Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-02-19
SIBERIAN TENT LIFE
AS Portrayed by One Who Has Seen
it in All Its Varied Phases.
GEORGE KENNAN'S FIRST LECTURE
Enjoyed Greatly by One of the Largest
Audiences of the Season.
FIRST TALK By CHAPLAIN MILBURN

As q gentleman, one of the audience, went
down the stairs of Old City Hall about 10
o'clock last night, he remarked that he was
interested in the result of the local elections,
but not sufficiently to lose a chance of hear
ing a great lecturer now before the public,
George Kennan. A great many seemed to
share this opinion of the famous Russian
traveller, who has been thrilling audiences
throughout the country with his pictures of
life in the wild wastes of Siberia.
After a few preliminary remarks of in
PRODUCTION by Erasmus Wilson, Mr.. Ken
nan stepped forward and launched into the
discourse with all the confidence of perfect
knowledge of his subject, which for the
occasion was Camp Life in Eastern ST.
beria." 1t treated of his experience as one
of the party detailed by the Western Union
Telegraph Company in 1879 to locate a tele-
graphic line through Asiatic Siberia to the
Russian capital
From the moment that MI. Kennan's party
touches the coast of Kamschatka his hearers
become enthrslled by his wonderful description
of people, scenery and incidents on the way.
He tells of the strange interest and awe the
party experienced when they first laid eyes on
the curious looking people OF that almost un-
y
which the people believe to have derived its
source from the tower of Babel and the diff
Guilty experienced in trying TO learn it.
EATING WAS UPPERMosT.
How he secured the services of a native to
teach him the equivalent of II want something
to eat" as the most likely to be useful in the
future, and how that equivalent consisted of
such a wonderful mixture of consonants and
cracked vowels that he arrived at the
belief that he would never be able
to get anything to eat if he
had TO wait to learn the Russian for it.
After an amusing depression describing his
efforts to learn the language, Mr. KEENAN, de-
scribes the grand climate and scenery OF the
Peninsula of Ramschatkq through which they
travelled in the first stages of the journey to
the northward. 1t was hkened TO that of Cali
fornia in its perfection, and the surprise
of the traveller who expects nothing
hut cold and biting winds of a desert land.
But as rhey advance the weather grows colder
and colder until the party are forced to retreat
on October l, before the severity of the
approaching winter storm, in which they were
lost and almost frozen to death. For time
they laid up at one of the native villages. and
then collecting 800 dogs, forming l6 teams. for
another start with the assistance of the Kor-
raks the most powerful of Siberian tribes,
whom he describes as great wanderers, at the
same time the most simple and honest of peO-
pie. Securing their services on the gift of
few beads.
The first meeting of his party with these peo-
pie and their customs eliciIs wonderful series
OF illustrations. Their victuals, their religion,
their marriage ceremonies all come in for their
share, and in such way does the lecturer de-
pct them all that his audience is swayed from
astonishment to sympathy and then TO laugh
ter, and all in such quick succession that on.
cannot help imagining for the instant that they
and Mr. KEENAN, are with him in the lands he
speaks of.
THEY ARE HONEST PEOPLE.
In leaving them the lecturer pays a glowing
tribute to their honesty and trustworthiness.
He had often slept for weeks zoo miles from the
extreme Russian ourposts without a thought
of fear although they were as wild and bar
barous in their manner as the Indian. Eleven
days after starting the second time they had
reached the vast, level steppes of
Siberia with their wild, unfrequented
wastes containing not blade of
grass, a Jwig or sign of vegetation
even the sun was tired and did not show itself
but for a short time each day. Here they ex-
perienced the most intense cold, the thermom-
eter usually ranging in the nelghborhood of 400
below zero and on New Years Eve 5So This
cold had to be met on the open
steppes, where there is no protec-
ton hut the learned traveller states there
is no difficulty attached to this SO long one
can get hot tea. plenty of fat food and a good
fire TO sit around. but one cannot go to Sleep as
that would be almost certain death. On De-
cember q they reached lonely village outpost,
which so filled them with gratitude that they
made an American flag out of pair of red fan
mel drawers, a shirt and eked out the required
blue with their feelings
Here Mr.. KEENAN, digresses again into an in
teresting and entertaining description of the
excitement their arrival caused the natives and
the kind welcome accorded them. The unique
'Korrak ball or dance" is described with re-
marlzable vigor. the lecturer even singing two
Russian dancing Songs with such dramatic
skill that his audience burst into thunders of
applause.
FINDING FELLOW TRAVELLERS.
Then followed the relation of the story of the
finding of party of his fellow travellers that he
had last seen in San Francisco. At this portion
of the discourse Mr.. Kennan held his audience
fairly spell-bound. He told how the party drove
on and on into the dark, dreary wastes Of the
North, with the surroundings becoming even
colder and colder; where no fuel could be
found, when to stop meant death, and the dogs
feet cracked open. with cold and marked the
snowy levels with a track of blood;
how Mr.. Dodd lay down upon
his sedge to die. and in hopes
Of rev.vng him stop had been ordered for
the purpose of burning one of the sledges to
cook some tea and bring him back to life just !
as the snow hut of the lost travellers !
was found. Another depression and
Mr. Kennan reaches the crowning point of the
lecture, the description of the aurora borealis |
which was without doubt one of the finest !
pieces of description ever heard in Pittsburg.
When he had concluded the thunders of ap-
plause broke forth in a tumult until the lee |
turer was compelled to pause until his audience |
subsided to finish the lecture.
Mr.. Kennan will lecture again tonight, when |
an immense audience is expected to be present |
as his subject, Russian Siberian EXiles," is |
considered his best, as it is also the one which
has created so much feeling in Russian politi- |
cal circles at the present time. 1t will be illus
trated by stereopticon views of exiles. prisons,
scenes, etc The opportunity of hearing the /
most finished lecturer on the platform to-day, I
dealing with his favorite theme, should not be |
missed.