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This enabled Russia to pose as the protector of China, and to claim points of vantage whence her covering wings might be extended over that Empire. The statesmen of Pekin had little belief in the genuineness of these offers, especially in view of the thorough exploration of the Amur region and the Gulf of Okhotsk which speedily ensued.
He determined, therefore, to push on at all hazards to the frontier of the Korak steppes, and then cross them on horses, if possible. A whale-boat was purchased at Tigil, and forwarded with a native crew to Lesnoi, so that in case we failed to get over the Korak steppes we might cross the head of the Okhotsk Sea to Gizhiga by water before the setting in of winter.
In it I assured her that she need not feel any further anxiety about my safety, because the Russian-American telegraph line had been abandoned. I was to be landed by the Onward at Okhotsk; I was coming home by way of St. Petersburg over a good post-road; and I should not be exposed to any more dangers.
It was then that the seeds of malaria, accumulated during the last three years in unsanitary ports and sown deep by exceptional hardships, but which he believed had taken themselves off during his six weeks in California, stirred more vigorously than in Sitka or Okhotsk. He rode on the next day in a burning fever.
The two hundred and fifty dollars with which we left Okhotsk had gradually dribbled away in the defrayment of necessary expenses along the road, and we had barely enough left to pay for a week's stay at the hotel. In this emergency we fell back upon our telegraph-company uniforms.
You see you have learned the language, under many disadvantages, among the Koraks, Cossacks, and Chukchis of Kamchatka and the Okhotsk Sea coast, and quite innocently and naturally of course you have picked up a few words and expressions that are not well, not " "Not used in polite society," I suggested. "Hardly so much as that," he replied deprecatingly.
The peculiar state of affairs, however, at the time the Varag and the Clara Bell reached Gizhiga, made it almost impossible for him to leave. Two vessels the Onward and the Palmetto were yet to arrive with large and valuable cargoes, whose distribution along the coast of the Okhotsk Sea he wished to superintend in person.
Did he sail five days hence on the Juno one of the officers would be exposed for an indeterminate time to the temptations of Okhotsk, the ship, perhaps, at the mercy of some sudden requirement of the Company. His authority was absolute when enforced in person, but it was a proverb west of the Ural: "God reigns and the Tsar is far away."
If it be asked why, apart from history and national sentiment, Japan should object to Russia in Korea, the answer is, first, because there would thus be planted almost within cannon-shot of her shores a power of enormous strength and traditional ambition; secondly, because whatever voice in Manchuria's destiny Russia derived from her railway, the same voice in Korea's destiny was possessed by Japan, as the sole owner of the railways in the Korean peninsula; thirdly, that whereas Russia had an altogether insignificant share in the foreign commerce of Korea and scarcely ten bona fide settlers, Japan did the greater part of the oversea trade and had tens of thousands of settlers; fourthly, that if Russia's dominions stretched uninterruptedly from the sea of Okhotsk to the Gulf of Pehchili, her ultimate absorption of northern China would be inevitable, and fifthly, that such domination and such absorption would involve the practical closure of all that immense region to the commerce and industry of every Western nation except Russia.
She was so badly ballasted that she bobbled like cork; and her sails so frail they flew to tatters in the gentlest wind; but Russia had accomplished her first ship in America. Bells were set ringing when the Phoenix was towed into the harbor of Kadiak; and when she reached Okhotsk laden with furs to the water-line in April of 1794, enthusiasm knew no bounds.
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