
That’s right,” he answered, “if you consider me some kind of nobleman, prince, etc. In essence, this is what I am, just try to treat me just as a person, like any human creature, indistinguishable from any other, and I will immediately find myself able not to suffer from any need, unless it falls on me. I have an illness or disorder. However, in order not to get into a dispute on this issue, take us, whose life here is familiar to you. There are five of us titled nobles in this city, we live completely separately, as befits state exiles; we have something left over from the shipwreck of our destinies, which allows us not to go hunting because of the mere need to get food for ourselves, however, the poor soldiers standing here and not having such help live in much greater prosperity than we ; They go into the forest and catch sable and foxes - a month of labor provides them for a whole year and, since living expenses here are small, it is not at all difficult to support themselves. So this objection is rejected.
I do not have space to fully describe all the most pleasant conversations that I had with this truly great man, in all of them he proved that his mind was so inspired by the highest knowledge of existence, so supported by religion, as well as by vast wisdom, that his contempt to this world is really as great as he claims, that he always remains himself to the last, as will become clear from the story that I am about to tell.
I stayed in the city for eight months, and all of them seemed to me like a dark, terrible winter, when the frost was so strong that I couldn’t even stick my nose out without wrapping myself in furs and covering my face with fur like a mask, or, more precisely, a hood with a single hole for breathing and two smaller ones for the eyes. For three months, according to our estimates, the daylight hours were very short: no more than five hours, at most six; only snow constantly covered the ground, and the weather was clear, so it was never completely dark. Our horses were kept (or, more precisely, kept on a starvation diet) underground, and as for the servants, we hired three to look after the horses and us, and every now and then we had to rub their frostbitten fingers and toes and take measures, lest they become dead and fall off.
It is true that the houses were warm, they stood close to each other, the walls were thick, there was little light, all the glazed windows were double; We ate mainly dried venison, prepared in the summer, quite good bread, although baked in the form of loaves or flatbreads, dried fish of several types and sometimes fresh lamb or beef - the meat was very tasty.
All types of provisions for the winter are laid in the summer and well prepared; We drank water mixed with Aqua-vitae instead of brandy and, as a delicacy, mead instead of wine, which, however, among the Russians is of excellent quality. Hunters who ventured into the forest in any weather often brought us fresh venison, very fatty and tasty, and sometimes bear meat, although we were not very keen on the latter. We had a good supply of tea with us, which we treated to our friends, mentioned above. In a word, taking everything into account, we lived cheerfully and well.
March came, the days became much longer, and the weather at least more bearable, so that other travelers began to prepare sleighs to set off in the snow, and to get ready to leave, only I, as I already said, I was preparing to go to Archangel, and not to Muscovy or the Baltic, and therefore sat motionless, knowing very well that ships from the south would not leave for those parts before May-June and that if I got there by the beginning of August, it would be just by the time when the ships begin to prepare to sail, that’s why, I say, I, like others, was in no hurry to leave; in a word, I saw off many, or rather, all other travelers. It seems that every year they go from here to trade in Moscow: they take furs there and buy with them everything they need, which they bring in order to supply their shops with goods. There were others who went to Archangel for the same purposes, but they, too, considering that they would have to make more than 800 miles of return journey, left before me.
In short, by the end of May I began to prepare everything for loading, and while doing this, I thought about this: I understood that the people I met had been exiled by the Tsar of Muscovy to Siberia, but when they arrived there, they were given the freedom to go anywhere, so why not go to those parts of this world that they consider more suitable for themselves? And I began to study what could prevent them from making such an attempt.
As soon as all my fortune-telling was over, I had only to talk about this subject with the person I have already mentioned, and he answered me like this:
Sir, think, firstly, - said the prince, - about the place where we are, and secondly, in what conditions we find ourselves, especially about most of the people exiled here. We are surrounded by something stronger than bars and bolts: from the north, an unnavigable ocean, in which ships never sail and boats never sail, and even if we had both, would we know where to go to them? If we had set out any other way, we would have had to travel more than a thousand miles1 through the king’s own possessions, and also by detours that were completely impassable, except for the roads built by the government and the cities where its military garrisons are stationed, so we would not be able to pass along any of the roads unnoticed , nor to feed ourselves if we take a different route, which means it’s in vain to try.
