The Invention of Nature (31 page)

He was a ruler who adored meticulous order, formality and discipline. Only a few years after Humboldt’s Russia expedition, the tsar would declare the triad of ‘Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality’ as the ideological doctrine of Russia: orthodox Christianity, the rule of the House of Romanov and a focus on Russian tradition as opposed to westernized culture.

Humboldt knew what was expected of him and had promised Cancrin to focus only on nature. He would avoid anything related to governmental rule and ‘the conditions of the lower classes’, he said, and would not publicly criticize the Russian feudal system – however badly the peasants were treated. Somewhat insincerely, he had even told Cancrin that foreigners who couldn’t speak the language were bound to misunderstand the conditions of a country and would only spread incorrect rumours across the world.

Humboldt quickly discovered just how far Cancrin’s control extended because all along his route officials seemed to have lined up to meet him and to report back to St Petersburg. Though far from Moscow and St Petersburg, this was no untamed wilderness. Yekaterinburg, for example, 1,000 miles east of Moscow and the gateway to the Asian part of Russia, was a large industrial centre – a city of around 15,000 inhabitants, many of whom were employed in the mines and in manufacturing. The region had gold mines, iron works, furnaces, stone-grinding workshops, foundries and forges. Gold, platinum, copper, gems and semi-precious stones were among the many natural resources. The Siberian Highway was the main trade route that connected the manufacturing and mining towns across the vast country. Wherever Humboldt and his team stopped, they were welcomed by governors, city councillors, officers and other officials garlanded with medals. There were long dinners, speeches and balls – and no time to be alone. Humboldt despised these formalities because his every step was watched and he was held by the arm ‘like an invalid’, he wrote to Wilhelm.

At the end of July, more than three months after leaving Berlin, Humboldt reached Tobolsk – 1,800 miles from St Petersburg and the most easterly point on the prescribed route – but it was still not wild enough for his taste. Humboldt had not come this far only to have to turn around. He had other plans. Instead of travelling back to St Petersburg as previously agreed, Humboldt now ignored Cancrin’s instructions and added a detour of 2,000 miles. He wanted see the Altai Mountains in the east where Russia, China and Mongolia met, as the counterpart to his observations in the Andes.

As he had failed to see the Himalaya, the Altai was as close as he could get to collecting data from a mountain range in Central Asia. The results of the Russia expedition, he later wrote, were based on these ‘analogies and contrasts’. The Altai was the reason why he had endured so many uncomfortable overnight rides in the rattling carriage. They had managed to make up so much time that he thought he might just extend the itinerary without getting into too much trouble. He had already written to Wilhelm from Yekaterinburg about his intentions, but he had told no one else. He only informed Cancrin about the ‘small extension’ of their route on the day before they left Tobolsk – well aware that Cancrin, far away in St Petersburg, could do nothing at all about it.

Humboldt tried to placate Cancrin by promising to visit yet more mines, also mentioning that he hoped to find some rare plants and animals. This was his last chance before ‘his death’, he added with melodramatic swagger. Instead of turning back, Humboldt now continued east through the Baraba steppes towards Barnaul and the western slopes of the Altai Mountains. By the time Cancrin received the letter almost a month later, Humboldt had long reached his destination.

Once Humboldt had left Tobolsk and abandoned the imposed itinerary, he finally began to enjoy himself. Age hadn’t calmed him. His team was astounded at how the fifty-nine-year-old could walk for hours ‘without any sign of fatigue’, dressed always in a dark frock coat with a white necktie and a round hat. He walked carefully but determinedly and steadily. The more strenuous the journey, the more Humboldt relished it. At first sight this expedition might not have been as exciting as his South American adventures, but now they were entering much wilder scenery. Thousands of miles away from the scientific centres of Europe, Humboldt now found himself travelling through a harsh landscape. The steppes stretched out east for about 1,000 miles between Tobolsk and Barnaul in the foothills of the Altai range. As they continued along the Siberian Highway, the villages became fewer and further apart – still frequent enough to change their horses – but in between the land was often deserted.

There was a beauty in this emptiness. The summer blossom had turned the plains into a sea of reds and blues. Humboldt saw the tall candle-like reddish spikes of willow herb (Epilobium angustifolia) and the bright blues of delphiniums (Delphinium elatum). Elsewhere the colour came from the vivid reds of Maltese Cross (Lychnis chalcedonica) which seemed to set the steppes on fire, but there were still few wild animals and birds.

