# Enterprise and Adventure/Captain Cochrane, the Pedestrian Traveller

CAPTAIN COCHRANE, THE PEDESTRIAN TRAVELLER.
CAPTAIN COCHRANE AND THE ROBBERS.
​Captain Dundas Cochrane, whose narrative of a pedestrian journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary, from the frontiers of Tartary to the Frozen Sea and Kamtschatka, was published about forty years since. In the introduction to this extraordinary book, Captain Cochrane tells us that, in the month of January, 1820, he addressed a letter to the Lords of the Admiralty, offering to undertake a journey on foot into the interior of Africa, or to any other place to which they pleased to send him. He was entirely without funds for the purpose, his whole fortune consisting of his half-pay as a commander in the Navy; but his intention was to proceed alone, and he asked only to be furnished with the countenance of the Government. "With this protection," he says, "and such recommendations as it might procure me, I would have accompanied the caravans in some servile capacity, nor hesitated even to sell myself as a slave if that miserable alternative were necessary to accomplish the object I had in view." His opinion upon the advantages of this mode of exploring were peculiar, but were not without some plausibility. "In going alone," he said, "I relied upon my own individual exertions and knowledge of man, unfettered by the frailties and misconduct of others. I was then, as now, convinced that many people travelling together for the purpose of exploring a barbarous country, have the less chance of succeeding; more especially when they go armed, and take with them presents of value. The appearance of numbers must naturally excite the natives to resistance, from motives of jealousy or fear; and the danger would be greatly increased by the hope of plunder. The death of the whole party, and ​consequently the failure of the expedition, will be the probable result of such a plan. The difficulty of finding men, otherwise suitable, whose constitutions admit an equal degree of suffering and fatigue, is also great; and that of collecting a number of people gifted with the due portion of those virtues without which no expedition of discovery could succeed, is certainly a greater."
It is not, perhaps, surprising that the Admiralty shrank from the responsibility of advising a young officer without fortune to start upon a pedestrian expedition of such magnitude; but Cochrane was not easily discouraged. Despairing of obtaining employment afloat, he determined to start on his explorations without any assistance. Having procured two years' leave of absence, he accordingly sketched out a magnificent scheme, which was no other than to travel on foot round the globe as nearly as could be done by land, crossing from Northern Asia to America at Behring's Straits. He had but little qualification for a scientific traveller; he was ignorant of natural history, nor could he travelling on foot have brought away with him any specimens of animals, plants, or minerals. Moreover, he had no means of carrying with him the instruments necessary for making geographical observations of places, of the state of the air, or such other matters as are generally expected to be noted by travellers; but his inextinguishable thirst for travel overcame all these objections. His first and leading object was to trace the shores of the Polar Sea along America by land, as Captain Parry was then attempting to do by sea, and at the same time to note his observations on men and manners. Having, therefore, procured such documents ​as were necessary, and filled his knapsack with the few articles which he considered requisite to enable him to wander alone through the wild deserts and forests of three quarters of the globe, he quitted England, and landed, in February, 1820, at Dieppe, in France, from which point his long pedestrian journey commenced. Having traversed in this way the whole of France by way of Paris, sleeping chiefly in humble lodging-houses, where bed and breakfast were furnished for a franc, he entered Rhenish Prussia by way of Metz and Sarrebruck. The country people, and particularly the roadside innkeepers, eyed him with suspicion. The landlord of one house at which he had stopped at Alzey turned him out, because he was only a foot-traveller; but the indomitable pedestrian, thinking it better to pocket the affront, purchased a loaf of bread, and pushed on, fatigued, cold, and mortified, but not downcast, until he reached a farm, whose adjoining barn furnished him with a night's shelter. Here he reposed with perfect content upon clean hay. On another occasion, at Naumberg, he could gain no reception into any house but that of a poor shoemaker, which he did at the price of a glass of schnaps; who besides, for a second glass, mended his shoes and gaiters, and provided him with a truss of straw, on which he slept soundly. At Potsdam he obtained admittance to a house with infinite difficulty, content to purchase black bread for his supper, and the use of a hard bench for his bed. In Berlin he perambulated the streets nearly the whole night in search of a lodging, and was at last compelled to sleep on a seat in the Promenade under the open sky. Here, however, he fared better for awhile. By the kind ​assistance of Mr. Rose, the British minister, he obtained a comfortable lodging, and his benefactor invited him to a dinner at his house, at which Captain Cochrane made the acquaintance of Prince Labanoff and other powerful persons, by whose interest he was enabled greatly to facilitate his journey to St. Petersburg. We find a curious contrast to the rapid transmission of intelligence in the present day, when we learn that Cochrane, though a pedestrian, was the first bearer of the information of the Duke de Berri's assassination in Paris, a full month's post being due at Berlin, owing to the great quantity of snow which had fallen.
