Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1892-06-09
Peculiarities of the Great Siberian
Highway Meandering Through
Thickly Wooded Tracts.
Many Hundred Miles OF Silent Gran.
deur Little TrOdden by HUI
man Feet.
Distinct Glasses of Villagers Who
Remain Faithful to Their
National Customs.

iuo famine AA iusSid So SIdpnlcally ue-
scribed by the clever young correspond
risks visited the remote stricken districts
during the late winter and ear y spring.
has now reached such degree of intensity
that many of the more desperate victims
voluntarily commit crimes that will call
forth an order of arrest and a condemna-
| ton to hard labor in Siberia They calcu-
late that at least there will be food and
daily rations, says st. Petersburg cor
respondent of the New York Sun, how
ever coarse and meager. To them Siberia
has long been only the mines, the long
working hours in eternal night, priva-
borne under the watchful eye of Russian
task-masters; and yet such is their present
distress that it has becomes a sort of
promised land of plenty.
| In one respect, however, they are justl-
fed in their new view of the country
| Siberia is not wholly the land of penal
settlements, of barbarous captivity and
servitude. 1t is also the country of i'm
mense forests, of boundless tracts. of wild,
| free life, of wooded expanse compared
with which the forests of the governments
of Moscow and Vladimir are were copse3,
although it may take a traveller twenty-four
hours to ride through them.
| The Siberian forest begins in reality be-
| yond Tomsk, though at first it offers to the
, eye much the same vegetation, the meager
beecbes and aspens sparsely dotted with
thin pines, and the scraggy underbrush of
the lesser woods. 1t has the same
NASTY, sodden SOIL and the open spaces
| are likewise intersected by occasional oat-
fields preceding miserable hamlet, till
region is reached where cultivation ap-
parently completely ceases, and where the
dreary monotony of uninteresting brush
and .ocpplce is diversified by no
vestige of labor or habitation. That
such exist is probable, but they are secure
ly hidden from the outward world in the
depths Of the woodlands and therefore ig-
nored The impression upon the stranger
Is one Of unspeakable melancholy caused
by the sense of immensely, for it soon
becomes impossible to fancy that the
forest will ever end; it is limit ess, and
yet conveys the idea of prison.
SILENT GRANDEUR OF THE TAIGA.
Further on between Marinsk and At
ehinsk-the great Siberian Highway
these characteristics are slightly mooifed
and improved; the coloring becomes
richer and more intense. the trees lift
themselves In more serried ranks, and ac-
quire size and breadth, through OF anings
IN the more luxurious foliage glinpses are
at times obtainabIe of the distant eastern
Slberien range vaguely silhouettGd on the
deep, cold blue of the horizon. The road
! now meanders through valleys and gorges
between steep activities thickiy wooded,
but it is, however, only near Krasniark
that the impressive and unutterable mai
esty, power and stately gloom of the
''taiga" is felt in all its desolate grandeur.
There it becomes magnificent and strange
~ Verdant; there it has broad open spaces
bathed IN eternal twilight; impenetrable
thlckets, wide avenues and aIses and deep,
cold shadows. It stretches in its fathom-
less obscurity for thousands of versts to
the distant sea; hundred of these NAV
be passed over at time without seeing a
single human creature; no human foot
/ has ever penetrated TO the center of tie
talga.
The somber cedars, the black pines. are
rarely relieved by the lighter branches of
the aspen trees or now and then by the red
berries of the wild cherry; more rarely
still by the white bloom OF some strange
looking tall lilies, and at long intervals a
h&SASSANSS
hanging branches. Without good horse
and an experienced guide it would be
foolhardy in the extreme to venture Even
upon the trails and roads Which are tie
most frequented and the better known.
No stranger could by any possibility find
his way in these mysterious and deIuding
labyrinths; tor days no sound is heard: no
song of bird or hurried trampling Of an
imal; daylight itself is changed and veil
ed, and when it ceases the clear northern
night drops chill, immobiIe whiteness
over the trunks and motionless branches,
while it seems to evoke subtle, penetrating
and aromatic perfumes from the cedars
and the pines that we're not perceptible
before. 1t is at that hour that the taiga
sends out lugubrious signs, that fall On
the startled ear like a mournful vail;
nothing else can give an idea of this noe
turnal awakening of the Siberian forest.
which never changes to glalnsss