LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 65, 15 August 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

«. IN DANGER. IN FOUR CHAPTERS. [From "Chamber's Journal - "] (Continued.') That I was exact in keeping my appointment at the Board meeting in Abchurch Lane, need hardly bo said, and when my turn came to be summoned by the plethoric porter in crimson plush and blazing buttons, I was very kindly received by the directors. Most of these were English, British capital being, as Usual, the backbone of this AngloRussian enterprise ; but there were also three or four Muscovites, shrewd-eyed, sallow men of the world, who no doubt thought, as they spoke, with perfect fluency in any and every European language, aud whose opinion was evidently held in high esteem by their London colleagues. These, however, seemed to approve of me, after a sharp scrutiny, and some conversation, even more than did the English directors, who accepted me for my sponsor's sake ; and the reason for this Mr Grubstock himself told me, chuckling, as he left the room with me, after my formal nomination had been succeeded by a hearty health drinking in some old Madeira that had been impounded for the refreshment of the Board.

' You see, Jack'—such were the old capitalist's words—'thesefellowsjwould have none of us, if they could do without, first our sixpences, and then our men. But they can't. And old Sloposoff yonder—he with the gray whiskers and the order at his told mo just now, that he saw you were neither a rogue nor a fool ; and that's exactly what is wanted for a roving, rough-and-ready career like that which lies before you. My dear boy, they are clever, and to spare, these Kusskies, but in their country the best engineers get sucked up into government service, and the residue of instructed men are apt to be rabid revolutionists, or uncommonly slippery practitioners—you understand. That's why they would rather have a fellow like you, who won't muddle the accounts, or cook up a mutiny in the province, then the best certificated professor that ever had envy for a bosom-snake, d'ye see ! Why. we sent a man there —Karatchin, his name was, corresponding member of a score of scientific societies, and about the best hydraulic hand I recollect—and he's a prisoner in Siberia now, and prosecutiug his explorations in the malachite mines. Work, I say, and don't sink into a drudge for mere routine ; and if you are not a permanent official before the year's out, my native is not John Grubstock.' And with this cheering assurance I departed. The next week or two were spent in procuring the needful outfit, and in laying in, at the costs and charges of the Caspian Navigation Company, a stock of the necessary instruments, and a supply of such drugs and chemicals as it is incumbent on the chief ot a station in those wild regions to keep under lock and kev in case of an emergency. There were the submarine cartridges; the battery and its silk-wrapped and gutta-percha coated wires for blasting sunken rocks; the newest apparatus for taking souncinga of the Caspian's depths, the divers helmet and air-pump ; the quinine that would be our mainstay during the feverish bents of summer; the firearms ; the lint and bandages ; the remedies against ophthalmia ; the creosote to protect our timber piles from the insidious attacks of the teredo ; and many another necessary, besides the ordinary tools of trade, without which a purveyor becomes useless. T was to take out with me a perfect miscellany of portable treasures of this kind, while bulkier and

heavier desiderata, such as tools, clothing, and machinery, were to follow by a slower means of transit. In the course of this prefatory experience, I found the company to be liberal and considerate paymasters ; and before I left London, the secretary went so far as to hint that any signal service would meet with substantial recognition, over and above the punctual payment of my regular salary.