The thermometer climbed from 6°C at night to 30°C during the day. Humboldt and his team were plagued by mosquitoes, just as he and Bonpland had been during their Orinoco expedition some thirty years previously. To protect themselves, they now wore heavy leather masks. These masks had a small opening for the eyes covered with mesh made of horsehair to see through – they protected against the pernicious insects but also trapped the air. It was unbearably hot. None of this mattered. Humboldt was in a great mood because he was liberated from the controlling hand of the Russian administration. They travelled day and night, sleeping in their jolting carriages. It felt like a ‘sea voyage on land’, Humboldt wrote, as they sailed across the monotonous plains as if on an ocean. They averaged more than a hundred miles a day, and sometimes covered almost 200 miles in twenty-four hours. The Siberian Highway was as good as the best roads in Europe. They travelled faster, Humboldt proudly noted, than any European express courier.

Then, on 29 July 1829, five days after they had left Tobolsk, everything came to a sudden halt. Locals told them that an anthrax epidemic was spreading through the Baraba Steppe – the ‘Sibirische Pest’ as the Germans called it. Anthrax is usually contracted first by herbivorous animals such as cattle and goats when they ingest the extremely hardy spores of the bacterium that causes the disease. It can then spread to humans – a deadly disease with no cure. There was no other route to the Altai Mountains than to drive straight through the affected region. Humboldt made his decision quickly. Anthrax or not, they would continue. ‘At my age,’ he said, ‘nothing should be postponed.’ All the servants were made to sit inside the carriages, rather than outside, and they packed provisions and water to reduce their contact with possibly contaminated people and food. They would still have to change their horses regularly, however, thereby taking the risk of being given an infected carriage horse.

Humboldt riding through the Baraba Steppe (Illustration Credit 16.2)

As they sat in silence, hot and cramped behind tightly shut windows in their small carriages, they passed through a landscape of death. The ‘traces of the pest’ were everywhere, Humboldt’s companion Gustav Rose noted in his diary. Fires burned at the entrances and exits of the villages as a ritual to ‘clean the air’. They saw small makeshift hospitals and dead animals lying in the fields. In one small village alone, 500 horses had died.

After a few days of uncomfortable travelling, they reached the Obi River which marked the end of the steppes. As this was also the demarcation line of the anthrax epidemic, they only had to cross the river to escape. But as they prepared, the wind picked up and quickly turned into a raging storm. The waves were too high for the ferry that shipped carriages and people across. For once, Humboldt didn’t mind the delay. The past few days had been tense but now it was almost over. They grilled some fresh fish and enjoyed the rain because the mosquitoes had disappeared. Finally, they could take off their suffocating masks. On the other side the mountains were waiting for Humboldt. When the storm calmed, they crossed the river and on 2 August they arrived at the thriving mining town of Barnaul – Humboldt had almost reached his destination. They had travelled the 1,000 miles from Tobolsk in just nine days. They were now 3,500 miles east of Berlin, as far as Caracas was to the west of Berlin, Humboldt calculated.

Three days later, on 5 August, Humboldt saw the Altai Mountains for the first time, rising in the distance. In the foothills there were more mines and foundries which they investigated as they pressed on to Ust-Kamenogorsk, a fortress near the border of Mongolia – Oskemen, in today’s Kazakhstan. From there the paths into the mountains became so steep that they left their carriages and most of the baggage behind at the fortress, continuing on small narrow flat carts that the locals used. Often they went on foot as they climbed higher, passing gigantic granite walls and caves where Humboldt examined the rock strata, scribbling notes and drawing sketches. Sometimes when his scientific travel companions Gustav Rose and Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg were collecting plants and rocks, Humboldt became impatient and dashed ahead to climb even higher or to reach a cave. Ehrenberg became so distracted by the plants that the accompanying Cossacks had regularly to search for him. Once they found him soaking wet, standing in a bog with some grasses in one hand and in the other some moss-like specimen which he declared bleary-eyed was the same as the one that ‘covered the bottom of the Red Sea’.