There was nothing for me to hide, to tell the truth, it became clear that the exiles were in a prison that was every iota as reliable as if they had been imprisoned in a prison in a castle in Moscow. However, it occurred to me that I could undoubtedly become the instrument that provided the opportunity for the escape of this magnificent personality, and, no matter what difficulties I encountered, I would certainly try to take him away. I shared this with him one evening: I presented the matter to him in such a way that it would be very easy for me to take him with me, in the country itself no one would guard him, and since I was not going to Moscow, but to Archangel and was moving as if in a caravan, then I am not obliged to stop in support towns in the desert, but I can set up camp every night wherever I want, therefore, we could easily easily get to the Archangel himself, where I will immediately hide him on some English or Dutch ship and take him out safely together with myself; As for the means of subsistence and other little things, this will be my concern until he is able to support himself better.
The prince listened to me very carefully and, while I spoke, looked at me seriously the whole time. Moreover, I saw from his face that my words excited his feelings, he turned pale, then blushed, his eyes seemed reddened, and his heart was fluttering so that it was noticeable even from the expression on his face. Yes, and he did not answer me immediately when I fell silent, but only after, after a short silence, he hugged me and said:
How joyless are we, careless creatures that we are, when even our greatest acts of friendship become a snare for us, and we become tempters for each other! My dear friend, your offer is so sincere, there is so much kindness in it, it is so disinterested in itself and so calculated for my benefit that I should know very little about the world if I did not marvel at it and at the same time express my gratitude to you for him. But did you really believe that I was sincere when I so often convinced you of my contempt for the world? Do you really think that I have opened my whole soul to you and that I, in fact, experience here that measure of bliss that puts me above everything that the world can give me? Did you really believe that I was sincere when I said that I would not return if I was called again, even for everything that I once was at court, being in favor with the king, my lord? Do you, my friend, really consider me an honest person or do you see me as a boastful hypocrite?
Here the prince fell silent, as if he wanted to hear my answer, however, in fact, as I soon realized, he fell silent because all his feelings were in motion, and in his big heart there was a struggle, and he was unable to continue. I admit, I was amazed by this, as well as by the man himself, and put into motion some arguments, trying to convince him to break free: I said that he should consider this as a door opened by Heaven in the name of his salvation, as a call from Providence, which watches over and organizes all events, persuaded him to do good for himself and usefully serve this world.
The prince had already come to his senses by this time.
“How do you know, sir,” he says passionately, “that this is a call from Heaven, and not, perhaps, a trick of another weapon?” Perhaps the spectacle of bliss as salvation, presented in seductive colors, is in itself a trap for me and leads directly to my destruction? Here I am free from the temptation to return to my former base greatness, but there I am not sure that all the seeds of pride, ambition, greed and luxury, which, as I know, nature preserves, will not germinate and take root, in a word, not again. They will take power over me - and then the happy prisoner, whom you now see as the master of the freedom of your soul, will become a miserable slave of his own feelings with all the fullness of personal freedom. Dear sir, let me remain in blissful confinement, freed from the crimes of life, rather than buy the spectacle of freedom at the cost of the freedom of my mind, at the cost of the future happiness that I now see, but which, I am afraid, I will soon lose sight of, because I am only flesh, a person, just a person with passions and addictions that are capable of controlling me and destroying me, like any other person. Oh, do not try to be both my friend and my tempter!
If I had been amazed before, now I was simply speechless, stood silently, looking at the prince, and, to tell the truth, admired what I saw. The struggles of his soul were so great that, despite the fact that the frost was severe, the prince was covered with profuse sweat, and I realized that he needed to give vent to what was painful in his soul, and therefore, having said a word or two, I left him alone with his thoughts and, again expecting to meet him, retired to his home.
About two hours later I heard someone approach the door of my room, and was about to open the door when he himself opened it and entered.
“My dear friend,” said the prince, “you almost turned everything in me upside down, but I survived.” Do not indulge in offense that I did not heed your proposal, I assure you, this is not from a lack of understanding, that it was caused by your kindness, I came to most sincerely recognize this in you, however, I hope I have won a victory over myself.
“My lord,” I said, “I hope you are completely convinced that you are not resisting the call of Heaven.”
“Sir,” he said, “if it came from Heaven, the same force would impel me to accept this call, however, I hope - and am fully convinced of it - that by the command of Heaven I reject this call, and I am infinitely pleased at parting, that in your eyes I will still remain an honest person, even if not a free one.
