The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1915-09-30
RUSSIA'S LIMITLESS BOUNDS.
People of Some Sections Still Igl1Or-
ant of Great War.

Beyond the northern limits OF the
scrub pine and shaggy, stunted tlr,
there is Russian people (the Sa>
moyeds) who, in all likelihood, have
not yet learned that the Crimean
war is ended, and who have no ideas
of the difficulties that the Tsar, the
Little Father who adopted them, is
facing in a present world-war. so
vast is the ,Muscovite realm that ru>
mors of the greatest war in history
cannot have penetrated to its out
skirts, to the wastes fringing the
Arctic, to the Mountain tangles just
beyond Mongolia, or to the ever
green forests of Kamschatka. Rus
sia harbors many strange peoples,
and all of the languages of the north
ern hemisphere within her bounda-
ries, and it will be long before the
news of the present war, told in
"friend pidgin,' will arrest the at
tention of her subject tribes.
So begins bulletin issued by the
National Geographic society, which
tells about the fragments of a race
crowded into the bleak north by the
Tartars, a race which lost its foot:
hold in the more fruitful, generous
South, and which now is paying the
penalty of being pushed to the wall
by forgetting most of it's former CIV
ilization and by dying out. Under
the protection of the Tsar, these peo-
pie are assured of peaceful obllVs
ion behind the veil of the North. The
bulletin continues:
'.The Samoyeds are a Monaghan
people, who live in the wide sweep
of tundra country that reaches from
the White Sea across Europe, in
places a belt more than 500 miles in
depth, from the Arctic Sea to the
northern line where the forests van
ish. They are reindeer herders,
fishermen and hunters of seal. 1t is
through their surpluses in these
three things that they come into con-
tact with the Russian trader, who
visits them in their far northern cen
tres, or whom they make long jour-
neys to visit to the city of .Archangel.
Reindeer skins, seal skins, furs, fish
and reindeer meat are sold by the
Samoyeds to their Russian neigh
&bors, for the Russian official and the
Russian trader is established IN
widely scattered outposts here in the
north country, isolated from the
world, many hundreds of miles from
railroads, telephones and telegraphs,
and beyond the reach Of the press.
&."The Yurak Samoyeds,, the branch
which dwells in European Russia, it
Is estimated, counts in all only about
5000. OF these, 5000 live in the
European tundra. In build they are
short and stocky, with faces much
more fattened than the Films, with
thick lips, black hair, fiat noses and
dark compilations. They are said to
& be a fearless and warlike people,
though it is generations since they
have given any evidence of aggres-
siye Temperament. In their dealing
with the stranger, they are described
as mild and scrupulously honest.
s. | Mighty rivers, like the Pschora,
drain through their lands into the
Arctic Sea. In the brief summer and
spring times, these streams, thawing
much sooner in their southern
sources sweep in turbulent floods
over the fiat lands bordering their
! lower reaches. Of roads through the
tundra there are almost none, and
such as exist are passable only for
the hardy reindeer and the all-endur=
ing little horses of the north. Small
! villages and human habitations are
hundreds of miles apart, and, then,
often, are merely post stages, which
the Russian government has estab-
lished for the transportation of mails
and rare passengers beyond the con-
fines of civilization to such far places
as the village Aschino.
.sThe Samoyeds are a poor people
mostly, and very thrifty. They exc
out a precarious existence in thei1
inhospitable country, and have learn
ed through necessity to eat anything
which grows there. They eat even
the wolves that menace the safety OF
their reindeer and Of themselves up
on their seal and fur-hunting trips
Besides meat and fish, the Samoyeds
have a plain, hard, black bread as
staple, and another 3read, which Is
baked of putrid fish aad rye meal.
Noise.