by Daniel Defoe
leaveme an honest man still, though not a free man."
I had nothing to do but to acquiesce, and make profession to him of myhaving no end in it, but a sincere desire to serve him. He embraced mevery passionately, and assured me, he was sensible of that, and shouldalways acknowledge it: and with that he offered me a very fine presentof sables, too much indeed for me to accept from a man in hiscircumstances; and I would have avoided them, but he would notbe refused.
The next morning I sent my servant to his lordship, with a small presentof tea, two pieces of China damask, and four little wedges of Japangold, which, did not all weigh above six ounces, or thereabouts; butwere far short of the value of his sables, which indeed, when I came toEngland, I found worth near two hundred pounds. He accepted the tea, andone piece of the damask, and one of the pieces of gold, which had a finestamp upon it, of the Japan coinage, which I found he took for therarity of it, but would not take any more; and sent word by my servant,that he desired to speak with me.
When I came to him, he told me, I knew what had passed between us, andhoped I would not move him any more in that affair; but that, since Imade such a generous offer to him, he asked me, if I had kindness enoughto offer the same to another person that he would name to me, in whomhe had a great share of concern. I told him, that I could not say Iinclined to do so much for any one but himself, for whom I had aparticular value, and should have been glad to have been the instrumentof his deliverance: however, if he would please to name the person tome, I would give him my answer, and hoped he would not be displeasedwith me, if he was with my answer. He told me, it was only his son, who,though I had not seen, yet was in the same condition with himself, andabove two hundred miles from him, on the other side the Oby; but that,if I consented, he would send for him.
I made no hesitation, but told him I would do it. I made some ceremonyin letting him understand that it was wholly on his account; and thatseeing I could not prevail on him, I would shew my respect to him by myconcern for his son: but these things are too tedious to repeat here. Hesent away the next day for his son, and in about twenty days he cameback with the messenger, bringing six or seven horses loaded with veryrich furs, and which, in the whole, amounted to a very great value.
His servants brought the horses into the town, but left the young lordat a distance till night, when he came _incognito_ into our apartment,and his father presented him to me; and, in short, we concerted therethe manner of our travelling, and every thing proper for the journey.
I had bought a considerable quantity of sables, black fox-skins, fineermines, and such other furs that are very rich; I say, I had boughtthem in that city for exchange for some of the goods brought from China;in particular, for the cloves and nutmegs, of which I sold the greatestpart here; and the rest afterwards at Archangel, for a much better pricethan I could have done at Louden; and my partner, who was sensible ofthe profit, and whose business, more particularly than mine, wasmerchandise, was mightily pleased with our stay, on account of thetraffic we made here.
It was in the beginning of June when I left this remote place, a city,I believe, little heard of in the world; and, indeed, it is so far outof the road of commerce, that I know not how it should be much talkedof. We were now come to a very small caravan, being only thirty-twohorses and camels in all, and all of them passed for mine, though my newguest was proprietor of eleven of them. It was most natural also, that Ishould take more servants with me than I had before, and the young lordpassed for my steward; what great man I passed for myself I know not,neither did it concern me to inquire. We had here the worst and thelargest desert to pass over that we met with in all the journey; indeedI call it the worst, because the way was very deep in some places, andvery uneven in others; the best we had to say for it was, that wethought we had no troops of Tartars and robbers to fear, and that theynever came on this side the river Oby, or at least but very seldom; butwe found it otherwise.
My young lord had with him a faithful Muscovite servant, or rather aSiberian servant, who was perfectly acquainted with the country; and wholed us by private roads, that we avoided coming into the principal townsand cities upon the great road, such as Tumen, Soloy Kamaskoy, andseveral others; because the Muscovite garrisons, which are kept there,are very curious and strict in their observation upon travellers, andsearching lest any of the banished persons of note should make theirescape that way into Muscovy; but by this means, as we were kept out ofthe cities, so our whole journey was a desert, and we were obliged toencamp and lie in our tents, when we might have had good accommodationin the cities on the way: this the young lord was so sensible of, thathe would not allow us to lie abroad, when we came to several cities onthe way; but lay abroad himself, with his servant, in the woods, and metus always at the appointed places.