Continuing his journey towards Stettin, the traveller suffered cruelly from the cold and the bad roads. An old soldier of Napoleon whom he had met on the road, to whom he had complained of blistered feet, had imparted to him a remedy which he found to be invaluable. It was simply to rub the feet at going to rest with spirits mixed with tallow dropped from a lighted candle into the palm of the hand; and this remedy the wayworn traveller was continually called upon to renew. Occasionally he met with a reception from poor people very different from that harshness which he experienced so often. "A post-house," he says, "called Romini, with a good, civil landlord, better wife, and seven well-behaved children, made me welcome, dried my clothes, and gave me a glass of schnaps to keep me warm, while a good supper of beef and potatoes was preparing for me. Cold, wet, weary, and half-famished, I had entered the benevolent post-house; but one short hour restored me to life and good humour, and ultimately to the enjoyment of a clean bed made on the spot for my ​accomodation, by filling a tick with hay and sewing it up again. The whole property of this family," he adds, "could not have been worth ten pounds. I had arrived in a most miserable plight, the heavy and frequent rains having dilapidated my apparel, which, even in good weather, was not calculated to last long. My cap I had lost in the icy swamp, and in default my head was bound up with a piece of red flannel. My trousers were literally torn to tatters; my shoes tied to my feet to prevent their falling off; my shirt, except a flannel one and waistcoat, both superseded by my outer jacket. All I had retained was sound health and a contented mind, and I wanted no more, for this generous family had, during the night, put my entire wardrobe to rights; and I departed the following morning with sound clothing, and reflections of heartfelt gratitude to have met with the beneficial exercise of such qualities in a quarter of the world where I had so little reason to expect them."
After passing in this manner through Memel and Riga, at which towns he called upon the British Consuls, he reached St. Petersburg, having been eighty-three days from London in performing a distance of sixteen hundred miles. Here, he was kindly entertained by Sir Robert Kerr Porter, and, through Sir Daniel Bailey, the British Consul General, then the only representative of the British Court at St. Petersburg, he was enabled to transmit a memorial to Count Nesselrode, the Foreign Minister, for the approbation of His Imperial Majesty, who readily assented to furnish him with the necessary passports, and even offered the traveller, through Colonel Cathcart, money to aid him in the journey, ​which however was declined. Furnished with the necessary documents, after three weeks' stay in St. Petersburg, the traveller set out again upon a journey on foot of eight or ten thousand miles, through a country still more cold and inhospitable than that through which he had just passed. The principal of these documents was addressed "to all Civil Governors," and bore the words, "The bearer hereof, Captain John Cochrane, of the British Royal Navy, purposing to travel through Russia on foot, is now on his departure for Kamtschatka, with the intention of penetrating from thence to America. Having, by the command of His Imperial Majesty, provided this traveller with open instructions to the police of all the towns and provinces lying in his track from St. Petersburg to Kamtschatka, this is also to desire all the chiefs; of the different governments through which he may travel, to aid Captain Cochrane, as far as possible, to proceed on his journey without interruption, as well as to afford him lawful defence and protection, in case it should be desired." Armed with these documents, and his simple knapsack, he set out from St. Petersburg on the 24th of May. He had not proceeded, however, many days upon the road, when an accident befell him, more serious than any of his previous mishaps. Having left the town of Tosna, on the road to Luibane, he sat down at about the ninth milestone, to rest and smoke a cigar, when he felt himself suddenly seized from behind, and, looking round, found himself in the power of two ruffians, whose faces were as much concealed as the oddness of their dress would permit. One of them, who held an iron bar in his hand, dragged him by the collar towards a forest, whilst the other, with a ​bayoneted musket, pushed him in such a manner as to compel him to hasten, while a boy of their party was stationed on the roadside to keep a look-out.
