Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchTO N. A. LEIKIN.GORBITSA, June 20, 1890.Greetings, dear Nikolay Alexandrovitch!I wrote you this as I approached Gorbitsa, one of the Cossacksettlements on the banks of the Shilka, a tributary of the Amur.This is where I have got to. I am sailing down the Amur.I sent you a letter from Irkutsk. Did you get it? Since then morethan a week has passed, in the course of which I have crossed LakeBaikal and driven through Transbaikalia. Lake Baikal is wonderful,and the Siberians may well call it a sea instead of a lake. The water isextraordinarily transparent, so that one can see through it as throughair; the colour is a soft turquoise very agreeable to the eye. Thebanks are mountainous, and covered with forests; it is all impenetrablewildness without a break anywhere.There are great numbers of bears, wild goats, and wild creaturesof all sorts, who spend their time living in the Taiga and eating oneanother. I spent two days and nights on the shore of Lake Baikal.It was still and hot when I was sailing.Transbaikalia is splendid. It is a mixture of Switzerland, the Don,and Finland.I have driven with horses more than four thousand versts. Myjourney was entirely successful. I was in good health all the time,and lost nothing of my luggage but a penknife. I can wish no one abetter journey. The journey is absolutely free from danger, and allthe tales of escaped convicts, of night attacks, and so on are nothingbut legends, traditions of the remote past. A revolver is an entirelysuperfluous article. Now I am sitting in a first-class cabin, and feelas though I were in Europe. I feel in the mood one is in after passingan examination. A whistle!—that’s Gorbitsa.* * *The banks of the Shilka are picturesque like stage scenes but, alas!there is something oppressive in this complete absence of humanbeings. It is like a cage without a bird.190