We were just entered Europe, having passed the river Kama, which, inthese parts, is the boundary between Europe and Asia; and the first cityon the European side was called Soloy Kamaskoy, which is as much as tosay, the great city on the river Kama; and here we thought to have seensome evident alteration in the people, their manners, their habit, theirreligion, and their business; but we were mistaken; for as we had a vastdesert to pass, which, by relation, is near seven hundred miles long insome places, but not above two hundred miles over where we passed it;so, till we came past that horrible place, we found very littledifference between that country and the Mogul Tartary; the people mostlyPagans, and little better than the savages of America; their houses andtowns full of idols, and their way of living wholly barbarous, except inthe cities as above, and the villages near them; where they areChristians, as they call themselves, of the Greek church; but even thesehave their religion mingled with so many relics of superstition, that itis scarce to be known in some places from mere sorcery and witchcraft.
In passing this forest, I thought indeed we must, after all our dangerswere, in our imagination, escaped, as before, have been plundered androbbed, and perhaps murdered, by a troop of thieves: of what countrythey were; whether the roving bands of the Ostiachi, a kind of Tartars,or wild people on the banks of the Oby, had ranged thus far; or whetherthey were the sable-hunters of Siberia, I am yet at a loss to know; butthey were all on horseback, carried bows and arrows, and were at firstabout five-and-forty in number. They came so near to us as within abouttwo musket shot; and, asking no questions, they surrounded us with theirhorses, and looked very earnestly upon us twice. At length they placedthemselves just in our way; upon which we drew up in a little linebefore our camels, being not above sixteen men in all; and being drawnup thus, we halted, and sent out the Siberian servant who attended hislord, to see who they were: his master was the more willing to let himgo, because he was not a little apprehensive that they were a Siberiantroop sent out after him. The man came up near them with a flag oftruce, and called to them; but though he spoke several of theirlanguages, or dialects of languages rather, he could not understand aword they said: however, after some signs to him not to come nearer tothem at his peril, so he said he understood them to mean, offering toshoot at him if he advanced, the fellow came back no wiser than he went,only that by their dress, he said, he believed them to be some Tartarsof Kalmuck, or of the Circassian hordes; and that there must be more ofthem on the great desert, though he never heard that ever any of themwere seen so far north before.
This was small comfort to us; however, we had no remedy: there was onour left hand, at about a quarter of a mile's distance, a little groveor clump of trees, which stood close together, and very near the road; Iimmediately resolved we should advance to those trees, and fortifyourselves as well as we could there; for, first, I considered that thetrees would in a great measure cover us from their arrows; and in thenext place, they could not come to charge us in a body: it was, indeed,my old Portuguese pilot who proposed it; and who had this excellencyattending him, namely, that he was always readiest and most apt todirect and encourage us in cases of the most danger. We advancedimmediately with what speed we could, and gained that little wood, theTarta
rs, or thieves, for we knew not what to call them, keeping theirstand, and not attempting to hinder us. When we came thither, we found,to our great satisfaction, that it was a swampy, springy piece ofground, and, on the other side, a great spring of water, which, runningout in a little rill or brook, was a little farther joined by another ofthe like bigness; and was, in short, the head or source of aconsiderable river, called afterwards the Wirtska. The trees which grewabout this spring were not in all above two hundred, but were verylarge, and stood pretty thick; so that as soon as we got in, we sawourselves perfectly safe from the enemy, unless they alighted andattacked us on foot.
But to make this more difficult, our Portuguese, with indefatigableapplication, cut down great arms of the trees, and laid them hanging,not cut quite off, from one tree to another; so that he made a continuedfence almost round us.
We staid here, waiting the motion of the enemy some hours, withoutperceiving they made any offer to stir;
