From Pekin to Calais by Land — Context and Discussion

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In Category - Geography

Authors: De Windt, Harry, 1856-1933 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2015 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: China -- Description and travel; Siberia (Russia) -- Description and travel; Asia -- Description and travel Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 141,895

Reading time 617 min

Text sections 21

From Pekin to Calais by Land — Context and Discussion can be approached with a clearer sense of reading commitment from its source measurements: 141,895 words, 10 hr 17 min estimated reading time, and 21 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 24.2 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “China -- Description and travel,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #48992

Harry De Windt's account of an overland journey from Peking to Calais, marked by self-deprecating humor and precise observations of Siberian and Chinese travel hardships, including a memorable drinking bout with Russian officers.

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Chapters / structure15 pts
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File: pg48992

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

A Caravan Frontispiece A Street in Tartar City——Pekin 110 A Mule Litter 140 Da-Hun-Go 184 Ourouni 214 My Camel Cart 222 An awkward Moment 252 A Street Prayer-wheel at Ourga 288 Our Tarantass with “Troika” 352 A Village Ostrog——Convicts on the March 409 A Siberian Criminal Convict 448 A Night in a Post-house 478 The Post-house at Rasgonnaia 493 A Siberian Village Street 496 A Prison Barge on the Obi River 614

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FROM PEKIN TO CALAIS BY LAND.

“FROM China to France overland! Why, surely it’s impossible. I thought one could only get to China by sea!”

Such was the remark made by a young lady whom I had the honour of taking down to dinner a few days previous to embarking upon the voyage of which I am about to narrate my experiences. Although I trust there are not many educated persons who, like my fair friend, are unaware that Pekin and Paris are actually undivided by sea, I imagine there are but few who, if put down at Calais, and told to find their way overland to Pekin, would know how to set about it, fewer still who have any practical knowledge of that vast but comparatively unknown country separating the Chinese Empire from Russia proper, Siberia.

It had been a long-projected voyage. Lancaster, (a fellow-traveller in many lands,) and I had talked it over for at least two years before: in the early spring of 1887, we finally decided to put our project into execution, and start for the great unknown.

Unlike most voyages which in these days of travel are an accomplished fact as soon as decided upon, this one was fraught with innumerable delays and annoyances. Our difficulties commenced at the very outset, for nowhere in London, or indeed anywhere else, could I glean the smallest information respecting the journey; the only book I succeeded in finding on the subject being one written by John Bell, the English traveller, in 1788, but, as may be imagined, the information contained therein was somewhat obsolete.

Nothing more modern, however, could I procure. Jules Verne’s amusing and clever book, “Michel Strogoff,” deals largely with Irkoutsk, Lake Baikal, and other regions we were about to traverse, but I hardly felt justified in taking that versatile author as a travelling-guide. That we landed at Tientsin——China——and saw the sea again at Calais——France——was all we definitely knew; of the time it took to do, or how the journey was to be accomplished, we were quite in the dark.

About a week before our departure, however, I had the good fortune to meet a gentleman connected with the Russian Embassy in London, and to him I confided our difficulties. M. de ———— was indeed a friend in need, for in less than twenty-four hours our difficulties had vanished like snow in the sunshine. Not only was the route from Pekin to Moscow clearly laid down for us, but we were provided, in addition, with a letter of introduction from M. de Staal, the Russian Ambassador in London, to the Russian Minister at Pekin. Had it not been for this, I doubt whether we should ever have got further than the celestial city.

The route (we now found) was as follows: From Shanghai to Pekin by steamer and house-boat, from Pekin to Kalgan (or the Great Wall of China) by mule litter, and thence across the Great Gobi Desert to Kiakhta, the Russo-Chinese frontier, by camel caravan. From Kiakhta to Tomsk, _viâ_ Lake Baikal, Irkoutsk, and Krasnoiarsk by tarantass or Russian post carriage, and thence by steam communication on the Obi and Irtish rivers to Tobolsk and Tiumen. From the latter place our journey was easy enough. Four days’ sail and seven of steam would bring us to Moscow, practically the end of our voyage. As to the time the journey would take, no one, even at the Russian Embassy, seemed to know. So much in this journey depends (as we afterwards found) upon the weather, the facility of obtaining camels at the Great Wall, and last, but not least, the state of the roads in Siberia. We were starting at a good time, however, and with luck might expect to reach Moscow in the early autumn. If detained in Siberia by floods or other casualties, we might not arrive in Europe till the new year. This was all we could ascertain, and with this somewhat scanty information were forced to be content.