I had no choice but to give in and convince him that I was not pursuing any other goal than a sincere desire to be useful to him. The prince hugged me tightly and assured me that he felt it and would always be grateful for it, and with these words he offered me a gift of magnificent sables, to tell the truth, too expensive for me to accept such a gift from a person in his position; I would have avoided him, only the prince did not want to hear about refusal.
The next morning I sent my servant to his lordship with a small present, consisting of tea, two pieces of Chinese damask, and four small bars of Japanese gold, weighing altogether more than six ounces1 or so, but all this could not be compared with the value of it. sables, which, frankly speaking, as I found out on my return to England, cost about 200 pounds. The prince accepted the tea, one piece of cloth and one of the gold bars on which was stamped an intricate Japanese seal (which, as I understood, he accepted as a rare curiosity), but refused to take anything else, and with a servant told me that wants to talk to me.
When I arrived, he began by saying that I knew what had happened between us, and therefore hoped that I would not return to this matter again, but since I had made him such a generous offer, he asked if I would be so kind enough to offer the same thing to another person, whom he will name to me and in whom he takes a great part. I replied that I would not say that I am inclined to provide the same service to anyone other than himself, since I especially value him and would be glad to be the instrument of his salvation, at the same time, if the prince deigns to name this person to me, then I will give he has his own answer, and I hope he will not be offended by me if my answer turns out to be offensive to him. We are talking, the prince said, only about his son, who, although I have not seen him, is in the same position as himself, more than two hundred miles from here, on the other side of the Ob River, but if I give consent, then he will send for him.
Without any hesitation, I said that I would do this, sparing no ceremonial words to convince the prince that this was entirely for his sake, that, realizing the futility of my efforts to convince him, I was ready to show him my respect by taking upon myself the care of his son . However, my speeches were too long to repeat here. The next day the prince sent for his son, and another twenty days later he arrived with a messenger, bringing with him six or seven horses loaded with very luxurious furs, which in general were of very great value.
The young prince's servants brought the horses into the city, but left him nearby until nightfall, when he came incognito2 to our apartment and my father introduced him to me. In short, we agreed on how we would travel and everything related to the trip.
I purchased a considerable quantity of skins of sables and black foxes, fine ermines and similar luxurious furs, bought them, I say, in the city in exchange for some goods brought from China, in particular cloves and nutmeg, most of which I sold here , and the rest - in Archangel at a much better price than I could get in London. My partner, who was very keen on profit and was more involved in our goods than I, was extremely pleased with our stay in the city, from the point of view of the exchange we made here.
June began when I left this distant place, this city, which, I’m sure, little has been heard of in the world, and indeed it was so far from trade routes that I can’t imagine who and how could know much about it tell. We were now traveling in a very small caravan, only thirty-two horses and camels, all of which were considered mine, although my new guest was the owner of eleven of them. In the most natural way I had to take with me more servants than before, and the young prince was considered my butler. What kind of great man I myself was considered to be, I don’t know, and I didn’t really care enough to find out. This time we had to overcome the worst and largest of the deserts that we had ever encountered during the entire transition, to tell the truth, I call it the worst, because on the road in some places we got too deeply stuck in the mud, and in others we barely overcame potholes Yes, potholes, the best way to express it would be this: we believed that we had nothing to fear from troops of Tatars or robbers and they would never climb onto this side of the Ob River, or, at least, only very occasionally. Alas, we were convinced of the opposite.
My young prince had with him a devoted Muscovite servant, or rather a Siberian, who knew these places very well, and he led us along secret roads that allowed us to avoid entering the main towns and cities on this great path, such as Tyumen, Soli -Kamskoy and some others, since the Muscovite garrisons stationed there were very shrewd and strict in their inspections of travelers and in their search, lest any of the important exiled persons escaped this way to Muscovy. We, having thus bypassed the cities, so that our entire march passed through the desert, were forced to set up camp and huddle in huts, although we could have settled perfectly in city houses. The young prince understood this and did not allow us to stop at houses because of him when we passed through several cities; he himself spent the night with servants in the forests and always met us at appointed places.