Having penetrated some sixty or eighty paces into the thickest part of the forest, the unfortunate traveller was desired to undress, and having stripped off his trousers, jacket, and shirt, and finally his shoes and stockings, the robbers proceeded to tie him to a tree. From this ceremony, and from the manner of it, their victim naturally concluded that they intended to kill him by firing at him as they would at a mark. The villains, however, with much coolness, merely seated themselves at his feet, and commenced rifling his pockets, even cutting out the lining of the clothes in search of bank bills, or some other valuable articles. They then compelled him to take a pound of black bread, and a glass of rum poured from a small flask which had been suspended from his neck. Having next appropriated his trousers, shirts, stockings, and English shooting shoes—a present from his kind friends in St. Petersburg—as also his spectacles, watch, compass, thermometer, and small pocket sextant, with one hundred and sixty roubles—about seven pounds sterling—they released him from the tree for a while. Then after flourishing a knife in his face, indicating a threat of vengeance if he informed against them, they again bound him to the tree, and finally left him. Here he was at last discovered by a boy, whom his cries attracted to the spot, and who helped to release him. The unlucky pedestrian was compelled to make the best of the blue jacket, flannel waistcoat, and the few other articles which the robbers had left him, in making up some kind ​of attire; and in this miserable, half-naked state he resumed his route, until he fortunately fell in with a number of soldiers, who were employed in making a new road under General Woronzoff. The General kindly provided him with a vehicle to Novgorod, where a benevolent Russian merchant, to whom he had had a letter of recommendation, provided him with a complete refit; while the Governor, Gerebzoff, kindly furnished him with a little money.
These anecdotes give a good idea of the kind of mishaps to which the adventurous traveller was subjected in the course of his long wanderings. Lofty mountains of half-frozen snow, large overflowed marshes, crowded and decayed forests, and half-frozen lakes, were among the obstacles which sometimes diverted his path, but were never sufficient to turn him from his purpose. Suffering from cold, rain, hunger, and fatigue—on one occasion, with forty-five nights' exposure to the snow; at times without fire in a frost of thirty degrees, being once actually five days without food—the traveller still pushed on. In Kamtschatka he walked four hundred miles without seeing one individual, and for one thousand miles of the worst part of his journey he met with but one habitation. Where he did find people or habitations, however, in these regions he was almost invariably treated with kindness and hospitality; and the governors of towns, or other Russian officials, to whom he presented his papers, were ever ready to help him forward. In this way he finally accomplished his purpose of penetrating to the remotest eastern corner of the continent of Asia, the bay of St. Peter and St. Paul, which the reader may find on the map at the extremity of the ​peninsula of Kamtschatka. Here, unfortunately, he met with an insurmountable obstacle to further progress. No vessel of any description could be found to convey him thence to the north-western coast of America, from which he had intended to continue his wanderings. Having, therefore, addressed a letter from Okotsk, on the sea of that name, to the Governor-General of Siberia, stating the reasons which compelled him to return, Cochrane finally set out again on foot, and traversing Siberia once more, he arrived safely at St. Petersburg, exactly three years and three weeks after quitting that city. Here he received a kindly welcome from the Emperor, and the English Minister, and finally took ship for England, where he arrived in safety.