II
At the same time I worked a great deal for the Russian Geographical Society in my capacity of secretary to its section of physical geography.
Great interest was taken then in the exploration of Turkestan and the Pamírs. Severtzov had just returned after several years of travel. A great zoologist, a gifted geographer, and one of the most intelligent men I ever came across, he, like so many Russians, disliked writing. When he had made an oral communication at a meeting of the society, he could not be induced to write anything beyond revising the reports of his communication, so that all that has been published over his signature is very far from doing full justice to the real value of the observations and the generalizations he had made. This reluctance to put down in writing the results of thought and observation is unfortunately not uncommon in Russia. The remarks on the orography of Turkestan, on the geographical distribution of plants and animals, on the part played by hybrids in the production of new species of birds, and so on, which I have heard Severtzov make, and the observations on the importance of mutual support in the progressive development of species which I have found just mentioned in a couple of lines in some report of a meeting—these bore the stamp of more than ordinary talent and originality; but he did not possess the exuberant force of exposition in an appropriately beautiful form which might have made of him one of the most prominent men of science of our time.
Miklouho-Maclay, well known in Australia, which towards the end of his life became the country of his adoption, belonged to the same order of men: the men who have had so much more to say than they have said in print. He was a tiny, nervous man, always suffering from malaria, who had just returned from the coasts of the Red Sea when I made his acquaintance. A follower of Haeckel, he had worked a great deal upon the marine invertebrates in their natural surroundings. The Geographical Society managed next to get him taken on board a Russian man-of-war to some unknown part of the coast of New Guinea, where he wanted to study the most primitive savages. Accompanied by one sailor only, he was left on this inhospitable shore, the inhabitants of which had the reputation of terrible cannibals. A hut was built for the two Crusoes, and they lived eighteen months or more near a native village on excellent terms with the natives. Always to be straightforward towards them, and never to deceive them—not even in the most trifling matters, not even for scientific purposes—was the point on which he was most scrupulous. When he was traveling some time later in the Malayan archipelago, he had with him a native who had entered into his service on the express condition of never being photographed. The natives, as everyone knows, consider that something is taken out of them when their likeness is taken by photography. One day when the native was fast asleep, Makláy, who was collecting anthropological materials, confessed that he was awfully tempted to photograph his native, the more so as he was a typical representative of his tribe and would never have known that he had been photographed. But he remembered his agreement and refrained. When he left New Guinea, the natives made him promise to return; and a few years later, although he was severely ill, he kept his word and did return. This remarkable man has, however, published only an infinitesimal part of the truly invaluable observations he made.
Fédchenko, who had made extensive zoological observations in Turkestan—in company with his wife, Olga Fédchenko, also a naturalist—was, as we used to say, a “West European.” He worked hard to bring out in an elaborated form the results of his observations; but he was, unfortunately, killed in climbing a mountain in Switzerland. Glowing with youthful ardor after his journeys in the Turkestan highlands, and full of confidence in his own powers, he undertook an ascent without proper guides, and perished in a snowstorm. His wife, happily, completed the publication of his Travels after his death, and I believe she has now a son who continues the work of his father and mother.
I also saw a great deal of Prjeválsky, or rather Przewálski, as his Polish name ought to be spelled, although he himself preferred to appear as a “Russian patriot.” He was a passionate hunter, and the enthusiasm with which he made his explorations of Central Asia was almost as much the result of his desire to hunt all sorts of difficult game—bucks, wild camels, wild horses, and so on—as of his desire to discover lands, new and difficult to approach. When he was induced to speak of his discoveries, he would soon interrupt his modest descriptions with an enthusiastic exclamation: “But what game there! What hunting!” And he would describe enthusiastically how he crept such and such a distance to approach a wild horse within shooting range. No sooner was he back at St. Petersburg than he planned a new expedition, and parsimoniously laying aside all his money, tried to increase it by stock exchange operations for that purpose. He was the type of a traveler in his strong physique, and in his capacity for living for years the rough life of a mountain hunter. He delighted in leading such a life. He made his first journey with only three comrades, and always kept on excellent terms with the natives. However, as his subsequent expeditions took on more of a military character, he began unfortunately to rely more upon the force of his armed escort than upon peaceful intercourse with the natives, and I heard it said in well-informed quarters that even if he had not died at the very start of his Tibet expedition—admirably and peacefully conducted after his death by his companions, Pevtsov, Roboróvsky, and