We entered Europe only after crossing the Kama River, which in these parts is the border between Europe and Asia, and the first city on the European side was called Soloy-Kamaskoy, and this is the same as saying: a large city on the Kama River. In it, as it seemed to us, changes were already clearly noticeable in people, their way of life, their habits, their religion, their affairs. However, we made a mistake, because we had to cross a huge desert, which, according to the description, in some places stretches for more than seven hundred miles, but where we went, its length did not exceed two hundred miles, so until we passed these terrible places, they noticed very little difference between this land and Mogul-Tataria: the people, for the most part, are pagan, little better than the savages of America, their houses and settlements are full of idols, they lead a completely barbaric life, with the exception of those who live in big cities , like the one mentioned above, and the villages nearby, where all the people, as they call themselves, are Christians, followers of the Greek Church, however, they bring into their religion so many remnants of superstition that in some places it can hardly be distinguished from witchcraft or black magic.
Making my way through these forests, I frankly thought that, in the end, we, who imagined that all the dangers were behind us, as before, would probably be robbed to the bone, or even killed to death by some gang of robbers , what land they were from: either wandering bands of Ostyaks, also Tatars of a kind, wild people from the banks of the Ob, who had climbed into such a distance, or sable hunters from Siberia - I could not understand, but they were all on horseback, armed with bows and arrows and initially numbering forty-five men. Having approached us within two musket shots and without asking anything, they surrounded us with their cavalry and made their intentions convincingly clear a couple of times. After some time, they lined up right in our path, after which we stretched out in a small line (there were sixteen of us in total) in front of the camels and, having reformed, thus stopped and directed the Siberian servant, who was caring for the young prince, to find out what this People. The owner with great pleasure allowed him to go, because he was quite afraid that it might be a Siberian military detachment sent to capture him. The servant approached those people with a flag of peace and addressed them, although the fellow spoke several local languages, or rather language dialects, however, he could not understand a word of what was said in response. However, after several signs were given to him not to come closer, so as not to be in danger, the fellow understood: he was being warned that if he moved further forward, they would start shooting at him. The little one returned back, knowing little more than before, except that he noticed: judging by the clothes, those who detained us could be counted among the Kalmyk Tatars or the Circassian hordes, and there must be even more of them beyond the great desert, although he himself had never heard of these people used to get this far north.
This was little consolation for us; on the other hand, we could do nothing to help ourselves. To our left, at a distance of a quarter of a mile,1 was a small grove, or cluster of trees, standing close together and very close to the road. I immediately decided that we needed to get to those trees and fortify ourselves among them as best as possible, because, first of all, I thought that the trees would in many ways serve as excellent protection from the arrows of robbers, and only then that robbers would not They will be able to come at us hand-to-hand with the whole gang. To tell the truth, it was my Portuguese pilot who first suggested this, and this incident characterizes him most perfectly in the sense that whenever the greatest danger threatened us, it was he who was most ready and able to guide and encourage us. We immediately moved with all the speed we were capable of and occupied the grove, while the Tatars, or robbers (we still didn’t understand what to call them), stood as they stood, not trying to pursue us. Having reached the trees, we discovered with great relief that they were growing on a swampy and elastic piece of soil, like a sponge, on one side of which flowed a very large spring, which gave rise to a small stream, which nearby flowed into another, equally large, spring, in a word, there was the beginning, or source, of a rather large river, called, as we later learned, Virchka. There were no more than two hundred trees that grew around the spring, but they were large and located quite densely, so that as soon as we found ourselves in the grove, we realized that now we had absolutely no fear of enemies, unless they dismounted their horses and they will not attack us on foot.
However, to make the attack even more difficult, our Portuguese, with indefatigable diligence, cut off large branches from the trees and left them, not quite cut off, hanging from tree to tree, as if he had erected a continuous fence almost around us.
Here we stood for several hours, waiting to see where the enemy would move, not noticing any movement at all in his ranks, when about two hours before nightfall they rushed straight at us, and if we had not noticed this before, we were now convinced that the number their number increased, apparently, the same kind of people joined the gang, for a detachment of eighty horses was approaching us, and, as it seemed to us, some were mounted by women. The robbers moved until they were at a distance of half a shot from our fishing line, then we fired a shot from a musket without a bullet and addressed them in Russian, asking what they wanted, and asking them to follow their path, they, as it were, and not understanding anything we said, with redoubled fury they rushed straight to the edge of the grove, not realizing that we had blocked them off so much that they couldn’t get through. Our old pilot became our captain, our commander, just as he had recently become our fortifier, and he convinced us not to open fire until the robbers were within pistol shot range, so that we could certainly inflict damage with our shooting, he also convinced us, when it comes to firing, take good aim, but we begged him to give the command “fire!”, which he put off for so long that when we fired a volley, the robbers were two pikes away from us.
