St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-03-04
SCENES IN SIBERIA.
George Remnants Lecture at the
First Baptist Church.

A large and fashionable audience
greeted George KEENAN, last evening at
the First Baptist church to listen to his
lecture upon Siberia. Mr.. Remnants
lecture has been eXcellently we'll writ
ten, and the fact that he himself has
passed through the terrible scenes he
describes lends them an added charm.
His delivery is little repressed, and it
is only at intervals that he can draw his
audience from quiet interest In the
narrative to anything like enthusiasm.
His greatest success was achieved in
the singing of couple of quaint and
weird Siberian songs, which he did in
all effective manner. and with an excel
lent voice.
The lecture was in the narrative style,
and started with the trip of the Russo
American telegraph expedition that
sailed from California on hazardous
undertaking into the wilds Of uneX.
pOred Siberia. His description of the
scenery of Kamschatka was tiOWery in
the extreme, and as the expedition drew
further north the tale became more
dramatic. He told of how thev had
penetrated $50 miles north of the last
settlement. and we're caught in all the
terror of Siberian winter without pro-
visions. and how they were forced 10 re-
treat again, cold and exhausted, their
only sustenance pine seeds and Dlubber.
Arrived at the settlement again, they
purchased dogs and slelghs, and with
forty days provisions again set ont.
He then describes their meeting with a
KOrack settlement. and his description
of some of the customs of this wander
Ing tribe is interesting in the extreme,
tflf lNnJV llxT
ludicrous. He described their dwelling
as huge conical hut, inside of which,
around the outside, are numberlesS lit
tie compartments hung with skins, the
space about as large as that underneath
an ordinary dining table.
First the groom is obliged to work for
| from one to three years for his bride,
and the tribe repairs to the large hut,
where they are each furnished with a
club or whip Of wood, They station
themselves each in an opening of the
smalt rooms, and the bride Is given q
start, and begins to run into each one
and out again. being helped IN her
| flight by the women. The groom pur-
sues, ana is in turn beaten and retarded
bv the women. If he does not capture
| his bride they are not married. Mr..
KEENAN, thinks that one OF the men that
| he was informed had been married four
| times should be wOrthier Of the cross of
the legion than any hero, or more the
| brave man than any of the six hundred
at BalaklaVa.
'In regard to banquets set before dis
tlnguished guests by this strange race. "
said he, lit is better to eat first and then
ask questions atterWard. for then you
are at least sure of your meal, for if you
opIy CnnCfinnc 1iNnnt tho ROT linn nf
the menu before hand you will certainly
go without your repast. unfortunately
chose the latter course, and upon being
informed that one dish was prepared
from ClOtted blood, the maSticated moss
taken from the stomach of a reindeer,
and WalruS tallOW, | refrained from
participating in the sav0Ty feast. | tried
to impress the leader of our party that
it was duty he owed to science to taste
the dish, but he declined with an I'M
complimentary remark in regard to sci
enee, and the statement that if he was
| to eat moss as a substitute for Yege-
tables, he preferred TO decline the as
sistance of the reindeer in the matter"
He spoke of the way man grew &C
| customed to cold, and said that with
proper food and clothing man could
| exist comfortably in an atmosphere 6S
degrees below zero. He said that at one
time the party had camped on the ST.
berian steppes, with no covering save
! their furs. with the mercury at So below.
One of the curious things about ST.
! IBERIA was the fact that American Illus
trated newspapers are found in huts
and tents hundreds of miles away from
any settlement. He attributed this to
! the fact that American WhalerS brought
| them TO the coasts, and they were pre-
| served and handed from hand to hand
as the tribes wandered from place to
place. The Siberian tribes and Russian
settlers all have an unbOunded respect
| for the Americans, an instance of which
he cites. He says that at Russian
dance he stepped upon the toe of ma
| tive, and afterwards went with an in
terpreter to apologize. The man bowed
to him, and In spite Of the pain protest
ed that it was nothing, and that he con-
| sidered it an honor to be so treated by
! an American.
The most dramatic part of the lecture
was the finding in that dreary waste of a
| portion Of the party that had come by
water to Behring straits, and had been
| showed under in an underground habi-
tation for eight months, this, too. when
the searching party were almost dead
with starvation, cold and weakness.
While the delivery is not brilliant an
audience cannot help but be interested
with the narrative of almost impossible
| adventures.