' You see, Mr Masterton,' he said, ' onrg is a young concern, and we wish to borrow a leaf from the book of Brother Jonathan—to go ahead, sir instead of crawling on in a slow, hundrum way. We are chartered as a Navigation Company, and we mean to make harbours, build ships, and run packets from end to end of the big inland sea : but all is fish that comes to our net—mine, quarry, forest, or petroleum well; so keep your ears open for any report the truth of which seems worth investigating ; send home reports that are lucid as well as faithful, and, trust me ! We shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the corn—you understand me !' I did understand, and, at that moment, would scarcely have changed places with a Rothschild. Then came the parting from Kate, but its bitterness was sweetened by the potent talisman of Hope. ' It was but for a little time, after all ; a short, short absence.' I wonder how often each of us repeated those flattering words to the other, and really the prospect of our speedy reunion seemed very near. The Company's affairs were in a promising condition ; which, it appeared, as if nothing but war could affect, and of wa*, despite a few journalistic growls, when Russian interests clashed with those of England, there was little chance. I began to feel quite sanguinej as to my giving satisfaction to my new cna plovers, fortified as I was by the honest lution to deserve their good opinion. 1 too robust of constitution to fatigues and hardships inseparable future mode of life ; and unless I swamped in some Caspian squall, or at.'H by a crazed Mohammedan fanatic, 'H scarcely fail to prove serviceable and ful. As for the work that lay before melH looked forward to it with a positive likings such as I could never have entertained for the most lucrative practice at the bar. To struggle with the unyoked forces of nature, and to bring the rugged wilderness, as it were, into subjection to mankind, was a task more congenial to me than to secure a verdiot by browbeating adverse witnesses, or bj heaping up folio after folio of elaborate pleadings on behalf of a client whom I might more than suspect to be in the wrong. la Central Asia, at anyrate, every stroke of the pickaxe, every revolution of the steam-paddle, was one step gained towards progress and enlightenment. At last I was fairly off, for Moscow first, and then for the Volga aud Astrakhan; Kate's tears yet fresh upon "my cheek, the pressure of her trembling fingers seeming yet to clasp mine, as I hurried on board the mailpacket at Dover, and looked back for the last time at the tall white cliffs, like giant sentinels, glinting white and ghostly in the moonlight. Many a day must elapse, no doubt, before I should again tread English ground, but I had Hope for the companion of my voyage, and I looked confidently forward to my return, one day, to a life of competence in my native land. I should not long have to remain solitary in the country that was to be my residence for some years to come. It had been quite arranged that so soon as my appointment should receive its formal confirmation, . Mrs Carrington and Kate were to set forth to Russia ; and I had little doubt of easily obtaining leave of absence long enough to enable me to meet them at Moscow, or St Petersburg, where the wedding might be solemnised in the Britsh Consulate, or the Embassy chapel, and whence the mother and daughter could travel, under my escort, to their new home, on the shores of the Caspian. My journey out presented no features of any remarkable interest. Corn-plain succeeded to forest, and forest to pasture, as the train swept onwards through the green birch-groves of Poland, through the black pine-woods of Russia, and past the countless villages of blue or red roofed hovels, the oriental domes of the little churches, painted in gaudy colors or plated with glittering metal, flashing back the rays of the sun. Then came the descent of the turbid river, the crowded steamer slowing ploughing up the yellow waters, and presently it was the silvery sheet of the Caspian that rolled away before me, shimmering under a sky of unclouded blue. At Astrakhan, I embarked, after some delay, in a small and rickety boatj the commander of which preferred, perhaps prudently, to hug the shore, instead of striking boldly out into the trackless waters of the huge inland sea, so that the voyage was a tedious one ; but it was over at last. 'What is the name of yonder bay, where the red cliffs rise so picturesquely from the gleaming strip of beach, aud where the islands rest, green and feathery with hazel boughs, on the surface of the lake V I seemed to be certain of the answer before the words were framed. It was Kizil-Gatch — the Red Gulf—my new home. Chapter 11. Kizil-Gatch was but a poor place, only a hamlet of five-and-thirty squalid huts, with the painted 'konak' of some Mussulman landed proprietor peeping here and there through the screen of fruit-trees that girdled th e settlement. There was a mosque, adorned with white marble and leaf-gold by the pious liberality of Mohammedan worthies long dead, but ?the polished floor of which was now covered by ragged and filthy matting ; while the Mollah, who represented dean and canons, was a bronzed and brawny tatterdemalion, compared with whom Friar Tuck was a respectable ecclesiastic, and whom I shrewdly suspect to be innocent of any schooling at the colleges of Bagdad, Bokara, or Damascus. But there was a pretty minaret, slender, white, and tipped with gold, up which a blinking old tailor in a green turban and horn-rimmed spectacles used pantingly to climb by the steep corkscrew staircase, to chant forth in his quavering voice, four times a day, the Moslem's summons to prayer. That old Hadji was beadle, clerk, and verger to the mosque, where the villagers' attendance was by no moans regular, although nine-tenths of our neighbors were followers of the Prophet. Then there was a Russo-Greek church, of painted wood, with copper dome, aud walls hung with tasteless pictures of the Panagia, before which twinkled feeble lamps fed with the naphtha that, in those regions, is often to be had for the gathering, floating, as at certain seasons it does, on the waves of the Caspian. Every priest, however, was well supplied with gorgeous vestments, and flashed forth ingreen and gold, in white, violet, and crimson ; while on occasions of high festival

the altar was a blaze of flaring flambeaux, and clouds of smoking incense almost hid the scarlet-capped acolytes and the kneeling papa and his subordinate 'popes' and deacons from the sight of the congregation, which was indeed a scanty one, save when the stockaded fori; was tenanted by a garrison of the flat-capped Muscovite soldiery. There was also a small synagogue, where a score or so of bearded Jews collected on the Sabbath. What was called the Bazaar comprised within its few rotten planks all the shops of the place; but it often happened that wandering traders opened their packs and held a sort of irregular fair outside the village, the camels being tethered around in a ring, and craning forth their snaky necks as if to judge of the quality of the coarse cotton prints of Russian manufacture, the Toula cutlery and guns, the mirrors, handkerchiefs, and necklaces of amber or coral, there exhibited. There was no lack of food, however, for those who could find even the smallest coin wherewith to pay for a meal, and I found that if I reduced my consumption of foreign or imported luxuries to a minimum, my salary would stretch far enough to allow of considerable savings at the end of the year. _ It was a land of plenty in which I had pitched my tent, so long as one could be content with cheap Tartar mutton and cheap Tartar though I admit that a Westend poulterer or butcher would have eyed with contempt both the lank sheep and the long-legged poultry. Hares, partridges, and bustards, with snipes and wild ducks, were in winter brought in, very abundantly, by boyu, who were thankful to sell their game for a few copecks ; and the hardy Turkish fisherman netted enough of scaly spoil to keep kbe village well supplied with bream and Kad and giant lake-trout. Then there was HLlack of milk, or of curds, and the rank A>se which the Turcomans delight in ; the bens yielded goodly stores of fruit, of Bes and melons, plums and pears ; and Bds and buckwheat, beans and barley, B and cucumbers, appeared to grow pel 1WFA together in the fields. As for my felling, I was lodged, not inconveniently, in a suite of rooms built over our newly erected warehouses, and waited on by an old Eussian ex-soldier, Paul Petrovich by name, who could sew as well as he could cook, and was as neat-handed in hoii6e-work as any woman could hare been—being, in fact, one of those docile, meek, dexterous attendants, into which a long course of religious military discipline, and the habit of being dusktek, or body-servant, to a series of officers, converts the Muscovite mujik. On the opposite side of a little creek, spanned by a bridge of wood that the taste of some native painter had bedizened with alternate stripes of pink and light-blue, was the house of the local manager, by far the most imposing mansion in the hamlet, being solidly built of sundried bricks and faced with cut stone. To be Continued.