We aimed so accurately (or Providence directed our bullets so confidently) that we killed fourteen of the attackers and wounded several more, and also hit several horses, since we all loaded our weapons with at least two or even three bullets.
The robbers were terribly frightened by our fire and immediately rolled away from us a hundred percent. During this time, we managed to reload our guns and, seeing that the robbers remained at that distance, we made a sortie and caught four or five horses, whose riders were considered killed. Approaching the dead, we were easily convinced that they were Tatars, but we could not understand what land they were from and how they got to such a distance to engage in robbery.
After about an hour, the robbers made an attempt to attack us again and rode around our wood to see if it was possible to break through in another place, however, making sure that we were ready to repel them everywhere, they retreated again, and we decided not to move that night .
You can be sure that we slept little, but spent most of the night strengthening our positions, blocking the passages into the grove and strictly taking turns keeping watch, protecting ourselves. We waited for the bright day, and when it came, it allowed us to make a bleak discovery: our enemies, who, as we believed, were discouraged by the reception we had given, had now increased in number to no less than three hundred people and had erected eleven to twelve huts or sheds, as if they were going to take us by siege, their small camp, set up on an open plain, was located about three-quarters of a mile1 from us. To be honest, we were taken aback by this discovery, and, I admit now, I decided to myself that I would lose both myself and everything I had. The loss of property did not depress me so much (even if it was very significant) as the thought of falling into the hands of such barbarians at the very end of my journey, after so many difficulties and hardships I had endured, and, moreover, just a stone's throw from the port, where safety and security awaited us. the rescue. As for my partner, he simply lost his temper with rage, declared that the loss of goods for him meant the end of him and that it was better for him to die than to freeze and starve - and he was ready to fight to the last drop of blood.
The young prince, as brave as a man of flesh and blood could be, also stood for the battle to the last, and my old pilot was of the opinion that we could resist all these robbers in the position we occupied. Thus, we spent the whole day arguing about what to do, but in the evening we found out that the number of our enemies had increased even more, perhaps they were stationed around in several detachments to capture game, and the first ones were sent as spies to call for help and find out everything about the prey. And how could we find out if there would be even more of them by morning? So I began to find out from those people who were taken with us from Tobolsk whether there were any other, more secluded paths, following which we could get away from the robbers at night and, if possible, hide in some town or get help for protection us while passing through the desert.
The Siberian, who was a servant of the young prince, said that since we intended to elude the robbers and not fight, he could undertake to lead us at night to the road that goes north to Petrow, and he had no doubts , that we would have left along it without being noticed by the Tatars, but, he noted, his master declared that he would not retreat and would prefer to fight. I explained to the Siberian that he misunderstood his master, for that man was too smart to love battles for their own sake, that I had already learned in practice how brave his master was, however, the young prince understands perfectly well that seventeen or eighteen is better not to engage in battle with five hundred, unless inevitable necessity compels it, so if he thinks that we will be able to sneak away at night, then we have no choice but to try to do it. The servant replied that if his master gave such a command, he would lay down his life to fulfill everything. We quickly persuaded the young prince, albeit privately, to give such a command, and immediately prepared to put it into practice.
First of all, as soon as it began to get dark, we lit a fire in our camp, in which we kept the fire going, and arranged it so that it would burn all night, from which the Tatars could understand that we were still here, however, as soon as it became dark ( in other words, so much so that the stars became visible, since previously our Guide did not want to take a step), we, having previously placed our luggage on horses and camels, followed our new Guide, who, as I was soon convinced, was checking with Polar, or Northern, a star along the entire long journey across this flat terrain.
When we had walked for a very difficult two hours without rest, it began to get lighter, even though there had been no pitch darkness all night, and then the Moon began to rise, so, in short, it became lighter than we would have liked, however, by six o’clock in the morning we traveled almost forty miles1 .