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Harry De Windt opens his travelogue with a disclaimer: the journey from Peking to Calais is 'sadly devoid of interest,' and he hopes his book will deter others from following his example. This self-deprecating tone, however, belies a narrative rich in specific, often absurd, encounters. The excerpt of a late-night drinking party with Russian officers—featuring a duel over the logistics of a three-cornered fight from Mr. Midshipman Easy—showcases De Windt's eye for comic detail and his willingness to depict his own discomfort. He notes the absence of water, the forced consumption of port, and a professor found 'slowly but surely throttling' another under a piano. Such scenes ground the travelogue in lived, unglamorous experience.

A Reluctant Guide's Voice

De Windt's preface establishes a distinctive, almost apologetic narrative stance. He writes that he publishes only because Englishmen in Shanghai receive letters asking for route information, and he fears 'the general reader will find little to interest him.' This framing is not mere modesty; it shapes the book's tone as a practical warning rather than a boastful adventure. The author repeatedly emphasizes hardship and monotony, yet his descriptions—like the 'weird and melancholy country' of Siberia—reveal a keen sensitivity to atmosphere. The voice is that of a seasoned traveler who finds the journey more tedious than thrilling, a perspective that lends credibility to his observations of discomfort.

The Mechanics of Misery

De Windt's prose dwells on the physical realities of travel: the lack of water, the ubiquity of salt fish, the forced drinking of 'brandy, vodka, and white port.' In the party scene, he catalogues the toasts—'the Czar, the army, the navy, the Queen of England, and all reigning potentates'—until the officers fall back on themselves. The detail that he 'must have drunk at least three bottles of port' conveys the excess without hyperbole. Such passages ground the narrative in sensory specifics: a throat 'like a lime-kiln,' a head 'spinning like a teetotum.' The author's discomfort becomes a lens through which the reader experiences the journey's rigors.

Character Through Dialogue and Action

De Windt sketches his companions through their actions and speech. The Cossack captain, for instance, is 'all for blood' and wants the professors to 'fight it out with pistols in the morning.' The mathematician and chemist, drunk, argue over the triangular duel until one tries to strangle the other. De Windt reports the incident with dry understatement: 'The thing had been done so gently that neither Lancaster nor myself had noticed it.' The dialogue is minimal but telling—the captain's offer to 'make a third' in the duel reveals a casual brutality. These vignettes give the reader a sense of the social dynamics without explicit character analysis.

Structure and Pacing in the Excerpt

The excerpt from Chapter I moves from a general statement of impossibility ('From China to France overland! Why, surely it’s impossible.') to a specific, prolonged scene. De Windt uses a chronological structure, marking time with details: 'Madame Wormoff retired to rest shortly after midnight,' 'by the time we left the table... my throat was like a lime-kiln,' 'it was broad daylight when we separated.' This pacing creates a sense of duration and exhaustion. The author also weaves in literary references—Mr. Midshipman Easy, the French epigraph—that hint at a wider reading, but the focus remains on the immediate, often absurd, reality of the journey.

Readers should approach this travelogue as a record of impressions rather than a comprehensive guide. De Windt's strength lies in his ability to render the specific discomforts and oddities of the road—the forced toasts, the endless salt fish, the strange camaraderie of fellow travelers. The book rewards those who appreciate a narrator willing to admit his own misery and laugh at it. Look for the small, telling details: the absence of water, the professor under the piano, the Cossack's eagerness for a duel. These moments, not the grand landscapes, define the journey.

There’s something about De Windt’s weary, laughing account of frozen roads and bad vodka that stays with you, long after the train moves past those landscapes. I find myself returning to that same quiet ache elsewhere, in the fading streets of a city he only glanced at. Constantinople, v. 2 (of 2) — Context and Discussion holds a similar half-light, a place where every parting feels like a memory already forming. It felt familiar, like an old photograph gone soft at the edges.