Humboldt was back in his element. Crawling into deep shafts, chiselling off rocks, pressing plants and scrambling up mountains, he compared the ore veins he found with those in New Granada in South America, the mountains themselves with those of the Andes, and the Siberian steppes with the Llanos in Venezuela. The Urals might have been important in terms of commercial mining, Humboldt said, but the ‘real joy’ of the expedition had only begun in the Altai Mountains.

In the valleys the grasses and shrubs were so high that they couldn’t see each other even when only a couple of steps apart; higher up there were no trees at all. The huge mountains rose like ‘mighty domes’, Rose noted in his diary. They could see the summit of Belukha which at almost 15,000 feet was about 6,000 feet lower than Chimborazo but the highest mountain of the Altai, its twin peaks entirely covered in snow. By mid-August they had penetrated deep enough into the mountain range that the highest peaks were tantalizingly close. The problem was that they were too late in the season – there was just too much snow to go higher. Some had melted in May but by July the mountains had been covered again. Humboldt had to admit defeat, although the sight of Belukha enticed him to go further. There was no way that they would be able to climb in these conditions – in fact it would take until the second decade of the twentieth century before Belukha was conquered. The high peaks of Central Asia were beyond reach. Humboldt could see them but would never scale their summits. The season was against him, as was his age.

Despite this disappointment, Humboldt felt that he had seen enough. His trunks were filled with pressed plants and long tables of measurements as well as rocks and samples of ores. When he found some hot springs, he deduced that they were linked to the gentle earthquakes in the region. No matter how much they walked and climbed during the day, he still had enough energy to set up the instruments at night for his astronomical observations. He felt strong and fit. ‘My health,’ he wrote to Wilhelm, ‘is excellent.’

As they marched on, Humboldt decided that he would like to cross the Chinese–Mongolian border. A Cossack was dispatched to prepare and announce their arrival to the officials who were patrolling the region. On 17 August Humboldt and his team arrived at Baty where they found the Mongolian border post on the left bank of the Irtysh River and the Chinese on the right. There were some yurts, a few camels, herds of goats and about eighty ruffian soldiers dressed in ‘rags’, as Humboldt described them.

Humboldt started with the Chinese post, visiting the commander in his yurt. There, seated on cushions and rugs, Humboldt presented his gifts: cloth, sugar, pencils and wine. Expressions of friendship were conveyed through a chain of interpreters, first from German to Russian, then from Russian to Mongolian, and finally from Mongolian to Chinese. Unlike the dishevelled soldiers, their commander, who had arrived only a few days previously from Beijing, looked impressive in his long blue silk coat and a hat that was decorated with several magnificent peacock feathers.

After a couple of hours Humboldt was rowed across the river to meet the Mongolian officer in the other yurt. All the while the audience was growing. The Mongolians were fascinated by their foreign guests, touching and prodding Humboldt and his companions. They poked bellies, lifted coats, and nudged them – for once Humboldt was the exotic specimen but he loved every minute of the strange encounter. He had been to China, the ‘heavenly kingdom’, he wrote home.

It was time to turn back. Since Cancrin had given him absolutely no permission to go further east than Tobolsk, Humboldt wanted to make sure that he would at least arrive in St Petersburg at the time they had agreed. They had to pick up their carriages at the fortress in Ust-Kamenogorsk and then turn west along the southern edge of the Russian Empire, passing Omsk, Miass and Orenburg, a journey of around 3,000 miles, following the border that separated Russia from China. The border, a long line of 2,000 miles dotted with stations, watchtowers and small fortresses manned by Cossacks along the Kazakh Steppe, was the home of the nomadic Kyrgyz.1

In Miass, on 14 September, Humboldt celebrated his sixtieth birthday with the local apothecary, a man whom history would remember as Vladimir Lenin’s grandfather. The next day Humboldt dispatched a letter to Cancrin, recounting that he had reached a turning point in his life. Though he hadn’t achieved all he wanted before old age diminished his strength, he had seen the Altai and the steppes which had given him the greatest satisfaction and also the data he needed. ‘Thirty years ago,’ he wrote to Cancrin, ‘I was in the forests of the Orinoco and in the Cordilleras.’ Now he had finally been able to assemble the remaining ‘great bulk of ideas’. The year 1829 was ‘the most important in my restless life’.