, but the truth was that we almost drove the horses. Here we came across a Russian village called Kermazhinskaya, where we stopped to rest, and that day we had never heard of the Kalmyk Tatars. About two hours before nightfall we set off again and walked until eight o’clock in the morning, although not as fast as before, and about seven o’clock we passed a river called Kircha and approached a very large town, very populated, where Russians lived, who called him Ozomois. Then we heard that several detachments or hordes of Kalmyks were scouring the desert, but we were assured that we were now completely safe from them, which, you can be sure, gave us great pleasure. We immediately had to get fresh horses, and since everyone needed a good rest, we stayed in the town for five days. My partner and I decided to reward our honest Siberian, who led us here, with ten Spanish gold pistoles for his service as a guide.
Five days later we reached Vuslima on the Vychegda River, which flowed into the Dvina, and we were very glad to be approaching the end of our journey by land, since this river was navigable and along it it was possible to sail to the Archangel in seven days. Soon, on July 3, we reached the town of Lavrenskaya, where we acquired two cargo boats and a barge for our own accommodation, and from there we sailed on July 7, safely arriving in Archangel on the 18th, having spent a total of a year, five months and three days on the transition, counting eight months and several days of our winter hut in Tobolski.
In Archangel we had to wait six weeks for the ships to arrive, and we should have stayed longer if the Hamburg ship had not arrived a month earlier than any of the English ships. Then, reflecting that the city of Hamburg might prove as profitable a market for our goods as London, we all chartered this ship; when my cargo was on board, then, naturally, I sent my butler there to monitor the safety of the goods, this meant that my young prince had a sufficient opportunity to hide, without ever going ashore, for the entire time we remained in city, as he did, so as not to be noticed by any of the Moscow merchants, who would certainly have recognized him if they saw him.
We left Archangel on August 20 of the same year and, after a not particularly bad sailing, entered the Elbe on September 13. Here my partner and I sold our goods very profitably, both from China and sables, etc. from Siberia, so that my share of the earnings during the division amounted to 3,475 pounds 17 shillings and 3 pence, despite the many losses we suffered and the payment of various taxes, it is only worth bearing in mind that I added to this the diamonds bought in Bengal to the amount of about six hundred lbs.
Here the young prince left us and proceeded further up the Elbe, heading towards the court at Vienna, where he decided to seek protection and from where he could correspond with such of his father's friends as were still living. Before parting, he showed me all the evidence of his gratitude for the service I had rendered and for the good that I had done for the prince, his father.
In conclusion, I will say that, after spending about four months in Hamburg, I traveled from there by land to The Hague, where I boarded a mail packet and arrived in London on the 10th of January, 1705, after being absent from England for ten years and nine months.
And here, firmly resolved to no longer torment myself with worries, I am now preparing for a longer journey than all previous ones, having spent 72 years of life in endless variety and having acquired quite enough knowledge to comprehend the dignity of a solitary life and the bliss of the peaceful end of our days .
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LONDON: Printed for W. Taylor at The Ship, Pater Noster Row. MDCCXIX.
1 For the siege of Narva with a garrison of about 2,000 people, Peter the Great gathered a Russian army of up to 35 thousand, not all of them took part in the battle on November 19, 1700, which King Charles XII began with an army of more than 10 thousand. - Here and below the translator's notes.
1 Just over 3.2 kilometers.
1 Spoiled lat. from pecunia - coins, money.
1 More than 1,600 kilometers. According to the latest information, the wall (some sections of it were built in the 17th century) stretches across northern China for 8,851.8 km (including branches).
2 About 7.3 meters.
1 Or Hadrian's Wall. The Picts, a group of Celtic tribes that inhabited Scotland, were conquered by the Scots in the mid-9th century and mixed with them. In the II century. The Roman Emperor Hadrian decided that Scotland was not worth sending additional legions there, pushed the borders of the empire back and built the famous 70-mile-long (just over 112 km) wall from sea to sea, which still bears his name.
1 Just over 18 meters.
1 About 24-26 kilometers.
1 About 3,220 kilometers.
1 This refers to the English Channel (British Channel) and Pas de Calais.
1 Accordingly, about 92 cm and 6-9 meters.
1 The diameter of the English crown was about 3.7-3.9 cm.
1 A little less than 6.5 kilometers.
1 “Water of life” (Latin), a half-joking designation for strong alcoholic drinks.
1 More than 800 kilometers.
1 About 674 kilometers.
1 More than 1600 kilometers.
1 About 170 grams.
1 About 330 kilometers.
2 Under a false name, secretly.
1 About 1,130 kilometers.
1 Just over 400 meters.
1 Perch (otherwise called rod or pole) is a measure of length, usually used when measuring land and equal to 5.03 meters.
1 Just over 1,200 meters.
1 About 64.3 kilometers.
Books enlighten the soul, elevate and strengthen a person, awaken in him the best aspirations, sharpen his mind and soften his heart.
William Thackeray, English satirist
A book is a huge force.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Soviet revolutionary
Without books, we can now neither live, nor fight, nor suffer, nor rejoice and win, nor confidently move towards that reasonable and beautiful future in which we unshakably believe.
Many thousands of years ago, the book, in the hands of the best representatives of humanity, became one of the main weapons in their struggle for truth and justice, and it was this weapon that gave these people terrible strength.
Nikolai Rubakin, Russian bibliologist, bibliographer.
A book is a working tool. But not only. It introduces people to the lives and struggles of other people, makes it possible to understand their experiences, their thoughts, their aspirations; it makes it possible to compare, understand the environment and transform it.
Stanislav Strumilin, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences
There is no better way to refresh the mind than to read the ancient classics; As soon as you take one of them in your hands, even for half an hour, you immediately feel refreshed, lightened and cleansed, lifted and strengthened, as if you had refreshed yourself by bathing in a clean spring.
Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher
Anyone who was not familiar with the creations of the ancients lived without knowing beauty.
Georg Hegel, German philosopher
No failures of history and blind spaces of time are able to destroy human thought, enshrined in hundreds, thousands and millions of manuscripts and books.
Konstantin Paustovsky, Russian Soviet writer
The book is a magician. The book transformed the world. It contains the memory of the human race, it is the mouthpiece of human thought. A world without a book is a world of savages.
Nikolai Morozov, creator of modern scientific chronology
Books are a spiritual testament from one generation to another, advice from a dying old man to a young man beginning to live, an order passed on to a sentry going on vacation to a sentry taking his place.
Without books, human life is empty. The book is not only our friend, but also our constant, eternal companion.
Demyan Bedny, Russian Soviet writer, poet, publicist
A book is a powerful tool of communication, labor, and struggle. It equips a person with the experience of life and struggle of humanity, expands his horizon, gives him knowledge with the help of which he can force the forces of nature to serve him.
Nadezhda Krupskaya, Russian revolutionary, Soviet party, public and cultural figure.
Reading good books is a conversation with the best people of past times, and, moreover, such a conversation when they tell us only their best thoughts.
René Descartes, French philosopher, mathematician, physicist and physiologist
Reading is one of the sources of thinking and mental development.
Vasily Sukhomlinsky, an outstanding Soviet teacher-innovator.
Reading is for the mind what physical exercise is for the body.
Joseph Addison, English poet and satirist
A good book is like a conversation with an intelligent person. The reader receives from her knowledge and a generalization of reality, the ability to understand life.
Alexei Tolstoy, Russian Soviet writer and public figure
Do not forget that the most colossal weapon of multifaceted education is reading.
Alexander Herzen, Russian publicist, writer, philosopher
Without reading there is no real education, there is no and there can be no taste, no words, no multifaceted breadth of understanding; Goethe and Shakespeare are equal to a whole university. By reading a person survives centuries.
Alexander Herzen, Russian publicist, writer, philosopher
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The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
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Title: The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
About the book “The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe
“The popular proverb: “What goes to the cradle, goes to the grave” found full justification in the history of my life. If we take into account my thirty years of trials, the many varied hardships I have experienced, which fell to the lot of probably only a very few, the seven years of my life spent in peace and contentment, and finally my old age - if we remember that I have experienced the life of an average class in all its forms and found out which of them can most easily bring complete happiness to a person - then, it seemed, one would think that the natural inclination towards vagrancy, as I already said, which took possession of me from the very moment I was born, should would have weakened, its volatile elements would have evaporated or at least thickened, and that at the age of 61 I should have had a desire for a settled life and kept me from adventures that threatened my life and my condition ... "
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Quotes from the book "The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel Defoe
Therefore, we had to take our passengers further and further. About a week later we reached the shoals of Newfoundland, where we landed the French in a bark, which they contracted to take them ashore and then take them to France, if they could procure provisions. When the French began to land, the young priest of whom I have spoken, hearing that we were going to the East Indies, asked us to take him with us and land him on the shores of the Coromandel.
